diff --git a/.classpath b/.classpath
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..2d74975
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.classpath
@@ -0,0 +1,7 @@
+<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
+<classpath>
+	<classpathentry kind="src" path="src"/>
+	<classpathentry kind="con" path="org.eclipse.jdt.launching.JRE_CONTAINER"/>
+	<classpathentry kind="con" path="org.eclipse.jdt.junit.JUNIT_CONTAINER/4"/>
+	<classpathentry kind="output" path="bin"/>
+</classpath>
diff --git a/.gitignore b/.gitignore
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..f906978
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.gitignore
@@ -0,0 +1,4 @@
+*~
+*#
+*.class
+/bin/
diff --git a/.gitlab-ci.yml b/.gitlab-ci.yml
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..86f0ded
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.gitlab-ci.yml
@@ -0,0 +1,17 @@
+image: pobj
+
+stages:
+- test
+
+TME4 HashMultiSetTest:
+  script: ./scripts-ci/run.sh pobj.tme4.test.HashMultiSetTest
+
+TME4 IteratorTest:
+  script: ./scripts-ci/run.sh pobj.tme4.test.IteratorTest
+
+TME4 CollectionTest:
+  script: ./scripts-ci/run.sh pobj.tme4.test.CollectionTest
+
+
+TME5 HashMultiSetTest:
+  script: ./scripts-ci/run.sh pobj.tme5.test.HashMultiSetTest
diff --git a/.project b/.project
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..391a4a4
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.project
@@ -0,0 +1,17 @@
+<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
+<projectDescription>
+	<name>MultiSet</name>
+	<comment></comment>
+	<projects>
+	</projects>
+	<buildSpec>
+		<buildCommand>
+			<name>org.eclipse.jdt.core.javabuilder</name>
+			<arguments>
+			</arguments>
+		</buildCommand>
+	</buildSpec>
+	<natures>
+		<nature>org.eclipse.jdt.core.javanature</nature>
+	</natures>
+</projectDescription>
diff --git a/.settings/org.eclipse.core.resources.prefs b/.settings/org.eclipse.core.resources.prefs
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..4824b80
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.settings/org.eclipse.core.resources.prefs
@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
+eclipse.preferences.version=1
+encoding/<project>=UTF-8
diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..422a083
--- /dev/null
+++ b/README.md
@@ -0,0 +1,14 @@
+# POBJ Arc 2 : Multi-ensembles (TME 4 et 5)
+
+### Support de TME du cours programmation par objets (3I002), Licence 3, Sorbonne Université, Paris, France.
+
+Instructions succinctes de rendu :
+* assurez-vous que votre binôme et votre chargé de TME sont membres du projet, avec pour rôle _Maintainer_ ;
+* ajoutez au projet toutes les classes Java demandées par l'énoncé ;
+* assurez-vous d'avoir synchronisé votre copie locale avec le projet GitLab : clic droit sur le projet, puis _Team > Commit_ dans Eclipse, ou `git add`, `git commit` et `git push` en ligne de commande ;
+* assurez-vous que les tests unitaires de l'intégration continue sous GitLab fonctionnent : _CI / CD > pipelines_ sur la page du projet GitLab ;
+* ajoutez un _tag_ (allez dans _Repository > Tags_ sur la page du projet GitLab et cliquez _New Tag_) avec pour titre _rendu-initial-tmeX_ ou _rendu-final-tmeX_, avec le numéro _X_ du TME, et la réponse aux questions demandées dans le champ _Release notes_.
+
+Voir les énoncés de TME et les instructions détaillées de rendu sur le [site de l'UE ](http://www-licence.ufr-info-p6.jussieu.fr/lmd/licence/2018/ue/3I002-2019fev/).
+
+L'intégration continue exécute le script `.gitlab-ci.yml`, qui précise la liste des classes de test unitaire. Vous pouvez ajouter vos propres tests à cette liste.
diff --git a/data/WarAndPeace.txt b/data/WarAndPeace.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..905117f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/data/WarAndPeace.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,65325 @@
+
+
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of War and Peace, by Leo Tolstoy
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost
+no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or re-use it
+under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this
+eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: War and Peace
+
+Author: Leo Tolstoy
+
+Translators: Louise and Aylmer Maude
+
+Posting Date: January 10, 2009 [EBook #2600] 
+
+Last Updated: July 10, 2016
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WAR AND PEACE ***
+
+
+
+
+An Anonymous Volunteer, and David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+
+WAR AND PEACE
+
+
+By Leo Tolstoy/Tolstoi
+
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+BOOK ONE: 1805
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+
+BOOK TWO: 1805
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+
+BOOK THREE: 1805
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+
+BOOK FOUR: 1806
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+
+BOOK FIVE: 1806 - 07
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+
+BOOK SIX: 1808 - 10
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+
+BOOK SEVEN: 1810 - 11
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+
+BOOK EIGHT: 1811 - 12
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+
+BOOK NINE: 1812
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+
+BOOK TEN: 1812
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+CHAPTER XXX
+
+CHAPTER XXXI
+
+CHAPTER XXXII
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV
+
+CHAPTER XXXV
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII
+
+CHAPTER XXXVIII
+
+CHAPTER XXXIX
+
+
+BOOK ELEVEN: 1812
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+CHAPTER XXX
+
+CHAPTER XXXI
+
+CHAPTER XXXII
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV
+
+
+BOOK TWELVE: 1812
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+
+BOOK THIRTEEN: 1812
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+
+BOOK FOURTEEN: 1812
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+
+BOOK FIFTEEN: 1812 - 13
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+
+FIRST EPILOGUE: 1813 - 20
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+
+SECOND EPILOGUE
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+BOOK ONE: 1805
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+"Well, Prince, so Genoa and Lucca are now just family estates of the
+Buonapartes. But I warn you, if you don't tell me that this means war,
+if you still try to defend the infamies and horrors perpetrated by that
+Antichrist—I really believe he is Antichrist—I will have nothing more to
+do with you and you are no longer my friend, no longer my 'faithful
+slave,' as you call yourself! But how do you do? I see I have frightened
+you—sit down and tell me all the news."
+
+It was in July, 1805, and the speaker was the well-known Anna Pávlovna
+Schérer, maid of honor and favorite of the Empress Márya Fëdorovna. With
+these words she greeted Prince Vasíli Kurágin, a man of high rank and
+importance, who was the first to arrive at her reception. Anna Pávlovna
+had had a cough for some days. She was, as she said, suffering from la
+grippe; grippe being then a new word in St. Petersburg, used only by the
+elite.
+
+All her invitations without exception, written in French, and delivered
+by a scarlet-liveried footman that morning, ran as follows:
+
+"If you have nothing better to do, Count (or Prince), and if the
+prospect of spending an evening with a poor invalid is not too terrible,
+I shall be very charmed to see you tonight between 7 and 10—Annette
+Schérer."
+
+"Heavens! what a virulent attack!" replied the prince, not in the least
+disconcerted by this reception. He had just entered, wearing an
+embroidered court uniform, knee breeches, and shoes, and had stars on
+his breast and a serene expression on his flat face. He spoke in that
+refined French in which our grandfathers not only spoke but thought, and
+with the gentle, patronizing intonation natural to a man of importance
+who had grown old in society and at court. He went up to Anna Pávlovna,
+kissed her hand, presenting to her his bald, scented, and shining head,
+and complacently seated himself on the sofa.
+
+"First of all, dear friend, tell me how you are. Set your friend's mind
+at rest," said he without altering his tone, beneath the politeness and
+affected sympathy of which indifference and even irony could be
+discerned.
+
+"Can one be well while suffering morally? Can one be calm in times like
+these if one has any feeling?" said Anna Pávlovna. "You are staying the
+whole evening, I hope?"
+
+"And the fete at the English ambassador's? Today is Wednesday. I must
+put in an appearance there," said the prince. "My daughter is coming for
+me to take me there."
+
+"I thought today's fete had been canceled. I confess all these
+festivities and fireworks are becoming wearisome."
+
+"If they had known that you wished it, the entertainment would have been
+put off," said the prince, who, like a wound-up clock, by force of habit
+said things he did not even wish to be believed.
+
+"Don't tease! Well, and what has been decided about Novosíltsev's
+dispatch? You know everything."
+
+"What can one say about it?" replied the prince in a cold, listless
+tone. "What has been decided? They have decided that Buonaparte has
+burnt his boats, and I believe that we are ready to burn ours."
+
+Prince Vasíli always spoke languidly, like an actor repeating a stale
+part. Anna Pávlovna Schérer on the contrary, despite her forty years,
+overflowed with animation and impulsiveness. To be an enthusiast had
+become her social vocation and, sometimes even when she did not feel
+like it, she became enthusiastic in order not to disappoint the
+expectations of those who knew her. The subdued smile which, though it
+did not suit her faded features, always played round her lips expressed,
+as in a spoiled child, a continual consciousness of her charming defect,
+which she neither wished, nor could, nor considered it necessary, to
+correct.
+
+In the midst of a conversation on political matters Anna Pávlovna burst
+out:
+
+"Oh, don't speak to me of Austria. Perhaps I don't understand things,
+but Austria never has wished, and does not wish, for war. She is
+betraying us! Russia alone must save Europe. Our gracious sovereign
+recognizes his high vocation and will be true to it. That is the one
+thing I have faith in! Our good and wonderful sovereign has to perform
+the noblest role on earth, and he is so virtuous and noble that God will
+not forsake him. He will fulfill his vocation and crush the hydra of
+revolution, which has become more terrible than ever in the person of
+this murderer and villain! We alone must avenge the blood of the just
+one.... Whom, I ask you, can we rely on?... England with her commercial
+spirit will not and cannot understand the Emperor Alexander's loftiness
+of soul. She has refused to evacuate Malta. She wanted to find, and
+still seeks, some secret motive in our actions. What answer did
+Novosíltsev get? None. The English have not understood and cannot
+understand the self-abnegation of our Emperor who wants nothing for
+himself, but only desires the good of mankind. And what have they
+promised? Nothing! And what little they have promised they will not
+perform! Prussia has always declared that Buonaparte is invincible, and
+that all Europe is powerless before him.... And I don't believe a word
+that Hardenburg says, or Haugwitz either. This famous Prussian
+neutrality is just a trap. I have faith only in God and the lofty
+destiny of our adored monarch. He will save Europe!"
+
+She suddenly paused, smiling at her own impetuosity.
+
+"I think," said the prince with a smile, "that if you had been sent
+instead of our dear Wintzingerode you would have captured the King of
+Prussia's consent by assault. You are so eloquent. Will you give me a
+cup of tea?"
+
+"In a moment. À propos," she added, becoming calm again, "I am expecting
+two very interesting men tonight, le Vicomte de Mortemart, who is
+connected with the Montmorencys through the Rohans, one of the best
+French families. He is one of the genuine émigrés, the good ones. And
+also the Abbé Morio. Do you know that profound thinker? He has been
+received by the Emperor. Had you heard?"
+
+"I shall be delighted to meet them," said the prince. "But tell me," he
+added with studied carelessness as if it had only just occurred to him,
+though the question he was about to ask was the chief motive of his
+visit, "is it true that the Dowager Empress wants Baron Funke to be
+appointed first secretary at Vienna? The baron by all accounts is a poor
+creature."
+
+Prince Vasíli wished to obtain this post for his son, but others were
+trying through the Dowager Empress Márya Fëdorovna to secure it for the
+baron.
+
+Anna Pávlovna almost closed her eyes to indicate that neither she nor
+anyone else had a right to criticize what the Empress desired or was
+pleased with.
+
+"Baron Funke has been recommended to the Dowager Empress by her sister,"
+was all she said, in a dry and mournful tone.
+
+As she named the Empress, Anna Pávlovna's face suddenly assumed an
+expression of profound and sincere devotion and respect mingled with
+sadness, and this occurred every time she mentioned her illustrious
+patroness. She added that Her Majesty had deigned to show Baron Funke
+beaucoup d'estime, and again her face clouded over with sadness.
+
+The prince was silent and looked indifferent. But, with the womanly and
+courtierlike quickness and tact habitual to her, Anna Pávlovna wished
+both to rebuke him (for daring to speak as he had done of a man
+recommended to the Empress) and at the same time to console him, so she
+said:
+
+"Now about your family. Do you know that since your daughter came out
+everyone has been enraptured by her? They say she is amazingly
+beautiful."
+
+The prince bowed to signify his respect and gratitude.
+
+"I often think," she continued after a short pause, drawing nearer to
+the prince and smiling amiably at him as if to show that political and
+social topics were ended and the time had come for intimate
+conversation—"I often think how unfairly sometimes the joys of life are
+distributed. Why has fate given you two such splendid children? I don't
+speak of Anatole, your youngest. I don't like him," she added in a tone
+admitting of no rejoinder and raising her eyebrows. "Two such charming
+children. And really you appreciate them less than anyone, and so you
+don't deserve to have them."
+
+And she smiled her ecstatic smile.
+
+"I can't help it," said the prince. "Lavater would have said I lack the
+bump of paternity."
+
+"Don't joke; I mean to have a serious talk with you. Do you know I am
+dissatisfied with your younger son? Between ourselves" (and her face
+assumed its melancholy expression), "he was mentioned at Her Majesty's
+and you were pitied...."
+
+The prince answered nothing, but she looked at him significantly,
+awaiting a reply. He frowned.
+
+"What would you have me do?" he said at last. "You know I did all a
+father could for their education, and they have both turned out fools.
+Hippolyte is at least a quiet fool, but Anatole is an active one. That
+is the only difference between them." He said this smiling in a way more
+natural and animated than usual, so that the wrinkles round his mouth
+very clearly revealed something unexpectedly coarse and unpleasant.
+
+"And why are children born to such men as you? If you were not a father
+there would be nothing I could reproach you with," said Anna Pávlovna,
+looking up pensively.
+
+"I am your faithful slave and to you alone I can confess that my
+children are the bane of my life. It is the cross I have to bear. That
+is how I explain it to myself. It can't be helped!"
+
+He said no more, but expressed his resignation to cruel fate by a
+gesture. Anna Pávlovna meditated.
+
+"Have you never thought of marrying your prodigal son Anatole?" she
+asked. "They say old maids have a mania for matchmaking, and though I
+don't feel that weakness in myself as yet, I know a little person who is
+very unhappy with her father. She is a relation of yours, Princess Mary
+Bolkónskaya."
+
+Prince Vasíli did not reply, though, with the quickness of memory and
+perception befitting a man of the world, he indicated by a movement of
+the head that he was considering this information.
+
+"Do you know," he said at last, evidently unable to check the sad
+current of his thoughts, "that Anatole is costing me forty thousand
+rubles a year? And," he went on after a pause, "what will it be in five
+years, if he goes on like this?" Presently he added: "That's what we
+fathers have to put up with.... Is this princess of yours rich?"
+
+"Her father is very rich and stingy. He lives in the country. He is the
+well-known Prince Bolkónski who had to retire from the army under the
+late Emperor, and was nicknamed 'the King of Prussia.' He is very clever
+but eccentric, and a bore. The poor girl is very unhappy. She has a
+brother; I think you know him, he married Lise Meinen lately. He is an
+aide-de-camp of Kutúzov's and will be here tonight."
+
+"Listen, dear Annette," said the prince, suddenly taking Anna Pávlovna's
+hand and for some reason drawing it downwards. "Arrange that affair for
+me and I shall always be your most devoted slave-slafe with an f, as a
+village elder of mine writes in his reports. She is rich and of good
+family and that's all I want."
+
+And with the familiarity and easy grace peculiar to him, he raised the
+maid of honor's hand to his lips, kissed it, and swung it to and fro as
+he lay back in his armchair, looking in another direction.
+
+"Attendez," said Anna Pávlovna, reflecting, "I'll speak to Lise, young
+Bolkónski's wife, this very evening, and perhaps the thing can be
+arranged. It shall be on your family's behalf that I'll start my
+apprenticeship as old maid."
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+Anna Pávlovna's drawing room was gradually filling. The highest
+Petersburg society was assembled there: people differing widely in age
+and character but alike in the social circle to which they belonged.
+Prince Vasíli's daughter, the beautiful Hélène, came to take her father
+to the ambassador's entertainment; she wore a ball dress and her badge
+as maid of honor. The youthful little Princess Bolkónskaya, known as la
+femme la plus séduisante de Pétersbourg, * was also there. She had been
+married during the previous winter, and being pregnant did not go to any
+large gatherings, but only to small receptions. Prince Vasíli's son,
+Hippolyte, had come with Mortemart, whom he introduced. The Abbé Morio
+and many others had also come.
+
+* The most fascinating woman in Petersburg.
+
+To each new arrival Anna Pávlovna said, "You have not yet seen my aunt,"
+or "You do not know my aunt?" and very gravely conducted him or her to a
+little old lady, wearing large bows of ribbon in her cap, who had come
+sailing in from another room as soon as the guests began to arrive; and
+slowly turning her eyes from the visitor to her aunt, Anna Pávlovna
+mentioned each one's name and then left them.
+
+Each visitor performed the ceremony of greeting this old aunt whom not
+one of them knew, not one of them wanted to know, and not one of them
+cared about; Anna Pávlovna observed these greetings with mournful and
+solemn interest and silent approval. The aunt spoke to each of them in
+the same words, about their health and her own, and the health of Her
+Majesty, "who, thank God, was better today." And each visitor, though
+politeness prevented his showing impatience, left the old woman with a
+sense of relief at having performed a vexatious duty and did not return
+to her the whole evening.
+
+The young Princess Bolkónskaya had brought some work in a gold-
+embroidered velvet bag. Her pretty little upper lip, on which a delicate
+dark down was just perceptible, was too short for her teeth, but it
+lifted all the more sweetly, and was especially charming when she
+occasionally drew it down to meet the lower lip. As is always the case
+with a thoroughly attractive woman, her defect—the shortness of her
+upper lip and her half-open mouth—seemed to be her own special and
+peculiar form of beauty. Everyone brightened at the sight of this pretty
+young woman, so soon to become a mother, so full of life and health, and
+carrying her burden so lightly. Old men and dull dispirited young ones
+who looked at her, after being in her company and talking to her a
+little while, felt as if they too were becoming, like her, full of life
+and health. All who talked to her, and at each word saw her bright smile
+and the constant gleam of her white teeth, thought that they were in a
+specially amiable mood that day.
+
+The little princess went round the table with quick, short, swaying
+steps, her workbag on her arm, and gaily spreading out her dress sat
+down on a sofa near the silver samovar, as if all she was doing was a
+pleasure to herself and to all around her. "I have brought my work,"
+said she in French, displaying her bag and addressing all present.
+"Mind, Annette, I hope you have not played a wicked trick on me," she
+added, turning to her hostess. "You wrote that it was to be quite a
+small reception, and just see how badly I am dressed." And she spread
+out her arms to show her short-waisted, lace-trimmed, dainty gray dress,
+girdled with a broad ribbon just below the breast.
+
+"Soyez tranquille, Lise, you will always be prettier than anyone else,"
+replied Anna Pávlovna.
+
+"You know," said the princess in the same tone of voice and still in
+French, turning to a general, "my husband is deserting me? He is going
+to get himself killed. Tell me what this wretched war is for?" she
+added, addressing Prince Vasíli, and without waiting for an answer she
+turned to speak to his daughter, the beautiful Hélène.
+
+"What a delightful woman this little princess is!" said Prince Vasíli to
+Anna Pávlovna.
+
+One of the next arrivals was a stout, heavily built young man with
+close-cropped hair, spectacles, the light-colored breeches fashionable
+at that time, a very high ruffle, and a brown dress coat. This stout
+young man was an illegitimate son of Count Bezúkhov, a well-known
+grandee of Catherine's time who now lay dying in Moscow. The young man
+had not yet entered either the military or civil service, as he had only
+just returned from abroad where he had been educated, and this was his
+first appearance in society. Anna Pávlovna greeted him with the nod she
+accorded to the lowest hierarchy in her drawing room. But in spite of
+this lowest-grade greeting, a look of anxiety and fear, as at the sight
+of something too large and unsuited to the place, came over her face
+when she saw Pierre enter. Though he was certainly rather bigger than
+the other men in the room, her anxiety could only have reference to the
+clever though shy, but observant and natural, expression which
+distinguished him from everyone else in that drawing room.
+
+"It is very good of you, Monsieur Pierre, to come and visit a poor
+invalid," said Anna Pávlovna, exchanging an alarmed glance with her aunt
+as she conducted him to her.
+
+Pierre murmured something unintelligible, and continued to look round as
+if in search of something. On his way to the aunt he bowed to the little
+princess with a pleased smile, as to an intimate acquaintance.
+
+Anna Pávlovna's alarm was justified, for Pierre turned away from the
+aunt without waiting to hear her speech about Her Majesty's health. Anna
+Pávlovna in dismay detained him with the words: "Do you know the Abbé
+Morio? He is a most interesting man."
+
+"Yes, I have heard of his scheme for perpetual peace, and it is very
+interesting but hardly feasible."
+
+"You think so?" rejoined Anna Pávlovna in order to say something and get
+away to attend to her duties as hostess. But Pierre now committed a
+reverse act of impoliteness. First he had left a lady before she had
+finished speaking to him, and now he continued to speak to another who
+wished to get away. With his head bent, and his big feet spread apart,
+he began explaining his reasons for thinking the abbé's plan chimerical.
+
+"We will talk of it later," said Anna Pávlovna with a smile.
+
+And having got rid of this young man who did not know how to behave, she
+resumed her duties as hostess and continued to listen and watch, ready
+to help at any point where the conversation might happen to flag. As the
+foreman of a spinning mill, when he has set the hands to work, goes
+round and notices here a spindle that has stopped or there one that
+creaks or makes more noise than it should, and hastens to check the
+machine or set it in proper motion, so Anna Pávlovna moved about her
+drawing room, approaching now a silent, now a too-noisy group, and by a
+word or slight rearrangement kept the conversational machine in steady,
+proper, and regular motion. But amid these cares her anxiety about
+Pierre was evident. She kept an anxious watch on him when he approached
+the group round Mortemart to listen to what was being said there, and
+again when he passed to another group whose center was the abbé.
+
+Pierre had been educated abroad, and this reception at Anna Pávlovna's
+was the first he had attended in Russia. He knew that all the
+intellectual lights of Petersburg were gathered there and, like a child
+in a toyshop, did not know which way to look, afraid of missing any
+clever conversation that was to be heard. Seeing the self-confident and
+refined expression on the faces of those present he was always expecting
+to hear something very profound. At last he came up to Morio. Here the
+conversation seemed interesting and he stood waiting for an opportunity
+to express his own views, as young people are fond of doing.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+Anna Pávlovna's reception was in full swing. The spindles hummed
+steadily and ceaselessly on all sides. With the exception of the aunt,
+beside whom sat only one elderly lady, who with her thin careworn face
+was rather out of place in this brilliant society, the whole company had
+settled into three groups. One, chiefly masculine, had formed round the
+abbé. Another, of young people, was grouped round the beautiful Princess
+Hélène, Prince Vasíli's daughter, and the little Princess Bolkónskaya,
+very pretty and rosy, though rather too plump for her age. The third
+group was gathered round Mortemart and Anna Pávlovna.
+
+The vicomte was a nice-looking young man with soft features and polished
+manners, who evidently considered himself a celebrity but out of
+politeness modestly placed himself at the disposal of the circle in
+which he found himself. Anna Pávlovna was obviously serving him up as a
+treat to her guests. As a clever maître d'hôtel serves up as a specially
+choice delicacy a piece of meat that no one who had seen it in the
+kitchen would have cared to eat, so Anna Pávlovna served up to her
+guests, first the vicomte and then the abbé, as peculiarly choice
+morsels. The group about Mortemart immediately began discussing the
+murder of the Duc d'Enghien. The vicomte said that the Duc d'Enghien had
+perished by his own magnanimity, and that there were particular reasons
+for Buonaparte's hatred of him.
+
+"Ah, yes! Do tell us all about it, Vicomte," said Anna Pávlovna, with a
+pleasant feeling that there was something à la Louis XV in the sound of
+that sentence: "Contez nous çela, Vicomte."
+
+The vicomte bowed and smiled courteously in token of his willingness to
+comply. Anna Pávlovna arranged a group round him, inviting everyone to
+listen to his tale.
+
+"The vicomte knew the duc personally," whispered Anna Pávlovna to one of
+the guests. "The vicomte is a wonderful raconteur," said she to another.
+"How evidently he belongs to the best society," said she to a third; and
+the vicomte was served up to the company in the choicest and most
+advantageous style, like a well-garnished joint of roast beef on a hot
+dish.
+
+The vicomte wished to begin his story and gave a subtle smile.
+
+"Come over here, Hélène, dear," said Anna Pávlovna to the beautiful
+young princess who was sitting some way off, the center of another
+group.
+
+The princess smiled. She rose with the same unchanging smile with which
+she had first entered the room—the smile of a perfectly beautiful woman.
+With a slight rustle of her white dress trimmed with moss and ivy, with
+a gleam of white shoulders, glossy hair, and sparkling diamonds, she
+passed between the men who made way for her, not looking at any of them
+but smiling on all, as if graciously allowing each the privilege of
+admiring her beautiful figure and shapely shoulders, back, and
+bosom—which in the fashion of those days were very much exposed—and she
+seemed to bring the glamour of a ballroom with her as she moved toward
+Anna Pávlovna. Hélène was so lovely that not only did she not show any
+trace of coquetry, but on the contrary she even appeared shy of her
+unquestionable and all too victorious beauty. She seemed to wish, but to
+be unable, to diminish its effect.
+
+"How lovely!" said everyone who saw her; and the vicomte lifted his
+shoulders and dropped his eyes as if startled by something extraordinary
+when she took her seat opposite and beamed upon him also with her
+unchanging smile.
+
+"Madame, I doubt my ability before such an audience," said he, smilingly
+inclining his head.
+
+The princess rested her bare round arm on a little table and considered
+a reply unnecessary. She smilingly waited. All the time the story was
+being told she sat upright, glancing now at her beautiful round arm,
+altered in shape by its pressure on the table, now at her still more
+beautiful bosom, on which she readjusted a diamond necklace. From time
+to time she smoothed the folds of her dress, and whenever the story
+produced an effect she glanced at Anna Pávlovna, at once adopted just
+the expression she saw on the maid of honor's face, and again relapsed
+into her radiant smile.
+
+The little princess had also left the tea table and followed Hélène.
+
+"Wait a moment, I'll get my work.... Now then, what are you thinking
+of?" she went on, turning to Prince Hippolyte. "Fetch me my workbag."
+
+There was a general movement as the princess, smiling and talking
+merrily to everyone at once, sat down and gaily arranged herself in her
+seat.
+
+"Now I am all right," she said, and asking the vicomte to begin, she
+took up her work.
+
+Prince Hippolyte, having brought the workbag, joined the circle and
+moving a chair close to hers seated himself beside her.
+
+Le charmant Hippolyte was surprising by his extraordinary resemblance to
+his beautiful sister, but yet more by the fact that in spite of this
+resemblance he was exceedingly ugly. His features were like his
+sister's, but while in her case everything was lit up by a joyous, self-
+satisfied, youthful, and constant smile of animation, and by the
+wonderful classic beauty of her figure, his face on the contrary was
+dulled by imbecility and a constant expression of sullen self-
+confidence, while his body was thin and weak. His eyes, nose, and mouth
+all seemed puckered into a vacant, wearied grimace, and his arms and
+legs always fell into unnatural positions.
+
+"It's not going to be a ghost story?" said he, sitting down beside the
+princess and hastily adjusting his lorgnette, as if without this
+instrument he could not begin to speak.
+
+"Why no, my dear fellow," said the astonished narrator, shrugging his
+shoulders.
+
+"Because I hate ghost stories," said Prince Hippolyte in a tone which
+showed that he only understood the meaning of his words after he had
+uttered them.
+
+He spoke with such self-confidence that his hearers could not be sure
+whether what he said was very witty or very stupid. He was dressed in a
+dark-green dress coat, knee breeches of the color of cuisse de nymphe
+effrayée, as he called it, shoes, and silk stockings.
+
+The vicomte told his tale very neatly. It was an anecdote, then current,
+to the effect that the Duc d'Enghien had gone secretly to Paris to visit
+Mademoiselle George; that at her house he came upon Bonaparte, who also
+enjoyed the famous actress' favors, and that in his presence Napoleon
+happened to fall into one of the fainting fits to which he was subject,
+and was thus at the duc's mercy. The latter spared him, and this
+magnanimity Bonaparte subsequently repaid by death.
+
+The story was very pretty and interesting, especially at the point where
+the rivals suddenly recognized one another; and the ladies looked
+agitated.
+
+"Charming!" said Anna Pávlovna with an inquiring glance at the little
+princess.
+
+"Charming!" whispered the little princess, sticking the needle into her
+work as if to testify that the interest and fascination of the story
+prevented her from going on with it.
+
+The vicomte appreciated this silent praise and smiling gratefully
+prepared to continue, but just then Anna Pávlovna, who had kept a
+watchful eye on the young man who so alarmed her, noticed that he was
+talking too loudly and vehemently with the abbé, so she hurried to the
+rescue. Pierre had managed to start a conversation with the abbé about
+the balance of power, and the latter, evidently interested by the young
+man's simple-minded eagerness, was explaining his pet theory. Both were
+talking and listening too eagerly and too naturally, which was why Anna
+Pávlovna disapproved.
+
+"The means are ... the balance of power in Europe and the rights of the
+people," the abbé was saying. "It is only necessary for one powerful
+nation like Russia—barbaric as she is said to be—to place herself
+disinterestedly at the head of an alliance having for its object the
+maintenance of the balance of power of Europe, and it would save the
+world!"
+
+"But how are you to get that balance?" Pierre was beginning.
+
+At that moment Anna Pávlovna came up and, looking severely at Pierre,
+asked the Italian how he stood Russian climate. The Italian's face
+instantly changed and assumed an offensively affected, sugary
+expression, evidently habitual to him when conversing with women.
+
+"I am so enchanted by the brilliancy of the wit and culture of the
+society, more especially of the feminine society, in which I have had
+the honor of being received, that I have not yet had time to think of
+the climate," said he.
+
+Not letting the abbé and Pierre escape, Anna Pávlovna, the more
+conveniently to keep them under observation, brought them into the
+larger circle.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+Just then another visitor entered the drawing room: Prince Andrew
+Bolkónski, the little princess' husband. He was a very handsome young
+man, of medium height, with firm, clearcut features. Everything about
+him, from his weary, bored expression to his quiet, measured step,
+offered a most striking contrast to his quiet, little wife. It was
+evident that he not only knew everyone in the drawing room, but had
+found them to be so tiresome that it wearied him to look at or listen to
+them. And among all these faces that he found so tedious, none seemed to
+bore him so much as that of his pretty wife. He turned away from her
+with a grimace that distorted his handsome face, kissed Anna Pávlovna's
+hand, and screwing up his eyes scanned the whole company.
+
+"You are off to the war, Prince?" said Anna Pávlovna.
+
+"General Kutúzov," said Bolkónski, speaking French and stressing the
+last syllable of the general's name like a Frenchman, "has been pleased
+to take me as an aide-de-camp...."
+
+"And Lise, your wife?"
+
+"She will go to the country."
+
+"Are you not ashamed to deprive us of your charming wife?"
+
+"André," said his wife, addressing her husband in the same coquettish
+manner in which she spoke to other men, "the vicomte has been telling us
+such a tale about Mademoiselle George and Buonaparte!"
+
+Prince Andrew screwed up his eyes and turned away. Pierre, who from the
+moment Prince Andrew entered the room had watched him with glad,
+affectionate eyes, now came up and took his arm. Before he looked round
+Prince Andrew frowned again, expressing his annoyance with whoever was
+touching his arm, but when he saw Pierre's beaming face he gave him an
+unexpectedly kind and pleasant smile.
+
+"There now!... So you, too, are in the great world?" said he to Pierre.
+
+"I knew you would be here," replied Pierre. "I will come to supper with
+you. May I?" he added in a low voice so as not to disturb the vicomte
+who was continuing his story.
+
+"No, impossible!" said Prince Andrew, laughing and pressing Pierre's
+hand to show that there was no need to ask the question. He wished to
+say something more, but at that moment Prince Vasíli and his daughter
+got up to go and the two young men rose to let them pass.
+
+"You must excuse me, dear Vicomte," said Prince Vasíli to the Frenchman,
+holding him down by the sleeve in a friendly way to prevent his rising.
+"This unfortunate fete at the ambassador's deprives me of a pleasure,
+and obliges me to interrupt you. I am very sorry to leave your
+enchanting party," said he, turning to Anna Pávlovna.
+
+His daughter, Princess Hélène, passed between the chairs, lightly
+holding up the folds of her dress, and the smile shone still more
+radiantly on her beautiful face. Pierre gazed at her with rapturous,
+almost frightened, eyes as she passed him.
+
+"Very lovely," said Prince Andrew.
+
+"Very," said Pierre.
+
+In passing Prince Vasíli seized Pierre's hand and said to Anna Pávlovna:
+"Educate this bear for me! He has been staying with me a whole month and
+this is the first time I have seen him in society. Nothing is so
+necessary for a young man as the society of clever women."
+
+Anna Pávlovna smiled and promised to take Pierre in hand. She knew his
+father to be a connection of Prince Vasíli's. The elderly lady who had
+been sitting with the old aunt rose hurriedly and overtook Prince Vasíli
+in the anteroom. All the affectation of interest she had assumed had
+left her kindly and tear-worn face and it now expressed only anxiety and
+fear.
+
+"How about my son Borís, Prince?" said she, hurrying after him into the
+anteroom. "I can't remain any longer in Petersburg. Tell me what news I
+may take back to my poor boy."
+
+Although Prince Vasíli listened reluctantly and not very politely to the
+elderly lady, even betraying some impatience, she gave him an
+ingratiating and appealing smile, and took his hand that he might not go
+away.
+
+"What would it cost you to say a word to the Emperor, and then he would
+be transferred to the Guards at once?" said she.
+
+"Believe me, Princess, I am ready to do all I can," answered Prince
+Vasíli, "but it is difficult for me to ask the Emperor. I should advise
+you to appeal to Rumyántsev through Prince Golítsyn. That would be the
+best way."
+
+The elderly lady was a Princess Drubetskáya, belonging to one of the
+best families in Russia, but she was poor, and having long been out of
+society had lost her former influential connections. She had now come to
+Petersburg to procure an appointment in the Guards for her only son. It
+was, in fact, solely to meet Prince Vasíli that she had obtained an
+invitation to Anna Pávlovna's reception and had sat listening to the
+vicomte's story. Prince Vasíli's words frightened her, an embittered
+look clouded her once handsome face, but only for a moment; then she
+smiled again and clutched Prince Vasíli's arm more tightly.
+
+"Listen to me, Prince," said she. "I have never yet asked you for
+anything and I never will again, nor have I ever reminded you of my
+father's friendship for you; but now I entreat you for God's sake to do
+this for my son—and I shall always regard you as a benefactor," she
+added hurriedly. "No, don't be angry, but promise! I have asked Golítsyn
+and he has refused. Be the kindhearted man you always were," she said,
+trying to smile though tears were in her eyes.
+
+"Papa, we shall be late," said Princess Hélène, turning her beautiful
+head and looking over her classically molded shoulder as she stood
+waiting by the door.
+
+Influence in society, however, is a capital which has to be economized
+if it is to last. Prince Vasíli knew this, and having once realized that
+if he asked on behalf of all who begged of him, he would soon be unable
+to ask for himself, he became chary of using his influence. But in
+Princess Drubetskáya's case he felt, after her second appeal, something
+like qualms of conscience. She had reminded him of what was quite true;
+he had been indebted to her father for the first steps in his career.
+Moreover, he could see by her manners that she was one of those
+women—mostly mothers—who, having once made up their minds, will not rest
+until they have gained their end, and are prepared if necessary to go on
+insisting day after day and hour after hour, and even to make scenes.
+This last consideration moved him.
+
+"My dear Anna Mikháylovna," said he with his usual familiarity and
+weariness of tone, "it is almost impossible for me to do what you ask;
+but to prove my devotion to you and how I respect your father's memory,
+I will do the impossible—your son shall be transferred to the Guards.
+Here is my hand on it. Are you satisfied?"
+
+"My dear benefactor! This is what I expected from you—I knew your
+kindness!" He turned to go.
+
+"Wait—just a word! When he has been transferred to the Guards..." she
+faltered. "You are on good terms with Michael Ilariónovich Kutúzov ...
+recommend Borís to him as adjutant! Then I shall be at rest, and
+then..."
+
+Prince Vasíli smiled.
+
+"No, I won't promise that. You don't know how Kutúzov is pestered since
+his appointment as Commander in Chief. He told me himself that all the
+Moscow ladies have conspired to give him all their sons as adjutants."
+
+"No, but do promise! I won't let you go! My dear benefactor..."
+
+"Papa," said his beautiful daughter in the same tone as before, "we
+shall be late."
+
+"Well, au revoir! Good-bye! You hear her?"
+
+"Then tomorrow you will speak to the Emperor?"
+
+"Certainly; but about Kutúzov, I don't promise."
+
+"Do promise, do promise, Vasíli!" cried Anna Mikháylovna as he went,
+with the smile of a coquettish girl, which at one time probably came
+naturally to her, but was now very ill-suited to her careworn face.
+
+Apparently she had forgotten her age and by force of habit employed all
+the old feminine arts. But as soon as the prince had gone her face
+resumed its former cold, artificial expression. She returned to the
+group where the vicomte was still talking, and again pretended to
+listen, while waiting till it would be time to leave. Her task was
+accomplished.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+"And what do you think of this latest comedy, the coronation at Milan?"
+asked Anna Pávlovna, "and of the comedy of the people of Genoa and Lucca
+laying their petitions before Monsieur Buonaparte, and Monsieur
+Buonaparte sitting on a throne and granting the petitions of the
+nations? Adorable! It is enough to make one's head whirl! It is as if
+the whole world had gone crazy."
+
+Prince Andrew looked Anna Pávlovna straight in the face with a sarcastic
+smile.
+
+"'Dieu me la donne, gare à qui la touche!' * They say he was very fine
+when he said that," he remarked, repeating the words in Italian: "'Dio
+mi l'ha dato. Guai a chi la tocchi!'
+
+* God has given it to me, let him who touches it beware!
+
+"I hope this will prove the last drop that will make the glass run
+over," Anna Pávlovna continued. "The sovereigns will not be able to
+endure this man who is a menace to everything."
+
+"The sovereigns? I do not speak of Russia," said the vicomte, polite but
+hopeless: "The sovereigns, madame... What have they done for Louis XVII,
+for the Queen, or for Madame Elizabeth? Nothing!" and he became more
+animated. "And believe me, they are reaping the reward of their betrayal
+of the Bourbon cause. The sovereigns! Why, they are sending ambassadors
+to compliment the usurper."
+
+And sighing disdainfully, he again changed his position.
+
+Prince Hippolyte, who had been gazing at the vicomte for some time
+through his lorgnette, suddenly turned completely round toward the
+little princess, and having asked for a needle began tracing the Condé
+coat of arms on the table. He explained this to her with as much gravity
+as if she had asked him to do it.
+
+"Bâton de gueules, engrêlé de gueules d'azur—maison Condé," said he.
+
+The princess listened, smiling.
+
+"If Buonaparte remains on the throne of France a year longer," the
+vicomte continued, with the air of a man who, in a matter with which he
+is better acquainted than anyone else, does not listen to others but
+follows the current of his own thoughts, "things will have gone too far.
+By intrigues, violence, exile, and executions, French society—I mean
+good French society—will have been forever destroyed, and then...."
+
+He shrugged his shoulders and spread out his hands. Pierre wished to
+make a remark, for the conversation interested him, but Anna Pávlovna,
+who had him under observation, interrupted:
+
+"The Emperor Alexander," said she, with the melancholy which always
+accompanied any reference of hers to the Imperial family, "has declared
+that he will leave it to the French people themselves to choose their
+own form of government; and I believe that once free from the usurper,
+the whole nation will certainly throw itself into the arms of its
+rightful king," she concluded, trying to be amiable to the royalist
+emigrant.
+
+"That is doubtful," said Prince Andrew. "Monsieur le Vicomte quite
+rightly supposes that matters have already gone too far. I think it will
+be difficult to return to the old regime."
+
+"From what I have heard," said Pierre, blushing and breaking into the
+conversation, "almost all the aristocracy has already gone over to
+Bonaparte's side."
+
+"It is the Buonapartists who say that," replied the vicomte without
+looking at Pierre. "At the present time it is difficult to know the real
+state of French public opinion."
+
+"Bonaparte has said so," remarked Prince Andrew with a sarcastic smile.
+
+It was evident that he did not like the vicomte and was aiming his
+remarks at him, though without looking at him.
+
+"'I showed them the path to glory, but they did not follow it,'" Prince
+Andrew continued after a short silence, again quoting Napoleon's words.
+"'I opened my antechambers and they crowded in.' I do not know how far
+he was justified in saying so."
+
+"Not in the least," replied the vicomte. "After the murder of the duc
+even the most partial ceased to regard him as a hero. If to some
+people," he went on, turning to Anna Pávlovna, "he ever was a hero,
+after the murder of the duc there was one martyr more in heaven and one
+hero less on earth."
+
+Before Anna Pávlovna and the others had time to smile their appreciation
+of the vicomte's epigram, Pierre again broke into the conversation, and
+though Anna Pávlovna felt sure he would say something inappropriate, she
+was unable to stop him.
+
+"The execution of the Duc d'Enghien," declared Monsieur Pierre, "was a
+political necessity, and it seems to me that Napoleon showed greatness
+of soul by not fearing to take on himself the whole responsibility of
+that deed."
+
+"Dieu! Mon Dieu!" muttered Anna Pávlovna in a terrified whisper.
+
+"What, Monsieur Pierre…. Do you consider that assassination shows
+greatness of soul?" said the little princess, smiling and drawing her
+work nearer to her.
+
+"Oh! Oh!" exclaimed several voices.
+
+"Capital!" said Prince Hippolyte in English, and began slapping his knee
+with the palm of his hand.
+
+The vicomte merely shrugged his shoulders. Pierre looked solemnly at his
+audience over his spectacles and continued.
+
+"I say so," he continued desperately, "because the Bourbons fled from
+the Revolution leaving the people to anarchy, and Napoleon alone
+understood the Revolution and quelled it, and so for the general good,
+he could not stop short for the sake of one man's life."
+
+"Won't you come over to the other table?" suggested Anna Pávlovna.
+
+But Pierre continued his speech without heeding her.
+
+"No," cried he, becoming more and more eager, "Napoleon is great because
+he rose superior to the Revolution, suppressed its abuses, preserved all
+that was good in it—equality of citizenship and freedom of speech and of
+the press—and only for that reason did he obtain power."
+
+"Yes, if having obtained power, without availing himself of it to commit
+murder he had restored it to the rightful king, I should have called him
+a great man," remarked the vicomte.
+
+"He could not do that. The people only gave him power that he might rid
+them of the Bourbons and because they saw that he was a great man. The
+Revolution was a grand thing!" continued Monsieur Pierre, betraying by
+this desperate and provocative proposition his extreme youth and his
+wish to express all that was in his mind.
+
+"What? Revolution and regicide a grand thing?... Well, after that... But
+won't you come to this other table?" repeated Anna Pávlovna.
+
+"Rousseau's Contrat Social," said the vicomte with a tolerant smile.
+
+"I am not speaking of regicide, I am speaking about ideas."
+
+"Yes: ideas of robbery, murder, and regicide," again interjected an
+ironical voice.
+
+"Those were extremes, no doubt, but they are not what is most important.
+What is important are the rights of man, emancipation from prejudices,
+and equality of citizenship, and all these ideas Napoleon has retained
+in full force."
+
+"Liberty and equality," said the vicomte contemptuously, as if at last
+deciding seriously to prove to this youth how foolish his words were,
+"high-sounding words which have long been discredited. Who does not love
+liberty and equality? Even our Saviour preached liberty and equality.
+Have people since the Revolution become happier? On the contrary. We
+wanted liberty, but Buonaparte has destroyed it."
+
+Prince Andrew kept looking with an amused smile from Pierre to the
+vicomte and from the vicomte to their hostess. In the first moment of
+Pierre's outburst Anna Pávlovna, despite her social experience, was
+horror-struck. But when she saw that Pierre's sacrilegious words had not
+exasperated the vicomte, and had convinced herself that it was
+impossible to stop him, she rallied her forces and joined the vicomte in
+a vigorous attack on the orator.
+
+"But, my dear Monsieur Pierre," said she, "how do you explain the fact
+of a great man executing a duc—or even an ordinary man who—is innocent
+and untried?"
+
+"I should like," said the vicomte, "to ask how monsieur explains the
+18th Brumaire; was not that an imposture? It was a swindle, and not at
+all like the conduct of a great man!"
+
+"And the prisoners he killed in Africa? That was horrible!" said the
+little princess, shrugging her shoulders.
+
+"He's a low fellow, say what you will," remarked Prince Hippolyte.
+
+Pierre, not knowing whom to answer, looked at them all and smiled. His
+smile was unlike the half-smile of other people. When he smiled, his
+grave, even rather gloomy, look was instantaneously replaced by
+another—a childlike, kindly, even rather silly look, which seemed to ask
+forgiveness.
+
+The vicomte who was meeting him for the first time saw clearly that this
+young Jacobin was not so terrible as his words suggested. All were
+silent.
+
+"How do you expect him to answer you all at once?" said Prince Andrew.
+"Besides, in the actions of a statesman one has to distinguish between
+his acts as a private person, as a general, and as an emperor. So it
+seems to me."
+
+"Yes, yes, of course!" Pierre chimed in, pleased at the arrival of this
+reinforcement.
+
+"One must admit," continued Prince Andrew, "that Napoleon as a man was
+great on the bridge of Arcola, and in the hospital at Jaffa where he
+gave his hand to the plague-stricken; but ... but there are other acts
+which it is difficult to justify."
+
+Prince Andrew, who had evidently wished to tone down the awkwardness of
+Pierre's remarks, rose and made a sign to his wife that it was time to
+go.
+
+Suddenly Prince Hippolyte started up making signs to everyone to attend,
+and asking them all to be seated began:
+
+"I was told a charming Moscow story today and must treat you to it.
+Excuse me, Vicomte—I must tell it in Russian or the point will be
+lost...." And Prince Hippolyte began to tell his story in such Russian
+as a Frenchman would speak after spending about a year in Russia.
+Everyone waited, so emphatically and eagerly did he demand their
+attention to his story.
+
+"There is in Moscow a lady, une dame, and she is very stingy. She must
+have two footmen behind her carriage, and very big ones. That was her
+taste. And she had a lady's maid, also big. She said...."
+
+Here Prince Hippolyte paused, evidently collecting his ideas with
+difficulty.
+
+"She said.... Oh yes! She said, 'Girl,' to the maid, 'put on a livery,
+get up behind the carriage, and come with me while I make some calls.'"
+
+Here Prince Hippolyte spluttered and burst out laughing long before his
+audience, which produced an effect unfavorable to the narrator. Several
+persons, among them the elderly lady and Anna Pávlovna, did however
+smile.
+
+"She went. Suddenly there was a great wind. The girl lost her hat and
+her long hair came down...." Here he could contain himself no longer and
+went on, between gasps of laughter: "And the whole world knew...."
+
+And so the anecdote ended. Though it was unintelligible why he had told
+it, or why it had to be told in Russian, still Anna Pávlovna and the
+others appreciated Prince Hippolyte's social tact in so agreeably ending
+Pierre's unpleasant and unamiable outburst. After the anecdote the
+conversation broke up into insignificant small talk about the last and
+next balls, about theatricals, and who would meet whom, and when and
+where.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+Having thanked Anna Pávlovna for her charming soiree, the guests began
+to take their leave.
+
+Pierre was ungainly. Stout, about the average height, broad, with huge
+red hands; he did not know, as the saying is, how to enter a drawing
+room and still less how to leave one; that is, how to say something
+particularly agreeable before going away. Besides this he was absent-
+minded. When he rose to go, he took up instead of his own, the general's
+three-cornered hat, and held it, pulling at the plume, till the general
+asked him to restore it. All his absent-mindedness and inability to
+enter a room and converse in it was, however, redeemed by his kindly,
+simple, and modest expression. Anna Pávlovna turned toward him and, with
+a Christian mildness that expressed forgiveness of his indiscretion,
+nodded and said: "I hope to see you again, but I also hope you will
+change your opinions, my dear Monsieur Pierre."
+
+When she said this, he did not reply and only bowed, but again everybody
+saw his smile, which said nothing, unless perhaps, "Opinions are
+opinions, but you see what a capital, good-natured fellow I am." And
+everyone, including Anna Pávlovna, felt this.
+
+Prince Andrew had gone out into the hall, and, turning his shoulders to
+the footman who was helping him on with his cloak, listened
+indifferently to his wife's chatter with Prince Hippolyte who had also
+come into the hall. Prince Hippolyte stood close to the pretty, pregnant
+princess, and stared fixedly at her through his eyeglass.
+
+"Go in, Annette, or you will catch cold," said the little princess,
+taking leave of Anna Pávlovna. "It is settled," she added in a low
+voice.
+
+Anna Pávlovna had already managed to speak to Lise about the match she
+contemplated between Anatole and the little princess' sister-in-law.
+
+"I rely on you, my dear," said Anna Pávlovna, also in a low tone. "Write
+to her and let me know how her father looks at the matter. Au revoir!
+"—and she left the hall.
+
+Prince Hippolyte approached the little princess and, bending his face
+close to her, began to whisper something.
+
+Two footmen, the princess' and his own, stood holding a shawl and a
+cloak, waiting for the conversation to finish. They listened to the
+French sentences which to them were meaningless, with an air of
+understanding but not wishing to appear to do so. The princess as usual
+spoke smilingly and listened with a laugh.
+
+"I am very glad I did not go to the ambassador's," said Prince Hippolyte
+"—so dull—. It has been a delightful evening, has it not? Delightful!"
+
+"They say the ball will be very good," replied the princess, drawing up
+her downy little lip. "All the pretty women in society will be there."
+
+"Not all, for you will not be there; not all," said Prince Hippolyte
+smiling joyfully; and snatching the shawl from the footman, whom he even
+pushed aside, he began wrapping it round the princess. Either from
+awkwardness or intentionally (no one could have said which) after the
+shawl had been adjusted he kept his arm around her for a long time, as
+though embracing her.
+
+Still smiling, she gracefully moved away, turning and glancing at her
+husband. Prince Andrew's eyes were closed, so weary and sleepy did he
+seem.
+
+"Are you ready?" he asked his wife, looking past her.
+
+Prince Hippolyte hurriedly put on his cloak, which in the latest fashion
+reached to his very heels, and, stumbling in it, ran out into the porch
+following the princess, whom a footman was helping into the carriage.
+
+"Princesse, au revoir," cried he, stumbling with his tongue as well as
+with his feet.
+
+The princess, picking up her dress, was taking her seat in the dark
+carriage, her husband was adjusting his saber; Prince Hippolyte, under
+pretense of helping, was in everyone's way.
+
+"Allow me, sir," said Prince Andrew in Russian in a cold, disagreeable
+tone to Prince Hippolyte who was blocking his path.
+
+"I am expecting you, Pierre," said the same voice, but gently and
+affectionately.
+
+The postilion started, the carriage wheels rattled. Prince Hippolyte
+laughed spasmodically as he stood in the porch waiting for the vicomte
+whom he had promised to take home.
+
+"Well, mon cher," said the vicomte, having seated himself beside
+Hippolyte in the carriage, "your little princess is very nice, very nice
+indeed, quite French," and he kissed the tips of his fingers. Hippolyte
+burst out laughing.
+
+"Do you know, you are a terrible chap for all your innocent airs,"
+continued the vicomte. "I pity the poor husband, that little officer who
+gives himself the airs of a monarch."
+
+Hippolyte spluttered again, and amid his laughter said, "And you were
+saying that the Russian ladies are not equal to the French? One has to
+know how to deal with them."
+
+Pierre reaching the house first went into Prince Andrew's study like one
+quite at home, and from habit immediately lay down on the sofa, took
+from the shelf the first book that came to his hand (it was Caesar's
+Commentaries), and resting on his elbow, began reading it in the middle.
+
+"What have you done to Mlle Schérer? She will be quite ill now," said
+Prince Andrew, as he entered the study, rubbing his small white hands.
+
+Pierre turned his whole body, making the sofa creak. He lifted his eager
+face to Prince Andrew, smiled, and waved his hand.
+
+"That abbé is very interesting but he does not see the thing in the
+right light.... In my opinion perpetual peace is possible but—I do not
+know how to express it ... not by a balance of political power...."
+
+It was evident that Prince Andrew was not interested in such abstract
+conversation.
+
+"One can't everywhere say all one thinks, mon cher. Well, have you at
+last decided on anything? Are you going to be a guardsman or a
+diplomatist?" asked Prince Andrew after a momentary silence.
+
+Pierre sat up on the sofa, with his legs tucked under him.
+
+"Really, I don't yet know. I don't like either the one or the other."
+
+"But you must decide on something! Your father expects it."
+
+Pierre at the age of ten had been sent abroad with an abbé as tutor, and
+had remained away till he was twenty. When he returned to Moscow his
+father dismissed the abbé and said to the young man, "Now go to
+Petersburg, look round, and choose your profession. I will agree to
+anything. Here is a letter to Prince Vasíli, and here is money. Write to
+me all about it, and I will help you in everything." Pierre had already
+been choosing a career for three months, and had not decided on
+anything. It was about this choice that Prince Andrew was speaking.
+Pierre rubbed his forehead.
+
+"But he must be a Freemason," said he, referring to the abbé whom he had
+met that evening.
+
+"That is all nonsense." Prince Andrew again interrupted him, "let us
+talk business. Have you been to the Horse Guards?"
+
+"No, I have not; but this is what I have been thinking and wanted to
+tell you. There is a war now against Napoleon. If it were a war for
+freedom I could understand it and should be the first to enter the army;
+but to help England and Austria against the greatest man in the world is
+not right."
+
+Prince Andrew only shrugged his shoulders at Pierre's childish words. He
+put on the air of one who finds it impossible to reply to such nonsense,
+but it would in fact have been difficult to give any other answer than
+the one Prince Andrew gave to this naïve question.
+
+"If no one fought except on his own conviction, there would be no wars,"
+he said.
+
+"And that would be splendid," said Pierre.
+
+Prince Andrew smiled ironically.
+
+"Very likely it would be splendid, but it will never come about...."
+
+"Well, why are you going to the war?" asked Pierre.
+
+"What for? I don't know. I must. Besides that I am going...." He paused.
+"I am going because the life I am leading here does not suit me!"
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+The rustle of a woman's dress was heard in the next room. Prince Andrew
+shook himself as if waking up, and his face assumed the look it had had
+in Anna Pávlovna's drawing room. Pierre removed his feet from the sofa.
+The princess came in. She had changed her gown for a house dress as
+fresh and elegant as the other. Prince Andrew rose and politely placed a
+chair for her.
+
+"How is it," she began, as usual in French, settling down briskly and
+fussily in the easy chair, "how is it Annette never got married? How
+stupid you men all are not to have married her! Excuse me for saying so,
+but you have no sense about women. What an argumentative fellow you are,
+Monsieur Pierre!"
+
+"And I am still arguing with your husband. I can't understand why he
+wants to go to the war," replied Pierre, addressing the princess with
+none of the embarrassment so commonly shown by young men in their
+intercourse with young women.
+
+The princess started. Evidently Pierre's words touched her to the quick.
+
+"Ah, that is just what I tell him!" said she. "I don't understand it; I
+don't in the least understand why men can't live without wars. How is it
+that we women don't want anything of the kind, don't need it? Now you
+shall judge between us. I always tell him: Here he is Uncle's aide-de-
+camp, a most brilliant position. He is so well known, so much
+appreciated by everyone. The other day at the Apráksins' I heard a lady
+asking, 'Is that the famous Prince Andrew?' I did indeed." She laughed.
+"He is so well received everywhere. He might easily become aide-de-camp
+to the Emperor. You know the Emperor spoke to him most graciously.
+Annette and I were speaking of how to arrange it. What do you think?"
+
+Pierre looked at his friend and, noticing that he did not like the
+conversation, gave no reply.
+
+"When are you starting?" he asked.
+
+"Oh, don't speak of his going, don't! I won't hear it spoken of," said
+the princess in the same petulantly playful tone in which she had spoken
+to Hippolyte in the drawing room and which was so plainly ill-suited to
+the family circle of which Pierre was almost a member. "Today when I
+remembered that all these delightful associations must be broken off ...
+and then you know, Andre..." (she looked significantly at her husband)
+"I'm afraid, I'm afraid!" she whispered, and a shudder ran down her
+back.
+
+Her husband looked at her as if surprised to notice that someone besides
+Pierre and himself was in the room, and addressed her in a tone of
+frigid politeness.
+
+"What is it you are afraid of, Lise? I don't understand," said he.
+
+"There, what egotists men all are: all, all egotists! Just for a whim of
+his own, goodness only knows why, he leaves me and locks me up alone in
+the country."
+
+"With my father and sister, remember," said Prince Andrew gently.
+
+"Alone all the same, without my friends.... And he expects me not to be
+afraid."
+
+Her tone was now querulous and her lip drawn up, giving her not a
+joyful, but an animal, squirrel-like expression. She paused as if she
+felt it indecorous to speak of her pregnancy before Pierre, though the
+gist of the matter lay in that.
+
+"I still can't understand what you are afraid of," said Prince Andrew
+slowly, not taking his eyes off his wife.
+
+The princess blushed, and raised her arms with a gesture of despair.
+
+"No, Andrew, I must say you have changed. Oh, how you have...."
+
+"Your doctor tells you to go to bed earlier," said Prince Andrew. "You
+had better go."
+
+The princess said nothing, but suddenly her short downy lip quivered.
+Prince Andrew rose, shrugged his shoulders, and walked about the room.
+
+Pierre looked over his spectacles with naïve surprise, now at him and
+now at her, moved as if about to rise too, but changed his mind.
+
+"Why should I mind Monsieur Pierre being here?" exclaimed the little
+princess suddenly, her pretty face all at once distorted by a tearful
+grimace. "I have long wanted to ask you, Andrew, why you have changed so
+to me? What have I done to you? You are going to the war and have no
+pity for me. Why is it?"
+
+"Lise!" was all Prince Andrew said. But that one word expressed an
+entreaty, a threat, and above all conviction that she would herself
+regret her words. But she went on hurriedly:
+
+"You treat me like an invalid or a child. I see it all! Did you behave
+like that six months ago?"
+
+"Lise, I beg you to desist," said Prince Andrew still more emphatically.
+
+Pierre, who had been growing more and more agitated as he listened to
+all this, rose and approached the princess. He seemed unable to bear the
+sight of tears and was ready to cry himself.
+
+"Calm yourself, Princess! It seems so to you because.... I assure you I
+myself have experienced ... and so ... because ... No, excuse me! An
+outsider is out of place here.... No, don't distress yourself.... Good-
+bye!"
+
+Prince Andrew caught him by the hand.
+
+"No, wait, Pierre! The princess is too kind to wish to deprive me of the
+pleasure of spending the evening with you."
+
+"No, he thinks only of himself," muttered the princess without
+restraining her angry tears.
+
+"Lise!" said Prince Andrew dryly, raising his voice to the pitch which
+indicates that patience is exhausted.
+
+Suddenly the angry, squirrel-like expression of the princess' pretty
+face changed into a winning and piteous look of fear. Her beautiful eyes
+glanced askance at her husband's face, and her own assumed the timid,
+deprecating expression of a dog when it rapidly but feebly wags its
+drooping tail.
+
+"Mon Dieu, mon Dieu!" she muttered, and lifting her dress with one hand
+she went up to her husband and kissed him on the forehead.
+
+"Good night, Lise," said he, rising and courteously kissing her hand as
+he would have done to a stranger.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+The friends were silent. Neither cared to begin talking. Pierre
+continually glanced at Prince Andrew; Prince Andrew rubbed his forehead
+with his small hand.
+
+"Let us go and have supper," he said with a sigh, going to the door.
+
+They entered the elegant, newly decorated, and luxurious dining room.
+Everything from the table napkins to the silver, china, and glass bore
+that imprint of newness found in the households of the newly married.
+Halfway through supper Prince Andrew leaned his elbows on the table and,
+with a look of nervous agitation such as Pierre had never before seen on
+his face, began to talk—as one who has long had something on his mind
+and suddenly determines to speak out.
+
+"Never, never marry, my dear fellow! That's my advice: never marry till
+you can say to yourself that you have done all you are capable of, and
+until you have ceased to love the woman of your choice and have seen her
+plainly as she is, or else you will make a cruel and irrevocable
+mistake. Marry when you are old and good for nothing—or all that is good
+and noble in you will be lost. It will all be wasted on trifles. Yes!
+Yes! Yes! Don't look at me with such surprise. If you marry expecting
+anything from yourself in the future, you will feel at every step that
+for you all is ended, all is closed except the drawing room, where you
+will be ranged side by side with a court lackey and an idiot!... But
+what's the good?..." and he waved his arm.
+
+Pierre took off his spectacles, which made his face seem different and
+the good-natured expression still more apparent, and gazed at his friend
+in amazement.
+
+"My wife," continued Prince Andrew, "is an excellent woman, one of those
+rare women with whom a man's honor is safe; but, O God, what would I not
+give now to be unmarried! You are the first and only one to whom I
+mention this, because I like you."
+
+As he said this Prince Andrew was less than ever like that Bolkónski who
+had lolled in Anna Pávlovna's easy chairs and with half-closed eyes had
+uttered French phrases between his teeth. Every muscle of his thin face
+was now quivering with nervous excitement; his eyes, in which the fire
+of life had seemed extinguished, now flashed with brilliant light. It
+was evident that the more lifeless he seemed at ordinary times, the more
+impassioned he became in these moments of almost morbid irritation.
+
+"You don't understand why I say this," he continued, "but it is the
+whole story of life. You talk of Bonaparte and his career," said he
+(though Pierre had not mentioned Bonaparte), "but Bonaparte when he
+worked went step by step toward his goal. He was free, he had nothing
+but his aim to consider, and he reached it. But tie yourself up with a
+woman and, like a chained convict, you lose all freedom! And all you
+have of hope and strength merely weighs you down and torments you with
+regret. Drawing rooms, gossip, balls, vanity, and triviality—these are
+the enchanted circle I cannot escape from. I am now going to the war,
+the greatest war there ever was, and I know nothing and am fit for
+nothing. I am very amiable and have a caustic wit," continued Prince
+Andrew, "and at Anna Pávlovna's they listen to me. And that stupid set
+without whom my wife cannot exist, and those women.... If you only knew
+what those society women are, and women in general! My father is right.
+Selfish, vain, stupid, trivial in everything—that's what women are when
+you see them in their true colors! When you meet them in society it
+seems as if there were something in them, but there's nothing, nothing,
+nothing! No, don't marry, my dear fellow; don't marry!" concluded Prince
+Andrew.
+
+"It seems funny to me," said Pierre, "that you, you should consider
+yourself incapable and your life a spoiled life. You have everything
+before you, everything. And you...."
+
+He did not finish his sentence, but his tone showed how highly he
+thought of his friend and how much he expected of him in the future.
+
+"How can he talk like that?" thought Pierre. He considered his friend a
+model of perfection because Prince Andrew possessed in the highest
+degree just the very qualities Pierre lacked, and which might be best
+described as strength of will. Pierre was always astonished at Prince
+Andrew's calm manner of treating everybody, his extraordinary memory,
+his extensive reading (he had read everything, knew everything, and had
+an opinion about everything), but above all at his capacity for work and
+study. And if Pierre was often struck by Andrew's lack of capacity for
+philosophical meditation (to which he himself was particularly
+addicted), he regarded even this not as a defect but as a sign of
+strength.
+
+Even in the best, most friendly and simplest relations of life, praise
+and commendation are essential, just as grease is necessary to wheels
+that they may run smoothly.
+
+"My part is played out," said Prince Andrew. "What's the use of talking
+about me? Let us talk about you," he added after a silence, smiling at
+his reassuring thoughts.
+
+That smile was immediately reflected on Pierre's face.
+
+"But what is there to say about me?" said Pierre, his face relaxing into
+a careless, merry smile. "What am I? An illegitimate son!" He suddenly
+blushed crimson, and it was plain that he had made a great effort to say
+this. "Without a name and without means... And it really..." But he did
+not say what "it really" was. "For the present I am free and am all
+right. Only I haven't the least idea what I am to do; I wanted to
+consult you seriously."
+
+Prince Andrew looked kindly at him, yet his glance—friendly and
+affectionate as it was—expressed a sense of his own superiority.
+
+"I am fond of you, especially as you are the one live man among our
+whole set. Yes, you're all right! Choose what you will; it's all the
+same. You'll be all right anywhere. But look here: give up visiting
+those Kurágins and leading that sort of life. It suits you so badly—all
+this debauchery, dissipation, and the rest of it!"
+
+"What would you have, my dear fellow?" answered Pierre, shrugging his
+shoulders. "Women, my dear fellow; women!"
+
+"I don't understand it," replied Prince Andrew. "Women who are comme il
+faut, that's a different matter; but the Kurágins' set of women, 'women
+and wine' I don't understand!"
+
+Pierre was staying at Prince Vasíli Kurágin's and sharing the dissipated
+life of his son Anatole, the son whom they were planning to reform by
+marrying him to Prince Andrew's sister.
+
+"Do you know?" said Pierre, as if suddenly struck by a happy thought,
+"seriously, I have long been thinking of it.... Leading such a life I
+can't decide or think properly about anything. One's head aches, and one
+spends all one's money. He asked me for tonight, but I won't go."
+
+"You give me your word of honor not to go?"
+
+"On my honor!"
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+It was past one o'clock when Pierre left his friend. It was a cloudless,
+northern, summer night. Pierre took an open cab intending to drive
+straight home. But the nearer he drew to the house the more he felt the
+impossibility of going to sleep on such a night. It was light enough to
+see a long way in the deserted street and it seemed more like morning or
+evening than night. On the way Pierre remembered that Anatole Kurágin
+was expecting the usual set for cards that evening, after which there
+was generally a drinking bout, finishing with visits of a kind Pierre
+was very fond of.
+
+"I should like to go to Kurágin's," thought he.
+
+But he immediately recalled his promise to Prince Andrew not to go
+there. Then, as happens to people of weak character, he desired so
+passionately once more to enjoy that dissipation he was so accustomed to
+that he decided to go. The thought immediately occurred to him that his
+promise to Prince Andrew was of no account, because before he gave it he
+had already promised Prince Anatole to come to his gathering; "besides,"
+thought he, "all such 'words of honor' are conventional things with no
+definite meaning, especially if one considers that by tomorrow one may
+be dead, or something so extraordinary may happen to one that honor and
+dishonor will be all the same!" Pierre often indulged in reflections of
+this sort, nullifying all his decisions and intentions. He went to
+Kurágin's.
+
+Reaching the large house near the Horse Guards' barracks, in which
+Anatole lived, Pierre entered the lighted porch, ascended the stairs,
+and went in at the open door. There was no one in the anteroom; empty
+bottles, cloaks, and overshoes were lying about; there was a smell of
+alcohol, and sounds of voices and shouting in the distance.
+
+Cards and supper were over, but the visitors had not yet dispersed.
+Pierre threw off his cloak and entered the first room, in which were the
+remains of supper. A footman, thinking no one saw him, was drinking on
+the sly what was left in the glasses. From the third room came sounds of
+laughter, the shouting of familiar voices, the growling of a bear, and
+general commotion. Some eight or nine young men were crowding anxiously
+round an open window. Three others were romping with a young bear, one
+pulling him by the chain and trying to set him at the others.
+
+"I bet a hundred on Stevens!" shouted one.
+
+"Mind, no holding on!" cried another.
+
+"I bet on Dólokhov!" cried a third. "Kurágin, you part our hands."
+
+"There, leave Bruin alone; here's a bet on."
+
+"At one draught, or he loses!" shouted a fourth.
+
+"Jacob, bring a bottle!" shouted the host, a tall, handsome fellow who
+stood in the midst of the group, without a coat, and with his fine linen
+shirt unfastened in front. "Wait a bit, you fellows.... Here is Pétya!
+Good man!" cried he, addressing Pierre.
+
+Another voice, from a man of medium height with clear blue eyes,
+particularly striking among all these drunken voices by its sober ring,
+cried from the window: "Come here; part the bets!" This was Dólokhov, an
+officer of the Semënov regiment, a notorious gambler and duelist, who
+was living with Anatole. Pierre smiled, looking about him merrily.
+
+"I don't understand. What's it all about?"
+
+"Wait a bit, he is not drunk yet! A bottle here," said Anatole, taking a
+glass from the table he went up to Pierre.
+
+"First of all you must drink!"
+
+Pierre drank one glass after another, looking from under his brows at
+the tipsy guests who were again crowding round the window, and listening
+to their chatter. Anatole kept on refilling Pierre's glass while
+explaining that Dólokhov was betting with Stevens, an English naval
+officer, that he would drink a bottle of rum sitting on the outer ledge
+of the third floor window with his legs hanging out.
+
+"Go on, you must drink it all," said Anatole, giving Pierre the last
+glass, "or I won't let you go!"
+
+"No, I won't," said Pierre, pushing Anatole aside, and he went up to the
+window.
+
+Dólokhov was holding the Englishman's hand and clearly and distinctly
+repeating the terms of the bet, addressing himself particularly to
+Anatole and Pierre.
+
+Dólokhov was of medium height, with curly hair and light-blue eyes. He
+was about twenty-five. Like all infantry officers he wore no mustache,
+so that his mouth, the most striking feature of his face, was clearly
+seen. The lines of that mouth were remarkably finely curved. The middle
+of the upper lip formed a sharp wedge and closed firmly on the firm
+lower one, and something like two distinct smiles played continually
+round the two corners of the mouth; this, together with the resolute,
+insolent intelligence of his eyes, produced an effect which made it
+impossible not to notice his face. Dólokhov was a man of small means and
+no connections. Yet, though Anatole spent tens of thousands of rubles,
+Dólokhov lived with him and had placed himself on such a footing that
+all who knew them, including Anatole himself, respected him more than
+they did Anatole. Dólokhov could play all games and nearly always won.
+However much he drank, he never lost his clearheadedness. Both Kurágin
+and Dólokhov were at that time notorious among the rakes and scapegraces
+of Petersburg.
+
+The bottle of rum was brought. The window frame which prevented anyone
+from sitting on the outer sill was being forced out by two footmen, who
+were evidently flurried and intimidated by the directions and shouts of
+the gentlemen around.
+
+Anatole with his swaggering air strode up to the window. He wanted to
+smash something. Pushing away the footmen he tugged at the frame, but
+could not move it. He smashed a pane.
+
+"You have a try, Hercules," said he, turning to Pierre.
+
+Pierre seized the crossbeam, tugged, and wrenched the oak frame out with
+a crash.
+
+"Take it right out, or they'll think I'm holding on," said Dólokhov.
+
+"Is the Englishman bragging?... Eh? Is it all right?" said Anatole.
+
+"First-rate," said Pierre, looking at Dólokhov, who with a bottle of rum
+in his hand was approaching the window, from which the light of the sky,
+the dawn merging with the afterglow of sunset, was visible.
+
+Dólokhov, the bottle of rum still in his hand, jumped onto the window
+sill. "Listen!" cried he, standing there and addressing those in the
+room. All were silent.
+
+"I bet fifty imperials"—he spoke French that the Englishman might
+understand him, but he did not speak it very well—"I bet fifty imperials
+... or do you wish to make it a hundred?" added he, addressing the
+Englishman.
+
+"No, fifty," replied the latter.
+
+"All right. Fifty imperials ... that I will drink a whole bottle of rum
+without taking it from my mouth, sitting outside the window on this
+spot" (he stooped and pointed to the sloping ledge outside the window)
+"and without holding on to anything. Is that right?"
+
+"Quite right," said the Englishman.
+
+Anatole turned to the Englishman and taking him by one of the buttons of
+his coat and looking down at him—the Englishman was short—began
+repeating the terms of the wager to him in English.
+
+"Wait!" cried Dólokhov, hammering with the bottle on the window sill to
+attract attention. "Wait a bit, Kurágin. Listen! If anyone else does the
+same, I will pay him a hundred imperials. Do you understand?"
+
+The Englishman nodded, but gave no indication whether he intended to
+accept this challenge or not. Anatole did not release him, and though he
+kept nodding to show that he understood, Anatole went on translating
+Dólokhov's words into English. A thin young lad, an hussar of the Life
+Guards, who had been losing that evening, climbed on the window sill,
+leaned over, and looked down.
+
+"Oh! Oh! Oh!" he muttered, looking down from the window at the stones of
+the pavement.
+
+"Shut up!" cried Dólokhov, pushing him away from the window. The lad
+jumped awkwardly back into the room, tripping over his spurs.
+
+Placing the bottle on the window sill where he could reach it easily,
+Dólokhov climbed carefully and slowly through the window and lowered his
+legs. Pressing against both sides of the window, he adjusted himself on
+his seat, lowered his hands, moved a little to the right and then to the
+left, and took up the bottle. Anatole brought two candles and placed
+them on the window sill, though it was already quite light. Dólokhov's
+back in his white shirt, and his curly head, were lit up from both
+sides. Everyone crowded to the window, the Englishman in front. Pierre
+stood smiling but silent. One man, older than the others present,
+suddenly pushed forward with a scared and angry look and wanted to seize
+hold of Dólokhov's shirt.
+
+"I say, this is folly! He'll be killed," said this more sensible man.
+
+Anatole stopped him.
+
+"Don't touch him! You'll startle him and then he'll be killed. Eh?...
+What then?... Eh?"
+
+Dólokhov turned round and, again holding on with both hands, arranged
+himself on his seat.
+
+"If anyone comes meddling again," said he, emitting the words separately
+through his thin compressed lips, "I will throw him down there. Now
+then!"
+
+Saying this he again turned round, dropped his hands, took the bottle
+and lifted it to his lips, threw back his head, and raised his free hand
+to balance himself. One of the footmen who had stooped to pick up some
+broken glass remained in that position without taking his eyes from the
+window and from Dólokhov's back. Anatole stood erect with staring eyes.
+The Englishman looked on sideways, pursing up his lips. The man who had
+wished to stop the affair ran to a corner of the room and threw himself
+on a sofa with his face to the wall. Pierre hid his face, from which a
+faint smile forgot to fade though his features now expressed horror and
+fear. All were still. Pierre took his hands from his eyes. Dólokhov
+still sat in the same position, only his head was thrown further back
+till his curly hair touched his shirt collar, and the hand holding the
+bottle was lifted higher and higher and trembled with the effort. The
+bottle was emptying perceptibly and rising still higher and his head
+tilting yet further back. "Why is it so long?" thought Pierre. It seemed
+to him that more than half an hour had elapsed. Suddenly Dólokhov made a
+backward movement with his spine, and his arm trembled nervously; this
+was sufficient to cause his whole body to slip as he sat on the sloping
+ledge. As he began slipping down, his head and arm wavered still more
+with the strain. One hand moved as if to clutch the window sill, but
+refrained from touching it. Pierre again covered his eyes and thought he
+would never open them again. Suddenly he was aware of a stir all around.
+He looked up: Dólokhov was standing on the window sill, with a pale but
+radiant face.
+
+"It's empty."
+
+He threw the bottle to the Englishman, who caught it neatly. Dólokhov
+jumped down. He smelt strongly of rum.
+
+"Well done!... Fine fellow!... There's a bet for you!... Devil take
+you!" came from different sides.
+
+The Englishman took out his purse and began counting out the money.
+Dólokhov stood frowning and did not speak. Pierre jumped upon the window
+sill.
+
+"Gentlemen, who wishes to bet with me? I'll do the same thing!" he
+suddenly cried. "Even without a bet, there! Tell them to bring me a
+bottle. I'll do it.... Bring a bottle!"
+
+"Let him do it, let him do it," said Dólokhov, smiling.
+
+"What next? Have you gone mad?... No one would let you!... Why, you go
+giddy even on a staircase," exclaimed several voices.
+
+"I'll drink it! Let's have a bottle of rum!" shouted Pierre, banging the
+table with a determined and drunken gesture and preparing to climb out
+of the window.
+
+They seized him by his arms; but he was so strong that everyone who
+touched him was sent flying.
+
+"No, you'll never manage him that way," said Anatole. "Wait a bit and
+I'll get round him.... Listen! I'll take your bet tomorrow, but now we
+are all going to ——'s."
+
+"Come on then," cried Pierre. "Come on!... And we'll take Bruin with
+us."
+
+And he caught the bear, took it in his arms, lifted it from the ground,
+and began dancing round the room with it.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+Prince Vasíli kept the promise he had given to Princess Drubetskáya who
+had spoken to him on behalf of her only son Borís on the evening of Anna
+Pávlovna's soiree. The matter was mentioned to the Emperor, an exception
+made, and Borís transferred into the regiment of Semënov Guards with the
+rank of cornet. He received, however, no appointment to Kutúzov's staff
+despite all Anna Mikháylovna's endeavors and entreaties. Soon after Anna
+Pávlovna's reception Anna Mikháylovna returned to Moscow and went
+straight to her rich relations, the Rostóvs, with whom she stayed when
+in the town and where her darling Bóry, who had only just entered a
+regiment of the line and was being at once transferred to the Guards as
+a cornet, had been educated from childhood and lived for years at a
+time. The Guards had already left Petersburg on the tenth of August, and
+her son, who had remained in Moscow for his equipment, was to join them
+on the march to Radzivílov.
+
+It was St. Natalia's day and the name day of two of the Rostóvs—the
+mother and the youngest daughter—both named Nataly. Ever since the
+morning, carriages with six horses had been coming and going
+continually, bringing visitors to the Countess Rostóva's big house on
+the Povarskáya, so well known to all Moscow. The countess herself and
+her handsome eldest daughter were in the drawing room with the visitors
+who came to congratulate, and who constantly succeeded one another in
+relays.
+
+The countess was a woman of about forty-five, with a thin Oriental type
+of face, evidently worn out with childbearing—she had had twelve. A
+languor of motion and speech, resulting from weakness, gave her a
+distinguished air which inspired respect. Princess Anna Mikháylovna
+Drubetskáya, who as a member of the household was also seated in the
+drawing room, helped to receive and entertain the visitors. The young
+people were in one of the inner rooms, not considering it necessary to
+take part in receiving the visitors. The count met the guests and saw
+them off, inviting them all to dinner.
+
+"I am very, very grateful to you, mon cher," or "ma chère"—he called
+everyone without exception and without the slightest variation in his
+tone, "my dear," whether they were above or below him in rank—"I thank
+you for myself and for our two dear ones whose name day we are keeping.
+But mind you come to dinner or I shall be offended, ma chère! On behalf
+of the whole family I beg you to come, mon cher!" These words he
+repeated to everyone without exception or variation, and with the same
+expression on his full, cheerful, clean-shaven face, the same firm
+pressure of the hand and the same quick, repeated bows. As soon as he
+had seen a visitor off he returned to one of those who were still in the
+drawing room, drew a chair toward him or her, and jauntily spreading out
+his legs and putting his hands on his knees with the air of a man who
+enjoys life and knows how to live, he swayed to and fro with dignity,
+offered surmises about the weather, or touched on questions of health,
+sometimes in Russian and sometimes in very bad but self-confident
+French; then again, like a man weary but unflinching in the fulfillment
+of duty, he rose to see some visitors off and, stroking his scanty gray
+hairs over his bald patch, also asked them to dinner. Sometimes on his
+way back from the anteroom he would pass through the conservatory and
+pantry into the large marble dining hall, where tables were being set
+out for eighty people; and looking at the footmen, who were bringing in
+silver and china, moving tables, and unfolding damask table linen, he
+would call Dmítri Vasílevich, a man of good family and the manager of
+all his affairs, and while looking with pleasure at the enormous table
+would say: "Well, Dmítri, you'll see that things are all as they should
+be? That's right! The great thing is the serving, that's it." And with a
+complacent sigh he would return to the drawing room.
+
+"Márya Lvóvna Karágina and her daughter!" announced the countess'
+gigantic footman in his bass voice, entering the drawing room. The
+countess reflected a moment and took a pinch from a gold snuffbox with
+her husband's portrait on it.
+
+"I'm quite worn out by these callers. However, I'll see her and no more.
+She is so affected. Ask her in," she said to the footman in a sad voice,
+as if saying: "Very well, finish me off."
+
+A tall, stout, and proud-looking woman, with a round-faced smiling
+daughter, entered the drawing room, their dresses rustling.
+
+"Dear Countess, what an age... She has been laid up, poor child ... at
+the Razumóvski's ball ... and Countess Apráksina ... I was so
+delighted..." came the sounds of animated feminine voices, interrupting
+one another and mingling with the rustling of dresses and the scraping
+of chairs. Then one of those conversations began which last out until,
+at the first pause, the guests rise with a rustle of dresses and say, "I
+am so delighted... Mamma's health... and Countess Apráksina..." and
+then, again rustling, pass into the anteroom, put on cloaks or mantles,
+and drive away. The conversation was on the chief topic of the day: the
+illness of the wealthy and celebrated beau of Catherine's day, Count
+Bezúkhov, and about his illegitimate son Pierre, the one who had behaved
+so improperly at Anna Pávlovna's reception.
+
+"I am so sorry for the poor count," said the visitor. "He is in such bad
+health, and now this vexation about his son is enough to kill him!"
+
+"What is that?" asked the countess as if she did not know what the
+visitor alluded to, though she had already heard about the cause of
+Count Bezúkhov's distress some fifteen times.
+
+"That's what comes of a modern education," exclaimed the visitor. "It
+seems that while he was abroad this young man was allowed to do as he
+liked, now in Petersburg I hear he has been doing such terrible things
+that he has been expelled by the police."
+
+"You don't say so!" replied the countess.
+
+"He chose his friends badly," interposed Anna Mikháylovna. "Prince
+Vasíli's son, he, and a certain Dólokhov have, it is said, been up to
+heaven only knows what! And they have had to suffer for it. Dólokhov has
+been degraded to the ranks and Bezúkhov's son sent back to Moscow.
+Anatole Kurágin's father managed somehow to get his son's affair hushed
+up, but even he was ordered out of Petersburg."
+
+"But what have they been up to?" asked the countess.
+
+"They are regular brigands, especially Dólokhov," replied the visitor.
+"He is a son of Márya Ivánovna Dólokhova, such a worthy woman, but
+there, just fancy! Those three got hold of a bear somewhere, put it in a
+carriage, and set off with it to visit some actresses! The police tried
+to interfere, and what did the young men do? They tied a policeman and
+the bear back to back and put the bear into the Moyka Canal. And there
+was the bear swimming about with the policeman on his back!"
+
+"What a nice figure the policeman must have cut, my dear!" shouted the
+count, dying with laughter.
+
+"Oh, how dreadful! How can you laugh at it, Count?"
+
+Yet the ladies themselves could not help laughing.
+
+"It was all they could do to rescue the poor man," continued the
+visitor. "And to think it is Cyril Vladímirovich Bezúkhov's son who
+amuses himself in this sensible manner! And he was said to be so well
+educated and clever. This is all that his foreign education has done for
+him! I hope that here in Moscow no one will receive him, in spite of his
+money. They wanted to introduce him to me, but I quite declined: I have
+my daughters to consider."
+
+"Why do you say this young man is so rich?" asked the countess, turning
+away from the girls, who at once assumed an air of inattention. "His
+children are all illegitimate. I think Pierre also is illegitimate."
+
+The visitor made a gesture with her hand.
+
+"I should think he has a score of them."
+
+Princess Anna Mikháylovna intervened in the conversation, evidently
+wishing to show her connections and knowledge of what went on in
+society.
+
+"The fact of the matter is," said she significantly, and also in a half
+whisper, "everyone knows Count Cyril's reputation.... He has lost count
+of his children, but this Pierre was his favorite."
+
+"How handsome the old man still was only a year ago!" remarked the
+countess. "I have never seen a handsomer man."
+
+"He is very much altered now," said Anna Mikháylovna. "Well, as I was
+saying, Prince Vasíli is the next heir through his wife, but the count
+is very fond of Pierre, looked after his education, and wrote to the
+Emperor about him; so that in the case of his death—and he is so ill
+that he may die at any moment, and Dr. Lorrain has come from
+Petersburg—no one knows who will inherit his immense fortune, Pierre or
+Prince Vasíli. Forty thousand serfs and millions of rubles! I know it
+all very well for Prince Vasíli told me himself. Besides, Cyril
+Vladímirovich is my mother's second cousin. He's also my Bóry's
+godfather," she added, as if she attached no importance at all to the
+fact.
+
+"Prince Vasíli arrived in Moscow yesterday. I hear he has come on some
+inspection business," remarked the visitor.
+
+"Yes, but between ourselves," said the princess, "that is a pretext. The
+fact is he has come to see Count Cyril Vladímirovich, hearing how ill he
+is."
+
+"But do you know, my dear, that was a capital joke," said the count; and
+seeing that the elder visitor was not listening, he turned to the young
+ladies. "I can just imagine what a funny figure that policeman cut!"
+
+And as he waved his arms to impersonate the policeman, his portly form
+again shook with a deep ringing laugh, the laugh of one who always eats
+well and, in particular, drinks well. "So do come and dine with us!" he
+said.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+Silence ensued. The countess looked at her callers, smiling affably, but
+not concealing the fact that she would not be distressed if they now
+rose and took their leave. The visitor's daughter was already smoothing
+down her dress with an inquiring look at her mother, when suddenly from
+the next room were heard the footsteps of boys and girls running to the
+door and the noise of a chair falling over, and a girl of thirteen,
+hiding something in the folds of her short muslin frock, darted in and
+stopped short in the middle of the room. It was evident that she had not
+intended her flight to bring her so far. Behind her in the doorway
+appeared a student with a crimson coat collar, an officer of the Guards,
+a girl of fifteen, and a plump rosy-faced boy in a short jacket.
+
+The count jumped up and, swaying from side to side, spread his arms wide
+and threw them round the little girl who had run in.
+
+"Ah, here she is!" he exclaimed laughing. "My pet, whose name day it is.
+My dear pet!"
+
+"Ma chère, there is a time for everything," said the countess with
+feigned severity. "You spoil her, Ilyá," she added, turning to her
+husband.
+
+"How do you do, my dear? I wish you many happy returns of your name
+day," said the visitor. "What a charming child," she added, addressing
+the mother.
+
+This black-eyed, wide-mouthed girl, not pretty but full of life—with
+childish bare shoulders which after her run heaved and shook her bodice,
+with black curls tossed backward, thin bare arms, little legs in lace-
+frilled drawers, and feet in low slippers—was just at that charming age
+when a girl is no longer a child, though the child is not yet a young
+woman. Escaping from her father she ran to hide her flushed face in the
+lace of her mother's mantilla—not paying the least attention to her
+severe remark—and began to laugh. She laughed, and in fragmentary
+sentences tried to explain about a doll which she produced from the
+folds of her frock.
+
+"Do you see?... My doll... Mimi... You see..." was all Natásha managed
+to utter (to her everything seemed funny). She leaned against her mother
+and burst into such a loud, ringing fit of laughter that even the prim
+visitor could not help joining in.
+
+"Now then, go away and take your monstrosity with you," said the mother,
+pushing away her daughter with pretended sternness, and turning to the
+visitor she added: "She is my youngest girl."
+
+Natásha, raising her face for a moment from her mother's mantilla,
+glanced up at her through tears of laughter, and again hid her face.
+
+The visitor, compelled to look on at this family scene, thought it
+necessary to take some part in it.
+
+"Tell me, my dear," said she to Natásha, "is Mimi a relation of yours? A
+daughter, I suppose?"
+
+Natásha did not like the visitor's tone of condescension to childish
+things. She did not reply, but looked at her seriously.
+
+Meanwhile the younger generation: Borís, the officer, Anna Mikháylovna's
+son; Nicholas, the undergraduate, the count's eldest son; Sónya, the
+count's fifteen-year-old niece, and little Pétya, his youngest boy, had
+all settled down in the drawing room and were obviously trying to
+restrain within the bounds of decorum the excitement and mirth that
+shone in all their faces. Evidently in the back rooms, from which they
+had dashed out so impetuously, the conversation had been more amusing
+than the drawing room talk of society scandals, the weather, and
+Countess Apráksina. Now and then they glanced at one another, hardly
+able to suppress their laughter.
+
+The two young men, the student and the officer, friends from childhood,
+were of the same age and both handsome fellows, though not alike. Borís
+was tall and fair, and his calm and handsome face had regular, delicate
+features. Nicholas was short with curly hair and an open expression.
+Dark hairs were already showing on his upper lip, and his whole face
+expressed impetuosity and enthusiasm. Nicholas blushed when he entered
+the drawing room. He evidently tried to find something to say, but
+failed. Borís on the contrary at once found his footing, and related
+quietly and humorously how he had known that doll Mimi when she was
+still quite a young lady, before her nose was broken; how she had aged
+during the five years he had known her, and how her head had cracked
+right across the skull. Having said this he glanced at Natásha. She
+turned away from him and glanced at her younger brother, who was
+screwing up his eyes and shaking with suppressed laughter, and unable to
+control herself any longer, she jumped up and rushed from the room as
+fast as her nimble little feet would carry her. Borís did not laugh.
+
+"You were meaning to go out, weren't you, Mamma? Do you want the
+carriage?" he asked his mother with a smile.
+
+"Yes, yes, go and tell them to get it ready," she answered, returning
+his smile.
+
+Borís quietly left the room and went in search of Natásha. The plump boy
+ran after them angrily, as if vexed that their program had been
+disturbed.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+The only young people remaining in the drawing room, not counting the
+young lady visitor and the countess' eldest daughter (who was four years
+older than her sister and behaved already like a grown-up person), were
+Nicholas and Sónya, the niece. Sónya was a slender little brunette with
+a tender look in her eyes which were veiled by long lashes, thick black
+plaits coiling twice round her head, and a tawny tint in her complexion
+and especially in the color of her slender but graceful and muscular
+arms and neck. By the grace of her movements, by the softness and
+flexibility of her small limbs, and by a certain coyness and reserve of
+manner, she reminded one of a pretty, half-grown kitten which promises
+to become a beautiful little cat. She evidently considered it proper to
+show an interest in the general conversation by smiling, but in spite of
+herself her eyes under their thick long lashes watched her cousin who
+was going to join the army, with such passionate girlish adoration that
+her smile could not for a single instant impose upon anyone, and it was
+clear that the kitten had settled down only to spring up with more
+energy and again play with her cousin as soon as they too could, like
+Natásha and Borís, escape from the drawing room.
+
+"Ah yes, my dear," said the count, addressing the visitor and pointing
+to Nicholas, "his friend Borís has become an officer, and so for
+friendship's sake he is leaving the university and me, his old father,
+and entering the military service, my dear. And there was a place and
+everything waiting for him in the Archives Department! Isn't that
+friendship?" remarked the count in an inquiring tone.
+
+"But they say that war has been declared," replied the visitor.
+
+"They've been saying so a long while," said the count, "and they'll say
+so again and again, and that will be the end of it. My dear, there's
+friendship for you," he repeated. "He's joining the hussars."
+
+The visitor, not knowing what to say, shook her head.
+
+"It's not at all from friendship," declared Nicholas, flaring up and
+turning away as if from a shameful aspersion. "It is not from friendship
+at all; I simply feel that the army is my vocation."
+
+He glanced at his cousin and the young lady visitor; and they were both
+regarding him with a smile of approbation.
+
+"Schubert, the colonel of the Pávlograd Hussars, is dining with us
+today. He has been here on leave and is taking Nicholas back with him.
+It can't be helped!" said the count, shrugging his shoulders and
+speaking playfully of a matter that evidently distressed him.
+
+"I have already told you, Papa," said his son, "that if you don't wish
+to let me go, I'll stay. But I know I am no use anywhere except in the
+army; I am not a diplomat or a government clerk.—I don't know how to
+hide what I feel." As he spoke he kept glancing with the flirtatiousness
+of a handsome youth at Sónya and the young lady visitor.
+
+The little kitten, feasting her eyes on him, seemed ready at any moment
+to start her gambols again and display her kittenish nature.
+
+"All right, all right!" said the old count. "He always flares up! This
+Buonaparte has turned all their heads; they all think of how he rose
+from an ensign and became Emperor. Well, well, God grant it," he added,
+not noticing his visitor's sarcastic smile.
+
+The elders began talking about Bonaparte. Julie Karágina turned to young
+Rostóv.
+
+"What a pity you weren't at the Arkhárovs' on Thursday. It was so dull
+without you," said she, giving him a tender smile.
+
+The young man, flattered, sat down nearer to her with a coquettish
+smile, and engaged the smiling Julie in a confidential conversation
+without at all noticing that his involuntary smile had stabbed the heart
+of Sónya, who blushed and smiled unnaturally. In the midst of his talk
+he glanced round at her. She gave him a passionately angry glance, and
+hardly able to restrain her tears and maintain the artificial smile on
+her lips, she got up and left the room. All Nicholas' animation
+vanished. He waited for the first pause in the conversation, and then
+with a distressed face left the room to find Sónya.
+
+"How plainly all these young people wear their hearts on their sleeves!"
+said Anna Mikháylovna, pointing to Nicholas as he went out.
+"Cousinage—dangereux voisinage;" * she added.
+
+* Cousinhood is a dangerous neighborhood.
+
+"Yes," said the countess when the brightness these young people had
+brought into the room had vanished; and as if answering a question no
+one had put but which was always in her mind, "and how much suffering,
+how much anxiety one has had to go through that we might rejoice in them
+now! And yet really the anxiety is greater now than the joy. One is
+always, always anxious! Especially just at this age, so dangerous both
+for girls and boys."
+
+"It all depends on the bringing up," remarked the visitor.
+
+"Yes, you're quite right," continued the countess. "Till now I have
+always, thank God, been my children's friend and had their full
+confidence," said she, repeating the mistake of so many parents who
+imagine that their children have no secrets from them. "I know I shall
+always be my daughters' first confidante, and that if Nicholas, with his
+impulsive nature, does get into mischief (a boy can't help it), he will
+all the same never be like those Petersburg young men."
+
+"Yes, they are splendid, splendid youngsters," chimed in the count, who
+always solved questions that seemed to him perplexing by deciding that
+everything was splendid. "Just fancy: wants to be an hussar. What's one
+to do, my dear?"
+
+"What a charming creature your younger girl is," said the visitor; "a
+little volcano!"
+
+"Yes, a regular volcano," said the count. "Takes after me! And what a
+voice she has; though she's my daughter, I tell the truth when I say
+she'll be a singer, a second Salomoni! We have engaged an Italian to
+give her lessons."
+
+"Isn't she too young? I have heard that it harms the voice to train it
+at that age."
+
+"Oh no, not at all too young!" replied the count. "Why, our mothers used
+to be married at twelve or thirteen."
+
+"And she's in love with Borís already. Just fancy!" said the countess
+with a gentle smile, looking at Borís and went on, evidently concerned
+with a thought that always occupied her: "Now you see if I were to be
+severe with her and to forbid it ... goodness knows what they might be
+up to on the sly" (she meant that they would be kissing), "but as it is,
+I know every word she utters. She will come running to me of her own
+accord in the evening and tell me everything. Perhaps I spoil her, but
+really that seems the best plan. With her elder sister I was stricter."
+
+"Yes, I was brought up quite differently," remarked the handsome elder
+daughter, Countess Véra, with a smile.
+
+But the smile did not enhance Véra's beauty as smiles generally do; on
+the contrary it gave her an unnatural, and therefore unpleasant,
+expression. Véra was good-looking, not at all stupid, quick at learning,
+was well-brought up, and had a pleasant voice; what she said was true
+and appropriate, yet, strange to say, everyone—the visitors and countess
+alike—turned to look at her as if wondering why she had said it, and
+they all felt awkward.
+
+"People are always too clever with their eldest children and try to make
+something exceptional of them," said the visitor.
+
+"What's the good of denying it, my dear? Our dear countess was too
+clever with Véra," said the count. "Well, what of that? She's turned out
+splendidly all the same," he added, winking at Véra.
+
+The guests got up and took their leave, promising to return to dinner.
+
+"What manners! I thought they would never go," said the countess, when
+she had seen her guests out.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+When Natásha ran out of the drawing room she only went as far as the
+conservatory. There she paused and stood listening to the conversation
+in the drawing room, waiting for Borís to come out. She was already
+growing impatient, and stamped her foot, ready to cry at his not coming
+at once, when she heard the young man's discreet steps approaching
+neither quickly nor slowly. At this Natásha dashed swiftly among the
+flower tubs and hid there.
+
+Borís paused in the middle of the room, looked round, brushed a little
+dust from the sleeve of his uniform, and going up to a mirror examined
+his handsome face. Natásha, very still, peered out from her ambush,
+waiting to see what he would do. He stood a little while before the
+glass, smiled, and walked toward the other door. Natásha was about to
+call him but changed her mind. "Let him look for me," thought she.
+Hardly had Borís gone than Sónya, flushed, in tears, and muttering
+angrily, came in at the other door. Natásha checked her first impulse to
+run out to her, and remained in her hiding place, watching—as under an
+invisible cap—to see what went on in the world. She was experiencing a
+new and peculiar pleasure. Sónya, muttering to herself, kept looking
+round toward the drawing room door. It opened and Nicholas came in.
+
+"Sónya, what is the matter with you? How can you?" said he, running up
+to her.
+
+"It's nothing, nothing; leave me alone!" sobbed Sónya.
+
+"Ah, I know what it is."
+
+"Well, if you do, so much the better, and you can go back to her!"
+
+"Só-o-onya! Look here! How can you torture me and yourself like that,
+for a mere fancy?" said Nicholas taking her hand.
+
+Sónya did not pull it away, and left off crying. Natásha, not stirring
+and scarcely breathing, watched from her ambush with sparkling eyes.
+"What will happen now?" thought she.
+
+"Sónya! What is anyone in the world to me? You alone are everything!"
+said Nicholas. "And I will prove it to you."
+
+"I don't like you to talk like that."
+
+"Well, then, I won't; only forgive me, Sónya!" He drew her to him and
+kissed her.
+
+"Oh, how nice," thought Natásha; and when Sónya and Nicholas had gone
+out of the conservatory she followed and called Borís to her.
+
+"Borís, come here," said she with a sly and significant look. "I have
+something to tell you. Here, here!" and she led him into the
+conservatory to the place among the tubs where she had been hiding.
+
+Borís followed her, smiling.
+
+"What is the something?" asked he.
+
+She grew confused, glanced round, and, seeing the doll she had thrown
+down on one of the tubs, picked it up.
+
+"Kiss the doll," said she.
+
+Borís looked attentively and kindly at her eager face, but did not
+reply.
+
+"Don't you want to? Well, then, come here," said she, and went further
+in among the plants and threw down the doll. "Closer, closer!" she
+whispered.
+
+She caught the young officer by his cuffs, and a look of solemnity and
+fear appeared on her flushed face.
+
+"And me? Would you like to kiss me?" she whispered almost inaudibly,
+glancing up at him from under her brows, smiling, and almost crying from
+excitement.
+
+Borís blushed.
+
+"How funny you are!" he said, bending down to her and blushing still
+more, but he waited and did nothing.
+
+Suddenly she jumped up onto a tub to be higher than he, embraced him so
+that both her slender bare arms clasped him above his neck, and, tossing
+back her hair, kissed him full on the lips.
+
+Then she slipped down among the flowerpots on the other side of the tubs
+and stood, hanging her head.
+
+"Natásha," he said, "you know that I love you, but...."
+
+"You are in love with me?" Natásha broke in.
+
+"Yes, I am, but please don't let us do like that.... In another four
+years ... then I will ask for your hand."
+
+Natásha considered.
+
+"Thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen," she counted on her slender
+little fingers. "All right! Then it's settled?"
+
+A smile of joy and satisfaction lit up her eager face.
+
+"Settled!" replied Borís.
+
+"Forever?" said the little girl. "Till death itself?"
+
+She took his arm and with a happy face went with him into the adjoining
+sitting room.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+After receiving her visitors, the countess was so tired that she gave
+orders to admit no more, but the porter was told to be sure to invite to
+dinner all who came "to congratulate." The countess wished to have a
+tête-à-tête talk with the friend of her childhood, Princess Anna
+Mikháylovna, whom she had not seen properly since she returned from
+Petersburg. Anna Mikháylovna, with her tear-worn but pleasant face, drew
+her chair nearer to that of the countess.
+
+"With you I will be quite frank," said Anna Mikháylovna. "There are not
+many left of us old friends! That's why I so value your friendship."
+
+Anna Mikháylovna looked at Véra and paused. The countess pressed her
+friend's hand.
+
+"Véra," she said to her eldest daughter who was evidently not a
+favorite, "how is it you have so little tact? Don't you see you are not
+wanted here? Go to the other girls, or..."
+
+The handsome Véra smiled contemptuously but did not seem at all hurt.
+
+"If you had told me sooner, Mamma, I would have gone," she replied as
+she rose to go to her own room.
+
+But as she passed the sitting room she noticed two couples sitting, one
+pair at each window. She stopped and smiled scornfully. Sónya was
+sitting close to Nicholas who was copying out some verses for her, the
+first he had ever written. Borís and Natásha were at the other window
+and ceased talking when Véra entered. Sónya and Natásha looked at Véra
+with guilty, happy faces.
+
+It was pleasant and touching to see these little girls in love; but
+apparently the sight of them roused no pleasant feeling in Véra.
+
+"How often have I asked you not to take my things?" she said. "You have
+a room of your own," and she took the inkstand from Nicholas.
+
+"In a minute, in a minute," he said, dipping his pen.
+
+"You always manage to do things at the wrong time," continued Véra. "You
+came rushing into the drawing room so that everyone felt ashamed of
+you."
+
+Though what she said was quite just, perhaps for that very reason no one
+replied, and the four simply looked at one another. She lingered in the
+room with the inkstand in her hand.
+
+"And at your age what secrets can there be between Natásha and Borís, or
+between you two? It's all nonsense!"
+
+"Now, Véra, what does it matter to you?" said Natásha in defense,
+speaking very gently.
+
+She seemed that day to be more than ever kind and affectionate to
+everyone.
+
+"Very silly," said Véra. "I am ashamed of you. Secrets indeed!"
+
+"All have secrets of their own," answered Natásha, getting warmer. "We
+don't interfere with you and Berg."
+
+"I should think not," said Véra, "because there can never be anything
+wrong in my behavior. But I'll just tell Mamma how you are behaving with
+Borís."
+
+"Natálya Ilyníchna behaves very well to me," remarked Borís. "I have
+nothing to complain of."
+
+"Don't, Borís! You are such a diplomat that it is really tiresome," said
+Natásha in a mortified voice that trembled slightly. (She used the word
+"diplomat," which was just then much in vogue among the children, in the
+special sense they attached to it.) "Why does she bother me?" And she
+added, turning to Véra, "You'll never understand it, because you've
+never loved anyone. You have no heart! You are a Madame de Genlis and
+nothing more" (this nickname, bestowed on Véra by Nicholas, was
+considered very stinging), "and your greatest pleasure is to be
+unpleasant to people! Go and flirt with Berg as much as you please," she
+finished quickly.
+
+"I shall at any rate not run after a young man before visitors..."
+
+"Well, now you've done what you wanted," put in Nicholas—"said
+unpleasant things to everyone and upset them. Let's go to the nursery."
+
+All four, like a flock of scared birds, got up and left the room.
+
+"The unpleasant things were said to me," remarked Véra, "I said none to
+anyone."
+
+"Madame de Genlis! Madame de Genlis!" shouted laughing voices through
+the door.
+
+The handsome Véra, who produced such an irritating and unpleasant effect
+on everyone, smiled and, evidently unmoved by what had been said to her,
+went to the looking glass and arranged her hair and scarf. Looking at
+her own handsome face she seemed to become still colder and calmer.
+
+In the drawing room the conversation was still going on.
+
+"Ah, my dear," said the countess, "my life is not all roses either.
+Don't I know that at the rate we are living our means won't last long?
+It's all the Club and his easygoing nature. Even in the country do we
+get any rest? Theatricals, hunting, and heaven knows what besides! But
+don't let's talk about me; tell me how you managed everything. I often
+wonder at you, Annette—how at your age you can rush off alone in a
+carriage to Moscow, to Petersburg, to those ministers and great people,
+and know how to deal with them all! It's quite astonishing. How did you
+get things settled? I couldn't possibly do it."
+
+"Ah, my love," answered Anna Mikháylovna, "God grant you never know what
+it is to be left a widow without means and with a son you love to
+distraction! One learns many things then," she added with a certain
+pride. "That lawsuit taught me much. When I want to see one of those big
+people I write a note: 'Princess So-and-So desires an interview with So
+and-So,' and then I take a cab and go myself two, three, or four
+times—till I get what I want. I don't mind what they think of me."
+
+"Well, and to whom did you apply about Bóry?" asked the countess. "You
+see yours is already an officer in the Guards, while my Nicholas is
+going as a cadet. There's no one to interest himself for him. To whom
+did you apply?"
+
+"To Prince Vasíli. He was so kind. He at once agreed to everything, and
+put the matter before the Emperor," said Princess Anna Mikháylovna
+enthusiastically, quite forgetting all the humiliation she had endured
+to gain her end.
+
+"Has Prince Vasíli aged much?" asked the countess. "I have not seen him
+since we acted together at the Rumyántsovs' theatricals. I expect he has
+forgotten me. He paid me attentions in those days," said the countess,
+with a smile.
+
+"He is just the same as ever," replied Anna Mikháylovna, "overflowing
+with amiability. His position has not turned his head at all. He said to
+me, 'I am sorry I can do so little for you, dear Princess. I am at your
+command.' Yes, he is a fine fellow and a very kind relation. But,
+Nataly, you know my love for my son: I would do anything for his
+happiness! And my affairs are in such a bad way that my position is now
+a terrible one," continued Anna Mikháylovna, sadly, dropping her voice.
+"My wretched lawsuit takes all I have and makes no progress. Would you
+believe it, I have literally not a penny and don't know how to equip
+Borís." She took out her handkerchief and began to cry. "I need five
+hundred rubles, and have only one twenty-five-ruble note. I am in such a
+state.... My only hope now is in Count Cyril Vladímirovich Bezúkhov. If
+he will not assist his godson—you know he is Bóry's godfather—and allow
+him something for his maintenance, all my trouble will have been thrown
+away.... I shall not be able to equip him."
+
+The countess' eyes filled with tears and she pondered in silence.
+
+"I often think, though, perhaps it's a sin," said the princess, "that
+here lives Count Cyril Vladímirovich Bezúkhov so rich, all alone... that
+tremendous fortune... and what is his life worth? It's a burden to him,
+and Bóry's life is only just beginning...."
+
+"Surely he will leave something to Borís," said the countess.
+
+"Heaven only knows, my dear! These rich grandees are so selfish. Still,
+I will take Borís and go to see him at once, and I shall speak to him
+straight out. Let people think what they will of me, it's really all the
+same to me when my son's fate is at stake." The princess rose. "It's now
+two o'clock and you dine at four. There will just be time."
+
+And like a practical Petersburg lady who knows how to make the most of
+time, Anna Mikháylovna sent someone to call her son, and went into the
+anteroom with him.
+
+"Good-bye, my dear," said she to the countess who saw her to the door,
+and added in a whisper so that her son should not hear, "Wish me good
+luck."
+
+"Are you going to Count Cyril Vladímirovich, my dear?" said the count
+coming out from the dining hall into the anteroom, and he added: "If he
+is better, ask Pierre to dine with us. He has been to the house, you
+know, and danced with the children. Be sure to invite him, my dear. We
+will see how Tarás distinguishes himself today. He says Count Orlóv
+never gave such a dinner as ours will be!"
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+"My dear Borís," said Princess Anna Mikháylovna to her son as Countess
+Rostóva's carriage in which they were seated drove over the straw
+covered street and turned into the wide courtyard of Count Cyril
+Vladímirovich Bezúkhov's house. "My dear Borís," said the mother,
+drawing her hand from beneath her old mantle and laying it timidly and
+tenderly on her son's arm, "be affectionate and attentive to him. Count
+Cyril Vladímirovich is your godfather after all, your future depends on
+him. Remember that, my dear, and be nice to him, as you so well know how
+to be."
+
+"If only I knew that anything besides humiliation would come of it..."
+answered her son coldly. "But I have promised and will do it for your
+sake."
+
+Although the hall porter saw someone's carriage standing at the
+entrance, after scrutinizing the mother and son (who without asking to
+be announced had passed straight through the glass porch between the
+rows of statues in niches) and looking significantly at the lady's old
+cloak, he asked whether they wanted the count or the princesses, and,
+hearing that they wished to see the count, said his excellency was worse
+today, and that his excellency was not receiving anyone.
+
+"We may as well go back," said the son in French.
+
+"My dear!" exclaimed his mother imploringly, again laying her hand on
+his arm as if that touch might soothe or rouse him.
+
+Borís said no more, but looked inquiringly at his mother without taking
+off his cloak.
+
+"My friend," said Anna Mikháylovna in gentle tones, addressing the hall
+porter, "I know Count Cyril Vladímirovich is very ill... that's why I
+have come... I am a relation. I shall not disturb him, my friend... I
+only need see Prince Vasíli Sergéevich: he is staying here, is he not?
+Please announce me."
+
+The hall porter sullenly pulled a bell that rang upstairs, and turned
+away.
+
+"Princess Drubetskáya to see Prince Vasíli Sergéevich," he called to a
+footman dressed in knee breeches, shoes, and a swallow-tail coat, who
+ran downstairs and looked over from the halfway landing.
+
+The mother smoothed the folds of her dyed silk dress before a large
+Venetian mirror in the wall, and in her trodden-down shoes briskly
+ascended the carpeted stairs.
+
+"My dear," she said to her son, once more stimulating him by a touch,
+"you promised me!"
+
+The son, lowering his eyes, followed her quietly.
+
+They entered the large hall, from which one of the doors led to the
+apartments assigned to Prince Vasíli.
+
+Just as the mother and son, having reached the middle of the hall, were
+about to ask their way of an elderly footman who had sprung up as they
+entered, the bronze handle of one of the doors turned and Prince Vasíli
+came out—wearing a velvet coat with a single star on his breast, as was
+his custom when at home—taking leave of a good-looking, dark-haired man.
+This was the celebrated Petersburg doctor, Lorrain.
+
+"Then it is certain?" said the prince.
+
+"Prince, humanum est errare, * but..." replied the doctor, swallowing
+his r's, and pronouncing the Latin words with a French accent.
+
+* To err is human.
+
+"Very well, very well..."
+
+Seeing Anna Mikháylovna and her son, Prince Vasíli dismissed the doctor
+with a bow and approached them silently and with a look of inquiry. The
+son noticed that an expression of profound sorrow suddenly clouded his
+mother's face, and he smiled slightly.
+
+"Ah, Prince! In what sad circumstances we meet again! And how is our
+dear invalid?" said she, as though unaware of the cold offensive look
+fixed on her.
+
+Prince Vasíli stared at her and at Borís questioningly and perplexed.
+Borís bowed politely. Prince Vasíli without acknowledging the bow turned
+to Anna Mikháylovna, answering her query by a movement of the head and
+lips indicating very little hope for the patient.
+
+"Is it possible?" exclaimed Anna Mikháylovna. "Oh, how awful! It is
+terrible to think.... This is my son," she added, indicating Borís. "He
+wanted to thank you himself."
+
+Borís bowed again politely.
+
+"Believe me, Prince, a mother's heart will never forget what you have
+done for us."
+
+"I am glad I was able to do you a service, my dear Anna Mikháylovna,"
+said Prince Vasíli, arranging his lace frill, and in tone and manner,
+here in Moscow to Anna Mikháylovna whom he had placed under an
+obligation, assuming an air of much greater importance than he had done
+in Petersburg at Anna Schérer's reception.
+
+"Try to serve well and show yourself worthy," added he, addressing Borís
+with severity. "I am glad.... Are you here on leave?" he went on in his
+usual tone of indifference.
+
+"I am awaiting orders to join my new regiment, your excellency," replied
+Borís, betraying neither annoyance at the prince's brusque manner nor a
+desire to enter into conversation, but speaking so quietly and
+respectfully that the prince gave him a searching glance.
+
+"Are you living with your mother?"
+
+"I am living at Countess Rostóva's," replied Borís, again adding, "your
+excellency."
+
+"That is, with Ilyá Rostóv who married Nataly Shinshíná," said Anna
+Mikháylovna.
+
+"I know, I know," answered Prince Vasíli in his monotonous voice. "I
+never could understand how Nataly made up her mind to marry that
+unlicked bear! A perfectly absurd and stupid fellow, and a gambler too,
+I am told."
+
+"But a very kind man, Prince," said Anna Mikháylovna with a pathetic
+smile, as though she too knew that Count Rostóv deserved this censure,
+but asked him not to be too hard on the poor old man. "What do the
+doctors say?" asked the princess after a pause, her worn face again
+expressing deep sorrow.
+
+"They give little hope," replied the prince.
+
+"And I should so like to thank Uncle once for all his kindness to me and
+Borís. He is his godson," she added, her tone suggesting that this fact
+ought to give Prince Vasíli much satisfaction.
+
+Prince Vasíli became thoughtful and frowned. Anna Mikháylovna saw that
+he was afraid of finding in her a rival for Count Bezúkhov's fortune,
+and hastened to reassure him.
+
+"If it were not for my sincere affection and devotion to Uncle," said
+she, uttering the word with peculiar assurance and unconcern, "I know
+his character: noble, upright ... but you see he has no one with him
+except the young princesses.... They are still young...." She bent her
+head and continued in a whisper: "Has he performed his final duty,
+Prince? How priceless are those last moments! It can make things no
+worse, and it is absolutely necessary to prepare him if he is so ill. We
+women, Prince," and she smiled tenderly, "always know how to say these
+things. I absolutely must see him, however painful it may be for me. I
+am used to suffering."
+
+Evidently the prince understood her, and also understood, as he had done
+at Anna Pávlovna's, that it would be difficult to get rid of Anna
+Mikháylovna.
+
+"Would not such a meeting be too trying for him, dear Anna Mikháylovna?"
+said he. "Let us wait until evening. The doctors are expecting a
+crisis."
+
+"But one cannot delay, Prince, at such a moment! Consider that the
+welfare of his soul is at stake. Ah, it is awful: the duties of a
+Christian..."
+
+A door of one of the inner rooms opened and one of the princesses, the
+count's niece, entered with a cold, stern face. The length of her body
+was strikingly out of proportion to her short legs. Prince Vasíli turned
+to her.
+
+"Well, how is he?"
+
+"Still the same; but what can you expect, this noise..." said the
+princess, looking at Anna Mikháylovna as at a stranger.
+
+"Ah, my dear, I hardly knew you," said Anna Mikháylovna with a happy
+smile, ambling lightly up to the count's niece. "I have come, and am at
+your service to help you nurse my uncle. I imagine what you have gone
+through," and she sympathetically turned up her eyes.
+
+The princess gave no reply and did not even smile, but left the room as
+Anna Mikháylovna took off her gloves and, occupying the position she had
+conquered, settled down in an armchair, inviting Prince Vasíli to take a
+seat beside her.
+
+"Borís," she said to her son with a smile, "I shall go in to see the
+count, my uncle; but you, my dear, had better go to Pierre meanwhile and
+don't forget to give him the Rostóvs' invitation. They ask him to
+dinner. I suppose he won't go?" she continued, turning to the prince.
+
+"On the contrary," replied the prince, who had plainly become depressed,
+"I shall be only too glad if you relieve me of that young man.... Here
+he is, and the count has not once asked for him."
+
+He shrugged his shoulders. A footman conducted Borís down one flight of
+stairs and up another, to Pierre's rooms.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+Pierre, after all, had not managed to choose a career for himself in
+Petersburg, and had been expelled from there for riotous conduct and
+sent to Moscow. The story told about him at Count Rostóv's was true.
+Pierre had taken part in tying a policeman to a bear. He had now been
+for some days in Moscow and was staying as usual at his father's house.
+Though he expected that the story of his escapade would be already known
+in Moscow and that the ladies about his father—who were never favorably
+disposed toward him—would have used it to turn the count against him, he
+nevertheless on the day of his arrival went to his father's part of the
+house. Entering the drawing room, where the princesses spent most of
+their time, he greeted the ladies, two of whom were sitting at
+embroidery frames while a third read aloud. It was the eldest who was
+reading—the one who had met Anna Mikháylovna. The two younger ones were
+embroidering: both were rosy and pretty and they differed only in that
+one had a little mole on her lip which made her much prettier. Pierre
+was received as if he were a corpse or a leper. The eldest princess
+paused in her reading and silently stared at him with frightened eyes;
+the second assumed precisely the same expression; while the youngest,
+the one with the mole, who was of a cheerful and lively disposition,
+bent over her frame to hide a smile probably evoked by the amusing scene
+she foresaw. She drew her wool down through the canvas and, scarcely
+able to refrain from laughing, stooped as if trying to make out the
+pattern.
+
+"How do you do, cousin?" said Pierre. "You don't recognize me?"
+
+"I recognize you only too well, too well."
+
+"How is the count? Can I see him?" asked Pierre, awkwardly as usual, but
+unabashed.
+
+"The count is suffering physically and mentally, and apparently you have
+done your best to increase his mental sufferings."
+
+"Can I see the count?" Pierre again asked.
+
+"Hm.... If you wish to kill him, to kill him outright, you can see
+him... Olga, go and see whether Uncle's beef tea is ready—it is almost
+time," she added, giving Pierre to understand that they were busy, and
+busy making his father comfortable, while evidently he, Pierre, was only
+busy causing him annoyance.
+
+Olga went out. Pierre stood looking at the sisters; then he bowed and
+said: "Then I will go to my rooms. You will let me know when I can see
+him."
+
+And he left the room, followed by the low but ringing laughter of the
+sister with the mole.
+
+Next day Prince Vasíli had arrived and settled in the count's house. He
+sent for Pierre and said to him: "My dear fellow, if you are going to
+behave here as you did in Petersburg, you will end very badly; that is
+all I have to say to you. The count is very, very ill, and you must not
+see him at all."
+
+Since then Pierre had not been disturbed and had spent the whole time in
+his rooms upstairs.
+
+When Borís appeared at his door Pierre was pacing up and down his room,
+stopping occasionally at a corner to make menacing gestures at the wall,
+as if running a sword through an invisible foe, and glaring savagely
+over his spectacles, and then again resuming his walk, muttering
+indistinct words, shrugging his shoulders and gesticulating.
+
+"England is done for," said he, scowling and pointing his finger at
+someone unseen. "Mr. Pitt, as a traitor to the nation and to the rights
+of man, is sentenced to..." But before Pierre—who at that moment
+imagined himself to be Napoleon in person and to have just effected the
+dangerous crossing of the Straits of Dover and captured London—could
+pronounce Pitt's sentence, he saw a well-built and handsome young
+officer entering his room. Pierre paused. He had left Moscow when Borís
+was a boy of fourteen, and had quite forgotten him, but in his usual
+impulsive and hearty way he took Borís by the hand with a friendly
+smile.
+
+"Do you remember me?" asked Borís quietly with a pleasant smile. "I have
+come with my mother to see the count, but it seems he is not well."
+
+"Yes, it seems he is ill. People are always disturbing him," answered
+Pierre, trying to remember who this young man was.
+
+Borís felt that Pierre did not recognize him but did not consider it
+necessary to introduce himself, and without experiencing the least
+embarrassment looked Pierre straight in the face.
+
+"Count Rostóv asks you to come to dinner today," said he, after a
+considerable pause which made Pierre feel uncomfortable.
+
+"Ah, Count Rostóv!" exclaimed Pierre joyfully. "Then you are his son,
+Ilyá? Only fancy, I didn't know you at first. Do you remember how we
+went to the Sparrow Hills with Madame Jacquot?... It's such an age..."
+
+"You are mistaken," said Borís deliberately, with a bold and slightly
+sarcastic smile. "I am Borís, son of Princess Anna Mikháylovna
+Drubetskáya. Rostóv, the father, is Ilyá, and his son is Nicholas. I
+never knew any Madame Jacquot."
+
+Pierre shook his head and arms as if attacked by mosquitoes or bees.
+
+"Oh dear, what am I thinking about? I've mixed everything up. One has so
+many relatives in Moscow! So you are Borís? Of course. Well, now we know
+where we are. And what do you think of the Boulogne expedition? The
+English will come off badly, you know, if Napoleon gets across the
+Channel. I think the expedition is quite feasible. If only Villeneuve
+doesn't make a mess of things!"
+
+Borís knew nothing about the Boulogne expedition; he did not read the
+papers and it was the first time he had heard Villeneuve's name.
+
+"We here in Moscow are more occupied with dinner parties and scandal
+than with politics," said he in his quiet ironical tone. "I know nothing
+about it and have not thought about it. Moscow is chiefly busy with
+gossip," he continued. "Just now they are talking about you and your
+father."
+
+Pierre smiled in his good-natured way as if afraid for his companion's
+sake that the latter might say something he would afterwards regret. But
+Borís spoke distinctly, clearly, and dryly, looking straight into
+Pierre's eyes.
+
+"Moscow has nothing else to do but gossip," Borís went on. "Everybody is
+wondering to whom the count will leave his fortune, though he may
+perhaps outlive us all, as I sincerely hope he will..."
+
+"Yes, it is all very horrid," interrupted Pierre, "very horrid."
+
+Pierre was still afraid that this officer might inadvertently say
+something disconcerting to himself.
+
+"And it must seem to you," said Borís flushing slightly, but not
+changing his tone or attitude, "it must seem to you that everyone is
+trying to get something out of the rich man?"
+
+"So it does," thought Pierre.
+
+"But I just wish to say, to avoid misunderstandings, that you are quite
+mistaken if you reckon me or my mother among such people. We are very
+poor, but for my own part at any rate, for the very reason that your
+father is rich, I don't regard myself as a relation of his, and neither
+I nor my mother would ever ask or take anything from him."
+
+For a long time Pierre could not understand, but when he did, he jumped
+up from the sofa, seized Borís under the elbow in his quick, clumsy way,
+and, blushing far more than Borís, began to speak with a feeling of
+mingled shame and vexation.
+
+"Well, this is strange! Do you suppose I... who could think?... I know
+very well..."
+
+But Borís again interrupted him.
+
+"I am glad I have spoken out fully. Perhaps you did not like it? You
+must excuse me," said he, putting Pierre at ease instead of being put at
+ease by him, "but I hope I have not offended you. I always make it a
+rule to speak out... Well, what answer am I to take? Will you come to
+dinner at the Rostóvs'?"
+
+And Borís, having apparently relieved himself of an onerous duty and
+extricated himself from an awkward situation and placed another in it,
+became quite pleasant again.
+
+"No, but I say," said Pierre, calming down, "you are a wonderful fellow!
+What you have just said is good, very good. Of course you don't know me.
+We have not met for such a long time... not since we were children. You
+might think that I... I understand, quite understand. I could not have
+done it myself, I should not have had the courage, but it's splendid. I
+am very glad to have made your acquaintance. It's queer," he added after
+a pause, "that you should have suspected me!" He began to laugh. "Well,
+what of it! I hope we'll get better acquainted," and he pressed Borís'
+hand. "Do you know, I have not once been in to see the count. He has not
+sent for me.... I am sorry for him as a man, but what can one do?"
+
+"And so you think Napoleon will manage to get an army across?" asked
+Borís with a smile.
+
+Pierre saw that Borís wished to change the subject, and being of the
+same mind he began explaining the advantages and disadvantages of the
+Boulogne expedition.
+
+A footman came in to summon Borís—the princess was going. Pierre, in
+order to make Borís' better acquaintance, promised to come to dinner,
+and warmly pressing his hand looked affectionately over his spectacles
+into Borís' eyes. After he had gone Pierre continued pacing up and down
+the room for a long time, no longer piercing an imaginary foe with his
+imaginary sword, but smiling at the remembrance of that pleasant,
+intelligent, and resolute young man.
+
+As often happens in early youth, especially to one who leads a lonely
+life, he felt an unaccountable tenderness for this young man and made up
+his mind that they would be friends.
+
+Prince Vasíli saw the princess off. She held a handkerchief to her eyes
+and her face was tearful.
+
+"It is dreadful, dreadful!" she was saying, "but cost me what it may I
+shall do my duty. I will come and spend the night. He must not be left
+like this. Every moment is precious. I can't think why his nieces put it
+off. Perhaps God will help me to find a way to prepare him!... Adieu,
+Prince! May God support you..."
+
+"Adieu, ma bonne," answered Prince Vasíli turning away from her.
+
+"Oh, he is in a dreadful state," said the mother to her son when they
+were in the carriage. "He hardly recognizes anybody."
+
+"I don't understand, Mamma—what is his attitude to Pierre?" asked the
+son.
+
+"The will will show that, my dear; our fate also depends on it."
+
+"But why do you expect that he will leave us anything?"
+
+"Ah, my dear! He is so rich, and we are so poor!"
+
+"Well, that is hardly a sufficient reason, Mamma..."
+
+"Oh, Heaven! How ill he is!" exclaimed the mother.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+After Anna Mikháylovna had driven off with her son to visit Count Cyril
+Vladímirovich Bezúkhov, Countess Rostóva sat for a long time all alone
+applying her handkerchief to her eyes. At last she rang.
+
+"What is the matter with you, my dear?" she said crossly to the maid who
+kept her waiting some minutes. "Don't you wish to serve me? Then I'll
+find you another place."
+
+The countess was upset by her friend's sorrow and humiliating poverty,
+and was therefore out of sorts, a state of mind which with her always
+found expression in calling her maid "my dear" and speaking to her with
+exaggerated politeness.
+
+"I am very sorry, ma'am," answered the maid.
+
+"Ask the count to come to me."
+
+The count came waddling in to see his wife with a rather guilty look as
+usual.
+
+"Well, little countess? What a sauté of game au madère we are to have,
+my dear! I tasted it. The thousand rubles I paid for Tarás were not ill-
+spent. He is worth it!"
+
+He sat down by his wife, his elbows on his knees and his hands ruffling
+his gray hair.
+
+"What are your commands, little countess?"
+
+"You see, my dear... What's that mess?" she said, pointing to his
+waistcoat. "It's the sauté, most likely," she added with a smile. "Well,
+you see, Count, I want some money."
+
+Her face became sad.
+
+"Oh, little countess!" ... and the count began bustling to get out his
+pocketbook.
+
+"I want a great deal, Count! I want five hundred rubles," and taking out
+her cambric handkerchief she began wiping her husband's waistcoat.
+
+"Yes, immediately, immediately! Hey, who's there?" he called out in a
+tone only used by persons who are certain that those they call will rush
+to obey the summons. "Send Dmítri to me!"
+
+Dmítri, a man of good family who had been brought up in the count's
+house and now managed all his affairs, stepped softly into the room.
+
+"This is what I want, my dear fellow," said the count to the deferential
+young man who had entered. "Bring me..." he reflected a moment, "yes,
+bring me seven hundred rubles, yes! But mind, don't bring me such
+tattered and dirty notes as last time, but nice clean ones for the
+countess."
+
+"Yes, Dmítri, clean ones, please," said the countess, sighing deeply.
+
+"When would you like them, your excellency?" asked Dmítri. "Allow me to
+inform you... But, don't be uneasy," he added, noticing that the count
+was beginning to breathe heavily and quickly which was always a sign of
+approaching anger. "I was forgetting... Do you wish it brought at once?"
+
+"Yes, yes; just so! Bring it. Give it to the countess."
+
+"What a treasure that Dmítri is," added the count with a smile when the
+young man had departed. "There is never any 'impossible' with him.
+That's a thing I hate! Everything is possible."
+
+"Ah, money, Count, money! How much sorrow it causes in the world," said
+the countess. "But I am in great need of this sum."
+
+"You, my little countess, are a notorious spendthrift," said the count,
+and having kissed his wife's hand he went back to his study.
+
+When Anna Mikháylovna returned from Count Bezúkhov's the money, all in
+clean notes, was lying ready under a handkerchief on the countess'
+little table, and Anna Mikháylovna noticed that something was agitating
+her.
+
+"Well, my dear?" asked the countess.
+
+"Oh, what a terrible state he is in! One would not know him, he is so
+ill! I was only there a few moments and hardly said a word..."
+
+"Annette, for heaven's sake don't refuse me," the countess began, with a
+blush that looked very strange on her thin, dignified, elderly face, and
+she took the money from under the handkerchief.
+
+Anna Mikháylovna instantly guessed her intention and stooped to be ready
+to embrace the countess at the appropriate moment.
+
+"This is for Borís from me, for his outfit."
+
+Anna Mikháylovna was already embracing her and weeping. The countess
+wept too. They wept because they were friends, and because they were
+kindhearted, and because they—friends from childhood—had to think about
+such a base thing as money, and because their youth was over.... But
+those tears were pleasant to them both.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+Countess Rostóva, with her daughters and a large number of guests, was
+already seated in the drawing room. The count took the gentlemen into
+his study and showed them his choice collection of Turkish pipes. From
+time to time he went out to ask: "Hasn't she come yet?" They were
+expecting Márya Dmítrievna Akhrosímova, known in society as le terrible
+dragon, a lady distinguished not for wealth or rank, but for common
+sense and frank plainness of speech. Márya Dmítrievna was known to the
+Imperial family as well as to all Moscow and Petersburg, and both cities
+wondered at her, laughed privately at her rudenesses, and told good
+stories about her, while none the less all without exception respected
+and feared her.
+
+In the count's room, which was full of tobacco smoke, they talked of war
+that had been announced in a manifesto, and about the recruiting. None
+of them had yet seen the manifesto, but they all knew it had appeared.
+The count sat on the sofa between two guests who were smoking and
+talking. He neither smoked nor talked, but bending his head first to one
+side and then to the other watched the smokers with evident pleasure and
+listened to the conversation of his two neighbors, whom he egged on
+against each other.
+
+One of them was a sallow, clean-shaven civilian with a thin and wrinkled
+face, already growing old, though he was dressed like a most fashionable
+young man. He sat with his legs up on the sofa as if quite at home and,
+having stuck an amber mouthpiece far into his mouth, was inhaling the
+smoke spasmodically and screwing up his eyes. This was an old bachelor,
+Shinshín, a cousin of the countess', a man with "a sharp tongue" as they
+said in Moscow society. He seemed to be condescending to his companion.
+The latter, a fresh, rosy officer of the Guards, irreproachably washed,
+brushed, and buttoned, held his pipe in the middle of his mouth and with
+red lips gently inhaled the smoke, letting it escape from his handsome
+mouth in rings. This was Lieutenant Berg, an officer in the Semënov
+regiment with whom Borís was to travel to join the army, and about whom
+Natásha had teased her elder sister Véra, speaking of Berg as her
+"intended." The count sat between them and listened attentively. His
+favorite occupation when not playing boston, a card game he was very
+fond of, was that of listener, especially when he succeeded in setting
+two loquacious talkers at one another.
+
+"Well, then, old chap, mon très honorable Alphonse Kárlovich," said
+Shinshín, laughing ironically and mixing the most ordinary Russian
+expressions with the choicest French phrases—which was a peculiarity of
+his speech. "Vous comptez vous faire des rentes sur l'état; * you want
+to make something out of your company?"
+
+* You expect to make an income out of the government.
+
+"No, Peter Nikoláevich; I only want to show that in the cavalry the
+advantages are far less than in the infantry. Just consider my own
+position now, Peter Nikoláevich..."
+
+Berg always spoke quietly, politely, and with great precision. His
+conversation always related entirely to himself; he would remain calm
+and silent when the talk related to any topic that had no direct bearing
+on himself. He could remain silent for hours without being at all put
+out of countenance himself or making others uncomfortable, but as soon
+as the conversation concerned himself he would begin to talk
+circumstantially and with evident satisfaction.
+
+"Consider my position, Peter Nikoláevich. Were I in the cavalry I should
+get not more than two hundred rubles every four months, even with the
+rank of lieutenant; but as it is I receive two hundred and thirty," said
+he, looking at Shinshín and the count with a joyful, pleasant smile, as
+if it were obvious to him that his success must always be the chief
+desire of everyone else.
+
+"Besides that, Peter Nikoláevich, by exchanging into the Guards I shall
+be in a more prominent position," continued Berg, "and vacancies occur
+much more frequently in the Foot Guards. Then just think what can be
+done with two hundred and thirty rubles! I even manage to put a little
+aside and to send something to my father," he went on, emitting a smoke
+ring.
+
+"La balance y est... * A German knows how to skin a flint, as the
+proverb says," remarked Shinshín, moving his pipe to the other side of
+his mouth and winking at the count.
+
+* So that squares matters.
+
+The count burst out laughing. The other guests seeing that Shinshín was
+talking came up to listen. Berg, oblivious of irony or indifference,
+continued to explain how by exchanging into the Guards he had already
+gained a step on his old comrades of the Cadet Corps; how in wartime the
+company commander might get killed and he, as senior in the company,
+might easily succeed to the post; how popular he was with everyone in
+the regiment, and how satisfied his father was with him. Berg evidently
+enjoyed narrating all this, and did not seem to suspect that others,
+too, might have their own interests. But all he said was so prettily
+sedate, and the naïveté of his youthful egotism was so obvious, that he
+disarmed his hearers.
+
+"Well, my boy, you'll get along wherever you go—foot or horse—that I'll
+warrant," said Shinshín, patting him on the shoulder and taking his feet
+off the sofa.
+
+Berg smiled joyously. The count, by his guests, went into the drawing
+room.
+
+It was just the moment before a big dinner when the assembled guests,
+expecting the summons to zakúska, * avoid engaging in any long
+conversation but think it necessary to move about and talk, in order to
+show that they are not at all impatient for their food. The host and
+hostess look toward the door, and now and then glance at one another,
+and the visitors try to guess from these glances who, or what, they are
+waiting for—some important relation who has not yet arrived, or a dish
+that is not yet ready.
+
+* Hors d'oeuvres.
+
+Pierre had come just at dinnertime and was sitting awkwardly in the
+middle of the drawing room on the first chair he had come across,
+blocking the way for everyone. The countess tried to make him talk, but
+he went on naïvely looking around through his spectacles as if in search
+of somebody and answered all her questions in monosyllables. He was in
+the way and was the only one who did not notice the fact. Most of the
+guests, knowing of the affair with the bear, looked with curiosity at
+this big, stout, quiet man, wondering how such a clumsy, modest fellow
+could have played such a prank on a policeman.
+
+"You have only lately arrived?" the countess asked him.
+
+"Oui, madame," replied he, looking around him.
+
+"You have not yet seen my husband?"
+
+"Non, madame." He smiled quite inappropriately.
+
+"You have been in Paris recently, I believe? I suppose it's very
+interesting."
+
+"Very interesting."
+
+The countess exchanged glances with Anna Mikháylovna. The latter
+understood that she was being asked to entertain this young man, and
+sitting down beside him she began to speak about his father; but he
+answered her, as he had the countess, only in monosyllables. The other
+guests were all conversing with one another. "The Razumóvskis... It was
+charming... You are very kind... Countess Apráksina..." was heard on all
+sides. The countess rose and went into the ballroom.
+
+"Márya Dmítrievna?" came her voice from there.
+
+"Herself," came the answer in a rough voice, and Márya Dmítrievna
+entered the room.
+
+All the unmarried ladies and even the married ones except the very
+oldest rose. Márya Dmítrievna paused at the door. Tall and stout,
+holding high her fifty-year-old head with its gray curls, she stood
+surveying the guests, and leisurely arranged her wide sleeves as if
+rolling them up. Márya Dmítrievna always spoke in Russian.
+
+"Health and happiness to her whose name day we are keeping and to her
+children," she said, in her loud, full-toned voice which drowned all
+others. "Well, you old sinner," she went on, turning to the count who
+was kissing her hand, "you're feeling dull in Moscow, I daresay? Nowhere
+to hunt with your dogs? But what is to be done, old man? Just see how
+these nestlings are growing up," and she pointed to the girls. "You must
+look for husbands for them whether you like it or not...."
+
+"Well," said she, "how's my Cossack?" (Márya Dmítrievna always called
+Natásha a Cossack) and she stroked the child's arm as she came up
+fearless and gay to kiss her hand. "I know she's a scamp of a girl, but
+I like her."
+
+She took a pair of pear-shaped ruby earrings from her huge reticule and,
+having given them to the rosy Natásha, who beamed with the pleasure of
+her saint's-day fete, turned away at once and addressed herself to
+Pierre.
+
+"Eh, eh, friend! Come here a bit," said she, assuming a soft high tone
+of voice. "Come here, my friend..." and she ominously tucked up her
+sleeves still higher. Pierre approached, looking at her in a childlike
+way through his spectacles.
+
+"Come nearer, come nearer, friend! I used to be the only one to tell
+your father the truth when he was in favor, and in your case it's my
+evident duty." She paused. All were silent, expectant of what was to
+follow, for this was clearly only a prelude.
+
+"A fine lad! My word! A fine lad!... His father lies on his deathbed and
+he amuses himself setting a policeman astride a bear! For shame, sir,
+for shame! It would be better if you went to the war."
+
+She turned away and gave her hand to the count, who could hardly keep
+from laughing.
+
+"Well, I suppose it is time we were at table?" said Márya Dmítrievna.
+
+The count went in first with Márya Dmítrievna, the countess followed on
+the arm of a colonel of hussars, a man of importance to them because
+Nicholas was to go with him to the regiment; then came Anna Mikháylovna
+with Shinshín. Berg gave his arm to Véra. The smiling Julie Karágina
+went in with Nicholas. After them other couples followed, filling the
+whole dining hall, and last of all the children, tutors, and governesses
+followed singly. The footmen began moving about, chairs scraped, the
+band struck up in the gallery, and the guests settled down in their
+places. Then the strains of the count's household band were replaced by
+the clatter of knives and forks, the voices of visitors, and the soft
+steps of the footmen. At one end of the table sat the countess with
+Márya Dmítrievna on her right and Anna Mikháylovna on her left, the
+other lady visitors were farther down. At the other end sat the count,
+with the hussar colonel on his left and Shinshín and the other male
+visitors on his right. Midway down the long table on one side sat the
+grown-up young people: Véra beside Berg, and Pierre beside Borís; and on
+the other side, the children, tutors, and governesses. From behind the
+crystal decanters and fruit vases, the count kept glancing at his wife
+and her tall cap with its light-blue ribbons, and busily filled his
+neighbors' glasses, not neglecting his own. The countess in turn,
+without omitting her duties as hostess, threw significant glances from
+behind the pineapples at her husband whose face and bald head seemed by
+their redness to contrast more than usual with his gray hair. At the
+ladies' end an even chatter of voices was heard all the time, at the
+men's end the voices sounded louder and louder, especially that of the
+colonel of hussars who, growing more and more flushed, ate and drank so
+much that the count held him up as a pattern to the other guests. Berg
+with tender smiles was saying to Véra that love is not an earthly but a
+heavenly feeling. Borís was telling his new friend Pierre who the guests
+were and exchanging glances with Natásha, who was sitting opposite.
+Pierre spoke little but examined the new faces, and ate a great deal. Of
+the two soups he chose turtle with savory patties and went on to the
+game without omitting a single dish or one of the wines. These latter
+the butler thrust mysteriously forward, wrapped in a napkin, from behind
+the next man's shoulders and whispered: "Dry Madeira"... "Hungarian"...
+or "Rhine wine" as the case might be. Of the four crystal glasses
+engraved with the count's monogram that stood before his plate, Pierre
+held out one at random and drank with enjoyment, gazing with ever-
+increasing amiability at the other guests. Natásha, who sat opposite,
+was looking at Borís as girls of thirteen look at the boy they are in
+love with and have just kissed for the first time. Sometimes that same
+look fell on Pierre, and that funny lively little girl's look made him
+inclined to laugh without knowing why.
+
+Nicholas sat at some distance from Sónya, beside Julie Karágina, to whom
+he was again talking with the same involuntary smile. Sónya wore a
+company smile but was evidently tormented by jealousy; now she turned
+pale, now blushed and strained every nerve to overhear what Nicholas and
+Julie were saying to one another. The governess kept looking round
+uneasily as if preparing to resent any slight that might be put upon the
+children. The German tutor was trying to remember all the dishes, wines,
+and kinds of dessert, in order to send a full description of the dinner
+to his people in Germany; and he felt greatly offended when the butler
+with a bottle wrapped in a napkin passed him by. He frowned, trying to
+appear as if he did not want any of that wine, but was mortified because
+no one would understand that it was not to quench his thirst or from
+greediness that he wanted it, but simply from a conscientious desire for
+knowledge.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+At the men's end of the table the talk grew more and more animated. The
+colonel told them that the declaration of war had already appeared in
+Petersburg and that a copy, which he had himself seen, had that day been
+forwarded by courier to the commander-in-chief.
+
+"And why the deuce are we going to fight Bonaparte?" remarked Shinshín.
+"He has stopped Austria's cackle and I fear it will be our turn next."
+
+The colonel was a stout, tall, plethoric German, evidently devoted to
+the service and patriotically Russian. He resented Shinshín's remark.
+
+"It is for the reasson, my goot sir," said he, speaking with a German
+accent, "for the reasson zat ze Emperor knows zat. He declares in ze
+manifessto zat he cannot fiew wiz indifference ze danger vreatening
+Russia and zat ze safety and dignity of ze Empire as vell as ze sanctity
+of its alliances..." he spoke this last word with particular emphasis as
+if in it lay the gist of the matter.
+
+Then with the unerring official memory that characterized him he
+repeated from the opening words of the manifesto:
+
+... and the wish, which constitutes the Emperor's sole and absolute
+aim—to establish peace in Europe on firm foundations—has now decided him
+to despatch part of the army abroad and to create a new condition for
+the attainment of that purpose.
+
+"Zat, my dear sir, is vy..." he concluded, drinking a tumbler of wine
+with dignity and looking to the count for approval.
+
+"Connaissez-vous le Proverbe:* 'Jerome, Jerome, do not roam, but turn
+spindles at home!'?" said Shinshín, puckering his brows and smiling.
+"Cela nous convient à merveille.*(2) Suvórov now—he knew what he was
+about; yet they beat him à plate couture,*(3) and where are we to find
+Suvórovs now? Je vous demande un peu,"*(4) said he, continually changing
+from French to Russian.
+
+*Do you know the proverb?
+
+*(2) That suits us down to the ground.
+
+*(3) Hollow.
+
+*(4) I just ask you that.
+
+"Ve must vight to the last tr-r-op of our plood!" said the colonel,
+thumping the table; "and ve must tie for our Emperor, and zen all vill
+pe vell. And ve must discuss it as little as po-o-ossible"... he dwelt
+particularly on the word possible... "as po-o-ossible," he ended, again
+turning to the count. "Zat is how ve old hussars look at it, and zere's
+an end of it! And how do you, a young man and a young hussar, how do you
+judge of it?" he added, addressing Nicholas, who when he heard that the
+war was being discussed had turned from his partner with eyes and ears
+intent on the colonel.
+
+"I am quite of your opinion," replied Nicholas, flaming up, turning his
+plate round and moving his wineglasses about with as much decision and
+desperation as though he were at that moment facing some great danger.
+"I am convinced that we Russians must die or conquer," he concluded,
+conscious—as were others—after the words were uttered that his remarks
+were too enthusiastic and emphatic for the occasion and were therefore
+awkward.
+
+"What you said just now was splendid!" said his partner Julie.
+
+Sónya trembled all over and blushed to her ears and behind them and down
+to her neck and shoulders while Nicholas was speaking.
+
+Pierre listened to the colonel's speech and nodded approvingly.
+
+"That's fine," said he.
+
+"The young man's a real hussar!" shouted the colonel, again thumping the
+table.
+
+"What are you making such a noise about over there?" Márya Dmítrievna's
+deep voice suddenly inquired from the other end of the table. "What are
+you thumping the table for?" she demanded of the hussar, "and why are
+you exciting yourself? Do you think the French are here?"
+
+"I am speaking ze truce," replied the hussar with a smile.
+
+"It's all about the war," the count shouted down the table. "You know my
+son's going, Márya Dmítrievna? My son is going."
+
+"I have four sons in the army but still I don't fret. It is all in God's
+hands. You may die in your bed or God may spare you in a battle,"
+replied Márya Dmítrievna's deep voice, which easily carried the whole
+length of the table.
+
+"That's true!"
+
+Once more the conversations concentrated, the ladies' at the one end and
+the men's at the other.
+
+"You won't ask," Natásha's little brother was saying; "I know you won't
+ask!"
+
+"I will," replied Natásha.
+
+Her face suddenly flushed with reckless and joyous resolution. She half
+rose, by a glance inviting Pierre, who sat opposite, to listen to what
+was coming, and turning to her mother:
+
+"Mamma!" rang out the clear contralto notes of her childish voice,
+audible the whole length of the table.
+
+"What is it?" asked the countess, startled; but seeing by her daughter's
+face that it was only mischief, she shook a finger at her sternly with a
+threatening and forbidding movement of her head.
+
+The conversation was hushed.
+
+"Mamma! What sweets are we going to have?" and Natásha's voice sounded
+still more firm and resolute.
+
+The countess tried to frown, but could not. Márya Dmítrievna shook her
+fat finger.
+
+"Cossack!" she said threateningly.
+
+Most of the guests, uncertain how to regard this sally, looked at the
+elders.
+
+"You had better take care!" said the countess.
+
+"Mamma! What sweets are we going to have?" Natásha again cried boldly,
+with saucy gaiety, confident that her prank would be taken in good part.
+
+Sónya and fat little Pétya doubled up with laughter.
+
+"You see! I have asked," whispered Natásha to her little brother and to
+Pierre, glancing at him again.
+
+"Ice pudding, but you won't get any," said Márya Dmítrievna.
+
+Natásha saw there was nothing to be afraid of and so she braved even
+Márya Dmítrievna.
+
+"Márya Dmítrievna! What kind of ice pudding? I don't like ice cream."
+
+"Carrot ices."
+
+"No! What kind, Márya Dmítrievna? What kind?" she almost screamed; "I
+want to know!"
+
+Márya Dmítrievna and the countess burst out laughing, and all the guests
+joined in. Everyone laughed, not at Márya Dmítrievna's answer but at the
+incredible boldness and smartness of this little girl who had dared to
+treat Márya Dmítrievna in this fashion.
+
+Natásha only desisted when she had been told that there would be
+pineapple ice. Before the ices, champagne was served round. The band
+again struck up, the count and countess kissed, and the guests, leaving
+their seats, went up to "congratulate" the countess, and reached across
+the table to clink glasses with the count, with the children, and with
+one another. Again the footmen rushed about, chairs scraped, and in the
+same order in which they had entered but with redder faces, the guests
+returned to the drawing room and to the count's study.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+The card tables were drawn out, sets made up for boston, and the count's
+visitors settled themselves, some in the two drawing rooms, some in the
+sitting room, some in the library.
+
+The count, holding his cards fanwise, kept himself with difficulty from
+dropping into his usual after-dinner nap, and laughed at everything. The
+young people, at the countess' instigation, gathered round the
+clavichord and harp. Julie by general request played first. After she
+had played a little air with variations on the harp, she joined the
+other young ladies in begging Natásha and Nicholas, who were noted for
+their musical talent, to sing something. Natásha, who was treated as
+though she were grown up, was evidently very proud of this but at the
+same time felt shy.
+
+"What shall we sing?" she said.
+
+"'The Brook,'" suggested Nicholas.
+
+"Well, then, let's be quick. Borís, come here," said Natásha. "But where
+is Sónya?"
+
+She looked round and seeing that her friend was not in the room ran to
+look for her.
+
+Running into Sónya's room and not finding her there, Natásha ran to the
+nursery, but Sónya was not there either. Natásha concluded that she must
+be on the chest in the passage. The chest in the passage was the place
+of mourning for the younger female generation in the Rostóv household.
+And there in fact was Sónya lying face downward on Nurse's dirty feather
+bed on the top of the chest, crumpling her gauzy pink dress under her,
+hiding her face with her slender fingers, and sobbing so convulsively
+that her bare little shoulders shook. Natásha's face, which had been so
+radiantly happy all that saint's day, suddenly changed: her eyes became
+fixed, and then a shiver passed down her broad neck and the corners of
+her mouth drooped.
+
+"Sónya! What is it? What is the matter?... Oo... Oo... Oo...!" And
+Natásha's large mouth widened, making her look quite ugly, and she began
+to wail like a baby without knowing why, except that Sónya was crying.
+Sónya tried to lift her head to answer but could not, and hid her face
+still deeper in the bed. Natásha wept, sitting on the blue-striped
+feather bed and hugging her friend. With an effort Sónya sat up and
+began wiping her eyes and explaining.
+
+"Nicholas is going away in a week's time, his... papers... have come...
+he told me himself... but still I should not cry," and she showed a
+paper she held in her hand—with the verses Nicholas had written, "still,
+I should not cry, but you can't... no one can understand... what a soul
+he has!"
+
+And she began to cry again because he had such a noble soul.
+
+"It's all very well for you... I am not envious... I love you and Borís
+also," she went on, gaining a little strength; "he is nice... there are
+no difficulties in your way.... But Nicholas is my cousin... one would
+have to... the Metropolitan himself... and even then it can't be done.
+And besides, if she tells Mamma" (Sónya looked upon the countess as her
+mother and called her so) "that I am spoiling Nicholas' career and am
+heartless and ungrateful, while truly... God is my witness," and she
+made the sign of the cross, "I love her so much, and all of you, only
+Véra... And what for? What have I done to her? I am so grateful to you
+that I would willingly sacrifice everything, only I have nothing...."
+
+Sónya could not continue, and again hid her face in her hands and in the
+feather bed. Natásha began consoling her, but her face showed that she
+understood all the gravity of her friend's trouble.
+
+"Sónya," she suddenly exclaimed, as if she had guessed the true reason
+of her friend's sorrow, "I'm sure Véra has said something to you since
+dinner? Hasn't she?"
+
+"Yes, these verses Nicholas wrote himself and I copied some others, and
+she found them on my table and said she'd show them to Mamma, and that I
+was ungrateful, and that Mamma would never allow him to marry me, but
+that he'll marry Julie. You see how he's been with her all day...
+Natásha, what have I done to deserve it?..."
+
+And again she began to sob, more bitterly than before. Natásha lifted
+her up, hugged her, and, smiling through her tears, began comforting
+her.
+
+"Sónya, don't believe her, darling! Don't believe her! Do you remember
+how we and Nicholas, all three of us, talked in the sitting room after
+supper? Why, we settled how everything was to be. I don't quite remember
+how, but don't you remember that it could all be arranged and how nice
+it all was? There's Uncle Shinshín's brother has married his first
+cousin. And we are only second cousins, you know. And Borís says it is
+quite possible. You know I have told him all about it. And he is so
+clever and so good!" said Natásha. "Don't you cry, Sónya, dear love,
+darling Sónya!" and she kissed her and laughed. "Véra's spiteful; never
+mind her! And all will come right and she won't say anything to Mamma.
+Nicholas will tell her himself, and he doesn't care at all for Julie."
+
+Natásha kissed her on the hair.
+
+Sónya sat up. The little kitten brightened, its eyes shone, and it
+seemed ready to lift its tail, jump down on its soft paws, and begin
+playing with the ball of worsted as a kitten should.
+
+"Do you think so?... Really? Truly?" she said, quickly smoothing her
+frock and hair.
+
+"Really, truly!" answered Natásha, pushing in a crisp lock that had
+strayed from under her friend's plaits.
+
+Both laughed.
+
+"Well, let's go and sing 'The Brook.'"
+
+"Come along!"
+
+"Do you know, that fat Pierre who sat opposite me is so funny!" said
+Natásha, stopping suddenly. "I feel so happy!"
+
+And she set off at a run along the passage.
+
+Sónya, shaking off some down which clung to her and tucking away the
+verses in the bosom of her dress close to her bony little chest, ran
+after Natásha down the passage into the sitting room with flushed face
+and light, joyous steps. At the visitors' request the young people sang
+the quartette, "The Brook," with which everyone was delighted. Then
+Nicholas sang a song he had just learned:
+
+At nighttime in the moon's fair glow How sweet, as fancies wander free,
+To feel that in this world there's one Who still is thinking but of
+thee!
+
+That while her fingers touch the harp Wafting sweet music o'er the lea,
+It is for thee thus swells her heart, Sighing its message out to thee...
+
+A day or two, then bliss unspoilt, But oh! till then I cannot live!...
+
+He had not finished the last verse before the young people began to get
+ready to dance in the large hall, and the sound of the feet and the
+coughing of the musicians were heard from the gallery.
+
+Pierre was sitting in the drawing room where Shinshín had engaged him,
+as a man recently returned from abroad, in a political conversation in
+which several others joined but which bored Pierre. When the music began
+Natásha came in and walking straight up to Pierre said, laughing and
+blushing:
+
+"Mamma told me to ask you to join the dancers."
+
+"I am afraid of mixing the figures," Pierre replied; "but if you will be
+my teacher..." And lowering his big arm he offered it to the slender
+little girl.
+
+While the couples were arranging themselves and the musicians tuning up,
+Pierre sat down with his little partner. Natásha was perfectly happy;
+she was dancing with a grown-up man, who had been abroad. She was
+sitting in a conspicuous place and talking to him like a grown-up lady.
+She had a fan in her hand that one of the ladies had given her to hold.
+Assuming quite the pose of a society woman (heaven knows when and where
+she had learned it) she talked with her partner, fanning herself and
+smiling over the fan.
+
+"Dear, dear! Just look at her!" exclaimed the countess as she crossed
+the ballroom, pointing to Natásha.
+
+Natásha blushed and laughed.
+
+"Well, really, Mamma! Why should you? What is there to be surprised at?"
+
+In the midst of the third écossaise there was a clatter of chairs being
+pushed back in the sitting room where the count and Márya Dmítrievna had
+been playing cards with the majority of the more distinguished and older
+visitors. They now, stretching themselves after sitting so long, and
+replacing their purses and pocketbooks, entered the ballroom. First came
+Márya Dmítrievna and the count, both with merry countenances. The count,
+with playful ceremony somewhat in ballet style, offered his bent arm to
+Márya Dmítrievna. He drew himself up, a smile of debonair gallantry lit
+up his face and as soon as the last figure of the écossaise was ended,
+he clapped his hands to the musicians and shouted up to their gallery,
+addressing the first violin:
+
+"Semën! Do you know the Daniel Cooper?"
+
+This was the count's favorite dance, which he had danced in his youth.
+(Strictly speaking, Daniel Cooper was one figure of the anglaise.)
+
+"Look at Papa!" shouted Natásha to the whole company, and quite
+forgetting that she was dancing with a grown-up partner she bent her
+curly head to her knees and made the whole room ring with her laughter.
+
+And indeed everybody in the room looked with a smile of pleasure at the
+jovial old gentleman, who standing beside his tall and stout partner,
+Márya Dmítrievna, curved his arms, beat time, straightened his
+shoulders, turned out his toes, tapped gently with his foot, and, by a
+smile that broadened his round face more and more, prepared the
+onlookers for what was to follow. As soon as the provocatively gay
+strains of Daniel Cooper (somewhat resembling those of a merry peasant
+dance) began to sound, all the doorways of the ballroom were suddenly
+filled by the domestic serfs—the men on one side and the women on the
+other—who with beaming faces had come to see their master making merry.
+
+"Just look at the master! A regular eagle he is!" loudly remarked the
+nurse, as she stood in one of the doorways.
+
+The count danced well and knew it. But his partner could not and did not
+want to dance well. Her enormous figure stood erect, her powerful arms
+hanging down (she had handed her reticule to the countess), and only her
+stern but handsome face really joined in the dance. What was expressed
+by the whole of the count's plump figure, in Márya Dmítrievna found
+expression only in her more and more beaming face and quivering nose.
+But if the count, getting more and more into the swing of it, charmed
+the spectators by the unexpectedness of his adroit maneuvers and the
+agility with which he capered about on his light feet, Márya Dmítrievna
+produced no less impression by slight exertions—the least effort to move
+her shoulders or bend her arms when turning, or stamp her foot—which
+everyone appreciated in view of her size and habitual severity. The
+dance grew livelier and livelier. The other couples could not attract a
+moment's attention to their own evolutions and did not even try to do
+so. All were watching the count and Márya Dmítrievna. Natásha kept
+pulling everyone by sleeve or dress, urging them to "look at Papa!"
+though as it was they never took their eyes off the couple. In the
+intervals of the dance the count, breathing deeply, waved and shouted to
+the musicians to play faster. Faster, faster, and faster; lightly, more
+lightly, and yet more lightly whirled the count, flying round Márya
+Dmítrievna, now on his toes, now on his heels; until, turning his
+partner round to her seat, he executed the final pas, raising his soft
+foot backwards, bowing his perspiring head, smiling and making a wide
+sweep with his arm, amid a thunder of applause and laughter led by
+Natásha. Both partners stood still, breathing heavily and wiping their
+faces with their cambric handkerchiefs.
+
+"That's how we used to dance in our time, ma chère," said the count.
+
+"That was a Daniel Cooper!" exclaimed Márya Dmítrievna, tucking up her
+sleeves and puffing heavily.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+While in the Rostóvs' ballroom the sixth anglaise was being danced, to a
+tune in which the weary musicians blundered, and while tired footmen and
+cooks were getting the supper, Count Bezúkhov had a sixth stroke. The
+doctors pronounced recovery impossible. After a mute confession,
+communion was administered to the dying man, preparations made for the
+sacrament of unction, and in his house there was the bustle and thrill
+of suspense usual at such moments. Outside the house, beyond the gates,
+a group of undertakers, who hid whenever a carriage drove up, waited in
+expectation of an important order for an expensive funeral. The Military
+Governor of Moscow, who had been assiduous in sending aides-de-camp to
+inquire after the count's health, came himself that evening to bid a
+last farewell to the celebrated grandee of Catherine's court, Count
+Bezúkhov.
+
+The magnificent reception room was crowded. Everyone stood up
+respectfully when the Military Governor, having stayed about half an
+hour alone with the dying man, passed out, slightly acknowledging their
+bows and trying to escape as quickly as possible from the glances fixed
+on him by the doctors, clergy, and relatives of the family. Prince
+Vasíli, who had grown thinner and paler during the last few days,
+escorted him to the door, repeating something to him several times in
+low tones.
+
+When the Military Governor had gone, Prince Vasíli sat down all alone on
+a chair in the ballroom, crossing one leg high over the other, leaning
+his elbow on his knee and covering his face with his hand. After sitting
+so for a while he rose, and, looking about him with frightened eyes,
+went with unusually hurried steps down the long corridor leading to the
+back of the house, to the room of the eldest princess.
+
+Those who were in the dimly lit reception room spoke in nervous
+whispers, and, whenever anyone went into or came from the dying man's
+room, grew silent and gazed with eyes full of curiosity or expectancy at
+his door, which creaked slightly when opened.
+
+"The limits of human life ... are fixed and may not be o'erpassed," said
+an old priest to a lady who had taken a seat beside him and was
+listening naïvely to his words.
+
+"I wonder, is it not too late to administer unction?" asked the lady,
+adding the priest's clerical title, as if she had no opinion of her own
+on the subject.
+
+"Ah, madam, it is a great sacrament," replied the priest, passing his
+hand over the thin grizzled strands of hair combed back across his bald
+head.
+
+"Who was that? The Military Governor himself?" was being asked at the
+other side of the room. "How young-looking he is!"
+
+"Yes, and he is over sixty. I hear the count no longer recognizes
+anyone. They wished to administer the sacrament of unction."
+
+"I knew someone who received that sacrament seven times."
+
+The second princess had just come from the sickroom with her eyes red
+from weeping and sat down beside Dr. Lorrain, who was sitting in a
+graceful pose under a portrait of Catherine, leaning his elbow on a
+table.
+
+"Beautiful," said the doctor in answer to a remark about the weather.
+"The weather is beautiful, Princess; and besides, in Moscow one feels as
+if one were in the country."
+
+"Yes, indeed," replied the princess with a sigh. "So he may have
+something to drink?"
+
+Lorrain considered.
+
+"Has he taken his medicine?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+The doctor glanced at his watch.
+
+"Take a glass of boiled water and put a pinch of cream of tartar," and
+he indicated with his delicate fingers what he meant by a pinch.
+
+"Dere has neffer been a gase," a German doctor was saying to an aide-de-
+camp, "dat one liffs after de sird stroke."
+
+"And what a well-preserved man he was!" remarked the aide-de-camp. "And
+who will inherit his wealth?" he added in a whisper.
+
+"It von't go begging," replied the German with a smile.
+
+Everyone again looked toward the door, which creaked as the second
+princess went in with the drink she had prepared according to Lorrain's
+instructions. The German doctor went up to Lorrain.
+
+"Do you think he can last till morning?" asked the German, addressing
+Lorrain in French which he pronounced badly.
+
+Lorrain, pursing up his lips, waved a severely negative finger before
+his nose.
+
+"Tonight, not later," said he in a low voice, and he moved away with a
+decorous smile of self-satisfaction at being able clearly to understand
+and state the patient's condition.
+
+Meanwhile Prince Vasíli had opened the door into the princess' room.
+
+In this room it was almost dark; only two tiny lamps were burning before
+the icons and there was a pleasant scent of flowers and burnt pastilles.
+The room was crowded with small pieces of furniture, whatnots,
+cupboards, and little tables. The quilt of a high, white feather bed was
+just visible behind a screen. A small dog began to bark.
+
+"Ah, is it you, cousin?"
+
+She rose and smoothed her hair, which was as usual so extremely smooth
+that it seemed to be made of one piece with her head and covered with
+varnish.
+
+"Has anything happened?" she asked. "I am so terrified."
+
+"No, there is no change. I only came to have a talk about business,
+Catiche,"* muttered the prince, seating himself wearily on the chair she
+had just vacated. "You have made the place warm, I must say," he
+remarked. "Well, sit down: let's have a talk."
+
+*Catherine.
+
+"I thought perhaps something had happened," she said with her unchanging
+stonily severe expression; and, sitting down opposite the prince, she
+prepared to listen.
+
+"I wished to get a nap, mon cousin, but I can't."
+
+"Well, my dear?" said Prince Vasíli, taking her hand and bending it
+downwards as was his habit.
+
+It was plain that this "well?" referred to much that they both
+understood without naming.
+
+The princess, who had a straight, rigid body, abnormally long for her
+legs, looked directly at Prince Vasíli with no sign of emotion in her
+prominent gray eyes. Then she shook her head and glanced up at the icons
+with a sigh. This might have been taken as an expression of sorrow and
+devotion, or of weariness and hope of resting before long. Prince Vasíli
+understood it as an expression of weariness.
+
+"And I?" he said; "do you think it is easier for me? I am as worn out as
+a post horse, but still I must have a talk with you, Catiche, a very
+serious talk."
+
+Prince Vasíli said no more and his cheeks began to twitch nervously, now
+on one side, now on the other, giving his face an unpleasant expression
+which was never to be seen on it in a drawing room. His eyes too seemed
+strange; at one moment they looked impudently sly and at the next
+glanced round in alarm.
+
+The princess, holding her little dog on her lap with her thin bony
+hands, looked attentively into Prince Vasíli's eyes evidently resolved
+not to be the first to break silence, if she had to wait till morning.
+
+"Well, you see, my dear princess and cousin, Catherine Semënovna,"
+continued Prince Vasíli, returning to his theme, apparently not without
+an inner struggle; "at such a moment as this one must think of
+everything. One must think of the future, of all of you... I love you
+all, like children of my own, as you know."
+
+The princess continued to look at him without moving, and with the same
+dull expression.
+
+"And then of course my family has also to be considered," Prince Vasíli
+went on, testily pushing away a little table without looking at her.
+"You know, Catiche, that we—you three sisters, Mámontov, and my wife—are
+the count's only direct heirs. I know, I know how hard it is for you to
+talk or think of such matters. It is no easier for me; but, my dear, I
+am getting on for sixty and must be prepared for anything. Do you know I
+have sent for Pierre? The count," pointing to his portrait, "definitely
+demanded that he should be called."
+
+Prince Vasíli looked questioningly at the princess, but could not make
+out whether she was considering what he had just said or whether she was
+simply looking at him.
+
+"There is one thing I constantly pray God to grant, mon cousin," she
+replied, "and it is that He would be merciful to him and would allow his
+noble soul peacefully to leave this..."
+
+"Yes, yes, of course," interrupted Prince Vasíli impatiently, rubbing
+his bald head and angrily pulling back toward him the little table that
+he had pushed away. "But... in short, the fact is... you know yourself
+that last winter the count made a will by which he left all his
+property, not to us his direct heirs, but to Pierre."
+
+"He has made wills enough!" quietly remarked the princess. "But he
+cannot leave the estate to Pierre. Pierre is illegitimate."
+
+"But, my dear," said Prince Vasíli suddenly, clutching the little table
+and becoming more animated and talking more rapidly: "what if a letter
+has been written to the Emperor in which the count asks for Pierre's
+legitimation? Do you understand that in consideration of the count's
+services, his request would be granted?..."
+
+The princess smiled as people do who think they know more about the
+subject under discussion than those they are talking with.
+
+"I can tell you more," continued Prince Vasíli, seizing her hand, "that
+letter was written, though it was not sent, and the Emperor knew of it.
+The only question is, has it been destroyed or not? If not, then as soon
+as all is over," and Prince Vasíli sighed to intimate what he meant by
+the words all is over, "and the count's papers are opened, the will and
+letter will be delivered to the Emperor, and the petition will certainly
+be granted. Pierre will get everything as the legitimate son."
+
+"And our share?" asked the princess smiling ironically, as if anything
+might happen, only not that.
+
+"But, my poor Catiche, it is as clear as daylight! He will then be the
+legal heir to everything and you won't get anything. You must know, my
+dear, whether the will and letter were written, and whether they have
+been destroyed or not. And if they have somehow been overlooked, you
+ought to know where they are, and must find them, because..."
+
+"What next?" the princess interrupted, smiling sardonically and not
+changing the expression of her eyes. "I am a woman, and you think we are
+all stupid; but I know this: an illegitimate son cannot inherit... un
+bâtard!"* she added, as if supposing that this translation of the word
+would effectively prove to Prince Vasíli the invalidity of his
+contention.
+
+* A bastard.
+
+"Well, really, Catiche! Can't you understand! You are so intelligent,
+how is it you don't see that if the count has written a letter to the
+Emperor begging him to recognize Pierre as legitimate, it follows that
+Pierre will not be Pierre but will become Count Bezúkhov, and will then
+inherit everything under the will? And if the will and letter are not
+destroyed, then you will have nothing but the consolation of having been
+dutiful et tout ce qui s'ensuit!* That's certain."
+
+* And all that follows therefrom.
+
+"I know the will was made, but I also know that it is invalid; and you,
+mon cousin, seem to consider me a perfect fool," said the princess with
+the expression women assume when they suppose they are saying something
+witty and stinging.
+
+"My dear Princess Catherine Semënovna," began Prince Vasíli impatiently,
+"I came here not to wrangle with you, but to talk about your interests
+as with a kinswoman, a good, kind, true relation. And I tell you for the
+tenth time that if the letter to the Emperor and the will in Pierre's
+favor are among the count's papers, then, my dear girl, you and your
+sisters are not heiresses! If you don't believe me, then believe an
+expert. I have just been talking to Dmítri Onúfrich" (the family
+solicitor) "and he says the same."
+
+At this a sudden change evidently took place in the princess' ideas; her
+thin lips grew white, though her eyes did not change, and her voice when
+she began to speak passed through such transitions as she herself
+evidently did not expect.
+
+"That would be a fine thing!" said she. "I never wanted anything and I
+don't now."
+
+She pushed the little dog off her lap and smoothed her dress.
+
+"And this is gratitude—this is recognition for those who have sacrificed
+everything for his sake!" she cried. "It's splendid! Fine! I don't want
+anything, Prince."
+
+"Yes, but you are not the only one. There are your sisters..." replied
+Prince Vasíli.
+
+But the princess did not listen to him.
+
+"Yes, I knew it long ago but had forgotten. I knew that I could expect
+nothing but meanness, deceit, envy, intrigue, and ingratitude—the
+blackest ingratitude—in this house..."
+
+"Do you or do you not know where that will is?" insisted Prince Vasíli,
+his cheeks twitching more than ever.
+
+"Yes, I was a fool! I still believed in people, loved them, and
+sacrificed myself. But only the base, the vile succeed! I know who has
+been intriguing!"
+
+The princess wished to rise, but the prince held her by the hand. She
+had the air of one who has suddenly lost faith in the whole human race.
+She gave her companion an angry glance.
+
+"There is still time, my dear. You must remember, Catiche, that it was
+all done casually in a moment of anger, of illness, and was afterwards
+forgotten. Our duty, my dear, is to rectify his mistake, to ease his
+last moments by not letting him commit this injustice, and not to let
+him die feeling that he is rendering unhappy those who..."
+
+"Who sacrificed everything for him," chimed in the princess, who would
+again have risen had not the prince still held her fast, "though he
+never could appreciate it. No, mon cousin," she added with a sigh, "I
+shall always remember that in this world one must expect no reward, that
+in this world there is neither honor nor justice. In this world one has
+to be cunning and cruel."
+
+"Now come, come! Be reasonable. I know your excellent heart."
+
+"No, I have a wicked heart."
+
+"I know your heart," repeated the prince. "I value your friendship and
+wish you to have as good an opinion of me. Don't upset yourself, and let
+us talk sensibly while there is still time, be it a day or be it but an
+hour.... Tell me all you know about the will, and above all where it is.
+You must know. We will take it at once and show it to the count. He has,
+no doubt, forgotten it and will wish to destroy it. You understand that
+my sole desire is conscientiously to carry out his wishes; that is my
+only reason for being here. I came simply to help him and you."
+
+"Now I see it all! I know who has been intriguing—I know!" cried the
+princess.
+
+"That's not the point, my dear."
+
+"It's that protégé of yours, that sweet Princess Drubetskáya, that Anna
+Mikháylovna whom I would not take for a housemaid... the infamous, vile
+woman!"
+
+"Do not let us lose any time..."
+
+"Ah, don't talk to me! Last winter she wheedled herself in here and told
+the count such vile, disgraceful things about us, especially about
+Sophie—I can't repeat them—that it made the count quite ill and he would
+not see us for a whole fortnight. I know it was then he wrote this vile,
+infamous paper, but I thought the thing was invalid."
+
+"We've got to it at last—why did you not tell me about it sooner?"
+
+"It's in the inlaid portfolio that he keeps under his pillow," said the
+princess, ignoring his question. "Now I know! Yes; if I have a sin, a
+great sin, it is hatred of that vile woman!" almost shrieked the
+princess, now quite changed. "And what does she come worming herself in
+here for? But I will give her a piece of my mind. The time will come!"
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+While these conversations were going on in the reception room and the
+princess' room, a carriage containing Pierre (who had been sent for) and
+Anna Mikháylovna (who found it necessary to accompany him) was driving
+into the court of Count Bezúkhov's house. As the wheels rolled softly
+over the straw beneath the windows, Anna Mikháylovna, having turned with
+words of comfort to her companion, realized that he was asleep in his
+corner and woke him up. Rousing himself, Pierre followed Anna
+Mikháylovna out of the carriage, and only then began to think of the
+interview with his dying father which awaited him. He noticed that they
+had not come to the front entrance but to the back door. While he was
+getting down from the carriage steps two men, who looked like
+tradespeople, ran hurriedly from the entrance and hid in the shadow of
+the wall. Pausing for a moment, Pierre noticed several other men of the
+same kind hiding in the shadow of the house on both sides. But neither
+Anna Mikháylovna nor the footman nor the coachman, who could not help
+seeing these people, took any notice of them. "It seems to be all
+right," Pierre concluded, and followed Anna Mikháylovna. She hurriedly
+ascended the narrow dimly lit stone staircase, calling to Pierre, who
+was lagging behind, to follow. Though he did not see why it was
+necessary for him to go to the count at all, still less why he had to go
+by the back stairs, yet judging by Anna Mikháylovna's air of assurance
+and haste, Pierre concluded that it was all absolutely necessary.
+Halfway up the stairs they were almost knocked over by some men who,
+carrying pails, came running downstairs, their boots clattering. These
+men pressed close to the wall to let Pierre and Anna Mikháylovna pass
+and did not evince the least surprise at seeing them there.
+
+"Is this the way to the princesses' apartments?" asked Anna Mikháylovna
+of one of them.
+
+"Yes," replied a footman in a bold loud voice, as if anything were now
+permissible; "the door to the left, ma'am."
+
+"Perhaps the count did not ask for me," said Pierre when he reached the
+landing. "I'd better go to my own room."
+
+Anna Mikháylovna paused and waited for him to come up.
+
+"Ah, my friend!" she said, touching his arm as she had done her son's
+when speaking to him that afternoon, "believe me I suffer no less than
+you do, but be a man!"
+
+"But really, hadn't I better go away?" he asked, looking kindly at her
+over his spectacles.
+
+"Ah, my dear friend! Forget the wrongs that may have been done you.
+Think that he is your father ... perhaps in the agony of death." She
+sighed. "I have loved you like a son from the first. Trust yourself to
+me, Pierre. I shall not forget your interests."
+
+Pierre did not understand a word, but the conviction that all this had
+to be grew stronger, and he meekly followed Anna Mikháylovna who was
+already opening a door.
+
+This door led into a back anteroom. An old man, a servant of the
+princesses, sat in a corner knitting a stocking. Pierre had never been
+in this part of the house and did not even know of the existence of
+these rooms. Anna Mikháylovna, addressing a maid who was hurrying past
+with a decanter on a tray as "my dear" and "my sweet," asked about the
+princess' health and then led Pierre along a stone passage. The first
+door on the left led into the princesses' apartments. The maid with the
+decanter in her haste had not closed the door (everything in the house
+was done in haste at that time), and Pierre and Anna Mikháylovna in
+passing instinctively glanced into the room, where Prince Vasíli and the
+eldest princess were sitting close together talking. Seeing them pass,
+Prince Vasíli drew back with obvious impatience, while the princess
+jumped up and with a gesture of desperation slammed the door with all
+her might.
+
+This action was so unlike her usual composure and the fear depicted on
+Prince Vasíli's face so out of keeping with his dignity that Pierre
+stopped and glanced inquiringly over his spectacles at his guide. Anna
+Mikháylovna evinced no surprise, she only smiled faintly and sighed, as
+if to say that this was no more than she had expected.
+
+"Be a man, my friend. I will look after your interests," said she in
+reply to his look, and went still faster along the passage.
+
+Pierre could not make out what it was all about, and still less what
+"watching over his interests" meant, but he decided that all these
+things had to be. From the passage they went into a large, dimly lit
+room adjoining the count's reception room. It was one of those sumptuous
+but cold apartments known to Pierre only from the front approach, but
+even in this room there now stood an empty bath, and water had been
+spilled on the carpet. They were met by a deacon with a censer and by a
+servant who passed out on tiptoe without heeding them. They went into
+the reception room familiar to Pierre, with two Italian windows opening
+into the conservatory, with its large bust and full length portrait of
+Catherine the Great. The same people were still sitting here in almost
+the same positions as before, whispering to one another. All became
+silent and turned to look at the pale tear-worn Anna Mikháylovna as she
+entered, and at the big stout figure of Pierre who, hanging his head,
+meekly followed her.
+
+Anna Mikháylovna's face expressed a consciousness that the decisive
+moment had arrived. With the air of a practical Petersburg lady she now,
+keeping Pierre close beside her, entered the room even more boldly than
+that afternoon. She felt that as she brought with her the person the
+dying man wished to see, her own admission was assured. Casting a rapid
+glance at all those in the room and noticing the count's confessor
+there, she glided up to him with a sort of amble, not exactly bowing yet
+seeming to grow suddenly smaller, and respectfully received the blessing
+first of one and then of another priest.
+
+"God be thanked that you are in time," said she to one of the priests;
+"all we relatives have been in such anxiety. This young man is the
+count's son," she added more softly. "What a terrible moment!"
+
+Having said this she went up to the doctor.
+
+"Dear doctor," said she, "this young man is the count's son. Is there
+any hope?"
+
+The doctor cast a rapid glance upwards and silently shrugged his
+shoulders. Anna Mikháylovna with just the same movement raised her
+shoulders and eyes, almost closing the latter, sighed, and moved away
+from the doctor to Pierre. To him, in a particularly respectful and
+tenderly sad voice, she said:
+
+"Trust in His mercy!" and pointing out a small sofa for him to sit and
+wait for her, she went silently toward the door that everyone was
+watching and it creaked very slightly as she disappeared behind it.
+
+Pierre, having made up his mind to obey his monitress implicitly, moved
+toward the sofa she had indicated. As soon as Anna Mikháylovna had
+disappeared he noticed that the eyes of all in the room turned to him
+with something more than curiosity and sympathy. He noticed that they
+whispered to one another, casting significant looks at him with a kind
+of awe and even servility. A deference such as he had never before
+received was shown him. A strange lady, the one who had been talking to
+the priests, rose and offered him her seat; an aide-de-camp picked up
+and returned a glove Pierre had dropped; the doctors became respectfully
+silent as he passed by, and moved to make way for him. At first Pierre
+wished to take another seat so as not to trouble the lady, and also to
+pick up the glove himself and to pass round the doctors who were not
+even in his way; but all at once he felt that this would not do, and
+that tonight he was a person obliged to perform some sort of awful rite
+which everyone expected of him, and that he was therefore bound to
+accept their services. He took the glove in silence from the aide-de-
+camp, and sat down in the lady's chair, placing his huge hands
+symmetrically on his knees in the naïve attitude of an Egyptian statue,
+and decided in his own mind that all was as it should be, and that in
+order not to lose his head and do foolish things he must not act on his
+own ideas tonight, but must yield himself up entirely to the will of
+those who were guiding him.
+
+Not two minutes had passed before Prince Vasíli with head erect
+majestically entered the room. He was wearing his long coat with three
+stars on his breast. He seemed to have grown thinner since the morning;
+his eyes seemed larger than usual when he glanced round and noticed
+Pierre. He went up to him, took his hand (a thing he never used to do),
+and drew it downwards as if wishing to ascertain whether it was firmly
+fixed on.
+
+"Courage, courage, my friend! He has asked to see you. That is well!"
+and he turned to go.
+
+But Pierre thought it necessary to ask: "How is..." and hesitated, not
+knowing whether it would be proper to call the dying man "the count,"
+yet ashamed to call him "father."
+
+"He had another stroke about half an hour ago. Courage, my friend..."
+
+Pierre's mind was in such a confused state that the word "stroke"
+suggested to him a blow from something. He looked at Prince Vasíli in
+perplexity, and only later grasped that a stroke was an attack of
+illness. Prince Vasíli said something to Lorrain in passing and went
+through the door on tiptoe. He could not walk well on tiptoe and his
+whole body jerked at each step. The eldest princess followed him, and
+the priests and deacons and some servants also went in at the door.
+Through that door was heard a noise of things being moved about, and at
+last Anna Mikháylovna, still with the same expression, pale but resolute
+in the discharge of duty, ran out and touching Pierre lightly on the arm
+said:
+
+"The divine mercy is inexhaustible! Unction is about to be administered.
+Come."
+
+Pierre went in at the door, stepping on the soft carpet, and noticed
+that the strange lady, the aide-de-camp, and some of the servants, all
+followed him in, as if there were now no further need for permission to
+enter that room.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+Pierre well knew this large room divided by columns and an arch, its
+walls hung round with Persian carpets. The part of the room behind the
+columns, with a high silk-curtained mahogany bedstead on one side and on
+the other an immense case containing icons, was brightly illuminated
+with red light like a Russian church during evening service. Under the
+gleaming icons stood a long invalid chair, and in that chair on snowy-
+white smooth pillows, evidently freshly changed, Pierre saw—covered to
+the waist by a bright green quilt—the familiar, majestic figure of his
+father, Count Bezúkhov, with that gray mane of hair above his broad
+forehead which reminded one of a lion, and the deep characteristically
+noble wrinkles of his handsome, ruddy face. He lay just under the icons;
+his large thick hands outside the quilt. Into the right hand, which was
+lying palm downwards, a wax taper had been thrust between forefinger and
+thumb, and an old servant, bending over from behind the chair, held it
+in position. By the chair stood the priests, their long hair falling
+over their magnificent glittering vestments, with lighted tapers in
+their hands, slowly and solemnly conducting the service. A little behind
+them stood the two younger princesses holding handkerchiefs to their
+eyes, and just in front of them their eldest sister, Catiche, with a
+vicious and determined look steadily fixed on the icons, as though
+declaring to all that she could not answer for herself should she glance
+round. Anna Mikháylovna, with a meek, sorrowful, and all-forgiving
+expression on her face, stood by the door near the strange lady. Prince
+Vasíli in front of the door, near the invalid chair, a wax taper in his
+left hand, was leaning his left arm on the carved back of a velvet chair
+he had turned round for the purpose, and was crossing himself with his
+right hand, turning his eyes upward each time he touched his forehead.
+His face wore a calm look of piety and resignation to the will of God.
+"If you do not understand these sentiments," he seemed to be saying, "so
+much the worse for you!"
+
+Behind him stood the aide-de-camp, the doctors, and the menservants; the
+men and women had separated as in church. All were silently crossing
+themselves, and the reading of the church service, the subdued chanting
+of deep bass voices, and in the intervals sighs and the shuffling of
+feet were the only sounds that could be heard. Anna Mikháylovna, with an
+air of importance that showed that she felt she quite knew what she was
+about, went across the room to where Pierre was standing and gave him a
+taper. He lit it and, distracted by observing those around him, began
+crossing himself with the hand that held the taper.
+
+Sophie, the rosy, laughter-loving, youngest princess with the mole,
+watched him. She smiled, hid her face in her handkerchief, and remained
+with it hidden for awhile; then looking up and seeing Pierre she again
+began to laugh. She evidently felt unable to look at him without
+laughing, but could not resist looking at him: so to be out of
+temptation she slipped quietly behind one of the columns. In the midst
+of the service the voices of the priests suddenly ceased, they whispered
+to one another, and the old servant who was holding the count's hand got
+up and said something to the ladies. Anna Mikháylovna stepped forward
+and, stooping over the dying man, beckoned to Lorrain from behind her
+back. The French doctor held no taper; he was leaning against one of the
+columns in a respectful attitude implying that he, a foreigner, in spite
+of all differences of faith, understood the full importance of the rite
+now being performed and even approved of it. He now approached the sick
+man with the noiseless step of one in full vigor of life, with his
+delicate white fingers raised from the green quilt the hand that was
+free, and turning sideways felt the pulse and reflected a moment. The
+sick man was given something to drink, there was a stir around him, then
+the people resumed their places and the service continued. During this
+interval Pierre noticed that Prince Vasíli left the chair on which he
+had been leaning, and—with an air which intimated that he knew what he
+was about and if others did not understand him it was so much the worse
+for them—did not go up to the dying man, but passed by him, joined the
+eldest princess, and moved with her to the side of the room where stood
+the high bedstead with its silken hangings. On leaving the bed both
+Prince Vasíli and the princess passed out by a back door, but returned
+to their places one after the other before the service was concluded.
+Pierre paid no more attention to this occurrence than to the rest of
+what went on, having made up his mind once for all that what he saw
+happening around him that evening was in some way essential.
+
+The chanting of the service ceased, and the voice of the priest was
+heard respectfully congratulating the dying man on having received the
+sacrament. The dying man lay as lifeless and immovable as before. Around
+him everyone began to stir: steps were audible and whispers, among which
+Anna Mikháylovna's was the most distinct.
+
+Pierre heard her say:
+
+"Certainly he must be moved onto the bed; here it will be impossible..."
+
+The sick man was so surrounded by doctors, princesses, and servants that
+Pierre could no longer see the reddish-yellow face with its gray
+mane—which, though he saw other faces as well, he had not lost sight of
+for a single moment during the whole service. He judged by the cautious
+movements of those who crowded round the invalid chair that they had
+lifted the dying man and were moving him.
+
+"Catch hold of my arm or you'll drop him!" he heard one of the servants
+say in a frightened whisper. "Catch hold from underneath. Here!"
+exclaimed different voices; and the heavy breathing of the bearers and
+the shuffling of their feet grew more hurried, as if the weight they
+were carrying were too much for them.
+
+As the bearers, among whom was Anna Mikháylovna, passed the young man he
+caught a momentary glimpse between their heads and backs of the dying
+man's high, stout, uncovered chest and powerful shoulders, raised by
+those who were holding him under the armpits, and of his gray, curly,
+leonine head. This head, with its remarkably broad brow and cheekbones,
+its handsome, sensual mouth, and its cold, majestic expression, was not
+disfigured by the approach of death. It was the same as Pierre
+remembered it three months before, when the count had sent him to
+Petersburg. But now this head was swaying helplessly with the uneven
+movements of the bearers, and the cold listless gaze fixed itself upon
+nothing.
+
+After a few minutes' bustle beside the high bedstead, those who had
+carried the sick man dispersed. Anna Mikháylovna touched Pierre's hand
+and said, "Come." Pierre went with her to the bed on which the sick man
+had been laid in a stately pose in keeping with the ceremony just
+completed. He lay with his head propped high on the pillows. His hands
+were symmetrically placed on the green silk quilt, the palms downward.
+When Pierre came up the count was gazing straight at him, but with a
+look the significance of which could not be understood by mortal man.
+Either this look meant nothing but that as long as one has eyes they
+must look somewhere, or it meant too much. Pierre hesitated, not knowing
+what to do, and glanced inquiringly at his guide. Anna Mikháylovna made
+a hurried sign with her eyes, glancing at the sick man's hand and moving
+her lips as if to send it a kiss. Pierre, carefully stretching his neck
+so as not to touch the quilt, followed her suggestion and pressed his
+lips to the large boned, fleshy hand. Neither the hand nor a single
+muscle of the count's face stirred. Once more Pierre looked
+questioningly at Anna Mikháylovna to see what he was to do next. Anna
+Mikháylovna with her eyes indicated a chair that stood beside the bed.
+Pierre obediently sat down, his eyes asking if he were doing right. Anna
+Mikháylovna nodded approvingly. Again Pierre fell into the naïvely
+symmetrical pose of an Egyptian statue, evidently distressed that his
+stout and clumsy body took up so much room and doing his utmost to look
+as small as possible. He looked at the count, who still gazed at the
+spot where Pierre's face had been before he sat down. Anna Mikháylovna
+indicated by her attitude her consciousness of the pathetic importance
+of these last moments of meeting between the father and son. This lasted
+about two minutes, which to Pierre seemed an hour. Suddenly the broad
+muscles and lines of the count's face began to twitch. The twitching
+increased, the handsome mouth was drawn to one side (only now did Pierre
+realize how near death his father was), and from that distorted mouth
+issued an indistinct, hoarse sound. Anna Mikháylovna looked attentively
+at the sick man's eyes, trying to guess what he wanted; she pointed
+first to Pierre, then to some drink, then named Prince Vasíli in an
+inquiring whisper, then pointed to the quilt. The eyes and face of the
+sick man showed impatience. He made an effort to look at the servant who
+stood constantly at the head of the bed.
+
+"Wants to turn on the other side," whispered the servant, and got up to
+turn the count's heavy body toward the wall.
+
+Pierre rose to help him.
+
+While the count was being turned over, one of his arms fell back
+helplessly and he made a fruitless effort to pull it forward. Whether he
+noticed the look of terror with which Pierre regarded that lifeless arm,
+or whether some other thought flitted across his dying brain, at any
+rate he glanced at the refractory arm, at Pierre's terror-stricken face,
+and again at the arm, and on his face a feeble, piteous smile appeared,
+quite out of keeping with his features, that seemed to deride his own
+helplessness. At sight of this smile Pierre felt an unexpected quivering
+in his breast and a tickling in his nose, and tears dimmed his eyes. The
+sick man was turned on to his side with his face to the wall. He sighed.
+
+"He is dozing," said Anna Mikháylovna, observing that one of the
+princesses was coming to take her turn at watching. "Let us go."
+
+Pierre went out.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+There was now no one in the reception room except Prince Vasíli and the
+eldest princess, who were sitting under the portrait of Catherine the
+Great and talking eagerly. As soon as they saw Pierre and his companion
+they became silent, and Pierre thought he saw the princess hide
+something as she whispered:
+
+"I can't bear the sight of that woman."
+
+"Catiche has had tea served in the small drawing room," said Prince
+Vasíli to Anna Mikháylovna. "Go and take something, my poor Anna
+Mikháylovna, or you will not hold out."
+
+To Pierre he said nothing, merely giving his arm a sympathetic squeeze
+below the shoulder. Pierre went with Anna Mikháylovna into the small
+drawing room.
+
+"There is nothing so refreshing after a sleepless night as a cup of this
+delicious Russian tea," Lorrain was saying with an air of restrained
+animation as he stood sipping tea from a delicate Chinese handleless cup
+before a table on which tea and a cold supper were laid in the small
+circular room. Around the table all who were at Count Bezúkhov's house
+that night had gathered to fortify themselves. Pierre well remembered
+this small circular drawing room with its mirrors and little tables.
+During balls given at the house Pierre, who did not know how to dance,
+had liked sitting in this room to watch the ladies who, as they passed
+through in their ball dresses with diamonds and pearls on their bare
+shoulders, looked at themselves in the brilliantly lighted mirrors which
+repeated their reflections several times. Now this same room was dimly
+lighted by two candles. On one small table tea things and supper dishes
+stood in disorder, and in the middle of the night a motley throng of
+people sat there, not merrymaking, but somberly whispering, and
+betraying by every word and movement that they none of them forgot what
+was happening and what was about to happen in the bedroom. Pierre did
+not eat anything though he would very much have liked to. He looked
+inquiringly at his monitress and saw that she was again going on tiptoe
+to the reception room where they had left Prince Vasíli and the eldest
+princess. Pierre concluded that this also was essential, and after a
+short interval followed her. Anna Mikháylovna was standing beside the
+princess, and they were both speaking in excited whispers.
+
+"Permit me, Princess, to know what is necessary and what is not
+necessary," said the younger of the two speakers, evidently in the same
+state of excitement as when she had slammed the door of her room.
+
+"But, my dear princess," answered Anna Mikháylovna blandly but
+impressively, blocking the way to the bedroom and preventing the other
+from passing, "won't this be too much for poor Uncle at a moment when he
+needs repose? Worldly conversation at a moment when his soul is already
+prepared..."
+
+Prince Vasíli was seated in an easy chair in his familiar attitude, with
+one leg crossed high above the other. His cheeks, which were so flabby
+that they looked heavier below, were twitching violently; but he wore
+the air of a man little concerned in what the two ladies were saying.
+
+"Come, my dear Anna Mikháylovna, let Catiche do as she pleases. You know
+how fond the count is of her."
+
+"I don't even know what is in this paper," said the younger of the two
+ladies, addressing Prince Vasíli and pointing to an inlaid portfolio she
+held in her hand. "All I know is that his real will is in his writing
+table, and this is a paper he has forgotten...."
+
+She tried to pass Anna Mikháylovna, but the latter sprang so as to bar
+her path.
+
+"I know, my dear, kind princess," said Anna Mikháylovna, seizing the
+portfolio so firmly that it was plain she would not let go easily. "Dear
+princess, I beg and implore you, have some pity on him! Je vous en
+conjure..."
+
+The princess did not reply. Their efforts in the struggle for the
+portfolio were the only sounds audible, but it was evident that if the
+princess did speak, her words would not be flattering to Anna
+Mikháylovna. Though the latter held on tenaciously, her voice lost none
+of its honeyed firmness and softness.
+
+"Pierre, my dear, come here. I think he will not be out of place in a
+family consultation; is it not so, Prince?"
+
+"Why don't you speak, cousin?" suddenly shrieked the princess so loud
+that those in the drawing room heard her and were startled. "Why do you
+remain silent when heaven knows who permits herself to interfere, making
+a scene on the very threshold of a dying man's room? Intriguer!" she
+hissed viciously, and tugged with all her might at the portfolio.
+
+But Anna Mikháylovna went forward a step or two to keep her hold on the
+portfolio, and changed her grip.
+
+Prince Vasíli rose. "Oh!" said he with reproach and surprise, "this is
+absurd! Come, let go I tell you."
+
+The princess let go.
+
+"And you too!"
+
+But Anna Mikháylovna did not obey him.
+
+"Let go, I tell you! I will take the responsibility. I myself will go
+and ask him, I!... does that satisfy you?"
+
+"But, Prince," said Anna Mikháylovna, "after such a solemn sacrament,
+allow him a moment's peace! Here, Pierre, tell them your opinion," said
+she, turning to the young man who, having come quite close, was gazing
+with astonishment at the angry face of the princess which had lost all
+dignity, and at the twitching cheeks of Prince Vasíli.
+
+"Remember that you will answer for the consequences," said Prince Vasíli
+severely. "You don't know what you are doing."
+
+"Vile woman!" shouted the princess, darting unexpectedly at Anna
+Mikháylovna and snatching the portfolio from her.
+
+Prince Vasíli bent his head and spread out his hands.
+
+At this moment that terrible door, which Pierre had watched so long and
+which had always opened so quietly, burst noisily open and banged
+against the wall, and the second of the three sisters rushed out
+wringing her hands.
+
+"What are you doing!" she cried vehemently. "He is dying and you leave
+me alone with him!"
+
+Her sister dropped the portfolio. Anna Mikháylovna, stooping, quickly
+caught up the object of contention and ran into the bedroom. The eldest
+princess and Prince Vasíli, recovering themselves, followed her. A few
+minutes later the eldest sister came out with a pale hard face, again
+biting her underlip. At sight of Pierre her expression showed an
+irrepressible hatred.
+
+"Yes, now you may be glad!" said she; "this is what you have been
+waiting for." And bursting into tears she hid her face in her
+handkerchief and rushed from the room.
+
+Prince Vasíli came next. He staggered to the sofa on which Pierre was
+sitting and dropped onto it, covering his face with his hand. Pierre
+noticed that he was pale and that his jaw quivered and shook as if in an
+ague.
+
+"Ah, my friend!" said he, taking Pierre by the elbow; and there was in
+his voice a sincerity and weakness Pierre had never observed in it
+before. "How often we sin, how much we deceive, and all for what? I am
+near sixty, dear friend... I too... All will end in death, all! Death is
+awful..." and he burst into tears.
+
+Anna Mikháylovna came out last. She approached Pierre with slow, quiet
+steps.
+
+"Pierre!" she said.
+
+Pierre gave her an inquiring look. She kissed the young man on his
+forehead, wetting him with her tears. Then after a pause she said:
+
+"He is no more...."
+
+Pierre looked at her over his spectacles.
+
+"Come, I will go with you. Try to weep, nothing gives such relief as
+tears."
+
+She led him into the dark drawing room and Pierre was glad no one could
+see his face. Anna Mikháylovna left him, and when she returned he was
+fast asleep with his head on his arm.
+
+In the morning Anna Mikháylovna said to Pierre:
+
+"Yes, my dear, this is a great loss for us all, not to speak of you. But
+God will support you: you are young, and are now, I hope, in command of
+an immense fortune. The will has not yet been opened. I know you well
+enough to be sure that this will not turn your head, but it imposes
+duties on you, and you must be a man."
+
+Pierre was silent.
+
+"Perhaps later on I may tell you, my dear boy, that if I had not been
+there, God only knows what would have happened! You know, Uncle promised
+me only the day before yesterday not to forget Borís. But he had no
+time. I hope, my dear friend, you will carry out your father's wish?"
+
+Pierre understood nothing of all this and coloring shyly looked in
+silence at Princess Anna Mikháylovna. After her talk with Pierre, Anna
+Mikháylovna returned to the Rostóvs' and went to bed. On waking in the
+morning she told the Rostóvs and all her acquaintances the details of
+Count Bezúkhov's death. She said the count had died as she would herself
+wish to die, that his end was not only touching but edifying. As to the
+last meeting between father and son, it was so touching that she could
+not think of it without tears, and did not know which had behaved better
+during those awful moments—the father who so remembered everything and
+everybody at last and had spoken such pathetic words to the son, or
+Pierre, whom it had been pitiful to see, so stricken was he with grief,
+though he tried hard to hide it in order not to sadden his dying father.
+"It is painful, but it does one good. It uplifts the soul to see such
+men as the old count and his worthy son," said she. Of the behavior of
+the eldest princess and Prince Vasíli she spoke disapprovingly, but in
+whispers and as a great secret.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+At Bald Hills, Prince Nicholas Andréevich Bolkónski's estate, the
+arrival of young Prince Andrew and his wife was daily expected, but this
+expectation did not upset the regular routine of life in the old
+prince's household. General in Chief Prince Nicholas Andréevich
+(nicknamed in society, "the King of Prussia") ever since the Emperor
+Paul had exiled him to his country estate had lived there continuously
+with his daughter, Princess Mary, and her companion, Mademoiselle
+Bourienne. Though in the new reign he was free to return to the
+capitals, he still continued to live in the country, remarking that
+anyone who wanted to see him could come the hundred miles from Moscow to
+Bald Hills, while he himself needed no one and nothing. He used to say
+that there are only two sources of human vice—idleness and superstition,
+and only two virtues—activity and intelligence. He himself undertook his
+daughter's education, and to develop these two cardinal virtues in her
+gave her lessons in algebra and geometry till she was twenty, and
+arranged her life so that her whole time was occupied. He was himself
+always occupied: writing his memoirs, solving problems in higher
+mathematics, turning snuffboxes on a lathe, working in the garden, or
+superintending the building that was always going on at his estate. As
+regularity is a prime condition facilitating activity, regularity in his
+household was carried to the highest point of exactitude. He always came
+to table under precisely the same conditions, and not only at the same
+hour but at the same minute. With those about him, from his daughter to
+his serfs, the prince was sharp and invariably exacting, so that without
+being a hardhearted man he inspired such fear and respect as few
+hardhearted men would have aroused. Although he was in retirement and
+had now no influence in political affairs, every high official appointed
+to the province in which the prince's estate lay considered it his duty
+to visit him and waited in the lofty antechamber just as the architect,
+gardener, or Princess Mary did, till the prince appeared punctually to
+the appointed hour. Everyone sitting in this antechamber experienced the
+same feeling of respect and even fear when the enormously high study
+door opened and showed the figure of a rather small old man, with
+powdered wig, small withered hands, and bushy gray eyebrows which, when
+he frowned, sometimes hid the gleam of his shrewd, youthfully glittering
+eyes.
+
+On the morning of the day that the young couple were to arrive, Princess
+Mary entered the antechamber as usual at the time appointed for the
+morning greeting, crossing herself with trepidation and repeating a
+silent prayer. Every morning she came in like that, and every morning
+prayed that the daily interview might pass off well.
+
+An old powdered manservant who was sitting in the antechamber rose
+quietly and said in a whisper: "Please walk in."
+
+Through the door came the regular hum of a lathe. The princess timidly
+opened the door which moved noiselessly and easily. She paused at the
+entrance. The prince was working at the lathe and after glancing round
+continued his work.
+
+The enormous study was full of things evidently in constant use. The
+large table covered with books and plans, the tall glass-fronted
+bookcases with keys in the locks, the high desk for writing while
+standing up, on which lay an open exercise book, and the lathe with
+tools laid ready to hand and shavings scattered around—all indicated
+continuous, varied, and orderly activity. The motion of the small foot
+shod in a Tartar boot embroidered with silver, and the firm pressure of
+the lean sinewy hand, showed that the prince still possessed the
+tenacious endurance and vigor of hardy old age. After a few more turns
+of the lathe he removed his foot from the pedal, wiped his chisel,
+dropped it into a leather pouch attached to the lathe, and, approaching
+the table, summoned his daughter. He never gave his children a blessing,
+so he simply held out his bristly cheek (as yet unshaven) and, regarding
+her tenderly and attentively, said severely:
+
+"Quite well? All right then, sit down." He took the exercise book
+containing lessons in geometry written by himself and drew up a chair
+with his foot.
+
+"For tomorrow!" said he, quickly finding the page and making a scratch
+from one paragraph to another with his hard nail.
+
+The princess bent over the exercise book on the table.
+
+"Wait a bit, here's a letter for you," said the old man suddenly, taking
+a letter addressed in a woman's hand from a bag hanging above the table,
+onto which he threw it.
+
+At the sight of the letter red patches showed themselves on the
+princess' face. She took it quickly and bent her head over it.
+
+"From Héloïse?" asked the prince with a cold smile that showed his still
+sound, yellowish teeth.
+
+"Yes, it's from Julie," replied the princess with a timid glance and a
+timid smile.
+
+"I'll let two more letters pass, but the third I'll read," said the
+prince sternly; "I'm afraid you write much nonsense. I'll read the
+third!"
+
+"Read this if you like, Father," said the princess, blushing still more
+and holding out the letter.
+
+"The third, I said the third!" cried the prince abruptly, pushing the
+letter away, and leaning his elbows on the table he drew toward him the
+exercise book containing geometrical figures.
+
+"Well, madam," he began, stooping over the book close to his daughter
+and placing an arm on the back of the chair on which she sat, so that
+she felt herself surrounded on all sides by the acrid scent of old age
+and tobacco, which she had known so long. "Now, madam, these triangles
+are equal; please note that the angle ABC..."
+
+The princess looked in a scared way at her father's eyes glittering
+close to her; the red patches on her face came and went, and it was
+plain that she understood nothing and was so frightened that her fear
+would prevent her understanding any of her father's further
+explanations, however clear they might be. Whether it was the teacher's
+fault or the pupil's, this same thing happened every day: the princess'
+eyes grew dim, she could not see and could not hear anything, but was
+only conscious of her stern father's withered face close to her, of his
+breath and the smell of him, and could think only of how to get away
+quickly to her own room to make out the problem in peace. The old man
+was beside himself: moved the chair on which he was sitting noisily
+backward and forward, made efforts to control himself and not become
+vehement, but almost always did become vehement, scolded, and sometimes
+flung the exercise book away.
+
+The princess gave a wrong answer.
+
+"Well now, isn't she a fool!" shouted the prince, pushing the book aside
+and turning sharply away; but rising immediately, he paced up and down,
+lightly touched his daughter's hair and sat down again.
+
+He drew up his chair, and continued to explain.
+
+"This won't do, Princess; it won't do," said he, when Princess Mary,
+having taken and closed the exercise book with the next day's lesson,
+was about to leave: "Mathematics are most important, madam! I don't want
+to have you like our silly ladies. Get used to it and you'll like it,"
+and he patted her cheek. "It will drive all the nonsense out of your
+head."
+
+She turned to go, but he stopped her with a gesture and took an uncut
+book from the high desk.
+
+"Here is some sort of Key to the Mysteries that your Héloïse has sent
+you. Religious! I don't interfere with anyone's belief... I have looked
+at it. Take it. Well, now go. Go."
+
+He patted her on the shoulder and himself closed the door after her.
+
+Princess Mary went back to her room with the sad, scared expression that
+rarely left her and which made her plain, sickly face yet plainer. She
+sat down at her writing table, on which stood miniature portraits and
+which was littered with books and papers. The princess was as untidy as
+her father was tidy. She put down the geometry book and eagerly broke
+the seal of her letter. It was from her most intimate friend from
+childhood; that same Julie Karágina who had been at the Rostóvs' name-
+day party.
+
+Julie wrote in French:
+
+Dear and precious Friend, How terrible and frightful a thing is
+separation! Though I tell myself that half my life and half my happiness
+are wrapped up in you, and that in spite of the distance separating us
+our hearts are united by indissoluble bonds, my heart rebels against
+fate and in spite of the pleasures and distractions around me I cannot
+overcome a certain secret sorrow that has been in my heart ever since we
+parted. Why are we not together as we were last summer, in your big
+study, on the blue sofa, the confidential sofa? Why cannot I now, as
+three months ago, draw fresh moral strength from your look, so gentle,
+calm, and penetrating, a look I loved so well and seem to see before me
+as I write?
+
+Having read thus far, Princess Mary sighed and glanced into the mirror
+which stood on her right. It reflected a weak, ungraceful figure and
+thin face. Her eyes, always sad, now looked with particular hopelessness
+at her reflection in the glass. "She flatters me," thought the princess,
+turning away and continuing to read. But Julie did not flatter her
+friend, the princess' eyes—large, deep and luminous (it seemed as if at
+times there radiated from them shafts of warm light)—were so beautiful
+that very often in spite of the plainness of her face they gave her an
+attraction more powerful than that of beauty. But the princess never saw
+the beautiful expression of her own eyes—the look they had when she was
+not thinking of herself. As with everyone, her face assumed a forced
+unnatural expression as soon as she looked in a glass. She went on
+reading:
+
+All Moscow talks of nothing but war. One of my two brothers is already
+abroad, the other is with the Guards, who are starting on their march to
+the frontier. Our dear Emperor has left Petersburg and it is thought
+intends to expose his precious person to the chances of war. God grant
+that the Corsican monster who is destroying the peace of Europe may be
+overthrown by the angel whom it has pleased the Almighty, in His
+goodness, to give us as sovereign! To say nothing of my brothers, this
+war has deprived me of one of the associations nearest my heart. I mean
+young Nicholas Rostóv, who with his enthusiasm could not bear to remain
+inactive and has left the university to join the army. I will confess to
+you, dear Mary, that in spite of his extreme youth his departure for the
+army was a great grief to me. This young man, of whom I spoke to you
+last summer, is so noble-minded and full of that real youthfulness which
+one seldom finds nowadays among our old men of twenty and, particularly,
+he is so frank and has so much heart. He is so pure and poetic that my
+relations with him, transient as they were, have been one of the
+sweetest comforts to my poor heart, which has already suffered so much.
+Someday I will tell you about our parting and all that was said then.
+That is still too fresh. Ah, dear friend, you are happy not to know
+these poignant joys and sorrows. You are fortunate, for the latter are
+generally the stronger! I know very well that Count Nicholas is too
+young ever to be more to me than a friend, but this sweet friendship,
+this poetic and pure intimacy, were what my heart needed. But enough of
+this! The chief news, about which all Moscow gossips, is the death of
+old Count Bezúkhov, and his inheritance. Fancy! The three princesses
+have received very little, Prince Vasíli nothing, and it is Monsieur
+Pierre who has inherited all the property and has besides been
+recognized as legitimate; so that he is now Count Bezúkhov and possessor
+of the finest fortune in Russia. It is rumored that Prince Vasíli played
+a very despicable part in this affair and that he returned to Petersburg
+quite crestfallen.
+
+I confess I understand very little about all these matters of wills and
+inheritance; but I do know that since this young man, whom we all used
+to know as plain Monsieur Pierre, has become Count Bezúkhov and the
+owner of one of the largest fortunes in Russia, I am much amused to
+watch the change in the tone and manners of the mammas burdened by
+marriageable daughters, and of the young ladies themselves, toward him,
+though, between you and me, he always seemed to me a poor sort of
+fellow. As for the past two years people have amused themselves by
+finding husbands for me (most of whom I don't even know), the
+matchmaking chronicles of Moscow now speak of me as the future Countess
+Bezúkhova. But you will understand that I have no desire for the post. À
+propos of marriages: do you know that a while ago that universal auntie
+Anna Mikháylovna told me, under the seal of strict secrecy, of a plan of
+marriage for you. It is neither more nor less than with Prince Vasíli's
+son Anatole, whom they wish to reform by marrying him to someone rich
+and distinguée, and it is on you that his relations' choice has fallen.
+I don't know what you will think of it, but I consider it my duty to let
+you know of it. He is said to be very handsome and a terrible
+scapegrace. That is all I have been able to find out about him.
+
+But enough of gossip. I am at the end of my second sheet of paper, and
+Mamma has sent for me to go and dine at the Apráksins'. Read the
+mystical book I am sending you; it has an enormous success here. Though
+there are things in it difficult for the feeble human mind to grasp, it
+is an admirable book which calms and elevates the soul. Adieu! Give my
+respects to monsieur your father and my compliments to Mademoiselle
+Bourienne. I embrace you as I love you.
+
+JULIE
+
+P.S. Let me have news of your brother and his charming little wife.
+
+The princess pondered awhile with a thoughtful smile and her luminous
+eyes lit up so that her face was entirely transformed. Then she suddenly
+rose and with her heavy tread went up to the table. She took a sheet of
+paper and her hand moved rapidly over it. This is the reply she wrote,
+also in French:
+
+Dear and precious Friend, Your letter of the 13th has given me great
+delight. So you still love me, my romantic Julie? Separation, of which
+you say so much that is bad, does not seem to have had its usual effect
+on you. You complain of our separation. What then should I say, if I
+dared complain, I who am deprived of all who are dear to me? Ah, if we
+had not religion to console us life would be very sad. Why do you
+suppose that I should look severely on your affection for that young
+man? On such matters I am only severe with myself. I understand such
+feelings in others, and if never having felt them I cannot approve of
+them, neither do I condemn them. Only it seems to me that Christian
+love, love of one's neighbor, love of one's enemy, is worthier, sweeter,
+and better than the feelings which the beautiful eyes of a young man can
+inspire in a romantic and loving young girl like yourself.
+
+The news of Count Bezúkhov's death reached us before your letter and my
+father was much affected by it. He says the count was the last
+representative but one of the great century, and that it is his own turn
+now, but that he will do all he can to let his turn come as late as
+possible. God preserve us from that terrible misfortune!
+
+I cannot agree with you about Pierre, whom I knew as a child. He always
+seemed to me to have an excellent heart, and that is the quality I value
+most in people. As to his inheritance and the part played by Prince
+Vasíli, it is very sad for both. Ah, my dear friend, our divine
+Saviour's words, that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of
+a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God, are terribly
+true. I pity Prince Vasíli but am still more sorry for Pierre. So young,
+and burdened with such riches—to what temptations he will be exposed! If
+I were asked what I desire most on earth, it would be to be poorer than
+the poorest beggar. A thousand thanks, dear friend, for the volume you
+have sent me and which has such success in Moscow. Yet since you tell me
+that among some good things it contains others which our weak human
+understanding cannot grasp, it seems to me rather useless to spend time
+in reading what is unintelligible and can therefore bear no fruit. I
+never could understand the fondness some people have for confusing their
+minds by dwelling on mystical books that merely awaken their doubts and
+excite their imagination, giving them a bent for exaggeration quite
+contrary to Christian simplicity. Let us rather read the Epistles and
+Gospels. Let us not seek to penetrate what mysteries they contain; for
+how can we, miserable sinners that we are, know the terrible and holy
+secrets of Providence while we remain in this flesh which forms an
+impenetrable veil between us and the Eternal? Let us rather confine
+ourselves to studying those sublime rules which our divine Saviour has
+left for our guidance here below. Let us try to conform to them and
+follow them, and let us be persuaded that the less we let our feeble
+human minds roam, the better we shall please God, who rejects all
+knowledge that does not come from Him; and the less we seek to fathom
+what He has been pleased to conceal from us, the sooner will He
+vouchsafe its revelation to us through His divine Spirit.
+
+My father has not spoken to me of a suitor, but has only told me that he
+has received a letter and is expecting a visit from Prince Vasíli. In
+regard to this project of marriage for me, I will tell you, dear sweet
+friend, that I look on marriage as a divine institution to which we must
+conform. However painful it may be to me, should the Almighty lay the
+duties of wife and mother upon me I shall try to perform them as
+faithfully as I can, without disquieting myself by examining my feelings
+toward him whom He may give me for husband.
+
+I have had a letter from my brother, who announces his speedy arrival at
+Bald Hills with his wife. This pleasure will be but a brief one,
+however, for he will leave us again to take part in this unhappy war
+into which we have been drawn, God knows how or why. Not only where you
+are—at the heart of affairs and of the world—is the talk all of war,
+even here amid fieldwork and the calm of nature—which townsfolk consider
+characteristic of the country—rumors of war are heard and painfully
+felt. My father talks of nothing but marches and countermarches, things
+of which I understand nothing; and the day before yesterday during my
+daily walk through the village I witnessed a heartrending scene.... It
+was a convoy of conscripts enrolled from our people and starting to join
+the army. You should have seen the state of the mothers, wives, and
+children of the men who were going and should have heard the sobs. It
+seems as though mankind has forgotten the laws of its divine Saviour,
+Who preached love and forgiveness of injuries—and that men attribute the
+greatest merit to skill in killing one another.
+
+Adieu, dear and kind friend; may our divine Saviour and His most Holy
+Mother keep you in their holy and all-powerful care!
+
+MARY
+
+"Ah, you are sending off a letter, Princess? I have already dispatched
+mine. I have written to my poor mother," said the smiling Mademoiselle
+Bourienne rapidly, in her pleasant mellow tones and with guttural r's.
+She brought into Princess Mary's strenuous, mournful, and gloomy world a
+quite different atmosphere, careless, lighthearted, and self-satisfied.
+
+"Princess, I must warn you," she added, lowering her voice and evidently
+listening to herself with pleasure, and speaking with exaggerated
+grasseyement, "the prince has been scolding Michael Ivánovich. He is in
+a very bad humor, very morose. Be prepared."
+
+"Ah, dear friend," replied Princess Mary, "I have asked you never to
+warn me of the humor my father is in. I do not allow myself to judge him
+and would not have others do so."
+
+The princess glanced at her watch and, seeing that she was five minutes
+late in starting her practice on the clavichord, went into the sitting
+room with a look of alarm. Between twelve and two o'clock, as the day
+was mapped out, the prince rested and the princess played the
+clavichord.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+The gray-haired valet was sitting drowsily listening to the snoring of
+the prince, who was in his large study. From the far side of the house
+through the closed doors came the sound of difficult passages—twenty
+times repeated—of a sonata by Dussek.
+
+Just then a closed carriage and another with a hood drove up to the
+porch. Prince Andrew got out of the carriage, helped his little wife to
+alight, and let her pass into the house before him. Old Tíkhon, wearing
+a wig, put his head out of the door of the antechamber, reported in a
+whisper that the prince was sleeping, and hastily closed the door.
+Tíkhon knew that neither the son's arrival nor any other unusual event
+must be allowed to disturb the appointed order of the day. Prince Andrew
+apparently knew this as well as Tíkhon; he looked at his watch as if to
+ascertain whether his father's habits had changed since he was at home
+last, and, having assured himself that they had not, he turned to his
+wife.
+
+"He will get up in twenty minutes. Let us go across to Mary's room," he
+said.
+
+The little princess had grown stouter during this time, but her eyes and
+her short, downy, smiling lip lifted when she began to speak just as
+merrily and prettily as ever.
+
+"Why, this is a palace!" she said to her husband, looking around with
+the expression with which people compliment their host at a ball. "Let's
+come, quick, quick!" And with a glance round, she smiled at Tíkhon, at
+her husband, and at the footman who accompanied them.
+
+"Is that Mary practicing? Let's go quietly and take her by surprise."
+
+Prince Andrew followed her with a courteous but sad expression.
+
+"You've grown older, Tíkhon," he said in passing to the old man, who
+kissed his hand.
+
+Before they reached the room from which the sounds of the clavichord
+came, the pretty, fair-haired Frenchwoman, Mademoiselle Bourienne,
+rushed out apparently beside herself with delight.
+
+"Ah! what joy for the princess!" exclaimed she: "At last! I must let her
+know."
+
+"No, no, please not... You are Mademoiselle Bourienne," said the little
+princess, kissing her. "I know you already through my sister-in-law's
+friendship for you. She was not expecting us?"
+
+They went up to the door of the sitting room from which came the sound
+of the oft-repeated passage of the sonata. Prince Andrew stopped and
+made a grimace, as if expecting something unpleasant.
+
+The little princess entered the room. The passage broke off in the
+middle, a cry was heard, then Princess Mary's heavy tread and the sound
+of kissing. When Prince Andrew went in the two princesses, who had only
+met once before for a short time at his wedding, were in each other's
+arms warmly pressing their lips to whatever place they happened to
+touch. Mademoiselle Bourienne stood near them pressing her hand to her
+heart, with a beatific smile and obviously equally ready to cry or to
+laugh. Prince Andrew shrugged his shoulders and frowned, as lovers of
+music do when they hear a false note. The two women let go of one
+another, and then, as if afraid of being too late, seized each other's
+hands, kissing them and pulling them away, and again began kissing each
+other on the face, and then to Prince Andrew's surprise both began to
+cry and kissed again. Mademoiselle Bourienne also began to cry. Prince
+Andrew evidently felt ill at ease, but to the two women it seemed quite
+natural that they should cry, and apparently it never entered their
+heads that it could have been otherwise at this meeting.
+
+"Ah! my dear!... Ah! Mary!..." they suddenly exclaimed, and then
+laughed. "I dreamed last night..."—"You were not expecting us?..." "Ah!
+Mary, you have got thinner?..." "And you have grown stouter!..."
+
+"I knew the princess at once," put in Mademoiselle Bourienne.
+
+"And I had no idea!..." exclaimed Princess Mary. "Ah, Andrew, I did not
+see you."
+
+Prince Andrew and his sister, hand in hand, kissed one another, and he
+told her she was still the same crybaby as ever. Princess Mary had
+turned toward her brother, and through her tears the loving, warm,
+gentle look of her large luminous eyes, very beautiful at that moment,
+rested on Prince Andrew's face.
+
+The little princess talked incessantly, her short, downy upper lip
+continually and rapidly touching her rosy nether lip when necessary and
+drawing up again next moment when her face broke into a smile of
+glittering teeth and sparkling eyes. She told of an accident they had
+had on the Spásski Hill which might have been serious for her in her
+condition, and immediately after that informed them that she had left
+all her clothes in Petersburg and that heaven knew what she would have
+to dress in here; and that Andrew had quite changed, and that Kitty
+Odýntsova had married an old man, and that there was a suitor for Mary,
+a real one, but that they would talk of that later. Princess Mary was
+still looking silently at her brother and her beautiful eyes were full
+of love and sadness. It was plain that she was following a train of
+thought independent of her sister-in-law's words. In the midst of a
+description of the last Petersburg fete she addressed her brother:
+
+"So you are really going to the war, Andrew?" she said sighing.
+
+Lise sighed too.
+
+"Yes, and even tomorrow," replied her brother.
+
+"He is leaving me here, God knows why, when he might have had
+promotion..."
+
+Princess Mary did not listen to the end, but continuing her train of
+thought turned to her sister-in-law with a tender glance at her figure.
+
+"Is it certain?" she said.
+
+The face of the little princess changed. She sighed and said: "Yes,
+quite certain. Ah! it is very dreadful..."
+
+Her lip descended. She brought her face close to her sister-in-law's and
+unexpectedly again began to cry.
+
+"She needs rest," said Prince Andrew with a frown. "Don't you, Lise?
+Take her to your room and I'll go to Father. How is he? Just the same?"
+
+"Yes, just the same. Though I don't know what your opinion will be,"
+answered the princess joyfully.
+
+"And are the hours the same? And the walks in the avenues? And the
+lathe?" asked Prince Andrew with a scarcely perceptible smile which
+showed that, in spite of all his love and respect for his father, he was
+aware of his weaknesses.
+
+"The hours are the same, and the lathe, and also the mathematics and my
+geometry lessons," said Princess Mary gleefully, as if her lessons in
+geometry were among the greatest delights of her life.
+
+When the twenty minutes had elapsed and the time had come for the old
+prince to get up, Tíkhon came to call the young prince to his father.
+The old man made a departure from his usual routine in honor of his
+son's arrival: he gave orders to admit him to his apartments while he
+dressed for dinner. The old prince always dressed in old-fashioned
+style, wearing an antique coat and powdered hair; and when Prince Andrew
+entered his father's dressing room (not with the contemptuous look and
+manner he wore in drawing rooms, but with the animated face with which
+he talked to Pierre), the old man was sitting on a large leather-covered
+chair, wrapped in a powdering mantle, entrusting his head to Tíkhon.
+
+"Ah! here's the warrior! Wants to vanquish Buonaparte?" said the old
+man, shaking his powdered head as much as the tail, which Tíkhon was
+holding fast to plait, would allow.
+
+"You at least must tackle him properly, or else if he goes on like this
+he'll soon have us, too, for his subjects! How are you?" And he held out
+his cheek.
+
+The old man was in a good temper after his nap before dinner. (He used
+to say that a nap "after dinner was silver—before dinner, golden.") He
+cast happy, sidelong glances at his son from under his thick, bushy
+eyebrows. Prince Andrew went up and kissed his father on the spot
+indicated to him. He made no reply on his father's favorite topic—making
+fun of the military men of the day, and more particularly of Bonaparte.
+
+"Yes, Father, I have come to you and brought my wife who is pregnant,"
+said Prince Andrew, following every movement of his father's face with
+an eager and respectful look. "How is your health?"
+
+"Only fools and rakes fall ill, my boy. You know me: I am busy from
+morning till night and abstemious, so of course I am well."
+
+"Thank God," said his son smiling.
+
+"God has nothing to do with it! Well, go on," he continued, returning to
+his hobby; "tell me how the Germans have taught you to fight Bonaparte
+by this new science you call 'strategy.'"
+
+Prince Andrew smiled.
+
+"Give me time to collect my wits, Father," said he, with a smile that
+showed that his father's foibles did not prevent his son from loving and
+honoring him. "Why, I have not yet had time to settle down!"
+
+"Nonsense, nonsense!" cried the old man, shaking his pigtail to see
+whether it was firmly plaited, and grasping his by the hand. "The house
+for your wife is ready. Princess Mary will take her there and show her
+over, and they'll talk nineteen to the dozen. That's their woman's way!
+I am glad to have her. Sit down and talk. About Mikhelson's army I
+understand—Tolstóy 's too... a simultaneous expedition.... But what's
+the southern army to do? Prussia is neutral... I know that. What about
+Austria?" said he, rising from his chair and pacing up and down the room
+followed by Tíkhon, who ran after him, handing him different articles of
+clothing. "What of Sweden? How will they cross Pomerania?"
+
+Prince Andrew, seeing that his father insisted, began—at first
+reluctantly, but gradually with more and more animation, and from habit
+changing unconsciously from Russian to French as he went on—to explain
+the plan of operation for the coming campaign. He explained how an army,
+ninety thousand strong, was to threaten Prussia so as to bring her out
+of her neutrality and draw her into the war; how part of that army was
+to join some Swedish forces at Stralsund; how two hundred and twenty
+thousand Austrians, with a hundred thousand Russians, were to operate in
+Italy and on the Rhine; how fifty thousand Russians and as many English
+were to land at Naples, and how a total force of five hundred thousand
+men was to attack the French from different sides. The old prince did
+not evince the least interest during this explanation, but as if he were
+not listening to it continued to dress while walking about, and three
+times unexpectedly interrupted. Once he stopped it by shouting: "The
+white one, the white one!"
+
+This meant that Tíkhon was not handing him the waistcoat he wanted.
+Another time he interrupted, saying:
+
+"And will she soon be confined?" and shaking his head reproachfully
+said: "That's bad! Go on, go on."
+
+The third interruption came when Prince Andrew was finishing his
+description. The old man began to sing, in the cracked voice of old age:
+"Malbrook s'en va-t-en guerre. Dieu sait quand reviendra." *
+
+* "Marlborough is going to the wars; God knows when he'll return."
+
+His son only smiled.
+
+"I don't say it's a plan I approve of," said the son; "I am only telling
+you what it is. Napoleon has also formed his plan by now, not worse than
+this one."
+
+"Well, you've told me nothing new," and the old man repeated,
+meditatively and rapidly:
+
+"Dieu sait quand reviendra. Go to the dining room."
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+At the appointed hour the prince, powdered and shaven, entered the
+dining room where his daughter-in-law, Princess Mary, and Mademoiselle
+Bourienne were already awaiting him together with his architect, who by
+a strange caprice of his employer's was admitted to table though the
+position of that insignificant individual was such as could certainly
+not have caused him to expect that honor. The prince, who generally kept
+very strictly to social distinctions and rarely admitted even important
+government officials to his table, had unexpectedly selected Michael
+Ivánovich (who always went into a corner to blow his nose on his checked
+handkerchief) to illustrate the theory that all men are equals, and had
+more than once impressed on his daughter that Michael Ivánovich was "not
+a whit worse than you or I." At dinner the prince usually spoke to the
+taciturn Michael Ivánovich more often than to anyone else.
+
+In the dining room, which like all the rooms in the house was
+exceedingly lofty, the members of the household and the footmen—one
+behind each chair—stood waiting for the prince to enter. The head
+butler, napkin on arm, was scanning the setting of the table, making
+signs to the footmen, and anxiously glancing from the clock to the door
+by which the prince was to enter. Prince Andrew was looking at a large
+gilt frame, new to him, containing the genealogical tree of the Princes
+Bolkónski, opposite which hung another such frame with a badly painted
+portrait (evidently by the hand of the artist belonging to the estate)
+of a ruling prince, in a crown—an alleged descendant of Rúrik and
+ancestor of the Bolkónskis. Prince Andrew, looking again at that
+genealogical tree, shook his head, laughing as a man laughs who looks at
+a portrait so characteristic of the original as to be amusing.
+
+"How thoroughly like him that is!" he said to Princess Mary, who had
+come up to him.
+
+Princess Mary looked at her brother in surprise. She did not understand
+what he was laughing at. Everything her father did inspired her with
+reverence and was beyond question.
+
+"Everyone has his Achilles' heel," continued Prince Andrew. "Fancy, with
+his powerful mind, indulging in such nonsense!"
+
+Princess Mary could not understand the boldness of her brother's
+criticism and was about to reply, when the expected footsteps were heard
+coming from the study. The prince walked in quickly and jauntily as was
+his wont, as if intentionally contrasting the briskness of his manners
+with the strict formality of his house. At that moment the great clock
+struck two and another with a shrill tone joined in from the drawing
+room. The prince stood still; his lively glittering eyes from under
+their thick, bushy eyebrows sternly scanned all present and rested on
+the little princess. She felt, as courtiers do when the Tsar enters, the
+sensation of fear and respect which the old man inspired in all around
+him. He stroked her hair and then patted her awkwardly on the back of
+her neck.
+
+"I'm glad, glad, to see you," he said, looking attentively into her
+eyes, and then quickly went to his place and sat down. "Sit down, sit
+down! Sit down, Michael Ivánovich!"
+
+He indicated a place beside him to his daughter-in-law. A footman moved
+the chair for her.
+
+"Ho, ho!" said the old man, casting his eyes on her rounded figure.
+"You've been in a hurry. That's bad!"
+
+He laughed in his usual dry, cold, unpleasant way, with his lips only
+and not with his eyes.
+
+"You must walk, walk as much as possible, as much as possible," he said.
+
+The little princess did not, or did not wish to, hear his words. She was
+silent and seemed confused. The prince asked her about her father, and
+she began to smile and talk. He asked about mutual acquaintances, and
+she became still more animated and chattered away giving him greetings
+from various people and retelling the town gossip.
+
+"Countess Apráksina, poor thing, has lost her husband and she has cried
+her eyes out," she said, growing more and more lively.
+
+As she became animated the prince looked at her more and more sternly,
+and suddenly, as if he had studied her sufficiently and had formed a
+definite idea of her, he turned away and addressed Michael Ivánovich.
+
+"Well, Michael Ivánovich, our Bonaparte will be having a bad time of it.
+Prince Andrew" (he always spoke thus of his son) "has been telling me
+what forces are being collected against him! While you and I never
+thought much of him."
+
+Michael Ivánovich did not at all know when "you and I" had said such
+things about Bonaparte, but understanding that he was wanted as a peg on
+which to hang the prince's favorite topic, he looked inquiringly at the
+young prince, wondering what would follow.
+
+"He is a great tactician!" said the prince to his son, pointing to the
+architect.
+
+And the conversation again turned on the war, on Bonaparte, and the
+generals and statesmen of the day. The old prince seemed convinced not
+only that all the men of the day were mere babies who did not know the A
+B C of war or of politics, and that Bonaparte was an insignificant
+little Frenchy, successful only because there were no longer any
+Potëmkins or Suvórovs left to oppose him; but he was also convinced that
+there were no political difficulties in Europe and no real war, but only
+a sort of puppet show at which the men of the day were playing,
+pretending to do something real. Prince Andrew gaily bore with his
+father's ridicule of the new men, and drew him on and listened to him
+with evident pleasure.
+
+"The past always seems good," said he, "but did not Suvórov himself fall
+into a trap Moreau set him, and from which he did not know how to
+escape?"
+
+"Who told you that? Who?" cried the prince. "Suvórov!" And he jerked
+away his plate, which Tíkhon briskly caught. "Suvórov!... Consider,
+Prince Andrew. Two... Frederick and Suvórov; Moreau!... Moreau would
+have been a prisoner if Suvórov had had a free hand; but he had the
+Hofs-kriegs-wurst-schnapps-Rath on his hands. It would have puzzled the
+devil himself! When you get there you'll find out what those Hofs-
+kriegs-wurst-Raths are! Suvórov couldn't manage them so what chance has
+Michael Kutúzov? No, my dear boy," he continued, "you and your generals
+won't get on against Buonaparte; you'll have to call in the French, so
+that birds of a feather may fight together. The German, Pahlen, has been
+sent to New York in America, to fetch the Frenchman, Moreau," he said,
+alluding to the invitation made that year to Moreau to enter the Russian
+service.... "Wonderful!... Were the Potëmkins, Suvórovs, and Orlóvs
+Germans? No, lad, either you fellows have all lost your wits, or I have
+outlived mine. May God help you, but we'll see what will happen.
+Buonaparte has become a great commander among them! Hm!..."
+
+"I don't at all say that all the plans are good," said Prince Andrew, "I
+am only surprised at your opinion of Bonaparte. You may laugh as much as
+you like, but all the same Bonaparte is a great general!"
+
+"Michael Ivánovich!" cried the old prince to the architect who, busy
+with his roast meat, hoped he had been forgotten: "Didn't I tell you
+Buonaparte was a great tactician? Here, he says the same thing."
+
+"To be sure, your excellency," replied the architect.
+
+The prince again laughed his frigid laugh.
+
+"Buonaparte was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. He has got
+splendid soldiers. Besides he began by attacking Germans. And only
+idlers have failed to beat the Germans. Since the world began everybody
+has beaten the Germans. They beat no one—except one another. He made his
+reputation fighting them."
+
+And the prince began explaining all the blunders which, according to
+him, Bonaparte had made in his campaigns and even in politics. His son
+made no rejoinder, but it was evident that whatever arguments were
+presented he was as little able as his father to change his opinion. He
+listened, refraining from a reply, and involuntarily wondered how this
+old man, living alone in the country for so many years, could know and
+discuss so minutely and acutely all the recent European military and
+political events.
+
+"You think I'm an old man and don't understand the present state of
+affairs?" concluded his father. "But it troubles me. I don't sleep at
+night. Come now, where has this great commander of yours shown his
+skill?" he concluded.
+
+"That would take too long to tell," answered the son.
+
+"Well, then go off to your Buonaparte! Mademoiselle Bourienne, here's
+another admirer of that powder-monkey emperor of yours," he exclaimed in
+excellent French.
+
+"You know, Prince, I am not a Bonapartist!"
+
+"Dieu sait quand reviendra…" hummed the prince out of tune and, with a
+laugh still more so, he quitted the table.
+
+The little princess during the whole discussion and the rest of the
+dinner sat silent, glancing with a frightened look now at her father-in-
+law and now at Princess Mary. When they left the table she took her
+sister-in-law's arm and drew her into another room.
+
+"What a clever man your father is," said she; "perhaps that is why I am
+afraid of him."
+
+"Oh, he is so kind!" answered Princess Mary.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+Prince Andrew was to leave next evening. The old prince, not altering
+his routine, retired as usual after dinner. The little princess was in
+her sister-in-law's room. Prince Andrew in a traveling coat without
+epaulettes had been packing with his valet in the rooms assigned to him.
+After inspecting the carriage himself and seeing the trunks put in, he
+ordered the horses to be harnessed. Only those things he always kept
+with him remained in his room; a small box, a large canteen fitted with
+silver plate, two Turkish pistols and a saber—a present from his father
+who had brought it from the siege of Ochákov. All these traveling
+effects of Prince Andrew's were in very good order: new, clean, and in
+cloth covers carefully tied with tapes.
+
+When starting on a journey or changing their mode of life, men capable
+of reflection are generally in a serious frame of mind. At such moments
+one reviews the past and plans for the future. Prince Andrew's face
+looked very thoughtful and tender. With his hands behind him he paced
+briskly from corner to corner of the room, looking straight before him
+and thoughtfully shaking his head. Did he fear going to the war, or was
+he sad at leaving his wife?—perhaps both, but evidently he did not wish
+to be seen in that mood, for hearing footsteps in the passage he
+hurriedly unclasped his hands, stopped at a table as if tying the cover
+of the small box, and assumed his usual tranquil and impenetrable
+expression. It was the heavy tread of Princess Mary that he heard.
+
+"I hear you have given orders to harness," she cried, panting (she had
+apparently been running), "and I did so wish to have another talk with
+you alone! God knows how long we may again be parted. You are not angry
+with me for coming? You have changed so, Andrúsha," she added, as if to
+explain such a question.
+
+She smiled as she uttered his pet name, "Andrúsha." It was obviously
+strange to her to think that this stern handsome man should be
+Andrúsha—the slender mischievous boy who had been her playfellow in
+childhood.
+
+"And where is Lise?" he asked, answering her question only by a smile.
+
+"She was so tired that she has fallen asleep on the sofa in my room. Oh,
+Andrew! What a treasure of a wife you have," said she, sitting down on
+the sofa, facing her brother. "She is quite a child: such a dear, merry
+child. I have grown so fond of her."
+
+Prince Andrew was silent, but the princess noticed the ironical and
+contemptuous look that showed itself on his face.
+
+"One must be indulgent to little weaknesses; who is free from them,
+Andrew? Don't forget that she has grown up and been educated in society,
+and so her position now is not a rosy one. We should enter into
+everyone's situation. Tout comprendre, c'est tout pardonner. * Think
+what it must be for her, poor thing, after what she has been used to, to
+be parted from her husband and be left alone in the country, in her
+condition! It's very hard."
+
+* To understand all is to forgive all.
+
+Prince Andrew smiled as he looked at his sister, as we smile at those we
+think we thoroughly understand.
+
+"You live in the country and don't think the life terrible," he replied.
+
+"I... that's different. Why speak of me? I don't want any other life,
+and can't, for I know no other. But think, Andrew: for a young society
+woman to be buried in the country during the best years of her life, all
+alone—for Papa is always busy, and I... well, you know what poor
+resources I have for entertaining a woman used to the best society.
+There is only Mademoiselle Bourienne...."
+
+"I don't like your Mademoiselle Bourienne at all," said Prince Andrew.
+
+"No? She is very nice and kind and, above all, she's much to be pitied.
+She has no one, no one. To tell the truth, I don't need her, and she's
+even in my way. You know I always was a savage, and now am even more so.
+I like being alone.... Father likes her very much. She and Michael
+Ivánovich are the two people to whom he is always gentle and kind,
+because he has been a benefactor to them both. As Sterne says: 'We don't
+love people so much for the good they have done us, as for the good we
+have done them.' Father took her when she was homeless after losing her
+own father. She is very good-natured, and my father likes her way of
+reading. She reads to him in the evenings and reads splendidly."
+
+"To be quite frank, Mary, I expect Father's character sometimes makes
+things trying for you, doesn't it?" Prince Andrew asked suddenly.
+
+Princess Mary was first surprised and then aghast at this question.
+
+"For me? For me?... Trying for me!..." said she.
+
+"He always was rather harsh; and now I should think he's getting very
+trying," said Prince Andrew, apparently speaking lightly of their father
+in order to puzzle or test his sister.
+
+"You are good in every way, Andrew, but you have a kind of intellectual
+pride," said the princess, following the train of her own thoughts
+rather than the trend of the conversation—"and that's a great sin. How
+can one judge Father? But even if one might, what feeling except
+veneration could such a man as my father evoke? And I am so contented
+and happy with him. I only wish you were all as happy as I am."
+
+Her brother shook his head incredulously.
+
+"The only thing that is hard for me... I will tell you the truth,
+Andrew... is Father's way of treating religious subjects. I don't
+understand how a man of his immense intellect can fail to see what is as
+clear as day, and can go so far astray. That is the only thing that
+makes me unhappy. But even in this I can see lately a shade of
+improvement. His satire has been less bitter of late, and there was a
+monk he received and had a long talk with."
+
+"Ah! my dear, I am afraid you and your monk are wasting your powder,"
+said Prince Andrew banteringly yet tenderly.
+
+"Ah! mon ami, I only pray, and hope that God will hear me. Andrew..."
+she said timidly after a moment's silence, "I have a great favor to ask
+of you."
+
+"What is it, dear?"
+
+"No—promise that you will not refuse! It will give you no trouble and is
+nothing unworthy of you, but it will comfort me. Promise, Andrúsha!..."
+said she, putting her hand in her reticule but not yet taking out what
+she was holding inside it, as if what she held were the subject of her
+request and must not be shown before the request was granted.
+
+She looked timidly at her brother.
+
+"Even if it were a great deal of trouble..." answered Prince Andrew, as
+if guessing what it was about.
+
+"Think what you please! I know you are just like Father. Think as you
+please, but do this for my sake! Please do! Father's father, our
+grandfather, wore it in all his wars." (She still did not take out what
+she was holding in her reticule.) "So you promise?"
+
+"Of course. What is it?"
+
+"Andrew, I bless you with this icon and you must promise me you will
+never take it off. Do you promise?"
+
+"If it does not weigh a hundredweight and won't break my neck... To
+please you..." said Prince Andrew. But immediately, noticing the pained
+expression his joke had brought to his sister's face, he repented and
+added: "I am glad; really, dear, I am very glad."
+
+"Against your will He will save and have mercy on you and bring you to
+Himself, for in Him alone is truth and peace," said she in a voice
+trembling with emotion, solemnly holding up in both hands before her
+brother a small, oval, antique, dark-faced icon of the Saviour in a gold
+setting, on a finely wrought silver chain.
+
+She crossed herself, kissed the icon, and handed it to Andrew.
+
+"Please, Andrew, for my sake!..."
+
+Rays of gentle light shone from her large, timid eyes. Those eyes lit up
+the whole of her thin, sickly face and made it beautiful. Her brother
+would have taken the icon, but she stopped him. Andrew understood,
+crossed himself and kissed the icon. There was a look of tenderness, for
+he was touched, but also a gleam of irony on his face.
+
+"Thank you, my dear." She kissed him on the forehead and sat down again
+on the sofa. They were silent for a while.
+
+"As I was saying to you, Andrew, be kind and generous as you always used
+to be. Don't judge Lise harshly," she began. "She is so sweet, so good-
+natured, and her position now is a very hard one."
+
+"I do not think I have complained of my wife to you, Másha, or blamed
+her. Why do you say all this to me?"
+
+Red patches appeared on Princess Mary's face and she was silent as if
+she felt guilty.
+
+"I have said nothing to you, but you have already been talked to. And I
+am sorry for that," he went on.
+
+The patches grew deeper on her forehead, neck, and cheeks. She tried to
+say something but could not. Her brother had guessed right: the little
+princess had been crying after dinner and had spoken of her forebodings
+about her confinement, and how she dreaded it, and had complained of her
+fate, her father-in-law, and her husband. After crying she had fallen
+asleep. Prince Andrew felt sorry for his sister.
+
+"Know this, Másha: I can't reproach, have not reproached, and never
+shall reproach my wife with anything, and I cannot reproach myself with
+anything in regard to her; and that always will be so in whatever
+circumstances I may be placed. But if you want to know the truth... if
+you want to know whether I am happy? No! Is she happy? No! But why this
+is so I don't know..."
+
+As he said this he rose, went to his sister, and, stooping, kissed her
+forehead. His fine eyes lit up with a thoughtful, kindly, and
+unaccustomed brightness, but he was looking not at his sister but over
+her head toward the darkness of the open doorway.
+
+"Let us go to her, I must say good-by. Or—go and wake and I'll come in a
+moment. Petrúshka!" he called to his valet: "Come here, take these away.
+Put this on the seat and this to the right."
+
+Princess Mary rose and moved to the door, then stopped and said:
+"Andrew, if you had faith you would have turned to God and asked Him to
+give you the love you do not feel, and your prayer would have been
+answered."
+
+"Well, maybe!" said Prince Andrew. "Go, Másha; I'll come immediately."
+
+On the way to his sister's room, in the passage which connected one wing
+with the other, Prince Andrew met Mademoiselle Bourienne smiling
+sweetly. It was the third time that day that, with an ecstatic and
+artless smile, she had met him in secluded passages.
+
+"Oh! I thought you were in your room," she said, for some reason
+blushing and dropping her eyes.
+
+Prince Andrew looked sternly at her and an expression of anger suddenly
+came over his face. He said nothing to her but looked at her forehead
+and hair, without looking at her eyes, with such contempt that the
+Frenchwoman blushed and went away without a word. When he reached his
+sister's room his wife was already awake and her merry voice, hurrying
+one word after another, came through the open door. She was speaking as
+usual in French, and as if after long self-restraint she wished to make
+up for lost time.
+
+"No, but imagine the old Countess Zúbova, with false curls and her mouth
+full of false teeth, as if she were trying to cheat old age.... Ha, ha,
+ha! Mary!"
+
+This very sentence about Countess Zúbova and this same laugh Prince
+Andrew had already heard from his wife in the presence of others some
+five times. He entered the room softly. The little princess, plump and
+rosy, was sitting in an easy chair with her work in her hands, talking
+incessantly, repeating Petersburg reminiscences and even phrases. Prince
+Andrew came up, stroked her hair, and asked if she felt rested after
+their journey. She answered him and continued her chatter.
+
+The coach with six horses was waiting at the porch. It was an autumn
+night, so dark that the coachman could not see the carriage pole.
+Servants with lanterns were bustling about in the porch. The immense
+house was brilliant with lights shining through its lofty windows. The
+domestic serfs were crowding in the hall, waiting to bid good-by to the
+young prince. The members of the household were all gathered in the
+reception hall: Michael Ivánovich, Mademoiselle Bourienne, Princess
+Mary, and the little princess. Prince Andrew had been called to his
+father's study as the latter wished to say good-by to him alone. All
+were waiting for them to come out.
+
+When Prince Andrew entered the study the old man in his old-age
+spectacles and white dressing gown, in which he received no one but his
+son, sat at the table writing. He glanced round.
+
+"Going?" And he went on writing.
+
+"I've come to say good-by."
+
+"Kiss me here," and he touched his cheek: "Thanks, thanks!"
+
+"What do you thank me for?"
+
+"For not dilly-dallying and not hanging to a woman's apron strings. The
+Service before everything. Thanks, thanks!" And he went on writing, so
+that his quill spluttered and squeaked. "If you have anything to say,
+say it. These two things can be done together," he added.
+
+"About my wife... I am ashamed as it is to leave her on your hands...."
+
+"Why talk nonsense? Say what you want."
+
+"When her confinement is due, send to Moscow for an accoucheur.... Let
+him be here...."
+
+The old prince stopped writing and, as if not understanding, fixed his
+stern eyes on his son.
+
+"I know that no one can help if nature does not do her work," said
+Prince Andrew, evidently confused. "I know that out of a million cases
+only one goes wrong, but it is her fancy and mine. They have been
+telling her things. She has had a dream and is frightened."
+
+"Hm... Hm..." muttered the old prince to himself, finishing what he was
+writing. "I'll do it."
+
+He signed with a flourish and suddenly turning to his son began to
+laugh.
+
+"It's a bad business, eh?"
+
+"What is bad, Father?"
+
+"The wife!" said the old prince, briefly and significantly.
+
+"I don't understand!" said Prince Andrew.
+
+"No, it can't be helped, lad," said the prince. "They're all like that;
+one can't unmarry. Don't be afraid; I won't tell anyone, but you know it
+yourself."
+
+He seized his son by the hand with small bony fingers, shook it, looked
+straight into his son's face with keen eyes which seemed to see through
+him, and again laughed his frigid laugh.
+
+The son sighed, thus admitting that his father had understood him. The
+old man continued to fold and seal his letter, snatching up and throwing
+down the wax, the seal, and the paper, with his accustomed rapidity.
+
+"What's to be done? She's pretty! I will do everything. Make your mind
+easy," said he in abrupt sentences while sealing his letter.
+
+Andrew did not speak; he was both pleased and displeased that his father
+understood him. The old man got up and gave the letter to his son.
+
+"Listen!" said he; "don't worry about your wife: what can be done shall
+be. Now listen! Give this letter to Michael Ilariónovich. * I have
+written that he should make use of you in proper places and not keep you
+long as an adjutant: a bad position! Tell him I remember and like him.
+Write and tell me how he receives you. If he is all right—serve him.
+Nicholas Bolkónski's son need not serve under anyone if he is in
+disfavor. Now come here."
+
+*Kutúzov.
+
+He spoke so rapidly that he did not finish half his words, but his son
+was accustomed to understand him. He led him to the desk, raised the
+lid, drew out a drawer, and took out an exercise book filled with his
+bold, tall, close handwriting.
+
+"I shall probably die before you. So remember, these are my memoirs;
+hand them to the Emperor after my death. Now here is a Lombard bond and
+a letter; it is a premium for the man who writes a history of Suvórov's
+wars. Send it to the Academy. Here are some jottings for you to read
+when I am gone. You will find them useful."
+
+Andrew did not tell his father that he would no doubt live a long time
+yet. He felt that he must not say it.
+
+"I will do it all, Father," he said.
+
+"Well, now, good-by!" He gave his son his hand to kiss, and embraced
+him. "Remember this, Prince Andrew, if they kill you it will hurt me,
+your old father..." he paused unexpectedly, and then in a querulous
+voice suddenly shrieked: "but if I hear that you have not behaved like a
+son of Nicholas Bolkónski, I shall be ashamed!"
+
+"You need not have said that to me, Father," said the son with a smile.
+
+The old man was silent.
+
+"I also wanted to ask you," continued Prince Andrew, "if I'm killed and
+if I have a son, do not let him be taken away from you—as I said
+yesterday... let him grow up with you.... Please."
+
+"Not let the wife have him?" said the old man, and laughed.
+
+They stood silent, facing one another. The old man's sharp eyes were
+fixed straight on his son's. Something twitched in the lower part of the
+old prince's face.
+
+"We've said good-by. Go!" he suddenly shouted in a loud, angry voice,
+opening his door.
+
+"What is it? What?" asked both princesses when they saw for a moment at
+the door Prince Andrew and the figure of the old man in a white dressing
+gown, spectacled and wigless, shouting in an angry voice.
+
+Prince Andrew sighed and made no reply.
+
+"Well!" he said, turning to his wife.
+
+And this "Well!" sounded coldly ironic, as if he were saying: "Now go
+through your performance."
+
+"Andrew, already!" said the little princess, turning pale and looking
+with dismay at her husband.
+
+He embraced her. She screamed and fell unconscious on his shoulder.
+
+He cautiously released the shoulder she leaned on, looked into her face,
+and carefully placed her in an easy chair.
+
+"Adieu, Mary," said he gently to his sister, taking her by the hand and
+kissing her, and then he left the room with rapid steps.
+
+The little princess lay in the armchair, Mademoiselle Bourienne chafing
+her temples. Princess Mary, supporting her sister-in-law, still looked
+with her beautiful eyes full of tears at the door through which Prince
+Andrew had gone and made the sign of the cross in his direction. From
+the study, like pistol shots, came the frequent sound of the old man
+angrily blowing his nose. Hardly had Prince Andrew gone when the study
+door opened quickly and the stern figure of the old man in the white
+dressing gown looked out.
+
+"Gone? That's all right!" said he; and looking angrily at the
+unconscious little princess, he shook his head reprovingly and slammed
+the door.
+
+
+
+
+
+BOOK TWO: 1805
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+In October, 1805, a Russian army was occupying the villages and towns of
+the Archduchy of Austria, and yet other regiments freshly arriving from
+Russia were settling near the fortress of Braunau and burdening the
+inhabitants on whom they were quartered. Braunau was the headquarters of
+the commander-in-chief, Kutúzov.
+
+On October 11, 1805, one of the infantry regiments that had just reached
+Braunau had halted half a mile from the town, waiting to be inspected by
+the commander-in-chief. Despite the un-Russian appearance of the
+locality and surroundings—fruit gardens, stone fences, tiled roofs, and
+hills in the distance—and despite the fact that the inhabitants (who
+gazed with curiosity at the soldiers) were not Russians, the regiment
+had just the appearance of any Russian regiment preparing for an
+inspection anywhere in the heart of Russia.
+
+On the evening of the last day's march an order had been received that
+the commander-in-chief would inspect the regiment on the march. Though
+the words of the order were not clear to the regimental commander, and
+the question arose whether the troops were to be in marching order or
+not, it was decided at a consultation between the battalion commanders
+to present the regiment in parade order, on the principle that it is
+always better to "bow too low than not bow low enough." So the soldiers,
+after a twenty-mile march, were kept mending and cleaning all night long
+without closing their eyes, while the adjutants and company commanders
+calculated and reckoned, and by morning the regiment—instead of the
+straggling, disorderly crowd it had been on its last march the day
+before—presented a well-ordered array of two thousand men each of whom
+knew his place and his duty, had every button and every strap in place,
+and shone with cleanliness. And not only externally was all in order,
+but had it pleased the commander-in-chief to look under the uniforms he
+would have found on every man a clean shirt, and in every knapsack the
+appointed number of articles, "awl, soap, and all," as the soldiers say.
+There was only one circumstance concerning which no one could be at
+ease. It was the state of the soldiers' boots. More than half the men's
+boots were in holes. But this defect was not due to any fault of the
+regimental commander, for in spite of repeated demands boots had not
+been issued by the Austrian commissariat, and the regiment had marched
+some seven hundred miles.
+
+The commander of the regiment was an elderly, choleric, stout, and
+thick-set general with grizzled eyebrows and whiskers, and wider from
+chest to back than across the shoulders. He had on a brand-new uniform
+showing the creases where it had been folded and thick gold epaulettes
+which seemed to stand rather than lie down on his massive shoulders. He
+had the air of a man happily performing one of the most solemn duties of
+his life. He walked about in front of the line and at every step pulled
+himself up, slightly arching his back. It was plain that the commander
+admired his regiment, rejoiced in it, and that his whole mind was
+engrossed by it, yet his strut seemed to indicate that, besides military
+matters, social interests and the fair sex occupied no small part of his
+thoughts.
+
+"Well, Michael Mítrich, sir?" he said, addressing one of the battalion
+commanders who smilingly pressed forward (it was plain that they both
+felt happy). "We had our hands full last night. However, I think the
+regiment is not a bad one, eh?"
+
+The battalion commander perceived the jovial irony and laughed.
+
+"It would not be turned off the field even on the Tsarítsin Meadow."
+
+"What?" asked the commander.
+
+At that moment, on the road from the town on which signalers had been
+posted, two men appeared on horse back. They were an aide-de-camp
+followed by a Cossack.
+
+The aide-de-camp was sent to confirm the order which had not been
+clearly worded the day before, namely, that the commander-in-chief
+wished to see the regiment just in the state in which it had been on the
+march: in their greatcoats, and packs, and without any preparation
+whatever.
+
+A member of the Hofkriegsrath from Vienna had come to Kutúzov the day
+before with proposals and demands for him to join up with the army of
+the Archduke Ferdinand and Mack, and Kutúzov, not considering this
+junction advisable, meant, among other arguments in support of his view,
+to show the Austrian general the wretched state in which the troops
+arrived from Russia. With this object he intended to meet the regiment;
+so the worse the condition it was in, the better pleased the commander-
+in-chief would be. Though the aide-de-camp did not know these
+circumstances, he nevertheless delivered the definite order that the men
+should be in their greatcoats and in marching order, and that the
+commander-in-chief would otherwise be dissatisfied. On hearing this the
+regimental commander hung his head, silently shrugged his shoulders, and
+spread out his arms with a choleric gesture.
+
+"A fine mess we've made of it!" he remarked.
+
+"There now! Didn't I tell you, Michael Mítrich, that if it was said 'on
+the march' it meant in greatcoats?" said he reproachfully to the
+battalion commander. "Oh, my God!" he added, stepping resolutely
+forward. "Company commanders!" he shouted in a voice accustomed to
+command. "Sergeants major!... How soon will he be here?" he asked the
+aide-de-camp with a respectful politeness evidently relating to the
+personage he was referring to.
+
+"In an hour's time, I should say."
+
+"Shall we have time to change clothes?"
+
+"I don't know, General...."
+
+The regimental commander, going up to the line himself, ordered the
+soldiers to change into their greatcoats. The company commanders ran off
+to their companies, the sergeants major began bustling (the greatcoats
+were not in very good condition), and instantly the squares that had up
+to then been in regular order and silent began to sway and stretch and
+hum with voices. On all sides soldiers were running to and fro, throwing
+up their knapsacks with a jerk of their shoulders and pulling the straps
+over their heads, unstrapping their overcoats and drawing the sleeves on
+with upraised arms.
+
+In half an hour all was again in order, only the squares had become gray
+instead of black. The regimental commander walked with his jerky steps
+to the front of the regiment and examined it from a distance.
+
+"Whatever is this? This!" he shouted and stood still. "Commander of the
+third company!"
+
+"Commander of the third company wanted by the general!... commander to
+the general... third company to the commander." The words passed along
+the lines and an adjutant ran to look for the missing officer.
+
+When the eager but misrepeated words had reached their destination in a
+cry of: "The general to the third company," the missing officer appeared
+from behind his company and, though he was a middle-aged man and not in
+the habit of running, trotted awkwardly stumbling on his toes toward the
+general. The captain's face showed the uneasiness of a schoolboy who is
+told to repeat a lesson he has not learned. Spots appeared on his nose,
+the redness of which was evidently due to intemperance, and his mouth
+twitched nervously. The general looked the captain up and down as he
+came up panting, slackening his pace as he approached.
+
+"You will soon be dressing your men in petticoats! What is this?"
+shouted the regimental commander, thrusting forward his jaw and pointing
+at a soldier in the ranks of the third company in a greatcoat of bluish
+cloth, which contrasted with the others. "What have you been after? The
+commander in chief is expected and you leave your place? Eh? I'll teach
+you to dress the men in fancy coats for a parade.... Eh...?"
+
+The commander of the company, with his eyes fixed on his superior,
+pressed two fingers more and more rigidly to his cap, as if in this
+pressure lay his only hope of salvation.
+
+"Well, why don't you speak? Whom have you got there dressed up as a
+Hungarian?" said the commander with an austere gibe.
+
+"Your excellency..."
+
+"Well, your excellency, what? Your excellency! But what about your
+excellency?... nobody knows."
+
+"Your excellency, it's the officer Dólokhov, who has been reduced to the
+ranks," said the captain softly.
+
+"Well? Has he been degraded into a field marshal, or into a soldier? If
+a soldier, he should be dressed in regulation uniform like the others."
+
+"Your excellency, you gave him leave yourself, on the march."
+
+"Gave him leave? Leave? That's just like you young men," said the
+regimental commander cooling down a little. "Leave indeed.... One says a
+word to you and you... What?" he added with renewed irritation, "I beg
+you to dress your men decently."
+
+And the commander, turning to look at the adjutant, directed his jerky
+steps down the line. He was evidently pleased at his own display of
+anger and walking up to the regiment wished to find a further excuse for
+wrath. Having snapped at an officer for an unpolished badge, at another
+because his line was not straight, he reached the third company.
+
+"H-o-o-w are you standing? Where's your leg? Your leg?" shouted the
+commander with a tone of suffering in his voice, while there were still
+five men between him and Dólokhov with his bluish-gray uniform.
+
+Dólokhov slowly straightened his bent knee, looking straight with his
+clear, insolent eyes in the general's face.
+
+"Why a blue coat? Off with it... Sergeant major! Change his coat... the
+ras..." he did not finish.
+
+"General, I must obey orders, but I am not bound to endure..." Dólokhov
+hurriedly interrupted.
+
+"No talking in the ranks!... No talking, no talking!"
+
+"Not bound to endure insults," Dólokhov concluded in loud, ringing
+tones.
+
+The eyes of the general and the soldier met. The general became silent,
+angrily pulling down his tight scarf.
+
+"I request you to have the goodness to change your coat," he said as he
+turned away.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+"He's coming!" shouted the signaler at that moment.
+
+The regimental commander, flushing, ran to his horse, seized the stirrup
+with trembling hands, threw his body across the saddle, righted himself,
+drew his saber, and with a happy and resolute countenance, opening his
+mouth awry, prepared to shout. The regiment fluttered like a bird
+preening its plumage and became motionless.
+
+"Att-ention!" shouted the regimental commander in a soul-shaking voice
+which expressed joy for himself, severity for the regiment, and welcome
+for the approaching chief.
+
+Along the broad country road, edged on both sides by trees, came a high,
+light blue Viennese calèche, slightly creaking on its springs and drawn
+by six horses at a smart trot. Behind the calèche galloped the suite and
+a convoy of Croats. Beside Kutúzov sat an Austrian general, in a white
+uniform that looked strange among the Russian black ones. The calèche
+stopped in front of the regiment. Kutúzov and the Austrian general were
+talking in low voices and Kutúzov smiled slightly as treading heavily he
+stepped down from the carriage just as if those two thousand men
+breathlessly gazing at him and the regimental commander did not exist.
+
+The word of command rang out, and again the regiment quivered, as with a
+jingling sound it presented arms. Then amidst a dead silence the feeble
+voice of the commander-in-chief was heard. The regiment roared, "Health
+to your ex... len... len... lency!" and again all became silent. At
+first Kutúzov stood still while the regiment moved; then he and the
+general in white, accompanied by the suite, walked between the ranks.
+
+From the way the regimental commander saluted the commander-in-chief and
+devoured him with his eyes, drawing himself up obsequiously, and from
+the way he walked through the ranks behind the generals, bending forward
+and hardly able to restrain his jerky movements, and from the way he
+darted forward at every word or gesture of the commander-in-chief, it
+was evident that he performed his duty as a subordinate with even
+greater zeal than his duty as a commander. Thanks to the strictness and
+assiduity of its commander the regiment, in comparison with others that
+had reached Braunau at the same time, was in splendid condition. There
+were only 217 sick and stragglers. Everything was in good order except
+the boots.
+
+Kutúzov walked through the ranks, sometimes stopping to say a few
+friendly words to officers he had known in the Turkish war, sometimes
+also to the soldiers. Looking at their boots he several times shook his
+head sadly, pointing them out to the Austrian general with an expression
+which seemed to say that he was not blaming anyone, but could not help
+noticing what a bad state of things it was. The regimental commander ran
+forward on each such occasion, fearing to miss a single word of the
+commander-in-chief's regarding the regiment. Behind Kutúzov, at a
+distance that allowed every softly spoken word to be heard, followed
+some twenty men of his suite. These gentlemen talked among themselves
+and sometimes laughed. Nearest of all to the commander-in-chief walked a
+handsome adjutant. This was Prince Bolkónski. Beside him was his comrade
+Nesvítski, a tall staff officer, extremely stout, with a kindly,
+smiling, handsome face and moist eyes. Nesvítski could hardly keep from
+laughter provoked by a swarthy hussar officer who walked beside him.
+This hussar, with a grave face and without a smile or a change in the
+expression of his fixed eyes, watched the regimental commander's back
+and mimicked his every movement. Each time the commander started and
+bent forward, the hussar started and bent forward in exactly the same
+manner. Nesvítski laughed and nudged the others to make them look at the
+wag.
+
+Kutúzov walked slowly and languidly past thousands of eyes which were
+starting from their sockets to watch their chief. On reaching the third
+company he suddenly stopped. His suite, not having expected this,
+involuntarily came closer to him.
+
+"Ah, Timókhin!" said he, recognizing the red-nosed captain who had been
+reprimanded on account of the blue greatcoat.
+
+One would have thought it impossible for a man to stretch himself more
+than Timókhin had done when he was reprimanded by the regimental
+commander, but now that the commander-in-chief addressed him he drew
+himself up to such an extent that it seemed he could not have sustained
+it had the commander-in-chief continued to look at him, and so Kutúzov,
+who evidently understood his case and wished him nothing but good,
+quickly turned away, a scarcely perceptible smile flitting over his
+scarred and puffy face.
+
+"Another Ismail comrade," said he. "A brave officer! Are you satisfied
+with him?" he asked the regimental commander.
+
+And the latter—unconscious that he was being reflected in the hussar
+officer as in a looking glass—started, moved forward, and answered:
+"Highly satisfied, your excellency!"
+
+"We all have our weaknesses," said Kutúzov smiling and walking away from
+him. "He used to have a predilection for Bacchus."
+
+The regimental commander was afraid he might be blamed for this and did
+not answer. The hussar at that moment noticed the face of the red-nosed
+captain and his drawn-in stomach, and mimicked his expression and pose
+with such exactitude that Nesvítski could not help laughing. Kutúzov
+turned round. The officer evidently had complete control of his face,
+and while Kutúzov was turning managed to make a grimace and then assume
+a most serious, deferential, and innocent expression.
+
+The third company was the last, and Kutúzov pondered, apparently trying
+to recollect something. Prince Andrew stepped forward from among the
+suite and said in French:
+
+"You told me to remind you of the officer Dólokhov, reduced to the ranks
+in this regiment."
+
+"Where is Dólokhov?" asked Kutúzov.
+
+Dólokhov, who had already changed into a soldier's gray greatcoat, did
+not wait to be called. The shapely figure of the fair-haired soldier,
+with his clear blue eyes, stepped forward from the ranks, went up to the
+commander in chief, and presented arms.
+
+"Have you a complaint to make?" Kutúzov asked with a slight frown.
+
+"This is Dólokhov," said Prince Andrew.
+
+"Ah!" said Kutúzov. "I hope this will be a lesson to you. Do your duty.
+The Emperor is gracious, and I shan't forget you if you deserve well."
+
+The clear blue eyes looked at the commander-in-chief just as boldly as
+they had looked at the regimental commander, seeming by their expression
+to tear open the veil of convention that separates a commander-in-chief
+so widely from a private.
+
+"One thing I ask of your excellency," Dólokhov said in his firm,
+ringing, deliberate voice. "I ask an opportunity to atone for my fault
+and prove my devotion to His Majesty the Emperor and to Russia!"
+
+Kutúzov turned away. The same smile of the eyes with which he had turned
+from Captain Timókhin again flitted over his face. He turned away with a
+grimace as if to say that everything Dólokhov had said to him and
+everything he could say had long been known to him, that he was weary of
+it and it was not at all what he wanted. He turned away and went to the
+carriage.
+
+The regiment broke up into companies, which went to their appointed
+quarters near Braunau, where they hoped to receive boots and clothes and
+to rest after their hard marches.
+
+"You won't bear me a grudge, Prokhor Ignatych?" said the regimental
+commander, overtaking the third company on its way to its quarters and
+riding up to Captain Timókhin who was walking in front. (The regimental
+commander's face now that the inspection was happily over beamed with
+irrepressible delight.) "It's in the Emperor's service... it can't be
+helped... one is sometimes a bit hasty on parade... I am the first to
+apologize, you know me!... He was very pleased!" And he held out his
+hand to the captain.
+
+"Don't mention it, General, as if I'd be so bold!" replied the captain,
+his nose growing redder as he gave a smile which showed where two front
+teeth were missing that had been knocked out by the butt end of a gun at
+Ismail.
+
+"And tell Mr. Dólokhov that I won't forget him—he may be quite easy. And
+tell me, please—I've been meaning to ask—how is he behaving himself, and
+in general..."
+
+"As far as the service goes he is quite punctilious, your excellency;
+but his character..." said Timókhin.
+
+"And what about his character?" asked the regimental commander.
+
+"It's different on different days," answered the captain. "One day he is
+sensible, well educated, and good-natured, and the next he's a wild
+beast.... In Poland, if you please, he nearly killed a Jew."
+
+"Oh, well, well!" remarked the regimental commander. "Still, one must
+have pity on a young man in misfortune. You know he has important
+connections... Well, then, you just..."
+
+"I will, your excellency," said Timókhin, showing by his smile that he
+understood his commander's wish.
+
+"Well, of course, of course!"
+
+The regimental commander sought out Dólokhov in the ranks and, reining
+in his horse, said to him:
+
+"After the next affair... epaulettes."
+
+Dólokhov looked round but did not say anything, nor did the mocking
+smile on his lips change.
+
+"Well, that's all right," continued the regimental commander. "A cup of
+vodka for the men from me," he added so that the soldiers could hear. "I
+thank you all! God be praised!" and he rode past that company and
+overtook the next one.
+
+"Well, he's really a good fellow, one can serve under him," said
+Timókhin to the subaltern beside him.
+
+"In a word, a hearty one..." said the subaltern, laughing (the
+regimental commander was nicknamed King of Hearts).
+
+The cheerful mood of their officers after the inspection infected the
+soldiers. The company marched on gaily. The soldiers' voices could be
+heard on every side.
+
+"And they said Kutúzov was blind of one eye?"
+
+"And so he is! Quite blind!"
+
+"No, friend, he is sharper-eyed than you are. Boots and leg bands... he
+noticed everything..."
+
+"When he looked at my feet, friend... well, thinks I..."
+
+"And that other one with him, the Austrian, looked as if he were smeared
+with chalk—as white as flour! I suppose they polish him up as they do
+the guns."
+
+"I say, Fedeshon!... Did he say when the battles are to begin? You were
+near him. Everybody said that Buonaparte himself was at Braunau."
+
+"Buonaparte himself!... Just listen to the fool, what he doesn't know!
+The Prussians are up in arms now. The Austrians, you see, are putting
+them down. When they've been put down, the war with Buonaparte will
+begin. And he says Buonaparte is in Braunau! Shows you're a fool. You'd
+better listen more carefully!"
+
+"What devils these quartermasters are! See, the fifth company is turning
+into the village already... they will have their buckwheat cooked before
+we reach our quarters."
+
+"Give me a biscuit, you devil!"
+
+"And did you give me tobacco yesterday? That's just it, friend! Ah,
+well, never mind, here you are."
+
+"They might call a halt here or we'll have to do another four miles
+without eating."
+
+"Wasn't it fine when those Germans gave us lifts! You just sit still and
+are drawn along."
+
+"And here, friend, the people are quite beggarly. There they all seemed
+to be Poles—all under the Russian crown—but here they're all regular
+Germans."
+
+"Singers to the front" came the captain's order.
+
+And from the different ranks some twenty men ran to the front. A
+drummer, their leader, turned round facing the singers, and flourishing
+his arm, began a long-drawn-out soldiers' song, commencing with the
+words: "Morning dawned, the sun was rising," and concluding: "On then,
+brothers, on to glory, led by Father Kamenski." This song had been
+composed in the Turkish campaign and now being sung in Austria, the only
+change being that the words "Father Kamenski" were replaced by "Father
+Kutúzov."
+
+Having jerked out these last words as soldiers do and waved his arms as
+if flinging something to the ground, the drummer—a lean, handsome
+soldier of forty—looked sternly at the singers and screwed up his eyes.
+Then having satisfied himself that all eyes were fixed on him, he raised
+both arms as if carefully lifting some invisible but precious object
+above his head and, holding it there for some seconds, suddenly flung it
+down and began:
+
+"Oh, my bower, oh, my bower...!"
+
+"Oh, my bower new...!" chimed in twenty voices, and the castanet player,
+in spite of the burden of his equipment, rushed out to the front and,
+walking backwards before the company, jerked his shoulders and
+flourished his castanets as if threatening someone. The soldiers,
+swinging their arms and keeping time spontaneously, marched with long
+steps. Behind the company the sound of wheels, the creaking of springs,
+and the tramp of horses' hoofs were heard. Kutúzov and his suite were
+returning to the town. The commander-in-chief made a sign that the men
+should continue to march at ease, and he and all his suite showed
+pleasure at the sound of the singing and the sight of the dancing
+soldier and the gay and smartly marching men. In the second file from
+the right flank, beside which the carriage passed the company, a blue-
+eyed soldier involuntarily attracted notice. It was Dólokhov marching
+with particular grace and boldness in time to the song and looking at
+those driving past as if he pitied all who were not at that moment
+marching with the company. The hussar cornet of Kutúzov's suite who had
+mimicked the regimental commander, fell back from the carriage and rode
+up to Dólokhov.
+
+Hussar cornet Zherkov had at one time, in Petersburg, belonged to the
+wild set led by Dólokhov. Zherkov had met Dólokhov abroad as a private
+and had not seen fit to recognize him. But now that Kutúzov had spoken
+to the gentleman ranker, he addressed him with the cordiality of an old
+friend.
+
+"My dear fellow, how are you?" said he through the singing, making his
+horse keep pace with the company.
+
+"How am I?" Dólokhov answered coldly. "I am as you see."
+
+The lively song gave a special flavor to the tone of free and easy
+gaiety with which Zherkov spoke, and to the intentional coldness of
+Dólokhov's reply.
+
+"And how do you get on with the officers?" inquired Zherkov.
+
+"All right. They are good fellows. And how have you wriggled onto the
+staff?"
+
+"I was attached; I'm on duty."
+
+Both were silent.
+
+"She let the hawk fly upward from her wide right sleeve," went the song,
+arousing an involuntary sensation of courage and cheerfulness. Their
+conversation would probably have been different but for the effect of
+that song.
+
+"Is it true that Austrians have been beaten?" asked Dólokhov.
+
+"The devil only knows! They say so."
+
+"I'm glad," answered Dólokhov briefly and clearly, as the song demanded.
+
+"I say, come round some evening and we'll have a game of faro!" said
+Zherkov.
+
+"Why, have you too much money?"
+
+"Do come."
+
+"I can't. I've sworn not to. I won't drink and won't play till I get
+reinstated."
+
+"Well, that's only till the first engagement."
+
+"We shall see."
+
+They were again silent.
+
+"Come if you need anything. One can at least be of use on the staff..."
+
+Dólokhov smiled. "Don't trouble. If I want anything, I won't beg—I'll
+take it!"
+
+"Well, never mind; I only..."
+
+"And I only..."
+
+"Good-bye."
+
+"Good health..."
+
+"It's a long, long way. To my native land..."
+
+Zherkov touched his horse with the spurs; it pranced excitedly from foot
+to foot uncertain with which to start, then settled down, galloped past
+the company, and overtook the carriage, still keeping time to the song.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+On returning from the review, Kutúzov took the Austrian general into his
+private room and, calling his adjutant, asked for some papers relating
+to the condition of the troops on their arrival, and the letters that
+had come from the Archduke Ferdinand, who was in command of the advanced
+army. Prince Andrew Bolkónski came into the room with the required
+papers. Kutúzov and the Austrian member of the Hofkriegsrath were
+sitting at the table on which a plan was spread out.
+
+"Ah!..." said Kutúzov glancing at Bolkónski as if by this exclamation he
+was asking the adjutant to wait, and he went on with the conversation in
+French.
+
+"All I can say, General," said he with a pleasant elegance of expression
+and intonation that obliged one to listen to each deliberately spoken
+word. It was evident that Kutúzov himself listened with pleasure to his
+own voice. "All I can say, General, is that if the matter depended on my
+personal wishes, the will of His Majesty the Emperor Francis would have
+been fulfilled long ago. I should long ago have joined the archduke. And
+believe me on my honour that to me personally it would be a pleasure to
+hand over the supreme command of the army into the hands of a better
+informed and more skillful general—of whom Austria has so many—and to
+lay down all this heavy responsibility. But circumstances are sometimes
+too strong for us, General."
+
+And Kutúzov smiled in a way that seemed to say, "You are quite at
+liberty not to believe me and I don't even care whether you do or not,
+but you have no grounds for telling me so. And that is the whole point."
+
+The Austrian general looked dissatisfied, but had no option but to reply
+in the same tone.
+
+"On the contrary," he said, in a querulous and angry tone that
+contrasted with his flattering words, "on the contrary, your
+excellency's participation in the common action is highly valued by His
+Majesty; but we think the present delay is depriving the splendid
+Russian troops and their commander of the laurels they have been
+accustomed to win in their battles," he concluded his evidently
+prearranged sentence.
+
+Kutúzov bowed with the same smile.
+
+"But that is my conviction, and judging by the last letter with which
+His Highness the Archduke Ferdinand has honored me, I imagine that the
+Austrian troops, under the direction of so skillful a leader as General
+Mack, have by now already gained a decisive victory and no longer need
+our aid," said Kutúzov.
+
+The general frowned. Though there was no definite news of an Austrian
+defeat, there were many circumstances confirming the unfavorable rumors
+that were afloat, and so Kutúzov's suggestion of an Austrian victory
+sounded much like irony. But Kutúzov went on blandly smiling with the
+same expression, which seemed to say that he had a right to suppose so.
+And, in fact, the last letter he had received from Mack's army informed
+him of a victory and stated strategically the position of the army was
+very favorable.
+
+"Give me that letter," said Kutúzov turning to Prince Andrew. "Please
+have a look at it"—and Kutúzov with an ironical smile about the corners
+of his mouth read to the Austrian general the following passage, in
+German, from the Archduke Ferdinand's letter:
+
+We have fully concentrated forces of nearly seventy thousand men with
+which to attack and defeat the enemy should he cross the Lech. Also, as
+we are masters of Ulm, we cannot be deprived of the advantage of
+commanding both sides of the Danube, so that should the enemy not cross
+the Lech, we can cross the Danube, throw ourselves on his line of
+communications, recross the river lower down, and frustrate his
+intention should he try to direct his whole force against our faithful
+ally. We shall therefore confidently await the moment when the Imperial
+Russian army will be fully equipped, and shall then, in conjunction with
+it, easily find a way to prepare for the enemy the fate he deserves.
+
+Kutúzov sighed deeply on finishing this paragraph and looked at the
+member of the Hofkriegsrath mildly and attentively.
+
+"But you know the wise maxim your excellency, advising one to expect the
+worst," said the Austrian general, evidently wishing to have done with
+jests and to come to business. He involuntarily looked round at the
+aide-de-camp.
+
+"Excuse me, General," interrupted Kutúzov, also turning to Prince
+Andrew. "Look here, my dear fellow, get from Kozlovski all the reports
+from our scouts. Here are two letters from Count Nostitz and here is one
+from His Highness the Archduke Ferdinand and here are these," he said,
+handing him several papers, "make a neat memorandum in French out of all
+this, showing all the news we have had of the movements of the Austrian
+army, and then give it to his excellency."
+
+Prince Andrew bowed his head in token of having understood from the
+first not only what had been said but also what Kutúzov would have liked
+to tell him. He gathered up the papers and with a bow to both, stepped
+softly over the carpet and went out into the waiting room.
+
+Though not much time had passed since Prince Andrew had left Russia, he
+had changed greatly during that period. In the expression of his face,
+in his movements, in his walk, scarcely a trace was left of his former
+affected languor and indolence. He now looked like a man who has time to
+think of the impression he makes on others, but is occupied with
+agreeable and interesting work. His face expressed more satisfaction
+with himself and those around him, his smile and glance were brighter
+and more attractive.
+
+Kutúzov, whom he had overtaken in Poland, had received him very kindly,
+promised not to forget him, distinguished him above the other adjutants,
+and had taken him to Vienna and given him the more serious commissions.
+From Vienna Kutúzov wrote to his old comrade, Prince Andrew's father.
+
+Your son bids fair to become an officer distinguished by his industry,
+firmness, and expedition. I consider myself fortunate to have such a
+subordinate by me.
+
+On Kutúzov's staff, among his fellow officers and in the army generally,
+Prince Andrew had, as he had had in Petersburg society, two quite
+opposite reputations. Some, a minority, acknowledged him to be different
+from themselves and from everyone else, expected great things of him,
+listened to him, admired, and imitated him, and with them Prince Andrew
+was natural and pleasant. Others, the majority, disliked him and
+considered him conceited, cold, and disagreeable. But among these people
+Prince Andrew knew how to take his stand so that they respected and even
+feared him.
+
+Coming out of Kutúzov's room into the waiting room with the papers in
+his hand Prince Andrew came up to his comrade, the aide-de-camp on duty,
+Kozlovski, who was sitting at the window with a book.
+
+"Well, Prince?" asked Kozlovski.
+
+"I am ordered to write a memorandum explaining why we are not
+advancing."
+
+"And why is it?"
+
+Prince Andrew shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"Any news from Mack?"
+
+"No."
+
+"If it were true that he has been beaten, news would have come."
+
+"Probably," said Prince Andrew moving toward the outer door.
+
+But at that instant a tall Austrian general in a greatcoat, with the
+order of Maria Theresa on his neck and a black bandage round his head,
+who had evidently just arrived, entered quickly, slamming the door.
+Prince Andrew stopped short.
+
+"Commander in Chief Kutúzov?" said the newly arrived general speaking
+quickly with a harsh German accent, looking to both sides and advancing
+straight toward the inner door.
+
+"The commander-in-chief is engaged," said Kozlovski, going hurriedly up
+to the unknown general and blocking his way to the door. "Whom shall I
+announce?"
+
+The unknown general looked disdainfully down at Kozlovski, who was
+rather short, as if surprised that anyone should not know him.
+
+"The commander-in-chief is engaged," repeated Kozlovski calmly.
+
+The general's face clouded, his lips quivered and trembled. He took out
+a notebook, hurriedly scribbled something in pencil, tore out the leaf,
+gave it to Kozlovski, stepped quickly to the window, and threw himself
+into a chair, gazing at those in the room as if asking, "Why do they
+look at me?" Then he lifted his head, stretched his neck as if he
+intended to say something, but immediately, with affected indifference,
+began to hum to himself, producing a queer sound which immediately broke
+off. The door of the private room opened and Kutúzov appeared in the
+doorway. The general with the bandaged head bent forward as though
+running away from some danger, and, making long, quick strides with his
+thin legs, went up to Kutúzov.
+
+"Vous voyez le malheureux Mack," he uttered in a broken voice.
+
+Kutúzov's face as he stood in the open doorway remained perfectly
+immobile for a few moments. Then wrinkles ran over his face like a wave
+and his forehead became smooth again, he bowed his head respectfully,
+closed his eyes, silently let Mack enter his room before him, and closed
+the door himself behind him.
+
+The report which had been circulated that the Austrians had been beaten
+and that the whole army had surrendered at Ulm proved to be correct.
+Within half an hour adjutants had been sent in various directions with
+orders which showed that the Russian troops, who had hitherto been
+inactive, would also soon have to meet the enemy.
+
+Prince Andrew was one of those rare staff officers whose chief interest
+lay in the general progress of the war. When he saw Mack and heard the
+details of his disaster he understood that half the campaign was lost,
+understood all the difficulties of the Russian army's position, and
+vividly imagined what awaited it and the part he would have to play.
+Involuntarily he felt a joyful agitation at the thought of the
+humiliation of arrogant Austria and that in a week's time he might,
+perhaps, see and take part in the first Russian encounter with the
+French since Suvórov met them. He feared that Bonaparte's genius might
+outweigh all the courage of the Russian troops, and at the same time
+could not admit the idea of his hero being disgraced.
+
+Excited and irritated by these thoughts Prince Andrew went toward his
+room to write to his father, to whom he wrote every day. In the corridor
+he met Nesvítski, with whom he shared a room, and the wag Zherkov; they
+were as usual laughing.
+
+"Why are you so glum?" asked Nesvítski noticing Prince Andrew's pale
+face and glittering eyes.
+
+"There's nothing to be gay about," answered Bolkónski.
+
+Just as Prince Andrew met Nesvítski and Zherkov, there came toward them
+from the other end of the corridor, Strauch, an Austrian general who on
+Kutúzov's staff in charge of the provisioning of the Russian army, and
+the member of the Hofkriegsrath who had arrived the previous evening.
+There was room enough in the wide corridor for the generals to pass the
+three officers quite easily, but Zherkov, pushing Nesvítski aside with
+his arm, said in a breathless voice,
+
+"They're coming!... they're coming!... Stand aside, make way, please
+make way!"
+
+The generals were passing by, looking as if they wished to avoid
+embarrassing attentions. On the face of the wag Zherkov there suddenly
+appeared a stupid smile of glee which he seemed unable to suppress.
+
+"Your excellency," said he in German, stepping forward and addressing
+the Austrian general, "I have the honor to congratulate you."
+
+He bowed his head and scraped first with one foot and then with the
+other, awkwardly, like a child at a dancing lesson.
+
+The member of the Hofkriegsrath looked at him severely but, seeing the
+seriousness of his stupid smile, could not but give him a moment's
+attention. He screwed up his eyes showing that he was listening.
+
+"I have the honor to congratulate you. General Mack has arrived, quite
+well, only a little bruised just here," he added, pointing with a
+beaming smile to his head.
+
+The general frowned, turned away, and went on.
+
+"Gott, wie naiv!" * said he angrily, after he had gone a few steps.
+
+* "Good God, what simplicity!"
+
+Nesvítski with a laugh threw his arms round Prince Andrew, but
+Bolkónski, turning still paler, pushed him away with an angry look and
+turned to Zherkov. The nervous irritation aroused by the appearance of
+Mack, the news of his defeat, and the thought of what lay before the
+Russian army found vent in anger at Zherkov's untimely jest.
+
+"If you, sir, choose to make a buffoon of yourself," he said sharply,
+with a slight trembling of the lower jaw, "I can't prevent your doing
+so; but I warn you that if you dare to play the fool in my presence, I
+will teach you to behave yourself."
+
+Nesvítski and Zherkov were so surprised by this outburst that they gazed
+at Bolkónski silently with wide-open eyes.
+
+"What's the matter? I only congratulated them," said Zherkov.
+
+"I am not jesting with you; please be silent!" cried Bolkónski, and
+taking Nesvítski's arm he left Zherkov, who did not know what to say.
+
+"Come, what's the matter, old fellow?" said Nesvítski trying to soothe
+him.
+
+"What's the matter?" exclaimed Prince Andrew standing still in his
+excitement. "Don't you understand that either we are officers serving
+our Tsar and our country, rejoicing in the successes and grieving at the
+misfortunes of our common cause, or we are merely lackeys who care
+nothing for their master's business. Quarante mille hommes massacres et
+l'armee de nos allies detruite, et vous trouvez la le mot pour rire," *
+he said, as if strengthening his views by this French sentence. "C'est
+bien pour un garcon de rien comme cet individu dont vous avez fait un
+ami, mais pas pour vous, pas pour vous. *(2) Only a hobbledehoy could
+amuse himself in this way," he added in Russian—but pronouncing the word
+with a French accent—having noticed that Zherkov could still hear him.
+
+* "Forty thousand men massacred and the army of our allies destroyed,
+and you find that a cause for jesting!"
+
+* (2) "It is all very well for that good-for-nothing fellow of whom you
+have made a friend, but not for you, not for you."
+
+He waited a moment to see whether the cornet would answer, but he turned
+and went out of the corridor.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+The Pávlograd Hussars were stationed two miles from Braunau. The
+squadron in which Nicholas Rostóv served as a cadet was quartered in the
+German village of Salzeneck. The best quarters in the village were
+assigned to cavalry-captain Denisov, the squadron commander, known
+throughout the whole cavalry division as Vaska Denisov. Cadet Rostóv,
+ever since he had overtaken the regiment in Poland, had lived with the
+squadron commander.
+
+On October 11, the day when all was astir at headquarters over the news
+of Mack's defeat, the camp life of the officers of this squadron was
+proceeding as usual. Denisov, who had been losing at cards all night,
+had not yet come home when Rostóv rode back early in the morning from a
+foraging expedition. Rostóv in his cadet uniform, with a jerk to his
+horse, rode up to the porch, swung his leg over the saddle with a supple
+youthful movement, stood for a moment in the stirrup as if loathe to
+part from his horse, and at last sprang down and called to his orderly.
+
+"Ah, Bondarenko, dear friend!" said he to the hussar who rushed up
+headlong to the horse. "Walk him up and down, my dear fellow," he
+continued, with that gay brotherly cordiality which goodhearted young
+people show to everyone when they are happy.
+
+"Yes, your excellency," answered the Ukrainian gaily, tossing his head.
+
+"Mind, walk him up and down well!"
+
+Another hussar also rushed toward the horse, but Bondarenko had already
+thrown the reins of the snaffle bridle over the horse's head. It was
+evident that the cadet was liberal with his tips and that it paid to
+serve him. Rostóv patted the horse's neck and then his flank, and
+lingered for a moment.
+
+"Splendid! What a horse he will be!" he thought with a smile, and
+holding up his saber, his spurs jingling, he ran up the steps of the
+porch. His landlord, who in a waistcoat and a pointed cap, pitchfork in
+hand, was clearing manure from the cowhouse, looked out, and his face
+immediately brightened on seeing Rostóv. "Schon gut Morgen! Schon gut
+Morgen!" * he said winking with a merry smile, evidently pleased to
+greet the young man.
+
+* "A very good morning! A very good morning!"
+
+"Schon fleissig?" * said Rostóv with the same gay brotherly smile which
+did not leave his eager face. "Hoch Oestreicher! Hoch Russen! Kaiser
+Alexander hoch!" *(2) said he, quoting words often repeated by the
+German landlord.
+
+* "Busy already?"
+
+* (2) "Hurrah for the Austrians! Hurrah for the Russians! Hurrah for
+Emperor Alexander!"
+
+The German laughed, came out of the cowshed, pulled off his cap, and
+waving it above his head cried:
+
+"Und die ganze Welt hoch!" *
+
+* "And hurrah for the whole world!"
+
+Rostóv waved his cap above his head like the German and cried laughing,
+"Und vivat die ganze Welt!" Though neither the German cleaning his
+cowshed nor Rostóv back with his platoon from foraging for hay had any
+reason for rejoicing, they looked at each other with joyful delight and
+brotherly love, wagged their heads in token of their mutual affection,
+and parted smiling, the German returning to his cowshed and Rostóv going
+to the cottage he occupied with Denisov.
+
+"What about your master?" he asked Lavrushka, Denisov's orderly, whom
+all the regiment knew for a rogue.
+
+"Hasn't been in since the evening. Must have been losing," answered
+Lavrushka. "I know by now, if he wins he comes back early to brag about
+it, but if he stays out till morning it means he's lost and will come
+back in a rage. Will you have coffee?"
+
+"Yes, bring some."
+
+Ten minutes later Lavrushka brought the coffee. "He's coming!" said he.
+"Now for trouble!" Rostóv looked out of the window and saw Denisov
+coming home. Denisov was a small man with a red face, sparkling black
+eyes, and black tousled mustache and hair. He wore an unfastened cloak,
+wide breeches hanging down in creases, and a crumpled shako on the back
+of his head. He came up to the porch gloomily, hanging his head.
+
+"Lavwuska!" he shouted loudly and angrily, "take it off, blockhead!"
+
+"Well, I am taking it off," replied Lavrushka's voice.
+
+"Ah, you're up already," said Denisov, entering the room.
+
+"Long ago," answered Rostóv, "I have already been for the hay, and have
+seen Fraulein Mathilde."
+
+"Weally! And I've been losing, bwother. I lost yesterday like a damned
+fool!" cried Denisov, not pronouncing his r's. "Such ill luck! Such ill
+luck. As soon as you left, it began and went on. Hullo there! Tea!"
+
+Puckering up his face though smiling, and showing his short strong
+teeth, he began with stubby fingers of both hands to ruffle up his thick
+tangled black hair.
+
+"And what devil made me go to that wat?" (an officer nicknamed "the
+rat") he said, rubbing his forehead and whole face with both hands.
+"Just fancy, he didn't let me win a single cahd, not one cahd."
+
+He took the lighted pipe that was offered to him, gripped it in his
+fist, and tapped it on the floor, making the sparks fly, while he
+continued to shout.
+
+"He lets one win the singles and collahs it as soon as one doubles it;
+gives the singles and snatches the doubles!"
+
+He scattered the burning tobacco, smashed the pipe, and threw it away.
+Then he remained silent for a while, and all at once looked cheerfully
+with his glittering, black eyes at Rostóv.
+
+"If at least we had some women here; but there's nothing foh one to do
+but dwink. If we could only get to fighting soon. Hullo, who's there?"
+he said, turning to the door as he heard a tread of heavy boots and the
+clinking of spurs that came to a stop, and a respectful cough.
+
+"The squadron quartermaster!" said Lavrushka.
+
+Denisov's face puckered still more.
+
+"Wetched!" he muttered, throwing down a purse with some gold in it.
+"Wostov, deah fellow, just see how much there is left and shove the
+purse undah the pillow," he said, and went out to the quartermaster.
+
+Rostóv took the money and, mechanically arranging the old and new coins
+in separate piles, began counting them.
+
+"Ah! Telyanin! How d'ye do? They plucked me last night," came Denisov's
+voice from the next room.
+
+"Where? At Bykov's, at the rat's... I knew it," replied a piping voice,
+and Lieutenant Telyanin, a small officer of the same squadron, entered
+the room.
+
+Rostóv thrust the purse under the pillow and shook the damp little hand
+which was offered him. Telyanin for some reason had been transferred
+from the Guards just before this campaign. He behaved very well in the
+regiment but was not liked; Rostóv especially detested him and was
+unable to overcome or conceal his groundless antipathy to the man.
+
+"Well, young cavalryman, how is my Rook behaving?" he asked. (Rook was a
+young horse Telyanin had sold to Rostóv.)
+
+The lieutenant never looked the man he was speaking to straight in the
+face; his eyes continually wandered from one object to another.
+
+"I saw you riding this morning..." he added.
+
+"Oh, he's all right, a good horse," answered Rostóv, though the horse
+for which he had paid seven hundred rubbles was not worth half that sum.
+"He's begun to go a little lame on the left foreleg," he added.
+
+"The hoof's cracked! That's nothing. I'll teach you what to do and show
+you what kind of rivet to use."
+
+"Yes, please do," said Rostóv.
+
+"I'll show you, I'll show you! It's not a secret. And it's a horse
+you'll thank me for."
+
+"Then I'll have it brought round," said Rostóv wishing to avoid
+Telyanin, and he went out to give the order.
+
+In the passage Denisov, with a pipe, was squatting on the threshold
+facing the quartermaster who was reporting to him. On seeing Rostóv,
+Denisov screwed up his face and pointing over his shoulder with his
+thumb to the room where Telyanin was sitting, he frowned and gave a
+shudder of disgust.
+
+"Ugh! I don't like that fellow," he said, regardless of the
+quartermaster's presence.
+
+Rostóv shrugged his shoulders as much as to say: "Nor do I, but what's
+one to do?" and, having given his order, he returned to Telyanin.
+
+Telyanin was sitting in the same indolent pose in which Rostóv had left
+him, rubbing his small white hands.
+
+"Well there certainly are disgusting people," thought Rostóv as he
+entered.
+
+"Have you told them to bring the horse?" asked Telyanin, getting up and
+looking carelessly about him.
+
+"I have."
+
+"Let us go ourselves. I only came round to ask Denisov about yesterday's
+order. Have you got it, Denisov?"
+
+"Not yet. But where are you off to?"
+
+"I want to teach this young man how to shoe a horse," said Telyanin.
+
+They went through the porch and into the stable. The lieutenant
+explained how to rivet the hoof and went away to his own quarters.
+
+When Rostóv went back there was a bottle of vodka and a sausage on the
+table. Denisov was sitting there scratching with his pen on a sheet of
+paper. He looked gloomily in Rostóv's face and said: "I am witing to
+her."
+
+He leaned his elbows on the table with his pen in his hand and,
+evidently glad of a chance to say quicker in words what he wanted to
+write, told Rostóv the contents of his letter.
+
+"You see, my fwiend," he said, "we sleep when we don't love. We are
+childwen of the dust... but one falls in love and one is a God, one is
+pua' as on the first day of cweation... Who's that now? Send him to the
+devil, I'm busy!" he shouted to Lavrushka, who went up to him not in the
+least abashed.
+
+"Who should it be? You yourself told him to come. It's the quartermaster
+for the money."
+
+Denisov frowned and was about to shout some reply but stopped.
+
+"Wetched business," he muttered to himself. "How much is left in the
+puhse?" he asked, turning to Rostóv.
+
+"Seven new and three old imperials."
+
+"Oh, it's wetched! Well, what are you standing there for, you sca'cwow?
+Call the quahtehmasteh," he shouted to Lavrushka.
+
+"Please, Denisov, let me lend you some: I have some, you know," said
+Rostóv, blushing.
+
+"Don't like bowwowing from my own fellows, I don't," growled Denisov.
+
+"But if you won't accept money from me like a comrade, you will offend
+me. Really I have some," Rostóv repeated.
+
+"No, I tell you."
+
+And Denisov went to the bed to get the purse from under the pillow.
+
+"Where have you put it, Wostov?"
+
+"Under the lower pillow."
+
+"It's not there."
+
+Denisov threw both pillows on the floor. The purse was not there.
+
+"That's a miwacle."
+
+"Wait, haven't you dropped it?" said Rostóv, picking up the pillows one
+at a time and shaking them.
+
+He pulled off the quilt and shook it. The purse was not there.
+
+"Dear me, can I have forgotten? No, I remember thinking that you kept it
+under your head like a treasure," said Rostóv. "I put it just here.
+Where is it?" he asked, turning to Lavrushka.
+
+"I haven't been in the room. It must be where you put it."
+
+"But it isn't?..."
+
+"You're always like that; you thwow a thing down anywhere and forget it.
+Feel in your pockets."
+
+"No, if I hadn't thought of it being a treasure," said Rostóv, "but I
+remember putting it there."
+
+Lavrushka turned all the bedding over, looked under the bed and under
+the table, searched everywhere, and stood still in the middle of the
+room. Denisov silently watched Lavrushka's movements, and when the
+latter threw up his arms in surprise saying it was nowhere to be found
+Denisov glanced at Rostóv.
+
+"Wostov, you've not been playing schoolboy twicks..."
+
+Rostóv felt Denisov's gaze fixed on him, raised his eyes, and instantly
+dropped them again. All the blood which had seemed congested somewhere
+below his throat rushed to his face and eyes. He could not draw breath.
+
+"And there hasn't been anyone in the room except the lieutenant and
+yourselves. It must be here somewhere," said Lavrushka.
+
+"Now then, you devil's puppet, look alive and hunt for it!" shouted
+Denisov, suddenly, turning purple and rushing at the man with a
+threatening gesture. "If the purse isn't found I'll flog you, I'll flog
+you all."
+
+Rostóv, his eyes avoiding Denisov, began buttoning his coat, buckled on
+his saber, and put on his cap.
+
+"I must have that purse, I tell you," shouted Denisov, shaking his
+orderly by the shoulders and knocking him against the wall.
+
+"Denisov, let him alone, I know who has taken it," said Rostóv, going
+toward the door without raising his eyes. Denisov paused, thought a
+moment, and, evidently understanding what Rostóv hinted at, seized his
+arm.
+
+"Nonsense!" he cried, and the veins on his forehead and neck stood out
+like cords. "You are mad, I tell you. I won't allow it. The purse is
+here! I'll flay this scoundwel alive, and it will be found."
+
+"I know who has taken it," repeated Rostóv in an unsteady voice, and
+went to the door.
+
+"And I tell you, don't you dahe to do it!" shouted Denisov, rushing at
+the cadet to restrain him.
+
+But Rostóv pulled away his arm and, with as much anger as though Denisov
+were his worst enemy, firmly fixed his eyes directly on his face.
+
+"Do you understand what you're saying?" he said in a trembling voice.
+"There was no one else in the room except myself. So that if it is not
+so, then..."
+
+He could not finish, and ran out of the room.
+
+"Ah, may the devil take you and evewybody," were the last words Rostóv
+heard.
+
+Rostóv went to Telyanin's quarters.
+
+"The master is not in, he's gone to headquarters," said Telyanin's
+orderly. "Has something happened?" he added, surprised at the cadet's
+troubled face.
+
+"No, nothing."
+
+"You've only just missed him," said the orderly.
+
+The headquarters were situated two miles away from Salzeneck, and
+Rostóv, without returning home, took a horse and rode there. There was
+an inn in the village which the officers frequented. Rostóv rode up to
+it and saw Telyanin's horse at the porch.
+
+In the second room of the inn the lieutenant was sitting over a dish of
+sausages and a bottle of wine.
+
+"Ah, you've come here too, young man!" he said, smiling and raising his
+eyebrows.
+
+"Yes," said Rostóv as if it cost him a great deal to utter the word; and
+he sat down at the nearest table.
+
+Both were silent. There were two Germans and a Russian officer in the
+room. No one spoke and the only sounds heard were the clatter of knives
+and the munching of the lieutenant.
+
+When Telyanin had finished his lunch he took out of his pocket a double
+purse and, drawing its rings aside with his small, white, turned-up
+fingers, drew out a gold imperial, and lifting his eyebrows gave it to
+the waiter.
+
+"Please be quick," he said.
+
+The coin was a new one. Rostóv rose and went up to Telyanin.
+
+"Allow me to look at your purse," he said in a low, almost inaudible,
+voice.
+
+With shifting eyes but eyebrows still raised, Telyanin handed him the
+purse.
+
+"Yes, it's a nice purse. Yes, yes," he said, growing suddenly pale, and
+added, "Look at it, young man."
+
+Rostóv took the purse in his hand, examined it and the money in it, and
+looked at Telyanin. The lieutenant was looking about in his usual way
+and suddenly seemed to grow very merry.
+
+"If we get to Vienna I'll get rid of it there but in these wretched
+little towns there's nowhere to spend it," said he. "Well, let me have
+it, young man, I'm going."
+
+Rostóv did not speak.
+
+"And you? Are you going to have lunch too? They feed you quite decently
+here," continued Telyanin. "Now then, let me have it."
+
+He stretched out his hand to take hold of the purse. Rostóv let go of
+it. Telyanin took the purse and began carelessly slipping it into the
+pocket of his riding breeches, with his eyebrows lifted and his mouth
+slightly open, as if to say, "Yes, yes, I am putting my purse in my
+pocket and that's quite simple and is no one else's business."
+
+"Well, young man?" he said with a sigh, and from under his lifted brows
+he glanced into Rostóv's eyes.
+
+Some flash as of an electric spark shot from Telyanin's eyes to Rostóv's
+and back, and back again and again in an instant.
+
+"Come here," said Rostóv, catching hold of Telyanin's arm and almost
+dragging him to the window. "That money is Denisov's; you took it..." he
+whispered just above Telyanin's ear.
+
+"What? What? How dare you? What?" said Telyanin.
+
+But these words came like a piteous, despairing cry and an entreaty for
+pardon. As soon as Rostóv heard them, an enormous load of doubt fell
+from him. He was glad, and at the same instant began to pity the
+miserable man who stood before him, but the task he had begun had to be
+completed.
+
+"Heaven only knows what the people here may imagine," muttered Telyanin,
+taking up his cap and moving toward a small empty room. "We must have an
+explanation..."
+
+"I know it and shall prove it," said Rostóv.
+
+"I..."
+
+Every muscle of Telyanin's pale, terrified face began to quiver, his
+eyes still shifted from side to side but with a downward look not rising
+to Rostóv's face, and his sobs were audible.
+
+"Count!... Don't ruin a young fellow... here is this wretched money,
+take it..." He threw it on the table. "I have an old father and
+mother!..."
+
+Rostóv took the money, avoiding Telyanin's eyes, and went out of the
+room without a word. But at the door he stopped and then retraced his
+steps. "O God," he said with tears in his eyes, "how could you do it?"
+
+"Count..." said Telyanin drawing nearer to him.
+
+"Don't touch me," said Rostóv, drawing back. "If you need it, take the
+money," and he threw the purse to him and ran out of the inn.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+That same evening there was an animated discussion among the squadron's
+officers in Denisov's quarters.
+
+"And I tell you, Rostóv, that you must apologize to the colonel!" said a
+tall, grizzly-haired staff captain, with enormous mustaches and many
+wrinkles on his large features, to Rostóv who was crimson with
+excitement.
+
+The staff captain, Kirsten, had twice been reduced to the ranks for
+affairs of honor and had twice regained his commission.
+
+"I will allow no one to call me a liar!" cried Rostóv. "He told me I
+lied, and I told him he lied. And there it rests. He may keep me on duty
+every day, or may place me under arrest, but no one can make me
+apologize, because if he, as commander of this regiment, thinks it
+beneath his dignity to give me satisfaction, then..."
+
+"You just wait a moment, my dear fellow, and listen," interrupted the
+staff captain in his deep bass, calmly stroking his long mustache. "You
+tell the colonel in the presence of other officers that an officer has
+stolen..."
+
+"I'm not to blame that the conversation began in the presence of other
+officers. Perhaps I ought not to have spoken before them, but I am not a
+diplomatist. That's why I joined the hussars, thinking that here one
+would not need finesse; and he tells me that I am lying—so let him give
+me satisfaction..."
+
+"That's all right. No one thinks you a coward, but that's not the point.
+Ask Denisov whether it is not out of the question for a cadet to demand
+satisfaction of his regimental commander?"
+
+Denisov sat gloomily biting his mustache and listening to the
+conversation, evidently with no wish to take part in it. He answered the
+staff captain's question by a disapproving shake of his head.
+
+"You speak to the colonel about this nasty business before other
+officers," continued the staff captain, "and Bogdanich" (the colonel was
+called Bogdanich) "shuts you up."
+
+"He did not shut me up, he said I was telling an untruth."
+
+"Well, have it so, and you talked a lot of nonsense to him and must
+apologize."
+
+"Not on any account!" exclaimed Rostóv.
+
+"I did not expect this of you," said the staff captain seriously and
+severely. "You don't wish to apologize, but, man, it's not only to him
+but to the whole regiment—all of us—you're to blame all round. The case
+is this: you ought to have thought the matter over and taken advice; but
+no, you go and blurt it all straight out before the officers. Now what
+was the colonel to do? Have the officer tried and disgrace the whole
+regiment? Disgrace the whole regiment because of one scoundrel? Is that
+how you look at it? We don't see it like that. And Bogdanich was a
+brick: he told you you were saying what was not true. It's not pleasant,
+but what's to be done, my dear fellow? You landed yourself in it. And
+now, when one wants to smooth the thing over, some conceit prevents your
+apologizing, and you wish to make the whole affair public. You are
+offended at being put on duty a bit, but why not apologize to an old and
+honorable officer? Whatever Bogdanich may be, anyway he is an honorable
+and brave old colonel! You're quick at taking offense, but you don't
+mind disgracing the whole regiment!" The staff captain's voice began to
+tremble. "You have been in the regiment next to no time, my lad, you're
+here today and tomorrow you'll be appointed adjutant somewhere and can
+snap your fingers when it is said 'There are thieves among the Pávlograd
+officers!' But it's not all the same to us! Am I not right, Denisov?
+It's not the same!"
+
+Denisov remained silent and did not move, but occasionally looked with
+his glittering black eyes at Rostóv.
+
+"You value your own pride and don't wish to apologize," continued the
+staff captain, "but we old fellows, who have grown up in and, God
+willing, are going to die in the regiment, we prize the honor of the
+regiment, and Bogdanich knows it. Oh, we do prize it, old fellow! And
+all this is not right, it's not right! You may take offense or not but I
+always stick to mother truth. It's not right!"
+
+And the staff captain rose and turned away from Rostóv.
+
+"That's twue, devil take it!" shouted Denisov, jumping up. "Now then,
+Wostov, now then!"
+
+Rostóv, growing red and pale alternately, looked first at one officer
+and then at the other.
+
+"No, gentlemen, no... you mustn't think... I quite understand. You're
+wrong to think that of me... I... for me... for the honor of the
+regiment I'd... Ah well, I'll show that in action, and for me the honor
+of the flag... Well, never mind, it's true I'm to blame, to blame all
+round. Well, what else do you want?..."
+
+"Come, that's right, Count!" cried the staff captain, turning round and
+clapping Rostóv on the shoulder with his big hand.
+
+"I tell you," shouted Denisov, "he's a fine fellow."
+
+"That's better, Count," said the staff captain, beginning to address
+Rostóv by his title, as if in recognition of his confession. "Go and
+apologize, your excellency. Yes, go!"
+
+"Gentlemen, I'll do anything. No one shall hear a word from me," said
+Rostóv in an imploring voice, "but I can't apologize, by God I can't, do
+what you will! How can I go and apologize like a little boy asking
+forgiveness?"
+
+Denisov began to laugh.
+
+"It'll be worse for you. Bogdanich is vindictive and you'll pay for your
+obstinacy," said Kirsten.
+
+"No, on my word it's not obstinacy! I can't describe the feeling. I
+can't..."
+
+"Well, it's as you like," said the staff captain. "And what has become
+of that scoundrel?" he asked Denisov.
+
+"He has weported himself sick, he's to be stwuck off the list tomowwow,"
+muttered Denisov.
+
+"It is an illness, there's no other way of explaining it," said the
+staff captain.
+
+"Illness or not, he'd better not cwoss my path. I'd kill him!" shouted
+Denisov in a bloodthirsty tone.
+
+Just then Zherkov entered the room.
+
+"What brings you here?" cried the officers turning to the newcomer.
+
+"We're to go into action, gentlemen! Mack has surrendered with his whole
+army."
+
+"It's not true!"
+
+"I've seen him myself!"
+
+"What? Saw the real Mack? With hands and feet?"
+
+"Into action! Into action! Bring him a bottle for such news! But how did
+you come here?"
+
+"I've been sent back to the regiment all on account of that devil, Mack.
+An Austrian general complained of me. I congratulated him on Mack's
+arrival... What's the matter, Rostóv? You look as if you'd just come out
+of a hot bath."
+
+"Oh, my dear fellow, we're in such a stew here these last two days."
+
+The regimental adjutant came in and confirmed the news brought by
+Zherkov. They were under orders to advance next day.
+
+"We're going into action, gentlemen!"
+
+"Well, thank God! We've been sitting here too long!"
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+Kutúzov fell back toward Vienna, destroying behind him the bridges over
+the rivers Inn (at Braunau) and Traun (near Linz). On October 23 the
+Russian troops were crossing the river Enns. At midday the Russian
+baggage train, the artillery, and columns of troops were defiling
+through the town of Enns on both sides of the bridge.
+
+It was a warm, rainy, autumnal day. The wide expanse that opened out
+before the heights on which the Russian batteries stood guarding the
+bridge was at times veiled by a diaphanous curtain of slanting rain, and
+then, suddenly spread out in the sunlight, far-distant objects could be
+clearly seen glittering as though freshly varnished. Down below, the
+little town could be seen with its white, red-roofed houses, its
+cathedral, and its bridge, on both sides of which streamed jostling
+masses of Russian troops. At the bend of the Danube, vessels, an island,
+and a castle with a park surrounded by the waters of the confluence of
+the Enns and the Danube became visible, and the rocky left bank of the
+Danube covered with pine forests, with a mystic background of green
+treetops and bluish gorges. The turrets of a convent stood out beyond a
+wild virgin pine forest, and far away on the other side of the Enns the
+enemy's horse patrols could be discerned.
+
+Among the field guns on the brow of the hill the general in command of
+the rearguard stood with a staff officer, scanning the country through
+his fieldglass. A little behind them Nesvítski, who had been sent to the
+rearguard by the commander-in-chief, was sitting on the trail of a gun
+carriage. A Cossack who accompanied him had handed him a knapsack and a
+flask, and Nesvítski was treating some officers to pies and real
+doppelkummel. The officers gladly gathered round him, some on their
+knees, some squatting Turkish fashion on the wet grass.
+
+"Yes, the Austrian prince who built that castle was no fool. It's a fine
+place! Why are you not eating anything, gentlemen?" Nesvítski was
+saying.
+
+"Thank you very much, Prince," answered one of the officers, pleased to
+be talking to a staff officer of such importance. "It's a lovely place!
+We passed close to the park and saw two deer... and what a splendid
+house!"
+
+"Look, Prince," said another, who would have dearly liked to take
+another pie but felt shy, and therefore pretended to be examining the
+countryside—"See, our infantrymen have already got there. Look there in
+the meadow behind the village, three of them are dragging something.
+They'll ransack that castle," he remarked with evident approval.
+
+"So they will," said Nesvítski. "No, but what I should like," added he,
+munching a pie in his moist-lipped handsome mouth, "would be to slip in
+over there."
+
+He pointed with a smile to a turreted nunnery, and his eyes narrowed and
+gleamed.
+
+"That would be fine, gentlemen!"
+
+The officers laughed.
+
+"Just to flutter the nuns a bit. They say there are Italian girls among
+them. On my word I'd give five years of my life for it!"
+
+"They must be feeling dull, too," said one of the bolder officers,
+laughing.
+
+Meanwhile the staff officer standing in front pointed out something to
+the general, who looked through his field glass.
+
+"Yes, so it is, so it is," said the general angrily, lowering the field
+glass and shrugging his shoulders, "so it is! They'll be fired on at the
+crossing. And why are they dawdling there?"
+
+On the opposite side the enemy could be seen by the naked eye, and from
+their battery a milk-white cloud arose. Then came the distant report of
+a shot, and our troops could be seen hurrying to the crossing.
+
+Nesvítski rose, puffing, and went up to the general, smiling.
+
+"Would not your excellency like a little refreshment?" he said.
+
+"It's a bad business," said the general without answering him, "our men
+have been wasting time."
+
+"Hadn't I better ride over, your excellency?" asked Nesvítski.
+
+"Yes, please do," answered the general, and he repeated the order that
+had already once been given in detail: "and tell the hussars that they
+are to cross last and to fire the bridge as I ordered; and the
+inflammable material on the bridge must be reinspected."
+
+"Very good," answered Nesvítski.
+
+He called the Cossack with his horse, told him to put away the knapsack
+and flask, and swung his heavy person easily into the saddle.
+
+"I'll really call in on the nuns," he said to the officers who watched
+him smilingly, and he rode off by the winding path down the hill.
+
+"Now then, let's see how far it will carry, Captain. Just try!" said the
+general, turning to an artillery officer. "Have a little fun to pass the
+time."
+
+"Crew, to your guns!" commanded the officer.
+
+In a moment the men came running gaily from their campfires and began
+loading.
+
+"One!" came the command.
+
+Number one jumped briskly aside. The gun rang out with a deafening
+metallic roar, and a whistling grenade flew above the heads of our
+troops below the hill and fell far short of the enemy, a little smoke
+showing the spot where it burst.
+
+The faces of officers and men brightened up at the sound. Everyone got
+up and began watching the movements of our troops below, as plainly
+visible as if but a stone's throw away, and the movements of the
+approaching enemy farther off. At the same instant the sun came fully
+out from behind the clouds, and the clear sound of the solitary shot and
+the brilliance of the bright sunshine merged in a single joyous and
+spirited impression.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+Two of the enemy's shots had already flown across the bridge, where
+there was a crush. Halfway across stood Prince Nesvítski, who had
+alighted from his horse and whose big body was jammed against the
+railings. He looked back laughing to the Cossack who stood a few steps
+behind him holding two horses by their bridles. Each time Prince
+Nesvítski tried to move on, soldiers and carts pushed him back again and
+pressed him against the railings, and all he could do was to smile.
+
+"What a fine fellow you are, friend!" said the Cossack to a convoy
+soldier with a wagon, who was pressing onto the infantrymen who were
+crowded together close to his wheels and his horses. "What a fellow! You
+can't wait a moment! Don't you see the general wants to pass?"
+
+But the convoyman took no notice of the word "general" and shouted at
+the soldiers who were blocking his way. "Hi there, boys! Keep to the
+left! Wait a bit." But the soldiers, crowded together shoulder to
+shoulder, their bayonets interlocking, moved over the bridge in a dense
+mass. Looking down over the rails Prince Nesvítski saw the rapid, noisy
+little waves of the Enns, which rippling and eddying round the piles of
+the bridge chased each other along. Looking on the bridge he saw equally
+uniform living waves of soldiers, shoulder straps, covered shakos,
+knapsacks, bayonets, long muskets, and, under the shakos, faces with
+broad cheekbones, sunken cheeks, and listless tired expressions, and
+feet that moved through the sticky mud that covered the planks of the
+bridge. Sometimes through the monotonous waves of men, like a fleck of
+white foam on the waves of the Enns, an officer, in a cloak and with a
+type of face different from that of the men, squeezed his way along;
+sometimes like a chip of wood whirling in the river, an hussar on foot,
+an orderly, or a townsman was carried through the waves of infantry; and
+sometimes like a log floating down the river, an officers' or company's
+baggage wagon, piled high, leather covered, and hemmed in on all sides,
+moved across the bridge.
+
+"It's as if a dam had burst," said the Cossack hopelessly. "Are there
+many more of you to come?"
+
+"A million all but one!" replied a waggish soldier in a torn coat, with
+a wink, and passed on followed by another, an old man.
+
+"If he" (he meant the enemy) "begins popping at the bridge now," said
+the old soldier dismally to a comrade, "you'll forget to scratch
+yourself."
+
+That soldier passed on, and after him came another sitting on a cart.
+
+"Where the devil have the leg bands been shoved to?" said an orderly,
+running behind the cart and fumbling in the back of it.
+
+And he also passed on with the wagon. Then came some merry soldiers who
+had evidently been drinking.
+
+"And then, old fellow, he gives him one in the teeth with the butt end
+of his gun..." a soldier whose greatcoat was well tucked up said gaily,
+with a wide swing of his arm.
+
+"Yes, the ham was just delicious..." answered another with a loud laugh.
+And they, too, passed on, so that Nesvítski did not learn who had been
+struck on the teeth, or what the ham had to do with it.
+
+"Bah! How they scurry. He just sends a ball and they think they'll all
+be killed," a sergeant was saying angrily and reproachfully.
+
+"As it flies past me, Daddy, the ball I mean," said a young soldier with
+an enormous mouth, hardly refraining from laughing, "I felt like dying
+of fright. I did, 'pon my word, I got that frightened!" said he, as if
+bragging of having been frightened.
+
+That one also passed. Then followed a cart unlike any that had gone
+before. It was a German cart with a pair of horses led by a German, and
+seemed loaded with a whole houseful of effects. A fine brindled cow with
+a large udder was attached to the cart behind. A woman with an unweaned
+baby, an old woman, and a healthy German girl with bright red cheeks
+were sitting on some feather beds. Evidently these fugitives were
+allowed to pass by special permission. The eyes of all the soldiers
+turned toward the women, and while the vehicle was passing at foot pace
+all the soldiers' remarks related to the two young ones. Every face bore
+almost the same smile, expressing unseemly thoughts about the women.
+
+"Just see, the German sausage is making tracks, too!"
+
+"Sell me the missis," said another soldier, addressing the German, who,
+angry and frightened, strode energetically along with downcast eyes.
+
+"See how smart she's made herself! Oh, the devils!"
+
+"There, Fedotov, you should be quartered on them!"
+
+"I have seen as much before now, mate!"
+
+"Where are you going?" asked an infantry officer who was eating an
+apple, also half smiling as he looked at the handsome girl.
+
+The German closed his eyes, signifying that he did not understand.
+
+"Take it if you like," said the officer, giving the girl an apple.
+
+The girl smiled and took it. Nesvítski like the rest of the men on the
+bridge did not take his eyes off the women till they had passed. When
+they had gone by, the same stream of soldiers followed, with the same
+kind of talk, and at last all stopped. As often happens, the horses of a
+convoy wagon became restive at the end of the bridge, and the whole
+crowd had to wait.
+
+"And why are they stopping? There's no proper order!" said the soldiers.
+"Where are you shoving to? Devil take you! Can't you wait? It'll be
+worse if he fires the bridge. See, here's an officer jammed in
+too"—different voices were saying in the crowd, as the men looked at one
+another, and all pressed toward the exit from the bridge.
+
+Looking down at the waters of the Enns under the bridge, Nesvítski
+suddenly heard a sound new to him, of something swiftly approaching...
+something big, that splashed into the water.
+
+"Just see where it carries to!" a soldier near by said sternly, looking
+round at the sound.
+
+"Encouraging us to get along quicker," said another uneasily.
+
+The crowd moved on again. Nesvítski realized that it was a cannon ball.
+
+"Hey, Cossack, my horse!" he said. "Now, then, you there! get out of the
+way! Make way!"
+
+With great difficulty he managed to get to his horse, and shouting
+continually he moved on. The soldiers squeezed themselves to make way
+for him, but again pressed on him so that they jammed his leg, and those
+nearest him were not to blame for they were themselves pressed still
+harder from behind.
+
+"Nesvítski, Nesvítski! you numskull!" came a hoarse voice from behind
+him.
+
+Nesvítski looked round and saw, some fifteen paces away but separated by
+the living mass of moving infantry, Vaska Denisov, red and shaggy, with
+his cap on the back of his black head and a cloak hanging jauntily over
+his shoulder.
+
+"Tell these devils, these fiends, to let me pass!" shouted Denisov
+evidently in a fit of rage, his coal-black eyes with their bloodshot
+whites glittering and rolling as he waved his sheathed saber in a small
+bare hand as red as his face.
+
+"Ah, Vaska!" joyfully replied Nesvítski. "What's up with you?"
+
+"The squadwon can't pass," shouted Vaska Denisov, showing his white
+teeth fiercely and spurring his black thoroughbred Arab, which twitched
+its ears as the bayonets touched it, and snorted, spurting white foam
+from his bit, tramping the planks of the bridge with his hoofs, and
+apparently ready to jump over the railings had his rider let him. "What
+is this? They're like sheep! Just like sheep! Out of the way!... Let us
+pass!... Stop there, you devil with the cart! I'll hack you with my
+saber!" he shouted, actually drawing his saber from its scabbard and
+flourishing it.
+
+The soldiers crowded against one another with terrified faces, and
+Denisov joined Nesvítski.
+
+"How's it you're not drunk today?" said Nesvítski when the other had
+ridden up to him.
+
+"They don't even give one time to dwink!" answered Vaska Denisov. "They
+keep dwagging the wegiment to and fwo all day. If they mean to fight,
+let's fight. But the devil knows what this is."
+
+"What a dandy you are today!" said Nesvítski, looking at Denisov's new
+cloak and saddlecloth.
+
+Denisov smiled, took out of his sabretache a handkerchief that diffused
+a smell of perfume, and put it to Nesvítski's nose.
+
+"Of course. I'm going into action! I've shaved, bwushed my teeth, and
+scented myself."
+
+The imposing figure of Nesvítski followed by his Cossack, and the
+determination of Denisov who flourished his sword and shouted
+frantically, had such an effect that they managed to squeeze through to
+the farther side of the bridge and stopped the infantry. Beside the
+bridge Nesvítski found the colonel to whom he had to deliver the order,
+and having done this he rode back.
+
+Having cleared the way Denisov stopped at the end of the bridge.
+Carelessly holding in his stallion that was neighing and pawing the
+ground, eager to rejoin its fellows, he watched his squadron draw
+nearer. Then the clang of hoofs, as of several horses galloping,
+resounded on the planks of the bridge, and the squadron, officers in
+front and men four abreast, spread across the bridge and began to emerge
+on his side of it.
+
+The infantry who had been stopped crowded near the bridge in the
+trampled mud and gazed with that particular feeling of ill-will,
+estrangement, and ridicule with which troops of different arms usually
+encounter one another at the clean, smart hussars who moved past them in
+regular order.
+
+"Smart lads! Only fit for a fair!" said one.
+
+"What good are they? They're led about just for show!" remarked another.
+
+"Don't kick up the dust, you infantry!" jested an hussar whose prancing
+horse had splashed mud over some foot soldiers.
+
+"I'd like to put you on a two days' march with a knapsack! Your fine
+cords would soon get a bit rubbed," said an infantryman, wiping the mud
+off his face with his sleeve. "Perched up there, you're more like a bird
+than a man."
+
+"There now, Zikin, they ought to put you on a horse. You'd look fine,"
+said a corporal, chaffing a thin little soldier who bent under the
+weight of his knapsack.
+
+"Take a stick between your legs, that'll suit you for a horse!" the
+hussar shouted back.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+The last of the infantry hurriedly crossed the bridge, squeezing
+together as they approached it as if passing through a funnel. At last
+the baggage wagons had all crossed, the crush was less, and the last
+battalion came onto the bridge. Only Denisov's squadron of hussars
+remained on the farther side of the bridge facing the enemy, who could
+be seen from the hill on the opposite bank but was not yet visible from
+the bridge, for the horizon as seen from the valley through which the
+river flowed was formed by the rising ground only half a mile away. At
+the foot of the hill lay wasteland over which a few groups of our
+Cossack scouts were moving. Suddenly on the road at the top of the high
+ground, artillery and troops in blue uniform were seen. These were the
+French. A group of Cossack scouts retired down the hill at a trot. All
+the officers and men of Denisov's squadron, though they tried to talk of
+other things and to look in other directions, thought only of what was
+there on the hilltop, and kept constantly looking at the patches
+appearing on the skyline, which they knew to be the enemy's troops. The
+weather had cleared again since noon and the sun was descending brightly
+upon the Danube and the dark hills around it. It was calm, and at
+intervals the bugle calls and the shouts of the enemy could be heard
+from the hill. There was no one now between the squadron and the enemy
+except a few scattered skirmishers. An empty space of some seven hundred
+yards was all that separated them. The enemy ceased firing, and that
+stern, threatening, inaccessible, and intangible line which separates
+two hostile armies was all the more clearly felt.
+
+"One step beyond that boundary line which resembles the line dividing
+the living from the dead lies uncertainty, suffering, and death. And
+what is there? Who is there?—there beyond that field, that tree, that
+roof lit up by the sun? No one knows, but one wants to know. You fear
+and yet long to cross that line, and know that sooner or later it must
+be crossed and you will have to find out what is there, just as you will
+inevitably have to learn what lies the other side of death. But you are
+strong, healthy, cheerful, and excited, and are surrounded by other such
+excitedly animated and healthy men." So thinks, or at any rate feels,
+anyone who comes in sight of the enemy, and that feeling gives a
+particular glamour and glad keenness of impression to everything that
+takes place at such moments.
+
+On the high ground where the enemy was, the smoke of a cannon rose, and
+a ball flew whistling over the heads of the hussar squadron. The
+officers who had been standing together rode off to their places. The
+hussars began carefully aligning their horses. Silence fell on the whole
+squadron. All were looking at the enemy in front and at the squadron
+commander, awaiting the word of command. A second and a third cannon
+ball flew past. Evidently they were firing at the hussars, but the balls
+with rapid rhythmic whistle flew over the heads of the horsemen and fell
+somewhere beyond them. The hussars did not look round, but at the sound
+of each shot, as at the word of command, the whole squadron with its
+rows of faces so alike yet so different, holding its breath while the
+ball flew past, rose in the stirrups and sank back again. The soldiers
+without turning their heads glanced at one another, curious to see their
+comrades' impression. Every face, from Denisov's to that of the bugler,
+showed one common expression of conflict, irritation, and excitement,
+around chin and mouth. The quartermaster frowned, looking at the
+soldiers as if threatening to punish them. Cadet Mironov ducked every
+time a ball flew past. Rostóv on the left flank, mounted on his Rook—a
+handsome horse despite its game leg—had the happy air of a schoolboy
+called up before a large audience for an examination in which he feels
+sure he will distinguish himself. He was glancing at everyone with a
+clear, bright expression, as if asking them to notice how calmly he sat
+under fire. But despite himself, on his face too that same indication of
+something new and stern showed round the mouth.
+
+"Who's that curtseying there? Cadet Miwonov! That's not wight! Look at
+me," cried Denisov who, unable to keep still on one spot, kept turning
+his horse in front of the squadron.
+
+The black, hairy, snub-nosed face of Vaska Denisov, and his whole short
+sturdy figure with the sinewy hairy hand and stumpy fingers in which he
+held the hilt of his naked saber, looked just as it usually did,
+especially toward evening when he had emptied his second bottle; he was
+only redder than usual. With his shaggy head thrown back like birds when
+they drink, pressing his spurs mercilessly into the sides of his good
+horse, Bedouin, and sitting as though falling backwards in the saddle,
+he galloped to the other flank of the squadron and shouted in a hoarse
+voice to the men to look to their pistols. He rode up to Kirsten. The
+staff captain on his broad-backed, steady mare came at a walk to meet
+him. His face with its long mustache was serious as always, only his
+eyes were brighter than usual.
+
+"Well, what about it?" said he to Denisov. "It won't come to a fight.
+You'll see—we shall retire."
+
+"The devil only knows what they're about!" muttered Denisov. "Ah,
+Wostov," he cried noticing the cadet's bright face, "you've got it at
+last."
+
+And he smiled approvingly, evidently pleased with the cadet. Rostóv felt
+perfectly happy. Just then the commander appeared on the bridge. Denisov
+galloped up to him.
+
+"Your excellency! Let us attack them! I'll dwive them off."
+
+"Attack indeed!" said the colonel in a bored voice, puckering up his
+face as if driving off a troublesome fly. "And why are you stopping
+here? Don't you see the skirmishers are retreating? Lead the squadron
+back."
+
+The squadron crossed the bridge and drew out of range of fire without
+having lost a single man. The second squadron that had been in the front
+line followed them across and the last Cossacks quitted the farther side
+of the river.
+
+The two Pávlograd squadrons, having crossed the bridge, retired up the
+hill one after the other. Their colonel, Karl Bogdanich Schubert, came
+up to Denisov's squadron and rode at a footpace not far from Rostóv,
+without taking any notice of him although they were now meeting for the
+first time since their encounter concerning Telyanin. Rostóv, feeling
+that he was at the front and in the power of a man toward whom he now
+admitted that he had been to blame, did not lift his eyes from the
+colonel's athletic back, his nape covered with light hair, and his red
+neck. It seemed to Rostóv that Bogdanich was only pretending not to
+notice him, and that his whole aim now was to test the cadet's courage,
+so he drew himself up and looked around him merrily; then it seemed to
+him that Bogdanich rode so near in order to show him his courage. Next
+he thought that his enemy would send the squadron on a desperate attack
+just to punish him—Rostóv. Then he imagined how, after the attack,
+Bogdanich would come up to him as he lay wounded and would magnanimously
+extend the hand of reconciliation.
+
+The high-shouldered figure of Zherkov, familiar to the Pávlograds as he
+had but recently left their regiment, rode up to the colonel. After his
+dismissal from headquarters Zherkov had not remained in the regiment,
+saying he was not such a fool as to slave at the front when he could get
+more rewards by doing nothing on the staff, and had succeeded in
+attaching himself as an orderly officer to Prince Bagration. He now came
+to his former chief with an order from the commander of the rear guard.
+
+"Colonel," he said, addressing Rostóv's enemy with an air of gloomy
+gravity and glancing round at his comrades, "there is an order to stop
+and fire the bridge."
+
+"An order to who?" asked the colonel morosely.
+
+"I don't myself know 'to who,'" replied the cornet in a serious tone,
+"but the prince told me to 'go and tell the colonel that the hussars
+must return quickly and fire the bridge.'"
+
+Zherkov was followed by an officer of the suite who rode up to the
+colonel of hussars with the same order. After him the stout Nesvítski
+came galloping up on a Cossack horse that could scarcely carry his
+weight.
+
+"How's this, Colonel?" he shouted as he approached. "I told you to fire
+the bridge, and now someone has gone and blundered; they are all beside
+themselves over there and one can't make anything out."
+
+The colonel deliberately stopped the regiment and turned to Nesvítski.
+
+"You spoke to me of inflammable material," said he, "but you said
+nothing about firing it."
+
+"But, my dear sir," said Nesvítski as he drew up, taking off his cap and
+smoothing his hair wet with perspiration with his plump hand, "wasn't I
+telling you to fire the bridge, when inflammable material had been put
+in position?"
+
+"I am not your 'dear sir,' Mr. Staff Officer, and you did not tell me to
+burn the bridge! I know the service, and it is my habit orders strictly
+to obey. You said the bridge would be burned, but who would it burn, I
+could not know by the holy spirit!"
+
+"Ah, that's always the way!" said Nesvítski with a wave of the hand.
+"How did you get here?" said he, turning to Zherkov.
+
+"On the same business. But you are damp! Let me wring you out!"
+
+"You were saying, Mr. Staff Officer..." continued the colonel in an
+offended tone.
+
+"Colonel," interrupted the officer of the suite, "You must be quick or
+the enemy will bring up his guns to use grapeshot."
+
+The colonel looked silently at the officer of the suite, at the stout
+staff officer, and at Zherkov, and he frowned.
+
+"I will the bridge fire," he said in a solemn tone as if to announce
+that in spite of all the unpleasantness he had to endure he would still
+do the right thing.
+
+Striking his horse with his long muscular legs as if it were to blame
+for everything, the colonel moved forward and ordered the second
+squadron, that in which Rostóv was serving under Denisov, to return to
+the bridge.
+
+"There, it's just as I thought," said Rostóv to himself. "He wishes to
+test me!" His heart contracted and the blood rushed to his face. "Let
+him see whether I am a coward!" he thought.
+
+Again on all the bright faces of the squadron the serious expression
+appeared that they had worn when under fire. Rostóv watched his enemy,
+the colonel, closely—to find in his face confirmation of his own
+conjecture, but the colonel did not once glance at Rostóv, and looked as
+he always did when at the front, solemn and stern. Then came the word of
+command.
+
+"Look sharp! Look sharp!" several voices repeated around him.
+
+Their sabers catching in the bridles and their spurs jingling, the
+hussars hastily dismounted, not knowing what they were to do. The men
+were crossing themselves. Rostóv no longer looked at the colonel, he had
+no time. He was afraid of falling behind the hussars, so much afraid
+that his heart stood still. His hand trembled as he gave his horse into
+an orderly's charge, and he felt the blood rush to his heart with a
+thud. Denisov rode past him, leaning back and shouting something. Rostóv
+saw nothing but the hussars running all around him, their spurs catching
+and their sabers clattering.
+
+"Stretchers!" shouted someone behind him.
+
+Rostóv did not think what this call for stretchers meant; he ran on,
+trying only to be ahead of the others; but just at the bridge, not
+looking at the ground, he came on some sticky, trodden mud, stumbled,
+and fell on his hands. The others outstripped him.
+
+"At boss zides, Captain," he heard the voice of the colonel, who, having
+ridden ahead, had pulled up his horse near the bridge, with a
+triumphant, cheerful face.
+
+Rostóv wiping his muddy hands on his breeches looked at his enemy and
+was about to run on, thinking that the farther he went to the front the
+better. But Bogdanich, without looking at or recognizing Rostóv, shouted
+to him:
+
+"Who's that running on the middle of the bridge? To the right! Come
+back, Cadet!" he cried angrily; and turning to Denisov, who, showing off
+his courage, had ridden on to the planks of the bridge:
+
+"Why run risks, Captain? You should dismount," he said.
+
+"Oh, every bullet has its billet," answered Vaska Denisov, turning in
+his saddle.
+
+Meanwhile Nesvítski, Zherkov, and the officer of the suite were standing
+together out of range of the shots, watching, now the small group of men
+with yellow shakos, dark-green jackets braided with cord, and blue
+riding breeches, who were swarming near the bridge, and then at what was
+approaching in the distance from the opposite side—the blue uniforms and
+groups with horses, easily recognizable as artillery.
+
+"Will they burn the bridge or not? Who'll get there first? Will they get
+there and fire the bridge or will the French get within grapeshot range
+and wipe them out?" These were the questions each man of the troops on
+the high ground above the bridge involuntarily asked himself with a
+sinking heart—watching the bridge and the hussars in the bright evening
+light and the blue tunics advancing from the other side with their
+bayonets and guns.
+
+"Ugh. The hussars will get it hot!" said Nesvítski; "they are within
+grapeshot range now."
+
+"He shouldn't have taken so many men," said the officer of the suite.
+
+"True enough," answered Nesvítski; "two smart fellows could have done
+the job just as well."
+
+"Ah, your excellency," put in Zherkov, his eyes fixed on the hussars,
+but still with that naïve air that made it impossible to know whether he
+was speaking in jest or in earnest. "Ah, your excellency! How you look
+at things! Send two men? And who then would give us the Vladimir medal
+and ribbon? But now, even if they do get peppered, the squadron may be
+recommended for honors and he may get a ribbon. Our Bogdanich knows how
+things are done."
+
+"There now!" said the officer of the suite, "that's grapeshot."
+
+He pointed to the French guns, the limbers of which were being detached
+and hurriedly removed.
+
+On the French side, amid the groups with cannon, a cloud of smoke
+appeared, then a second and a third almost simultaneously, and at the
+moment when the first report was heard a fourth was seen. Then two
+reports one after another, and a third.
+
+"Oh! Oh!" groaned Nesvítski as if in fierce pain, seizing the officer of
+the suite by the arm. "Look! A man has fallen! Fallen, fallen!"
+
+"Two, I think."
+
+"If I were Tsar I would never go to war," said Nesvítski, turning away.
+
+The French guns were hastily reloaded. The infantry in their blue
+uniforms advanced toward the bridge at a run. Smoke appeared again but
+at irregular intervals, and grapeshot cracked and rattled onto the
+bridge. But this time Nesvítski could not see what was happening there,
+as a dense cloud of smoke arose from it. The hussars had succeeded in
+setting it on fire and the French batteries were now firing at them, no
+longer to hinder them but because the guns were trained and there was
+someone to fire at.
+
+The French had time to fire three rounds of grapeshot before the hussars
+got back to their horses. Two were misdirected and the shot went too
+high, but the last round fell in the midst of a group of hussars and
+knocked three of them over.
+
+Rostóv, absorbed by his relations with Bogdanich, had paused on the
+bridge not knowing what to do. There was no one to hew down (as he had
+always imagined battles to himself), nor could he help to fire the
+bridge because he had not brought any burning straw with him like the
+other soldiers. He stood looking about him, when suddenly he heard a
+rattle on the bridge as if nuts were being spilt, and the hussar nearest
+to him fell against the rails with a groan. Rostóv ran up to him with
+the others. Again someone shouted, "Stretchers!" Four men seized the
+hussar and began lifting him.
+
+"Oooh! For Christ's sake let me alone!" cried the wounded man, but still
+he was lifted and laid on the stretcher.
+
+Nicholas Rostóv turned away and, as if searching for something, gazed
+into the distance, at the waters of the Danube, at the sky, and at the
+sun. How beautiful the sky looked; how blue, how calm, and how deep! How
+bright and glorious was the setting sun! With what soft glitter the
+waters of the distant Danube shone. And fairer still were the faraway
+blue mountains beyond the river, the nunnery, the mysterious gorges, and
+the pine forests veiled in the mist of their summits... There was peace
+and happiness... "I should wish for nothing else, nothing, if only I
+were there," thought Rostóv. "In myself alone and in that sunshine there
+is so much happiness; but here... groans, suffering, fear, and this
+uncertainty and hurry... There—they are shouting again, and again are
+all running back somewhere, and I shall run with them, and it, death, is
+here above me and around... Another instant and I shall never again see
+the sun, this water, that gorge!..."
+
+At that instant the sun began to hide behind the clouds, and other
+stretchers came into view before Rostóv. And the fear of death and of
+the stretchers, and love of the sun and of life, all merged into one
+feeling of sickening agitation.
+
+"O Lord God! Thou who art in that heaven, save, forgive, and protect
+me!" Rostóv whispered.
+
+The hussars ran back to the men who held their horses; their voices
+sounded louder and calmer, the stretchers disappeared from sight.
+
+"Well, fwiend? So you've smelt powdah!" shouted Vaska Denisov just above
+his ear.
+
+"It's all over; but I am a coward—yes, a coward!" thought Rostóv, and
+sighing deeply he took Rook, his horse, which stood resting one foot,
+from the orderly and began to mount.
+
+"Was that grapeshot?" he asked Denisov.
+
+"Yes and no mistake!" cried Denisov. "You worked like wegular bwicks and
+it's nasty work! An attack's pleasant work! Hacking away at the dogs!
+But this sort of thing is the very devil, with them shooting at you like
+a target."
+
+And Denisov rode up to a group that had stopped near Rostóv, composed of
+the colonel, Nesvítski, Zherkov, and the officer from the suite.
+
+"Well, it seems that no one has noticed," thought Rostóv. And this was
+true. No one had taken any notice, for everyone knew the sensation which
+the cadet under fire for the first time had experienced.
+
+"Here's something for you to report," said Zherkov. "See if I don't get
+promoted to a sublieutenancy."
+
+"Inform the prince that I the bridge fired!" said the colonel
+triumphantly and gaily.
+
+"And if he asks about the losses?"
+
+"A trifle," said the colonel in his bass voice: "two hussars wounded,
+and one knocked out," he added, unable to restrain a happy smile, and
+pronouncing the phrase "knocked out" with ringing distinctness.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+Pursued by the French army of a hundred thousand men under the command
+of Bonaparte, encountering a population that was unfriendly to it,
+losing confidence in its allies, suffering from shortness of supplies,
+and compelled to act under conditions of war unlike anything that had
+been foreseen, the Russian army of thirty-five thousand men commanded by
+Kutúzov was hurriedly retreating along the Danube, stopping where
+overtaken by the enemy and fighting rearguard actions only as far as
+necessary to enable it to retreat without losing its heavy equipment.
+There had been actions at Lambach, Amstetten, and Melk; but despite the
+courage and endurance—acknowledged even by the enemy—with which the
+Russians fought, the only consequence of these actions was a yet more
+rapid retreat. Austrian troops that had escaped capture at Ulm and had
+joined Kutúzov at Braunau now separated from the Russian army, and
+Kutúzov was left with only his own weak and exhausted forces. The
+defense of Vienna was no longer to be thought of. Instead of an
+offensive, the plan of which, carefully prepared in accord with the
+modern science of strategics, had been handed to Kutúzov when he was in
+Vienna by the Austrian Hofkriegsrath, the sole and almost unattainable
+aim remaining for him was to effect a junction with the forces that were
+advancing from Russia, without losing his army as Mack had done at Ulm.
+
+On the twenty-eighth of October Kutúzov with his army crossed to the
+left bank of the Danube and took up a position for the first time with
+the river between himself and the main body of the French. On the
+thirtieth he attacked Mortier's division, which was on the left bank,
+and broke it up. In this action for the first time trophies were taken:
+banners, cannon, and two enemy generals. For the first time, after a
+fortnight's retreat, the Russian troops had halted and after a fight had
+not only held the field but had repulsed the French. Though the troops
+were ill-clad, exhausted, and had lost a third of their number in
+killed, wounded, sick, and stragglers; though a number of sick and
+wounded had been abandoned on the other side of the Danube with a letter
+in which Kutúzov entrusted them to the humanity of the enemy; and though
+the big hospitals and the houses in Krems converted into military
+hospitals could no longer accommodate all the sick and wounded, yet the
+stand made at Krems and the victory over Mortier raised the spirits of
+the army considerably. Throughout the whole army and at headquarters
+most joyful though erroneous rumors were rife of the imaginary approach
+of columns from Russia, of some victory gained by the Austrians, and of
+the retreat of the frightened Bonaparte.
+
+Prince Andrew during the battle had been in attendance on the Austrian
+General Schmidt, who was killed in the action. His horse had been
+wounded under him and his own arm slightly grazed by a bullet. As a mark
+of the commander-in-chief's special favor he was sent with the news of
+this victory to the Austrian court, now no longer at Vienna (which was
+threatened by the French) but at Brunn. Despite his apparently delicate
+build Prince Andrew could endure physical fatigue far better than many
+very muscular men, and on the night of the battle, having arrived at
+Krems excited but not weary, with dispatches from Dokhturov to Kutúzov,
+he was sent immediately with a special dispatch to Brunn. To be so sent
+meant not only a reward but an important step toward promotion.
+
+The night was dark but starry, the road showed black in the snow that
+had fallen the previous day—the day of the battle. Reviewing his
+impressions of the recent battle, picturing pleasantly to himself the
+impression his news of a victory would create, or recalling the send-off
+given him by the commander-in-chief and his fellow officers, Prince
+Andrew was galloping along in a post chaise enjoying the feelings of a
+man who has at length begun to attain a long-desired happiness. As soon
+as he closed his eyes his ears seemed filled with the rattle of the
+wheels and the sensation of victory. Then he began to imagine that the
+Russians were running away and that he himself was killed, but he
+quickly roused himself with a feeling of joy, as if learning afresh that
+this was not so but that on the contrary the French had run away. He
+again recalled all the details of the victory and his own calm courage
+during the battle, and feeling reassured he dozed off.... The dark
+starry night was followed by a bright cheerful morning. The snow was
+thawing in the sunshine, the horses galloped quickly, and on both sides
+of the road were forests of different kinds, fields, and villages.
+
+At one of the post stations he overtook a convoy of Russian wounded. The
+Russian officer in charge of the transport lolled back in the front
+cart, shouting and scolding a soldier with coarse abuse. In each of the
+long German carts six or more pale, dirty, bandaged men were being
+jolted over the stony road. Some of them were talking (he heard Russian
+words), others were eating bread; the more severely wounded looked
+silently, with the languid interest of sick children, at the envoy
+hurrying past them.
+
+Prince Andrew told his driver to stop, and asked a soldier in what
+action they had been wounded. "Day before yesterday, on the Danube,"
+answered the soldier. Prince Andrew took out his purse and gave the
+soldier three gold pieces.
+
+"That's for them all," he said to the officer who came up.
+
+"Get well soon, lads!" he continued, turning to the soldiers. "There's
+plenty to do still."
+
+"What news, sir?" asked the officer, evidently anxious to start a
+conversation.
+
+"Good news!... Go on!" he shouted to the driver, and they galloped on.
+
+It was already quite dark when Prince Andrew rattled over the paved
+streets of Brunn and found himself surrounded by high buildings, the
+lights of shops, houses, and street lamps, fine carriages, and all that
+atmosphere of a large and active town which is always so attractive to a
+soldier after camp life. Despite his rapid journey and sleepless night,
+Prince Andrew when he drove up to the palace felt even more vigorous and
+alert than he had done the day before. Only his eyes gleamed feverishly
+and his thoughts followed one another with extraordinary clearness and
+rapidity. He again vividly recalled the details of the battle, no longer
+dim, but definite and in the concise form in which he imagined himself
+stating them to the Emperor Francis. He vividly imagined the casual
+questions that might be put to him and the answers he would give. He
+expected to be at once presented to the Emperor. At the chief entrance
+to the palace, however, an official came running out to meet him, and
+learning that he was a special messenger led him to another entrance.
+
+"To the right from the corridor, Euer Hochgeboren! There you will find
+the adjutant on duty," said the official. "He will conduct you to the
+Minister of War."
+
+The adjutant on duty, meeting Prince Andrew, asked him to wait, and went
+in to the Minister of War. Five minutes later he returned and bowing
+with particular courtesy ushered Prince Andrew before him along a
+corridor to the cabinet where the Minister of War was at work. The
+adjutant by his elaborate courtesy appeared to wish to ward off any
+attempt at familiarity on the part of the Russian messenger.
+
+Prince Andrew's joyous feeling was considerably weakened as he
+approached the door of the minister's room. He felt offended, and
+without his noticing it the feeling of offense immediately turned into
+one of disdain which was quite uncalled for. His fertile mind instantly
+suggested to him a point of view which gave him a right to despise the
+adjutant and the minister. "Away from the smell of powder, they probably
+think it easy to gain victories!" he thought. His eyes narrowed
+disdainfully, he entered the room of the Minister of War with peculiarly
+deliberate steps. This feeling of disdain was heightened when he saw the
+minister seated at a large table reading some papers and making pencil
+notes on them, and for the first two or three minutes taking no notice
+of his arrival. A wax candle stood at each side of the minister's bent
+bald head with its gray temples. He went on reading to the end, without
+raising his eyes at the opening of the door and the sound of footsteps.
+
+"Take this and deliver it," said he to his adjutant, handing him the
+papers and still taking no notice of the special messenger.
+
+Prince Andrew felt that either the actions of Kutúzov's army interested
+the Minister of War less than any of the other matters he was concerned
+with, or he wanted to give the Russian special messenger that
+impression. "But that is a matter of perfect indifference to me," he
+thought. The minister drew the remaining papers together, arranged them
+evenly, and then raised his head. He had an intellectual and distinctive
+head, but the instant he turned to Prince Andrew the firm, intelligent
+expression on his face changed in a way evidently deliberate and
+habitual to him. His face took on the stupid artificial smile (which
+does not even attempt to hide its artificiality) of a man who is
+continually receiving many petitioners one after another.
+
+"From General Field Marshal Kutúzov?" he asked. "I hope it is good news?
+There has been an encounter with Mortier? A victory? It was high time!"
+
+He took the dispatch which was addressed to him and began to read it
+with a mournful expression.
+
+"Oh, my God! My God! Schmidt!" he exclaimed in German. "What a calamity!
+What a calamity!"
+
+Having glanced through the dispatch he laid it on the table and looked
+at Prince Andrew, evidently considering something.
+
+"Ah what a calamity! You say the affair was decisive? But Mortier is not
+captured." Again he pondered. "I am very glad you have brought good
+news, though Schmidt's death is a heavy price to pay for the victory.
+His Majesty will no doubt wish to see you, but not today. I thank you!
+You must have a rest. Be at the levee tomorrow after the parade.
+However, I will let you know."
+
+The stupid smile, which had left his face while he was speaking,
+reappeared.
+
+"Au revoir! Thank you very much. His Majesty will probably desire to see
+you," he added, bowing his head.
+
+When Prince Andrew left the palace he felt that all the interest and
+happiness the victory had afforded him had been now left in the
+indifferent hands of the Minister of War and the polite adjutant. The
+whole tenor of his thoughts instantaneously changed; the battle seemed
+the memory of a remote event long past.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+Prince Andrew stayed at Brunn with Bilibin, a Russian acquaintance of
+his in the diplomatic service.
+
+"Ah, my dear prince! I could not have a more welcome visitor," said
+Bilibin as he came out to meet Prince Andrew. "Franz, put the prince's
+things in my bedroom," said he to the servant who was ushering Bolkónski
+in. "So you're a messenger of victory, eh? Splendid! And I am sitting
+here ill, as you see."
+
+After washing and dressing, Prince Andrew came into the diplomat's
+luxurious study and sat down to the dinner prepared for him. Bilibin
+settled down comfortably beside the fire.
+
+After his journey and the campaign during which he had been deprived of
+all the comforts of cleanliness and all the refinements of life, Prince
+Andrew felt a pleasant sense of repose among luxurious surroundings such
+as he had been accustomed to from childhood. Besides it was pleasant,
+after his reception by the Austrians, to speak if not in Russian (for
+they were speaking French) at least with a Russian who would, he
+supposed, share the general Russian antipathy to the Austrians which was
+then particularly strong.
+
+Bilibin was a man of thirty-five, a bachelor, and of the same circle as
+Prince Andrew. They had known each other previously in Petersburg, but
+had become more intimate when Prince Andrew was in Vienna with Kutúzov.
+Just as Prince Andrew was a young man who gave promise of rising high in
+the military profession, so to an even greater extent Bilibin gave
+promise of rising in his diplomatic career. He still a young man but no
+longer a young diplomat, as he had entered the service at the age of
+sixteen, had been in Paris and Copenhagen, and now held a rather
+important post in Vienna. Both the foreign minister and our ambassador
+in Vienna knew him and valued him. He was not one of those many
+diplomats who are esteemed because they have certain negative qualities,
+avoid doing certain things, and speak French. He was one of those, who,
+liking work, knew how to do it, and despite his indolence would
+sometimes spend a whole night at his writing table. He worked well
+whatever the import of his work. It was not the question "What for?" but
+the question "How?" that interested him. What the diplomatic matter
+might be he did not care, but it gave him great pleasure to prepare a
+circular, memorandum, or report, skillfully, pointedly, and elegantly.
+Bilibin's services were valued not only for what he wrote, but also for
+his skill in dealing and conversing with those in the highest spheres.
+
+Bilibin liked conversation as he liked work, only when it could be made
+elegantly witty. In society he always awaited an opportunity to say
+something striking and took part in a conversation only when that was
+possible. His conversation was always sprinkled with wittily original,
+finished phrases of general interest. These sayings were prepared in the
+inner laboratory of his mind in a portable form as if intentionally, so
+that insignificant society people might carry them from drawing room to
+drawing room. And, in fact, Bilibin's witticisms were hawked about in
+the Viennese drawing rooms and often had an influence on matters
+considered important.
+
+His thin, worn, sallow face was covered with deep wrinkles, which always
+looked as clean and well washed as the tips of one's fingers after a
+Russian bath. The movement of these wrinkles formed the principal play
+of expression on his face. Now his forehead would pucker into deep folds
+and his eyebrows were lifted, then his eyebrows would descend and deep
+wrinkles would crease his cheeks. His small, deep-set eyes always
+twinkled and looked out straight.
+
+"Well, now tell me about your exploits," said he.
+
+Bolkónski, very modestly without once mentioning himself, described the
+engagement and his reception by the Minister of War.
+
+"They received me and my news as one receives a dog in a game of
+skittles," said he in conclusion.
+
+Bilibin smiled and the wrinkles on his face disappeared.
+
+"Cependant, mon cher," he remarked, examining his nails from a distance
+and puckering the skin above his left eye, "malgre la haute estime que
+je professe pour the Orthodox Russian army, j'avoue que votre victoire
+n'est pas des plus victorieuses." *
+
+* "But my dear fellow, with all my respect for the Orthodox Russian
+army, I must say that your victory was not particularly victorious."
+
+He went on talking in this way in French, uttering only those words in
+Russian on which he wished to put a contemptuous emphasis.
+
+"Come now! You with all your forces fall on the unfortunate Mortier and
+his one division, and even then Mortier slips through your fingers!
+Where's the victory?"
+
+"But seriously," said Prince Andrew, "we can at any rate say without
+boasting that it was a little better than at Ulm..."
+
+"Why didn't you capture one, just one, marshal for us?"
+
+"Because not everything happens as one expects or with the smoothness of
+a parade. We had expected, as I told you, to get at their rear by seven
+in the morning but had not reached it by five in the afternoon."
+
+"And why didn't you do it at seven in the morning? You ought to have
+been there at seven in the morning," returned Bilibin with a smile. "You
+ought to have been there at seven in the morning."
+
+"Why did you not succeed in impressing on Bonaparte by diplomatic
+methods that he had better leave Genoa alone?" retorted Prince Andrew in
+the same tone.
+
+"I know," interrupted Bilibin, "you're thinking it's very easy to take
+marshals, sitting on a sofa by the fire! That is true, but still why
+didn't you capture him? So don't be surprised if not only the Minister
+of War but also his Most August Majesty the Emperor and King Francis is
+not much delighted by your victory. Even I, a poor secretary of the
+Russian Embassy, do not feel any need in token of my joy to give my
+Franz a thaler, or let him go with his Liebchen to the Prater... True,
+we have no Prater here..."
+
+He looked straight at Prince Andrew and suddenly unwrinkled his
+forehead.
+
+"It is now my turn to ask you 'why?' mon cher," said Bolkónski. "I
+confess I do not understand: perhaps there are diplomatic subtleties
+here beyond my feeble intelligence, but I can't make it out. Mack loses
+a whole army, the Archduke Ferdinand and the Archduke Karl give no signs
+of life and make blunder after blunder. Kutúzov alone at last gains a
+real victory, destroying the spell of the invincibility of the French,
+and the Minister of War does not even care to hear the details."
+
+"That's just it, my dear fellow. You see it's hurrah for the Tsar, for
+Russia, for the Orthodox Greek faith! All that is beautiful, but what do
+we, I mean the Austrian court, care for your victories? Bring us nice
+news of a victory by the Archduke Karl or Ferdinand (one archduke's as
+good as another, as you know) and even if it is only over a fire brigade
+of Bonaparte's, that will be another story and we'll fire off some
+cannon! But this sort of thing seems done on purpose to vex us. The
+Archduke Karl does nothing, the Archduke Ferdinand disgraces himself.
+You abandon Vienna, give up its defense—as much as to say: 'Heaven is
+with us, but heaven help you and your capital!' The one general whom we
+all loved, Schmidt, you expose to a bullet, and then you congratulate us
+on the victory! Admit that more irritating news than yours could not
+have been conceived. It's as if it had been done on purpose, on purpose.
+Besides, suppose you did gain a brilliant victory, if even the Archduke
+Karl gained a victory, what effect would that have on the general course
+of events? It's too late now when Vienna is occupied by the French
+army!"
+
+"What? Occupied? Vienna occupied?"
+
+"Not only occupied, but Bonaparte is at Schonbrunn, and the count, our
+dear Count Vrbna, goes to him for orders."
+
+After the fatigues and impressions of the journey, his reception, and
+especially after having dined, Bolkónski felt that he could not take in
+the full significance of the words he heard.
+
+"Count Lichtenfels was here this morning," Bilibin continued, "and
+showed me a letter in which the parade of the French in Vienna was fully
+described: Prince Murat et tout le tremblement... You see that your
+victory is not a matter for great rejoicing and that you can't be
+received as a savior."
+
+"Really I don't care about that, I don't care at all," said Prince
+Andrew, beginning to understand that his news of the battle before Krems
+was really of small importance in view of such events as the fall of
+Austria's capital. "How is it Vienna was taken? What of the bridge and
+its celebrated bridgehead and Prince Auersperg? We heard reports that
+Prince Auersperg was defending Vienna?" he said.
+
+"Prince Auersperg is on this, on our side of the river, and is defending
+us—doing it very badly, I think, but still he is defending us. But
+Vienna is on the other side. No, the bridge has not yet been taken and I
+hope it will not be, for it is mined and orders have been given to blow
+it up. Otherwise we should long ago have been in the mountains of
+Bohemia, and you and your army would have spent a bad quarter of an hour
+between two fires."
+
+"But still this does not mean that the campaign is over," said Prince
+Andrew.
+
+"Well, I think it is. The bigwigs here think so too, but they daren't
+say so. It will be as I said at the beginning of the campaign, it won't
+be your skirmishing at Durrenstein, or gunpowder at all, that will
+decide the matter, but those who devised it," said Bilibin quoting one
+of his own mots, releasing the wrinkles on his forehead, and pausing.
+"The only question is what will come of the meeting between the Emperor
+Alexander and the King of Prussia in Berlin? If Prussia joins the
+Allies, Austria's hand will be forced and there will be war. If not it
+is merely a question of settling where the preliminaries of the new
+Campo Formio are to be drawn up."
+
+"What an extraordinary genius!" Prince Andrew suddenly exclaimed,
+clenching his small hand and striking the table with it, "and what luck
+the man has!"
+
+"Buonaparte?" said Bilibin inquiringly, puckering up his forehead to
+indicate that he was about to say something witty. "Buonaparte?" he
+repeated, accentuating the u: "I think, however, now that he lays down
+laws for Austria at Schonbrunn, il faut lui faire grace de l'u! * I
+shall certainly adopt an innovation and call him simply Bonaparte!"
+
+* "We must let him off the u!"
+
+"But joking apart," said Prince Andrew, "do you really think the
+campaign is over?"
+
+"This is what I think. Austria has been made a fool of, and she is not
+used to it. She will retaliate. And she has been fooled in the first
+place because her provinces have been pillaged—they say the Holy Russian
+army loots terribly—her army is destroyed, her capital taken, and all
+this for the beaux yeux * of His Sardinian Majesty. And therefore—this
+is between ourselves—I instinctively feel that we are being deceived, my
+instinct tells me of negotiations with France and projects for peace, a
+secret peace concluded separately."
+
+* Fine eyes.
+
+"Impossible!" cried Prince Andrew. "That would be too base."
+
+"If we live we shall see," replied Bilibin, his face again becoming
+smooth as a sign that the conversation was at an end.
+
+When Prince Andrew reached the room prepared for him and lay down in a
+clean shirt on the feather bed with its warmed and fragrant pillows, he
+felt that the battle of which he had brought tidings was far, far away
+from him. The alliance with Prussia, Austria's treachery, Bonaparte's
+new triumph, tomorrow's levee and parade, and the audience with the
+Emperor Francis occupied his thoughts.
+
+He closed his eyes, and immediately a sound of cannonading, of musketry
+and the rattling of carriage wheels seemed to fill his ears, and now
+again drawn out in a thin line the musketeers were descending the hill,
+the French were firing, and he felt his heart palpitating as he rode
+forward beside Schmidt with the bullets merrily whistling all around,
+and he experienced tenfold the joy of living, as he had not done since
+childhood.
+
+He woke up...
+
+"Yes, that all happened!" he said, and, smiling happily to himself like
+a child, he fell into a deep, youthful slumber.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+Next day he woke late. Recalling his recent impressions, the first
+thought that came into his mind was that today he had to be presented to
+the Emperor Francis; he remembered the Minister of War, the polite
+Austrian adjutant, Bilibin, and last night's conversation. Having
+dressed for his attendance at court in full parade uniform, which he had
+not worn for a long time, he went into Bilibin's study fresh, animated,
+and handsome, with his hand bandaged. In the study were four gentlemen
+of the diplomatic corps. With Prince Hippolyte Kurágin, who was a
+secretary to the embassy, Bolkónski was already acquainted. Bilibin
+introduced him to the others.
+
+The gentlemen assembled at Bilibin's were young, wealthy, gay society
+men, who here, as in Vienna, formed a special set which Bilibin, their
+leader, called les notres. * This set, consisting almost exclusively of
+diplomats, evidently had its own interests which had nothing to do with
+war or politics but related to high society, to certain women, and to
+the official side of the service. These gentlemen received Prince Andrew
+as one of themselves, an honor they did not extend to many. From
+politeness and to start conversation, they asked him a few questions
+about the army and the battle, and then the talk went off into merry
+jests and gossip.
+
+* Ours.
+
+"But the best of it was," said one, telling of the misfortune of a
+fellow diplomat, "that the Chancellor told him flatly that his
+appointment to London was a promotion and that he was so to regard it.
+Can you fancy the figure he cut?..."
+
+"But the worst of it, gentlemen—I am giving Kurágin away to you—is that
+that man suffers, and this Don Juan, wicked fellow, is taking advantage
+of it!"
+
+Prince Hippolyte was lolling in a lounge chair with his legs over its
+arm. He began to laugh.
+
+"Tell me about that!" he said.
+
+"Oh, you Don Juan! You serpent!" cried several voices.
+
+"You, Bolkónski, don't know," said Bilibin turning to Prince Andrew,
+"that all the atrocities of the French army (I nearly said of the
+Russian army) are nothing compared to what this man has been doing among
+the women!"
+
+"La femme est la compagne de l'homme," * announced Prince Hippolyte, and
+began looking through a lorgnette at his elevated legs.
+
+* "Woman is man's companion."
+
+Bilibin and the rest of "ours" burst out laughing in Hippolyte's face,
+and Prince Andrew saw that Hippolyte, of whom—he had to admit—he had
+almost been jealous on his wife's account, was the butt of this set.
+
+"Oh, I must give you a treat," Bilibin whispered to Bolkónski. "Kurágin
+is exquisite when he discusses politics—you should see his gravity!"
+
+He sat down beside Hippolyte and wrinkling his forehead began talking to
+him about politics. Prince Andrew and the others gathered round these
+two.
+
+"The Berlin cabinet cannot express a feeling of alliance," began
+Hippolyte gazing round with importance at the others, "without
+expressing... as in its last note... you understand... Besides, unless
+His Majesty the Emperor derogates from the principle of our alliance...
+
+"Wait, I have not finished..." he said to Prince Andrew, seizing him by
+the arm, "I believe that intervention will be stronger than
+nonintervention. And..." he paused. "Finally one cannot impute the
+nonreceipt of our dispatch of November 18. That is how it will end." And
+he released Bolkónski's arm to indicate that he had now quite finished.
+
+"Demosthenes, I know thee by the pebble thou secretest in thy golden
+mouth!" said Bilibin, and the mop of hair on his head moved with
+satisfaction.
+
+Everybody laughed, and Hippolyte louder than anyone. He was evidently
+distressed, and breathed painfully, but could not restrain the wild
+laughter that convulsed his usually impassive features.
+
+"Well now, gentlemen," said Bilibin, "Bolkónski is my guest in this
+house and in Brunn itself. I want to entertain him as far as I can, with
+all the pleasures of life here. If we were in Vienna it would be easy,
+but here, in this wretched Moravian hole, it is more difficult, and I
+beg you all to help me. Brunn's attractions must be shown him. You can
+undertake the theater, I society, and you, Hippolyte, of course the
+women."
+
+"We must let him see Amelie, she's exquisite!" said one of "ours,"
+kissing his finger tips.
+
+"In general we must turn this bloodthirsty soldier to more humane
+interests," said Bilibin.
+
+"I shall scarcely be able to avail myself of your hospitality,
+gentlemen, it is already time for me to go," replied Prince Andrew
+looking at his watch.
+
+"Where to?"
+
+"To the Emperor."
+
+"Oh! Oh! Oh! Well, au revoir, Bolkónski! Au revoir, Prince! Come back
+early to dinner," cried several voices. "We'll take you in hand."
+
+"When speaking to the Emperor, try as far as you can to praise the way
+that provisions are supplied and the routes indicated," said Bilibin,
+accompanying him to the hall.
+
+"I should like to speak well of them, but as far as I know the facts, I
+can't," replied Bolkónski, smiling.
+
+"Well, talk as much as you can, anyway. He has a passion for giving
+audiences, but he does not like talking himself and can't do it, as you
+will see."
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+At the levee Prince Andrew stood among the Austrian officers as he had
+been told to, and the Emperor Francis merely looked fixedly into his
+face and just nodded to him with his long head. But after it was over,
+the adjutant he had seen the previous day ceremoniously informed
+Bolkónski that the Emperor desired to give him an audience. The Emperor
+Francis received him standing in the middle of the room. Before the
+conversation began Prince Andrew was struck by the fact that the Emperor
+seemed confused and blushed as if not knowing what to say.
+
+"Tell me, when did the battle begin?" he asked hurriedly.
+
+Prince Andrew replied. Then followed other questions just as simple:
+"Was Kutúzov well? When had he left Krems?" and so on. The Emperor spoke
+as if his sole aim were to put a given number of questions—the answers
+to these questions, as was only too evident, did not interest him.
+
+"At what o'clock did the battle begin?" asked the Emperor.
+
+"I cannot inform Your Majesty at what o'clock the battle began at the
+front, but at Durrenstein, where I was, our attack began after five in
+the afternoon," replied Bolkónski growing more animated and expecting
+that he would have a chance to give a reliable account, which he had
+ready in his mind, of all he knew and had seen. But the Emperor smiled
+and interrupted him.
+
+"How many miles?"
+
+"From where to where, Your Majesty?"
+
+"From Durrenstein to Krems."
+
+"Three and a half miles, Your Majesty."
+
+"The French have abandoned the left bank?"
+
+"According to the scouts the last of them crossed on rafts during the
+night."
+
+"Is there sufficient forage in Krems?"
+
+"Forage has not been supplied to the extent..."
+
+The Emperor interrupted him.
+
+"At what o'clock was General Schmidt killed?"
+
+"At seven o'clock, I believe."
+
+"At seven o'clock? It's very sad, very sad!"
+
+The Emperor thanked Prince Andrew and bowed. Prince Andrew withdrew and
+was immediately surrounded by courtiers on all sides. Everywhere he saw
+friendly looks and heard friendly words. Yesterday's adjutant reproached
+him for not having stayed at the palace, and offered him his own house.
+The Minister of War came up and congratulated him on the Maria Theresa
+Order of the third grade, which the Emperor was conferring on him. The
+Empress' chamberlain invited him to see Her Majesty. The archduchess
+also wished to see him. He did not know whom to answer, and for a few
+seconds collected his thoughts. Then the Russian ambassador took him by
+the shoulder, led him to the window, and began to talk to him.
+
+Contrary to Bilibin's forecast the news he had brought was joyfully
+received. A thanksgiving service was arranged, Kutúzov was awarded the
+Grand Cross of Maria Theresa, and the whole army received rewards.
+Bolkónski was invited everywhere, and had to spend the whole morning
+calling on the principal Austrian dignitaries. Between four and five in
+the afternoon, having made all his calls, he was returning to Bilibin's
+house thinking out a letter to his father about the battle and his visit
+to Brunn. At the door he found a vehicle half full of luggage. Franz,
+Bilibin's man, was dragging a portmanteau with some difficulty out of
+the front door.
+
+Before returning to Bilibin's Prince Andrew had gone to a bookshop to
+provide himself with some books for the campaign, and had spent some
+time in the shop.
+
+"What is it?" he asked.
+
+"Oh, your excellency!" said Franz, with difficulty rolling the
+portmanteau into the vehicle, "we are to move on still farther. The
+scoundrel is again at our heels!"
+
+"Eh? What?" asked Prince Andrew.
+
+Bilibin came out to meet him. His usually calm face showed excitement.
+
+"There now! Confess that this is delightful," said he. "This affair of
+the Thabor Bridge, at Vienna.... They have crossed without striking a
+blow!"
+
+Prince Andrew could not understand.
+
+"But where do you come from not to know what every coachman in the town
+knows?"
+
+"I come from the archduchess'. I heard nothing there."
+
+"And you didn't see that everybody is packing up?"
+
+"I did not... What is it all about?" inquired Prince Andrew impatiently.
+
+"What's it all about? Why, the French have crossed the bridge that
+Auersperg was defending, and the bridge was not blown up: so Murat is
+now rushing along the road to Brunn and will be here in a day or two."
+
+"What? Here? But why did they not blow up the bridge, if it was mined?"
+
+"That is what I ask you. No one, not even Bonaparte, knows why."
+
+Bolkónski shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"But if the bridge is crossed it means that the army too is lost? It
+will be cut off," said he.
+
+"That's just it," answered Bilibin. "Listen! The French entered Vienna
+as I told you. Very well. Next day, which was yesterday, those
+gentlemen, messieurs les marechaux, * Murat, Lannes, and Belliard, mount
+and ride to the bridge. (Observe that all three are Gascons.)
+'Gentlemen,' says one of them, 'you know the Thabor Bridge is mined and
+doubly mined and that there are menacing fortifications at its head and
+an army of fifteen thousand men has been ordered to blow up the bridge
+and not let us cross? But it will please our sovereign the Emperor
+Napoleon if we take this bridge, so let us three go and take it!' 'Yes,
+let's!' say the others. And off they go and take the bridge, cross it,
+and now with their whole army are on this side of the Danube, marching
+on us, you, and your lines of communication."
+
+* The marshalls.
+
+"Stop jesting," said Prince Andrew sadly and seriously. This news
+grieved him and yet he was pleased.
+
+As soon as he learned that the Russian army was in such a hopeless
+situation it occurred to him that it was he who was destined to lead it
+out of this position; that here was the Toulon that would lift him from
+the ranks of obscure officers and offer him the first step to fame!
+Listening to Bilibin he was already imagining how on reaching the army
+he would give an opinion at the war council which would be the only one
+that could save the army, and how he alone would be entrusted with the
+executing of the plan.
+
+"Stop this jesting," he said.
+
+"I am not jesting," Bilibin went on. "Nothing is truer or sadder. These
+gentlemen ride onto the bridge alone and wave white handkerchiefs; they
+assure the officer on duty that they, the marshals, are on their way to
+negotiate with Prince Auersperg. He lets them enter the tête-de-pont. *
+They spin him a thousand gasconades, saying that the war is over, that
+the Emperor Francis is arranging a meeting with Bonaparte, that they
+desire to see Prince Auersperg, and so on. The officer sends for
+Auersperg; these gentlemen embrace the officers, crack jokes, sit on the
+cannon, and meanwhile a French battalion gets to the bridge unobserved,
+flings the bags of incendiary material into the water, and approaches
+the tête-de-pont. At length appears the lieutenant general, our dear
+Prince Auersperg von Mautern himself. 'Dearest foe! Flower of the
+Austrian army, hero of the Turkish wars Hostilities are ended, we can
+shake one another's hand.... The Emperor Napoleon burns with impatience
+to make Prince Auersperg's acquaintance.' In a word, those gentlemen,
+Gascons indeed, so bewildered him with fine words, and he is so
+flattered by his rapidly established intimacy with the French marshals,
+and so dazzled by the sight of Murat's mantle and ostrich plumes, qu'il
+n'y voit que du feu, et oublie celui qu'il devait faire faire sur
+l'ennemi!" *(2) In spite of the animation of his speech, Bilibin did not
+forget to pause after this mot to give time for its due appreciation.
+"The French battalion rushes to the bridgehead, spikes the guns, and the
+bridge is taken! But what is best of all," he went on, his excitement
+subsiding under the delightful interest of his own story, "is that the
+sergeant in charge of the cannon which was to give the signal to fire
+the mines and blow up the bridge, this sergeant, seeing that the French
+troops were running onto the bridge, was about to fire, but Lannes
+stayed his hand. The sergeant, who was evidently wiser than his general,
+goes up to Auersperg and says: 'Prince, you are being deceived, here are
+the French!' Murat, seeing that all is lost if the sergeant is allowed
+to speak, turns to Auersperg with feigned astonishment (he is a true
+Gascon) and says: 'I don't recognize the world-famous Austrian
+discipline, if you allow a subordinate to address you like that!' It was
+a stroke of genius. Prince Auersperg feels his dignity at stake and
+orders the sergeant to be arrested. Come, you must own that this affair
+of the Thabor Bridge is delightful! It is not exactly stupidity, nor
+rascality...."
+
+* Bridgehead.
+
+* (2) That their fire gets into his eyes and he forgets that he ought to
+be firing at the enemy.
+
+"It may be treachery," said Prince Andrew, vividly imagining the gray
+overcoats, wounds, the smoke of gunpowder, the sounds of firing, and the
+glory that awaited him.
+
+"Not that either. That puts the court in too bad a light," replied
+Bilibin. "It's not treachery nor rascality nor stupidity: it is just as
+at Ulm... it is..."—he seemed to be trying to find the right expression.
+"C'est... c'est du Mack. Nous sommes mackes (It is... it is a bit of
+Mack. We are Macked)," he concluded, feeling that he had produced a good
+epigram, a fresh one that would be repeated. His hitherto puckered brow
+became smooth as a sign of pleasure, and with a slight smile he began to
+examine his nails.
+
+"Where are you off to?" he said suddenly to Prince Andrew who had risen
+and was going toward his room.
+
+"I am going away."
+
+"Where to?"
+
+"To the army."
+
+"But you meant to stay another two days?"
+
+"But now I am off at once."
+
+And Prince Andrew after giving directions about his departure went to
+his room.
+
+"Do you know, mon cher," said Bilibin following him, "I have been
+thinking about you. Why are you going?"
+
+And in proof of the conclusiveness of his opinion all the wrinkles
+vanished from his face.
+
+Prince Andrew looked inquiringly at him and gave no reply.
+
+"Why are you going? I know you think it your duty to gallop back to the
+army now that it is in danger. I understand that. Mon cher, it is
+heroism!"
+
+"Not at all," said Prince Andrew.
+
+"But as you are a philosopher, be a consistent one, look at the other
+side of the question and you will see that your duty, on the contrary,
+is to take care of yourself. Leave it to those who are no longer fit for
+anything else.... You have not been ordered to return and have not been
+dismissed from here; therefore, you can stay and go with us wherever our
+ill luck takes us. They say we are going to Olmutz, and Olmutz is a very
+decent town. You and I will travel comfortably in my calèche."
+
+"Do stop joking, Bilibin," cried Bolkónski.
+
+"I am speaking sincerely as a friend! Consider! Where and why are you
+going, when you might remain here? You are faced by one of two things,"
+and the skin over his left temple puckered, "either you will not reach
+your regiment before peace is concluded, or you will share defeat and
+disgrace with Kutúzov's whole army."
+
+And Bilibin unwrinkled his temple, feeling that the dilemma was
+insoluble.
+
+"I cannot argue about it," replied Prince Andrew coldly, but he thought:
+"I am going to save the army."
+
+"My dear fellow, you are a hero!" said Bilibin.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+That same night, having taken leave of the Minister of War, Bolkónski
+set off to rejoin the army, not knowing where he would find it and
+fearing to be captured by the French on the way to Krems.
+
+In Brunn everybody attached to the court was packing up, and the heavy
+baggage was already being dispatched to Olmutz. Near Hetzelsdorf Prince
+Andrew struck the high road along which the Russian army was moving with
+great haste and in the greatest disorder. The road was so obstructed
+with carts that it was impossible to get by in a carriage. Prince Andrew
+took a horse and a Cossack from a Cossack commander, and hungry and
+weary, making his way past the baggage wagons, rode in search of the
+commander-in-chief and of his own luggage. Very sinister reports of the
+position of the army reached him as he went along, and the appearance of
+the troops in their disorderly flight confirmed these rumors.
+
+"Cette armee russe que l'or de l'Angleterre a transportee des extremites
+de l'univers, nous allons lui faire eprouver le meme sort—(le sort de
+l'armee d'Ulm)." * He remembered these words in Bonaparte's address to
+his army at the beginning of the campaign, and they awoke in him
+astonishment at the genius of his hero, a feeling of wounded pride, and
+a hope of glory. "And should there be nothing left but to die?" he
+thought. "Well, if need be, I shall do it no worse than others."
+
+* "That Russian army which has been brought from the ends of the earth
+by English gold, we shall cause to share the same fate—(the fate of the
+army at Ulm)."
+
+He looked with disdain at the endless confused mass of detachments,
+carts, guns, artillery, and again baggage wagons and vehicles of all
+kinds overtaking one another and blocking the muddy road, three and
+sometimes four abreast. From all sides, behind and before, as far as ear
+could reach, there were the rattle of wheels, the creaking of carts and
+gun carriages, the tramp of horses, the crack of whips, shouts, the
+urging of horses, and the swearing of soldiers, orderlies, and officers.
+All along the sides of the road fallen horses were to be seen, some
+flayed, some not, and broken-down carts beside which solitary soldiers
+sat waiting for something, and again soldiers straggling from their
+companies, crowds of whom set off to the neighboring villages, or
+returned from them dragging sheep, fowls, hay, and bulging sacks. At
+each ascent or descent of the road the crowds were yet denser and the
+din of shouting more incessant. Soldiers floundering knee-deep in mud
+pushed the guns and wagons themselves. Whips cracked, hoofs slipped,
+traces broke, and lungs were strained with shouting. The officers
+directing the march rode backward and forward between the carts. Their
+voices were but feebly heard amid the uproar and one saw by their faces
+that they despaired of the possibility of checking this disorder.
+
+"Here is our dear Orthodox Russian army," thought Bolkónski, recalling
+Bilibin's words.
+
+Wishing to find out where the commander-in-chief was, he rode up to a
+convoy. Directly opposite to him came a strange one-horse vehicle,
+evidently rigged up by soldiers out of any available materials and
+looking like something between a cart, a cabriolet, and a calèche. A
+soldier was driving, and a woman enveloped in shawls sat behind the
+apron under the leather hood of the vehicle. Prince Andrew rode up and
+was just putting his question to a soldier when his attention was
+diverted by the desperate shrieks of the woman in the vehicle. An
+officer in charge of transport was beating the soldier who was driving
+the woman's vehicle for trying to get ahead of others, and the strokes
+of his whip fell on the apron of the equipage. The woman screamed
+piercingly. Seeing Prince Andrew she leaned out from behind the apron
+and, waving her thin arms from under the woolen shawl, cried:
+
+"Mr. Aide-de-camp! Mr. Aide-de-camp!... For heaven's sake... Protect me!
+What will become of us? I am the wife of the doctor of the Seventh
+Chasseurs.... They won't let us pass, we are left behind and have lost
+our people..."
+
+"I'll flatten you into a pancake!" shouted the angry officer to the
+soldier. "Turn back with your slut!"
+
+"Mr. Aide-de-camp! Help me!... What does it all mean?" screamed the
+doctor's wife.
+
+"Kindly let this cart pass. Don't you see it's a woman?" said Prince
+Andrew riding up to the officer.
+
+The officer glanced at him, and without replying turned again to the
+soldier. "I'll teach you to push on!... Back!"
+
+"Let them pass, I tell you!" repeated Prince Andrew, compressing his
+lips.
+
+"And who are you?" cried the officer, turning on him with tipsy rage,
+"who are you? Are you in command here? Eh? I am commander here, not you!
+Go back or I'll flatten you into a pancake," repeated he. This
+expression evidently pleased him.
+
+"That was a nice snub for the little aide-de-camp," came a voice from
+behind.
+
+Prince Andrew saw that the officer was in that state of senseless, tipsy
+rage when a man does not know what he is saying. He saw that his
+championship of the doctor's wife in her queer trap might expose him to
+what he dreaded more than anything in the world—to ridicule; but his
+instinct urged him on. Before the officer finished his sentence Prince
+Andrew, his face distorted with fury, rode up to him and raised his
+riding whip.
+
+"Kind...ly let—them—pass!"
+
+The officer flourished his arm and hastily rode away.
+
+"It's all the fault of these fellows on the staff that there's this
+disorder," he muttered. "Do as you like."
+
+Prince Andrew without lifting his eyes rode hastily away from the
+doctor's wife, who was calling him her deliverer, and recalling with a
+sense of disgust the minutest details of this humiliating scene he
+galloped on to the village where he was told that the commander-in-chief
+was.
+
+On reaching the village he dismounted and went to the nearest house,
+intending to rest if but for a moment, eat something, and try to sort
+out the stinging and tormenting thoughts that confused his mind. "This
+is a mob of scoundrels and not an army," he was thinking as he went up
+to the window of the first house, when a familiar voice called him by
+name.
+
+He turned round. Nesvítski's handsome face looked out of the little
+window. Nesvítski, moving his moist lips as he chewed something, and
+flourishing his arm, called him to enter.
+
+"Bolkónski! Bolkónski!... Don't you hear? Eh? Come quick..." he shouted.
+
+Entering the house, Prince Andrew saw Nesvítski and another adjutant
+having something to eat. They hastily turned round to him asking if he
+had any news. On their familiar faces he read agitation and alarm. This
+was particularly noticeable on Nesvítski's usually laughing countenance.
+
+"Where is the commander-in-chief?" asked Bolkónski.
+
+"Here, in that house," answered the adjutant.
+
+"Well, is it true that it's peace and capitulation?" asked Nesvítski.
+
+"I was going to ask you. I know nothing except that it was all I could
+do to get here."
+
+"And we, my dear boy! It's terrible! I was wrong to laugh at Mack, we're
+getting it still worse," said Nesvítski. "But sit down and have
+something to eat."
+
+"You won't be able to find either your baggage or anything else now,
+Prince. And God only knows where your man Peter is," said the other
+adjutant.
+
+"Where are headquarters?"
+
+"We are to spend the night in Znaim."
+
+"Well, I have got all I need into packs for two horses," said Nesvítski.
+"They've made up splendid packs for me—fit to cross the Bohemian
+mountains with. It's a bad lookout, old fellow! But what's the matter
+with you? You must be ill to shiver like that," he added, noticing that
+Prince Andrew winced as at an electric shock.
+
+"It's nothing," replied Prince Andrew.
+
+He had just remembered his recent encounter with the doctor's wife and
+the convoy officer.
+
+"What is the commander-in-chief doing here?" he asked.
+
+"I can't make out at all," said Nesvítski.
+
+"Well, all I can make out is that everything is abominable, abominable,
+quite abominable!" said Prince Andrew, and he went off to the house
+where the commander-in-chief was.
+
+Passing by Kutúzov's carriage and the exhausted saddle horses of his
+suite, with their Cossacks who were talking loudly together, Prince
+Andrew entered the passage. Kutúzov himself, he was told, was in the
+house with Prince Bagration and Weyrother. Weyrother was the Austrian
+general who had succeeded Schmidt. In the passage little Kozlovski was
+squatting on his heels in front of a clerk. The clerk, with cuffs turned
+up, was hastily writing at a tub turned bottom upwards. Kozlovski's face
+looked worn—he too had evidently not slept all night. He glanced at
+Prince Andrew and did not even nod to him.
+
+"Second line... have you written it?" he continued dictating to the
+clerk. "The Kiev Grenadiers, Podolian..."
+
+"One can't write so fast, your honor," said the clerk, glancing angrily
+and disrespectfully at Kozlovski.
+
+Through the door came the sounds of Kutúzov's voice, excited and
+dissatisfied, interrupted by another, an unfamiliar voice. From the
+sound of these voices, the inattentive way Kozlovski looked at him, the
+disrespectful manner of the exhausted clerk, the fact that the clerk and
+Kozlovski were squatting on the floor by a tub so near to the commander
+in chief, and from the noisy laughter of the Cossacks holding the horses
+near the window, Prince Andrew felt that something important and
+disastrous was about to happen.
+
+He turned to Kozlovski with urgent questions.
+
+"Immediately, Prince," said Kozlovski. "Dispositions for Bagration."
+
+"What about capitulation?"
+
+"Nothing of the sort. Orders are issued for a battle."
+
+Prince Andrew moved toward the door from whence voices were heard. Just
+as he was going to open it the sounds ceased, the door opened, and
+Kutúzov with his eagle nose and puffy face appeared in the doorway.
+Prince Andrew stood right in front of Kutúzov but the expression of the
+commander in chief's one sound eye showed him to be so preoccupied with
+thoughts and anxieties as to be oblivious of his presence. He looked
+straight at his adjutant's face without recognizing him.
+
+"Well, have you finished?" said he to Kozlovski.
+
+"One moment, your excellency."
+
+Bagration, a gaunt middle-aged man of medium height with a firm,
+impassive face of Oriental type, came out after the commander-in-chief.
+
+"I have the honor to present myself," repeated Prince Andrew rather
+loudly, handing Kutúzov an envelope.
+
+"Ah, from Vienna? Very good. Later, later!"
+
+Kutúzov went out into the porch with Bagration.
+
+"Well, good-by, Prince," said he to Bagration. "My blessing, and may
+Christ be with you in your great endeavor!"
+
+His face suddenly softened and tears came into his eyes. With his left
+hand he drew Bagration toward him, and with his right, on which he wore
+a ring, he made the sign of the cross over him with a gesture evidently
+habitual, offering his puffy cheek, but Bagration kissed him on the neck
+instead.
+
+"Christ be with you!" Kutúzov repeated and went toward his carriage.
+"Get in with me," said he to Bolkónski.
+
+"Your excellency, I should like to be of use here. Allow me to remain
+with Prince Bagration's detachment."
+
+"Get in," said Kutúzov, and noticing that Bolkónski still delayed, he
+added: "I need good officers myself, need them myself!"
+
+They got into the carriage and drove for a few minutes in silence.
+
+"There is still much, much before us," he said, as if with an old man's
+penetration he understood all that was passing in Bolkónski's mind. "If
+a tenth part of his detachment returns I shall thank God," he added as
+if speaking to himself.
+
+Prince Andrew glanced at Kutúzov's face only a foot distant from him and
+involuntarily noticed the carefully washed seams of the scar near his
+temple, where an Ismail bullet had pierced his skull, and the empty eye
+socket. "Yes, he has a right to speak so calmly of those men's death,"
+thought Bolkónski.
+
+"That is why I beg to be sent to that detachment," he said.
+
+Kutúzov did not reply. He seemed to have forgotten what he had been
+saying, and sat plunged in thought. Five minutes later, gently swaying
+on the soft springs of the carriage, he turned to Prince Andrew. There
+was not a trace of agitation on his face. With delicate irony he
+questioned Prince Andrew about the details of his interview with the
+Emperor, about the remarks he had heard at court concerning the Krems
+affair, and about some ladies they both knew.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+On November 1 Kutúzov had received, through a spy, news that the army he
+commanded was in an almost hopeless position. The spy reported that the
+French, after crossing the bridge at Vienna, were advancing in immense
+force upon Kutúzov's line of communication with the troops that were
+arriving from Russia. If Kutúzov decided to remain at Krems, Napoleon's
+army of one hundred and fifty thousand men would cut him off completely
+and surround his exhausted army of forty thousand, and he would find
+himself in the position of Mack at Ulm. If Kutúzov decided to abandon
+the road connecting him with the troops arriving from Russia, he would
+have to march with no road into unknown parts of the Bohemian mountains,
+defending himself against superior forces of the enemy and abandoning
+all hope of a junction with Buxhowden. If Kutúzov decided to retreat
+along the road from Krems to Olmutz, to unite with the troops arriving
+from Russia, he risked being forestalled on that road by the French who
+had crossed the Vienna bridge, and encumbered by his baggage and
+transport, having to accept battle on the march against an enemy three
+times as strong, who would hem him in from two sides.
+
+Kutúzov chose this latter course.
+
+The French, the spy reported, having crossed the Vienna bridge, were
+advancing by forced marches toward Znaim, which lay sixty-six miles off
+on the line of Kutúzov's retreat. If he reached Znaim before the French,
+there would be great hope of saving the army; to let the French
+forestall him at Znaim meant the exposure of his whole army to a
+disgrace such as that of Ulm, or to utter destruction. But to forestall
+the French with his whole army was impossible. The road for the French
+from Vienna to Znaim was shorter and better than the road for the
+Russians from Krems to Znaim.
+
+The night he received the news, Kutúzov sent Bagration's vanguard, four
+thousand strong, to the right across the hills from the Krems-Znaim to
+the Vienna-Znaim road. Bagration was to make this march without resting,
+and to halt facing Vienna with Znaim to his rear, and if he succeeded in
+forestalling the French he was to delay them as long as possible.
+Kutúzov himself with all his transport took the road to Znaim.
+
+Marching thirty miles that stormy night across roadless hills, with his
+hungry, ill-shod soldiers, and losing a third of his men as stragglers
+by the way, Bagration came out on the Vienna-Znaim road at Hollabrunn a
+few hours ahead of the French who were approaching Hollabrunn from
+Vienna. Kutúzov with his transport had still to march for some days
+before he could reach Znaim. Hence Bagration with his four thousand
+hungry, exhausted men would have to detain for days the whole enemy army
+that came upon him at Hollabrunn, which was clearly impossible. But a
+freak of fate made the impossible possible. The success of the trick
+that had placed the Vienna bridge in the hands of the French without a
+fight led Murat to try to deceive Kutúzov in a similar way. Meeting
+Bagration's weak detachment on the Znaim road he supposed it to be
+Kutúzov's whole army. To be able to crush it absolutely he awaited the
+arrival of the rest of the troops who were on their way from Vienna, and
+with this object offered a three days' truce on condition that both
+armies should remain in position without moving. Murat declared that
+negotiations for peace were already proceeding, and that he therefore
+offered this truce to avoid unnecessary bloodshed. Count Nostitz, the
+Austrian general occupying the advanced posts, believed Murat's emissary
+and retired, leaving Bagration's division exposed. Another emissary rode
+to the Russian line to announce the peace negotiations and to offer the
+Russian army the three days' truce. Bagration replied that he was not
+authorized either to accept or refuse a truce and sent his adjutant to
+Kutúzov to report the offer he had received.
+
+A truce was Kutúzov's sole chance of gaining time, giving Bagration's
+exhausted troops some rest, and letting the transport and heavy convoys
+(whose movements were concealed from the French) advance if but one
+stage nearer Znaim. The offer of a truce gave the only, and a quite
+unexpected, chance of saving the army. On receiving the news he
+immediately dispatched Adjutant General Wintzingerode, who was in
+attendance on him, to the enemy camp. Wintzingerode was not merely to
+agree to the truce but also to offer terms of capitulation, and
+meanwhile Kutúzov sent his adjutants back to hasten to the utmost the
+movements of the baggage trains of the entire army along the Krems-Znaim
+road. Bagration's exhausted and hungry detachment, which alone covered
+this movement of the transport and of the whole army, had to remain
+stationary in face of an enemy eight times as strong as itself.
+
+Kutúzov's expectations that the proposals of capitulation (which were in
+no way binding) might give time for part of the transport to pass, and
+also that Murat's mistake would very soon be discovered, proved correct.
+As soon as Bonaparte (who was at Schonbrunn, sixteen miles from
+Hollabrunn) received Murat's dispatch with the proposal of a truce and a
+capitulation, he detected a ruse and wrote the following letter to
+Murat:
+
+Schonbrunn, 25th Brumaire, 1805,
+
+at eight o'clock in the morning
+
+To PRINCE MURAT,
+
+I cannot find words to express to you my displeasure. You command only
+my advance guard, and have no right to arrange an armistice without my
+order. You are causing me to lose the fruits of a campaign. Break the
+armistice immediately and march on the enemy. Inform him that the
+general who signed that capitulation had no right to do so, and that no
+one but the Emperor of Russia has that right.
+
+If, however, the Emperor of Russia ratifies that convention, I will
+ratify it; but it is only a trick. March on, destroy the Russian
+army.... You are in a position to seize its baggage and artillery.
+
+The Russian Emperor's aide-de-camp is an impostor. Officers are nothing
+when they have no powers; this one had none.... The Austrians let
+themselves be tricked at the crossing of the Vienna bridge, you are
+letting yourself be tricked by an aide-de-camp of the Emperor.
+
+NAPOLEON
+
+Bonaparte's adjutant rode full gallop with this menacing letter to
+Murat. Bonaparte himself, not trusting to his generals, moved with all
+the Guards to the field of battle, afraid of letting a ready victim
+escape, and Bagration's four thousand men merrily lighted campfires,
+dried and warmed themselves, cooked their porridge for the first time
+for three days, and not one of them knew or imagined what was in store
+for him.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+Between three and four o'clock in the afternoon Prince Andrew, who had
+persisted in his request to Kutúzov, arrived at Grunth and reported
+himself to Bagration. Bonaparte's adjutant had not yet reached Murat's
+detachment and the battle had not yet begun. In Bagration's detachment
+no one knew anything of the general position of affairs. They talked of
+peace but did not believe in its possibility; others talked of a battle
+but also disbelieved in the nearness of an engagement. Bagration,
+knowing Bolkónski to be a favorite and trusted adjutant, received him
+with distinction and special marks of favor, explaining to him that
+there would probably be an engagement that day or the next, and giving
+him full liberty to remain with him during the battle or to join the
+rearguard and have an eye on the order of retreat, "which is also very
+important."
+
+"However, there will hardly be an engagement today," said Bagration as
+if to reassure Prince Andrew.
+
+"If he is one of the ordinary little staff dandies sent to earn a medal
+he can get his reward just as well in the rearguard, but if he wishes to
+stay with me, let him... he'll be of use here if he's a brave officer,"
+thought Bagration. Prince Andrew, without replying, asked the prince's
+permission to ride round the position to see the disposition of the
+forces, so as to know his bearings should he be sent to execute an
+order. The officer on duty, a handsome, elegantly dressed man with a
+diamond ring on his forefinger, who was fond of speaking French though
+he spoke it badly, offered to conduct Prince Andrew.
+
+On all sides they saw rain-soaked officers with dejected faces who
+seemed to be seeking something, and soldiers dragging doors, benches,
+and fencing from the village.
+
+"There now, Prince! We can't stop those fellows," said the staff officer
+pointing to the soldiers. "The officers don't keep them in hand. And
+there," he pointed to a sutler's tent, "they crowd in and sit. This
+morning I turned them all out and now look, it's full again. I must go
+there, Prince, and scare them a bit. It won't take a moment."
+
+"Yes, let's go in and I will get myself a roll and some cheese," said
+Prince Andrew who had not yet had time to eat anything.
+
+"Why didn't you mention it, Prince? I would have offered you something."
+
+They dismounted and entered the tent. Several officers, with flushed and
+weary faces, were sitting at the table eating and drinking.
+
+"Now what does this mean, gentlemen?" said the staff officer, in the
+reproachful tone of a man who has repeated the same thing more than
+once. "You know it won't do to leave your posts like this. The prince
+gave orders that no one should leave his post. Now you, Captain," and he
+turned to a thin, dirty little artillery officer who without his boots
+(he had given them to the canteen keeper to dry), in only his stockings,
+rose when they entered, smiling not altogether comfortably.
+
+"Well, aren't you ashamed of yourself, Captain Tushin?" he continued.
+"One would think that as an artillery officer you would set a good
+example, yet here you are without your boots! The alarm will be sounded
+and you'll be in a pretty position without your boots!" (The staff
+officer smiled.) "Kindly return to your posts, gentlemen, all of you,
+all!" he added in a tone of command.
+
+Prince Andrew smiled involuntarily as he looked at the artillery officer
+Tushin, who silent and smiling, shifting from one stockinged foot to the
+other, glanced inquiringly with his large, intelligent, kindly eyes from
+Prince Andrew to the staff officer.
+
+"The soldiers say it feels easier without boots," said Captain Tushin
+smiling shyly in his uncomfortable position, evidently wishing to adopt
+a jocular tone. But before he had finished he felt that his jest was
+unacceptable and had not come off. He grew confused.
+
+"Kindly return to your posts," said the staff officer trying to preserve
+his gravity.
+
+Prince Andrew glanced again at the artillery officer's small figure.
+There was something peculiar about it, quite unsoldierly, rather comic,
+but extremely attractive.
+
+The staff officer and Prince Andrew mounted their horses and rode on.
+
+Having ridden beyond the village, continually meeting and overtaking
+soldiers and officers of various regiments, they saw on their left some
+entrenchments being thrown up, the freshly dug clay of which showed up
+red. Several battalions of soldiers, in their shirt sleeves despite the
+cold wind, swarmed in these earthworks like a host of white ants;
+spadefuls of red clay were continually being thrown up from behind the
+bank by unseen hands. Prince Andrew and the officer rode up, looked at
+the entrenchment, and went on again. Just behind it they came upon some
+dozens of soldiers, continually replaced by others, who ran from the
+entrenchment. They had to hold their noses and put their horses to a
+trot to escape from the poisoned atmosphere of these latrines.
+
+"Voila l'agrement des camps, monsieur le Prince," * said the staff
+officer.
+
+* "This is a pleasure one gets in camp, Prince."
+
+They rode up the opposite hill. From there the French could already be
+seen. Prince Andrew stopped and began examining the position.
+
+"That's our battery," said the staff officer indicating the highest
+point. "It's in charge of the queer fellow we saw without his boots. You
+can see everything from there; let's go there, Prince."
+
+"Thank you very much, I will go on alone," said Prince Andrew, wishing
+to rid himself of this staff officer's company, "please don't trouble
+yourself further."
+
+The staff officer remained behind and Prince Andrew rode on alone.
+
+The farther forward and nearer the enemy he went, the more orderly and
+cheerful were the troops. The greatest disorder and depression had been
+in the baggage train he had passed that morning on the Znaim road seven
+miles away from the French. At Grunth also some apprehension and alarm
+could be felt, but the nearer Prince Andrew came to the French lines the
+more confident was the appearance of our troops. The soldiers in their
+greatcoats were ranged in lines, the sergeants major and company
+officers were counting the men, poking the last man in each section in
+the ribs and telling him to hold his hand up. Soldiers scattered over
+the whole place were dragging logs and brushwood and were building
+shelters with merry chatter and laughter; around the fires sat others,
+dressed and undressed, drying their shirts and leg bands or mending
+boots or overcoats and crowding round the boilers and porridge cookers.
+In one company dinner was ready, and the soldiers were gazing eagerly at
+the steaming boiler, waiting till the sample, which a quartermaster
+sergeant was carrying in a wooden bowl to an officer who sat on a log
+before his shelter, had been tasted.
+
+Another company, a lucky one for not all the companies had vodka,
+crowded round a pockmarked, broad-shouldered sergeant major who, tilting
+a keg, filled one after another the canteen lids held out to him. The
+soldiers lifted the canteen lids to their lips with reverential faces,
+emptied them, rolling the vodka in their mouths, and walked away from
+the sergeant major with brightened expressions, licking their lips and
+wiping them on the sleeves of their greatcoats. All their faces were as
+serene as if all this were happening at home awaiting peaceful
+encampment, and not within sight of the enemy before an action in which
+at least half of them would be left on the field. After passing a
+chasseur regiment and in the lines of the Kiev grenadiers—fine fellows
+busy with similar peaceful affairs—near the shelter of the regimental
+commander, higher than and different from the others, Prince Andrew came
+out in front of a platoon of grenadiers before whom lay a naked man. Two
+soldiers held him while two others were flourishing their switches and
+striking him regularly on his bare back. The man shrieked unnaturally. A
+stout major was pacing up and down the line, and regardless of the
+screams kept repeating:
+
+"It's a shame for a soldier to steal; a soldier must be honest,
+honorable, and brave, but if he robs his fellows there is no honor in
+him, he's a scoundrel. Go on! Go on!"
+
+So the swishing sound of the strokes, and the desperate but unnatural
+screams, continued.
+
+"Go on, go on!" said the major.
+
+A young officer with a bewildered and pained expression on his face
+stepped away from the man and looked round inquiringly at the adjutant
+as he rode by.
+
+Prince Andrew, having reached the front line, rode along it. Our front
+line and that of the enemy were far apart on the right and left flanks,
+but in the center where the men with a flag of truce had passed that
+morning, the lines were so near together that the men could see one
+another's faces and speak to one another. Besides the soldiers who
+formed the picket line on either side, there were many curious onlookers
+who, jesting and laughing, stared at their strange foreign enemies.
+
+Since early morning—despite an injunction not to approach the picket
+line—the officers had been unable to keep sight-seers away. The soldiers
+forming the picket line, like showmen exhibiting a curiosity, no longer
+looked at the French but paid attention to the sight-seers and grew
+weary waiting to be relieved. Prince Andrew halted to have a look at the
+French.
+
+"Look! Look there!" one soldier was saying to another, pointing to a
+Russian musketeer who had gone up to the picket line with an officer and
+was rapidly and excitedly talking to a French grenadier. "Hark to him
+jabbering! Fine, isn't it? It's all the Frenchy can do to keep up with
+him. There now, Sidorov!"
+
+"Wait a bit and listen. It's fine!" answered Sidorov, who was considered
+an adept at French.
+
+The soldier to whom the laughers referred was Dólokhov. Prince Andrew
+recognized him and stopped to listen to what he was saying. Dólokhov had
+come from the left flank where their regiment was stationed, with his
+captain.
+
+"Now then, go on, go on!" incited the officer, bending forward and
+trying not to lose a word of the speech which was incomprehensible to
+him. "More, please: more! What's he saying?"
+
+Dólokhov did not answer the captain; he had been drawn into a hot
+dispute with the French grenadier. They were naturally talking about the
+campaign. The Frenchman, confusing the Austrians with the Russians, was
+trying to prove that the Russians had surrendered and had fled all the
+way from Ulm, while Dólokhov maintained that the Russians had not
+surrendered but had beaten the French.
+
+"We have orders to drive you off here, and we shall drive you off," said
+Dólokhov.
+
+"Only take care you and your Cossacks are not all captured!" said the
+French grenadier.
+
+The French onlookers and listeners laughed.
+
+"We'll make you dance as we did under Suvórov...," * said Dólokhov.
+
+* "On vous fera danser."
+
+"Qu' est-ce qu'il chante?" * asked a Frenchman.
+
+* "What's he singing about?"
+
+"It's ancient history," said another, guessing that it referred to a
+former war. "The Emperor will teach your Suvara as he has taught the
+others..."
+
+"Bonaparte..." began Dólokhov, but the Frenchman interrupted him.
+
+"Not Bonaparte. He is the Emperor! Sacre nom...!" cried he angrily.
+
+"The devil skin your Emperor."
+
+And Dólokhov swore at him in coarse soldier's Russian and shouldering
+his musket walked away.
+
+"Let us go, Ivan Lukich," he said to the captain.
+
+"Ah, that's the way to talk French," said the picket soldiers. "Now,
+Sidorov, you have a try!"
+
+Sidorov, turning to the French, winked, and began to jabber meaningless
+sounds very fast: "Kari, mala, tafa, safi, muter, Kaska," he said,
+trying to give an expressive intonation to his voice.
+
+"Ho! ho! ho! Ha! ha! ha! ha! Ouh! ouh!" came peals of such healthy and
+good-humored laughter from the soldiers that it infected the French
+involuntarily, so much so that the only thing left to do seemed to be to
+unload the muskets, explode the ammunition, and all return home as
+quickly as possible.
+
+But the guns remained loaded, the loopholes in blockhouses and
+entrenchments looked out just as menacingly, and the unlimbered cannon
+confronted one another as before.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+Having ridden round the whole line from right flank to left, Prince
+Andrew made his way up to the battery from which the staff officer had
+told him the whole field could be seen. Here he dismounted, and stopped
+beside the farthest of the four unlimbered cannon. Before the guns an
+artillery sentry was pacing up and down; he stood at attention when the
+officer arrived, but at a sign resumed his measured, monotonous pacing.
+Behind the guns were their limbers and still farther back picket ropes
+and artillerymen's bonfires. To the left, not far from the farthest
+cannon, was a small, newly constructed wattle shed from which came the
+sound of officers' voices in eager conversation.
+
+It was true that a view over nearly the whole Russian position and the
+greater part of the enemy's opened out from this battery. Just facing
+it, on the crest of the opposite hill, the village of Schon Grabern
+could be seen, and in three places to left and right the French troops
+amid the smoke of their campfires, the greater part of whom were
+evidently in the village itself and behind the hill. To the left from
+that village, amid the smoke, was something resembling a battery, but it
+was impossible to see it clearly with the naked eye. Our right flank was
+posted on a rather steep incline which dominated the French position.
+Our infantry were stationed there, and at the farthest point the
+dragoons. In the center, where Tushin's battery stood and from which
+Prince Andrew was surveying the position, was the easiest and most
+direct descent and ascent to the brook separating us from Schon Grabern.
+On the left our troops were close to a copse, in which smoked the
+bonfires of our infantry who were felling wood. The French line was
+wider than ours, and it was plain that they could easily outflank us on
+both sides. Behind our position was a steep and deep dip, making it
+difficult for artillery and cavalry to retire. Prince Andrew took out
+his notebook and, leaning on the cannon, sketched a plan of the
+position. He made some notes on two points, intending to mention them to
+Bagration. His idea was, first, to concentrate all the artillery in the
+center, and secondly, to withdraw the cavalry to the other side of the
+dip. Prince Andrew, being always near the commander in chief, closely
+following the mass movements and general orders, and constantly studying
+historical accounts of battles, involuntarily pictured to himself the
+course of events in the forthcoming action in broad outline. He imagined
+only important possibilities: "If the enemy attacks the right flank," he
+said to himself, "the Kiev grenadiers and the Podolsk chasseurs must
+hold their position till reserves from the center come up. In that case
+the dragoons could successfully make a flank counterattack. If they
+attack our center we, having the center battery on this high ground,
+shall withdraw the left flank under its cover, and retreat to the dip by
+echelons." So he reasoned.... All the time he had been beside the gun,
+he had heard the voices of the officers distinctly, but as often happens
+had not understood a word of what they were saying. Suddenly, however,
+he was struck by a voice coming from the shed, and its tone was so
+sincere that he could not but listen.
+
+"No, friend," said a pleasant and, as it seemed to Prince Andrew, a
+familiar voice, "what I say is that if it were possible to know what is
+beyond death, none of us would be afraid of it. That's so, friend."
+
+Another, a younger voice, interrupted him: "Afraid or not, you can't
+escape it anyhow."
+
+"All the same, one is afraid! Oh, you clever people," said a third manly
+voice interrupting them both. "Of course you artillery men are very
+wise, because you can take everything along with you—vodka and snacks."
+
+And the owner of the manly voice, evidently an infantry officer,
+laughed.
+
+"Yes, one is afraid," continued the first speaker, he of the familiar
+voice. "One is afraid of the unknown, that's what it is. Whatever we may
+say about the soul going to the sky... we know there is no sky but only
+an atmosphere."
+
+The manly voice again interrupted the artillery officer.
+
+"Well, stand us some of your herb vodka, Tushin," it said.
+
+"Why," thought Prince Andrew, "that's the captain who stood up in the
+sutler's hut without his boots." He recognized the agreeable,
+philosophizing voice with pleasure.
+
+"Some herb vodka? Certainly!" said Tushin. "But still, to conceive a
+future life..."
+
+He did not finish. Just then there was a whistle in the air; nearer and
+nearer, faster and louder, louder and faster, a cannon ball, as if it
+had not finished saying what was necessary, thudded into the ground near
+the shed with super human force, throwing up a mass of earth. The ground
+seemed to groan at the terrible impact.
+
+And immediately Tushin, with a short pipe in the corner of his mouth and
+his kind, intelligent face rather pale, rushed out of the shed followed
+by the owner of the manly voice, a dashing infantry officer who hurried
+off to his company, buttoning up his coat as he ran.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+Mounting his horse again Prince Andrew lingered with the battery,
+looking at the puff from the gun that had sent the ball. His eyes ran
+rapidly over the wide space, but he only saw that the hitherto
+motionless masses of the French now swayed and that there really was a
+battery to their left. The smoke above it had not yet dispersed. Two
+mounted Frenchmen, probably adjutants, were galloping up the hill. A
+small but distinctly visible enemy column was moving down the hill,
+probably to strengthen the front line. The smoke of the first shot had
+not yet dispersed before another puff appeared, followed by a report.
+The battle had begun! Prince Andrew turned his horse and galloped back
+to Grunth to find Prince Bagration. He heard the cannonade behind him
+growing louder and more frequent. Evidently our guns had begun to reply.
+From the bottom of the slope, where the parleys had taken place, came
+the report of musketry.
+
+Lemarrois had just arrived at a gallop with Bonaparte's stern letter,
+and Murat, humiliated and anxious to expiate his fault, had at once
+moved his forces to attack the center and outflank both the Russian
+wings, hoping before evening and before the arrival of the Emperor to
+crush the contemptible detachment that stood before him.
+
+"It has begun. Here it is!" thought Prince Andrew, feeling the blood
+rush to his heart. "But where and how will my Toulon present itself?"
+
+Passing between the companies that had been eating porridge and drinking
+vodka a quarter of an hour before, he saw everywhere the same rapid
+movement of soldiers forming ranks and getting their muskets ready, and
+on all their faces he recognized the same eagerness that filled his
+heart. "It has begun! Here it is, dreadful but enjoyable!" was what the
+face of each soldier and each officer seemed to say.
+
+Before he had reached the embankments that were being thrown up, he saw,
+in the light of the dull autumn evening, mounted men coming toward him.
+The foremost, wearing a Cossack cloak and lambskin cap and riding a
+white horse, was Prince Bagration. Prince Andrew stopped, waiting for
+him to come up; Prince Bagration reined in his horse and recognizing
+Prince Andrew nodded to him. He still looked ahead while Prince Andrew
+told him what he had seen.
+
+The feeling, "It has begun! Here it is!" was seen even on Prince
+Bagration's hard brown face with its half-closed, dull, sleepy eyes.
+Prince Andrew gazed with anxious curiosity at that impassive face and
+wished he could tell what, if anything, this man was thinking and
+feeling at that moment. "Is there anything at all behind that impassive
+face?" Prince Andrew asked himself as he looked. Prince Bagration bent
+his head in sign of agreement with what Prince Andrew told him, and
+said, "Very good!" in a tone that seemed to imply that everything that
+took place and was reported to him was exactly what he had foreseen.
+Prince Andrew, out of breath with his rapid ride, spoke quickly. Prince
+Bagration, uttering his words with an Oriental accent, spoke
+particularly slowly, as if to impress the fact that there was no need to
+hurry. However, he put his horse to a trot in the direction of Tushin's
+battery. Prince Andrew followed with the suite. Behind Prince Bagration
+rode an officer of the suite, the prince's personal adjutant, Zherkov,
+an orderly officer, the staff officer on duty, riding a fine bobtailed
+horse, and a civilian—an accountant who had asked permission to be
+present at the battle out of curiosity. The accountant, a stout, full-
+faced man, looked around him with a naïve smile of satisfaction and
+presented a strange appearance among the hussars, Cossacks, and
+adjutants, in his camlet coat, as he jolted on his horse with a convoy
+officer's saddle.
+
+"He wants to see a battle," said Zherkov to Bolkónski, pointing to the
+accountant, "but he feels a pain in the pit of his stomach already."
+
+"Oh, leave off!" said the accountant with a beaming but rather cunning
+smile, as if flattered at being made the subject of Zherkov's joke, and
+purposely trying to appear stupider than he really was.
+
+"It is very strange, mon Monsieur Prince," said the staff officer. (He
+remembered that in French there is some peculiar way of addressing a
+prince, but could not get it quite right.)
+
+By this time they were all approaching Tushin's battery, and a ball
+struck the ground in front of them.
+
+"What's that that has fallen?" asked the accountant with a naïve smile.
+
+"A French pancake," answered Zherkov.
+
+"So that's what they hit with?" asked the accountant. "How awful!"
+
+He seemed to swell with satisfaction. He had hardly finished speaking
+when they again heard an unexpectedly violent whistling which suddenly
+ended with a thud into something soft... f-f-flop! and a Cossack, riding
+a little to their right and behind the accountant, crashed to earth with
+his horse. Zherkov and the staff officer bent over their saddles and
+turned their horses away. The accountant stopped, facing the Cossack,
+and examined him with attentive curiosity. The Cossack was dead, but the
+horse still struggled.
+
+Prince Bagration screwed up his eyes, looked round, and, seeing the
+cause of the confusion, turned away with indifference, as if to say, "Is
+it worth while noticing trifles?" He reined in his horse with the care
+of a skillful rider and, slightly bending over, disengaged his saber
+which had caught in his cloak. It was an old-fashioned saber of a kind
+no longer in general use. Prince Andrew remembered the story of Suvórov
+giving his saber to Bagration in Italy, and the recollection was
+particularly pleasant at that moment. They had reached the battery at
+which Prince Andrew had been when he examined the battlefield.
+
+"Whose company?" asked Prince Bagration of an artilleryman standing by
+the ammunition wagon.
+
+He asked, "Whose company?" but he really meant, "Are you frightened
+here?" and the artilleryman understood him.
+
+"Captain Tushin's, your excellency!" shouted the red-haired, freckled
+gunner in a merry voice, standing to attention.
+
+"Yes, yes," muttered Bagration as if considering something, and he rode
+past the limbers to the farthest cannon.
+
+As he approached, a ringing shot issued from it deafening him and his
+suite, and in the smoke that suddenly surrounded the gun they could see
+the gunners who had seized it straining to roll it quickly back to its
+former position. A huge, broad-shouldered gunner, Number One, holding a
+mop, his legs far apart, sprang to the wheel; while Number Two with a
+trembling hand placed a charge in the cannon's mouth. The short, round-
+shouldered Captain Tushin, stumbling over the tail of the gun carriage,
+moved forward and, not noticing the general, looked out shading his eyes
+with his small hand.
+
+"Lift it two lines more and it will be just right," cried he in a feeble
+voice to which he tried to impart a dashing note, ill-suited to his weak
+figure. "Number Two!" he squeaked. "Fire, Medvedev!"
+
+Bagration called to him, and Tushin, raising three fingers to his cap
+with a bashful and awkward gesture not at all like a military salute but
+like a priest's benediction, approached the general. Though Tushin's
+guns had been intended to cannonade the valley, he was firing incendiary
+balls at the village of Schon Grabern visible just opposite, in front of
+which large masses of French were advancing.
+
+No one had given Tushin orders where and at what to fire, but after
+consulting his sergeant major, Zakharchenko, for whom he had great
+respect, he had decided that it would be a good thing to set fire to the
+village. "Very good!" said Bagration in reply to the officer's report,
+and began deliberately to examine the whole battlefield extended before
+him. The French had advanced nearest on our right. Below the height on
+which the Kiev regiment was stationed, in the hollow where the rivulet
+flowed, the soul-stirring rolling and crackling of musketry was heard,
+and much farther to the right beyond the dragoons, the officer of the
+suite pointed out to Bagration a French column that was outflanking us.
+To the left the horizon bounded by the adjacent wood. Prince Bagration
+ordered two battalions from the center to be sent to reinforce the right
+flank. The officer of the suite ventured to remark to the prince that if
+these battalions went away, the guns would remain without support.
+Prince Bagration turned to the officer and with his dull eyes looked at
+him in silence. It seemed to Prince Andrew that the officer's remark was
+just and that really no answer could be made to it. But at that moment
+an adjutant galloped up with a message from the commander of the
+regiment in the hollow and news that immense masses of the French were
+coming down upon them and that his regiment was in disorder and was
+retreating upon the Kiev grenadiers. Prince Bagration bowed his head in
+sign of assent and approval. He rode off at a walk to the right and sent
+an adjutant to the dragoons with orders to attack the French. But this
+adjutant returned half an hour later with the news that the commander of
+the dragoons had already retreated beyond the dip in the ground, as a
+heavy fire had been opened on him and he was losing men uselessly, and
+so had hastened to throw some sharpshooters into the wood.
+
+"Very good!" said Bagration.
+
+As he was leaving the battery, firing was heard on the left also, and as
+it was too far to the left flank for him to have time to go there
+himself, Prince Bagration sent Zherkov to tell the general in command
+(the one who had paraded his regiment before Kutúzov at Braunau) that he
+must retreat as quickly as possible behind the hollow in the rear, as
+the right flank would probably not be able to withstand the enemy's
+attack very long. About Tushin and the battalion that had been in
+support of his battery all was forgotten. Prince Andrew listened
+attentively to Bagration's colloquies with the commanding officers and
+the orders he gave them and, to his surprise, found that no orders were
+really given, but that Prince Bagration tried to make it appear that
+everything done by necessity, by accident, or by the will of subordinate
+commanders was done, if not by his direct command, at least in accord
+with his intentions. Prince Andrew noticed, however, that though what
+happened was due to chance and was independent of the commander's will,
+owing to the tact Bagration showed, his presence was very valuable.
+Officers who approached him with disturbed countenances became calm;
+soldiers and officers greeted him gaily, grew more cheerful in his
+presence, and were evidently anxious to display their courage before
+him.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+Prince Bagration, having reached the highest point of our right flank,
+began riding downhill to where the roll of musketry was heard but where
+on account of the smoke nothing could be seen. The nearer they got to
+the hollow the less they could see but the more they felt the nearness
+of the actual battlefield. They began to meet wounded men. One with a
+bleeding head and no cap was being dragged along by two soldiers who
+supported him under the arms. There was a gurgle in his throat and he
+was spitting blood. A bullet had evidently hit him in the throat or
+mouth. Another was walking sturdily by himself but without his musket,
+groaning aloud and swinging his arm which had just been hurt, while
+blood from it was streaming over his greatcoat as from a bottle. He had
+that moment been wounded and his face showed fear rather than suffering.
+Crossing a road they descended a steep incline and saw several men lying
+on the ground; they also met a crowd of soldiers some of whom were
+unwounded. The soldiers were ascending the hill breathing heavily, and
+despite the general's presence were talking loudly and gesticulating. In
+front of them rows of gray cloaks were already visible through the
+smoke, and an officer catching sight of Bagration rushed shouting after
+the crowd of retreating soldiers, ordering them back. Bagration rode up
+to the ranks along which shots crackled now here and now there, drowning
+the sound of voices and the shouts of command. The whole air reeked with
+smoke. The excited faces of the soldiers were blackened with it. Some
+were using their ramrods, others putting powder on the touchpans or
+taking charges from their pouches, while others were firing, though who
+they were firing at could not be seen for the smoke which there was no
+wind to carry away. A pleasant humming and whistling of bullets were
+often heard. "What is this?" thought Prince Andrew approaching the crowd
+of soldiers. "It can't be an attack, for they are not moving; it can't
+be a square—for they are not drawn up for that."
+
+The commander of the regiment, a thin, feeble-looking old man with a
+pleasant smile—his eyelids drooping more than half over his old eyes,
+giving him a mild expression, rode up to Bagration and welcomed him as a
+host welcomes an honored guest. He reported that his regiment had been
+attacked by French cavalry and that, though the attack had been
+repulsed, he had lost more than half his men. He said the attack had
+been repulsed, employing this military term to describe what had
+occurred to his regiment, but in reality he did not himself know what
+had happened during that half-hour to the troops entrusted to him, and
+could not say with certainty whether the attack had been repulsed or his
+regiment had been broken up. All he knew was that at the commencement of
+the action balls and shells began flying all over his regiment and
+hitting men and that afterwards someone had shouted "Cavalry!" and our
+men had begun firing. They were still firing, not at the cavalry which
+had disappeared, but at French infantry who had come into the hollow and
+were firing at our men. Prince Bagration bowed his head as a sign that
+this was exactly what he had desired and expected. Turning to his
+adjutant he ordered him to bring down the two battalions of the Sixth
+Chasseurs whom they had just passed. Prince Andrew was struck by the
+changed expression on Prince Bagration's face at this moment. It
+expressed the concentrated and happy resolution you see on the face of a
+man who on a hot day takes a final run before plunging into the water.
+The dull, sleepy expression was no longer there, nor the affectation of
+profound thought. The round, steady, hawk's eyes looked before him
+eagerly and rather disdainfully, not resting on anything although his
+movements were still slow and measured.
+
+The commander of the regiment turned to Prince Bagration, entreating him
+to go back as it was too dangerous to remain where they were. "Please,
+your excellency, for God's sake!" he kept saying, glancing for support
+at an officer of the suite who turned away from him. "There, you see!"
+and he drew attention to the bullets whistling, singing, and hissing
+continually around them. He spoke in the tone of entreaty and reproach
+that a carpenter uses to a gentleman who has picked up an ax: "We are
+used to it, but you, sir, will blister your hands." He spoke as if those
+bullets could not kill him, and his half-closed eyes gave still more
+persuasiveness to his words. The staff officer joined in the colonel's
+appeals, but Bagration did not reply; he only gave an order to cease
+firing and re-form, so as to give room for the two approaching
+battalions. While he was speaking, the curtain of smoke that had
+concealed the hollow, driven by a rising wind, began to move from right
+to left as if drawn by an invisible hand, and the hill opposite, with
+the French moving about on it, opened out before them. All eyes fastened
+involuntarily on this French column advancing against them and winding
+down over the uneven ground. One could already see the soldiers' shaggy
+caps, distinguish the officers from the men, and see the standard
+flapping against its staff.
+
+"They march splendidly," remarked someone in Bagration's suite.
+
+The head of the column had already descended into the hollow. The clash
+would take place on this side of it...
+
+The remains of our regiment which had been in action rapidly formed up
+and moved to the right; from behind it, dispersing the laggards, came
+two battalions of the Sixth Chasseurs in fine order. Before they had
+reached Bagration, the weighty tread of the mass of men marching in step
+could be heard. On their left flank, nearest to Bagration, marched a
+company commander, a fine round-faced man, with a stupid and happy
+expression—the same man who had rushed out of the wattle shed. At that
+moment he was clearly thinking of nothing but how dashing a fellow he
+would appear as he passed the commander.
+
+With the self-satisfaction of a man on parade, he stepped lightly with
+his muscular legs as if sailing along, stretching himself to his full
+height without the smallest effort, his ease contrasting with the heavy
+tread of the soldiers who were keeping step with him. He carried close
+to his leg a narrow unsheathed sword (small, curved, and not like a real
+weapon) and looked now at the superior officers and now back at the men
+without losing step, his whole powerful body turning flexibly. It was as
+if all the powers of his soul were concentrated on passing the commander
+in the best possible manner, and feeling that he was doing it well he
+was happy. "Left... left... left..." he seemed to repeat to himself at
+each alternate step; and in time to this, with stern but varied faces,
+the wall of soldiers burdened with knapsacks and muskets marched in
+step, and each one of these hundreds of soldiers seemed to be repeating
+to himself at each alternate step, "Left... left... left..." A fat major
+skirted a bush, puffing and falling out of step; a soldier who had
+fallen behind, his face showing alarm at his defection, ran at a trot,
+panting to catch up with his company. A cannon ball, cleaving the air,
+flew over the heads of Bagration and his suite, and fell into the column
+to the measure of "Left... left!" "Close up!" came the company
+commander's voice in jaunty tones. The soldiers passed in a semicircle
+round something where the ball had fallen, and an old trooper on the
+flank, a noncommissioned officer who had stopped beside the dead men,
+ran to catch up his line and, falling into step with a hop, looked back
+angrily, and through the ominous silence and the regular tramp of feet
+beating the ground in unison, one seemed to hear left... left... left.
+
+"Well done, lads!" said Prince Bagration.
+
+"Glad to do our best, your ex'len-lency!" came a confused shout from the
+ranks. A morose soldier marching on the left turned his eyes on
+Bagration as he shouted, with an expression that seemed to say: "We know
+that ourselves!" Another, without looking round, as though fearing to
+relax, shouted with his mouth wide open and passed on.
+
+The order was given to halt and down knapsacks.
+
+Bagration rode round the ranks that had marched past him and dismounted.
+He gave the reins to a Cossack, took off and handed over his felt coat,
+stretched his legs, and set his cap straight. The head of the French
+column, with its officers leading, appeared from below the hill.
+
+"Forward, with God!" said Bagration, in a resolute, sonorous voice,
+turning for a moment to the front line, and slightly swinging his arms,
+he went forward uneasily over the rough field with the awkward gait of a
+cavalryman. Prince Andrew felt that an invisible power was leading him
+forward, and experienced great happiness.
+
+The French were already near. Prince Andrew, walking beside Bagration,
+could clearly distinguish their bandoliers, red epaulets, and even their
+faces. (He distinctly saw an old French officer who, with gaitered legs
+and turned-out toes, climbed the hill with difficulty.) Prince Bagration
+gave no further orders and silently continued to walk on in front of the
+ranks. Suddenly one shot after another rang out from the French, smoke
+appeared all along their uneven ranks, and musket shots sounded. Several
+of our men fell, among them the round-faced officer who had marched so
+gaily and complacently. But at the moment the first report was heard,
+Bagration looked round and shouted, "Hurrah!"
+
+"Hurrah—ah!—ah!" rang a long-drawn shout from our ranks, and passing
+Bagration and racing one another they rushed in an irregular but joyous
+and eager crowd down the hill at their disordered foe.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+The attack of the Sixth Chasseurs secured the retreat of our right
+flank. In the center Tushin's forgotten battery, which had managed to
+set fire to the Schon Grabern village, delayed the French advance. The
+French were putting out the fire which the wind was spreading, and thus
+gave us time to retreat. The retirement of the center to the other side
+of the dip in the ground at the rear was hurried and noisy, but the
+different companies did not get mixed. But our left—which consisted of
+the Azov and Podolsk infantry and the Pávlograd hussars—was
+simultaneously attacked and outflanked by superior French forces under
+Lannes and was thrown into confusion. Bagration had sent Zherkov to the
+general commanding that left flank with orders to retreat immediately.
+
+Zherkov, not removing his hand from his cap, turned his horse about and
+galloped off. But no sooner had he left Bagration than his courage
+failed him. He was seized by panic and could not go where it was
+dangerous.
+
+Having reached the left flank, instead of going to the front where the
+firing was, he began to look for the general and his staff where they
+could not possibly be, and so did not deliver the order.
+
+The command of the left flank belonged by seniority to the commander of
+the regiment Kutúzov had reviewed at Braunau and in which Dólokhov was
+serving as a private. But the command of the extreme left flank had been
+assigned to the commander of the Pávlograd regiment in which Rostóv was
+serving, and a misunderstanding arose. The two commanders were much
+exasperated with one another and, long after the action had begun on the
+right flank and the French were already advancing, were engaged in
+discussion with the sole object of offending one another. But the
+regiments, both cavalry and infantry, were by no means ready for the
+impending action. From privates to general they were not expecting a
+battle and were engaged in peaceful occupations, the cavalry feeding the
+horses and the infantry collecting wood.
+
+"He higher iss dan I in rank," said the German colonel of the hussars,
+flushing and addressing an adjutant who had ridden up, "so let him do
+what he vill, but I cannot sacrifice my hussars... Bugler, sount ze
+retreat!"
+
+But haste was becoming imperative. Cannon and musketry, mingling
+together, thundered on the right and in the center, while the capotes of
+Lannes' sharpshooters were already seen crossing the milldam and forming
+up within twice the range of a musket shot. The general in command of
+the infantry went toward his horse with jerky steps, and having mounted
+drew himself up very straight and tall and rode to the Pávlograd
+commander. The commanders met with polite bows but with secret
+malevolence in their hearts.
+
+"Once again, Colonel," said the general, "I can't leave half my men in
+the wood. I beg of you, I beg of you," he repeated, "to occupy the
+position and prepare for an attack."
+
+"I peg of you yourself not to mix in vot is not your business!" suddenly
+replied the irate colonel. "If you vere in the cavalry..."
+
+"I am not in the cavalry, Colonel, but I am a Russian general and if you
+are not aware of the fact..."
+
+"Quite avare, your excellency," suddenly shouted the colonel, touching
+his horse and turning purple in the face. "Vill you be so goot to come
+to ze front and see dat zis position iss no goot? I don't vish to
+destroy my men for your pleasure!"
+
+"You forget yourself, Colonel. I am not considering my own pleasure and
+I won't allow it to be said!"
+
+Taking the colonel's outburst as a challenge to his courage, the general
+expanded his chest and rode, frowning, beside him to the front line, as
+if their differences would be settled there amongst the bullets. They
+reached the front, several bullets sped over them, and they halted in
+silence. There was nothing fresh to be seen from the line, for from
+where they had been before it had been evident that it was impossible
+for cavalry to act among the bushes and broken ground, as well as that
+the French were outflanking our left. The general and colonel looked
+sternly and significantly at one another like two fighting cocks
+preparing for battle, each vainly trying to detect signs of cowardice in
+the other. Both passed the examination successfully. As there was
+nothing to be said, and neither wished to give occasion for it to be
+alleged that he had been the first to leave the range of fire, they
+would have remained there for a long time testing each other's courage
+had it not been that just then they heard the rattle of musketry and a
+muffled shout almost behind them in the wood. The French had attacked
+the men collecting wood in the copse. It was no longer possible for the
+hussars to retreat with the infantry. They were cut off from the line of
+retreat on the left by the French. However inconvenient the position, it
+was now necessary to attack in order to cut a way through for
+themselves.
+
+The squadron in which Rostóv was serving had scarcely time to mount
+before it was halted facing the enemy. Again, as at the Enns bridge,
+there was nothing between the squadron and the enemy, and again that
+terrible dividing line of uncertainty and fear—resembling the line
+separating the living from the dead—lay between them. All were conscious
+of this unseen line, and the question whether they would cross it or
+not, and how they would cross it, agitated them all.
+
+The colonel rode to the front, angrily gave some reply to questions put
+to him by the officers, and, like a man desperately insisting on having
+his own way, gave an order. No one said anything definite, but the rumor
+of an attack spread through the squadron. The command to form up rang
+out and the sabers whizzed as they were drawn from their scabbards.
+Still no one moved. The troops of the left flank, infantry and hussars
+alike, felt that the commander did not himself know what to do, and this
+irresolution communicated itself to the men.
+
+"If only they would be quick!" thought Rostóv, feeling that at last the
+time had come to experience the joy of an attack of which he had so
+often heard from his fellow hussars.
+
+"Fo'ward, with God, lads!" rang out Denisov's voice. "At a twot
+fo'ward!"
+
+The horses' croups began to sway in the front line. Rook pulled at the
+reins and started of his own accord.
+
+Before him, on the right, Rostóv saw the front lines of his hussars and
+still farther ahead a dark line which he could not see distinctly but
+took to be the enemy. Shots could be heard, but some way off.
+
+"Faster!" came the word of command, and Rostóv felt Rook's flanks
+drooping as he broke into a gallop.
+
+Rostóv anticipated his horse's movements and became more and more
+elated. He had noticed a solitary tree ahead of him. This tree had been
+in the middle of the line that had seemed so terrible—and now he had
+crossed that line and not only was there nothing terrible, but
+everything was becoming more and more happy and animated. "Oh, how I
+will slash at him!" thought Rostóv, gripping the hilt of his saber.
+
+"Hur-a-a-a-ah!" came a roar of voices. "Let anyone come my way now,"
+thought Rostóv driving his spurs into Rook and letting him go at a full
+gallop so that he outstripped the others. Ahead, the enemy was already
+visible. Suddenly something like a birch broom seemed to sweep over the
+squadron. Rostóv raised his saber, ready to strike, but at that instant
+the trooper Nikitenko, who was galloping ahead, shot away from him, and
+Rostóv felt as in a dream that he continued to be carried forward with
+unnatural speed but yet stayed on the same spot. From behind him
+Bondarchuk, an hussar he knew, jolted against him and looked angrily at
+him. Bondarchuk's horse swerved and galloped past.
+
+"How is it I am not moving? I have fallen, I am killed!" Rostóv asked
+and answered at the same instant. He was alone in the middle of a field.
+Instead of the moving horses and hussars' backs, he saw nothing before
+him but the motionless earth and the stubble around him. There was warm
+blood under his arm. "No, I am wounded and the horse is killed." Rook
+tried to rise on his forelegs but fell back, pinning his rider's leg.
+Blood was flowing from his head; he struggled but could not rise. Rostóv
+also tried to rise but fell back, his sabretache having become entangled
+in the saddle. Where our men were, and where the French, he did not
+know. There was no one near.
+
+Having disentangled his leg, he rose. "Where, on which side, was now the
+line that had so sharply divided the two armies?" he asked himself and
+could not answer. "Can something bad have happened to me?" he wondered
+as he got up: and at that moment he felt that something superfluous was
+hanging on his benumbed left arm. The wrist felt as if it were not his.
+He examined his hand carefully, vainly trying to find blood on it. "Ah,
+here are people coming," he thought joyfully, seeing some men running
+toward him. "They will help me!" In front came a man wearing a strange
+shako and a blue cloak, swarthy, sunburned, and with a hooked nose. Then
+came two more, and many more running behind. One of them said something
+strange, not in Russian. In among the hindmost of these men wearing
+similar shakos was a Russian hussar. He was being held by the arms and
+his horse was being led behind him.
+
+"It must be one of ours, a prisoner. Yes. Can it be that they will take
+me too? Who are these men?" thought Rostóv, scarcely believing his eyes.
+"Can they be French?" He looked at the approaching Frenchmen, and though
+but a moment before he had been galloping to get at them and hack them
+to pieces, their proximity now seemed so awful that he could not believe
+his eyes. "Who are they? Why are they running? Can they be coming at me?
+And why? To kill me? Me whom everyone is so fond of?" He remembered his
+mother's love for him, and his family's, and his friends', and the
+enemy's intention to kill him seemed impossible. "But perhaps they may
+do it!" For more than ten seconds he stood not moving from the spot or
+realizing the situation. The foremost Frenchman, the one with the hooked
+nose, was already so close that the expression of his face could be
+seen. And the excited, alien face of that man, his bayonet hanging down,
+holding his breath, and running so lightly, frightened Rostóv. He seized
+his pistol and, instead of firing it, flung it at the Frenchman and ran
+with all his might toward the bushes. He did not now run with the
+feeling of doubt and conflict with which he had trodden the Enns bridge,
+but with the feeling of a hare fleeing from the hounds. One single
+sentiment, that of fear for his young and happy life, possessed his
+whole being. Rapidly leaping the furrows, he fled across the field with
+the impetuosity he used to show at catchplay, now and then turning his
+good-natured, pale, young face to look back. A shudder of terror went
+through him: "No, better not look," he thought, but having reached the
+bushes he glanced round once more. The French had fallen behind, and
+just as he looked round the first man changed his run to a walk and,
+turning, shouted something loudly to a comrade farther back. Rostóv
+paused. "No, there's some mistake," thought he. "They can't have wanted
+to kill me." But at the same time, his left arm felt as heavy as if a
+seventy-pound weight were tied to it. He could run no more. The
+Frenchman also stopped and took aim. Rostóv closed his eyes and stooped
+down. One bullet and then another whistled past him. He mustered his
+last remaining strength, took hold of his left hand with his right, and
+reached the bushes. Behind these were some Russian sharpshooters.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+The infantry regiments that had been caught unawares in the outskirts of
+the wood ran out of it, the different companies getting mixed, and
+retreated as a disorderly crowd. One soldier, in his fear, uttered the
+senseless cry, "Cut off!" that is so terrible in battle, and that word
+infected the whole crowd with a feeling of panic.
+
+"Surrounded! Cut off? We're lost!" shouted the fugitives.
+
+The moment he heard the firing and the cry from behind, the general
+realized that something dreadful had happened to his regiment, and the
+thought that he, an exemplary officer of many years' service who had
+never been to blame, might be held responsible at headquarters for
+negligence or inefficiency so staggered him that, forgetting the
+recalcitrant cavalry colonel, his own dignity as a general, and above
+all quite forgetting the danger and all regard for self-preservation, he
+clutched the crupper of his saddle and, spurring his horse, galloped to
+the regiment under a hail of bullets which fell around, but fortunately
+missed him. His one desire was to know what was happening and at any
+cost correct, or remedy, the mistake if he had made one, so that he, an
+exemplary officer of twenty-two years' service, who had never been
+censured, should not be held to blame.
+
+Having galloped safely through the French, he reached a field behind the
+copse across which our men, regardless of orders, were running and
+descending the valley. That moment of moral hesitation which decides the
+fate of battles had arrived. Would this disorderly crowd of soldiers
+attend to the voice of their commander, or would they, disregarding him,
+continue their flight? Despite his desperate shouts that used to seem so
+terrible to the soldiers, despite his furious purple countenance
+distorted out of all likeness to his former self, and the flourishing of
+his saber, the soldiers all continued to run, talking, firing into the
+air, and disobeying orders. The moral hesitation which decided the fate
+of battles was evidently culminating in a panic.
+
+The general had a fit of coughing as a result of shouting and of the
+powder smoke and stopped in despair. Everything seemed lost. But at that
+moment the French who were attacking, suddenly and without any apparent
+reason, ran back and disappeared from the outskirts, and Russian
+sharpshooters showed themselves in the copse. It was Timókhin's company,
+which alone had maintained its order in the wood and, having lain in
+ambush in a ditch, now attacked the French unexpectedly. Timókhin, armed
+only with a sword, had rushed at the enemy with such a desperate cry and
+such mad, drunken determination that, taken by surprise, the French had
+thrown down their muskets and run. Dólokhov, running beside Timókhin,
+killed a Frenchman at close quarters and was the first to seize the
+surrendering French officer by his collar. Our fugitives returned, the
+battalions re-formed, and the French who had nearly cut our left flank
+in half were for the moment repulsed. Our reserve units were able to
+join up, and the fight was at an end. The regimental commander and Major
+Ekonomov had stopped beside a bridge, letting the retreating companies
+pass by them, when a soldier came up and took hold of the commander's
+stirrup, almost leaning against him. The man was wearing a bluish coat
+of broadcloth, he had no knapsack or cap, his head was bandaged, and
+over his shoulder a French munition pouch was slung. He had an officer's
+sword in his hand. The soldier was pale, his blue eyes looked impudently
+into the commander's face, and his lips were smiling. Though the
+commander was occupied in giving instructions to Major Ekonomov, he
+could not help taking notice of the soldier.
+
+"Your excellency, here are two trophies," said Dólokhov, pointing to the
+French sword and pouch. "I have taken an officer prisoner. I stopped the
+company." Dólokhov breathed heavily from weariness and spoke in abrupt
+sentences. "The whole company can bear witness. I beg you will remember
+this, your excellency!"
+
+"All right, all right," replied the commander, and turned to Major
+Ekonomov.
+
+But Dólokhov did not go away; he untied the handkerchief around his
+head, pulled it off, and showed the blood congealed on his hair.
+
+"A bayonet wound. I remained at the front. Remember, your excellency!"
+
+Tushin's battery had been forgotten and only at the very end of the
+action did Prince Bagration, still hearing the cannonade in the center,
+send his orderly staff officer, and later Prince Andrew also, to order
+the battery to retire as quickly as possible. When the supports attached
+to Tushin's battery had been moved away in the middle of the action by
+someone's order, the battery had continued firing and was only not
+captured by the French because the enemy could not surmise that anyone
+could have the effrontery to continue firing from four quite undefended
+guns. On the contrary, the energetic action of that battery led the
+French to suppose that here—in the center—the main Russian forces were
+concentrated. Twice they had attempted to attack this point, but on each
+occasion had been driven back by grapeshot from the four isolated guns
+on the hillock.
+
+Soon after Prince Bagration had left him, Tushin had succeeded in
+setting fire to Schon Grabern.
+
+"Look at them scurrying! It's burning! Just see the smoke! Fine! Grand!
+Look at the smoke, the smoke!" exclaimed the artillerymen, brightening
+up.
+
+All the guns, without waiting for orders, were being fired in the
+direction of the conflagration. As if urging each other on, the soldiers
+cried at each shot: "Fine! That's good! Look at it... Grand!" The fire,
+fanned by the breeze, was rapidly spreading. The French columns that had
+advanced beyond the village went back; but as though in revenge for this
+failure, the enemy placed ten guns to the right of the village and began
+firing them at Tushin's battery.
+
+In their childlike glee, aroused by the fire and their luck in
+successfully cannonading the French, our artillerymen only noticed this
+battery when two balls, and then four more, fell among our guns, one
+knocking over two horses and another tearing off a munition-wagon
+driver's leg. Their spirits once roused were, however, not diminished,
+but only changed character. The horses were replaced by others from a
+reserve gun carriage, the wounded were carried away, and the four guns
+were turned against the ten-gun battery. Tushin's companion officer had
+been killed at the beginning of the engagement and within an hour
+seventeen of the forty men of the guns' crews had been disabled, but the
+artillerymen were still as merry and lively as ever. Twice they noticed
+the French appearing below them, and then they fired grapeshot at them.
+
+Little Tushin, moving feebly and awkwardly, kept telling his orderly to
+"refill my pipe for that one!" and then, scattering sparks from it, ran
+forward shading his eyes with his small hand to look at the French.
+
+"Smack at 'em, lads!" he kept saying, seizing the guns by the wheels and
+working the screws himself.
+
+Amid the smoke, deafened by the incessant reports which always made him
+jump, Tushin not taking his pipe from his mouth ran from gun to gun, now
+aiming, now counting the charges, now giving orders about replacing dead
+or wounded horses and harnessing fresh ones, and shouting in his feeble
+voice, so high pitched and irresolute. His face grew more and more
+animated. Only when a man was killed or wounded did he frown and turn
+away from the sight, shouting angrily at the men who, as is always the
+case, hesitated about lifting the injured or dead. The soldiers, for the
+most part handsome fellows and, as is always the case in an artillery
+company, a head and shoulders taller and twice as broad as their
+officer—all looked at their commander like children in an embarrassing
+situation, and the expression on his face was invariably reflected on
+theirs.
+
+Owing to the terrible uproar and the necessity for concentration and
+activity, Tushin did not experience the slightest unpleasant sense of
+fear, and the thought that he might be killed or badly wounded never
+occurred to him. On the contrary, he became more and more elated. It
+seemed to him that it was a very long time ago, almost a day, since he
+had first seen the enemy and fired the first shot, and that the corner
+of the field he stood on was well-known and familiar ground. Though he
+thought of everything, considered everything, and did everything the
+best of officers could do in his position, he was in a state akin to
+feverish delirium or drunkenness.
+
+From the deafening sounds of his own guns around him, the whistle and
+thud of the enemy's cannon balls, from the flushed and perspiring faces
+of the crew bustling round the guns, from the sight of the blood of men
+and horses, from the little puffs of smoke on the enemy's side (always
+followed by a ball flying past and striking the earth, a man, a gun, a
+horse), from the sight of all these things a fantastic world of his own
+had taken possession of his brain and at that moment afforded him
+pleasure. The enemy's guns were in his fancy not guns but pipes from
+which occasional puffs were blown by an invisible smoker.
+
+"There... he's puffing again," muttered Tushin to himself, as a small
+cloud rose from the hill and was borne in a streak to the left by the
+wind.
+
+"Now look out for the ball... we'll throw it back."
+
+"What do you want, your honor?" asked an artilleryman, standing close
+by, who heard him muttering.
+
+"Nothing... only a shell..." he answered.
+
+"Come along, our Matvevna!" he said to himself. "Matvevna" * was the
+name his fancy gave to the farthest gun of the battery, which was large
+and of an old pattern. The French swarming round their guns seemed to
+him like ants. In that world, the handsome drunkard Number One of the
+second gun's crew was "uncle"; Tushin looked at him more often than at
+anyone else and took delight in his every movement. The sound of
+musketry at the foot of the hill, now diminishing, now increasing,
+seemed like someone's breathing. He listened intently to the ebb and
+flow of these sounds.
+
+* Daughter of Matthew.
+
+"Ah! Breathing again, breathing!" he muttered to himself.
+
+He imagined himself as an enormously tall, powerful man who was throwing
+cannon balls at the French with both hands.
+
+"Now then, Matvevna, dear old lady, don't let me down!" he was saying as
+he moved from the gun, when a strange, unfamiliar voice called above his
+head: "Captain Tushin! Captain!"
+
+Tushin turned round in dismay. It was the staff officer who had turned
+him out of the booth at Grunth. He was shouting in a gasping voice:
+
+"Are you mad? You have twice been ordered to retreat, and you..."
+
+"Why are they down on me?" thought Tushin, looking in alarm at his
+superior.
+
+"I... don't..." he muttered, holding up two fingers to his cap. "I..."
+
+But the staff officer did not finish what he wanted to say. A cannon
+ball, flying close to him, caused him to duck and bend over his horse.
+He paused, and just as he was about to say something more, another ball
+stopped him. He turned his horse and galloped off.
+
+"Retire! All to retire!" he shouted from a distance.
+
+The soldiers laughed. A moment later, an adjutant arrived with the same
+order.
+
+It was Prince Andrew. The first thing he saw on riding up to the space
+where Tushin's guns were stationed was an unharnessed horse with a
+broken leg, that lay screaming piteously beside the harnessed horses.
+Blood was gushing from its leg as from a spring. Among the limbers lay
+several dead men. One ball after another passed over as he approached
+and he felt a nervous shudder run down his spine. But the mere thought
+of being afraid roused him again. "I cannot be afraid," thought he, and
+dismounted slowly among the guns. He delivered the order and did not
+leave the battery. He decided to have the guns removed from their
+positions and withdrawn in his presence. Together with Tushin, stepping
+across the bodies and under a terrible fire from the French, he attended
+to the removal of the guns.
+
+"A staff officer was here a minute ago, but skipped off," said an
+artilleryman to Prince Andrew. "Not like your honor!"
+
+Prince Andrew said nothing to Tushin. They were both so busy as to seem
+not to notice one another. When having limbered up the only two cannon
+that remained uninjured out of the four, they began moving down the hill
+(one shattered gun and one unicorn were left behind), Prince Andrew rode
+up to Tushin.
+
+"Well, till we meet again..." he said, holding out his hand to Tushin.
+
+"Good-bye, my dear fellow," said Tushin. "Dear soul! Good-bye, my dear
+fellow!" and for some unknown reason tears suddenly filled his eyes.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+The wind had fallen and black clouds, merging with the powder smoke,
+hung low over the field of battle on the horizon. It was growing dark
+and the glow of two conflagrations was the more conspicuous. The
+cannonade was dying down, but the rattle of musketry behind and on the
+right sounded oftener and nearer. As soon as Tushin with his guns,
+continually driving round or coming upon wounded men, was out of range
+of fire and had descended into the dip, he was met by some of the staff,
+among them the staff officer and Zherkov, who had been twice sent to
+Tushin's battery but had never reached it. Interrupting one another,
+they all gave, and transmitted, orders as to how to proceed,
+reprimanding and reproaching him. Tushin gave no orders, and,
+silently—fearing to speak because at every word he felt ready to weep
+without knowing why—rode behind on his artillery nag. Though the orders
+were to abandon the wounded, many of them dragged themselves after
+troops and begged for seats on the gun carriages. The jaunty infantry
+officer who just before the battle had rushed out of Tushin's wattle
+shed was laid, with a bullet in his stomach, on "Matvevna's" carriage.
+At the foot of the hill, a pale hussar cadet, supporting one hand with
+the other, came up to Tushin and asked for a seat.
+
+"Captain, for God's sake! I've hurt my arm," he said timidly. "For God's
+sake... I can't walk. For God's sake!"
+
+It was plain that this cadet had already repeatedly asked for a lift and
+been refused. He asked in a hesitating, piteous voice.
+
+"Tell them to give me a seat, for God's sake!"
+
+"Give him a seat," said Tushin. "Lay a cloak for him to sit on, lad," he
+said, addressing his favorite soldier. "And where is the wounded
+officer?"
+
+"He has been set down. He died," replied someone.
+
+"Help him up. Sit down, dear fellow, sit down! Spread out the cloak,
+Antonov."
+
+The cadet was Rostóv. With one hand he supported the other; he was pale
+and his jaw trembled, shivering feverishly. He was placed on "Matvevna,"
+the gun from which they had removed the dead officer. The cloak they
+spread under him was wet with blood which stained his breeches and arm.
+
+"What, are you wounded, my lad?" said Tushin, approaching the gun on
+which Rostóv sat.
+
+"No, it's a sprain."
+
+"Then what is this blood on the gun carriage?" inquired Tushin.
+
+"It was the officer, your honor, stained it," answered the artilleryman,
+wiping away the blood with his coat sleeve, as if apologizing for the
+state of his gun.
+
+It was all that they could do to get the guns up the rise aided by the
+infantry, and having reached the village of Gruntersdorf they halted. It
+had grown so dark that one could not distinguish the uniforms ten paces
+off, and the firing had begun to subside. Suddenly, near by on the
+right, shouting and firing were again heard. Flashes of shot gleamed in
+the darkness. This was the last French attack and was met by soldiers
+who had sheltered in the village houses. They all rushed out of the
+village again, but Tushin's guns could not move, and the artillerymen,
+Tushin, and the cadet exchanged silent glances as they awaited their
+fate. The firing died down and soldiers, talking eagerly, streamed out
+of a side street.
+
+"Not hurt, Petrov?" asked one.
+
+"We've given it 'em hot, mate! They won't make another push now," said
+another.
+
+"You couldn't see a thing. How they shot at their own fellows! Nothing
+could be seen. Pitch-dark, brother! Isn't there something to drink?"
+
+The French had been repulsed for the last time. And again and again in
+the complete darkness Tushin's guns moved forward, surrounded by the
+humming infantry as by a frame.
+
+In the darkness, it seemed as though a gloomy unseen river was flowing
+always in one direction, humming with whispers and talk and the sound of
+hoofs and wheels. Amid the general rumble, the groans and voices of the
+wounded were more distinctly heard than any other sound in the darkness
+of the night. The gloom that enveloped the army was filled with their
+groans, which seemed to melt into one with the darkness of the night.
+After a while the moving mass became agitated, someone rode past on a
+white horse followed by his suite, and said something in passing: "What
+did he say? Where to, now? Halt, is it? Did he thank us?" came eager
+questions from all sides. The whole moving mass began pressing closer
+together and a report spread that they were ordered to halt: evidently
+those in front had halted. All remained where they were in the middle of
+the muddy road.
+
+Fires were lighted and the talk became more audible. Captain Tushin,
+having given orders to his company, sent a soldier to find a dressing
+station or a doctor for the cadet, and sat down by a bonfire the
+soldiers had kindled on the road. Rostóv, too, dragged himself to the
+fire. From pain, cold, and damp, a feverish shivering shook his whole
+body. Drowsiness was irresistibly mastering him, but he kept awake by an
+excruciating pain in his arm, for which he could find no satisfactory
+position. He kept closing his eyes and then again looking at the fire,
+which seemed to him dazzlingly red, and at the feeble, round-shouldered
+figure of Tushin who was sitting cross-legged like a Turk beside him.
+Tushin's large, kind, intelligent eyes were fixed with sympathy and
+commiseration on Rostóv, who saw that Tushin with his whole heart wished
+to help him but could not.
+
+From all sides were heard the footsteps and talk of the infantry, who
+were walking, driving past, and settling down all around. The sound of
+voices, the tramping feet, the horses' hoofs moving in mud, the
+crackling of wood fires near and afar, merged into one tremulous rumble.
+
+It was no longer, as before, a dark, unseen river flowing through the
+gloom, but a dark sea swelling and gradually subsiding after a storm.
+Rostóv looked at and listened listlessly to what passed before and
+around him. An infantryman came to the fire, squatted on his heels, held
+his hands to the blaze, and turned away his face.
+
+"You don't mind your honor?" he asked Tushin. "I've lost my company,
+your honor. I don't know where... such bad luck!"
+
+With the soldier, an infantry officer with a bandaged cheek came up to
+the bonfire, and addressing Tushin asked him to have the guns moved a
+trifle to let a wagon go past. After he had gone, two soldiers rushed to
+the campfire. They were quarreling and fighting desperately, each trying
+to snatch from the other a boot they were both holding on to.
+
+"You picked it up?... I dare say! You're very smart!" one of them
+shouted hoarsely.
+
+Then a thin, pale soldier, his neck bandaged with a bloodstained leg
+band, came up and in angry tones asked the artillerymen for water.
+
+"Must one die like a dog?" said he.
+
+Tushin told them to give the man some water. Then a cheerful soldier ran
+up, begging a little fire for the infantry.
+
+"A nice little hot torch for the infantry! Good luck to you, fellow
+countrymen. Thanks for the fire—we'll return it with interest," said he,
+carrying away into the darkness a glowing stick.
+
+Next came four soldiers, carrying something heavy on a cloak, and passed
+by the fire. One of them stumbled.
+
+"Who the devil has put the logs on the road?" snarled he.
+
+"He's dead—why carry him?" said another.
+
+"Shut up!"
+
+And they disappeared into the darkness with their load.
+
+"Still aching?" Tushin asked Rostóv in a whisper.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Your honor, you're wanted by the general. He is in the hut here," said
+a gunner, coming up to Tushin.
+
+"Coming, friend."
+
+Tushin rose and, buttoning his greatcoat and pulling it straight, walked
+away from the fire.
+
+Not far from the artillery campfire, in a hut that had been prepared for
+him, Prince Bagration sat at dinner, talking with some commanding
+officers who had gathered at his quarters. The little old man with the
+half-closed eyes was there greedily gnawing a mutton bone, and the
+general who had served blamelessly for twenty-two years, flushed by a
+glass of vodka and the dinner; and the staff officer with the signet
+ring, and Zherkov, uneasily glancing at them all, and Prince Andrew,
+pale, with compressed lips and feverishly glittering eyes.
+
+In a corner of the hut stood a standard captured from the French, and
+the accountant with the naïve face was feeling its texture, shaking his
+head in perplexity—perhaps because the banner really interested him,
+perhaps because it was hard for him, hungry as he was, to look on at a
+dinner where there was no place for him. In the next hut there was a
+French colonel who had been taken prisoner by our dragoons. Our officers
+were flocking in to look at him. Prince Bagration was thanking the
+individual commanders and inquiring into details of the action and our
+losses. The general whose regiment had been inspected at Braunau was
+informing the prince that as soon as the action began he had withdrawn
+from the wood, mustered the men who were woodcutting, and, allowing the
+French to pass him, had made a bayonet charge with two battalions and
+had broken up the French troops.
+
+"When I saw, your excellency, that their first battalion was
+disorganized, I stopped in the road and thought: 'I'll let them come on
+and will meet them with the fire of the whole battalion'—and that's what
+I did."
+
+The general had so wished to do this and was so sorry he had not managed
+to do it that it seemed to him as if it had really happened. Perhaps it
+might really have been so? Could one possibly make out amid all that
+confusion what did or did not happen?
+
+"By the way, your excellency, I should inform you," he
+continued—remembering Dólokhov's conversation with Kutúzov and his last
+interview with the gentleman-ranker—"that Private Dólokhov, who was
+reduced to the ranks, took a French officer prisoner in my presence and
+particularly distinguished himself."
+
+"I saw the Pávlograd hussars attack there, your excellency," chimed in
+Zherkov, looking uneasily around. He had not seen the hussars all that
+day, but had heard about them from an infantry officer. "They broke up
+two squares, your excellency."
+
+Several of those present smiled at Zherkov's words, expecting one of his
+usual jokes, but noticing that what he was saying redounded to the glory
+of our arms and of the day's work, they assumed a serious expression,
+though many of them knew that what he was saying was a lie devoid of any
+foundation. Prince Bagration turned to the old colonel:
+
+"Gentlemen, I thank you all; all arms have behaved heroically: infantry,
+cavalry, and artillery. How was it that two guns were abandoned in the
+center?" he inquired, searching with his eyes for someone. (Prince
+Bagration did not ask about the guns on the left flank; he knew that all
+the guns there had been abandoned at the very beginning of the action.)
+"I think I sent you?" he added, turning to the staff officer on duty.
+
+"One was damaged," answered the staff officer, "and the other I can't
+understand. I was there all the time giving orders and had only just
+left.... It is true that it was hot there," he added, modestly.
+
+Someone mentioned that Captain Tushin was bivouacking close to the
+village and had already been sent for.
+
+"Oh, but you were there?" said Prince Bagration, addressing Prince
+Andrew.
+
+"Of course, we only just missed one another," said the staff officer,
+with a smile to Bolkónski.
+
+"I had not the pleasure of seeing you," said Prince Andrew, coldly and
+abruptly.
+
+All were silent. Tushin appeared at the threshold and made his way
+timidly from behind the backs of the generals. As he stepped past the
+generals in the crowded hut, feeling embarrassed as he always was by the
+sight of his superiors, he did not notice the staff of the banner and
+stumbled over it. Several of those present laughed.
+
+"How was it a gun was abandoned?" asked Bagration, frowning, not so much
+at the captain as at those who were laughing, among whom Zherkov laughed
+loudest.
+
+Only now, when he was confronted by the stern authorities, did his guilt
+and the disgrace of having lost two guns and yet remaining alive present
+themselves to Tushin in all their horror. He had been so excited that he
+had not thought about it until that moment. The officers' laughter
+confused him still more. He stood before Bagration with his lower jaw
+trembling and was hardly able to mutter: "I don't know... your
+excellency... I had no men... your excellency."
+
+"You might have taken some from the covering troops."
+
+Tushin did not say that there were no covering troops, though that was
+perfectly true. He was afraid of getting some other officer into
+trouble, and silently fixed his eyes on Bagration as a schoolboy who has
+blundered looks at an examiner.
+
+The silence lasted some time. Prince Bagration, apparently not wishing
+to be severe, found nothing to say; the others did not venture to
+intervene. Prince Andrew looked at Tushin from under his brows and his
+fingers twitched nervously.
+
+"Your excellency!" Prince Andrew broke the silence with his abrupt
+voice, "you were pleased to send me to Captain Tushin's battery. I went
+there and found two thirds of the men and horses knocked out, two guns
+smashed, and no supports at all."
+
+Prince Bagration and Tushin looked with equal intentness at Bolkónski,
+who spoke with suppressed agitation.
+
+"And, if your excellency will allow me to express my opinion," he
+continued, "we owe today's success chiefly to the action of that battery
+and the heroic endurance of Captain Tushin and his company," and without
+awaiting a reply, Prince Andrew rose and left the table.
+
+Prince Bagration looked at Tushin, evidently reluctant to show distrust
+in Bolkónski's emphatic opinion yet not feeling able fully to credit it,
+bent his head, and told Tushin that he could go. Prince Andrew went out
+with him.
+
+"Thank you; you saved me, my dear fellow!" said Tushin.
+
+Prince Andrew gave him a look, but said nothing and went away. He felt
+sad and depressed. It was all so strange, so unlike what he had hoped.
+
+"Who are they? Why are they here? What do they want? And when will all
+this end?" thought Rostóv, looking at the changing shadows before him.
+The pain in his arm became more and more intense. Irresistible
+drowsiness overpowered him, red rings danced before his eyes, and the
+impression of those voices and faces and a sense of loneliness merged
+with the physical pain. It was they, these soldiers—wounded and
+unwounded—it was they who were crushing, weighing down, and twisting the
+sinews and scorching the flesh of his sprained arm and shoulder. To rid
+himself of them he closed his eyes.
+
+For a moment he dozed, but in that short interval innumerable things
+appeared to him in a dream: his mother and her large white hand, Sónya's
+thin little shoulders, Natásha's eyes and laughter, Denisov with his
+voice and mustache, and Telyanin and all that affair with Telyanin and
+Bogdanich. That affair was the same thing as this soldier with the harsh
+voice, and it was that affair and this soldier that were so agonizingly,
+incessantly pulling and pressing his arm and always dragging it in one
+direction. He tried to get away from them, but they would not for an
+instant let his shoulder move a hair's breadth. It would not ache—it
+would be well—if only they did not pull it, but it was impossible to get
+rid of them.
+
+He opened his eyes and looked up. The black canopy of night hung less
+than a yard above the glow of the charcoal. Flakes of falling snow were
+fluttering in that light. Tushin had not returned, the doctor had not
+come. He was alone now, except for a soldier who was sitting naked at
+the other side of the fire, warming his thin yellow body.
+
+"Nobody wants me!" thought Rostóv. "There is no one to help me or pity
+me. Yet I was once at home, strong, happy, and loved." He sighed and,
+doing so, groaned involuntarily.
+
+"Eh, is anything hurting you?" asked the soldier, shaking his shirt out
+over the fire, and not waiting for an answer he gave a grunt and added:
+"What a lot of men have been crippled today—frightful!"
+
+Rostóv did not listen to the soldier. He looked at the snowflakes
+fluttering above the fire and remembered a Russian winter at his warm,
+bright home, his fluffy fur coat, his quickly gliding sleigh, his
+healthy body, and all the affection and care of his family. "And why did
+I come here?" he wondered.
+
+Next day the French army did not renew their attack, and the remnant of
+Bagration's detachment was reunited to Kutúzov's army.
+
+
+
+
+
+BOOK THREE: 1805
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+Prince Vasíli was not a man who deliberately thought out his plans.
+Still less did he think of injuring anyone for his own advantage. He was
+merely a man of the world who had got on and to whom getting on had
+become a habit. Schemes and devices for which he never rightly accounted
+to himself, but which formed the whole interest of his life, were
+constantly shaping themselves in his mind, arising from the
+circumstances and persons he met. Of these plans he had not merely one
+or two in his head but dozens, some only beginning to form themselves,
+some approaching achievement, and some in course of disintegration. He
+did not, for instance, say to himself: "This man now has influence, I
+must gain his confidence and friendship and through him obtain a special
+grant." Nor did he say to himself: "Pierre is a rich man, I must entice
+him to marry my daughter and lend me the forty thousand rubles I need."
+But when he came across a man of position his instinct immediately told
+him that this man could be useful, and without any premeditation Prince
+Vasíli took the first opportunity to gain his confidence, flatter him,
+become intimate with him, and finally make his request.
+
+He had Pierre at hand in Moscow and procured for him an appointment as
+Gentleman of the Bedchamber, which at that time conferred the status of
+Councilor of State, and insisted on the young man accompanying him to
+Petersburg and staying at his house. With apparent absent-mindedness,
+yet with unhesitating assurance that he was doing the right thing,
+Prince Vasíli did everything to get Pierre to marry his daughter. Had he
+thought out his plans beforehand he could not have been so natural and
+shown such unaffected familiarity in intercourse with everybody both
+above and below him in social standing. Something always drew him toward
+those richer and more powerful than himself and he had rare skill in
+seizing the most opportune moment for making use of people.
+
+Pierre, on unexpectedly becoming Count Bezúkhov and a rich man, felt
+himself after his recent loneliness and freedom from cares so beset and
+preoccupied that only in bed was he able to be by himself. He had to
+sign papers, to present himself at government offices, the purpose of
+which was not clear to him, to question his chief steward, to visit his
+estate near Moscow, and to receive many people who formerly did not even
+wish to know of his existence but would now have been offended and
+grieved had he chosen not to see them. These different
+people—businessmen, relations, and acquaintances alike—were all disposed
+to treat the young heir in the most friendly and flattering manner: they
+were all evidently firmly convinced of Pierre's noble qualities. He was
+always hearing such words as: "With your remarkable kindness," or, "With
+your excellent heart," "You are yourself so honorable Count," or, "Were
+he as clever as you," and so on, till he began sincerely to believe in
+his own exceptional kindness and extraordinary intelligence, the more so
+as in the depth of his heart it had always seemed to him that he really
+was very kind and intelligent. Even people who had formerly been
+spiteful toward him and evidently unfriendly now became gentle and
+affectionate. The angry eldest princess, with the long waist and hair
+plastered down like a doll's, had come into Pierre's room after the
+funeral. With drooping eyes and frequent blushes she told him she was
+very sorry about their past misunderstandings and did not now feel she
+had a right to ask him for anything, except only for permission, after
+the blow she had received, to remain for a few weeks longer in the house
+she so loved and where she had sacrificed so much. She could not refrain
+from weeping at these words. Touched that this statuesque princess could
+so change, Pierre took her hand and begged her forgiveness, without
+knowing what for. From that day the eldest princess quite changed toward
+Pierre and began knitting a striped scarf for him.
+
+"Do this for my sake, mon cher; after all, she had to put up with a
+great deal from the deceased," said Prince Vasíli to him, handing him a
+deed to sign for the princess' benefit.
+
+Prince Vasíli had come to the conclusion that it was necessary to throw
+this bone—a bill for thirty thousand rubles—to the poor princess that it
+might not occur to her to speak of his share in the affair of the inlaid
+portfolio. Pierre signed the deed and after that the princess grew still
+kinder. The younger sisters also became affectionate to him, especially
+the youngest, the pretty one with the mole, who often made him feel
+confused by her smiles and her own confusion when meeting him.
+
+It seemed so natural to Pierre that everyone should like him, and it
+would have seemed so unnatural had anyone disliked him, that he could
+not but believe in the sincerity of those around him. Besides, he had no
+time to ask himself whether these people were sincere or not. He was
+always busy and always felt in a state of mild and cheerful
+intoxication. He felt as though he were the center of some important and
+general movement; that something was constantly expected of him, that if
+he did not do it he would grieve and disappoint many people, but if he
+did this and that, all would be well; and he did what was demanded of
+him, but still that happy result always remained in the future.
+
+More than anyone else, Prince Vasíli took possession of Pierre's affairs
+and of Pierre himself in those early days. From the death of Count
+Bezúkhov he did not let go his hold of the lad. He had the air of a man
+oppressed by business, weary and suffering, who yet would not, for
+pity's sake, leave this helpless youth who, after all, was the son of
+his old friend and the possessor of such enormous wealth, to the caprice
+of fate and the designs of rogues. During the few days he spent in
+Moscow after the death of Count Bezúkhov, he would call Pierre, or go to
+him himself, and tell him what ought to be done in a tone of weariness
+and assurance, as if he were adding every time: "You know I am
+overwhelmed with business and it is purely out of charity that I trouble
+myself about you, and you also know quite well that what I propose is
+the only thing possible."
+
+"Well, my dear fellow, tomorrow we are off at last," said Prince Vasíli
+one day, closing his eyes and fingering Pierre's elbow, speaking as if
+he were saying something which had long since been agreed upon and could
+not now be altered. "We start tomorrow and I'm giving you a place in my
+carriage. I am very glad. All our important business here is now
+settled, and I ought to have been off long ago. Here is something I have
+received from the chancellor. I asked him for you, and you have been
+entered in the diplomatic corps and made a Gentleman of the Bedchamber.
+The diplomatic career now lies open before you."
+
+Notwithstanding the tone of wearied assurance with which these words
+were pronounced, Pierre, who had so long been considering his career,
+wished to make some suggestion. But Prince Vasíli interrupted him in the
+special deep cooing tone, precluding the possibility of interrupting his
+speech, which he used in extreme cases when special persuasion was
+needed.
+
+"Mais, mon cher, I did this for my own sake, to satisfy my conscience,
+and there is nothing to thank me for. No one has ever complained yet of
+being too much loved; and besides, you are free, you could throw it up
+tomorrow. But you will see everything for yourself when you get to
+Petersburg. It is high time for you to get away from these terrible
+recollections." Prince Vasíli sighed. "Yes, yes, my boy. And my valet
+can go in your carriage. Ah! I was nearly forgetting," he added. "You
+know, mon cher, your father and I had some accounts to settle, so I have
+received what was due from the Ryazan estate and will keep it; you won't
+require it. We'll go into the accounts later."
+
+By "what was due from the Ryazan estate" Prince Vasíli meant several
+thousand rubles quitrent received from Pierre's peasants, which the
+prince had retained for himself.
+
+In Petersburg, as in Moscow, Pierre found the same atmosphere of
+gentleness and affection. He could not refuse the post, or rather the
+rank (for he did nothing), that Prince Vasíli had procured for him, and
+acquaintances, invitations, and social occupations were so numerous
+that, even more than in Moscow, he felt a sense of bewilderment, bustle,
+and continual expectation of some good, always in front of him but never
+attained.
+
+Of his former bachelor acquaintances many were no longer in Petersburg.
+The Guards had gone to the front; Dólokhov had been reduced to the
+ranks; Anatole was in the army somewhere in the provinces; Prince Andrew
+was abroad; so Pierre had not the opportunity to spend his nights as he
+used to like to spend them, or to open his mind by intimate talks with a
+friend older than himself and whom he respected. His whole time was
+taken up with dinners and balls and was spent chiefly at Prince Vasíli's
+house in the company of the stout princess, his wife, and his beautiful
+daughter Hélène.
+
+Like the others, Anna Pávlovna Schérer showed Pierre the change of
+attitude toward him that had taken place in society.
+
+Formerly in Anna Pávlovna's presence, Pierre had always felt that what
+he was saying was out of place, tactless and unsuitable, that remarks
+which seemed to him clever while they formed in his mind became foolish
+as soon as he uttered them, while on the contrary Hippolyte's stupidest
+remarks came out clever and apt. Now everything Pierre said was
+charmant. Even if Anna Pávlovna did not say so, he could see that she
+wished to and only refrained out of regard for his modesty.
+
+In the beginning of the winter of 1805-6 Pierre received one of Anna
+Pávlovna's usual pink notes with an invitation to which was added: "You
+will find the beautiful Hélène here, whom it is always delightful to
+see."
+
+When he read that sentence, Pierre felt for the first time that some
+link which other people recognized had grown up between himself and
+Hélène, and that thought both alarmed him, as if some obligation were
+being imposed on him which he could not fulfill, and pleased him as an
+entertaining supposition.
+
+Anna Pávlovna's "At Home" was like the former one, only the novelty she
+offered her guests this time was not Mortemart, but a diplomatist fresh
+from Berlin with the very latest details of the Emperor Alexander's
+visit to Potsdam, and of how the two august friends had pledged
+themselves in an indissoluble alliance to uphold the cause of justice
+against the enemy of the human race. Anna Pávlovna received Pierre with
+a shade of melancholy, evidently relating to the young man's recent loss
+by the death of Count Bezúkhov (everyone constantly considered it a duty
+to assure Pierre that he was greatly afflicted by the death of the
+father he had hardly known), and her melancholy was just like the august
+melancholy she showed at the mention of her most august Majesty the
+Empress Márya Fëdorovna. Pierre felt flattered by this. Anna Pávlovna
+arranged the different groups in her drawing room with her habitual
+skill. The large group, in which were Prince Vasíli and the generals,
+had the benefit of the diplomat. Another group was at the tea table.
+Pierre wished to join the former, but Anna Pávlovna—who was in the
+excited condition of a commander on a battlefield to whom thousands of
+new and brilliant ideas occur which there is hardly time to put in
+action—seeing Pierre, touched his sleeve with her finger, saying:
+
+"Wait a bit, I have something in view for you this evening." (She
+glanced at Hélène and smiled at her.) "My dear Hélène, be charitable to
+my poor aunt who adores you. Go and keep her company for ten minutes.
+And that it will not be too dull, here is the dear count who will not
+refuse to accompany you."
+
+The beauty went to the aunt, but Anna Pávlovna detained Pierre, looking
+as if she had to give some final necessary instructions.
+
+"Isn't she exquisite?" she said to Pierre, pointing to the stately
+beauty as she glided away. "And how she carries herself! For so young a
+girl, such tact, such masterly perfection of manner! It comes from her
+heart. Happy the man who wins her! With her the least worldly of men
+would occupy a most brilliant position in society. Don't you think so? I
+only wanted to know your opinion," and Anna Pávlovna let Pierre go.
+
+Pierre, in reply, sincerely agreed with her as to Hélène's perfection of
+manner. If he ever thought of Hélène, it was just of her beauty and her
+remarkable skill in appearing silently dignified in society.
+
+The old aunt received the two young people in her corner, but seemed
+desirous of hiding her adoration for Hélène and inclined rather to show
+her fear of Anna Pávlovna. She looked at her niece, as if inquiring what
+she was to do with these people. On leaving them, Anna Pávlovna again
+touched Pierre's sleeve, saying: "I hope you won't say that it is dull
+in my house again," and she glanced at Hélène.
+
+Hélène smiled, with a look implying that she did not admit the
+possibility of anyone seeing her without being enchanted. The aunt
+coughed, swallowed, and said in French that she was very pleased to see
+Hélène, then she turned to Pierre with the same words of welcome and the
+same look. In the middle of a dull and halting conversation, Hélène
+turned to Pierre with the beautiful bright smile that she gave to
+everyone. Pierre was so used to that smile, and it had so little meaning
+for him, that he paid no attention to it. The aunt was just speaking of
+a collection of snuffboxes that had belonged to Pierre's father, Count
+Bezúkhov, and showed them her own box. Princess Hélène asked to see the
+portrait of the aunt's husband on the box lid.
+
+"That is probably the work of Vinesse," said Pierre, mentioning a
+celebrated miniaturist, and he leaned over the table to take the
+snuffbox while trying to hear what was being said at the other table.
+
+He half rose, meaning to go round, but the aunt handed him the snuffbox,
+passing it across Hélène's back. Hélène stooped forward to make room,
+and looked round with a smile. She was, as always at evening parties,
+wearing a dress such as was then fashionable, cut very low at front and
+back. Her bust, which had always seemed like marble to Pierre, was so
+close to him that his shortsighted eyes could not but perceive the
+living charm of her neck and shoulders, so near to his lips that he need
+only have bent his head a little to have touched them. He was conscious
+of the warmth of her body, the scent of perfume, and the creaking of her
+corset as she moved. He did not see her marble beauty forming a complete
+whole with her dress, but all the charm of her body only covered by her
+garments. And having once seen this he could not help being aware of it,
+just as we cannot renew an illusion we have once seen through.
+
+"So you have never noticed before how beautiful I am?" Hélène seemed to
+say. "You had not noticed that I am a woman? Yes, I am a woman who may
+belong to anyone—to you too," said her glance. And at that moment Pierre
+felt that Hélène not only could, but must, be his wife, and that it
+could not be otherwise.
+
+He knew this at that moment as surely as if he had been standing at the
+altar with her. How and when this would be he did not know, he did not
+even know if it would be a good thing (he even felt, he knew not why,
+that it would be a bad thing), but he knew it would happen.
+
+Pierre dropped his eyes, lifted them again, and wished once more to see
+her as a distant beauty far removed from him, as he had seen her every
+day until then, but he could no longer do it. He could not, any more
+than a man who has been looking at a tuft of steppe grass through the
+mist and taking it for a tree can again take it for a tree after he has
+once recognized it to be a tuft of grass. She was terribly close to him.
+She already had power over him, and between them there was no longer any
+barrier except the barrier of his own will.
+
+"Well, I will leave you in your little corner," came Anna Pávlovna's
+voice, "I see you are all right there."
+
+And Pierre, anxiously trying to remember whether he had done anything
+reprehensible, looked round with a blush. It seemed to him that everyone
+knew what had happened to him as he knew it himself.
+
+A little later when he went up to the large circle, Anna Pávlovna said
+to him: "I hear you are refitting your Petersburg house?"
+
+This was true. The architect had told him that it was necessary, and
+Pierre, without knowing why, was having his enormous Petersburg house
+done up.
+
+"That's a good thing, but don't move from Prince Vasíli's. It is good to
+have a friend like the prince," she said, smiling at Prince Vasíli. "I
+know something about that. Don't I? And you are still so young. You need
+advice. Don't be angry with me for exercising an old woman's privilege."
+
+She paused, as women always do, expecting something after they have
+mentioned their age. "If you marry it will be a different thing," she
+continued, uniting them both in one glance. Pierre did not look at
+Hélène nor she at him. But she was just as terribly close to him. He
+muttered something and colored.
+
+When he got home he could not sleep for a long time for thinking of what
+had happened. What had happened? Nothing. He had merely understood that
+the woman he had known as a child, of whom when her beauty was mentioned
+he had said absent-mindedly: "Yes, she's good looking," he had
+understood that this woman might belong to him.
+
+"But she's stupid. I have myself said she is stupid," he thought. "There
+is something nasty, something wrong, in the feeling she excites in me. I
+have been told that her brother Anatole was in love with her and she
+with him, that there was quite a scandal and that that's why he was sent
+away. Hippolyte is her brother... Prince Vasíli is her father... It's
+bad...." he reflected, but while he was thinking this (the reflection
+was still incomplete), he caught himself smiling and was conscious that
+another line of thought had sprung up, and while thinking of her
+worthlessness he was also dreaming of how she would be his wife, how she
+would love him become quite different, and how all he had thought and
+heard of her might be false. And he again saw her not as the daughter of
+Prince Vasíli, but visualized her whole body only veiled by its gray
+dress. "But no! Why did this thought never occur to me before?" and
+again he told himself that it was impossible, that there would be
+something unnatural, and as it seemed to him dishonorable, in this
+marriage. He recalled her former words and looks and the words and looks
+of those who had seen them together. He recalled Anna Pávlovna's words
+and looks when she spoke to him about his house, recalled thousands of
+such hints from Prince Vasíli and others, and was seized by terror lest
+he had already, in some way, bound himself to do something that was
+evidently wrong and that he ought not to do. But at the very time he was
+expressing this conviction to himself, in another part of his mind her
+image rose in all its womanly beauty.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+In November, 1805, Prince Vasíli had to go on a tour of inspection in
+four different provinces. He had arranged this for himself so as to
+visit his neglected estates at the same time and pick up his son Anatole
+where his regiment was stationed, and take him to visit Prince Nicholas
+Bolkónski in order to arrange a match for him with the daughter of that
+rich old man. But before leaving home and undertaking these new affairs,
+Prince Vasíli had to settle matters with Pierre, who, it is true, had
+latterly spent whole days at home, that is, in Prince Vasíli's house
+where he was staying, and had been absurd, excited, and foolish in
+Hélène's presence (as a lover should be), but had not yet proposed to
+her.
+
+"This is all very fine, but things must be settled," said Prince Vasíli
+to himself, with a sorrowful sigh, one morning, feeling that Pierre who
+was under such obligations to him ("But never mind that") was not
+behaving very well in this matter. "Youth, frivolity... well, God be
+with him," thought he, relishing his own goodness of heart, "but it must
+be brought to a head. The day after tomorrow will be Lelya's name day. I
+will invite two or three people, and if he does not understand what he
+ought to do then it will be my affair—yes, my affair. I am her father."
+
+Six weeks after Anna Pávlovna's "At Home" and after the sleepless night
+when he had decided that to marry Hélène would be a calamity and that he
+ought to avoid her and go away, Pierre, despite that decision, had not
+left Prince Vasíli's and felt with terror that in people's eyes he was
+every day more and more connected with her, that it was impossible for
+him to return to his former conception of her, that he could not break
+away from her, and that though it would be a terrible thing he would
+have to unite his fate with hers. He might perhaps have been able to
+free himself but that Prince Vasíli (who had rarely before given
+receptions) now hardly let a day go by without having an evening party
+at which Pierre had to be present unless he wished to spoil the general
+pleasure and disappoint everyone's expectation. Prince Vasíli, in the
+rare moments when he was at home, would take Pierre's hand in passing
+and draw it downwards, or absent-mindedly hold out his wrinkled, clean-
+shaven cheek for Pierre to kiss and would say: "Till tomorrow," or, "Be
+in to dinner or I shall not see you," or, "I am staying in for your
+sake," and so on. And though Prince Vasíli, when he stayed in (as he
+said) for Pierre's sake, hardly exchanged a couple of words with him,
+Pierre felt unable to disappoint him. Every day he said to himself one
+and the same thing: "It is time I understood her and made up my mind
+what she really is. Was I mistaken before, or am I mistaken now? No, she
+is not stupid, she is an excellent girl," he sometimes said to himself
+"she never makes a mistake, never says anything stupid. She says little,
+but what she does say is always clear and simple, so she is not stupid.
+She never was abashed and is not abashed now, so she cannot be a bad
+woman!" He had often begun to make reflections or think aloud in her
+company, and she had always answered him either by a brief but
+appropriate remark—showing that it did not interest her—or by a silent
+look and smile which more palpably than anything else showed Pierre her
+superiority. She was right in regarding all arguments as nonsense in
+comparison with that smile.
+
+She always addressed him with a radiantly confiding smile meant for him
+alone, in which there was something more significant than in the general
+smile that usually brightened her face. Pierre knew that everyone was
+waiting for him to say a word and cross a certain line, and he knew that
+sooner or later he would step across it, but an incomprehensible terror
+seized him at the thought of that dreadful step. A thousand times during
+that month and a half while he felt himself drawn nearer and nearer to
+that dreadful abyss, Pierre said to himself: "What am I doing? I need
+resolution. Can it be that I have none?"
+
+He wished to take a decision, but felt with dismay that in this matter
+he lacked that strength of will which he had known in himself and really
+possessed. Pierre was one of those who are only strong when they feel
+themselves quite innocent, and since that day when he was overpowered by
+a feeling of desire while stooping over the snuffbox at Anna Pávlovna's,
+an unacknowledged sense of the guilt of that desire paralyzed his will.
+
+On Hélène's name day, a small party of just their own people—as his wife
+said—met for supper at Prince Vasíli's. All these friends and relations
+had been given to understand that the fate of the young girl would be
+decided that evening. The visitors were seated at supper. Princess
+Kurágina, a portly imposing woman who had once been handsome, was
+sitting at the head of the table. On either side of her sat the more
+important guests—an old general and his wife, and Anna Pávlovna Schérer.
+At the other end sat the younger and less important guests, and there
+too sat the members of the family, and Pierre and Hélène, side by side.
+Prince Vasíli was not having any supper: he went round the table in a
+merry mood, sitting down now by one, now by another, of the guests. To
+each of them he made some careless and agreeable remark except to Pierre
+and Hélène, whose presence he seemed not to notice. He enlivened the
+whole party. The wax candles burned brightly, the silver and crystal
+gleamed, so did the ladies' toilets and the gold and silver of the men's
+epaulets; servants in scarlet liveries moved round the table, the
+clatter of plates, knives, and glasses mingled with the animated hum of
+several conversations. At one end of the table, the old chamberlain was
+heard assuring an old baroness that he loved her passionately, at which
+she laughed; at the other could be heard the story of the misfortunes of
+some Mary Viktorovna or other. At the center of the table, Prince Vasíli
+attracted everybody's attention. With a facetious smile on his face, he
+was telling the ladies about last Wednesday's meeting of the Imperial
+Council, at which Sergey Kuzmich Vyazmitinov, the new military governor
+general of Petersburg, had received and read the then famous rescript of
+the Emperor Alexander from the army to Sergey Kuzmich, in which the
+Emperor said that he was receiving from all sides declarations of the
+people's loyalty, that the declaration from Petersburg gave him
+particular pleasure, and that he was proud to be at the head of such a
+nation and would endeavor to be worthy of it. This rescript began with
+the words: "Sergey Kuzmich, From all sides reports reach me," etc.
+
+"Well, and so he never got farther than: 'Sergey Kuzmich'?" asked one of
+the ladies.
+
+"Exactly, not a hair's breadth farther," answered Prince Vasíli,
+laughing, "'Sergey Kuzmich... From all sides... From all sides... Sergey
+Kuzmich...' Poor Vyazmitinov could not get any farther! He began the
+rescript again and again, but as soon as he uttered 'Sergey' he sobbed,
+'Kuz-mi-ch,' tears, and 'From all sides' was smothered in sobs and he
+could get no farther. And again his handkerchief, and again: 'Sergey
+Kuzmich, From all sides,'... and tears, till at last somebody else was
+asked to read it."
+
+"Kuzmich... From all sides... and then tears," someone repeated
+laughing.
+
+"Don't be unkind," cried Anna Pávlovna from her end of the table holding
+up a threatening finger. "He is such a worthy and excellent man, our
+dear Vyazmitinov...."
+
+Everybody laughed a great deal. At the head of the table, where the
+honored guests sat, everyone seemed to be in high spirits and under the
+influence of a variety of exciting sensations. Only Pierre and Hélène
+sat silently side by side almost at the bottom of the table, a
+suppressed smile brightening both their faces, a smile that had nothing
+to do with Sergey Kuzmich—a smile of bashfulness at their own feelings.
+But much as all the rest laughed, talked, and joked, much as they
+enjoyed their Rhine wine, saute, and ices, and however they avoided
+looking at the young couple, and heedless and unobservant as they seemed
+of them, one could feel by the occasional glances they gave that the
+story about Sergey Kuzmich, the laughter, and the food were all a
+pretense, and that the whole attention of that company was directed
+to—Pierre and Hélène. Prince Vasíli mimicked the sobbing of Sergey
+Kuzmich and at the same time his eyes glanced toward his daughter, and
+while he laughed the expression on his face clearly said: "Yes... it's
+getting on, it will all be settled today." Anna Pávlovna threatened him
+on behalf of "our dear Vyazmitinov," and in her eyes, which, for an
+instant, glanced at Pierre, Prince Vasíli read a congratulation on his
+future son-in-law and on his daughter's happiness. The old princess
+sighed sadly as she offered some wine to the old lady next to her and
+glanced angrily at her daughter, and her sigh seemed to say: "Yes,
+there's nothing left for you and me but to sip sweet wine, my dear, now
+that the time has come for these young ones to be thus boldly,
+provocatively happy." "And what nonsense all this is that I am saying!"
+thought a diplomatist, glancing at the happy faces of the lovers.
+"That's happiness!"
+
+Into the insignificant, trifling, and artificial interests uniting that
+society had entered the simple feeling of the attraction of a healthy
+and handsome young man and woman for one another. And this human feeling
+dominated everything else and soared above all their affected chatter.
+Jests fell flat, news was not interesting, and the animation was
+evidently forced. Not only the guests but even the footmen waiting at
+table seemed to feel this, and they forgot their duties as they looked
+at the beautiful Hélène with her radiant face and at the red, broad, and
+happy though uneasy face of Pierre. It seemed as if the very light of
+the candles was focused on those two happy faces alone.
+
+Pierre felt that he was the center of it all, and this both pleased and
+embarrassed him. He was like a man entirely absorbed in some occupation.
+He did not see, hear, or understand anything clearly. Only now and then
+detached ideas and impressions from the world of reality shot
+unexpectedly through his mind.
+
+"So it is all finished!" he thought. "And how has it all happened? How
+quickly! Now I know that not because of her alone, nor of myself alone,
+but because of everyone, it must inevitably come about. They are all
+expecting it, they are so sure that it will happen that I cannot, I
+cannot, disappoint them. But how will it be? I do not know, but it will
+certainly happen!" thought Pierre, glancing at those dazzling shoulders
+close to his eyes.
+
+Or he would suddenly feel ashamed of he knew not what. He felt it
+awkward to attract everyone's attention and to be considered a lucky man
+and, with his plain face, to be looked on as a sort of Paris possessed
+of a Helen. "But no doubt it always is and must be so!" he consoled
+himself. "And besides, what have I done to bring it about? How did it
+begin? I traveled from Moscow with Prince Vasíli. Then there was
+nothing. So why should I not stay at his house? Then I played cards with
+her and picked up her reticule and drove out with her. How did it begin,
+when did it all come about?" And here he was sitting by her side as her
+betrothed, seeing, hearing, feeling her nearness, her breathing, her
+movements, her beauty. Then it would suddenly seem to him that it was
+not she but he was so unusually beautiful, and that that was why they
+all looked so at him, and flattered by this general admiration he would
+expand his chest, raise his head, and rejoice at his good fortune.
+Suddenly he heard a familiar voice repeating something to him a second
+time. But Pierre was so absorbed that he did not understand what was
+said.
+
+"I am asking you when you last heard from Bolkónski," repeated Prince
+Vasíli a third time. "How absent-minded you are, my dear fellow."
+
+Prince Vasíli smiled, and Pierre noticed that everyone was smiling at
+him and Hélène. "Well, what of it, if you all know it?" thought Pierre.
+"What of it? It's the truth!" and he himself smiled his gentle childlike
+smile, and Hélène smiled too.
+
+"When did you get the letter? Was it from Olmutz?" repeated Prince
+Vasíli, who pretended to want to know this in order to settle a dispute.
+
+"How can one talk or think of such trifles?" thought Pierre.
+
+"Yes, from Olmutz," he answered, with a sigh.
+
+After supper Pierre with his partner followed the others into the
+drawing room. The guests began to disperse, some without taking leave of
+Hélène. Some, as if unwilling to distract her from an important
+occupation, came up to her for a moment and made haste to go away,
+refusing to let her see them off. The diplomatist preserved a mournful
+silence as he left the drawing room. He pictured the vanity of his
+diplomatic career in comparison with Pierre's happiness. The old general
+grumbled at his wife when she asked how his leg was. "Oh, the old fool,"
+he thought. "That Princess Hélène will be beautiful still when she's
+fifty."
+
+"I think I may congratulate you," whispered Anna Pávlovna to the old
+princess, kissing her soundly. "If I hadn't this headache I'd have
+stayed longer."
+
+The old princess did not reply, she was tormented by jealousy of her
+daughter's happiness.
+
+While the guests were taking their leave Pierre remained for a long time
+alone with Hélène in the little drawing room where they were sitting. He
+had often before, during the last six weeks, remained alone with her,
+but had never spoken to her of love. Now he felt that it was inevitable,
+but he could not make up his mind to take the final step. He felt
+ashamed; he felt that he was occupying someone else's place here beside
+Hélène. "This happiness is not for you," some inner voice whispered to
+him. "This happiness is for those who have not in them what there is in
+you."
+
+But, as he had to say something, he began by asking her whether she was
+satisfied with the party. She replied in her usual simple manner that
+this name day of hers had been one of the pleasantest she had ever had.
+
+Some of the nearest relatives had not yet left. They were sitting in the
+large drawing room. Prince Vasíli came up to Pierre with languid
+footsteps. Pierre rose and said it was getting late. Prince Vasíli gave
+him a look of stern inquiry, as though what Pierre had just said was so
+strange that one could not take it in. But then the expression of
+severity changed, and he drew Pierre's hand downwards, made him sit
+down, and smiled affectionately.
+
+"Well, Lelya?" he asked, turning instantly to his daughter and
+addressing her with the careless tone of habitual tenderness natural to
+parents who have petted their children from babyhood, but which Prince
+Vasíli had only acquired by imitating other parents.
+
+And he again turned to Pierre.
+
+"Sergey Kuzmich—From all sides-" he said, unbuttoning the top button of
+his waistcoat.
+
+Pierre smiled, but his smile showed that he knew it was not the story
+about Sergey Kuzmich that interested Prince Vasíli just then, and Prince
+Vasíli saw that Pierre knew this. He suddenly muttered something and
+went away. It seemed to Pierre that even the prince was disconcerted.
+The sight of the discomposure of that old man of the world touched
+Pierre: he looked at Hélène and she too seemed disconcerted, and her
+look seemed to say: "Well, it is your own fault."
+
+"The step must be taken but I cannot, I cannot!" thought Pierre, and he
+again began speaking about indifferent matters, about Sergey Kuzmich,
+asking what the point of the story was as he had not heard it properly.
+Hélène answered with a smile that she too had missed it.
+
+When Prince Vasíli returned to the drawing room, the princess, his wife,
+was talking in low tones to the elderly lady about Pierre.
+
+"Of course, it is a very brilliant match, but happiness, my dear..."
+
+"Marriages are made in heaven," replied the elderly lady.
+
+Prince Vasíli passed by, seeming not to hear the ladies, and sat down on
+a sofa in a far corner of the room. He closed his eyes and seemed to be
+dozing. His head sank forward and then he roused himself.
+
+"Aline," he said to his wife, "go and see what they are about."
+
+The princess went up to the door, passed by it with a dignified and
+indifferent air, and glanced into the little drawing room. Pierre and
+Hélène still sat talking just as before.
+
+"Still the same," she said to her husband.
+
+Prince Vasíli frowned, twisting his mouth, his cheeks quivered and his
+face assumed the coarse, unpleasant expression peculiar to him. Shaking
+himself, he rose, threw back his head, and with resolute steps went past
+the ladies into the little drawing room. With quick steps he went
+joyfully up to Pierre. His face was so unusually triumphant that Pierre
+rose in alarm on seeing it.
+
+"Thank God!" said Prince Vasíli. "My wife has told me everything!" (He
+put one arm around Pierre and the other around his daughter.)—"My dear
+boy... Lelya... I am very pleased." (His voice trembled.) "I loved your
+father... and she will make you a good wife... God bless you!..."
+
+He embraced his daughter, and then again Pierre, and kissed him with his
+malodorous mouth. Tears actually moistened his cheeks.
+
+"Princess, come here!" he shouted.
+
+The old princess came in and also wept. The elderly lady was using her
+handkerchief too. Pierre was kissed, and he kissed the beautiful
+Hélène's hand several times. After a while they were left alone again.
+
+"All this had to be and could not be otherwise," thought Pierre, "so it
+is useless to ask whether it is good or bad. It is good because it's
+definite and one is rid of the old tormenting doubt." Pierre held the
+hand of his betrothed in silence, looking at her beautiful bosom as it
+rose and fell.
+
+"Hélène!" he said aloud and paused.
+
+"Something special is always said in such cases," he thought, but could
+not remember what it was that people say. He looked at her face. She
+drew nearer to him. Her face flushed.
+
+"Oh, take those off... those..." she said, pointing to his spectacles.
+
+Pierre took them off, and his eyes, besides the strange look eyes have
+from which spectacles have just been removed, had also a frightened and
+inquiring look. He was about to stoop over her hand and kiss it, but
+with a rapid, almost brutal movement of her head, she intercepted his
+lips and met them with her own. Her face struck Pierre, by its altered,
+unpleasantly excited expression.
+
+"It is too late now, it's done; besides I love her," thought Pierre.
+
+"Je vous aime!" * he said, remembering what has to be said at such
+moments: but his words sounded so weak that he felt ashamed of himself.
+
+* "I love you."
+
+Six weeks later he was married, and settled in Count Bezúkhov's large,
+newly furnished Petersburg house, the happy possessor, as people said,
+of a wife who was a celebrated beauty and of millions of money.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+Old Prince Nicholas Bolkónski received a letter from Prince Vasíli in
+November, 1805, announcing that he and his son would be paying him a
+visit. "I am starting on a journey of inspection, and of course I shall
+think nothing of an extra seventy miles to come and see you at the same
+time, my honored benefactor," wrote Prince Vasíli. "My son Anatole is
+accompanying me on his way to the army, so I hope you will allow him
+personally to express the deep respect that, emulating his father, he
+feels for you."
+
+"It seems that there will be no need to bring Mary out, suitors are
+coming to us of their own accord," incautiously remarked the little
+princess on hearing the news.
+
+Prince Nicholas frowned, but said nothing.
+
+A fortnight after the letter Prince Vasíli's servants came one evening
+in advance of him, and he and his son arrived next day.
+
+Old Bolkónski had always had a poor opinion of Prince Vasíli's
+character, but more so recently, since in the new reigns of Paul and
+Alexander Prince Vasíli had risen to high position and honors. And now,
+from the hints contained in his letter and given by the little princess,
+he saw which way the wind was blowing, and his low opinion changed into
+a feeling of contemptuous ill will. He snorted whenever he mentioned
+him. On the day of Prince Vasíli's arrival, Prince Bolkónski was
+particularly discontented and out of temper. Whether he was in a bad
+temper because Prince Vasíli was coming, or whether his being in a bad
+temper made him specially annoyed at Prince Vasíli's visit, he was in a
+bad temper, and in the morning Tíkhon had already advised the architect
+not to go to the prince with his report.
+
+"Do you hear how he's walking?" said Tíkhon, drawing the architect's
+attention to the sound of the prince's footsteps. "Stepping flat on his
+heels—we know what that means...."
+
+However, at nine o'clock the prince, in his velvet coat with a sable
+collar and cap, went out for his usual walk. It had snowed the day
+before and the path to the hothouse, along which the prince was in the
+habit of walking, had been swept: the marks of the broom were still
+visible in the snow and a shovel had been left sticking in one of the
+soft snowbanks that bordered both sides of the path. The prince went
+through the conservatories, the serfs' quarters, and the outbuildings,
+frowning and silent.
+
+"Can a sleigh pass?" he asked his overseer, a venerable man, resembling
+his master in manners and looks, who was accompanying him back to the
+house.
+
+"The snow is deep. I am having the avenue swept, your honor."
+
+The prince bowed his head and went up to the porch. "God be thanked,"
+thought the overseer, "the storm has blown over!"
+
+"It would have been hard to drive up, your honor," he added. "I heard,
+your honor, that a minister is coming to visit your honor."
+
+The prince turned round to the overseer and fixed his eyes on him,
+frowning.
+
+"What? A minister? What minister? Who gave orders?" he said in his
+shrill, harsh voice. "The road is not swept for the princess my
+daughter, but for a minister! For me, there are no ministers!"
+
+"Your honor, I thought..."
+
+"You thought!" shouted the prince, his words coming more and more
+rapidly and indistinctly. "You thought!... Rascals! Blackguards!... I'll
+teach you to think!" and lifting his stick he swung it and would have
+hit Alpatych, the overseer, had not the latter instinctively avoided the
+blow. "Thought... Blackguards..." shouted the prince rapidly.
+
+But although Alpatych, frightened at his own temerity in avoiding the
+stroke, came up to the prince, bowing his bald head resignedly before
+him, or perhaps for that very reason, the prince, though he continued to
+shout: "Blackguards!... Throw the snow back on the road!" did not lift
+his stick again but hurried into the house.
+
+Before dinner, Princess Mary and Mademoiselle Bourienne, who knew that
+the prince was in a bad humor, stood awaiting him; Mademoiselle
+Bourienne with a radiant face that said: "I know nothing, I am the same
+as usual," and Princess Mary pale, frightened, and with downcast eyes.
+What she found hardest to bear was to know that on such occasions she
+ought to behave like Mademoiselle Bourienne, but could not. She thought:
+"If I seem not to notice he will think that I do not sympathize with
+him; if I seem sad and out of spirits myself, he will say (as he has
+done before) that I'm in the dumps."
+
+The prince looked at his daughter's frightened face and snorted.
+
+"Fool... or dummy!" he muttered.
+
+"And the other one is not here. They've been telling tales," he
+thought—referring to the little princess who was not in the dining room.
+
+"Where is the princess?" he asked. "Hiding?"
+
+"She is not very well," answered Mademoiselle Bourienne with a bright
+smile, "so she won't come down. It is natural in her state."
+
+"Hm! Hm!" muttered the prince, sitting down.
+
+His plate seemed to him not quite clean, and pointing to a spot he flung
+it away. Tíkhon caught it and handed it to a footman. The little
+princess was not unwell, but had such an overpowering fear of the prince
+that, hearing he was in a bad humor, she had decided not to appear.
+
+"I am afraid for the baby," she said to Mademoiselle Bourienne: "Heaven
+knows what a fright might do."
+
+In general at Bald Hills the little princess lived in constant fear, and
+with a sense of antipathy to the old prince which she did not realize
+because the fear was so much the stronger feeling. The prince
+reciprocated this antipathy, but it was overpowered by his contempt for
+her. When the little princess had grown accustomed to life at Bald
+Hills, she took a special fancy to Mademoiselle Bourienne, spent whole
+days with her, asked her to sleep in her room, and often talked with her
+about the old prince and criticized him.
+
+"So we are to have visitors, mon prince?" remarked Mademoiselle
+Bourienne, unfolding her white napkin with her rosy fingers. "His
+Excellency Prince Vasíli Kurágin and his son, I understand?" she said
+inquiringly.
+
+"Hm!—his excellency is a puppy.... I got him his appointment in the
+service," said the prince disdainfully. "Why his son is coming I don't
+understand. Perhaps Princess Elizabeth and Princess Mary know. I don't
+want him." (He looked at his blushing daughter.) "Are you unwell today?
+Eh? Afraid of the 'minister' as that idiot Alpatych called him this
+morning?"
+
+"No, mon pere."
+
+Though Mademoiselle Bourienne had been so unsuccessful in her choice of
+a subject, she did not stop talking, but chattered about the
+conservatories and the beauty of a flower that had just opened, and
+after the soup the prince became more genial.
+
+After dinner, he went to see his daughter-in-law. The little princess
+was sitting at a small table, chattering with Másha, her maid. She grew
+pale on seeing her father-in-law.
+
+She was much altered. She was now plain rather than pretty. Her cheeks
+had sunk, her lip was drawn up, and her eyes drawn down.
+
+"Yes, I feel a kind of oppression," she said in reply to the prince's
+question as to how she felt.
+
+"Do you want anything?"
+
+"No, merci, mon pere."
+
+"Well, all right, all right."
+
+He left the room and went to the waiting room where Alpatych stood with
+bowed head.
+
+"Has the snow been shoveled back?"
+
+"Yes, your excellency. Forgive me for heaven's sake... It was only my
+stupidity."
+
+"All right, all right," interrupted the prince, and laughing his
+unnatural way, he stretched out his hand for Alpatych to kiss, and then
+proceeded to his study.
+
+Prince Vasíli arrived that evening. He was met in the avenue by coachmen
+and footmen, who, with loud shouts, dragged his sleighs up to one of the
+lodges over the road purposely laden with snow.
+
+Prince Vasíli and Anatole had separate rooms assigned to them.
+
+Anatole, having taken off his overcoat, sat with arms akimbo before a
+table on a corner of which he smilingly and absent-mindedly fixed his
+large and handsome eyes. He regarded his whole life as a continual round
+of amusement which someone for some reason had to provide for him. And
+he looked on this visit to a churlish old man and a rich and ugly
+heiress in the same way. All this might, he thought, turn out very well
+and amusingly. "And why not marry her if she really has so much money?
+That never does any harm," thought Anatole.
+
+He shaved and scented himself with the care and elegance which had
+become habitual to him and, his handsome head held high, entered his
+father's room with the good-humored and victorious air natural to him.
+Prince Vasíli's two valets were busy dressing him, and he looked round
+with much animation and cheerfully nodded to his son as the latter
+entered, as if to say: "Yes, that's how I want you to look."
+
+"I say, Father, joking apart, is she very hideous?" Anatole asked, as if
+continuing a conversation the subject of which had often been mentioned
+during the journey.
+
+"Enough! What nonsense! Above all, try to be respectful and cautious
+with the old prince."
+
+"If he starts a row I'll go away," said Prince Anatole. "I can't bear
+those old men! Eh?"
+
+"Remember, for you everything depends on this."
+
+In the meantime, not only was it known in the maidservants' rooms that
+the minister and his son had arrived, but the appearance of both had
+been minutely described. Princess Mary was sitting alone in her room,
+vainly trying to master her agitation.
+
+"Why did they write, why did Lise tell me about it? It can never
+happen!" she said, looking at herself in the glass. "How shall I enter
+the drawing room? Even if I like him I can't now be myself with him."
+The mere thought of her father's look filled her with terror. The little
+princess and Mademoiselle Bourienne had already received from Másha, the
+lady's maid, the necessary report of how handsome the minister's son
+was, with his rosy cheeks and dark eyebrows, and with what difficulty
+the father had dragged his legs upstairs while the son had followed him
+like an eagle, three steps at a time. Having received this information,
+the little princess and Mademoiselle Bourienne, whose chattering voices
+had reached her from the corridor, went into Princess Mary's room.
+
+"You know they've come, Marie?" said the little princess, waddling in,
+and sinking heavily into an armchair.
+
+She was no longer in the loose gown she generally wore in the morning,
+but had on one of her best dresses. Her hair was carefully done and her
+face was animated, which, however, did not conceal its sunken and faded
+outlines. Dressed as she used to be in Petersburg society, it was still
+more noticeable how much plainer she had become. Some unobtrusive touch
+had been added to Mademoiselle Bourienne's toilet which rendered her
+fresh and pretty face yet more attractive.
+
+"What! Are you going to remain as you are, dear princess?" she began.
+"They'll be announcing that the gentlemen are in the drawing room and we
+shall have to go down, and you have not smartened yourself up at all!"
+
+The little princess got up, rang for the maid, and hurriedly and merrily
+began to devise and carry out a plan of how Princess Mary should be
+dressed. Princess Mary's self-esteem was wounded by the fact that the
+arrival of a suitor agitated her, and still more so by both her
+companions' not having the least conception that it could be otherwise.
+To tell them that she felt ashamed for herself and for them would be to
+betray her agitation, while to decline their offers to dress her would
+prolong their banter and insistence. She flushed, her beautiful eyes
+grew dim, red blotches came on her face, and it took on the unattractive
+martyrlike expression it so often wore, as she submitted herself to
+Mademoiselle Bourienne and Lise. Both these women quite sincerely tried
+to make her look pretty. She was so plain that neither of them could
+think of her as a rival, so they began dressing her with perfect
+sincerity, and with the naïve and firm conviction women have that dress
+can make a face pretty.
+
+"No really, my dear, this dress is not pretty," said Lise, looking
+sideways at Princess Mary from a little distance. "You have a maroon
+dress, have it fetched. Really! You know the fate of your whole life may
+be at stake. But this one is too light, it's not becoming!"
+
+It was not the dress, but the face and whole figure of Princess Mary
+that was not pretty, but neither Mademoiselle Bourienne nor the little
+princess felt this; they still thought that if a blue ribbon were placed
+in the hair, the hair combed up, and the blue scarf arranged lower on
+the best maroon dress, and so on, all would be well. They forgot that
+the frightened face and the figure could not be altered, and that
+however they might change the setting and adornment of that face, it
+would still remain piteous and plain. After two or three changes to
+which Princess Mary meekly submitted, just as her hair had been arranged
+on the top of her head (a style that quite altered and spoiled her
+looks) and she had put on a maroon dress with a pale-blue scarf, the
+little princess walked twice round her, now adjusting a fold of the
+dress with her little hand, now arranging the scarf and looking at her
+with her head bent first on one side and then on the other.
+
+"No, it will not do," she said decidedly, clasping her hands. "No, Mary,
+really this dress does not suit you. I prefer you in your little gray
+everyday dress. Now please, do it for my sake. Katie," she said to the
+maid, "bring the princess her gray dress, and you'll see, Mademoiselle
+Bourienne, how I shall arrange it," she added, smiling with a foretaste
+of artistic pleasure.
+
+But when Katie brought the required dress, Princess Mary remained
+sitting motionless before the glass, looking at her face, and saw in the
+mirror her eyes full of tears and her mouth quivering, ready to burst
+into sobs.
+
+"Come, dear princess," said Mademoiselle Bourienne, "just one more
+little effort."
+
+The little princess, taking the dress from the maid, came up to Princess
+Mary.
+
+"Well, now we'll arrange something quite simple and becoming," she said.
+
+The three voices, hers, Mademoiselle Bourienne's, and Katie's, who was
+laughing at something, mingled in a merry sound, like the chirping of
+birds.
+
+"No, leave me alone," said Princess Mary.
+
+Her voice sounded so serious and so sad that the chirping of the birds
+was silenced at once. They looked at the beautiful, large, thoughtful
+eyes full of tears and of thoughts, gazing shiningly and imploringly at
+them, and understood that it was useless and even cruel to insist.
+
+"At least, change your coiffure," said the little princess. "Didn't I
+tell you," she went on, turning reproachfully to Mademoiselle Bourienne,
+"Mary's is a face which such a coiffure does not suit in the least. Not
+in the least! Please change it."
+
+"Leave me alone, please leave me alone! It is all quite the same to me,"
+answered a voice struggling with tears.
+
+Mademoiselle Bourienne and the little princess had to own to themselves
+that Princess Mary in this guise looked very plain, worse than usual,
+but it was too late. She was looking at them with an expression they
+both knew, an expression thoughtful and sad. This expression in Princess
+Mary did not frighten them (she never inspired fear in anyone), but they
+knew that when it appeared on her face, she became mute and was not to
+be shaken in her determination.
+
+"You will change it, won't you?" said Lise. And as Princess Mary gave no
+answer, she left the room.
+
+Princess Mary was left alone. She did not comply with Lise's request,
+she not only left her hair as it was, but did not even look in her
+glass. Letting her arms fall helplessly, she sat with downcast eyes and
+pondered. A husband, a man, a strong dominant and strangely attractive
+being rose in her imagination, and carried her into a totally different
+happy world of his own. She fancied a child, her own—such as she had
+seen the day before in the arms of her nurse's daughter—at her own
+breast, the husband standing by and gazing tenderly at her and the
+child. "But no, it is impossible, I am too ugly," she thought.
+
+"Please come to tea. The prince will be out in a moment," came the
+maid's voice at the door.
+
+She roused herself, and felt appalled at what she had been thinking, and
+before going down she went into the room where the icons hung and, her
+eyes fixed on the dark face of a large icon of the Saviour lit by a
+lamp, she stood before it with folded hands for a few moments. A painful
+doubt filled her soul. Could the joy of love, of earthly love for a man,
+be for her? In her thoughts of marriage Princess Mary dreamed of
+happiness and of children, but her strongest, most deeply hidden longing
+was for earthly love. The more she tried to hide this feeling from
+others and even from herself, the stronger it grew. "O God," she said,
+"how am I to stifle in my heart these temptations of the devil? How am I
+to renounce forever these vile fancies, so as peacefully to fulfill Thy
+will?" And scarcely had she put that question than God gave her the
+answer in her own heart. "Desire nothing for thyself, seek nothing, be
+not anxious or envious. Man's future and thy own fate must remain hidden
+from thee, but live so that thou mayest be ready for anything. If it be
+God's will to prove thee in the duties of marriage, be ready to fulfill
+His will." With this consoling thought (but yet with a hope for the
+fulfillment of her forbidden earthly longing) Princess Mary sighed, and
+having crossed herself went down, thinking neither of her gown and
+coiffure nor of how she would go in nor of what she would say. What
+could all that matter in comparison with the will of God, without Whose
+care not a hair of man's head can fall?
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+When Princess Mary came down, Prince Vasíli and his son were already in
+the drawing room, talking to the little princess and Mademoiselle
+Bourienne. When she entered with her heavy step, treading on her heels,
+the gentlemen and Mademoiselle Bourienne rose and the little princess,
+indicating her to the gentlemen, said: "Voila Marie!" Princess Mary saw
+them all and saw them in detail. She saw Prince Vasíli's face, serious
+for an instant at the sight of her, but immediately smiling again, and
+the little princess curiously noting the impression "Marie" produced on
+the visitors. And she saw Mademoiselle Bourienne, with her ribbon and
+pretty face, and her unusually animated look which was fixed on him, but
+him she could not see, she only saw something large, brilliant, and
+handsome moving toward her as she entered the room. Prince Vasíli
+approached first, and she kissed the bold forehead that bent over her
+hand and answered his question by saying that, on the contrary, she
+remembered him quite well. Then Anatole came up to her. She still could
+not see him. She only felt a soft hand taking hers firmly, and she
+touched with her lips a white forehead, over which was beautiful light-
+brown hair smelling of pomade. When she looked up at him she was struck
+by his beauty. Anatole stood with his right thumb under a button of his
+uniform, his chest expanded and his back drawn in, slightly swinging one
+foot, and, with his head a little bent, looked with beaming face at the
+princess without speaking and evidently not thinking about her at all.
+Anatole was not quick-witted, nor ready or eloquent in conversation, but
+he had the faculty, so invaluable in society, of composure and
+imperturbable self-possession. If a man lacking in self-confidence
+remains dumb on a first introduction and betrays a consciousness of the
+impropriety of such silence and an anxiety to find something to say, the
+effect is bad. But Anatole was dumb, swung his foot, and smilingly
+examined the princess' hair. It was evident that he could be silent in
+this way for a very long time. "If anyone finds this silence
+inconvenient, let him talk, but I don't want to," he seemed to say.
+Besides this, in his behavior to women Anatole had a manner which
+particularly inspires in them curiosity, awe, and even love—a
+supercilious consciousness of his own superiority. It was as if he said
+to them: "I know you, I know you, but why should I bother about you?
+You'd be only too glad, of course." Perhaps he did not really think this
+when he met women—even probably he did not, for in general he thought
+very little—but his looks and manner gave that impression. The princess
+felt this, and as if wishing to show him that she did not even dare
+expect to interest him, she turned to his father. The conversation was
+general and animated, thanks to Princess Lise's voice and little downy
+lip that lifted over her white teeth. She met Prince Vasíli with that
+playful manner often employed by lively chatty people, and consisting in
+the assumption that between the person they so address and themselves
+there are some semi-private, long-established jokes and amusing
+reminiscences, though no such reminiscences really exist—just as none
+existed in this case. Prince Vasíli readily adopted her tone and the
+little princess also drew Anatole, whom she hardly knew, into these
+amusing recollections of things that had never occurred. Mademoiselle
+Bourienne also shared them and even Princess Mary felt herself
+pleasantly made to share in these merry reminiscences.
+
+"Here at least we shall have the benefit of your company all to
+ourselves, dear prince," said the little princess (of course, in French)
+to Prince Vasíli. "It's not as at Annette's * receptions where you
+always ran away; you remember cette chere Annette!"
+
+* Anna Pávlovna.
+
+"Ah, but you won't talk politics to me like Annette!"
+
+"And our little tea table?"
+
+"Oh, yes!"
+
+"Why is it you were never at Annette's?" the little princess asked
+Anatole. "Ah, I know, I know," she said with a sly glance, "your brother
+Hippolyte told me about your goings on. Oh!" and she shook her finger at
+him, "I have even heard of your doings in Paris!"
+
+"And didn't Hippolyte tell you?" asked Prince Vasíli, turning to his son
+and seizing the little princess' arm as if she would have run away and
+he had just managed to catch her, "didn't he tell you how he himself was
+pining for the dear princess, and how she showed him the door? Oh, she
+is a pearl among women, Princess," he added, turning to Princess Mary.
+
+When Paris was mentioned, Mademoiselle Bourienne for her part seized the
+opportunity of joining in the general current of recollections.
+
+She took the liberty of inquiring whether it was long since Anatole had
+left Paris and how he had liked that city. Anatole answered the
+Frenchwoman very readily and, looking at her with a smile, talked to her
+about her native land. When he saw the pretty little Bourienne, Anatole
+came to the conclusion that he would not find Bald Hills dull either.
+"Not at all bad!" he thought, examining her, "not at all bad, that
+little companion! I hope she will bring her along with her when we're
+married, la petite est gentille." *
+
+* The little one is charming.
+
+The old prince dressed leisurely in his study, frowning and considering
+what he was to do. The coming of these visitors annoyed him. "What are
+Prince Vasíli and that son of his to me? Prince Vasíli is a shallow
+braggart and his son, no doubt, is a fine specimen," he grumbled to
+himself. What angered him was that the coming of these visitors revived
+in his mind an unsettled question he always tried to stifle, one about
+which he always deceived himself. The question was whether he could ever
+bring himself to part from his daughter and give her to a husband. The
+prince never directly asked himself that question, knowing beforehand
+that he would have to answer it justly, and justice clashed not only
+with his feelings but with the very possibility of life. Life without
+Princess Mary, little as he seemed to value her, was unthinkable to him.
+"And why should she marry?" he thought. "To be unhappy for certain.
+There's Lise, married to Andrew—a better husband one would think could
+hardly be found nowadays—but is she contented with her lot? And who
+would marry Marie for love? Plain and awkward! They'll take her for her
+connections and wealth. Are there no women living unmarried, and even
+the happier for it?" So thought Prince Bolkónski while dressing, and yet
+the question he was always putting off demanded an immediate answer.
+Prince Vasíli had brought his son with the evident intention of
+proposing, and today or tomorrow he would probably ask for an answer.
+His birth and position in society were not bad. "Well, I've nothing
+against it," the prince said to himself, "but he must be worthy of her.
+And that is what we shall see."
+
+"That is what we shall see! That is what we shall see!" he added aloud.
+
+He entered the drawing room with his usual alert step, glancing rapidly
+round the company. He noticed the change in the little princess' dress,
+Mademoiselle Bourienne's ribbon, Princess Mary's unbecoming coiffure,
+Mademoiselle Bourienne's and Anatole's smiles, and the loneliness of his
+daughter amid the general conversation. "Got herself up like a fool!" he
+thought, looking irritably at her. "She is shameless, and he ignores
+her!"
+
+He went straight up to Prince Vasíli.
+
+"Well! How d'ye do? How d'ye do? Glad to see you!"
+
+"Friendship laughs at distance," began Prince Vasíli in his usual rapid,
+self-confident, familiar tone. "Here is my second son; please love and
+befriend him."
+
+Prince Bolkónski surveyed Anatole.
+
+"Fine young fellow! Fine young fellow!" he said. "Well, come and kiss
+me," and he offered his cheek.
+
+Anatole kissed the old man, and looked at him with curiosity and perfect
+composure, waiting for a display of the eccentricities his father had
+told him to expect.
+
+Prince Bolkónski sat down in his usual place in the corner of the sofa
+and, drawing up an armchair for Prince Vasíli, pointed to it and began
+questioning him about political affairs and news. He seemed to listen
+attentively to what Prince Vasíli said, but kept glancing at Princess
+Mary.
+
+"And so they are writing from Potsdam already?" he said, repeating
+Prince Vasíli's last words. Then rising, he suddenly went up to his
+daughter.
+
+"Is it for visitors you've got yourself up like that, eh?" said he.
+"Fine, very fine! You have done up your hair in this new way for the
+visitors, and before the visitors I tell you that in future you are
+never to dare to change your way of dress without my consent."
+
+"It was my fault, mon pere," interceded the little princess, with a
+blush.
+
+"You must do as you please," said Prince Bolkónski, bowing to his
+daughter-in-law, "but she need not make a fool of herself, she's plain
+enough as it is."
+
+And he sat down again, paying no more attention to his daughter, who was
+reduced to tears.
+
+"On the contrary, that coiffure suits the princess very well," said
+Prince Vasíli.
+
+"Now you, young prince, what's your name?" said Prince Bolkónski,
+turning to Anatole, "come here, let us talk and get acquainted."
+
+"Now the fun begins," thought Anatole, sitting down with a smile beside
+the old prince.
+
+"Well, my dear boy, I hear you've been educated abroad, not taught to
+read and write by the deacon, like your father and me. Now tell me, my
+dear boy, are you serving in the Horse Guards?" asked the old man,
+scrutinizing Anatole closely and intently.
+
+"No, I have been transferred to the line," said Anatole, hardly able to
+restrain his laughter.
+
+"Ah! That's a good thing. So, my dear boy, you wish to serve the Tsar
+and the country? It is wartime. Such a fine fellow must serve. Well, are
+you off to the front?"
+
+"No, Prince, our regiment has gone to the front, but I am attached...
+what is it I am attached to, Papa?" said Anatole, turning to his father
+with a laugh.
+
+"A splendid soldier, splendid! 'What am I attached to!' Ha, ha, ha!"
+laughed Prince Bolkónski, and Anatole laughed still louder. Suddenly
+Prince Bolkónski frowned.
+
+"You may go," he said to Anatole.
+
+Anatole returned smiling to the ladies.
+
+"And so you've had him educated abroad, Prince Vasíli, haven't you?"
+said the old prince to Prince Vasíli.
+
+"I have done my best for him, and I can assure you the education there
+is much better than ours."
+
+"Yes, everything is different nowadays, everything is changed. The lad's
+a fine fellow, a fine fellow! Well, come with me now." He took Prince
+Vasíli's arm and led him to his study. As soon as they were alone
+together, Prince Vasíli announced his hopes and wishes to the old
+prince.
+
+"Well, do you think I shall prevent her, that I can't part from her?"
+said the old prince angrily. "What an idea! I'm ready for it tomorrow!
+Only let me tell you, I want to know my son-in-law better. You know my
+principles—everything aboveboard? I will ask her tomorrow in your
+presence; if she is willing, then he can stay on. He can stay and I'll
+see." The old prince snorted. "Let her marry, it's all the same to me!"
+he screamed in the same piercing tone as when parting from his son.
+
+"I will tell you frankly," said Prince Vasíli in the tone of a crafty
+man convinced of the futility of being cunning with so keen-sighted a
+companion. "You know, you see right through people. Anatole is no
+genius, but he is an honest, goodhearted lad; an excellent son or
+kinsman."
+
+"All right, all right, we'll see!"
+
+As always happens when women lead lonely lives for any length of time
+without male society, on Anatole's appearance all the three women of
+Prince Bolkónski's household felt that their life had not been real till
+then. Their powers of reasoning, feeling, and observing immediately
+increased tenfold, and their life, which seemed to have been passed in
+darkness, was suddenly lit up by a new brightness, full of significance.
+
+Princess Mary grew quite unconscious of her face and coiffure. The
+handsome open face of the man who might perhaps be her husband absorbed
+all her attention. He seemed to her kind, brave, determined, manly, and
+magnanimous. She felt convinced of that. Thousands of dreams of a future
+family life continually rose in her imagination. She drove them away and
+tried to conceal them.
+
+"But am I not too cold with him?" thought the princess. "I try to be
+reserved because in the depth of my soul I feel too near to him already,
+but then he cannot know what I think of him and may imagine that I do
+not like him."
+
+And Princess Mary tried, but could not manage, to be cordial to her new
+guest. "Poor girl, she's devilish ugly!" thought Anatole.
+
+Mademoiselle Bourienne, also roused to great excitement by Anatole's
+arrival, thought in another way. Of course, she, a handsome young woman
+without any definite position, without relations or even a country, did
+not intend to devote her life to serving Prince Bolkónski, to reading
+aloud to him and being friends with Princess Mary. Mademoiselle
+Bourienne had long been waiting for a Russian prince who, able to
+appreciate at a glance her superiority to the plain, badly dressed,
+ungainly Russian princesses, would fall in love with her and carry her
+off; and here at last was a Russian prince. Mademoiselle Bourienne knew
+a story, heard from her aunt but finished in her own way, which she
+liked to repeat to herself. It was the story of a girl who had been
+seduced, and to whom her poor mother (sa pauvre mere) appeared, and
+reproached her for yielding to a man without being married. Mademoiselle
+Bourienne was often touched to tears as in imagination she told this
+story to him, her seducer. And now he, a real Russian prince, had
+appeared. He would carry her away and then sa pauvre mere would appear
+and he would marry her. So her future shaped itself in Mademoiselle
+Bourienne's head at the very time she was talking to Anatole about
+Paris. It was not calculation that guided her (she did not even for a
+moment consider what she should do), but all this had long been familiar
+to her, and now that Anatole had appeared it just grouped itself around
+him and she wished and tried to please him as much as possible.
+
+The little princess, like an old war horse that hears the trumpet,
+unconsciously and quite forgetting her condition, prepared for the
+familiar gallop of coquetry, without any ulterior motive or any
+struggle, but with naïve and lighthearted gaiety.
+
+Although in female society Anatole usually assumed the role of a man
+tired of being run after by women, his vanity was flattered by the
+spectacle of his power over these three women. Besides that, he was
+beginning to feel for the pretty and provocative Mademoiselle Bourienne
+that passionate animal feeling which was apt to master him with great
+suddenness and prompt him to the coarsest and most reckless actions.
+
+After tea, the company went into the sitting room and Princess Mary was
+asked to play on the clavichord. Anatole, laughing and in high spirits,
+came and leaned on his elbows, facing her and beside Mademoiselle
+Bourienne. Princess Mary felt his look with a painfully joyous emotion.
+Her favorite sonata bore her into a most intimately poetic world and the
+look she felt upon her made that world still more poetic. But Anatole's
+expression, though his eyes were fixed on her, referred not to her but
+to the movements of Mademoiselle Bourienne's little foot, which he was
+then touching with his own under the clavichord. Mademoiselle Bourienne
+was also looking at Princess Mary, and in her lovely eyes there was a
+look of fearful joy and hope that was also new to the princess.
+
+"How she loves me!" thought Princess Mary. "How happy I am now, and how
+happy I may be with such a friend and such a husband! Husband? Can it be
+possible?" she thought, not daring to look at his face, but still
+feeling his eyes gazing at her.
+
+In the evening, after supper, when all were about to retire, Anatole
+kissed Princess Mary's hand. She did not know how she found the courage,
+but she looked straight into his handsome face as it came near to her
+shortsighted eyes. Turning from Princess Mary he went up and kissed
+Mademoiselle Bourienne's hand. (This was not etiquette, but then he did
+everything so simply and with such assurance!) Mademoiselle Bourienne
+flushed, and gave the princess a frightened look.
+
+"What delicacy!" thought the princess. "Is it possible that Amelie"
+(Mademoiselle Bourienne) "thinks I could be jealous of her, and not
+value her pure affection and devotion to me?" She went up to her and
+kissed her warmly. Anatole went up to kiss the little princess' hand.
+
+"No! No! No! When your father writes to tell me that you are behaving
+well I will give you my hand to kiss. Not till then!" she said. And
+smilingly raising a finger at him, she left the room.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+They all separated, but, except Anatole who fell asleep as soon as he
+got into bed, all kept awake a long time that night.
+
+"Is he really to be my husband, this stranger who is so kind—yes, kind,
+that is the chief thing," thought Princess Mary; and fear, which she had
+seldom experienced, came upon her. She feared to look round, it seemed
+to her that someone was there standing behind the screen in the dark
+corner. And this someone was he—the devil—and he was also this man with
+the white forehead, black eyebrows, and red lips.
+
+She rang for her maid and asked her to sleep in her room.
+
+Mademoiselle Bourienne walked up and down the conservatory for a long
+time that evening, vainly expecting someone, now smiling at someone, now
+working herself up to tears with the imaginary words of her pauvre mere
+rebuking her for her fall.
+
+The little princess grumbled to her maid that her bed was badly made.
+She could not lie either on her face or on her side. Every position was
+awkward and uncomfortable, and her burden oppressed her now more than
+ever because Anatole's presence had vividly recalled to her the time
+when she was not like that and when everything was light and gay. She
+sat in an armchair in her dressing jacket and nightcap and Katie, sleepy
+and disheveled, beat and turned the heavy feather bed for the third
+time, muttering to herself.
+
+"I told you it was all lumps and holes!" the little princess repeated.
+"I should be glad enough to fall asleep, so it's not my fault!" and her
+voice quivered like that of a child about to cry.
+
+The old prince did not sleep either. Tíkhon, half asleep, heard him
+pacing angrily about and snorting. The old prince felt as though he had
+been insulted through his daughter. The insult was the more pointed
+because it concerned not himself but another, his daughter, whom he
+loved more than himself. He kept telling himself that he would consider
+the whole matter and decide what was right and how he should act, but
+instead of that he only excited himself more and more.
+
+"The first man that turns up—she forgets her father and everything else,
+runs upstairs and does up her hair and wags her tail and is unlike
+herself! Glad to throw her father over! And she knew I should notice it.
+Fr... fr... fr! And don't I see that that idiot had eyes only for
+Bourienne—I shall have to get rid of her. And how is it she has not
+pride enough to see it? If she has no pride for herself she might at
+least have some for my sake! She must be shown that the blockhead thinks
+nothing of her and looks only at Bourienne. No, she has no pride... but
+I'll let her see...."
+
+The old prince knew that if he told his daughter she was making a
+mistake and that Anatole meant to flirt with Mademoiselle Bourienne,
+Princess Mary's self-esteem would be wounded and his point (not to be
+parted from her) would be gained, so pacifying himself with this
+thought, he called Tíkhon and began to undress.
+
+"What devil brought them here?" thought he, while Tíkhon was putting the
+nightshirt over his dried-up old body and gray-haired chest. "I never
+invited them. They came to disturb my life—and there is not much of it
+left."
+
+"Devil take 'em!" he muttered, while his head was still covered by the
+shirt.
+
+Tíkhon knew his master's habit of sometimes thinking aloud, and
+therefore met with unaltered looks the angrily inquisitive expression of
+the face that emerged from the shirt.
+
+"Gone to bed?" asked the prince.
+
+Tíkhon, like all good valets, instinctively knew the direction of his
+master's thoughts. He guessed that the question referred to Prince
+Vasíli and his son.
+
+"They have gone to bed and put out their lights, your excellency."
+
+"No good... no good..." said the prince rapidly, and thrusting his feet
+into his slippers and his arms into the sleeves of his dressing gown, he
+went to the couch on which he slept.
+
+Though no words had passed between Anatole and Mademoiselle Bourienne,
+they quite understood one another as to the first part of their romance,
+up to the appearance of the pauvre mere; they understood that they had
+much to say to one another in private and so they had been seeking an
+opportunity since morning to meet one another alone. When Princess Mary
+went to her father's room at the usual hour, Mademoiselle Bourienne and
+Anatole met in the conservatory.
+
+Princess Mary went to the door of the study with special trepidation. It
+seemed to her that not only did everybody know that her fate would be
+decided that day, but that they also knew what she thought about it. She
+read this in Tíkhon's face and in that of Prince Vasíli's valet, who
+made her a low bow when she met him in the corridor carrying hot water.
+
+The old prince was very affectionate and careful in his treatment of his
+daughter that morning. Princess Mary well knew this painstaking
+expression of her father's. His face wore that expression when his dry
+hands clenched with vexation at her not understanding a sum in
+arithmetic, when rising from his chair he would walk away from her,
+repeating in a low voice the same words several times over.
+
+He came to the point at once, treating her ceremoniously.
+
+"I have had a proposition made me concerning you," he said with an
+unnatural smile. "I expect you have guessed that Prince Vasíli has not
+come and brought his pupil with him" (for some reason Prince Bolkónski
+referred to Anatole as a "pupil") "for the sake of my beautiful eyes.
+Last night a proposition was made me on your account and, as you know my
+principles, I refer it to you."
+
+"How am I to understand you, mon pere?" said the princess, growing pale
+and then blushing.
+
+"How understand me!" cried her father angrily. "Prince Vasíli finds you
+to his taste as a daughter-in-law and makes a proposal to you on his
+pupil's behalf. That's how it's to be understood! 'How understand
+it'!... And I ask you!"
+
+"I do not know what you think, Father," whispered the princess.
+
+"I? I? What of me? Leave me out of the question. I'm not going to get
+married. What about you? That's what I want to know."
+
+The princess saw that her father regarded the matter with disapproval,
+but at that moment the thought occurred to her that her fate would be
+decided now or never. She lowered her eyes so as not to see the gaze
+under which she felt that she could not think, but would only be able to
+submit from habit, and she said: "I wish only to do your will, but if I
+had to express my own desire..." She had no time to finish. The old
+prince interrupted her.
+
+"That's admirable!" he shouted. "He will take you with your dowry and
+take Mademoiselle Bourienne into the bargain. She'll be the wife, while
+you..."
+
+The prince stopped. He saw the effect these words had produced on his
+daughter. She lowered her head and was ready to burst into tears.
+
+"Now then, now then, I'm only joking!" he said. "Remember this,
+Princess, I hold to the principle that a maiden has a full right to
+choose. I give you freedom. Only remember that your life's happiness
+depends on your decision. Never mind me!"
+
+"But I do not know, Father!"
+
+"There's no need to talk! He receives his orders and will marry you or
+anybody; but you are free to choose.... Go to your room, think it over,
+and come back in an hour and tell me in his presence: yes or no. I know
+you will pray over it. Well, pray if you like, but you had better think
+it over. Go! Yes or no, yes or no, yes or no!" he still shouted when the
+princess, as if lost in a fog, had already staggered out of the study.
+
+Her fate was decided and happily decided. But what her father had said
+about Mademoiselle Bourienne was dreadful. It was untrue to be sure, but
+still it was terrible, and she could not help thinking of it. She was
+going straight on through the conservatory, neither seeing nor hearing
+anything, when suddenly the well-known whispering of Mademoiselle
+Bourienne aroused her. She raised her eyes, and two steps away saw
+Anatole embracing the Frenchwoman and whispering something to her. With
+a horrified expression on his handsome face, Anatole looked at Princess
+Mary, but did not at once take his arm from the waist of Mademoiselle
+Bourienne who had not yet seen her.
+
+"Who's that? Why? Wait a moment!" Anatole's face seemed to say. Princess
+Mary looked at them in silence. She could not understand it. At last
+Mademoiselle Bourienne gave a scream and ran away. Anatole bowed to
+Princess Mary with a gay smile, as if inviting her to join in a laugh at
+this strange incident, and then shrugging his shoulders went to the door
+that led to his own apartments.
+
+An hour later, Tíkhon came to call Princess Mary to the old prince; he
+added that Prince Vasíli was also there. When Tíkhon came to her
+Princess Mary was sitting on the sofa in her room, holding the weeping
+Mademoiselle Bourienne in her arms and gently stroking her hair. The
+princess' beautiful eyes with all their former calm radiance were
+looking with tender affection and pity at Mademoiselle Bourienne's
+pretty face.
+
+"No, Princess, I have lost your affection forever!" said Mademoiselle
+Bourienne.
+
+"Why? I love you more than ever," said Princess Mary, "and I will try to
+do all I can for your happiness."
+
+"But you despise me. You who are so pure can never understand being so
+carried away by passion. Oh, only my poor mother..."
+
+"I quite understand," answered Princess Mary, with a sad smile. "Calm
+yourself, my dear. I will go to my father," she said, and went out.
+
+Prince Vasíli, with one leg thrown high over the other and a snuffbox in
+his hand, was sitting there with a smile of deep emotion on his face, as
+if stirred to his heart's core and himself regretting and laughing at
+his own sensibility, when Princess Mary entered. He hurriedly took a
+pinch of snuff.
+
+"Ah, my dear, my dear!" he began, rising and taking her by both hands.
+Then, sighing, he added: "My son's fate is in your hands. Decide, my
+dear, good, gentle Marie, whom I have always loved as a daughter!"
+
+He drew back and a real tear appeared in his eye.
+
+"Fr... fr..." snorted Prince Bolkónski. "The prince is making a
+proposition to you in his pupil's—I mean, his son's—name. Do you wish or
+not to be Prince Anatole Kurágin's wife? Reply: yes or no," he shouted,
+"and then I shall reserve the right to state my opinion also. Yes, my
+opinion, and only my opinion," added Prince Bolkónski, turning to Prince
+Vasíli and answering his imploring look. "Yes, or no?"
+
+"My desire is never to leave you, Father, never to separate my life from
+yours. I don't wish to marry," she answered positively, glancing at
+Prince Vasíli and at her father with her beautiful eyes.
+
+"Humbug! Nonsense! Humbug, humbug, humbug!" cried Prince Bolkónski,
+frowning and taking his daughter's hand; he did not kiss her, but only
+bending his forehead to hers just touched it, and pressed her hand so
+that she winced and uttered a cry.
+
+Prince Vasíli rose.
+
+"My dear, I must tell you that this is a moment I shall never, never
+forget. But, my dear, will you not give us a little hope of touching
+this heart, so kind and generous? Say 'perhaps'... The future is so
+long. Say 'perhaps.'"
+
+"Prince, what I have said is all there is in my heart. I thank you for
+the honor, but I shall never be your son's wife."
+
+"Well, so that's finished, my dear fellow! I am very glad to have seen
+you. Very glad! Go back to your rooms, Princess. Go!" said the old
+prince. "Very, very glad to have seen you," repeated he, embracing
+Prince Vasíli.
+
+"My vocation is a different one," thought Princess Mary. "My vocation is
+to be happy with another kind of happiness, the happiness of love and
+self-sacrifice. And cost what it may, I will arrange poor Amelie's
+happiness, she loves him so passionately, and so passionately repents. I
+will do all I can to arrange the match between them. If he is not rich I
+will give her the means; I will ask my father and Andrew. I shall be so
+happy when she is his wife. She is so unfortunate, a stranger, alone,
+helpless! And, oh God, how passionately she must love him if she could
+so far forget herself! Perhaps I might have done the same!..." thought
+Princess Mary.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+It was long since the Rostóvs had news of Nicholas. Not till midwinter
+was the count at last handed a letter addressed in his son's
+handwriting. On receiving it, he ran on tiptoe to his study in alarm and
+haste, trying to escape notice, closed the door, and began to read the
+letter.
+
+Anna Mikháylovna, who always knew everything that passed in the house,
+on hearing of the arrival of the letter went softly into the room and
+found the count with it in his hand, sobbing and laughing at the same
+time.
+
+Anna Mikháylovna, though her circumstances had improved, was still
+living with the Rostóvs.
+
+"My dear friend?" said she, in a tone of pathetic inquiry, prepared to
+sympathize in any way.
+
+The count sobbed yet more.
+
+"Nikolenka... a letter... wa... a... s... wounded... my darling boy...
+the countess... promoted to be an officer... thank God... How tell the
+little countess!"
+
+Anna Mikháylovna sat down beside him, with her own handkerchief wiped
+the tears from his eyes and from the letter, then having dried her own
+eyes she comforted the count, and decided that at dinner and till
+teatime she would prepare the countess, and after tea, with God's help,
+would inform her.
+
+At dinner Anna Mikháylovna talked the whole time about the war news and
+about Nikolenka, twice asked when the last letter had been received from
+him, though she knew that already, and remarked that they might very
+likely be getting a letter from him that day. Each time that these hints
+began to make the countess anxious and she glanced uneasily at the count
+and at Anna Mikháylovna, the latter very adroitly turned the
+conversation to insignificant matters. Natásha, who, of the whole
+family, was the most gifted with a capacity to feel any shades of
+intonation, look, and expression, pricked up her ears from the beginning
+of the meal and was certain that there was some secret between her
+father and Anna Mikháylovna, that it had something to do with her
+brother, and that Anna Mikháylovna was preparing them for it. Bold as
+she was, Natásha, who knew how sensitive her mother was to anything
+relating to Nikolenka, did not venture to ask any questions at dinner,
+but she was too excited to eat anything and kept wriggling about on her
+chair regardless of her governess' remarks. After dinner, she rushed
+head long after Anna Mikháylovna and, dashing at her, flung herself on
+her neck as soon as she overtook her in the sitting room.
+
+"Auntie, darling, do tell me what it is!"
+
+"Nothing, my dear."
+
+"No, dearest, sweet one, honey, I won't give up—I know you know
+something."
+
+Anna Mikháylovna shook her head.
+
+"You are a little slyboots," she said.
+
+"A letter from Nikolenka! I'm sure of it!" exclaimed Natásha, reading
+confirmation in Anna Mikháylovna's face.
+
+"But for God's sake, be careful, you know how it may affect your mamma."
+
+"I will, I will, only tell me! You won't? Then I will go and tell at
+once."
+
+Anna Mikháylovna, in a few words, told her the contents of the letter,
+on condition that she should tell no one.
+
+"No, on my true word of honor," said Natásha, crossing herself, "I won't
+tell anyone!" and she ran off at once to Sónya.
+
+"Nikolenka... wounded... a letter," she announced in gleeful triumph.
+
+"Nicholas!" was all Sónya said, instantly turning white.
+
+Natásha, seeing the impression the news of her brother's wound produced
+on Sónya, felt for the first time the sorrowful side of the news.
+
+She rushed to Sónya, hugged her, and began to cry.
+
+"A little wound, but he has been made an officer; he is well now, he
+wrote himself," said she through her tears.
+
+"There now! It's true that all you women are crybabies," remarked Pétya,
+pacing the room with large, resolute strides. "Now I'm very glad, very
+glad indeed, that my brother has distinguished himself so. You are all
+blubberers and understand nothing."
+
+Natásha smiled through her tears.
+
+"You haven't read the letter?" asked Sónya.
+
+"No, but she said that it was all over and that he's now an officer."
+
+"Thank God!" said Sónya, crossing herself. "But perhaps she deceived
+you. Let us go to Mamma."
+
+Pétya paced the room in silence for a time.
+
+"If I'd been in Nikolenka's place I would have killed even more of those
+Frenchmen," he said. "What nasty brutes they are! I'd have killed so
+many that there'd have been a heap of them."
+
+"Hold your tongue, Pétya, what a goose you are!"
+
+"I'm not a goose, but they are who cry about trifles," said Pétya.
+
+"Do you remember him?" Natásha suddenly asked, after a moment's silence.
+
+Sónya smiled.
+
+"Do I remember Nicholas?"
+
+"No, Sónya, but do you remember so that you remember him perfectly,
+remember everything?" said Natásha, with an expressive gesture,
+evidently wishing to give her words a very definite meaning. "I remember
+Nikolenka too, I remember him well," she said. "But I don't remember
+Borís. I don't remember him a bit."
+
+"What! You don't remember Borís?" asked Sónya in surprise.
+
+"It's not that I don't remember—I know what he is like, but not as I
+remember Nikolenka. Him—I just shut my eyes and remember, but Borís...
+No!" (She shut her eyes.) "No! there's nothing at all."
+
+"Oh, Natásha!" said Sónya, looking ecstatically and earnestly at her
+friend as if she did not consider her worthy to hear what she meant to
+say and as if she were saying it to someone else, with whom joking was
+out of the question, "I am in love with your brother once for all and,
+whatever may happen to him or to me, shall never cease to love him as
+long as I live."
+
+Natásha looked at Sónya with wondering and inquisitive eyes, and said
+nothing. She felt that Sónya was speaking the truth, that there was such
+love as Sónya was speaking of. But Natásha had not yet felt anything
+like it. She believed it could be, but did not understand it.
+
+"Shall you write to him?" she asked.
+
+Sónya became thoughtful. The question of how to write to Nicholas, and
+whether she ought to write, tormented her. Now that he was already an
+officer and a wounded hero, would it be right to remind him of herself
+and, as it might seem, of the obligations to her he had taken on
+himself?
+
+"I don't know. I think if he writes, I will write too," she said,
+blushing.
+
+"And you won't feel ashamed to write to him?"
+
+Sónya smiled.
+
+"No."
+
+"And I should be ashamed to write to Borís. I'm not going to."
+
+"Why should you be ashamed?"
+
+"Well, I don't know. It's awkward and would make me ashamed."
+
+"And I know why she'd be ashamed," said Pétya, offended by Natásha's
+previous remark. "It's because she was in love with that fat one in
+spectacles" (that was how Pétya described his namesake, the new Count
+Bezúkhov) "and now she's in love with that singer" (he meant Natásha's
+Italian singing master), "that's why she's ashamed!"
+
+"Pétya, you're a stupid!" said Natásha.
+
+"Not more stupid than you, madam," said the nine-year-old Pétya, with
+the air of an old brigadier.
+
+The countess had been prepared by Anna Mikháylovna's hints at dinner. On
+retiring to her own room, she sat in an armchair, her eyes fixed on a
+miniature portrait of her son on the lid of a snuffbox, while the tears
+kept coming into her eyes. Anna Mikháylovna, with the letter, came on
+tiptoe to the countess' door and paused.
+
+"Don't come in," she said to the old count who was following her. "Come
+later." And she went in, closing the door behind her.
+
+The count put his ear to the keyhole and listened.
+
+At first he heard the sound of indifferent voices, then Anna
+Mikháylovna's voice alone in a long speech, then a cry, then silence,
+then both voices together with glad intonations, and then footsteps.
+Anna Mikháylovna opened the door. Her face wore the proud expression of
+a surgeon who has just performed a difficult operation and admits the
+public to appreciate his skill.
+
+"It is done!" she said to the count, pointing triumphantly to the
+countess, who sat holding in one hand the snuffbox with its portrait and
+in the other the letter, and pressing them alternately to her lips.
+
+When she saw the count, she stretched out her arms to him, embraced his
+bald head, over which she again looked at the letter and the portrait,
+and in order to press them again to her lips, she slightly pushed away
+the bald head. Véra, Natásha, Sónya, and Pétya now entered the room, and
+the reading of the letter began. After a brief description of the
+campaign and the two battles in which he had taken part, and his
+promotion, Nicholas said that he kissed his father's and mother's hands
+asking for their blessing, and that he kissed Véra, Natásha, and Pétya.
+Besides that, he sent greetings to Monsieur Schelling, Madame Schoss,
+and his old nurse, and asked them to kiss for him "dear Sónya, whom he
+loved and thought of just the same as ever." When she heard this Sónya
+blushed so that tears came into her eyes and, unable to bear the looks
+turned upon her, ran away into the dancing hall, whirled round it at
+full speed with her dress puffed out like a balloon, and, flushed and
+smiling, plumped down on the floor. The countess was crying.
+
+"Why are you crying, Mamma?" asked Véra. "From all he says one should be
+glad and not cry."
+
+This was quite true, but the count, the countess, and Natásha looked at
+her reproachfully. "And who is it she takes after?" thought the
+countess.
+
+Nicholas' letter was read over hundreds of times, and those who were
+considered worthy to hear it had to come to the countess, for she did
+not let it out of her hands. The tutors came, and the nurses, and
+Dmítri, and several acquaintances, and the countess reread the letter
+each time with fresh pleasure and each time discovered in it fresh
+proofs of Nikolenka's virtues. How strange, how extraordinary, how
+joyful it seemed, that her son, the scarcely perceptible motion of whose
+tiny limbs she had felt twenty years ago within her, that son about whom
+she used to have quarrels with the too indulgent count, that son who had
+first learned to say "pear" and then "granny," that this son should now
+be away in a foreign land amid strange surroundings, a manly warrior
+doing some kind of man's work of his own, without help or guidance. The
+universal experience of ages, showing that children do grow
+imperceptibly from the cradle to manhood, did not exist for the
+countess. Her son's growth toward manhood, at each of its stages, had
+seemed as extraordinary to her as if there had never existed the
+millions of human beings who grew up in the same way. As twenty years
+before, it seemed impossible that the little creature who lived
+somewhere under her heart would ever cry, suck her breast, and begin to
+speak, so now she could not believe that that little creature could be
+this strong, brave man, this model son and officer that, judging by this
+letter, he now was.
+
+"What a style! How charmingly he describes!" said she, reading the
+descriptive part of the letter. "And what a soul! Not a word about
+himself.... Not a word! About some Denisov or other, though he himself,
+I dare say, is braver than any of them. He says nothing about his
+sufferings. What a heart! How like him it is! And how he has remembered
+everybody! Not forgetting anyone. I always said when he was only so
+high—I always said...."
+
+For more than a week preparations were being made, rough drafts of
+letters to Nicholas from all the household were written and copied out,
+while under the supervision of the countess and the solicitude of the
+count, money and all things necessary for the uniform and equipment of
+the newly commissioned officer were collected. Anna Mikháylovna,
+practical woman that she was, had even managed by favor with army
+authorities to secure advantageous means of communication for herself
+and her son. She had opportunities of sending her letters to the Grand
+Duke Constantine Pavlovich, who commanded the Guards. The Rostóvs
+supposed that The Russian Guards, Abroad, was quite a definite address,
+and that if a letter reached the Grand Duke in command of the Guards
+there was no reason why it should not reach the Pávlograd regiment,
+which was presumably somewhere in the same neighborhood. And so it was
+decided to send the letters and money by the Grand Duke's courier to
+Borís and Borís was to forward them to Nicholas. The letters were from
+the old count, the countess, Pétya, Véra, Natásha, and Sónya, and
+finally there were six thousand rubles for his outfit and various other
+things the old count sent to his son.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+On the twelfth of November, Kutúzov's active army, in camp before
+Olmutz, was preparing to be reviewed next day by the two Emperors—the
+Russian and the Austrian. The Guards, just arrived from Russia, spent
+the night ten miles from Olmutz and next morning were to come straight
+to the review, reaching the field at Olmutz by ten o'clock.
+
+That day Nicholas Rostóv received a letter from Borís, telling him that
+the Ismaylov regiment was quartered for the night ten miles from Olmutz
+and that he wanted to see him as he had a letter and money for him.
+Rostóv was particularly in need of money now that the troops, after
+their active service, were stationed near Olmutz and the camp swarmed
+with well-provisioned sutlers and Austrian Jews offering all sorts of
+tempting wares. The Pávlograds held feast after feast, celebrating
+awards they had received for the campaign, and made expeditions to
+Olmutz to visit a certain Caroline the Hungarian, who had recently
+opened a restaurant there with girls as waitresses. Rostóv, who had just
+celebrated his promotion to a cornetcy and bought Denisov's horse,
+Bedouin, was in debt all round, to his comrades and the sutlers. On
+receiving Borís' letter he rode with a fellow officer to Olmutz, dined
+there, drank a bottle of wine, and then set off alone to the Guards'
+camp to find his old playmate. Rostóv had not yet had time to get his
+uniform. He had on a shabby cadet jacket, decorated with a soldier's
+cross, equally shabby cadet's riding breeches lined with worn leather,
+and an officer's saber with a sword knot. The Don horse he was riding
+was one he had bought from a Cossack during the campaign, and he wore a
+crumpled hussar cap stuck jauntily back on one side of his head. As he
+rode up to the camp he thought how he would impress Borís and all his
+comrades of the Guards by his appearance—that of a fighting hussar who
+had been under fire.
+
+The Guards had made their whole march as if on a pleasure trip, parading
+their cleanliness and discipline. They had come by easy stages, their
+knapsacks conveyed on carts, and the Austrian authorities had provided
+excellent dinners for the officers at every halting place. The regiments
+had entered and left the town with their bands playing, and by the Grand
+Duke's orders the men had marched all the way in step (a practice on
+which the Guards prided themselves), the officers on foot and at their
+proper posts. Borís had been quartered, and had marched all the way,
+with Berg who was already in command of a company. Berg, who had
+obtained his captaincy during the campaign, had gained the confidence of
+his superiors by his promptitude and accuracy and had arranged his money
+matters very satisfactorily. Borís, during the campaign, had made the
+acquaintance of many persons who might prove useful to him, and by a
+letter of recommendation he had brought from Pierre had become
+acquainted with Prince Andrew Bolkónski, through whom he hoped to obtain
+a post on the commander-in-chief's staff. Berg and Borís, having rested
+after yesterday's march, were sitting, clean and neatly dressed, at a
+round table in the clean quarters allotted to them, playing chess. Berg
+held a smoking pipe between his knees. Borís, in the accurate way
+characteristic of him, was building a little pyramid of chessmen with
+his delicate white fingers while awaiting Berg's move, and watched his
+opponent's face, evidently thinking about the game as he always thought
+only of whatever he was engaged on.
+
+"Well, how are you going to get out of that?" he remarked.
+
+"We'll try to," replied Berg, touching a pawn and then removing his
+hand.
+
+At that moment the door opened.
+
+"Here he is at last!" shouted Rostóv. "And Berg too! Oh, you
+petisenfans, allay cushay dormir!" he exclaimed, imitating his Russian
+nurse's French, at which he and Borís used to laugh long ago.
+
+"Dear me, how you have changed!"
+
+Borís rose to meet Rostóv, but in doing so did not omit to steady and
+replace some chessmen that were falling. He was about to embrace his
+friend, but Nicholas avoided him. With that peculiar feeling of youth,
+that dread of beaten tracks, and wish to express itself in a manner
+different from that of its elders which is often insincere, Nicholas
+wished to do something special on meeting his friend. He wanted to pinch
+him, push him, do anything but kiss him—a thing everybody did. But
+notwithstanding this, Borís embraced him in a quiet, friendly way and
+kissed him three times.
+
+They had not met for nearly half a year and, being at the age when young
+men take their first steps on life's road, each saw immense changes in
+the other, quite a new reflection of the society in which they had taken
+those first steps. Both had changed greatly since they last met and both
+were in a hurry to show the changes that had taken place in them.
+
+"Oh, you damned dandies! Clean and fresh as if you'd been to a fete, not
+like us sinners of the line," cried Rostóv, with martial swagger and
+with baritone notes in his voice, new to Borís, pointing to his own mud-
+bespattered breeches. The German landlady, hearing Rostóv's loud voice,
+popped her head in at the door.
+
+"Eh, is she pretty?" he asked with a wink.
+
+"Why do you shout so? You'll frighten them!" said Borís. "I did not
+expect you today," he added. "I only sent you the note yesterday by
+Bolkónski—an adjutant of Kutúzov's, who's a friend of mine. I did not
+think he would get it to you so quickly.... Well, how are you? Been
+under fire already?" asked Borís.
+
+Without answering, Rostóv shook the soldier's Cross of St. George
+fastened to the cording of his uniform and, indicating a bandaged arm,
+glanced at Berg with a smile.
+
+"As you see," he said.
+
+"Indeed? Yes, yes!" said Borís, with a smile. "And we too have had a
+splendid march. You know, of course, that His Imperial Highness rode
+with our regiment all the time, so that we had every comfort and every
+advantage. What receptions we had in Poland! What dinners and balls! I
+can't tell you. And the Tsarevich was very gracious to all our
+officers."
+
+And the two friends told each other of their doings, the one of his
+hussar revels and life in the fighting line, the other of the pleasures
+and advantages of service under members of the Imperial family.
+
+"Oh, you Guards!" said Rostóv. "I say, send for some wine."
+
+Borís made a grimace.
+
+"If you really want it," said he.
+
+He went to his bed, drew a purse from under the clean pillow, and sent
+for wine.
+
+"Yes, and I have some money and a letter to give you," he added.
+
+Rostóv took the letter and, throwing the money on the sofa, put both
+arms on the table and began to read. After reading a few lines, he
+glanced angrily at Berg, then, meeting his eyes, hid his face behind the
+letter.
+
+"Well, they've sent you a tidy sum," said Berg, eying the heavy purse
+that sank into the sofa. "As for us, Count, we get along on our pay. I
+can tell you for myself..."
+
+"I say, Berg, my dear fellow," said Rostóv, "when you get a letter from
+home and meet one of your own people whom you want to talk everything
+over with, and I happen to be there, I'll go at once, to be out of your
+way! Do go somewhere, anywhere... to the devil!" he exclaimed, and
+immediately seizing him by the shoulder and looking amiably into his
+face, evidently wishing to soften the rudeness of his words, he added,
+"Don't be hurt, my dear fellow; you know I speak from my heart as to an
+old acquaintance."
+
+"Oh, don't mention it, Count! I quite understand," said Berg, getting up
+and speaking in a muffled and guttural voice.
+
+"Go across to our hosts: they invited you," added Borís.
+
+Berg put on the cleanest of coats, without a spot or speck of dust,
+stood before a looking glass and brushed the hair on his temples
+upwards, in the way affected by the Emperor Alexander, and, having
+assured himself from the way Rostóv looked at it that his coat had been
+noticed, left the room with a pleasant smile.
+
+"Oh dear, what a beast I am!" muttered Rostóv, as he read the letter.
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Oh, what a pig I am, not to have written and to have given them such a
+fright! Oh, what a pig I am!" he repeated, flushing suddenly. "Well,
+have you sent Gabriel for some wine? All right let's have some!"
+
+In the letter from his parents was enclosed a letter of recommendation
+to Bagration which the old countess at Anna Mikháylovna's advice had
+obtained through an acquaintance and sent to her son, asking him to take
+it to its destination and make use of it.
+
+"What nonsense! Much I need it!" said Rostóv, throwing the letter under
+the table.
+
+"Why have you thrown that away?" asked Borís.
+
+"It is some letter of recommendation... what the devil do I want it
+for!"
+
+"Why 'What the devil'?" said Borís, picking it up and reading the
+address. "This letter would be of great use to you."
+
+"I want nothing, and I won't be anyone's adjutant."
+
+"Why not?" inquired Borís.
+
+"It's a lackey's job!"
+
+"You are still the same dreamer, I see," remarked Borís, shaking his
+head.
+
+"And you're still the same diplomatist! But that's not the point...
+Come, how are you?" asked Rostóv.
+
+"Well, as you see. So far everything's all right, but I confess I should
+much like to be an adjutant and not remain at the front."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because when once a man starts on military service, he should try to
+make as successful a career of it as possible."
+
+"Oh, that's it!" said Rostóv, evidently thinking of something else.
+
+He looked intently and inquiringly into his friend's eyes, evidently
+trying in vain to find the answer to some question.
+
+Old Gabriel brought in the wine.
+
+"Shouldn't we now send for Berg?" asked Borís. "He would drink with you.
+I can't."
+
+"Well, send for him... and how do you get on with that German?" asked
+Rostóv, with a contemptuous smile.
+
+"He is a very, very nice, honest, and pleasant fellow," answered Borís.
+
+Again Rostóv looked intently into Borís' eyes and sighed. Berg returned,
+and over the bottle of wine conversation between the three officers
+became animated. The Guardsmen told Rostóv of their march and how they
+had been made much of in Russia, Poland, and abroad. They spoke of the
+sayings and doings of their commander, the Grand Duke, and told stories
+of his kindness and irascibility. Berg, as usual, kept silent when the
+subject did not relate to himself, but in connection with the stories of
+the Grand Duke's quick temper he related with gusto how in Galicia he
+had managed to deal with the Grand Duke when the latter made a tour of
+the regiments and was annoyed at the irregularity of a movement. With a
+pleasant smile Berg related how the Grand Duke had ridden up to him in a
+violent passion, shouting: "Arnauts!" ("Arnauts" was the Tsarevich's
+favorite expression when he was in a rage) and called for the company
+commander.
+
+"Would you believe it, Count, I was not at all alarmed, because I knew I
+was right. Without boasting, you know, I may say that I know the Army
+Orders by heart and know the Regulations as well as I do the Lord's
+Prayer. So, Count, there never is any negligence in my company, and so
+my conscience was at ease. I came forward...." (Berg stood up and showed
+how he presented himself, with his hand to his cap, and really it would
+have been difficult for a face to express greater respect and self-
+complacency than his did.) "Well, he stormed at me, as the saying is,
+stormed and stormed and stormed! It was not a matter of life but rather
+of death, as the saying is. 'Albanians!' and 'devils!' and 'To
+Siberia!'" said Berg with a sagacious smile. "I knew I was in the right
+so I kept silent; was not that best, Count?... 'Hey, are you dumb?' he
+shouted. Still I remained silent. And what do you think, Count? The next
+day it was not even mentioned in the Orders of the Day. That's what
+keeping one's head means. That's the way, Count," said Berg, lighting
+his pipe and emitting rings of smoke.
+
+"Yes, that was fine," said Rostóv, smiling.
+
+But Borís noticed that he was preparing to make fun of Berg, and
+skillfully changed the subject. He asked him to tell them how and where
+he got his wound. This pleased Rostóv and he began talking about it, and
+as he went on became more and more animated. He told them of his Schon
+Grabern affair, just as those who have taken part in a battle generally
+do describe it, that is, as they would like it to have been, as they
+have heard it described by others, and as sounds well, but not at all as
+it really was. Rostóv was a truthful young man and would on no account
+have told a deliberate lie. He began his story meaning to tell
+everything just as it happened, but imperceptibly, involuntarily, and
+inevitably he lapsed into falsehood. If he had told the truth to his
+hearers—who like himself had often heard stories of attacks and had
+formed a definite idea of what an attack was and were expecting to hear
+just such a story—they would either not have believed him or, still
+worse, would have thought that Rostóv was himself to blame since what
+generally happens to the narrators of cavalry attacks had not happened
+to him. He could not tell them simply that everyone went at a trot and
+that he fell off his horse and sprained his arm and then ran as hard as
+he could from a Frenchman into the wood. Besides, to tell everything as
+it really happened, it would have been necessary to make an effort of
+will to tell only what happened. It is very difficult to tell the truth,
+and young people are rarely capable of it. His hearers expected a story
+of how beside himself and all aflame with excitement, he had flown like
+a storm at the square, cut his way in, slashed right and left, how his
+saber had tasted flesh and he had fallen exhausted, and so on. And so he
+told them all that.
+
+In the middle of his story, just as he was saying: "You cannot imagine
+what a strange frenzy one experiences during an attack," Prince Andrew,
+whom Borís was expecting, entered the room. Prince Andrew, who liked to
+help young men, was flattered by being asked for his assistance and
+being well disposed toward Borís, who had managed to please him the day
+before, he wished to do what the young man wanted. Having been sent with
+papers from Kutúzov to the Tsarevich, he looked in on Borís, hoping to
+find him alone. When he came in and saw an hussar of the line recounting
+his military exploits (Prince Andrew could not endure that sort of man),
+he gave Borís a pleasant smile, frowned as with half-closed eyes he
+looked at Rostóv, bowed slightly and wearily, and sat down languidly on
+the sofa: he felt it unpleasant to have dropped in on bad company.
+Rostóv flushed up on noticing this, but he did not care, this was a mere
+stranger. Glancing, however, at Borís, he saw that he too seemed ashamed
+of the hussar of the line.
+
+In spite of Prince Andrew's disagreeable, ironical tone, in spite of the
+contempt with which Rostóv, from his fighting army point of view,
+regarded all these little adjutants on the staff of whom the newcomer
+was evidently one, Rostóv felt confused, blushed, and became silent.
+Borís inquired what news there might be on the staff, and what, without
+indiscretion, one might ask about our plans.
+
+"We shall probably advance," replied Bolkónski, evidently reluctant to
+say more in the presence of a stranger.
+
+Berg took the opportunity to ask, with great politeness, whether, as was
+rumored, the allowance of forage money to captains of companies would be
+doubled. To this Prince Andrew answered with a smile that he could give
+no opinion on such an important government order, and Berg laughed
+gaily.
+
+"As to your business," Prince Andrew continued, addressing Borís, "we
+will talk of it later" (and he looked round at Rostóv). "Come to me
+after the review and we will do what is possible."
+
+And, having glanced round the room, Prince Andrew turned to Rostóv,
+whose state of unconquerable childish embarrassment now changing to
+anger he did not condescend to notice, and said: "I think you were
+talking of the Schon Grabern affair? Were you there?"
+
+"I was there," said Rostóv angrily, as if intending to insult the aide-
+de-camp.
+
+Bolkónski noticed the hussar's state of mind, and it amused him. With a
+slightly contemptuous smile, he said: "Yes, there are many stories now
+told about that affair!"
+
+"Yes, stories!" repeated Rostóv loudly, looking with eyes suddenly grown
+furious, now at Borís, now at Bolkónski. "Yes, many stories! But our
+stories are the stories of men who have been under the enemy's fire! Our
+stories have some weight, not like the stories of those fellows on the
+staff who get rewards without doing anything!"
+
+"Of whom you imagine me to be one?" said Prince Andrew, with a quiet and
+particularly amiable smile.
+
+A strange feeling of exasperation and yet of respect for this man's
+self-possession mingled at that moment in Rostóv's soul.
+
+"I am not talking about you," he said, "I don't know you and, frankly, I
+don't want to. I am speaking of the staff in general."
+
+"And I will tell you this," Prince Andrew interrupted in a tone of quiet
+authority, "you wish to insult me, and I am ready to agree with you that
+it would be very easy to do so if you haven't sufficient self-respect,
+but admit that the time and place are very badly chosen. In a day or two
+we shall all have to take part in a greater and more serious duel, and
+besides, Drubetskóy, who says he is an old friend of yours, is not at
+all to blame that my face has the misfortune to displease you. However,"
+he added rising, "you know my name and where to find me, but don't
+forget that I do not regard either myself or you as having been at all
+insulted, and as a man older than you, my advice is to let the matter
+drop. Well then, on Friday after the review I shall expect you,
+Drubetskóy. Au revoir!" exclaimed Prince Andrew, and with a bow to them
+both he went out.
+
+Only when Prince Andrew was gone did Rostóv think of what he ought to
+have said. And he was still more angry at having omitted to say it. He
+ordered his horse at once and, coldly taking leave of Borís, rode home.
+Should he go to headquarters next day and challenge that affected
+adjutant, or really let the matter drop, was the question that worried
+him all the way. He thought angrily of the pleasure he would have at
+seeing the fright of that small and frail but proud man when covered by
+his pistol, and then he felt with surprise that of all the men he knew
+there was none he would so much like to have for a friend as that very
+adjutant whom he so hated.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+The day after Rostóv had been to see Borís, a review was held of the
+Austrian and Russian troops, both those freshly arrived from Russia and
+those who had been campaigning under Kutúzov. The two Emperors, the
+Russian with his heir the Tsarevich, and the Austrian with the Archduke,
+inspected the allied army of eighty thousand men.
+
+From early morning the smart clean troops were on the move, forming up
+on the field before the fortress. Now thousands of feet and bayonets
+moved and halted at the officers' command, turned with banners flying,
+formed up at intervals, and wheeled round other similar masses of
+infantry in different uniforms; now was heard the rhythmic beat of hoofs
+and the jingling of showy cavalry in blue, red, and green braided
+uniforms, with smartly dressed bandsmen in front mounted on black, roan,
+or gray horses; then again, spreading out with the brazen clatter of the
+polished shining cannon that quivered on the gun carriages and with the
+smell of linstocks, came the artillery which crawled between the
+infantry and cavalry and took up its appointed position. Not only the
+generals in full parade uniforms, with their thin or thick waists drawn
+in to the utmost, their red necks squeezed into their stiff collars, and
+wearing scarves and all their decorations, not only the elegant, pomaded
+officers, but every soldier with his freshly washed and shaven face and
+his weapons clean and polished to the utmost, and every horse groomed
+till its coat shone like satin and every hair of its wetted mane lay
+smooth—felt that no small matter was happening, but an important and
+solemn affair. Every general and every soldier was conscious of his own
+insignificance, aware of being but a drop in that ocean of men, and yet
+at the same time was conscious of his strength as a part of that
+enormous whole.
+
+From early morning strenuous activities and efforts had begun and by ten
+o'clock all had been brought into due order. The ranks were drawn up on
+the vast field. The whole army was extended in three lines: the cavalry
+in front, behind it the artillery, and behind that again the infantry.
+
+A space like a street was left between each two lines of troops. The
+three parts of that army were sharply distinguished: Kutúzov's fighting
+army (with the Pávlograds on the right flank of the front); those
+recently arrived from Russia, both Guards and regiments of the line; and
+the Austrian troops. But they all stood in the same lines, under one
+command, and in a like order.
+
+Like wind over leaves ran an excited whisper: "They're coming! They're
+coming!" Alarmed voices were heard, and a stir of final preparation
+swept over all the troops.
+
+From the direction of Olmutz in front of them, a group was seen
+approaching. And at that moment, though the day was still, a light gust
+of wind blowing over the army slightly stirred the streamers on the
+lances and the unfolded standards fluttered against their staffs. It
+looked as if by that slight motion the army itself was expressing its
+joy at the approach of the Emperors. One voice was heard shouting: "Eyes
+front!" Then, like the crowing of cocks at sunrise, this was repeated by
+others from various sides and all became silent.
+
+In the deathlike stillness only the tramp of horses was heard. This was
+the Emperors' suites. The Emperors rode up to the flank, and the
+trumpets of the first cavalry regiment played the general march. It
+seemed as though not the trumpeters were playing, but as if the army
+itself, rejoicing at the Emperors' approach, had naturally burst into
+music. Amid these sounds, only the youthful kindly voice of the Emperor
+Alexander was clearly heard. He gave the words of greeting, and the
+first regiment roared "Hurrah!" so deafeningly, continuously, and
+joyfully that the men themselves were awed by their multitude and the
+immensity of the power they constituted.
+
+Rostóv, standing in the front lines of Kutúzov's army which the Tsar
+approached first, experienced the same feeling as every other man in
+that army: a feeling of self-forgetfulness, a proud consciousness of
+might, and a passionate attraction to him who was the cause of this
+triumph.
+
+He felt that at a single word from that man all this vast mass (and he
+himself an insignificant atom in it) would go through fire and water,
+commit crime, die, or perform deeds of highest heroism, and so he could
+not but tremble and his heart stand still at the imminence of that word.
+
+"Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!" thundered from all sides, one regiment after
+another greeting the Tsar with the strains of the march, and then
+"Hurrah!"... Then the general march, and again "Hurrah! Hurrah!" growing
+ever stronger and fuller and merging into a deafening roar.
+
+Till the Tsar reached it, each regiment in its silence and immobility
+seemed like a lifeless body, but as soon as he came up it became alive,
+its thunder joining the roar of the whole line along which he had
+already passed. Through the terrible and deafening roar of those voices,
+amid the square masses of troops standing motionless as if turned to
+stone, hundreds of riders composing the suites moved carelessly but
+symmetrically and above all freely, and in front of them two men—the
+Emperors. Upon them the undivided, tensely passionate attention of that
+whole mass of men was concentrated.
+
+The handsome young Emperor Alexander, in the uniform of the Horse
+Guards, wearing a cocked hat with its peaks front and back, with his
+pleasant face and resonant though not loud voice, attracted everyone's
+attention.
+
+Rostóv was not far from the trumpeters, and with his keen sight had
+recognized the Tsar and watched his approach. When he was within twenty
+paces, and Nicholas could clearly distinguish every detail of his
+handsome, happy young face, he experienced a feeling of tenderness and
+ecstasy such as he had never before known. Every trait and every
+movement of the Tsar's seemed to him enchanting.
+
+Stopping in front of the Pávlograds, the Tsar said something in French
+to the Austrian Emperor and smiled.
+
+Seeing that smile, Rostóv involuntarily smiled himself and felt a still
+stronger flow of love for his sovereign. He longed to show that love in
+some way and knowing that this was impossible was ready to cry. The Tsar
+called the colonel of the regiment and said a few words to him.
+
+"Oh God, what would happen to me if the Emperor spoke to me?" thought
+Rostóv. "I should die of happiness!"
+
+The Tsar addressed the officers also: "I thank you all, gentlemen, I
+thank you with my whole heart." To Rostóv every word sounded like a
+voice from heaven. How gladly would he have died at once for his Tsar!
+
+"You have earned the St. George's standards and will be worthy of them."
+
+"Oh, to die, to die for him," thought Rostóv.
+
+The Tsar said something more which Rostóv did not hear, and the
+soldiers, straining their lungs, shouted "Hurrah!"
+
+Rostóv too, bending over his saddle, shouted "Hurrah!" with all his
+might, feeling that he would like to injure himself by that shout, if
+only to express his rapture fully.
+
+The Tsar stopped a few minutes in front of the hussars as if undecided.
+
+"How can the Emperor be undecided?" thought Rostóv, but then even this
+indecision appeared to him majestic and enchanting, like everything else
+the Tsar did.
+
+That hesitation lasted only an instant. The Tsar's foot, in the narrow
+pointed boot then fashionable, touched the groin of the bobtailed bay
+mare he rode, his hand in a white glove gathered up the reins, and he
+moved off accompanied by an irregularly swaying sea of aides-de-camp.
+Farther and farther he rode away, stopping at other regiments, till at
+last only his white plumes were visible to Rostóv from amid the suites
+that surrounded the Emperors.
+
+Among the gentlemen of the suite, Rostóv noticed Bolkónski, sitting his
+horse indolently and carelessly. Rostóv recalled their quarrel of
+yesterday and the question presented itself whether he ought or ought
+not to challenge Bolkónski. "Of course not!" he now thought. "Is it
+worth thinking or speaking of it at such a moment? At a time of such
+love, such rapture, and such self-sacrifice, what do any of our quarrels
+and affronts matter? I love and forgive everybody now."
+
+When the Emperor had passed nearly all the regiments, the troops began a
+ceremonial march past him, and Rostóv on Bedouin, recently purchased
+from Denisov, rode past too, at the rear of his squadron—that is, alone
+and in full view of the Emperor.
+
+Before he reached him, Rostóv, who was a splendid horseman, spurred
+Bedouin twice and successfully put him to the showy trot in which the
+animal went when excited. Bending his foaming muzzle to his chest, his
+tail extended, Bedouin, as if also conscious of the Emperor's eye upon
+him, passed splendidly, lifting his feet with a high and graceful
+action, as if flying through the air without touching the ground.
+
+Rostóv himself, his legs well back and his stomach drawn in and feeling
+himself one with his horse, rode past the Emperor with a frowning but
+blissful face "like a vewy devil," as Denisov expressed it.
+
+"Fine fellows, the Pávlograds!" remarked the Emperor.
+
+"My God, how happy I should be if he ordered me to leap into the fire
+this instant!" thought Rostóv.
+
+When the review was over, the newly arrived officers, and also
+Kutúzov's, collected in groups and began to talk about the awards, about
+the Austrians and their uniforms, about their lines, about Bonaparte,
+and how badly the latter would fare now, especially if the Essen corps
+arrived and Prussia took our side.
+
+But the talk in every group was chiefly about the Emperor Alexander. His
+every word and movement was described with ecstasy.
+
+They all had but one wish: to advance as soon as possible against the
+enemy under the Emperor's command. Commanded by the Emperor himself they
+could not fail to vanquish anyone, be it whom it might: so thought
+Rostóv and most of the officers after the review.
+
+All were then more confident of victory than the winning of two battles
+would have made them.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+The day after the review, Borís, in his best uniform and with his
+comrade Berg's best wishes for success, rode to Olmutz to see Bolkónski,
+wishing to profit by his friendliness and obtain for himself the best
+post he could—preferably that of adjutant to some important personage, a
+position in the army which seemed to him most attractive. "It is all
+very well for Rostóv, whose father sends him ten thousand rubles at a
+time, to talk about not wishing to cringe to anybody and not be anyone's
+lackey, but I who have nothing but my brains have to make a career and
+must not miss opportunities, but must avail myself of them!" he
+reflected.
+
+He did not find Prince Andrew in Olmutz that day, but the appearance of
+the town where the headquarters and the diplomatic corps were stationed
+and the two Emperors were living with their suites, households, and
+courts only strengthened his desire to belong to that higher world.
+
+He knew no one, and despite his smart Guardsman's uniform, all these
+exalted personages passing in the streets in their elegant carriages
+with their plumes, ribbons, and medals, both courtiers and military men,
+seemed so immeasurably above him, an insignificant officer of the
+Guards, that they not only did not wish to, but simply could not, be
+aware of his existence. At the quarters of the commander-in-chief,
+Kutúzov, where he inquired for Bolkónski, all the adjutants and even the
+orderlies looked at him as if they wished to impress on him that a great
+many officers like him were always coming there and that everybody was
+heartily sick of them. In spite of this, or rather because of it, next
+day, November 15, after dinner he again went to Olmutz and, entering the
+house occupied by Kutúzov, asked for Bolkónski. Prince Andrew was in and
+Borís was shown into a large hall probably formerly used for dancing,
+but in which five beds now stood, and furniture of various kinds: a
+table, chairs, and a clavichord. One adjutant, nearest the door, was
+sitting at the table in a Persian dressing gown, writing. Another, the
+red, stout Nesvítski, lay on a bed with his arms under his head,
+laughing with an officer who had sat down beside him. A third was
+playing a Viennese waltz on the clavichord, while a fourth, lying on the
+clavichord, sang the tune. Bolkónski was not there. None of these
+gentlemen changed his position on seeing Borís. The one who was writing
+and whom Borís addressed turned round crossly and told him Bolkónski was
+on duty and that he should go through the door on the left into the
+reception room if he wished to see him. Borís thanked him and went to
+the reception room, where he found some ten officers and generals.
+
+When he entered, Prince Andrew, his eyes drooping contemptuously (with
+that peculiar expression of polite weariness which plainly says, "If it
+were not my duty I would not talk to you for a moment"), was listening
+to an old Russian general with decorations, who stood very erect, almost
+on tiptoe, with a soldier's obsequious expression on his purple face,
+reporting something.
+
+"Very well, then, be so good as to wait," said Prince Andrew to the
+general, in Russian, speaking with the French intonation he affected
+when he wished to speak contemptuously, and noticing Borís, Prince
+Andrew, paying no more heed to the general who ran after him imploring
+him to hear something more, nodded and turned to him with a cheerful
+smile.
+
+At that moment Borís clearly realized what he had before surmised, that
+in the army, besides the subordination and discipline prescribed in the
+military code, which he and the others knew in the regiment, there was
+another, more important, subordination, which made this tight-laced,
+purple-faced general wait respectfully while Captain Prince Andrew, for
+his own pleasure, chose to chat with Lieutenant Drubetskóy. More than
+ever was Borís resolved to serve in future not according to the written
+code, but under this unwritten law. He felt now that merely by having
+been recommended to Prince Andrew he had already risen above the general
+who at the front had the power to annihilate him, a lieutenant of the
+Guards. Prince Andrew came up to him and took his hand.
+
+"I am very sorry you did not find me in yesterday. I was fussing about
+with Germans all day. We went with Weyrother to survey the dispositions.
+When Germans start being accurate, there's no end to it!"
+
+Borís smiled, as if he understood what Prince Andrew was alluding to as
+something generally known. But it was the first time he had heard
+Weyrother's name, or even the term "dispositions."
+
+"Well, my dear fellow, so you still want to be an adjutant? I have been
+thinking about you."
+
+"Yes, I was thinking"—for some reason Borís could not help blushing—"of
+asking the commander-in-chief. He has had a letter from Prince Kurágin
+about me. I only wanted to ask because I fear the Guards won't be in
+action," he added as if in apology.
+
+"All right, all right. We'll talk it over," replied Prince Andrew. "Only
+let me report this gentleman's business, and I shall be at your
+disposal."
+
+While Prince Andrew went to report about the purple-faced general, that
+gentleman—evidently not sharing Borís' conception of the advantages of
+the unwritten code of subordination—looked so fixedly at the
+presumptuous lieutenant who had prevented his finishing what he had to
+say to the adjutant that Borís felt uncomfortable. He turned away and
+waited impatiently for Prince Andrew's return from the commander-in-
+chief's room.
+
+"You see, my dear fellow, I have been thinking about you," said Prince
+Andrew when they had gone into the large room where the clavichord was.
+"It's no use your going to the commander-in-chief. He would say a lot of
+pleasant things, ask you to dinner" ("That would not be bad as regards
+the unwritten code," thought Borís), "but nothing more would come of it.
+There will soon be a battalion of us aides-de-camp and adjutants! But
+this is what we'll do: I have a good friend, an adjutant general and an
+excellent fellow, Prince Dolgorukov; and though you may not know it, the
+fact is that now Kutúzov with his staff and all of us count for nothing.
+Everything is now centered round the Emperor. So we will go to
+Dolgorukov; I have to go there anyhow and I have already spoken to him
+about you. We shall see whether he cannot attach you to himself or find
+a place for you somewhere nearer the sun."
+
+Prince Andrew always became specially keen when he had to guide a young
+man and help him to worldly success. Under cover of obtaining help of
+this kind for another, which from pride he would never accept for
+himself, he kept in touch with the circle which confers success and
+which attracted him. He very readily took up Borís' cause and went with
+him to Dolgorukov.
+
+It was late in the evening when they entered the palace at Olmutz
+occupied by the Emperors and their retinues.
+
+That same day a council of war had been held in which all the members of
+the Hofkriegsrath and both Emperors took part. At that council, contrary
+to the views of the old generals Kutúzov and Prince Schwartzenberg, it
+had been decided to advance immediately and give battle to Bonaparte.
+The council of war was just over when Prince Andrew accompanied by Borís
+arrived at the palace to find Dolgorukov. Everyone at headquarters was
+still under the spell of the day's council, at which the party of the
+young had triumphed. The voices of those who counseled delay and advised
+waiting for something else before advancing had been so completely
+silenced and their arguments confuted by such conclusive evidence of the
+advantages of attacking that what had been discussed at the council—the
+coming battle and the victory that would certainly result from it—no
+longer seemed to be in the future but in the past. All the advantages
+were on our side. Our enormous forces, undoubtedly superior to
+Napoleon's, were concentrated in one place, the troops inspired by the
+Emperors' presence were eager for action. The strategic position where
+the operations would take place was familiar in all its details to the
+Austrian General Weyrother: a lucky accident had ordained that the
+Austrian army should maneuver the previous year on the very fields where
+the French had now to be fought; the adjacent locality was known and
+shown in every detail on the maps, and Bonaparte, evidently weakened,
+was undertaking nothing.
+
+Dolgorukov, one of the warmest advocates of an attack, had just returned
+from the council, tired and exhausted but eager and proud of the victory
+that had been gained. Prince Andrew introduced his protege, but Prince
+Dolgorukov politely and firmly pressing his hand said nothing to Borís
+and, evidently unable to suppress the thoughts which were uppermost in
+his mind at that moment, addressed Prince Andrew in French.
+
+"Ah, my dear fellow, what a battle we have gained! God grant that the
+one that will result from it will be as victorious! However, dear
+fellow," he said abruptly and eagerly, "I must confess to having been
+unjust to the Austrians and especially to Weyrother. What exactitude,
+what minuteness, what knowledge of the locality, what foresight for
+every eventuality, every possibility even to the smallest detail! No, my
+dear fellow, no conditions better than our present ones could have been
+devised. This combination of Austrian precision with Russian valor—what
+more could be wished for?"
+
+"So the attack is definitely resolved on?" asked Bolkónski.
+
+"And do you know, my dear fellow, it seems to me that Bonaparte has
+decidedly lost bearings, you know that a letter was received from him
+today for the Emperor." Dolgorukov smiled significantly.
+
+"Is that so? And what did he say?" inquired Bolkónski.
+
+"What can he say? Tra-di-ri-di-ra and so on... merely to gain time. I
+tell you he is in our hands, that's certain! But what was most amusing,"
+he continued, with a sudden, good-natured laugh, "was that we could not
+think how to address the reply! If not as 'Consul' and of course not as
+'Emperor,' it seemed to me it should be to 'General Bonaparte.'"
+
+"But between not recognizing him as Emperor and calling him General
+Bonaparte, there is a difference," remarked Bolkónski.
+
+"That's just it," interrupted Dolgorukov quickly, laughing. "You know
+Bilibin—he's a very clever fellow. He suggested addressing him as
+'Usurper and Enemy of Mankind.'"
+
+Dolgorukov laughed merrily.
+
+"Only that?" said Bolkónski.
+
+"All the same, it was Bilibin who found a suitable form for the address.
+He is a wise and clever fellow."
+
+"What was it?"
+
+"To the Head of the French Government... Au chef du gouvernement
+francais," said Dolgorukov, with grave satisfaction. "Good, wasn't it?"
+
+"Yes, but he will dislike it extremely," said Bolkónski.
+
+"Oh yes, very much! My brother knows him, he's dined with him—the
+present Emperor—more than once in Paris, and tells me he never met a
+more cunning or subtle diplomatist—you know, a combination of French
+adroitness and Italian play-acting! Do you know the tale about him and
+Count Markov? Count Markov was the only man who knew how to handle him.
+You know the story of the handkerchief? It is delightful!"
+
+And the talkative Dolgorukov, turning now to Borís, now to Prince
+Andrew, told how Bonaparte wishing to test Markov, our ambassador,
+purposely dropped a handkerchief in front of him and stood looking at
+Markov, probably expecting Markov to pick it up for him, and how Markov
+immediately dropped his own beside it and picked it up without touching
+Bonaparte's.
+
+"Delightful!" said Bolkónski. "But I have come to you, Prince, as a
+petitioner on behalf of this young man. You see..." but before Prince
+Andrew could finish, an aide-de-camp came in to summon Dolgorukov to the
+Emperor.
+
+"Oh, what a nuisance," said Dolgorukov, getting up hurriedly and
+pressing the hands of Prince Andrew and Borís. "You know I should be
+very glad to do all in my power both for you and for this dear young
+man." Again he pressed the hand of the latter with an expression of
+good-natured, sincere, and animated levity. "But you see... another
+time!"
+
+Borís was excited by the thought of being so close to the higher powers
+as he felt himself to be at that moment. He was conscious that here he
+was in contact with the springs that set in motion the enormous
+movements of the mass of which in his regiment he felt himself a tiny,
+obedient, and insignificant atom. They followed Prince Dolgorukov out
+into the corridor and met—coming out of the door of the Emperor's room
+by which Dolgorukov had entered—a short man in civilian clothes with a
+clever face and sharply projecting jaw which, without spoiling his face,
+gave him a peculiar vivacity and shiftiness of expression. This short
+man nodded to Dolgorukov as to an intimate friend and stared at Prince
+Andrew with cool intensity, walking straight toward him and evidently
+expecting him to bow or to step out of his way. Prince Andrew did
+neither: a look of animosity appeared on his face and the other turned
+away and went down the side of the corridor.
+
+"Who was that?" asked Borís.
+
+"He is one of the most remarkable, but to me most unpleasant of men—the
+Minister of Foreign Affairs, Prince Adam Czartoryski.... It is such men
+as he who decide the fate of nations," added Bolkónski with a sigh he
+could not suppress, as they passed out of the palace.
+
+Next day, the army began its campaign, and up to the very battle of
+Austerlitz, Borís was unable to see either Prince Andrew or Dolgorukov
+again and remained for a while with the Ismaylov regiment.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+At dawn on the sixteenth of November, Denisov's squadron, in which
+Nicholas Rostóv served and which was in Prince Bagration's detachment,
+moved from the place where it had spent the night, advancing into action
+as arranged, and after going behind other columns for about two thirds
+of a mile was stopped on the highroad. Rostóv saw the Cossacks and then
+the first and second squadrons of hussars and infantry battalions and
+artillery pass by and go forward and then Generals Bagration and
+Dolgorukov ride past with their adjutants. All the fear before action
+which he had experienced as previously, all the inner struggle to
+conquer that fear, all his dreams of distinguishing himself as a true
+hussar in this battle, had been wasted. Their squadron remained in
+reserve and Nicholas Rostóv spent that day in a dull and wretched mood.
+At nine in the morning, he heard firing in front and shouts of hurrah,
+and saw wounded being brought back (there were not many of them), and at
+last he saw how a whole detachment of French cavalry was brought in,
+convoyed by a sotnya of Cossacks. Evidently the affair was over and,
+though not big, had been a successful engagement. The men and officers
+returning spoke of a brilliant victory, of the occupation of the town of
+Wischau and the capture of a whole French squadron. The day was bright
+and sunny after a sharp night frost, and the cheerful glitter of that
+autumn day was in keeping with the news of victory which was conveyed,
+not only by the tales of those who had taken part in it, but also by the
+joyful expression on the faces of soldiers, officers, generals, and
+adjutants, as they passed Rostóv going or coming. And Nicholas, who had
+vainly suffered all the dread that precedes a battle and had spent that
+happy day in inactivity, was all the more depressed.
+
+"Come here, Wostov. Let's dwink to dwown our gwief!" shouted Denisov,
+who had settled down by the roadside with a flask and some food.
+
+The officers gathered round Denisov's canteen, eating and talking.
+
+"There! They are bringing another!" cried one of the officers,
+indicating a captive French dragoon who was being brought in on foot by
+two Cossacks.
+
+One of them was leading by the bridle a fine large French horse he had
+taken from the prisoner.
+
+"Sell us that horse!" Denisov called out to the Cossacks.
+
+"If you like, your honor!"
+
+The officers got up and stood round the Cossacks and their prisoner. The
+French dragoon was a young Alsatian who spoke French with a German
+accent. He was breathless with agitation, his face was red, and when he
+heard some French spoken he at once began speaking to the officers,
+addressing first one, then another. He said he would not have been
+taken, it was not his fault but the corporal's who had sent him to seize
+some horsecloths, though he had told him the Russians were there. And at
+every word he added: "But don't hurt my little horse!" and stroked the
+animal. It was plain that he did not quite grasp where he was. Now he
+excused himself for having been taken prisoner and now, imagining
+himself before his own officers, insisted on his soldierly discipline
+and zeal in the service. He brought with him into our rearguard all the
+freshness of atmosphere of the French army, which was so alien to us.
+
+The Cossacks sold the horse for two gold pieces, and Rostóv, being the
+richest of the officers now that he had received his money, bought it.
+
+"But don't hurt my little horse!" said the Alsatian good-naturedly to
+Rostóv when the animal was handed over to the hussar.
+
+Rostóv smilingly reassured the dragoon and gave him money.
+
+"Alley! Alley!" said the Cossack, touching the prisoner's arm to make
+him go on.
+
+"The Emperor! The Emperor!" was suddenly heard among the hussars.
+
+All began to run and bustle, and Rostóv saw coming up the road behind
+him several riders with white plumes in their hats. In a moment everyone
+was in his place, waiting.
+
+Rostóv did not know or remember how he ran to his place and mounted.
+Instantly his regret at not having been in action and his dejected mood
+amid people of whom he was weary had gone, instantly every thought of
+himself had vanished. He was filled with happiness at his nearness to
+the Emperor. He felt that this nearness by itself made up to him for the
+day he had lost. He was happy as a lover when the longed-for moment of
+meeting arrives. Not daring to look round and without looking round, he
+was ecstatically conscious of his approach. He felt it not only from the
+sound of the hoofs of the approaching cavalcade, but because as he drew
+near everything grew brighter, more joyful, more significant, and more
+festive around him. Nearer and nearer to Rostóv came that sun shedding
+beams of mild and majestic light around, and already he felt himself
+enveloped in those beams, he heard his voice, that kindly, calm, and
+majestic voice that was yet so simple! And as if in accord with Rostóv's
+feeling, there was a deathly stillness amid which was heard the
+Emperor's voice.
+
+"The Pávlograd hussars?" he inquired.
+
+"The reserves, sire!" replied a voice, a very human one compared to that
+which had said: "The Pávlograd hussars?"
+
+The Emperor drew level with Rostóv and halted. Alexander's face was even
+more beautiful than it had been three days before at the review. It
+shone with such gaiety and youth, such innocent youth, that it suggested
+the liveliness of a fourteen-year-old boy, and yet it was the face of
+the majestic Emperor. Casually, while surveying the squadron, the
+Emperor's eyes met Rostóv's and rested on them for not more than two
+seconds. Whether or no the Emperor understood what was going on in
+Rostóv's soul (it seemed to Rostóv that he understood everything), at
+any rate his light-blue eyes gazed for about two seconds into Rostóv's
+face. A gentle, mild light poured from them. Then all at once he raised
+his eyebrows, abruptly touched his horse with his left foot, and
+galloped on.
+
+The younger Emperor could not restrain his wish to be present at the
+battle and, in spite of the remonstrances of his courtiers, at twelve
+o'clock left the third column with which he had been and galloped toward
+the vanguard. Before he came up with the hussars, several adjutants met
+him with news of the successful result of the action.
+
+This battle, which consisted in the capture of a French squadron, was
+represented as a brilliant victory over the French, and so the Emperor
+and the whole army, especially while the smoke hung over the
+battlefield, believed that the French had been defeated and were
+retreating against their will. A few minutes after the Emperor had
+passed, the Pávlograd division was ordered to advance. In Wischau
+itself, a petty German town, Rostóv saw the Emperor again. In the market
+place, where there had been some rather heavy firing before the
+Emperor's arrival, lay several killed and wounded soldiers whom there
+had not been time to move. The Emperor, surrounded by his suite of
+officers and courtiers, was riding a bobtailed chestnut mare, a
+different one from that which he had ridden at the review, and bending
+to one side he gracefully held a gold lorgnette to his eyes and looked
+at a soldier who lay prone, with blood on his uncovered head. The
+wounded soldier was so dirty, coarse, and revolting that his proximity
+to the Emperor shocked Rostóv. Rostóv saw how the Emperor's rather round
+shoulders shuddered as if a cold shiver had run down them, how his left
+foot began convulsively tapping the horse's side with the spur, and how
+the well-trained horse looked round unconcerned and did not stir. An
+adjutant, dismounting, lifted the soldier under the arms to place him on
+a stretcher that had been brought. The soldier groaned.
+
+"Gently, gently! Can't you do it more gently?" said the Emperor
+apparently suffering more than the dying soldier, and he rode away.
+
+Rostóv saw tears filling the Emperor's eyes and heard him, as he was
+riding away, say to Czartoryski: "What a terrible thing war is: what a
+terrible thing! Quelle terrible chose que la guerre!"
+
+The troops of the vanguard were stationed before Wischau, within sight
+of the enemy's lines, which all day long had yielded ground to us at the
+least firing. The Emperor's gratitude was announced to the vanguard,
+rewards were promised, and the men received a double ration of vodka.
+The campfires crackled and the soldiers' songs resounded even more
+merrily than on the previous night. Denisov celebrated his promotion to
+the rank of major, and Rostóv, who had already drunk enough, at the end
+of the feast proposed the Emperor's health. "Not 'our Sovereign, the
+Emperor,' as they say at official dinners," said he, "but the health of
+our Sovereign, that good, enchanting, and great man! Let us drink to his
+health and to the certain defeat of the French!"
+
+"If we fought before," he said, "not letting the French pass, as at
+Schon Grabern, what shall we not do now when he is at the front? We will
+all die for him gladly! Is it not so, gentlemen? Perhaps I am not saying
+it right, I have drunk a good deal—but that is how I feel, and so do you
+too! To the health of Alexander the First! Hurrah!"
+
+"Hurrah!" rang the enthusiastic voices of the officers.
+
+And the old cavalry captain, Kirsten, shouted enthusiastically and no
+less sincerely than the twenty-year-old Rostóv.
+
+When the officers had emptied and smashed their glasses, Kirsten filled
+others and, in shirt sleeves and breeches, went glass in hand to the
+soldiers' bonfires and with his long gray mustache, his white chest
+showing under his open shirt, he stood in a majestic pose in the light
+of the campfire, waving his uplifted arm.
+
+"Lads! here's to our Sovereign, the Emperor, and victory over our
+enemies! Hurrah!" he exclaimed in his dashing, old, hussar's baritone.
+
+The hussars crowded round and responded heartily with loud shouts.
+
+Late that night, when all had separated, Denisov with his short hand
+patted his favorite, Rostóv, on the shoulder.
+
+"As there's no one to fall in love with on campaign, he's fallen in love
+with the Tsar," he said.
+
+"Denisov, don't make fun of it!" cried Rostóv. "It is such a lofty,
+beautiful feeling, such a..."
+
+"I believe it, I believe it, fwiend, and I share and appwove..."
+
+"No, you don't understand!"
+
+And Rostóv got up and went wandering among the campfires, dreaming of
+what happiness it would be to die—not in saving the Emperor's life (he
+did not even dare to dream of that), but simply to die before his eyes.
+He really was in love with the Tsar and the glory of the Russian arms
+and the hope of future triumph. And he was not the only man to
+experience that feeling during those memorable days preceding the battle
+of Austerlitz: nine tenths of the men in the Russian army were then in
+love, though less ecstatically, with their Tsar and the glory of the
+Russian arms.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+The next day the Emperor stopped at Wischau, and Villier, his physician,
+was repeatedly summoned to see him. At headquarters and among the troops
+near by the news spread that the Emperor was unwell. He ate nothing and
+had slept badly that night, those around him reported. The cause of this
+indisposition was the strong impression made on his sensitive mind by
+the sight of the killed and wounded.
+
+At daybreak on the seventeenth, a French officer who had come with a
+flag of truce, demanding an audience with the Russian Emperor, was
+brought into Wischau from our outposts. This officer was Savary. The
+Emperor had only just fallen asleep and so Savary had to wait. At midday
+he was admitted to the Emperor, and an hour later he rode off with
+Prince Dolgorukov to the advanced post of the French army.
+
+It was rumored that Savary had been sent to propose to Alexander a
+meeting with Napoleon. To the joy and pride of the whole army, a
+personal interview was refused, and instead of the Sovereign, Prince
+Dolgorukov, the victor at Wischau, was sent with Savary to negotiate
+with Napoleon if, contrary to expectations, these negotiations were
+actuated by a real desire for peace.
+
+Toward evening Dolgorukov came back, went straight to the Tsar, and
+remained alone with him for a long time.
+
+On the eighteenth and nineteenth of November, the army advanced two
+days' march and the enemy's outposts after a brief interchange of shots
+retreated. In the highest army circles from midday on the nineteenth, a
+great, excitedly bustling activity began which lasted till the morning
+of the twentieth, when the memorable battle of Austerlitz was fought.
+
+Till midday on the nineteenth, the activity—the eager talk, running to
+and fro, and dispatching of adjutants—was confined to the Emperor's
+headquarters. But on the afternoon of that day, this activity reached
+Kutúzov's headquarters and the staffs of the commanders of columns. By
+evening, the adjutants had spread it to all ends and parts of the army,
+and in the night from the nineteenth to the twentieth, the whole eighty
+thousand allied troops rose from their bivouacs to the hum of voices,
+and the army swayed and started in one enormous mass six miles long.
+
+The concentrated activity which had begun at the Emperor's headquarters
+in the morning and had started the whole movement that followed was like
+the first movement of the main wheel of a large tower clock. One wheel
+slowly moved, another was set in motion, and a third, and wheels began
+to revolve faster and faster, levers and cogwheels to work, chimes to
+play, figures to pop out, and the hands to advance with regular motion
+as a result of all that activity.
+
+Just as in the mechanism of a clock, so in the mechanism of the military
+machine, an impulse once given leads to the final result; and just as
+indifferently quiescent till the moment when motion is transmitted to
+them are the parts of the mechanism which the impulse has not yet
+reached. Wheels creak on their axles as the cogs engage one another and
+the revolving pulleys whirr with the rapidity of their movement, but a
+neighboring wheel is as quiet and motionless as though it were prepared
+to remain so for a hundred years; but the moment comes when the lever
+catches it and obeying the impulse that wheel begins to creak and joins
+in the common motion the result and aim of which are beyond its ken.
+
+Just as in a clock, the result of the complicated motion of innumerable
+wheels and pulleys is merely a slow and regular movement of the hands
+which show the time, so the result of all the complicated human
+activities of 160,000 Russians and French—all their passions, desires,
+remorse, humiliations, sufferings, outbursts of pride, fear, and
+enthusiasm—was only the loss of the battle of Austerlitz, the so-called
+battle of the three Emperors—that is to say, a slow movement of the hand
+on the dial of human history.
+
+Prince Andrew was on duty that day and in constant attendance on the
+commander-in-chief.
+
+At six in the evening, Kutúzov went to the Emperor's headquarters and
+after staying but a short time with the Tsar went to see the grand
+marshal of the court, Count Tolstóy.
+
+Bolkónski took the opportunity to go in to get some details of the
+coming action from Dolgorukov. He felt that Kutúzov was upset and
+dissatisfied about something and that at headquarters they were
+dissatisfied with him, and also that at the Emperor's headquarters
+everyone adopted toward him the tone of men who know something others do
+not know: he therefore wished to speak to Dolgorukov.
+
+"Well, how d'you do, my dear fellow?" said Dolgorukov, who was sitting
+at tea with Bilibin. "The fete is for tomorrow. How is your old fellow?
+Out of sorts?"
+
+"I won't say he is out of sorts, but I fancy he would like to be heard."
+
+"But they heard him at the council of war and will hear him when he
+talks sense, but to temporize and wait for something now when Bonaparte
+fears nothing so much as a general battle is impossible."
+
+"Yes, you have seen him?" said Prince Andrew. "Well, what is Bonaparte
+like? How did he impress you?"
+
+"Yes, I saw him, and am convinced that he fears nothing so much as a
+general engagement," repeated Dolgorukov, evidently prizing this general
+conclusion which he had arrived at from his interview with Napoleon. "If
+he weren't afraid of a battle why did he ask for that interview? Why
+negotiate, and above all why retreat, when to retreat is so contrary to
+his method of conducting war? Believe me, he is afraid, afraid of a
+general battle. His hour has come! Mark my words!"
+
+"But tell me, what is he like, eh?" said Prince Andrew again.
+
+"He is a man in a gray overcoat, very anxious that I should call him
+'Your Majesty,' but who, to his chagrin, got no title from me! That's
+the sort of man he is, and nothing more," replied Dolgorukov, looking
+round at Bilibin with a smile.
+
+"Despite my great respect for old Kutúzov," he continued, "we should be
+a nice set of fellows if we were to wait about and so give him a chance
+to escape, or to trick us, now that we certainly have him in our hands!
+No, we mustn't forget Suvórov and his rule—not to put yourself in a
+position to be attacked, but yourself to attack. Believe me in war the
+energy of young men often shows the way better than all the experience
+of old Cunctators."
+
+"But in what position are we going to attack him? I have been at the
+outposts today and it is impossible to say where his chief forces are
+situated," said Prince Andrew.
+
+He wished to explain to Dolgorukov a plan of attack he had himself
+formed.
+
+"Oh, that is all the same," Dolgorukov said quickly, and getting up he
+spread a map on the table. "All eventualities have been foreseen. If he
+is standing before Brunn..."
+
+And Prince Dolgorukov rapidly but indistinctly explained Weyrother's
+plan of a flanking movement.
+
+Prince Andrew began to reply and to state his own plan, which might have
+been as good as Weyrother's, but for the disadvantage that Weyrother's
+had already been approved. As soon as Prince Andrew began to demonstrate
+the defects of the latter and the merits of his own plan, Prince
+Dolgorukov ceased to listen to him and gazed absent-mindedly not at the
+map, but at Prince Andrew's face.
+
+"There will be a council of war at Kutúzov's tonight, though; you can
+say all this there," remarked Dolgorukov.
+
+"I will do so," said Prince Andrew, moving away from the map.
+
+"Whatever are you bothering about, gentlemen?" said Bilibin, who, till
+then, had listened with an amused smile to their conversation and now
+was evidently ready with a joke. "Whether tomorrow brings victory or
+defeat, the glory of our Russian arms is secure. Except your Kutúzov,
+there is not a single Russian in command of a column! The commanders
+are: Herr General Wimpfen, le Comte de Langeron, le Prince de
+Lichtenstein, le Prince, de Hohenlohe, and finally Prishprish, and so on
+like all those Polish names."
+
+"Be quiet, backbiter!" said Dolgorukov. "It is not true; there are now
+two Russians, Miloradovich, and Dokhturov, and there would be a third,
+Count Arakcheev, if his nerves were not too weak."
+
+"However, I think General Kutúzov has come out," said Prince Andrew. "I
+wish you good luck and success, gentlemen!" he added and went out after
+shaking hands with Dolgorukov and Bilibin.
+
+On the way home, Prince Andrew could not refrain from asking Kutúzov,
+who was sitting silently beside him, what he thought of tomorrow's
+battle.
+
+Kutúzov looked sternly at his adjutant and, after a pause, replied: "I
+think the battle will be lost, and so I told Count Tolstóy and asked him
+to tell the Emperor. What do you think he replied? 'But, my dear
+general, I am engaged with rice and cutlets, look after military matters
+yourself!' Yes... That was the answer I got!"
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+Shortly after nine o'clock that evening, Weyrother drove with his plans
+to Kutúzov's quarters where the council of war was to be held. All the
+commanders of columns were summoned to the commander-in-chief's and with
+the exception of Prince Bagration, who declined to come, were all there
+at the appointed time.
+
+Weyrother, who was in full control of the proposed battle, by his
+eagerness and briskness presented a marked contrast to the dissatisfied
+and drowsy Kutúzov, who reluctantly played the part of chairman and
+president of the council of war. Weyrother evidently felt himself to be
+at the head of a movement that had already become unrestrainable. He was
+like a horse running downhill harnessed to a heavy cart. Whether he was
+pulling it or being pushed by it he did not know, but rushed along at
+headlong speed with no time to consider what this movement might lead
+to. Weyrother had been twice that evening to the enemy's picket line to
+reconnoiter personally, and twice to the Emperors, Russian and Austrian,
+to report and explain, and to his headquarters where he had dictated the
+dispositions in German, and now, much exhausted, he arrived at
+Kutúzov's.
+
+He was evidently so busy that he even forgot to be polite to the
+commander in chief. He interrupted him, talked rapidly and indistinctly,
+without looking at the man he was addressing, and did not reply to
+questions put to him. He was bespattered with mud and had a pitiful,
+weary, and distracted air, though at the same time he was haughty and
+self-confident.
+
+Kutúzov was occupying a nobleman's castle of modest dimensions near
+Ostralitz. In the large drawing room which had become the commander in
+chief's office were gathered Kutúzov himself, Weyrother, and the members
+of the council of war. They were drinking tea, and only awaited Prince
+Bagration to begin the council. At last Bagration's orderly came with
+the news that the prince could not attend. Prince Andrew came in to
+inform the commander-in-chief of this and, availing himself of
+permission previously given him by Kutúzov to be present at the council,
+he remained in the room.
+
+"Since Prince Bagration is not coming, we may begin," said Weyrother,
+hurriedly rising from his seat and going up to the table on which an
+enormous map of the environs of Brunn was spread out.
+
+Kutúzov, with his uniform unbuttoned so that his fat neck bulged over
+his collar as if escaping, was sitting almost asleep in a low chair,
+with his podgy old hands resting symmetrically on its arms. At the sound
+of Weyrother's voice, he opened his one eye with an effort.
+
+"Yes, yes, if you please! It is already late," said he, and nodding his
+head he let it droop and again closed his eye.
+
+If at first the members of the council thought that Kutúzov was
+pretending to sleep, the sounds his nose emitted during the reading that
+followed proved that the commander-in-chief at that moment was absorbed
+by a far more serious matter than a desire to show his contempt for the
+dispositions or anything else—he was engaged in satisfying the
+irresistible human need for sleep. He really was asleep. Weyrother, with
+the gesture of a man too busy to lose a moment, glanced at Kutúzov and,
+having convinced himself that he was asleep, took up a paper and in a
+loud, monotonous voice began to read out the dispositions for the
+impending battle, under a heading which he also read out:
+
+"Dispositions for an attack on the enemy position behind Kobelnitz and
+Sokolnitz, November 30, 1805."
+
+The dispositions were very complicated and difficult. They began as
+follows:
+
+"As the enemy's left wing rests on wooded hills and his right extends
+along Kobelnitz and Sokolnitz behind the ponds that are there, while we,
+on the other hand, with our left wing by far outflank his right, it is
+advantageous to attack the enemy's latter wing especially if we occupy
+the villages of Sokolnitz and Kobelnitz, whereby we can both fall on his
+flank and pursue him over the plain between Schlappanitz and the
+Thuerassa forest, avoiding the defiles of Schlappanitz and Bellowitz
+which cover the enemy's front. For this object it is necessary that...
+The first column marches... The second column marches... The third
+column marches..." and so on, read Weyrother.
+
+The generals seemed to listen reluctantly to the difficult dispositions.
+The tall, fair-haired General Buxhowden stood, leaning his back against
+the wall, his eyes fixed on a burning candle, and seemed not to listen
+or even to wish to be thought to listen. Exactly opposite Weyrother,
+with his glistening wide-open eyes fixed upon him and his mustache
+twisted upwards, sat the ruddy Miloradovich in a military pose, his
+elbows turned outwards, his hands on his knees, and his shoulders
+raised. He remained stubbornly silent, gazing at Weyrother's face, and
+only turned away his eyes when the Austrian chief of staff finished
+reading. Then Miloradovich looked round significantly at the other
+generals. But one could not tell from that significant look whether he
+agreed or disagreed and was satisfied or not with the arrangements. Next
+to Weyrother sat Count Langeron who, with a subtle smile that never left
+his typically southern French face during the whole time of the reading,
+gazed at his delicate fingers which rapidly twirled by its corners a
+gold snuffbox on which was a portrait. In the middle of one of the
+longest sentences, he stopped the rotary motion of the snuffbox, raised
+his head, and with inimical politeness lurking in the corners of his
+thin lips interrupted Weyrother, wishing to say something. But the
+Austrian general, continuing to read, frowned angrily and jerked his
+elbows, as if to say: "You can tell me your views later, but now be so
+good as to look at the map and listen." Langeron lifted his eyes with an
+expression of perplexity, turned round to Miloradovich as if seeking an
+explanation, but meeting the latter's impressive but meaningless gaze
+drooped his eyes sadly and again took to twirling his snuffbox.
+
+"A geography lesson!" he muttered as if to himself, but loud enough to
+be heard.
+
+Przebyszewski, with respectful but dignified politeness, held his hand
+to his ear toward Weyrother, with the air of a man absorbed in
+attention. Dohkturov, a little man, sat opposite Weyrother, with an
+assiduous and modest mien, and stooping over the outspread map
+conscientiously studied the dispositions and the unfamiliar locality. He
+asked Weyrother several times to repeat words he had not clearly heard
+and the difficult names of villages. Weyrother complied and Dohkturov
+noted them down.
+
+When the reading which lasted more than an hour was over, Langeron again
+brought his snuffbox to rest and, without looking at Weyrother or at
+anyone in particular, began to say how difficult it was to carry out
+such a plan in which the enemy's position was assumed to be known,
+whereas it was perhaps not known, since the enemy was in movement.
+Langeron's objections were valid but it was obvious that their chief aim
+was to show General Weyrother—who had read his dispositions with as much
+self-confidence as if he were addressing school children—that he had to
+do, not with fools, but with men who could teach him something in
+military matters.
+
+When the monotonous sound of Weyrother's voice ceased, Kutúzov opened
+his eye as a miller wakes up when the soporific drone of the mill wheel
+is interrupted. He listened to what Langeron said, as if remarking, "So
+you are still at that silly business!" quickly closed his eye again, and
+let his head sink still lower.
+
+Langeron, trying as virulently as possible to sting Weyrother's vanity
+as author of the military plan, argued that Bonaparte might easily
+attack instead of being attacked, and so render the whole of this plan
+perfectly worthless. Weyrother met all objections with a firm and
+contemptuous smile, evidently prepared beforehand to meet all objections
+be they what they might.
+
+"If he could attack us, he would have done so today," said he.
+
+"So you think he is powerless?" said Langeron.
+
+"He has forty thousand men at most," replied Weyrother, with the smile
+of a doctor to whom an old wife wishes to explain the treatment of a
+case.
+
+"In that case he is inviting his doom by awaiting our attack," said
+Langeron, with a subtly ironical smile, again glancing round for support
+to Miloradovich who was near him.
+
+But Miloradovich was at that moment evidently thinking of anything
+rather than of what the generals were disputing about.
+
+"Ma foi!" said he, "tomorrow we shall see all that on the battlefield."
+
+Weyrother again gave that smile which seemed to say that to him it was
+strange and ridiculous to meet objections from Russian generals and to
+have to prove to them what he had not merely convinced himself of, but
+had also convinced the sovereign Emperors of.
+
+"The enemy has quenched his fires and a continual noise is heard from
+his camp," said he. "What does that mean? Either he is retreating, which
+is the only thing we need fear, or he is changing his position." (He
+smiled ironically.) "But even if he also took up a position in the
+Thuerassa, he merely saves us a great deal of trouble and all our
+arrangements to the minutest detail remain the same."
+
+"How is that?..." began Prince Andrew, who had for long been waiting an
+opportunity to express his doubts.
+
+Kutúzov here woke up, coughed heavily, and looked round at the generals.
+
+"Gentlemen, the dispositions for tomorrow—or rather for today, for it is
+past midnight—cannot now be altered," said he. "You have heard them, and
+we shall all do our duty. But before a battle, there is nothing more
+important..." he paused, "than to have a good sleep."
+
+He moved as if to rise. The generals bowed and retired. It was past
+midnight. Prince Andrew went out.
+
+The council of war, at which Prince Andrew had not been able to express
+his opinion as he had hoped to, left on him a vague and uneasy
+impression. Whether Dolgorukov and Weyrother, or Kutúzov, Langeron, and
+the others who did not approve of the plan of attack, were right—he did
+not know. "But was it really not possible for Kutúzov to state his views
+plainly to the Emperor? Is it possible that on account of court and
+personal considerations tens of thousands of lives, and my life, my
+life," he thought, "must be risked?"
+
+"Yes, it is very likely that I shall be killed tomorrow," he thought.
+And suddenly, at this thought of death, a whole series of most distant,
+most intimate, memories rose in his imagination: he remembered his last
+parting from his father and his wife; he remembered the days when he
+first loved her. He thought of her pregnancy and felt sorry for her and
+for himself, and in a nervously emotional and softened mood he went out
+of the hut in which he was billeted with Nesvítski and began to walk up
+and down before it.
+
+The night was foggy and through the fog the moonlight gleamed
+mysteriously. "Yes, tomorrow, tomorrow!" he thought. "Tomorrow
+everything may be over for me! All these memories will be no more, none
+of them will have any meaning for me. Tomorrow perhaps, even certainly,
+I have a presentiment that for the first time I shall have to show all I
+can do." And his fancy pictured the battle, its loss, the concentration
+of fighting at one point, and the hesitation of all the commanders. And
+then that happy moment, that Toulon for which he had so long waited,
+presents itself to him at last. He firmly and clearly expresses his
+opinion to Kutúzov, to Weyrother, and to the Emperors. All are struck by
+the justness of his views, but no one undertakes to carry them out, so
+he takes a regiment, a division-stipulates that no one is to interfere
+with his arrangements—leads his division to the decisive point, and
+gains the victory alone. "But death and suffering?" suggested another
+voice. Prince Andrew, however, did not answer that voice and went on
+dreaming of his triumphs. The dispositions for the next battle are
+planned by him alone. Nominally he is only an adjutant on Kutúzov's
+staff, but he does everything alone. The next battle is won by him
+alone. Kutúzov is removed and he is appointed... "Well and then?" asked
+the other voice. "If before that you are not ten times wounded, killed,
+or betrayed, well... what then?..." "Well then," Prince Andrew answered
+himself, "I don't know what will happen and don't want to know, and
+can't, but if I want this—want glory, want to be known to men, want to
+be loved by them, it is not my fault that I want it and want nothing but
+that and live only for that. Yes, for that alone! I shall never tell
+anyone, but, oh God! what am I to do if I love nothing but fame and
+men's esteem? Death, wounds, the loss of family—I fear nothing. And
+precious and dear as many persons are to me—father, sister, wife—those
+dearest to me—yet dreadful and unnatural as it seems, I would give them
+all at once for a moment of glory, of triumph over men, of love from men
+I don't know and never shall know, for the love of these men here," he
+thought, as he listened to voices in Kutúzov's courtyard. The voices
+were those of the orderlies who were packing up; one voice, probably a
+coachman's, was teasing Kutúzov's old cook whom Prince Andrew knew, and
+who was called Tit. He was saying, "Tit, I say, Tit!"
+
+"Well?" returned the old man.
+
+"Go, Tit, thresh a bit!" said the wag.
+
+"Oh, go to the devil!" called out a voice, drowned by the laughter of
+the orderlies and servants.
+
+"All the same, I love and value nothing but triumph over them all, I
+value this mystic power and glory that is floating here above me in this
+mist!"
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+That same night, Rostóv was with a platoon on skirmishing duty in front
+of Bagration's detachment. His hussars were placed along the line in
+couples and he himself rode along the line trying to master the
+sleepiness that kept coming over him. An enormous space, with our army's
+campfires dimly glowing in the fog, could be seen behind him; in front
+of him was misty darkness. Rostóv could see nothing, peer as he would
+into that foggy distance: now something gleamed gray, now there was
+something black, now little lights seemed to glimmer where the enemy
+ought to be, now he fancied it was only something in his own eyes. His
+eyes kept closing, and in his fancy appeared—now the Emperor, now
+Denisov, and now Moscow memories—and he again hurriedly opened his eyes
+and saw close before him the head and ears of the horse he was riding,
+and sometimes, when he came within six paces of them, the black figures
+of hussars, but in the distance was still the same misty darkness. "Why
+not?... It might easily happen," thought Rostóv, "that the Emperor will
+meet me and give me an order as he would to any other officer; he'll
+say: 'Go and find out what's there.' There are many stories of his
+getting to know an officer in just such a chance way and attaching him
+to himself! What if he gave me a place near him? Oh, how I would guard
+him, how I would tell him the truth, how I would unmask his deceivers!"
+And in order to realize vividly his love devotion to the sovereign,
+Rostóv pictured to himself an enemy or a deceitful German, whom he would
+not only kill with pleasure but whom he would slap in the face before
+the Emperor. Suddenly a distant shout aroused him. He started and opened
+his eyes.
+
+"Where am I? Oh yes, in the skirmishing line... pass and
+watchword—shaft, Olmutz. What a nuisance that our squadron will be in
+reserve tomorrow," he thought. "I'll ask leave to go to the front, this
+may be my only chance of seeing the Emperor. It won't be long now before
+I am off duty. I'll take another turn and when I get back I'll go to the
+general and ask him." He readjusted himself in the saddle and touched up
+his horse to ride once more round his hussars. It seemed to him that it
+was getting lighter. To the left he saw a sloping descent lit up, and
+facing it a black knoll that seemed as steep as a wall. On this knoll
+there was a white patch that Rostóv could not at all make out: was it a
+glade in the wood lit up by the moon, or some unmelted snow, or some
+white houses? He even thought something moved on that white spot. "I
+expect it's snow... that spot... a spot—une tache," he thought. "There
+now... it's not a tache... Natásha... sister, black eyes... Na...
+tasha... (Won't she be surprised when I tell her how I've seen the
+Emperor?) Natásha... take my sabretache..."—"Keep to the right, your
+honor, there are bushes here," came the voice of an hussar, past whom
+Rostóv was riding in the act of falling asleep. Rostóv lifted his head
+that had sunk almost to his horse's mane and pulled up beside the
+hussar. He was succumbing to irresistible, youthful, childish
+drowsiness. "But what was I thinking? I mustn't forget. How shall I
+speak to the Emperor? No, that's not it—that's tomorrow. Oh yes!
+Natásha... sabretache... saber them... Whom? The hussars... Ah, the
+hussars with mustaches. Along the Tverskaya Street rode the hussar with
+mustaches... I thought about him too, just opposite Guryev's house...
+Old Guryev.... Oh, but Denisov's a fine fellow. But that's all nonsense.
+The chief thing is that the Emperor is here. How he looked at me and
+wished to say something, but dared not.... No, it was I who dared not.
+But that's nonsense, the chief thing is not to forget the important
+thing I was thinking of. Yes, Na-tasha, sabretache, oh, yes, yes! That's
+right!" And his head once more sank to his horse's neck. All at once it
+seemed to him that he was being fired at. "What? What? What?... Cut them
+down! What?..." said Rostóv, waking up. At the moment he opened his eyes
+he heard in front of him, where the enemy was, the long-drawn shouts of
+thousands of voices. His horse and the horse of the hussar near him
+pricked their ears at these shouts. Over there, where the shouting came
+from, a fire flared up and went out again, then another, and all along
+the French line on the hill fires flared up and the shouting grew louder
+and louder. Rostóv could hear the sound of French words but could not
+distinguish them. The din of many voices was too great; all he could
+hear was: "ahahah!" and "rrrr!"
+
+"What's that? What do you make of it?" said Rostóv to the hussar beside
+him. "That must be the enemy's camp!"
+
+The hussar did not reply.
+
+"Why, don't you hear it?" Rostóv asked again, after waiting for a reply.
+
+"Who can tell, your honor?" replied the hussar reluctantly.
+
+"From the direction, it must be the enemy," repeated Rostóv.
+
+"It may be he or it may be nothing," muttered the hussar. "It's dark...
+Steady!" he cried to his fidgeting horse.
+
+Rostóv's horse was also getting restive: it pawed the frozen ground,
+pricking its ears at the noise and looking at the lights. The shouting
+grew still louder and merged into a general roar that only an army of
+several thousand men could produce. The lights spread farther and
+farther, probably along the line of the French camp. Rostóv no longer
+wanted to sleep. The gay triumphant shouting of the enemy army had a
+stimulating effect on him. "Vive l'Empereur! L'Empereur!" he now heard
+distinctly.
+
+"They can't be far off, probably just beyond the stream," he said to the
+hussar beside him.
+
+The hussar only sighed without replying and coughed angrily. The sound
+of horse's hoofs approaching at a trot along the line of hussars was
+heard, and out of the foggy darkness the figure of a sergeant of hussars
+suddenly appeared, looming huge as an elephant.
+
+"Your honor, the generals!" said the sergeant, riding up to Rostóv.
+
+Rostóv, still looking round toward the fires and the shouts, rode with
+the sergeant to meet some mounted men who were riding along the line.
+One was on a white horse. Prince Bagration and Prince Dolgorukov with
+their adjutants had come to witness the curious phenomenon of the lights
+and shouts in the enemy's camp. Rostóv rode up to Bagration, reported to
+him, and then joined the adjutants listening to what the generals were
+saying.
+
+"Believe me," said Prince Dolgorukov, addressing Bagration, "it is
+nothing but a trick! He has retreated and ordered the rearguard to
+kindle fires and make a noise to deceive us."
+
+"Hardly," said Bagration. "I saw them this evening on that knoll; if
+they had retreated they would have withdrawn from that too.... Officer!"
+said Bagration to Rostóv, "are the enemy's skirmishers still there?"
+
+"They were there this evening, but now I don't know, your excellency.
+Shall I go with some of my hussars to see?" replied Rostóv.
+
+Bagration stopped and, before replying, tried to see Rostóv's face in
+the mist.
+
+"Well, go and see," he said, after a pause.
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+Rostóv spurred his horse, called to Sergeant Fedchenko and two other
+hussars, told them to follow him, and trotted downhill in the direction
+from which the shouting came. He felt both frightened and pleased to be
+riding alone with three hussars into that mysterious and dangerous misty
+distance where no one had been before him. Bagration called to him from
+the hill not to go beyond the stream, but Rostóv pretended not to hear
+him and did not stop but rode on and on, continually mistaking bushes
+for trees and gullies for men and continually discovering his mistakes.
+Having descended the hill at a trot, he no longer saw either our own or
+the enemy's fires, but heard the shouting of the French more loudly and
+distinctly. In the valley he saw before him something like a river, but
+when he reached it he found it was a road. Having come out onto the road
+he reined in his horse, hesitating whether to ride along it or cross it
+and ride over the black field up the hillside. To keep to the road which
+gleamed white in the mist would have been safer because it would be
+easier to see people coming along it. "Follow me!" said he, crossed the
+road, and began riding up the hill at a gallop toward the point where
+the French pickets had been standing that evening.
+
+"Your honor, there he is!" cried one of the hussars behind him. And
+before Rostóv had time to make out what the black thing was that had
+suddenly appeared in the fog, there was a flash, followed by a report,
+and a bullet whizzing high up in the mist with a plaintive sound passed
+out of hearing. Another musket missed fire but flashed in the pan.
+Rostóv turned his horse and galloped back. Four more reports followed at
+intervals, and the bullets passed somewhere in the fog singing in
+different tones. Rostóv reined in his horse, whose spirits had risen,
+like his own, at the firing, and went back at a footpace. "Well, some
+more! Some more!" a merry voice was saying in his soul. But no more
+shots came.
+
+Only when approaching Bagration did Rostóv let his horse gallop again,
+and with his hand at the salute rode up to the general.
+
+Dolgorukov was still insisting that the French had retreated and had
+only lit fires to deceive us.
+
+"What does that prove?" he was saying as Rostóv rode up. "They might
+retreat and leave the pickets."
+
+"It's plain that they have not all gone yet, Prince," said Bagration.
+"Wait till tomorrow morning, we'll find out everything tomorrow."
+
+"The picket is still on the hill, your excellency, just where it was in
+the evening," reported Rostóv, stooping forward with his hand at the
+salute and unable to repress the smile of delight induced by his ride
+and especially by the sound of the bullets.
+
+"Very good, very good," said Bagration. "Thank you, officer."
+
+"Your excellency," said Rostóv, "may I ask a favor?"
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"Tomorrow our squadron is to be in reserve. May I ask to be attached to
+the first squadron?"
+
+"What's your name?"
+
+"Count Rostóv."
+
+"Oh, very well, you may stay in attendance on me."
+
+"Count Ilyá Rostóv's son?" asked Dolgorukov.
+
+But Rostóv did not reply.
+
+"Then I may reckon on it, your excellency?"
+
+"I will give the order."
+
+"Tomorrow very likely I may be sent with some message to the Emperor,"
+thought Rostóv.
+
+"Thank God!"
+
+The fires and shouting in the enemy's army were occasioned by the fact
+that while Napoleon's proclamation was being read to the troops the
+Emperor himself rode round his bivouacs. The soldiers, on seeing him,
+lit wisps of straw and ran after him, shouting, "Vive l'Empereur!"
+Napoleon's proclamation was as follows:
+
+Soldiers! The Russian army is advancing against you to avenge the
+Austrian army of Ulm. They are the same battalions you broke at
+Hollabrunn and have pursued ever since to this place. The position we
+occupy is a strong one, and while they are marching to go round me on
+the right they will expose a flank to me. Soldiers! I will myself direct
+your battalions. I will keep out of fire if you with your habitual valor
+carry disorder and confusion into the enemy's ranks, but should victory
+be in doubt, even for a moment, you will see your Emperor exposing
+himself to the first blows of the enemy, for there must be no doubt of
+victory, especially on this day when what is at stake is the honor of
+the French infantry, so necessary to the honor of our nation.
+
+Do not break your ranks on the plea of removing the wounded! Let every
+man be fully imbued with the thought that we must defeat these hirelings
+of England, inspired by such hatred of our nation! This victory will
+conclude our campaign and we can return to winter quarters, where fresh
+French troops who are being raised in France will join us, and the peace
+I shall conclude will be worthy of my people, of you, and of myself.
+
+NAPOLEON
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+At five in the morning it was still quite dark. The troops of the
+center, the reserves, and Bagration's right flank had not yet moved, but
+on the left flank the columns of infantry, cavalry, and artillery, which
+were to be the first to descend the heights to attack the French right
+flank and drive it into the Bohemian mountains according to plan, were
+already up and astir. The smoke of the campfires, into which they were
+throwing everything superfluous, made the eyes smart. It was cold and
+dark. The officers were hurriedly drinking tea and breakfasting, the
+soldiers, munching biscuit and beating a tattoo with their feet to warm
+themselves, gathering round the fires throwing into the flames the
+remains of sheds, chairs, tables, wheels, tubs, and everything that they
+did not want or could not carry away with them. Austrian column guides
+were moving in and out among the Russian troops and served as heralds of
+the advance. As soon as an Austrian officer showed himself near a
+commanding officer's quarters, the regiment began to move: the soldiers
+ran from the fires, thrust their pipes into their boots, their bags into
+the carts, got their muskets ready, and formed rank. The officers
+buttoned up their coats, buckled on their swords and pouches, and moved
+along the ranks shouting. The train drivers and orderlies harnessed and
+packed the wagons and tied on the loads. The adjutants and battalion and
+regimental commanders mounted, crossed themselves, gave final
+instructions, orders, and commissions to the baggage men who remained
+behind, and the monotonous tramp of thousands of feet resounded. The
+column moved forward without knowing where and unable, from the masses
+around them, the smoke and the increasing fog, to see either the place
+they were leaving or that to which they were going.
+
+A soldier on the march is hemmed in and borne along by his regiment as
+much as a sailor is by his ship. However far he has walked, whatever
+strange, unknown, and dangerous places he reaches, just as a sailor is
+always surrounded by the same decks, masts, and rigging of his ship, so
+the soldier always has around him the same comrades, the same ranks, the
+same sergeant major Ivan Mítrich, the same company dog Jack, and the
+same commanders. The sailor rarely cares to know the latitude in which
+his ship is sailing, but on the day of battle—heaven knows how and
+whence—a stern note of which all are conscious sounds in the moral
+atmosphere of an army, announcing the approach of something decisive and
+solemn, and awakening in the men an unusual curiosity. On the day of
+battle the soldiers excitedly try to get beyond the interests of their
+regiment, they listen intently, look about, and eagerly ask concerning
+what is going on around them.
+
+The fog had grown so dense that though it was growing light they could
+not see ten paces ahead. Bushes looked like gigantic trees and level
+ground like cliffs and slopes. Anywhere, on any side, one might
+encounter an enemy invisible ten paces off. But the columns advanced for
+a long time, always in the same fog, descending and ascending hills,
+avoiding gardens and enclosures, going over new and unknown ground, and
+nowhere encountering the enemy. On the contrary, the soldiers became
+aware that in front, behind, and on all sides, other Russian columns
+were moving in the same direction. Every soldier felt glad to know that
+to the unknown place where he was going, many more of our men were going
+too.
+
+"There now, the Kurskies have also gone past," was being said in the
+ranks.
+
+"It's wonderful what a lot of our troops have gathered, lads! Last night
+I looked at the campfires and there was no end of them. A regular
+Moscow!"
+
+Though none of the column commanders rode up to the ranks or talked to
+the men (the commanders, as we saw at the council of war, were out of
+humor and dissatisfied with the affair, and so did not exert themselves
+to cheer the men but merely carried out the orders), yet the troops
+marched gaily, as they always do when going into action, especially to
+an attack. But when they had marched for about an hour in the dense fog,
+the greater part of the men had to halt and an unpleasant consciousness
+of some dislocation and blunder spread through the ranks. How such a
+consciousness is communicated is very difficult to define, but it
+certainly is communicated very surely, and flows rapidly, imperceptibly,
+and irrepressibly, as water does in a creek. Had the Russian army been
+alone without any allies, it might perhaps have been a long time before
+this consciousness of mismanagement became a general conviction, but as
+it was, the disorder was readily and naturally attributed to the stupid
+Germans, and everyone was convinced that a dangerous muddle had been
+occasioned by the sausage eaters.
+
+"Why have we stopped? Is the way blocked? Or have we already come up
+against the French?"
+
+"No, one can't hear them. They'd be firing if we had."
+
+"They were in a hurry enough to start us, and now here we stand in the
+middle of a field without rhyme or reason. It's all those damned
+Germans' muddling! What stupid devils!"
+
+"Yes, I'd send them on in front, but no fear, they're crowding up
+behind. And now here we stand hungry."
+
+"I say, shall we soon be clear? They say the cavalry are blocking the
+way," said an officer.
+
+"Ah, those damned Germans! They don't know their own country!" said
+another.
+
+"What division are you?" shouted an adjutant, riding up.
+
+"The Eighteenth."
+
+"Then why are you here? You should have gone on long ago, now you won't
+get there till evening."
+
+"What stupid orders! They don't themselves know what they are doing!"
+said the officer and rode off.
+
+Then a general rode past shouting something angrily, not in Russian.
+
+"Tafa-lafa! But what he's jabbering no one can make out," said a
+soldier, mimicking the general who had ridden away. "I'd shoot them, the
+scoundrels!"
+
+"We were ordered to be at the place before nine, but we haven't got
+halfway. Fine orders!" was being repeated on different sides.
+
+And the feeling of energy with which the troops had started began to
+turn into vexation and anger at the stupid arrangements and at the
+Germans.
+
+The cause of the confusion was that while the Austrian cavalry was
+moving toward our left flank, the higher command found that our center
+was too far separated from our right flank and the cavalry were all
+ordered to turn back to the right. Several thousand cavalry crossed in
+front of the infantry, who had to wait.
+
+At the front an altercation occurred between an Austrian guide and a
+Russian general. The general shouted a demand that the cavalry should be
+halted, the Austrian argued that not he, but the higher command, was to
+blame. The troops meanwhile stood growing listless and dispirited. After
+an hour's delay they at last moved on, descending the hill. The fog that
+was dispersing on the hill lay still more densely below, where they were
+descending. In front in the fog a shot was heard and then another, at
+first irregularly at varying intervals—trata... tat—and then more and
+more regularly and rapidly, and the action at the Goldbach Stream began.
+
+Not expecting to come on the enemy down by the stream, and having
+stumbled on him in the fog, hearing no encouraging word from their
+commanders, and with a consciousness of being too late spreading through
+the ranks, and above all being unable to see anything in front or around
+them in the thick fog, the Russians exchanged shots with the enemy
+lazily and advanced and again halted, receiving no timely orders from
+the officers or adjutants who wandered about in the fog in those unknown
+surroundings unable to find their own regiments. In this way the action
+began for the first, second, and third columns, which had gone down into
+the valley. The fourth column, with which Kutúzov was, stood on the
+Pratzen Heights.
+
+Below, where the fight was beginning, there was still thick fog; on the
+higher ground it was clearing, but nothing could be seen of what was
+going on in front. Whether all the enemy forces were, as we supposed,
+six miles away, or whether they were near by in that sea of mist, no one
+knew till after eight o'clock.
+
+It was nine o'clock in the morning. The fog lay unbroken like a sea down
+below, but higher up at the village of Schlappanitz where Napoleon stood
+with his marshals around him, it was quite light. Above him was a clear
+blue sky, and the sun's vast orb quivered like a huge hollow, crimson
+float on the surface of that milky sea of mist. The whole French army,
+and even Napoleon himself with his staff, were not on the far side of
+the streams and hollows of Sokolnitz and Schlappanitz beyond which we
+intended to take up our position and begin the action, but were on this
+side, so close to our own forces that Napoleon with the naked eye could
+distinguish a mounted man from one on foot. Napoleon, in the blue cloak
+which he had worn on his Italian campaign, sat on his small gray Arab
+horse a little in front of his marshals. He gazed silently at the hills
+which seemed to rise out of the sea of mist and on which the Russian
+troops were moving in the distance, and he listened to the sounds of
+firing in the valley. Not a single muscle of his face—which in those
+days was still thin—moved. His gleaming eyes were fixed intently on one
+spot. His predictions were being justified. Part of the Russian force
+had already descended into the valley toward the ponds and lakes and
+part were leaving these Pratzen Heights which he intended to attack and
+regarded as the key to the position. He saw over the mist that in a
+hollow between two hills near the village of Pratzen, the Russian
+columns, their bayonets glittering, were moving continuously in one
+direction toward the valley and disappearing one after another into the
+mist. From information he had received the evening before, from the
+sound of wheels and footsteps heard by the outposts during the night, by
+the disorderly movement of the Russian columns, and from all
+indications, he saw clearly that the allies believed him to be far away
+in front of them, and that the columns moving near Pratzen constituted
+the center of the Russian army, and that that center was already
+sufficiently weakened to be successfully attacked. But still he did not
+begin the engagement.
+
+Today was a great day for him—the anniversary of his coronation. Before
+dawn he had slept for a few hours, and refreshed, vigorous, and in good
+spirits, he mounted his horse and rode out into the field in that happy
+mood in which everything seems possible and everything succeeds. He sat
+motionless, looking at the heights visible above the mist, and his cold
+face wore that special look of confident, self-complacent happiness that
+one sees on the face of a boy happily in love. The marshals stood behind
+him not venturing to distract his attention. He looked now at the
+Pratzen Heights, now at the sun floating up out of the mist.
+
+When the sun had entirely emerged from the fog, and fields and mist were
+aglow with dazzling light—as if he had only awaited this to begin the
+action—he drew the glove from his shapely white hand, made a sign with
+it to the marshals, and ordered the action to begin. The marshals,
+accompanied by adjutants, galloped off in different directions, and a
+few minutes later the chief forces of the French army moved rapidly
+toward those Pratzen Heights which were being more and more denuded by
+Russian troops moving down the valley to their left.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+At eight o'clock Kutúzov rode to Pratzen at the head of the fourth
+column, Miloradovich's, the one that was to take the place of
+Przebyszewski's and Langeron's columns which had already gone down into
+the valley. He greeted the men of the foremost regiment and gave them
+the order to march, thereby indicating that he intended to lead that
+column himself. When he had reached the village of Pratzen he halted.
+Prince Andrew was behind, among the immense number forming the
+commander-in-chief's suite. He was in a state of suppressed excitement
+and irritation, though controlledly calm as a man is at the approach of
+a long-awaited moment. He was firmly convinced that this was the day of
+his Toulon, or his bridge of Arcola. How it would come about he did not
+know, but he felt sure it would do so. The locality and the position of
+our troops were known to him as far as they could be known to anyone in
+our army. His own strategic plan, which obviously could not now be
+carried out, was forgotten. Now, entering into Weyrother's plan, Prince
+Andrew considered possible contingencies and formed new projects such as
+might call for his rapidity of perception and decision.
+
+To the left down below in the mist, the musketry fire of unseen forces
+could be heard. It was there Prince Andrew thought the fight would
+concentrate. "There we shall encounter difficulties, and there," thought
+he, "I shall be sent with a brigade or division, and there, standard in
+hand, I shall go forward and break whatever is in front of me."
+
+He could not look calmly at the standards of the passing battalions.
+Seeing them he kept thinking, "That may be the very standard with which
+I shall lead the army."
+
+In the morning all that was left of the night mist on the heights was a
+hoar frost now turning to dew, but in the valleys it still lay like a
+milk-white sea. Nothing was visible in the valley to the left into which
+our troops had descended and from whence came the sounds of firing.
+Above the heights was the dark clear sky, and to the right the vast orb
+of the sun. In front, far off on the farther shore of that sea of mist,
+some wooded hills were discernible, and it was there the enemy probably
+was, for something could be descried. On the right the Guards were
+entering the misty region with a sound of hoofs and wheels and now and
+then a gleam of bayonets; to the left beyond the village similar masses
+of cavalry came up and disappeared in the sea of mist. In front and
+behind moved infantry. The commander-in-chief was standing at the end of
+the village letting the troops pass by him. That morning Kutúzov seemed
+worn and irritable. The infantry passing before him came to a halt
+without any command being given, apparently obstructed by something in
+front.
+
+"Do order them to form into battalion columns and go round the village!"
+he said angrily to a general who had ridden up. "Don't you understand,
+your excellency, my dear sir, that you must not defile through narrow
+village streets when we are marching against the enemy?"
+
+"I intended to re-form them beyond the village, your excellency,"
+answered the general.
+
+Kutúzov laughed bitterly.
+
+"You'll make a fine thing of it, deploying in sight of the enemy! Very
+fine!"
+
+"The enemy is still far away, your excellency. According to the
+dispositions..."
+
+"The dispositions!" exclaimed Kutúzov bitterly. "Who told you that?...
+Kindly do as you are ordered."
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"My dear fellow," Nesvítski whispered to Prince Andrew, "the old man is
+as surly as a dog."
+
+An Austrian officer in a white uniform with green plumes in his hat
+galloped up to Kutúzov and asked in the Emperor's name had the fourth
+column advanced into action.
+
+Kutúzov turned round without answering and his eye happened to fall upon
+Prince Andrew, who was beside him. Seeing him, Kutúzov's malevolent and
+caustic expression softened, as if admitting that what was being done
+was not his adjutant's fault, and still not answering the Austrian
+adjutant, he addressed Bolkónski.
+
+"Go, my dear fellow, and see whether the third division has passed the
+village. Tell it to stop and await my orders."
+
+Hardly had Prince Andrew started than he stopped him.
+
+"And ask whether sharpshooters have been posted," he added. "What are
+they doing? What are they doing?" he murmured to himself, still not
+replying to the Austrian.
+
+Prince Andrew galloped off to execute the order.
+
+Overtaking the battalions that continued to advance, he stopped the
+third division and convinced himself that there really were no
+sharpshooters in front of our columns. The colonel at the head of the
+regiment was much surprised at the commander-in-chief's order to throw
+out skirmishers. He had felt perfectly sure that there were other troops
+in front of him and that the enemy must be at least six miles away.
+There was really nothing to be seen in front except a barren descent
+hidden by dense mist. Having given orders in the commander-in-chief's
+name to rectify this omission, Prince Andrew galloped back. Kutúzov
+still in the same place, his stout body resting heavily in the saddle
+with the lassitude of age, sat yawning wearily with closed eyes. The
+troops were no longer moving, but stood with the butts of their muskets
+on the ground.
+
+"All right, all right!" he said to Prince Andrew, and turned to a
+general who, watch in hand, was saying it was time they started as all
+the left-flank columns had already descended.
+
+"Plenty of time, your excellency," muttered Kutúzov in the midst of a
+yawn. "Plenty of time," he repeated.
+
+Just then at a distance behind Kutúzov was heard the sound of regiments
+saluting, and this sound rapidly came nearer along the whole extended
+line of the advancing Russian columns. Evidently the person they were
+greeting was riding quickly. When the soldiers of the regiment in front
+of which Kutúzov was standing began to shout, he rode a little to one
+side and looked round with a frown. Along the road from Pratzen galloped
+what looked like a squadron of horsemen in various uniforms. Two of them
+rode side by side in front, at full gallop. One in a black uniform with
+white plumes in his hat rode a bobtailed chestnut horse, the other who
+was in a white uniform rode a black one. These were the two Emperors
+followed by their suites. Kutúzov, affecting the manners of an old
+soldier at the front, gave the command "Attention!" and rode up to the
+Emperors with a salute. His whole appearance and manner were suddenly
+transformed. He put on the air of a subordinate who obeys without
+reasoning. With an affectation of respect which evidently struck
+Alexander unpleasantly, he rode up and saluted.
+
+This unpleasant impression merely flitted over the young and happy face
+of the Emperor like a cloud of haze across a clear sky and vanished.
+After his illness he looked rather thinner that day than on the field of
+Olmutz where Bolkónski had seen him for the first time abroad, but there
+was still the same bewitching combination of majesty and mildness in his
+fine gray eyes, and on his delicate lips the same capacity for varying
+expression and the same prevalent appearance of goodhearted innocent
+youth.
+
+At the Olmutz review he had seemed more majestic; here he seemed
+brighter and more energetic. He was slightly flushed after galloping two
+miles, and reining in his horse he sighed restfully and looked round at
+the faces of his suite, young and animated as his own. Czartoryski,
+Novosíltsev, Prince Volkonsky, Strogonov, and the others, all richly
+dressed gay young men on splendid, well-groomed, fresh, only slightly
+heated horses, exchanging remarks and smiling, had stopped behind the
+Emperor. The Emperor Francis, a rosy, long faced young man, sat very
+erect on his handsome black horse, looking about him in a leisurely and
+preoccupied manner. He beckoned to one of his white adjutants and asked
+some question—"Most likely he is asking at what o'clock they started,"
+thought Prince Andrew, watching his old acquaintance with a smile he
+could not repress as he recalled his reception at Brunn. In the
+Emperors' suite were the picked young orderly officers of the Guard and
+line regiments, Russian and Austrian. Among them were grooms leading the
+Tsar's beautiful relay horses covered with embroidered cloths.
+
+As when a window is opened a whiff of fresh air from the fields enters a
+stuffy room, so a whiff of youthfulness, energy, and confidence of
+success reached Kutúzov's cheerless staff with the galloping advent of
+all these brilliant young men.
+
+"Why aren't you beginning, Michael Ilariónovich?" said the Emperor
+Alexander hurriedly to Kutúzov, glancing courteously at the same time at
+the Emperor Francis.
+
+"I am waiting, Your Majesty," answered Kutúzov, bending forward
+respectfully.
+
+The Emperor, frowning slightly, bent his ear forward as if he had not
+quite heard.
+
+"Waiting, Your Majesty," repeated Kutúzov. (Prince Andrew noted that
+Kutúzov's upper lip twitched unnaturally as he said the word "waiting.")
+"Not all the columns have formed up yet, Your Majesty."
+
+The Tsar heard but obviously did not like the reply; he shrugged his
+rather round shoulders and glanced at Novosíltsev who was near him, as
+if complaining of Kutúzov.
+
+"You know, Michael Ilariónovich, we are not on the Empress' Field where
+a parade does not begin till all the troops are assembled," said the
+Tsar with another glance at the Emperor Francis, as if inviting him if
+not to join in at least to listen to what he was saying. But the Emperor
+Francis continued to look about him and did not listen.
+
+"That is just why I do not begin, sire," said Kutúzov in a resounding
+voice, apparently to preclude the possibility of not being heard, and
+again something in his face twitched—"That is just why I do not begin,
+sire, because we are not on parade and not on the Empress' Field," said
+clearly and distinctly.
+
+In the Emperor's suite all exchanged rapid looks that expressed
+dissatisfaction and reproach. "Old though he may be, he should not, he
+certainly should not, speak like that," their glances seemed to say.
+
+The Tsar looked intently and observantly into Kutúzov's eye waiting to
+hear whether he would say anything more. But Kutúzov, with respectfully
+bowed head, seemed also to be waiting. The silence lasted for about a
+minute.
+
+"However, if you command it, Your Majesty," said Kutúzov, lifting his
+head and again assuming his former tone of a dull, unreasoning, but
+submissive general.
+
+He touched his horse and having called Miloradovich, the commander of
+the column, gave him the order to advance.
+
+The troops again began to move, and two battalions of the Novgorod and
+one of the Apsheron regiment went forward past the Emperor.
+
+As this Apsheron battalion marched by, the red-faced Miloradovich,
+without his greatcoat, with his Orders on his breast and an enormous
+tuft of plumes in his cocked hat worn on one side with its corners front
+and back, galloped strenuously forward, and with a dashing salute reined
+in his horse before the Emperor.
+
+"God be with you, general!" said the Emperor.
+
+"Ma foi, sire, nous ferons ce qui sera dans notre possibilite, sire," *
+he answered gaily, raising nevertheless ironic smiles among the
+gentlemen of the Tsar's suite by his poor French.
+
+* "Indeed, Sire, we shall do everything it is possible to do, Sire."
+
+Miloradovich wheeled his horse sharply and stationed himself a little
+behind the Emperor. The Apsheron men, excited by the Tsar's presence,
+passed in step before the Emperors and their suites at a bold, brisk
+pace.
+
+"Lads!" shouted Miloradovich in a loud, self-confident, and cheery
+voice, obviously so elated by the sound of firing, by the prospect of
+battle, and by the sight of the gallant Apsherons, his comrades in
+Suvórov's time, now passing so gallantly before the Emperors, that he
+forgot the sovereigns' presence. "Lads, it's not the first village
+you've had to take," cried he.
+
+"Glad to do our best!" shouted the soldiers.
+
+The Emperor's horse started at the sudden cry. This horse that had
+carried the sovereign at reviews in Russia bore him also here on the
+field of Austerlitz, enduring the heedless blows of his left foot and
+pricking its ears at the sound of shots just as it had done on the
+Empress' Field, not understanding the significance of the firing, nor of
+the nearness of the Emperor Francis' black cob, nor of all that was
+being said, thought, and felt that day by its rider.
+
+The Emperor turned with a smile to one of his followers and made a
+remark to him, pointing to the gallant Apsherons.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+Kutúzov accompanied by his adjutants rode at a walking pace behind the
+carabineers.
+
+When he had gone less than half a mile in the rear of the column he
+stopped at a solitary, deserted house that had probably once been an
+inn, where two roads parted. Both of them led downhill and troops were
+marching along both.
+
+The fog had begun to clear and enemy troops were already dimly visible
+about a mile and a half off on the opposite heights. Down below, on the
+left, the firing became more distinct. Kutúzov had stopped and was
+speaking to an Austrian general. Prince Andrew, who was a little behind
+looking at them, turned to an adjutant to ask him for a field glass.
+
+"Look, look!" said this adjutant, looking not at the troops in the
+distance, but down the hill before him. "It's the French!"
+
+The two generals and the adjutant took hold of the field glass, trying
+to snatch it from one another. The expression on all their faces
+suddenly changed to one of horror. The French were supposed to be a mile
+and a half away, but had suddenly and unexpectedly appeared just in
+front of us.
+
+"It's the enemy?... No!... Yes, see it is!... for certain.... But how is
+that?" said different voices.
+
+With the naked eye Prince Andrew saw below them to the right, not more
+than five hundred paces from where Kutúzov was standing, a dense French
+column coming up to meet the Apsherons.
+
+"Here it is! The decisive moment has arrived. My turn has come," thought
+Prince Andrew, and striking his horse he rode up to Kutúzov.
+
+"The Apsherons must be stopped, your excellency," cried he. But at that
+very instant a cloud of smoke spread all round, firing was heard quite
+close at hand, and a voice of naïve terror barely two steps from Prince
+Andrew shouted, "Brothers! All's lost!" And at this as if at a command,
+everyone began to run.
+
+Confused and ever-increasing crowds were running back to where five
+minutes before the troops had passed the Emperors. Not only would it
+have been difficult to stop that crowd, it was even impossible not to be
+carried back with it oneself. Bolkónski only tried not to lose touch
+with it, and looked around bewildered and unable to grasp what was
+happening in front of him. Nesvítski with an angry face, red and unlike
+himself, was shouting to Kutúzov that if he did not ride away at once he
+would certainly be taken prisoner. Kutúzov remained in the same place
+and without answering drew out a handkerchief. Blood was flowing from
+his cheek. Prince Andrew forced his way to him.
+
+"You are wounded?" he asked, hardly able to master the trembling of his
+lower jaw.
+
+"The wound is not here, it is there!" said Kutúzov, pressing the
+handkerchief to his wounded cheek and pointing to the fleeing soldiers.
+"Stop them!" he shouted, and at the same moment, probably realizing that
+it was impossible to stop them, spurred his horse and rode to the right.
+
+A fresh wave of the flying mob caught him and bore him back with it.
+
+The troops were running in such a dense mass that once surrounded by
+them it was difficult to get out again. One was shouting, "Get on! Why
+are you hindering us?" Another in the same place turned round and fired
+in the air; a third was striking the horse Kutúzov himself rode. Having
+by a great effort got away to the left from that flood of men, Kutúzov,
+with his suite diminished by more than half, rode toward a sound of
+artillery fire near by. Having forced his way out of the crowd of
+fugitives, Prince Andrew, trying to keep near Kutúzov, saw on the slope
+of the hill amid the smoke a Russian battery that was still firing and
+Frenchmen running toward it. Higher up stood some Russian infantry,
+neither moving forward to protect the battery nor backward with the
+fleeing crowd. A mounted general separated himself from the infantry and
+approached Kutúzov. Of Kutúzov's suite only four remained. They were all
+pale and exchanged looks in silence.
+
+"Stop those wretches!" gasped Kutúzov to the regimental commander,
+pointing to the flying soldiers; but at that instant, as if to punish
+him for those words, bullets flew hissing across the regiment and across
+Kutúzov's suite like a flock of little birds.
+
+The French had attacked the battery and, seeing Kutúzov, were firing at
+him. After this volley the regimental commander clutched at his leg;
+several soldiers fell, and a second lieutenant who was holding the flag
+let it fall from his hands. It swayed and fell, but caught on the
+muskets of the nearest soldiers. The soldiers started firing without
+orders.
+
+"Oh! Oh! Oh!" groaned Kutúzov despairingly and looked around....
+"Bolkónski!" he whispered, his voice trembling from a consciousness of
+the feebleness of age, "Bolkónski!" he whispered, pointing to the
+disordered battalion and at the enemy, "what's that?"
+
+But before he had finished speaking, Prince Andrew, feeling tears of
+shame and anger choking him, had already leapt from his horse and run to
+the standard.
+
+"Forward, lads!" he shouted in a voice piercing as a child's.
+
+"Here it is!" thought he, seizing the staff of the standard and hearing
+with pleasure the whistle of bullets evidently aimed at him. Several
+soldiers fell.
+
+"Hurrah!" shouted Prince Andrew, and, scarcely able to hold up the heavy
+standard, he ran forward with full confidence that the whole battalion
+would follow him.
+
+And really he only ran a few steps alone. One soldier moved and then
+another and soon the whole battalion ran forward shouting "Hurrah!" and
+overtook him. A sergeant of the battalion ran up and took the flag that
+was swaying from its weight in Prince Andrew's hands, but he was
+immediately killed. Prince Andrew again seized the standard and,
+dragging it by the staff, ran on with the battalion. In front he saw our
+artillerymen, some of whom were fighting, while others, having abandoned
+their guns, were running toward him. He also saw French infantry
+soldiers who were seizing the artillery horses and turning the guns
+round. Prince Andrew and the battalion were already within twenty paces
+of the cannon. He heard the whistle of bullets above him unceasingly and
+to right and left of him soldiers continually groaned and dropped. But
+he did not look at them: he looked only at what was going on in front of
+him—at the battery. He now saw clearly the figure of a red-haired gunner
+with his shako knocked awry, pulling one end of a mop while a French
+soldier tugged at the other. He could distinctly see the distraught yet
+angry expression on the faces of these two men, who evidently did not
+realize what they were doing.
+
+"What are they about?" thought Prince Andrew as he gazed at them. "Why
+doesn't the red-haired gunner run away as he is unarmed? Why doesn't the
+Frenchman stab him? He will not get away before the Frenchman remembers
+his bayonet and stabs him...."
+
+And really another French soldier, trailing his musket, ran up to the
+struggling men, and the fate of the red-haired gunner, who had
+triumphantly secured the mop and still did not realize what awaited him,
+was about to be decided. But Prince Andrew did not see how it ended. It
+seemed to him as though one of the soldiers near him hit him on the head
+with the full swing of a bludgeon. It hurt a little, but the worst of it
+was that the pain distracted him and prevented his seeing what he had
+been looking at.
+
+"What's this? Am I falling? My legs are giving way," thought he, and
+fell on his back. He opened his eyes, hoping to see how the struggle of
+the Frenchmen with the gunners ended, whether the red-haired gunner had
+been killed or not and whether the cannon had been captured or saved.
+But he saw nothing. Above him there was now nothing but the sky—the
+lofty sky, not clear yet still immeasurably lofty, with gray clouds
+gliding slowly across it. "How quiet, peaceful, and solemn; not at all
+as I ran," thought Prince Andrew—"not as we ran, shouting and fighting,
+not at all as the gunner and the Frenchman with frightened and angry
+faces struggled for the mop: how differently do those clouds glide
+across that lofty infinite sky! How was it I did not see that lofty sky
+before? And how happy I am to have found it at last! Yes! All is vanity,
+all falsehood, except that infinite sky. There is nothing, nothing, but
+that. But even it does not exist, there is nothing but quiet and peace.
+Thank God!..."
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+On our right flank commanded by Bagration, at nine o'clock the battle
+had not yet begun. Not wishing to agree to Dolgorukov's demand to
+commence the action, and wishing to avert responsibility from himself,
+Prince Bagration proposed to Dolgorukov to send to inquire of the
+commander-in-chief. Bagration knew that as the distance between the two
+flanks was more than six miles, even if the messenger were not killed
+(which he very likely would be), and found the commander-in-chief (which
+would be very difficult), he would not be able to get back before
+evening.
+
+Bagration cast his large, expressionless, sleepy eyes round his suite,
+and the boyish face Rostóv, breathless with excitement and hope, was the
+first to catch his eye. He sent him.
+
+"And if I should meet His Majesty before I meet the commander-in-chief,
+your excellency?" said Rostóv, with his hand to his cap.
+
+"You can give the message to His Majesty," said Dolgorukov, hurriedly
+interrupting Bagration.
+
+On being relieved from picket duty Rostóv had managed to get a few
+hours' sleep before morning and felt cheerful, bold, and resolute, with
+elasticity of movement, faith in his good fortune, and generally in that
+state of mind which makes everything seem possible, pleasant, and easy.
+
+All his wishes were being fulfilled that morning: there was to be a
+general engagement in which he was taking part, more than that, he was
+orderly to the bravest general, and still more, he was going with a
+message to Kutúzov, perhaps even to the sovereign himself. The morning
+was bright, he had a good horse under him, and his heart was full of joy
+and happiness. On receiving the order he gave his horse the rein and
+galloped along the line. At first he rode along the line of Bagration's
+troops, which had not yet advanced into action but were standing
+motionless; then he came to the region occupied by Uvarov's cavalry and
+here he noticed a stir and signs of preparation for battle; having
+passed Uvarov's cavalry he clearly heard the sound of cannon and
+musketry ahead of him. The firing grew louder and louder.
+
+In the fresh morning air were now heard, not two or three musket shots
+at irregular intervals as before, followed by one or two cannon shots,
+but a roll of volleys of musketry from the slopes of the hill before
+Pratzen, interrupted by such frequent reports of cannon that sometimes
+several of them were not separated from one another but merged into a
+general roar.
+
+He could see puffs of musketry smoke that seemed to chase one another
+down the hillsides, and clouds of cannon smoke rolling, spreading, and
+mingling with one another. He could also, by the gleam of bayonets
+visible through the smoke, make out moving masses of infantry and narrow
+lines of artillery with green caissons.
+
+Rostóv stopped his horse for a moment on a hillock to see what was going
+on, but strain his attention as he would he could not understand or make
+out anything of what was happening: there in the smoke men of some sort
+were moving about, in front and behind moved lines of troops; but why,
+whither, and who they were, it was impossible to make out. These sights
+and sounds had no depressing or intimidating effect on him; on the
+contrary, they stimulated his energy and determination.
+
+"Go on! Go on! Give it them!" he mentally exclaimed at these sounds, and
+again proceeded to gallop along the line, penetrating farther and
+farther into the region where the army was already in action.
+
+"How it will be there I don't know, but all will be well!" thought
+Rostóv.
+
+After passing some Austrian troops he noticed that the next part of the
+line (the Guards) was already in action.
+
+"So much the better! I shall see it close," he thought.
+
+He was riding almost along the front line. A handful of men came
+galloping toward him. They were our uhlans who with disordered ranks
+were returning from the attack. Rostóv got out of their way,
+involuntarily noticed that one of them was bleeding, and galloped on.
+
+"That is no business of mine," he thought. He had not ridden many
+hundred yards after that before he saw to his left, across the whole
+width of the field, an enormous mass of cavalry in brilliant white
+uniforms, mounted on black horses, trotting straight toward him and
+across his path. Rostóv put his horse to full gallop to get out of the
+way of these men, and he would have got clear had they continued at the
+same speed, but they kept increasing their pace, so that some of the
+horses were already galloping. Rostóv heard the thud of their hoofs and
+the jingle of their weapons and saw their horses, their figures, and
+even their faces, more and more distinctly. They were our Horse Guards,
+advancing to attack the French cavalry that was coming to meet them.
+
+The Horse Guards were galloping, but still holding in their horses.
+Rostóv could already see their faces and heard the command: "Charge!"
+shouted by an officer who was urging his thoroughbred to full speed.
+Rostóv, fearing to be crushed or swept into the attack on the French,
+galloped along the front as hard as his horse could go, but still was
+not in time to avoid them.
+
+The last of the Horse Guards, a huge pockmarked fellow, frowned angrily
+on seeing Rostóv before him, with whom he would inevitably collide. This
+Guardsman would certainly have bowled Rostóv and his Bedouin over
+(Rostóv felt himself quite tiny and weak compared to these gigantic men
+and horses) had it not occurred to Rostóv to flourish his whip before
+the eyes of the Guardsman's horse. The heavy black horse, sixteen hands
+high, shied, throwing back its ears; but the pockmarked Guardsman drove
+his huge spurs in violently, and the horse, flourishing its tail and
+extending its neck, galloped on yet faster. Hardly had the Horse Guards
+passed Rostóv before he heard them shout, "Hurrah!" and looking back saw
+that their foremost ranks were mixed up with some foreign cavalry with
+red epaulets, probably French. He could see nothing more, for
+immediately afterwards cannon began firing from somewhere and smoke
+enveloped everything.
+
+At that moment, as the Horse Guards, having passed him, disappeared in
+the smoke, Rostóv hesitated whether to gallop after them or to go where
+he was sent. This was the brilliant charge of the Horse Guards that
+amazed the French themselves. Rostóv was horrified to hear later that of
+all that mass of huge and handsome men, of all those brilliant, rich
+youths, officers and cadets, who had galloped past him on their
+thousand-ruble horses, only eighteen were left after the charge.
+
+"Why should I envy them? My chance is not lost, and maybe I shall see
+the Emperor immediately!" thought Rostóv and galloped on.
+
+When he came level with the Foot Guards he noticed that about them and
+around them cannon balls were flying, of which he was aware not so much
+because he heard their sound as because he saw uneasiness on the
+soldiers' faces and unnatural warlike solemnity on those of the
+officers.
+
+Passing behind one of the lines of a regiment of Foot Guards he heard a
+voice calling him by name.
+
+"Rostóv!"
+
+"What?" he answered, not recognizing Borís.
+
+"I say, we've been in the front line! Our regiment attacked!" said Borís
+with the happy smile seen on the faces of young men who have been under
+fire for the first time.
+
+Rostóv stopped.
+
+"Have you?" he said. "Well, how did it go?"
+
+"We drove them back!" said Borís with animation, growing talkative. "Can
+you imagine it?" and he began describing how the Guards, having taken up
+their position and seeing troops before them, thought they were
+Austrians, and all at once discovered from the cannon balls discharged
+by those troops that they were themselves in the front line and had
+unexpectedly to go into action. Rostóv without hearing Borís to the end
+spurred his horse.
+
+"Where are you off to?" asked Borís.
+
+"With a message to His Majesty."
+
+"There he is!" said Borís, thinking Rostóv had said "His Highness," and
+pointing to the Grand Duke who with his high shoulders and frowning
+brows stood a hundred paces away from them in his helmet and Horse
+Guards' jacket, shouting something to a pale, white uniformed Austrian
+officer.
+
+"But that's the Grand Duke, and I want the commander-in-chief or the
+Emperor," said Rostóv, and was about to spur his horse.
+
+"Count! Count!" shouted Berg who ran up from the other side as eager as
+Borís. "Count! I am wounded in my right hand" (and he showed his
+bleeding hand with a handkerchief tied round it) "and I remained at the
+front. I held my sword in my left hand, Count. All our family—the von
+Bergs—have been knights!"
+
+He said something more, but Rostóv did not wait to hear it and rode
+away.
+
+Having passed the Guards and traversed an empty space, Rostóv, to avoid
+again getting in front of the first line as he had done when the Horse
+Guards charged, followed the line of reserves, going far round the place
+where the hottest musket fire and cannonade were heard. Suddenly he
+heard musket fire quite close in front of him and behind our troops,
+where he could never have expected the enemy to be.
+
+"What can it be?" he thought. "The enemy in the rear of our army?
+Impossible!" And suddenly he was seized by a panic of fear for himself
+and for the issue of the whole battle. "But be that what it may," he
+reflected, "there is no riding round it now. I must look for the
+commander in chief here, and if all is lost it is for me to perish with
+the rest."
+
+The foreboding of evil that had suddenly come over Rostóv was more and
+more confirmed the farther he rode into the region behind the village of
+Pratzen, which was full of troops of all kinds.
+
+"What does it mean? What is it? Whom are they firing at? Who is firing?"
+Rostóv kept asking as he came up to Russian and Austrian soldiers
+running in confused crowds across his path.
+
+"The devil knows! They've killed everybody! It's all up now!" he was
+told in Russian, German, and Czech by the crowd of fugitives who
+understood what was happening as little as he did.
+
+"Kill the Germans!" shouted one.
+
+"May the devil take them—the traitors!"
+
+"Zum Henker diese Russen!" * muttered a German.
+
+* "Hang these Russians!"
+
+Several wounded men passed along the road, and words of abuse, screams,
+and groans mingled in a general hubbub, then the firing died down.
+Rostóv learned later that Russian and Austrian soldiers had been firing
+at one another.
+
+"My God! What does it all mean?" thought he. "And here, where at any
+moment the Emperor may see them.... But no, these must be only a handful
+of scoundrels. It will soon be over, it can't be that, it can't be! Only
+to get past them quicker, quicker!"
+
+The idea of defeat and flight could not enter Rostóv's head. Though he
+saw French cannon and French troops on the Pratzen Heights just where he
+had been ordered to look for the commander-in-chief, he could not, did
+not wish to, believe that.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+Rostóv had been ordered to look for Kutúzov and the Emperor near the
+village of Pratzen. But neither they nor a single commanding officer
+were there, only disorganized crowds of troops of various kinds. He
+urged on his already weary horse to get quickly past these crowds, but
+the farther he went the more disorganized they were. The highroad on
+which he had come out was thronged with calèches, carriages of all
+sorts, and Russian and Austrian soldiers of all arms, some wounded and
+some not. This whole mass droned and jostled in confusion under the
+dismal influence of cannon balls flying from the French batteries
+stationed on the Pratzen Heights.
+
+"Where is the Emperor? Where is Kutúzov?" Rostóv kept asking everyone he
+could stop, but got no answer from anyone.
+
+At last seizing a soldier by his collar he forced him to answer.
+
+"Eh, brother! They've all bolted long ago!" said the soldier, laughing
+for some reason and shaking himself free.
+
+Having left that soldier who was evidently drunk, Rostóv stopped the
+horse of a batman or groom of some important personage and began to
+question him. The man announced that the Tsar had been driven in a
+carriage at full speed about an hour before along that very road and
+that he was dangerously wounded.
+
+"It can't be!" said Rostóv. "It must have been someone else."
+
+"I saw him myself," replied the man with a self-confident smile of
+derision. "I ought to know the Emperor by now, after the times I've seen
+him in Petersburg. I saw him just as I see you.... There he sat in the
+carriage as pale as anything. How they made the four black horses fly!
+Gracious me, they did rattle past! It's time I knew the Imperial horses
+and Ilyá Ivanych. I don't think Ilyá drives anyone except the Tsar!"
+
+Rostóv let go of the horse and was about to ride on, when a wounded
+officer passing by addressed him:
+
+"Who is it you want?" he asked. "The commander-in-chief? He was killed
+by a cannon ball—struck in the breast before our regiment."
+
+"Not killed—wounded!" another officer corrected him.
+
+"Who? Kutúzov?" asked Rostóv.
+
+"Not Kutúzov, but what's his name—well, never mind... there are not many
+left alive. Go that way, to that village, all the commanders are there,"
+said the officer, pointing to the village of Hosjeradek, and he walked
+on.
+
+Rostóv rode on at a footpace not knowing why or to whom he was now
+going. The Emperor was wounded, the battle lost. It was impossible to
+doubt it now. Rostóv rode in the direction pointed out to him, in which
+he saw turrets and a church. What need to hurry? What was he now to say
+to the Tsar or to Kutúzov, even if they were alive and unwounded?
+
+"Take this road, your honor, that way you will be killed at once!" a
+soldier shouted to him. "They'd kill you there!"
+
+"Oh, what are you talking about?" said another. "Where is he to go? That
+way is nearer."
+
+Rostóv considered, and then went in the direction where they said he
+would be killed.
+
+"It's all the same now. If the Emperor is wounded, am I to try to save
+myself?" he thought. He rode on to the region where the greatest number
+of men had perished in fleeing from Pratzen. The French had not yet
+occupied that region, and the Russians—the uninjured and slightly
+wounded—had left it long ago. All about the field, like heaps of manure
+on well-kept plowland, lay from ten to fifteen dead and wounded to each
+couple of acres. The wounded crept together in twos and threes and one
+could hear their distressing screams and groans, sometimes feigned—or so
+it seemed to Rostóv. He put his horse to a trot to avoid seeing all
+these suffering men, and he felt afraid—afraid not for his life, but for
+the courage he needed and which he knew would not stand the sight of
+these unfortunates.
+
+The French, who had ceased firing at this field strewn with dead and
+wounded where there was no one left to fire at, on seeing an adjutant
+riding over it trained a gun on him and fired several shots. The
+sensation of those terrible whistling sounds and of the corpses around
+him merged in Rostóv's mind into a single feeling of terror and pity for
+himself. He remembered his mother's last letter. "What would she feel,"
+thought he, "if she saw me here now on this field with the cannon aimed
+at me?"
+
+In the village of Hosjeradek there were Russian troops retiring from the
+field of battle, who though still in some confusion were less
+disordered. The French cannon did not reach there and the musketry fire
+sounded far away. Here everyone clearly saw and said that the battle was
+lost. No one whom Rostóv asked could tell him where the Emperor or
+Kutúzov was. Some said the report that the Emperor was wounded was
+correct, others that it was not, and explained the false rumor that had
+spread by the fact that the Emperor's carriage had really galloped from
+the field of battle with the pale and terrified Ober-Hofmarschal Count
+Tolstóy, who had ridden out to the battlefield with others in the
+Emperor's suite. One officer told Rostóv that he had seen someone from
+headquarters behind the village to the left, and thither Rostóv rode,
+not hoping to find anyone but merely to ease his conscience. When he had
+ridden about two miles and had passed the last of the Russian troops, he
+saw, near a kitchen garden with a ditch round it, two men on horseback
+facing the ditch. One with a white plume in his hat seemed familiar to
+Rostóv; the other on a beautiful chestnut horse (which Rostóv fancied he
+had seen before) rode up to the ditch, struck his horse with his spurs,
+and giving it the rein leaped lightly over. Only a little earth crumbled
+from the bank under the horse's hind hoofs. Turning the horse sharply,
+he again jumped the ditch, and deferentially addressed the horseman with
+the white plumes, evidently suggesting that he should do the same. The
+rider, whose figure seemed familiar to Rostóv and involuntarily riveted
+his attention, made a gesture of refusal with his head and hand and by
+that gesture Rostóv instantly recognized his lamented and adored
+monarch.
+
+"But it can't be he, alone in the midst of this empty field!" thought
+Rostóv. At that moment Alexander turned his head and Rostóv saw the
+beloved features that were so deeply engraved on his memory. The Emperor
+was pale, his cheeks sunken and his eyes hollow, but the charm, the
+mildness of his features, was all the greater. Rostóv was happy in the
+assurance that the rumors about the Emperor being wounded were false. He
+was happy to be seeing him. He knew that he might and even ought to go
+straight to him and give the message Dolgorukov had ordered him to
+deliver.
+
+But as a youth in love trembles, is unnerved, and dares not utter the
+thoughts he has dreamed of for nights, but looks around for help or a
+chance of delay and flight when the longed-for moment comes and he is
+alone with her, so Rostóv, now that he had attained what he had longed
+for more than anything else in the world, did not know how to approach
+the Emperor, and a thousand reasons occurred to him why it would be
+inconvenient, unseemly, and impossible to do so.
+
+"What! It is as if I were glad of a chance to take advantage of his
+being alone and despondent! A strange face may seem unpleasant or
+painful to him at this moment of sorrow; besides, what can I say to him
+now, when my heart fails me and my mouth feels dry at the mere sight of
+him?" Not one of the innumerable speeches addressed to the Emperor that
+he had composed in his imagination could he now recall. Those speeches
+were intended for quite other conditions, they were for the most part to
+be spoken at a moment of victory and triumph, generally when he was
+dying of wounds and the sovereign had thanked him for heroic deeds, and
+while dying he expressed the love his actions had proved.
+
+"Besides how can I ask the Emperor for his instructions for the right
+flank now that it is nearly four o'clock and the battle is lost? No,
+certainly I must not approach him, I must not intrude on his
+reflections. Better die a thousand times than risk receiving an unkind
+look or bad opinion from him," Rostóv decided; and sorrowfully and with
+a heart full despair he rode away, continually looking back at the Tsar,
+who still remained in the same attitude of indecision.
+
+While Rostóv was thus arguing with himself and riding sadly away,
+Captain von Toll chanced to ride to the same spot, and seeing the
+Emperor at once rode up to him, offered his services, and assisted him
+to cross the ditch on foot. The Emperor, wishing to rest and feeling
+unwell, sat down under an apple tree and von Toll remained beside him.
+Rostóv from a distance saw with envy and remorse how von Toll spoke long
+and warmly to the Emperor and how the Emperor, evidently weeping,
+covered his eyes with his hand and pressed von Toll's hand.
+
+"And I might have been in his place!" thought Rostóv, and hardly
+restraining his tears of pity for the Emperor, he rode on in utter
+despair, not knowing where to or why he was now riding.
+
+His despair was all the greater from feeling that his own weakness was
+the cause of his grief.
+
+He might... not only might but should, have gone up to the sovereign. It
+was a unique chance to show his devotion to the Emperor and he had not
+made use of it.... "What have I done?" thought he. And he turned round
+and galloped back to the place where he had seen the Emperor, but there
+was no one beyond the ditch now. Only some carts and carriages were
+passing by. From one of the drivers he learned that Kutúzov's staff were
+not far off, in the village the vehicles were going to. Rostóv followed
+them. In front of him walked Kutúzov's groom leading horses in
+horsecloths. Then came a cart, and behind that walked an old, bandy-
+legged domestic serf in a peaked cap and sheepskin coat.
+
+"Tit! I say, Tit!" said the groom.
+
+"What?" answered the old man absent-mindedly.
+
+"Go, Tit! Thresh a bit!"
+
+"Oh, you fool!" said the old man, spitting angrily. Some time passed in
+silence, and then the same joke was repeated.
+
+Before five in the evening the battle had been lost at all points. More
+than a hundred cannon were already in the hands of the French.
+
+Przebyszewski and his corps had laid down their arms. Other columns
+after losing half their men were retreating in disorderly confused
+masses.
+
+The remains of Langeron's and Dokhturov's mingled forces were crowding
+around the dams and banks of the ponds near the village of Augesd.
+
+After five o'clock it was only at the Augesd Dam that a hot cannonade
+(delivered by the French alone) was still to be heard from numerous
+batteries ranged on the slopes of the Pratzen Heights, directed at our
+retreating forces.
+
+In the rearguard, Dokhturov and others rallying some battalions kept up
+a musketry fire at the French cavalry that was pursuing our troops. It
+was growing dusk. On the narrow Augesd Dam where for so many years the
+old miller had been accustomed to sit in his tasseled cap peacefully
+angling, while his grandson, with shirt sleeves rolled up, handled the
+floundering silvery fish in the watering can, on that dam over which for
+so many years Moravians in shaggy caps and blue jackets had peacefully
+driven their two-horse carts loaded with wheat and had returned dusty
+with flour whitening their carts—on that narrow dam amid the wagons and
+the cannon, under the horses' hoofs and between the wagon wheels, men
+disfigured by fear of death now crowded together, crushing one another,
+dying, stepping over the dying and killing one another, only to move on
+a few steps and be killed themselves in the same way.
+
+Every ten seconds a cannon ball flew compressing the air around, or a
+shell burst in the midst of that dense throng, killing some and
+splashing with blood those near them.
+
+Dólokhov—now an officer—wounded in the arm, and on foot, with the
+regimental commander on horseback and some ten men of his company,
+represented all that was left of that whole regiment. Impelled by the
+crowd, they had got wedged in at the approach to the dam and, jammed in
+on all sides, had stopped because a horse in front had fallen under a
+cannon and the crowd were dragging it out. A cannon ball killed someone
+behind them, another fell in front and splashed Dólokhov with blood. The
+crowd, pushing forward desperately, squeezed together, moved a few
+steps, and again stopped.
+
+"Move on a hundred yards and we are certainly saved, remain here another
+two minutes and it is certain death," thought each one.
+
+Dólokhov who was in the midst of the crowd forced his way to the edge of
+the dam, throwing two soldiers off their feet, and ran onto the slippery
+ice that covered the millpool.
+
+"Turn this way!" he shouted, jumping over the ice which creaked under
+him; "turn this way!" he shouted to those with the gun. "It bears!..."
+
+The ice bore him but it swayed and creaked, and it was plain that it
+would give way not only under a cannon or a crowd, but very soon even
+under his weight alone. The men looked at him and pressed to the bank,
+hesitating to step onto the ice. The general on horseback at the
+entrance to the dam raised his hand and opened his mouth to address
+Dólokhov. Suddenly a cannon ball hissed so low above the crowd that
+everyone ducked. It flopped into something moist, and the general fell
+from his horse in a pool of blood. Nobody gave him a look or thought of
+raising him.
+
+"Get onto the ice, over the ice! Go on! Turn! Don't you hear? Go on!"
+innumerable voices suddenly shouted after the ball had struck the
+general, the men themselves not knowing what, or why, they were
+shouting.
+
+One of the hindmost guns that was going onto the dam turned off onto the
+ice. Crowds of soldiers from the dam began running onto the frozen pond.
+The ice gave way under one of the foremost soldiers, and one leg slipped
+into the water. He tried to right himself but fell in up to his waist.
+The nearest soldiers shrank back, the gun driver stopped his horse, but
+from behind still came the shouts: "Onto the ice, why do you stop? Go
+on! Go on!" And cries of horror were heard in the crowd. The soldiers
+near the gun waved their arms and beat the horses to make them turn and
+move on. The horses moved off the bank. The ice, that had held under
+those on foot, collapsed in a great mass, and some forty men who were on
+it dashed, some forward and some back, drowning one another.
+
+Still the cannon balls continued regularly to whistle and flop onto the
+ice and into the water and oftenest of all among the crowd that covered
+the dam, the pond, and the bank.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+On the Pratzen Heights, where he had fallen with the flagstaff in his
+hand, lay Prince Andrew Bolkónski bleeding profusely and unconsciously
+uttering a gentle, piteous, and childlike moan.
+
+Toward evening he ceased moaning and became quite still. He did not know
+how long his unconsciousness lasted. Suddenly he again felt that he was
+alive and suffering from a burning, lacerating pain in his head.
+
+"Where is it, that lofty sky that I did not know till now, but saw
+today?" was his first thought. "And I did not know this suffering
+either," he thought. "Yes, I did not know anything, anything at all till
+now. But where am I?"
+
+He listened and heard the sound of approaching horses, and voices
+speaking French. He opened his eyes. Above him again was the same lofty
+sky with clouds that had risen and were floating still higher, and
+between them gleamed blue infinity. He did not turn his head and did not
+see those who, judging by the sound of hoofs and voices, had ridden up
+and stopped near him.
+
+It was Napoleon accompanied by two aides-de-camp. Bonaparte riding over
+the battlefield had given final orders to strengthen the batteries
+firing at the Augesd Dam and was looking at the killed and wounded left
+on the field.
+
+"Fine men!" remarked Napoleon, looking at a dead Russian grenadier, who,
+with his face buried in the ground and a blackened nape, lay on his
+stomach with an already stiffened arm flung wide.
+
+"The ammunition for the guns in position is exhausted, Your Majesty,"
+said an adjutant who had come from the batteries that were firing at
+Augesd.
+
+"Have some brought from the reserve," said Napoleon, and having gone on
+a few steps he stopped before Prince Andrew, who lay on his back with
+the flagstaff that had been dropped beside him. (The flag had already
+been taken by the French as a trophy.)
+
+"That's a fine death!" said Napoleon as he gazed at Bolkónski.
+
+Prince Andrew understood that this was said of him and that it was
+Napoleon who said it. He heard the speaker addressed as Sire. But he
+heard the words as he might have heard the buzzing of a fly. Not only
+did they not interest him, but he took no notice of them and at once
+forgot them. His head was burning, he felt himself bleeding to death,
+and he saw above him the remote, lofty, and everlasting sky. He knew it
+was Napoleon—his hero—but at that moment Napoleon seemed to him such a
+small, insignificant creature compared with what was passing now between
+himself and that lofty infinite sky with the clouds flying over it. At
+that moment it meant nothing to him who might be standing over him, or
+what was said of him; he was only glad that people were standing near
+him and only wished that they would help him and bring him back to life,
+which seemed to him so beautiful now that he had today learned to
+understand it so differently. He collected all his strength, to stir and
+utter a sound. He feebly moved his leg and uttered a weak, sickly groan
+which aroused his own pity.
+
+"Ah! He is alive," said Napoleon. "Lift this young man up and carry him
+to the dressing station."
+
+Having said this, Napoleon rode on to meet Marshal Lannes, who, hat in
+hand, rode up smiling to the Emperor to congratulate him on the victory.
+
+Prince Andrew remembered nothing more: he lost consciousness from the
+terrible pain of being lifted onto the stretcher, the jolting while
+being moved, and the probing of his wound at the dressing station. He
+did not regain consciousness till late in the day, when with other
+wounded and captured Russian officers he was carried to the hospital.
+During this transfer he felt a little stronger and was able to look
+about him and even speak.
+
+The first words he heard on coming to his senses were those of a French
+convoy officer, who said rapidly: "We must halt here: the Emperor will
+pass here immediately; it will please him to see these gentlemen
+prisoners."
+
+"There are so many prisoners today, nearly the whole Russian army, that
+he is probably tired of them," said another officer.
+
+"All the same! They say this one is the commander of all the Emperor
+Alexander's Guards," said the first one, indicating a Russian officer in
+the white uniform of the Horse Guards.
+
+Bolkónski recognized Prince Repnin whom he had met in Petersburg
+society. Beside him stood a lad of nineteen, also a wounded officer of
+the Horse Guards.
+
+Bonaparte, having come up at a gallop, stopped his horse.
+
+"Which is the senior?" he asked, on seeing the prisoners.
+
+They named the colonel, Prince Repnin.
+
+"You are the commander of the Emperor Alexander's regiment of Horse
+Guards?" asked Napoleon.
+
+"I commanded a squadron," replied Repnin.
+
+"Your regiment fulfilled its duty honorably," said Napoleon.
+
+"The praise of a great commander is a soldier's highest reward," said
+Repnin.
+
+"I bestow it with pleasure," said Napoleon. "And who is that young man
+beside you?"
+
+Prince Repnin named Lieutenant Sukhtelen.
+
+After looking at him Napoleon smiled.
+
+"He's very young to come to meddle with us."
+
+"Youth is no hindrance to courage," muttered Sukhtelen in a failing
+voice.
+
+"A splendid reply!" said Napoleon. "Young man, you will go far!"
+
+Prince Andrew, who had also been brought forward before the Emperor's
+eyes to complete the show of prisoners, could not fail to attract his
+attention. Napoleon apparently remembered seeing him on the battlefield
+and, addressing him, again used the epithet "young man" that was
+connected in his memory with Prince Andrew.
+
+"Well, and you, young man," said he. "How do you feel, mon brave?"
+
+Though five minutes before, Prince Andrew had been able to say a few
+words to the soldiers who were carrying him, now with his eyes fixed
+straight on Napoleon, he was silent.... So insignificant at that moment
+seemed to him all the interests that engrossed Napoleon, so mean did his
+hero himself with his paltry vanity and joy in victory appear, compared
+to the lofty, equitable, and kindly sky which he had seen and
+understood, that he could not answer him.
+
+Everything seemed so futile and insignificant in comparison with the
+stern and solemn train of thought that weakness from loss of blood,
+suffering, and the nearness of death aroused in him. Looking into
+Napoleon's eyes Prince Andrew thought of the insignificance of
+greatness, the unimportance of life which no one could understand, and
+the still greater unimportance of death, the meaning of which no one
+alive could understand or explain.
+
+The Emperor without waiting for an answer turned away and said to one of
+the officers as he went: "Have these gentlemen attended to and taken to
+my bivouac; let my doctor, Larrey, examine their wounds. Au revoir,
+Prince Repnin!" and he spurred his horse and galloped away.
+
+His face shone with self-satisfaction and pleasure.
+
+The soldiers who had carried Prince Andrew had noticed and taken the
+little gold icon Princess Mary had hung round her brother's neck, but
+seeing the favor the Emperor showed the prisoners, they now hastened to
+return the holy image.
+
+Prince Andrew did not see how and by whom it was replaced, but the
+little icon with its thin gold chain suddenly appeared upon his chest
+outside his uniform.
+
+"It would be good," thought Prince Andrew, glancing at the icon his
+sister had hung round his neck with such emotion and reverence, "it
+would be good if everything were as clear and simple as it seems to
+Mary. How good it would be to know where to seek for help in this life,
+and what to expect after it beyond the grave! How happy and calm I
+should be if I could now say: 'Lord, have mercy on me!'... But to whom
+should I say that? Either to a Power indefinable, incomprehensible,
+which I not only cannot address but which I cannot even express in
+words—the Great All or Nothing-" said he to himself, "or to that God who
+has been sewn into this amulet by Mary! There is nothing certain,
+nothing at all except the unimportance of everything I understand, and
+the greatness of something incomprehensible but all-important."
+
+The stretchers moved on. At every jolt he again felt unendurable pain;
+his feverishness increased and he grew delirious. Visions of his father,
+wife, sister, and future son, and the tenderness he had felt the night
+before the battle, the figure of the insignificant little Napoleon, and
+above all this the lofty sky, formed the chief subjects of his delirious
+fancies.
+
+The quiet home life and peaceful happiness of Bald Hills presented
+itself to him. He was already enjoying that happiness when that little
+Napoleon had suddenly appeared with his unsympathizing look of
+shortsighted delight at the misery of others, and doubts and torments
+had followed, and only the heavens promised peace. Toward morning all
+these dreams melted and merged into the chaos and darkness of
+unconciousness and oblivion which in the opinion of Napoleon's doctor,
+Larrey, was much more likely to end in death than in convalescence.
+
+"He is a nervous, bilious subject," said Larrey, "and will not recover."
+
+And Prince Andrew, with others fatally wounded, was left to the care of
+the inhabitants of the district.
+
+
+
+
+
+BOOK FOUR: 1806
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+Early in the year 1806 Nicholas Rostóv returned home on leave. Denisov
+was going home to Voronezh and Rostóv persuaded him to travel with him
+as far as Moscow and to stay with him there. Meeting a comrade at the
+last post station but one before Moscow, Denisov had drunk three bottles
+of wine with him and, despite the jolting ruts across the snow-covered
+road, did not once wake up on the way to Moscow, but lay at the bottom
+of the sleigh beside Rostóv, who grew more and more impatient the nearer
+they got to Moscow.
+
+"How much longer? How much longer? Oh, these insufferable streets,
+shops, bakers' signboards, street lamps, and sleighs!" thought Rostóv,
+when their leave permits had been passed at the town gate and they had
+entered Moscow.
+
+"Denisov! We're here! He's asleep," he added, leaning forward with his
+whole body as if in that position he hoped to hasten the speed of the
+sleigh.
+
+Denisov gave no answer.
+
+"There's the corner at the crossroads, where the cabman, Zakhar, has his
+stand, and there's Zakhar himself and still the same horse! And here's
+the little shop where we used to buy gingerbread! Can't you hurry up?
+Now then!"
+
+"Which house is it?" asked the driver.
+
+"Why, that one, right at the end, the big one. Don't you see? That's our
+house," said Rostóv. "Of course, it's our house! Denisov, Denisov! We're
+almost there!"
+
+Denisov raised his head, coughed, and made no answer.
+
+"Dmítri," said Rostóv to his valet on the box, "those lights are in our
+house, aren't they?"
+
+"Yes, sir, and there's a light in your father's study."
+
+"Then they've not gone to bed yet? What do you think? Mind now, don't
+forget to put out my new coat," added Rostóv, fingering his new
+mustache. "Now then, get on," he shouted to the driver. "Do wake up,
+Vaska!" he went on, turning to Denisov, whose head was again nodding.
+"Come, get on! You shall have three rubles for vodka—get on!" Rostóv
+shouted, when the sleigh was only three houses from his door. It seemed
+to him the horses were not moving at all. At last the sleigh bore to the
+right, drew up at an entrance, and Rostóv saw overhead the old familiar
+cornice with a bit of plaster broken off, the porch, and the post by the
+side of the pavement. He sprang out before the sleigh stopped, and ran
+into the hall. The house stood cold and silent, as if quite regardless
+of who had come to it. There was no one in the hall. "Oh God! Is
+everyone all right?" he thought, stopping for a moment with a sinking
+heart, and then immediately starting to run along the hall and up the
+warped steps of the familiar staircase. The well-known old door handle,
+which always angered the countess when it was not properly cleaned,
+turned as loosely as ever. A solitary tallow candle burned in the
+anteroom.
+
+Old Michael was asleep on the chest. Prokofy, the footman, who was so
+strong that he could lift the back of the carriage from behind, sat
+plaiting slippers out of cloth selvedges. He looked up at the opening
+door and his expression of sleepy indifference suddenly changed to one
+of delighted amazement.
+
+"Gracious heavens! The young count!" he cried, recognizing his young
+master. "Can it be? My treasure!" and Prokofy, trembling with
+excitement, rushed toward the drawing room door, probably in order to
+announce him, but, changing his mind, came back and stooped to kiss the
+young man's shoulder.
+
+"All well?" asked Rostóv, drawing away his arm.
+
+"Yes, God be thanked! Yes! They've just finished supper. Let me have a
+look at you, your excellency."
+
+"Is everything quite all right?"
+
+"The Lord be thanked, yes!"
+
+Rostóv, who had completely forgotten Denisov, not wishing anyone to
+forestall him, threw off his fur coat and ran on tiptoe through the
+large dark ballroom. All was the same: there were the same old card
+tables and the same chandelier with a cover over it; but someone had
+already seen the young master, and, before he had reached the drawing
+room, something flew out from a side door like a tornado and began
+hugging and kissing him. Another and yet another creature of the same
+kind sprang from a second door and a third; more hugging, more kissing,
+more outcries, and tears of joy. He could not distinguish which was
+Papa, which Natásha, and which Pétya. Everyone shouted, talked, and
+kissed him at the same time. Only his mother was not there, he noticed
+that.
+
+"And I did not know... Nicholas... My darling!..."
+
+"Here he is... our own... Kolya, * dear fellow... How he has changed!...
+Where are the candles?... Tea!..."
+
+* Nicholas.
+
+"And me, kiss me!"
+
+"Dearest... and me!"
+
+Sónya, Natásha, Pétya, Anna Mikháylovna, Véra, and the old count were
+all hugging him, and the serfs, men and maids, flocked into the room,
+exclaiming and oh-ing and ah-ing.
+
+Pétya, clinging to his legs, kept shouting, "And me too!"
+
+Natásha, after she had pulled him down toward her and covered his face
+with kisses, holding him tight by the skirt of his coat, sprang away and
+pranced up and down in one place like a goat and shrieked piercingly.
+
+All around were loving eyes glistening with tears of joy, and all around
+were lips seeking a kiss.
+
+Sónya too, all rosy red, clung to his arm and, radiant with bliss,
+looked eagerly toward his eyes, waiting for the look for which she
+longed. Sónya now was sixteen and she was very pretty, especially at
+this moment of happy, rapturous excitement. She gazed at him, not taking
+her eyes off him, and smiling and holding her breath. He gave her a
+grateful look, but was still expectant and looking for someone. The old
+countess had not yet come. But now steps were heard at the door, steps
+so rapid that they could hardly be his mother's.
+
+Yet it was she, dressed in a new gown which he did not know, made since
+he had left. All the others let him go, and he ran to her. When they
+met, she fell on his breast, sobbing. She could not lift her face, but
+only pressed it to the cold braiding of his hussar's jacket. Denisov,
+who had come into the room unnoticed by anyone, stood there and wiped
+his eyes at the sight.
+
+"Vasíli Denisov, your son's friend," he said, introducing himself to the
+count, who was looking inquiringly at him.
+
+"You are most welcome! I know, I know," said the count, kissing and
+embracing Denisov. "Nicholas wrote us... Natásha, Véra, look! Here is
+Denisov!"
+
+The same happy, rapturous faces turned to the shaggy figure of Denisov.
+
+"Darling Denisov!" screamed Natásha, beside herself with rapture,
+springing to him, putting her arms round him, and kissing him. This
+escapade made everybody feel confused. Denisov blushed too, but smiled
+and, taking Natásha's hand, kissed it.
+
+Denisov was shown to the room prepared for him, and the Rostóvs all
+gathered round Nicholas in the sitting room.
+
+The old countess, not letting go of his hand and kissing it every
+moment, sat beside him: the rest, crowding round him, watched every
+movement, word, or look of his, never taking their blissfully adoring
+eyes off him. His brother and sisters struggled for the places nearest
+to him and disputed with one another who should bring him his tea,
+handkerchief, and pipe.
+
+Rostóv was very happy in the love they showed him; but the first moment
+of meeting had been so beatific that his present joy seemed
+insufficient, and he kept expecting something more, more and yet more.
+
+Next morning, after the fatigues of their journey, the travelers slept
+till ten o'clock.
+
+In the room next their bedroom there was a confusion of sabers,
+satchels, sabretaches, open portmanteaus, and dirty boots. Two freshly
+cleaned pairs with spurs had just been placed by the wall. The servants
+were bringing in jugs and basins, hot water for shaving, and their well-
+brushed clothes. There was a masculine odor and a smell of tobacco.
+
+"Hallo, Gwiska—my pipe!" came Vasíli Denisov's husky voice. "Wostov, get
+up!"
+
+Rostóv, rubbing his eyes that seemed glued together, raised his
+disheveled head from the hot pillow.
+
+"Why, is it late?"
+
+"Late! It's nearly ten o'clock," answered Natásha's voice. A rustle of
+starched petticoats and the whispering and laughter of girls' voices
+came from the adjoining room. The door was opened a crack and there was
+a glimpse of something blue, of ribbons, black hair, and merry faces. It
+was Natásha, Sónya, and Pétya, who had come to see whether they were
+getting up.
+
+"Nicholas! Get up!" Natásha's voice was again heard at the door.
+
+"Directly!"
+
+Meanwhile, Pétya, having found and seized the sabers in the outer room,
+with the delight boys feel at the sight of a military elder brother, and
+forgetting that it was unbecoming for the girls to see men undressed,
+opened the bedroom door.
+
+"Is this your saber?" he shouted.
+
+The girls sprang aside. Denisov hid his hairy legs under the blanket,
+looking with a scared face at his comrade for help. The door, having let
+Pétya in, closed again. A sound of laughter came from behind it.
+
+"Nicholas! Come out in your dressing gown!" said Natásha's voice.
+
+"Is this your saber?" asked Pétya. "Or is it yours?" he said, addressing
+the black-mustached Denisov with servile deference.
+
+Rostóv hurriedly put something on his feet, drew on his dressing gown,
+and went out. Natásha had put on one spurred boot and was just getting
+her foot into the other. Sónya, when he came in, was twirling round and
+was about to expand her dresses into a balloon and sit down. They were
+dressed alike, in new pale-blue frocks, and were both fresh, rosy, and
+bright. Sónya ran away, but Natásha, taking her brother's arm, led him
+into the sitting room, where they began talking. They hardly gave one
+another time to ask questions and give replies concerning a thousand
+little matters which could not interest anyone but themselves. Natásha
+laughed at every word he said or that she said herself, not because what
+they were saying was amusing, but because she felt happy and was unable
+to control her joy which expressed itself by laughter.
+
+"Oh, how nice, how splendid!" she said to everything.
+
+Rostóv felt that, under the influence of the warm rays of love, that
+childlike smile which had not once appeared on his face since he left
+home now for the first time after eighteen months again brightened his
+soul and his face.
+
+"No, but listen," she said, "now you are quite a man, aren't you? I'm
+awfully glad you're my brother." She touched his mustache. "I want to
+know what you men are like. Are you the same as we? No?"
+
+"Why did Sónya run away?" asked Rostóv.
+
+"Ah, yes! That's a whole long story! How are you going to speak to
+her—thou or you?"
+
+"As may happen," said Rostóv.
+
+"No, call her you, please! I'll tell you all about it some other time.
+No, I'll tell you now. You know Sónya's my dearest friend. Such a friend
+that I burned my arm for her sake. Look here!"
+
+She pulled up her muslin sleeve and showed him a red scar on her long,
+slender, delicate arm, high above the elbow on that part that is covered
+even by a ball dress.
+
+"I burned this to prove my love for her. I just heated a ruler in the
+fire and pressed it there!"
+
+Sitting on the sofa with the little cushions on its arms, in what used
+to be his old schoolroom, and looking into Natásha's wildly bright eyes,
+Rostóv re-entered that world of home and childhood which had no meaning
+for anyone else, but gave him some of the best joys of his life; and the
+burning of an arm with a ruler as a proof of love did not seem to him
+senseless, he understood and was not surprised at it.
+
+"Well, and is that all?" he asked.
+
+"We are such friends, such friends! All that ruler business was just
+nonsense, but we are friends forever. She, if she loves anyone, does it
+for life, but I don't understand that, I forget quickly."
+
+"Well, what then?"
+
+"Well, she loves me and you like that."
+
+Natásha suddenly flushed.
+
+"Why, you remember before you went away?... Well, she says you are to
+forget all that.... She says: 'I shall love him always, but let him be
+free.' Isn't that lovely and noble! Yes, very noble? Isn't it?" asked
+Natásha, so seriously and excitedly that it was evident that what she
+was now saying she had talked of before, with tears.
+
+Rostóv became thoughtful.
+
+"I never go back on my word," he said. "Besides, Sónya is so charming
+that only a fool would renounce such happiness."
+
+"No, no!" cried Natásha, "she and I have already talked it over. We knew
+you'd say so. But it won't do, because you see, if you say that—if you
+consider yourself bound by your promise—it will seem as if she had not
+meant it seriously. It makes it as if you were marrying her because you
+must, and that wouldn't do at all."
+
+Rostóv saw that it had been well considered by them. Sónya had already
+struck him by her beauty on the preceding day. Today, when he had caught
+a glimpse of her, she seemed still more lovely. She was a charming girl
+of sixteen, evidently passionately in love with him (he did not doubt
+that for an instant). Why should he not love her now, and even marry
+her, Rostóv thought, but just now there were so many other pleasures and
+interests before him! "Yes, they have taken a wise decision," he
+thought, "I must remain free."
+
+"Well then, that's excellent," said he. "We'll talk it over later on.
+Oh, how glad I am to have you!"
+
+"Well, and are you still true to Borís?" he continued.
+
+"Oh, what nonsense!" cried Natásha, laughing. "I don't think about him
+or anyone else, and I don't want anything of the kind."
+
+"Dear me! Then what are you up to now?"
+
+"Now?" repeated Natásha, and a happy smile lit up her face. "Have you
+seen Duport?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Not seen Duport—the famous dancer? Well then, you won't understand.
+That's what I'm up to."
+
+Curving her arms, Natásha held out her skirts as dancers do, ran back a
+few steps, turned, cut a caper, brought her little feet sharply
+together, and made some steps on the very tips of her toes.
+
+"See, I'm standing! See!" she said, but could not maintain herself on
+her toes any longer. "So that's what I'm up to! I'll never marry anyone,
+but will be a dancer. Only don't tell anyone."
+
+Rostóv laughed so loud and merrily that Denisov, in his bedroom, felt
+envious and Natásha could not help joining in.
+
+"No, but don't you think it's nice?" she kept repeating.
+
+"Nice! And so you no longer wish to marry Borís?"
+
+Natásha flared up. "I don't want to marry anyone. And I'll tell him so
+when I see him!"
+
+"Dear me!" said Rostóv.
+
+"But that's all rubbish," Natásha chattered on. "And is Denisov nice?"
+she asked.
+
+"Yes, indeed!"
+
+"Oh, well then, good-by: go and dress. Is he very terrible, Denisov?"
+
+"Why terrible?" asked Nicholas. "No, Vaska is a splendid fellow."
+
+"You call him Vaska? That's funny! And is he very nice?"
+
+"Very."
+
+"Well then, be quick. We'll all have breakfast together."
+
+And Natásha rose and went out of the room on tiptoe, like a ballet
+dancer, but smiling as only happy girls of fifteen can smile. When
+Rostóv met Sónya in the drawing room, he reddened. He did not know how
+to behave with her. The evening before, in the first happy moment of
+meeting, they had kissed each other, but today they felt it could not be
+done; he felt that everybody, including his mother and sisters, was
+looking inquiringly at him and watching to see how he would behave with
+her. He kissed her hand and addressed her not as thou but as you—Sónya.
+But their eyes met and said thou, and exchanged tender kisses. Her looks
+asked him to forgive her for having dared, by Natásha's intermediacy, to
+remind him of his promise, and then thanked him for his love. His looks
+thanked her for offering him his freedom and told her that one way or
+another he would never cease to love her, for that would be impossible.
+
+"How strange it is," said Véra, selecting a moment when all were silent,
+"that Sónya and Nicholas now say you to one another and meet like
+strangers."
+
+Véra's remark was correct, as her remarks always were, but, like most of
+her observations, it made everyone feel uncomfortable, not only Sónya,
+Nicholas, and Natásha, but even the old countess, who—dreading this love
+affair which might hinder Nicholas from making a brilliant match—blushed
+like a girl.
+
+Denisov, to Rostóv's surprise, appeared in the drawing room with pomaded
+hair, perfumed, and in a new uniform, looking just as smart as he made
+himself when going into battle, and he was more amiable to the ladies
+and gentlemen than Rostóv had ever expected to see him.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+On his return to Moscow from the army, Nicholas Rostóv was welcomed by
+his home circle as the best of sons, a hero, and their darling
+Nikolenka; by his relations as a charming, attractive, and polite young
+man; by his acquaintances as a handsome lieutenant of hussars, a good
+dancer, and one of the best matches in the city.
+
+The Rostóvs knew everybody in Moscow. The old count had money enough
+that year, as all his estates had been remortgaged, and so Nicholas,
+acquiring a trotter of his own, very stylish riding breeches of the
+latest cut, such as no one else yet had in Moscow, and boots of the
+latest fashion, with extremely pointed toes and small silver spurs,
+passed his time very gaily. After a short period of adapting himself to
+the old conditions of life, Nicholas found it very pleasant to be at
+home again. He felt that he had grown up and matured very much. His
+despair at failing in a Scripture examination, his borrowing money from
+Gavril to pay a sleigh driver, his kissing Sónya on the sly—he now
+recalled all this as childishness he had left immeasurably behind. Now
+he was a lieutenant of hussars, in a jacket laced with silver, and
+wearing the Cross of St. George, awarded to soldiers for bravery in
+action, and in the company of well-known, elderly, and respected racing
+men was training a trotter of his own for a race. He knew a lady on one
+of the boulevards whom he visited of an evening. He led the mazurka at
+the Arkhárovs' ball, talked about the war with Field Marshal Kamenski,
+visited the English Club, and was on intimate terms with a colonel of
+forty to whom Denisov had introduced him.
+
+His passion for the Emperor had cooled somewhat in Moscow. But still, as
+he did not see him and had no opportunity of seeing him, he often spoke
+about him and about his love for him, letting it be understood that he
+had not told all and that there was something in his feelings for the
+Emperor not everyone could understand, and with his whole soul he shared
+the adoration then common in Moscow for the Emperor, who was spoken of
+as the "angel incarnate."
+
+During Rostóv's short stay in Moscow, before rejoining the army, he did
+not draw closer to Sónya, but rather drifted away from her. She was very
+pretty and sweet, and evidently deeply in love with him, but he was at
+the period of youth when there seems so much to do that there is no time
+for that sort of thing and a young man fears to bind himself and prizes
+his freedom which he needs for so many other things. When he thought of
+Sónya, during this stay in Moscow, he said to himself, "Ah, there will
+be, and there are, many more such girls somewhere whom I do not yet
+know. There will be time enough to think about love when I want to, but
+now I have no time." Besides, it seemed to him that the society of women
+was rather derogatory to his manhood. He went to balls and into ladies'
+society with an affectation of doing so against his will. The races, the
+English Club, sprees with Denisov, and visits to a certain house—that
+was another matter and quite the thing for a dashing young hussar!
+
+At the beginning of March, old Count Ilyá Rostóv was very busy arranging
+a dinner in honor of Prince Bagration at the English Club.
+
+The count walked up and down the hall in his dressing gown, giving
+orders to the club steward and to the famous Feoktist, the club's head
+cook, about asparagus, fresh cucumbers, strawberries, veal, and fish for
+this dinner. The count had been a member and on the committee of the
+club from the day it was founded. To him the club entrusted the
+arrangement of the festival in honor of Bagration, for few men knew so
+well how to arrange a feast on an open-handed, hospitable scale, and
+still fewer men would be so well able and willing to make up out of
+their own resources what might be needed for the success of the fete.
+The club cook and the steward listened to the count's orders with
+pleased faces, for they knew that under no other management could they
+so easily extract a good profit for themselves from a dinner costing
+several thousand rubles.
+
+"Well then, mind and have cocks' comb in the turtle soup, you know!"
+
+"Shall we have three cold dishes then?" asked the cook.
+
+The count considered.
+
+"We can't have less—yes, three... the mayonnaise, that's one," said he,
+bending down a finger.
+
+"Then am I to order those large sterlets?" asked the steward.
+
+"Yes, it can't be helped if they won't take less. Ah, dear me! I was
+forgetting. We must have another entree. Ah, goodness gracious!" he
+clutched at his head. "Who is going to get me the flowers? Dmítri! Eh,
+Dmítri! Gallop off to our Moscow estate," he said to the factotum who
+appeared at his call. "Hurry off and tell Maksim, the gardener, to set
+the serfs to work. Say that everything out of the hothouses must be
+brought here well wrapped up in felt. I must have two hundred pots here
+on Friday."
+
+Having given several more orders, he was about to go to his "little
+countess" to have a rest, but remembering something else of importance,
+he returned again, called back the cook and the club steward, and again
+began giving orders. A light footstep and the clinking of spurs were
+heard at the door, and the young count, handsome, rosy, with a dark
+little mustache, evidently rested and made sleeker by his easy life in
+Moscow, entered the room.
+
+"Ah, my boy, my head's in a whirl!" said the old man with a smile, as if
+he felt a little confused before his son. "Now, if you would only help a
+bit! I must have singers too. I shall have my own orchestra, but
+shouldn't we get the gypsy singers as well? You military men like that
+sort of thing."
+
+"Really, Papa, I believe Prince Bagration worried himself less before
+the battle of Schon Grabern than you do now," said his son with a smile.
+
+The old count pretended to be angry.
+
+"Yes, you talk, but try it yourself!"
+
+And the count turned to the cook, who, with a shrewd and respectful
+expression, looked observantly and sympathetically at the father and
+son.
+
+"What have the young people come to nowadays, eh, Feoktist?" said he.
+"Laughing at us old fellows!"
+
+"That's so, your excellency, all they have to do is to eat a good
+dinner, but providing it and serving it all up, that's not their
+business!"
+
+"That's it, that's it!" exclaimed the count, and gaily seizing his son
+by both hands, he cried, "Now I've got you, so take the sleigh and pair
+at once, and go to Bezúkhov's, and tell him 'Count Ilyá has sent you to
+ask for strawberries and fresh pineapples.' We can't get them from
+anyone else. He's not there himself, so you'll have to go in and ask the
+princesses; and from there go on to the Rasgulyay—the coachman Ipatka
+knows—and look up the gypsy Ilyushka, the one who danced at Count
+Orlóv's, you remember, in a white Cossack coat, and bring him along to
+me."
+
+"And am I to bring the gypsy girls along with him?" asked Nicholas,
+laughing. "Dear, dear!..."
+
+At that moment, with noiseless footsteps and with the businesslike,
+preoccupied, yet meekly Christian look which never left her face, Anna
+Mikháylovna entered the hall. Though she came upon the count in his
+dressing gown every day, he invariably became confused and begged her to
+excuse his costume.
+
+"No matter at all, my dear count," she said, meekly closing her eyes.
+"But I'll go to Bezúkhov's myself. Pierre has arrived, and now we shall
+get anything we want from his hothouses. I have to see him in any case.
+He has forwarded me a letter from Borís. Thank God, Borís is now on the
+staff."
+
+The count was delighted at Anna Mikháylovna's taking upon herself one of
+his commissions and ordered the small closed carriage for her.
+
+"Tell Bezúkhov to come. I'll put his name down. Is his wife with him?"
+he asked.
+
+Anna Mikháylovna turned up her eyes, and profound sadness was depicted
+on her face.
+
+"Ah, my dear friend, he is very unfortunate," she said. "If what we hear
+is true, it is dreadful. How little we dreamed of such a thing when we
+were rejoicing at his happiness! And such a lofty angelic soul as young
+Bezúkhov! Yes, I pity him from my heart, and shall try to give him what
+consolation I can."
+
+"Wh-what is the matter?" asked both the young and old Rostóv.
+
+Anna Mikháylovna sighed deeply.
+
+"Dólokhov, Mary Ivánovna's son," she said in a mysterious whisper, "has
+compromised her completely, they say. Pierre took him up, invited him to
+his house in Petersburg, and now... she has come here and that daredevil
+after her!" said Anna Mikháylovna, wishing to show her sympathy for
+Pierre, but by involuntary intonations and a half smile betraying her
+sympathy for the "daredevil," as she called Dólokhov. "They say Pierre
+is quite broken by his misfortune."
+
+"Dear, dear! But still tell him to come to the club—it will all blow
+over. It will be a tremendous banquet."
+
+Next day, the third of March, soon after one o'clock, two hundred and
+fifty members of the English Club and fifty guests were awaiting the
+guest of honor and hero of the Austrian campaign, Prince Bagration, to
+dinner.
+
+On the first arrival of the news of the battle of Austerlitz, Moscow had
+been bewildered. At that time, the Russians were so used to victories
+that on receiving news of the defeat some would simply not believe it,
+while others sought some extraordinary explanation of so strange an
+event. In the English Club, where all who were distinguished, important,
+and well informed foregathered when the news began to arrive in
+December, nothing was said about the war and the last battle, as though
+all were in a conspiracy of silence. The men who set the tone in
+conversation—Count Rostopchin, Prince Yuri Dolgorukov, Valuev, Count
+Markov, and Prince Vyazemski—did not show themselves at the club, but
+met in private houses in intimate circles, and the Moscovites who took
+their opinions from others—Ilyá Rostóv among them—remained for a while
+without any definite opinion on the subject of the war and without
+leaders. The Moscovites felt that something was wrong and that to
+discuss the bad news was difficult, and so it was best to be silent. But
+after a while, just as a jury comes out of its room, the bigwigs who
+guided the club's opinion reappeared, and everybody began speaking
+clearly and definitely. Reasons were found for the incredible, unheard-
+of, and impossible event of a Russian defeat, everything became clear,
+and in all corners of Moscow the same things began to be said. These
+reasons were the treachery of the Austrians, a defective commissariat,
+the treachery of the Pole Przebyszewski and of the Frenchman Langeron,
+Kutúzov's incapacity, and (it was whispered) the youth and inexperience
+of the sovereign, who had trusted worthless and insignificant people.
+But the army, the Russian army, everyone declared, was extraordinary and
+had achieved miracles of valor. The soldiers, officers, and generals
+were heroes. But the hero of heroes was Prince Bagration, distinguished
+by his Schon Grabern affair and by the retreat from Austerlitz, where he
+alone had withdrawn his column unbroken and had all day beaten back an
+enemy force twice as numerous as his own. What also conduced to
+Bagration's being selected as Moscow's hero was the fact that he had no
+connections in the city and was a stranger there. In his person, honor
+was shown to a simple fighting Russian soldier without connections and
+intrigues, and to one who was associated by memories of the Italian
+campaign with the name of Suvórov. Moreover, paying such honor to
+Bagration was the best way of expressing disapproval and dislike of
+Kutúzov.
+
+"Had there been no Bagration, it would have been necessary to invent
+him," said the wit Shinshín, parodying the words of Voltaire. Kutúzov no
+one spoke of, except some who abused him in whispers, calling him a
+court weathercock and an old satyr.
+
+All Moscow repeated Prince Dolgorukov's saying: "If you go on modeling
+and modeling you must get smeared with clay," suggesting consolation for
+our defeat by the memory of former victories; and the words of
+Rostopchin, that French soldiers have to be incited to battle by
+highfalutin words, and Germans by logical arguments to show them that it
+is more dangerous to run away than to advance, but that Russian soldiers
+only need to be restrained and held back! On all sides, new and fresh
+anecdotes were heard of individual examples of heroism shown by our
+officers and men at Austerlitz. One had saved a standard, another had
+killed five Frenchmen, a third had loaded five cannon singlehanded. Berg
+was mentioned, by those who did not know him, as having, when wounded in
+the right hand, taken his sword in the left, and gone forward. Of
+Bolkónski, nothing was said, and only those who knew him intimately
+regretted that he had died so young, leaving a pregnant wife with his
+eccentric father.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+On that third of March, all the rooms in the English Club were filled
+with a hum of conversation, like the hum of bees swarming in springtime.
+The members and guests of the club wandered hither and thither, sat,
+stood, met, and separated, some in uniform and some in evening dress,
+and a few here and there with powdered hair and in Russian kaftans.
+Powdered footmen, in livery with buckled shoes and smart stockings,
+stood at every door anxiously noting visitors' every movement in order
+to offer their services. Most of those present were elderly, respected
+men with broad, self-confident faces, fat fingers, and resolute gestures
+and voices. This class of guests and members sat in certain habitual
+places and met in certain habitual groups. A minority of those present
+were casual guests—chiefly young men, among whom were Denisov, Rostóv,
+and Dólokhov—who was now again an officer in the Semënov regiment. The
+faces of these young people, especially those who were military men,
+bore that expression of condescending respect for their elders which
+seems to say to the older generation, "We are prepared to respect and
+honor you, but all the same remember that the future belongs to us."
+
+Nesvítski was there as an old member of the club. Pierre, who at his
+wife's command had let his hair grow and abandoned his spectacles, went
+about the rooms fashionably dressed but looking sad and dull. Here, as
+elsewhere, he was surrounded by an atmosphere of subservience to his
+wealth, and being in the habit of lording it over these people, he
+treated them with absent-minded contempt.
+
+By his age he should have belonged to the younger men, but by his wealth
+and connections he belonged to the groups of old and honored guests, and
+so he went from one group to another. Some of the most important old men
+were the center of groups which even strangers approached respectfully
+to hear the voices of well-known men. The largest circles formed round
+Count Rostopchin, Valuev, and Naryshkin. Rostopchin was describing how
+the Russians had been overwhelmed by flying Austrians and had had to
+force their way through them with bayonets.
+
+Valuev was confidentially telling that Uvarov had been sent from
+Petersburg to ascertain what Moscow was thinking about Austerlitz.
+
+In the third circle, Naryshkin was speaking of the meeting of the
+Austrian Council of War at which Suvórov crowed like a cock in reply to
+the nonsense talked by the Austrian generals. Shinshín, standing close
+by, tried to make a joke, saying that Kutúzov had evidently failed to
+learn from Suvórov even so simple a thing as the art of crowing like a
+cock, but the elder members glanced severely at the wit, making him feel
+that in that place and on that day, it was improper to speak so of
+Kutúzov.
+
+Count Ilyá Rostóv, hurried and preoccupied, went about in his soft boots
+between the dining and drawing rooms, hastily greeting the important and
+unimportant, all of whom he knew, as if they were all equals, while his
+eyes occasionally sought out his fine well-set-up young son, resting on
+him and winking joyfully at him. Young Rostóv stood at a window with
+Dólokhov, whose acquaintance he had lately made and highly valued. The
+old count came up to them and pressed Dólokhov's hand.
+
+"Please come and visit us... you know my brave boy... been together out
+there... both playing the hero... Ah, Vasíli Ignatovich... How d'ye do,
+old fellow?" he said, turning to an old man who was passing, but before
+he had finished his greeting there was a general stir, and a footman who
+had run in announced, with a frightened face: "He's arrived!"
+
+Bells rang, the stewards rushed forward, and—like rye shaken together in
+a shovel—the guests who had been scattered about in different rooms came
+together and crowded in the large drawing room by the door of the
+ballroom.
+
+Bagration appeared in the doorway of the anteroom without hat or sword,
+which, in accord with the club custom, he had given up to the hall
+porter. He had no lambskin cap on his head, nor had he a loaded whip
+over his shoulder, as when Rostóv had seen him on the eve of the battle
+of Austerlitz, but wore a tight new uniform with Russian and foreign
+Orders, and the Star of St. George on his left breast. Evidently just
+before coming to the dinner he had had his hair and whiskers trimmed,
+which changed his appearance for the worse. There was something naïvely
+festive in his air, which, in conjunction with his firm and virile
+features, gave him a rather comical expression. Bekleshev and Theodore
+Uvarov, who had arrived with him, paused at the doorway to allow him, as
+the guest of honor, to enter first. Bagration was embarrassed, not
+wishing to avail himself of their courtesy, and this caused some delay
+at the doors, but after all he did at last enter first. He walked shyly
+and awkwardly over the parquet floor of the reception room, not knowing
+what to do with his hands; he was more accustomed to walk over a plowed
+field under fire, as he had done at the head of the Kursk regiment at
+Schon Grabern—and he would have found that easier. The committeemen met
+him at the first door and, expressing their delight at seeing such a
+highly honored guest, took possession of him as it were, without waiting
+for his reply, surrounded him, and led him to the drawing room. It was
+at first impossible to enter the drawing room door for the crowd of
+members and guests jostling one another and trying to get a good look at
+Bagration over each other's shoulders, as if he were some rare animal.
+Count Ilyá Rostóv, laughing and repeating the words, "Make way, dear
+boy! Make way, make way!" pushed through the crowd more energetically
+than anyone, led the guests into the drawing room, and seated them on
+the center sofa. The bigwigs, the most respected members of the club,
+beset the new arrivals. Count Ilyá, again thrusting his way through the
+crowd, went out of the drawing room and reappeared a minute later with
+another committeeman, carrying a large silver salver which he presented
+to Prince Bagration. On the salver lay some verses composed and printed
+in the hero's honor. Bagration, on seeing the salver, glanced around in
+dismay, as though seeking help. But all eyes demanded that he should
+submit. Feeling himself in their power, he resolutely took the salver
+with both hands and looked sternly and reproachfully at the count who
+had presented it to him. Someone obligingly took the dish from Bagration
+(or he would, it seemed, have held it till evening and have gone in to
+dinner with it) and drew his attention to the verses.
+
+"Well, I will read them, then!" Bagration seemed to say, and, fixing his
+weary eyes on the paper, began to read them with a fixed and serious
+expression. But the author himself took the verses and began reading
+them aloud. Bagration bowed his head and listened:
+
+Bring glory then to Alexander's reign And on the throne our Titus
+shield. A dreaded foe be thou, kindhearted as a man, A Rhipheus at home,
+a Caesar in the field! E'en fortunate Napoleon Knows by experience, now,
+Bagration, And dare not Herculean Russians trouble...
+
+But before he had finished reading, a stentorian major-domo announced
+that dinner was ready! The door opened, and from the dining room came
+the resounding strains of the polonaise:
+
+Conquest's joyful thunder waken, Triumph, valiant Russians, now!...
+
+and Count Rostóv, glancing angrily at the author who went on reading his
+verses, bowed to Bagration. Everyone rose, feeling that dinner was more
+important than verses, and Bagration, again preceding all the rest, went
+in to dinner. He was seated in the place of honor between two
+Alexanders—Bekleshev and Naryshkin—which was a significant allusion to
+the name of the sovereign. Three hundred persons took their seats in the
+dining room, according to their rank and importance: the more important
+nearer to the honored guest, as naturally as water flows deepest where
+the land lies lowest.
+
+Just before dinner, Count Ilyá Rostóv presented his son to Bagration,
+who recognized him and said a few words to him, disjointed and awkward,
+as were all the words he spoke that day, and Count Ilyá looked joyfully
+and proudly around while Bagration spoke to his son.
+
+Nicholas Rostóv, with Denisov and his new acquaintance, Dólokhov, sat
+almost at the middle of the table. Facing them sat Pierre, beside Prince
+Nesvítski. Count Ilyá Rostóv with the other members of the committee sat
+facing Bagration and, as the very personification of Moscow hospitality,
+did the honors to the prince.
+
+His efforts had not been in vain. The dinner, both the Lenten and the
+other fare, was splendid, yet he could not feel quite at ease till the
+end of the meal. He winked at the butler, whispered directions to the
+footmen, and awaited each expected dish with some anxiety. Everything
+was excellent. With the second course, a gigantic sterlet (at sight of
+which Ilyá Rostóv blushed with self-conscious pleasure), the footmen
+began popping corks and filling the champagne glasses. After the fish,
+which made a certain sensation, the count exchanged glances with the
+other committeemen. "There will be many toasts, it's time to begin," he
+whispered, and taking up his glass, he rose. All were silent, waiting
+for what he would say.
+
+"To the health of our Sovereign, the Emperor!" he cried, and at the same
+moment his kindly eyes grew moist with tears of joy and enthusiasm. The
+band immediately struck up "Conquest's joyful thunder waken..." All rose
+and cried "Hurrah!" Bagration also rose and shouted "Hurrah!" in exactly
+the same voice in which he had shouted it on the field at Schon Grabern.
+Young Rostóv's ecstatic voice could be heard above the three hundred
+others. He nearly wept. "To the health of our Sovereign, the Emperor!"
+he roared, "Hurrah!" and emptying his glass at one gulp he dashed it to
+the floor. Many followed his example, and the loud shouting continued
+for a long time. When the voices subsided, the footmen cleared away the
+broken glass and everybody sat down again, smiling at the noise they had
+made and exchanging remarks. The old count rose once more, glanced at a
+note lying beside his plate, and proposed a toast, "To the health of the
+hero of our last campaign, Prince Peter Ivánovich Bagration!" and again
+his blue eyes grew moist. "Hurrah!" cried the three hundred voices
+again, but instead of the band a choir began singing a cantata composed
+by Paul Ivánovich Kutúzov:
+
+Russians! O'er all barriers on! Courage conquest guarantees; Have we not
+Bagration? He brings foe men to their knees,... etc.
+
+As soon as the singing was over, another and another toast was proposed
+and Count Ilyá Rostóv became more and more moved, more glass was
+smashed, and the shouting grew louder. They drank to Bekleshev,
+Naryshkin, Uvarov, Dolgorukov, Apráksin, Valuev, to the committee, to
+all the club members and to all the club guests, and finally to Count
+Ilyá Rostóv separately, as the organizer of the banquet. At that toast,
+the count took out his handkerchief and, covering his face, wept
+outright.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+Pierre sat opposite Dólokhov and Nicholas Rostóv. As usual, he ate and
+drank much, and eagerly. But those who knew him intimately noticed that
+some great change had come over him that day. He was silent all through
+dinner and looked about, blinking and scowling, or, with fixed eyes and
+a look of complete absent-mindedness, kept rubbing the bridge of his
+nose. His face was depressed and gloomy. He seemed to see and hear
+nothing of what was going on around him and to be absorbed by some
+depressing and unsolved problem.
+
+The unsolved problem that tormented him was caused by hints given by the
+princess, his cousin, at Moscow, concerning Dólokhov's intimacy with his
+wife, and by an anonymous letter he had received that morning, which in
+the mean jocular way common to anonymous letters said that he saw badly
+through his spectacles, but that his wife's connection with Dólokhov was
+a secret to no one but himself. Pierre absolutely disbelieved both the
+princess' hints and the letter, but he feared now to look at Dólokhov,
+who was sitting opposite him. Every time he chanced to meet Dólokhov's
+handsome insolent eyes, Pierre felt something terrible and monstrous
+rising in his soul and turned quickly away. Involuntarily recalling his
+wife's past and her relations with Dólokhov, Pierre saw clearly that
+what was said in the letter might be true, or might at least seem to be
+true had it not referred to his wife. He involuntarily remembered how
+Dólokhov, who had fully recovered his former position after the
+campaign, had returned to Petersburg and come to him. Availing himself
+of his friendly relations with Pierre as a boon companion, Dólokhov had
+come straight to his house, and Pierre had put him up and lent him
+money. Pierre recalled how Hélène had smilingly expressed disapproval of
+Dólokhov's living at their house, and how cynically Dólokhov had praised
+his wife's beauty to him and from that time till they came to Moscow had
+not left them for a day.
+
+"Yes, he is very handsome," thought Pierre, "and I know him. It would be
+particularly pleasant to him to dishonor my name and ridicule me, just
+because I have exerted myself on his behalf, befriended him, and helped
+him. I know and understand what a spice that would add to the pleasure
+of deceiving me, if it really were true. Yes, if it were true, but I do
+not believe it. I have no right to, and can't, believe it." He
+remembered the expression Dólokhov's face assumed in his moments of
+cruelty, as when tying the policeman to the bear and dropping them into
+the water, or when he challenged a man to a duel without any reason, or
+shot a post-boy's horse with a pistol. That expression was often on
+Dólokhov's face when looking at him. "Yes, he is a bully," thought
+Pierre, "to kill a man means nothing to him. It must seem to him that
+everyone is afraid of him, and that must please him. He must think that
+I, too, am afraid of him—and in fact I am afraid of him," he thought,
+and again he felt something terrible and monstrous rising in his soul.
+Dólokhov, Denisov, and Rostóv were now sitting opposite Pierre and
+seemed very gay. Rostóv was talking merrily to his two friends, one of
+whom was a dashing hussar and the other a notorious duelist and rake,
+and every now and then he glanced ironically at Pierre, whose
+preoccupied, absent-minded, and massive figure was a very noticeable one
+at the dinner. Rostóv looked inimically at Pierre, first because Pierre
+appeared to his hussar eyes as a rich civilian, the husband of a beauty,
+and in a word—an old woman; and secondly because Pierre in his
+preoccupation and absent-mindedness had not recognized Rostóv and had
+not responded to his greeting. When the Emperor's health was drunk,
+Pierre, lost in thought, did not rise or lift his glass.
+
+"What are you about?" shouted Rostóv, looking at him in an ecstasy of
+exasperation. "Don't you hear it's His Majesty the Emperor's health?"
+
+Pierre sighed, rose submissively, emptied his glass, and, waiting till
+all were seated again, turned with his kindly smile to Rostóv.
+
+"Why, I didn't recognize you!" he said. But Rostóv was otherwise
+engaged; he was shouting "Hurrah!"
+
+"Why don't you renew the acquaintance?" said Dólokhov to Rostóv.
+
+"Confound him, he's a fool!" said Rostóv.
+
+"One should make up to the husbands of pretty women," said Denisov.
+
+Pierre did not catch what they were saying, but knew they were talking
+about him. He reddened and turned away.
+
+"Well, now to the health of handsome women!" said Dólokhov, and with a
+serious expression, but with a smile lurking at the corners of his
+mouth, he turned with his glass to Pierre.
+
+"Here's to the health of lovely women, Peterkin—and their lovers!" he
+added.
+
+Pierre, with downcast eyes, drank out of his glass without looking at
+Dólokhov or answering him. The footman, who was distributing leaflets
+with Kutúzov's cantata, laid one before Pierre as one of the principal
+guests. He was just going to take it when Dólokhov, leaning across,
+snatched it from his hand and began reading it. Pierre looked at
+Dólokhov and his eyes dropped, the something terrible and monstrous that
+had tormented him all dinnertime rose and took possession of him. He
+leaned his whole massive body across the table.
+
+"How dare you take it?" he shouted.
+
+Hearing that cry and seeing to whom it was addressed, Nesvítski and the
+neighbor on his right quickly turned in alarm to Bezúkhov.
+
+"Don't! Don't! What are you about?" whispered their frightened voices.
+
+Dólokhov looked at Pierre with clear, mirthful, cruel eyes, and that
+smile of his which seemed to say, "Ah! This is what I like!"
+
+"You shan't have it!" he said distinctly.
+
+Pale, with quivering lips, Pierre snatched the copy.
+
+"You...! you... scoundrel! I challenge you!" he ejaculated, and, pushing
+back his chair, he rose from the table.
+
+At the very instant he did this and uttered those words, Pierre felt
+that the question of his wife's guilt which had been tormenting him the
+whole day was finally and indubitably answered in the affirmative. He
+hated her and was forever sundered from her. Despite Denisov's request
+that he would take no part in the matter, Rostóv agreed to be Dólokhov's
+second, and after dinner he discussed the arrangements for the duel with
+Nesvítski, Bezúkhov's second. Pierre went home, but Rostóv with Dólokhov
+and Denisov stayed on at the club till late, listening to the gypsies
+and other singers.
+
+"Well then, till tomorrow at Sokolniki," said Dólokhov, as he took leave
+of Rostóv in the club porch.
+
+"And do you feel quite calm?" Rostóv asked.
+
+Dólokhov paused.
+
+"Well, you see, I'll tell you the whole secret of dueling in two words.
+If you are going to fight a duel, and you make a will and write
+affectionate letters to your parents, and if you think you may be
+killed, you are a fool and are lost for certain. But go with the firm
+intention of killing your man as quickly and surely as possible, and
+then all will be right, as our bear huntsman at Kostroma used to tell
+me. 'Everyone fears a bear,' he says, 'but when you see one your fear's
+all gone, and your only thought is not to let him get away!' And that's
+how it is with me. A demain, mon cher." *
+
+* Till tomorrow, my dear fellow.
+
+Next day, at eight in the morning, Pierre and Nesvítski drove to the
+Sokolniki forest and found Dólokhov, Denisov, and Rostóv already there.
+Pierre had the air of a man preoccupied with considerations which had no
+connection with the matter in hand. His haggard face was yellow. He had
+evidently not slept that night. He looked about distractedly and screwed
+up his eyes as if dazzled by the sun. He was entirely absorbed by two
+considerations: his wife's guilt, of which after his sleepless night he
+had not the slightest doubt, and the guiltlessness of Dólokhov, who had
+no reason to preserve the honor of a man who was nothing to him.... "I
+should perhaps have done the same thing in his place," thought Pierre.
+"It's even certain that I should have done the same, then why this duel,
+this murder? Either I shall kill him, or he will hit me in the head, or
+elbow, or knee. Can't I go away from here, run away, bury myself
+somewhere?" passed through his mind. But just at moments when such
+thoughts occurred to him, he would ask in a particularly calm and
+absent-minded way, which inspired the respect of the onlookers, "Will it
+be long? Are things ready?"
+
+When all was ready, the sabers stuck in the snow to mark the barriers,
+and the pistols loaded, Nesvítski went up to Pierre.
+
+"I should not be doing my duty, Count," he said in timid tones, "and
+should not justify your confidence and the honor you have done me in
+choosing me for your second, if at this grave, this very grave, moment I
+did not tell you the whole truth. I think there is no sufficient ground
+for this affair, or for blood to be shed over it.... You were not right,
+not quite in the right, you were impetuous..."
+
+"Oh yes, it is horribly stupid," said Pierre.
+
+"Then allow me to express your regrets, and I am sure your opponent will
+accept them," said Nesvítski (who like the others concerned in the
+affair, and like everyone in similar cases, did not yet believe that the
+affair had come to an actual duel). "You know, Count, it is much more
+honorable to admit one's mistake than to let matters become irreparable.
+There was no insult on either side. Allow me to convey...."
+
+"No! What is there to talk about?" said Pierre. "It's all the same....
+Is everything ready?" he added. "Only tell me where to go and where to
+shoot," he said with an unnaturally gentle smile.
+
+He took the pistol in his hand and began asking about the working of the
+trigger, as he had not before held a pistol in his hand—a fact that he
+did not wish to confess.
+
+"Oh yes, like that, I know, I only forgot," said he.
+
+"No apologies, none whatever," said Dólokhov to Denisov (who on his side
+had been attempting a reconciliation), and he also went up to the
+appointed place.
+
+The spot chosen for the duel was some eighty paces from the road, where
+the sleighs had been left, in a small clearing in the pine forest
+covered with melting snow, the frost having begun to break up during the
+last few days. The antagonists stood forty paces apart at the farther
+edge of the clearing. The seconds, measuring the paces, left tracks in
+the deep wet snow between the place where they had been standing and
+Nesvítski's and Dólokhov's sabers, which were stuck into the ground ten
+paces apart to mark the barrier. It was thawing and misty; at forty
+paces' distance nothing could be seen. For three minutes all had been
+ready, but they still delayed and all were silent.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+"Well begin!" said Dólokhov.
+
+"All right," said Pierre, still smiling in the same way. A feeling of
+dread was in the air. It was evident that the affair so lightly begun
+could no longer be averted but was taking its course independently of
+men's will.
+
+Denisov first went to the barrier and announced: "As the adve'sawies
+have wefused a weconciliation, please pwoceed. Take your pistols, and at
+the word thwee begin to advance.
+
+"O-ne! T-wo! Thwee!" he shouted angrily and stepped aside.
+
+The combatants advanced along the trodden tracks, nearer and nearer to
+one another, beginning to see one another through the mist. They had the
+right to fire when they liked as they approached the barrier. Dólokhov
+walked slowly without raising his pistol, looking intently with his
+bright, sparkling blue eyes into his antagonist's face. His mouth wore
+its usual semblance of a smile.
+
+"So I can fire when I like!" said Pierre, and at the word "three," he
+went quickly forward, missing the trodden path and stepping into the
+deep snow. He held the pistol in his right hand at arm's length,
+apparently afraid of shooting himself with it. His left hand he held
+carefully back, because he wished to support his right hand with it and
+knew he must not do so. Having advanced six paces and strayed off the
+track into the snow, Pierre looked down at his feet, then quickly
+glanced at Dólokhov and, bending his finger as he had been shown, fired.
+Not at all expecting so loud a report, Pierre shuddered at the sound and
+then, smiling at his own sensations, stood still. The smoke, rendered
+denser by the mist, prevented him from seeing anything for an instant,
+but there was no second report as he had expected. He only heard
+Dólokhov's hurried steps, and his figure came in view through the smoke.
+He was pressing one hand to his left side, while the other clutched his
+drooping pistol. His face was pale. Rostóv ran toward him and said
+something.
+
+"No-o-o!" muttered Dólokhov through his teeth, "no, it's not over." And
+after stumbling a few staggering steps right up to the saber, he sank on
+the snow beside it. His left hand was bloody; he wiped it on his coat
+and supported himself with it. His frowning face was pallid and
+quivered.
+
+"Plea..." began Dólokhov, but could not at first pronounce the word.
+
+"Please," he uttered with an effort.
+
+Pierre, hardly restraining his sobs, began running toward Dólokhov and
+was about to cross the space between the barriers, when Dólokhov cried:
+
+"To your barrier!" and Pierre, grasping what was meant, stopped by his
+saber. Only ten paces divided them. Dólokhov lowered his head to the
+snow, greedily bit at it, again raised his head, adjusted himself, drew
+in his legs and sat up, seeking a firm center of gravity. He sucked and
+swallowed the cold snow, his lips quivered but his eyes, still smiling,
+glittered with effort and exasperation as he mustered his remaining
+strength. He raised his pistol and aimed.
+
+"Sideways! Cover yourself with your pistol!" ejaculated Nesvítski.
+
+"Cover yourself!" even Denisov cried to his adversary.
+
+Pierre, with a gentle smile of pity and remorse, his arms and legs
+helplessly spread out, stood with his broad chest directly facing
+Dólokhov looked sorrowfully at him. Denisov, Rostóv, and Nesvítski
+closed their eyes. At the same instant they heard a report and
+Dólokhov's angry cry.
+
+"Missed!" shouted Dólokhov, and he lay helplessly, face downwards on the
+snow.
+
+Pierre clutched his temples, and turning round went into the forest,
+trampling through the deep snow, and muttering incoherent words:
+
+"Folly... folly! Death... lies..." he repeated, puckering his face.
+
+Nesvítski stopped him and took him home.
+
+Rostóv and Denisov drove away with the wounded Dólokhov.
+
+The latter lay silent in the sleigh with closed eyes and did not answer
+a word to the questions addressed to him. But on entering Moscow he
+suddenly came to and, lifting his head with an effort, took Rostóv, who
+was sitting beside him, by the hand. Rostóv was struck by the totally
+altered and unexpectedly rapturous and tender expression on Dólokhov's
+face.
+
+"Well? How do you feel?" he asked.
+
+"Bad! But it's not that, my friend-" said Dólokhov with a gasping voice.
+"Where are we? In Moscow, I know. I don't matter, but I have killed her,
+killed... She won't get over it! She won't survive...."
+
+"Who?" asked Rostóv.
+
+"My mother! My mother, my angel, my adored angel mother," and Dólokhov
+pressed Rostóv's hand and burst into tears.
+
+When he had become a little quieter, he explained to Rostóv that he was
+living with his mother, who, if she saw him dying, would not survive it.
+He implored Rostóv to go on and prepare her.
+
+Rostóv went on ahead to do what was asked, and to his great surprise
+learned that Dólokhov the brawler, Dólokhov the bully, lived in Moscow
+with an old mother and a hunchback sister, and was the most affectionate
+of sons and brothers.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+Pierre had of late rarely seen his wife alone. Both in Petersburg and in
+Moscow their house was always full of visitors. The night after the duel
+he did not go to his bedroom but, as he often did, remained in his
+father's room, that huge room in which Count Bezúkhov had died.
+
+He lay down on the sofa meaning to fall asleep and forget all that had
+happened to him, but could not do so. Such a storm of feelings,
+thoughts, and memories suddenly arose within him that he could not fall
+asleep, nor even remain in one place, but had to jump up and pace the
+room with rapid steps. Now he seemed to see her in the early days of
+their marriage, with bare shoulders and a languid, passionate look on
+her face, and then immediately he saw beside her Dólokhov's handsome,
+insolent, hard, and mocking face as he had seen it at the banquet, and
+then that same face pale, quivering, and suffering, as it had been when
+he reeled and sank on the snow.
+
+"What has happened?" he asked himself. "I have killed her lover, yes,
+killed my wife's lover. Yes, that was it! And why? How did I come to do
+it?"—"Because you married her," answered an inner voice.
+
+"But in what was I to blame?" he asked. "In marrying her without loving
+her; in deceiving yourself and her." And he vividly recalled that moment
+after supper at Prince Vasíli's, when he spoke those words he had found
+so difficult to utter: "I love you." "It all comes from that! Even then
+I felt it," he thought. "I felt then that it was not so, that I had no
+right to do it. And so it turns out."
+
+He remembered his honeymoon and blushed at the recollection.
+Particularly vivid, humiliating, and shameful was the recollection of
+how one day soon after his marriage he came out of the bedroom into his
+study a little before noon in his silk dressing gown and found his head
+steward there, who, bowing respectfully, looked into his face and at his
+dressing gown and smiled slightly, as if expressing respectful
+understanding of his employer's happiness.
+
+"But how often I have felt proud of her, proud of her majestic beauty
+and social tact," thought he; "been proud of my house, in which she
+received all Petersburg, proud of her unapproachability and beauty. So
+this is what I was proud of! I then thought that I did not understand
+her. How often when considering her character I have told myself that I
+was to blame for not understanding her, for not understanding that
+constant composure and complacency and lack of all interests or desires,
+and the whole secret lies in the terrible truth that she is a depraved
+woman. Now I have spoken that terrible word to myself all has become
+clear.
+
+"Anatole used to come to borrow money from her and used to kiss her
+naked shoulders. She did not give him the money, but let herself be
+kissed. Her father in jest tried to rouse her jealousy, and she replied
+with a calm smile that she was not so stupid as to be jealous: 'Let him
+do what he pleases,' she used to say of me. One day I asked her if she
+felt any symptoms of pregnancy. She laughed contemptuously and said she
+was not a fool to want to have children, and that she was not going to
+have any children by me."
+
+Then he recalled the coarseness and bluntness of her thoughts and the
+vulgarity of the expressions that were natural to her, though she had
+been brought up in the most aristocratic circles.
+
+"I'm not such a fool.... Just you try it on.... Allez-vous promener," *
+she used to say. Often seeing the success she had with young and old men
+and women Pierre could not understand why he did not love her.
+
+* "You clear out of this."
+
+"Yes, I never loved her," said he to himself; "I knew she was a depraved
+woman," he repeated, "but dared not admit it to myself. And now there's
+Dólokhov sitting in the snow with a forced smile and perhaps dying,
+while meeting my remorse with some forced bravado!"
+
+Pierre was one of those people who, in spite of an appearance of what is
+called weak character, do not seek a confidant in their troubles. He
+digested his sufferings alone.
+
+"It is all, all her fault," he said to himself; "but what of that? Why
+did I bind myself to her? Why did I say 'Je vous aime' * to her, which
+was a lie, and worse than a lie? I am guilty and must endure... what? A
+slur on my name? A misfortune for life? Oh, that's nonsense," he
+thought. "The slur on my name and honor—that's all apart from myself."
+
+* I love you.
+
+"Louis XVI was executed because they said he was dishonorable and a
+criminal," came into Pierre's head, "and from their point of view they
+were right, as were those too who canonized him and died a martyr's
+death for his sake. Then Robespierre was beheaded for being a despot.
+Who is right and who is wrong? No one! But if you are alive—live:
+tomorrow you'll die as I might have died an hour ago. And is it worth
+tormenting oneself, when one has only a moment of life in comparison
+with eternity?"
+
+But at the moment when he imagined himself calmed by such reflections,
+she suddenly came into his mind as she was at the moments when he had
+most strongly expressed his insincere love for her, and he felt the
+blood rush to his heart and had again to get up and move about and break
+and tear whatever came to his hand. "Why did I tell her that 'Je vous
+aime'?" he kept repeating to himself. And when he had said it for the
+tenth time, Moliere's words: "Mais que diable allait-il faire dans cette
+galere?"* occurred to him, and he began to laugh at himself.
+
+* "But what the devil was he doing in that galley?"
+
+In the night he called his valet and told him to pack up to go to
+Petersburg. He could not imagine how he could speak to her now. He
+resolved to go away next day and leave a letter informing her of his
+intention to part from her forever.
+
+Next morning when the valet came into the room with his coffee, Pierre
+was lying asleep on the ottoman with an open book in his hand.
+
+He woke up and looked round for a while with a startled expression,
+unable to realize where he was.
+
+"The countess told me to inquire whether your excellency was at home,"
+said the valet.
+
+But before Pierre could decide what answer he would send, the countess
+herself in a white satin dressing gown embroidered with silver and with
+simply dressed hair (two immense plaits twice round her lovely head like
+a coronet) entered the room, calm and majestic, except that there was a
+wrathful wrinkle on her rather prominent marble brow. With her
+imperturbable calm she did not begin to speak in front of the valet. She
+knew of the duel and had come to speak about it. She waited till the
+valet had set down the coffee things and left the room. Pierre looked at
+her timidly over his spectacles, and like a hare surrounded by hounds
+who lays back her ears and continues to crouch motionless before her
+enemies, he tried to continue reading. But feeling this to be senseless
+and impossible, he again glanced timidly at her. She did not sit down
+but looked at him with a contemptuous smile, waiting for the valet to
+go.
+
+"Well, what's this now? What have you been up to now, I should like to
+know?" she asked sternly.
+
+"I? What have I...?" stammered Pierre.
+
+"So it seems you're a hero, eh? Come now, what was this duel about? What
+is it meant to prove? What? I ask you."
+
+Pierre turned over heavily on the ottoman and opened his mouth, but
+could not reply.
+
+"If you won't answer, I'll tell you..." Hélène went on. "You believe
+everything you're told. You were told..." Hélène laughed, "that Dólokhov
+was my lover," she said in French with her coarse plainness of speech,
+uttering the word amant as casually as any other word, "and you believed
+it! Well, what have you proved? What does this duel prove? That you're a
+fool, que vous etes un sot, but everybody knew that. What will be the
+result? That I shall be the laughingstock of all Moscow, that everyone
+will say that you, drunk and not knowing what you were about, challenged
+a man you are jealous of without cause." Hélène raised her voice and
+became more and more excited, "A man who's a better man than you in
+every way..."
+
+"Hm... Hm...!" growled Pierre, frowning without looking at her, and not
+moving a muscle.
+
+"And how could you believe he was my lover? Why? Because I like his
+company? If you were cleverer and more agreeable, I should prefer
+yours."
+
+"Don't speak to me... I beg you," muttered Pierre hoarsely.
+
+"Why shouldn't I speak? I can speak as I like, and I tell you plainly
+that there are not many wives with husbands such as you who would not
+have taken lovers (des amants), but I have not done so," said she.
+
+Pierre wished to say something, looked at her with eyes whose strange
+expression she did not understand, and lay down again. He was suffering
+physically at that moment, there was a weight on his chest and he could
+not breathe. He knew that he must do something to put an end to this
+suffering, but what he wanted to do was too terrible.
+
+"We had better separate," he muttered in a broken voice.
+
+"Separate? Very well, but only if you give me a fortune," said Hélène.
+"Separate! That's a thing to frighten me with!"
+
+Pierre leaped up from the sofa and rushed staggering toward her.
+
+"I'll kill you!" he shouted, and seizing the marble top of a table with
+a strength he had never before felt, he made a step toward her
+brandishing the slab.
+
+Hélène's face became terrible, she shrieked and sprang aside. His
+father's nature showed itself in Pierre. He felt the fascination and
+delight of frenzy. He flung down the slab, broke it, and swooping down
+on her with outstretched hands shouted, "Get out!" in such a terrible
+voice that the whole house heard it with horror. God knows what he would
+have done at that moment had Hélène not fled from the room.
+
+A week later Pierre gave his wife full power to control all his estates
+in Great Russia, which formed the larger part of his property, and left
+for Petersburg alone.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+Two months had elapsed since the news of the battle of Austerlitz and
+the loss of Prince Andrew had reached Bald Hills, and in spite of the
+letters sent through the embassy and all the searches made, his body had
+not been found nor was he on the list of prisoners. What was worst of
+all for his relations was the fact that there was still a possibility of
+his having been picked up on the battlefield by the people of the place
+and that he might now be lying, recovering or dying, alone among
+strangers and unable to send news of himself. The gazettes from which
+the old prince first heard of the defeat at Austerlitz stated, as usual
+very briefly and vaguely, that after brilliant engagements the Russians
+had had to retreat and had made their withdrawal in perfect order. The
+old prince understood from this official report that our army had been
+defeated. A week after the gazette report of the battle of Austerlitz
+came a letter from Kutúzov informing the prince of the fate that had
+befallen his son.
+
+"Your son," wrote Kutúzov, "fell before my eyes, a standard in his hand
+and at the head of a regiment—he fell as a hero, worthy of his father
+and his fatherland. To the great regret of myself and of the whole army
+it is still uncertain whether he is alive or not. I comfort myself and
+you with the hope that your son is alive, for otherwise he would have
+been mentioned among the officers found on the field of battle, a list
+of whom has been sent me under flag of truce."
+
+After receiving this news late in the evening, when he was alone in his
+study, the old prince went for his walk as usual next morning, but he
+was silent with his steward, the gardener, and the architect, and though
+he looked very grim he said nothing to anyone.
+
+When Princess Mary went to him at the usual hour he was working at his
+lathe and, as usual, did not look round at her.
+
+"Ah, Princess Mary!" he said suddenly in an unnatural voice, throwing
+down his chisel. (The wheel continued to revolve by its own impetus, and
+Princess Mary long remembered the dying creak of that wheel, which
+merged in her memory with what followed.)
+
+She approached him, saw his face, and something gave way within her. Her
+eyes grew dim. By the expression of her father's face, not sad, not
+crushed, but angry and working unnaturally, she saw that hanging over
+her and about to crush her was some terrible misfortune, the worst in
+life, one she had not yet experienced, irreparable and
+incomprehensible—the death of one she loved.
+
+"Father! Andrew!"—said the ungraceful, awkward princess with such an
+indescribable charm of sorrow and self-forgetfulness that her father
+could not bear her look but turned away with a sob.
+
+"Bad news! He's not among the prisoners nor among the killed! Kutúzov
+writes..." and he screamed as piercingly as if he wished to drive the
+princess away by that scream... "Killed!"
+
+The princess did not fall down or faint. She was already pale, but on
+hearing these words her face changed and something brightened in her
+beautiful, radiant eyes. It was as if joy—a supreme joy apart from the
+joys and sorrows of this world—overflowed the great grief within her.
+She forgot all fear of her father, went up to him, took his hand, and
+drawing him down put her arm round his thin, scraggy neck.
+
+"Father," she said, "do not turn away from me, let us weep together."
+
+"Scoundrels! Blackguards!" shrieked the old man, turning his face away
+from her. "Destroying the army, destroying the men! And why? Go, go and
+tell Lise."
+
+The princess sank helplessly into an armchair beside her father and
+wept. She saw her brother now as he had been at the moment when he took
+leave of her and of Lise, his look tender yet proud. She saw him tender
+and amused as he was when he put on the little icon. "Did he believe?
+Had he repented of his unbelief? Was he now there? There in the realms
+of eternal peace and blessedness?" she thought.
+
+"Father, tell me how it happened," she asked through her tears.
+
+"Go! Go! Killed in battle, where the best of Russian men and Russia's
+glory were led to destruction. Go, Princess Mary. Go and tell Lise. I
+will follow."
+
+When Princess Mary returned from her father, the little princess sat
+working and looked up with that curious expression of inner, happy calm
+peculiar to pregnant women. It was evident that her eyes did not see
+Princess Mary but were looking within... into herself... at something
+joyful and mysterious taking place within her.
+
+"Mary," she said, moving away from the embroidery frame and lying back,
+"give me your hand." She took her sister-in-law's hand and held it below
+her waist.
+
+Her eyes were smiling expectantly, her downy lip rose and remained
+lifted in childlike happiness.
+
+Princess Mary knelt down before her and hid her face in the folds of her
+sister-in-law's dress.
+
+"There, there! Do you feel it? I feel so strange. And do you know, Mary,
+I am going to love him very much," said Lise, looking with bright and
+happy eyes at her sister-in-law.
+
+Princess Mary could not lift her head, she was weeping.
+
+"What is the matter, Mary?"
+
+"Nothing... only I feel sad... sad about Andrew," she said, wiping away
+her tears on her sister-in-law's knee.
+
+Several times in the course of the morning Princess Mary began trying to
+prepare her sister-in-law, and every time began to cry. Unobservant as
+was the little princess, these tears, the cause of which she did not
+understand, agitated her. She said nothing but looked about uneasily as
+if in search of something. Before dinner the old prince, of whom she was
+always afraid, came into her room with a peculiarly restless and malign
+expression and went out again without saying a word. She looked at
+Princess Mary, then sat thinking for a while with that expression of
+attention to something within her that is only seen in pregnant women,
+and suddenly began to cry.
+
+"Has anything come from Andrew?" she asked.
+
+"No, you know it's too soon for news. But my father is anxious and I
+feel afraid."
+
+"So there's nothing?"
+
+"Nothing," answered Princess Mary, looking firmly with her radiant eyes
+at her sister-in-law.
+
+She had determined not to tell her and persuaded her father to hide the
+terrible news from her till after her confinement, which was expected
+within a few days. Princess Mary and the old prince each bore and hid
+their grief in their own way. The old prince would not cherish any hope:
+he made up his mind that Prince Andrew had been killed, and though he
+sent an official to Austria to seek for traces of his son, he ordered a
+monument from Moscow which he intended to erect in his own garden to his
+memory, and he told everybody that his son had been killed. He tried not
+to change his former way of life, but his strength failed him. He walked
+less, ate less, slept less, and became weaker every day. Princess Mary
+hoped. She prayed for her brother as living and was always awaiting news
+of his return.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+"Dearest," said the little princess after breakfast on the morning of
+the nineteenth March, and her downy little lip rose from old habit, but
+as sorrow was manifest in every smile, the sound of every word, and even
+every footstep in that house since the terrible news had come, so now
+the smile of the little princess—influenced by the general mood though
+without knowing its cause—was such as to remind one still more of the
+general sorrow.
+
+"Dearest, I'm afraid this morning's fruschtique *—as Foka the cook calls
+it—has disagreed with me."
+
+* Fruhstuck: breakfast.
+
+"What is the matter with you, my darling? You look pale. Oh, you are
+very pale!" said Princess Mary in alarm, running with her soft,
+ponderous steps up to her sister-in-law.
+
+"Your excellency, should not Mary Bogdanovna be sent for?" said one of
+the maids who was present. (Mary Bogdanovna was a midwife from the
+neighboring town, who had been at Bald Hills for the last fortnight.)
+
+"Oh yes," assented Princess Mary, "perhaps that's it. I'll go. Courage,
+my angel." She kissed Lise and was about to leave the room.
+
+"Oh, no, no!" And besides the pallor and the physical suffering on the
+little princess' face, an expression of childish fear of inevitable pain
+showed itself.
+
+"No, it's only indigestion?... Say it's only indigestion, say so, Mary!
+Say..." And the little princess began to cry capriciously like a
+suffering child and to wring her little hands even with some
+affectation. Princess Mary ran out of the room to fetch Mary Bogdanovna.
+
+"Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu! Oh!" she heard as she left the room.
+
+The midwife was already on her way to meet her, rubbing her small, plump
+white hands with an air of calm importance.
+
+"Mary Bogdanovna, I think it's beginning!" said Princess Mary looking at
+the midwife with wide-open eyes of alarm.
+
+"Well, the Lord be thanked, Princess," said Mary Bogdanovna, not
+hastening her steps. "You young ladies should not know anything about
+it."
+
+"But how is it the doctor from Moscow is not here yet?" said the
+princess. (In accordance with Lise's and Prince Andrew's wishes they had
+sent in good time to Moscow for a doctor and were expecting him at any
+moment.)
+
+"No matter, Princess, don't be alarmed," said Mary Bogdanovna. "We'll
+manage very well without a doctor."
+
+Five minutes later Princess Mary from her room heard something heavy
+being carried by. She looked out. The men servants were carrying the
+large leather sofa from Prince Andrew's study into the bedroom. On their
+faces was a quiet and solemn look.
+
+Princess Mary sat alone in her room listening to the sounds in the
+house, now and then opening her door when someone passed and watching
+what was going on in the passage. Some women passing with quiet steps in
+and out of the bedroom glanced at the princess and turned away. She did
+not venture to ask any questions, and shut the door again, now sitting
+down in her easy chair, now taking her prayer book, now kneeling before
+the icon stand. To her surprise and distress she found that her prayers
+did not calm her excitement. Suddenly her door opened softly and her old
+nurse, Praskovya Savishna, who hardly ever came to that room as the old
+prince had forbidden it, appeared on the threshold with a shawl round
+her head.
+
+"I've come to sit with you a bit, Másha," said the nurse, "and here I've
+brought the prince's wedding candles to light before his saint, my
+angel," she said with a sigh.
+
+"Oh, nurse, I'm so glad!"
+
+"God is merciful, birdie."
+
+The nurse lit the gilt candles before the icons and sat down by the door
+with her knitting. Princess Mary took a book and began reading. Only
+when footsteps or voices were heard did they look at one another, the
+princess anxious and inquiring, the nurse encouraging. Everyone in the
+house was dominated by the same feeling that Princess Mary experienced
+as she sat in her room. But owing to the superstition that the fewer the
+people who know of it the less a woman in travail suffers, everyone
+tried to pretend not to know; no one spoke of it, but apart from the
+ordinary staid and respectful good manners habitual in the prince's
+household, a common anxiety, a softening of the heart, and a
+consciousness that something great and mysterious was being accomplished
+at that moment made itself felt.
+
+There was no laughter in the maids' large hall. In the men servants'
+hall all sat waiting, silently and alert. In the outlying serfs'
+quarters torches and candles were burning and no one slept. The old
+prince, stepping on his heels, paced up and down his study and sent
+Tíkhon to ask Mary Bogdanovna what news.—"Say only that 'the prince told
+me to ask,' and come and tell me her answer."
+
+"Inform the prince that labor has begun," said Mary Bogdanovna, giving
+the messenger a significant look.
+
+Tíkhon went and told the prince.
+
+"Very good!" said the prince closing the door behind him, and Tíkhon did
+not hear the slightest sound from the study after that.
+
+After a while he re-entered it as if to snuff the candles, and, seeing
+the prince was lying on the sofa, looked at him, noticed his perturbed
+face, shook his head, and going up to him silently kissed him on the
+shoulder and left the room without snuffing the candles or saying why he
+had entered. The most solemn mystery in the world continued its course.
+Evening passed, night came, and the feeling of suspense and softening of
+heart in the presence of the unfathomable did not lessen but increased.
+No one slept.
+
+It was one of those March nights when winter seems to wish to resume its
+sway and scatters its last snows and storms with desperate fury. A relay
+of horses had been sent up the highroad to meet the German doctor from
+Moscow who was expected every moment, and men on horseback with lanterns
+were sent to the crossroads to guide him over the country road with its
+hollows and snow-covered pools of water.
+
+Princess Mary had long since put aside her book: she sat silent, her
+luminous eyes fixed on her nurse's wrinkled face (every line of which
+she knew so well), on the lock of gray hair that escaped from under the
+kerchief, and the loose skin that hung under her chin.
+
+Nurse Savishna, knitting in hand, was telling in low tones, scarcely
+hearing or understanding her own words, what she had told hundreds of
+times before: how the late princess had given birth to Princess Mary in
+Kishenev with only a Moldavian peasant woman to help instead of a
+midwife.
+
+"God is merciful, doctors are never needed," she said.
+
+Suddenly a gust of wind beat violently against the casement of the
+window, from which the double frame had been removed (by order of the
+prince, one window frame was removed in each room as soon as the larks
+returned), and, forcing open a loosely closed latch, set the damask
+curtain flapping and blew out the candle with its chill, snowy draft.
+Princess Mary shuddered; her nurse, putting down the stocking she was
+knitting, went to the window and leaning out tried to catch the open
+casement. The cold wind flapped the ends of her kerchief and her loose
+locks of gray hair.
+
+"Princess, my dear, there's someone driving up the avenue!" she said,
+holding the casement and not closing it. "With lanterns. Most likely the
+doctor."
+
+"Oh, my God! thank God!" said Princess Mary. "I must go and meet him, he
+does not know Russian."
+
+Princess Mary threw a shawl over her head and ran to meet the newcomer.
+As she was crossing the anteroom she saw through the window a carriage
+with lanterns, standing at the entrance. She went out on the stairs. On
+a banister post stood a tallow candle which guttered in the draft. On
+the landing below, Philip, the footman, stood looking scared and holding
+another candle. Still lower, beyond the turn of the staircase, one could
+hear the footstep of someone in thick felt boots, and a voice that
+seemed familiar to Princess Mary was saying something.
+
+"Thank God!" said the voice. "And Father?"
+
+"Gone to bed," replied the voice of Demyan the house steward, who was
+downstairs.
+
+Then the voice said something more, Demyan replied, and the steps in the
+felt boots approached the unseen bend of the staircase more rapidly.
+
+"It's Andrew!" thought Princess Mary. "No it can't be, that would be too
+extraordinary," and at the very moment she thought this, the face and
+figure of Prince Andrew, in a fur cloak the deep collar of which covered
+with snow, appeared on the landing where the footman stood with the
+candle. Yes, it was he, pale, thin, with a changed and strangely
+softened but agitated expression on his face. He came up the stairs and
+embraced his sister.
+
+"You did not get my letter?" he asked, and not waiting for a reply—which
+he would not have received, for the princess was unable to speak—he
+turned back, rapidly mounted the stairs again with the doctor who had
+entered the hall after him (they had met at the last post station), and
+again embraced his sister.
+
+"What a strange fate, Másha darling!" And having taken off his cloak and
+felt boots, he went to the little princess' apartment.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+The little princess lay supported by pillows, with a white cap on her
+head (the pains had just left her). Strands of her black hair lay round
+her inflamed and perspiring cheeks, her charming rosy mouth with its
+downy lip was open and she was smiling joyfully. Prince Andrew entered
+and paused facing her at the foot of the sofa on which she was lying.
+Her glittering eyes, filled with childlike fear and excitement, rested
+on him without changing their expression. "I love you all and have done
+no harm to anyone; why must I suffer so? Help me!" her look seemed to
+say. She saw her husband, but did not realize the significance of his
+appearance before her now. Prince Andrew went round the sofa and kissed
+her forehead.
+
+"My darling!" he said—a word he had never used to her before. "God is
+merciful...."
+
+She looked at him inquiringly and with childlike reproach.
+
+"I expected help from you and I get none, none from you either!" said
+her eyes. She was not surprised at his having come; she did not realize
+that he had come. His coming had nothing to do with her sufferings or
+with their relief. The pangs began again and Mary Bogdanovna advised
+Prince Andrew to leave the room.
+
+The doctor entered. Prince Andrew went out and, meeting Princess Mary,
+again joined her. They began talking in whispers, but their talk broke
+off at every moment. They waited and listened.
+
+"Go, dear," said Princess Mary.
+
+Prince Andrew went again to his wife and sat waiting in the room next to
+hers. A woman came from the bedroom with a frightened face and became
+confused when she saw Prince Andrew. He covered his face with his hands
+and remained so for some minutes. Piteous, helpless, animal moans came
+through the door. Prince Andrew got up, went to the door, and tried to
+open it. Someone was holding it shut.
+
+"You can't come in! You can't!" said a terrified voice from within.
+
+He began pacing the room. The screaming ceased, and a few more seconds
+went by. Then suddenly a terrible shriek—it could not be hers, she could
+not scream like that—came from the bedroom. Prince Andrew ran to the
+door; the scream ceased and he heard the wail of an infant.
+
+"What have they taken a baby in there for?" thought Prince Andrew in the
+first second. "A baby? What baby...? Why is there a baby there? Or is
+the baby born?"
+
+Then suddenly he realized the joyful significance of that wail; tears
+choked him, and leaning his elbows on the window sill be began to cry,
+sobbing like a child. The door opened. The doctor with his shirt sleeves
+tucked up, without a coat, pale and with a trembling jaw, came out of
+the room. Prince Andrew turned to him, but the doctor gave him a
+bewildered look and passed by without a word. A woman rushed out and
+seeing Prince Andrew stopped, hesitating on the threshold. He went into
+his wife's room. She was lying dead, in the same position he had seen
+her in five minutes before and, despite the fixed eyes and the pallor of
+the cheeks, the same expression was on her charming childlike face with
+its upper lip covered with tiny black hair.
+
+"I love you all, and have done no harm to anyone; and what have you done
+to me?"—said her charming, pathetic, dead face.
+
+In a corner of the room something red and tiny gave a grunt and squealed
+in Mary Bogdanovna's trembling white hands.
+
+Two hours later Prince Andrew, stepping softly, went into his father's
+room. The old man already knew everything. He was standing close to the
+door and as soon as it opened his rough old arms closed like a vise
+round his son's neck, and without a word he began to sob like a child.
+
+Three days later the little princess was buried, and Prince Andrew went
+up the steps to where the coffin stood, to give her the farewell kiss.
+And there in the coffin was the same face, though with closed eyes. "Ah,
+what have you done to me?" it still seemed to say, and Prince Andrew
+felt that something gave way in his soul and that he was guilty of a sin
+he could neither remedy nor forget. He could not weep. The old man too
+came up and kissed the waxen little hands that lay quietly crossed one
+on the other on her breast, and to him, too, her face seemed to say:
+"Ah, what have you done to me, and why?" And at the sight the old man
+turned angrily away.
+
+Another five days passed, and then the young Prince Nicholas Andréevich
+was baptized. The wet nurse supported the coverlet with her chin, while
+the priest with a goose feather anointed the boy's little red and
+wrinkled soles and palms.
+
+His grandfather, who was his godfather, trembling and afraid of dropping
+him, carried the infant round the battered tin font and handed him over
+to the godmother, Princess Mary. Prince Andrew sat in another room,
+faint with fear lest the baby should be drowned in the font, and awaited
+the termination of the ceremony. He looked up joyfully at the baby when
+the nurse brought it to him and nodded approval when she told him that
+the wax with the baby's hair had not sunk in the font but had floated.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+Rostóv's share in Dólokhov's duel with Bezúkhov was hushed up by the
+efforts of the old count, and instead of being degraded to the ranks as
+he expected he was appointed an adjutant to the governor general of
+Moscow. As a result he could not go to the country with the rest of the
+family, but was kept all summer in Moscow by his new duties. Dólokhov
+recovered, and Rostóv became very friendly with him during his
+convalescence. Dólokhov lay ill at his mother's who loved him
+passionately and tenderly, and old Mary Ivánovna, who had grown fond of
+Rostóv for his friendship to her Fedya, often talked to him about her
+son.
+
+"Yes, Count," she would say, "he is too noble and pure-souled for our
+present, depraved world. No one now loves virtue; it seems like a
+reproach to everyone. Now tell me, Count, was it right, was it
+honorable, of Bezúkhov? And Fedya, with his noble spirit, loved him and
+even now never says a word against him. Those pranks in Petersburg when
+they played some tricks on a policeman, didn't they do it together? And
+there! Bezúkhov got off scotfree, while Fedya had to bear the whole
+burden on his shoulders. Fancy what he had to go through! It's true he
+has been reinstated, but how could they fail to do that? I think there
+were not many such gallant sons of the fatherland out there as he. And
+now—this duel! Have these people no feeling, or honor? Knowing him to be
+an only son, to challenge him and shoot so straight! It's well God had
+mercy on us. And what was it for? Who doesn't have intrigues nowadays?
+Why, if he was so jealous, as I see things he should have shown it
+sooner, but he lets it go on for months. And then to call him out,
+reckoning on Fedya not fighting because he owed him money! What
+baseness! What meanness! I know you understand Fedya, my dear count;
+that, believe me, is why I am so fond of you. Few people do understand
+him. He is such a lofty, heavenly soul!"
+
+Dólokhov himself during his convalescence spoke to Rostóv in a way no
+one would have expected of him.
+
+"I know people consider me a bad man!" he said. "Let them! I don't care
+a straw about anyone but those I love; but those I love, I love so that
+I would give my life for them, and the others I'd throttle if they stood
+in my way. I have an adored, a priceless mother, and two or three
+friends—you among them—and as for the rest I only care about them in so
+far as they are harmful or useful. And most of them are harmful,
+especially the women. Yes, dear boy," he continued, "I have met loving,
+noble, high-minded men, but I have not yet met any women—countesses or
+cooks—who were not venal. I have not yet met that divine purity and
+devotion I look for in women. If I found such a one I'd give my life for
+her! But those!..." and he made a gesture of contempt. "And believe me,
+if I still value my life it is only because I still hope to meet such a
+divine creature, who will regenerate, purify, and elevate me. But you
+don't understand it."
+
+"Oh, yes, I quite understand," answered Rostóv, who was under his new
+friend's influence.
+
+In the autumn the Rostóvs returned to Moscow. Early in the winter
+Denisov also came back and stayed with them. The first half of the
+winter of 1806, which Nicholas Rostóv spent in Moscow, was one of the
+happiest, merriest times for him and the whole family. Nicholas brought
+many young men to his parents' house. Véra was a handsome girl of
+twenty; Sónya a girl of sixteen with all the charm of an opening flower;
+Natásha, half grown up and half child, was now childishly amusing, now
+girlishly enchanting.
+
+At that time in the Rostóvs' house there prevailed an amorous atmosphere
+characteristic of homes where there are very young and very charming
+girls. Every young man who came to the house—seeing those
+impressionable, smiling young faces (smiling probably at their own
+happiness), feeling the eager bustle around him, and hearing the fitful
+bursts of song and music and the inconsequent but friendly prattle of
+young girls ready for anything and full of hope—experienced the same
+feeling; sharing with the young folk of the Rostóvs' household a
+readiness to fall in love and an expectation of happiness.
+
+Among the young men introduced by Rostóv one of the first was Dólokhov,
+whom everyone in the house liked except Natásha. She almost quarreled
+with her brother about him. She insisted that he was a bad man, and that
+in the duel with Bezúkhov, Pierre was right and Dólokhov wrong, and
+further that he was disagreeable and unnatural.
+
+"There's nothing for me to understand," she cried out with resolute
+self-will, "he is wicked and heartless. There now, I like your Denisov
+though he is a rake and all that, still I like him; so you see I do
+understand. I don't know how to put it... with this one everything is
+calculated, and I don't like that. But Denisov..."
+
+"Oh, Denisov is quite different," replied Nicholas, implying that even
+Denisov was nothing compared to Dólokhov—"you must understand what a
+soul there is in Dólokhov, you should see him with his mother. What a
+heart!"
+
+"Well, I don't know about that, but I am uncomfortable with him. And do
+you know he has fallen in love with Sónya?"
+
+"What nonsense..."
+
+"I'm certain of it; you'll see."
+
+Natásha's prediction proved true. Dólokhov, who did not usually care for
+the society of ladies, began to come often to the house, and the
+question for whose sake he came (though no one spoke of it) was soon
+settled. He came because of Sónya. And Sónya, though she would never
+have dared to say so, knew it and blushed scarlet every time Dólokhov
+appeared.
+
+Dólokhov often dined at the Rostóvs', never missed a performance at
+which they were present, and went to Iogel's balls for young people
+which the Rostóvs always attended. He was pointedly attentive to Sónya
+and looked at her in such a way that not only could she not bear his
+glances without coloring, but even the old countess and Natásha blushed
+when they saw his looks.
+
+It was evident that this strange, strong man was under the irresistible
+influence of the dark, graceful girl who loved another.
+
+Rostóv noticed something new in Dólokhov's relations with Sónya, but he
+did not explain to himself what these new relations were. "They're
+always in love with someone," he thought of Sónya and Natásha. But he
+was not as much at ease with Sónya and Dólokhov as before and was less
+frequently at home.
+
+In the autumn of 1806 everybody had again begun talking of the war with
+Napoleon with even greater warmth than the year before. Orders were
+given to raise recruits, ten men in every thousand for the regular army,
+and besides this, nine men in every thousand for the militia. Everywhere
+Bonaparte was anathematized and in Moscow nothing but the coming war was
+talked of. For the Rostóv family the whole interest of these
+preparations for war lay in the fact that Nicholas would not hear of
+remaining in Moscow, and only awaited the termination of Denisov's
+furlough after Christmas to return with him to their regiment. His
+approaching departure did not prevent his amusing himself, but rather
+gave zest to his pleasures. He spent the greater part of his time away
+from home, at dinners, parties, and balls.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+On the third day after Christmas Nicholas dined at home, a thing he had
+rarely done of late. It was a grand farewell dinner, as he and Denisov
+were leaving to join their regiment after Epiphany. About twenty people
+were present, including Dólokhov and Denisov.
+
+Never had love been so much in the air, and never had the amorous
+atmosphere made itself so strongly felt in the Rostóvs' house as at this
+holiday time. "Seize the moments of happiness, love and be loved! That
+is the only reality in the world, all else is folly. It is the one thing
+we are interested in here," said the spirit of the place.
+
+Nicholas, having as usual exhausted two pairs of horses, without
+visiting all the places he meant to go to and where he had been invited,
+returned home just before dinner. As soon as he entered he noticed and
+felt the tension of the amorous air in the house, and also noticed a
+curious embarrassment among some of those present. Sónya, Dólokhov, and
+the old countess were especially disturbed, and to a lesser degree
+Natásha. Nicholas understood that something must have happened between
+Sónya and Dólokhov before dinner, and with the kindly sensitiveness
+natural to him was very gentle and wary with them both at dinner. On
+that same evening there was to be one of the balls that Iogel (the
+dancing master) gave for his pupils during the holidays.
+
+"Nicholas, will you come to Iogel's? Please do!" said Natásha. "He asked
+you, and Vasíli Dmítrich * is also going."
+
+* Denisov.
+
+"Where would I not go at the countess' command!" said Denisov, who at
+the Rostóvs' had jocularly assumed the role of Natásha's knight. "I'm
+even weady to dance the pas de chale."
+
+"If I have time," answered Nicholas. "But I promised the Arkhárovs; they
+have a party."
+
+"And you?" he asked Dólokhov, but as soon as he had asked the question
+he noticed that it should not have been put.
+
+"Perhaps," coldly and angrily replied Dólokhov, glancing at Sónya, and,
+scowling, he gave Nicholas just such a look as he had given Pierre at
+the club dinner.
+
+"There is something up," thought Nicholas, and he was further confirmed
+in this conclusion by the fact that Dólokhov left immediately after
+dinner. He called Natásha and asked her what was the matter.
+
+"And I was looking for you," said Natásha running out to him. "I told
+you, but you would not believe it," she said triumphantly. "He has
+proposed to Sónya!"
+
+Little as Nicholas had occupied himself with Sónya of late, something
+seemed to give way within him at this news. Dólokhov was a suitable and
+in some respects a brilliant match for the dowerless, orphan girl. From
+the point of view of the old countess and of society it was out of the
+question for her to refuse him. And therefore Nicholas' first feeling on
+hearing the news was one of anger with Sónya.... He tried to say,
+"That's capital; of course she'll forget her childish promises and
+accept the offer," but before he had time to say it Natásha began again.
+
+"And fancy! she refused him quite definitely!" adding, after a pause,
+"she told him she loved another."
+
+"Yes, my Sónya could not have done otherwise!" thought Nicholas.
+
+"Much as Mamma pressed her, she refused, and I know she won't change
+once she has said..."
+
+"And Mamma pressed her!" said Nicholas reproachfully.
+
+"Yes," said Natásha. "Do you know, Nicholas—don't be angry—but I know
+you will not marry her. I know, heaven knows how, but I know for certain
+that you won't marry her."
+
+"Now you don't know that at all!" said Nicholas. "But I must talk to
+her. What a darling Sónya is!" he added with a smile.
+
+"Ah, she is indeed a darling! I'll send her to you."
+
+And Natásha kissed her brother and ran away.
+
+A minute later Sónya came in with a frightened, guilty, and scared look.
+Nicholas went up to her and kissed her hand. This was the first time
+since his return that they had talked alone and about their love.
+
+"Sophie," he began, timidly at first and then more and more boldly, "if
+you wish to refuse one who is not only a brilliant and advantageous
+match but a splendid, noble fellow... he is my friend..."
+
+Sónya interrupted him.
+
+"I have already refused," she said hurriedly.
+
+"If you are refusing for my sake, I am afraid that I..."
+
+Sónya again interrupted. She gave him an imploring, frightened look.
+
+"Nicholas, don't tell me that!" she said.
+
+"No, but I must. It may be arrogant of me, but still it is best to say
+it. If you refuse him on my account, I must tell you the whole truth. I
+love you, and I think I love you more than anyone else...."
+
+"That is enough for me," said Sónya, blushing.
+
+"No, but I have been in love a thousand times and shall fall in love
+again, though for no one have I such a feeling of friendship,
+confidence, and love as I have for you. Then I am young. Mamma does not
+wish it. In a word, I make no promise. And I beg you to consider
+Dólokhov's offer," he said, articulating his friend's name with
+difficulty.
+
+"Don't say that to me! I want nothing. I love you as a brother and
+always shall, and I want nothing more."
+
+"You are an angel: I am not worthy of you, but I am afraid of misleading
+you."
+
+And Nicholas again kissed her hand.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+Iogel's were the most enjoyable balls in Moscow. So said the mothers as
+they watched their young people executing their newly learned steps, and
+so said the youths and maidens themselves as they danced till they were
+ready to drop, and so said the grown-up young men and women who came to
+these balls with an air of condescension and found them most enjoyable.
+That year two marriages had come of these balls. The two pretty young
+Princesses Gorchakov met suitors there and were married and so further
+increased the fame of these dances. What distinguished them from others
+was the absence of host or hostess and the presence of the good-natured
+Iogel, flying about like a feather and bowing according to the rules of
+his art, as he collected the tickets from all his visitors. There was
+the fact that only those came who wished to dance and amuse themselves
+as girls of thirteen and fourteen do who are wearing long dresses for
+the first time. With scarcely any exceptions they all were, or seemed to
+be, pretty—so rapturous were their smiles and so sparkling their eyes.
+Sometimes the best of the pupils, of whom Natásha, who was exceptionally
+graceful, was first, even danced the pas de chale, but at this last ball
+only the ecossaise, the anglaise, and the mazurka, which was just coming
+into fashion, were danced. Iogel had taken a ballroom in Bezúkhov's
+house, and the ball, as everyone said, was a great success. There were
+many pretty girls and the Rostóv girls were among the prettiest. They
+were both particularly happy and gay. That evening, proud of Dólokhov's
+proposal, her refusal, and her explanation with Nicholas, Sónya twirled
+about before she left home so that the maid could hardly get her hair
+plaited, and she was transparently radiant with impulsive joy.
+
+Natásha no less proud of her first long dress and of being at a real
+ball was even happier. They were both dressed in white muslin with pink
+ribbons.
+
+Natásha fell in love the very moment she entered the ballroom. She was
+not in love with anyone in particular, but with everyone. Whatever
+person she happened to look at she was in love with for that moment.
+
+"Oh, how delightful it is!" she kept saying, running up to Sónya.
+
+Nicholas and Denisov were walking up and down, looking with kindly
+patronage at the dancers.
+
+"How sweet she is—she will be a weal beauty!" said Denisov.
+
+"Who?"
+
+"Countess Natásha," answered Denisov.
+
+"And how she dances! What gwace!" he said again after a pause.
+
+"Who are you talking about?"
+
+"About your sister," ejaculated Denisov testily.
+
+Rostóv smiled.
+
+"My dear count, you were one of my best pupils—you must dance," said
+little Iogel coming up to Nicholas. "Look how many charming young
+ladies-" He turned with the same request to Denisov who was also a
+former pupil of his.
+
+"No, my dear fellow, I'll be a wallflower," said Denisov. "Don't you
+wecollect what bad use I made of your lessons?"
+
+"Oh no!" said Iogel, hastening to reassure him. "You were only
+inattentive, but you had talent—oh yes, you had talent!"
+
+The band struck up the newly introduced mazurka. Nicholas could not
+refuse Iogel and asked Sónya to dance. Denisov sat down by the old
+ladies and, leaning on his saber and beating time with his foot, told
+them something funny and kept them amused, while he watched the young
+people dancing, Iogel with Natásha, his pride and his best pupil, were
+the first couple. Noiselessly, skillfully stepping with his little feet
+in low shoes, Iogel flew first across the hall with Natásha, who, though
+shy, went on carefully executing her steps. Denisov did not take his
+eyes off her and beat time with his saber in a way that clearly
+indicated that if he was not dancing it was because he would not and not
+because he could not. In the middle of a figure he beckoned to Rostóv
+who was passing:
+
+"This is not at all the thing," he said. "What sort of Polish mazuwka is
+this? But she does dance splendidly."
+
+Knowing that Denisov had a reputation even in Poland for the masterly
+way in which he danced the mazurka, Nicholas ran up to Natásha:
+
+"Go and choose Denisov. He is a real dancer, a wonder!" he said.
+
+When it came to Natásha's turn to choose a partner, she rose and,
+tripping rapidly across in her little shoes trimmed with bows, ran
+timidly to the corner where Denisov sat. She saw that everybody was
+looking at her and waiting. Nicholas saw that Denisov was refusing
+though he smiled delightedly. He ran up to them.
+
+"Please, Vasíli Dmítrich," Natásha was saying, "do come!"
+
+"Oh no, let me off, Countess," Denisov replied.
+
+"Now then, Vaska," said Nicholas.
+
+"They coax me as if I were Vaska the cat!" said Denisov jokingly.
+
+"I'll sing for you a whole evening," said Natásha.
+
+"Oh, the faiwy! She can do anything with me!" said Denisov, and he
+unhooked his saber. He came out from behind the chairs, clasped his
+partner's hand firmly, threw back his head, and advanced his foot,
+waiting for the beat. Only on horse back and in the mazurka was
+Denisov's short stature not noticeable and he looked the fine fellow he
+felt himself to be. At the right beat of the music he looked sideways at
+his partner with a merry and triumphant air, suddenly stamped with one
+foot, bounded from the floor like a ball, and flew round the room taking
+his partner with him. He glided silently on one foot half across the
+room, and seeming not to notice the chairs was dashing straight at them,
+when suddenly, clinking his spurs and spreading out his legs, he stopped
+short on his heels, stood so a second, stamped on the spot clanking his
+spurs, whirled rapidly round, and, striking his left heel against his
+right, flew round again in a circle. Natásha guessed what he meant to
+do, and abandoning herself to him followed his lead hardly knowing how.
+First he spun her round, holding her now with his left, now with his
+right hand, then falling on one knee he twirled her round him, and again
+jumping up, dashed so impetuously forward that it seemed as if he would
+rush through the whole suite of rooms without drawing breath, and then
+he suddenly stopped and performed some new and unexpected steps. When at
+last, smartly whirling his partner round in front of her chair, he drew
+up with a click of his spurs and bowed to her, Natásha did not even make
+him a curtsy. She fixed her eyes on him in amazement, smiling as if she
+did not recognize him.
+
+"What does this mean?" she brought out.
+
+Although Iogel did not acknowledge this to be the real mazurka, everyone
+was delighted with Denisov's skill, he was asked again and again as a
+partner, and the old men began smilingly to talk about Poland and the
+good old days. Denisov, flushed after the mazurka and mopping himself
+with his handkerchief, sat down by Natásha and did not leave her for the
+rest of the evening.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+For two days after that Rostóv did not see Dólokhov at his own or at
+Dólokhov's home: on the third day he received a note from him:
+
+As I do not intend to be at your house again for reasons you know of,
+and am going to rejoin my regiment, I am giving a farewell supper
+tonight to my friends—come to the English Hotel.
+
+About ten o'clock Rostóv went to the English Hotel straight from the
+theater, where he had been with his family and Denisov. He was at once
+shown to the best room, which Dólokhov had taken for that evening. Some
+twenty men were gathered round a table at which Dólokhov sat between two
+candles. On the table was a pile of gold and paper money, and he was
+keeping the bank. Rostóv had not seen him since his proposal and Sónya's
+refusal and felt uncomfortable at the thought of how they would meet.
+
+Dólokhov's clear, cold glance met Rostóv as soon as he entered the door,
+as though he had long expected him.
+
+"It's a long time since we met," he said. "Thanks for coming. I'll just
+finish dealing, and then Ilyushka will come with his chorus."
+
+"I called once or twice at your house," said Rostóv, reddening.
+
+Dólokhov made no reply.
+
+"You may punt," he said.
+
+Rostóv recalled at that moment a strange conversation he had once had
+with Dólokhov. "None but fools trust to luck in play," Dólokhov had then
+said.
+
+"Or are you afraid to play with me?" Dólokhov now asked as if guessing
+Rostóv's thought.
+
+Beneath his smile Rostóv saw in him the mood he had shown at the club
+dinner and at other times, when as if tired of everyday life he had felt
+a need to escape from it by some strange, and usually cruel, action.
+
+Rostóv felt ill at ease. He tried, but failed, to find some joke with
+which to reply to Dólokhov's words. But before he had thought of
+anything, Dólokhov, looking straight in his face, said slowly and
+deliberately so that everyone could hear:
+
+"Do you remember we had a talk about cards... 'He's a fool who trusts to
+luck, one should make certain,' and I want to try."
+
+"To try his luck or the certainty?" Rostóv asked himself.
+
+"Well, you'd better not play," Dólokhov added, and springing a new pack
+of cards said: "Bank, gentlemen!"
+
+Moving the money forward he prepared to deal. Rostóv sat down by his
+side and at first did not play. Dólokhov kept glancing at him.
+
+"Why don't you play?" he asked.
+
+And strange to say Nicholas felt that he could not help taking up a
+card, putting a small stake on it, and beginning to play.
+
+"I have no money with me," he said.
+
+"I'll trust you."
+
+Rostóv staked five rubles on a card and lost, staked again, and again
+lost. Dólokhov "killed," that is, beat, ten cards of Rostóv's running.
+
+"Gentlemen," said Dólokhov after he had dealt for some time. "Please
+place your money on the cards or I may get muddled in the reckoning."
+
+One of the players said he hoped he might be trusted.
+
+"Yes, you might, but I am afraid of getting the accounts mixed. So I ask
+you to put the money on your cards," replied Dólokhov. "Don't stint
+yourself, we'll settle afterwards," he added, turning to Rostóv.
+
+The game continued; a waiter kept handing round champagne.
+
+All Rostóv's cards were beaten and he had eight hundred rubles scored up
+against him. He wrote "800 rubles" on a card, but while the waiter
+filled his glass he changed his mind and altered it to his usual stake
+of twenty rubles.
+
+"Leave it," said Dólokhov, though he did not seem to be even looking at
+Rostóv, "you'll win it back all the sooner. I lose to the others but win
+from you. Or are you afraid of me?" he asked again.
+
+Rostóv submitted. He let the eight hundred remain and laid down a seven
+of hearts with a torn corner, which he had picked up from the floor. He
+well remembered that seven afterwards. He laid down the seven of hearts,
+on which with a broken bit of chalk he had written "800 rubles" in clear
+upright figures; he emptied the glass of warm champagne that was handed
+him, smiled at Dólokhov's words, and with a sinking heart, waiting for a
+seven to turn up, gazed at Dólokhov's hands which held the pack. Much
+depended on Rostóv's winning or losing on that seven of hearts. On the
+previous Sunday the old count had given his son two thousand rubles, and
+though he always disliked speaking of money difficulties had told
+Nicholas that this was all he could let him have till May, and asked him
+to be more economical this time. Nicholas had replied that it would be
+more than enough for him and that he gave his word of honor not to take
+anything more till the spring. Now only twelve hundred rubles was left
+of that money, so that this seven of hearts meant for him not only the
+loss of sixteen hundred rubles, but the necessity of going back on his
+word. With a sinking heart he watched Dólokhov's hands and thought, "Now
+then, make haste and let me have this card and I'll take my cap and
+drive home to supper with Denisov, Natásha, and Sónya, and will
+certainly never touch a card again." At that moment his home life, jokes
+with Pétya, talks with Sónya, duets with Natásha, piquet with his
+father, and even his comfortable bed in the house on the Povarskáya rose
+before him with such vividness, clearness, and charm that it seemed as
+if it were all a lost and unappreciated bliss, long past. He could not
+conceive that a stupid chance, letting the seven be dealt to the right
+rather than to the left, might deprive him of all this happiness, newly
+appreciated and newly illumined, and plunge him into the depths of
+unknown and undefined misery. That could not be, yet he awaited with a
+sinking heart the movement of Dólokhov's hands. Those broad, reddish
+hands, with hairy wrists visible from under the shirt cuffs, laid down
+the pack and took up a glass and a pipe that were handed him.
+
+"So you are not afraid to play with me?" repeated Dólokhov, and as if
+about to tell a good story he put down the cards, leaned back in his
+chair, and began deliberately with a smile:
+
+"Yes, gentlemen, I've been told there's a rumor going about Moscow that
+I'm a sharper, so I advise you to be careful."
+
+"Come now, deal!" exclaimed Rostóv.
+
+"Oh, those Moscow gossips!" said Dólokhov, and he took up the cards with
+a smile.
+
+"Aah!" Rostóv almost screamed lifting both hands to his head. The seven
+he needed was lying uppermost, the first card in the pack. He had lost
+more than he could pay.
+
+"Still, don't ruin yourself!" said Dólokhov with a side glance at Rostóv
+as he continued to deal.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+An hour and a half later most of the players were but little interested
+in their own play.
+
+The whole interest was concentrated on Rostóv. Instead of sixteen
+hundred rubles he had a long column of figures scored against him, which
+he had reckoned up to ten thousand, but that now, as he vaguely
+supposed, must have risen to fifteen thousand. In reality it already
+exceeded twenty thousand rubles. Dólokhov was no longer listening to
+stories or telling them, but followed every movement of Rostóv's hands
+and occasionally ran his eyes over the score against him. He had decided
+to play until that score reached forty-three thousand. He had fixed on
+that number because forty-three was the sum of his and Sónya's joint
+ages. Rostóv, leaning his head on both hands, sat at the table which was
+scrawled over with figures, wet with spilled wine, and littered with
+cards. One tormenting impression did not leave him: that those broad-
+boned reddish hands with hairy wrists visible from under the shirt
+sleeves, those hands which he loved and hated, held him in their power.
+
+"Six hundred rubles, ace, a corner, a nine... winning it back's
+impossible... Oh, how pleasant it was at home!... The knave, double or
+quits... it can't be!... And why is he doing this to me?" Rostóv
+pondered. Sometimes he staked a large sum, but Dólokhov refused to
+accept it and fixed the stake himself. Nicholas submitted to him, and at
+one moment prayed to God as he had done on the battlefield at the bridge
+over the Enns, and then guessed that the card that came first to hand
+from the crumpled heap under the table would save him, now counted the
+cords on his coat and took a card with that number and tried staking the
+total of his losses on it, then he looked round for aid from the other
+players, or peered at the now cold face of Dólokhov and tried to read
+what was passing in his mind.
+
+"He knows of course what this loss means to me. He can't want my ruin.
+Wasn't he my friend? Wasn't I fond of him? But it's not his fault.
+What's he to do if he has such luck?... And it's not my fault either,"
+he thought to himself, "I have done nothing wrong. Have I killed anyone,
+or insulted or wished harm to anyone? Why such a terrible misfortune?
+And when did it begin? Such a little while ago I came to this table with
+the thought of winning a hundred rubles to buy that casket for Mamma's
+name day and then going home. I was so happy, so free, so lighthearted!
+And I did not realize how happy I was! When did that end and when did
+this new, terrible state of things begin? What marked the change? I sat
+all the time in this same place at this table, chose and placed cards,
+and watched those broad-boned agile hands in the same way. When did it
+happen and what has happened? I am well and strong and still the same
+and in the same place. No, it can't be! Surely it will all end in
+nothing!"
+
+He was flushed and bathed in perspiration, though the room was not hot.
+His face was terrible and piteous to see, especially from its helpless
+efforts to seem calm.
+
+The score against him reached the fateful sum of forty-three thousand.
+Rostóv had just prepared a card, by bending the corner of which he meant
+to double the three thousand just put down to his score, when Dólokhov,
+slamming down the pack of cards, put it aside and began rapidly adding
+up the total of Rostóv's debt, breaking the chalk as he marked the
+figures in his clear, bold hand.
+
+"Supper, it's time for supper! And here are the gypsies!"
+
+Some swarthy men and women were really entering from the cold outside
+and saying something in their gypsy accents. Nicholas understood that it
+was all over; but he said in an indifferent tone:
+
+"Well, won't you go on? I had a splendid card all ready," as if it were
+the fun of the game which interested him most.
+
+"It's all up! I'm lost!" thought he. "Now a bullet through my
+brain—that's all that's left me!" And at the same time he said in a
+cheerful voice:
+
+"Come now, just this one more little card!"
+
+"All right!" said Dólokhov, having finished the addition. "All right!
+Twenty-one rubles," he said, pointing to the figure twenty-one by which
+the total exceeded the round sum of forty-three thousand; and taking up
+a pack he prepared to deal. Rostóv submissively unbent the corner of his
+card and, instead of the six thousand he had intended, carefully wrote
+twenty-one.
+
+"It's all the same to me," he said. "I only want to see whether you will
+let me win this ten, or beat it."
+
+Dólokhov began to deal seriously. Oh, how Rostóv detested at that moment
+those hands with their short reddish fingers and hairy wrists, which
+held him in their power.... The ten fell to him.
+
+"You owe forty-three thousand, Count," said Dólokhov, and stretching
+himself he rose from the table. "One does get tired sitting so long," he
+added.
+
+"Yes, I'm tired too," said Rostóv.
+
+Dólokhov cut him short, as if to remind him that it was not for him to
+jest.
+
+"When am I to receive the money, Count?"
+
+Rostóv, flushing, drew Dólokhov into the next room.
+
+"I cannot pay it all immediately. Will you take an I.O.U.?" he said.
+
+"I say, Rostóv," said Dólokhov clearly, smiling and looking Nicholas
+straight in the eyes, "you know the saying, 'Lucky in love, unlucky at
+cards.' Your cousin is in love with you, I know."
+
+"Oh, it's terrible to feel oneself so in this man's power," thought
+Rostóv. He knew what a shock he would inflict on his father and mother
+by the news of this loss, he knew what a relief it would be to escape it
+all, and felt that Dólokhov knew that he could save him from all this
+shame and sorrow, but wanted now to play with him as a cat does with a
+mouse.
+
+"Your cousin..." Dólokhov started to say, but Nicholas interrupted him.
+
+"My cousin has nothing to do with this and it's not necessary to mention
+her!" he exclaimed fiercely.
+
+"Then when am I to have it?"
+
+"Tomorrow," replied Rostóv and left the room.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+To say "tomorrow" and keep up a dignified tone was not difficult, but to
+go home alone, see his sisters, brother, mother, and father, confess and
+ask for money he had no right to after giving his word of honor, was
+terrible.
+
+At home, they had not yet gone to bed. The young people, after returning
+from the theater, had had supper and were grouped round the clavichord.
+As soon as Nicholas entered, he was enfolded in that poetic atmosphere
+of love which pervaded the Rostóv household that winter and, now after
+Dólokhov's proposal and Iogel's ball, seemed to have grown thicker round
+Sónya and Natásha as the air does before a thunderstorm. Sónya and
+Natásha, in the light-blue dresses they had worn at the theater, looking
+pretty and conscious of it, were standing by the clavichord, happy and
+smiling. Véra was playing chess with Shinshín in the drawing room. The
+old countess, waiting for the return of her husband and son, sat playing
+patience with the old gentlewoman who lived in their house. Denisov,
+with sparkling eyes and ruffled hair, sat at the clavichord striking
+chords with his short fingers, his legs thrown back and his eyes rolling
+as he sang, with his small, husky, but true voice, some verses called
+"Enchantress," which he had composed, and to which he was trying to fit
+music:
+
+Enchantress, say, to my forsaken lyre What magic power is this recalls
+me still? What spark has set my inmost soul on fire, What is this bliss
+that makes my fingers thrill?
+
+He was singing in passionate tones, gazing with his sparkling black-
+agate eyes at the frightened and happy Natásha.
+
+"Splendid! Excellent!" exclaimed Natásha. "Another verse," she said,
+without noticing Nicholas.
+
+"Everything's still the same with them," thought Nicholas, glancing into
+the drawing room, where he saw Véra and his mother with the old lady.
+
+"Ah, and here's Nicholas!" cried Natásha, running up to him.
+
+"Is Papa at home?" he asked.
+
+"I am so glad you've come!" said Natásha, without answering him. "We are
+enjoying ourselves! Vasíli Dmítrich is staying a day longer for my sake!
+Did you know?"
+
+"No, Papa is not back yet," said Sónya.
+
+"Nicholas, have you come? Come here, dear!" called the old countess from
+the drawing room.
+
+Nicholas went to her, kissed her hand, and sitting down silently at her
+table began to watch her hands arranging the cards. From the dancing
+room, they still heard the laughter and merry voices trying to persuade
+Natásha to sing.
+
+"All wight! All wight!" shouted Denisov. "It's no good making excuses
+now! It's your turn to sing the ba'cawolla—I entweat you!"
+
+The countess glanced at her silent son.
+
+"What is the matter?" she asked.
+
+"Oh, nothing," said he, as if weary of being continually asked the same
+question. "Will Papa be back soon?"
+
+"I expect so."
+
+"Everything's the same with them. They know nothing about it! Where am I
+to go?" thought Nicholas, and went again into the dancing room where the
+clavichord stood.
+
+Sónya was sitting at the clavichord, playing the prelude to Denisov's
+favorite barcarolle. Natásha was preparing to sing. Denisov was looking
+at her with enraptured eyes.
+
+Nicholas began pacing up and down the room.
+
+"Why do they want to make her sing? How can she sing? There's nothing to
+be happy about!" thought he.
+
+Sónya struck the first chord of the prelude.
+
+"My God, I'm a ruined and dishonored man! A bullet through my brain is
+the only thing left me—not singing!" his thoughts ran on. "Go away? But
+where to? It's one—let them sing!"
+
+He continued to pace the room, looking gloomily at Denisov and the girls
+and avoiding their eyes.
+
+"Nikolenka, what is the matter?" Sónya's eyes fixed on him seemed to
+ask. She noticed at once that something had happened to him.
+
+Nicholas turned away from her. Natásha too, with her quick instinct, had
+instantly noticed her brother's condition. But, though she noticed it,
+she was herself in such high spirits at that moment, so far from sorrow,
+sadness, or self-reproach, that she purposely deceived herself as young
+people often do. "No, I am too happy now to spoil my enjoyment by
+sympathy with anyone's sorrow," she felt, and she said to herself: "No,
+I must be mistaken, he must be feeling happy, just as I am."
+
+"Now, Sónya!" she said, going to the very middle of the room, where she
+considered the resonance was best.
+
+Having lifted her head and let her arms droop lifelessly, as ballet
+dancers do, Natásha, rising energetically from her heels to her toes,
+stepped to the middle of the room and stood still.
+
+"Yes, that's me!" she seemed to say, answering the rapt gaze with which
+Denisov followed her.
+
+"And what is she so pleased about?" thought Nicholas, looking at his
+sister. "Why isn't she dull and ashamed?"
+
+Natásha took the first note, her throat swelled, her chest rose, her
+eyes became serious. At that moment she was oblivious of her
+surroundings, and from her smiling lips flowed sounds which anyone may
+produce at the same intervals and hold for the same time, but which
+leave you cold a thousand times and the thousand and first time thrill
+you and make you weep.
+
+Natásha, that winter, had for the first time begun to sing seriously,
+mainly because Denisov so delighted in her singing. She no longer sang
+as a child, there was no longer in her singing that comical, childish,
+painstaking effect that had been in it before; but she did not yet sing
+well, as all the connoisseurs who heard her said: "It is not trained,
+but it is a beautiful voice that must be trained." Only they generally
+said this some time after she had finished singing. While that untrained
+voice, with its incorrect breathing and labored transitions, was
+sounding, even the connoisseurs said nothing, but only delighted in it
+and wished to hear it again. In her voice there was a virginal
+freshness, an unconsciousness of her own powers, and an as yet untrained
+velvety softness, which so mingled with her lack of art in singing that
+it seemed as if nothing in that voice could be altered without spoiling
+it.
+
+"What is this?" thought Nicholas, listening to her with widely opened
+eyes. "What has happened to her? How she is singing today!" And suddenly
+the whole world centered for him on anticipation of the next note, the
+next phrase, and everything in the world was divided into three beats:
+"Oh mio crudele affetto."... One, two, three... one, two, three...
+One... "Oh mio crudele affetto."... One, two, three... One. "Oh, this
+senseless life of ours!" thought Nicholas. "All this misery, and money,
+and Dólokhov, and anger, and honor—it's all nonsense... but this is
+real.... Now then, Natásha, now then, dearest! Now then, darling! How
+will she take that si? She's taken it! Thank God!" And without noticing
+that he was singing, to strengthen the si he sung a second, a third
+below the high note. "Ah, God! How fine! Did I really take it? How
+fortunate!" he thought.
+
+Oh, how that chord vibrated, and how moved was something that was finest
+in Rostóv's soul! And this something was apart from everything else in
+the world and above everything in the world. "What were losses, and
+Dólokhov, and words of honor?... All nonsense! One might kill and rob
+and yet be happy..."
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+It was long since Rostóv had felt such enjoyment from music as he did
+that day. But no sooner had Natásha finished her barcarolle than reality
+again presented itself. He got up without saying a word and went
+downstairs to his own room. A quarter of an hour later the old count
+came in from his club, cheerful and contented. Nicholas, hearing him
+drive up, went to meet him.
+
+"Well—had a good time?" said the old count, smiling gaily and proudly at
+his son.
+
+Nicholas tried to say "Yes," but could not: and he nearly burst into
+sobs. The count was lighting his pipe and did not notice his son's
+condition.
+
+"Ah, it can't be avoided!" thought Nicholas, for the first and last
+time. And suddenly, in the most casual tone, which made him feel ashamed
+of himself, he said, as if merely asking his father to let him have the
+carriage to drive to town:
+
+"Papa, I have come on a matter of business. I was nearly forgetting. I
+need some money."
+
+"Dear me!" said his father, who was in a specially good humor. "I told
+you it would not be enough. How much?"
+
+"Very much," said Nicholas flushing, and with a stupid careless smile,
+for which he was long unable to forgive himself, "I have lost a little,
+I mean a good deal, a great deal—forty three thousand."
+
+"What! To whom?... Nonsense!" cried the count, suddenly reddening with
+an apoplectic flush over neck and nape as old people do.
+
+"I promised to pay tomorrow," said Nicholas.
+
+"Well!..." said the old count, spreading out his arms and sinking
+helplessly on the sofa.
+
+"It can't be helped It happens to everyone!" said the son, with a bold,
+free, and easy tone, while in his soul he regarded himself as a
+worthless scoundrel whose whole life could not atone for his crime. He
+longed to kiss his father's hands and kneel to beg his forgiveness, but
+said, in a careless and even rude voice, that it happens to everyone!
+
+The old count cast down his eyes on hearing his son's words and began
+bustlingly searching for something.
+
+"Yes, yes," he muttered, "it will be difficult, I fear, difficult to
+raise... happens to everybody! Yes, who has not done it?"
+
+And with a furtive glance at his son's face, the count went out of the
+room.... Nicholas had been prepared for resistance, but had not at all
+expected this.
+
+"Papa! Pa-pa!" he called after him, sobbing, "forgive me!" And seizing
+his father's hand, he pressed it to his lips and burst into tears.
+
+While father and son were having their explanation, the mother and
+daughter were having one not less important. Natásha came running to her
+mother, quite excited.
+
+"Mamma!... Mamma!... He has made me..."
+
+"Made what?"
+
+"Made, made me an offer, Mamma! Mamma!" she exclaimed.
+
+The countess did not believe her ears. Denisov had proposed. To whom? To
+this chit of a girl, Natásha, who not so long ago was playing with dolls
+and who was still having lessons.
+
+"Don't, Natásha! What nonsense!" she said, hoping it was a joke.
+
+"Nonsense, indeed! I am telling you the fact," said Natásha indignantly.
+"I come to ask you what to do, and you call it 'nonsense!'"
+
+The countess shrugged her shoulders.
+
+"If it is true that Monsieur Denisov has made you a proposal, tell him
+he is a fool, that's all!"
+
+"No, he's not a fool!" replied Natásha indignantly and seriously.
+
+"Well then, what do you want? You're all in love nowadays. Well, if you
+are in love, marry him!" said the countess, with a laugh of annoyance.
+"Good luck to you!"
+
+"No, Mamma, I'm not in love with him, I suppose I'm not in love with
+him."
+
+"Well then, tell him so."
+
+"Mamma, are you cross? Don't be cross, dear! Is it my fault?"
+
+"No, but what is it, my dear? Do you want me to go and tell him?" said
+the countess smiling.
+
+"No, I will do it myself, only tell me what to say. It's all very well
+for you," said Natásha, with a responsive smile. "You should have seen
+how he said it! I know he did not mean to say it, but it came out
+accidently."
+
+"Well, all the same, you must refuse him."
+
+"No, I mustn't. I am so sorry for him! He's so nice."
+
+"Well then, accept his offer. It's high time for you to be married,"
+answered the countess sharply and sarcastically.
+
+"No, Mamma, but I'm so sorry for him. I don't know how I'm to say it."
+
+"And there's nothing for you to say. I shall speak to him myself," said
+the countess, indignant that they should have dared to treat this little
+Natásha as grown up.
+
+"No, not on any account! I will tell him myself, and you'll listen at
+the door," and Natásha ran across the drawing room to the dancing hall,
+where Denisov was sitting on the same chair by the clavichord with his
+face in his hands.
+
+He jumped up at the sound of her light step.
+
+"Nataly," he said, moving with rapid steps toward her, "decide my fate.
+It is in your hands."
+
+"Vasíli Dmítrich, I'm so sorry for you!... No, but you are so nice...
+but it won't do...not that... but as a friend, I shall always love you."
+
+Denisov bent over her hand and she heard strange sounds she did not
+understand. She kissed his rough curly black head. At this instant, they
+heard the quick rustle of the countess' dress. She came up to them.
+
+"Vasíli Dmítrich, I thank you for the honor," she said, with an
+embarrassed voice, though it sounded severe to Denisov—"but my daughter
+is so young, and I thought that, as my son's friend, you would have
+addressed yourself first to me. In that case you would not have obliged
+me to give this refusal."
+
+"Countess..." said Denisov, with downcast eyes and a guilty face. He
+tried to say more, but faltered.
+
+Natásha could not remain calm, seeing him in such a plight. She began to
+sob aloud.
+
+"Countess, I have done w'ong," Denisov went on in an unsteady voice,
+"but believe me, I so adore your daughter and all your family that I
+would give my life twice over..." He looked at the countess, and seeing
+her severe face said: "Well, good-by, Countess," and kissing her hand,
+he left the room with quick resolute strides, without looking at
+Natásha.
+
+Next day Rostóv saw Denisov off. He did not wish to stay another day in
+Moscow. All Denisov's Moscow friends gave him a farewell entertainment
+at the gypsies', with the result that he had no recollection of how he
+was put in the sleigh or of the first three stages of his journey.
+
+After Denisov's departure, Rostóv spent another fortnight in Moscow,
+without going out of the house, waiting for the money his father could
+not at once raise, and he spent most of his time in the girls' room.
+
+Sónya was more tender and devoted to him than ever. It was as if she
+wanted to show him that his losses were an achievement that made her
+love him all the more, but Nicholas now considered himself unworthy of
+her.
+
+He filled the girls' albums with verses and music, and having at last
+sent Dólokhov the whole forty-three thousand rubles and received his
+receipt, he left at the end of November, without taking leave of any of
+his acquaintances, to overtake his regiment which was already in Poland.
+
+
+
+
+
+BOOK FIVE: 1806 - 07
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+After his interview with his wife Pierre left for Petersburg. At the
+Torzhok post station, either there were no horses or the postmaster
+would not supply them. Pierre was obliged to wait. Without undressing,
+he lay down on the leather sofa in front of a round table, put his big
+feet in their overboots on the table, and began to reflect.
+
+"Will you have the portmanteaus brought in? And a bed got ready, and
+tea?" asked his valet.
+
+Pierre gave no answer, for he neither heard nor saw anything. He had
+begun to think of the last station and was still pondering on the same
+question—one so important that he took no notice of what went on around
+him. Not only was he indifferent as to whether he got to Petersburg
+earlier or later, or whether he secured accommodation at this station,
+but compared to the thoughts that now occupied him it was a matter of
+indifference whether he remained there for a few hours or for the rest
+of his life.
+
+The postmaster, his wife, the valet, and a peasant woman selling Torzhok
+embroidery came into the room offering their services. Without changing
+his careless attitude, Pierre looked at them over his spectacles unable
+to understand what they wanted or how they could go on living without
+having solved the problems that so absorbed him. He had been engrossed
+by the same thoughts ever since the day he returned from Sokolniki after
+the duel and had spent that first agonizing, sleepless night. But now,
+in the solitude of the journey, they seized him with special force. No
+matter what he thought about, he always returned to these same questions
+which he could not solve and yet could not cease to ask himself. It was
+as if the thread of the chief screw which held his life together were
+stripped, so that the screw could not get in or out, but went on turning
+uselessly in the same place.
+
+The postmaster came in and began obsequiously to beg his excellency to
+wait only two hours, when, come what might, he would let his excellency
+have the courier horses. It was plain that he was lying and only wanted
+to get more money from the traveler.
+
+"Is this good or bad?" Pierre asked himself. "It is good for me, bad for
+another traveler, and for himself it's unavoidable, because he needs
+money for food; the man said an officer had once given him a thrashing
+for letting a private traveler have the courier horses. But the officer
+thrashed him because he had to get on as quickly as possible. And I,"
+continued Pierre, "shot Dólokhov because I considered myself injured,
+and Louis XVI was executed because they considered him a criminal, and a
+year later they executed those who executed him—also for some reason.
+What is bad? What is good? What should one love and what hate? What does
+one live for? And what am I? What is life, and what is death? What power
+governs all?"
+
+There was no answer to any of these questions, except one, and that not
+a logical answer and not at all a reply to them. The answer was: "You'll
+die and all will end. You'll die and know all, or cease asking." But
+dying was also dreadful.
+
+The Torzhok peddler woman, in a whining voice, went on offering her
+wares, especially a pair of goatskin slippers. "I have hundreds of
+rubles I don't know what to do with, and she stands in her tattered
+cloak looking timidly at me," he thought. "And what does she want the
+money for? As if that money could add a hair's breadth to happiness or
+peace of mind. Can anything in the world make her or me less a prey to
+evil and death?—death which ends all and must come today or tomorrow—at
+any rate, in an instant as compared with eternity." And again he twisted
+the screw with the stripped thread, and again it turned uselessly in the
+same place.
+
+His servant handed him a half-cut novel, in the form of letters, by
+Madame de Souza. He began reading about the sufferings and virtuous
+struggles of a certain Emilie de Mansfeld. "And why did she resist her
+seducer when she loved him?" he thought. "God could not have put into
+her heart an impulse that was against His will. My wife—as she once
+was—did not struggle, and perhaps she was right. Nothing has been found
+out, nothing discovered," Pierre again said to himself. "All we can know
+is that we know nothing. And that's the height of human wisdom."
+
+Everything within and around him seemed confused, senseless, and
+repellent. Yet in this very repugnance to all his circumstances Pierre
+found a kind of tantalizing satisfaction.
+
+"I make bold to ask your excellency to move a little for this
+gentleman," said the postmaster, entering the room followed by another
+traveler, also detained for lack of horses.
+
+The newcomer was a short, large-boned, yellow-faced, wrinkled old man,
+with gray bushy eyebrows overhanging bright eyes of an indefinite
+grayish color.
+
+Pierre took his feet off the table, stood up, and lay down on a bed that
+had been got ready for him, glancing now and then at the newcomer, who,
+with a gloomy and tired face, was wearily taking off his wraps with the
+aid of his servant, and not looking at Pierre. With a pair of felt boots
+on his thin bony legs, and keeping on a worn, nankeen-covered, sheepskin
+coat, the traveler sat down on the sofa, leaned back his big head with
+its broad temples and close-cropped hair, and looked at Bezúkhov. The
+stern, shrewd, and penetrating expression of that look struck Pierre. He
+felt a wish to speak to the stranger, but by the time he had made up his
+mind to ask him a question about the roads, the traveler had closed his
+eyes. His shriveled old hands were folded and on the finger of one of
+them Pierre noticed a large cast iron ring with a seal representing a
+death's head. The stranger sat without stirring, either resting or, as
+it seemed to Pierre, sunk in profound and calm meditation. His servant
+was also a yellow, wrinkled old man, without beard or mustache,
+evidently not because he was shaven but because they had never grown.
+This active old servant was unpacking the traveler's canteen and
+preparing tea. He brought in a boiling samovar. When everything was
+ready, the stranger opened his eyes, moved to the table, filled a
+tumbler with tea for himself and one for the beardless old man to whom
+he passed it. Pierre began to feel a sense of uneasiness, and the need,
+even the inevitability, of entering into conversation with this
+stranger.
+
+The servant brought back his tumbler turned upside down, * with an
+unfinished bit of nibbled sugar, and asked if anything more would be
+wanted.
+
+* To indicate he did not want more tea.
+
+"No. Give me the book," said the stranger.
+
+The servant handed him a book which Pierre took to be a devotional work,
+and the traveler became absorbed in it. Pierre looked at him. All at
+once the stranger closed the book, putting in a marker, and again,
+leaning with his arms on the back of the sofa, sat in his former
+position with his eyes shut. Pierre looked at him and had not time to
+turn away when the old man, opening his eyes, fixed his steady and
+severe gaze straight on Pierre's face.
+
+Pierre felt confused and wished to avoid that look, but the bright old
+eyes attracted him irresistibly.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+"I have the pleasure of addressing Count Bezúkhov, if I am not
+mistaken," said the stranger in a deliberate and loud voice.
+
+Pierre looked silently and inquiringly at him over his spectacles.
+
+"I have heard of you, my dear sir," continued the stranger, "and of your
+misfortune." He seemed to emphasize the last word, as if to say—"Yes,
+misfortune! Call it what you please, I know that what happened to you in
+Moscow was a misfortune."—"I regret it very much, my dear sir."
+
+Pierre flushed and, hurriedly putting his legs down from the bed, bent
+forward toward the old man with a forced and timid smile.
+
+"I have not referred to this out of curiosity, my dear sir, but for
+greater reasons."
+
+He paused, his gaze still on Pierre, and moved aside on the sofa by way
+of inviting the other to take a seat beside him. Pierre felt reluctant
+to enter into conversation with this old man, but, submitting to him
+involuntarily, came up and sat down beside him.
+
+"You are unhappy, my dear sir," the stranger continued. "You are young
+and I am old. I should like to help you as far as lies in my power."
+
+"Oh, yes!" said Pierre, with a forced smile. "I am very grateful to you.
+Where are you traveling from?"
+
+The stranger's face was not genial, it was even cold and severe, but in
+spite of this, both the face and words of his new acquaintance were
+irresistibly attractive to Pierre.
+
+"But if for reason you don't feel inclined to talk to me," said the old
+man, "say so, my dear sir." And he suddenly smiled, in an unexpected and
+tenderly paternal way.
+
+"Oh no, not at all! On the contrary, I am very glad to make your
+acquaintance," said Pierre. And again, glancing at the stranger's hands,
+he looked more closely at the ring, with its skull—a masonic sign.
+
+"Allow me to ask," he said, "are you a Mason?"
+
+"Yes, I belong to the Brotherhood of the Freemasons," said the stranger,
+looking deeper and deeper into Pierre's eyes. "And in their name and my
+own I hold out a brotherly hand to you."
+
+"I am afraid," said Pierre, smiling, and wavering between the confidence
+the personality of the Freemason inspired in him and his own habit of
+ridiculing the masonic beliefs—"I am afraid I am very far from
+understanding—how am I to put it?—I am afraid my way of looking at the
+world is so opposed to yours that we shall not understand one another."
+
+"I know your outlook," said the Mason, "and the view of life you
+mention, and which you think is the result of your own mental efforts,
+is the one held by the majority of people, and is the invariable fruit
+of pride, indolence, and ignorance. Forgive me, my dear sir, but if I
+had not known it I should not have addressed you. Your view of life is a
+regrettable delusion."
+
+"Just as I may suppose you to be deluded," said Pierre, with a faint
+smile.
+
+"I should never dare to say that I know the truth," said the Mason,
+whose words struck Pierre more and more by their precision and firmness.
+"No one can attain to truth by himself. Only by laying stone on stone
+with the cooperation of all, by the millions of generations from our
+forefather Adam to our own times, is that temple reared which is to be a
+worthy dwelling place of the Great God," he added, and closed his eyes.
+
+"I ought to tell you that I do not believe... do not believe in God,"
+said Pierre, regretfully and with an effort, feeling it essential to
+speak the whole truth.
+
+The Mason looked intently at Pierre and smiled as a rich man with
+millions in hand might smile at a poor fellow who told him that he, poor
+man, had not the five rubles that would make him happy.
+
+"Yes, you do not know Him, my dear sir," said the Mason. "You cannot
+know Him. You do not know Him and that is why you are unhappy."
+
+"Yes, yes, I am unhappy," assented Pierre. "But what am I to do?"
+
+"You know Him not, my dear sir, and so you are very unhappy. You do not
+know Him, but He is here, He is in me, He is in my words, He is in thee,
+and even in those blasphemous words thou hast just uttered!" pronounced
+the Mason in a stern and tremulous voice.
+
+He paused and sighed, evidently trying to calm himself.
+
+"If He were not," he said quietly, "you and I would not be speaking of
+Him, my dear sir. Of what, of whom, are we speaking? Whom hast thou
+denied?" he suddenly asked with exulting austerity and authority in his
+voice. "Who invented Him, if He did not exist? Whence came thy
+conception of the existence of such an incomprehensible Being? didst
+thou, and why did the whole world, conceive the idea of the existence of
+such an incomprehensible Being, a Being all-powerful, eternal, and
+infinite in all His attributes?..."
+
+He stopped and remained silent for a long time.
+
+Pierre could not and did not wish to break this silence.
+
+"He exists, but to understand Him is hard," the Mason began again,
+looking not at Pierre but straight before him, and turning the leaves of
+his book with his old hands which from excitement he could not keep
+still. "If it were a man whose existence thou didst doubt I could bring
+him to thee, could take him by the hand and show him to thee. But how
+can I, an insignificant mortal, show His omnipotence, His infinity, and
+all His mercy to one who is blind, or who shuts his eyes that he may not
+see or understand Him and may not see or understand his own vileness and
+sinfulness?" He paused again. "Who art thou? Thou dreamest that thou art
+wise because thou couldst utter those blasphemous words," he went on,
+with a somber and scornful smile. "And thou art more foolish and
+unreasonable than a little child, who, playing with the parts of a
+skillfully made watch, dares to say that, as he does not understand its
+use, he does not believe in the master who made it. To know Him is
+hard.... For ages, from our forefather Adam to our own day, we labor to
+attain that knowledge and are still infinitely far from our aim; but in
+our lack of understanding we see only our weakness and His
+greatness...."
+
+Pierre listened with swelling heart, gazing into the Mason's face with
+shining eyes, not interrupting or questioning him, but believing with
+his whole soul what the stranger said. Whether he accepted the wise
+reasoning contained in the Mason's words, or believed as a child
+believes, in the speaker's tone of conviction and earnestness, or the
+tremor of the speaker's voice—which sometimes almost broke—or those
+brilliant aged eyes grown old in this conviction, or the calm firmness
+and certainty of his vocation, which radiated from his whole being (and
+which struck Pierre especially by contrast with his own dejection and
+hopelessness)—at any rate, Pierre longed with his whole soul to believe
+and he did believe, and felt a joyful sense of comfort, regeneration,
+and return to life.
+
+"He is not to be apprehended by reason, but by life," said the Mason.
+
+"I do not understand," said Pierre, feeling with dismay doubts
+reawakening. He was afraid of any want of clearness, any weakness, in
+the Mason's arguments; he dreaded not to be able to believe in him. "I
+don't understand," he said, "how it is that the mind of man cannot
+attain the knowledge of which you speak."
+
+The Mason smiled with his gentle fatherly smile.
+
+"The highest wisdom and truth are like the purest liquid we may wish to
+imbibe," he said. "Can I receive that pure liquid into an impure vessel
+and judge of its purity? Only by the inner purification of myself can I
+retain in some degree of purity the liquid I receive."
+
+"Yes, yes, that is so," said Pierre joyfully.
+
+"The highest wisdom is not founded on reason alone, not on those worldly
+sciences of physics, history, chemistry, and the like, into which
+intellectual knowledge is divided. The highest wisdom is one. The
+highest wisdom has but one science—the science of the whole—the science
+explaining the whole creation and man's place in it. To receive that
+science it is necessary to purify and renew one's inner self, and so
+before one can know, it is necessary to believe and to perfect one's
+self. And to attain this end, we have the light called conscience that
+God has implanted in our souls."
+
+"Yes, yes," assented Pierre.
+
+"Look then at thy inner self with the eyes of the spirit, and ask
+thyself whether thou art content with thyself. What hast thou attained
+relying on reason only? What art thou? You are young, you are rich, you
+are clever, you are well educated. And what have you done with all these
+good gifts? Are you content with yourself and with your life?"
+
+"No, I hate my life," Pierre muttered, wincing.
+
+"Thou hatest it. Then change it, purify thyself; and as thou art
+purified, thou wilt gain wisdom. Look at your life, my dear sir. How
+have you spent it? In riotous orgies and debauchery, receiving
+everything from society and giving nothing in return. You have become
+the possessor of wealth. How have you used it? What have you done for
+your neighbor? Have you ever thought of your tens of thousands of
+slaves? Have you helped them physically and morally? No! You have
+profited by their toil to lead a profligate life. That is what you have
+done. Have you chosen a post in which you might be of service to your
+neighbor? No! You have spent your life in idleness. Then you married, my
+dear sir—took on yourself responsibility for the guidance of a young
+woman; and what have you done? You have not helped her to find the way
+of truth, my dear sir, but have thrust her into an abyss of deceit and
+misery. A man offended you and you shot him, and you say you do not know
+God and hate your life. There is nothing strange in that, my dear sir!"
+
+After these words, the Mason, as if tired by his long discourse, again
+leaned his arms on the back of the sofa and closed his eyes. Pierre
+looked at that aged, stern, motionless, almost lifeless face and moved
+his lips without uttering a sound. He wished to say, "Yes, a vile, idle,
+vicious life!" but dared not break the silence.
+
+The Mason cleared his throat huskily, as old men do, and called his
+servant.
+
+"How about the horses?" he asked, without looking at Pierre.
+
+"The exchange horses have just come," answered the servant. "Will you
+not rest here?"
+
+"No, tell them to harness."
+
+"Can he really be going away leaving me alone without having told me
+all, and without promising to help me?" thought Pierre, rising with
+downcast head; and he began to pace the room, glancing occasionally at
+the Mason. "Yes, I never thought of it, but I have led a contemptible
+and profligate life, though I did not like it and did not want to,"
+thought Pierre. "But this man knows the truth and, if he wished to,
+could disclose it to me."
+
+Pierre wished to say this to the Mason, but did not dare to. The
+traveler, having packed his things with his practiced hands, began
+fastening his coat. When he had finished, he turned to Bezúkhov, and
+said in a tone of indifferent politeness:
+
+"Where are you going to now, my dear sir?"
+
+"I?... I'm going to Petersburg," answered Pierre, in a childlike,
+hesitating voice. "I thank you. I agree with all you have said. But do
+not suppose me to be so bad. With my whole soul I wish to be what you
+would have me be, but I have never had help from anyone.... But it is I,
+above all, who am to blame for everything. Help me, teach me, and
+perhaps I may..."
+
+Pierre could not go on. He gulped and turned away.
+
+The Mason remained silent for a long time, evidently considering.
+
+"Help comes from God alone," he said, "but such measure of help as our
+Order can bestow it will render you, my dear sir. You are going to
+Petersburg. Hand this to Count Willarski" (he took out his notebook and
+wrote a few words on a large sheet of paper folded in four). "Allow me
+to give you a piece of advice. When you reach the capital, first of all
+devote some time to solitude and self-examination and do not resume your
+former way of life. And now I wish you a good journey, my dear sir," he
+added, seeing that his servant had entered... "and success."
+
+The traveler was Joseph Alexeevich Bazdeev, as Pierre saw from the
+postmaster's book. Bazdeev had been one of the best-known Freemasons and
+Martinists, even in Novikov's time. For a long while after he had gone,
+Pierre did not go to bed or order horses but paced up and down the room,
+pondering over his vicious past, and with a rapturous sense of beginning
+anew pictured to himself the blissful, irreproachable, virtuous future
+that seemed to him so easy. It seemed to him that he had been vicious
+only because he had somehow forgotten how good it is to be virtuous. Not
+a trace of his former doubts remained in his soul. He firmly believed in
+the possibility of the brotherhood of men united in the aim of
+supporting one another in the path of virtue, and that is how
+Freemasonry presented itself to him.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+On reaching Petersburg Pierre did not let anyone know of his arrival, he
+went nowhere and spent whole days in reading Thomas a Kempis, whose book
+had been sent him by someone unknown. One thing he continually realized
+as he read that book: the joy, hitherto unknown to him, of believing in
+the possibility of attaining perfection, and in the possibility of
+active brotherly love among men, which Joseph Alexeevich had revealed to
+him. A week after his arrival, the young Polish count, Willarski, whom
+Pierre had known slightly in Petersburg society, came into his room one
+evening in the official and ceremonious manner in which Dólokhov's
+second had called on him, and, having closed the door behind him and
+satisfied himself that there was nobody else in the room, addressed
+Pierre.
+
+"I have come to you with a message and an offer, Count," he said without
+sitting down. "A person of very high standing in our Brotherhood has
+made application for you to be received into our Order before the usual
+term and has proposed to me to be your sponsor. I consider it a sacred
+duty to fulfill that person's wishes. Do you wish to enter the
+Brotherhood of Freemasons under my sponsorship?"
+
+The cold, austere tone of this man, whom he had almost always before met
+at balls, amiably smiling in the society of the most brilliant women,
+surprised Pierre.
+
+"Yes, I do wish it," said he.
+
+Willarski bowed his head.
+
+"One more question, Count," he said, "which I beg you to answer in all
+sincerity—not as a future Mason but as an honest man: have you renounced
+your former convictions—do you believe in God?"
+
+Pierre considered.
+
+"Yes... yes, I believe in God," he said.
+
+"In that case..." began Willarski, but Pierre interrupted him.
+
+"Yes, I do believe in God," he repeated.
+
+"In that case we can go," said Willarski. "My carriage is at your
+service."
+
+Willarski was silent throughout the drive. To Pierre's inquiries as to
+what he must do and how he should answer, Willarski only replied that
+brothers more worthy than he would test him and that Pierre had only to
+tell the truth.
+
+Having entered the courtyard of a large house where the Lodge had its
+headquarters, and having ascended a dark staircase, they entered a small
+well-lit anteroom where they took off their cloaks without the aid of a
+servant. From there they passed into another room. A man in strange
+attire appeared at the door. Willarski, stepping toward him, said
+something to him in French in an undertone and then went up to a small
+wardrobe in which Pierre noticed garments such as he had never seen
+before. Having taken a kerchief from the cupboard, Willarski bound
+Pierre's eyes with it and tied it in a knot behind, catching some hairs
+painfully in the knot. Then he drew his face down, kissed him, and
+taking him by the hand led him forward. The hairs tied in the knot hurt
+Pierre and there were lines of pain on his face and a shamefaced smile.
+His huge figure, with arms hanging down and with a puckered, though
+smiling face, moved after Willarski with uncertain, timid steps.
+
+Having led him about ten paces, Willarski stopped.
+
+"Whatever happens to you," he said, "you must bear it all manfully if
+you have firmly resolved to join our Brotherhood." (Pierre nodded
+affirmatively.) "When you hear a knock at the door, you will uncover
+your eyes," added Willarski. "I wish you courage and success," and,
+pressing Pierre's hand, he went out.
+
+Left alone, Pierre went on smiling in the same way. Once or twice he
+shrugged his shoulders and raised his hand to the kerchief, as if
+wishing to take it off, but let it drop again. The five minutes spent
+with his eyes bandaged seemed to him an hour. His arms felt numb, his
+legs almost gave way, it seemed to him that he was tired out. He
+experienced a variety of most complex sensations. He felt afraid of what
+would happen to him and still more afraid of showing his fear. He felt
+curious to know what was going to happen and what would be revealed to
+him; but most of all, he felt joyful that the moment had come when he
+would at last start on that path of regeneration and on the actively
+virtuous life of which he had been dreaming since he met Joseph
+Alexeevich. Loud knocks were heard at the door. Pierre took the bandage
+off his eyes and glanced around him. The room was in black darkness,
+only a small lamp was burning inside something white. Pierre went nearer
+and saw that the lamp stood on a black table on which lay an open book.
+The book was the Gospel, and the white thing with the lamp inside was a
+human skull with its cavities and teeth. After reading the first words
+of the Gospel: "In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with
+God," Pierre went round the table and saw a large open box filled with
+something. It was a coffin with bones inside. He was not at all
+surprised by what he saw. Hoping to enter on an entirely new life quite
+unlike the old one, he expected everything to be unusual, even more
+unusual than what he was seeing. A skull, a coffin, the Gospel—it seemed
+to him that he had expected all this and even more. Trying to stimulate
+his emotions he looked around. "God, death, love, the brotherhood of
+man," he kept saying to himself, associating these words with vague yet
+joyful ideas. The door opened and someone came in.
+
+By the dim light, to which Pierre had already become accustomed, he saw
+a rather short man. Having evidently come from the light into the
+darkness, the man paused, then moved with cautious steps toward the
+table and placed on it his small leather-gloved hands.
+
+This short man had on a white leather apron which covered his chest and
+part of his legs; he had on a kind of necklace above which rose a high
+white ruffle, outlining his rather long face which was lit up from
+below.
+
+"For what have you come hither?" asked the newcomer, turning in Pierre's
+direction at a slight rustle made by the latter. "Why have you, who do
+not believe in the truth of the light and who have not seen the light,
+come here? What do you seek from us? Wisdom, virtue, enlightenment?"
+
+At the moment the door opened and the stranger came in, Pierre felt a
+sense of awe and veneration such as he had experienced in his boyhood at
+confession; he felt himself in the presence of one socially a complete
+stranger, yet nearer to him through the brotherhood of man. With bated
+breath and beating heart he moved toward the Rhetor (by which name the
+brother who prepared a seeker for entrance into the Brotherhood was
+known). Drawing nearer, he recognized in the Rhetor a man he knew,
+Smolyaninov, and it mortified him to think that the newcomer was an
+acquaintance—he wished him simply a brother and a virtuous instructor.
+For a long time he could not utter a word, so that the Rhetor had to
+repeat his question.
+
+"Yes... I... I... desire regeneration," Pierre uttered with difficulty.
+
+"Very well," said Smolyaninov, and went on at once: "Have you any idea
+of the means by which our holy Order will help you to reach your aim?"
+said he quietly and quickly.
+
+"I... hope... for guidance... help... in regeneration," said Pierre,
+with a trembling voice and some difficulty in utterance due to his
+excitement and to being unaccustomed to speak of abstract matters in
+Russian.
+
+"What is your conception of Freemasonry?"
+
+"I imagine that Freemasonry is the fraternity and equality of men who
+have virtuous aims," said Pierre, feeling ashamed of the inadequacy of
+his words for the solemnity of the moment, as he spoke. "I imagine..."
+
+"Good!" said the Rhetor quickly, apparently satisfied with this answer.
+"Have you sought for means of attaining your aim in religion?"
+
+"No, I considered it erroneous and did not follow it," said Pierre, so
+softly that the Rhetor did not hear him and asked him what he was
+saying. "I have been an atheist," answered Pierre.
+
+"You are seeking for truth in order to follow its laws in your life,
+therefore you seek wisdom and virtue. Is that not so?" said the Rhetor,
+after a moment's pause.
+
+"Yes, yes," assented Pierre.
+
+The Rhetor cleared his throat, crossed his gloved hands on his breast,
+and began to speak.
+
+"Now I must disclose to you the chief aim of our Order," he said, "and
+if this aim coincides with yours, you may enter our Brotherhood with
+profit. The first and chief object of our Order, the foundation on which
+it rests and which no human power can destroy, is the preservation and
+handing on to posterity of a certain important mystery... which has come
+down to us from the remotest ages, even from the first man—a mystery on
+which perhaps the fate of mankind depends. But since this mystery is of
+such a nature that nobody can know or use it unless he be prepared by
+long and diligent self-purification, not everyone can hope to attain it
+quickly. Hence we have a secondary aim, that of preparing our members as
+much as possible to reform their hearts, to purify and enlighten their
+minds, by means handed on to us by tradition from those who have striven
+to attain this mystery, and thereby to render them capable of receiving
+it.
+
+"By purifying and regenerating our members we try, thirdly, to improve
+the whole human race, offering it in our members an example of piety and
+virtue, and thereby try with all our might to combat the evil which
+sways the world. Think this over and I will come to you again."
+
+"To combat the evil which sways the world..." Pierre repeated, and a
+mental image of his future activity in this direction rose in his mind.
+He imagined men such as he had himself been a fortnight ago, and he
+addressed an edifying exhortation to them. He imagined to himself
+vicious and unfortunate people whom he would assist by word and deed,
+imagined oppressors whose victims he would rescue. Of the three objects
+mentioned by the Rhetor, this last, that of improving mankind,
+especially appealed to Pierre. The important mystery mentioned by the
+Rhetor, though it aroused his curiosity, did not seem to him essential,
+and the second aim, that of purifying and regenerating himself, did not
+much interest him because at that moment he felt with delight that he
+was already perfectly cured of his former faults and was ready for all
+that was good.
+
+Half an hour later, the Rhetor returned to inform the seeker of the
+seven virtues, corresponding to the seven steps of Solomon's temple,
+which every Freemason should cultivate in himself. These virtues were:
+1. Discretion, the keeping of the secrets of the Order. 2. Obedience to
+those of higher ranks in the Order. 3. Morality. 4. Love of mankind. 5.
+Courage. 6. Generosity. 7. The love of death.
+
+"In the seventh place, try, by the frequent thought of death," the
+Rhetor said, "to bring yourself to regard it not as a dreaded foe, but
+as a friend that frees the soul grown weary in the labors of virtue from
+this distressful life, and leads it to its place of recompense and
+peace."
+
+"Yes, that must be so," thought Pierre, when after these words the
+Rhetor went away, leaving him to solitary meditation. "It must be so,
+but I am still so weak that I love my life, the meaning of which is only
+now gradually opening before me." But five of the other virtues which
+Pierre recalled, counting them on his fingers, he felt already in his
+soul: courage, generosity, morality, love of mankind, and especially
+obedience—which did not even seem to him a virtue, but a joy. (He now
+felt so glad to be free from his own lawlessness and to submit his will
+to those who knew the indubitable truth.) He forgot what the seventh
+virtue was and could not recall it.
+
+The third time the Rhetor came back more quickly and asked Pierre
+whether he was still firm in his intention and determined to submit to
+all that would be required of him.
+
+"I am ready for everything," said Pierre.
+
+"I must also inform you," said the Rhetor, "that our Order delivers its
+teaching not in words only but also by other means, which may perhaps
+have a stronger effect on the sincere seeker after wisdom and virtue
+than mere words. This chamber with what you see therein should already
+have suggested to your heart, if it is sincere, more than words could
+do. You will perhaps also see in your further initiation a like method
+of enlightenment. Our Order imitates the ancient societies that
+explained their teaching by hieroglyphics. A hieroglyph," said the
+Rhetor, "is an emblem of something not cognizable by the senses but
+which possesses qualities resembling those of the symbol."
+
+Pierre knew very well what a hieroglyph was, but dared not speak. He
+listened to the Rhetor in silence, feeling from all he said that his
+ordeal was about to begin.
+
+"If you are resolved, I must begin your initiation," said the Rhetor
+coming closer to Pierre. "In token of generosity I ask you to give me
+all your valuables."
+
+"But I have nothing here," replied Pierre, supposing that he was asked
+to give up all he possessed.
+
+"What you have with you: watch, money, rings...."
+
+Pierre quickly took out his purse and watch, but could not manage for
+some time to get the wedding ring off his fat finger. When that had been
+done, the Rhetor said:
+
+"In token of obedience, I ask you to undress."
+
+Pierre took off his coat, waistcoat, and left boot according to the
+Rhetor's instructions. The Mason drew the shirt back from Pierre's left
+breast, and stooping down pulled up the left leg of his trousers to
+above the knee. Pierre hurriedly began taking off his right boot also
+and was going to tuck up the other trouser leg to save this stranger the
+trouble, but the Mason told him that was not necessary and gave him a
+slipper for his left foot. With a childlike smile of embarrassment,
+doubt, and self-derision, which appeared on his face against his will,
+Pierre stood with his arms hanging down and legs apart, before his
+brother Rhetor, and awaited his further commands.
+
+"And now, in token of candor, I ask you to reveal to me your chief
+passion," said the latter.
+
+"My passion! I have had so many," replied Pierre.
+
+"That passion which more than all others caused you to waver on the path
+of virtue," said the Mason.
+
+Pierre paused, seeking a reply.
+
+"Wine? Gluttony? Idleness? Laziness? Irritability? Anger? Women?" He
+went over his vices in his mind, not knowing to which of them to give
+the pre-eminence.
+
+"Women," he said in a low, scarcely audible voice.
+
+The Mason did not move and for a long time said nothing after this
+answer. At last he moved up to Pierre and, taking the kerchief that lay
+on the table, again bound his eyes.
+
+"For the last time I say to you—turn all your attention upon yourself,
+put a bridle on your senses, and seek blessedness, not in passion but in
+your own heart. The source of blessedness is not without us but
+within...."
+
+Pierre had already long been feeling in himself that refreshing source
+of blessedness which now flooded his heart with glad emotion.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+Soon after this there came into the dark chamber to fetch Pierre, not
+the Rhetor but Pierre's sponsor, Willarski, whom he recognized by his
+voice. To fresh questions as to the firmness of his resolution Pierre
+replied: "Yes, yes, I agree," and with a beaming, childlike smile, his
+fat chest uncovered, stepping unevenly and timidly in one slippered and
+one booted foot, he advanced, while Willarski held a sword to his bare
+chest. He was conducted from that room along passages that turned
+backwards and forwards and was at last brought to the doors of the
+Lodge. Willarski coughed, he was answered by the masonic knock with
+mallets, the doors opened before them. A bass voice (Pierre was still
+blindfolded) questioned him as to who he was, when and where he was
+born, and so on. Then he was again led somewhere still blindfolded, and
+as they went along he was told allegories of the toils of his
+pilgrimage, of holy friendship, of the Eternal Architect of the
+universe, and of the courage with which he should endure toils and
+dangers. During these wanderings, Pierre noticed that he was spoken of
+now as the "Seeker," now as the "Sufferer," and now as the "Postulant,"
+to the accompaniment of various knockings with mallets and swords. As he
+was being led up to some object he noticed a hesitation and uncertainty
+among his conductors. He heard those around him disputing in whispers
+and one of them insisting that he should be led along a certain carpet.
+After that they took his right hand, placed it on something, and told
+him to hold a pair of compasses to his left breast with the other hand
+and to repeat after someone who read aloud an oath of fidelity to the
+laws of the Order. The candles were then extinguished and some spirit
+lighted, as Pierre knew by the smell, and he was told that he would now
+see the lesser light. The bandage was taken off his eyes and, by the
+faint light of the burning spirit, Pierre, as in a dream, saw several
+men standing before him, wearing aprons like the Rhetor's and holding
+swords in their hands pointed at his breast. Among them stood a man
+whose white shirt was stained with blood. On seeing this, Pierre moved
+forward with his breast toward the swords, meaning them to pierce it.
+But the swords were drawn back from him and he was at once blindfolded
+again.
+
+"Now thou hast seen the lesser light," uttered a voice. Then the candles
+were relit and he was told that he would see the full light; the bandage
+was again removed and more than ten voices said together: "Sic transit
+gloria mundi."
+
+Pierre gradually began to recover himself and looked about at the room
+and at the people in it. Round a long table covered with black sat some
+twelve men in garments like those he had already seen. Some of them
+Pierre had met in Petersburg society. In the President's chair sat a
+young man he did not know, with a peculiar cross hanging from his neck.
+On his right sat the Italian abbé whom Pierre had met at Anna Pávlovna's
+two years before. There were also present a very distinguished dignitary
+and a Swiss who had formerly been tutor at the Kurágins'. All maintained
+a solemn silence, listening to the words of the President, who held a
+mallet in his hand. Let into the wall was a star-shaped light. At one
+side of the table was a small carpet with various figures worked upon
+it, at the other was something resembling an altar on which lay a
+Testament and a skull. Round it stood seven large candlesticks like
+those used in churches. Two of the brothers led Pierre up to the altar,
+placed his feet at right angles, and bade him lie down, saying that he
+must prostrate himself at the Gates of the Temple.
+
+"He must first receive the trowel," whispered one of the brothers.
+
+"Oh, hush, please!" said another.
+
+Pierre, perplexed, looked round with his shortsighted eyes without
+obeying, and suddenly doubts arose in his mind. "Where am I? What am I
+doing? Aren't they laughing at me? Shan't I be ashamed to remember
+this?" But these doubts only lasted a moment. Pierre glanced at the
+serious faces of those around, remembered all he had already gone
+through, and realized that he could not stop halfway. He was aghast at
+his hesitation and, trying to arouse his former devotional feeling,
+prostrated himself before the Gates of the Temple. And really, the
+feeling of devotion returned to him even more strongly than before. When
+he had lain there some time, he was told to get up, and a white leather
+apron, such as the others wore, was put on him: he was given a trowel
+and three pairs of gloves, and then the Grand Master addressed him. He
+told him that he should try to do nothing to stain the whiteness of that
+apron, which symbolized strength and purity; then of the unexplained
+trowel, he told him to toil with it to cleanse his own heart from vice,
+and indulgently to smooth with it the heart of his neighbor. As to the
+first pair of gloves, a man's, he said that Pierre could not know their
+meaning but must keep them. The second pair of man's gloves he was to
+wear at the meetings, and finally of the third, a pair of women's
+gloves, he said: "Dear brother, these woman's gloves are intended for
+you too. Give them to the woman whom you shall honor most of all. This
+gift will be a pledge of your purity of heart to her whom you select to
+be your worthy helpmeet in Masonry." And after a pause, he added: "But
+beware, dear brother, that these gloves do not deck hands that are
+unclean." While the Grand Master said these last words it seemed to
+Pierre that he grew embarrassed. Pierre himself grew still more
+confused, blushed like a child till tears came to his eyes, began
+looking about him uneasily, and an awkward pause followed.
+
+This silence was broken by one of the brethren, who led Pierre up to the
+rug and began reading to him from a manuscript book an explanation of
+all the figures on it: the sun, the moon, a hammer, a plumb line, a
+trowel, a rough stone and a squared stone, a pillar, three windows, and
+so on. Then a place was assigned to Pierre, he was shown the signs of
+the Lodge, told the password, and at last was permitted to sit down. The
+Grand Master began reading the statutes. They were very long, and
+Pierre, from joy, agitation, and embarrassment, was not in a state to
+understand what was being read. He managed to follow only the last words
+of the statutes and these remained in his mind.
+
+"In our temples we recognize no other distinctions," read the Grand
+Master, "but those between virtue and vice. Beware of making any
+distinctions which may infringe equality. Fly to a brother's aid whoever
+he may be, exhort him who goeth astray, raise him that falleth, never
+bear malice or enmity toward thy brother. Be kindly and courteous.
+Kindle in all hearts the flame of virtue. Share thy happiness with thy
+neighbor, and may envy never dim the purity of that bliss. Forgive thy
+enemy, do not avenge thyself except by doing him good. Thus fulfilling
+the highest law thou shalt regain traces of the ancient dignity which
+thou hast lost."
+
+He finished and, getting up, embraced and kissed Pierre, who, with tears
+of joy in his eyes, looked round him, not knowing how to answer the
+congratulations and greetings from acquaintances that met him on all
+sides. He acknowledged no acquaintances but saw in all these men only
+brothers, and burned with impatience to set to work with them.
+
+The Grand Master rapped with his mallet. All the Masons sat down in
+their places, and one of them read an exhortation on the necessity of
+humility.
+
+The Grand Master proposed that the last duty should be performed, and
+the distinguished dignitary who bore the title of "Collector of Alms"
+went round to all the brothers. Pierre would have liked to subscribe all
+he had, but fearing that it might look like pride subscribed the same
+amount as the others.
+
+The meeting was at an end, and on reaching home Pierre felt as if he had
+returned from a long journey on which he had spent dozens of years, had
+become completely changed, and had quite left behind his former habits
+and way of life.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+The day after he had been received into the Lodge, Pierre was sitting at
+home reading a book and trying to fathom the significance of the Square,
+one side of which symbolized God, another moral things, a third physical
+things, and the fourth a combination of these. Now and then his
+attention wandered from the book and the Square and he formed in
+imagination a new plan of life. On the previous evening at the Lodge, he
+had heard that a rumor of his duel had reached the Emperor and that it
+would be wiser for him to leave Petersburg. Pierre proposed going to his
+estates in the south and there attending to the welfare of his serfs. He
+was joyfully planning this new life, when Prince Vasíli suddenly entered
+the room.
+
+"My dear fellow, what have you been up to in Moscow? Why have you
+quarreled with Hélène, mon cher? You are under a delusion," said Prince
+Vasíli, as he entered. "I know all about it, and I can tell you
+positively that Hélène is as innocent before you as Christ was before
+the Jews."
+
+Pierre was about to reply, but Prince Vasíli interrupted him.
+
+"And why didn't you simply come straight to me as to a friend? I know
+all about it and understand it all," he said. "You behaved as becomes a
+man who values his honor, perhaps too hastily, but we won't go into
+that. But consider the position in which you are placing her and me in
+the eyes of society, and even of the court," he added, lowering his
+voice. "She is living in Moscow and you are here. Remember, dear boy,"
+and he drew Pierre's arm downwards, "it is simply a misunderstanding. I
+expect you feel it so yourself. Let us write her a letter at once, and
+she'll come here and all will be explained, or else, my dear boy, let me
+tell you it's quite likely you'll have to suffer for it."
+
+Prince Vasíli gave Pierre a significant look.
+
+"I know from reliable sources that the Dowager Empress is taking a keen
+interest in the whole affair. You know she is very gracious to Hélène."
+
+Pierre tried several times to speak, but, on one hand, Prince Vasíli did
+not let him and, on the other, Pierre himself feared to begin to speak
+in the tone of decided refusal and disagreement in which he had firmly
+resolved to answer his father-in-law. Moreover, the words of the masonic
+statutes, "be kindly and courteous," recurred to him. He blinked, went
+red, got up and sat down again, struggling with himself to do what was
+for him the most difficult thing in life—to say an unpleasant thing to a
+man's face, to say what the other, whoever he might be, did not expect.
+He was so used to submitting to Prince Vasíli's tone of careless self-
+assurance that he felt he would be unable to withstand it now, but he
+also felt that on what he said now his future depended—whether he would
+follow the same old road, or that new path so attractively shown him by
+the Masons, on which he firmly believed he would be reborn to a new
+life.
+
+"Now, dear boy," said Prince Vasíli playfully, "say 'yes,' and I'll
+write to her myself, and we will kill the fatted calf."
+
+But before Prince Vasíli had finished his playful speech, Pierre,
+without looking at him, and with a kind of fury that made him like his
+father, muttered in a whisper:
+
+"Prince, I did not ask you here. Go, please go!" And he jumped up and
+opened the door for him.
+
+"Go!" he repeated, amazed at himself and glad to see the look of
+confusion and fear that showed itself on Prince Vasíli's face.
+
+"What's the matter with you? Are you ill?"
+
+"Go!" the quivering voice repeated. And Prince Vasíli had to go without
+receiving any explanation.
+
+A week later, Pierre, having taken leave of his new friends, the Masons,
+and leaving large sums of money with them for alms, went away to his
+estates. His new brethren gave him letters to the Kiev and Odessa Masons
+and promised to write to him and guide him in his new activity.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+The duel between Pierre and Dólokhov was hushed up and, in spite of the
+Emperor's severity regarding duels at that time, neither the principals
+nor their seconds suffered for it. But the story of the duel, confirmed
+by Pierre's rupture with his wife, was the talk of society. Pierre who
+had been regarded with patronizing condescension when he was an
+illegitimate son, and petted and extolled when he was the best match in
+Russia, had sunk greatly in the esteem of society after his
+marriage—when the marriageable daughters and their mothers had nothing
+to hope from him—especially as he did not know how, and did not wish, to
+court society's favor. Now he alone was blamed for what had happened, he
+was said to be insanely jealous and subject like his father to fits of
+bloodthirsty rage. And when after Pierre's departure Hélène returned to
+Petersburg, she was received by all her acquaintances not only
+cordially, but even with a shade of deference due to her misfortune.
+When conversation turned on her husband Hélène assumed a dignified
+expression, which with characteristic tact she had acquired though she
+did not understand its significance. This expression suggested that she
+had resolved to endure her troubles uncomplainingly and that her husband
+was a cross laid upon her by God. Prince Vasíli expressed his opinion
+more openly. He shrugged his shoulders when Pierre was mentioned and,
+pointing to his forehead, remarked:
+
+"A bit touched—I always said so."
+
+"I said from the first," declared Anna Pávlovna referring to Pierre, "I
+said at the time and before anyone else" (she insisted on her priority)
+"that that senseless young man was spoiled by the depraved ideas of
+these days. I said so even at the time when everybody was in raptures
+about him, when he had just returned from abroad, and when, if you
+remember, he posed as a sort of Marat at one of my soirees. And how has
+it ended? I was against this marriage even then and foretold all that
+has happened."
+
+Anna Pávlovna continued to give on free evenings the same kind of
+soirees as before—such as she alone had the gift of arranging—at which
+was to be found "the cream of really good society, the bloom of the
+intellectual essence of Petersburg," as she herself put it. Besides this
+refined selection of society Anna Pávlovna's receptions were also
+distinguished by the fact that she always presented some new and
+interesting person to the visitors and that nowhere else was the state
+of the political thermometer of legitimate Petersburg court society so
+dearly and distinctly indicated.
+
+Toward the end of 1806, when all the sad details of Napoleon's
+destruction of the Prussian army at Jena and Auerstadt and the surrender
+of most of the Prussian fortresses had been received, when our troops
+had already entered Prussia and our second war with Napoleon was
+beginning, Anna Pávlovna gave one of her soirees. The "cream of really
+good society" consisted of the fascinating Hélène, forsaken by her
+husband, Mortemart, the delightful Prince Hippolyte who had just
+returned from Vienna, two diplomatists, the old aunt, a young man
+referred to in that drawing room as "a man of great merit" (un homme de
+beaucoup de merite), a newly appointed maid of honor and her mother, and
+several other less noteworthy persons.
+
+The novelty Anna Pávlovna was setting before her guests that evening was
+Borís Drubetskóy, who had just arrived as a special messenger from the
+Prussian army and was aide-de-camp to a very important personage.
+
+The temperature shown by the political thermometer to the company that
+evening was this:
+
+"Whatever the European sovereigns and commanders may do to countenance
+Bonaparte, and to cause me, and us in general, annoyance and
+mortification, our opinion of Bonaparte cannot alter. We shall not cease
+to express our sincere views on that subject, and can only say to the
+King of Prussia and others: 'So much the worse for you. Tu l'as voulu,
+George Dandin,' that's all we have to say about it!"
+
+When Borís, who was to be served up to the guests, entered the drawing
+room, almost all the company had assembled, and the conversation, guided
+by Anna Pávlovna, was about our diplomatic relations with Austria and
+the hope of an alliance with her.
+
+Borís, grown more manly and looking fresh, rosy and self-possessed,
+entered the drawing room elegantly dressed in the uniform of an aide-de-
+camp and was duly conducted to pay his respects to the aunt and then
+brought back to the general circle.
+
+Anna Pávlovna gave him her shriveled hand to kiss and introduced him to
+several persons whom he did not know, giving him a whispered description
+of each.
+
+"Prince Hippolyte Kurágin, M. Krug, the charge d'affaires from
+Copenhagen—a profound intellect," and simply, "Mr. Shitov—a man of great
+merit"—this of the man usually so described.
+
+Thanks to Anna Mikháylovna's efforts, his own tastes, and the
+peculiarities of his reserved nature, Borís had managed during his
+service to place himself very advantageously. He was aide-de-camp to a
+very important personage, had been sent on a very important mission to
+Prussia, and had just returned from there as a special messenger. He had
+become thoroughly conversant with that unwritten code with which he had
+been so pleased at Olmutz and according to which an ensign might rank
+incomparably higher than a general, and according to which what was
+needed for success in the service was not effort or work, or courage, or
+perseverance, but only the knowledge of how to get on with those who can
+grant rewards, and he was himself often surprised at the rapidity of his
+success and at the inability of others to understand these things. In
+consequence of this discovery his whole manner of life, all his
+relations with old friends, all his plans for his future, were
+completely altered. He was not rich, but would spend his last groat to
+be better dressed than others, and would rather deprive himself of many
+pleasures than allow himself to be seen in a shabby equipage or appear
+in the streets of Petersburg in an old uniform. He made friends with and
+sought the acquaintance of only those above him in position and who
+could therefore be of use to him. He liked Petersburg and despised
+Moscow. The remembrance of the Rostóvs' house and of his childish love
+for Natásha was unpleasant to him and he had not once been to see the
+Rostóvs since the day of his departure for the army. To be in Anna
+Pávlovna's drawing room he considered an important step up in the
+service, and he at once understood his role, letting his hostess make
+use of whatever interest he had to offer. He himself carefully scanned
+each face, appraising the possibilities of establishing intimacy with
+each of those present, and the advantages that might accrue. He took the
+seat indicated to him beside the fair Hélène and listened to the general
+conversation.
+
+"Vienna considers the bases of the proposed treaty so unattainable that
+not even a continuity of most brilliant successes would secure them, and
+she doubts the means we have of gaining them. That is the actual phrase
+used by the Vienna cabinet," said the Danish charge d'affaires.
+
+"The doubt is flattering," said "the man of profound intellect," with a
+subtle smile.
+
+"We must distinguish between the Vienna cabinet and the Emperor of
+Austria," said Mortemart. "The Emperor of Austria can never have thought
+of such a thing, it is only the cabinet that says it."
+
+"Ah, my dear vicomte," put in Anna Pávlovna, "L'Urope" (for some reason
+she called it Urope as if that were a specially refined French
+pronunciation which she could allow herself when conversing with a
+Frenchman), "L'Urope ne sera jamais notre alliee sincere." *
+
+* "Europe will never be our sincere ally."
+
+After that Anna Pávlovna led up to the courage and firmness of the King
+of Prussia, in order to draw Borís into the conversation.
+
+Borís listened attentively to each of the speakers, awaiting his turn,
+but managed meanwhile to look round repeatedly at his neighbor, the
+beautiful Hélène, whose eyes several times met those of the handsome
+young aide-de-camp with a smile.
+
+Speaking of the position of Prussia, Anna Pávlovna very naturally asked
+Borís to tell them about his journey to Glogau and in what state he
+found the Prussian army. Borís, speaking with deliberation, told them in
+pure, correct French many interesting details about the armies and the
+court, carefully abstaining from expressing an opinion of his own about
+the facts he was recounting. For some time he engrossed the general
+attention, and Anna Pávlovna felt that the novelty she had served up was
+received with pleasure by all her visitors. The greatest attention of
+all to Borís' narrative was shown by Hélène. She asked him several
+questions about his journey and seemed greatly interested in the state
+of the Prussian army. As soon as he had finished she turned to him with
+her usual smile.
+
+"You absolutely must come and see me," she said in a tone that implied
+that, for certain considerations he could not know of, this was
+absolutely necessary.
+
+"On Tuesday between eight and nine. It will give me great pleasure."
+
+Borís promised to fulfill her wish and was about to begin a conversation
+with her, when Anna Pávlovna called him away on the pretext that her
+aunt wished to hear him.
+
+"You know her husband, of course?" said Anna Pávlovna, closing her eyes
+and indicating Hélène with a sorrowful gesture. "Ah, she is such an
+unfortunate and charming woman! Don't mention him before her—please
+don't! It is too painful for her!"
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+When Borís and Anna Pávlovna returned to the others Prince Hippolyte had
+the ear of the company.
+
+Bending forward in his armchair he said: "Le Roi de Prusse!" and having
+said this laughed. Everyone turned toward him.
+
+"Le Roi de Prusse?" Hippolyte said interrogatively, again laughing, and
+then calmly and seriously sat back in his chair. Anna Pávlovna waited
+for him to go on, but as he seemed quite decided to say no more she
+began to tell of how at Potsdam the impious Bonaparte had stolen the
+sword of Frederick the Great.
+
+"It is the sword of Frederick the Great which I..." she began, but
+Hippolyte interrupted her with the words: "Le Roi de Prusse..." and
+again, as soon as all turned toward him, excused himself and said no
+more.
+
+Anna Pávlovna frowned. Mortemart, Hippolyte's friend, addressed him
+firmly.
+
+"Come now, what about your Roi de Prusse?"
+
+Hippolyte laughed as if ashamed of laughing.
+
+"Oh, it's nothing. I only wished to say..." (he wanted to repeat a joke
+he had heard in Vienna and which he had been trying all that evening to
+get in) "I only wished to say that we are wrong to fight pour le Roi de
+Prusse!"
+
+Borís smiled circumspectly, so that it might be taken as ironical or
+appreciative according to the way the joke was received. Everybody
+laughed.
+
+"Your joke is too bad, it's witty but unjust," said Anna Pávlovna,
+shaking her little shriveled finger at him.
+
+"We are not fighting pour le Roi de Prusse, but for right principles.
+Oh, that wicked Prince Hippolyte!" she said.
+
+The conversation did not flag all evening and turned chiefly on the
+political news. It became particularly animated toward the end of the
+evening when the rewards bestowed by the Emperor were mentioned.
+
+"You know N— N— received a snuffbox with the portrait last year?" said
+"the man of profound intellect." "Why shouldn't S— S— get the same
+distinction?"
+
+"Pardon me! A snuffbox with the Emperor's portrait is a reward but not a
+distinction," said the diplomatist—"a gift, rather."
+
+"There are precedents, I may mention Schwarzenberg."
+
+"It's impossible," replied another.
+
+"Will you bet? The ribbon of the order is a different matter...."
+
+When everybody rose to go, Hélène who had spoken very little all the
+evening again turned to Borís, asking him in a tone of caressing
+significant command to come to her on Tuesday.
+
+"It is of great importance to me," she said, turning with a smile toward
+Anna Pávlovna, and Anna Pávlovna, with the same sad smile with which she
+spoke of her exalted patroness, supported Hélène's wish.
+
+It seemed as if from some words Borís had spoken that evening about the
+Prussian army, Hélène had suddenly found it necessary to see him. She
+seemed to promise to explain that necessity to him when he came on
+Tuesday.
+
+But on Tuesday evening, having come to Hélène's splendid salon, Borís
+received no clear explanation of why it had been necessary for him to
+come. There were other guests and the countess talked little to him, and
+only as he kissed her hand on taking leave said unexpectedly and in a
+whisper, with a strangely unsmiling face: "Come to dinner tomorrow... in
+the evening. You must come.... Come!"
+
+During that stay in Petersburg, Borís became an intimate in the
+countess' house.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+The war was flaming up and nearing the Russian frontier. Everywhere one
+heard curses on Bonaparte, "the enemy of mankind." Militiamen and
+recruits were being enrolled in the villages, and from the seat of war
+came contradictory news, false as usual and therefore variously
+interpreted. The life of old Prince Bolkónski, Prince Andrew, and
+Princess Mary had greatly changed since 1805.
+
+In 1806 the old prince was made one of the eight commanders in chief
+then appointed to supervise the enrollment decreed throughout Russia.
+Despite the weakness of age, which had become particularly noticeable
+since the time when he thought his son had been killed, he did not think
+it right to refuse a duty to which he had been appointed by the Emperor
+himself, and this fresh opportunity for action gave him new energy and
+strength. He was continually traveling through the three provinces
+entrusted to him, was pedantic in the fulfillment of his duties, severe
+to cruel with his subordinates, and went into everything down to the
+minutest details himself. Princess Mary had ceased taking lessons in
+mathematics from her father, and when the old prince was at home went to
+his study with the wet nurse and little Prince Nicholas (as his
+grandfather called him). The baby Prince Nicholas lived with his wet
+nurse and nurse Savishna in the late princess' rooms and Princess Mary
+spent most of the day in the nursery, taking a mother's place to her
+little nephew as best she could. Mademoiselle Bourienne, too, seemed
+passionately fond of the boy, and Princess Mary often deprived herself
+to give her friend the pleasure of dandling the little angel—as she
+called her nephew—and playing with him.
+
+Near the altar of the church at Bald Hills there was a chapel over the
+tomb of the little princess, and in this chapel was a marble monument
+brought from Italy, representing an angel with outspread wings ready to
+fly upwards. The angel's upper lip was slightly raised as though about
+to smile, and once on coming out of the chapel Prince Andrew and
+Princess Mary admitted to one another that the angel's face reminded
+them strangely of the little princess. But what was still stranger,
+though of this Prince Andrew said nothing to his sister, was that in the
+expression the sculptor had happened to give the angel's face, Prince
+Andrew read the same mild reproach he had read on the face of his dead
+wife: "Ah, why have you done this to me?"
+
+Soon after Prince Andrew's return the old prince made over to him a
+large estate, Bogucharovo, about twenty-five miles from Bald Hills.
+Partly because of the depressing memories associated with Bald Hills,
+partly because Prince Andrew did not always feel equal to bearing with
+his father's peculiarities, and partly because he needed solitude,
+Prince Andrew made use of Bogucharovo, began building and spent most of
+his time there.
+
+After the Austerlitz campaign Prince Andrew had firmly resolved not to
+continue his military service, and when the war recommenced and
+everybody had to serve, he took a post under his father in the
+recruitment so as to avoid active service. The old prince and his son
+seemed to have changed roles since the campaign of 1805. The old man,
+roused by activity, expected the best results from the new campaign,
+while Prince Andrew on the contrary, taking no part in the war and
+secretly regretting this, saw only the dark side.
+
+On February 26, 1807, the old prince set off on one of his circuits.
+Prince Andrew remained at Bald Hills as usual during his father's
+absence. Little Nicholas had been unwell for four days. The coachman who
+had driven the old prince to town returned bringing papers and letters
+for Prince Andrew.
+
+Not finding the young prince in his study the valet went with the
+letters to Princess Mary's apartments, but did not find him there. He
+was told that the prince had gone to the nursery.
+
+"If you please, your excellency, Petrusha has brought some papers," said
+one of the nursemaids to Prince Andrew who was sitting on a child's
+little chair while, frowning and with trembling hands, he poured drops
+from a medicine bottle into a wineglass half full of water.
+
+"What is it?" he said crossly, and, his hand shaking unintentionally, he
+poured too many drops into the glass. He threw the mixture onto the
+floor and asked for some more water. The maid brought it.
+
+There were in the room a child's cot, two boxes, two armchairs, a table,
+a child's table, and the little chair on which Prince Andrew was
+sitting. The curtains were drawn, and a single candle was burning on the
+table, screened by a bound music book so that the light did not fall on
+the cot.
+
+"My dear," said Princess Mary, addressing her brother from beside the
+cot where she was standing, "better wait a bit... later..."
+
+"Oh, leave off, you always talk nonsense and keep putting things off—and
+this is what comes of it!" said Prince Andrew in an exasperated whisper,
+evidently meaning to wound his sister.
+
+"My dear, really... it's better not to wake him... he's asleep," said
+the princess in a tone of entreaty.
+
+Prince Andrew got up and went on tiptoe up to the little bed, wineglass
+in hand.
+
+"Perhaps we'd really better not wake him," he said hesitating.
+
+"As you please... really... I think so... but as you please," said
+Princess Mary, evidently intimidated and confused that her opinion had
+prevailed. She drew her brother's attention to the maid who was calling
+him in a whisper.
+
+It was the second night that neither of them had slept, watching the boy
+who was in a high fever. These last days, mistrusting their household
+doctor and expecting another for whom they had sent to town, they had
+been trying first one remedy and then another. Worn out by sleeplessness
+and anxiety they threw their burden of sorrow on one another and
+reproached and disputed with each other.
+
+"Petrusha has come with papers from your father," whispered the maid.
+
+Prince Andrew went out.
+
+"Devil take them!" he muttered, and after listening to the verbal
+instructions his father had sent and taking the correspondence and his
+father's letter, he returned to the nursery.
+
+"Well?" he asked.
+
+"Still the same. Wait, for heaven's sake. Karl Ivanich always says that
+sleep is more important than anything," whispered Princess Mary with a
+sigh.
+
+Prince Andrew went up to the child and felt him. He was burning hot.
+
+"Confound you and your Karl Ivanich!" He took the glass with the drops
+and again went up to the cot.
+
+"Andrew, don't!" said Princess Mary.
+
+But he scowled at her angrily though also with suffering in his eyes,
+and stooped glass in hand over the infant.
+
+"But I wish it," he said. "I beg you—give it him!"
+
+Princess Mary shrugged her shoulders but took the glass submissively and
+calling the nurse began giving the medicine. The child screamed
+hoarsely. Prince Andrew winced and, clutching his head, went out and sat
+down on a sofa in the next room.
+
+He still had all the letters in his hand. Opening them mechanically he
+began reading. The old prince, now and then using abbreviations, wrote
+in his large elongated hand on blue paper as follows:
+
+Have just this moment received by special messenger very joyful news—if
+it's not false. Bennigsen seems to have obtained a complete victory over
+Buonaparte at Eylau. In Petersburg everyone is rejoicing, and the
+rewards sent to the army are innumerable. Though he is a German—I
+congratulate him! I can't make out what the commander at Korchevo—a
+certain Khandrikov—is up to; till now the additional men and provisions
+have not arrived. Gallop off to him at once and say I'll have his head
+off if everything is not here in a week. Have received another letter
+about the Preussisch-Eylau battle from Petenka—he took part in it—and
+it's all true. When mischief-makers don't meddle even a German beats
+Buonaparte. He is said to be fleeing in great disorder. Mind you gallop
+off to Korchevo without delay and carry out instructions!
+
+Prince Andrew sighed and broke the seal of another envelope. It was a
+closely written letter of two sheets from Bilibin. He folded it up
+without reading it and reread his father's letter, ending with the
+words: "Gallop off to Korchevo and carry out instructions!"
+
+"No, pardon me, I won't go now till the child is better," thought he,
+going to the door and looking into the nursery.
+
+Princess Mary was still standing by the cot, gently rocking the baby.
+
+"Ah yes, and what else did he say that's unpleasant?" thought Prince
+Andrew, recalling his father's letter. "Yes, we have gained a victory
+over Bonaparte, just when I'm not serving. Yes, yes, he's always poking
+fun at me.... Ah, well! Let him!" And he began reading Bilibin's letter
+which was written in French. He read without understanding half of it,
+read only to forget, if but for a moment, what he had too long been
+thinking of so painfully to the exclusion of all else.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+Bilibin was now at army headquarters in a diplomatic capacity, and
+though he wrote in French and used French jests and French idioms, he
+described the whole campaign with a fearless self-censure and self-
+derision genuinely Russian. Bilibin wrote that the obligation of
+diplomatic discretion tormented him, and he was happy to have in Prince
+Andrew a reliable correspondent to whom he could pour out the bile he
+had accumulated at the sight of all that was being done in the army. The
+letter was old, having been written before the battle at Preussisch-
+Eylau.
+
+"Since the day of our brilliant success at Austerlitz," wrote Bilibin,
+"as you know, my dear prince, I never leave headquarters. I have
+certainly acquired a taste for war, and it is just as well for me; what
+I have seen during these last three months is incredible.
+
+"I begin ab ovo. 'The enemy of the human race,' as you know, attacks the
+Prussians. The Prussians are our faithful allies who have only betrayed
+us three times in three years. We take up their cause, but it turns out
+that 'the enemy of the human race' pays no heed to our fine speeches and
+in his rude and savage way throws himself on the Prussians without
+giving them time to finish the parade they had begun, and in two twists
+of the hand he breaks them to smithereens and installs himself in the
+palace at Potsdam.
+
+"'I most ardently desire,' writes the King of Prussia to Bonaparte,
+'that Your Majesty should be received and treated in my palace in a
+manner agreeable to yourself, and in so far as circumstances allowed, I
+have hastened to take all steps to that end. May I have succeeded!' The
+Prussian generals pride themselves on being polite to the French and lay
+down their arms at the first demand.
+
+"The head of the garrison at Glogau, with ten thousand men, asks the
+King of Prussia what he is to do if he is summoned to surrender.... All
+this is absolutely true.
+
+"In short, hoping to settle matters by taking up a warlike attitude, it
+turns out that we have landed ourselves in war, and what is more, in war
+on our own frontiers, with and for the King of Prussia. We have
+everything in perfect order, only one little thing is lacking, namely, a
+commander in chief. As it was considered that the Austerlitz success
+might have been more decisive had the commander-in-chief not been so
+young, all our octogenarians were reviewed, and of Prozorovski and
+Kamenski the latter was preferred. The general comes to us, Suvórov-
+like, in a kibitka, and is received with acclamations of joy and
+triumph.
+
+"On the 4th, the first courier arrives from Petersburg. The mails are
+taken to the field marshal's room, for he likes to do everything
+himself. I am called in to help sort the letters and take those meant
+for us. The field marshal looks on and waits for letters addressed to
+him. We search, but none are to be found. The field marshal grows
+impatient and sets to work himself and finds letters from the Emperor to
+Count T., Prince V., and others. Then he bursts into one of his wild
+furies and rages at everyone and everything, seizes the letters, opens
+them, and reads those from the Emperor addressed to others. 'Ah! So
+that's the way they treat me! No confidence in me! Ah, ordered to keep
+an eye on me! Very well then! Get along with you!' So he writes the
+famous order of the day to General Bennigsen:
+
+'I am wounded and cannot ride and consequently cannot command the army.
+You have brought your army corps to Pultusk, routed: here it is exposed,
+and without fuel or forage, so something must be done, and, as you
+yourself reported to Count Buxhowden yesterday, you must think of
+retreating to our frontier—which do today.'
+
+"'From all my riding,' he writes to the Emperor, 'I have got a saddle
+sore which, coming after all my previous journeys, quite prevents my
+riding and commanding so vast an army, so I have passed on the command
+to the general next in seniority, Count Buxhowden, having sent him my
+whole staff and all that belongs to it, advising him if there is a lack
+of bread, to move farther into the interior of Prussia, for only one
+day's ration of bread remains, and in some regiments none at all, as
+reported by the division commanders, Ostermann and Sedmoretzki, and all
+that the peasants had has been eaten up. I myself will remain in
+hospital at Ostrolenka till I recover. In regard to which I humbly
+submit my report, with the information that if the army remains in its
+present bivouac another fortnight there will not be a healthy man left
+in it by spring.
+
+"'Grant leave to retire to his country seat to an old man who is already
+in any case dishonored by being unable to fulfill the great and glorious
+task for which he was chosen. I shall await your most gracious
+permission here in hospital, that I may not have to play the part of a
+secretary rather than commander in the army. My removal from the army
+does not produce the slightest stir—a blind man has left it. There are
+thousands such as I in Russia.'
+
+"The field marshal is angry with the Emperor and he punishes us all,
+isn't it logical?
+
+"This is the first act. Those that follow are naturally increasingly
+interesting and entertaining. After the field marshal's departure it
+appears that we are within sight of the enemy and must give battle.
+Buxhowden is commander-in-chief by seniority, but General Bennigsen does
+not quite see it; more particularly as it is he and his corps who are
+within sight of the enemy and he wishes to profit by the opportunity to
+fight a battle 'on his own hand' as the Germans say. He does so. This is
+the battle of Pultusk, which is considered a great victory but in my
+opinion was nothing of the kind. We civilians, as you know, have a very
+bad way of deciding whether a battle was won or lost. Those who retreat
+after a battle have lost it is what we say; and according to that it is
+we who lost the battle of Pultusk. In short, we retreat after the battle
+but send a courier to Petersburg with news of a victory, and General
+Bennigsen, hoping to receive from Petersburg the post of commander in
+chief as a reward for his victory, does not give up the command of the
+army to General Buxhowden. During this interregnum we begin a very
+original and interesting series of maneuvers. Our aim is no longer, as
+it should be, to avoid or attack the enemy, but solely to avoid General
+Buxhowden who by right of seniority should be our chief. So
+energetically do we pursue this aim that after crossing an unfordable
+river we burn the bridges to separate ourselves from our enemy, who at
+the moment is not Bonaparte but Buxhowden. General Buxhowden was all but
+attacked and captured by a superior enemy force as a result of one of
+these maneuvers that enabled us to escape him. Buxhowden pursues us—we
+scuttle. He hardly crosses the river to our side before we recross to
+the other. At last our enemy, Buxhowden, catches us and attacks. Both
+generals are angry, and the result is a challenge on Buxhowden's part
+and an epileptic fit on Bennigsen's. But at the critical moment the
+courier who carried the news of our victory at Pultusk to Petersburg
+returns bringing our appointment as commander-in-chief, and our first
+foe, Buxhowden, is vanquished; we can now turn our thoughts to the
+second, Bonaparte. But as it turns out, just at that moment a third
+enemy rises before us—namely the Orthodox Russian soldiers, loudly
+demanding bread, meat, biscuits, fodder, and whatnot! The stores are
+empty, the roads impassable. The Orthodox begin looting, and in a way of
+which our last campaign can give you no idea. Half the regiments form
+bands and scour the countryside and put everything to fire and sword.
+The inhabitants are totally ruined, the hospitals overflow with sick,
+and famine is everywhere. Twice the marauders even attack our
+headquarters, and the commander-in-chief has to ask for a battalion to
+disperse them. During one of these attacks they carried off my empty
+portmanteau and my dressing gown. The Emperor proposes to give all
+commanders of divisions the right to shoot marauders, but I much fear
+this will oblige one half the army to shoot the other."
+
+At first Prince Andrew read with his eyes only, but after a while, in
+spite of himself (although he knew how far it was safe to trust
+Bilibin), what he had read began to interest him more and more. When he
+had read thus far, he crumpled the letter up and threw it away. It was
+not what he had read that vexed him, but the fact that the life out
+there in which he had now no part could perturb him. He shut his eyes,
+rubbed his forehead as if to rid himself of all interest in what he had
+read, and listened to what was passing in the nursery. Suddenly he
+thought he heard a strange noise through the door. He was seized with
+alarm lest something should have happened to the child while he was
+reading the letter. He went on tiptoe to the nursery door and opened it.
+
+Just as he went in he saw that the nurse was hiding something from him
+with a scared look and that Princess Mary was no longer by the cot.
+
+"My dear," he heard what seemed to him her despairing whisper behind
+him.
+
+As often happens after long sleeplessness and long anxiety, he was
+seized by an unreasoning panic—it occurred to him that the child was
+dead. All that he saw and heard seemed to confirm this terror.
+
+"All is over," he thought, and a cold sweat broke out on his forehead.
+He went to the cot in confusion, sure that he would find it empty and
+that the nurse had been hiding the dead baby. He drew the curtain aside
+and for some time his frightened, restless eyes could not find the baby.
+At last he saw him: the rosy boy had tossed about till he lay across the
+bed with his head lower than the pillow, and was smacking his lips in
+his sleep and breathing evenly.
+
+Prince Andrew was as glad to find the boy like that, as if he had
+already lost him. He bent over him and, as his sister had taught him,
+tried with his lips whether the child was still feverish. The soft
+forehead was moist. Prince Andrew touched the head with his hand; even
+the hair was wet, so profusely had the child perspired. He was not dead,
+but evidently the crisis was over and he was convalescent. Prince Andrew
+longed to snatch up, to squeeze, to hold to his heart, this helpless
+little creature, but dared not do so. He stood over him, gazing at his
+head and at the little arms and legs which showed under the blanket. He
+heard a rustle behind him and a shadow appeared under the curtain of the
+cot. He did not look round, but still gazing at the infant's face
+listened to his regular breathing. The dark shadow was Princess Mary,
+who had come up to the cot with noiseless steps, lifted the curtain, and
+dropped it again behind her. Prince Andrew recognized her without
+looking and held out his hand to her. She pressed it.
+
+"He has perspired," said Prince Andrew.
+
+"I was coming to tell you so."
+
+The child moved slightly in his sleep, smiled, and rubbed his forehead
+against the pillow.
+
+Prince Andrew looked at his sister. In the dim shadow of the curtain her
+luminous eyes shone more brightly than usual from the tears of joy that
+were in them. She leaned over to her brother and kissed him, slightly
+catching the curtain of the cot. Each made the other a warning gesture
+and stood still in the dim light beneath the curtain as if not wishing
+to leave that seclusion where they three were shut off from all the
+world. Prince Andrew was the first to move away, ruffling his hair
+against the muslin of the curtain.
+
+"Yes, this is the one thing left me now," he said with a sigh.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+Soon after his admission to the masonic Brotherhood, Pierre went to the
+Kiev province, where he had the greatest number of serfs, taking with
+him full directions which he had written down for his own guidance as to
+what he should do on his estates.
+
+When he reached Kiev he sent for all his stewards to the head office and
+explained to them his intentions and wishes. He told them that steps
+would be taken immediately to free his serfs—and that till then they
+were not to be overburdened with labor, women while nursing their babies
+were not to be sent to work, assistance was to be given to the serfs,
+punishments were to be admonitory and not corporal, and hospitals,
+asylums, and schools were to be established on all the estates. Some of
+the stewards (there were semiliterate foremen among them) listened with
+alarm, supposing these words to mean that the young count was displeased
+with their management and embezzlement of money, some after their first
+fright were amused by Pierre's lisp and the new words they had not heard
+before, others simply enjoyed hearing how the master talked, while the
+cleverest among them, including the chief steward, understood from this
+speech how they could best handle the master for their own ends.
+
+The chief steward expressed great sympathy with Pierre's intentions, but
+remarked that besides these changes it would be necessary to go into the
+general state of affairs which was far from satisfactory.
+
+Despite Count Bezúkhov's enormous wealth, since he had come into an
+income which was said to amount to five hundred thousand rubles a year,
+Pierre felt himself far poorer than when his father had made him an
+allowance of ten thousand rubles. He had a dim perception of the
+following budget:
+
+About 80,000 went in payments on all the estates to the Land Bank, about
+30,000 went for the upkeep of the estate near Moscow, the town house,
+and the allowance to the three princesses; about 15,000 was given in
+pensions and the same amount for asylums; 150,000 alimony was sent to
+the countess; about 70,000 went for interest on debts. The building of a
+new church, previously begun, had cost about 10,000 in each of the last
+two years, and he did not know how the rest, about 100,000 rubles, was
+spent, and almost every year he was obliged to borrow. Besides this the
+chief steward wrote every year telling him of fires and bad harvests, or
+of the necessity of rebuilding factories and workshops. So the first
+task Pierre had to face was one for which he had very little aptitude or
+inclination—practical business.
+
+He discussed estate affairs every day with his chief steward. But he
+felt that this did not forward matters at all. He felt that these
+consultations were detached from real affairs and did not link up with
+them or make them move. On the one hand, the chief steward put the state
+of things to him in the very worst light, pointing out the necessity of
+paying off the debts and undertaking new activities with serf labor, to
+which Pierre did not agree. On the other hand, Pierre demanded that
+steps should be taken to liberate the serfs, which the steward met by
+showing the necessity of first paying off the loans from the Land Bank,
+and the consequent impossibility of a speedy emancipation.
+
+The steward did not say it was quite impossible, but suggested selling
+the forests in the province of Kostroma, the land lower down the river,
+and the Crimean estate, in order to make it possible: all of which
+operations according to him were connected with such complicated
+measures—the removal of injunctions, petitions, permits, and so on—that
+Pierre became quite bewildered and only replied:
+
+"Yes, yes, do so."
+
+Pierre had none of the practical persistence that would have enabled him
+to attend to the business himself and so he disliked it and only tried
+to pretend to the steward that he was attending to it. The steward for
+his part tried to pretend to the count that he considered these
+consultations very valuable for the proprietor and troublesome to
+himself.
+
+In Kiev Pierre found some people he knew, and strangers hastened to make
+his acquaintance and joyfully welcomed the rich newcomer, the largest
+landowner of the province. Temptations to Pierre's greatest weakness—the
+one to which he had confessed when admitted to the Lodge—were so strong
+that he could not resist them. Again whole days, weeks, and months of
+his life passed in as great a rush and were as much occupied with
+evening parties, dinners, lunches, and balls, giving him no time for
+reflection, as in Petersburg. Instead of the new life he had hoped to
+lead he still lived the old life, only in new surroundings.
+
+Of the three precepts of Freemasonry Pierre realized that he did not
+fulfill the one which enjoined every Mason to set an example of moral
+life, and that of the seven virtues he lacked two—morality and the love
+of death. He consoled himself with the thought that he fulfilled another
+of the precepts—that of reforming the human race—and had other
+virtues—love of his neighbor, and especially generosity.
+
+In the spring of 1807 he decided to return to Petersburg. On the way he
+intended to visit all his estates and see for himself how far his orders
+had been carried out and in what state were the serfs whom God had
+entrusted to his care and whom he intended to benefit.
+
+The chief steward, who considered the young count's attempts almost
+insane—unprofitable to himself, to the count, and to the serfs—made some
+concessions. Continuing to represent the liberation of the serfs as
+impracticable, he arranged for the erection of large buildings—schools,
+hospitals, and asylums—on all the estates before the master arrived.
+Everywhere preparations were made not for ceremonious welcomes (which he
+knew Pierre would not like), but for just such gratefully religious
+ones, with offerings of icons and the bread and salt of hospitality, as,
+according to his understanding of his master, would touch and delude
+him.
+
+The southern spring, the comfortable rapid traveling in a Vienna
+carriage, and the solitude of the road, all had a gladdening effect on
+Pierre. The estates he had not before visited were each more picturesque
+than the other; the serfs everywhere seemed thriving and touchingly
+grateful for the benefits conferred on them. Everywhere were receptions,
+which though they embarrassed Pierre awakened a joyful feeling in the
+depth of his heart. In one place the peasants presented him with bread
+and salt and an icon of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, asking permission,
+as a mark of their gratitude for the benefits he had conferred on them,
+to build a new chantry to the church at their own expense in honor of
+Peter and Paul, his patron saints. In another place the women with
+infants in arms met him to thank him for releasing them from hard work.
+On a third estate the priest, bearing a cross, came to meet him
+surrounded by children whom, by the count's generosity, he was
+instructing in reading, writing, and religion. On all his estates Pierre
+saw with his own eyes brick buildings erected or in course of erection,
+all on one plan, for hospitals, schools, and almshouses, which were soon
+to be opened. Everywhere he saw the stewards' accounts, according to
+which the serfs' manorial labor had been diminished, and heard the
+touching thanks of deputations of serfs in their full-skirted blue
+coats.
+
+What Pierre did not know was that the place where they presented him
+with bread and salt and wished to build a chantry in honor of Peter and
+Paul was a market village where a fair was held on St. Peter's day, and
+that the richest peasants (who formed the deputation) had begun the
+chantry long before, but that nine tenths of the peasants in that
+villages were in a state of the greatest poverty. He did not know that
+since the nursing mothers were no longer sent to work on his land, they
+did still harder work on their own land. He did not know that the priest
+who met him with the cross oppressed the peasants by his exactions, and
+that the pupils' parents wept at having to let him take their children
+and secured their release by heavy payments. He did not know that the
+brick buildings, built to plan, were being built by serfs whose manorial
+labor was thus increased, though lessened on paper. He did not know that
+where the steward had shown him in the accounts that the serfs' payments
+had been diminished by a third, their obligatory manorial work had been
+increased by a half. And so Pierre was delighted with his visit to his
+estates and quite recovered the philanthropic mood in which he had left
+Petersburg, and wrote enthusiastic letters to his "brother-instructor"
+as he called the Grand Master.
+
+"How easy it is, how little effort it needs, to do so much good,"
+thought Pierre, "and how little attention we pay to it!"
+
+He was pleased at the gratitude he received, but felt abashed at
+receiving it. This gratitude reminded him of how much more he might do
+for these simple, kindly people.
+
+The chief steward, a very stupid but cunning man who saw perfectly
+through the naïve and intelligent count and played with him as with a
+toy, seeing the effect these prearranged receptions had on Pierre,
+pressed him still harder with proofs of the impossibility and above all
+the uselessness of freeing the serfs, who were quite happy as it was.
+
+Pierre in his secret soul agreed with the steward that it would be
+difficult to imagine happier people, and that God only knew what would
+happen to them when they were free, but he insisted, though reluctantly,
+on what he thought right. The steward promised to do all in his power to
+carry out the count's wishes, seeing clearly that not only would the
+count never be able to find out whether all measures had been taken for
+the sale of the land and forests and to release them from the Land Bank,
+but would probably never even inquire and would never know that the
+newly erected buildings were standing empty and that the serfs continued
+to give in money and work all that other people's serfs gave—that is to
+say, all that could be got out of them.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+Returning from his journey through South Russia in the happiest state of
+mind, Pierre carried out an intention he had long had of visiting his
+friend Bolkónski, whom he had not seen for two years.
+
+Bogucharovo lay in a flat uninteresting part of the country among fields
+and forests of fir and birch, which were partly cut down. The house lay
+behind a newly dug pond filled with water to the brink and with banks
+still bare of grass. It was at the end of a village that stretched along
+the highroad in the midst of a young copse in which were a few fir
+trees.
+
+The homestead consisted of a threshing floor, outhouses, stables, a
+bathhouse, a lodge, and a large brick house with semicircular facade
+still in course of construction. Round the house was a garden newly laid
+out. The fences and gates were new and solid; two fire pumps and a water
+cart, painted green, stood in a shed; the paths were straight, the
+bridges were strong and had handrails. Everything bore an impress of
+tidiness and good management. Some domestic serfs Pierre met, in reply
+to inquiries as to where the prince lived, pointed out a small newly
+built lodge close to the pond. Anton, a man who had looked after Prince
+Andrew in his boyhood, helped Pierre out of his carriage, said that the
+prince was at home, and showed him into a clean little anteroom.
+
+Pierre was struck by the modesty of the small though clean house after
+the brilliant surroundings in which he had last met his friend in
+Petersburg.
+
+He quickly entered the small reception room with its still-unplastered
+wooden walls redolent of pine, and would have gone farther, but Anton
+ran ahead on tiptoe and knocked at a door.
+
+"Well, what is it?" came a sharp, unpleasant voice.
+
+"A visitor," answered Anton.
+
+"Ask him to wait," and the sound was heard of a chair being pushed back.
+
+Pierre went with rapid steps to the door and suddenly came face to face
+with Prince Andrew, who came out frowning and looking old. Pierre
+embraced him and lifting his spectacles kissed his friend on the cheek
+and looked at him closely.
+
+"Well, I did not expect you, I am very glad," said Prince Andrew.
+
+Pierre said nothing; he looked fixedly at his friend with surprise. He
+was struck by the change in him. His words were kindly and there was a
+smile on his lips and face, but his eyes were dull and lifeless and in
+spite of his evident wish to do so he could not give them a joyous and
+glad sparkle. Prince Andrew had grown thinner, paler, and more manly-
+looking, but what amazed and estranged Pierre till he got used to it
+were his inertia and a wrinkle on his brow indicating prolonged
+concentration on some one thought.
+
+As is usually the case with people meeting after a prolonged separation,
+it was long before their conversation could settle on anything. They put
+questions and gave brief replies about things they knew ought to be
+talked over at length. At last the conversation gradually settled on
+some of the topics at first lightly touched on: their past life, plans
+for the future, Pierre's journeys and occupations, the war, and so on.
+The preoccupation and despondency which Pierre had noticed in his
+friend's look was now still more clearly expressed in the smile with
+which he listened to Pierre, especially when he spoke with joyful
+animation of the past or the future. It was as if Prince Andrew would
+have liked to sympathize with what Pierre was saying, but could not. The
+latter began to feel that it was in bad taste to speak of his
+enthusiasms, dreams, and hopes of happiness or goodness, in Prince
+Andrew's presence. He was ashamed to express his new masonic views,
+which had been particularly revived and strengthened by his late tour.
+He checked himself, fearing to seem naïve, yet he felt an irresistible
+desire to show his friend as soon as possible that he was now a quite
+different, and better, Pierre than he had been in Petersburg.
+
+"I can't tell you how much I have lived through since then. I hardly
+know myself again."
+
+"Yes, we have altered much, very much, since then," said Prince Andrew.
+
+"Well, and you? What are your plans?"
+
+"Plans!" repeated Prince Andrew ironically. "My plans?" he said, as if
+astonished at the word. "Well, you see, I'm building. I mean to settle
+here altogether next year...."
+
+Pierre looked silently and searchingly into Prince Andrew's face, which
+had grown much older.
+
+"No, I meant to ask..." Pierre began, but Prince Andrew interrupted him.
+
+"But why talk of me?... Talk to me, yes, tell me about your travels and
+all you have been doing on your estates."
+
+Pierre began describing what he had done on his estates, trying as far
+as possible to conceal his own part in the improvements that had been
+made. Prince Andrew several times prompted Pierre's story of what he had
+been doing, as though it were all an old-time story, and he listened not
+only without interest but even as if ashamed of what Pierre was telling
+him.
+
+Pierre felt uncomfortable and even depressed in his friend's company and
+at last became silent.
+
+"I'll tell you what, my dear fellow," said Prince Andrew, who evidently
+also felt depressed and constrained with his visitor, "I am only
+bivouacking here and have just come to look round. I am going back to my
+sister today. I will introduce you to her. But of course you know her
+already," he said, evidently trying to entertain a visitor with whom he
+now found nothing in common. "We will go after dinner. And would you now
+like to look round my place?"
+
+They went out and walked about till dinnertime, talking of the political
+news and common acquaintances like people who do not know each other
+intimately. Prince Andrew spoke with some animation and interest only of
+the new homestead he was constructing and its buildings, but even here,
+while on the scaffolding, in the midst of a talk explaining the future
+arrangements of the house, he interrupted himself:
+
+"However, this is not at all interesting. Let us have dinner, and then
+we'll set off."
+
+At dinner, conversation turned on Pierre's marriage.
+
+"I was very much surprised when I heard of it," said Prince Andrew.
+
+Pierre blushed, as he always did when it was mentioned, and said
+hurriedly: "I will tell you some time how it all happened. But you know
+it is all over, and forever."
+
+"Forever?" said Prince Andrew. "Nothing's forever."
+
+"But you know how it all ended, don't you? You heard of the duel?"
+
+"And so you had to go through that too!"
+
+"One thing I thank God for is that I did not kill that man," said
+Pierre.
+
+"Why so?" asked Prince Andrew. "To kill a vicious dog is a very good
+thing really."
+
+"No, to kill a man is bad—wrong."
+
+"Why is it wrong?" urged Prince Andrew. "It is not given to man to know
+what is right and what is wrong. Men always did and always will err, and
+in nothing more than in what they consider right and wrong."
+
+"What does harm to another is wrong," said Pierre, feeling with pleasure
+that for the first time since his arrival Prince Andrew was roused, had
+begun to talk, and wanted to express what had brought him to his present
+state.
+
+"And who has told you what is bad for another man?" he asked.
+
+"Bad! Bad!" exclaimed Pierre. "We all know what is bad for ourselves."
+
+"Yes, we know that, but the harm I am conscious of in myself is
+something I cannot inflict on others," said Prince Andrew, growing more
+and more animated and evidently wishing to express his new outlook to
+Pierre. He spoke in French. "I only know two very real evils in life:
+remorse and illness. The only good is the absence of those evils. To
+live for myself avoiding those two evils is my whole philosophy now."
+
+"And love of one's neighbor, and self-sacrifice?" began Pierre. "No, I
+can't agree with you! To live only so as not to do evil and not to have
+to repent is not enough. I lived like that, I lived for myself and
+ruined my life. And only now when I am living, or at least trying"
+(Pierre's modesty made him correct himself) "to live for others, only
+now have I understood all the happiness of life. No, I shall not agree
+with you, and you do not really believe what you are saying." Prince
+Andrew looked silently at Pierre with an ironic smile.
+
+"When you see my sister, Princess Mary, you'll get on with her," he
+said. "Perhaps you are right for yourself," he added after a short
+pause, "but everyone lives in his own way. You lived for yourself and
+say you nearly ruined your life and only found happiness when you began
+living for others. I experienced just the reverse. I lived for
+glory.—And after all what is glory? The same love of others, a desire to
+do something for them, a desire for their approval.—So I lived for
+others, and not almost, but quite, ruined my life. And I have become
+calmer since I began to live only for myself."
+
+"But what do you mean by living only for yourself?" asked Pierre,
+growing excited. "What about your son, your sister, and your father?"
+
+"But that's just the same as myself—they are not others," explained
+Prince Andrew. "The others, one's neighbors, le prochain, as you and
+Princess Mary call it, are the chief source of all error and evil. Le
+prochain—your Kiev peasants to whom you want to do good."
+
+And he looked at Pierre with a mocking, challenging expression. He
+evidently wished to draw him on.
+
+"You are joking," replied Pierre, growing more and more excited. "What
+error or evil can there be in my wishing to do good, and even doing a
+little—though I did very little and did it very badly? What evil can
+there be in it if unfortunate people, our serfs, people like ourselves,
+were growing up and dying with no idea of God and truth beyond
+ceremonies and meaningless prayers and are now instructed in a
+comforting belief in future life, retribution, recompense, and
+consolation? What evil and error are there in it, if people were dying
+of disease without help while material assistance could so easily be
+rendered, and I supplied them with a doctor, a hospital, and an asylum
+for the aged? And is it not a palpable, unquestionable good if a
+peasant, or a woman with a baby, has no rest day or night and I give
+them rest and leisure?" said Pierre, hurrying and lisping. "And I have
+done that though badly and to a small extent; but I have done something
+toward it and you cannot persuade me that it was not a good action, and
+more than that, you can't make me believe that you do not think so
+yourself. And the main thing is," he continued, "that I know, and know
+for certain, that the enjoyment of doing this good is the only sure
+happiness in life."
+
+"Yes, if you put it like that it's quite a different matter," said
+Prince Andrew. "I build a house and lay out a garden, and you build
+hospitals. The one and the other may serve as a pastime. But what's
+right and what's good must be judged by one who knows all, but not by
+us. Well, you want an argument," he added, "come on then."
+
+They rose from the table and sat down in the entrance porch which served
+as a veranda.
+
+"Come, let's argue then," said Prince Andrew, "You talk of schools," he
+went on, crooking a finger, "education and so forth; that is, you want
+to raise him" (pointing to a peasant who passed by them taking off his
+cap) "from his animal condition and awaken in him spiritual needs, while
+it seems to me that animal happiness is the only happiness possible, and
+that is just what you want to deprive him of. I envy him, but you want
+to make him what I am, without giving him my means. Then you say,
+'lighten his toil.' But as I see it, physical labor is as essential to
+him, as much a condition of his existence, as mental activity is to you
+or me. You can't help thinking. I go to bed after two in the morning,
+thoughts come and I can't sleep but toss about till dawn, because I
+think and can't help thinking, just as he can't help plowing and mowing;
+if he didn't, he would go to the drink shop or fall ill. Just as I could
+not stand his terrible physical labor but should die of it in a week, so
+he could not stand my physical idleness, but would grow fat and die. The
+third thing—what else was it you talked about?" and Prince Andrew
+crooked a third finger. "Ah, yes, hospitals, medicine. He has a fit, he
+is dying, and you come and bleed him and patch him up. He will drag
+about as a cripple, a burden to everybody, for another ten years. It
+would be far easier and simpler for him to die. Others are being born
+and there are plenty of them as it is. It would be different if you
+grudged losing a laborer—that's how I regard him—but you want to cure
+him from love of him. And he does not want that. And besides, what a
+notion that medicine ever cured anyone! Killed them, yes!" said he,
+frowning angrily and turning away from Pierre.
+
+Prince Andrew expressed his ideas so clearly and distinctly that it was
+evident he had reflected on this subject more than once, and he spoke
+readily and rapidly like a man who has not talked for a long time. His
+glance became more animated as his conclusions became more hopeless.
+
+"Oh, that is dreadful, dreadful!" said Pierre. "I don't understand how
+one can live with such ideas. I had such moments myself not long ago, in
+Moscow and when traveling, but at such times I collapsed so that I don't
+live at all—everything seems hateful to me... myself most of all. Then I
+don't eat, don't wash... and how is it with you?..."
+
+"Why not wash? That is not cleanly," said Prince Andrew; "on the
+contrary one must try to make one's life as pleasant as possible. I'm
+alive, that is not my fault, so I must live out my life as best I can
+without hurting others."
+
+"But with such ideas what motive have you for living? One would sit
+without moving, undertaking nothing...."
+
+"Life as it is leaves one no peace. I should be thankful to do nothing,
+but here on the one hand the local nobility have done me the honor to
+choose me to be their marshal; it was all I could do to get out of it.
+They could not understand that I have not the necessary qualifications
+for it—the kind of good-natured, fussy shallowness necessary for the
+position. Then there's this house, which must be built in order to have
+a nook of one's own in which to be quiet. And now there's this
+recruiting."
+
+"Why aren't you serving in the army?"
+
+"After Austerlitz!" said Prince Andrew gloomily. "No, thank you very
+much! I have promised myself not to serve again in the active Russian
+army. And I won't—not even if Bonaparte were here at Smolensk
+threatening Bald Hills—even then I wouldn't serve in the Russian army!
+Well, as I was saying," he continued, recovering his composure, "now
+there's this recruiting. My father is chief in command of the Third
+District, and my only way of avoiding active service is to serve under
+him."
+
+"Then you are serving?"
+
+"I am."
+
+He paused a little while.
+
+"And why do you serve?"
+
+"Why, for this reason! My father is one of the most remarkable men of
+his time. But he is growing old, and though not exactly cruel he has too
+energetic a character. He is so accustomed to unlimited power that he is
+terrible, and now he has this authority of a commander-in-chief of the
+recruiting, granted by the Emperor. If I had been two hours late a
+fortnight ago he would have had a paymaster's clerk at Yukhnovna
+hanged," said Prince Andrew with a smile. "So I am serving because I
+alone have any influence with my father, and now and then can save him
+from actions which would torment him afterwards."
+
+"Well, there you see!"
+
+"Yes, but it is not as you imagine," Prince Andrew continued. "I did
+not, and do not, in the least care about that scoundrel of a clerk who
+had stolen some boots from the recruits; I should even have been very
+glad to see him hanged, but I was sorry for my father—that again is for
+myself."
+
+Prince Andrew grew more and more animated. His eyes glittered feverishly
+while he tried to prove to Pierre that in his actions there was no
+desire to do good to his neighbor.
+
+"There now, you wish to liberate your serfs," he continued; "that is a
+very good thing, but not for you—I don't suppose you ever had anyone
+flogged or sent to Siberia—and still less for your serfs. If they are
+beaten, flogged, or sent to Siberia, I don't suppose they are any the
+worse off. In Siberia they lead the same animal life, and the stripes on
+their bodies heal, and they are happy as before. But it is a good thing
+for proprietors who perish morally, bring remorse upon themselves,
+stifle this remorse and grow callous, as a result of being able to
+inflict punishments justly and unjustly. It is those people I pity, and
+for their sake I should like to liberate the serfs. You may not have
+seen, but I have seen, how good men brought up in those traditions of
+unlimited power, in time when they grow more irritable, become cruel and
+harsh, are conscious of it, but cannot restrain themselves and grow more
+and more miserable."
+
+Prince Andrew spoke so earnestly that Pierre could not help thinking
+that these thoughts had been suggested to Prince Andrew by his father's
+case.
+
+He did not reply.
+
+"So that's what I'm sorry for—human dignity, peace of mind, purity, and
+not the serfs' backs and foreheads, which, beat and shave as you may,
+always remain the same backs and foreheads."
+
+"No, no! A thousand times no! I shall never agree with you," said
+Pierre.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+In the evening Andrew and Pierre got into the open carriage and drove to
+Bald Hills. Prince Andrew, glancing at Pierre, broke the silence now and
+then with remarks which showed that he was in a good temper.
+
+Pointing to the fields, he spoke of the improvements he was making in
+his husbandry.
+
+Pierre remained gloomily silent, answering in monosyllables and
+apparently immersed in his own thoughts.
+
+He was thinking that Prince Andrew was unhappy, had gone astray, did not
+see the true light, and that he, Pierre, ought to aid, enlighten, and
+raise him. But as soon as he thought of what he should say, he felt that
+Prince Andrew with one word, one argument, would upset all his teaching,
+and he shrank from beginning, afraid of exposing to possible ridicule
+what to him was precious and sacred.
+
+"No, but why do you think so?" Pierre suddenly began, lowering his head
+and looking like a bull about to charge, "why do you think so? You
+should not think so."
+
+"Think? What about?" asked Prince Andrew with surprise.
+
+"About life, about man's destiny. It can't be so. I myself thought like
+that, and do you know what saved me? Freemasonry! No, don't smile.
+Freemasonry is not a religious ceremonial sect, as I thought it was:
+Freemasonry is the best expression of the best, the eternal, aspects of
+humanity."
+
+And he began to explain Freemasonry as he understood it to Prince
+Andrew. He said that Freemasonry is the teaching of Christianity freed
+from the bonds of State and Church, a teaching of equality, brotherhood,
+and love.
+
+"Only our holy brotherhood has the real meaning of life, all the rest is
+a dream," said Pierre. "Understand, my dear fellow, that outside this
+union all is filled with deceit and falsehood and I agree with you that
+nothing is left for an intelligent and good man but to live out his
+life, like you, merely trying not to harm others. But make our
+fundamental convictions your own, join our brotherhood, give yourself up
+to us, let yourself be guided, and you will at once feel yourself, as I
+have felt myself, a part of that vast invisible chain the beginning of
+which is hidden in heaven," said Pierre.
+
+Prince Andrew, looking straight in front of him, listened in silence to
+Pierre's words. More than once, when the noise of the wheels prevented
+his catching what Pierre said, he asked him to repeat it, and by the
+peculiar glow that came into Prince Andrew's eyes and by his silence,
+Pierre saw that his words were not in vain and that Prince Andrew would
+not interrupt him or laugh at what he said.
+
+They reached a river that had overflowed its banks and which they had to
+cross by ferry. While the carriage and horses were being placed on it,
+they also stepped on the raft.
+
+Prince Andrew, leaning his arms on the raft railing, gazed silently at
+the flooding waters glittering in the setting sun.
+
+"Well, what do you think about it?" Pierre asked. "Why are you silent?"
+
+"What do I think about it? I am listening to you. It's all very well....
+You say: join our brotherhood and we will show you the aim of life, the
+destiny of man, and the laws which govern the world. But who are we?
+Men. How is it you know everything? Why do I alone not see what you see?
+You see a reign of goodness and truth on earth, but I don't see it."
+
+Pierre interrupted him.
+
+"Do you believe in a future life?" he asked.
+
+"A future life?" Prince Andrew repeated, but Pierre, giving him no time
+to reply, took the repetition for a denial, the more readily as he knew
+Prince Andrew's former atheistic convictions.
+
+"You say you can't see a reign of goodness and truth on earth. Nor could
+I, and it cannot be seen if one looks on our life here as the end of
+everything. On earth, here on this earth" (Pierre pointed to the
+fields), "there is no truth, all is false and evil; but in the universe,
+in the whole universe there is a kingdom of truth, and we who are now
+the children of earth are—eternally—children of the whole universe.
+Don't I feel in my soul that I am part of this vast harmonious whole?
+Don't I feel that I form one link, one step, between the lower and
+higher beings, in this vast harmonious multitude of beings in whom the
+Deity—the Supreme Power if you prefer the term—is manifest? If I see,
+clearly see, that ladder leading from plant to man, why should I suppose
+it breaks off at me and does not go farther and farther? I feel that I
+cannot vanish, since nothing vanishes in this world, but that I shall
+always exist and always have existed. I feel that beyond me and above me
+there are spirits, and that in this world there is truth."
+
+"Yes, that is Herder's theory," said Prince Andrew, "but it is not that
+which can convince me, dear friend—life and death are what convince.
+What convinces is when one sees a being dear to one, bound up with one's
+own life, before whom one was to blame and had hoped to make it right"
+(Prince Andrew's voice trembled and he turned away), "and suddenly that
+being is seized with pain, suffers, and ceases to exist.... Why? It
+cannot be that there is no answer. And I believe there is.... That's
+what convinces, that is what has convinced me," said Prince Andrew.
+
+"Yes, yes, of course," said Pierre, "isn't that what I'm saying?"
+
+"No. All I say is that it is not argument that convinces me of the
+necessity of a future life, but this: when you go hand in hand with
+someone and all at once that person vanishes there, into nowhere, and
+you yourself are left facing that abyss, and look in. And I have looked
+in...."
+
+"Well, that's it then! You know that there is a there and there is a
+Someone? There is the future life. The Someone is—God."
+
+Prince Andrew did not reply. The carriage and horses had long since been
+taken off, onto the farther bank, and reharnessed. The sun had sunk half
+below the horizon and an evening frost was starring the puddles near the
+ferry, but Pierre and Andrew, to the astonishment of the footmen,
+coachmen, and ferrymen, still stood on the raft and talked.
+
+"If there is a God and future life, there is truth and good, and man's
+highest happiness consists in striving to attain them. We must live, we
+must love, and we must believe that we live not only today on this scrap
+of earth, but have lived and shall live forever, there, in the Whole,"
+said Pierre, and he pointed to the sky.
+
+Prince Andrew stood leaning on the railing of the raft listening to
+Pierre, and he gazed with his eyes fixed on the red reflection of the
+sun gleaming on the blue waters. There was perfect stillness. Pierre
+became silent. The raft had long since stopped and only the waves of the
+current beat softly against it below. Prince Andrew felt as if the sound
+of the waves kept up a refrain to Pierre's words, whispering:
+
+"It is true, believe it."
+
+He sighed, and glanced with a radiant, childlike, tender look at
+Pierre's face, flushed and rapturous, but yet shy before his superior
+friend.
+
+"Yes, if it only were so!" said Prince Andrew. "However, it is time to
+get on," he added, and, stepping off the raft, he looked up at the sky
+to which Pierre had pointed, and for the first time since Austerlitz saw
+that high, everlasting sky he had seen while lying on that battlefield;
+and something that had long been slumbering, something that was best
+within him, suddenly awoke, joyful and youthful, in his soul. It
+vanished as soon as he returned to the customary conditions of his life,
+but he knew that this feeling which he did not know how to develop
+existed within him. His meeting with Pierre formed an epoch in Prince
+Andrew's life. Though outwardly he continued to live in the same old
+way, inwardly he began a new life.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+It was getting dusk when Prince Andrew and Pierre drove up to the front
+entrance of the house at Bald Hills. As they approached the house,
+Prince Andrew with a smile drew Pierre's attention to a commotion going
+on at the back porch. A woman, bent with age, with a wallet on her back,
+and a short, long-haired, young man in a black garment had rushed back
+to the gate on seeing the carriage driving up. Two women ran out after
+them, and all four, looking round at the carriage, ran in dismay up the
+steps of the back porch.
+
+"Those are Mary's 'God's folk,'" said Prince Andrew. "They have mistaken
+us for my father. This is the one matter in which she disobeys him. He
+orders these pilgrims to be driven away, but she receives them."
+
+"But what are 'God's folk'?" asked Pierre.
+
+Prince Andrew had no time to answer. The servants came out to meet them,
+and he asked where the old prince was and whether he was expected back
+soon.
+
+The old prince had gone to the town and was expected back any minute.
+
+Prince Andrew led Pierre to his own apartments, which were always kept
+in perfect order and readiness for him in his father's house; he himself
+went to the nursery.
+
+"Let us go and see my sister," he said to Pierre when he returned. "I
+have not found her yet, she is hiding now, sitting with her 'God's
+folk.' It will serve her right, she will be confused, but you will see
+her 'God's folk.' It's really very curious."
+
+"What are 'God's folk'?" asked Pierre.
+
+"Come, and you'll see for yourself."
+
+Princess Mary really was disconcerted and red patches came on her face
+when they went in. In her snug room, with lamps burning before the icon
+stand, a young lad with a long nose and long hair, wearing a monk's
+cassock, sat on the sofa beside her, behind a samovar. Near them, in an
+armchair, sat a thin, shriveled, old woman, with a meek expression on
+her childlike face.
+
+"Andrew, why didn't you warn me?" said the princess, with mild reproach,
+as she stood before her pilgrims like a hen before her chickens.
+
+"Charmee de vous voir. Je suis tres contente de vous voir," * she said
+to Pierre as he kissed her hand. She had known him as a child, and now
+his friendship with Andrew, his misfortune with his wife, and above all
+his kindly, simple face disposed her favorably toward him. She looked at
+him with her beautiful radiant eyes and seemed to say, "I like you very
+much, but please don't laugh at my people." After exchanging the first
+greetings, they sat down.
+
+* "Delighted to see you. I am very glad to see you."
+
+"Ah, and Ivanushka is here too!" said Prince Andrew, glancing with a
+smile at the young pilgrim.
+
+"Andrew!" said Princess Mary, imploringly. "Il faut que vous sachiez que
+c'est une femme," * said Prince Andrew to Pierre.
+
+"Andrew, au nom de Dieu!" *(2) Princess Mary repeated.
+
+* "You must know that this is a woman."
+
+* (2) "For heaven's sake."
+
+It was evident that Prince Andrew's ironical tone toward the pilgrims
+and Princess Mary's helpless attempts to protect them were their
+customary long-established relations on the matter.
+
+"Mais, ma bonne amie," said Prince Andrew, "vous devriez au contraire
+m'être reconnaissante de ce que j'explique a Pierre votre intimité avec
+ce jeune homme." *
+
+* "But, my dear, you ought on the contrary to be grateful to me for
+explaining to Pierre your intimacy with this young man."
+
+"Really?" said Pierre, gazing over his spectacles with curiosity and
+seriousness (for which Princess Mary was specially grateful to him) into
+Ivanushka's face, who, seeing that she was being spoken about, looked
+round at them all with crafty eyes.
+
+Princess Mary's embarrassment on her people's account was quite
+unnecessary. They were not in the least abashed. The old woman, lowering
+her eyes but casting side glances at the newcomers, had turned her cup
+upside down and placed a nibbled bit of sugar beside it, and sat quietly
+in her armchair, though hoping to be offered another cup of tea.
+Ivanushka, sipping out of her saucer, looked with sly womanish eyes from
+under her brows at the young men.
+
+"Where have you been? To Kiev?" Prince Andrew asked the old woman.
+
+"I have, good sir," she answered garrulously. "Just at Christmastime I
+was deemed worthy to partake of the holy and heavenly sacrament at the
+shrine of the saint. And now I'm from Kolyazin, master, where a great
+and wonderful blessing has been revealed."
+
+"And was Ivanushka with you?"
+
+"I go by myself, benefactor," said Ivanushka, trying to speak in a bass
+voice. "I only came across Pelageya in Yukhnovo..."
+
+Pelageya interrupted her companion; she evidently wished to tell what
+she had seen.
+
+"In Kolyazin, master, a wonderful blessing has been revealed."
+
+"What is it? Some new relics?" asked Prince Andrew.
+
+"Andrew, do leave off," said Princess Mary. "Don't tell him, Pelageya."
+
+"No... why not, my dear, why shouldn't I? I like him. He is kind, he is
+one of God's chosen, he's a benefactor, he once gave me ten rubles, I
+remember. When I was in Kiev, Crazy Cyril says to me (he's one of God's
+own and goes barefoot summer and winter), he says, 'Why are you not
+going to the right place? Go to Kolyazin where a wonder-working icon of
+the Holy Mother of God has been revealed.' On hearing those words I said
+good-by to the holy folk and went."
+
+All were silent, only the pilgrim woman went on in measured tones,
+drawing in her breath.
+
+"So I come, master, and the people say to me: 'A great blessing has been
+revealed, holy oil trickles from the cheeks of our blessed Mother, the
+Holy Virgin Mother of God'...."
+
+"All right, all right, you can tell us afterwards," said Princess Mary,
+flushing.
+
+"Let me ask her," said Pierre. "Did you see it yourselves?" he inquired.
+
+"Oh, yes, master, I was found worthy. Such a brightness on the face like
+the light of heaven, and from the blessed Mother's cheek it drops and
+drops...."
+
+"But, dear me, that must be a fraud!" said Pierre, naïvely, who had
+listened attentively to the pilgrim.
+
+"Oh, master, what are you saying?" exclaimed the horrified Pelageya,
+turning to Princess Mary for support.
+
+"They impose on the people," he repeated.
+
+"Lord Jesus Christ!" exclaimed the pilgrim woman, crossing herself. "Oh,
+don't speak so, master! There was a general who did not believe, and
+said, 'The monks cheat,' and as soon as he'd said it he went blind. And
+he dreamed that the Holy Virgin Mother of the Kiev catacombs came to him
+and said, 'Believe in me and I will make you whole.' So he begged: 'Take
+me to her, take me to her.' It's the real truth I'm telling you, I saw
+it myself. So he was brought, quite blind, straight to her, and he goes
+up to her and falls down and says, 'Make me whole,' says he, 'and I'll
+give thee what the Tsar bestowed on me.' I saw it myself, master, the
+star is fixed into the icon. Well, and what do you think? He received
+his sight! It's a sin to speak so. God will punish you," she said
+admonishingly, turning to Pierre.
+
+"How did the star get into the icon?" Pierre asked.
+
+"And was the Holy Mother promoted to the rank of general?" said Prince
+Andrew, with a smile.
+
+Pelageya suddenly grew quite pale and clasped her hands.
+
+"Oh, master, master, what a sin! And you who have a son!" she began, her
+pallor suddenly turning to a vivid red. "Master, what have you said? God
+forgive you!" And she crossed herself. "Lord forgive him! My dear, what
+does it mean?..." she asked, turning to Princess Mary. She got up and,
+almost crying, began to arrange her wallet. She evidently felt
+frightened and ashamed to have accepted charity in a house where such
+things could be said, and was at the same time sorry to have now to
+forgo the charity of this house.
+
+"Now, why need you do it?" said Princess Mary. "Why did you come to
+me?..."
+
+"Come, Pelageya, I was joking," said Pierre. "Princesse, ma parole, je
+n'ai pas voulu l'offenser. * I did not mean anything, I was only
+joking," he said, smiling shyly and trying to efface his offense. "It
+was all my fault, and Andrew was only joking."
+
+* "Princess, on my word, I did not wish to offend her."
+
+Pelageya stopped doubtfully, but in Pierre's face there was such a look
+of sincere penitence, and Prince Andrew glanced so meekly now at her and
+now at Pierre, that she was gradually reassured.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+The pilgrim woman was appeased and, being encouraged to talk, gave a
+long account of Father Amphilochus, who led so holy a life that his
+hands smelled of incense, and how on her last visit to Kiev some monks
+she knew let her have the keys of the catacombs, and how she, taking
+some dried bread with her, had spent two days in the catacombs with the
+saints. "I'd pray awhile to one, ponder awhile, then go on to another.
+I'd sleep a bit and then again go and kiss the relics, and there was
+such peace all around, such blessedness, that one don't want to come
+out, even into the light of heaven again."
+
+Pierre listened to her attentively and seriously. Prince Andrew went out
+of the room, and then, leaving "God's folk" to finish their tea,
+Princess Mary took Pierre into the drawing room.
+
+"You are very kind," she said to him.
+
+"Oh, I really did not mean to hurt her feelings. I understand them so
+well and have the greatest respect for them."
+
+Princess Mary looked at him silently and smiled affectionately.
+
+"I have known you a long time, you see, and am as fond of you as of a
+brother," she said. "How do you find Andrew?" she added hurriedly, not
+giving him time to reply to her affectionate words. "I am very anxious
+about him. His health was better in the winter, but last spring his
+wound reopened and the doctor said he ought to go away for a cure. And I
+am also very much afraid for him spiritually. He has not a character
+like us women who, when we suffer, can weep away our sorrows. He keeps
+it all within him. Today he is cheerful and in good spirits, but that is
+the effect of your visit—he is not often like that. If you could
+persuade him to go abroad. He needs activity, and this quiet regular
+life is very bad for him. Others don't notice it, but I see it."
+
+Toward ten o'clock the men servants rushed to the front door, hearing
+the bells of the old prince's carriage approaching. Prince Andrew and
+Pierre also went out into the porch.
+
+"Who's that?" asked the old prince, noticing Pierre as he got out of the
+carriage.
+
+"Ah! Very glad! Kiss me," he said, having learned who the young stranger
+was.
+
+The old prince was in a good temper and very gracious to Pierre.
+
+Before supper, Prince Andrew, coming back to his father's study, found
+him disputing hotly with his visitor. Pierre was maintaining that a time
+would come when there would be no more wars. The old prince disputed it
+chaffingly, but without getting angry.
+
+"Drain the blood from men's veins and put in water instead, then there
+will be no more war! Old women's nonsense—old women's nonsense!" he
+repeated, but still he patted Pierre affectionately on the shoulder, and
+then went up to the table where Prince Andrew, evidently not wishing to
+join in the conversation, was looking over the papers his father had
+brought from town. The old prince went up to him and began to talk
+business.
+
+"The marshal, a Count Rostóv, hasn't sent half his contingent. He came
+to town and wanted to invite me to dinner—I gave him a pretty dinner!...
+And there, look at this.... Well, my boy," the old prince went on,
+addressing his son and patting Pierre on the shoulder. "A fine
+fellow—your friend—I like him! He stirs me up. Another says clever
+things and one doesn't care to listen, but this one talks rubbish yet
+stirs an old fellow up. Well, go! Get along! Perhaps I'll come and sit
+with you at supper. We'll have another dispute. Make friends with my
+little fool, Princess Mary," he shouted after Pierre, through the door.
+
+Only now, on his visit to Bald Hills, did Pierre fully realize the
+strength and charm of his friendship with Prince Andrew. That charm was
+not expressed so much in his relations with him as with all his family
+and with the household. With the stern old prince and the gentle, timid
+Princess Mary, though he had scarcely known them, Pierre at once felt
+like an old friend. They were all fond of him already. Not only Princess
+Mary, who had been won by his gentleness with the pilgrims, gave him her
+most radiant looks, but even the one-year-old "Prince Nicholas" (as his
+grandfather called him) smiled at Pierre and let himself be taken in his
+arms, and Michael Ivánovich and Mademoiselle Bourienne looked at him
+with pleasant smiles when he talked to the old prince.
+
+The old prince came in to supper; this was evidently on Pierre's
+account. And during the two days of the young man's visit he was
+extremely kind to him and told him to visit them again.
+
+When Pierre had gone and the members of the household met together, they
+began to express their opinions of him as people always do after a new
+acquaintance has left, but as seldom happens, no one said anything but
+what was good of him.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+When returning from his leave, Rostóv felt, for the first time, how
+close was the bond that united him to Denisov and the whole regiment.
+
+On approaching it, Rostóv felt as he had done when approaching his home
+in Moscow. When he saw the first hussar with the unbuttoned uniform of
+his regiment, when he recognized red-haired Dementyev and saw the picket
+ropes of the roan horses, when Lavrushka gleefully shouted to his
+master, "The count has come!" and Denisov, who had been asleep on his
+bed, ran all disheveled out of the mud hut to embrace him, and the
+officers collected round to greet the new arrival, Rostóv experienced
+the same feeling as when his mother, his father, and his sister had
+embraced him, and tears of joy choked him so that he could not speak.
+The regiment was also a home, and as unalterably dear and precious as
+his parents' house.
+
+When he had reported himself to the commander of the regiment and had
+been reassigned to his former squadron, had been on duty and had gone
+out foraging, when he had again entered into all the little interests of
+the regiment and felt himself deprived of liberty and bound in one
+narrow, unchanging frame, he experienced the same sense of peace, of
+moral support, and the same sense of being at home here in his own
+place, as he had felt under the parental roof. But here was none of all
+that turmoil of the world at large, where he did not know his right
+place and took mistaken decisions; here was no Sónya with whom he ought,
+or ought not, to have an explanation; here was no possibility of going
+there or not going there; here there were not twenty-four hours in the
+day which could be spent in such a variety of ways; there was not that
+innumerable crowd of people of whom not one was nearer to him or farther
+from him than another; there were none of those uncertain and undefined
+money relations with his father, and nothing to recall that terrible
+loss to Dólokhov. Here, in the regiment, all was clear and simple. The
+whole world was divided into two unequal parts: one, our Pávlograd
+regiment; the other, all the rest. And the rest was no concern of his.
+In the regiment, everything was definite: who was lieutenant, who
+captain, who was a good fellow, who a bad one, and most of all, who was
+a comrade. The canteenkeeper gave one credit, one's pay came every four
+months, there was nothing to think out or decide, you had only to do
+nothing that was considered bad in the Pávlograd regiment and, when
+given an order, to do what was clearly, distinctly, and definitely
+ordered—and all would be well.
+
+Having once more entered into the definite conditions of this regimental
+life, Rostóv felt the joy and relief a tired man feels on lying down to
+rest. Life in the regiment, during this campaign, was all the pleasanter
+for him, because, after his loss to Dólokhov (for which, in spite of all
+his family's efforts to console him, he could not forgive himself), he
+had made up his mind to atone for his fault by serving, not as he had
+done before, but really well, and by being a perfectly first-rate
+comrade and officer—in a word, a splendid man altogether, a thing which
+seemed so difficult out in the world, but so possible in the regiment.
+
+After his losses, he had determined to pay back his debt to his parents
+in five years. He received ten thousand rubles a year, but now resolved
+to take only two thousand and leave the rest to repay the debt to his
+parents.
+
+Our army, after repeated retreats and advances and battles at Pultusk
+and Preussisch-Eylau, was concentrated near Bartenstein. It was awaiting
+the Emperor's arrival and the beginning of a new campaign.
+
+The Pávlograd regiment, belonging to that part of the army which had
+served in the 1805 campaign, had been recruiting up to strength in
+Russia, and arrived too late to take part in the first actions of the
+campaign. It had been neither at Pultusk nor at Preussisch-Eylau and,
+when it joined the army in the field in the second half of the campaign,
+was attached to Platov's division.
+
+Platov's division was acting independently of the main army. Several
+times parts of the Pávlograd regiment had exchanged shots with the
+enemy, had taken prisoners, and once had even captured Marshal Oudinot's
+carriages. In April the Pávlograds were stationed immovably for some
+weeks near a totally ruined and deserted German village.
+
+A thaw had set in, it was muddy and cold, the ice on the river broke,
+and the roads became impassable. For days neither provisions for the men
+nor fodder for the horses had been issued. As no transports could
+arrive, the men dispersed about the abandoned and deserted villages,
+searching for potatoes, but found few even of these.
+
+Everything had been eaten up and the inhabitants had all fled—if any
+remained, they were worse than beggars and nothing more could be taken
+from them; even the soldiers, usually pitiless enough, instead of taking
+anything from them, often gave them the last of their rations.
+
+The Pávlograd regiment had had only two men wounded in action, but had
+lost nearly half its men from hunger and sickness. In the hospitals,
+death was so certain that soldiers suffering from fever, or the swelling
+that came from bad food, preferred to remain on duty, and hardly able to
+drag their legs went to the front rather than to the hospitals. When
+spring came on, the soldiers found a plant just showing out of the
+ground that looked like asparagus, which, for some reason, they called
+"Mashka's sweet root." It was very bitter, but they wandered about the
+fields seeking it and dug it out with their sabers and ate it, though
+they were ordered not to do so, as it was a noxious plant. That spring a
+new disease broke out among the soldiers, a swelling of the arms, legs,
+and face, which the doctors attributed to eating this root. But in spite
+of all this, the soldiers of Denisov's squadron fed chiefly on "Mashka's
+sweet root," because it was the second week that the last of the
+biscuits were being doled out at the rate of half a pound a man and the
+last potatoes received had sprouted and frozen.
+
+The horses also had been fed for a fortnight on straw from the thatched
+roofs and had become terribly thin, though still covered with tufts of
+felty winter hair.
+
+Despite this destitution, the soldiers and officers went on living just
+as usual. Despite their pale swollen faces and tattered uniforms, the
+hussars formed line for roll call, kept things in order, groomed their
+horses, polished their arms, brought in straw from the thatched roofs in
+place of fodder, and sat down to dine round the caldrons from which they
+rose up hungry, joking about their nasty food and their hunger. As
+usual, in their spare time, they lit bonfires, steamed themselves before
+them naked; smoked, picked out and baked sprouting rotten potatoes, told
+and listened to stories of Potëmkin's and Suvórov's campaigns, or to
+legends of Alesha the Sly, or the priest's laborer Mikolka.
+
+The officers, as usual, lived in twos and threes in the roofless, half-
+ruined houses. The seniors tried to collect straw and potatoes and, in
+general, food for the men. The younger ones occupied themselves as
+before, some playing cards (there was plenty of money, though there was
+no food), some with more innocent games, such as quoits and skittles.
+The general trend of the campaign was rarely spoken of, partly because
+nothing certain was known about it, partly because there was a vague
+feeling that in the main it was going badly.
+
+Rostóv lived, as before, with Denisov, and since their furlough they had
+become more friendly than ever. Denisov never spoke of Rostóv's family,
+but by the tender friendship his commander showed him, Rostóv felt that
+the elder hussar's luckless love for Natásha played a part in
+strengthening their friendship. Denisov evidently tried to expose Rostóv
+to danger as seldom as possible, and after an action greeted his safe
+return with evident joy. On one of his foraging expeditions, in a
+deserted and ruined village to which he had come in search of
+provisions, Rostóv found a family consisting of an old Pole and his
+daughter with an infant in arms. They were half clad, hungry, too weak
+to get away on foot and had no means of obtaining a conveyance. Rostóv
+brought them to his quarters, placed them in his own lodging, and kept
+them for some weeks while the old man was recovering. One of his
+comrades, talking of women, began chaffing Rostóv, saying that he was
+more wily than any of them and that it would not be a bad thing if he
+introduced to them the pretty Polish girl he had saved. Rostóv took the
+joke as an insult, flared up, and said such unpleasant things to the
+officer that it was all Denisov could do to prevent a duel. When the
+officer had gone away, Denisov, who did not himself know what Rostóv's
+relations with the Polish girl might be, began to upbraid him for his
+quickness of temper, and Rostóv replied:
+
+"Say what you like.... She is like a sister to me, and I can't tell you
+how it offended me... because... well, for that reason...."
+
+Denisov patted him on the shoulder and began rapidly pacing the room
+without looking at Rostóv, as was his way at moments of deep feeling.
+
+"Ah, what a mad bweed you Wostovs are!" he muttered, and Rostóv noticed
+tears in his eyes.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+In April the troops were enlivened by news of the Emperor's arrival, but
+Rostóv had no chance of being present at the review he held at
+Bartenstein, as the Pávlograds were at the outposts far beyond that
+place.
+
+They were bivouacking. Denisov and Rostóv were living in an earth hut,
+dug out for them by the soldiers and roofed with branches and turf. The
+hut was made in the following manner, which had then come into vogue. A
+trench was dug three and a half feet wide, four feet eight inches deep,
+and eight feet long. At one end of the trench, steps were cut out and
+these formed the entrance and vestibule. The trench itself was the room,
+in which the lucky ones, such as the squadron commander, had a board,
+lying on piles at the end opposite the entrance, to serve as a table. On
+each side of the trench, the earth was cut out to a breadth of about two
+and a half feet, and this did duty for bedsteads and couches. The roof
+was so constructed that one could stand up in the middle of the trench
+and could even sit up on the beds if one drew close to the table.
+Denisov, who was living luxuriously because the soldiers of his squadron
+liked him, had also a board in the roof at the farther end, with a piece
+of (broken but mended) glass in it for a window. When it was very cold,
+embers from the soldiers' campfire were placed on a bent sheet of iron
+on the steps in the "reception room"—as Denisov called that part of the
+hut—and it was then so warm that the officers, of whom there were always
+some with Denisov and Rostóv, sat in their shirt sleeves.
+
+In April, Rostóv was on orderly duty. One morning, between seven and
+eight, returning after a sleepless night, he sent for embers, changed
+his rain-soaked underclothes, said his prayers, drank tea, got warm,
+then tidied up the things on the table and in his own corner, and, his
+face glowing from exposure to the wind and with nothing on but his
+shirt, lay down on his back, putting his arms under his head. He was
+pleasantly considering the probability of being promoted in a few days
+for his last reconnoitering expedition, and was awaiting Denisov, who
+had gone out somewhere and with whom he wanted a talk.
+
+Suddenly he heard Denisov shouting in a vibrating voice behind the hut,
+evidently much excited. Rostóv moved to the window to see whom he was
+speaking to, and saw the quartermaster, Topcheenko.
+
+"I ordered you not to let them eat that Mashka woot stuff!" Denisov was
+shouting. "And I saw with my own eyes how Lazarchuk bwought some fwom
+the fields."
+
+"I have given the order again and again, your honor, but they don't
+obey," answered the quartermaster.
+
+Rostóv lay down again on his bed and thought complacently: "Let him fuss
+and bustle now, my job's done and I'm lying down—capitally!" He could
+hear that Lavrushka—that sly, bold orderly of Denisov's—was talking, as
+well as the quartermaster. Lavrushka was saying something about loaded
+wagons, biscuits, and oxen he had seen when he had gone out for
+provisions.
+
+Then Denisov's voice was heard shouting farther and farther away.
+"Saddle! Second platoon!"
+
+"Where are they off to now?" thought Rostóv.
+
+Five minutes later, Denisov came into the hut, climbed with muddy boots
+on the bed, lit his pipe, furiously scattered his things about, took his
+leaded whip, buckled on his saber, and went out again. In answer to
+Rostóv's inquiry where he was going, he answered vaguely and crossly
+that he had some business.
+
+"Let God and our gweat monarch judge me afterwards!" said Denisov going
+out, and Rostóv heard the hoofs of several horses splashing through the
+mud. He did not even trouble to find out where Denisov had gone. Having
+got warm in his corner, he fell asleep and did not leave the hut till
+toward evening. Denisov had not yet returned. The weather had cleared
+up, and near the next hut two officers and a cadet were playing svayka,
+laughing as they threw their missiles which buried themselves in the
+soft mud. Rostóv joined them. In the middle of the game, the officers
+saw some wagons approaching with fifteen hussars on their skinny horses
+behind them. The wagons escorted by the hussars drew up to the picket
+ropes and a crowd of hussars surrounded them.
+
+"There now, Denisov has been worrying," said Rostóv, "and here are the
+provisions."
+
+"So they are!" said the officers. "Won't the soldiers be glad!"
+
+A little behind the hussars came Denisov, accompanied by two infantry
+officers with whom he was talking.
+
+Rostóv went to meet them.
+
+"I warn you, Captain," one of the officers, a short thin man, evidently
+very angry, was saying.
+
+"Haven't I told you I won't give them up?" replied Denisov.
+
+"You will answer for it, Captain. It is mutiny—seizing the transport of
+one's own army. Our men have had nothing to eat for two days."
+
+"And mine have had nothing for two weeks," said Denisov.
+
+"It is robbery! You'll answer for it, sir!" said the infantry officer,
+raising his voice.
+
+"Now, what are you pestewing me for?" cried Denisov, suddenly losing his
+temper. "I shall answer for it and not you, and you'd better not buzz
+about here till you get hurt. Be off! Go!" he shouted at the officers.
+
+"Very well, then!" shouted the little officer, undaunted and not riding
+away. "If you are determined to rob, I'll..."
+
+"Go to the devil! quick ma'ch, while you're safe and sound!" and Denisov
+turned his horse on the officer.
+
+"Very well, very well!" muttered the officer, threateningly, and turning
+his horse he trotted away, jolting in his saddle.
+
+"A dog astwide a fence! A weal dog astwide a fence!" shouted Denisov
+after him (the most insulting expression a cavalryman can address to a
+mounted infantryman) and riding up to Rostóv, he burst out laughing.
+
+"I've taken twansports from the infantwy by force!" he said. "After all,
+can't let our men starve."
+
+The wagons that had reached the hussars had been consigned to an
+infantry regiment, but learning from Lavrushka that the transport was
+unescorted, Denisov with his hussars had seized it by force. The
+soldiers had biscuits dealt out to them freely, and they even shared
+them with the other squadrons.
+
+The next day the regimental commander sent for Denisov, and holding his
+fingers spread out before his eyes said:
+
+"This is how I look at this affair: I know nothing about it and won't
+begin proceedings, but I advise you to ride over to the staff and settle
+the business there in the commissariat department and if possible sign a
+receipt for such and such stores received. If not, as the demand was
+booked against an infantry regiment, there will be a row and the affair
+may end badly."
+
+From the regimental commander's, Denisov rode straight to the staff with
+a sincere desire to act on this advice. In the evening he came back to
+his dugout in a state such as Rostóv had never yet seen him in. Denisov
+could not speak and gasped for breath. When Rostóv asked what was the
+matter, he only uttered some incoherent oaths and threats in a hoarse,
+feeble voice.
+
+Alarmed at Denisov's condition, Rostóv suggested that he should undress,
+drink some water, and send for the doctor.
+
+"Twy me for wobbewy... oh! Some more water... Let them twy me, but I'll
+always thwash scoundwels... and I'll tell the Empewo'... Ice..." he
+muttered.
+
+The regimental doctor, when he came, said it was absolutely necessary to
+bleed Denisov. A deep saucer of black blood was taken from his hairy arm
+and only then was he able to relate what had happened to him.
+
+"I get there," began Denisov. "'Now then, where's your chief's
+quarters?' They were pointed out. 'Please to wait.' 'I've widden twenty
+miles and have duties to attend to and no time to wait. Announce me.'
+Vewy well, so out comes their head chief—also took it into his head to
+lecture me: 'It's wobbewy!'—'Wobbewy,' I say, 'is not done by man who
+seizes pwovisions to feed his soldiers, but by him who takes them to
+fill his own pockets!' 'Will you please be silent?' 'Vewy good!' Then he
+says: 'Go and give a weceipt to the commissioner, but your affair will
+be passed on to headquarters.' I go to the commissioner. I enter, and at
+the table... who do you think? No, but wait a bit!... Who is it that's
+starving us?" shouted Denisov, hitting the table with the fist of his
+newly bled arm so violently that the table nearly broke down and the
+tumblers on it jumped about. "Telyanin! 'What? So it's you who's
+starving us to death! Is it? Take this and this!' and I hit him so pat,
+stwaight on his snout... 'Ah, what a... what a...!' and I sta'ted
+fwashing him... Well, I've had a bit of fun I can tell you!" cried
+Denisov, gleeful and yet angry, his white teeth showing under his black
+mustache. "I'd have killed him if they hadn't taken him away!"
+
+"But what are you shouting for? Calm yourself," said Rostóv. "You've set
+your arm bleeding afresh. Wait, we must tie it up again."
+
+Denisov was bandaged up again and put to bed. Next day he woke calm and
+cheerful.
+
+But at noon the adjutant of the regiment came into Rostóv's and
+Denisov's dugout with a grave and serious face and regretfully showed
+them a paper addressed to Major Denisov from the regimental commander in
+which inquiries were made about yesterday's occurrence. The adjutant
+told them that the affair was likely to take a very bad turn: that a
+court-martial had been appointed, and that in view of the severity with
+which marauding and insubordination were now regarded, degradation to
+the ranks would be the best that could be hoped for.
+
+The case, as represented by the offended parties, was that, after
+seizing the transports, Major Denisov, being drunk, went to the chief
+quartermaster and without any provocation called him a thief, threatened
+to strike him, and on being led out had rushed into the office and given
+two officials a thrashing, and dislocated the arm of one of them.
+
+In answer to Rostóv's renewed questions, Denisov said, laughing, that he
+thought he remembered that some other fellow had got mixed up in it, but
+that it was all nonsense and rubbish, and he did not in the least fear
+any kind of trial, and that if those scoundrels dared attack him he
+would give them an answer that they would not easily forget.
+
+Denisov spoke contemptuously of the whole matter, but Rostóv knew him
+too well not to detect that (while hiding it from others) at heart he
+feared a court-martial and was worried over the affair, which was
+evidently taking a bad turn. Every day, letters of inquiry and notices
+from the court arrived, and on the first of May, Denisov was ordered to
+hand the squadron over to the next in seniority and appear before the
+staff of his division to explain his violence at the commissariat
+office. On the previous day Platov reconnoitered with two Cossack
+regiments and two squadrons of hussars. Denisov, as was his wont, rode
+out in front of the outposts, parading his courage. A bullet fired by a
+French sharpshooter hit him in the fleshy part of his leg. Perhaps at
+another time Denisov would not have left the regiment for so slight a
+wound, but now he took advantage of it to excuse himself from appearing
+at the staff and went into hospital.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+In June the battle of Friedland was fought, in which the Pávlograds did
+not take part, and after that an armistice was proclaimed. Rostóv, who
+felt his friend's absence very much, having no news of him since he left
+and feeling very anxious about his wound and the progress of his
+affairs, took advantage of the armistice to get leave to visit Denisov
+in hospital.
+
+The hospital was in a small Prussian town that had been twice devastated
+by Russian and French troops. Because it was summer, when it is so
+beautiful out in the fields, the little town presented a particularly
+dismal appearance with its broken roofs and fences, its foul streets,
+tattered inhabitants, and the sick and drunken soldiers wandering about.
+
+The hospital was in a brick building with some of the window frames and
+panes broken and a courtyard surrounded by the remains of a wooden fence
+that had been pulled to pieces. Several bandaged soldiers, with pale
+swollen faces, were sitting or walking about in the sunshine in the
+yard.
+
+Directly Rostóv entered the door he was enveloped by a smell of
+putrefaction and hospital air. On the stairs he met a Russian army
+doctor smoking a cigar. The doctor was followed by a Russian assistant.
+
+"I can't tear myself to pieces," the doctor was saying. "Come to Makar
+Alexeevich in the evening. I shall be there."
+
+The assistant asked some further questions.
+
+"Oh, do the best you can! Isn't it all the same?" The doctor noticed
+Rostóv coming upstairs.
+
+"What do you want, sir?" said the doctor. "What do you want? The bullets
+having spared you, do you want to try typhus? This is a pesthouse, sir."
+
+"How so?" asked Rostóv.
+
+"Typhus, sir. It's death to go in. Only we two, Makeev and I" (he
+pointed to the assistant), "keep on here. Some five of us doctors have
+died in this place.... When a new one comes he is done for in a week,"
+said the doctor with evident satisfaction. "Prussian doctors have been
+invited here, but our allies don't like it at all."
+
+Rostóv explained that he wanted to see Major Denisov of the hussars, who
+was wounded.
+
+"I don't know. I can't tell you, sir. Only think! I am alone in charge
+of three hospitals with more than four hundred patients! It's well that
+the charitable Prussian ladies send us two pounds of coffee and some
+lint each month or we should be lost!" he laughed. "Four hundred, sir,
+and they're always sending me fresh ones. There are four hundred? Eh?"
+he asked, turning to the assistant.
+
+The assistant looked fagged out. He was evidently vexed and impatient
+for the talkative doctor to go.
+
+"Major Denisov," Rostóv said again. "He was wounded at Molliten."
+
+"Dead, I fancy. Eh, Makeev?" queried the doctor, in a tone of
+indifference.
+
+The assistant, however, did not confirm the doctor's words.
+
+"Is he tall and with reddish hair?" asked the doctor.
+
+Rostóv described Denisov's appearance.
+
+"There was one like that," said the doctor, as if pleased. "That one is
+dead, I fancy. However, I'll look up our list. We had a list. Have you
+got it, Makeev?"
+
+"Makar Alexeevich has the list," answered the assistant. "But if you'll
+step into the officers' wards you'll see for yourself," he added,
+turning to Rostóv.
+
+"Ah, you'd better not go, sir," said the doctor, "or you may have to
+stay here yourself."
+
+But Rostóv bowed himself away from the doctor and asked the assistant to
+show him the way.
+
+"Only don't blame me!" the doctor shouted up after him.
+
+Rostóv and the assistant went into the dark corridor. The smell was so
+strong there that Rostóv held his nose and had to pause and collect his
+strength before he could go on. A door opened to the right, and an
+emaciated sallow man on crutches, barefoot and in underclothing, limped
+out and, leaning against the doorpost, looked with glittering envious
+eyes at those who were passing. Glancing in at the door, Rostóv saw that
+the sick and wounded were lying on the floor on straw and overcoats.
+
+"May I go in and look?"
+
+"What is there to see?" said the assistant.
+
+But, just because the assistant evidently did not want him to go in,
+Rostóv entered the soldiers' ward. The foul air, to which he had already
+begun to get used in the corridor, was still stronger here. It was a
+little different, more pungent, and one felt that this was where it
+originated.
+
+In the long room, brightly lit up by the sun through the large windows,
+the sick and wounded lay in two rows with their heads to the walls, and
+leaving a passage in the middle. Most of them were unconscious and paid
+no attention to the newcomers. Those who were conscious raised
+themselves or lifted their thin yellow faces, and all looked intently at
+Rostóv with the same expression of hope, of relief, reproach, and envy
+of another's health. Rostóv went to the middle of the room and looking
+through the open doors into the two adjoining rooms saw the same thing
+there. He stood still, looking silently around. He had not at all
+expected such a sight. Just before him, almost across the middle of the
+passage on the bare floor, lay a sick man, probably a Cossack to judge
+by the cut of his hair. The man lay on his back, his huge arms and legs
+outstretched. His face was purple, his eyes were rolled back so that
+only the whites were seen, and on his bare legs and arms which were
+still red, the veins stood out like cords. He was knocking the back of
+his head against the floor, hoarsely uttering some word which he kept
+repeating. Rostóv listened and made out the word. It was "drink, drink,
+a drink!" Rostóv glanced round, looking for someone who would put this
+man back in his place and bring him water.
+
+"Who looks after the sick here?" he asked the assistant.
+
+Just then a commissariat soldier, a hospital orderly, came in from the
+next room, marching stiffly, and drew up in front of Rostóv.
+
+"Good day, your honor!" he shouted, rolling his eyes at Rostóv and
+evidently mistaking him for one of the hospital authorities.
+
+"Get him to his place and give him some water," said Rostóv, pointing to
+the Cossack.
+
+"Yes, your honor," the soldier replied complacently, and rolling his
+eyes more than ever he drew himself up still straighter, but did not
+move.
+
+"No, it's impossible to do anything here," thought Rostóv, lowering his
+eyes, and he was going out, but became aware of an intense look fixed on
+him on his right, and he turned. Close to the corner, on an overcoat,
+sat an old, unshaven, gray-bearded soldier as thin as a skeleton, with a
+stern sallow face and eyes intently fixed on Rostóv. The man's neighbor
+on one side whispered something to him, pointing at Rostóv, who noticed
+that the old man wanted to speak to him. He drew nearer and saw that the
+old man had only one leg bent under him, the other had been amputated
+above the knee. His neighbor on the other side, who lay motionless some
+distance from him with his head thrown back, was a young soldier with a
+snub nose. His pale waxen face was still freckled and his eyes were
+rolled back. Rostóv looked at the young soldier and a cold chill ran
+down his back.
+
+"Why, this one seems..." he began, turning to the assistant.
+
+"And how we've been begging, your honor," said the old soldier, his jaw
+quivering. "He's been dead since morning. After all we're men, not
+dogs."
+
+"I'll send someone at once. He shall be taken away—taken away at once,"
+said the assistant hurriedly. "Let us go, your honor."
+
+"Yes, yes, let us go," said Rostóv hastily, and lowering his eyes and
+shrinking, he tried to pass unnoticed between the rows of reproachful
+envious eyes that were fixed upon him, and went out of the room.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+Going along the corridor, the assistant led Rostóv to the officers'
+wards, consisting of three rooms, the doors of which stood open. There
+were beds in these rooms and the sick and wounded officers were lying or
+sitting on them. Some were walking about the rooms in hospital dressing
+gowns. The first person Rostóv met in the officers' ward was a thin
+little man with one arm, who was walking about the first room in a
+nightcap and hospital dressing gown, with a pipe between his teeth.
+Rostóv looked at him, trying to remember where he had seen him before.
+
+"See where we've met again!" said the little man. "Tushin, Tushin, don't
+you remember, who gave you a lift at Schon Grabern? And I've had a bit
+cut off, you see..." he went on with a smile, pointing to the empty
+sleeve of his dressing gown. "Looking for Vasíli Dmítrich Denisov? My
+neighbor," he added, when he heard who Rostóv wanted. "Here, here," and
+Tushin led him into the next room, from whence came sounds of several
+laughing voices.
+
+"How can they laugh, or even live at all here?" thought Rostóv, still
+aware of that smell of decomposing flesh that had been so strong in the
+soldiers' ward, and still seeming to see fixed on him those envious
+looks which had followed him out from both sides, and the face of that
+young soldier with eyes rolled back.
+
+Denisov lay asleep on his bed with his head under the blanket, though it
+was nearly noon.
+
+"Ah, Wostov? How are you, how are you?" he called out, still in the same
+voice as in the regiment, but Rostóv noticed sadly that under this
+habitual ease and animation some new, sinister, hidden feeling showed
+itself in the expression of Denisov's face and the intonations of his
+voice.
+
+His wound, though a slight one, had not yet healed even now, six weeks
+after he had been hit. His face had the same swollen pallor as the faces
+of the other hospital patients, but it was not this that struck Rostóv.
+What struck him was that Denisov did not seem glad to see him, and
+smiled at him unnaturally. He did not ask about the regiment, nor about
+the general state of affairs, and when Rostóv spoke of these matters did
+not listen.
+
+Rostóv even noticed that Denisov did not like to be reminded of the
+regiment, or in general of that other free life which was going on
+outside the hospital. He seemed to try to forget that old life and was
+only interested in the affair with the commissariat officers. On
+Rostóv's inquiry as to how the matter stood, he at once produced from
+under his pillow a paper he had received from the commission and the
+rough draft of his answer to it. He became animated when he began
+reading his paper and specially drew Rostóv's attention to the stinging
+rejoinders he made to his enemies. His hospital companions, who had
+gathered round Rostóv—a fresh arrival from the world outside—gradually
+began to disperse as soon as Denisov began reading his answer. Rostóv
+noticed by their faces that all those gentlemen had already heard that
+story more than once and were tired of it. Only the man who had the next
+bed, a stout Uhlan, continued to sit on his bed, gloomily frowning and
+smoking a pipe, and little one-armed Tushin still listened, shaking his
+head disapprovingly. In the middle of the reading, the Uhlan interrupted
+Denisov.
+
+"But what I say is," he said, turning to Rostóv, "it would be best
+simply to petition the Emperor for pardon. They say great rewards will
+now be distributed, and surely a pardon would be granted...."
+
+"Me petition the Empewo'!" exclaimed Denisov, in a voice to which he
+tried hard to give the old energy and fire, but which sounded like an
+expression of irritable impotence. "What for? If I were a wobber I would
+ask mercy, but I'm being court-martialed for bwinging wobbers to book.
+Let them twy me, I'm not afwaid of anyone. I've served the Tsar and my
+countwy honowably and have not stolen! And am I to be degwaded?...
+Listen, I'm w'iting to them stwaight. This is what I say: 'If I had
+wobbed the Tweasuwy...'"
+
+"It's certainly well written," said Tushin, "but that's not the point,
+Vasíli Dmítrich," and he also turned to Rostóv. "One has to submit, and
+Vasíli Dmítrich doesn't want to. You know the auditor told you it was a
+bad business."
+
+"Well, let it be bad," said Denisov.
+
+"The auditor wrote out a petition for you," continued Tushin, "and you
+ought to sign it and ask this gentleman to take it. No doubt he"
+(indicating Rostóv) "has connections on the staff. You won't find a
+better opportunity."
+
+"Haven't I said I'm not going to gwovel?" Denisov interrupted him, went
+on reading his paper.
+
+Rostóv had not the courage to persuade Denisov, though he instinctively
+felt that the way advised by Tushin and the other officers was the
+safest, and though he would have been glad to be of service to Denisov.
+He knew his stubborn will and straightforward hasty temper.
+
+When the reading of Denisov's virulent reply, which took more than an
+hour, was over, Rostóv said nothing, and he spent the rest of the day in
+a most dejected state of mind amid Denisov's hospital comrades, who had
+gathered round him, telling them what he knew and listening to their
+stories. Denisov was moodily silent all the evening.
+
+Late in the evening, when Rostóv was about to leave, he asked Denisov
+whether he had no commission for him.
+
+"Yes, wait a bit," said Denisov, glancing round at the officers, and
+taking his papers from under his pillow he went to the window, where he
+had an inkpot, and sat down to write.
+
+"It seems it's no use knocking one's head against a wall!" he said,
+coming from the window and giving Rostóv a large envelope. In it was the
+petition to the Emperor drawn up by the auditor, in which Denisov,
+without alluding to the offenses of the commissariat officials, simply
+asked for pardon.
+
+"Hand it in. It seems..."
+
+He did not finish, but gave a painfully unnatural smile.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+Having returned to the regiment and told the commander the state of
+Denisov's affairs, Rostóv rode to Tilsit with the letter to the Emperor.
+
+On the thirteenth of June the French and Russian Emperors arrived in
+Tilsit. Borís Drubetskóy had asked the important personage on whom he
+was in attendance, to include him in the suite appointed for the stay at
+Tilsit.
+
+"I should like to see the great man," he said, alluding to Napoleon,
+whom hitherto he, like everyone else, had always called Buonaparte.
+
+"You are speaking of Buonaparte?" asked the general, smiling.
+
+Borís looked at his general inquiringly and immediately saw that he was
+being tested.
+
+"I am speaking, Prince, of the Emperor Napoleon," he replied. The
+general patted him on the shoulder, with a smile.
+
+"You will go far," he said, and took him to Tilsit with him.
+
+Borís was among the few present at the Niemen on the day the two
+Emperors met. He saw the raft, decorated with monograms, saw Napoleon
+pass before the French Guards on the farther bank of the river, saw the
+pensive face of the Emperor Alexander as he sat in silence in a tavern
+on the bank of the Niemen awaiting Napoleon's arrival, saw both Emperors
+get into boats, and saw how Napoleon—reaching the raft first—stepped
+quickly forward to meet Alexander and held out his hand to him, and how
+they both retired into the pavilion. Since he had begun to move in the
+highest circles Borís had made it his habit to watch attentively all
+that went on around him and to note it down. At the time of the meeting
+at Tilsit he asked the names of those who had come with Napoleon and
+about the uniforms they wore, and listened attentively to words spoken
+by important personages. At the moment the Emperors went into the
+pavilion he looked at his watch, and did not forget to look at it again
+when Alexander came out. The interview had lasted an hour and fifty-
+three minutes. He noted this down that same evening, among other facts
+he felt to be of historic importance. As the Emperor's suite was a very
+small one, it was a matter of great importance, for a man who valued his
+success in the service, to be at Tilsit on the occasion of this
+interview between the two Emperors, and having succeeded in this, Borís
+felt that henceforth his position was fully assured. He had not only
+become known, but people had grown accustomed to him and accepted him.
+Twice he had executed commissions to the Emperor himself, so that the
+latter knew his face, and all those at court, far from cold-shouldering
+him as at first when they considered him a newcomer, would now have been
+surprised had he been absent.
+
+Borís lodged with another adjutant, the Polish Count Zhilinski.
+Zhilinski, a Pole brought up in Paris, was rich, and passionately fond
+of the French, and almost every day of the stay at Tilsit, French
+officers of the Guard and from French headquarters were dining and
+lunching with him and Borís.
+
+On the evening of the twenty-fourth of June, Count Zhilinski arranged a
+supper for his French friends. The guest of honor was an aide-de-camp of
+Napoleon's, there were also several French officers of the Guard, and a
+page of Napoleon's, a young lad of an old aristocratic French family.
+That same day, Rostóv, profiting by the darkness to avoid being
+recognized in civilian dress, came to Tilsit and went to the lodging
+occupied by Borís and Zhilinski.
+
+Rostóv, in common with the whole army from which he came, was far from
+having experienced the change of feeling toward Napoleon and the
+French—who from being foes had suddenly become friends—that had taken
+place at headquarters and in Borís. In the army, Bonaparte and the
+French were still regarded with mingled feelings of anger, contempt, and
+fear. Only recently, talking with one of Platov's Cossack officers,
+Rostóv had argued that if Napoleon were taken prisoner he would be
+treated not as a sovereign, but as a criminal. Quite lately, happening
+to meet a wounded French colonel on the road, Rostóv had maintained with
+heat that peace was impossible between a legitimate sovereign and the
+criminal Bonaparte. Rostóv was therefore unpleasantly struck by the
+presence of French officers in Borís' lodging, dressed in uniforms he
+had been accustomed to see from quite a different point of view from the
+outposts of the flank. As soon as he noticed a French officer, who
+thrust his head out of the door, that warlike feeling of hostility which
+he always experienced at the sight of the enemy suddenly seized him. He
+stopped at the threshold and asked in Russian whether Drubetskóy lived
+there. Borís, hearing a strange voice in the anteroom, came out to meet
+him. An expression of annoyance showed itself for a moment on his face
+on first recognizing Rostóv.
+
+"Ah, it's you? Very glad, very glad to see you," he said, however,
+coming toward him with a smile. But Rostóv had noticed his first
+impulse.
+
+"I've come at a bad time I think. I should not have come, but I have
+business," he said coldly.
+
+"No, I only wonder how you managed to get away from your regiment. Dans
+un moment je suis a vous," * he said, answering someone who called him.
+
+* "In a minute I shall be at your disposal."
+
+"I see I'm intruding," Rostóv repeated.
+
+The look of annoyance had already disappeared from Borís' face: having
+evidently reflected and decided how to act, he very quietly took both
+Rostóv's hands and led him into the next room. His eyes, looking
+serenely and steadily at Rostóv, seemed to be veiled by something, as if
+screened by blue spectacles of conventionality. So it seemed to Rostóv.
+
+"Oh, come now! As if you could come at a wrong time!" said Borís, and he
+led him into the room where the supper table was laid and introduced him
+to his guests, explaining that he was not a civilian, but an hussar
+officer, and an old friend of his.
+
+"Count Zhilinski—le Comte N. N.—le Capitaine S. S.," said he, naming his
+guests. Rostóv looked frowningly at the Frenchmen, bowed reluctantly,
+and remained silent.
+
+Zhilinski evidently did not receive this new Russian person very
+willingly into his circle and did not speak to Rostóv. Borís did not
+appear to notice the constraint the newcomer produced and, with the same
+pleasant composure and the same veiled look in his eyes with which he
+had met Rostóv, tried to enliven the conversation. One of the Frenchmen,
+with the politeness characteristic of his countrymen, addressed the
+obstinately taciturn Rostóv, saying that the latter had probably come to
+Tilsit to see the Emperor.
+
+"No, I came on business," replied Rostóv, briefly.
+
+Rostóv had been out of humor from the moment he noticed the look of
+dissatisfaction on Borís' face, and as always happens to those in a bad
+humor, it seemed to him that everyone regarded him with aversion and
+that he was in everybody's way. He really was in their way, for he alone
+took no part in the conversation which again became general. The looks
+the visitors cast on him seemed to say: "And what is he sitting here
+for?" He rose and went up to Borís.
+
+"Anyhow, I'm in your way," he said in a low tone. "Come and talk over my
+business and I'll go away."
+
+"Oh, no, not at all," said Borís. "But if you are tired, come and lie
+down in my room and have a rest."
+
+"Yes, really..."
+
+They went into the little room where Borís slept. Rostóv, without
+sitting down, began at once, irritably (as if Borís were to blame in
+some way) telling him about Denisov's affair, asking him whether,
+through his general, he could and would intercede with the Emperor on
+Denisov's behalf and get Denisov's petition handed in. When he and Borís
+were alone, Rostóv felt for the first time that he could not look Borís
+in the face without a sense of awkwardness. Borís, with one leg crossed
+over the other and stroking his left hand with the slender fingers of
+his right, listened to Rostóv as a general listens to the report of a
+subordinate, now looking aside and now gazing straight into Rostóv's
+eyes with the same veiled look. Each time this happened Rostóv felt
+uncomfortable and cast down his eyes.
+
+"I have heard of such cases and know that His Majesty is very severe in
+such affairs. I think it would be best not to bring it before the
+Emperor, but to apply to the commander of the corps.... But in general,
+I think..."
+
+"So you don't want to do anything? Well then, say so!" Rostóv almost
+shouted, not looking Borís in the face.
+
+Borís smiled.
+
+"On the contrary, I will do what I can. Only I thought..."
+
+At that moment Zhilinski's voice was heard calling Borís.
+
+"Well then, go, go, go..." said Rostóv, and refusing supper and
+remaining alone in the little room, he walked up and down for a long
+time, hearing the lighthearted French conversation from the next room.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+Rostóv had come to Tilsit the day least suitable for a petition on
+Denisov's behalf. He could not himself go to the general in attendance
+as he was in mufti and had come to Tilsit without permission to do so,
+and Borís, even had he wished to, could not have done so on the
+following day. On that day, June 27, the preliminaries of peace were
+signed. The Emperors exchanged decorations: Alexander received the Cross
+of the Legion of Honor and Napoleon the Order of St. Andrew of the First
+Degree, and a dinner had been arranged for the evening, given by a
+battalion of the French Guards to the Preobrazhensk battalion. The
+Emperors were to be present at that banquet.
+
+Rostóv felt so ill at ease and uncomfortable with Borís that, when the
+latter looked in after supper, he pretended to be asleep, and early next
+morning went away, avoiding Borís. In his civilian clothes and a round
+hat, he wandered about the town, staring at the French and their
+uniforms and at the streets and houses where the Russian and French
+Emperors were staying. In a square he saw tables being set up and
+preparations made for the dinner; he saw the Russian and French colors
+draped from side to side of the streets, with huge monograms A and N. In
+the windows of the houses also flags and bunting were displayed.
+
+"Borís doesn't want to help me and I don't want to ask him. That's
+settled," thought Nicholas. "All is over between us, but I won't leave
+here without having done all I can for Denisov and certainly not without
+getting his letter to the Emperor. The Emperor!... He is here!" thought
+Rostóv, who had unconsciously returned to the house where Alexander
+lodged.
+
+Saddled horses were standing before the house and the suite were
+assembling, evidently preparing for the Emperor to come out.
+
+"I may see him at any moment," thought Rostóv. "If only I were to hand
+the letter direct to him and tell him all... could they really arrest me
+for my civilian clothes? Surely not! He would understand on whose side
+justice lies. He understands everything, knows everything. Who can be
+more just, more magnanimous than he? And even if they did arrest me for
+being here, what would it matter?" thought he, looking at an officer who
+was entering the house the Emperor occupied. "After all, people do go
+in.... It's all nonsense! I'll go in and hand the letter to the Emperor
+myself so much the worse for Drubetskóy who drives me to it!" And
+suddenly with a determination he himself did not expect, Rostóv felt for
+the letter in his pocket and went straight to the house.
+
+"No, I won't miss my opportunity now, as I did after Austerlitz," he
+thought, expecting every moment to meet the monarch, and conscious of
+the blood that rushed to his heart at the thought. "I will fall at his
+feet and beseech him. He will lift me up, will listen, and will even
+thank me. 'I am happy when I can do good, but to remedy injustice is the
+greatest happiness,'" Rostóv fancied the sovereign saying. And passing
+people who looked after him with curiosity, he entered the porch of the
+Emperor's house.
+
+A broad staircase led straight up from the entry, and to the right he
+saw a closed door. Below, under the staircase, was a door leading to the
+lower floor.
+
+"Whom do you want?" someone inquired.
+
+"To hand in a letter, a petition, to His Majesty," said Nicholas, with a
+tremor in his voice.
+
+"A petition? This way, to the officer on duty" (he was shown the door
+leading downstairs), "only it won't be accepted."
+
+On hearing this indifferent voice, Rostóv grew frightened at what he was
+doing; the thought of meeting the Emperor at any moment was so
+fascinating and consequently so alarming that he was ready to run away,
+but the official who had questioned him opened the door, and Rostóv
+entered.
+
+A short stout man of about thirty, in white breeches and high boots and
+a batiste shirt that he had evidently only just put on, standing in that
+room, and his valet was buttoning on to the back of his breeches a new
+pair of handsome silk-embroidered braces that, for some reason,
+attracted Rostóv's attention. This man was speaking to someone in the
+adjoining room.
+
+"A good figure and in her first bloom," he was saying, but on seeing
+Rostóv, he stopped short and frowned.
+
+"What is it? A petition?"
+
+"What is it?" asked the person in the other room.
+
+"Another petitioner," answered the man with the braces.
+
+"Tell him to come later. He'll be coming out directly, we must go."
+
+"Later... later! Tomorrow. It's too late..."
+
+Rostóv turned and was about to go, but the man in the braces stopped
+him.
+
+"Whom have you come from? Who are you?"
+
+"I come from Major Denisov," answered Rostóv.
+
+"Are you an officer?"
+
+"Lieutenant Count Rostóv."
+
+"What audacity! Hand it in through your commander. And go along with
+you... go," and he continued to put on the uniform the valet handed him.
+
+Rostóv went back into the hall and noticed that in the porch there were
+many officers and generals in full parade uniform, whom he had to pass.
+
+Cursing his temerity, his heart sinking at the thought of finding
+himself at any moment face to face with the Emperor and being put to
+shame and arrested in his presence, fully alive now to the impropriety
+of his conduct and repenting of it, Rostóv, with downcast eyes, was
+making his way out of the house through the brilliant suite when a
+familiar voice called him and a hand detained him.
+
+"What are you doing here, sir, in civilian dress?" asked a deep voice.
+
+It was a cavalry general who had obtained the Emperor's special favor
+during this campaign, and who had formerly commanded the division in
+which Rostóv was serving.
+
+Rostóv, in dismay, began justifying himself, but seeing the kindly,
+jocular face of the general, he took him aside and in an excited voice
+told him the whole affair, asking him to intercede for Denisov, whom the
+general knew. Having heard Rostóv to the end, the general shook his head
+gravely.
+
+"I'm sorry, sorry for that fine fellow. Give me the letter."
+
+Hardly had Rostóv handed him the letter and finished explaining
+Denisov's case, when hasty steps and the jingling of spurs were heard on
+the stairs, and the general, leaving him, went to the porch. The
+gentlemen of the Emperor's suite ran down the stairs and went to their
+horses. Hayne, the same groom who had been at Austerlitz, led up the
+Emperor's horse, and the faint creak of a footstep Rostóv knew at once
+was heard on the stairs. Forgetting the danger of being recognized,
+Rostóv went close to the porch, together with some inquisitive
+civilians, and again, after two years, saw those features he adored:
+that same face and same look and step, and the same union of majesty and
+mildness.... And the feeling of enthusiasm and love for his sovereign
+rose again in Rostóv's soul in all its old force. In the uniform of the
+Preobrazhensk regiment—white chamois-leather breeches and high boots—and
+wearing a star Rostóv did not know (it was that of the Legion
+d'honneur), the monarch came out into the porch, putting on his gloves
+and carrying his hat under his arm. He stopped and looked about him,
+brightening everything around by his glance. He spoke a few words to
+some of the generals, and, recognizing the former commander of Rostóv's
+division, smiled and beckoned to him.
+
+All the suite drew back and Rostóv saw the general talking for some time
+to the Emperor.
+
+The Emperor said a few words to him and took a step toward his horse.
+Again the crowd of members of the suite and street gazers (among whom
+was Rostóv) moved nearer to the Emperor. Stopping beside his horse, with
+his hand on the saddle, the Emperor turned to the cavalry general and
+said in a loud voice, evidently wishing to be heard by all:
+
+"I cannot do it, General. I cannot, because the law is stronger than I,"
+and he raised his foot to the stirrup.
+
+The general bowed his head respectfully, and the monarch mounted and
+rode down the street at a gallop. Beside himself with enthusiasm, Rostóv
+ran after him with the crowd.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+The Emperor rode to the square where, facing one another, a battalion of
+the Preobrazhensk regiment stood on the right and a battalion of the
+French Guards in their bearskin caps on the left.
+
+As the Tsar rode up to one flank of the battalions, which presented
+arms, another group of horsemen galloped up to the opposite flank, and
+at the head of them Rostóv recognized Napoleon. It could be no one else.
+He came at a gallop, wearing a small hat, a blue uniform open over a
+white vest, and the St. Andrew ribbon over his shoulder. He was riding a
+very fine thoroughbred gray Arab horse with a crimson gold-embroidered
+saddlecloth. On approaching Alexander he raised his hat, and as he did
+so, Rostóv, with his cavalryman's eye, could not help noticing that
+Napoleon did not sit well or firmly in the saddle. The battalions
+shouted "Hurrah!" and "Vive l'Empereur!" Napoleon said something to
+Alexander, and both Emperors dismounted and took each other's hands.
+Napoleon's face wore an unpleasant and artificial smile. Alexander was
+saying something affable to him.
+
+In spite of the trampling of the French gendarmes' horses, which were
+pushing back the crowd, Rostóv kept his eyes on every movement of
+Alexander and Bonaparte. It struck him as a surprise that Alexander
+treated Bonaparte as an equal and that the latter was quite at ease with
+the Tsar, as if such relations with an Emperor were an everyday matter
+to him.
+
+Alexander and Napoleon, with the long train of their suites, approached
+the right flank of the Preobrazhensk battalion and came straight up to
+the crowd standing there. The crowd unexpectedly found itself so close
+to the Emperors that Rostóv, standing in the front row, was afraid he
+might be recognized.
+
+"Sire, I ask your permission to present the Legion of Honor to the
+bravest of your soldiers," said a sharp, precise voice, articulating
+every letter.
+
+This was said by the undersized Napoleon, looking up straight into
+Alexander's eyes. Alexander listened attentively to what was said to him
+and, bending his head, smiled pleasantly.
+
+"To him who has borne himself most bravely in this last war," added
+Napoleon, accentuating each syllable, as with a composure and assurance
+exasperating to Rostóv, he ran his eyes over the Russian ranks drawn up
+before him, who all presented arms with their eyes fixed on their
+Emperor.
+
+"Will Your Majesty allow me to consult the colonel?" said Alexander and
+took a few hasty steps toward Prince Kozlovski, the commander of the
+battalion.
+
+Bonaparte meanwhile began taking the glove off his small white hand,
+tore it in doing so, and threw it away. An aide-de-camp behind him
+rushed forward and picked it up.
+
+"To whom shall it be given?" the Emperor Alexander asked Koslovski, in
+Russian in a low voice.
+
+"To whomever Your Majesty commands."
+
+The Emperor knit his brows with dissatisfaction and, glancing back,
+remarked:
+
+"But we must give him an answer."
+
+Kozlovski scanned the ranks resolutely and included Rostóv in his
+scrutiny.
+
+"Can it be me?" thought Rostóv.
+
+"Lazarev!" the colonel called, with a frown, and Lazarev, the first
+soldier in the rank, stepped briskly forward.
+
+"Where are you off to? Stop here!" voices whispered to Lazarev who did
+not know where to go. Lazarev stopped, casting a sidelong look at his
+colonel in alarm. His face twitched, as often happens to soldiers called
+before the ranks.
+
+Napoleon slightly turned his head, and put his plump little hand out
+behind him as if to take something. The members of his suite, guessing
+at once what he wanted, moved about and whispered as they passed
+something from one to another, and a page—the same one Rostóv had seen
+the previous evening at Borís'—ran forward and, bowing respectfully over
+the outstretched hand and not keeping it waiting a moment, laid in it an
+Order on a red ribbon. Napoleon, without looking, pressed two fingers
+together and the badge was between them. Then he approached Lazarev (who
+rolled his eyes and persistently gazed at his own monarch), looked round
+at the Emperor Alexander to imply that what he was now doing was done
+for the sake of his ally, and the small white hand holding the Order
+touched one of Lazarev's buttons. It was as if Napoleon knew that it was
+only necessary for his hand to deign to touch that soldier's breast for
+the soldier to be forever happy, rewarded, and distinguished from
+everyone else in the world. Napoleon merely laid the cross on Lazarev's
+breast and, dropping his hand, turned toward Alexander as though sure
+that the cross would adhere there. And it really did.
+
+Officious hands, Russian and French, immediately seized the cross and
+fastened it to the uniform. Lazarev glanced morosely at the little man
+with white hands who was doing something to him and, still standing
+motionless presenting arms, looked again straight into Alexander's eyes,
+as if asking whether he should stand there, or go away, or do something
+else. But receiving no orders, he remained for some time in that rigid
+position.
+
+The Emperors remounted and rode away. The Preobrazhensk battalion,
+breaking rank, mingled with the French Guards and sat down at the tables
+prepared for them.
+
+Lazarev sat in the place of honor. Russian and French officers embraced
+him, congratulated him, and pressed his hands. Crowds of officers and
+civilians drew near merely to see him. A rumble of Russian and French
+voices and laughter filled the air round the tables in the square. Two
+officers with flushed faces, looking cheerful and happy, passed by
+Rostóv.
+
+"What d'you think of the treat? All on silver plate," one of them was
+saying. "Have you seen Lazarev?"
+
+"I have."
+
+"Tomorrow, I hear, the Preobrazhenskis will give them a dinner."
+
+"Yes, but what luck for Lazarev! Twelve hundred francs' pension for
+life."
+
+"Here's a cap, lads!" shouted a Preobrazhensk soldier, donning a shaggy
+French cap.
+
+"It's a fine thing! First-rate!"
+
+"Have you heard the password?" asked one Guards' officer of another.
+"The day before yesterday it was 'Napoleon, France, bravoure';
+yesterday, 'Alexandre, Russie, grandeur.' One day our Emperor gives it
+and next day Napoleon. Tomorrow our Emperor will send a St. George's
+Cross to the bravest of the French Guards. It has to be done. He must
+respond in kind."
+
+Borís, too, with his friend Zhilinski, came to see the Preobrazhensk
+banquet. On his way back, he noticed Rostóv standing by the corner of a
+house.
+
+"Rostóv! How d'you do? We missed one another," he said, and could not
+refrain from asking what was the matter, so strangely dismal and
+troubled was Rostóv's face.
+
+"Nothing, nothing," replied Rostóv.
+
+"You'll call round?"
+
+"Yes, I will."
+
+Rostóv stood at that corner for a long time, watching the feast from a
+distance. In his mind, a painful process was going on which he could not
+bring to a conclusion. Terrible doubts rose in his soul. Now he
+remembered Denisov with his changed expression, his submission, and the
+whole hospital, with arms and legs torn off and its dirt and disease. So
+vividly did he recall that hospital stench of dead flesh that he looked
+round to see where the smell came from. Next he thought of that self-
+satisfied Bonaparte, with his small white hand, who was now an Emperor,
+liked and respected by Alexander. Then why those severed arms and legs
+and those dead men?... Then again he thought of Lazarev rewarded and
+Denisov punished and unpardoned. He caught himself harboring such
+strange thoughts that he was frightened.
+
+The smell of the food the Preobrazhenskis were eating and a sense of
+hunger recalled him from these reflections; he had to get something to
+eat before going away. He went to a hotel he had noticed that morning.
+There he found so many people, among them officers who, like himself,
+had come in civilian clothes, that he had difficulty in getting a
+dinner. Two officers of his own division joined him. The conversation
+naturally turned on the peace. The officers, his comrades, like most of
+the army, were dissatisfied with the peace concluded after the battle of
+Friedland. They said that had we held out a little longer Napoleon would
+have been done for, as his troops had neither provisions nor ammunition.
+Nicholas ate and drank (chiefly the latter) in silence. He finished a
+couple of bottles of wine by himself. The process in his mind went on
+tormenting him without reaching a conclusion. He feared to give way to
+his thoughts, yet could not get rid of them. Suddenly, on one of the
+officers' saying that it was humiliating to look at the French, Rostóv
+began shouting with uncalled-for wrath, and therefore much to the
+surprise of the officers:
+
+"How can you judge what's best?" he cried, the blood suddenly rushing to
+his face. "How can you judge the Emperor's actions? What right have we
+to argue? We cannot comprehend either the Emperor's aims or his
+actions!"
+
+"But I never said a word about the Emperor!" said the officer,
+justifying himself, and unable to understand Rostóv's outburst, except
+on the supposition that he was drunk.
+
+But Rostóv did not listen to him.
+
+"We are not diplomatic officials, we are soldiers and nothing more," he
+went on. "If we are ordered to die, we must die. If we're punished, it
+means that we have deserved it, it's not for us to judge. If the Emperor
+pleases to recognize Bonaparte as Emperor and to conclude an alliance
+with him, it means that that is the right thing to do. If once we begin
+judging and arguing about everything, nothing sacred will be left! That
+way we shall be saying there is no God—nothing!" shouted Nicholas,
+banging the table—very little to the point as it seemed to his
+listeners, but quite relevantly to the course of his own thoughts.
+
+"Our business is to do our duty, to fight and not to think! That's
+all...." said he.
+
+"And to drink," said one of the officers, not wishing to quarrel.
+
+"Yes, and to drink," assented Nicholas. "Hullo there! Another bottle!"
+he shouted.
+
+In 1808 the Emperor Alexander went to Erfurt for a fresh interview with
+the Emperor Napoleon, and in the upper circles of Petersburg there was
+much talk of the grandeur of this important meeting.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+In 1809 the intimacy between "the world's two arbiters," as Napoleon and
+Alexander were called, was such that when Napoleon declared war on
+Austria a Russian corps crossed the frontier to co-operate with our old
+enemy Bonaparte against our old ally the Emperor of Austria, and in
+court circles the possibility of marriage between Napoleon and one of
+Alexander's sisters was spoken of. But besides considerations of foreign
+policy, the attention of Russian society was at that time keenly
+directed on the internal changes that were being undertaken in all the
+departments of government.
+
+Life meanwhile—real life, with its essential interests of health and
+sickness, toil and rest, and its intellectual interests in thought,
+science, poetry, music, love, friendship, hatred, and passions—went on
+as usual, independently of and apart from political friendship or enmity
+with Napoleon Bonaparte and from all the schemes of reconstruction.
+
+
+
+
+
+BOOK SIX: 1808 - 10
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+Prince Andrew had spent two years continuously in the country.
+
+All the plans Pierre had attempted on his estates—and constantly
+changing from one thing to another had never accomplished—were carried
+out by Prince Andrew without display and without perceptible difficulty.
+
+He had in the highest degree a practical tenacity which Pierre lacked,
+and without fuss or strain on his part this set things going.
+
+On one of his estates the three hundred serfs were liberated and became
+free agricultural laborers—this being one of the first examples of the
+kind in Russia. On other estates the serfs' compulsory labor was
+commuted for a quitrent. A trained midwife was engaged for Bogucharovo
+at his expense, and a priest was paid to teach reading and writing to
+the children of the peasants and household serfs.
+
+Prince Andrew spent half his time at Bald Hills with his father and his
+son, who was still in the care of nurses. The other half he spent in
+"Bogucharovo Cloister," as his father called Prince Andrew's estate.
+Despite the indifference to the affairs of the world he had expressed to
+Pierre, he diligently followed all that went on, received many books,
+and to his surprise noticed that when he or his father had visitors from
+Petersburg, the very vortex of life, these people lagged behind
+himself—who never left the country—in knowledge of what was happening in
+home and foreign affairs.
+
+Besides being occupied with his estates and reading a great variety of
+books, Prince Andrew was at this time busy with a critical survey of our
+last two unfortunate campaigns, and with drawing up a proposal for a
+reform of the army rules and regulations.
+
+In the spring of 1809 he went to visit the Ryazan estates which had been
+inherited by his son, whose guardian he was.
+
+Warmed by the spring sunshine he sat in the calèche looking at the new
+grass, the first leaves on the birches, and the first puffs of white
+spring clouds floating across the clear blue sky. He was not thinking of
+anything, but looked absent-mindedly and cheerfully from side to side.
+
+They crossed the ferry where he had talked with Pierre the year before.
+They went through the muddy village, past threshing floors and green
+fields of winter rye, downhill where snow still lodged near the bridge,
+uphill where the clay had been liquefied by the rain, past strips of
+stubble land and bushes touched with green here and there, and into a
+birch forest growing on both sides of the road. In the forest it was
+almost hot, no wind could be felt. The birches with their sticky green
+leaves were motionless, and lilac-colored flowers and the first blades
+of green grass were pushing up and lifting last year's leaves. The
+coarse evergreen color of the small fir trees scattered here and there
+among the birches was an unpleasant reminder of winter. On entering the
+forest the horses began to snort and sweated visibly.
+
+Peter the footman made some remark to the coachman; the latter assented.
+But apparently the coachman's sympathy was not enough for Peter, and he
+turned on the box toward his master.
+
+"How pleasant it is, your excellency!" he said with a respectful smile.
+
+"What?"
+
+"It's pleasant, your excellency!"
+
+"What is he talking about?" thought Prince Andrew. "Oh, the spring, I
+suppose," he thought as he turned round. "Yes, really everything is
+green already.... How early! The birches and cherry and alders too are
+coming out.... But the oaks show no sign yet. Ah, here is one oak!"
+
+At the edge of the road stood an oak. Probably ten times the age of the
+birches that formed the forest, it was ten times as thick and twice as
+tall as they. It was an enormous tree, its girth twice as great as a man
+could embrace, and evidently long ago some of its branches had been
+broken off and its bark scarred. With its huge ungainly limbs sprawling
+unsymmetrically, and its gnarled hands and fingers, it stood an aged,
+stern, and scornful monster among the smiling birch trees. Only the
+dead-looking evergreen firs dotted about in the forest, and this oak,
+refused to yield to the charm of spring or notice either the spring or
+the sunshine.
+
+"Spring, love, happiness!" this oak seemed to say. "Are you not weary of
+that stupid, meaningless, constantly repeated fraud? Always the same and
+always a fraud? There is no spring, no sun, no happiness! Look at those
+cramped dead firs, ever the same, and at me too, sticking out my broken
+and barked fingers just where they have grown, whether from my back or
+my sides: as they have grown so I stand, and I do not believe in your
+hopes and your lies."
+
+As he passed through the forest Prince Andrew turned several times to
+look at that oak, as if expecting something from it. Under the oak, too,
+were flowers and grass, but it stood among them scowling, rigid,
+misshapen, and grim as ever.
+
+"Yes, the oak is right, a thousand times right," thought Prince Andrew.
+"Let others—the young—yield afresh to that fraud, but we know life, our
+life is finished!"
+
+A whole sequence of new thoughts, hopeless but mournfully pleasant, rose
+in his soul in connection with that tree. During this journey he, as it
+were, considered his life afresh and arrived at his old conclusion,
+restful in its hopelessness: that it was not for him to begin anything
+anew—but that he must live out his life, content to do no harm, and not
+disturbing himself or desiring anything.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+Prince Andrew had to see the Marshal of the Nobility for the district in
+connection with the affairs of the Ryazan estate of which he was
+trustee. This Marshal was Count Ilyá Rostóv, and in the middle of May
+Prince Andrew went to visit him.
+
+It was now hot spring weather. The whole forest was already clothed in
+green. It was dusty and so hot that on passing near water one longed to
+bathe.
+
+Prince Andrew, depressed and preoccupied with the business about which
+he had to speak to the Marshal, was driving up the avenue in the grounds
+of the Rostóvs' house at Otradnoe. He heard merry girlish cries behind
+some trees on the right and saw a group of girls running to cross the
+path of his calèche. Ahead of the rest and nearer to him ran a dark-
+haired, remarkably slim, pretty girl in a yellow chintz dress, with a
+white handkerchief on her head from under which loose locks of hair
+escaped. The girl was shouting something but, seeing that he was a
+stranger, ran back laughing without looking at him.
+
+Suddenly, he did not know why, he felt a pang. The day was so beautiful,
+the sun so bright, everything around so gay, but that slim pretty girl
+did not know, or wish to know, of his existence and was contented and
+cheerful in her own separate—probably foolish—but bright and happy life.
+"What is she so glad about? What is she thinking of? Not of the military
+regulations or of the arrangement of the Ryazan serfs' quitrents. Of
+what is she thinking? Why is she so happy?" Prince Andrew asked himself
+with instinctive curiosity.
+
+In 1809 Count Ilyá Rostóv was living at Otradnoe just as he had done in
+former years, that is, entertaining almost the whole province with
+hunts, theatricals, dinners, and music. He was glad to see Prince
+Andrew, as he was to see any new visitor, and insisted on his staying
+the night.
+
+During the dull day, in the course of which he was entertained by his
+elderly hosts and by the more important of the visitors (the old count's
+house was crowded on account of an approaching name day), Prince Andrew
+repeatedly glanced at Natásha, gay and laughing among the younger
+members of the company, and asked himself each time, "What is she
+thinking about? Why is she so glad?"
+
+That night, alone in new surroundings, he was long unable to sleep. He
+read awhile and then put out his candle, but relit it. It was hot in the
+room, the inside shutters of which were closed. He was cross with the
+stupid old man (as he called Rostóv), who had made him stay by assuring
+him that some necessary documents had not yet arrived from town, and he
+was vexed with himself for having stayed.
+
+He got up and went to the window to open it. As soon as he opened the
+shutters the moonlight, as if it had long been watching for this, burst
+into the room. He opened the casement. The night was fresh, bright, and
+very still. Just before the window was a row of pollard trees, looking
+black on one side and with a silvery light on the other. Beneath the
+trees grew some kind of lush, wet, bushy vegetation with silver-lit
+leaves and stems here and there. Farther back beyond the dark trees a
+roof glittered with dew, to the right was a leafy tree with brilliantly
+white trunk and branches, and above it shone the moon, nearly at its
+full, in a pale, almost starless, spring sky. Prince Andrew leaned his
+elbows on the window ledge and his eyes rested on that sky.
+
+His room was on the first floor. Those in the rooms above were also
+awake. He heard female voices overhead.
+
+"Just once more," said a girlish voice above him which Prince Andrew
+recognized at once.
+
+"But when are you coming to bed?" replied another voice.
+
+"I won't, I can't sleep, what's the use? Come now for the last time."
+
+Two girlish voices sang a musical passage—the end of some song.
+
+"Oh, how lovely! Now go to sleep, and there's an end of it."
+
+"You go to sleep, but I can't," said the first voice, coming nearer to
+the window. She was evidently leaning right out, for the rustle of her
+dress and even her breathing could be heard. Everything was stone-still,
+like the moon and its light and the shadows. Prince Andrew, too, dared
+not stir, for fear of betraying his unintentional presence.
+
+"Sónya! Sónya!" he again heard the first speaker. "Oh, how can you
+sleep? Only look how glorious it is! Ah, how glorious! Do wake up,
+Sónya!" she said almost with tears in her voice. "There never, never was
+such a lovely night before!"
+
+Sónya made some reluctant reply.
+
+"Do just come and see what a moon!... Oh, how lovely! Come here....
+Darling, sweetheart, come here! There, you see? I feel like sitting down
+on my heels, putting my arms round my knees like this, straining tight,
+as tight as possible, and flying away! Like this...."
+
+"Take care, you'll fall out."
+
+He heard the sound of a scuffle and Sónya's disapproving voice: "It's
+past one o'clock."
+
+"Oh, you only spoil things for me. All right, go, go!"
+
+Again all was silent, but Prince Andrew knew she was still sitting
+there. From time to time he heard a soft rustle and at times a sigh.
+
+"O God, O God! What does it mean?" she suddenly exclaimed. "To bed then,
+if it must be!" and she slammed the casement.
+
+"For her I might as well not exist!" thought Prince Andrew while he
+listened to her voice, for some reason expecting yet fearing that she
+might say something about him. "There she is again! As if it were on
+purpose," thought he.
+
+In his soul there suddenly arose such an unexpected turmoil of youthful
+thoughts and hopes, contrary to the whole tenor of his life, that unable
+to explain his condition to himself he lay down and fell asleep at once.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+Next morning, having taken leave of no one but the count, and not
+waiting for the ladies to appear, Prince Andrew set off for home.
+
+It was already the beginning of June when on his return journey he drove
+into the birch forest where the gnarled old oak had made so strange and
+memorable an impression on him. In the forest the harness bells sounded
+yet more muffled than they had done six weeks before, for now all was
+thick, shady, and dense, and the young firs dotted about in the forest
+did not jar on the general beauty but, lending themselves to the mood
+around, were delicately green with fluffy young shoots.
+
+The whole day had been hot. Somewhere a storm was gathering, but only a
+small cloud had scattered some raindrops lightly, sprinkling the road
+and the sappy leaves. The left side of the forest was dark in the shade,
+the right side glittered in the sunlight, wet and shiny and scarcely
+swayed by the breeze. Everything was in blossom, the nightingales
+trilled, and their voices reverberated now near, now far away.
+
+"Yes, here in this forest was that oak with which I agreed," thought
+Prince Andrew. "But where is it?" he again wondered, gazing at the left
+side of the road, and without recognizing it he looked with admiration
+at the very oak he sought. The old oak, quite transfigured, spreading
+out a canopy of sappy dark-green foliage, stood rapt and slightly
+trembling in the rays of the evening sun. Neither gnarled fingers nor
+old scars nor old doubts and sorrows were any of them in evidence now.
+Through the hard century-old bark, even where there were no twigs,
+leaves had sprouted such as one could hardly believe the old veteran
+could have produced.
+
+"Yes, it is the same oak," thought Prince Andrew, and all at once he was
+seized by an unreasoning springtime feeling of joy and renewal. All the
+best moments of his life suddenly rose to his memory. Austerlitz with
+the lofty heavens, his wife's dead reproachful face, Pierre at the
+ferry, that girl thrilled by the beauty of the night, and that night
+itself and the moon, and.... all this rushed suddenly to his mind.
+
+"No, life is not over at thirty-one!" Prince Andrew suddenly decided
+finally and decisively. "It is not enough for me to know what I have in
+me—everyone must know it: Pierre, and that young girl who wanted to fly
+away into the sky, everyone must know me, so that my life may not be
+lived for myself alone while others live so apart from it, but so that
+it may be reflected in them all, and they and I may live in harmony!"
+
+On reaching home Prince Andrew decided to go to Petersburg that autumn
+and found all sorts of reasons for this decision. A whole series of
+sensible and logical considerations showing it to be essential for him
+to go to Petersburg, and even to re-enter the service, kept springing up
+in his mind. He could not now understand how he could ever even have
+doubted the necessity of taking an active share in life, just as a month
+before he had not understood how the idea of leaving the quiet country
+could ever enter his head. It now seemed clear to him that all his
+experience of life must be senselessly wasted unless he applied it to
+some kind of work and again played an active part in life. He did not
+even remember how formerly, on the strength of similar wretched logical
+arguments, it had seemed obvious that he would be degrading himself if
+he now, after the lessons he had had in life, allowed himself to believe
+in the possibility of being useful and in the possibility of happiness
+or love. Now reason suggested quite the opposite. After that journey to
+Ryazan he found the country dull; his former pursuits no longer
+interested him, and often when sitting alone in his study he got up,
+went to the mirror, and gazed a long time at his own face. Then he would
+turn away to the portrait of his dead Lise, who with hair curled a la
+grecque looked tenderly and gaily at him out of the gilt frame. She did
+not now say those former terrible words to him, but looked simply,
+merrily, and inquisitively at him. And Prince Andrew, crossing his arms
+behind him, long paced the room, now frowning, now smiling, as he
+reflected on those irrational, inexpressible thoughts, secret as a
+crime, which altered his whole life and were connected with Pierre, with
+fame, with the girl at the window, the oak, and woman's beauty and love.
+And if anyone came into his room at such moments he was particularly
+cold, stern, and above all unpleasantly logical.
+
+"My dear," Princess Mary entering at such a moment would say, "little
+Nicholas can't go out today, it's very cold."
+
+"If it were hot," Prince Andrew would reply at such times very dryly to
+his sister, "he could go out in his smock, but as it is cold he must
+wear warm clothes, which were designed for that purpose. That is what
+follows from the fact that it is cold; and not that a child who needs
+fresh air should remain at home," he would add with extreme logic, as if
+punishing someone for those secret illogical emotions that stirred
+within him.
+
+At such moments Princess Mary would think how intellectual work dries
+men up.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+Prince Andrew arrived in Petersburg in August, 1809. It was the time
+when the youthful Speranski was at the zenith of his fame and his
+reforms were being pushed forward with the greatest energy. That same
+August the Emperor was thrown from his calèche, injured his leg, and
+remained three weeks at Peterhof, receiving Speranski every day and no
+one else. At that time the two famous decrees were being prepared that
+so agitated society—abolishing court ranks and introducing examinations
+to qualify for the grades of Collegiate Assessor and State Councilor—and
+not merely these but a whole state constitution, intended to change the
+existing order of government in Russia: legal, administrative, and
+financial, from the Council of State down to the district tribunals. Now
+those vague liberal dreams with which the Emperor Alexander had ascended
+the throne, and which he had tried to put into effect with the aid of
+his associates, Czartoryski, Novosíltsev, Kochubey, and Strogonov—whom
+he himself in jest had called his Comite de salut public—were taking
+shape and being realized.
+
+Now all these men were replaced by Speranski on the civil side, and
+Arakcheev on the military. Soon after his arrival Prince Andrew, as a
+gentleman of the chamber, presented himself at court and at a levee. The
+Emperor, though he met him twice, did not favor him with a single word.
+It had always seemed to Prince Andrew before that he was antipathetic to
+the Emperor and that the latter disliked his face and personality
+generally, and in the cold, repellent glance the Emperor gave him, he
+now found further confirmation of this surmise. The courtiers explained
+the Emperor's neglect of him by His Majesty's displeasure at Bolkónski's
+not having served since 1805.
+
+"I know myself that one cannot help one's sympathies and antipathies,"
+thought Prince Andrew, "so it will not do to present my proposal for the
+reform of the army regulations to the Emperor personally, but the
+project will speak for itself."
+
+He mentioned what he had written to an old field marshal, a friend of
+his father's. The field marshal made an appointment to see him, received
+him graciously, and promised to inform the Emperor. A few days later
+Prince Andrew received notice that he was to go to see the Minister of
+War, Count Arakcheev.
+
+On the appointed day Prince Andrew entered Count Arakcheev's waiting
+room at nine in the morning.
+
+He did not know Arakcheev personally, had never seen him, and all he had
+heard of him inspired him with but little respect for the man.
+
+"He is Minister of War, a man trusted by the Emperor, and I need not
+concern myself about his personal qualities: he has been commissioned to
+consider my project, so he alone can get it adopted," thought Prince
+Andrew as he waited among a number of important and unimportant people
+in Count Arakcheev's waiting room.
+
+During his service, chiefly as an adjutant, Prince Andrew had seen the
+anterooms of many important men, and the different types of such rooms
+were well known to him. Count Arakcheev's anteroom had quite a special
+character. The faces of the unimportant people awaiting their turn for
+an audience showed embarrassment and servility; the faces of those of
+higher rank expressed a common feeling of awkwardness, covered by a mask
+of unconcern and ridicule of themselves, their situation, and the person
+for whom they were waiting. Some walked thoughtfully up and down, others
+whispered and laughed. Prince Andrew heard the nickname "Sila
+Andréevich" and the words, "Uncle will give it to us hot," in reference
+to Count Arakcheev. One general (an important personage), evidently
+feeling offended at having to wait so long, sat crossing and uncrossing
+his legs and smiling contemptuously to himself.
+
+But the moment the door opened one feeling alone appeared on all
+faces—that of fear. Prince Andrew for the second time asked the adjutant
+on duty to take in his name, but received an ironical look and was told
+that his turn would come in due course. After some others had been shown
+in and out of the minister's room by the adjutant on duty, an officer
+who struck Prince Andrew by his humiliated and frightened air was
+admitted at that terrible door. This officer's audience lasted a long
+time. Then suddenly the grating sound of a harsh voice was heard from
+the other side of the door, and the officer—with pale face and trembling
+lips—came out and passed through the waiting room, clutching his head.
+
+After this Prince Andrew was conducted to the door and the officer on
+duty said in a whisper, "To the right, at the window."
+
+Prince Andrew entered a plain tidy room and saw at the table a man of
+forty with a long waist, a long closely cropped head, deep wrinkles,
+scowling brows above dull greenish-hazel eyes and an overhanging red
+nose. Arakcheev turned his head toward him without looking at him.
+
+"What is your petition?" asked Arakcheev.
+
+"I am not petitioning, your excellency," returned Prince Andrew quietly.
+
+Arakcheev's eyes turned toward him.
+
+"Sit down," said he. "Prince Bolkónski?"
+
+"I am not petitioning about anything. His Majesty the Emperor has
+deigned to send your excellency a project submitted by me..."
+
+"You see, my dear sir, I have read your project," interrupted Arakcheev,
+uttering only the first words amiably and then—again without looking at
+Prince Andrew—relapsing gradually into a tone of grumbling contempt.
+"You are proposing new military laws? There are many laws but no one to
+carry out the old ones. Nowadays everybody designs laws, it is easier
+writing than doing."
+
+"I came at His Majesty the Emperor's wish to learn from your excellency
+how you propose to deal with the memorandum I have presented," said
+Prince Andrew politely.
+
+"I have endorsed a resolution on your memorandum and sent it to the
+committee. I do not approve of it," said Arakcheev, rising and taking a
+paper from his writing table. "Here!" and he handed it to Prince Andrew.
+
+Across the paper was scrawled in pencil, without capital letters,
+misspelled, and without punctuation: "Unsoundly constructed because
+resembles an imitation of the French military code and from the Articles
+of War needlessly deviating."
+
+"To what committee has the memorandum been referred?" inquired Prince
+Andrew.
+
+"To the Committee on Army Regulations, and I have recommended that your
+honor should be appointed a member, but without a salary."
+
+Prince Andrew smiled.
+
+"I don't want one."
+
+"A member without salary," repeated Arakcheev. "I have the honor... Eh!
+Call the next one! Who else is there?" he shouted, bowing to Prince
+Andrew.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+While waiting for the announcement of his appointment to the committee
+Prince Andrew looked up his former acquaintances, particularly those he
+knew to be in power and whose aid he might need. In Petersburg he now
+experienced the same feeling he had had on the eve of a battle, when
+troubled by anxious curiosity and irresistibly attracted to the ruling
+circles where the future, on which the fate of millions depended, was
+being shaped. From the irritation of the older men, the curiosity of the
+uninitiated, the reserve of the initiated, the hurry and preoccupation
+of everyone, and the innumerable committees and commissions of whose
+existence he learned every day, he felt that now, in 1809, here in
+Petersburg a vast civil conflict was in preparation, the commander in
+chief of which was a mysterious person he did not know, but who was
+supposed to be a man of genius—Speranski. And this movement of
+reconstruction of which Prince Andrew had a vague idea, and Speranski
+its chief promoter, began to interest him so keenly that the question of
+the army regulations quickly receded to a secondary place in his
+consciousness.
+
+Prince Andrew was most favorably placed to secure good reception in the
+highest and most diverse Petersburg circles of the day. The reforming
+party cordially welcomed and courted him, in the first place because he
+was reputed to be clever and very well read, and secondly because by
+liberating his serfs he had obtained the reputation of being a liberal.
+The party of the old and dissatisfied, who censured the innovations,
+turned to him expecting his sympathy in their disapproval of the
+reforms, simply because he was the son of his father. The feminine
+society world welcomed him gladly, because he was rich, distinguished, a
+good match, and almost a newcomer, with a halo of romance on account of
+his supposed death and the tragic loss of his wife. Besides this the
+general opinion of all who had known him previously was that he had
+greatly improved during these last five years, having softened and grown
+more manly, lost his former affectation, pride, and contemptuous irony,
+and acquired the serenity that comes with years. People talked about
+him, were interested in him, and wanted to meet him.
+
+The day after his interview with Count Arakcheev, Prince Andrew spent
+the evening at Count Kochubey's. He told the count of his interview with
+Sila Andréevich (Kochubey spoke of Arakcheev by that nickname with the
+same vague irony Prince Andrew had noticed in the Minister of War's
+anteroom).
+
+"Mon cher, even in this case you can't do without Michael Mikhaylovich
+Speranski. He manages everything. I'll speak to him. He has promised to
+come this evening."
+
+"What has Speranski to do with the army regulations?" asked Prince
+Andrew.
+
+Kochubey shook his head smilingly, as if surprised at Bolkónski's
+simplicity.
+
+"We were talking to him about you a few days ago," Kochubey continued,
+"and about your freed plowmen."
+
+"Oh, is it you, Prince, who have freed your serfs?" said an old man of
+Catherine's day, turning contemptuously toward Bolkónski.
+
+"It was a small estate that brought in no profit," replied Prince
+Andrew, trying to extenuate his action so as not to irritate the old man
+uselessly.
+
+"Afraid of being late..." said the old man, looking at Kochubey.
+
+"There's one thing I don't understand," he continued. "Who will plow the
+land if they are set free? It is easy to write laws, but difficult to
+rule.... Just the same as now—I ask you, Count—who will be heads of the
+departments when everybody has to pass examinations?"
+
+"Those who pass the examinations, I suppose," replied Kochubey, crossing
+his legs and glancing round.
+
+"Well, I have Pryanichnikov serving under me, a splendid man, a
+priceless man, but he's sixty. Is he to go up for examination?"
+
+"Yes, that's a difficulty, as education is not at all general, but..."
+
+Count Kochubey did not finish. He rose, took Prince Andrew by the arm,
+and went to meet a tall, bald, fair man of about forty with a large open
+forehead and a long face of unusual and peculiar whiteness, who was just
+entering. The newcomer wore a blue swallow-tail coat with a cross
+suspended from his neck and a star on his left breast. It was Speranski.
+Prince Andrew recognized him at once, and felt a throb within him, as
+happens at critical moments of life. Whether it was from respect, envy,
+or anticipation, he did not know. Speranski's whole figure was of a
+peculiar type that made him easily recognizable. In the society in which
+Prince Andrew lived he had never seen anyone who together with awkward
+and clumsy gestures possessed such calmness and self-assurance; he had
+never seen so resolute yet gentle an expression as that in those half-
+closed, rather humid eyes, or so firm a smile that expressed nothing;
+nor had he heard such a refined, smooth, soft voice; above all he had
+never seen such delicate whiteness of face or hands—hands which were
+broad, but very plump, soft, and white. Such whiteness and softness
+Prince Andrew had only seen on the faces of soldiers who had been long
+in hospital. This was Speranski, Secretary of State, reporter to the
+Emperor and his companion at Erfurt, where he had more than once met and
+talked with Napoleon.
+
+Speranski did not shift his eyes from one face to another as people
+involuntarily do on entering a large company and was in no hurry to
+speak. He spoke slowly, with assurance that he would be listened to, and
+he looked only at the person with whom he was conversing.
+
+Prince Andrew followed Speranski's every word and movement with
+particular attention. As happens to some people, especially to men who
+judge those near to them severely, he always on meeting anyone
+new—especially anyone whom, like Speranski, he knew by
+reputation—expected to discover in him the perfection of human
+qualities.
+
+Speranski told Kochubey he was sorry he had been unable to come sooner
+as he had been detained at the palace. He did not say that the Emperor
+had kept him, and Prince Andrew noticed this affectation of modesty.
+When Kochubey introduced Prince Andrew, Speranski slowly turned his eyes
+to Bolkónski with his customary smile and looked at him in silence.
+
+"I am very glad to make your acquaintance. I had heard of you, as
+everyone has," he said after a pause.
+
+Kochubey said a few words about the reception Arakcheev had given
+Bolkónski. Speranski smiled more markedly.
+
+"The chairman of the Committee on Army Regulations is my good friend
+Monsieur Magnitski," he said, fully articulating every word and
+syllable, "and if you like I can put you in touch with him." He paused
+at the full stop. "I hope you will find him sympathetic and ready to co-
+operate in promoting all that is reasonable."
+
+A circle soon formed round Speranski, and the old man who had talked
+about his subordinate Pryanichnikov addressed a question to him.
+
+Prince Andrew without joining in the conversation watched every movement
+of Speranski's: this man, not long since an insignificant divinity
+student, who now, Bolkónski thought, held in his hands—those plump white
+hands—the fate of Russia. Prince Andrew was struck by the
+extraordinarily disdainful composure with which Speranski answered the
+old man. He appeared to address condescending words to him from an
+immeasurable height. When the old man began to speak too loud, Speranski
+smiled and said he could not judge of the advantage or disadvantage of
+what pleased the sovereign.
+
+Having talked for a little while in the general circle, Speranski rose
+and coming up to Prince Andrew took him along to the other end of the
+room. It was clear that he thought it necessary to interest himself in
+Bolkónski.
+
+"I had no chance to talk with you, Prince, during the animated
+conversation in which that venerable gentleman involved me," he said
+with a mildly contemptuous smile, as if intimating by that smile that he
+and Prince Andrew understood the insignificance of the people with whom
+he had just been talking. This flattered Prince Andrew. "I have known of
+you for a long time: first from your action with regard to your serfs, a
+first example, of which it is very desirable that there should be more
+imitators; and secondly because you are one of those gentlemen of the
+chamber who have not considered themselves offended by the new decree
+concerning the ranks allotted to courtiers, which is causing so much
+gossip and tittle-tattle."
+
+"No," said Prince Andrew, "my father did not wish me to take advantage
+of the privilege. I began the service from the lower grade."
+
+"Your father, a man of the last century, evidently stands above our
+contemporaries who so condemn this measure which merely reestablishes
+natural justice."
+
+"I think, however, that these condemnations have some ground," returned
+Prince Andrew, trying to resist Speranski's influence, of which he began
+to be conscious. He did not like to agree with him in everything and
+felt a wish to contradict. Though he usually spoke easily and well, he
+felt a difficulty in expressing himself now while talking with
+Speranski. He was too much absorbed in observing the famous man's
+personality.
+
+"Grounds of personal ambition maybe," Speranski put in quietly.
+
+"And of state interest to some extent," said Prince Andrew.
+
+"What do you mean?" asked Speranski quietly, lowering his eyes.
+
+"I am an admirer of Montesquieu," replied Prince Andrew, "and his idea
+that le principe des monarchies est l'honneur me parait incontestable.
+Certains droits et privileges de la noblesse me paraissent etre des
+moyens de soutenir ce sentiment." *
+
+* "The principle of monarchies is honor seems to me incontestable.
+Certain rights and privileges for the aristocracy appear to me a means
+of maintaining that sentiment."
+
+The smile vanished from Speranski's white face, which was much improved
+by the change. Probably Prince Andrew's thought interested him.
+
+"Si vous envisagez la question sous ce point de vue," * he began,
+pronouncing French with evident difficulty, and speaking even slower
+than in Russian but quite calmly.
+
+* "If you regard the question from that point of view."
+
+Speranski went on to say that honor, l'honneur, cannot be upheld by
+privileges harmful to the service; that honor, l'honneur, is either a
+negative concept of not doing what is blameworthy or it is a source of
+emulation in pursuit of commendation and rewards, which recognize it.
+His arguments were concise, simple, and clear.
+
+"An institution upholding honor, the source of emulation, is one similar
+to the Legion d'honneur of the great Emperor Napoleon, not harmful but
+helpful to the success of the service, but not a class or court
+privilege."
+
+"I do not dispute that, but it cannot be denied that court privileges
+have attained the same end," returned Prince Andrew. "Every courtier
+considers himself bound to maintain his position worthily."
+
+"Yet you do not care to avail yourself of the privilege, Prince," said
+Speranski, indicating by a smile that he wished to finish amiably an
+argument which was embarrassing for his companion. "If you will do me
+the honor of calling on me on Wednesday," he added, "I will, after
+talking with Magnitski, let you know what may interest you, and shall
+also have the pleasure of a more detailed chat with you."
+
+Closing his eyes, he bowed a la francaise, without taking leave, and
+trying to attract as little attention as possible, he left the room.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+During the first weeks of his stay in Petersburg Prince Andrew felt the
+whole trend of thought he had formed during his life of seclusion quite
+overshadowed by the trifling cares that engrossed him in that city.
+
+On returning home in the evening he would jot down in his notebook four
+or five necessary calls or appointments for certain hours. The mechanism
+of life, the arrangement of the day so as to be in time everywhere,
+absorbed the greater part of his vital energy. He did nothing, did not
+even think or find time to think, but only talked, and talked
+successfully, of what he had thought while in the country.
+
+He sometimes noticed with dissatisfaction that he repeated the same
+remark on the same day in different circles. But he was so busy for
+whole days together that he had no time to notice that he was thinking
+of nothing.
+
+As he had done on their first meeting at Kochubey's, Speranski produced
+a strong impression on Prince Andrew on the Wednesday, when he received
+him tête-à-tête at his own house and talked to him long and
+confidentially.
+
+To Bolkónski so many people appeared contemptible and insignificant
+creatures, and he so longed to find in someone the living ideal of that
+perfection toward which he strove, that he readily believed that in
+Speranski he had found this ideal of a perfectly rational and virtuous
+man. Had Speranski sprung from the same class as himself and possessed
+the same breeding and traditions, Bolkónski would soon have discovered
+his weak, human, unheroic sides; but as it was, Speranski's strange and
+logical turn of mind inspired him with respect all the more because he
+did not quite understand him. Moreover, Speranski, either because he
+appreciated the other's capacity or because he considered it necessary
+to win him to his side, showed off his dispassionate calm reasonableness
+before Prince Andrew and flattered him with that subtle flattery which
+goes hand in hand with self-assurance and consists in a tacit assumption
+that one's companion is the only man besides oneself capable of
+understanding the folly of the rest of mankind and the reasonableness
+and profundity of one's own ideas.
+
+During their long conversation on Wednesday evening, Speranski more than
+once remarked: "We regard everything that is above the common level of
+rooted custom..." or, with a smile: "But we want the wolves to be fed
+and the sheep to be safe..." or: "They cannot understand this..." and
+all in a way that seemed to say: "We, you and I, understand what they
+are and who we are."
+
+This first long conversation with Speranski only strengthened in Prince
+Andrew the feeling he had experienced toward him at their first meeting.
+He saw in him a remarkable, clear-thinking man of vast intellect who by
+his energy and persistence had attained power, which he was using solely
+for the welfare of Russia. In Prince Andrew's eyes Speranski was the man
+he would himself have wished to be—one who explained all the facts of
+life reasonably, considered important only what was rational, and was
+capable of applying the standard of reason to everything. Everything
+seemed so simple and clear in Speranski's exposition that Prince Andrew
+involuntarily agreed with him about everything. If he replied and
+argued, it was only because he wished to maintain his independence and
+not submit to Speranski's opinions entirely. Everything was right and
+everything was as it should be: only one thing disconcerted Prince
+Andrew. This was Speranski's cold, mirrorlike look, which did not allow
+one to penetrate to his soul, and his delicate white hands, which Prince
+Andrew involuntarily watched as one does watch the hands of those who
+possess power. This mirrorlike gaze and those delicate hands irritated
+Prince Andrew, he knew not why. He was unpleasantly struck, too, by the
+excessive contempt for others that he observed in Speranski, and by the
+diversity of lines of argument he used to support his opinions. He made
+use of every kind of mental device, except analogy, and passed too
+boldly, it seemed to Prince Andrew, from one to another. Now he would
+take up the position of a practical man and condemn dreamers; now that
+of a satirist, and laugh ironically at his opponents; now grow severely
+logical, or suddenly rise to the realm of metaphysics. (This last
+resource was one he very frequently employed.) He would transfer a
+question to metaphysical heights, pass on to definitions of space, time,
+and thought, and, having deduced the refutation he needed, would again
+descend to the level of the original discussion.
+
+In general the trait of Speranski's mentality which struck Prince Andrew
+most was his absolute and unshakable belief in the power and authority
+of reason. It was evident that the thought could never occur to him
+which to Prince Andrew seemed so natural, namely, that it is after all
+impossible to express all one thinks; and that he had never felt the
+doubt, "Is not all I think and believe nonsense?" And it was just this
+peculiarity of Speranski's mind that particularly attracted Prince
+Andrew.
+
+During the first period of their acquaintance Bolkónski felt a
+passionate admiration for him similar to that which he had once felt for
+Bonaparte. The fact that Speranski was the son of a village priest, and
+that stupid people might meanly despise him on account of his humble
+origin (as in fact many did), caused Prince Andrew to cherish his
+sentiment for him the more, and unconsciously to strengthen it.
+
+On that first evening Bolkónski spent with him, having mentioned the
+Commission for the Revision of the Code of Laws, Speranski told him
+sarcastically that the Commission had existed for a hundred and fifty
+years, had cost millions, and had done nothing except that Rosenkampf
+had stuck labels on the corresponding paragraphs of the different codes.
+
+"And that is all the state has for the millions it has spent," said he.
+"We want to give the Senate new juridical powers, but we have no laws.
+That is why it is a sin for men like you, Prince, not to serve in these
+times!"
+
+Prince Andrew said that for that work an education in jurisprudence was
+needed which he did not possess.
+
+"But nobody possesses it, so what would you have? It is a vicious circle
+from which we must break a way out."
+
+A week later Prince Andrew was a member of the Committee on Army
+Regulations and—what he had not at all expected—was chairman of a
+section of the committee for the revision of the laws. At Speranski's
+request he took the first part of the Civil Code that was being drawn up
+and, with the aid of the Code Napoleon and the Institutes of Justinian,
+he worked at formulating the section on Personal Rights.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+Nearly two years before this, in 1808, Pierre on returning to Petersburg
+after visiting his estates had involuntarily found himself in a leading
+position among the Petersburg Freemasons. He arranged dining and funeral
+lodge meetings, enrolled new members, and busied himself uniting various
+lodges and acquiring authentic charters. He gave money for the erection
+of temples and supplemented as far as he could the collection of alms,
+in regard to which the majority of members were stingy and irregular. He
+supported almost singlehanded a poorhouse the order had founded in
+Petersburg.
+
+His life meanwhile continued as before, with the same infatuations and
+dissipations. He liked to dine and drink well, and though he considered
+it immoral and humiliating could not resist the temptations of the
+bachelor circles in which he moved.
+
+Amid the turmoil of his activities and distractions, however, Pierre at
+the end of a year began to feel that the more firmly he tried to rest
+upon it, the more masonic ground on which he stood gave way under him.
+At the same time he felt that the deeper the ground sank under him the
+closer bound he involuntarily became to the order. When he had joined
+the Freemasons he had experienced the feeling of one who confidently
+steps onto the smooth surface of a bog. When he put his foot down it
+sank in. To make quite sure of the firmness of the ground, he put his
+other foot down and sank deeper still, became stuck in it, and
+involuntarily waded knee-deep in the bog.
+
+Joseph Alexeevich was not in Petersburg—he had of late stood aside from
+the affairs of the Petersburg lodges, and lived almost entirely in
+Moscow. All the members of the lodges were men Pierre knew in ordinary
+life, and it was difficult for him to regard them merely as Brothers in
+Freemasonry and not as Prince B. or Ivan Vasílevich D., whom he knew in
+society mostly as weak and insignificant men. Under the masonic aprons
+and insignia he saw the uniforms and decorations at which they aimed in
+ordinary life. Often after collecting alms, and reckoning up twenty to
+thirty rubles received for the most part in promises from a dozen
+members, of whom half were as well able to pay as himself, Pierre
+remembered the masonic vow in which each Brother promised to devote all
+his belongings to his neighbor, and doubts on which he tried not to
+dwell arose in his soul.
+
+He divided the Brothers he knew into four categories. In the first he
+put those who did not take an active part in the affairs of the lodges
+or in human affairs, but were exclusively occupied with the mystical
+science of the order: with questions of the threefold designation of
+God, the three primordial elements—sulphur, mercury, and salt—or the
+meaning of the square and all the various figures of the temple of
+Solomon. Pierre respected this class of Brothers to which the elder ones
+chiefly belonged, including, Pierre thought, Joseph Alexeevich himself,
+but he did not share their interests. His heart was not in the mystical
+aspect of Freemasonry.
+
+In the second category Pierre reckoned himself and others like him,
+seeking and vacillating, who had not yet found in Freemasonry a straight
+and comprehensible path, but hoped to do so.
+
+In the third category he included those Brothers (the majority) who saw
+nothing in Freemasonry but the external forms and ceremonies, and prized
+the strict performance of these forms without troubling about their
+purport or significance. Such were Willarski and even the Grand Master
+of the principal lodge.
+
+Finally, to the fourth category also a great many Brothers belonged,
+particularly those who had lately joined. These according to Pierre's
+observations were men who had no belief in anything, nor desire for
+anything, but joined the Freemasons merely to associate with the wealthy
+young Brothers who were influential through their connections or rank,
+and of whom there were very many in the lodge.
+
+Pierre began to feel dissatisfied with what he was doing. Freemasonry,
+at any rate as he saw it here, sometimes seemed to him based merely on
+externals. He did not think of doubting Freemasonry itself, but
+suspected that Russian Masonry had taken a wrong path and deviated from
+its original principles. And so toward the end of the year he went
+abroad to be initiated into the higher secrets of the order.
+
+In the summer of 1809 Pierre returned to Petersburg. Our Freemasons knew
+from correspondence with those abroad that Bezúkhov had obtained the
+confidence of many highly placed persons, had been initiated into many
+mysteries, had been raised to a higher grade, and was bringing back with
+him much that might conduce to the advantage of the masonic cause in
+Russia. The Petersburg Freemasons all came to see him, tried to
+ingratiate themselves with him, and it seemed to them all that he was
+preparing something for them and concealing it.
+
+A solemn meeting of the lodge of the second degree was convened, at
+which Pierre promised to communicate to the Petersburg Brothers what he
+had to deliver to them from the highest leaders of their order. The
+meeting was a full one. After the usual ceremonies Pierre rose and began
+his address.
+
+"Dear Brothers," he began, blushing and stammering, with a written
+speech in his hand, "it is not sufficient to observe our mysteries in
+the seclusion of our lodge—we must act—act! We are drowsing, but we must
+act." Pierre raised his notebook and began to read.
+
+"For the dissemination of pure truth and to secure the triumph of
+virtue," he read, "we must cleanse men from prejudice, diffuse
+principles in harmony with the spirit of the times, undertake the
+education of the young, unite ourselves in indissoluble bonds with the
+wisest men, boldly yet prudently overcome superstitions, infidelity, and
+folly, and form of those devoted to us a body linked together by unity
+of purpose and possessed of authority and power.
+
+"To attain this end we must secure a preponderance of virtue over vice
+and must endeavor to secure that the honest man may, even in this world,
+receive a lasting reward for his virtue. But in these great endeavors we
+are gravely hampered by the political institutions of today. What is to
+be done in these circumstances? To favor revolutions, overthrow
+everything, repel force by force?... No! We are very far from that.
+Every violent reform deserves censure, for it quite fails to remedy evil
+while men remain what they are, and also because wisdom needs no
+violence.
+
+"The whole plan of our order should be based on the idea of preparing
+men of firmness and virtue bound together by unity of conviction—aiming
+at the punishment of vice and folly, and patronizing talent and virtue:
+raising worthy men from the dust and attaching them to our Brotherhood.
+Only then will our order have the power unobtrusively to bind the hands
+of the protectors of disorder and to control them without their being
+aware of it. In a word, we must found a form of government holding
+universal sway, which should be diffused over the whole world without
+destroying the bonds of citizenship, and beside which all other
+governments can continue in their customary course and do everything
+except what impedes the great aim of our order, which is to obtain for
+virtue the victory over vice. This aim was that of Christianity itself.
+It taught men to be wise and good and for their own benefit to follow
+the example and instruction of the best and wisest men.
+
+"At that time, when everything was plunged in darkness, preaching alone
+was of course sufficient. The novelty of Truth endowed her with special
+strength, but now we need much more powerful methods. It is now
+necessary that man, governed by his senses, should find in virtue a
+charm palpable to those senses. It is impossible to eradicate the
+passions; but we must strive to direct them to a noble aim, and it is
+therefore necessary that everyone should be able to satisfy his passions
+within the limits of virtue. Our order should provide means to that end.
+
+"As soon as we have a certain number of worthy men in every state, each
+of them again training two others and all being closely united,
+everything will be possible for our order, which has already in secret
+accomplished much for the welfare of mankind."
+
+This speech not only made a strong impression, but created excitement in
+the lodge. The majority of the Brothers, seeing in it dangerous designs
+of Illuminism, * met it with a coldness that surprised Pierre. The Grand
+Master began answering him, and Pierre began developing his views with
+more and more warmth. It was long since there had been so stormy a
+meeting. Parties were formed, some accusing Pierre of Illuminism, others
+supporting him. At that meeting he was struck for the first time by the
+endless variety of men's minds, which prevents a truth from ever
+presenting itself identically to two persons. Even those members who
+seemed to be on his side understood him in their own way with
+limitations and alterations he could not agree to, as what he always
+wanted most was to convey his thought to others just as he himself
+understood it.
+
+* The Illuminati sought to substitute republican for monarchical
+institutions.
+
+At the end of the meeting the Grand Master with irony and ill-will
+reproved Bezúkhov for his vehemence and said it was not love of virtue
+alone, but also a love of strife that had moved him in the dispute.
+Pierre did not answer him and asked briefly whether his proposal would
+be accepted. He was told that it would not, and without waiting for the
+usual formalities he left the lodge and went home.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+Again Pierre was overtaken by the depression he so dreaded. For three
+days after the delivery of his speech at the lodge he lay on a sofa at
+home receiving no one and going nowhere.
+
+It was just then that he received a letter from his wife, who implored
+him to see her, telling him how grieved she was about him and how she
+wished to devote her whole life to him.
+
+At the end of the letter she informed him that in a few days she would
+return to Petersburg from abroad.
+
+Following this letter one of the masonic Brothers whom Pierre respected
+less than the others forced his way in to see him and, turning the
+conversation upon Pierre's matrimonial affairs, by way of fraternal
+advice expressed the opinion that his severity to his wife was wrong and
+that he was neglecting one of the first rules of Freemasonry by not
+forgiving the penitent.
+
+At the same time his mother-in-law, Prince Vasíli's wife, sent to him
+imploring him to come if only for a few minutes to discuss a most
+important matter. Pierre saw that there was a conspiracy against him and
+that they wanted to reunite him with his wife, and in the mood he then
+was, this was not even unpleasant to him. Nothing mattered to him.
+Nothing in life seemed to him of much importance, and under the
+influence of the depression that possessed him he valued neither his
+liberty nor his resolution to punish his wife.
+
+"No one is right and no one is to blame; so she too is not to blame," he
+thought.
+
+If he did not at once give his consent to a reunion with his wife, it
+was only because in his state of depression he did not feel able to take
+any step. Had his wife come to him, he would not have turned her away.
+Compared to what preoccupied him, was it not a matter of indifference
+whether he lived with his wife or not?
+
+Without replying either to his wife or his mother-in-law, Pierre late
+one night prepared for a journey and started for Moscow to see Joseph
+Alexeevich. This is what he noted in his diary:
+
+Moscow, 17th November
+
+I have just returned from my benefactor, and hasten to write down what I
+have experienced. Joseph Alexeevich is living poorly and has for three
+years been suffering from a painful disease of the bladder. No one has
+ever heard him utter a groan or a word of complaint. From morning till
+late at night, except when he eats his very plain food, he is working at
+science. He received me graciously and made me sit down on the bed on
+which he lay. I made the sign of the Knights of the East and of
+Jerusalem, and he responded in the same manner, asking me with a mild
+smile what I had learned and gained in the Prussian and Scottish lodges.
+I told him everything as best I could, and told him what I had proposed
+to our Petersburg lodge, of the bad reception I had encountered, and of
+my rupture with the Brothers. Joseph Alexeevich, having remained silent
+and thoughtful for a good while, told me his view of the matter, which
+at once lit up for me my whole past and the future path I should follow.
+He surprised me by asking whether I remembered the threefold aim of the
+order: (1) The preservation and study of the mystery. (2) The
+purification and reformation of oneself for its reception, and (3) The
+improvement of the human race by striving for such purification. Which
+is the principal aim of these three? Certainly self-reformation and
+self-purification. Only to this aim can we always strive independently
+of circumstances. But at the same time just this aim demands the
+greatest efforts of us; and so, led astray by pride, losing sight of
+this aim, we occupy ourselves either with the mystery which in our
+impurity we are unworthy to receive, or seek the reformation of the
+human race while ourselves setting an example of baseness and
+profligacy. Illuminism is not a pure doctrine, just because it is
+attracted by social activity and puffed up by pride. On this ground
+Joseph Alexeevich condemned my speech and my whole activity, and in the
+depth of my soul I agreed with him. Talking of my family affairs he said
+to me, "the chief duty of a true Mason, as I have told you, lies in
+perfecting himself. We often think that by removing all the difficulties
+of our life we shall more quickly reach our aim, but on the contrary, my
+dear sir, it is only in the midst of worldly cares that we can attain
+our three chief aims: (1) Self-knowledge—for man can only know himself
+by comparison, (2) Self-perfecting, which can only be attained by
+conflict, and (3) The attainment of the chief virtue—love of death. Only
+the vicissitudes of life can show us its vanity and develop our innate
+love of death or of rebirth to a new life." These words are all the more
+remarkable because, in spite of his great physical sufferings, Joseph
+Alexeevich is never weary of life though he loves death, for which—in
+spite of the purity and loftiness of his inner man—he does not yet feel
+himself sufficiently prepared. My benefactor then explained to me fully
+the meaning of the Great Square of creation and pointed out to me that
+the numbers three and seven are the basis of everything. He advised me
+not to avoid intercourse with the Petersburg Brothers, but to take up
+only second-grade posts in the lodge, to try, while diverting the
+Brothers from pride, to turn them toward the true path self-knowledge
+and self-perfecting. Besides this he advised me for myself personally
+above all to keep a watch over myself, and to that end he gave me a
+notebook, the one I am now writing in and in which I will in future note
+down all my actions.
+
+Petersburg, 23rd November
+
+I am again living with my wife. My mother-in-law came to me in tears and
+said that Hélène was here and that she implored me to hear her; that she
+was innocent and unhappy at my desertion, and much more. I knew that if
+I once let myself see her I should not have strength to go on refusing
+what she wanted. In my perplexity I did not know whose aid and advice to
+seek. Had my benefactor been here he would have told me what to do. I
+went to my room and reread Joseph Alexeevich's letters and recalled my
+conversations with him, and deduced from it all that I ought not to
+refuse a supplicant, and ought to reach a helping hand to
+everyone—especially to one so closely bound to me—and that I must bear
+my cross. But if I forgive her for the sake of doing right, then let
+union with her have only a spiritual aim. That is what I decided, and
+what I wrote to Joseph Alexeevich. I told my wife that I begged her to
+forget the past, to forgive me whatever wrong I may have done her, and
+that I had nothing to forgive. It gave me joy to tell her this. She need
+not know how hard it was for me to see her again. I have settled on the
+upper floor of this big house and am experiencing a happy feeling of
+regeneration.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+At that time, as always happens, the highest society that met at court
+and at the grand balls was divided into several circles, each with its
+own particular tone. The largest of these was the French circle of the
+Napoleonic alliance, the circle of Count Rumyántsev and Caulaincourt. In
+this group Hélène, as soon as she had settled in Petersburg with her
+husband, took a very prominent place. She was visited by the members of
+the French embassy and by many belonging to that circle and noted for
+their intellect and polished manners.
+
+Hélène had been at Erfurt during the famous meeting of the Emperors and
+had brought from there these connections with the Napoleonic
+notabilities. At Erfurt her success had been brilliant. Napoleon himself
+had noticed her in the theater and said of her: "C'est un superbe
+animal." * Her success as a beautiful and elegant woman did not surprise
+Pierre, for she had become even handsomer than before. What did surprise
+him was that during these last two years his wife had succeeded in
+gaining the reputation "d' une femme charmante, aussi spirituelle que
+belle." *(2) The distinguished Prince de Ligne wrote her eight-page
+letters. Bilibin saved up his epigrams to produce them in Countess
+Bezúkhova's presence. To be received in the Countess Bezúkhova's salon
+was regarded as a diploma of intellect. Young men read books before
+attending Hélène's evenings, to have something to say in her salon, and
+secretaries of the embassy, and even ambassadors, confided diplomatic
+secrets to her, so that in a way Hélène was a power. Pierre, who knew
+she was very stupid, sometimes attended, with a strange feeling of
+perplexity and fear, her evenings and dinner parties, where politics,
+poetry, and philosophy were discussed. At these parties his feelings
+were like those of a conjuror who always expects his trick to be found
+out at any moment. But whether because stupidity was just what was
+needed to run such a salon, or because those who were deceived found
+pleasure in the deception, at any rate it remained unexposed and Hélène
+Bezúkhova's reputation as a lovely and clever woman became so firmly
+established that she could say the emptiest and stupidest things and
+everybody would go into raptures over every word of hers and look for a
+profound meaning in it of which she herself had no conception.
+
+* "That's a superb animal."
+
+* (2) "Of a charming woman, as witty as she is lovely."
+
+Pierre was just the husband needed for a brilliant society woman. He was
+that absent-minded crank, a grand seigneur husband who was in no one's
+way, and far from spoiling the high tone and general impression of the
+drawing room, he served, by the contrast he presented to her, as an
+advantageous background to his elegant and tactful wife. Pierre during
+the last two years, as a result of his continual absorption in abstract
+interests and his sincere contempt for all else, had acquired in his
+wife's circle, which did not interest him, that air of unconcern,
+indifference, and benevolence toward all, which cannot be acquired
+artificially and therefore inspires involuntary respect. He entered his
+wife's drawing room as one enters a theater, was acquainted with
+everybody, equally pleased to see everyone, and equally indifferent to
+them all. Sometimes he joined in a conversation which interested him
+and, regardless of whether any "gentlemen of the embassy" were present
+or not, lispingly expressed his views, which were sometimes not at all
+in accord with the accepted tone of the moment. But the general opinion
+concerning the queer husband of "the most distinguished woman in
+Petersburg" was so well established that no one took his freaks
+seriously.
+
+Among the many young men who frequented her house every day, Borís
+Drubetskóy, who had already achieved great success in the service, was
+the most intimate friend of the Bezúkhov household since Hélène's return
+from Erfurt. Hélène spoke of him as "mon page" and treated him like a
+child. Her smile for him was the same as for everybody, but sometimes
+that smile made Pierre uncomfortable. Toward him Borís behaved with a
+particularly dignified and sad deference. This shade of deference also
+disturbed Pierre. He had suffered so painfully three years before from
+the mortification to which his wife had subjected him that he now
+protected himself from the danger of its repetition, first by not being
+a husband to his wife, and secondly by not allowing himself to suspect.
+
+"No, now that she has become a bluestocking she has finally renounced
+her former infatuations," he told himself. "There has never been an
+instance of a bluestocking being carried away by affairs of the heart"—a
+statement which, though gathered from an unknown source, he believed
+implicitly. Yet strange to say Borís' presence in his wife's drawing
+room (and he was almost always there) had a physical effect upon Pierre;
+it constricted his limbs and destroyed the unconsciousness and freedom
+of his movements.
+
+"What a strange antipathy," thought Pierre, "yet I used to like him very
+much."
+
+In the eyes of the world Pierre was a great gentleman, the rather blind
+and absurd husband of a distinguished wife, a clever crank who did
+nothing but harmed nobody and was a first-rate, good-natured fellow. But
+a complex and difficult process of internal development was taking place
+all this time in Pierre's soul, revealing much to him and causing him
+many spiritual doubts and joys.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+Pierre went on with his diary, and this is what he wrote in it during
+that time:
+
+24th November
+
+Got up at eight, read the Scriptures, then went to my duties. (By Joseph
+Alexeevich's advice Pierre had entered the service of the state and
+served on one of the committees.) Returned home for dinner and dined
+alone—the countess had many visitors I do not like. I ate and drank
+moderately and after dinner copied out some passages for the Brothers.
+In the evening I went down to the countess and told a funny story about
+B., and only remembered that I ought not to have done so when everybody
+laughed loudly at it.
+
+I am going to bed with a happy and tranquil mind. Great God, help me to
+walk in Thy paths, (1) to conquer anger by calmness and deliberation,
+(2) to vanquish lust by self-restraint and repulsion, (3) to withdraw
+from worldliness, but not avoid (a) the service of the state, (b) family
+duties, (c) relations with my friends, and the management of my affairs.
+
+27th November
+
+I got up late. On waking I lay long in bed yielding to sloth. O God,
+help and strengthen me that I may walk in Thy ways! Read the Scriptures,
+but without proper feeling. Brother Urusov came and we talked about
+worldly vanities. He told me of the Emperor's new projects. I began to
+criticize them, but remembered my rules and my benefactor's words—that a
+true Freemason should be a zealous worker for the state when his aid is
+required and a quiet onlooker when not called on to assist. My tongue is
+my enemy. Brothers G. V. and O. visited me and we had a preliminary talk
+about the reception of a new Brother. They laid on me the duty of
+Rhetor. I feel myself weak and unworthy. Then our talk turned to the
+interpretation of the seven pillars and steps of the Temple, the seven
+sciences, the seven virtues, the seven vices, and the seven gifts of the
+Holy Spirit. Brother O. was very eloquent. In the evening the admission
+took place. The new decoration of the Premises contributed much to the
+magnificence of the spectacle. It was Borís Drubetskóy who was admitted.
+I nominated him and was the Rhetor. A strange feeling agitated me all
+the time I was alone with him in the dark chamber. I caught myself
+harboring a feeling of hatred toward him which I vainly tried to
+overcome. That is why I should really like to save him from evil and
+lead him into the path of truth, but evil thoughts of him did not leave
+me. It seemed to me that his object in entering the Brotherhood was
+merely to be intimate and in favor with members of our lodge. Apart from
+the fact that he had asked me several times whether N. and S. were
+members of our lodge (a question to which I could not reply) and that
+according to my observation he is incapable of feeling respect for our
+holy order and is too preoccupied and satisfied with the outer man to
+desire spiritual improvement, I had no cause to doubt him, but he seemed
+to me insincere, and all the time I stood alone with him in the dark
+temple it seemed to me that he was smiling contemptuously at my words,
+and I wished really to stab his bare breast with the sword I held to it.
+I could not be eloquent, nor could I frankly mention my doubts to the
+Brothers and to the Grand Master. Great Architect of Nature, help me to
+find the true path out of the labyrinth of lies!
+
+After this, three pages were left blank in the diary, and then the
+following was written:
+
+I have had a long and instructive talk alone with Brother V., who
+advised me to hold fast by Brother A. Though I am unworthy, much was
+revealed to me. Adonai is the name of the creator of the world. Elohim
+is the name of the ruler of all. The third name is the name unutterable
+which means the All. Talks with Brother V. strengthen, refresh, and
+support me in the path of virtue. In his presence doubt has no place.
+The distinction between the poor teachings of mundane science and our
+sacred all-embracing teaching is clear to me. Human sciences dissect
+everything to comprehend it, and kill everything to examine it. In the
+holy science of our order all is one, all is known in its entirety and
+life. The Trinity—the three elements of matter—are sulphur, mercury, and
+salt. Sulphur is of an oily and fiery nature; in combination with salt
+by its fiery nature it arouses a desire in the latter by means of which
+it attracts mercury, seizes it, holds it, and in combination produces
+other bodies. Mercury is a fluid, volatile, spiritual essence. Christ,
+the Holy Spirit, Him!...
+
+3rd December
+
+Awoke late, read the Scriptures but was apathetic. Afterwards went and
+paced up and down the large hall. I wished to meditate, but instead my
+imagination pictured an occurrence of four years ago, when Dólokhov,
+meeting me in Moscow after our duel, said he hoped I was enjoying
+perfect peace of mind in spite of my wife's absence. At the time I gave
+him no answer. Now I recalled every detail of that meeting and in my
+mind gave him the most malevolent and bitter replies. I recollected
+myself and drove away that thought only when I found myself glowing with
+anger, but I did not sufficiently repent. Afterwards Borís Drubetskóy
+came and began relating various adventures. His coming vexed me from the
+first, and I said something disagreeable to him. He replied. I flared up
+and said much that was unpleasant and even rude to him. He became
+silent, and I recollected myself only when it was too late. My God, I
+cannot get on with him at all. The cause of this is my egotism. I set
+myself above him and so become much worse than he, for he is lenient to
+my rudeness while I on the contrary nourish contempt for him. O God,
+grant that in his presence I may rather see my own vileness, and behave
+so that he too may benefit. After dinner I fell asleep and as I was
+drowsing off I clearly heard a voice saying in my left ear, "Thy day!"
+
+I dreamed that I was walking in the dark and was suddenly surrounded by
+dogs, but I went on undismayed. Suddenly a smallish dog seized my left
+thigh with its teeth and would not let go. I began to throttle it with
+my hands. Scarcely had I torn it off before another, a bigger one, began
+biting me. I lifted it up, but the higher I lifted it the bigger and
+heavier it grew. And suddenly Brother A. came and, taking my arm, led me
+to a building to enter which we had to pass along a narrow plank. I
+stepped on it, but it bent and gave way and I began to clamber up a
+fence which I could scarcely reach with my hands. After much effort I
+dragged myself up, so that my leg hung down on one side and my body on
+the other. I looked round and saw Brother A. standing on the fence and
+pointing me to a broad avenue and garden, and in the garden was a large
+and beautiful building. I woke up. O Lord, great Architect of Nature,
+help me to tear from myself these dogs—my passions especially the last,
+which unites in itself the strength of all the former ones, and aid me
+to enter that temple of virtue to a vision of which I attained in my
+dream.
+
+7th December
+
+I dreamed that Joseph Alexeevich was sitting in my house, and that I was
+very glad and wished to entertain him. It seemed as if I chattered
+incessantly with other people and suddenly remembered that this could
+not please him, and I wished to come close to him and embrace him. But
+as soon as I drew near I saw that his face had changed and grown young,
+and he was quietly telling me something about the teaching of our order,
+but so softly that I could not hear it. Then it seemed that we all left
+the room and something strange happened. We were sitting or lying on the
+floor. He was telling me something, and I wished to show him my
+sensibility, and not listening to what he was saying I began picturing
+to myself the condition of my inner man and the grace of God sanctifying
+me. And tears came into my eyes, and I was glad he noticed this. But he
+looked at me with vexation and jumped up, breaking off his remarks. I
+felt abashed and asked whether what he had been saying did not concern
+me; but he did not reply, gave me a kind look, and then we suddenly
+found ourselves in my bedroom where there is a double bed. He lay down
+on the edge of it and I burned with longing to caress him and lie down
+too. And he said, "Tell me frankly what is your chief temptation? Do you
+know it? I think you know it already." Abashed by this question, I
+replied that sloth was my chief temptation. He shook his head
+incredulously; and even more abashed, I said that though I was living
+with my wife as he advised, I was not living with her as her husband. To
+this he replied that one should not deprive a wife of one's embraces and
+gave me to understand that that was my duty. But I replied that I should
+be ashamed to do it, and suddenly everything vanished. And I awoke and
+found in my mind the text from the Gospel: "The life was the light of
+men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it
+not." Joseph Alexeevich's face had looked young and bright. That day I
+received a letter from my benefactor in which he wrote about "conjugal
+duties."
+
+9th December
+
+I had a dream from which I awoke with a throbbing heart. I saw that I
+was in Moscow in my house, in the big sitting room, and Joseph
+Alexeevich came in from the drawing room. I seemed to know at once that
+the process of regeneration had already taken place in him, and I rushed
+to meet him. I embraced him and kissed his hands, and he said, "Hast
+thou noticed that my face is different?" I looked at him, still holding
+him in my arms, and saw that his face was young, but that he had no hair
+on his head and his features were quite changed. And I said, "I should
+have known you had I met you by chance," and I thought to myself, "Am I
+telling the truth?" And suddenly I saw him lying like a dead body; then
+he gradually recovered and went with me into my study carrying a large
+book of sheets of drawing paper; I said, "I drew that," and he answered
+by bowing his head. I opened the book, and on all the pages there were
+excellent drawings. And in my dream I knew that these drawings
+represented the love adventures of the soul with its beloved. And on its
+pages I saw a beautiful representation of a maiden in transparent
+garments and with a transparent body, flying up to the clouds. And I
+seemed to know that this maiden was nothing else than a representation
+of the Song of Songs. And looking at those drawings I dreamed I felt
+that I was doing wrong, but could not tear myself away from them. Lord,
+help me! My God, if Thy forsaking me is Thy doing, Thy will be done; but
+if I am myself the cause, teach me what I should do! I shall perish of
+my debauchery if Thou utterly desertest me!
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+The Rostóvs' monetary affairs had not improved during the two years they
+had spent in the country.
+
+Though Nicholas Rostóv had kept firmly to his resolution and was still
+serving modestly in an obscure regiment, spending comparatively little,
+the way of life at Otradnoe—Mitenka's management of affairs, in
+particular—was such that the debts inevitably increased every year. The
+only resource obviously presenting itself to the old count was to apply
+for an official post, so he had come to Petersburg to look for one and
+also, as he said, to let the lassies enjoy themselves for the last time.
+
+Soon after their arrival in Petersburg Berg proposed to Véra and was
+accepted.
+
+Though in Moscow the Rostóvs belonged to the best society without
+themselves giving it a thought, yet in Petersburg their circle of
+acquaintances was a mixed and indefinite one. In Petersburg they were
+provincials, and the very people they had entertained in Moscow without
+inquiring to what set they belonged, here looked down on them.
+
+The Rostóvs lived in the same hospitable way in Petersburg as in Moscow,
+and the most diverse people met at their suppers. Country neighbors from
+Otradnoe, impoverished old squires and their daughters, Peronskaya a
+maid of honor, Pierre Bezúkhov, and the son of their district postmaster
+who had obtained a post in Petersburg. Among the men who very soon
+became frequent visitors at the Rostóvs' house in Petersburg were Borís,
+Pierre whom the count had met in the street and dragged home with him,
+and Berg who spent whole days at the Rostóvs' and paid the eldest
+daughter, Countess Véra, the attentions a young man pays when he intends
+to propose.
+
+Not in vain had Berg shown everybody his right hand wounded at
+Austerlitz and held a perfectly unnecessary sword in his left. He
+narrated that episode so persistently and with so important an air that
+everyone believed in the merit and usefulness of his deed, and he had
+obtained two decorations for Austerlitz.
+
+In the Finnish war he also managed to distinguish himself. He had picked
+up the scrap of a grenade that had killed an aide-de-camp standing near
+the commander-in-chief and had taken it to his commander. Just as he had
+done after Austerlitz, he related this occurrence at such length and so
+insistently that everyone again believed it had been necessary to do
+this, and he received two decorations for the Finnish war also. In 1809
+he was a captain in the Guards, wore medals, and held some special
+lucrative posts in Petersburg.
+
+Though some skeptics smiled when told of Berg's merits, it could not be
+denied that he was a painstaking and brave officer, on excellent terms
+with his superiors, and a moral young man with a brilliant career before
+him and an assured position in society.
+
+Four years before, meeting a German comrade in the stalls of a Moscow
+theater, Berg had pointed out Véra Rostóva to him and had said in
+German, "das soll mein Weib werden," * and from that moment had made up
+his mind to marry her. Now in Petersburg, having considered the Rostóvs'
+position and his own, he decided that the time had come to propose.
+
+* "That girl shall be my wife."
+
+Berg's proposal was at first received with a perplexity that was not
+flattering to him. At first it seemed strange that the son of an obscure
+Livonian gentleman should propose marriage to a Countess Rostóva; but
+Berg's chief characteristic was such a naïve and good natured egotism
+that the Rostóvs involuntarily came to think it would be a good thing,
+since he himself was so firmly convinced that it was good, indeed
+excellent. Moreover, the Rostóvs' affairs were seriously embarrassed, as
+the suitor could not but know; and above all, Véra was twenty-four, had
+been taken out everywhere, and though she was certainly good-looking and
+sensible, no one up to now had proposed to her. So they gave their
+consent.
+
+"You see," said Berg to his comrade, whom he called "friend" only
+because he knew that everyone has friends, "you see, I have considered
+it all, and should not marry if I had not thought it all out or if it
+were in any way unsuitable. But on the contrary, my papa and mamma are
+now provided for—I have arranged that rent for them in the Baltic
+Provinces—and I can live in Petersburg on my pay, and with her fortune
+and my good management we can get along nicely. I am not marrying for
+money—I consider that dishonorable—but a wife should bring her share and
+a husband his. I have my position in the service, she has connections
+and some means. In our times that is worth something, isn't it? But
+above all, she is a handsome, estimable girl, and she loves me..."
+
+Berg blushed and smiled.
+
+"And I love her, because her character is sensible and very good. Now
+the other sister, though they are the same family, is quite different—an
+unpleasant character and has not the same intelligence. She is so... you
+know?... Unpleasant... But my fiancee!... Well, you will be coming," he
+was going to say, "to dine," but changed his mind and said "to take tea
+with us," and quickly doubling up his tongue he blew a small round ring
+of tobacco smoke, perfectly embodying his dream of happiness.
+
+After the first feeling of perplexity aroused in the parents by Berg's
+proposal, the holiday tone of joyousness usual at such times took
+possession of the family, but the rejoicing was external and insincere.
+In the family's feeling toward this wedding a certain awkwardness and
+constraint was evident, as if they were ashamed of not having loved Véra
+sufficiently and of being so ready to get her off their hands. The old
+count felt this most. He would probably have been unable to state the
+cause of his embarrassment, but it resulted from the state of his
+affairs. He did not know at all how much he had, what his debts amounted
+to, or what dowry he could give Véra. When his daughters were born he
+had assigned to each of them, for her dowry, an estate with three
+hundred serfs; but one of these estates had already been sold, and the
+other was mortgaged and the interest so much in arrears that it would
+have to be sold, so that it was impossible to give it to Véra. Nor had
+he any money.
+
+Berg had already been engaged a month, and only a week remained before
+the wedding, but the count had not yet decided in his own mind the
+question of the dowry, nor spoken to his wife about it. At one time the
+count thought of giving her the Ryazan estate or of selling a forest, at
+another time of borrowing money on a note of hand. A few days before the
+wedding Berg entered the count's study early one morning and, with a
+pleasant smile, respectfully asked his future father-in-law to let him
+know what Véra's dowry would be. The count was so disconcerted by this
+long-foreseen inquiry that without consideration he gave the first reply
+that came into his head. "I like your being businesslike about it.... I
+like it. You shall be satisfied...."
+
+And patting Berg on the shoulder he got up, wishing to end the
+conversation. But Berg, smiling pleasantly, explained that if he did not
+know for certain how much Véra would have and did not receive at least
+part of the dowry in advance, he would have to break matters off.
+
+"Because, consider, Count—if I allowed myself to marry now without
+having definite means to maintain my wife, I should be acting badly...."
+
+The conversation ended by the count, who wished to be generous and to
+avoid further importunity, saying that he would give a note of hand for
+eighty thousand rubles. Berg smiled meekly, kissed the count on the
+shoulder, and said that he was very grateful, but that it was impossible
+for him to arrange his new life without receiving thirty thousand in
+ready money. "Or at least twenty thousand, Count," he added, "and then a
+note of hand for only sixty thousand."
+
+"Yes, yes, all right!" said the count hurriedly. "Only excuse me, my
+dear fellow, I'll give you twenty thousand and a note of hand for eighty
+thousand as well. Yes, yes! Kiss me."
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+Natásha was sixteen and it was the year 1809, the very year to which she
+had counted on her fingers with Borís after they had kissed four years
+ago. Since then she had not seen him. Before Sónya and her mother, if
+Borís happened to be mentioned, she spoke quite freely of that episode
+as of some childish, long-forgotten matter that was not worth
+mentioning. But in the secret depths of her soul the question whether
+her engagement to Borís was a jest or an important, binding promise
+tormented her.
+
+Since Borís left Moscow in 1805 to join the army he had not seen the
+Rostóvs. He had been in Moscow several times, and had passed near
+Otradnoe, but had never been to see them.
+
+Sometimes it occurred to Natásha that he did not wish to see her, and
+this conjecture was confirmed by the sad tone in which her elders spoke
+of him.
+
+"Nowadays old friends are not remembered," the countess would say when
+Borís was mentioned.
+
+Anna Mikháylovna also had of late visited them less frequently, seemed
+to hold herself with particular dignity, and always spoke rapturously
+and gratefully of the merits of her son and the brilliant career on
+which he had entered. When the Rostóvs came to Petersburg Borís called
+on them.
+
+He drove to their house in some agitation. The memory of Natásha was his
+most poetic recollection. But he went with the firm intention of letting
+her and her parents feel that the childish relations between himself and
+Natásha could not be binding either on her or on him. He had a brilliant
+position in society thanks to his intimacy with Countess Bezúkhova, a
+brilliant position in the service thanks to the patronage of an
+important personage whose complete confidence he enjoyed, and he was
+beginning to make plans for marrying one of the richest heiresses in
+Petersburg, plans which might very easily be realized. When he entered
+the Rostóvs' drawing room Natásha was in her own room. When she heard of
+his arrival she almost ran into the drawing room, flushed and beaming
+with a more than cordial smile.
+
+Borís remembered Natásha in a short dress, with dark eyes shining from
+under her curls and boisterous, childish laughter, as he had known her
+four years before; and so he was taken aback when quite a different
+Natásha entered, and his face expressed rapturous astonishment. This
+expression on his face pleased Natásha.
+
+"Well, do you recognize your little madcap playmate?" asked the
+countess.
+
+Borís kissed Natásha's hand and said that he was astonished at the
+change in her.
+
+"How handsome you have grown!"
+
+"I should think so!" replied Natásha's laughing eyes.
+
+"And is Papa older?" she asked.
+
+Natásha sat down and, without joining in Borís' conversation with the
+countess, silently and minutely studied her childhood's suitor. He felt
+the weight of that resolute and affectionate scrutiny and glanced at her
+occasionally.
+
+Borís' uniform, spurs, tie, and the way his hair was brushed were all
+comme il faut and in the latest fashion. This Natásha noticed at once.
+He sat rather sideways in the armchair next to the countess, arranging
+with his right hand the cleanest of gloves that fitted his left hand
+like a skin, and he spoke with a particularly refined compression of his
+lips about the amusements of the highest Petersburg society, recalling
+with mild irony old times in Moscow and Moscow acquaintances. It was not
+accidentally, Natásha felt, that he alluded, when speaking of the
+highest aristocracy, to an ambassador's ball he had attended, and to
+invitations he had received from N.N. and S.S.
+
+All this time Natásha sat silent, glancing up at him from under her
+brows. This gaze disturbed and confused Borís more and more. He looked
+round more frequently toward her, and broke off in what he was saying.
+He did not stay more than ten minutes, then rose and took his leave. The
+same inquisitive, challenging, and rather mocking eyes still looked at
+him. After his first visit Borís said to himself that Natásha attracted
+him just as much as ever, but that he must not yield to that feeling,
+because to marry her, a girl almost without fortune, would mean ruin to
+his career, while to renew their former relations without intending to
+marry her would be dishonorable. Borís made up his mind to avoid meeting
+Natásha, but despite that resolution he called again a few days later
+and began calling often and spending whole days at the Rostóvs'. It
+seemed to him that he ought to have an explanation with Natásha and tell
+her that the old times must be forgotten, that in spite of everything...
+she could not be his wife, that he had no means, and they would never
+let her marry him. But he failed to do so and felt awkward about
+entering on such an explanation. From day to day he became more and more
+entangled. It seemed to her mother and Sónya that Natásha was in love
+with Borís as of old. She sang him his favorite songs, showed him her
+album, making him write in it, did not allow him to allude to the past,
+letting it be understood how delightful was the present; and every day
+he went away in a fog, without having said what he meant to, and not
+knowing what he was doing or why he came, or how it would all end. He
+left off visiting Hélène and received reproachful notes from her every
+day, and yet he continued to spend whole days with the Rostóvs.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+One night when the old countess, in nightcap and dressing jacket,
+without her false curls, and with her poor little knob of hair showing
+under her white cotton cap, knelt sighing and groaning on a rug and
+bowing to the ground in prayer, her door creaked and Natásha, also in a
+dressing jacket with slippers on her bare feet and her hair in
+curlpapers, ran in. The countess—her prayerful mood dispelled—looked
+round and frowned. She was finishing her last prayer: "Can it be that
+this couch will be my grave?" Natásha, flushed and eager, seeing her
+mother in prayer, suddenly checked her rush, half sat down, and
+unconsciously put out her tongue as if chiding herself. Seeing that her
+mother was still praying she ran on tiptoe to the bed and, rapidly
+slipping one little foot against the other, pushed off her slippers and
+jumped onto the bed the countess had feared might become her grave. This
+couch was high, with a feather bed and five pillows each smaller than
+the one below. Natásha jumped on it, sank into the feather bed, rolled
+over to the wall, and began snuggling up the bedclothes as she settled
+down, raising her knees to her chin, kicking out and laughing almost
+inaudibly, now covering herself up head and all, and now peeping at her
+mother. The countess finished her prayers and came to the bed with a
+stern face, but seeing, that Natásha's head was covered, she smiled in
+her kind, weak way.
+
+"Now then, now then!" said she.
+
+"Mamma, can we have a talk? Yes?" said Natásha. "Now, just one on your
+throat and another... that'll do!" And seizing her mother round the
+neck, she kissed her on the throat. In her behavior to her mother
+Natásha seemed rough, but she was so sensitive and tactful that however
+she clasped her mother she always managed to do it without hurting her
+or making her feel uncomfortable or displeased.
+
+"Well, what is it tonight?" said the mother, having arranged her pillows
+and waited until Natásha, after turning over a couple of times, had
+settled down beside her under the quilt, spread out her arms, and
+assumed a serious expression.
+
+These visits of Natásha's at night before the count returned from his
+club were one of the greatest pleasures of both mother, and daughter.
+
+"What is it tonight?—But I have to tell you..."
+
+Natásha put her hand on her mother's mouth.
+
+"About Borís... I know," she said seriously; "that's what I have come
+about. Don't say it—I know. No, do tell me!" and she removed her hand.
+"Tell me, Mamma! He's nice?"
+
+"Natásha, you are sixteen. At your age I was married. You say Borís is
+nice. He is very nice, and I love him like a son. But what then?... What
+are you thinking about? You have quite turned his head, I can see
+that...."
+
+As she said this the countess looked round at her daughter. Natásha was
+lying looking steadily straight before her at one of the mahogany
+sphinxes carved on the corners of the bedstead, so that the countess
+only saw her daughter's face in profile. That face struck her by its
+peculiarly serious and concentrated expression.
+
+Natásha was listening and considering.
+
+"Well, what then?" said she.
+
+"You have quite turned his head, and why? What do you want of him? You
+know you can't marry him."
+
+"Why not?" said Natásha, without changing her position.
+
+"Because he is young, because he is poor, because he is a relation...
+and because you yourself don't love him."
+
+"How do you know?"
+
+"I know. It is not right, darling!"
+
+"But if I want to..." said Natásha.
+
+"Leave off talking nonsense," said the countess.
+
+"But if I want to..."
+
+"Natásha, I am in earnest..."
+
+Natásha did not let her finish. She drew the countess' large hand to
+her, kissed it on the back and then on the palm, then again turned it
+over and began kissing first one knuckle, then the space between the
+knuckles, then the next knuckle, whispering, "January, February, March,
+April, May. Speak, Mamma, why don't you say anything? Speak!" said she,
+turning to her mother, who was tenderly gazing at her daughter and in
+that contemplation seemed to have forgotten all she had wished to say.
+
+"It won't do, my love! Not everyone will understand this friendship
+dating from your childish days, and to see him so intimate with you may
+injure you in the eyes of other young men who visit us, and above all it
+torments him for nothing. He may already have found a suitable and
+wealthy match, and now he's half crazy."
+
+"Crazy?" repeated Natásha.
+
+"I'll tell you some things about myself. I had a cousin..."
+
+"I know! Cyril Matveich... but he is old."
+
+"He was not always old. But this is what I'll do, Natásha, I'll have a
+talk with Borís. He need not come so often...."
+
+"Why not, if he likes to?"
+
+"Because I know it will end in nothing...."
+
+"How can you know? No, Mamma, don't speak to him! What nonsense!" said
+Natásha in the tone of one being deprived of her property. "Well, I
+won't marry, but let him come if he enjoys it and I enjoy it." Natásha
+smiled and looked at her mother. "Not to marry, but just so," she added.
+
+"How so, my pet?"
+
+"Just so. There's no need for me to marry him. But... just so."
+
+"Just so, just so," repeated the countess, and shaking all over, she
+went off into a good humored, unexpected, elderly laugh.
+
+"Don't laugh, stop!" cried Natásha. "You're shaking the whole bed!
+You're awfully like me, just such another giggler.... Wait..." and she
+seized the countess' hands and kissed a knuckle of the little finger,
+saying, "June," and continued, kissing, "July, August," on the other
+hand. "But, Mamma, is he very much in love? What do you think? Was
+anybody ever so much in love with you? And he's very nice, very, very
+nice. Only not quite my taste—he is so narrow, like the dining-room
+clock.... Don't you understand? Narrow, you know—gray, light gray..."
+
+"What rubbish you're talking!" said the countess.
+
+Natásha continued: "Don't you really understand? Nicholas would
+understand.... Bezúkhov, now, is blue, dark-blue and red, and he is
+square."
+
+"You flirt with him too," said the countess, laughing.
+
+"No, he is a Freemason, I have found out. He is fine, dark-blue and
+red.... How can I explain it to you?"
+
+"Little countess!" the count's voice called from behind the door.
+"You're not asleep?" Natásha jumped up, snatched up her slippers, and
+ran barefoot to her own room.
+
+It was a long time before she could sleep. She kept thinking that no one
+could understand all that she understood and all there was in her.
+
+"Sónya?" she thought, glancing at that curled-up, sleeping little kitten
+with her enormous plait of hair. "No, how could she? She's virtuous. She
+fell in love with Nicholas and does not wish to know anything more. Even
+Mamma does not understand. It is wonderful how clever I am and how...
+charming she is," she went on, speaking of herself in the third person,
+and imagining it was some very wise man—the wisest and best of men—who
+was saying it of her. "There is everything, everything in her,"
+continued this man. "She is unusually intelligent, charming... and then
+she is pretty, uncommonly pretty, and agile—she swims and rides
+splendidly... and her voice! One can really say it's a wonderful voice!"
+
+She hummed a scrap from her favorite opera by Cherubini, threw herself
+on her bed, laughed at the pleasant thought that she would immediately
+fall asleep, called Dunyasha the maid to put out the candle, and before
+Dunyasha had left the room had already passed into yet another happier
+world of dreams, where everything was as light and beautiful as in
+reality, and even more so because it was different.
+
+Next day the countess called Borís aside and had a talk with him, after
+which he ceased coming to the Rostóvs'.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+On the thirty-first of December, New Year's Eve, 1809 - 10 an old
+grandee of Catherine's day was giving a ball and midnight supper. The
+diplomatic corps and the Emperor himself were to be present.
+
+The grandee's well-known mansion on the English Quay glittered with
+innumerable lights. Police were stationed at the brightly lit entrance
+which was carpeted with red baize, and not only gendarmes but dozens of
+police officers and even the police master himself stood at the porch.
+Carriages kept driving away and fresh ones arriving, with red-liveried
+footmen and footmen in plumed hats. From the carriages emerged men
+wearing uniforms, stars, and ribbons, while ladies in satin and ermine
+cautiously descended the carriage steps which were let down for them
+with a clatter, and then walked hurriedly and noiselessly over the baize
+at the entrance.
+
+Almost every time a new carriage drove up a whisper ran through the
+crowd and caps were doffed.
+
+"The Emperor?... No, a minister.... prince... ambassador. Don't you see
+the plumes?..." was whispered among the crowd.
+
+One person, better dressed than the rest, seemed to know everyone and
+mentioned by name the greatest dignitaries of the day.
+
+A third of the visitors had already arrived, but the Rostóvs, who were
+to be present, were still hurrying to get dressed.
+
+There had been many discussions and preparations for this ball in the
+Rostóv family, many fears that the invitation would not arrive, that the
+dresses would not be ready, or that something would not be arranged as
+it should be.
+
+Márya Ignatevna Peronskaya, a thin and shallow maid of honor at the
+court of the Dowager Empress, who was a friend and relation of the
+countess and piloted the provincial Rostóvs in Petersburg high society,
+was to accompany them to the ball.
+
+They were to call for her at her house in the Taurida Gardens at ten
+o'clock, but it was already five minutes to ten, and the girls were not
+yet dressed.
+
+Natásha was going to her first grand ball. She had got up at eight that
+morning and had been in a fever of excitement and activity all day. All
+her powers since morning had been concentrated on ensuring that they
+all—she herself, Mamma, and Sónya—should be as well dressed as possible.
+Sónya and her mother put themselves entirely in her hands. The countess
+was to wear a claret-colored velvet dress, and the two girls white gauze
+over pink silk slips, with roses on their bodices and their hair dressed
+a la grecque.
+
+Everything essential had already been done; feet, hands, necks, and ears
+washed, perfumed, and powdered, as befits a ball; the openwork silk
+stockings and white satin shoes with ribbons were already on; the
+hairdressing was almost done. Sónya was finishing dressing and so was
+the countess, but Natásha, who had bustled about helping them all, was
+behindhand. She was still sitting before a looking-glass with a dressing
+jacket thrown over her slender shoulders. Sónya stood ready dressed in
+the middle of the room and, pressing the head of a pin till it hurt her
+dainty finger, was fixing on a last ribbon that squeaked as the pin went
+through it.
+
+"That's not the way, that's not the way, Sónya!" cried Natásha turning
+her head and clutching with both hands at her hair which the maid who
+was dressing it had not time to release. "That bow is not right. Come
+here!"
+
+Sónya sat down and Natásha pinned the ribbon on differently.
+
+"Allow me, Miss! I can't do it like that," said the maid who was holding
+Natásha's hair.
+
+"Oh, dear! Well then, wait. That's right, Sónya."
+
+"Aren't you ready? It is nearly ten," came the countess' voice.
+
+"Directly! Directly! And you, Mamma?"
+
+"I have only my cap to pin on."
+
+"Don't do it without me!" called Natásha. "You won't do it right."
+
+"But it's already ten."
+
+They had decided to be at the ball by half past ten, and Natásha had
+still to get dressed and they had to call at the Taurida Gardens.
+
+When her hair was done, Natásha, in her short petticoat from under which
+her dancing shoes showed, and in her mother's dressing jacket, ran up to
+Sónya, scrutinized her, and then ran to her mother. Turning her mother's
+head this way and that, she fastened on the cap and, hurriedly kissing
+her gray hair, ran back to the maids who were turning up the hem of her
+skirt.
+
+The cause of the delay was Natásha's skirt, which was too long. Two
+maids were turning up the hem and hurriedly biting off the ends of
+thread. A third with pins in her mouth was running about between the
+countess and Sónya, and a fourth held the whole of the gossamer garment
+up high on one uplifted hand.
+
+"Mavra, quicker, darling!"
+
+"Give me my thimble, Miss, from there..."
+
+"Whenever will you be ready?" asked the count coming to the door. "Here
+is some scent. Peronskaya must be tired of waiting."
+
+"It's ready, Miss," said the maid, holding up the shortened gauze dress
+with two fingers, and blowing and shaking something off it, as if by
+this to express a consciousness of the airiness and purity of what she
+held.
+
+Natásha began putting on the dress.
+
+"In a minute! In a minute! Don't come in, Papa!" she cried to her father
+as he opened the door—speaking from under the filmy skirt which still
+covered her whole face.
+
+Sónya slammed the door to. A minute later they let the count in. He was
+wearing a blue swallow-tail coat, shoes and stockings, and was perfumed
+and his hair pomaded.
+
+"Oh, Papa! how nice you look! Charming!" cried Natásha, as she stood in
+the middle of the room smoothing out the folds of the gauze.
+
+"If you please, Miss! allow me," said the maid, who on her knees was
+pulling the skirt straight and shifting the pins from one side of her
+mouth to the other with her tongue.
+
+"Say what you like," exclaimed Sónya, in a despairing voice as she
+looked at Natásha, "say what you like, it's still too long."
+
+Natásha stepped back to look at herself in the pier glass. The dress was
+too long.
+
+"Really, madam, it is not at all too long," said Mavra, crawling on her
+knees after her young lady.
+
+"Well, if it's too long we'll tack it up... we'll tack it up in one
+minute," said the resolute Dunyasha taking a needle that was stuck on
+the front of her little shawl and, still kneeling on the floor, set to
+work once more.
+
+At that moment, with soft steps, the countess came in shyly, in her cap
+and velvet gown.
+
+"Oo-oo, my beauty!" exclaimed the count, "she looks better than any of
+you!"
+
+He would have embraced her but, blushing, she stepped aside fearing to
+be rumpled.
+
+"Mamma, your cap, more to this side," said Natásha. "I'll arrange it,"
+and she rushed forward so that the maids who were tacking up her skirt
+could not move fast enough and a piece of gauze was torn off.
+
+"Oh goodness! What has happened? Really it was not my fault!"
+
+"Never mind, I'll run it up, it won't show," said Dunyasha.
+
+"What a beauty—a very queen!" said the nurse as she came to the door.
+"And Sónya! They are lovely!"
+
+At a quarter past ten they at last got into their carriages and started.
+But they had still to call at the Taurida Gardens.
+
+Peronskaya was quite ready. In spite of her age and plainness she had
+gone through the same process as the Rostóvs, but with less flurry—for
+to her it was a matter of routine. Her ugly old body was washed,
+perfumed, and powdered in just the same way. She had washed behind her
+ears just as carefully, and when she entered her drawing room in her
+yellow dress, wearing her badge as maid of honor, her old lady's maid
+was as full of rapturous admiration as the Rostóvs' servants had been.
+
+She praised the Rostóvs' toilets. They praised her taste and toilet, and
+at eleven o'clock, careful of their coiffures and dresses, they settled
+themselves in their carriages and drove off.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+Natásha had not had a moment free since early morning and had not once
+had time to think of what lay before her.
+
+In the damp chill air and crowded closeness of the swaying carriage, she
+for the first time vividly imagined what was in store for her there at
+the ball, in those brightly lighted rooms—with music, flowers, dances,
+the Emperor, and all the brilliant young people of Petersburg. The
+prospect was so splendid that she hardly believed it would come true, so
+out of keeping was it with the chill darkness and closeness of the
+carriage. She understood all that awaited her only when, after stepping
+over the red baize at the entrance, she entered the hall, took off her
+fur cloak, and, beside Sónya and in front of her mother, mounted the
+brightly illuminated stairs between the flowers. Only then did she
+remember how she must behave at a ball, and tried to assume the majestic
+air she considered indispensable for a girl on such an occasion. But,
+fortunately for her, she felt her eyes growing misty, she saw nothing
+clearly, her pulse beat a hundred to the minute, and the blood throbbed
+at her heart. She could not assume that pose, which would have made her
+ridiculous, and she moved on almost fainting from excitement and trying
+with all her might to conceal it. And this was the very attitude that
+became her best. Before and behind them other visitors were entering,
+also talking in low tones and wearing ball dresses. The mirrors on the
+landing reflected ladies in white, pale-blue, and pink dresses, with
+diamonds and pearls on their bare necks and arms.
+
+Natásha looked in the mirrors and could not distinguish her reflection
+from the others. All was blended into one brilliant procession. On
+entering the ballroom the regular hum of voices, footsteps, and
+greetings deafened Natásha, and the light and glitter dazzled her still
+more. The host and hostess, who had already been standing at the door
+for half an hour repeating the same words to the various arrivals,
+"Charme de vous voir," * greeted the Rostóvs and Peronskaya in the same
+manner.
+
+* "Delighted to see you."
+
+The two girls in their white dresses, each with a rose in her black
+hair, both curtsied in the same way, but the hostess' eye involuntarily
+rested longer on the slim Natásha. She looked at her and gave her alone
+a special smile in addition to her usual smile as hostess. Looking at
+her she may have recalled the golden, irrecoverable days of her own
+girlhood and her own first ball. The host also followed Natásha with his
+eyes and asked the count which was his daughter.
+
+"Charming!" said he, kissing the tips of his fingers.
+
+In the ballroom guests stood crowding at the entrance doors awaiting the
+Emperor. The countess took up a position in one of the front rows of
+that crowd. Natásha heard and felt that several people were asking about
+her and looking at her. She realized that those noticing her liked her,
+and this observation helped to calm her.
+
+"There are some like ourselves and some worse," she thought.
+
+Peronskaya was pointing out to the countess the most important people at
+the ball.
+
+"That is the Dutch ambassador, do you see? That gray-haired man," she
+said, indicating an old man with a profusion of silver-gray curly hair,
+who was surrounded by ladies laughing at something he said.
+
+"Ah, here she is, the Queen of Petersburg, Countess Bezúkhova," said
+Peronskaya, indicating Hélène who had just entered. "How lovely! She is
+quite equal to Márya Antonovna. See how the men, young and old, pay
+court to her. Beautiful and clever... they say Prince—is quite mad about
+her. But see, those two, though not good-looking, are even more run
+after."
+
+She pointed to a lady who was crossing the room followed by a very plain
+daughter.
+
+"She is a splendid match, a millionairess," said Peronskaya. "And look,
+here come her suitors."
+
+"That is Bezúkhova's brother, Anatole Kurágin," she said, indicating a
+handsome officer of the Horse Guards who passed by them with head erect,
+looking at something over the heads of the ladies. "He's handsome, isn't
+he? I hear they will marry him to that rich girl. But your cousin,
+Drubetskóy, is also very attentive to her. They say she has millions. Oh
+yes, that's the French ambassador himself!" she replied to the countess'
+inquiry about Caulaincourt. "Looks as if he were a king! All the same,
+the French are charming, very charming. No one more charming in society.
+Ah, here she is! Yes, she is still the most beautiful of them all, our
+Márya Antonovna! And how simply she is dressed! Lovely! And that stout
+one in spectacles is the universal Freemason," she went on, indicating
+Pierre. "Put him beside his wife and he looks a regular buffoon!"
+
+Pierre, swaying his stout body, advanced, making way through the crowd
+and nodding to right and left as casually and good-naturedly as if he
+were passing through a crowd at a fair. He pushed through, evidently
+looking for someone.
+
+Natásha looked joyfully at the familiar face of Pierre, "the buffoon,"
+as Peronskaya had called him, and knew he was looking for them, and for
+her in particular. He had promised to be at the ball and introduce
+partners to her.
+
+But before he reached them Pierre stopped beside a very handsome, dark
+man of middle height, and in a white uniform, who stood by a window
+talking to a tall man wearing stars and a ribbon. Natásha at once
+recognized the shorter and younger man in the white uniform: it was
+Bolkónski, who seemed to her to have grown much younger, happier, and
+better-looking.
+
+"There's someone else we know—Bolkónski, do you see, Mamma?" said
+Natásha, pointing out Prince Andrew. "You remember, he stayed a night
+with us at Otradnoe."
+
+"Oh, you know him?" said Peronskaya. "I can't bear him. Il fait a
+present la pluie et le beau temps. * He's too proud for anything. Takes
+after his father. And he's hand in glove with Speranski, writing some
+project or other. Just look how he treats the ladies! There's one
+talking to him and he has turned away," she said, pointing at him. "I'd
+give it to him if he treated me as he does those ladies."
+
+* "He is all the rage just now."
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+Suddenly everybody stirred, began talking, and pressed forward and then
+back, and between the two rows, which separated, the Emperor entered to
+the sounds of music that had immediately struck up. Behind him walked
+his host and hostess. He walked in rapidly, bowing to right and left as
+if anxious to get the first moments of the reception over. The band
+played the polonaise in vogue at that time on account of the words that
+had been set to it, beginning: "Alexander, Elisaveta, all our hearts you
+ravish quite..." The Emperor passed on to the drawing room, the crowd
+made a rush for the doors, and several persons with excited faces
+hurried there and back again. Then the crowd hastily retired from the
+drawing room door, at which the Emperor reappeared talking to the
+hostess. A young man, looking distraught, pounced down on the ladies,
+asking them to move aside. Some ladies, with faces betraying complete
+forgetfulness of all the rules of decorum, pushed forward to the
+detriment of their toilets. The men began to choose partners and take
+their places for the polonaise.
+
+Everyone moved back, and the Emperor came smiling out of the drawing
+room leading his hostess by the hand but not keeping time to the music.
+The host followed with Márya Antonovna Naryshkina; then came
+ambassadors, ministers, and various generals, whom Peronskaya diligently
+named. More than half the ladies already had partners and were taking
+up, or preparing to take up, their positions for the polonaise. Natásha
+felt that she would be left with her mother and Sónya among a minority
+of women who crowded near the wall, not having been invited to dance.
+She stood with her slender arms hanging down, her scarcely defined bosom
+rising and falling regularly, and with bated breath and glittering,
+frightened eyes gazed straight before her, evidently prepared for the
+height of joy or misery. She was not concerned about the Emperor or any
+of those great people whom Peronskaya was pointing out—she had but one
+thought: "Is it possible no one will ask me, that I shall not be among
+the first to dance? Is it possible that not one of all these men will
+notice me? They do not even seem to see me, or if they do they look as
+if they were saying, 'Ah, she's not the one I'm after, so it's not worth
+looking at her!' No, it's impossible," she thought. "They must know how
+I long to dance, how splendidly I dance, and how they would enjoy
+dancing with me."
+
+The strains of the polonaise, which had continued for a considerable
+time, had begun to sound like a sad reminiscence to Natásha's ears. She
+wanted to cry. Peronskaya had left them. The count was at the other end
+of the room. She and the countess and Sónya were standing by themselves
+as in the depths of a forest amid that crowd of strangers, with no one
+interested in them and not wanted by anyone. Prince Andrew with a lady
+passed by, evidently not recognizing them. The handsome Anatole was
+smilingly talking to a partner on his arm and looked at Natásha as one
+looks at a wall. Borís passed them twice and each time turned away. Berg
+and his wife, who were not dancing, came up to them.
+
+This family gathering seemed humiliating to Natásha—as if there were
+nowhere else for the family to talk but here at the ball. She did not
+listen to or look at Véra, who was telling her something about her own
+green dress.
+
+At last the Emperor stopped beside his last partner (he had danced with
+three) and the music ceased. A worried aide-de-camp ran up to the
+Rostóvs requesting them to stand farther back, though as it was they
+were already close to the wall, and from the gallery resounded the
+distinct, precise, enticingly rhythmical strains of a waltz. The Emperor
+looked smilingly down the room. A minute passed but no one had yet begun
+dancing. An aide-de-camp, the Master of Ceremonies, went up to Countess
+Bezúkhova and asked her to dance. She smilingly raised her hand and laid
+it on his shoulder without looking at him. The aide-de-camp, an adept in
+his art, grasping his partner firmly round her waist, with confident
+deliberation started smoothly, gliding first round the edge of the
+circle, then at the corner of the room he caught Hélène's left hand and
+turned her, the only sound audible, apart from the ever-quickening
+music, being the rhythmic click of the spurs on his rapid, agile feet,
+while at every third beat his partner's velvet dress spread out and
+seemed to flash as she whirled round. Natásha gazed at them and was
+ready to cry because it was not she who was dancing that first turn of
+the waltz.
+
+Prince Andrew, in the white uniform of a cavalry colonel, wearing
+stockings and dancing shoes, stood looking animated and bright in the
+front row of the circle not far from the Rostóvs. Baron Firhoff was
+talking to him about the first sitting of the Council of State to be
+held next day. Prince Andrew, as one closely connected with Speranski
+and participating in the work of the legislative commission, could give
+reliable information about that sitting, concerning which various rumors
+were current. But not listening to what Firhoff was saying, he was
+gazing now at the sovereign and now at the men intending to dance who
+had not yet gathered courage to enter the circle.
+
+Prince Andrew was watching these men abashed by the Emperor's presence,
+and the women who were breathlessly longing to be asked to dance.
+
+Pierre came up to him and caught him by the arm.
+
+"You always dance. I have a protegee, the young Rostóva, here. Ask her,"
+he said.
+
+"Where is she?" asked Bolkónski. "Excuse me!" he added, turning to the
+baron, "we will finish this conversation elsewhere—at a ball one must
+dance." He stepped forward in the direction Pierre indicated. The
+despairing, dejected expression of Natásha's face caught his eye. He
+recognized her, guessed her feelings, saw that it was her debut,
+remembered her conversation at the window, and with an expression of
+pleasure on his face approached Countess Rostóva.
+
+"Allow me to introduce you to my daughter," said the countess, with
+heightened color.
+
+"I have the pleasure of being already acquainted, if the countess
+remembers me," said Prince Andrew with a low and courteous bow quite
+belying Peronskaya's remarks about his rudeness, and approaching Natásha
+he held out his arm to grasp her waist before he had completed his
+invitation. He asked her to waltz. That tremulous expression on
+Natásha's face, prepared either for despair or rapture, suddenly
+brightened into a happy, grateful, childlike smile.
+
+"I have long been waiting for you," that frightened happy little girl
+seemed to say by the smile that replaced the threatened tears, as she
+raised her hand to Prince Andrew's shoulder. They were the second couple
+to enter the circle. Prince Andrew was one of the best dancers of his
+day and Natásha danced exquisitely. Her little feet in their white satin
+dancing shoes did their work swiftly, lightly, and independently of
+herself, while her face beamed with ecstatic happiness. Her slender bare
+arms and neck were not beautiful—compared to Hélène's her shoulders
+looked thin and her bosom undeveloped. But Hélène seemed, as it were,
+hardened by a varnish left by the thousands of looks that had scanned
+her person, while Natásha was like a girl exposed for the first time,
+who would have felt very much ashamed had she not been assured that this
+was absolutely necessary.
+
+Prince Andrew liked dancing, and wishing to escape as quickly as
+possible from the political and clever talk which everyone addressed to
+him, wishing also to break up the circle of restraint he disliked,
+caused by the Emperor's presence, he danced, and had chosen Natásha
+because Pierre pointed her out to him and because she was the first
+pretty girl who caught his eye; but scarcely had he embraced that
+slender supple figure and felt her stirring so close to him and smiling
+so near him than the wine of her charm rose to his head, and he felt
+himself revived and rejuvenated when after leaving her he stood
+breathing deeply and watching the other dancers.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+After Prince Andrew, Borís came up to ask Natásha for a dance, and then
+the aide-de-camp who had opened the ball, and several other young men,
+so that, flushed and happy, and passing on her superfluous partners to
+Sónya, she did not cease dancing all the evening. She noticed and saw
+nothing of what occupied everyone else. Not only did she fail to notice
+that the Emperor talked a long time with the French ambassador, and how
+particularly gracious he was to a certain lady, or that Prince So-and-so
+and So-and-so did and said this and that, and that Hélène had great
+success and was honored by the special attention of So-and-so, but she
+did not even see the Emperor, and only noticed that he had gone because
+the ball became livelier after his departure. For one of the merry
+cotillions before supper Prince Andrew was again her partner. He
+reminded her of their first encounter in the Otradnoe avenue, and how
+she had been unable to sleep that moonlight night, and told her how he
+had involuntarily overheard her. Natásha blushed at that recollection
+and tried to excuse herself, as if there had been something to be
+ashamed of in what Prince Andrew had overheard.
+
+Like all men who have grown up in society, Prince Andrew liked meeting
+someone there not of the conventional society stamp. And such was
+Natásha, with her surprise, her delight, her shyness, and even her
+mistakes in speaking French. With her he behaved with special care and
+tenderness, sitting beside her and talking of the simplest and most
+unimportant matters; he admired her shy grace. In the middle of the
+cotillion, having completed one of the figures, Natásha, still out of
+breath, was returning to her seat when another dancer chose her. She was
+tired and panting and evidently thought of declining, but immediately
+put her hand gaily on the man's shoulder, smiling at Prince Andrew.
+
+"I'd be glad to sit beside you and rest: I'm tired; but you see how they
+keep asking me, and I'm glad of it, I'm happy and I love everybody, and
+you and I understand it all," and much, much more was said in her smile.
+When her partner left her Natásha ran across the room to choose two
+ladies for the figure.
+
+"If she goes to her cousin first and then to another lady, she will be
+my wife," said Prince Andrew to himself quite to his own surprise, as he
+watched her. She did go first to her cousin.
+
+"What rubbish sometimes enters one's head!" thought Prince Andrew, "but
+what is certain is that that girl is so charming, so original, that she
+won't be dancing here a month before she will be married.... Such as she
+are rare here," he thought, as Natásha, readjusting a rose that was
+slipping on her bodice, settled herself beside him.
+
+When the cotillion was over the old count in his blue coat came up to
+the dancers. He invited Prince Andrew to come and see them, and asked
+his daughter whether she was enjoying herself. Natásha did not answer at
+once but only looked up with a smile that said reproachfully: "How can
+you ask such a question?"
+
+"I have never enjoyed myself so much before!" she said, and Prince
+Andrew noticed how her thin arms rose quickly as if to embrace her
+father and instantly dropped again. Natásha was happier than she had
+ever been in her life. She was at that height of bliss when one becomes
+completely kind and good and does not believe in the possibility of
+evil, unhappiness, or sorrow.
+
+At that ball Pierre for the first time felt humiliated by the position
+his wife occupied in court circles. He was gloomy and absent-minded. A
+deep furrow ran across his forehead, and standing by a window he stared
+over his spectacles seeing no one.
+
+On her way to supper Natásha passed him.
+
+Pierre's gloomy, unhappy look struck her. She stopped in front of him.
+She wished to help him, to bestow on him the superabundance of her own
+happiness.
+
+"How delightful it is, Count!" said she. "Isn't it?"
+
+Pierre smiled absent-mindedly, evidently not grasping what she said.
+
+"Yes, I am very glad," he said.
+
+"How can people be dissatisfied with anything?" thought Natásha.
+"Especially such a capital fellow as Bezúkhov!" In Natásha's eyes all
+the people at the ball alike were good, kind, and splendid people,
+loving one another; none of them capable of injuring another—and so they
+ought all to be happy.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+Next day Prince Andrew thought of the ball, but his mind did not dwell
+on it long. "Yes, it was a very brilliant ball," and then... "Yes, that
+little Rostóva is very charming. There's something fresh, original, un-
+Petersburg-like about her that distinguishes her." That was all he
+thought about yesterday's ball, and after his morning tea he set to
+work.
+
+But either from fatigue or want of sleep he was ill-disposed for work
+and could get nothing done. He kept criticizing his own work, as he
+often did, and was glad when he heard someone coming.
+
+The visitor was Bitski, who served on various committees, frequented all
+the societies in Petersburg, and a passionate devotee of the new ideas
+and of Speranski, and a diligent Petersburg newsmonger—one of those men
+who choose their opinions like their clothes according to the fashion,
+but who for that very reason appear to be the warmest partisans. Hardly
+had he got rid of his hat before he ran into Prince Andrew's room with a
+preoccupied air and at once began talking. He had just heard particulars
+of that morning's sitting of the Council of State opened by the Emperor,
+and he spoke of it enthusiastically. The Emperor's speech had been
+extraordinary. It had been a speech such as only constitutional monarchs
+deliver. "The Sovereign plainly said that the Council and Senate are
+estates of the realm, he said that the government must rest not on
+authority but on secure bases. The Emperor said that the fiscal system
+must be reorganized and the accounts published," recounted Bitski,
+emphasizing certain words and opening his eyes significantly.
+
+"Ah, yes! Today's events mark an epoch, the greatest epoch in our
+history," he concluded.
+
+Prince Andrew listened to the account of the opening of the Council of
+State, which he had so impatiently awaited and to which he had attached
+such importance, and was surprised that this event, now that it had
+taken place, did not affect him, and even seemed quite insignificant. He
+listened with quiet irony to Bitski's enthusiastic account of it. A very
+simple thought occurred to him: "What does it matter to me or to Bitski
+what the Emperor was pleased to say at the Council? Can all that make me
+any happier or better?"
+
+And this simple reflection suddenly destroyed all the interest Prince
+Andrew had felt in the impending reforms. He was going to dine that
+evening at Speranski's, "with only a few friends," as the host had said
+when inviting him. The prospect of that dinner in the intimate home
+circle of the man he so admired had greatly interested Prince Andrew,
+especially as he had not yet seen Speranski in his domestic
+surroundings, but now he felt disinclined to go to it.
+
+At the appointed hour, however, he entered the modest house Speranski
+owned in the Taurida Gardens. In the parqueted dining room this small
+house, remarkable for its extreme cleanliness (suggesting that of a
+monastery), Prince Andrew, who was rather late, found the friendly
+gathering of Speranski's intimate acquaintances already assembled at
+five o'clock. There were no ladies present except Speranski's little
+daughter (long-faced like her father) and her governess. The other
+guests were Gervais, Magnitski, and Stolypin. While still in the
+anteroom Prince Andrew heard loud voices and a ringing staccato laugh—a
+laugh such as one hears on the stage. Someone—it sounded like
+Speranski—was distinctly ejaculating ha-ha-ha. Prince Andrew had never
+before heard Speranski's famous laugh, and this ringing, high-pitched
+laughter from a statesman made a strange impression on him.
+
+He entered the dining room. The whole company were standing between two
+windows at a small table laid with hors-d'oeuvres. Speranski, wearing a
+gray swallow-tail coat with a star on the breast, and evidently still
+the same waistcoat and high white stock he had worn at the meeting of
+the Council of State, stood at the table with a beaming countenance. His
+guests surrounded him. Magnitski, addressing himself to Speranski, was
+relating an anecdote, and Speranski was laughing in advance at what
+Magnitski was going to say. When Prince Andrew entered the room
+Magnitski's words were again crowned by laughter. Stolypin gave a deep
+bass guffaw as he munched a piece of bread and cheese. Gervais laughed
+softly with a hissing chuckle, and Speranski in a high-pitched staccato
+manner.
+
+Still laughing, Speranski held out his soft white hand to Prince Andrew.
+
+"Very pleased to see you, Prince," he said. "One moment..." he went on,
+turning to Magnitski and interrupting his story. "We have agreed that
+this is a dinner for recreation, with not a word about business!" and
+turning again to the narrator he began to laugh afresh.
+
+Prince Andrew looked at the laughing Speranski with astonishment,
+regret, and disillusionment. It seemed to him that this was not
+Speranski but someone else. Everything that had formerly appeared
+mysterious and fascinating in Speranski suddenly became plain and
+unattractive.
+
+At dinner the conversation did not cease for a moment and seemed to
+consist of the contents of a book of funny anecdotes. Before Magnitski
+had finished his story someone else was anxious to relate something
+still funnier. Most of the anecdotes, if not relating to the state
+service, related to people in the service. It seemed that in this
+company the insignificance of those people was so definitely accepted
+that the only possible attitude toward them was one of good humored
+ridicule. Speranski related how at the Council that morning a deaf
+dignitary, when asked his opinion, replied that he thought so too.
+Gervais gave a long account of an official revision, remarkable for the
+stupidity of everybody concerned. Stolypin, stuttering, broke into the
+conversation and began excitedly talking of the abuses that existed
+under the former order of things—threatening to give a serious turn to
+the conversation. Magnitski starting quizzing Stolypin about his
+vehemence. Gervais intervened with a joke, and the talk reverted to its
+former lively tone.
+
+Evidently Speranski liked to rest after his labors and find amusement in
+a circle of friends, and his guests, understanding his wish, tried to
+enliven him and amuse themselves. But their gaiety seemed to Prince
+Andrew mirthless and tiresome. Speranski's high-pitched voice struck him
+unpleasantly, and the incessant laughter grated on him like a false
+note. Prince Andrew did not laugh and feared that he would be a damper
+on the spirits of the company, but no one took any notice of his being
+out of harmony with the general mood. They all seemed very gay.
+
+He tried several times to join in the conversation, but his remarks were
+tossed aside each time like a cork thrown out of the water, and he could
+not jest with them.
+
+There was nothing wrong or unseemly in what they said, it was witty and
+might have been funny, but it lacked just that something which is the
+salt of mirth, and they were not even aware that such a thing existed.
+
+After dinner Speranski's daughter and her governess rose. He patted the
+little girl with his white hand and kissed her. And that gesture, too,
+seemed unnatural to Prince Andrew.
+
+The men remained at table over their port—English fashion. In the midst
+of a conversation that was started about Napoleon's Spanish affairs,
+which they all agreed in approving, Prince Andrew began to express a
+contrary opinion. Speranski smiled and, with an evident wish to prevent
+the conversation from taking an unpleasant course, told a story that had
+no connection with the previous conversation. For a few moments all were
+silent.
+
+Having sat some time at table, Speranski corked a bottle of wine and,
+remarking, "Nowadays good wine rides in a carriage and pair," passed it
+to the servant and got up. All rose and continuing to talk loudly went
+into the drawing room. Two letters brought by a courier were handed to
+Speranski and he took them to his study. As soon as he had left the room
+the general merriment stopped and the guests began to converse sensibly
+and quietly with one another.
+
+"Now for the recitation!" said Speranski on returning from his study. "A
+wonderful talent!" he said to Prince Andrew, and Magnitski immediately
+assumed a pose and began reciting some humorous verses in French which
+he had composed about various well-known Petersburg people. He was
+interrupted several times by applause. When the verses were finished
+Prince Andrew went up to Speranski and took his leave.
+
+"Where are you off to so early?" asked Speranski.
+
+"I promised to go to a reception."
+
+They said no more. Prince Andrew looked closely into those mirrorlike,
+impenetrable eyes, and felt that it had been ridiculous of him to have
+expected anything from Speranski and from any of his own activities
+connected with him, or ever to have attributed importance to what
+Speranski was doing. That precise, mirthless laughter rang in Prince
+Andrew's ears long after he had left the house.
+
+When he reached home Prince Andrew began thinking of his life in
+Petersburg during those last four months as if it were something new. He
+recalled his exertions and solicitations, and the history of his project
+of army reform, which had been accepted for consideration and which they
+were trying to pass over in silence simply because another, a very poor
+one, had already been prepared and submitted to the Emperor. He thought
+of the meetings of a committee of which Berg was a member. He remembered
+how carefully and at what length everything relating to form and
+procedure was discussed at those meetings, and how sedulously and
+promptly all that related to the gist of the business was evaded. He
+recalled his labors on the Legal Code, and how painstakingly he had
+translated the articles of the Roman and French codes into Russian, and
+he felt ashamed of himself. Then he vividly pictured to himself
+Bogucharovo, his occupations in the country, his journey to Ryazan; he
+remembered the peasants and Dron the village elder, and mentally
+applying to them the Personal Rights he had divided into paragraphs, he
+felt astonished that he could have spent so much time on such useless
+work.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+Next day Prince Andrew called at a few houses he had not visited before,
+and among them at the Rostóvs' with whom he had renewed acquaintance at
+the ball. Apart from considerations of politeness which demanded the
+call, he wanted to see that original, eager girl who had left such a
+pleasant impression on his mind, in her own home.
+
+Natásha was one of the first to meet him. She was wearing a dark-blue
+house dress in which Prince Andrew thought her even prettier than in her
+ball dress. She and all the Rostóv family welcomed him as an old friend,
+simply and cordially. The whole family, whom he had formerly judged
+severely, now seemed to him to consist of excellent, simple, and kindly
+people. The old count's hospitality and good nature, which struck one
+especially in Petersburg as a pleasant surprise, were such that Prince
+Andrew could not refuse to stay to dinner. "Yes," he thought, "they are
+capital people, who of course have not the slightest idea what a
+treasure they possess in Natásha; but they are kindly folk and form the
+best possible setting for this strikingly poetic, charming girl,
+overflowing with life!"
+
+In Natásha Prince Andrew was conscious of a strange world completely
+alien to him and brimful of joys unknown to him, a different world, that
+in the Otradnoe avenue and at the window that moonlight night had
+already begun to disconcert him. Now this world disconcerted him no
+longer and was no longer alien to him, but he himself having entered it
+found in it a new enjoyment.
+
+After dinner Natásha, at Prince Andrew's request, went to the clavichord
+and began singing. Prince Andrew stood by a window talking to the ladies
+and listened to her. In the midst of a phrase he ceased speaking and
+suddenly felt tears choking him, a thing he had thought impossible for
+him. He looked at Natásha as she sang, and something new and joyful
+stirred in his soul. He felt happy and at the same time sad. He had
+absolutely nothing to weep about yet he was ready to weep. What about?
+His former love? The little princess? His disillusionments?... His hopes
+for the future?... Yes and no. The chief reason was a sudden, vivid
+sense of the terrible contrast between something infinitely great and
+illimitable within him and that limited and material something that he,
+and even she, was. This contrast weighed on and yet cheered him while
+she sang.
+
+As soon as Natásha had finished she went up to him and asked how he
+liked her voice. She asked this and then became confused, feeling that
+she ought not to have asked it. He smiled, looking at her, and said he
+liked her singing as he liked everything she did.
+
+Prince Andrew left the Rostóvs' late in the evening. He went to bed from
+habit, but soon realized that he could not sleep. Having lit his candle
+he sat up in bed, then got up, then lay down again not at all troubled
+by his sleeplessness: his soul was as fresh and joyful as if he had
+stepped out of a stuffy room into God's own fresh air. It did not enter
+his head that he was in love with Natásha; he was not thinking about
+her, but only picturing her to himself, and in consequence all life
+appeared in a new light. "Why do I strive, why do I toil in this narrow,
+confined frame, when life, all life with all its joys, is open to me?"
+said he to himself. And for the first time for a very long while he
+began making happy plans for the future. He decided that he must attend
+to his son's education by finding a tutor and putting the boy in his
+charge, then he ought to retire from the service and go abroad, and see
+England, Switzerland and Italy. "I must use my freedom while I feel so
+much strength and youth in me," he said to himself. "Pierre was right
+when he said one must believe in the possibility of happiness in order
+to be happy, and now I do believe in it. Let the dead bury their dead,
+but while one has life one must live and be happy!" thought he.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+One morning Colonel Berg, whom Pierre knew as he knew everybody in
+Moscow and Petersburg, came to see him. Berg arrived in an immaculate
+brand-new uniform, with his hair pomaded and brushed forward over his
+temples as the Emperor Alexander wore his hair.
+
+"I have just been to see the countess, your wife. Unfortunately she
+could not grant my request, but I hope, Count, I shall be more fortunate
+with you," he said with a smile.
+
+"What is it you wish, Colonel? I am at your service."
+
+"I have now quite settled in my new rooms, Count" (Berg said this with
+perfect conviction that this information could not but be agreeable),
+"and so I wish to arrange just a small party for my own and my wife's
+friends." (He smiled still more pleasantly.) "I wished to ask the
+countess and you to do me the honor of coming to tea and to supper."
+
+Only Countess Hélène, considering the society of such people as the
+Bergs beneath her, could be cruel enough to refuse such an invitation.
+Berg explained so clearly why he wanted to collect at his house a small
+but select company, and why this would give him pleasure, and why though
+he grudged spending money on cards or anything harmful, he was prepared
+to run into some expense for the sake of good society—that Pierre could
+not refuse, and promised to come.
+
+"But don't be late, Count, if I may venture to ask; about ten minutes to
+eight, please. We shall make up a rubber. Our general is coming. He is
+very good to me. We shall have supper, Count. So you will do me the
+favor."
+
+Contrary to his habit of being late, Pierre on that day arrived at the
+Bergs' house, not at ten but at fifteen minutes to eight.
+
+Having prepared everything necessary for the party, the Bergs were ready
+for their guests' arrival.
+
+In their new, clean, and light study with its small busts and pictures
+and new furniture sat Berg and his wife. Berg, closely buttoned up in
+his new uniform, sat beside his wife explaining to her that one always
+could and should be acquainted with people above one, because only then
+does one get satisfaction from acquaintances.
+
+"You can get to know something, you can ask for something. See how I
+managed from my first promotion." (Berg measured his life not by years
+but by promotions.) "My comrades are still nobodies, while I am only
+waiting for a vacancy to command a regiment, and have the happiness to
+be your husband." (He rose and kissed Véra's hand, and on the way to her
+straightened out a turned-up corner of the carpet.) "And how have I
+obtained all this? Chiefly by knowing how to choose my aquaintances. It
+goes without saying that one must be conscientious and methodical."
+
+Berg smiled with a sense of his superiority over a weak woman, and
+paused, reflecting that this dear wife of his was after all but a weak
+woman who could not understand all that constitutes a man's dignity,
+what it was ein Mann zu sein. * Véra at the same time smiling with a
+sense of superiority over her good, conscientious husband, who all the
+same understood life wrongly, as according to Véra all men did. Berg,
+judging by his wife, thought all women weak and foolish. Véra, judging
+only by her husband and generalizing from that observation, supposed
+that all men, though they understand nothing and are conceited and
+selfish, ascribe common sense to themselves alone.
+
+* To be a man.
+
+Berg rose and embraced his wife carefully, so as not to crush her lace
+fichu for which he had paid a good price, kissing her straight on the
+lips.
+
+"The only thing is, we mustn't have children too soon," he continued,
+following an unconscious sequence of ideas.
+
+"Yes," answered Véra, "I don't at all want that. We must live for
+society."
+
+"Princess Yusupova wore one exactly like this," said Berg, pointing to
+the fichu with a happy and kindly smile.
+
+Just then Count Bezúkhov was announced. Husband and wife glanced at one
+another, both smiling with self-satisfaction, and each mentally claiming
+the honor of this visit.
+
+"This is what comes of knowing how to make acquaintances," thought Berg.
+"This is what comes of knowing how to conduct oneself."
+
+"But please don't interrupt me when I am entertaining the guests," said
+Véra, "because I know what interests each of them and what to say to
+different people."
+
+Berg smiled again.
+
+"It can't be helped: men must sometimes have masculine conversation,"
+said he.
+
+They received Pierre in their small, new drawing room, where it was
+impossible to sit down anywhere without disturbing its symmetry,
+neatness, and order; so it was quite comprehensible and not strange that
+Berg, having generously offered to disturb the symmetry of an armchair
+or of the sofa for his dear guest, but being apparently painfully
+undecided on the matter himself, eventually left the visitor to settle
+the question of selection. Pierre disturbed the symmetry by moving a
+chair for himself, and Berg and Véra immediately began their evening
+party, interrupting each other in their efforts to entertain their
+guest.
+
+Véra, having decided in her own mind that Pierre ought to be entertained
+with conversation about the French embassy, at once began accordingly.
+Berg, having decided that masculine conversation was required,
+interrupted his wife's remarks and touched on the question of the war
+with Austria, and unconsciously jumped from the general subject to
+personal considerations as to the proposals made him to take part in the
+Austrian campaign and the reasons why he had declined them. Though the
+conversation was very incoherent and Véra was angry at the intrusion of
+the masculine element, both husband and wife felt with satisfaction
+that, even if only one guest was present, their evening had begun very
+well and was as like as two peas to every other evening party with its
+talk, tea, and lighted candles.
+
+Before long Borís, Berg's old comrade, arrived. There was a shade of
+condescension and patronage in his treatment of Berg and Véra. After
+Borís came a lady with the colonel, then the general himself, then the
+Rostóvs, and the party became unquestionably exactly like all other
+evening parties. Berg and Véra could not repress their smiles of
+satisfaction at the sight of all this movement in their drawing room, at
+the sound of the disconnected talk, the rustling of dresses, and the
+bowing and scraping. Everything was just as everybody always has it,
+especially so the general, who admired the apartment, patted Berg on the
+shoulder, and with parental authority superintended the setting out of
+the table for boston. The general sat down by Count Ilyá Rostóv, who was
+next to himself the most important guest. The old people sat with the
+old, the young with the young, and the hostess at the tea table, on
+which stood exactly the same kind of cakes in a silver cake basket as
+the Panins had at their party. Everything was just as it was everywhere
+else.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+Pierre, as one of the principal guests, had to sit down to boston with
+Count Rostóv, the general, and the colonel. At the card table he
+happened to be directly facing Natásha, and was struck by a curious
+change that had come over her since the ball. She was silent, and not
+only less pretty than at the ball, but only redeemed from plainness by
+her look of gentle indifference to everything around.
+
+"What's the matter with her?" thought Pierre, glancing at her. She was
+sitting by her sister at the tea table, and reluctantly, without looking
+at him, made some reply to Borís who sat down beside her. After playing
+out a whole suit and to his partner's delight taking five tricks,
+Pierre, hearing greetings and the steps of someone who had entered the
+room while he was picking up his tricks, glanced again at Natásha.
+
+"What has happened to her?" he asked himself with still greater
+surprise.
+
+Prince Andrew was standing before her, saying something to her with a
+look of tender solicitude. She, having raised her head, was looking up
+at him, flushed and evidently trying to master her rapid breathing. And
+the bright glow of some inner fire that had been suppressed was again
+alight in her. She was completely transformed and from a plain girl had
+again become what she had been at the ball.
+
+Prince Andrew went up to Pierre, and the latter noticed a new and
+youthful expression in his friend's face.
+
+Pierre changed places several times during the game, sitting now with
+his back to Natásha and now facing her, but during the whole of the six
+rubbers he watched her and his friend.
+
+"Something very important is happening between them," thought Pierre,
+and a feeling that was both joyful and painful agitated him and made him
+neglect the game.
+
+After six rubbers the general got up, saying that it was no use playing
+like that, and Pierre was released. Natásha on one side was talking with
+Sónya and Borís, and Véra with a subtle smile was saying something to
+Prince Andrew. Pierre went up to his friend and, asking whether they
+were talking secrets, sat down beside them. Véra, having noticed Prince
+Andrew's attentions to Natásha, decided that at a party, a real evening
+party, subtle allusions to the tender passion were absolutely necessary
+and, seizing a moment when Prince Andrew was alone, began a conversation
+with him about feelings in general and about her sister. With so
+intellectual a guest as she considered Prince Andrew to be, she felt
+that she had to employ her diplomatic tact.
+
+When Pierre went up to them he noticed that Véra was being carried away
+by her self-satisfied talk, but that Prince Andrew seemed embarrassed, a
+thing that rarely happened with him.
+
+"What do you think?" Véra was saying with an arch smile. "You are so
+discerning, Prince, and understand people's characters so well at a
+glance. What do you think of Natalie? Could she be constant in her
+attachments? Could she, like other women" (Véra meant herself), "love a
+man once for all and remain true to him forever? That is what I consider
+true love. What do you think, Prince?"
+
+"I know your sister too little," replied Prince Andrew, with a sarcastic
+smile under which he wished to hide his embarrassment, "to be able to
+solve so delicate a question, and then I have noticed that the less
+attractive a woman is the more constant she is likely to be," he added,
+and looked up at Pierre who was just approaching them.
+
+"Yes, that is true, Prince. In our days," continued Véra—mentioning "our
+days" as people of limited intelligence are fond of doing, imagining
+that they have discovered and appraised the peculiarities of "our days"
+and that human characteristics change with the times—"in our days a girl
+has so much freedom that the pleasure of being courted often stifles
+real feeling in her. And it must be confessed that Natalie is very
+susceptible." This return to the subject of Natalie caused Prince Andrew
+to knit his brows with discomfort: he was about to rise, but Véra
+continued with a still more subtle smile:
+
+"I think no one has been more courted than she," she went on, "but till
+quite lately she never cared seriously for anyone. Now you know, Count,"
+she said to Pierre, "even our dear cousin Borís, who, between ourselves,
+was very far gone in the land of tenderness..." (alluding to a map of
+love much in vogue at that time).
+
+Prince Andrew frowned and remained silent.
+
+"You are friendly with Borís, aren't you?" asked Véra.
+
+"Yes, I know him..."
+
+"I expect he has told you of his childish love for Natásha?"
+
+"Oh, there was childish love?" suddenly asked Prince Andrew, blushing
+unexpectedly.
+
+"Yes, you know between cousins intimacy often leads to love. Le
+cousinage est un dangereux voisinage. * Don't you think so?"
+
+* "Cousinhood is a dangerous neighborhood."
+
+"Oh, undoubtedly!" said Prince Andrew, and with sudden and unnatural
+liveliness he began chaffing Pierre about the need to be very careful
+with his fifty-year-old Moscow cousins, and in the midst of these
+jesting remarks he rose, taking Pierre by the arm, and drew him aside.
+
+"Well?" asked Pierre, seeing his friend's strange animation with
+surprise, and noticing the glance he turned on Natásha as he rose.
+
+"I must... I must have a talk with you," said Prince Andrew. "You know
+that pair of women's gloves?" (He referred to the masonic gloves given
+to a newly initiated Brother to present to the woman he loved.) "I...
+but no, I will talk to you later on," and with a strange light in his
+eyes and restlessness in his movements, Prince Andrew approached Natásha
+and sat down beside her. Pierre saw how Prince Andrew asked her
+something and how she flushed as she replied.
+
+But at that moment Berg came to Pierre and began insisting that he
+should take part in an argument between the general and the colonel on
+the affairs in Spain.
+
+Berg was satisfied and happy. The smile of pleasure never left his face.
+The party was very successful and quite like other parties he had seen.
+Everything was similar: the ladies' subtle talk, the cards, the general
+raising his voice at the card table, and the samovar and the tea cakes;
+only one thing was lacking that he had always seen at the evening
+parties he wished to imitate. They had not yet had a loud conversation
+among the men and a dispute about something important and clever. Now
+the general had begun such a discussion and so Berg drew Pierre to it.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+Next day, having been invited by the count, Prince Andrew dined with the
+Rostóvs and spent the rest of the day there.
+
+Everyone in the house realized for whose sake Prince Andrew came, and
+without concealing it he tried to be with Natásha all day. Not only in
+the soul of the frightened yet happy and enraptured Natásha, but in the
+whole house, there was a feeling of awe at something important that was
+bound to happen. The countess looked with sad and sternly serious eyes
+at Prince Andrew when he talked to Natásha and timidly started some
+artificial conversation about trifles as soon as he looked her way.
+Sónya was afraid to leave Natásha and afraid of being in the way when
+she was with them. Natásha grew pale, in a panic of expectation, when
+she remained alone with him for a moment. Prince Andrew surprised her by
+his timidity. She felt that he wanted to say something to her but could
+not bring himself to do so.
+
+In the evening, when Prince Andrew had left, the countess went up to
+Natásha and whispered: "Well, what?"
+
+"Mamma! For heaven's sake don't ask me anything now! One can't talk
+about that," said Natásha.
+
+But all the same that night Natásha, now agitated and now frightened,
+lay a long time in her mother's bed gazing straight before her. She told
+her how he had complimented her, how he told her he was going abroad,
+asked her where they were going to spend the summer, and then how he had
+asked her about Borís.
+
+"But such a... such a... never happened to me before!" she said. "Only I
+feel afraid in his presence. I am always afraid when I'm with him. What
+does that mean? Does it mean that it's the real thing? Yes? Mamma, are
+you asleep?"
+
+"No, my love; I am frightened myself," answered her mother. "Now go!"
+
+"All the same I shan't sleep. What silliness, to sleep! Mummy! Mummy!
+such a thing never happened to me before," she said, surprised and
+alarmed at the feeling she was aware of in herself. "And could we ever
+have thought!..."
+
+It seemed to Natásha that even at the time she first saw Prince Andrew
+at Otradnoe she had fallen in love with him. It was as if she feared
+this strange, unexpected happiness of meeting again the very man she had
+then chosen (she was firmly convinced she had done so) and of finding
+him, as it seemed, not indifferent to her.
+
+"And it had to happen that he should come specially to Petersburg while
+we are here. And it had to happen that we should meet at that ball. It
+is fate. Clearly it is fate that everything led up to this! Already
+then, directly I saw him I felt something peculiar."
+
+"What else did he say to you? What are those verses? Read them..." said
+her mother, thoughtfully, referring to some verses Prince Andrew had
+written in Natásha's album.
+
+"Mamma, one need not be ashamed of his being a widower?"
+
+"Don't, Natásha! Pray to God. 'Marriages are made in heaven,'" said her
+mother.
+
+"Darling Mummy, how I love you! How happy I am!" cried Natásha, shedding
+tears of joy and excitement and embracing her mother.
+
+At that very time Prince Andrew was sitting with Pierre and telling him
+of his love for Natásha and his firm resolve to make her his wife.
+
+That day Countess Hélène had a reception at her house. The French
+ambassador was there, and a foreign prince of the blood who had of late
+become a frequent visitor of hers, and many brilliant ladies and
+gentlemen. Pierre, who had come downstairs, walked through the rooms and
+struck everyone by his preoccupied, absent-minded, and morose air.
+
+Since the ball he had felt the approach of a fit of nervous depression
+and had made desperate efforts to combat it. Since the intimacy of his
+wife with the royal prince, Pierre had unexpectedly been made a
+gentleman of the bedchamber, and from that time he had begun to feel
+oppressed and ashamed in court society, and dark thoughts of the vanity
+of all things human came to him oftener than before. At the same time
+the feeling he had noticed between his protegee Natásha and Prince
+Andrew accentuated his gloom by the contrast between his own position
+and his friend's. He tried equally to avoid thinking about his wife, and
+about Natásha and Prince Andrew; and again everything seemed to him
+insignificant in comparison with eternity; again the question: for what?
+presented itself; and he forced himself to work day and night at masonic
+labors, hoping to drive away the evil spirit that threatened him. Toward
+midnight, after he had left the countess' apartments, he was sitting
+upstairs in a shabby dressing gown, copying out the original transaction
+of the Scottish lodge of Freemasons at a table in his low room cloudy
+with tobacco smoke, when someone came in. It was Prince Andrew.
+
+"Ah, it's you!" said Pierre with a preoccupied, dissatisfied air. "And
+I, you see, am hard at it." He pointed to his manuscript book with that
+air of escaping from the ills of life with which unhappy people look at
+their work.
+
+Prince Andrew, with a beaming, ecstatic expression of renewed life on
+his face, paused in front of Pierre and, not noticing his sad look,
+smiled at him with the egotism of joy.
+
+"Well, dear heart," said he, "I wanted to tell you about it yesterday
+and I have come to do so today. I never experienced anything like it
+before. I am in love, my friend!"
+
+Suddenly Pierre heaved a deep sigh and dumped his heavy person down on
+the sofa beside Prince Andrew.
+
+"With Natásha Rostóva, yes?" said he.
+
+"Yes, yes! Who else should it be? I should never have believed it, but
+the feeling is stronger than I. Yesterday I tormented myself and
+suffered, but I would not exchange even that torment for anything in the
+world, I have not lived till now. At last I live, but I can't live
+without her! But can she love me?... I am too old for her.... Why don't
+you speak?"
+
+"I? I? What did I tell you?" said Pierre suddenly, rising and beginning
+to pace up and down the room. "I always thought it.... That girl is such
+a treasure... she is a rare girl.... My dear friend, I entreat you,
+don't philosophize, don't doubt, marry, marry, marry.... And I am sure
+there will not be a happier man than you."
+
+"But what of her?"
+
+"She loves you."
+
+"Don't talk rubbish..." said Prince Andrew, smiling and looking into
+Pierre's eyes.
+
+"She does, I know," Pierre cried fiercely.
+
+"But do listen," returned Prince Andrew, holding him by the arm. "Do you
+know the condition I am in? I must talk about it to someone."
+
+"Well, go on, go on. I am very glad," said Pierre, and his face really
+changed, his brow became smooth, and he listened gladly to Prince
+Andrew. Prince Andrew seemed, and really was, quite a different, quite a
+new man. Where was his spleen, his contempt for life, his
+disillusionment? Pierre was the only person to whom he made up his mind
+to speak openly; and to him he told all that was in his soul. Now he
+boldly and lightly made plans for an extended future, said he could not
+sacrifice his own happiness to his father's caprice, and spoke of how he
+would either make his father consent to this marriage and love her, or
+would do without his consent; then he marveled at the feeling that had
+mastered him as at something strange, apart from and independent of
+himself.
+
+"I should not have believed anyone who told me that I was capable of
+such love," said Prince Andrew. "It is not at all the same feeling that
+I knew in the past. The whole world is now for me divided into two
+halves: one half is she, and there all is joy, hope, light: the other
+half is everything where she is not, and there is all gloom and
+darkness...."
+
+"Darkness and gloom," reiterated Pierre: "yes, yes, I understand that."
+
+"I cannot help loving the light, it is not my fault. And I am very
+happy! You understand me? I know you are glad for my sake."
+
+"Yes, yes," Pierre assented, looking at his friend with a touched and
+sad expression in his eyes. The brighter Prince Andrew's lot appeared to
+him, the gloomier seemed his own.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+Prince Andrew needed his father's consent to his marriage, and to obtain
+this he started for the country next day.
+
+His father received his son's communication with external composure, but
+inward wrath. He could not comprehend how anyone could wish to alter his
+life or introduce anything new into it, when his own life was already
+ending. "If only they would let me end my days as I want to," thought
+the old man, "then they might do as they please." With his son, however,
+he employed the diplomacy he reserved for important occasions and,
+adopting a quiet tone, discussed the whole matter.
+
+In the first place the marriage was not a brilliant one as regards
+birth, wealth, or rank. Secondly, Prince Andrew was no longer as young
+as he had been and his health was poor (the old man laid special stress
+on this), while she was very young. Thirdly, he had a son whom it would
+be a pity to entrust to a chit of a girl. "Fourthly and finally," the
+father said, looking ironically at his son, "I beg you to put it off for
+a year: go abroad, take a cure, look out as you wanted to for a German
+tutor for Prince Nicholas. Then if your love or passion or obstinacy—as
+you please—is still as great, marry! And that's my last word on it.
+Mind, the last..." concluded the prince, in a tone which showed that
+nothing would make him alter his decision.
+
+Prince Andrew saw clearly that the old man hoped that his feelings, or
+his fiancee's, would not stand a year's test, or that he (the old prince
+himself) would die before then, and he decided to conform to his
+father's wish—to propose, and postpone the wedding for a year.
+
+Three weeks after the last evening he had spent with the Rostóvs, Prince
+Andrew returned to Petersburg.
+
+Next day after her talk with her mother Natásha expected Bolkónski all
+day, but he did not come. On the second and third day it was the same.
+Pierre did not come either and Natásha, not knowing that Prince Andrew
+had gone to see his father, could not explain his absence to herself.
+
+Three weeks passed in this way. Natásha had no desire to go out anywhere
+and wandered from room to room like a shadow, idle and listless; she
+wept secretly at night and did not go to her mother in the evenings. She
+blushed continually and was irritable. It seemed to her that everybody
+knew about her disappointment and was laughing at her and pitying her.
+Strong as was her inward grief, this wound to her vanity intensified her
+misery.
+
+Once she came to her mother, tried to say something, and suddenly began
+to cry. Her tears were those of an offended child who does not know why
+it is being punished.
+
+The countess began to soothe Natásha, who after first listening to her
+mother's words, suddenly interrupted her:
+
+"Leave off, Mamma! I don't think, and don't want to think about it! He
+just came and then left off, left off..."
+
+Her voice trembled, and she again nearly cried, but recovered and went
+on quietly:
+
+"And I don't at all want to get married. And I am afraid of him; I have
+now become quite calm, quite calm."
+
+The day after this conversation Natásha put on the old dress which she
+knew had the peculiar property of conducing to cheerfulness in the
+mornings, and that day she returned to the old way of life which she had
+abandoned since the ball. Having finished her morning tea she went to
+the ballroom, which she particularly liked for its loud resonance, and
+began singing her solfeggio. When she had finished her first exercise
+she stood still in the middle of the room and sang a musical phrase that
+particularly pleased her. She listened joyfully (as though she had not
+expected it) to the charm of the notes reverberating, filling the whole
+empty ballroom, and slowly dying away; and all at once she felt
+cheerful. "What's the good of making so much of it? Things are nice as
+it is," she said to herself, and she began walking up and down the room,
+not stepping simply on the resounding parquet but treading with each
+step from the heel to the toe (she had on a new and favorite pair of
+shoes) and listening to the regular tap of the heel and creak of the toe
+as gladly as she had to the sounds of her own voice. Passing a mirror
+she glanced into it. "There, that's me!" the expression of her face
+seemed to say as she caught sight of herself. "Well, and very nice too!
+I need nobody."
+
+A footman wanted to come in to clear away something in the room but she
+would not let him, and having closed the door behind him continued her
+walk. That morning she had returned to her favorite mood—love of, and
+delight in, herself. "How charming that Natásha is!" she said again,
+speaking as some third, collective, male person. "Pretty, a good voice,
+young, and in nobody's way if only they leave her in peace." But however
+much they left her in peace she could not now be at peace, and
+immediately felt this.
+
+In the hall the porch door opened, and someone asked, "At home?" and
+then footsteps were heard. Natásha was looking at the mirror, but did
+not see herself. She listened to the sounds in the hall. When she saw
+herself, her face was pale. It was he. She knew this for certain, though
+she hardly heard his voice through the closed doors.
+
+Pale and agitated, Natásha ran into the drawing room.
+
+"Mamma! Bolkónski has come!" she said. "Mamma, it is awful, it is
+unbearable! I don't want... to be tormented? What am I to do?..."
+
+Before the countess could answer, Prince Andrew entered the room with an
+agitated and serious face. As soon as he saw Natásha his face
+brightened. He kissed the countess' hand and Natásha's, and sat down
+beside the sofa.
+
+"It is long since we had the pleasure..." began the countess, but Prince
+Andrew interrupted her by answering her intended question, obviously in
+haste to say what he had to.
+
+"I have not been to see you all this time because I have been at my
+father's. I had to talk over a very important matter with him. I only
+got back last night," he said glancing at Natásha; "I want to have a
+talk with you, Countess," he added after a moment's pause.
+
+The countess lowered her eyes, sighing deeply.
+
+"I am at your disposal," she murmured.
+
+Natásha knew that she ought to go away, but was unable to do so:
+something gripped her throat, and regardless of manners she stared
+straight at Prince Andrew with wide-open eyes.
+
+"At once? This instant!... No, it can't be!" she thought.
+
+Again he glanced at her, and that glance convinced her that she was not
+mistaken. Yes, at once, that very instant, her fate would be decided.
+
+"Go, Natásha! I will call you," said the countess in a whisper.
+
+Natásha glanced with frightened imploring eyes at Prince Andrew and at
+her mother and went out.
+
+"I have come, Countess, to ask for your daughter's hand," said Prince
+Andrew.
+
+The countess' face flushed hotly, but she said nothing.
+
+"Your offer..." she began at last sedately. He remained silent, looking
+into her eyes. "Your offer..." (she grew confused) "is agreeable to us,
+and I accept your offer. I am glad. And my husband... I hope... but it
+will depend on her...."
+
+"I will speak to her when I have your consent.... Do you give it to me?"
+said Prince Andrew.
+
+"Yes," replied the countess. She held out her hand to him, and with a
+mixed feeling of estrangement and tenderness pressed her lips to his
+forehead as he stooped to kiss her hand. She wished to love him as a
+son, but felt that to her he was a stranger and a terrifying man. "I am
+sure my husband will consent," said the countess, "but your father..."
+
+"My father, to whom I have told my plans, has made it an express
+condition of his consent that the wedding is not to take place for a
+year. And I wished to tell you of that," said Prince Andrew.
+
+"It is true that Natásha is still young, but—so long as that?..."
+
+"It is unavoidable," said Prince Andrew with a sigh.
+
+"I will send her to you," said the countess, and left the room.
+
+"Lord have mercy upon us!" she repeated while seeking her daughter.
+
+Sónya said that Natásha was in her bedroom. Natásha was sitting on the
+bed, pale and dry eyed, and was gazing at the icons and whispering
+something as she rapidly crossed herself. Seeing her mother she jumped
+up and flew to her.
+
+"Well, Mamma?... Well?..."
+
+"Go, go to him. He is asking for your hand," said the countess, coldly
+it seemed to Natásha. "Go... go," said the mother, sadly and
+reproachfully, with a deep sigh, as her daughter ran away.
+
+Natásha never remembered how she entered the drawing room. When she came
+in and saw him she paused. "Is it possible that this stranger has now
+become everything to me?" she asked herself, and immediately answered,
+"Yes, everything! He alone is now dearer to me than everything in the
+world." Prince Andrew came up to her with downcast eyes.
+
+"I have loved you from the very first moment I saw you. May I hope?"
+
+He looked at her and was struck by the serious impassioned expression of
+her face. Her face said: "Why ask? Why doubt what you cannot but know?
+Why speak, when words cannot express what one feels?"
+
+She drew near to him and stopped. He took her hand and kissed it.
+
+"Do you love me?"
+
+"Yes, yes!" Natásha murmured as if in vexation. Then she sighed loudly
+and, catching her breath more and more quickly, began to sob.
+
+"What is it? What's the matter?"
+
+"Oh, I am so happy!" she replied, smiled through her tears, bent over
+closer to him, paused for an instant as if asking herself whether she
+might, and then kissed him.
+
+Prince Andrew held her hands, looked into her eyes, and did not find in
+his heart his former love for her. Something in him had suddenly
+changed; there was no longer the former poetic and mystic charm of
+desire, but there was pity for her feminine and childish weakness, fear
+at her devotion and trustfulness, and an oppressive yet joyful sense of
+the duty that now bound him to her forever. The present feeling, though
+not so bright and poetic as the former, was stronger and more serious.
+
+"Did your mother tell you that it cannot be for a year?" asked Prince
+Andrew, still looking into her eyes.
+
+"Is it possible that I—the 'chit of a girl,' as everybody called me,"
+thought Natásha—"is it possible that I am now to be the wife and the
+equal of this strange, dear, clever man whom even my father looks up to?
+Can it be true? Can it be true that there can be no more playing with
+life, that now I am grown up, that on me now lies a responsibility for
+my every word and deed? Yes, but what did he ask me?"
+
+"No," she replied, but she had not understood his question.
+
+"Forgive me!" he said. "But you are so young, and I have already been
+through so much in life. I am afraid for you, you do not yet know
+yourself."
+
+Natásha listened with concentrated attention, trying but failing to take
+in the meaning of his words.
+
+"Hard as this year which delays my happiness will be," continued Prince
+Andrew, "it will give you time to be sure of yourself. I ask you to make
+me happy in a year, but you are free: our engagement shall remain a
+secret, and should you find that you do not love me, or should you come
+to love..." said Prince Andrew with an unnatural smile.
+
+"Why do you say that?" Natásha interrupted him. "You know that from the
+very day you first came to Otradnoe I have loved you," she cried, quite
+convinced that she spoke the truth.
+
+"In a year you will learn to know yourself...."
+
+"A whole year!" Natásha repeated suddenly, only now realizing that the
+marriage was to be postponed for a year. "But why a year? Why a
+year?..."
+
+Prince Andrew began to explain to her the reasons for this delay.
+Natásha did not hear him.
+
+"And can't it be helped?" she asked. Prince Andrew did not reply, but
+his face expressed the impossibility of altering that decision.
+
+"It's awful! Oh, it's awful! awful!" Natásha suddenly cried, and again
+burst into sobs. "I shall die, waiting a year: it's impossible, it's
+awful!" She looked into her lover's face and saw in it a look of
+commiseration and perplexity.
+
+"No, no! I'll do anything!" she said, suddenly checking her tears. "I am
+so happy."
+
+The father and mother came into the room and gave the betrothed couple
+their blessing.
+
+From that day Prince Andrew began to frequent the Rostóvs' as Natásha's
+affianced lover.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+No betrothal ceremony took place and Natásha's engagement to Bolkónski
+was not announced; Prince Andrew insisted on that. He said that as he
+was responsible for the delay he ought to bear the whole burden of it;
+that he had given his word and bound himself forever, but that he did
+not wish to bind Natásha and gave her perfect freedom. If after six
+months she felt that she did not love him she would have full right to
+reject him. Naturally neither Natásha nor her parents wished to hear of
+this, but Prince Andrew was firm. He came every day to the Rostóvs', but
+did not behave to Natásha as an affianced lover: he did not use the
+familiar thou, but said you to her, and kissed only her hand. After
+their engagement, quite different, intimate, and natural relations
+sprang up between them. It was as if they had not known each other till
+now. Both liked to recall how they had regarded each other when as yet
+they were nothing to one another; they felt themselves now quite
+different beings: then they were artificial, now natural and sincere. At
+first the family felt some constraint in intercourse with Prince Andrew;
+he seemed a man from another world, and for a long time Natásha trained
+the family to get used to him, proudly assuring them all that he only
+appeared to be different, but was really just like all of them, and that
+she was not afraid of him and no one else ought to be. After a few days
+they grew accustomed to him, and without restraint in his presence
+pursued their usual way of life, in which he took his part. He could
+talk about rural economy with the count, fashions with the countess and
+Natásha, and about albums and fancywork with Sónya. Sometimes the
+household both among themselves and in his presence expressed their
+wonder at how it had all happened, and at the evident omens there had
+been of it: Prince Andrew's coming to Otradnoe and their coming to
+Petersburg, and the likeness between Natásha and Prince Andrew which her
+nurse had noticed on his first visit, and Andrew's encounter with
+Nicholas in 1805, and many other incidents betokening that it had to be.
+
+In the house that poetic dullness and quiet reigned which always
+accompanies the presence of a betrothed couple. Often when all sitting
+together everyone kept silent. Sometimes the others would get up and go
+away and the couple, left alone, still remained silent. They rarely
+spoke of their future life. Prince Andrew was afraid and ashamed to
+speak of it. Natásha shared this as she did all his feelings, which she
+constantly divined. Once she began questioning him about his son. Prince
+Andrew blushed, as he often did now—Natásha particularly liked it in
+him—and said that his son would not live with them.
+
+"Why not?" asked Natásha in a frightened tone.
+
+"I cannot take him away from his grandfather, and besides..."
+
+"How I should have loved him!" said Natásha, immediately guessing his
+thought; "but I know you wish to avoid any pretext for finding fault
+with us."
+
+Sometimes the old count would come up, kiss Prince Andrew, and ask his
+advice about Pétya's education or Nicholas' service. The old countess
+sighed as she looked at them; Sónya was always getting frightened lest
+she should be in the way and tried to find excuses for leaving them
+alone, even when they did not wish it. When Prince Andrew spoke (he
+could tell a story very well), Natásha listened to him with pride; when
+she spoke she noticed with fear and joy that he gazed attentively and
+scrutinizingly at her. She asked herself in perplexity: "What does he
+look for in me? He is trying to discover something by looking at me!
+What if what he seeks in me is not there?" Sometimes she fell into one
+of the mad, merry moods characteristic of her, and then she particularly
+loved to hear and see how Prince Andrew laughed. He seldom laughed, but
+when he did he abandoned himself entirely to his laughter, and after
+such a laugh she always felt nearer to him. Natásha would have been
+completely happy if the thought of the separation awaiting her and
+drawing near had not terrified her, just as the mere thought of it made
+him turn pale and cold.
+
+On the eve of his departure from Petersburg Prince Andrew brought with
+him Pierre, who had not been to the Rostóvs' once since the ball. Pierre
+seemed disconcerted and embarrassed. He was talking to the countess, and
+Natásha sat down beside a little chess table with Sónya, thereby
+inviting Prince Andrew to come too. He did so.
+
+"You have known Bezúkhov a long time?" he asked. "Do you like him?"
+
+"Yes, he's a dear, but very absurd."
+
+And as usual when speaking of Pierre, she began to tell anecdotes of his
+absent-mindedness, some of which had even been invented about him.
+
+"Do you know I have entrusted him with our secret? I have known him from
+childhood. He has a heart of gold. I beg you, Natalie," Prince Andrew
+said with sudden seriousness—"I am going away and heaven knows what may
+happen. You may cease to... all right, I know I am not to say that. Only
+this, then: whatever may happen to you when I am not here..."
+
+"What can happen?"
+
+"Whatever trouble may come," Prince Andrew continued, "I beg you,
+Mademoiselle Sophie, whatever may happen, to turn to him alone for
+advice and help! He is a most absent-minded and absurd fellow, but he
+has a heart of gold."
+
+Neither her father, nor her mother, nor Sónya, nor Prince Andrew himself
+could have foreseen how the separation from her lover would act on
+Natásha. Flushed and agitated she went about the house all that day,
+dry-eyed, occupied with most trivial matters as if not understanding
+what awaited her. She did not even cry when, on taking leave, he kissed
+her hand for the last time. "Don't go!" she said in a tone that made him
+wonder whether he really ought not to stay and which he remembered long
+afterwards. Nor did she cry when he was gone; but for several days she
+sat in her room dry-eyed, taking no interest in anything and only saying
+now and then, "Oh, why did he go away?"
+
+But a fortnight after his departure, to the surprise of those around
+her, she recovered from her mental sickness just as suddenly and became
+her old self again, but with a change in her moral physiognomy, as a
+child gets up after a long illness with a changed expression of face.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+During that year after his son's departure, Prince Nicholas Bolkónski's
+health and temper became much worse. He grew still more irritable, and
+it was Princess Mary who generally bore the brunt of his frequent fits
+of unprovoked anger. He seemed carefully to seek out her tender spots so
+as to torture her mentally as harshly as possible. Princess Mary had two
+passions and consequently two joys—her nephew, little Nicholas, and
+religion—and these were the favorite subjects of the prince's attacks
+and ridicule. Whatever was spoken of he would bring round to the
+superstitiousness of old maids, or the petting and spoiling of children.
+"You want to make him"—little Nicholas—"into an old maid like yourself!
+A pity! Prince Andrew wants a son and not an old maid," he would say.
+Or, turning to Mademoiselle Bourienne, he would ask her in Princess
+Mary's presence how she liked our village priests and icons and would
+joke about them.
+
+He continually hurt Princess Mary's feelings and tormented her, but it
+cost her no effort to forgive him. Could he be to blame toward her, or
+could her father, whom she knew loved her in spite of it all, be unjust?
+And what is justice? The princess never thought of that proud word
+"justice." All the complex laws of man centered for her in one clear and
+simple law—the law of love and self-sacrifice taught us by Him who
+lovingly suffered for mankind though He Himself was God. What had she to
+do with the justice or injustice of other people? She had to endure and
+love, and that she did.
+
+During the winter Prince Andrew had come to Bald Hills and had been gay,
+gentle, and more affectionate than Princess Mary had known him for a
+long time past. She felt that something had happened to him, but he said
+nothing to her about his love. Before he left he had a long talk with
+his father about something, and Princess Mary noticed that before his
+departure they were dissatisfied with one another.
+
+Soon after Prince Andrew had gone, Princess Mary wrote to her friend
+Julie Karágina in Petersburg, whom she had dreamed (as all girls dream)
+of marrying to her brother, and who was at that time in mourning for her
+own brother, killed in Turkey.
+
+Sorrow, it seems, is our common lot, my dear, tender friend Julie.
+
+Your loss is so terrible that I can only explain it to myself as a
+special providence of God who, loving you, wishes to try you and your
+excellent mother. Oh, my friend! Religion, and religion alone, can—I
+will not say comfort us—but save us from despair. Religion alone can
+explain to us what without its help man cannot comprehend: why, for what
+cause, kind and noble beings able to find happiness in life—not merely
+harming no one but necessary to the happiness of others—are called away
+to God, while cruel, useless, harmful persons, or such as are a burden
+to themselves and to others, are left living. The first death I saw, and
+one I shall never forget—that of my dear sister-in-law—left that
+impression on me. Just as you ask destiny why your splendid brother had
+to die, so I asked why that angel Lise, who not only never wronged
+anyone, but in whose soul there were never any unkind thoughts, had to
+die. And what do you think, dear friend? Five years have passed since
+then, and already I, with my petty understanding, begin to see clearly
+why she had to die, and in what way that death was but an expression of
+the infinite goodness of the Creator, whose every action, though
+generally incomprehensible to us, is but a manifestation of His infinite
+love for His creatures. Perhaps, I often think, she was too angelically
+innocent to have the strength to perform all a mother's duties. As a
+young wife she was irreproachable; perhaps she could not have been so as
+a mother. As it is, not only has she left us, and particularly Prince
+Andrew, with the purest regrets and memories, but probably she will
+there receive a place I dare not hope for myself. But not to speak of
+her alone, that early and terrible death has had the most beneficent
+influence on me and on my brother in spite of all our grief. Then, at
+the moment of our loss, these thoughts could not occur to me; I should
+then have dismissed them with horror, but now they are very clear and
+certain. I write all this to you, dear friend, only to convince you of
+the Gospel truth which has become for me a principle of life: not a
+single hair of our heads will fall without His will. And His will is
+governed only by infinite love for us, and so whatever befalls us is for
+our good.
+
+You ask whether we shall spend next winter in Moscow. In spite of my
+wish to see you, I do not think so and do not want to do so. You will be
+surprised to hear that the reason for this is Buonaparte! The case is
+this: my father's health is growing noticeably worse, he cannot stand
+any contradiction and is becoming irritable. This irritability is, as
+you know, chiefly directed to political questions. He cannot endure the
+notion that Buonaparte is negotiating on equal terms with all the
+sovereigns of Europe and particularly with our own, the grandson of the
+Great Catherine! As you know, I am quite indifferent to politics, but
+from my father's remarks and his talks with Michael Ivánovich I know all
+that goes on in the world and especially about the honors conferred on
+Buonaparte, who only at Bald Hills in the whole world, it seems, is not
+accepted as a great man, still less as Emperor of France. And my father
+cannot stand this. It seems to me that it is chiefly because of his
+political views that my father is reluctant to speak of going to Moscow;
+for he foresees the encounters that would result from his way of
+expressing his views regardless of anybody. All the benefit he might
+derive from a course of treatment he would lose as a result of the
+disputes about Buonaparte which would be inevitable. In any case it will
+be decided very shortly.
+
+Our family life goes on in the old way except for my brother Andrew's
+absence. He, as I wrote you before, has changed very much of late. After
+his sorrow he only this year quite recovered his spirits. He has again
+become as I used to know him when a child: kind, affectionate, with that
+heart of gold to which I know no equal. He has realized, it seems to me,
+that life is not over for him. But together with this mental change he
+has grown physically much weaker. He has become thinner and more
+nervous. I am anxious about him and glad he is taking this trip abroad
+which the doctors recommended long ago. I hope it will cure him. You
+write that in Petersburg he is spoken of as one of the most active,
+cultivated, and capable of the young men. Forgive my vanity as a
+relation, but I never doubted it. The good he has done to everybody
+here, from his peasants up to the gentry, is incalculable. On his
+arrival in Petersburg he received only his due. I always wonder at the
+way rumors fly from Petersburg to Moscow, especially such false ones as
+that you write about—I mean the report of my brother's betrothal to the
+little Rostóva. I do not think my brother will ever marry again, and
+certainly not her; and this is why: first, I know that though he rarely
+speaks about the wife he has lost, the grief of that loss has gone too
+deep in his heart for him ever to decide to give her a successor and our
+little angel a stepmother. Secondly because, as far as I know, that girl
+is not the kind of girl who could please Prince Andrew. I do not think
+he would choose her for a wife, and frankly I do not wish it. But I am
+running on too long and am at the end of my second sheet. Good-bye, my
+dear friend. May God keep you in His holy and mighty care. My dear
+friend, Mademoiselle Bourienne, sends you kisses.
+
+MARY
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+In the middle of the summer Princess Mary received an unexpected letter
+from Prince Andrew in Switzerland in which he gave her strange and
+surprising news. He informed her of his engagement to Natásha Rostóva.
+The whole letter breathed loving rapture for his betrothed and tender
+and confiding affection for his sister. He wrote that he had never loved
+as he did now and that only now did he understand and know what life
+was. He asked his sister to forgive him for not having told her of his
+resolve when he had last visited Bald Hills, though he had spoken of it
+to his father. He had not done so for fear Princess Mary should ask her
+father to give his consent, irritating him and having to bear the brunt
+of his displeasure without attaining her object. "Besides," he wrote,
+"the matter was not then so definitely settled as it is now. My father
+then insisted on a delay of a year and now already six months, half of
+that period, have passed, and my resolution is firmer than ever. If the
+doctors did not keep me here at the spas I should be back in Russia, but
+as it is I have to postpone my return for three months. You know me and
+my relations with Father. I want nothing from him. I have been and
+always shall be independent; but to go against his will and arouse his
+anger, now that he may perhaps remain with us such a short time, would
+destroy half my happiness. I am now writing to him about the same
+question, and beg you to choose a good moment to hand him the letter and
+to let me know how he looks at the whole matter and whether there is
+hope that he may consent to reduce the term by four months."
+
+After long hesitations, doubts, and prayers, Princess Mary gave the
+letter to her father. The next day the old prince said to her quietly:
+
+"Write and tell your brother to wait till I am dead.... It won't be
+long—I shall soon set him free."
+
+The princess was about to reply, but her father would not let her speak
+and, raising his voice more and more, cried:
+
+"Marry, marry, my boy!... A good family!... Clever people, eh? Rich, eh?
+Yes, a nice stepmother little Nicholas will have! Write and tell him
+that he may marry tomorrow if he likes. She will be little Nicholas'
+stepmother and I'll marry Bourienne!... Ha, ha, ha! He mustn't be
+without a stepmother either! Only one thing, no more women are wanted in
+my house—let him marry and live by himself. Perhaps you will go and live
+with him too?" he added, turning to Princess Mary. "Go in heaven's name!
+Go out into the frost... the frost... the frost!"
+
+After this outburst the prince did not speak any more about the matter.
+But repressed vexation at his son's poor-spirited behavior found
+expression in his treatment of his daughter. To his former pretexts for
+irony a fresh one was now added—allusions to stepmothers and
+amiabilities to Mademoiselle Bourienne.
+
+"Why shouldn't I marry her?" he asked his daughter. "She'll make a
+splendid princess!"
+
+And latterly, to her surprise and bewilderment, Princess Mary noticed
+that her father was really associating more and more with the
+Frenchwoman. She wrote to Prince Andrew about the reception of his
+letter, but comforted him with hopes of reconciling their father to the
+idea.
+
+Little Nicholas and his education, her brother Andrew, and religion were
+Princess Mary's joys and consolations; but besides that, since everyone
+must have personal hopes, Princess Mary in the profoundest depths of her
+heart had a hidden dream and hope that supplied the chief consolation of
+her life. This comforting dream and hope were given her by God's
+folk—the half-witted and other pilgrims who visited her without the
+prince's knowledge. The longer she lived, the more experience and
+observation she had of life, the greater was her wonder at the short-
+sightedness of men who seek enjoyment and happiness here on earth:
+toiling, suffering, struggling, and harming one another, to obtain that
+impossible, visionary, sinful happiness. Prince Andrew had loved his
+wife, she died, but that was not enough: he wanted to bind his happiness
+to another woman. Her father objected to this because he wanted a more
+distinguished and wealthier match for Andrew. And they all struggled and
+suffered and tormented one another and injured their souls, their
+eternal souls, for the attainment of benefits which endure but for an
+instant. Not only do we know this ourselves, but Christ, the Son of God,
+came down to earth and told us that this life is but for a moment and is
+a probation; yet we cling to it and think to find happiness in it. "How
+is it that no one realizes this?" thought Princess Mary. "No one except
+these despised God's folk who, wallet on back, come to me by the back
+door, afraid of being seen by the prince, not for fear of ill-usage by
+him but for fear of causing him to sin. To leave family, home, and all
+the cares of worldly welfare, in order without clinging to anything to
+wander in hempen rags from place to place under an assumed name, doing
+no one any harm but praying for all—for those who drive one away as well
+as for those who protect one: higher than that life and truth there is
+no life or truth!"
+
+There was one pilgrim, a quiet pockmarked little woman of fifty called
+Theodosia, who for over thirty years had gone about barefoot and worn
+heavy chains. Princess Mary was particularly fond of her. Once, when in
+a room with a lamp dimly lit before the icon Theodosia was talking of
+her life, the thought that Theodosia alone had found the true path of
+life suddenly came to Princess Mary with such force that she resolved to
+become a pilgrim herself. When Theodosia had gone to sleep Princess Mary
+thought about this for a long time, and at last made up her mind that,
+strange as it might seem, she must go on a pilgrimage. She disclosed
+this thought to no one but to her confessor, Father Akinfi, the monk,
+and he approved of her intention. Under guise of a present for the
+pilgrims, Princess Mary prepared a pilgrim's complete costume for
+herself: a coarse smock, bast shoes, a rough coat, and a black kerchief.
+Often, approaching the chest of drawers containing this secret treasure,
+Princess Mary paused, uncertain whether the time had not already come to
+put her project into execution.
+
+Often, listening to the pilgrims' tales, she was so stimulated by their
+simple speech, mechanical to them but to her so full of deep meaning,
+that several times she was on the point of abandoning everything and
+running away from home. In imagination she already pictured herself by
+Theodosia's side, dressed in coarse rags, walking with a staff, a wallet
+on her back, along the dusty road, directing her wanderings from one
+saint's shrine to another, free from envy, earthly love, or desire, and
+reaching at last the place where there is no more sorrow or sighing, but
+eternal joy and bliss.
+
+"I shall come to a place and pray there, and before having time to get
+used to it or getting to love it, I shall go farther. I will go on till
+my legs fail, and I'll lie down and die somewhere, and shall at last
+reach that eternal, quiet haven, where there is neither sorrow nor
+sighing..." thought Princess Mary.
+
+But afterwards, when she saw her father and especially little Koko
+(Nicholas), her resolve weakened. She wept quietly, and felt that she
+was a sinner who loved her father and little nephew more than God.
+
+
+
+
+
+BOOK SEVEN: 1810 - 11
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+The Bible legend tells us that the absence of labor—idleness—was a
+condition of the first man's blessedness before the Fall. Fallen man has
+retained a love of idleness, but the curse weighs on the race not only
+because we have to seek our bread in the sweat of our brows, but because
+our moral nature is such that we cannot be both idle and at ease. An
+inner voice tells us we are in the wrong if we are idle. If man could
+find a state in which he felt that though idle he was fulfilling his
+duty, he would have found one of the conditions of man's primitive
+blessedness. And such a state of obligatory and irreproachable idleness
+is the lot of a whole class—the military. The chief attraction of
+military service has consisted and will consist in this compulsory and
+irreproachable idleness.
+
+Nicholas Rostóv experienced this blissful condition to the full when,
+after 1807, he continued to serve in the Pávlograd regiment, in which he
+already commanded the squadron he had taken over from Denisov.
+
+Rostóv had become a bluff, good-natured fellow, whom his Moscow
+acquaintances would have considered rather bad form, but who was liked
+and respected by his comrades, subordinates, and superiors, and was well
+contented with his life. Of late, in 1809, he found in letters from home
+more frequent complaints from his mother that their affairs were falling
+into greater and greater disorder, and that it was time for him to come
+back to gladden and comfort his old parents.
+
+Reading these letters, Nicholas felt a dread of their wanting to take
+him away from surroundings in which, protected from all the
+entanglements of life, he was living so calmly and quietly. He felt that
+sooner or later he would have to re-enter that whirlpool of life, with
+its embarrassments and affairs to be straightened out, its accounts with
+stewards, quarrels, and intrigues, its ties, society, and with Sónya's
+love and his promise to her. It was all dreadfully difficult and
+complicated; and he replied to his mother in cold, formal letters in
+French, beginning: "My dear Mamma," and ending: "Your obedient son,"
+which said nothing of when he would return. In 1810 he received letters
+from his parents, in which they told him of Natásha's engagement to
+Bolkónski, and that the wedding would be in a year's time because the
+old prince made difficulties. This letter grieved and mortified
+Nicholas. In the first place he was sorry that Natásha, for whom he
+cared more than for anyone else in the family, should be lost to the
+home; and secondly, from his hussar point of view, he regretted not to
+have been there to show that fellow Bolkónski that connection with him
+was no such great honor after all, and that if he loved Natásha he might
+dispense with permission from his dotard father. For a moment he
+hesitated whether he should not apply for leave in order to see Natásha
+before she was married, but then came the maneuvers, and considerations
+about Sónya and about the confusion of their affairs, and Nicholas again
+put it off. But in the spring of that year, he received a letter from
+his mother, written without his father's knowledge, and that letter
+persuaded him to return. She wrote that if he did not come and take
+matters in hand, their whole property would be sold by auction and they
+would all have to go begging. The count was so weak, and trusted Mitenka
+so much, and was so good-natured, that everybody took advantage of him
+and things were going from bad to worse. "For God's sake, I implore you,
+come at once if you do not wish to make me and the whole family
+wretched," wrote the countess.
+
+This letter touched Nicholas. He had that common sense of a matter-of-
+fact man which showed him what he ought to do.
+
+The right thing now was, if not to retire from the service, at any rate
+to go home on leave. Why he had to go he did not know; but after his
+after-dinner nap he gave orders to saddle Mars, an extremely vicious
+gray stallion that had not been ridden for a long time, and when he
+returned with the horse all in a lather, he informed Lavrushka
+(Denisov's servant who had remained with him) and his comrades who
+turned up in the evening that he was applying for leave and was going
+home. Difficult and strange as it was for him to reflect that he would
+go away without having heard from the staff—and this interested him
+extremely—whether he was promoted to a captaincy or would receive the
+Order of St. Anne for the last maneuvers; strange as it was to think
+that he would go away without having sold his three roans to the Polish
+Count Golukhovski, who was bargaining for the horses Rostóv had betted
+he would sell for two thousand rubles; incomprehensible as it seemed
+that the ball the hussars were giving in honor of the Polish
+Mademoiselle Przazdziecka (out of rivalry to the uhlans who had given
+one in honor of their Polish Mademoiselle Borzozowska) would take place
+without him—he knew he must go away from this good, bright world to
+somewhere where everything was stupid and confused. A week later he
+obtained his leave. His hussar comrades—not only those of his own
+regiment, but the whole brigade—gave Rostóv a dinner to which the
+subscription was fifteen rubles a head, and at which there were two
+bands and two choirs of singers. Rostóv danced the Trepak with Major
+Basov; the tipsy officers tossed, embraced, and dropped Rostóv; the
+soldiers of the third squadron tossed him too, and shouted "hurrah!" and
+then they put him in his sleigh and escorted him as far as the first
+post station.
+
+During the first half of the journey—from Kremenchug to Kiev—all
+Rostóv's thoughts, as is usual in such cases, were behind him, with the
+squadron; but when he had gone more than halfway he began to forget his
+three roans and Dozhoyveyko, his quartermaster, and to wonder anxiously
+how things would be at Otradnoe and what he would find there. Thoughts
+of home grew stronger the nearer he approached it—far stronger, as
+though this feeling of his was subject to the law by which the force of
+attraction is in inverse proportion to the square of the distance. At
+the last post station before Otradnoe he gave the driver a three-ruble
+tip, and on arriving he ran breathlessly, like a boy, up the steps of
+his home.
+
+After the rapture of meeting, and after that odd feeling of unsatisfied
+expectation—the feeling that "everything is just the same, so why did I
+hurry?"—Nicholas began to settle down in his old home world. His father
+and mother were much the same, only a little older. What was new in them
+was a certain uneasiness and occasional discord, which there used not to
+be, and which, as Nicholas soon found out, was due to the bad state of
+their affairs. Sónya was nearly twenty; she had stopped growing prettier
+and promised nothing more than she was already, but that was enough. She
+exhaled happiness and love from the time Nicholas returned, and the
+faithful, unalterable love of this girl had a gladdening effect on him.
+Pétya and Natásha surprised Nicholas most. Pétya was a big handsome boy
+of thirteen, merry, witty, and mischievous, with a voice that was
+already breaking. As for Natásha, for a long while Nicholas wondered and
+laughed whenever he looked at her.
+
+"You're not the same at all," he said.
+
+"How? Am I uglier?"
+
+"On the contrary, but what dignity? A princess!" he whispered to her.
+
+"Yes, yes, yes!" cried Natásha, joyfully.
+
+She told him about her romance with Prince Andrew and of his visit to
+Otradnoe and showed him his last letter.
+
+"Well, are you glad?" Natásha asked. "I am so tranquil and happy now."
+
+"Very glad," answered Nicholas. "He is an excellent fellow.... And are
+you very much in love?"
+
+"How shall I put it?" replied Natásha. "I was in love with Borís, with
+my teacher, and with Denisov, but this is quite different. I feel at
+peace and settled. I know that no better man than he exists, and I am
+calm and contented now. Not at all as before."
+
+Nicholas expressed his disapproval of the postponement of the marriage
+for a year; but Natásha attacked her brother with exasperation, proving
+to him that it could not be otherwise, and that it would be a bad thing
+to enter a family against the father's will, and that she herself wished
+it so.
+
+"You don't at all understand," she said.
+
+Nicholas was silent and agreed with her.
+
+Her brother often wondered as he looked at her. She did not seem at all
+like a girl in love and parted from her affianced husband. She was even-
+tempered and calm and quite as cheerful as of old. This amazed Nicholas
+and even made him regard Bolkónski's courtship skeptically. He could not
+believe that her fate was sealed, especially as he had not seen her with
+Prince Andrew. It always seemed to him that there was something not
+quite right about this intended marriage.
+
+"Why this delay? Why no betrothal?" he thought. Once, when he had
+touched on this topic with his mother, he discovered, to his surprise
+and somewhat to his satisfaction, that in the depth of her soul she too
+had doubts about this marriage.
+
+"You see he writes," said she, showing her son a letter of Prince
+Andrew's, with that latent grudge a mother always has in regard to a
+daughter's future married happiness, "he writes that he won't come
+before December. What can be keeping him? Illness, probably! His health
+is very delicate. Don't tell Natásha. And don't attach importance to her
+being so bright: that's because she's living through the last days of
+her girlhood, but I know what she is like every time we receive a letter
+from him! However, God grant that everything turns out well!" (She
+always ended with these words.) "He is an excellent man!"
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+After reaching home Nicholas was at first serious and even dull. He was
+worried by the impending necessity of interfering in the stupid business
+matters for which his mother had called him home. To throw off this
+burden as quickly as possible, on the third day after his arrival he
+went, angry and scowling and without answering questions as to where he
+was going, to Mitenka's lodge and demanded an account of everything. But
+what an account of everything might be Nicholas knew even less than the
+frightened and bewildered Mitenka. The conversation and the examination
+of the accounts with Mitenka did not last long. The village elder, a
+peasant delegate, and the village clerk, who were waiting in the
+passage, heard with fear and delight first the young count's voice
+roaring and snapping and rising louder and louder, and then words of
+abuse, dreadful words, ejaculated one after the other.
+
+"Robber!... Ungrateful wretch!... I'll hack the dog to pieces! I'm not
+my father!... Robbing us!..." and so on.
+
+Then with no less fear and delight they saw how the young count, red in
+the face and with bloodshot eyes, dragged Mitenka out by the scruff of
+the neck and applied his foot and knee to his behind with great agility
+at convenient moments between the words, shouting, "Be off! Never let me
+see your face here again, you villain!"
+
+Mitenka flew headlong down the six steps and ran away into the
+shrubbery. (This shrubbery was a well-known haven of refuge for culprits
+at Otradnoe. Mitenka himself, returning tipsy from the town, used to
+hide there, and many of the residents at Otradnoe, hiding from Mitenka,
+knew of its protective qualities.)
+
+Mitenka's wife and sisters-in-law thrust their heads and frightened
+faces out of the door of a room where a bright samovar was boiling and
+where the steward's high bedstead stood with its patchwork quilt.
+
+The young count paid no heed to them, but, breathing hard, passed by
+with resolute strides and went into the house.
+
+The countess, who heard at once from the maids what had happened at the
+lodge, was calmed by the thought that now their affairs would certainly
+improve, but on the other hand felt anxious as to the effect this
+excitement might have on her son. She went several times to his door on
+tiptoe and listened, as he lighted one pipe after another.
+
+Next day the old count called his son aside and, with an embarrassed
+smile, said to him:
+
+"But you know, my dear boy, it's a pity you got excited! Mitenka has
+told me all about it."
+
+"I knew," thought Nicholas, "that I should never understand anything in
+this crazy world."
+
+"You were angry that he had not entered those 700 rubles. But they were
+carried forward—and you did not look at the other page."
+
+"Papa, he is a blackguard and a thief! I know he is! And what I have
+done, I have done; but, if you like, I won't speak to him again."
+
+"No, my dear boy" (the count, too, felt embarrassed. He knew he had
+mismanaged his wife's property and was to blame toward his children, but
+he did not know how to remedy it). "No, I beg you to attend to the
+business. I am old. I..."
+
+"No, Papa. Forgive me if I have caused you unpleasantness. I understand
+it all less than you do."
+
+"Devil take all these peasants, and money matters, and carryings forward
+from page to page," he thought. "I used to understand what a 'corner'
+and the stakes at cards meant, but carrying forward to another page I
+don't understand at all," said he to himself, and after that he did not
+meddle in business affairs. But once the countess called her son and
+informed him that she had a promissory note from Anna Mikháylovna for
+two thousand rubles, and asked him what he thought of doing with it.
+
+"This," answered Nicholas. "You say it rests with me. Well, I don't like
+Anna Mikháylovna and I don't like Borís, but they were our friends and
+poor. Well then, this!" and he tore up the note, and by so doing caused
+the old countess to weep tears of joy. After that, young Rostóv took no
+further part in any business affairs, but devoted himself with
+passionate enthusiasm to what was to him a new pursuit—the chase—for
+which his father kept a large establishment.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+The weather was already growing wintry and morning frosts congealed an
+earth saturated by autumn rains. The verdure had thickened and its
+bright green stood out sharply against the brownish strips of winter rye
+trodden down by the cattle, and against the pale-yellow stubble of the
+spring sowing and the reddish strips ofbuckwheat. The wooded ravines and the copses, which at the end of
+August had still been green islands amid black fields and stubble, had
+become golden and bright-red islands amid the green winter rye. The
+hares had already half changed their summer coats, the fox cubs were
+beginning to scatter, and the young wolves were bigger than dogs. It was
+the best time of the year for the chase. The hounds of that ardent young
+sportsman Rostóv had not merely reached hard winter condition, but were
+so jaded that at a meeting of the huntsmen it was decided to give them a
+three days' rest and then, on the sixteenth of September, to go on a
+distant expedition, starting from the oak grove where there was an
+undisturbed litter of wolf cubs.
+
+All that day the hounds remained at home. It was frosty and the air was
+sharp, but toward evening the sky became overcast and it began to thaw.
+On the fifteenth, when young Rostóv, in his dressing gown, looked out of
+the window, he saw it was an unsurpassable morning for hunting: it was
+as if the sky were melting and sinking to the earth without any wind.
+The only motion in the air was that of the dripping, microscopic
+particles of drizzling mist. The bare twigs in the garden were hung with
+transparent drops which fell on the freshly fallen leaves. The earth in
+the kitchen garden looked wet and black and glistened like poppy seed
+and at a short distance merged into the dull, moist veil of mist.
+Nicholas went out into the wet and muddy porch. There was a smell of
+decaying leaves and of dog. Milka, a black-spotted, broad-haunched bitch
+with prominent black eyes, got up on seeing her master, stretched her
+hind legs, lay down like a hare, and then suddenly jumped up and licked
+him right on his nose and mustache. Another borzoi, a dog, catching
+sight of his master from the garden path, arched his back and, rushing
+headlong toward the porch with lifted tail, began rubbing himself
+against his legs.
+
+"O-hoy!" came at that moment, that inimitable huntsman's call which
+unites the deepest bass with the shrillest tenor, and round the corner
+came Daniel the head huntsman and head kennelman, a gray, wrinkled old
+man with hair cut straight over his forehead, Ukrainian fashion, a long
+bent whip in his hand, and that look of independence and scorn of
+everything that is only seen in huntsmen. He doffed his Circassian cap
+to his master and looked at him scornfully. This scorn was not offensive
+to his master. Nicholas knew that this Daniel, disdainful of everybody
+and who considered himself above them, was all the same his serf and
+huntsman.
+
+"Daniel!" Nicholas said timidly, conscious at the sight of the weather,
+the hounds, and the huntsman that he was being carried away by that
+irresistible passion for sport which makes a man forget all his previous
+resolutions, as a lover forgets in the presence of his mistress.
+
+"What orders, your excellency?" said the huntsman in his deep bass, deep
+as a proto-deacon's and hoarse with hallooing—and two flashing black
+eyes gazed from under his brows at his master, who was silent. "Can you
+resist it?" those eyes seemed to be asking.
+
+"It's a good day, eh? For a hunt and a gallop, eh?" asked Nicholas,
+scratching Milka behind the ears.
+
+Daniel did not answer, but winked instead.
+
+"I sent Uvarka at dawn to listen," his bass boomed out after a minute's
+pause. "He says she's moved them into the Otradnoe enclosure. They were
+howling there." (This meant that the she-wolf, about whom they both
+knew, had moved with her cubs to the Otradnoe copse, a small place a
+mile and a half from the house.)
+
+"We ought to go, don't you think so?" said Nicholas. "Come to me with
+Uvarka."
+
+"As you please."
+
+"Then put off feeding them."
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+Five minutes later Daniel and Uvarka were standing in Nicholas' big
+study. Though Daniel was not a big man, to see him in a room was like
+seeing a horse or a bear on the floor among the furniture and
+surroundings of human life. Daniel himself felt this, and as usual stood
+just inside the door, trying to speak softly and not move, for fear of
+breaking something in the master's apartment, and he hastened to say all
+that was necessary so as to get from under that ceiling, out into the
+open under the sky once more.
+
+Having finished his inquiries and extorted from Daniel an opinion that
+the hounds were fit (Daniel himself wished to go hunting), Nicholas
+ordered the horses to be saddled. But just as Daniel was about to go
+Natásha came in with rapid steps, not having done up her hair or
+finished dressing and with her old nurse's big shawl wrapped round her.
+Pétya ran in at the same time.
+
+"You are going?" asked Natásha. "I knew you would! Sónya said you
+wouldn't go, but I knew that today is the sort of day when you couldn't
+help going."
+
+"Yes, we are going," replied Nicholas reluctantly, for today, as he
+intended to hunt seriously, he did not want to take Natásha and Pétya.
+"We are going, but only wolf hunting: it would be dull for you."
+
+"You know it is my greatest pleasure," said Natásha. "It's not fair; you
+are going by yourself, are having the horses saddled and said nothing to
+us about it."
+
+"'No barrier bars a Russian's path'—we'll go!" shouted Pétya.
+
+"But you can't. Mamma said you mustn't," said Nicholas to Natásha.
+
+"Yes, I'll go. I shall certainly go," said Natásha decisively. "Daniel,
+tell them to saddle for us, and Michael must come with my dogs," she
+added to the huntsman.
+
+It seemed to Daniel irksome and improper to be in a room at all, but to
+have anything to do with a young lady seemed to him impossible. He cast
+down his eyes and hurried out as if it were none of his business,
+careful as he went not to inflict any accidental injury on the young
+lady.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+The old count, who had always kept up an enormous hunting establishment
+but had now handed it all completely over to his son's care, being in
+very good spirits on this fifteenth of September, prepared to go out
+with the others.
+
+In an hour's time the whole hunting party was at the porch. Nicholas,
+with a stern and serious air which showed that now was no time for
+attending to trifles, went past Natásha and Pétya who were trying to
+tell him something. He had a look at all the details of the hunt, sent a
+pack of hounds and huntsmen on ahead to find the quarry, mounted his
+chestnut Donets, and whistling to his own leash of borzois, set off
+across the threshing ground to a field leading to the Otradnoe wood. The
+old count's horse, a sorrel gelding called Viflyanka, was led by the
+groom in attendance on him, while the count himself was to drive in a
+small trap straight to a spot reserved for him.
+
+They were taking fifty-four hounds, with six hunt attendants and
+whippers-in. Besides the family, there were eight borzoi kennelmen and
+more than forty borzois, so that, with the borzois on the leash
+belonging to members of the family, there were about a hundred and
+thirty dogs and twenty horsemen.
+
+Each dog knew its master and its call. Each man in the hunt knew his
+business, his place, what he had to do. As soon as they had passed the
+fence they all spread out evenly and quietly, without noise or talk,
+along the road and field leading to the Otradnoe covert.
+
+The horses stepped over the field as over a thick carpet, now and then
+splashing into puddles as they crossed a road. The misty sky still
+seemed to descend evenly and imperceptibly toward the earth, the air was
+still, warm, and silent. Occasionally the whistle of a huntsman, the
+snort of a horse, the crack of a whip, or the whine of a straggling
+hound could be heard.
+
+When they had gone a little less than a mile, five more riders with dogs
+appeared out of the mist, approaching the Rostóvs. In front rode a
+fresh-looking, handsome old man with a large gray mustache.
+
+"Good morning, Uncle!" said Nicholas, when the old man drew near.
+
+"That's it. Come on!... I was sure of it," began "Uncle." (He was a
+distant relative of the Rostóvs', a man of small means, and their
+neighbor.) "I knew you wouldn't be able to resist it and it's a good
+thing you're going. That's it! Come on!" (This was "Uncle's" favorite
+expression.) "Take the covert at once, for my Girchik says the Ilagins
+are at Korniki with their hounds. That's it. Come on!... They'll take
+the cubs from under your very nose."
+
+"That's where I'm going. Shall we join up our packs?" asked Nicholas.
+
+The hounds were joined into one pack, and "Uncle" and Nicholas rode on
+side by side. Natásha, muffled up in shawls which did not hide her eager
+face and shining eyes, galloped up to them. She was followed by Pétya
+who always kept close to her, by Michael, a huntsman, and by a groom
+appointed to look after her. Pétya, who was laughing, whipped and pulled
+at his horse. Natásha sat easily and confidently on her black Arabchik
+and reined him in without effort with a firm hand.
+
+"Uncle" looked round disapprovingly at Pétya and Natásha. He did not
+like to combine frivolity with the serious business of hunting.
+
+"Good morning, Uncle! We are going too!" shouted Pétya.
+
+"Good morning, good morning! But don't go overriding the hounds," said
+"Uncle" sternly.
+
+"Nicholas, what a fine dog Trunila is! He knew me," said Natásha,
+referring to her favorite hound.
+
+"In the first place, Trunila is not a 'dog,' but a harrier," thought
+Nicholas, and looked sternly at his sister, trying to make her feel the
+distance that ought to separate them at that moment. Natásha understood
+it.
+
+"You mustn't think we'll be in anyone's way, Uncle," she said. "We'll go
+to our places and won't budge."
+
+"A good thing too, little countess," said "Uncle," "only mind you don't
+fall off your horse," he added, "because—that's it, come on!—you've
+nothing to hold on to."
+
+The oasis of the Otradnoe covert came in sight a few hundred yards off,
+the huntsmen were already nearing it. Rostóv, having finally settled
+with "Uncle" where they should set on the hounds, and having shown
+Natásha where she was to stand—a spot where nothing could possibly run
+out—went round above the ravine.
+
+"Well, nephew, you're going for a big wolf," said "Uncle." "Mind and
+don't let her slip!"
+
+"That's as may happen," answered Rostóv. "Karay, here!" he shouted,
+answering "Uncle's" remark by this call to his borzoi. Karay was a
+shaggy old dog with a hanging jowl, famous for having tackled a big wolf
+unaided. They all took up their places.
+
+The old count, knowing his son's ardor in the hunt, hurried so as not to
+be late, and the huntsmen had not yet reached their places when Count
+Ilyá Rostóv, cheerful, flushed, and with quivering cheeks, drove up with
+his black horses over the winter rye to the place reserved for him,
+where a wolf might come out. Having straightened his coat and fastened
+on his hunting knives and horn, he mounted his good, sleek, well-fed,
+and comfortable horse, Viflyanka, which was turning gray, like himself.
+His horses and trap were sent home. Count Ilyá Rostóv, though not at
+heart a keen sportsman, knew the rules of the hunt well, and rode to the
+bushy edge of the road where he was to stand, arranged his reins,
+settled himself in the saddle, and, feeling that he was ready, looked
+about with a smile.
+
+Beside him was Simon Chekmar, his personal attendant, an old horseman
+now somewhat stiff in the saddle. Chekmar held in leash three formidable
+wolfhounds, who had, however, grown fat like their master and his horse.
+Two wise old dogs lay down unleashed. Some hundred paces farther along
+the edge of the wood stood Mitka, the count's other groom, a daring
+horseman and keen rider to hounds. Before the hunt, by old custom, the
+count had drunk a silver cupful of mulled brandy, taken a snack, and
+washed it down with half a bottle of his favorite Bordeaux.
+
+He was somewhat flushed with the wine and the drive. His eyes were
+rather moist and glittered more than usual, and as he sat in his saddle,
+wrapped up in his fur coat, he looked like a child taken out for an
+outing.
+
+The thin, hollow-cheeked Chekmar, having got everything ready, kept
+glancing at his master with whom he had lived on the best of terms for
+thirty years, and understanding the mood he was in expected a pleasant
+chat. A third person rode up circumspectly through the wood (it was
+plain that he had had a lesson) and stopped behind the count. This
+person was a gray-bearded old man in a woman's cloak, with a tall peaked
+cap on his head. He was the buffoon, who went by a woman's name,
+Nastasya Ivánovna.
+
+"Well, Nastasya Ivánovna!" whispered the count, winking at him. "If you
+scare away the beast, Daniel'll give it you!"
+
+"I know a thing or two myself!" said Nastasya Ivánovna.
+
+"Hush!" whispered the count and turned to Simon. "Have you seen the
+young countess?" he asked. "Where is she?"
+
+"With young Count Peter, by the Zharov rank grass," answered Simon,
+smiling. "Though she's a lady, she's very fond of hunting."
+
+"And you're surprised at the way she rides, Simon, eh?" said the count.
+"She's as good as many a man!"
+
+"Of course! It's marvelous. So bold, so easy!"
+
+"And Nicholas? Where is he? By the Lyadov upland, isn't he?"
+
+"Yes, sir. He knows where to stand. He understands the matter so well
+that Daniel and I are often quite astounded," said Simon, well knowing
+what would please his master.
+
+"Rides well, eh? And how well he looks on his horse, eh?"
+
+"A perfect picture! How he chased a fox out of the rank grass by the
+Zavarzinsk thicket the other day! Leaped a fearful place; what a sight
+when they rushed from the covert... the horse worth a thousand rubles
+and the rider beyond all price! Yes, one would have to search far to
+find another as smart."
+
+"To search far..." repeated the count, evidently sorry Simon had not
+said more. "To search far," he said, turning back the skirt of his coat
+to get at his snuffbox.
+
+"The other day when he came out from Mass in full uniform, Michael
+Sidorych..." Simon did not finish, for on the still air he had
+distinctly caught the music of the hunt with only two or three hounds
+giving tongue. He bent down his head and listened, shaking a warning
+finger at his master. "They are on the scent of the cubs..." he
+whispered, "straight to the Lyadov uplands."
+
+The count, forgetting to smooth out the smile on his face, looked into
+the distance straight before him, down the narrow open space, holding
+the snuffbox in his hand but not taking any. After the cry of the hounds
+came the deep tones of the wolf call from Daniel's hunting horn; the
+pack joined the first three hounds and they could be heard in full cry,
+with that peculiar lift in the note that indicates that they are after a
+wolf. The whippers-in no longer set on the hounds, but changed to the
+cry of ulyulyu, and above the others rose Daniel's voice, now a deep
+bass, now piercingly shrill. His voice seemed to fill the whole wood and
+carried far beyond out into the open field.
+
+After listening a few moments in silence, the count and his attendant
+convinced themselves that the hounds had separated into two packs: the
+sound of the larger pack, eagerly giving tongue, began to die away in
+the distance, the other pack rushed by the wood past the count, and it
+was with this that Daniel's voice was heard calling ulyulyu. The sounds
+of both packs mingled and broke apart again, but both were becoming more
+distant.
+
+Simon sighed and stooped to straighten the leash a young borzoi had
+entangled; the count too sighed and, noticing the snuffbox in his hand,
+opened it and took a pinch. "Back!" cried Simon to a borzoi that was
+pushing forward out of the wood. The count started and dropped the
+snuffbox. Nastasya Ivánovna dismounted to pick it up. The count and
+Simon were looking at him.
+
+Then, unexpectedly, as often happens, the sound of the hunt suddenly
+approached, as if the hounds in full cry and Daniel ulyulyuing were just
+in front of them.
+
+The count turned and saw on his right Mitka staring at him with eyes
+starting out of his head, raising his cap and pointing before him to the
+other side.
+
+"Look out!" he shouted, in a voice plainly showing that he had long
+fretted to utter that word, and letting the borzois slip he galloped
+toward the count.
+
+The count and Simon galloped out of the wood and saw on their left a
+wolf which, softly swaying from side to side, was coming at a quiet lope
+farther to the left to the very place where they were standing. The
+angry borzois whined and getting free of the leash rushed past the
+horses' feet at the wolf.
+
+The wolf paused, turned its heavy forehead toward the dogs awkwardly,
+like a man suffering from the quinsy, and, still slightly swaying from
+side to side, gave a couple of leaps and with a swish of its tail
+disappeared into the skirt of the wood. At the same instant, with a cry
+like a wail, first one hound, then another, and then another, sprang
+helter-skelter from the wood opposite and the whole pack rushed across
+the field toward the very spot where the wolf had disappeared. The hazel
+bushes parted behind the hounds and Daniel's chestnut horse appeared,
+dark with sweat. On its long back sat Daniel, hunched forward, capless,
+his disheveled gray hair hanging over his flushed, perspiring face.
+
+"Ulyulyulyu! ulyulyu!..." he cried. When he caught sight of the count
+his eyes flashed lightning.
+
+"Blast you!" he shouted, holding up his whip threateningly at the count.
+
+"You've let the wolf go!... What sportsmen!" and as if scorning to say
+more to the frightened and shamefaced count, he lashed the heaving
+flanks of his sweating chestnut gelding with all the anger the count had
+aroused and flew off after the hounds. The count, like a punished
+schoolboy, looked round, trying by a smile to win Simon's sympathy for
+his plight. But Simon was no longer there. He was galloping round by the
+bushes while the field was coming up on both sides, all trying to head
+the wolf, but it vanished into the wood before they could do so.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+Nicholas Rostóv meanwhile remained at his post, waiting for the wolf. By
+the way the hunt approached and receded, by the cries of the dogs whose
+notes were familiar to him, by the way the voices of the huntsmen
+approached, receded, and rose, he realized what was happening at the
+copse. He knew that young and old wolves were there, that the hounds had
+separated into two packs, that somewhere a wolf was being chased, and
+that something had gone wrong. He expected the wolf to come his way any
+moment. He made thousands of different conjectures as to where and from
+what side the beast would come and how he would set upon it. Hope
+alternated with despair. Several times he addressed a prayer to God that
+the wolf should come his way. He prayed with that passionate and
+shamefaced feeling with which men pray at moments of great excitement
+arising from trivial causes. "What would it be to Thee to do this for
+me?" he said to God. "I know Thou art great, and that it is a sin to ask
+this of Thee, but for God's sake do let the old wolf come my way and let
+Karay spring at it—in sight of 'Uncle' who is watching from over
+there—and seize it by the throat in a death grip!" A thousand times
+during that half-hour Rostóv cast eager and restless glances over the
+edge of the wood, with the two scraggy oaks rising above the aspen
+undergrowth and the gully with its water-worn side and "Uncle's" cap
+just visible above the bush on his right.
+
+"No, I shan't have such luck," thought Rostóv, "yet what wouldn't it be
+worth! It is not to be! Everywhere, at cards and in war, I am always
+unlucky." Memories of Austerlitz and of Dólokhov flashed rapidly and
+clearly through his mind. "Only once in my life to get an old wolf, I
+want only that!" thought he, straining eyes and ears and looking to the
+left and then to the right and listening to the slightest variation of
+note in the cries of the dogs.
+
+Again he looked to the right and saw something running toward him across
+the deserted field. "No, it can't be!" thought Rostóv, taking a deep
+breath, as a man does at the coming of something long hoped for. The
+height of happiness was reached—and so simply, without warning, or
+noise, or display, that Rostóv could not believe his eyes and remained
+in doubt for over a second. The wolf ran forward and jumped heavily over
+a gully that lay in her path. She was an old animal with a gray back and
+big reddish belly. She ran without hurry, evidently feeling sure that no
+one saw her. Rostóv, holding his breath, looked round at the borzois.
+They stood or lay not seeing the wolf or understanding the situation.
+Old Karay had turned his head and was angrily searching for fleas,
+baring his yellow teeth and snapping at his hind legs.
+
+"Ulyulyulyu!" whispered Rostóv, pouting his lips. The borzois jumped up,
+jerking the rings of the leashes and pricking their ears. Karay finished
+scratching his hindquarters and, cocking his ears, got up with quivering
+tail from which tufts of matted hair hung down.
+
+"Shall I loose them or not?" Nicholas asked himself as the wolf
+approached him coming from the copse. Suddenly the wolf's whole
+physiognomy changed: she shuddered, seeing what she had probably never
+seen before—human eyes fixed upon her—and turning her head a little
+toward Rostóv, she paused.
+
+"Back or forward? Eh, no matter, forward..." the wolf seemed to say to
+herself, and she moved forward without again looking round and with a
+quiet, long, easy yet resolute lope.
+
+"Ulyulyu!" cried Nicholas, in a voice not his own, and of its own accord
+his good horse darted headlong downhill, leaping over gullies to head
+off the wolf, and the borzois passed it, running faster still. Nicholas
+did not hear his own cry nor feel that he was galloping, nor see the
+borzois, nor the ground over which he went: he saw only the wolf, who,
+increasing her speed, bounded on in the same direction along the hollow.
+The first to come into view was Milka, with her black markings and
+powerful quarters, gaining upon the wolf. Nearer and nearer... now she
+was ahead of it; but the wolf turned its head to face her, and instead
+of putting on speed as she usually did Milka suddenly raised her tail
+and stiffened her forelegs.
+
+"Ulyulyulyulyu!" shouted Nicholas.
+
+The reddish Lyubim rushed forward from behind Milka, sprang impetuously
+at the wolf, and seized it by its hindquarters, but immediately jumped
+aside in terror. The wolf crouched, gnashed her teeth, and again rose
+and bounded forward, followed at the distance of a couple of feet by all
+the borzois, who did not get any closer to her.
+
+"She'll get away! No, it's impossible!" thought Nicholas, still shouting
+with a hoarse voice.
+
+"Karay, ulyulyu!..." he shouted, looking round for the old borzoi who
+was now his only hope. Karay, with all the strength age had left him,
+stretched himself to the utmost and, watching the wolf, galloped heavily
+aside to intercept it. But the quickness of the wolf's lope and the
+borzoi's slower pace made it plain that Karay had miscalculated.
+Nicholas could already see not far in front of him the wood where the
+wolf would certainly escape should she reach it. But, coming toward him,
+he saw hounds and a huntsman galloping almost straight at the wolf.
+There was still hope. A long, yellowish young borzoi, one Nicholas did
+not know, from another leash, rushed impetuously at the wolf from in
+front and almost knocked her over. But the wolf jumped up more quickly
+than anyone could have expected and, gnashing her teeth, flew at the
+yellowish borzoi, which, with a piercing yelp, fell with its head on the
+ground, bleeding from a gash in its side.
+
+"Karay? Old fellow!..." wailed Nicholas.
+
+Thanks to the delay caused by this crossing of the wolf's path, the old
+dog with its felted hair hanging from its thigh was within five paces of
+it. As if aware of her danger, the wolf turned her eyes on Karay, tucked
+her tail yet further between her legs, and increased her speed. But here
+Nicholas only saw that something happened to Karay—the borzoi was
+suddenly on the wolf, and they rolled together down into a gully just in
+front of them.
+
+That instant, when Nicholas saw the wolf struggling in the gully with
+the dogs, while from under them could be seen her gray hair and
+outstretched hind leg and her frightened choking head, with her ears
+laid back (Karay was pinning her by the throat), was the happiest moment
+of his life. With his hand on his saddlebow, he was ready to dismount
+and stab the wolf, when she suddenly thrust her head up from among that
+mass of dogs, and then her forepaws were on the edge of the gully. She
+clicked her teeth (Karay no longer had her by the throat), leaped with a
+movement of her hind legs out of the gully, and having disengaged
+herself from the dogs, with tail tucked in again, went forward. Karay,
+his hair bristling, and probably bruised or wounded, climbed with
+difficulty out of the gully.
+
+"Oh my God! Why?" Nicholas cried in despair.
+
+"Uncle's" huntsman was galloping from the other side across the wolf's
+path and his borzois once more stopped the animal's advance. She was
+again hemmed in.
+
+Nicholas and his attendant, with "Uncle" and his huntsman, were all
+riding round the wolf, crying "ulyulyu!" shouting and preparing to
+dismount each moment that the wolf crouched back, and starting forward
+again every time she shook herself and moved toward the wood where she
+would be safe.
+
+Already, at the beginning of this chase, Daniel, hearing the ulyulyuing,
+had rushed out from the wood. He saw Karay seize the wolf, and checked
+his horse, supposing the affair to be over. But when he saw that the
+horsemen did not dismount and that the wolf shook herself and ran for
+safety, Daniel set his chestnut galloping, not at the wolf but straight
+toward the wood, just as Karay had run to cut the animal off. As a
+result of this, he galloped up to the wolf just when she had been
+stopped a second time by "Uncle's" borzois.
+
+Daniel galloped up silently, holding a naked dagger in his left hand and
+thrashing the laboring sides of his chestnut horse with his whip as if
+it were a flail.
+
+Nicholas neither saw nor heard Daniel until the chestnut, breathing
+heavily, panted past him, and he heard the fall of a body and saw Daniel
+lying on the wolf's back among the dogs, trying to seize her by the
+ears. It was evident to the dogs, the hunters, and to the wolf herself
+that all was now over. The terrified wolf pressed back her ears and
+tried to rise, but the borzois stuck to her. Daniel rose a little, took
+a step, and with his whole weight, as if lying down to rest, fell on the
+wolf, seizing her by the ears. Nicholas was about to stab her, but
+Daniel whispered, "Don't! We'll gag her!" and, changing his position,
+set his foot on the wolf's neck. A stick was thrust between her jaws and
+she was fastened with a leash, as if bridled, her legs were bound
+together, and Daniel rolled her over once or twice from side to side.
+
+With happy, exhausted faces, they laid the old wolf, alive, on a shying
+and snorting horse and, accompanied by the dogs yelping at her, took her
+to the place where they were all to meet. The hounds had killed two of
+the cubs and the borzois three. The huntsmen assembled with their booty
+and their stories, and all came to look at the wolf, which, with her
+broad-browed head hanging down and the bitten stick between her jaws,
+gazed with great glassy eyes at this crowd of dogs and men surrounding
+her. When she was touched, she jerked her bound legs and looked wildly
+yet simply at everybody. Old Count Rostóv also rode up and touched the
+wolf.
+
+"Oh, what a formidable one!" said he. "A formidable one, eh?" he asked
+Daniel, who was standing near.
+
+"Yes, your excellency," answered Daniel, quickly doffing his cap.
+
+The count remembered the wolf he had let slip and his encounter with
+Daniel.
+
+"Ah, but you are a crusty fellow, friend!" said the count.
+
+For sole reply Daniel gave him a shy, childlike, meek, and amiable
+smile.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+The old count went home, and Natásha and Pétya promised to return very
+soon, but as it was still early the hunt went farther. At midday they
+put the hounds into a ravine thickly overgrown with young trees.
+Nicholas standing in a fallow field could see all his whips.
+
+Facing him lay a field of winter rye, there his own huntsman stood alone
+in a hollow behind a hazel bush. The hounds had scarcely been loosed
+before Nicholas heard one he knew, Voltorn, giving tongue at intervals;
+other hounds joined in, now pausing and now again giving tongue. A
+moment later he heard a cry from the wooded ravine that a fox had been
+found, and the whole pack, joining together, rushed along the ravine
+toward the ryefield and away from Nicholas.
+
+He saw the whips in their red caps galloping along the edge of the
+ravine, he even saw the hounds, and was expecting a fox to show itself
+at any moment on the ryefield opposite.
+
+The huntsman standing in the hollow moved and loosed his borzois, and
+Nicholas saw a queer, short-legged red fox with a fine brush going hard
+across the field. The borzois bore down on it.... Now they drew close to
+the fox which began to dodge between the field in sharper and sharper
+curves, trailing its brush, when suddenly a strange white borzoi dashed
+in followed by a black one, and everything was in confusion; the borzois
+formed a star-shaped figure, scarcely swaying their bodies and with
+tails turned away from the center of the group. Two huntsmen galloped up
+to the dogs; one in a red cap, the other, a stranger, in a green coat.
+
+"What's this?" thought Nicholas. "Where's that huntsman from? He is not
+'Uncle's' man."
+
+The huntsmen got the fox, but stayed there a long time without strapping
+it to the saddle. Their horses, bridled and with high saddles, stood
+near them and there too the dogs were lying. The huntsmen waved their
+arms and did something to the fox. Then from that spot came the sound of
+a horn, with the signal agreed on in case of a fight.
+
+"That's Ilagin's huntsman having a row with our Ivan," said Nicholas'
+groom.
+
+Nicholas sent the man to call Natásha and Pétya to him, and rode at a
+footpace to the place where the whips were getting the hounds together.
+Several of the field galloped to the spot where the fight was going on.
+
+Nicholas dismounted, and with Natásha and Pétya, who had ridden up,
+stopped near the hounds, waiting to see how the matter would end. Out of
+the bushes came the huntsman who had been fighting and rode toward his
+young master, with the fox tied to his crupper. While still at a
+distance he took off his cap and tried to speak respectfully, but he was
+pale and breathless and his face was angry. One of his eyes was black,
+but he probably was not even aware of it.
+
+"What has happened?" asked Nicholas.
+
+"A likely thing, killing a fox our dogs had hunted! And it was my gray
+bitch that caught it! Go to law, indeed!... He snatches at the fox! I
+gave him one with the fox. Here it is on my saddle! Do you want a taste
+of this?..." said the huntsman, pointing to his dagger and probably
+imagining himself still speaking to his foe.
+
+Nicholas, not stopping to talk to the man, asked his sister and Pétya to
+wait for him and rode to the spot where the enemy's, Ilagin's, hunting
+party was.
+
+The victorious huntsman rode off to join the field, and there,
+surrounded by inquiring sympathizers, recounted his exploits.
+
+The facts were that Ilagin, with whom the Rostóvs had a quarrel and were
+at law, hunted over places that belonged by custom to the Rostóvs, and
+had now, as if purposely, sent his men to the very woods the Rostóvs
+were hunting and let his man snatch a fox their dogs had chased.
+
+Nicholas, though he had never seen Ilagin, with his usual absence of
+moderation in judgment, hated him cordially from reports of his
+arbitrariness and violence, and regarded him as his bitterest foe. He
+rode in angry agitation toward him, firmly grasping his whip and fully
+prepared to take the most resolute and desperate steps to punish his
+enemy.
+
+Hardly had he passed an angle of the wood before a stout gentleman in a
+beaver cap came riding toward him on a handsome raven-black horse,
+accompanied by two hunt servants.
+
+Instead of an enemy, Nicholas found in Ilagin a stately and courteous
+gentleman who was particularly anxious to make the young count's
+acquaintance. Having ridden up to Nicholas, Ilagin raised his beaver cap
+and said he much regretted what had occurred and would have the man
+punished who had allowed himself to seize a fox hunted by someone else's
+borzois. He hoped to become better acquainted with the count and invited
+him to draw his covert.
+
+Natásha, afraid that her brother would do something dreadful, had
+followed him in some excitement. Seeing the enemies exchanging friendly
+greetings, she rode up to them. Ilagin lifted his beaver cap still
+higher to Natásha and said, with a pleasant smile, that the young
+countess resembled Diana in her passion for the chase as well as in her
+beauty, of which he had heard much.
+
+To expiate his huntsman's offense, Ilagin pressed the Rostóvs to come to
+an upland of his about a mile away which he usually kept for himself and
+which, he said, swarmed with hares. Nicholas agreed, and the hunt, now
+doubled, moved on.
+
+The way to Iligin's upland was across the fields. The hunt servants fell
+into line. The masters rode together. "Uncle," Rostóv, and Ilagin kept
+stealthily glancing at one another's dogs, trying not to be observed by
+their companions and searching uneasily for rivals to their own borzois.
+
+Rostóv was particularly struck by the beauty of a small, pure-bred, red-
+spotted bitch on Ilagin's leash, slender but with muscles like steel, a
+delicate muzzle, and prominent black eyes. He had heard of the swiftness
+of Ilagin's borzois, and in that beautiful bitch saw a rival to his own
+Milka.
+
+In the middle of a sober conversation begun by Ilagin about the year's
+harvest, Nicholas pointed to the red-spotted bitch.
+
+"A fine little bitch, that!" said he in a careless tone. "Is she swift?"
+
+"That one? Yes, she's a good dog, gets what she's after," answered
+Ilagin indifferently, of the red-spotted bitch Erza, for which, a year
+before, he had given a neighbor three families of house serfs. "So in
+your parts, too, the harvest is nothing to boast of, Count?" he went on,
+continuing the conversation they had begun. And considering it polite to
+return the young count's compliment, Ilagin looked at his borzois and
+picked out Milka who attracted his attention by her breadth. "That
+black-spotted one of yours is fine—well shaped!" said he.
+
+"Yes, she's fast enough," replied Nicholas, and thought: "If only a
+full-grown hare would cross the field now I'd show you what sort of
+borzoi she is," and turning to his groom, he said he would give a ruble
+to anyone who found a hare.
+
+"I don't understand," continued Ilagin, "how some sportsmen can be so
+jealous about game and dogs. For myself, I can tell you, Count, I enjoy
+riding in company such as this... what could be better?" (he again
+raised his cap to Natásha) "but as for counting skins and what one
+takes, I don't care about that."
+
+"Of course not!"
+
+"Or being upset because someone else's borzoi and not mine catches
+something. All I care about is to enjoy seeing the chase, is it not so,
+Count? For I consider that..."
+
+"A-tu!" came the long-drawn cry of one of the borzoi whippers-in, who
+had halted. He stood on a knoll in the stubble, holding his whip aloft,
+and again repeated his long-drawn cry, "A-tu!" (This call and the
+uplifted whip meant that he saw a sitting hare.)
+
+"Ah, he has found one, I think," said Ilagin carelessly. "Yes, we must
+ride up.... Shall we both course it?" answered Nicholas, seeing in Erza
+and "Uncle's" red Rugay two rivals he had never yet had a chance of
+pitting against his own borzois. "And suppose they outdo my Milka at
+once!" he thought as he rode with "Uncle" and Ilagin toward the hare.
+
+"A full-grown one?" asked Ilagin as he approached the whip who had
+sighted the hare—and not without agitation he looked round and whistled
+to Erza.
+
+"And you, Michael Nikanorovich?" he said, addressing "Uncle."
+
+The latter was riding with a sullen expression on his face.
+
+"How can I join in? Why, you've given a village for each of your
+borzois! That's it, come on! Yours are worth thousands. Try yours
+against one another, you two, and I'll look on!"
+
+"Rugay, hey, hey!" he shouted. "Rugayushka!" he added, involuntarily by
+this diminutive expressing his affection and the hopes he placed on this
+red borzoi. Natásha saw and felt the agitation the two elderly men and
+her brother were trying to conceal, and was herself excited by it.
+
+The huntsman stood halfway up the knoll holding up his whip and the
+gentlefolk rode up to him at a footpace; the hounds that were far off on
+the horizon turned away from the hare, and the whips, but not the
+gentlefolk, also moved away. All were moving slowly and sedately.
+
+"How is it pointing?" asked Nicholas, riding a hundred paces toward the
+whip who had sighted the hare.
+
+But before the whip could reply, the hare, scenting the frost coming
+next morning, was unable to rest and leaped up. The pack on leash rushed
+downhill in full cry after the hare, and from all sides the borzois that
+were not on leash darted after the hounds and the hare. All the hunt,
+who had been moving slowly, shouted, "Stop!" calling in the hounds,
+while the borzoi whips, with a cry of "A-tu!" galloped across the field
+setting the borzois on the hare. The tranquil Ilagin, Nicholas, Natásha,
+and "Uncle" flew, reckless of where and how they went, seeing only the
+borzois and the hare and fearing only to lose sight even for an instant
+of the chase. The hare they had started was a strong and swift one. When
+he jumped up he did not run at once, but pricked his ears listening to
+the shouting and trampling that resounded from all sides at once. He
+took a dozen bounds, not very quickly, letting the borzois gain on him,
+and, finally having chosen his direction and realized his danger, laid
+back his ears and rushed off headlong. He had been lying in the stubble,
+but in front of him was the autumn sowing where the ground was soft. The
+two borzois of the huntsman who had sighted him, having been the
+nearest, were the first to see and pursue him, but they had not gone far
+before Ilagin's red-spotted Erza passed them, got within a length, flew
+at the hare with terrible swiftness aiming at his scut, and, thinking
+she had seized him, rolled over like a ball. The hare arched his back
+and bounded off yet more swiftly. From behind Erza rushed the broad-
+haunched, black-spotted Milka and began rapidly gaining on the hare.
+
+"Milashka, dear!" rose Nicholas' triumphant cry. It looked as if Milka
+would immediately pounce on the hare, but she overtook him and flew
+past. The hare had squatted. Again the beautiful Erza reached him, but
+when close to the hare's scut paused as if measuring the distance, so as
+not to make a mistake this time but seize his hind leg.
+
+"Erza, darling!" Ilagin wailed in a voice unlike his own. Erza did not
+hearken to his appeal. At the very moment when she would have seized her
+prey, the hare moved and darted along the balk between the winter rye
+and the stubble. Again Erza and Milka were abreast, running like a pair
+of carriage horses, and began to overtake the hare, but it was easier
+for the hare to run on the balk and the borzois did not overtake him so
+quickly.
+
+"Rugay, Rugayushka! That's it, come on!" came a third voice just then,
+and "Uncle's" red borzoi, straining and curving its back, caught up with
+the two foremost borzois, pushed ahead of them regardless of the
+terrible strain, put on speed close to the hare, knocked it off the balk
+onto the ryefield, again put on speed still more viciously, sinking to
+his knees in the muddy field, and all one could see was how, muddying
+his back, he rolled over with the hare. A ring of borzois surrounded
+him. A moment later everyone had drawn up round the crowd of dogs. Only
+the delighted "Uncle" dismounted, and cut off a pad, shaking the hare
+for the blood to drip off, and anxiously glancing round with restless
+eyes while his arms and legs twitched. He spoke without himself knowing
+whom to or what about. "That's it, come on! That's a dog!... There, it
+has beaten them all, the thousand-ruble as well as the one-ruble
+borzois. That's it, come on!" said he, panting and looking wrathfully
+around as if he were abusing someone, as if they were all his enemies
+and had insulted him, and only now had he at last succeeded in
+justifying himself. "There are your thousand-ruble ones.... That's it,
+come on!..."
+
+"Rugay, here's a pad for you!" he said, throwing down the hare's muddy
+pad. "You've deserved it, that's it, come on!"
+
+"She'd tired herself out, she'd run it down three times by herself,"
+said Nicholas, also not listening to anyone and regardless of whether he
+were heard or not.
+
+"But what is there in running across it like that?" said Ilagin's groom.
+
+"Once she had missed it and turned it away, any mongrel could take it,"
+Ilagin was saying at the same time, breathless from his gallop and his
+excitement. At the same moment Natásha, without drawing breath, screamed
+joyously, ecstatically, and so piercingly that it set everyone's ear
+tingling. By that shriek she expressed what the others expressed by all
+talking at once, and it was so strange that she must herself have been
+ashamed of so wild a cry and everyone else would have been amazed at it
+at any other time. "Uncle" himself twisted up the hare, threw it neatly
+and smartly across his horse's back as if by that gesture he meant to
+rebuke everybody, and, with an air of not wishing to speak to anyone,
+mounted his bay and rode off. The others all followed, dispirited and
+shamefaced, and only much later were they able to regain their former
+affectation of indifference. For a long time they continued to look at
+red Rugay who, his arched back spattered with mud and clanking the ring
+of his leash, walked along just behind "Uncle's" horse with the serene
+air of a conqueror.
+
+"Well, I am like any other dog as long as it's not a question of
+coursing. But when it is, then look out!" his appearance seemed to
+Nicholas to be saying.
+
+When, much later, "Uncle" rode up to Nicholas and began talking to him,
+he felt flattered that, after what had happened, "Uncle" deigned to
+speak to him.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+Toward evening Ilagin took leave of Nicholas, who found that they were
+so far from home that he accepted "Uncle's" offer that the hunting party
+should spend the night in his little village of Mikháylovna.
+
+"And if you put up at my house that will be better still. That's it,
+come on!" said "Uncle." "You see it's damp weather, and you could rest,
+and the little countess could be driven home in a trap."
+
+"Uncle's" offer was accepted. A huntsman was sent to Otradnoe for a
+trap, while Nicholas rode with Natásha and Pétya to "Uncle's" house.
+
+Some five male domestic serfs, big and little, rushed out to the front
+porch to meet their master. A score of women serfs, old and young, as
+well as children, popped out from the back entrance to have a look at
+the hunters who were arriving. The presence of Natásha—a woman, a lady,
+and on horseback—raised the curiosity of the serfs to such a degree that
+many of them came up to her, stared her in the face, and unabashed by
+her presence made remarks about her as though she were some prodigy on
+show and not a human being able to hear or understand what was said
+about her.
+
+"Arinka! Look, she sits sideways! There she sits and her skirt
+dangles.... See, she's got a little hunting horn!"
+
+"Goodness gracious! See her knife?..."
+
+"Isn't she a Tartar!"
+
+"How is it you didn't go head over heels?" asked the boldest of all,
+addressing Natásha directly.
+
+"Uncle" dismounted at the porch of his little wooden house which stood
+in the midst of an overgrown garden and, after a glance at his
+retainers, shouted authoritatively that the superfluous ones should take
+themselves off and that all necessary preparations should be made to
+receive the guests and the visitors.
+
+The serfs all dispersed. "Uncle" lifted Natásha off her horse and taking
+her hand led her up the rickety wooden steps of the porch. The house,
+with its bare, unplastered log walls, was not overclean—it did not seem
+that those living in it aimed at keeping it spotless—but neither was it
+noticeably neglected. In the entry there was a smell of fresh apples,
+and wolf and fox skins hung about.
+
+"Uncle" led the visitors through the anteroom into a small hall with a
+folding table and red chairs, then into the drawing room with a round
+birchwood table and a sofa, and finally into his private room where
+there was a tattered sofa, a worn carpet, and portraits of Suvórov, of
+the host's father and mother, and of himself in military uniform. The
+study smelt strongly of tobacco and dogs. "Uncle" asked his visitors to
+sit down and make themselves at home, and then went out of the room.
+Rugay, his back still muddy, came into the room and lay down on the
+sofa, cleaning himself with his tongue and teeth. Leading from the study
+was a passage in which a partition with ragged curtains could be seen.
+From behind this came women's laughter and whispers. Natásha, Nicholas,
+and Pétya took off their wraps and sat down on the sofa. Pétya, leaning
+on his elbow, fell asleep at once. Natásha and Nicholas were silent.
+Their faces glowed, they were hungry and very cheerful. They looked at
+one another (now that the hunt was over and they were in the house,
+Nicholas no longer considered it necessary to show his manly superiority
+over his sister), Natásha gave him a wink, and neither refrained long
+from bursting into a peal of ringing laughter even before they had a
+pretext ready to account for it.
+
+After a while "Uncle" came in, in a Cossack coat, blue trousers, and
+small top boots. And Natásha felt that this costume, the very one she
+had regarded with surprise and amusement at Otradnoe, was just the right
+thing and not at all worse than a swallow-tail or frock coat. "Uncle"
+too was in high spirits and far from being offended by the brother's and
+sister's laughter (it could never enter his head that they might be
+laughing at his way of life) he himself joined in the merriment.
+
+"That's right, young countess, that's it, come on! I never saw anyone
+like her!" said he, offering Nicholas a pipe with a long stem and, with
+a practiced motion of three fingers, taking down another that had been
+cut short. "She's ridden all day like a man, and is as fresh as ever!"
+
+Soon after "Uncle's" reappearance the door was opened, evidently from
+the sound by a barefooted girl, and a stout, rosy, good-looking woman of
+about forty, with a double chin and full red lips, entered carrying a
+large loaded tray. With hospitable dignity and cordiality in her glance
+and in every motion, she looked at the visitors and, with a pleasant
+smile, bowed respectfully. In spite of her exceptional stoutness, which
+caused her to protrude her chest and stomach and throw back her head,
+this woman (who was "Uncle's" housekeeper) trod very lightly. She went
+to the table, set down the tray, and with her plump white hands deftly
+took from it the bottles and various hors d'oeuvres and dishes and
+arranged them on the table. When she had finished, she stepped aside and
+stopped at the door with a smile on her face. "Here I am. I am she! Now
+do you understand 'Uncle'?" her expression said to Rostóv. How could one
+help understanding? Not only Nicholas, but even Natásha understood the
+meaning of his puckered brow and the happy complacent smile that
+slightly puckered his lips when Anisya Fëdorovna entered. On the tray
+was a bottle of herb wine, different kinds of vodka, pickled mushrooms,
+rye cakes made with buttermilk, honey in the comb, still mead and
+sparkling mead, apples, nuts (raw and roasted), and nut-and-honey
+sweets. Afterwards she brought a freshly roasted chicken, ham, preserves
+made with honey, and preserves made with sugar.
+
+All this was the fruit of Anisya Fëdorovna's housekeeping, gathered and
+prepared by her. The smell and taste of it all had a smack of Anisya
+Fëdorovna herself: a savor of juiciness, cleanliness, whiteness, and
+pleasant smiles.
+
+"Take this, little Lady-Countess!" she kept saying, as she offered
+Natásha first one thing and then another.
+
+Natásha ate of everything and thought she had never seen or eaten such
+buttermilk cakes, such aromatic jam, such honey-and-nut sweets, or such
+a chicken anywhere. Anisya Fëdorovna left the room.
+
+After supper, over their cherry brandy, Rostóv and "Uncle" talked of
+past and future hunts, of Rugay and Ilagin's dogs, while Natásha sat
+upright on the sofa and listened with sparkling eyes. She tried several
+times to wake Pétya that he might eat something, but he only muttered
+incoherent words without waking up. Natásha felt so lighthearted and
+happy in these novel surroundings that she only feared the trap would
+come for her too soon. After a casual pause, such as often occurs when
+receiving friends for the first time in one's own house, "Uncle,"
+answering a thought that was in his visitors' minds, said:
+
+"This, you see, is how I am finishing my days... Death will come. That's
+it, come on! Nothing will remain. Then why harm anyone?"
+
+"Uncle's" face was very significant and even handsome as he said this.
+Involuntarily Rostóv recalled all the good he had heard about him from
+his father and the neighbors. Throughout the whole province "Uncle" had
+the reputation of being the most honorable and disinterested of cranks.
+They called him in to decide family disputes, chose him as executor,
+confided secrets to him, elected him to be a justice and to other posts;
+but he always persistently refused public appointments, passing the
+autumn and spring in the fields on his bay gelding, sitting at home in
+winter, and lying in his overgrown garden in summer.
+
+"Why don't you enter the service, Uncle?"
+
+"I did once, but gave it up. I am not fit for it. That's it, come on! I
+can't make head or tail of it. That's for you—I haven't brains enough.
+Now, hunting is another matter—that's it, come on! Open the door,
+there!" he shouted. "Why have you shut it?"
+
+The door at the end of the passage led to the huntsmen's room, as they
+called the room for the hunt servants.
+
+There was a rapid patter of bare feet, and an unseen hand opened the
+door into the huntsmen's room, from which came the clear sounds of a
+balalayka on which someone, who was evidently a master of the art, was
+playing. Natásha had been listening to those strains for some time and
+now went out into the passage to hear better.
+
+"That's Mitka, my coachman.... I have got him a good balalayka. I'm fond
+of it," said "Uncle."
+
+It was the custom for Mitka to play the balalayka in the huntsmen's room
+when "Uncle" returned from the chase. "Uncle" was fond of such music.
+
+"How good! Really very good!" said Nicholas with some unintentional
+superciliousness, as if ashamed to confess that the sounds pleased him
+very much.
+
+"Very good?" said Natásha reproachfully, noticing her brother's tone.
+"Not 'very good' it's simply delicious!"
+
+Just as "Uncle's" pickled mushrooms, honey, and cherry brandy had seemed
+to her the best in the world, so also that song, at that moment, seemed
+to her the acme of musical delight.
+
+"More, please, more!" cried Natásha at the door as soon as the balalayka
+ceased. Mitka tuned up afresh, and recommenced thrumming the balalayka
+to the air of My Lady, with trills and variations. "Uncle" sat
+listening, slightly smiling, with his head on one side. The air was
+repeated a hundred times. The balalayka was retuned several times and
+the same notes were thrummed again, but the listeners did not grow weary
+of it and wished to hear it again and again. Anisya Fëdorovna came in
+and leaned her portly person against the doorpost.
+
+"You like listening?" she said to Natásha, with a smile extremely like
+"Uncle's." "That's a good player of ours," she added.
+
+"He doesn't play that part right!" said "Uncle" suddenly, with an
+energetic gesture. "Here he ought to burst out—that's it, come on!—ought
+to burst out."
+
+"Do you play then?" asked Natásha.
+
+"Uncle" did not answer, but smiled.
+
+"Anisya, go and see if the strings of my guitar are all right. I haven't
+touched it for a long time. That's it—come on! I've given it up."
+
+Anisya Fëdorovna, with her light step, willingly went to fulfill her
+errand and brought back the guitar.
+
+Without looking at anyone, "Uncle" blew the dust off it and, tapping the
+case with his bony fingers, tuned the guitar and settled himself in his
+armchair. He took the guitar a little above the fingerboard, arching his
+left elbow with a somewhat theatrical gesture, and, with a wink at
+Anisya Fëdorovna, struck a single chord, pure and sonorous, and then
+quietly, smoothly, and confidently began playing in very slow time, not
+My Lady, but the well-known song: Came a maiden down the street. The
+tune, played with precision and in exact time, began to thrill in the
+hearts of Nicholas and Natásha, arousing in them the same kind of sober
+mirth as radiated from Anisya Fëdorovna's whole being. Anisya Fëdorovna
+flushed, and drawing her kerchief over her face went laughing out of the
+room. "Uncle" continued to play correctly, carefully, with energetic
+firmness, looking with a changed and inspired expression at the spot
+where Anisya Fëdorovna had just stood. Something seemed to be laughing a
+little on one side of his face under his gray mustaches, especially as
+the song grew brisker and the time quicker and when, here and there, as
+he ran his fingers over the strings, something seemed to snap.
+
+"Lovely, lovely! Go on, Uncle, go on!" shouted Natásha as soon as he had
+finished. She jumped up and hugged and kissed him. "Nicholas, Nicholas!"
+she said, turning to her brother, as if asking him: "What is it moves me
+so?"
+
+Nicholas too was greatly pleased by "Uncle's" playing, and "Uncle"
+played the piece over again. Anisya Fëdorovna's smiling face reappeared
+in the doorway and behind hers other faces...
+
+Fetching water clear and sweet, Stop, dear maiden, I entreat—
+
+played "Uncle" once more, running his fingers skillfully over the
+strings, and then he stopped short and jerked his shoulders.
+
+"Go on, Uncle dear," Natásha wailed in an imploring tone as if her life
+depended on it.
+
+"Uncle" rose, and it was as if there were two men in him: one of them
+smiled seriously at the merry fellow, while the merry fellow struck a
+naïve and precise attitude preparatory to a folk dance.
+
+"Now then, niece!" he exclaimed, waving to Natásha the hand that had
+just struck a chord.
+
+Natásha threw off the shawl from her shoulders, ran forward to face
+"Uncle," and setting her arms akimbo also made a motion with her
+shoulders and struck an attitude.
+
+Where, how, and when had this young countess, educated by an emigree
+French governess, imbibed from the Russian air she breathed that spirit
+and obtained that manner which the pas de chale * would, one would have
+supposed, long ago have effaced? But the spirit and the movements were
+those inimitable and unteachable Russian ones that "Uncle" had expected
+of her. As soon as she had struck her pose, and smiled triumphantly,
+proudly, and with sly merriment, the fear that had at first seized
+Nicholas and the others that she might not do the right thing was at an
+end, and they were already admiring her.
+
+* The French shawl dance.
+
+She did the right thing with such precision, such complete precision,
+that Anisya Fëdorovna, who had at once handed her the handkerchief she
+needed for the dance, had tears in her eyes, though she laughed as she
+watched this slim, graceful countess, reared in silks and velvets and so
+different from herself, who yet was able to understand all that was in
+Anisya and in Anisya's father and mother and aunt, and in every Russian
+man and woman.
+
+"Well, little countess; that's it—come on!" cried "Uncle," with a joyous
+laugh, having finished the dance. "Well done, niece! Now a fine young
+fellow must be found as husband for you. That's it—come on!"
+
+"He's chosen already," said Nicholas smiling.
+
+"Oh?" said "Uncle" in surprise, looking inquiringly at Natásha, who
+nodded her head with a happy smile.
+
+"And such a one!" she said. But as soon as she had said it a new train
+of thoughts and feelings arose in her. "What did Nicholas' smile mean
+when he said 'chosen already'? Is he glad of it or not? It is as if he
+thought my Bolkónski would not approve of or understand our gaiety. But
+he would understand it all. Where is he now?" she thought, and her face
+suddenly became serious. But this lasted only a second. "Don't dare to
+think about it," she said to herself, and sat down again smilingly
+beside "Uncle," begging him to play something more.
+
+"Uncle" played another song and a valse; then after a pause he cleared
+his throat and sang his favorite hunting song:
+
+As 'twas growing dark last night Fell the snow so soft and light...
+
+"Uncle" sang as peasants sing, with full and naïve conviction that the
+whole meaning of a song lies in the words and that the tune comes of
+itself, and that apart from the words there is no tune, which exists
+only to give measure to the words. As a result of this the unconsidered
+tune, like the song of a bird, was extraordinarily good. Natásha was in
+ecstasies over "Uncle's" singing. She resolved to give up learning the
+harp and to play only the guitar. She asked "Uncle" for his guitar and
+at once found the chords of the song.
+
+After nine o'clock two traps and three mounted men, who had been sent to
+look for them, arrived to fetch Natásha and Pétya. The count and
+countess did not know where they were and were very anxious, said one of
+the men.
+
+Pétya was carried out like a log and laid in the larger of the two
+traps. Natásha and Nicholas got into the other. "Uncle" wrapped Natásha
+up warmly and took leave of her with quite a new tenderness. He
+accompanied them on foot as far as the bridge that could not be crossed,
+so that they had to go round by the ford, and he sent huntsmen to ride
+in front with lanterns.
+
+"Good-bye, dear niece," his voice called out of the darkness—not the
+voice Natásha had known previously, but the one that had sung As 'twas
+growing dark last night.
+
+In the village through which they passed there were red lights and a
+cheerful smell of smoke.
+
+"What a darling Uncle is!" said Natásha, when they had come out onto the
+highroad.
+
+"Yes," returned Nicholas. "You're not cold?"
+
+"No. I'm quite, quite all right. I feel so comfortable!" answered
+Natásha, almost perplexed by her feelings. They remained silent a long
+while. The night was dark and damp. They could not see the horses, but
+only heard them splashing through the unseen mud.
+
+What was passing in that receptive childlike soul that so eagerly caught
+and assimilated all the diverse impressions of life? How did they all
+find place in her? But she was very happy. As they were nearing home she
+suddenly struck up the air of As 'twas growing dark last night—the tune
+of which she had all the way been trying to get and had at last caught.
+
+"Got it?" said Nicholas.
+
+"What were you thinking about just now, Nicholas?" inquired Natásha.
+
+They were fond of asking one another that question.
+
+"I?" said Nicholas, trying to remember. "Well, you see, first I thought
+that Rugay, the red hound, was like Uncle, and that if he were a man he
+would always keep Uncle near him, if not for his riding, then for his
+manner. What a good fellow Uncle is! Don't you think so?... Well, and
+you?"
+
+"I? Wait a bit, wait.... Yes, first I thought that we are driving along
+and imagining that we are going home, but that heaven knows where we are
+really going in the darkness, and that we shall arrive and suddenly find
+that we are not in Otradnoe, but in Fairyland. And then I thought... No,
+nothing else."
+
+"I know, I expect you thought of him," said Nicholas, smiling as Natásha
+knew by the sound of his voice.
+
+"No," said Natásha, though she had in reality been thinking about Prince
+Andrew at the same time as of the rest, and of how he would have liked
+"Uncle." "And then I was saying to myself all the way, 'How well Anisya
+carried herself, how well!'" And Nicholas heard her spontaneous, happy,
+ringing laughter. "And do you know," she suddenly said, "I know that I
+shall never again be as happy and tranquil as I am now."
+
+"Rubbish, nonsense, humbug!" exclaimed Nicholas, and he thought: "How
+charming this Natásha of mine is! I have no other friend like her and
+never shall have. Why should she marry? We might always drive about
+together!"
+
+"What a darling this Nicholas of mine is!" thought Natásha.
+
+"Ah, there are still lights in the drawing room!" she said, pointing to
+the windows of the house that gleamed invitingly in the moist velvety
+darkness of the night.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+Count Ilyá Rostóv had resigned the position of Marshal of the Nobility
+because it involved him in too much expense, but still his affairs did
+not improve. Natásha and Nicholas often noticed their parents conferring
+together anxiously and privately and heard suggestions of selling the
+fine ancestral Rostóv house and estate near Moscow. It was not necessary
+to entertain so freely as when the count had been Marshal, and life at
+Otradnoe was quieter than in former years, but still the enormous house
+and its lodges were full of people and more than twenty sat down to
+table every day. These were all their own people who had settled down in
+the house almost as members of the family, or persons who were, it
+seemed, obliged to live in the count's house. Such were Dimmler the
+musician and his wife, Vogel the dancing master and his family, Belova,
+an old maiden lady, an inmate of the house, and many others such as
+Pétya's tutors, the girls' former governess, and other people who simply
+found it preferable and more advantageous to live in the count's house
+than at home. They had not as many visitors as before, but the old
+habits of life without which the count and countess could not conceive
+of existence remained unchanged. There was still the hunting
+establishment which Nicholas had even enlarged, the same fifty horses
+and fifteen grooms in the stables, the same expensive presents and
+dinner parties to the whole district on name days; there were still the
+count's games of whist and boston, at which—spreading out his cards so
+that everybody could see them—he let himself be plundered of hundreds of
+rubles every day by his neighbors, who looked upon an opportunity to
+play a rubber with Count Rostóv as a most profitable source of income.
+
+The count moved in his affairs as in a huge net, trying not to believe
+that he was entangled but becoming more and more so at every step, and
+feeling too feeble to break the meshes or to set to work carefully and
+patiently to disentangle them. The countess, with her loving heart, felt
+that her children were being ruined, that it was not the count's fault
+for he could not help being what he was—that (though he tried to hide
+it) he himself suffered from the consciousness of his own and his
+children's ruin, and she tried to find means of remedying the position.
+From her feminine point of view she could see only one solution, namely,
+for Nicholas to marry a rich heiress. She felt this to be their last
+hope and that if Nicholas refused the match she had found for him, she
+would have to abandon the hope of ever getting matters right. This match
+was with Julie Karágina, the daughter of excellent and virtuous parents,
+a girl the Rostóvs had known from childhood, and who had now become a
+wealthy heiress through the death of the last of her brothers.
+
+The countess had written direct to Julie's mother in Moscow suggesting a
+marriage between their children and had received a favorable answer from
+her. Karágina had replied that for her part she was agreeable, and
+everything depend on her daughter's inclination. She invited Nicholas to
+come to Moscow.
+
+Several times the countess, with tears in her eyes, told her son that
+now both her daughters were settled, her only wish was to see him
+married. She said she could lie down in her grave peacefully if that
+were accomplished. Then she told him that she knew of a splendid girl
+and tried to discover what he thought about marriage.
+
+At other times she praised Julie to him and advised him to go to Moscow
+during the holidays to amuse himself. Nicholas guessed what his mother's
+remarks were leading to and during one of these conversations induced
+her to speak quite frankly. She told him that her only hope of getting
+their affairs disentangled now lay in his marrying Julie Karágina.
+
+"But, Mamma, suppose I loved a girl who has no fortune, would you expect
+me to sacrifice my feelings and my honor for the sake of money?" he
+asked his mother, not realizing the cruelty of his question and only
+wishing to show his noble-mindedness.
+
+"No, you have not understood me," said his mother, not knowing how to
+justify herself. "You have not understood me, Nikolenka. It is your
+happiness I wish for," she added, feeling that she was telling an
+untruth and was becoming entangled. She began to cry.
+
+"Mamma, don't cry! Only tell me that you wish it, and you know I will
+give my life, anything, to put you at ease," said Nicholas. "I would
+sacrifice anything for you—even my feelings."
+
+But the countess did not want the question put like that: she did not
+want a sacrifice from her son, she herself wished to make a sacrifice
+for him.
+
+"No, you have not understood me, don't let us talk about it," she
+replied, wiping away her tears.
+
+"Maybe I do love a poor girl," said Nicholas to himself. "Am I to
+sacrifice my feelings and my honor for money? I wonder how Mamma could
+speak so to me. Because Sónya is poor I must not love her," he thought,
+"must not respond to her faithful, devoted love? Yet I should certainly
+be happier with her than with some doll-like Julie. I can always
+sacrifice my feelings for my family's welfare," he said to himself, "but
+I can't coerce my feelings. If I love Sónya, that feeling is for me
+stronger and higher than all else."
+
+Nicholas did not go to Moscow, and the countess did not renew the
+conversation with him about marriage. She saw with sorrow, and sometimes
+with exasperation, symptoms of a growing attachment between her son and
+the portionless Sónya. Though she blamed herself for it, she could not
+refrain from grumbling at and worrying Sónya, often pulling her up
+without reason, addressing her stiffly as "my dear," and using the
+formal "you" instead of the intimate "thou" in speaking to her. The
+kindhearted countess was the more vexed with Sónya because that poor,
+dark-eyed niece of hers was so meek, so kind, so devotedly grateful to
+her benefactors, and so faithfully, unchangingly, and unselfishly in
+love with Nicholas, that there were no grounds for finding fault with
+her.
+
+Nicholas was spending the last of his leave at home. A fourth letter had
+come from Prince Andrew, from Rome, in which he wrote that he would have
+been on his way back to Russia long ago had not his wound unexpectedly
+reopened in the warm climate, which obliged him to defer his return till
+the beginning of the new year. Natásha was still as much in love with
+her betrothed, found the same comfort in that love, and was still as
+ready to throw herself into all the pleasures of life as before; but at
+the end of the fourth month of their separation she began to have fits
+of depression which she could not master. She felt sorry for herself:
+sorry that she was being wasted all this time and of no use to
+anyone—while she felt herself so capable of loving and being loved.
+
+Things were not cheerful in the Rostóvs' home.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+Christmas came and except for the ceremonial Mass, the solemn and
+wearisome Christmas congratulations from neighbors and servants, and the
+new dresses everyone put on, there were no special festivities, though
+the calm frost of twenty degrees Reaumur, the dazzling sunshine by day,
+and the starlight of the winter nights seemed to call for some special
+celebration of the season.
+
+On the third day of Christmas week, after the midday dinner, all the
+inmates of the house dispersed to various rooms. It was the dullest time
+of the day. Nicholas, who had been visiting some neighbors that morning,
+was asleep on the sitting-room sofa. The old count was resting in his
+study. Sónya sat in the drawing room at the round table, copying a
+design for embroidery. The countess was playing patience. Nastasya
+Ivánovna the buffoon sat with a sad face at the window with two old
+ladies. Natásha came into the room, went up to Sónya, glanced at what
+she was doing, and then went up to her mother and stood without
+speaking.
+
+"Why are you wandering about like an outcast?" asked her mother. "What
+do you want?"
+
+"Him... I want him... now, this minute! I want him!" said Natásha, with
+glittering eyes and no sign of a smile.
+
+The countess lifted her head and looked attentively at her daughter.
+
+"Don't look at me, Mamma! Don't look; I shall cry directly."
+
+"Sit down with me a little," said the countess.
+
+"Mamma, I want him. Why should I be wasted like this, Mamma?"
+
+Her voice broke, tears gushed from her eyes, and she turned quickly to
+hide them and left the room.
+
+She passed into the sitting room, stood there thinking awhile, and then
+went into the maids' room. There an old maidservant was grumbling at a
+young girl who stood panting, having just run in through the cold from
+the serfs' quarters.
+
+"Stop playing—there's a time for everything," said the old woman.
+
+"Let her alone, Kondratevna," said Natásha. "Go, Mavrushka, go."
+
+Having released Mavrushka, Natásha crossed the dancing hall and went to
+the vestibule. There an old footman and two young ones were playing
+cards. They broke off and rose as she entered.
+
+"What can I do with them?" thought Natásha.
+
+"Oh, Nikita, please go... where can I send him?... Yes, go to the yard
+and fetch a fowl, please, a cock, and you, Misha, bring me some oats."
+
+"Just a few oats?" said Misha, cheerfully and readily.
+
+"Go, go quickly," the old man urged him.
+
+"And you, Theodore, get me a piece of chalk."
+
+On her way past the butler's pantry she told them to set a samovar,
+though it was not at all the time for tea.
+
+Foka, the butler, was the most ill-tempered person in the house. Natásha
+liked to test her power over him. He distrusted the order and asked
+whether the samovar was really wanted.
+
+"Oh dear, what a young lady!" said Foka, pretending to frown at Natásha.
+
+No one in the house sent people about or gave them as much trouble as
+Natásha did. She could not see people unconcernedly, but had to send
+them on some errand. She seemed to be trying whether any of them would
+get angry or sulky with her; but the serfs fulfilled no one's orders so
+readily as they did hers. "What can I do, where can I go?" thought she,
+as she went slowly along the passage.
+
+"Nastasya Ivánovna, what sort of children shall I have?" she asked the
+buffoon, who was coming toward her in a woman's jacket.
+
+"Why, fleas, crickets, grasshoppers," answered the buffoon.
+
+"O Lord, O Lord, it's always the same! Oh, where am I to go? What am I
+to do with myself?" And tapping with her heels, she ran quickly upstairs
+to see Vogel and his wife who lived on the upper story.
+
+Two governesses were sitting with the Vogels at a table, on which were
+plates of raisins, walnuts, and almonds. The governesses were discussing
+whether it was cheaper to live in Moscow or Odessa. Natásha sat down,
+listened to their talk with a serious and thoughtful air, and then got
+up again.
+
+"The island of Madagascar," she said, "Ma-da-gas-car," she repeated,
+articulating each syllable distinctly, and, not replying to Madame
+Schoss who asked her what she was saying, she went out of the room.
+
+Her brother Pétya was upstairs too; with the man in attendance on him he
+was preparing fireworks to let off that night.
+
+"Pétya! Pétya!" she called to him. "Carry me downstairs."
+
+Pétya ran up and offered her his back. She jumped on it, putting her
+arms round his neck, and he pranced along with her.
+
+"No, don't... the island of Madagascar!" she said, and jumping off his
+back she went downstairs.
+
+Having as it were reviewed her kingdom, tested her power, and made sure
+that everyone was submissive, but that all the same it was dull, Natásha
+betook herself to the ballroom, picked up her guitar, sat down in a dark
+corner behind a bookcase, and began to run her fingers over the strings
+in the bass, picking out a passage she recalled from an opera she had
+heard in Petersburg with Prince Andrew. What she drew from the guitar
+would have had no meaning for other listeners, but in her imagination a
+whole series of reminiscences arose from those sounds. She sat behind
+the bookcase with her eyes fixed on a streak of light escaping from the
+pantry door and listened to herself and pondered. She was in a mood for
+brooding on the past.
+
+Sónya passed to the pantry with a glass in her hand. Natásha glanced at
+her and at the crack in the pantry door, and it seemed to her that she
+remembered the light falling through that crack once before and Sónya
+passing with a glass in her hand. "Yes it was exactly the same," thought
+Natásha.
+
+"Sónya, what is this?" she cried, twanging a thick string.
+
+"Oh, you are there!" said Sónya with a start, and came near and
+listened. "I don't know. A storm?" she ventured timidly, afraid of being
+wrong.
+
+"There! That's just how she started and just how she came up smiling
+timidly when all this happened before," thought Natásha, "and in just
+the same way I thought there was something lacking in her."
+
+"No, it's the chorus from The Water-Carrier, listen!" and Natásha sang
+the air of the chorus so that Sónya should catch it. "Where were you
+going?" she asked.
+
+"To change the water in this glass. I am just finishing the design."
+
+"You always find something to do, but I can't," said Natásha. "And
+where's Nicholas?"
+
+"Asleep, I think."
+
+"Sónya, go and wake him," said Natásha. "Tell him I want him to come and
+sing."
+
+She sat awhile, wondering what the meaning of it all having happened
+before could be, and without solving this problem, or at all regretting
+not having done so, she again passed in fancy to the time when she was
+with him and he was looking at her with a lover's eyes.
+
+"Oh, if only he would come quicker! I am so afraid it will never be!
+And, worst of all, I am growing old—that's the thing! There won't then
+be in me what there is now. But perhaps he'll come today, will come
+immediately. Perhaps he has come and is sitting in the drawing room.
+Perhaps he came yesterday and I have forgotten it." She rose, put down
+the guitar, and went to the drawing room.
+
+All the domestic circle, tutors, governesses, and guests, were already
+at the tea table. The servants stood round the table—but Prince Andrew
+was not there and life was going on as before.
+
+"Ah, here she is!" said the old count, when he saw Natásha enter. "Well,
+sit down by me." But Natásha stayed by her mother and glanced round as
+if looking for something.
+
+"Mamma!" she muttered, "give him to me, give him, Mamma, quickly,
+quickly!" and she again had difficulty in repressing her sobs.
+
+She sat down at the table and listened to the conversation between the
+elders and Nicholas, who had also come to the table. "My God, my God!
+The same faces, the same talk, Papa holding his cup and blowing in the
+same way!" thought Natásha, feeling with horror a sense of repulsion
+rising up in her for the whole household, because they were always the
+same.
+
+After tea, Nicholas, Sónya, and Natásha went to the sitting room, to
+their favorite corner where their most intimate talks always began.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+"Does it ever happen to you," said Natásha to her brother, when they
+settled down in the sitting room, "does it ever happen to you to feel as
+if there were nothing more to come—nothing; that everything good is
+past? And to feel not exactly dull, but sad?"
+
+"I should think so!" he replied. "I have felt like that when everything
+was all right and everyone was cheerful. The thought has come into my
+mind that I was already tired of it all, and that we must all die. Once
+in the regiment I had not gone to some merrymaking where there was
+music... and suddenly I felt so depressed..."
+
+"Oh yes, I know, I know, I know!" Natásha interrupted him. "When I was
+quite little that used to be so with me. Do you remember when I was
+punished once about some plums? You were all dancing, and I sat sobbing
+in the schoolroom? I shall never forget it: I felt sad and sorry for
+everyone, for myself, and for everyone. And I was innocent—that was the
+chief thing," said Natásha. "Do you remember?"
+
+"I remember," answered Nicholas. "I remember that I came to you
+afterwards and wanted to comfort you, but do you know, I felt ashamed
+to. We were terribly absurd. I had a funny doll then and wanted to give
+it to you. Do you remember?"
+
+"And do you remember," Natásha asked with a pensive smile, "how once,
+long, long ago, when we were quite little, Uncle called us into the
+study—that was in the old house—and it was dark—we went in and suddenly
+there stood..."
+
+"A Negro," chimed in Nicholas with a smile of delight. "Of course I
+remember. Even now I don't know whether there really was a Negro, or if
+we only dreamed it or were told about him."
+
+"He was gray, you remember, and had white teeth, and stood and looked at
+us..."
+
+"Sónya, do you remember?" asked Nicholas.
+
+"Yes, yes, I do remember something too," Sónya answered timidly.
+
+"You know I have asked Papa and Mamma about that Negro," said Natásha,
+"and they say there was no Negro at all. But you see, you remember!"
+
+"Of course I do, I remember his teeth as if I had just seen them."
+
+"How strange it is! It's as if it were a dream! I like that."
+
+"And do you remember how we rolled hard-boiled eggs in the ballroom, and
+suddenly two old women began spinning round on the carpet? Was that real
+or not? Do you remember what fun it was?"
+
+"Yes, and you remember how Papa in his blue overcoat fired a gun in the
+porch?"
+
+So they went through their memories, smiling with pleasure: not the sad
+memories of old age, but poetic, youthful ones—those impressions of
+one's most distant past in which dreams and realities blend—and they
+laughed with quiet enjoyment.
+
+Sónya, as always, did not quite keep pace with them, though they shared
+the same reminiscences.
+
+Much that they remembered had slipped from her mind, and what she
+recalled did not arouse the same poetic feeling as they experienced. She
+simply enjoyed their pleasure and tried to fit in with it.
+
+She only really took part when they recalled Sónya's first arrival. She
+told them how afraid she had been of Nicholas because he had on a corded
+jacket and her nurse had told her that she, too, would be sewn up with
+cords.
+
+"And I remember their telling me that you had been born under a
+cabbage," said Natásha, "and I remember that I dared not disbelieve it
+then, but knew that it was not true, and I felt so uncomfortable."
+
+While they were talking a maid thrust her head in at the other door of
+the sitting room.
+
+"They have brought the cock, Miss," she said in a whisper.
+
+"It isn't wanted, Pétya. Tell them to take it away," replied Natásha.
+
+In the middle of their talk in the sitting room, Dimmler came in and
+went up to the harp that stood there in a corner. He took off its cloth
+covering, and the harp gave out a jarring sound.
+
+"Mr. Dimmler, please play my favorite nocturne by Field," came the old
+countess' voice from the drawing room.
+
+Dimmler struck a chord and, turning to Natásha, Nicholas, and Sónya,
+remarked: "How quiet you young people are!"
+
+"Yes, we're philosophizing," said Natásha, glancing round for a moment
+and then continuing the conversation. They were now discussing dreams.
+
+Dimmler began to play; Natásha went on tiptoe noiselessly to the table,
+took up a candle, carried it out, and returned, seating herself quietly
+in her former place. It was dark in the room especially where they were
+sitting on the sofa, but through the big windows the silvery light of
+the full moon fell on the floor. Dimmler had finished the piece but
+still sat softly running his fingers over the strings, evidently
+uncertain whether to stop or to play something else.
+
+"Do you know," said Natásha in a whisper, moving closer to Nicholas and
+Sónya, "that when one goes on and on recalling memories, one at last
+begins to remember what happened before one was in the world..."
+
+"That is metempsychosis," said Sónya, who had always learned well, and
+remembered everything. "The Egyptians believed that our souls have lived
+in animals, and will go back into animals again."
+
+"No, I don't believe we ever were in animals," said Natásha, still in a
+whisper though the music had ceased. "But I am certain that we were
+angels somewhere there, and have been here, and that is why we
+remember...."
+
+"May I join you?" said Dimmler who had come up quietly, and he sat down
+by them.
+
+"If we have been angels, why have we fallen lower?" said Nicholas. "No,
+that can't be!"
+
+"Not lower, who said we were lower?... How do I know what I was before?"
+Natásha rejoined with conviction. "The soul is immortal—well then, if I
+shall always live I must have lived before, lived for a whole eternity."
+
+"Yes, but it is hard for us to imagine eternity," remarked Dimmler, who
+had joined the young folk with a mildly condescending smile but now
+spoke as quietly and seriously as they.
+
+"Why is it hard to imagine eternity?" said Natásha. "It is now today,
+and it will be tomorrow, and always; and there was yesterday, and the
+day before..."
+
+"Natásha! Now it's your turn. Sing me something," they heard the
+countess say. "Why are you sitting there like conspirators?"
+
+"Mamma, I don't at all want to," replied Natásha, but all the same she
+rose.
+
+None of them, not even the middle-aged Dimmler, wanted to break off
+their conversation and quit that corner in the sitting room, but Natásha
+got up and Nicholas sat down at the clavichord. Standing as usual in the
+middle of the hall and choosing the place where the resonance was best,
+Natásha began to sing her mother's favorite song.
+
+She had said she did not want to sing, but it was long since she had
+sung, and long before she again sang, as she did that evening. The
+count, from his study where he was talking to Mitenka, heard her and,
+like a schoolboy in a hurry to run out to play, blundered in his talk
+while giving orders to the steward, and at last stopped, while Mitenka
+stood in front of him also listening and smiling. Nicholas did not take
+his eyes off his sister and drew breath in time with her. Sónya, as she
+listened, thought of the immense difference there was between herself
+and her friend, and how impossible it was for her to be anything like as
+bewitching as her cousin. The old countess sat with a blissful yet sad
+smile and with tears in her eyes, occasionally shaking her head. She
+thought of Natásha and of her own youth, and of how there was something
+unnatural and dreadful in this impending marriage of Natásha and Prince
+Andrew.
+
+Dimmler, who had seated himself beside the countess, listened with
+closed eyes.
+
+"Ah, Countess," he said at last, "that's a European talent, she has
+nothing to learn—what softness, tenderness, and strength...."
+
+"Ah, how afraid I am for her, how afraid I am!" said the countess, not
+realizing to whom she was speaking. Her maternal instinct told her that
+Natásha had too much of something, and that because of this she would
+not be happy. Before Natásha had finished singing, fourteen-year-old
+Pétya rushed in delightedly, to say that some mummers had arrived.
+
+Natásha stopped abruptly.
+
+"Idiot!" she screamed at her brother and, running to a chair, threw
+herself on it, sobbing so violently that she could not stop for a long
+time.
+
+"It's nothing, Mamma, really it's nothing; only Pétya startled me," she
+said, trying to smile, but her tears still flowed and sobs still choked
+her.
+
+The mummers (some of the house serfs) dressed up as bears, Turks,
+innkeepers, and ladies—frightening and funny—bringing in with them the
+cold from outside and a feeling of gaiety, crowded, at first timidly,
+into the anteroom, then hiding behind one another they pushed into the
+ballroom where, shyly at first and then more and more merrily and
+heartily, they started singing, dancing, and playing Christmas games.
+The countess, when she had identified them and laughed at their
+costumes, went into the drawing room. The count sat in the ballroom,
+smiling radiantly and applauding the players. The young people had
+disappeared.
+
+Half an hour later there appeared among the other mummers in the
+ballroom an old lady in a hooped skirt—this was Nicholas. A Turkish girl
+was Pétya. A clown was Dimmler. An hussar was Natásha, and a Circassian
+was Sónya with burnt-cork mustache and eyebrows.
+
+After the condescending surprise, nonrecognition, and praise, from those
+who were not themselves dressed up, the young people decided that their
+costumes were so good that they ought to be shown elsewhere.
+
+Nicholas, who, as the roads were in splendid condition, wanted to take
+them all for a drive in his troyka, proposed to take with them about a
+dozen of the serf mummers and drive to "Uncle's."
+
+"No, why disturb the old fellow?" said the countess. "Besides, you
+wouldn't have room to turn round there. If you must go, go to the
+Melyukovs'."
+
+Melyukova was a widow, who, with her family and their tutors and
+governesses, lived three miles from the Rostóvs.
+
+"That's right, my dear," chimed in the old count, thoroughly aroused.
+"I'll dress up at once and go with them. I'll make Pashette open her
+eyes."
+
+But the countess would not agree to his going; he had had a bad leg all
+these last days. It was decided that the count must not go, but that if
+Louisa Ivánovna (Madame Schoss) would go with them, the young ladies
+might go to the Melyukovs', Sónya, generally so timid and shy, more
+urgently than anyone begging Louisa Ivánovna not to refuse.
+
+Sónya's costume was the best of all. Her mustache and eyebrows were
+extraordinarily becoming. Everyone told her she looked very handsome,
+and she was in a spirited and energetic mood unusual with her. Some
+inner voice told her that now or never her fate would be decided, and in
+her male attire she seemed quite a different person. Louisa Ivánovna
+consented to go, and in half an hour four troyka sleighs with large and
+small bells, their runners squeaking and whistling over the frozen snow,
+drove up to the porch.
+
+Natásha was foremost in setting a merry holiday tone, which, passing
+from one to another, grew stronger and reached its climax when they all
+came out into the frost and got into the sleighs, talking, calling to
+one another, laughing, and shouting.
+
+Two of the troykas were the usual household sleighs, the third was the
+old count's with a trotter from the Orlóv stud as shaft horse, the
+fourth was Nicholas' own with a short shaggy black shaft horse.
+Nicholas, in his old lady's dress over which he had belted his hussar
+overcoat, stood in the middle of the sleigh, reins in hand.
+
+It was so light that he could see the moonlight reflected from the metal
+harness disks and from the eyes of the horses, who looked round in alarm
+at the noisy party under the shadow of the porch roof.
+
+Natásha, Sónya, Madame Schoss, and two maids got into Nicholas' sleigh;
+Dimmler, his wife, and Pétya, into the old count's, and the rest of the
+mummers seated themselves in the other two sleighs.
+
+"You go ahead, Zakhar!" shouted Nicholas to his father's coachman,
+wishing for a chance to race past him.
+
+The old count's troyka, with Dimmler and his party, started forward,
+squeaking on its runners as though freezing to the snow, its deep-toned
+bell clanging. The side horses, pressing against the shafts of the
+middle horse, sank in the snow, which was dry and glittered like sugar,
+and threw it up.
+
+Nicholas set off, following the first sleigh; behind him the others
+moved noisily, their runners squeaking. At first they drove at a steady
+trot along the narrow road. While they drove past the garden the shadows
+of the bare trees often fell across the road and hid the brilliant
+moonlight, but as soon as they were past the fence, the snowy plain
+bathed in moonlight and motionless spread out before them glittering
+like diamonds and dappled with bluish shadows. Bang, bang! went the
+first sleigh over a cradle hole in the snow of the road, and each of the
+other sleighs jolted in the same way, and rudely breaking the frost-
+bound stillness, the troykas began to speed along the road, one after
+the other.
+
+"A hare's track, a lot of tracks!" rang out Natásha's voice through the
+frost-bound air.
+
+"How light it is, Nicholas!" came Sónya's voice.
+
+Nicholas glanced round at Sónya, and bent down to see her face closer.
+Quite a new, sweet face with black eyebrows and mustaches peeped up at
+him from her sable furs—so close and yet so distant—in the moonlight.
+
+"That used to be Sónya," thought he, and looked at her closer and
+smiled.
+
+"What is it, Nicholas?"
+
+"Nothing," said he and turned again to the horses.
+
+When they came out onto the beaten highroad—polished by sleigh runners
+and cut up by rough-shod hoofs, the marks of which were visible in the
+moonlight—the horses began to tug at the reins of their own accord and
+increased their pace. The near side horse, arching his head and breaking
+into a short canter, tugged at his traces. The shaft horse swayed from
+side to side, moving his ears as if asking: "Isn't it time to begin
+now?" In front, already far ahead the deep bell of the sleigh ringing
+farther and farther off, the black horses driven by Zakhar could be
+clearly seen against the white snow. From that sleigh one could hear the
+shouts, laughter, and voices of the mummers.
+
+"Gee up, my darlings!" shouted Nicholas, pulling the reins to one side
+and flourishing the whip.
+
+It was only by the keener wind that met them and the jerks given by the
+side horses who pulled harder—ever increasing their gallop—that one
+noticed how fast the troyka was flying. Nicholas looked back. With
+screams squeals, and waving of whips that caused even the shaft horses
+to gallop—the other sleighs followed. The shaft horse swung steadily
+beneath the bow over its head, with no thought of slackening pace and
+ready to put on speed when required.
+
+Nicholas overtook the first sleigh. They were driving downhill and
+coming out upon a broad trodden track across a meadow, near a river.
+
+"Where are we?" thought he. "It's the Kosoy meadow, I suppose. But
+no—this is something new I've never seen before. This isn't the Kosoy
+meadow nor the Demkin hill, and heaven only knows what it is! It is
+something new and enchanted. Well, whatever it may be..." And shouting
+to his horses, he began to pass the first sleigh.
+
+Zakhar held back his horses and turned his face, which was already
+covered with hoarfrost to his eyebrows.
+
+Nicholas gave the horses the rein, and Zakhar, stretching out his arms,
+clucked his tongue and let his horses go.
+
+"Now, look out, master!" he cried.
+
+Faster still the two troykas flew side by side, and faster moved the
+feet of the galloping side horses. Nicholas began to draw ahead. Zakhar,
+while still keeping his arms extended, raised one hand with the reins.
+
+"No you won't, master!" he shouted.
+
+Nicholas put all his horses to a gallop and passed Zakhar. The horses
+showered the fine dry snow on the faces of those in the sleigh—beside
+them sounded quick ringing bells and they caught confused glimpses of
+swiftly moving legs and the shadows of the troyka they were passing. The
+whistling sound of the runners on the snow and the voices of girls
+shrieking were heard from different sides.
+
+Again checking his horses, Nicholas looked around him. They were still
+surrounded by the magic plain bathed in moonlight and spangled with
+stars.
+
+"Zakhar is shouting that I should turn to the left, but why to the
+left?" thought Nicholas. "Are we getting to the Melyukovs'? Is this
+Melyukovka? Heaven only knows where we are going, and heaven knows what
+is happening to us—but it is very strange and pleasant whatever it is."
+And he looked round in the sleigh.
+
+"Look, his mustache and eyelashes are all white!" said one of the
+strange, pretty, unfamiliar people—the one with fine eyebrows and
+mustache.
+
+"I think this used to be Natásha," thought Nicholas, "and that was
+Madame Schoss, but perhaps it's not, and this Circassian with the
+mustache I don't know, but I love her."
+
+"Aren't you cold?" he asked.
+
+They did not answer but began to laugh. Dimmler from the sleigh behind
+shouted something—probably something funny—but they could not make out
+what he said.
+
+"Yes, yes!" some voices answered, laughing.
+
+"But here was a fairy forest with black moving shadows, and a glitter of
+diamonds and a flight of marble steps and the silver roofs of fairy
+buildings and the shrill yells of some animals. And if this is really
+Melyukovka, it is still stranger that we drove heaven knows where and
+have come to Melyukovka," thought Nicholas.
+
+It really was Melyukovka, and maids and footmen with merry faces came
+running, out to the porch carrying candles.
+
+"Who is it?" asked someone in the porch.
+
+"The mummers from the count's. I know by the horses," replied some
+voices.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+Pelageya Danilovna Melyukova, a broadly built, energetic woman wearing
+spectacles, sat in the drawing room in a loose dress, surrounded by her
+daughters whom she was trying to keep from feeling dull. They were
+quietly dropping melted wax into snow and looking at the shadows the wax
+figures would throw on the wall, when they heard the steps and voices of
+new arrivals in the vestibule.
+
+Hussars, ladies, witches, clowns, and bears, after clearing their
+throats and wiping the hoarfrost from their faces in the vestibule, came
+into the ballroom where candles were hurriedly lighted. The
+clown—Dimmler—and the lady—Nicholas—started a dance. Surrounded by the
+screaming children the mummers, covering their faces and disguising
+their voices, bowed to their hostess and arranged themselves about the
+room.
+
+"Dear me! there's no recognizing them! And Natásha! See whom she looks
+like! She really reminds me of somebody. But Herr Dimmler—isn't he good!
+I didn't know him! And how he dances. Dear me, there's a Circassian.
+Really, how becoming it is to dear Sónya. And who is that? Well, you
+have cheered us up! Nikita and Vanya—clear away the tables! And we were
+sitting so quietly. Ha, ha, ha!... The hussar, the hussar! Just like a
+boy! And the legs!... I can't look at him..." different voices were
+saying.
+
+Natásha, the young Melyukovs' favorite, disappeared with them into the
+back rooms where a cork and various dressing gowns and male garments
+were called for and received from the footman by bare girlish arms from
+behind the door. Ten minutes later, all the young Melyukovs joined the
+mummers.
+
+Pelageya Danilovna, having given orders to clear the rooms for the
+visitors and arranged about refreshments for the gentry and the serfs,
+went about among the mummers without removing her spectacles, peering
+into their faces with a suppressed smile and failing to recognize any of
+them. It was not merely Dimmler and the Rostóvs she failed to recognize,
+she did not even recognize her own daughters, or her late husband's,
+dressing gowns and uniforms, which they had put on.
+
+"And who is this?" she asked her governess, peering into the face of her
+own daughter dressed up as a Kazan-Tartar. "I suppose it is one of the
+Rostóvs! Well, Mr. Hussar, and what regiment do you serve in?" she asked
+Natásha. "Here, hand some fruit jelly to the Turk!" she ordered the
+butler who was handing things round. "That's not forbidden by his law."
+
+Sometimes, as she looked at the strange but amusing capers cut by the
+dancers, who—having decided once for all that being disguised, no one
+would recognize them—were not at all shy, Pelageya Danilovna hid her
+face in her handkerchief, and her whole stout body shook with
+irrepressible, kindly, elderly laughter.
+
+"My little Sasha! Look at Sasha!" she said.
+
+After Russian country dances and chorus dances, Pelageya Danilovna made
+the serfs and gentry join in one large circle: a ring, a string, and a
+silver ruble were fetched and they all played games together.
+
+In an hour, all the costumes were crumpled and disordered. The corked
+eyebrows and mustaches were smeared over the perspiring, flushed, and
+merry faces. Pelageya Danilovna began to recognize the mummers, admired
+their cleverly contrived costumes, and particularly how they suited the
+young ladies, and she thanked them all for having entertained her so
+well. The visitors were invited to supper in the drawing room, and the
+serfs had something served to them in the ballroom.
+
+"Now to tell one's fortune in the empty bathhouse is frightening!" said
+an old maid who lived with the Melyukovs, during supper.
+
+"Why?" said the eldest Melyukov girl.
+
+"You wouldn't go, it takes courage..."
+
+"I'll go," said Sónya.
+
+"Tell what happened to the young lady!" said the second Melyukov girl.
+
+"Well," began the old maid, "a young lady once went out, took a cock,
+laid the table for two, all properly, and sat down. After sitting a
+while, she suddenly hears someone coming... a sleigh drives up with
+harness bells; she hears him coming! He comes in, just in the shape of a
+man, like an officer—comes in and sits down to table with her."
+
+"Ah! ah!" screamed Natásha, rolling her eyes with horror.
+
+"Yes? And how... did he speak?"
+
+"Yes, like a man. Everything quite all right, and he began persuading
+her; and she should have kept him talking till cockcrow, but she got
+frightened, just got frightened and hid her face in her hands. Then he
+caught her up. It was lucky the maids ran in just then..."
+
+"Now, why frighten them?" said Pelageya Danilovna.
+
+"Mamma, you used to try your fate yourself..." said her daughter.
+
+"And how does one do it in a barn?" inquired Sónya.
+
+"Well, say you went to the barn now, and listened. It depends on what
+you hear; hammering and knocking—that's bad; but a sound of shifting
+grain is good and one sometimes hears that, too."
+
+"Mamma, tell us what happened to you in the barn."
+
+Pelageya Danilovna smiled.
+
+"Oh, I've forgotten..." she replied. "But none of you would go?"
+
+"Yes, I will; Pelageya Danilovna, let me! I'll go," said Sónya.
+
+"Well, why not, if you're not afraid?"
+
+"Louisa Ivánovna, may I?" asked Sónya.
+
+Whether they were playing the ring and string game or the ruble game or
+talking as now, Nicholas did not leave Sónya's side, and gazed at her
+with quite new eyes. It seemed to him that it was only today, thanks to
+that burnt-cork mustache, that he had fully learned to know her. And
+really, that evening, Sónya was brighter, more animated, and prettier
+than Nicholas had ever seen her before.
+
+"So that's what she is like; what a fool I have been!" he thought gazing
+at her sparkling eyes, and under the mustache a happy rapturous smile
+dimpled her cheeks, a smile he had never seen before.
+
+"I'm not afraid of anything," said Sónya. "May I go at once?" She got
+up.
+
+They told her where the barn was and how she should stand and listen,
+and they handed her a fur cloak. She threw this over her head and
+shoulders and glanced at Nicholas.
+
+"What a darling that girl is!" thought he. "And what have I been
+thinking of till now?"
+
+Sónya went out into the passage to go to the barn. Nicholas went hastily
+to the front porch, saying he felt too hot. The crowd of people really
+had made the house stuffy.
+
+Outside, there was the same cold stillness and the same moon, but even
+brighter than before. The light was so strong and the snow sparkled with
+so many stars that one did not wish to look up at the sky and the real
+stars were unnoticed. The sky was black and dreary, while the earth was
+gay.
+
+"I am a fool, a fool! what have I been waiting for?" thought Nicholas,
+and running out from the porch he went round the corner of the house and
+along the path that led to the back porch. He knew Sónya would pass that
+way. Halfway lay some snow-covered piles of firewood and across and
+along them a network of shadows from the bare old lime trees fell on the
+snow and on the path. This path led to the barn. The log walls of the
+barn and its snow-covered roof, that looked as if hewn out of some
+precious stone, sparkled in the moonlight. A tree in the garden snapped
+with the frost, and then all was again perfectly silent. His bosom
+seemed to inhale not air but the strength of eternal youth and gladness.
+
+From the back porch came the sound of feet descending the steps, the
+bottom step upon which snow had fallen gave a ringing creak and he heard
+the voice of an old maidservant saying, "Straight, straight, along the
+path, Miss. Only, don't look back."
+
+"I am not afraid," answered Sónya's voice, and along the path toward
+Nicholas came the crunching, whistling sound of Sónya's feet in her thin
+shoes.
+
+Sónya came along, wrapped in her cloak. She was only a couple of paces
+away when she saw him, and to her too he was not the Nicholas she had
+known and always slightly feared. He was in a woman's dress, with
+tousled hair and a happy smile new to Sónya. She ran rapidly toward him.
+
+"Quite different and yet the same," thought Nicholas, looking at her
+face all lit up by the moonlight. He slipped his arms under the cloak
+that covered her head, embraced her, pressed her to him, and kissed her
+on the lips that wore a mustache and had a smell of burnt cork. Sónya
+kissed him full on the lips, and disengaging her little hands pressed
+them to his cheeks.
+
+"Sónya!... Nicholas!"... was all they said. They ran to the barn and
+then back again, re-entering, he by the front and she by the back porch.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+When they all drove back from Pelageya Danilovna's, Natásha, who always
+saw and noticed everything, arranged that she and Madame Schoss should
+go back in the sleigh with Dimmler, and Sónya with Nicholas and the
+maids.
+
+On the way back Nicholas drove at a steady pace instead of racing and
+kept peering by that fantastic all-transforming light into Sónya's face
+and searching beneath the eyebrows and mustache for his former and his
+present Sónya from whom he had resolved never to be parted again. He
+looked and recognizing in her both the old and the new Sónya, and being
+reminded by the smell of burnt cork of the sensation of her kiss,
+inhaled the frosty air with a full breast and, looking at the ground
+flying beneath him and at the sparkling sky, felt himself again in
+fairyland.
+
+"Sónya, is it well with thee?" he asked from time to time.
+
+"Yes!" she replied. "And with thee?"
+
+When halfway home Nicholas handed the reins to the coachman and ran for
+a moment to Natásha's sleigh and stood on its wing.
+
+"Natásha!" he whispered in French, "do you know I have made up my mind
+about Sónya?"
+
+"Have you told her?" asked Natásha, suddenly beaming all over with joy.
+
+"Oh, how strange you are with that mustache and those eyebrows!...
+Natásha—are you glad?"
+
+"I am so glad, so glad! I was beginning to be vexed with you. I did not
+tell you, but you have been treating her badly. What a heart she has,
+Nicholas! I am horrid sometimes, but I was ashamed to be happy while
+Sónya was not," continued Natásha. "Now I am so glad! Well, run back to
+her."
+
+"No, wait a bit.... Oh, how funny you look!" cried Nicholas, peering
+into her face and finding in his sister too something new, unusual, and
+bewitchingly tender that he had not seen in her before. "Natásha, it's
+magical, isn't it?"
+
+"Yes," she replied. "You have done splendidly."
+
+"Had I seen her before as she is now," thought Nicholas, "I should long
+ago have asked her what to do and have done whatever she told me, and
+all would have been well."
+
+"So you are glad and I have done right?"
+
+"Oh, quite right! I had a quarrel with Mamma some time ago about it.
+Mamma said she was angling for you. How could she say such a thing! I
+nearly stormed at Mamma. I will never let anyone say anything bad of
+Sónya, for there is nothing but good in her."
+
+"Then it's all right?" said Nicholas, again scrutinizing the expression
+of his sister's face to see if she was in earnest. Then he jumped down
+and, his boots scrunching the snow, ran back to his sleigh. The same
+happy, smiling Circassian, with mustache and beaming eyes looking up
+from under a sable hood, was still sitting there, and that Circassian
+was Sónya, and that Sónya was certainly his future happy and loving
+wife.
+
+When they reached home and had told their mother how they had spent the
+evening at the Melyukovs', the girls went to their bedroom. When they
+had undressed, but without washing off the cork mustaches, they sat a
+long time talking of their happiness. They talked of how they would live
+when they were married, how their husbands would be friends, and how
+happy they would be. On Natásha's table stood two looking glasses which
+Dunyasha had prepared beforehand.
+
+"Only when will all that be? I am afraid never.... It would be too
+good!" said Natásha, rising and going to the looking glasses.
+
+"Sit down, Natásha; perhaps you'll see him," said Sónya.
+
+Natásha lit the candles, one on each side of one of the looking glasses,
+and sat down.
+
+"I see someone with a mustache," said Natásha, seeing her own face.
+
+"You mustn't laugh, Miss," said Dunyasha.
+
+With Sónya's help and the maid's, Natásha got the glass she held into
+the right position opposite the other; her face assumed a serious
+expression and she sat silent. She sat a long time looking at the
+receding line of candles reflected in the glasses and expecting (from
+tales she had heard) to see a coffin, or him, Prince Andrew, in that
+last dim, indistinctly outlined square. But ready as she was to take the
+smallest speck for the image of a man or of a coffin, she saw nothing.
+She began blinking rapidly and moved away from the looking glasses.
+
+"Why is it others see things and I don't?" she said. "You sit down now,
+Sónya. You absolutely must, tonight! Do it for me.... Today I feel so
+frightened!"
+
+Sónya sat down before the glasses, got the right position, and began
+looking.
+
+"Now, Miss Sónya is sure to see something," whispered Dunyasha; "while
+you do nothing but laugh."
+
+Sónya heard this and Natásha's whisper:
+
+"I know she will. She saw something last year."
+
+For about three minutes all were silent.
+
+"Of course she will!" whispered Natásha, but did not finish... suddenly
+Sónya pushed away the glass she was holding and covered her eyes with
+her hand.
+
+"Oh, Natásha!" she cried.
+
+"Did you see? Did you? What was it?" exclaimed Natásha, holding up the
+looking glass.
+
+Sónya had not seen anything, she was just wanting to blink and to get up
+when she heard Natásha say, "Of course she will!" She did not wish to
+disappoint either Dunyasha or Natásha, but it was hard to sit still. She
+did not herself know how or why the exclamation escaped her when she
+covered her eyes.
+
+"You saw him?" urged Natásha, seizing her hand.
+
+"Yes. Wait a bit... I... saw him," Sónya could not help saying, not yet
+knowing whom Natásha meant by him, Nicholas or Prince Andrew.
+
+"But why shouldn't I say I saw something? Others do see! Besides who can
+tell whether I saw anything or not?" flashed through Sónya's mind.
+
+"Yes, I saw him," she said.
+
+"How? Standing or lying?"
+
+"No, I saw... At first there was nothing, then I saw him lying down."
+
+"Andrew lying? Is he ill?" asked Natásha, her frightened eyes fixed on
+her friend.
+
+"No, on the contrary, on the contrary! His face was cheerful, and he
+turned to me." And when saying this she herself fancied she had really
+seen what she described.
+
+"Well, and then, Sónya?..."
+
+"After that, I could not make out what there was; something blue and
+red..."
+
+"Sónya! When will he come back? When shall I see him! O, God, how afraid
+I am for him and for myself and about everything!..." Natásha began, and
+without replying to Sónya's words of comfort she got into bed, and long
+after her candle was out lay open-eyed and motionless, gazing at the
+moonlight through the frosty windowpanes.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+Soon after the Christmas holidays Nicholas told his mother of his love
+for Sónya and of his firm resolve to marry her. The countess, who had
+long noticed what was going on between them and was expecting this
+declaration, listened to him in silence and then told her son that he
+might marry whom he pleased, but that neither she nor his father would
+give their blessing to such a marriage. Nicholas, for the first time,
+felt that his mother was displeased with him and that, despite her love
+for him, she would not give way. Coldly, without looking at her son, she
+sent for her husband and, when he came, tried briefly and coldly to
+inform him of the facts, in her son's presence, but unable to restrain
+herself she burst into tears of vexation and left the room. The old
+count began irresolutely to admonish Nicholas and beg him to abandon his
+purpose. Nicholas replied that he could not go back on his word, and his
+father, sighing and evidently disconcerted, very soon became silent and
+went in to the countess. In all his encounters with his son, the count
+was always conscious of his own guilt toward him for having wasted the
+family fortune, and so he could not be angry with him for refusing to
+marry an heiress and choosing the dowerless Sónya. On this occasion, he
+was only more vividly conscious of the fact that if his affairs had not
+been in disorder, no better wife for Nicholas than Sónya could have been
+wished for, and that no one but himself with his Mitenka and his
+uncomfortable habits was to blame for the condition of the family
+finances.
+
+The father and mother did not speak of the matter to their son again,
+but a few days later the countess sent for Sónya and, with a cruelty
+neither of them expected, reproached her niece for trying to catch
+Nicholas and for ingratitude. Sónya listened silently with downcast eyes
+to the countess' cruel words, without understanding what was required of
+her. She was ready to sacrifice everything for her benefactors. Self-
+sacrifice was her most cherished idea but in this case she could not see
+what she ought to sacrifice, or for whom. She could not help loving the
+countess and the whole Rostóv family, but neither could she help loving
+Nicholas and knowing that his happiness depended on that love. She was
+silent and sad and did not reply. Nicholas felt the situation to be
+intolerable and went to have an explanation with his mother. He first
+implored her to forgive him and Sónya and consent to their marriage,
+then he threatened that if she molested Sónya he would at once marry her
+secretly.
+
+The countess, with a coldness her son had never seen in her before,
+replied that he was of age, that Prince Andrew was marrying without his
+father's consent, and he could do the same, but that she would never
+receive that intriguer as her daughter.
+
+Exploding at the word intriguer, Nicholas, raising his voice, told his
+mother he had never expected her to try to force him to sell his
+feelings, but if that were so, he would say for the last time.... But he
+had no time to utter the decisive word which the expression of his face
+caused his mother to await with terror, and which would perhaps have
+forever remained a cruel memory to them both. He had not time to say it,
+for Natásha, with a pale and set face, entered the room from the door at
+which she had been listening.
+
+"Nicholas, you are talking nonsense! Be quiet, be quiet, be quiet, I
+tell you!..." she almost screamed, so as to drown his voice.
+
+"Mamma darling, it's not at all so... my poor, sweet darling," she said
+to her mother, who conscious that they had been on the brink of a
+rupture gazed at her son with terror, but in the obstinacy and
+excitement of the conflict could not and would not give way.
+
+"Nicholas, I'll explain to you. Go away! Listen, Mamma darling," said
+Natásha.
+
+Her words were incoherent, but they attained the purpose at which she
+was aiming.
+
+The countess, sobbing heavily, hid her face on her daughter's breast,
+while Nicholas rose, clutching his head, and left the room.
+
+Natásha set to work to effect a reconciliation, and so far succeeded
+that Nicholas received a promise from his mother that Sónya should not
+be troubled, while he on his side promised not to undertake anything
+without his parents' knowledge.
+
+Firmly resolved, after putting his affairs in order in the regiment, to
+retire from the army and return and marry Sónya, Nicholas, serious,
+sorrowful, and at variance with his parents, but, as it seemed to him,
+passionately in love, left at the beginning of January to rejoin his
+regiment.
+
+After Nicholas had gone things in the Rostóv household were more
+depressing than ever, and the countess fell ill from mental agitation.
+
+Sónya was unhappy at the separation from Nicholas and still more so on
+account of the hostile tone the countess could not help adopting toward
+her. The count was more perturbed than ever by the condition of his
+affairs, which called for some decisive action. Their town house and
+estate near Moscow had inevitably to be sold, and for this they had to
+go to Moscow. But the countess' health obliged them to delay their
+departure from day to day.
+
+Natásha, who had borne the first period of separation from her betrothed
+lightly and even cheerfully, now grew more agitated and impatient every
+day. The thought that her best days, which she would have employed in
+loving him, were being vainly wasted, with no advantage to anyone,
+tormented her incessantly. His letters for the most part irritated her.
+It hurt her to think that while she lived only in the thought of him, he
+was living a real life, seeing new places and new people that interested
+him. The more interesting his letters were the more vexed she felt. Her
+letters to him, far from giving her any comfort, seemed to her a
+wearisome and artificial obligation. She could not write, because she
+could not conceive the possibility of expressing sincerely in a letter
+even a thousandth part of what she expressed by voice, smile, and
+glance. She wrote to him formal, monotonous, and dry letters, to which
+she attached no importance herself, and in the rough copies of which the
+countess corrected her mistakes in spelling.
+
+There was still no improvement in the countess' health, but it was
+impossible to defer the journey to Moscow any longer. Natásha's
+trousseau had to be ordered and the house sold. Moreover, Prince Andrew
+was expected in Moscow, where old Prince Bolkónski was spending the
+winter, and Natásha felt sure he had already arrived.
+
+So the countess remained in the country, and the count, taking Sónya and
+Natásha with him, went to Moscow at the end of January.
+
+
+
+
+
+BOOK EIGHT: 1811 - 12
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+After Prince Andrew's engagement to Natásha, Pierre without any apparent
+cause suddenly felt it impossible to go on living as before. Firmly
+convinced as he was of the truths revealed to him by his benefactor, and
+happy as he had been in perfecting his inner man, to which he had
+devoted himself with such ardor—all the zest of such a life vanished
+after the engagement of Andrew and Natásha and the death of Joseph
+Alexeevich, the news of which reached him almost at the same time. Only
+the skeleton of life remained: his house, a brilliant wife who now
+enjoyed the favors of a very important personage, acquaintance with all
+Petersburg, and his court service with its dull formalities. And this
+life suddenly seemed to Pierre unexpectedly loathsome. He ceased keeping
+a diary, avoided the company of the Brothers, began going to the club
+again, drank a great deal, and came once more in touch with the bachelor
+sets, leading such a life that the Countess Hélène thought it necessary
+to speak severely to him about it. Pierre felt that she was right, and
+to avoid compromising her went away to Moscow.
+
+In Moscow as soon as he entered his huge house in which the faded and
+fading princesses still lived, with its enormous retinue; as soon as,
+driving through the town, he saw the Iberian shrine with innumerable
+tapers burning before the golden covers of the icons, the Kremlin Square
+with its snow undisturbed by vehicles, the sleigh drivers and hovels of
+the Sivtsev Vrazhok, those old Moscovites who desired nothing, hurried
+nowhere, and were ending their days leisurely; when he saw those old
+Moscow ladies, the Moscow balls, and the English Club, he felt himself
+at home in a quiet haven. In Moscow he felt at peace, at home, warm and
+dirty as in an old dressing gown.
+
+Moscow society, from the old women down to the children, received Pierre
+like a long-expected guest whose place was always ready awaiting him.
+For Moscow society Pierre was the nicest, kindest, most intellectual,
+merriest, and most magnanimous of cranks, a heedless, genial nobleman of
+the old Russian type. His purse was always empty because it was open to
+everyone.
+
+Benefit performances, poor pictures, statues, benevolent societies,
+gypsy choirs, schools, subscription dinners, sprees, Freemasons,
+churches, and books—no one and nothing met with a refusal from him, and
+had it not been for two friends who had borrowed large sums from him and
+taken him under their protection, he would have given everything away.
+There was never a dinner or soiree at the club without him. As soon as
+he sank into his place on the sofa after two bottles of Margaux he was
+surrounded, and talking, disputing, and joking began. When there were
+quarrels, his kindly smile and well-timed jests reconciled the
+antagonists. The masonic dinners were dull and dreary when he was not
+there.
+
+When after a bachelor supper he rose with his amiable and kindly smile,
+yielding to the entreaties of the festive company to drive off somewhere
+with them, shouts of delight and triumph arose among the young men. At
+balls he danced if a partner was needed. Young ladies, married and
+unmarried, liked him because without making love to any of them, he was
+equally amiable to all, especially after supper. "Il est charmant; il
+n'a pas de sexe," * they said of him.
+
+* "He is charming; he has no sex."
+
+Pierre was one of those retired gentlemen-in-waiting of whom there were
+hundreds good-humoredly ending their days in Moscow.
+
+How horrified he would have been seven years before, when he first
+arrived from abroad, had he been told that there was no need for him to
+seek or plan anything, that his rut had long been shaped, eternally
+predetermined, and that wriggle as he might, he would be what all in his
+position were. He could not have believed it! Had he not at one time
+longed with all his heart to establish a republic in Russia; then
+himself to be a Napoleon; then to be a philosopher; and then a
+strategist and the conqueror of Napoleon? Had he not seen the
+possibility of, and passionately desired, the regeneration of the sinful
+human race, and his own progress to the highest degree of perfection?
+Had he not established schools and hospitals and liberated his serfs?
+
+But instead of all that—here he was, the wealthy husband of an
+unfaithful wife, a retired gentleman-in-waiting, fond of eating and
+drinking and, as he unbuttoned his waistcoat, of abusing the government
+a bit, a member of the Moscow English Club, and a universal favorite in
+Moscow society. For a long time he could not reconcile himself to the
+idea that he was one of those same retired Moscow gentlemen-in-waiting
+he had so despised seven years before.
+
+Sometimes he consoled himself with the thought that he was only living
+this life temporarily; but then he was shocked by the thought of how
+many, like himself, had entered that life and that club temporarily,
+with all their teeth and hair, and had only left it when not a single
+tooth or hair remained.
+
+In moments of pride, when he thought of his position it seemed to him
+that he was quite different and distinct from those other retired
+gentlemen-in-waiting he had formerly despised: they were empty, stupid,
+contented fellows, satisfied with their position, "while I am still
+discontented and want to do something for mankind. But perhaps all these
+comrades of mine struggled just like me and sought something new, a path
+in life of their own, and like me were brought by force of
+circumstances, society, and race—by that elemental force against which
+man is powerless—to the condition I am in," said he to himself in
+moments of humility; and after living some time in Moscow he no longer
+despised, but began to grow fond of, to respect, and to pity his
+comrades in destiny, as he pitied himself.
+
+Pierre no longer suffered moments of despair, hypochondria, and disgust
+with life, but the malady that had formerly found expression in such
+acute attacks was driven inwards and never left him for a moment. "What
+for? Why? What is going on in the world?" he would ask himself in
+perplexity several times a day, involuntarily beginning to reflect anew
+on the meaning of the phenomena of life; but knowing by experience that
+there were no answers to these questions he made haste to turn away from
+them, and took up a book, or hurried off to the club or to Apollon
+Nikoláevich's, to exchange the gossip of the town.
+
+"Hélène, who has never cared for anything but her own body and is one of
+the stupidest women in the world," thought Pierre, "is regarded by
+people as the acme of intelligence and refinement, and they pay homage
+to her. Napoleon Bonaparte was despised by all as long as he was great,
+but now that he has become a wretched comedian the Emperor Francis wants
+to offer him his daughter in an illegal marriage. The Spaniards, through
+the Catholic clergy, offer praise to God for their victory over the
+French on the fourteenth of June, and the French, also through the
+Catholic clergy, offer praise because on that same fourteenth of June
+they defeated the Spaniards. My brother Masons swear by the blood that
+they are ready to sacrifice everything for their neighbor, but they do
+not give a ruble each to the collections for the poor, and they
+intrigue, the Astraea Lodge against the Manna Seekers, and fuss about an
+authentic Scotch carpet and a charter that nobody needs, and the meaning
+of which the very man who wrote it does not understand. We all profess
+the Christian law of forgiveness of injuries and love of our neighbors,
+the law in honor of which we have built in Moscow forty times forty
+churches—but yesterday a deserter was knouted to death and a minister of
+that same law of love and forgiveness, a priest, gave the soldier a
+cross to kiss before his execution." So thought Pierre, and the whole of
+this general deception which everyone accepts, accustomed as he was to
+it, astonished him each time as if it were something new. "I understand
+the deception and confusion," he thought, "but how am I to tell them all
+that I see? I have tried, and have always found that they too in the
+depths of their souls understand it as I do, and only try not to see it.
+So it appears that it must be so! But I—what is to become of me?"
+thought he. He had the unfortunate capacity many men, especially
+Russians, have of seeing and believing in the possibility of goodness
+and truth, but of seeing the evil and falsehood of life too clearly to
+be able to take a serious part in it. Every sphere of work was
+connected, in his eyes, with evil and deception. Whatever he tried to
+be, whatever he engaged in, the evil and falsehood of it repulsed him
+and blocked every path of activity. Yet he had to live and to find
+occupation. It was too dreadful to be under the burden of these
+insoluble problems, so he abandoned himself to any distraction in order
+to forget them. He frequented every kind of society, drank much, bought
+pictures, engaged in building, and above all—read.
+
+He read, and read everything that came to hand. On coming home, while
+his valets were still taking off his things, he picked up a book and
+began to read. From reading he passed to sleeping, from sleeping to
+gossip in drawing rooms of the club, from gossip to carousals and women;
+from carousals back to gossip, reading, and wine. Drinking became more
+and more a physical and also a moral necessity. Though the doctors
+warned him that with his corpulence wine was dangerous for him, he drank
+a great deal. He was only quite at ease when having poured several
+glasses of wine mechanically into his large mouth he felt a pleasant
+warmth in his body, an amiability toward all his fellows, and a
+readiness to respond superficially to every idea without probing it
+deeply. Only after emptying a bottle or two did he feel dimly that the
+terribly tangled skein of life which previously had terrified him was
+not as dreadful as he had thought. He was always conscious of some
+aspect of that skein, as with a buzzing in his head after dinner or
+supper he chatted or listened to conversation or read. But under the
+influence of wine he said to himself: "It doesn't matter. I'll get it
+unraveled. I have a solution ready, but have no time now—I'll think it
+all out later on!" But the later on never came.
+
+In the morning, on an empty stomach, all the old questions appeared as
+insoluble and terrible as ever, and Pierre hastily picked up a book, and
+if anyone came to see him he was glad.
+
+Sometimes he remembered how he had heard that soldiers in war when
+entrenched under the enemy's fire, if they have nothing to do, try hard
+to find some occupation the more easily to bear the danger. To Pierre
+all men seemed like those soldiers, seeking refuge from life: some in
+ambition, some in cards, some in framing laws, some in women, some in
+toys, some in horses, some in politics, some in sport, some in wine, and
+some in governmental affairs. "Nothing is trivial, and nothing is
+important, it's all the same—only to save oneself from it as best one
+can," thought Pierre. "Only not to see it, that dreadful it!"
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+At the beginning of winter Prince Nicholas Bolkónski and his daughter
+moved to Moscow. At that time enthusiasm for the Emperor Alexander's
+regime had weakened and a patriotic and anti-French tendency prevailed
+there, and this, together with his past and his intellect and his
+originality, at once made Prince Nicholas Bolkónski an object of
+particular respect to the Moscovites and the center of the Moscow
+opposition to the government.
+
+The prince had aged very much that year. He showed marked signs of
+senility by a tendency to fall asleep, forgetfulness of quite recent
+events, remembrance of remote ones, and the childish vanity with which
+he accepted the role of head of the Moscow opposition. In spite of this
+the old man inspired in all his visitors alike a feeling of respectful
+veneration—especially of an evening when he came in to tea in his old-
+fashioned coat and powdered wig and, aroused by anyone, told his abrupt
+stories of the past, or uttered yet more abrupt and scathing criticisms
+of the present. For them all, that old-fashioned house with its gigantic
+mirrors, pre-Revolution furniture, powdered footmen, and the stern
+shrewd old man (himself a relic of the past century) with his gentle
+daughter and the pretty Frenchwoman who were reverently devoted to him
+presented a majestic and agreeable spectacle. But the visitors did not
+reflect that besides the couple of hours during which they saw their
+host, there were also twenty-two hours in the day during which the
+private and intimate life of the house continued.
+
+Latterly that private life had become very trying for Princess Mary.
+There in Moscow she was deprived of her greatest pleasures—talks with
+the pilgrims and the solitude which refreshed her at Bald Hills—and she
+had none of the advantages and pleasures of city life. She did not go
+out into society; everyone knew that her father would not let her go
+anywhere without him, and his failing health prevented his going out
+himself, so that she was not invited to dinners and evening parties. She
+had quite abandoned the hope of getting married. She saw the coldness
+and malevolence with which the old prince received and dismissed the
+young men, possible suitors, who sometimes appeared at their house. She
+had no friends: during this visit to Moscow she had been disappointed in
+the two who had been nearest to her. Mademoiselle Bourienne, with whom
+she had never been able to be quite frank, had now become unpleasant to
+her, and for various reasons Princess Mary avoided her. Julie, with whom
+she had corresponded for the last five years, was in Moscow, but proved
+to be quite alien to her when they met. Just then Julie, who by the
+death of her brothers had become one of the richest heiresses in Moscow,
+was in the full whirl of society pleasures. She was surrounded by young
+men who, she fancied, had suddenly learned to appreciate her worth.
+Julie was at that stage in the life of a society woman when she feels
+that her last chance of marrying has come and that her fate must be
+decided now or never. On Thursdays Princess Mary remembered with a
+mournful smile that she now had no one to write to, since Julie—whose
+presence gave her no pleasure was here and they met every week. Like the
+old emigre who declined to marry the lady with whom he had spent his
+evenings for years, she regretted Julie's presence and having no one to
+write to. In Moscow Princess Mary had no one to talk to, no one to whom
+to confide her sorrow, and much sorrow fell to her lot just then. The
+time for Prince Andrew's return and marriage was approaching, but his
+request to her to prepare his father for it had not been carried out; in
+fact, it seemed as if matters were quite hopeless, for at every mention
+of the young Countess Rostóva the old prince (who apart from that was
+usually in a bad temper) lost control of himself. Another lately added
+sorrow arose from the lessons she gave her six year-old nephew. To her
+consternation she detected in herself in relation to little Nicholas
+some symptoms of her father's irritability. However often she told
+herself that she must not get irritable when teaching her nephew, almost
+every time that, pointer in hand, she sat down to show him the French
+alphabet, she so longed to pour her own knowledge quickly and easily
+into the child—who was already afraid that Auntie might at any moment
+get angry—that at his slightest inattention she trembled, became
+flustered and heated, raised her voice, and sometimes pulled him by the
+arm and put him in the corner. Having put him in the corner she would
+herself begin to cry over her cruel, evil nature, and little Nicholas,
+following her example, would sob, and without permission would leave his
+corner, come to her, pull her wet hands from her face, and comfort her.
+But what distressed the princess most of all was her father's
+irritability, which was always directed against her and had of late
+amounted to cruelty. Had he forced her to prostrate herself to the
+ground all night, had he beaten her or made her fetch wood or water, it
+would never have entered her mind to think her position hard; but this
+loving despot—the more cruel because he loved her and for that reason
+tormented himself and her—knew how not merely to hurt and humiliate her
+deliberately, but to show her that she was always to blame for
+everything. Of late he had exhibited a new trait that tormented Princess
+Mary more than anything else; this was his ever-increasing intimacy with
+Mademoiselle Bourienne. The idea that at the first moment of receiving
+the news of his son's intentions had occurred to him in jest—that if
+Andrew got married he himself would marry Bourienne—had evidently
+pleased him, and latterly he had persistently, and as it seemed to
+Princess Mary merely to offend her, shown special endearments to the
+companion and expressed his dissatisfaction with his daughter by
+demonstrations of love of Bourienne.
+
+One day in Moscow in Princess Mary's presence (she thought her father
+did it purposely when she was there) the old prince kissed Mademoiselle
+Bourienne's hand and, drawing her to him, embraced her affectionately.
+Princess Mary flushed and ran out of the room. A few minutes later
+Mademoiselle Bourienne came into Princess Mary's room smiling and making
+cheerful remarks in her agreeable voice. Princess Mary hastily wiped
+away her tears, went resolutely up to Mademoiselle Bourienne, and
+evidently unconscious of what she was doing began shouting in angry
+haste at the Frenchwoman, her voice breaking: "It's horrible, vile,
+inhuman, to take advantage of the weakness..." She did not finish.
+"Leave my room," she exclaimed, and burst into sobs.
+
+Next day the prince did not say a word to his daughter, but she noticed
+that at dinner he gave orders that Mademoiselle Bourienne should be
+served first. After dinner, when the footman handed coffee and from
+habit began with the princess, the prince suddenly grew furious, threw
+his stick at Philip, and instantly gave instructions to have him
+conscripted for the army.
+
+"He doesn't obey... I said it twice... and he doesn't obey! She is the
+first person in this house; she's my best friend," cried the prince.
+"And if you allow yourself," he screamed in a fury, addressing Princess
+Mary for the first time, "to forget yourself again before her as you
+dared to do yesterday, I will show you who is master in this house. Go!
+Don't let me set eyes on you; beg her pardon!"
+
+Princess Mary asked Mademoiselle Bourienne's pardon, and also her
+father's pardon for herself and for Philip the footman, who had begged
+for her intervention.
+
+At such moments something like a pride of sacrifice gathered in her
+soul. And suddenly that father whom she had judged would look for his
+spectacles in her presence, fumbling near them and not seeing them, or
+would forget something that had just occurred, or take a false step with
+his failing legs and turn to see if anyone had noticed his feebleness,
+or, worst of all, at dinner when there were no visitors to excite him
+would suddenly fall asleep, letting his napkin drop and his shaking head
+sink over his plate. "He is old and feeble, and I dare to condemn him!"
+she thought at such moments, with a feeling of revulsion against
+herself.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+In 1811 there was living in Moscow a French doctor—Metivier—who had
+rapidly become the fashion. He was enormously tall, handsome, amiable as
+Frenchmen are, and was, as all Moscow said, an extraordinarily clever
+doctor. He was received in the best houses not merely as a doctor, but
+as an equal.
+
+Prince Nicholas had always ridiculed medicine, but latterly on
+Mademoiselle Bourienne's advice had allowed this doctor to visit him and
+had grown accustomed to him. Metivier came to see the prince about twice
+a week.
+
+On December 6—St. Nicholas' Day and the prince's name day—all Moscow
+came to the prince's front door but he gave orders to admit no one and
+to invite to dinner only a small number, a list of whom he gave to
+Princess Mary.
+
+Metivier, who came in the morning with his felicitations, considered it
+proper in his quality of doctor de forcer la consigne, * as he told
+Princess Mary, and went in to see the prince. It happened that on that
+morning of his name day the prince was in one of his worst moods. He had
+been going about the house all the morning finding fault with everyone
+and pretending not to understand what was said to him and not to be
+understood himself. Princess Mary well knew this mood of quiet absorbed
+querulousness, which generally culminated in a burst of rage, and she
+went about all that morning as though facing a cocked and loaded gun and
+awaited the inevitable explosion. Until the doctor's arrival the morning
+had passed off safely. After admitting the doctor, Princess Mary sat
+down with a book in the drawing room near the door through which she
+could hear all that passed in the study.
+
+* To force the guard.
+
+At first she heard only Metivier's voice, then her father's, then both
+voices began speaking at the same time, the door was flung open, and on
+the threshold appeared the handsome figure of the terrified Metivier
+with his shock of black hair, and the prince in his dressing gown and
+fez, his face distorted with fury and the pupils of his eyes rolled
+downwards.
+
+"You don't understand?" shouted the prince, "but I do! French spy, slave
+of Buonaparte, spy, get out of my house! Be off, I tell you..."
+
+Metivier, shrugging his shoulders, went up to Mademoiselle Bourienne who
+at the sound of shouting had run in from an adjoining room.
+
+"The prince is not very well: bile and rush of blood to the head. Keep
+calm, I will call again tomorrow," said Metivier; and putting his
+fingers to his lips he hastened away.
+
+Through the study door came the sound of slippered feet and the cry:
+"Spies, traitors, traitors everywhere! Not a moment's peace in my own
+house!"
+
+After Metivier's departure the old prince called his daughter in, and
+the whole weight of his wrath fell on her. She was to blame that a spy
+had been admitted. Had he not told her, yes, told her to make a list,
+and not to admit anyone who was not on that list? Then why was that
+scoundrel admitted? She was the cause of it all. With her, he said, he
+could not have a moment's peace and could not die quietly.
+
+"No, ma'am! We must part, we must part! Understand that, understand it!
+I cannot endure any more," he said, and left the room. Then, as if
+afraid she might find some means of consolation, he returned and trying
+to appear calm added: "And don't imagine I have said this in a moment of
+anger. I am calm. I have thought it over, and it will be carried out—we
+must part; so find some place for yourself...." But he could not
+restrain himself and with the virulence of which only one who loves is
+capable, evidently suffering himself, he shook his fists at her and
+screamed:
+
+"If only some fool would marry her!" Then he slammed the door, sent for
+Mademoiselle Bourienne, and subsided into his study.
+
+At two o'clock the six chosen guests assembled for dinner.
+
+These guests—the famous Count Rostopchin, Prince Lopukhin with his
+nephew, General Chatrov an old war comrade of the prince's, and of the
+younger generation Pierre and Borís Drubetskóy—awaited the prince in the
+drawing room.
+
+Borís, who had come to Moscow on leave a few days before, had been
+anxious to be presented to Prince Nicholas Bolkónski, and had contrived
+to ingratiate himself so well that the old prince in his case made an
+exception to the rule of not receiving bachelors in his house.
+
+The prince's house did not belong to what is known as fashionable
+society, but his little circle—though not much talked about in town—was
+one it was more flattering to be received in than any other. Borís had
+realized this the week before when the commander-in-chief in his
+presence invited Rostopchin to dinner on St. Nicholas' Day, and
+Rostopchin had replied that he could not come:
+
+"On that day I always go to pay my devotions to the relics of Prince
+Nicholas Bolkónski."
+
+"Oh, yes, yes!" replied the commander-in-chief. "How is he?..."
+
+The small group that assembled before dinner in the lofty old-fashioned
+drawing room with its old furniture resembled the solemn gathering of a
+court of justice. All were silent or talked in low tones. Prince
+Nicholas came in serious and taciturn. Princess Mary seemed even quieter
+and more diffident than usual. The guests were reluctant to address her,
+feeling that she was in no mood for their conversation. Count Rostopchin
+alone kept the conversation going, now relating the latest town news,
+and now the latest political gossip.
+
+Lopukhin and the old general occasionally took part in the conversation.
+Prince Bolkónski listened as a presiding judge receives a report, only
+now and then, silently or by a brief word, showing that he took heed of
+what was being reported to him. The tone of the conversation was such as
+indicated that no one approved of what was being done in the political
+world. Incidents were related evidently confirming the opinion that
+everything was going from bad to worse, but whether telling a story or
+giving an opinion the speaker always stopped, or was stopped, at the
+point beyond which his criticism might touch the sovereign himself.
+
+At dinner the talk turned on the latest political news: Napoleon's
+seizure of the Duke of Oldenburg's territory, and the Russian Note,
+hostile to Napoleon, which had been sent to all the European courts.
+
+"Bonaparte treats Europe as a pirate does a captured vessel," said Count
+Rostopchin, repeating a phrase he had uttered several times before. "One
+only wonders at the long-suffering or blindness of the crowned heads.
+Now the Pope's turn has come and Bonaparte doesn't scruple to depose the
+head of the Catholic Church—yet all keep silent! Our sovereign alone has
+protested against the seizure of the Duke of Oldenburg's territory, and
+even..." Count Rostopchin paused, feeling that he had reached the limit
+beyond which censure was impossible.
+
+"Other territories have been offered in exchange for the Duchy of
+Oldenburg," said Prince Bolkónski. "He shifts the Dukes about as I might
+move my serfs from Bald Hills to Bogucharovo or my Ryazan estates."
+
+"The Duke of Oldenburg bears his misfortunes with admirable strength of
+character and resignation," remarked Borís, joining in respectfully.
+
+He said this because on his journey from Petersburg he had had the honor
+of being presented to the Duke. Prince Bolkónski glanced at the young
+man as if about to say something in reply, but changed his mind,
+evidently considering him too young.
+
+"I have read our protests about the Oldenburg affair and was surprised
+how badly the Note was worded," remarked Count Rostopchin in the casual
+tone of a man dealing with a subject quite familiar to him.
+
+Pierre looked at Rostopchin with naïve astonishment, not understanding
+why he should be disturbed by the bad composition of the Note.
+
+"Does it matter, Count, how the Note is worded," he asked, "so long as
+its substance is forcible?"
+
+"My dear fellow, with our five hundred thousand troops it should be easy
+to have a good style," returned Count Rostopchin.
+
+Pierre now understood the count's dissatisfaction with the wording of
+the Note.
+
+"One would have thought quill drivers enough had sprung up," remarked
+the old prince. "There in Petersburg they are always writing—not notes
+only but even new laws. My Andrew there has written a whole volume of
+laws for Russia. Nowadays they are always writing!" and he laughed
+unnaturally.
+
+There was a momentary pause in the conversation; the old general cleared
+his throat to draw attention.
+
+"Did you hear of the last event at the review in Petersburg? The figure
+cut by the new French ambassador."
+
+"Eh? Yes, I heard something: he said something awkward in His Majesty's
+presence."
+
+"His Majesty drew attention to the Grenadier division and to the march
+past," continued the general, "and it seems the ambassador took no
+notice and allowed himself to reply that: 'We in France pay no attention
+to such trifles!' The Emperor did not condescend to reply. At the next
+review, they say, the Emperor did not once deign to address him."
+
+All were silent. On this fact relating to the Emperor personally, it was
+impossible to pass any judgment.
+
+"Impudent fellows!" said the prince. "You know Metivier? I turned him
+out of my house this morning. He was here; they admitted him in spite of
+my request that they should let no one in," he went on, glancing angrily
+at his daughter.
+
+And he narrated his whole conversation with the French doctor and the
+reasons that convinced him that Metivier was a spy. Though these reasons
+were very insufficient and obscure, no one made any rejoinder.
+
+After the roast, champagne was served. The guests rose to congratulate
+the old prince. Princess Mary, too, went round to him.
+
+He gave her a cold, angry look and offered her his wrinkled, clean-
+shaven cheek to kiss. The whole expression of his face told her that he
+had not forgotten the morning's talk, that his decision remained in
+force, and only the presence of visitors hindered his speaking of it to
+her now.
+
+When they went into the drawing room where coffee was served, the old
+men sat together.
+
+Prince Nicholas grew more animated and expressed his views on the
+impending war.
+
+He said that our wars with Bonaparte would be disastrous so long as we
+sought alliances with the Germans and thrust ourselves into European
+affairs, into which we had been drawn by the Peace of Tilsit. "We ought
+not to fight either for or against Austria. Our political interests are
+all in the East, and in regard to Bonaparte the only thing is to have an
+armed frontier and a firm policy, and he will never dare to cross the
+Russian frontier, as was the case in 1807!"
+
+"How can we fight the French, Prince?" said Count Rostopchin. "Can we
+arm ourselves against our teachers and divinities? Look at our youths,
+look at our ladies! The French are our Gods: Paris is our Kingdom of
+Heaven."
+
+He began speaking louder, evidently to be heard by everyone.
+
+"French dresses, French ideas, French feelings! There now, you turned
+Metivier out by the scruff of his neck because he is a Frenchman and a
+scoundrel, but our ladies crawl after him on their knees. I went to a
+party last night, and there out of five ladies three were Roman
+Catholics and had the Pope's indulgence for doing woolwork on Sundays.
+And they themselves sit there nearly naked, like the signboards at our
+Public Baths if I may say so. Ah, when one looks at our young people,
+Prince, one would like to take Peter the Great's old cudgel out of the
+museum and belabor them in the Russian way till all the nonsense jumps
+out of them."
+
+All were silent. The old prince looked at Rostopchin with a smile and
+wagged his head approvingly.
+
+"Well, good-by, your excellency, keep well!" said Rostopchin, getting up
+with characteristic briskness and holding out his hand to the prince.
+
+"Good-bye, my dear fellow.... His words are music, I never tire of
+hearing him!" said the old prince, keeping hold of the hand and offering
+his cheek to be kissed.
+
+Following Rostopchin's example the others also rose.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+Princess Mary as she sat listening to the old men's talk and
+faultfinding, understood nothing of what she heard; she only wondered
+whether the guests had all observed her father's hostile attitude toward
+her. She did not even notice the special attentions and amiabilities
+shown her during dinner by Borís Drubetskóy, who was visiting them for
+the third time already.
+
+Princess Mary turned with absent-minded questioning look to Pierre, who
+hat in hand and with a smile on his face was the last of the guests to
+approach her after the old prince had gone out and they were left alone
+in the drawing room.
+
+"May I stay a little longer?" he said, letting his stout body sink into
+an armchair beside her.
+
+"Oh yes," she answered. "You noticed nothing?" her look asked.
+
+Pierre was in an agreeable after-dinner mood. He looked straight before
+him and smiled quietly.
+
+"Have you known that young man long, Princess?" he asked.
+
+"Who?"
+
+"Drubetskóy."
+
+"No, not long..."
+
+"Do you like him?"
+
+"Yes, he is an agreeable young man.... Why do you ask me that?" said
+Princess Mary, still thinking of that morning's conversation with her
+father.
+
+"Because I have noticed that when a young man comes on leave from
+Petersburg to Moscow it is usually with the object of marrying an
+heiress."
+
+"You have observed that?" said Princess Mary.
+
+"Yes," returned Pierre with a smile, "and this young man now manages
+matters so that where there is a wealthy heiress there he is too. I can
+read him like a book. At present he is hesitating whom to lay siege
+to—you or Mademoiselle Julie Karágina. He is very attentive to her."
+
+"He visits them?"
+
+"Yes, very often. And do you know the new way of courting?" said Pierre
+with an amused smile, evidently in that cheerful mood of good humored
+raillery for which he so often reproached himself in his diary.
+
+"No," replied Princess Mary.
+
+"To please Moscow girls nowadays one has to be melancholy. He is very
+melancholy with Mademoiselle Karágina," said Pierre.
+
+"Really?" asked Princess Mary, looking into Pierre's kindly face and
+still thinking of her own sorrow. "It would be a relief," thought she,
+"if I ventured to confide what I am feeling to someone. I should like to
+tell everything to Pierre. He is kind and generous. It would be a
+relief. He would give me advice."
+
+"Would you marry him?"
+
+"Oh, my God, Count, there are moments when I would marry anybody!" she
+cried suddenly to her own surprise and with tears in her voice. "Ah, how
+bitter it is to love someone near to you and to feel that..." she went
+on in a trembling voice, "that you can do nothing for him but grieve
+him, and to know that you cannot alter this. Then there is only one
+thing left—to go away, but where could I go?"
+
+"What is wrong? What is it, Princess?"
+
+But without finishing what she was saying, Princess Mary burst into
+tears.
+
+"I don't know what is the matter with me today. Don't take any
+notice—forget what I have said!"
+
+Pierre's gaiety vanished completely. He anxiously questioned the
+princess, asked her to speak out fully and confide her grief to him; but
+she only repeated that she begged him to forget what she had said, that
+she did not remember what she had said, and that she had no trouble
+except the one he knew of—that Prince Andrew's marriage threatened to
+cause a rupture between father and son.
+
+"Have you any news of the Rostóvs?" she asked, to change the subject. "I
+was told they are coming soon. I am also expecting Andrew any day. I
+should like them to meet here."
+
+"And how does he now regard the matter?" asked Pierre, referring to the
+old prince.
+
+Princess Mary shook her head.
+
+"What is to be done? In a few months the year will be up. The thing is
+impossible. I only wish I could spare my brother the first moments. I
+wish they would come sooner. I hope to be friends with her. You have
+known them a long time," said Princess Mary. "Tell me honestly the whole
+truth: what sort of girl is she, and what do you think of her?—The real
+truth, because you know Andrew is risking so much doing this against his
+father's will that I should like to know..."
+
+An undefined instinct told Pierre that these explanations, and repeated
+requests to be told the whole truth, expressed ill-will on the princess'
+part toward her future sister-in-law and a wish that he should
+disapprove of Andrew's choice; but in reply he said what he felt rather
+than what he thought.
+
+"I don't know how to answer your question," he said, blushing without
+knowing why. "I really don't know what sort of girl she is; I can't
+analyze her at all. She is enchanting, but what makes her so I don't
+know. That is all one can say about her."
+
+Princess Mary sighed, and the expression on her face said: "Yes, that's
+what I expected and feared."
+
+"Is she clever?" she asked.
+
+Pierre considered.
+
+"I think not," he said, "and yet—yes. She does not deign to be
+clever.... Oh no, she is simply enchanting, and that is all."
+
+Princess Mary again shook her head disapprovingly.
+
+"Ah, I so long to like her! Tell her so if you see her before I do."
+
+"I hear they are expected very soon," said Pierre.
+
+Princess Mary told Pierre of her plan to become intimate with her future
+sister-in-law as soon as the Rostóvs arrived and to try to accustom the
+old prince to her.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+Borís had not succeeded in making a wealthy match in Petersburg, so with
+the same object in view he came to Moscow. There he wavered between the
+two richest heiresses, Julie and Princess Mary. Though Princess Mary
+despite her plainness seemed to him more attractive than Julie, he,
+without knowing why, felt awkward about paying court to her. When they
+had last met on the old prince's name day, she had answered at random
+all his attempts to talk sentimentally, evidently not listening to what
+he was saying.
+
+Julie on the contrary accepted his attentions readily, though in a
+manner peculiar to herself.
+
+She was twenty-seven. After the death of her brothers she had become
+very wealthy. She was by now decidedly plain, but thought herself not
+merely as good-looking as before but even far more attractive. She was
+confirmed in this delusion by the fact that she had become a very
+wealthy heiress and also by the fact that the older she grew the less
+dangerous she became to men, and the more freely they could associate
+with her and avail themselves of her suppers, soirees, and the animated
+company that assembled at her house, without incurring any obligation. A
+man who would have been afraid ten years before of going every day to
+the house when there was a girl of seventeen there, for fear of
+compromising her and committing himself, would now go boldly every day
+and treat her not as a marriageable girl but as a sexless acquaintance.
+
+That winter the Karagins' house was the most agreeable and hospitable in
+Moscow. In addition to the formal evening and dinner parties, a large
+company, chiefly of men, gathered there every day, supping at midnight
+and staying till three in the morning. Julie never missed a ball, a
+promenade, or a play. Her dresses were always of the latest fashion. But
+in spite of that she seemed to be disillusioned about everything and
+told everyone that she did not believe either in friendship or in love,
+or any of the joys of life, and expected peace only "yonder." She
+adopted the tone of one who has suffered a great disappointment, like a
+girl who has either lost the man she loved or been cruelly deceived by
+him. Though nothing of the kind had happened to her she was regarded in
+that light, and had even herself come to believe that she had suffered
+much in life. This melancholy, which did not prevent her amusing
+herself, did not hinder the young people who came to her house from
+passing the time pleasantly. Every visitor who came to the house paid
+his tribute to the melancholy mood of the hostess, and then amused
+himself with society gossip, dancing, intellectual games, and bouts
+rimes, which were in vogue at the Karagins'. Only a few of these young
+men, among them Borís, entered more deeply into Julie's melancholy, and
+with these she had prolonged conversations in private on the vanity of
+all worldly things, and to them she showed her albums filled with
+mournful sketches, maxims, and verses.
+
+To Borís, Julie was particularly gracious: she regretted his early
+disillusionment with life, offered him such consolation of friendship as
+she who had herself suffered so much could render, and showed him her
+album. Borís sketched two trees in the album and wrote: "Rustic trees,
+your dark branches shed gloom and melancholy upon me."
+
+On another page he drew a tomb, and wrote:
+
+La mort est secourable et la mort est tranquille. Ah! contre les
+douleurs il n'y a pas d'autre asile. *
+
+* Death gives relief and death is peaceful.
+
+Ah! from suffering there is no other refuge.
+
+Julie said this was charming
+
+"There is something so enchanting in the smile of melancholy," she said
+to Borís, repeating word for word a passage she had copied from a book.
+"It is a ray of light in the darkness, a shade between sadness and
+despair, showing the possibility of consolation."
+
+In reply Borís wrote these lines:
+
+Aliment de poison d'une ame trop sensible, Toi, sans qui le bonheur me
+serait impossible, Tendre melancholie, ah, viens me consoler, Viens
+calmer les tourments de ma sombre retraite, Et mele une douceur secrete
+A ces pleurs que je sens couler. *
+
+*Poisonous nourishment of a too sensitive soul, Thou, without whom
+happiness would for me be impossible, Tender melancholy, ah, come to
+console me, Come to calm the torments of my gloomy retreat, And mingle a
+secret sweetness With these tears that I feel to be flowing.
+
+For Borís, Julie played most doleful nocturnes on her harp. Borís read
+'Poor Liza' aloud to her, and more than once interrupted the reading
+because of the emotions that choked him. Meeting at large gatherings
+Julie and Borís looked on one another as the only souls who understood
+one another in a world of indifferent people.
+
+Anna Mikháylovna, who often visited the Karagins, while playing cards
+with the mother made careful inquiries as to Julie's dowry (she was to
+have two estates in Penza and the Nizhegorod forests). Anna Mikháylovna
+regarded the refined sadness that united her son to the wealthy Julie
+with emotion, and resignation to the Divine will.
+
+"You are always charming and melancholy, my dear Julie," she said to the
+daughter. "Borís says his soul finds repose at your house. He has
+suffered so many disappointments and is so sensitive," said she to the
+mother. "Ah, my dear, I can't tell you how fond I have grown of Julie
+latterly," she said to her son. "But who could help loving her? She is
+an angelic being! Ah, Borís, Borís!"—she paused. "And how I pity her
+mother," she went on; "today she showed me her accounts and letters from
+Penza (they have enormous estates there), and she, poor thing, has no
+one to help her, and they do cheat her so!"
+
+Borís smiled almost imperceptibly while listening to his mother. He
+laughed blandly at her naïve diplomacy but listened to what she had to
+say, and sometimes questioned her carefully about the Penza and
+Nizhegorod estates.
+
+Julie had long been expecting a proposal from her melancholy adorer and
+was ready to accept it; but some secret feeling of repulsion for her,
+for her passionate desire to get married, for her artificiality, and a
+feeling of horror at renouncing the possibility of real love still
+restrained Borís. His leave was expiring. He spent every day and whole
+days at the Karagins', and every day on thinking the matter over told
+himself that he would propose tomorrow. But in Julie's presence, looking
+at her red face and chin (nearly always powdered), her moist eyes, and
+her expression of continual readiness to pass at once from melancholy to
+an unnatural rapture of married bliss, Borís could not utter the
+decisive words, though in imagination he had long regarded himself as
+the possessor of those Penza and Nizhegorod estates and had apportioned
+the use of the income from them. Julie saw Borís' indecision, and
+sometimes the thought occurred to her that she was repulsive to him, but
+her feminine self-deception immediately supplied her with consolation,
+and she told herself that he was only shy from love. Her melancholy,
+however, began to turn to irritability, and not long before Borís'
+departure she formed a definite plan of action. Just as Borís' leave of
+absence was expiring, Anatole Kurágin made his appearance in Moscow, and
+of course in the Karagins' drawing room, and Julie, suddenly abandoning
+her melancholy, became cheerful and very attentive to Kurágin.
+
+"My dear," said Anna Mikháylovna to her son, "I know from a reliable
+source that Prince Vasíli has sent his son to Moscow to get him married
+to Julie. I am so fond of Julie that I should be sorry for her. What do
+you think of it, my dear?"
+
+The idea of being made a fool of and of having thrown away that whole
+month of arduous melancholy service to Julie, and of seeing all the
+revenue from the Penza estates which he had already mentally apportioned
+and put to proper use fall into the hands of another, and especially
+into the hands of that idiot Anatole, pained Borís. He drove to the
+Karagins' with the firm intention of proposing. Julie met him in a gay,
+careless manner, spoke casually of how she had enjoyed yesterday's ball,
+and asked when he was leaving. Though Borís had come intentionally to
+speak of his love and therefore meant to be tender, he began speaking
+irritably of feminine inconstancy, of how easily women can turn from
+sadness to joy, and how their moods depend solely on who happens to be
+paying court to them. Julie was offended and replied that it was true
+that a woman needs variety, and the same thing over and over again would
+weary anyone.
+
+"Then I should advise you..." Borís began, wishing to sting her; but at
+that instant the galling thought occurred to him that he might have to
+leave Moscow without having accomplished his aim, and have vainly wasted
+his efforts—which was a thing he never allowed to happen.
+
+He checked himself in the middle of the sentence, lowered his eyes to
+avoid seeing her unpleasantly irritated and irresolute face, and said:
+
+"I did not come here at all to quarrel with you. On the contrary..."
+
+He glanced at her to make sure that he might go on. Her irritability had
+suddenly quite vanished, and her anxious, imploring eyes were fixed on
+him with greedy expectation. "I can always arrange so as not to see her
+often," thought Borís. "The affair has been begun and must be finished!"
+He blushed hotly, raised his eyes to hers, and said:
+
+"You know my feelings for you!"
+
+There was no need to say more: Julie's face shone with triumph and self-
+satisfaction; but she forced Borís to say all that is said on such
+occasions—that he loved her and had never loved any other woman more
+than her. She knew that for the Penza estates and Nizhegorod forests she
+could demand this, and she received what she demanded.
+
+The affianced couple, no longer alluding to trees that shed gloom and
+melancholy upon them, planned the arrangements of a splendid house in
+Petersburg, paid calls, and prepared everything for a brilliant wedding.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+At the end of January old Count Rostóv went to Moscow with Natásha and
+Sónya. The countess was still unwell and unable to travel but it was
+impossible to wait for her recovery. Prince Andrew was expected in
+Moscow any day, the trousseau had to be ordered and the estate near
+Moscow had to be sold, besides which the opportunity of presenting his
+future daughter-in-law to old Prince Bolkónski while he was in Moscow
+could not be missed. The Rostóvs' Moscow house had not been heated that
+winter and, as they had come only for a short time and the countess was
+not with them, the count decided to stay with Márya Dmítrievna
+Akhrosímova, who had long been pressing her hospitality on them.
+
+Late one evening the Rostóvs' four sleighs drove into Márya Dmítrievna's
+courtyard in the old Konyusheny street. Márya Dmítrievna lived alone.
+She had already married off her daughter, and her sons were all in the
+service.
+
+She held herself as erect, told everyone her opinion as candidly,
+loudly, and bluntly as ever, and her whole bearing seemed a reproach to
+others for any weakness, passion, or temptation—the possibility of which
+she did not admit. From early in the morning, wearing a dressing jacket,
+she attended to her household affairs, and then she drove out: on holy
+days to church and after the service to jails and prisons on affairs of
+which she never spoke to anyone. On ordinary days, after dressing, she
+received petitioners of various classes, of whom there were always some.
+Then she had dinner, a substantial and appetizing meal at which there
+were always three or four guests; after dinner she played a game of
+boston, and at night she had the newspapers or a new book read to her
+while she knitted. She rarely made an exception and went out to pay
+visits, and then only to the most important persons in the town.
+
+She had not yet gone to bed when the Rostóvs arrived and the pulley of
+the hall door squeaked from the cold as it let in the Rostóvs and their
+servants. Márya Dmítrievna, with her spectacles hanging down on her nose
+and her head flung back, stood in the hall doorway looking with a stern,
+grim face at the new arrivals. One might have thought she was angry with
+the travelers and would immediately turn them out, had she not at the
+same time been giving careful instructions to the servants for the
+accommodation of the visitors and their belongings.
+
+"The count's things? Bring them here," she said, pointing to the
+portmanteaus and not greeting anyone. "The young ladies'? There to the
+left. Now what are you dawdling for?" she cried to the maids. "Get the
+samovar ready!... You've grown plumper and prettier," she remarked,
+drawing Natásha (whose cheeks were glowing from the cold) to her by the
+hood. "Foo! You are cold! Now take off your things, quick!" she shouted
+to the count who was going to kiss her hand. "You're half frozen, I'm
+sure! Bring some rum for tea!... Bonjour, Sónya dear!" she added,
+turning to Sónya and indicating by this French greeting her slightly
+contemptuous though affectionate attitude toward her.
+
+When they came in to tea, having taken off their outdoor things and
+tidied themselves up after their journey, Márya Dmítrievna kissed them
+all in due order.
+
+"I'm heartily glad you have come and are staying with me. It was high
+time," she said, giving Natásha a significant look. "The old man is here
+and his son's expected any day. You'll have to make his acquaintance.
+But we'll speak of that later on," she added, glancing at Sónya with a
+look that showed she did not want to speak of it in her presence. "Now
+listen," she said to the count. "What do you want tomorrow? Whom will
+you send for? Shinshín?" she crooked one of her fingers. "The sniveling
+Anna Mikháylovna? That's two. She's here with her son. The son is
+getting married! Then Bezúkhov, eh? He is here too, with his wife. He
+ran away from her and she came galloping after him. He dined with me on
+Wednesday. As for them"—and she pointed to the girls—"tomorrow I'll take
+them first to the Iberian shrine of the Mother of God, and then we'll
+drive to the Super-Rogue's. I suppose you'll have everything new. Don't
+judge by me: sleeves nowadays are this size! The other day young
+Princess Irina Vasilevna came to see me; she was an awful sight—looked
+as if she had put two barrels on her arms. You know not a day passes now
+without some new fashion.... And what have you to do yourself?" she
+asked the count sternly.
+
+"One thing has come on top of another: her rags to buy, and now a
+purchaser has turned up for the Moscow estate and for the house. If you
+will be so kind, I'll fix a time and go down to the estate just for a
+day, and leave my lassies with you."
+
+"All right. All right. They'll be safe with me, as safe as in Chancery!
+I'll take them where they must go, scold them a bit, and pet them a
+bit," said Márya Dmítrievna, touching her goddaughter and favorite,
+Natásha, on the cheek with her large hand.
+
+Next morning Márya Dmítrievna took the young ladies to the Iberian
+shrine of the Mother of God and to Madame Suppert-Roguet, who was so
+afraid of Márya Dmítrievna that she always let her have costumes at a
+loss merely to get rid of her. Márya Dmítrievna ordered almost the whole
+trousseau. When they got home she turned everybody out of the room
+except Natásha, and then called her pet to her armchair.
+
+"Well, now we'll talk. I congratulate you on your betrothed. You've
+hooked a fine fellow! I am glad for your sake and I've known him since
+he was so high." She held her hand a couple of feet from the ground.
+Natásha blushed happily. "I like him and all his family. Now listen! You
+know that old Prince Nicholas much dislikes his son's marrying. The old
+fellow's crotchety! Of course Prince Andrew is not a child and can shift
+without him, but it's not nice to enter a family against a father's
+will. One wants to do it peacefully and lovingly. You're a clever girl
+and you'll know how to manage. Be kind, and use your wits. Then all will
+be well."
+
+Natásha remained silent, from shyness Márya Dmítrievna supposed, but
+really because she disliked anyone interfering in what touched her love
+of Prince Andrew, which seemed to her so apart from all human affairs
+that no one could understand it. She loved and knew Prince Andrew, he
+loved her only, and was to come one of these days and take her. She
+wanted nothing more.
+
+"You see I have known him a long time and am also fond of Mary, your
+future sister-in-law. 'Husbands' sisters bring up blisters,' but this
+one wouldn't hurt a fly. She has asked me to bring you two together.
+Tomorrow you'll go with your father to see her. Be very nice and
+affectionate to her: you're younger than she. When he comes, he'll find
+you already know his sister and father and are liked by them. Am I right
+or not? Won't that be best?"
+
+"Yes, it will," Natásha answered reluctantly.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+Next day, by Márya Dmítrievna's advice, Count Rostóv took Natásha to
+call on Prince Nicholas Bolkónski. The count did not set out cheerfully
+on this visit, at heart he felt afraid. He well remembered the last
+interview he had had with the old prince at the time of the enrollment,
+when in reply to an invitation to dinner he had had to listen to an
+angry reprimand for not having provided his full quota of men. Natásha,
+on the other hand, having put on her best gown, was in the highest
+spirits. "They can't help liking me," she thought. "Everybody always has
+liked me, and I am so willing to do anything they wish, so ready to be
+fond of him—for being his father—and of her—for being his sister—that
+there is no reason for them not to like me..."
+
+They drove up to the gloomy old house on the Vozdvizhenka and entered
+the vestibule.
+
+"Well, the Lord have mercy on us!" said the count, half in jest, half in
+earnest; but Natásha noticed that her father was flurried on entering
+the anteroom and inquired timidly and softly whether the prince and
+princess were at home.
+
+When they had been announced a perturbation was noticeable among the
+servants. The footman who had gone to announce them was stopped by
+another in the large hall and they whispered to one another. Then a
+maidservant ran into the hall and hurriedly said something, mentioning
+the princess. At last an old, cross looking footman came and announced
+to the Rostóvs that the prince was not receiving, but that the princess
+begged them to walk up. The first person who came to meet the visitors
+was Mademoiselle Bourienne. She greeted the father and daughter with
+special politeness and showed them to the princess' room. The princess,
+looking excited and nervous, her face flushed in patches, ran in to meet
+the visitors, treading heavily, and vainly trying to appear cordial and
+at ease. From the first glance Princess Mary did not like Natásha. She
+thought her too fashionably dressed, frivolously gay and vain. She did
+not at all realize that before having seen her future sister-in-law she
+was prejudiced against her by involuntary envy of her beauty, youth, and
+happiness, as well as by jealousy of her brother's love for her. Apart
+from this insuperable antipathy to her, Princess Mary was agitated just
+then because on the Rostóvs' being announced, the old prince had shouted
+that he did not wish to see them, that Princess Mary might do so if she
+chose, but they were not to be admitted to him. She had decided to
+receive them, but feared lest the prince might at any moment indulge in
+some freak, as he seemed much upset by the Rostóvs' visit.
+
+"There, my dear princess, I've brought you my songstress," said the
+count, bowing and looking round uneasily as if afraid the old prince
+might appear. "I am so glad you should get to know one another... very
+sorry the prince is still ailing," and after a few more commonplace
+remarks he rose. "If you'll allow me to leave my Natásha in your hands
+for a quarter of an hour, Princess, I'll drive round to see Anna
+Semënovna, it's quite near in the Dogs' Square, and then I'll come back
+for her."
+
+The count had devised this diplomatic ruse (as he afterwards told his
+daughter) to give the future sisters-in-law an opportunity to talk to
+one another freely, but another motive was to avoid the danger of
+encountering the old prince, of whom he was afraid. He did not mention
+this to his daughter, but Natásha noticed her father's nervousness and
+anxiety and felt mortified by it. She blushed for him, grew still
+angrier at having blushed, and looked at the princess with a bold and
+defiant expression which said that she was not afraid of anybody. The
+princess told the count that she would be delighted, and only begged him
+to stay longer at Anna Semënovna's, and he departed.
+
+Despite the uneasy glances thrown at her by Princess Mary—who wished to
+have a tête-à-tête with Natásha—Mademoiselle Bourienne remained in the
+room and persistently talked about Moscow amusements and theaters.
+Natásha felt offended by the hesitation she had noticed in the anteroom,
+by her father's nervousness, and by the unnatural manner of the princess
+who—she thought—was making a favor of receiving her, and so everything
+displeased her. She did not like Princess Mary, whom she thought very
+plain, affected, and dry. Natásha suddenly shrank into herself and
+involuntarily assumed an offhand air which alienated Princess Mary still
+more. After five minutes of irksome, constrained conversation, they
+heard the sound of slippered feet rapidly approaching. Princess Mary
+looked frightened.
+
+The door opened and the old prince, in a dressing gown and a white
+nightcap, came in.
+
+"Ah, madam!" he began. "Madam, Countess... Countess Rostóva, if I am not
+mistaken... I beg you to excuse me, to excuse me... I did not know,
+madam. God is my witness, I did not know you had honored us with a
+visit, and I came in such a costume only to see my daughter. I beg you
+to excuse me... God is my witness, I didn't know-" he repeated,
+stressing the word "God" so unnaturally and so unpleasantly that
+Princess Mary stood with downcast eyes not daring to look either at her
+father or at Natásha.
+
+Nor did the latter, having risen and curtsied, know what to do.
+Mademoiselle Bourienne alone smiled agreeably.
+
+"I beg you to excuse me, excuse me! God is my witness, I did not know,"
+muttered the old man, and after looking Natásha over from head to foot
+he went out.
+
+Mademoiselle Bourienne was the first to recover herself after this
+apparition and began speaking about the prince's indisposition. Natásha
+and Princess Mary looked at one another in silence, and the longer they
+did so without saying what they wanted to say, the greater grew their
+antipathy to one another.
+
+When the count returned, Natásha was impolitely pleased and hastened to
+get away: at that moment she hated the stiff, elderly princess, who
+could place her in such an embarrassing position and had spent half an
+hour with her without once mentioning Prince Andrew. "I couldn't begin
+talking about him in the presence of that Frenchwoman," thought Natásha.
+The same thought was meanwhile tormenting Princess Mary. She knew what
+she ought to have said to Natásha, but she had been unable to say it
+because Mademoiselle Bourienne was in the way, and because, without
+knowing why, she felt it very difficult to speak of the marriage. When
+the count was already leaving the room, Princess Mary went up hurriedly
+to Natásha, took her by the hand, and said with a deep sigh:
+
+"Wait, I must..."
+
+Natásha glanced at her ironically without knowing why.
+
+"Dear Natalie," said Princess Mary, "I want you to know that I am glad
+my brother has found happiness...."
+
+She paused, feeling that she was not telling the truth. Natásha noticed
+this and guessed its reason.
+
+"I think, Princess, it is not convenient to speak of that now," she said
+with external dignity and coldness, though she felt the tears choking
+her.
+
+"What have I said and what have I done?" thought she, as soon as she was
+out of the room.
+
+They waited a long time for Natásha to come to dinner that day. She sat
+in her room crying like a child, blowing her nose and sobbing. Sónya
+stood beside her, kissing her hair.
+
+"Natásha, what is it about?" she asked. "What do they matter to you? It
+will all pass, Natásha."
+
+"But if you only knew how offensive it was... as if I..."
+
+"Don't talk about it, Natásha. It wasn't your fault so why should you
+mind? Kiss me," said Sónya.
+
+Natásha raised her head and, kissing her friend on the lips, pressed her
+wet face against her.
+
+"I can't tell you, I don't know. No one's to blame," said Natásha—"It's
+my fault. But it all hurts terribly. Oh, why doesn't he come?..."
+
+She came in to dinner with red eyes. Márya Dmítrievna, who knew how the
+prince had received the Rostóvs, pretended not to notice how upset
+Natásha was and jested resolutely and loudly at table with the count and
+the other guests.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+That evening the Rostóvs went to the Opera, for which Márya Dmítrievna
+had taken a box.
+
+Natásha did not want to go, but could not refuse Márya Dmítrievna's kind
+offer which was intended expressly for her. When she came ready dressed
+into the ballroom to await her father, and looking in the large mirror
+there saw that she was pretty, very pretty, she felt even more sad, but
+it was a sweet, tender sadness.
+
+"O God, if he were here now I would not behave as I did then, but
+differently. I would not be silly and afraid of things, I would simply
+embrace him, cling to him, and make him look at me with those searching
+inquiring eyes with which he has so often looked at me, and then I would
+make him laugh as he used to laugh. And his eyes—how I see those eyes!"
+thought Natásha. "And what do his father and sister matter to me? I love
+him alone, him, him, with that face and those eyes, with his smile,
+manly and yet childlike.... No, I had better not think of him; not think
+of him but forget him, quite forget him for the present. I can't bear
+this waiting and I shall cry in a minute!" and she turned away from the
+glass, making an effort not to cry. "And how can Sónya love Nicholas so
+calmly and quietly and wait so long and so patiently?" thought she,
+looking at Sónya, who also came in quite ready, with a fan in her hand.
+"No, she's altogether different. I can't!"
+
+Natásha at that moment felt so softened and tender that it was not
+enough for her to love and know she was beloved, she wanted now, at
+once, to embrace the man she loved, to speak and hear from him words of
+love such as filled her heart. While she sat in the carriage beside her
+father, pensively watching the lights of the street lamps flickering on
+the frozen window, she felt still sadder and more in love, and forgot
+where she was going and with whom. Having fallen into the line of
+carriages, the Rostóvs' carriage drove up to the theater, its wheels
+squeaking over the snow. Natásha and Sónya, holding up their dresses,
+jumped out quickly. The count got out helped by the footmen, and,
+passing among men and women who were entering and the program sellers,
+they all three went along the corridor to the first row of boxes.
+Through the closed doors the music was already audible.
+
+"Natásha, your hair!..." whispered Sónya.
+
+An attendant deferentially and quickly slipped before the ladies and
+opened the door of their box. The music sounded louder and through the
+door rows of brightly lit boxes in which ladies sat with bare arms and
+shoulders, and noisy stalls brilliant with uniforms, glittered before
+their eyes. A lady entering the next box shot a glance of feminine envy
+at Natásha. The curtain had not yet risen and the overture was being
+played. Natásha, smoothing her gown, went in with Sónya and sat down,
+scanning the brilliant tiers of boxes opposite. A sensation she had not
+experienced for a long time—that of hundreds of eyes looking at her bare
+arms and neck—suddenly affected her both agreeably and disagreeably and
+called up a whole crowd of memories, desires and emotions associated
+with that feeling.
+
+The two remarkably pretty girls, Natásha and Sónya, with Count Rostóv
+who had not been seen in Moscow for a long time, attracted general
+attention. Moreover, everybody knew vaguely of Natásha's engagement to
+Prince Andrew, and knew that the Rostóvs had lived in the country ever
+since, and all looked with curiosity at a fiancee who was making one of
+the best matches in Russia.
+
+Natásha's looks, as everyone told her, had improved in the country, and
+that evening thanks to her agitation she was particularly pretty. She
+struck those who saw her by her fullness of life and beauty, combined
+with her indifference to everything about her. Her black eyes looked at
+the crowd without seeking anyone, and her delicate arm, bare to above
+the elbow, lay on the velvet edge of the box, while, evidently
+unconsciously, she opened and closed her hand in time to the music,
+crumpling her program. "Look, there's Alenina," said Sónya, "with her
+mother, isn't it?"
+
+"Dear me, Michael Kirilovich has grown still stouter!" remarked the
+count.
+
+"Look at our Anna Mikháylovna—what a headdress she has on!"
+
+"The Karagins, Julie—and Borís with them. One can see at once that
+they're engaged...."
+
+"Drubetskóy has proposed?"
+
+"Oh yes, I heard it today," said Shinshín, coming into the Rostóvs' box.
+
+Natásha looked in the direction in which her father's eyes were turned
+and saw Julie sitting beside her mother with a happy look on her face
+and a string of pearls round her thick red neck—which Natásha knew was
+covered with powder. Behind them, wearing a smile and leaning over with
+an ear to Julie's mouth, was Borís' handsome smoothly brushed head. He
+looked at the Rostóvs from under his brows and said something, smiling,
+to his betrothed.
+
+"They are talking about us, about me and him!" thought Natásha. "And he
+no doubt is calming her jealousy of me. They needn't trouble themselves!
+If only they knew how little I am concerned about any of them."
+
+Behind them sat Anna Mikháylovna wearing a green headdress and with a
+happy look of resignation to the will of God on her face. Their box was
+pervaded by that atmosphere of an affianced couple which Natásha knew so
+well and liked so much. She turned away and suddenly remembered all that
+had been so humiliating in her morning's visit.
+
+"What right has he not to wish to receive me into his family? Oh, better
+not think of it—not till he comes back!" she told herself, and began
+looking at the faces, some strange and some familiar, in the stalls. In
+the front, in the very center, leaning back against the orchestra rail,
+stood Dólokhov in a Persian dress, his curly hair brushed up into a huge
+shock. He stood in full view of the audience, well aware that he was
+attracting everyone's attention, yet as much at ease as though he were
+in his own room. Around him thronged Moscow's most brilliant young men,
+whom he evidently dominated.
+
+The count, laughing, nudged the blushing Sónya and pointed to her former
+adorer.
+
+"Do you recognize him?" said he. "And where has he sprung from?" he
+asked, turning to Shinshín. "Didn't he vanish somewhere?"
+
+"He did," replied Shinshín. "He was in the Caucasus and ran away from
+there. They say he has been acting as minister to some ruling prince in
+Persia, where he killed the Shah's brother. Now all the Moscow ladies
+are mad about him! It's 'Dólokhov the Persian' that does it! We never
+hear a word but Dólokhov is mentioned. They swear by him, they offer him
+to you as they would a dish of choice sterlet. Dólokhov and Anatole
+Kurágin have turned all our ladies' heads."
+
+A tall, beautiful woman with a mass of plaited hair and much exposed
+plump white shoulders and neck, round which she wore a double string of
+large pearls, entered the adjoining box rustling her heavy silk dress
+and took a long time settling into her place.
+
+Natásha involuntarily gazed at that neck, those shoulders, and pearls
+and coiffure, and admired the beauty of the shoulders and the pearls.
+While Natásha was fixing her gaze on her for the second time the lady
+looked round and, meeting the count's eyes, nodded to him and smiled.
+She was the Countess Bezúkhova, Pierre's wife, and the count, who knew
+everyone in society, leaned over and spoke to her.
+
+"Have you been here long, Countess?" he inquired. "I'll call, I'll call
+to kiss your hand. I'm here on business and have brought my girls with
+me. They say Semënova acts marvelously. Count Pierre never used to
+forget us. Is he here?"
+
+"Yes, he meant to look in," answered Hélène, and glanced attentively at
+Natásha.
+
+Count Rostóv resumed his seat.
+
+"Handsome, isn't she?" he whispered to Natásha.
+
+"Wonderful!" answered Natásha. "She's a woman one could easily fall in
+love with."
+
+Just then the last chords of the overture were heard and the conductor
+tapped with his stick. Some latecomers took their seats in the stalls,
+and the curtain rose.
+
+As soon as it rose everyone in the boxes and stalls became silent, and
+all the men, old and young, in uniform and evening dress, and all the
+women with gems on their bare flesh, turned their whole attention with
+eager curiosity to the stage. Natásha too began to look at it.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+The floor of the stage consisted of smooth boards, at the sides was some
+painted cardboard representing trees, and at the back was a cloth
+stretched over boards. In the center of the stage sat some girls in red
+bodices and white skirts. One very fat girl in a white silk dress sat
+apart on a low bench, to the back of which a piece of green cardboard
+was glued. They all sang something. When they had finished their song
+the girl in white went up to the prompter's box and a man with tight
+silk trousers over his stout legs, and holding a plume and a dagger,
+went up to her and began singing, waving his arms about.
+
+First the man in the tight trousers sang alone, then she sang, then they
+both paused while the orchestra played and the man fingered the hand of
+the girl in white, obviously awaiting the beat to start singing with
+her. They sang together and everyone in the theater began clapping and
+shouting, while the man and woman on the stage—who represented
+lovers—began smiling, spreading out their arms, and bowing.
+
+After her life in the country, and in her present serious mood, all this
+seemed grotesque and amazing to Natásha. She could not follow the opera
+nor even listen to the music; she saw only the painted cardboard and the
+queerly dressed men and women who moved, spoke, and sang so strangely in
+that brilliant light. She knew what it was all meant to represent, but
+it was so pretentiously false and unnatural that she first felt ashamed
+for the actors and then amused at them. She looked at the faces of the
+audience, seeking in them the same sense of ridicule and perplexity she
+herself experienced, but they all seemed attentive to what was happening
+on the stage, and expressed delight which to Natásha seemed feigned. "I
+suppose it has to be like this!" she thought. She kept looking round in
+turn at the rows of pomaded heads in the stalls and then at the seminude
+women in the boxes, especially at Hélène in the next box, who—apparently
+quite unclothed—sat with a quiet tranquil smile, not taking her eyes off
+the stage. And feeling the bright light that flooded the whole place and
+the warm air heated by the crowd, Natásha little by little began to pass
+into a state of intoxication she had not experienced for a long while.
+She did not realize who and where she was, nor what was going on before
+her. As she looked and thought, the strangest fancies unexpectedly and
+disconnectedly passed through her mind: the idea occurred to her of
+jumping onto the edge of the box and singing the air the actress was
+singing, then she wished to touch with her fan an old gentleman sitting
+not far from her, then to lean over to Hélène and tickle her.
+
+At a moment when all was quiet before the commencement of a song, a door
+leading to the stalls on the side nearest the Rostóvs' box creaked, and
+the steps of a belated arrival were heard. "There's Kurágin!" whispered
+Shinshín. Countess Bezúkhova turned smiling to the newcomer, and
+Natásha, following the direction of that look, saw an exceptionally
+handsome adjutant approaching their box with a self-assured yet
+courteous bearing. This was Anatole Kurágin whom she had seen and
+noticed long ago at the ball in Petersburg. He was now in an adjutant's
+uniform with one epaulet and a shoulder knot. He moved with a restrained
+swagger which would have been ridiculous had he not been so good-looking
+and had his handsome face not worn such an expression of good-humored
+complacency and gaiety. Though the performance was proceeding, he walked
+deliberately down the carpeted gangway, his sword and spurs slightly
+jingling and his handsome perfumed head held high. Having looked at
+Natásha he approached his sister, laid his well gloved hand on the edge
+of her box, nodded to her, and leaning forward asked a question, with a
+motion toward Natásha.
+
+"Mais charmante!" said he, evidently referring to Natásha, who did not
+exactly hear his words but understood them from the movement of his
+lips. Then he took his place in the first row of the stalls and sat down
+beside Dólokhov, nudging with his elbow in a friendly and offhand way
+that Dólokhov whom others treated so fawningly. He winked at him gaily,
+smiled, and rested his foot against the orchestra screen.
+
+"How like the brother is to the sister," remarked the count. "And how
+handsome they both are!"
+
+Shinshín, lowering his voice, began to tell the count of some intrigue
+of Kurágin's in Moscow, and Natásha tried to overhear it just because he
+had said she was "charmante."
+
+The first act was over. In the stalls everyone began moving about, going
+out and coming in.
+
+Borís came to the Rostóvs' box, received their congratulations very
+simply, and raising his eyebrows with an absent-minded smile conveyed to
+Natásha and Sónya his fiancee's invitation to her wedding, and went
+away. Natásha with a gay, coquettish smile talked to him, and
+congratulated on his approaching wedding that same Borís with whom she
+had formerly been in love. In the state of intoxication she was in,
+everything seemed simple and natural.
+
+The scantily clad Hélène smiled at everyone in the same way, and Natásha
+gave Borís a similar smile.
+
+Hélène's box was filled and surrounded from the stalls by the most
+distinguished and intellectual men, who seemed to vie with one another
+in their wish to let everyone see that they knew her.
+
+During the whole of that entr'acte Kurágin stood with Dólokhov in front
+of the orchestra partition, looking at the Rostóvs' box. Natásha knew he
+was talking about her and this afforded her pleasure. She even turned so
+that he should see her profile in what she thought was its most becoming
+aspect. Before the beginning of the second act Pierre appeared in the
+stalls. The Rostóvs had not seen him since their arrival. His face
+looked sad, and he had grown still stouter since Natásha last saw him.
+He passed up to the front rows, not noticing anyone. Anatole went up to
+him and began speaking to him, looking at and indicating the Rostóvs'
+box. On seeing Natásha Pierre grew animated and, hastily passing between
+the rows, came toward their box. When he got there he leaned on his
+elbows and, smiling, talked to her for a long time. While conversing
+with Pierre, Natásha heard a man's voice in Countess Bezúkhova's box and
+something told her it was Kurágin. She turned and their eyes met. Almost
+smiling, he gazed straight into her eyes with such an enraptured
+caressing look that it seemed strange to be so near him, to look at him
+like that, to be so sure he admired her, and not to be acquainted with
+him.
+
+In the second act there was scenery representing tombstones, there was a
+round hole in the canvas to represent the moon, shades were raised over
+the footlights, and from horns and contrabass came deep notes while many
+people appeared from right and left wearing black cloaks and holding
+things like daggers in their hands. They began waving their arms. Then
+some other people ran in and began dragging away the maiden who had been
+in white and was now in light blue. They did not drag her away at once,
+but sang with her for a long time and then at last dragged her off, and
+behind the scenes something metallic was struck three times and everyone
+knelt down and sang a prayer. All these things were repeatedly
+interrupted by the enthusiastic shouts of the audience.
+
+During this act every time Natásha looked toward the stalls she saw
+Anatole Kurágin with an arm thrown across the back of his chair, staring
+at her. She was pleased to see that he was captivated by her and it did
+not occur to her that there was anything wrong in it.
+
+When the second act was over Countess Bezúkhova rose, turned to the
+Rostóvs' box—her whole bosom completely exposed—beckoned the old count
+with a gloved finger, and paying no attention to those who had entered
+her box began talking to him with an amiable smile.
+
+"Do make me acquainted with your charming daughters," said she. "The
+whole town is singing their praises and I don't even know them!"
+
+Natásha rose and curtsied to the splendid countess. She was so pleased
+by praise from this brilliant beauty that she blushed with pleasure.
+
+"I want to become a Moscovite too, now," said Hélène. "How is it you're
+not ashamed to bury such pearls in the country?"
+
+Countess Bezúkhova quite deserved her reputation of being a fascinating
+woman. She could say what she did not think—especially what was
+flattering—quite simply and naturally.
+
+"Dear count, you must let me look after your daughters! Though I am not
+staying here long this time—nor are you—I will try to amuse them. I have
+already heard much of you in Petersburg and wanted to get to know you,"
+said she to Natásha with her stereotyped and lovely smile. "I had heard
+about you from my page, Drubetskóy. Have you heard he is getting
+married? And also from my husband's friend Bolkónski, Prince Andrew
+Bolkónski," she went on with special emphasis, implying that she knew of
+his relation to Natásha. To get better acquainted she asked that one of
+the young ladies should come into her box for the rest of the
+performance, and Natásha moved over to it.
+
+The scene of the third act represented a palace in which many candles
+were burning and pictures of knights with short beards hung on the
+walls. In the middle stood what were probably a king and a queen. The
+king waved his right arm and, evidently nervous, sang something badly
+and sat down on a crimson throne. The maiden who had been first in white
+and then in light blue, now wore only a smock, and stood beside the
+throne with her hair down. She sang something mournfully, addressing the
+queen, but the king waved his arm severely, and men and women with bare
+legs came in from both sides and began dancing all together. Then the
+violins played very shrilly and merrily and one of the women with thick
+bare legs and thin arms, separating from the others, went behind the
+wings, adjusted her bodice, returned to the middle of the stage, and
+began jumping and striking one foot rapidly against the other. In the
+stalls everyone clapped and shouted "bravo!" Then one of the men went
+into a corner of the stage. The cymbals and horns in the orchestra
+struck up more loudly, and this man with bare legs jumped very high and
+waved his feet about very rapidly. (He was Duport, who received sixty
+thousand rubles a year for this art.) Everybody in the stalls, boxes,
+and galleries began clapping and shouting with all their might, and the
+man stopped and began smiling and bowing to all sides. Then other men
+and women danced with bare legs. Then the king again shouted to the
+sound of music, and they all began singing. But suddenly a storm came
+on, chromatic scales and diminished sevenths were heard in the
+orchestra, everyone ran off, again dragging one of their number away,
+and the curtain dropped. Once more there was a terrible noise and
+clatter among the audience, and with rapturous faces everyone began
+shouting: "Duport! Duport! Duport!" Natásha no longer thought this
+strange. She looked about with pleasure, smiling joyfully.
+
+"Isn't Duport delightful?" Hélène asked her.
+
+"Oh, yes," replied Natásha.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+During the entr'acte a whiff of cold air came into Hélène's box, the
+door opened, and Anatole entered, stooping and trying not to brush
+against anyone.
+
+"Let me introduce my brother to you," said Hélène, her eyes shifting
+uneasily from Natásha to Anatole.
+
+Natásha turned her pretty little head toward the elegant young officer
+and smiled at him over her bare shoulder. Anatole, who was as handsome
+at close quarters as at a distance, sat down beside her and told her he
+had long wished to have this happiness—ever since the Naryshkins' ball
+in fact, at which he had had the well-remembered pleasure of seeing her.
+Kurágin was much more sensible and simple with women than among men. He
+talked boldly and naturally, and Natásha was strangely and agreeably
+struck by the fact that there was nothing formidable in this man about
+whom there was so much talk, but that on the contrary his smile was most
+naïve, cheerful, and good-natured.
+
+Kurágin asked her opinion of the performance and told her how at a
+previous performance Semënova had fallen down on the stage.
+
+"And do you know, Countess," he said, suddenly addressing her as an old,
+familiar acquaintance, "we are getting up a costume tournament; you
+ought to take part in it! It will be great fun. We shall all meet at the
+Karagins'! Please come! No! Really, eh?" said he.
+
+While saying this he never removed his smiling eyes from her face, her
+neck, and her bare arms. Natásha knew for certain that he was enraptured
+by her. This pleased her, yet his presence made her feel constrained and
+oppressed. When she was not looking at him she felt that he was looking
+at her shoulders, and she involuntarily caught his eye so that he should
+look into hers rather than this. But looking into his eyes she was
+frightened, realizing that there was not that barrier of modesty she had
+always felt between herself and other men. She did not know how it was
+that within five minutes she had come to feel herself terribly near to
+this man. When she turned away she feared he might seize her from behind
+by her bare arm and kiss her on the neck. They spoke of most ordinary
+things, yet she felt that they were closer to one another than she had
+ever been to any man. Natásha kept turning to Hélène and to her father,
+as if asking what it all meant, but Hélène was engaged in conversation
+with a general and did not answer her look, and her father's eyes said
+nothing but what they always said: "Having a good time? Well, I'm glad
+of it!"
+
+During one of these moments of awkward silence when Anatole's prominent
+eyes were gazing calmly and fixedly at her, Natásha, to break the
+silence, asked him how he liked Moscow. She asked the question and
+blushed. She felt all the time that by talking to him she was doing
+something improper. Anatole smiled as though to encourage her.
+
+"At first I did not like it much, because what makes a town pleasant ce
+sont les jolies femmes, * isn't that so? But now I like it very much
+indeed," he said, looking at her significantly. "You'll come to the
+costume tournament, Countess? Do come!" and putting out his hand to her
+bouquet and dropping his voice, he added, "You will be the prettiest
+there. Do come, dear countess, and give me this flower as a pledge!"
+
+* Are the pretty women.
+
+Natásha did not understand what he was saying any more than he did
+himself, but she felt that his incomprehensible words had an improper
+intention. She did not know what to say and turned away as if she had
+not heard his remark. But as soon as she had turned away she felt that
+he was there, behind, so close behind her.
+
+"How is he now? Confused? Angry? Ought I to put it right?" she asked
+herself, and she could not refrain from turning round. She looked
+straight into his eyes, and his nearness, self-assurance, and the good-
+natured tenderness of his smile vanquished her. She smiled just as he
+was doing, gazing straight into his eyes. And again she felt with horror
+that no barrier lay between him and her.
+
+The curtain rose again. Anatole left the box, serene and gay. Natásha
+went back to her father in the other box, now quite submissive to the
+world she found herself in. All that was going on before her now seemed
+quite natural, but on the other hand all her previous thoughts of her
+betrothed, of Princess Mary, or of life in the country did not once
+recur to her mind and were as if belonging to a remote past.
+
+In the fourth act there was some sort of devil who sang waving his arm
+about, till the boards were withdrawn from under him and he disappeared
+down below. That was the only part of the fourth act that Natásha saw.
+She felt agitated and tormented, and the cause of this was Kurágin whom
+she could not help watching. As they were leaving the theater Anatole
+came up to them, called their carriage, and helped them in. As he was
+putting Natásha in he pressed her arm above the elbow. Agitated and
+flushed she turned round. He was looking at her with glittering eyes,
+smiling tenderly.
+
+Only after she had reached home was Natásha able clearly to think over
+what had happened to her, and suddenly remembering Prince Andrew she was
+horrified, and at tea to which all had sat down after the opera, she
+gave a loud exclamation, flushed, and ran out of the room.
+
+"O God! I am lost!" she said to herself. "How could I let him?" She sat
+for a long time hiding her flushed face in her hands trying to realize
+what had happened to her, but was unable either to understand what had
+happened or what she felt. Everything seemed dark, obscure, and
+terrible. There in that enormous, illuminated theater where the bare-
+legged Duport, in a tinsel-decorated jacket, jumped about to the music
+on wet boards, and young girls and old men, and the nearly naked Hélène
+with her proud, calm smile, rapturously cried "bravo!"—there in the
+presence of that Hélène it had all seemed clear and simple; but now,
+alone by herself, it was incomprehensible. "What is it? What was that
+terror I felt of him? What is this gnawing of conscience I am feeling
+now?" she thought.
+
+Only to the old countess at night in bed could Natásha have told all she
+was feeling. She knew that Sónya with her severe and simple views would
+either not understand it at all or would be horrified at such a
+confession. So Natásha tried to solve what was torturing her by herself.
+
+"Am I spoiled for Andrew's love or not?" she asked herself, and with
+soothing irony replied: "What a fool I am to ask that! What did happen
+to me? Nothing! I have done nothing, I didn't lead him on at all. Nobody
+will know and I shall never see him again," she told herself. "So it is
+plain that nothing has happened and there is nothing to repent of, and
+Andrew can love me still. But why 'still?' O God, why isn't he here?"
+Natásha quieted herself for a moment, but again some instinct told her
+that though all this was true, and though nothing had happened, yet the
+former purity of her love for Prince Andrew had perished. And again in
+imagination she went over her whole conversation with Kurágin, and again
+saw the face, gestures, and tender smile of that bold handsome man when
+he pressed her arm.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+Anatole Kurágin was staying in Moscow because his father had sent him
+away from Petersburg, where he had been spending twenty thousand rubles
+a year in cash, besides running up debts for as much more, which his
+creditors demanded from his father.
+
+His father announced to him that he would now pay half his debts for the
+last time, but only on condition that he went to Moscow as adjutant to
+the commander-in-chief—a post his father had procured for him—and would
+at last try to make a good match there. He indicated to him Princess
+Mary and Julie Karágina.
+
+Anatole consented and went to Moscow, where he put up at Pierre's house.
+Pierre received him unwillingly at first, but got used to him after a
+while, sometimes even accompanied him on his carousals, and gave him
+money under the guise of loans.
+
+As Shinshín had remarked, from the time of his arrival Anatole had
+turned the heads of the Moscow ladies, especially by the fact that he
+slighted them and plainly preferred the gypsy girls and French
+actresses—with the chief of whom, Mademoiselle George, he was said to be
+on intimate relations. He had never missed a carousal at Danilov's or
+other Moscow revelers', drank whole nights through, outvying everyone
+else, and was at all the balls and parties of the best society. There
+was talk of his intrigues with some of the ladies, and he flirted with a
+few of them at the balls. But he did not run after the unmarried girls,
+especially the rich heiresses who were most of them plain. There was a
+special reason for this, as he had got married two years before—a fact
+known only to his most intimate friends. At that time while with his
+regiment in Poland, a Polish landowner of small means had forced him to
+marry his daughter. Anatole had very soon abandoned his wife and, for a
+payment which he agreed to send to his father-in-law, had arranged to be
+free to pass himself off as a bachelor.
+
+Anatole was always content with his position, with himself, and with
+others. He was instinctively and thoroughly convinced that it was
+impossible for him to live otherwise than as he did and that he had
+never in his life done anything base. He was incapable of considering
+how his actions might affect others or what the consequences of this or
+that action of his might be. He was convinced that, as a duck is so made
+that it must live in water, so God had made him such that he must spend
+thirty thousand rubles a year and always occupy a prominent position in
+society. He believed this so firmly that others, looking at him, were
+persuaded of it too and did not refuse him either a leading place in
+society or money, which he borrowed from anyone and everyone and
+evidently would not repay.
+
+He was not a gambler, at any rate he did not care about winning. He was
+not vain. He did not mind what people thought of him. Still less could
+he be accused of ambition. More than once he had vexed his father by
+spoiling his own career, and he laughed at distinctions of all kinds. He
+was not mean, and did not refuse anyone who asked of him. All he cared
+about was gaiety and women, and as according to his ideas there was
+nothing dishonorable in these tastes, and he was incapable of
+considering what the gratification of his tastes entailed for others, he
+honestly considered himself irreproachable, sincerely despised rogues
+and bad people, and with a tranquil conscience carried his head high.
+
+Rakes, those male Magdalenes, have a secret feeling of innocence similar
+to that which female Magdalenes have, based on the same hope of
+forgiveness. "All will be forgiven her, for she loved much; and all will
+be forgiven him, for he enjoyed much."
+
+Dólokhov, who had reappeared that year in Moscow after his exile and his
+Persian adventures, and was leading a life of luxury, gambling, and
+dissipation, associated with his old Petersburg comrade Kurágin and made
+use of him for his own ends.
+
+Anatole was sincerely fond of Dólokhov for his cleverness and audacity.
+Dólokhov, who needed Anatole Kurágin's name, position, and connections
+as a bait to draw rich young men into his gambling set, made use of him
+and amused himself at his expense without letting the other feel it.
+Apart from the advantage he derived from Anatole, the very process of
+dominating another's will was in itself a pleasure, a habit, and a
+necessity to Dólokhov.
+
+Natásha had made a strong impression on Kurágin. At supper after the
+opera he described to Dólokhov with the air of a connoisseur the
+attractions of her arms, shoulders, feet, and hair and expressed his
+intention of making love to her. Anatole had no notion and was incapable
+of considering what might come of such love-making, as he never had any
+notion of the outcome of any of his actions.
+
+"She's first-rate, my dear fellow, but not for us," replied Dólokhov.
+
+"I will tell my sister to ask her to dinner," said Anatole. "Eh?"
+
+"You'd better wait till she's married...."
+
+"You know, I adore little girls, they lose their heads at once," pursued
+Anatole.
+
+"You have been caught once already by a 'little girl,'" said Dólokhov
+who knew of Kurágin's marriage. "Take care!"
+
+"Well, that can't happen twice! Eh?" said Anatole, with a good-humored
+laugh.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+The day after the opera the Rostóvs went nowhere and nobody came to see
+them. Márya Dmítrievna talked to the count about something which they
+concealed from Natásha. Natásha guessed they were talking about the old
+prince and planning something, and this disquieted and offended her. She
+was expecting Prince Andrew any moment and twice that day sent a
+manservant to the Vozdvizhenka to ascertain whether he had come. He had
+not arrived. She suffered more now than during her first days in Moscow.
+To her impatience and pining for him were now added the unpleasant
+recollection of her interview with Princess Mary and the old prince, and
+a fear and anxiety of which she did not understand the cause. She
+continually fancied that either he would never come or that something
+would happen to her before he came. She could no longer think of him by
+herself calmly and continuously as she had done before. As soon as she
+began to think of him, the recollection of the old prince, of Princess
+Mary, of the theater, and of Kurágin mingled with her thoughts. The
+question again presented itself whether she was not guilty, whether she
+had not already broken faith with Prince Andrew, and again she found
+herself recalling to the minutest detail every word, every gesture, and
+every shade in the play of expression on the face of the man who had
+been able to arouse in her such an incomprehensible and terrifying
+feeling. To the family Natásha seemed livelier than usual, but she was
+far less tranquil and happy than before.
+
+On Sunday morning Márya Dmítrievna invited her visitors to Mass at her
+parish church—the Church of the Assumption built over the graves of
+victims of the plague.
+
+"I don't like those fashionable churches," she said, evidently priding
+herself on her independence of thought. "God is the same everywhere. We
+have an excellent priest, he conducts the service decently and with
+dignity, and the deacon is the same. What holiness is there in giving
+concerts in the choir? I don't like it, it's just self-indulgence!"
+
+Márya Dmítrievna liked Sundays and knew how to keep them. Her whole
+house was scrubbed and cleaned on Saturdays; neither she nor the
+servants worked, and they all wore holiday dress and went to church. At
+her table there were extra dishes at dinner, and the servants had vodka
+and roast goose or suckling pig. But in nothing in the house was the
+holiday so noticeable as in Márya Dmítrievna's broad, stern face, which
+on that day wore an invariable look of solemn festivity.
+
+After Mass, when they had finished their coffee in the dining room where
+the loose covers had been removed from the furniture, a servant
+announced that the carriage was ready, and Márya Dmítrievna rose with a
+stern air. She wore her holiday shawl, in which she paid calls, and
+announced that she was going to see Prince Nicholas Bolkónski to have an
+explanation with him about Natásha.
+
+After she had gone, a dressmaker from Madame Suppert-Roguet waited on
+the Rostóvs, and Natásha, very glad of this diversion, having shut
+herself into a room adjoining the drawing room, occupied herself trying
+on the new dresses. Just as she had put on a bodice without sleeves and
+only tacked together, and was turning her head to see in the glass how
+the back fitted, she heard in the drawing room the animated sounds of
+her father's voice and another's—a woman's—that made her flush. It was
+Hélène. Natásha had not time to take off the bodice before the door
+opened and Countess Bezúkhova, dressed in a purple velvet gown with a
+high collar, came into the room beaming with good-humored amiable
+smiles.
+
+"Oh, my enchantress!" she cried to the blushing Natásha. "Charming! No,
+this is really beyond anything, my dear count," said she to Count Rostóv
+who had followed her in. "How can you live in Moscow and go nowhere? No,
+I won't let you off! Mademoiselle George will recite at my house tonight
+and there'll be some people, and if you don't bring your lovely
+girls—who are prettier than Mademoiselle George—I won't know you! My
+husband is away in Tver or I would send him to fetch you. You must come.
+You positively must! Between eight and nine."
+
+She nodded to the dressmaker, whom she knew and who had curtsied
+respectfully to her, and seated herself in an armchair beside the
+looking glass, draping the folds of her velvet dress picturesquely. She
+did not cease chattering good-naturedly and gaily, continually praising
+Natásha's beauty. She looked at Natásha's dresses and praised them, as
+well as a new dress of her own made of "metallic gauze," which she had
+received from Paris, and advised Natásha to have one like it.
+
+"But anything suits you, my charmer!" she remarked.
+
+A smile of pleasure never left Natásha's face. She felt happy and as if
+she were blossoming under the praise of this dear Countess Bezúkhova who
+had formerly seemed to her so unapproachable and important and was now
+so kind to her. Natásha brightened up and felt almost in love with this
+woman, who was so beautiful and so kind. Hélène for her part was
+sincerely delighted with Natásha and wished to give her a good time.
+Anatole had asked her to bring him and Natásha together, and she was
+calling on the Rostóvs for that purpose. The idea of throwing her
+brother and Natásha together amused her.
+
+Though at one time, in Petersburg, she had been annoyed with Natásha for
+drawing Borís away, she did not think of that now, and in her own way
+heartily wished Natásha well. As she was leaving the Rostóvs she called
+her protegee aside.
+
+"My brother dined with me yesterday—we nearly died of laughter—he ate
+nothing and kept sighing for you, my charmer! He is madly, quite madly,
+in love with you, my dear."
+
+Natásha blushed scarlet when she heard this.
+
+"How she blushes, how she blushes, my pretty!" said Hélène. "You must
+certainly come. If you love somebody, my charmer, that is not a reason
+to shut yourself up. Even if you are engaged, I am sure your fiance
+would wish you to go into society rather than be bored to death."
+
+"So she knows I am engaged, and she and her husband Pierre—that good
+Pierre—have talked and laughed about this. So it's all right." And
+again, under Hélène's influence, what had seemed terrible now seemed
+simple and natural. "And she is such a grande dame, so kind, and
+evidently likes me so much. And why not enjoy myself?" thought Natásha,
+gazing at Hélène with wide-open, wondering eyes.
+
+Márya Dmítrievna came back to dinner taciturn and serious, having
+evidently suffered a defeat at the old prince's. She was still too
+agitated by the encounter to be able to talk of the affair calmly. In
+answer to the count's inquiries she replied that things were all right
+and that she would tell about it next day. On hearing of Countess
+Bezúkhova's visit and the invitation for that evening, Márya Dmítrievna
+remarked:
+
+"I don't care to have anything to do with Bezúkhova and don't advise you
+to; however, if you've promised—go. It will divert your thoughts," she
+added, addressing Natásha.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+Count Rostóv took the girls to Countess Bezúkhova's. There were a good
+many people there, but nearly all strangers to Natásha. Count Rostóv was
+displeased to see that the company consisted almost entirely of men and
+women known for the freedom of their conduct. Mademoiselle George was
+standing in a corner of the drawing room surrounded by young men. There
+were several Frenchmen present, among them Metivier who from the time
+Hélène reached Moscow had been an intimate in her house. The count
+decided not to sit down to cards or let his girls out of his sight and
+to get away as soon as Mademoiselle George's performance was over.
+
+Anatole was at the door, evidently on the lookout for the Rostóvs.
+Immediately after greeting the count he went up to Natásha and followed
+her. As soon as she saw him she was seized by the same feeling she had
+had at the opera—gratified vanity at his admiration of her and fear at
+the absence of a moral barrier between them.
+
+Hélène welcomed Natásha delightedly and was loud in admiration of her
+beauty and her dress. Soon after their arrival Mademoiselle George went
+out of the room to change her costume. In the drawing room people began
+arranging the chairs and taking their seats. Anatole moved a chair for
+Natásha and was about to sit down beside her, but the count, who never
+lost sight of her, took the seat himself. Anatole sat down behind her.
+
+Mademoiselle George, with her bare, fat, dimpled arms, and a red shawl
+draped over one shoulder, came into the space left vacant for her, and
+assumed an unnatural pose. Enthusiastic whispering was audible.
+
+Mademoiselle George looked sternly and gloomily at the audience and
+began reciting some French verses describing her guilty love for her
+son. In some places she raised her voice, in others she whispered,
+lifting her head triumphantly; sometimes she paused and uttered hoarse
+sounds, rolling her eyes.
+
+"Adorable! divine! delicious!" was heard from every side.
+
+Natásha looked at the fat actress, but neither saw nor heard nor
+understood anything of what went on before her. She only felt herself
+again completely borne away into this strange senseless world—so remote
+from her old world—a world in which it was impossible to know what was
+good or bad, reasonable or senseless. Behind her sat Anatole, and
+conscious of his proximity she experienced a frightened sense of
+expectancy.
+
+After the first monologue the whole company rose and surrounded
+Mademoiselle George, expressing their enthusiasm.
+
+"How beautiful she is!" Natásha remarked to her father who had also
+risen and was moving through the crowd toward the actress.
+
+"I don't think so when I look at you!" said Anatole, following Natásha.
+He said this at a moment when she alone could hear him. "You are
+enchanting... from the moment I saw you I have never ceased..."
+
+"Come, come, Natásha!" said the count, as he turned back for his
+daughter. "How beautiful she is!" Natásha without saying anything
+stepped up to her father and looked at him with surprised inquiring
+eyes.
+
+After giving several recitations, Mademoiselle George left, and Countess
+Bezúkhova asked her visitors into the ballroom.
+
+The count wished to go home, but Hélène entreated him not to spoil her
+improvised ball, and the Rostóvs stayed on. Anatole asked Natásha for a
+valse and as they danced he pressed her waist and hand and told her she
+was bewitching and that he loved her. During the ecossaise, which she
+also danced with him, Anatole said nothing when they happened to be by
+themselves, but merely gazed at her. Natásha lifted her frightened eyes
+to him, but there was such confident tenderness in his affectionate look
+and smile that she could not, whilst looking at him, say what she had to
+say. She lowered her eyes.
+
+"Don't say such things to me. I am betrothed and love another," she said
+rapidly.... She glanced at him.
+
+Anatole was not upset or pained by what she had said.
+
+"Don't speak to me of that! What can I do?" said he. "I tell you I am
+madly, madly, in love with you! Is it my fault that you are
+enchanting?... It's our turn to begin."
+
+Natásha, animated and excited, looked about her with wide-open
+frightened eyes and seemed merrier than usual. She understood hardly
+anything that went on that evening. They danced the ecossaise and the
+Grossvater. Her father asked her to come home, but she begged to remain.
+Wherever she went and whomever she was speaking to, she felt his eyes
+upon her. Later on she recalled how she had asked her father to let her
+go to the dressing room to rearrange her dress, that Hélène had followed
+her and spoken laughingly of her brother's love, and that she again met
+Anatole in the little sitting room. Hélène had disappeared leaving them
+alone, and Anatole had taken her hand and said in a tender voice:
+
+"I cannot come to visit you but is it possible that I shall never see
+you? I love you madly. Can I never...?" and, blocking her path, he
+brought his face close to hers.
+
+His large, glittering, masculine eyes were so close to hers that she saw
+nothing but them.
+
+"Natalie?" he whispered inquiringly while she felt her hands being
+painfully pressed. "Natalie?"
+
+"I don't understand. I have nothing to say," her eyes replied.
+
+Burning lips were pressed to hers, and at the same instant she felt
+herself released, and Hélène's footsteps and the rustle of her dress
+were heard in the room. Natásha looked round at her, and then, red and
+trembling, threw a frightened look of inquiry at Anatole and moved
+toward the door.
+
+"One word, just one, for God's sake!" cried Anatole.
+
+She paused. She so wanted a word from him that would explain to her what
+had happened and to which she could find no answer.
+
+"Natalie, just a word, only one!" he kept repeating, evidently not
+knowing what to say and he repeated it till Hélène came up to them.
+
+Hélène returned with Natásha to the drawing room. The Rostóvs went away
+without staying for supper.
+
+After reaching home Natásha did not sleep all night. She was tormented
+by the insoluble question whether she loved Anatole or Prince Andrew.
+She loved Prince Andrew—she remembered distinctly how deeply she loved
+him. But she also loved Anatole, of that there was no doubt. "Else how
+could all this have happened?" thought she. "If, after that, I could
+return his smile when saying good-by, if I was able to let it come to
+that, it means that I loved him from the first. It means that he is
+kind, noble, and splendid, and I could not help loving him. What am I to
+do if I love him and the other one too?" she asked herself, unable to
+find an answer to these terrible questions.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+Morning came with its cares and bustle. Everyone got up and began to
+move about and talk, dressmakers came again. Márya Dmítrievna appeared,
+and they were called to breakfast. Natásha kept looking uneasily at
+everybody with wide-open eyes, as if wishing to intercept every glance
+directed toward her, and tried to appear the same as usual.
+
+After breakfast, which was her best time, Márya Dmítrievna sat down in
+her armchair and called Natásha and the count to her.
+
+"Well, friends, I have now thought the whole matter over and this is my
+advice," she began. "Yesterday, as you know, I went to see Prince
+Bolkónski. Well, I had a talk with him.... He took it into his head to
+begin shouting, but I am not one to be shouted down. I said what I had
+to say!"
+
+"Well, and he?" asked the count.
+
+"He? He's crazy... he did not want to listen. But what's the use of
+talking? As it is we have worn the poor girl out," said Márya
+Dmítrievna. "My advice to you is finish your business and go back home
+to Otradnoe... and wait there."
+
+"Oh, no!" exclaimed Natásha.
+
+"Yes, go back," said Márya Dmítrievna, "and wait there. If your
+betrothed comes here now—there will be no avoiding a quarrel; but alone
+with the old man he will talk things over and then come on to you."
+
+Count Rostóv approved of this suggestion, appreciating its
+reasonableness. If the old man came round it would be all the better to
+visit him in Moscow or at Bald Hills later on; and if not, the wedding,
+against his wishes, could only be arranged at Otradnoe.
+
+"That is perfectly true. And I am sorry I went to see him and took her,"
+said the old count.
+
+"No, why be sorry? Being here, you had to pay your respects. But if he
+won't—that's his affair," said Márya Dmítrievna, looking for something
+in her reticule. "Besides, the trousseau is ready, so there is nothing
+to wait for; and what is not ready I'll send after you. Though I don't
+like letting you go, it is the best way. So go, with God's blessing!"
+
+Having found what she was looking for in the reticule she handed it to
+Natásha. It was a letter from Princess Mary.
+
+"She has written to you. How she torments herself, poor thing! She's
+afraid you might think that she does not like you."
+
+"But she doesn't like me," said Natásha.
+
+"Don't talk nonsense!" cried Márya Dmítrievna.
+
+"I shan't believe anyone, I know she doesn't like me," replied Natásha
+boldly as she took the letter, and her face expressed a cold and angry
+resolution that caused Márya Dmítrievna to look at her more intently and
+to frown.
+
+"Don't answer like that, my good girl!" she said. "What I say is true!
+Write an answer!" Natásha did not reply and went to her own room to read
+Princess Mary's letter.
+
+Princess Mary wrote that she was in despair at the misunderstanding that
+had occurred between them. Whatever her father's feelings might be, she
+begged Natásha to believe that she could not help loving her as the one
+chosen by her brother, for whose happiness she was ready to sacrifice
+everything.
+
+"Do not think, however," she wrote, "that my father is ill-disposed
+toward you. He is an invalid and an old man who must be forgiven; but he
+is good and magnanimous and will love her who makes his son happy."
+Princess Mary went on to ask Natásha to fix a time when she could see
+her again.
+
+After reading the letter Natásha sat down at the writing table to answer
+it. "Dear Princess," she wrote in French quickly and mechanically, and
+then paused. What more could she write after all that had happened the
+evening before? "Yes, yes! All that has happened, and now all is
+changed," she thought as she sat with the letter she had begun before
+her. "Must I break off with him? Must I really? That's awful..." and to
+escape from these dreadful thoughts she went to Sónya and began sorting
+patterns with her.
+
+After dinner Natásha went to her room and again took up Princess Mary's
+letter. "Can it be that it is all over?" she thought. "Can it be that
+all this has happened so quickly and has destroyed all that went
+before?" She recalled her love for Prince Andrew in all its former
+strength, and at the same time felt that she loved Kurágin. She vividly
+pictured herself as Prince Andrew's wife, and the scenes of happiness
+with him she had so often repeated in her imagination, and at the same
+time, aglow with excitement, recalled every detail of yesterday's
+interview with Anatole.
+
+"Why could that not be as well?" she sometimes asked herself in complete
+bewilderment. "Only so could I be completely happy; but now I have to
+choose, and I can't be happy without either of them. Only," she thought,
+"to tell Prince Andrew what has happened or to hide it from him are both
+equally impossible. But with that one nothing is spoiled. But am I
+really to abandon forever the joy of Prince Andrew's love, in which I
+have lived so long?"
+
+"Please, Miss!" whispered a maid entering the room with a mysterious
+air. "A man told me to give you this-" and she handed Natásha a letter.
+
+"Only, for Christ's sake..." the girl went on, as Natásha, without
+thinking, mechanically broke the seal and read a love letter from
+Anatole, of which, without taking in a word, she understood only that it
+was a letter from him—from the man she loved. Yes, she loved him, or
+else how could that have happened which had happened? And how could she
+have a love letter from him in her hand?
+
+With trembling hands Natásha held that passionate love letter which
+Dólokhov had composed for Anatole, and as she read it she found in it an
+echo of all that she herself imagined she was feeling.
+
+"Since yesterday evening my fate has been sealed; to be loved by you or
+to die. There is no other way for me," the letter began. Then he went on
+to say that he knew her parents would not give her to him—for this there
+were secret reasons he could reveal only to her—but that if she loved
+him she need only say the word yes, and no human power could hinder
+their bliss. Love would conquer all. He would steal her away and carry
+her off to the ends of the earth.
+
+"Yes, yes! I love him!" thought Natásha, reading the letter for the
+twentieth time and finding some peculiarly deep meaning in each word of
+it.
+
+That evening Márya Dmítrievna was going to the Akharovs' and proposed to
+take the girls with her. Natásha, pleading a headache, remained at home.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+On returning late in the evening Sónya went to Natásha's room, and to
+her surprise found her still dressed and asleep on the sofa. Open on the
+table, beside her lay Anatole's letter. Sónya picked it up and read it.
+
+As she read she glanced at the sleeping Natásha, trying to find in her
+face an explanation of what she was reading, but did not find it. Her
+face was calm, gentle, and happy. Clutching her breast to keep herself
+from choking, Sónya, pale and trembling with fear and agitation, sat
+down in an armchair and burst into tears.
+
+"How was it I noticed nothing? How could it go so far? Can she have left
+off loving Prince Andrew? And how could she let Kurágin go to such
+lengths? He is a deceiver and a villain, that's plain! What will
+Nicholas, dear noble Nicholas, do when he hears of it? So this is the
+meaning of her excited, resolute, unnatural look the day before
+yesterday, yesterday, and today," thought Sónya. "But it can't be that
+she loves him! She probably opened the letter without knowing who it was
+from. Probably she is offended by it. She could not do such a thing!"
+
+Sónya wiped away her tears and went up to Natásha, again scanning her
+face.
+
+"Natásha!" she said, just audibly.
+
+Natásha awoke and saw Sónya.
+
+"Ah, you're back?"
+
+And with the decision and tenderness that often come at the moment of
+awakening, she embraced her friend, but noticing Sónya's look of
+embarrassment, her own face expressed confusion and suspicion.
+
+"Sónya, you've read that letter?" she demanded.
+
+"Yes," answered Sónya softly.
+
+Natásha smiled rapturously.
+
+"No, Sónya, I can't any longer!" she said. "I can't hide it from you any
+longer. You know, we love one another! Sónya, darling, he writes...
+Sónya..."
+
+Sónya stared open-eyed at Natásha, unable to believe her ears.
+
+"And Bolkónski?" she asked.
+
+"Ah, Sónya, if you only knew how happy I am!" cried Natásha. "You don't
+know what love is...."
+
+"But, Natásha, can that be all over?"
+
+Natásha looked at Sónya with wide-open eyes as if she could not grasp
+the question.
+
+"Well, then, are you refusing Prince Andrew?" said Sónya.
+
+"Oh, you don't understand anything! Don't talk nonsense, just listen!"
+said Natásha, with momentary vexation.
+
+"But I can't believe it," insisted Sónya. "I don't understand. How is it
+you have loved a man for a whole year and suddenly... Why, you have only
+seen him three times! Natásha, I don't believe you, you're joking! In
+three days to forget everything and so..."
+
+"Three days?" said Natásha. "It seems to me I've loved him a hundred
+years. It seems to me that I have never loved anyone before. You can't
+understand it.... Sónya, wait a bit, sit here," and Natásha embraced and
+kissed her.
+
+"I had heard that it happens like this, and you must have heard it too,
+but it's only now that I feel such love. It's not the same as before. As
+soon as I saw him I felt he was my master and I his slave, and that I
+could not help loving him. Yes, his slave! Whatever he orders I shall
+do. You don't understand that. What can I do? What can I do, Sónya?"
+cried Natásha with a happy yet frightened expression.
+
+"But think what you are doing," cried Sónya. "I can't leave it like
+this. This secret correspondence... How could you let him go so far?"
+she went on, with a horror and disgust she could hardly conceal.
+
+"I told you that I have no will," Natásha replied. "Why can't you
+understand? I love him!"
+
+"Then I won't let it come to that... I shall tell!" cried Sónya,
+bursting into tears.
+
+"What do you mean? For God's sake... If you tell, you are my enemy!"
+declared Natásha. "You want me to be miserable, you want us to be
+separated...."
+
+When she saw Natásha's fright, Sónya shed tears of shame and pity for
+her friend.
+
+"But what has happened between you?" she asked. "What has he said to
+you? Why doesn't he come to the house?"
+
+Natásha did not answer her questions.
+
+"For God's sake, Sónya, don't tell anyone, don't torture me," Natásha
+entreated. "Remember no one ought to interfere in such matters! I have
+confided in you...."
+
+"But why this secrecy? Why doesn't he come to the house?" asked Sónya.
+"Why doesn't he openly ask for your hand? You know Prince Andrew gave
+you complete freedom—if it is really so; but I don't believe it!
+Natásha, have you considered what these secret reasons can be?"
+
+Natásha looked at Sónya with astonishment. Evidently this question
+presented itself to her mind for the first time and she did not know how
+to answer it.
+
+"I don't know what the reasons are. But there must be reasons!"
+
+Sónya sighed and shook her head incredulously.
+
+"If there were reasons..." she began.
+
+But Natásha, guessing her doubts, interrupted her in alarm.
+
+"Sónya, one can't doubt him! One can't, one can't! Don't you
+understand?" she cried.
+
+"Does he love you?"
+
+"Does he love me?" Natásha repeated with a smile of pity at her friend's
+lack of comprehension. "Why, you have read his letter and you have seen
+him."
+
+"But if he is dishonorable?"
+
+"He! dishonorable? If you only knew!" exclaimed Natásha.
+
+"If he is an honorable man he should either declare his intentions or
+cease seeing you; and if you won't do this, I will. I will write to him,
+and I will tell Papa!" said Sónya resolutely.
+
+"But I can't live without him!" cried Natásha.
+
+"Natásha, I don't understand you. And what are you saying! Think of your
+father and of Nicholas."
+
+"I don't want anyone, I don't love anyone but him. How dare you say he
+is dishonorable? Don't you know that I love him?" screamed Natásha. "Go
+away, Sónya! I don't want to quarrel with you, but go, for God's sake
+go! You see how I am suffering!" Natásha cried angrily, in a voice of
+despair and repressed irritation. Sónya burst into sobs and ran from the
+room.
+
+Natásha went to the table and without a moment's reflection wrote that
+answer to Princess Mary which she had been unable to write all the
+morning. In this letter she said briefly that all their
+misunderstandings were at an end; that availing herself of the
+magnanimity of Prince Andrew who when he went abroad had given her her
+freedom, she begged Princess Mary to forget everything and forgive her
+if she had been to blame toward her, but that she could not be his wife.
+At that moment this all seemed quite easy, simple, and clear to Natásha.
+
+On Friday the Rostóvs were to return to the country, but on Wednesday
+the count went with the prospective purchaser to his estate near Moscow.
+
+On the day the count left, Sónya and Natásha were invited to a big
+dinner party at the Karagins', and Márya Dmítrievna took them there. At
+that party Natásha again met Anatole, and Sónya noticed that she spoke
+to him, trying not to be overheard, and that all through dinner she was
+more agitated than ever. When they got home Natásha was the first to
+begin the explanation Sónya expected.
+
+"There, Sónya, you were talking all sorts of nonsense about him,"
+Natásha began in a mild voice such as children use when they wish to be
+praised. "We have had an explanation today."
+
+"Well, what happened? What did he say? Natásha, how glad I am you're not
+angry with me! Tell me everything—the whole truth. What did he say?"
+
+Natásha became thoughtful.
+
+"Oh, Sónya, if you knew him as I do! He said... He asked me what I had
+promised Bolkónski. He was glad I was free to refuse him."
+
+Sónya sighed sorrowfully.
+
+"But you haven't refused Bolkónski?" said she.
+
+"Perhaps I have. Perhaps all is over between me and Bolkónski. Why do
+you think so badly of me?"
+
+"I don't think anything, only I don't understand this..."
+
+"Wait a bit, Sónya, you'll understand everything. You'll see what a man
+he is! Now don't think badly of me or of him. I don't think badly of
+anyone: I love and pity everybody. But what am I to do?"
+
+Sónya did not succumb to the tender tone Natásha used toward her. The
+more emotional and ingratiating the expression of Natásha's face became,
+the more serious and stern grew Sónya's.
+
+"Natásha," said she, "you asked me not to speak to you, and I haven't
+spoken, but now you yourself have begun. I don't trust him, Natásha. Why
+this secrecy?"
+
+"Again, again!" interrupted Natásha.
+
+"Natásha, I am afraid for you!"
+
+"Afraid of what?"
+
+"I am afraid you're going to your ruin," said Sónya resolutely, and was
+herself horrified at what she had said.
+
+Anger again showed in Natásha's face.
+
+"And I'll go to my ruin, I will, as soon as possible! It's not your
+business! It won't be you, but I, who'll suffer. Leave me alone, leave
+me alone! I hate you!"
+
+"Natásha!" moaned Sónya, aghast.
+
+"I hate you, I hate you! You're my enemy forever!" And Natásha ran out
+of the room.
+
+Natásha did not speak to Sónya again and avoided her. With the same
+expression of agitated surprise and guilt she went about the house,
+taking up now one occupation, now another, and at once abandoning them.
+
+Hard as it was for Sónya, she watched her friend and did not let her out
+of her sight.
+
+The day before the count was to return, Sónya noticed that Natásha sat
+by the drawing room window all the morning as if expecting something and
+that she made a sign to an officer who drove past, whom Sónya took to be
+Anatole.
+
+Sónya began watching her friend still more attentively and noticed that
+at dinner and all that evening Natásha was in a strange and unnatural
+state. She answered questions at random, began sentences she did not
+finish, and laughed at everything.
+
+After tea Sónya noticed a housemaid at Natásha's door timidly waiting to
+let her pass. She let the girl go in, and then listening at the door
+learned that another letter had been delivered.
+
+Then suddenly it became clear to Sónya that Natásha had some dreadful
+plan for that evening. Sónya knocked at her door. Natásha did not let
+her in.
+
+"She will run away with him!" thought Sónya. "She is capable of
+anything. There was something particularly pathetic and resolute in her
+face today. She cried as she said good-by to Uncle," Sónya remembered.
+"Yes, that's it, she means to elope with him, but what am I to do?"
+thought she, recalling all the signs that clearly indicated that Natásha
+had some terrible intention. "The count is away. What am I to do? Write
+to Kurágin demanding an explanation? But what is there to oblige him to
+reply? Write to Pierre, as Prince Andrew asked me to in case of some
+misfortune?... But perhaps she really has already refused Bolkónski—she
+sent a letter to Princess Mary yesterday. And Uncle is away...." To tell
+Márya Dmítrievna who had such faith in Natásha seemed to Sónya terrible.
+"Well, anyway," thought Sónya as she stood in the dark passage, "now or
+never I must prove that I remember the family's goodness to me and that
+I love Nicholas. Yes! If I don't sleep for three nights I'll not leave
+this passage and will hold her back by force and will and not let the
+family be disgraced," thought she.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+Anatole had lately moved to Dólokhov's. The plan for Natalie Rostóva's
+abduction had been arranged and the preparations made by Dólokhov a few
+days before, and on the day that Sónya, after listening at Natásha's
+door, resolved to safeguard her, it was to have been put into execution.
+Natásha had promised to come out to Kurágin at the back porch at ten
+that evening. Kurágin was to put her into a troyka he would have ready
+and to drive her forty miles to the village of Kamenka, where an
+unfrocked priest was in readiness to perform a marriage ceremony over
+them. At Kamenka a relay of horses was to wait which would take them to
+the Warsaw highroad, and from there they would hasten abroad with post
+horses.
+
+Anatole had a passport, an order for post horses, ten thousand rubles he
+had taken from his sister and another ten thousand borrowed with
+Dólokhov's help.
+
+Two witnesses for the mock marriage—Khvostikov, a retired petty official
+whom Dólokhov made use of in his gambling transactions, and Makarin, a
+retired hussar, a kindly, weak fellow who had an unbounded affection for
+Kurágin—were sitting at tea in Dólokhov's front room.
+
+In his large study, the walls of which were hung to the ceiling with
+Persian rugs, bearskins, and weapons, sat Dólokhov in a traveling cloak
+and high boots, at an open desk on which lay an abacus and some bundles
+of paper money. Anatole, with uniform unbuttoned, walked to and fro from
+the room where the witnesses were sitting, through the study to the room
+behind, where his French valet and others were packing the last of his
+things. Dólokhov was counting the money and noting something down.
+
+"Well," he said, "Khvostikov must have two thousand."
+
+"Give it to him, then," said Anatole.
+
+"Makarka" (their name for Makarin) "will go through fire and water for
+you for nothing. So here are our accounts all settled," said Dólokhov,
+showing him the memorandum. "Is that right?"
+
+"Yes, of course," returned Anatole, evidently not listening to Dólokhov
+and looking straight before him with a smile that did not leave his
+face.
+
+Dólokhov banged down the lid of his desk and turned to Anatole with an
+ironic smile:
+
+"Do you know? You'd really better drop it all. There's still time!"
+
+"Fool," retorted Anatole. "Don't talk nonsense! If you only knew... it's
+the devil knows what!"
+
+"No, really, give it up!" said Dólokhov. "I am speaking seriously. It's
+no joke, this plot you've hatched."
+
+"What, teasing again? Go to the devil! Eh?" said Anatole, making a
+grimace. "Really it's no time for your stupid jokes," and he left the
+room.
+
+Dólokhov smiled contemptuously and condescendingly when Anatole had gone
+out.
+
+"You wait a bit," he called after him. "I'm not joking, I'm talking
+sense. Come here, come here!"
+
+Anatole returned and looked at Dólokhov, trying to give him his
+attention and evidently submitting to him involuntarily.
+
+"Now listen to me. I'm telling you this for the last time. Why should I
+joke about it? Did I hinder you? Who arranged everything for you? Who
+found the priest and got the passport? Who raised the money? I did it
+all."
+
+"Well, thank you for it. Do you think I am not grateful?" And Anatole
+sighed and embraced Dólokhov.
+
+"I helped you, but all the same I must tell you the truth; it is a
+dangerous business, and if you think about it—a stupid business. Well,
+you'll carry her off—all right! Will they let it stop at that? It will
+come out that you're already married. Why, they'll have you in the
+criminal court...."
+
+"Oh, nonsense, nonsense!" Anatole ejaculated and again made a grimace.
+"Didn't I explain to you? What?" And Anatole, with the partiality dull-
+witted people have for any conclusion they have reached by their own
+reasoning, repeated the argument he had already put to Dólokhov a
+hundred times. "Didn't I explain to you that I have come to this
+conclusion: if this marriage is invalid," he went on, crooking one
+finger, "then I have nothing to answer for; but if it is valid, no
+matter! Abroad no one will know anything about it. Isn't that so? And
+don't talk to me, don't, don't."
+
+"Seriously, you'd better drop it! You'll only get yourself into a mess!"
+
+"Go to the devil!" cried Anatole and, clutching his hair, left the room,
+but returned at once and dropped into an armchair in front of Dólokhov
+with his feet turned under him. "It's the very devil! What? Feel how it
+beats!" He took Dólokhov's hand and put it on his heart. "What a foot,
+my dear fellow! What a glance! A goddess!" he added in French. "What?"
+
+Dólokhov with a cold smile and a gleam in his handsome insolent eyes
+looked at him—evidently wishing to get some more amusement out of him.
+
+"Well and when the money's gone, what then?"
+
+"What then? Eh?" repeated Anatole, sincerely perplexed by a thought of
+the future. "What then?... Then, I don't know.... But why talk
+nonsense!" He glanced at his watch. "It's time!"
+
+Anatole went into the back room.
+
+"Now then! Nearly ready? You're dawdling!" he shouted to the servants.
+
+Dólokhov put away the money, called a footman whom he ordered to bring
+something for them to eat and drink before the journey, and went into
+the room where Khvostikov and Makarin were sitting.
+
+Anatole lay on the sofa in the study leaning on his elbow and smiling
+pensively, while his handsome lips muttered tenderly to himself.
+
+"Come and eat something. Have a drink!" Dólokhov shouted to him from the
+other room.
+
+"I don't want to," answered Anatole continuing to smile.
+
+"Come! Balaga is here."
+
+Anatole rose and went into the dining room. Balaga was a famous troyka
+driver who had known Dólokhov and Anatole some six years and had given
+them good service with his troykas. More than once when Anatole's
+regiment was stationed at Tver he had taken him from Tver in the
+evening, brought him to Moscow by daybreak, and driven him back again
+the next night. More than once he had enabled Dólokhov to escape when
+pursued. More than once he had driven them through the town with gypsies
+and "ladykins" as he called the cocottes. More than once in their
+service he had run over pedestrians and upset vehicles in the streets of
+Moscow and had always been protected from the consequences by "my
+gentlemen" as he called them. He had ruined more than one horse in their
+service. More than once they had beaten him, and more than once they had
+made him drunk on champagne and Madeira, which he loved; and he knew
+more than one thing about each of them which would long ago have sent an
+ordinary man to Siberia. They often called Balaga into their orgies and
+made him drink and dance at the gypsies', and more than one thousand
+rubles of their money had passed through his hands. In their service he
+risked his skin and his life twenty times a year, and in their service
+had lost more horses than the money he had from them would buy. But he
+liked them; liked that mad driving at twelve miles an hour, liked
+upsetting a driver or running down a pedestrian, and flying at full
+gallop through the Moscow streets. He liked to hear those wild, tipsy
+shouts behind him: "Get on! Get on!" when it was impossible to go any
+faster. He liked giving a painful lash on the neck to some peasant who,
+more dead than alive, was already hurrying out of his way. "Real
+gentlemen!" he considered them.
+
+Anatole and Dólokhov liked Balaga too for his masterly driving and
+because he liked the things they liked. With others Balaga bargained,
+charging twenty-five rubles for a two hours' drive, and rarely drove
+himself, generally letting his young men do so. But with "his gentlemen"
+he always drove himself and never demanded anything for his work. Only a
+couple of times a year—when he knew from their valets that they had
+money in hand—he would turn up of a morning quite sober and with a deep
+bow would ask them to help him. The gentlemen always made him sit down.
+
+"Do help me out, Theodore Ivanych, sir," or "your excellency," he would
+say. "I am quite out of horses. Let me have what you can to go to the
+fair."
+
+And Anatole and Dólokhov, when they had money, would give him a thousand
+or a couple of thousand rubles.
+
+Balaga was a fair-haired, short, and snub-nosed peasant of about twenty-
+seven; red-faced, with a particularly red thick neck, glittering little
+eyes, and a small beard. He wore a fine, dark-blue, silk-lined cloth
+coat over a sheepskin.
+
+On entering the room now he crossed himself, turning toward the front
+corner of the room, and went up to Dólokhov, holding out a small, black
+hand.
+
+"Theodore Ivanych!" he said, bowing.
+
+"How d'you do, friend? Well, here he is!"
+
+"Good day, your excellency!" he said, again holding out his hand to
+Anatole who had just come in.
+
+"I say, Balaga," said Anatole, putting his hands on the man's shoulders,
+"do you care for me or not? Eh? Now, do me a service.... What horses
+have you come with? Eh?"
+
+"As your messenger ordered, your special beasts," replied Balaga.
+
+"Well, listen, Balaga! Drive all three to death but get me there in
+three hours. Eh?"
+
+"When they are dead, what shall I drive?" said Balaga with a wink.
+
+"Mind, I'll smash your face in! Don't make jokes!" cried Anatole,
+suddenly rolling his eyes.
+
+"Why joke?" said the driver, laughing. "As if I'd grudge my gentlemen
+anything! As fast as ever the horses can gallop, so fast we'll go!"
+
+"Ah!" said Anatole. "Well, sit down."
+
+"Yes, sit down!" said Dólokhov.
+
+"I'll stand, Theodore Ivanych."
+
+"Sit down; nonsense! Have a drink!" said Anatole, and filled a large
+glass of Madeira for him.
+
+The driver's eyes sparkled at the sight of the wine. After refusing it
+for manners' sake, he drank it and wiped his mouth with a red silk
+handkerchief he took out of his cap.
+
+"And when are we to start, your excellency?"
+
+"Well..." Anatole looked at his watch. "We'll start at once. Mind,
+Balaga! You'll get there in time? Eh?"
+
+"That depends on our luck in starting, else why shouldn't we be there in
+time?" replied Balaga. "Didn't we get you to Tver in seven hours? I
+think you remember that, your excellency?"
+
+"Do you know, one Christmas I drove from Tver," said Anatole, smilingly
+at the recollection and turning to Makarin who gazed rapturously at him
+with wide-open eyes. "Will you believe it, Makarka, it took one's breath
+away, the rate we flew. We came across a train of loaded sleighs and
+drove right over two of them. Eh?"
+
+"Those were horses!" Balaga continued the tale. "That time I'd harnessed
+two young side horses with the bay in the shafts," he went on, turning
+to Dólokhov. "Will you believe it, Theodore Ivanych, those animals flew
+forty miles? I couldn't hold them in, my hands grew numb in the sharp
+frost so that I threw down the reins—'Catch hold yourself, your
+excellency!' says I, and I just tumbled on the bottom of the sleigh and
+sprawled there. It wasn't a case of urging them on, there was no holding
+them in till we reached the place. The devils took us there in three
+hours! Only the near one died of it."
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+Anatole went out of the room and returned a few minutes later wearing a
+fur coat girt with a silver belt, and a sable cap jauntily set on one
+side and very becoming to his handsome face. Having looked in a mirror,
+and standing before Dólokhov in the same pose he had assumed before it,
+he lifted a glass of wine.
+
+"Well, good-by, Theodore. Thank you for everything and farewell!" said
+Anatole. "Well, comrades and friends..." he considered for a moment
+"...of my youth, farewell!" he said, turning to Makarin and the others.
+
+Though they were all going with him, Anatole evidently wished to make
+something touching and solemn out of this address to his comrades. He
+spoke slowly in a loud voice and throwing out his chest slightly swayed
+one leg.
+
+"All take glasses; you too, Balaga. Well, comrades and friends of my
+youth, we've had our fling and lived and reveled. Eh? And now, when
+shall we meet again? I am going abroad. We have had a good time—now
+farewell, lads! To our health! Hurrah!..." he cried, and emptying his
+glass flung it on the floor.
+
+"To your health!" said Balaga who also emptied his glass, and wiped his
+mouth with his handkerchief.
+
+Makarin embraced Anatole with tears in his eyes.
+
+"Ah, Prince, how sorry I am to part from you!
+
+"Let's go. Let's go!" cried Anatole.
+
+Balaga was about to leave the room.
+
+"No, stop!" said Anatole. "Shut the door; we have first to sit down.
+That's the way."
+
+They shut the door and all sat down.
+
+"Now, quick march, lads!" said Anatole, rising.
+
+Joseph, his valet, handed him his sabretache and saber, and they all
+went out into the vestibule.
+
+"And where's the fur cloak?" asked Dólokhov. "Hey, Ignatka! Go to
+Matrena Matrevna and ask her for the sable cloak. I have heard what
+elopements are like," continued Dólokhov with a wink. "Why, she'll rush
+out more dead than alive just in the things she is wearing; if you delay
+at all there'll be tears and 'Papa' and 'Mamma,' and she's frozen in a
+minute and must go back—but you wrap the fur cloak round her first thing
+and carry her to the sleigh."
+
+The valet brought a woman's fox-lined cloak.
+
+"Fool, I told you the sable one! Hey, Matrena, the sable!" he shouted so
+that his voice rang far through the rooms.
+
+A handsome, slim, and pale-faced gypsy girl with glittering black eyes
+and curly blue-black hair, wearing a red shawl, ran out with a sable
+mantle on her arm.
+
+"Here, I don't grudge it—take it!" she said, evidently afraid of her
+master and yet regretful of her cloak.
+
+Dólokhov, without answering, took the cloak, threw it over Matrena, and
+wrapped her up in it.
+
+"That's the way," said Dólokhov, "and then so!" and he turned the collar
+up round her head, leaving only a little of the face uncovered. "And
+then so, do you see?" and he pushed Anatole's head forward to meet the
+gap left by the collar, through which Matrena's brilliant smile was
+seen.
+
+"Well, good-by, Matrena," said Anatole, kissing her. "Ah, my revels here
+are over. Remember me to Steshka. There, good-by! Good-bye, Matrena,
+wish me luck!"
+
+"Well, Prince, may God give you great luck!" said Matrena in her gypsy
+accent.
+
+Two troykas were standing before the porch and two young drivers were
+holding the horses. Balaga took his seat in the front one and holding
+his elbows high arranged the reins deliberately. Anatole and Dólokhov
+got in with him. Makarin, Khvostikov, and a valet seated themselves in
+the other sleigh.
+
+"Well, are you ready?" asked Balaga.
+
+"Go!" he cried, twisting the reins round his hands, and the troyka tore
+down the Nikitski Boulevard.
+
+"Tproo! Get out of the way! Hi!... Tproo!..." The shouting of Balaga and
+of the sturdy young fellow seated on the box was all that could be
+heard. On the Arbat Square the troyka caught against a carriage;
+something cracked, shouts were heard, and the troyka flew along the
+Arbat Street.
+
+After taking a turn along the Podnovinski Boulevard, Balaga began to
+rein in, and turning back drew up at the crossing of the old Konyusheny
+Street.
+
+The young fellow on the box jumped down to hold the horses and Anatole
+and Dólokhov went along the pavement. When they reached the gate
+Dólokhov whistled. The whistle was answered, and a maidservant ran out.
+
+"Come into the courtyard or you'll be seen; she'll come out directly,"
+said she.
+
+Dólokhov stayed by the gate. Anatole followed the maid into the
+courtyard, turned the corner, and ran up into the porch.
+
+He was met by Gabriel, Márya Dmítrievna's gigantic footman.
+
+"Come to the mistress, please," said the footman in his deep bass,
+intercepting any retreat.
+
+"To what Mistress? Who are you?" asked Anatole in a breathless whisper.
+
+"Kindly step in, my orders are to bring you in."
+
+"Kurágin! Come back!" shouted Dólokhov. "Betrayed! Back!"
+
+Dólokhov, after Anatole entered, had remained at the wicket gate and was
+struggling with the yard porter who was trying to lock it. With a last
+desperate effort Dólokhov pushed the porter aside, and when Anatole ran
+back seized him by the arm, pulled him through the wicket, and ran back
+with him to the troyka.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+Márya Dmítrievna, having found Sónya weeping in the corridor, made her
+confess everything, and intercepting the note to Natásha she read it and
+went into Natásha's room with it in her hand.
+
+"You shameless good-for-nothing!" said she. "I won't hear a word."
+
+Pushing back Natásha who looked at her with astonished but tearless
+eyes, she locked her in; and having given orders to the yard porter to
+admit the persons who would be coming that evening, but not to let them
+out again, and having told the footman to bring them up to her, she
+seated herself in the drawing room to await the abductors.
+
+When Gabriel came to inform her that the men who had come had run away
+again, she rose frowning, and clasping her hands behind her paced
+through the rooms a long time considering what she should do. Toward
+midnight she went to Natásha's room fingering the key in her pocket.
+Sónya was sitting sobbing in the corridor. "Márya Dmítrievna, for God's
+sake let me in to her!" she pleaded, but Márya Dmítrievna unlocked the
+door and went in without giving her an answer.... "Disgusting,
+abominable... In my house... horrid girl, hussy! I'm only sorry for her
+father!" thought she, trying to restrain her wrath. "Hard as it may be,
+I'll tell them all to hold their tongues and will hide it from the
+count." She entered the room with resolute steps. Natásha lying on the
+sofa, her head hidden in her hands, and she did not stir. She was in
+just the same position in which Márya Dmítrievna had left her.
+
+"A nice girl! Very nice!" said Márya Dmítrievna. "Arranging meetings
+with lovers in my house! It's no use pretending: you listen when I speak
+to you!" And Márya Dmítrievna touched her arm. "Listen when I speak!
+You've disgraced yourself like the lowest of hussies. I'd treat you
+differently, but I'm sorry for your father, so I will conceal it."
+
+Natásha did not change her position, but her whole body heaved with
+noiseless, convulsive sobs which choked her. Márya Dmítrievna glanced
+round at Sónya and seated herself on the sofa beside Natásha.
+
+"It's lucky for him that he escaped me; but I'll find him!" she said in
+her rough voice. "Do you hear what I am saying or not?" she added.
+
+She put her large hand under Natásha's face and turned it toward her.
+Both Márya Dmítrievna and Sónya were amazed when they saw how Natásha
+looked. Her eyes were dry and glistening, her lips compressed, her
+cheeks sunken.
+
+"Let me be!... What is it to me?... I shall die!" she muttered,
+wrenching herself from Márya Dmítrievna's hands with a vicious effort
+and sinking down again into her former position.
+
+"Natalie!" said Márya Dmítrievna. "I wish for your good. Lie still, stay
+like that then, I won't touch you. But listen. I won't tell you how
+guilty you are. You know that yourself. But when your father comes back
+tomorrow what am I to tell him? Eh?"
+
+Again Natásha's body shook with sobs.
+
+"Suppose he finds out, and your brother, and your betrothed?"
+
+"I have no betrothed: I have refused him!" cried Natásha.
+
+"That's all the same," continued Márya Dmítrievna. "If they hear of
+this, will they let it pass? He, your father, I know him... if he
+challenges him to a duel will that be all right? Eh?"
+
+"Oh, let me be! Why have you interfered at all? Why? Why? Who asked you
+to?" shouted Natásha, raising herself on the sofa and looking
+malignantly at Márya Dmítrievna.
+
+"But what did you want?" cried Márya Dmítrievna, growing angry again.
+"Were you kept under lock and key? Who hindered his coming to the house?
+Why carry you off as if you were some gypsy singing girl?... Well, if he
+had carried you off... do you think they wouldn't have found him? Your
+father, or brother, or your betrothed? And he's a scoundrel, a
+wretch—that's a fact!"
+
+"He is better than any of you!" exclaimed Natásha getting up. "If you
+hadn't interfered... Oh, my God! What is it all? What is it? Sónya,
+why?... Go away!"
+
+And she burst into sobs with the despairing vehemence with which people
+bewail disasters they feel they have themselves occasioned. Márya
+Dmítrievna was to speak again but Natásha cried out:
+
+"Go away! Go away! You all hate and despise me!" and she threw herself
+back on the sofa.
+
+Márya Dmítrievna went on admonishing her for some time, enjoining on her
+that it must all be kept from her father and assuring her that nobody
+would know anything about it if only Natásha herself would undertake to
+forget it all and not let anyone see that something had happened.
+Natásha did not reply, nor did she sob any longer, but she grew cold and
+had a shivering fit. Márya Dmítrievna put a pillow under her head,
+covered her with two quilts, and herself brought her some lime-flower
+water, but Natásha did not respond to her.
+
+"Well, let her sleep," said Márya Dmítrievna as she went out of the room
+supposing Natásha to be asleep.
+
+But Natásha was not asleep; with pale face and fixed wide-open eyes she
+looked straight before her. All that night she did not sleep or weep and
+did not speak to Sónya who got up and went to her several times.
+
+Next day Count Rostóv returned from his estate near Moscow in time for
+lunch as he had promised. He was in very good spirits; the affair with
+the purchaser was going on satisfactorily, and there was nothing to keep
+him any longer in Moscow, away from the countess whom he missed. Márya
+Dmítrievna met him and told him that Natásha had been very unwell the
+day before and that they had sent for the doctor, but that she was
+better now. Natásha had not left her room that morning. With compressed
+and parched lips and dry fixed eyes, she sat at the window, uneasily
+watching the people who drove past and hurriedly glancing round at
+anyone who entered the room. She was evidently expecting news of him and
+that he would come or would write to her.
+
+When the count came to see her she turned anxiously round at the sound
+of a man's footstep, and then her face resumed its cold and malevolent
+expression. She did not even get up to greet him. "What is the matter
+with you, my angel? Are you ill?" asked the count.
+
+After a moment's silence Natásha answered: "Yes, ill."
+
+In reply to the count's anxious inquiries as to why she was so dejected
+and whether anything had happened to her betrothed, she assured him that
+nothing had happened and asked him not to worry. Márya Dmítrievna
+confirmed Natásha's assurances that nothing had happened. From the
+pretense of illness, from his daughter's distress, and by the
+embarrassed faces of Sónya and Márya Dmítrievna, the count saw clearly
+that something had gone wrong during his absence, but it was so terrible
+for him to think that anything disgraceful had happened to his beloved
+daughter, and he so prized his own cheerful tranquillity, that he
+avoided inquiries and tried to assure himself that nothing particularly
+had happened; and he was only dissatisfied that her indisposition
+delayed their return to the country.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+From the day his wife arrived in Moscow Pierre had been intending to go
+away somewhere, so as not to be near her. Soon after the Rostóvs came to
+Moscow the effect Natásha had on him made him hasten to carry out his
+intention. He went to Tver to see Joseph Alexeevich's widow, who had
+long since promised to hand over to him some papers of her deceased
+husband's.
+
+When he returned to Moscow Pierre was handed a letter from Márya
+Dmítrievna asking him to come and see her on a matter of great
+importance relating to Andrew Bolkónski and his betrothed. Pierre had
+been avoiding Natásha because it seemed to him that his feeling for her
+was stronger than a married man's should be for his friend's fiancee.
+Yet some fate constantly threw them together.
+
+"What can have happened? And what can they want with me?" thought he as
+he dressed to go to Márya Dmítrievna's. "If only Prince Andrew would
+hurry up and come and marry her!" thought he on his way to the house.
+
+On the Tverskoy Boulevard a familiar voice called to him.
+
+"Pierre! Been back long?" someone shouted. Pierre raised his head. In a
+sleigh drawn by two gray trotting-horses that were bespattering the
+dashboard with snow, Anatole and his constant companion Makarin dashed
+past. Anatole was sitting upright in the classic pose of military
+dandies, the lower part of his face hidden by his beaver collar and his
+head slightly bent. His face was fresh and rosy, his white-plumed hat,
+tilted to one side, disclosed his curled and pomaded hair besprinkled
+with powdery snow.
+
+"Yes, indeed, that's a true sage," thought Pierre. "He sees nothing
+beyond the pleasure of the moment, nothing troubles him and so he is
+always cheerful, satisfied, and serene. What wouldn't I give to be like
+him!" he thought enviously.
+
+In Márya Dmítrievna's anteroom the footman who helped him off with his
+fur coat said that the mistress asked him to come to her bedroom.
+
+When he opened the ballroom door Pierre saw Natásha sitting at the
+window, with a thin, pale, and spiteful face. She glanced round at him,
+frowned, and left the room with an expression of cold dignity.
+
+"What has happened?" asked Pierre, entering Márya Dmítrievna's room.
+
+"Fine doings!" answered Dmítrievna. "For fifty-eight years have I lived
+in this world and never known anything so disgraceful!"
+
+And having put him on his honor not to repeat anything she told him,
+Márya Dmítrievna informed him that Natásha had refused Prince Andrew
+without her parents' knowledge and that the cause of this was Anatole
+Kurágin into whose society Pierre's wife had thrown her and with whom
+Natásha had tried to elope during her father's absence, in order to be
+married secretly.
+
+Pierre raised his shoulders and listened open-mouthed to what was told
+him, scarcely able to believe his own ears. That Prince Andrew's deeply
+loved affianced wife—the same Natásha Rostóva who used to be so
+charming—should give up Bolkónski for that fool Anatole who was already
+secretly married (as Pierre knew), and should be so in love with him as
+to agree to run away with him, was something Pierre could not conceive
+and could not imagine.
+
+He could not reconcile the charming impression he had of Natásha, whom
+he had known from a child, with this new conception of her baseness,
+folly, and cruelty. He thought of his wife. "They are all alike!" he
+said to himself, reflecting that he was not the only man unfortunate
+enough to be tied to a bad woman. But still he pitied Prince Andrew to
+the point of tears and sympathized with his wounded pride, and the more
+he pitied his friend the more did he think with contempt and even with
+disgust of that Natásha who had just passed him in the ballroom with
+such a look of cold dignity. He did not know that Natásha's soul was
+overflowing with despair, shame, and humiliation, and that it was not
+her fault that her face happened to assume an expression of calm dignity
+and severity.
+
+"But how get married?" said Pierre, in answer to Márya Dmítrievna. "He
+could not marry—he is married!"
+
+"Things get worse from hour to hour!" ejaculated Márya Dmítrievna. "A
+nice youth! What a scoundrel! And she's expecting him—expecting him
+since yesterday. She must be told! Then at least she won't go on
+expecting him."
+
+After hearing the details of Anatole's marriage from Pierre, and giving
+vent to her anger against Anatole in words of abuse, Márya Dmítrievna
+told Pierre why she had sent for him. She was afraid that the count or
+Bolkónski, who might arrive at any moment, if they knew of this affair
+(which she hoped to hide from them) might challenge Anatole to a duel,
+and she therefore asked Pierre to tell his brother-in-law in her name to
+leave Moscow and not dare to let her set eyes on him again. Pierre—only
+now realizing the danger to the old count, Nicholas, and Prince
+Andrew—promised to do as she wished. Having briefly and exactly
+explained her wishes to him, she let him go to the drawing room.
+
+"Mind, the count knows nothing. Behave as if you know nothing either,"
+she said. "And I will go and tell her it is no use expecting him! And
+stay to dinner if you care to!" she called after Pierre.
+
+Pierre met the old count, who seemed nervous and upset. That morning
+Natásha had told him that she had rejected Bolkónski.
+
+"Troubles, troubles, my dear fellow!" he said to Pierre. "What troubles
+one has with these girls without their mother! I do so regret having
+come here.... I will be frank with you. Have you heard she has broken
+off her engagement without consulting anybody? It's true this engagement
+never was much to my liking. Of course he is an excellent man, but
+still, with his father's disapproval they wouldn't have been happy, and
+Natásha won't lack suitors. Still, it has been going on so long, and to
+take such a step without father's or mother's consent! And now she's
+ill, and God knows what! It's hard, Count, hard to manage daughters in
+their mother's absence...."
+
+Pierre saw that the count was much upset and tried to change the
+subject, but the count returned to his troubles.
+
+Sónya entered the room with an agitated face.
+
+"Natásha is not quite well; she's in her room and would like to see you.
+Márya Dmítrievna is with her and she too asks you to come."
+
+"Yes, you are a great friend of Bolkónski's, no doubt she wants to send
+him a message," said the count. "Oh dear! Oh dear! How happy it all
+was!"
+
+And clutching the spare gray locks on his temples the count left the
+room.
+
+When Márya Dmítrievna told Natásha that Anatole was married, Natásha did
+not wish to believe it and insisted on having it confirmed by Pierre
+himself. Sónya told Pierre this as she led him along the corridor to
+Natásha's room.
+
+Natásha, pale and stern, was sitting beside Márya Dmítrievna, and her
+eyes, glittering feverishly, met Pierre with a questioning look the
+moment he entered. She did not smile or nod, but only gazed fixedly at
+him, and her look asked only one thing: was he a friend, or like the
+others an enemy in regard to Anatole? As for Pierre, he evidently did
+not exist for her.
+
+"He knows all about it," said Márya Dmítrievna pointing to Pierre and
+addressing Natásha. "Let him tell you whether I have told the truth."
+
+Natásha looked from one to the other as a hunted and wounded animal
+looks at the approaching dogs and sportsmen.
+
+"Natálya Ilyníchna," Pierre began, dropping his eyes with a feeling of
+pity for her and loathing for the thing he had to do, "whether it is
+true or not should make no difference to you, because..."
+
+"Then it is not true that he's married!"
+
+"Yes, it is true."
+
+"Has he been married long?" she asked. "On your honor?..."
+
+Pierre gave his word of honor.
+
+"Is he still here?" she asked, quickly.
+
+"Yes, I have just seen him."
+
+She was evidently unable to speak and made a sign with her hands that
+they should leave her alone.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+Pierre did not stay for dinner, but left the room and went away at once.
+He drove through the town seeking Anatole Kurágin, at the thought of
+whom now the blood rushed to his heart and he felt a difficulty in
+breathing. He was not at the ice hills, nor at the gypsies', nor at
+Komoneno's. Pierre drove to the club. In the club all was going on as
+usual. The members who were assembling for dinner were sitting about in
+groups; they greeted Pierre and spoke of the town news. The footman
+having greeted him, knowing his habits and his acquaintances, told him
+there was a place left for him in the small dining room and that Prince
+Michael Zakharych was in the library, but Paul Timofeevich had not yet
+arrived. One of Pierre's acquaintances, while they were talking about
+the weather, asked if he had heard of Kurágin's abduction of Rostóva
+which was talked of in the town, and was it true? Pierre laughed and
+said it was nonsense for he had just come from the Rostóvs'. He asked
+everyone about Anatole. One man told him he had not come yet, and
+another that he was coming to dinner. Pierre felt it strange to see this
+calm, indifferent crowd of people unaware of what was going on in his
+soul. He paced through the ballroom, waited till everyone had come, and
+as Anatole had not turned up did not stay for dinner but drove home.
+
+Anatole, for whom Pierre was looking, dined that day with Dólokhov,
+consulting him as to how to remedy this unfortunate affair. It seemed to
+him essential to see Natásha. In the evening he drove to his sister's to
+discuss with her how to arrange a meeting. When Pierre returned home
+after vainly hunting all over Moscow, his valet informed him that Prince
+Anatole was with the countess. The countess' drawing room was full of
+guests.
+
+Pierre without greeting his wife whom he had not seen since his
+return—at that moment she was more repulsive to him than ever—entered
+the drawing room and seeing Anatole went up to him.
+
+"Ah, Pierre," said the countess going up to her husband. "You don't know
+what a plight our Anatole..."
+
+She stopped, seeing in the forward thrust of her husband's head, in his
+glowing eyes and his resolute gait, the terrible indications of that
+rage and strength which she knew and had herself experienced after his
+duel with Dólokhov.
+
+"Where you are, there is vice and evil!" said Pierre to his wife.
+"Anatole, come with me! I must speak to you," he added in French.
+
+Anatole glanced round at his sister and rose submissively, ready to
+follow Pierre. Pierre, taking him by the arm, pulled him toward himself
+and was leading him from the room.
+
+"If you allow yourself in my drawing room..." whispered Hélène, but
+Pierre did not reply and went out of the room.
+
+Anatole followed him with his usual jaunty step but his face betrayed
+anxiety.
+
+Having entered his study Pierre closed the door and addressed Anatole
+without looking at him.
+
+"You promised Countess Rostóva to marry her and were about to elope with
+her, is that so?"
+
+"Mon cher," answered Anatole (their whole conversation was in French),
+"I don't consider myself bound to answer questions put to me in that
+tone."
+
+Pierre's face, already pale, became distorted by fury. He seized Anatole
+by the collar of his uniform with his big hand and shook him from side
+to side till Anatole's face showed a sufficient degree of terror.
+
+"When I tell you that I must talk to you!..." repeated Pierre.
+
+"Come now, this is stupid. What?" said Anatole, fingering a button of
+his collar that had been wrenched loose with a bit of the cloth.
+
+"You're a scoundrel and a blackguard, and I don't know what deprives me
+from the pleasure of smashing your head with this!" said Pierre,
+expressing himself so artificially because he was talking French.
+
+He took a heavy paperweight and lifted it threateningly, but at once put
+it back in its place.
+
+"Did you promise to marry her?"
+
+"I... I didn't think of it. I never promised, because..."
+
+Pierre interrupted him.
+
+"Have you any letters of hers? Any letters?" he said, moving toward
+Anatole.
+
+Anatole glanced at him and immediately thrust his hand into his pocket
+and drew out his pocketbook.
+
+Pierre took the letter Anatole handed him and, pushing aside a table
+that stood in his way, threw himself on the sofa.
+
+"I shan't be violent, don't be afraid!" said Pierre in answer to a
+frightened gesture of Anatole's. "First, the letters," said he, as if
+repeating a lesson to himself. "Secondly," he continued after a short
+pause, again rising and again pacing the room, "tomorrow you must get
+out of Moscow."
+
+"But how can I?..."
+
+"Thirdly," Pierre continued without listening to him, "you must never
+breathe a word of what has passed between you and Countess Rostóva. I
+know I can't prevent your doing so, but if you have a spark of
+conscience..." Pierre paced the room several times in silence.
+
+Anatole sat at a table frowning and biting his lips.
+
+"After all, you must understand that besides your pleasure there is such
+a thing as other people's happiness and peace, and that you are ruining
+a whole life for the sake of amusing yourself! Amuse yourself with women
+like my wife—with them you are within your rights, for they know what
+you want of them. They are armed against you by the same experience of
+debauchery; but to promise a maid to marry her... to deceive, to
+kidnap.... Don't you understand that it is as mean as beating an old man
+or a child?..."
+
+Pierre paused and looked at Anatole no longer with an angry but with a
+questioning look.
+
+"I don't know about that, eh?" said Anatole, growing more confident as
+Pierre mastered his wrath. "I don't know that and don't want to," he
+said, not looking at Pierre and with a slight tremor of his lower jaw,
+"but you have used such words to me—'mean' and so on—which as a man of
+honor I can't allow anyone to use."
+
+Pierre glanced at him with amazement, unable to understand what he
+wanted.
+
+"Though it was tête-à-tête," Anatole continued, "still I can't..."
+
+"Is it satisfaction you want?" said Pierre ironically.
+
+"You could at least take back your words. What? If you want me to do as
+you wish, eh?"
+
+"I take them back, I take them back!" said Pierre, "and I ask you to
+forgive me." Pierre involuntarily glanced at the loose button. "And if
+you require money for your journey..."
+
+Anatole smiled. The expression of that base and cringing smile, which
+Pierre knew so well in his wife, revolted him.
+
+"Oh, vile and heartless brood!" he exclaimed, and left the room.
+
+Next day Anatole left for Petersburg.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+Pierre drove to Márya Dmítrievna's to tell her of the fulfillment of her
+wish that Kurágin should be banished from Moscow. The whole house was in
+a state of alarm and commotion. Natásha was very ill, having, as Márya
+Dmítrievna told him in secret, poisoned herself the night after she had
+been told that Anatole was married, with some arsenic she had stealthily
+procured. After swallowing a little she had been so frightened that she
+woke Sónya and told her what she had done. The necessary antidotes had
+been administered in time and she was now out of danger, though still so
+weak that it was out of the question to move her to the country, and so
+the countess had been sent for. Pierre saw the distracted count, and
+Sónya, who had a tear-stained face, but he could not see Natásha.
+
+Pierre dined at the club that day and heard on all sides gossip about
+the attempted abduction of Rostóva. He resolutely denied these rumors,
+assuring everyone that nothing had happened except that his brother-in-
+law had proposed to her and been refused. It seemed to Pierre that it
+was his duty to conceal the whole affair and re-establish Natásha's
+reputation.
+
+He was awaiting Prince Andrew's return with dread and went every day to
+the old prince's for news of him.
+
+Old Prince Bolkónski heard all the rumors current in the town from
+Mademoiselle Bourienne and had read the note to Princess Mary in which
+Natásha had broken off her engagement. He seemed in better spirits than
+usual and awaited his son with great impatience.
+
+Some days after Anatole's departure Pierre received a note from Prince
+Andrew, informing him of his arrival and asking him to come to see him.
+
+As soon as he reached Moscow, Prince Andrew had received from his father
+Natásha's note to Princess Mary breaking off her engagement
+(Mademoiselle Bourienne had purloined it from Princess Mary and given it
+to the old prince), and he heard from him the story of Natásha's
+elopement, with additions.
+
+Prince Andrew had arrived in the evening and Pierre came to see him next
+morning. Pierre expected to find Prince Andrew in almost the same state
+as Natásha and was therefore surprised on entering the drawing room to
+hear him in the study talking in a loud animated voice about some
+intrigue going on in Petersburg. The old prince's voice and another now
+and then interrupted him. Princess Mary came out to meet Pierre. She
+sighed, looking toward the door of the room where Prince Andrew was,
+evidently intending to express her sympathy with his sorrow, but Pierre
+saw by her face that she was glad both at what had happened and at the
+way her brother had taken the news of Natásha's faithlessness.
+
+"He says he expected it," she remarked. "I know his pride will not let
+him express his feelings, but still he has taken it better, far better,
+than I expected. Evidently it had to be...."
+
+"But is it possible that all is really ended?" asked Pierre.
+
+Princess Mary looked at him with astonishment. She did not understand
+how he could ask such a question. Pierre went into the study. Prince
+Andrew, greatly changed and plainly in better health, but with a fresh
+horizontal wrinkle between his brows, stood in civilian dress facing his
+father and Prince Meshcherski, warmly disputing and vigorously
+gesticulating. The conversation was about Speranski—the news of whose
+sudden exile and alleged treachery had just reached Moscow.
+
+"Now he is censured and accused by all who were enthusiastic about him a
+month ago," Prince Andrew was saying, "and by those who were unable to
+understand his aims. To judge a man who is in disfavor and to throw on
+him all the blame of other men's mistakes is very easy, but I maintain
+that if anything good has been accomplished in this reign it was done by
+him, by him alone."
+
+He paused at the sight of Pierre. His face quivered and immediately
+assumed a vindictive expression.
+
+"Posterity will do him justice," he concluded, and at once turned to
+Pierre.
+
+"Well, how are you? Still getting stouter?" he said with animation, but
+the new wrinkle on his forehead deepened. "Yes, I am well," he said in
+answer to Pierre's question, and smiled.
+
+To Pierre that smile said plainly: "I am well, but my health is now of
+no use to anyone."
+
+After a few words to Pierre about the awful roads from the Polish
+frontier, about people he had met in Switzerland who knew Pierre, and
+about M. Dessalles, whom he had brought from abroad to be his son's
+tutor, Prince Andrew again joined warmly in the conversation about
+Speranski which was still going on between the two old men.
+
+"If there were treason, or proofs of secret relations with Napoleon,
+they would have been made public," he said with warmth and haste. "I do
+not, and never did, like Speranski personally, but I like justice!"
+
+Pierre now recognized in his friend a need with which he was only too
+familiar, to get excited and to have arguments about extraneous matters
+in order to stifle thoughts that were too oppressive and too intimate.
+When Prince Meshcherski had left, Prince Andrew took Pierre's arm and
+asked him into the room that had been assigned him. A bed had been made
+up there, and some open portmanteaus and trunks stood about. Prince
+Andrew went to one and took out a small casket, from which he drew a
+packet wrapped in paper. He did it all silently and very quickly. He
+stood up and coughed. His face was gloomy and his lips compressed.
+
+"Forgive me for troubling you..."
+
+Pierre saw that Prince Andrew was going to speak of Natásha, and his
+broad face expressed pity and sympathy. This expression irritated Prince
+Andrew, and in a determined, ringing, and unpleasant tone he continued:
+
+"I have received a refusal from Countess Rostóva and have heard reports
+of your brother-in-law having sought her hand, or something of that
+kind. Is that true?"
+
+"Both true and untrue," Pierre began; but Prince Andrew interrupted him.
+
+"Here are her letters and her portrait," said he.
+
+He took the packet from the table and handed it to Pierre.
+
+"Give this to the countess... if you see her."
+
+"She is very ill," said Pierre.
+
+"Then she is here still?" said Prince Andrew. "And Prince Kurágin?" he
+added quickly.
+
+"He left long ago. She has been at death's door."
+
+"I much regret her illness," said Prince Andrew; and he smiled like his
+father, coldly, maliciously, and unpleasantly.
+
+"So Monsieur Kurágin has not honored Countess Rostóva with his hand?"
+said Prince Andrew, and he snorted several times.
+
+"He could not marry, for he was married already," said Pierre.
+
+Prince Andrew laughed disagreeably, again reminding one of his father.
+
+"And where is your brother-in-law now, if I may ask?" he said.
+
+"He has gone to Peters... But I don't know," said Pierre.
+
+"Well, it doesn't matter," said Prince Andrew. "Tell Countess Rostóva
+that she was and is perfectly free and that I wish her all that is
+good."
+
+Pierre took the packet. Prince Andrew, as if trying to remember whether
+he had something more to say, or waiting to see if Pierre would say
+anything, looked fixedly at him.
+
+"I say, do you remember our discussion in Petersburg?" asked Pierre,
+"about..."
+
+"Yes," returned Prince Andrew hastily. "I said that a fallen woman
+should be forgiven, but I didn't say I could forgive her. I can't."
+
+"But can this be compared...?" said Pierre.
+
+Prince Andrew interrupted him and cried sharply: "Yes, ask her hand
+again, be magnanimous, and so on?... Yes, that would be very noble, but
+I am unable to follow in that gentleman's footsteps. If you wish to be
+my friend never speak to me of that... of all that! Well, good-by. So
+you'll give her the packet?"
+
+Pierre left the room and went to the old prince and Princess Mary.
+
+The old man seemed livelier than usual. Princess Mary was the same as
+always, but beneath her sympathy for her brother, Pierre noticed her
+satisfaction that the engagement had been broken off. Looking at them
+Pierre realized what contempt and animosity they all felt for the
+Rostóvs, and that it was impossible in their presence even to mention
+the name of her who could give up Prince Andrew for anyone else.
+
+At dinner the talk turned on the war, the approach of which was becoming
+evident. Prince Andrew talked incessantly, arguing now with his father,
+now with the Swiss tutor Dessalles, and showing an unnatural animation,
+the cause of which Pierre so well understood.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+That same evening Pierre went to the Rostóvs' to fulfill the commission
+entrusted to him. Natásha was in bed, the count at the club, and Pierre,
+after giving the letters to Sónya, went to Márya Dmítrievna who was
+interested to know how Prince Andrew had taken the news. Ten minutes
+later Sónya came to Márya Dmítrievna.
+
+"Natásha insists on seeing Count Peter Kirilovich," said she.
+
+"But how? Are we to take him up to her? The room there has not been
+tidied up."
+
+"No, she has dressed and gone into the drawing room," said Sónya.
+
+Márya Dmítrievna only shrugged her shoulders.
+
+"When will her mother come? She has worried me to death! Now mind, don't
+tell her everything!" said she to Pierre. "One hasn't the heart to scold
+her, she is so much to be pitied, so much to be pitied."
+
+Natásha was standing in the middle of the drawing room, emaciated, with
+a pale set face, but not at all shamefaced as Pierre expected to find
+her. When he appeared at the door she grew flurried, evidently undecided
+whether to go to meet him or to wait till he came up.
+
+Pierre hastened to her. He thought she would give him her hand as usual;
+but she, stepping up to him, stopped, breathing heavily, her arms
+hanging lifelessly just in the pose she used to stand in when she went
+to the middle of the ballroom to sing, but with quite a different
+expression of face.
+
+"Peter Kirilovich," she began rapidly, "Prince Bolkónski was your
+friend—is your friend," she corrected herself. (It seemed to her that
+everything that had once been must now be different.) "He told me once
+to apply to you..."
+
+Pierre sniffed as he looked at her, but did not speak. Till then he had
+reproached her in his heart and tried to despise her, but he now felt so
+sorry for her that there was no room in his soul for reproach.
+
+"He is here now: tell him... to for... forgive me!" She stopped and
+breathed still more quickly, but did not shed tears.
+
+"Yes... I will tell him," answered Pierre; "but..."
+
+He did not know what to say.
+
+Natásha was evidently dismayed at the thought of what he might think she
+had meant.
+
+"No, I know all is over," she said hurriedly. "No, that can never be.
+I'm only tormented by the wrong I have done him. Tell him only that I
+beg him to forgive, forgive, forgive me for everything...."
+
+She trembled all over and sat down on a chair.
+
+A sense of pity he had never before known overflowed Pierre's heart.
+
+"I will tell him, I will tell him everything once more," said Pierre.
+"But... I should like to know one thing...."
+
+"Know what?" Natásha's eyes asked.
+
+"I should like to know, did you love..." Pierre did not know how to
+refer to Anatole and flushed at the thought of him—"did you love that
+bad man?"
+
+"Don't call him bad!" said Natásha. "But I don't know, don't know at
+all...."
+
+She began to cry and a still greater sense of pity, tenderness, and love
+welled up in Pierre. He felt the tears trickle under his spectacles and
+hoped they would not be noticed.
+
+"We won't speak of it any more, my dear," said Pierre, and his gentle,
+cordial tone suddenly seemed very strange to Natásha.
+
+"We won't speak of it, my dear—I'll tell him everything; but one thing I
+beg of you, consider me your friend and if you want help, advice, or
+simply to open your heart to someone—not now, but when your mind is
+clearer think of me!" He took her hand and kissed it. "I shall be happy
+if it's in my power..."
+
+Pierre grew confused.
+
+"Don't speak to me like that. I am not worth it!" exclaimed Natásha and
+turned to leave the room, but Pierre held her hand.
+
+He knew he had something more to say to her. But when he said it he was
+amazed at his own words.
+
+"Stop, stop! You have your whole life before you," said he to her.
+
+"Before me? No! All is over for me," she replied with shame and self-
+abasement.
+
+"All over?" he repeated. "If I were not myself, but the handsomest,
+cleverest, and best man in the world, and were free, I would this moment
+ask on my knees for your hand and your love!"
+
+For the first time for many days Natásha wept tears of gratitude and
+tenderness, and glancing at Pierre she went out of the room.
+
+Pierre too when she had gone almost ran into the anteroom, restraining
+tears of tenderness and joy that choked him, and without finding the
+sleeves of his fur cloak threw it on and got into his sleigh.
+
+"Where to now, your excellency?" asked the coachman.
+
+"Where to?" Pierre asked himself. "Where can I go now? Surely not to the
+club or to pay calls?" All men seemed so pitiful, so poor, in comparison
+with this feeling of tenderness and love he experienced: in comparison
+with that softened, grateful, last look she had given him through her
+tears.
+
+"Home!" said Pierre, and despite twenty-two degrees of frost Fahrenheit
+he threw open the bearskin cloak from his broad chest and inhaled the
+air with joy.
+
+It was clear and frosty. Above the dirty, ill-lit streets, above the
+black roofs, stretched the dark starry sky. Only looking up at the sky
+did Pierre cease to feel how sordid and humiliating were all mundane
+things compared with the heights to which his soul had just been raised.
+At the entrance to the Arbat Square an immense expanse of dark starry
+sky presented itself to his eyes. Almost in the center of it, above the
+Prechistenka Boulevard, surrounded and sprinkled on all sides by stars
+but distinguished from them all by its nearness to the earth, its white
+light, and its long uplifted tail, shone the enormous and brilliant
+comet of 1812—the comet which was said to portend all kinds of woes and
+the end of the world. In Pierre, however, that comet with its long
+luminous tail aroused no feeling of fear. On the contrary he gazed
+joyfully, his eyes moist with tears, at this bright comet which, having
+traveled in its orbit with inconceivable velocity through immeasurable
+space, seemed suddenly—like an arrow piercing the earth—to remain fixed
+in a chosen spot, vigorously holding its tail erect, shining and
+displaying its white light amid countless other scintillating stars. It
+seemed to Pierre that this comet fully responded to what was passing in
+his own softened and uplifted soul, now blossoming into a new life.
+
+
+
+
+
+BOOK NINE: 1812
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+From the close of the year 1811 intensified arming and concentrating of
+the forces of Western Europe began, and in 1812 these forces—millions of
+men, reckoning those transporting and feeding the army—moved from the
+west eastwards to the Russian frontier, toward which since 1811 Russian
+forces had been similarly drawn. On the twelfth of June, 1812, the
+forces of Western Europe crossed the Russian frontier and war began,
+that is, an event took place opposed to human reason and to human
+nature. Millions of men perpetrated against one another such innumerable
+crimes, frauds, treacheries, thefts, forgeries, issues of false money,
+burglaries, incendiarisms, and murders as in whole centuries are not
+recorded in the annals of all the law courts of the world, but which
+those who committed them did not at the time regard as being crimes.
+
+What produced this extraordinary occurrence? What were its causes? The
+historians tell us with naïve assurance that its causes were the wrongs
+inflicted on the Duke of Oldenburg, the nonobservance of the Continental
+System, the ambition of Napoleon, the firmness of Alexander, the
+mistakes of the diplomatists, and so on.
+
+Consequently, it would only have been necessary for Metternich,
+Rumyántsev, or Talleyrand, between a levee and an evening party, to have
+taken proper pains and written a more adroit note, or for Napoleon to
+have written to Alexander: "My respected Brother, I consent to restore
+the duchy to the Duke of Oldenburg"—and there would have been no war.
+
+We can understand that the matter seemed like that to contemporaries. It
+naturally seemed to Napoleon that the war was caused by England's
+intrigues (as in fact he said on the island of St. Helena). It naturally
+seemed to members of the English Parliament that the cause of the war
+was Napoleon's ambition; to the Duke of Oldenburg, that the cause of the
+war was the violence done to him; to businessmen that the cause of the
+war was the Continental System which was ruining Europe; to the generals
+and old soldiers that the chief reason for the war was the necessity of
+giving them employment; to the legitimists of that day that it was the
+need of re-establishing les bons principes, and to the diplomatists of
+that time that it all resulted from the fact that the alliance between
+Russia and Austria in 1809 had not been sufficiently well concealed from
+Napoleon, and from the awkward wording of Memorandum No. 178. It is
+natural that these and a countless and infinite quantity of other
+reasons, the number depending on the endless diversity of points of
+view, presented themselves to the men of that day; but to us, to
+posterity who view the thing that happened in all its magnitude and
+perceive its plain and terrible meaning, these causes seem insufficient.
+To us it is incomprehensible that millions of Christian men killed and
+tortured each other either because Napoleon was ambitious or Alexander
+was firm, or because England's policy was astute or the Duke of
+Oldenburg wronged. We cannot grasp what connection such circumstances
+have with the actual fact of slaughter and violence: why because the
+Duke was wronged, thousands of men from the other side of Europe killed
+and ruined the people of Smolensk and Moscow and were killed by them.
+
+To us, their descendants, who are not historians and are not carried
+away by the process of research and can therefore regard the event with
+unclouded common sense, an incalculable number of causes present
+themselves. The deeper we delve in search of these causes the more of
+them we find; and each separate cause or whole series of causes appears
+to us equally valid in itself and equally false by its insignificance
+compared to the magnitude of the events, and by its impotence—apart from
+the cooperation of all the other coincident causes—to occasion the
+event. To us, the wish or objection of this or that French corporal to
+serve a second term appears as much a cause as Napoleon's refusal to
+withdraw his troops beyond the Vistula and to restore the duchy of
+Oldenburg; for had he not wished to serve, and had a second, a third,
+and a thousandth corporal and private also refused, there would have
+been so many less men in Napoleon's army and the war could not have
+occurred.
+
+Had Napoleon not taken offense at the demand that he should withdraw
+beyond the Vistula, and not ordered his troops to advance, there would
+have been no war; but had all his sergeants objected to serving a second
+term then also there could have been no war. Nor could there have been a
+war had there been no English intrigues and no Duke of Oldenburg, and
+had Alexander not felt insulted, and had there not been an autocratic
+government in Russia, or a Revolution in France and a subsequent
+dictatorship and Empire, or all the things that produced the French
+Revolution, and so on. Without each of these causes nothing could have
+happened. So all these causes—myriads of causes—coincided to bring it
+about. And so there was no one cause for that occurrence, but it had to
+occur because it had to. Millions of men, renouncing their human
+feelings and reason, had to go from west to east to slay their fellows,
+just as some centuries previously hordes of men had come from the east
+to the west, slaying their fellows.
+
+The actions of Napoleon and Alexander, on whose words the event seemed
+to hang, were as little voluntary as the actions of any soldier who was
+drawn into the campaign by lot or by conscription. This could not be
+otherwise, for in order that the will of Napoleon and Alexander (on whom
+the event seemed to depend) should be carried out, the concurrence of
+innumerable circumstances was needed without anyone of which the event
+could not have taken place. It was necessary that millions of men in
+whose hands lay the real power—the soldiers who fired, or transported
+provisions and guns—should consent to carry out the will of these weak
+individuals, and should have been induced to do so by an infinite number
+of diverse and complex causes.
+
+We are forced to fall back on fatalism as an explanation of irrational
+events (that is to say, events the reasonableness of which we do not
+understand). The more we try to explain such events in history
+reasonably, the more unreasonable and incomprehensible do they become to
+us.
+
+Each man lives for himself, using his freedom to attain his personal
+aims, and feels with his whole being that he can now do or abstain from
+doing this or that action; but as soon as he has done it, that action
+performed at a certain moment in time becomes irrevocable and belongs to
+history, in which it has not a free but a predestined significance.
+
+There are two sides to the life of every man, his individual life, which
+is the more free the more abstract its interests, and his elemental hive
+life in which he inevitably obeys laws laid down for him.
+
+Man lives consciously for himself, but is an unconscious instrument in
+the attainment of the historic, universal, aims of humanity. A deed done
+is irrevocable, and its result coinciding in time with the actions of
+millions of other men assumes an historic significance. The higher a man
+stands on the social ladder, the more people he is connected with and
+the more power he has over others, the more evident is the
+predestination and inevitability of his every action.
+
+"The king's heart is in the hands of the Lord."
+
+A king is history's slave.
+
+History, that is, the unconscious, general, hive life of mankind, uses
+every moment of the life of kings as a tool for its own purposes.
+
+Though Napoleon at that time, in 1812, was more convinced than ever that
+it depended on him, verser (ou ne pas verser) le sang de ses peuples
+*—as Alexander expressed it in the last letter he wrote him—he had never
+been so much in the grip of inevitable laws, which compelled him, while
+thinking that he was acting on his own volition, to perform for the hive
+life—that is to say, for history—whatever had to be performed.
+
+* "To shed (or not to shed) the blood of his peoples."
+
+The people of the west moved eastwards to slay their fellow men, and by
+the law of coincidence thousands of minute causes fitted in and co-
+ordinated to produce that movement and war: reproaches for the
+nonobservance of the Continental System, the Duke of Oldenburg's wrongs,
+the movement of troops into Prussia—undertaken (as it seemed to
+Napoleon) only for the purpose of securing an armed peace, the French
+Emperor's love and habit of war coinciding with his people's
+inclinations, allurement by the grandeur of the preparations, and the
+expenditure on those preparations and the need of obtaining advantages
+to compensate for that expenditure, the intoxicating honors he received
+in Dresden, the diplomatic negotiations which, in the opinion of
+contemporaries, were carried on with a sincere desire to attain peace,
+but which only wounded the self-love of both sides, and millions of
+other causes that adapted themselves to the event that was happening or
+coincided with it.
+
+When an apple has ripened and falls, why does it fall? Because of its
+attraction to the earth, because its stalk withers, because it is dried
+by the sun, because it grows heavier, because the wind shakes it, or
+because the boy standing below wants to eat it?
+
+Nothing is the cause. All this is only the coincidence of conditions in
+which all vital organic and elemental events occur. And the botanist who
+finds that the apple falls because the cellular tissue decays and so
+forth is equally right with the child who stands under the tree and says
+the apple fell because he wanted to eat it and prayed for it. Equally
+right or wrong is he who says that Napoleon went to Moscow because he
+wanted to, and perished because Alexander desired his destruction, and
+he who says that an undermined hill weighing a million tons fell because
+the last navvy struck it for the last time with his mattock. In historic
+events the so-called great men are labels giving names to events, and
+like labels they have but the smallest connection with the event itself.
+
+Every act of theirs, which appears to them an act of their own will, is
+in an historical sense involuntary and is related to the whole course of
+history and predestined from eternity.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+On the twenty-ninth of May Napoleon left Dresden, where he had spent
+three weeks surrounded by a court that included princes, dukes, kings,
+and even an emperor. Before leaving, Napoleon showed favor to the
+emperor, kings, and princes who had deserved it, reprimanded the kings
+and princes with whom he was dissatisfied, presented pearls and diamonds
+of his own—that is, which he had taken from other kings—to the Empress
+of Austria, and having, as his historian tells us, tenderly embraced the
+Empress Marie Louise—who regarded him as her husband, though he had left
+another wife in Paris—left her grieved by the parting which she seemed
+hardly able to bear. Though the diplomatists still firmly believed in
+the possibility of peace and worked zealously to that end, and though
+the Emperor Napoleon himself wrote a letter to Alexander, calling him
+Monsieur mon frere, and sincerely assured him that he did not want war
+and would always love and honor him—yet he set off to join his army, and
+at every station gave fresh orders to accelerate the movement of his
+troops from west to east. He went in a traveling coach with six horses,
+surrounded by pages, aides-de-camp, and an escort, along the road to
+Posen, Thorn, Danzig, and Konigsberg. At each of these towns thousands
+of people met him with excitement and enthusiasm.
+
+The army was moving from west to east, and relays of six horses carried
+him in the same direction. On the tenth of June, * coming up with the
+army, he spent the night in apartments prepared for him on the estate of
+a Polish count in the Vilkavisski forest.
+
+* Old style.
+
+Next day, overtaking the army, he went in a carriage to the Niemen, and,
+changing into a Polish uniform, he drove to the riverbank in order to
+select a place for the crossing.
+
+Seeing, on the other side, some Cossacks (les Cosaques) and the wide-
+spreading steppes in the midst of which lay the holy city of Moscow
+(Moscou, la ville sainte), the capital of a realm such as the Scythia
+into which Alexander the Great had marched—Napoleon unexpectedly, and
+contrary alike to strategic and diplomatic considerations, ordered an
+advance, and the next day his army began to cross the Niemen.
+
+Early in the morning of the twelfth of June he came out of his tent,
+which was pitched that day on the steep left bank of the Niemen, and
+looked through a spyglass at the streams of his troops pouring out of
+the Vilkavisski forest and flowing over the three bridges thrown across
+the river. The troops, knowing of the Emperor's presence, were on the
+lookout for him, and when they caught sight of a figure in an overcoat
+and a cocked hat standing apart from his suite in front of his tent on
+the hill, they threw up their caps and shouted: "Vive l'Empereur!" and
+one after another poured in a ceaseless stream out of the vast forest
+that had concealed them and, separating, flowed on and on by the three
+bridges to the other side.
+
+"Now we'll go into action. Oh, when he takes it in hand himself, things
+get hot... by heaven!... There he is!... Vive l'Empereur! So these are
+the steppes of Asia! It's a nasty country all the same. Au revoir,
+Beauche; I'll keep the best palace in Moscow for you! Au revoir. Good
+luck!... Did you see the Emperor? Vive l'Empereur!... preur!—If they
+make me Governor of India, Gerard, I'll make you Minister of
+Kashmir—that's settled. Vive l'Empereur! Hurrah! hurrah! hurrah! The
+Cossacks—those rascals—see how they run! Vive l'Empereur! There he is,
+do you see him? I've seen him twice, as I see you now. The little
+corporal... I saw him give the cross to one of the veterans.... Vive
+l'Empereur!" came the voices of men, old and young, of most diverse
+characters and social positions. On the faces of all was one common
+expression of joy at the commencement of the long-expected campaign and
+of rapture and devotion to the man in the gray coat who was standing on
+the hill.
+
+On the thirteenth of June a rather small, thoroughbred Arab horse was
+brought to Napoleon. He mounted it and rode at a gallop to one of the
+bridges over the Niemen, deafened continually by incessant and rapturous
+acclamations which he evidently endured only because it was impossible
+to forbid the soldiers to express their love of him by such shouting,
+but the shouting which accompanied him everywhere disturbed him and
+distracted him from the military cares that had occupied him from the
+time he joined the army. He rode across one of the swaying pontoon
+bridges to the farther side, turned sharply to the left, and galloped in
+the direction of Kovno, preceded by enraptured, mounted chasseurs of the
+Guard who, breathless with delight, galloped ahead to clear a path for
+him through the troops. On reaching the broad river Viliya, he stopped
+near a regiment of Polish uhlans stationed by the river.
+
+"Vivat!" shouted the Poles, ecstatically, breaking their ranks and
+pressing against one another to see him.
+
+Napoleon looked up and down the river, dismounted, and sat down on a log
+that lay on the bank. At a mute sign from him, a telescope was handed
+him which he rested on the back of a happy page who had run up to him,
+and he gazed at the opposite bank. Then he became absorbed in a map laid
+out on the logs. Without lifting his head he said something, and two of
+his aides-de-camp galloped off to the Polish uhlans.
+
+"What? What did he say?" was heard in the ranks of the Polish uhlans
+when one of the aides-de-camp rode up to them.
+
+The order was to find a ford and to cross the river. The colonel of the
+Polish uhlans, a handsome old man, flushed and, fumbling in his speech
+from excitement, asked the aide-de-camp whether he would be permitted to
+swim the river with his uhlans instead of seeking a ford. In evident
+fear of refusal, like a boy asking for permission to get on a horse, he
+begged to be allowed to swim across the river before the Emperor's eyes.
+The aide-de-camp replied that probably the Emperor would not be
+displeased at this excess of zeal.
+
+As soon as the aide-de-camp had said this, the old mustached officer,
+with happy face and sparkling eyes, raised his saber, shouted "Vivat!"
+and, commanding the uhlans to follow him, spurred his horse and galloped
+into the river. He gave an angry thrust to his horse, which had grown
+restive under him, and plunged into the water, heading for the deepest
+part where the current was swift. Hundreds of uhlans galloped in after
+him. It was cold and uncanny in the rapid current in the middle of the
+stream, and the uhlans caught hold of one another as they fell off their
+horses. Some of the horses were drowned and some of the men; the others
+tried to swim on, some in the saddle and some clinging to their horses'
+manes. They tried to make their way forward to the opposite bank and,
+though there was a ford one third of a mile away, were proud that they
+were swimming and drowning in this river under the eyes of the man who
+sat on the log and was not even looking at what they were doing. When
+the aide-de-camp, having returned and choosing an opportune moment,
+ventured to draw the Emperor's attention to the devotion of the Poles to
+his person, the little man in the gray overcoat got up and, having
+summoned Berthier, began pacing up and down the bank with him, giving
+him instructions and occasionally glancing disapprovingly at the
+drowning uhlans who distracted his attention.
+
+For him it was no new conviction that his presence in any part of the
+world, from Africa to the steppes of Muscovy alike, was enough to
+dumfound people and impel them to insane self-oblivion. He called for
+his horse and rode to his quarters.
+
+Some forty uhlans were drowned in the river, though boats were sent to
+their assistance. The majority struggled back to the bank from which
+they had started. The colonel and some of his men got across and with
+difficulty clambered out on the further bank. And as soon as they had
+got out, in their soaked and streaming clothes, they shouted "Vivat!"
+and looked ecstatically at the spot where Napoleon had been but where he
+no longer was and at that moment considered themselves happy.
+
+That evening, between issuing one order that the forged Russian paper
+money prepared for use in Russia should be delivered as quickly as
+possible and another that a Saxon should be shot, on whom a letter
+containing information about the orders to the French army had been
+found, Napoleon also gave instructions that the Polish colonel who had
+needlessly plunged into the river should be enrolled in the Legion
+d'honneur of which Napoleon was himself the head.
+
+Quos vult perdere dementat. *
+
+* Those whom (God) wishes to destroy he drives mad.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+The Emperor of Russia had, meanwhile, been in Vilna for more than a
+month, reviewing troops and holding maneuvers. Nothing was ready for the
+war that everyone expected and to prepare for which the Emperor had come
+from Petersburg. There was no general plan of action. The vacillation
+between the various plans that were proposed had even increased after
+the Emperor had been at headquarters for a month. Each of the three
+armies had its own commander-in-chief, but there was no supreme
+commander of all the forces, and the Emperor did not assume that
+responsibility himself.
+
+The longer the Emperor remained in Vilna the less did everybody—tired of
+waiting—prepare for the war. All the efforts of those who surrounded the
+sovereign seemed directed merely to making him spend his time pleasantly
+and forget that war was impending.
+
+In June, after many balls and fetes given by the Polish magnates, by the
+courtiers, and by the Emperor himself, it occurred to one of the Polish
+aides-de-camp in attendance that a dinner and ball should be given for
+the Emperor by his aides-de-camp. This idea was eagerly received. The
+Emperor gave his consent. The aides-de-camp collected money by
+subscription. The lady who was thought to be most pleasing to the
+Emperor was invited to act as hostess. Count Bennigsen, being a
+landowner in the Vilna province, offered his country house for the fete,
+and the thirteenth of June was fixed for a ball, dinner, regatta, and
+fireworks at Zakret, Count Bennigsen's country seat.
+
+The very day that Napoleon issued the order to cross the Niemen, and his
+vanguard, driving off the Cossacks, crossed the Russian frontier,
+Alexander spent the evening at the entertainment given by his aides-de-
+camp at Bennigsen's country house.
+
+It was a gay and brilliant fete. Connoisseurs of such matters declared
+that rarely had so many beautiful women been assembled in one place.
+Countess Bezúkhova was present among other Russian ladies who had
+followed the sovereign from Petersburg to Vilna and eclipsed the refined
+Polish ladies by her massive, so-called Russian type of beauty. The
+Emperor noticed her and honored her with a dance.
+
+Borís Drubetskóy, having left his wife in Moscow and being for the
+present en garcon (as he phrased it), was also there and, though not an
+aide-de-camp, had subscribed a large sum toward the expenses. Borís was
+now a rich man who had risen to high honors and no longer sought
+patronage but stood on an equal footing with the highest of those of his
+own age. He was meeting Hélène in Vilna after not having seen her for a
+long time and did not recall the past, but as Hélène was enjoying the
+favors of a very important personage and Borís had only recently
+married, they met as good friends of long standing.
+
+At midnight dancing was still going on. Hélène, not having a suitable
+partner, herself offered to dance the mazurka with Borís. They were the
+third couple. Borís, coolly looking at Hélène's dazzling bare shoulders
+which emerged from a dark, gold-embroidered, gauze gown, talked to her
+of old acquaintances and at the same time, unaware of it himself and
+unnoticed by others, never for an instant ceased to observe the Emperor
+who was in the same room. The Emperor was not dancing, he stood in the
+doorway, stopping now one pair and now another with gracious words which
+he alone knew how to utter.
+
+As the mazurka began, Borís saw that Adjutant General Balashev, one of
+those in closest attendance on the Emperor, went up to him and contrary
+to court etiquette stood near him while he was talking to a Polish lady.
+Having finished speaking to her, the Emperor looked inquiringly at
+Balashev and, evidently understanding that he only acted thus because
+there were important reasons for so doing, nodded slightly to the lady
+and turned to him. Hardly had Balashev begun to speak before a look of
+amazement appeared on the Emperor's face. He took Balashev by the arm
+and crossed the room with him, unconsciously clearing a path seven yards
+wide as the people on both sides made way for him. Borís noticed
+Arakcheev's excited face when the sovereign went out with Balashev.
+Arakcheev looked at the Emperor from under his brow and, sniffing with
+his red nose, stepped forward from the crowd as if expecting the Emperor
+to address him. (Borís understood that Arakcheev envied Balashev and was
+displeased that evidently important news had reached the Emperor
+otherwise than through himself.)
+
+But the Emperor and Balashev passed out into the illuminated garden
+without noticing Arakcheev who, holding his sword and glancing
+wrathfully around, followed some twenty paces behind them.
+
+All the time Borís was going through the figures of the mazurka, he was
+worried by the question of what news Balashev had brought and how he
+could find it out before others. In the figure in which he had to choose
+two ladies, he whispered to Hélène that he meant to choose Countess
+Potocka who, he thought, had gone out onto the veranda, and glided over
+the parquet to the door opening into the garden, where, seeing Balashev
+and the Emperor returning to the veranda, he stood still. They were
+moving toward the door. Borís, fluttering as if he had not had time to
+withdraw, respectfully pressed close to the doorpost with bowed head.
+
+The Emperor, with the agitation of one who has been personally
+affronted, was finishing with these words:
+
+"To enter Russia without declaring war! I will not make peace as long as
+a single armed enemy remains in my country!" It seemed to Borís that it
+gave the Emperor pleasure to utter these words. He was satisfied with
+the form in which he had expressed his thoughts, but displeased that
+Borís had overheard it.
+
+"Let no one know of it!" the Emperor added with a frown.
+
+Borís understood that this was meant for him and, closing his eyes,
+slightly bowed his head. The Emperor re-entered the ballroom and
+remained there about another half-hour.
+
+Borís was thus the first to learn the news that the French army had
+crossed the Niemen and, thanks to this, was able to show certain
+important personages that much that was concealed from others was
+usually known to him, and by this means he rose higher in their
+estimation.
+
+The unexpected news of the French having crossed the Niemen was
+particularly startling after a month of unfulfilled expectations, and at
+a ball. On first receiving the news, under the influence of indignation
+and resentment the Emperor had found a phrase that pleased him, fully
+expressed his feelings, and has since become famous. On returning home
+at two o'clock that night he sent for his secretary, Shishkov, and told
+him to write an order to the troops and a rescript to Field Marshal
+Prince Saltykov, in which he insisted on the words being inserted that
+he would not make peace so long as a single armed Frenchman remained on
+Russian soil.
+
+Next day the following letter was sent to Napoleon:
+
+Monsieur mon frere,
+
+Yesterday I learned that, despite the loyalty with which I have kept my
+engagements with Your Majesty, your troops have crossed the Russian
+frontier, and I have this moment received from Petersburg a note, in
+which Count Lauriston informs me, as a reason for this aggression, that
+Your Majesty has considered yourself to be in a state of war with me
+from the time Prince Kurágin asked for his passports. The reasons on
+which the Duc de Bassano based his refusal to deliver them to him would
+never have led me to suppose that that could serve as a pretext for
+aggression. In fact, the ambassador, as he himself has declared, was
+never authorized to make that demand, and as soon as I was informed of
+it I let him know how much I disapproved of it and ordered him to remain
+at his post. If Your Majesty does not intend to shed the blood of our
+peoples for such a misunderstanding, and consents to withdraw your
+troops from Russian territory, I will regard what has passed as not
+having occurred and an understanding between us will be possible. In the
+contrary case, Your Majesty, I shall see myself forced to repel an
+attack that nothing on my part has provoked. It still depends on Your
+Majesty to preserve humanity from the calamity of another war. I am,
+etc.,
+
+(signed) Alexander.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+At two in the morning of the fourteenth of June, the Emperor, having
+sent for Balashev and read him his letter to Napoleon, ordered him to
+take it and hand it personally to the French Emperor. When dispatching
+Balashev, the Emperor repeated to him the words that he would not make
+peace so long as a single armed enemy remained on Russian soil and told
+him to transmit those words to Napoleon. Alexander did not insert them
+in his letter to Napoleon, because with his characteristic tact he felt
+it would be injudicious to use them at a moment when a last attempt at
+reconciliation was being made, but he definitely instructed Balashev to
+repeat them personally to Napoleon.
+
+Having set off in the small hours of the fourteenth, accompanied by a
+bugler and two Cossacks, Balashev reached the French outposts at the
+village of Rykonty, on the Russian side of the Niemen, by dawn. There he
+was stopped by French cavalry sentinels.
+
+A French noncommissioned officer of hussars, in crimson uniform and a
+shaggy cap, shouted to the approaching Balashev to halt. Balashev did
+not do so at once, but continued to advance along the road at a walking
+pace.
+
+The noncommissioned officer frowned and, muttering words of abuse,
+advanced his horse's chest against Balashev, put his hand to his saber,
+and shouted rudely at the Russian general, asking: was he deaf that he
+did not do as he was told? Balashev mentioned who he was. The
+noncommissioned officer began talking with his comrades about regimental
+matters without looking at the Russian general.
+
+After living at the seat of the highest authority and power, after
+conversing with the Emperor less than three hours before, and in general
+being accustomed to the respect due to his rank in the service, Balashev
+found it very strange here on Russian soil to encounter this hostile,
+and still more this disrespectful, application of brute force to
+himself.
+
+The sun was only just appearing from behind the clouds, the air was
+fresh and dewy. A herd of cattle was being driven along the road from
+the village, and over the fields the larks rose trilling, one after
+another, like bubbles rising in water.
+
+Balashev looked around him, awaiting the arrival of an officer from the
+village. The Russian Cossacks and bugler and the French hussars looked
+silently at one another from time to time.
+
+A French colonel of hussars, who had evidently just left his bed, came
+riding from the village on a handsome sleek gray horse, accompanied by
+two hussars. The officer, the soldiers, and their horses all looked
+smart and well kept.
+
+It was that first period of a campaign when troops are still in full
+trim, almost like that of peacetime maneuvers, but with a shade of
+martial swagger in their clothes, and a touch of the gaiety and spirit
+of enterprise which always accompany the opening of a campaign.
+
+The French colonel with difficulty repressed a yawn, but was polite and
+evidently understood Balashev's importance. He led him past his soldiers
+and behind the outposts and told him that his wish to be presented to
+the Emperor would most likely be satisfied immediately, as the Emperor's
+quarters were, he believed, not far off.
+
+They rode through the village of Rykonty, past tethered French hussar
+horses, past sentinels and men who saluted their colonel and stared with
+curiosity at a Russian uniform, and came out at the other end of the
+village. The colonel said that the commander of the division was a mile
+and a quarter away and would receive Balashev and conduct him to his
+destination.
+
+The sun had by now risen and shone gaily on the bright verdure.
+
+They had hardly ridden up a hill, past a tavern, before they saw a group
+of horsemen coming toward them. In front of the group, on a black horse
+with trappings that glittered in the sun, rode a tall man with plumes in
+his hat and black hair curling down to his shoulders. He wore a red
+mantle, and stretched his long legs forward in French fashion. This man
+rode toward Balashev at a gallop, his plumes flowing and his gems and
+gold lace glittering in the bright June sunshine.
+
+Balashev was only two horses' length from the equestrian with the
+bracelets, plumes, necklaces, and gold embroidery, who was galloping
+toward him with a theatrically solemn countenance, when Julner, the
+French colonel, whispered respectfully: "The King of Naples!" It was, in
+fact, Murat, now called "King of Naples." Though it was quite
+incomprehensible why he should be King of Naples, he was called so, and
+was himself convinced that he was so, and therefore assumed a more
+solemn and important air than formerly. He was so sure that he really
+was the King of Naples that when, on the eve of his departure from that
+city, while walking through the streets with his wife, some Italians
+called out to him: "Viva il re!" * he turned to his wife with a pensive
+smile and said: "Poor fellows, they don't know that I am leaving them
+tomorrow!"
+
+* "Long live the king."
+
+But though he firmly believed himself to be King of Naples and pitied
+the grief felt by the subjects he was abandoning, latterly, after he had
+been ordered to return to military service—and especially since his last
+interview with Napoleon in Danzig, when his august brother-in-law had
+told him: "I made you King that you should reign in my way, but not in
+yours!"—he had cheerfully taken up his familiar business, and—like a
+well-fed but not overfat horse that feels himself in harness and grows
+skittish between the shafts—he dressed up in clothes as variegated and
+expensive as possible, and gaily and contentedly galloped along the
+roads of Poland, without himself knowing why or whither.
+
+On seeing the Russian general he threw back his head, with its long hair
+curling to his shoulders, in a majestically royal manner, and looked
+inquiringly at the French colonel. The colonel respectfully informed His
+Majesty of Balashev's mission, whose name he could not pronounce.
+
+"De Bal-macheve!" said the King (overcoming by his assurance the
+difficulty that had presented itself to the colonel). "Charmed to make
+your acquaintance, General!" he added, with a gesture of kingly
+condescension.
+
+As soon as the King began to speak loud and fast his royal dignity
+instantly forsook him, and without noticing it he passed into his
+natural tone of good-natured familiarity. He laid his hand on the
+withers of Balashev's horse and said:
+
+"Well, General, it all looks like war," as if regretting a circumstance
+of which he was unable to judge.
+
+"Your Majesty," replied Balashev, "my master, the Emperor, does not
+desire war and as Your Majesty sees..." said Balashev, using the words
+Your Majesty at every opportunity, with the affectation unavoidable in
+frequently addressing one to whom the title was still a novelty.
+
+Murat's face beamed with stupid satisfaction as he listened to "Monsieur
+de Bal-macheve." But royaute oblige! * and he felt it incumbent on him,
+as a king and an ally, to confer on state affairs with Alexander's
+envoy. He dismounted, took Balashev's arm, and moving a few steps away
+from his suite, which waited respectfully, began to pace up and down
+with him, trying to speak significantly. He referred to the fact that
+the Emperor Napoleon had resented the demand that he should withdraw his
+troops from Prussia, especially when that demand became generally known
+and the dignity of France was thereby offended.
+
+* "Royalty has its obligations."
+
+Balashev replied that there was "nothing offensive in the demand,
+because..." but Murat interrupted him.
+
+"Then you don't consider the Emperor Alexander the aggressor?" he asked
+unexpectedly, with a kindly and foolish smile.
+
+Balashev told him why he considered Napoleon to be the originator of the
+war.
+
+"Oh, my dear general!" Murat again interrupted him, "with all my heart I
+wish the Emperors may arrange the affair between them, and that the war
+begun by no wish of mine may finish as quickly as possible!" said he, in
+the tone of a servant who wants to remain good friends with another
+despite a quarrel between their masters.
+
+And he went on to inquiries about the Grand Duke and the state of his
+health, and to reminiscences of the gay and amusing times he had spent
+with him in Naples. Then suddenly, as if remembering his royal dignity,
+Murat solemnly drew himself up, assumed the pose in which he had stood
+at his coronation, and, waving his right arm, said:
+
+"I won't detain you longer, General. I wish success to your mission,"
+and with his embroidered red mantle, his flowing feathers, and his
+glittering ornaments, he rejoined his suite who were respectfully
+awaiting him.
+
+Balashev rode on, supposing from Murat's words that he would very soon
+be brought before Napoleon himself. But instead of that, at the next
+village the sentinels of Davout's infantry corps detained him as the
+pickets of the vanguard had done, and an adjutant of the corps
+commander, who was fetched, conducted him into the village to Marshal
+Davout.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+Davout was to Napoleon what Arakcheev was to Alexander—though not a
+coward like Arakcheev, he was as precise, as cruel, and as unable to
+express his devotion to his monarch except by cruelty.
+
+In the organism of states such men are necessary, as wolves are
+necessary in the organism of nature, and they always exist, always
+appear and hold their own, however incongruous their presence and their
+proximity to the head of the government may be. This inevitability alone
+can explain how the cruel Arakcheev, who tore out a grenadier's mustache
+with his own hands, whose weak nerves rendered him unable to face
+danger, and who was neither an educated man nor a courtier, was able to
+maintain his powerful position with Alexander, whose own character was
+chivalrous, noble, and gentle.
+
+Balashev found Davout seated on a barrel in the shed of a peasant's hut,
+writing—he was auditing accounts. Better quarters could have been found
+him, but Marshal Davout was one of those men who purposely put
+themselves in most depressing conditions to have a justification for
+being gloomy. For the same reason they are always hard at work and in a
+hurry. "How can I think of the bright side of life when, as you see, I
+am sitting on a barrel and working in a dirty shed?" the expression of
+his face seemed to say. The chief pleasure and necessity of such men,
+when they encounter anyone who shows animation, is to flaunt their own
+dreary, persistent activity. Davout allowed himself that pleasure when
+Balashev was brought in. He became still more absorbed in his task when
+the Russian general entered, and after glancing over his spectacles at
+Balashev's face, which was animated by the beauty of the morning and by
+his talk with Murat, he did not rise or even stir, but scowled still
+more and sneered malevolently.
+
+When he noticed in Balashev's face the disagreeable impression this
+reception produced, Davout raised his head and coldly asked what he
+wanted.
+
+Thinking he could have been received in such a manner only because
+Davout did not know that he was adjutant general to the Emperor
+Alexander and even his envoy to Napoleon, Balashev hastened to inform
+him of his rank and mission. Contrary to his expectation, Davout, after
+hearing him, became still surlier and ruder.
+
+"Where is your dispatch?" he inquired. "Give it to me. I will send it to
+the Emperor."
+
+Balashev replied that he had been ordered to hand it personally to the
+Emperor.
+
+"Your Emperor's orders are obeyed in your army, but here," said Davout,
+"you must do as you're told."
+
+And, as if to make the Russian general still more conscious of his
+dependence on brute force, Davout sent an adjutant to call the officer
+on duty.
+
+Balashev took out the packet containing the Emperor's letter and laid it
+on the table (made of a door with its hinges still hanging on it, laid
+across two barrels). Davout took the packet and read the inscription.
+
+"You are perfectly at liberty to treat me with respect or not,"
+protested Balashev, "but permit me to observe that I have the honor to
+be adjutant general to His Majesty...."
+
+Davout glanced at him silently and plainly derived pleasure from the
+signs of agitation and confusion which appeared on Balashev's face.
+
+"You will be treated as is fitting," said he and, putting the packet in
+his pocket, left the shed.
+
+A minute later the marshal's adjutant, de Castres, came in and conducted
+Balashev to the quarters assigned him.
+
+That day he dined with the marshal, at the same board on the barrels.
+
+Next day Davout rode out early and, after asking Balashev to come to
+him, peremptorily requested him to remain there, to move on with the
+baggage train should orders come for it to move, and to talk to no one
+except Monsieur de Castres.
+
+After four days of solitude, ennui, and consciousness of his impotence
+and insignificance—particularly acute by contrast with the sphere of
+power in which he had so lately moved—and after several marches with the
+marshal's baggage and the French army, which occupied the whole
+district, Balashev was brought to Vilna—now occupied by the
+French—through the very gate by which he had left it four days
+previously.
+
+Next day the imperial gentleman-in-waiting, the Comte de Turenne, came
+to Balashev and informed him of the Emperor Napoleon's wish to honor him
+with an audience.
+
+Four days before, sentinels of the Preobrazhensk regiment had stood in
+front of the house to which Balashev was conducted, and now two French
+grenadiers stood there in blue uniforms unfastened in front and with
+shaggy caps on their heads, and an escort of hussars and uhlans and a
+brilliant suite of aides-de-camp, pages, and generals, who were waiting
+for Napoleon to come out, were standing at the porch, round his saddle
+horse and his Mameluke, Rustan. Napoleon received Balashev in the very
+house in Vilna from which Alexander had dispatched him on his mission.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+Though Balashev was used to imperial pomp, he was amazed at the luxury
+and magnificence of Napoleon's court.
+
+The Comte de Turenne showed him into a big reception room where many
+generals, gentlemen-in-waiting, and Polish magnates—several of whom
+Balashev had seen at the court of the Emperor of Russia—were waiting.
+Duroc said that Napoleon would receive the Russian general before going
+for his ride.
+
+After some minutes, the gentleman-in-waiting who was on duty came into
+the great reception room and, bowing politely, asked Balashev to follow
+him.
+
+Balashev went into a small reception room, one door of which led into a
+study, the very one from which the Russian Emperor had dispatched him on
+his mission. He stood a minute or two, waiting. He heard hurried
+footsteps beyond the door, both halves of it were opened rapidly; all
+was silent and then from the study the sound was heard of other steps,
+firm and resolute—they were those of Napoleon. He had just finished
+dressing for his ride, and wore a blue uniform, opening in front over a
+white waistcoat so long that it covered his rotund stomach, white
+leather breeches tightly fitting the fat thighs of his short legs, and
+Hessian boots. His short hair had evidently just been brushed, but one
+lock hung down in the middle of his broad forehead. His plump white neck
+stood out sharply above the black collar of his uniform, and he smelled
+of Eau de Cologne. His full face, rather young-looking, with its
+prominent chin, wore a gracious and majestic expression of imperial
+welcome.
+
+He entered briskly, with a jerk at every step and his head slightly
+thrown back. His whole short corpulent figure with broad thick
+shoulders, and chest and stomach involuntarily protruding, had that
+imposing and stately appearance one sees in men of forty who live in
+comfort. It was evident, too, that he was in the best of spirits that
+day.
+
+He nodded in answer to Balashav's low and respectful bow, and coming up
+to him at once began speaking like a man who values every moment of his
+time and does not condescend to prepare what he has to say but is sure
+he will always say the right thing and say it well.
+
+"Good day, General!" said he. "I have received the letter you brought
+from the Emperor Alexander and am very glad to see you." He glanced with
+his large eyes into Balashav's face and immediately looked past him.
+
+It was plain that Balashev's personality did not interest him at all.
+Evidently only what took place within his own mind interested him.
+Nothing outside himself had any significance for him, because everything
+in the world, it seemed to him, depended entirely on his will.
+
+"I do not, and did not, desire war," he continued, "but it has been
+forced on me. Even now" (he emphasized the word) "I am ready to receive
+any explanations you can give me."
+
+And he began clearly and concisely to explain his reasons for
+dissatisfaction with the Russian government. Judging by the calmly
+moderate and amicable tone in which the French Emperor spoke, Balashev
+was firmly persuaded that he wished for peace and intended to enter into
+negotiations.
+
+When Napoleon, having finished speaking, looked inquiringly at the
+Russian envoy, Balashev began a speech he had prepared long before:
+"Sire! The Emperor, my master..." but the sight of the Emperor's eyes
+bent on him confused him. "You are flurried—compose yourself!" Napoleon
+seemed to say, as with a scarcely perceptible smile he looked at
+Balashev's uniform and sword.
+
+Balashev recovered himself and began to speak. He said that the Emperor
+Alexander did not consider Kurakin's demand for his passports a
+sufficient cause for war; that Kurakin had acted on his own initiative
+and without his sovereign's assent, that the Emperor Alexander did not
+desire war, and had no relations with England.
+
+"Not yet!" interposed Napoleon, and, as if fearing to give vent to his
+feelings, he frowned and nodded slightly as a sign that Balashev might
+proceed.
+
+After saying all he had been instructed to say, Balashev added that the
+Emperor Alexander wished for peace, but would not enter into
+negotiations except on condition that... Here Balashev hesitated: he
+remembered the words the Emperor Alexander had not written in his
+letter, but had specially inserted in the rescript to Saltykov and had
+told Balashev to repeat to Napoleon. Balashev remembered these words,
+"So long as a single armed foe remains on Russian soil," but some
+complex feeling restrained him. He could not utter them, though he
+wished to do so. He grew confused and said: "On condition that the
+French army retires beyond the Niemen."
+
+Napoleon noticed Balashev's embarrassment when uttering these last
+words; his face twitched and the calf of his left leg began to quiver
+rhythmically. Without moving from where he stood he began speaking in a
+louder tone and more hurriedly than before. During the speech that
+followed, Balashev, who more than once lowered his eyes, involuntarily
+noticed the quivering of Napoleon's left leg which increased the more
+Napoleon raised his voice.
+
+"I desire peace, no less than the Emperor Alexander," he began. "Have I
+not for eighteen months been doing everything to obtain it? I have
+waited eighteen months for explanations. But in order to begin
+negotiations, what is demanded of me?" he said, frowning and making an
+energetic gesture of inquiry with his small white plump hand.
+
+"The withdrawal of your army beyond the Niemen, sire," replied Balashev.
+
+"The Niemen?" repeated Napoleon. "So now you want me to retire beyond
+the Niemen—only the Niemen?" repeated Napoleon, looking straight at
+Balashev.
+
+The latter bowed his head respectfully.
+
+Instead of the demand of four months earlier to withdraw from Pomerania,
+only a withdrawal beyond the Niemen was now demanded. Napoleon turned
+quickly and began to pace the room.
+
+"You say the demand now is that I am to withdraw beyond the Niemen
+before commencing negotiations, but in just the same way two months ago
+the demand was that I should withdraw beyond the Vistula and the Oder,
+and yet you are willing to negotiate."
+
+He went in silence from one corner of the room to the other and again
+stopped in front of Balashev. Balashev noticed that his left leg was
+quivering faster than before and his face seemed petrified in its stern
+expression. This quivering of his left leg was a thing Napoleon was
+conscious of. "The vibration of my left calf is a great sign with me,"
+he remarked at a later date.
+
+"Such demands as to retreat beyond the Vistula and Oder may be made to a
+Prince of Baden, but not to me!" Napoleon almost screamed, quite to his
+own surprise. "If you gave me Petersburg and Moscow I could not accept
+such conditions. You say I have begun this war! But who first joined his
+army? The Emperor Alexander, not I! And you offer me negotiations when I
+have expended millions, when you are in alliance with England, and when
+your position is a bad one. You offer me negotiations! But what is the
+aim of your alliance with England? What has she given you?" he continued
+hurriedly, evidently no longer trying to show the advantages of peace
+and discuss its possibility, but only to prove his own rectitude and
+power and Alexander's errors and duplicity.
+
+The commencement of his speech had obviously been made with the
+intention of demonstrating the advantages of his position and showing
+that he was nevertheless willing to negotiate. But he had begun talking,
+and the more he talked the less could he control his words.
+
+The whole purport of his remarks now was evidently to exalt himself and
+insult Alexander—just what he had least desired at the commencement of
+the interview.
+
+"I hear you have made peace with Turkey?"
+
+Balashev bowed his head affirmatively.
+
+"Peace has been concluded..." he began.
+
+But Napoleon did not let him speak. He evidently wanted to do all the
+talking himself, and continued to talk with the sort of eloquence and
+unrestrained irritability to which spoiled people are so prone.
+
+"Yes, I know you have made peace with the Turks without obtaining
+Moldavia and Wallachia; I would have given your sovereign those
+provinces as I gave him Finland. Yes," he went on, "I promised and would
+have given the Emperor Alexander Moldavia and Wallachia, and now he
+won't have those splendid provinces. Yet he might have united them to
+his empire and in a single reign would have extended Russia from the
+Gulf of Bothnia to the mouths of the Danube. Catherine the Great could
+not have done more," said Napoleon, growing more and more excited as he
+paced up and down the room, repeating to Balashev almost the very words
+he had used to Alexander himself at Tilsit. "All that, he would have
+owed to my friendship. Oh, what a splendid reign!" he repeated several
+times, then paused, drew from his pocket a gold snuffbox, lifted it to
+his nose, and greedily sniffed at it.
+
+"What a splendid reign the Emperor Alexander's might have been!"
+
+He looked compassionately at Balashev, and as soon as the latter tried
+to make some rejoinder hastily interrupted him.
+
+"What could he wish or look for that he would not have obtained through
+my friendship?" demanded Napoleon, shrugging his shoulders in
+perplexity. "But no, he has preferred to surround himself with my
+enemies, and with whom? With Steins, Armfeldts, Bennigsens, and
+Wintzingerodes! Stein, a traitor expelled from his own country;
+Armfeldt, a rake and an intriguer; Wintzingerode, a fugitive French
+subject; Bennigsen, rather more of a soldier than the others, but all
+the same an incompetent who was unable to do anything in 1807 and who
+should awaken terrible memories in the Emperor Alexander's mind....
+Granted that were they competent they might be made use of," continued
+Napoleon—hardly able to keep pace in words with the rush of thoughts
+that incessantly sprang up, proving how right and strong he was (in his
+perception the two were one and the same)—"but they are not even that!
+They are neither fit for war nor peace! Barclay is said to be the most
+capable of them all, but I cannot say so, judging by his first
+movements. And what are they doing, all these courtiers? Pfuel proposes,
+Armfeldt disputes, Bennigsen considers, and Barclay, called on to act,
+does not know what to decide on, and time passes bringing no result.
+Bagration alone is a military man. He's stupid, but he has experience, a
+quick eye, and resolution.... And what role is your young monarch
+playing in that monstrous crowd? They compromise him and throw on him
+the responsibility for all that happens. A sovereign should not be with
+the army unless he is a general!" said Napoleon, evidently uttering
+these words as a direct challenge to the Emperor. He knew how Alexander
+desired to be a military commander.
+
+"The campaign began only a week ago, and you haven't even been able to
+defend Vilna. You are cut in two and have been driven out of the Polish
+provinces. Your army is grumbling."
+
+"On the contrary, Your Majesty," said Balashev, hardly able to remember
+what had been said to him and following these verbal fireworks with
+difficulty, "the troops are burning with eagerness..."
+
+"I know everything!" Napoleon interrupted him. "I know everything. I
+know the number of your battalions as exactly as I know my own. You have
+not two hundred thousand men, and I have three times that number. I give
+you my word of honor," said Napoleon, forgetting that his word of honor
+could carry no weight—"I give you my word of honor that I have five
+hundred and thirty thousand men this side of the Vistula. The Turks will
+be of no use to you; they are worth nothing and have shown it by making
+peace with you. As for the Swedes—it is their fate to be governed by mad
+kings. Their king was insane and they changed him for
+another—Bernadotte, who promptly went mad—for no Swede would ally
+himself with Russia unless he were mad."
+
+Napoleon grinned maliciously and again raised his snuffbox to his nose.
+
+Balashev knew how to reply to each of Napoleon's remarks, and would have
+done so; he continually made the gesture of a man wishing to say
+something, but Napoleon always interrupted him. To the alleged insanity
+of the Swedes, Balashev wished to reply that when Russia is on her side
+Sweden is practically an island: but Napoleon gave an angry exclamation
+to drown his voice. Napoleon was in that state of irritability in which
+a man has to talk, talk, and talk, merely to convince himself that he is
+in the right. Balashev began to feel uncomfortable: as envoy he feared
+to demean his dignity and felt the necessity of replying; but, as a man,
+he shrank before the transport of groundless wrath that had evidently
+seized Napoleon. He knew that none of the words now uttered by Napoleon
+had any significance, and that Napoleon himself would be ashamed of them
+when he came to his senses. Balashev stood with downcast eyes, looking
+at the movements of Napoleon's stout legs and trying to avoid meeting
+his eyes.
+
+"But what do I care about your allies?" said Napoleon. "I have
+allies—the Poles. There are eighty thousand of them and they fight like
+lions. And there will be two hundred thousand of them."
+
+And probably still more perturbed by the fact that he had uttered this
+obvious falsehood, and that Balashev still stood silently before him in
+the same attitude of submission to fate, Napoleon abruptly turned round,
+drew close to Balashev's face, and, gesticulating rapidly and
+energetically with his white hands, almost shouted:
+
+"Know that if you stir up Prussia against me, I'll wipe it off the map
+of Europe!" he declared, his face pale and distorted by anger, and he
+struck one of his small hands energetically with the other. "Yes, I will
+throw you back beyond the Dvina and beyond the Dnieper, and will re-
+erect against you that barrier which it was criminal and blind of Europe
+to allow to be destroyed. Yes, that is what will happen to you. That is
+what you have gained by alienating me!" And he walked silently several
+times up and down the room, his fat shoulders twitching.
+
+He put his snuffbox into his waistcoat pocket, took it out again, lifted
+it several times to his nose, and stopped in front of Balashev. He
+paused, looked ironically straight into Balashev's eyes, and said in a
+quiet voice:
+
+"And yet what a splendid reign your master might have had!"
+
+Balashev, feeling it incumbent on him to reply, said that from the
+Russian side things did not appear in so gloomy a light. Napoleon was
+silent, still looking derisively at him and evidently not listening to
+him. Balashev said that in Russia the best results were expected from
+the war. Napoleon nodded condescendingly, as if to say, "I know it's
+your duty to say that, but you don't believe it yourself. I have
+convinced you."
+
+When Balashev had ended, Napoleon again took out his snuffbox, sniffed
+at it, and stamped his foot twice on the floor as a signal. The door
+opened, a gentleman-in-waiting, bending respectfully, handed the Emperor
+his hat and gloves; another brought him a pocket handkerchief. Napoleon,
+without giving them a glance, turned to Balashev:
+
+"Assure the Emperor Alexander from me," said he, taking his hat, "that I
+am as devoted to him as before: I know him thoroughly and very highly
+esteem his lofty qualities. I will detain you no longer, General; you
+shall receive my letter to the Emperor."
+
+And Napoleon went quickly to the door. Everyone in the reception room
+rushed forward and descended the staircase.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+After all that Napoleon had said to him—those bursts of anger and the
+last dryly spoken words: "I will detain you no longer, General; you
+shall receive my letter," Balashev felt convinced that Napoleon would
+not wish to see him, and would even avoid another meeting with him—an
+insulted envoy—especially as he had witnessed his unseemly anger. But,
+to his surprise, Balashev received, through Duroc, an invitation to dine
+with the Emperor that day.
+
+Bessieres, Caulaincourt, and Berthier were present at that dinner.
+
+Napoleon met Balashev cheerfully and amiably. He not only showed no sign
+of constraint or self-reproach on account of his outburst that morning,
+but, on the contrary, tried to reassure Balashev. It was evident that he
+had long been convinced that it was impossible for him to make a
+mistake, and that in his perception whatever he did was right, not
+because it harmonized with any idea of right and wrong, but because he
+did it.
+
+The Emperor was in very good spirits after his ride through Vilna, where
+crowds of people had rapturously greeted and followed him. From all the
+windows of the streets through which he rode, rugs, flags, and his
+monogram were displayed, and the Polish ladies, welcoming him, waved
+their handkerchiefs to him.
+
+At dinner, having placed Balashev beside him, Napoleon not only treated
+him amiably but behaved as if Balashev were one of his own courtiers,
+one of those who sympathized with his plans and ought to rejoice at his
+success. In the course of conversation he mentioned Moscow and
+questioned Balashev about the Russian capital, not merely as an
+interested traveler asks about a new city he intends to visit, but as if
+convinced that Balashev, as a Russian, must be flattered by his
+curiosity.
+
+"How many inhabitants are there in Moscow? How many houses? Is it true
+that Moscow is called 'Holy Moscow'? How many churches are there in
+Moscow?" he asked.
+
+And receiving the reply that there were more than two hundred churches,
+he remarked:
+
+"Why such a quantity of churches?"
+
+"The Russians are very devout," replied Balashev.
+
+"But a large number of monasteries and churches is always a sign of the
+backwardness of a people," said Napoleon, turning to Caulaincourt for
+appreciation of this remark.
+
+Balashev respectfully ventured to disagree with the French Emperor.
+
+"Every country has its own character," said he.
+
+"But nowhere in Europe is there anything like that," said Napoleon.
+
+"I beg your Majesty's pardon," returned Balashev, "besides Russia there
+is Spain, where there are also many churches and monasteries."
+
+This reply of Balashev's, which hinted at the recent defeats of the
+French in Spain, was much appreciated when he related it at Alexander's
+court, but it was not much appreciated at Napoleon's dinner, where it
+passed unnoticed.
+
+The uninterested and perplexed faces of the marshals showed that they
+were puzzled as to what Balashev's tone suggested. "If there is a point
+we don't see it, or it is not at all witty," their expressions seemed to
+say. So little was his rejoinder appreciated that Napoleon did not
+notice it at all and naïvely asked Balashev through what towns the
+direct road from there to Moscow passed. Balashev, who was on the alert
+all through the dinner, replied that just as "all roads lead to Rome,"
+so all roads lead to Moscow: there were many roads, and "among them the
+road through Poltava, which Charles XII chose." Balashev involuntarily
+flushed with pleasure at the aptitude of this reply, but hardly had he
+uttered the word Poltava before Caulaincourt began speaking of the
+badness of the road from Petersburg to Moscow and of his Petersburg
+reminiscences.
+
+After dinner they went to drink coffee in Napoleon's study, which four
+days previously had been that of the Emperor Alexander. Napoleon sat
+down, toying with his Sevres coffee cup, and motioned Balashev to a
+chair beside him.
+
+Napoleon was in that well-known after-dinner mood which, more than any
+reasoned cause, makes a man contented with himself and disposed to
+consider everyone his friend. It seemed to him that he was surrounded by
+men who adored him: and he felt convinced that, after his dinner,
+Balashev too was his friend and worshiper. Napoleon turned to him with a
+pleasant, though slightly ironic, smile.
+
+"They tell me this is the room the Emperor Alexander occupied? Strange,
+isn't it, General?" he said, evidently not doubting that this remark
+would be agreeable to his hearer since it went to prove his, Napoleon's,
+superiority to Alexander.
+
+Balashev made no reply and bowed his head in silence.
+
+"Yes. Four days ago in this room, Wintzingerode and Stein were
+deliberating," continued Napoleon with the same derisive and self-
+confident smile. "What I can't understand," he went on, "is that the
+Emperor Alexander has surrounded himself with my personal enemies. That
+I do not... understand. Has he not thought that I may do the same?" and
+he turned inquiringly to Balashev, and evidently this thought turned him
+back on to the track of his morning's anger, which was still fresh in
+him.
+
+"And let him know that I will do so!" said Napoleon, rising and pushing
+his cup away with his hand. "I'll drive all his Wurttemberg, Baden, and
+Weimar relations out of Germany.... Yes. I'll drive them out. Let him
+prepare an asylum for them in Russia!"
+
+Balashev bowed his head with an air indicating that he would like to
+make his bow and leave, and only listened because he could not help
+hearing what was said to him. Napoleon did not notice this expression;
+he treated Balashev not as an envoy from his enemy, but as a man now
+fully devoted to him and who must rejoice at his former master's
+humiliation.
+
+"And why has the Emperor Alexander taken command of the armies? What is
+the good of that? War is my profession, but his business is to reign and
+not to command armies! Why has he taken on himself such a
+responsibility?"
+
+Again Napoleon brought out his snuffbox, paced several times up and down
+the room in silence, and then, suddenly and unexpectedly, went up to
+Balashev and with a slight smile, as confidently, quickly, and simply as
+if he were doing something not merely important but pleasing to
+Balashev, he raised his hand to the forty-year-old Russian general's
+face and, taking him by the ear, pulled it gently, smiling with his lips
+only.
+
+To have one's ear pulled by the Emperor was considered the greatest
+honor and mark of favor at the French court.
+
+"Well, adorer and courtier of the Emperor Alexander, why don't you say
+anything?" said he, as if it was ridiculous, in his presence, to be the
+adorer and courtier of anyone but himself, Napoleon. "Are the horses
+ready for the general?" he added, with a slight inclination of his head
+in reply to Balashev's bow. "Let him have mine, he has a long way to
+go!"
+
+The letter taken by Balashev was the last Napoleon sent to Alexander.
+Every detail of the interview was communicated to the Russian monarch,
+and the war began...
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+After his interview with Pierre in Moscow, Prince Andrew went to
+Petersburg, on business as he told his family, but really to meet
+Anatole Kurágin whom he felt it necessary to encounter. On reaching
+Petersburg he inquired for Kurágin but the latter had already left the
+city. Pierre had warned his brother-in-law that Prince Andrew was on his
+track. Anatole Kurágin promptly obtained an appointment from the
+Minister of War and went to join the army in Moldavia. While in
+Petersburg Prince Andrew met Kutúzov, his former commander who was
+always well disposed toward him, and Kutúzov suggested that he should
+accompany him to the army in Moldavia, to which the old general had been
+appointed commander-in-chief. So Prince Andrew, having received an
+appointment on the headquarters staff, left for Turkey.
+
+Prince Andrew did not think it proper to write and challenge Kurágin. He
+thought that if he challenged him without some fresh cause it might
+compromise the young Countess Rostóva and so he wanted to meet Kurágin
+personally in order to find a fresh pretext for a duel. But he again
+failed to meet Kurágin in Turkey, for soon after Prince Andrew arrived,
+the latter returned to Russia. In a new country, amid new conditions,
+Prince Andrew found life easier to bear. After his betrothed had broken
+faith with him—which he felt the more acutely the more he tried to
+conceal its effects—the surroundings in which he had been happy became
+trying to him, and the freedom and independence he had once prized so
+highly were still more so. Not only could he no longer think the
+thoughts that had first come to him as he lay gazing at the sky on the
+field of Austerlitz and had later enlarged upon with Pierre, and which
+had filled his solitude at Bogucharovo and then in Switzerland and Rome,
+but he even dreaded to recall them and the bright and boundless horizons
+they had revealed. He was now concerned only with the nearest practical
+matters unrelated to his past interests, and he seized on these the more
+eagerly the more those past interests were closed to him. It was as if
+that lofty, infinite canopy of heaven that had once towered above him
+had suddenly turned into a low, solid vault that weighed him down, in
+which all was clear, but nothing eternal or mysterious.
+
+Of the activities that presented themselves to him, army service was the
+simplest and most familiar. As a general on duty on Kutúzov's staff, he
+applied himself to business with zeal and perseverance and surprised
+Kutúzov by his willingness and accuracy in work. Not having found
+Kurágin in Turkey, Prince Andrew did not think it necessary to rush back
+to Russia after him, but all the same he knew that however long it might
+be before he met Kurágin, despite his contempt for him and despite all
+the proofs he deduced to convince himself that it was not worth stooping
+to a conflict with him—he knew that when he did meet him he would not be
+able to resist calling him out, any more than a ravenous man can help
+snatching at food. And the consciousness that the insult was not yet
+avenged, that his rancor was still unspent, weighed on his heart and
+poisoned the artificial tranquillity which he managed to obtain in
+Turkey by means of restless, plodding, and rather vainglorious and
+ambitious activity.
+
+In the year 1812, when news of the war with Napoleon reached
+Bucharest—where Kutúzov had been living for two months, passing his days
+and nights with a Wallachian woman—Prince Andrew asked Kutúzov to
+transfer him to the Western Army. Kutúzov, who was already weary of
+Bolkónski's activity which seemed to reproach his own idleness, very
+readily let him go and gave him a mission to Barclay de Tolly.
+
+Before joining the Western Army which was then, in May, encamped at
+Drissa, Prince Andrew visited Bald Hills which was directly on his way,
+being only two miles off the Smolensk highroad. During the last three
+years there had been so many changes in his life, he had thought, felt,
+and seen so much (having traveled both in the east and the west), that
+on reaching Bald Hills it struck him as strange and unexpected to find
+the way of life there unchanged and still the same in every detail. He
+entered through the gates with their stone pillars and drove up the
+avenue leading to the house as if he were entering an enchanted,
+sleeping castle. The same old stateliness, the same cleanliness, the
+same stillness reigned there, and inside there was the same furniture,
+the same walls, sounds, and smell, and the same timid faces, only
+somewhat older. Princess Mary was still the same timid, plain maiden
+getting on in years, uselessly and joylessly passing the best years of
+her life in fear and constant suffering. Mademoiselle Bourienne was the
+same coquettish, self-satisfied girl, enjoying every moment of her
+existence and full of joyous hopes for the future. She had merely become
+more self-confident, Prince Andrew thought. Dessalles, the tutor he had
+brought from Switzerland, was wearing a coat of Russian cut and talking
+broken Russian to the servants, but was still the same narrowly
+intelligent, conscientious, and pedantic preceptor. The old prince had
+changed in appearance only by the loss of a tooth, which left a
+noticeable gap on one side of his mouth; in character he was the same as
+ever, only showing still more irritability and skepticism as to what was
+happening in the world. Little Nicholas alone had changed. He had grown,
+become rosier, had curly dark hair, and, when merry and laughing, quite
+unconsciously lifted the upper lip of his pretty little mouth just as
+the little princess used to do. He alone did not obey the law of
+immutability in the enchanted, sleeping castle. But though externally
+all remained as of old, the inner relations of all these people had
+changed since Prince Andrew had seen them last. The household was
+divided into two alien and hostile camps, who changed their habits for
+his sake and only met because he was there. To the one camp belonged the
+old prince, Mademoiselle Bourienne, and the architect; to the other
+Princess Mary, Dessalles, little Nicholas, and all the old nurses and
+maids.
+
+During his stay at Bald Hills all the family dined together, but they
+were ill at ease and Prince Andrew felt that he was a visitor for whose
+sake an exception was being made and that his presence made them all
+feel awkward. Involuntarily feeling this at dinner on the first day, he
+was taciturn, and the old prince noticing this also became morosely dumb
+and retired to his apartments directly after dinner. In the evening,
+when Prince Andrew went to him and, trying to rouse him, began to tell
+him of the young Count Kamensky's campaign, the old prince began
+unexpectedly to talk about Princess Mary, blaming her for her
+superstitions and her dislike of Mademoiselle Bourienne, who, he said,
+was the only person really attached to him.
+
+The old prince said that if he was ill it was only because of Princess
+Mary: that she purposely worried and irritated him, and that by
+indulgence and silly talk she was spoiling little Prince Nicholas. The
+old prince knew very well that he tormented his daughter and that her
+life was very hard, but he also knew that he could not help tormenting
+her and that she deserved it. "Why does Prince Andrew, who sees this,
+say nothing to me about his sister? Does he think me a scoundrel, or an
+old fool who, without any reason, keeps his own daughter at a distance
+and attaches this Frenchwoman to himself? He doesn't understand, so I
+must explain it, and he must hear me out," thought the old prince. And
+he began explaining why he could not put up with his daughter's
+unreasonable character.
+
+"If you ask me," said Prince Andrew, without looking up (he was
+censuring his father for the first time in his life), "I did not wish to
+speak about it, but as you ask me I will give you my frank opinion. If
+there is any misunderstanding and discord between you and Mary, I can't
+blame her for it at all. I know how she loves and respects you. Since
+you ask me," continued Prince Andrew, becoming irritable—as he was
+always liable to do of late—"I can only say that if there are any
+misunderstandings they are caused by that worthless woman, who is not
+fit to be my sister's companion."
+
+The old man at first stared fixedly at his son, and an unnatural smile
+disclosed the fresh gap between his teeth to which Prince Andrew could
+not get accustomed.
+
+"What companion, my dear boy? Eh? You've already been talking it over!
+Eh?"
+
+"Father, I did not want to judge," said Prince Andrew, in a hard and
+bitter tone, "but you challenged me, and I have said, and always shall
+say, that Mary is not to blame, but those to blame—the one to blame—is
+that Frenchwoman."
+
+"Ah, he has passed judgment... passed judgement!" said the old man in a
+low voice and, as it seemed to Prince Andrew, with some embarrassment,
+but then he suddenly jumped up and cried: "Be off, be off! Let not a
+trace of you remain here!..."
+
+Prince Andrew wished to leave at once, but Princess Mary persuaded him
+to stay another day. That day he did not see his father, who did not
+leave his room and admitted no one but Mademoiselle Bourienne and
+Tíkhon, but asked several times whether his son had gone. Next day,
+before leaving, Prince Andrew went to his son's rooms. The boy, curly-
+headed like his mother and glowing with health, sat on his knee, and
+Prince Andrew began telling him the story of Bluebeard, but fell into a
+reverie without finishing the story. He thought not of this pretty
+child, his son whom he held on his knee, but of himself. He sought in
+himself either remorse for having angered his father or regret at
+leaving home for the first time in his life on bad terms with him, and
+was horrified to find neither. What meant still more to him was that he
+sought and did not find in himself the former tenderness for his son
+which he had hoped to reawaken by caressing the boy and taking him on
+his knee.
+
+"Well, go on!" said his son.
+
+Prince Andrew, without replying, put him down from his knee and went out
+of the room.
+
+As soon as Prince Andrew had given up his daily occupations, and
+especially on returning to the old conditions of life amid which he had
+been happy, weariness of life overcame him with its former intensity,
+and he hastened to escape from these memories and to find some work as
+soon as possible.
+
+"So you've decided to go, Andrew?" asked his sister.
+
+"Thank God that I can," replied Prince Andrew. "I am very sorry you
+can't."
+
+"Why do you say that?" replied Princess Mary. "Why do you say that, when
+you are going to this terrible war, and he is so old? Mademoiselle
+Bourienne says he has been asking about you...."
+
+As soon as she began to speak of that, her lips trembled and her tears
+began to fall. Prince Andrew turned away and began pacing the room.
+
+"Ah, my God! my God! When one thinks who and what—what trash—can cause
+people misery!" he said with a malignity that alarmed Princess Mary.
+
+She understood that when speaking of "trash" he referred not only to
+Mademoiselle Bourienne, the cause of her misery, but also to the man who
+had ruined his own happiness.
+
+"Andrew! One thing I beg, I entreat of you!" she said, touching his
+elbow and looking at him with eyes that shone through her tears. "I
+understand you" (she looked down). "Don't imagine that sorrow is the
+work of men. Men are His tools." She looked a little above Prince
+Andrew's head with the confident, accustomed look with which one looks
+at the place where a familiar portrait hangs. "Sorrow is sent by Him,
+not by men. Men are His instruments, they are not to blame. If you think
+someone has wronged you, forget it and forgive! We have no right to
+punish. And then you will know the happiness of forgiving."
+
+"If I were a woman I would do so, Mary. That is a woman's virtue. But a
+man should not and cannot forgive and forget," he replied, and though
+till that moment he had not been thinking of Kurágin, all his unexpended
+anger suddenly swelled up in his heart.
+
+"If Mary is already persuading me to forgive, it means that I ought long
+ago to have punished him," he thought. And giving her no further reply,
+he began thinking of the glad vindictive moment when he would meet
+Kurágin who he knew was now in the army.
+
+Princess Mary begged him to stay one day more, saying that she knew how
+unhappy her father would be if Andrew left without being reconciled to
+him, but Prince Andrew replied that he would probably soon be back again
+from the army and would certainly write to his father, but that the
+longer he stayed now the more embittered their differences would become.
+
+"Good-bye, Andrew! Remember that misfortunes come from God, and men are
+never to blame," were the last words he heard from his sister when he
+took leave of her.
+
+"Then it must be so!" thought Prince Andrew as he drove out of the
+avenue from the house at Bald Hills. "She, poor innocent creature, is
+left to be victimized by an old man who has outlived his wits. The old
+man feels he is guilty, but cannot change himself. My boy is growing up
+and rejoices in life, in which like everybody else he will deceive or be
+deceived. And I am off to the army. Why? I myself don't know. I want to
+meet that man whom I despise, so as to give him a chance to kill and
+laugh at me!"
+
+These conditions of life had been the same before, but then they were
+all connected, while now they had all tumbled to pieces. Only senseless
+things, lacking coherence, presented themselves one after another to
+Prince Andrew's mind.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+Prince Andrew reached the general headquarters of the army at the end of
+June. The first army, with which was the Emperor, occupied the fortified
+camp at Drissa; the second army was retreating, trying to effect a
+junction with the first one from which it was said to be cut off by
+large French forces. Everyone was dissatisfied with the general course
+of affairs in the Russian army, but no one anticipated any danger of
+invasion of the Russian provinces, and no one thought the war would
+extend farther than the western, the Polish, provinces.
+
+Prince Andrew found Barclay de Tolly, to whom he had been assigned, on
+the bank of the Drissa. As there was not a single town or large village
+in the vicinity of the camp, the immense number of generals and
+courtiers accompanying the army were living in the best houses of the
+villages on both sides of the river, over a radius of six miles. Barclay
+de Tolly was quartered nearly three miles from the Emperor. He received
+Bolkónski stiffly and coldly and told him in his foreign accent that he
+would mention him to the Emperor for a decision as to his employment,
+but asked him meanwhile to remain on his staff. Anatole Kurágin, whom
+Prince Andrew had hoped to find with the army, was not there. He had
+gone to Petersburg, but Prince Andrew was glad to hear this. His mind
+was occupied by the interests of the center that was conducting a
+gigantic war, and he was glad to be free for a while from the
+distraction caused by the thought of Kurágin. During the first four
+days, while no duties were required of him, Prince Andrew rode round the
+whole fortified camp and, by the aid of his own knowledge and by talks
+with experts, tried to form a definite opinion about it. But the
+question whether the camp was advantageous or disadvantageous remained
+for him undecided. Already from his military experience and what he had
+seen in the Austrian campaign, he had come to the conclusion that in war
+the most deeply considered plans have no significance and that all
+depends on the way unexpected movements of the enemy—that cannot be
+foreseen—are met, and on how and by whom the whole matter is handled. To
+clear up this last point for himself, Prince Andrew, utilizing his
+position and acquaintances, tried to fathom the character of the control
+of the army and of the men and parties engaged in it, and he deduced for
+himself the following of the state of affairs.
+
+While the Emperor had still been at Vilna, the forces had been divided
+into three armies. First, the army under Barclay de Tolly, secondly, the
+army under Bagration, and thirdly, the one commanded by Tormasov. The
+Emperor was with the first army, but not as commander-in-chief. In the
+orders issued it was stated, not that the Emperor would take command,
+but only that he would be with the army. The Emperor, moreover, had with
+him not a commander-in-chief's staff but the imperial headquarters
+staff. In attendance on him was the head of the imperial staff,
+Quartermaster General Prince Volkonski, as well as generals, imperial
+aides-de-camp, diplomatic officials, and a large number of foreigners,
+but not the army staff. Besides these, there were in attendance on the
+Emperor without any definite appointments: Arakcheev, the ex-Minister of
+War; Count Bennigsen, the senior general in rank; the Grand Duke
+Tsarevich Constantine Pavlovich; Count Rumyántsev, the Chancellor;
+Stein, a former Prussian minister; Armfeldt, a Swedish general; Pfuel,
+the chief author of the plan of campaign; Paulucci, an adjutant general
+and Sardinian emigre; Wolzogen—and many others. Though these men had no
+military appointment in the army, their position gave them influence,
+and often a corps commander, or even the commander-in-chief, did not
+know in what capacity he was questioned by Bennigsen, the Grand Duke,
+Arakcheev, or Prince Volkonski, or was given this or that advice and did
+not know whether a certain order received in the form of advice emanated
+from the man who gave it or from the Emperor and whether it had to be
+executed or not. But this was only the external condition; the essential
+significance of the presence of the Emperor and of all these people,
+from a courtier's point of view (and in an Emperor's vicinity all became
+courtiers), was clear to everyone. It was this: the Emperor did not
+assume the title of commander-in-chief, but disposed of all the armies;
+the men around him were his assistants. Arakcheev was a faithful
+custodian to enforce order and acted as the sovereign's bodyguard.
+Bennigsen was a landlord in the Vilna province who appeared to be doing
+the honors of the district, but was in reality a good general, useful as
+an adviser and ready at hand to replace Barclay. The Grand Duke was
+there because it suited him to be. The ex-Minister Stein was there
+because his advice was useful and the Emperor Alexander held him in high
+esteem personally. Armfeldt virulently hated Napoleon and was a general
+full of self-confidence, a quality that always influenced Alexander.
+Paulucci was there because he was bold and decided in speech. The
+adjutants general were there because they always accompanied the
+Emperor, and lastly and chiefly Pfuel was there because he had drawn up
+the plan of campaign against Napoleon and, having induced Alexander to
+believe in the efficacy of that plan, was directing the whole business
+of the war. With Pfuel was Wolzogen, who expressed Pfuel's thoughts in a
+more comprehensible way than Pfuel himself (who was a harsh, bookish
+theorist, self-confident to the point of despising everyone else) was
+able to do.
+
+Besides these Russians and foreigners who propounded new and unexpected
+ideas every day—especially the foreigners, who did so with a boldness
+characteristic of people employed in a country not their own—there were
+many secondary personages accompanying the army because their principals
+were there.
+
+Among the opinions and voices in this immense, restless, brilliant, and
+proud sphere, Prince Andrew noticed the following sharply defined
+subdivisions of tendencies and parties:
+
+The first party consisted of Pfuel and his adherents—military theorists
+who believed in a science of war with immutable laws—laws of oblique
+movements, outflankings, and so forth. Pfuel and his adherents demanded
+a retirement into the depths of the country in accordance with precise
+laws defined by a pseudo-theory of war, and they saw only barbarism,
+ignorance, or evil intention in every deviation from that theory. To
+this party belonged the foreign nobles, Wolzogen, Wintzingerode, and
+others, chiefly Germans.
+
+The second party was directly opposed to the first; one extreme, as
+always happens, was met by representatives of the other. The members of
+this party were those who had demanded an advance from Vilna into Poland
+and freedom from all prearranged plans. Besides being advocates of bold
+action, this section also represented nationalism, which made them still
+more one-sided in the dispute. They were Russians: Bagration, Ermolov
+(who was beginning to come to the front), and others. At that time a
+famous joke of Ermolov's was being circulated, that as a great favor he
+had petitioned the Emperor to make him a German. The men of that party,
+remembering Suvórov, said that what one had to do was not to reason, or
+stick pins into maps, but to fight, beat the enemy, keep him out of
+Russia, and not let the army get discouraged.
+
+To the third party—in which the Emperor had most confidence—belonged the
+courtiers who tried to arrange compromises between the other two. The
+members of this party, chiefly civilians and to whom Arakcheev belonged,
+thought and said what men who have no convictions but wish to seem to
+have some generally say. They said that undoubtedly war, particularly
+against such a genius as Bonaparte (they called him Bonaparte now),
+needs most deeply devised plans and profound scientific knowledge and in
+that respect Pfuel was a genius, but at the same time it had to be
+acknowledged that the theorists are often one-sided, and therefore one
+should not trust them absolutely, but should also listen to what Pfuel's
+opponents and practical men of experience in warfare had to say, and
+then choose a middle course. They insisted on the retention of the camp
+at Drissa, according to Pfuel's plan, but on changing the movements of
+the other armies. Though, by this course, neither one aim nor the other
+could be attained, yet it seemed best to the adherents of this third
+party.
+
+Of a fourth opinion the most conspicuous representative was the
+Tsarevich, who could not forget his disillusionment at Austerlitz, where
+he had ridden out at the head of the Guards, in his casque and cavalry
+uniform as to a review, expecting to crush the French gallantly; but
+unexpectedly finding himself in the front line had narrowly escaped amid
+the general confusion. The men of this party had both the quality and
+the defect of frankness in their opinions. They feared Napoleon,
+recognized his strength and their own weakness, and frankly said so.
+They said: "Nothing but sorrow, shame, and ruin will come of all this!
+We have abandoned Vilna and Vitebsk and shall abandon Drissa. The only
+reasonable thing left to do is to conclude peace as soon as possible,
+before we are turned out of Petersburg."
+
+This view was very general in the upper army circles and found support
+also in Petersburg and from the chancellor, Rumyántsev, who, for other
+reasons of state, was in favor of peace.
+
+The fifth party consisted of those who were adherents of Barclay de
+Tolly, not so much as a man but as minister of war and commander-in-
+chief. "Be he what he may" (they always began like that), "he is an
+honest, practical man and we have nobody better. Give him real power,
+for war cannot be conducted successfully without unity of command, and
+he will show what he can do, as he did in Finland. If our army is well
+organized and strong and has withdrawn to Drissa without suffering any
+defeats, we owe this entirely to Barclay. If Barclay is now to be
+superseded by Bennigsen all will be lost, for Bennigsen showed his
+incapacity already in 1807."
+
+The sixth party, the Bennigsenites, said, on the contrary, that at any
+rate there was no one more active and experienced than Bennigsen: "and
+twist about as you may, you will have to come to Bennigsen eventually.
+Let the others make mistakes now!" said they, arguing that our
+retirement to Drissa was a most shameful reverse and an unbroken series
+of blunders. "The more mistakes that are made the better. It will at any
+rate be understood all the sooner that things cannot go on like this.
+What is wanted is not some Barclay or other, but a man like Bennigsen,
+who made his mark in 1807, and to whom Napoleon himself did justice—a
+man whose authority would be willingly recognized, and Bennigsen is the
+only such man."
+
+The seventh party consisted of the sort of people who are always to be
+found, especially around young sovereigns, and of whom there were
+particularly many round Alexander—generals and imperial aides-de-camp
+passionately devoted to the Emperor, not merely as a monarch but as a
+man, adoring him sincerely and disinterestedly, as Rostóv had done in
+1805, and who saw in him not only all the virtues but all human
+capabilities as well. These men, though enchanted with the sovereign for
+refusing the command of the army, yet blamed him for such excessive
+modesty, and only desired and insisted that their adored sovereign
+should abandon his diffidence and openly announce that he would place
+himself at the head of the army, gather round him a commander-in-chief's
+staff, and, consulting experienced theoreticians and practical men where
+necessary, would himself lead the troops, whose spirits would thereby be
+raised to the highest pitch.
+
+The eighth and largest group, which in its enormous numbers was to the
+others as ninety-nine to one, consisted of men who desired neither peace
+nor war, neither an advance nor a defensive camp at the Drissa or
+anywhere else, neither Barclay nor the Emperor, neither Pfuel nor
+Bennigsen, but only the one most essential thing—as much advantage and
+pleasure for themselves as possible. In the troubled waters of
+conflicting and intersecting intrigues that eddied about the Emperor's
+headquarters, it was possible to succeed in many ways unthinkable at
+other times. A man who simply wished to retain his lucrative post would
+today agree with Pfuel, tomorrow with his opponent, and the day after,
+merely to avoid responsibility or to please the Emperor, would declare
+that he had no opinion at all on the matter. Another who wished to gain
+some advantage would attract the Emperor's attention by loudly
+advocating the very thing the Emperor had hinted at the day before, and
+would dispute and shout at the council, beating his breast and
+challenging those who did not agree with him to duels, thereby proving
+that he was prepared to sacrifice himself for the common good. A third,
+in the absence of opponents, between two councils would simply solicit a
+special gratuity for his faithful services, well knowing that at that
+moment people would be too busy to refuse him. A fourth while seemingly
+overwhelmed with work would often come accidentally under the Emperor's
+eye. A fifth, to achieve his long-cherished aim of dining with the
+Emperor, would stubbornly insist on the correctness or falsity of some
+newly emerging opinion and for this object would produce arguments more
+or less forcible and correct.
+
+All the men of this party were fishing for rubles, decorations, and
+promotions, and in this pursuit watched only the weathercock of imperial
+favor, and directly they noticed it turning in any direction, this whole
+drone population of the army began blowing hard that way, so that it was
+all the harder for the Emperor to turn it elsewhere. Amid the
+uncertainties of the position, with the menace of serious danger giving
+a peculiarly threatening character to everything, amid this vortex of
+intrigue, egotism, conflict of views and feelings, and the diversity of
+race among these people—this eighth and largest party of those
+preoccupied with personal interests imparted great confusion and
+obscurity to the common task. Whatever question arose, a swarm of these
+drones, without having finished their buzzing on a previous theme, flew
+over to the new one and by their hum drowned and obscured the voices of
+those who were disputing honestly.
+
+From among all these parties, just at the time Prince Andrew reached the
+army, another, a ninth party, was being formed and was beginning to
+raise its voice. This was the party of the elders, reasonable men
+experienced and capable in state affairs, who, without sharing any of
+those conflicting opinions, were able to take a detached view of what
+was going on at the staff at headquarters and to consider means of
+escape from this muddle, indecision, intricacy, and weakness.
+
+The men of this party said and thought that what was wrong resulted
+chiefly from the Emperor's presence in the army with his military court
+and from the consequent presence there of an indefinite, conditional,
+and unsteady fluctuation of relations, which is in place at court but
+harmful in an army; that a sovereign should reign but not command the
+army, and that the only way out of the position would be for the Emperor
+and his court to leave the army; that the mere presence of the Emperor
+paralyzed the action of fifty thousand men required to secure his
+personal safety, and that the worst commander-in-chief, if independent,
+would be better than the very best one trammeled by the presence and
+authority of the monarch.
+
+Just at the time Prince Andrew was living unoccupied at Drissa,
+Shishkov, the Secretary of State and one of the chief representatives of
+this party, wrote a letter to the Emperor which Arakcheev and Balashev
+agreed to sign. In this letter, availing himself of permission given him
+by the Emperor to discuss the general course of affairs, he respectfully
+suggested—on the plea that it was necessary for the sovereign to arouse
+a warlike spirit in the people of the capital—that the Emperor should
+leave the army.
+
+That arousing of the people by their sovereign and his call to them to
+defend their country—the very incitement which was the chief cause of
+Russia's triumph in so far as it was produced by the Tsar's personal
+presence in Moscow—was suggested to the Emperor, and accepted by him, as
+a pretext for quitting the army.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+This letter had not yet been presented to the Emperor when Barclay, one
+day at dinner, informed Bolkónski that the sovereign wished to see him
+personally, to question him about Turkey, and that Prince Andrew was to
+present himself at Bennigsen's quarters at six that evening.
+
+News was received at the Emperor's quarters that very day of a fresh
+movement by Napoleon which might endanger the army—news subsequently
+found to be false. And that morning Colonel Michaud had ridden round the
+Drissa fortifications with the Emperor and had pointed out to him that
+this fortified camp constructed by Pfuel, and till then considered a
+chef-d'oeuvre of tactical science which would ensure Napoleon's
+destruction, was an absurdity, threatening the destruction of the
+Russian army.
+
+Prince Andrew arrived at Bennigsen's quarters—a country gentleman's
+house of moderate size, situated on the very banks of the river. Neither
+Bennigsen nor the Emperor was there, but Chernyshev, the Emperor's aide-
+de-camp, received Bolkónski and informed him that the Emperor,
+accompanied by General Bennigsen and Marquis Paulucci, had gone a second
+time that day to inspect the fortifications of the Drissa camp, of the
+suitability of which serious doubts were beginning to be felt.
+
+Chernyshev was sitting at a window in the first room with a French novel
+in his hand. This room had probably been a music room; there was still
+an organ in it on which some rugs were piled, and in one corner stood
+the folding bedstead of Bennigsen's adjutant. This adjutant was also
+there and sat dozing on the rolled-up bedding, evidently exhausted by
+work or by feasting. Two doors led from the room, one straight on into
+what had been the drawing room, and another, on the right, to the study.
+Through the first door came the sound of voices conversing in German and
+occasionally in French. In that drawing room were gathered, by the
+Emperor's wish, not a military council (the Emperor preferred
+indefiniteness), but certain persons whose opinions he wished to know in
+view of the impending difficulties. It was not a council of war, but, as
+it were, a council to elucidate certain questions for the Emperor
+personally. To this semicouncil had been invited the Swedish General
+Armfeldt, Adjutant General Wolzogen, Wintzingerode (whom Napoleon had
+referred to as a renegade French subject), Michaud, Toll, Count Stein
+who was not a military man at all, and Pfuel himself, who, as Prince
+Andrew had heard, was the mainspring of the whole affair. Prince Andrew
+had an opportunity of getting a good look at him, for Pfuel arrived soon
+after himself and, in passing through to the drawing room, stopped a
+minute to speak to Chernyshev.
+
+At first sight, Pfuel, in his ill-made uniform of a Russian general,
+which fitted him badly like a fancy costume, seemed familiar to Prince
+Andrew, though he saw him now for the first time. There was about him
+something of Weyrother, Mack, and Schmidt, and many other German
+theorist-generals whom Prince Andrew had seen in 1805, but he was more
+typical than any of them. Prince Andrew had never yet seen a German
+theorist in whom all the characteristics of those others were united to
+such an extent.
+
+Pfuel was short and very thin but broad-boned, of coarse, robust build,
+broad in the hips, and with prominent shoulder blades. His face was much
+wrinkled and his eyes deep set. His hair had evidently been hastily
+brushed smooth in front of the temples, but stuck up behind in quaint
+little tufts. He entered the room, looking restlessly and angrily
+around, as if afraid of everything in that large apartment. Awkwardly
+holding up his sword, he addressed Chernyshev and asked in German where
+the Emperor was. One could see that he wished to pass through the rooms
+as quickly as possible, finish with the bows and greetings, and sit down
+to business in front of a map, where he would feel at home. He nodded
+hurriedly in reply to Chernyshev, and smiled ironically on hearing that
+the sovereign was inspecting the fortifications that he, Pfuel, had
+planned in accord with his theory. He muttered something to himself
+abruptly and in a bass voice, as self-assured Germans do—it might have
+been "stupid fellow"... or "the whole affair will be ruined," or
+"something absurd will come of it."... Prince Andrew did not catch what
+he said and would have passed on, but Chernyshev introduced him to
+Pfuel, remarking that Prince Andrew was just back from Turkey where the
+war had terminated so fortunately. Pfuel barely glanced—not so much at
+Prince Andrew as past him—and said, with a laugh: "That must have been a
+fine tactical war"; and, laughing contemptuously, went on into the room
+from which the sound of voices was heard.
+
+Pfuel, always inclined to be irritably sarcastic, was particularly
+disturbed that day, evidently by the fact that they had dared to inspect
+and criticize his camp in his absence. From this short interview with
+Pfuel, Prince Andrew, thanks to his Austerlitz experiences, was able to
+form a clear conception of the man. Pfuel was one of those hopelessly
+and immutably self-confident men, self-confident to the point of
+martyrdom as only Germans are, because only Germans are self-confident
+on the basis of an abstract notion—science, that is, the supposed
+knowledge of absolute truth. A Frenchman is self-assured because he
+regards himself personally, both in mind and body, as irresistibly
+attractive to men and women. An Englishman is self-assured, as being a
+citizen of the best-organized state in the world, and therefore as an
+Englishman always knows what he should do and knows that all he does as
+an Englishman is undoubtedly correct. An Italian is self-assured because
+he is excitable and easily forgets himself and other people. A Russian
+is self-assured just because he knows nothing and does not want to know
+anything, since he does not believe that anything can be known. The
+German's self-assurance is worst of all, stronger and more repulsive
+than any other, because he imagines that he knows the
+truth—science—which he himself has invented but which is for him the
+absolute truth.
+
+Pfuel was evidently of that sort. He had a science—the theory of oblique
+movements deduced by him from the history of Frederick the Great's wars,
+and all he came across in the history of more recent warfare seemed to
+him absurd and barbarous—monstrous collisions in which so many blunders
+were committed by both sides that these wars could not be called wars,
+they did not accord with the theory, and therefore could not serve as
+material for science.
+
+In 1806 Pfuel had been one of those responsible, for the plan of
+campaign that ended in Jena and Auerstadt, but he did not see the least
+proof of the fallibility of his theory in the disasters of that war. On
+the contrary, the deviations made from his theory were, in his opinion,
+the sole cause of the whole disaster, and with characteristically
+gleeful sarcasm he would remark, "There, I said the whole affair would
+go to the devil!" Pfuel was one of those theoreticians who so love their
+theory that they lose sight of the theory's object—its practical
+application. His love of theory made him hate everything practical, and
+he would not listen to it. He was even pleased by failures, for failures
+resulting from deviations in practice from the theory only proved to him
+the accuracy of his theory.
+
+He said a few words to Prince Andrew and Chernyshev about the present
+war, with the air of a man who knows beforehand that all will go wrong,
+and who is not displeased that it should be so. The unbrushed tufts of
+hair sticking up behind and the hastily brushed hair on his temples
+expressed this most eloquently.
+
+He passed into the next room, and the deep, querulous sounds of his
+voice were at once heard from there.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+Prince Andrew's eyes were still following Pfuel out of the room when
+Count Bennigsen entered hurriedly, and nodding to Bolkónski, but not
+pausing, went into the study, giving instructions to his adjutant as he
+went. The Emperor was following him, and Bennigsen had hastened on to
+make some preparations and to be ready to receive the sovereign.
+Chernyshev and Prince Andrew went out into the porch, where the Emperor,
+who looked fatigued, was dismounting. Marquis Paulucci was talking to
+him with particular warmth and the Emperor, with his head bent to the
+left, was listening with a dissatisfied air. The Emperor moved forward
+evidently wishing to end the conversation, but the flushed and excited
+Italian, oblivious of decorum, followed him and continued to speak.
+
+"And as for the man who advised forming this camp—the Drissa camp," said
+Paulucci, as the Emperor mounted the steps and noticing Prince Andrew
+scanned his unfamiliar face, "as to that person, sire..." continued
+Paulucci, desperately, apparently unable to restrain himself, "the man
+who advised the Drissa camp—I see no alternative but the lunatic asylum
+or the gallows!"
+
+Without heeding the end of the Italian's remarks, and as though not
+hearing them, the Emperor, recognizing Bolkónski, addressed him
+graciously.
+
+"I am very glad to see you! Go in there where they are meeting, and wait
+for me."
+
+The Emperor went into the study. He was followed by Prince Peter
+Mikhaylovich Volkonski and Baron Stein, and the door closed behind them.
+Prince Andrew, taking advantage of the Emperor's permission, accompanied
+Paulucci, whom he had known in Turkey, into the drawing room where the
+council was assembled.
+
+Prince Peter Mikhaylovich Volkonski occupied the position, as it were,
+of chief of the Emperor's staff. He came out of the study into the
+drawing room with some maps which he spread on a table, and put
+questions on which he wished to hear the opinion of the gentlemen
+present. What had happened was that news (which afterwards proved to be
+false) had been received during the night of a movement by the French to
+outflank the Drissa camp.
+
+The first to speak was General Armfeldt who, to meet the difficulty that
+presented itself, unexpectedly proposed a perfectly new position away
+from the Petersburg and Moscow roads. The reason for this was
+inexplicable (unless he wished to show that he, too, could have an
+opinion), but he urged that at this point the army should unite and
+there await the enemy. It was plain that Armfeldt had thought out that
+plan long ago and now expounded it not so much to answer the questions
+put—which, in fact, his plan did not answer—as to avail himself of the
+opportunity to air it. It was one of the millions of proposals, one as
+good as another, that could be made as long as it was quite unknown what
+character the war would take. Some disputed his arguments, others
+defended them. Young Count Toll objected to the Swedish general's views
+more warmly than anyone else, and in the course of the dispute drew from
+his side pocket a well-filled notebook, which he asked permission to
+read to them. In these voluminous notes Toll suggested another scheme,
+totally different from Armfeldt's or Pfuel's plan of campaign. In answer
+to Toll, Paulucci suggested an advance and an attack, which, he urged,
+could alone extricate us from the present uncertainty and from the trap
+(as he called the Drissa camp) in which we were situated.
+
+During all these discussions Pfuel and his interpreter, Wolzogen (his
+"bridge" in court relations), were silent. Pfuel only snorted
+contemptuously and turned away, to show that he would never demean
+himself by replying to such nonsense as he was now hearing. So when
+Prince Volkonski, who was in the chair, called on him to give his
+opinion, he merely said:
+
+"Why ask me? General Armfeldt has proposed a splendid position with an
+exposed rear, or why not this Italian gentleman's attack—very fine, or a
+retreat, also good! Why ask me?" said he. "Why, you yourselves know
+everything better than I do."
+
+But when Volkonski said, with a frown, that it was in the Emperor's name
+that he asked his opinion, Pfuel rose and, suddenly growing animated,
+began to speak:
+
+"Everything has been spoiled, everything muddled, everybody thought they
+knew better than I did, and now you come to me! How mend matters? There
+is nothing to mend! The principles laid down by me must be strictly
+adhered to," said he, drumming on the table with his bony fingers. "What
+is the difficulty? Nonsense, childishness!"
+
+He went up to the map and speaking rapidly began proving that no
+eventuality could alter the efficiency of the Drissa camp, that
+everything had been foreseen, and that if the enemy were really going to
+outflank it, the enemy would inevitably be destroyed.
+
+Paulucci, who did not know German, began questioning him in French.
+Wolzogen came to the assistance of his chief, who spoke French badly,
+and began translating for him, hardly able to keep pace with Pfuel, who
+was rapidly demonstrating that not only all that had happened, but all
+that could happen, had been foreseen in his scheme, and that if there
+were now any difficulties the whole fault lay in the fact that his plan
+had not been precisely executed. He kept laughing sarcastically, he
+demonstrated, and at last contemptuously ceased to demonstrate, like a
+mathematician who ceases to prove in various ways the accuracy of a
+problem that has already been proved. Wolzogen took his place and
+continued to explain his views in French, every now and then turning to
+Pfuel and saying, "Is it not so, your excellency?" But Pfuel, like a man
+heated in a fight who strikes those on his own side, shouted angrily at
+his own supporter, Wolzogen:
+
+"Well, of course, what more is there to explain?"
+
+Paulucci and Michaud both attacked Wolzogen simultaneously in French.
+Armfeldt addressed Pfuel in German. Toll explained to Volkonski in
+Russian. Prince Andrew listened and observed in silence.
+
+Of all these men Prince Andrew sympathized most with Pfuel, angry,
+determined, and absurdly self-confident as he was. Of all those present,
+evidently he alone was not seeking anything for himself, nursed no
+hatred against anyone, and only desired that the plan, formed on a
+theory arrived at by years of toil, should be carried out. He was
+ridiculous, and unpleasantly sarcastic, but yet he inspired involuntary
+respect by his boundless devotion to an idea. Besides this, the remarks
+of all except Pfuel had one common trait that had not been noticeable at
+the council of war in 1805: there was now a panic fear of Napoleon's
+genius, which, though concealed, was noticeable in every rejoinder.
+Everything was assumed to be possible for Napoleon, they expected him
+from every side, and invoked his terrible name to shatter each other's
+proposals. Pfuel alone seemed to consider Napoleon a barbarian like
+everyone else who opposed his theory. But besides this feeling of
+respect, Pfuel evoked pity in Prince Andrew. From the tone in which the
+courtiers addressed him and the way Paulucci had allowed himself to
+speak of him to the Emperor, but above all from a certain desperation in
+Pfuel's own expressions, it was clear that the others knew, and Pfuel
+himself felt, that his fall was at hand. And despite his self-confidence
+and grumpy German sarcasm he was pitiable, with his hair smoothly
+brushed on the temples and sticking up in tufts behind. Though he
+concealed the fact under a show of irritation and contempt, he was
+evidently in despair that the sole remaining chance of verifying his
+theory by a huge experiment and proving its soundness to the whole world
+was slipping away from him.
+
+The discussions continued a long time, and the longer they lasted the
+more heated became the disputes, culminating in shouts and
+personalities, and the less was it possible to arrive at any general
+conclusion from all that had been said. Prince Andrew, listening to this
+polyglot talk and to these surmises, plans, refutations, and shouts,
+felt nothing but amazement at what they were saying. A thought that had
+long since and often occurred to him during his military activities—the
+idea that there is not and cannot be any science of war, and that
+therefore there can be no such thing as a military genius—now appeared
+to him an obvious truth. "What theory and science is possible about a
+matter the conditions and circumstances of which are unknown and cannot
+be defined, especially when the strength of the acting forces cannot be
+ascertained? No one was or is able to foresee in what condition our or
+the enemy's armies will be in a day's time, and no one can gauge the
+force of this or that detachment. Sometimes—when there is not a coward
+at the front to shout, 'We are cut off!' and start running, but a brave
+and jolly lad who shouts, 'Hurrah!'—a detachment of five thousand is
+worth thirty thousand, as at Schon Grabern, while at times fifty
+thousand run from eight thousand, as at Austerlitz. What science can
+there be in a matter in which, as in all practical matters, nothing can
+be defined and everything depends on innumerable conditions, the
+significance of which is determined at a particular moment which arrives
+no one knows when? Armfeldt says our army is cut in half, and Paulucci
+says we have got the French army between two fires; Michaud says that
+the worthlessness of the Drissa camp lies in having the river behind it,
+and Pfuel says that is what constitutes its strength; Toll proposes one
+plan, Armfeldt another, and they are all good and all bad, and the
+advantages of any suggestions can be seen only at the moment of trial.
+And why do they all speak of a 'military genius'? Is a man a genius who
+can order bread to be brought up at the right time and say who is to go
+to the right and who to the left? It is only because military men are
+invested with pomp and power and crowds of sychophants flatter power,
+attributing to it qualities of genius it does not possess. The best
+generals I have known were, on the contrary, stupid or absent-minded
+men. Bagration was the best, Napoleon himself admitted that. And of
+Bonaparte himself! I remember his limited, self-satisfied face on the
+field of Austerlitz. Not only does a good army commander not need any
+special qualities, on the contrary he needs the absence of the highest
+and best human attributes—love, poetry, tenderness, and philosophic
+inquiring doubt. He should be limited, firmly convinced that what he is
+doing is very important (otherwise he will not have sufficient
+patience), and only then will he be a brave leader. God forbid that he
+should be humane, should love, or pity, or think of what is just and
+unjust. It is understandable that a theory of their 'genius' was
+invented for them long ago because they have power! The success of a
+military action depends not on them, but on the man in the ranks who
+shouts, 'We are lost!' or who shouts, 'Hurrah!' And only in the ranks
+can one serve with assurance of being useful."
+
+So thought Prince Andrew as he listened to the talking, and he roused
+himself only when Paulucci called him and everyone was leaving.
+
+At the review next day the Emperor asked Prince Andrew where he would
+like to serve, and Prince Andrew lost his standing in court circles
+forever by not asking to remain attached to the sovereign's person, but
+for permission to serve in the army.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+Before the beginning of the campaign, Rostóv had received a letter from
+his parents in which they told him briefly of Natásha's illness and the
+breaking off of her engagement to Prince Andrew (which they explained by
+Natásha's having rejected him) and again asked Nicholas to retire from
+the army and return home. On receiving this letter, Nicholas did not
+even make any attempt to get leave of absence or to retire from the
+army, but wrote to his parents that he was sorry Natásha was ill and her
+engagement broken off, and that he would do all he could to meet their
+wishes. To Sónya he wrote separately.
+
+"Adored friend of my soul!" he wrote. "Nothing but honor could keep me
+from returning to the country. But now, at the commencement of the
+campaign, I should feel dishonored, not only in my comrades' eyes but in
+my own, if I preferred my own happiness to my love and duty to the
+Fatherland. But this shall be our last separation. Believe me, directly
+the war is over, if I am still alive and still loved by you, I will
+throw up everything and fly to you, to press you forever to my ardent
+breast."
+
+It was, in fact, only the commencement of the campaign that prevented
+Rostóv from returning home as he had promised and marrying Sónya. The
+autumn in Otradnoe with the hunting, and the winter with the Christmas
+holidays and Sónya's love, had opened out to him a vista of tranquil
+rural joys and peace such as he had never known before, and which now
+allured him. "A splendid wife, children, a good pack of hounds, a dozen
+leashes of smart borzois, agriculture, neighbors, service by
+election..." thought he. But now the campaign was beginning, and he had
+to remain with his regiment. And since it had to be so, Nicholas Rostóv,
+as was natural to him, felt contented with the life he led in the
+regiment and was able to find pleasure in that life.
+
+On his return from his furlough Nicholas, having been joyfully welcomed
+by his comrades, was sent to obtain remounts and brought back from the
+Ukraine excellent horses which pleased him and earned him commendation
+from his commanders. During his absence he had been promoted captain,
+and when the regiment was put on war footing with an increase in
+numbers, he was again allotted his old squadron.
+
+The campaign began, the regiment was moved into Poland on double pay,
+new officers arrived, new men and horses, and above all everybody was
+infected with the merrily excited mood that goes with the commencement
+of a war, and Rostóv, conscious of his advantageous position in the
+regiment, devoted himself entirely to the pleasures and interests of
+military service, though he knew that sooner or later he would have to
+relinquish them.
+
+The troops retired from Vilna for various complicated reasons of state,
+political and strategic. Each step of the retreat was accompanied by a
+complicated interplay of interests, arguments, and passions at
+headquarters. For the Pávlograd hussars, however, the whole of this
+retreat during the finest period of summer and with sufficient supplies
+was a very simple and agreeable business.
+
+It was only at headquarters that there was depression, uneasiness, and
+intriguing; in the body of the army they did not ask themselves where
+they were going or why. If they regretted having to retreat, it was only
+because they had to leave billets they had grown accustomed to, or some
+pretty young Polish lady. If the thought that things looked bad chanced
+to enter anyone's head, he tried to be as cheerful as befits a good
+soldier and not to think of the general trend of affairs, but only of
+the task nearest to hand. First they camped gaily before Vilna, making
+acquaintance with the Polish landowners, preparing for reviews and being
+reviewed by the Emperor and other high commanders. Then came an order to
+retreat to Sventsyani and destroy any provisions they could not carry
+away with them. Sventsyani was remembered by the hussars only as the
+drunken camp, a name the whole army gave to their encampment there, and
+because many complaints were made against the troops, who, taking
+advantage of the order to collect provisions, took also horses,
+carriages, and carpets from the Polish proprietors. Rostóv remembered
+Sventsyani, because on the first day of their arrival at that small town
+he changed his sergeant major and was unable to manage all the drunken
+men of his squadron who, unknown to him, had appropriated five barrels
+of old beer. From Sventsyani they retired farther and farther to Drissa,
+and thence again beyond Drissa, drawing near to the frontier of Russia
+proper.
+
+On the thirteenth of July the Pávlograds took part in a serious action
+for the first time.
+
+On the twelfth of July, on the eve of that action, there was a heavy
+storm of rain and hail. In general, the summer of 1812 was remarkable
+for its storms.
+
+The two Pávlograd squadrons were bivouacking on a field of rye, which
+was already in ear but had been completely trodden down by cattle and
+horses. The rain was descending in torrents, and Rostóv, with a young
+officer named Ilyin, his protege, was sitting in a hastily constructed
+shelter. An officer of their regiment, with long mustaches extending
+onto his cheeks, who after riding to the staff had been overtaken by the
+rain, entered Rostóv's shelter.
+
+"I have come from the staff, Count. Have you heard of Raevski's
+exploit?"
+
+And the officer gave them details of the Saltanov battle, which he had
+heard at the staff.
+
+Rostóv, smoking his pipe and turning his head about as the water
+trickled down his neck, listened inattentively, with an occasional
+glance at Ilyin, who was pressing close to him. This officer, a lad of
+sixteen who had recently joined the regiment, was now in the same
+relation to Nicholas that Nicholas had been to Denisov seven years
+before. Ilyin tried to imitate Rostóv in everything and adored him as a
+girl might have done.
+
+Zdrzhinski, the officer with the long mustache, spoke grandiloquently of
+the Saltanov dam being "a Russian Thermopylae," and of how a deed worthy
+of antiquity had been performed by General Raevski. He recounted how
+Raevski had led his two sons onto the dam under terrific fire and had
+charged with them beside him. Rostóv heard the story and not only said
+nothing to encourage Zdrzhinski's enthusiasm but, on the contrary,
+looked like a man ashamed of what he was hearing, though with no
+intention of contradicting it. Since the campaigns of Austerlitz and of
+1807 Rostóv knew by experience that men always lie when describing
+military exploits, as he himself had done when recounting them; besides
+that, he had experience enough to know that nothing happens in war at
+all as we can imagine or relate it. And so he did not like Zdrzhinski's
+tale, nor did he like Zdrzhinski himself who, with his mustaches
+extending over his cheeks, bent low over the face of his hearer, as was
+his habit, and crowded Rostóv in the narrow shanty. Rostóv looked at him
+in silence. "In the first place, there must have been such a confusion
+and crowding on the dam that was being attacked that if Raevski did lead
+his sons there, it could have had no effect except perhaps on some dozen
+men nearest to him," thought he, "the rest could not have seen how or
+with whom Raevski came onto the dam. And even those who did see it would
+not have been much stimulated by it, for what had they to do with
+Raevski's tender paternal feelings when their own skins were in danger?
+And besides, the fate of the Fatherland did not depend on whether they
+took the Saltanov dam or not, as we are told was the case at
+Thermopylae. So why should he have made such a sacrifice? And why expose
+his own children in the battle? I would not have taken my brother Pétya
+there, or even Ilyin, who's a stranger to me but a nice lad, but would
+have tried to put them somewhere under cover," Nicholas continued to
+think, as he listened to Zdrzhinski. But he did not express his
+thoughts, for in such matters, too, he had gained experience. He knew
+that this tale redounded to the glory of our arms and so one had to
+pretend not to doubt it. And he acted accordingly.
+
+"I can't stand this any more," said Ilyin, noticing that Rostóv did not
+relish Zdrzhinski's conversation. "My stockings and shirt... and the
+water is running on my seat! I'll go and look for shelter. The rain
+seems less heavy."
+
+Ilyin went out and Zdrzhinski rode away.
+
+Five minutes later Ilyin, splashing through the mud, came running back
+to the shanty.
+
+"Hurrah! Rostóv, come quick! I've found it! About two hundred yards away
+there's a tavern where ours have already gathered. We can at least get
+dry there, and Mary Hendrikhovna's there."
+
+Mary Hendrikhovna was the wife of the regimental doctor, a pretty young
+German woman he had married in Poland. The doctor, whether from lack of
+means or because he did not like to part from his young wife in the
+early days of their marriage, took her about with him wherever the
+hussar regiment went and his jealousy had become a standing joke among
+the hussar officers.
+
+Rostóv threw his cloak over his shoulders, shouted to Lavrushka to
+follow with the things, and—now slipping in the mud, now splashing right
+through it—set off with Ilyin in the lessening rain and the darkness
+that was occasionally rent by distant lightning.
+
+"Rostóv, where are you?"
+
+"Here. What lightning!" they called to one another.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+In the tavern, before which stood the doctor's covered cart, there were
+already some five officers. Mary Hendrikhovna, a plump little blonde
+German, in a dressing jacket and nightcap, was sitting on a broad bench
+in the front corner. Her husband, the doctor, lay asleep behind her.
+Rostóv and Ilyin, on entering the room, were welcomed with merry shouts
+and laughter.
+
+"Dear me, how jolly we are!" said Rostóv laughing.
+
+"And why do you stand there gaping?"
+
+"What swells they are! Why, the water streams from them! Don't make our
+drawing room so wet."
+
+"Don't mess Mary Hendrikhovna's dress!" cried other voices.
+
+Rostóv and Ilyin hastened to find a corner where they could change into
+dry clothes without offending Mary Hendrikhovna's modesty. They were
+going into a tiny recess behind a partition to change, but found it
+completely filled by three officers who sat playing cards by the light
+of a solitary candle on an empty box, and these officers would on no
+account yield their position. Mary Hendrikhovna obliged them with the
+loan of a petticoat to be used as a curtain, and behind that screen
+Rostóv and Ilyin, helped by Lavrushka who had brought their kits,
+changed their wet things for dry ones.
+
+A fire was made up in the dilapidated brick stove. A board was found,
+fixed on two saddles and covered with a horsecloth, a small samovar was
+produced and a cellaret and half a bottle of rum, and having asked Mary
+Hendrikhovna to preside, they all crowded round her. One offered her a
+clean handkerchief to wipe her charming hands, another spread a jacket
+under her little feet to keep them from the damp, another hung his coat
+over the window to keep out the draft, and yet another waved the flies
+off her husband's face, lest he should wake up.
+
+"Leave him alone," said Mary Hendrikhovna, smiling timidly and happily.
+"He is sleeping well as it is, after a sleepless night."
+
+"Oh, no, Mary Hendrikhovna," replied the officer, "one must look after
+the doctor. Perhaps he'll take pity on me someday, when it comes to
+cutting off a leg or an arm for me."
+
+There were only three tumblers, the water was so muddy that one could
+not make out whether the tea was strong or weak, and the samovar held
+only six tumblers of water, but this made it all the pleasanter to take
+turns in order of seniority to receive one's tumbler from Mary
+Hendrikhovna's plump little hands with their short and not overclean
+nails. All the officers appeared to be, and really were, in love with
+her that evening. Even those playing cards behind the partition soon
+left their game and came over to the samovar, yielding to the general
+mood of courting Mary Hendrikhovna. She, seeing herself surrounded by
+such brilliant and polite young men, beamed with satisfaction, try as
+she might to hide it, and perturbed as she evidently was each time her
+husband moved in his sleep behind her.
+
+There was only one spoon, sugar was more plentiful than anything else,
+but it took too long to dissolve, so it was decided that Mary
+Hendrikhovna should stir the sugar for everyone in turn. Rostóv received
+his tumbler, and adding some rum to it asked Mary Hendrikhovna to stir
+it.
+
+"But you take it without sugar?" she said, smiling all the time, as if
+everything she said and everything the others said was very amusing and
+had a double meaning.
+
+"It is not the sugar I want, but only that your little hand should stir
+my tea."
+
+Mary Hendrikhovna assented and began looking for the spoon which someone
+meanwhile had pounced on.
+
+"Use your finger, Mary Hendrikhovna, it will be still nicer," said
+Rostóv.
+
+"Too hot!" she replied, blushing with pleasure.
+
+Ilyin put a few drops of rum into the bucket of water and brought it to
+Mary Hendrikhovna, asking her to stir it with her finger.
+
+"This is my cup," said he. "Only dip your finger in it and I'll drink it
+all up."
+
+When they had emptied the samovar, Rostóv took a pack of cards and
+proposed that they should play "Kings" with Mary Hendrikhovna. They drew
+lots to settle who should make up her set. At Rostóv's suggestion it was
+agreed that whoever became "King" should have the right to kiss Mary
+Hendrikhovna's hand, and that the "Booby" should go to refill and reheat
+the samovar for the doctor when the latter awoke.
+
+"Well, but supposing Mary Hendrikhovna is 'King'?" asked Ilyin.
+
+"As it is, she is Queen, and her word is law!"
+
+They had hardly begun to play before the doctor's disheveled head
+suddenly appeared from behind Mary Hendrikhovna. He had been awake for
+some time, listening to what was being said, and evidently found nothing
+entertaining or amusing in what was going on. His face was sad and
+depressed. Without greeting the officers, he scratched himself and asked
+to be allowed to pass as they were blocking the way. As soon as he had
+left the room all the officers burst into loud laughter and Mary
+Hendrikhovna blushed till her eyes filled with tears and thereby became
+still more attractive to them. Returning from the yard, the doctor told
+his wife (who had ceased to smile so happily, and looked at him in
+alarm, awaiting her sentence) that the rain had ceased and they must go
+to sleep in their covered cart, or everything in it would be stolen.
+
+"But I'll send an orderly.... Two of them!" said Rostóv. "What an idea,
+doctor!"
+
+"I'll stand guard on it myself!" said Ilyin.
+
+"No, gentlemen, you have had your sleep, but I have not slept for two
+nights," replied the doctor, and he sat down morosely beside his wife,
+waiting for the game to end.
+
+Seeing his gloomy face as he frowned at his wife, the officers grew
+still merrier, and some of them could not refrain from laughter, for
+which they hurriedly sought plausible pretexts. When he had gone, taking
+his wife with him, and had settled down with her in their covered cart,
+the officers lay down in the tavern, covering themselves with their wet
+cloaks, but they did not sleep for a long time; now they exchanged
+remarks, recalling the doctor's uneasiness and his wife's delight, now
+they ran out into the porch and reported what was taking place in the
+covered trap. Several times Rostóv, covering his head, tried to go to
+sleep, but some remark would arouse him and conversation would be
+resumed, to the accompaniment of unreasoning, merry, childlike laughter.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+It was nearly three o'clock but no one was yet asleep, when the
+quartermaster appeared with an order to move on to the little town of
+Ostrovna. Still laughing and talking, the officers began hurriedly
+getting ready and again boiled some muddy water in the samovar. But
+Rostóv went off to his squadron without waiting for tea. Day was
+breaking, the rain had ceased, and the clouds were dispersing. It felt
+damp and cold, especially in clothes that were still moist. As they left
+the tavern in the twilight of the dawn, Rostóv and Ilyin both glanced
+under the wet and glistening leather hood of the doctor's cart, from
+under the apron of which his feet were sticking out, and in the middle
+of which his wife's nightcap was visible and her sleepy breathing
+audible.
+
+"She really is a dear little thing," said Rostóv to Ilyin, who was
+following him.
+
+"A charming woman!" said Ilyin, with all the gravity of a boy of
+sixteen.
+
+Half an hour later the squadron was lined up on the road. The command
+was heard to "mount" and the soldiers crossed themselves and mounted.
+Rostóv riding in front gave the order "Forward!" and the hussars, with
+clanking sabers and subdued talk, their horses' hoofs splashing in the
+mud, defiled in fours and moved along the broad road planted with birch
+trees on each side, following the infantry and a battery that had gone
+on in front.
+
+Tattered, blue-purple clouds, reddening in the east, were scudding
+before the wind. It was growing lighter and lighter. That curly grass
+which always grows by country roadsides became clearly visible, still
+wet with the night's rain; the drooping branches of the birches, also
+wet, swayed in the wind and flung down bright drops of water to one
+side. The soldiers' faces were more and more clearly visible. Rostóv,
+always closely followed by Ilyin, rode along the side of the road
+between two rows of birch trees.
+
+When campaigning, Rostóv allowed himself the indulgence of riding not a
+regimental but a Cossack horse. A judge of horses and a sportsman, he
+had lately procured himself a large, fine, mettlesome, Donets horse,
+dun-colored, with light mane and tail, and when he rode it no one could
+outgallop him. To ride this horse was a pleasure to him, and he thought
+of the horse, of the morning, of the doctor's wife, but not once of the
+impending danger.
+
+Formerly, when going into action, Rostóv had felt afraid; now he had not
+the least feeling of fear. He was fearless, not because he had grown
+used to being under fire (one cannot grow used to danger), but because
+he had learned how to manage his thoughts when in danger. He had grown
+accustomed when going into action to think about anything but what would
+seem most likely to interest him—the impending danger. During the first
+period of his service, hard as he tried and much as he reproached
+himself with cowardice, he had not been able to do this, but with time
+it had come of itself. Now he rode beside Ilyin under the birch trees,
+occasionally plucking leaves from a branch that met his hand, sometimes
+touching his horse's side with his foot, or, without turning round,
+handing a pipe he had finished to an hussar riding behind him, with as
+calm and careless an air as though he were merely out for a ride. He
+glanced with pity at the excited face of Ilyin, who talked much and in
+great agitation. He knew from experience the tormenting expectation of
+terror and death the cornet was suffering and knew that only time could
+help him.
+
+As soon as the sun appeared in a clear strip of sky beneath the clouds,
+the wind fell, as if it dared not spoil the beauty of the summer morning
+after the storm; drops still continued to fall, but vertically now, and
+all was still. The whole sun appeared on the horizon and disappeared
+behind a long narrow cloud that hung above it. A few minutes later it
+reappeared brighter still from behind the top of the cloud, tearing its
+edge. Everything grew bright and glittered. And with that light, and as
+if in reply to it, came the sound of guns ahead of them.
+
+Before Rostóv had had time to consider and determine the distance of
+that firing, Count Ostermann-Tolstóy 's adjutant came galloping from
+Vitebsk with orders to advance at a trot along the road.
+
+The squadron overtook and passed the infantry and the battery—which had
+also quickened their pace—rode down a hill, and passing through an empty
+and deserted village again ascended. The horses began to lather and the
+men to flush.
+
+"Halt! Dress your ranks!" the order of the regimental commander was
+heard ahead. "Forward by the left. Walk, march!" came the order from in
+front.
+
+And the hussars, passing along the line of troops on the left flank of
+our position, halted behind our uhlans who were in the front line. To
+the right stood our infantry in a dense column: they were the reserve.
+Higher up the hill, on the very horizon, our guns were visible through
+the wonderfully clear air, brightly illuminated by slanting morning
+sunbeams. In front, beyond a hollow dale, could be seen the enemy's
+columns and guns. Our advanced line, already in action, could be heard
+briskly exchanging shots with the enemy in the dale.
+
+At these sounds, long unheard, Rostóv's spirits rose, as at the strains
+of the merriest music. Trap-ta-ta-tap! cracked the shots, now together,
+now several quickly one after another. Again all was silent and then
+again it sounded as if someone were walking on detonators and exploding
+them.
+
+The hussars remained in the same place for about an hour. A cannonade
+began. Count Ostermann with his suite rode up behind the squadron,
+halted, spoke to the commander of the regiment, and rode up the hill to
+the guns.
+
+After Ostermann had gone, a command rang out to the uhlans.
+
+"Form column! Prepare to charge!"
+
+The infantry in front of them parted into platoons to allow the cavalry
+to pass. The uhlans started, the streamers on their spears fluttering,
+and trotted downhill toward the French cavalry which was seen below to
+the left.
+
+As soon as the uhlans descended the hill, the hussars were ordered up
+the hill to support the battery. As they took the places vacated by the
+uhlans, bullets came from the front, whining and whistling, but fell
+spent without taking effect.
+
+The sounds, which he had not heard for so long, had an even more
+pleasurable and exhilarating effect on Rostóv than the previous sounds
+of firing. Drawing himself up, he viewed the field of battle opening out
+before him from the hill, and with his whole soul followed the movement
+of the uhlans. They swooped down close to the French dragoons, something
+confused happened there amid the smoke, and five minutes later our
+uhlans were galloping back, not to the place they had occupied but more
+to the left, and among the orange-colored uhlans on chestnut horses and
+behind them, in a large group, blue French dragoons on gray horses could
+be seen.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+Rostóv, with his keen sportsman's eye, was one of the first to catch
+sight of these blue French dragoons pursuing our uhlans. Nearer and
+nearer in disorderly crowds came the uhlans and the French dragoons
+pursuing them. He could already see how these men, who looked so small
+at the foot of the hill, jostled and overtook one another, waving their
+arms and their sabers in the air.
+
+Rostóv gazed at what was happening before him as at a hunt. He felt
+instinctively that if the hussars struck at the French dragoons now, the
+latter could not withstand them, but if a charge was to be made it must
+be done now, at that very moment, or it would be too late. He looked
+around. A captain, standing beside him, was gazing like himself with
+eyes fixed on the cavalry below them.
+
+"Andrew Sevastyanych!" said Rostóv. "You know, we could crush them...."
+
+"A fine thing too!" replied the captain, "and really..."
+
+Rostóv, without waiting to hear him out, touched his horse, galloped to
+the front of his squadron, and before he had time to finish giving the
+word of command, the whole squadron, sharing his feeling, was following
+him. Rostóv himself did not know how or why he did it. He acted as he
+did when hunting, without reflecting or considering. He saw the dragoons
+near and that they were galloping in disorder; he knew they could not
+withstand an attack—knew there was only that moment and that if he let
+it slip it would not return. The bullets were whining and whistling so
+stimulatingly around him and his horse was so eager to go that he could
+not restrain himself. He touched his horse, gave the word of command,
+and immediately, hearing behind him the tramp of the horses of his
+deployed squadron, rode at full trot downhill toward the dragoons.
+Hardly had they reached the bottom of the hill before their pace
+instinctively changed to a gallop, which grew faster and faster as they
+drew nearer to our uhlans and the French dragoons who galloped after
+them. The dragoons were now close at hand. On seeing the hussars, the
+foremost began to turn, while those behind began to halt. With the same
+feeling with which he had galloped across the path of a wolf, Rostóv
+gave rein to his Donets horse and galloped to intersect the path of the
+dragoons' disordered lines. One Uhlan stopped, another who was on foot
+flung himself to the ground to avoid being knocked over, and a riderless
+horse fell in among the hussars. Nearly all the French dragoons were
+galloping back. Rostóv, picking out one on a gray horse, dashed after
+him. On the way he came upon a bush, his gallant horse cleared it, and
+almost before he had righted himself in his saddle he saw that he would
+immediately overtake the enemy he had selected. That Frenchman, by his
+uniform an officer, was going at a gallop, crouching on his gray horse
+and urging it on with his saber. In another moment Rostóv's horse dashed
+its breast against the hindquarters of the officer's horse, almost
+knocking it over, and at the same instant Rostóv, without knowing why,
+raised his saber and struck the Frenchman with it.
+
+The instant he had done this, all Rostóv's animation vanished. The
+officer fell, not so much from the blow—which had but slightly cut his
+arm above the elbow—as from the shock to his horse and from fright.
+Rostóv reined in his horse, and his eyes sought his foe to see whom he
+had vanquished. The French dragoon officer was hopping with one foot on
+the ground, the other being caught in the stirrup. His eyes, screwed up
+with fear as if he every moment expected another blow, gazed up at
+Rostóv with shrinking terror. His pale and mud-stained face—fair and
+young, with a dimple in the chin and light-blue eyes—was not an enemy's
+face at all suited to a battlefield, but a most ordinary, homelike face.
+Before Rostóv had decided what to do with him, the officer cried, "I
+surrender!" He hurriedly but vainly tried to get his foot out of the
+stirrup and did not remove his frightened blue eyes from Rostóv's face.
+Some hussars who galloped up disengaged his foot and helped him into the
+saddle. On all sides, the hussars were busy with the dragoons; one was
+wounded, but though his face was bleeding, he would not give up his
+horse; another was perched up behind an hussar with his arms round him;
+a third was being helped by an hussar to mount his horse. In front, the
+French infantry were firing as they ran. The hussars galloped hastily
+back with their prisoners. Rostóv galloped back with the rest, aware of
+an unpleasant feeling of depression in his heart. Something vague and
+confused, which he could not at all account for, had come over him with
+the capture of that officer and the blow he had dealt him.
+
+Count Ostermann-Tolstóy met the returning hussars, sent for Rostóv,
+thanked him, and said he would report his gallant deed to the Emperor
+and would recommend him for a St. George's Cross. When sent for by Count
+Ostermann, Rostóv, remembering that he had charged without orders, felt
+sure his commander was sending for him to punish him for breach of
+discipline. Ostermann's flattering words and promise of a reward should
+therefore have struck him all the more pleasantly, but he still felt
+that same vaguely disagreeable feeling of moral nausea. "But what on
+earth is worrying me?" he asked himself as he rode back from the
+general. "Ilyin? No, he's safe. Have I disgraced myself in any way? No,
+that's not it." Something else, resembling remorse, tormented him. "Yes,
+oh yes, that French officer with the dimple. And I remember how my arm
+paused when I raised it."
+
+Rostóv saw the prisoners being led away and galloped after them to have
+a look at his Frenchman with the dimple on his chin. He was sitting in
+his foreign uniform on an hussar packhorse and looked anxiously about
+him; The sword cut on his arm could scarcely be called a wound. He
+glanced at Rostóv with a feigned smile and waved his hand in greeting.
+Rostóv still had the same indefinite feeling, as of shame.
+
+All that day and the next his friends and comrades noticed that Rostóv,
+without being dull or angry, was silent, thoughtful, and preoccupied. He
+drank reluctantly, tried to remain alone, and kept turning something
+over in his mind.
+
+Rostóv was always thinking about that brilliant exploit of his, which to
+his amazement had gained him the St. George's Cross and even given him a
+reputation for bravery, and there was something he could not at all
+understand. "So others are even more afraid than I am!" he thought. "So
+that's all there is in what is called heroism! And did I do it for my
+country's sake? And how was he to blame, with his dimple and blue eyes?
+And how frightened he was! He thought that I should kill him. Why should
+I kill him? My hand trembled. And they have given me a St. George's
+Cross.... I can't make it out at all."
+
+But while Nicholas was considering these questions and still could reach
+no clear solution of what puzzled him so, the wheel of fortune in the
+service, as often happens, turned in his favor. After the affair at
+Ostrovna he was brought into notice, received command of an hussar
+battalion, and when a brave officer was needed he was chosen.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+On receiving news of Natásha's illness, the countess, though not quite
+well yet and still weak, went to Moscow with Pétya and the rest of the
+household, and the whole family moved from Márya Dmítrievna's house to
+their own and settled down in town.
+
+Natásha's illness was so serious that, fortunately for her and for her
+parents, the consideration of all that had caused the illness, her
+conduct and the breaking off of her engagement, receded into the
+background. She was so ill that it was impossible for them to consider
+in how far she was to blame for what had happened. She could not eat or
+sleep, grew visibly thinner, coughed, and, as the doctors made them
+feel, was in danger. They could not think of anything but how to help
+her. Doctors came to see her singly and in consultation, talked much in
+French, German, and Latin, blamed one another, and prescribed a great
+variety of medicines for all the diseases known to them, but the simple
+idea never occurred to any of them that they could not know the disease
+Natásha was suffering from, as no disease suffered by a live man can be
+known, for every living person has his own peculiarities and always has
+his own peculiar, personal, novel, complicated disease, unknown to
+medicine—not a disease of the lungs, liver, skin, heart, nerves, and so
+on mentioned in medical books, but a disease consisting of one of the
+innumerable combinations of the maladies of those organs. This simple
+thought could not occur to the doctors (as it cannot occur to a wizard
+that he is unable to work his charms) because the business of their
+lives was to cure, and they received money for it and had spent the best
+years of their lives on that business. But, above all, that thought was
+kept out of their minds by the fact that they saw they were really
+useful, as in fact they were to the whole Rostóv family. Their
+usefulness did not depend on making the patient swallow substances for
+the most part harmful (the harm was scarcely perceptible, as they were
+given in small doses), but they were useful, necessary, and
+indispensable because they satisfied a mental need of the invalid and of
+those who loved her—and that is why there are, and always will be,
+pseudo-healers, wise women, homeopaths, and allopaths. They satisfied
+that eternal human need for hope of relief, for sympathy, and that
+something should be done, which is felt by those who are suffering. They
+satisfied the need seen in its most elementary form in a child, when it
+wants to have a place rubbed that has been hurt. A child knocks itself
+and runs at once to the arms of its mother or nurse to have the aching
+spot rubbed or kissed, and it feels better when this is done. The child
+cannot believe that the strongest and wisest of its people have no
+remedy for its pain, and the hope of relief and the expression of its
+mother's sympathy while she rubs the bump comforts it. The doctors were
+of use to Natásha because they kissed and rubbed her bump, assuring her
+that it would soon pass if only the coachman went to the chemist's in
+the Arbat and got a powder and some pills in a pretty box for a ruble
+and seventy kopeks, and if she took those powders in boiled water at
+intervals of precisely two hours, neither more nor less.
+
+What would Sónya and the count and countess have done, how would they
+have looked, if nothing had been done, if there had not been those pills
+to give by the clock, the warm drinks, the chicken cutlets, and all the
+other details of life ordered by the doctors, the carrying out of which
+supplied an occupation and consolation to the family circle? How would
+the count have borne his dearly loved daughter's illness had he not
+known that it was costing him a thousand rubles, and that he would not
+grudge thousands more to benefit her, or had he not known that if her
+illness continued he would not grudge yet other thousands and would take
+her abroad for consultations there, and had he not been able to explain
+the details of how Metivier and Feller had not understood the symptoms,
+but Frise had, and Mudrov had diagnosed them even better? What would the
+countess have done had she not been able sometimes to scold the invalid
+for not strictly obeying the doctor's orders?
+
+"You'll never get well like that," she would say, forgetting her grief
+in her vexation, "if you won't obey the doctor and take your medicine at
+the right time! You mustn't trifle with it, you know, or it may turn to
+pneumonia," she would go on, deriving much comfort from the utterance of
+that foreign word, incomprehensible to others as well as to herself.
+
+What would Sónya have done without the glad consciousness that she had
+not undressed during the first three nights, in order to be ready to
+carry out all the doctor's injunctions with precision, and that she
+still kept awake at night so as not to miss the proper time when the
+slightly harmful pills in the little gilt box had to be administered?
+Even to Natásha herself it was pleasant to see that so many sacrifices
+were being made for her sake, and to know that she had to take medicine
+at certain hours, though she declared that no medicine would cure her
+and that it was all nonsense. And it was even pleasant to be able to
+show, by disregarding the orders, that she did not believe in medical
+treatment and did not value her life.
+
+The doctor came every day, felt her pulse, looked at her tongue, and
+regardless of her grief-stricken face joked with her. But when he had
+gone into another room, to which the countess hurriedly followed him, he
+assumed a grave air and thoughtfully shaking his head said that though
+there was danger, he had hopes of the effect of this last medicine and
+one must wait and see, that the malady was chiefly mental, but... And
+the countess, trying to conceal the action from herself and from him,
+slipped a gold coin into his hand and always returned to the patient
+with a more tranquil mind.
+
+The symptoms of Natásha's illness were that she ate little, slept
+little, coughed, and was always low-spirited. The doctors said that she
+could not get on without medical treatment, so they kept her in the
+stifling atmosphere of the town, and the Rostóvs did not move to the
+country that summer of 1812.
+
+In spite of the many pills she swallowed and the drops and powders out
+of the little bottles and boxes of which Madame Schoss who was fond of
+such things made a large collection, and in spite of being deprived of
+the country life to which she was accustomed, youth prevailed. Natásha's
+grief began to be overlaid by the impressions of daily life, it ceased
+to press so painfully on her heart, it gradually faded into the past,
+and she began to recover physically.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+Natásha was calmer but no happier. She not merely avoided all external
+forms of pleasure—balls, promenades, concerts, and theaters—but she
+never laughed without a sound of tears in her laughter. She could not
+sing. As soon as she began to laugh, or tried to sing by herself, tears
+choked her: tears of remorse, tears at the recollection of those pure
+times which could never return, tears of vexation that she should so
+uselessly have ruined her young life which might have been so happy.
+Laughter and singing in particular seemed to her like a blasphemy, in
+face of her sorrow. Without any need of self-restraint, no wish to
+coquet ever entered her head. She said and felt at that time that no man
+was more to her than Nastasya Ivánovna, the buffoon. Something stood
+sentinel within her and forbade her every joy. Besides, she had lost all
+the old interests of her carefree girlish life that had been so full of
+hope. The previous autumn, the hunting, "Uncle," and the Christmas
+holidays spent with Nicholas at Otradnoe were what she recalled oftenest
+and most painfully. What would she not have given to bring back even a
+single day of that time! But it was gone forever. Her presentiment at
+the time had not deceived her—that that state of freedom and readiness
+for any enjoyment would not return again. Yet it was necessary to live
+on.
+
+It comforted her to reflect that she was not better as she had formerly
+imagined, but worse, much worse, than anybody else in the world. But
+this was not enough. She knew that, and asked herself, "What next?" But
+there was nothing to come. There was no joy in life, yet life was
+passing. Natásha apparently tried not to be a burden or a hindrance to
+anyone, but wanted nothing for herself. She kept away from everyone in
+the house and felt at ease only with her brother Pétya. She liked to be
+with him better than with the others, and when alone with him she
+sometimes laughed. She hardly ever left the house and of those who came
+to see them was glad to see only one person, Pierre. It would have been
+impossible to treat her with more delicacy, greater care, and at the
+same time more seriously than did Count Bezúkhov. Natásha unconsciously
+felt this delicacy and so found great pleasure in his society. But she
+was not even grateful to him for it; nothing good on Pierre's part
+seemed to her to be an effort, it seemed so natural for him to be kind
+to everyone that there was no merit in his kindness. Sometimes Natásha
+noticed embarrassment and awkwardness on his part in her presence,
+especially when he wanted to do something to please her, or feared that
+something they spoke of would awaken memories distressing to her. She
+noticed this and attributed it to his general kindness and shyness,
+which she imagined must be the same toward everyone as it was to her.
+After those involuntary words—that if he were free he would have asked
+on his knees for her hand and her love—uttered at a moment when she was
+so strongly agitated, Pierre never spoke to Natásha of his feelings; and
+it seemed plain to her that those words, which had then so comforted
+her, were spoken as all sorts of meaningless words are spoken to comfort
+a crying child. It was not because Pierre was a married man, but because
+Natásha felt very strongly with him that moral barrier the absence of
+which she had experienced with Kurágin that it never entered her head
+that the relations between him and herself could lead to love on her
+part, still less on his, or even to the kind of tender, self-conscious,
+romantic friendship between a man and a woman of which she had known
+several instances.
+
+Before the end of the fast of St. Peter, Agrafena Ivánovna Belova, a
+country neighbor of the Rostóvs, came to Moscow to pay her devotions at
+the shrines of the Moscow saints. She suggested that Natásha should fast
+and prepare for Holy Communion, and Natásha gladly welcomed the idea.
+Despite the doctor's orders that she should not go out early in the
+morning, Natásha insisted on fasting and preparing for the sacrament,
+not as they generally prepared for it in the Rostóv family by attending
+three services in their own house, but as Agrafena Ivánovna did, by
+going to church every day for a week and not once missing Vespers,
+Matins, or Mass.
+
+The countess was pleased with Natásha's zeal; after the poor results of
+the medical treatment, in the depths of her heart she hoped that prayer
+might help her daughter more than medicines and, though not without fear
+and concealing it from the doctor, she agreed to Natásha's wish and
+entrusted her to Belova. Agrafena Ivánovna used to come to wake Natásha
+at three in the morning, but generally found her already awake. She was
+afraid of being late for Matins. Hastily washing, and meekly putting on
+her shabbiest dress and an old mantilla, Natásha, shivering in the fresh
+air, went out into the deserted streets lit by the clear light of dawn.
+By Agrafena Ivánovna's advice Natásha prepared herself not in their own
+parish, but at a church where, according to the devout Agrafena
+Ivánovna, the priest was a man of very severe and lofty life. There were
+never many people in the church; Natásha always stood beside Belova in
+the customary place before an icon of the Blessed Virgin, let into the
+screen before the choir on the left side, and a feeling, new to her, of
+humility before something great and incomprehensible, seized her when at
+that unusual morning hour, gazing at the dark face of the Virgin
+illuminated by the candles burning before it and by the morning light
+falling from the window, she listened to the words of the service which
+she tried to follow with understanding. When she understood them her
+personal feeling became interwoven in the prayers with shades of its
+own. When she did not understand, it was sweeter still to think that the
+wish to understand everything is pride, that it is impossible to
+understand all, that it is only necessary to believe and to commit
+oneself to God, whom she felt guiding her soul at those moments. She
+crossed herself, bowed low, and when she did not understand, in horror
+at her own vileness, simply asked God to forgive her everything,
+everything, to have mercy upon her. The prayers to which she surrendered
+herself most of all were those of repentance. On her way home at an
+early hour when she met no one but bricklayers going to work or men
+sweeping the street, and everybody within the houses was still asleep,
+Natásha experienced a feeling new to her, a sense of the possibility of
+correcting her faults, the possibility of a new, clean life, and of
+happiness.
+
+During the whole week she spent in this way, that feeling grew every
+day. And the happiness of taking communion, or "communing" as Agrafena
+Ivánovna, joyously playing with the word, called it, seemed to Natásha
+so great that she felt she should never live till that blessed Sunday.
+
+But the happy day came, and on that memorable Sunday, when, dressed in
+white muslin, she returned home after communion, for the first time for
+many months she felt calm and not oppressed by the thought of the life
+that lay before her.
+
+The doctor who came to see her that day ordered her to continue the
+powders he had prescribed a fortnight previously.
+
+"She must certainly go on taking them morning and evening," said he,
+evidently sincerely satisfied with his success. "Only, please be
+particular about it.
+
+"Be quite easy," he continued playfully, as he adroitly took the gold
+coin in his palm. "She will soon be singing and frolicking about. The
+last medicine has done her a very great deal of good. She has freshened
+up very much."
+
+The countess, with a cheerful expression on her face, looked down at her
+nails and spat a little for luck as she returned to the drawing room.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+At the beginning of July more and more disquieting reports about the war
+began to spread in Moscow; people spoke of an appeal by the Emperor to
+the people, and of his coming himself from the army to Moscow. And as up
+to the eleventh of July no manifesto or appeal had been received,
+exaggerated reports became current about them and about the position of
+Russia. It was said that the Emperor was leaving the army because it was
+in danger, it was said that Smolensk had surrendered, that Napoleon had
+an army of a million and only a miracle could save Russia.
+
+On the eleventh of July, which was Saturday, the manifesto was received
+but was not yet in print, and Pierre, who was at the Rostóvs', promised
+to come to dinner next day, Sunday, and bring a copy of the manifesto
+and appeal, which he would obtain from Count Rostopchin.
+
+That Sunday, the Rostóvs went to Mass at the Razumóvskis' private chapel
+as usual. It was a hot July day. Even at ten o'clock, when the Rostóvs
+got out of their carriage at the chapel, the sultry air, the shouts of
+hawkers, the light and gay summer clothes of the crowd, the dusty leaves
+of the trees on the boulevard, the sounds of the band and the white
+trousers of a battalion marching to parade, the rattling of wheels on
+the cobblestones, and the brilliant, hot sunshine were all full of that
+summer languor, that content and discontent with the present, which is
+most strongly felt on a bright, hot day in town. All the Moscow
+notabilities, all the Rostóvs' acquaintances, were at the Razumóvskis'
+chapel, for, as if expecting something to happen, many wealthy families
+who usually left town for their country estates had not gone away that
+summer. As Natásha, at her mother's side, passed through the crowd
+behind a liveried footman who cleared the way for them, she heard a
+young man speaking about her in too loud a whisper.
+
+"That's Rostóva, the one who..."
+
+"She's much thinner, but all the same she's pretty!"
+
+She heard, or thought she heard, the names of Kurágin and Bolkónski. But
+she was always imagining that. It always seemed to her that everyone who
+looked at her was thinking only of what had happened to her. With a
+sinking heart, wretched as she always was now when she found herself in
+a crowd, Natásha in her lilac silk dress trimmed with black lace
+walked—as women can walk—with the more repose and stateliness the
+greater the pain and shame in her soul. She knew for certain that she
+was pretty, but this no longer gave her satisfaction as it used to. On
+the contrary it tormented her more than anything else of late, and
+particularly so on this bright, hot summer day in town. "It's Sunday
+again—another week past," she thought, recalling that she had been here
+the Sunday before, "and always the same life that is no life, and the
+same surroundings in which it used to be so easy to live. I'm pretty,
+I'm young, and I know that now I am good. I used to be bad, but now I
+know I am good," she thought, "but yet my best years are slipping by and
+are no good to anyone." She stood by her mother's side and exchanged
+nods with acquaintances near her. From habit she scrutinized the ladies'
+dresses, condemned the bearing of a lady standing close by who was not
+crossing herself properly but in a cramped manner, and again she thought
+with vexation that she was herself being judged and was judging others,
+and suddenly, at the sound of the service, she felt horrified at her own
+vileness, horrified that the former purity of her soul was again lost to
+her.
+
+A comely, fresh-looking old man was conducting the service with that
+mild solemnity which has so elevating and soothing an effect on the
+souls of the worshipers. The gates of the sanctuary screen were closed,
+the curtain was slowly drawn, and from behind it a soft mysterious voice
+pronounced some words. Tears, the cause of which she herself did not
+understand, made Natásha's breast heave, and a joyous but oppressive
+feeling agitated her.
+
+"Teach me what I should do, how to live my life, how I may grow good
+forever, forever!" she pleaded.
+
+The deacon came out onto the raised space before the altar screen and,
+holding his thumb extended, drew his long hair from under his dalmatic
+and, making the sign of the cross on his breast, began in a loud and
+solemn voice to recite the words of the prayer...
+
+"In peace let us pray unto the Lord."
+
+"As one community, without distinction of class, without enmity, united
+by brotherly love—let us pray!" thought Natásha.
+
+"For the peace that is from above, and for the salvation of our souls."
+
+"For the world of angels and all the spirits who dwell above us," prayed
+Natásha.
+
+When they prayed for the warriors, she thought of her brother and
+Denisov. When they prayed for all traveling by land and sea, she
+remembered Prince Andrew, prayed for him, and asked God to forgive her
+all the wrongs she had done him. When they prayed for those who love us,
+she prayed for the members of her own family, her father and mother and
+Sónya, realizing for the first time how wrongly she had acted toward
+them, and feeling all the strength of her love for them. When they
+prayed for those who hate us, she tried to think of her enemies and
+people who hated her, in order to pray for them. She included among her
+enemies the creditors and all who had business dealings with her father,
+and always at the thought of enemies and those who hated her she
+remembered Anatole who had done her so much harm—and though he did not
+hate her she gladly prayed for him as for an enemy. Only at prayer did
+she feel able to think clearly and calmly of Prince Andrew and Anatole,
+as men for whom her feelings were as nothing compared with her awe and
+devotion to God. When they prayed for the Imperial family and the Synod,
+she bowed very low and made the sign of the cross, saying to herself
+that even if she did not understand, still she could not doubt, and at
+any rate loved the governing Synod and prayed for it.
+
+When he had finished the Litany the deacon crossed the stole over his
+breast and said, "Let us commit ourselves and our whole lives to Christ
+the Lord!"
+
+"Commit ourselves to God," Natásha inwardly repeated. "Lord God, I
+submit myself to Thy will!" she thought. "I want nothing, wish for
+nothing; teach me what to do and how to use my will! Take me, take me!"
+prayed Natásha, with impatient emotion in her heart, not crossing
+herself but letting her slender arms hang down as if expecting some
+invisible power at any moment to take her and deliver her from herself,
+from her regrets, desires, remorse, hopes, and sins.
+
+The countess looked round several times at her daughter's softened face
+and shining eyes and prayed God to help her.
+
+Unexpectedly, in the middle of the service, and not in the usual order
+Natásha knew so well, the deacon brought out a small stool, the one he
+knelt on when praying on Trinity Sunday, and placed it before the doors
+of the sanctuary screen. The priest came out with his purple velvet
+biretta on his head, adjusted his hair, and knelt down with an effort.
+Everybody followed his example and they looked at one another in
+surprise. Then came the prayer just received from the Synod—a prayer for
+the deliverance of Russia from hostile invasion.
+
+"Lord God of might, God of our salvation!" began the priest in that
+voice, clear, not grandiloquent but mild, in which only the Slav clergy
+read and which acts so irresistibly on a Russian heart.
+
+"Lord God of might, God of our salvation! Look this day in mercy and
+blessing on Thy humble people, and graciously hear us, spare us, and
+have mercy upon us! This foe confounding Thy land, desiring to lay waste
+the whole world, rises against us; these lawless men are gathered
+together to overthrow Thy kingdom, to destroy Thy dear Jerusalem, Thy
+beloved Russia; to defile Thy temples, to overthrow Thine altars, and to
+desecrate our holy shrines. How long, O Lord, how long shall the wicked
+triumph? How long shall they wield unlawful power?
+
+"Lord God! Hear us when we pray to Thee; strengthen with Thy might our
+most gracious sovereign lord, the Emperor Alexander Pavlovich; be
+mindful of his uprightness and meekness, reward him according to his
+righteousness, and let it preserve us, Thy chosen Israel! Bless his
+counsels, his undertakings, and his work; strengthen his kingdom by
+Thine almighty hand, and give him victory over his enemy, even as Thou
+gavest Moses the victory over Amalek, Gideon over Midian, and David over
+Goliath. Preserve his army, put a bow of brass in the hands of those who
+have armed themselves in Thy Name, and gird their loins with strength
+for the fight. Take up the spear and shield and arise to help us;
+confound and put to shame those who have devised evil against us, may
+they be before the faces of Thy faithful warriors as dust before the
+wind, and may Thy mighty Angel confound them and put them to flight; may
+they be ensnared when they know it not, and may the plots they have laid
+in secret be turned against them; let them fall before Thy servants'
+feet and be laid low by our hosts! Lord, Thou art able to save both
+great and small; Thou art God, and man cannot prevail against Thee!
+
+"God of our fathers! Remember Thy bounteous mercy and loving-kindness
+which are from of old; turn not Thy face from us, but be gracious to our
+unworthiness, and in Thy great goodness and Thy many mercies regard not
+our transgressions and iniquities! Create in us a clean heart and renew
+a right spirit within us, strengthen us all in Thy faith, fortify our
+hope, inspire us with true love one for another, arm us with unity of
+spirit in the righteous defense of the heritage Thou gavest to us and to
+our fathers, and let not the scepter of the wicked be exalted against
+the destiny of those Thou hast sanctified.
+
+"O Lord our God, in whom we believe and in whom we put our trust, let us
+not be confounded in our hope of Thy mercy, and give us a token of Thy
+blessing, that those who hate us and our Orthodox faith may see it and
+be put to shame and perish, and may all the nations know that Thou art
+the Lord and we are Thy people. Show Thy mercy upon us this day, O Lord,
+and grant us Thy salvation; make the hearts of Thy servants to rejoice
+in Thy mercy; smite down our enemies and destroy them swiftly beneath
+the feet of Thy faithful servants! For Thou art the defense, the succor,
+and the victory of them that put their trust in Thee, and to Thee be all
+glory, to Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, now and forever, world without
+end. Amen."
+
+In Natásha's receptive condition of soul this prayer affected her
+strongly. She listened to every word about the victory of Moses over
+Amalek, of Gideon over Midian, and of David over Goliath, and about the
+destruction of "Thy Jerusalem," and she prayed to God with the
+tenderness and emotion with which her heart was overflowing, but without
+fully understanding what she was asking of God in that prayer. She
+shared with all her heart in the prayer for the spirit of righteousness,
+for the strengthening of the heart by faith and hope, and its animation
+by love. But she could not pray that her enemies might be trampled under
+foot when but a few minutes before she had been wishing she had more of
+them that she might pray for them. But neither could she doubt the
+righteousness of the prayer that was being read on bended knees. She
+felt in her heart a devout and tremulous awe at the thought of the
+punishment that overtakes men for their sins, and especially of her own
+sins, and she prayed to God to forgive them all, and her too, and to
+give them all, and her too, peace and happiness. And it seemed to her
+that God heard her prayer.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+From the day when Pierre, after leaving the Rostóvs' with Natásha's
+grateful look fresh in his mind, had gazed at the comet that seemed to
+be fixed in the sky and felt that something new was appearing on his own
+horizon—from that day the problem of the vanity and uselessness of all
+earthly things, that had incessantly tormented him, no longer presented
+itself. That terrible question "Why?" "Wherefore?" which had come to him
+amid every occupation, was now replaced, not by another question or by a
+reply to the former question, but by her image. When he listened to, or
+himself took part in, trivial conversations, when he read or heard of
+human baseness or folly, he was not horrified as formerly, and did not
+ask himself why men struggled so about these things when all is so
+transient and incomprehensible—but he remembered her as he had last seen
+her, and all his doubts vanished—not because she had answered the
+questions that had haunted him, but because his conception of her
+transferred him instantly to another, a brighter, realm of spiritual
+activity in which no one could be justified or guilty—a realm of beauty
+and love which it was worth living for. Whatever worldly baseness
+presented itself to him, he said to himself:
+
+"Well, supposing N. N. swindled the country and the Tsar, and the
+country and the Tsar confer honors upon him, what does that matter? She
+smiled at me yesterday and asked me to come again, and I love her, and
+no one will ever know it." And his soul felt calm and peaceful.
+
+Pierre still went into society, drank as much and led the same idle and
+dissipated life, because besides the hours he spent at the Rostóvs'
+there were other hours he had to spend somehow, and the habits and
+acquaintances he had made in Moscow formed a current that bore him along
+irresistibly. But latterly, when more and more disquieting reports came
+from the seat of war and Natásha's health began to improve and she no
+longer aroused in him the former feeling of careful pity, an ever-
+increasing restlessness, which he could not explain, took possession of
+him. He felt that the condition he was in could not continue long, that
+a catastrophe was coming which would change his whole life, and he
+impatiently sought everywhere for signs of that approaching catastrophe.
+One of his brother Masons had revealed to Pierre the following prophecy
+concerning Napoleon, drawn from the Revelation of St. John.
+
+In chapter 13, verse 18, of the Apocalypse, it is said:
+
+Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the
+beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred
+threescore and six.
+
+And in the fifth verse of the same chapter:
+
+And there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things and
+blasphemies; and power was given unto him to continue forty and two
+months.
+
+The French alphabet, written out with the same numerical values as the
+Hebrew, in which the first nine letters denote units and the others
+tens, will have the following significance:
+
+a   b   c   d   e   f   g   h   i   k 1   2   3   4   5   6   7   8   9 
+10 l    m    n    o    p    q    r    s 20   30   40   50   60   70   80
+90 t    u    v    w    x    y 100  110  120  130  140  150 z 160
+
+Writing the words L'Empereur Napoleon in numbers, it appears that the
+sum of them is 666, and that Napoleon was therefore the beast foretold
+in the Apocalypse. Moreover, by applying the same system to the words
+quarante-deux, * which was the term allowed to the beast that "spoke
+great things and blasphemies," the same number 666 was obtained; from
+which it followed that the limit fixed for Napoleon's power had come in
+the year 1812 when the French emperor was forty-two. This prophecy
+pleased Pierre very much and he often asked himself what would put an
+end to the power of the beast, that is, of Napoleon, and tried by the
+same system of using letters as numbers and adding them up, to find an
+answer to the question that engrossed him. He wrote the words L'Empereur
+Alexandre, La nation russe and added up their numbers, but the sums were
+either more or less than 666. Once when making such calculations he
+wrote down his own name in French, Comte Pierre Besouhoff, but the sum
+of the numbers did not come right. Then he changed the spelling,
+substituting a z for the s and adding de and the article le, still
+without obtaining the desired result. Then it occurred to him: if the
+answer to the question were contained in his name, his nationality would
+also be given in the answer. So he wrote Le russe Besuhof and adding up
+the numbers got 671. This was only five too much, and five was
+represented by e, the very letter elided from the article le before the
+word Empereur. By omitting the e, though incorrectly, Pierre got the
+answer he sought. L'russe Besuhof made 666. This discovery excited him.
+How, or by what means, he was connected with the great event foretold in
+the Apocalypse he did not know, but he did not doubt that connection for
+a moment. His love for Natásha, Antichrist, Napoleon, the invasion, the
+comet, 666, L'Empereur Napoleon, and L'russe Besuhof—all this had to
+mature and culminate, to lift him out of that spellbound, petty sphere
+of Moscow habits in which he felt himself held captive and lead him to a
+great achievement and great happiness.
+
+* Forty-two.
+
+On the eve of the Sunday when the special prayer was read, Pierre had
+promised the Rostóvs to bring them, from Count Rostopchin whom he knew
+well, both the appeal to the people and the news from the army. In the
+morning, when he went to call at Rostopchin's he met there a courier
+fresh from the army, an acquaintance of his own, who often danced at
+Moscow balls.
+
+"Do, please, for heaven's sake, relieve me of something!" said the
+courier. "I have a sackful of letters to parents."
+
+Among these letters was one from Nicholas Rostóv to his father. Pierre
+took that letter, and Rostopchin also gave him the Emperor's appeal to
+Moscow, which had just been printed, the last army orders, and his own
+most recent bulletin. Glancing through the army orders, Pierre found in
+one of them, in the lists of killed, wounded, and rewarded, the name of
+Nicholas Rostóv, awarded a St. George's Cross of the Fourth Class for
+courage shown in the Ostrovna affair, and in the same order the name of
+Prince Andrew Bolkónski, appointed to the command of a regiment of
+Chasseurs. Though he did not want to remind the Rostóvs of Bolkónski,
+Pierre could not refrain from making them happy by the news of their
+son's having received a decoration, so he sent that printed army order
+and Nicholas' letter to the Rostóvs, keeping the appeal, the bulletin,
+and the other orders to take with him when he went to dinner.
+
+His conversation with Count Rostopchin and the latter's tone of anxious
+hurry, the meeting with the courier who talked casually of how badly
+things were going in the army, the rumors of the discovery of spies in
+Moscow and of a leaflet in circulation stating that Napoleon promised to
+be in both the Russian capitals by the autumn, and the talk of the
+Emperor's being expected to arrive next day—all aroused with fresh force
+that feeling of agitation and expectation in Pierre which he had been
+conscious of ever since the appearance of the comet, and especially
+since the beginning of the war.
+
+He had long been thinking of entering the army and would have done so
+had he not been hindered, first, by his membership of the Society of
+Freemasons to which he was bound by oath and which preached perpetual
+peace and the abolition of war, and secondly, by the fact that when he
+saw the great mass of Muscovites who had donned uniform and were talking
+patriotism, he somehow felt ashamed to take the step. But the chief
+reason for not carrying out his intention to enter the army lay in the
+vague idea that he was L'russe Besuhof who had the number of the beast,
+666; that his part in the great affair of setting a limit to the power
+of the beast that spoke great and blasphemous things had been
+predestined from eternity, and that therefore he ought not to undertake
+anything, but wait for what was bound to come to pass.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+A few intimate friends were dining with the Rostóvs that day, as usual
+on Sundays.
+
+Pierre came early so as to find them alone.
+
+He had grown so stout this year that he would have been abnormal had he
+not been so tall, so broad of limb, and so strong that he carried his
+bulk with evident ease.
+
+He went up the stairs, puffing and muttering something. His coachman did
+not even ask whether he was to wait. He knew that when his master was at
+the Rostóvs' he stayed till midnight. The Rostóvs' footman rushed
+eagerly forward to help him off with his cloak and take his hat and
+stick. Pierre, from club habit, always left both hat and stick in the
+anteroom.
+
+The first person he saw in the house was Natásha. Even before he saw
+her, while taking off his cloak, he heard her. She was practicing solfa
+exercises in the music room. He knew that she had not sung since her
+illness, and so the sound of her voice surprised and delighted him. He
+opened the door softly and saw her, in the lilac dress she had worn at
+church, walking about the room singing. She had her back to him when he
+opened the door, but when, turning quickly, she saw his broad, surprised
+face, she blushed and came rapidly up to him.
+
+"I want to try to sing again," she said, adding as if by way of excuse,
+"it is, at least, something to do."
+
+"That's capital!"
+
+"How glad I am you've come! I am so happy today," she said, with the old
+animation Pierre had not seen in her for a long time. "You know Nicholas
+has received a St. George's Cross? I am so proud of him."
+
+"Oh yes, I sent that announcement. But I don't want to interrupt you,"
+he added, and was about to go to the drawing room.
+
+Natásha stopped him.
+
+"Count, is it wrong of me to sing?" she said blushing, and fixing her
+eyes inquiringly on him.
+
+"No... Why should it be? On the contrary... But why do you ask me?"
+
+"I don't know myself," Natásha answered quickly, "but I should not like
+to do anything you disapproved of. I believe in you completely. You
+don't know how important you are to me, how much you've done for me...."
+She spoke rapidly and did not notice how Pierre flushed at her words. "I
+saw in that same army order that he, Bolkónski" (she whispered the name
+hastily), "is in Russia, and in the army again. What do you think?"—she
+was speaking hurriedly, evidently afraid her strength might fail
+her—"Will he ever forgive me? Will he not always have a bitter feeling
+toward me? What do you think? What do you think?"
+
+"I think..." Pierre replied, "that he has nothing to forgive.... If I
+were in his place..."
+
+By association of ideas, Pierre was at once carried back to the day
+when, trying to comfort her, he had said that if he were not himself but
+the best man in the world and free, he would ask on his knees for her
+hand; and the same feeling of pity, tenderness, and love took possession
+of him and the same words rose to his lips. But she did not give him
+time to say them.
+
+"Yes, you... you..." she said, uttering the word you rapturously—"that's
+a different thing. I know no one kinder, more generous, or better than
+you; nobody could be! Had you not been there then, and now too, I don't
+know what would have become of me, because..."
+
+Tears suddenly rose in her eyes, she turned away, lifted her music
+before her eyes, began singing again, and again began walking up and
+down the room.
+
+Just then Pétya came running in from the drawing room.
+
+Pétya was now a handsome rosy lad of fifteen with full red lips and
+resembled Natásha. He was preparing to enter the university, but he and
+his friend Obolenski had lately, in secret, agreed to join the hussars.
+
+Pétya had come rushing out to talk to his namesake about this affair. He
+had asked Pierre to find out whether he would be accepted in the
+hussars.
+
+Pierre walked up and down the drawing room, not listening to what Pétya
+was saying.
+
+Pétya pulled him by the arm to attract his attention.
+
+"Well, what about my plan? Peter Kirilych, for heaven's sake! You are my
+only hope," said Pétya.
+
+"Oh yes, your plan. To join the hussars? I'll mention it, I'll bring it
+all up today."
+
+"Well, mon cher, have you got the manifesto?" asked the old count. "The
+countess has been to Mass at the Razumóvskis' and heard the new prayer.
+She says it's very fine."
+
+"Yes, I've got it," said Pierre. "The Emperor is to be here tomorrow...
+there's to be an Extraordinary Meeting of the nobility, and they are
+talking of a levy of ten men per thousand. Oh yes, let me congratulate
+you!"
+
+"Yes, yes, thank God! Well, and what news from the army?"
+
+"We are again retreating. They say we're already near Smolensk," replied
+Pierre.
+
+"O Lord, O Lord!" exclaimed the count. "Where is the manifesto?"
+
+"The Emperor's appeal? Oh yes!"
+
+Pierre began feeling in his pockets for the papers, but could not find
+them. Still slapping his pockets, he kissed the hand of the countess who
+entered the room and glanced uneasily around, evidently expecting
+Natásha, who had left off singing but had not yet come into the drawing
+room.
+
+"On my word, I don't know what I've done with it," he said.
+
+"There he is, always losing everything!" remarked the countess.
+
+Natásha entered with a softened and agitated expression of face and sat
+down looking silently at Pierre. As soon as she entered, Pierre's
+features, which had been gloomy, suddenly lighted up, and while still
+searching for the papers he glanced at her several times.
+
+"No, really! I'll drive home, I must have left them there. I'll
+certainly..."
+
+"But you'll be late for dinner."
+
+"Oh! And my coachman has gone."
+
+But Sónya, who had gone to look for the papers in the anteroom, had
+found them in Pierre's hat, where he had carefully tucked them under the
+lining. Pierre was about to begin reading.
+
+"No, after dinner," said the old count, evidently expecting much
+enjoyment from that reading.
+
+At dinner, at which champagne was drunk to the health of the new
+chevalier of St. George, Shinshín told them the town news, of the
+illness of the old Georgian princess, of Metivier's disappearance from
+Moscow, and of how some German fellow had been brought to Rostopchin and
+accused of being a French "spyer" (so Count Rostopchin had told the
+story), and how Rostopchin let him go and assured the people that he was
+"not a spire at all, but only an old German ruin."
+
+"People are being arrested..." said the count. "I've told the countess
+she should not speak French so much. It's not the time for it now."
+
+"And have you heard?" Shinshín asked. "Prince Golítsyn has engaged a
+master to teach him Russian. It is becoming dangerous to speak French in
+the streets."
+
+"And how about you, Count Peter Kirilych? If they call up the militia,
+you too will have to mount a horse," remarked the old count, addressing
+Pierre.
+
+Pierre had been silent and preoccupied all through dinner, seeming not
+to grasp what was said. He looked at the count.
+
+"Oh yes, the war," he said. "No! What sort of warrior should I make? And
+yet everything is so strange, so strange! I can't make it out. I don't
+know, I am very far from having military tastes, but in these times no
+one can answer for himself."
+
+After dinner the count settled himself comfortably in an easy chair and
+with a serious face asked Sónya, who was considered an excellent reader,
+to read the appeal.
+
+"To Moscow, our ancient Capital!
+
+"The enemy has entered the borders of Russia with immense forces. He
+comes to despoil our beloved country."
+
+Sónya read painstakingly in her high-pitched voice. The count listened
+with closed eyes, heaving abrupt sighs at certain passages.
+
+Natásha sat erect, gazing with a searching look now at her father and
+now at Pierre.
+
+Pierre felt her eyes on him and tried not to look round. The countess
+shook her head disapprovingly and angrily at every solemn expression in
+the manifesto. In all these words she saw only that the danger
+threatening her son would not soon be over. Shinshín, with a sarcastic
+smile on his lips, was evidently preparing to make fun of anything that
+gave him the opportunity: Sónya's reading, any remark of the count's, or
+even the manifesto itself should no better pretext present itself.
+
+After reading about the dangers that threatened Russia, the hopes the
+Emperor placed on Moscow and especially on its illustrious nobility,
+Sónya, with a quiver in her voice due chiefly to the attention that was
+being paid to her, read the last words:
+
+"We ourselves will not delay to appear among our people in that Capital
+and in other parts of our realm for consultation, and for the direction
+of all our levies, both those now barring the enemy's path and those
+freshly formed to defeat him wherever he may appear. May the ruin he
+hopes to bring upon us recoil on his own head, and may Europe delivered
+from bondage glorify the name of Russia!"
+
+"Yes, that's it!" cried the count, opening his moist eyes and sniffing
+repeatedly, as if a strong vinaigrette had been held to his nose; and he
+added, "Let the Emperor but say the word and we'll sacrifice everything
+and begrudge nothing."
+
+Before Shinshín had time to utter the joke he was ready to make on the
+count's patriotism, Natásha jumped up from her place and ran to her
+father.
+
+"What a darling our Papa is!" she cried, kissing him, and she again
+looked at Pierre with the unconscious coquetry that had returned to her
+with her better spirits.
+
+"There! Here's a patriot for you!" said Shinshín.
+
+"Not a patriot at all, but simply..." Natásha replied in an injured
+tone. "Everything seems funny to you, but this isn't at all a joke...."
+
+"A joke indeed!" put in the count. "Let him but say the word and we'll
+all go.... We're not Germans!"
+
+"But did you notice, it says, 'for consultation'?" said Pierre.
+
+"Never mind what it's for...."
+
+At this moment, Pétya, to whom nobody was paying any attention, came up
+to his father with a very flushed face and said in his breaking voice
+that was now deep and now shrill:
+
+"Well, Papa, I tell you definitely, and Mamma too, it's as you please,
+but I say definitely that you must let me enter the army, because I
+can't... that's all...."
+
+The countess, in dismay, looked up to heaven, clasped her hands, and
+turned angrily to her husband.
+
+"That comes of your talking!" said she.
+
+But the count had already recovered from his excitement.
+
+"Come, come!" said he. "Here's a fine warrior! No! Nonsense! You must
+study."
+
+"It's not nonsense, Papa. Fedya Obolenski is younger than I, and he's
+going too. Besides, all the same I can't study now when..." Pétya
+stopped short, flushed till he perspired, but still got out the words,
+"when our Fatherland is in danger."
+
+"That'll do, that'll do—nonsense...."
+
+"But you said yourself that we would sacrifice everything."
+
+"Pétya! Be quiet, I tell you!" cried the count, with a glance at his
+wife, who had turned pale and was staring fixedly at her son.
+
+"And I tell you—Peter Kirilych here will also tell you..."
+
+"Nonsense, I tell you. Your mother's milk has hardly dried on your lips
+and you want to go into the army! There, there, I tell you," and the
+count moved to go out of the room, taking the papers, probably to reread
+them in his study before having a nap.
+
+"Well, Peter Kirilych, let's go and have a smoke," he said.
+
+Pierre was agitated and undecided. Natásha's unwontedly brilliant eyes,
+continually glancing at him with a more than cordial look, had reduced
+him to this condition.
+
+"No, I think I'll go home."
+
+"Home? Why, you meant to spend the evening with us.... You don't often
+come nowadays as it is, and this girl of mine," said the count good-
+naturedly, pointing to Natásha, "only brightens up when you're here."
+
+"Yes, I had forgotten... I really must go home... business..." said
+Pierre hurriedly.
+
+"Well, then, au revoir!" said the count, and went out of the room.
+
+"Why are you going? Why are you upset?" asked Natásha, and she looked
+challengingly into Pierre's eyes.
+
+"Because I love you!" was what he wanted to say, but he did not say it,
+and only blushed till the tears came, and lowered his eyes.
+
+"Because it is better for me to come less often... because... No, simply
+I have business...."
+
+"Why? No, tell me!" Natásha began resolutely and suddenly stopped.
+
+They looked at each other with dismayed and embarrassed faces. He tried
+to smile but could not: his smile expressed suffering, and he silently
+kissed her hand and went out.
+
+Pierre made up his mind not to go to the Rostóvs' any more.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+After the definite refusal he had received, Pétya went to his room and
+there locked himself in and wept bitterly. When he came in to tea,
+silent, morose, and with tear-stained face, everybody pretended not to
+notice anything.
+
+Next day the Emperor arrived in Moscow, and several of the Rostóvs'
+domestic serfs begged permission to go to have a look at him. That
+morning Pétya was a long time dressing and arranging his hair and collar
+to look like a grown-up man. He frowned before his looking glass,
+gesticulated, shrugged his shoulders, and finally, without saying a word
+to anyone, took his cap and left the house by the back door, trying to
+avoid notice. Pétya decided to go straight to where the Emperor was and
+to explain frankly to some gentleman-in-waiting (he imagined the Emperor
+to be always surrounded by gentlemen-in-waiting) that he, Count Rostóv,
+in spite of his youth wished to serve his country; that youth could be
+no hindrance to loyalty, and that he was ready to... While dressing,
+Pétya had prepared many fine things he meant to say to the gentleman-in-
+waiting.
+
+It was on the very fact of being so young that Pétya counted for success
+in reaching the Emperor—he even thought how surprised everyone would be
+at his youthfulness—and yet in the arrangement of his collar and hair
+and by his sedate deliberate walk he wished to appear a grown-up man.
+But the farther he went and the more his attention was diverted by the
+ever-increasing crowds moving toward the Kremlin, the less he remembered
+to walk with the sedateness and deliberation of a man. As he approached
+the Kremlin he even began to avoid being crushed and resolutely stuck
+out his elbows in a menacing way. But within the Trinity Gateway he was
+so pressed to the wall by people who probably were unaware of the
+patriotic intentions with which he had come that in spite of all his
+determination he had to give in, and stop while carriages passed in,
+rumbling beneath the archway. Beside Pétya stood a peasant woman, a
+footman, two tradesmen, and a discharged soldier. After standing some
+time in the gateway, Pétya tried to move forward in front of the others
+without waiting for all the carriages to pass, and he began resolutely
+working his way with his elbows, but the woman just in front of him, who
+was the first against whom he directed his efforts, angrily shouted at
+him:
+
+"What are you shoving for, young lordling? Don't you see we're all
+standing still? Then why push?"
+
+"Anybody can shove," said the footman, and also began working his elbows
+to such effect that he pushed Pétya into a very filthy corner of the
+gateway.
+
+Pétya wiped his perspiring face with his hands and pulled up the damp
+collar which he had arranged so well at home to seem like a man's.
+
+He felt that he no longer looked presentable, and feared that if he were
+now to approach the gentlemen-in-waiting in that plight he would not be
+admitted to the Emperor. But it was impossible to smarten oneself up or
+move to another place, because of the crowd. One of the generals who
+drove past was an acquaintance of the Rostóvs', and Pétya thought of
+asking his help, but came to the conclusion that that would not be a
+manly thing to do. When the carriages had all passed in, the crowd,
+carrying Pétya with it, streamed forward into the Kremlin Square which
+was already full of people. There were people not only in the square,
+but everywhere—on the slopes and on the roofs. As soon as Pétya found
+himself in the square he clearly heard the sound of bells and the joyous
+voices of the crowd that filled the whole Kremlin.
+
+For a while the crowd was less dense, but suddenly all heads were bared,
+and everyone rushed forward in one direction. Pétya was being pressed so
+that he could scarcely breathe, and everybody shouted, "Hurrah! hurrah!
+hurrah!" Pétya stood on tiptoe and pushed and pinched, but could see
+nothing except the people about him.
+
+All the faces bore the same expression of excitement and enthusiasm. A
+tradesman's wife standing beside Pétya sobbed, and the tears ran down
+her cheeks.
+
+"Father! Angel! Dear one!" she kept repeating, wiping away her tears
+with her fingers.
+
+"Hurrah!" was heard on all sides.
+
+For a moment the crowd stood still, but then it made another rush
+forward.
+
+Quite beside himself, Pétya, clinching his teeth and rolling his eyes
+ferociously, pushed forward, elbowing his way and shouting "hurrah!" as
+if he were prepared that instant to kill himself and everyone else, but
+on both sides of him other people with similarly ferocious faces pushed
+forward and everybody shouted "hurrah!"
+
+"So this is what the Emperor is!" thought Pétya. "No, I can't petition
+him myself—that would be too bold." But in spite of this he continued to
+struggle desperately forward, and from between the backs of those in
+front he caught glimpses of an open space with a strip of red cloth
+spread out on it; but just then the crowd swayed back—the police in
+front were pushing back those who had pressed too close to the
+procession: the Emperor was passing from the palace to the Cathedral of
+the Assumption—and Pétya unexpectedly received such a blow on his side
+and ribs and was squeezed so hard that suddenly everything grew dim
+before his eyes and he lost consciousness. When he came to himself, a
+man of clerical appearance with a tuft of gray hair at the back of his
+head and wearing a shabby blue cassock—probably a church clerk and
+chanter—was holding him under the arm with one hand while warding off
+the pressure of the crowd with the other.
+
+"You've crushed the young gentleman!" said the clerk. "What are you up
+to? Gently!... They've crushed him, crushed him!"
+
+The Emperor entered the Cathedral of the Assumption. The crowd spread
+out again more evenly, and the clerk led Pétya—pale and breathless—to
+the Tsar-cannon. Several people were sorry for Pétya, and suddenly a
+crowd turned toward him and pressed round him. Those who stood nearest
+him attended to him, unbuttoned his coat, seated him on the raised
+platform of the cannon, and reproached those others (whoever they might
+be) who had crushed him.
+
+"One might easily get killed that way! What do they mean by it? Killing
+people! Poor dear, he's as white as a sheet!"—various voices were heard
+saying.
+
+Pétya soon came to himself, the color returned to his face, the pain had
+passed, and at the cost of that temporary unpleasantness he had obtained
+a place by the cannon from where he hoped to see the Emperor who would
+be returning that way. Pétya no longer thought of presenting his
+petition. If he could only see the Emperor he would be happy!
+
+While the service was proceeding in the Cathedral of the Assumption—it
+was a combined service of prayer on the occasion of the Emperor's
+arrival and of thanksgiving for the conclusion of peace with the
+Turks—the crowd outside spread out and hawkers appeared, selling kvas,
+gingerbread, and poppyseed sweets (of which Pétya was particularly
+fond), and ordinary conversation could again be heard. A tradesman's
+wife was showing a rent in her shawl and telling how much the shawl had
+cost; another was saying that all silk goods had now got dear. The clerk
+who had rescued Pétya was talking to a functionary about the priests who
+were officiating that day with the bishop. The clerk several times used
+the word "plenary" (of the service), a word Pétya did not understand.
+Two young citizens were joking with some serf girls who were cracking
+nuts. All these conversations, especially the joking with the girls,
+were such as might have had a particular charm for Pétya at his age, but
+they did not interest him now. He sat on his elevation—the pedestal of
+the cannon—still agitated as before by the thought of the Emperor and by
+his love for him. The feeling of pain and fear he had experienced when
+he was being crushed, together with that of rapture, still further
+intensified his sense of the importance of the occasion.
+
+Suddenly the sound of a firing of cannon was heard from the embankment,
+to celebrate the signing of peace with the Turks, and the crowd rushed
+impetuously toward the embankment to watch the firing. Pétya too would
+have run there, but the clerk who had taken the young gentleman under
+his protection stopped him. The firing was still proceeding when
+officers, generals, and gentlemen-in-waiting came running out of the
+cathedral, and after them others in a more leisurely manner: caps were
+again raised, and those who had run to look at the cannon ran back
+again. At last four men in uniforms and sashes emerged from the
+cathedral doors. "Hurrah! hurrah!" shouted the crowd again.
+
+"Which is he? Which?" asked Pétya in a tearful voice, of those around
+him, but no one answered him, everybody was too excited; and Pétya,
+fixing on one of those four men, whom he could not clearly see for the
+tears of joy that filled his eyes, concentrated all his enthusiasm on
+him—though it happened not to be the Emperor—frantically shouted
+"Hurrah!" and resolved that tomorrow, come what might, he would join the
+army.
+
+The crowd ran after the Emperor, followed him to the palace, and began
+to disperse. It was already late, and Pétya had not eaten anything and
+was drenched with perspiration, yet he did not go home but stood with
+that diminishing, but still considerable, crowd before the palace while
+the Emperor dined—looking in at the palace windows, expecting he knew
+not what, and envying alike the notables he saw arriving at the entrance
+to dine with the Emperor and the court footmen who served at table,
+glimpses of whom could be seen through the windows.
+
+While the Emperor was dining, Valuev, looking out of the window, said:
+
+"The people are still hoping to see Your Majesty again."
+
+The dinner was nearly over, and the Emperor, munching a biscuit, rose
+and went out onto the balcony. The people, with Pétya among them, rushed
+toward the balcony.
+
+"Angel! Dear one! Hurrah! Father!..." cried the crowd, and Pétya with
+it, and again the women and men of weaker mold, Pétya among them, wept
+with joy.
+
+A largish piece of the biscuit the Emperor was holding in his hand broke
+off, fell on the balcony parapet, and then to the ground. A coachman in
+a jerkin, who stood nearest, sprang forward and snatched it up. Several
+people in the crowd rushed at the coachman. Seeing this the Emperor had
+a plateful of biscuits brought him and began throwing them down from the
+balcony. Pétya's eyes grew bloodshot, and still more excited by the
+danger of being crushed, he rushed at the biscuits. He did not know why,
+but he had to have a biscuit from the Tsar's hand and he felt that he
+must not give way. He sprang forward and upset an old woman who was
+catching at a biscuit; the old woman did not consider herself defeated
+though she was lying on the ground—she grabbed at some biscuits but her
+hand did not reach them. Pétya pushed her hand away with his knee,
+seized a biscuit, and as if fearing to be too late, again shouted
+"Hurrah!" with a voice already hoarse.
+
+The Emperor went in, and after that the greater part of the crowd began
+to disperse.
+
+"There! I said if only we waited—and so it was!" was being joyfully said
+by various people.
+
+Happy as Pétya was, he felt sad at having to go home knowing that all
+the enjoyment of that day was over. He did not go straight home from the
+Kremlin, but called on his friend Obolenski, who was fifteen and was
+also entering the regiment. On returning home Pétya announced resolutely
+and firmly that if he was not allowed to enter the service he would run
+away. And next day, Count Ilyá Rostóv—though he had not yet quite
+yielded—went to inquire how he could arrange for Pétya to serve where
+there would be least danger.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+Two days later, on the fifteenth of July, an immense number of carriages
+were standing outside the Sloboda Palace.
+
+The great halls were full. In the first were the nobility and gentry in
+their uniforms, in the second bearded merchants in full-skirted coats of
+blue cloth and wearing medals. In the noblemen's hall there was an
+incessant movement and buzz of voices. The chief magnates sat on high-
+backed chairs at a large table under the portrait of the Emperor, but
+most of the gentry were strolling about the room.
+
+All these nobles, whom Pierre met every day at the club or in their own
+houses, were in uniform—some in that of Catherine's day, others in that
+of Emperor Paul, others again in the new uniforms of Alexander's time or
+the ordinary uniform of the nobility, and the general characteristic of
+being in uniform imparted something strange and fantastic to these
+diverse and familiar personalities, both old and young. The old men,
+dim-eyed, toothless, bald, sallow, and bloated, or gaunt and wrinkled,
+were especially striking. For the most part they sat quietly in their
+places and were silent, or, if they walked about and talked, attached
+themselves to someone younger. On all these faces, as on the faces of
+the crowd Pétya had seen in the Square, there was a striking
+contradiction: the general expectation of a solemn event, and at the
+same time the everyday interests in a boston card party, Peter the cook,
+Zinaida Dmítrievna's health, and so on.
+
+Pierre was there too, buttoned up since early morning in a nobleman's
+uniform that had become too tight for him. He was agitated; this
+extraordinary gathering not only of nobles but also of the merchant-
+class—les etats generaux (States-General)—evoked in him a whole series
+of ideas he had long laid aside but which were deeply graven in his
+soul: thoughts of the Contrat Social and the French Revolution. The
+words that had struck him in the Emperor's appeal—that the sovereign was
+coming to the capital for consultation with his people—strengthened this
+idea. And imagining that in this direction something important which he
+had long awaited was drawing near, he strolled about watching and
+listening to conversations, but nowhere finding any confirmation of the
+ideas that occupied him.
+
+The Emperor's manifesto was read, evoking enthusiasm, and then all moved
+about discussing it. Besides the ordinary topics of conversation, Pierre
+heard questions of where the marshals of the nobility were to stand when
+the Emperor entered, when a ball should be given in the Emperor's honor,
+whether they should group themselves by districts or by whole
+provinces... and so on; but as soon as the war was touched on, or what
+the nobility had been convened for, the talk became undecided and
+indefinite. Then all preferred listening to speaking.
+
+A middle-aged man, handsome and virile, in the uniform of a retired
+naval officer, was speaking in one of the rooms, and a small crowd was
+pressing round him. Pierre went up to the circle that had formed round
+the speaker and listened. Count Ilyá Rostóv, in a military uniform of
+Catherine's time, was sauntering with a pleasant smile among the crowd,
+with all of whom he was acquainted. He too approached that group and
+listened with a kindly smile and nods of approval, as he always did, to
+what the speaker was saying. The retired naval man was speaking very
+boldly, as was evident from the expression on the faces of the listeners
+and from the fact that some people Pierre knew as the meekest and
+quietest of men walked away disapprovingly or expressed disagreement
+with him. Pierre pushed his way into the middle of the group, listened,
+and convinced himself that the man was indeed a liberal, but of views
+quite different from his own. The naval officer spoke in a particularly
+sonorous, musical, and aristocratic baritone voice, pleasantly
+swallowing his r's and generally slurring his consonants: the voice of a
+man calling out to his servant, "Heah! Bwing me my pipe!" It was
+indicative of dissipation and the exercise of authority.
+
+"What if the Smolensk people have offahd to waise militia for the
+Empewah? Ah we to take Smolensk as our patte'n? If the noble awistocwacy
+of the pwovince of Moscow thinks fit, it can show its loyalty to our
+sov'weign the Empewah in other ways. Have we fo'gotten the waising of
+the militia in the yeah 'seven? All that did was to enwich the pwiests'
+sons and thieves and wobbahs...."
+
+Count Ilyá Rostóv smiled blandly and nodded approval.
+
+"And was our militia of any use to the Empia? Not at all! It only wuined
+our farming! Bettah have another conscwiption... o' ou' men will wetu'n
+neithah soldiers no' peasants, and we'll get only depwavity fwom them.
+The nobility don't gwudge theah lives—evewy one of us will go and bwing
+in more wecwuits, and the sov'weign" (that was the way he referred to
+the Emperor) "need only say the word and we'll all die fo' him!" added
+the orator with animation.
+
+Count Rostóv's mouth watered with pleasure and he nudged Pierre, but
+Pierre wanted to speak himself. He pushed forward, feeling stirred, but
+not yet sure what stirred him or what he would say. Scarcely had he
+opened his mouth when one of the senators, a man without a tooth in his
+head, with a shrewd though angry expression, standing near the first
+speaker, interrupted him. Evidently accustomed to managing debates and
+to maintaining an argument, he began in low but distinct tones:
+
+"I imagine, sir," said he, mumbling with his toothless mouth, "that we
+have been summoned here not to discuss whether it's best for the empire
+at the present moment to adopt conscription or to call out the militia.
+We have been summoned to reply to the appeal with which our sovereign
+the Emperor has honored us. But to judge what is best—conscription or
+the militia—we can leave to the supreme authority...."
+
+Pierre suddenly saw an outlet for his excitement. He hardened his heart
+against the senator who was introducing this set and narrow attitude
+into the deliberations of the nobility. Pierre stepped forward and
+interrupted him. He himself did not yet know what he would say, but he
+began to speak eagerly, occasionally lapsing into French or expressing
+himself in bookish Russian.
+
+"Excuse me, your excellency," he began. (He was well acquainted with the
+senator, but thought it necessary on this occasion to address him
+formally.) "Though I don't agree with the gentleman..." (he hesitated:
+he wished to say, "Mon tres honorable preopinant"—"My very honorable
+opponent") "with the gentleman... whom I have not the honor of knowing,
+I suppose that the nobility have been summoned not merely to express
+their sympathy and enthusiasm but also to consider the means by which we
+can assist our Fatherland! I imagine," he went on, warming to his
+subject, "that the Emperor himself would not be satisfied to find in us
+merely owners of serfs whom we are willing to devote to his service, and
+chair a canon * we are ready to make of ourselves—and not to obtain from
+us any co-co-counsel."
+
+* "Food for cannon."
+
+Many persons withdrew from the circle, noticing the senator's sarcastic
+smile and the freedom of Pierre's remarks. Only Count Rostóv was pleased
+with them as he had been pleased with those of the naval officer, the
+senator, and in general with whatever speech he had last heard.
+
+"I think that before discussing these questions," Pierre continued, "we
+should ask the Emperor—most respectfully ask His Majesty—to let us know
+the number of our troops and the position in which our army and our
+forces now are, and then..."
+
+But scarcely had Pierre uttered these words before he was attacked from
+three sides. The most vigorous attack came from an old acquaintance, a
+boston player who had always been well disposed toward him, Stepan
+Stepanovich Adraksin. Adraksin was in uniform, and whether as a result
+of the uniform or from some other cause Pierre saw before him quite a
+different man. With a sudden expression of malevolence on his aged face,
+Adraksin shouted at Pierre:
+
+"In the first place, I tell you we have no right to question the Emperor
+about that, and secondly, if the Russian nobility had that right, the
+Emperor could not answer such a question. The troops are moved according
+to the enemy's movements and the number of men increases and
+decreases..."
+
+Another voice, that of a nobleman of medium height and about forty years
+of age, whom Pierre had formerly met at the gypsies' and knew as a bad
+cardplayer, and who, also transformed by his uniform, came up to Pierre,
+interrupted Adraksin.
+
+"Yes, and this is not a time for discussing," he continued, "but for
+acting: there is war in Russia! The enemy is advancing to destroy
+Russia, to desecrate the tombs of our fathers, to carry off our wives
+and children." The nobleman smote his breast. "We will all arise,
+everyone of us will go, for our father the Tsar!" he shouted, rolling
+his bloodshot eyes. Several approving voices were heard in the crowd.
+"We are Russians and will not grudge our blood in defense of our faith,
+the throne, and the Fatherland! We must cease raving if we are sons of
+our Fatherland! We will show Europe how Russia rises to the defense of
+Russia!"
+
+Pierre wished to reply, but could not get in a word. He felt that his
+words, apart from what meaning they conveyed, were less audible than the
+sound of his opponent's voice.
+
+Count Rostóv at the back of the crowd was expressing approval; several
+persons, briskly turning a shoulder to the orator at the end of a
+phrase, said:
+
+"That's right, quite right! Just so!"
+
+Pierre wished to say that he was ready to sacrifice his money, his
+serfs, or himself, only one ought to know the state of affairs in order
+to be able to improve it, but he was unable to speak. Many voices
+shouted and talked at the same time, so that Count Rostóv had not time
+to signify his approval of them all, and the group increased, dispersed,
+re-formed, and then moved with a hum of talk into the largest hall and
+to the big table. Not only was Pierre's attempt to speak unsuccessful,
+but he was rudely interrupted, pushed aside, and people turned away from
+him as from a common enemy. This happened not because they were
+displeased by the substance of his speech, which had even been forgotten
+after the many subsequent speeches, but to animate it the crowd needed a
+tangible object to love and a tangible object to hate. Pierre became the
+latter. Many other orators spoke after the excited nobleman, and all in
+the same tone. Many spoke eloquently and with originality.
+
+Glinka, the editor of the Russian Messenger, who was recognized (cries
+of "author! author!" were heard in the crowd), said that "hell must be
+repulsed by hell," and that he had seen a child smiling at lightning
+flashes and thunderclaps, but "we will not be that child."
+
+"Yes, yes, at thunderclaps!" was repeated approvingly in the back rows
+of the crowd.
+
+The crowd drew up to the large table, at which sat gray-haired or bald
+seventy-year-old magnates, uniformed and besashed almost all of whom
+Pierre had seen in their own homes with their buffoons, or playing
+boston at the clubs. With an incessant hum of voices the crowd advanced
+to the table. Pressed by the throng against the high backs of the
+chairs, the orators spoke one after another and sometimes two together.
+Those standing behind noticed what a speaker omitted to say and hastened
+to supply it. Others in that heat and crush racked their brains to find
+some thought and hastened to utter it. The old magnates, whom Pierre
+knew, sat and turned to look first at one and then at another, and their
+faces for the most part only expressed the fact that they found it very
+hot. Pierre, however, felt excited, and the general desire to show that
+they were ready to go to all lengths—which found expression in the tones
+and looks more than in the substance of the speeches—infected him too.
+He did not renounce his opinions, but felt himself in some way to blame
+and wished to justify himself.
+
+"I only said that it would be more to the purpose to make sacrifices
+when we know what is needed!" said he, trying to be heard above the
+other voices.
+
+One of the old men nearest to him looked round, but his attention was
+immediately diverted by an exclamation at the other side of the table.
+
+"Yes, Moscow will be surrendered! She will be our expiation!" shouted
+one man.
+
+"He is the enemy of mankind!" cried another. "Allow me to speak...."
+"Gentlemen, you are crushing me!..."
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+At that moment Count Rostopchin with his protruding chin and alert eyes,
+wearing the uniform of a general with sash over his shoulder, entered
+the room, stepping briskly to the front of the crowd of gentry.
+
+"Our sovereign the Emperor will be here in a moment," said Rostopchin.
+"I am straight from the palace. Seeing the position we are in, I think
+there is little need for discussion. The Emperor has deigned to summon
+us and the merchants. Millions will pour forth from there"—he pointed to
+the merchants' hall—"but our business is to supply men and not spare
+ourselves... That is the least we can do!"
+
+A conference took place confined to the magnates sitting at the table.
+The whole consultation passed more than quietly. After all the preceding
+noise the sound of their old voices saying one after another, "I agree,"
+or for variety, "I too am of that opinion," and so on had even a
+mournful effect.
+
+The secretary was told to write down the resolution of the Moscow
+nobility and gentry, that they would furnish ten men, fully equipped,
+out of every thousand serfs, as the Smolensk gentry had done. Their
+chairs made a scraping noise as the gentlemen who had conferred rose
+with apparent relief, and began walking up and down, arm in arm, to
+stretch their legs and converse in couples.
+
+"The Emperor! The Emperor!" a sudden cry resounded through the halls and
+the whole throng hurried to the entrance.
+
+The Emperor entered the hall through a broad path between two lines of
+nobles. Every face expressed respectful, awe-struck curiosity. Pierre
+stood rather far off and could not hear all that the Emperor said. From
+what he did hear he understood that the Emperor spoke of the danger
+threatening the empire and of the hopes he placed on the Moscow
+nobility. He was answered by a voice which informed him of the
+resolution just arrived at.
+
+"Gentlemen!" said the Emperor with a quivering voice.
+
+There was a rustling among the crowd and it again subsided, so that
+Pierre distinctly heard the pleasantly human voice of the Emperor saying
+with emotion:
+
+"I never doubted the devotion of the Russian nobles, but today it has
+surpassed my expectations. I thank you in the name of the Fatherland!
+Gentlemen, let us act! Time is most precious..."
+
+The Emperor ceased speaking, the crowd began pressing round him, and
+rapturous exclamations were heard from all sides.
+
+"Yes, most precious... a royal word," said Count Rostóv, with a sob. He
+stood at the back, and, though he had heard hardly anything, understood
+everything in his own way.
+
+From the hall of the nobility the Emperor went to that of the merchants.
+There he remained about ten minutes. Pierre was among those who saw him
+come out from the merchants' hall with tears of emotion in his eyes. As
+became known later, he had scarcely begun to address the merchants
+before tears gushed from his eyes and he concluded in a trembling voice.
+When Pierre saw the Emperor he was coming out accompanied by two
+merchants, one of whom Pierre knew, a fat otkupshchik. The other was the
+mayor, a man with a thin sallow face and narrow beard. Both were
+weeping. Tears filled the thin man's eyes, and the fat otkupshchik
+sobbed outright like a child and kept repeating:
+
+"Our lives and property—take them, Your Majesty!"
+
+Pierre's one feeling at the moment was a desire to show that he was
+ready to go all lengths and was prepared to sacrifice everything. He now
+felt ashamed of his speech with its constitutional tendency and sought
+an opportunity of effacing it. Having heard that Count Mamonov was
+furnishing a regiment, Bezúkhov at once informed Rostopchin that he
+would give a thousand men and their maintenance.
+
+Old Rostóv could not tell his wife of what had passed without tears, and
+at once consented to Pétya's request and went himself to enter his name.
+
+Next day the Emperor left Moscow. The assembled nobles all took off
+their uniforms and settled down again in their homes and clubs, and not
+without some groans gave orders to their stewards about the enrollment,
+feeling amazed themselves at what they had done.
+
+
+
+
+
+BOOK TEN: 1812
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+Napoleon began the war with Russia because he could not resist going to
+Dresden, could not help having his head turned by the homage he
+received, could not help donning a Polish uniform and yielding to the
+stimulating influence of a June morning, and could not refrain from
+bursts of anger in the presence of Kurakin and then of Balashev.
+
+Alexander refused negotiations because he felt himself to be personally
+insulted. Barclay de Tolly tried to command the army in the best way,
+because he wished to fulfill his duty and earn fame as a great
+commander. Rostóv charged the French because he could not restrain his
+wish for a gallop across a level field; and in the same way the
+innumerable people who took part in the war acted in accord with their
+personal characteristics, habits, circumstances, and aims. They were
+moved by fear or vanity, rejoiced or were indignant, reasoned, imagining
+that they knew what they were doing and did it of their own free will,
+but they all were involuntary tools of history, carrying on a work
+concealed from them but comprehensible to us. Such is the inevitable
+fate of men of action, and the higher they stand in the social hierarchy
+the less are they free.
+
+The actors of 1812 have long since left the stage, their personal
+interests have vanished leaving no trace, and nothing remains of that
+time but its historic results.
+
+Providence compelled all these men, striving to attain personal aims, to
+further the accomplishment of a stupendous result no one of them at all
+expected—neither Napoleon, nor Alexander, nor still less any of those
+who did the actual fighting.
+
+The cause of the destruction of the French army in 1812 is clear to us
+now. No one will deny that that cause was, on the one hand, its advance
+into the heart of Russia late in the season without any preparation for
+a winter campaign and, on the other, the character given to the war by
+the burning of Russian towns and the hatred of the foe this aroused
+among the Russian people. But no one at the time foresaw (what now seems
+so evident) that this was the only way an army of eight hundred thousand
+men—the best in the world and led by the best general—could be destroyed
+in conflict with a raw army of half its numerical strength, and led by
+inexperienced commanders as the Russian army was. Not only did no one
+see this, but on the Russian side every effort was made to hinder the
+only thing that could save Russia, while on the French side, despite
+Napoleon's experience and so-called military genius, every effort was
+directed to pushing on to Moscow at the end of the summer, that is, to
+doing the very thing that was bound to lead to destruction.
+
+In historical works on the year 1812 French writers are very fond of
+saying that Napoleon felt the danger of extending his line, that he
+sought a battle and that his marshals advised him to stop at Smolensk,
+and of making similar statements to show that the danger of the campaign
+was even then understood. Russian authors are still fonder of telling us
+that from the commencement of the campaign a Scythian war plan was
+adopted to lure Napoleon into the depths of Russia, and this plan some
+of them attribute to Pfuel, others to a certain Frenchman, others to
+Toll, and others again to Alexander himself—pointing to notes, projects,
+and letters which contain hints of such a line of action. But all these
+hints at what happened, both from the French side and the Russian, are
+advanced only because they fit in with the event. Had that event not
+occurred these hints would have been forgotten, as we have forgotten the
+thousands and millions of hints and expectations to the contrary which
+were current then but have now been forgotten because the event
+falsified them. There are always so many conjectures as to the issue of
+any event that however it may end there will always be people to say: "I
+said then that it would be so," quite forgetting that amid their
+innumerable conjectures many were to quite the contrary effect.
+
+Conjectures as to Napoleon's awareness of the danger of extending his
+line, and (on the Russian side) as to luring the enemy into the depths
+of Russia, are evidently of that kind, and only by much straining can
+historians attribute such conceptions to Napoleon and his marshals, or
+such plans to the Russian commanders. All the facts are in flat
+contradiction to such conjectures. During the whole period of the war
+not only was there no wish on the Russian side to draw the French into
+the heart of the country, but from their first entry into Russia
+everything was done to stop them. And not only was Napoleon not afraid
+to extend his line, but he welcomed every step forward as a triumph and
+did not seek battle as eagerly as in former campaigns, but very lazily.
+
+At the very beginning of the war our armies were divided, and our sole
+aim was to unite them, though uniting the armies was no advantage if we
+meant to retire and lure the enemy into the depths of the country. Our
+Emperor joined the army to encourage it to defend every inch of Russian
+soil and not to retreat. The enormous Drissa camp was formed on Pfuel's
+plan, and there was no intention of retiring farther. The Emperor
+reproached the commanders in chief for every step they retired. He could
+not bear the idea of letting the enemy even reach Smolensk, still less
+could he contemplate the burning of Moscow, and when our armies did
+unite he was displeased that Smolensk was abandoned and burned without a
+general engagement having been fought under its walls.
+
+So thought the Emperor, and the Russian commanders and people were still
+more provoked at the thought that our forces were retreating into the
+depths of the country.
+
+Napoleon having cut our armies apart advanced far into the country and
+missed several chances of forcing an engagement. In August he was at
+Smolensk and thought only of how to advance farther, though as we now
+see that advance was evidently ruinous to him.
+
+The facts clearly show that Napoleon did not foresee the danger of the
+advance on Moscow, nor did Alexander and the Russian commanders then
+think of luring Napoleon on, but quite the contrary. The luring of
+Napoleon into the depths of the country was not the result of any plan,
+for no one believed it to be possible; it resulted from a most complex
+interplay of intrigues, aims, and wishes among those who took part in
+the war and had no perception whatever of the inevitable, or of the one
+way of saving Russia. Everything came about fortuitously. The armies
+were divided at the commencement of the campaign. We tried to unite
+them, with the evident intention of giving battle and checking the
+enemy's advance, and by this effort to unite them while avoiding battle
+with a much stronger enemy, and necessarily withdrawing the armies at an
+acute angle—we led the French on to Smolensk. But we withdrew at an
+acute angle not only because the French advanced between our two armies;
+the angle became still more acute and we withdrew still farther, because
+Barclay de Tolly was an unpopular foreigner disliked by Bagration (who
+would come under his command), and Bagration—being in command of the
+second army—tried to postpone joining up and coming under Barclay's
+command as long as he could. Bagration was slow in effecting the
+junction—though that was the chief aim of all at headquarters—because,
+as he alleged, he exposed his army to danger on this march, and it was
+best for him to retire more to the left and more to the south, worrying
+the enemy from flank and rear and securing from the Ukraine recruits for
+his army; and it looks as if he planned this in order not to come under
+the command of the detested foreigner Barclay, whose rank was inferior
+to his own.
+
+The Emperor was with the army to encourage it, but his presence and
+ignorance of what steps to take, and the enormous number of advisers and
+plans, destroyed the first army's energy and it retired.
+
+The intention was to make a stand at the Drissa camp, but Paulucci,
+aiming at becoming commander-in-chief, unexpectedly employed his energy
+to influence Alexander, and Pfuel's whole plan was abandoned and the
+command entrusted to Barclay. But as Barclay did not inspire confidence
+his power was limited. The armies were divided, there was no unity of
+command, and Barclay was unpopular; but from this confusion, division,
+and the unpopularity of the foreign commander-in-chief, there resulted
+on the one hand indecision and the avoidance of a battle (which we could
+not have refrained from had the armies been united and had someone else,
+instead of Barclay, been in command) and on the other an ever-increasing
+indignation against the foreigners and an increase in patriotic zeal.
+
+At last the Emperor left the army, and as the most convenient and indeed
+the only pretext for his departure it was decided that it was necessary
+for him to inspire the people in the capitals and arouse the nation in
+general to a patriotic war. And by this visit of the Emperor to Moscow
+the strength of the Russian army was trebled.
+
+He left in order not to obstruct the commander-in-chief's undivided
+control of the army, and hoping that more decisive action would then be
+taken, but the command of the armies became still more confused and
+enfeebled. Bennigsen, the Tsarevich, and a swarm of adjutants general
+remained with the army to keep the commander-in-chief under observation
+and arouse his energy, and Barclay, feeling less free than ever under
+the observation of all these "eyes of the Emperor," became still more
+cautious of undertaking any decisive action and avoided giving battle.
+
+Barclay stood for caution. The Tsarevich hinted at treachery and
+demanded a general engagement. Lubomirski, Bronnitski, Wlocki, and the
+others of that group stirred up so much trouble that Barclay, under
+pretext of sending papers to the Emperor, dispatched these Polish
+adjutants general to Petersburg and plunged into an open struggle with
+Bennigsen and the Tsarevich.
+
+At Smolensk the armies at last reunited, much as Bagration disliked it.
+
+Bagration drove up in a carriage to the house occupied by Barclay.
+Barclay donned his sash and came out to meet and report to his senior
+officer Bagration.
+
+Despite his seniority in rank Bagration, in this contest of magnanimity,
+took his orders from Barclay, but, having submitted, agreed with him
+less than ever. By the Emperor's orders Bagration reported direct to
+him. He wrote to Arakcheev, the Emperor's confidant: "It must be as my
+sovereign pleases, but I cannot work with the Minister (meaning
+Barclay). For God's sake send me somewhere else if only in command of a
+regiment. I cannot stand it here. Headquarters are so full of Germans
+that a Russian cannot exist and there is no sense in anything. I thought
+I was really serving my sovereign and the Fatherland, but it turns out
+that I am serving Barclay. I confess I do not want to."
+
+The swarm of Bronnitskis and Wintzingerodes and their like still further
+embittered the relations between the commanders in chief, and even less
+unity resulted. Preparations were made to fight the French before
+Smolensk. A general was sent to survey the position. This general,
+hating Barclay, rode to visit a friend of his own, a corps commander,
+and, having spent the day with him, returned to Barclay and condemned,
+as unsuitable from every point of view, the battleground he had not
+seen.
+
+While disputes and intrigues were going on about the future field of
+battle, and while we were looking for the French—having lost touch with
+them—the French stumbled upon Neverovski's division and reached the
+walls of Smolensk.
+
+It was necessary to fight an unexpected battle at Smolensk to save our
+lines of communication. The battle was fought and thousands were killed
+on both sides.
+
+Smolensk was abandoned contrary to the wishes of the Emperor and of the
+whole people. But Smolensk was burned by its own inhabitants-who had
+been misled by their governor. And these ruined inhabitants, setting an
+example to other Russians, went to Moscow thinking only of their own
+losses but kindling hatred of the foe. Napoleon advanced farther and we
+retired, thus arriving at the very result which caused his destruction.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+The day after his son had left, Prince Nicholas sent for Princess Mary
+to come to his study.
+
+"Well? Are you satisfied now?" said he. "You've made me quarrel with my
+son! Satisfied, are you? That's all you wanted! Satisfied?... It hurts
+me, it hurts. I'm old and weak and this is what you wanted. Well then,
+gloat over it! Gloat over it!"
+
+After that Princess Mary did not see her father for a whole week. He was
+ill and did not leave his study.
+
+Princess Mary noticed to her surprise that during this illness the old
+prince not only excluded her from his room, but did not admit
+Mademoiselle Bourienne either. Tíkhon alone attended him.
+
+At the end of the week the prince reappeared and resumed his former way
+of life, devoting himself with special activity to building operations
+and the arrangement of the gardens and completely breaking off his
+relations with Mademoiselle Bourienne. His looks and cold tone to his
+daughter seemed to say: "There, you see? You plotted against me, you
+lied to Prince Andrew about my relations with that Frenchwoman and made
+me quarrel with him, but you see I need neither her nor you!"
+
+Princess Mary spent half of every day with little Nicholas, watching his
+lessons, teaching him Russian and music herself, and talking to
+Dessalles; the rest of the day she spent over her books, with her old
+nurse, or with "God's folk" who sometimes came by the back door to see
+her.
+
+Of the war Princess Mary thought as women do think about wars. She
+feared for her brother who was in it, was horrified by and amazed at the
+strange cruelty that impels men to kill one another, but she did not
+understand the significance of this war, which seemed to her like all
+previous wars. She did not realize the significance of this war, though
+Dessalles with whom she constantly conversed was passionately interested
+in its progress and tried to explain his own conception of it to her,
+and though the "God's folk" who came to see her reported, in their own
+way, the rumors current among the people of an invasion by Antichrist,
+and though Julie (now Princess Drubetskáya), who had resumed
+correspondence with her, wrote patriotic letters from Moscow.
+
+"I write you in Russian, my good friend," wrote Julie in her Frenchified
+Russian, "because I have a detestation for all the French, and the same
+for their language which I cannot support to hear spoken.... We in
+Moscow are elated by enthusiasm for our adored Emperor.
+
+"My poor husband is enduring pains and hunger in Jewish taverns, but the
+news which I have inspires me yet more.
+
+"You heard probably of the heroic exploit of Raevski, embracing his two
+sons and saying: 'I will perish with them but we will not be shaken!'
+And truly though the enemy was twice stronger than we, we were
+unshakable. We pass the time as we can, but in war as in war! The
+princesses Aline and Sophie sit whole days with me, and we, unhappy
+widows of live men, make beautiful conversations over our 'charpie',
+only you, my friend, are missing..." and so on.
+
+The chief reason Princess Mary did not realize the full significance of
+this war was that the old prince never spoke of it, did not recognize
+it, and laughed at Dessalles when he mentioned it at dinner. The
+prince's tone was so calm and confident that Princess Mary
+unhesitatingly believed him.
+
+All that July the old prince was exceedingly active and even animated.
+He planned another garden and began a new building for the domestic
+serfs. The only thing that made Princess Mary anxious about him was that
+he slept very little and, instead of sleeping in his study as usual,
+changed his sleeping place every day. One day he would order his camp
+bed to be set up in the glass gallery, another day he remained on the
+couch or on the lounge chair in the drawing room and dozed there without
+undressing, while—instead of Mademoiselle Bourienne—a serf boy read to
+him. Then again he would spend a night in the dining room.
+
+On August 1, a second letter was received from Prince Andrew. In his
+first letter which came soon after he had left home, Prince Andrew had
+dutifully asked his father's forgiveness for what he had allowed himself
+to say and begged to be restored to his favor. To this letter the old
+prince had replied affectionately, and from that time had kept the
+Frenchwoman at a distance. Prince Andrew's second letter, written near
+Vitebsk after the French had occupied that town, gave a brief account of
+the whole campaign, enclosed for them a plan he had drawn and forecasts
+as to the further progress of the war. In this letter Prince Andrew
+pointed out to his father the danger of staying at Bald Hills, so near
+the theater of war and on the army's direct line of march, and advised
+him to move to Moscow.
+
+At dinner that day, on Dessalles' mentioning that the French were said
+to have already entered Vitebsk, the old prince remembered his son's
+letter.
+
+"There was a letter from Prince Andrew today," he said to Princess
+Mary—"Haven't you read it?"
+
+"No, Father," she replied in a frightened voice.
+
+She could not have read the letter as she did not even know it had
+arrived.
+
+"He writes about this war," said the prince, with the ironic smile that
+had become habitual to him in speaking of the present war.
+
+"That must be very interesting," said Dessalles. "Prince Andrew is in a
+position to know..."
+
+"Oh, very interesting!" said Mademoiselle Bourienne.
+
+"Go and get it for me," said the old prince to Mademoiselle Bourienne.
+"You know—under the paperweight on the little table."
+
+Mademoiselle Bourienne jumped up eagerly.
+
+"No, don't!" he exclaimed with a frown. "You go, Michael Ivánovich."
+
+Michael Ivánovich rose and went to the study. But as soon as he had left
+the room the old prince, looking uneasily round, threw down his napkin
+and went himself.
+
+"They can't do anything... always make some muddle," he muttered.
+
+While he was away Princess Mary, Dessalles, Mademoiselle Bourienne, and
+even little Nicholas exchanged looks in silence. The old prince returned
+with quick steps, accompanied by Michael Ivánovich, bringing the letter
+and a plan. These he put down beside him—not letting anyone read them at
+dinner.
+
+On moving to the drawing room he handed the letter to Princess Mary and,
+spreading out before him the plan of the new building and fixing his
+eyes upon it, told her to read the letter aloud. When she had done so
+Princess Mary looked inquiringly at her father. He was examining the
+plan, evidently engrossed in his own ideas.
+
+"What do you think of it, Prince?" Dessalles ventured to ask.
+
+"I? I?..." said the prince as if unpleasantly awakened, and not taking
+his eyes from the plan of the building.
+
+"Very possibly the theater of war will move so near to us that..."
+
+"Ha ha ha! The theater of war!" said the prince. "I have said and still
+say that the theater of war is Poland and the enemy will never get
+beyond the Niemen."
+
+Dessalles looked in amazement at the prince, who was talking of the
+Niemen when the enemy was already at the Dnieper, but Princess Mary,
+forgetting the geographical position of the Niemen, thought that what
+her father was saying was correct.
+
+"When the snow melts they'll sink in the Polish swamps. Only they could
+fail to see it," the prince continued, evidently thinking of the
+campaign of 1807 which seemed to him so recent. "Bennigsen should have
+advanced into Prussia sooner, then things would have taken a different
+turn..."
+
+"But, Prince," Dessalles began timidly, "the letter mentions
+Vitebsk...."
+
+"Ah, the letter? Yes..." replied the prince peevishly. "Yes... yes..."
+His face suddenly took on a morose expression. He paused. "Yes, he
+writes that the French were beaten at... at... what river is it?"
+
+Dessalles dropped his eyes.
+
+"The prince says nothing about that," he remarked gently.
+
+"Doesn't he? But I didn't invent it myself."
+
+No one spoke for a long time.
+
+"Yes... yes... Well, Michael Ivánovich," he suddenly went on, raising
+his head and pointing to the plan of the building, "tell me how you mean
+to alter it...."
+
+Michael Ivánovich went up to the plan, and the prince after speaking to
+him about the building looked angrily at Princess Mary and Dessalles and
+went to his own room.
+
+Princess Mary saw Dessalles' embarrassed and astonished look fixed on
+her father, noticed his silence, and was struck by the fact that her
+father had forgotten his son's letter on the drawing room table; but she
+was not only afraid to speak of it and ask Dessalles the reason of his
+confusion and silence, but was afraid even to think about it.
+
+In the evening Michael Ivánovich, sent by the prince, came to Princess
+Mary for Prince Andrew's letter which had been forgotten in the drawing
+room. She gave it to him and, unpleasant as it was to her to do so,
+ventured to ask him what her father was doing.
+
+"Always busy," replied Michael Ivánovich with a respectfully ironic
+smile which caused Princess Mary to turn pale. "He's worrying very much
+about the new building. He has been reading a little, but now"—Michael
+Ivánovich went on, lowering his voice—"now he's at his desk, busy with
+his will, I expect." (One of the prince's favorite occupations of late
+had been the preparation of some papers he meant to leave at his death
+and which he called his "will.")
+
+"And Alpatych is being sent to Smolensk?" asked Princess Mary.
+
+"Oh, yes, he has been waiting to start for some time."
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+When Michael Ivánovich returned to the study with the letter, the old
+prince, with spectacles on and a shade over his eyes, was sitting at his
+open bureau with screened candles, holding a paper in his outstretched
+hand, and in a somewhat dramatic attitude was reading his manuscript—his
+"Remarks" as he termed it—which was to be transmitted to the Emperor
+after his death.
+
+When Michael Ivánovich went in there were tears in the prince's eyes
+evoked by the memory of the time when the paper he was now reading had
+been written. He took the letter from Michael Ivánovich's hand, put it
+in his pocket, folded up his papers, and called in Alpatych who had long
+been waiting.
+
+The prince had a list of things to be bought in Smolensk and, walking up
+and down the room past Alpatych who stood by the door, he gave his
+instructions.
+
+"First, notepaper—do you hear? Eight quires, like this sample, gilt-
+edged... it must be exactly like the sample. Varnish, sealing wax, as in
+Michael Ivánovich's list."
+
+He paced up and down for a while and glanced at his notes.
+
+"Then hand to the governor in person a letter about the deed."
+
+Next, bolts for the doors of the new building were wanted and had to be
+of a special shape the prince had himself designed, and a leather case
+had to be ordered to keep the "will" in.
+
+The instructions to Alpatych took over two hours and still the prince
+did not let him go. He sat down, sank into thought, closed his eyes, and
+dozed off. Alpatych made a slight movement.
+
+"Well, go, go! If anything more is wanted I'll send after you."
+
+Alpatych went out. The prince again went to his bureau, glanced into it,
+fingered his papers, closed the bureau again, and sat down at the table
+to write to the governor.
+
+It was already late when he rose after sealing the letter. He wished to
+sleep, but he knew he would not be able to and that most depressing
+thoughts came to him in bed. So he called Tíkhon and went through the
+rooms with him to show him where to set up the bed for that night.
+
+He went about looking at every corner. Every place seemed
+unsatisfactory, but worst of all was his customary couch in the study.
+That couch was dreadful to him, probably because of the oppressive
+thoughts he had had when lying there. It was unsatisfactory everywhere,
+but the corner behind the piano in the sitting room was better than
+other places: he had never slept there yet.
+
+With the help of a footman Tíkhon brought in the bedstead and began
+putting it up.
+
+"That's not right! That's not right!" cried the prince, and himself
+pushed it a few inches from the corner and then closer in again.
+
+"Well, at last I've finished, now I'll rest," thought the prince, and
+let Tíkhon undress him.
+
+Frowning with vexation at the effort necessary to divest himself of his
+coat and trousers, the prince undressed, sat down heavily on the bed,
+and appeared to be meditating as he looked contemptuously at his
+withered yellow legs. He was not meditating, but only deferring the
+moment of making the effort to lift those legs up and turn over on the
+bed. "Ugh, how hard it is! Oh, that this toil might end and you would
+release me!" thought he. Pressing his lips together he made that effort
+for the twenty-thousandth time and lay down. But hardly had he done so
+before he felt the bed rocking backwards and forwards beneath him as if
+it were breathing heavily and jolting. This happened to him almost every
+night. He opened his eyes as they were closing.
+
+"No peace, damn them!" he muttered, angry he knew not with whom. "Ah
+yes, there was something else important, very important, that I was
+keeping till I should be in bed. The bolts? No, I told him about them.
+No, it was something, something in the drawing room. Princess Mary
+talked some nonsense. Dessalles, that fool, said something. Something in
+my pocket—can't remember..."
+
+"Tíkhon, what did we talk about at dinner?"
+
+"About Prince Michael..."
+
+"Be quiet, quiet!" The prince slapped his hand on the table. "Yes, I
+know, Prince Andrew's letter! Princess Mary read it. Dessalles said
+something about Vitebsk. Now I'll read it."
+
+He had the letter taken from his pocket and the table—on which stood a
+glass of lemonade and a spiral wax candle—moved close to the bed, and
+putting on his spectacles he began reading. Only now in the stillness of
+the night, reading it by the faint light under the green shade, did he
+grasp its meaning for a moment.
+
+"The French at Vitebsk, in four days' march they may be at Smolensk;
+perhaps are already there! Tíkhon!" Tíkhon jumped up. "No, no, I don't
+want anything!" he shouted.
+
+He put the letter under the candlestick and closed his eyes. And there
+rose before him the Danube at bright noonday: reeds, the Russian camp,
+and himself a young general without a wrinkle on his ruddy face,
+vigorous and alert, entering Potëmkin's gaily colored tent, and a
+burning sense of jealousy of "the favorite" agitated him now as strongly
+as it had done then. He recalled all the words spoken at that first
+meeting with Potëmkin. And he saw before him a plump, rather sallow-
+faced, short, stout woman, the Empress Mother, with her smile and her
+words at her first gracious reception of him, and then that same face on
+the catafalque, and the encounter he had with Zubov over her coffin
+about his right to kiss her hand.
+
+"Oh, quicker, quicker! To get back to that time and have done with all
+the present! Quicker, quicker—and that they should leave me in peace!"
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+Bald Hills, Prince Nicholas Bolkónski's estate, lay forty miles east
+from Smolensk and two miles from the main road to Moscow.
+
+The same evening that the prince gave his instructions to Alpatych,
+Dessalles, having asked to see Princess Mary, told her that, as the
+prince was not very well and was taking no steps to secure his safety,
+though from Prince Andrew's letter it was evident that to remain at Bald
+Hills might be dangerous, he respectfully advised her to send a letter
+by Alpatych to the Provincial Governor at Smolensk, asking him to let
+her know the state of affairs and the extent of the danger to which Bald
+Hills was exposed. Dessalles wrote this letter to the Governor for
+Princess Mary, she signed it, and it was given to Alpatych with
+instructions to hand it to the Governor and to come back as quickly as
+possible if there was danger.
+
+Having received all his orders Alpatych, wearing a white beaver hat—a
+present from the prince—and carrying a stick as the prince did, went out
+accompanied by his family. Three well-fed roans stood ready harnessed to
+a small conveyance with a leather hood.
+
+The larger bell was muffled and the little bells on the harness stuffed
+with paper. The prince allowed no one at Bald Hills to drive with
+ringing bells; but on a long journey Alpatych liked to have them. His
+satellites—the senior clerk, a countinghouse clerk, a scullery maid, a
+cook, two old women, a little pageboy, the coachman, and various
+domestic serfs—were seeing him off.
+
+His daughter placed chintz-covered down cushions for him to sit on and
+behind his back. His old sister-in-law popped in a small bundle, and one
+of the coachmen helped him into the vehicle.
+
+"There! There! Women's fuss! Women, women!" said Alpatych, puffing and
+speaking rapidly just as the prince did, and he climbed into the trap.
+
+After giving the clerk orders about the work to be done, Alpatych, not
+trying to imitate the prince now, lifted the hat from his bald head and
+crossed himself three times.
+
+"If there is anything... come back, Yakov Alpatych! For Christ's sake
+think of us!" cried his wife, referring to the rumors of war and the
+enemy.
+
+"Women, women! Women's fuss!" muttered Alpatych to himself and started
+on his journey, looking round at the fields of yellow rye and the still-
+green, thickly growing oats, and at other quite black fields just being
+plowed a second time.
+
+As he went along he looked with pleasure at the year's splendid crop of
+corn, scrutinized the strips of ryefield which here and there were
+already being reaped, made his calculations as to the sowing and the
+harvest, and asked himself whether he had not forgotten any of the
+prince's orders.
+
+Having baited the horses twice on the way, he arrived at the town toward
+evening on the fourth of August.
+
+Alpatych kept meeting and overtaking baggage trains and troops on the
+road. As he approached Smolensk he heard the sounds of distant firing,
+but these did not impress him. What struck him most was the sight of a
+splendid field of oats in which a camp had been pitched and which was
+being mown down by the soldiers, evidently for fodder. This fact
+impressed Alpatych, but in thinking about his own business he soon
+forgot it.
+
+All the interests of his life for more than thirty years had been
+bounded by the will of the prince, and he never went beyond that limit.
+Everything not connected with the execution of the prince's orders did
+not interest and did not even exist for Alpatych.
+
+On reaching Smolensk on the evening of the fourth of August he put up in
+the Gachina suburb across the Dnieper, at the inn kept by Ferapontov,
+where he had been in the habit of putting up for the last thirty years.
+Some thirty years ago Ferapontov, by Alpatych's advice, had bought a
+wood from the prince, had begun to trade, and now had a house, an inn,
+and a corn dealer's shop in that province. He was a stout, dark, red-
+faced peasant in the forties, with thick lips, a broad knob of a nose,
+similar knobs over his black frowning brows, and a round belly.
+
+Wearing a waistcoat over his cotton shirt, Ferapontov was standing
+before his shop which opened onto the street. On seeing Alpatych he went
+up to him.
+
+"You're welcome, Yakov Alpatych. Folks are leaving the town, but you
+have come to it," said he.
+
+"Why are they leaving the town?" asked Alpatych.
+
+"That's what I say. Folks are foolish! Always afraid of the French."
+
+"Women's fuss, women's fuss!" said Alpatych.
+
+"Just what I think, Yakov Alpatych. What I say is: orders have been
+given not to let them in, so that must be right. And the peasants are
+asking three rubles for carting—it isn't Christian!"
+
+Yakov Alpatych heard without heeding. He asked for a samovar and for hay
+for his horses, and when he had had his tea he went to bed.
+
+All night long troops were moving past the inn. Next morning Alpatych
+donned a jacket he wore only in town and went out on business. It was a
+sunny morning and by eight o'clock it was already hot. "A good day for
+harvesting," thought Alpatych.
+
+From beyond the town firing had been heard since early morning. At eight
+o'clock the booming of cannon was added to the sound of musketry. Many
+people were hurrying through the streets and there were many soldiers,
+but cabs were still driving about, tradesmen stood at their shops, and
+service was being held in the churches as usual. Alpatych went to the
+shops, to government offices, to the post office, and to the Governor's.
+In the offices and shops and at the post office everyone was talking
+about the army and about the enemy who was already attacking the town,
+everybody was asking what should be done, and all were trying to calm
+one another.
+
+In front of the Governor's house Alpatych found a large number of
+people, Cossacks, and a traveling carriage of the Governor's. At the
+porch he met two of the landed gentry, one of whom he knew. This man, an
+ex-captain of police, was saying angrily:
+
+"It's no joke, you know! It's all very well if you're single. 'One man
+though undone is but one,' as the proverb says, but with thirteen in
+your family and all the property... They've brought us to utter ruin!
+What sort of governors are they to do that? They ought to be hanged—the
+brigands!..."
+
+"Oh come, that's enough!" said the other.
+
+"What do I care? Let him hear! We're not dogs," said the ex-captain of
+police, and looking round he noticed Alpatych.
+
+"Oh, Yakov Alpatych! What have you come for?"
+
+"To see the Governor by his excellency's order," answered Alpatych,
+lifting his head and proudly thrusting his hand into the bosom of his
+coat as he always did when he mentioned the prince.... "He has ordered
+me to inquire into the position of affairs," he added.
+
+"Yes, go and find out!" shouted the angry gentleman. "They've brought
+things to such a pass that there are no carts or anything!... There it
+is again, do you hear?" said he, pointing in the direction whence came
+the sounds of firing.
+
+"They've brought us all to ruin... the brigands!" he repeated, and
+descended the porch steps.
+
+Alpatych swayed his head and went upstairs. In the waiting room were
+tradesmen, women, and officials, looking silently at one another. The
+door of the Governor's room opened and they all rose and moved forward.
+An official ran out, said some words to a merchant, called a stout
+official with a cross hanging on his neck to follow him, and vanished
+again, evidently wishing to avoid the inquiring looks and questions
+addressed to him. Alpatych moved forward and next time the official came
+out addressed him, one hand placed in the breast of his buttoned coat,
+and handed him two letters.
+
+"To his Honor Baron Asch, from General-in-Chief Prince Bolkónski," he
+announced with such solemnity and significance that the official turned
+to him and took the letters.
+
+A few minutes later the Governor received Alpatych and hurriedly said to
+him:
+
+"Inform the prince and princess that I knew nothing: I acted on the
+highest instructions—here..." and he handed a paper to Alpatych. "Still,
+as the prince is unwell my advice is that they should go to Moscow. I am
+just starting myself. Inform them..."
+
+But the Governor did not finish: a dusty perspiring officer ran into the
+room and began to say something in French. The Governor's face expressed
+terror.
+
+"Go," he said, nodding his head to Alpatych, and began questioning the
+officer.
+
+Eager, frightened, helpless glances were turned on Alpatych when he came
+out of the Governor's room. Involuntarily listening now to the firing,
+which had drawn nearer and was increasing in strength, Alpatych hurried
+to his inn. The paper handed to him by the Governor said this:
+
+"I assure you that the town of Smolensk is not in the slightest danger
+as yet and it is unlikely that it will be threatened with any. I from
+the one side and Prince Bagration from the other are marching to unite
+our forces before Smolensk, which junction will be effected on the 22nd
+instant, and both armies with their united forces will defend our
+compatriots of the province entrusted to your care till our efforts
+shall have beaten back the enemies of our Fatherland, or till the last
+warrior in our valiant ranks has perished. From this you will see that
+you have a perfect right to reassure the inhabitants of Smolensk, for
+those defended by two such brave armies may feel assured of victory."
+(Instructions from Barclay de Tolly to Baron Asch, the civil governor of
+Smolensk, 1812.)
+
+People were anxiously roaming about the streets.
+
+Carts piled high with household utensils, chairs, and cupboards kept
+emerging from the gates of the yards and moving along the streets.
+Loaded carts stood at the house next to Ferapontov's and women were
+wailing and lamenting as they said good-by. A small watchdog ran round
+barking in front of the harnessed horses.
+
+Alpatych entered the innyard at a quicker pace than usual and went
+straight to the shed where his horses and trap were. The coachman was
+asleep. He woke him up, told him to harness, and went into the passage.
+From the host's room came the sounds of a child crying, the despairing
+sobs of a woman, and the hoarse angry shouting of Ferapontov. The cook
+began running hither and thither in the passage like a frightened hen,
+just as Alpatych entered.
+
+"He's done her to death. Killed the mistress!... Beat her... dragged her
+about so!..."
+
+"What for?" asked Alpatych.
+
+"She kept begging to go away. She's a woman! 'Take me away,' says she,
+'don't let me perish with my little children! Folks,' she says, 'are all
+gone, so why,' she says, 'don't we go?' And he began beating and pulling
+her about so!"
+
+At these words Alpatych nodded as if in approval, and not wishing to
+hear more went to the door of the room opposite the innkeeper's, where
+he had left his purchases.
+
+"You brute, you murderer!" screamed a thin, pale woman who, with a baby
+in her arms and her kerchief torn from her head, burst through the door
+at that moment and down the steps into the yard.
+
+Ferapontov came out after her, but on seeing Alpatych adjusted his
+waistcoat, smoothed his hair, yawned, and followed Alpatych into the
+opposite room.
+
+"Going already?" said he.
+
+Alpatych, without answering or looking at his host, sorted his packages
+and asked how much he owed.
+
+"We'll reckon up! Well, have you been to the Governor's?" asked
+Ferapontov. "What has been decided?"
+
+Alpatych replied that the Governor had not told him anything definite.
+
+"With our business, how can we get away?" said Ferapontov. "We'd have to
+pay seven rubles a cartload to Dorogobuzh and I tell them they're not
+Christians to ask it! Selivanov, now, did a good stroke last
+Thursday—sold flour to the army at nine rubles a sack. Will you have
+some tea?" he added.
+
+While the horses were being harnessed Alpatych and Ferapontov over their
+tea talked of the price of corn, the crops, and the good weather for
+harvesting.
+
+"Well, it seems to be getting quieter," remarked Ferapontov, finishing
+his third cup of tea and getting up. "Ours must have got the best of it.
+The orders were not to let them in. So we're in force, it seems.... They
+say the other day Matthew Ivanych Platov drove them into the river
+Marina and drowned some eighteen thousand in one day."
+
+Alpatych collected his parcels, handed them to the coachman who had come
+in, and settled up with the innkeeper. The noise of wheels, hoofs, and
+bells was heard from the gateway as a little trap passed out.
+
+It was by now late in the afternoon. Half the street was in shadow, the
+other half brightly lit by the sun. Alpatych looked out of the window
+and went to the door. Suddenly the strange sound of a far-off whistling
+and thud was heard, followed by a boom of cannon blending into a dull
+roar that set the windows rattling.
+
+He went out into the street: two men were running past toward the
+bridge. From different sides came whistling sounds and the thud of
+cannon balls and bursting shells falling on the town. But these sounds
+were hardly heard in comparison with the noise of the firing outside the
+town and attracted little attention from the inhabitants. The town was
+being bombarded by a hundred and thirty guns which Napoleon had ordered
+up after four o'clock. The people did not at once realize the meaning of
+this bombardment.
+
+At first the noise of the falling bombs and shells only aroused
+curiosity. Ferapontov's wife, who till then had not ceased wailing under
+the shed, became quiet and with the baby in her arms went to the gate,
+listening to the sounds and looking in silence at the people.
+
+The cook and a shop assistant came to the gate. With lively curiosity
+everyone tried to get a glimpse of the projectiles as they flew over
+their heads. Several people came round the corner talking eagerly.
+
+"What force!" remarked one. "Knocked the roof and ceiling all to
+splinters!"
+
+"Routed up the earth like a pig," said another.
+
+"That's grand, it bucks one up!" laughed the first. "Lucky you jumped
+aside, or it would have wiped you out!"
+
+Others joined those men and stopped and told how cannon balls had fallen
+on a house close to them. Meanwhile still more projectiles, now with the
+swift sinister whistle of a cannon ball, now with the agreeable
+intermittent whistle of a shell, flew over people's heads incessantly,
+but not one fell close by, they all flew over. Alpatych was getting into
+his trap. The innkeeper stood at the gate.
+
+"What are you staring at?" he shouted to the cook, who in her red skirt,
+with sleeves rolled up, swinging her bare elbows, had stepped to the
+corner to listen to what was being said.
+
+"What marvels!" she exclaimed, but hearing her master's voice she turned
+back, pulling down her tucked-up skirt.
+
+Once more something whistled, but this time quite close, swooping
+downwards like a little bird; a flame flashed in the middle of the
+street, something exploded, and the street was shrouded in smoke.
+
+"Scoundrel, what are you doing?" shouted the innkeeper, rushing to the
+cook.
+
+At that moment the pitiful wailing of women was heard from different
+sides, the frightened baby began to cry, and people crowded silently
+with pale faces round the cook. The loudest sound in that crowd was her
+wailing.
+
+"Oh-h-h! Dear souls, dear kind souls! Don't let me die! My good
+souls!..."
+
+Five minutes later no one remained in the street. The cook, with her
+thigh broken by a shell splinter, had been carried into the kitchen.
+Alpatych, his coachman, Ferapontov's wife and children and the house
+porter were all sitting in the cellar, listening. The roar of guns, the
+whistling of projectiles, and the piteous moaning of the cook, which
+rose above the other sounds, did not cease for a moment. The mistress
+rocked and hushed her baby and when anyone came into the cellar asked in
+a pathetic whisper what had become of her husband who had remained in
+the street. A shopman who entered told her that her husband had gone
+with others to the cathedral, whence they were fetching the wonder-
+working icon of Smolensk.
+
+Toward dusk the cannonade began to subside. Alpatych left the cellar and
+stopped in the doorway. The evening sky that had been so clear was
+clouded with smoke, through which, high up, the sickle of the new moon
+shone strangely. Now that the terrible din of the guns had ceased a hush
+seemed to reign over the town, broken only by the rustle of footsteps,
+the moaning, the distant cries, and the crackle of fires which seemed
+widespread everywhere. The cook's moans had now subsided. On two sides
+black curling clouds of smoke rose and spread from the fires. Through
+the streets soldiers in various uniforms walked or ran confusedly in
+different directions like ants from a ruined ant-hill. Several of them
+ran into Ferapontov's yard before Alpatych's eyes. Alpatych went out to
+the gate. A retreating regiment, thronging and hurrying, blocked the
+street.
+
+Noticing him, an officer said: "The town is being abandoned. Get away,
+get away!" and then, turning to the soldiers, shouted:
+
+"I'll teach you to run into the yards!"
+
+Alpatych went back to the house, called the coachman, and told him to
+set off. Ferapontov's whole household came out too, following Alpatych
+and the coachman. The women, who had been silent till then, suddenly
+began to wail as they looked at the fires—the smoke and even the flames
+of which could be seen in the failing twilight—and as if in reply the
+same kind of lamentation was heard from other parts of the street.
+Inside the shed Alpatych and the coachman arranged the tangled reins and
+traces of their horses with trembling hands.
+
+As Alpatych was driving out of the gate he saw some ten soldiers in
+Ferapontov's open shop, talking loudly and filling their bags and
+knapsacks with flour and sunflower seeds. Just then Ferapontov returned
+and entered his shop. On seeing the soldiers he was about to shout at
+them, but suddenly stopped and, clutching at his hair, burst into sobs
+and laughter:
+
+"Loot everything, lads! Don't let those devils get it!" he cried, taking
+some bags of flour himself and throwing them into the street.
+
+Some of the soldiers were frightened and ran away, others went on
+filling their bags. On seeing Alpatych, Ferapontov turned to him:
+
+"Russia is done for!" he cried. "Alpatych, I'll set the place on fire
+myself. We're done for!..." and Ferapontov ran into the yard.
+
+Soldiers were passing in a constant stream along the street blocking it
+completely, so that Alpatych could not pass out and had to wait.
+Ferapontov's wife and children were also sitting in a cart waiting till
+it was possible to drive out.
+
+Night had come. There were stars in the sky and the new moon shone out
+amid the smoke that screened it. On the sloping descent to the Dnieper
+Alpatych's cart and that of the innkeeper's wife, which were slowly
+moving amid the rows of soldiers and of other vehicles, had to stop. In
+a side street near the crossroads where the vehicles had stopped, a
+house and some shops were on fire. This fire was already burning itself
+out. The flames now died down and were lost in the black smoke, now
+suddenly flared up again brightly, lighting up with strange distinctness
+the faces of the people crowding at the crossroads. Black figures
+flitted about before the fire, and through the incessant crackling of
+the flames talking and shouting could be heard. Seeing that his trap
+would not be able to move on for some time, Alpatych got down and turned
+into the side street to look at the fire. Soldiers were continually
+rushing backwards and forwards near it, and he saw two of them and a man
+in a frieze coat dragging burning beams into another yard across the
+street, while others carried bundles of hay.
+
+Alpatych went up to a large crowd standing before a high barn which was
+blazing briskly. The walls were all on fire and the back wall had fallen
+in, the wooden roof was collapsing, and the rafters were alight. The
+crowd was evidently watching for the roof to fall in, and Alpatych
+watched for it too.
+
+"Alpatych!" a familiar voice suddenly hailed the old man.
+
+"Mercy on us! Your excellency!" answered Alpatych, immediately
+recognizing the voice of his young prince.
+
+Prince Andrew in his riding cloak, mounted on a black horse, was looking
+at Alpatych from the back of the crowd.
+
+"Why are you here?" he asked.
+
+"Your... your excellency," stammered Alpatych and broke into sobs. "Are
+we really lost? Master!..."
+
+"Why are you here?" Prince Andrew repeated.
+
+At that moment the flames flared up and showed his young master's pale
+worn face. Alpatych told how he had been sent there and how difficult it
+was to get away.
+
+"Are we really quite lost, your excellency?" he asked again.
+
+Prince Andrew without replying took out a notebook and raising his knee
+began writing in pencil on a page he tore out. He wrote to his sister:
+
+"Smolensk is being abandoned. Bald Hills will be occupied by the enemy
+within a week. Set off immediately for Moscow. Let me know at once when
+you will start. Send by special messenger to Usvyazh."
+
+Having written this and given the paper to Alpatych, he told him how to
+arrange for departure of the prince, the princess, his son, and the
+boy's tutor, and how and where to let him know immediately. Before he
+had had time to finish giving these instructions, a chief of staff
+followed by a suite galloped up to him.
+
+"You are a colonel?" shouted the chief of staff with a German accent, in
+a voice familiar to Prince Andrew. "Houses are set on fire in your
+presence and you stand by! What does this mean? You will answer for it!"
+shouted Berg, who was now assistant to the chief of staff of the
+commander of the left flank of the infantry of the first army, a place,
+as Berg said, "very agreeable and well en evidence."
+
+Prince Andrew looked at him and without replying went on speaking to
+Alpatych.
+
+"So tell them that I shall await a reply till the tenth, and if by the
+tenth I don't receive news that they have all got away I shall have to
+throw up everything and come myself to Bald Hills."
+
+"Prince," said Berg, recognizing Prince Andrew, "I only spoke because I
+have to obey orders, because I always do obey exactly.... You must
+please excuse me," he went on apologetically.
+
+Something cracked in the flames. The fire died down for a moment and
+wreaths of black smoke rolled from under the roof. There was another
+terrible crash and something huge collapsed.
+
+"Ou-rou-rou!" yelled the crowd, echoing the crash of the collapsing roof
+of the barn, the burning grain in which diffused a cakelike aroma all
+around. The flames flared up again, lighting the animated, delighted,
+exhausted faces of the spectators.
+
+The man in the frieze coat raised his arms and shouted:
+
+"It's fine, lads! Now it's raging... It's fine!"
+
+"That's the owner himself," cried several voices.
+
+"Well then," continued Prince Andrew to Alpatych, "report to them as I
+have told you"; and not replying a word to Berg who was now mute beside
+him, he touched his horse and rode down the side street.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+From Smolensk the troops continued to retreat, followed by the enemy. On
+the tenth of August the regiment Prince Andrew commanded was marching
+along the highroad past the avenue leading to Bald Hills. Heat and
+drought had continued for more than three weeks. Each day fleecy clouds
+floated across the sky and occasionally veiled the sun, but toward
+evening the sky cleared again and the sun set in reddish-brown mist.
+Heavy night dews alone refreshed the earth. The unreaped corn was
+scorched and shed its grain. The marshes dried up. The cattle lowed from
+hunger, finding no food on the sun-parched meadows. Only at night and in
+the forests while the dew lasted was there any freshness. But on the
+road, the highroad along which the troops marched, there was no such
+freshness even at night or when the road passed through the forest; the
+dew was imperceptible on the sandy dust churned up more than six inches
+deep. As soon as day dawned the march began. The artillery and baggage
+wagons moved noiselessly through the deep dust that rose to the very
+hubs of the wheels, and the infantry sank ankle-deep in that soft,
+choking, hot dust that never cooled even at night. Some of this dust was
+kneaded by the feet and wheels, while the rest rose and hung like a
+cloud over the troops, settling in eyes, ears, hair, and nostrils, and
+worst of all in the lungs of the men and beasts as they moved along that
+road. The higher the sun rose the higher rose that cloud of dust, and
+through the screen of its hot fine particles one could look with naked
+eye at the sun, which showed like a huge crimson ball in the unclouded
+sky. There was no wind, and the men choked in that motionless
+atmosphere. They marched with handkerchiefs tied over their noses and
+mouths. When they passed through a village they all rushed to the wells
+and fought for the water and drank it down to the mud.
+
+Prince Andrew was in command of a regiment, and the management of that
+regiment, the welfare of the men and the necessity of receiving and
+giving orders, engrossed him. The burning of Smolensk and its
+abandonment made an epoch in his life. A novel feeling of anger against
+the foe made him forget his own sorrow. He was entirely devoted to the
+affairs of his regiment and was considerate and kind to his men and
+officers. In the regiment they called him "our prince," were proud of
+him and loved him. But he was kind and gentle only to those of his
+regiment, to Timókhin and the like—people quite new to him, belonging to
+a different world and who could not know and understand his past. As
+soon as he came across a former acquaintance or anyone from the staff,
+he bristled up immediately and grew spiteful, ironical, and
+contemptuous. Everything that reminded him of his past was repugnant to
+him, and so in his relations with that former circle he confined himself
+to trying to do his duty and not to be unfair.
+
+In truth everything presented itself in a dark and gloomy light to
+Prince Andrew, especially after the abandonment of Smolensk on the sixth
+of August (he considered that it could and should have been defended)
+and after his sick father had had to flee to Moscow, abandoning to
+pillage his dearly beloved Bald Hills which he had built and peopled.
+But despite this, thanks to his regiment, Prince Andrew had something to
+think about entirely apart from general questions. Two days previously
+he had received news that his father, son, and sister had left for
+Moscow; and though there was nothing for him to do at Bald Hills, Prince
+Andrew with a characteristic desire to foment his own grief decided that
+he must ride there.
+
+He ordered his horse to be saddled and, leaving his regiment on the
+march, rode to his father's estate where he had been born and spent his
+childhood. Riding past the pond where there used always to be dozens of
+women chattering as they rinsed their linen or beat it with wooden
+beetles, Prince Andrew noticed that there was not a soul about and that
+the little washing wharf, torn from its place and half submerged, was
+floating on its side in the middle of the pond. He rode to the keeper's
+lodge. No one at the stone entrance gates of the drive and the door
+stood open. Grass had already begun to grow on the garden paths, and
+horses and calves were straying in the English park. Prince Andrew rode
+up to the hothouse; some of the glass panes were broken, and of the
+trees in tubs some were overturned and others dried up. He called for
+Tarás the gardener, but no one replied. Having gone round the corner of
+the hothouse to the ornamental garden, he saw that the carved garden
+fence was broken and branches of the plum trees had been torn off with
+the fruit. An old peasant whom Prince Andrew in his childhood had often
+seen at the gate was sitting on a green garden seat, plaiting a bast
+shoe.
+
+He was deaf and did not hear Prince Andrew ride up. He was sitting on
+the seat the old prince used to like to sit on, and beside him strips of
+bast were hanging on the broken and withered branch of a magnolia.
+
+Prince Andrew rode up to the house. Several limes in the old garden had
+been cut down and a piebald mare and her foal were wandering in front of
+the house among the rosebushes. The shutters were all closed, except at
+one window which was open. A little serf boy, seeing Prince Andrew, ran
+into the house. Alpatych, having sent his family away, was alone at Bald
+Hills and was sitting indoors reading the Lives of the Saints. On
+hearing that Prince Andrew had come, he went out with his spectacles on
+his nose, buttoning his coat, and, hastily stepping up, without a word
+began weeping and kissing Prince Andrew's knee.
+
+Then, vexed at his own weakness, he turned away and began to report on
+the position of affairs. Everything precious and valuable had been
+removed to Bogucharovo. Seventy quarters of grain had also been carted
+away. The hay and the spring corn, of which Alpatych said there had been
+a remarkable crop that year, had been commandeered by the troops and
+mown down while still green. The peasants were ruined; some of them too
+had gone to Bogucharovo, only a few remained.
+
+Without waiting to hear him out, Prince Andrew asked:
+
+"When did my father and sister leave?" meaning when did they leave for
+Moscow.
+
+Alpatych, understanding the question to refer to their departure for
+Bogucharovo, replied that they had left on the seventh and again went
+into details concerning the estate management, asking for instructions.
+
+"Am I to let the troops have the oats, and to take a receipt for them?
+We have still six hundred quarters left," he inquired.
+
+"What am I to say to him?" thought Prince Andrew, looking down on the
+old man's bald head shining in the sun and seeing by the expression on
+his face that the old man himself understood how untimely such questions
+were and only asked them to allay his grief.
+
+"Yes, let them have it," replied Prince Andrew.
+
+"If you noticed some disorder in the garden," said Alpatych, "it was
+impossible to prevent it. Three regiments have been here and spent the
+night, dragoons mostly. I took down the name and rank of their
+commanding officer, to hand in a complaint about it."
+
+"Well, and what are you going to do? Will you stay here if the enemy
+occupies the place?" asked Prince Andrew.
+
+Alpatych turned his face to Prince Andrew, looked at him, and suddenly
+with a solemn gesture raised his arm.
+
+"He is my refuge! His will be done!" he exclaimed.
+
+A group of bareheaded peasants was approaching across the meadow toward
+the prince.
+
+"Well, good-by!" said Prince Andrew, bending over to Alpatych. "You must
+go away too, take away what you can and tell the serfs to go to the
+Ryazan estate or to the one near Moscow."
+
+Alpatych clung to Prince Andrew's leg and burst into sobs. Gently
+disengaging himself, the prince spurred his horse and rode down the
+avenue at a gallop.
+
+The old man was still sitting in the ornamental garden, like a fly
+impassive on the face of a loved one who is dead, tapping the last on
+which he was making the bast shoe, and two little girls, running out
+from the hot house carrying in their skirts plums they had plucked from
+the trees there, came upon Prince Andrew. On seeing the young master,
+the elder one with frightened look clutched her younger companion by the
+hand and hid with her behind a birch tree, not stopping to pick up some
+green plums they had dropped.
+
+Prince Andrew turned away with startled haste, unwilling to let them see
+that they had been observed. He was sorry for the pretty frightened
+little girl, was afraid of looking at her, and yet felt an irresistible
+desire to do so. A new sensation of comfort and relief came over him
+when, seeing these girls, he realized the existence of other human
+interests entirely aloof from his own and just as legitimate as those
+that occupied him. Evidently these girls passionately desired one
+thing—to carry away and eat those green plums without being caught—and
+Prince Andrew shared their wish for the success of their enterprise. He
+could not resist looking at them once more. Believing their danger past,
+they sprang from their ambush and, chirruping something in their shrill
+little voices and holding up their skirts, their bare little sunburned
+feet scampered merrily and quickly across the meadow grass.
+
+Prince Andrew was somewhat refreshed by having ridden off the dusty
+highroad along which the troops were moving. But not far from Bald Hills
+he again came out on the road and overtook his regiment at its halting
+place by the dam of a small pond. It was past one o'clock. The sun, a
+red ball through the dust, burned and scorched his back intolerably
+through his black coat. The dust always hung motionless above the buzz
+of talk that came from the resting troops. There was no wind. As he
+crossed the dam Prince Andrew smelled the ooze and freshness of the
+pond. He longed to get into that water, however dirty it might be, and
+he glanced round at the pool from whence came sounds of shrieks and
+laughter. The small, muddy, green pond had risen visibly more than a
+foot, flooding the dam, because it was full of the naked white bodies of
+soldiers with brick-red hands, necks, and faces, who were splashing
+about in it. All this naked white human flesh, laughing and shrieking,
+floundered about in that dirty pool like carp stuffed into a watering
+can, and the suggestion of merriment in that floundering mass rendered
+it specially pathetic.
+
+One fair-haired young soldier of the third company, whom Prince Andrew
+knew and who had a strap round the calf of one leg, crossed himself,
+stepped back to get a good run, and plunged into the water; another, a
+dark noncommissioned officer who was always shaggy, stood up to his
+waist in the water joyfully wriggling his muscular figure and snorted
+with satisfaction as he poured the water over his head with hands
+blackened to the wrists. There were sounds of men slapping one another,
+yelling, and puffing.
+
+Everywhere on the bank, on the dam, and in the pond, there was healthy,
+white, muscular flesh. The officer, Timókhin, with his red little nose,
+standing on the dam wiping himself with a towel, felt confused at seeing
+the prince, but made up his mind to address him nevertheless.
+
+"It's very nice, your excellency! Wouldn't you like to?" said he.
+
+"It's dirty," replied Prince Andrew, making a grimace.
+
+"We'll clear it out for you in a minute," said Timókhin, and, still
+undressed, ran off to clear the men out of the pond.
+
+"The prince wants to bathe."
+
+"What prince? Ours?" said many voices, and the men were in such haste to
+clear out that the prince could hardly stop them. He decided that he
+would rather wash himself with water in the barn.
+
+"Flesh, bodies, cannon fodder!" he thought, and he looked at his own
+naked body and shuddered, not from cold but from a sense of disgust and
+horror he did not himself understand, aroused by the sight of that
+immense number of bodies splashing about in the dirty pond.
+
+On the seventh of August Prince Bagration wrote as follows from his
+quarters at Mikháylovna on the Smolensk road:
+
+Dear Count Alexis Andréevich—(He was writing to Arakcheev but knew that
+his letter would be read by the Emperor, and therefore weighed every
+word in it to the best of his ability.)
+
+I expect the Minister (Barclay de Tolly) has already reported the
+abandonment of Smolensk to the enemy. It is pitiable and sad, and the
+whole army is in despair that this most important place has been
+wantonly abandoned. I, for my part, begged him personally most urgently
+and finally wrote him, but nothing would induce him to consent. I swear
+to you on my honor that Napoleon was in such a fix as never before and
+might have lost half his army but could not have taken Smolensk. Our
+troops fought, and are fighting, as never before. With fifteen thousand
+men I held the enemy at bay for thirty-five hours and beat him; but he
+would not hold out even for fourteen hours. It is disgraceful, a stain
+on our army, and as for him, he ought, it seems to me, not to live. If
+he reports that our losses were great, it is not true; perhaps about
+four thousand, not more, and not even that; but even were they ten
+thousand, that's war! But the enemy has lost masses...
+
+What would it have cost him to hold out for another two days? They would
+have had to retire of their own accord, for they had no water for men or
+horses. He gave me his word he would not retreat, but suddenly sent
+instructions that he was retiring that night. We cannot fight in this
+way, or we may soon bring the enemy to Moscow...
+
+There is a rumor that you are thinking of peace. God forbid that you
+should make peace after all our sacrifices and such insane retreats! You
+would set all Russia against you and everyone of us would feel ashamed
+to wear the uniform. If it has come to this—we must fight as long as
+Russia can and as long as there are men able to stand...
+
+One man ought to be in command, and not two. Your Minister may perhaps
+be good as a Minister, but as a general he is not merely bad but
+execrable, yet to him is entrusted the fate of our whole country.... I
+am really frantic with vexation; forgive my writing boldly. It is clear
+that the man who advocates the conclusion of a peace, and that the
+Minister should command the army, does not love our sovereign and
+desires the ruin of us all. So I write you frankly: call out the
+militia. For the Minister is leading these visitors after him to Moscow
+in a most masterly way. The whole army feels great suspicion of the
+Imperial aide-de-camp Wolzogen. He is said to be more Napoleon's man
+than ours, and he is always advising the Minister. I am not merely civil
+to him but obey him like a corporal, though I am his senior. This is
+painful, but, loving my benefactor and sovereign, I submit. Only I am
+sorry for the Emperor that he entrusts our fine army to such as he.
+Consider that on our retreat we have lost by fatigue and left in the
+hospital more than fifteen thousand men, and had we attacked this would
+not have happened. Tell me, for God's sake, what will Russia, our mother
+Russia, say to our being so frightened, and why are we abandoning our
+good and gallant Fatherland to such rabble and implanting feelings of
+hatred and shame in all our subjects? What are we scared at and of whom
+are we afraid? I am not to blame that the Minister is vacillating, a
+coward, dense, dilatory, and has all bad qualities. The whole army
+bewails it and calls down curses upon him...
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+Among the innumerable categories applicable to the phenomena of human
+life one may discriminate between those in which substance prevails and
+those in which form prevails. To the latter—as distinguished from
+village, country, provincial, or even Moscow life—we may allot
+Petersburg life, and especially the life of its salons. That life of the
+salons is unchanging. Since the year 1805 we had made peace and had
+again quarreled with Bonaparte and had made constitutions and unmade
+them again, but the salons of Anna Pávlovna and Hélène remained just as
+they had been—the one seven and the other five years before. At Anna
+Pávlovna's they talked with perplexity of Bonaparte's successes just as
+before and saw in them and in the subservience shown to him by the
+European sovereigns a malicious conspiracy, the sole object of which was
+to cause unpleasantness and anxiety to the court circle of which Anna
+Pávlovna was the representative. And in Hélène's salon, which Rumyántsev
+himself honored with his visits, regarding Hélène as a remarkably
+intelligent woman, they talked with the same ecstasy in 1812 as in 1808
+of the "great nation" and the "great man," and regretted our rupture
+with France, a rupture which, according to them, ought to be promptly
+terminated by peace.
+
+Of late, since the Emperor's return from the army, there had been some
+excitement in these conflicting salon circles and some demonstrations of
+hostility to one another, but each camp retained its own tendency. In
+Anna Pávlovna's circle only those Frenchmen were admitted who were deep-
+rooted legitimists, and patriotic views were expressed to the effect
+that one ought not to go to the French theater and that to maintain the
+French troupe was costing the government as much as a whole army corps.
+The progress of the war was eagerly followed, and only the reports most
+flattering to our army were circulated. In the French circle of Hélène
+and Rumyántsev the reports of the cruelty of the enemy and of the war
+were contradicted and all Napoleon's attempts at conciliation were
+discussed. In that circle they discountenanced those who advised hurried
+preparations for a removal to Kazan of the court and the girls'
+educational establishments under the patronage of the Dowager Empress.
+In Hélène's circle the war in general was regarded as a series of formal
+demonstrations which would very soon end in peace, and the view
+prevailed expressed by Bilibin—who now in Petersburg was quite at home
+in Hélène's house, which every clever man was obliged to visit—that not
+by gunpowder but by those who invented it would matters be settled. In
+that circle the Moscow enthusiasm—news of which had reached Petersburg
+simultaneously with the Emperor's return—was ridiculed sarcastically and
+very cleverly, though with much caution.
+
+Anna Pávlovna's circle on the contrary was enraptured by this enthusiasm
+and spoke of it as Plutarch speaks of the deeds of the ancients. Prince
+Vasíli, who still occupied his former important posts, formed a
+connecting link between these two circles. He visited his "good friend
+Anna Pávlovna" as well as his daughter's "diplomatic salon," and often
+in his constant comings and goings between the two camps became confused
+and said at Hélène's what he should have said at Anna Pávlovna's and
+vice versa.
+
+Soon after the Emperor's return Prince Vasíli in a conversation about
+the war at Anna Pávlovna's severely condemned Barclay de Tolly, but was
+undecided as to who ought to be appointed commander-in-chief. One of the
+visitors, usually spoken of as "a man of great merit," having described
+how he had that day seen Kutúzov, the newly chosen chief of the
+Petersburg militia, presiding over the enrollment of recruits at the
+Treasury, cautiously ventured to suggest that Kutúzov would be the man
+to satisfy all requirements.
+
+Anna Pávlovna remarked with a melancholy smile that Kutúzov had done
+nothing but cause the Emperor annoyance.
+
+"I have talked and talked at the Assembly of the Nobility," Prince
+Vasíli interrupted, "but they did not listen to me. I told them his
+election as chief of the militia would not please the Emperor. They did
+not listen to me.
+
+"It's all this mania for opposition," he went on. "And who for? It is
+all because we want to ape the foolish enthusiasm of those Muscovites,"
+Prince Vasíli continued, forgetting for a moment that though at Hélène's
+one had to ridicule the Moscow enthusiasm, at Anna Pávlovna's one had to
+be ecstatic about it. But he retrieved his mistake at once. "Now, is it
+suitable that Count Kutúzov, the oldest general in Russia, should
+preside at that tribunal? He will get nothing for his pains! How could
+they make a man commander-in-chief who cannot mount a horse, who drops
+asleep at a council, and has the very worst morals! A good reputation he
+made for himself at Bucharest! I don't speak of his capacity as a
+general, but at a time like this how they appoint a decrepit, blind old
+man, positively blind? A fine idea to have a blind general! He can't see
+anything. To play blindman's bluff? He can't see at all!"
+
+No one replied to his remarks.
+
+This was quite correct on the twenty-fourth of July. But on the twenty-
+ninth of July Kutúzov received the title of Prince. This might indicate
+a wish to get rid of him, and therefore Prince Vasíli's opinion
+continued to be correct though he was not now in any hurry to express
+it. But on the eighth of August a committee, consisting of Field Marshal
+Saltykov, Arakcheev, Vyazmitinov, Lopukhin, and Kochubey met to consider
+the progress of the war. This committee came to the conclusion that our
+failures were due to a want of unity in the command and though the
+members of the committee were aware of the Emperor's dislike of Kutúzov,
+after a short deliberation they agreed to advise his appointment as
+commander in chief. That same day Kutúzov was appointed commander-in-
+chief with full powers over the armies and over the whole region
+occupied by them.
+
+On the ninth of August Prince Vasíli at Anna Pávlovna's again met the
+"man of great merit." The latter was very attentive to Anna Pávlovna
+because he wanted to be appointed director of one of the educational
+establishments for young ladies. Prince Vasíli entered the room with the
+air of a happy conqueror who has attained the object of his desires.
+
+"Well, have you heard the great news? Prince Kutúzov is field marshal!
+All dissensions are at an end! I am so glad, so delighted! At last we
+have a man!" said he, glancing sternly and significantly round at
+everyone in the drawing room.
+
+The "man of great merit," despite his desire to obtain the post of
+director, could not refrain from reminding Prince Vasíli of his former
+opinion. Though this was impolite to Prince Vasíli in Anna Pávlovna's
+drawing room, and also to Anna Pávlovna herself who had received the
+news with delight, he could not resist the temptation.
+
+"But, Prince, they say he is blind!" said he, reminding Prince Vasíli of
+his own words.
+
+"Eh? Nonsense! He sees well enough," said Prince Vasíli rapidly, in a
+deep voice and with a slight cough—the voice and cough with which he was
+wont to dispose of all difficulties.
+
+"He sees well enough," he added. "And what I am so pleased about," he
+went on, "is that our sovereign has given him full powers over all the
+armies and the whole region—powers no commander-in-chief ever had
+before. He is a second autocrat," he concluded with a victorious smile.
+
+"God grant it! God grant it!" said Anna Pávlovna.
+
+The "man of great merit," who was still a novice in court circles,
+wishing to flatter Anna Pávlovna by defending her former position on
+this question, observed:
+
+"It is said that the Emperor was reluctant to give Kutúzov those powers.
+They say he blushed like a girl to whom Joconde is read, when he said to
+Kutúzov: 'Your Emperor and the Fatherland award you this honor.'"
+
+"Perhaps the heart took no part in that speech," said Anna Pávlovna.
+
+"Oh, no, no!" warmly rejoined Prince Vasíli, who would not now yield
+Kutúzov to anyone; in his opinion Kutúzov was not only admirable
+himself, but was adored by everybody. "No, that's impossible," said he,
+"for our sovereign appreciated him so highly before."
+
+"God grant only that Prince Kutúzov assumes real power and does not
+allow anyone to put a spoke in his wheel," observed Anna Pávlovna.
+
+Understanding at once to whom she alluded, Prince Vasíli said in a
+whisper:
+
+"I know for a fact that Kutúzov made it an absolute condition that the
+Tsarevich should not be with the army. Do you know what he said to the
+Emperor?"
+
+And Prince Vasíli repeated the words supposed to have been spoken by
+Kutúzov to the Emperor. "I can neither punish him if he does wrong nor
+reward him if he does right."
+
+"Oh, a very wise man is Prince Kutúzov! I have known him a long time!"
+
+"They even say," remarked the "man of great merit" who did not yet
+possess courtly tact, "that his excellency made it an express condition
+that the sovereign himself should not be with the army."
+
+As soon as he said this both Prince Vasíli and Anna Pávlovna turned away
+from him and glanced sadly at one another with a sigh at his naïvete.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+While this was taking place in Petersburg the French had already passed
+Smolensk and were drawing nearer and nearer to Moscow. Napoleon's
+historian Thiers, like other of his historians, trying to justify his
+hero says that he was drawn to the walls of Moscow against his will. He
+is as right as other historians who look for the explanation of historic
+events in the will of one man; he is as right as the Russian historians
+who maintain that Napoleon was drawn to Moscow by the skill of the
+Russian commanders. Here besides the law of retrospection, which regards
+all the past as a preparation for events that subsequently occur, the
+law of reciprocity comes in, confusing the whole matter. A good
+chessplayer having lost a game is sincerely convinced that his loss
+resulted from a mistake he made and looks for that mistake in the
+opening, but forgets that at each stage of the game there were similar
+mistakes and that none of his moves were perfect. He only notices the
+mistake to which he pays attention, because his opponent took advantage
+of it. How much more complex than this is the game of war, which occurs
+under certain limits of time, and where it is not one will that
+manipulates lifeless objects, but everything results from innumerable
+conflicts of various wills!
+
+After Smolensk Napoleon sought a battle beyond Dorogobuzh at Vyazma, and
+then at Tsarevo-Zaymishche, but it happened that owing to a conjunction
+of innumerable circumstances the Russians could not give battle till
+they reached Borodino, seventy miles from Moscow. From Vyazma Napoleon
+ordered a direct advance on Moscow.
+
+Moscou, la capitale asiatique de ce grand empire, la ville sacree des
+peuples d'Alexandre, Moscou avec ses innombrables eglises en forme de
+pagodes chinoises, * this Moscow gave Napoleon's imagination no rest. On
+the march from Vyazma to Tsarevo-Zaymishche he rode his light bay
+bobtailed ambler accompanied by his Guards, his bodyguard, his pages,
+and aides-de-camp. Berthier, his chief of staff, dropped behind to
+question a Russian prisoner captured by the cavalry. Followed by
+Lelorgne d'Ideville, an interpreter, he overtook Napoleon at a gallop
+and reined in his horse with an amused expression.
+
+* "Moscow, the Asiatic capital of this great empire, the sacred city of
+Alexander's people, Moscow with its innumerable churches shaped like
+Chinese pagodas."
+
+"Well?" asked Napoleon.
+
+"One of Platov's Cossacks says that Platov's corps is joining up with
+the main army and that Kutúzov has been appointed commander-in-chief. He
+is a very shrewd and garrulous fellow."
+
+Napoleon smiled and told them to give the Cossack a horse and bring the
+man to him. He wished to talk to him himself. Several adjutants galloped
+off, and an hour later, Lavrushka, the serf Denisov had handed over to
+Rostóv, rode up to Napoleon in an orderly's jacket and on a French
+cavalry saddle, with a merry, and tipsy face. Napoleon told him to ride
+by his side and began questioning him.
+
+"You are a Cossack?"
+
+"Yes, a Cossack, your Honor."
+
+"The Cossack, not knowing in what company he was, for Napoleon's plain
+appearance had nothing about it that would reveal to an Oriental mind
+the presence of a monarch, talked with extreme familiarity of the
+incidents of the war," says Thiers, narrating this episode. In reality
+Lavrushka, having got drunk the day before and left his master
+dinnerless, had been whipped and sent to the village in quest of
+chickens, where he engaged in looting till the French took him prisoner.
+Lavrushka was one of those coarse, bare-faced lackeys who have seen all
+sorts of things, consider it necessary to do everything in a mean and
+cunning way, are ready to render any sort of service to their master,
+and are keen at guessing their master's baser impulses, especially those
+prompted by vanity and pettiness.
+
+Finding himself in the company of Napoleon, whose identity he had easily
+and surely recognized, Lavrushka was not in the least abashed but merely
+did his utmost to gain his new master's favor.
+
+He knew very well that this was Napoleon, but Napoleon's presence could
+no more intimidate him than Rostóv's, or a sergeant major's with the
+rods, would have done, for he had nothing that either the sergeant major
+or Napoleon could deprive him of.
+
+So he rattled on, telling all the gossip he had heard among the
+orderlies. Much of it true. But when Napoleon asked him whether the
+Russians thought they would beat Bonaparte or not, Lavrushka screwed up
+his eyes and considered.
+
+In this question he saw subtle cunning, as men of his type see cunning
+in everything, so he frowned and did not answer immediately.
+
+"It's like this," he said thoughtfully, "if there's a battle soon, yours
+will win. That's right. But if three days pass, then after that, well,
+then that same battle will not soon be over."
+
+Lelorgne d'Ideville smilingly interpreted this speech to Napoleon thus:
+"If a battle takes place within the next three days the French will win,
+but if later, God knows what will happen." Napoleon did not smile,
+though he was evidently in high good humor, and he ordered these words
+to be repeated.
+
+Lavrushka noticed this and to entertain him further, pretending not to
+know who Napoleon was, added:
+
+"We know that you have Bonaparte and that he has beaten everybody in the
+world, but we are a different matter..."—without knowing why or how this
+bit of boastful patriotism slipped out at the end.
+
+The interpreter translated these words without the last phrase, and
+Bonaparte smiled. "The young Cossack made his mighty interlocutor
+smile," says Thiers. After riding a few paces in silence, Napoleon
+turned to Berthier and said he wished to see how the news that he was
+talking to the Emperor himself, to that very Emperor who had written his
+immortally victorious name on the Pyramids, would affect this enfant du
+Don. *
+
+* "Child of the Don."
+
+The fact was accordingly conveyed to Lavrushka.
+
+Lavrushka, understanding that this was done to perplex him and that
+Napoleon expected him to be frightened, to gratify his new masters
+promptly pretended to be astonished and awe-struck, opened his eyes
+wide, and assumed the expression he usually put on when taken to be
+whipped. "As soon as Napoleon's interpreter had spoken," says Thiers,
+"the Cossack, seized by amazement, did not utter another word, but rode
+on, his eyes fixed on the conqueror whose fame had reached him across
+the steppes of the East. All his loquacity was suddenly arrested and
+replaced by a naïve and silent feeling of admiration. Napoleon, after
+making the Cossack a present, had him set free like a bird restored to
+its native fields."
+
+Napoleon rode on, dreaming of the Moscow that so appealed to his
+imagination, and "the bird restored to its native fields" galloped to
+our outposts, inventing on the way all that had not taken place but that
+he meant to relate to his comrades. What had really taken place he did
+not wish to relate because it seemed to him not worth telling. He found
+the Cossacks, inquired for the regiment operating with Platov's
+detachment and by evening found his master, Nicholas Rostóv, quartered
+at Yankovo. Rostóv was just mounting to go for a ride round the
+neighboring villages with Ilyin; he let Lavrushka have another horse and
+took him along with him.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+Princess Mary was not in Moscow and out of danger as Prince Andrew
+supposed.
+
+After the return of Alpatych from Smolensk the old prince suddenly
+seemed to awake as from a dream. He ordered the militiamen to be called
+up from the villages and armed, and wrote a letter to the commander-in-
+chief informing him that he had resolved to remain at Bald Hills to the
+last extremity and to defend it, leaving to the commander-in-chief's
+discretion to take measures or not for the defense of Bald Hills, where
+one of Russia's oldest generals would be captured or killed, and he
+announced to his household that he would remain at Bald Hills.
+
+But while himself remaining, he gave instructions for the departure of
+the princess and Dessalles with the little prince to Bogucharovo and
+thence to Moscow. Princess Mary, alarmed by her father's feverish and
+sleepless activity after his previous apathy, could not bring herself to
+leave him alone and for the first time in her life ventured to disobey
+him. She refused to go away and her father's fury broke over her in a
+terrible storm. He repeated every injustice he had ever inflicted on
+her. Trying to convict her, he told her she had worn him out, had caused
+his quarrel with his son, had harbored nasty suspicions of him, making
+it the object of her life to poison his existence, and he drove her from
+his study telling her that if she did not go away it was all the same to
+him. He declared that he did not wish to remember her existence and
+warned her not to dare to let him see her. The fact that he did not, as
+she had feared, order her to be carried away by force but only told her
+not to let him see her cheered Princess Mary. She knew it was a proof
+that in the depth of his soul he was glad she was remaining at home and
+had not gone away.
+
+The morning after little Nicholas had left, the old prince donned his
+full uniform and prepared to visit the commander-in-chief. His calèche
+was already at the door. Princess Mary saw him walk out of the house in
+his uniform wearing all his orders and go down the garden to review his
+armed peasants and domestic serfs. She sat by the window listening to
+his voice which reached her from the garden. Suddenly several men came
+running up the avenue with frightened faces.
+
+Princess Mary ran out to the porch, down the flower-bordered path, and
+into the avenue. A large crowd of militiamen and domestics were moving
+toward her, and in their midst several men were supporting by the
+armpits and dragging along a little old man in a uniform and
+decorations. She ran up to him and, in the play of the sunlight that
+fell in small round spots through the shade of the lime-tree avenue,
+could not be sure what change there was in his face. All she could see
+was that his former stern and determined expression had altered to one
+of timidity and submission. On seeing his daughter he moved his helpless
+lips and made a hoarse sound. It was impossible to make out what he
+wanted. He was lifted up, carried to his study, and laid on the very
+couch he had so feared of late.
+
+The doctor, who was fetched that same night, bled him and said that the
+prince had had a seizure paralyzing his right side.
+
+It was becoming more and more dangerous to remain at Bald Hills, and
+next day they moved the prince to Bogucharovo, the doctor accompanying
+him.
+
+By the time they reached Bogucharovo, Dessalles and the little prince
+had already left for Moscow.
+
+For three weeks the old prince lay stricken by paralysis in the new
+house Prince Andrew had built at Bogucharovo, ever in the same state,
+getting neither better nor worse. He was unconscious and lay like a
+distorted corpse. He muttered unceasingly, his eyebrows and lips
+twitching, and it was impossible to tell whether he understood what was
+going on around him or not. One thing was certain—that he was suffering
+and wished to say something. But what it was, no one could tell: it
+might be some caprice of a sick and half-crazy man, or it might relate
+to public affairs, or possibly to family concerns.
+
+The doctor said this restlessness did not mean anything and was due to
+physical causes; but Princess Mary thought he wished to tell her
+something, and the fact that her presence always increased his
+restlessness confirmed her opinion.
+
+He was evidently suffering both physically and mentally. There was no
+hope of recovery. It was impossible for him to travel, it would not do
+to let him die on the road. "Would it not be better if the end did come,
+the very end?" Princess Mary sometimes thought. Night and day, hardly
+sleeping at all, she watched him and, terrible to say, often watched him
+not with hope of finding signs of improvement but wishing to find
+symptoms of the approach of the end.
+
+Strange as it was to her to acknowledge this feeling in herself, yet
+there it was. And what seemed still more terrible to her was that since
+her father's illness began (perhaps even sooner, when she stayed with
+him expecting something to happen), all the personal desires and hopes
+that had been forgotten or sleeping within her had awakened. Thoughts
+that had not entered her mind for years—thoughts of a life free from the
+fear of her father, and even the possibility of love and of family
+happiness—floated continually in her imagination like temptations of the
+devil. Thrust them aside as she would, questions continually recurred to
+her as to how she would order her life now, after that. These were
+temptations of the devil and Princess Mary knew it. She knew that the
+sole weapon against him was prayer, and she tried to pray. She assumed
+an attitude of prayer, looked at the icons, repeated the words of a
+prayer, but she could not pray. She felt that a different world had now
+taken possession of her—the life of a world of strenuous and free
+activity, quite opposed to the spiritual world in which till now she had
+been confined and in which her greatest comfort had been prayer. She
+could not pray, could not weep, and worldly cares took possession of
+her.
+
+It was becoming dangerous to remain in Bogucharovo. News of the approach
+of the French came from all sides, and in one village, ten miles from
+Bogucharovo, a homestead had been looted by French marauders.
+
+The doctor insisted on the necessity of moving the prince; the
+provincial Marshal of the Nobility sent an official to Princess Mary to
+persuade her to get away as quickly as possible, and the head of the
+rural police having come to Bogucharovo urged the same thing, saying
+that the French were only some twenty-five miles away, that French
+proclamations were circulating in the villages, and that if the princess
+did not take her father away before the fifteenth, he could not answer
+for the consequences.
+
+The princess decided to leave on the fifteenth. The cares of preparation
+and giving orders, for which everyone came to her, occupied her all day.
+She spent the night of the fourteenth as usual, without undressing, in
+the room next to the one where the prince lay. Several times, waking up,
+she heard his groans and muttering, the creak of his bed, and the steps
+of Tíkhon and the doctor when they turned him over. Several times she
+listened at the door, and it seemed to her that his mutterings were
+louder than usual and that they turned him over oftener. She could not
+sleep and several times went to the door and listened, wishing to enter
+but not deciding to do so. Though he did not speak, Princess Mary saw
+and knew how unpleasant every sign of anxiety on his account was to him.
+She had noticed with what dissatisfaction he turned from the look she
+sometimes involuntarily fixed on him. She knew that her going in during
+the night at an unusual hour would irritate him.
+
+But never had she felt so grieved for him or so much afraid of losing
+him. She recalled all her life with him and in every word and act of his
+found an expression of his love of her. Occasionally amid these memories
+temptations of the devil would surge into her imagination: thoughts of
+how things would be after his death, and how her new, liberated life
+would be ordered. But she drove these thoughts away with disgust. Toward
+morning he became quiet and she fell asleep.
+
+She woke late. That sincerity which often comes with waking showed her
+clearly what chiefly concerned her about her father's illness. On waking
+she listened to what was going on behind the door and, hearing him
+groan, said to herself with a sigh that things were still the same.
+
+"But what could have happened? What did I want? I want his death!" she
+cried with a feeling of loathing for herself.
+
+She washed, dressed, said her prayers, and went out to the porch. In
+front of it stood carriages without horses and things were being packed
+into the vehicles.
+
+It was a warm, gray morning. Princess Mary stopped at the porch, still
+horrified by her spiritual baseness and trying to arrange her thoughts
+before going to her father. The doctor came downstairs and went out to
+her.
+
+"He is a little better today," said he. "I was looking for you. One can
+make out something of what he is saying. His head is clearer. Come in,
+he is asking for you..."
+
+Princess Mary's heart beat so violently at this news that she grew pale
+and leaned against the wall to keep from falling. To see him, talk to
+him, feel his eyes on her now that her whole soul was overflowing with
+those dreadful, wicked temptations, was a torment of joy and terror.
+
+"Come," said the doctor.
+
+Princess Mary entered her father's room and went up to his bed. He was
+lying on his back propped up high, and his small bony hands with their
+knotted purple veins were lying on the quilt; his left eye gazed
+straight before him, his right eye was awry, and his brows and lips
+motionless. He seemed altogether so thin, small, and pathetic. His face
+seemed to have shriveled or melted; his features had grown smaller.
+Princess Mary went up and kissed his hand. His left hand pressed hers so
+that she understood that he had long been waiting for her to come. He
+twitched her hand, and his brows and lips quivered angrily.
+
+She looked at him in dismay trying to guess what he wanted of her. When
+she changed her position so that his left eye could see her face he
+calmed down, not taking his eyes off her for some seconds. Then his lips
+and tongue moved, sounds came, and he began to speak, gazing timidly and
+imploringly at her, evidently afraid that she might not understand.
+
+Straining all her faculties Princess Mary looked at him. The comic
+efforts with which he moved his tongue made her drop her eyes and with
+difficulty repress the sobs that rose to her throat. He said something,
+repeating the same words several times. She could not understand them,
+but tried to guess what he was saying and inquiringly repeated the words
+he uttered.
+
+"Mmm...ar...ate...ate..." he repeated several times.
+
+It was quite impossible to understand these sounds. The doctor thought
+he had guessed them, and inquiringly repeated: "Mary, are you afraid?"
+The prince shook his head, again repeated the same sounds.
+
+"My mind, my mind aches?" questioned Princess Mary.
+
+He made a mumbling sound in confirmation of this, took her hand, and
+began pressing it to different parts of his breast as if trying to find
+the right place for it.
+
+"Always thoughts... about you... thoughts..." he then uttered much more
+clearly than he had done before, now that he was sure of being
+understood.
+
+Princess Mary pressed her head against his hand, trying to hide her sobs
+and tears.
+
+He moved his hand over her hair.
+
+"I have been calling you all night..." he brought out.
+
+"If only I had known..." she said through her tears. "I was afraid to
+come in."
+
+He pressed her hand.
+
+"Weren't you asleep?"
+
+"No, I did not sleep," said Princess Mary, shaking her head.
+
+Unconsciously imitating her father, she now tried to express herself as
+he did, as much as possible by signs, and her tongue too seemed to move
+with difficulty.
+
+"Dear one... Dearest..." Princess Mary could not quite make out what he
+had said, but from his look it was clear that he had uttered a tender
+caressing word such as he had never used to her before. "Why didn't you
+come in?"
+
+"And I was wishing for his death!" thought Princess Mary.
+
+He was silent awhile.
+
+"Thank you... daughter dear!... for all, for all... forgive!... thank
+you!... forgive!... thank you!..." and tears began to flow from his
+eyes. "Call Andrew!" he said suddenly, and a childish, timid expression
+of doubt showed itself on his face as he spoke.
+
+He himself seemed aware that his demand was meaningless. So at least it
+seemed to Princess Mary.
+
+"I have a letter from him," she replied.
+
+He glanced at her with timid surprise.
+
+"Where is he?"
+
+"He's with the army, Father, at Smolensk."
+
+He closed his eyes and remained silent a long time. Then as if in answer
+to his doubts and to confirm the fact that now he understood and
+remembered everything, he nodded his head and reopened his eyes.
+
+"Yes," he said, softly and distinctly. "Russia has perished. They've
+destroyed her."
+
+And he began to sob, and again tears flowed from his eyes. Princess Mary
+could no longer restrain herself and wept while she gazed at his face.
+
+Again he closed his eyes. His sobs ceased, he pointed to his eyes, and
+Tíkhon, understanding him, wiped away the tears.
+
+Then he again opened his eyes and said something none of them could
+understand for a long time, till at last Tíkhon understood and repeated
+it. Princess Mary had sought the meaning of his words in the mood in
+which he had just been speaking. She thought he was speaking of Russia,
+or Prince Andrew, of herself, of his grandson, or of his own death, and
+so she could not guess his words.
+
+"Put on your white dress. I like it," was what he said.
+
+Having understood this Princess Mary sobbed still louder, and the doctor
+taking her arm led her out to the veranda, soothing her and trying to
+persuade her to prepare for her journey. When she had left the room the
+prince again began speaking about his son, about the war, and about the
+Emperor, angrily twitching his brows and raising his hoarse voice, and
+then he had a second and final stroke.
+
+Princess Mary stayed on the veranda. The day had cleared, it was hot and
+sunny. She could understand nothing, think of nothing and feel nothing,
+except passionate love for her father, love such as she thought she had
+never felt till that moment. She ran out sobbing into the garden and as
+far as the pond, along the avenues of young lime trees Prince Andrew had
+planted.
+
+"Yes... I... I... I wished for his death! Yes, I wanted it to end
+quicker.... I wished to be at peace.... And what will become of me? What
+use will peace be when he is no longer here?" Princess Mary murmured,
+pacing the garden with hurried steps and pressing her hands to her bosom
+which heaved with convulsive sobs.
+
+When she had completed the tour of the garden, which brought her again
+to the house, she saw Mademoiselle Bourienne—who had remained at
+Bogucharovo and did not wish to leave it—coming toward her with a
+stranger. This was the Marshal of the Nobility of the district, who had
+come personally to point out to the princess the necessity for her
+prompt departure. Princess Mary listened without understanding him; she
+led him to the house, offered him lunch, and sat down with him. Then,
+excusing herself, she went to the door of the old prince's room. The
+doctor came out with an agitated face and said she could not enter.
+
+"Go away, Princess! Go away... go away!"
+
+She returned to the garden and sat down on the grass at the foot of the
+slope by the pond, where no one could see her. She did not know how long
+she had been there when she was aroused by the sound of a woman's
+footsteps running along the path. She rose and saw Dunyasha her maid,
+who was evidently looking for her, and who stopped suddenly as if in
+alarm on seeing her mistress.
+
+"Please come, Princess... The Prince," said Dunyasha in a breaking
+voice.
+
+"Immediately, I'm coming, I'm coming!" replied the princess hurriedly,
+not giving Dunyasha time to finish what she was saying, and trying to
+avoid seeing the girl she ran toward the house.
+
+"Princess, it's God's will! You must be prepared for everything," said
+the Marshal, meeting her at the house door.
+
+"Let me alone; it's not true!" she cried angrily to him.
+
+The doctor tried to stop her. She pushed him aside and ran to her
+father's door. "Why are these people with frightened faces stopping me?
+I don't want any of them! And what are they doing here?" she thought.
+She opened the door and the bright daylight in that previously darkened
+room startled her. In the room were her nurse and other women. They all
+drew back from the bed, making way for her. He was still lying on the
+bed as before, but the stern expression of his quiet face made Princess
+Mary stop short on the threshold.
+
+"No, he's not dead—it's impossible!" she told herself and approached
+him, and repressing the terror that seized her, she pressed her lips to
+his cheek. But she stepped back immediately. All the force of the
+tenderness she had been feeling for him vanished instantly and was
+replaced by a feeling of horror at what lay there before her. "No, he is
+no more! He is not, but here where he was is something unfamiliar and
+hostile, some dreadful, terrifying, and repellent mystery!" And hiding
+her face in her hands, Princess Mary sank into the arms of the doctor,
+who held her up.
+
+In the presence of Tíkhon and the doctor the women washed what had been
+the prince, tied his head up with a handkerchief that the mouth should
+not stiffen while open, and with another handkerchief tied together the
+legs that were already spreading apart. Then they dressed him in uniform
+with his decorations and placed his shriveled little body on a table.
+Heaven only knows who arranged all this and when, but it all got done as
+if of its own accord. Toward night candles were burning round his
+coffin, a pall was spread over it, the floor was strewn with sprays of
+juniper, a printed band was tucked in under his shriveled head, and in a
+corner of the room sat a chanter reading the psalms.
+
+Just as horses shy and snort and gather about a dead horse, so the
+inmates of the house and strangers crowded into the drawing room round
+the coffin—the Marshal, the village Elder, peasant women—and all with
+fixed and frightened eyes, crossing themselves, bowed and kissed the old
+prince's cold and stiffened hand.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+Until Prince Andrew settled in Bogucharovo its owners had always been
+absentees, and its peasants were of quite a different character from
+those of Bald Hills. They differed from them in speech, dress, and
+disposition. They were called steppe peasants. The old prince used to
+approve of them for their endurance at work when they came to Bald Hills
+to help with the harvest or to dig ponds, and ditches, but he disliked
+them for their boorishness.
+
+Prince Andrew's last stay at Bogucharovo, when he introduced hospitals
+and schools and reduced the quitrent the peasants had to pay, had not
+softened their disposition but had on the contrary strengthened in them
+the traits of character the old prince called boorishness. Various
+obscure rumors were always current among them: at one time a rumor that
+they would all be enrolled as Cossacks; at another of a new religion to
+which they were all to be converted; then of some proclamation of the
+Tsar's and of an oath to the Tsar Paul in 1797 (in connection with which
+it was rumored that freedom had been granted them but the landowners had
+stopped it), then of Peter Fedorovich's return to the throne in seven
+years' time, when everything would be made free and so "simple" that
+there would be no restrictions. Rumors of the war with Bonaparte and his
+invasion were connected in their minds with the same sort of vague
+notions of Antichrist, the end of the world, and "pure freedom."
+
+In the vicinity of Bogucharovo were large villages belonging to the
+crown or to owners whose serfs paid quitrent and could work where they
+pleased. There were very few resident landlords in the neighborhood and
+also very few domestic or literate serfs, and in the lives of the
+peasantry of those parts the mysterious undercurrents in the life of the
+Russian people, the causes and meaning of which are so baffling to
+contemporaries, were more clearly and strongly noticeable than among
+others. One instance, which had occurred some twenty years before, was a
+movement among the peasants to emigrate to some unknown "warm rivers."
+Hundreds of peasants, among them the Bogucharovo folk, suddenly began
+selling their cattle and moving in whole families toward the southeast.
+As birds migrate to somewhere beyond the sea, so these men with their
+wives and children streamed to the southeast, to parts where none of
+them had ever been. They set off in caravans, bought their freedom one
+by one or ran away, and drove or walked toward the "warm rivers." Many
+of them were punished, some sent to Siberia, many died of cold and
+hunger on the road, many returned of their own accord, and the movement
+died down of itself just as it had sprung up, without apparent reason.
+But such undercurrents still existed among the people and gathered new
+forces ready to manifest themselves just as strangely, unexpectedly, and
+at the same time simply, naturally, and forcibly. Now in 1812, to anyone
+living in close touch with these people it was apparent that these
+undercurrents were acting strongly and nearing an eruption.
+
+Alpatych, who had reached Bogucharovo shortly before the old prince's
+death, noticed an agitation among the peasants, and that contrary to
+what was happening in the Bald Hills district, where over a radius of
+forty miles all the peasants were moving away and leaving their villages
+to be devastated by the Cossacks, the peasants in the steppe region
+round Bogucharovo were, it was rumored, in touch with the French,
+received leaflets from them that passed from hand to hand, and did not
+migrate. He learned from domestic serfs loyal to him that the peasant
+Karp, who possessed great influence in the village commune and had
+recently been away driving a government transport, had returned with
+news that the Cossacks were destroying deserted villages, but that the
+French did not harm them. Alpatych also knew that on the previous day
+another peasant had even brought from the village of Visloukhovo, which
+was occupied by the French, a proclamation by a French general that no
+harm would be done to the inhabitants, and if they remained they would
+be paid for anything taken from them. As proof of this the peasant had
+brought from Visloukhovo a hundred rubles in notes (he did not know that
+they were false) paid to him in advance for hay.
+
+More important still, Alpatych learned that on the morning of the very
+day he gave the village Elder orders to collect carts to move the
+princess' luggage from Bogucharovo, there had been a village meeting at
+which it had been decided not to move but to wait. Yet there was no time
+to waste. On the fifteenth, the day of the old prince's death, the
+Marshal had insisted on Princess Mary's leaving at once, as it was
+becoming dangerous. He had told her that after the sixteenth he could
+not be responsible for what might happen. On the evening of the day the
+old prince died the Marshal went away, promising to return next day for
+the funeral. But this he was unable to do, for he received tidings that
+the French had unexpectedly advanced, and had barely time to remove his
+own family and valuables from his estate.
+
+For some thirty years Bogucharovo had been managed by the village Elder,
+Dron, whom the old prince called by the diminutive "Dronushka."
+
+Dron was one of those physically and mentally vigorous peasants who grow
+big beards as soon as they are of age and go on unchanged till they are
+sixty or seventy, without a gray hair or the loss of a tooth, as
+straight and strong at sixty as at thirty.
+
+Soon after the migration to the "warm rivers," in which he had taken
+part like the rest, Dron was made village Elder and overseer of
+Bogucharovo, and had since filled that post irreproachably for twenty-
+three years. The peasants feared him more than they did their master.
+The masters, both the old prince and the young, and the steward
+respected him and jestingly called him "the Minister." During the whole
+time of his service Dron had never been drunk or ill, never after
+sleepless nights or the hardest tasks had he shown the least fatigue,
+and though he could not read he had never forgotten a single money
+account or the number of quarters of flour in any of the endless
+cartloads he sold for the prince, nor a single shock of the whole corn
+crop on any single acre of the Bogucharovo fields.
+
+Alpatych, arriving from the devastated Bald Hills estate, sent for his
+Dron on the day of the prince's funeral and told him to have twelve
+horses got ready for the princess' carriages and eighteen carts for the
+things to be removed from Bogucharovo. Though the peasants paid
+quitrent, Alpatych thought no difficulty would be made about complying
+with this order, for there were two hundred and thirty households at
+work in Bogucharovo and the peasants were well to do. But on hearing the
+order Dron lowered his eyes and remained silent. Alpatych named certain
+peasants he knew, from whom he told him to take the carts.
+
+Dron replied that the horses of these peasants were away carting.
+Alpatych named others, but they too, according to Dron, had no horses
+available: some horses were carting for the government, others were too
+weak, and others had died for want of fodder. It seemed that no horses
+could be had even for the carriages, much less for the carting.
+
+Alpatych looked intently at Dron and frowned. Just as Dron was a model
+village Elder, so Alpatych had not managed the prince's estates for
+twenty years in vain. He was a model steward, possessing in the highest
+degree the faculty of divining the needs and instincts of those he dealt
+with. Having glanced at Dron he at once understood that his answers did
+not express his personal views but the general mood of the Bogucharovo
+commune, by which the Elder had already been carried away. But he also
+knew that Dron, who had acquired property and was hated by the commune,
+must be hesitating between the two camps: the masters' and the serfs'.
+He noticed this hesitation in Dron's look and therefore frowned and
+moved closer up to him.
+
+"Now just listen, Dronushka," said he. "Don't talk nonsense to me. His
+excellency Prince Andrew himself gave me orders to move all the people
+away and not leave them with the enemy, and there is an order from the
+Tsar about it too. Anyone who stays is a traitor to the Tsar. Do you
+hear?"
+
+"I hear," Dron answered without lifting his eyes.
+
+Alpatych was not satisfied with this reply.
+
+"Eh, Dron, it will turn out badly!" he said, shaking his head.
+
+"The power is in your hands," Dron rejoined sadly.
+
+"Eh, Dron, drop it!" Alpatych repeated, withdrawing his hand from his
+bosom and solemnly pointing to the floor at Dron's feet. "I can see
+through you and three yards into the ground under you," he continued,
+gazing at the floor in front of Dron.
+
+Dron was disconcerted, glanced furtively at Alpatych and again lowered
+his eyes.
+
+"You drop this nonsense and tell the people to get ready to leave their
+homes and go to Moscow and to get carts ready for tomorrow morning for
+the princess' things. And don't go to any meeting yourself, do you
+hear?"
+
+Dron suddenly fell on his knees.
+
+"Yakov Alpatych, discharge me! Take the keys from me and discharge me,
+for Christ's sake!"
+
+"Stop that!" cried Alpatych sternly. "I see through you and three yards
+under you," he repeated, knowing that his skill in beekeeping, his
+knowledge of the right time to sow the oats, and the fact that he had
+been able to retain the old prince's favor for twenty years had long
+since gained him the reputation of being a wizard, and that the power of
+seeing three yards under a man is considered an attribute of wizards.
+
+Dron got up and was about to say something, but Alpatych interrupted
+him.
+
+"What is it you have got into your heads, eh?... What are you thinking
+of, eh?"
+
+"What am I to do with the people?" said Dron. "They're quite beside
+themselves; I have already told them..."
+
+"'Told them,' I dare say!" said Alpatych. "Are they drinking?" he asked
+abruptly.
+
+"Quite beside themselves, Yakov Alpatych; they've fetched another
+barrel."
+
+"Well, then, listen! I'll go to the police officer, and you tell them
+so, and that they must stop this and the carts must be got ready."
+
+"I understand."
+
+Alpatych did not insist further. He had managed people for a long time
+and knew that the chief way to make them obey is to show no suspicion
+that they can possibly disobey. Having wrung a submissive "I understand"
+from Dron, Alpatych contented himself with that, though he not only
+doubted but felt almost certain that without the help of troops the
+carts would not be forthcoming.
+
+And so it was, for when evening came no carts had been provided. In the
+village, outside the drink shop, another meeting was being held, which
+decided that the horses should be driven out into the woods and the
+carts should not be provided. Without saying anything of this to the
+princess, Alpatych had his own belongings taken out of the carts which
+had arrived from Bald Hills and had those horses got ready for the
+princess' carriages. Meanwhile he went himself to the police
+authorities.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+After her father's funeral Princess Mary shut herself up in her room and
+did not admit anyone. A maid came to the door to say that Alpatych was
+asking for orders about their departure. (This was before his talk with
+Dron.) Princess Mary raised herself on the sofa on which she had been
+lying and replied through the closed door that she did not mean to go
+away and begged to be left in peace.
+
+The windows of the room in which she was lying looked westward. She lay
+on the sofa with her face to the wall, fingering the buttons of the
+leather cushion and seeing nothing but that cushion, and her confused
+thoughts were centered on one subject—the irrevocability of death and
+her own spiritual baseness, which she had not suspected, but which had
+shown itself during her father's illness. She wished to pray but did not
+dare to, dared not in her present state of mind address herself to God.
+She lay for a long time in that position.
+
+The sun had reached the other side of the house, and its slanting rays
+shone into the open window, lighting up the room and part of the morocco
+cushion at which Princess Mary was looking. The flow of her thoughts
+suddenly stopped. Unconsciously she sat up, smoothed her hair, got up,
+and went to the window, involuntarily inhaling the freshness of the
+clear but windy evening.
+
+"Yes, you can well enjoy the evening now! He is gone and no one will
+hinder you," she said to herself, and sinking into a chair she let her
+head fall on the window sill.
+
+Someone spoke her name in a soft and tender voice from the garden and
+kissed her head. She looked up. It was Mademoiselle Bourienne in a black
+dress and weepers. She softly approached Princess Mary, sighed, kissed
+her, and immediately began to cry. The princess looked up at her. All
+their former disharmony and her own jealousy recurred to her mind. But
+she remembered too how he had changed of late toward Mademoiselle
+Bourienne and could not bear to see her, thereby showing how unjust were
+the reproaches Princess Mary had mentally addressed to her. "Besides, is
+it for me, for me who desired his death, to condemn anyone?" she
+thought.
+
+Princess Mary vividly pictured to herself the position of Mademoiselle
+Bourienne, whom she had of late kept at a distance, but who yet was
+dependent on her and living in her house. She felt sorry for her and
+held out her hand with a glance of gentle inquiry. Mademoiselle
+Bourienne at once began crying again and kissed that hand, speaking of
+the princess' sorrow and making herself a partner in it. She said her
+only consolation was the fact that the princess allowed her to share her
+sorrow, that all the old misunderstandings should sink into nothing but
+this great grief; that she felt herself blameless in regard to everyone,
+and that he, from above, saw her affection and gratitude. The princess
+heard her, not heeding her words but occasionally looking up at her and
+listening to the sound of her voice.
+
+"Your position is doubly terrible, dear princess," said Mademoiselle
+Bourienne after a pause. "I understand that you could not, and cannot,
+think of yourself, but with my love for you I must do so.... Has
+Alpatych been to you? Has he spoken to you of going away?" she asked.
+
+Princess Mary did not answer. She did not understand who was to go or
+where to. "Is it possible to plan or think of anything now? Is it not
+all the same?" she thought, and did not reply.
+
+"You know, chere Marie," said Mademoiselle Bourienne, "that we are in
+danger—are surrounded by the French. It would be dangerous to move now.
+If we go we are almost sure to be taken prisoners, and God knows..."
+
+Princess Mary looked at her companion without understanding what she was
+talking about.
+
+"Oh, if anyone knew how little anything matters to me now," she said.
+"Of course I would on no account wish to go away from him.... Alpatych
+did say something about going.... Speak to him; I can do nothing,
+nothing, and don't want to...."
+
+"I've spoken to him. He hopes we should be in time to get away tomorrow,
+but I think it would now be better to stay here," said Mademoiselle
+Bourienne. "Because, you will agree, chere Marie, to fall into the hands
+of the soldiers or of riotous peasants would be terrible."
+
+Mademoiselle Bourienne took from her reticule a proclamation (not
+printed on ordinary Russian paper) of General Rameau's, telling people
+not to leave their homes and that the French authorities would afford
+them proper protection. She handed this to the princess.
+
+"I think it would be best to appeal to that general," she continued,
+"and I am sure that all due respect would be shown you."
+
+Princess Mary read the paper, and her face began to quiver with stifled
+sobs.
+
+"From whom did you get this?" she asked.
+
+"They probably recognized that I am French, by my name," replied
+Mademoiselle Bourienne blushing.
+
+Princess Mary, with the paper in her hand, rose from the window and with
+a pale face went out of the room and into what had been Prince Andrew's
+study.
+
+"Dunyasha, send Alpatych, or Dronushka, or somebody to me!" she said,
+"and tell Mademoiselle Bourienne not to come to me," she added, hearing
+Mademoiselle Bourienne's voice. "We must go at once, at once!" she said,
+appalled at the thought of being left in the hands of the French.
+
+"If Prince Andrew heard that I was in the power of the French! That I,
+the daughter of Prince Nicholas Bolkónski, asked General Rameau for
+protection and accepted his favor!" This idea horrified her, made her
+shudder, blush, and feel such a rush of anger and pride as she had never
+experienced before. All that was distressing, and especially all that
+was humiliating, in her position rose vividly to her mind. "They, the
+French, would settle in this house: M. le General Rameau would occupy
+Prince Andrew's study and amuse himself by looking through and reading
+his letters and papers. Mademoiselle Bourienne would do the honors of
+Bogucharovo for him. I should be given a small room as a favor, the
+soldiers would violate my father's newly dug grave to steal his crosses
+and stars, they would tell me of their victories over the Russians, and
+would pretend to sympathize with my sorrow..." thought Princess Mary,
+not thinking her own thoughts but feeling bound to think like her father
+and her brother. For herself she did not care where she remained or what
+happened to her, but she felt herself the representative of her dead
+father and of Prince Andrew. Involuntarily she thought their thoughts
+and felt their feelings. What they would have said and what they would
+have done she felt bound to say and do. She went into Prince Andrew's
+study, trying to enter completely into his ideas, and considered her
+position.
+
+The demands of life, which had seemed to her annihilated by her father's
+death, all at once rose before her with a new, previously unknown force
+and took possession of her.
+
+Agitated and flushed she paced the room, sending now for Michael
+Ivánovich and now for Tíkhon or Dron. Dunyasha, the nurse, and the other
+maids could not say in how far Mademoiselle Bourienne's statement was
+correct. Alpatych was not at home, he had gone to the police. Neither
+could the architect Michael Ivánovich, who on being sent for came in
+with sleepy eyes, tell Princess Mary anything. With just the same smile
+of agreement with which for fifteen years he had been accustomed to
+answer the old prince without expressing views of his own, he now
+replied to Princess Mary, so that nothing definite could be got from his
+answers. The old valet Tíkhon, with sunken, emaciated face that bore the
+stamp of inconsolable grief, replied: "Yes, Princess" to all Princess
+Mary's questions and hardly refrained from sobbing as he looked at her.
+
+At length Dron, the village Elder, entered the room and with a deep bow
+to Princess Mary came to a halt by the doorpost.
+
+Princess Mary walked up and down the room and stopped in front of him.
+
+"Dronushka," she said, regarding as a sure friend this Dronushka who
+always used to bring a special kind of gingerbread from his visit to the
+fair at Vyazma every year and smilingly offer it to her, "Dronushka, now
+since our misfortune..." she began, but could not go on.
+
+"We are all in God's hands," said he, with a sigh.
+
+They were silent for a while.
+
+"Dronushka, Alpatych has gone off somewhere and I have no one to turn
+to. Is it true, as they tell me, that I can't even go away?"
+
+"Why shouldn't you go away, your excellency? You can go," said Dron.
+
+"I was told it would be dangerous because of the enemy. Dear friend, I
+can do nothing. I understand nothing. I have nobody! I want to go away
+tonight or early tomorrow morning."
+
+Dron paused. He looked askance at Princess Mary and said: "There are no
+horses; I told Yakov Alpatych so."
+
+"Why are there none?" asked the princess.
+
+"It's all God's scourge," said Dron. "What horses we had have been taken
+for the army or have died—this is such a year! It's not a case of
+feeding horses—we may die of hunger ourselves! As it is, some go three
+days without eating. We've nothing, we've been ruined."
+
+Princess Mary listened attentively to what he told her.
+
+"The peasants are ruined? They have no bread?" she asked.
+
+"They're dying of hunger," said Dron. "It's not a case of carting."
+
+"But why didn't you tell me, Dronushka? Isn't it possible to help them?
+I'll do all I can...."
+
+To Princess Mary it was strange that now, at a moment when such sorrow
+was filling her soul, there could be rich people and poor, and the rich
+could refrain from helping the poor. She had heard vaguely that there
+was such a thing as "landlord's corn" which was sometimes given to the
+peasants. She also knew that neither her father nor her brother would
+refuse to help the peasants in need, she only feared to make some
+mistake in speaking about the distribution of the grain she wished to
+give. She was glad such cares presented themselves, enabling her without
+scruple to forget her own grief. She began asking Dron about the
+peasants' needs and what there was in Bogucharovo that belonged to the
+landlord.
+
+"But we have grain belonging to my brother?" she said.
+
+"The landlord's grain is all safe," replied Dron proudly. "Our prince
+did not order it to be sold."
+
+"Give it to the peasants, let them have all they need; I give you leave
+in my brother's name," said she.
+
+Dron made no answer but sighed deeply.
+
+"Give them that corn if there is enough of it. Distribute it all. I give
+this order in my brother's name; and tell them that what is ours is
+theirs. We do not grudge them anything. Tell them so."
+
+Dron looked intently at the princess while she was speaking.
+
+"Discharge me, little mother, for God's sake! Order the keys to be taken
+from me," said he. "I have served twenty-three years and have done no
+wrong. Discharge me, for God's sake!"
+
+Princess Mary did not understand what he wanted of her or why he was
+asking to be discharged. She replied that she had never doubted his
+devotion and that she was ready to do anything for him and for the
+peasants.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+An hour later Dunyasha came to tell the princess that Dron had come, and
+all the peasants had assembled at the barn by the princess' order and
+wished to have word with their mistress.
+
+"But I never told them to come," said Princess Mary. "I only told Dron
+to let them have the grain."
+
+"Only, for God's sake, Princess dear, have them sent away and don't go
+out to them. It's all a trick," said Dunyasha, "and when Yakov Alpatych
+returns let us get away... and please don't..."
+
+"What is a trick?" asked Princess Mary in surprise.
+
+"I know it is, only listen to me for God's sake! Ask nurse too. They say
+they don't agree to leave Bogucharovo as you ordered."
+
+"You're making some mistake. I never ordered them to go away," said
+Princess Mary. "Call Dronushka."
+
+Dron came and confirmed Dunyasha's words; the peasants had come by the
+princess' order.
+
+"But I never sent for them," declared the princess. "You must have given
+my message wrong. I only said that you were to give them the grain."
+
+Dron only sighed in reply.
+
+"If you order it they will go away," said he.
+
+"No, no. I'll go out to them," said Princess Mary, and in spite of the
+nurse's and Dunyasha's protests she went out into the porch; Dron,
+Dunyasha, the nurse, and Michael Ivánovich following her.
+
+"They probably think I am offering them the grain to bribe them to
+remain here, while I myself go away leaving them to the mercy of the
+French," thought Princess Mary. "I will offer them monthly rations and
+housing at our Moscow estate. I am sure Andrew would do even more in my
+place," she thought as she went out in the twilight toward the crowd
+standing on the pasture by the barn.
+
+The men crowded closer together, stirred, and rapidly took off their
+hats. Princess Mary lowered her eyes and, tripping over her skirt, came
+close up to them. So many different eyes, old and young, were fixed on
+her, and there were so many different faces, that she could not
+distinguish any of them and, feeling that she must speak to them all at
+once, did not know how to do it. But again the sense that she
+represented her father and her brother gave her courage, and she boldly
+began her speech.
+
+"I am very glad you have come," she said without raising her eyes, and
+feeling her heart beating quickly and violently. "Dronushka tells me
+that the war has ruined you. That is our common misfortune, and I shall
+grudge nothing to help you. I am myself going away because it is
+dangerous here... the enemy is near... because... I am giving you
+everything, my friends, and I beg you to take everything, all our grain,
+so that you may not suffer want! And if you have been told that I am
+giving you the grain to keep you here—that is not true. On the contrary,
+I ask you to go with all your belongings to our estate near Moscow, and
+I promise you I will see to it that there you shall want for nothing.
+You shall be given food and lodging."
+
+The princess stopped. Sighs were the only sound heard in the crowd.
+
+"I am not doing this on my own account," she continued, "I do it in the
+name of my dead father, who was a good master to you, and of my brother
+and his son."
+
+Again she paused. No one broke the silence.
+
+"Ours is a common misfortune and we will share it together. All that is
+mine is yours," she concluded, scanning the faces before her.
+
+All eyes were gazing at her with one and the same expression. She could
+not fathom whether it was curiosity, devotion, gratitude, or
+apprehension and distrust—but the expression on all the faces was
+identical.
+
+"We are all very thankful for your bounty, but it won't do for us to
+take the landlord's grain," said a voice at the back of the crowd.
+
+"But why not?" asked the princess.
+
+No one replied and Princess Mary, looking round at the crowd, found that
+every eye she met now was immediately dropped.
+
+"But why don't you want to take it?" she asked again.
+
+No one answered.
+
+The silence began to oppress the princess and she tried to catch
+someone's eye.
+
+"Why don't you speak?" she inquired of a very old man who stood just in
+front of her leaning on his stick. "If you think something more is
+wanted, tell me! I will do anything," said she, catching his eye.
+
+But as if this angered him, he bent his head quite low and muttered:
+
+"Why should we agree? We don't want the grain."
+
+"Why should we give up everything? We don't agree. Don't agree.... We
+are sorry for you, but we're not willing. Go away yourself, alone..."
+came from various sides of the crowd.
+
+And again all the faces in that crowd bore an identical expression,
+though now it was certainly not an expression of curiosity or gratitude,
+but of angry resolve.
+
+"But you can't have understood me," said Princess Mary with a sad smile.
+"Why don't you want to go? I promise to house and feed you, while here
+the enemy would ruin you..."
+
+But her voice was drowned by the voices of the crowd.
+
+"We're not willing. Let them ruin us! We won't take your grain. We don't
+agree."
+
+Again Princess Mary tried to catch someone's eye, but not a single eye
+in the crowd was turned to her; evidently they were all trying to avoid
+her look. She felt strange and awkward.
+
+"Oh yes, an artful tale! Follow her into slavery! Pull down your houses
+and go into bondage! I dare say! 'I'll give you grain, indeed!' she
+says," voices in the crowd were heard saying.
+
+With drooping head Princess Mary left the crowd and went back to the
+house. Having repeated her order to Dron to have horses ready for her
+departure next morning, she went to her room and remained alone with her
+own thoughts.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+For a long time that night Princess Mary sat by the open window of her
+room hearing the sound of the peasants' voices that reached her from the
+village, but it was not of them she was thinking. She felt that she
+could not understand them however much she might think about them. She
+thought only of one thing, her sorrow, which, after the break caused by
+cares for the present, seemed already to belong to the past. Now she
+could remember it and weep or pray.
+
+After sunset the wind had dropped. The night was calm and fresh. Toward
+midnight the voices began to subside, a cock crowed, the full moon began
+to show from behind the lime trees, a fresh white dewy mist began to
+rise, and stillness reigned over the village and the house.
+
+Pictures of the near past—her father's illness and last moments—rose one
+after another to her memory. With mournful pleasure she now lingered
+over these images, repelling with horror only the last one, the picture
+of his death, which she felt she could not contemplate even in
+imagination at this still and mystic hour of night. And these pictures
+presented themselves to her so clearly and in such detail that they
+seemed now present, now past, and now future.
+
+She vividly recalled the moment when he had his first stroke and was
+being dragged along by his armpits through the garden at Bald Hills,
+muttering something with his helpless tongue, twitching his gray
+eyebrows and looking uneasily and timidly at her.
+
+"Even then he wanted to tell me what he told me the day he died," she
+thought. "He had always thought what he said then." And she recalled in
+all its detail the night at Bald Hills before he had the last stroke,
+when with a foreboding of disaster she had remained at home against his
+will. She had not slept and had stolen downstairs on tiptoe, and going
+to the door of the conservatory where he slept that night had listened
+at the door. In a suffering and weary voice he was saying something to
+Tíkhon, speaking of the Crimea and its warm nights and of the Empress.
+Evidently he had wanted to talk. "And why didn't he call me? Why didn't
+he let me be there instead of Tíkhon?" Princess Mary had thought and
+thought again now. "Now he will never tell anyone what he had in his
+soul. Never will that moment return for him or for me when he might have
+said all he longed to say, and not Tíkhon but I might have heard and
+understood him. Why didn't I enter the room?" she thought. "Perhaps he
+would then have said to me what he said the day he died. While talking
+to Tíkhon he asked about me twice. He wanted to see me, and I was
+standing close by, outside the door. It was sad and painful for him to
+talk to Tíkhon who did not understand him. I remember how he began
+speaking to him about Lise as if she were alive—he had forgotten she was
+dead—and Tíkhon reminded him that she was no more, and he shouted,
+'Fool!' He was greatly depressed. From behind the door I heard how he
+lay down on his bed groaning and loudly exclaimed, 'My God!' Why didn't
+I go in then? What could he have done to me? What could I have lost? And
+perhaps he would then have been comforted and would have said that word
+to me." And Princess Mary uttered aloud the caressing word he had said
+to her on the day of his death. "Dear-est!" she repeated, and began
+sobbing, with tears that relieved her soul. She now saw his face before
+her. And not the face she had known ever since she could remember and
+had always seen at a distance, but the timid, feeble face she had seen
+for the first time quite closely, with all its wrinkles and details,
+when she stooped near to his mouth to catch what he said.
+
+"Dear-est!" she repeated again.
+
+"What was he thinking when he uttered that word? What is he thinking
+now?" This question suddenly presented itself to her, and in answer she
+saw him before her with the expression that was on his face as he lay in
+his coffin with his chin bound up with a white handkerchief. And the
+horror that had seized her when she touched him and convinced herself
+that that was not he, but something mysterious and horrible, seized her
+again. She tried to think of something else and to pray, but could do
+neither. With wide-open eyes she gazed at the moonlight and the shadows,
+expecting every moment to see his dead face, and she felt that the
+silence brooding over the house and within it held her fast.
+
+"Dunyasha," she whispered. "Dunyasha!" she screamed wildly, and tearing
+herself out of this silence she ran to the servants' quarters to meet
+her old nurse and the maidservants who came running toward her.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+On the seventeenth of August Rostóv and Ilyin, accompanied by Lavrushka
+who had just returned from captivity and by an hussar orderly, left
+their quarters at Yankovo, ten miles from Bogucharovo, and went for a
+ride—to try a new horse Ilyin had bought and to find out whether there
+was any hay to be had in the villages.
+
+For the last three days Bogucharovo had lain between the two hostile
+armies, so that it was as easy for the Russian rearguard to get to it as
+for the French vanguard; Rostóv, as a careful squadron commander, wished
+to take such provisions as remained at Bogucharovo before the French
+could get them.
+
+Rostóv and Ilyin were in the merriest of moods. On the way to
+Bogucharovo, a princely estate with a dwelling house and farm where they
+hoped to find many domestic serfs and pretty girls, they questioned
+Lavrushka about Napoleon and laughed at his stories, and raced one
+another to try Ilyin's horse.
+
+Rostóv had no idea that the village he was entering was the property of
+that very Bolkónski who had been engaged to his sister.
+
+Rostóv and Ilyin gave rein to their horses for a last race along the
+incline before reaching Bogucharovo, and Rostóv, outstripping Ilyin, was
+the first to gallop into the village street.
+
+"You're first!" cried Ilyin, flushed.
+
+"Yes, always first both on the grassland and here," answered Rostóv,
+stroking his heated Donets horse.
+
+"And I'd have won on my Frenchy, your excellency," said Lavrushka from
+behind, alluding to his shabby cart horse, "only I didn't wish to
+mortify you."
+
+They rode at a footpace to the barn, where a large crowd of peasants was
+standing.
+
+Some of the men bared their heads, others stared at the new arrivals
+without doffing their caps. Two tall old peasants with wrinkled faces
+and scanty beards emerged from the tavern, smiling, staggering, and
+singing some incoherent song, and approached the officers.
+
+"Fine fellows!" said Rostóv laughing. "Is there any hay here?"
+
+"And how like one another," said Ilyin.
+
+"A mo-o-st me-r-r-y co-o-m-pa...!" sang one of the peasants with a
+blissful smile.
+
+One of the men came out of the crowd and went up to Rostóv.
+
+"Who do you belong to?" he asked.
+
+"The French," replied Ilyin jestingly, "and here is Napoleon
+himself"—and he pointed to Lavrushka.
+
+"Then you are Russians?" the peasant asked again.
+
+"And is there a large force of you here?" said another, a short man,
+coming up.
+
+"Very large," answered Rostóv. "But why have you collected here?" he
+added. "Is it a holiday?"
+
+"The old men have met to talk over the business of the commune," replied
+the peasant, moving away.
+
+At that moment, on the road leading from the big house, two women and a
+man in a white hat were seen coming toward the officers.
+
+"The one in pink is mine, so keep off!" said Ilyin on seeing Dunyasha
+running resolutely toward him.
+
+"She'll be ours!" said Lavrushka to Ilyin, winking.
+
+"What do you want, my pretty?" said Ilyin with a smile.
+
+"The princess ordered me to ask your regiment and your name."
+
+"This is Count Rostóv, squadron commander, and I am your humble
+servant."
+
+"Co-o-om-pa-ny!" roared the tipsy peasant with a beatific smile as he
+looked at Ilyin talking to the girl. Following Dunyasha, Alpatych
+advanced to Rostóv, having bared his head while still at a distance.
+
+"May I make bold to trouble your honor?" said he respectfully, but with
+a shade of contempt for the youthfulness of this officer and with a hand
+thrust into his bosom. "My mistress, daughter of General in Chief Prince
+Nicholas Bolkónski who died on the fifteenth of this month, finding
+herself in difficulties owing to the boorishness of these people"—he
+pointed to the peasants—"asks you to come up to the house.... Won't you,
+please, ride on a little farther," said Alpatych with a melancholy
+smile, "as it is not convenient in the presence of...?" He pointed to
+the two peasants who kept as close to him as horseflies to a horse.
+
+"Ah!... Alpatych... Ah, Yakov Alpatych... Grand! Forgive us for Christ's
+sake, eh?" said the peasants, smiling joyfully at him.
+
+Rostóv looked at the tipsy peasants and smiled.
+
+"Or perhaps they amuse your honor?" remarked Alpatych with a staid air,
+as he pointed at the old men with his free hand.
+
+"No, there's not much to be amused at here," said Rostóv, and rode on a
+little way. "What's the matter?" he asked.
+
+"I make bold to inform your honor that the rude peasants here don't wish
+to let the mistress leave the estate, and threaten to unharness her
+horses, so that though everything has been packed up since morning, her
+excellency cannot get away."
+
+"Impossible!" exclaimed Rostóv.
+
+"I have the honor to report to you the actual truth," said Alpatych.
+
+Rostóv dismounted, gave his horse to the orderly, and followed Alpatych
+to the house, questioning him as to the state of affairs. It appeared
+that the princess' offer of corn to the peasants the previous day, and
+her talk with Dron and at the meeting, had actually had so bad an effect
+that Dron had finally given up the keys and joined the peasants and had
+not appeared when Alpatych sent for him; and that in the morning when
+the princess gave orders to harness for her journey, the peasants had
+come in a large crowd to the barn and sent word that they would not let
+her leave the village: that there was an order not to move, and that
+they would unharness the horses. Alpatych had gone out to admonish them,
+but was told (it was chiefly Karp who did the talking, Dron not showing
+himself in the crowd) that they could not let the princess go, that
+there was an order to the contrary, but that if she stayed they would
+serve her as before and obey her in everything.
+
+At the moment when Rostóv and Ilyin were galloping along the road,
+Princess Mary, despite the dissuasions of Alpatych, her nurse, and the
+maids, had given orders to harness and intended to start, but when the
+cavalrymen were espied they were taken for Frenchmen, the coachman ran
+away, and the women in the house began to wail.
+
+"Father! Benefactor! God has sent you!" exclaimed deeply moved voices as
+Rostóv passed through the anteroom.
+
+Princess Mary was sitting helpless and bewildered in the large sitting
+room, when Rostóv was shown in. She could not grasp who he was and why
+he had come, or what was happening to her. When she saw his Russian
+face, and by his walk and the first words he uttered recognized him as a
+man of her own class, she glanced at him with her deep radiant look and
+began speaking in a voice that faltered and trembled with emotion. This
+meeting immediately struck Rostóv as a romantic event. "A helpless girl
+overwhelmed with grief, left to the mercy of coarse, rioting peasants!
+And what a strange fate sent me here! What gentleness and nobility there
+are in her features and expression!" thought he as he looked at her and
+listened to her timid story.
+
+When she began to tell him that all this had happened the day after her
+father's funeral, her voice trembled. She turned away, and then, as if
+fearing he might take her words as meant to move him to pity, looked at
+him with an apprehensive glance of inquiry. There were tears in Rostóv's
+eyes. Princess Mary noticed this and glanced gratefully at him with that
+radiant look which caused the plainness of her face to be forgotten.
+
+"I cannot express, Princess, how glad I am that I happened to ride here
+and am able to show my readiness to serve you," said Rostóv, rising. "Go
+when you please, and I give you my word of honor that no one shall dare
+to cause you annoyance if only you will allow me to act as your escort."
+And bowing respectfully, as if to a lady of royal blood, he moved toward
+the door.
+
+Rostóv's deferential tone seemed to indicate that though he would
+consider himself happy to be acquainted with her, he did not wish to
+take advantage of her misfortunes to intrude upon her.
+
+Princess Mary understood this and appreciated his delicacy.
+
+"I am very, very grateful to you," she said in French, "but I hope it
+was all a misunderstanding and that no one is to blame for it." She
+suddenly began to cry.
+
+"Excuse me!" she said.
+
+Rostóv, knitting his brows, left the room with another low bow.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+"Well, is she pretty? Ah, friend—my pink one is delicious; her name is
+Dunyasha...."
+
+But on glancing at Rostóv's face Ilyin stopped short. He saw that his
+hero and commander was following quite a different train of thought.
+
+Rostóv glanced angrily at Ilyin and without replying strode off with
+rapid steps to the village.
+
+"I'll show them; I'll give it to them, the brigands!" said he to
+himself.
+
+Alpatych at a gliding trot, only just managing not to run, kept up with
+him with difficulty.
+
+"What decision have you been pleased to come to?" said he.
+
+Rostóv stopped and, clenching his fists, suddenly and sternly turned on
+Alpatych.
+
+"Decision? What decision? Old dotard!..." cried he. "What have you been
+about? Eh? The peasants are rioting, and you can't manage them? You're a
+traitor yourself! I know you. I'll flay you all alive!..." And as if
+afraid of wasting his store of anger, he left Alpatych and went rapidly
+forward. Alpatych, mastering his offended feelings, kept pace with
+Rostóv at a gliding gait and continued to impart his views. He said the
+peasants were obdurate and that at the present moment it would be
+imprudent to "overresist" them without an armed force, and would it not
+be better first to send for the military?
+
+"I'll give them armed force... I'll 'overresist' them!" uttered Rostóv
+meaninglessly, breathless with irrational animal fury and the need to
+vent it.
+
+Without considering what he would do he moved unconciously with quick,
+resolute steps toward the crowd. And the nearer he drew to it the more
+Alpatych felt that this unreasonable action might produce good results.
+The peasants in the crowd were similarly impressed when they saw
+Rostóv's rapid, firm steps and resolute, frowning face.
+
+After the hussars had come to the village and Rostóv had gone to see the
+princess, a certain confusion and dissension had arisen among the crowd.
+Some of the peasants said that these new arrivals were Russians and
+might take it amiss that the mistress was being detained. Dron was of
+this opinion, but as soon as he expressed it Karp and others attacked
+their ex-Elder.
+
+"How many years have you been fattening on the commune?" Karp shouted at
+him. "It's all one to you! You'll dig up your pot of money and take it
+away with you.... What does it matter to you whether our homes are
+ruined or not?"
+
+"We've been told to keep order, and that no one is to leave their homes
+or take away a single grain, and that's all about it!" cried another.
+
+"It was your son's turn to be conscripted, but no fear! You begrudged
+your lump of a son," a little old man suddenly began attacking Dron—"and
+so they took my Vanka to be shaved for a soldier! But we all have to
+die."
+
+"To be sure, we all have to die. I'm not against the commune," said
+Dron.
+
+"That's it—not against it! You've filled your belly...."
+
+The two tall peasants had their say. As soon as Rostóv, followed by
+Ilyin, Lavrushka, and Alpatych, came up to the crowd, Karp, thrusting
+his fingers into his belt and smiling a little, walked to the front.
+Dron on the contrary retired to the rear and the crowd drew closer
+together.
+
+"Who is your Elder here? Hey?" shouted Rostóv, coming up to the crowd
+with quick steps.
+
+"The Elder? What do you want with him?..." asked Karp.
+
+But before the words were well out of his mouth, his cap flew off and a
+fierce blow jerked his head to one side.
+
+"Caps off, traitors!" shouted Rostóv in a wrathful voice. "Where's the
+Elder?" he cried furiously.
+
+"The Elder.... He wants the Elder!... Dron Zakharych, you!" meek and
+flustered voices here and there were heard calling and caps began to
+come off their heads.
+
+"We don't riot, we're following the orders," declared Karp, and at that
+moment several voices began speaking together.
+
+"It's as the old men have decided—there's too many of you giving
+orders."
+
+"Arguing? Mutiny!... Brigands! Traitors!" cried Rostóv unmeaningly in a
+voice not his own, gripping Karp by the collar. "Bind him, bind him!" he
+shouted, though there was no one to bind him but Lavrushka and Alpatych.
+
+Lavrushka, however, ran up to Karp and seized him by the arms from
+behind.
+
+"Shall I call up our men from beyond the hill?" he called out.
+
+Alpatych turned to the peasants and ordered two of them by name to come
+and bind Karp. The men obediently came out of the crowd and began taking
+off their belts.
+
+"Where's the Elder?" demanded Rostóv in a loud voice.
+
+With a pale and frowning face Dron stepped out of the crowd.
+
+"Are you the Elder? Bind him, Lavrushka!" shouted Rostóv, as if that
+order, too, could not possibly meet with any opposition.
+
+And in fact two more peasants began binding Dron, who took off his own
+belt and handed it to them, as if to aid them.
+
+"And you all listen to me!" said Rostóv to the peasants. "Be off to your
+houses at once, and don't let one of your voices be heard!"
+
+"Why, we've not done any harm! We did it just out of foolishness. It's
+all nonsense... I said then that it was not in order," voices were heard
+bickering with one another.
+
+"There! What did I say?" said Alpatych, coming into his own again. "It's
+wrong, lads!"
+
+"All our stupidity, Yakov Alpatych," came the answers, and the crowd
+began at once to disperse through the village.
+
+The two bound men were led off to the master's house. The two drunken
+peasants followed them.
+
+"Aye, when I look at you!..." said one of them to Karp.
+
+"How can one talk to the masters like that? What were you thinking of,
+you fool?" added the other—"A real fool!"
+
+Two hours later the carts were standing in the courtyard of the
+Bogucharovo house. The peasants were briskly carrying out the
+proprietor's goods and packing them on the carts, and Dron, liberated at
+Princess Mary's wish from the cupboard where he had been confined, was
+standing in the yard directing the men.
+
+"Don't put it in so carelessly," said one of the peasants, a man with a
+round smiling face, taking a casket from a housemaid. "You know it has
+cost money! How can you chuck it in like that or shove it under the cord
+where it'll get rubbed? I don't like that way of doing things. Let it
+all be done properly, according to rule. Look here, put it under the
+bast matting and cover it with hay—that's the way!"
+
+"Eh, books, books!" said another peasant, bringing out Prince Andrew's
+library cupboards. "Don't catch up against it! It's heavy, lads—solid
+books."
+
+"Yes, they worked all day and didn't play!" remarked the tall, round-
+faced peasant gravely, pointing with a significant wink at the
+dictionaries that were on the top.
+
+Unwilling to obtrude himself on the princess, Rostóv did not go back to
+the house but remained in the village awaiting her departure. When her
+carriage drove out of the house, he mounted and accompanied her eight
+miles from Bogucharovo to where the road was occupied by our troops. At
+the inn at Yankovo he respectfully took leave of her, for the first time
+permitting himself to kiss her hand.
+
+"How can you speak so!" he blushingly replied to Princess Mary's
+expressions of gratitude for her deliverance, as she termed what had
+occurred. "Any police officer would have done as much! If we had had
+only peasants to fight, we should not have let the enemy come so far,"
+said he with a sense of shame and wishing to change the subject. "I am
+only happy to have had the opportunity of making your acquaintance.
+Good-bye, Princess. I wish you happiness and consolation and hope to
+meet you again in happier circumstances. If you don't want to make me
+blush, please don't thank me!"
+
+But the princess, if she did not again thank him in words, thanked him
+with the whole expression of her face, radiant with gratitude and
+tenderness. She could not believe that there was nothing to thank him
+for. On the contrary, it seemed to her certain that had he not been
+there she would have perished at the hands of the mutineers and of the
+French, and that he had exposed himself to terrible and obvious danger
+to save her, and even more certain was it that he was a man of lofty and
+noble soul, able to understand her position and her sorrow. His kind,
+honest eyes, with the tears rising in them when she herself had begun to
+cry as she spoke of her loss, did not leave her memory.
+
+When she had taken leave of him and remained alone she suddenly felt her
+eyes filling with tears, and then not for the first time the strange
+question presented itself to her: did she love him?
+
+On the rest of the way to Moscow, though the princess' position was not
+a cheerful one, Dunyasha, who went with her in the carriage, more than
+once noticed that her mistress leaned out of the window and smiled at
+something with an expression of mingled joy and sorrow.
+
+"Well, supposing I do love him?" thought Princess Mary.
+
+Ashamed as she was of acknowledging to herself that she had fallen in
+love with a man who would perhaps never love her, she comforted herself
+with the thought that no one would ever know it and that she would not
+be to blame if, without ever speaking of it to anyone, she continued to
+the end of her life to love the man with whom she had fallen in love for
+the first and last time in her life.
+
+Sometimes when she recalled his looks, his sympathy, and his words,
+happiness did not appear impossible to her. It was at those moments that
+Dunyasha noticed her smiling as she looked out of the carriage window.
+
+"Was it not fate that brought him to Bogucharovo, and at that very
+moment?" thought Princess Mary. "And that caused his sister to refuse my
+brother?" And in all this Princess Mary saw the hand of Providence.
+
+The impression the princess made on Rostóv was a very agreeable one. To
+remember her gave him pleasure, and when his comrades, hearing of his
+adventure at Bogucharovo, rallied him on having gone to look for hay and
+having picked up one of the wealthiest heiresses in Russia, he grew
+angry. It made him angry just because the idea of marrying the gentle
+Princess Mary, who was attractive to him and had an enormous fortune,
+had against his will more than once entered his head. For himself
+personally Nicholas could not wish for a better wife: by marrying her he
+would make the countess his mother happy, would be able to put his
+father's affairs in order, and would even—he felt it—ensure Princess
+Mary's happiness.
+
+But Sónya? And his plighted word? That was why Rostóv grew angry when he
+was rallied about Princess Bolkónskaya.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+On receiving command of the armies Kutúzov remembered Prince Andrew and
+sent an order for him to report at headquarters.
+
+Prince Andrew arrived at Tsarevo-Zaymishche on the very day and at the
+very hour that Kutúzov was reviewing the troops for the first time. He
+stopped in the village at the priest's house in front of which stood the
+commander-in-chief's carriage, and he sat down on the bench at the gate
+awaiting his Serene Highness, as everyone now called Kutúzov. From the
+field beyond the village came now sounds of regimental music and now the
+roar of many voices shouting "Hurrah!" to the new commander-in-chief.
+Two orderlies, a courier and a major-domo, stood near by, some ten paces
+from Prince Andrew, availing themselves of Kutúzov's absence and of the
+fine weather. A short, swarthy lieutenant colonel of hussars with thick
+mustaches and whiskers rode up to the gate and, glancing at Prince
+Andrew, inquired whether his Serene Highness was putting up there and
+whether he would soon be back.
+
+Prince Andrew replied that he was not on his Serene Highness' staff but
+was himself a new arrival. The lieutenant colonel turned to a smart
+orderly, who, with the peculiar contempt with which a commander-in-
+chief's orderly speaks to officers, replied:
+
+"What? His Serene Highness? I expect he'll be here soon. What do you
+want?"
+
+The lieutenant colonel of hussars smiled beneath his mustache at the
+orderly's tone, dismounted, gave his horse to a dispatch runner, and
+approached Bolkónski with a slight bow. Bolkónski made room for him on
+the bench and the lieutenant colonel sat down beside him.
+
+"You're also waiting for the commander-in-chief?" said he. "They say he
+weceives evewyone, thank God!... It's awful with those sausage eaters!
+Ermolov had weason to ask to be pwomoted to be a German! Now p'waps
+Wussians will get a look in. As it was, devil only knows what was
+happening. We kept wetweating and wetweating. Did you take part in the
+campaign?" he asked.
+
+"I had the pleasure," replied Prince Andrew, "not only of taking part in
+the retreat but of losing in that retreat all I held dear—not to mention
+the estate and home of my birth—my father, who died of grief. I belong
+to the province of Smolensk."
+
+"Ah? You're Pwince Bolkónski? Vewy glad to make your acquaintance! I'm
+Lieutenant Colonel Denisov, better known as 'Vaska,'" said Denisov,
+pressing Prince Andrew's hand and looking into his face with a
+particularly kindly attention. "Yes, I heard," said he sympathetically,
+and after a short pause added: "Yes, it's Scythian warfare. It's all
+vewy well—only not for those who get it in the neck. So you are Pwince
+Andwew Bolkónski?" He swayed his head. "Vewy pleased, Pwince, to make
+your acquaintance!" he repeated again, smiling sadly, and he again
+pressed Prince Andrew's hand.
+
+Prince Andrew knew Denisov from what Natásha had told him of her first
+suitor. This memory carried him sadly and sweetly back to those painful
+feelings of which he had not thought lately, but which still found place
+in his soul. Of late he had received so many new and very serious
+impressions—such as the retreat from Smolensk, his visit to Bald Hills,
+and the recent news of his father's death—and had experienced so many
+emotions, that for a long time past those memories had not entered his
+mind, and now that they did, they did not act on him with nearly their
+former strength. For Denisov, too, the memories awakened by the name of
+Bolkónski belonged to a distant, romantic past, when after supper and
+after Natásha's singing he had proposed to a little girl of fifteen
+without realizing what he was doing. He smiled at the recollection of
+that time and of his love for Natásha, and passed at once to what now
+interested him passionately and exclusively. This was a plan of campaign
+he had devised while serving at the outposts during the retreat. He had
+proposed that plan to Barclay de Tolly and now wished to propose it to
+Kutúzov. The plan was based on the fact that the French line of
+operation was too extended, and it proposed that instead of, or
+concurrently with, action on the front to bar the advance of the French,
+we should attack their line of communication. He began explaining his
+plan to Prince Andrew.
+
+"They can't hold all that line. It's impossible. I will undertake to
+bweak thwough. Give me five hundwed men and I will bweak the line,
+that's certain! There's only one way—guewilla warfare!"
+
+Denisov rose and began gesticulating as he explained his plan to
+Bolkónski. In the midst of his explanation shouts were heard from the
+army, growing more incoherent and more diffused, mingling with music and
+songs and coming from the field where the review was held. Sounds of
+hoofs and shouts were nearing the village.
+
+"He's coming! He's coming!" shouted a Cossack standing at the gate.
+
+Bolkónski and Denisov moved to the gate, at which a knot of soldiers (a
+guard of honor) was standing, and they saw Kutúzov coming down the
+street mounted on a rather small sorrel horse. A huge suite of generals
+rode behind him. Barclay was riding almost beside him, and a crowd of
+officers ran after and around them shouting, "Hurrah!"
+
+His adjutants galloped into the yard before him. Kutúzov was impatiently
+urging on his horse, which ambled smoothly under his weight, and he
+raised his hand to his white Horse Guard's cap with a red band and no
+peak, nodding his head continually. When he came up to the guard of
+honor, a fine set of Grenadiers mostly wearing decorations, who were
+giving him the salute, he looked at them silently and attentively for
+nearly a minute with the steady gaze of a commander and then turned to
+the crowd of generals and officers surrounding him. Suddenly his face
+assumed a subtle expression, he shrugged his shoulders with an air of
+perplexity.
+
+"And with such fine fellows to retreat and retreat! Well, good-by,
+General," he added, and rode into the yard past Prince Andrew and
+Denisov.
+
+"Hurrah! hurrah! hurrah!" shouted those behind him.
+
+Since Prince Andrew had last seen him Kutúzov had grown still more
+corpulent, flaccid, and fat. But the bleached eyeball, the scar, and the
+familiar weariness of his expression were still the same. He was wearing
+the white Horse Guard's cap and a military overcoat with a whip hanging
+over his shoulder by a thin strap. He sat heavily and swayed limply on
+his brisk little horse.
+
+"Whew... whew... whew!" he whistled just audibly as he rode into the
+yard. His face expressed the relief of relaxed strain felt by a man who
+means to rest after a ceremony. He drew his left foot out of the stirrup
+and, lurching with his whole body and puckering his face with the
+effort, raised it with difficulty onto the saddle, leaned on his knee,
+groaned, and slipped down into the arms of the Cossacks and adjutants
+who stood ready to assist him.
+
+He pulled himself together, looked round, screwing up his eyes, glanced
+at Prince Andrew, and, evidently not recognizing him, moved with his
+waddling gait to the porch. "Whew... whew... whew!" he whistled, and
+again glanced at Prince Andrew. As often occurs with old men, it was
+only after some seconds that the impression produced by Prince Andrew's
+face linked itself up with Kutúzov's remembrance of his personality.
+
+"Ah, how do you do, my dear prince? How do you do, my dear boy? Come
+along..." said he, glancing wearily round, and he stepped onto the porch
+which creaked under his weight.
+
+He unbuttoned his coat and sat down on a bench in the porch.
+
+"And how's your father?"
+
+"I received news of his death, yesterday," replied Prince Andrew
+abruptly.
+
+Kutúzov looked at him with eyes wide open with dismay and then took off
+his cap and crossed himself:
+
+"May the kingdom of Heaven be his! God's will be done to us all!" He
+sighed deeply, his whole chest heaving, and was silent for a while. "I
+loved him and respected him, and sympathize with you with all my heart."
+
+He embraced Prince Andrew, pressing him to his fat breast, and for some
+time did not let him go. When he released him Prince Andrew saw that
+Kutúzov's flabby lips were trembling and that tears were in his eyes. He
+sighed and pressed on the bench with both hands to raise himself.
+
+"Come! Come with me, we'll have a talk," said he.
+
+But at that moment Denisov, no more intimidated by his superiors than by
+the enemy, came with jingling spurs up the steps of the porch, despite
+the angry whispers of the adjutants who tried to stop him. Kutúzov, his
+hands still pressed on the seat, glanced at him glumly. Denisov, having
+given his name, announced that he had to communicate to his Serene
+Highness a matter of great importance for their country's welfare.
+Kutúzov looked wearily at him and, lifting his hands with a gesture of
+annoyance, folded them across his stomach, repeating the words: "For our
+country's welfare? Well, what is it? Speak!" Denisov blushed like a girl
+(it was strange to see the color rise in that shaggy, bibulous, time-
+worn face) and boldly began to expound his plan of cutting the enemy's
+lines of communication between Smolensk and Vyazma. Denisov came from
+those parts and knew the country well. His plan seemed decidedly a good
+one, especially from the strength of conviction with which he spoke.
+Kutúzov looked down at his own legs, occasionally glancing at the door
+of the adjoining hut as if expecting something unpleasant to emerge from
+it. And from that hut, while Denisov was speaking, a general with a
+portfolio under his arm really did appear.
+
+"What?" said Kutúzov, in the midst of Denisov's explanations, "are you
+ready so soon?"
+
+"Ready, your Serene Highness," replied the general.
+
+Kutúzov swayed his head, as much as to say: "How is one man to deal with
+it all?" and again listened to Denisov.
+
+"I give my word of honor as a Wussian officer," said Denisov, "that I
+can bweak Napoleon's line of communication!"
+
+"What relation are you to Intendant General Kiril Andréevich Denisov?"
+asked Kutúzov, interrupting him.
+
+"He is my uncle, your Sewene Highness."
+
+"Ah, we were friends," said Kutúzov cheerfully. "All right, all right,
+friend, stay here at the staff and tomorrow we'll have a talk."
+
+With a nod to Denisov he turned away and put out his hand for the papers
+Konovnitsyn had brought him.
+
+"Would not your Serene Highness like to come inside?" said the general
+on duty in a discontented voice, "the plans must be examined and several
+papers have to be signed."
+
+An adjutant came out and announced that everything was in readiness
+within. But Kutúzov evidently did not wish to enter that room till he
+was disengaged. He made a grimace...
+
+"No, tell them to bring a small table out here, my dear boy. I'll look
+at them here," said he. "Don't go away," he added, turning to Prince
+Andrew, who remained in the porch and listened to the general's report.
+
+While this was being given, Prince Andrew heard the whisper of a woman's
+voice and the rustle of a silk dress behind the door. Several times on
+glancing that way he noticed behind that door a plump, rosy, handsome
+woman in a pink dress with a lilac silk kerchief on her head, holding a
+dish and evidently awaiting the entrance of the commander-in-chief.
+Kutúzov's adjutant whispered to Prince Andrew that this was the wife of
+the priest whose home it was, and that she intended to offer his Serene
+Highness bread and salt. "Her husband has welcomed his Serene Highness
+with the cross at the church, and she intends to welcome him in the
+house.... She's very pretty," added the adjutant with a smile. At those
+words Kutúzov looked round. He was listening to the general's
+report—which consisted chiefly of a criticism of the position at
+Tsarevo-Zaymishche—as he had listened to Denisov, and seven years
+previously had listened to the discussion at the Austerlitz council of
+war. He evidently listened only because he had ears which, though there
+was a piece of tow in one of them, could not help hearing; but it was
+evident that nothing the general could say would surprise or even
+interest him, that he knew all that would be said beforehand, and heard
+it all only because he had to, as one has to listen to the chanting of a
+service of prayer. All that Denisov had said was clever and to the
+point. What the general was saying was even more clever and to the
+point, but it was evident that Kutúzov despised knowledge and
+cleverness, and knew of something else that would decide the
+matter—something independent of cleverness and knowledge. Prince Andrew
+watched the commander-in-chief's face attentively, and the only
+expression he could see there was one of boredom, curiosity as to the
+meaning of the feminine whispering behind the door, and a desire to
+observe propriety. It was evident that Kutúzov despised cleverness and
+learning and even the patriotic feeling shown by Denisov, but despised
+them not because of his own intellect, feelings, or knowledge—he did not
+try to display any of these—but because of something else. He despised
+them because of his old age and experience of life. The only instruction
+Kutúzov gave of his own accord during that report referred to looting by
+the Russian troops. At the end of the report the general put before him
+for signature a paper relating to the recovery of payment from army
+commanders for green oats mown down by the soldiers, when landowners
+lodged petitions for compensation.
+
+After hearing the matter, Kutúzov smacked his lips together and shook
+his head.
+
+"Into the stove... into the fire with it! I tell you once for all, my
+dear fellow," said he, "into the fire with all such things! Let them cut
+the crops and burn wood to their hearts' content. I don't order it or
+allow it, but I don't exact compensation either. One can't get on
+without it. 'When wood is chopped the chips will fly.'" He looked at the
+paper again. "Oh, this German precision!" he muttered, shaking his head.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+"Well, that's all!" said Kutúzov as he signed the last of the documents,
+and rising heavily and smoothing out the folds in his fat white neck he
+moved toward the door with a more cheerful expression.
+
+The priest's wife, flushing rosy red, caught up the dish she had after
+all not managed to present at the right moment, though she had so long
+been preparing for it, and with a low bow offered it to Kutúzov.
+
+He screwed up his eyes, smiled, lifted her chin with his hand, and said:
+
+"Ah, what a beauty! Thank you, sweetheart!"
+
+He took some gold pieces from his trouser pocket and put them on the
+dish for her. "Well, my dear, and how are we getting on?" he asked,
+moving to the door of the room assigned to him. The priest's wife
+smiled, and with dimples in her rosy cheeks followed him into the room.
+The adjutant came out to the porch and asked Prince Andrew to lunch with
+him. Half an hour later Prince Andrew was again called to Kutúzov. He
+found him reclining in an armchair, still in the same unbuttoned
+overcoat. He had in his hand a French book which he closed as Prince
+Andrew entered, marking the place with a knife. Prince Andrew saw by the
+cover that it was Les Chevaliers du Cygne by Madame de Genlis.
+
+"Well, sit down, sit down here. Let's have a talk," said Kutúzov. "It's
+sad, very sad. But remember, my dear fellow, that I am a father to you,
+a second father...."
+
+Prince Andrew told Kutúzov all he knew of his father's death, and what
+he had seen at Bald Hills when he passed through it.
+
+"What... what they have brought us to!" Kutúzov suddenly cried in an
+agitated voice, evidently picturing vividly to himself from Prince
+Andrew's story the condition Russia was in. "But give me time, give me
+time!" he said with a grim look, evidently not wishing to continue this
+agitating conversation, and added: "I sent for you to keep you with me."
+
+"I thank your Serene Highness, but I fear I am no longer fit for the
+staff," replied Prince Andrew with a smile which Kutúzov noticed.
+
+Kutúzov glanced inquiringly at him.
+
+"But above all," added Prince Andrew, "I have grown used to my regiment,
+am fond of the officers, and I fancy the men also like me. I should be
+sorry to leave the regiment. If I decline the honor of being with you,
+believe me..."
+
+A shrewd, kindly, yet subtly derisive expression lit up Kutúzov's podgy
+face. He cut Bolkónski short.
+
+"I am sorry, for I need you. But you're right, you're right! It's not
+here that men are needed. Advisers are always plentiful, but men are
+not. The regiments would not be what they are if the would-be advisers
+served there as you do. I remember you at Austerlitz.... I remember,
+yes, I remember you with the standard!" said Kutúzov, and a flush of
+pleasure suffused Prince Andrew's face at this recollection.
+
+Taking his hand and drawing him downwards, Kutúzov offered his cheek to
+be kissed, and again Prince Andrew noticed tears in the old man's eyes.
+Though Prince Andrew knew that Kutúzov's tears came easily, and that he
+was particularly tender to and considerate of him from a wish to show
+sympathy with his loss, yet this reminder of Austerlitz was both
+pleasant and flattering to him.
+
+"Go your way and God be with you. I know your path is the path of
+honor!" He paused. "I missed you at Bucharest, but I needed someone to
+send." And changing the subject, Kutúzov began to speak of the Turkish
+war and the peace that had been concluded. "Yes, I have been much
+blamed," he said, "both for that war and the peace... but everything
+came at the right time. Tout vient a point a celui qui sait attendre. *
+And there were as many advisers there as here..." he went on, returning
+to the subject of "advisers" which evidently occupied him. "Ah, those
+advisers!" said he. "If we had listened to them all we should not have
+made peace with Turkey and should not have been through with that war.
+Everything in haste, but more haste, less speed. Kamenski would have
+been lost if he had not died. He stormed fortresses with thirty thousand
+men. It is not difficult to capture a fortress but it is difficult to
+win a campaign. For that, not storming and attacking but patience and
+time are wanted. Kamenski sent soldiers to Rustchuk, but I only employed
+these two things and took more fortresses than Kamenski and made them
+Turks eat horseflesh!" He swayed his head. "And the French shall too,
+believe me," he went on, growing warmer and beating his chest, "I'll
+make them eat horseflesh!" And tears again dimmed his eyes.
+
+* "Everything comes in time to him who knows how to wait."
+
+"But shan't we have to accept battle?" remarked Prince Andrew.
+
+"We shall if everybody wants it; it can't be helped.... But believe me,
+my dear boy, there is nothing stronger than those two: patience and
+time, they will do it all. But the advisers n'entendent pas de cette
+oreille, voila le mal. * Some want a thing—others don't. What's one to
+do?" he asked, evidently expecting an answer. "Well, what do you want us
+to do?" he repeated and his eye shone with a deep, shrewd look. "I'll
+tell you what to do," he continued, as Prince Andrew still did not
+reply: "I will tell you what to do, and what I do. Dans le doute, mon
+cher," he paused, "abstiens-toi" *(2)—he articulated the French proverb
+deliberately.
+
+* "Don't see it that way, that's the trouble."
+
+* (2) "When in doubt, my dear fellow, do nothing."
+
+"Well, good-by, my dear fellow; remember that with all my heart I share
+your sorrow, and that for you I am not a Serene Highness, nor a prince,
+nor a commander-in-chief, but a father! If you want anything come
+straight to me. Good-bye, my dear boy."
+
+Again he embraced and kissed Prince Andrew, but before the latter had
+left the room Kutúzov gave a sigh of relief and went on with his
+unfinished novel, Les Chevaliers du Cygne by Madame de Genlis.
+
+Prince Andrew could not have explained how or why it was, but after that
+interview with Kutúzov he went back to his regiment reassured as to the
+general course of affairs and as to the man to whom it had been
+entrusted. The more he realized the absence of all personal motive in
+that old man—in whom there seemed to remain only the habit of passions,
+and in place of an intellect (grouping events and drawing conclusions)
+only the capacity calmly to contemplate the course of events—the more
+reassured he was that everything would be as it should. "He will not
+bring in any plan of his own. He will not devise or undertake anything,"
+thought Prince Andrew, "but he will hear everything, remember
+everything, and put everything in its place. He will not hinder anything
+useful nor allow anything harmful. He understands that there is
+something stronger and more important than his own will—the inevitable
+course of events, and he can see them and grasp their significance, and
+seeing that significance can refrain from meddling and renounce his
+personal wish directed to something else. And above all," thought Prince
+Andrew, "one believes in him because he's Russian, despite the novel by
+Genlis and the French proverbs, and because his voice shook when he
+said: 'What they have brought us to!' and had a sob in it when he said
+he would 'make them eat horseflesh!'"
+
+On such feelings, more or less dimly shared by all, the unanimity and
+general approval were founded with which, despite court influences, the
+popular choice of Kutúzov as commander-in-chief was received.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+After the Emperor had left Moscow, life flowed on there in its usual
+course, and its course was so very usual that it was difficult to
+remember the recent days of patriotic elation and ardor, hard to believe
+that Russia was really in danger and that the members of the English
+Club were also sons of the Fatherland ready to sacrifice everything for
+it. The one thing that recalled the patriotic fervor everyone had
+displayed during the Emperor's stay was the call for contributions of
+men and money, a necessity that as soon as the promises had been made
+assumed a legal, official form and became unavoidable.
+
+With the enemy's approach to Moscow, the Moscovites' view of their
+situation did not grow more serious but on the contrary became even more
+frivolous, as always happens with people who see a great danger
+approaching. At the approach of danger there are always two voices that
+speak with equal power in the human soul: one very reasonably tells a
+man to consider the nature of the danger and the means of escaping it;
+the other, still more reasonably, says that it is too depressing and
+painful to think of the danger, since it is not in man's power to
+foresee everything and avert the general course of events, and it is
+therefore better to disregard what is painful till it comes, and to
+think about what is pleasant. In solitude a man generally listens to the
+first voice, but in society to the second. So it was now with the
+inhabitants of Moscow. It was long since people had been as gay in
+Moscow as that year.
+
+Rostopchin's broadsheets, headed by woodcuts of a drink shop, a potman,
+and a Moscow burgher called Karpushka Chigirin, "who—having been a
+militiaman and having had rather too much at the pub—heard that Napoleon
+wished to come to Moscow, grew angry, abused the French in very bad
+language, came out of the drink shop, and, under the sign of the eagle,
+began to address the assembled people," were read and discussed,
+together with the latest of Vasíli Lvovich Pushkin's bouts rimes.
+
+In the corner room at the club, members gathered to read these
+broadsheets, and some liked the way Karpushka jeered at the French,
+saying: "They will swell up with Russian cabbage, burst with our
+buckwheat porridge, and choke themselves with cabbage soup. They are all
+dwarfs and one peasant woman will toss three of them with a hayfork."
+Others did not like that tone and said it was stupid and vulgar. It was
+said that Rostopchin had expelled all Frenchmen and even all foreigners
+from Moscow, and that there had been some spies and agents of Napoleon
+among them; but this was told chiefly to introduce Rostopchin's witty
+remark on that occasion. The foreigners were deported to Nizhni by boat,
+and Rostopchin had said to them in French: "Rentrez en vousmemes; entrez
+dans la barque, et n'en faites pas une barque de Charon." * There was
+talk of all the government offices having been already removed from
+Moscow, and to this Shinshín's witticism was added—that for that alone
+Moscow ought to be grateful to Napoleon. It was said that Mamonov's
+regiment would cost him eight hundred thousand rubles, and that Bezúkhov
+had spent even more on his, but that the best thing about Bezúkhov's
+action was that he himself was going to don a uniform and ride at the
+head of his regiment without charging anything for the show.
+
+* "Think it over; get into the barque, and take care not to make it a
+barque of Charon."
+
+"You don't spare anyone," said Julie Drubetskáya as she collected and
+pressed together a bunch of raveled lint with her thin, beringed
+fingers.
+
+Julie was preparing to leave Moscow next day and was giving a farewell
+soiree.
+
+"Bezúkhov est ridicule, but he is so kind and good-natured. What
+pleasure is there to be so caustique?"
+
+"A forfeit!" cried a young man in militia uniform whom Julie called "mon
+chevalier," and who was going with her to Nizhni.
+
+In Julie's set, as in many other circles in Moscow, it had been agreed
+that they would speak nothing but Russian and that those who made a slip
+and spoke French should pay fines to the Committee of Voluntary
+Contributions.
+
+"Another forfeit for a Gallicism," said a Russian writer who was
+present. "'What pleasure is there to be' is not Russian!"
+
+"You spare no one," continued Julie to the young man without heeding the
+author's remark.
+
+"For caustique—I am guilty and will pay, and I am prepared to pay again
+for the pleasure of telling you the truth. For Gallicisms I won't be
+responsible," she remarked, turning to the author: "I have neither the
+money nor the time, like Prince Galitsyn, to engage a master to teach me
+Russian!"
+
+"Ah, here he is!" she added. "Quand on... No, no," she said to the
+militia officer, "you won't catch me. Speak of the sun and you see its
+rays!" and she smiled amiably at Pierre. "We were just talking of you,"
+she said with the facility in lying natural to a society woman. "We were
+saying that your regiment would be sure to be better than Mamonov's."
+
+"Oh, don't talk to me of my regiment," replied Pierre, kissing his
+hostess' hand and taking a seat beside her. "I am so sick of it."
+
+"You will, of course, command it yourself?" said Julie, directing a sly,
+sarcastic glance toward the militia officer.
+
+The latter in Pierre's presence had ceased to be caustic, and his face
+expressed perplexity as to what Julie's smile might mean. In spite of
+his absent-mindedness and good nature, Pierre's personality immediately
+checked any attempt to ridicule him to his face.
+
+"No," said Pierre, with a laughing glance at his big, stout body. "I
+should make too good a target for the French, besides I am afraid I
+should hardly be able to climb onto a horse."
+
+Among those whom Julie's guests happened to choose to gossip about were
+the Rostóvs.
+
+"I hear that their affairs are in a very bad way," said Julie. "And he
+is so unreasonable, the count himself I mean. The Razumóvskis wanted to
+buy his house and his estate near Moscow, but it drags on and on. He
+asks too much."
+
+"No, I think the sale will come off in a few days," said someone.
+"Though it is madness to buy anything in Moscow now."
+
+"Why?" asked Julie. "You don't think Moscow is in danger?"
+
+"Then why are you leaving?"
+
+"I? What a question! I am going because... well, because everyone is
+going: and besides—I am not Joan of Arc or an Amazon."
+
+"Well, of course, of course! Let me have some more strips of linen."
+
+"If he manages the business properly he will be able to pay off all his
+debts," said the militia officer, speaking of Rostóv.
+
+"A kindly old man but not up to much. And why do they stay on so long in
+Moscow? They meant to leave for the country long ago. Natalie is quite
+well again now, isn't she?" Julie asked Pierre with a knowing smile.
+
+"They are waiting for their younger son," Pierre replied. "He joined
+Obolenski's Cossacks and went to Belaya Tserkov where the regiment is
+being formed. But now they have had him transferred to my regiment and
+are expecting him every day. The count wanted to leave long ago, but the
+countess won't on any account leave Moscow till her son returns."
+
+"I met them the day before yesterday at the Arkhárovs'. Natalie has
+recovered her looks and is brighter. She sang a song. How easily some
+people get over everything!"
+
+"Get over what?" inquired Pierre, looking displeased.
+
+Julie smiled.
+
+"You know, Count, such knights as you are only found in Madame de
+Souza's novels."
+
+"What knights? What do you mean?" demanded Pierre, blushing.
+
+"Oh, come, my dear count! C'est la fable de tout Moscou. Je vous admire,
+ma parole d'honneur!" *
+
+* "It is the talk of all Moscow. My word, I admire you!"
+
+"Forfeit, forfeit!" cried the militia officer.
+
+"All right, one can't talk—how tiresome!"
+
+"What is 'the talk of all Moscow'?" Pierre asked angrily, rising to his
+feet.
+
+"Come now, Count, you know!"
+
+"I don't know anything about it," said Pierre.
+
+"I know you were friendly with Natalie, and so... but I was always more
+friendly with Véra—that dear Véra."
+
+"No, madame!" Pierre continued in a tone of displeasure, "I have not
+taken on myself the role of Natalie Rostóva's knight at all, and have
+not been to their house for nearly a month. But I cannot understand the
+cruelty..."
+
+"Qui s'excuse s'accuse," * said Julie, smiling and waving the lint
+triumphantly, and to have the last word she promptly changed the
+subject. "Do you know what I heard today? Poor Mary Bolkónskaya arrived
+in Moscow yesterday. Do you know that she has lost her father?"
+
+* "Who excuses himself, accuses himself."
+
+"Really? Where is she? I should like very much to see her," said Pierre.
+
+"I spent the evening with her yesterday. She is going to their estate
+near Moscow either today or tomorrow morning, with her nephew."
+
+"Well, and how is she?" asked Pierre.
+
+"She is well, but sad. But do you know who rescued her? It is quite a
+romance. Nicholas Rostóv! She was surrounded, and they wanted to kill
+her and had wounded some of her people. He rushed in and saved her...."
+
+"Another romance," said the militia officer. "Really, this general
+flight has been arranged to get all the old maids married off. Catiche
+is one and Princess Bolkónskaya another."
+
+"Do you know, I really believe she is un petit peu amoureuse du jeune
+homme." *
+
+* "A little bit in love with the young man."
+
+"Forfeit, forfeit, forfeit!"
+
+"But how could one say that in Russian?"
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+When Pierre returned home he was handed two of Rostopchin's broadsheets
+that had been brought that day.
+
+The first declared that the report that Count Rostopchin had forbidden
+people to leave Moscow was false; on the contrary he was glad that
+ladies and tradesmen's wives were leaving the city. "There will be less
+panic and less gossip," ran the broadsheet "but I will stake my life on
+it that scoundrel will not enter Moscow." These words showed Pierre
+clearly for the first time that the French would enter Moscow. The
+second broadsheet stated that our headquarters were at Vyazma, that
+Count Wittgenstein had defeated the French, but that as many of the
+inhabitants of Moscow wished to be armed, weapons were ready for them at
+the arsenal: sabers, pistols, and muskets which could be had at a low
+price. The tone of the proclamation was not as jocose as in the former
+Chigirin talks. Pierre pondered over these broadsheets. Evidently the
+terrible stormcloud he had desired with the whole strength of his soul
+but which yet aroused involuntary horror in him was drawing near.
+
+"Shall I join the army and enter the service, or wait?" he asked himself
+for the hundredth time. He took a pack of cards that lay on the table
+and began to lay them out for a game of patience.
+
+"If this patience comes out," he said to himself after shuffling the
+cards, holding them in his hand, and lifting his head, "if it comes out,
+it means... what does it mean?"
+
+He had not decided what it should mean when he heard the voice of the
+eldest princess at the door asking whether she might come in.
+
+"Then it will mean that I must go to the army," said Pierre to himself.
+"Come in, come in!" he added to the princess.
+
+Only the eldest princess, the one with the stony face and long waist,
+was still living in Pierre's house. The two younger ones had both
+married.
+
+"Excuse my coming to you, cousin," she said in a reproachful and
+agitated voice. "You know some decision must be come to. What is going
+to happen? Everyone has left Moscow and the people are rioting. How is
+it that we are staying on?"
+
+"On the contrary, things seem satisfactory, ma cousine," said Pierre in
+the bantering tone he habitually adopted toward her, always feeling
+uncomfortable in the role of her benefactor.
+
+"Satisfactory, indeed! Very satisfactory! Barbara Ivánovna told me today
+how our troops are distinguishing themselves. It certainly does them
+credit! And the people too are quite mutinous—they no longer obey, even
+my maid has taken to being rude. At this rate they will soon begin
+beating us. One can't walk in the streets. But, above all, the French
+will be here any day now, so what are we waiting for? I ask just one
+thing of you, cousin," she went on, "arrange for me to be taken to
+Petersburg. Whatever I may be, I can't live under Bonaparte's rule."
+
+"Oh, come, ma cousine! Where do you get your information from? On the
+contrary..."
+
+"I won't submit to your Napoleon! Others may if they please.... If you
+don't want to do this..."
+
+"But I will, I'll give the order at once."
+
+The princess was apparently vexed at not having anyone to be angry with.
+Muttering to herself, she sat down on a chair.
+
+"But you have been misinformed," said Pierre. "Everything is quiet in
+the city and there is not the slightest danger. See! I've just been
+reading..." He showed her the broadsheet. "Count Rostopchin writes that
+he will stake his life on it that the enemy will not enter Moscow."
+
+"Oh, that count of yours!" said the princess malevolently. "He is a
+hypocrite, a rascal who has himself roused the people to riot. Didn't he
+write in those idiotic broadsheets that anyone, 'whoever it might be,
+should be dragged to the lockup by his hair'? (How silly!) 'And honor
+and glory to whoever captures him,' he says. This is what his cajolery
+has brought us to! Barbara Ivánovna told me the mob near killed her
+because she said something in French."
+
+"Oh, but it's so... You take everything so to heart," said Pierre, and
+began laying out his cards for patience.
+
+Although that patience did come out, Pierre did not join the army, but
+remained in deserted Moscow ever in the same state of agitation,
+irresolution, and alarm, yet at the same time joyfully expecting
+something terrible.
+
+Next day toward evening the princess set off, and Pierre's head steward
+came to inform him that the money needed for the equipment of his
+regiment could not be found without selling one of the estates. In
+general the head steward made out to Pierre that his project of raising
+a regiment would ruin him. Pierre listened to him, scarcely able to
+repress a smile.
+
+"Well then, sell it," said he. "What's to be done? I can't draw back
+now!"
+
+The worse everything became, especially his own affairs, the better was
+Pierre pleased and the more evident was it that the catastrophe he
+expected was approaching. Hardly anyone he knew was left in town. Julie
+had gone, and so had Princess Mary. Of his intimate friends only the
+Rostóvs remained, but he did not go to see them.
+
+To distract his thoughts he drove that day to the village of Vorontsovo
+to see the great balloon Leppich was constructing to destroy the foe,
+and a trial balloon that was to go up next day. The balloon was not yet
+ready, but Pierre learned that it was being constructed by the Emperor's
+desire. The Emperor had written to Count Rostopchin as follows:
+
+As soon as Leppich is ready, get together a crew of reliable and
+intelligent men for his car and send a courier to General Kutúzov to let
+him know. I have informed him of the matter.
+
+Please impress upon Leppich to be very careful where he descends for the
+first time, that he may not make a mistake and fall into the enemy's
+hands. It is essential for him to combine his movements with those of
+the commander-in-chief.
+
+On his way home from Vorontsovo, as he was passing the Bolotnoe Place
+Pierre, seeing a large crowd round the Lobnoe Place, stopped and got out
+of his trap. A French cook accused of being a spy was being flogged. The
+flogging was only just over, and the executioner was releasing from the
+flogging bench a stout man with red whiskers, in blue stockings and a
+green jacket, who was moaning piteously. Another criminal, thin and
+pale, stood near. Judging by their faces they were both Frenchmen. With
+a frightened and suffering look resembling that on the thin Frenchman's
+face, Pierre pushed his way in through the crowd.
+
+"What is it? Who is it? What is it for?" he kept asking.
+
+But the attention of the crowd—officials, burghers, shopkeepers,
+peasants, and women in cloaks and in pelisses—was so eagerly centered on
+what was passing in Lobnoe Place that no one answered him. The stout man
+rose, frowned, shrugged his shoulders, and evidently trying to appear
+firm began to pull on his jacket without looking about him, but suddenly
+his lips trembled and he began to cry, in the way full-blooded grown-up
+men cry, though angry with himself for doing so. In the crowd people
+began talking loudly, to stifle their feelings of pity as it seemed to
+Pierre.
+
+"He's cook to some prince."
+
+"Eh, mounseer, Russian sauce seems to be sour to a Frenchman... sets his
+teeth on edge!" said a wrinkled clerk who was standing behind Pierre,
+when the Frenchman began to cry.
+
+The clerk glanced round, evidently hoping that his joke would be
+appreciated. Some people began to laugh, others continued to watch in
+dismay the executioner who was undressing the other man.
+
+Pierre choked, his face puckered, and he turned hastily away, went back
+to his trap muttering something to himself as he went, and took his
+seat. As they drove along he shuddered and exclaimed several times so
+audibly that the coachman asked him:
+
+"What is your pleasure?"
+
+"Where are you going?" shouted Pierre to the man, who was driving to
+Lubyanka Street.
+
+"To the Governor's, as you ordered," answered the coachman.
+
+"Fool! Idiot!" shouted Pierre, abusing his coachman—a thing he rarely
+did. "Home, I told you! And drive faster, blockhead!" "I must get away
+this very day," he murmured to himself.
+
+At the sight of the tortured Frenchman and the crowd surrounding the
+Lobnoe Place, Pierre had so definitely made up his mind that he could no
+longer remain in Moscow and would leave for the army that very day that
+it seemed to him that either he had told the coachman this or that the
+man ought to have known it for himself.
+
+On reaching home Pierre gave orders to Evstafey—his head coachman who
+knew everything, could do anything, and was known to all Moscow—that he
+would leave that night for the army at Mozhaysk, and that his saddle
+horses should be sent there. This could not all be arranged that day, so
+on Evstafey's representation Pierre had to put off his departure till
+next day to allow time for the relay horses to be sent on in advance.
+
+On the twenty-fourth the weather cleared up after a spell of rain, and
+after dinner Pierre left Moscow. When changing horses that night in
+Perkhushkovo, he learned that there had been a great battle that
+evening. (This was the battle of Shevardino.) He was told that there in
+Perkhushkovo the earth trembled from the firing, but nobody could answer
+his questions as to who had won. At dawn next day Pierre was approaching
+Mozhaysk.
+
+Every house in Mozhaysk had soldiers quartered in it, and at the hostel
+where Pierre was met by his groom and coachman there was no room to be
+had. It was full of officers.
+
+Everywhere in Mozhaysk and beyond it, troops were stationed or on the
+march. Cossacks, foot and horse soldiers, wagons, caissons, and cannon
+were everywhere. Pierre pushed forward as fast as he could, and the
+farther he left Moscow behind and the deeper he plunged into that sea of
+troops the more was he overcome by restless agitation and a new and
+joyful feeling he had not experienced before. It was a feeling akin to
+what he had felt at the Sloboda Palace during the Emperor's visit—a
+sense of the necessity of undertaking something and sacrificing
+something. He now experienced a glad consciousness that everything that
+constitutes men's happiness—the comforts of life, wealth, even life
+itself—is rubbish it is pleasant to throw away, compared with
+something... With what? Pierre could not say, and he did not try to
+determine for whom and for what he felt such particular delight in
+sacrificing everything. He was not occupied with the question of what to
+sacrifice for; the fact of sacrificing in itself afforded him a new and
+joyous sensation.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+On the twenty-fourth of August the battle of the Shevardino Redoubt was
+fought, on the twenty-fifth not a shot was fired by either side, and on
+the twenty-sixth the battle of Borodino itself took place.
+
+Why and how were the battles of Shevardino and Borodino given and
+accepted? Why was the battle of Borodino fought? There was not the least
+sense in it for either the French or the Russians. Its immediate result
+for the Russians was, and was bound to be, that we were brought nearer
+to the destruction of Moscow—which we feared more than anything in the
+world; and for the French its immediate result was that they were
+brought nearer to the destruction of their whole army—which they feared
+more than anything in the world. What the result must be was quite
+obvious, and yet Napoleon offered and Kutúzov accepted that battle.
+
+If the commanders had been guided by reason, it would seem that it must
+have been obvious to Napoleon that by advancing thirteen hundred miles
+and giving battle with a probability of losing a quarter of his army, he
+was advancing to certain destruction, and it must have been equally
+clear to Kutúzov that by accepting battle and risking the loss of a
+quarter of his army he would certainly lose Moscow. For Kutúzov this was
+mathematically clear, as it is that if when playing draughts I have one
+man less and go on exchanging, I shall certainly lose, and therefore
+should not exchange. When my opponent has sixteen men and I have
+fourteen, I am only one eighth weaker than he, but when I have exchanged
+thirteen more men he will be three times as strong as I am.
+
+Before the battle of Borodino our strength in proportion to the French
+was about as five to six, but after that battle it was little more than
+one to two: previously we had a hundred thousand against a hundred and
+twenty thousand; afterwards little more than fifty thousand against a
+hundred thousand. Yet the shrewd and experienced Kutúzov accepted the
+battle, while Napoleon, who was said to be a commander of genius, gave
+it, losing a quarter of his army and lengthening his lines of
+communication still more. If it is said that he expected to end the
+campaign by occupying Moscow as he had ended a previous campaign by
+occupying Vienna, there is much evidence to the contrary. Napoleon's
+historians themselves tell us that from Smolensk onwards he wished to
+stop, knew the danger of his extended position, and knew that the
+occupation of Moscow would not be the end of the campaign, for he had
+seen at Smolensk the state in which Russian towns were left to him, and
+had not received a single reply to his repeated announcements of his
+wish to negotiate.
+
+In giving and accepting battle at Borodino, Kutúzov acted involuntarily
+and irrationally. But later on, to fit what had occurred, the historians
+provided cunningly devised evidence of the foresight and genius of the
+generals who, of all the blind tools of history were the most enslaved
+and involuntary.
+
+The ancients have left us model heroic poems in which the heroes furnish
+the whole interest of the story, and we are still unable to accustom
+ourselves to the fact that for our epoch histories of that kind are
+meaningless.
+
+On the other question, how the battle of Borodino and the preceding
+battle of Shevardino were fought, there also exists a definite and well-
+known, but quite false, conception. All the historians describe the
+affair as follows:
+
+The Russian army, they say, in its retreat from Smolensk sought out for
+itself the best position for a general engagement and found such a
+position at Borodino.
+
+The Russians, they say, fortified this position in advance on the left
+of the highroad (from Moscow to Smolensk) and almost at a right angle to
+it, from Borodino to Utitsa, at the very place where the battle was
+fought.
+
+In front of this position, they say, a fortified outpost was set up on
+the Shevardino mound to observe the enemy. On the twenty-fourth, we are
+told, Napoleon attacked this advanced post and took it, and, on the
+twenty-sixth, attacked the whole Russian army, which was in position on
+the field of Borodino.
+
+So the histories say, and it is all quite wrong, as anyone who cares to
+look into the matter can easily convince himself.
+
+The Russians did not seek out the best position but, on the contrary,
+during the retreat passed many positions better than Borodino. They did
+not stop at any one of these positions because Kutúzov did not wish to
+occupy a position he had not himself chosen, because the popular demand
+for a battle had not yet expressed itself strongly enough, and because
+Miloradovich had not yet arrived with the militia, and for many other
+reasons. The fact is that other positions they had passed were stronger,
+and that the position at Borodino (the one where the battle was fought),
+far from being strong, was no more a position than any other spot one
+might find in the Russian Empire by sticking a pin into the map at
+hazard.
+
+Not only did the Russians not fortify the position on the field of
+Borodino to the left of, and at a right angle to, the highroad (that is,
+the position on which the battle took place), but never till the twenty-
+fifth of August, 1812, did they think that a battle might be fought
+there. This was shown first by the fact that there were no entrenchments
+there by the twenty fifth and that those begun on the twenty-fifth and
+twenty-sixth were not completed, and secondly, by the position of the
+Shevardino Redoubt. That redoubt was quite senseless in front of the
+position where the battle was accepted. Why was it more strongly
+fortified than any other post? And why were all efforts exhausted and
+six thousand men sacrificed to defend it till late at night on the
+twenty-fourth? A Cossack patrol would have sufficed to observe the
+enemy. Thirdly, as proof that the position on which the battle was
+fought had not been foreseen and that the Shevardino Redoubt was not an
+advanced post of that position, we have the fact that up to the twenty-
+fifth, Barclay de Tolly and Bagration were convinced that the Shevardino
+Redoubt was the left flank of the position, and that Kutúzov himself in
+his report, written in hot haste after the battle, speaks of the
+Shevardino Redoubt as the left flank of the position. It was much later,
+when reports on the battle of Borodino were written at leisure, that the
+incorrect and extraordinary statement was invented (probably to justify
+the mistakes of a commander-in-chief who had to be represented as
+infallible) that the Shevardino Redoubt was an advanced post—whereas in
+reality it was simply a fortified point on the left flank—and that the
+battle of Borodino was fought by us on an entrenched position previously
+selected, where as it was fought on a quite unexpected spot which was
+almost unentrenched.
+
+The case was evidently this: a position was selected along the river
+Kolocha—which crosses the highroad not at a right angle but at an acute
+angle—so that the left flank was at Shevardino, the right flank near the
+village of Novoe, and the center at Borodino at the confluence of the
+rivers Kolocha and Voyna.
+
+To anyone who looks at the field of Borodino without thinking of how the
+battle was actually fought, this position, protected by the river
+Kolocha, presents itself as obvious for an army whose object was to
+prevent an enemy from advancing along the Smolensk road to Moscow.
+
+Napoleon, riding to Valuevo on the twenty-fourth, did not see (as the
+history books say he did) the position of the Russians from Utitsa to
+Borodino (he could not have seen that position because it did not
+exist), nor did he see an advanced post of the Russian army, but while
+pursuing the Russian rearguard he came upon the left flank of the
+Russian position—at the Shevardino Redoubt—and unexpectedly for the
+Russians moved his army across the Kolocha. And the Russians, not having
+time to begin a general engagement, withdrew their left wing from the
+position they had intended to occupy and took up a new position which
+had not been foreseen and was not fortified. By crossing to the other
+side of the Kolocha to the left of the highroad, Napoleon shifted the
+whole forthcoming battle from right to left (looking from the Russian
+side) and transferred it to the plain between Utitsa, Semënovsk, and
+Borodino—a plain no more advantageous as a position than any other plain
+in Russia—and there the whole battle of the twenty-sixth of August took
+place.
+
+Had Napoleon not ridden out on the evening of the twenty-fourth to the
+Kolocha, and had he not then ordered an immediate attack on the redoubt
+but had begun the attack next morning, no one would have doubted that
+the Shevardino Redoubt was the left flank of our position, and the
+battle would have taken place where we expected it. In that case we
+should probably have defended the Shevardino Redoubt—our left
+flank—still more obstinately. We should have attacked Napoleon in the
+center or on the right, and the engagement would have taken place on the
+twenty-fifth, in the position we intended and had fortified. But as the
+attack on our left flank took place in the evening after the retreat of
+our rear guard (that is, immediately after the fight at Gridneva), and
+as the Russian commanders did not wish, or were not in time, to begin a
+general engagement then on the evening of the twenty-fourth, the first
+and chief action of the battle of Borodino was already lost on the
+twenty-fourth, and obviously led to the loss of the one fought on the
+twenty-sixth.
+
+After the loss of the Shevardino Redoubt, we found ourselves on the
+morning of the twenty-fifth without a position for our left flank, and
+were forced to bend it back and hastily entrench it where it chanced to
+be.
+
+Not only was the Russian army on the twenty-sixth defended by weak,
+unfinished entrenchments, but the disadvantage of that position was
+increased by the fact that the Russian commanders—not having fully
+realized what had happened, namely the loss of our position on the left
+flank and the shifting of the whole field of the forthcoming battle from
+right to left—maintained their extended position from the village of
+Novoe to Utitsa, and consequently had to move their forces from right to
+left during the battle. So it happened that throughout the whole battle
+the Russians opposed the entire French army launched against our left
+flank with but half as many men. (Poniatowski's action against Utitsa,
+and Uvarov's on the right flank against the French, were actions
+distinct from the main course of the battle.) So the battle of Borodino
+did not take place at all as (in an effort to conceal our commanders'
+mistakes even at the cost of diminishing the glory due to the Russian
+army and people) it has been described. The battle of Borodino was not
+fought on a chosen and entrenched position with forces only slightly
+weaker than those of the enemy, but, as a result of the loss of the
+Shevardino Redoubt, the Russians fought the battle of Borodino on an
+open and almost unentrenched position, with forces only half as numerous
+as the French; that is to say, under conditions in which it was not
+merely unthinkable to fight for ten hours and secure an indecisive
+result, but unthinkable to keep an army even from complete
+disintegration and flight.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+On the morning of the twenty-fifth Pierre was leaving Mozhaysk. At the
+descent of the high steep hill, down which a winding road led out of the
+town past the cathedral on the right, where a service was being held and
+the bells were ringing, Pierre got out of his vehicle and proceeded on
+foot. Behind him a cavalry regiment was coming down the hill preceded by
+its singers. Coming up toward him was a train of carts carrying men who
+had been wounded in the engagement the day before. The peasant drivers,
+shouting and lashing their horses, kept crossing from side to side. The
+carts, in each of which three or four wounded soldiers were lying or
+sitting, jolted over the stones that had been thrown on the steep
+incline to make it something like a road. The wounded, bandaged with
+rags, with pale cheeks, compressed lips, and knitted brows, held on to
+the sides of the carts as they were jolted against one another. Almost
+all of them stared with naïve, childlike curiosity at Pierre's white hat
+and green swallow-tail coat.
+
+Pierre's coachman shouted angrily at the convoy of wounded to keep to
+one side of the road. The cavalry regiment, as it descended the hill
+with its singers, surrounded Pierre's carriage and blocked the road.
+Pierre stopped, being pressed against the side of the cutting in which
+the road ran. The sunshine from behind the hill did not penetrate into
+the cutting and there it was cold and damp, but above Pierre's head was
+the bright August sunshine and the bells sounded merrily. One of the
+carts with wounded stopped by the side of the road close to Pierre. The
+driver in his bast shoes ran panting up to it, placed a stone under one
+of its tireless hind wheels, and began arranging the breech-band on his
+little horse.
+
+One of the wounded, an old soldier with a bandaged arm who was following
+the cart on foot, caught hold of it with his sound hand and turned to
+look at Pierre.
+
+"I say, fellow countryman! Will they set us down here or take us on to
+Moscow?" he asked.
+
+Pierre was so deep in thought that he did not hear the question. He was
+looking now at the cavalry regiment that had met the convoy of wounded,
+now at the cart by which he was standing, in which two wounded men were
+sitting and one was lying. One of those sitting up in the cart had
+probably been wounded in the cheek. His whole head was wrapped in rags
+and one cheek was swollen to the size of a baby's head. His nose and
+mouth were twisted to one side. This soldier was looking at the
+cathedral and crossing himself. Another, a young lad, a fair-haired
+recruit as white as though there was no blood in his thin face, looked
+at Pierre kindly, with a fixed smile. The third lay prone so that his
+face was not visible. The cavalry singers were passing close by:
+
+Ah lost, quite lost... is my head so keen, Living in a foreign land.
+
+they sang their soldiers' dance song.
+
+As if responding to them but with a different sort of merriment, the
+metallic sound of the bells reverberated high above and the hot rays of
+the sun bathed the top of the opposite slope with yet another sort of
+merriment. But beneath the slope, by the cart with the wounded near the
+panting little nag where Pierre stood, it was damp, somber, and sad.
+
+The soldier with the swollen cheek looked angrily at the cavalry
+singers.
+
+"Oh, the coxcombs!" he muttered reproachfully.
+
+"It's not the soldiers only, but I've seen peasants today, too.... The
+peasants—even they have to go," said the soldier behind the cart,
+addressing Pierre with a sad smile. "No distinctions made nowadays....
+They want the whole nation to fall on them—in a word, it's Moscow! They
+want to make an end of it."
+
+In spite of the obscurity of the soldier's words Pierre understood what
+he wanted to say and nodded approval.
+
+The road was clear again; Pierre descended the hill and drove on.
+
+He kept looking to either side of the road for familiar faces, but only
+saw everywhere the unfamiliar faces of various military men of different
+branches of the service, who all looked with astonishment at his white
+hat and green tail coat.
+
+Having gone nearly three miles he at last met an acquaintance and
+eagerly addressed him. This was one of the head army doctors. He was
+driving toward Pierre in a covered gig, sitting beside a young surgeon,
+and on recognizing Pierre he told the Cossack who occupied the driver's
+seat to pull up.
+
+"Count! Your excellency, how come you to be here?" asked the doctor.
+
+"Well, you know, I wanted to see..."
+
+"Yes, yes, there will be something to see...."
+
+Pierre got out and talked to the doctor, explaining his intention of
+taking part in a battle.
+
+The doctor advised him to apply direct to Kutúzov.
+
+"Why should you be God knows where out of sight, during the battle?" he
+said, exchanging glances with his young companion. "Anyhow his Serene
+Highness knows you and will receive you graciously. That's what you must
+do."
+
+The doctor seemed tired and in a hurry.
+
+"You think so?... Ah, I also wanted to ask you where our position is
+exactly?" said Pierre.
+
+"The position?" repeated the doctor. "Well, that's not my line. Drive
+past Tatarinova, a lot of digging is going on there. Go up the hillock
+and you'll see."
+
+"Can one see from there?... If you would..."
+
+But the doctor interrupted him and moved toward his gig.
+
+"I would go with you but on my honor I'm up to here"—and he pointed to
+his throat. "I'm galloping to the commander of the corps. How do matters
+stand?... You know, Count, there'll be a battle tomorrow. Out of an army
+of a hundred thousand we must expect at least twenty thousand wounded,
+and we haven't stretchers, or bunks, or dressers, or doctors enough for
+six thousand. We have ten thousand carts, but we need other things as
+well—we must manage as best we can!"
+
+The strange thought that of the thousands of men, young and old, who had
+stared with merry surprise at his hat (perhaps the very men he had
+noticed), twenty thousand were inevitably doomed to wounds and death
+amazed Pierre.
+
+"They may die tomorrow; why are they thinking of anything but death?"
+And by some latent sequence of thought the descent of the Mozhaysk hill,
+the carts with the wounded, the ringing bells, the slanting rays of the
+sun, and the songs of the cavalrymen vividly recurred to his mind.
+
+"The cavalry ride to battle and meet the wounded and do not for a moment
+think of what awaits them, but pass by, winking at the wounded. Yet from
+among these men twenty thousand are doomed to die, and they wonder at my
+hat! Strange!" thought Pierre, continuing his way to Tatarinova.
+
+In front of a landowner's house to the left of the road stood carriages,
+wagons, and crowds of orderlies and sentinels. The commander-in-chief
+was putting up there, but just when Pierre arrived he was not in and
+hardly any of the staff were there—they had gone to the church service.
+Pierre drove on toward Gorki.
+
+When he had ascended the hill and reached the little village street, he
+saw for the first time peasant militiamen in their white shirts and with
+crosses on their caps, who, talking and laughing loudly, animated and
+perspiring, were at work on a huge knoll overgrown with grass to the
+right of the road.
+
+Some of them were digging, others were wheeling barrowloads of earth
+along planks, while others stood about doing nothing.
+
+Two officers were standing on the knoll, directing the men. On seeing
+these peasants, who were evidently still amused by the novelty of their
+position as soldiers, Pierre once more thought of the wounded men at
+Mozhaysk and understood what the soldier had meant when he said: "They
+want the whole nation to fall on them." The sight of these bearded
+peasants at work on the battlefield, with their queer, clumsy boots and
+perspiring necks, and their shirts opening from the left toward the
+middle, unfastened, exposing their sunburned collarbones, impressed
+Pierre more strongly with the solemnity and importance of the moment
+than anything he had yet seen or heard.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+Pierre stepped out of his carriage and, passing the toiling militiamen,
+ascended the knoll from which, according to the doctor, the battlefield
+could be seen.
+
+It was about eleven o'clock. The sun shone somewhat to the left and
+behind him and brightly lit up the enormous panorama which, rising like
+an amphitheater, extended before him in the clear rarefied atmosphere.
+
+From above on the left, bisecting that amphitheater, wound the Smolensk
+highroad, passing through a village with a white church some five
+hundred paces in front of the knoll and below it. This was Borodino.
+Below the village the road crossed the river by a bridge and, winding
+down and up, rose higher and higher to the village of Valuevo visible
+about four miles away, where Napoleon was then stationed. Beyond Valuevo
+the road disappeared into a yellowing forest on the horizon. Far in the
+distance in that birch and fir forest to the right of the road, the
+cross and belfry of the Kolocha Monastery gleamed in the sun. Here and
+there over the whole of that blue expanse, to right and left of the
+forest and the road, smoking campfires could be seen and indefinite
+masses of troops—ours and the enemy's. The ground to the right—along the
+course of the Kolocha and Moskva rivers—was broken and hilly. Between
+the hollows the villages of BeZúbova and Zakharino showed in the
+distance. On the left the ground was more level; there were fields of
+grain, and the smoking ruins of Semënovsk, which had been burned down,
+could be seen.
+
+All that Pierre saw was so indefinite that neither the left nor the
+right side of the field fully satisfied his expectations. Nowhere could
+he see the battlefield he had expected to find, but only fields,
+meadows, troops, woods, the smoke of campfires, villages, mounds, and
+streams; and try as he would he could descry no military "position" in
+this place which teemed with life, nor could he even distinguish our
+troops from the enemy's.
+
+"I must ask someone who knows," he thought, and addressed an officer who
+was looking with curiosity at his huge unmilitary figure.
+
+"May I ask you," said Pierre, "what village that is in front?"
+
+"Burdino, isn't it?" said the officer, turning to his companion.
+
+"Borodino," the other corrected him.
+
+The officer, evidently glad of an opportunity for a talk, moved up to
+Pierre.
+
+"Are those our men there?" Pierre inquired.
+
+"Yes, and there, further on, are the French," said the officer. "There
+they are, there... you can see them."
+
+"Where? Where?" asked Pierre.
+
+"One can see them with the naked eye... Why, there!"
+
+The officer pointed with his hand to the smoke visible on the left
+beyond the river, and the same stern and serious expression that Pierre
+had noticed on many of the faces he had met came into his face.
+
+"Ah, those are the French! And over there?..." Pierre pointed to a knoll
+on the left, near which some troops could be seen.
+
+"Those are ours."
+
+"Ah, ours! And there?..." Pierre pointed to another knoll in the
+distance with a big tree on it, near a village that lay in a hollow
+where also some campfires were smoking and something black was visible.
+
+"That's his again," said the officer. (It was the Shevardino Redoubt.)
+"It was ours yesterday, but now it is his."
+
+"Then how about our position?"
+
+"Our position?" replied the officer with a smile of satisfaction. "I can
+tell you quite clearly, because I constructed nearly all our
+entrenchments. There, you see? There's our center, at Borodino, just
+there," and he pointed to the village in front of them with the white
+church. "That's where one crosses the Kolocha. You see down there where
+the rows of hay are lying in the hollow, there's the bridge. That's our
+center. Our right flank is over there"—he pointed sharply to the right,
+far away in the broken ground—"That's where the Moskva River is, and we
+have thrown up three redoubts there, very strong ones. The left
+flank..." here the officer paused. "Well, you see, that's difficult to
+explain.... Yesterday our left flank was there at Shevardino, you see,
+where the oak is, but now we have withdrawn our left wing—now it is over
+there, do you see that village and the smoke? That's Semënovsk, yes,
+there," he pointed to Raevski's knoll. "But the battle will hardly be
+there. His having moved his troops there is only a ruse; he will
+probably pass round to the right of the Moskva. But wherever it may be,
+many a man will be missing tomorrow!" he remarked.
+
+An elderly sergeant who had approached the officer while he was giving
+these explanations had waited in silence for him to finish speaking, but
+at this point, evidently not liking the officer's remark, interrupted
+him.
+
+"Gabions must be sent for," said he sternly.
+
+The officer appeared abashed, as though he understood that one might
+think of how many men would be missing tomorrow but ought not to speak
+of it.
+
+"Well, send number three company again," the officer replied hurriedly.
+
+"And you, are you one of the doctors?"
+
+"No, I've come on my own," answered Pierre, and he went down the hill
+again, passing the militiamen.
+
+"Oh, those damned fellows!" muttered the officer who followed him,
+holding his nose as he ran past the men at work.
+
+"There they are... bringing her, coming... There they are... They'll be
+here in a minute..." voices were suddenly heard saying; and officers,
+soldiers, and militiamen began running forward along the road.
+
+A church procession was coming up the hill from Borodino. First along
+the dusty road came the infantry in ranks, bareheaded and with arms
+reversed. From behind them came the sound of church singing.
+
+Soldiers and militiamen ran bareheaded past Pierre toward the
+procession.
+
+"They are bringing her, our Protectress!... The Iberian Mother of God!"
+someone cried.
+
+"The Smolensk Mother of God," another corrected him.
+
+The militiamen, both those who had been in the village and those who had
+been at work on the battery, threw down their spades and ran to meet the
+church procession. Following the battalion that marched along the dusty
+road came priests in their vestments—one little old man in a hood with
+attendants and singers. Behind them soldiers and officers bore a large,
+dark-faced icon with an embossed metal cover. This was the icon that had
+been brought from Smolensk and had since accompanied the army. Behind,
+before, and on both sides, crowds of militiamen with bared heads walked,
+ran, and bowed to the ground.
+
+At the summit of the hill they stopped with the icon; the men who had
+been holding it up by the linen bands attached to it were relieved by
+others, the chanters relit their censers, and service began. The hot
+rays of the sun beat down vertically and a fresh soft wind played with
+the hair of the bared heads and with the ribbons decorating the icon.
+The singing did not sound loud under the open sky. An immense crowd of
+bareheaded officers, soldiers, and militiamen surrounded the icon.
+Behind the priest and a chanter stood the notabilities on a spot
+reserved for them. A bald general with a St. George's Cross on his neck
+stood just behind the priest's back, and without crossing himself (he
+was evidently a German) patiently awaited the end of the service, which
+he considered it necessary to hear to the end, probably to arouse the
+patriotism of the Russian people. Another general stood in a martial
+pose, crossing himself by shaking his hand in front of his chest while
+looking about him. Standing among the crowd of peasants, Pierre
+recognized several acquaintances among these notables, but did not look
+at them—his whole attention was absorbed in watching the serious
+expression on the faces of the crowd of soldiers and militiamen who were
+all gazing eagerly at the icon. As soon as the tired chanters, who were
+singing the service for the twentieth time that day, began lazily and
+mechanically to sing: "Save from calamity Thy servants, O Mother of
+God," and the priest and deacon chimed in: "For to Thee under God we all
+flee as to an inviolable bulwark and protection," there again kindled in
+all those faces the same expression of consciousness of the solemnity of
+the impending moment that Pierre had seen on the faces at the foot of
+the hill at Mozhaysk and momentarily on many and many faces he had met
+that morning; and heads were bowed more frequently and hair tossed back,
+and sighs and the sound men made as they crossed themselves were heard.
+
+The crowd round the icon suddenly parted and pressed against Pierre.
+Someone, a very important personage judging by the haste with which way
+was made for him, was approaching the icon.
+
+It was Kutúzov, who had been riding round the position and on his way
+back to Tatarinova had stopped where the service was being held. Pierre
+recognized him at once by his peculiar figure, which distinguished him
+from everybody else.
+
+With a long overcoat on his exceedingly stout, round-shouldered body,
+with uncovered white head and puffy face showing the white ball of the
+eye he had lost, Kutúzov walked with plunging, swaying gait into the
+crowd and stopped behind the priest. He crossed himself with an
+accustomed movement, bent till he touched the ground with his hand, and
+bowed his white head with a deep sigh. Behind Kutúzov was Bennigsen and
+the suite. Despite the presence of the commander-in-chief, who attracted
+the attention of all the superior officers, the militiamen and soldiers
+continued their prayers without looking at him.
+
+When the service was over, Kutúzov stepped up to the icon, sank heavily
+to his knees, bowed to the ground, and for a long time tried vainly to
+rise, but could not do so on account of his weakness and weight. His
+white head twitched with the effort. At last he rose, kissed the icon as
+a child does with naïvely pouting lips, and again bowed till he touched
+the ground with his hand. The other generals followed his example, then
+the officers, and after them with excited faces, pressing on one
+another, crowding, panting, and pushing, scrambled the soldiers and
+militiamen.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+Staggering amid the crush, Pierre looked about him.
+
+"Count Peter Kirilovich! How did you get here?" said a voice.
+
+Pierre looked round. Borís Drubetskóy, brushing his knees with his hand
+(he had probably soiled them when he, too, had knelt before the icon),
+came up to him smiling. Borís was elegantly dressed, with a slightly
+martial touch appropriate to a campaign. He wore a long coat and like
+Kutúzov had a whip slung across his shoulder.
+
+Meanwhile Kutúzov had reached the village and seated himself in the
+shade of the nearest house, on a bench which one Cossack had run to
+fetch and another had hastily covered with a rug. An immense and
+brilliant suite surrounded him.
+
+The icon was carried further, accompanied by the throng. Pierre stopped
+some thirty paces from Kutúzov, talking to Borís.
+
+He explained his wish to be present at the battle and to see the
+position.
+
+"This is what you must do," said Borís. "I will do the honors of the
+camp to you. You will see everything best from where Count Bennigsen
+will be. I am in attendance on him, you know; I'll mention it to him.
+But if you want to ride round the position, come along with us. We are
+just going to the left flank. Then when we get back, do spend the night
+with me and we'll arrange a game of cards. Of course you know Dmítri
+Sergéevich? Those are his quarters," and he pointed to the third house
+in the village of Gorki.
+
+"But I should like to see the right flank. They say it's very strong,"
+said Pierre. "I should like to start from the Moskva River and ride
+round the whole position."
+
+"Well, you can do that later, but the chief thing is the left flank."
+
+"Yes, yes. But where is Prince Bolkónski's regiment? Can you point it
+out to me?"
+
+"Prince Andrew's? We shall pass it and I'll take you to him."
+
+"What about the left flank?" asked Pierre
+
+"To tell you the truth, between ourselves, God only knows what state our
+left flank is in," said Borís confidentially lowering his voice. "It is
+not at all what Count Bennigsen intended. He meant to fortify that knoll
+quite differently, but..." Borís shrugged his shoulders, "his Serene
+Highness would not have it, or someone persuaded him. You see..." but
+Borís did not finish, for at that moment Kaysarov, Kutúzov's adjutant,
+came up to Pierre. "Ah, Kaysarov!" said Borís, addressing him with an
+unembarrassed smile, "I was just trying to explain our position to the
+count. It is amazing how his Serene Highness could so foresee the
+intentions of the French!"
+
+"You mean the left flank?" asked Kaysarov.
+
+"Yes, exactly; the left flank is now extremely strong."
+
+Though Kutúzov had dismissed all unnecessary men from the staff, Borís
+had contrived to remain at headquarters after the changes. He had
+established himself with Count Bennigsen, who, like all on whom Borís
+had been in attendance, considered young Prince Drubetskóy an invaluable
+man.
+
+In the higher command there were two sharply defined parties: Kutúzov's
+party and that of Bennigsen, the chief of staff. Borís belonged to the
+latter and no one else, while showing servile respect to Kutúzov, could
+so create an impression that the old fellow was not much good and that
+Bennigsen managed everything. Now the decisive moment of battle had come
+when Kutúzov would be destroyed and the power pass to Bennigsen, or even
+if Kutúzov won the battle it would be felt that everything was done by
+Bennigsen. In any case many great rewards would have to be given for
+tomorrow's action, and new men would come to the front. So Borís was
+full of nervous vivacity all day.
+
+After Kaysarov, others whom Pierre knew came up to him, and he had not
+time to reply to all the questions about Moscow that were showered upon
+him, or to listen to all that was told him. The faces all expressed
+animation and apprehension, but it seemed to Pierre that the cause of
+the excitement shown in some of these faces lay chiefly in questions of
+personal success; his mind, however, was occupied by the different
+expression he saw on other faces—an expression that spoke not of
+personal matters but of the universal questions of life and death.
+Kutúzov noticed Pierre's figure and the group gathered round him.
+
+"Call him to me," said Kutúzov.
+
+An adjutant told Pierre of his Serene Highness' wish, and Pierre went
+toward Kutúzov's bench. But a militiaman got there before him. It was
+Dólokhov.
+
+"How did that fellow get here?" asked Pierre.
+
+"He's a creature that wriggles in anywhere!" was the answer. "He has
+been degraded, you know. Now he wants to bob up again. He's been
+proposing some scheme or other and has crawled into the enemy's picket
+line at night.... He's a brave fellow."
+
+Pierre took off his hat and bowed respectfully to Kutúzov.
+
+"I concluded that if I reported to your Serene Highness you might send
+me away or say that you knew what I was reporting, but then I shouldn't
+lose anything..." Dólokhov was saying.
+
+"Yes, yes."
+
+"But if I were right, I should be rendering a service to my Fatherland
+for which I am ready to die."
+
+"Yes, yes."
+
+"And should your Serene Highness require a man who will not spare his
+skin, please think of me.... Perhaps I may prove useful to your Serene
+Highness."
+
+"Yes... Yes..." Kutúzov repeated, his laughing eye narrowing more and
+more as he looked at Pierre.
+
+Just then Borís, with his courtierlike adroitness, stepped up to
+Pierre's side near Kutúzov and in a most natural manner, without raising
+his voice, said to Pierre, as though continuing an interrupted
+conversation:
+
+"The militia have put on clean white shirts to be ready to die. What
+heroism, Count!"
+
+Borís evidently said this to Pierre in order to be overheard by his
+Serene Highness. He knew Kutúzov's attention would be caught by those
+words, and so it was.
+
+"What are you saying about the militia?" he asked Borís.
+
+"Preparing for tomorrow, your Serene Highness—for death—they have put on
+clean shirts."
+
+"Ah... a wonderful, a matchless people!" said Kutúzov; and he closed his
+eyes and swayed his head. "A matchless people!" he repeated with a sigh.
+
+"So you want to smell gunpowder?" he said to Pierre. "Yes, it's a
+pleasant smell. I have the honor to be one of your wife's adorers. Is
+she well? My quarters are at your service."
+
+And as often happens with old people, Kutúzov began looking about
+absent-mindedly as if forgetting all he wanted to say or do.
+
+Then, evidently remembering what he wanted, he beckoned to Andrew
+Kaysarov, his adjutant's brother.
+
+"Those verses... those verses of Marin's... how do they go, eh? Those he
+wrote about Gerakov: 'Lectures for the corps inditing'... Recite them,
+recite them!" said he, evidently preparing to laugh.
+
+Kaysarov recited.... Kutúzov smilingly nodded his head to the rhythm of
+the verses.
+
+When Pierre had left Kutúzov, Dólokhov came up to him and took his hand.
+
+"I am very glad to meet you here, Count," he said aloud, regardless of
+the presence of strangers and in a particularly resolute and solemn
+tone. "On the eve of a day when God alone knows who of us is fated to
+survive, I am glad of this opportunity to tell you that I regret the
+misunderstandings that occurred between us and should wish you not to
+have any ill feeling for me. I beg you to forgive me."
+
+Pierre looked at Dólokhov with a smile, not knowing what to say to him.
+With tears in his eyes Dólokhov embraced Pierre and kissed him.
+
+Borís said a few words to his general, and Count Bennigsen turned to
+Pierre and proposed that he should ride with him along the line.
+
+"It will interest you," said he.
+
+"Yes, very much," replied Pierre.
+
+Half an hour later Kutúzov left for Tatarinova, and Bennigsen and his
+suite, with Pierre among them, set out on their ride along the line.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+From Gorki, Bennigsen descended the highroad to the bridge which, when
+they had looked at it from the hill, the officer had pointed out as
+being the center of our position and where rows of fragrant new-mown hay
+lay by the riverside. They rode across that bridge into the village of
+Borodino and thence turned to the left, passing an enormous number of
+troops and guns, and came to a high knoll where militiamen were digging.
+This was the redoubt, as yet unnamed, which afterwards became known as
+the Raevski Redoubt, or the Knoll Battery, but Pierre paid no special
+attention to it. He did not know that it would become more memorable to
+him than any other spot on the plain of Borodino.
+
+They then crossed the hollow to Semënovsk, where the soldiers were
+dragging away the last logs from the huts and barns. Then they rode
+downhill and uphill, across a ryefield trodden and beaten down as if by
+hail, following a track freshly made by the artillery over the furrows
+of the plowed land, and reached some fleches * which were still being
+dug.
+
+* A kind of entrenchment.
+
+At the fleches Bennigsen stopped and began looking at the Shevardino
+Redoubt opposite, which had been ours the day before and where several
+horsemen could be descried. The officers said that either Napoleon or
+Murat was there, and they all gazed eagerly at this little group of
+horsemen. Pierre also looked at them, trying to guess which of the
+scarcely discernible figures was Napoleon. At last those mounted men
+rode away from the mound and disappeared.
+
+Bennigsen spoke to a general who approached him, and began explaining
+the whole position of our troops. Pierre listened to him, straining each
+faculty to understand the essential points of the impending battle, but
+was mortified to feel that his mental capacity was inadequate for the
+task. He could make nothing of it. Bennigsen stopped speaking and,
+noticing that Pierre was listening, suddenly said to him:
+
+"I don't think this interests you?"
+
+"On the contrary it's very interesting!" replied Pierre not quite
+truthfully.
+
+From the fleches they rode still farther to the left, along a road
+winding through a thick, low-growing birch wood. In the middle of the
+wood a brown hare with white feet sprang out and, scared by the tramp of
+the many horses, grew so confused that it leaped along the road in front
+of them for some time, arousing general attention and laughter, and only
+when several voices shouted at it did it dart to one side and disappear
+in the thicket. After going through the wood for about a mile and a half
+they came out on a glade where troops of Tuchkov's corps were stationed
+to defend the left flank.
+
+Here, at the extreme left flank, Bennigsen talked a great deal and with
+much heat, and, as it seemed to Pierre, gave orders of great military
+importance. In front of Tuchkov's troops was some high ground not
+occupied by troops. Bennigsen loudly criticized this mistake, saying
+that it was madness to leave a height which commanded the country around
+unoccupied and to place troops below it. Some of the generals expressed
+the same opinion. One in particular declared with martial heat that they
+were put there to be slaughtered. Bennigsen on his own authority ordered
+the troops to occupy the high ground. This disposition on the left flank
+increased Pierre's doubt of his own capacity to understand military
+matters. Listening to Bennigsen and the generals criticizing the
+position of the troops behind the hill, he quite understood them and
+shared their opinion, but for that very reason he could not understand
+how the man who put them there behind the hill could have made so gross
+and palpable a blunder.
+
+Pierre did not know that these troops were not, as Bennigsen supposed,
+put there to defend the position, but were in a concealed position as an
+ambush, that they should not be seen and might be able to strike an
+approaching enemy unexpectedly. Bennigsen did not know this and moved
+the troops forward according to his own ideas without mentioning the
+matter to the commander-in-chief.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+On that bright evening of August 25, Prince Andrew lay leaning on his
+elbow in a broken-down shed in the village of Knyazkovo at the further
+end of his regiment's encampment. Through a gap in the broken wall he
+could see, beside the wooden fence, a row of thirty year-old birches
+with their lower branches lopped off, a field on which shocks of oats
+were standing, and some bushes near which rose the smoke of
+campfires—the soldiers' kitchens.
+
+Narrow and burdensome and useless to anyone as his life now seemed to
+him, Prince Andrew on the eve of battle felt agitated and irritable as
+he had done seven years before at Austerlitz.
+
+He had received and given the orders for next day's battle and had
+nothing more to do. But his thoughts—the simplest, clearest, and
+therefore most terrible thoughts—would give him no peace. He knew that
+tomorrow's battle would be the most terrible of all he had taken part
+in, and for the first time in his life the possibility of death
+presented itself to him—not in relation to any worldly matter or with
+reference to its effect on others, but simply in relation to himself, to
+his own soul—vividly, plainly, terribly, and almost as a certainty. And
+from the height of this perception all that had previously tormented and
+preoccupied him suddenly became illumined by a cold white light without
+shadows, without perspective, without distinction of outline. All life
+appeared to him like magic-lantern pictures at which he had long been
+gazing by artificial light through a glass. Now he suddenly saw those
+badly daubed pictures in clear daylight and without a glass. "Yes, yes!
+There they are, those false images that agitated, enraptured, and
+tormented me," said he to himself, passing in review the principal
+pictures of the magic lantern of life and regarding them now in the cold
+white daylight of his clear perception of death. "There they are, those
+rudely painted figures that once seemed splendid and mysterious. Glory,
+the good of society, love of a woman, the Fatherland itself—how
+important these pictures appeared to me, with what profound meaning they
+seemed to be filled! And it is all so simple, pale, and crude in the
+cold white light of this morning which I feel is dawning for me." The
+three great sorrows of his life held his attention in particular: his
+love for a woman, his father's death, and the French invasion which had
+overrun half Russia. "Love... that little girl who seemed to me brimming
+over with mystic forces! Yes, indeed, I loved her. I made romantic plans
+of love and happiness with her! Oh, what a boy I was!" he said aloud
+bitterly. "Ah me! I believed in some ideal love which was to keep her
+faithful to me for the whole year of my absence! Like the gentle dove in
+the fable she was to pine apart from me.... But it was much simpler
+really.... It was all very simple and horrible."
+
+"When my father built Bald Hills he thought the place was his: his land,
+his air, his peasants. But Napoleon came and swept him aside,
+unconscious of his existence, as he might brush a chip from his path,
+and his Bald Hills and his whole life fell to pieces. Princess Mary says
+it is a trial sent from above. What is the trial for, when he is not
+here and will never return? He is not here! For whom then is the trial
+intended? The Fatherland, the destruction of Moscow! And tomorrow I
+shall be killed, perhaps not even by a Frenchman but by one of our own
+men, by a soldier discharging a musket close to my ear as one of them
+did yesterday, and the French will come and take me by head and heels
+and fling me into a hole that I may not stink under their noses, and new
+conditions of life will arise, which will seem quite ordinary to others
+and about which I shall know nothing. I shall not exist..."
+
+He looked at the row of birches shining in the sunshine, with their
+motionless green and yellow foliage and white bark. "To die... to be
+killed tomorrow... That I should not exist... That all this should still
+be, but no me...."
+
+And the birches with their light and shade, the curly clouds, the smoke
+of the campfires, and all that was around him changed and seemed
+terrible and menacing. A cold shiver ran down his spine. He rose
+quickly, went out of the shed, and began to walk about.
+
+After he had returned, voices were heard outside the shed. "Who's that?"
+he cried.
+
+The red-nosed Captain Timókhin, formerly Dólokhov's squadron commander,
+but now from lack of officers a battalion commander, shyly entered the
+shed followed by an adjutant and the regimental paymaster.
+
+Prince Andrew rose hastily, listened to the business they had come
+about, gave them some further instructions, and was about to dismiss
+them when he heard a familiar, lisping, voice behind the shed.
+
+"Devil take it!" said the voice of a man stumbling over something.
+
+Prince Andrew looked out of the shed and saw Pierre, who had tripped
+over a pole on the ground and had nearly fallen, coming his way. It was
+unpleasant to Prince Andrew to meet people of his own set in general,
+and Pierre especially, for he reminded him of all the painful moments of
+his last visit to Moscow.
+
+"You? What a surprise!" said he. "What brings you here? This is
+unexpected!"
+
+As he said this his eyes and face expressed more than coldness—they
+expressed hostility, which Pierre noticed at once. He had approached the
+shed full of animation, but on seeing Prince Andrew's face he felt
+constrained and ill at ease.
+
+"I have come... simply... you know... come... it interests me," said
+Pierre, who had so often that day senselessly repeated that word
+"interesting." "I wish to see the battle."
+
+"Oh yes, and what do the masonic brothers say about war? How would they
+stop it?" said Prince Andrew sarcastically. "Well, and how's Moscow? And
+my people? Have they reached Moscow at last?" he asked seriously.
+
+"Yes, they have. Julie Drubetskáya told me so. I went to see them, but
+missed them. They have gone to your estate near Moscow."
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+The officers were about to take leave, but Prince Andrew, apparently
+reluctant to be left alone with his friend, asked them to stay and have
+tea. Seats were brought in and so was the tea. The officers gazed with
+surprise at Pierre's huge stout figure and listened to his talk of
+Moscow and the position of our army, round which he had ridden. Prince
+Andrew remained silent, and his expression was so forbidding that Pierre
+addressed his remarks chiefly to the good-natured battalion commander.
+
+"So you understand the whole position of our troops?" Prince Andrew
+interrupted him.
+
+"Yes—that is, how do you mean?" said Pierre. "Not being a military man I
+can't say I have understood it fully, but I understand the general
+position."
+
+"Well, then, you know more than anyone else, be it who it may," said
+Prince Andrew.
+
+"Oh!" said Pierre, looking over his spectacles in perplexity at Prince
+Andrew. "Well, and what do you think of Kutúzov's appointment?" he
+asked.
+
+"I was very glad of his appointment, that's all I know," replied Prince
+Andrew.
+
+"And tell me your opinion of Barclay de Tolly. In Moscow they are saying
+heaven knows what about him.... What do you think of him?"
+
+"Ask them," replied Prince Andrew, indicating the officers.
+
+Pierre looked at Timókhin with the condescendingly interrogative smile
+with which everybody involuntarily addressed that officer.
+
+"We see light again, since his Serenity has been appointed, your
+excellency," said Timókhin timidly, and continually turning to glance at
+his colonel.
+
+"Why so?" asked Pierre.
+
+"Well, to mention only firewood and fodder, let me inform you. Why, when
+we were retreating from Sventsyani we dare not touch a stick or a wisp
+of hay or anything. You see, we were going away, so he would get it all;
+wasn't it so, your excellency?" and again Timókhin turned to the prince.
+"But we daren't. In our regiment two officers were court-martialed for
+that kind of thing. But when his Serenity took command everything became
+straight forward. Now we see light..."
+
+"Then why was it forbidden?"
+
+Timókhin looked about in confusion, not knowing what or how to answer
+such a question. Pierre put the same question to Prince Andrew.
+
+"Why, so as not to lay waste the country we were abandoning to the
+enemy," said Prince Andrew with venomous irony. "It is very sound: one
+can't permit the land to be pillaged and accustom the troops to
+marauding. At Smolensk too he judged correctly that the French might
+outflank us, as they had larger forces. But he could not understand
+this," cried Prince Andrew in a shrill voice that seemed to escape him
+involuntarily: "he could not understand that there, for the first time,
+we were fighting for Russian soil, and that there was a spirit in the
+men such as I had never seen before, that we had held the French for two
+days, and that that success had increased our strength tenfold. He
+ordered us to retreat, and all our efforts and losses went for nothing.
+He had no thought of betraying us, he tried to do the best he could, he
+thought out everything, and that is why he is unsuitable. He is
+unsuitable now, just because he plans out everything very thoroughly and
+accurately as every German has to. How can I explain?... Well, say your
+father has a German valet, and he is a splendid valet and satisfies your
+father's requirements better than you could, then it's all right to let
+him serve. But if your father is mortally sick you'll send the valet
+away and attend to your father with your own unpracticed, awkward hands,
+and will soothe him better than a skilled man who is a stranger could.
+So it has been with Barclay. While Russia was well, a foreigner could
+serve her and be a splendid minister; but as soon as she is in danger
+she needs one of her own kin. But in your club they have been making him
+out a traitor! They slander him as a traitor, and the only result will
+be that afterwards, ashamed of their false accusations, they will make
+him out a hero or a genius instead of a traitor, and that will be still
+more unjust. He is an honest and very punctilious German."
+
+"And they say he's a skillful commander," rejoined Pierre.
+
+"I don't understand what is meant by 'a skillful commander,'" replied
+Prince Andrew ironically.
+
+"A skillful commander?" replied Pierre. "Why, one who foresees all
+contingencies... and foresees the adversary's intentions."
+
+"But that's impossible," said Prince Andrew as if it were a matter
+settled long ago.
+
+Pierre looked at him in surprise.
+
+"And yet they say that war is like a game of chess?" he remarked.
+
+"Yes," replied Prince Andrew, "but with this little difference, that in
+chess you may think over each move as long as you please and are not
+limited for time, and with this difference too, that a knight is always
+stronger than a pawn, and two pawns are always stronger than one, while
+in war a battalion is sometimes stronger than a division and sometimes
+weaker than a company. The relative strength of bodies of troops can
+never be known to anyone. Believe me," he went on, "if things depended
+on arrangements made by the staff, I should be there making
+arrangements, but instead of that I have the honor to serve here in the
+regiment with these gentlemen, and I consider that on us tomorrow's
+battle will depend and not on those others.... Success never depends,
+and never will depend, on position, or equipment, or even on numbers,
+and least of all on position."
+
+"But on what then?"
+
+"On the feeling that is in me and in him," he pointed to Timókhin, "and
+in each soldier."
+
+Prince Andrew glanced at Timókhin, who looked at his commander in alarm
+and bewilderment. In contrast to his former reticent taciturnity Prince
+Andrew now seemed excited. He could apparently not refrain from
+expressing the thoughts that had suddenly occurred to him.
+
+"A battle is won by those who firmly resolve to win it! Why did we lose
+the battle at Austerlitz? The French losses were almost equal to ours,
+but very early we said to ourselves that we were losing the battle, and
+we did lose it. And we said so because we had nothing to fight for
+there, we wanted to get away from the battlefield as soon as we could.
+'We've lost, so let us run,' and we ran. If we had not said that till
+the evening, heaven knows what might not have happened. But tomorrow we
+shan't say it! You talk about our position, the left flank weak and the
+right flank too extended," he went on. "That's all nonsense, there's
+nothing of the kind. But what awaits us tomorrow? A hundred million most
+diverse chances which will be decided on the instant by the fact that
+our men or theirs run or do not run, and that this man or that man is
+killed, but all that is being done at present is only play. The fact is
+that those men with whom you have ridden round the position not only do
+not help matters, but hinder. They are only concerned with their own
+petty interests."
+
+"At such a moment?" said Pierre reproachfully.
+
+"At such a moment!" Prince Andrew repeated. "To them it is only a moment
+affording opportunities to undermine a rival and obtain an extra cross
+or ribbon. For me tomorrow means this: a Russian army of a hundred
+thousand and a French army of a hundred thousand have met to fight, and
+the thing is that these two hundred thousand men will fight and the side
+that fights more fiercely and spares itself least will win. And if you
+like I will tell you that whatever happens and whatever muddles those at
+the top may make, we shall win tomorrow's battle. Tomorrow, happen what
+may, we shall win!"
+
+"There now, your excellency! That's the truth, the real truth," said
+Timókhin. "Who would spare himself now? The soldiers in my battalion,
+believe me, wouldn't drink their vodka! 'It's not the day for that!'
+they say."
+
+All were silent. The officers rose. Prince Andrew went out of the shed
+with them, giving final orders to the adjutant. After they had gone
+Pierre approached Prince Andrew and was about to start a conversation
+when they heard the clatter of three horses' hoofs on the road not far
+from the shed, and looking in that direction Prince Andrew recognized
+Wolzogen and Clausewitz accompanied by a Cossack. They rode close by
+continuing to converse, and Prince Andrew involuntarily heard these
+words:
+
+"Der Krieg muss in Raum verlegt werden. Der Ansicht kann ich nicht genug
+Preis geben," * said one of them.
+
+* "The war must be extended widely. I cannot sufficiently commend that
+view."
+
+"Oh, ja," said the other, "der Zweck ist nur den Feind zu schwächen, so
+kann man gewiss nicht den Verlust der Privat-Personen in Achtung
+nehmen." *
+
+* "Oh, yes, the only aim is to weaken the enemy, so of course one cannot
+take into account the loss of private individuals."
+
+"Oh, no," agreed the other.
+
+"Extend widely!" said Prince Andrew with an angry snort, when they had
+ridden past. "In that 'extend' were my father, son, and sister, at Bald
+Hills. That's all the same to him! That's what I was saying to you—those
+German gentlemen won't win the battle tomorrow but will only make all
+the mess they can, because they have nothing in their German heads but
+theories not worth an empty eggshell and haven't in their hearts the one
+thing needed tomorrow—that which Timókhin has. They have yielded up all
+Europe to him, and have now come to teach us. Fine teachers!" and again
+his voice grew shrill.
+
+"So you think we shall win tomorrow's battle?" asked Pierre.
+
+"Yes, yes," answered Prince Andrew absently. "One thing I would do if I
+had the power," he began again, "I would not take prisoners. Why take
+prisoners? It's chivalry! The French have destroyed my home and are on
+their way to destroy Moscow, they have outraged and are outraging me
+every moment. They are my enemies. In my opinion they are all criminals.
+And so thinks Timókhin and the whole army. They should be executed!
+Since they are my foes they cannot be my friends, whatever may have been
+said at Tilsit."
+
+"Yes, yes," muttered Pierre, looking with shining eyes at Prince Andrew.
+"I quite agree with you!"
+
+The question that had perturbed Pierre on the Mozhaysk hill and all that
+day now seemed to him quite clear and completely solved. He now
+understood the whole meaning and importance of this war and of the
+impending battle. All he had seen that day, all the significant and
+stern expressions on the faces he had seen in passing, were lit up for
+him by a new light. He understood that latent heat (as they say in
+physics) of patriotism which was present in all these men he had seen,
+and this explained to him why they all prepared for death calmly, and as
+it were lightheartedly.
+
+"Not take prisoners," Prince Andrew continued: "That by itself would
+quite change the whole war and make it less cruel. As it is we have
+played at war—that's what's vile! We play at magnanimity and all that
+stuff. Such magnanimity and sensibility are like the magnanimity and
+sensibility of a lady who faints when she sees a calf being killed: she
+is so kindhearted that she can't look at blood, but enjoys eating the
+calf served up with sauce. They talk to us of the rules of war, of
+chivalry, of flags of truce, of mercy to the unfortunate and so on. It's
+all rubbish! I saw chivalry and flags of truce in 1805; they humbugged
+us and we humbugged them. They plunder other people's houses, issue
+false paper money, and worst of all they kill my children and my father,
+and then talk of rules of war and magnanimity to foes! Take no
+prisoners, but kill and be killed! He who has come to this as I have
+through the same sufferings..."
+
+Prince Andrew, who had thought it was all the same to him whether or not
+Moscow was taken as Smolensk had been, was suddenly checked in his
+speech by an unexpected cramp in his throat. He paced up and down a few
+times in silence, but his eyes glittered feverishly and his lips
+quivered as he began speaking.
+
+"If there was none of this magnanimity in war, we should go to war only
+when it was worth while going to certain death, as now. Then there would
+not be war because Paul Ivánovich had offended Michael Ivánovich. And
+when there was a war, like this one, it would be war! And then the
+determination of the troops would be quite different. Then all these
+Westphalians and Hessians whom Napoleon is leading would not follow him
+into Russia, and we should not go to fight in Austria and Prussia
+without knowing why. War is not courtesy but the most horrible thing in
+life; and we ought to understand that and not play at war. We ought to
+accept this terrible necessity sternly and seriously. It all lies in
+that: get rid of falsehood and let war be war and not a game. As it is
+now, war is the favorite pastime of the idle and frivolous. The military
+calling is the most highly honored.
+
+"But what is war? What is needed for success in warfare? What are the
+habits of the military? The aim of war is murder; the methods of war are
+spying, treachery, and their encouragement, the ruin of a country's
+inhabitants, robbing them or stealing to provision the army, and fraud
+and falsehood termed military craft. The habits of the military class
+are the absence of freedom, that is, discipline, idleness, ignorance,
+cruelty, debauchery, and drunkenness. And in spite of all this it is the
+highest class, respected by everyone. All the kings, except the Chinese,
+wear military uniforms, and he who kills most people receives the
+highest rewards.
+
+"They meet, as we shall meet tomorrow, to murder one another; they kill
+and maim tens of thousands, and then have thanksgiving services for
+having killed so many people (they even exaggerate the number), and they
+announce a victory, supposing that the more people they have killed the
+greater their achievement. How does God above look at them and hear
+them?" exclaimed Prince Andrew in a shrill, piercing voice. "Ah, my
+friend, it has of late become hard for me to live. I see that I have
+begun to understand too much. And it doesn't do for man to taste of the
+tree of knowledge of good and evil.... Ah, well, it's not for long!" he
+added.
+
+"However, you're sleepy, and it's time for me to sleep. Go back to
+Gorki!" said Prince Andrew suddenly.
+
+"Oh no!" Pierre replied, looking at Prince Andrew with frightened,
+compassionate eyes.
+
+"Go, go! Before a battle one must have one's sleep out," repeated Prince
+Andrew.
+
+He came quickly up to Pierre and embraced and kissed him. "Good-bye, be
+off!" he shouted. "Whether we meet again or not..." and turning away
+hurriedly he entered the shed.
+
+It was already dark, and Pierre could not make out whether the
+expression of Prince Andrew's face was angry or tender.
+
+For some time he stood in silence considering whether he should follow
+him or go away. "No, he does not want it!" Pierre concluded. "And I know
+that this is our last meeting!" He sighed deeply and rode back to Gorki.
+
+On re-entering the shed Prince Andrew lay down on a rug, but he could
+not sleep.
+
+He closed his eyes. One picture succeeded another in his imagination. On
+one of them he dwelt long and joyfully. He vividly recalled an evening
+in Petersburg. Natásha with animated and excited face was telling him
+how she had gone to look for mushrooms the previous summer and had lost
+her way in the big forest. She incoherently described the depths of the
+forest, her feelings, and a talk with a beekeeper she met, and
+constantly interrupted her story to say: "No, I can't! I'm not telling
+it right; no, you don't understand," though he encouraged her by saying
+that he did understand, and he really had understood all she wanted to
+say. But Natásha was not satisfied with her own words: she felt that
+they did not convey the passionately poetic feeling she had experienced
+that day and wished to convey. "He was such a delightful old man, and it
+was so dark in the forest... and he had such kind... No, I can't
+describe it," she had said, flushed and excited. Prince Andrew smiled
+now the same happy smile as then when he had looked into her eyes. "I
+understood her," he thought. "I not only understood her, but it was just
+that inner, spiritual force, that sincerity, that frankness of soul—that
+very soul of hers which seemed to be fettered by her body—it was that
+soul I loved in her... loved so strongly and happily..." and suddenly he
+remembered how his love had ended. "He did not need anything of that
+kind. He neither saw nor understood anything of the sort. He only saw in
+her a pretty and fresh young girl, with whom he did not deign to unite
+his fate. And I?... and he is still alive and gay!"
+
+Prince Andrew jumped up as if someone had burned him, and again began
+pacing up and down in front of the shed.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+On August 25, the eve of the battle of Borodino, M. de Beausset, prefect
+of the French Emperor's palace, arrived at Napoleon's quarters at
+Valuevo with Colonel Fabvier, the former from Paris and the latter from
+Madrid.
+
+Donning his court uniform, M. de Beausset ordered a box he had brought
+for the Emperor to be carried before him and entered the first
+compartment of Napoleon's tent, where he began opening the box while
+conversing with Napoleon's aides-de-camp who surrounded him.
+
+Fabvier, not entering the tent, remained at the entrance talking to some
+generals of his acquaintance.
+
+The Emperor Napoleon had not yet left his bedroom and was finishing his
+toilet. Slightly snorting and grunting, he presented now his back and
+now his plump hairy chest to the brush with which his valet was rubbing
+him down. Another valet, with his finger over the mouth of a bottle, was
+sprinkling Eau de Cologne on the Emperor's pampered body with an
+expression which seemed to say that he alone knew where and how much Eau
+de Cologne should be sprinkled. Napoleon's short hair was wet and matted
+on the forehead, but his face, though puffy and yellow, expressed
+physical satisfaction. "Go on, harder, go on!" he muttered to the valet
+who was rubbing him, slightly twitching and grunting. An aide-de-camp,
+who had entered the bedroom to report to the Emperor the number of
+prisoners taken in yesterday's action, was standing by the door after
+delivering his message, awaiting permission to withdraw. Napoleon,
+frowning, looked at him from under his brows.
+
+"No prisoners!" said he, repeating the aide-de-camp's words. "They are
+forcing us to exterminate them. So much the worse for the Russian
+army.... Go on... harder, harder!" he muttered, hunching his back and
+presenting his fat shoulders.
+
+"All right. Let Monsieur de Beausset enter, and Fabvier too," he said,
+nodding to the aide-de-camp.
+
+"Yes, sire," and the aide-de-camp disappeared through the door of the
+tent.
+
+Two valets rapidly dressed His Majesty, and wearing the blue uniform of
+the Guards he went with firm quick steps to the reception room.
+
+De Beausset's hands meanwhile were busily engaged arranging the present
+he had brought from the Empress, on two chairs directly in front of the
+entrance. But Napoleon had dressed and come out with such unexpected
+rapidity that he had not time to finish arranging the surprise.
+
+Napoleon noticed at once what they were about and guessed that they were
+not ready. He did not wish to deprive them of the pleasure of giving him
+a surprise, so he pretended not to see de Beausset and called Fabvier to
+him, listening silently and with a stern frown to what Fabvier told him
+of the heroism and devotion of his troops fighting at Salamanca, at the
+other end of Europe, with but one thought—to be worthy of their
+Emperor—and but one fear—to fail to please him. The result of that
+battle had been deplorable. Napoleon made ironic remarks during
+Fabvier's account, as if he had not expected that matters could go
+otherwise in his absence.
+
+"I must make up for that in Moscow," said Napoleon. "I'll see you
+later," he added, and summoned de Beausset, who by that time had
+prepared the surprise, having placed something on the chairs and covered
+it with a cloth.
+
+De Beausset bowed low, with that courtly French bow which only the old
+retainers of the Bourbons knew how to make, and approached him,
+presenting an envelope.
+
+Napoleon turned to him gaily and pulled his ear.
+
+"You have hurried here. I am very glad. Well, what is Paris saying?" he
+asked, suddenly changing his former stern expression for a most cordial
+tone.
+
+"Sire, all Paris regrets your absence," replied de Beausset as was
+proper.
+
+But though Napoleon knew that de Beausset had to say something of this
+kind, and though in his lucid moments he knew it was untrue, he was
+pleased to hear it from him. Again he honored him by touching his ear.
+
+"I am very sorry to have made you travel so far," said he.
+
+"Sire, I expected nothing less than to find you at the gates of Moscow,"
+replied de Beausset.
+
+Napoleon smiled and, lifting his head absent-mindedly, glanced to the
+right. An aide-de-camp approached with gliding steps and offered him a
+gold snuffbox, which he took.
+
+"Yes, it has happened luckily for you," he said, raising the open
+snuffbox to his nose. "You are fond of travel, and in three days you
+will see Moscow. You surely did not expect to see that Asiatic capital.
+You will have a pleasant journey."
+
+De Beausset bowed gratefully at this regard for his taste for travel (of
+which he had not till then been aware).
+
+"Ha, what's this?" asked Napoleon, noticing that all the courtiers were
+looking at something concealed under a cloth.
+
+With courtly adroitness de Beausset half turned and without turning his
+back to the Emperor retired two steps, twitching off the cloth at the
+same time, and said:
+
+"A present to Your Majesty from the Empress."
+
+It was a portrait, painted in bright colors by Gerard, of the son borne
+to Napoleon by the daughter of the Emperor of Austria, the boy whom for
+some reason everyone called "The King of Rome."
+
+A very pretty curly-headed boy with a look of the Christ in the Sistine
+Madonna was depicted playing at stick and ball. The ball represented the
+terrestrial globe and the stick in his other hand a scepter.
+
+Though it was not clear what the artist meant to express by depicting
+the so-called King of Rome spiking the earth with a stick, the allegory
+apparently seemed to Napoleon, as it had done to all who had seen it in
+Paris, quite clear and very pleasing.
+
+"The King of Rome!" he said, pointing to the portrait with a graceful
+gesture. "Admirable!"
+
+With the natural capacity of an Italian for changing the expression of
+his face at will, he drew nearer to the portrait and assumed a look of
+pensive tenderness. He felt that what he now said and did would be
+historical, and it seemed to him that it would now be best for him—whose
+grandeur enabled his son to play stick and ball with the terrestrial
+globe—to show, in contrast to that grandeur, the simplest paternal
+tenderness. His eyes grew dim, he moved forward, glanced round at a
+chair (which seemed to place itself under him), and sat down on it
+before the portrait. At a single gesture from him everyone went out on
+tiptoe, leaving the great man to himself and his emotion.
+
+Having sat still for a while he touched—himself not knowing why—the
+thick spot of paint representing the highest light in the portrait,
+rose, and recalled de Beausset and the officer on duty. He ordered the
+portrait to be carried outside his tent, that the Old Guard, stationed
+round it, might not be deprived of the pleasure of seeing the King of
+Rome, the son and heir of their adored monarch.
+
+And while he was doing M. de Beausset the honor of breakfasting with
+him, they heard, as Napoleon had anticipated, the rapturous cries of the
+officers and men of the Old Guard who had run up to see the portrait.
+
+"Vive l'Empereur! Vive le roi de Rome! Vive l'Empereur!" came those
+ecstatic cries.
+
+After breakfast Napoleon in de Beausset's presence dictated his order of
+the day to the army.
+
+"Short and energetic!" he remarked when he had read over the
+proclamation which he had dictated straight off without corrections. It
+ran:
+
+Soldiers! This is the battle you have so longed for. Victory depends on
+you. It is essential for us; it will give us all we need: comfortable
+quarters and a speedy return to our country. Behave as you did at
+Austerlitz, Friedland, Vitebsk, and Smolensk. Let our remotest posterity
+recall your achievements this day with pride. Let it be said of each of
+you: "He was in the great battle before Moscow!"
+
+"Before Moscow!" repeated Napoleon, and inviting M. de Beausset, who was
+so fond of travel, to accompany him on his ride, he went out of the tent
+to where the horses stood saddled.
+
+"Your Majesty is too kind!" replied de Beausset to the invitation to
+accompany the Emperor; he wanted to sleep, did not know how to ride and
+was afraid of doing so.
+
+But Napoleon nodded to the traveler, and de Beausset had to mount. When
+Napoleon came out of the tent the shouting of the Guards before his
+son's portrait grew still louder. Napoleon frowned.
+
+"Take him away!" he said, pointing with a gracefully majestic gesture to
+the portrait. "It is too soon for him to see a field of battle."
+
+De Beausset closed his eyes, bowed his head, and sighed deeply, to
+indicate how profoundly he valued and comprehended the Emperor's words.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+On the twenty-fifth of August, so his historians tell us, Napoleon spent
+the whole day on horseback inspecting the locality, considering plans
+submitted to him by his marshals, and personally giving commands to his
+generals.
+
+The original line of the Russian forces along the river Kolocha had been
+dislocated by the capture of the Shevardino Redoubt on the twenty-
+fourth, and part of the line—the left flank—had been drawn back. That
+part of the line was not entrenched and in front of it the ground was
+more open and level than elsewhere. It was evident to anyone, military
+or not, that it was here the French should attack. It would seem that
+not much consideration was needed to reach this conclusion, nor any
+particular care or trouble on the part of the Emperor and his marshals,
+nor was there any need of that special and supreme quality called genius
+that people are so apt to ascribe to Napoleon; yet the historians who
+described the event later and the men who then surrounded Napoleon, and
+he himself, thought otherwise.
+
+Napoleon rode over the plain and surveyed the locality with a profound
+air and in silence, nodded with approval or shook his head dubiously,
+and without communicating to the generals around him the profound course
+of ideas which guided his decisions merely gave them his final
+conclusions in the form of commands. Having listened to a suggestion
+from Davout, who was now called Prince d'Eckmuhl, to turn the Russian
+left wing, Napoleon said it should not be done, without explaining why
+not. To a proposal made by General Campan (who was to attack the
+fleches) to lead his division through the woods, Napoleon agreed, though
+the so-called Duke of Elchingen (Ney) ventured to remark that a movement
+through the woods was dangerous and might disorder the division.
+
+Having inspected the country opposite the Shevardino Redoubt, Napoleon
+pondered a little in silence and then indicated the spots where two
+batteries should be set up by the morrow to act against the Russian
+entrenchments, and the places where, in line with them, the field
+artillery should be placed.
+
+After giving these and other commands he returned to his tent, and the
+dispositions for the battle were written down from his dictation.
+
+These dispositions, of which the French historians write with enthusiasm
+and other historians with profound respect, were as follows:
+
+At dawn the two new batteries established during the night on the plain
+occupied by the Prince d'Eckmuhl will open fire on the opposing
+batteries of the enemy.
+
+At the same time the commander of the artillery of the 1st Corps,
+General Pernetti, with thirty cannon of Campan's division and all the
+howitzers of Dessaix's and Friant's divisions, will move forward, open
+fire, and overwhelm with shellfire the enemy's battery, against which
+will operate:
+
+24 guns of the artillery of the Guards 30 guns of Campan's division
+
+and     8 guns of Friant's and Dessaix's divisions —
+
+in all 62 guns.
+
+The commander of the artillery of the 3rd Corps, General Fouche, will
+place the howitzers of the 3rd and 8th Corps, sixteen in all, on the
+flanks of the battery that is to bombard the entrenchment on the left,
+which will have forty guns in all directed against it.
+
+General Sorbier must be ready at the first order to advance with all the
+howitzers of the Guard's artillery against either one or other of the
+entrenchments.
+
+During the cannonade Prince Poniatowski is to advance through the wood
+on the village and turn the enemy's position.
+
+General Campan will move through the wood to seize the first
+fortification.
+
+After the advance has begun in this manner, orders will be given in
+accordance with the enemy's movements.
+
+The cannonade on the left flank will begin as soon as the guns of the
+right wing are heard. The sharpshooters of Morand's division and of the
+vice-King's division will open a heavy fire on seeing the attack
+commence on the right wing.
+
+The vice-King will occupy the village and cross by its three bridges,
+advancing to the same heights as Morand's and Gibrard's divisions, which
+under his leadership will be directed against the redoubt and come into
+line with the rest of the forces.
+
+All this must be done in good order (le tout se fera avec ordre et
+methode) as far as possible retaining troops in reserve.
+
+The Imperial Camp near Mozhaysk,
+
+September, 6, 1812.
+
+These dispositions, which are very obscure and confused if one allows
+oneself to regard the arrangements without religious awe of his genius,
+related to Napoleon's orders to deal with four points—four different
+orders. Not one of these was, or could be, carried out.
+
+In the disposition it is said first that the batteries placed on the
+spot chosen by Napoleon, with the guns of Pernetti and Fouche; which
+were to come in line with them, 102 guns in all, were to open fire and
+shower shells on the Russian fleches and redoubts. This could not be
+done, as from the spots selected by Napoleon the projectiles did not
+carry to the Russian works, and those 102 guns shot into the air until
+the nearest commander, contrary to Napoleon's instructions, moved them
+forward.
+
+The second order was that Poniatowski, moving to the village through the
+wood, should turn the Russian left flank. This could not be done and was
+not done, because Poniatowski, advancing on the village through the
+wood, met Tuchkov there barring his way, and could not and did not turn
+the Russian position.
+
+The third order was: General Campan will move through the wood to seize
+the first fortification. General Campan's division did not seize the
+first fortification but was driven back, for on emerging from the wood
+it had to reform under grapeshot, of which Napoleon was unaware.
+
+The fourth order was: The vice-King will occupy the village (Borodino)
+and cross by its three bridges, advancing to the same heights as
+Morand's and Gibrard's divisions (for whose movements no directions are
+given), which under his leadership will be directed against the redoubt
+and come into line with the rest of the forces.
+
+As far as one can make out, not so much from this unintelligible
+sentence as from the attempts the vice-King made to execute the orders
+given him, he was to advance from the left through Borodino to the
+redoubt while the divisions of Morand and Gerard were to advance
+simultaneously from the front.
+
+All this, like the other parts of the disposition, was not and could not
+be executed. After passing through Borodino the vice-King was driven
+back to the Kolocha and could get no farther; while the divisions of
+Morand and Gerard did not take the redoubt but were driven back, and the
+redoubt was only taken at the end of the battle by the cavalry (a thing
+probably unforeseen and not heard of by Napoleon). So not one of the
+orders in the disposition was, or could be, executed. But in the
+disposition it is said that, after the fight has commenced in this
+manner, orders will be given in accordance with the enemy's movements,
+and so it might be supposed that all necessary arrangements would be
+made by Napoleon during the battle. But this was not and could not be
+done, for during the whole battle Napoleon was so far away that, as
+appeared later, he could not know the course of the battle and not one
+of his orders during the fight could be executed.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+Many historians say that the French did not win the battle of Borodino
+because Napoleon had a cold, and that if he had not had a cold the
+orders he gave before and during the battle would have been still more
+full of genius and Russia would have been lost and the face of the world
+have been changed. To historians who believe that Russia was shaped by
+the will of one man—Peter the Great—and that France from a republic
+became an empire and French armies went to Russia at the will of one
+man—Napoleon—to say that Russia remained a power because Napoleon had a
+bad cold on the twenty-fourth of August may seem logical and convincing.
+
+If it had depended on Napoleon's will to fight or not to fight the
+battle of Borodino, and if this or that other arrangement depended on
+his will, then evidently a cold affecting the manifestation of his will
+might have saved Russia, and consequently the valet who omitted to bring
+Napoleon his waterproof boots on the twenty-fourth would have been the
+savior of Russia. Along that line of thought such a deduction is
+indubitable, as indubitable as the deduction Voltaire made in jest
+(without knowing what he was jesting at) when he saw that the Massacre
+of St. Bartholomew was due to Charles IX's stomach being deranged. But
+to men who do not admit that Russia was formed by the will of one man,
+Peter I, or that the French Empire was formed and the war with Russia
+begun by the will of one man, Napoleon, that argument seems not merely
+untrue and irrational, but contrary to all human reality. To the
+question of what causes historic events another answer presents itself,
+namely, that the course of human events is predetermined from on
+high—depends on the coincidence of the wills of all who take part in the
+events, and that a Napoleon's influence on the course of these events is
+purely external and fictitious.
+
+Strange as at first glance it may seem to suppose that the Massacre of
+St. Bartholomew was not due to Charles IX's will, though he gave the
+order for it and thought it was done as a result of that order; and
+strange as it may seem to suppose that the slaughter of eighty thousand
+men at Borodino was not due to Napoleon's will, though he ordered the
+commencement and conduct of the battle and thought it was done because
+he ordered it; strange as these suppositions appear, yet human
+dignity—which tells me that each of us is, if not more at least not less
+a man than the great Napoleon—demands the acceptance of that solution of
+the question, and historic investigation abundantly confirms it.
+
+At the battle of Borodino Napoleon shot at no one and killed no one.
+That was all done by the soldiers. Therefore it was not he who killed
+people.
+
+The French soldiers went to kill and be killed at the battle of Borodino
+not because of Napoleon's orders but by their own volition. The whole
+army—French, Italian, German, Polish, and Dutch—hungry, ragged, and
+weary of the campaign, felt at the sight of an army blocking their road
+to Moscow that the wine was drawn and must be drunk. Had Napoleon then
+forbidden them to fight the Russians, they would have killed him and
+have proceeded to fight the Russians because it was inevitable.
+
+When they heard Napoleon's proclamation offering them, as compensation
+for mutilation and death, the words of posterity about their having been
+in the battle before Moscow, they cried "Vive l'Empereur!" just as they
+had cried "Vive l'Empereur!" at the sight of the portrait of the boy
+piercing the terrestrial globe with a toy stick, and just as they would
+have cried "Vive l'Empereur!" at any nonsense that might be told them.
+There was nothing left for them to do but cry "Vive l'Empereur!" and go
+to fight, in order to get food and rest as conquerors in Moscow. So it
+was not because of Napoleon's commands that they killed their fellow
+men.
+
+And it was not Napoleon who directed the course of the battle, for none
+of his orders were executed and during the battle he did not know what
+was going on before him. So the way in which these people killed one
+another was not decided by Napoleon's will but occurred independently of
+him, in accord with the will of hundreds of thousands of people who took
+part in the common action. It only seemed to Napoleon that it all took
+place by his will. And so the question whether he had or had not a cold
+has no more historic interest than the cold of the least of the
+transport soldiers.
+
+Moreover, the assertion made by various writers that his cold was the
+cause of his dispositions not being as well-planned as on former
+occasions, and of his orders during the battle not being as good as
+previously, is quite baseless, which again shows that Napoleon's cold on
+the twenty-sixth of August was unimportant.
+
+The dispositions cited above are not at all worse, but are even better,
+than previous dispositions by which he had won victories. His pseudo-
+orders during the battle were also no worse than formerly, but much the
+same as usual. These dispositions and orders only seem worse than
+previous ones because the battle of Borodino was the first Napoleon did
+not win. The profoundest and most excellent dispositions and orders seem
+very bad, and every learned militarist criticizes them with looks of
+importance, when they relate to a battle that has been lost, and the
+very worst dispositions and orders seem very good, and serious people
+fill whole volumes to demonstrate their merits, when they relate to a
+battle that has been won.
+
+The dispositions drawn up by Weyrother for the battle of Austerlitz were
+a model of perfection for that kind of composition, but still they were
+criticized—criticized for their very perfection, for their excessive
+minuteness.
+
+Napoleon at the battle of Borodino fulfilled his office as
+representative of authority as well as, and even better than, at other
+battles. He did nothing harmful to the progress of the battle; he
+inclined to the most reasonable opinions, he made no confusion, did not
+contradict himself, did not get frightened or run away from the field of
+battle, but with his great tact and military experience carried out his
+role of appearing to command, calmly and with dignity.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+On returning from a second inspection of the lines, Napoleon remarked:
+
+"The chessmen are set up, the game will begin tomorrow!"
+
+Having ordered punch and summoned de Beausset, he began to talk to him
+about Paris and about some changes he meant to make in the Empress'
+household, surprising the prefect by his memory of minute details
+relating to the court.
+
+He showed an interest in trifles, joked about de Beausset's love of
+travel, and chatted carelessly, as a famous, self-confident surgeon who
+knows his job does when turning up his sleeves and putting on his apron
+while a patient is being strapped to the operating table. "The matter is
+in my hands and is clear and definite in my head. When the time comes to
+set to work I shall do it as no one else could, but now I can jest, and
+the more I jest and the calmer I am the more tranquil and confident you
+ought to be, and the more amazed at my genius."
+
+Having finished his second glass of punch, Napoleon went to rest before
+the serious business which, he considered, awaited him next day. He was
+so much interested in that task that he was unable to sleep, and in
+spite of his cold which had grown worse from the dampness of the
+evening, he went into the large division of the tent at three o'clock in
+the morning, loudly blowing his nose. He asked whether the Russians had
+not withdrawn, and was told that the enemy's fires were still in the
+same places. He nodded approval.
+
+The adjutant in attendance came into the tent.
+
+"Well, Rapp, do you think we shall do good business today?" Napoleon
+asked him.
+
+"Without doubt, sire," replied Rapp.
+
+Napoleon looked at him.
+
+"Do you remember, sire, what you did me the honor to say at Smolensk?"
+continued Rapp. "The wine is drawn and must be drunk."
+
+Napoleon frowned and sat silent for a long time leaning his head on his
+hand.
+
+"This poor army!" he suddenly remarked. "It has diminished greatly since
+Smolensk. Fortune is frankly a courtesan, Rapp. I have always said so
+and I am beginning to experience it. But the Guards, Rapp, the Guards
+are intact?" he remarked interrogatively.
+
+"Yes, sire," replied Rapp.
+
+Napoleon took a lozenge, put it in his mouth, and glanced at his watch.
+He was not sleepy and it was still not nearly morning. It was impossible
+to give further orders for the sake of killing time, for the orders had
+all been given and were now being executed.
+
+"Have the biscuits and rice been served out to the regiments of the
+Guards?" asked Napoleon sternly.
+
+"Yes, sire."
+
+"The rice too?"
+
+Rapp replied that he had given the Emperor's order about the rice, but
+Napoleon shook his head in dissatisfaction as if not believing that his
+order had been executed. An attendant came in with punch. Napoleon
+ordered another glass to be brought for Rapp, and silently sipped his
+own.
+
+"I have neither taste nor smell," he remarked, sniffing at his glass.
+"This cold is tiresome. They talk about medicine—what is the good of
+medicine when it can't cure a cold! Corvisart gave me these lozenges but
+they don't help at all. What can doctors cure? One can't cure anything.
+Our body is a machine for living. It is organized for that, it is its
+nature. Let life go on in it unhindered and let it defend itself, it
+will do more than if you paralyze it by encumbering it with remedies.
+Our body is like a perfect watch that should go for a certain time; the
+watchmaker cannot open it, he can only adjust it by fumbling, and that
+blindfold.... Yes, our body is just a machine for living, that is all."
+
+And having entered on the path of definition, of which he was fond,
+Napoleon suddenly and unexpectedly gave a new one.
+
+"Do you know, Rapp, what military art is?" asked he. "It is the art of
+being stronger than the enemy at a given moment. That's all."
+
+Rapp made no reply.
+
+"Tomorrow we shall have to deal with Kutúzov!" said Napoleon. "We shall
+see! Do you remember at Braunau he commanded an army for three weeks and
+did not once mount a horse to inspect his entrenchments.... We shall
+see!"
+
+He looked at his watch. It was still only four o'clock. He did not feel
+sleepy. The punch was finished and there was still nothing to do. He
+rose, walked to and fro, put on a warm overcoat and a hat, and went out
+of the tent. The night was dark and damp, a scarcely perceptible
+moisture was descending from above. Near by, the campfires were dimly
+burning among the French Guards, and in the distance those of the
+Russian line shone through the smoke. The weather was calm, and the
+rustle and tramp of the French troops already beginning to move to take
+up their positions were clearly audible.
+
+Napoleon walked about in front of his tent, looked at the fires and
+listened to these sounds, and as he was passing a tall guardsman in a
+shaggy cap, who was standing sentinel before his tent and had drawn
+himself up like a black pillar at sight of the Emperor, Napoleon stopped
+in front of him.
+
+"What year did you enter the service?" he asked with that affectation of
+military bluntness and geniality with which he always addressed the
+soldiers.
+
+The man answered the question.
+
+"Ah! One of the old ones! Has your regiment had its rice?"
+
+"It has, Your Majesty."
+
+Napoleon nodded and walked away.
+
+At half-past five Napoleon rode to the village of Shevardino.
+
+It was growing light, the sky was clearing, only a single cloud lay in
+the east. The abandoned campfires were burning themselves out in the
+faint morning light.
+
+On the right a single deep report of a cannon resounded and died away in
+the prevailing silence. Some minutes passed. A second and a third report
+shook the air, then a fourth and a fifth boomed solemnly near by on the
+right.
+
+The first shots had not yet ceased to reverberate before others rang out
+and yet more were heard mingling with and overtaking one another.
+
+Napoleon with his suite rode up to the Shevardino Redoubt where he
+dismounted. The game had begun.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX
+
+On returning to Gorki after having seen Prince Andrew, Pierre ordered
+his groom to get the horses ready and to call him early in the morning,
+and then immediately fell asleep behind a partition in a corner Borís
+had given up to him.
+
+Before he was thoroughly awake next morning everybody had already left
+the hut. The panes were rattling in the little windows and his groom was
+shaking him.
+
+"Your excellency! Your excellency! Your excellency!" he kept repeating
+pertinaciously while he shook Pierre by the shoulder without looking at
+him, having apparently lost hope of getting him to wake up.
+
+"What? Has it begun? Is it time?" Pierre asked, waking up.
+
+"Hear the firing," said the groom, a discharged soldier. "All the
+gentlemen have gone out, and his Serene Highness himself rode past long
+ago."
+
+Pierre dressed hastily and ran out to the porch. Outside all was bright,
+fresh, dewy, and cheerful. The sun, just bursting forth from behind a
+cloud that had concealed it, was shining, with rays still half broken by
+the clouds, over the roofs of the street opposite, on the dew-
+besprinkled dust of the road, on the walls of the houses, on the
+windows, the fence, and on Pierre's horses standing before the hut. The
+roar of guns sounded more distinct outside. An adjutant accompanied by a
+Cossack passed by at a sharp trot.
+
+"It's time, Count; it's time!" cried the adjutant.
+
+Telling the groom to follow him with the horses, Pierre went down the
+street to the knoll from which he had looked at the field of battle the
+day before. A crowd of military men was assembled there, members of the
+staff could be heard conversing in French, and Kutúzov's gray head in a
+white cap with a red band was visible, his gray nape sunk between his
+shoulders. He was looking through a field glass down the highroad before
+him.
+
+Mounting the steps to the knoll Pierre looked at the scene before him,
+spellbound by beauty. It was the same panorama he had admired from that
+spot the day before, but now the whole place was full of troops and
+covered by smoke clouds from the guns, and the slanting rays of the
+bright sun, rising slightly to the left behind Pierre, cast upon it
+through the clear morning air penetrating streaks of rosy, golden-tinted
+light and long dark shadows. The forest at the farthest extremity of the
+panorama seemed carved in some precious stone of a yellowish-green
+color; its undulating outline was silhouetted against the horizon and
+was pierced beyond Valuevo by the Smolensk highroad crowded with troops.
+Nearer at hand glittered golden cornfields interspersed with copses.
+There were troops to be seen everywhere, in front and to the right and
+left. All this was vivid, majestic, and unexpected; but what impressed
+Pierre most of all was the view of the battlefield itself, of Borodino
+and the hollows on both sides of the Kolocha.
+
+Above the Kolocha, in Borodino and on both sides of it, especially to
+the left where the Voyna flowing between its marshy banks falls into the
+Kolocha, a mist had spread which seemed to melt, to dissolve, and to
+become translucent when the brilliant sun appeared and magically colored
+and outlined everything. The smoke of the guns mingled with this mist,
+and over the whole expanse and through that mist the rays of the morning
+sun were reflected, flashing back like lightning from the water, from
+the dew, and from the bayonets of the troops crowded together by the
+riverbanks and in Borodino. A white church could be seen through the
+mist, and here and there the roofs of huts in Borodino as well as dense
+masses of soldiers, or green ammunition chests and ordnance. And all
+this moved, or seemed to move, as the smoke and mist spread out over the
+whole space. Just as in the mist-enveloped hollow near Borodino, so
+along the entire line outside and above it and especially in the woods
+and fields to the left, in the valleys and on the summits of the high
+ground, clouds of powder smoke seemed continually to spring up out of
+nothing, now singly, now several at a time, some translucent, others
+dense, which, swelling, growing, rolling, and blending, extended over
+the whole expanse.
+
+These puffs of smoke and (strange to say) the sound of the firing
+produced the chief beauty of the spectacle.
+
+"Puff!"—suddenly a round compact cloud of smoke was seen merging from
+violet into gray and milky white, and "boom!" came the report a second
+later.
+
+"Puff! puff!"—and two clouds arose pushing one another and blending
+together; and "boom, boom!" came the sounds confirming what the eye had
+seen.
+
+Pierre glanced round at the first cloud, which he had seen as a round
+compact ball, and in its place already were balloons of smoke floating
+to one side, and—"puff" (with a pause)—"puff, puff!" three and then four
+more appeared and then from each, with the same interval—"boom—boom,
+boom!" came the fine, firm, precise sounds in reply. It seemed as if
+those smoke clouds sometimes ran and sometimes stood still while woods,
+fields, and glittering bayonets ran past them. From the left, over
+fields and bushes, those large balls of smoke were continually appearing
+followed by their solemn reports, while nearer still, in the hollows and
+woods, there burst from the muskets small cloudlets that had no time to
+become balls, but had their little echoes in just the same way. "Trakh-
+ta-ta-takh!" came the frequent crackle of musketry, but it was irregular
+and feeble in comparison with the reports of the cannon.
+
+Pierre wished to be there with that smoke, those shining bayonets, that
+movement, and those sounds. He turned to look at Kutúzov and his suite,
+to compare his impressions with those of others. They were all looking
+at the field of battle as he was, and, as it seemed to him, with the
+same feelings. All their faces were now shining with that latent warmth
+of feeling Pierre had noticed the day before and had fully understood
+after his talk with Prince Andrew.
+
+"Go, my dear fellow, go... and Christ be with you!" Kutúzov was saying
+to a general who stood beside him, not taking his eye from the
+battlefield.
+
+Having received this order the general passed by Pierre on his way down
+the knoll.
+
+"To the crossing!" said the general coldly and sternly in reply to one
+of the staff who asked where he was going.
+
+"I'll go there too, I too!" thought Pierre, and followed the general.
+
+The general mounted a horse a Cossack had brought him. Pierre went to
+his groom who was holding his horses and, asking which was the quietest,
+clambered onto it, seized it by the mane, and turning out his toes
+pressed his heels against its sides and, feeling that his spectacles
+were slipping off but unable to let go of the mane and reins, he
+galloped after the general, causing the staff officers to smile as they
+watched him from the knoll.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI
+
+Having descended the hill the general after whom Pierre was galloping
+turned sharply to the left, and Pierre, losing sight of him, galloped in
+among some ranks of infantry marching ahead of him. He tried to pass
+either in front of them or to the right or left, but there were soldiers
+everywhere, all with the same preoccupied expression and busy with some
+unseen but evidently important task. They all gazed with the same
+dissatisfied and inquiring expression at this stout man in a white hat,
+who for some unknown reason threatened to trample them under his horse's
+hoofs.
+
+"Why ride into the middle of the battalion?" one of them shouted at him.
+
+Another prodded his horse with the butt end of a musket, and Pierre,
+bending over his saddlebow and hardly able to control his shying horse,
+galloped ahead of the soldiers where there was a free space.
+
+There was a bridge ahead of him, where other soldiers stood firing.
+Pierre rode up to them. Without being aware of it he had come to the
+bridge across the Kolocha between Gorki and Borodino, which the French
+(having occupied Borodino) were attacking in the first phase of the
+battle. Pierre saw that there was a bridge in front of him and that
+soldiers were doing something on both sides of it and in the meadow,
+among the rows of new-mown hay which he had taken no notice of amid the
+smoke of the campfires the day before; but despite the incessant firing
+going on there he had no idea that this was the field of battle. He did
+not notice the sound of the bullets whistling from every side, or the
+projectiles that flew over him, did not see the enemy on the other side
+of the river, and for a long time did not notice the killed and wounded,
+though many fell near him. He looked about him with a smile which did
+not leave his face.
+
+"Why's that fellow in front of the line?" shouted somebody at him again.
+
+"To the left!... Keep to the right!" the men shouted to him.
+
+Pierre went to the right, and unexpectedly encountered one of Raevski's
+adjutants whom he knew. The adjutant looked angrily at him, evidently
+also intending to shout at him, but on recognizing him he nodded.
+
+"How have you got here?" he said, and galloped on.
+
+Pierre, feeling out of place there, having nothing to do, and afraid of
+getting in someone's way again, galloped after the adjutant.
+
+"What's happening here? May I come with you?" he asked.
+
+"One moment, one moment!" replied the adjutant, and riding up to a stout
+colonel who was standing in the meadow, he gave him some message and
+then addressed Pierre.
+
+"Why have you come here, Count?" he asked with a smile. "Still
+inquisitive?"
+
+"Yes, yes," assented Pierre.
+
+But the adjutant turned his horse about and rode on.
+
+"Here it's tolerable," said he, "but with Bagration on the left flank
+they're getting it frightfully hot."
+
+"Really?" said Pierre. "Where is that?"
+
+"Come along with me to our knoll. We can get a view from there and in
+our battery it is still bearable," said the adjutant. "Will you come?"
+
+"Yes, I'll come with you," replied Pierre, looking round for his groom.
+
+It was only now that he noticed wounded men staggering along or being
+carried on stretchers. On that very meadow he had ridden over the day
+before, a soldier was lying athwart the rows of scented hay, with his
+head thrown awkwardly back and his shako off.
+
+"Why haven't they carried him away?" Pierre was about to ask, but seeing
+the stern expression of the adjutant who was also looking that way, he
+checked himself.
+
+Pierre did not find his groom and rode along the hollow with the
+adjutant to Raevski's Redoubt. His horse lagged behind the adjutant's
+and jolted him at every step.
+
+"You don't seem to be used to riding, Count?" remarked the adjutant.
+
+"No it's not that, but her action seems so jerky," said Pierre in a
+puzzled tone.
+
+"Why... she's wounded!" said the adjutant. "In the off foreleg above the
+knee. A bullet, no doubt. I congratulate you, Count, on your baptism of
+fire!"
+
+Having ridden in the smoke past the Sixth Corps, behind the artillery
+which had been moved forward and was in action, deafening them with the
+noise of firing, they came to a small wood. There it was cool and quiet,
+with a scent of autumn. Pierre and the adjutant dismounted and walked up
+the hill on foot.
+
+"Is the general here?" asked the adjutant on reaching the knoll.
+
+"He was here a minute ago but has just gone that way," someone told him,
+pointing to the right.
+
+The adjutant looked at Pierre as if puzzled what to do with him now.
+
+"Don't trouble about me," said Pierre. "I'll go up onto the knoll if I
+may?"
+
+"Yes, do. You'll see everything from there and it's less dangerous, and
+I'll come for you."
+
+Pierre went to the battery and the adjutant rode on. They did not meet
+again, and only much later did Pierre learn that he lost an arm that
+day.
+
+The knoll to which Pierre ascended was that famous one afterwards known
+to the Russians as the Knoll Battery or Raevski's Redoubt, and to the
+French as la grande redoute, la fatale redoute, la redoute du centre,
+around which tens of thousands fell, and which the French regarded as
+the key to the whole position.
+
+This redoubt consisted of a knoll, on three sides of which trenches had
+been dug. Within the entrenchment stood ten guns that were being fired
+through openings in the earthwork.
+
+In line with the knoll on both sides stood other guns which also fired
+incessantly. A little behind the guns stood infantry. When ascending
+that knoll Pierre had no notion that this spot, on which small trenches
+had been dug and from which a few guns were firing, was the most
+important point of the battle.
+
+On the contrary, just because he happened to be there he thought it one
+of the least significant parts of the field.
+
+Having reached the knoll, Pierre sat down at one end of a trench
+surrounding the battery and gazed at what was going on around him with
+an unconsciously happy smile. Occasionally he rose and walked about the
+battery still with that same smile, trying not to obstruct the soldiers
+who were loading, hauling the guns, and continually running past him
+with bags and charges. The guns of that battery were being fired
+continually one after another with a deafening roar, enveloping the
+whole neighborhood in powder smoke.
+
+In contrast with the dread felt by the infantrymen placed in support,
+here in the battery where a small number of men busy at their work were
+separated from the rest by a trench, everyone experienced a common and
+as it were family feeling of animation.
+
+The intrusion of Pierre's nonmilitary figure in a white hat made an
+unpleasant impression at first. The soldiers looked askance at him with
+surprise and even alarm as they went past him. The senior artillery
+officer, a tall, long-legged, pockmarked man, moved over to Pierre as if
+to see the action of the farthest gun and looked at him with curiosity.
+
+A young round-faced officer, quite a boy still and evidently only just
+out of the Cadet College, who was zealously commanding the two guns
+entrusted to him, addressed Pierre sternly.
+
+"Sir," he said, "permit me to ask you to stand aside. You must not be
+here."
+
+The soldiers shook their heads disapprovingly as they looked at Pierre.
+But when they had convinced themselves that this man in the white hat
+was doing no harm, but either sat quietly on the slope of the trench
+with a shy smile or, politely making way for the soldiers, paced up and
+down the battery under fire as calmly as if he were on a boulevard,
+their feeling of hostile distrust gradually began to change into a
+kindly and bantering sympathy, such as soldiers feel for their dogs,
+cocks, goats, and in general for the animals that live with the
+regiment. The men soon accepted Pierre into their family, adopted him,
+gave him a nickname ("our gentleman"), and made kindly fun of him among
+themselves.
+
+A shell tore up the earth two paces from Pierre and he looked around
+with a smile as he brushed from his clothes some earth it had thrown up.
+
+"And how's it you're not afraid, sir, really now?" a red-faced, broad-
+shouldered soldier asked Pierre, with a grin that disclosed a set of
+sound, white teeth.
+
+"Are you afraid, then?" said Pierre.
+
+"What else do you expect?" answered the soldier. "She has no mercy, you
+know! When she comes spluttering down, out go your innards. One can't
+help being afraid," he said laughing.
+
+Several of the men, with bright kindly faces, stopped beside Pierre.
+They seemed not to have expected him to talk like anybody else, and the
+discovery that he did so delighted them.
+
+"It's the business of us soldiers. But in a gentleman it's wonderful!
+There's a gentleman for you!"
+
+"To your places!" cried the young officer to the men gathered round
+Pierre.
+
+The young officer was evidently exercising his duties for the first or
+second time and therefore treated both his superiors and the men with
+great precision and formality.
+
+The booming cannonade and the fusillade of musketry were growing more
+intense over the whole field, especially to the left where Bagration's
+fleches were, but where Pierre was the smoke of the firing made it
+almost impossible to distinguish anything. Moreover, his whole attention
+was engrossed by watching the family circle—separated from all
+else—formed by the men in the battery. His first unconscious feeling of
+joyful animation produced by the sights and sounds of the battlefield
+was now replaced by another, especially since he had seen that soldier
+lying alone in the hayfield. Now, seated on the slope of the trench, he
+observed the faces of those around him.
+
+By ten o'clock some twenty men had already been carried away from the
+battery; two guns were smashed and cannon balls fell more and more
+frequently on the battery and spent bullets buzzed and whistled around.
+But the men in the battery seemed not to notice this, and merry voices
+and jokes were heard on all sides.
+
+"A live one!" shouted a man as a whistling shell approached.
+
+"Not this way! To the infantry!" added another with loud laughter,
+seeing the shell fly past and fall into the ranks of the supports.
+
+"Are you bowing to a friend, eh?" remarked another, chaffing a peasant
+who ducked low as a cannon ball flew over.
+
+Several soldiers gathered by the wall of the trench, looking out to see
+what was happening in front.
+
+"They've withdrawn the front line, it has retired," said they, pointing
+over the earthwork.
+
+"Mind your own business," an old sergeant shouted at them. "If they've
+retired it's because there's work for them to do farther back."
+
+And the sergeant, taking one of the men by the shoulders, gave him a
+shove with his knee. This was followed by a burst of laughter.
+
+"To the fifth gun, wheel it up!" came shouts from one side.
+
+"Now then, all together, like bargees!" rose the merry voices of those
+who were moving the gun.
+
+"Oh, she nearly knocked our gentleman's hat off!" cried the red-faced
+humorist, showing his teeth chaffing Pierre. "Awkward baggage!" he added
+reproachfully to a cannon ball that struck a cannon wheel and a man's
+leg.
+
+"Now then, you foxes!" said another, laughing at some militiamen who,
+stooping low, entered the battery to carry away the wounded man.
+
+"So this gruel isn't to your taste? Oh, you crows! You're scared!" they
+shouted at the militiamen who stood hesitating before the man whose leg
+had been torn off.
+
+"There, lads... oh, oh!" they mimicked the peasants, "they don't like it
+at all!"
+
+Pierre noticed that after every ball that hit the redoubt, and after
+every loss, the liveliness increased more and more.
+
+As the flames of the fire hidden within come more and more vividly and
+rapidly from an approaching thundercloud, so, as if in opposition to
+what was taking place, the lightning of hidden fire growing more and
+more intense glowed in the faces of these men.
+
+Pierre did not look out at the battlefield and was not concerned to know
+what was happening there; he was entirely absorbed in watching this fire
+which burned ever more brightly and which he felt was flaming up in the
+same way in his own soul.
+
+At ten o'clock the infantry that had been among the bushes in front of
+the battery and along the Kamenka streamlet retreated. From the battery
+they could be seen running back past it carrying their wounded on their
+muskets. A general with his suite came to the battery, and after
+speaking to the colonel gave Pierre an angry look and went away again
+having ordered the infantry supports behind the battery to lie down, so
+as to be less exposed to fire. After this from amid the ranks of
+infantry to the right of the battery came the sound of a drum and shouts
+of command, and from the battery one saw how those ranks of infantry
+moved forward.
+
+Pierre looked over the wall of the trench and was particularly struck by
+a pale young officer who, letting his sword hang down, was walking
+backwards and kept glancing uneasily around.
+
+The ranks of the infantry disappeared amid the smoke but their long-
+drawn shout and rapid musketry firing could still be heard. A few
+minutes later crowds of wounded men and stretcher-bearers came back from
+that direction. Projectiles began to fall still more frequently in the
+battery. Several men were lying about who had not been removed. Around
+the cannon the men moved still more briskly and busily. No one any
+longer took notice of Pierre. Once or twice he was shouted at for being
+in the way. The senior officer moved with big, rapid strides from one
+gun to another with a frowning face. The young officer, with his face
+still more flushed, commanded the men more scrupulously than ever. The
+soldiers handed up the charges, turned, loaded, and did their business
+with strained smartness. They gave little jumps as they walked, as
+though they were on springs.
+
+The stormcloud had come upon them, and in every face the fire which
+Pierre had watched kindle burned up brightly. Pierre standing beside the
+commanding officer. The young officer, his hand to his shako, ran up to
+his superior.
+
+"I have the honor to report, sir, that only eight rounds are left. Are
+we to continue firing?" he asked.
+
+"Grapeshot!" the senior shouted, without answering the question, looking
+over the wall of the trench.
+
+Suddenly something happened: the young officer gave a gasp and bending
+double sat down on the ground like a bird shot on the wing. Everything
+became strange, confused, and misty in Pierre's eyes.
+
+One cannon ball after another whistled by and struck the earthwork, a
+soldier, or a gun. Pierre, who had not noticed these sounds before, now
+heard nothing else. On the right of the battery soldiers shouting
+"Hurrah!" were running not forwards but backwards, it seemed to Pierre.
+
+A cannon ball struck the very end of the earth work by which he was
+standing, crumbling down the earth; a black ball flashed before his eyes
+and at the same instant plumped into something. Some militiamen who were
+entering the battery ran back.
+
+"All with grapeshot!" shouted the officer.
+
+The sergeant ran up to the officer and in a frightened whisper informed
+him (as a butler at dinner informs his master that there is no more of
+some wine asked for) that there were no more charges.
+
+"The scoundrels! What are they doing?" shouted the officer, turning to
+Pierre.
+
+The officer's face was red and perspiring and his eyes glittered under
+his frowning brow.
+
+"Run to the reserves and bring up the ammunition boxes!" he yelled,
+angrily avoiding Pierre with his eyes and speaking to his men.
+
+"I'll go," said Pierre.
+
+The officer, without answering him, strode across to the opposite side.
+
+"Don't fire.... Wait!" he shouted.
+
+The man who had been ordered to go for ammunition stumbled against
+Pierre.
+
+"Eh, sir, this is no place for you," said he, and ran down the slope.
+
+Pierre ran after him, avoiding the spot where the young officer was
+sitting.
+
+One cannon ball, another, and a third flew over him, falling in front,
+beside, and behind him. Pierre ran down the slope. "Where am I going?"
+he suddenly asked himself when he was already near the green ammunition
+wagons. He halted irresolutely, not knowing whether to return or go on.
+Suddenly a terrible concussion threw him backwards to the ground. At the
+same instant he was dazzled by a great flash of flame, and immediately a
+deafening roar, crackling, and whistling made his ears tingle.
+
+When he came to himself he was sitting on the ground leaning on his
+hands; the ammunition wagons he had been approaching no longer existed,
+only charred green boards and rags littered the scorched grass, and a
+horse, dangling fragments of its shaft behind it, galloped past, while
+another horse lay, like Pierre, on the ground, uttering prolonged and
+piercing cries.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII
+
+Beside himself with terror Pierre jumped up and ran back to the battery,
+as to the only refuge from the horrors that surrounded him.
+
+On entering the earthwork he noticed that there were men doing something
+there but that no shots were being fired from the battery. He had no
+time to realize who these men were. He saw the senior officer lying on
+the earth wall with his back turned as if he were examining something
+down below and that one of the soldiers he had noticed before was
+struggling forward shouting "Brothers!" and trying to free himself from
+some men who were holding him by the arm. He also saw something else
+that was strange.
+
+But he had not time to realize that the colonel had been killed, that
+the soldier shouting "Brothers!" was a prisoner, and that another man
+had been bayoneted in the back before his eyes, for hardly had he run
+into the redoubt before a thin, sallow-faced, perspiring man in a blue
+uniform rushed on him sword in hand, shouting something. Instinctively
+guarding against the shock—for they had been running together at full
+speed before they saw one another—Pierre put out his hands and seized
+the man (a French officer) by the shoulder with one hand and by the
+throat with the other. The officer, dropping his sword, seized Pierre by
+his collar.
+
+For some seconds they gazed with frightened eyes at one another's
+unfamiliar faces and both were perplexed at what they had done and what
+they were to do next. "Am I taken prisoner or have I taken him
+prisoner?" each was thinking. But the French officer was evidently more
+inclined to think he had been taken prisoner because Pierre's strong
+hand, impelled by instinctive fear, squeezed his throat ever tighter and
+tighter. The Frenchman was about to say something, when just above their
+heads, terrible and low, a cannon ball whistled, and it seemed to Pierre
+that the French officer's head had been torn off, so swiftly had he
+ducked it.
+
+Pierre too bent his head and let his hands fall. Without further thought
+as to who had taken whom prisoner, the Frenchman ran back to the battery
+and Pierre ran down the slope stumbling over the dead and wounded who,
+it seemed to him, caught at his feet. But before he reached the foot of
+the knoll he was met by a dense crowd of Russian soldiers who,
+stumbling, tripping up, and shouting, ran merrily and wildly toward the
+battery. (This was the attack for which Ermolov claimed the credit,
+declaring that only his courage and good luck made such a feat possible:
+it was the attack in which he was said to have thrown some St. George's
+Crosses he had in his pocket into the battery for the first soldiers to
+take who got there.)
+
+The French who had occupied the battery fled, and our troops shouting
+"Hurrah!" pursued them so far beyond the battery that it was difficult
+to call them back.
+
+The prisoners were brought down from the battery and among them was a
+wounded French general, whom the officers surrounded. Crowds of
+wounded—some known to Pierre and some unknown—Russians and French, with
+faces distorted by suffering, walked, crawled, and were carried on
+stretchers from the battery. Pierre again went up onto the knoll where
+he had spent over an hour, and of that family circle which had received
+him as a member he did not find a single one. There were many dead whom
+he did not know, but some he recognized. The young officer still sat in
+the same way, bent double, in a pool of blood at the edge of the earth
+wall. The red-faced man was still twitching, but they did not carry him
+away.
+
+Pierre ran down the slope once more.
+
+"Now they will stop it, now they will be horrified at what they have
+done!" he thought, aimlessly going toward a crowd of stretcher bearers
+moving from the battlefield.
+
+But behind the veil of smoke the sun was still high, and in front and
+especially to the left, near Semënovsk, something seemed to be seething
+in the smoke, and the roar of cannon and musketry did not diminish, but
+even increased to desperation like a man who, straining himself, shrieks
+with all his remaining strength.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII
+
+The chief action of the battle of Borodino was fought within the seven
+thousand feet between Borodino and Bagration's fleches. Beyond that
+space there was, on the one side, a demonstration made by the Russians
+with Uvarov's cavalry at midday, and on the other side, beyond Utitsa,
+Poniatowski's collision with Tuchkov; but these two were detached and
+feeble actions in comparison with what took place in the center of the
+battlefield. On the field between Borodino and the fleches, beside the
+wood, the chief action of the day took place on an open space visible
+from both sides and was fought in the simplest and most artless way.
+
+The battle began on both sides with a cannonade from several hundred
+guns.
+
+Then when the whole field was covered with smoke, two divisions,
+Campan's and Dessaix's, advanced from the French right, while Murat's
+troops advanced on Borodino from their left.
+
+From the Shevardino Redoubt where Napoleon was standing the fleches were
+two thirds of a mile away, and it was more than a mile as the crow flies
+to Borodino, so that Napoleon could not see what was happening there,
+especially as the smoke mingling with the mist hid the whole locality.
+The soldiers of Dessaix's division advancing against the fleches could
+only be seen till they had entered the hollow that lay between them and
+the fleches. As soon as they had descended into that hollow, the smoke
+of the guns and musketry on the fleches grew so dense that it covered
+the whole approach on that side of it. Through the smoke glimpses could
+be caught of something black—probably men—and at times the glint of
+bayonets. But whether they were moving or stationary, whether they were
+French or Russian, could not be discovered from the Shevardino Redoubt.
+
+The sun had risen brightly and its slanting rays struck straight into
+Napoleon's face as, shading his eyes with his hand, he looked at the
+fleches. The smoke spread out before them, and at times it looked as if
+the smoke were moving, at times as if the troops moved. Sometimes shouts
+were heard through the firing, but it was impossible to tell what was
+being done there.
+
+Napoleon, standing on the knoll, looked through a field glass, and in
+its small circlet saw smoke and men, sometimes his own and sometimes
+Russians, but when he looked again with the naked eye, he could not tell
+where what he had seen was.
+
+He descended the knoll and began walking up and down before it.
+
+Occasionally he stopped, listened to the firing, and gazed intently at
+the battlefield.
+
+But not only was it impossible to make out what was happening from where
+he was standing down below, or from the knoll above on which some of his
+generals had taken their stand, but even from the fleches themselves—in
+which by this time there were now Russian and now French soldiers,
+alternately or together, dead, wounded, alive, frightened, or
+maddened—even at those fleches themselves it was impossible to make out
+what was taking place. There for several hours amid incessant cannon and
+musketry fire, now Russians were seen alone, now Frenchmen alone, now
+infantry, and now cavalry: they appeared, fired, fell, collided, not
+knowing what to do with one another, screamed, and ran back again.
+
+From the battlefield adjutants he had sent out, and orderlies from his
+marshals, kept galloping up to Napoleon with reports of the progress of
+the action, but all these reports were false, both because it was
+impossible in the heat of battle to say what was happening at any given
+moment and because many of the adjutants did not go to the actual place
+of conflict but reported what they had heard from others; and also
+because while an adjutant was riding more than a mile to Napoleon
+circumstances changed and the news he brought was already becoming
+false. Thus an adjutant galloped up from Murat with tidings that
+Borodino had been occupied and the bridge over the Kolocha was in the
+hands of the French. The adjutant asked whether Napoleon wished the
+troops to cross it? Napoleon gave orders that the troops should form up
+on the farther side and wait. But before that order was given—almost as
+soon in fact as the adjutant had left Borodino—the bridge had been
+retaken by the Russians and burned, in the very skirmish at which Pierre
+had been present at the beginning of the battle.
+
+An adjutant galloped up from the fleches with a pale and frightened face
+and reported to Napoleon that their attack had been repulsed, Campan
+wounded, and Davout killed; yet at the very time the adjutant had been
+told that the French had been repulsed, the fleches had in fact been
+recaptured by other French troops, and Davout was alive and only
+slightly bruised. On the basis of these necessarily untrustworthy
+reports Napoleon gave his orders, which had either been executed before
+he gave them or could not be and were not executed.
+
+The marshals and generals, who were nearer to the field of battle but,
+like Napoleon, did not take part in the actual fighting and only
+occasionally went within musket range, made their own arrangements
+without asking Napoleon and issued orders where and in what direction to
+fire and where cavalry should gallop and infantry should run. But even
+their orders, like Napoleon's, were seldom carried out, and then but
+partially. For the most part things happened contrary to their orders.
+Soldiers ordered to advance ran back on meeting grapeshot; soldiers
+ordered to remain where they were, suddenly, seeing Russians
+unexpectedly before them, sometimes rushed back and sometimes forward,
+and the cavalry dashed without orders in pursuit of the flying Russians.
+In this way two cavalry regiments galloped through the Semënovsk hollow
+and as soon as they reached the top of the incline turned round and
+galloped full speed back again. The infantry moved in the same way,
+sometimes running to quite other places than those they were ordered to
+go to. All orders as to where and when to move the guns, when to send
+infantry to shoot or horsemen to ride down the Russian infantry—all such
+orders were given by the officers on the spot nearest to the units
+concerned, without asking either Ney, Davout, or Murat, much less
+Napoleon. They did not fear getting into trouble for not fulfilling
+orders or for acting on their own initiative, for in battle what is at
+stake is what is dearest to man—his own life—and it sometimes seems that
+safety lies in running back, sometimes in running forward; and these men
+who were right in the heat of the battle acted according to the mood of
+the moment. In reality, however, all these movements forward and
+backward did not improve or alter the position of the troops. All their
+rushing and galloping at one another did little harm, the harm of
+disablement and death was caused by the balls and bullets that flew over
+the fields on which these men were floundering about. As soon as they
+left the place where the balls and bullets were flying about, their
+superiors, located in the background, re-formed them and brought them
+under discipline and under the influence of that discipline led them
+back to the zone of fire, where under the influence of fear of death
+they lost their discipline and rushed about according to the chance
+promptings of the throng.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV
+
+Napoleon's generals—Davout, Ney, and Murat, who were near that region of
+fire and sometimes even entered it—repeatedly led into it huge masses of
+well-ordered troops. But contrary to what had always happened in their
+former battles, instead of the news they expected of the enemy's flight,
+these orderly masses returned thence as disorganized and terrified mobs.
+The generals re-formed them, but their numbers constantly decreased. In
+the middle of the day Murat sent his adjutant to Napoleon to demand
+reinforcements.
+
+Napoleon sat at the foot of the knoll, drinking punch, when Murat's
+adjutant galloped up with an assurance that the Russians would be routed
+if His Majesty would let him have another division.
+
+"Reinforcements?" said Napoleon in a tone of stern surprise, looking at
+the adjutant—a handsome lad with long black curls arranged like Murat's
+own—as though he did not understand his words.
+
+"Reinforcements!" thought Napoleon to himself. "How can they need
+reinforcements when they already have half the army directed against a
+weak, unentrenched Russian wing?"
+
+"Tell the King of Naples," said he sternly, "that it is not noon yet,
+and I don't yet see my chessboard clearly. Go!..."
+
+The handsome boy adjutant with the long hair sighed deeply without
+removing his hand from his hat and galloped back to where men were being
+slaughtered.
+
+Napoleon rose and having summoned Caulaincourt and Berthier began
+talking to them about matters unconnected with the battle.
+
+In the midst of this conversation, which was beginning to interest
+Napoleon, Berthier's eyes turned to look at a general with a suite, who
+was galloping toward the knoll on a lathering horse. It was Belliard.
+Having dismounted he went up to the Emperor with rapid strides and in a
+loud voice began boldly demonstrating the necessity of sending
+reinforcements. He swore on his honor that the Russians were lost if the
+Emperor would give another division.
+
+Napoleon shrugged his shoulders and continued to pace up and down
+without replying. Belliard began talking loudly and eagerly to the
+generals of the suite around him.
+
+"You are very fiery, Belliard," said Napoleon, when he again came up to
+the general. "In the heat of a battle it is easy to make a mistake. Go
+and have another look and then come back to me."
+
+Before Belliard was out of sight, a messenger from another part of the
+battlefield galloped up.
+
+"Now then, what do you want?" asked Napoleon in the tone of a man
+irritated at being continually disturbed.
+
+"Sire, the prince..." began the adjutant.
+
+"Asks for reinforcements?" said Napoleon with an angry gesture.
+
+The adjutant bent his head affirmatively and began to report, but the
+Emperor turned from him, took a couple of steps, stopped, came back, and
+called Berthier.
+
+"We must give reserves," he said, moving his arms slightly apart. "Who
+do you think should be sent there?" he asked of Berthier (whom he
+subsequently termed "that gosling I have made an eagle").
+
+"Send Claparede's division, sire," replied Berthier, who knew all the
+division's regiments, and battalions by heart.
+
+Napoleon nodded assent.
+
+The adjutant galloped to Claparede's division and a few minutes later
+the Young Guards stationed behind the knoll moved forward. Napoleon
+gazed silently in that direction.
+
+"No!" he suddenly said to Berthier. "I can't send Claparede. Send
+Friant's division."
+
+Though there was no advantage in sending Friant's division instead of
+Claparede's, and even an obvious inconvenience and delay in stopping
+Claparede and sending Friant now, the order was carried out exactly.
+Napoleon did not notice that in regard to his army he was playing the
+part of a doctor who hinders by his medicines—a role he so justly
+understood and condemned.
+
+Friant's division disappeared as the others had done into the smoke of
+the battlefield. From all sides adjutants continued to arrive at a
+gallop and as if by agreement all said the same thing. They all asked
+for reinforcements and all said that the Russians were holding their
+positions and maintaining a hellish fire under which the French army was
+melting away.
+
+Napoleon sat on a campstool, wrapped in thought.
+
+M. de Beausset, the man so fond of travel, having fasted since morning,
+came up to the Emperor and ventured respectfully to suggest lunch to His
+Majesty.
+
+"I hope I may now congratulate Your Majesty on a victory?" said he.
+
+Napoleon silently shook his head in negation. Assuming the negation to
+refer only to the victory and not to the lunch, M. de Beausset ventured
+with respectful jocularity to remark that there is no reason for not
+having lunch when one can get it.
+
+"Go away..." exclaimed Napoleon suddenly and morosely, and turned aside.
+
+A beatific smile of regret, repentance, and ecstasy beamed on M. de
+Beausset's face and he glided away to the other generals.
+
+Napoleon was experiencing a feeling of depression like that of an ever-
+lucky gambler who, after recklessly flinging money about and always
+winning, suddenly just when he has calculated all the chances of the
+game, finds that the more he considers his play the more surely he
+loses.
+
+His troops were the same, his generals the same, the same preparations
+had been made, the same dispositions, and the same proclamation courte
+et energique, he himself was still the same: he knew that and knew that
+he was now even more experienced and skillful than before. Even the
+enemy was the same as at Austerlitz and Friedland—yet the terrible
+stroke of his arm had supernaturally become impotent.
+
+All the old methods that had been unfailingly crowned with success: the
+concentration of batteries on one point, an attack by reserves to break
+the enemy's line, and a cavalry attack by "the men of iron," all these
+methods had already been employed, yet not only was there no victory,
+but from all sides came the same news of generals killed and wounded, of
+reinforcements needed, of the impossibility of driving back the
+Russians, and of disorganization among his own troops.
+
+Formerly, after he had given two or three orders and uttered a few
+phrases, marshals and adjutants had come galloping up with
+congratulations and happy faces, announcing the trophies taken, the
+corps of prisoners, bundles of enemy eagles and standards, cannon and
+stores, and Murat had only begged leave to loose the cavalry to gather
+in the baggage wagons. So it had been at Lodi, Marengo, Arcola, Jena,
+Austerlitz, Wagram, and so on. But now something strange was happening
+to his troops.
+
+Despite news of the capture of the fleches, Napoleon saw that this was
+not the same, not at all the same, as what had happened in his former
+battles. He saw that what he was feeling was felt by all the men about
+him experienced in the art of war. All their faces looked dejected, and
+they all shunned one another's eyes—only a de Beausset could fail to
+grasp the meaning of what was happening.
+
+But Napoleon with his long experience of war well knew the meaning of a
+battle not gained by the attacking side in eight hours, after all
+efforts had been expended. He knew that it was a lost battle and that
+the least accident might now—with the fight balanced on such a strained
+center—destroy him and his army.
+
+When he ran his mind over the whole of this strange Russian campaign in
+which not one battle had been won, and in which not a flag, or cannon,
+or army corps had been captured in two months, when he looked at the
+concealed depression on the faces around him and heard reports of the
+Russians still holding their ground—a terrible feeling like a nightmare
+took possession of him, and all the unlucky accidents that might destroy
+him occurred to his mind. The Russians might fall on his left wing,
+might break through his center, he himself might be killed by a stray
+cannon ball. All this was possible. In former battles he had only
+considered the possibilities of success, but now innumerable unlucky
+chances presented themselves, and he expected them all. Yes, it was like
+a dream in which a man fancies that a ruffian is coming to attack him,
+and raises his arm to strike that ruffian a terrible blow which he knows
+should annihilate him, but then feels that his arm drops powerless and
+limp like a rag, and the horror of unavoidable destruction seizes him in
+his helplessness.
+
+The news that the Russians were attacking the left flank of the French
+army aroused that horror in Napoleon. He sat silently on a campstool
+below the knoll, with head bowed and elbows on his knees. Berthier
+approached and suggested that they should ride along the line to
+ascertain the position of affairs.
+
+"What? What do you say?" asked Napoleon. "Yes, tell them to bring me my
+horse."
+
+He mounted and rode toward Semënovsk.
+
+Amid the powder smoke, slowly dispersing over the whole space through
+which Napoleon rode, horses and men were lying in pools of blood, singly
+or in heaps. Neither Napoleon nor any of his generals had ever before
+seen such horrors or so many slain in such a small area. The roar of
+guns, that had not ceased for ten hours, wearied the ear and gave a
+peculiar significance to the spectacle, as music does to tableaux
+vivants. Napoleon rode up the high ground at Semënovsk, and through the
+smoke saw ranks of men in uniforms of a color unfamiliar to him. They
+were Russians.
+
+The Russians stood in serried ranks behind Semënovsk village and its
+knoll, and their guns boomed incessantly along their line and sent forth
+clouds of smoke. It was no longer a battle: it was a continuous
+slaughter which could be of no avail either to the French or the
+Russians. Napoleon stopped his horse and again fell into the reverie
+from which Berthier had aroused him. He could not stop what was going on
+before him and around him and was supposed to be directed by him and to
+depend on him, and from its lack of success this affair, for the first
+time, seemed to him unnecessary and horrible.
+
+One of the generals rode up to Napoleon and ventured to offer to lead
+the Old Guard into action. Ney and Berthier, standing near Napoleon,
+exchanged looks and smiled contemptuously at this general's senseless
+offer.
+
+Napoleon bowed his head and remained silent a long time.
+
+"At eight hundred leagues from France, I will not have my Guard
+destroyed!" he said, and turning his horse rode back to Shevardino.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV
+
+On the rug-covered bench where Pierre had seen him in the morning sat
+Kutúzov, his gray head hanging, his heavy body relaxed. He gave no
+orders, but only assented to or dissented from what others suggested.
+
+"Yes, yes, do that," he replied to various proposals. "Yes, yes: go,
+dear boy, and have a look," he would say to one or another of those
+about him; or, "No, don't, we'd better wait!" He listened to the reports
+that were brought him and gave directions when his subordinates demanded
+that of him; but when listening to the reports it seemed as if he were
+not interested in the import of the words spoken, but rather in
+something else—in the expression of face and tone of voice of those who
+were reporting. By long years of military experience he knew, and with
+the wisdom of age understood, that it is impossible for one man to
+direct hundreds of thousands of others struggling with death, and he
+knew that the result of a battle is decided not by the orders of a
+commander-in-chief, nor the place where the troops are stationed, nor by
+the number of cannon or of slaughtered men, but by that intangible force
+called the spirit of the army, and he watched this force and guided it
+in as far as that was in his power.
+
+Kutúzov's general expression was one of concentrated quiet attention,
+and his face wore a strained look as if he found it difficult to master
+the fatigue of his old and feeble body.
+
+At eleven o'clock they brought him news that the fleches captured by the
+French had been retaken, but that Prince Bagration was wounded. Kutúzov
+groaned and swayed his head.
+
+"Ride over to Prince Peter Ivánovich and find out about it exactly," he
+said to one of his adjutants, and then turned to the Duke of Wurttemberg
+who was standing behind him.
+
+"Will Your Highness please take command of the first army?"
+
+Soon after the duke's departure—before he could possibly have reached
+Semënovsk—his adjutant came back from him and told Kutúzov that the duke
+asked for more troops.
+
+Kutúzov made a grimace and sent an order to Dokhturov to take over the
+command of the first army, and a request to the duke—whom he said he
+could not spare at such an important moment—to return to him. When they
+brought him news that Murat had been taken prisoner, and the staff
+officers congratulated him, Kutúzov smiled.
+
+"Wait a little, gentlemen," said he. "The battle is won, and there is
+nothing extraordinary in the capture of Murat. Still, it is better to
+wait before we rejoice."
+
+But he sent an adjutant to take the news round the army.
+
+When Scherbinin came galloping from the left flank with news that the
+French had captured the fleches and the village of Semënovsk, Kutúzov,
+guessing by the sounds of the battle and by Scherbinin's looks that the
+news was bad, rose as if to stretch his legs and, taking Scherbinin's
+arm, led him aside.
+
+"Go, my dear fellow," he said to Ermolov, "and see whether something
+can't be done."
+
+Kutúzov was in Gorki, near the center of the Russian position. The
+attack directed by Napoleon against our left flank had been several
+times repulsed. In the center the French had not got beyond Borodino,
+and on their left flank Uvarov's cavalry had put the French to flight.
+
+Toward three o'clock the French attacks ceased. On the faces of all who
+came from the field of battle, and of those who stood around him,
+Kutúzov noticed an expression of extreme tension. He was satisfied with
+the day's success—a success exceeding his expectations, but the old
+man's strength was failing him. Several times his head dropped low as if
+it were falling and he dozed off. Dinner was brought him.
+
+Adjutant General Wolzogen, the man who when riding past Prince Andrew
+had said, "the war should be extended widely," and whom Bagration so
+detested, rode up while Kutúzov was at dinner. Wolzogen had come from
+Barclay de Tolly to report on the progress of affairs on the left flank.
+The sagacious Barclay de Tolly, seeing crowds of wounded men running
+back and the disordered rear of the army, weighed all the circumstances,
+concluded that the battle was lost, and sent his favorite officer to the
+commander in chief with that news.
+
+Kutúzov was chewing a piece of roast chicken with difficulty and glanced
+at Wolzogen with eyes that brightened under their puckering lids.
+
+Wolzogen, nonchalantly stretching his legs, approached Kutúzov with a
+half-contemptuous smile on his lips, scarcely touching the peak of his
+cap.
+
+He treated his Serene Highness with a somewhat affected nonchalance
+intended to show that, as a highly trained military man, he left it to
+Russians to make an idol of this useless old man, but that he knew whom
+he was dealing with. "Der alte Herr" (as in their own set the Germans
+called Kutúzov) "is making himself very comfortable," thought Wolzogen,
+and looking severely at the dishes in front of Kutúzov he began to
+report to "the old gentleman" the position of affairs on the left flank
+as Barclay had ordered him to and as he himself had seen and understood
+it.
+
+"All the points of our position are in the enemy's hands and we cannot
+dislodge them for lack of troops, the men are running away and it is
+impossible to stop them," he reported.
+
+Kutúzov ceased chewing and fixed an astonished gaze on Wolzogen, as if
+not understanding what was said to him. Wolzogen, noticing "the old
+gentleman's" agitation, said with a smile:
+
+"I have not considered it right to conceal from your Serene Highness
+what I have seen. The troops are in complete disorder..."
+
+"You have seen? You have seen?..." Kutúzov shouted. Frowning and rising
+quickly, he went up to Wolzogen.
+
+"How... how dare you!..." he shouted, choking and making a threatening
+gesture with his trembling arms: "How dare you, sir, say that to me? You
+know nothing about it. Tell General Barclay from me that his information
+is incorrect and that the real course of the battle is better known to
+me, the commander-in-chief, than to him."
+
+Wolzogen was about to make a rejoinder, but Kutúzov interrupted him.
+
+"The enemy has been repulsed on the left and defeated on the right
+flank. If you have seen amiss, sir, do not allow yourself to say what
+you don't know! Be so good as to ride to General Barclay and inform him
+of my firm intention to attack the enemy tomorrow," said Kutúzov
+sternly.
+
+All were silent, and the only sound audible was the heavy breathing of
+the panting old general.
+
+"They are repulsed everywhere, for which I thank God and our brave army!
+The enemy is beaten, and tomorrow we shall drive him from the sacred
+soil of Russia," said Kutúzov crossing himself, and he suddenly sobbed
+as his eyes filled with tears.
+
+Wolzogen, shrugging his shoulders and curling his lips, stepped silently
+aside, marveling at "the old gentleman's" conceited stupidity.
+
+"Ah, here he is, my hero!" said Kutúzov to a portly, handsome, dark-
+haired general who was just ascending the knoll.
+
+This was Raevski, who had spent the whole day at the most important part
+of the field of Borodino.
+
+Raevski reported that the troops were firmly holding their ground and
+that the French no longer ventured to attack.
+
+After hearing him, Kutúzov said in French:
+
+"Then you do not think, like some others, that we must retreat?"
+
+"On the contrary, your Highness, in indecisive actions it is always the
+most stubborn who remain victors," replied Raevski, "and in my
+opinion..."
+
+"Kaysarov!" Kutúzov called to his adjutant. "Sit down and write out the
+order of the day for tomorrow. And you," he continued, addressing
+another, "ride along the line and announce that tomorrow we attack."
+
+While Kutúzov was talking to Raevski and dictating the order of the day,
+Wolzogen returned from Barclay and said that General Barclay wished to
+have written confirmation of the order the field marshal had given.
+
+Kutúzov, without looking at Wolzogen, gave directions for the order to
+be written out which the former commander-in-chief, to avoid personal
+responsibility, very judiciously wished to receive.
+
+And by means of that mysterious indefinable bond which maintains
+throughout an army one and the same temper, known as "the spirit of the
+army," and which constitutes the sinew of war, Kutúzov's words, his
+order for a battle next day, immediately became known from one end of
+the army to the other.
+
+It was far from being the same words or the same order that reached the
+farthest links of that chain. The tales passing from mouth to mouth at
+different ends of the army did not even resemble what Kutúzov had said,
+but the sense of his words spread everywhere because what he said was
+not the outcome of cunning calculations, but of a feeling that lay in
+the commander-in-chief's soul as in that of every Russian.
+
+And on learning that tomorrow they were to attack the enemy, and hearing
+from the highest quarters a confirmation of what they wanted to believe,
+the exhausted, wavering men felt comforted and inspirited.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI
+
+Prince Andrew's regiment was among the reserves which till after one
+o'clock were stationed inactive behind Semënovsk, under heavy artillery
+fire. Toward two o'clock the regiment, having already lost more than two
+hundred men, was moved forward into a trampled oatfield in the gap
+between Semënovsk and the Knoll Battery, where thousands of men perished
+that day and on which an intense, concentrated fire from several hundred
+enemy guns was directed between one and two o'clock.
+
+Without moving from that spot or firing a single shot the regiment here
+lost another third of its men. From in front and especially from the
+right, in the unlifting smoke the guns boomed, and out of the mysterious
+domain of smoke that overlay the whole space in front, quick hissing
+cannon balls and slow whistling shells flew unceasingly. At times, as if
+to allow them a respite, a quarter of an hour passed during which the
+cannon balls and shells all flew overhead, but sometimes several men
+were torn from the regiment in a minute and the slain were continually
+being dragged away and the wounded carried off.
+
+With each fresh blow less and less chance of life remained for those not
+yet killed. The regiment stood in columns of battalion, three hundred
+paces apart, but nevertheless the men were always in one and the same
+mood. All alike were taciturn and morose. Talk was rarely heard in the
+ranks, and it ceased altogether every time the thud of a successful shot
+and the cry of "stretchers!" was heard. Most of the time, by their
+officers' order, the men sat on the ground. One, having taken off his
+shako, carefully loosened the gathers of its lining and drew them tight
+again; another, rubbing some dry clay between his palms, polished his
+bayonet; another fingered the strap and pulled the buckle of his
+bandolier, while another smoothed and refolded his leg bands and put his
+boots on again. Some built little houses of the tufts in the plowed
+ground, or plaited baskets from the straw in the cornfield. All seemed
+fully absorbed in these pursuits. When men were killed or wounded, when
+rows of stretchers went past, when some troops retreated, and when great
+masses of the enemy came into view through the smoke, no one paid any
+attention to these things. But when our artillery or cavalry advanced or
+some of our infantry were seen to move forward, words of approval were
+heard on all sides. But the liveliest attention was attracted by
+occurrences quite apart from, and unconnected with, the battle. It was
+as if the minds of these morally exhausted men found relief in everyday,
+commonplace occurrences. A battery of artillery was passing in front of
+the regiment. The horse of an ammunition cart put its leg over a trace.
+"Hey, look at the trace horse!... Get her leg out! She'll fall.... Ah,
+they don't see it!" came identical shouts from the ranks all along the
+regiment. Another time, general attention was attracted by a small brown
+dog, coming heaven knows whence, which trotted in a preoccupied manner
+in front of the ranks with tail stiffly erect till suddenly a shell fell
+close by, when it yelped, tucked its tail between its legs, and darted
+aside. Yells and shrieks of laughter rose from the whole regiment. But
+such distractions lasted only a moment, and for eight hours the men had
+been inactive, without food, in constant fear of death, and their pale
+and gloomy faces grew ever paler and gloomier.
+
+Prince Andrew, pale and gloomy like everyone in the regiment, paced up
+and down from the border of one patch to another, at the edge of the
+meadow beside an oatfield, with head bowed and arms behind his back.
+There was nothing for him to do and no orders to be given. Everything
+went on of itself. The killed were dragged from the front, the wounded
+carried away, and the ranks closed up. If any soldiers ran to the rear
+they returned immediately and hastily. At first Prince Andrew,
+considering it his duty to rouse the courage of the men and to set them
+an example, walked about among the ranks, but he soon became convinced
+that this was unnecessary and that there was nothing he could teach
+them. All the powers of his soul, as of every soldier there, were
+unconsciously bent on avoiding the contemplation of the horrors of their
+situation. He walked along the meadow, dragging his feet, rustling the
+grass, and gazing at the dust that covered his boots; now he took big
+strides trying to keep to the footprints left on the meadow by the
+mowers, then he counted his steps, calculating how often he must walk
+from one strip to another to walk a mile, then he stripped the flowers
+from the wormwood that grew along a boundary rut, rubbed them in his
+palms, and smelled their pungent, sweetly bitter scent. Nothing remained
+of the previous day's thoughts. He thought of nothing. He listened with
+weary ears to the ever-recurring sounds, distinguishing the whistle of
+flying projectiles from the booming of the reports, glanced at the
+tiresomely familiar faces of the men of the first battalion, and waited.
+"Here it comes... this one is coming our way again!" he thought,
+listening to an approaching whistle in the hidden region of smoke. "One,
+another! Again! It has hit...." He stopped and looked at the ranks. "No,
+it has gone over. But this one has hit!" And again he started trying to
+reach the boundary strip in sixteen paces. A whizz and a thud! Five
+paces from him, a cannon ball tore up the dry earth and disappeared. A
+chill ran down his back. Again he glanced at the ranks. Probably many
+had been hit—a large crowd had gathered near the second battalion.
+
+"Adjutant!" he shouted. "Order them not to crowd together."
+
+The adjutant, having obeyed this instruction, approached Prince Andrew.
+From the other side a battalion commander rode up.
+
+"Look out!" came a frightened cry from a soldier and, like a bird
+whirring in rapid flight and alighting on the ground, a shell dropped
+with little noise within two steps of Prince Andrew and close to the
+battalion commander's horse. The horse first, regardless of whether it
+was right or wrong to show fear, snorted, reared almost throwing the
+major, and galloped aside. The horse's terror infected the men.
+
+"Lie down!" cried the adjutant, throwing himself flat on the ground.
+
+Prince Andrew hesitated. The smoking shell spun like a top between him
+and the prostrate adjutant, near a wormwood plant between the field and
+the meadow.
+
+"Can this be death?" thought Prince Andrew, looking with a quite new,
+envious glance at the grass, the wormwood, and the streamlet of smoke
+that curled up from the rotating black ball. "I cannot, I do not wish to
+die. I love life—I love this grass, this earth, this air...." He thought
+this, and at the same time remembered that people were looking at him.
+
+"It's shameful, sir!" he said to the adjutant. "What..."
+
+He did not finish speaking. At one and the same moment came the sound of
+an explosion, a whistle of splinters as from a breaking window frame, a
+suffocating smell of powder, and Prince Andrew started to one side,
+raising his arm, and fell on his chest. Several officers ran up to him.
+From the right side of his abdomen, blood was welling out making a large
+stain on the grass.
+
+The militiamen with stretchers who were called up stood behind the
+officers. Prince Andrew lay on his chest with his face in the grass,
+breathing heavily and noisily.
+
+"What are you waiting for? Come along!"
+
+The peasants went up and took him by his shoulders and legs, but he
+moaned piteously and, exchanging looks, they set him down again.
+
+"Pick him up, lift him, it's all the same!" cried someone.
+
+They again took him by the shoulders and laid him on the stretcher.
+
+"Ah, God! My God! What is it? The stomach? That means death! My
+God!"—voices among the officers were heard saying.
+
+"It flew a hair's breadth past my ear," said the adjutant.
+
+The peasants, adjusting the stretcher to their shoulders, started
+hurriedly along the path they had trodden down, to the dressing station.
+
+"Keep in step! Ah... those peasants!" shouted an officer, seizing by
+their shoulders and checking the peasants, who were walking unevenly and
+jolting the stretcher.
+
+"Get into step, Fedor... I say, Fedor!" said the foremost peasant.
+
+"Now that's right!" said the one behind joyfully, when he had got into
+step.
+
+"Your excellency! Eh, Prince!" said the trembling voice of Timókhin, who
+had run up and was looking down on the stretcher.
+
+Prince Andrew opened his eyes and looked up at the speaker from the
+stretcher into which his head had sunk deep and again his eyelids
+drooped.
+
+The militiamen carried Prince Andrew to the dressing station by the
+wood, where wagons were stationed. The dressing station consisted of
+three tents with flaps turned back, pitched at the edge of a birch wood.
+In the wood, wagons and horses were standing. The horses were eating
+oats from their movable troughs and sparrows flew down and pecked the
+grains that fell. Some crows, scenting blood, flew among the birch trees
+cawing impatiently. Around the tents, over more than five acres,
+bloodstained men in various garbs stood, sat, or lay. Around the wounded
+stood crowds of soldier stretcher-bearers with dismal and attentive
+faces, whom the officers keeping order tried in vain to drive from the
+spot. Disregarding the officers' orders, the soldiers stood leaning
+against their stretchers and gazing intently, as if trying to comprehend
+the difficult problem of what was taking place before them. From the
+tents came now loud angry cries and now plaintive groans. Occasionally
+dressers ran out to fetch water, or to point out those who were to be
+brought in next. The wounded men awaiting their turn outside the tents
+groaned, sighed, wept, screamed, swore, or asked for vodka. Some were
+delirious. Prince Andrew's bearers, stepping over the wounded who had
+not yet been bandaged, took him, as a regimental commander, close up to
+one of the tents and there stopped, awaiting instructions. Prince Andrew
+opened his eyes and for a long time could not make out what was going on
+around him. He remembered the meadow, the wormwood, the field, the
+whirling black ball, and his sudden rush of passionate love of life. Two
+steps from him, leaning against a branch and talking loudly and
+attracting general attention, stood a tall, handsome, black-haired
+noncommissioned officer with a bandaged head. He had been wounded in the
+head and leg by bullets. Around him, eagerly listening to his talk, a
+crowd of wounded and stretcher-bearers was gathered.
+
+"We kicked him out from there so that he chucked everything, we grabbed
+the King himself!" cried he, looking around him with eyes that glittered
+with fever. "If only reserves had come up just then, lads, there
+wouldn't have been nothing left of him! I tell you surely..."
+
+Like all the others near the speaker, Prince Andrew looked at him with
+shining eyes and experienced a sense of comfort. "But isn't it all the
+same now?" thought he. "And what will be there, and what has there been
+here? Why was I so reluctant to part with life? There was something in
+this life I did not and do not understand."
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII
+
+One of the doctors came out of the tent in a bloodstained apron, holding
+a cigar between the thumb and little finger of one of his small
+bloodstained hands, so as not to smear it. He raised his head and looked
+about him, but above the level of the wounded men. He evidently wanted a
+little respite. After turning his head from right to left for some time,
+he sighed and looked down.
+
+"All right, immediately," he replied to a dresser who pointed Prince
+Andrew out to him, and he told them to carry him into the tent.
+
+Murmurs arose among the wounded who were waiting.
+
+"It seems that even in the next world only the gentry are to have a
+chance!" remarked one.
+
+Prince Andrew was carried in and laid on a table that had only just been
+cleared and which a dresser was washing down. Prince Andrew could not
+make out distinctly what was in that tent. The pitiful groans from all
+sides and the torturing pain in his thigh, stomach, and back distracted
+him. All he saw about him merged into a general impression of naked,
+bleeding human bodies that seemed to fill the whole of the low tent, as
+a few weeks previously, on that hot August day, such bodies had filled
+the dirty pond beside the Smolensk road. Yes, it was the same flesh, the
+same chair a canon, the sight of which had even then filled him with
+horror, as by a presentiment.
+
+There were three operating tables in the tent. Two were occupied, and on
+the third they placed Prince Andrew. For a little while he was left
+alone and involuntarily witnessed what was taking place on the other two
+tables. On the nearest one sat a Tartar, probably a Cossack, judging by
+the uniform thrown down beside him. Four soldiers were holding him, and
+a spectacled doctor was cutting into his muscular brown back.
+
+"Ooh, ooh, ooh!" grunted the Tartar, and suddenly lifting up his swarthy
+snub-nosed face with its high cheekbones, and baring his white teeth, he
+began to wriggle and twitch his body and utter piercing, ringing, and
+prolonged yells. On the other table, round which many people were
+crowding, a tall well-fed man lay on his back with his head thrown back.
+His curly hair, its color, and the shape of his head seemed strangely
+familiar to Prince Andrew. Several dressers were pressing on his chest
+to hold him down. One large, white, plump leg twitched rapidly all the
+time with a feverish tremor. The man was sobbing and choking
+convulsively. Two doctors—one of whom was pale and trembling—were
+silently doing something to this man's other, gory leg. When he had
+finished with the Tartar, whom they covered with an overcoat, the
+spectacled doctor came up to Prince Andrew, wiping his hands.
+
+He glanced at Prince Andrew's face and quickly turned away.
+
+"Undress him! What are you waiting for?" he cried angrily to the
+dressers.
+
+His very first, remotest recollections of childhood came back to Prince
+Andrew's mind when the dresser with sleeves rolled up began hastily to
+undo the buttons of his clothes and undressed him. The doctor bent down
+over the wound, felt it, and sighed deeply. Then he made a sign to
+someone, and the torturing pain in his abdomen caused Prince Andrew to
+lose consciousness. When he came to himself the splintered portions of
+his thighbone had been extracted, the torn flesh cut away, and the wound
+bandaged. Water was being sprinkled on his face. As soon as Prince
+Andrew opened his eyes, the doctor bent over, kissed him silently on the
+lips, and hurried away.
+
+After the sufferings he had been enduring, Prince Andrew enjoyed a
+blissful feeling such as he had not experienced for a long time. All the
+best and happiest moments of his life—especially his earliest childhood,
+when he used to be undressed and put to bed, and when leaning over him
+his nurse sang him to sleep and he, burying his head in the pillow, felt
+happy in the mere consciousness of life—returned to his memory, not
+merely as something past but as something present.
+
+The doctors were busily engaged with the wounded man the shape of whose
+head seemed familiar to Prince Andrew: they were lifting him up and
+trying to quiet him.
+
+"Show it to me.... Oh, ooh... Oh! Oh, ooh!" his frightened moans could
+be heard, subdued by suffering and broken by sobs.
+
+Hearing those moans Prince Andrew wanted to weep. Whether because he was
+dying without glory, or because he was sorry to part with life, or
+because of those memories of a childhood that could not return, or
+because he was suffering and others were suffering and that man near him
+was groaning so piteously—he felt like weeping childlike, kindly, and
+almost happy tears.
+
+The wounded man was shown his amputated leg stained with clotted blood
+and with the boot still on.
+
+"Oh! Oh, ooh!" he sobbed, like a woman.
+
+The doctor who had been standing beside him, preventing Prince Andrew
+from seeing his face, moved away.
+
+"My God! What is this? Why is he here?" said Prince Andrew to himself.
+
+In the miserable, sobbing, enfeebled man whose leg had just been
+amputated, he recognized Anatole Kurágin. Men were supporting him in
+their arms and offering him a glass of water, but his trembling, swollen
+lips could not grasp its rim. Anatole was sobbing painfully. "Yes, it is
+he! Yes, that man is somehow closely and painfully connected with me,"
+thought Prince Andrew, not yet clearly grasping what he saw before him.
+"What is the connection of that man with my childhood and life?" he
+asked himself without finding an answer. And suddenly a new unexpected
+memory from that realm of pure and loving childhood presented itself to
+him. He remembered Natásha as he had seen her for the first time at the
+ball in 1810, with her slender neck and arms and with a frightened happy
+face ready for rapture, and love and tenderness for her, stronger and
+more vivid than ever, awoke in his soul. He now remembered the
+connection that existed between himself and this man who was dimly
+gazing at him through tears that filled his swollen eyes. He remembered
+everything, and ecstatic pity and love for that man overflowed his happy
+heart.
+
+Prince Andrew could no longer restrain himself and wept tender loving
+tears for his fellow men, for himself, and for his own and their errors.
+
+"Compassion, love of our brothers, for those who love us and for those
+who hate us, love of our enemies; yes, that love which God preached on
+earth and which Princess Mary taught me and I did not understand—that is
+what made me sorry to part with life, that is what remained for me had I
+lived. But now it is too late. I know it!"
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVIII
+
+The terrible spectacle of the battlefield covered with dead and wounded,
+together with the heaviness of his head and the news that some twenty
+generals he knew personally had been killed or wounded, and the
+consciousness of the impotence of his once mighty arm, produced an
+unexpected impression on Napoleon who usually liked to look at the
+killed and wounded, thereby, he considered, testing his strength of
+mind. This day the horrible appearance of the battlefield overcame that
+strength of mind which he thought constituted his merit and his
+greatness. He rode hurriedly from the battlefield and returned to the
+Shevardino knoll, where he sat on his campstool, his sallow face swollen
+and heavy, his eyes dim, his nose red, and his voice hoarse,
+involuntarily listening, with downcast eyes, to the sounds of firing.
+With painful dejection he awaited the end of this action, in which he
+regarded himself as a participant and which he was unable to arrest. A
+personal, human feeling for a brief moment got the better of the
+artificial phantasm of life he had served so long. He felt in his own
+person the sufferings and death he had witnessed on the battlefield. The
+heaviness of his head and chest reminded him of the possibility of
+suffering and death for himself. At that moment he did not desire
+Moscow, or victory, or glory (what need had he for any more glory?). The
+one thing he wished for was rest, tranquillity, and freedom. But when he
+had been on the Semënovsk heights the artillery commander had proposed
+to him to bring several batteries of artillery up to those heights to
+strengthen the fire on the Russian troops crowded in front of Knyazkovo.
+Napoleon had assented and had given orders that news should be brought
+to him of the effect those batteries produced.
+
+An adjutant came now to inform him that the fire of two hundred guns had
+been concentrated on the Russians, as he had ordered, but that they
+still held their ground.
+
+"Our fire is mowing them down by rows, but still they hold on," said the
+adjutant.
+
+"They want more!..." said Napoleon in a hoarse voice.
+
+"Sire?" asked the adjutant who had not heard the remark.
+
+"They want more!" croaked Napoleon frowning. "Let them have it!"
+
+Even before he gave that order the thing he did not desire, and for
+which he gave the order only because he thought it was expected of him,
+was being done. And he fell back into that artificial realm of imaginary
+greatness, and again—as a horse walking a treadmill thinks it is doing
+something for itself—he submissively fulfilled the cruel, sad, gloomy,
+and inhuman role predestined for him.
+
+And not for that day and hour alone were the mind and conscience
+darkened of this man on whom the responsibility for what was happening
+lay more than on all the others who took part in it. Never to the end of
+his life could he understand goodness, beauty, or truth, or the
+significance of his actions which were too contrary to goodness and
+truth, too remote from everything human, for him ever to be able to
+grasp their meaning. He could not disavow his actions, belauded as they
+were by half the world, and so he had to repudiate truth, goodness, and
+all humanity.
+
+Not only on that day, as he rode over the battlefield strewn with men
+killed and maimed (by his will as he believed), did he reckon as he
+looked at them how many Russians there were for each Frenchman and,
+deceiving himself, find reason for rejoicing in the calculation that
+there were five Russians for every Frenchman. Not on that day alone did
+he write in a letter to Paris that "the battle field was superb,"
+because fifty thousand corpses lay there, but even on the island of St.
+Helena in the peaceful solitude where he said he intended to devote his
+leisure to an account of the great deeds he had done, he wrote:
+
+The Russian war should have been the most popular war of modern times:
+it was a war of good sense, for real interests, for the tranquillity and
+security of all; it was purely pacific and conservative.
+
+It was a war for a great cause, the end of uncertainties and the
+beginning of security. A new horizon and new labors were opening out,
+full of well-being and prosperity for all. The European system was
+already founded; all that remained was to organize it.
+
+Satisfied on these great points and with tranquility everywhere, I too
+should have had my Congress and my Holy Alliance. Those ideas were
+stolen from me. In that reunion of great sovereigns we should have
+discussed our interests like one family, and have rendered account to
+the peoples as clerk to master.
+
+Europe would in this way soon have been, in fact, but one people, and
+anyone who traveled anywhere would have found himself always in the
+common fatherland. I should have demanded the freedom of all navigable
+rivers for everybody, that the seas should be common to all, and that
+the great standing armies should be reduced henceforth to mere guards
+for the sovereigns.
+
+On returning to France, to the bosom of the great, strong, magnificent,
+peaceful, and glorious fatherland, I should have proclaimed her
+frontiers immutable; all future wars purely defensive, all
+aggrandizement antinational. I should have associated my son in the
+Empire; my dictatorship would have been finished, and his constitutional
+reign would have begun.
+
+Paris would have been the capital of the world, and the French the envy
+of the nations!
+
+My leisure then, and my old age, would have been devoted, in company
+with the Empress and during the royal apprenticeship of my son, to
+leisurely visiting, with our own horses and like a true country couple,
+every corner of the Empire, receiving complaints, redressing wrongs, and
+scattering public buildings and benefactions on all sides and
+everywhere.
+
+Napoleon, predestined by Providence for the gloomy role of executioner
+of the peoples, assured himself that the aim of his actions had been the
+peoples' welfare and that he could control the fate of millions and by
+the employment of power confer benefactions.
+
+"Of four hundred thousand who crossed the Vistula," he wrote further of
+the Russian war, "half were Austrians, Prussians, Saxons, Poles,
+Bavarians, Wurttembergers, Mecklenburgers, Spaniards, Italians, and
+Neapolitans. The Imperial army, strictly speaking, was one third
+composed of Dutch, Belgians, men from the borders of the Rhine,
+Piedmontese, Swiss, Genevese, Tuscans, Romans, inhabitants of the
+Thirty-second Military Division, of Bremen, of Hamburg, and so on: it
+included scarcely a hundred and forty thousand who spoke French. The
+Russian expedition actually cost France less than fifty thousand men;
+the Russian army in its retreat from Vilna to Moscow lost in the various
+battles four times more men than the French army; the burning of Moscow
+cost the lives of a hundred thousand Russians who died of cold and want
+in the woods; finally, in its march from Moscow to the Oder the Russian
+army also suffered from the severity of the season; so that by the time
+it reached Vilna it numbered only fifty thousand, and at Kalisch less
+than eighteen thousand."
+
+He imagined that the war with Russia came about by his will, and the
+horrors that occurred did not stagger his soul. He boldly took the whole
+responsibility for what happened, and his darkened mind found
+justification in the belief that among the hundreds of thousands who
+perished there were fewer Frenchmen than Hessians and Bavarians.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIX
+
+Several tens of thousands of the slain lay in diverse postures and
+various uniforms on the fields and meadows belonging to the Davydov
+family and to the crown serfs—those fields and meadows where for
+hundreds of years the peasants of Borodino, Gorki, Shevardino, and
+Semënovsk had reaped their harvests and pastured their cattle. At the
+dressing stations the grass and earth were soaked with blood for a space
+of some three acres around. Crowds of men of various arms, wounded and
+unwounded, with frightened faces, dragged themselves back to Mozhaysk
+from the one army and back to Valuevo from the other. Other crowds,
+exhausted and hungry, went forward led by their officers. Others held
+their ground and continued to fire.
+
+Over the whole field, previously so gaily beautiful with the glitter of
+bayonets and cloudlets of smoke in the morning sun, there now spread a
+mist of damp and smoke and a strange acid smell of saltpeter and blood.
+Clouds gathered and drops of rain began to fall on the dead and wounded,
+on the frightened, exhausted, and hesitating men, as if to say: "Enough,
+men! Enough! Cease... bethink yourselves! What are you doing?"
+
+To the men of both sides alike, worn out by want of food and rest, it
+began equally to appear doubtful whether they should continue to
+slaughter one another; all the faces expressed hesitation, and the
+question arose in every soul: "For what, for whom, must I kill and be
+killed?... You may go and kill whom you please, but I don't want to do
+so anymore!" By evening this thought had ripened in every soul. At any
+moment these men might have been seized with horror at what they were
+doing and might have thrown up everything and run away anywhere.
+
+But though toward the end of the battle the men felt all the horror of
+what they were doing, though they would have been glad to leave off,
+some incomprehensible, mysterious power continued to control them, and
+they still brought up the charges, loaded, aimed, and applied the match,
+though only one artilleryman survived out of every three, and though
+they stumbled and panted with fatigue, perspiring and stained with blood
+and powder. The cannon balls flew just as swiftly and cruelly from both
+sides, crushing human bodies, and that terrible work which was not done
+by the will of a man but at the will of Him who governs men and worlds
+continued.
+
+Anyone looking at the disorganized rear of the Russian army would have
+said that, if only the French made one more slight effort, it would
+disappear; and anyone looking at the rear of the French army would have
+said that the Russians need only make one more slight effort and the
+French would be destroyed. But neither the French nor the Russians made
+that effort, and the flame of battle burned slowly out.
+
+The Russians did not make that effort because they were not attacking
+the French. At the beginning of the battle they stood blocking the way
+to Moscow and they still did so at the end of the battle as at the
+beginning. But even had the aim of the Russians been to drive the French
+from their positions, they could not have made this last effort, for all
+the Russian troops had been broken up, there was no part of the Russian
+army that had not suffered in the battle, and though still holding their
+positions they had lost ONE HALF of their army.
+
+The French, with the memory of all their former victories during fifteen
+years, with the assurance of Napoleon's invincibility, with the
+consciousness that they had captured part of the battlefield and had
+lost only a quarter of their men and still had their Guards intact,
+twenty thousand strong, might easily have made that effort. The French
+who had attacked the Russian army in order to drive it from its position
+ought to have made that effort, for as long as the Russians continued to
+block the road to Moscow as before, the aim of the French had not been
+attained and all their efforts and losses were in vain. But the French
+did not make that effort. Some historians say that Napoleon need only
+have used his Old Guards, who were intact, and the battle would have
+been won. To speak of what would have happened had Napoleon sent his
+Guards is like talking of what would happen if autumn became spring. It
+could not be. Napoleon did not give his Guards, not because he did not
+want to, but because it could not be done. All the generals, officers,
+and soldiers of the French army knew it could not be done, because the
+flagging spirit of the troops would not permit it.
+
+It was not Napoleon alone who had experienced that nightmare feeling of
+the mighty arm being stricken powerless, but all the generals and
+soldiers of his army whether they had taken part in the battle or not,
+after all their experience of previous battles—when after one tenth of
+such efforts the enemy had fled—experienced a similar feeling of terror
+before an enemy who, after losing HALF his men, stood as threateningly
+at the end as at the beginning of the battle. The moral force of the
+attacking French army was exhausted. Not that sort of victory which is
+defined by the capture of pieces of material fastened to sticks, called
+standards, and of the ground on which the troops had stood and were
+standing, but a moral victory that convinces the enemy of the moral
+superiority of his opponent and of his own impotence was gained by the
+Russians at Borodino. The French invaders, like an infuriated animal
+that has in its onslaught received a mortal wound, felt that they were
+perishing, but could not stop, any more than the Russian army, weaker by
+one half, could help swerving. By impetus gained, the French army was
+still able to roll forward to Moscow, but there, without further effort
+on the part of the Russians, it had to perish, bleeding from the mortal
+wound it had received at Borodino. The direct consequence of the battle
+of Borodino was Napoleon's senseless flight from Moscow, his retreat
+along the old Smolensk road, the destruction of the invading army of
+five hundred thousand men, and the downfall of Napoleonic France, on
+which at Borodino for the first time the hand of an opponent of stronger
+spirit had been laid.
+
+
+
+
+
+BOOK ELEVEN: 1812
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+Absolute continuity of motion is not comprehensible to the human mind.
+Laws of motion of any kind become comprehensible to man only when he
+examines arbitrarily selected elements of that motion; but at the same
+time, a large proportion of human error comes from the arbitrary
+division of continuous motion into discontinuous elements. There is a
+well known, so-called sophism of the ancients consisting in this, that
+Achilles could never catch up with a tortoise he was following, in spite
+of the fact that he traveled ten times as fast as the tortoise. By the
+time Achilles has covered the distance that separated him from the
+tortoise, the tortoise has covered one tenth of that distance ahead of
+him: when Achilles has covered that tenth, the tortoise has covered
+another one hundredth, and so on forever. This problem seemed to the
+ancients insoluble. The absurd answer (that Achilles could never
+overtake the tortoise) resulted from this: that motion was arbitrarily
+divided into discontinuous elements, whereas the motion both of Achilles
+and of the tortoise was continuous.
+
+By adopting smaller and smaller elements of motion we only approach a
+solution of the problem, but never reach it. Only when we have admitted
+the conception of the infinitely small, and the resulting geometrical
+progression with a common ratio of one tenth, and have found the sum of
+this progression to infinity, do we reach a solution of the problem.
+
+A modern branch of mathematics having achieved the art of dealing with
+the infinitely small can now yield solutions in other more complex
+problems of motion which used to appear insoluble.
+
+This modern branch of mathematics, unknown to the ancients, when dealing
+with problems of motion admits the conception of the infinitely small,
+and so conforms to the chief condition of motion (absolute continuity)
+and thereby corrects the inevitable error which the human mind cannot
+avoid when it deals with separate elements of motion instead of
+examining continuous motion.
+
+In seeking the laws of historical movement just the same thing happens.
+The movement of humanity, arising as it does from innumerable arbitrary
+human wills, is continuous.
+
+To understand the laws of this continuous movement is the aim of
+history. But to arrive at these laws, resulting from the sum of all
+those human wills, man's mind postulates arbitrary and disconnected
+units. The first method of history is to take an arbitrarily selected
+series of continuous events and examine it apart from others, though
+there is and can be no beginning to any event, for one event always
+flows uninterruptedly from another.
+
+The second method is to consider the actions of some one man—a king or a
+commander—as equivalent to the sum of many individual wills; whereas the
+sum of individual wills is never expressed by the activity of a single
+historic personage.
+
+Historical science in its endeavor to draw nearer to truth continually
+takes smaller and smaller units for examination. But however small the
+units it takes, we feel that to take any unit disconnected from others,
+or to assume a beginning of any phenomenon, or to say that the will of
+many men is expressed by the actions of any one historic personage, is
+in itself false.
+
+It needs no critical exertion to reduce utterly to dust any deductions
+drawn from history. It is merely necessary to select some larger or
+smaller unit as the subject of observation—as criticism has every right
+to do, seeing that whatever unit history observes must always be
+arbitrarily selected.
+
+Only by taking infinitesimally small units for observation (the
+differential of history, that is, the individual tendencies of men) and
+attaining to the art of integrating them (that is, finding the sum of
+these infinitesimals) can we hope to arrive at the laws of history.
+
+The first fifteen years of the nineteenth century in Europe present an
+extraordinary movement of millions of people. Men leave their customary
+pursuits, hasten from one side of Europe to the other, plunder and
+slaughter one another, triumph and are plunged in despair, and for some
+years the whole course of life is altered and presents an intensive
+movement which first increases and then slackens. What was the cause of
+this movement, by what laws was it governed? asks the mind of man.
+
+The historians, replying to this question, lay before us the sayings and
+doings of a few dozen men in a building in the city of Paris, calling
+these sayings and doings "the Revolution"; then they give a detailed
+biography of Napoleon and of certain people favorable or hostile to him;
+tell of the influence some of these people had on others, and say: that
+is why this movement took place and those are its laws.
+
+But the mind of man not only refuses to believe this explanation, but
+plainly says that this method of explanation is fallacious, because in
+it a weaker phenomenon is taken as the cause of a stronger. The sum of
+human wills produced the Revolution and Napoleon, and only the sum of
+those wills first tolerated and then destroyed them.
+
+"But every time there have been conquests there have been conquerors;
+every time there has been a revolution in any state there have been
+great men," says history. And, indeed, human reason replies: every time
+conquerors appear there have been wars, but this does not prove that the
+conquerors caused the wars and that it is possible to find the laws of a
+war in the personal activity of a single man. Whenever I look at my
+watch and its hands point to ten, I hear the bells of the neighboring
+church; but because the bells begin to ring when the hands of the clock
+reach ten, I have no right to assume that the movement of the bells is
+caused by the position of the hands of the watch.
+
+Whenever I see the movement of a locomotive I hear the whistle and see
+the valves opening and wheels turning; but I have no right to conclude
+that the whistling and the turning of wheels are the cause of the
+movement of the engine.
+
+The peasants say that a cold wind blows in late spring because the oaks
+are budding, and really every spring cold winds do blow when the oak is
+budding. But though I do not know what causes the cold winds to blow
+when the oak buds unfold, I cannot agree with the peasants that the
+unfolding of the oak buds is the cause of the cold wind, for the force
+of the wind is beyond the influence of the buds. I see only a
+coincidence of occurrences such as happens with all the phenomena of
+life, and I see that however much and however carefully I observe the
+hands of the watch, and the valves and wheels of the engine, and the
+oak, I shall not discover the cause of the bells ringing, the engine
+moving, or of the winds of spring. To that I must entirely change my
+point of view and study the laws of the movement of steam, of the bells,
+and of the wind. History must do the same. And attempts in this
+direction have already been made.
+
+To study the laws of history we must completely change the subject of
+our observation, must leave aside kings, ministers, and generals, and
+study the common, infinitesimally small elements by which the masses are
+moved. No one can say in how far it is possible for man to advance in
+this way toward an understanding of the laws of history; but it is
+evident that only along that path does the possibility of discovering
+the laws of history lie, and that as yet not a millionth part as much
+mental effort has been applied in this direction by historians as has
+been devoted to describing the actions of various kings, commanders, and
+ministers and propounding the historians' own reflections concerning
+these actions.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+The forces of a dozen European nations burst into Russia. The Russian
+army and people avoided a collision till Smolensk was reached, and again
+from Smolensk to Borodino. The French army pushed on to Moscow, its
+goal, its impetus ever increasing as it neared its aim, just as the
+velocity of a falling body increases as it approaches the earth. Behind
+it were seven hundred miles of hunger-stricken, hostile country; ahead
+were a few dozen miles separating it from its goal. Every soldier in
+Napoleon's army felt this and the invasion moved on by its own momentum.
+
+The more the Russian army retreated the more fiercely a spirit of hatred
+of the enemy flared up, and while it retreated the army increased and
+consolidated. At Borodino a collision took place. Neither army was
+broken up, but the Russian army retreated immediately after the
+collision as inevitably as a ball recoils after colliding with another
+having a greater momentum, and with equal inevitability the ball of
+invasion that had advanced with such momentum rolled on for some
+distance, though the collision had deprived it of all its force.
+
+The Russians retreated eighty miles—to beyond Moscow—and the French
+reached Moscow and there came to a standstill. For five weeks after that
+there was not a single battle. The French did not move. As a bleeding,
+mortally wounded animal licks its wounds, they remained inert in Moscow
+for five weeks, and then suddenly, with no fresh reason, fled back: they
+made a dash for the Kaluga road, and (after a victory—for at Malo-
+Yaroslavets the field of conflict again remained theirs) without
+undertaking a single serious battle, they fled still more rapidly back
+to Smolensk, beyond Smolensk, beyond the Berezina, beyond Vilna, and
+farther still.
+
+On the evening of the twenty-sixth of August, Kutúzov and the whole
+Russian army were convinced that the battle of Borodino was a victory.
+Kutúzov reported so to the Emperor. He gave orders to prepare for a
+fresh conflict to finish the enemy and did this not to deceive anyone,
+but because he knew that the enemy was beaten, as everyone who had taken
+part in the battle knew it.
+
+But all that evening and next day reports came in one after another of
+unheard-of losses, of the loss of half the army, and a fresh battle
+proved physically impossible.
+
+It was impossible to give battle before information had been collected,
+the wounded gathered in, the supplies of ammunition replenished, the
+slain reckoned up, new officers appointed to replace those who had been
+killed, and before the men had had food and sleep. And meanwhile, the
+very next morning after the battle, the French army advanced of itself
+upon the Russians, carried forward by the force of its own momentum now
+seemingly increased in inverse proportion to the square of the distance
+from its aim. Kutúzov's wish was to attack next day, and the whole army
+desired to do so. But to make an attack the wish to do so is not
+sufficient, there must also be a possibility of doing it, and that
+possibility did not exist. It was impossible not to retreat a day's
+march, and then in the same way it was impossible not to retreat another
+and a third day's march, and at last, on the first of September when the
+army drew near Moscow—despite the strength of the feeling that had
+arisen in all ranks—the force of circumstances compelled it to retire
+beyond Moscow. And the troops retired one more, last, day's march, and
+abandoned Moscow to the enemy.
+
+For people accustomed to think that plans of campaign and battles are
+made by generals—as anyone of us sitting over a map in his study may
+imagine how he would have arranged things in this or that battle—the
+questions present themselves: Why did Kutúzov during the retreat not do
+this or that? Why did he not take up a position before reaching Fili?
+Why did he not retire at once by the Kaluga road, abandoning Moscow? and
+so on. People accustomed to think in that way forget, or do not know,
+the inevitable conditions which always limit the activities of any
+commander in chief. The activity of a commander-in-chief does not at all
+resemble the activity we imagine to ourselves when we sit at ease in our
+studies examining some campaign on the map, with a certain number of
+troops on this and that side in a certain known locality, and begin our
+plans from some given moment. A commander-in-chief is never dealing with
+the beginning of any event—the position from which we always contemplate
+it. The commander-in-chief is always in the midst of a series of
+shifting events and so he never can at any moment consider the whole
+import of an event that is occurring. Moment by moment the event is
+imperceptibly shaping itself, and at every moment of this continuous,
+uninterrupted shaping of events the commander-in-chief is in the midst
+of a most complex play of intrigues, worries, contingencies,
+authorities, projects, counsels, threats, and deceptions and is
+continually obliged to reply to innumerable questions addressed to him,
+which constantly conflict with one another.
+
+Learned military authorities quite seriously tell us that Kutúzov should
+have moved his army to the Kaluga road long before reaching Fili, and
+that somebody actually submitted such a proposal to him. But a commander
+in chief, especially at a difficult moment, has always before him not
+one proposal but dozens simultaneously. And all these proposals, based
+on strategics and tactics, contradict each other.
+
+A commander-in-chief's business, it would seem, is simply to choose one
+of these projects. But even that he cannot do. Events and time do not
+wait. For instance, on the twenty-eighth it is suggested to him to cross
+to the Kaluga road, but just then an adjutant gallops up from
+Miloradovich asking whether he is to engage the French or retire. An
+order must be given him at once, that instant. And the order to retreat
+carries us past the turn to the Kaluga road. And after the adjutant
+comes the commissary general asking where the stores are to be taken,
+and the chief of the hospitals asks where the wounded are to go, and a
+courier from Petersburg brings a letter from the sovereign which does
+not admit of the possibility of abandoning Moscow, and the commander-in-
+chief's rival, the man who is undermining him (and there are always not
+merely one but several such), presents a new project diametrically
+opposed to that of turning to the Kaluga road, and the commander-in-
+chief himself needs sleep and refreshment to maintain his energy and a
+respectable general who has been overlooked in the distribution of
+rewards comes to complain, and the inhabitants of the district pray to
+be defended, and an officer sent to inspect the locality comes in and
+gives a report quite contrary to what was said by the officer previously
+sent; and a spy, a prisoner, and a general who has been on
+reconnaissance, all describe the position of the enemy's army
+differently. People accustomed to misunderstand or to forget these
+inevitable conditions of a commander-in-chief's actions describe to us,
+for instance, the position of the army at Fili and assume that the
+commander-in-chief could, on the first of September, quite freely decide
+whether to abandon Moscow or defend it; whereas, with the Russian army
+less than four miles from Moscow, no such question existed. When had
+that question been settled? At Drissa and at Smolensk and most palpably
+of all on the twenty-fourth of August at Shevardino and on the twenty-
+sixth at Borodino, and each day and hour and minute of the retreat from
+Borodino to Fili.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+When Ermolov, having been sent by Kutúzov to inspect the position, told
+the field marshal that it was impossible to fight there before Moscow
+and that they must retreat, Kutúzov looked at him in silence.
+
+"Give me your hand," said he and, turning it over so as to feel the
+pulse, added: "You are not well, my dear fellow. Think what you are
+saying!"
+
+Kutúzov could not yet admit the possibility of retreating beyond Moscow
+without a battle.
+
+On the Poklonny Hill, four miles from the Dorogomilov gate of Moscow,
+Kutúzov got out of his carriage and sat down on a bench by the roadside.
+A great crowd of generals gathered round him, and Count Rostopchin, who
+had come out from Moscow, joined them. This brilliant company separated
+into several groups who all discussed the advantages and disadvantages
+of the position, the state of the army, the plans suggested, the
+situation of Moscow, and military questions generally. Though they had
+not been summoned for the purpose, and though it was not so called, they
+all felt that this was really a council of war. The conversations all
+dealt with public questions. If anyone gave or asked for personal news,
+it was done in a whisper and they immediately reverted to general
+matters. No jokes, or laughter, or smiles even, were seen among all
+these men. They evidently all made an effort to hold themselves at the
+height the situation demanded. And all these groups, while talking among
+themselves, tried to keep near the commander-in-chief (whose bench
+formed the center of the gathering) and to speak so that he might
+overhear them. The commander in chief listened to what was being said
+and sometimes asked them to repeat their remarks, but did not himself
+take part in the conversations or express any opinion. After hearing
+what was being said by one or other of these groups he generally turned
+away with an air of disappointment, as though they were not speaking of
+anything he wished to hear. Some discussed the position that had been
+chosen, criticizing not the position itself so much as the mental
+capacity of those who had chosen it. Others argued that a mistake had
+been made earlier and that a battle should have been fought two days
+before. Others again spoke of the battle of Salamanca, which was
+described by Crosart, a newly arrived Frenchman in a Spanish uniform.
+(This Frenchman and one of the German princes serving with the Russian
+army were discussing the siege of Saragossa and considering the
+possibility of defending Moscow in a similar manner.) Count Rostopchin
+was telling a fourth group that he was prepared to die with the city
+train bands under the walls of the capital, but that he still could not
+help regretting having been left in ignorance of what was happening, and
+that had he known it sooner things would have been different.... A fifth
+group, displaying the profundity of their strategic perceptions,
+discussed the direction the troops would now have to take. A sixth group
+was talking absolute nonsense. Kutúzov's expression grew more and more
+preoccupied and gloomy. From all this talk he saw only one thing: that
+to defend Moscow was a physical impossibility in the full meaning of
+those words, that is to say, so utterly impossible that if any senseless
+commander were to give orders to fight, confusion would result but the
+battle would still not take place. It would not take place because the
+commanders not merely all recognized the position to be impossible, but
+in their conversations were only discussing what would happen after its
+inevitable abandonment. How could the commanders lead their troops to a
+field of battle they considered impossible to hold? The lower-grade
+officers and even the soldiers (who too reason) also considered the
+position impossible and therefore could not go to fight, fully convinced
+as they were of defeat. If Bennigsen insisted on the position being
+defended and others still discussed it, the question was no longer
+important in itself but only as a pretext for disputes and intrigue.
+This Kutúzov knew well.
+
+Bennigsen, who had chosen the position, warmly displayed his Russian
+patriotism (Kutúzov could not listen to this without wincing) by
+insisting that Moscow must be defended. His aim was as clear as daylight
+to Kutúzov: if the defense failed, to throw the blame on Kutúzov who had
+brought the army as far as the Sparrow Hills without giving battle; if
+it succeeded, to claim the success as his own; or if battle were not
+given, to clear himself of the crime of abandoning Moscow. But this
+intrigue did not now occupy the old man's mind. One terrible question
+absorbed him and to that question he heard no reply from anyone. The
+question for him now was: "Have I really allowed Napoleon to reach
+Moscow, and when did I do so? When was it decided? Can it have been
+yesterday when I ordered Platov to retreat, or was it the evening
+before, when I had a nap and told Bennigsen to issue orders? Or was it
+earlier still?... When, when was this terrible affair decided? Moscow
+must be abandoned. The army must retreat and the order to do so must be
+given." To give that terrible order seemed to him equivalent to
+resigning the command of the army. And not only did he love power to
+which he was accustomed (the honours awarded to Prince Prozorovski,
+under whom he had served in Turkey, galled him), but he was convinced
+that he was destined to save Russia and that that was why, against the
+Emperor's wish and by the will of the people, he had been chosen
+commander-in-chief. He was convinced that he alone could maintain
+command of the army in these difficult circumstances, and that in all
+the world he alone could encounter the invincible Napoleon without fear,
+and he was horrified at the thought of the order he had to issue. But
+something had to be decided, and these conversations around him which
+were assuming too free a character must be stopped.
+
+He called the most important generals to him.
+
+"My head, be it good or bad, must depend on itself," said he, rising
+from the bench, and he rode to Fili where his carriages were waiting.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+The Council of War began to assemble at two in the afternoon in the
+better and roomier part of Andrew Savostyanov's hut. The men, women, and
+children of the large peasant family crowded into the back room across
+the passage. Only Malasha, Andrew's six-year-old granddaughter whom his
+Serene Highness had petted and to whom he had given a lump of sugar
+while drinking his tea, remained on the top of the brick oven in the
+larger room. Malasha looked down from the oven with shy delight at the
+faces, uniforms, and decorations of the generals, who one after another
+came into the room and sat down on the broad benches in the corner under
+the icons. "Granddad" himself, as Malasha in her own mind called
+Kutúzov, sat apart in a dark corner behind the oven. He sat, sunk deep
+in a folding armchair, and continually cleared his throat and pulled at
+the collar of his coat which, though it was unbuttoned, still seemed to
+pinch his neck. Those who entered went up one by one to the field
+marshal; he pressed the hands of some and nodded to others. His adjutant
+Kaysarov was about to draw back the curtain of the window facing
+Kutúzov, but the latter moved his hand angrily and Kaysarov understood
+that his Serene Highness did not wish his face to be seen.
+
+Round the peasant's deal table, on which lay maps, plans, pencils, and
+papers, so many people gathered that the orderlies brought in another
+bench and put it beside the table. Ermolov, Kaysarov, and Toll, who had
+just arrived, sat down on this bench. In the foremost place, immediately
+under the icons, sat Barclay de Tolly, his high forehead merging into
+his bald crown. He had a St. George's Cross round his neck and looked
+pale and ill. He had been feverish for two days and was now shivering
+and in pain. Beside him sat Uvarov, who with rapid gesticulations was
+giving him some information, speaking in low tones as they all did.
+Chubby little Dokhturov was listening attentively with eyebrows raised
+and arms folded on his stomach. On the other side sat Count Ostermann-
+Tolstóy, seemingly absorbed in his own thoughts. His broad head with its
+bold features and glittering eyes was resting on his hand. Raevski,
+twitching forward the black hair on his temples as was his habit,
+glanced now at Kutúzov and now at the door with a look of impatience.
+Konovnitsyn's firm, handsome, and kindly face was lit up by a tender,
+sly smile. His glance met Malasha's, and the expression of his eyes
+caused the little girl to smile.
+
+They were all waiting for Bennigsen, who on the pretext of inspecting
+the position was finishing his savory dinner. They waited for him from
+four till six o'clock and did not begin their deliberations all that
+time but talked in low tones of other matters.
+
+Only when Bennigsen had entered the hut did Kutúzov leave his corner and
+draw toward the table, but not near enough for the candles that had been
+placed there to light up his face.
+
+Bennigsen opened the council with the question: "Are we to abandon
+Russia's ancient and sacred capital without a struggle, or are we to
+defend it?" A prolonged and general silence followed. There was a frown
+on every face and only Kutúzov's angry grunts and occasional cough broke
+the silence. All eyes were gazing at him. Malasha too looked at
+"Granddad." She was nearest to him and saw how his face puckered; he
+seemed about to cry, but this did not last long.
+
+"Russia's ancient and sacred capital!" he suddenly said, repeating
+Bennigsen's words in an angry voice and thereby drawing attention to the
+false note in them. "Allow me to tell you, your excellency, that that
+question has no meaning for a Russian." (He lurched his heavy body
+forward.) "Such a question cannot be put; it is senseless! The question
+I have asked these gentlemen to meet to discuss is a military one. The
+question is that of saving Russia. Is it better to give up Moscow
+without a battle, or by accepting battle to risk losing the army as well
+as Moscow? That is the question on which I want your opinion," and he
+sank back in his chair.
+
+The discussion began. Bennigsen did not yet consider his game lost.
+Admitting the view of Barclay and others that a defensive battle at Fili
+was impossible, but imbued with Russian patriotism and the love of
+Moscow, he proposed to move troops from the right to the left flank
+during the night and attack the French right flank the following day.
+Opinions were divided, and arguments were advanced for and against that
+project. Ermolov, Dokhturov, and Raevski agreed with Bennigsen. Whether
+feeling it necessary to make a sacrifice before abandoning the capital
+or guided by other, personal considerations, these generals seemed not
+to understand that this council could not alter the inevitable course of
+events and that Moscow was in effect already abandoned. The other
+generals, however, understood it and, leaving aside the question of
+Moscow, spoke of the direction the army should take in its retreat.
+Malasha, who kept her eyes fixed on what was going on before her,
+understood the meaning of the council differently. It seemed to her that
+it was only a personal struggle between "Granddad" and "Long-coat" as
+she termed Bennigsen. She saw that they grew spiteful when they spoke to
+one another, and in her heart she sided with "Granddad." In the midst of
+the conversation she noticed "Granddad" give Bennigsen a quick, subtle
+glance, and then to her joys she saw that "Granddad" said something to
+"Long-coat" which settled him. Bennigsen suddenly reddened and paced
+angrily up and down the room. What so affected him was Kutúzov's calm
+and quiet comment on the advantage or disadvantage of Bennigsen's
+proposal to move troops by night from the right to the left flank to
+attack the French right wing.
+
+"Gentlemen," said Kutúzov, "I cannot approve of the count's plan. Moving
+troops in close proximity to an enemy is always dangerous, and military
+history supports that view. For instance..." Kutúzov seemed to reflect,
+searching for an example, then with a clear, naïve look at Bennigsen he
+added: "Oh yes; take the battle of Friedland, which I think the count
+well remembers, and which was... not fully successful, only because our
+troops were rearranged too near the enemy..."
+
+There followed a momentary pause, which seemed very long to them all.
+
+The discussion recommenced, but pauses frequently occurred and they all
+felt that there was no more to be said.
+
+During one of these pauses Kutúzov heaved a deep sigh as if preparing to
+speak. They all looked at him.
+
+"Well, gentlemen, I see that it is I who will have to pay for the broken
+crockery," said he, and rising slowly he moved to the table. "Gentlemen,
+I have heard your views. Some of you will not agree with me. But I," he
+paused, "by the authority entrusted to me by my Sovereign and country,
+order a retreat."
+
+After that the generals began to disperse with the solemnity and
+circumspect silence of people who are leaving, after a funeral.
+
+Some of the generals, in low tones and in a strain very different from
+the way they had spoken during the council, communicated something to
+their commander-in-chief.
+
+Malasha, who had long been expected for supper, climbed carefully
+backwards down from the oven, her bare little feet catching at its
+projections, and slipping between the legs of the generals she darted
+out of the room.
+
+When he had dismissed the generals Kutúzov sat a long time with his
+elbows on the table, thinking always of the same terrible question:
+"When, when did the abandonment of Moscow become inevitable? When was
+that done which settled the matter? And who was to blame for it?"
+
+"I did not expect this," said he to his adjutant Schneider when the
+latter came in late that night. "I did not expect this! I did not think
+this would happen."
+
+"You should take some rest, your Serene Highness," replied Schneider.
+
+"But no! They shall eat horseflesh yet, like the Turks!" exclaimed
+Kutúzov without replying, striking the table with his podgy fist. "They
+shall too, if only..."
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+At that very time, in circumstances even more important than retreating
+without a battle, namely the evacuation and burning of Moscow,
+Rostopchin, who is usually represented as being the instigator of that
+event, acted in an altogether different manner from Kutúzov.
+
+After the battle of Borodino the abandonment and burning of Moscow was
+as inevitable as the retreat of the army beyond Moscow without fighting.
+
+Every Russian might have predicted it, not by reasoning but by the
+feeling implanted in each of us and in our fathers.
+
+The same thing that took place in Moscow had happened in all the towns
+and villages on Russian soil beginning with Smolensk, without the
+participation of Count Rostopchin and his broadsheets. The people
+awaited the enemy unconcernedly, did not riot or become excited or tear
+anyone to pieces, but faced its fate, feeling within it the strength to
+find what it should do at that most difficult moment. And as soon as the
+enemy drew near the wealthy classes went away abandoning their property,
+while the poorer remained and burned and destroyed what was left.
+
+The consciousness that this would be so and would always be so was and
+is present in the heart of every Russian. And a consciousness of this,
+and a foreboding that Moscow would be taken, was present in Russian
+Moscow society in 1812. Those who had quitted Moscow already in July and
+at the beginning of August showed that they expected this. Those who
+went away, taking what they could and abandoning their houses and half
+their belongings, did so from the latent patriotism which expresses
+itself not by phrases or by giving one's children to save the fatherland
+and similar unnatural exploits, but unobtrusively, simply, organically,
+and therefore in the way that always produces the most powerful results.
+
+"It is disgraceful to run away from danger; only cowards are running
+away from Moscow," they were told. In his broadsheets Rostopchin
+impressed on them that to leave Moscow was shameful. They were ashamed
+to be called cowards, ashamed to leave, but still they left, knowing it
+had to be done. Why did they go? It is impossible to suppose that
+Rostopchin had scared them by his accounts of horrors Napoleon had
+committed in conquered countries. The first people to go away were the
+rich educated people who knew quite well that Vienna and Berlin had
+remained intact and that during Napoleon's occupation the inhabitants
+had spent their time pleasantly in the company of the charming Frenchmen
+whom the Russians, and especially the Russian ladies, then liked so
+much.
+
+They went away because for Russians there could be no question as to
+whether things would go well or ill under French rule in Moscow. It was
+out of the question to be under French rule, it would be the worst thing
+that could happen. They went away even before the battle of Borodino and
+still more rapidly after it, despite Rostopchin's calls to defend Moscow
+or the announcement of his intention to take the wonder-working icon of
+the Iberian Mother of God and go to fight, or of the balloons that were
+to destroy the French, and despite all the nonsense Rostopchin wrote in
+his broadsheets. They knew that it was for the army to fight, and that
+if it could not succeed it would not do to take young ladies and house
+serfs to the Three Hills quarter of Moscow to fight Napoleon, and that
+they must go away, sorry as they were to abandon their property to
+destruction. They went away without thinking of the tremendous
+significance of that immense and wealthy city being given over to
+destruction, for a great city with wooden buildings was certain when
+abandoned by its inhabitants to be burned. They went away each on his
+own account, and yet it was only in consequence of their going away that
+the momentous event was accomplished that will always remain the
+greatest glory of the Russian people. The lady who, afraid of being
+stopped by Count Rostopchin's orders, had already in June moved with her
+Negroes and her women jesters from Moscow to her Saratov estate, with a
+vague consciousness that she was not Bonaparte's servant, was really,
+simply, and truly carrying out the great work which saved Russia. But
+Count Rostopchin, who now taunted those who left Moscow and now had the
+government offices removed; now distributed quite useless weapons to the
+drunken rabble; now had processions displaying the icons, and now
+forbade Father Augustin to remove icons or the relics of saints; now
+seized all the private carts in Moscow and on one hundred and thirty-six
+of them removed the balloon that was being constructed by Leppich; now
+hinted that he would burn Moscow and related how he had set fire to his
+own house; now wrote a proclamation to the French solemnly upbraiding
+them for having destroyed his Orphanage; now claimed the glory of having
+hinted that he would burn Moscow and now repudiated the deed; now
+ordered the people to catch all spies and bring them to him, and now
+reproached them for doing so; now expelled all the French residents from
+Moscow, and now allowed Madame Aubert-Chalme (the center of the whole
+French colony in Moscow) to remain, but ordered the venerable old
+postmaster Klyucharev to be arrested and exiled for no particular
+offense; now assembled the people at the Three Hills to fight the French
+and now, to get rid of them, handed over to them a man to be killed and
+himself drove away by a back gate; now declared that he would not
+survive the fall of Moscow, and now wrote French verses in albums
+concerning his share in the affair—this man did not understand the
+meaning of what was happening but merely wanted to do something himself
+that would astonish people, to perform some patriotically heroic feat;
+and like a child he made sport of the momentous, and unavoidable
+event—the abandonment and burning of Moscow—and tried with his puny hand
+now to speed and now to stay the enormous, popular tide that bore him
+along with it.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+Hélène, having returned with the court from Vilna to Petersburg, found
+herself in a difficult position.
+
+In Petersburg she had enjoyed the special protection of a grandee who
+occupied one of the highest posts in the Empire. In Vilna she had formed
+an intimacy with a young foreign prince. When she returned to Petersburg
+both the magnate and the prince were there, and both claimed their
+rights. Hélène was faced by a new problem—how to preserve her intimacy
+with both without offending either.
+
+What would have seemed difficult or even impossible to another woman did
+not cause the least embarrassment to Countess Bezúkhova, who evidently
+deserved her reputation of being a very clever woman. Had she attempted
+concealment, or tried to extricate herself from her awkward position by
+cunning, she would have spoiled her case by acknowledging herself
+guilty. But Hélène, like a really great man who can do whatever he
+pleases, at once assumed her own position to be correct, as she
+sincerely believed it to be, and that everyone else was to blame.
+
+The first time the young foreigner allowed himself to reproach her, she
+lifted her beautiful head and, half turning to him, said firmly: "That's
+just like a man—selfish and cruel! I expected nothing else. A woman
+sacrifices herself for you, she suffers, and this is her reward! What
+right have you, monseigneur, to demand an account of my attachments and
+friendships? He is a man who has been more than a father to me!" The
+prince was about to say something, but Hélène interrupted him.
+
+"Well, yes," said she, "it may be that he has other sentiments for me
+than those of a father, but that is not a reason for me to shut my door
+on him. I am not a man, that I should repay kindness with ingratitude!
+Know, monseigneur, that in all that relates to my intimate feelings I
+render account only to God and to my conscience," she concluded, laying
+her hand on her beautiful, fully expanded bosom and looking up to
+heaven.
+
+"But for heaven's sake listen to me!"
+
+"Marry me, and I will be your slave!"
+
+"But that's impossible."
+
+"You won't deign to demean yourself by marrying me, you..." said Hélène,
+beginning to cry.
+
+The prince tried to comfort her, but Hélène, as if quite distraught,
+said through her tears that there was nothing to prevent her marrying,
+that there were precedents (there were up to that time very few, but she
+mentioned Napoleon and some other exalted personages), that she had
+never been her husband's wife, and that she had been sacrificed.
+
+"But the law, religion..." said the prince, already yielding.
+
+"The law, religion... What have they been invented for if they can't
+arrange that?" said Hélène.
+
+The prince was surprised that so simple an idea had not occurred to him,
+and he applied for advice to the holy brethren of the Society of Jesus,
+with whom he was on intimate terms.
+
+A few days later at one of those enchanting fetes which Hélène gave at
+her country house on the Stone Island, the charming Monsieur de Jobert,
+a man no longer young, with snow white hair and brilliant black eyes, a
+Jesuit a robe courte * was presented to her, and in the garden by the
+light of the illuminations and to the sound of music talked to her for a
+long time of the love of God, of Christ, of the Sacred Heart, and of the
+consolations the one true Catholic religion affords in this world and
+the next. Hélène was touched, and more than once tears rose to her eyes
+and to those of Monsieur de Jobert and their voices trembled. A dance,
+for which her partner came to seek her, put an end to her discourse with
+her future directeur de conscience, but the next evening Monsieur de
+Jobert came to see Hélène when she was alone, and after that often came
+again.
+
+* Lay member of the Society of Jesus.
+
+One day he took the countess to a Roman Catholic church, where she knelt
+down before the altar to which she was led. The enchanting, middle-aged
+Frenchman laid his hands on her head and, as she herself afterward
+described it, she felt something like a fresh breeze wafted into her
+soul. It was explained to her that this was la grace.
+
+After that a long-frocked abbé was brought to her. She confessed to him,
+and he absolved her from her sins. Next day she received a box
+containing the Sacred Host, which was left at her house for her to
+partake of. A few days later Hélène learned with pleasure that she had
+now been admitted to the true Catholic Church and that in a few days the
+Pope himself would hear of her and would send her a certain document.
+
+All that was done around her and to her at this time, all the attention
+devoted to her by so many clever men and expressed in such pleasant,
+refined ways, and the state of dove-like purity she was now in (she wore
+only white dresses and white ribbons all that time) gave her pleasure,
+but her pleasure did not cause her for a moment to forget her aim. And
+as it always happens in contests of cunning that a stupid person gets
+the better of cleverer ones, Hélène—having realized that the main object
+of all these words and all this trouble was, after converting her to
+Catholicism, to obtain money from her for Jesuit institutions (as to
+which she received indications)-before parting with her money insisted
+that the various operations necessary to free her from her husband
+should be performed. In her view the aim of every religion was merely to
+preserve certain proprieties while affording satisfaction to human
+desires. And with this aim, in one of her talks with her Father
+Confessor, she insisted on an answer to the question, in how far was she
+bound by her marriage?
+
+They were sitting in the twilight by a window in the drawing room. The
+scent of flowers came in at the window. Hélène was wearing a white
+dress, transparent over her shoulders and bosom. The abbé, a well-fed
+man with a plump, clean-shaven chin, a pleasant firm mouth, and white
+hands meekly folded on his knees, sat close to Hélène and, with a subtle
+smile on his lips and a peaceful look of delight at her beauty,
+occasionally glanced at her face as he explained his opinion on the
+subject. Hélène with an uneasy smile looked at his curly hair and his
+plump, clean-shaven, blackish cheeks and every moment expected the
+conversation to take a fresh turn. But the abbé, though he evidently
+enjoyed the beauty of his companion, was absorbed in his mastery of the
+matter.
+
+The course of the Father Confessor's arguments ran as follows: "Ignorant
+of the import of what you were undertaking, you made a vow of conjugal
+fidelity to a man who on his part, by entering the married state without
+faith in the religious significance of marriage, committed an act of
+sacrilege. That marriage lacked the dual significance it should have
+had. Yet in spite of this your vow was binding. You swerved from it.
+What did you commit by so acting? A venial, or a mortal, sin? A venial
+sin, for you acted without evil intention. If now you married again with
+the object of bearing children, your sin might be forgiven. But the
+question is again a twofold one: firstly..."
+
+But suddenly Hélène, who was getting bored, said with one of her
+bewitching smiles: "But I think that having espoused the true religion I
+cannot be bound by what a false religion laid upon me."
+
+The director of her conscience was astounded at having the case
+presented to him thus with the simplicity of Columbus' egg. He was
+delighted at the unexpected rapidity of his pupil's progress, but could
+not abandon the edifice of argument he had laboriously constructed.
+
+"Let us understand one another, Countess," said he with a smile, and
+began refuting his spiritual daughter's arguments.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+Hélène understood that the question was very simple and easy from the
+ecclesiastical point of view, and that her directors were making
+difficulties only because they were apprehensive as to how the matter
+would be regarded by the secular authorities.
+
+So she decided that it was necessary to prepare the opinion of society.
+She provoked the jealousy of the elderly magnate and told him what she
+had told her other suitor; that is, she put the matter so that the only
+way for him to obtain a right over her was to marry her. The elderly
+magnate was at first as much taken aback by this suggestion of marriage
+with a woman whose husband was alive, as the younger man had been, but
+Hélène's imperturbable conviction that it was as simple and natural as
+marrying a maiden had its effect on him too. Had Hélène herself shown
+the least sign of hesitation, shame, or secrecy, her cause would
+certainly have been lost; but not only did she show no signs of secrecy
+or shame, on the contrary, with good-natured naïvete she told her
+intimate friends (and these were all Petersburg) that both the prince
+and the magnate had proposed to her and that she loved both and was
+afraid of grieving either.
+
+A rumor immediately spread in Petersburg, not that Hélène wanted to be
+divorced from her husband (had such a report spread many would have
+opposed so illegal an intention) but simply that the unfortunate and
+interesting Hélène was in doubt which of the two men she should marry.
+The question was no longer whether this was possible, but only which was
+the better match and how the matter would be regarded at court. There
+were, it is true, some rigid individuals unable to rise to the height of
+such a question, who saw in the project a desecration of the sacrament
+of marriage, but there were not many such and they remained silent,
+while the majority were interested in Hélène's good fortune and in the
+question which match would be the more advantageous. Whether it was
+right or wrong to remarry while one had a husband living they did not
+discuss, for that question had evidently been settled by people "wiser
+than you or me," as they said, and to doubt the correctness of that
+decision would be to risk exposing one's stupidity and incapacity to
+live in society.
+
+Only Márya Dmítrievna Akhrosímova, who had come to Petersburg that
+summer to see one of her sons, allowed herself plainly to express an
+opinion contrary to the general one. Meeting Hélène at a ball she
+stopped her in the middle of the room and, amid general silence, said in
+her gruff voice: "So wives of living men have started marrying again!
+Perhaps you think you have invented a novelty? You have been
+forestalled, my dear! It was thought of long ago. It is done in all the
+brothels," and with these words Márya Dmítrievna, turning up her wide
+sleeves with her usual threatening gesture and glancing sternly round,
+moved across the room.
+
+Though people were afraid of Márya Dmítrievna she was regarded in
+Petersburg as a buffoon, and so of what she had said they only noticed,
+and repeated in a whisper, the one coarse word she had used, supposing
+the whole sting of her remark to lie in that word.
+
+Prince Vasíli, who of late very often forgot what he had said and
+repeated one and the same thing a hundred times, remarked to his
+daughter whenever he chanced to see her:
+
+"Hélène, I have a word to say to you," and he would lead her aside,
+drawing her hand downward. "I have heard of certain projects
+concerning... you know. Well my dear child, you know how your father's
+heart rejoices to know that you... You have suffered so much.... But, my
+dear child, consult only your own heart. That is all I have to say," and
+concealing his unvarying emotion he would press his cheek against his
+daughter's and move away.
+
+Bilibin, who had not lost his reputation of an exceedingly clever man,
+and who was one of the disinterested friends so brilliant a woman as
+Hélène always has—men friends who can never change into lovers—once gave
+her his view of the matter at a small and intimate gathering.
+
+"Listen, Bilibin," said Hélène (she always called friends of that sort
+by their surnames), and she touched his coat sleeve with her white,
+beringed fingers. "Tell me, as you would a sister, what I ought to do.
+Which of the two?"
+
+Bilibin wrinkled up the skin over his eyebrows and pondered, with a
+smile on his lips.
+
+"You are not taking me unawares, you know," said he. "As a true friend,
+I have thought and thought again about your affair. You see, if you
+marry the prince"—he meant the younger man—and he crooked one finger,
+"you forever lose the chance of marrying the other, and you will
+displease the court besides. (You know there is some kind of
+connection.) But if you marry the old count you will make his last days
+happy, and as widow of the Grand... the prince would no longer be making
+a mesalliance by marrying you," and Bilibin smoothed out his forehead.
+
+"That's a true friend!" said Hélène beaming, and again touching
+Bilibin's sleeve. "But I love them, you know, and don't want to distress
+either of them. I would give my life for the happiness of them both."
+
+Bilibin shrugged his shoulders, as much as to say that not even he could
+help in that difficulty.
+
+"Une maitresse-femme! * That's what is called putting things squarely.
+She would like to be married to all three at the same time," thought he.
+
+* A masterly woman.
+
+"But tell me, how will your husband look at the matter?" Bilibin asked,
+his reputation being so well established that he did not fear to ask so
+naïve a question. "Will he agree?"
+
+"Oh, he loves me so!" said Hélène, who for some reason imagined that
+Pierre too loved her. "He will do anything for me."
+
+Bilibin puckered his skin in preparation for something witty.
+
+"Even divorce you?" said he.
+
+Hélène laughed.
+
+Among those who ventured to doubt the justifiability of the proposed
+marriage was Hélène's mother, Princess Kurágina. She was continually
+tormented by jealousy of her daughter, and now that jealousy concerned a
+subject near to her own heart, she could not reconcile herself to the
+idea. She consulted a Russian priest as to the possibility of divorce
+and remarriage during a husband's lifetime, and the priest told her that
+it was impossible, and to her delight showed her a text in the Gospel
+which (as it seemed to him) plainly forbids remarriage while the husband
+is alive.
+
+Armed with these arguments, which appeared to her unanswerable, she
+drove to her daughter's early one morning so as to find her alone.
+
+Having listened to her mother's objections, Hélène smiled blandly and
+ironically.
+
+"But it says plainly: 'Whosoever shall marry her that is divorced...'"
+said the old princess.
+
+"Ah, Maman, ne dites pas de betises. Vous ne comprenez rien. Dans ma
+position j'ai des devoirs," * said Hélène changing from Russian, in
+which language she always felt that her case did not sound quite clear,
+into French which suited it better.
+
+* "Oh, Mamma, don't talk nonsense! You don't understand anything. In my
+position I have obligations."
+
+"But, my dear...."
+
+"Oh, Mamma, how is it you don't understand that the Holy Father, who has
+the right to grant dispensations..."
+
+Just then the lady companion who lived with Hélène came in to announce
+that His Highness was in the ballroom and wished to see her.
+
+"Non, dites-lui que je ne veux pas le voir, que je suis furieuse contre
+lui, parce qu'il m'a manque parole." *
+
+* "No, tell him I don't wish to see him, I am furious with him for not
+keeping his word to me."
+
+"Comtesse, a tout peche misericorde," * said a fair-haired young man
+with a long face and nose, as he entered the room.
+
+* "Countess, there is mercy for every sin."
+
+The old princess rose respectfully and curtsied. The young man who had
+entered took no notice of her. The princess nodded to her daughter and
+sidled out of the room.
+
+"Yes, she is right," thought the old princess, all her convictions
+dissipated by the appearance of His Highness. "She is right, but how is
+it that we in our irrecoverable youth did not know it? Yet it is so
+simple," she thought as she got into her carriage.
+
+By the beginning of August Hélène's affairs were clearly defined and she
+wrote a letter to her husband—who, as she imagined, loved her very
+much—informing him of her intention to marry N.N. and of her having
+embraced the one true faith, and asking him to carry out all the
+formalities necessary for a divorce, which would be explained to him by
+the bearer of the letter.
+
+And so I pray God to have you, my friend, in His holy and powerful
+keeping—Your friend Hélène.
+
+This letter was brought to Pierre's house when he was on the field of
+Borodino.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+Toward the end of the battle of Borodino, Pierre, having run down from
+Raevski's battery a second time, made his way through a gully to
+Knyazkovo with a crowd of soldiers, reached the dressing station, and
+seeing blood and hearing cries and groans hurried on, still entangled in
+the crowds of soldiers.
+
+The one thing he now desired with his whole soul was to get away quickly
+from the terrible sensations amid which he had lived that day and return
+to ordinary conditions of life and sleep quietly in a room in his own
+bed. He felt that only in the ordinary conditions of life would he be
+able to understand himself and all he had seen and felt. But such
+ordinary conditions of life were nowhere to be found.
+
+Though shells and bullets did not whistle over the road along which he
+was going, still on all sides there was what there had been on the field
+of battle. There were still the same suffering, exhausted, and sometimes
+strangely indifferent faces, the same blood, the same soldiers'
+overcoats, the same sounds of firing which, though distant now, still
+aroused terror, and besides this there were the foul air and the dust.
+
+Having gone a couple of miles along the Mozhaysk road, Pierre sat down
+by the roadside.
+
+Dusk had fallen, and the roar of guns died away. Pierre lay leaning on
+his elbow for a long time, gazing at the shadows that moved past him in
+the darkness. He was continually imagining that a cannon ball was flying
+toward him with a terrific whizz, and then he shuddered and sat up. He
+had no idea how long he had been there. In the middle of the night three
+soldiers, having brought some firewood, settled down near him and began
+lighting a fire.
+
+The soldiers, who threw sidelong glances at Pierre, got the fire to burn
+and placed an iron pot on it into which they broke some dried bread and
+put a little dripping. The pleasant odor of greasy viands mingled with
+the smell of smoke. Pierre sat up and sighed. The three soldiers were
+eating and talking among themselves, taking no notice of him.
+
+"And who may you be?" one of them suddenly asked Pierre, evidently
+meaning what Pierre himself had in mind, namely: "If you want to eat
+we'll give you some food, only let us know whether you are an honest
+man."
+
+"I, I..." said Pierre, feeling it necessary to minimize his social
+position as much as possible so as to be nearer to the soldiers and
+better understood by them. "By rights I am a militia officer, but my men
+are not here. I came to the battle and have lost them."
+
+"There now!" said one of the soldiers.
+
+Another shook his head.
+
+"Would you like a little mash?" the first soldier asked, and handed
+Pierre a wooden spoon after licking it clean.
+
+Pierre sat down by the fire and began eating the mash, as they called
+the food in the cauldron, and he thought it more delicious than any food
+he had ever tasted. As he sat bending greedily over it, helping himself
+to large spoonfuls and chewing one after another, his face was lit up by
+the fire and the soldiers looked at him in silence.
+
+"Where have you to go to? Tell us!" said one of them.
+
+"To Mozhaysk."
+
+"You're a gentleman, aren't you?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And what's your name?"
+
+"Peter Kirilych."
+
+"Well then, Peter Kirilych, come along with us, we'll take you there."
+
+In the total darkness the soldiers walked with Pierre to Mozhaysk.
+
+By the time they got near Mozhaysk and began ascending the steep hill
+into the town, the cocks were already crowing. Pierre went on with the
+soldiers, quite forgetting that his inn was at the bottom of the hill
+and that he had already passed it. He would not soon have remembered
+this, such was his state of forgetfulness, had he not halfway up the
+hill stumbled upon his groom, who had been to look for him in the town
+and was returning to the inn. The groom recognized Pierre in the
+darkness by his white hat.
+
+"Your excellency!" he said. "Why, we were beginning to despair! How is
+it you are on foot? And where are you going, please?"
+
+"Oh, yes!" said Pierre.
+
+The soldiers stopped.
+
+"So you've found your folk?" said one of them. "Well, good-by, Peter
+Kirilych—isn't it?"
+
+"Good-bye, Peter Kirilych!" Pierre heard the other voices repeat.
+
+"Good-bye!" he said and turned with his groom toward the inn.
+
+"I ought to give them something!" he thought, and felt in his pocket.
+"No, better not!" said another, inner voice.
+
+There was not a room to be had at the inn, they were all occupied.
+Pierre went out into the yard and, covering himself up head and all, lay
+down in his carriage.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+Scarcely had Pierre laid his head on the pillow before he felt himself
+falling asleep, but suddenly, almost with the distinctness of reality,
+he heard the boom, boom, boom of firing, the thud of projectiles, groans
+and cries, and smelled blood and powder, and a feeling of horror and
+dread of death seized him. Filled with fright he opened his eyes and
+lifted his head from under his cloak. All was tranquil in the yard. Only
+someone's orderly passed through the gateway, splashing through the mud,
+and talked to the innkeeper. Above Pierre's head some pigeons, disturbed
+by the movement he had made in sitting up, fluttered under the dark roof
+of the penthouse. The whole courtyard was permeated by a strong peaceful
+smell of stable yards, delightful to Pierre at that moment. He could see
+the clear starry sky between the dark roofs of two penthouses.
+
+"Thank God, there is no more of that!" he thought, covering up his head
+again. "Oh, what a terrible thing is fear, and how shamefully I yielded
+to it! But they... they were steady and calm all the time, to the
+end..." thought he.
+
+They, in Pierre's mind, were the soldiers, those who had been at the
+battery, those who had given him food, and those who had prayed before
+the icon. They, those strange men he had not previously known, stood out
+clearly and sharply from everyone else.
+
+"To be a soldier, just a soldier!" thought Pierre as he fell asleep, "to
+enter communal life completely, to be imbued by what makes them what
+they are. But how cast off all the superfluous, devilish burden of my
+outer man? There was a time when I could have done it. I could have run
+away from my father, as I wanted to. Or I might have been sent to serve
+as a soldier after the duel with Dólokhov." And the memory of the dinner
+at the English Club when he had challenged Dólokhov flashed through
+Pierre's mind, and then he remembered his benefactor at Torzhok. And now
+a picture of a solemn meeting of the lodge presented itself to his mind.
+It was taking place at the English Club and someone near and dear to him
+sat at the end of the table. "Yes, that is he! It is my benefactor. But
+he died!" thought Pierre. "Yes, he died, and I did not know he was
+alive. How sorry I am that he died, and how glad I am that he is alive
+again!" On one side of the table sat Anatole, Dólokhov, Nesvítski,
+Denisov, and others like them (in his dream the category to which these
+men belonged was as clearly defined in his mind as the category of those
+he termed they), and he heard those people, Anatole and Dólokhov,
+shouting and singing loudly; yet through their shouting the voice of his
+benefactor was heard speaking all the time and the sound of his words
+was as weighty and uninterrupted as the booming on the battlefield, but
+pleasant and comforting. Pierre did not understand what his benefactor
+was saying, but he knew (the categories of thoughts were also quite
+distinct in his dream) that he was talking of goodness and the
+possibility of being what they were. And they with their simple, kind,
+firm faces surrounded his benefactor on all sides. But though they were
+kindly they did not look at Pierre and did not know him. Wishing to
+speak and to attract their attention, he got up, but at that moment his
+legs grew cold and bare.
+
+He felt ashamed, and with one arm covered his legs from which his cloak
+had in fact slipped. For a moment as he was rearranging his cloak Pierre
+opened his eyes and saw the same penthouse roofs, posts, and yard, but
+now they were all bluish, lit up, and glittering with frost or dew.
+
+"It is dawn," thought Pierre. "But that's not what I want. I want to
+hear and understand my benefactor's words." Again he covered himself up
+with his cloak, but now neither the lodge nor his benefactor was there.
+There were only thoughts clearly expressed in words, thoughts that
+someone was uttering or that he himself was formulating.
+
+Afterwards when he recalled those thoughts Pierre was convinced that
+someone outside himself had spoken them, though the impressions of that
+day had evoked them. He had never, it seemed to him, been able to think
+and express his thoughts like that when awake.
+
+"To endure war is the most difficult subordination of man's freedom to
+the law of God," the voice had said. "Simplicity is submission to the
+will of God; you cannot escape from Him. And they are simple. They do
+not talk, but act. The spoken word is silver but the unspoken is golden.
+Man can be master of nothing while he fears death, but he who does not
+fear it possesses all. If there were no suffering, man would not know
+his limitations, would not know himself. The hardest thing (Pierre went
+on thinking, or hearing, in his dream) is to be able in your soul to
+unite the meaning of all. To unite all?" he asked himself. "No, not to
+unite. Thoughts cannot be united, but to harness all these thoughts
+together is what we need! Yes, one must harness them, must harness
+them!" he repeated to himself with inward rapture, feeling that these
+words and they alone expressed what he wanted to say and solved the
+question that tormented him.
+
+"Yes, one must harness, it is time to harness."
+
+"Time to harness, time to harness, your excellency! Your excellency!"
+some voice was repeating. "We must harness, it is time to harness...."
+
+It was the voice of the groom, trying to wake him. The sun shone
+straight into Pierre's face. He glanced at the dirty innyard in the
+middle of which soldiers were watering their lean horses at the pump
+while carts were passing out of the gate. Pierre turned away with
+repugnance, and closing his eyes quickly fell back on the carriage seat.
+"No, I don't want that, I don't want to see and understand that. I want
+to understand what was revealing itself to me in my dream. One second
+more and I should have understood it all! But what am I to do? Harness,
+but how can I harness everything?" and Pierre felt with horror that the
+meaning of all he had seen and thought in the dream had been destroyed.
+
+The groom, the coachman, and the innkeeper told Pierre that an officer
+had come with news that the French were already near Mozhaysk and that
+our men were leaving it.
+
+Pierre got up and, having told them to harness and overtake him, went on
+foot through the town.
+
+The troops were moving on, leaving about ten thousand wounded behind
+them. There were wounded in the yards, at the windows of the houses, and
+the streets were crowded with them. In the streets, around carts that
+were to take some of the wounded away, shouts, curses, and blows could
+be heard. Pierre offered the use of his carriage, which had overtaken
+him, to a wounded general he knew, and drove with him to Moscow. On the
+way Pierre was told of the death of his brother-in-law Anatole and of
+that of Prince Andrew.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+On the thirteenth of August Pierre reached Moscow. Close to the gates of
+the city he was met by Count Rostopchin's adjutant.
+
+"We have been looking for you everywhere," said the adjutant. "The count
+wants to see you particularly. He asks you to come to him at once on a
+very important matter."
+
+Without going home, Pierre took a cab and drove to see the Moscow
+commander-in-chief.
+
+Count Rostopchin had only that morning returned to town from his summer
+villa at Sokolniki. The anteroom and reception room of his house were
+full of officials who had been summoned or had come for orders.
+Vasilchikov and Platov had already seen the count and explained to him
+that it was impossible to defend Moscow and that it would have to be
+surrendered. Though this news was being concealed from the inhabitants,
+the officials—the heads of the various government departments—knew that
+Moscow would soon be in the enemy's hands, just as Count Rostopchin
+himself knew it, and to escape personal responsibility they had all come
+to the governor to ask how they were to deal with their various
+departments.
+
+As Pierre was entering the reception room a courier from the army came
+out of Rostopchin's private room.
+
+In answer to questions with which he was greeted, the courier made a
+despairing gesture with his hand and passed through the room.
+
+While waiting in the reception room Pierre with weary eyes watched the
+various officials, old and young, military and civilian, who were there.
+They all seemed dissatisfied and uneasy. Pierre went up to a group of
+men, one of whom he knew. After greeting Pierre they continued their
+conversation.
+
+"If they're sent out and brought back again later on it will do no harm,
+but as things are now one can't answer for anything."
+
+"But you see what he writes..." said another, pointing to a printed
+sheet he held in his hand.
+
+"That's another matter. That's necessary for the people," said the
+first.
+
+"What is it?" asked Pierre.
+
+"Oh, it's a fresh broadsheet."
+
+Pierre took it and began reading.
+
+His Serene Highness has passed through Mozhaysk in order to join up with
+the troops moving toward him and has taken up a strong position where
+the enemy will not soon attack him. Forty eight guns with ammunition
+have been sent him from here, and his Serene Highness says he will
+defend Moscow to the last drop of blood and is even ready to fight in
+the streets. Do not be upset, brothers, that the law courts are closed;
+things have to be put in order, and we will deal with villains in our
+own way! When the time comes I shall want both town and peasant lads and
+will raise the cry a day or two beforehand, but they are not wanted yet
+so I hold my peace. An ax will be useful, a hunting spear not bad, but a
+three-pronged fork will be best of all: a Frenchman is no heavier than a
+sheaf of rye. Tomorrow after dinner I shall take the Iberian icon of the
+Mother of God to the wounded in the Catherine Hospital where we will
+have some water blessed. That will help them to get well quicker. I,
+too, am well now: one of my eyes was sore but now I am on the lookout
+with both.
+
+"But military men have told me that it is impossible to fight in the
+town," said Pierre, "and that the position..."
+
+"Well, of course! That's what we were saying," replied the first
+speaker.
+
+"And what does he mean by 'One of my eyes was sore but now I am on the
+lookout with both'?" asked Pierre.
+
+"The count had a sty," replied the adjutant smiling, "and was very much
+upset when I told him people had come to ask what was the matter with
+him. By the by, Count," he added suddenly, addressing Pierre with a
+smile, "we heard that you have family troubles and that the countess,
+your wife..."
+
+"I have heard nothing," Pierre replied unconcernedly. "But what have you
+heard?"
+
+"Oh, well, you know people often invent things. I only say what I
+heard."
+
+"But what did you hear?"
+
+"Well, they say," continued the adjutant with the same smile, "that the
+countess, your wife, is preparing to go abroad. I expect it's
+nonsense...."
+
+"Possibly," remarked Pierre, looking about him absent-mindedly. "And who
+is that?" he asked, indicating a short old man in a clean blue peasant
+overcoat, with a big snow-white beard and eyebrows and a ruddy face.
+
+"He? That's a tradesman, that is to say, he's the restaurant keeper,
+Vereshchagin. Perhaps you have heard of that affair with the
+proclamation."
+
+"Oh, so that is Vereshchagin!" said Pierre, looking at the firm, calm
+face of the old man and seeking any indication of his being a traitor.
+
+"That's not he himself, that's the father of the fellow who wrote the
+proclamation," said the adjutant. "The young man is in prison and I
+expect it will go hard with him."
+
+An old gentleman wearing a star and another official, a German wearing a
+cross round his neck, approached the speaker.
+
+"It's a complicated story, you know," said the adjutant. "That
+proclamation appeared about two months ago. The count was informed of
+it. He gave orders to investigate the matter. Gabriel Ivánovich here
+made the inquiries. The proclamation had passed through exactly sixty-
+three hands. He asked one, 'From whom did you get it?' 'From so-and-so.'
+He went to the next one. 'From whom did you get it?' and so on till he
+reached Vereshchagin, a half educated tradesman, you know, 'a pet of a
+trader,'" said the adjutant smiling. "They asked him, 'Who gave it you?'
+And the point is that we knew whom he had it from. He could only have
+had it from the Postmaster. But evidently they had come to some
+understanding. He replied: 'From no one; I made it up myself.' They
+threatened and questioned him, but he stuck to that: 'I made it up
+myself.' And so it was reported to the count, who sent for the man.
+'From whom did you get the proclamation?' 'I wrote it myself.' Well, you
+know the count," said the adjutant cheerfully, with a smile of pride,
+"he flared up dreadfully—and just think of the fellow's audacity, lying,
+and obstinacy!"
+
+"And the count wanted him to say it was from Klyucharev? I understand!"
+said Pierre.
+
+"Not at all," rejoined the adjutant in dismay. "Klyucharev had his own
+sins to answer for without that and that is why he has been banished.
+But the point is that the count was much annoyed. 'How could you have
+written it yourself?' said he, and he took up the Hamburg Gazette that
+was lying on the table. 'Here it is! You did not write it yourself but
+translated it, and translated it abominably, because you don't even know
+French, you fool.' And what do you think? 'No,' said he, 'I have not
+read any papers, I made it up myself.' 'If that's so, you're a traitor
+and I'll have you tried, and you'll be hanged! Say from whom you had
+it.' 'I have seen no papers, I made it up myself.' And that was the end
+of it. The count had the father fetched, but the fellow stuck to it. He
+was sent for trial and condemned to hard labor, I believe. Now the
+father has come to intercede for him. But he's a good-for-nothing lad!
+You know that sort of tradesman's son, a dandy and lady-killer. He
+attended some lectures somewhere and imagines that the devil is no match
+for him. That's the sort of fellow he is. His father keeps a cookshop
+here by the Stone Bridge, and you know there was a large icon of God
+Almighty painted with a scepter in one hand and an orb in the other.
+Well, he took that icon home with him for a few days and what did he do?
+He found some scoundrel of a painter..."
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+In the middle of this fresh tale Pierre was summoned to the commander in
+chief.
+
+When he entered the private room Count Rostopchin, puckering his face,
+was rubbing his forehead and eyes with his hand. A short man was saying
+something, but when Pierre entered he stopped speaking and went out.
+
+"Ah, how do you do, great warrior?" said Rostopchin as soon as the short
+man had left the room. "We have heard of your prowess. But that's not
+the point. Between ourselves, mon cher, do you belong to the Masons?" he
+went on severely, as though there were something wrong about it which he
+nevertheless intended to pardon. Pierre remained silent. "I am well
+informed, my friend, but I am aware that there are Masons and I hope
+that you are not one of those who on pretense of saving mankind wish to
+ruin Russia."
+
+"Yes, I am a Mason," Pierre replied.
+
+"There, you see, mon cher! I expect you know that Messrs. Speranski and
+Magnitski have been deported to their proper place. Mr. Klyucharev has
+been treated in the same way, and so have others who on the plea of
+building up the temple of Solomon have tried to destroy the temple of
+their fatherland. You can understand that there are reasons for this and
+that I could not have exiled the Postmaster had he not been a harmful
+person. It has now come to my knowledge that you lent him your carriage
+for his removal from town, and that you have even accepted papers from
+him for safe custody. I like you and don't wish you any harm and—as you
+are only half my age—I advise you, as a father would, to cease all
+communication with men of that stamp and to leave here as soon as
+possible."
+
+"But what did Klyucharev do wrong, Count?" asked Pierre.
+
+"That is for me to know, but not for you to ask," shouted Rostopchin.
+
+"If he is accused of circulating Napoleon's proclamation it is not
+proved that he did so," said Pierre without looking at Rostopchin, "and
+Vereshchagin..."
+
+"There we are!" Rostopchin shouted at Pierre louder than before,
+frowning suddenly. "Vereshchagin is a renegade and a traitor who will be
+punished as he deserves," said he with the vindictive heat with which
+people speak when recalling an insult. "But I did not summon you to
+discuss my actions, but to give you advice—or an order if you prefer it.
+I beg you to leave the town and break off all communication with such
+men as Klyucharev. And I will knock the nonsense out of anybody"—but
+probably realizing that he was shouting at Bezúkhov who so far was not
+guilty of anything, he added, taking Pierre's hand in a friendly manner,
+"We are on the eve of a public disaster and I haven't time to be polite
+to everybody who has business with me. My head is sometimes in a whirl.
+Well, mon cher, what are you doing personally?"
+
+"Why, nothing," answered Pierre without raising his eyes or changing the
+thoughtful expression of his face.
+
+The count frowned.
+
+"A word of friendly advice, mon cher. Be off as soon as you can, that's
+all I have to tell you. Happy he who has ears to hear. Good-bye, my dear
+fellow. Oh, by the by!" he shouted through the doorway after Pierre, "is
+it true that the countess has fallen into the clutches of the holy
+fathers of the Society of Jesus?"
+
+Pierre did not answer and left Rostopchin's room more sullen and angry
+than he had ever before shown himself.
+
+When he reached home it was already getting dark. Some eight people had
+come to see him that evening: the secretary of a committee, the colonel
+of his battalion, his steward, his major-domo, and various petitioners.
+They all had business with Pierre and wanted decisions from him. Pierre
+did not understand and was not interested in any of these questions and
+only answered them in order to get rid of these people. When left alone
+at last he opened and read his wife's letter.
+
+"They, the soldiers at the battery, Prince Andrew killed... that old
+man... Simplicity is submission to God. Suffering is necessary... the
+meaning of all... one must harness... my wife is getting married... One
+must forget and understand..." And going to his bed he threw himself on
+it without undressing and immediately fell asleep.
+
+When he awoke next morning the major-domo came to inform him that a
+special messenger, a police officer, had come from Count Rostopchin to
+know whether Count Bezúkhov had left or was leaving the town.
+
+A dozen persons who had business with Pierre were awaiting him in the
+drawing room. Pierre dressed hurriedly and, instead of going to see
+them, went to the back porch and out through the gate.
+
+From that time till the end of the destruction of Moscow no one of
+Bezúkhov's household, despite all the search they made, saw Pierre again
+or knew where he was.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+The Rostóvs remained in Moscow till the first of September, that is,
+till the eve of the enemy's entry into the city.
+
+After Pétya had joined Obolenski's regiment of Cossacks and left for
+Belaya Tserkov where that regiment was forming, the countess was seized
+with terror. The thought that both her sons were at the war, had both
+gone from under her wing, that today or tomorrow either or both of them
+might be killed like the three sons of one of her acquaintances, struck
+her that summer for the first time with cruel clearness. She tried to
+get Nicholas back and wished to go herself to join Pétya, or to get him
+an appointment somewhere in Petersburg, but neither of these proved
+possible. Pétya could not return unless his regiment did so or unless he
+was transferred to another regiment on active service. Nicholas was
+somewhere with the army and had not sent a word since his last letter,
+in which he had given a detailed account of his meeting with Princess
+Mary. The countess did not sleep at night, or when she did fall asleep
+dreamed that she saw her sons lying dead. After many consultations and
+conversations, the count at last devised means to tranquillize her. He
+got Pétya transferred from Obolenski's regiment to Bezúkhov's, which was
+in training near Moscow. Though Pétya would remain in the service, this
+transfer would give the countess the consolation of seeing at least one
+of her sons under her wing, and she hoped to arrange matters for her
+Pétya so as not to let him go again, but always get him appointed to
+places where he could not possibly take part in a battle. As long as
+Nicholas alone was in danger the countess imagined that she loved her
+first-born more than all her other children and even reproached herself
+for it; but when her youngest: the scapegrace who had been bad at
+lessons, was always breaking things in the house and making himself a
+nuisance to everybody, that snub-nosed Pétya with his merry black eyes
+and fresh rosy cheeks where soft down was just beginning to show—when he
+was thrown amid those big, dreadful, cruel men who were fighting
+somewhere about something and apparently finding pleasure in it—then his
+mother thought she loved him more, much more, than all her other
+children. The nearer the time came for Pétya to return, the more uneasy
+grew the countess. She began to think she would never live to see such
+happiness. The presence of Sónya, of her beloved Natásha, or even of her
+husband irritated her. "What do I want with them? I want no one but
+Pétya," she thought.
+
+At the end of August the Rostóvs received another letter from Nicholas.
+He wrote from the province of Voronezh where he had been sent to procure
+remounts, but that letter did not set the countess at ease. Knowing that
+one son was out of danger she became the more anxious about Pétya.
+
+Though by the twentieth of August nearly all the Rostóvs' acquaintances
+had left Moscow, and though everybody tried to persuade the countess to
+get away as quickly as possible, she would not hear of leaving before
+her treasure, her adored Pétya, returned. On the twenty-eighth of August
+he arrived. The passionate tenderness with which his mother received him
+did not please the sixteen-year-old officer. Though she concealed from
+him her intention of keeping him under her wing, Pétya guessed her
+designs, and instinctively fearing that he might give way to emotion
+when with her—might "become womanish" as he termed it to himself—he
+treated her coldly, avoided her, and during his stay in Moscow attached
+himself exclusively to Natásha for whom he had always had a particularly
+brotherly tenderness, almost lover-like.
+
+Owing to the count's customary carelessness nothing was ready for their
+departure by the twenty-eighth of August and the carts that were to come
+from their Ryazan and Moscow estates to remove their household
+belongings did not arrive till the thirtieth.
+
+From the twenty-eighth till the thirty-first all Moscow was in a bustle
+and commotion. Every day thousands of men wounded at Borodino were
+brought in by the Dorogomilov gate and taken to various parts of Moscow,
+and thousands of carts conveyed the inhabitants and their possessions
+out by the other gates. In spite of Rostopchin's broadsheets, or because
+of them or independently of them, the strangest and most contradictory
+rumors were current in the town. Some said that no one was to be allowed
+to leave the city, others on the contrary said that all the icons had
+been taken out of the churches and everybody was to be ordered to leave.
+Some said there had been another battle after Borodino at which the
+French had been routed, while others on the contrary reported that the
+Russian army had been destroyed. Some talked about the Moscow militia
+which, preceded by the clergy, would go to the Three Hills; others
+whispered that Augustin had been forbidden to leave, that traitors had
+been seized, that the peasants were rioting and robbing people on their
+way from Moscow, and so on. But all this was only talk; in reality
+(though the Council of Fili, at which it was decided to abandon Moscow,
+had not yet been held) both those who went away and those who remained
+behind felt, though they did not show it, that Moscow would certainly be
+abandoned, and that they ought to get away as quickly as possible and
+save their belongings. It was felt that everything would suddenly break
+up and change, but up to the first of September nothing had done so. As
+a criminal who is being led to execution knows that he must die
+immediately, but yet looks about him and straightens the cap that is
+awry on his head, so Moscow involuntarily continued its wonted life,
+though it knew that the time of its destruction was near when the
+conditions of life to which its people were accustomed to submit would
+be completely upset.
+
+During the three days preceding the occupation of Moscow the whole
+Rostóv family was absorbed in various activities. The head of the
+family, Count Ilyá Rostóv, continually drove about the city collecting
+the current rumors from all sides and gave superficial and hasty orders
+at home about the preparations for their departure.
+
+The countess watched the things being packed, was dissatisfied with
+everything, was constantly in pursuit of Pétya who was always running
+away from her, and was jealous of Natásha with whom he spent all his
+time. Sónya alone directed the practical side of matters by getting
+things packed. But of late Sónya had been particularly sad and silent.
+Nicholas' letter in which he mentioned Princess Mary had elicited, in
+her presence, joyous comments from the countess, who saw an intervention
+of Providence in this meeting of the princess and Nicholas.
+
+"I was never pleased at Bolkónski's engagement to Natásha," said the
+countess, "but I always wanted Nicholas to marry the princess, and had a
+presentiment that it would happen. What a good thing it would be!"
+
+Sónya felt that this was true: that the only possibility of retrieving
+the Rostóvs' affairs was by Nicholas marrying a rich woman, and that the
+princess was a good match. It was very bitter for her. But despite her
+grief, or perhaps just because of it, she took on herself all the
+difficult work of directing the storing and packing of their things and
+was busy for whole days. The count and countess turned to her when they
+had any orders to give. Pétya and Natásha on the contrary, far from
+helping their parents, were generally a nuisance and a hindrance to
+everyone. Almost all day long the house resounded with their running
+feet, their cries, and their spontaneous laughter. They laughed and were
+gay not because there was any reason to laugh, but because gaiety and
+mirth were in their hearts and so everything that happened was a cause
+for gaiety and laughter to them. Pétya was in high spirits because
+having left home a boy he had returned (as everybody told him) a fine
+young man, because he was at home, because he had left Belaya Tserkov
+where there was no hope of soon taking part in a battle and had come to
+Moscow where there was to be fighting in a few days, and chiefly because
+Natásha, whose lead he always followed, was in high spirits. Natásha was
+gay because she had been sad too long and now nothing reminded her of
+the cause of her sadness, and because she was feeling well. She was also
+happy because she had someone to adore her: the adoration of others was
+a lubricant the wheels of her machine needed to make them run freely—and
+Pétya adored her. Above all, they were gay because there was a war near
+Moscow, there would be fighting at the town gates, arms were being given
+out, everybody was escaping—going away somewhere, and in general
+something extraordinary was happening, and that is always exciting,
+especially to the young.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+On Saturday, the thirty-first of August, everything in the Rostóvs'
+house seemed topsy-turvy. All the doors were open, all the furniture was
+being carried out or moved about, and the mirrors and pictures had been
+taken down. There were trunks in the rooms, and hay, wrapping paper, and
+ropes were scattered about. The peasants and house serfs carrying out
+the things were treading heavily on the parquet floors. The yard was
+crowded with peasant carts, some loaded high and already corded up,
+others still empty.
+
+The voices and footsteps of the many servants and of the peasants who
+had come with the carts resounded as they shouted to one another in the
+yard and in the house. The count had been out since morning. The
+countess had a headache brought on by all the noise and turmoil and was
+lying down in the new sitting room with a vinegar compress on her head.
+Pétya was not at home, he had gone to visit a friend with whom he meant
+to obtain a transfer from the militia to the active army. Sónya was in
+the ballroom looking after the packing of the glass and china. Natásha
+was sitting on the floor of her dismantled room with dresses, ribbons,
+and scarves strewn all about her, gazing fixedly at the floor and
+holding in her hands the old ball dress (already out of fashion) which
+she had worn at her first Petersburg ball.
+
+Natásha was ashamed of doing nothing when everyone else was so busy, and
+several times that morning had tried to set to work, but her heart was
+not in it, and she could not and did not know how to do anything except
+with all her heart and all her might. For a while she had stood beside
+Sónya while the china was being packed and tried to help, but soon gave
+it up and went to her room to pack her own things. At first she found it
+amusing to give away dresses and ribbons to the maids, but when that was
+done and what was left had still to be packed, she found it dull.
+
+"Dunyasha, you pack! You will, won't you, dear?" And when Dunyasha
+willingly promised to do it all for her, Natásha sat down on the floor,
+took her old ball dress, and fell into a reverie quite unrelated to what
+ought to have occupied her thoughts now. She was roused from her reverie
+by the talk of the maids in the next room (which was theirs) and by the
+sound of their hurried footsteps going to the back porch. Natásha got up
+and looked out of the window. An enormously long row of carts full of
+wounded men had stopped in the street.
+
+The housekeeper, the old nurse, the cooks, coachmen, maids, footmen,
+postilions, and scullions stood at the gate, staring at the wounded.
+
+Natásha, throwing a clean pocket handkerchief over her hair and holding
+an end of it in each hand, went out into the street.
+
+The former housekeeper, old Mavra Kuzminichna, had stepped out of the
+crowd by the gate, gone up to a cart with a hood constructed of bast
+mats, and was speaking to a pale young officer who lay inside. Natásha
+moved a few steps forward and stopped shyly, still holding her
+handkerchief, and listened to what the housekeeper was saying.
+
+"Then you have nobody in Moscow?" she was saying. "You would be more
+comfortable somewhere in a house... in ours, for instance... the family
+are leaving."
+
+"I don't know if it would be allowed," replied the officer in a weak
+voice. "Here is our commanding officer... ask him," and he pointed to a
+stout major who was walking back along the street past the row of carts.
+
+Natásha glanced with frightened eyes at the face of the wounded officer
+and at once went to meet the major.
+
+"May the wounded men stay in our house?" she asked.
+
+The major raised his hand to his cap with a smile.
+
+"Which one do you want, Ma'am'selle?" said he, screwing up his eyes and
+smiling.
+
+Natásha quietly repeated her question, and her face and whole manner
+were so serious, though she was still holding the ends of her
+handkerchief, that the major ceased smiling and after some reflection—as
+if considering in how far the thing was possible—replied in the
+affirmative.
+
+"Oh yes, why not? They may," he said.
+
+With a slight inclination of her head, Natásha stepped back quickly to
+Mavra Kuzminichna, who stood talking compassionately to the officer.
+
+"They may. He says they may!" whispered Natásha.
+
+The cart in which the officer lay was turned into the Rostóvs' yard, and
+dozens of carts with wounded men began at the invitation of the
+townsfolk to turn into the yards and to draw up at the entrances of the
+houses in Povarskáya Street. Natásha was evidently pleased to be dealing
+with new people outside the ordinary routine of her life. She and Mavra
+Kuzminichna tried to get as many of the wounded as possible into their
+yard.
+
+"Your Papa must be told, though," said Mavra Kuzminichna.
+
+"Never mind, never mind, what does it matter? For one day we can move
+into the drawing room. They can have all our half of the house."
+
+"There now, young lady, you do take things into your head! Even if we
+put them into the wing, the men's room, or the nurse's room, we must ask
+permission."
+
+"Well, I'll ask."
+
+Natásha ran into the house and went on tiptoe through the half-open door
+into the sitting room, where there was a smell of vinegar and Hoffman's
+drops.
+
+"Are you asleep, Mamma?"
+
+"Oh, what sleep-?" said the countess, waking up just as she was dropping
+into a doze.
+
+"Mamma darling!" said Natásha, kneeling by her mother and bringing her
+face close to her mother's, "I am sorry, forgive me, I'll never do it
+again; I woke you up! Mavra Kuzminichna has sent me: they have brought
+some wounded here—officers. Will you let them come? They have nowhere to
+go. I knew you'd let them come!" she said quickly all in one breath.
+
+"What officers? Whom have they brought? I don't understand anything
+about it," said the countess.
+
+Natásha laughed, and the countess too smiled slightly.
+
+"I knew you'd give permission... so I'll tell them," and, having kissed
+her mother, Natásha got up and went to the door.
+
+In the hall she met her father, who had returned with bad news.
+
+"We've stayed too long!" said the count with involuntary vexation. "The
+club is closed and the police are leaving."
+
+"Papa, is it all right—I've invited some of the wounded into the house?"
+said Natásha.
+
+"Of course it is," he answered absently. "That's not the point. I beg
+you not to indulge in trifles now, but to help to pack, and tomorrow we
+must go, go, go!...."
+
+And the count gave a similar order to the major-domo and the servants.
+
+At dinner Pétya having returned home told them the news he had heard. He
+said the people had been getting arms in the Kremlin, and that though
+Rostopchin's broadsheet had said that he would sound a call two or three
+days in advance, the order had certainly already been given for everyone
+to go armed to the Three Hills tomorrow, and that there would be a big
+battle there.
+
+The countess looked with timid horror at her son's eager, excited face
+as he said this. She realized that if she said a word about his not
+going to the battle (she knew he enjoyed the thought of the impending
+engagement) he would say something about men, honor, and the
+fatherland—something senseless, masculine, and obstinate which there
+would be no contradicting, and her plans would be spoiled; and so,
+hoping to arrange to leave before then and take Pétya with her as their
+protector and defender, she did not answer him, but after dinner called
+the count aside and implored him with tears to take her away quickly,
+that very night if possible. With a woman's involuntary loving cunning
+she, who till then had not shown any alarm, said that she would die of
+fright if they did not leave that very night. Without any pretense she
+was now afraid of everything.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+Madame Schoss, who had been out to visit her daughter, increased the
+countess' fears still more by telling what she had seen at a spirit
+dealer's in Myasnitski Street. When returning by that street she had
+been unable to pass because of a drunken crowd rioting in front of the
+shop. She had taken a cab and driven home by a side street and the
+cabman had told her that the people were breaking open the barrels at
+the drink store, having received orders to do so.
+
+After dinner the whole Rostóv household set to work with enthusiastic
+haste packing their belongings and preparing for their departure. The
+old count, suddenly setting to work, kept passing from the yard to the
+house and back again, shouting confused instructions to the hurrying
+people, and flurrying them still more. Pétya directed things in the
+yard. Sónya, owing to the count's contradictory orders, lost her head
+and did not know what to do. The servants ran noisily about the house
+and yard, shouting and disputing. Natásha, with the ardor characteristic
+of all she did suddenly set to work too. At first her intervention in
+the business of packing was received skeptically. Everybody expected
+some prank from her and did not wish to obey her; but she resolutely and
+passionately demanded obedience, grew angry and nearly cried because
+they did not heed her, and at last succeeded in making them believe her.
+Her first exploit, which cost her immense effort and established her
+authority, was the packing of the carpets. The count had valuable
+Gobelin tapestries and Persian carpets in the house. When Natásha set to
+work two cases were standing open in the ballroom, one almost full up
+with crockery, the other with carpets. There was also much china
+standing on the tables, and still more was being brought in from the
+storeroom. A third case was needed and servants had gone to fetch it.
+
+"Sónya, wait a bit—we'll pack everything into these," said Natásha.
+
+"You can't, Miss, we have tried to," said the butler's assistant.
+
+"No, wait a minute, please."
+
+And Natásha began rapidly taking out of the case dishes and plates
+wrapped in paper.
+
+"The dishes must go in here among the carpets," said she.
+
+"Why, it's a mercy if we can get the carpets alone into three cases,"
+said the butler's assistant.
+
+"Oh, wait, please!" And Natásha began rapidly and deftly sorting out the
+things. "These aren't needed," said she, putting aside some plates of
+Kiev ware. "These—yes, these must go among the carpets," she said,
+referring to the Saxony china dishes.
+
+"Don't, Natásha! Leave it alone! We'll get it all packed," urged Sónya
+reproachfully.
+
+"What a young lady she is!" remarked the major-domo.
+
+But Natásha would not give in. She turned everything out and began
+quickly repacking, deciding that the inferior Russian carpets and
+unnecessary crockery should not be taken at all. When everything had
+been taken out of the cases, they recommenced packing, and it turned out
+that when the cheaper things not worth taking had nearly all been
+rejected, the valuable ones really did all go into the two cases. Only
+the lid of the case containing the carpets would not shut down. A few
+more things might have been taken out, but Natásha insisted on having
+her own way. She packed, repacked, pressed, made the butler's assistant
+and Pétya—whom she had drawn into the business of packing—press on the
+lid, and made desperate efforts herself.
+
+"That's enough, Natásha," said Sónya. "I see you were right, but just
+take out the top one."
+
+"I won't!" cried Natásha, with one hand holding back the hair that hung
+over her perspiring face, while with the other she pressed down the
+carpets. "Now press, Pétya! Press, Vasílich, press hard!" she cried.
+
+The carpets yielded and the lid closed; Natásha, clapping her hands,
+screamed with delight and tears fell from her eyes. But this only lasted
+a moment. She at once set to work afresh and they now trusted her
+completely. The count was not angry even when they told him that Natásha
+had countermanded an order of his, and the servants now came to her to
+ask whether a cart was sufficiently loaded, and whether it might be
+corded up. Thanks to Natásha's directions the work now went on
+expeditiously, unnecessary things were left, and the most valuable
+packed as compactly as possible.
+
+But hard as they all worked till quite late that night, they could not
+get everything packed. The countess had fallen asleep and the count,
+having put off their departure till next morning, went to bed.
+
+Sónya and Natásha slept in the sitting room without undressing.
+
+That night another wounded man was driven down the Povarskáya, and Mavra
+Kuzminichna, who was standing at the gate, had him brought into the
+Rostóvs' yard. Mavra Kuzminichna concluded that he was a very important
+man. He was being conveyed in a calèche with a raised hood, and was
+quite covered by an apron. On the box beside the driver sat a venerable
+old attendant. A doctor and two soldiers followed the carriage in a
+cart.
+
+"Please come in here. The masters are going away and the whole house
+will be empty," said the old woman to the old attendant.
+
+"Well, perhaps," said he with a sigh. "We don't expect to get him home
+alive! We have a house of our own in Moscow, but it's a long way from
+here, and there's nobody living in it."
+
+"Do us the honor to come in, there's plenty of everything in the
+master's house. Come in," said Mavra Kuzminichna. "Is he very ill?" she
+asked.
+
+The attendant made a hopeless gesture.
+
+"We don't expect to get him home! We must ask the doctor."
+
+And the old servant got down from the box and went up to the cart.
+
+"All right!" said the doctor.
+
+The old servant returned to the calèche, looked into it, shook his head
+disconsolately, told the driver to turn into the yard, and stopped
+beside Mavra Kuzminichna.
+
+"O, Lord Jesus Christ!" she murmured.
+
+She invited them to take the wounded man into the house.
+
+"The masters won't object..." she said.
+
+But they had to avoid carrying the man upstairs, and so they took him
+into the wing and put him in the room that had been Madame Schoss'.
+
+This wounded man was Prince Andrew Bolkónski.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+Moscow's last day had come. It was a clear bright autumn day, a Sunday.
+The church bells everywhere were ringing for service, just as usual on
+Sundays. Nobody seemed yet to realize what awaited the city.
+
+Only two things indicated the social condition of Moscow—the rabble,
+that is the poor people, and the price of commodities. An enormous crowd
+of factory hands, house serfs, and peasants, with whom some officials,
+seminarists, and gentry were mingled, had gone early that morning to the
+Three Hills. Having waited there for Rostopchin who did not turn up,
+they became convinced that Moscow would be surrendered, and then
+dispersed all about the town to the public houses and cookshops. Prices
+too that day indicated the state of affairs. The price of weapons, of
+gold, of carts and horses, kept rising, but the value of paper money and
+city articles kept falling, so that by midday there were instances of
+carters removing valuable goods, such as cloth, and receiving in payment
+a half of what they carted, while peasant horses were fetching five
+hundred rubles each, and furniture, mirrors, and bronzes were being
+given away for nothing.
+
+In the Rostóvs' staid old-fashioned house the dissolution of former
+conditions of life was but little noticeable. As to the serfs the only
+indication was that three out of their huge retinue disappeared during
+the night, but nothing was stolen; and as to the value of their
+possessions, the thirty peasant carts that had come in from their
+estates and which many people envied proved to be extremely valuable and
+they were offered enormous sums of money for them. Not only were huge
+sums offered for the horses and carts, but on the previous evening and
+early in the morning of the first of September, orderlies and servants
+sent by wounded officers came to the Rostóvs' and wounded men dragged
+themselves there from the Rostóvs' and from neighboring houses where
+they were accommodated, entreating the servants to try to get them a
+lift out of Moscow. The major-domo to whom these entreaties were
+addressed, though he was sorry for the wounded, resolutely refused,
+saying that he dare not even mention the matter to the count. Pity these
+wounded men as one might, it was evident that if they were given one
+cart there would be no reason to refuse another, or all the carts and
+one's own carriages as well. Thirty carts could not save all the wounded
+and in the general catastrophe one could not disregard oneself and one's
+own family. So thought the major-domo on his master's behalf.
+
+On waking up that morning Count Ilyá Rostóv left his bedroom softly, so
+as not to wake the countess who had fallen asleep only toward morning,
+and came out to the porch in his lilac silk dressing gown. In the yard
+stood the carts ready corded. The carriages were at the front porch. The
+major-domo stood at the porch talking to an elderly orderly and to a
+pale young officer with a bandaged arm. On seeing the count the major-
+domo made a significant and stern gesture to them both to go away.
+
+"Well, Vasílich, is everything ready?" asked the count, and stroking his
+bald head he looked good-naturedly at the officer and the orderly and
+nodded to them. (He liked to see new faces.)
+
+"We can harness at once, your excellency."
+
+"Well, that's right. As soon as the countess wakes we'll be off, God
+willing! What is it, gentlemen?" he added, turning to the officer. "Are
+you staying in my house?"
+
+The officer came nearer and suddenly his face flushed crimson.
+
+"Count, be so good as to allow me... for God's sake, to get into some
+corner of one of your carts! I have nothing here with me.... I shall be
+all right on a loaded cart..."
+
+Before the officer had finished speaking the orderly made the same
+request on behalf of his master.
+
+"Oh, yes, yes, yes!" said the count hastily. "I shall be very pleased,
+very pleased. Vasílich, you'll see to it. Just unload one or two carts.
+Well, what of it... do what's necessary..." said the count, muttering
+some indefinite order.
+
+But at the same moment an expression of warm gratitude on the officer's
+face had already sealed the order. The count looked around him. In the
+yard, at the gates, at the window of the wings, wounded officers and
+their orderlies were to be seen. They were all looking at the count and
+moving toward the porch.
+
+"Please step into the gallery, your excellency," said the major-domo.
+"What are your orders about the pictures?"
+
+The count went into the house with him, repeating his order not to
+refuse the wounded who asked for a lift.
+
+"Well, never mind, some of the things can be unloaded," he added in a
+soft, confidential voice, as though afraid of being overheard.
+
+At nine o'clock the countess woke up, and Matrena Timofeevna, who had
+been her lady's maid before her marriage and now performed a sort of
+chief gendarme's duty for her, came to say that Madame Schoss was much
+offended and the young ladies' summer dresses could not be left behind.
+On inquiry, the countess learned that Madame Schoss was offended because
+her trunk had been taken down from its cart, and all the loads were
+being uncorded and the luggage taken out of the carts to make room for
+wounded men whom the count in the simplicity of his heart had ordered
+that they should take with them. The countess sent for her husband.
+
+"What is this, my dear? I hear that the luggage is being unloaded."
+
+"You know, love, I wanted to tell you... Countess dear... an officer
+came to me to ask for a few carts for the wounded. After all, ours are
+things that can be bought but think what being left behind means to
+them!... Really now, in our own yard—we asked them in ourselves and
+there are officers among them.... You know, I think, my dear... let them
+be taken... where's the hurry?"
+
+The count spoke timidly, as he always did when talking of money matters.
+The countess was accustomed to this tone as a precursor of news of
+something detrimental to the children's interests, such as the building
+of a new gallery or conservatory, the inauguration of a private theater
+or an orchestra. She was accustomed always to oppose anything announced
+in that timid tone and considered it her duty to do so.
+
+She assumed her dolefully submissive manner and said to her husband:
+"Listen to me, Count, you have managed matters so that we are getting
+nothing for the house, and now you wish to throw away all our—all the
+children's property! You said yourself that we have a hundred thousand
+rubles' worth of things in the house. I don't consent, my dear, I don't!
+Do as you please! It's the government's business to look after the
+wounded; they know that. Look at the Lopukhins opposite, they cleared
+out everything two days ago. That's what other people do. It's only we
+who are such fools. If you have no pity on me, have some for the
+children."
+
+Flourishing his arms in despair the count left the room without
+replying.
+
+"Papa, what are you doing that for?" asked Natásha, who had followed him
+into her mother's room.
+
+"Nothing! What business is it of yours?" muttered the count angrily.
+
+"But I heard," said Natásha. "Why does Mamma object?"
+
+"What business is it of yours?" cried the count.
+
+Natásha stepped up to the window and pondered.
+
+"Papa! Here's Berg coming to see us," said she, looking out of the
+window.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+Berg, the Rostóvs' son-in-law, was already a colonel wearing the orders
+of Vladimir and Anna, and he still filled the quiet and agreeable post
+of assistant to the head of the staff of the assistant commander of the
+first division of the Second Army.
+
+On the first of September he had come to Moscow from the army.
+
+He had nothing to do in Moscow, but he had noticed that everyone in the
+army was asking for leave to visit Moscow and had something to do there.
+So he considered it necessary to ask for leave of absence for family and
+domestic reasons.
+
+Berg drove up to his father-in-law's house in his spruce little trap
+with a pair of sleek roans, exactly like those of a certain prince. He
+looked attentively at the carts in the yard and while going up to the
+porch took out a clean pocket handkerchief and tied a knot in it.
+
+From the anteroom Berg ran with smooth though impatient steps into the
+drawing room, where he embraced the count, kissed the hands of Natásha
+and Sónya, and hastened to inquire after "Mamma's" health.
+
+"Health, at a time like this?" said the count. "Come, tell us the news!
+Is the army retreating or will there be another battle?"
+
+"God Almighty alone can decide the fate of our fatherland, Papa," said
+Berg. "The army is burning with a spirit of heroism and the leaders, so
+to say, have now assembled in council. No one knows what is coming. But
+in general I can tell you, Papa, that such a heroic spirit, the truly
+antique valor of the Russian army, which they—which it" (he corrected
+himself) "has shown or displayed in the battle of the twenty-sixth—there
+are no words worthy to do it justice! I tell you, Papa" (he smote
+himself on the breast as a general he had heard speaking had done, but
+Berg did it a trifle late for he should have struck his breast at the
+words "Russian army"), "I tell you frankly that we, the commanders, far
+from having to urge the men on or anything of that kind, could hardly
+restrain those... those... yes, those exploits of antique valor," he
+went on rapidly. "General Barclay de Tolly risked his life everywhere at
+the head of the troops, I can assure you. Our corps was stationed on a
+hillside. You can imagine!"
+
+And Berg related all that he remembered of the various tales he had
+heard those days. Natásha watched him with an intent gaze that confused
+him, as if she were trying to find in his face the answer to some
+question.
+
+"Altogether such heroism as was displayed by the Russian warriors cannot
+be imagined or adequately praised!" said Berg, glancing round at
+Natásha, and as if anxious to conciliate her, replying to her intent
+look with a smile. "'Russia is not in Moscow, she lives in the hearts of
+her sons!' Isn't it so, Papa?" said he.
+
+Just then the countess came in from the sitting room with a weary and
+dissatisfied expression. Berg hurriedly jumped up, kissed her hand,
+asked about her health, and, swaying his head from side to side to
+express sympathy, remained standing beside her.
+
+"Yes, Mamma, I tell you sincerely that these are hard and sad times for
+every Russian. But why are you so anxious? You have still time to get
+away...."
+
+"I can't think what the servants are about," said the countess, turning
+to her husband. "I have just been told that nothing is ready yet.
+Somebody after all must see to things. One misses Mitenka at such times.
+There won't be any end to it."
+
+The count was about to say something, but evidently restrained himself.
+He got up from his chair and went to the door.
+
+At that moment Berg drew out his handkerchief as if to blow his nose
+and, seeing the knot in it, pondered, shaking his head sadly and
+significantly.
+
+"And I have a great favor to ask of you, Papa," said he.
+
+"Hm..." said the count, and stopped.
+
+"I was driving past Yusupov's house just now," said Berg with a laugh,
+"when the steward, a man I know, ran out and asked me whether I wouldn't
+buy something. I went in out of curiosity, you know, and there is a
+small chiffonier and a dressing table. You know how dear Véra wanted a
+chiffonier like that and how we had a dispute about it." (At the mention
+of the chiffonier and dressing table Berg involuntarily changed his tone
+to one of pleasure at his admirable domestic arrangements.) "And it's
+such a beauty! It pulls out and has a secret English drawer, you know!
+And dear Véra has long wanted one. I wish to give her a surprise, you
+see. I saw so many of those peasant carts in your yard. Please let me
+have one, I will pay the man well, and..."
+
+The count frowned and coughed.
+
+"Ask the countess, I don't give orders."
+
+"If it's inconvenient, please don't," said Berg. "Only I so wanted it,
+for dear Véra's sake."
+
+"Oh, go to the devil, all of you! To the devil, the devil, the devil..."
+cried the old count. "My head's in a whirl!"
+
+And he left the room. The countess began to cry.
+
+"Yes, Mamma! Yes, these are very hard times!" said Berg.
+
+Natásha left the room with her father and, as if finding it difficult to
+reach some decision, first followed him and then ran downstairs.
+
+Pétya was in the porch, engaged in giving out weapons to the servants
+who were to leave Moscow. The loaded carts were still standing in the
+yard. Two of them had been uncorded and a wounded officer was climbing
+into one of them helped by an orderly.
+
+"Do you know what it's about?" Pétya asked Natásha.
+
+She understood that he meant what were their parents quarreling about.
+She did not answer.
+
+"It's because Papa wanted to give up all the carts to the wounded," said
+Pétya. "Vasílich told me. I consider..."
+
+"I consider," Natásha suddenly almost shouted, turning her angry face to
+Pétya, "I consider it so horrid, so abominable, so... I don't know what.
+Are we despicable Germans?"
+
+Her throat quivered with convulsive sobs and, afraid of weakening and
+letting the force of her anger run to waste, she turned and rushed
+headlong up the stairs.
+
+Berg was sitting beside the countess consoling her with the respectful
+attention of a relative. The count, pipe in hand, was pacing up and down
+the room, when Natásha, her face distorted by anger, burst in like a
+tempest and approached her mother with rapid steps.
+
+"It's horrid! It's abominable!" she screamed. "You can't possibly have
+ordered it!"
+
+Berg and the countess looked at her, perplexed and frightened. The count
+stood still at the window and listened.
+
+"Mamma, it's impossible: see what is going on in the yard!" she cried.
+"They will be left!..."
+
+"What's the matter with you? Who are 'they'? What do you want?"
+
+"Why, the wounded! It's impossible, Mamma. It's monstrous!... No, Mamma
+darling, it's not the thing. Please forgive me, darling.... Mamma, what
+does it matter what we take away? Only look what is going on in the
+yard... Mamma!... It's impossible!"
+
+The count stood by the window and listened without turning round.
+Suddenly he sniffed and put his face closer to the window.
+
+The countess glanced at her daughter, saw her face full of shame for her
+mother, saw her agitation, and understood why her husband did not turn
+to look at her now, and she glanced round quite disconcerted.
+
+"Oh, do as you like! Am I hindering anyone?" she said, not surrendering
+at once.
+
+"Mamma, darling, forgive me!"
+
+But the countess pushed her daughter away and went up to her husband.
+
+"My dear, you order what is right.... You know I don't understand about
+it," said she, dropping her eyes shamefacedly.
+
+"The eggs... the eggs are teaching the hen," muttered the count through
+tears of joy, and he embraced his wife who was glad to hide her look of
+shame on his breast.
+
+"Papa! Mamma! May I see to it? May I?..." asked Natásha. "We will still
+take all the most necessary things."
+
+The count nodded affirmatively, and Natásha, at the rapid pace at which
+she used to run when playing at tag, ran through the ballroom to the
+anteroom and downstairs into the yard.
+
+The servants gathered round Natásha, but could not believe the strange
+order she brought them until the count himself, in his wife's name,
+confirmed the order to give up all the carts to the wounded and take the
+trunks to the storerooms. When they understood that order the servants
+set to work at this new task with pleasure and zeal. It no longer seemed
+strange to them but on the contrary it seemed the only thing that could
+be done, just as a quarter of an hour before it had not seemed strange
+to anyone that the wounded should be left behind and the goods carted
+away but that had seemed the only thing to do.
+
+The whole household, as if to atone for not having done it sooner, set
+eagerly to work at the new task of placing the wounded in the carts. The
+wounded dragged themselves out of their rooms and stood with pale but
+happy faces round the carts. The news that carts were to be had spread
+to the neighboring houses, from which wounded men began to come into the
+Rostóvs' yard. Many of the wounded asked them not to unload the carts
+but only to let them sit on the top of the things. But the work of
+unloading, once started, could not be arrested. It seemed not to matter
+whether all or only half the things were left behind. Cases full of
+china, bronzes, pictures, and mirrors that had been so carefully packed
+the night before now lay about the yard, and still they went on
+searching for and finding possibilities of unloading this or that and
+letting the wounded have another and yet another cart.
+
+"We can take four more men," said the steward. "They can have my trap,
+or else what is to become of them?"
+
+"Let them have my wardrobe cart," said the countess. "Dunyasha can go
+with me in the carriage."
+
+They unloaded the wardrobe cart and sent it to take wounded men from a
+house two doors off. The whole household, servants included, was bright
+and animated. Natásha was in a state of rapturous excitement such as she
+had not known for a long time.
+
+"What could we fasten this onto?" asked the servants, trying to fix a
+trunk on the narrow footboard behind a carriage. "We must keep at least
+one cart."
+
+"What's in it?" asked Natásha.
+
+"The count's books."
+
+"Leave it, Vasílich will put it away. It's not wanted."
+
+The phaeton was full of people and there was a doubt as to where Count
+Peter could sit.
+
+"On the box. You'll sit on the box, won't you, Pétya?" cried Natásha.
+
+Sónya too was busy all this time, but the aim of her efforts was quite
+different from Natásha's. She was putting away the things that had to be
+left behind and making a list of them as the countess wished, and she
+tried to get as much taken away with them as possible.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+Before two o'clock in the afternoon the Rostóvs' four carriages, packed
+full and with the horses harnessed, stood at the front door. One by one
+the carts with the wounded had moved out of the yard.
+
+The calèche in which Prince Andrew was being taken attracted Sónya's
+attention as it passed the front porch. With the help of a maid she was
+arranging a seat for the countess in the huge high coach that stood at
+the entrance.
+
+"Whose calèche is that?" she inquired, leaning out of the carriage
+window.
+
+"Why, didn't you know, Miss?" replied the maid. "The wounded prince: he
+spent the night in our house and is going with us."
+
+"But who is it? What's his name?"
+
+"It's our intended that was—Prince Bolkónski himself! They say he is
+dying," replied the maid with a sigh.
+
+Sónya jumped out of the coach and ran to the countess. The countess,
+tired out and already dressed in shawl and bonnet for her journey, was
+pacing up and down the drawing room, waiting for the household to
+assemble for the usual silent prayer with closed doors before starting.
+Natásha was not in the room.
+
+"Mamma," said Sónya, "Prince Andrew is here, mortally wounded. He is
+going with us."
+
+The countess opened her eyes in dismay and, seizing Sónya's arm, glanced
+around.
+
+"Natásha?" she murmured.
+
+At that moment this news had only one significance for both of them.
+They knew their Natásha, and alarm as to what would happen if she heard
+this news stifled all sympathy for the man they both liked.
+
+"Natásha does not know yet, but he is going with us," said Sónya.
+
+"You say he is dying?"
+
+Sónya nodded.
+
+The countess put her arms around Sónya and began to cry.
+
+"The ways of God are past finding out!" she thought, feeling that the
+Almighty Hand, hitherto unseen, was becoming manifest in all that was
+now taking place.
+
+"Well, Mamma? Everything is ready. What's the matter?" asked Natásha, as
+with animated face she ran into the room.
+
+"Nothing," answered the countess. "If everything is ready let us start."
+
+And the countess bent over her reticule to hide her agitated face. Sónya
+embraced Natásha and kissed her.
+
+Natásha looked at her inquiringly.
+
+"What is it? What has happened?"
+
+"Nothing... No..."
+
+"Is it something very bad for me? What is it?" persisted Natásha with
+her quick intuition.
+
+Sónya sighed and made no reply. The count, Pétya, Madame Schoss, Mavra
+Kuzminichna, and Vasílich came into the drawing room and, having closed
+the doors, they all sat down and remained for some moments silently
+seated without looking at one another.
+
+The count was the first to rise, and with a loud sigh crossed himself
+before the icon. All the others did the same. Then the count embraced
+Mavra Kuzminichna and Vasílich, who were to remain in Moscow, and while
+they caught at his hand and kissed his shoulder he patted their backs
+lightly with some vaguely affectionate and comforting words. The
+countess went into the oratory and there Sónya found her on her knees
+before the icons that had been left here and there hanging on the wall.
+(The most precious ones, with which some family tradition was connected,
+were being taken with them.)
+
+In the porch and in the yard the men whom Pétya had armed with swords
+and daggers, with trousers tucked inside their high boots and with belts
+and girdles tightened, were taking leave of those remaining behind.
+
+As is always the case at a departure, much had been forgotten or put in
+the wrong place, and for a long time two menservants stood one on each
+side of the open door and the carriage steps waiting to help the
+countess in, while maids rushed with cushions and bundles from the house
+to the carriages, the calèche, the phaeton, and back again.
+
+"They always will forget everything!" said the countess. "Don't you know
+I can't sit like that?"
+
+And Dunyasha, with clenched teeth, without replying but with an
+aggrieved look on her face, hastily got into the coach to rearrange the
+seat.
+
+"Oh, those servants!" said the count, swaying his head.
+
+Efim, the old coachman, who was the only one the countess trusted to
+drive her, sat perched up high on the box and did not so much as glance
+round at what was going on behind him. From thirty years' experience he
+knew it would be some time yet before the order, "Be off, in God's
+name!" would be given him: and he knew that even when it was said he
+would be stopped once or twice more while they sent back to fetch
+something that had been forgotten, and even after that he would again be
+stopped and the countess herself would lean out of the window and beg
+him for the love of heaven to drive carefully down the hill. He knew all
+this and therefore waited calmly for what would happen, with more
+patience than the horses, especially the near one, the chestnut Falcon,
+who was pawing the ground and champing his bit. At last all were seated,
+the carriage steps were folded and pulled up, the door was shut,
+somebody was sent for a traveling case, and the countess leaned out and
+said what she had to say. Then Efim deliberately doffed his hat and
+began crossing himself. The postilion and all the other servants did the
+same. "Off, in God's name!" said Efim, putting on his hat. "Start!" The
+postilion started the horses, the off pole horse tugged at his collar,
+the high springs creaked, and the body of the coach swayed. The footman
+sprang onto the box of the moving coach which jolted as it passed out of
+the yard onto the uneven roadway; the other vehicles jolted in their
+turn, and the procession of carriages moved up the street. In the
+carriages, the calèche, and the phaeton, all crossed themselves as they
+passed the church opposite the house. Those who were to remain in Moscow
+walked on either side of the vehicles seeing the travelers off.
+
+Rarely had Natásha experienced so joyful a feeling as now, sitting in
+the carriage beside the countess and gazing at the slowly receding walls
+of forsaken, agitated Moscow. Occasionally she leaned out of the
+carriage window and looked back and then forward at the long train of
+wounded in front of them. Almost at the head of the line she could see
+the raised hood of Prince Andrew's calèche. She did not know who was in
+it, but each time she looked at the procession her eyes sought that
+calèche. She knew it was right in front.
+
+In Kudrino, from the Nikitski, Presnya, and Podnovinsk Streets came
+several other trains of vehicles similar to the Rostóvs', and as they
+passed along the Sadovaya Street the carriages and carts formed two rows
+abreast.
+
+As they were going round the Sukharev water tower Natásha, who was
+inquisitively and alertly scrutinizing the people driving or walking
+past, suddenly cried out in joyful surprise:
+
+"Dear me! Mamma, Sónya, look, it's he!"
+
+"Who? Who?"
+
+"Look! Yes, on my word, it's Bezúkhov!" said Natásha, putting her head
+out of the carriage and staring at a tall, stout man in a coachman's
+long coat, who from his manner of walking and moving was evidently a
+gentleman in disguise, and who was passing under the arch of the
+Sukharev tower accompanied by a small, sallow-faced, beardless old man
+in a frieze coat.
+
+"Yes, it really is Bezúkhov in a coachman's coat, with a queer-looking
+old boy. Really," said Natásha, "look, look!"
+
+"No, it's not he. How can you talk such nonsense?"
+
+"Mamma," screamed Natásha, "I'll stake my head it's he! I assure you!
+Stop, stop!" she cried to the coachman.
+
+But the coachman could not stop, for from the Meshchanski Street came
+more carts and carriages, and the Rostóvs were being shouted at to move
+on and not block the way.
+
+In fact, however, though now much farther off than before, the Rostóvs
+all saw Pierre—or someone extraordinarily like him—in a coachman's coat,
+going down the street with head bent and a serious face beside a small,
+beardless old man who looked like a footman. That old man noticed a face
+thrust out of the carriage window gazing at them, and respectfully
+touching Pierre's elbow said something to him and pointed to the
+carriage. Pierre, evidently engrossed in thought, could not at first
+understand him. At length when he had understood and looked in the
+direction the old man indicated, he recognized Natásha, and following
+his first impulse stepped instantly and rapidly toward the coach. But
+having taken a dozen steps he seemed to remember something and stopped.
+
+Natásha's face, leaning out of the window, beamed with quizzical
+kindliness.
+
+"Peter Kirilovich, come here! We have recognized you! This is
+wonderful!" she cried, holding out her hand to him. "What are you doing?
+Why are you like this?"
+
+Pierre took her outstretched hand and kissed it awkwardly as he walked
+along beside her while the coach still moved on.
+
+"What is the matter, Count?" asked the countess in a surprised and
+commiserating tone.
+
+"What? What? Why? Don't ask me," said Pierre, and looked round at
+Natásha whose radiant, happy expression—of which he was conscious
+without looking at her—filled him with enchantment.
+
+"Are you remaining in Moscow, then?"
+
+Pierre hesitated.
+
+"In Moscow?" he said in a questioning tone. "Yes, in Moscow. Good-bye!"
+
+"Ah, if only I were a man! I'd certainly stay with you. How splendid!"
+said Natásha. "Mamma, if you'll let me, I'll stay!"
+
+Pierre glanced absently at Natásha and was about to say something, but
+the countess interrupted him.
+
+"You were at the battle, we heard."
+
+"Yes, I was," Pierre answered. "There will be another battle
+tomorrow..." he began, but Natásha interrupted him.
+
+"But what is the matter with you, Count? You are not like yourself...."
+
+"Oh, don't ask me, don't ask me! I don't know myself. Tomorrow... But
+no! Good-bye, good-by!" he muttered. "It's an awful time!" and dropping
+behind the carriage he stepped onto the pavement.
+
+Natásha continued to lean out of the window for a long time, beaming at
+him with her kindly, slightly quizzical, happy smile.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+For the last two days, ever since leaving home, Pierre had been living
+in the empty house of his deceased benefactor, Bazdeev. This is how it
+happened.
+
+When he woke up on the morning after his return to Moscow and his
+interview with Count Rostopchin, he could not for some time make out
+where he was and what was expected of him. When he was informed that
+among others awaiting him in his reception room there was a Frenchman
+who had brought a letter from his wife, the Countess Hélène, he felt
+suddenly overcome by that sense of confusion and hopelessness to which
+he was apt to succumb. He felt that everything was now at an end, all
+was in confusion and crumbling to pieces, that nobody was right or
+wrong, the future held nothing, and there was no escape from this
+position. Smiling unnaturally and muttering to himself, he first sat
+down on the sofa in an attitude of despair, then rose, went to the door
+of the reception room and peeped through the crack, returned flourishing
+his arms, and took up a book. His major-domo came in a second time to
+say that the Frenchman who had brought the letter from the countess was
+very anxious to see him if only for a minute, and that someone from
+Bazdeev's widow had called to ask Pierre to take charge of her husband's
+books, as she herself was leaving for the country.
+
+"Oh, yes, in a minute; wait... or no! No, of course... go and say I will
+come directly," Pierre replied to the major-domo.
+
+But as soon as the man had left the room Pierre took up his hat which
+was lying on the table and went out of his study by the other door.
+There was no one in the passage. He went along the whole length of this
+passage to the stairs and, frowning and rubbing his forehead with both
+hands, went down as far as the first landing. The hall porter was
+standing at the front door. From the landing where Pierre stood there
+was a second staircase leading to the back entrance. He went down that
+staircase and out into the yard. No one had seen him. But there were
+some carriages waiting, and as soon as Pierre stepped out of the gate
+the coachmen and the yard porter noticed him and raised their caps to
+him. When he felt he was being looked at he behaved like an ostrich
+which hides its head in a bush in order not to be seen: he hung his head
+and quickening his pace went down the street.
+
+Of all the affairs awaiting Pierre that day the sorting of Joseph
+Bazdeev's books and papers appeared to him the most necessary.
+
+He hired the first cab he met and told the driver to go to the
+Patriarch's Ponds, where the widow Bazdeev's house was.
+
+Continually turning round to look at the rows of loaded carts that were
+making their way from all sides out of Moscow, and balancing his bulky
+body so as not to slip out of the ramshackle old vehicle, Pierre,
+experiencing the joyful feeling of a boy escaping from school, began to
+talk to his driver.
+
+The man told him that arms were being distributed today at the Kremlin
+and that tomorrow everyone would be sent out beyond the Three Hills
+gates and a great battle would be fought there.
+
+Having reached the Patriarch's Ponds Pierre found the Bazdeevs' house,
+where he had not been for a long time past. He went up to the gate.
+Gerasim, that sallow beardless old man Pierre had seen at Torzhok five
+years before with Joseph Bazdeev, came out in answer to his knock.
+
+"At home?" asked Pierre.
+
+"Owing to the present state of things Sophia Danilovna has gone to the
+Torzhok estate with the children, your excellency."
+
+"I will come in all the same, I have to look through the books," said
+Pierre.
+
+"Be so good as to step in. Makar Alexeevich, the brother of my late
+master—may the kingdom of heaven be his—has remained here, but he is in
+a weak state as you know," said the old servant.
+
+Pierre knew that Makar Alexeevich was Joseph Bazdeev's half-insane
+brother and a hard drinker.
+
+"Yes, yes, I know. Let us go in..." said Pierre and entered the house.
+
+A tall, bald-headed old man with a red nose, wearing a dressing gown and
+with galoshes on his bare feet, stood in the anteroom. On seeing Pierre
+he muttered something angrily and went away along the passage.
+
+"He was a very clever man but has now grown quite feeble, as your honor
+sees," said Gerasim. "Will you step into the study?" Pierre nodded. "As
+it was sealed up so it has remained, but Sophia Danilovna gave orders
+that if anyone should come from you they were to have the books."
+
+Pierre went into that gloomy study which he had entered with such
+trepidation in his benefactor's lifetime. The room, dusty and untouched
+since the death of Joseph Bazdeev was now even gloomier.
+
+Gerasim opened one of the shutters and left the room on tiptoe. Pierre
+went round the study, approached the cupboard in which the manuscripts
+were kept, and took out what had once been one of the most important,
+the holy of holies of the order. This was the authentic Scotch Acts with
+Bazdeev's notes and explanations. He sat down at the dusty writing
+table, and, having laid the manuscripts before him, opened them out,
+closed them, finally pushed them away, and resting his head on his hand
+sank into meditation.
+
+Gerasim looked cautiously into the study several times and saw Pierre
+always sitting in the same attitude.
+
+More than two hours passed and Gerasim took the liberty of making a
+slight noise at the door to attract his attention, but Pierre did not
+hear him.
+
+"Is the cabman to be discharged, your honor?"
+
+"Oh yes!" said Pierre, rousing himself and rising hurriedly. "Look
+here," he added, taking Gerasim by a button of his coat and looking down
+at the old man with moist, shining, and ecstatic eyes, "I say, do you
+know that there is going to be a battle tomorrow?"
+
+"We heard so," replied the man.
+
+"I beg you not to tell anyone who I am, and to do what I ask you."
+
+"Yes, your excellency," replied Gerasim. "Will you have something to
+eat?"
+
+"No, but I want something else. I want peasant clothes and a pistol,"
+said Pierre, unexpectedly blushing.
+
+"Yes, your excellency," said Gerasim after thinking for a moment.
+
+All the rest of that day Pierre spent alone in his benefactor's study,
+and Gerasim heard him pacing restlessly from one corner to another and
+talking to himself. And he spent the night on a bed made up for him
+there.
+
+Gerasim, being a servant who in his time had seen many strange things,
+accepted Pierre's taking up his residence in the house without surprise,
+and seemed pleased to have someone to wait on. That same evening—without
+even asking himself what they were wanted for—he procured a coachman's
+coat and cap for Pierre, and promised to get him the pistol next day.
+Makar Alexeevich came twice that evening shuffling along in his galoshes
+as far as the door and stopped and looked ingratiatingly at Pierre. But
+as soon as Pierre turned toward him he wrapped his dressing gown around
+him with a shamefaced and angry look and hurried away. It was when
+Pierre (wearing the coachman's coat which Gerasim had procured for him
+and had disinfected by steam) was on his way with the old man to buy the
+pistol at the Sukharev market that he met the Rostóvs.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+Kutúzov's order to retreat through Moscow to the Ryazan road was issued
+at night on the first of September.
+
+The first troops started at once, and during the night they marched
+slowly and steadily without hurry. At daybreak, however, those nearing
+the town at the Dorogomilov bridge saw ahead of them masses of soldiers
+crowding and hurrying across the bridge, ascending on the opposite side
+and blocking the streets and alleys, while endless masses of troops were
+bearing down on them from behind, and an unreasoning hurry and alarm
+overcame them. They all rushed forward to the bridge, onto it, and to
+the fords and the boats. Kutúzov himself had driven round by side
+streets to the other side of Moscow.
+
+By ten o'clock in the morning of the second of September, only the rear
+guard remained in the Dorogomilov suburb, where they had ample room. The
+main army was on the other side of Moscow or beyond it.
+
+At that very time, at ten in the morning of the second of September,
+Napoleon was standing among his troops on the Poklonny Hill looking at
+the panorama spread out before him. From the twenty-sixth of August to
+the second of September, that is from the battle of Borodino to the
+entry of the French into Moscow, during the whole of that agitating,
+memorable week, there had been the extraordinary autumn weather that
+always comes as a surprise, when the sun hangs low and gives more heat
+than in spring, when everything shines so brightly in the rare clear
+atmosphere that the eyes smart, when the lungs are strengthened and
+refreshed by inhaling the aromatic autumn air, when even the nights are
+warm, and when in those dark warm nights, golden stars startle and
+delight us continually by falling from the sky.
+
+At ten in the morning of the second of September this weather still
+held.
+
+The brightness of the morning was magical. Moscow seen from the Poklonny
+Hill lay spaciously spread out with her river, her gardens, and her
+churches, and she seemed to be living her usual life, her cupolas
+glittering like stars in the sunlight.
+
+The view of the strange city with its peculiar architecture, such as he
+had never seen before, filled Napoleon with the rather envious and
+uneasy curiosity men feel when they see an alien form of life that has
+no knowledge of them. This city was evidently living with the full force
+of its own life. By the indefinite signs which, even at a distance,
+distinguish a living body from a dead one, Napoleon from the Poklonny
+Hill perceived the throb of life in the town and felt, as it were, the
+breathing of that great and beautiful body.
+
+Every Russian looking at Moscow feels her to be a mother; every
+foreigner who sees her, even if ignorant of her significance as the
+mother city, must feel her feminine character, and Napoleon felt it.
+
+"Cette ville asiatique aux innombrables eglises, Moscou la sainte. La
+voila done enfin, cette fameuse ville! Il etait temps," * said he, and
+dismounting he ordered a plan of Moscow to be spread out before him, and
+summoned Lelorgne d'Ideville, the interpreter.
+
+* "That Asiatic city of the innumerable churches, holy Moscow! Here it
+is then at last, that famous city. It was high time."
+
+"A town captured by the enemy is like a maid who has lost her honor,"
+thought he (he had said so to Tuchkov at Smolensk). From that point of
+view he gazed at the Oriental beauty he had not seen before. It seemed
+strange to him that his long-felt wish, which had seemed unattainable,
+had at last been realized. In the clear morning light he gazed now at
+the city and now at the plan, considering its details, and the assurance
+of possessing it agitated and awed him.
+
+"But could it be otherwise?" he thought. "Here is this capital at my
+feet. Where is Alexander now, and of what is he thinking? A strange,
+beautiful, and majestic city; and a strange and majestic moment! In what
+light must I appear to them!" thought he, thinking of his troops. "Here
+she is, the reward for all those fainthearted men," he reflected,
+glancing at those near him and at the troops who were approaching and
+forming up. "One word from me, one movement of my hand, and that ancient
+capital of the Tsars would perish. But my clemency is always ready to
+descend upon the vanquished. I must be magnanimous and truly great. But
+no, it can't be true that I am in Moscow," he suddenly thought. "Yet
+here she is lying at my feet, with her golden domes and crosses
+scintillating and twinkling in the sunshine. But I shall spare her. On
+the ancient monuments of barbarism and despotism I will inscribe great
+words of justice and mercy.... It is just this which Alexander will feel
+most painfully, I know him." (It seemed to Napoleon that the chief
+import of what was taking place lay in the personal struggle between
+himself and Alexander.) "From the height of the Kremlin—yes, there is
+the Kremlin, yes—I will give them just laws; I will teach them the
+meaning of true civilization, I will make generations of boyars remember
+their conqueror with love. I will tell the deputation that I did not,
+and do not, desire war, that I have waged war only against the false
+policy of their court; that I love and respect Alexander and that in
+Moscow I will accept terms of peace worthy of myself and of my people. I
+do not wish to utilize the fortunes of war to humiliate an honored
+monarch. 'Boyars,' I will say to them, 'I do not desire war, I desire
+the peace and welfare of all my subjects.' However, I know their
+presence will inspire me, and I shall speak to them as I always do:
+clearly, impressively, and majestically. But can it be true that I am in
+Moscow? Yes, there she lies."
+
+"Qu'on m'amene les boyars," * said he to his suite.
+
+* "Bring the boyars to me."
+
+A general with a brilliant suite galloped off at once to fetch the
+boyars.
+
+Two hours passed. Napoleon had lunched and was again standing in the
+same place on the Poklonny Hill awaiting the deputation. His speech to
+the boyars had already taken definite shape in his imagination. That
+speech was full of dignity and greatness as Napoleon understood it.
+
+He was himself carried away by the tone of magnanimity he intended to
+adopt toward Moscow. In his imagination he appointed days for assemblies
+at the palace of the Tsars, at which Russian notables and his own would
+mingle. He mentally appointed a governor, one who would win the hearts
+of the people. Having learned that there were many charitable
+institutions in Moscow he mentally decided that he would shower favors
+on them all. He thought that, as in Africa he had to put on a burnoose
+and sit in a mosque, so in Moscow he must be beneficent like the Tsars.
+And in order finally to touch the hearts of the Russians—and being like
+all Frenchmen unable to imagine anything sentimental without a reference
+to ma chere, ma tendre, ma pauvre mere * —he decided that he would place
+an inscription on all these establishments in large letters: "This
+establishment is dedicated to my dear mother." Or no, it should be
+simply: Maison de ma Mere, *(2) he concluded. "But am I really in
+Moscow? Yes, here it lies before me, but why is the deputation from the
+city so long in appearing?" he wondered.
+
+* "My dear, my tender, my poor mother."
+
+* (2) "House of my Mother."
+
+Meanwhile an agitated consultation was being carried on in whispers
+among his generals and marshals at the rear of his suite. Those sent to
+fetch the deputation had returned with the news that Moscow was empty,
+that everyone had left it. The faces of those who were not conferring
+together were pale and perturbed. They were not alarmed by the fact that
+Moscow had been abandoned by its inhabitants (grave as that fact
+seemed), but by the question how to tell the Emperor—without putting him
+in the terrible position of appearing ridiculous—that he had been
+awaiting the boyars so long in vain: that there were drunken mobs left
+in Moscow but no one else. Some said that a deputation of some sort must
+be scraped together, others disputed that opinion and maintained that
+the Emperor should first be carefully and skillfully prepared, and then
+told the truth.
+
+"He will have to be told, all the same," said some gentlemen of the
+suite. "But, gentlemen..."
+
+The position was the more awkward because the Emperor, meditating upon
+his magnanimous plans, was pacing patiently up and down before the
+outspread map, occasionally glancing along the road to Moscow from under
+his lifted hand with a bright and proud smile.
+
+"But it's impossible..." declared the gentlemen of the suite, shrugging
+their shoulders but not venturing to utter the implied word—le
+ridicule...
+
+At last the Emperor, tired of futile expectation, his actor's instinct
+suggesting to him that the sublime moment having been too long drawn out
+was beginning to lose its sublimity, gave a sign with his hand. A single
+report of a signaling gun followed, and the troops, who were already
+spread out on different sides of Moscow, moved into the city through
+Tver, Kaluga, and Dorogomilov gates. Faster and faster, vying with one
+another, they moved at the double or at a trot, vanishing amid the
+clouds of dust they raised and making the air ring with a deafening roar
+of mingling shouts.
+
+Drawn on by the movement of his troops Napoleon rode with them as far as
+the Dorogomilov gate, but there again stopped and, dismounting from his
+horse, paced for a long time by the Kammer-Kollezski rampart, awaiting
+the deputation.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+Meanwhile Moscow was empty. There were still people in it, perhaps a
+fiftieth part of its former inhabitants had remained, but it was empty.
+It was empty in the sense that a dying queenless hive is empty.
+
+In a queenless hive no life is left though to a superficial glance it
+seems as much alive as other hives.
+
+The bees circle round a queenless hive in the hot beams of the midday
+sun as gaily as around the living hives; from a distance it smells of
+honey like the others, and bees fly in and out in the same way. But one
+has only to observe that hive to realize that there is no longer any
+life in it. The bees do not fly in the same way, the smell and the sound
+that meet the beekeeper are not the same. To the beekeeper's tap on the
+wall of the sick hive, instead of the former instant unanimous humming
+of tens of thousands of bees with their abdomens threateningly
+compressed, and producing by the rapid vibration of their wings an
+aerial living sound, the only reply is a disconnected buzzing from
+different parts of the deserted hive. From the alighting board, instead
+of the former spirituous fragrant smell of honey and venom, and the warm
+whiffs of crowded life, comes an odor of emptiness and decay mingling
+with the smell of honey. There are no longer sentinels sounding the
+alarm with their abdomens raised, and ready to die in defense of the
+hive. There is no longer the measured quiet sound of throbbing activity,
+like the sound of boiling water, but diverse discordant sounds of
+disorder. In and out of the hive long black robber bees smeared with
+honey fly timidly and shiftily. They do not sting, but crawl away from
+danger. Formerly only bees laden with honey flew into the hive, and they
+flew out empty; now they fly out laden. The beekeeper opens the lower
+part of the hive and peers in. Instead of black, glossy bees—tamed by
+toil, clinging to one another's legs and drawing out the wax, with a
+ceaseless hum of labor—that used to hang in long clusters down to the
+floor of the hive, drowsy shriveled bees crawl about separately in
+various directions on the floor and walls of the hive. Instead of a
+neatly glued floor, swept by the bees with the fanning of their wings,
+there is a floor littered with bits of wax, excrement, dying bees
+scarcely moving their legs, and dead ones that have not been cleared
+away.
+
+The beekeeper opens the upper part of the hive and examines the super.
+Instead of serried rows of bees sealing up every gap in the combs and
+keeping the brood warm, he sees the skillful complex structures of the
+combs, but no longer in their former state of purity. All is neglected
+and foul. Black robber bees are swiftly and stealthily prowling about
+the combs, and the short home bees, shriveled and listless as if they
+were old, creep slowly about without trying to hinder the robbers,
+having lost all motive and all sense of life. Drones, bumblebees, wasps,
+and butterflies knock awkwardly against the walls of the hive in their
+flight. Here and there among the cells containing dead brood and honey
+an angry buzzing can sometimes be heard. Here and there a couple of
+bees, by force of habit and custom cleaning out the brood cells, with
+efforts beyond their strength laboriously drag away a dead bee or
+bumblebee without knowing why they do it. In another corner two old bees
+are languidly fighting, or cleaning themselves, or feeding one another,
+without themselves knowing whether they do it with friendly or hostile
+intent. In a third place a crowd of bees, crushing one another, attack
+some victim and fight and smother it, and the victim, enfeebled or
+killed, drops from above slowly and lightly as a feather, among the heap
+of corpses. The keeper opens the two center partitions to examine the
+brood cells. In place of the former close dark circles formed by
+thousands of bees sitting back to back and guarding the high mystery of
+generation, he sees hundreds of dull, listless, and sleepy shells of
+bees. They have almost all died unawares, sitting in the sanctuary they
+had guarded and which is now no more. They reek of decay and death. Only
+a few of them still move, rise, and feebly fly to settle on the enemy's
+hand, lacking the spirit to die stinging him; the rest are dead and fall
+as lightly as fish scales. The beekeeper closes the hive, chalks a mark
+on it, and when he has time tears out its contents and burns it clean.
+
+So in the same way Moscow was empty when Napoleon, weary, uneasy, and
+morose, paced up and down in front of the Kammer-Kollezski rampart,
+awaiting what to his mind was a necessary, if but formal, observance of
+the proprieties—a deputation.
+
+In various corners of Moscow there still remained a few people aimlessly
+moving about, following their old habits and hardly aware of what they
+were doing.
+
+When with due circumspection Napoleon was informed that Moscow was
+empty, he looked angrily at his informant, turned away, and silently
+continued to walk to and fro.
+
+"My carriage!" he said.
+
+He took his seat beside the aide-de-camp on duty and drove into the
+suburb. "Moscow deserted!" he said to himself. "What an incredible
+event!"
+
+He did not drive into the town, but put up at an inn in the Dorogomilov
+suburb.
+
+The coup de theatre had not come off.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+The Russian troops were passing through Moscow from two o'clock at night
+till two in the afternoon and bore away with them the wounded and the
+last of the inhabitants who were leaving.
+
+The greatest crush during the movement of the troops took place at the
+Stone, Moskva, and Yauza bridges.
+
+While the troops, dividing into two parts when passing around the
+Kremlin, were thronging the Moskva and the Stone bridges, a great many
+soldiers, taking advantage of the stoppage and congestion, turned back
+from the bridges and slipped stealthily and silently past the church of
+Vasíli the Beatified and under the Borovitski gate, back up the hill to
+the Red Square where some instinct told them they could easily take
+things not belonging to them. Crowds of the kind seen at cheap sales
+filled all the passages and alleys of the Bazaar. But there were no
+dealers with voices of ingratiating affability inviting customers to
+enter; there were no hawkers, nor the usual motley crowd of female
+purchasers—but only soldiers, in uniforms and overcoats though without
+muskets, entering the Bazaar empty-handed and silently making their way
+out through its passages with bundles. Tradesmen and their assistants
+(of whom there were but few) moved about among the soldiers quite
+bewildered. They unlocked their shops and locked them up again, and
+themselves carried goods away with the help of their assistants. On the
+square in front of the Bazaar were drummers beating the muster call. But
+the roll of the drums did not make the looting soldiers run in the
+direction of the drum as formerly, but made them, on the contrary, run
+farther away. Among the soldiers in the shops and passages some men were
+to be seen in gray coats, with closely shaven heads. Two officers, one
+with a scarf over his uniform and mounted on a lean, dark-gray horse,
+the other in an overcoat and on foot, stood at the corner of Ilyinka
+Street, talking. A third officer galloped up to them.
+
+"The general orders them all to be driven out at once, without fail.
+This is outrageous! Half the men have dispersed."
+
+"Where are you off to?... Where?..." he shouted to three infantrymen
+without muskets who, holding up the skirts of their overcoats, were
+slipping past him into the Bazaar passage. "Stop, you rascals!"
+
+"But how are you going to stop them?" replied another officer. "There is
+no getting them together. The army should push on before the rest bolt,
+that's all!"
+
+"How can one push on? They are stuck there, wedged on the bridge, and
+don't move. Shouldn't we put a cordon round to prevent the rest from
+running away?"
+
+"Come, go in there and drive them out!" shouted the senior officer.
+
+The officer in the scarf dismounted, called up a drummer, and went with
+him into the arcade. Some soldiers started running away in a group. A
+shopkeeper with red pimples on his cheeks near the nose, and a calm,
+persistent, calculating expression on his plump face, hurriedly and
+ostentatiously approached the officer, swinging his arms.
+
+"Your honor!" said he. "Be so good as to protect us! We won't grudge
+trifles, you are welcome to anything—we shall be delighted! Pray!...
+I'll fetch a piece of cloth at once for such an honorable gentleman, or
+even two pieces with pleasure. For we feel how it is; but what's all
+this—sheer robbery! If you please, could not guards be placed if only to
+let us close the shop...."
+
+Several shopkeepers crowded round the officer.
+
+"Eh, what twaddle!" said one of them, a thin, stern-looking man. "When
+one's head is gone one doesn't weep for one's hair! Take what any of you
+like!" And flourishing his arm energetically he turned sideways to the
+officer.
+
+"It's all very well for you, Ivan Sidorych, to talk," said the first
+tradesman angrily. "Please step inside, your honor!"
+
+"Talk indeed!" cried the thin one. "In my three shops here I have a
+hundred thousand rubles' worth of goods. Can they be saved when the army
+has gone? Eh, what people! 'Against God's might our hands can't fight.'"
+
+"Come inside, your honor!" repeated the tradesman, bowing.
+
+The officer stood perplexed and his face showed indecision.
+
+"It's not my business!" he exclaimed, and strode on quickly down one of
+the passages.
+
+From one open shop came the sound of blows and vituperation, and just as
+the officer came up to it a man in a gray coat with a shaven head was
+flung out violently.
+
+This man, bent double, rushed past the tradesman and the officer. The
+officer pounced on the soldiers who were in the shops, but at that
+moment fearful screams reached them from the huge crowd on the Moskva
+bridge and the officer ran out into the square.
+
+"What is it? What is it?" he asked, but his comrade was already
+galloping off past Vasíli the Beatified in the direction from which the
+screams came.
+
+The officer mounted his horse and rode after him. When he reached the
+bridge he saw two unlimbered guns, the infantry crossing the bridge,
+several overturned carts, and frightened and laughing faces among the
+troops. Beside the cannon a cart was standing to which two horses were
+harnessed. Four borzois with collars were pressing close to the wheels.
+The cart was loaded high, and at the very top, beside a child's chair
+with its legs in the air, sat a peasant woman uttering piercing and
+desperate shrieks. He was told by his fellow officers that the screams
+of the crowd and the shrieks of the woman were due to the fact that
+General Ermolov, coming up to the crowd and learning that soldiers were
+dispersing among the shops while crowds of civilians blocked the bridge,
+had ordered two guns to be unlimbered and made a show of firing at the
+bridge. The crowd, crushing one another, upsetting carts, and shouting
+and squeezing desperately, had cleared off the bridge and the troops
+were now moving forward.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+Meanwhile, the city itself was deserted. There was hardly anyone in the
+streets. The gates and shops were all closed, only here and there round
+the taverns solitary shouts or drunken songs could be heard. Nobody
+drove through the streets and footsteps were rarely heard. The
+Povarskáya was quite still and deserted. The huge courtyard of the
+Rostóvs' house was littered with wisps of hay and with dung from the
+horses, and not a soul was to be seen there. In the great drawing room
+of the house, which had been left with all it contained, were two
+people. They were the yard porter Ignat, and the page boy Mishka,
+Vasílich's grandson who had stayed in Moscow with his grandfather.
+Mishka had opened the clavichord and was strumming on it with one
+finger. The yard porter, his arms akimbo, stood smiling with
+satisfaction before the large mirror.
+
+"Isn't it fine, eh, Uncle Ignat?" said the boy, suddenly beginning to
+strike the keyboard with both hands.
+
+"Only fancy!" answered Ignat, surprised at the broadening grin on his
+face in the mirror.
+
+"Impudence! Impudence!" they heard behind them the voice of Mavra
+Kuzminichna who had entered silently. "How he's grinning, the fat mug!
+Is that what you're here for? Nothing's cleared away down there and
+Vasílich is worn out. Just you wait a bit!"
+
+Ignat left off smiling, adjusted his belt, and went out of the room with
+meekly downcast eyes.
+
+"Aunt, I did it gently," said the boy.
+
+"I'll give you something gently, you monkey you!" cried Mavra
+Kuzminichna, raising her arm threateningly. "Go and get the samovar to
+boil for your grandfather."
+
+Mavra Kuzminichna flicked the dust off the clavichord and closed it, and
+with a deep sigh left the drawing room and locked its main door.
+
+Going out into the yard she paused to consider where she should go
+next—to drink tea in the servants' wing with Vasílich, or into the
+storeroom to put away what still lay about.
+
+She heard the sound of quick footsteps in the quiet street. Someone
+stopped at the gate, and the latch rattled as someone tried to open it.
+Mavra Kuzminichna went to the gate.
+
+"Who do you want?"
+
+"The count—Count Ilyá Andréevich Rostóv."
+
+"And who are you?"
+
+"An officer, I have to see him," came the reply in a pleasant, well-bred
+Russian voice.
+
+Mavra Kuzminichna opened the gate and an officer of eighteen, with the
+round face of a Rostóv, entered the yard.
+
+"They have gone away, sir. Went away yesterday at vespertime," said
+Mavra Kuzminichna cordially.
+
+The young officer standing in the gateway, as if hesitating whether to
+enter or not, clicked his tongue.
+
+"Ah, how annoying!" he muttered. "I should have come yesterday.... Ah,
+what a pity."
+
+Meanwhile, Mavra Kuzminichna was attentively and sympathetically
+examining the familiar Rostóv features of the young man's face, his
+tattered coat and trodden-down boots.
+
+"What did you want to see the count for?" she asked.
+
+"Oh well... it can't be helped!" said he in a tone of vexation and
+placed his hand on the gate as if to leave.
+
+He again paused in indecision.
+
+"You see," he suddenly said, "I am a kinsman of the count's and he has
+been very kind to me. As you see" (he glanced with an amused air and
+good-natured smile at his coat and boots) "my things are worn out and I
+have no money, so I was going to ask the count..."
+
+Mavra Kuzminichna did not let him finish.
+
+"Just wait a minute, sir. One little moment," said she.
+
+And as soon as the officer let go of the gate handle she turned and,
+hurrying away on her old legs, went through the back yard to the
+servants' quarters.
+
+While Mavra Kuzminichna was running to her room the officer walked about
+the yard gazing at his worn-out boots with lowered head and a faint
+smile on his lips. "What a pity I've missed Uncle! What a nice old
+woman! Where has she run off to? And how am I to find the nearest way to
+overtake my regiment, which must by now be getting near the Rogozhski
+gate?" thought he. Just then Mavra Kuzminichna appeared from behind the
+corner of the house with a frightened yet resolute look, carrying a
+rolled-up check kerchief in her hand. While still a few steps from the
+officer she unfolded the kerchief and took out of it a white twenty-
+five-ruble assignat and hastily handed it to him.
+
+"If his excellency had been at home, as a kinsman he would of course...
+but as it is..."
+
+Mavra Kuzminichna grew abashed and confused. The officer did not
+decline, but took the note quietly and thanked her.
+
+"If the count had been at home..." Mavra Kuzminichna went on
+apologetically. "Christ be with you, sir! May God preserve you!" said
+she, bowing as she saw him out.
+
+Swaying his head and smiling as if amused at himself, the officer ran
+almost at a trot through the deserted streets toward the Yauza bridge to
+overtake his regiment.
+
+But Mavra Kuzminichna stood at the closed gate for some time with moist
+eyes, pensively swaying her head and feeling an unexpected flow of
+motherly tenderness and pity for the unknown young officer.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+From an unfinished house on the Varvarka, the ground floor of which was
+a dramshop, came drunken shouts and songs. On benches round the tables
+in a dirty little room sat some ten factory hands. Tipsy and perspiring,
+with dim eyes and wide-open mouths, they were all laboriously singing
+some song or other. They were singing discordantly, arduously, and with
+great effort, evidently not because they wished to sing, but because
+they wanted to show they were drunk and on a spree. One, a tall, fair-
+haired lad in a clean blue coat, was standing over the others. His face
+with its fine straight nose would have been handsome had it not been for
+his thin, compressed, twitching lips and dull, gloomy, fixed eyes.
+Evidently possessed by some idea, he stood over those who were singing,
+and solemnly and jerkily flourished above their heads his white arm with
+the sleeve turned up to the elbow, trying unnaturally to spread out his
+dirty fingers. The sleeve of his coat kept slipping down and he always
+carefully rolled it up again with his left hand, as if it were most
+important that the sinewy white arm he was flourishing should be bare.
+In the midst of the song cries were heard, and fighting and blows in the
+passage and porch. The tall lad waved his arm.
+
+"Stop it!" he exclaimed peremptorily. "There's a fight, lads!" And,
+still rolling up his sleeve, he went out to the porch.
+
+The factory hands followed him. These men, who under the leadership of
+the tall lad were drinking in the dramshop that morning, had brought the
+publican some skins from the factory and for this had had drink served
+them. The blacksmiths from a neighboring smithy, hearing the sounds of
+revelry in the tavern and supposing it to have been broken into, wished
+to force their way in too and a fight in the porch had resulted.
+
+The publican was fighting one of the smiths at the door, and when the
+workmen came out the smith, wrenching himself free from the tavern
+keeper, fell face downward on the pavement.
+
+Another smith tried to enter the doorway, pressing against the publican
+with his chest.
+
+The lad with the turned-up sleeve gave the smith a blow in the face and
+cried wildly: "They're fighting us, lads!"
+
+At that moment the first smith got up and, scratching his bruised face
+to make it bleed, shouted in a tearful voice: "Police! Murder!...
+They've killed a man, lads!"
+
+"Oh, gracious me, a man beaten to death—killed!..." screamed a woman
+coming out of a gate close by.
+
+A crowd gathered round the bloodstained smith.
+
+"Haven't you robbed people enough—taking their last shirts?" said a
+voice addressing the publican. "What have you killed a man for, you
+thief?"
+
+The tall lad, standing in the porch, turned his bleared eyes from the
+publican to the smith and back again as if considering whom he ought to
+fight now.
+
+"Murderer!" he shouted suddenly to the publican. "Bind him, lads!"
+
+"I daresay you would like to bind me!" shouted the publican, pushing
+away the men advancing on him, and snatching his cap from his head he
+flung it on the ground.
+
+As if this action had some mysterious and menacing significance, the
+workmen surrounding the publican paused in indecision.
+
+"I know the law very well, mates! I'll take the matter to the captain of
+police. You think I won't get to him? Robbery is not permitted to
+anybody now a days!" shouted the publican, picking up his cap.
+
+"Come along then! Come along then!" the publican and the tall young
+fellow repeated one after the other, and they moved up the street
+together.
+
+The bloodstained smith went beside them. The factory hands and others
+followed behind, talking and shouting.
+
+At the corner of the Moroseyka, opposite a large house with closed
+shutters and bearing a bootmaker's signboard, stood a score of thin,
+worn-out, gloomy-faced bootmakers, wearing overalls and long tattered
+coats.
+
+"He should pay folks off properly," a thin workingman, with frowning
+brows and a straggly beard, was saying.
+
+"But he's sucked our blood and now he thinks he's quit of us. He's been
+misleading us all the week and now that he's brought us to this pass
+he's made off."
+
+On seeing the crowd and the bloodstained man the workman ceased
+speaking, and with eager curiosity all the bootmakers joined the moving
+crowd.
+
+"Where are all the folks going?"
+
+"Why, to the police, of course!"
+
+"I say, is it true that we have been beaten?" "And what did you think?
+Look what folks are saying."
+
+Questions and answers were heard. The publican, taking advantage of the
+increased crowd, dropped behind and returned to his tavern.
+
+The tall youth, not noticing the disappearance of his foe, waved his
+bare arm and went on talking incessantly, attracting general attention
+to himself. It was around him that the people chiefly crowded, expecting
+answers from him to the questions that occupied all their minds.
+
+"He must keep order, keep the law, that's what the government is there
+for. Am I not right, good Christians?" said the tall youth, with a
+scarcely perceptible smile. "He thinks there's no government! How can
+one do without government? Or else there would be plenty who'd rob us."
+
+"Why talk nonsense?" rejoined voices in the crowd. "Will they give up
+Moscow like this? They told you that for fun, and you believed it!
+Aren't there plenty of troops on the march? Let him in, indeed! That's
+what the government is for. You'd better listen to what people are
+saying," said some of the mob pointing to the tall youth.
+
+By the wall of China-Town a smaller group of people were gathered round
+a man in a frieze coat who held a paper in his hand.
+
+"An ukase, they are reading an ukase! Reading an ukase!" cried voices in
+the crowd, and the people rushed toward the reader.
+
+The man in the frieze coat was reading the broadsheet of August 31. When
+the crowd collected round him he seemed confused, but at the demand of
+the tall lad who had pushed his way up to him, he began in a rather
+tremulous voice to read the sheet from the beginning.
+
+"Early tomorrow I shall go to his Serene Highness," he read ("Sirin
+Highness," said the tall fellow with a triumphant smile on his lips and
+a frown on his brow), "to consult with him to act, and to aid the army
+to exterminate these scoundrels. We too will take part..." the reader
+went on, and then paused ("Do you see," shouted the youth victoriously,
+"he's going to clear up the whole affair for you...."), "in destroying
+them, and will send these visitors to the devil. I will come back to
+dinner, and we'll set to work. We will do, completely do, and undo these
+scoundrels."
+
+The last words were read out in the midst of complete silence. The tall
+lad hung his head gloomily. It was evident that no one had understood
+the last part. In particular, the words "I will come back to dinner,"
+evidently displeased both reader and audience. The people's minds were
+tuned to a high pitch and this was too simple and needlessly
+comprehensible—it was what anyone of them might have said and therefore
+was what an ukase emanating from the highest authority should not say.
+
+They all stood despondent and silent. The tall youth moved his lips and
+swayed from side to side.
+
+"We should ask him... that's he himself?"... "Yes, ask him indeed!...
+Why not? He'll explain"... voices in the rear of the crowd were suddenly
+heard saying, and the general attention turned to the police
+superintendent's trap which drove into the square attended by two
+mounted dragoons.
+
+The superintendent of police, who had gone that morning by Count
+Rostopchin's orders to burn the barges and had in connection with that
+matter acquired a large sum of money which was at that moment in his
+pocket, on seeing a crowd bearing down upon him told his coachman to
+stop.
+
+"What people are these?" he shouted to the men, who were moving singly
+and timidly in the direction of his trap.
+
+"What people are these?" he shouted again, receiving no answer.
+
+"Your honor..." replied the shopman in the frieze coat, "your honor, in
+accord with the proclamation of his highest excellency the count, they
+desire to serve, not sparing their lives, and it is not any kind of
+riot, but as his highest excellence said..."
+
+"The count has not left, he is here, and an order will be issued
+concerning you," said the superintendent of police. "Go on!" he ordered
+his coachman.
+
+The crowd halted, pressing around those who had heard what the
+superintendent had said, and looking at the departing trap.
+
+The superintendent of police turned round at that moment with a scared
+look, said something to his coachman, and his horses increased their
+speed.
+
+"It's a fraud, lads! Lead the way to him, himself!" shouted the tall
+youth. "Don't let him go, lads! Let him answer us! Keep him!" shouted
+different people and the people dashed in pursuit of the trap.
+
+Following the superintendent of police and talking loudly the crowd went
+in the direction of the Lubyanka Street.
+
+"There now, the gentry and merchants have gone away and left us to
+perish. Do they think we're dogs?" voices in the crowd were heard saying
+more and more frequently.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+On the evening of the first of September, after his interview with
+Kutúzov, Count Rostopchin had returned to Moscow mortified and offended
+because he had not been invited to attend the council of war, and
+because Kutúzov had paid no attention to his offer to take part in the
+defense of the city; amazed also at the novel outlook revealed to him at
+the camp, which treated the tranquillity of the capital and its
+patriotic fervor as not merely secondary but quite irrelevant and
+unimportant matters. Distressed, offended, and surprised by all this,
+Rostopchin had returned to Moscow. After supper he lay down on a sofa
+without undressing, and was awakened soon after midnight by a courier
+bringing him a letter from Kutúzov. This letter requested the count to
+send police officers to guide the troops through the town, as the army
+was retreating to the Ryazan road beyond Moscow. This was not news to
+Rostopchin. He had known that Moscow would be abandoned not merely since
+his interview the previous day with Kutúzov on the Poklonny Hill but
+ever since the battle of Borodino, for all the generals who came to
+Moscow after that battle had said unanimously that it was impossible to
+fight another battle, and since then the government property had been
+removed every night, and half the inhabitants had left the city with
+Rostopchin's own permission. Yet all the same this information
+astonished and irritated the count, coming as it did in the form of a
+simple note with an order from Kutúzov, and received at night, breaking
+in on his beauty sleep.
+
+When later on in his memoirs Count Rostopchin explained his actions at
+this time, he repeatedly says that he was then actuated by two important
+considerations: to maintain tranquillity in Moscow and expedite the
+departure of the inhabitants. If one accepts this twofold aim all
+Rostopchin's actions appear irreproachable. "Why were the holy relics,
+the arms, ammunition, gunpowder, and stores of corn not removed? Why
+were thousands of inhabitants deceived into believing that Moscow would
+not be given up—and thereby ruined?" "To preserve the tranquillity of
+the city," explains Count Rostopchin. "Why were bundles of useless
+papers from the government offices, and Leppich's balloon and other
+articles removed?" "To leave the town empty," explains Count Rostopchin.
+One need only admit that public tranquillity is in danger and any action
+finds a justification.
+
+All the horrors of the reign of terror were based only on solicitude for
+public tranquillity.
+
+On what, then, was Count Rostopchin's fear for the tranquillity of
+Moscow based in 1812? What reason was there for assuming any probability
+of an uprising in the city? The inhabitants were leaving it and the
+retreating troops were filling it. Why should that cause the masses to
+riot?
+
+Neither in Moscow nor anywhere in Russia did anything resembling an
+insurrection ever occur when the enemy entered a town. More than ten
+thousand people were still in Moscow on the first and second of
+September, and except for a mob in the governor's courtyard, assembled
+there at his bidding, nothing happened. It is obvious that there would
+have been even less reason to expect a disturbance among the people if
+after the battle of Borodino, when the surrender of Moscow became
+certain or at least probable, Rostopchin instead of exciting the people
+by distributing arms and broadsheets had taken steps to remove all the
+holy relics, the gunpowder, munitions, and money, and had told the
+population plainly that the town would be abandoned.
+
+Rostopchin, though he had patriotic sentiments, was a sanguine and
+impulsive man who had always moved in the highest administrative circles
+and had no understanding at all of the people he supposed himself to be
+guiding. Ever since the enemy's entry into Smolensk he had in
+imagination been playing the role of director of the popular feeling of
+"the heart of Russia." Not only did it seem to him (as to all
+administrators) that he controlled the external actions of Moscow's
+inhabitants, but he also thought he controlled their mental attitude by
+means of his broadsheets and posters, written in a coarse tone which the
+people despise in their own class and do not understand from those in
+authority. Rostopchin was so pleased with the fine role of leader of
+popular feeling, and had grown so used to it, that the necessity of
+relinquishing that role and abandoning Moscow without any heroic display
+took him unawares and he suddenly felt the ground slip away from under
+his feet, so that he positively did not know what to do. Though he knew
+it was coming, he did not till the last moment wholeheartedly believe
+that Moscow would be abandoned, and did not prepare for it. The
+inhabitants left against his wishes. If the government offices were
+removed, this was only done on the demand of officials to whom the count
+yielded reluctantly. He was absorbed in the role he had created for
+himself. As is often the case with those gifted with an ardent
+imagination, though he had long known that Moscow would be abandoned he
+knew it only with his intellect, he did not believe it in his heart and
+did not adapt himself mentally to this new position of affairs.
+
+All his painstaking and energetic activity (in how far it was useful and
+had any effect on the people is another question) had been simply
+directed toward arousing in the masses his own feeling of patriotic
+hatred of the French.
+
+But when events assumed their true historical character, when expressing
+hatred for the French in words proved insufficient, when it was not even
+possible to express that hatred by fighting a battle, when self-
+confidence was of no avail in relation to the one question before
+Moscow, when the whole population streamed out of Moscow as one man,
+abandoning their belongings and proving by that negative action all the
+depth of their national feeling, then the role chosen by Rostopchin
+suddenly appeared senseless. He unexpectedly felt himself ridiculous,
+weak, and alone, with no ground to stand on.
+
+When, awakened from his sleep, he received that cold, peremptory note
+from Kutúzov, he felt the more irritated the more he felt himself to
+blame. All that he had been specially put in charge of, the state
+property which he should have removed, was still in Moscow and it was no
+longer possible to take the whole of it away.
+
+"Who is to blame for it? Who has let things come to such a pass?" he
+ruminated. "Not I, of course. I had everything ready. I had Moscow
+firmly in hand. And this is what they have let it come to! Villains!
+Traitors!" he thought, without clearly defining who the villains and
+traitors were, but feeling it necessary to hate those traitors whoever
+they might be who were to blame for the false and ridiculous position in
+which he found himself.
+
+All that night Count Rostopchin issued orders, for which people came to
+him from all parts of Moscow. Those about him had never seen the count
+so morose and irritable.
+
+"Your excellency, the Director of the Registrar's Department has sent
+for instructions... From the Consistory, from the Senate, from the
+University, from the Foundling Hospital, the Suffragan has sent...
+asking for information.... What are your orders about the Fire Brigade?
+From the governor of the prison... from the superintendent of the
+lunatic asylum..." All night long such announcements were continually
+being received by the count.
+
+To all these inquiries he gave brief and angry replies indicating that
+orders from him were not now needed, that the whole affair, carefully
+prepared by him, had now been ruined by somebody, and that that somebody
+would have to bear the whole responsibility for all that might happen.
+
+"Oh, tell that blockhead," he said in reply to the question from the
+Registrar's Department, "that he should remain to guard his documents.
+Now why are you asking silly questions about the Fire Brigade? They have
+horses, let them be off to Vladimir, and not leave them to the French."
+
+"Your excellency, the superintendent of the lunatic asylum has come:
+what are your commands?"
+
+"My commands? Let them go away, that's all.... And let the lunatics out
+into the town. When lunatics command our armies God evidently means
+these other madmen to be free."
+
+In reply to an inquiry about the convicts in the prison, Count
+Rostopchin shouted angrily at the governor:
+
+"Do you expect me to give you two battalions—which we have not got—for a
+convoy? Release them, that's all about it!"
+
+"Your excellency, there are some political prisoners, Meshkov,
+Vereshchagin..."
+
+"Vereshchagin! Hasn't he been hanged yet?" shouted Rostopchin. "Bring
+him to me!"
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+Toward nine o'clock in the morning, when the troops were already moving
+through Moscow, nobody came to the count any more for instructions.
+Those who were able to get away were going of their own accord, those
+who remained behind decided for themselves what they must do.
+
+The count ordered his carriage that he might drive to Sokolniki, and sat
+in his study with folded hands, morose, sallow, and taciturn.
+
+In quiet and untroubled times it seems to every administrator that it is
+only by his efforts that the whole population under his rule is kept
+going, and in this consciousness of being indispensable every
+administrator finds the chief reward of his labor and efforts. While the
+sea of history remains calm the ruler-administrator in his frail bark,
+holding on with a boat hook to the ship of the people and himself
+moving, naturally imagines that his efforts move the ship he is holding
+on to. But as soon as a storm arises and the sea begins to heave and the
+ship to move, such a delusion is no longer possible. The ship moves
+independently with its own enormous motion, the boat hook no longer
+reaches the moving vessel, and suddenly the administrator, instead of
+appearing a ruler and a source of power, becomes an insignificant,
+useless, feeble man.
+
+Rostopchin felt this, and it was this which exasperated him.
+
+The superintendent of police, whom the crowd had stopped, went in to see
+him at the same time as an adjutant who informed the count that the
+horses were harnessed. They were both pale, and the superintendent of
+police, after reporting that he had executed the instructions he had
+received, informed the count that an immense crowd had collected in the
+courtyard and wished to see him.
+
+Without saying a word Rostopchin rose and walked hastily to his light,
+luxurious drawing room, went to the balcony door, took hold of the
+handle, let it go again, and went to the window from which he had a
+better view of the whole crowd. The tall lad was standing in front,
+flourishing his arm and saying something with a stern look. The blood-
+stained smith stood beside him with a gloomy face. A drone of voices was
+audible through the closed window.
+
+"Is my carriage ready?" asked Rostopchin, stepping back from the window.
+
+"It is, your excellency," replied the adjutant.
+
+Rostopchin went again to the balcony door.
+
+"But what do they want?" he asked the superintendent of police.
+
+"Your excellency, they say they have got ready, according to your
+orders, to go against the French, and they shouted something about
+treachery. But it is a turbulent crowd, your excellency—I hardly managed
+to get away from it. Your excellency, I venture to suggest..."
+
+"You may go. I don't need you to tell me what to do!" exclaimed
+Rostopchin angrily.
+
+He stood by the balcony door looking at the crowd.
+
+"This is what they have done with Russia! This is what they have done
+with me!" thought he, full of an irrepressible fury that welled up
+within him against the someone to whom what was happening might be
+attributed. As often happens with passionate people, he was mastered by
+anger but was still seeking an object on which to vent it. "Here is that
+mob, the dregs of the people," he thought as he gazed at the crowd:
+"this rabble they have roused by their folly! They want a victim," he
+thought as he looked at the tall lad flourishing his arm. And this
+thought occurred to him just because he himself desired a victim,
+something on which to vent his rage.
+
+"Is the carriage ready?" he asked again.
+
+"Yes, your excellency. What are your orders about Vereshchagin? He is
+waiting at the porch," said the adjutant.
+
+"Ah!" exclaimed Rostopchin, as if struck by an unexpected recollection.
+
+And rapidly opening the door he went resolutely out onto the balcony.
+The talking instantly ceased, hats and caps were doffed, and all eyes
+were raised to the count.
+
+"Good morning, lads!" said the count briskly and loudly. "Thank you for
+coming. I'll come out to you in a moment, but we must first settle with
+the villain. We must punish the villain who has caused the ruin of
+Moscow. Wait for me!"
+
+And the count stepped as briskly back into the room and slammed the door
+behind him.
+
+A murmur of approbation and satisfaction ran through the crowd. "He'll
+settle with all the villains, you'll see! And you said the French...
+He'll show you what law is!" the mob were saying as if reproving one
+another for their lack of confidence.
+
+A few minutes later an officer came hurriedly out of the front door,
+gave an order, and the dragoons formed up in line. The crowd moved
+eagerly from the balcony toward the porch. Rostopchin, coming out there
+with quick angry steps, looked hastily around as if seeking someone.
+
+"Where is he?" he inquired. And as he spoke he saw a young man coming
+round the corner of the house between two dragoons. He had a long thin
+neck, and his head, that had been half shaved, was again covered by
+short hair. This young man was dressed in a threadbare blue cloth coat
+lined with fox fur, that had once been smart, and dirty hempen convict
+trousers, over which were pulled his thin, dirty, trodden-down boots. On
+his thin, weak legs were heavy chains which hampered his irresolute
+movements.
+
+"Ah!" said Rostopchin, hurriedly turning away his eyes from the young
+man in the fur-lined coat and pointing to the bottom step of the porch.
+"Put him there."
+
+The young man in his clattering chains stepped clumsily to the spot
+indicated, holding away with one finger the coat collar which chafed his
+neck, turned his long neck twice this way and that, sighed, and
+submissively folded before him his thin hands, unused to work.
+
+For several seconds while the young man was taking his place on the step
+the silence continued. Only among the back rows of the people, who were
+all pressing toward the one spot, could sighs, groans, and the shuffling
+of feet be heard.
+
+While waiting for the young man to take his place on the step Rostopchin
+stood frowning and rubbing his face with his hand.
+
+"Lads!" said he, with a metallic ring in his voice. "This man,
+Vereshchagin, is the scoundrel by whose doing Moscow is perishing."
+
+The young man in the fur-lined coat, stooping a little, stood in a
+submissive attitude, his fingers clasped before him. His emaciated young
+face, disfigured by the half-shaven head, hung down hopelessly. At the
+count's first words he raised it slowly and looked up at him as if
+wishing to say something or at least to meet his eye. But Rostopchin did
+not look at him. A vein in the young man's long thin neck swelled like a
+cord and went blue behind the ear, and suddenly his face flushed.
+
+All eyes were fixed on him. He looked at the crowd, and rendered more
+hopeful by the expression he read on the faces there, he smiled sadly
+and timidly, and lowering his head shifted his feet on the step.
+
+"He has betrayed his Tsar and his country, he has gone over to
+Bonaparte. He alone of all the Russians has disgraced the Russian name,
+he has caused Moscow to perish," said Rostopchin in a sharp, even voice,
+but suddenly he glanced down at Vereshchagin who continued to stand in
+the same submissive attitude. As if inflamed by the sight, he raised his
+arm and addressed the people, almost shouting:
+
+"Deal with him as you think fit! I hand him over to you."
+
+The crowd remained silent and only pressed closer and closer to one
+another. To keep one another back, to breathe in that stifling
+atmosphere, to be unable to stir, and to await something unknown,
+uncomprehended, and terrible, was becoming unbearable. Those standing in
+front, who had seen and heard what had taken place before them, all
+stood with wide-open eyes and mouths, straining with all their strength,
+and held back the crowd that was pushing behind them.
+
+"Beat him!... Let the traitor perish and not disgrace the Russian name!"
+shouted Rostopchin. "Cut him down. I command it."
+
+Hearing not so much the words as the angry tone of Rostopchin's voice,
+the crowd moaned and heaved forward, but again paused.
+
+"Count!" exclaimed the timid yet theatrical voice of Vereshchagin in the
+midst of the momentary silence that ensued, "Count! One God is above us
+both...." He lifted his head and again the thick vein in his thin neck
+filled with blood and the color rapidly came and went in his face.
+
+He did not finish what he wished to say.
+
+"Cut him down! I command it..." shouted Rostopchin, suddenly growing
+pale like Vereshchagin.
+
+"Draw sabers!" cried the dragoon officer, drawing his own.
+
+Another still stronger wave flowed through the crowd and reaching the
+front ranks carried it swaying to the very steps of the porch. The tall
+youth, with a stony look on his face, and rigid and uplifted arm, stood
+beside Vereshchagin.
+
+"Saber him!" the dragoon officer almost whispered.
+
+And one of the soldiers, his face all at once distorted with fury,
+struck Vereshchagin on the head with the blunt side of his saber.
+
+"Ah!" cried Vereshchagin in meek surprise, looking round with a
+frightened glance as if not understanding why this was done to him. A
+similar moan of surprise and horror ran through the crowd. "O Lord!"
+exclaimed a sorrowful voice.
+
+But after the exclamation of surprise that had escaped from Vereshchagin
+he uttered a plaintive cry of pain, and that cry was fatal. The barrier
+of human feeling, strained to the utmost, that had held the crowd in
+check suddenly broke. The crime had begun and must now be completed. The
+plaintive moan of reproach was drowned by the threatening and angry roar
+of the crowd. Like the seventh and last wave that shatters a ship, that
+last irresistible wave burst from the rear and reached the front ranks,
+carrying them off their feet and engulfing them all. The dragoon was
+about to repeat his blow. Vereshchagin with a cry of horror, covering
+his head with his hands, rushed toward the crowd. The tall youth,
+against whom he stumbled, seized his thin neck with his hands and,
+yelling wildly, fell with him under the feet of the pressing, struggling
+crowd.
+
+Some beat and tore at Vereshchagin, others at the tall youth. And the
+screams of those that were being trampled on and of those who tried to
+rescue the tall lad only increased the fury of the crowd. It was a long
+time before the dragoons could extricate the bleeding youth, beaten
+almost to death. And for a long time, despite the feverish haste with
+which the mob tried to end the work that had been begun, those who were
+hitting, throttling, and tearing at Vereshchagin were unable to kill
+him, for the crowd pressed from all sides, swaying as one mass with them
+in the center and rendering it impossible for them either to kill him or
+let him go.
+
+"Hit him with an ax, eh!... Crushed?... Traitor, he sold Christ....
+Still alive... tenacious... serves him right! Torture serves a thief
+right. Use the hatchet!... What—still alive?"
+
+Only when the victim ceased to struggle and his cries changed to a long-
+drawn, measured death rattle did the crowd around his prostrate,
+bleeding corpse begin rapidly to change places. Each one came up,
+glanced at what had been done, and with horror, reproach, and
+astonishment pushed back again.
+
+"O Lord! The people are like wild beasts! How could he be alive?" voices
+in the crowd could be heard saying. "Quite a young fellow too... must
+have been a merchant's son. What men!... and they say he's not the right
+one.... How not the right one?... O Lord! And there's another has been
+beaten too—they say he's nearly done for.... Oh, the people... Aren't
+they afraid of sinning?..." said the same mob now, looking with pained
+distress at the dead body with its long, thin, half-severed neck and its
+livid face stained with blood and dust.
+
+A painstaking police officer, considering the presence of a corpse in
+his excellency's courtyard unseemly, told the dragoons to take it away.
+Two dragoons took it by its distorted legs and dragged it along the
+ground. The gory, dust-stained, half-shaven head with its long neck
+trailed twisting along the ground. The crowd shrank back from it.
+
+At the moment when Vereshchagin fell and the crowd closed in with savage
+yells and swayed about him, Rostopchin suddenly turned pale and, instead
+of going to the back entrance where his carriage awaited him, went with
+hurried steps and bent head, not knowing where and why, along the
+passage leading to the rooms on the ground floor. The count's face was
+white and he could not control the feverish twitching of his lower jaw.
+
+"This way, your excellency... Where are you going?... This way,
+please..." said a trembling, frightened voice behind him.
+
+Count Rostopchin was unable to reply and, turning obediently, went in
+the direction indicated. At the back entrance stood his calèche. The
+distant roar of the yelling crowd was audible even there. He hastily
+took his seat and told the coachman to drive him to his country house in
+Sokolniki.
+
+When they reached the Myasnitski Street and could no longer hear the
+shouts of the mob, the count began to repent. He remembered with
+dissatisfaction the agitation and fear he had betrayed before his
+subordinates. "The mob is terrible—disgusting," he said to himself in
+French. "They are like wolves whom nothing but flesh can appease."
+"Count! One God is above us both!"—Vereshchagin's words suddenly
+recurred to him, and a disagreeable shiver ran down his back. But this
+was only a momentary feeling and Count Rostopchin smiled disdainfully at
+himself. "I had other duties," thought he. "The people had to be
+appeased. Many other victims have perished and are perishing for the
+public good"—and he began thinking of his social duties to his family
+and to the city entrusted to him, and of himself—not himself as Theodore
+Vasilyevich Rostopchin (he fancied that Theodore Vasilyevich Rostopchin
+was sacrificing himself for the public good) but himself as governor,
+the representative of authority and of the Tsar. "Had I been simply
+Theodore Vasilyevich my course of action would have been quite
+different, but it was my duty to safeguard my life and dignity as
+commander-in-chief."
+
+Lightly swaying on the flexible springs of his carriage and no longer
+hearing the terrible sounds of the crowd, Rostopchin grew physically
+calm and, as always happens, as soon as he became physically tranquil
+his mind devised reasons why he should be mentally tranquil too. The
+thought which tranquillized Rostopchin was not a new one. Since the
+world began and men have killed one another no one has ever committed
+such a crime against his fellow man without comforting himself with this
+same idea. This idea is le bien public, the hypothetical welfare of
+other people.
+
+To a man not swayed by passion that welfare is never certain, but he who
+commits such a crime always knows just where that welfare lies. And
+Rostopchin now knew it.
+
+Not only did his reason not reproach him for what he had done, but he
+even found cause for self-satisfaction in having so successfully
+contrived to avail himself of a convenient opportunity to punish a
+criminal and at the same time pacify the mob.
+
+"Vereshchagin was tried and condemned to death," thought Rostopchin
+(though the Senate had only condemned Vereshchagin to hard labor), "he
+was a traitor and a spy. I could not let him go unpunished and so I have
+killed two birds with one stone: to appease the mob I gave them a victim
+and at the same time punished a miscreant."
+
+Having reached his country house and begun to give orders about domestic
+arrangements, the count grew quite tranquil.
+
+Half an hour later he was driving with his fast horses across the
+Sokolniki field, no longer thinking of what had occurred but considering
+what was to come. He was driving to the Yauza bridge where he had heard
+that Kutúzov was. Count Rostopchin was mentally preparing the angry and
+stinging reproaches he meant to address to Kutúzov for his deception. He
+would make that foxy old courtier feel that the responsibility for all
+the calamities that would follow the abandonment of the city and the
+ruin of Russia (as Rostopchin regarded it) would fall upon his doting
+old head. Planning beforehand what he would say to Kutúzov, Rostopchin
+turned angrily in his calèche and gazed sternly from side to side.
+
+The Sokolniki field was deserted. Only at the end of it, in front of the
+almshouse and the lunatic asylum, could be seen some people in white and
+others like them walking singly across the field shouting and
+gesticulating.
+
+One of these was running to cross the path of Count Rostopchin's
+carriage, and the count himself, his coachman, and his dragoons looked
+with vague horror and curiosity at these released lunatics and
+especially at the one running toward them.
+
+Swaying from side to side on his long, thin legs in his fluttering
+dressing gown, this lunatic was running impetuously, his gaze fixed on
+Rostopchin, shouting something in a hoarse voice and making signs to him
+to stop. The lunatic's solemn, gloomy face was thin and yellow, with its
+beard growing in uneven tufts. His black, agate pupils with saffron-
+yellow whites moved restlessly near the lower eyelids.
+
+"Stop! Pull up, I tell you!" he cried in a piercing voice, and again
+shouted something breathlessly with emphatic intonations and gestures.
+
+Coming abreast of the calèche he ran beside it.
+
+"Thrice have they slain me, thrice have I risen from the dead. They
+stoned me, crucified me... I shall rise... shall rise... shall rise.
+They have torn my body. The kingdom of God will be overthrown... Thrice
+will I overthrow it and thrice re-establish it!" he cried, raising his
+voice higher and higher.
+
+Count Rostopchin suddenly grew pale as he had done when the crowd closed
+in on Vereshchagin. He turned away. "Go fas... faster!" he cried in a
+trembling voice to his coachman. The calèche flew over the ground as
+fast as the horses could draw it, but for a long time Count Rostopchin
+still heard the insane despairing screams growing fainter in the
+distance, while his eyes saw nothing but the astonished, frightened,
+bloodstained face of "the traitor" in the fur-lined coat.
+
+Recent as that mental picture was, Rostopchin already felt that it had
+cut deep into his heart and drawn blood. Even now he felt clearly that
+the gory trace of that recollection would not pass with time, but that
+the terrible memory would, on the contrary, dwell in his heart ever more
+cruelly and painfully to the end of his life. He seemed still to hear
+the sound of his own words: "Cut him down! I command it...."
+
+"Why did I utter those words? It was by some accident I said them.... I
+need not have said them," he thought. "And then nothing would have
+happened." He saw the frightened and then infuriated face of the dragoon
+who dealt the blow, the look of silent, timid reproach that boy in the
+fur-lined coat had turned upon him. "But I did not do it for my own
+sake. I was bound to act that way.... The mob, the traitor... the public
+welfare," thought he.
+
+Troops were still crowding at the Yauza bridge. It was hot. Kutúzov,
+dejected and frowning, sat on a bench by the bridge toying with his whip
+in the sand when a calèche dashed up noisily. A man in a general's
+uniform with plumes in his hat went up to Kutúzov and said something in
+French. It was Count Rostopchin. He told Kutúzov that he had come
+because Moscow, the capital, was no more and only the army remained.
+
+"Things would have been different if your Serene Highness had not told
+me that you would not abandon Moscow without another battle; all this
+would not have happened," he said.
+
+Kutúzov looked at Rostopchin as if, not grasping what was said to him,
+he was trying to read something peculiar written at that moment on the
+face of the man addressing him. Rostopchin grew confused and became
+silent. Kutúzov slightly shook his head and not taking his penetrating
+gaze from Rostopchin's face muttered softly:
+
+"No! I shall not give up Moscow without a battle!"
+
+Whether Kutúzov was thinking of something entirely different when he
+spoke those words, or uttered them purposely, knowing them to be
+meaningless, at any rate Rostopchin made no reply and hastily left him.
+And strange to say, the Governor of Moscow, the proud Count Rostopchin,
+took up a Cossack whip and went to the bridge where he began with shouts
+to drive on the carts that blocked the way.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+Toward four o'clock in the afternoon Murat's troops were entering
+Moscow. In front rode a detachment of Wurttemberg hussars and behind
+them rode the King of Naples himself accompanied by a numerous suite.
+
+About the middle of the Arbat Street, near the Church of the Miraculous
+Icon of St. Nicholas, Murat halted to await news from the advanced
+detachment as to the condition in which they had found the citadel, le
+Kremlin.
+
+Around Murat gathered a group of those who had remained in Moscow. They
+all stared in timid bewilderment at the strange, long-haired commander
+dressed up in feathers and gold.
+
+"Is that their Tsar himself? He's not bad!" low voices could be heard
+saying.
+
+An interpreter rode up to the group.
+
+"Take off your cap... your caps!" These words went from one to another
+in the crowd. The interpreter addressed an old porter and asked if it
+was far to the Kremlin. The porter, listening in perplexity to the
+unfamiliar Polish accent and not realizing that the interpreter was
+speaking Russian, did not understand what was being said to him and
+slipped behind the others.
+
+Murat approached the interpreter and told him to ask where the Russian
+army was. One of the Russians understood what was asked and several
+voices at once began answering the interpreter. A French officer,
+returning from the advanced detachment, rode up to Murat and reported
+that the gates of the citadel had been barricaded and that there was
+probably an ambuscade there.
+
+"Good!" said Murat and, turning to one of the gentlemen in his suite,
+ordered four light guns to be moved forward to fire at the gates.
+
+The guns emerged at a trot from the column following Murat and advanced
+up the Arbat. When they reached the end of the Vozdvizhenka Street they
+halted and drew in the Square. Several French officers superintended the
+placing of the guns and looked at the Kremlin through field glasses.
+
+The bells in the Kremlin were ringing for vespers, and this sound
+troubled the French. They imagined it to be a call to arms. A few
+infantrymen ran to the Kutafyev Gate. Beams and wooden screens had been
+put there, and two musket shots rang out from under the gate as soon as
+an officer and men began to run toward it. A general who was standing by
+the guns shouted some words of command to the officer, and the latter
+ran back again with his men.
+
+The sound of three more shots came from the gate.
+
+One shot struck a French soldier's foot, and from behind the screens
+came the strange sound of a few voices shouting. Instantly as at a word
+of command the expression of cheerful serenity on the faces of the
+French general, officers, and men changed to one of determined
+concentrated readiness for strife and suffering. To all of them from the
+marshal to the least soldier, that place was not the Vozdvizhenka,
+Mokhavaya, or Kutafyev Street, nor the Troitsa Gate (places familiar in
+Moscow), but a new battlefield which would probably prove sanguinary.
+And all made ready for that battle. The cries from the gates ceased. The
+guns were advanced, the artillerymen blew the ash off their linstocks,
+and an officer gave the word "Fire!" This was followed by two whistling
+sounds of canister shot, one after another. The shot rattled against the
+stone of the gate and upon the wooden beams and screens, and two
+wavering clouds of smoke rose over the Square.
+
+A few instants after the echo of the reports resounding over the stone-
+built Kremlin had died away the French heard a strange sound above their
+head. Thousands of crows rose above the walls and circled in the air,
+cawing and noisily flapping their wings. Together with that sound came a
+solitary human cry from the gateway and amid the smoke appeared the
+figure of a bareheaded man in a peasant's coat. He grasped a musket and
+took aim at the French. "Fire!" repeated the officer once more, and the
+reports of a musket and of two cannon shots were heard simultaneously.
+The gate was again hidden by smoke.
+
+Nothing more stirred behind the screens and the French infantry soldiers
+and officers advanced to the gate. In the gateway lay three wounded and
+four dead. Two men in peasant coats ran away at the foot of the wall,
+toward the Znamenka.
+
+"Clear that away!" said the officer, pointing to the beams and the
+corpses, and the French soldiers, after dispatching the wounded, threw
+the corpses over the parapet.
+
+Who these men were nobody knew. "Clear that away!" was all that was said
+of them, and they were thrown over the parapet and removed later on that
+they might not stink. Thiers alone dedicates a few eloquent lines to
+their memory: "These wretches had occupied the sacred citadel, having
+supplied themselves with guns from the arsenal, and fired" (the
+wretches) "at the French. Some of them were sabered and the Kremlin was
+purged of their presence."
+
+Murat was informed that the way had been cleared. The French entered the
+gates and began pitching their camp in the Senate Square. Out of the
+windows of the Senate House the soldiers threw chairs into the Square
+for fuel and kindled fires there.
+
+Other detachments passed through the Kremlin and encamped along the
+Moroseyka, the Lubyanka, and Pokrovka Streets. Others quartered
+themselves along the Vozdvizhenka, the Nikolski, and the Tverskoy
+Streets. No masters of the houses being found anywhere, the French were
+not billeted on the inhabitants as is usual in towns but lived in it as
+in a camp.
+
+Though tattered, hungry, worn out, and reduced to a third of their
+original number, the French entered Moscow in good marching order. It
+was a weary and famished, but still a fighting and menacing army. But it
+remained an army only until its soldiers had dispersed into their
+different lodgings. As soon as the men of the various regiments began to
+disperse among the wealthy and deserted houses, the army was lost
+forever and there came into being something nondescript, neither
+citizens nor soldiers but what are known as marauders. When five weeks
+later these same men left Moscow, they no longer formed an army. They
+were a mob of marauders, each carrying a quantity of articles which
+seemed to him valuable or useful. The aim of each man when he left
+Moscow was no longer, as it had been, to conquer, but merely to keep
+what he had acquired. Like a monkey which puts its paw into the narrow
+neck of a jug, and having seized a handful of nuts will not open its
+fist for fear of losing what it holds, and therefore perishes, the
+French when they left Moscow had inevitably to perish because they
+carried their loot with them, yet to abandon what they had stolen was as
+impossible for them as it is for the monkey to open its paw and let go
+of its nuts. Ten minutes after each regiment had entered a Moscow
+district, not a soldier or officer was left. Men in military uniforms
+and Hessian boots could be seen through the windows, laughing and
+walking through the rooms. In cellars and storerooms similar men were
+busy among the provisions, and in the yards unlocking or breaking open
+coach house and stable doors, lighting fires in kitchens and kneading
+and baking bread with rolled-up sleeves, and cooking; or frightening,
+amusing, or caressing women and children. There were many such men both
+in the shops and houses—but there was no army.
+
+Order after order was issued by the French commanders that day
+forbidding the men to disperse about the town, sternly forbidding any
+violence to the inhabitants or any looting, and announcing a roll call
+for that very evening. But despite all these measures the men, who had
+till then constituted an army, flowed all over the wealthy, deserted
+city with its comforts and plentiful supplies. As a hungry herd of
+cattle keeps well together when crossing a barren field, but gets out of
+hand and at once disperses uncontrollably as soon as it reaches rich
+pastures, so did the army disperse all over the wealthy city.
+
+No residents were left in Moscow, and the soldiers—like water
+percolating through sand—spread irresistibly through the city in all
+directions from the Kremlin into which they had first marched. The
+cavalry, on entering a merchant's house that had been abandoned and
+finding there stabling more than sufficient for their horses, went on,
+all the same, to the next house which seemed to them better. Many of
+them appropriated several houses, chalked their names on them, and
+quarreled and even fought with other companies for them. Before they had
+had time to secure quarters the soldiers ran out into the streets to see
+the city and, hearing that everything had been abandoned, rushed to
+places where valuables were to be had for the taking. The officers
+followed to check the soldiers and were involuntarily drawn into doing
+the same. In Carriage Row carriages had been left in the shops, and
+generals flocked there to select calèches and coaches for themselves.
+The few inhabitants who had remained invited commanding officers to
+their houses, hoping thereby to secure themselves from being plundered.
+There were masses of wealth and there seemed no end to it. All around
+the quarters occupied by the French were other regions still unexplored
+and unoccupied where, they thought, yet greater riches might be found.
+And Moscow engulfed the army ever deeper and deeper. When water is
+spilled on dry ground both the dry ground and the water disappear and
+mud results; and in the same way the entry of the famished army into the
+rich and deserted city resulted in fires and looting and the destruction
+of both the army and the wealthy city.
+
+The French attributed the Fire of Moscow au patriotisme feroce de
+Rostopchine, * the Russians to the barbarity of the French. In reality,
+however, it was not, and could not be, possible to explain the burning
+of Moscow by making any individual, or any group of people, responsible
+for it. Moscow was burned because it found itself in a position in which
+any town built of wood was bound to burn, quite apart from whether it
+had, or had not, a hundred and thirty inferior fire engines. Deserted
+Moscow had to burn as inevitably as a heap of shavings has to burn on
+which sparks continually fall for several days. A town built of wood,
+where scarcely a day passes without conflagrations when the house owners
+are in residence and a police force is present, cannot help burning when
+its inhabitants have left it and it is occupied by soldiers who smoke
+pipes, make campfires of the Senate chairs in the Senate Square, and
+cook themselves meals twice a day. In peacetime it is only necessary to
+billet troops in the villages of any district and the number of fires in
+that district immediately increases. How much then must the probability
+of fire be increased in an abandoned, wooden town where foreign troops
+are quartered. "Le patriotisme feroce de Rostopchine" and the barbarity
+of the French were not to blame in the matter. Moscow was set on fire by
+the soldiers' pipes, kitchens, and campfires, and by the carelessness of
+enemy soldiers occupying houses they did not own. Even if there was any
+arson (which is very doubtful, for no one had any reason to burn the
+houses—in any case a troublesome and dangerous thing to do), arson
+cannot be regarded as the cause, for the same thing would have happened
+without any incendiarism.
+
+* To Rostopchin's ferocious patriotism.
+
+However tempting it might be for the French to blame Rostopchin's
+ferocity and for Russians to blame the scoundrel Bonaparte, or later on
+to place an heroic torch in the hands of their own people, it is
+impossible not to see that there could be no such direct cause of the
+fire, for Moscow had to burn as every village, factory, or house must
+burn which is left by its owners and in which strangers are allowed to
+live and cook their porridge. Moscow was burned by its inhabitants, it
+is true, but by those who had abandoned it and not by those who remained
+in it. Moscow when occupied by the enemy did not remain intact like
+Berlin, Vienna, and other towns, simply because its inhabitants
+abandoned it and did not welcome the French with bread and salt, nor
+bring them the keys of the city.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+The absorption of the French by Moscow, radiating starwise as it did,
+only reached the quarter where Pierre was staying by the evening of the
+second of September.
+
+After the last two days spent in solitude and unusual circumstances,
+Pierre was in a state bordering on insanity. He was completely obsessed
+by one persistent thought. He did not know how or when this thought had
+taken such possession of him, but he remembered nothing of the past,
+understood nothing of the present, and all he saw and heard appeared to
+him like a dream.
+
+He had left home only to escape the intricate tangle of life's demands
+that enmeshed him, and which in his present condition he was unable to
+unravel. He had gone to Joseph Alexeevich's house, on the plea of
+sorting the deceased's books and papers, only in search of rest from
+life's turmoil, for in his mind the memory of Joseph Alexeevich was
+connected with a world of eternal, solemn, and calm thoughts, quite
+contrary to the restless confusion into which he felt himself being
+drawn. He sought a quiet refuge, and in Joseph Alexeevich's study he
+really found it. When he sat with his elbows on the dusty writing table
+in the deathlike stillness of the study, calm and significant memories
+of the last few days rose one after another in his imagination,
+particularly of the battle of Borodino and of that vague sense of his
+own insignificance and insincerity compared with the truth, simplicity,
+and strength of the class of men he mentally classed as they. When
+Gerasim roused him from his reverie the idea occurred to him of taking
+part in the popular defense of Moscow which he knew was projected. And
+with that object he had asked Gerasim to get him a peasant's coat and a
+pistol, confiding to him his intentions of remaining in Joseph
+Alexeevich's house and keeping his name secret. Then during the first
+day spent in inaction and solitude (he tried several times to fix his
+attention on the masonic manuscripts, but was unable to do so) the idea
+that had previously occurred to him of the cabalistic significance of
+his name in connection with Bonaparte's more than once vaguely presented
+itself. But the idea that he, L'russe Besuhof, was destined to set a
+limit to the power of the Beast was as yet only one of the fancies that
+often passed through his mind and left no trace behind.
+
+When, having bought the coat merely with the object of taking part among
+the people in the defense of Moscow, Pierre had met the Rostóvs and
+Natásha had said to him: "Are you remaining in Moscow?... How splendid!"
+the thought flashed into his mind that it really would be a good thing,
+even if Moscow were taken, for him to remain there and do what he was
+predestined to do.
+
+Next day, with the sole idea of not sparing himself and not lagging in
+any way behind them, Pierre went to the Three Hills gate. But when he
+returned to the house convinced that Moscow would not be defended, he
+suddenly felt that what before had seemed to him merely a possibility
+had now become absolutely necessary and inevitable. He must remain in
+Moscow, concealing his name, and must meet Napoleon and kill him, and
+either perish or put an end to the misery of all Europe—which it seemed
+to him was solely due to Napoleon.
+
+Pierre knew all the details of the attempt on Bonaparte's life in 1809
+by a German student in Vienna, and knew that the student had been shot.
+And the risk to which he would expose his life by carrying out his
+design excited him still more.
+
+Two equally strong feelings drew Pierre irresistibly to this purpose.
+The first was a feeling of the necessity of sacrifice and suffering in
+view of the common calamity, the same feeling that had caused him to go
+to Mozhaysk on the twenty-fifth and to make his way to the very thick of
+the battle and had now caused him to run away from his home and, in
+place of the luxury and comfort to which he was accustomed, to sleep on
+a hard sofa without undressing and eat the same food as Gerasim. The
+other was that vague and quite Russian feeling of contempt for
+everything conventional, artificial, and human—for everything the
+majority of men regard as the greatest good in the world. Pierre had
+first experienced this strange and fascinating feeling at the Sloboda
+Palace, when he had suddenly felt that wealth, power, and life—all that
+men so painstakingly acquire and guard—if it has any worth has so only
+by reason of the joy with which it can all be renounced.
+
+It was the feeling that induces a volunteer recruit to spend his last
+penny on drink, and a drunken man to smash mirrors or glasses for no
+apparent reason and knowing that it will cost him all the money he
+possesses: the feeling which causes a man to perform actions which from
+an ordinary point of view are insane, to test, as it were, his personal
+power and strength, affirming the existence of a higher, nonhuman
+criterion of life.
+
+From the very day Pierre had experienced this feeling for the first time
+at the Sloboda Palace he had been continuously under its influence, but
+only now found full satisfaction for it. Moreover, at this moment Pierre
+was supported in his design and prevented from renouncing it by what he
+had already done in that direction. If he were now to leave Moscow like
+everyone else, his flight from home, the peasant coat, the pistol, and
+his announcement to the Rostóvs that he would remain in Moscow would all
+become not merely meaningless but contemptible and ridiculous, and to
+this Pierre was very sensitive.
+
+Pierre's physical condition, as is always the case, corresponded to his
+mental state. The unaccustomed coarse food, the vodka he drank during
+those days, the absence of wine and cigars, his dirty unchanged linen,
+two almost sleepless nights passed on a short sofa without bedding—all
+this kept him in a state of excitement bordering on insanity.
+
+It was two o'clock in the afternoon. The French had already entered
+Moscow. Pierre knew this, but instead of acting he only thought about
+his undertaking, going over its minutest details in his mind. In his
+fancy he did not clearly picture to himself either the striking of the
+blow or the death of Napoleon, but with extraordinary vividness and
+melancholy enjoyment imagined his own destruction and heroic endurance.
+
+"Yes, alone, for the sake of all, I must do it or perish!" he thought.
+"Yes, I will approach... and then suddenly... with pistol or dagger? But
+that is all the same! 'It is not I but the hand of Providence that
+punishes thee,' I shall say," thought he, imagining what he would say
+when killing Napoleon. "Well then, take me and execute me!" he went on,
+speaking to himself and bowing his head with a sad but firm expression.
+
+While Pierre, standing in the middle of the room, was talking to himself
+in this way, the study door opened and on the threshold appeared the
+figure of Makar Alexeevich, always so timid before but now quite
+transformed.
+
+His dressing gown was unfastened, his face red and distorted. He was
+obviously drunk. On seeing Pierre he grew confused at first, but
+noticing embarrassment on Pierre's face immediately grew bold and,
+staggering on his thin legs, advanced into the middle of the room.
+
+"They're frightened," he said confidentially in a hoarse voice. "I say I
+won't surrender, I say... Am I not right, sir?"
+
+He paused and then suddenly seeing the pistol on the table seized it
+with unexpected rapidity and ran out into the corridor.
+
+Gerasim and the porter, who had followed Makar Alexeevich, stopped him
+in the vestibule and tried to take the pistol from him. Pierre, coming
+out into the corridor, looked with pity and repulsion at the half-crazy
+old man. Makar Alexeevich, frowning with exertion, held on to the pistol
+and screamed hoarsely, evidently with some heroic fancy in his head.
+
+"To arms! Board them! No, you shan't get it," he yelled.
+
+"That will do, please, that will do. Have the goodness—please, sir, to
+let go! Please, sir..." pleaded Gerasim, trying carefully to steer Makar
+Alexeevich by the elbows back to the door.
+
+"Who are you? Bonaparte!..." shouted Makar Alexeevich.
+
+"That's not right, sir. Come to your room, please, and rest. Allow me to
+have the pistol."
+
+"Be off, thou base slave! Touch me not! See this?" shouted Makar
+Alexeevich, brandishing the pistol. "Board them!"
+
+"Catch hold!" whispered Gerasim to the porter.
+
+They seized Makar Alexeevich by the arms and dragged him to the door.
+
+The vestibule was filled with the discordant sounds of a struggle and of
+a tipsy, hoarse voice.
+
+Suddenly a fresh sound, a piercing feminine scream, reverberated from
+the porch and the cook came running into the vestibule.
+
+"It's them! Gracious heavens! O Lord, four of them, horsemen!" she
+cried.
+
+Gerasim and the porter let Makar Alexeevich go, and in the now silent
+corridor the sound of several hands knocking at the front door could be
+heard.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+Pierre, having decided that until he had carried out his design he would
+disclose neither his identity nor his knowledge of French, stood at the
+half-open door of the corridor, intending to conceal himself as soon as
+the French entered. But the French entered and still Pierre did not
+retire—an irresistible curiosity kept him there.
+
+There were two of them. One was an officer—a tall, soldierly, handsome
+man—the other evidently a private or an orderly, sunburned, short, and
+thin, with sunken cheeks and a dull expression. The officer walked in
+front, leaning on a stick and slightly limping. When he had advanced a
+few steps he stopped, having apparently decided that these were good
+quarters, turned round to the soldiers standing at the entrance, and in
+a loud voice of command ordered them to put up the horses. Having done
+that, the officer, lifting his elbow with a smart gesture, stroked his
+mustache and lightly touched his hat.
+
+"Bonjour, la compagnie!" * said he gaily, smiling and looking about him.
+
+* "Good day, everybody!"
+
+No one gave any reply.
+
+"Vous etes le bourgeois?" * the officer asked Gerasim.
+
+* "Are you the master here?"
+
+Gerasim gazed at the officer with an alarmed and inquiring look.
+
+"Quartier, quartier, logement!" said the officer, looking down at the
+little man with a condescending and good-natured smile. "Les francais
+sont de bons enfants. Que diable! Voyons! Ne nous fachons pas, mon
+vieux!" * added he, clapping the scared and silent Gerasim on the
+shoulder. "Well, does no one speak French in this establishment?" he
+asked again in French, looking around and meeting Pierre's eyes. Pierre
+moved away from the door.
+
+* "Quarters, quarters, lodgings! The French are good fellows. What the
+devil! There, don't let us be cross, old fellow!"
+
+Again the officer turned to Gerasim and asked him to show him the rooms
+in the house.
+
+"Master, not here—don't understand... me, you..." said Gerasim, trying
+to render his words more comprehensible by contorting them.
+
+Still smiling, the French officer spread out his hands before Gerasim's
+nose, intimating that he did not understand him either, and moved,
+limping, to the door at which Pierre was standing. Pierre wished to go
+away and conceal himself, but at that moment he saw Makar Alexeevich
+appearing at the open kitchen door with the pistol in his hand. With a
+madman's cunning, Makar Alexeevich eyed the Frenchman, raised his
+pistol, and took aim.
+
+"Board them!" yelled the tipsy man, trying to press the trigger. Hearing
+the yell the officer turned round, and at the same moment Pierre threw
+himself on the drunkard. Just when Pierre snatched at and struck up the
+pistol Makar Alexeevich at last got his fingers on the trigger, there
+was a deafening report, and all were enveloped in a cloud of smoke. The
+Frenchman turned pale and rushed to the door.
+
+Forgetting his intention of concealing his knowledge of French, Pierre,
+snatching away the pistol and throwing it down, ran up to the officer
+and addressed him in French.
+
+"You are not wounded?" he asked.
+
+"I think not," answered the Frenchman, feeling himself over. "But I have
+had a lucky escape this time," he added, pointing to the damaged plaster
+of the wall. "Who is that man?" said he, looking sternly at Pierre.
+
+"Oh, I am really in despair at what has occurred," said Pierre rapidly,
+quite forgetting the part he had intended to play. "He is an unfortunate
+madman who did not know what he was doing."
+
+The officer went up to Makar Alexeevich and took him by the collar.
+
+Makar Alexeevich was standing with parted lips, swaying, as if about to
+fall asleep, as he leaned against the wall.
+
+"Brigand! You shall pay for this," said the Frenchman, letting go of
+him. "We French are merciful after victory, but we do not pardon
+traitors," he added, with a look of gloomy dignity and a fine energetic
+gesture.
+
+Pierre continued, in French, to persuade the officer not to hold that
+drunken imbecile to account. The Frenchman listened in silence with the
+same gloomy expression, but suddenly turned to Pierre with a smile. For
+a few seconds he looked at him in silence. His handsome face assumed a
+melodramatically gentle expression and he held out his hand.
+
+"You have saved my life. You are French," said he.
+
+For a Frenchman that deduction was indubitable. Only a Frenchman could
+perform a great deed, and to save his life—the life of M. Ramballe,
+captain of the 13th Light Regiment—was undoubtedly a very great deed.
+
+But however indubitable that conclusion and the officer's conviction
+based upon it, Pierre felt it necessary to disillusion him.
+
+"I am Russian," he said quickly.
+
+"Tut, tut, tut! Tell that to others," said the officer, waving his
+finger before his nose and smiling. "You shall tell me all about that
+presently. I am delighted to meet a compatriot. Well, and what are we to
+do with this man?" he added, addressing himself to Pierre as to a
+brother.
+
+Even if Pierre were not a Frenchman, having once received that loftiest
+of human appellations he could not renounce it, said the officer's look
+and tone. In reply to his last question Pierre again explained who Makar
+Alexeevich was and how just before their arrival that drunken imbecile
+had seized the loaded pistol which they had not had time to recover from
+him, and begged the officer to let the deed go unpunished.
+
+The Frenchman expanded his chest and made a majestic gesture with his
+arm.
+
+"You have saved my life! You are French. You ask his pardon? I grant it
+you. Lead that man away!" said he quickly and energetically, and taking
+the arm of Pierre whom he had promoted to be a Frenchman for saving his
+life, he went with him into the room.
+
+The soldiers in the yard, hearing the shot, came into the passage asking
+what had happened, and expressed their readiness to punish the culprits,
+but the officer sternly checked them.
+
+"You will be called in when you are wanted," he said.
+
+The soldiers went out again, and the orderly, who had meanwhile had time
+to visit the kitchen, came up to his officer.
+
+"Captain, there is soup and a leg of mutton in the kitchen," said he.
+"Shall I serve them up?"
+
+"Yes, and some wine," answered the captain.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+When the French officer went into the room with Pierre the latter again
+thought it his duty to assure him that he was not French and wished to
+go away, but the officer would not hear of it. He was so very polite,
+amiable, good-natured, and genuinely grateful to Pierre for saving his
+life that Pierre had not the heart to refuse, and sat down with him in
+the parlor—the first room they entered. To Pierre's assurances that he
+was not a Frenchman, the captain, evidently not understanding how anyone
+could decline so flattering an appellation, shrugged his shoulders and
+said that if Pierre absolutely insisted on passing for a Russian let it
+be so, but for all that he would be forever bound to Pierre by gratitude
+for saving his life.
+
+Had this man been endowed with the slightest capacity for perceiving the
+feelings of others, and had he at all understood what Pierre's feelings
+were, the latter would probably have left him, but the man's animated
+obtuseness to everything other than himself disarmed Pierre.
+
+"A Frenchman or a Russian prince incognito," said the officer, looking
+at Pierre's fine though dirty linen and at the ring on his finger. "I
+owe my life to you and offer you my friendship. A Frenchman never
+forgets either an insult or a service. I offer you my friendship. That
+is all I can say."
+
+There was so much good nature and nobility (in the French sense of the
+word) in the officer's voice, in the expression of his face and in his
+gestures, that Pierre, unconsciously smiling in response to the
+Frenchman's smile, pressed the hand held out to him.
+
+"Captain Ramballe, of the 13th Light Regiment, Chevalier of the Legion
+of Honor for the affair on the seventh of September," he introduced
+himself, a self-satisfied irrepressible smile puckering his lips under
+his mustache. "Will you now be so good as to tell me with whom I have
+the honor of conversing so pleasantly, instead of being in the ambulance
+with that maniac's bullet in my body?"
+
+Pierre replied that he could not tell him his name and, blushing, began
+to try to invent a name and to say something about his reason for
+concealing it, but the Frenchman hastily interrupted him.
+
+"Oh, please!" said he. "I understand your reasons. You are an officer...
+a superior officer perhaps. You have borne arms against us. That's not
+my business. I owe you my life. That is enough for me. I am quite at
+your service. You belong to the gentry?" he concluded with a shade of
+inquiry in his tone. Pierre bent his head. "Your baptismal name, if you
+please. That is all I ask. Monsieur Pierre, you say.... That's all I
+want to know."
+
+When the mutton and an omelet had been served and a samovar and vodka
+brought, with some wine which the French had taken from a Russian cellar
+and brought with them, Ramballe invited Pierre to share his dinner, and
+himself began to eat greedily and quickly like a healthy and hungry man,
+munching his food rapidly with his strong teeth, continually smacking
+his lips, and repeating—"Excellent! Delicious!" His face grew red and
+was covered with perspiration. Pierre was hungry and shared the dinner
+with pleasure. Morel, the orderly, brought some hot water in a saucepan
+and placed a bottle of claret in it. He also brought a bottle of kvass,
+taken from the kitchen for them to try. That beverage was already known
+to the French and had been given a special name. They called it limonade
+de cochon (pig's lemonade), and Morel spoke well of the limonade de
+cochon he had found in the kitchen. But as the captain had the wine they
+had taken while passing through Moscow, he left the kvass to Morel and
+applied himself to the bottle of Bordeaux. He wrapped the bottle up to
+its neck in a table napkin and poured out wine for himself and for
+Pierre. The satisfaction of his hunger and the wine rendered the captain
+still more lively and he chatted incessantly all through dinner.
+
+"Yes, my dear Monsieur Pierre, I owe you a fine votive candle for saving
+me from that maniac.... You see, I have bullets enough in my body
+already. Here is one I got at Wagram" (he touched his side) "and a
+second at Smolensk"—he showed a scar on his cheek—"and this leg which as
+you see does not want to march, I got that on the seventh at the great
+battle of la Moskowa. Sacre Dieu! It was splendid! That deluge of fire
+was worth seeing. It was a tough job you set us there, my word! You may
+be proud of it! And on my honor, in spite of the cough I caught there, I
+should be ready to begin again. I pity those who did not see it."
+
+"I was there," said Pierre.
+
+"Bah, really? So much the better! You are certainly brave foes. The
+great redoubt held out well, by my pipe!" continued the Frenchman. "And
+you made us pay dear for it. I was at it three times—sure as I sit here.
+Three times we reached the guns and three times we were thrown back like
+cardboard figures. Oh, it was beautiful, Monsieur Pierre! Your
+grenadiers were splendid, by heaven! I saw them close up their ranks six
+times in succession and march as if on parade. Fine fellows! Our King of
+Naples, who knows what's what, cried 'Bravo!' Ha, ha! So you are one of
+us soldiers!" he added, smiling, after a momentary pause. "So much the
+better, so much the better, Monsieur Pierre! Terrible in battle...
+gallant... with the fair" (he winked and smiled), "that's what the
+French are, Monsieur Pierre, aren't they?"
+
+The captain was so naïvely and good-humoredly gay, so real, and so
+pleased with himself that Pierre almost winked back as he looked merrily
+at him. Probably the word "gallant" turned the captain's thoughts to the
+state of Moscow.
+
+"Apropos, tell me please, is it true that the women have all left
+Moscow? What a queer idea! What had they to be afraid of?"
+
+"Would not the French ladies leave Paris if the Russians entered it?"
+asked Pierre.
+
+"Ha, ha, ha!" The Frenchman emitted a merry, sanguine chuckle, patting
+Pierre on the shoulder. "What a thing to say!" he exclaimed. "Paris?...
+But Paris, Paris..."
+
+"Paris—the capital of the world," Pierre finished his remark for him.
+
+The captain looked at Pierre. He had a habit of stopping short in the
+middle of his talk and gazing intently with his laughing, kindly eyes.
+
+"Well, if you hadn't told me you were Russian, I should have wagered
+that you were Parisian! You have that... I don't know what, that..." and
+having uttered this compliment, he again gazed at him in silence.
+
+"I have been in Paris. I spent years there," said Pierre.
+
+"Oh yes, one sees that plainly. Paris!... A man who doesn't know Paris
+is a savage. You can tell a Parisian two leagues off. Paris is Talma, la
+Duchenois, Potier, the Sorbonne, the boulevards," and noticing that his
+conclusion was weaker than what had gone before, he added quickly:
+"There is only one Paris in the world. You have been to Paris and have
+remained Russian. Well, I don't esteem you the less for it."
+
+Under the influence of the wine he had drunk, and after the days he had
+spent alone with his depressing thoughts, Pierre involuntarily enjoyed
+talking with this cheerful and good-natured man.
+
+"To return to your ladies—I hear they are lovely. What a wretched idea
+to go and bury themselves in the steppes when the French army is in
+Moscow. What a chance those girls have missed! Your peasants, now—that's
+another thing; but you civilized people, you ought to know us better
+than that. We took Vienna, Berlin, Madrid, Naples, Rome, Warsaw, all the
+world's capitals.... We are feared, but we are loved. We are nice to
+know. And then the Emperor..." he began, but Pierre interrupted him.
+
+"The Emperor," Pierre repeated, and his face suddenly became sad and
+embarrassed, "is the Emperor...?"
+
+"The Emperor? He is generosity, mercy, justice, order, genius—that's
+what the Emperor is! It is I, Ramballe, who tell you so.... I assure you
+I was his enemy eight years ago. My father was an emigrant count.... But
+that man has vanquished me. He has taken hold of me. I could not resist
+the sight of the grandeur and glory with which he has covered France.
+When I understood what he wanted—when I saw that he was preparing a bed
+of laurels for us, you know, I said to myself: 'That is a monarch,' and
+I devoted myself to him! So there! Oh yes, mon cher, he is the greatest
+man of the ages past or future."
+
+"Is he in Moscow?" Pierre stammered with a guilty look.
+
+The Frenchman looked at his guilty face and smiled.
+
+"No, he will make his entry tomorrow," he replied, and continued his
+talk.
+
+Their conversation was interrupted by the cries of several voices at the
+gate and by Morel, who came to say that some Wurttemberg hussars had
+come and wanted to put up their horses in the yard where the captain's
+horses were. This difficulty had arisen chiefly because the hussars did
+not understand what was said to them in French.
+
+The captain had their senior sergeant called in, and in a stern voice
+asked him to what regiment he belonged, who was his commanding officer,
+and by what right he allowed himself to claim quarters that were already
+occupied. The German who knew little French, answered the two first
+questions by giving the names of his regiment and of his commanding
+officer, but in reply to the third question which he did not understand
+said, introducing broken French into his own German, that he was the
+quartermaster of the regiment and his commander had ordered him to
+occupy all the houses one after another. Pierre, who knew German,
+translated what the German said to the captain and gave the captain's
+reply to the Wurttemberg hussar in German. When he had understood what
+was said to him, the German submitted and took his men elsewhere. The
+captain went out into the porch and gave some orders in a loud voice.
+
+When he returned to the room Pierre was sitting in the same place as
+before, with his head in his hands. His face expressed suffering. He
+really was suffering at that moment. When the captain went out and he
+was left alone, suddenly he came to himself and realized the position he
+was in. It was not that Moscow had been taken or that the happy
+conquerors were masters in it and were patronizing him. Painful as that
+was it was not that which tormented Pierre at the moment. He was
+tormented by the consciousness of his own weakness. The few glasses of
+wine he had drunk and the conversation with this good-natured man had
+destroyed the mood of concentrated gloom in which he had spent the last
+few days and which was essential for the execution of his design. The
+pistol, dagger, and peasant coat were ready. Napoleon was to enter the
+town next day. Pierre still considered that it would be a useful and
+worthy action to slay the evildoer, but now he felt that he would not do
+it. He did not know why, but he felt a foreboding that he would not
+carry out his intention. He struggled against the confession of his
+weakness but dimly felt that he could not overcome it and that his
+former gloomy frame of mind, concerning vengeance, killing, and self-
+sacrifice, had been dispersed like dust by contact with the first man he
+met.
+
+The captain returned to the room, limping slightly and whistling a tune.
+
+The Frenchman's chatter which had previously amused Pierre now repelled
+him. The tune he was whistling, his gait, and the gesture with which he
+twirled his mustache, all now seemed offensive. "I will go away
+immediately. I won't say another word to him," thought Pierre. He
+thought this, but still sat in the same place. A strange feeling of
+weakness tied him to the spot; he wished to get up and go away, but
+could not do so.
+
+The captain, on the other hand, seemed very cheerful. He paced up and
+down the room twice. His eyes shone and his mustache twitched as if he
+were smiling to himself at some amusing thought.
+
+"The colonel of those Wurttembergers is delightful," he suddenly said.
+"He's a German, but a nice fellow all the same.... But he's a German."
+He sat down facing Pierre. "By the way, you know German, then?"
+
+Pierre looked at him in silence.
+
+"What is the German for 'shelter'?"
+
+"Shelter?" Pierre repeated. "The German for shelter is Unterkunft."
+
+"How do you say it?" the captain asked quickly and doubtfully.
+
+"Unterkunft," Pierre repeated.
+
+"Onterkoff," said the captain and looked at Pierre for some seconds with
+laughing eyes. "These Germans are first-rate fools, don't you think so,
+Monsieur Pierre?" he concluded.
+
+"Well, let's have another bottle of this Moscow Bordeaux, shall we?
+Morel will warm us up another little bottle. Morel!" he called out
+gaily.
+
+Morel brought candles and a bottle of wine. The captain looked at Pierre
+by the candlelight and was evidently struck by the troubled expression
+on his companion's face. Ramballe, with genuine distress and sympathy in
+his face, went up to Pierre and bent over him.
+
+"There now, we're sad," said he, touching Pierre's hand. "Have I upset
+you? No, really, have you anything against me?" he asked Pierre.
+"Perhaps it's the state of affairs?"
+
+Pierre did not answer, but looked cordially into the Frenchman's eyes
+whose expression of sympathy was pleasing to him.
+
+"Honestly, without speaking of what I owe you, I feel friendship for
+you. Can I do anything for you? Dispose of me. It is for life and death.
+I say it with my hand on my heart!" said he, striking his chest.
+
+"Thank you," said Pierre.
+
+The captain gazed intently at him as he had done when he learned that
+"shelter" was Unterkunft in German, and his face suddenly brightened.
+
+"Well, in that case, I drink to our friendship!" he cried gaily, filling
+two glasses with wine.
+
+Pierre took one of the glasses and emptied it. Ramballe emptied his too,
+again pressed Pierre's hand, and leaned his elbows on the table in a
+pensive attitude.
+
+"Yes, my dear friend," he began, "such is fortune's caprice. Who would
+have said that I should be a soldier and a captain of dragoons in the
+service of Bonaparte, as we used to call him? Yet here I am in Moscow
+with him. I must tell you, mon cher," he continued in the sad and
+measured tones of a man who intends to tell a long story, "that our name
+is one of the most ancient in France."
+
+And with a Frenchman's easy and naïve frankness the captain told Pierre
+the story of his ancestors, his childhood, youth, and manhood, and all
+about his relations and his financial and family affairs, "ma pauvre
+mere" playing of course an important part in the story.
+
+"But all that is only life's setting, the real thing is love—love! Am I
+not right, Monsieur Pierre?" said he, growing animated. "Another glass?"
+
+Pierre again emptied his glass and poured himself out a third.
+
+"Oh, women, women!" and the captain, looking with glistening eyes at
+Pierre, began talking of love and of his love affairs.
+
+There were very many of these, as one could easily believe, looking at
+the officer's handsome, self-satisfied face, and noting the eager
+enthusiasm with which he spoke of women. Though all Ramballe's love
+stories had the sensual character which Frenchmen regard as the special
+charm and poetry of love, yet he told his story with such sincere
+conviction that he alone had experienced and known all the charm of love
+and he described women so alluringly that Pierre listened to him with
+curiosity.
+
+It was plain that l'amour which the Frenchman was so fond of was not
+that low and simple kind that Pierre had once felt for his wife, nor was
+it the romantic love stimulated by himself that he experienced for
+Natásha. (Ramballe despised both these kinds of love equally: the one he
+considered the "love of clodhoppers" and the other the "love of
+simpletons.") L'amour which the Frenchman worshiped consisted
+principally in the unnaturalness of his relation to the woman and in a
+combination of incongruities giving the chief charm to the feeling.
+
+Thus the captain touchingly recounted the story of his love for a
+fascinating marquise of thirty-five and at the same time for a charming,
+innocent child of seventeen, daughter of the bewitching marquise. The
+conflict of magnanimity between the mother and the daughter, ending in
+the mother's sacrificing herself and offering her daughter in marriage
+to her lover, even now agitated the captain, though it was the memory of
+a distant past. Then he recounted an episode in which the husband played
+the part of the lover, and he—the lover—assumed the role of the husband,
+as well as several droll incidents from his recollections of Germany,
+where "shelter" is called Unterkunft and where the husbands eat
+sauerkraut and the young girls are "too blonde."
+
+Finally, the latest episode in Poland still fresh in the captain's
+memory, and which he narrated with rapid gestures and glowing face, was
+of how he had saved the life of a Pole (in general, the saving of life
+continually occurred in the captain's stories) and the Pole had
+entrusted to him his enchanting wife (parisienne de coeur) while himself
+entering the French service. The captain was happy, the enchanting
+Polish lady wished to elope with him, but, prompted by magnanimity, the
+captain restored the wife to the husband, saying as he did so: "I have
+saved your life, and I save your honor!" Having repeated these words the
+captain wiped his eyes and gave himself a shake, as if driving away the
+weakness which assailed him at this touching recollection.
+
+Listening to the captain's tales, Pierre—as often happens late in the
+evening and under the influence of wine—followed all that was told him,
+understood it all, and at the same time followed a train of personal
+memories which, he knew not why, suddenly arose in his mind. While
+listening to these love stories his own love for Natásha unexpectedly
+rose to his mind, and going over the pictures of that love in his
+imagination he mentally compared them with Ramballe's tales. Listening
+to the story of the struggle between love and duty, Pierre saw before
+his eyes every minutest detail of his last meeting with the object of
+his love at the Sukharev water tower. At the time of that meeting it had
+not produced an effect upon him—he had not even once recalled it. But
+now it seemed to him that that meeting had had in it something very
+important and poetic.
+
+"Peter Kirilovich, come here! We have recognized you," he now seemed to
+hear the words she had uttered and to see before him her eyes, her
+smile, her traveling hood, and a stray lock of her hair... and there
+seemed to him something pathetic and touching in all this.
+
+Having finished his tale about the enchanting Polish lady, the captain
+asked Pierre if he had ever experienced a similar impulse to sacrifice
+himself for love and a feeling of envy of the legitimate husband.
+
+Challenged by this question Pierre raised his head and felt a need to
+express the thoughts that filled his mind. He began to explain that he
+understood love for a women somewhat differently. He said that in all
+his life he had loved and still loved only one woman, and that she could
+never be his.
+
+"Tiens!" said the captain.
+
+Pierre then explained that he had loved this woman from his earliest
+years, but that he had not dared to think of her because she was too
+young, and because he had been an illegitimate son without a name.
+Afterwards when he had received a name and wealth he dared not think of
+her because he loved her too well, placing her far above everything in
+the world, and especially therefore above himself.
+
+When he had reached this point, Pierre asked the captain whether he
+understood that.
+
+The captain made a gesture signifying that even if he did not understand
+it he begged Pierre to continue.
+
+"Platonic love, clouds..." he muttered.
+
+Whether it was the wine he had drunk, or an impulse of frankness, or the
+thought that this man did not, and never would, know any of those who
+played a part in his story, or whether it was all these things together,
+something loosened Pierre's tongue. Speaking thickly and with a faraway
+look in his shining eyes, he told the whole story of his life: his
+marriage, Natásha's love for his best friend, her betrayal of him, and
+all his own simple relations with her. Urged on by Ramballe's questions
+he also told what he had at first concealed—his own position and even
+his name.
+
+More than anything else in Pierre's story the captain was impressed by
+the fact that Pierre was very rich, had two mansions in Moscow, and that
+he had abandoned everything and not left the city, but remained there
+concealing his name and station.
+
+When it was late at night they went out together into the street. The
+night was warm and light. To the left of the house on the Pokrovka a
+fire glowed—the first of those that were beginning in Moscow. To the
+right and high up in the sky was the sickle of the waning moon and
+opposite to it hung that bright comet which was connected in Pierre's
+heart with his love. At the gate stood Gerasim, the cook, and two
+Frenchmen. Their laughter and their mutually incomprehensible remarks in
+two languages could be heard. They were looking at the glow seen in the
+town.
+
+There was nothing terrible in the one small, distant fire in the immense
+city.
+
+Gazing at the high starry sky, at the moon, at the comet, and at the
+glow from the fire, Pierre experienced a joyful emotion. "There now, how
+good it is, what more does one need?" thought he. And suddenly
+remembering his intention he grew dizzy and felt so faint that he leaned
+against the fence to save himself from falling.
+
+Without taking leave of his new friend, Pierre left the gate with
+unsteady steps and returning to his room lay down on the sofa and
+immediately fell asleep.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX
+
+The glow of the first fire that began on the second of September was
+watched from the various roads by the fugitive Muscovites and by the
+retreating troops, with many different feelings.
+
+The Rostóv party spent the night at Mytishchi, fourteen miles from
+Moscow. They had started so late on the first of September, the road had
+been so blocked by vehicles and troops, so many things had been
+forgotten for which servants were sent back, that they had decided to
+spend that night at a place three miles out of Moscow. The next morning
+they woke late and were again delayed so often that they only got as far
+as Great Mytishchi. At ten o'clock that evening the Rostóv family and
+the wounded traveling with them were all distributed in the yards and
+huts of that large village. The Rostóvs' servants and coachmen and the
+orderlies of the wounded officers, after attending to their masters, had
+supper, fed the horses, and came out into the porches.
+
+In a neighboring hut lay Raevski's adjutant with a fractured wrist. The
+awful pain he suffered made him moan incessantly and piteously, and his
+moaning sounded terrible in the darkness of the autumn night. He had
+spent the first night in the same yard as the Rostóvs. The countess said
+she had been unable to close her eyes on account of his moaning, and at
+Mytishchi she moved into a worse hut simply to be farther away from the
+wounded man.
+
+In the darkness of the night one of the servants noticed, above the high
+body of a coach standing before the porch, the small glow of another
+fire. One glow had long been visible and everybody knew that it was
+Little Mytishchi burning—set on fire by Mamonov's Cossacks.
+
+"But look here, brothers, there's another fire!" remarked an orderly.
+
+All turned their attention to the glow.
+
+"But they told us Little Mytishchi had been set on fire by Mamonov's
+Cossacks."
+
+"But that's not Mytishchi, it's farther away."
+
+"Look, it must be in Moscow!"
+
+Two of the gazers went round to the other side of the coach and sat down
+on its steps.
+
+"It's more to the left, why, Little Mytishchi is over there, and this is
+right on the other side."
+
+Several men joined the first two.
+
+"See how it's flaring," said one. "That's a fire in Moscow: either in
+the Sushchevski or the Rogozhski quarter."
+
+No one replied to this remark and for some time they all gazed silently
+at the spreading flames of the second fire in the distance.
+
+Old Daniel Terentich, the count's valet (as he was called), came up to
+the group and shouted at Mishka.
+
+"What are you staring at, you good-for-nothing?... The count will be
+calling and there's nobody there; go and gather the clothes together."
+
+"I only ran out to get some water," said Mishka.
+
+"But what do you think, Daniel Terentich? Doesn't it look as if that
+glow were in Moscow?" remarked one of the footmen.
+
+Daniel Terentich made no reply, and again for a long time they were all
+silent. The glow spread, rising and falling, farther and farther still.
+
+"God have mercy.... It's windy and dry..." said another voice.
+
+"Just look! See what it's doing now. O Lord! You can even see the crows
+flying. Lord have mercy on us sinners!"
+
+"They'll put it out, no fear!"
+
+"Who's to put it out?" Daniel Terentich, who had hitherto been silent,
+was heard to say. His voice was calm and deliberate. "Moscow it is,
+brothers," said he. "Mother Moscow, the white..." his voice faltered,
+and he gave way to an old man's sob.
+
+And it was as if they had all only waited for this to realize the
+significance for them of the glow they were watching. Sighs were heard,
+words of prayer, and the sobbing of the count's old valet.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI
+
+The valet, returning to the cottage, informed the count that Moscow was
+burning. The count donned his dressing gown and went out to look. Sónya
+and Madame Schoss, who had not yet undressed, went out with him. Only
+Natásha and the countess remained in the room. Pétya was no longer with
+the family, he had gone on with his regiment which was making for
+Troitsa.
+
+The countess, on hearing that Moscow was on fire, began to cry. Natásha,
+pale, with a fixed look, was sitting on the bench under the icons just
+where she had sat down on arriving and paid no attention to her father's
+words. She was listening to the ceaseless moaning of the adjutant, three
+houses off.
+
+"Oh, how terrible," said Sónya returning from the yard chilled and
+frightened. "I believe the whole of Moscow will burn, there's an awful
+glow! Natásha, do look! You can see it from the window," she said to her
+cousin, evidently wishing to distract her mind.
+
+But Natásha looked at her as if not understanding what was said to her
+and again fixed her eyes on the corner of the stove. She had been in
+this condition of stupor since the morning, when Sónya, to the surprise
+and annoyance of the countess, had for some unaccountable reason found
+it necessary to tell Natásha of Prince Andrew's wound and of his being
+with their party. The countess had seldom been so angry with anyone as
+she was with Sónya. Sónya had cried and begged to be forgiven and now,
+as if trying to atone for her fault, paid unceasing attention to her
+cousin.
+
+"Look, Natásha, how dreadfully it is burning!" said she.
+
+"What's burning?" asked Natásha. "Oh, yes, Moscow."
+
+And as if in order not to offend Sónya and to get rid of her, she turned
+her face to the window, looked out in such a way that it was evident
+that she could not see anything, and again settled down in her former
+attitude.
+
+"But you didn't see it!"
+
+"Yes, really I did," Natásha replied in a voice that pleaded to be left
+in peace.
+
+Both the countess and Sónya understood that, naturally, neither Moscow
+nor the burning of Moscow nor anything else could seem of importance to
+Natásha.
+
+The count returned and lay down behind the partition. The countess went
+up to her daughter and touched her head with the back of her hand as she
+was wont to do when Natásha was ill, then touched her forehead with her
+lips as if to feel whether she was feverish, and finally kissed her.
+
+"You are cold. You are trembling all over. You'd better lie down," said
+the countess.
+
+"Lie down? All right, I will. I'll lie down at once," said Natásha.
+
+When Natásha had been told that morning that Prince Andrew was seriously
+wounded and was traveling with their party, she had at first asked many
+questions: Where was he going? How was he wounded? Was it serious? And
+could she see him? But after she had been told that she could not see
+him, that he was seriously wounded but that his life was not in danger,
+she ceased to ask questions or to speak at all, evidently disbelieving
+what they told her, and convinced that say what she might she would
+still be told the same. All the way she had sat motionless in a corner
+of the coach with wide open eyes, and the expression in them which the
+countess knew so well and feared so much, and now she sat in the same
+way on the bench where she had seated herself on arriving. She was
+planning something and either deciding or had already decided something
+in her mind. The countess knew this, but what it might be she did not
+know, and this alarmed and tormented her.
+
+"Natásha, undress, darling; lie down on my bed."
+
+A bed had been made on a bedstead for the countess only. Madame Schoss
+and the two girls were to sleep on some hay on the floor.
+
+"No, Mamma, I will lie down here on the floor," Natásha replied
+irritably and she went to the window and opened it. Through the open
+window the moans of the adjutant could be heard more distinctly. She put
+her head out into the damp night air, and the countess saw her slim neck
+shaking with sobs and throbbing against the window frame. Natásha knew
+it was not Prince Andrew who was moaning. She knew Prince Andrew was in
+the same yard as themselves and in a part of the hut across the passage;
+but this dreadful incessant moaning made her sob. The countess exchanged
+a look with Sónya.
+
+"Lie down, darling; lie down, my pet," said the countess, softly
+touching Natásha's shoulders. "Come, lie down."
+
+"Oh, yes... I'll lie down at once," said Natásha, and began hurriedly
+undressing, tugging at the tapes of her petticoat.
+
+When she had thrown off her dress and put on a dressing jacket, she sat
+down with her foot under her on the bed that had been made up on the
+floor, jerked her thin and rather short plait of hair to the front, and
+began replaiting it. Her long, thin, practiced fingers rapidly
+unplaited, replaited, and tied up her plait. Her head moved from side to
+side from habit, but her eyes, feverishly wide, looked fixedly before
+her. When her toilet for the night was finished she sank gently onto the
+sheet spread over the hay on the side nearest the door.
+
+"Natásha, you'd better lie in the middle," said Sónya.
+
+"I'll stay here," muttered Natásha. "Do lie down," she added crossly,
+and buried her face in the pillow.
+
+The countess, Madame Schoss, and Sónya undressed hastily and lay down.
+The small lamp in front of the icons was the only light left in the
+room. But in the yard there was a light from the fire at Little
+Mytishchi a mile and a half away, and through the night came the noise
+of people shouting at a tavern Mamonov's Cossacks had set up across the
+street, and the adjutant's unceasing moans could still be heard.
+
+For a long time Natásha listened attentively to the sounds that reached
+her from inside and outside the room and did not move. First she heard
+her mother praying and sighing and the creaking of her bed under her,
+then Madame Schoss' familiar whistling snore and Sónya's gentle
+breathing. Then the countess called to Natásha. Natásha did not answer.
+
+"I think she's asleep, Mamma," said Sónya softly.
+
+After a short silence the countess spoke again but this time no one
+replied.
+
+Soon after that Natásha heard her mother's even breathing. Natásha did
+not move, though her little bare foot, thrust out from under the quilt,
+was growing cold on the bare floor.
+
+As if to celebrate a victory over everybody, a cricket chirped in a
+crack in the wall. A cock crowed far off and another replied near by.
+The shouting in the tavern had died down; only the moaning of the
+adjutant was heard. Natásha sat up.
+
+"Sónya, are you asleep? Mamma?" she whispered.
+
+No one replied. Natásha rose slowly and carefully, crossed herself, and
+stepped cautiously on the cold and dirty floor with her slim, supple,
+bare feet. The boards of the floor creaked. Stepping cautiously from one
+foot to the other she ran like a kitten the few steps to the door and
+grasped the cold door handle.
+
+It seemed to her that something heavy was beating rhythmically against
+all the walls of the room: it was her own heart, sinking with alarm and
+terror and overflowing with love.
+
+She opened the door and stepped across the threshold and onto the cold,
+damp earthen floor of the passage. The cold she felt refreshed her. With
+her bare feet she touched a sleeping man, stepped over him, and opened
+the door into the part of the hut where Prince Andrew lay. It was dark
+in there. In the farthest corner, on a bench beside a bed on which
+something was lying, stood a tallow candle with a long, thick, and
+smoldering wick.
+
+From the moment she had been told that morning of Prince Andrew's wound
+and his presence there, Natásha had resolved to see him. She did not
+know why she had to, she knew the meeting would be painful, but felt the
+more convinced that it was necessary.
+
+All day she had lived only in hope of seeing him that night. But now
+that the moment had come she was filled with dread of what she might
+see. How was he maimed? What was left of him? Was he like that incessant
+moaning of the adjutant's? Yes, he was altogether like that. In her
+imagination he was that terrible moaning personified. When she saw an
+indistinct shape in the corner, and mistook his knees raised under the
+quilt for his shoulders, she imagined a horrible body there, and stood
+still in terror. But an irresistible impulse drew her forward. She
+cautiously took one step and then another, and found herself in the
+middle of a small room containing baggage. Another man—Timókhin—was
+lying in a corner on the benches beneath the icons, and two others—the
+doctor and a valet—lay on the floor.
+
+The valet sat up and whispered something. Timókhin, kept awake by the
+pain in his wounded leg, gazed with wide-open eyes at this strange
+apparition of a girl in a white chemise, dressing jacket, and nightcap.
+The valet's sleepy, frightened exclamation, "What do you want? What's
+the matter?" made Natásha approach more swiftly to what was lying in the
+corner. Horribly unlike a man as that body looked, she must see him. She
+passed the valet, the snuff fell from the candle wick, and she saw
+Prince Andrew clearly with his arms outside the quilt, and such as she
+had always seen him.
+
+He was the same as ever, but the feverish color of his face, his
+glittering eyes rapturously turned toward her, and especially his neck,
+delicate as a child's, revealed by the turn-down collar of his shirt,
+gave him a peculiarly innocent, childlike look, such as she had never
+seen on him before. She went up to him and with a swift, flexible,
+youthful movement dropped on her knees.
+
+He smiled and held out his hand to her.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII
+
+Seven days had passed since Prince Andrew found himself in the ambulance
+station on the field of Borodino. His feverish state and the
+inflammation of his bowels, which were injured, were in the doctor's
+opinion sure to carry him off. But on the seventh day he ate with
+pleasure a piece of bread with some tea, and the doctor noticed that his
+temperature was lower. He had regained consciousness that morning. The
+first night after they left Moscow had been fairly warm and he had
+remained in the calèche, but at Mytishchi the wounded man himself asked
+to be taken out and given some tea. The pain caused by his removal into
+the hut had made him groan aloud and again lose consciousness. When he
+had been placed on his camp bed he lay for a long time motionless with
+closed eyes. Then he opened them and whispered softly: "And the tea?"
+His remembering such a small detail of everyday life astonished the
+doctor. He felt Prince Andrew's pulse, and to his surprise and
+dissatisfaction found it had improved. He was dissatisfied because he
+knew by experience that if his patient did not die now, he would do so a
+little later with greater suffering. Timókhin, the red-nosed major of
+Prince Andrew's regiment, had joined him in Moscow and was being taken
+along with him, having been wounded in the leg at the battle of
+Borodino. They were accompanied by a doctor, Prince Andrew's valet, his
+coachman, and two orderlies.
+
+They gave Prince Andrew some tea. He drank it eagerly, looking with
+feverish eyes at the door in front of him as if trying to understand and
+remember something.
+
+"I don't want any more. Is Timókhin here?" he asked.
+
+Timókhin crept along the bench to him.
+
+"I am here, your excellency."
+
+"How's your wound?"
+
+"Mine, sir? All right. But how about you?"
+
+Prince Andrew again pondered as if trying to remember something.
+
+"Couldn't one get a book?" he asked.
+
+"What book?"
+
+"The Gospels. I haven't one."
+
+The doctor promised to procure it for him and began to ask how he was
+feeling. Prince Andrew answered all his questions reluctantly but
+reasonably, and then said he wanted a bolster placed under him as he was
+uncomfortable and in great pain. The doctor and valet lifted the cloak
+with which he was covered and, making wry faces at the noisome smell of
+mortifying flesh that came from the wound, began examining that dreadful
+place. The doctor was very much displeased about something and made a
+change in the dressings, turning the wounded man over so that he groaned
+again and grew unconscious and delirious from the agony. He kept asking
+them to get him the book and put it under him.
+
+"What trouble would it be to you?" he said. "I have not got one. Please
+get it for me and put it under for a moment," he pleaded in a piteous
+voice.
+
+The doctor went into the passage to wash his hands.
+
+"You fellows have no conscience," said he to the valet who was pouring
+water over his hands. "For just one moment I didn't look after you...
+It's such pain, you know, that I wonder how he can bear it."
+
+"By the Lord Jesus Christ, I thought we had put something under him!"
+said the valet.
+
+The first time Prince Andrew understood where he was and what was the
+matter with him and remembered being wounded and how was when he asked
+to be carried into the hut after his calèche had stopped at Mytishchi.
+After growing confused from pain while being carried into the hut he
+again regained consciousness, and while drinking tea once more recalled
+all that had happened to him, and above all vividly remembered the
+moment at the ambulance station when, at the sight of the sufferings of
+a man he disliked, those new thoughts had come to him which promised him
+happiness. And those thoughts, though now vague and indefinite, again
+possessed his soul. He remembered that he had now a new source of
+happiness and that this happiness had something to do with the Gospels.
+That was why he asked for a copy of them. The uncomfortable position in
+which they had put him and turned him over again confused his thoughts,
+and when he came to himself a third time it was in the complete
+stillness of the night. Everybody near him was sleeping. A cricket
+chirped from across the passage; someone was shouting and singing in the
+street; cockroaches rustled on the table, on the icons, and on the
+walls, and a big fly flopped at the head of the bed and around the
+candle beside him, the wick of which was charred and had shaped itself
+like a mushroom.
+
+His mind was not in a normal state. A healthy man usually thinks of,
+feels, and remembers innumerable things simultaneously, but has the
+power and will to select one sequence of thoughts or events on which to
+fix his whole attention. A healthy man can tear himself away from the
+deepest reflections to say a civil word to someone who comes in and can
+then return again to his own thoughts. But Prince Andrew's mind was not
+in a normal state in that respect. All the powers of his mind were more
+active and clearer than ever, but they acted apart from his will. Most
+diverse thoughts and images occupied him simultaneously. At times his
+brain suddenly began to work with a vigor, clearness, and depth it had
+never reached when he was in health, but suddenly in the midst of its
+work it would turn to some unexpected idea and he had not the strength
+to turn it back again.
+
+"Yes, a new happiness was revealed to me of which man cannot be
+deprived," he thought as he lay in the semidarkness of the quiet hut,
+gazing fixedly before him with feverish wide open eyes. "A happiness
+lying beyond material forces, outside the material influences that act
+on man—a happiness of the soul alone, the happiness of loving. Every man
+can understand it, but to conceive it and enjoin it was possible only
+for God. But how did God enjoin that law? And why was the Son...?"
+
+And suddenly the sequence of these thoughts broke off, and Prince Andrew
+heard (without knowing whether it was a delusion or reality) a soft
+whispering voice incessantly and rhythmically repeating "piti-piti-
+piti," and then "titi," and then again "piti-piti-piti," and "ti-ti"
+once more. At the same time he felt that above his face, above the very
+middle of it, some strange airy structure was being erected out of
+slender needles or splinters, to the sound of this whispered music. He
+felt that he had to balance carefully (though it was difficult) so that
+this airy structure should not collapse; but nevertheless it kept
+collapsing and again slowly rising to the sound of whispered rhythmic
+music—"it stretches, stretches, spreading out and stretching," said
+Prince Andrew to himself. While listening to this whispering and feeling
+the sensation of this drawing out and the construction of this edifice
+of needles, he also saw by glimpses a red halo round the candle, and
+heard the rustle of the cockroaches and the buzzing of the fly that
+flopped against his pillow and his face. Each time the fly touched his
+face it gave him a burning sensation and yet to his surprise it did not
+destroy the structure, though it knocked against the very region of his
+face where it was rising. But besides this there was something else of
+importance. It was something white by the door—the statue of a sphinx,
+which also oppressed him.
+
+"But perhaps that's my shirt on the table," he thought, "and that's my
+legs, and that is the door, but why is it always stretching and drawing
+itself out, and 'piti-piti-piti' and 'ti-ti' and 'piti-piti-piti'...?
+That's enough, please leave off!" Prince Andrew painfully entreated
+someone. And suddenly thoughts and feelings again swam to the surface of
+his mind with peculiar clearness and force.
+
+"Yes—love," he thought again quite clearly. "But not love which loves
+for something, for some quality, for some purpose, or for some reason,
+but the love which I—while dying—first experienced when I saw my enemy
+and yet loved him. I experienced that feeling of love which is the very
+essence of the soul and does not require an object. Now again I feel
+that bliss. To love one's neighbors, to love one's enemies, to love
+everything, to love God in all His manifestations. It is possible to
+love someone dear to you with human love, but an enemy can only be loved
+by divine love. That is why I experienced such joy when I felt that I
+loved that man. What has become of him? Is he alive?...
+
+"When loving with human love one may pass from love to hatred, but
+divine love cannot change. No, neither death nor anything else can
+destroy it. It is the very essence of the soul. Yet how many people have
+I hated in my life? And of them all, I loved and hated none as I did
+her." And he vividly pictured to himself Natásha, not as he had done in
+the past with nothing but her charms which gave him delight, but for the
+first time picturing to himself her soul. And he understood her
+feelings, her sufferings, shame, and remorse. He now understood for the
+first time all the cruelty of his rejection of her, the cruelty of his
+rupture with her. "If only it were possible for me to see her once more!
+Just once, looking into those eyes to say..."
+
+"Piti-piti-piti and ti-ti and piti-piti-piti boom!" flopped the fly...
+And his attention was suddenly carried into another world, a world of
+reality and delirium in which something particular was happening. In
+that world some structure was still being erected and did not fall,
+something was still stretching out, and the candle with its red halo was
+still burning, and the same shirtlike sphinx lay near the door; but
+besides all this something creaked, there was a whiff of fresh air, and
+a new white sphinx appeared, standing at the door. And that sphinx had
+the pale face and shining eyes of the very Natásha of whom he had just
+been thinking.
+
+"Oh, how oppressive this continual delirium is," thought Prince Andrew,
+trying to drive that face from his imagination. But the face remained
+before him with the force of reality and drew nearer. Prince Andrew
+wished to return to that former world of pure thought, but he could not,
+and delirium drew him back into its domain. The soft whispering voice
+continued its rhythmic murmur, something oppressed him and stretched
+out, and the strange face was before him. Prince Andrew collected all
+his strength in an effort to recover his senses, he moved a little, and
+suddenly there was a ringing in his ears, a dimness in his eyes, and
+like a man plunged into water he lost consciousness. When he came to
+himself, Natásha, that same living Natásha whom of all people he most
+longed to love with this new pure divine love that had been revealed to
+him, was kneeling before him. He realized that it was the real living
+Natásha, and he was not surprised but quietly happy. Natásha, motionless
+on her knees (she was unable to stir), with frightened eyes riveted on
+him, was restraining her sobs. Her face was pale and rigid. Only in the
+lower part of it something quivered.
+
+Prince Andrew sighed with relief, smiled, and held out his hand.
+
+"You?" he said. "How fortunate!"
+
+With a rapid but careful movement Natásha drew nearer to him on her
+knees and, taking his hand carefully, bent her face over it and began
+kissing it, just touching it lightly with her lips.
+
+"Forgive me!" she whispered, raising her head and glancing at him.
+"Forgive me!"
+
+"I love you," said Prince Andrew.
+
+"Forgive...!"
+
+"Forgive what?" he asked.
+
+"Forgive me for what I ha-ve do-ne!" faltered Natásha in a scarcely
+audible, broken whisper, and began kissing his hand more rapidly, just
+touching it with her lips.
+
+"I love you more, better than before," said Prince Andrew, lifting her
+face with his hand so as to look into her eyes.
+
+Those eyes, filled with happy tears, gazed at him timidly,
+compassionately, and with joyous love. Natásha's thin pale face, with
+its swollen lips, was more than plain—it was dreadful. But Prince Andrew
+did not see that, he saw her shining eyes which were beautiful. They
+heard the sound of voices behind them.
+
+Peter the valet, who was now wide awake, had roused the doctor.
+Timókhin, who had not slept at all because of the pain in his leg, had
+long been watching all that was going on, carefully covering his bare
+body with the sheet as he huddled up on his bench.
+
+"What's this?" said the doctor, rising from his bed. "Please go away,
+madam!"
+
+At that moment a maid sent by the countess, who had noticed her
+daughter's absence, knocked at the door.
+
+Like a somnambulist aroused from her sleep Natásha went out of the room
+and, returning to her hut, fell sobbing on her bed.
+
+From that time, during all the rest of the Rostóvs' journey, at every
+halting place and wherever they spent a night, Natásha never left the
+wounded Bolkónski, and the doctor had to admit that he had not expected
+from a young girl either such firmness or such skill in nursing a
+wounded man.
+
+Dreadful as the countess imagined it would be should Prince Andrew die
+in her daughter's arms during the journey—as, judging by what the doctor
+said, it seemed might easily happen—she could not oppose Natásha. Though
+with the intimacy now established between the wounded man and Natásha
+the thought occurred that should he recover their former engagement
+would be renewed, no one—least of all Natásha and Prince Andrew—spoke of
+this: the unsettled question of life and death, which hung not only over
+Bolkónski but over all Russia, shut out all other considerations.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII
+
+On the third of September Pierre awoke late. His head was aching, the
+clothes in which he had slept without undressing felt uncomfortable on
+his body, and his mind had a dim consciousness of something shameful he
+had done the day before. That something shameful was his yesterday's
+conversation with Captain Ramballe.
+
+It was eleven by the clock, but it seemed peculiarly dark out of doors.
+Pierre rose, rubbed his eyes, and seeing the pistol with an engraved
+stock which Gerasim had replaced on the writing table, he remembered
+where he was and what lay before him that very day.
+
+"Am I not too late?" he thought. "No, probably he won't make his entry
+into Moscow before noon."
+
+Pierre did not allow himself to reflect on what lay before him, but
+hastened to act.
+
+After arranging his clothes, he took the pistol and was about to go out.
+But it then occurred to him for the first time that he certainly could
+not carry the weapon in his hand through the streets. It was difficult
+to hide such a big pistol even under his wide coat. He could not carry
+it unnoticed in his belt or under his arm. Besides, it had been
+discharged, and he had not had time to reload it. "No matter, dagger
+will do," he said to himself, though when planning his design he had
+more than once come to the conclusion that the chief mistake made by the
+student in 1809 had been to try to kill Napoleon with a dagger. But as
+his chief aim consisted not in carrying out his design, but in proving
+to himself that he would not abandon his intention and was doing all he
+could to achieve it, Pierre hastily took the blunt jagged dagger in a
+green sheath which he had bought at the Sukharev market with the pistol,
+and hid it under his waistcoat.
+
+Having tied a girdle over his coat and pulled his cap low on his head,
+Pierre went down the corridor, trying to avoid making a noise or meeting
+the captain, and passed out into the street.
+
+The conflagration, at which he had looked with so much indifference the
+evening before, had greatly increased during the night. Moscow was on
+fire in several places. The buildings in Carriage Row, across the river,
+in the Bazaar and the Povarskoy, as well as the barges on the Moskva
+River and the timber yards by the Dorogomilov Bridge, were all ablaze.
+
+Pierre's way led through side streets to the Povarskoy and from there to
+the church of St. Nicholas on the Arbat, where he had long before
+decided that the deed should be done. The gates of most of the houses
+were locked and the shutters up. The streets and lanes were deserted.
+The air was full of smoke and the smell of burning. Now and then he met
+Russians with anxious and timid faces, and Frenchmen with an air not of
+the city but of the camp, walking in the middle of the streets. Both the
+Russians and the French looked at Pierre with surprise. Besides his
+height and stoutness, and the strange morose look of suffering in his
+face and whole figure, the Russians stared at Pierre because they could
+not make out to what class he could belong. The French followed him with
+astonishment in their eyes chiefly because Pierre, unlike all the other
+Russians who gazed at the French with fear and curiosity, paid no
+attention to them. At the gate of one house three Frenchmen, who were
+explaining something to some Russians who did not understand them,
+stopped Pierre asking if he did not know French.
+
+Pierre shook his head and went on. In another side street a sentinel
+standing beside a green caisson shouted at him, but only when the shout
+was threateningly repeated and he heard the click of the man's musket as
+he raised it did Pierre understand that he had to pass on the other side
+of the street. He heard nothing and saw nothing of what went on around
+him. He carried his resolution within himself in terror and haste, like
+something dreadful and alien to him, for, after the previous night's
+experience, he was afraid of losing it. But he was not destined to bring
+his mood safely to his destination. And even had he not been hindered by
+anything on the way, his intention could not now have been carried out,
+for Napoleon had passed the Arbat more than four hours previously on his
+way from the Dorogomilov suburb to the Kremlin, and was now sitting in a
+very gloomy frame of mind in a royal study in the Kremlin, giving
+detailed and exact orders as to measures to be taken immediately to
+extinguish the fire, to prevent looting, and to reassure the
+inhabitants. But Pierre did not know this; he was entirely absorbed in
+what lay before him, and was tortured—as those are who obstinately
+undertake a task that is impossible for them not because of its
+difficulty but because of its incompatibility with their natures—by the
+fear of weakening at the decisive moment and so losing his self-esteem.
+
+Though he heard and saw nothing around him he found his way by instinct
+and did not go wrong in the side streets that led to the Povarskoy.
+
+As Pierre approached that street the smoke became denser and denser—he
+even felt the heat of the fire. Occasionally curly tongues of flame rose
+from under the roofs of the houses. He met more people in the streets
+and they were more excited. But Pierre, though he felt that something
+unusual was happening around him, did not realize that he was
+approaching the fire. As he was going along a foot path across a wide-
+open space adjoining the Povarskoy on one side and the gardens of Prince
+Gruzinski's house on the other, Pierre suddenly heard the desperate
+weeping of a woman close to him. He stopped as if awakening from a dream
+and lifted his head.
+
+By the side of the path, on the dusty dry grass, all sorts of household
+goods lay in a heap: featherbeds, a samovar, icons, and trunks. On the
+ground, beside the trunks, sat a thin woman no longer young, with long,
+prominent upper teeth, and wearing a black cloak and cap. This woman,
+swaying to and fro and muttering something, was choking with sobs. Two
+girls of about ten and twelve, dressed in dirty short frocks and cloaks,
+were staring at their mother with a look of stupefaction on their pale
+frightened faces. The youngest child, a boy of about seven, who wore an
+overcoat and an immense cap evidently not his own, was crying in his old
+nurse's arms. A dirty, barefooted maid was sitting on a trunk, and,
+having undone her pale-colored plait, was pulling it straight and
+sniffing at her singed hair. The woman's husband, a short, round-
+shouldered man in the undress uniform of a civilian official, with
+sausage-shaped whiskers and showing under his square-set cap the hair
+smoothly brushed forward over his temples, with expressionless face was
+moving the trunks, which were placed one on another, and was dragging
+some garments from under them.
+
+As soon as she saw Pierre, the woman almost threw herself at his feet.
+
+"Dear people, good Christians, save me, help me, dear friends... help
+us, somebody," she muttered between her sobs. "My girl... My daughter!
+My youngest daughter is left behind. She's burned! Ooh! Was it for this
+I nursed you.... Ooh!"
+
+"Don't, Mary Nikolievna!" said her husband to her in a low voice,
+evidently only to justify himself before the stranger. "Sister must have
+taken her, or else where can she be?" he added.
+
+"Monster! Villain!" shouted the woman angrily, suddenly ceasing to weep.
+"You have no heart, you don't feel for your own child! Another man would
+have rescued her from the fire. But this is a monster and neither a man
+nor a father! You, honored sir, are a noble man," she went on,
+addressing Pierre rapidly between her sobs. "The fire broke out
+alongside, and blew our way, the maid called out 'Fire!' and we rushed
+to collect our things. We ran out just as we were.... This is what we
+have brought away.... The icons, and my dowry bed, all the rest is lost.
+We seized the children. But not Katie! Ooh! O Lord!..." and again she
+began to sob. "My child, my dear one! Burned, burned!"
+
+"But where was she left?" asked Pierre.
+
+From the expression of his animated face the woman saw that this man
+might help her.
+
+"Oh, dear sir!" she cried, seizing him by the legs. "My benefactor, set
+my heart at ease.... Aniska, go, you horrid girl, show him the way!" she
+cried to the maid, angrily opening her mouth and still farther exposing
+her long teeth.
+
+"Show me the way, show me, I... I'll do it," gasped Pierre rapidly.
+
+The dirty maidservant stepped from behind the trunk, put up her plait,
+sighed, and went on her short, bare feet along the path. Pierre felt as
+if he had come back to life after a heavy swoon. He held his head
+higher, his eyes shone with the light of life, and with swift steps he
+followed the maid, overtook her, and came out on the Povarskoy. The
+whole street was full of clouds of black smoke. Tongues of flame here
+and there broke through that cloud. A great number of people crowded in
+front of the conflagration. In the middle of the street stood a French
+general saying something to those around him. Pierre, accompanied by the
+maid, was advancing to the spot where the general stood, but the French
+soldiers stopped him.
+
+"On ne passe pas!" * cried a voice.
+
+* "You can't pass!"
+
+"This way, uncle," cried the girl. "We'll pass through the side street,
+by the Nikulins'!"
+
+Pierre turned back, giving a spring now and then to keep up with her.
+She ran across the street, turned down a side street to the left, and,
+passing three houses, turned into a yard on the right.
+
+"It's here, close by," said she and, running across the yard, opened a
+gate in a wooden fence and, stopping, pointed out to him a small wooden
+wing of the house, which was burning brightly and fiercely. One of its
+sides had fallen in, another was on fire, and bright flames issued from
+the openings of the windows and from under the roof.
+
+As Pierre passed through the fence gate, he was enveloped by hot air and
+involuntarily stopped.
+
+"Which is it? Which is your house?" he asked.
+
+"Ooh!" wailed the girl, pointing to the wing. "That's it, that was our
+lodging. You've burned to death, our treasure, Katie, my precious little
+missy! Ooh!" lamented Aniska, who at the sight of the fire felt that she
+too must give expression to her feelings.
+
+Pierre rushed to the wing, but the heat was so great that he
+involuntarily passed round in a curve and came upon the large house that
+was as yet burning only at one end, just below the roof, and around
+which swarmed a crowd of Frenchmen. At first Pierre did not realize what
+these men, who were dragging something out, were about; but seeing
+before him a Frenchman hitting a peasant with a blunt saber and trying
+to take from him a fox-fur coat, he vaguely understood that looting was
+going on there, but he had no time to dwell on that idea.
+
+The sounds of crackling and the din of falling walls and ceilings, the
+whistle and hiss of the flames, the excited shouts of the people, and
+the sight of the swaying smoke, now gathering into thick black clouds
+and now soaring up with glittering sparks, with here and there dense
+sheaves of flame (now red and now like golden fish scales creeping along
+the walls), and the heat and smoke and rapidity of motion, produced on
+Pierre the usual animating effects of a conflagration. It had a
+peculiarly strong effect on him because at the sight of the fire he felt
+himself suddenly freed from the ideas that had weighed him down. He felt
+young, bright, adroit, and resolute. He ran round to the other side of
+the lodge and was about to dash into that part of it which was still
+standing, when just above his head he heard several voices shouting and
+then a cracking sound and the ring of something heavy falling close
+beside him.
+
+Pierre looked up and saw at a window of the large house some Frenchmen
+who had just thrown out the drawer of a chest, filled with metal
+articles. Other French soldiers standing below went up to the drawer.
+
+"What does this fellow want?" shouted one of them referring to Pierre.
+
+"There's a child in that house. Haven't you seen a child?" cried Pierre.
+
+"What's he talking about? Get along!" said several voices, and one of
+the soldiers, evidently afraid that Pierre might want to take from them
+some of the plate and bronzes that were in the drawer, moved
+threateningly toward him.
+
+"A child?" shouted a Frenchman from above. "I did hear something
+squealing in the garden. Perhaps it's his brat that the fellow is
+looking for. After all, one must be human, you know...."
+
+"Where is it? Where?" said Pierre.
+
+"There! There!" shouted the Frenchman at the window, pointing to the
+garden at the back of the house. "Wait a bit—I'm coming down."
+
+And a minute or two later the Frenchman, a black-eyed fellow with a spot
+on his cheek, in shirt sleeves, really did jump out of a window on the
+ground floor, and clapping Pierre on the shoulder ran with him into the
+garden.
+
+"Hurry up, you others!" he called out to his comrades. "It's getting
+hot."
+
+When they reached a gravel path behind the house the Frenchman pulled
+Pierre by the arm and pointed to a round, graveled space where a three-
+year-old girl in a pink dress was lying under a seat.
+
+"There is your child! Oh, a girl, so much the better!" said the
+Frenchman. "Good-bye, Fatty. We must be human, we are all mortal you
+know!" and the Frenchman with the spot on his cheek ran back to his
+comrades.
+
+Breathless with joy, Pierre ran to the little girl and was going to take
+her in his arms. But seeing a stranger the sickly, scrofulous-looking
+child, unattractively like her mother, began to yell and run away.
+Pierre, however, seized her and lifted her in his arms. She screamed
+desperately and angrily and tried with her little hands to pull Pierre's
+hands away and to bite them with her slobbering mouth. Pierre was seized
+by a sense of horror and repulsion such as he had experienced when
+touching some nasty little animal. But he made an effort not to throw
+the child down and ran with her to the large house. It was now, however,
+impossible to get back the way he had come; the maid, Aniska, was no
+longer there, and Pierre with a feeling of pity and disgust pressed the
+wet, painfully sobbing child to himself as tenderly as he could and ran
+with her through the garden seeking another way out.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV
+
+Having run through different yards and side streets, Pierre got back
+with his little burden to the Gruzinski garden at the corner of the
+Povarskoy. He did not at first recognize the place from which he had set
+out to look for the child, so crowded was it now with people and goods
+that had been dragged out of the houses. Besides Russian families who
+had taken refuge here from the fire with their belongings, there were
+several French soldiers in a variety of clothing. Pierre took no notice
+of them. He hurried to find the family of that civil servant in order to
+restore the daughter to her mother and go to save someone else. Pierre
+felt that he had still much to do and to do quickly. Glowing with the
+heat and from running, he felt at that moment more strongly than ever
+the sense of youth, animation, and determination that had come on him
+when he ran to save the child. She had now become quiet and, clinging
+with her little hands to Pierre's coat, sat on his arm gazing about her
+like some little wild animal. He glanced at her occasionally with a
+slight smile. He fancied he saw something pathetically innocent in that
+frightened, sickly little face.
+
+He did not find the civil servant or his wife where he had left them. He
+walked among the crowd with rapid steps, scanning the various faces he
+met. Involuntarily he noticed a Georgian or Armenian family consisting
+of a very handsome old man of Oriental type, wearing a new, cloth-
+covered, sheepskin coat and new boots, an old woman of similar type, and
+a young woman. That very young woman seemed to Pierre the perfection of
+Oriental beauty, with her sharply outlined, arched, black eyebrows and
+the extraordinarily soft, bright color of her long, beautiful,
+expressionless face. Amid the scattered property and the crowd on the
+open space, she, in her rich satin cloak with a bright lilac shawl on
+her head, suggested a delicate exotic plant thrown out onto the snow.
+She was sitting on some bundles a little behind the old woman, and
+looked from under her long lashes with motionless, large, almond-shaped
+eyes at the ground before her. Evidently she was aware of her beauty and
+fearful because of it. Her face struck Pierre and, hurrying along by the
+fence, he turned several times to look at her. When he had reached the
+fence, still without finding those he sought, he stopped and looked
+about him.
+
+With the child in his arms his figure was now more conspicuous than
+before, and a group of Russians, both men and women, gathered about him.
+
+"Have you lost anyone, my dear fellow? You're of the gentry yourself,
+aren't you? Whose child is it?" they asked him.
+
+Pierre replied that the child belonged to a woman in a black coat who
+had been sitting there with her other children, and he asked whether
+anyone knew where she had gone.
+
+"Why, that must be the Anferovs," said an old deacon, addressing a
+pockmarked peasant woman. "Lord have mercy, Lord have mercy!" he added
+in his customary bass.
+
+"The Anferovs? No," said the woman. "They left in the morning. That must
+be either Mary Nikolievna's or the Ivanovs'!"
+
+"He says 'a woman,' and Mary Nikolievna is a lady," remarked a house
+serf.
+
+"Do you know her? She's thin, with long teeth," said Pierre.
+
+"That's Mary Nikolievna! They went inside the garden when these wolves
+swooped down," said the woman, pointing to the French soldiers.
+
+"O Lord, have mercy!" added the deacon.
+
+"Go over that way, they're there. It's she! She kept on lamenting and
+crying," continued the woman. "It's she. Here, this way!"
+
+But Pierre was not listening to the woman. He had for some seconds been
+intently watching what was going on a few steps away. He was looking at
+the Armenian family and at two French soldiers who had gone up to them.
+One of these, a nimble little man, was wearing a blue coat tied round
+the waist with a rope. He had a nightcap on his head and his feet were
+bare. The other, whose appearance particularly struck Pierre, was a
+long, lank, round-shouldered, fair-haired man, slow in his movements and
+with an idiotic expression of face. He wore a woman's loose gown of
+frieze, blue trousers, and large torn Hessian boots. The little
+barefooted Frenchman in the blue coat went up to the Armenians and,
+saying something, immediately seized the old man by his legs and the old
+man at once began pulling off his boots. The other in the frieze gown
+stopped in front of the beautiful Armenian girl and with his hands in
+his pockets stood staring at her, motionless and silent.
+
+"Here, take the child!" said Pierre peremptorily and hurriedly to the
+woman, handing the little girl to her. "Give her back to them, give her
+back!" he almost shouted, putting the child, who began screaming, on the
+ground, and again looking at the Frenchman and the Armenian family.
+
+The old man was already sitting barefoot. The little Frenchman had
+secured his second boot and was slapping one boot against the other. The
+old man was saying something in a voice broken by sobs, but Pierre
+caught but a glimpse of this, his whole attention was directed to the
+Frenchman in the frieze gown who meanwhile, swaying slowly from side to
+side, had drawn nearer to the young woman and taking his hands from his
+pockets had seized her by the neck.
+
+The beautiful Armenian still sat motionless and in the same attitude,
+with her long lashes drooping as if she did not see or feel what the
+soldier was doing to her.
+
+While Pierre was running the few steps that separated him from the
+Frenchman, the tall marauder in the frieze gown was already tearing from
+her neck the necklace the young Armenian was wearing, and the young
+woman, clutching at her neck, screamed piercingly.
+
+"Let that woman alone!" exclaimed Pierre hoarsely in a furious voice,
+seizing the soldier by his round shoulders and throwing him aside.
+
+The soldier fell, got up, and ran away. But his comrade, throwing down
+the boots and drawing his sword, moved threateningly toward Pierre.
+
+"Voyons, Pas de betises!" * he cried.
+
+* "Look here, no nonsense!"
+
+Pierre was in such a transport of rage that he remembered nothing and
+his strength increased tenfold. He rushed at the barefooted Frenchman
+and, before the latter had time to draw his sword, knocked him off his
+feet and hammered him with his fists. Shouts of approval were heard from
+the crowd around, and at the same moment a mounted patrol of French
+uhlans appeared from round the corner. The uhlans came up at a trot to
+Pierre and the Frenchman and surrounded them. Pierre remembered nothing
+of what happened after that. He only remembered beating someone and
+being beaten and finally feeling that his hands were bound and that a
+crowd of French soldiers stood around him and were searching him.
+
+"Lieutenant, he has a dagger," were the first words Pierre understood.
+
+"Ah, a weapon?" said the officer and turned to the barefooted soldier
+who had been arrested with Pierre. "All right, you can tell all about it
+at the court-martial." Then he turned to Pierre. "Do you speak French?"
+
+Pierre looked around him with bloodshot eyes and did not reply. His face
+probably looked very terrible, for the officer said something in a
+whisper and four more uhlans left the ranks and placed themselves on
+both sides of Pierre.
+
+"Do you speak French?" the officer asked again, keeping at a distance
+from Pierre. "Call the interpreter."
+
+A little man in Russian civilian clothes rode out from the ranks, and by
+his clothes and manner of speaking Pierre at once knew him to be a
+French salesman from one of the Moscow shops.
+
+"He does not look like a common man," said the interpreter, after a
+searching look at Pierre.
+
+"Ah, he looks very much like an incendiary," remarked the officer. "And
+ask him who he is," he added.
+
+"Who are you?" asked the interpreter in poor Russian. "You must answer
+the chief."
+
+"I will not tell you who I am. I am your prisoner—take me!" Pierre
+suddenly replied in French.
+
+"Ah, ah!" muttered the officer with a frown. "Well then, march!"
+
+A crowd had collected round the uhlans. Nearest to Pierre stood the
+pockmarked peasant woman with the little girl, and when the patrol
+started she moved forward.
+
+"Where are they taking you to, you poor dear?" said she. "And the little
+girl, the little girl, what am I to do with her if she's not theirs?"
+said the woman.
+
+"What does that woman want?" asked the officer.
+
+Pierre was as if intoxicated. His elation increased at the sight of the
+little girl he had saved.
+
+"What does she want?" he murmured. "She is bringing me my daughter whom
+I have just saved from the flames," said he. "Good-bye!" And without
+knowing how this aimless lie had escaped him, he went along with
+resolute and triumphant steps between the French soldiers.
+
+The French patrol was one of those sent out through the various streets
+of Moscow by Durosnel's order to put a stop to the pillage, and
+especially to catch the incendiaries who, according to the general
+opinion which had that day originated among the higher French officers,
+were the cause of the conflagrations. After marching through a number of
+streets the patrol arrested five more Russian suspects: a small
+shopkeeper, two seminary students, a peasant, and a house serf, besides
+several looters. But of all these various suspected characters, Pierre
+was considered to be the most suspicious of all. When they had all been
+brought for the night to a large house on the Zubov Rampart that was
+being used as a guardhouse, Pierre was placed apart under strict guard.
+
+
+
+
+
+BOOK TWELVE: 1812
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+In Petersburg at that time a complicated struggle was being carried on
+with greater heat than ever in the highest circles, between the parties
+of Rumyántsev, the French, Márya Fëdorovna, the Tsarevich, and others,
+drowned as usual by the buzzing of the court drones. But the calm,
+luxurious life of Petersburg, concerned only about phantoms and
+reflections of real life, went on in its old way and made it hard,
+except by a great effort, to realize the danger and the difficult
+position of the Russian people. There were the same receptions and
+balls, the same French theater, the same court interests and service
+interests and intrigues as usual. Only in the very highest circles were
+attempts made to keep in mind the difficulties of the actual position.
+Stories were whispered of how differently the two Empresses behaved in
+these difficult circumstances. The Empress Márya, concerned for the
+welfare of the charitable and educational institutions under her
+patronage, had given directions that they should all be removed to
+Kazan, and the things belonging to these institutions had already been
+packed up. The Empress Elisabeth, however, when asked what instructions
+she would be pleased to give—with her characteristic Russian patriotism
+had replied that she could give no directions about state institutions
+for that was the affair of the sovereign, but as far as she personally
+was concerned she would be the last to quit Petersburg.
+
+At Anna Pávlovna's on the twenty-sixth of August, the very day of the
+battle of Borodino, there was a soiree, the chief feature of which was
+to be the reading of a letter from His Lordship the Bishop when sending
+the Emperor an icon of the Venerable Sergius. It was regarded as a model
+of ecclesiastical, patriotic eloquence. Prince Vasíli himself, famed for
+his elocution, was to read it. (He used to read at the Empress'.) The
+art of his reading was supposed to lie in rolling out the words, quite
+independently of their meaning, in a loud and singsong voice alternating
+between a despairing wail and a tender murmur, so that the wail fell
+quite at random on one word and the murmur on another. This reading, as
+was always the case at Anna Pávlovna's soirees, had a political
+significance. That evening she expected several important personages who
+had to be made ashamed of their visits to the French theater and aroused
+to a patriotic temper. A good many people had already arrived, but Anna
+Pávlovna, not yet seeing all those whom she wanted in her drawing room,
+did not let the reading begin but wound up the springs of a general
+conversation.
+
+The news of the day in Petersburg was the illness of Countess Bezúkhova.
+She had fallen ill unexpectedly a few days previously, had missed
+several gatherings of which she was usually ornament, and was said to be
+receiving no one, and instead of the celebrated Petersburg doctors who
+usually attended her had entrusted herself to some Italian doctor who
+was treating her in some new and unusual way.
+
+They all knew very well that the enchanting countess' illness arose from
+an inconvenience resulting from marrying two husbands at the same time,
+and that the Italian's cure consisted in removing such inconvenience;
+but in Anna Pávlovna's presence no one dared to think of this or even
+appear to know it.
+
+"They say the poor countess is very ill. The doctor says it is angina
+pectoris."
+
+"Angina? Oh, that's a terrible illness!"
+
+"They say that the rivals are reconciled, thanks to the angina..." and
+the word angina was repeated with great satisfaction.
+
+"The count is pathetic, they say. He cried like a child when the doctor
+told him the case was dangerous."
+
+"Oh, it would be a terrible loss, she is an enchanting woman."
+
+"You are speaking of the poor countess?" said Anna Pávlovna, coming up
+just then. "I sent to ask for news, and hear that she is a little
+better. Oh, she is certainly the most charming woman in the world," she
+went on, with a smile at her own enthusiasm. "We belong to different
+camps, but that does not prevent my esteeming her as she deserves. She
+is very unfortunate!" added Anna Pávlovna.
+
+Supposing that by these words Anna Pávlovna was somewhat lifting the
+veil from the secret of the countess' malady, an unwary young man
+ventured to express surprise that well known doctors had not been called
+in and that the countess was being attended by a charlatan who might
+employ dangerous remedies.
+
+"Your information may be better than mine," Anna Pávlovna suddenly and
+venomously retorted on the inexperienced young man, "but I know on good
+authority that this doctor is a very learned and able man. He is private
+physician to the Queen of Spain."
+
+And having thus demolished the young man, Anna Pávlovna turned to
+another group where Bilibin was talking about the Austrians: having
+wrinkled up his face he was evidently preparing to smooth it out again
+and utter one of his mots.
+
+"I think it is delightful," he said, referring to a diplomatic note that
+had been sent to Vienna with some Austrian banners captured from the
+French by Wittgenstein, "the hero of Petropol" as he was then called in
+Petersburg.
+
+"What? What's that?" asked Anna Pávlovna, securing silence for the mot,
+which she had heard before.
+
+And Bilibin repeated the actual words of the diplomatic dispatch, which
+he had himself composed.
+
+"The Emperor returns these Austrian banners," said Bilibin, "friendly
+banners gone astray and found on a wrong path," and his brow became
+smooth again.
+
+"Charming, charming!" observed Prince Vasíli.
+
+"The path to Warsaw, perhaps," Prince Hippolyte remarked loudly and
+unexpectedly. Everybody looked at him, understanding what he meant.
+Prince Hippolyte himself glanced around with amused surprise. He knew no
+more than the others what his words meant. During his diplomatic career
+he had more than once noticed that such utterances were received as very
+witty, and at every opportunity he uttered in that way the first words
+that entered his head. "It may turn out very well," he thought, "but if
+not, they'll know how to arrange matters." And really, during the
+awkward silence that ensued, that insufficiently patriotic person
+entered whom Anna Pávlovna had been waiting for and wished to convert,
+and she, smiling and shaking a finger at Hippolyte, invited Prince
+Vasíli to the table and bringing him two candles and the manuscript
+begged him to begin. Everyone became silent.
+
+"Most Gracious Sovereign and Emperor!" Prince Vasíli sternly declaimed,
+looking round at his audience as if to inquire whether anyone had
+anything to say to the contrary. But no one said anything. "Moscow, our
+ancient capital, the New Jerusalem, receives her Christ"—he placed a
+sudden emphasis on the word her—"as a mother receives her zealous sons
+into her arms, and through the gathering mists, foreseeing the brilliant
+glory of thy rule, sings in exultation, 'Hosanna, blessed is he that
+cometh!'"
+
+Prince Vasíli pronounced these last words in a tearful voice.
+
+Bilibin attentively examined his nails, and many of those present
+appeared intimidated, as if asking in what they were to blame. Anna
+Pávlovna whispered the next words in advance, like an old woman
+muttering the prayer at Communion: "Let the bold and insolent
+Goliath..." she whispered.
+
+Prince Vasíli continued.
+
+"Let the bold and insolent Goliath from the borders of France encompass
+the realms of Russia with death-bearing terrors; humble Faith, the sling
+of the Russian David, shall suddenly smite his head in his bloodthirsty
+pride. This icon of the Venerable Sergius, the servant of God and
+zealous champion of old of our country's weal, is offered to Your
+Imperial Majesty. I grieve that my waning strength prevents rejoicing in
+the sight of your most gracious presence. I raise fervent prayers to
+Heaven that the Almighty may exalt the race of the just, and mercifully
+fulfill the desires of Your Majesty."
+
+"What force! What a style!" was uttered in approval both of reader and
+of author.
+
+Animated by that address Anna Pávlovna's guests talked for a long time
+of the state of the fatherland and offered various conjectures as to the
+result of the battle to be fought in a few days.
+
+"You will see," said Anna Pávlovna, "that tomorrow, on the Emperor's
+birthday, we shall receive news. I have a favorable presentiment!"
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+Anna Pávlovna's presentiment was in fact fulfilled. Next day during the
+service at the palace church in honor of the Emperor's birthday, Prince
+Volkonski was called out of the church and received a dispatch from
+Prince Kutúzov. It was Kutúzov's report, written from Tatarinova on the
+day of the battle. Kutúzov wrote that the Russians had not retreated a
+step, that the French losses were much heavier than ours, and that he
+was writing in haste from the field of battle before collecting full
+information. It followed that there must have been a victory. And at
+once, without leaving the church, thanks were rendered to the Creator
+for His help and for the victory.
+
+Anna Pávlovna's presentiment was justified, and all that morning a
+joyously festive mood reigned in the city. Everyone believed the victory
+to have been complete, and some even spoke of Napoleon's having been
+captured, of his deposition, and of the choice of a new ruler for
+France.
+
+It is very difficult for events to be reflected in their real strength
+and completeness amid the conditions of court life and far from the
+scene of action. General events involuntarily group themselves around
+some particular incident. So now the courtiers' pleasure was based as
+much on the fact that the news had arrived on the Emperor's birthday as
+on the fact of the victory itself. It was like a successfully arranged
+surprise. Mention was made in Kutúzov's report of the Russian losses,
+among which figured the names of Tuchkov, Bagration, and Kutaysov. In
+the Petersburg world this sad side of the affair again involuntarily
+centered round a single incident: Kutaysov's death. Everybody knew him,
+the Emperor liked him, and he was young and interesting. That day
+everyone met with the words:
+
+"What a wonderful coincidence! Just during the service. But what a loss
+Kutaysov is! How sorry I am!"
+
+"What did I tell about Kutúzov?" Prince Vasíli now said with a prophet's
+pride. "I always said he was the only man capable of defeating
+Napoleon."
+
+But next day no news arrived from the army and the public mood grew
+anxious. The courtiers suffered because of the suffering the suspense
+occasioned the Emperor.
+
+"Fancy the Emperor's position!" said they, and instead of extolling
+Kutúzov as they had done the day before, they condemned him as the cause
+of the Emperor's anxiety. That day Prince Vasíli no longer boasted of
+his protege Kutúzov, but remained silent when the commander-in-chief was
+mentioned. Moreover, toward evening, as if everything conspired to make
+Petersburg society anxious and uneasy, a terrible piece of news was
+added. Countess Hélène Bezúkhova had suddenly died of that terrible
+malady it had been so agreeable to mention. Officially, at large
+gatherings, everyone said that Countess Bezúkhova had died of a terrible
+attack of angina pectoris, but in intimate circles details were
+mentioned of how the private physician of the Queen of Spain had
+prescribed small doses of a certain drug to produce a certain effect;
+but Hélène, tortured by the fact that the old count suspected her and
+that her husband to whom she had written (that wretched, profligate
+Pierre) had not replied, had suddenly taken a very large dose of the
+drug, and had died in agony before assistance could be rendered her. It
+was said that Prince Vasíli and the old count had turned upon the
+Italian, but the latter had produced such letters from the unfortunate
+deceased that they had immediately let the matter drop.
+
+Talk in general centered round three melancholy facts: the Emperor's
+lack of news, the loss of Kutaysov, and the death of Hélène.
+
+On the third day after Kutúzov's report a country gentleman arrived from
+Moscow, and news of the surrender of Moscow to the French spread through
+the whole town. This was terrible! What a position for the Emperor to be
+in! Kutúzov was a traitor, and Prince Vasíli during the visits of
+condolence paid to him on the occasion of his daughter's death said of
+Kutúzov, whom he had formerly praised (it was excusable for him in his
+grief to forget what he had said), that it was impossible to expect
+anything else from a blind and depraved old man.
+
+"I only wonder that the fate of Russia could have been entrusted to such
+a man."
+
+As long as this news remained unofficial it was possible to doubt it,
+but the next day the following communication was received from Count
+Rostopchin:
+
+Prince Kutúzov's adjutant has brought me a letter in which he demands
+police officers to guide the army to the Ryazan road. He writes that he
+is regretfully abandoning Moscow. Sire! Kutúzov's action decides the
+fate of the capital and of your empire! Russia will shudder to learn of
+the abandonment of the city in which her greatness is centered and in
+which lie the ashes of your ancestors! I shall follow the army. I have
+had everything removed, and it only remains for me to weep over the fate
+of my fatherland.
+
+On receiving this dispatch the Emperor sent Prince Volkonski to Kutúzov
+with the following rescript:
+
+Prince Michael Ilariónovich! Since the twenty-ninth of August I have
+received no communication from you, yet on the first of September I
+received from the commander-in-chief of Moscow, via Yaroslavl, the sad
+news that you, with the army, have decided to abandon Moscow. You can
+yourself imagine the effect this news has had on me, and your silence
+increases my astonishment. I am sending this by Adjutant-General Prince
+Volkonski, to hear from you the situation of the army and the reasons
+that have induced you to take this melancholy decision.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+Nine days after the abandonment of Moscow, a messenger from Kutúzov
+reached Petersburg with the official announcement of that event. This
+messenger was Michaud, a Frenchman who did not know Russian, but who was
+quoique etranger, russe de coeur et d'ame, * as he said of himself.
+
+* Though a foreigner, Russian in heart and soul.
+
+The Emperor at once received this messenger in his study at the palace
+on Stone Island. Michaud, who had never seen Moscow before the campaign
+and who did not know Russian, yet felt deeply moved (as he wrote) when
+he appeared before notre tres gracieux souverain * with the news of the
+burning of Moscow, dont les flammes eclairaient sa route. *(2)
+
+* Our most gracious sovereign.
+
+* (2) Whose flames illumined his route.
+
+Though the source of M. Michaud's chagrin must have been different from
+that which caused Russians to grieve, he had such a sad face when shown
+into the Emperor's study that the latter at once asked:
+
+"Have you brought me sad news, Colonel?"
+
+"Very sad, sire," replied Michaud, lowering his eyes with a sigh. "The
+abandonment of Moscow."
+
+"Have they surrendered my ancient capital without a battle?" asked the
+Emperor quickly, his face suddenly flushing.
+
+Michaud respectfully delivered the message Kutúzov had entrusted to him,
+which was that it had been impossible to fight before Moscow, and that
+as the only remaining choice was between losing the army as well as
+Moscow, or losing Moscow alone, the field marshal had to choose the
+latter.
+
+The Emperor listened in silence, not looking at Michaud.
+
+"Has the enemy entered the city?" he asked.
+
+"Yes, sire, and Moscow is now in ashes. I left it all in flames,"
+replied Michaud in a decided tone, but glancing at the Emperor he was
+frightened by what he had done.
+
+The Emperor began to breathe heavily and rapidly, his lower lip
+trembled, and tears instantly appeared in his fine blue eyes.
+
+But this lasted only a moment. He suddenly frowned, as if blaming
+himself for his weakness, and raising his head addressed Michaud in a
+firm voice:
+
+"I see, Colonel, from all that is happening, that Providence requires
+great sacrifices of us... I am ready to submit myself in all things to
+His will; but tell me, Michaud, how did you leave the army when it saw
+my ancient capital abandoned without a battle? Did you not notice
+discouragement?..."
+
+Seeing that his most gracious ruler was calm once more, Michaud also
+grew calm, but was not immediately ready to reply to the Emperor's
+direct and relevant question which required a direct answer.
+
+"Sire, will you allow me to speak frankly as befits a loyal soldier?" he
+asked to gain time.
+
+"Colonel, I always require it," replied the Emperor. "Conceal nothing
+from me, I wish to know absolutely how things are."
+
+"Sire!" said Michaud with a subtle, scarcely perceptible smile on his
+lips, having now prepared a well-phrased reply, "sire, I left the whole
+army, from its chiefs to the lowest soldier, without exception in
+desperate and agonized terror..."
+
+"How is that?" the Emperor interrupted him, frowning sternly. "Would
+misfortune make my Russians lose heart?... Never!"
+
+Michaud had only waited for this to bring out the phrase he had
+prepared.
+
+"Sire," he said, with respectful playfulness, "they are only afraid lest
+Your Majesty, in the goodness of your heart, should allow yourself to be
+persuaded to make peace. They are burning for the combat," declared this
+representative of the Russian nation, "and to prove to Your Majesty by
+the sacrifice of their lives how devoted they are...."
+
+"Ah!" said the Emperor reassured, and with a kindly gleam in his eyes,
+he patted Michaud on the shoulder. "You set me at ease, Colonel."
+
+He bent his head and was silent for some time.
+
+"Well, then, go back to the army," he said, drawing himself up to his
+full height and addressing Michaud with a gracious and majestic gesture,
+"and tell our brave men and all my good subjects wherever you go that
+when I have not a soldier left I shall put myself at the head of my
+beloved nobility and my good peasants and so use the last resources of
+my empire. It still offers me more than my enemies suppose," said the
+Emperor growing more and more animated; "but should it ever be ordained
+by Divine Providence," he continued, raising to heaven his fine eyes
+shining with emotion, "that my dynasty should cease to reign on the
+throne of my ancestors, then after exhausting all the means at my
+command, I shall let my beard grow to here" (he pointed halfway down his
+chest) "and go and eat potatoes with the meanest of my peasants, rather
+than sign the disgrace of my country and of my beloved people whose
+sacrifices I know how to appreciate."
+
+Having uttered these words in an agitated voice the Emperor suddenly
+turned away as if to hide from Michaud the tears that rose to his eyes,
+and went to the further end of his study. Having stood there a few
+moments, he strode back to Michaud and pressed his arm below the elbow
+with a vigorous movement. The Emperor's mild and handsome face was
+flushed and his eyes gleamed with resolution and anger.
+
+"Colonel Michaud, do not forget what I say to you here, perhaps we may
+recall it with pleasure someday... Napoleon or I," said the Emperor,
+touching his breast. "We can no longer both reign together. I have
+learned to know him, and he will not deceive me any more...."
+
+And the Emperor paused, with a frown.
+
+When he heard these words and saw the expression of firm resolution in
+the Emperor's eyes, Michaud—quoique etranger, russe de coeur et d'ame—at
+that solemn moment felt himself enraptured by all that he had heard (as
+he used afterwards to say), and gave expression to his own feelings and
+those of the Russian people whose representative he considered himself
+to be, in the following words:
+
+"Sire!" said he, "Your Majesty is at this moment signing the glory of
+the nation and the salvation of Europe!"
+
+With an inclination of the head the Emperor dismissed him.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+It is natural for us who were not living in those days to imagine that
+when half Russia had been conquered and the inhabitants were fleeing to
+distant provinces, and one levy after another was being raised for the
+defense of the fatherland, all Russians from the greatest to the least
+were solely engaged in sacrificing themselves, saving their fatherland,
+or weeping over its downfall. The tales and descriptions of that time
+without exception speak only of the self-sacrifice, patriotic devotion,
+despair, grief, and the heroism of the Russians. But it was not really
+so. It appears so to us because we see only the general historic
+interest of that time and do not see all the personal human interests
+that people had. Yet in reality those personal interests of the moment
+so much transcend the general interests that they always prevent the
+public interest from being felt or even noticed. Most of the people at
+that time paid no attention to the general progress of events but were
+guided only by their private interests, and they were the very people
+whose activities at that period were most useful.
+
+Those who tried to understand the general course of events and to take
+part in it by self-sacrifice and heroism were the most useless members
+of society, they saw everything upside down, and all they did for the
+common good turned out to be useless and foolish—like Pierre's and
+Mamonov's regiments which looted Russian villages, and the lint the
+young ladies prepared and that never reached the wounded, and so on.
+Even those, fond of intellectual talk and of expressing their feelings,
+who discussed Russia's position at the time involuntarily introduced
+into their conversation either a shade of pretense and falsehood or
+useless condemnation and anger directed against people accused of
+actions no one could possibly be guilty of. In historic events the rule
+forbidding us to eat of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge is specially
+applicable. Only unconscious action bears fruit, and he who plays a part
+in an historic event never understands its significance. If he tries to
+realize it his efforts are fruitless.
+
+The more closely a man was engaged in the events then taking place in
+Russia the less did he realize their significance. In Petersburg and in
+the provinces at a distance from Moscow, ladies, and gentlemen in
+militia uniforms, wept for Russia and its ancient capital and talked of
+self-sacrifice and so on; but in the army which retired beyond Moscow
+there was little talk or thought of Moscow, and when they caught sight
+of its burned ruins no one swore to be avenged on the French, but they
+thought about their next pay, their next quarters, of Matreshka the
+vivandiere, and like matters.
+
+As the war had caught him in the service, Nicholas Rostóv took a close
+and prolonged part in the defense of his country, but did so casually,
+without any aim at self-sacrifice, and he therefore looked at what was
+going on in Russia without despair and without dismally racking his
+brains over it. Had he been asked what he thought of the state of
+Russia, he would have said that it was not his business to think about
+it, that Kutúzov and others were there for that purpose, but that he had
+heard that the regiments were to be made up to their full strength, that
+fighting would probably go on for a long time yet, and that things being
+so it was quite likely he might be in command of a regiment in a couple
+of years' time.
+
+As he looked at the matter in this way, he learned that he was being
+sent to Voronezh to buy remounts for his division, not only without
+regret at being prevented from taking part in the coming battle, but
+with the greatest pleasure—which he did not conceal and which his
+comrades fully understood.
+
+A few days before the battle of Borodino, Nicholas received the
+necessary money and warrants, and having sent some hussars on in
+advance, he set out with post horses for Voronezh.
+
+Only a man who has experienced it—that is, has passed some months
+continuously in an atmosphere of campaigning and war—can understand the
+delight Nicholas felt when he escaped from the region covered by the
+army's foraging operations, provision trains, and hospitals. When—free
+from soldiers, wagons, and the filthy traces of a camp—he saw villages
+with peasants and peasant women, gentlemen's country houses, fields
+where cattle were grazing, posthouses with stationmasters asleep in
+them, he rejoiced as though seeing all this for the first time. What for
+a long while specially surprised and delighted him were the women, young
+and healthy, without a dozen officers making up to each of them; women,
+too, who were pleased and flattered that a passing officer should joke
+with them.
+
+In the highest spirits Nicholas arrived at night at a hotel in Voronezh,
+ordered things he had long been deprived of in camp, and next day, very
+clean-shaven and in a full-dress uniform he had not worn for a long
+time, went to present himself to the authorities.
+
+The commander of the militia was a civilian general, an old man who was
+evidently pleased with his military designation and rank. He received
+Nicholas brusquely (imagining this to be characteristically military)
+and questioned him with an important air, as if considering the general
+progress of affairs and approving and disapproving with full right to do
+so. Nicholas was in such good spirits that this merely amused him.
+
+From the commander of the militia he drove to the governor. The governor
+was a brisk little man, very simple and affable. He indicated the stud
+farms at which Nicholas might procure horses, recommended to him a horse
+dealer in the town and a landowner fourteen miles out of town who had
+the best horses, and promised to assist him in every way.
+
+"You are Count Ilyá Rostóv's son? My wife was a great friend of your
+mother's. We are at home on Thursdays—today is Thursday, so please come
+and see us quite informally," said the governor, taking leave of him.
+
+Immediately on leaving the governor's, Nicholas hired post horses and,
+taking his squadron quartermaster with him, drove at a gallop to the
+landowner, fourteen miles away, who had the stud. Everything seemed to
+him pleasant and easy during that first part of his stay in Voronezh
+and, as usually happens when a man is in a pleasant state of mind,
+everything went well and easily.
+
+The landowner to whom Nicholas went was a bachelor, an old cavalryman, a
+horse fancier, a sportsman, the possessor of some century-old brandy and
+some old Hungarian wine, who had a snuggery where he smoked, and who
+owned some splendid horses.
+
+In very few words Nicholas bought seventeen picked stallions for six
+thousand rubles—to serve, as he said, as samples of his remounts. After
+dining and taking rather too much of the Hungarian wine, Nicholas—having
+exchanged kisses with the landowner, with whom he was already on the
+friendliest terms—galloped back over abominable roads, in the brightest
+frame of mind, continually urging on the driver so as to be in time for
+the governor's party.
+
+When he had changed, poured water over his head, and scented himself,
+Nicholas arrived at the governor's rather late, but with the phrase
+"better late than never" on his lips.
+
+It was not a ball, nor had dancing been announced, but everyone knew
+that Catherine Petrovna would play valses and the ecossaise on the
+clavichord and that there would be dancing, and so everyone had come as
+to a ball.
+
+Provincial life in 1812 went on very much as usual, but with this
+difference, that it was livelier in the towns in consequence of the
+arrival of many wealthy families from Moscow, and as in everything that
+went on in Russia at that time a special recklessness was noticeable, an
+"in for a penny, in for a pound—who cares?" spirit, and the inevitable
+small talk, instead of turning on the weather and mutual acquaintances,
+now turned on Moscow, the army, and Napoleon.
+
+The society gathered together at the governor's was the best in
+Voronezh.
+
+There were a great many ladies and some of Nicholas' Moscow
+acquaintances, but there were no men who could at all vie with the
+cavalier of St. George, the hussar remount officer, the good-natured and
+well-bred Count Rostóv. Among the men was an Italian prisoner, an
+officer of the French army; and Nicholas felt that the presence of that
+prisoner enhanced his own importance as a Russian hero. The Italian was,
+as it were, a war trophy. Nicholas felt this, it seemed to him that
+everyone regarded the Italian in the same light, and he treated him
+cordially though with dignity and restraint.
+
+As soon as Nicholas entered in his hussar uniform, diffusing around him
+a fragrance of perfume and wine, and had uttered the words "better late
+than never" and heard them repeated several times by others, people
+clustered around him; all eyes turned on him, and he felt at once that
+he had entered into his proper position in the province—that of a
+universal favorite: a very pleasant position, and intoxicatingly so
+after his long privations. At posting stations, at inns, and in the
+landowner's snuggery, maidservants had been flattered by his notice, and
+here too at the governor's party there were (as it seemed to Nicholas)
+an inexhaustible number of pretty young women, married and unmarried,
+impatiently awaiting his notice. The women and girls flirted with him
+and, from the first day, the people concerned themselves to get this
+fine young daredevil of an hussar married and settled down. Among these
+was the governor's wife herself, who welcomed Rostóv as a near relative
+and called him "Nicholas."
+
+Catherine Petrovna did actually play valses and the ecossaise, and
+dancing began in which Nicholas still further captivated the provincial
+society by his agility. His particularly free manner of dancing even
+surprised them all. Nicholas was himself rather surprised at the way he
+danced that evening. He had never danced like that in Moscow and would
+even have considered such a very free and easy manner improper and in
+bad form, but here he felt it incumbent on him to astonish them all by
+something unusual, something they would have to accept as the regular
+thing in the capital though new to them in the provinces.
+
+All the evening Nicholas paid attention to a blue-eyed, plump and
+pleasing little blonde, the wife of one of the provincial officials.
+With the naïve conviction of young men in a merry mood that other men's
+wives were created for them, Rostóv did not leave the lady's side and
+treated her husband in a friendly and conspiratorial style, as if,
+without speaking of it, they knew how capitally Nicholas and the lady
+would get on together. The husband, however, did not seem to share that
+conviction and tried to behave morosely with Rostóv. But the latter's
+good-natured naïvete was so boundless that sometimes even he
+involuntarily yielded to Nicholas' good humor. Toward the end of the
+evening, however, as the wife's face grew more flushed and animated, the
+husband's became more and more melancholy and solemn, as though there
+were but a given amount of animation between them and as the wife's
+share increased the husband's diminished.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+Nicholas sat leaning slightly forward in an armchair, bending closely
+over the blonde lady and paying her mythological compliments with a
+smile that never left his face. Jauntily shifting the position of his
+legs in their tight riding breeches, diffusing an odor of perfume, and
+admiring his partner, himself, and the fine outlines of his legs in
+their well-fitting Hessian boots, Nicholas told the blonde lady that he
+wished to run away with a certain lady here in Voronezh.
+
+"Which lady?"
+
+"A charming lady, a divine one. Her eyes" (Nicholas looked at his
+partner) "are blue, her mouth coral and ivory; her figure" (he glanced
+at her shoulders) "like Diana's...."
+
+The husband came up and sullenly asked his wife what she was talking
+about.
+
+"Ah, Nikita Ivanych!" cried Nicholas, rising politely, and as if wishing
+Nikita Ivanych to share his joke, he began to tell him of his intention
+to elope with a blonde lady.
+
+The husband smiled gloomily, the wife gaily. The governor's good-natured
+wife came up with a look of disapproval.
+
+"Anna Ignatyevna wants to see you, Nicholas," said she, pronouncing the
+name so that Nicholas at once understood that Anna Ignatyevna was a very
+important person. "Come, Nicholas! You know you let me call you so?"
+
+"Oh, yes, Aunt. Who is she?"
+
+"Anna Ignatyevna Malvintseva. She has heard from her niece how you
+rescued her... Can you guess?"
+
+"I rescued such a lot of them!" said Nicholas.
+
+"Her niece, Princess Bolkónskaya. She is here in Voronezh with her aunt.
+Oho! How you blush. Why, are...?"
+
+"Not a bit! Please don't, Aunt!"
+
+"Very well, very well!... Oh, what a fellow you are!"
+
+The governor's wife led him up to a tall and very stout old lady with a
+blue headdress, who had just finished her game of cards with the most
+important personages of the town. This was Malvintseva, Princess Mary's
+aunt on her mother's side, a rich, childless widow who always lived in
+Voronezh. When Rostóv approached her she was standing settling up for
+the game. She looked at him and, screwing up her eyes sternly, continued
+to upbraid the general who had won from her.
+
+"Very pleased, mon cher," she then said, holding out her hand to
+Nicholas. "Pray come and see me."
+
+After a few words about Princess Mary and her late father, whom
+Malvintseva had evidently not liked, and having asked what Nicholas knew
+of Prince Andrew, who also was evidently no favorite of hers, the
+important old lady dismissed Nicholas after repeating her invitation to
+come to see her.
+
+Nicholas promised to come and blushed again as he bowed. At the mention
+of Princess Mary he experienced a feeling of shyness and even of fear,
+which he himself did not understand.
+
+When he had parted from Malvintseva Nicholas wished to return to the
+dancing, but the governor's little wife placed her plump hand on his
+sleeve and, saying that she wanted to have a talk with him, led him to
+her sitting room, from which those who were there immediately withdrew
+so as not to be in her way.
+
+"Do you know, dear boy," began the governor's wife with a serious
+expression on her kind little face, "that really would be the match for
+you: would you like me to arrange it?"
+
+"Whom do you mean, Aunt?" asked Nicholas.
+
+"I will make a match for you with the princess. Catherine Petrovna
+speaks of Lily, but I say, no—the princess! Do you want me to do it? I
+am sure your mother will be grateful to me. What a charming girl she is,
+really! And she is not at all so plain, either."
+
+"Not at all," replied Nicholas as if offended at the idea. "As befits a
+soldier, Aunt, I don't force myself on anyone or refuse anything," he
+said before he had time to consider what he was saying.
+
+"Well then, remember, this is not a joke!"
+
+"Of course not!"
+
+"Yes, yes," the governor's wife said as if talking to herself. "But, my
+dear boy, among other things you are too attentive to the other, the
+blonde. One is sorry for the husband, really...."
+
+"Oh no, we are good friends with him," said Nicholas in the simplicity
+of his heart; it did not enter his head that a pastime so pleasant to
+himself might not be pleasant to someone else.
+
+"But what nonsense I have been saying to the governor's wife!" thought
+Nicholas suddenly at supper. "She will really begin to arrange a
+match... and Sónya...?" And on taking leave of the governor's wife, when
+she again smilingly said to him, "Well then, remember!" he drew her
+aside.
+
+"But see here, to tell the truth, Aunt..."
+
+"What is it, my dear? Come, let's sit down here," said she.
+
+Nicholas suddenly felt a desire and need to tell his most intimate
+thoughts (which he would not have told to his mother, his sister, or his
+friend) to this woman who was almost a stranger. When he afterwards
+recalled that impulse to unsolicited and inexplicable frankness which
+had very important results for him, it seemed to him—as it seems to
+everyone in such cases—that it was merely some silly whim that seized
+him: yet that burst of frankness, together with other trifling events,
+had immense consequences for him and for all his family.
+
+"You see, Aunt, Mamma has long wanted me to marry an heiress, but the
+very idea of marrying for money is repugnant to me."
+
+"Oh yes, I understand," said the governor's wife.
+
+"But Princess Bolkónskaya—that's another matter. I will tell you the
+truth. In the first place I like her very much, I feel drawn to her; and
+then, after I met her under such circumstances—so strangely, the idea
+often occurred to me: 'This is fate.' Especially if you remember that
+Mamma had long been thinking of it; but I had never happened to meet her
+before, somehow it had always happened that we did not meet. And as long
+as my sister Natásha was engaged to her brother it was of course out of
+the question for me to think of marrying her. And it must needs happen
+that I should meet her just when Natásha's engagement had been broken
+off... and then everything... So you see... I never told this to anyone
+and never will, only to you."
+
+The governor's wife pressed his elbow gratefully.
+
+"You know Sónya, my cousin? I love her, and promised to marry her, and
+will do so.... So you see there can be no question about-" said Nicholas
+incoherently and blushing.
+
+"My dear boy, what a way to look at it! You know Sónya has nothing and
+you yourself say your Papa's affairs are in a very bad way. And what
+about your mother? It would kill her, that's one thing. And what sort of
+life would it be for Sónya—if she's a girl with a heart? Your mother in
+despair, and you all ruined.... No, my dear, you and Sónya ought to
+understand that."
+
+Nicholas remained silent. It comforted him to hear these arguments.
+
+"All the same, Aunt, it is impossible," he rejoined with a sigh, after a
+short pause. "Besides, would the princess have me? And besides, she is
+now in mourning. How can one think of it!"
+
+"But you don't suppose I'm going to get you married at once? There is
+always a right way of doing things," replied the governor's wife.
+
+"What a matchmaker you are, Aunt..." said Nicholas, kissing her plump
+little hand.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+On reaching Moscow after her meeting with Rostóv, Princess Mary had
+found her nephew there with his tutor, and a letter from Prince Andrew
+giving her instructions how to get to her Aunt Malvintseva at Voronezh.
+That feeling akin to temptation which had tormented her during her
+father's illness, since his death, and especially since her meeting with
+Rostóv was smothered by arrangements for the journey, anxiety about her
+brother, settling in a new house, meeting new people, and attending to
+her nephew's education. She was sad. Now, after a month passed in quiet
+surroundings, she felt more and more deeply the loss of her father which
+was associated in her mind with the ruin of Russia. She was agitated and
+incessantly tortured by the thought of the dangers to which her brother,
+the only intimate person now remaining to her, was exposed. She was
+worried too about her nephew's education for which she had always felt
+herself incompetent, but in the depths of her soul she felt at peace—a
+peace arising from consciousness of having stifled those personal dreams
+and hopes that had been on the point of awakening within her and were
+related to her meeting with Rostóv.
+
+The day after her party the governor's wife came to see Malvintseva and,
+after discussing her plan with the aunt, remarked that though under
+present circumstances a formal betrothal was, of course, not to be
+thought of, all the same the young people might be brought together and
+could get to know one another. Malvintseva expressed approval, and the
+governor's wife began to speak of Rostóv in Mary's presence, praising
+him and telling how he had blushed when Princess Mary's name was
+mentioned. But Princess Mary experienced a painful rather than a joyful
+feeling—her mental tranquillity was destroyed, and desires, doubts,
+self-reproach, and hopes reawoke.
+
+During the two days that elapsed before Rostóv called, Princess Mary
+continually thought of how she ought to behave to him. First she decided
+not to come to the drawing room when he called to see her aunt—that it
+would not be proper for her, in her deep mourning, to receive visitors;
+then she thought this would be rude after what he had done for her; then
+it occurred to her that her aunt and the governor's wife had intentions
+concerning herself and Rostóv—their looks and words at times seemed to
+confirm this supposition—then she told herself that only she, with her
+sinful nature, could think this of them: they could not forget that
+situated as she was, while still wearing deep mourning, such matchmaking
+would be an insult to her and to her father's memory. Assuming that she
+did go down to see him, Princess Mary imagined the words he would say to
+her and what she would say to him, and these words sometimes seemed
+undeservedly cold and then to mean too much. More than anything she
+feared lest the confusion she felt might overwhelm her and betray her as
+soon as she saw him.
+
+But when on Sunday after church the footman announced in the drawing
+room that Count Rostóv had called, the princess showed no confusion,
+only a slight blush suffused her cheeks and her eyes lit up with a new
+and radiant light.
+
+"You have met him, Aunt?" said she in a calm voice, unable herself to
+understand that she could be outwardly so calm and natural.
+
+When Rostóv entered the room, the princess dropped her eyes for an
+instant, as if to give the visitor time to greet her aunt, and then just
+as Nicholas turned to her she raised her head and met his look with
+shining eyes. With a movement full of dignity and grace she half rose
+with a smile of pleasure, held out her slender, delicate hand to him,
+and began to speak in a voice in which for the first time new deep
+womanly notes vibrated. Mademoiselle Bourienne, who was in the drawing
+room, looked at Princess Mary in bewildered surprise. Herself a
+consummate coquette, she could not have maneuvered better on meeting a
+man she wished to attract.
+
+"Either black is particularly becoming to her or she really has greatly
+improved without my having noticed it. And above all, what tact and
+grace!" thought Mademoiselle Bourienne.
+
+Had Princess Mary been capable of reflection at that moment, she would
+have been more surprised than Mademoiselle Bourienne at the change that
+had taken place in herself. From the moment she recognized that dear,
+loved face, a new life force took possession of her and compelled her to
+speak and act apart from her own will. From the time Rostóv entered, her
+face became suddenly transformed. It was as if a light had been kindled
+in a carved and painted lantern and the intricate, skillful, artistic
+work on its sides, that previously seemed dark, coarse, and meaningless,
+was suddenly shown up in unexpected and striking beauty. For the first
+time all that pure, spiritual, inward travail through which she had
+lived appeared on the surface. All her inward labor, her dissatisfaction
+with herself, her sufferings, her strivings after goodness, her
+meekness, love, and self-sacrifice—all this now shone in those radiant
+eyes, in her delicate smile, and in every trait of her gentle face.
+
+Rostóv saw all this as clearly as if he had known her whole life. He
+felt that the being before him was quite different from, and better
+than, anyone he had met before, and above all better than himself.
+
+Their conversation was very simple and unimportant. They spoke of the
+war, and like everyone else unconsciously exaggerated their sorrow about
+it; they spoke of their last meeting—Nicholas trying to change the
+subject—they talked of the governor's kind wife, of Nicholas' relations,
+and of Princess Mary's.
+
+She did not talk about her brother, diverting the conversation as soon
+as her aunt mentioned Andrew. Evidently she could speak of Russia's
+misfortunes with a certain artificiality, but her brother was too near
+her heart and she neither could nor would speak lightly of him. Nicholas
+noticed this, as he noticed every shade of Princess Mary's character
+with an observation unusual to him, and everything confirmed his
+conviction that she was a quite unusual and extraordinary being.
+Nicholas blushed and was confused when people spoke to him about the
+princess (as she did when he was mentioned) and even when he thought of
+her, but in her presence he felt quite at ease, and said not at all what
+he had prepared, but what, quite appropriately, occurred to him at the
+moment.
+
+When a pause occurred during his short visit, Nicholas, as is usual when
+there are children, turned to Prince Andrew's little son, caressing him
+and asking whether he would like to be an hussar. He took the boy on his
+knee, played with him, and looked round at Princess Mary. With a
+softened, happy, timid look she watched the boy she loved in the arms of
+the man she loved. Nicholas also noticed that look and, as if
+understanding it, flushed with pleasure and began to kiss the boy with
+good natured playfulness.
+
+As she was in mourning Princess Mary did not go out into society, and
+Nicholas did not think it the proper thing to visit her again; but all
+the same the governor's wife went on with her matchmaking, passing on to
+Nicholas the flattering things Princess Mary said of him and vice versa,
+and insisting on his declaring himself to Princess Mary. For this
+purpose she arranged a meeting between the young people at the bishop's
+house before Mass.
+
+Though Rostóv told the governor's wife that he would not make any
+declaration to Princess Mary, he promised to go.
+
+As at Tilsit Rostóv had not allowed himself to doubt that what everybody
+considered right was right, so now, after a short but sincere struggle
+between his effort to arrange his life by his own sense of justice, and
+in obedient submission to circumstances, he chose the latter and yielded
+to the power he felt irresistibly carrying him he knew not where. He
+knew that after his promise to Sónya it would be what he deemed base to
+declare his feelings to Princess Mary. And he knew that he would never
+act basely. But he also knew (or rather felt at the bottom of his heart)
+that by resigning himself now to the force of circumstances and to those
+who were guiding him, he was not only doing nothing wrong, but was doing
+something very important—more important than anything he had ever done
+in his life.
+
+After meeting Princess Mary, though the course of his life went on
+externally as before, all his former amusements lost their charm for him
+and he often thought about her. But he never thought about her as he had
+thought of all the young ladies without exception whom he had met in
+society, nor as he had for a long time, and at one time rapturously,
+thought about Sónya. He had pictured each of those young ladies as
+almost all honest-hearted young men do, that is, as a possible wife,
+adapting her in his imagination to all the conditions of married life: a
+white dressing gown, his wife at the tea table, his wife's carriage,
+little ones, Mamma and Papa, their relations to her, and so on—and these
+pictures of the future had given him pleasure. But with Princess Mary,
+to whom they were trying to get him engaged, he could never picture
+anything of future married life. If he tried, his pictures seemed
+incongruous and false. It made him afraid.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+The dreadful news of the battle of Borodino, of our losses in killed and
+wounded, and the still more terrible news of the loss of Moscow reached
+Voronezh in the middle of September. Princess Mary, having learned of
+her brother's wound only from the Gazette and having no definite news of
+him, prepared (so Nicholas heard, he had not seen her again himself) to
+set off in search of Prince Andrew.
+
+When he received the news of the battle of Borodino and the abandonment
+of Moscow, Rostóv was not seized with despair, anger, the desire for
+vengeance, or any feeling of that kind, but everything in Voronezh
+suddenly seemed to him dull and tiresome, and he experienced an
+indefinite feeling of shame and awkwardness. The conversations he heard
+seemed to him insincere; he did not know how to judge all these affairs
+and felt that only in the regiment would everything again become clear
+to him. He made haste to finish buying the horses, and often became
+unreasonably angry with his servant and squadron quartermaster.
+
+A few days before his departure a special thanksgiving, at which
+Nicholas was present, was held in the cathedral for the Russian victory.
+He stood a little behind the governor and held himself with military
+decorum through the service, meditating on a great variety of subjects.
+When the service was over the governor's wife beckoned him to her.
+
+"Have you seen the princess?" she asked, indicating with a movement of
+her head a lady standing on the opposite side, beyond the choir.
+
+Nicholas immediately recognized Princess Mary not so much by the profile
+he saw under her bonnet as by the feeling of solicitude, timidity, and
+pity that immediately overcame him. Princess Mary, evidently engrossed
+by her thoughts, was crossing herself for the last time before leaving
+the church.
+
+Nicholas looked at her face with surprise. It was the same face he had
+seen before, there was the same general expression of refined, inner,
+spiritual labor, but now it was quite differently lit up. There was a
+pathetic expression of sorrow, prayer, and hope in it. As had occurred
+before when she was present, Nicholas went up to her without waiting to
+be prompted by the governor's wife and not asking himself whether or not
+it was right and proper to address her here in church, and told her he
+had heard of her trouble and sympathized with his whole soul. As soon as
+she heard his voice a vivid glow kindled in her face, lighting up both
+her sorrow and her joy.
+
+"There is one thing I wanted to tell you, Princess," said Rostóv. "It is
+that if your brother, Prince Andrew Nikolievich, were not living, it
+would have been at once announced in the Gazette, as he is a colonel."
+
+The princess looked at him, not grasping what he was saying, but cheered
+by the expression of regretful sympathy on his face.
+
+"And I have known so many cases of a splinter wound" (the Gazette said
+it was a shell) "either proving fatal at once or being very slight,"
+continued Nicholas. "We must hope for the best, and I am sure..."
+
+Princess Mary interrupted him.
+
+"Oh, that would be so dread..." she began and, prevented by agitation
+from finishing, she bent her head with a movement as graceful as
+everything she did in his presence and, looking up at him gratefully,
+went out, following her aunt.
+
+That evening Nicholas did not go out, but stayed at home to settle some
+accounts with the horse dealers. When he had finished that business it
+was already too late to go anywhere but still too early to go to bed,
+and for a long time he paced up and down the room, reflecting on his
+life, a thing he rarely did.
+
+Princess Mary had made an agreeable impression on him when he had met
+her in Smolensk province. His having encountered her in such exceptional
+circumstances, and his mother having at one time mentioned her to him as
+a good match, had drawn his particular attention to her. When he met her
+again in Voronezh the impression she made on him was not merely pleasing
+but powerful. Nicholas had been struck by the peculiar moral beauty he
+observed in her at this time. He was, however, preparing to go away and
+it had not entered his head to regret that he was thus depriving himself
+of chances of meeting her. But that day's encounter in church had, he
+felt, sunk deeper than was desirable for his peace of mind. That pale,
+sad, refined face, that radiant look, those gentle graceful gestures,
+and especially the deep and tender sorrow expressed in all her features
+agitated him and evoked his sympathy. In men Rostóv could not bear to
+see the expression of a higher spiritual life (that was why he did not
+like Prince Andrew) and he referred to it contemptuously as philosophy
+and dreaminess, but in Princess Mary that very sorrow which revealed the
+depth of a whole spiritual world foreign to him was an irresistible
+attraction.
+
+"She must be a wonderful woman. A real angel!" he said to himself. "Why
+am I not free? Why was I in such a hurry with Sónya?" And he
+involuntarily compared the two: the lack of spirituality in the one and
+the abundance of it in the other—a spirituality he himself lacked and
+therefore valued most highly. He tried to picture what would happen were
+he free. How he would propose to her and how she would become his wife.
+But no, he could not imagine that. He felt awed, and no clear picture
+presented itself to his mind. He had long ago pictured to himself a
+future with Sónya, and that was all clear and simple just because it had
+all been thought out and he knew all there was in Sónya, but it was
+impossible to picture a future with Princess Mary, because he did not
+understand her but simply loved her.
+
+Reveries about Sónya had had something merry and playful in them, but to
+dream of Princess Mary was always difficult and a little frightening.
+
+"How she prayed!" he thought. "It was plain that her whole soul was in
+her prayer. Yes, that was the prayer that moves mountains, and I am sure
+her prayer will be answered. Why don't I pray for what I want?" he
+suddenly thought. "What do I want? To be free, released from Sónya...
+She was right," he thought, remembering what the governor's wife had
+said: "Nothing but misfortune can come of marrying Sónya. Muddles, grief
+for Mamma... business difficulties... muddles, terrible muddles!
+Besides, I don't love her—not as I should. O, God! release me from this
+dreadful, inextricable position!" he suddenly began to pray. "Yes,
+prayer can move mountains, but one must have faith and not pray as
+Natásha and I used to as children, that the snow might turn into
+sugar—and then run out into the yard to see whether it had done so. No,
+but I am not praying for trifles now," he thought as he put his pipe
+down in a corner, and folding his hands placed himself before the icon.
+Softened by memories of Princess Mary he began to pray as he had not
+done for a long time. Tears were in his eyes and in his throat when the
+door opened and Lavrushka came in with some papers.
+
+"Blockhead! Why do you come in without being called?" cried Nicholas,
+quickly changing his attitude.
+
+"From the governor," said Lavrushka in a sleepy voice. "A courier has
+arrived and there's a letter for you."
+
+"Well, all right, thanks. You can go!"
+
+Nicholas took the two letters, one of which was from his mother and the
+other from Sónya. He recognized them by the handwriting and opened
+Sónya's first. He had read only a few lines when he turned pale and his
+eyes opened wide with fear and joy.
+
+"No, it's not possible!" he cried aloud.
+
+Unable to sit still he paced up and down the room holding the letter and
+reading it. He glanced through it, then read it again, and then again,
+and standing still in the middle of the room he raised his shoulders,
+stretching out his hands, with his mouth wide open and his eyes fixed.
+What he had just been praying for with confidence that God would hear
+him had come to pass; but Nicholas was as much astonished as if it were
+something extraordinary and unexpected, and as if the very fact that it
+had happened so quickly proved that it had not come from God to whom he
+had prayed, but by some ordinary coincidence.
+
+This unexpected and, as it seemed to Nicholas, quite voluntary letter
+from Sónya freed him from the knot that fettered him and from which
+there had seemed no escape. She wrote that the last unfortunate
+events—the loss of almost the whole of the Rostóvs' Moscow property—and
+the countess' repeatedly expressed wish that Nicholas should marry
+Princess Bolkónskaya, together with his silence and coldness of late,
+had all combined to make her decide to release him from his promise and
+set him completely free.
+
+It would be too painful to me to think that I might be a cause of sorrow
+or discord in the family that has been so good to me (she wrote), and my
+love has no aim but the happiness of those I love; so, Nicholas, I beg
+you to consider yourself free, and to be assured that, in spite of
+everything, no one can love you more than does
+
+Your Sónya
+
+Both letters were written from Troitsa. The other, from the countess,
+described their last days in Moscow, their departure, the fire, and the
+destruction of all their property. In this letter the countess also
+mentioned that Prince Andrew was among the wounded traveling with them;
+his state was very critical, but the doctor said there was now more
+hope. Sónya and Natásha were nursing him.
+
+Next day Nicholas took his mother's letter and went to see Princess
+Mary. Neither he nor she said a word about what "Natásha nursing him"
+might mean, but thanks to this letter Nicholas suddenly became almost as
+intimate with the princess as if they were relations.
+
+The following day he saw Princess Mary off on her journey to Yaroslavl,
+and a few days later left to rejoin his regiment.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+Sónya's letter written from Troitsa, which had come as an answer to
+Nicholas' prayer, was prompted by this: the thought of getting Nicholas
+married to an heiress occupied the old countess' mind more and more. She
+knew that Sónya was the chief obstacle to this happening, and Sónya's
+life in the countess' house had grown harder and harder, especially
+after they had received a letter from Nicholas telling of his meeting
+with Princess Mary in Bogucharovo. The countess let no occasion slip of
+making humiliating or cruel allusions to Sónya.
+
+But a few days before they left Moscow, moved and excited by all that
+was going on, she called Sónya to her and, instead of reproaching and
+making demands on her, tearfully implored her to sacrifice herself and
+repay all that the family had done for her by breaking off her
+engagement with Nicholas.
+
+"I shall not be at peace till you promise me this."
+
+Sónya burst into hysterical tears and replied through her sobs that she
+would do anything and was prepared for anything, but gave no actual
+promise and could not bring herself to decide to do what was demanded of
+her. She must sacrifice herself for the family that had reared and
+brought her up. To sacrifice herself for others was Sónya's habit. Her
+position in the house was such that only by sacrifice could she show her
+worth, and she was accustomed to this and loved doing it. But in all her
+former acts of self-sacrifice she had been happily conscious that they
+raised her in her own esteem and in that of others, and so made her more
+worthy of Nicholas whom she loved more than anything in the world. But
+now they wanted her to sacrifice the very thing that constituted the
+whole reward for her self-sacrifice and the whole meaning of her life.
+And for the first time she felt bitterness against those who had been
+her benefactors only to torture her the more painfully; she felt jealous
+of Natásha who had never experienced anything of this sort, had never
+needed to sacrifice herself, but made others sacrifice themselves for
+her and yet was beloved by everybody. And for the first time Sónya felt
+that out of her pure, quiet love for Nicholas a passionate feeling was
+beginning to grow up which was stronger than principle, virtue, or
+religion. Under the influence of this feeling Sónya, whose life of
+dependence had taught her involuntarily to be secretive, having answered
+the countess in vague general terms, avoided talking with her and
+resolved to wait till she should see Nicholas, not in order to set him
+free but on the contrary at that meeting to bind him to her forever.
+
+The bustle and terror of the Rostóvs' last days in Moscow stifled the
+gloomy thoughts that oppressed Sónya. She was glad to find escape from
+them in practical activity. But when she heard of Prince Andrew's
+presence in their house, despite her sincere pity for him and for
+Natásha, she was seized by a joyful and superstitious feeling that God
+did not intend her to be separated from Nicholas. She knew that Natásha
+loved no one but Prince Andrew and had never ceased to love him. She
+knew that being thrown together again under such terrible circumstances
+they would again fall in love with one another, and that Nicholas would
+then not be able to marry Princess Mary as they would be within the
+prohibited degrees of affinity. Despite all the terror of what had
+happened during those last days and during the first days of their
+journey, this feeling that Providence was intervening in her personal
+affairs cheered Sónya.
+
+At the Troitsa monastery the Rostóvs first broke their journey for a
+whole day.
+
+Three large rooms were assigned to them in the monastery hostelry, one
+of which was occupied by Prince Andrew. The wounded man was much better
+that day and Natásha was sitting with him. In the next room sat the
+count and countess respectfully conversing with the prior, who was
+calling on them as old acquaintances and benefactors of the monastery.
+Sónya was there too, tormented by curiosity as to what Prince Andrew and
+Natásha were talking about. She heard the sound of their voices through
+the door. That door opened and Natásha came out, looking excited. Not
+noticing the monk, who had risen to greet her and was drawing back the
+wide sleeve on his right arm, she went up to Sónya and took her hand.
+
+"Natásha, what are you about? Come here!" said the countess.
+
+Natásha went up to the monk for his blessing, and he advised her to pray
+for aid to God and His saint.
+
+As soon as the prior withdrew, Natásha took her friend by the hand and
+went with her into the unoccupied room.
+
+"Sónya, will he live?" she asked. "Sónya, how happy I am, and how
+unhappy!... Sónya, dovey, everything is as it used to be. If only he
+lives! He cannot... because... because... of" and Natásha burst into
+tears.
+
+"Yes! I knew it! Thank God!" murmured Sónya. "He will live."
+
+Sónya was not less agitated than her friend by the latter's fear and
+grief and by her own personal feelings which she shared with no one.
+Sobbing, she kissed and comforted Natásha. "If only he lives!" she
+thought. Having wept, talked, and wiped away their tears, the two
+friends went together to Prince Andrew's door. Natásha opened it
+cautiously and glanced into the room, Sónya standing beside her at the
+half-open door.
+
+Prince Andrew was lying raised high on three pillows. His pale face was
+calm, his eyes closed, and they could see his regular breathing.
+
+"O, Natásha!" Sónya suddenly almost screamed, catching her companion's
+arm and stepping back from the door.
+
+"What? What is it?" asked Natásha.
+
+"It's that, that..." said Sónya, with a white face and trembling lips.
+
+Natásha softly closed the door and went with Sónya to the window, not
+yet understanding what the latter was telling her.
+
+"You remember," said Sónya with a solemn and frightened expression. "You
+remember when I looked in the mirror for you... at Otradnoe at
+Christmas? Do you remember what I saw?"
+
+"Yes, yes!" cried Natásha opening her eyes wide, and vaguely recalling
+that Sónya had told her something about Prince Andrew whom she had seen
+lying down.
+
+"You remember?" Sónya went on. "I saw it then and told everybody, you
+and Dunyasha. I saw him lying on a bed," said she, making a gesture with
+her hand and a lifted finger at each detail, "and that he had his eyes
+closed and was covered just with a pink quilt, and that his hands were
+folded," she concluded, convincing herself that the details she had just
+seen were exactly what she had seen in the mirror.
+
+She had in fact seen nothing then but had mentioned the first thing that
+came into her head, but what she had invented then seemed to her now as
+real as any other recollection. She not only remembered what she had
+then said—that he turned to look at her and smiled and was covered with
+something red—but was firmly convinced that she had then seen and said
+that he was covered with a pink quilt and that his eyes were closed.
+
+"Yes, yes, it really was pink!" cried Natásha, who now thought she too
+remembered the word pink being used, and saw in this the most
+extraordinary and mysterious part of the prediction.
+
+"But what does it mean?" she added meditatively.
+
+"Oh, I don't know, it is all so strange," replied Sónya, clutching at
+her head.
+
+A few minutes later Prince Andrew rang and Natásha went to him, but
+Sónya, feeling unusually excited and touched, remained at the window
+thinking about the strangeness of what had occurred.
+
+They had an opportunity that day to send letters to the army, and the
+countess was writing to her son.
+
+"Sónya!" said the countess, raising her eyes from her letter as her
+niece passed, "Sónya, won't you write to Nicholas?" She spoke in a soft,
+tremulous voice, and in the weary eyes that looked over her spectacles
+Sónya read all that the countess meant to convey with these words. Those
+eyes expressed entreaty, shame at having to ask, fear of a refusal, and
+readiness for relentless hatred in case of such refusal.
+
+Sónya went up to the countess and, kneeling down, kissed her hand.
+
+"Yes, Mamma, I will write," said she.
+
+Sónya was softened, excited, and touched by all that had occurred that
+day, especially by the mysterious fulfillment she had just seen of her
+vision. Now that she knew that the renewal of Natásha's relations with
+Prince Andrew would prevent Nicholas from marrying Princess Mary, she
+was joyfully conscious of a return of that self-sacrificing spirit in
+which she was accustomed to live and loved to live. So with a joyful
+consciousness of performing a magnanimous deed—interrupted several times
+by the tears that dimmed her velvety black eyes—she wrote that touching
+letter the arrival of which had so amazed Nicholas.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+The officer and soldiers who had arrested Pierre treated him with
+hostility but yet with respect, in the guardhouse to which he was taken.
+In their attitude toward him could still be felt both uncertainty as to
+who he might be—perhaps a very important person—and hostility as a
+result of their recent personal conflict with him.
+
+But when the guard was relieved next morning, Pierre felt that for the
+new guard—both officers and men—he was not as interesting as he had been
+to his captors; and in fact the guard of the second day did not
+recognize in this big, stout man in a peasant coat the vigorous person
+who had fought so desperately with the marauder and the convoy and had
+uttered those solemn words about saving a child; they saw in him only
+No. 17 of the captured Russians, arrested and detained for some reason
+by order of the Higher Command. If they noticed anything remarkable
+about Pierre, it was only his unabashed, meditative concentration and
+thoughtfulness, and the way he spoke French, which struck them as
+surprisingly good. In spite of this he was placed that day with the
+other arrested suspects, as the separate room he had occupied was
+required by an officer.
+
+All the Russians confined with Pierre were men of the lowest class and,
+recognizing him as a gentleman, they all avoided him, more especially as
+he spoke French. Pierre felt sad at hearing them making fun of him.
+
+That evening he learned that all these prisoners (he, probably, among
+them) were to be tried for incendiarism. On the third day he was taken
+with the others to a house where a French general with a white mustache
+sat with two colonels and other Frenchmen with scarves on their arms.
+With the precision and definiteness customary in addressing prisoners,
+and which is supposed to preclude human frailty, Pierre like the others
+was questioned as to who he was, where he had been, with what object,
+and so on.
+
+These questions, like questions put at trials generally, left the
+essence of the matter aside, shut out the possibility of that essence's
+being revealed, and were designed only to form a channel through which
+the judges wished the answers of the accused to flow so as to lead to
+the desired result, namely a conviction. As soon as Pierre began to say
+anything that did not fit in with that aim, the channel was removed and
+the water could flow to waste. Pierre felt, moreover, what the accused
+always feel at their trial, perplexity as to why these questions were
+put to him. He had a feeling that it was only out of condescension or a
+kind of civility that this device of placing a channel was employed. He
+knew he was in these men's power, that only by force had they brought
+him there, that force alone gave them the right to demand answers to
+their questions, and that the sole object of that assembly was to
+inculpate him. And so, as they had the power and wish to inculpate him,
+this expedient of an inquiry and trial seemed unnecessary. It was
+evident that any answer would lead to conviction. When asked what he was
+doing when he was arrested, Pierre replied in a rather tragic manner
+that he was restoring to its parents a child he had saved from the
+flames. Why had he fought the marauder? Pierre answered that he "was
+protecting a woman," and that "to protect a woman who was being insulted
+was the duty of every man; that..." They interrupted him, for this was
+not to the point. Why was he in the yard of a burning house where
+witnesses had seen him? He replied that he had gone out to see what was
+happening in Moscow. Again they interrupted him: they had not asked
+where he was going, but why he was found near the fire? Who was he? they
+asked, repeating their first question, which he had declined to answer.
+Again he replied that he could not answer it.
+
+"Put that down, that's bad... very bad," sternly remarked the general
+with the white mustache and red flushed face.
+
+On the fourth day fires broke out on the Zubovski rampart.
+
+Pierre and thirteen others were moved to the coach house of a merchant's
+house near the Crimean bridge. On his way through the streets Pierre
+felt stifled by the smoke which seemed to hang over the whole city.
+Fires were visible on all sides. He did not then realize the
+significance of the burning of Moscow, and looked at the fires with
+horror.
+
+He passed four days in the coach house near the Crimean bridge and
+during that time learned, from the talk of the French soldiers, that all
+those confined there were awaiting a decision which might come any day
+from the marshal. What marshal this was, Pierre could not learn from the
+soldiers. Evidently for them "the marshal" represented a very high and
+rather mysterious power.
+
+These first days, before the eighth of September when the prisoners were
+had up for a second examination, were the hardest of all for Pierre.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+On the eighth of September an officer—a very important one judging by
+the respect the guards showed him—entered the coach house where the
+prisoners were. This officer, probably someone on the staff, was holding
+a paper in his hand, and called over all the Russians there, naming
+Pierre as "the man who does not give his name." Glancing indolently and
+indifferently at all the prisoners, he ordered the officer in charge to
+have them decently dressed and tidied up before taking them to the
+marshal. An hour later a squad of soldiers arrived and Pierre with
+thirteen others was led to the Virgin's Field. It was a fine day, sunny
+after rain, and the air was unusually pure. The smoke did not hang low
+as on the day when Pierre had been taken from the guardhouse on the
+Zubovski rampart, but rose through the pure air in columns. No flames
+were seen, but columns of smoke rose on all sides, and all Moscow as far
+as Pierre could see was one vast charred ruin. On all sides there were
+waste spaces with only stoves and chimney stacks still standing, and
+here and there the blackened walls of some brick houses. Pierre gazed at
+the ruins and did not recognize districts he had known well. Here and
+there he could see churches that had not been burned. The Kremlin, which
+was not destroyed, gleamed white in the distance with its towers and the
+belfry of Ivan the Great. The domes of the New Convent of the Virgin
+glittered brightly and its bells were ringing particularly clearly.
+These bells reminded Pierre that it was Sunday and the feast of the
+Nativity of the Virgin. But there seemed to be no one to celebrate this
+holiday: everywhere were blackened ruins, and the few Russians to be
+seen were tattered and frightened people who tried to hide when they saw
+the French.
+
+It was plain that the Russian nest was ruined and destroyed, but in
+place of the Russian order of life that had been destroyed, Pierre
+unconsciously felt that a quite different, firm, French order had been
+established over this ruined nest. He felt this in the looks of the
+soldiers who, marching in regular ranks briskly and gaily, were
+escorting him and the other criminals; he felt it in the looks of an
+important French official in a carriage and pair driven by a soldier,
+whom they met on the way. He felt it in the merry sounds of regimental
+music he heard from the left side of the field, and felt and realized it
+especially from the list of prisoners the French officer had read out
+when he came that morning. Pierre had been taken by one set of soldiers
+and led first to one and then to another place with dozens of other men,
+and it seemed that they might have forgotten him, or confused him with
+the others. But no: the answers he had given when questioned had come
+back to him in his designation as "the man who does not give his name,"
+and under that appellation, which to Pierre seemed terrible, they were
+now leading him somewhere with unhesitating assurance on their faces
+that he and all the other prisoners were exactly the ones they wanted
+and that they were being taken to the proper place. Pierre felt himself
+to be an insignificant chip fallen among the wheels of a machine whose
+action he did not understand but which was working well.
+
+He and the other prisoners were taken to the right side of the Virgin's
+Field, to a large white house with an immense garden not far from the
+convent. This was Prince Shcherbitov's house, where Pierre had often
+been in other days, and which, as he learned from the talk of the
+soldiers, was now occupied by the marshal, the Duke of Eckmuhl (Davout).
+
+They were taken to the entrance and led into the house one by one.
+Pierre was the sixth to enter. He was conducted through a glass gallery,
+an anteroom, and a hall, which were familiar to him, into a long low
+study at the door of which stood an adjutant.
+
+Davout, spectacles on nose, sat bent over a table at the further end of
+the room. Pierre went close up to him, but Davout, evidently consulting
+a paper that lay before him, did not look up. Without raising his eyes,
+he said in a low voice:
+
+"Who are you?"
+
+Pierre was silent because he was incapable of uttering a word. To him
+Davout was not merely a French general, but a man notorious for his
+cruelty. Looking at his cold face, as he sat like a stern schoolmaster
+who was prepared to wait awhile for an answer, Pierre felt that every
+instant of delay might cost him his life; but he did not know what to
+say. He did not venture to repeat what he had said at his first
+examination, yet to disclose his rank and position was dangerous and
+embarrassing. So he was silent. But before he had decided what to do,
+Davout raised his head, pushed his spectacles back on his forehead,
+screwed up his eyes, and looked intently at him.
+
+"I know that man," he said in a cold, measured tone, evidently
+calculated to frighten Pierre.
+
+The chill that had been running down Pierre's back now seized his head
+as in a vise.
+
+"You cannot know me, General, I have never seen you..."
+
+"He is a Russian spy," Davout interrupted, addressing another general
+who was present, but whom Pierre had not noticed.
+
+Davout turned away. With an unexpected reverberation in his voice Pierre
+rapidly began:
+
+"No, monseigneur," he said, suddenly remembering that Davout was a duke.
+"No, monseigneur, you cannot have known me. I am a militia officer and
+have not quitted Moscow."
+
+"Your name?" asked Davout.
+
+"Bezúkhov."
+
+"What proof have I that you are not lying?"
+
+"Monseigneur!" exclaimed Pierre, not in an offended but in a pleading
+voice.
+
+Davout looked up and gazed intently at him. For some seconds they looked
+at one another, and that look saved Pierre. Apart from conditions of war
+and law, that look established human relations between the two men. At
+that moment an immense number of things passed dimly through both their
+minds, and they realized that they were both children of humanity and
+were brothers.
+
+At the first glance, when Davout had only raised his head from the
+papers where human affairs and lives were indicated by numbers, Pierre
+was merely a circumstance, and Davout could have shot him without
+burdening his conscience with an evil deed, but now he saw in him a
+human being. He reflected for a moment.
+
+"How can you show me that you are telling the truth?" said Davout
+coldly.
+
+Pierre remembered Ramballe, and named him and his regiment and the
+street where the house was.
+
+"You are not what you say," returned Davout.
+
+In a trembling, faltering voice Pierre began adducing proofs of the
+truth of his statements.
+
+But at that moment an adjutant entered and reported something to Davout.
+
+Davout brightened up at the news the adjutant brought, and began
+buttoning up his uniform. It seemed that he had quite forgotten Pierre.
+
+When the adjutant reminded him of the prisoner, he jerked his head in
+Pierre's direction with a frown and ordered him to be led away. But
+where they were to take him Pierre did not know: back to the coach house
+or to the place of execution his companions had pointed out to him as
+they crossed the Virgin's Field.
+
+He turned his head and saw that the adjutant was putting another
+question to Davout.
+
+"Yes, of course!" replied Davout, but what this "yes" meant, Pierre did
+not know.
+
+Pierre could not afterwards remember how he went, whether it was far, or
+in which direction. His faculties were quite numbed, he was stupefied,
+and noticing nothing around him went on moving his legs as the others
+did till they all stopped and he stopped too. The only thought in his
+mind at that time was: who was it that had really sentenced him to
+death? Not the men on the commission that had first examined him—not one
+of them wished to or, evidently, could have done it. It was not Davout,
+who had looked at him in so human a way. In another moment Davout would
+have realized that he was doing wrong, but just then the adjutant had
+come in and interrupted him. The adjutant, also, had evidently had no
+evil intent though he might have refrained from coming in. Then who was
+executing him, killing him, depriving him of life—him, Pierre, with all
+his memories, aspirations, hopes, and thoughts? Who was doing this? And
+Pierre felt that it was no one.
+
+It was a system—a concurrence of circumstances.
+
+A system of some sort was killing him—Pierre—depriving him of life, of
+everything, annihilating him.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+From Prince Shcherbatov's house the prisoners were led straight down the
+Virgin's Field, to the left of the nunnery, as far as a kitchen garden
+in which a post had been set up. Beyond that post a fresh pit had been
+dug in the ground, and near the post and the pit a large crowd stood in
+a semicircle. The crowd consisted of a few Russians and many of
+Napoleon's soldiers who were not on duty—Germans, Italians, and
+Frenchmen, in a variety of uniforms. To the right and left of the post
+stood rows of French troops in blue uniforms with red epaulets and high
+boots and shakos.
+
+The prisoners were placed in a certain order, according to the list
+(Pierre was sixth), and were led to the post. Several drums suddenly
+began to beat on both sides of them, and at that sound Pierre felt as if
+part of his soul had been torn away. He lost the power of thinking or
+understanding. He could only hear and see. And he had only one wish—that
+the frightful thing that had to happen should happen quickly. Pierre
+looked round at his fellow prisoners and scrutinized them.
+
+The two first were convicts with shaven heads. One was tall and thin,
+the other dark, shaggy, and sinewy, with a flat nose. The third was a
+domestic serf, about forty-five years old, with grizzled hair and a
+plump, well-nourished body. The fourth was a peasant, a very handsome
+man with a broad, light-brown beard and black eyes. The fifth was a
+factory hand, a thin, sallow-faced lad of eighteen in a loose coat.
+
+Pierre heard the French consulting whether to shoot them separately or
+two at a time. "In couples," replied the officer in command in a calm
+voice. There was a stir in the ranks of the soldiers and it was evident
+that they were all hurrying—not as men hurry to do something they
+understand, but as people hurry to finish a necessary but unpleasant and
+incomprehensible task.
+
+A French official wearing a scarf came up to the right of the row of
+prisoners and read out the sentence in Russian and in French.
+
+Then two pairs of Frenchmen approached the criminals and at the
+officer's command took the two convicts who stood first in the row. The
+convicts stopped when they reached the post and, while sacks were being
+brought, looked dumbly around as a wounded beast looks at an approaching
+huntsman. One crossed himself continually, the other scratched his back
+and made a movement of the lips resembling a smile. With hurried hands
+the soldiers blindfolded them, drawing the sacks over their heads, and
+bound them to the post.
+
+Twelve sharpshooters with muskets stepped out of the ranks with a firm
+regular tread and halted eight paces from the post. Pierre turned away
+to avoid seeing what was going to happen. Suddenly a crackling, rolling
+noise was heard which seemed to him louder than the most terrific
+thunder, and he looked round. There was some smoke, and the Frenchmen
+were doing something near the pit, with pale faces and trembling hands.
+Two more prisoners were led up. In the same way and with similar looks,
+these two glanced vainly at the onlookers with only a silent appeal for
+protection in their eyes, evidently unable to understand or believe what
+was going to happen to them. They could not believe it because they
+alone knew what their life meant to them, and so they neither understood
+nor believed that it could be taken from them.
+
+Again Pierre did not wish to look and again turned away; but again the
+sound as of a frightful explosion struck his ear, and at the same moment
+he saw smoke, blood, and the pale, scared faces of the Frenchmen who
+were again doing something by the post, their trembling hands impeding
+one another. Pierre, breathing heavily, looked around as if asking what
+it meant. The same question was expressed in all the looks that met his.
+
+On the faces of all the Russians and of the French soldiers and officers
+without exception, he read the same dismay, horror, and conflict that
+were in his own heart. "But who, after all, is doing this? They are all
+suffering as I am. Who then is it? Who?" flashed for an instant through
+his mind.
+
+"Sharpshooters of the 86th, forward!" shouted someone. The fifth
+prisoner, the one next to Pierre, was led away—alone. Pierre did not
+understand that he was saved, that he and the rest had been brought
+there only to witness the execution. With ever-growing horror, and no
+sense of joy or relief, he gazed at what was taking place. The fifth man
+was the factory lad in the loose cloak. The moment they laid hands on
+him he sprang aside in terror and clutched at Pierre. (Pierre shuddered
+and shook himself free.) The lad was unable to walk. They dragged him
+along, holding him up under the arms, and he screamed. When they got him
+to the post he grew quiet, as if he suddenly understood something.
+Whether he understood that screaming was useless or whether he thought
+it incredible that men should kill him, at any rate he took his stand at
+the post, waiting to be blindfolded like the others, and like a wounded
+animal looked around him with glittering eyes.
+
+Pierre was no longer able to turn away and close his eyes. His curiosity
+and agitation, like that of the whole crowd, reached the highest pitch
+at this fifth murder. Like the others this fifth man seemed calm; he
+wrapped his loose cloak closer and rubbed one bare foot with the other.
+
+When they began to blindfold him he himself adjusted the knot which hurt
+the back of his head; then when they propped him against the
+bloodstained post, he leaned back and, not being comfortable in that
+position, straightened himself, adjusted his feet, and leaned back again
+more comfortably. Pierre did not take his eyes from him and did not miss
+his slightest movement.
+
+Probably a word of command was given and was followed by the reports of
+eight muskets; but try as he would Pierre could not afterwards remember
+having heard the slightest sound of the shots. He only saw how the
+workman suddenly sank down on the cords that held him, how blood showed
+itself in two places, how the ropes slackened under the weight of the
+hanging body, and how the workman sat down, his head hanging unnaturally
+and one leg bent under him. Pierre ran up to the post. No one hindered
+him. Pale, frightened people were doing something around the workman.
+The lower jaw of an old Frenchman with a thick mustache trembled as he
+untied the ropes. The body collapsed. The soldiers dragged it awkwardly
+from the post and began pushing it into the pit.
+
+They all plainly and certainly knew that they were criminals who must
+hide the traces of their guilt as quickly as possible.
+
+Pierre glanced into the pit and saw that the factory lad was lying with
+his knees close up to his head and one shoulder higher than the other.
+That shoulder rose and fell rhythmically and convulsively, but spadefuls
+of earth were already being thrown over the whole body. One of the
+soldiers, evidently suffering, shouted gruffly and angrily at Pierre to
+go back. But Pierre did not understand him and remained near the post,
+and no one drove him away.
+
+When the pit had been filled up a command was given. Pierre was taken
+back to his place, and the rows of troops on both sides of the post made
+a half turn and went past it at a measured pace. The twenty-four
+sharpshooters with discharged muskets, standing in the center of the
+circle, ran back to their places as the companies passed by.
+
+Pierre gazed now with dazed eyes at these sharpshooters who ran in
+couples out of the circle. All but one rejoined their companies. This
+one, a young soldier, his face deadly pale, his shako pushed back, and
+his musket resting on the ground, still stood near the pit at the spot
+from which he had fired. He swayed like a drunken man, taking some steps
+forward and back to save himself from falling. An old, noncommissioned
+officer ran out of the ranks and taking him by the elbow dragged him to
+his company. The crowd of Russians and Frenchmen began to disperse. They
+all went away silently and with drooping heads.
+
+"That will teach them to start fires," said one of the Frenchmen.
+
+Pierre glanced round at the speaker and saw that it was a soldier who
+was trying to find some relief after what had been done, but was not
+able to do so. Without finishing what he had begun to say he made a
+hopeless movement with his arm and went away.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+After the execution Pierre was separated from the rest of the prisoners
+and placed alone in a small, ruined, and befouled church.
+
+Toward evening a noncommissioned officer entered with two soldiers and
+told him that he had been pardoned and would now go to the barracks for
+the prisoners of war. Without understanding what was said to him, Pierre
+got up and went with the soldiers. They took him to the upper end of the
+field, where there were some sheds built of charred planks, beams, and
+battens, and led him into one of them. In the darkness some twenty
+different men surrounded Pierre. He looked at them without understanding
+who they were, why they were there, or what they wanted of him. He heard
+what they said, but did not understand the meaning of the words and made
+no kind of deduction from or application of them. He replied to
+questions they put to him, but did not consider who was listening to his
+replies, nor how they would understand them. He looked at their faces
+and figures, but they all seemed to him equally meaningless.
+
+From the moment Pierre had witnessed those terrible murders committed by
+men who did not wish to commit them, it was as if the mainspring of his
+life, on which everything depended and which made everything appear
+alive, had suddenly been wrenched out and everything had collapsed into
+a heap of meaningless rubbish. Though he did not acknowledge it to
+himself, his faith in the right ordering of the universe, in humanity,
+in his own soul, and in God, had been destroyed. He had experienced this
+before, but never so strongly as now. When similar doubts had assailed
+him before, they had been the result of his own wrongdoing, and at the
+bottom of his heart he had felt that relief from his despair and from
+those doubts was to be found within himself. But now he felt that the
+universe had crumbled before his eyes and only meaningless ruins
+remained, and this not by any fault of his own. He felt that it was not
+in his power to regain faith in the meaning of life.
+
+Around him in the darkness men were standing and evidently something
+about him interested them greatly. They were telling him something and
+asking him something. Then they led him away somewhere, and at last he
+found himself in a corner of the shed among men who were laughing and
+talking on all sides.
+
+"Well, then, mates... that very prince who..." some voice at the other
+end of the shed was saying, with a strong emphasis on the word who.
+
+Sitting silent and motionless on a heap of straw against the wall,
+Pierre sometimes opened and sometimes closed his eyes. But as soon as he
+closed them he saw before him the dreadful face of the factory
+lad—especially dreadful because of its simplicity—and the faces of the
+murderers, even more dreadful because of their disquiet. And he opened
+his eyes again and stared vacantly into the darkness around him.
+
+Beside him in a stooping position sat a small man of whose presence he
+was first made aware by a strong smell of perspiration which came from
+him every time he moved. This man was doing something to his legs in the
+darkness, and though Pierre could not see his face he felt that the man
+continually glanced at him. On growing used to the darkness Pierre saw
+that the man was taking off his leg bands, and the way he did it aroused
+Pierre's interest.
+
+Having unwound the string that tied the band on one leg, he carefully
+coiled it up and immediately set to work on the other leg, glancing up
+at Pierre. While one hand hung up the first string the other was already
+unwinding the band on the second leg. In this way, having carefully
+removed the leg bands by deft circular motions of his arm following one
+another uninterruptedly, the man hung the leg bands up on some pegs
+fixed above his head. Then he took out a knife, cut something, closed
+the knife, placed it under the head of his bed, and, seating himself
+comfortably, clasped his arms round his lifted knees and fixed his eyes
+on Pierre. The latter was conscious of something pleasant, comforting,
+and well-rounded in these deft movements, in the man's well-ordered
+arrangements in his corner, and even in his very smell, and he looked at
+the man without taking his eyes from him.
+
+"You've seen a lot of trouble, sir, eh?" the little man suddenly said.
+
+And there was so much kindliness and simplicity in his singsong voice
+that Pierre tried to reply, but his jaw trembled and he felt tears
+rising to his eyes. The little fellow, giving Pierre no time to betray
+his confusion, instantly continued in the same pleasant tones:
+
+"Eh, lad, don't fret!" said he, in the tender singsong caressing voice
+old Russian peasant women employ. "Don't fret, friend—'suffer an hour,
+live for an age!' that's how it is, my dear fellow. And here we live,
+thank heaven, without offense. Among these folk, too, there are good men
+as well as bad," said he, and still speaking, he turned on his knees
+with a supple movement, got up, coughed, and went off to another part of
+the shed.
+
+"Eh, you rascal!" Pierre heard the same kind voice saying at the other
+end of the shed. "So you've come, you rascal? She remembers... Now, now,
+that'll do!"
+
+And the soldier, pushing away a little dog that was jumping up at him,
+returned to his place and sat down. In his hands he had something
+wrapped in a rag.
+
+"Here, eat a bit, sir," said he, resuming his former respectful tone as
+he unwrapped and offered Pierre some baked potatoes. "We had soup for
+dinner and the potatoes are grand!"
+
+Pierre had not eaten all day and the smell of the potatoes seemed
+extremely pleasant to him. He thanked the soldier and began to eat.
+
+"Well, are they all right?" said the soldier with a smile. "You should
+do like this."
+
+He took a potato, drew out his clasp knife, cut the potato into two
+equal halves on the palm of his hand, sprinkled some salt on it from the
+rag, and handed it to Pierre.
+
+"The potatoes are grand!" he said once more. "Eat some like that!"
+
+Pierre thought he had never eaten anything that tasted better.
+
+"Oh, I'm all right," said he, "but why did they shoot those poor
+fellows? The last one was hardly twenty."
+
+"Tss, tt...!" said the little man. "Ah, what a sin... what a sin!" he
+added quickly, and as if his words were always waiting ready in his
+mouth and flew out involuntarily he went on: "How was it, sir, that you
+stayed in Moscow?"
+
+"I didn't think they would come so soon. I stayed accidentally," replied
+Pierre.
+
+"And how did they arrest you, dear lad? At your house?"
+
+"No, I went to look at the fire, and they arrested me there, and tried
+me as an incendiary."
+
+"Where there's law there's injustice," put in the little man.
+
+"And have you been here long?" Pierre asked as he munched the last of
+the potato.
+
+"I? It was last Sunday they took me, out of a hospital in Moscow."
+
+"Why, are you a soldier then?"
+
+"Yes, we are soldiers of the Apsheron regiment. I was dying of fever. We
+weren't told anything. There were some twenty of us lying there. We had
+no idea, never guessed at all."
+
+"And do you feel sad here?" Pierre inquired.
+
+"How can one help it, lad? My name is Platon, and the surname is
+Karataev," he added, evidently wishing to make it easier for Pierre to
+address him. "They call me 'little falcon' in the regiment. How is one
+to help feeling sad? Moscow—she's the mother of cities. How can one see
+all this and not feel sad? But 'the maggot gnaws the cabbage, yet dies
+first'; that's what the old folks used to tell us," he added rapidly.
+
+"What? What did you say?" asked Pierre.
+
+"Who? I?" said Karataev. "I say things happen not as we plan but as God
+judges," he replied, thinking that he was repeating what he had said
+before, and immediately continued:
+
+"Well, and you, have you a family estate, sir? And a house? So you have
+abundance, then? And a housewife? And your old parents, are they still
+living?" he asked.
+
+And though it was too dark for Pierre to see, he felt that a suppressed
+smile of kindliness puckered the soldier's lips as he put these
+questions. He seemed grieved that Pierre had no parents, especially that
+he had no mother.
+
+"A wife for counsel, a mother-in-law for welcome, but there's none as
+dear as one's own mother!" said he. "Well, and have you little ones?" he
+went on asking.
+
+Again Pierre's negative answer seemed to distress him, and he hastened
+to add:
+
+"Never mind! You're young folks yet, and please God may still have some.
+The great thing is to live in harmony...."
+
+"But it's all the same now," Pierre could not help saying.
+
+"Ah, my dear fellow!" rejoined Karataev, "never decline a prison or a
+beggar's sack!"
+
+He seated himself more comfortably and coughed, evidently preparing to
+tell a long story.
+
+"Well, my dear fellow, I was still living at home," he began. "We had a
+well-to-do homestead, plenty of land, we peasants lived well and our
+house was one to thank God for. When Father and we went out mowing there
+were seven of us. We lived well. We were real peasants. It so
+happened..."
+
+And Platon Karataev told a long story of how he had gone into someone's
+copse to take wood, how he had been caught by the keeper, had been
+tried, flogged, and sent to serve as a soldier.
+
+"Well, lad," and a smile changed the tone of his voice "we thought it
+was a misfortune but it turned out a blessing! If it had not been for my
+sin, my brother would have had to go as a soldier. But he, my younger
+brother, had five little ones, while I, you see, only left a wife
+behind. We had a little girl, but God took her before I went as a
+soldier. I come home on leave and I'll tell you how it was, I look and
+see that they are living better than before. The yard full of cattle,
+the women at home, two brothers away earning wages, and only Michael the
+youngest, at home. Father, he says, 'All my children are the same to me:
+it hurts the same whichever finger gets bitten. But if Platon hadn't
+been shaved for a soldier, Michael would have had to go.' called us all
+to him and, will you believe it, placed us in front of the icons.
+'Michael,' he says, 'come here and bow down to his feet; and you, young
+woman, you bow down too; and you, grandchildren, also bow down before
+him! Do you understand?' he says. That's how it is, dear fellow. Fate
+looks for a head. But we are always judging, 'that's not well—that's not
+right!' Our luck is like water in a dragnet: you pull at it and it
+bulges, but when you've drawn it out it's empty! That's how it is."
+
+And Platon shifted his seat on the straw.
+
+After a short silence he rose.
+
+"Well, I think you must be sleepy," said he, and began rapidly crossing
+himself and repeating:
+
+"Lord Jesus Christ, holy Saint Nicholas, Frola and Lavra! Lord Jesus
+Christ, holy Saint Nicholas, Frola and Lavra! Lord Jesus Christ, have
+mercy on us and save us!" he concluded, then bowed to the ground, got
+up, sighed, and sat down again on his heap of straw. "That's the way.
+Lay me down like a stone, O God, and raise me up like a loaf," he
+muttered as he lay down, pulling his coat over him.
+
+"What prayer was that you were saying?" asked Pierre.
+
+"Eh?" murmured Platon, who had almost fallen asleep. "What was I saying?
+I was praying. Don't you pray?"
+
+"Yes, I do," said Pierre. "But what was that you said: Frola and Lavra?"
+
+"Well, of course," replied Platon quickly, "the horses' saints. One must
+pity the animals too. Eh, the rascal! Now you've curled up and got warm,
+you daughter of a bitch!" said Karataev, touching the dog that lay at
+his feet, and again turning over he fell asleep immediately.
+
+Sounds of crying and screaming came from somewhere in the distance
+outside, and flames were visible through the cracks of the shed, but
+inside it was quiet and dark. For a long time Pierre did not sleep, but
+lay with eyes open in the darkness, listening to the regular snoring of
+Platon who lay beside him, and he felt that the world that had been
+shattered was once more stirring in his soul with a new beauty and on
+new and unshakable foundations.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+Twenty-three soldiers, three officers, and two officials were confined
+in the shed in which Pierre had been placed and where he remained for
+four weeks.
+
+When Pierre remembered them afterwards they all seemed misty figures to
+him except Platon Karataev, who always remained in his mind a most vivid
+and precious memory and the personification of everything Russian,
+kindly, and round. When Pierre saw his neighbor next morning at dawn the
+first impression of him, as of something round, was fully confirmed:
+Platon's whole figure—in a French overcoat girdled with a cord, a
+soldier's cap, and bast shoes—was round. His head was quite round, his
+back, chest, shoulders, and even his arms, which he held as if ever
+ready to embrace something, were rounded, his pleasant smile and his
+large, gentle brown eyes were also round.
+
+Platon Karataev must have been fifty, judging by his stories of
+campaigns he had been in, told as by an old soldier. He did not himself
+know his age and was quite unable to determine it. But his brilliantly
+white, strong teeth which showed in two unbroken semicircles when he
+laughed—as he often did—were all sound and good, there was not a gray
+hair in his beard or on his head, and his whole body gave an impression
+of suppleness and especially of firmness and endurance.
+
+His face, despite its fine, rounded wrinkles, had an expression of
+innocence and youth, his voice was pleasant and musical. But the chief
+peculiarity of his speech was its directness and appositeness. It was
+evident that he never considered what he had said or was going to say,
+and consequently the rapidity and justice of his intonation had an
+irresistible persuasiveness.
+
+His physical strength and agility during the first days of his
+imprisonment were such that he seemed not to know what fatigue and
+sickness meant. Every night before lying down, he said: "Lord, lay me
+down as a stone and raise me up as a loaf!" and every morning on getting
+up, he said: "I lay down and curled up, I get up and shake myself." And
+indeed he only had to lie down, to fall asleep like a stone, and he only
+had to shake himself, to be ready without a moment's delay for some
+work, just as children are ready to play directly they awake. He could
+do everything, not very well but not badly. He baked, cooked, sewed,
+planed, and mended boots. He was always busy, and only at night allowed
+himself conversation—of which he was fond—and songs. He did not sing
+like a trained singer who knows he is listened to, but like the birds,
+evidently giving vent to the sounds in the same way that one stretches
+oneself or walks about to get rid of stiffness, and the sounds were
+always high-pitched, mournful, delicate, and almost feminine, and his
+face at such times was very serious.
+
+Having been taken prisoner and allowed his beard to grow, he seemed to
+have thrown off all that had been forced upon him—everything military
+and alien to himself—and had returned to his former peasant habits.
+
+"A soldier on leave—a shirt outside breeches," he would say.
+
+He did not like talking about his life as a soldier, though he did not
+complain, and often mentioned that he had not been flogged once during
+the whole of his army service. When he related anything it was generally
+some old and evidently precious memory of his "Christian" life, as he
+called his peasant existence. The proverbs, of which his talk was full,
+were for the most part not the coarse and indecent saws soldiers employ,
+but those folk sayings which taken without a context seem so
+insignificant, but when used appositely suddenly acquire a significance
+of profound wisdom.
+
+He would often say the exact opposite of what he had said on a previous
+occasion, yet both would be right. He liked to talk and he talked well,
+adorning his speech with terms of endearment and with folk sayings which
+Pierre thought he invented himself, but the chief charm of his talk lay
+in the fact that the commonest events—sometimes just such as Pierre had
+witnessed without taking notice of them—assumed in Karataev's a
+character of solemn fitness. He liked to hear the folk tales one of the
+soldiers used to tell of an evening (they were always the same), but
+most of all he liked to hear stories of real life. He would smile
+joyfully when listening to such stories, now and then putting in a word
+or asking a question to make the moral beauty of what he was told clear
+to himself. Karataev had no attachments, friendships, or love, as Pierre
+understood them, but loved and lived affectionately with everything life
+brought him in contact with, particularly with man—not any particular
+man, but those with whom he happened to be. He loved his dog, his
+comrades, the French, and Pierre who was his neighbor, but Pierre felt
+that in spite of Karataev's affectionate tenderness for him (by which he
+unconsciously gave Pierre's spiritual life its due) he would not have
+grieved for a moment at parting from him. And Pierre began to feel in
+the same way toward Karataev.
+
+To all the other prisoners Platon Karataev seemed a most ordinary
+soldier. They called him "little falcon" or "Platosha," chaffed him
+good-naturedly, and sent him on errands. But to Pierre he always
+remained what he had seemed that first night: an unfathomable, rounded,
+eternal personification of the spirit of simplicity and truth.
+
+Platon Karataev knew nothing by heart except his prayers. When he began
+to speak he seemed not to know how he would conclude.
+
+Sometimes Pierre, struck by the meaning of his words, would ask him to
+repeat them, but Platon could never recall what he had said a moment
+before, just as he never could repeat to Pierre the words of his
+favorite song: native and birch tree and my heart is sick occurred in
+it, but when spoken and not sung, no meaning could be got out of it. He
+did not, and could not, understand the meaning of words apart from their
+context. Every word and action of his was the manifestation of an
+activity unknown to him, which was his life. But his life, as he
+regarded it, had no meaning as a separate thing. It had meaning only as
+part of a whole of which he was always conscious. His words and actions
+flowed from him as evenly, inevitably, and spontaneously as fragrance
+exhales from a flower. He could not understand the value or significance
+of any word or deed taken separately.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+When Princess Mary heard from Nicholas that her brother was with the
+Rostóvs at Yaroslavl she at once prepared to go there, in spite of her
+aunt's efforts to dissuade her—and not merely to go herself but to take
+her nephew with her. Whether it were difficult or easy, possible or
+impossible, she did not ask and did not want to know: it was her duty,
+not only to herself, to be near her brother who was perhaps dying, but
+to do everything possible to take his son to him, and so she prepared to
+set off. That she had not heard from Prince Andrew himself, Princess
+Mary attributed to his being too weak to write or to his considering the
+long journey too hard and too dangerous for her and his son.
+
+In a few days Princess Mary was ready to start. Her equipages were the
+huge family coach in which she had traveled to Voronezh, a semiopen
+trap, and a baggage cart. With her traveled Mademoiselle Bourienne,
+little Nicholas and his tutor, her old nurse, three maids, Tíkhon, and a
+young footman and courier her aunt had sent to accompany her.
+
+The usual route through Moscow could not be thought of, and the
+roundabout way Princess Mary was obliged to take through Lipetsk,
+Ryazan, Vladimir, and Shuya was very long and, as post horses were not
+everywhere obtainable, very difficult, and near Ryazan where the French
+were said to have shown themselves was even dangerous.
+
+During this difficult journey Mademoiselle Bourienne, Dessalles, and
+Princess Mary's servants were astonished at her energy and firmness of
+spirit. She went to bed later and rose earlier than any of them, and no
+difficulties daunted her. Thanks to her activity and energy, which
+infected her fellow travelers, they approached Yaroslavl by the end of
+the second week.
+
+The last days of her stay in Voronezh had been the happiest of her life.
+Her love for Rostóv no longer tormented or agitated her. It filled her
+whole soul, had become an integral part of herself, and she no longer
+struggled against it. Latterly she had become convinced that she loved
+and was beloved, though she never said this definitely to herself in
+words. She had become convinced of it at her last interview with
+Nicholas, when he had come to tell her that her brother was with the
+Rostóvs. Not by a single word had Nicholas alluded to the fact that
+Prince Andrew's relations with Natásha might, if he recovered, be
+renewed, but Princess Mary saw by his face that he knew and thought of
+this.
+
+Yet in spite of that, his relation to her—considerate, delicate, and
+loving—not only remained unchanged, but it sometimes seemed to Princess
+Mary that he was even glad that the family connection between them
+allowed him to express his friendship more freely. She knew that she
+loved for the first and only time in her life and felt that she was
+beloved, and was happy in regard to it.
+
+But this happiness on one side of her spiritual nature did not prevent
+her feeling grief for her brother with full force; on the contrary, that
+spiritual tranquility on the one side made it the more possible for her
+to give full play to her feeling for her brother. That feeling was so
+strong at the moment of leaving Voronezh that those who saw her off, as
+they looked at her careworn, despairing face, felt sure she would fall
+ill on the journey. But the very difficulties and preoccupations of the
+journey, which she took so actively in hand, saved her for a while from
+her grief and gave her strength.
+
+As always happens when traveling, Princess Mary thought only of the
+journey itself, forgetting its object. But as she approached Yaroslavl
+the thought of what might await her there—not after many days, but that
+very evening—again presented itself to her and her agitation increased
+to its utmost limit.
+
+The courier who had been sent on in advance to find out where the
+Rostóvs were staying in Yaroslavl, and in what condition Prince Andrew
+was, when he met the big coach just entering the town gates was appalled
+by the terrible pallor of the princess' face that looked out at him from
+the window.
+
+"I have found out everything, your excellency: the Rostóvs are staying
+at the merchant Bronnikov's house, in the Square not far from here,
+right above the Volga," said the courier.
+
+Princess Mary looked at him with frightened inquiry, not understanding
+why he did not reply to what she chiefly wanted to know: how was her
+brother? Mademoiselle Bourienne put that question for her.
+
+"How is the prince?" she asked.
+
+"His excellency is staying in the same house with them."
+
+"Then he is alive," thought Princess Mary, and asked in a low voice:
+"How is he?"
+
+"The servants say he is still the same."
+
+What "still the same" might mean Princess Mary did not ask, but with an
+unnoticed glance at little seven-year-old Nicholas, who was sitting in
+front of her looking with pleasure at the town, she bowed her head and
+did not raise it again till the heavy coach, rumbling, shaking and
+swaying, came to a stop. The carriage steps clattered as they were let
+down.
+
+The carriage door was opened. On the left there was water—a great
+river—and on the right a porch. There were people at the entrance:
+servants, and a rosy girl with a large plait of black hair, smiling as
+it seemed to Princess Mary in an unpleasantly affected way. (This was
+Sónya.) Princess Mary ran up the steps. "This way, this way!" said the
+girl, with the same artificial smile, and the princess found herself in
+the hall facing an elderly woman of Oriental type, who came rapidly to
+meet her with a look of emotion. This was the countess. She embraced
+Princess Mary and kissed her.
+
+"Mon enfant!" she muttered, "je vous aime et vous connais depuis
+longtemps." *
+
+* "My child! I love you and have known you a long time."
+
+Despite her excitement, Princess Mary realized that this was the
+countess and that it was necessary to say something to her. Hardly
+knowing how she did it, she contrived to utter a few polite phrases in
+French in the same tone as those that had been addressed to her, and
+asked: "How is he?"
+
+"The doctor says that he is not in danger," said the countess, but as
+she spoke she raised her eyes with a sigh, and her gesture conveyed a
+contradiction of her words.
+
+"Where is he? Can I see him—can I?" asked the princess.
+
+"One moment, Princess, one moment, my dear! Is this his son?" said the
+countess, turning to little Nicholas who was coming in with Dessalles.
+"There will be room for everybody, this is a big house. Oh, what a
+lovely boy!"
+
+The countess took Princess Mary into the drawing room, where Sónya was
+talking to Mademoiselle Bourienne. The countess caressed the boy, and
+the old count came in and welcomed the princess. He had changed very
+much since Princess Mary had last seen him. Then he had been a brisk,
+cheerful, self-assured old man; now he seemed a pitiful, bewildered
+person. While talking to Princess Mary he continually looked round as if
+asking everyone whether he was doing the right thing. After the
+destruction of Moscow and of his property, thrown out of his accustomed
+groove he seemed to have lost the sense of his own significance and to
+feel that there was no longer a place for him in life.
+
+In spite of her one desire to see her brother as soon as possible, and
+her vexation that at the moment when all she wanted was to see him they
+should be trying to entertain her and pretending to admire her nephew,
+the princess noticed all that was going on around her and felt the
+necessity of submitting, for a time, to this new order of things which
+she had entered. She knew it to be necessary, and though it was hard for
+her she was not vexed with these people.
+
+"This is my niece," said the count, introducing Sónya—"You don't know
+her, Princess?"
+
+Princess Mary turned to Sónya and, trying to stifle the hostile feeling
+that arose in her toward the girl, she kissed her. But she felt
+oppressed by the fact that the mood of everyone around her was so far
+from what was in her own heart.
+
+"Where is he?" she asked again, addressing them all.
+
+"He is downstairs. Natásha is with him," answered Sónya, flushing. "We
+have sent to ask. I think you must be tired, Princess."
+
+Tears of vexation showed themselves in Princess Mary's eyes. She turned
+away and was about to ask the countess again how to go to him, when
+light, impetuous, and seemingly buoyant steps were heard at the door.
+The princess looked round and saw Natásha coming in, almost running—that
+Natásha whom she had liked so little at their meeting in Moscow long
+since.
+
+But hardly had the princess looked at Natásha's face before she realized
+that here was a real comrade in her grief, and consequently a friend.
+She ran to meet her, embraced her, and began to cry on her shoulder.
+
+As soon as Natásha, sitting at the head of Prince Andrew's bed, heard of
+Princess Mary's arrival, she softly left his room and hastened to her
+with those swift steps that had sounded buoyant to Princess Mary.
+
+There was only one expression on her agitated face when she ran into the
+drawing room—that of love—boundless love for him, for her, and for all
+that was near to the man she loved; and of pity, suffering for others,
+and passionate desire to give herself entirely to helping them. It was
+plain that at that moment there was in Natásha's heart no thought of
+herself or of her own relations with Prince Andrew.
+
+Princess Mary, with her acute sensibility, understood all this at the
+first glance at Natásha's face, and wept on her shoulder with sorrowful
+pleasure.
+
+"Come, come to him, Mary," said Natásha, leading her into the other
+room.
+
+Princess Mary raised her head, dried her eyes, and turned to Natásha.
+She felt that from her she would be able to understand and learn
+everything.
+
+"How..." she began her question but stopped short.
+
+She felt that it was impossible to ask, or to answer, in words.
+Natásha's face and eyes would have to tell her all more clearly and
+profoundly.
+
+Natásha was gazing at her, but seemed afraid and in doubt whether to say
+all she knew or not; she seemed to feel that before those luminous eyes
+which penetrated into the very depths of her heart, it was impossible
+not to tell the whole truth which she saw. And suddenly, Natásha's lips
+twitched, ugly wrinkles gathered round her mouth, and covering her face
+with her hands she burst into sobs.
+
+Princess Mary understood.
+
+But she still hoped, and asked, in words she herself did not trust:
+
+"But how is his wound? What is his general condition?"
+
+"You, you... will see," was all Natásha could say.
+
+They sat a little while downstairs near his room till they had left off
+crying and were able to go to him with calm faces.
+
+"How has his whole illness gone? Is it long since he grew worse? When
+did this happen?" Princess Mary inquired.
+
+Natásha told her that at first there had been danger from his feverish
+condition and the pain he suffered, but at Troitsa that had passed and
+the doctor had only been afraid of gangrene. That danger had also
+passed. When they reached Yaroslavl the wound had begun to fester
+(Natásha knew all about such things as festering) and the doctor had
+said that the festering might take a normal course. Then fever set in,
+but the doctor had said the fever was not very serious.
+
+"But two days ago this suddenly happened," said Natásha, struggling with
+her sobs. "I don't know why, but you will see what he is like."
+
+"Is he weaker? Thinner?" asked the princess.
+
+"No, it's not that, but worse. You will see. O, Mary, he is too good, he
+cannot, cannot live, because..."
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+When Natásha opened Prince Andrew's door with a familiar movement and
+let Princess Mary pass into the room before her, the princess felt the
+sobs in her throat. Hard as she had tried to prepare herself, and now
+tried to remain tranquil, she knew that she would be unable to look at
+him without tears.
+
+The princess understood what Natásha had meant by the words: "two days
+ago this suddenly happened." She understood those words to mean that he
+had suddenly softened and that this softening and gentleness were signs
+of approaching death. As she stepped to the door she already saw in
+imagination Andrew's face as she remembered it in childhood, a gentle,
+mild, sympathetic face which he had rarely shown, and which therefore
+affected her very strongly. She was sure he would speak soft, tender
+words to her such as her father had uttered before his death, and that
+she would not be able to bear it and would burst into sobs in his
+presence. Yet sooner or later it had to be, and she went in. The sobs
+rose higher and higher in her throat as she more and more clearly
+distinguished his form and her shortsighted eyes tried to make out his
+features, and then she saw his face and met his gaze.
+
+He was lying in a squirrel-fur dressing gown on a divan, surrounded by
+pillows. He was thin and pale. In one thin, translucently white hand he
+held a handkerchief, while with the other he stroked the delicate
+mustache he had grown, moving his fingers slowly. His eyes gazed at them
+as they entered.
+
+On seeing his face and meeting his eyes Princess Mary's pace suddenly
+slackened, she felt her tears dry up and her sobs ceased. She suddenly
+felt guilty and grew timid on catching the expression of his face and
+eyes.
+
+"But in what am I to blame?" she asked herself. And his cold, stern look
+replied: "Because you are alive and thinking of the living, while I..."
+
+In the deep gaze that seemed to look not outwards but inwards there was
+an almost hostile expression as he slowly regarded his sister and
+Natásha.
+
+He kissed his sister, holding her hand in his as was their wont.
+
+"How are you, Mary? How did you manage to get here?" said he in a voice
+as calm and aloof as his look.
+
+Had he screamed in agony, that scream would not have struck such horror
+into Princess Mary's heart as the tone of his voice.
+
+"And have you brought little Nicholas?" he asked in the same slow, quiet
+manner and with an obvious effort to remember.
+
+"How are you now?" said Princess Mary, herself surprised at what she was
+saying.
+
+"That, my dear, you must ask the doctor," he replied, and again making
+an evident effort to be affectionate, he said with his lips only (his
+words clearly did not correspond to his thoughts):
+
+"Merci, chere amie, d'etre venue." *
+
+* "Thank you for coming, my dear."
+
+Princess Mary pressed his hand. The pressure made him wince just
+perceptibly. He was silent, and she did not know what to say. She now
+understood what had happened to him two days before. In his words, his
+tone, and especially in that calm, almost antagonistic look could be
+felt an estrangement from everything belonging to this world, terrible
+in one who is alive. Evidently only with an effort did he understand
+anything living; but it was obvious that he failed to understand, not
+because he lacked the power to do so but because he understood something
+else—something the living did not and could not understand—and which
+wholly occupied his mind.
+
+"There, you see how strangely fate has brought us together," said he,
+breaking the silence and pointing to Natásha. "She looks after me all
+the time."
+
+Princess Mary heard him and did not understand how he could say such a
+thing. He, the sensitive, tender Prince Andrew, how could he say that,
+before her whom he loved and who loved him? Had he expected to live he
+could not have said those words in that offensively cold tone. If he had
+not known that he was dying, how could he have failed to pity her and
+how could he speak like that in her presence? The only explanation was
+that he was indifferent, because something else, much more important,
+had been revealed to him.
+
+The conversation was cold and disconnected and continually broke off.
+
+"Mary came by way of Ryazan," said Natásha.
+
+Prince Andrew did not notice that she called his sister Mary, and only
+after calling her so in his presence did Natásha notice it herself.
+
+"Really?" he asked.
+
+"They told her that all Moscow has been burned down, and that..."
+
+Natásha stopped. It was impossible to talk. It was plain that he was
+making an effort to listen, but could not do so.
+
+"Yes, they say it's burned," he said. "It's a great pity," and he gazed
+straight before him, absently stroking his mustache with his fingers.
+
+"And so you have met Count Nicholas, Mary?" Prince Andrew suddenly said,
+evidently wishing to speak pleasantly to them. "He wrote here that he
+took a great liking to you," he went on simply and calmly, evidently
+unable to understand all the complex significance his words had for
+living people. "If you liked him too, it would be a good thing for you
+to get married," he added rather more quickly, as if pleased at having
+found words he had long been seeking.
+
+Princess Mary heard his words but they had no meaning for her, except as
+a proof of how far away he now was from everything living.
+
+"Why talk of me?" she said quietly and glanced at Natásha.
+
+Natásha, who felt her glance, did not look at her. All three were again
+silent.
+
+"Andrew, would you like..." Princess Mary suddenly said in a trembling
+voice, "would you like to see little Nicholas? He is always talking
+about you!"
+
+Prince Andrew smiled just perceptibly and for the first time, but
+Princess Mary, who knew his face so well, saw with horror that he did
+not smile with pleasure or affection for his son, but with quiet, gentle
+irony because he thought she was trying what she believed to be the last
+means of arousing him.
+
+"Yes, I shall be very glad to see him. Is he quite well?"
+
+When little Nicholas was brought into Prince Andrew's room he looked at
+his father with frightened eyes, but did not cry, because no one else
+was crying. Prince Andrew kissed him and evidently did not know what to
+say to him.
+
+When Nicholas had been led away, Princess Mary again went up to her
+brother, kissed him, and unable to restrain her tears any longer began
+to cry.
+
+He looked at her attentively.
+
+"Is it about Nicholas?" he asked.
+
+Princess Mary nodded her head, weeping.
+
+"Mary, you know the Gosp..." but he broke off.
+
+"What did you say?"
+
+"Nothing. You mustn't cry here," he said, looking at her with the same
+cold expression.
+
+When Princess Mary began to cry, he understood that she was crying at
+the thought that little Nicholas would be left without a father. With a
+great effort he tried to return to life and to see things from their
+point of view.
+
+"Yes, to them it must seem sad!" he thought. "But how simple it is.
+
+"The fowls of the air sow not, neither do they reap, yet your Father
+feedeth them," he said to himself and wished to say to Princess Mary;
+"but no, they will take it their own way, they won't understand! They
+can't understand that all those feelings they prize so—all our feelings,
+all those ideas that seem so important to us, are unnecessary. We cannot
+understand one another," and he remained silent.
+
+Prince Andrew's little son was seven. He could scarcely read, and knew
+nothing. After that day he lived through many things, gaining knowledge,
+observation, and experience, but had he possessed all the faculties he
+afterwards acquired, he could not have had a better or more profound
+understanding of the meaning of the scene he had witnessed between his
+father, Mary, and Natásha, than he had then. He understood it
+completely, and, leaving the room without crying, went silently up to
+Natásha who had come out with him and looked shyly at her with his
+beautiful, thoughtful eyes, then his uplifted, rosy upper lip trembled
+and leaning his head against her he began to cry.
+
+After that he avoided Dessalles and the countess who caressed him and
+either sat alone or came timidly to Princess Mary, or to Natásha of whom
+he seemed even fonder than of his aunt, and clung to them quietly and
+shyly.
+
+When Princess Mary had left Prince Andrew she fully understood what
+Natásha's face had told her. She did not speak any more to Natásha of
+hopes of saving his life. She took turns with her beside his sofa, and
+did not cry any more, but prayed continually, turning in soul to that
+Eternal and Unfathomable, whose presence above the dying man was now so
+evident.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+Not only did Prince Andrew know he would die, but he felt that he was
+dying and was already half dead. He was conscious of an aloofness from
+everything earthly and a strange and joyous lightness of existence.
+Without haste or agitation he awaited what was coming. That inexorable,
+eternal, distant, and unknown the presence of which he had felt
+continually all his life—was now near to him and, by the strange
+lightness he experienced, almost comprehensible and palpable...
+
+Formerly he had feared the end. He had twice experienced that terribly
+tormenting fear of death—the end—but now he no longer understood that
+fear.
+
+He had felt it for the first time when the shell spun like a top before
+him, and he looked at the fallow field, the bushes, and the sky, and
+knew that he was face to face with death. When he came to himself after
+being wounded and the flower of eternal, unfettered love had instantly
+unfolded itself in his soul as if freed from the bondage of life that
+had restrained it, he no longer feared death and ceased to think about
+it.
+
+During the hours of solitude, suffering, and partial delirium he spent
+after he was wounded, the more deeply he penetrated into the new
+principle of eternal love revealed to him, the more he unconsciously
+detached himself from earthly life. To love everything and everybody and
+always to sacrifice oneself for love meant not to love anyone, not to
+live this earthly life. And the more imbued he became with that
+principle of love, the more he renounced life and the more completely he
+destroyed that dreadful barrier which—in the absence of such love—stands
+between life and death. When during those first days he remembered that
+he would have to die, he said to himself: "Well, what of it? So much the
+better!"
+
+But after the night in Mytishchi when, half delirious, he had seen her
+for whom he longed appear before him and, having pressed her hand to his
+lips, had shed gentle, happy tears, love for a particular woman again
+crept unobserved into his heart and once more bound him to life. And
+joyful and agitating thoughts began to occupy his mind. Recalling the
+moment at the ambulance station when he had seen Kurágin, he could not
+now regain the feeling he then had, but was tormented by the question
+whether Kurágin was alive. And he dared not inquire.
+
+His illness pursued its normal physical course, but what Natásha
+referred to when she said: "This suddenly happened," had occurred two
+days before Princess Mary arrived. It was the last spiritual struggle
+between life and death, in which death gained the victory. It was the
+unexpected realization of the fact that he still valued life as
+presented to him in the form of his love for Natásha, and a last, though
+ultimately vanquished, attack of terror before the unknown.
+
+It was evening. As usual after dinner he was slightly feverish, and his
+thoughts were preternaturally clear. Sónya was sitting by the table. He
+began to doze. Suddenly a feeling of happiness seized him.
+
+"Ah, she has come!" thought he.
+
+And so it was: in Sónya's place sat Natásha who had just come in
+noiselessly.
+
+Since she had begun looking after him, he had always experienced this
+physical consciousness of her nearness. She was sitting in an armchair
+placed sideways, screening the light of the candle from him, and was
+knitting a stocking. She had learned to knit stockings since Prince
+Andrew had casually mentioned that no one nursed the sick so well as old
+nurses who knit stockings, and that there is something soothing in the
+knitting of stockings. The needles clicked lightly in her slender,
+rapidly moving hands, and he could clearly see the thoughtful profile of
+her drooping face. She moved, and the ball rolled off her knees. She
+started, glanced round at him, and screening the candle with her hand
+stooped carefully with a supple and exact movement, picked up the ball,
+and regained her former position.
+
+He looked at her without moving and saw that she wanted to draw a deep
+breath after stooping, but refrained from doing so and breathed
+cautiously.
+
+At the Troitsa monastery they had spoken of the past, and he had told
+her that if he lived he would always thank God for his wound which had
+brought them together again, but after that they never spoke of the
+future.
+
+"Can it or can it not be?" he now thought as he looked at her and
+listened to the light click of the steel needles. "Can fate have brought
+me to her so strangely only for me to die?... Is it possible that the
+truth of life has been revealed to me only to show me that I have spent
+my life in falsity? I love her more than anything in the world! But what
+am I to do if I love her?" he thought, and he involuntarily groaned,
+from a habit acquired during his sufferings.
+
+On hearing that sound Natásha put down the stocking, leaned nearer to
+him, and suddenly, noticing his shining eyes, stepped lightly up to him
+and bent over him.
+
+"You are not asleep?"
+
+"No, I have been looking at you a long time. I felt you come in. No one
+else gives me that sense of soft tranquillity that you do... that light.
+I want to weep for joy."
+
+Natásha drew closer to him. Her face shone with rapturous joy.
+
+"Natásha, I love you too much! More than anything in the world."
+
+"And I!"—She turned away for an instant. "Why too much?" she asked.
+
+"Why too much?... Well, what do you, what do you feel in your soul, your
+whole soul—shall I live? What do you think?"
+
+"I am sure of it, sure!" Natásha almost shouted, taking hold of both his
+hands with a passionate movement.
+
+He remained silent awhile.
+
+"How good it would be!" and taking her hand he kissed it.
+
+Natásha felt happy and agitated, but at once remembered that this would
+not do and that he had to be quiet.
+
+"But you have not slept," she said, repressing her joy. "Try to sleep...
+please!"
+
+He pressed her hand and released it, and she went back to the candle and
+sat down again in her former position. Twice she turned and looked at
+him, and her eyes met his beaming at her. She set herself a task on her
+stocking and resolved not to turn round till it was finished.
+
+Soon he really shut his eyes and fell asleep. He did not sleep long and
+suddenly awoke with a start and in a cold perspiration.
+
+As he fell asleep he had still been thinking of the subject that now
+always occupied his mind—about life and death, and chiefly about death.
+He felt himself nearer to it.
+
+"Love? What is love?" he thought.
+
+"Love hinders death. Love is life. All, everything that I understand, I
+understand only because I love. Everything is, everything exists, only
+because I love. Everything is united by it alone. Love is God, and to
+die means that I, a particle of love, shall return to the general and
+eternal source." These thoughts seemed to him comforting. But they were
+only thoughts. Something was lacking in them, they were not clear, they
+were too one-sidedly personal and brain-spun. And there was the former
+agitation and obscurity. He fell asleep.
+
+He dreamed that he was lying in the room he really was in, but that he
+was quite well and unwounded. Many various, indifferent, and
+insignificant people appeared before him. He talked to them and
+discussed something trivial. They were preparing to go away somewhere.
+Prince Andrew dimly realized that all this was trivial and that he had
+more important cares, but he continued to speak, surprising them by
+empty witticisms. Gradually, unnoticed, all these persons began to
+disappear and a single question, that of the closed door, superseded all
+else. He rose and went to the door to bolt and lock it. Everything
+depended on whether he was, or was not, in time to lock it. He went, and
+tried to hurry, but his legs refused to move and he knew he would not be
+in time to lock the door though he painfully strained all his powers. He
+was seized by an agonizing fear. And that fear was the fear of death. It
+stood behind the door. But just when he was clumsily creeping toward the
+door, that dreadful something on the other side was already pressing
+against it and forcing its way in. Something not human—death—was
+breaking in through that door, and had to be kept out. He seized the
+door, making a final effort to hold it back—to lock it was no longer
+possible—but his efforts were weak and clumsy and the door, pushed from
+behind by that terror, opened and closed again.
+
+Once again it pushed from outside. His last superhuman efforts were vain
+and both halves of the door noiselessly opened. It entered, and it was
+death, and Prince Andrew died.
+
+But at the instant he died, Prince Andrew remembered that he was asleep,
+and at the very instant he died, having made an effort, he awoke.
+
+"Yes, it was death! I died—and woke up. Yes, death is an awakening!" And
+all at once it grew light in his soul and the veil that had till then
+concealed the unknown was lifted from his spiritual vision. He felt as
+if powers till then confined within him had been liberated, and that
+strange lightness did not again leave him.
+
+When, waking in a cold perspiration, he moved on the divan, Natásha went
+up and asked him what was the matter. He did not answer and looked at
+her strangely, not understanding.
+
+That was what had happened to him two days before Princess Mary's
+arrival. From that day, as the doctor expressed it, the wasting fever
+assumed a malignant character, but what the doctor said did not interest
+Natásha, she saw the terrible moral symptoms which to her were more
+convincing.
+
+From that day an awakening from life came to Prince Andrew together with
+his awakening from sleep. And compared to the duration of life it did
+not seem to him slower than an awakening from sleep compared to the
+duration of a dream.
+
+There was nothing terrible or violent in this comparatively slow
+awakening.
+
+His last days and hours passed in an ordinary and simple way. Both
+Princess Mary and Natásha, who did not leave him, felt this. They did
+not weep or shudder and during these last days they themselves felt that
+they were not attending on him (he was no longer there, he had left
+them) but on what reminded them most closely of him—his body. Both felt
+this so strongly that the outward and terrible side of death did not
+affect them and they did not feel it necessary to foment their grief.
+Neither in his presence nor out of it did they weep, nor did they ever
+talk to one another about him. They felt that they could not express in
+words what they understood.
+
+They both saw that he was sinking slowly and quietly, deeper and deeper,
+away from them, and they both knew that this had to be so and that it
+was right.
+
+He confessed, and received communion: everyone came to take leave of
+him. When they brought his son to him, he pressed his lips to the boy's
+and turned away, not because he felt it hard and sad (Princess Mary and
+Natásha understood that) but simply because he thought it was all that
+was required of him, but when they told him to bless the boy, he did
+what was demanded and looked round as if asking whether there was
+anything else he should do.
+
+When the last convulsions of the body, which the spirit was leaving,
+occurred, Princess Mary and Natásha were present.
+
+"Is it over?" said Princess Mary when his body had for a few minutes
+lain motionless, growing cold before them. Natásha went up, looked at
+the dead eyes, and hastened to close them. She closed them but did not
+kiss them, but clung to that which reminded her most nearly of him—his
+body.
+
+"Where has he gone? Where is he now?..."
+
+When the body, washed and dressed, lay in the coffin on a table,
+everyone came to take leave of him and they all wept.
+
+Little Nicholas cried because his heart was rent by painful perplexity.
+The countess and Sónya cried from pity for Natásha and because he was no
+more. The old count cried because he felt that before long, he, too,
+must take the same terrible step.
+
+Natásha and Princess Mary also wept now, but not because of their own
+personal grief; they wept with a reverent and softening emotion which
+had taken possession of their souls at the consciousness of the simple
+and solemn mystery of death that had been accomplished in their
+presence.
+
+
+
+
+
+BOOK THIRTEEN: 1812
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+Man's mind cannot grasp the causes of events in their completeness, but
+the desire to find those causes is implanted in man's soul. And without
+considering the multiplicity and complexity of the conditions any one of
+which taken separately may seem to be the cause, he snatches at the
+first approximation to a cause that seems to him intelligible and says:
+"This is the cause!" In historical events (where the actions of men are
+the subject of observation) the first and most primitive approximation
+to present itself was the will of the gods and, after that, the will of
+those who stood in the most prominent position—the heroes of history.
+But we need only penetrate to the essence of any historic event—which
+lies in the activity of the general mass of men who take part in it—to
+be convinced that the will of the historic hero does not control the
+actions of the mass but is itself continually controlled. It may seem to
+be a matter of indifference whether we understand the meaning of
+historical events this way or that; yet there is the same difference
+between a man who says that the people of the West moved on the East
+because Napoleon wished it and a man who says that this happened because
+it had to happen, as there is between those who declared that the earth
+was stationary and that the planets moved round it and those who
+admitted that they did not know what upheld the earth, but knew there
+were laws directing its movement and that of the other planets. There
+is, and can be, no cause of an historical event except the one cause of
+all causes. But there are laws directing events, and some of these laws
+are known to us while we are conscious of others we cannot comprehend.
+The discovery of these laws is only possible when we have quite
+abandoned the attempt to find the cause in the will of some one man,
+just as the discovery of the laws of the motion of the planets was
+possible only when men abandoned the conception of the fixity of the
+earth.
+
+The historians consider that, next to the battle of Borodino and the
+occupation of Moscow by the enemy and its destruction by fire, the most
+important episode of the war of 1812 was the movement of the Russian
+army from the Ryazana to the Kaluga road and to the Tarutino camp—the
+so-called flank march across the Krasnaya Pakhra River. They ascribe the
+glory of that achievement of genius to different men and dispute as to
+whom the honor is due. Even foreign historians, including the French,
+acknowledge the genius of the Russian commanders when they speak of that
+flank march. But it is hard to understand why military writers, and
+following them others, consider this flank march to be the profound
+conception of some one man who saved Russia and destroyed Napoleon. In
+the first place it is hard to understand where the profundity and genius
+of this movement lay, for not much mental effort was needed to see that
+the best position for an army when it is not being attacked is where
+there are most provisions; and even a dull boy of thirteen could have
+guessed that the best position for an army after its retreat from Moscow
+in 1812 was on the Kaluga road. So it is impossible to understand by
+what reasoning the historians reach the conclusion that this maneuver
+was a profound one. And it is even more difficult to understand just why
+they think that this maneuver was calculated to save Russia and destroy
+the French; for this flank march, had it been preceded, accompanied, or
+followed by other circumstances, might have proved ruinous to the
+Russians and salutary for the French. If the position of the Russian
+army really began to improve from the time of that march, it does not at
+all follow that the march was the cause of it.
+
+That flank march might not only have failed to give any advantage to the
+Russian army, but might in other circumstances have led to its
+destruction. What would have happened had Moscow not burned down? If
+Murat had not lost sight of the Russians? If Napoleon had not remained
+inactive? If the Russian army at Krasnaya Pakhra had given battle as
+Bennigsen and Barclay advised? What would have happened had the French
+attacked the Russians while they were marching beyond the Pakhra? What
+would have happened if on approaching Tarutino, Napoleon had attacked
+the Russians with but a tenth of the energy he had shown when he
+attacked them at Smolensk? What would have happened had the French moved
+on Petersburg?... In any of these eventualities the flank march that
+brought salvation might have proved disastrous.
+
+The third and most incomprehensible thing is that people studying
+history deliberately avoid seeing that this flank march cannot be
+attributed to any one man, that no one ever foresaw it, and that in
+reality, like the retreat from Fili, it did not suggest itself to anyone
+in its entirety, but resulted—moment by moment, step by step, event by
+event—from an endless number of most diverse circumstances and was only
+seen in its entirety when it had been accomplished and belonged to the
+past.
+
+At the council at Fili the prevailing thought in the minds of the
+Russian commanders was the one naturally suggesting itself, namely, a
+direct retreat by the Nizhni road. In proof of this there is the fact
+that the majority of the council voted for such a retreat, and above all
+there is the well-known conversation after the council, between the
+commander in chief and Lanskoy, who was in charge of the commissariat
+department. Lanskoy informed the commander-in-chief that the army
+supplies were for the most part stored along the Oka in the Tula and
+Ryazan provinces, and that if they retreated on Nizhni the army would be
+separated from its supplies by the broad river Oka, which cannot be
+crossed early in winter. This was the first indication of the necessity
+of deviating from what had previously seemed the most natural course—a
+direct retreat on Nizhni-Novgorod. The army turned more to the south,
+along the Ryazan road and nearer to its supplies. Subsequently the
+inactivity of the French (who even lost sight of the Russian army),
+concern for the safety of the arsenal at Tula, and especially the
+advantages of drawing nearer to its supplies caused the army to turn
+still further south to the Tula road. Having crossed over, by a forced
+march, to the Tula road beyond the Pakhra, the Russian commanders
+intended to remain at Podolsk and had no thought of the Tarutino
+position; but innumerable circumstances and the reappearance of French
+troops who had for a time lost touch with the Russians, and projects of
+giving battle, and above all the abundance of provisions in Kaluga
+province, obliged our army to turn still more to the south and to cross
+from the Tula to the Kaluga road and go to Tarutino, which was between
+the roads along which those supplies lay. Just as it is impossible to
+say when it was decided to abandon Moscow, so it is impossible to say
+precisely when, or by whom, it was decided to move to Tarutino. Only
+when the army had got there, as the result of innumerable and varying
+forces, did people begin to assure themselves that they had desired this
+movement and long ago foreseen its result.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+The famous flank movement merely consisted in this: after the advance of
+the French had ceased, the Russian army, which had been continually
+retreating straight back from the invaders, deviated from that direct
+course and, not finding itself pursued, was naturally drawn toward the
+district where supplies were abundant.
+
+If instead of imagining to ourselves commanders of genius leading the
+Russian army, we picture that army without any leaders, it could not
+have done anything but make a return movement toward Moscow, describing
+an arc in the direction where most provisions were to be found and where
+the country was richest.
+
+That movement from the Nizhni to the Ryazan, Tula, and Kaluga roads was
+so natural that even the Russian marauders moved in that direction, and
+demands were sent from Petersburg for Kutúzov to take his army that way.
+At Tarutino Kutúzov received what was almost a reprimand from the
+Emperor for having moved his army along the Ryazan road, and the
+Emperor's letter indicated to him the very position he had already
+occupied near Kaluga.
+
+Having rolled like a ball in the direction of the impetus given by the
+whole campaign and by the battle of Borodino, the Russian army—when the
+strength of that impetus was exhausted and no fresh push was
+received—assumed the position natural to it.
+
+Kutúzov's merit lay, not in any strategic maneuver of genius, as it is
+called, but in the fact that he alone understood the significance of
+what had happened. He alone then understood the meaning of the French
+army's inactivity, he alone continued to assert that the battle of
+Borodino had been a victory, he alone—who as commander-in-chief might
+have been expected to be eager to attack—employed his whole strength to
+restrain the Russian army from useless engagements.
+
+The beast wounded at Borodino was lying where the fleeing hunter had
+left him; but whether he was still alive, whether he was strong and
+merely lying low, the hunter did not know. Suddenly the beast was heard
+to moan.
+
+The moan of that wounded beast (the French army) which betrayed its
+calamitous condition was the sending of Lauriston to Kutúzov's camp with
+overtures for peace.
+
+Napoleon, with his usual assurance that whatever entered his head was
+right, wrote to Kutúzov the first words that occurred to him, though
+they were meaningless.
+
+MONSIEUR LE PRINCE KOUTOUZOV: I am sending one of my adjutants-general
+to discuss several interesting questions with you. I beg your Highness
+to credit what he says to you, especially when he expresses the
+sentiment of esteem and special regard I have long entertained for your
+person. This letter having no other object, I pray God, monsieur le
+Prince Koutouzov, to keep you in His holy and gracious protection!
+
+NAPOLEON MOSCOW, OCTOBER 30, 1812
+
+Kutúzov replied: "I should be cursed by posterity were I looked on as
+the initiator of a settlement of any sort. Such is the present spirit of
+my nation." But he continued to exert all his powers to restrain his
+troops from attacking.
+
+During the month that the French troops were pillaging in Moscow and the
+Russian troops were quietly encamped at Tarutino, a change had taken
+place in the relative strength of the two armies—both in spirit and in
+number—as a result of which the superiority had passed to the Russian
+side. Though the condition and numbers of the French army were unknown
+to the Russians, as soon as that change occurred the need of attacking
+at once showed itself by countless signs. These signs were: Lauriston's
+mission; the abundance of provisions at Tarutino; the reports coming in
+from all sides of the inactivity and disorder of the French; the flow of
+recruits to our regiments; the fine weather; the long rest the Russian
+soldiers had enjoyed, and the impatience to do what they had been
+assembled for, which usually shows itself in an army that has been
+resting; curiosity as to what the French army, so long lost sight of,
+was doing; the boldness with which our outposts now scouted close up to
+the French stationed at Tarutino; the news of easy successes gained by
+peasants and guerrilla troops over the French, the envy aroused by this;
+the desire for revenge that lay in the heart of every Russian as long as
+the French were in Moscow, and (above all) a dim consciousness in every
+soldier's mind that the relative strength of the armies had changed and
+that the advantage was now on our side. There was a substantial change
+in the relative strength, and an advance had become inevitable. And at
+once, as a clock begins to strike and chime as soon as the minute hand
+has completed a full circle, this change was shown by an increased
+activity, whirring, and chiming in the higher spheres.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+The Russian army was commanded by Kutúzov and his staff, and also by the
+Emperor from Petersburg. Before the news of the abandonment of Moscow
+had been received in Petersburg, a detailed plan of the whole campaign
+had been drawn up and sent to Kutúzov for his guidance. Though this plan
+had been drawn up on the supposition that Moscow was still in our hands,
+it was approved by the staff and accepted as a basis for action. Kutúzov
+only replied that movements arranged from a distance were always
+difficult to execute. So fresh instructions were sent for the solution
+of difficulties that might be encountered, as well as fresh people who
+were to watch Kutúzov's actions and report upon them.
+
+Besides this, the whole staff of the Russian army was now reorganized.
+The posts left vacant by Bagration, who had been killed, and by Barclay,
+who had gone away in dudgeon, had to be filled. Very serious
+consideration was given to the question whether it would be better to
+put A in B's place and B in D's, or on the contrary to put D in A's
+place, and so on—as if anything more than A's or B's satisfaction
+depended on this.
+
+As a result of the hostility between Kutúzov and Bennigsen, his Chief of
+Staff, the presence of confidential representatives of the Emperor, and
+these transfers, a more than usually complicated play of parties was
+going on among the staff of the army. A was undermining B, D was
+undermining C, and so on in all possible combinations and permutations.
+In all these plottings the subject of intrigue was generally the conduct
+of the war, which all these men believed they were directing; but this
+affair of the war went on independently of them, as it had to go: that
+is, never in the way people devised, but flowing always from the
+essential attitude of the masses. Only in the highest spheres did all
+these schemes, crossings, and interminglings appear to be a true
+reflection of what had to happen.
+
+Prince Michael Ilariónovich! (wrote the Emperor on the second of October
+in a letter that reached Kutúzov after the battle at Tarutino) Since
+September 2 Moscow has been in the hands of the enemy. Your last reports
+were written on the twentieth, and during all this time not only has no
+action been taken against the enemy or for the relief of the ancient
+capital, but according to your last report you have even retreated
+farther. Serpukhov is already occupied by an enemy detachment and Tula
+with its famous arsenal so indispensable to the army, is in danger. From
+General Wintzingerode's reports, I see that an enemy corps of ten
+thousand men is moving on the Petersburg road. Another corps of several
+thousand men is moving on Dmitrov. A third has advanced along the
+Vladimir road, and a fourth, rather considerable detachment is stationed
+between Ruza and Mozhaysk. Napoleon himself was in Moscow as late as the
+twenty-fifth. In view of all this information, when the enemy has
+scattered his forces in large detachments, and with Napoleon and his
+Guards in Moscow, is it possible that the enemy's forces confronting you
+are so considerable as not to allow of your taking the offensive? On the
+contrary, he is probably pursuing you with detachments, or at most with
+an army corps much weaker than the army entrusted to you. It would seem
+that, availing yourself of these circumstances, you might advantageously
+attack a weaker one and annihilate him, or at least oblige him to
+retreat, retaining in our hands an important part of the provinces now
+occupied by the enemy, and thereby averting danger from Tula and other
+towns in the interior. You will be responsible if the enemy is able to
+direct a force of any size against Petersburg to threaten this capital
+in which it has not been possible to retain many troops; for with the
+army entrusted to you, and acting with resolution and energy, you have
+ample means to avert this fresh calamity. Remember that you have still
+to answer to our offended country for the loss of Moscow. You have
+experienced my readiness to reward you. That readiness will not weaken
+in me, but I and Russia have a right to expect from you all the zeal,
+firmness, and success which your intellect, military talent, and the
+courage of the troops you command justify us in expecting.
+
+But by the time this letter, which proved that the real relation of the
+forces had already made itself felt in Petersburg, was dispatched,
+Kutúzov had found himself unable any longer to restrain the army he
+commanded from attacking and a battle had taken place.
+
+On the second of October a Cossack, Shapovalov, who was out scouting,
+killed one hare and wounded another. Following the wounded hare he made
+his way far into the forest and came upon the left flank of Murat's
+army, encamped there without any precautions. The Cossack laughingly
+told his comrades how he had almost fallen into the hands of the French.
+A cornet, hearing the story, informed his commander.
+
+The Cossack was sent for and questioned. The Cossack officers wished to
+take advantage of this chance to capture some horses, but one of the
+superior officers, who was acquainted with the higher authorities,
+reported the incident to a general on the staff. The state of things on
+the staff had of late been exceedingly strained. Ermolov had been to see
+Bennigsen a few days previously and had entreated him to use his
+influence with the commander-in-chief to induce him to take the
+offensive.
+
+"If I did not know you I should think you did not want what you are
+asking for. I need only advise anything and his Highness is sure to do
+the opposite," replied Bennigsen.
+
+The Cossack's report, confirmed by horse patrols who were sent out, was
+the final proof that events had matured. The tightly coiled spring was
+released, the clock began to whirr and the chimes to play. Despite all
+his supposed power, his intellect, his experience, and his knowledge of
+men, Kutúzov—having taken into consideration the Cossack's report, a
+note from Bennigsen who sent personal reports to the Emperor, the wishes
+he supposed the Emperor to hold, and the fact that all the generals
+expressed the same wish—could no longer check the inevitable movement,
+and gave the order to do what he regarded as useless and harmful—gave
+his approval, that is, to the accomplished fact.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+Bennigsen's note and the Cossack's information that the left flank of
+the French was unguarded were merely final indications that it was
+necessary to order an attack, and it was fixed for the fifth of October.
+
+On the morning of the fourth of October Kutúzov signed the dispositions.
+Toll read them to Ermolov, asking him to attend to the further
+arrangements.
+
+"All right—all right. I haven't time just now," replied Ermolov, and
+left the hut.
+
+The dispositions drawn up by Toll were very good. As in the Austerlitz
+dispositions, it was written—though not in German this time:
+
+"The First Column will march here and here," "the Second Column will
+march there and there," and so on; and on paper, all these columns
+arrived at their places at the appointed time and destroyed the enemy.
+Everything had been admirably thought out as is usual in dispositions,
+and as is always the case, not a single column reached its place at the
+appointed time.
+
+When the necessary number of copies of the dispositions had been
+prepared, an officer was summoned and sent to deliver them to Ermolov to
+deal with. A young officer of the Horse Guards, Kutúzov's orderly,
+pleased at the importance of the mission entrusted to him, went to
+Ermolov's quarters.
+
+"Gone away," said Ermolov's orderly.
+
+The officer of the Horse Guards went to a general with whom Ermolov was
+often to be found.
+
+"No, and the general's out too."
+
+The officer, mounting his horse, rode off to someone else.
+
+"No, he's gone out."
+
+"If only they don't make me responsible for this delay! What a nuisance
+it is!" thought the officer, and he rode round the whole camp. One man
+said he had seen Ermolov ride past with some other generals, others said
+he must have returned home. The officer searched till six o'clock in the
+evening without even stopping to eat. Ermolov was nowhere to be found
+and no one knew where he was. The officer snatched a little food at a
+comrade's, and rode again to the vanguard to find Miloradovich.
+Miloradovich too was away, but here he was told that he had gone to a
+ball at General Kikin's and that Ermolov was probably there too.
+
+"But where is it?"
+
+"Why, there, over at Echkino," said a Cossack officer, pointing to a
+country house in the far distance.
+
+"What, outside our line?"
+
+"They've put two regiments as outposts, and they're having such a spree
+there, it's awful! Two bands and three sets of singers!"
+
+The officer rode out beyond our lines to Echkino. While still at a
+distance he heard as he rode the merry sounds of a soldier's dance song
+proceeding from the house.
+
+"In the meadows... in the meadows!" he heard, accompanied by whistling
+and the sound of a torban, drowned every now and then by shouts. These
+sounds made his spirits rise, but at the same time he was afraid that he
+would be blamed for not having executed sooner the important order
+entrusted to him. It was already past eight o'clock. He dismounted and
+went up into the porch of a large country house which had remained
+intact between the Russian and French forces. In the refreshment room
+and the hall, footmen were bustling about with wine and viands. Groups
+of singers stood outside the windows. The officer was admitted and
+immediately saw all the chief generals of the army together, and among
+them Ermolov's big imposing figure. They all had their coats unbuttoned
+and were standing in a semicircle with flushed and animated faces,
+laughing loudly. In the middle of the room a short handsome general with
+a red face was dancing the trepak with much spirit and agility.
+
+"Ha, ha, ha! Bravo, Nicholas Ivanych! Ha, ha, ha!"
+
+The officer felt that by arriving with important orders at such a moment
+he was doubly to blame, and he would have preferred to wait; but one of
+the generals espied him and, hearing what he had come about, informed
+Ermolov.
+
+Ermolov came forward with a frown on his face and, hearing what the
+officer had to say, took the papers from him without a word.
+
+"You think he went off just by chance?" said a comrade, who was on the
+staff that evening, to the officer of the Horse Guards, referring to
+Ermolov. "It was a trick. It was done on purpose to get Konovnitsyn into
+trouble. You'll see what a mess there'll be tomorrow."
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+Next day the decrepit Kutúzov, having given orders to be called early,
+said his prayers, dressed, and, with an unpleasant consciousness of
+having to direct a battle he did not approve of, got into his calèche
+and drove from Letashovka (a village three and a half miles from
+Tarutino) to the place where the attacking columns were to meet. He sat
+in the calèche, dozing and waking up by turns, and listening for any
+sound of firing on the right as an indication that the action had begun.
+But all was still quiet. A damp dull autumn morning was just dawning. On
+approaching Tarutino Kutúzov noticed cavalrymen leading their horses to
+water across the road along which he was driving. Kutúzov looked at them
+searchingly, stopped his carriage, and inquired what regiment they
+belonged to. They belonged to a column that should have been far in
+front and in ambush long before then. "It may be a mistake," thought the
+old commander-in-chief. But a little further on he saw infantry
+regiments with their arms piled and the soldiers, only partly dressed,
+eating their rye porridge and carrying fuel. He sent for an officer. The
+officer reported that no order to advance had been received.
+
+"How! Not rec..." Kutúzov began, but checked himself immediately and
+sent for a senior officer. Getting out of his calèche, he waited with
+drooping head and breathing heavily, pacing silently up and down. When
+Eykhen, the officer of the general staff whom he had summoned, appeared,
+Kutúzov went purple in the face, not because that officer was to blame
+for the mistake, but because he was an object of sufficient importance
+for him to vent his wrath on. Trembling and panting the old man fell
+into that state of fury in which he sometimes used to roll on the
+ground, and he fell upon Eykhen, threatening him with his hands,
+shouting and loading him with gross abuse. Another man, Captain Brozin,
+who happened to turn up and who was not at all to blame, suffered the
+same fate.
+
+"What sort of another blackguard are you? I'll have you shot!
+Scoundrels!" yelled Kutúzov in a hoarse voice, waving his arms and
+reeling.
+
+He was suffering physically. He, the commander-in-chief, a Serene
+Highness who everybody said possessed powers such as no man had ever had
+in Russia, to be placed in this position—made the laughingstock of the
+whole army! "I needn't have been in such a hurry to pray about today, or
+have kept awake thinking everything over all night," thought he to
+himself. "When I was a chit of an officer no one would have dared to
+mock me so... and now!" He was in a state of physical suffering as if
+from corporal punishment, and could not avoid expressing it by cries of
+anger and distress. But his strength soon began to fail him, and looking
+about him, conscious of having said much that was amiss, he again got
+into his calèche and drove back in silence.
+
+His wrath, once expended, did not return, and blinking feebly he
+listened to excuses and self-justifications (Ermolov did not come to see
+him till the next day) and to the insistence of Bennigsen, Konovnitsyn,
+and Toll that the movement that had miscarried should be executed next
+day. And once more Kutúzov had to consent.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+Next day the troops assembled in their appointed places in the evening
+and advanced during the night. It was an autumn night with dark purple
+clouds, but no rain. The ground was damp but not muddy, and the troops
+advanced noiselessly, only occasionally a jingling of the artillery
+could be faintly heard. The men were forbidden to talk out loud, to
+smoke their pipes, or to strike a light, and they tried to prevent their
+horses neighing. The secrecy of the undertaking heightened its charm and
+they marched gaily. Some columns, supposing they had reached their
+destination, halted, piled arms, and settled down on the cold ground,
+but the majority marched all night and arrived at places where they
+evidently should not have been.
+
+Only Count Orlóv-Denisov with his Cossacks (the least important
+detachment of all) got to his appointed place at the right time. This
+detachment halted at the outskirts of a forest, on the path leading from
+the village of Stromilova to Dmitrovsk.
+
+Toward dawn, Count Orlóv-Denisov, who had dozed off, was awakened by a
+deserter from the French army being brought to him. This was a Polish
+sergeant of Poniatowski's corps, who explained in Polish that he had
+come over because he had been slighted in the service: that he ought
+long ago to have been made an officer, that he was braver than any of
+them, and so he had left them and wished to pay them out. He said that
+Murat was spending the night less than a mile from where they were, and
+that if they would let him have a convoy of a hundred men he would
+capture him alive. Count Orlóv-Denisov consulted his fellow officers.
+
+The offer was too tempting to be refused. Everyone volunteered to go and
+everybody advised making the attempt. After much disputing and arguing,
+Major-General Grekov with two Cossack regiments decided to go with the
+Polish sergeant.
+
+"Now, remember," said Count Orlóv-Denisov to the sergeant at parting,
+"if you have been lying I'll have you hanged like a dog; but if it's
+true you shall have a hundred gold pieces!"
+
+Without replying, the sergeant, with a resolute air, mounted and rode
+away with Grekov whose men had quickly assembled. They disappeared into
+the forest, and Count Orlóv-Denisov, having seen Grekov off, returned,
+shivering from the freshness of the early dawn and excited by what he
+had undertaken on his own responsibility, and began looking at the enemy
+camp, now just visible in the deceptive light of dawn and the dying
+campfires. Our columns ought to have begun to appear on an open
+declivity to his right. He looked in that direction, but though the
+columns would have been visible quite far off, they were not to be seen.
+It seemed to the count that things were beginning to stir in the French
+camp, and his keen-sighted adjutant confirmed this.
+
+"Oh, it is really too late," said Count Orlóv, looking at the camp.
+
+As often happens when someone we have trusted is no longer before our
+eyes, it suddenly seemed quite clear and obvious to him that the
+sergeant was an impostor, that he had lied, and that the whole Russian
+attack would be ruined by the absence of those two regiments, which he
+would lead away heaven only knew where. How could one capture a
+commander-in-chief from among such a mass of troops!
+
+"I am sure that rascal was lying," said the count.
+
+"They can still be called back," said one of his suite, who like Count
+Orlóv felt distrustful of the adventure when he looked at the enemy's
+camp.
+
+"Eh? Really... what do you think? Should we let them go on or not?"
+
+"Will you have them fetched back?"
+
+"Fetch them back, fetch them back!" said Count Orlóv with sudden
+determination, looking at his watch. "It will be too late. It is quite
+light."
+
+And the adjutant galloped through the forest after Grekov. When Grekov
+returned, Count Orlóv-Denisov, excited both by the abandoned attempt and
+by vainly awaiting the infantry columns that still did not appear, as
+well as by the proximity of the enemy, resolved to advance. All his men
+felt the same excitement.
+
+"Mount!" he commanded in a whisper. The men took their places and
+crossed themselves.... "Forward, with God's aid!"
+
+"Hurrah-ah-ah!" reverberated in the forest, and the Cossack companies,
+trailing their lances and advancing one after another as if poured out
+of a sack, dashed gaily across the brook toward the camp.
+
+One desperate, frightened yell from the first French soldier who saw the
+Cossacks, and all who were in the camp, undressed and only just waking
+up, ran off in all directions, abandoning cannons, muskets, and horses.
+
+Had the Cossacks pursued the French, without heeding what was behind and
+around them, they would have captured Murat and everything there. That
+was what the officers desired. But it was impossible to make the
+Cossacks budge when once they had got booty and prisoners. None of them
+listened to orders. Fifteen hundred prisoners and thirty-eight guns were
+taken on the spot, besides standards and (what seemed most important to
+the Cossacks) horses, saddles, horsecloths, and the like. All this had
+to be dealt with, the prisoners and guns secured, the booty divided—not
+without some shouting and even a little fighting among themselves—and it
+was on this that the Cossacks all busied themselves.
+
+The French, not being farther pursued, began to recover themselves: they
+formed into detachments and began firing. Orlóv-Denisov, still waiting
+for the other columns to arrive, advanced no further.
+
+Meantime, according to the dispositions which said that "the First
+Column will march" and so on, the infantry of the belated columns,
+commanded by Bennigsen and directed by Toll, had started in due order
+and, as always happens, had got somewhere, but not to their appointed
+places. As always happens the men, starting cheerfully, began to halt;
+murmurs were heard, there was a sense of confusion, and finally a
+backward movement. Adjutants and generals galloped about, shouted, grew
+angry, quarreled, said they had come quite wrong and were late, gave
+vent to a little abuse, and at last gave it all up and went forward,
+simply to get somewhere. "We shall get somewhere or other!" And they did
+indeed get somewhere, though not to their right places; a few eventually
+even got to their right place, but too late to be of any use and only in
+time to be fired at. Toll, who in this battle played the part of
+Weyrother at Austerlitz, galloped assiduously from place to place,
+finding everything upside down everywhere. Thus he stumbled on Bagovut's
+corps in a wood when it was already broad daylight, though the corps
+should long before have joined Orlóv-Denisov. Excited and vexed by the
+failure and supposing that someone must be responsible for it, Toll
+galloped up to the commander of the corps and began upbraiding him
+severely, saying that he ought to be shot. General Bagovut, a fighting
+old soldier of placid temperament, being also upset by all the delay,
+confusion, and cross-purposes, fell into a rage to everybody's surprise
+and quite contrary to his usual character and said disagreeable things
+to Toll.
+
+"I prefer not to take lessons from anyone, but I can die with my men as
+well as anybody," he said, and advanced with a single division.
+
+Coming out onto a field under the enemy's fire, this brave general went
+straight ahead, leading his men under fire, without considering in his
+agitation whether going into action now, with a single division, would
+be of any use or no. Danger, cannon balls, and bullets were just what he
+needed in his angry mood. One of the first bullets killed him, and other
+bullets killed many of his men. And his division remained under fire for
+some time quite uselessly.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+Meanwhile another column was to have attacked the French from the front,
+but Kutúzov accompanied that column. He well knew that nothing but
+confusion would come of this battle undertaken against his will, and as
+far as was in his power held the troops back. He did not advance.
+
+He rode silently on his small gray horse, indolently answering
+suggestions that they should attack.
+
+"The word attack is always on your tongue, but you don't see that we are
+unable to execute complicated maneuvers," said he to Miloradovich who
+asked permission to advance.
+
+"We couldn't take Murat prisoner this morning or get to the place in
+time, and nothing can be done now!" he replied to someone else.
+
+When Kutúzov was informed that at the French rear—where according to the
+reports of the Cossacks there had previously been nobody—there were now
+two battalions of Poles, he gave a sidelong glance at Ermolov who was
+behind him and to whom he had not spoken since the previous day.
+
+"You see! They are asking to attack and making plans of all kinds, but
+as soon as one gets to business nothing is ready, and the enemy,
+forewarned, takes measures accordingly."
+
+Ermolov screwed up his eyes and smiled faintly on hearing these words.
+He understood that for him the storm had blown over, and that Kutúzov
+would content himself with that hint.
+
+"He's having a little fun at my expense," said Ermolov softly, nudging
+with his knee Raevski who was at his side.
+
+Soon after this, Ermolov moved up to Kutúzov and respectfully remarked:
+
+"It is not too late yet, your Highness—the enemy has not gone away—if
+you were to order an attack! If not, the Guards will not so much as see
+a little smoke."
+
+Kutúzov did not reply, but when they reported to him that Murat's troops
+were in retreat he ordered an advance, though at every hundred paces he
+halted for three quarters of an hour.
+
+The whole battle consisted in what Orlóv-Denisov's Cossacks had done:
+the rest of the army merely lost some hundreds of men uselessly.
+
+In consequence of this battle Kutúzov received a diamond decoration, and
+Bennigsen some diamonds and a hundred thousand rubles, others also
+received pleasant recognitions corresponding to their various grades,
+and following the battle fresh changes were made in the staff.
+
+"That's how everything is done with us, all topsy-turvy!" said the
+Russian officers and generals after the Tarutino battle, letting it be
+understood that some fool there is doing things all wrong but that we
+ourselves should not have done so, just as people speak today. But
+people who talk like that either do not know what they are talking about
+or deliberately deceive themselves. No battle—Tarutino, Borodino, or
+Austerlitz—takes place as those who planned it anticipated. That is an
+essential condition.
+
+A countless number of free forces (for nowhere is man freer than during
+a battle, where it is a question of life and death) influence the course
+taken by the fight, and that course never can be known in advance and
+never coincides with the direction of any one force.
+
+If many simultaneously and variously directed forces act on a given
+body, the direction of its motion cannot coincide with any one of those
+forces, but will always be a mean—what in mechanics is represented by
+the diagonal of a parallelogram of forces.
+
+If in the descriptions given by historians, especially French ones, we
+find their wars and battles carried out in accordance with previously
+formed plans, the only conclusion to be drawn is that those descriptions
+are false.
+
+The battle of Tarutino obviously did not attain the aim Toll had in
+view—to lead the troops into action in the order prescribed by the
+dispositions; nor that which Count Orlóv-Denisov may have had in view—to
+take Murat prisoner; nor the result of immediately destroying the whole
+corps, which Bennigsen and others may have had in view; nor the aim of
+the officer who wished to go into action to distinguish himself; nor
+that of the Cossack who wanted more booty than he got, and so on. But if
+the aim of the battle was what actually resulted and what all the
+Russians of that day desired—to drive the French out of Russia and
+destroy their army—it is quite clear that the battle of Tarutino, just
+because of its incongruities, was exactly what was wanted at that stage
+of the campaign. It would be difficult and even impossible to imagine
+any result more opportune than the actual outcome of this battle. With a
+minimum of effort and insignificant losses, despite the greatest
+confusion, the most important results of the whole campaign were
+attained: the transition from retreat to advance, an exposure of the
+weakness of the French, and the administration of that shock which
+Napoleon's army had only awaited to begin its flight.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+Napoleon enters Moscow after the brilliant victory de la Moskowa; there
+can be no doubt about the victory for the battlefield remains in the
+hands of the French. The Russians retreat and abandon their ancient
+capital. Moscow, abounding in provisions, arms, munitions, and
+incalculable wealth, is in Napoleon's hands. The Russian army, only half
+the strength of the French, does not make a single attempt to attack for
+a whole month. Napoleon's position is most brilliant. He can either fall
+on the Russian army with double its strength and destroy it; negotiate
+an advantageous peace, or in case of a refusal make a menacing move on
+Petersburg, or even, in the case of a reverse, return to Smolensk or
+Vilna; or remain in Moscow; in short, no special genius would seem to be
+required to retain the brilliant position the French held at that time.
+For that, only very simple and easy steps were necessary: not to allow
+the troops to loot, to prepare winter clothing—of which there was
+sufficient in Moscow for the whole army—and methodically to collect the
+provisions, of which (according to the French historians) there were
+enough in Moscow to supply the whole army for six months. Yet Napoleon,
+that greatest of all geniuses, who the historians declare had control of
+the army, took none of these steps.
+
+He not merely did nothing of the kind, but on the contrary he used his
+power to select the most foolish and ruinous of all the courses open to
+him. Of all that Napoleon might have done: wintering in Moscow,
+advancing on Petersburg or on Nizhni-Novgorod, or retiring by a more
+northerly or more southerly route (say by the road Kutúzov afterwards
+took), nothing more stupid or disastrous can be imagined than what he
+actually did. He remained in Moscow till October, letting the troops
+plunder the city; then, hesitating whether to leave a garrison behind
+him, he quitted Moscow, approached Kutúzov without joining battle,
+turned to the right and reached Malo-Yaroslavets, again without
+attempting to break through and take the road Kutúzov took, but retiring
+instead to Mozhaysk along the devastated Smolensk road. Nothing more
+stupid than that could have been devised, or more disastrous for the
+army, as the sequel showed. Had Napoleon's aim been to destroy his army,
+the most skillful strategist could hardly have devised any series of
+actions that would so completely have accomplished that purpose,
+independently of anything the Russian army might do.
+
+Napoleon, the man of genius, did this! But to say that he destroyed his
+army because he wished to, or because he was very stupid, would be as
+unjust as to say that he had brought his troops to Moscow because he
+wished to and because he was very clever and a genius.
+
+In both cases his personal activity, having no more force than the
+personal activity of any soldier, merely coincided with the laws that
+guided the event.
+
+The historians quite falsely represent Napoleon's faculties as having
+weakened in Moscow, and do so only because the results did not justify
+his actions. He employed all his ability and strength to do the best he
+could for himself and his army, as he had done previously and as he did
+subsequently in 1813. His activity at that time was no less astounding
+than it was in Egypt, in Italy, in Austria, and in Prussia. We do not
+know for certain in how far his genius was genuine in Egypt—where forty
+centuries looked down upon his grandeur—for his great exploits there are
+all told us by Frenchmen. We cannot accurately estimate his genius in
+Austria or Prussia, for we have to draw our information from French or
+German sources, and the incomprehensible surrender of whole corps
+without fighting and of fortresses without a siege must incline Germans
+to recognize his genius as the only explanation of the war carried on in
+Germany. But we, thank God, have no need to recognize his genius in
+order to hide our shame. We have paid for the right to look at the
+matter plainly and simply, and we will not abandon that right.
+
+His activity in Moscow was as amazing and as full of genius as
+elsewhere. Order after order and plan after plan were issued by him from
+the time he entered Moscow till the time he left it. The absence of
+citizens and of a deputation, and even the burning of Moscow, did not
+disconcert him. He did not lose sight either of the welfare of his army
+or of the doings of the enemy, or of the welfare of the people of
+Russia, or of the direction of affairs in Paris, or of diplomatic
+considerations concerning the terms of the anticipated peace.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+With regard to military matters, Napoleon immediately on his entry into
+Moscow gave General Sabastiani strict orders to observe the movements of
+the Russian army, sent army corps out along the different roads, and
+charged Murat to find Kutúzov. Then he gave careful directions about the
+fortification of the Kremlin, and drew up a brilliant plan for a future
+campaign over the whole map of Russia.
+
+With regard to diplomatic questions, Napoleon summoned Captain Yakovlev,
+who had been robbed and was in rags and did not know how to get out of
+Moscow, minutely explained to him his whole policy and his magnanimity,
+and having written a letter to the Emperor Alexander in which he
+considered it his duty to inform his Friend and Brother that Rostopchin
+had managed affairs badly in Moscow, he dispatched Yakovlev to
+Petersburg.
+
+Having similarly explained his views and his magnanimity to Tutolmin, he
+dispatched that old man also to Petersburg to negotiate.
+
+With regard to legal matters, immediately after the fires he gave orders
+to find and execute the incendiaries. And the scoundrel Rostopchin was
+punished by an order to burn down his houses.
+
+With regard to administrative matters, Moscow was granted a
+constitution. A municipality was established and the following
+announcement issued:
+
+INHABITANTS OF MOSCOW!
+
+Your misfortunes are cruel, but His Majesty the Emperor and King desires
+to arrest their course. Terrible examples have taught you how he
+punishes disobedience and crime. Strict measures have been taken to put
+an end to disorder and to re-establish public security. A paternal
+administration, chosen from among yourselves, will form your
+municipality or city government. It will take care of you, of your
+needs, and of your welfare. Its members will be distinguished by a red
+ribbon worn across the shoulder, and the mayor of the city will wear a
+white belt as well. But when not on duty they will only wear a red
+ribbon round the left arm.
+
+The city police is established on its former footing, and better order
+already prevails in consequence of its activity. The government has
+appointed two commissaries general, or chiefs of police, and twenty
+commissaries or captains of wards have been appointed to the different
+wards of the city. You will recognize them by the white ribbon they will
+wear on the left arm. Several churches of different denominations are
+open, and divine service is performed in them unhindered. Your fellow
+citizens are returning every day to their homes and orders have been
+given that they should find in them the help and protection due to their
+misfortunes. These are the measures the government has adopted to re-
+establish order and relieve your condition. But to achieve this aim it
+is necessary that you should add your efforts and should, if possible,
+forget the misfortunes you have suffered, should entertain the hope of a
+less cruel fate, should be certain that inevitable and ignominious death
+awaits those who make any attempt on your persons or on what remains of
+your property, and finally that you should not doubt that these will be
+safeguarded, since such is the will of the greatest and most just of
+monarchs. Soldiers and citizens, of whatever nation you may be, re-
+establish public confidence, the source of the welfare of a state, live
+like brothers, render mutual aid and protection one to another, unite to
+defeat the intentions of the evil-minded, obey the military and civil
+authorities, and your tears will soon cease to flow!
+
+With regard to supplies for the army, Napoleon decreed that all the
+troops in turn should enter Moscow a la maraude * to obtain provisions
+for themselves, so that the army might have its future provided for.
+
+* As looters.
+
+With regard to religion, Napoleon ordered the priests to be brought back
+and services to be again performed in the churches.
+
+With regard to commerce and to provisioning the army, the following was
+placarded everywhere:
+
+PROCLAMATION!
+
+You, peaceful inhabitants of Moscow, artisans and workmen whom
+misfortune has driven from the city, and you scattered tillers of the
+soil, still kept out in the fields by groundless fear, listen!
+Tranquillity is returning to this capital and order is being restored in
+it. Your fellow countrymen are emerging boldly from their hiding places
+on finding that they are respected. Any violence to them or to their
+property is promptly punished. His Majesty the Emperor and King protects
+them, and considers no one among you his enemy except those who disobey
+his orders. He desires to end your misfortunes and restore you to your
+homes and families. Respond, therefore, to his benevolent intentions and
+come to us without fear. Inhabitants, return with confidence to your
+abodes! You will soon find means of satisfying your needs. Craftsmen and
+industrious artisans, return to your work, your houses, your shops,
+where the protection of guards awaits you! You shall receive proper pay
+for your work. And lastly you too, peasants, come from the forests where
+you are hiding in terror, return to your huts without fear, in full
+assurance that you will find protection! Markets are established in the
+city where peasants can bring their surplus supplies and the products of
+the soil. The government has taken the following steps to ensure freedom
+of sale for them: (1) From today, peasants, husbandmen, and those living
+in the neighborhood of Moscow may without any danger bring their
+supplies of all kinds to two appointed markets, of which one is on the
+Mokhovaya Street and the other at the Provision Market. (2) Such
+supplies will be bought from them at such prices as seller and buyer may
+agree on, and if a seller is unable to obtain a fair price he will be
+free to take his goods back to his village and no one may hinder him
+under any pretense. (3) Sunday and Wednesday of each week are appointed
+as the chief market days and to that end a sufficient number of troops
+will be stationed along the highroads on Tuesdays and Saturdays at such
+distances from the town as to protect the carts. (4) Similar measures
+will be taken that peasants with their carts and horses may meet with no
+hindrance on their return journey. (5) Steps will immediately be taken
+to re-establish ordinary trading.
+
+Inhabitants of the city and villages, and you, workingmen and artisans,
+to whatever nation you belong, you are called on to carry out the
+paternal intentions of His Majesty the Emperor and King and to co-
+operate with him for the public welfare! Lay your respect and confidence
+at his feet and do not delay to unite with us!
+
+With the object of raising the spirits of the troops and of the people,
+reviews were constantly held and rewards distributed. The Emperor rode
+through the streets to comfort the inhabitants, and, despite his
+preoccupation with state affairs, himself visited the theaters that were
+established by his order.
+
+In regard to philanthropy, the greatest virtue of crowned heads,
+Napoleon also did all in his power. He caused the words Maison de ma
+Mere to be inscribed on the charitable institutions, thereby combining
+tender filial affection with the majestic benevolence of a monarch. He
+visited the Foundling Hospital and, allowing the orphans saved by him to
+kiss his white hands, graciously conversed with Tutolmin. Then, as
+Thiers eloquently recounts, he ordered his soldiers to be paid in forged
+Russian money which he had prepared: "Raising the use of these means by
+an act worthy of himself and of the French army, he let relief be
+distributed to those who had been burned out. But as food was too
+precious to be given to foreigners, who were for the most part enemies,
+Napoleon preferred to supply them with money with which to purchase food
+from outside, and had paper rubles distributed to them."
+
+With reference to army discipline, orders were continually being issued
+to inflict severe punishment for the nonperformance of military duties
+and to suppress robbery.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+But strange to say, all these measures, efforts, and plans—which were
+not at all worse than others issued in similar circumstances—did not
+affect the essence of the matter but, like the hands of a clock detached
+from the mechanism, swung about in an arbitrary and aimless way without
+engaging the cogwheels.
+
+With reference to the military side—the plan of campaign—that work of
+genius of which Thiers remarks that, "His genius never devised anything
+more profound, more skillful, or more admirable," and enters into a
+polemic with M. Fain to prove that this work of genius must be referred
+not to the fourth but to the fifteenth of October—that plan never was or
+could be executed, for it was quite out of touch with the facts of the
+case. The fortifying of the Kremlin, for which la Mosquee (as Napoleon
+termed the church of Basil the Beatified) was to have been razed to the
+ground, proved quite useless. The mining of the Kremlin only helped
+toward fulfilling Napoleon's wish that it should be blown up when he
+left Moscow—as a child wants the floor on which he has hurt himself to
+be beaten. The pursuit of the Russian army, about which Napoleon was so
+concerned, produced an unheard-of result. The French generals lost touch
+with the Russian army of sixty thousand men, and according to Thiers it
+was only eventually found, like a lost pin, by the skill—and apparently
+the genius—of Murat.
+
+With reference to diplomacy, all Napoleon's arguments as to his
+magnanimity and justice, both to Tutolmin and to Yakovlev (whose chief
+concern was to obtain a greatcoat and a conveyance), proved useless;
+Alexander did not receive these envoys and did not reply to their
+embassage.
+
+With regard to legal matters, after the execution of the supposed
+incendiaries the rest of Moscow burned down.
+
+With regard to administrative matters, the establishment of a
+municipality did not stop the robberies and was only of use to certain
+people who formed part of that municipality and under pretext of
+preserving order looted Moscow or saved their own property from being
+looted.
+
+With regard to religion, as to which in Egypt matters had so easily been
+settled by Napoleon's visit to a mosque, no results were achieved. Two
+or three priests who were found in Moscow did try to carry out
+Napoleon's wish, but one of them was slapped in the face by a French
+soldier while conducting service, and a French official reported of
+another that: "The priest whom I found and invited to say Mass cleaned
+and locked up the church. That night the doors were again broken open,
+the padlocks smashed, the books mutilated, and other disorders
+perpetrated."
+
+With reference to commerce, the proclamation to industrious workmen and
+to peasants evoked no response. There were no industrious workmen, and
+the peasants caught the commissaries who ventured too far out of town
+with the proclamation and killed them.
+
+As to the theaters for the entertainment of the people and the troops,
+these did not meet with success either. The theaters set up in the
+Kremlin and in Posnyakov's house were closed again at once because the
+actors and actresses were robbed.
+
+Even philanthropy did not have the desired effect. The genuine as well
+as the false paper money which flooded Moscow lost its value. The
+French, collecting booty, cared only for gold. Not only was the paper
+money valueless which Napoleon so graciously distributed to the
+unfortunate, but even silver lost its value in relation to gold.
+
+But the most amazing example of the ineffectiveness of the orders given
+by the authorities at that time was Napoleon's attempt to stop the
+looting and re-establish discipline.
+
+This is what the army authorities were reporting:
+
+"Looting continues in the city despite the decrees against it. Order is
+not yet restored and not a single merchant is carrying on trade in a
+lawful manner. The sutlers alone venture to trade, and they sell stolen
+goods."
+
+"The neighborhood of my ward continues to be pillaged by soldiers of the
+3rd Corps who, not satisfied with taking from the unfortunate
+inhabitants hiding in the cellars the little they have left, even have
+the ferocity to wound them with their sabers, as I have repeatedly
+witnessed."
+
+"Nothing new, except that the soldiers are robbing and pillaging—October
+9."
+
+"Robbery and pillaging continue. There is a band of thieves in our
+district who ought to be arrested by a strong force—October 11."
+
+"The Emperor is extremely displeased that despite the strict orders to
+stop pillage, parties of marauding Guards are continually seen returning
+to the Kremlin. Among the Old Guard disorder and pillage were renewed
+more violently than ever yesterday evening, last night, and today. The
+Emperor sees with regret that the picked soldiers appointed to guard his
+person, who should set an example of discipline, carry disobedience to
+such a point that they break into the cellars and stores containing army
+supplies. Others have disgraced themselves to the extent of disobeying
+sentinels and officers, and have abused and beaten them."
+
+"The Grand Marshal of the palace," wrote the governor, "complains
+bitterly that in spite of repeated orders, the soldiers continue to
+commit nuisances in all the courtyards and even under the very windows
+of the Emperor."
+
+That army, like a herd of cattle run wild and trampling underfoot the
+provender which might have saved it from starvation, disintegrated and
+perished with each additional day it remained in Moscow. But it did not
+go away.
+
+It began to run away only when suddenly seized by a panic caused by the
+capture of transport trains on the Smolensk road, and by the battle of
+Tarutino. The news of that battle of Tarutino, unexpectedly received by
+Napoleon at a review, evoked in him a desire to punish the Russians
+(Thiers says), and he issued the order for departure which the whole
+army was demanding.
+
+Fleeing from Moscow the soldiers took with them everything they had
+stolen. Napoleon, too, carried away his own personal tresor, but on
+seeing the baggage trains that impeded the army, he was (Thiers says)
+horror-struck. And yet with his experience of war he did not order all
+the superfluous vehicles to be burned, as he had done with those of a
+certain marshal when approaching Moscow. He gazed at the calèches and
+carriages in which soldiers were riding and remarked that it was a very
+good thing, as those vehicles could be used to carry provisions, the
+sick, and the wounded.
+
+The plight of the whole army resembled that of a wounded animal which
+feels it is perishing and does not know what it is doing. To study the
+skillful tactics and aims of Napoleon and his army from the time it
+entered Moscow till it was destroyed is like studying the dying leaps
+and shudders of a mortally wounded animal. Very often a wounded animal,
+hearing a rustle, rushes straight at the hunter's gun, runs forward and
+back again, and hastens its own end. Napoleon, under pressure from his
+whole army, did the same thing. The rustle of the battle of Tarutino
+frightened the beast, and it rushed forward onto the hunter's gun,
+reached him, turned back, and finally—like any wild beast—ran back along
+the most disadvantageous and dangerous path, where the old scent was
+familiar.
+
+During the whole of that period Napoleon, who seems to us to have been
+the leader of all these movements—as the figurehead of a ship may seem
+to a savage to guide the vessel—acted like a child who, holding a couple
+of strings inside a carriage, thinks he is driving it.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+Early in the morning of the sixth of October Pierre went out of the
+shed, and on returning stopped by the door to play with a little blue-
+gray dog, with a long body and short bandy legs, that jumped about him.
+This little dog lived in their shed, sleeping beside Karataev at night;
+it sometimes made excursions into the town but always returned again.
+Probably it had never had an owner, and it still belonged to nobody and
+had no name. The French called it Azor; the soldier who told stories
+called it Femgalka; Karataev and others called it Gray, or sometimes
+Flabby. Its lack of a master, a name, or even of a breed or any definite
+color did not seem to trouble the blue-gray dog in the least. Its furry
+tail stood up firm and round as a plume, its bandy legs served it so
+well that it would often gracefully lift a hind leg and run very easily
+and quickly on three legs, as if disdaining to use all four. Everything
+pleased it. Now it would roll on its back, yelping with delight, now
+bask in the sun with a thoughtful air of importance, and now frolic
+about playing with a chip of wood or a straw.
+
+Pierre's attire by now consisted of a dirty torn shirt (the only remnant
+of his former clothing), a pair of soldier's trousers which by
+Karataev's advice he tied with string round the ankles for warmth, and a
+peasant coat and cap. Physically he had changed much during this time.
+He no longer seemed stout, though he still had the appearance of
+solidity and strength hereditary in his family. A beard and mustache
+covered the lower part of his face, and a tangle of hair, infested with
+lice, curled round his head like a cap. The look of his eyes was
+resolute, calm, and animatedly alert, as never before. The former
+slackness which had shown itself even in his eyes was now replaced by an
+energetic readiness for action and resistance. His feet were bare.
+
+Pierre first looked down the field across which vehicles and horsemen
+were passing that morning, then into the distance across the river, then
+at the dog who was pretending to be in earnest about biting him, and
+then at his bare feet which he placed with pleasure in various
+positions, moving his dirty thick big toes. Every time he looked at his
+bare feet a smile of animated self-satisfaction flitted across his face.
+The sight of them reminded him of all he had experienced and learned
+during these weeks and this recollection was pleasant to him.
+
+For some days the weather had been calm and clear with slight frosts in
+the mornings—what is called an "old wives' summer."
+
+In the sunshine the air was warm, and that warmth was particularly
+pleasant with the invigorating freshness of the morning frost still in
+the air.
+
+On everything—far and near—lay the magic crystal glitter seen only at
+that time of autumn. The Sparrow Hills were visible in the distance,
+with the village, the church, and the large white house. The bare trees,
+the sand, the bricks and roofs of the houses, the green church spire,
+and the corners of the white house in the distance, all stood out in the
+transparent air in most delicate outline and with unnatural clearness.
+Near by could be seen the familiar ruins of a half-burned mansion
+occupied by the French, with lilac bushes still showing dark green
+beside the fence. And even that ruined and befouled house—which in dull
+weather was repulsively ugly—seemed quietly beautiful now, in the clear,
+motionless brilliance.
+
+A French corporal, with coat unbuttoned in a homely way, a skullcap on
+his head, and a short pipe in his mouth, came from behind a corner of
+the shed and approached Pierre with a friendly wink.
+
+"What sunshine, Monsieur Kiril!" (Their name for Pierre.) "Eh? Just like
+spring!"
+
+And the corporal leaned against the door and offered Pierre his pipe,
+though whenever he offered it Pierre always declined it.
+
+"To be on the march in such weather..." he began.
+
+Pierre inquired what was being said about leaving, and the corporal told
+him that nearly all the troops were starting and there ought to be an
+order about the prisoners that day. Sokolov, one of the soldiers in the
+shed with Pierre, was dying, and Pierre told the corporal that something
+should be done about him. The corporal replied that Pierre need not
+worry about that as they had an ambulance and a permanent hospital and
+arrangements would be made for the sick, and that in general everything
+that could happen had been foreseen by the authorities.
+
+"Besides, Monsieur Kiril, you have only to say a word to the captain,
+you know. He is a man who never forgets anything. Speak to the captain
+when he makes his round, he will do anything for you."
+
+(The captain of whom the corporal spoke often had long chats with Pierre
+and showed him all sorts of favors.)
+
+"'You see, St. Thomas,' he said to me the other day. 'Monsieur Kiril is
+a man of education, who speaks French. He is a Russian seigneur who has
+had misfortunes, but he is a man. He knows what's what.... If he wants
+anything and asks me, he won't get a refusal. When one has studied, you
+see, one likes education and well-bred people.' It is for your sake I
+mention it, Monsieur Kiril. The other day if it had not been for you
+that affair would have ended ill."
+
+And after chatting a while longer, the corporal went away. (The affair
+he had alluded to had happened a few days before—a fight between the
+prisoners and the French soldiers, in which Pierre had succeeded in
+pacifying his comrades.) Some of the prisoners who had heard Pierre
+talking to the corporal immediately asked what the Frenchman had said.
+While Pierre was repeating what he had been told about the army leaving
+Moscow, a thin, sallow, tattered French soldier came up to the door of
+the shed. Rapidly and timidly raising his fingers to his forehead by way
+of greeting, he asked Pierre whether the soldier Platoche to whom he had
+given a shirt to sew was in that shed.
+
+A week before the French had had boot leather and linen issued to them,
+which they had given out to the prisoners to make up into boots and
+shirts for them.
+
+"Ready, ready, dear fellow!" said Karataev, coming out with a neatly
+folded shirt.
+
+Karataev, on account of the warm weather and for convenience at work,
+was wearing only trousers and a tattered shirt as black as soot. His
+hair was bound round, workman fashion, with a wisp of lime-tree bast,
+and his round face seemed rounder and pleasanter than ever.
+
+"A promise is own brother to performance! I said Friday and here it is,
+ready," said Platon, smiling and unfolding the shirt he had sewn.
+
+The Frenchman glanced around uneasily and then, as if overcoming his
+hesitation, rapidly threw off his uniform and put on the shirt. He had a
+long, greasy, flowered silk waistcoat next to his sallow, thin bare
+body, but no shirt. He was evidently afraid the prisoners looking on
+would laugh at him, and thrust his head into the shirt hurriedly. None
+of the prisoners said a word.
+
+"See, it fits well!" Platon kept repeating, pulling the shirt straight.
+
+The Frenchman, having pushed his head and hands through, without raising
+his eyes, looked down at the shirt and examined the seams.
+
+"You see, dear man, this is not a sewing shop, and I had no proper
+tools; and, as they say, one needs a tool even to kill a louse," said
+Platon with one of his round smiles, obviously pleased with his work.
+
+"It's good, quite good, thank you," said the Frenchman, in French, "but
+there must be some linen left over."
+
+"It will fit better still when it sets to your body," said Karataev,
+still admiring his handiwork. "You'll be nice and comfortable...."
+
+"Thanks, thanks, old fellow.... But the bits left over?" said the
+Frenchman again and smiled. He took out an assignation ruble note and
+gave it to Karataev. "But give me the pieces that are over."
+
+Pierre saw that Platon did not want to understand what the Frenchman was
+saying, and he looked on without interfering. Karataev thanked the
+Frenchman for the money and went on admiring his own work. The Frenchman
+insisted on having the pieces returned that were left over and asked
+Pierre to translate what he said.
+
+"What does he want the bits for?" said Karataev. "They'd make fine leg
+bands for us. Well, never mind."
+
+And Karataev, with a suddenly changed and saddened expression, took a
+small bundle of scraps from inside his shirt and gave it to the
+Frenchman without looking at him. "Oh dear!" muttered Karataev and went
+away. The Frenchman looked at the linen, considered for a moment, then
+looked inquiringly at Pierre and, as if Pierre's look had told him
+something, suddenly blushed and shouted in a squeaky voice:
+
+"Platoche! Eh, Platoche! Keep them yourself!" And handing back the odd
+bits he turned and went out.
+
+"There, look at that," said Karataev, swaying his head. "People said
+they were not Christians, but they too have souls. It's what the old
+folk used to say: 'A sweating hand's an open hand, a dry hand's close.'
+He's naked, but yet he's given it back."
+
+Karataev smiled thoughtfully and was silent awhile looking at the
+pieces.
+
+"But they'll make grand leg bands, dear friend," he said, and went back
+into the shed.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+Four weeks had passed since Pierre had been taken prisoner and though
+the French had offered to move him from the men's to the officers' shed,
+he had stayed in the shed where he was first put.
+
+In burned and devastated Moscow Pierre experienced almost the extreme
+limits of privation a man can endure; but thanks to his physical
+strength and health, of which he had till then been unconscious, and
+thanks especially to the fact that the privations came so gradually that
+it was impossible to say when they began, he endured his position not
+only lightly but joyfully. And just at this time he obtained the
+tranquillity and ease of mind he had formerly striven in vain to reach.
+He had long sought in different ways that tranquillity of mind, that
+inner harmony which had so impressed him in the soldiers at the battle
+of Borodino. He had sought it in philanthropy, in Freemasonry, in the
+dissipations of town life, in wine, in heroic feats of self-sacrifice,
+and in romantic love for Natásha; he had sought it by reasoning—and all
+these quests and experiments had failed him. And now without thinking
+about it he had found that peace and inner harmony only through the
+horror of death, through privation, and through what he recognized in
+Karataev.
+
+Those dreadful moments he had lived through at the executions had as it
+were forever washed away from his imagination and memory the agitating
+thoughts and feelings that had formerly seemed so important. It did not
+now occur to him to think of Russia, or the war, or politics, or
+Napoleon. It was plain to him that all these things were no business of
+his, and that he was not called on to judge concerning them and
+therefore could not do so. "Russia and summer weather are not bound
+together," he thought, repeating words of Karataev's which he found
+strangely consoling. His intention of killing Napoleon and his
+calculations of the cabalistic number of the beast of the Apocalypse now
+seemed to him meaningless and even ridiculous. His anger with his wife
+and anxiety that his name should not be smirched now seemed not merely
+trivial but even amusing. What concern was it of his that somewhere or
+other that woman was leading the life she preferred? What did it matter
+to anybody, and especially to him, whether or not they found out that
+their prisoner's name was Count Bezúkhov?
+
+He now often remembered his conversation with Prince Andrew and quite
+agreed with him, though he understood Prince Andrew's thoughts somewhat
+differently. Prince Andrew had thought and said that happiness could
+only be negative, but had said it with a shade of bitterness and irony
+as though he was really saying that all desire for positive happiness is
+implanted in us merely to torment us and never be satisfied. But Pierre
+believed it without any mental reservation. The absence of suffering,
+the satisfaction of one's needs and consequent freedom in the choice of
+one's occupation, that is, of one's way of life, now seemed to Pierre to
+be indubitably man's highest happiness. Here and now for the first time
+he fully appreciated the enjoyment of eating when he wanted to eat,
+drinking when he wanted to drink, sleeping when he wanted to sleep, of
+warmth when he was cold, of talking to a fellow man when he wished to
+talk and to hear a human voice. The satisfaction of one's needs—good
+food, cleanliness, and freedom—now that he was deprived of all this,
+seemed to Pierre to constitute perfect happiness; and the choice of
+occupation, that is, of his way of life—now that that was so
+restricted—seemed to him such an easy matter that he forgot that a
+superfluity of the comforts of life destroys all joy in satisfying one's
+needs, while great freedom in the choice of occupation—such freedom as
+his wealth, his education, and his social position had given him in his
+own life—is just what makes the choice of occupation insolubly difficult
+and destroys the desire and possibility of having an occupation.
+
+All Pierre's daydreams now turned on the time when he would be free. Yet
+subsequently, and for the rest of his life, he thought and spoke with
+enthusiasm of that month of captivity, of those irrecoverable, strong,
+joyful sensations, and chiefly of the complete peace of mind and inner
+freedom which he experienced only during those weeks.
+
+When on the first day he got up early, went out of the shed at dawn, and
+saw the cupolas and crosses of the New Convent of the Virgin still dark
+at first, the hoarfrost on the dusty grass, the Sparrow Hills, and the
+wooded banks above the winding river vanishing in the purple distance,
+when he felt the contact of the fresh air and heard the noise of the
+crows flying from Moscow across the field, and when afterwards light
+gleamed from the east and the sun's rim appeared solemnly from behind a
+cloud, and the cupolas and crosses, the hoarfrost, the distance and the
+river, all began to sparkle in the glad light—Pierre felt a new joy and
+strength in life such as he had never before known. And this not only
+stayed with him during the whole of his imprisonment, but even grew in
+strength as the hardships of his position increased.
+
+That feeling of alertness and of readiness for anything was still
+further strengthened in him by the high opinion his fellow prisoners
+formed of him soon after his arrival at the shed. With his knowledge of
+languages, the respect shown him by the French, his simplicity, his
+readiness to give anything asked of him (he received the allowance of
+three rubles a week made to officers); with his strength, which he
+showed to the soldiers by pressing nails into the walls of the hut; his
+gentleness to his companions, and his capacity for sitting still and
+thinking without doing anything (which seemed to them incomprehensible),
+he appeared to them a rather mysterious and superior being. The very
+qualities that had been a hindrance, if not actually harmful, to him in
+the world he had lived in—his strength, his disdain for the comforts of
+life, his absent-mindedness and simplicity—here among these people gave
+him almost the status of a hero. And Pierre felt that their opinion
+placed responsibilities upon him.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+The French evacuation began on the night between the sixth and seventh
+of October: kitchens and sheds were dismantled, carts loaded, and troops
+and baggage trains started.
+
+At seven in the morning a French convoy in marching trim, wearing shakos
+and carrying muskets, knapsacks, and enormous sacks, stood in front of
+the sheds, and animated French talk mingled with curses sounded all
+along the lines.
+
+In the shed everyone was ready, dressed, belted, shod, and only awaited
+the order to start. The sick soldier, Sokolov, pale and thin with dark
+shadows round his eyes, alone sat in his place barefoot and not dressed.
+His eyes, prominent from the emaciation of his face, gazed inquiringly
+at his comrades who were paying no attention to him, and he moaned
+regularly and quietly. It was evidently not so much his sufferings that
+caused him to moan (he had dysentery) as his fear and grief at being
+left alone.
+
+Pierre, girt with a rope round his waist and wearing shoes Karataev had
+made for him from some leather a French soldier had torn off a tea chest
+and brought to have his boots mended with, went up to the sick man and
+squatted down beside him.
+
+"You know, Sokolov, they are not all going away! They have a hospital
+here. You may be better off than we others," said Pierre.
+
+"O Lord! Oh, it will be the death of me! O Lord!" moaned the man in a
+louder voice.
+
+"I'll go and ask them again directly," said Pierre, rising and going to
+the door of the shed.
+
+Just as Pierre reached the door, the corporal who had offered him a pipe
+the day before came up to it with two soldiers. The corporal and
+soldiers were in marching kit with knapsacks and shakos that had metal
+straps, and these changed their familiar faces.
+
+The corporal came, according to orders, to shut the door. The prisoners
+had to be counted before being let out.
+
+"Corporal, what will they do with the sick man?..." Pierre began.
+
+But even as he spoke he began to doubt whether this was the corporal he
+knew or a stranger, so unlike himself did the corporal seem at that
+moment. Moreover, just as Pierre was speaking a sharp rattle of drums
+was suddenly heard from both sides. The corporal frowned at Pierre's
+words and, uttering some meaningless oaths, slammed the door. The shed
+became semidark, and the sharp rattle of the drums on two sides drowned
+the sick man's groans.
+
+"There it is!... It again!..." said Pierre to himself, and an
+involuntary shudder ran down his spine. In the corporal's changed face,
+in the sound of his voice, in the stirring and deafening noise of the
+drums, he recognized that mysterious, callous force which compelled
+people against their will to kill their fellow men—that force the effect
+of which he had witnessed during the executions. To fear or to try to
+escape that force, to address entreaties or exhortations to those who
+served as its tools, was useless. Pierre knew this now. One had to wait
+and endure. He did not again go to the sick man, nor turn to look at
+him, but stood frowning by the door of the hut.
+
+When that door was opened and the prisoners, crowding against one
+another like a flock of sheep, squeezed into the exit, Pierre pushed his
+way forward and approached that very captain who as the corporal had
+assured him was ready to do anything for him. The captain was also in
+marching kit, and on his cold face appeared that same it which Pierre
+had recognized in the corporal's words and in the roll of the drums.
+
+"Pass on, pass on!" the captain reiterated, frowning sternly, and
+looking at the prisoners who thronged past him.
+
+Pierre went up to him, though he knew his attempt would be vain.
+
+"What now?" the officer asked with a cold look as if not recognizing
+Pierre.
+
+Pierre told him about the sick man.
+
+"He'll manage to walk, devil take him!" said the captain. "Pass on, pass
+on!" he continued without looking at Pierre.
+
+"But he is dying," Pierre again began.
+
+"Be so good..." shouted the captain, frowning angrily.
+
+"Dram-da-da-dam, dam-dam..." rattled the drums, and Pierre understood
+that this mysterious force completely controlled these men and that it
+was now useless to say any more.
+
+The officer prisoners were separated from the soldiers and told to march
+in front. There were about thirty officers, with Pierre among them, and
+about three hundred men.
+
+The officers, who had come from the other sheds, were all strangers to
+Pierre and much better dressed than he. They looked at him and at his
+shoes mistrustfully, as at an alien. Not far from him walked a fat major
+with a sallow, bloated, angry face, who was wearing a Kazan dressing
+gown tied round with a towel, and who evidently enjoyed the respect of
+his fellow prisoners. He kept one hand, in which he clasped his tobacco
+pouch, inside the bosom of his dressing gown and held the stem of his
+pipe firmly with the other. Panting and puffing, the major grumbled and
+growled at everybody because he thought he was being pushed and that
+they were all hurrying when they had nowhere to hurry to and were all
+surprised at something when there was nothing to be surprised at.
+Another, a thin little officer, was speaking to everyone, conjecturing
+where they were now being taken and how far they would get that day. An
+official in felt boots and wearing a commissariat uniform ran round from
+side to side and gazed at the ruins of Moscow, loudly announcing his
+observations as to what had been burned down and what this or that part
+of the city was that they could see. A third officer, who by his accent
+was a Pole, disputed with the commissariat officer, arguing that he was
+mistaken in his identification of the different wards of Moscow.
+
+"What are you disputing about?" said the major angrily. "What does it
+matter whether it is St. Nicholas or St. Blasius? You see it's burned
+down, and there's an end of it.... What are you pushing for? Isn't the
+road wide enough?" said he, turning to a man behind him who was not
+pushing him at all.
+
+"Oh, oh, oh! What have they done?" the prisoners on one side and another
+were heard saying as they gazed on the charred ruins. "All beyond the
+river, and Zúbova, and in the Kremlin.... Just look! There's not half of
+it left. Yes, I told you—the whole quarter beyond the river, and so it
+is."
+
+"Well, you know it's burned, so what's the use of talking?" said the
+major.
+
+As they passed near a church in the Khamovniki (one of the few unburned
+quarters of Moscow) the whole mass of prisoners suddenly started to one
+side and exclamations of horror and disgust were heard.
+
+"Ah, the villains! What heathens! Yes; dead, dead, so he is... And
+smeared with something!"
+
+Pierre too drew near the church where the thing was that evoked these
+exclamations, and dimly made out something leaning against the palings
+surrounding the church. From the words of his comrades who saw better
+than he did, he found that this was the body of a man, set upright
+against the palings with its face smeared with soot.
+
+"Go on! What the devil... Go on! Thirty thousand devils!..." the convoy
+guards began cursing and the French soldiers, with fresh virulence,
+drove away with their swords the crowd of prisoners who were gazing at
+the dead man.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+Through the cross streets of the Khamovniki quarter the prisoners
+marched, followed only by their escort and the vehicles and wagons
+belonging to that escort, but when they reached the supply stores they
+came among a huge and closely packed train of artillery mingled with
+private vehicles.
+
+At the bridge they all halted, waiting for those in front to get across.
+From the bridge they had a view of endless lines of moving baggage
+trains before and behind them. To the right, where the Kaluga road turns
+near Neskuchny, endless rows of troops and carts stretched away into the
+distance. These were troops of Beauharnais' corps which had started
+before any of the others. Behind, along the riverside and across the
+Stone Bridge, were Ney's troops and transport.
+
+Davout's troops, in whose charge were the prisoners, were crossing the
+Crimean bridge and some were already debouching into the Kaluga road.
+But the baggage trains stretched out so that the last of Beauharnais'
+train had not yet got out of Moscow and reached the Kaluga road when the
+vanguard of Ney's army was already emerging from the Great Ordynka
+Street.
+
+When they had crossed the Crimean bridge the prisoners moved a few steps
+forward, halted, and again moved on, and from all sides vehicles and men
+crowded closer and closer together. They advanced the few hundred paces
+that separated the bridge from the Kaluga road, taking more than an hour
+to do so, and came out upon the square where the streets of the
+Transmoskva ward and the Kaluga road converge, and the prisoners jammed
+close together had to stand for some hours at that crossway. From all
+sides, like the roar of the sea, were heard the rattle of wheels, the
+tramp of feet, and incessant shouts of anger and abuse. Pierre stood
+pressed against the wall of a charred house, listening to that noise
+which mingled in his imagination with the roll of the drums.
+
+To get a better view, several officer prisoners climbed onto the wall of
+the half-burned house against which Pierre was leaning.
+
+"What crowds! Just look at the crowds!... They've loaded goods even on
+the cannon! Look there, those are furs!" they exclaimed. "Just see what
+the blackguards have looted.... There! See what that one has behind in
+the cart.... Why, those are settings taken from some icons, by
+heaven!... Oh, the rascals!... See how that fellow has loaded himself
+up, he can hardly walk! Good lord, they've even grabbed those
+chaises!... See that fellow there sitting on the trunks.... Heavens!
+They're fighting."
+
+"That's right, hit him on the snout—on his snout! Like this, we shan't
+get away before evening. Look, look there.... Why, that must be
+Napoleon's own. See what horses! And the monograms with a crown! It's
+like a portable house.... That fellow's dropped his sack and doesn't see
+it. Fighting again... A woman with a baby, and not bad-looking either!
+Yes, I dare say, that's the way they'll let you pass... Just look,
+there's no end to it. Russian wenches, by heaven, so they are! In
+carriages—see how comfortably they've settled themselves!"
+
+Again, as at the church in Khamovniki, a wave of general curiosity bore
+all the prisoners forward onto the road, and Pierre, thanks to his
+stature, saw over the heads of the others what so attracted their
+curiosity. In three carriages involved among the munition carts, closely
+squeezed together, sat women with rouged faces, dressed in glaring
+colors, who were shouting something in shrill voices.
+
+From the moment Pierre had recognized the appearance of the mysterious
+force nothing had seemed to him strange or dreadful: neither the corpse
+smeared with soot for fun nor these women hurrying away nor the burned
+ruins of Moscow. All that he now witnessed scarcely made an impression
+on him—as if his soul, making ready for a hard struggle, refused to
+receive impressions that might weaken it.
+
+The women's vehicles drove by. Behind them came more carts, soldiers,
+wagons, soldiers, gun carriages, carriages, soldiers, ammunition carts,
+more soldiers, and now and then women.
+
+Pierre did not see the people as individuals but saw their movement.
+
+All these people and horses seemed driven forward by some invisible
+power. During the hour Pierre watched them they all came flowing from
+the different streets with one and the same desire to get on quickly;
+they all jostled one another, began to grow angry and to fight, white
+teeth gleamed, brows frowned, ever the same words of abuse flew from
+side to side, and all the faces bore the same swaggeringly resolute and
+coldly cruel expression that had struck Pierre that morning on the
+corporal's face when the drums were beating.
+
+It was not till nearly evening that the officer commanding the escort
+collected his men and with shouts and quarrels forced his way in among
+the baggage trains, and the prisoners, hemmed in on all sides, emerged
+onto the Kaluga road.
+
+They marched very quickly, without resting, and halted only when the sun
+began to set. The baggage carts drew up close together and the men began
+to prepare for their night's rest. They all appeared angry and
+dissatisfied. For a long time, oaths, angry shouts, and fighting could
+be heard from all sides. A carriage that followed the escort ran into
+one of the carts and knocked a hole in it with its pole. Several
+soldiers ran toward the cart from different sides: some beat the
+carriage horses on their heads, turning them aside, others fought among
+themselves, and Pierre saw that one German was badly wounded on the head
+by a sword.
+
+It seemed that all these men, now that they had stopped amid fields in
+the chill dusk of the autumn evening, experienced one and the same
+feeling of unpleasant awakening from the hurry and eagerness to push on
+that had seized them at the start. Once at a standstill they all seemed
+to understand that they did not yet know where they were going, and that
+much that was painful and difficult awaited them on this journey.
+
+During this halt the escort treated the prisoners even worse than they
+had done at the start. It was here that the prisoners for the first time
+received horseflesh for their meat ration.
+
+From the officer down to the lowest soldier they showed what seemed like
+personal spite against each of the prisoners, in unexpected contrast to
+their former friendly relations.
+
+This spite increased still more when, on calling over the roll of
+prisoners, it was found that in the bustle of leaving Moscow one Russian
+soldier, who had pretended to suffer from colic, had escaped. Pierre saw
+a Frenchman beat a Russian soldier cruelly for straying too far from the
+road, and heard his friend the captain reprimand and threaten to court-
+martial a noncommissioned officer on account of the escape of the
+Russian. To the noncommissioned officer's excuse that the prisoner was
+ill and could not walk, the officer replied that the order was to shoot
+those who lagged behind. Pierre felt that that fatal force which had
+crushed him during the executions, but which he had not felt during his
+imprisonment, now again controlled his existence. It was terrible, but
+he felt that in proportion to the efforts of that fatal force to crush
+him, there grew and strengthened in his soul a power of life independent
+of it.
+
+He ate his supper of buckwheat soup with horseflesh and chatted with his
+comrades.
+
+Neither Pierre nor any of the others spoke of what they had seen in
+Moscow, or of the roughness of their treatment by the French, or of the
+order to shoot them which had been announced to them. As if in reaction
+against the worsening of their position they were all particularly
+animated and gay. They spoke of personal reminiscences, of amusing
+scenes they had witnessed during the campaign, and avoided all talk of
+their present situation.
+
+The sun had set long since. Bright stars shone out here and there in the
+sky. A red glow as of a conflagration spread above the horizon from the
+rising full moon, and that vast red ball swayed strangely in the gray
+haze. It grew light. The evening was ending, but the night had not yet
+come. Pierre got up and left his new companions, crossing between the
+campfires to the other side of the road where he had been told the
+common soldier prisoners were stationed. He wanted to talk to them. On
+the road he was stopped by a French sentinel who ordered him back.
+
+Pierre turned back, not to his companions by the campfire, but to an
+unharnessed cart where there was nobody. Tucking his legs under him and
+dropping his head he sat down on the cold ground by the wheel of the
+cart and remained motionless a long while sunk in thought. Suddenly he
+burst out into a fit of his broad, good-natured laughter, so loud that
+men from various sides turned with surprise to see what this strange and
+evidently solitary laughter could mean.
+
+"Ha-ha-ha!" laughed Pierre. And he said aloud to himself: "The soldier
+did not let me pass. They took me and shut me up. They hold me captive.
+What, me? Me? My immortal soul? Ha-ha-ha! Ha-ha-ha!..." and he laughed
+till tears started to his eyes.
+
+A man got up and came to see what this queer big fellow was laughing at
+all by himself. Pierre stopped laughing, got up, went farther away from
+the inquisitive man, and looked around him.
+
+The huge, endless bivouac that had previously resounded with the
+crackling of campfires and the voices of many men had grown quiet, the
+red campfires were growing paler and dying down. High up in the light
+sky hung the full moon. Forests and fields beyond the camp, unseen
+before, were now visible in the distance. And farther still, beyond
+those forests and fields, the bright, oscillating, limitless distance
+lured one to itself. Pierre glanced up at the sky and the twinkling
+stars in its faraway depths. "And all that is me, all that is within me,
+and it is all I!" thought Pierre. "And they caught all that and put it
+into a shed boarded up with planks!" He smiled, and went and lay down to
+sleep beside his companions.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+In the early days of October another envoy came to Kutúzov with a letter
+from Napoleon proposing peace and falsely dated from Moscow, though
+Napoleon was already not far from Kutúzov on the old Kaluga road.
+Kutúzov replied to this letter as he had done to the one formerly
+brought by Lauriston, saying that there could be no question of peace.
+
+Soon after that a report was received from Dorokhov's guerrilla
+detachment operating to the left of Tarutino that troops of Broussier's
+division had been seen at Forminsk and that being separated from the
+rest of the French army they might easily be destroyed. The soldiers and
+officers again demanded action. Generals on the staff, excited by the
+memory of the easy victory at Tarutino, urged Kutúzov to carry out
+Dorokhov's suggestion. Kutúzov did not consider any offensive necessary.
+The result was a compromise which was inevitable: a small detachment was
+sent to Forminsk to attack Broussier.
+
+By a strange coincidence, this task, which turned out to be a most
+difficult and important one, was entrusted to Dokhturov—that same modest
+little Dokhturov whom no one had described to us as drawing up plans of
+battles, dashing about in front of regiments, showering crosses on
+batteries, and so on, and who was thought to be and was spoken of as
+undecided and undiscerning—but whom we find commanding wherever the
+position was most difficult all through the Russo-French wars from
+Austerlitz to the year 1813. At Austerlitz he remained last at the
+Augezd dam, rallying the regiments, saving what was possible when all
+were flying and perishing and not a single general was left in the rear
+guard. Ill with fever he went to Smolensk with twenty thousand men to
+defend the town against Napoleon's whole army. In Smolensk, at the
+Malakhov Gate, he had hardly dozed off in a paroxysm of fever before he
+was awakened by the bombardment of the town—and Smolensk held out all
+day long. At the battle of Borodino, when Bagration was killed and nine
+tenths of the men of our left flank had fallen and the full force of the
+French artillery fire was directed against it, the man sent there was
+this same irresolute and undiscerning Dokhturov—Kutúzov hastening to
+rectify a mistake he had made by sending someone else there first. And
+the quiet little Dokhturov rode thither, and Borodino became the
+greatest glory of the Russian army. Many heroes have been described to
+us in verse and prose, but of Dokhturov scarcely a word has been said.
+
+It was Dokhturov again whom they sent to Forminsk and from there to
+Malo-Yaroslavets, the place where the last battle with the French was
+fought and where the obvious disintegration of the French army began;
+and we are told of many geniuses and heroes of that period of the
+campaign, but of Dokhturov nothing or very little is said and that
+dubiously. And this silence about Dokhturov is the clearest testimony to
+his merit.
+
+It is natural for a man who does not understand the workings of a
+machine to imagine that a shaving that has fallen into it by chance and
+is interfering with its action and tossing about in it is its most
+important part. The man who does not understand the construction of the
+machine cannot conceive that the small connecting cogwheel which
+revolves quietly is one of the most essential parts of the machine, and
+not the shaving which merely harms and hinders the working.
+
+On the tenth of October when Dokhturov had gone halfway to Forminsk and
+stopped at the village of Aristovo, preparing faithfully to execute the
+orders he had received, the whole French army having, in its convulsive
+movement, reached Murat's position apparently in order to give
+battle—suddenly without any reason turned off to the left onto the new
+Kaluga road and began to enter Forminsk, where only Broussier had been
+till then. At that time Dokhturov had under his command, besides
+Dorokhov's detachment, the two small guerrilla detachments of Figner and
+Seslavin.
+
+On the evening of October 11 Seslavin came to the Aristovo headquarters
+with a French guardsman he had captured. The prisoner said that the
+troops that had entered Forminsk that day were the vanguard of the whole
+army, that Napoleon was there and the whole army had left Moscow four
+days previously. That same evening a house serf who had come from
+Borovsk said he had seen an immense army entering the town. Some
+Cossacks of Dokhturov's detachment reported having sighted the French
+Guards marching along the road to Borovsk. From all these reports it was
+evident that where they had expected to meet a single division there was
+now the whole French army marching from Moscow in an unexpected
+direction—along the Kaluga road. Dokhturov was unwilling to undertake
+any action, as it was not clear to him now what he ought to do. He had
+been ordered to attack Forminsk. But only Broussier had been there at
+that time and now the whole French army was there. Ermolov wished to act
+on his own judgment, but Dokhturov insisted that he must have Kutúzov's
+instructions. So it was decided to send a dispatch to the staff.
+
+For this purpose a capable officer, Bolkhovitinov, was chosen, who was
+to explain the whole affair by word of mouth, besides delivering a
+written report. Toward midnight Bolkhovitinov, having received the
+dispatch and verbal instructions, galloped off to the General Staff
+accompanied by a Cossack with spare horses.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+It was a warm, dark, autumn night. It had been raining for four days.
+Having changed horses twice and galloped twenty miles in an hour and a
+half over a sticky, muddy road, Bolkhovitinov reached Litashevka after
+one o'clock at night. Dismounting at a cottage on whose wattle fence
+hung a signboard, GENERAL STAFF, and throwing down his reins, he entered
+a dark passage.
+
+"The general on duty, quick! It's very important!" said he to someone
+who had risen and was sniffing in the dark passage.
+
+"He has been very unwell since the evening and this is the third night
+he has not slept," said the orderly pleadingly in a whisper. "You should
+wake the captain first."
+
+"But this is very important, from General Dokhturov," said
+Bolkhovitinov, entering the open door which he had found by feeling in
+the dark.
+
+The orderly had gone in before him and began waking somebody.
+
+"Your honor, your honor! A courier."
+
+"What? What's that? From whom?" came a sleepy voice.
+
+"From Dokhturov and from Alexey Petrovich. Napoleon is at Forminsk,"
+said Bolkhovitinov, unable to see in the dark who was speaking but
+guessing by the voice that it was not Konovnitsyn.
+
+The man who had wakened yawned and stretched himself.
+
+"I don't like waking him," he said, fumbling for something. "He is very
+ill. Perhaps this is only a rumor."
+
+"Here is the dispatch," said Bolkhovitinov. "My orders are to give it at
+once to the general on duty."
+
+"Wait a moment, I'll light a candle. You damned rascal, where do you
+always hide it?" said the voice of the man who was stretching himself,
+to the orderly. (This was Shcherbinin, Konovnitsyn's adjutant.) "I've
+found it, I've found it!" he added.
+
+The orderly was striking a light and Shcherbinin was fumbling for
+something on the candlestick.
+
+"Oh, the nasty beasts!" said he with disgust.
+
+By the light of the sparks Bolkhovitinov saw Shcherbinin's youthful face
+as he held the candle, and the face of another man who was still asleep.
+This was Konovnitsyn.
+
+When the flame of the sulphur splinters kindled by the tinder burned up,
+first blue and then red, Shcherbinin lit the tallow candle, from the
+candlestick of which the cockroaches that had been gnawing it were
+running away, and looked at the messenger. Bolkhovitinov was bespattered
+all over with mud and had smeared his face by wiping it with his sleeve.
+
+"Who gave the report?" inquired Shcherbinin, taking the envelope.
+
+"The news is reliable," said Bolkhovitinov. "Prisoners, Cossacks, and
+the scouts all say the same thing."
+
+"There's nothing to be done, we'll have to wake him," said Shcherbinin,
+rising and going up to the man in the nightcap who lay covered by a
+greatcoat. "Peter Petrovich!" said he. (Konovnitsyn did not stir.) "To
+the General Staff!" he said with a smile, knowing that those words would
+be sure to arouse him.
+
+And in fact the head in the nightcap was lifted at once. On
+Konovnitsyn's handsome, resolute face with cheeks flushed by fever,
+there still remained for an instant a faraway dreamy expression remote
+from present affairs, but then he suddenly started and his face assumed
+its habitual calm and firm appearance.
+
+"Well, what is it? From whom?" he asked immediately but without hurry,
+blinking at the light.
+
+While listening to the officer's report Konovnitsyn broke the seal and
+read the dispatch. Hardly had he done so before he lowered his legs in
+their woolen stockings to the earthen floor and began putting on his
+boots. Then he took off his nightcap, combed his hair over his temples,
+and donned his cap.
+
+"Did you get here quickly? Let us go to his Highness."
+
+Konovnitsyn had understood at once that the news brought was of great
+importance and that no time must be lost. He did not consider or ask
+himself whether the news was good or bad. That did not interest him. He
+regarded the whole business of the war not with his intelligence or his
+reason but by something else. There was within him a deep unexpressed
+conviction that all would be well, but that one must not trust to this
+and still less speak about it, but must only attend to one's own work.
+And he did his work, giving his whole strength to the task.
+
+Peter Petrovich Konovnitsyn, like Dokhturov, seems to have been included
+merely for propriety's sake in the list of the so-called heroes of
+1812—the Barclays, Raevskis, Ermolovs, Platovs, and Miloradoviches. Like
+Dokhturov he had the reputation of being a man of very limited capacity
+and information, and like Dokhturov he never made plans of battle but
+was always found where the situation was most difficult. Since his
+appointment as general on duty he had always slept with his door open,
+giving orders that every messenger should be allowed to wake him up. In
+battle he was always under fire, so that Kutúzov reproved him for it and
+feared to send him to the front, and like Dokhturov he was one of those
+unnoticed cogwheels that, without clatter or noise, constitute the most
+essential part of the machine.
+
+Coming out of the hut into the damp, dark night Konovnitsyn
+frowned—partly from an increased pain in his head and partly at the
+unpleasant thought that occurred to him, of how all that nest of
+influential men on the staff would be stirred up by this news,
+especially Bennigsen, who ever since Tarutino had been at daggers drawn
+with Kutúzov; and how they would make suggestions, quarrel, issue
+orders, and rescind them. And this premonition was disagreeable to him
+though he knew it could not be helped.
+
+And in fact Toll, to whom he went to communicate the news, immediately
+began to expound his plans to a general sharing his quarters, until
+Konovnitsyn, who listened in weary silence, reminded him that they must
+go to see his Highness.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+Kutúzov like all old people did not sleep much at night. He often fell
+asleep unexpectedly in the daytime, but at night, lying on his bed
+without undressing, he generally remained awake thinking.
+
+So he lay now on his bed, supporting his large, heavy, scarred head on
+his plump hand, with his one eye open, meditating and peering into the
+darkness.
+
+Since Bennigsen, who corresponded with the Emperor and had more
+influence than anyone else on the staff, had begun to avoid him, Kutúzov
+was more at ease as to the possibility of himself and his troops being
+obliged to take part in useless aggressive movements. The lesson of the
+Tarutino battle and of the day before it, which Kutúzov remembered with
+pain, must, he thought, have some effect on others too.
+
+"They must understand that we can only lose by taking the offensive.
+Patience and time are my warriors, my champions," thought Kutúzov. He
+knew that an apple should not be plucked while it is green. It will fall
+of itself when ripe, but if picked unripe the apple is spoiled, the tree
+is harmed, and your teeth are set on edge. Like an experienced sportsman
+he knew that the beast was wounded, and wounded as only the whole
+strength of Russia could have wounded it, but whether it was mortally
+wounded or not was still an undecided question. Now by the fact of
+Lauriston and Barthelemi having been sent, and by the reports of the
+guerrillas, Kutúzov was almost sure that the wound was mortal. But he
+needed further proofs and it was necessary to wait.
+
+"They want to run to see how they have wounded it. Wait and we shall
+see! Continual maneuvers, continual advances!" thought he. "What for?
+Only to distinguish themselves! As if fighting were fun. They are like
+children from whom one can't get any sensible account of what has
+happened because they all want to show how well they can fight. But
+that's not what is needed now.
+
+"And what ingenious maneuvers they all propose to me! It seems to them
+that when they have thought of two or three contingencies" (he
+remembered the general plan sent him from Petersburg) "they have
+foreseen everything. But the contingencies are endless."
+
+The undecided question as to whether the wound inflicted at Borodino was
+mortal or not had hung over Kutúzov's head for a whole month. On the one
+hand the French had occupied Moscow. On the other Kutúzov felt assured
+with all his being that the terrible blow into which he and all the
+Russians had put their whole strength must have been mortal. But in any
+case proofs were needed; he had waited a whole month for them and grew
+more impatient the longer he waited. Lying on his bed during those
+sleepless nights he did just what he reproached those younger generals
+for doing. He imagined all sorts of possible contingencies, just like
+the younger men, but with this difference, that he saw thousands of
+contingencies instead of two or three and based nothing on them. The
+longer he thought the more contingencies presented themselves. He
+imagined all sorts of movements of the Napoleonic army as a whole or in
+sections—against Petersburg, or against him, or to outflank him. He
+thought too of the possibility (which he feared most of all) that
+Napoleon might fight him with his own weapon and remain in Moscow
+awaiting him. Kutúzov even imagined that Napoleon's army might turn back
+through Medyn and Yukhnov, but the one thing he could not foresee was
+what happened—the insane, convulsive stampede of Napoleon's army during
+its first eleven days after leaving Moscow: a stampede which made
+possible what Kutúzov had not yet even dared to think of—the complete
+extermination of the French. Dorokhov's report about Broussier's
+division, the guerrillas' reports of distress in Napoleon's army, rumors
+of preparations for leaving Moscow, all confirmed the supposition that
+the French army was beaten and preparing for flight. But these were only
+suppositions, which seemed important to the younger men but not to
+Kutúzov. With his sixty years' experience he knew what value to attach
+to rumors, knew how apt people who desire anything are to group all news
+so that it appears to confirm what they desire, and he knew how readily
+in such cases they omit all that makes for the contrary. And the more he
+desired it the less he allowed himself to believe it. This question
+absorbed all his mental powers. All else was to him only life's
+customary routine. To such customary routine belonged his conversations
+with the staff, the letters he wrote from Tarutino to Madame de Stael,
+the reading of novels, the distribution of awards, his correspondence
+with Petersburg, and so on. But the destruction of the French, which he
+alone foresaw, was his heart's one desire.
+
+On the night of the eleventh of October he lay leaning on his arm and
+thinking of that.
+
+There was a stir in the next room and he heard the steps of Toll,
+Konovnitsyn, and Bolkhovitinov.
+
+"Eh, who's there? Come in, come in! What news?" the field marshal called
+out to them.
+
+While a footman was lighting a candle, Toll communicated the substance
+of the news.
+
+"Who brought it?" asked Kutúzov with a look which, when the candle was
+lit, struck Toll by its cold severity.
+
+"There can be no doubt about it, your Highness."
+
+"Call him in, call him here."
+
+Kutúzov sat up with one leg hanging down from the bed and his big paunch
+resting against the other which was doubled under him. He screwed up his
+seeing eye to scrutinize the messenger more carefully, as if wishing to
+read in his face what preoccupied his own mind.
+
+"Tell me, tell me, friend," said he to Bolkhovitinov in his low, aged
+voice, as he pulled together the shirt which gaped open on his chest,
+"come nearer—nearer. What news have you brought me? Eh? That Napoleon
+has left Moscow? Are you sure? Eh?"
+
+Bolkhovitinov gave a detailed account from the beginning of all he had
+been told to report.
+
+"Speak quicker, quicker! Don't torture me!" Kutúzov interrupted him.
+
+Bolkhovitinov told him everything and was then silent, awaiting
+instructions. Toll was beginning to say something but Kutúzov checked
+him. He tried to say something, but his face suddenly puckered and
+wrinkled; he waved his arm at Toll and turned to the opposite side of
+the room, to the corner darkened by the icons that hung there.
+
+"O Lord, my Creator, Thou has heard our prayer..." said he in a
+tremulous voice with folded hands. "Russia is saved. I thank Thee, O
+Lord!" and he wept.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+From the time he received this news to the end of the campaign all
+Kutúzov's activity was directed toward restraining his troops, by
+authority, by guile, and by entreaty, from useless attacks, maneuvers,
+or encounters with the perishing enemy. Dokhturov went to Malo-
+Yaroslavets, but Kutúzov lingered with the main army and gave orders for
+the evacuation of Kaluga—a retreat beyond which town seemed to him quite
+possible.
+
+Everywhere Kutúzov retreated, but the enemy without waiting for his
+retreat fled in the opposite direction.
+
+Napoleon's historians describe to us his skilled maneuvers at Tarutino
+and Malo-Yaroslavets, and make conjectures as to what would have
+happened had Napoleon been in time to penetrate into the rich southern
+provinces.
+
+But not to speak of the fact that nothing prevented him from advancing
+into those southern provinces (for the Russian army did not bar his
+way), the historians forget that nothing could have saved his army, for
+then already it bore within itself the germs of inevitable ruin. How
+could that army—which had found abundant supplies in Moscow and had
+trampled them underfoot instead of keeping them, and on arriving at
+Smolensk had looted provisions instead of storing them—how could that
+army recuperate in Kaluga province, which was inhabited by Russians such
+as those who lived in Moscow, and where fire had the same property of
+consuming what was set ablaze?
+
+That army could not recover anywhere. Since the battle of Borodino and
+the pillage of Moscow it had borne within itself, as it were, the
+chemical elements of dissolution.
+
+The members of what had once been an army—Napoleon himself and all his
+soldiers fled—without knowing whither, each concerned only to make his
+escape as quickly as possible from this position, of the hopelessness of
+which they were all more or less vaguely conscious.
+
+So it came about that at the council at Malo-Yaroslavets, when the
+generals pretending to confer together expressed various opinions, all
+mouths were closed by the opinion uttered by the simple-minded soldier
+Mouton who, speaking last, said what they all felt: that the one thing
+needful was to get away as quickly as possible; and no one, not even
+Napoleon, could say anything against that truth which they all
+recognized.
+
+But though they all realized that it was necessary to get away, there
+still remained a feeling of shame at admitting that they must flee. An
+external shock was needed to overcome that shame, and this shock came in
+due time. It was what the French called "le hourra de l'Empereur."
+
+The day after the council at Malo-Yaroslavets Napoleon rode out early in
+the morning amid the lines of his army with his suite of marshals and an
+escort, on the pretext of inspecting the army and the scene of the
+previous and of the impending battle. Some Cossacks on the prowl for
+booty fell in with the Emperor and very nearly captured him. If the
+Cossacks did not capture Napoleon then, what saved him was the very
+thing that was destroying the French army, the booty on which the
+Cossacks fell. Here as at Tarutino they went after plunder, leaving the
+men. Disregarding Napoleon they rushed after the plunder and Napoleon
+managed to escape.
+
+When les enfants du Don might so easily have taken the Emperor himself
+in the midst of his army, it was clear that there was nothing for it but
+to fly as fast as possible along the nearest, familiar road. Napoleon
+with his forty-year-old stomach understood that hint, not feeling his
+former agility and boldness, and under the influence of the fright the
+Cossacks had given him he at once agreed with Mouton and issued
+orders—as the historians tell us—to retreat by the Smolensk road.
+
+That Napoleon agreed with Mouton, and that the army retreated, does not
+prove that Napoleon caused it to retreat, but that the forces which
+influenced the whole army and directed it along the Mozhaysk (that is,
+the Smolensk) road acted simultaneously on him also.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+A man in motion always devises an aim for that motion. To be able to go
+a thousand miles he must imagine that something good awaits him at the
+end of those thousand miles. One must have the prospect of a promised
+land to have the strength to move.
+
+The promised land for the French during their advance had been Moscow,
+during their retreat it was their native land. But that native land was
+too far off, and for a man going a thousand miles it is absolutely
+necessary to set aside his final goal and to say to himself: "Today I
+shall get to a place twenty-five miles off where I shall rest and spend
+the night," and during the first day's journey that resting place
+eclipses his ultimate goal and attracts all his hopes and desires. And
+the impulses felt by a single person are always magnified in a crowd.
+
+For the French retreating along the old Smolensk road, the final
+goal—their native land—was too remote, and their immediate goal was
+Smolensk, toward which all their desires and hopes, enormously
+intensified in the mass, urged them on. It was not that they knew that
+much food and fresh troops awaited them in Smolensk, nor that they were
+told so (on the contrary their superior officers, and Napoleon himself,
+knew that provisions were scarce there), but because this alone could
+give them strength to move on and endure their present privations. So
+both those who knew and those who did not know deceived themselves, and
+pushed on to Smolensk as to a promised land.
+
+Coming out onto the highroad the French fled with surprising energy and
+unheard-of rapidity toward the goal they had fixed on. Besides the
+common impulse which bound the whole crowd of French into one mass and
+supplied them with a certain energy, there was another cause binding
+them together—their great numbers. As with the physical law of gravity,
+their enormous mass drew the individual human atoms to itself. In their
+hundreds of thousands they moved like a whole nation.
+
+Each of them desired nothing more than to give himself up as a prisoner
+to escape from all this horror and misery; but on the one hand the force
+of this common attraction to Smolensk, their goal, drew each of them in
+the same direction; on the other hand an army corps could not surrender
+to a company, and though the French availed themselves of every
+convenient opportunity to detach themselves and to surrender on the
+slightest decent pretext, such pretexts did not always occur. Their very
+numbers and their crowded and swift movement deprived them of that
+possibility and rendered it not only difficult but impossible for the
+Russians to stop this movement, to which the French were directing all
+their energies. Beyond a certain limit no mechanical disruption of the
+body could hasten the process of decomposition.
+
+A lump of snow cannot be melted instantaneously. There is a certain
+limit of time in less than which no amount of heat can melt the snow. On
+the contrary the greater the heat the more solidified the remaining snow
+becomes.
+
+Of the Russian commanders Kutúzov alone understood this. When the flight
+of the French army along the Smolensk road became well defined, what
+Konovnitsyn had foreseen on the night of the eleventh of October began
+to occur. The superior officers all wanted to distinguish themselves, to
+cut off, to seize, to capture, and to overthrow the French, and all
+clamored for action.
+
+Kutúzov alone used all his power (and such power is very limited in the
+case of any commander-in-chief) to prevent an attack.
+
+He could not tell them what we say now: "Why fight, why block the road,
+losing our own men and inhumanly slaughtering unfortunate wretches? What
+is the use of that, when a third of their army has melted away on the
+road from Moscow to Vyazma without any battle?" But drawing from his
+aged wisdom what they could understand, he told them of the golden
+bridge, and they laughed at and slandered him, flinging themselves on,
+rending and exulting over the dying beast.
+
+Ermolov, Miloradovich, Platov, and others in proximity to the French
+near Vyazma could not resist their desire to cut off and break up two
+French corps, and by way of reporting their intention to Kutúzov they
+sent him a blank sheet of paper in an envelope.
+
+And try as Kutúzov might to restrain the troops, our men attacked,
+trying to bar the road. Infantry regiments, we are told, advanced to the
+attack with music and with drums beating, and killed and lost thousands
+of men.
+
+But they did not cut off or overthrow anybody and the French army,
+closing up more firmly at the danger, continued, while steadily melting
+away, to pursue its fatal path to Smolensk.
+
+
+
+
+
+BOOK FOURTEEN: 1812
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+The Battle of Borodino, with the occupation of Moscow that followed it
+and the flight of the French without further conflicts, is one of the
+most instructive phenomena in history.
+
+All historians agree that the external activity of states and nations in
+their conflicts with one another is expressed in wars, and that as a
+direct result of greater or less success in war the political strength
+of states and nations increases or decreases.
+
+Strange as may be the historical account of how some king or emperor,
+having quarreled with another, collects an army, fights his enemy's
+army, gains a victory by killing three, five, or ten thousand men, and
+subjugates a kingdom and an entire nation of several millions, all the
+facts of history (as far as we know it) confirm the truth of the
+statement that the greater or lesser success of one army against another
+is the cause, or at least an essential indication, of an increase or
+decrease in the strength of the nation—even though it is unintelligible
+why the defeat of an army—a hundredth part of a nation—should oblige
+that whole nation to submit. An army gains a victory, and at once the
+rights of the conquering nation have increased to the detriment of the
+defeated. An army has suffered defeat, and at once a people loses its
+rights in proportion to the severity of the reverse, and if its army
+suffers a complete defeat the nation is quite subjugated.
+
+So according to history it has been found from the most ancient times,
+and so it is to our own day. All Napoleon's wars serve to confirm this
+rule. In proportion to the defeat of the Austrian army Austria loses its
+rights, and the rights and the strength of France increase. The
+victories of the French at Jena and Auerstadt destroy the independent
+existence of Prussia.
+
+But then, in 1812, the French gain a victory near Moscow. Moscow is
+taken and after that, with no further battles, it is not Russia that
+ceases to exist, but the French army of six hundred thousand, and then
+Napoleonic France itself. To strain the facts to fit the rules of
+history: to say that the field of battle at Borodino remained in the
+hands of the Russians, or that after Moscow there were other battles
+that destroyed Napoleon's army, is impossible.
+
+After the French victory at Borodino there was no general engagement nor
+any that were at all serious, yet the French army ceased to exist. What
+does this mean? If it were an example taken from the history of China,
+we might say that it was not an historic phenomenon (which is the
+historians' usual expedient when anything does not fit their standards);
+if the matter concerned some brief conflict in which only a small number
+of troops took part, we might treat it as an exception; but this event
+occurred before our fathers' eyes, and for them it was a question of the
+life or death of their fatherland, and it happened in the greatest of
+all known wars.
+
+The period of the campaign of 1812 from the battle of Borodino to the
+expulsion of the French proved that the winning of a battle does not
+produce a conquest and is not even an invariable indication of conquest;
+it proved that the force which decides the fate of peoples lies not in
+the conquerors, nor even in armies and battles, but in something else.
+
+The French historians, describing the condition of the French army
+before it left Moscow, affirm that all was in order in the Grand Army,
+except the cavalry, the artillery, and the transport—there was no forage
+for the horses or the cattle. That was a misfortune no one could remedy,
+for the peasants of the district burned their hay rather than let the
+French have it.
+
+The victory gained did not bring the usual results because the peasants
+Karp and Vlas (who after the French had evacuated Moscow drove in their
+carts to pillage the town, and in general personally failed to manifest
+any heroic feelings), and the whole innumerable multitude of such
+peasants, did not bring their hay to Moscow for the high price offered
+them, but burned it instead.
+
+Let us imagine two men who have come out to fight a duel with rapiers
+according to all the rules of the art of fencing. The fencing has gone
+on for some time; suddenly one of the combatants, feeling himself
+wounded and understanding that the matter is no joke but concerns his
+life, throws down his rapier, and seizing the first cudgel that comes to
+hand begins to brandish it. Then let us imagine that the combatant who
+so sensibly employed the best and simplest means to attain his end was
+at the same time influenced by traditions of chivalry and, desiring to
+conceal the facts of the case, insisted that he had gained his victory
+with the rapier according to all the rules of art. One can imagine what
+confusion and obscurity would result from such an account of the duel.
+
+The fencer who demanded a contest according to the rules of fencing was
+the French army; his opponent who threw away the rapier and snatched up
+the cudgel was the Russian people; those who try to explain the matter
+according to the rules of fencing are the historians who have described
+the event.
+
+After the burning of Smolensk a war began which did not follow any
+previous traditions of war. The burning of towns and villages, the
+retreats after battles, the blow dealt at Borodino and the renewed
+retreat, the burning of Moscow, the capture of marauders, the seizure of
+transports, and the guerrilla war were all departures from the rules.
+
+Napoleon felt this, and from the time he took up the correct fencing
+attitude in Moscow and instead of his opponent's rapier saw a cudgel
+raised above his head, he did not cease to complain to Kutúzov and to
+the Emperor Alexander that the war was being carried on contrary to all
+the rules—as if there were any rules for killing people. In spite of the
+complaints of the French as to the nonobservance of the rules, in spite
+of the fact that to some highly placed Russians it seemed rather
+disgraceful to fight with a cudgel and they wanted to assume a pose en
+quarte or en tierce according to all the rules, and to make an adroit
+thrust en prime, and so on—the cudgel of the people's war was lifted
+with all its menacing and majestic strength, and without consulting
+anyone's tastes or rules and regardless of anything else, it rose and
+fell with stupid simplicity, but consistently, and belabored the French
+till the whole invasion had perished.
+
+And it is well for a people who do not—as the French did in 1813—salute
+according to all the rules of art, and, presenting the hilt of their
+rapier gracefully and politely, hand it to their magnanimous conqueror,
+but at the moment of trial, without asking what rules others have
+adopted in similar cases, simply and easily pick up the first cudgel
+that comes to hand and strike with it till the feeling of resentment and
+revenge in their soul yields to a feeling of contempt and compassion.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+One of the most obvious and advantageous departures from the so-called
+laws of war is the action of scattered groups against men pressed
+together in a mass. Such action always occurs in wars that take on a
+national character. In such actions, instead of two crowds opposing each
+other, the men disperse, attack singly, run away when attacked by
+stronger forces, but again attack when opportunity offers. This was done
+by the guerrillas in Spain, by the mountain tribes in the Caucasus, and
+by the Russians in 1812.
+
+People have called this kind of war "guerrilla warfare" and assume that
+by so calling it they have explained its meaning. But such a war does
+not fit in under any rule and is directly opposed to a well-known rule
+of tactics which is accepted as infallible. That rule says that an
+attacker should concentrate his forces in order to be stronger than his
+opponent at the moment of conflict.
+
+Guerrilla war (always successful, as history shows) directly infringes
+that rule.
+
+This contradiction arises from the fact that military science assumes
+the strength of an army to be identical with its numbers. Military
+science says that the more troops the greater the strength. Les gros
+bataillons ont toujours raison. *
+
+* Large battalions are always victorious.
+
+For military science to say this is like defining momentum in mechanics
+by reference to the mass only: stating that momenta are equal or unequal
+to each other simply because the masses involved are equal or unequal.
+
+Momentum (quantity of motion) is the product of mass and velocity.
+
+In military affairs the strength of an army is the product of its mass
+and some unknown x.
+
+Military science, seeing in history innumerable instances of the fact
+that the size of any army does not coincide with its strength and that
+small detachments defeat larger ones, obscurely admits the existence of
+this unknown factor and tries to discover it—now in a geometric
+formation, now in the equipment employed, now, and most usually, in the
+genius of the commanders. But the assignment of these various meanings
+to the factor does not yield results which accord with the historic
+facts.
+
+Yet it is only necessary to abandon the false view (adopted to gratify
+the "heroes") of the efficacy of the directions issued in wartime by
+commanders, in order to find this unknown quantity.
+
+That unknown quantity is the spirit of the army, that is to say, the
+greater or lesser readiness to fight and face danger felt by all the men
+composing an army, quite independently of whether they are, or are not,
+fighting under the command of a genius, in two—or three-line formation,
+with cudgels or with rifles that repeat thirty times a minute. Men who
+want to fight will always put themselves in the most advantageous
+conditions for fighting.
+
+The spirit of an army is the factor which multiplied by the mass gives
+the resulting force. To define and express the significance of this
+unknown factor—the spirit of an army—is a problem for science.
+
+This problem is only solvable if we cease arbitrarily to substitute for
+the unknown x itself the conditions under which that force becomes
+apparent—such as the commands of the general, the equipment employed,
+and so on—mistaking these for the real significance of the factor, and
+if we recognize this unknown quantity in its entirety as being the
+greater or lesser desire to fight and to face danger. Only then,
+expressing known historic facts by equations and comparing the relative
+significance of this factor, can we hope to define the unknown.
+
+Ten men, battalions, or divisions, fighting fifteen men, battalions, or
+divisions, conquer—that is, kill or take captive—all the others, while
+themselves losing four, so that on the one side four and on the other
+fifteen were lost. Consequently the four were equal to the fifteen, and
+therefore 4x = 15y. Consequently x/y = 15/4. This equation does not give
+us the value of the unknown factor but gives us a ratio between two
+unknowns. And by bringing variously selected historic units (battles,
+campaigns, periods of war) into such equations, a series of numbers
+could be obtained in which certain laws should exist and might be
+discovered.
+
+The tactical rule that an army should act in masses when attacking, and
+in smaller groups in retreat, unconsciously confirms the truth that the
+strength of an army depends on its spirit. To lead men forward under
+fire more discipline (obtainable only by movement in masses) is needed
+than is needed to resist attacks. But this rule which leaves out of
+account the spirit of the army continually proves incorrect and is in
+particularly striking contrast to the facts when some strong rise or
+fall in the spirit of the troops occurs, as in all national wars.
+
+The French, retreating in 1812—though according to tactics they should
+have separated into detachments to defend themselves—congregated into a
+mass because the spirit of the army had so fallen that only the mass
+held the army together. The Russians, on the contrary, ought according
+to tactics to have attacked in mass, but in fact they split up into
+small units, because their spirit had so risen that separate
+individuals, without orders, dealt blows at the French without needing
+any compulsion to induce them to expose themselves to hardships and
+dangers.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+The so-called partisan war began with the entry of the French into
+Smolensk.
+
+Before partisan warfare had been officially recognized by the
+government, thousands of enemy stragglers, marauders, and foragers had
+been destroyed by the Cossacks and the peasants, who killed them off as
+instinctively as dogs worry a stray mad dog to death. Denis Davydov,
+with his Russian instinct, was the first to recognize the value of this
+terrible cudgel which regardless of the rules of military science
+destroyed the French, and to him belongs the credit for taking the first
+step toward regularizing this method of warfare.
+
+On August 24 Davydov's first partisan detachment was formed and then
+others were recognized. The further the campaign progressed the more
+numerous these detachments became.
+
+The irregulars destroyed the great army piecemeal. They gathered the
+fallen leaves that dropped of themselves from that withered tree—the
+French army—and sometimes shook that tree itself. By October, when the
+French were fleeing toward Smolensk, there were hundreds of such
+companies, of various sizes and characters. There were some that adopted
+all the army methods and had infantry, artillery, staffs, and the
+comforts of life. Others consisted solely of Cossack cavalry. There were
+also small scratch groups of foot and horse, and groups of peasants and
+landowners that remained unknown. A sacristan commanded one party which
+captured several hundred prisoners in the course of a month; and there
+was Vasílisa, the wife of a village elder, who slew hundreds of the
+French.
+
+The partisan warfare flamed up most fiercely in the latter days of
+October. Its first period had passed: when the partisans themselves,
+amazed at their own boldness, feared every minute to be surrounded and
+captured by the French, and hid in the forests without unsaddling,
+hardly daring to dismount and always expecting to be pursued. By the end
+of October this kind of warfare had taken definite shape: it had become
+clear to all what could be ventured against the French and what could
+not. Now only the commanders of detachments with staffs, and moving
+according to rules at a distance from the French, still regarded many
+things as impossible. The small bands that had started their activities
+long before and had already observed the French closely considered
+things possible which the commanders of the big detachments did not dare
+to contemplate. The Cossacks and peasants who crept in among the French
+now considered everything possible.
+
+On October 22, Denisov (who was one of the irregulars) was with his
+group at the height of the guerrilla enthusiasm. Since early morning he
+and his party had been on the move. All day long he had been watching
+from the forest that skirted the highroad a large French convoy of
+cavalry baggage and Russian prisoners separated from the rest of the
+army, which—as was learned from spies and prisoners—was moving under a
+strong escort to Smolensk. Besides Denisov and Dólokhov (who also led a
+small party and moved in Denisov's vicinity), the commanders of some
+large divisions with staffs also knew of this convoy and, as Denisov
+expressed it, were sharpening their teeth for it. Two of the commanders
+of large parties—one a Pole and the other a German—sent invitations to
+Denisov almost simultaneously, requesting him to join up with their
+divisions to attack the convoy.
+
+"No, bwother, I have gwown mustaches myself," said Denisov on reading
+these documents, and he wrote to the German that, despite his heartfelt
+desire to serve under so valiant and renowned a general, he had to forgo
+that pleasure because he was already under the command of the Polish
+general. To the Polish general he replied to the same effect, informing
+him that he was already under the command of the German.
+
+Having arranged matters thus, Denisov and Dólokhov intended, without
+reporting matters to the higher command, to attack and seize that convoy
+with their own small forces. On October 22 it was moving from the
+village of Mikulino to that of Shamshevo. To the left of the road
+between Mikulino and Shamshevo there were large forests, extending in
+some places up to the road itself though in others a mile or more back
+from it. Through these forests Denisov and his party rode all day,
+sometimes keeping well back in them and sometimes coming to the very
+edge, but never losing sight of the moving French. That morning,
+Cossacks of Denisov's party had seized and carried off into the forest
+two wagons loaded with cavalry saddles, which had stuck in the mud not
+far from Mikulino where the forest ran close to the road. Since then,
+and until evening, the party had watched the movements of the French
+without attacking. It was necessary to let the French reach Shamshevo
+quietly without alarming them and then, after joining Dólokhov who was
+to come that evening to a consultation at a watchman's hut in the forest
+less than a mile from Shamshevo, to surprise the French at dawn, falling
+like an avalanche on their heads from two sides, and rout and capture
+them all at one blow.
+
+In their rear, more than a mile from Mikulino where the forest came
+right up to the road, six Cossacks were posted to report if any fresh
+columns of French should show themselves.
+
+Beyond Shamshevo, Dólokhov was to observe the road in the same way, to
+find out at what distance there were other French troops. They reckoned
+that the convoy had fifteen hundred men. Denisov had two hundred, and
+Dólokhov might have as many more, but the disparity of numbers did not
+deter Denisov. All that he now wanted to know was what troops these were
+and to learn that he had to capture a "tongue"—that is, a man from the
+enemy column. That morning's attack on the wagons had been made so
+hastily that the Frenchmen with the wagons had all been killed; only a
+little drummer boy had been taken alive, and as he was a straggler he
+could tell them nothing definite about the troops in that column.
+
+Denisov considered it dangerous to make a second attack for fear of
+putting the whole column on the alert, so he sent Tíkhon Shcherbaty, a
+peasant of his party, to Shamshevo to try and seize at least one of the
+French quartermasters who had been sent on in advance.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+It was a warm rainy autumn day. The sky and the horizon were both the
+color of muddy water. At times a sort of mist descended, and then
+suddenly heavy slanting rain came down.
+
+Denisov in a felt cloak and a sheepskin cap from which the rain ran down
+was riding a thin thoroughbred horse with sunken sides. Like his horse,
+which turned its head and laid its ears back, he shrank from the driving
+rain and gazed anxiously before him. His thin face with its short, thick
+black beard looked angry.
+
+Beside Denisov rode an esaul, * Denisov's fellow worker, also in felt
+cloak and sheepskin cap, and riding a large sleek Don horse.
+
+* A captain of Cossacks.
+
+Esaul Lovayski the Third was a tall man as straight as an arrow, pale-
+faced, fair-haired, with narrow light eyes and with calm self-
+satisfaction in his face and bearing. Though it was impossible to say in
+what the peculiarity of the horse and rider lay, yet at first glance at
+the esaul and Denisov one saw that the latter was wet and uncomfortable
+and was a man mounted on a horse, while looking at the esaul one saw
+that he was as comfortable and as much at ease as always and that he was
+not a man who had mounted a horse, but a man who was one with his horse,
+a being consequently possessed of twofold strength.
+
+A little ahead of them walked a peasant guide, wet to the skin and
+wearing a gray peasant coat and a white knitted cap.
+
+A little behind, on a poor, small, lean Kirghiz mount with an enormous
+tail and mane and a bleeding mouth, rode a young officer in a blue
+French overcoat.
+
+Beside him rode an hussar, with a boy in a tattered French uniform and
+blue cap behind him on the crupper of his horse. The boy held on to the
+hussar with cold, red hands, and raising his eyebrows gazed about him
+with surprise. This was the French drummer boy captured that morning.
+
+Behind them along the narrow, sodden, cutup forest road came hussars in
+threes and fours, and then Cossacks: some in felt cloaks, some in French
+greatcoats, and some with horsecloths over their heads. The horses,
+being drenched by the rain, all looked black whether chestnut or bay.
+Their necks, with their wet, close-clinging manes, looked strangely
+thin. Steam rose from them. Clothes, saddles, reins, were all wet,
+slippery, and sodden, like the ground and the fallen leaves that strewed
+the road. The men sat huddled up trying not to stir, so as to warm the
+water that had trickled to their bodies and not admit the fresh cold
+water that was leaking in under their seats, their knees, and at the
+back of their necks. In the midst of the outspread line of Cossacks two
+wagons, drawn by French horses and by saddled Cossack horses that had
+been hitched on in front, rumbled over the tree stumps and branches and
+splashed through the water that lay in the ruts.
+
+Denisov's horse swerved aside to avoid a pool in the track and bumped
+his rider's knee against a tree.
+
+"Oh, the devil!" exclaimed Denisov angrily, and showing his teeth he
+struck his horse three times with his whip, splashing himself and his
+comrades with mud.
+
+Denisov was out of sorts both because of the rain and also from hunger
+(none of them had eaten anything since morning), and yet more because he
+still had no news from Dólokhov and the man sent to capture a "tongue"
+had not returned.
+
+"There'll hardly be another such chance to fall on a transport as today.
+It's too risky to attack them by oneself, and if we put it off till
+another day one of the big guerrilla detachments will snatch the prey
+from under our noses," thought Denisov, continually peering forward,
+hoping to see a messenger from Dólokhov.
+
+On coming to a path in the forest along which he could see far to the
+right, Denisov stopped.
+
+"There's someone coming," said he.
+
+The esaul looked in the direction Denisov indicated.
+
+"There are two, an officer and a Cossack. But it is not presupposable
+that it is the lieutenant colonel himself," said the esaul, who was fond
+of using words the Cossacks did not know.
+
+The approaching riders having descended a decline were no longer
+visible, but they reappeared a few minutes later. In front, at a weary
+gallop and using his leather whip, rode an officer, disheveled and
+drenched, whose trousers had worked up to above his knees. Behind him,
+standing in the stirrups, trotted a Cossack. The officer, a very young
+lad with a broad rosy face and keen merry eyes, galloped up to Denisov
+and handed him a sodden envelope.
+
+"From the general," said the officer. "Please excuse its not being quite
+dry."
+
+Denisov, frowning, took the envelope and opened it.
+
+"There, they kept telling us: 'It's dangerous, it's dangerous,'" said
+the officer, addressing the esaul while Denisov was reading the
+dispatch. "But Komarov and I"—he pointed to the Cossack—"were prepared.
+We have each of us two pistols.... But what's this?" he asked, noticing
+the French drummer boy. "A prisoner? You've already been in action? May
+I speak to him?"
+
+"Wostov! Pétya!" exclaimed Denisov, having run through the dispatch.
+"Why didn't you say who you were?" and turning with a smile he held out
+his hand to the lad.
+
+The officer was Pétya Rostóv.
+
+All the way Pétya had been preparing himself to behave with Denisov as
+befitted a grown-up man and an officer—without hinting at their previous
+acquaintance. But as soon as Denisov smiled at him Pétya brightened up,
+blushed with pleasure, forgot the official manner he had been
+rehearsing, and began telling him how he had already been in a battle
+near Vyazma and how a certain hussar had distinguished himself there.
+
+"Well, I am glad to see you," Denisov interrupted him, and his face
+again assumed its anxious expression.
+
+"Michael Feoklitych," said he to the esaul, "this is again fwom that
+German, you know. He"—he indicated Pétya—"is serving under him."
+
+And Denisov told the esaul that the dispatch just delivered was a
+repetition of the German general's demand that he should join forces
+with him for an attack on the transport.
+
+"If we don't take it tomowwow, he'll snatch it fwom under our noses," he
+added.
+
+While Denisov was talking to the esaul, Pétya—abashed by Denisov's cold
+tone and supposing that it was due to the condition of his
+trousers—furtively tried to pull them down under his greatcoat so that
+no one should notice it, while maintaining as martial an air as
+possible.
+
+"Will there be any orders, your honor?" he asked Denisov, holding his
+hand at the salute and resuming the game of adjutant and general for
+which he had prepared himself, "or shall I remain with your honor?"
+
+"Orders?" Denisov repeated thoughtfully. "But can you stay till
+tomowwow?"
+
+"Oh, please... May I stay with you?" cried Pétya.
+
+"But, just what did the genewal tell you? To weturn at once?" asked
+Denisov.
+
+Pétya blushed.
+
+"He gave me no instructions. I think I could?" he returned, inquiringly.
+
+"Well, all wight," said Denisov.
+
+And turning to his men he directed a party to go on to the halting place
+arranged near the watchman's hut in the forest, and told the officer on
+the Kirghiz horse (who performed the duties of an adjutant) to go and
+find out where Dólokhov was and whether he would come that evening.
+Denisov himself intended going with the esaul and Pétya to the edge of
+the forest where it reached out to Shamshevo, to have a look at the part
+of the French bivouac they were to attack next day.
+
+"Well, old fellow," said he to the peasant guide, "lead us to
+Shamshevo."
+
+Denisov, Pétya, and the esaul, accompanied by some Cossacks and the
+hussar who had the prisoner, rode to the left across a ravine to the
+edge of the forest.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+The rain had stopped, and only the mist was falling and drops from the
+trees. Denisov, the esaul, and Pétya rode silently, following the
+peasant in the knitted cap who, stepping lightly with outturned toes and
+moving noiselessly in his bast shoes over the roots and wet leaves,
+silently led them to the edge of the forest.
+
+He ascended an incline, stopped, looked about him, and advanced to where
+the screen of trees was less dense. On reaching a large oak tree that
+had not yet shed its leaves, he stopped and beckoned mysteriously to
+them with his hand.
+
+Denisov and Pétya rode up to him. From the spot where the peasant was
+standing they could see the French. Immediately beyond the forest, on a
+downward slope, lay a field of spring rye. To the right, beyond a steep
+ravine, was a small village and a landowner's house with a broken roof.
+In the village, in the house, in the garden, by the well, by the pond,
+over all the rising ground, and all along the road uphill from the
+bridge leading to the village, not more than five hundred yards away,
+crowds of men could be seen through the shimmering mist. Their un-
+Russian shouting at their horses which were straining uphill with the
+carts, and their calls to one another, could be clearly heard.
+
+"Bwing the prisoner here," said Denisov in a low voice, not taking his
+eyes off the French.
+
+A Cossack dismounted, lifted the boy down, and took him to Denisov.
+Pointing to the French troops, Denisov asked him what these and those of
+them were. The boy, thrusting his cold hands into his pockets and
+lifting his eyebrows, looked at Denisov in affright, but in spite of an
+evident desire to say all he knew gave confused answers, merely
+assenting to everything Denisov asked him. Denisov turned away from him
+frowning and addressed the esaul, conveying his own conjectures to him.
+
+Pétya, rapidly turning his head, looked now at the drummer boy, now at
+Denisov, now at the esaul, and now at the French in the village and
+along the road, trying not to miss anything of importance.
+
+"Whether Dólokhov comes or not, we must seize it, eh?" said Denisov with
+a merry sparkle in his eyes.
+
+"It is a very suitable spot," said the esaul.
+
+"We'll send the infantwy down by the swamps," Denisov continued.
+"They'll cweep up to the garden; you'll wide up fwom there with the
+Cossacks"—he pointed to a spot in the forest beyond the village—"and I
+with my hussars fwom here. And at the signal shot..."
+
+"The hollow is impassable—there's a swamp there," said the esaul. "The
+horses would sink. We must ride round more to the left...."
+
+While they were talking in undertones the crack of a shot sounded from
+the low ground by the pond, a puff of white smoke appeared, then
+another, and the sound of hundreds of seemingly merry French voices
+shouting together came up from the slope. For a moment Denisov and the
+esaul drew back. They were so near that they thought they were the cause
+of the firing and shouting. But the firing and shouting did not relate
+to them. Down below, a man wearing something red was running through the
+marsh. The French were evidently firing and shouting at him.
+
+"Why, that's our Tíkhon," said the esaul.
+
+"So it is! It is!"
+
+"The wascal!" said Denisov.
+
+"He'll get away!" said the esaul, screwing up his eyes.
+
+The man whom they called Tíkhon, having run to the stream, plunged in so
+that the water splashed in the air, and, having disappeared for an
+instant, scrambled out on all fours, all black with the wet, and ran on.
+The French who had been pursuing him stopped.
+
+"Smart, that!" said the esaul.
+
+"What a beast!" said Denisov with his former look of vexation. "What has
+he been doing all this time?"
+
+"Who is he?" asked Pétya.
+
+"He's our plastun. I sent him to capture a 'tongue.'"
+
+"Oh, yes," said Pétya, nodding at the first words Denisov uttered as if
+he understood it all, though he really did not understand anything of
+it.
+
+Tíkhon Shcherbaty was one of the most indispensable men in their band.
+He was a peasant from Pokrovsk, near the river Gzhat. When Denisov had
+come to Pokrovsk at the beginning of his operations and had as usual
+summoned the village elder and asked him what he knew about the French,
+the elder, as though shielding himself, had replied, as all village
+elders did, that he had neither seen nor heard anything of them. But
+when Denisov explained that his purpose was to kill the French, and
+asked if no French had strayed that way, the elder replied that some
+"more-orderers" had really been at their village, but that Tíkhon
+Shcherbaty was the only man who dealt with such matters. Denisov had
+Tíkhon called and, having praised him for his activity, said a few words
+in the elder's presence about loyalty to the Tsar and the country and
+the hatred of the French that all sons of the fatherland should cherish.
+
+"We don't do the French any harm," said Tíkhon, evidently frightened by
+Denisov's words. "We only fooled about with the lads for fun, you know!
+We killed a score or so of 'more-orderers,' but we did no harm else..."
+
+Next day when Denisov had left Pokrovsk, having quite forgotten about
+this peasant, it was reported to him that Tíkhon had attached himself to
+their party and asked to be allowed to remain with it. Denisov gave
+orders to let him do so.
+
+Tíkhon, who at first did rough work, laying campfires, fetching water,
+flaying dead horses, and so on, soon showed a great liking and aptitude
+for partisan warfare. At night he would go out for booty and always
+brought back French clothing and weapons, and when told to would bring
+in French captives also. Denisov then relieved him from drudgery and
+began taking him with him when he went out on expeditions and had him
+enrolled among the Cossacks.
+
+Tíkhon did not like riding, and always went on foot, never lagging
+behind the cavalry. He was armed with a musketoon (which he carried
+rather as a joke), a pike and an ax, which latter he used as a wolf uses
+its teeth, with equal ease picking fleas out of its fur or crunching
+thick bones. Tíkhon with equal accuracy would split logs with blows at
+arm's length, or holding the head of the ax would cut thin little pegs
+or carve spoons. In Denisov's party he held a peculiar and exceptional
+position. When anything particularly difficult or nasty had to be
+done—to push a cart out of the mud with one's shoulders, pull a horse
+out of a swamp by its tail, skin it, slink in among the French, or walk
+more than thirty miles in a day—everybody pointed laughingly at Tíkhon.
+
+"It won't hurt that devil—he's as strong as a horse!" they said of him.
+
+Once a Frenchman Tíkhon was trying to capture fired a pistol at him and
+shot him in the fleshy part of the back. That wound (which Tíkhon
+treated only with internal and external applications of vodka) was the
+subject of the liveliest jokes by the whole detachment—jokes in which
+Tíkhon readily joined.
+
+"Hallo, mate! Never again? Gave you a twist?" the Cossacks would banter
+him. And Tíkhon, purposely writhing and making faces, pretended to be
+angry and swore at the French with the funniest curses. The only effect
+of this incident on Tíkhon was that after being wounded he seldom
+brought in prisoners.
+
+He was the bravest and most useful man in the party. No one found more
+opportunities for attacking, no one captured or killed more Frenchmen,
+and consequently he was made the buffoon of all the Cossacks and hussars
+and willingly accepted that role. Now he had been sent by Denisov
+overnight to Shamshevo to capture a "tongue." But whether because he had
+not been content to take only one Frenchman or because he had slept
+through the night, he had crept by day into some bushes right among the
+French and, as Denisov had witnessed from above, had been detected by
+them.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+After talking for some time with the esaul about next day's attack,
+which now, seeing how near they were to the French, he seemed to have
+definitely decided on, Denisov turned his horse and rode back.
+
+"Now, my lad, we'll go and get dwy," he said to Pétya.
+
+As they approached the watchhouse Denisov stopped, peering into the
+forest. Among the trees a man with long legs and long, swinging arms,
+wearing a short jacket, bast shoes, and a Kazan hat, was approaching
+with long, light steps. He had a musketoon over his shoulder and an ax
+stuck in his girdle. When he espied Denisov he hastily threw something
+into the bushes, removed his sodden hat by its floppy brim, and
+approached his commander. It was Tíkhon. His wrinkled and pockmarked
+face and narrow little eyes beamed with self-satisfied merriment. He
+lifted his head high and gazed at Denisov as if repressing a laugh.
+
+"Well, where did you disappear to?" inquired Denisov.
+
+"Where did I disappear to? I went to get Frenchmen," answered Tíkhon
+boldly and hurriedly, in a husky but melodious bass voice.
+
+"Why did you push yourself in there by daylight? You ass! Well, why
+haven't you taken one?"
+
+"Oh, I took one all right," said Tíkhon.
+
+"Where is he?"
+
+"You see, I took him first thing at dawn," Tíkhon continued, spreading
+out his flat feet with outturned toes in their bast shoes. "I took him
+into the forest. Then I see he's no good and think I'll go and fetch a
+likelier one."
+
+"You see?... What a wogue—it's just as I thought," said Denisov to the
+esaul. "Why didn't you bwing that one?"
+
+"What was the good of bringing him?" Tíkhon interrupted hastily and
+angrily—"that one wouldn't have done for you. As if I don't know what
+sort you want!"
+
+"What a bwute you are!... Well?"
+
+"I went for another one," Tíkhon continued, "and I crept like this
+through the wood and lay down." (He suddenly lay down on his stomach
+with a supple movement to show how he had done it.) "One turned up and I
+grabbed him, like this." (He jumped up quickly and lightly.) "'Come
+along to the colonel,' I said. He starts yelling, and suddenly there
+were four of them. They rushed at me with their little swords. So I went
+for them with my ax, this way: 'What are you up to?' says I. 'Christ be
+with you!'" shouted Tíkhon, waving his arms with an angry scowl and
+throwing out his chest.
+
+"Yes, we saw from the hill how you took to your heels through the
+puddles!" said the esaul, screwing up his glittering eyes.
+
+Pétya badly wanted to laugh, but noticed that they all refrained from
+laughing. He turned his eyes rapidly from Tíkhon's face to the esaul's
+and Denisov's, unable to make out what it all meant.
+
+"Don't play the fool!" said Denisov, coughing angrily. "Why didn't you
+bwing the first one?"
+
+Tíkhon scratched his back with one hand and his head with the other,
+then suddenly his whole face expanded into a beaming, foolish grin,
+disclosing a gap where he had lost a tooth (that was why he was called
+Shcherbaty—the gap-toothed). Denisov smiled, and Pétya burst into a peal
+of merry laughter in which Tíkhon himself joined.
+
+"Oh, but he was a regular good-for-nothing," said Tíkhon. "The clothes
+on him—poor stuff! How could I bring him? And so rude, your honor! Why,
+he says: 'I'm a general's son myself, I won't go!' he says."
+
+"You are a bwute!" said Denisov. "I wanted to question..."
+
+"But I questioned him," said Tíkhon. "He said he didn't know much.
+'There are a lot of us,' he says, 'but all poor stuff—only soldiers in
+name,' he says. 'Shout loud at them,' he says, 'and you'll take them
+all,'" Tíkhon concluded, looking cheerfully and resolutely into
+Denisov's eyes.
+
+"I'll give you a hundwed sharp lashes—that'll teach you to play the
+fool!" said Denisov severely.
+
+"But why are you angry?" remonstrated Tíkhon, "just as if I'd never seen
+your Frenchmen! Only wait till it gets dark and I'll fetch you any of
+them you want—three if you like."
+
+"Well, let's go," said Denisov, and rode all the way to the watchhouse
+in silence and frowning angrily.
+
+Tíkhon followed behind and Pétya heard the Cossacks laughing with him
+and at him, about some pair of boots he had thrown into the bushes.
+
+When the fit of laughter that had seized him at Tíkhon's words and smile
+had passed and Pétya realized for a moment that this Tíkhon had killed a
+man, he felt uneasy. He looked round at the captive drummer boy and felt
+a pang in his heart. But this uneasiness lasted only a moment. He felt
+it necessary to hold his head higher, to brace himself, and to question
+the esaul with an air of importance about tomorrow's undertaking, that
+he might not be unworthy of the company in which he found himself.
+
+The officer who had been sent to inquire met Denisov on the way with the
+news that Dólokhov was soon coming and that all was well with him.
+
+Denisov at once cheered up and, calling Pétya to him, said: "Well, tell
+me about yourself."
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+Pétya, having left his people after their departure from Moscow, joined
+his regiment and was soon taken as orderly by a general commanding a
+large guerrilla detachment. From the time he received his commission,
+and especially since he had joined the active army and taken part in the
+battle of Vyazma, Pétya had been in a constant state of blissful
+excitement at being grown-up and in a perpetual ecstatic hurry not to
+miss any chance to do something really heroic. He was highly delighted
+with what he saw and experienced in the army, but at the same time it
+always seemed to him that the really heroic exploits were being
+performed just where he did not happen to be. And he was always in a
+hurry to get where he was not.
+
+When on the twenty-first of October his general expressed a wish to send
+somebody to Denisov's detachment, Pétya begged so piteously to be sent
+that the general could not refuse. But when dispatching him he recalled
+Pétya's mad action at the battle of Vyazma, where instead of riding by
+the road to the place to which he had been sent, he had galloped to the
+advanced line under the fire of the French and had there twice fired his
+pistol. So now the general explicitly forbade his taking part in any
+action whatever of Denisov's. That was why Pétya had blushed and grown
+confused when Denisov asked him whether he could stay. Before they had
+ridden to the outskirts of the forest Pétya had considered he must carry
+out his instructions strictly and return at once. But when he saw the
+French and saw Tíkhon and learned that there would certainly be an
+attack that night, he decided, with the rapidity with which young people
+change their views, that the general, whom he had greatly respected till
+then, was a rubbishy German, that Denisov was a hero, the esaul a hero,
+and Tíkhon a hero too, and that it would be shameful for him to leave
+them at a moment of difficulty.
+
+It was already growing dusk when Denisov, Pétya, and the esaul rode up
+to the watchhouse. In the twilight saddled horses could be seen, and
+Cossacks and hussars who had rigged up rough shelters in the glade and
+were kindling glowing fires in a hollow of the forest where the French
+could not see the smoke. In the passage of the small watchhouse a
+Cossack with sleeves rolled up was chopping some mutton. In the room
+three officers of Denisov's band were converting a door into a tabletop.
+Pétya took off his wet clothes, gave them to be dried, and at once began
+helping the officers to fix up the dinner table.
+
+In ten minutes the table was ready and a napkin spread on it. On the
+table were vodka, a flask of rum, white bread, roast mutton, and salt.
+
+Sitting at table with the officers and tearing the fat savory mutton
+with his hands, down which the grease trickled, Pétya was in an ecstatic
+childish state of love for all men, and consequently of confidence that
+others loved him in the same way.
+
+"So then what do you think, Vasíli Dmítrich?" said he to Denisov. "It's
+all right my staying a day with you?" And not waiting for a reply he
+answered his own question: "You see I was told to find out—well, I am
+finding out.... Only do let me into the very... into the chief... I
+don't want a reward... But I want..."
+
+Pétya clenched his teeth and looked around, throwing back his head and
+flourishing his arms.
+
+"Into the vewy chief..." Denisov repeated with a smile.
+
+"Only, please let me command something, so that I may really command..."
+Pétya went on. "What would it be to you?... Oh, you want a knife?" he
+said, turning to an officer who wished to cut himself a piece of mutton.
+
+And he handed him his clasp knife. The officer admired it.
+
+"Please keep it. I have several like it," said Pétya, blushing.
+"Heavens! I was quite forgetting!" he suddenly cried. "I have some
+raisins, fine ones; you know, seedless ones. We have a new sutler and he
+has such capital things. I bought ten pounds. I am used to something
+sweet. Would you like some?..." and Pétya ran out into the passage to
+his Cossack and brought back some bags which contained about five pounds
+of raisins. "Have some, gentlemen, have some!"
+
+"You want a coffeepot, don't you?" he asked the esaul. "I bought a
+capital one from our sutler! He has splendid things. And he's very
+honest, that's the chief thing. I'll be sure to send it to you. Or
+perhaps your flints are giving out, or are worn out—that happens
+sometimes, you know. I have brought some with me, here they are"—and he
+showed a bag—"a hundred flints. I bought them very cheap. Please take as
+many as you want, or all if you like...."
+
+Then suddenly, dismayed lest he had said too much, Pétya stopped and
+blushed.
+
+He tried to remember whether he had not done anything else that was
+foolish. And running over the events of the day he remembered the French
+drummer boy. "It's capital for us here, but what of him? Where have they
+put him? Have they fed him? Haven't they hurt his feelings?" he thought.
+But having caught himself saying too much about the flints, he was now
+afraid to speak out.
+
+"I might ask," he thought, "but they'll say: 'He's a boy himself and so
+he pities the boy.' I'll show them tomorrow whether I'm a boy. Will it
+seem odd if I ask?" Pétya thought. "Well, never mind!" and immediately,
+blushing and looking anxiously at the officers to see if they appeared
+ironical, he said:
+
+"May I call in that boy who was taken prisoner and give him something to
+eat?... Perhaps..."
+
+"Yes, he's a poor little fellow," said Denisov, who evidently saw
+nothing shameful in this reminder. "Call him in. His name is Vincent
+Bosse. Have him fetched."
+
+"I'll call him," said Pétya.
+
+"Yes, yes, call him. A poor little fellow," Denisov repeated.
+
+Pétya was standing at the door when Denisov said this. He slipped in
+between the officers, came close to Denisov, and said:
+
+"Let me kiss you, dear old fellow! Oh, how fine, how splendid!"
+
+And having kissed Denisov he ran out of the hut.
+
+"Bosse! Vincent!" Pétya cried, stopping outside the door.
+
+"Who do you want, sir?" asked a voice in the darkness.
+
+Pétya replied that he wanted the French lad who had been captured that
+day.
+
+"Ah, Vesenny?" said a Cossack.
+
+Vincent, the boy's name, had already been changed by the Cossacks into
+Vesenny (vernal) and into Vesenya by the peasants and soldiers. In both
+these adaptations the reference to spring (vesna) matched the impression
+made by the young lad.
+
+"He is warming himself there by the bonfire. Ho, Vesenya!
+Vesenya!—Vesenny!" laughing voices were heard calling to one another in
+the darkness.
+
+"He's a smart lad," said an hussar standing near Pétya. "We gave him
+something to eat a while ago. He was awfully hungry!"
+
+The sound of bare feet splashing through the mud was heard in the
+darkness, and the drummer boy came to the door.
+
+"Ah, c'est vous!" said Pétya. "Voulez-vous manger? N'ayez pas peur, on
+ne vous fera pas de mal," * he added shyly and affectionately, touching
+the boy's hand. "Entrez, entrez." *(2)
+
+* "Ah, it's you! Do you want something to eat? Don't be afraid, they
+won't hurt you."
+
+* (2) "Come in, come in."
+
+"Merci, monsieur," * said the drummer boy in a trembling almost childish
+voice, and he began scraping his dirty feet on the threshold.
+
+* "Thank you, sir."
+
+There were many things Pétya wanted to say to the drummer boy, but did
+not dare to. He stood irresolutely beside him in the passage. Then in
+the darkness he took the boy's hand and pressed it.
+
+"Come in, come in!" he repeated in a gentle whisper. "Oh, what can I do
+for him?" he thought, and opening the door he let the boy pass in first.
+
+When the boy had entered the hut, Pétya sat down at a distance from him,
+considering it beneath his dignity to pay attention to him. But he
+fingered the money in his pocket and wondered whether it would seem
+ridiculous to give some to the drummer boy.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+The arrival of Dólokhov diverted Pétya's attention from the drummer boy,
+to whom Denisov had had some mutton and vodka given, and whom he had had
+dressed in a Russian coat so that he might be kept with their band and
+not sent away with the other prisoners. Pétya had heard in the army many
+stories of Dólokhov's extraordinary bravery and of his cruelty to the
+French, so from the moment he entered the hut Pétya did not take his
+eyes from him, but braced himself up more and more and held his head
+high, that he might not be unworthy even of such company.
+
+Dólokhov's appearance amazed Pétya by its simplicity.
+
+Denisov wore a Cossack coat, had a beard, had an icon of Nicholas the
+Wonder-Worker on his breast, and his way of speaking and everything he
+did indicated his unusual position. But Dólokhov, who in Moscow had worn
+a Persian costume, had now the appearance of a most correct officer of
+the Guards. He was clean-shaven and wore a Guardsman's padded coat with
+an Order of St. George at his buttonhole and a plain forage cap set
+straight on his head. He took off his wet felt cloak in a corner of the
+room, and without greeting anyone went up to Denisov and began
+questioning him about the matter in hand. Denisov told him of the
+designs the large detachments had on the transport, of the message Pétya
+had brought, and his own replies to both generals. Then he told him all
+he knew of the French detachment.
+
+"That's so. But we must know what troops they are and their numbers,"
+said Dólokhov. "It will be necessary to go there. We can't start the
+affair without knowing for certain how many there are. I like to work
+accurately. Here now—wouldn't one of these gentlemen like to ride over
+to the French camp with me? I have brought a spare uniform."
+
+"I, I... I'll go with you!" cried Pétya.
+
+"There's no need for you to go at all," said Denisov, addressing
+Dólokhov, "and as for him, I won't let him go on any account."
+
+"I like that!" exclaimed Pétya. "Why shouldn't I go?"
+
+"Because it's useless."
+
+"Well, you must excuse me, because... because... I shall go, and that's
+all. You'll take me, won't you?" he said, turning to Dólokhov.
+
+"Why not?" Dólokhov answered absently, scrutinizing the face of the
+French drummer boy. "Have you had that youngster with you long?" he
+asked Denisov.
+
+"He was taken today but he knows nothing. I'm keeping him with me."
+
+"Yes, and where do you put the others?" inquired Dólokhov.
+
+"Where? I send them away and take a weceipt for them," shouted Denisov,
+suddenly flushing. "And I say boldly that I have not a single man's life
+on my conscience. Would it be difficult for you to send thirty or thwee
+hundwed men to town under escort, instead of staining—I speak
+bluntly—staining the honor of a soldier?"
+
+"That kind of amiable talk would be suitable from this young count of
+sixteen," said Dólokhov with cold irony, "but it's time for you to drop
+it."
+
+"Why, I've not said anything! I only say that I'll certainly go with
+you," said Pétya shyly.
+
+"But for you and me, old fellow, it's time to drop these amenities,"
+continued Dólokhov, as if he found particular pleasure in speaking of
+this subject which irritated Denisov. "Now, why have you kept this lad?"
+he went on, swaying his head. "Because you are sorry for him! Don't we
+know those 'receipts' of yours? You send a hundred men away, and thirty
+get there. The rest either starve or get killed. So isn't it all the
+same not to send them?"
+
+The esaul, screwing up his light-colored eyes, nodded approvingly.
+
+"That's not the point. I'm not going to discuss the matter. I do not
+wish to take it on my conscience. You say they'll die. All wight. Only
+not by my fault!"
+
+Dólokhov began laughing.
+
+"Who has told them not to capture me these twenty times over? But if
+they did catch me they'd string me up to an aspen tree, and with all
+your chivalry just the same." He paused. "However, we must get to work.
+Tell the Cossack to fetch my kit. I have two French uniforms in it.
+Well, are you coming with me?" he asked Pétya.
+
+"I? Yes, yes, certainly!" cried Pétya, blushing almost to tears and
+glancing at Denisov.
+
+While Dólokhov had been disputing with Denisov what should be done with
+prisoners, Pétya had once more felt awkward and restless; but again he
+had no time to grasp fully what they were talking about. "If grown-up,
+distinguished men think so, it must be necessary and right," thought he.
+"But above all Denisov must not dare to imagine that I'll obey him and
+that he can order me about. I will certainly go to the French camp with
+Dólokhov. If he can, so can I!"
+
+And to all Denisov's persuasions, Pétya replied that he too was
+accustomed to do everything accurately and not just anyhow, and that he
+never considered personal danger.
+
+"For you'll admit that if we don't know for sure how many of them there
+are... hundreds of lives may depend on it, while there are only two of
+us. Besides, I want to go very much and certainly will go, so don't
+hinder me," said he. "It will only make things worse..."
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+Having put on French greatcoats and shakos, Pétya and Dólokhov rode to
+the clearing from which Denisov had reconnoitered the French camp, and
+emerging from the forest in pitch darkness they descended into the
+hollow. On reaching the bottom, Dólokhov told the Cossacks accompanying
+him to await him there and rode on at a quick trot along the road to the
+bridge. Pétya, his heart in his mouth with excitement, rode by his side.
+
+"If we're caught, I won't be taken alive! I have a pistol," whispered
+he.
+
+"Don't talk Russian," said Dólokhov in a hurried whisper, and at that
+very moment they heard through the darkness the challenge: "Qui vive?" *
+and the click of a musket.
+
+* "Who goes there?"
+
+The blood rushed to Pétya's face and he grasped his pistol.
+
+"Lanciers du 6-me," * replied Dólokhov, neither hastening nor slackening
+his horse's pace.
+
+* "Lancers of the 6th Regiment."
+
+The black figure of a sentinel stood on the bridge.
+
+"Mot d'ordre." *
+
+* "Password."
+
+Dólokhov reined in his horse and advanced at a walk.
+
+"Dites donc, le colonel Gerard est ici?" * he asked.
+
+* "Tell me, is Colonel Gerard here?"
+
+"Mot d'ordre," repeated the sentinel, barring the way and not replying.
+
+"Quand un officier fait sa ronde, les sentinelles ne demandent pas le
+mot d'ordre..." cried Dólokhov suddenly flaring up and riding straight
+at the sentinel. "Je vous demande si le colonel est ici." *
+
+* "When an officer is making his round, sentinels don't ask him for the
+password.... I am asking you if the colonel is here."
+
+And without waiting for an answer from the sentinel, who had stepped
+aside, Dólokhov rode up the incline at a walk.
+
+Noticing the black outline of a man crossing the road, Dólokhov stopped
+him and inquired where the commander and officers were. The man, a
+soldier with a sack over his shoulder, stopped, came close up to
+Dólokhov's horse, touched it with his hand, and explained simply and in
+a friendly way that the commander and the officers were higher up the
+hill to the right in the courtyard of the farm, as he called the
+landowner's house.
+
+Having ridden up the road, on both sides of which French talk could be
+heard around the campfires, Dólokhov turned into the courtyard of the
+landowner's house. Having ridden in, he dismounted and approached a big
+blazing campfire, around which sat several men talking noisily.
+Something was boiling in a small cauldron at the edge of the fire and a
+soldier in a peaked cap and blue overcoat, lit up by the fire, was
+kneeling beside it stirring its contents with a ramrod.
+
+"Oh, he's a hard nut to crack," said one of the officers who was sitting
+in the shadow at the other side of the fire.
+
+"He'll make them get a move on, those fellows!" said another, laughing.
+
+Both fell silent, peering out through the darkness at the sound of
+Dólokhov's and Pétya's steps as they advanced to the fire leading their
+horses.
+
+"Bonjour, messieurs!" * said Dólokhov loudly and clearly.
+
+* "Good day, gentlemen."
+
+There was a stir among the officers in the shadow beyond the fire, and
+one tall, long-necked officer, walking round the fire, came up to
+Dólokhov.
+
+"Is that you, Clement?" he asked. "Where the devil...?" But, noticing
+his mistake, he broke off short and, with a frown, greeted Dólokhov as a
+stranger, asking what he could do for him.
+
+Dólokhov said that he and his companion were trying to overtake their
+regiment, and addressing the company in general asked whether they knew
+anything of the 6th Regiment. None of them knew anything, and Pétya
+thought the officers were beginning to look at him and Dólokhov with
+hostility and suspicion. For some seconds all were silent.
+
+"If you were counting on the evening soup, you have come too late," said
+a voice from behind the fire with a repressed laugh.
+
+Dólokhov replied that they were not hungry and must push on farther that
+night.
+
+He handed the horses over to the soldier who was stirring the pot and
+squatted down on his heels by the fire beside the officer with the long
+neck. That officer did not take his eyes from Dólokhov and again asked
+to what regiment he belonged. Dólokhov, as if he had not heard the
+question, did not reply, but lighting a short French pipe which he took
+from his pocket began asking the officer in how far the road before them
+was safe from Cossacks.
+
+"Those brigands are everywhere," replied an officer from behind the
+fire.
+
+Dólokhov remarked that the Cossacks were a danger only to stragglers
+such as his companion and himself, "but probably they would not dare to
+attack large detachments?" he added inquiringly. No one replied.
+
+"Well, now he'll come away," Pétya thought every moment as he stood by
+the campfire listening to the talk.
+
+But Dólokhov restarted the conversation which had dropped and began
+putting direct questions as to how many men there were in the battalion,
+how many battalions, and how many prisoners. Asking about the Russian
+prisoners with that detachment, Dólokhov said:
+
+"A horrid business dragging these corpses about with one! It would be
+better to shoot such rabble," and burst into loud laughter, so strange
+that Pétya thought the French would immediately detect their disguise,
+and involuntarily took a step back from the campfire.
+
+No one replied a word to Dólokhov's laughter, and a French officer whom
+they could not see (he lay wrapped in a greatcoat) rose and whispered
+something to a companion. Dólokhov got up and called to the soldier who
+was holding their horses.
+
+"Will they bring our horses or not?" thought Pétya, instinctively
+drawing nearer to Dólokhov.
+
+The horses were brought.
+
+"Good evening, gentlemen," said Dólokhov.
+
+Pétya wished to say "Good night" but could not utter a word. The
+officers were whispering together. Dólokhov was a long time mounting his
+horse which would not stand still, then he rode out of the yard at a
+footpace. Pétya rode beside him, longing to look round to see whether or
+not the French were running after them, but not daring to.
+
+Coming out onto the road Dólokhov did not ride back across the open
+country, but through the village. At one spot he stopped and listened.
+"Do you hear?" he asked. Pétya recognized the sound of Russian voices
+and saw the dark figures of Russian prisoners round their campfires.
+When they had descended to the bridge Pétya and Dólokhov rode past the
+sentinel, who without saying a word paced morosely up and down it, then
+they descended into the hollow where the Cossacks awaited them.
+
+"Well now, good-by. Tell Denisov, 'at the first shot at daybreak,'" said
+Dólokhov and was about to ride away, but Pétya seized hold of him.
+
+"Really!" he cried, "you are such a hero! Oh, how fine, how splendid!
+How I love you!"
+
+"All right, all right!" said Dólokhov. But Pétya did not let go of him
+and Dólokhov saw through the gloom that Pétya was bending toward him and
+wanted to kiss him. Dólokhov kissed him, laughed, turned his horse, and
+vanished into the darkness.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+Having returned to the watchman's hut, Pétya found Denisov in the
+passage. He was awaiting Pétya's return in a state of agitation,
+anxiety, and self-reproach for having let him go.
+
+"Thank God!" he exclaimed. "Yes, thank God!" he repeated, listening to
+Pétya's rapturous account. "But, devil take you, I haven't slept because
+of you! Well, thank God. Now lie down. We can still get a nap before
+morning."
+
+"But... no," said Pétya, "I don't want to sleep yet. Besides I know
+myself, if I fall asleep it's finished. And then I am used to not
+sleeping before a battle."
+
+He sat awhile in the hut joyfully recalling the details of his
+expedition and vividly picturing to himself what would happen next day.
+
+Then, noticing that Denisov was asleep, he rose and went out of doors.
+
+It was still quite dark outside. The rain was over, but drops were still
+falling from the trees. Near the watchman's hut the black shapes of the
+Cossacks' shanties and of horses tethered together could be seen. Behind
+the hut the dark shapes of the two wagons with their horses beside them
+were discernible, and in the hollow the dying campfire gleamed red. Not
+all the Cossacks and hussars were asleep; here and there, amid the
+sounds of falling drops and the munching of the horses near by, could be
+heard low voices which seemed to be whispering.
+
+Pétya came out, peered into the darkness, and went up to the wagons.
+Someone was snoring under them, and around them stood saddled horses
+munching their oats. In the dark Pétya recognized his own horse, which
+he called "Karabakh" though it was of Ukranian breed, and went up to it.
+
+"Well, Karabakh! We'll do some service tomorrow," said he, sniffing its
+nostrils and kissing it.
+
+"Why aren't you asleep, sir?" said a Cossack who was sitting under a
+wagon.
+
+"No, ah... Likhachev—isn't that your name? Do you know I have only just
+come back! We've been into the French camp."
+
+And Pétya gave the Cossack a detailed account not only of his ride but
+also of his object, and why he considered it better to risk his life
+than to act "just anyhow."
+
+"Well, you should get some sleep now," said the Cossack.
+
+"No, I am used to this," said Pétya. "I say, aren't the flints in your
+pistols worn out? I brought some with me. Don't you want any? You can
+have some."
+
+The Cossack bent forward from under the wagon to get a closer look at
+Pétya.
+
+"Because I am accustomed to doing everything accurately," said Pétya.
+"Some fellows do things just anyhow, without preparation, and then
+they're sorry for it afterwards. I don't like that."
+
+"Just so," said the Cossack.
+
+"Oh yes, another thing! Please, my dear fellow, will you sharpen my
+saber for me? It's got bl..." (Pétya feared to tell a lie, and the saber
+never had been sharpened.) "Can you do it?"
+
+"Of course I can."
+
+Likhachev got up, rummaged in his pack, and soon Pétya heard the warlike
+sound of steel on whetstone. He climbed onto the wagon and sat on its
+edge. The Cossack was sharpening the saber under the wagon.
+
+"I say! Are the lads asleep?" asked Pétya.
+
+"Some are, and some aren't—like us."
+
+"Well, and that boy?"
+
+"Vesenny? Oh, he's thrown himself down there in the passage. Fast asleep
+after his fright. He was that glad!"
+
+After that Pétya remained silent for a long time, listening to the
+sounds. He heard footsteps in the darkness and a black figure appeared.
+
+"What are you sharpening?" asked a man coming up to the wagon.
+
+"Why, this gentleman's saber."
+
+"That's right," said the man, whom Pétya took to be an hussar. "Was the
+cup left here?"
+
+"There, by the wheel!"
+
+The hussar took the cup.
+
+"It must be daylight soon," said he, yawning, and went away.
+
+Pétya ought to have known that he was in a forest with Denisov's
+guerrilla band, less than a mile from the road, sitting on a wagon
+captured from the French beside which horses were tethered, that under
+it Likhachev was sitting sharpening a saber for him, that the big dark
+blotch to the right was the watchman's hut, and the red blotch below to
+the left was the dying embers of a campfire, that the man who had come
+for the cup was an hussar who wanted a drink; but he neither knew nor
+waited to know anything of all this. He was in a fairy kingdom where
+nothing resembled reality. The big dark blotch might really be the
+watchman's hut or it might be a cavern leading to the very depths of the
+earth. Perhaps the red spot was a fire, or it might be the eye of an
+enormous monster. Perhaps he was really sitting on a wagon, but it might
+very well be that he was not sitting on a wagon but on a terribly high
+tower from which, if he fell, he would have to fall for a whole day or a
+whole month, or go on falling and never reach the bottom. Perhaps it was
+just the Cossack, Likhachev, who was sitting under the wagon, but it
+might be the kindest, bravest, most wonderful, most splendid man in the
+world, whom no one knew of. It might really have been that the hussar
+came for water and went back into the hollow, but perhaps he had simply
+vanished—disappeared altogether and dissolved into nothingness.
+
+Nothing Pétya could have seen now would have surprised him. He was in a
+fairy kingdom where everything was possible.
+
+He looked up at the sky. And the sky was a fairy realm like the earth.
+It was clearing, and over the tops of the trees clouds were swiftly
+sailing as if unveiling the stars. Sometimes it looked as if the clouds
+were passing, and a clear black sky appeared. Sometimes it seemed as if
+the black spaces were clouds. Sometimes the sky seemed to be rising
+high, high overhead, and then it seemed to sink so low that one could
+touch it with one's hand.
+
+Pétya's eyes began to close and he swayed a little.
+
+The trees were dripping. Quiet talking was heard. The horses neighed and
+jostled one another. Someone snored.
+
+"Ozheg-zheg, Ozheg-zheg..." hissed the saber against the whetstone, and
+suddenly Pétya heard an harmonious orchestra playing some unknown,
+sweetly solemn hymn. Pétya was as musical as Natásha and more so than
+Nicholas, but had never learned music or thought about it, and so the
+melody that unexpectedly came to his mind seemed to him particularly
+fresh and attractive. The music became more and more audible. The melody
+grew and passed from one instrument to another. And what was played was
+a fugue—though Pétya had not the least conception of what a fugue is.
+Each instrument—now resembling a violin and now a horn, but better and
+clearer than violin or horn—played its own part, and before it had
+finished the melody merged with another instrument that began almost the
+same air, and then with a third and a fourth; and they all blended into
+one and again became separate and again blended, now into solemn church
+music, now into something dazzlingly brilliant and triumphant.
+
+"Oh—why, that was in a dream!" Pétya said to himself, as he lurched
+forward. "It's in my ears. But perhaps it's music of my own. Well, go
+on, my music! Now!..."
+
+He closed his eyes, and, from all sides as if from a distance, sounds
+fluttered, grew into harmonies, separated, blended, and again all
+mingled into the same sweet and solemn hymn. "Oh, this is delightful! As
+much as I like and as I like!" said Pétya to himself. He tried to
+conduct that enormous orchestra.
+
+"Now softly, softly die away!" and the sounds obeyed him. "Now fuller,
+more joyful. Still more and more joyful!" And from an unknown depth rose
+increasingly triumphant sounds. "Now voices join in!" ordered Pétya. And
+at first from afar he heard men's voices and then women's. The voices
+grew in harmonious triumphant strength, and Pétya listened to their
+surpassing beauty in awe and joy.
+
+With a solemn triumphal march there mingled a song, the drip from the
+trees, and the hissing of the saber, "Ozheg-zheg-zheg..." and again the
+horses jostled one another and neighed, not disturbing the choir but
+joining in it.
+
+Pétya did not know how long this lasted: he enjoyed himself all the
+time, wondered at his enjoyment and regretted that there was no one to
+share it. He was awakened by Likhachev's kindly voice.
+
+"It's ready, your honor; you can split a Frenchman in half with it!"
+
+Pétya woke up.
+
+"It's getting light, it's really getting light!" he exclaimed.
+
+The horses that had previously been invisible could now be seen to their
+very tails, and a watery light showed itself through the bare branches.
+Pétya shook himself, jumped up, took a ruble from his pocket and gave it
+to Likhachev; then he flourished the saber, tested it, and sheathed it.
+The Cossacks were untying their horses and tightening their saddle
+girths.
+
+"And here's the commander," said Likhachev.
+
+Denisov came out of the watchman's hut and, having called Pétya, gave
+orders to get ready.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+The men rapidly picked out their horses in the semidarkness, tightened
+their saddle girths, and formed companies. Denisov stood by the
+watchman's hut giving final orders. The infantry of the detachment
+passed along the road and quickly disappeared amid the trees in the mist
+of early dawn, hundreds of feet splashing through the mud. The esaul
+gave some orders to his men. Pétya held his horse by the bridle,
+impatiently awaiting the order to mount. His face, having been bathed in
+cold water, was all aglow, and his eyes were particularly brilliant.
+Cold shivers ran down his spine and his whole body pulsed rhythmically.
+
+"Well, is ev'wything weady?" asked Denisov. "Bwing the horses."
+
+The horses were brought. Denisov was angry with the Cossack because the
+saddle girths were too slack, reproved him, and mounted. Pétya put his
+foot in the stirrup. His horse by habit made as if to nip his leg, but
+Pétya leaped quickly into the saddle unconscious of his own weight and,
+turning to look at the hussars starting in the darkness behind him, rode
+up to Denisov.
+
+"Vasíli Dmítrich, entrust me with some commission! Please... for God's
+sake...!" said he.
+
+Denisov seemed to have forgotten Pétya's very existence. He turned to
+glance at him.
+
+"I ask one thing of you," he said sternly, "to obey me and not shove
+yourself forward anywhere."
+
+He did not say another word to Pétya but rode in silence all the way.
+When they had come to the edge of the forest it was noticeably growing
+light over the field. Denisov talked in whispers with the esaul and the
+Cossacks rode past Pétya and Denisov. When they had all ridden by,
+Denisov touched his horse and rode down the hill. Slipping onto their
+haunches and sliding, the horses descended with their riders into the
+ravine. Pétya rode beside Denisov, the pulsation of his body constantly
+increasing. It was getting lighter and lighter, but the mist still hid
+distant objects. Having reached the valley, Denisov looked back and
+nodded to a Cossack beside him.
+
+"The signal!" said he.
+
+The Cossack raised his arm and a shot rang out. In an instant the tramp
+of horses galloping forward was heard, shouts came from various sides,
+and then more shots.
+
+At the first sound of trampling hoofs and shouting, Pétya lashed his
+horse and loosening his rein galloped forward, not heeding Denisov who
+shouted at him. It seemed to Pétya that at the moment the shot was fired
+it suddenly became as bright as noon. He galloped to the bridge.
+Cossacks were galloping along the road in front of him. On the bridge he
+collided with a Cossack who had fallen behind, but he galloped on. In
+front of him soldiers, probably Frenchmen, were running from right to
+left across the road. One of them fell in the mud under his horse's
+feet.
+
+Cossacks were crowding about a hut, busy with something. From the midst
+of that crowd terrible screams arose. Pétya galloped up, and the first
+thing he saw was the pale face and trembling jaw of a Frenchman,
+clutching the handle of a lance that had been aimed at him.
+
+"Hurrah!... Lads!... ours!" shouted Pétya, and giving rein to his
+excited horse he galloped forward along the village street.
+
+He could hear shooting ahead of him. Cossacks, hussars, and ragged
+Russian prisoners, who had come running from both sides of the road,
+were shouting something loudly and incoherently. A gallant-looking
+Frenchman, in a blue overcoat, capless, and with a frowning red face,
+had been defending himself against the hussars. When Pétya galloped up
+the Frenchman had already fallen. "Too late again!" flashed through
+Pétya's mind and he galloped on to the place from which the rapid firing
+could be heard. The shots came from the yard of the landowner's house he
+had visited the night before with Dólokhov. The French were making a
+stand there behind a wattle fence in a garden thickly overgrown with
+bushes and were firing at the Cossacks who crowded at the gateway.
+Through the smoke, as he approached the gate, Pétya saw Dólokhov, whose
+face was of a pale-greenish tint, shouting to his men. "Go round! Wait
+for the infantry!" he exclaimed as Pétya rode up to him.
+
+"Wait?... Hurrah-ah-ah!" shouted Pétya, and without pausing a moment
+galloped to the place whence came the sounds of firing and where the
+smoke was thickest.
+
+A volley was heard, and some bullets whistled past, while others plashed
+against something. The Cossacks and Dólokhov galloped after Pétya into
+the gateway of the courtyard. In the dense wavering smoke some of the
+French threw down their arms and ran out of the bushes to meet the
+Cossacks, while others ran down the hill toward the pond. Pétya was
+galloping along the courtyard, but instead of holding the reins he waved
+both his arms about rapidly and strangely, slipping farther and farther
+to one side in his saddle. His horse, having galloped up to a campfire
+that was smoldering in the morning light, stopped suddenly, and Pétya
+fell heavily on to the wet ground. The Cossacks saw that his arms and
+legs jerked rapidly though his head was quite motionless. A bullet had
+pierced his skull.
+
+After speaking to the senior French officer, who came out of the house
+with a white handkerchief tied to his sword and announced that they
+surrendered, Dólokhov dismounted and went up to Pétya, who lay
+motionless with outstretched arms.
+
+"Done for!" he said with a frown, and went to the gate to meet Denisov
+who was riding toward him.
+
+"Killed?" cried Denisov, recognizing from a distance the unmistakably
+lifeless attitude—very familiar to him—in which Pétya's body was lying.
+
+"Done for!" repeated Dólokhov as if the utterance of these words
+afforded him pleasure, and he went quickly up to the prisoners, who were
+surrounded by Cossacks who had hurried up. "We won't take them!" he
+called out to Denisov.
+
+Denisov did not reply; he rode up to Pétya, dismounted, and with
+trembling hands turned toward himself the bloodstained, mud-bespattered
+face which had already gone white.
+
+"I am used to something sweet. Raisins, fine ones... take them all!" he
+recalled Pétya's words. And the Cossacks looked round in surprise at the
+sound, like the yelp of a dog, with which Denisov turned away, walked to
+the wattle fence, and seized hold of it.
+
+Among the Russian prisoners rescued by Denisov and Dólokhov was Pierre
+Bezúkhov.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+During the whole of their march from Moscow no fresh orders had been
+issued by the French authorities concerning the party of prisoners among
+whom was Pierre. On the twenty-second of October that party was no
+longer with the same troops and baggage trains with which it had left
+Moscow. Half the wagons laden with hardtack that had traveled the first
+stages with them had been captured by Cossacks, the other half had gone
+on ahead. Not one of those dismounted cavalrymen who had marched in
+front of the prisoners was left; they had all disappeared. The artillery
+the prisoners had seen in front of them during the first days was now
+replaced by Marshal Junot's enormous baggage train, convoyed by
+Westphalians. Behind the prisoners came a cavalry baggage train.
+
+From Vyazma onwards the French army, which had till then moved in three
+columns, went on as a single group. The symptoms of disorder that Pierre
+had noticed at their first halting place after leaving Moscow had now
+reached the utmost limit.
+
+The road along which they moved was bordered on both sides by dead
+horses; ragged men who had fallen behind from various regiments
+continually changed about, now joining the moving column, now again
+lagging behind it.
+
+Several times during the march false alarms had been given and the
+soldiers of the escort had raised their muskets, fired, and run
+headlong, crushing one another, but had afterwards reassembled and
+abused each other for their causeless panic.
+
+These three groups traveling together—the cavalry stores, the convoy of
+prisoners, and Junot's baggage train—still constituted a separate and
+united whole, though each of the groups was rapidly melting away.
+
+Of the artillery baggage train which had consisted of a hundred and
+twenty wagons, not more than sixty now remained; the rest had been
+captured or left behind. Some of Junot's wagons also had been captured
+or abandoned. Three wagons had been raided and robbed by stragglers from
+Davout's corps. From the talk of the Germans Pierre learned that a
+larger guard had been allotted to that baggage train than to the
+prisoners, and that one of their comrades, a German soldier, had been
+shot by the marshal's own order because a silver spoon belonging to the
+marshal had been found in his possession.
+
+The group of prisoners had melted away most of all. Of the three hundred
+and thirty men who had set out from Moscow fewer than a hundred now
+remained. The prisoners were more burdensome to the escort than even the
+cavalry saddles or Junot's baggage. They understood that the saddles and
+Junot's spoon might be of some use, but that cold and hungry soldiers
+should have to stand and guard equally cold and hungry Russians who
+froze and lagged behind on the road (in which case the order was to
+shoot them) was not merely incomprehensible but revolting. And the
+escort, as if afraid, in the grievous condition they themselves were in,
+of giving way to the pity they felt for the prisoners and so rendering
+their own plight still worse, treated them with particular moroseness
+and severity.
+
+At Dorogobuzh while the soldiers of the convoy, after locking the
+prisoners in a stable, had gone off to pillage their own stores, several
+of the soldier prisoners tunneled under the wall and ran away, but were
+recaptured by the French and shot.
+
+The arrangement adopted when they started, that the officer prisoners
+should be kept separate from the rest, had long since been abandoned.
+All who could walk went together, and after the third stage Pierre had
+rejoined Karataev and the gray-blue bandy-legged dog that had chosen
+Karataev for its master.
+
+On the third day after leaving Moscow Karataev again fell ill with the
+fever he had suffered from in the hospital in Moscow, and as he grew
+gradually weaker Pierre kept away from him. Pierre did not know why, but
+since Karataev had begun to grow weaker it had cost him an effort to go
+near him. When he did so and heard the subdued moaning with which
+Karataev generally lay down at the halting places, and when he smelled
+the odor emanating from him which was now stronger than before, Pierre
+moved farther away and did not think about him.
+
+While imprisoned in the shed Pierre had learned not with his intellect
+but with his whole being, by life itself, that man is created for
+happiness, that happiness is within him, in the satisfaction of simple
+human needs, and that all unhappiness arises not from privation but from
+superfluity. And now during these last three weeks of the march he had
+learned still another new, consolatory truth—that nothing in this world
+is terrible. He had learned that as there is no condition in which man
+can be happy and entirely free, so there is no condition in which he
+need be unhappy and lack freedom. He learned that suffering and freedom
+have their limits and that those limits are very near together; that the
+person in a bed of roses with one crumpled petal suffered as keenly as
+he now, sleeping on the bare damp earth with one side growing chilled
+while the other was warming; and that when he had put on tight dancing
+shoes he had suffered just as he did now when he walked with bare feet
+that were covered with sores—his footgear having long since fallen to
+pieces. He discovered that when he had married his wife—of his own free
+will as it had seemed to him—he had been no more free than now when they
+locked him up at night in a stable. Of all that he himself subsequently
+termed his sufferings, but which at the time he scarcely felt, the worst
+was the state of his bare, raw, and scab-covered feet. (The horseflesh
+was appetizing and nourishing, the saltpeter flavor of the gunpowder
+they used instead of salt was even pleasant; there was no great cold, it
+was always warm walking in the daytime, and at night there were the
+campfires; the lice that devoured him warmed his body.) The one thing
+that was at first hard to bear was his feet.
+
+After the second day's march Pierre, having examined his feet by the
+campfire, thought it would be impossible to walk on them; but when
+everybody got up he went along, limping, and, when he had warmed up,
+walked without feeling the pain, though at night his feet were more
+terrible to look at than before. However, he did not look at them now,
+but thought of other things.
+
+Only now did Pierre realize the full strength of life in man and the
+saving power he has of transferring his attention from one thing to
+another, which is like the safety valve of a boiler that allows
+superfluous steam to blow off when the pressure exceeds a certain limit.
+
+He did not see and did not hear how they shot the prisoners who lagged
+behind, though more than a hundred perished in that way. He did not
+think of Karataev who grew weaker every day and evidently would soon
+have to share that fate. Still less did Pierre think about himself. The
+harder his position became and the more terrible the future, the more
+independent of that position in which he found himself were the joyful
+and comforting thoughts, memories, and imaginings that came to him.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+At midday on the twenty-second of October Pierre was going uphill along
+the muddy, slippery road, looking at his feet and at the roughness of
+the way. Occasionally he glanced at the familiar crowd around him and
+then again at his feet. The former and the latter were alike familiar
+and his own. The blue-gray bandy legged dog ran merrily along the side
+of the road, sometimes in proof of its agility and self-satisfaction
+lifting one hind leg and hopping along on three, and then again going on
+all four and rushing to bark at the crows that sat on the carrion. The
+dog was merrier and sleeker than it had been in Moscow. All around lay
+the flesh of different animals—from men to horses—in various stages of
+decomposition; and as the wolves were kept off by the passing men the
+dog could eat all it wanted.
+
+It had been raining since morning and had seemed as if at any moment it
+might cease and the sky clear, but after a short break it began raining
+harder than before. The saturated road no longer absorbed the water,
+which ran along the ruts in streams.
+
+Pierre walked along, looking from side to side, counting his steps in
+threes, and reckoning them off on his fingers. Mentally addressing the
+rain, he repeated: "Now then, now then, go on! Pelt harder!"
+
+It seemed to him that he was thinking of nothing, but far down and deep
+within him his soul was occupied with something important and
+comforting. This something was a most subtle spiritual deduction from a
+conversation with Karataev the day before.
+
+At their yesterday's halting place, feeling chilly by a dying campfire,
+Pierre had got up and gone to the next one, which was burning better.
+There Platon Karataev was sitting covered up—head and all—with his
+greatcoat as if it were a vestment, telling the soldiers in his
+effective and pleasant though now feeble voice a story Pierre knew. It
+was already past midnight, the hour when Karataev was usually free of
+his fever and particularly lively. When Pierre reached the fire and
+heard Platon's voice enfeebled by illness, and saw his pathetic face
+brightly lit up by the blaze, he felt a painful prick at his heart. His
+feeling of pity for this man frightened him and he wished to go away,
+but there was no other fire, and Pierre sat down, trying not to look at
+Platon.
+
+"Well, how are you?" he asked.
+
+"How am I? If we grumble at sickness, God won't grant us death," replied
+Platon, and at once resumed the story he had begun.
+
+"And so, brother," he continued, with a smile on his pale emaciated face
+and a particularly happy light in his eyes, "you see, brother..."
+
+Pierre had long been familiar with that story. Karataev had told it to
+him alone some half-dozen times and always with a specially joyful
+emotion. But well as he knew it, Pierre now listened to that tale as to
+something new, and the quiet rapture Karataev evidently felt as he told
+it communicated itself also to Pierre. The story was of an old merchant
+who lived a good and God-fearing life with his family, and who went once
+to the Nizhni fair with a companion—a rich merchant.
+
+Having put up at an inn they both went to sleep, and next morning his
+companion was found robbed and with his throat cut. A bloodstained knife
+was found under the old merchant's pillow. He was tried, knouted, and
+his nostrils having been torn off, "all in due form" as Karataev put it,
+he was sent to hard labor in Siberia.
+
+"And so, brother" (it was at this point that Pierre came up), "ten years
+or more passed by. The old man was living as a convict, submitting as he
+should and doing no wrong. Only he prayed to God for death. Well, one
+night the convicts were gathered just as we are, with the old man among
+them. And they began telling what each was suffering for, and how they
+had sinned against God. One told how he had taken a life, another had
+taken two, a third had set a house on fire, while another had simply
+been a vagrant and had done nothing. So they asked the old man: 'What
+are you being punished for, Daddy?'—'I, my dear brothers,' said he, 'am
+being punished for my own and other men's sins. But I have not killed
+anyone or taken anything that was not mine, but have only helped my
+poorer brothers. I was a merchant, my dear brothers, and had much
+property. 'And he went on to tell them all about it in due order. 'I
+don't grieve for myself,' he says, 'God, it seems, has chastened me.
+Only I am sorry for my old wife and the children,' and the old man began
+to weep. Now it happened that in the group was the very man who had
+killed the other merchant. 'Where did it happen, Daddy?' he said. 'When,
+and in what month?' He asked all about it and his heart began to ache.
+So he comes up to the old man like this, and falls down at his feet!
+'You are perishing because of me, Daddy,' he says. 'It's quite true,
+lads, that this man,' he says, 'is being tortured innocently and for
+nothing! I,' he says, 'did that deed, and I put the knife under your
+head while you were asleep. Forgive me, Daddy,' he says, 'for Christ's
+sake!'"
+
+Karataev paused, smiling joyously as he gazed into the fire, and he drew
+the logs together.
+
+"And the old man said, 'God will forgive you, we are all sinners in His
+sight. I suffer for my own sins,' and he wept bitter tears. Well, and
+what do you think, dear friends?" Karataev continued, his face
+brightening more and more with a rapturous smile as if what he now had
+to tell contained the chief charm and the whole meaning of his story:
+"What do you think, dear fellows? That murderer confessed to the
+authorities. 'I have taken six lives,' he says (he was a great sinner),
+'but what I am most sorry for is this old man. Don't let him suffer
+because of me.' So he confessed and it was all written down and the
+papers sent off in due form. The place was a long way off, and while
+they were judging, what with one thing and another, filling in the
+papers all in due form—the authorities I mean—time passed. The affair
+reached the Tsar. After a while the Tsar's decree came: to set the
+merchant free and give him a compensation that had been awarded. The
+paper arrived and they began to look for the old man. 'Where is the old
+man who has been suffering innocently and in vain? A paper has come from
+the Tsar!' so they began looking for him," here Karataev's lower jaw
+trembled, "but God had already forgiven him—he was dead! That's how it
+was, dear fellows!" Karataev concluded and sat for a long time silent,
+gazing before him with a smile.
+
+And Pierre's soul was dimly but joyfully filled not by the story itself
+but by its mysterious significance: by the rapturous joy that lit up
+Karataev's face as he told it, and the mystic significance of that joy.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+"A vos places!" * suddenly cried a voice.
+
+* "To your places."
+
+A pleasant feeling of excitement and an expectation of something joyful
+and solemn was aroused among the soldiers of the convoy and the
+prisoners. From all sides came shouts of command, and from the left came
+smartly dressed cavalrymen on good horses, passing the prisoners at a
+trot. The expression on all faces showed the tension people feel at the
+approach of those in authority. The prisoners thronged together and were
+pushed off the road. The convoy formed up.
+
+"The Emperor! The Emperor! The Marshal! The Duke!" and hardly had the
+sleek cavalry passed, before a carriage drawn by six gray horses rattled
+by. Pierre caught a glimpse of a man in a three-cornered hat with a
+tranquil look on his handsome, plump, white face. It was one of the
+marshals. His eye fell on Pierre's large and striking figure, and in the
+expression with which he frowned and looked away Pierre thought he
+detected sympathy and a desire to conceal that sympathy.
+
+The general in charge of the stores galloped after the carriage with a
+red and frightened face, whipping up his skinny horse. Several officers
+formed a group and some soldiers crowded round them. Their faces all
+looked excited and worried.
+
+"What did he say? What did he say?" Pierre heard them ask.
+
+While the marshal was passing, the prisoners had huddled together in a
+crowd, and Pierre saw Karataev whom he had not yet seen that morning. He
+sat in his short overcoat leaning against a birch tree. On his face,
+besides the look of joyful emotion it had worn yesterday while telling
+the tale of the merchant who suffered innocently, there was now an
+expression of quiet solemnity.
+
+Karataev looked at Pierre with his kindly round eyes now filled with
+tears, evidently wishing him to come near that he might say something to
+him. But Pierre was not sufficiently sure of himself. He made as if he
+did not notice that look and moved hastily away.
+
+When the prisoners again went forward Pierre looked round. Karataev was
+still sitting at the side of the road under the birch tree and two
+Frenchmen were talking over his head. Pierre did not look round again
+but went limping up the hill.
+
+From behind, where Karataev had been sitting, came the sound of a shot.
+Pierre heard it plainly, but at that moment he remembered that he had
+not yet finished reckoning up how many stages still remained to
+Smolensk—a calculation he had begun before the marshal went by. And he
+again started reckoning. Two French soldiers ran past Pierre, one of
+whom carried a lowered and smoking gun. They both looked pale, and in
+the expression on their faces—one of them glanced timidly at
+Pierre—there was something resembling what he had seen on the face of
+the young soldier at the execution. Pierre looked at the soldier and
+remembered that, two days before, that man had burned his shirt while
+drying it at the fire and how they had laughed at him.
+
+Behind him, where Karataev had been sitting, the dog began to howl.
+"What a stupid beast! Why is it howling?" thought Pierre.
+
+His comrades, the prisoner soldiers walking beside him, avoided looking
+back at the place where the shot had been fired and the dog was howling,
+just as Pierre did, but there was a set look on all their faces.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+The stores, the prisoners, and the marshal's baggage train stopped at
+the village of Shamshevo. The men crowded together round the campfires.
+Pierre went up to the fire, ate some roast horseflesh, lay down with his
+back to the fire, and immediately fell asleep. He again slept as he had
+done at Mozhaysk after the battle of Borodino.
+
+Again real events mingled with dreams and again someone, he or another,
+gave expression to his thoughts, and even to the same thoughts that had
+been expressed in his dream at Mozhaysk.
+
+"Life is everything. Life is God. Everything changes and moves and that
+movement is God. And while there is life there is joy in consciousness
+of the divine. To love life is to love God. Harder and more blessed than
+all else is to love this life in one's sufferings, in innocent
+sufferings."
+
+"Karataev!" came to Pierre's mind.
+
+And suddenly he saw vividly before him a long-forgotten, kindly old man
+who had given him geography lessons in Switzerland. "Wait a bit," said
+the old man, and showed Pierre a globe. This globe was alive—a vibrating
+ball without fixed dimensions. Its whole surface consisted of drops
+closely pressed together, and all these drops moved and changed places,
+sometimes several of them merging into one, sometimes one dividing into
+many. Each drop tried to spread out and occupy as much space as
+possible, but others striving to do the same compressed it, sometimes
+destroyed it, and sometimes merged with it.
+
+"That is life," said the old teacher.
+
+"How simple and clear it is," thought Pierre. "How is it I did not know
+it before?"
+
+"God is in the midst, and each drop tries to expand so as to reflect Him
+to the greatest extent. And it grows, merges, disappears from the
+surface, sinks to the depths, and again emerges. There now, Karataev has
+spread out and disappeared. Do you understand, my child?" said the
+teacher.
+
+"Do you understand, damn you?" shouted a voice, and Pierre woke up.
+
+He lifted himself and sat up. A Frenchman who had just pushed a Russian
+soldier away was squatting by the fire, engaged in roasting a piece of
+meat stuck on a ramrod. His sleeves were rolled up and his sinewy,
+hairy, red hands with their short fingers deftly turned the ramrod. His
+brown morose face with frowning brows was clearly visible by the glow of
+the charcoal.
+
+"It's all the same to him," he muttered, turning quickly to a soldier
+who stood behind him. "Brigand! Get away!"
+
+And twisting the ramrod he looked gloomily at Pierre, who turned away
+and gazed into the darkness. A prisoner, the Russian soldier the
+Frenchman had pushed away, was sitting near the fire patting something
+with his hand. Looking more closely Pierre recognized the blue-gray dog,
+sitting beside the soldier, wagging its tail.
+
+"Ah, he's come?" said Pierre. "And Plat-" he began, but did not finish.
+
+Suddenly and simultaneously a crowd of memories awoke in his fancy—of
+the look Platon had given him as he sat under the tree, of the shot
+heard from that spot, of the dog's howl, of the guilty faces of the two
+Frenchmen as they ran past him, of the lowered and smoking gun, and of
+Karataev's absence at this halt—and he was on the point of realizing
+that Karataev had been killed, but just at that instant, he knew not
+why, the recollection came to his mind of a summer evening he had spent
+with a beautiful Polish lady on the veranda of his house in Kiev. And
+without linking up the events of the day or drawing a conclusion from
+them, Pierre closed his eyes, seeing a vision of the country in
+summertime mingled with memories of bathing and of the liquid, vibrating
+globe, and he sank into water so that it closed over his head.
+
+Before sunrise he was awakened by shouts and loud and rapid firing.
+French soldiers were running past him.
+
+"The Cossacks!" one of them shouted, and a moment later a crowd of
+Russians surrounded Pierre.
+
+For a long time he could not understand what was happening to him. All
+around he heard his comrades sobbing with joy.
+
+"Brothers! Dear fellows! Darlings!" old soldiers exclaimed, weeping, as
+they embraced Cossacks and hussars.
+
+The hussars and Cossacks crowded round the prisoners; one offered them
+clothes, another boots, and a third bread. Pierre sobbed as he sat among
+them and could not utter a word. He hugged the first soldier who
+approached him, and kissed him, weeping.
+
+Dólokhov stood at the gate of the ruined house, letting a crowd of
+disarmed Frenchmen pass by. The French, excited by all that had
+happened, were talking loudly among themselves, but as they passed
+Dólokhov who gently switched his boots with his whip and watched them
+with cold glassy eyes that boded no good, they became silent. On the
+opposite side stood Dólokhov's Cossack, counting the prisoners and
+marking off each hundred with a chalk line on the gate.
+
+"How many?" Dólokhov asked the Cossack.
+
+"The second hundred," replied the Cossack.
+
+"Filez, filez!" * Dólokhov kept saying, having adopted this expression
+from the French, and when his eyes met those of the prisoners they
+flashed with a cruel light.
+
+* "Get along, get along!"
+
+Denisov, bareheaded and with a gloomy face, walked behind some Cossacks
+who were carrying the body of Pétya Rostóv to a hole that had been dug
+in the garden.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+After the twenty-eighth of October when the frosts began, the flight of
+the French assumed a still more tragic character, with men freezing, or
+roasting themselves to death at the campfires, while carriages with
+people dressed in furs continued to drive past, carrying away the
+property that had been stolen by the Emperor, kings, and dukes; but the
+process of the flight and disintegration of the French army went on
+essentially as before.
+
+From Moscow to Vyazma the French army of seventy-three thousand men not
+reckoning the Guards (who did nothing during the whole war but pillage)
+was reduced to thirty-six thousand, though not more than five thousand
+had fallen in battle. From this beginning the succeeding terms of the
+progression could be determined mathematically. The French army melted
+away and perished at the same rate from Moscow to Vyazma, from Vyazma to
+Smolensk, from Smolensk to the Berezina, and from the Berezina to
+Vilna—independently of the greater or lesser intensity of the cold, the
+pursuit, the barring of the way, or any other particular conditions.
+Beyond Vyazma the French army instead of moving in three columns huddled
+together into one mass, and so went on to the end. Berthier wrote to his
+Emperor (we know how far commanding officers allow themselves to diverge
+from the truth in describing the condition of an army) and this is what
+he said:
+
+I deem it my duty to report to Your Majesty the condition of the various
+corps I have had occasion to observe during different stages of the last
+two or three days' march. They are almost disbanded. Scarcely a quarter
+of the soldiers remain with the standards of their regiments, the others
+go off by themselves in different directions hoping to find food and
+escape discipline. In general they regard Smolensk as the place where
+they hope to recover. During the last few days many of the men have been
+seen to throw away their cartridges and their arms. In such a state of
+affairs, whatever your ultimate plans may be, the interest of Your
+Majesty's service demands that the army should be rallied at Smolensk
+and should first of all be freed from ineffectives, such as dismounted
+cavalry, unnecessary baggage, and artillery material that is no longer
+in proportion to the present forces. The soldiers, who are worn out with
+hunger and fatigue, need these supplies as well as a few days' rest.
+Many have died these last days on the road or at the bivouacs. This
+state of things is continually becoming worse and makes one fear that
+unless a prompt remedy is applied the troops will no longer be under
+control in case of an engagement.
+
+November 9: twenty miles from Smolensk.
+
+After staggering into Smolensk which seemed to them a promised land, the
+French, searching for food, killed one another, sacked their own stores,
+and when everything had been plundered fled farther.
+
+They all went without knowing whither or why they were going. Still less
+did that genius, Napoleon, know it, for no one issued any orders to him.
+But still he and those about him retained their old habits: wrote
+commands, letters, reports, and orders of the day; called one another
+sire, mon cousin, prince d'Eckmuhl, roi de Naples, and so on. But these
+orders and reports were only on paper, nothing in them was acted upon
+for they could not be carried out, and though they entitled one another
+Majesties, Highnesses, or Cousins, they all felt that they were
+miserable wretches who had done much evil for which they had now to pay.
+And though they pretended to be concerned about the army, each was
+thinking only of himself and of how to get away quickly and save
+himself.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+The movements of the Russian and French armies during the campaign from
+Moscow back to the Niemen were like those in a game of Russian
+blindman's bluff, in which two players are blindfolded and one of them
+occasionally rings a little bell to inform the catcher of his
+whereabouts. First he rings his bell fearlessly, but when he gets into a
+tight place he runs away as quietly as he can, and often thinking to
+escape runs straight into his opponent's arms.
+
+At first while they were still moving along the Kaluga road, Napoleon's
+armies made their presence known, but later when they reached the
+Smolensk road they ran holding the clapper of their bell tight—and often
+thinking they were escaping ran right into the Russians.
+
+Owing to the rapidity of the French flight and the Russian pursuit and
+the consequent exhaustion of the horses, the chief means of
+approximately ascertaining the enemy's position—by cavalry scouting—was
+not available. Besides, as a result of the frequent and rapid change of
+position by each army, even what information was obtained could not be
+delivered in time. If news was received one day that the enemy had been
+in a certain position the day before, by the third day when something
+could have been done, that army was already two days' march farther on
+and in quite another position.
+
+One army fled and the other pursued. Beyond Smolensk there were several
+different roads available for the French, and one would have thought
+that during their stay of four days they might have learned where the
+enemy was, might have arranged some more advantageous plan and
+undertaken something new. But after a four days' halt the mob, with no
+maneuvers or plans, again began running along the beaten track, neither
+to the right nor to the left but along the old—the worst—road, through
+Krasnoe and Orsha.
+
+Expecting the enemy from behind and not in front, the French separated
+in their flight and spread out over a distance of twenty-four hours. In
+front of them all fled the Emperor, then the kings, then the dukes. The
+Russian army, expecting Napoleon to take the road to the right beyond
+the Dnieper—which was the only reasonable thing for him to do—themselves
+turned to the right and came out onto the highroad at Krasnoe. And here
+as in a game of blindman's buff the French ran into our vanguard. Seeing
+their enemy unexpectedly the French fell into confusion and stopped
+short from the sudden fright, but then they resumed their flight,
+abandoning their comrades who were farther behind. Then for three days
+separate portions of the French army—first Murat's (the vice-king's),
+then Davout's, and then Ney's—ran, as it were, the gauntlet of the
+Russian army. They abandoned one another, abandoned all their heavy
+baggage, their artillery, and half their men, and fled, getting past the
+Russians by night by making semicircles to the right.
+
+Ney, who came last, had been busying himself blowing up the walls of
+Smolensk which were in nobody's way, because despite the unfortunate
+plight of the French or because of it, they wished to punish the floor
+against which they had hurt themselves. Ney, who had had a corps of ten
+thousand men, reached Napoleon at Orsha with only one thousand men left,
+having abandoned all the rest and all his cannon, and having crossed the
+Dnieper at night by stealth at a wooded spot.
+
+From Orsha they fled farther along the road to Vilna, still playing at
+blindman's buff with the pursuing army. At the Berezina they again
+became disorganized, many were drowned and many surrendered, but those
+who got across the river fled farther. Their supreme chief donned a fur
+coat and, having seated himself in a sleigh, galloped on alone,
+abandoning his companions. The others who could do so drove away too,
+leaving those who could not to surrender or die.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+This campaign consisted in a flight of the French during which they did
+all they could to destroy themselves. From the time they turned onto the
+Kaluga road to the day their leader fled from the army, none of the
+movements of the crowd had any sense. So one might have thought that
+regarding this period of the campaign the historians, who attributed the
+actions of the mass to the will of one man, would have found it
+impossible to make the story of the retreat fit their theory. But no!
+Mountains of books have been written by the historians about this
+campaign, and everywhere are described Napoleon's arrangements, the
+maneuvers, and his profound plans which guided the army, as well as the
+military genius shown by his marshals.
+
+The retreat from Malo-Yaroslavets when he had a free road into a well-
+supplied district and the parallel road was open to him along which
+Kutúzov afterwards pursued him—this unnecessary retreat along a
+devastated road—is explained to us as being due to profound
+considerations. Similarly profound considerations are given for his
+retreat from Smolensk to Orsha. Then his heroism at Krasnoe is
+described, where he is reported to have been prepared to accept battle
+and take personal command, and to have walked about with a birch stick
+and said:
+
+"J'ai assez fait l'empereur; il est temps de faire le general," * but
+nevertheless immediately ran away again, abandoning to its fate the
+scattered fragments of the army he left behind.
+
+* "I have acted the Emperor long enough; it is time to act the general."
+
+Then we are told of the greatness of soul of the marshals, especially of
+Ney—a greatness of soul consisting in this: that he made his way by
+night around through the forest and across the Dnieper and escaped to
+Orsha, abandoning standards, artillery, and nine tenths of his men.
+
+And lastly, the final departure of the great Emperor from his heroic
+army is presented to us by the historians as something great and
+characteristic of genius. Even that final running away, described in
+ordinary language as the lowest depth of baseness which every child is
+taught to be ashamed of—even that act finds justification in the
+historians' language.
+
+When it is impossible to stretch the very elastic threads of historical
+ratiocination any farther, when actions are clearly contrary to all that
+humanity calls right or even just, the historians produce a saving
+conception of "greatness." "Greatness," it seems, excludes the standards
+of right and wrong. For the "great" man nothing is wrong, there is no
+atrocity for which a "great" man can be blamed.
+
+"C'est grand!" * say the historians, and there no longer exists either
+good or evil but only "grand" and "not grand." Grand is good, not grand
+is bad. Grand is the characteristic, in their conception, of some
+special animals called "heroes." And Napoleon, escaping home in a warm
+fur coat and leaving to perish those who were not merely his comrades
+but were (in his opinion) men he had brought there, feels que c'est
+grand, *(2) and his soul is tranquil.
+
+* "It is great."
+
+* (2) That it is great.
+
+"Du sublime (he saw something sublime in himself) au ridicule il n'y a
+qu'un pas," * said he. And the whole world for fifty years has been
+repeating: "Sublime! Grand! Napoleon le Grand!" Du sublime au ridicule
+il n'y a qu'un pas.
+
+* "From the sublime to the ridiculous is but a step."
+
+And it occurs to no one that to admit a greatness not commensurable with
+the standard of right and wrong is merely to admit one's own nothingness
+and immeasurable meanness.
+
+For us with the standard of good and evil given us by Christ, no human
+actions are incommensurable. And there is no greatness where simplicity,
+goodness, and truth are absent.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+What Russian, reading the account of the last part of the campaign of
+1812, has not experienced an uncomfortable feeling of regret,
+dissatisfaction, and perplexity? Who has not asked himself how it is
+that the French were not all captured or destroyed when our three armies
+surrounded them in superior numbers, when the disordered French, hungry
+and freezing, surrendered in crowds, and when (as the historians relate)
+the aim of the Russians was to stop the French, to cut them off, and
+capture them all?
+
+How was it that the Russian army, which when numerically weaker than the
+French had given battle at Borodino, did not achieve its purpose when it
+had surrounded the French on three sides and when its aim was to capture
+them? Can the French be so enormously superior to us that when we had
+surrounded them with superior forces we could not beat them? How could
+that happen?
+
+History (or what is called by that name) replying to these questions
+says that this occurred because Kutúzov and Tormasov and Chichagov, and
+this man and that man, did not execute such and such maneuvers...
+
+But why did they not execute those maneuvers? And why if they were
+guilty of not carrying out a prearranged plan were they not tried and
+punished? But even if we admitted that Kutúzov, Chichagov, and others
+were the cause of the Russian failures, it is still incomprehensible
+why, the position of the Russian army being what it was at Krasnoe and
+at the Berezina (in both cases we had superior forces), the French army
+with its marshals, kings, and Emperor was not captured, if that was what
+the Russians aimed at.
+
+The explanation of this strange fact given by Russian military
+historians (to the effect that Kutúzov hindered an attack) is unfounded,
+for we know that he could not restrain the troops from attacking at
+Vyazma and Tarutino.
+
+Why was the Russian army—which with inferior forces had withstood the
+enemy in full strength at Borodino—defeated at Krasnoe and the Berezina
+by the disorganized crowds of the French when it was numerically
+superior?
+
+If the aim of the Russians consisted in cutting off and capturing
+Napoleon and his marshals—and that aim was not merely frustrated but all
+attempts to attain it were most shamefully baffled—then this last period
+of the campaign is quite rightly considered by the French to be a series
+of victories, and quite wrongly considered victorious by Russian
+historians.
+
+The Russian military historians in so far as they submit to claims of
+logic must admit that conclusion, and in spite of their lyrical
+rhapsodies about valor, devotion, and so forth, must reluctantly admit
+that the French retreat from Moscow was a series of victories for
+Napoleon and defeats for Kutúzov.
+
+But putting national vanity entirely aside one feels that such a
+conclusion involves a contradiction, since the series of French
+victories brought the French complete destruction, while the series of
+Russian defeats led to the total destruction of their enemy and the
+liberation of their country.
+
+The source of this contradiction lies in the fact that the historians
+studying the events from the letters of the sovereigns and the generals,
+from memoirs, reports, projects, and so forth, have attributed to this
+last period of the war of 1812 an aim that never existed, namely that of
+cutting off and capturing Napoleon with his marshals and his army.
+
+There never was or could have been such an aim, for it would have been
+senseless and its attainment quite impossible.
+
+It would have been senseless, first because Napoleon's disorganized army
+was flying from Russia with all possible speed, that is to say, was
+doing just what every Russian desired. So what was the use of performing
+various operations on the French who were running away as fast as they
+possibly could?
+
+Secondly, it would have been senseless to block the passage of men whose
+whole energy was directed to flight.
+
+Thirdly, it would have been senseless to sacrifice one's own troops in
+order to destroy the French army, which without external interference
+was destroying itself at such a rate that, though its path was not
+blocked, it could not carry across the frontier more than it actually
+did in December, namely a hundredth part of the original army.
+
+Fourthly, it would have been senseless to wish to take captive the
+Emperor, kings, and dukes—whose capture would have been in the highest
+degree embarrassing for the Russians, as the most adroit diplomatists of
+the time (Joseph de Maistre and others) recognized. Still more senseless
+would have been the wish to capture army corps of the French, when our
+own army had melted away to half before reaching Krasnoe and a whole
+division would have been needed to convoy the corps of prisoners, and
+when our men were not always getting full rations and the prisoners
+already taken were perishing of hunger.
+
+All the profound plans about cutting off and capturing Napoleon and his
+army were like the plan of a market gardener who, when driving out of
+his garden a cow that had trampled down the beds he had planted, should
+run to the gate and hit the cow on the head. The only thing to be said
+in excuse of that gardener would be that he was very angry. But not even
+that could be said for those who drew up this project, for it was not
+they who had suffered from the trampled beds.
+
+But besides the fact that cutting off Napoleon with his army would have
+been senseless, it was impossible.
+
+It was impossible first because—as experience shows that a three-mile
+movement of columns on a battlefield never coincides with the plans—the
+probability of Chichagov, Kutúzov, and Wittgenstein effecting a junction
+on time at an appointed place was so remote as to be tantamount to
+impossibility, as in fact thought Kutúzov, who when he received the plan
+remarked that diversions planned over great distances do not yield the
+desired results.
+
+Secondly it was impossible, because to paralyze the momentum with which
+Napoleon's army was retiring, incomparably greater forces than the
+Russians possessed would have been required.
+
+Thirdly it was impossible, because the military term "to cut off" has no
+meaning. One can cut off a slice of bread, but not an army. To cut off
+an army—to bar its road—is quite impossible, for there is always plenty
+of room to avoid capture and there is the night when nothing can be
+seen, as the military scientists might convince themselves by the
+example of Krasnoe and of the Berezina. It is only possible to capture
+prisoners if they agree to be captured, just as it is only possible to
+catch a swallow if it settles on one's hand. Men can only be taken
+prisoners if they surrender according to the rules of strategy and
+tactics, as the Germans did. But the French troops quite rightly did not
+consider that this suited them, since death by hunger and cold awaited
+them in flight or captivity alike.
+
+Fourthly and chiefly it was impossible, because never since the world
+began has a war been fought under such conditions as those that obtained
+in 1812, and the Russian army in its pursuit of the French strained its
+strength to the utmost and could not have done more without destroying
+itself.
+
+During the movement of the Russian army from Tarutino to Krasnoe it lost
+fifty thousand sick or stragglers, that is a number equal to the
+population of a large provincial town. Half the men fell out of the army
+without a battle.
+
+And it is of this period of the campaign—when the army lacked boots and
+sheepskin coats, was short of provisions and without vodka, and was
+camping out at night for months in the snow with fifteen degrees of
+frost, when there were only seven or eight hours of daylight and the
+rest was night in which the influence of discipline cannot be
+maintained, when men were taken into that region of death where
+discipline fails, not for a few hours only as in a battle, but for
+months, where they were every moment fighting death from hunger and
+cold, when half the army perished in a single month—it is of this period
+of the campaign that the historians tell us how Miloradovich should have
+made a flank march to such and such a place, Tormasov to another place,
+and Chichagov should have crossed (more than knee-deep in snow) to
+somewhere else, and how so-and-so "routed" and "cut off" the French and
+so on and so on.
+
+The Russians, half of whom died, did all that could and should have been
+done to attain an end worthy of the nation, and they are not to blame
+because other Russians, sitting in warm rooms, proposed that they should
+do what was impossible.
+
+All that strange contradiction now difficult to understand between the
+facts and the historical accounts only arises because the historians
+dealing with the matter have written the history of the beautiful words
+and sentiments of various generals, and not the history of the events.
+
+To them the words of Miloradovich seem very interesting, and so do their
+surmises and the rewards this or that general received; but the question
+of those fifty thousand men who were left in hospitals and in graves
+does not even interest them, for it does not come within the range of
+their investigation.
+
+Yet one need only discard the study of the reports and general plans and
+consider the movement of those hundreds of thousands of men who took a
+direct part in the events, and all the questions that seemed insoluble
+easily and simply receive an immediate and certain solution.
+
+The aim of cutting off Napoleon and his army never existed except in the
+imaginations of a dozen people. It could not exist because it was
+senseless and unattainable.
+
+The people had a single aim: to free their land from invasion. That aim
+was attained in the first place of itself, as the French ran away, and
+so it was only necessary not to stop their flight. Secondly it was
+attained by the guerrilla warfare which was destroying the French, and
+thirdly by the fact that a large Russian army was following the French,
+ready to use its strength in case their movement stopped.
+
+The Russian army had to act like a whip to a running animal. And the
+experienced driver knew it was better to hold the whip raised as a
+menace than to strike the running animal on the head.
+
+
+
+
+
+BOOK FIFTEEN: 1812 - 13
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+When seeing a dying animal a man feels a sense of horror: substance
+similar to his own is perishing before his eyes. But when it is a
+beloved and intimate human being that is dying, besides this horror at
+the extinction of life there is a severance, a spiritual wound, which
+like a physical wound is sometimes fatal and sometimes heals, but always
+aches and shrinks at any external irritating touch.
+
+After Prince Andrew's death Natásha and Princess Mary alike felt this.
+Drooping in spirit and closing their eyes before the menacing cloud of
+death that overhung them, they dared not look life in the face. They
+carefully guarded their open wounds from any rough and painful contact.
+Everything: a carriage passing rapidly in the street, a summons to
+dinner, the maid's inquiry what dress to prepare, or worse still any
+word of insincere or feeble sympathy, seemed an insult, painfully
+irritated the wound, interrupting that necessary quiet in which they
+both tried to listen to the stern and dreadful choir that still
+resounded in their imagination, and hindered their gazing into those
+mysterious limitless vistas that for an instant had opened out before
+them.
+
+Only when alone together were they free from such outrage and pain. They
+spoke little even to one another, and when they did it was of very
+unimportant matters.
+
+Both avoided any allusion to the future. To admit the possibility of a
+future seemed to them to insult his memory. Still more carefully did
+they avoid anything relating to him who was dead. It seemed to them that
+what they had lived through and experienced could not be expressed in
+words, and that any reference to the details of his life infringed the
+majesty and sacredness of the mystery that had been accomplished before
+their eyes.
+
+Continued abstention from speech, and constant avoidance of everything
+that might lead up to the subject—this halting on all sides at the
+boundary of what they might not mention—brought before their minds with
+still greater purity and clearness what they were both feeling.
+
+But pure and complete sorrow is as impossible as pure and complete joy.
+Princess Mary, in her position as absolute and independent arbiter of
+her own fate and guardian and instructor of her nephew, was the first to
+be called back to life from that realm of sorrow in which she had dwelt
+for the first fortnight. She received letters from her relations to
+which she had to reply; the room in which little Nicholas had been put
+was damp and he began to cough; 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
+Natásha 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.
+
+Natásha remained alone and, from the time Princess Mary began making
+preparations for departure, held aloof from her too.
+
+Princess Mary asked the countess to let Natásha go with her to Moscow,
+and both parents gladly accepted this offer, for they saw their daughter
+losing strength every day and thought that a change of scene and the
+advice of Moscow doctors would be good for her.
+
+"I am not going anywhere," Natásha replied when this was proposed to
+her. "Do please just leave me alone!" And she ran out of the room, with
+difficulty refraining from tears of vexation and irritation rather than
+of sorrow.
+
+After she felt herself deserted by Princes Mary and alone in her grief,
+Natásha spent most of the time in her room by herself, sitting huddled
+up feet and all in the corner of the sofa, tearing and twisting
+something with her slender nervous fingers and gazing intently and
+fixedly at whatever her eyes chanced to fall on. This solitude exhausted
+and tormented her but she was in absolute need of it. As soon as anyone
+entered she got up quickly, changed her position and expression, and
+picked up a book or some sewing, evidently waiting impatiently for the
+intruder to go.
+
+She felt all the time as if she might at any moment penetrate that on
+which—with a terrible questioning too great for her strength—her
+spiritual gaze was fixed.
+
+One day toward the end of December Natásha, pale and thin, dressed in a
+black woolen gown, her plaited hair negligently twisted into a knot, was
+crouched feet and all in the corner of her sofa, nervously crumpling and
+smoothing out the end of her sash while she looked at a corner of the
+door.
+
+She was gazing in the direction in which he had gone—to the other side
+of life. And that other side of life, of which she had never before
+thought and which had formerly seemed to her so far away and improbable,
+was now nearer and more akin and more comprehensible than this side of
+life, where everything was either emptiness and desolation or suffering
+and indignity.
+
+She was gazing where she knew him to be; but she could not imagine him
+otherwise than as he had been here. She now saw him again as he had been
+at 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. Natásha knows that he is struggling with
+terrible pain. "What is that pain like? Why does he have that pain? What
+does he feel? How does it hurt him?" thought Natásha. He noticed her
+watching him, raised his eyes, and began to speak seriously:
+
+"One thing would be terrible," said he: "to bind oneself forever to a
+suffering man. It would be continual torture." And he looked searchingly
+at her. Natásha as usual answered before she had time to think what she
+would say. She said: "This can't go on—it won't. You will get well—quite
+well."
+
+She now saw him from the commencement of that scene and relived what she
+had then felt. She recalled his long sad and severe look at those words
+and understood the meaning of the rebuke and despair in that protracted
+gaze.
+
+"I agreed," Natásha now said to herself, "that it would be dreadful if
+he always continued to suffer. I said it then only because it would have
+been dreadful for him, but he understood it differently. He thought it
+would be dreadful for me. He then still wished to live and feared death.
+And I said it so awkwardly and stupidly! I did not say what I meant. I
+thought quite differently. Had I said what I thought, I should have
+said: even if he had to go on dying, to die continually before my eyes,
+I should have been happy compared with what I am now. Now there is
+nothing... nobody. Did he know that? No, he did not and never will know
+it. And now it will never, never be possible to put it right." And now
+he again seemed to be saying the same words to her, only in her
+imagination Natásha this time gave him a different answer. She stopped
+him and said: "Terrible for you, but not for me! You know that for me
+there is nothing in life but you, and to suffer with you is the greatest
+happiness for me," and he took her hand and pressed it as he had pressed
+it that terrible evening four days before his death. And in her
+imagination she said other tender and loving words which she might have
+said then but only spoke now: "I love thee!... thee! I love, love..."
+she said, convulsively pressing her hands and setting her teeth with a
+desperate effort...
+
+She was overcome by sweet sorrow and tears were already rising in her
+eyes; then she suddenly asked herself to whom she was saying this. Again
+everything was shrouded in hard, dry perplexity, and again with a
+strained frown she peered toward the world where he was. And now, now it
+seemed to her she was penetrating the mystery.... But at the instant
+when it seemed that the incomprehensible was revealing itself to her a
+loud rattle of the door handle struck painfully on her ears. 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 Natásha was feeling a
+special estrangement from the members of her own family. All of them—her
+father, mother, and Sónya—were so near to her, so familiar, so
+commonplace, that all their words and feelings seemed an insult to the
+world in which she had been living of late, and she felt not merely
+indifferent to them but regarded them with hostility. She heard
+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 Natásha.
+
+As she entered the ballroom her father was hurriedly coming out of her
+mother's room. His face was puckered up and wet with tears. He had
+evidently run out of that room to give vent to the sobs that were
+choking him. When he saw Natásha he waved his arms despairingly and
+burst into convulsively painful sobs that distorted his soft round face.
+
+"Pe... Pétya... Go, go, she... is calling..." and weeping like a child
+and quickly shuffling on his feeble legs to a chair, he almost fell into
+it, covering his face with his hands.
+
+Suddenly an electric shock seemed to run through Natásha's whole being.
+Terrible anguish struck her heart, she felt a dreadful ache as if
+something was being torn inside her and she were dying. But the pain was
+immediately followed by a feeling of release from the oppressive
+constraint that had prevented her taking part in life. The sight of her
+father, the terribly wild cries of her mother that she heard through the
+door, made her immediately forget herself and her own grief.
+
+She ran to her father, but he feebly waved his arm, pointing to her
+mother's door. Princess Mary, pale and with quivering chin, came out
+from that room and taking Natásha by the arm said something to her.
+Natásha neither saw nor heard her. She went in with rapid steps, pausing
+at the door for an instant as if struggling with herself, and then ran
+to her mother.
+
+The countess was lying in an armchair in a strange and awkward position,
+stretching out and beating her head against the wall. Sónya and the
+maids were holding her arms.
+
+"Natásha! Natásha!..." cried the countess. "It's not true... it's not
+true... He's lying... Natásha!" she shrieked, pushing those around her
+away. "Go away, all of you; it's not true! Killed!... ha, ha, ha!...
+It's not true!"
+
+Natásha put one knee on the armchair, stooped over her mother, embraced
+her, and with unexpected strength raised her, turned her face toward
+herself, and clung to her.
+
+"Mummy!... darling!... I am here, my dearest Mummy," she kept on
+whispering, not pausing an instant.
+
+She did not let go of her mother but struggled tenderly with her,
+demanded a pillow and hot water, and unfastened and tore open her
+mother's dress.
+
+"My dearest darling... Mummy, my precious!..." she whispered
+incessantly, kissing her head, her hands, her face, and feeling her own
+irrepressible and streaming tears tickling her nose and cheeks.
+
+The countess pressed her daughter's hand, closed her eyes, and became
+quiet for a moment. Suddenly she sat up with unaccustomed swiftness,
+glanced vacantly around her, and seeing Natásha began to press her
+daughter's head with all her strength. Then she turned toward her
+daughter's face which was wincing with pain and gazed long at it.
+
+"Natásha, you love me?" she said in a soft trustful whisper. "Natásha,
+you would not deceive me? You'll tell me the whole truth?"
+
+Natásha looked at her with eyes full of tears and in her look there was
+nothing but love and an entreaty for forgiveness.
+
+"My darling Mummy!" she repeated, straining all the power of her love to
+find some way of taking on herself the excess of grief that crushed her
+mother.
+
+And again in a futile struggle with reality her mother, refusing to
+believe that she could live when her beloved boy was killed in the bloom
+of life, escaped from reality into a world of delirium.
+
+Natásha did not remember how that day passed nor that night, nor the
+next day and night. She did not sleep and did not leave her mother. Her
+persevering and patient love seemed completely to surround the countess
+every moment, not explaining or consoling, but recalling her to life.
+
+During the third night the countess kept very quiet for a few minutes,
+and Natásha rested her head on the arm of her chair and closed her eyes,
+but opened them again on hearing the bedstead creak. The countess was
+sitting up in bed and speaking softly.
+
+"How glad I am you have come. You are tired. Won't you have some tea?"
+Natásha went up to her. "You have improved in looks and grown more
+manly," continued the countess, taking her daughter's hand.
+
+"Mamma! What are you saying..."
+
+"Natásha, he is no more, no more!"
+
+And embracing her daughter, the countess began to weep for the first
+time.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+Princess Mary postponed her departure. Sónya and the count tried to
+replace Natásha but could not. They saw that she alone was able to
+restrain her mother from unreasoning despair. For three weeks Natásha
+remained constantly at her mother's side, sleeping on a lounge chair in
+her room, making her eat and drink, and talking to her incessantly
+because the mere sound of her tender, caressing tones soothed her
+mother.
+
+The mother's wounded spirit could not heal. Pétya's death had torn from
+her half her life. When the news of Pétya's death had come she had been
+a fresh and vigorous woman of fifty, but a month later she left her room
+a listless old woman taking no interest in life. But the same blow that
+almost killed the countess, this second blow, restored Natásha to life.
+
+A spiritual wound produced by a rending of the spiritual body is like a
+physical wound and, strange as it may seem, just as a deep wound may
+heal and its edges join, physical and spiritual wounds alike can yet
+heal completely only as the result of a vital force from within.
+
+Natásha's wound healed in that way. She thought her life was ended, but
+her love for her mother unexpectedly showed her that the essence of
+life—love—was still active within her. Love awoke and so did life.
+
+Prince Andrew's last days had bound Princess Mary and Natásha together;
+this new sorrow brought them still closer to one another. Princess Mary
+put off her departure, and for three weeks looked after Natásha as if
+she had been a sick child. The last weeks passed in her mother's bedroom
+had strained Natásha's physical strength.
+
+One afternoon noticing Natásha shivering with fever, Princess Mary took
+her to her own room and made her lie down on the bed. Natásha lay down,
+but when Princess Mary had drawn the blinds and was going away she
+called her back.
+
+"I don't want to sleep, Mary, sit by me a little."
+
+"You are tired—try to sleep."
+
+"No, no. Why did you bring me away? She will be asking for me."
+
+"She is much better. She spoke so well today," said Princess Mary.
+
+Natásha lay on the bed and in the semidarkness of the room scanned
+Princess Mary's face.
+
+"Is she like him?" thought Natásha. "Yes, like and yet not like. But she
+is quite original, strange, new, and unknown. And she loves me. What is
+in her heart? All that is good. But how? What is her mind like? What
+does she think about me? Yes, she is splendid!"
+
+"Mary," she said timidly, drawing Princess Mary's hand to herself,
+"Mary, you mustn't think me wicked. No? Mary darling, how I love you!
+Let us be quite, quite friends."
+
+And Natásha, embracing her, began kissing her face and hands, making
+Princess Mary feel shy but happy by this demonstration of her feelings.
+
+From that day a tender and passionate friendship such as exists only
+between women was established between Princess Mary and Natásha. They
+were continually kissing and saying tender things to one another and
+spent most of their time together. When one went out the other became
+restless and hastened to rejoin her. Together they felt more in harmony
+with one another than either of them felt with herself when alone. A
+feeling stronger than friendship sprang up between them; an exclusive
+feeling of life being possible only in each other's presence.
+
+Sometimes they were silent for hours; sometimes after they were already
+in bed they would begin talking and go on till morning. They spoke most
+of what was long past. Princess Mary spoke of her childhood, of her
+mother, her father, and her daydreams; and Natásha, who with a passive
+lack of understanding had formerly turned away from that life of
+devotion, submission, and the poetry of Christian self-sacrifice, now
+feeling herself bound to Princess Mary by affection, learned to love her
+past too and to understand a side of life previously incomprehensible to
+her. She did not think of applying submission and self-abnegation to her
+own life, for she was accustomed to seek other joys, but she understood
+and loved in another those previously incomprehensible virtues. For
+Princess Mary, listening to Natásha's tales of childhood and early
+youth, there also opened out a new and hitherto uncomprehended side of
+life: belief in life and its enjoyment.
+
+Just as before, they never mentioned him so as not to lower (as they
+thought) their exalted feelings by words; but this silence about him had
+the effect of making them gradually begin to forget him without being
+conscious of it.
+
+Natásha had grown thin and pale and physically so weak that they all
+talked about her health, and this pleased her. But sometimes she was
+suddenly overcome by fear not only of death but of sickness, weakness,
+and loss of good looks, and involuntarily she examined her bare arm
+carefully, surprised at its thinness, and in the morning noticed her
+drawn and, as it seemed to her, piteous face in her glass. It seemed to
+her that things must be so, and yet it was dreadfully sad.
+
+One day she went quickly upstairs and found herself out of breath.
+Unconsciously she immediately invented a reason for going down, and
+then, testing her strength, ran upstairs again, observing the result.
+
+Another time when she called 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, and listened attentively to
+herself.
+
+She did not know and would not have believed it, but beneath the layer
+of slime that covered her soul and seemed to her impenetrable, delicate
+young shoots of grass were already sprouting, which taking root would so
+cover with their living verdure the grief that weighed her down that it
+would soon no longer be seen or noticed. The wound had begun to heal
+from within.
+
+At the end of January Princess Mary left for Moscow, and the count
+insisted on Natásha's going with her to consult the doctors.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+After the encounter at Vyazma, where Kutúzov had been unable to hold
+back his troops in their anxiety to overwhelm and cut off the enemy and
+so on, the farther movement of the fleeing French, and of the Russians
+who pursued them, continued as far as 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.
+
+Kutúzov as far as was in his power, instead of trying to check the
+movement of the French as was desired in Petersburg and by the Russian
+army generals, directed his whole activity here, as he had done at
+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 Kutúzov.
+The aim of the Russian army was to pursue the French. The road the
+French would take was unknown, and so the closer our troops trod on
+their heels the greater distance they had to cover. Only by following at
+some distance could one cut across the zigzag path of the French. All
+the artful maneuvers suggested by our generals meant fresh movements of
+the army and a lengthening of its marches, whereas the only reasonable
+aim was to shorten those marches. To that end Kutúzov's activity was
+directed during the whole campaign from Moscow to Vilna—not casually or
+intermittently but so consistently that he never once deviated from it.
+
+Kutúzov felt and knew—not by reasoning or science but with the whole of
+his Russian being—what every Russian soldier felt: that the French were
+beaten, that the enemy was flying and must be driven out; but at the
+same time he like the soldiers realized all the hardship of this march,
+the rapidity of which was unparalleled for such a time of the year.
+
+But to the generals, especially the foreign ones in the Russian army,
+who wished to distinguish themselves, to astonish somebody, and for some
+reason to capture a king or a duke—it seemed that now—when any battle
+must be horrible and senseless—was the very time to fight and conquer
+somebody. Kutúzov merely shrugged his shoulders when one after another
+they presented projects of maneuvers to be made with those soldiers—ill-
+shod, insufficiently clad, and half starved—who within a month and
+without fighting a battle had dwindled to half their number, and who at
+the best if the flight continued would have to go a greater distance
+than they had already traversed, before they reached the frontier.
+
+This longing to distinguish themselves, to maneuver, to overthrow, and
+to cut off showed itself particularly whenever the Russians stumbled on
+the French army.
+
+So it was at Krasnoe, where they expected to find one of the three
+French columns and stumbled instead on Napoleon himself with sixteen
+thousand men. Despite all Kutúzov's efforts to avoid that ruinous
+encounter and to preserve his troops, the massacre of the broken mob of
+French soldiers by worn-out Russians continued at 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 Kutúzov
+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 Kutúzov and said that from the very beginning of the
+campaign he had prevented their vanquishing Napoleon, that he thought of
+nothing but satisfying his passions and would not advance from the Linen
+Factories because he was comfortable there, that at 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 contemporaries, carried away by their passions, talk in
+this way, but posterity and history have acclaimed Napoleon as grand,
+while Kutúzov is described by foreigners as a crafty, dissolute, weak
+old courtier, and by Russians as something indefinite—a sort of puppet
+useful only because he had a Russian name.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+In 1812 and 1813 Kutúzov was openly accused of blundering. The Emperor
+was dissatisfied with him. And in a history recently written by order of
+the Highest Authorities it is said that Kutúzov was a cunning court
+liar, frightened of the name of Napoleon, and that by his blunders at
+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 Kutúzov 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 Kutúzov—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 consciousness of the future importance of what was
+happening—Kutúzov seems to them something indefinite and pitiful, and
+when speaking of him and of the year 1812 they always seem a little
+ashamed.
+
+And yet it is difficult to imagine an historical character whose
+activity was so unswervingly directed to a single aim; and it would be
+difficult to imagine any aim more worthy or more consonant with the will
+of the whole people. Still more difficult would it be to find an
+instance in history of the aim of an historical personage being so
+completely accomplished as that to which all Kutúzov's efforts were
+directed in 1812.
+
+Kutúzov never talked of "forty centuries looking down from the
+Pyramids," of the sacrifices he offered for the fatherland, or of what
+he intended to accomplish or had accomplished; in general he said
+nothing about himself, adopted no pose, always appeared to be the
+simplest and most ordinary of men, and said the simplest and most
+ordinary things. He wrote letters to his daughters and to Madame de
+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 Kutúzov with personal reproaches for having caused the
+destruction of Moscow, and said: "How was it you promised not to abandon
+Moscow without a battle?" Kutúzov replied: "And I shall not abandon
+Moscow without a battle," though Moscow was then already abandoned. When
+Arakcheev, coming to him from the Emperor, said that Ermolov ought to be
+appointed chief of the artillery, Kutúzov replied: "Yes, I was just
+saying so myself," though a moment before he had said quite the
+contrary. What did it matter to him—who then alone amid a senseless
+crowd understood the whole tremendous significance of what was
+happening—what did it matter to him whether 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 Kutúzov, whose motto was "Patience and Time," this
+enemy of decisive action, gave battle at Borodino, investing the
+preparations for it with unparalleled solemnity. This Kutúzov who before
+the battle of Austerlitz began said that it would be lost, he alone, in
+contradiction to everyone else, declared till his death that 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, Kutúzov left Krasnoe and went to Dobroe whither his headquarters
+had that day been transferred.
+
+The day was clear and frosty. Kutúzov 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
+Kutúzov who, wearing a white cap with a red band and a padded overcoat
+that bulged on his round shoulders, moved slowly along the road on his
+white horse. One of the generals was reporting to him where the guns and
+prisoners had been captured.
+
+Kutúzov seemed preoccupied and did not listen to what the general was
+saying. He screwed up his eyes with a dissatisfied look as he gazed
+attentively and fixedly at these prisoners, who presented a specially
+wretched appearance. Most of them were disfigured by frost-bitten noses
+and cheeks, and nearly all had red, swollen and festering eyes.
+
+One group of the French stood close to the road, and two of them, one of
+whom had his face covered with sores, were tearing a piece of raw flesh
+with their hands. There was something horrible and bestial in the
+fleeting glance they threw at the riders and in the malevolent
+expression with which, after a glance at Kutúzov, the soldier with the
+sores immediately turned away and went on with what he was doing.
+
+Kutúzov looked long and intently at these two soldiers. He puckered his
+face, screwed up his eyes, and pensively swayed his head. At another
+spot he noticed a Russian soldier laughingly patting a Frenchman on the
+shoulder, saying something to him in a friendly manner, and Kutúzov with
+the same expression on his face again swayed his head.
+
+"What were you saying?" he asked the general, who continuing his report
+directed the commander-in-chief's attention to some standards captured
+from the French and standing in front of the Preobrazhensk regiment.
+
+"Ah, the standards!" said Kutúzov, evidently detaching himself with
+difficulty from the thoughts that preoccupied him.
+
+He looked about him absently. Thousands of eyes were looking at him from
+all sides awaiting a word from him.
+
+He stopped in front of the 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.
+Kutúzov was silent for a few seconds and then, submitting with evident
+reluctance to the duty imposed by his position, raised his head and
+began to speak. A throng of officers surrounded him. He looked
+attentively around at the circle of officers, recognizing several of
+them.
+
+"I thank you all!" he said, addressing the soldiers and then again the
+officers. In the stillness around him his slowly uttered words were
+distinctly heard. "I thank you all for your hard and faithful service.
+The victory is complete and Russia will not forget you! Honor to you
+forever."
+
+He paused and looked around.
+
+"Lower its head, lower it!" he said to a soldier who had accidentally
+lowered the French eagle he was holding before the 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 Kutúzov leaned forward in his saddle
+and bowed his head, and his eye lit up with a mild and apparently ironic
+gleam.
+
+"You see, brothers..." said he when the shouts had ceased... and all at
+once his voice and the expression of his face changed. It was no longer
+the commander-in-chief speaking but an ordinary old man who wanted to
+tell his comrades something very important.
+
+There was a stir among the throng of officers and in the ranks of the
+soldiers, who moved that they might hear better what he was going to
+say.
+
+"You see, brothers, I know it's hard for you, but it can't be helped!
+Bear up; it won't be for long now! We'll see our visitors off and then
+we'll rest. The Tsar won't forget your service. It is hard for you, but
+still you are at home while they—you see what they have come to," said
+he, pointing to the prisoners. "Worse off than our poorest beggars.
+While they were strong we didn't spare ourselves, but now we may even
+pity them. They are human beings too. Isn't it so, lads?"
+
+He looked around, and in the direct, respectful, wondering gaze fixed
+upon him he read sympathy with what he had said. His face grew brighter
+and brighter with an old man's mild smile, which drew the corners of his
+lips and eyes into a cluster of wrinkles. He ceased speaking and bowed
+his head as if in perplexity.
+
+"But after all who asked them here? Serves them right, the bloody
+bastards!" he cried, suddenly lifting his head.
+
+And flourishing his whip he rode off at a gallop for the first time
+during the whole campaign, and left the broken ranks of the soldiers
+laughing joyfully and shouting "Hurrah!"
+
+Kutúzov's words were hardly understood by the troops. No one could have
+repeated the field marshal's address, begun solemnly and then changing
+into an old man's simplehearted talk; but the hearty sincerity of that
+speech, the feeling of majestic triumph combined with pity for the foe
+and consciousness of the justice of our cause, exactly expressed by that
+old man's good-natured expletives, was not merely understood but lay in
+the soul of every soldier and found expression in their joyous and long-
+sustained shouts. Afterwards when one of the generals addressed Kutúzov
+asking whether he wished his calèche to be sent for, Kutúzov in
+answering unexpectedly gave a sob, being evidently greatly moved.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+When the troops reached their night's halting place on the eighth of
+November, the last day of the 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 and seven feet high, moved forward along the village
+street, swaying, pressing upon and cutting the shoulders of the gasping
+men.
+
+"Get along... Falling? What are you stopping for? There now..."
+
+Merry senseless words of abuse flowed freely.
+
+"What are you up to?" suddenly came the authoritative voice of a
+sergeant major who came upon the men who were hauling their burden.
+"There are gentry here; the general himself is in that hut, and you
+foul-mouthed devils, you brutes, I'll give it to you!" shouted he,
+hitting the first man who came in his way a swinging blow on the back.
+"Can't you make less noise?"
+
+The men became silent. The soldier who had been struck groaned and wiped
+his face, which had been scratched till it bled by his falling against
+the wattle.
+
+"There, how that devil hits out! He's made my face all bloody," said he
+in a frightened whisper when the sergeant major had passed on.
+
+"Don't you like it?" said a laughing voice, and moderating their tones
+the men moved forward.
+
+When they were out of the village they began talking again as loud as
+before, interlarding their talk with the same aimless expletives.
+
+In the hut which the men had passed, the chief officers had gathered and
+were in animated talk over their tea about the events of the day and the
+maneuvers suggested for tomorrow. It was proposed to make a flank march
+to the left, cut off the Vice-King (Murat) and capture him.
+
+By the time the soldiers had dragged the wattle fence to its place the
+campfires were blazing on all sides ready for cooking, the wood
+crackled, the snow was melting, and black shadows of soldiers flitted to
+and fro all over the occupied space where the snow had been trodden
+down.
+
+Axes and choppers were plied all around. Everything was done without any
+orders being given. Stores of wood were brought for the night, shelters
+were rigged up for the officers, caldrons were being boiled, and muskets
+and accouterments put in order.
+
+The wattle wall the men had brought was set up in a semicircle by the
+Eighth Company as a shelter from the north, propped up by musket rests,
+and a campfire was built before it. They beat the tattoo, called the
+roll, had supper, and settled down round the fires for the night—some
+repairing their footgear, some smoking pipes, and some stripping
+themselves naked to steam the lice out of their shirts.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+One would have thought that under the almost incredibly wretched
+conditions the Russian soldiers were in at that time—lacking warm boots
+and sheepskin coats, without a roof over their heads, in the snow with
+eighteen degrees of frost, and without even full rations (the
+commissariat did not always keep up with the troops)—they would have
+presented a very sad and depressing spectacle.
+
+On the contrary, the army had never under the best material conditions
+presented a more cheerful and animated aspect. This was because all who
+began to grow depressed or who lost strength were sifted out of the army
+day by day. All the physically or morally weak had long since been left
+behind and only the flower of the army—physically and mentally—remained.
+
+More men collected behind the wattle fence of the Eighth Company than
+anywhere else. Two sergeants major were sitting with them and their
+campfire blazed brighter than others. For leave to sit by their wattle
+they demanded contributions of fuel.
+
+"Eh, 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 Kutúzov and the general mass of the army
+demanded—namely, simply to follow the enemy up. The French crowd fled at
+a continually increasing speed and all its energy was directed to
+reaching its goal. It fled like a wounded animal and it was impossible
+to block its path. This was shown not so much by the arrangements it
+made for crossing as by what took place at the bridges. When the bridges
+broke down, unarmed soldiers, people from Moscow and women with children
+who were with the French transport, all—carried on by vis
+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, who blamed one
+another and Kutúzov most of all. Anticipation that the failure of the
+Petersburg Berezina plan would be attributed to Kutúzov led to
+dissatisfaction, contempt, and ridicule, more and more strongly
+expressed. The ridicule and contempt were of course expressed in a
+respectful form, making it impossible for him to ask wherein he was to
+blame. They did not talk seriously to him; when reporting to him or
+asking for his sanction they appeared to be fulfilling a regrettable
+formality, but they winked behind his back and tried to mislead him at
+every turn.
+
+Because they could not understand him all these people assumed that it
+was useless to talk to the old man; that he would never grasp the
+profundity of their plans, that he would answer with his phrases (which
+they thought were mere phrases) about a "golden bridge," about the
+impossibility of crossing the frontier with a crowd of tatterdemalions,
+and so forth. They had heard all that before. And all he said—that it
+was necessary to await provisions, or that the men had no boots—was so
+simple, while what they proposed was so complicated and clever, that it
+was evident that he was old and stupid and that they, though not in
+power, were commanders of genius.
+
+After the junction with the army of the brilliant admiral and Petersburg
+hero Wittgenstein, this mood and the gossip of the staff reached their
+maximum. Kutúzov saw this and merely sighed and shrugged his shoulders.
+Only once, after the affair of the 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 Kutúzov. Now
+having come to the army, he informed Kutúzov of the Emperor's
+displeasure at the poor success of our forces and the slowness of their
+advance. The Emperor intended to join the army personally in a few days'
+time.
+
+The old man, experienced in court as well as in military affairs—this
+same Kutúzov who in August had been chosen commander-in-chief against
+the sovereign's wishes and who had removed the Grand Duke and
+heir—apparent from the army—who on his own authority and contrary to the
+Emperor's will had decided on the abandonment of Moscow, now realized at
+once that his day was over, that his part was played, and that the power
+he was supposed to hold was no longer his. And he understood this not
+merely from the attitude of the court. He saw on the one hand that the
+military business in which he had played his part was ended and felt
+that his mission was accomplished; and at the same time he began to be
+conscious of the physical weariness of his aged body and of the
+necessity of physical rest.
+
+On the twenty-ninth of November Kutúzov entered Vilna—his "dear Vilna"
+as he called it. Twice during his career Kutúzov 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 Kutúzov to be
+under an obligation to him because when he was sent to make peace with
+Turkey in 1811 independently of Kutúzov, and found that peace had
+already been concluded, he admitted to the Emperor that the merit of
+securing that peace was really Kutúzov's; this Chichagov was the first
+to meet Kutúzov at the castle where the latter was to stay. In undress
+naval uniform, with a dirk, and holding his cap under his arm, he handed
+Kutúzov a garrison report and the keys of the town. The contemptuously
+respectful attitude of the younger men to the old man in his dotage was
+expressed in the highest degree by the behavior of Chichagov, who knew
+of the accusations that were being directed against Kutúzov.
+
+When speaking to Chichagov, Kutúzov incidentally mentioned that the
+vehicles packed with china that had been captured from him at Borísov
+had been recovered and would be restored to him.
+
+"You mean to imply that I have nothing to eat out of.... On the
+contrary, I can supply you with everything even if you want to give
+dinner parties," warmly replied Chichagov, who tried by every word he
+spoke to prove his own rectitude and therefore imagined Kutúzov to be
+animated by the same desire.
+
+Kutúzov, shrugging his shoulders, replied with his subtle penetrating
+smile: "I meant merely to say what I said."
+
+Contrary to the Emperor's wish Kutúzov detained the greater part of the
+army at 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
+Tolstóy, 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 Semënov 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 Kutúzov, who was waiting in the hall porter's little
+lodge.
+
+A minute later the old man's large stout figure in full-dress uniform,
+his chest covered with orders and a scarf drawn round his stomach,
+waddled out into the porch. He put on his hat with its peaks to the
+sides and, holding his gloves in his hand and walking with an effort
+sideways down the steps to the level of the street, took in his hand the
+report he had prepared for the Emperor.
+
+There was running to and fro and whispering; another troyka flew
+furiously up, and then all eyes were turned on an approaching sleigh in
+which the figures of the Emperor and 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 Kutúzov from head to foot,
+frowned for an instant, but immediately mastering himself went up to the
+old man, extended his arms and embraced him. And this embrace too, owing
+to a long-standing impression related to his innermost feelings, had its
+usual effect on Kutúzov and he gave a sob.
+
+The Emperor greeted the officers and the Semënov guard, and again
+pressing the old man's hand went with him into the castle.
+
+When alone with the field marshal the Emperor expressed his
+dissatisfaction at the slowness of the pursuit and at the mistakes made
+at Krasnoe and the Berezina, and informed him of his intentions for a
+future campaign abroad. Kutúzov made no rejoinder or remark. The same
+submissive, expressionless look with which he had listened to the
+Emperor's commands on the field of Austerlitz seven years before settled
+on his face now.
+
+When Kutúzov came out of the study and with lowered head was crossing
+the ballroom with his heavy waddling gait, he was arrested by someone's
+voice saying:
+
+"Your Serene Highness!"
+
+Kutúzov raised his head and looked for a long while into the eyes of
+Count Tolstóy, who stood before him holding a silver salver on which lay
+a small object. Kutúzov seemed not to understand what was expected of
+him.
+
+Suddenly he seemed to remember; a scarcely perceptible smile flashed
+across his puffy face, and bowing low and respectfully he took the
+object that lay on the salver. It was the Order of St. George of the
+First Class.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+Next day the field marshal gave a dinner and ball which the Emperor
+honored by his presence. Kutúzov had received the Order of St. George of
+the First Class and the Emperor showed him the highest honors, but
+everyone knew of the imperial dissatisfaction with him. The proprieties
+were observed and the Emperor was the first to set that example, but
+everybody understood that the old man was blameworthy and good-for-
+nothing. When Kutúzov, conforming to a custom of Catherine's day,
+ordered the standards that had been captured to be lowered at the
+Emperor's feet on his entering the ballroom, the Emperor made a wry face
+and muttered something in which some people caught the words, "the old
+comedian."
+
+The Emperor's displeasure with Kutúzov was specially increased at Vilna
+by the fact that Kutúzov evidently could not or would not understand the
+importance of the coming campaign.
+
+When on the following morning the Emperor said to the officers assembled
+about him: "You have not only saved Russia, you have saved Europe!" they
+all understood that the war was not ended.
+
+Kutúzov alone would not see this and openly expressed his opinion that
+no fresh war could improve the position or add to the glory of Russia,
+but could only spoil and lower the glorious position that Russia had
+gained. He tried to prove to the Emperor the impossibility of levying
+fresh troops, spoke of the hardships already endured by the people, of
+the possibility of failure and so forth.
+
+This being the field marshal's frame of mind he was naturally regarded
+as merely a hindrance and obstacle to the impending war.
+
+To avoid unpleasant encounters with the old man, the natural method was
+to do what had been done with him at Austerlitz and with Barclay at the
+beginning of the Russian campaign—to transfer the authority to the
+Emperor himself, thus cutting the ground from under the commander in
+chief's feet without upsetting the old man by informing him of the
+change.
+
+With this object his staff was gradually reconstructed and its real
+strength removed and transferred to the Emperor. Toll, 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, Kutúzov's
+place was taken by a new and necessary performer.
+
+The war of 1812, besides its national significance dear to every Russian
+heart, was now to assume another, a European, significance.
+
+The movement of peoples from west to east was to be succeeded by a
+movement of peoples from east to west, and for this fresh war another
+leader was necessary, having qualities and views differing from
+Kutúzov's and animated by different motives.
+
+Alexander I was as necessary for the movement of the peoples from east
+to west and for the refixing of national frontiers as Kutúzov had been
+for the salvation and glory of Russia.
+
+Kutúzov did not understand what Europe, the balance of power, or
+Napoleon meant. He could not understand it. For the representative of
+the Russian people, after the enemy had been destroyed and Russia had
+been liberated and raised to the summit of her glory, there was nothing
+left to do as a Russian. Nothing remained for the representative of the
+national war but to die, and Kutúzov died.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+As generally happens, Pierre did not feel the full effects of the
+physical privation and strain he had suffered as prisoner until after
+they were over. After his liberation he reached 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 Pétya Rostóv. 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 Rostóvs' house
+at Yaroslavl, and Denisov who told him this news also mentioned Hélène's
+death, supposing that Pierre had heard of it long before. All this at
+the time seemed merely strange to Pierre: he felt he could not grasp its
+significance. Just then he was only anxious to get away as quickly as
+possible from places where people were killing one another, to some
+peaceful refuge where he could recover himself, rest, and think over all
+the strange new facts he had learned; but on reaching 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 Bezúkhov 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 Vasíli and other Petersburg acquaintances speaking of his wife's
+debts. And Pierre decided that the steward's proposals which had so
+pleased him were wrong and that he must go to Petersburg and settle his
+wife's affairs and must rebuild in Moscow. Why this was necessary he did
+not know, but he knew for certain that it was necessary. His income
+would be reduced by three fourths, but he felt it must be done.
+
+Willarski was going to Moscow and they agreed to travel together.
+
+During the whole time of his convalescence in 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 and no churches,
+shrines, riches, or houses—it was still the Moscow it had been in
+August. All was destroyed, except something intangible yet powerful and
+indestructible.
+
+The motives of those who thronged from all sides to Moscow after it had
+been cleared of the enemy were most diverse and personal, and at first
+for the most part savage and brutal. One motive only they all had in
+common: a desire to get to the place that had been called Moscow, to
+apply their activities there.
+
+Within a week Moscow already had fifteen thousand inhabitants, in a
+fortnight twenty-five thousand, and so on. By the autumn of 1813 the
+number, ever increasing and increasing, exceeded what it had been in
+1812.
+
+The first Russians to enter Moscow were the Cossacks of Wintzingerode's
+detachment, peasants from the adjacent villages, and residents who had
+fled from Moscow and had been hiding in its vicinity. The Russians who
+entered Moscow, finding it plundered, plundered it in their turn. They
+continued what the French had begun. Trains of peasant carts came to
+Moscow to carry off to the villages what had been abandoned in the
+ruined houses and the streets. The Cossacks carried off what they could
+to their camps, and the householders seized all they could find in other
+houses and moved it to their own, pretending that it was their property.
+
+But the first plunderers were followed by a second and a third
+contingent, and with increasing numbers plundering became more and more
+difficult and assumed more definite forms.
+
+The French found Moscow abandoned but with all the organizations of
+regular life, with diverse branches of commerce and craftsmanship, with
+luxury, and governmental and religious institutions. These forms were
+lifeless but still existed. There were bazaars, shops, warehouses,
+market stalls, granaries—for the most part still stocked with goods—and
+there were factories and workshops, palaces and wealthy houses filled
+with luxuries, hospitals, prisons, government offices, churches, and
+cathedrals. The longer the French remained the more these forms of town
+life perished, until finally all was merged into one confused, lifeless
+scene of plunder.
+
+The more the plundering by the French continued, the more both the
+wealth of Moscow and the strength of its plunderers was destroyed. But
+plundering by the Russians, with which the reoccupation of the city
+began, had an opposite effect: the longer it continued and the greater
+the number of people taking part in it the more rapidly was the wealth
+of the city and its regular life restored.
+
+Besides the plunderers, very various people, some drawn by curiosity,
+some by official duties, some by self-interest—house owners, clergy,
+officials of all kinds, tradesmen, artisans, and peasants—streamed into
+Moscow as blood flows to the heart.
+
+Within a week the peasants who came with empty carts to carry off
+plunder were stopped by the authorities and made to cart the corpses out
+of the town. Other peasants, having heard of their comrades'
+discomfiture, came to town bringing rye, oats, and hay, and beat down
+one another's prices to below what they had been in former days. Gangs
+of carpenters hoping for high pay arrived in Moscow every day, and on
+all sides logs were being hewn, new houses built, and old, charred ones
+repaired. Tradesmen began trading in booths. Cookshops and taverns were
+opened in partially burned houses. The clergy resumed the services in
+many churches that had not been burned. Donors contributed Church
+property that had been stolen. Government clerks set up their baize-
+covered tables and their pigeonholes of documents in small rooms. The
+higher authorities and the police organized the distribution of goods
+left behind by the French. The owners of houses in which much property
+had been left, brought there from other houses, complained of the
+injustice of taking everything to the Faceted Palace in the 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 Rostóvs were at Kostroma but the thought of
+Natásha seldom occurred to him. If it did it was only as a pleasant
+memory of the distant past. He felt himself not only free from social
+obligations but also from that feeling which, it seemed to him, he had
+aroused in himself.
+
+On the third day after his arrival he heard from the Drubetskóys that
+Princess Mary was in Moscow. The death, sufferings, and last days of
+Prince Andrew had often occupied Pierre's thoughts and now recurred to
+him with fresh vividness. Having heard at dinner that Princess Mary was
+in Moscow and living in her house—which had not been burned—in
+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 spoke of you even at the very
+last," she went on, turning her eyes from Pierre to her companion with a
+shyness that surprised him for an instant.
+
+"I was so glad to hear of your safety. It was the first piece of good
+news we had received for a long time."
+
+Again the princess glanced round at her companion with even more
+uneasiness in her manner and was about to add something, but Pierre
+interrupted her.
+
+"Just imagine—I knew nothing about him!" said he. "I thought he had been
+killed. All I know I heard at second hand from others. I only know that
+he fell in with the Rostóvs.... What a strange coincidence!"
+
+Pierre spoke rapidly and with animation. He glanced once at the
+companion's face, saw her attentive and kindly gaze fixed on him, and,
+as often happens when one is talking, felt somehow that this companion
+in the black dress was a good, kind, excellent creature who would not
+hinder his conversing freely with Princess Mary.
+
+But when he mentioned the Rostóvs, Princess Mary's face expressed still
+greater embarrassment. She again glanced rapidly from Pierre's face to
+that of the lady in the black dress and said:
+
+"Do you really not recognize her?"
+
+Pierre looked again at the companion's pale, delicate face with its
+black eyes and peculiar mouth, and something near to him, long forgotten
+and more than sweet, looked at him from those attentive eyes.
+
+"But no, it can't be!" he thought. "This stern, thin, pale face that
+looks so much older! It cannot be she. It merely reminds me of her." But
+at that moment Princess Mary said, "Natásha!" And with difficulty,
+effort, and stress, like the opening of a door grown rusty on its
+hinges, a smile appeared on the face with the attentive eyes, and from
+that opening door came a breath of fragrance which suffused Pierre with
+a happiness he had long forgotten and of which he had not even been
+thinking—especially at that moment. It suffused him, seized him, and
+enveloped him completely. When she smiled doubt was no longer possible,
+it was Natásha and he loved her.
+
+At that moment Pierre involuntarily betrayed to her, to Princess Mary,
+and above all to himself, a secret of which he himself had been unaware.
+He flushed joyfully yet with painful distress. He tried to hide his
+agitation. But the more he tried to hide it the more clearly—clearer
+than any words could have done—did he betray to himself, to her, and to
+Princess Mary that he loved her.
+
+"No, it's only the unexpectedness of it," thought Pierre. But as soon as
+he tried to continue the conversation he had begun with Princess Mary he
+again glanced at Natásha, and a still-deeper flush suffused his face and
+a still-stronger agitation of mingled joy and fear seized his soul. He
+became confused in his speech and stopped in the middle of what he was
+saying.
+
+Pierre had failed to notice Natásha because he did not at all expect to
+see her there, but he had failed to recognize her because the change in
+her since he last saw her was immense. She had grown thin and pale, but
+that was not what made her unrecognizable; she was unrecognizable at the
+moment he entered because on that face whose eyes had always shone with
+a suppressed smile of the joy of life, now when he first entered and
+glanced at her there was not the least shadow of a smile: only her eyes
+were kindly attentive and sadly interrogative.
+
+Pierre's confusion was not reflected by any confusion on Natásha's part,
+but only by the pleasure that just perceptibly lit up her whole face.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+"She has come to stay with me," said Princess Mary. "The count and
+countess will be here in a few days. The countess is in a dreadful
+state; but it was necessary for Natásha herself to see a doctor. They
+insisted on her coming with me."
+
+"Yes, is there a family free from sorrow now?" said Pierre, addressing
+Natásha. "You know it happened the very day we were rescued. I saw him.
+What a delightful boy he was!"
+
+Natásha looked at him, and by way of answer to his words her eyes
+widened and lit up.
+
+"What can one say or think of as a consolation?" said Pierre. "Nothing!
+Why had such a splendid boy, so full of life, to die?"
+
+"Yes, in these days it would be hard to live without faith..." remarked
+Princess Mary.
+
+"Yes, yes, that is really true," Pierre hastily interrupted her.
+
+"Why is it true?" Natásha asked, looking attentively into Pierre's eyes.
+
+"How can you ask why?" said Princess Mary. "The thought alone of what
+awaits..."
+
+Natásha without waiting for Princess Mary to finish again looked
+inquiringly at Pierre.
+
+"And because," Pierre continued, "only one who believes that there is a
+God ruling us can bear a loss such as hers and... yours."
+
+Natásha had already opened her mouth to speak but suddenly stopped.
+Pierre hurriedly turned away from her and again addressed Princess Mary,
+asking about his friend's last days.
+
+Pierre's confusion had now almost vanished, but at the same time he felt
+that his freedom had also completely gone. He felt that there was now a
+judge of his every word and action whose judgment mattered more to him
+than that of all the rest of the world. As he spoke now he was
+considering what impression his words would make on Natásha. He did not
+purposely say things to please her, but whatever he was saying he
+regarded from her standpoint.
+
+Princess Mary—reluctantly as is usual in such cases—began telling of the
+condition in which she had found Prince Andrew. But Pierre's face
+quivering with emotion, his questions and his eager restless expression,
+gradually compelled her to go into details which she feared to recall
+for her own sake.
+
+"Yes, yes, and so...?" Pierre kept saying as he leaned toward her with
+his whole body and eagerly listened to her story. "Yes, yes... so he
+grew tranquil and softened? With all his soul he had always sought one
+thing—to be perfectly good—so he could not be afraid of death. The
+faults he had—if he had any—were not of his making. So he did soften?...
+What a happy thing that he saw you again," he added, suddenly turning to
+Natásha and looking at her with eyes full of tears.
+
+Natásha's face twitched. She frowned and lowered her eyes for a moment.
+She hesitated for an instant whether to speak or not.
+
+"Yes, that was happiness," she then said in her quiet voice with its
+deep chest notes. "For me it certainly was happiness." She paused. "And
+he... he... he said he was wishing for it at the very moment I entered
+the room...."
+
+Natásha's voice broke. She blushed, pressed her clasped hands on her
+knees, and then controlling herself with an evident effort lifted her
+head and began to speak rapidly.
+
+"We knew nothing of it when we started from Moscow. I did not dare to
+ask about him. Then suddenly Sónya told me he was traveling with us. I
+had no idea and could not imagine what state he was in, all I wanted was
+to see him and be with him," she said, trembling, and breathing quickly.
+
+And not letting them interrupt her she went on to tell what she had
+never yet mentioned to anyone—all she had lived through during those
+three weeks of their journey and life at 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
+Natásha, and heard for the first time the story of those last days of
+her brother's and Natásha's love.
+
+Evidently Natásha needed to tell that painful yet joyful tale.
+
+She spoke, mingling most trifling details with the intimate secrets of
+her soul, and it seemed as if she could never finish. Several times she
+repeated the same thing twice.
+
+Dessalles' voice was heard outside the door asking whether little
+Nicholas might come in to say good night.
+
+"Well, that's all—everything," said Natásha.
+
+She got up quickly just as Nicholas entered, almost ran to the door
+which was hidden by curtains, struck her head against it, and rushed
+from the room with a moan either of pain or sorrow.
+
+Pierre gazed at the door through which she had disappeared and did not
+understand why he suddenly felt all alone in the world.
+
+Princess Mary roused him from his abstraction by drawing his attention
+to her nephew who had entered the room.
+
+At that moment of emotional tenderness young Nicholas' face, which
+resembled his father's, affected Pierre so much that when he had kissed
+the boy he got up quickly, took out his handkerchief, and went to the
+window. He wished to take leave of Princess Mary, but she would not let
+him go.
+
+"No, Natásha and I sometimes don't go to sleep till after two, so please
+don't go. I will order supper. Go downstairs, we will come immediately."
+
+Before Pierre left the room Princess Mary told him: "This is the first
+time she has talked of him like that."
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+Pierre was shown into the large, brightly lit dining room; a few minutes
+later he heard footsteps and Princess Mary entered with Natásha. Natásha
+was calm, though a severe and grave expression had again settled on her
+face. They all three of them now experienced that feeling of awkwardness
+which usually follows after a serious and heartfelt talk. It is
+impossible to go back to the same conversation, to talk of trifles is
+awkward, and yet the desire to speak is there and silence seems like
+affectation. They went silently to table. The footmen drew back the
+chairs and pushed them up again. Pierre unfolded his cold table napkin
+and, resolving to break the silence, looked at Natásha and at Princess
+Mary. They had evidently both formed the same resolution; the eyes of
+both shone with satisfaction and a confession that besides sorrow life
+also has joy.
+
+"Do you take vodka, Count?" asked Princess Mary, and those words
+suddenly banished the shadows of the past. "Now tell us about yourself,"
+said she. "One hears such improbable wonders about you."
+
+"Yes," replied Pierre with the smile of mild irony now habitual to him.
+"They even tell me wonders I myself never dreamed of! Mary 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."
+
+Natásha smiled and was on the point of speaking.
+
+"We have been told," Princess Mary interrupted her, "that you lost two
+millions in Moscow. Is that true?"
+
+"But I am three times as rich as before," returned Pierre.
+
+Though the position was now altered by his decision to pay his wife's
+debts and to rebuild his houses, Pierre still maintained that he had
+become three times as rich as before.
+
+"What I have certainly gained is freedom," he began seriously, but did
+not continue, noticing that this theme was too egotistic.
+
+"And are you building?"
+
+"Yes. 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 Natásha and noticing on her face curiosity as
+to how he would speak of his wife, "but her death shocked me terribly.
+When two people quarrel they are always both in fault, and one's own
+guilt suddenly becomes terribly serious when the other is no longer
+alive. And then such a death... without friends and without consolation!
+I am very, very sorry for her," he concluded, and was pleased to notice
+a look of glad approval on Natásha's face.
+
+"Yes, and so you are once more an eligible bachelor," said Princess
+Mary.
+
+Pierre suddenly flushed crimson and for a long time tried not to look at
+Natásha. When he ventured to glance her way again her face was cold,
+stern, and he fancied even contemptuous.
+
+"And did you really see and speak to Napoleon, as we have been told?"
+said Princess Mary.
+
+Pierre laughed.
+
+"No, not once! Everybody seems to imagine that being taken prisoner
+means being Napoleon's guest. Not only did I never see him but I heard
+nothing about him—I was in much lower company!"
+
+Supper was over, and Pierre who at first declined to speak about his
+captivity was gradually led on to do so.
+
+"But it's true that you remained in Moscow to kill Napoleon?" Natásha
+asked with a slight smile. "I guessed it then when we met at the
+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 Natásha's into giving a
+detailed account of his adventures.
+
+At first he spoke with the amused and mild irony now customary with him
+toward everybody and especially toward himself, but when he came to
+describe the horrors and sufferings he had witnessed he was
+unconsciously carried away and began speaking with the suppressed
+emotion of a man re-experiencing in recollection strong impressions he
+has lived through.
+
+Princess Mary with a gentle smile looked now at Pierre and now at
+Natásha. In the whole narrative she saw only Pierre and his goodness.
+Natásha, leaning on her elbow, the expression of her face constantly
+changing with the narrative, watched Pierre with an attention that never
+wandered—evidently herself experiencing all that he described. Not only
+her look, but her exclamations and the brief questions she put, showed
+Pierre that she understood just what he wished to convey. It was clear
+that she understood not only what he said but also what he wished to,
+but could not, express in words. The account Pierre gave of the incident
+with the child and the woman for protecting whom he was arrested was
+this: "It was an awful sight—children abandoned, some in the flames...
+One was snatched out before my eyes... and there were women who had
+their things snatched off and their earrings torn out..." he flushed and
+grew confused. "Then a patrol arrived and all the men—all those who were
+not looting, that is—were arrested, and I among them."
+
+"I am sure you're not telling us everything; I am sure you did
+something..." said Natásha and pausing added, "something fine?"
+
+Pierre continued. When he spoke of the execution he wanted to pass over
+the horrible details, but Natásha insisted that he should not omit
+anything.
+
+Pierre began to tell about Karataev, but paused. By this time he had
+risen from the table and was pacing the room, Natásha following him with
+her eyes. Then he added:
+
+"No, you can't understand what I learned from that illiterate man—that
+simple fellow."
+
+"Yes, yes, go on!" said Natásha. "Where is he?"
+
+"They killed him almost before my eyes."
+
+And Pierre, his voice trembling continually, went on to tell of the last
+days of their retreat, of 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 Natásha he experienced that pleasure which a man has
+when women listen to him—not clever women who when listening either try
+to remember what they hear to enrich their minds and when opportunity
+offers to retell it, or who wish to adopt it to some thought of their
+own and promptly contribute their own clever comments prepared in their
+little mental workshop—but the pleasure given by real women gifted with
+a capacity to select and absorb the very best a man shows of himself.
+Natásha without knowing it was all attention: she did not lose a word,
+no single quiver in Pierre's voice, no look, no twitch of a muscle in
+his face, nor a single gesture. She caught the unfinished word in its
+flight and took it straight into her open heart, divining the secret
+meaning of all Pierre's mental travail.
+
+Princess Mary understood his story and sympathized with him, but she now
+saw something else that absorbed all her attention. She saw the
+possibility of love and happiness between Natásha and Pierre, and the
+first thought of this filled her heart with gladness.
+
+It was three o'clock in the morning. The footmen came in with sad and
+stern faces to change the candles, but no one noticed them.
+
+Pierre finished his story. Natásha continued to look at him intently
+with bright, attentive, and animated eyes, as if trying to understand
+something more which he had perhaps left untold. Pierre in shamefaced
+and happy confusion glanced occasionally at her, and tried to think what
+to say next to introduce a fresh subject. Princess Mary was silent. It
+occurred to none of them that it was three o'clock and time to go to
+bed.
+
+"People speak of misfortunes and sufferings," remarked Pierre, "but if
+at this moment I were asked: 'Would you rather be what you were before
+you were taken prisoner, or go through all this again?' then for
+heaven's sake let me again have captivity and horseflesh! We imagine
+that when we are thrown out of our usual ruts all is lost, but it is
+only then that what is new and good begins. While there is life there is
+happiness. There is much, much before us. I say this to you," he added,
+turning to Natásha.
+
+"Yes, yes," she said, answering something quite different. "I too should
+wish nothing but to relive it all from the beginning."
+
+Pierre looked intently at her.
+
+"Yes, and nothing more," said Natásha.
+
+"It's not true, not true!" cried Pierre. "I am not to blame for being
+alive and wishing to live—nor you either."
+
+Suddenly Natásha bent her head, covered her face with her hands, and
+began to cry.
+
+"What is it, Natásha?" said Princess Mary.
+
+"Nothing, nothing." She smiled at Pierre through her tears. "Good night!
+It is time for bed."
+
+Pierre rose and took his leave.
+
+Princess Mary and Natásha met as usual in the bedroom. They talked of
+what Pierre had told them. Princess Mary did not express her opinion of
+Pierre nor did Natásha speak of him.
+
+"Well, good night, Mary!" said Natásha. "Do you know, I am often afraid
+that by not speaking of him" (she meant Prince Andrew) "for fear of not
+doing justice to our feelings, we forget him."
+
+Princess Mary sighed deeply and thereby acknowledged the justice of
+Natásha's remark, but she did not express agreement in words.
+
+"Is it possible to forget?" said she.
+
+"It did me so much good to tell all about it today. It was hard and
+painful, but good, very good!" said Natásha. "I am sure he really loved
+him. That is why I told him... Was it all right?" she added, suddenly
+blushing.
+
+"To tell Pierre? Oh, yes. What a splendid man he is!" said Princess
+Mary.
+
+"Do you know, Mary..." Natásha suddenly said with a mischievous smile
+such as Princess Mary had not seen on her face for a long time, "he has
+somehow grown so clean, smooth, and fresh—as if he had just come out of
+a Russian bath; do you understand? Out of a moral bath. Isn't it true?"
+
+"Yes," replied Princess Mary. "He has greatly improved."
+
+"With a short coat and his hair cropped; just as if, well, just as if he
+had come straight from the bath... Papa used to..."
+
+"I understand why he" (Prince Andrew) "liked no one so much as him,"
+said Princess Mary.
+
+"Yes, and yet he is quite different. They say men are friends when they
+are quite different. That must be true. Really he is quite unlike him—in
+everything."
+
+"Yes, but he's wonderful."
+
+"Well, good night," said Natásha.
+
+And the same mischievous smile lingered for a long time on her face as
+if it had been forgotten there.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+It was a long time before Pierre could fall asleep that night. He paced
+up and down his room, now turning his thoughts on a difficult problem
+and frowning, now suddenly shrugging his shoulders and wincing, and now
+smiling happily.
+
+He was thinking of Prince Andrew, of Natásha, and of their love, at one
+moment jealous of her past, then reproaching himself for that feeling.
+It was already six in the morning and he still paced up and down the
+room.
+
+"Well, what's to be done if it cannot be avoided? What's to be done?
+Evidently it has to be so," said he to himself, and hastily undressing
+he got into bed, happy and agitated but free from hesitation or
+indecision.
+
+"Strange and impossible as such happiness seems, I must do everything
+that she and I may be man and wife," he told himself.
+
+A few days previously Pierre had decided to go to Petersburg on the
+Friday. When he awoke on the Thursday, 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?
+Natásha Rostóva!"
+
+The princess seemed to see nothing more extraordinary in that than if he
+had seen Anna Semënovna.
+
+"Do you know her?" asked Pierre.
+
+"I have seen the princess," she replied. "I heard that they were
+arranging a match for her with young Rostóv. It would be a very good
+thing for the Rostóvs, they are said to be utterly ruined."
+
+"No; I mean do you know Natásha Rostóva?"
+
+"I heard about that affair of hers at the time. It was a great pity."
+
+"No, she either doesn't understand or is pretending," thought Pierre.
+"Better not say anything to her either."
+
+The princess too had prepared provisions for Pierre's journey.
+
+"How kind they all are," thought Pierre. "What is surprising is that
+they should trouble about these things now when it can no longer be of
+interest to them. And all for me!"
+
+On the same day the Chief of Police came to Pierre, inviting him to send
+a representative to the Faceted Palace to recover things that were to be
+returned to their owners that day.
+
+"And this man too," thought Pierre, looking into the face of the Chief
+of Police. "What a fine, good-looking officer and how kind. Fancy
+bothering about such trifles now! And they actually say he is not honest
+and takes bribes. What nonsense! Besides, why shouldn't he take bribes?
+That's the way he was brought up, and everybody does it. But what a
+kind, pleasant face and how he smiles as he looks at me."
+
+Pierre went to Princess Mary's to dinner.
+
+As he drove through the streets past the houses that had been burned
+down, he was surprised by the beauty of those ruins. The picturesqueness
+of the chimney stacks and tumble-down walls of the burned-out quarters
+of the town, stretching out and concealing one another, reminded him of
+the Rhine and the Colosseum. The cabmen he met and their passengers, the
+carpenters cutting the timber for new houses with axes, the women
+hawkers, and the shopkeepers, all looked at him with cheerful beaming
+eyes that seemed to say: "Ah, there he is! Let's see what will come of
+it!"
+
+At the entrance to Princess Mary's house Pierre felt doubtful whether he
+had really been there the night before and really seen Natásha and
+talked to her. "Perhaps I imagined it; perhaps I shall go in and find no
+one there." But he had hardly entered the room before he felt her
+presence with his whole being by the loss of his sense of freedom. She
+was in the same black dress with soft folds and her hair was done the
+same way as the day before, yet she was quite different. Had she been
+like this when he entered the day before he could not for a moment have
+failed to recognize her.
+
+She was as he had known her almost as a child and later on as Prince
+Andrew's 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 Natásha were evidently glad to see their visitor and
+though all Pierre's interest was now centered in that house, by the
+evening they had talked over everything and the conversation passed from
+one trivial topic to another and repeatedly broke off. He stayed so long
+that Princess Mary and Natásha exchanged glances, evidently wondering
+when he would go. Pierre noticed this but could not go. He felt uneasy
+and embarrassed, but sat on because he simply could not get up and take
+his leave.
+
+Princess Mary, foreseeing no end to this, rose first, and complaining of
+a headache began to say good night.
+
+"So you are going to Petersburg tomorrow?" she asked.
+
+"No, I am not going," Pierre replied hastily, in a surprised tone and as
+though offended. "Yes... no... to Petersburg? Tomorrow—but I won't say
+good-by yet. I will call round in case you have any commissions for me,"
+said he, standing before Princess Mary and turning red, but not taking
+his departure.
+
+Natásha gave him her hand and went out. Princess Mary on the other hand
+instead of going away sank into an armchair, and looked sternly and
+intently at him with her deep, radiant eyes. The weariness she had
+plainly shown before had now quite passed off. With a deep and long-
+drawn sigh she seemed to be prepared for a lengthy talk.
+
+When Natásha left the room Pierre's confusion and awkwardness
+immediately vanished and were replaced by eager excitement. He quickly
+moved an armchair toward Princess Mary.
+
+"Yes, I wanted to tell you," said he, answering her look as if she had
+spoken. "Princess, help me! What am I to do? Can I hope? Princess, my
+dear friend, listen! I know it all. I know I am not worthy of her, I
+know it's impossible to speak of it now. But I want to be a brother to
+her. No, not that, I don't, I can't..."
+
+He paused and rubbed his face and eyes with his hands.
+
+"Well," he went on with an evident effort at self-control and coherence.
+"I don't know when I began to love her, but I have loved her and her
+alone all my life, and I love her so that I cannot imagine life without
+her. I cannot propose to her at present, but the thought that perhaps
+she might someday be my wife and that I may be missing that
+possibility... that possibility... is terrible. Tell me, can I hope?
+Tell me what I am to do, dear princess!" he added after a pause, and
+touched her hand as she did not reply.
+
+"I am thinking of what you have told me," answered Princess Mary. "This
+is what I will say. You are right that to speak to her of love at
+present..."
+
+Princess Mary stopped. She was going to say that to speak of love was
+impossible, but she stopped because she had seen by the sudden change in
+Natásha two days before that she would not only not be hurt if Pierre
+spoke of his love, but that it was the very thing she wished for.
+
+"To speak to her now wouldn't do," said the princess all the same.
+
+"But what am I to do?"
+
+"Leave it to me," said Princess Mary. "I know..."
+
+Pierre was looking into Princess Mary's eyes.
+
+"Well?... Well?..." he said.
+
+"I know that she loves... will love you," Princess Mary corrected
+herself.
+
+Before her words were out, Pierre had sprung up and with a frightened
+expression seized Princess Mary's hand.
+
+"What makes you think so? You think I may hope? You think...?"
+
+"Yes, I think so," said Princess Mary with a smile. "Write to her
+parents, and leave it to me. I will tell her when I can. I wish it to
+happen and my heart tells me it will."
+
+"No, it cannot be! How happy I am! But it can't be.... How happy I am!
+No, it can't be!" Pierre kept saying as he kissed Princess Mary's hands.
+
+"Go to Petersburg, that will be best. And I will write to you," she
+said.
+
+"To Petersburg? Go there? Very well, I'll go. But I may come again
+tomorrow?"
+
+Next day Pierre came to say good-by. Natásha was less animated than she
+had been the day before; but that day as he looked at her Pierre
+sometimes felt as if he was vanishing and that neither he nor she
+existed any longer, that nothing existed but happiness. "Is it possible?
+No, it can't be," he told himself at every look, gesture, and word that
+filled his soul with joy.
+
+When on saying good-by he took her thin, slender hand, he could not help
+holding it a little longer in his own.
+
+"Is it possible that this hand, that face, those eyes, all this treasure
+of feminine charm so strange to me now, is it possible that it will one
+day be mine forever, as familiar to me as I am to myself?... No, that's
+impossible!..."
+
+"Good-bye, Count," she said aloud. "I shall look forward very much to
+your return," she added in a whisper.
+
+And these simple words, her look, and the expression on her face which
+accompanied them, formed for two months the subject of inexhaustible
+memories, interpretations, and happy meditations for Pierre. "'I shall
+look forward very much to your return....' Yes, yes, how did she say it?
+Yes, 'I shall look forward very much to your return.' Oh, how happy I
+am! What is happening to me? How happy I am!" said Pierre to himself.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+There was nothing in Pierre's soul now at all like what had troubled it
+during his courtship of Hélène.
+
+He did not repeat to himself with a sickening feeling of shame the words
+he had spoken, or say: "Oh, why did I not say that?" and, "Whatever made
+me say 'Je vous aime'?" On the contrary, he now repeated in imagination
+every word that he or Natásha had spoken and pictured every detail of
+her face and smile, and did not wish to diminish or add anything, but
+only to repeat it again and again. There was now not a shadow of doubt
+in his mind as to whether what he had undertaken was right or wrong.
+Only one terrible doubt sometimes crossed his mind: "Wasn't it all a
+dream? Isn't Princess Mary mistaken? Am I not too conceited and self-
+confident? I believe all this—and suddenly Princess Mary will tell her,
+and she will be sure to smile and say: 'How strange! He must be deluding
+himself. Doesn't he know that he is a man, just a man, while I...? I am
+something altogether different and higher.'"
+
+That was the only doubt often troubling Pierre. He did not now make any
+plans. The happiness before him appeared so inconceivable that if only
+he could attain it, it would be the end of all things. Everything ended
+with that.
+
+A joyful, unexpected frenzy, of which he had thought himself incapable,
+possessed him. The whole meaning of life—not for him alone but for the
+whole world—seemed to him centered in his love and the possibility of
+being loved by her. At times everybody seemed to him to be occupied with
+one thing only—his future happiness. Sometimes it seemed to him that
+other people were all as pleased as he was himself and merely tried to
+hide that pleasure by pretending to be busy with other interests. In
+every word and gesture he saw allusions to his happiness. He often
+surprised those he met by his significantly happy looks and smiles which
+seemed to express a secret understanding between him and them. And when
+he realized that people might not be aware of his happiness, he pitied
+them with his whole heart and felt a desire somehow to explain to them
+that all that occupied them was a mere frivolous trifle unworthy of
+attention.
+
+When it was suggested to him that he should enter the civil service, or
+when the war or any general political affairs were discussed on the
+assumption that everybody's welfare depended on this or that issue of
+events, he would listen with a mild and pitying smile and surprise
+people by his strange comments. But at this time he saw everybody—both
+those who, as he imagined, understood the real meaning of life (that is,
+what he was feeling) and those unfortunates who evidently did not
+understand it—in the bright light of the emotion that shone within
+himself, and at once without any effort saw in everyone he met
+everything that was good and worthy of being loved.
+
+When dealing with the affairs and papers of his dead wife, her memory
+aroused in him no feeling but pity that she had not known the bliss he
+now knew. Prince Vasíli, who having obtained a new post and some fresh
+decorations was particularly proud at this time, seemed to him a
+pathetic, kindly old man much to be pitied.
+
+Often in afterlife Pierre recalled this period of blissful insanity. All
+the views he formed of men and circumstances at this time remained true
+for him always. He not only did not renounce them subsequently, but when
+he was in doubt or inwardly at variance, he referred to the views he had
+held at this time of his madness and they always proved correct.
+
+"I may have appeared strange and queer then," he thought, "but I was not
+so mad as I seemed. On the contrary I was then wiser and had more
+insight than at any other time, and understood all that is worth
+understanding in life, because... because I was happy."
+
+Pierre's insanity consisted in not waiting, as he used to do, to
+discover personal attributes which he termed "good qualities" in people
+before loving them; his heart was now overflowing with love, and by
+loving people without cause he discovered indubitable causes for loving
+them.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+After Pierre's departure that first evening, when Natásha had said to
+Princess Mary with a gaily mocking smile: "He looks just, yes, just as
+if he had come out of a Russian bath—in a short coat and with his hair
+cropped," something hidden and unknown to herself, but irrepressible,
+awoke in Natásha's soul.
+
+Everything: her face, walk, look, and voice, was suddenly altered. To
+her own surprise a power of life and hope of happiness rose to the
+surface and demanded satisfaction. From that evening she seemed to have
+forgotten all that had happened to her. She no longer complained of her
+position, did not say a word about the past, and no longer feared to
+make happy plans for the future. She spoke little of Pierre, but when
+Princess Mary mentioned him a long-extinguished light once more kindled
+in her eyes and her lips curved with a strange smile.
+
+The change that took place in Natásha at first surprised Princess Mary;
+but when she understood its meaning it grieved her. "Can she have loved
+my brother so little as to be able to forget him so soon?" she thought
+when she reflected on the change. But when she was with Natásha she was
+not vexed with her and did not reproach her. The reawakened power of
+life that had seized Natásha was so evidently irrepressible and
+unexpected by her that in her presence Princess Mary felt that she had
+no right to reproach her even in her heart.
+
+Natásha gave herself up so fully and frankly to this new feeling that
+she did not try to hide the fact that she was no longer sad, but bright
+and cheerful.
+
+When Princess Mary returned to her room after her nocturnal talk with
+Pierre, Natásha met her on the threshold.
+
+"He has spoken? Yes? He has spoken?" she repeated.
+
+And a joyful yet pathetic expression which seemed to beg forgiveness for
+her joy settled on Natásha's face.
+
+"I wanted to listen at the door, but I knew you would tell me."
+
+Understandable and touching as the look with which Natásha gazed at her
+seemed to Princess Mary, and sorry as she was to see her agitation,
+these words pained her for a moment. She remembered her brother and his
+love.
+
+"But what's to be done? She can't help it," thought the princess.
+
+And with a sad and rather stern look she told Natásha all that Pierre
+had said. On hearing that he was going to Petersburg Natásha was
+astounded.
+
+"To Petersburg!" she repeated as if unable to understand.
+
+But noticing the grieved expression on Princess Mary's face she guessed
+the reason of that sadness and suddenly began to cry.
+
+"Mary," said she, "tell me what I should do! I am afraid of being bad.
+Whatever you tell me, I will do. Tell me...."
+
+"You love him?"
+
+"Yes," whispered Natásha.
+
+"Then why are you crying? I am happy for your sake," said Princess Mary,
+who because of those tears quite forgave Natásha's joy.
+
+"It won't be just yet—someday. Think what fun it will be when I am his
+wife and you marry Nicholas!"
+
+"Natásha, I have asked you not to speak of that. Let us talk about you."
+
+They were silent awhile.
+
+"But why go to Petersburg?" Natásha suddenly asked, and hastily replied
+to her own question. "But no, no, he must... Yes, Mary, He must...."
+
+
+
+
+
+FIRST EPILOGUE: 1813 - 20
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+Seven years had passed. The storm-tossed sea of European history had
+subsided within its shores and seemed to have become calm. But the
+mysterious forces that move humanity (mysterious because the laws of
+their motion are unknown to us) continued to operate.
+
+Though the surface of the sea of history seemed motionless, the movement
+of humanity went on as unceasingly as the flow of time. Various groups
+of people formed and dissolved, the coming formation and dissolution of
+kingdoms and displacement of peoples was in course of preparation.
+
+The sea of history was not driven spasmodically from shore to shore as
+previously. It was seething in its depths. Historic figures were not
+borne by the waves from one shore to another as before. They now seemed
+to rotate on one spot. The historical figures at the head of armies, who
+formerly reflected the movement of the masses by ordering wars,
+campaigns, and battles, now reflected the restless movement by political
+and diplomatic combinations, laws, and treaties.
+
+The historians call this activity of the historical figures "the
+reaction."
+
+In dealing with this period they sternly condemn the historical
+personages who, in their opinion, caused what they describe as the
+reaction. All the well-known people of that period, from Alexander and
+Napoleon to Madame de Stael, Photius, Schelling, Fichte, Chateaubriand,
+and the rest, pass before their stern judgment seat and are acquitted or
+condemned according to whether they conduced to progress or to reaction.
+
+According to their accounts a reaction took place at that time in Russia
+also, and the chief culprit was Alexander I, the same man who according
+to them was the chief cause of the liberal movement at the commencement
+of his reign, being the savior of Russia.
+
+There is no one in Russian literature now, from schoolboy essayist to
+learned historian, who does not throw his little stone at Alexander for
+things he did wrong at this period of his reign.
+
+"He ought to have acted in this way and in that way. In this case he did
+well and in that case badly. He behaved admirably at the beginning of
+his reign and during 1812, but acted badly by giving a constitution to
+Poland, forming the Holy Alliance, entrusting power to Arakcheev,
+favoring Golítsyn and mysticism, and afterwards Shishkov and Photius. He
+also acted badly by concerning himself with the active army and
+disbanding the Semënov regiment."
+
+It would take a dozen pages to enumerate all the reproaches the
+historians address to him, based on their knowledge of what is good for
+humanity.
+
+What do these reproaches mean?
+
+Do not the very actions for which the historians praise Alexander I (the
+liberal attempts at the beginning of his reign, his struggle with
+Napoleon, the firmness he displayed in 1812 and the campaign of 1813)
+flow from the same sources—the circumstances of his birth, education,
+and life—that made his personality what it was and from which the
+actions for which they blame him (the Holy Alliance, the restoration of
+Poland, and the reaction of 1820 and later) also flowed?
+
+In what does the substance of those reproaches lie?
+
+It lies in the fact that an historic character like Alexander I,
+standing on the highest possible pinnacle of human power with the
+blinding light of history focused upon him; a character exposed to those
+strongest of all influences: the intrigues, flattery, and self-deception
+inseparable from power; a character who at every moment of his life felt
+a responsibility for all that was happening in Europe; and not a
+fictitious but a live character who like every man had his personal
+habits, passions, and impulses toward goodness, beauty, and truth—that
+this character—though not lacking in virtue (the historians do not
+accuse him of that)—had not the same conception of the welfare of
+humanity fifty years ago as a present-day professor who from his youth
+upwards has been occupied with learning: that is, with books and
+lectures and with taking notes from them.
+
+But even if we assume that fifty years ago Alexander I was mistaken in
+his view of what was good for the people, we must inevitably assume that
+the historian who judges Alexander will also after the lapse of some
+time turn out to be mistaken in his view of what is good for humanity.
+This assumption is all the more natural and inevitable because, watching
+the movement of history, we see that every year and with each new
+writer, opinion as to what is good for mankind changes; so that what
+once seemed good, ten years later seems bad, and vice versa. And what is
+more, we find at one and the same time quite contradictory views as to
+what is bad and what is good in history: some people regard giving a
+constitution to Poland and forming the Holy Alliance as praiseworthy in
+Alexander, while others regard it as blameworthy.
+
+The activity of Alexander or of Napoleon cannot be called useful or
+harmful, for it is impossible to say for what it was useful or harmful.
+If that activity displeases somebody, this is only because it does not
+agree with his limited understanding of what is good. Whether the
+preservation of my father's house in Moscow, or the glory of the Russian
+arms, or the prosperity of the Petersburg and other universities, or the
+freedom of Poland or the greatness of Russia, or the balance of power in
+Europe, or a certain kind of European culture called "progress" appear
+to me to be good or bad, I must admit that besides these things the
+action of every historic character has other more general purposes
+inaccessible to me.
+
+But let us assume that what is called science can harmonize all
+contradictions and possesses an unchanging standard of good and bad by
+which to try historic characters and events; let us say that Alexander
+could have done everything differently; let us say that with guidance
+from those who blame him and who profess to know the ultimate aim of the
+movement of humanity, he might have arranged matters according to the
+program his present accusers would have given him—of nationality,
+freedom, equality, and progress (these, I think, cover the ground). Let
+us assume that this program was possible and had then been formulated,
+and that Alexander had acted on it. What would then have become of the
+activity of all those who opposed the tendency that then prevailed in
+the government—an activity that in the opinion of the historians was
+good and beneficent? Their activity would not have existed: there would
+have been no life, there would have been nothing.
+
+If we admit that human life can be ruled by reason, the possibility of
+life is destroyed.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+If we assume as the historians do that great men lead humanity to the
+attainment of certain ends—the greatness of Russia or of France, the
+balance of power in Europe, the diffusion of the ideas of the
+Revolution, general progress, or anything else—then it is impossible to
+explain the facts of history without introducing the conceptions of
+chance and genius.
+
+If the aim of the European wars at the beginning of the nineteenth
+century had been the aggrandizement of Russia, that aim might have been
+accomplished without all the preceding wars and without the invasion. If
+the aim was the aggrandizement of France, that might have been attained
+without the Revolution and without the Empire. If the aim was the
+dissemination of ideas, the printing press could have accomplished that
+much better than warfare. If the aim was the progress of civilization,
+it is easy to see that there are other ways of diffusing civilization
+more expedient than by the destruction of wealth and of human lives.
+
+Why did it happen in this and not in some other way?
+
+Because it happened so! "Chance created the situation; genius utilized
+it," says history.
+
+But what is chance? What is genius?
+
+The words chance and genius do not denote any really existing thing and
+therefore cannot be defined. Those words only denote a certain stage of
+understanding of phenomena. I do not know why a certain event occurs; I
+think that I cannot know it; so I do not try to know it and I talk about
+chance. I see a force producing effects beyond the scope of ordinary
+human agencies; I do not understand why this occurs and I talk of
+genius.
+
+To a herd of rams, the ram the herdsman drives each evening into a
+special enclosure to feed and that becomes twice as fat as the others
+must seem to be a genius. And it must appear an astonishing conjunction
+of genius with a whole series of extraordinary chances that this ram,
+who instead of getting into the general fold every evening goes into a
+special enclosure where there are oats—that this very ram, swelling with
+fat, is killed for meat.
+
+But the rams need only cease to suppose that all that happens to them
+happens solely for the attainment of their sheepish aims; they need only
+admit that what happens to them may also have purposes beyond their ken,
+and they will at once perceive a unity and coherence in what happened to
+the ram that was fattened. Even if they do not know for what purpose
+they are fattened, they will at least know that all that happened to the
+ram did not happen accidentally, and will no longer need the conceptions
+of chance or genius.
+
+Only by renouncing our claim to discern a purpose immediately
+intelligible to us, and admitting the ultimate purpose to be beyond our
+ken, may we discern the sequence of experiences in the lives of historic
+characters and perceive the cause of the effect they produce
+(incommensurable with ordinary human capabilities), and then the words
+chance and genius become superfluous.
+
+We need only confess that we do not know the purpose of the European
+convulsions and that we know only the facts—that is, the murders, first
+in France, then in Italy, in Africa, in Prussia, in Austria, in Spain,
+and in Russia—and that the movements from the west to the east and from
+the east to the west form the essence and purpose of these events, and
+not only shall we have no need to see exceptional ability and genius in
+Napoleon and Alexander, but we shall be unable to consider them to be
+anything but like other men, and we shall not be obliged to have
+recourse to chance for an explanation of those small events which made
+these people what they were, but it will be clear that all those small
+events were inevitable.
+
+By discarding a claim to knowledge of the ultimate purpose, we shall
+clearly perceive that just as one cannot imagine a blossom or seed for
+any single plant better suited to it than those it produces, so it is
+impossible to imagine any two people more completely adapted down to the
+smallest detail for the purpose they had to fulfill, than Napoleon and
+Alexander with all their antecedents.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+The fundamental and essential significance of the European events of the
+beginning of the nineteenth century lies in the movement of the mass of
+the European peoples from west to east and afterwards from east to west.
+The commencement of that movement was the movement from west to east.
+For the peoples of the west to be able to make their warlike movement to
+Moscow it was necessary: (1) that they should form themselves into a
+military group of a size able to endure a collision with the warlike
+military group of the east, (2) that they should abandon all established
+traditions and customs, and (3) that during their military movement they
+should have at their head a man who could justify to himself and to them
+the deceptions, robberies, and murders which would have to be committed
+during that movement.
+
+And beginning with the French Revolution the old inadequately large
+group was destroyed, as well as the old habits and traditions, and step
+by step a group was formed of larger dimensions with new customs and
+traditions, and a man was produced who would stand at the head of the
+coming movement and bear the responsibility for all that had to be done.
+
+A man without convictions, without habits, without traditions, without a
+name, and not even a Frenchman, emerges—by what seem the strangest
+chances—from among all the seething French parties, and without joining
+anyone of them is borne forward to a prominent position.
+
+The ignorance of his colleagues, the weakness and insignificance of his
+opponents, the frankness of his falsehoods, and the dazzling and self-
+confident limitations of this man raise him to the head of the army. The
+brilliant qualities of the soldiers of the army sent to Italy, his
+opponents' reluctance to fight, and his own childish audacity and self-
+confidence secure him military fame. Innumerable so-called chances
+accompany him everywhere. The disfavor into which he falls with the
+rulers of France turns to his advantage. His attempts to avoid his
+predestined path are unsuccessful: he is not received into the Russian
+service, and the appointment he seeks in Turkey comes to nothing. During
+the war in Italy he is several times on the verge of destruction and
+each time is saved in an unexpected manner. Owing to various diplomatic
+considerations the Russian armies—just those which might have destroyed
+his prestige—do not appear upon the scene till he is no longer there.
+
+On his return from Italy he finds the government in Paris in a process
+of dissolution in which all those who are in it are inevitably wiped out
+and destroyed. And by chance an escape from this dangerous position
+presents itself in the form of an aimless and senseless expedition to
+Africa. Again so-called chance accompanies him. Impregnable Malta
+surrenders without a shot; his most reckless schemes are crowned with
+success. The enemy's fleet, which subsequently did not let a single boat
+pass, allows his entire army to elude it. In Africa a whole series of
+outrages are committed against the almost unarmed inhabitants. And the
+men who commit these crimes, especially their leader, assure themselves
+that this is admirable, this is glory—it resembles Caesar and Alexander
+the Great and is therefore good.
+
+This ideal of glory and grandeur—which consists not merely in
+considering nothing wrong that one does but in priding oneself on every
+crime one commits, ascribing to it an incomprehensible supernatural
+significance—that ideal, destined to guide this man and his associates,
+had scope for its development in Africa. Whatever he does succeeds. The
+plague does not touch him. The cruelty of murdering prisoners is not
+imputed to him as a fault. His childishly rash, uncalled-for, and
+ignoble departure from Africa, leaving his comrades in distress, is set
+down to his credit, and again the enemy's fleet twice lets him slip
+past. When, intoxicated by the crimes he has committed so successfully,
+he reaches Paris, the dissolution of the republican government, which a
+year earlier might have ruined him, has reached its extreme limit, and
+his presence there now as a newcomer free from party entanglements can
+only serve to exalt him—and though he himself has no plan, he is quite
+ready for his new role.
+
+He had no plan, he was afraid of everything, but the parties snatched at
+him and demanded his participation.
+
+He alone—with his ideal of glory and grandeur developed in Italy and
+Egypt, his insane self-adulation, his boldness in crime and frankness in
+lying—he alone could justify what had to be done.
+
+He is needed for the place that awaits him, and so almost apart from his
+will and despite his indecision, his lack of a plan, and all his
+mistakes, he is drawn into a conspiracy that aims at seizing power and
+the conspiracy is crowned with success.
+
+He is pushed into a meeting of the legislature. In alarm he wishes to
+flee, considering himself lost. He pretends to fall into a swoon and
+says senseless things that should have ruined him. But the once proud
+and shrewd rulers of France, feeling that their part is played out, are
+even more bewildered than he, and do not say the words they should have
+said to destroy him and retain their power.
+
+Chance, millions of chances, give him power, and all men as if by
+agreement co-operate to confirm that power. Chance forms the characters
+of the rulers of France, who submit to him; chance forms the character
+of Paul I of Russia who recognizes his government; chance contrives a
+plot against him which not only fails to harm him but confirms his
+power. Chance puts the Duc d'Enghien in his hands and unexpectedly
+causes him to kill him—thereby convincing the mob more forcibly than in
+any other way that he had the right, since he had the might. Chance
+contrives that though he directs all his efforts to prepare an
+expedition against England (which would inevitably have ruined him) he
+never carries out that intention, but unexpectedly falls upon Mack and
+the Austrians, who surrender without a battle. Chance and genius give
+him the victory at Austerlitz; and by chance all men, not only the
+French but all Europe—except England which does not take part in the
+events about to happen—despite their former horror and detestation of
+his crimes, now recognize his authority, the title he has given himself,
+and his ideal of grandeur and glory, which seems excellent and
+reasonable to them all.
+
+As if measuring themselves and preparing for the coming movement, the
+western forces push toward the east several times in 1805, 1806, 1807,
+and 1809, gaining strength and growing. In 1811 the group of people that
+had formed in France unites into one group with the peoples of Central
+Europe. The strength of the justification of the man who stands at the
+head of the movement grows with the increased size of the group. During
+the ten-year preparatory period this man had formed relations with all
+the crowned heads of Europe. The discredited rulers of the world can
+oppose no reasonable ideal to the insensate Napoleonic ideal of glory
+and grandeur. One after another they hasten to display their
+insignificance before him. The King of Prussia sends his wife to seek
+the great man's mercy; the Emperor of Austria considers it a favor that
+this man receives a daughter of the Caesars into his bed; the Pope, the
+guardian of all that the nations hold sacred, utilizes religion for the
+aggrandizement of the great man. It is not Napoleon who prepares himself
+for the accomplishment of his role, so much as all those round him who
+prepare him to take on himself the whole responsibility for what is
+happening and has to happen. There is no step, no crime or petty fraud
+he commits, which in the mouths of those around him is not at once
+represented as a great deed. The most suitable fete the Germans can
+devise for him is a celebration of Jena and Auerstadt. Not only is he
+great, but so are his ancestors, his brothers, his stepsons, and his
+brothers-in-law. Everything is done to deprive him of the remains of his
+reason and to prepare him for his terrible part. And when he is ready so
+too are the forces.
+
+The invasion pushes eastward and reaches its final goal—Moscow. That
+city is taken; the Russian army suffers heavier losses than the opposing
+armies had suffered in the former war from Austerlitz to Wagram. But
+suddenly instead of those chances and that genius which hitherto had so
+consistently led him by an uninterrupted series of successes to the
+predestined goal, an innumerable sequence of inverse chances occur—from
+the cold in his head at Borodino to the sparks which set Moscow on fire,
+and the frosts—and instead of genius, stupidity and immeasurable
+baseness become evident.
+
+The invaders flee, turn back, flee again, and all the chances are now
+not for Napoleon but always against him.
+
+A countermovement is then accomplished from east to west with a
+remarkable resemblance to the preceding movement from west to east.
+Attempted drives from east to west—similar to the contrary movements of
+1805, 1807, and 1809—precede the great westward movement; there is the
+same coalescence into a group of enormous dimensions; the same adhesion
+of the people of Central Europe to the movement; the same hesitation
+midway, and the same increasing rapidity as the goal is approached.
+
+Paris, the ultimate goal, is reached. The Napoleonic government and army
+are destroyed. Napoleon himself is no longer of any account; all his
+actions are evidently pitiful and mean, but again an inexplicable chance
+occurs. The allies detest Napoleon whom they regard as the cause of
+their sufferings. Deprived of power and authority, his crimes and his
+craft exposed, he should have appeared to them what he appeared ten
+years previously and one year later—an outlawed brigand. But by some
+strange chance no one perceives this. His part is not yet ended. The man
+who ten years before and a year later was considered an outlawed brigand
+is sent to an island two days' sail from France, which for some reason
+is presented to him as his dominion, and guards are given to him and
+millions of money are paid him.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+The flood of nations begins to subside into its normal channels. The
+waves of the great movement abate, and on the calm surface eddies are
+formed in which float the diplomatists, who imagine that they have
+caused the floods to abate.
+
+But the smooth sea again suddenly becomes disturbed. The diplomatists
+think that their disagreements are the cause of this fresh pressure of
+natural forces; they anticipate war between their sovereigns; the
+position seems to them insoluble. But the wave they feel to be rising
+does not come from the quarter they expect. It rises again from the same
+point as before—Paris. The last backwash of the movement from the west
+occurs: a backwash which serves to solve the apparently insuperable
+diplomatic difficulties and ends the military movement of that period of
+history.
+
+The man who had devastated France returns to France alone, without any
+conspiracy and without soldiers. Any guard might arrest him, but by
+strange chance no one does so and all rapturously greet the man they
+cursed the day before and will curse again a month later.
+
+This man is still needed to justify the final collective act.
+
+That act is performed.
+
+The last role is played. The actor is bidden to disrobe and wash off his
+powder and paint: he will not be wanted any more.
+
+And some years pass during which he plays a pitiful comedy to himself in
+solitude on his island, justifying his actions by intrigues and lies
+when the justification is no longer needed, and displaying to the whole
+world what it was that people had mistaken for strength as long as an
+unseen hand directed his actions.
+
+The manager having brought the drama to a close and stripped the actor
+shows him to us.
+
+"See what you believed in! This is he! Do you now see that it was not he
+but I who moved you?"
+
+But dazed by the force of the movement, it was long before people
+understood this.
+
+Still greater coherence and inevitability is seen in the life of
+Alexander I, the man who stood at the head of the countermovement from
+east to west.
+
+What was needed for him who, overshadowing others, stood at the head of
+that movement from east to west?
+
+What was needed was a sense of justice and a sympathy with European
+affairs, but a remote sympathy not dulled by petty interests; a moral
+superiority over those sovereigns of the day who co-operated with him; a
+mild and attractive personality; and a personal grievance against
+Napoleon. And all this was found in Alexander I; all this had been
+prepared by innumerable so-called chances in his life: his education,
+his early liberalism, the advisers who surrounded him, and by
+Austerlitz, and Tilsit, and Erfurt.
+
+During the national war he was inactive because he was not needed. But
+as soon as the necessity for a general European war presented itself he
+appeared in his place at the given moment and, uniting the nations of
+Europe, led them to the goal.
+
+The goal is reached. After the final war of 1815 Alexander possesses all
+possible power. How does he use it?
+
+Alexander I—the pacifier of Europe, the man who from his early years had
+striven only for his people's welfare, the originator of the liberal
+innovations in his fatherland—now that he seemed to possess the utmost
+power and therefore to have the possibility of bringing about the
+welfare of his peoples—at the time when Napoleon in exile was drawing up
+childish and mendacious plans of how he would have made mankind happy
+had he retained power—Alexander I, having fulfilled his mission and
+feeling the hand of God upon him, suddenly recognizes the insignificance
+of that supposed power, turns away from it, and gives it into the hands
+of contemptible men whom he despises, saying only:
+
+"Not unto us, not unto us, but unto Thy Name!... I too am a man like the
+rest of you. Let me live like a man and think of my soul and of God."
+
+As the sun and each atom of ether is a sphere complete in itself, and
+yet at the same time only a part of a whole too immense for man to
+comprehend, so each individual has within himself his own aims and yet
+has them to serve a general purpose incomprehensible to man.
+
+A bee settling on a flower has stung a child. And the child is afraid of
+bees and declares that bees exist to sting people. A poet admires the
+bee sucking from the chalice of a flower and says it exists to suck the
+fragrance of flowers. A beekeeper, seeing the bee collect pollen from
+flowers and carry it to the hive, says that it exists to gather honey.
+Another beekeeper who has studied the life of the hive more closely says
+that the bee gathers pollen dust to feed the young bees and rear a
+queen, and that it exists to perpetuate its race. A botanist notices
+that the bee flying with the pollen of a male flower to a pistil
+fertilizes the latter, and sees in this the purpose of the bee's
+existence. Another, observing the migration of plants, notices that the
+bee helps in this work, and may say that in this lies the purpose of the
+bee. But the ultimate purpose of the bee is not exhausted by the first,
+the second, or any of the processes the human mind can discern. The
+higher the human intellect rises in the discovery of these purposes, the
+more obvious it becomes, that the ultimate purpose is beyond our
+comprehension.
+
+All that is accessible to man is the relation of the life of the bee to
+other manifestations of life. And so it is with the purpose of historic
+characters and nations.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+Natásha's wedding to Bezúkhov, which took place in 1813, was the last
+happy event in the family of the old Rostóvs. Count Ilyá Rostóv died
+that same year and, as always happens, after the father's death the
+family group broke up.
+
+The events of the previous year: the burning of Moscow and the flight
+from it, the death of Prince Andrew, Natásha's despair, Pétya's death,
+and the old countess' grief fell blow after blow on the old count's
+head. He seemed to be unable to understand the meaning of all these
+events, and bowed his old head in a spiritual sense as if expecting and
+inviting further blows which would finish him. He seemed now frightened
+and distraught and now unnaturally animated and enterprising.
+
+The arrangements for Natásha's marriage occupied him for a while. He
+ordered dinners and suppers and obviously tried to appear cheerful, but
+his cheerfulness was not infectious as it used to be: on the contrary it
+evoked the compassion of those who knew and liked him.
+
+When Pierre and his wife had left, he grew very quiet and began to
+complain of depression. A few days later he fell ill and took to his
+bed. He realized from the first that he would not get up again, despite
+the doctor's encouragement. The countess passed a fortnight in an
+armchair by his pillow without undressing. Every time she gave him his
+medicine he sobbed and silently kissed her hand. On his last day,
+sobbing, he asked her and his absent son to forgive him for having
+dissipated their property—that being the chief fault of which he was
+conscious. After receiving communion and unction he quietly died; and
+next day a throng of acquaintances who came to pay their last respects
+to the deceased filled the house rented by the Rostóvs. All these
+acquaintances, who had so often dined and danced at his house and had so
+often laughed at him, now said, with a common feeling of self-reproach
+and emotion, as if justifying themselves: "Well, whatever he may have
+been he was a most worthy man. You don't meet such men nowadays.... And
+which of us has not weaknesses of his own?"
+
+It was just when the count's affairs had become so involved that it was
+impossible to say what would happen if he lived another year that he
+unexpectedly died.
+
+Nicholas was with the Russian army in Paris when the news of his
+father's death reached him. He at once resigned his commission, and
+without waiting for it to be accepted took leave of absence and went to
+Moscow. The state of the count's affairs became quite obvious a month
+after his death, surprising everyone by the immense total of small debts
+the existence of which no one had suspected. The debts amounted to
+double the value of the property.
+
+Friends and relations advised Nicholas to decline the inheritance. But
+he regarded such a refusal as a slur on his father's memory, which he
+held sacred, and therefore would not hear of refusing and accepted the
+inheritance together with the obligation to pay the debts.
+
+The creditors who had so long been silent, restrained by a vague but
+powerful influence exerted on them while he lived by the count's
+careless good nature, all proceeded to enforce their claims at once. As
+always happens in such cases rivalry sprang up as to which should get
+paid first, and those who like Mitenka held promissory notes given them
+as presents now became the most exacting of the creditors. Nicholas was
+allowed no respite and no peace, and those who had seemed to pity the
+old man—the cause of their losses (if they were losses)—now
+remorselessly pursued the young heir who had voluntarily undertaken the
+debts and was obviously not guilty of contracting them.
+
+Not one of the plans Nicholas tried succeeded; the estate was sold by
+auction for half its value, and half the debts still remained unpaid.
+Nicholas accepted thirty thousand rubles offered him by his brother-in-
+law Bezúkhov to pay off debts he regarded as genuinely due for value
+received. And to avoid being imprisoned for the remainder, as the
+creditors threatened, he re-entered the government service.
+
+He could not rejoin the army where he would have been made colonel at
+the next vacancy, for his mother now clung to him as her one hold on
+life; and so despite his reluctance to remain in Moscow among people who
+had known him before, and despite his abhorrence of the civil service,
+he accepted a post in Moscow in that service, doffed the uniform of
+which he was so fond, and moved with his mother and Sónya to a small
+house on the Sivtsev Vrazhek.
+
+Natásha and Pierre were living in Petersburg at the time and had no
+clear idea of Nicholas' circumstances. Having borrowed money from his
+brother-in-law, Nicholas tried to hide his wretched condition from him.
+His position was the more difficult because with his salary of twelve
+hundred rubles he had not only to keep himself, his mother, and Sónya,
+but had to shield his mother from knowledge of their poverty. The
+countess could not conceive of life without the luxurious conditions she
+had been used to from childhood and, unable to realize how hard it was
+for her son, kept demanding now a carriage (which they did not keep) to
+send for a friend, now some expensive article of food for herself, or
+wine for her son, or money to buy a present as a surprise for Natásha or
+Sónya, or for Nicholas himself.
+
+Sónya kept house, attended on her aunt, read to her, put up with her
+whims and secret ill-will, and helped Nicholas to conceal their poverty
+from the old countess. Nicholas felt himself irredeemably indebted to
+Sónya for all she was doing for his mother and greatly admired her
+patience and devotion, but tried to keep aloof from her.
+
+He seemed in his heart to reproach her for being too perfect, and
+because there was nothing to reproach her with. She had all that people
+are valued for, but little that could have made him love her. He felt
+that the more he valued her the less he loved her. He had taken her at
+her word when she wrote giving him his freedom and now behaved as if all
+that had passed between them had been long forgotten and could never in
+any case be renewed.
+
+Nicholas' position became worse and worse. The idea of putting something
+aside out of his salary proved a dream. Not only did he not save
+anything, but to comply with his mother's demands he even incurred some
+small debts. He could see no way out of this situation. The idea of
+marrying some rich woman, which was suggested to him by his female
+relations, was repugnant to him. The other way out—his mother's
+death—never entered his head. He wished for nothing and hoped for
+nothing, and deep in his heart experienced a gloomy and stern
+satisfaction in an uncomplaining endurance of his position. He tried to
+avoid his old acquaintances with their commiseration and offensive
+offers of assistance; he avoided all distraction and recreation, and
+even at home did nothing but play cards with his mother, pace silently
+up and down the room, and smoke one pipe after another. He seemed
+carefully to cherish within himself the gloomy mood which alone enabled
+him to endure his position.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+At the beginning of winter Princess Mary came to Moscow. From reports
+current in town she learned how the Rostóvs were situated, and how "the
+son has sacrificed himself for his mother," as people were saying.
+
+"I never expected anything else of him," said Princess Mary to herself,
+feeling a joyous sense of her love for him. Remembering her friendly
+relations with all the Rostóvs which had made her almost a member of the
+family, she thought it her duty to go to see them. But remembering her
+relations with Nicholas in Voronezh she was shy about doing so. Making a
+great effort she did however go to call on them a few weeks after her
+arrival in Moscow.
+
+Nicholas was the first to meet her, as the countess' room could only be
+reached through his. But instead of being greeted with pleasure as she
+had expected, at his first glance at her his face assumed a cold, stiff,
+proud expression she had not seen on it before. He inquired about her
+health, led the way to his mother, and having sat there for five minutes
+left the room.
+
+When the princess came out of the countess' room Nicholas met her again,
+and with marked solemnity and stiffness accompanied her to the anteroom.
+To her remarks about his mother's health he made no reply. "What's that
+to you? Leave me in peace," his looks seemed to say.
+
+"Why does she come prowling here? What does she want? I can't bear these
+ladies and all these civilities!" said he aloud in Sónya's presence,
+evidently unable to repress his vexation, after the princess' carriage
+had disappeared.
+
+"Oh, Nicholas, how can you talk like that?" cried Sónya, hardly able to
+conceal her delight. "She is so kind and Mamma is so fond of her!"
+
+Nicholas did not reply and tried to avoid speaking of the princess any
+more. But after her visit the old countess spoke of her several times a
+day.
+
+She sang her praises, insisted that her son must call on her, expressed
+a wish to see her often, but yet always became ill-humored when she
+began to talk about her.
+
+Nicholas tried to keep silence when his mother spoke of the princess,
+but his silence irritated her.
+
+"She is a very admirable and excellent young woman," said she, "and you
+must go and call on her. You would at least be seeing somebody, and I
+think it must be dull for you only seeing us."
+
+"But I don't in the least want to, Mamma."
+
+"You used to want to, and now you don't. Really I don't understand you,
+my dear. One day you are dull, and the next you refuse to see anyone."
+
+"But I never said I was dull."
+
+"Why, you said yourself you don't want even to see her. She is a very
+admirable young woman and you always liked her, but now suddenly you
+have got some notion or other in your head. You hide everything from
+me."
+
+"Not at all, Mamma."
+
+"If I were asking you to do something disagreeable now—but I only ask
+you to return a call. One would think mere politeness required it....
+Well, I have asked you, and now I won't interfere any more since you
+have secrets from your mother."
+
+"Well, then, I'll go if you wish it."
+
+"It doesn't matter to me. I only wish it for your sake."
+
+Nicholas sighed, bit his mustache, and laid out the cards for a
+patience, trying to divert his mother's attention to another topic.
+
+The same conversation was repeated next day and the day after, and the
+day after that.
+
+After her visit to the Rostóvs and her unexpectedly chilly reception by
+Nicholas, Princess Mary confessed to herself that she had been right in
+not wishing to be the first to call.
+
+"I expected nothing else," she told herself, calling her pride to her
+aid. "I have nothing to do with him and I only wanted to see the old
+lady, who was always kind to me and to whom I am under many
+obligations."
+
+But she could not pacify herself with these reflections; a feeling akin
+to remorse troubled her when she thought of her visit. Though she had
+firmly resolved not to call on the Rostóvs again and to forget the whole
+matter, she felt herself all the time in an awkward position. And when
+she asked herself what distressed her, she had to admit that it was her
+relation to Rostóv. His cold, polite manner did not express his feeling
+for her (she knew that) but it concealed something, and until she could
+discover what that something was, she felt that she could not be at
+ease.
+
+One day in midwinter when sitting in the schoolroom attending to her
+nephew's lessons, she was informed that Rostóv had called. With a firm
+resolution not to betray herself and not show her agitation, she sent
+for Mademoiselle Bourienne and went with her to the drawing room.
+
+Her first glance at Nicholas' face told her that he had only come to
+fulfill the demands of politeness, and she firmly resolved to maintain
+the tone in which he addressed her.
+
+They spoke of the countess' health, of their mutual friends, of the
+latest war news, and when the ten minutes required by propriety had
+elapsed after which a visitor may rise, Nicholas got up to say good-by.
+
+With Mademoiselle Bourienne's help the princess had maintained the
+conversation very well, but at the very last moment, just when he rose,
+she was so tired of talking of what did not interest her, and her mind
+was so full of the question why she alone was granted so little
+happiness in life, that in a fit of absent-mindedness she sat still, her
+luminous eyes gazing fixedly before her, not noticing that he had risen.
+
+Nicholas glanced at her and, wishing to appear not to notice her
+abstraction, made some remark to Mademoiselle Bourienne and then again
+looked at the princess. She still sat motionless with a look of
+suffering on her gentle face. He suddenly felt sorry for her and was
+vaguely conscious that he might be the cause of the sadness her face
+expressed. He wished to help her and say something pleasant, but could
+think of nothing to say.
+
+"Good-bye, Princess!" said he.
+
+She started, flushed, and sighed deeply.
+
+"Oh, I beg your pardon," she said as if waking up. "Are you going
+already, Count? Well then, good-by! Oh, but the cushion for the
+countess!"
+
+"Wait a moment, I'll fetch it," said Mademoiselle Bourienne, and she
+left the room.
+
+They both sat silent, with an occasional glance at one another.
+
+"Yes, Princess," said Nicholas at last with a sad smile, "it doesn't
+seem long ago since we first met at Bogucharovo, but how much water has
+flowed since then! In what distress we all seemed to be then, yet I
+would give much to bring back that time... but there's no bringing it
+back."
+
+Princess Mary gazed intently into his eyes with her own luminous ones as
+he said this. She seemed to be trying to fathom the hidden meaning of
+his words which would explain his feeling for her.
+
+"Yes, yes," said she, "but you have no reason to regret the past, Count.
+As I understand your present life, I think you will always recall it
+with satisfaction, because the self-sacrifice that fills it now..."
+
+"I cannot accept your praise," he interrupted her hurriedly. "On the
+contrary I continually reproach myself.... But this is not at all an
+interesting or cheerful subject."
+
+His face again resumed its former stiff and cold expression. But the
+princess had caught a glimpse of the man she had known and loved, and it
+was to him that she now spoke.
+
+"I thought you would allow me to tell you this," she said. "I had come
+so near to you... and to all your family that I thought you would not
+consider my sympathy misplaced, but I was mistaken," and suddenly her
+voice trembled. "I don't know why," she continued, recovering herself,
+"but you used to be different, and..."
+
+"There are a thousand reasons why," laying special emphasis on the why.
+"Thank you, Princess," he added softly. "Sometimes it is hard."
+
+"So that's why! That's why!" a voice whispered in Princess Mary's soul.
+"No, it was not only that gay, kind, and frank look, not only that
+handsome exterior, that I loved in him. I divined his noble, resolute,
+self-sacrificing spirit too," she said to herself. "Yes, he is poor now
+and I am rich.... Yes, that's the only reason.... Yes, were it not for
+that..." And remembering his former tenderness, and looking now at his
+kind, sorrowful face, she suddenly understood the cause of his coldness.
+
+"But why, Count, why?" she almost cried, unconsciously moving closer to
+him. "Why? Tell me. You must tell me!"
+
+He was silent.
+
+"I don't understand your why, Count," she continued, "but it's hard for
+me... I confess it. For some reason you wish to deprive me of our former
+friendship. And that hurts me." There were tears in her eyes and in her
+voice. "I have had so little happiness in life that every loss is hard
+for me to bear.... Excuse me, good-by!" and suddenly she began to cry
+and was hurrying from the room.
+
+"Princess, for God's sake!" he exclaimed, trying to stop her.
+"Princess!"
+
+She turned round. For a few seconds they gazed silently into one
+another's eyes—and what had seemed impossible and remote suddenly became
+possible, inevitable, and very near.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+In the winter of 1813 Nicholas married Princess Mary and moved to Bald
+Hills with his wife, his mother, and Sónya.
+
+Within four years he had paid off all his remaining debts without
+selling any of his wife's property, and having received a small
+inheritance on the death of a cousin he paid his debt to Pierre as well.
+
+In another three years, by 1820, he had so managed his affairs that he
+was able to buy a small estate adjoining Bald Hills and was negotiating
+to buy back Otradnoe—that being his pet dream.
+
+Having started farming from necessity, he soon grew so devoted to it
+that it became his favorite and almost his sole occupation. Nicholas was
+a plain farmer: he did not like innovations, especially the English ones
+then coming into vogue. He laughed at theoretical treatises on estate
+management, disliked factories, the raising of expensive products, and
+the buying of expensive seed corn, and did not make a hobby of any
+particular part of the work on his estate. He always had before his
+mind's eye the estate as a whole and not any particular part of it. The
+chief thing in his eyes was not the nitrogen in the soil, nor the oxygen
+in the air, nor manures, nor special plows, but that most important
+agent by which nitrogen, oxygen, manure, and plow were made
+effective—the peasant laborer. When Nicholas first began farming and
+began to understand its different branches, it was the serf who
+especially attracted his attention. The peasant seemed to him not merely
+a tool, but also a judge of farming and an end in himself. At first he
+watched the serfs, trying to understand their aims and what they
+considered good and bad, and only pretended to direct them and give
+orders while in reality learning from them their methods, their manner
+of speech, and their judgment of what was good and bad. Only when he had
+understood the peasants' tastes and aspirations, had learned to talk
+their language, to grasp the hidden meaning of their words, and felt
+akin to them did he begin boldly to manage his serfs, that is, to
+perform toward them the duties demanded of him. And Nicholas' management
+produced very brilliant results.
+
+Guided by some gift of insight, on taking up the management of the
+estates he at once unerringly appointed as bailiff, village elder, and
+delegate, the very men the serfs would themselves have chosen had they
+had the right to choose, and these posts never changed hands. Before
+analyzing the properties of manure, before entering into the debit and
+credit (as he ironically called it), he found out how many cattle the
+peasants had and increased the number by all possible means. He kept the
+peasant families together in the largest groups possible, not allowing
+the family groups to divide into separate households. He was hard alike
+on the lazy, the depraved, and the weak, and tried to get them expelled
+from the commune.
+
+He was as careful of the sowing and reaping of the peasants' hay and
+corn as of his own, and few landowners had their crops sown and
+harvested so early and so well, or got so good a return, as did
+Nicholas.
+
+He disliked having anything to do with the domestic serfs—the "drones"
+as he called them—and everyone said he spoiled them by his laxity. When
+a decision had to be taken regarding a domestic serf, especially if one
+had to be punished, he always felt undecided and consulted everybody in
+the house; but when it was possible to have a domestic serf conscripted
+instead of a land worker he did so without the least hesitation. He
+never felt any hesitation in dealing with the peasants. He knew that his
+every decision would be approved by them all with very few exceptions.
+
+He did not allow himself either to be hard on or punish a man, or to
+make things easy for or reward anyone, merely because he felt inclined
+to do so. He could not have said by what standard he judged what he
+should or should not do, but the standard was quite firm and definite in
+his own mind.
+
+Often, speaking with vexation of some failure or irregularity, he would
+say: "What can one do with our Russian peasants?" and imagined that he
+could not bear them.
+
+Yet he loved "our Russian peasants" and their way of life with his whole
+soul, and for that very reason had understood and assimilated the one
+way and manner of farming which produced good results.
+
+Countess Mary was jealous of this passion of her husband's and regretted
+that she could not share it; but she could not understand the joys and
+vexations he derived from that world, to her so remote and alien. She
+could not understand why he was so particularly animated and happy when,
+after getting up at daybreak and spending the whole morning in the
+fields or on the threshing floor, he returned from the sowing or mowing
+or reaping to have tea with her. She did not understand why he spoke
+with such admiration and delight of the farming of the thrifty and well-
+to-do peasant Matthew Ermishin, who with his family had carted corn all
+night; or of the fact that his (Nicholas') sheaves were already stacked
+before anyone else had his harvest in. She did not understand why he
+stepped out from the window to the veranda and smiled under his mustache
+and winked so joyfully, when warm steady rain began to fall on the dry
+and thirsty shoots of the young oats, or why when the wind carried away
+a threatening cloud during the hay harvest he would return from the
+barn, flushed, sunburned, and perspiring, with a smell of wormwood and
+gentian in his hair and, gleefully rubbing his hands, would say: "Well,
+one more day and my grain and the peasants' will all be under cover."
+
+Still less did she understand why he, kindhearted and always ready to
+anticipate her wishes, should become almost desperate when she brought
+him a petition from some peasant men or women who had appealed to her to
+be excused some work; why he, that kind Nicholas, should obstinately
+refuse her, angrily asking her not to interfere in what was not her
+business. She felt he had a world apart, which he loved passionately and
+which had laws she had not fathomed.
+
+Sometimes when, trying to understand him, she spoke of the good work he
+was doing for his serfs, he would be vexed and reply: "Not in the least;
+it never entered my head and I wouldn't do that for their good! That's
+all poetry and old wives' talk—all that doing good to one's neighbor!
+What I want is that our children should not have to go begging. I must
+put our affairs in order while I am alive, that's all. And to do that,
+order and strictness are essential.... That's all about it!" said he,
+clenching his vigorous fist. "And fairness, of course," he added, "for
+if the peasant is naked and hungry and has only one miserable horse, he
+can do no good either for himself or for me."
+
+And all Nicholas did was fruitful—probably just because he refused to
+allow himself to think that he was doing good to others for virtue's
+sake. His means increased rapidly; serfs from neighboring estates came
+to beg him to buy them, and long after his death the memory of his
+administration was devoutly preserved among the serfs. "He was a
+master... the peasants' affairs first and then his own. Of course he was
+not to be trifled with either—in a word, he was a real master!"
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+One matter connected with his management sometimes worried Nicholas, and
+that was his quick temper together with his old hussar habit of making
+free use of his fists. At first he saw nothing reprehensible in this,
+but in the second year of his marriage his view of that form of
+punishment suddenly changed.
+
+Once in summer he had sent for the village elder from Bogucharovo, a man
+who had succeeded to the post when Dron died and who was accused of
+dishonesty and various irregularities. Nicholas went out into the porch
+to question him, and immediately after the elder had given a few replies
+the sound of cries and blows were heard. On returning to lunch Nicholas
+went up to his wife, who sat with her head bent low over her embroidery
+frame, and as usual began to tell her what he had been doing that
+morning. Among other things he spoke of the Bogucharovo elder. Countess
+Mary turned red and then pale, but continued to sit with head bowed and
+lips compressed and gave her husband no reply.
+
+"Such an insolent scoundrel!" he cried, growing hot again at the mere
+recollection of him. "If he had told me he was drunk and did not see...
+But what is the matter with you, Mary?" he suddenly asked.
+
+Countess Mary raised her head and tried to speak, but hastily looked
+down again and her lips puckered.
+
+"Why, whatever is the matter, my dearest?"
+
+The looks of the plain Countess Mary always improved when she was in
+tears. She never cried from pain or vexation, but always from sorrow or
+pity, and when she wept her radiant eyes acquired an irresistible charm.
+
+The moment Nicholas took her hand she could no longer restrain herself
+and began to cry.
+
+"Nicholas, I saw it... he was to blame, but why do you... Nicholas!" and
+she covered her face with her hands.
+
+Nicholas said nothing. He flushed crimson, left her side, and paced up
+and down the room. He understood what she was weeping about, but could
+not in his heart at once agree with her that what he had regarded from
+childhood as quite an everyday event was wrong. "Is it just
+sentimentality, old wives' tales, or is she right?" he asked himself.
+Before he had solved that point he glanced again at her face filled with
+love and pain, and he suddenly realized that she was right and that he
+had long been sinning against himself.
+
+"Mary," he said softly, going up to her, "it will never happen again; I
+give you my word. Never," he repeated in a trembling voice like a boy
+asking for forgiveness.
+
+The tears flowed faster still from the countess' eyes. She took his hand
+and kissed it.
+
+"Nicholas, when did you break your cameo?" she asked to change the
+subject, looking at his finger on which he wore a ring with a cameo of
+Laocoon's head.
+
+"Today—it was the same affair. Oh, Mary, don't remind me of it!" and
+again he flushed. "I give you my word of honor it shan't occur again,
+and let this always be a reminder to me," and he pointed to the broken
+ring.
+
+After that, when in discussions with his village elders or stewards the
+blood rushed to his face and his fists began to clench, Nicholas would
+turn the broken ring on his finger and would drop his eyes before the
+man who was making him angry. But he did forget himself once or twice
+within a twelvemonth, and then he would go and confess to his wife, and
+would again promise that this should really be the very last time.
+
+"Mary, you must despise me!" he would say. "I deserve it."
+
+"You should go, go away at once, if you don't feel strong enough to
+control yourself," she would reply sadly, trying to comfort her husband.
+
+Among the gentry of the province Nicholas was respected but not liked.
+He did not concern himself with the interests of his own class, and
+consequently some thought him proud and others thought him stupid. The
+whole summer, from spring sowing to harvest, he was busy with the work
+on his farm. In autumn he gave himself up to hunting with the same
+business-like seriousness—leaving home for a month, or even two, with
+his hunt. In winter he visited his other villages or spent his time
+reading. The books he read were chiefly historical, and on these he
+spent a certain sum every year. He was collecting, as he said, a serious
+library, and he made it a rule to read through all the books he bought.
+He would sit in his study with a grave air, reading—a task he first
+imposed upon himself as a duty, but which afterwards became a habit
+affording him a special kind of pleasure and a consciousness of being
+occupied with serious matters. In winter, except for business
+excursions, he spent most of his time at home making himself one with
+his family and entering into all the details of his children's relations
+with their mother. The harmony between him and his wife grew closer and
+closer and he daily discovered fresh spiritual treasures in her.
+
+From the time of his marriage Sónya had lived in his house. Before that,
+Nicholas had told his wife all that had passed between himself and
+Sónya, blaming himself and commending her. He had asked Princess Mary to
+be gentle and kind to his cousin. She thoroughly realized the wrong he
+had done Sónya, felt herself to blame toward her, and imagined that her
+wealth had influenced Nicholas' choice. She could not find fault with
+Sónya in any way and tried to be fond of her, but often felt ill-will
+toward her which she could not overcome.
+
+Once she had a talk with her friend Natásha about Sónya and about her
+own injustice toward her.
+
+"You know," said Natásha, "you have read the Gospels a great deal—there
+is a passage in them that just fits Sónya."
+
+"What?" asked Countess Mary, surprised.
+
+"'To him that hath shall be given, and from him that hath not shall be
+taken away.' You remember? She is one that hath not; why, I don't know.
+Perhaps she lacks egotism, I don't know, but from her is taken away, and
+everything has been taken away. Sometimes I am dreadfully sorry for her.
+Formerly I very much wanted Nicholas to marry her, but I always had a
+sort of presentiment that it would not come off. She is a sterile
+flower, you know—like some strawberry blossoms. Sometimes I am sorry for
+her, and sometimes I think she doesn't feel it as you or I would."
+
+Though Countess Mary told Natásha that those words in the Gospel must be
+understood differently, yet looking at Sónya she agreed with Natásha's
+explanation. It really seemed that Sónya did not feel her position
+trying, and had grown quite reconciled to her lot as a sterile flower.
+She seemed to be fond not so much of individuals as of the family as a
+whole. Like a cat, she had attached herself not to the people but to the
+home. She waited on the old countess, petted and spoiled the children,
+was always ready to render the small services for which she had a gift,
+and all this was unconsciously accepted from her with insufficient
+gratitude.
+
+The country seat at Bald Hills had been rebuilt, though not on the same
+scale as under the old prince.
+
+The buildings, begun under straitened circumstances, were more than
+simple. The immense house on the old stone foundations was of wood,
+plastered only inside. It had bare deal floors and was furnished with
+very simple hard sofas, armchairs, tables, and chairs made by their own
+serf carpenters out of their own birchwood. The house was spacious and
+had rooms for the house serfs and apartments for visitors. Whole
+families of the Rostóvs' and Bolkónskis' relations sometimes came to
+Bald Hills with sixteen horses and dozens of servants and stayed for
+months. Besides that, four times a year, on the name days and birthdays
+of the hosts, as many as a hundred visitors would gather there for a day
+or two. The rest of the year life pursued its unbroken routine with its
+ordinary occupations, and its breakfasts, lunches, dinners, and suppers,
+provided out of the produce of the estate.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+It was the eve of St. Nicholas, the fifth of December, 1820. Natásha had
+been staying at her brother's with her husband and children since early
+autumn. Pierre had gone to Petersburg on business of his own for three
+weeks as he said, but had remained there nearly seven weeks and was
+expected back every minute.
+
+Besides the Bezúkhov family, Nicholas' old friend the retired General
+Vasíli Dmítrich Denisov was staying with the Rostóvs this fifth of
+December.
+
+On the sixth, which was his name day when the house would be full of
+visitors, Nicholas knew he would have to exchange his Tartar tunic for a
+tail coat, and put on narrow boots with pointed toes, and drive to the
+new church he had built, and then receive visitors who would come to
+congratulate him, offer them refreshments, and talk about the elections
+of the nobility; but he considered himself entitled to spend the eve of
+that day in his usual way. He examined the bailiff's accounts of the
+village in Ryazan which belonged to his wife's nephew, wrote two
+business letters, and walked over to the granaries, cattle yards and
+stables before dinner. Having taken precautions against the general
+drunkenness to be expected on the morrow because it was a great saint's
+day, he returned to dinner, and without having time for a private talk
+with his wife sat down at the long table laid for twenty persons, at
+which the whole household had assembled. At that table were his mother,
+his mother's old lady companion Belova, his wife, their three children
+with their governess and tutor, his wife's nephew with his tutor, Sónya,
+Denisov, Natásha, her three children, their governess, and old Michael
+Ivánovich, the late prince's architect, who was living on in retirement
+at Bald Hills.
+
+Countess Mary sat at the other end of the table. When her husband took
+his place she concluded, from the rapid manner in which after taking up
+his table napkin he pushed back the tumbler and wineglass standing
+before him, that he was out of humor, as was sometimes the case when he
+came in to dinner straight from the farm—especially before the soup.
+Countess Mary well knew that mood of his, and when she herself was in a
+good frame of mind quietly waited till he had had his soup and then
+began to talk to him and make him admit that there was no cause for his
+ill-humor. But today she quite forgot that and was hurt that he should
+be angry with her without any reason, and she felt unhappy. She asked
+him where he had been. He replied. She again inquired whether everything
+was going well on the farm. Her unnatural tone made him wince
+unpleasantly and he replied hastily.
+
+"Then I'm not mistaken," thought Countess Mary. "Why is he cross with
+me?" She concluded from his tone that he was vexed with her and wished
+to end the conversation. She knew her remarks sounded unnatural, but
+could not refrain from asking some more questions.
+
+Thanks to Denisov the conversation at table soon became general and
+lively, and she did not talk to her husband. When they left the table
+and went as usual to thank the old countess, Countess Mary held out her
+hand and kissed her husband, and asked him why he was angry with her.
+
+"You always have such strange fancies! I didn't even think of being
+angry," he replied.
+
+But the word always seemed to her to imply: "Yes, I am angry but I won't
+tell you why."
+
+Nicholas and his wife lived together so happily that even Sónya and the
+old countess, who felt jealous and would have liked them to disagree,
+could find nothing to reproach them with; but even they had their
+moments of antagonism. Occasionally, and it was always just after they
+had been happiest together, they suddenly had a feeling of estrangement
+and hostility, which occurred most frequently during Countess Mary's
+pregnancies, and this was such a time.
+
+"Well, messieurs et mesdames," said Nicholas loudly and with apparent
+cheerfulness (it seemed to Countess Mary that he did it on purpose to
+vex her), "I have been on my feet since six this morning. Tomorrow I
+shall have to suffer, so today I'll go and rest."
+
+And without a word to his wife he went to the little sitting room and
+lay down on the sofa.
+
+"That's always the way," thought Countess Mary. "He talks to everyone
+except me. I see... I see that I am repulsive to him, especially when I
+am in this condition." She looked down at her expanded figure and in the
+glass at her pale, sallow, emaciated face in which her eyes now looked
+larger than ever.
+
+And everything annoyed her—Denisov's shouting and laughter, Natásha's
+talk, and especially a quick glance Sónya gave her.
+
+Sónya was always the first excuse Countess Mary found for feeling
+irritated.
+
+Having sat awhile with her visitors without understanding anything of
+what they were saying, she softly left the room and went to the nursery.
+
+The children were playing at "going to Moscow" in a carriage made of
+chairs and invited her to go with them. She sat down and played with
+them a little, but the thought of her husband and his unreasonable
+crossness worried her. She got up and, walking on tiptoe with
+difficulty, went to the small sitting room.
+
+"Perhaps he is not asleep; I'll have an explanation with him," she said
+to herself. Little Andrew, her eldest boy, imitating his mother,
+followed her on tiptoe. She did not notice him.
+
+"Mary, dear, I think he is asleep—he was so tired," said Sónya, meeting
+her in the large sitting room (it seemed to Countess Mary that she
+crossed her path everywhere). "Andrew may wake him."
+
+Countess Mary looked round, saw little Andrew following her, felt that
+Sónya was right, and for that very reason flushed and with evident
+difficulty refrained from saying something harsh. She made no reply, but
+to avoid obeying Sónya beckoned to Andrew to follow her quietly and went
+to the door. Sónya went away by another door. From the room in which
+Nicholas was sleeping came the sound of his even breathing, every
+slightest tone of which was familiar to his wife. As she listened to it
+she saw before her his smooth handsome forehead, his mustache, and his
+whole face, as she had so often seen it in the stillness of the night
+when he slept. Nicholas suddenly moved and cleared his throat. And at
+that moment little Andrew shouted from outside the door: "Papa! Mamma's
+standing here!" Countess Mary turned pale with fright and made signs to
+the boy. He grew silent, and quiet ensued for a moment, terrible to
+Countess Mary. She knew how Nicholas disliked being waked. Then through
+the door she heard Nicholas clearing his throat again and stirring, and
+his voice said crossly:
+
+"I can't get a moment's peace.... Mary, is that you? Why did you bring
+him here?"
+
+"I only came in to look and did not notice... forgive me..."
+
+Nicholas coughed and said no more. Countess Mary moved away from the
+door and took the boy back to the nursery. Five minutes later little
+black-eyed three-year-old Natásha, her father's pet, having learned from
+her brother that Papa was asleep and Mamma was in the sitting room, ran
+to her father unobserved by her mother. The dark-eyed little girl boldly
+opened the creaking door, went up to the sofa with energetic steps of
+her sturdy little legs, and having examined the position of her father,
+who was asleep with his back to her, rose on tiptoe and kissed the hand
+which lay under his head. Nicholas turned with a tender smile on his
+face.
+
+"Natásha, Natásha!" came Countess Mary's frightened whisper from the
+door. "Papa wants to sleep."
+
+"No, Mamma, he doesn't want to sleep," said little Natásha with
+conviction. "He's laughing."
+
+Nicholas lowered his legs, rose, and took his daughter in his arms.
+
+"Come in, Mary," he said to his wife.
+
+She went in and sat down by her husband.
+
+"I did not notice him following me," she said timidly. "I just looked
+in."
+
+Holding his little girl with one arm, Nicholas glanced at his wife and,
+seeing her guilty expression, put his other arm around her and kissed
+her hair.
+
+"May I kiss Mamma?" he asked Natásha.
+
+Natásha smiled bashfully.
+
+"Again!" she commanded, pointing with a peremptory gesture to the spot
+where Nicholas had placed the kiss.
+
+"I don't know why you think I am cross," said Nicholas, replying to the
+question he knew was in his wife's mind.
+
+"You have no idea how unhappy, how lonely, I feel when you are like
+that. It always seems to me..."
+
+"Mary, don't talk nonsense. You ought to be ashamed of yourself!" he
+said gaily.
+
+"It seems to be that you can't love me, that I am so plain... always...
+and now... in this cond..."
+
+"Oh, how absurd you are! It is not beauty that endears, it's love that
+makes us see beauty. It is only Malvinas and women of that kind who are
+loved for their beauty. But do I love my wife? I don't love her, but...
+I don't know how to put it. Without you, or when something comes between
+us like this, I seem lost and can't do anything. Now do I love my
+finger? I don't love it, but just try to cut it off!"
+
+"I'm not like that myself, but I understand. So you're not angry with
+me?"
+
+"Awfully angry!" he said, smiling and getting up. And smoothing his hair
+he began to pace the room.
+
+"Do you know, Mary, what I've been thinking?" he began, immediately
+thinking aloud in his wife's presence now that they had made it up.
+
+He did not ask if she was ready to listen to him. He did not care. A
+thought had occurred to him and so it belonged to her also. And he told
+her of his intention to persuade Pierre to stay with them till spring.
+
+Countess Mary listened till he had finished, made some remark, and in
+her turn began thinking aloud. Her thoughts were about the children.
+
+"You can see the woman in her already," she said in French, pointing to
+little Natásha. "You reproach us women with being illogical. Here is our
+logic. I say: 'Papa wants to sleep!' but she says, 'No, he's laughing.'
+And she was right," said Countess Mary with a happy smile.
+
+"Yes, yes." And Nicholas, taking his little daughter in his strong hand,
+lifted her high, placed her on his shoulder, held her by the legs, and
+paced the room with her. There was an expression of carefree happiness
+on the faces of both father and daughter.
+
+"But you know you may be unfair. You are too fond of this one," his wife
+whispered in French.
+
+"Yes, but what am I to do?... I try not to show..."
+
+At that moment they heard the sound of the door pulley and footsteps in
+the hall and anteroom, as if someone had arrived.
+
+"Somebody has come."
+
+"I am sure it is Pierre. I will go and see," said Countess Mary and left
+the room.
+
+In her absence Nicholas allowed himself to give his little daughter a
+gallop round the room. Out of breath, he took the laughing child quickly
+from his shoulder and pressed her to his heart. His capers reminded him
+of dancing, and looking at the child's round happy little face he
+thought of what she would be like when he was an old man, taking her
+into society and dancing the mazurka with her as his old father had
+danced Daniel Cooper with his daughter.
+
+"It is he, it is he, Nicholas!" said Countess Mary, re-entering the room
+a few minutes later. "Now our Natásha has come to life. You should have
+seen her ecstasy, and how he caught it for having stayed away so long.
+Well, come along now, quick, quick! It's time you two were parted," she
+added, looking smilingly at the little girl who clung to her father.
+
+Nicholas went out holding the child by the hand.
+
+Countess Mary remained in the sitting room.
+
+"I should never, never have believed that one could be so happy," she
+whispered to herself. A smile lit up her face but at the same time she
+sighed, and her deep eyes expressed a quiet sadness as though she felt,
+through her happiness, that there is another sort of happiness
+unattainable in this life and of which she involuntarily thought at that
+instant.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+Natásha had married in the early spring of 1813, and in 1820 already had
+three daughters besides a son for whom she had longed and whom she was
+now nursing. She had grown stouter and broader, so that it was difficult
+to recognize in this robust, motherly woman the slim, lively Natásha of
+former days. Her features were more defined and had a calm, soft, and
+serene expression. In her face there was none of the ever-glowing
+animation that had formerly burned there and constituted its charm. Now
+her face and body were often all that one saw, and her soul was not
+visible at all. All that struck the eye was a strong, handsome, and
+fertile woman. The old fire very rarely kindled in her face now. That
+happened only when, as was the case that day, her husband returned home,
+or a sick child was convalescent, or when she and Countess Mary spoke of
+Prince Andrew (she never mentioned him to her husband, who she imagined
+was jealous of Prince Andrew's memory), or on the rare occasions when
+something happened to induce her to sing, a practice she had quite
+abandoned since her marriage. At the rare moments when the old fire did
+kindle in her handsome, fully developed body she was even more
+attractive than in former days.
+
+Since their marriage Natásha and her husband had lived in Moscow, in
+Petersburg, on their estate near Moscow, or with her mother, that is to
+say, in Nicholas' house. The young Countess Bezúkhova was not often seen
+in society, and those who met her there were not pleased with her and
+found her neither attractive nor amiable. Not that Natásha liked
+solitude—she did not know whether she liked it or not, she even thought
+that she did not—but with her pregnancies, her confinements, the nursing
+of her children, and sharing every moment of her husband's life, she had
+demands on her time which could be satisfied only by renouncing society.
+All who had known Natásha before her marriage wondered at the change in
+her as at something extraordinary. Only the old countess with her
+maternal instinct had realized that all Natásha's outbursts had been due
+to her need of children and a husband—as she herself had once exclaimed
+at Otradnoe not so much in fun as in earnest—and her mother was now
+surprised at the surprise expressed by those who had never understood
+Natásha, and she kept saying that she had always known that Natásha
+would make an exemplary wife and mother.
+
+"Only she lets her love of her husband and children overflow all
+bounds," said the countess, "so that it even becomes absurd."
+
+Natásha did not follow the golden rule advocated by clever folk,
+especially by the French, which says that a girl should not let herself
+go when she marries, should not neglect her accomplishments, should be
+even more careful of her appearance than when she was unmarried, and
+should fascinate her husband as much as she did before he became her
+husband. Natásha on the contrary had at once abandoned all her witchery,
+of which her singing had been an unusually powerful part. She gave it up
+just because it was so powerfully seductive. She took no pains with her
+manners or with delicacy of speech, or with her toilet, or to show
+herself to her husband in her most becoming attitudes, or to avoid
+inconveniencing him by being too exacting. She acted in contradiction to
+all those rules. She felt that the allurements instinct had formerly
+taught her to use would now be merely ridiculous in the eyes of her
+husband, to whom she had from the first moment given herself up
+entirely—that is, with her whole soul, leaving no corner of it hidden
+from him. She felt that her unity with her husband was not maintained by
+the poetic feelings that had attracted him to her, but by something
+else—indefinite but firm as the bond between her own body and soul.
+
+To fluff out her curls, put on fashionable dresses, and sing romantic
+songs to fascinate her husband would have seemed as strange as to adorn
+herself to attract herself. To adorn herself for others might perhaps
+have been agreeable—she did not know—but she had no time at all for it.
+The chief reason for devoting no time either to singing, to dress, or to
+choosing her words was that she really had no time to spare for these
+things.
+
+We know that man has the faculty of becoming completely absorbed in a
+subject however trivial it may be, and that there is no subject so
+trivial that it will not grow to infinite proportions if one's entire
+attention is devoted to it.
+
+The subject which wholly engrossed Natásha's attention was her family:
+that is, her husband whom she had to keep so that he should belong
+entirely to her and to the home, and the children whom she had to bear,
+bring into the world, nurse, and bring up.
+
+And the deeper she penetrated, not with her mind only but with her whole
+soul, her whole being, into the subject that absorbed her, the larger
+did that subject grow and the weaker and more inadequate did her powers
+appear, so that she concentrated them wholly on that one thing and yet
+was unable to accomplish all that she considered necessary.
+
+There were then as now conversations and discussions about women's
+rights, the relations of husband and wife and their freedom and rights,
+though these themes were not yet termed questions as they are now; but
+these topics were not merely uninteresting to Natásha, she positively
+did not understand them.
+
+These questions, then as now, existed only for those who see nothing in
+marriage but the pleasure married people get from one another, that is,
+only the beginnings of marriage and not its whole significance, which
+lies in the family.
+
+Discussions and questions of that kind, which are like the question of
+how to get the greatest gratification from one's dinner, did not then
+and do not now exist for those for whom the purpose of a dinner is the
+nourishment it affords; and the purpose of marriage is the family.
+
+If the purpose of dinner is to nourish the body, a man who eats two
+dinners at once may perhaps get more enjoyment but will not attain his
+purpose, for his stomach will not digest the two dinners.
+
+If the purpose of marriage is the family, the person who wishes to have
+many wives or husbands may perhaps obtain much pleasure, but in that
+case will not have a family.
+
+If the purpose of food is nourishment and the purpose of marriage is the
+family, the whole question resolves itself into not eating more than one
+can digest, and not having more wives or husbands than are needed for
+the family—that is, one wife or one husband. Natásha needed a husband. A
+husband was given her and he gave her a family. And she not only saw no
+need of any other or better husband, but as all the powers of her soul
+were intent on serving that husband and family, she could not imagine
+and saw no interest in imagining how it would be if things were
+different.
+
+Natásha did not care for society in general, but prized the more the
+society of her relatives—Countess Mary, and her brother, her mother, and
+Sónya. She valued the company of those to whom she could come striding
+disheveled from the nursery in her dressing gown, and with joyful face
+show a yellow instead of a green stain on baby's napkin, and from whom
+she could hear reassuring words to the effect that baby was much better.
+
+To such an extent had Natásha let herself go that the way she dressed
+and did her hair, her ill-chosen words, and her jealousy—she was jealous
+of Sónya, of the governess, and of every woman, pretty or plain—were
+habitual subjects of jest to those about her. The general opinion was
+that Pierre was under his wife's thumb, which was really true. From the
+very first days of their married life Natásha had announced her demands.
+Pierre was greatly surprised by his wife's view, to him a perfectly
+novel one, that every moment of his life belonged to her and to the
+family. His wife's demands astonished him, but they also flattered him,
+and he submitted to them.
+
+Pierre's subjection consisted in the fact that he not only dared not
+flirt with, but dared not even speak smilingly to, any other woman; did
+not dare dine at the club as a pastime, did not dare spend money on a
+whim, and did not dare absent himself for any length of time, except on
+business—in which his wife included his intellectual pursuits, which she
+did not in the least understand but to which she attributed great
+importance. To make up for this, at home Pierre had the right to
+regulate his life and that of the whole family exactly as he chose. At
+home Natásha placed herself in the position of a slave to her husband,
+and the whole household went on tiptoe when he was occupied—that is, was
+reading or writing in his study. Pierre had but to show a partiality for
+anything to get just what he liked done always. He had only to express a
+wish and Natásha would jump up and run to fulfill it.
+
+The entire household was governed according to Pierre's supposed orders,
+that is, by his wishes which Natásha tried to guess. Their way of life
+and place of residence, their acquaintances and ties, Natásha's
+occupations, the children's upbringing, were all selected not merely
+with regard to Pierre's expressed wishes, but to what Natásha from the
+thoughts he expressed in conversation supposed his wishes to be. And she
+deduced the essentials of his wishes quite correctly, and having once
+arrived at them clung to them tenaciously. When Pierre himself wanted to
+change his mind she would fight him with his own weapons.
+
+Thus in a time of trouble ever memorable to him after the birth of their
+first child who was delicate, when they had to change the wet nurse
+three times and Natásha fell ill from despair, Pierre one day told her
+of Rousseau's view, with which he quite agreed, that to have a wet nurse
+is unnatural and harmful. When her next baby was born, despite the
+opposition of her mother, the doctors, and even of her husband
+himself—who were all vigorously opposed to her nursing her baby herself,
+a thing then unheard of and considered injurious—she insisted on having
+her own way, and after that nursed all her babies herself.
+
+It very often happened that in a moment of irritation husband and wife
+would have a dispute, but long afterwards Pierre to his surprise and
+delight would find in his wife's ideas and actions the very thought
+against which she had argued, but divested of everything superfluous
+that in the excitement of the dispute he had added when expressing his
+opinion.
+
+After seven years of marriage Pierre had the joyous and firm
+consciousness that he was not a bad man, and he felt this because he saw
+himself reflected in his wife. He felt the good and bad within himself
+inextricably mingled and overlapping. But only what was really good in
+him was reflected in his wife, all that was not quite good was rejected.
+And this was not the result of logical reasoning but was a direct and
+mysterious reflection.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+Two months previously when Pierre was already staying with the Rostóvs
+he had received a letter from Prince Theodore, asking him to come to
+Petersburg to confer on some important questions that were being
+discussed there by a society of which Pierre was one of the principal
+founders.
+
+On reading that letter (she always read her husband's letters) Natásha
+herself suggested that he should go to Petersburg, though she would feel
+his absence very acutely. She attributed immense importance to all her
+husband's intellectual and abstract interests though she did not
+understand them, and she always dreaded being a hindrance to him in such
+matters. To Pierre's timid look of inquiry after reading the letter she
+replied by asking him to go, but to fix a definite date for his return.
+He was given four weeks' leave of absence.
+
+Ever since that leave of absence had expired, more than a fortnight
+before, Natásha had been in a constant state of alarm, depression, and
+irritability.
+
+Denisov, now a general on the retired list and much dissatisfied with
+the present state of affairs, had arrived during that fortnight. He
+looked at Natásha with sorrow and surprise as at a bad likeness of a
+person once dear. A dull, dejected look, random replies, and talk about
+the nursery was all he saw and heard from his former enchantress.
+
+Natásha was sad and irritable all that time, especially when her mother,
+her brother, Sónya, or Countess Mary in their efforts to console her
+tried to excuse Pierre and suggested reasons for his delay in returning.
+
+"It's all nonsense, all rubbish—those discussions which lead to nothing
+and all those idiotic societies!" Natásha declared of the very affairs
+in the immense importance of which she firmly believed.
+
+And she would go to the nursery to nurse Pétya, her only boy. No one
+else could tell her anything so comforting or so reasonable as this
+little three-month-old creature when he lay at her breast and she was
+conscious of the movement of his lips and the snuffling of his little
+nose. That creature said: "You are angry, you are jealous, you would
+like to pay him out, you are afraid—but here am I! And I am he..." and
+that was unanswerable. It was more than true.
+
+During that fortnight of anxiety Natásha resorted to the baby for
+comfort so often, and fussed over him so much, that she overfed him and
+he fell ill. She was terrified by his illness, and yet that was just
+what she needed. While attending to him she bore the anxiety about her
+husband more easily.
+
+She was nursing her boy when the sound of Pierre's sleigh was heard at
+the front door, and the old nurse—knowing how to please her
+mistress—entered the room inaudibly but hurriedly and with a beaming
+face.
+
+"Has he come?" Natásha asked quickly in a whisper, afraid to move lest
+she should rouse the dozing baby.
+
+"He's come, ma'am," whispered the nurse.
+
+The blood rushed to Natásha's face and her feet involuntarily moved, but
+she could not jump up and run out. The baby again opened his eyes and
+looked at her. "You're here?" he seemed to be saying, and again lazily
+smacked his lips.
+
+Cautiously withdrawing her breast, Natásha rocked him a little, handed
+him to the nurse, and went with rapid steps toward the door. But at the
+door she stopped as if her conscience reproached her for having in her
+joy left the child too soon, and she glanced round. The nurse with
+raised elbows was lifting the infant over the rail of his cot.
+
+"Go, ma'am! Don't worry, go!" she whispered, smiling, with the kind of
+familiarity that grows up between a nurse and her mistress.
+
+Natásha ran with light footsteps to the anteroom.
+
+Denisov, who had come out of the study into the dancing room with his
+pipe, now for the first time recognized the old Natásha. A flood of
+brilliant, joyful light poured from her transfigured face.
+
+"He's come!" she exclaimed as she ran past, and Denisov felt that he too
+was delighted that Pierre, whom he did not much care for, had returned.
+
+On reaching the vestibule Natásha saw a tall figure in a fur coat
+unwinding his scarf. "It's he! It's really he! He has come!" she said to
+herself, and rushing at him embraced him, pressed his head to her
+breast, and then pushed him back and gazed at his ruddy, happy face,
+covered with hoarfrost. "Yes, it is he, happy and contented..."
+
+Then all at once she remembered the tortures of suspense she had
+experienced for the last fortnight, and the joy that had lit up her face
+vanished; she frowned and overwhelmed Pierre with a torrent of
+reproaches and angry words.
+
+"Yes, it's all very well for you. You are pleased, you've had a good
+time.... But what about me? You might at least have shown consideration
+for the children. I am nursing and my milk was spoiled.... Pétya was at
+death's door. But you were enjoying yourself. Yes, enjoying..."
+
+Pierre knew he was not to blame, for he could not have come sooner; he
+knew this outburst was unseemly and would blow over in a minute or two;
+above all he knew that he himself was bright and happy. He wanted to
+smile but dared not even think of doing so. He made a piteous,
+frightened face and bent down.
+
+"I could not, on my honor. But how is Pétya?"
+
+"All right now. Come along! I wonder you're not ashamed! If only you
+could see what I was like without you, how I suffered!"
+
+"You are well?"
+
+"Come, come!" she said, not letting go of his arm. And they went to
+their rooms.
+
+When Nicholas and his wife came to look for Pierre he was in the nursery
+holding his baby son, who was again awake, on his huge right palm and
+dandling him. A blissful bright smile was fixed on the baby's broad face
+with its toothless open mouth. The storm was long since over and there
+was bright, joyous sunshine on Natásha's face as she gazed tenderly at
+her husband and child.
+
+"And have you talked everything well over with Prince Theodore?" she
+asked.
+
+"Yes, capitally."
+
+"You see, he holds it up." (She meant the baby's head.) "But how he did
+frighten me... You've seen the princess? Is it true she's in love with
+that..."
+
+"Yes, just fancy..."
+
+At that moment Nicholas and Countess Mary came in. Pierre with the baby
+on his hand stooped, kissed them, and replied to their inquiries. But in
+spite of much that was interesting and had to be discussed, the baby
+with the little cap on its unsteady head evidently absorbed all his
+attention.
+
+"How sweet!" said Countess Mary, looking at and playing with the baby.
+"Now, Nicholas," she added, turning to her husband, "I can't understand
+how it is you don't see the charm of these delicious marvels."
+
+"I don't and can't," replied Nicholas, looking coldly at the baby. "A
+lump of flesh. Come along, Pierre!"
+
+"And yet he's such an affectionate father," said Countess Mary,
+vindicating her husband, "but only after they are a year old or so..."
+
+"Now, Pierre nurses them splendidly," said Natásha. "He says his hand is
+just made for a baby's seat. Just look!"
+
+"Only not for this..." Pierre suddenly exclaimed with a laugh, and
+shifting the baby he gave him to the nurse.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+As in every large household, there were at Bald Hills several perfectly
+distinct worlds which merged into one harmonious whole, though each
+retained its own peculiarities and made concessions to the others. Every
+event, joyful or sad, that took place in that house was important to all
+these worlds, but each had its own special reasons to rejoice or grieve
+over that occurrence independently of the others.
+
+For instance, Pierre's return was a joyful and important event and they
+all felt it to be so.
+
+The servants—the most reliable judges of their masters because they
+judge not by their conversation or expressions of feeling but by their
+acts and way of life—were glad of Pierre's return because they knew that
+when he was there Count Nicholas would cease going every day to attend
+to the estate, and would be in better spirits and temper, and also
+because they would all receive handsome presents for the holidays.
+
+The children and their governesses were glad of Pierre's return because
+no one else drew them into the social life of the household as he did.
+He alone could play on the clavichord that ecossaise (his only piece) to
+which, as he said, all possible dances could be danced, and they felt
+sure he had brought presents for them all.
+
+Young Nicholas, now a slim lad of fifteen, delicate and intelligent,
+with curly light-brown hair and beautiful eyes, was delighted because
+Uncle Pierre as he called him was the object of his rapturous and
+passionate affection. No one had instilled into him this love for Pierre
+whom he saw only occasionally. Countess Mary who had brought him up had
+done her utmost to make him love her husband as she loved him, and
+little Nicholas did love his uncle, but loved him with just a shade of
+contempt. Pierre, however, he adored. He did not want to be an hussar or
+a Knight of St. George like his uncle Nicholas; he wanted to be learned,
+wise, and kind like Pierre. In Pierre's presence his face always shone
+with pleasure and he flushed and was breathless when Pierre spoke to
+him. He did not miss a single word he uttered, and would afterwards,
+with Dessalles or by himself, recall and reconsider the meaning of
+everything Pierre had said. Pierre's past life and his unhappiness prior
+to 1812 (of which young Nicholas had formed a vague poetic picture from
+some words he had overheard), his adventures in Moscow, his captivity,
+Platon Karataev (of whom he had heard from Pierre), his love for Natásha
+(of whom the lad was also particularly fond), and especially Pierre's
+friendship with the father whom Nicholas could not remember—all this
+made Pierre in his eyes a hero and a saint.
+
+From broken remarks about Natásha and his father, from the emotion with
+which Pierre spoke of that dead father, and from the careful, reverent
+tenderness with which Natásha spoke of him, the boy, who was only just
+beginning to guess what love is, derived the notion that his father had
+loved Natásha and when dying had left her to his friend. But the father
+whom the boy did not remember appeared to him a divinity who could not
+be pictured, and of whom he never thought without a swelling heart and
+tears of sadness and rapture. So the boy also was happy that Pierre had
+arrived.
+
+The guests welcomed Pierre because he always helped to enliven and unite
+any company he was in.
+
+The grown-up members of the family, not to mention his wife, were
+pleased to have back a friend whose presence made life run more smoothly
+and peacefully.
+
+The old ladies were pleased with the presents he brought them, and
+especially that Natásha would now be herself again.
+
+Pierre felt the different outlooks of these various worlds and made
+haste to satisfy all their expectations.
+
+Though the most absent-minded and forgetful of men, Pierre, with the aid
+of a list his wife drew up, had now bought everything, not forgetting
+his mother—and brother-in-law's commissions, nor the dress material for
+a present to Belova, nor toys for his wife's nephews. In the early days
+of his marriage it had seemed strange to him that his wife should expect
+him not to forget to procure all the things he undertook to buy, and he
+had been taken aback by her serious annoyance when on his first trip he
+forgot everything. But in time he grew used to this demand. Knowing that
+Natásha asked nothing for herself, and gave him commissions for others
+only when he himself had offered to undertake them, he now found an
+unexpected and childlike pleasure in this purchase of presents for
+everyone in the house, and never forgot anything. If he now incurred
+Natásha's censure it was only for buying too many and too expensive
+things. To her other defects (as most people thought them, but which to
+Pierre were qualities) of untidiness and neglect of herself, she now
+added stinginess.
+
+From the time that Pierre began life as a family man on a footing
+entailing heavy expenditure, he had noticed to his surprise that he
+spent only half as much as before, and that his affairs—which had been
+in disorder of late, chiefly because of his first wife's debts—had begun
+to improve.
+
+Life was cheaper because it was circumscribed: that most expensive
+luxury, the kind of life that can be changed at any moment, was no
+longer his nor did he wish for it. He felt that his way of life had now
+been settled once for all till death and that to change it was not in
+his power, and so that way of life proved economical.
+
+With a merry, smiling face Pierre was sorting his purchases.
+
+"What do you think of this?" said he, unrolling a piece of stuff like a
+shopman.
+
+Natásha, who was sitting opposite to him with her eldest daughter on her
+lap, turned her sparkling eyes swiftly from her husband to the things he
+showed her.
+
+"That's for Belova? Excellent!" She felt the quality of the material.
+"It was a ruble an arshin, I suppose?"
+
+Pierre told her the price.
+
+"Too dear!" Natásha remarked. "How pleased the children will be and
+Mamma too! Only you need not have bought me this," she added, unable to
+suppress a smile as she gazed admiringly at a gold comb set with pearls,
+of a kind then just coming into fashion.
+
+"Adele tempted me: she kept on telling me to buy it," returned Pierre.
+
+"When am I to wear it?" and Natásha stuck it in her coil of hair. "When
+I take little Másha into society? Perhaps they will be fashionable again
+by then. Well, let's go now."
+
+And collecting the presents they went first to the nursery and then to
+the old countess' rooms.
+
+The countess was sitting with her companion Belova, playing grand-
+patience as usual, when Pierre and Natásha came into the drawing room
+with parcels under their arms.
+
+The countess was now over sixty, was quite gray, and wore a cap with a
+frill that surrounded her face. Her face had shriveled, her upper lip
+had sunk in, and her eyes were dim.
+
+After the deaths of her son and husband in such rapid succession, she
+felt herself a being accidentally forgotten in this world and left
+without aim or object for her existence. She ate, drank, slept, or kept
+awake, but did not live. Life gave her no new impressions. She wanted
+nothing from life but tranquillity, and that tranquillity only death
+could give her. But until death came she had to go on living, that is,
+to use her vital forces. A peculiarity one sees in very young children
+and very old people was particularly evident in her. Her life had no
+external aims—only a need to exercise her various functions and
+inclinations was apparent. She had to eat, sleep, think, speak, weep,
+work, give vent to her anger, and so on, merely because she had a
+stomach, a brain, muscles, nerves, and a liver. She did these things not
+under any external impulse as people in the full vigor of life do, when
+behind the purpose for which they strive that of exercising their
+functions remains unnoticed. She talked only because she physically
+needed to exercise her tongue and lungs. She cried as a child does,
+because her nose had to be cleared, and so on. What for people in their
+full vigor is an aim was for her evidently merely a pretext.
+
+Thus in the morning—especially if she had eaten anything rich the day
+before—she felt a need of being angry and would choose as the handiest
+pretext Belova's deafness.
+
+She would begin to say something to her in a low tone from the other end
+of the room.
+
+"It seems a little warmer today, my dear," she would murmur.
+
+And when Belova replied: "Oh yes, they've come," she would mutter
+angrily: "O Lord! How stupid and deaf she is!"
+
+Another pretext would be her snuff, which would seem too dry or too damp
+or not rubbed fine enough. After these fits of irritability her face
+would grow yellow, and her maids knew by infallible symptoms when Belova
+would again be deaf, the snuff damp, and the countess' face yellow. Just
+as she needed to work off her spleen so she had sometimes to exercise
+her still-existing faculty of thinking—and the pretext for that was a
+game of patience. When she needed to cry, the deceased count would be
+the pretext. When she wanted to be agitated, Nicholas and his health
+would be the pretext, and when she felt a need to speak spitefully, the
+pretext would be Countess Mary. When her vocal organs needed exercise,
+which was usually toward seven o'clock when she had had an after-dinner
+rest in a darkened room, the pretext would be the retelling of the same
+stories over and over again to the same audience.
+
+The old lady's condition was understood by the whole household though no
+one ever spoke of it, and they all made every possible effort to satisfy
+her needs. Only by a rare glance exchanged with a sad smile between
+Nicholas, Pierre, Natásha, and Countess Mary was the common
+understanding of her condition expressed.
+
+But those glances expressed something more: they said that she had
+played her part in life, that what they now saw was not her whole self,
+that we must all become like her, and that they were glad to yield to
+her, to restrain themselves for this once precious being formerly as
+full of life as themselves, but now so much to be pitied. "Memento
+mori," said these glances.
+
+Only the really heartless, the stupid ones of that household, and the
+little children failed to understand this and avoided her.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+When Pierre and his wife entered the drawing room the countess was in
+one of her customary states in which she needed the mental exertion of
+playing patience, and so—though by force of habit she greeted him with
+the words she always used when Pierre or her son returned after an
+absence: "High time, my dear, high time! We were all weary of waiting
+for you. Well, thank God!" and received her presents with another
+customary remark: "It's not the gift that's precious, my dear, but that
+you give it to me, an old woman..."—yet it was evident that she was not
+pleased by Pierre's arrival at that moment when it diverted her
+attention from the unfinished game.
+
+She finished her game of patience and only then examined the presents.
+They consisted of a box for cards, of splendid workmanship, a bright-
+blue Sevres tea cup with shepherdesses depicted on it and with a lid,
+and a gold snuffbox with the count's portrait on the lid which Pierre
+had had done by a miniaturist in Petersburg. The countess had long
+wished for such a box, but as she did not want to cry just then she
+glanced indifferently at the portrait and gave her attention chiefly to
+the box for cards.
+
+"Thank you, my dear, you have cheered me up," said she as she always
+did. "But best of all you have brought yourself back—for I never saw
+anything like it, you ought to give your wife a scolding! What are we to
+do with her? She is like a mad woman when you are away. Doesn't see
+anything, doesn't remember anything," she went on, repeating her usual
+phrases. "Look, Anna Timofeevna," she added to her companion, "see what
+a box for cards my son has brought us!"
+
+Belova admired the presents and was delighted with her dress material.
+
+Though Pierre, Natásha, Nicholas, Countess Mary, and Denisov had much to
+talk about that they could not discuss before the old countess—not that
+anything was hidden from her, but because she had dropped so far
+behindhand in many things that had they begun to converse in her
+presence they would have had to answer inopportune questions and to
+repeat what they had already told her many times: that so-and-so was
+dead and so-and-so was married, which she would again be unable to
+remember—yet they sat at tea round the samovar in the drawing room from
+habit, and Pierre answered the countess' questions as to whether Prince
+Vasíli had aged and whether Countess Mary Alexeevna had sent greetings
+and still thought of them, and other matters that interested no one and
+to which she herself was indifferent.
+
+Conversation of this kind, interesting to no one yet unavoidable,
+continued all through teatime. All the grown-up members of the family
+were assembled near the round tea table at which Sónya presided beside
+the samovar. The children with their tutors and governesses had had tea
+and their voices were audible from the next room. At tea all sat in
+their accustomed places: Nicholas beside the stove at a small table
+where his tea was handed to him; Milka, the old gray borzoi bitch
+(daughter of the first Milka), with a quite gray face and large black
+eyes that seemed more prominent than ever, lay on the armchair beside
+him; Denisov, whose curly hair, mustache, and whiskers had turned half
+gray, sat beside countess Mary with his general's tunic unbuttoned;
+Pierre sat between his wife and the old countess. He spoke of what he
+knew might interest the old lady and that she could understand. He told
+her of external social events and of the people who had formed the
+circle of her contemporaries and had once been a real, living, and
+distinct group, but who were now for the most part scattered about the
+world and like herself were garnering the last ears of the harvests they
+had sown in earlier years. But to the old countess those contemporaries
+of hers seemed to be the only serious and real society. Natásha saw by
+Pierre's animation that his visit had been interesting and that he had
+much to tell them but dare not say it before the old countess. Denisov,
+not being a member of the family, did not understand Pierre's caution
+and being, as a malcontent, much interested in what was occurring in
+Petersburg, kept urging Pierre to tell them about what had happened in
+the Semënovsk regiment, then about Arakcheev, and then about the Bible
+Society. Once or twice Pierre was carried away and began to speak of
+these things, but Nicholas and Natásha always brought him back to the
+health of Prince Ivan and Countess Mary Alexeevna.
+
+"Well, and all this idiocy—Gossner and Tatawinova?" Denisov asked. "Is
+that weally still going on?"
+
+"Going on?" Pierre exclaimed. "Why more than ever! The Bible Society is
+the whole government now!"
+
+"What is that, mon cher ami?" asked the countess, who had finished her
+tea and evidently needed a pretext for being angry after her meal. "What
+are you saying about the government? I don't understand."
+
+"Well, you know, Maman," Nicholas interposed, knowing how to translate
+things into his mother's language, "Prince Alexander Golítsyn has
+founded a society and in consequence has great influence, they say."
+
+"Arakcheev and Golítsyn," incautiously remarked Pierre, "are now the
+whole government! And what a government! They see treason everywhere and
+are afraid of everything."
+
+"Well, and how is Prince Alexander to blame? He is a most estimable man.
+I used to meet him at Mary Antonovna's," said the countess in an
+offended tone; and still more offended that they all remained silent,
+she went on: "Nowadays everyone finds fault. A Gospel Society! Well, and
+what harm is there in that?" and she rose (everybody else got up too)
+and with a severe expression sailed back to her table in the sitting
+room.
+
+The melancholy silence that followed was broken by the sounds of the
+children's voices and laughter from the next room. Evidently some jolly
+excitement was going on there.
+
+"Finished, finished!" little Natásha's gleeful yell rose above them all.
+
+Pierre exchanged glances with Countess Mary and Nicholas (Natásha he
+never lost sight of) and smiled happily.
+
+"That's delightful music!" said he.
+
+"It means that Anna Makarovna has finished her stocking," said Countess
+Mary.
+
+"Oh, I'll go and see," said Pierre, jumping up. "You know," he added,
+stopping at the door, "why I'm especially fond of that music? It is
+always the first thing that tells me all is well. When I was driving
+here today, the nearer I got to the house the more anxious I grew. As I
+entered the anteroom I heard Andrúsha's peals of laughter and that meant
+that all was well."
+
+"I know! I know that feeling," said Nicholas. "But I mustn't go
+there—those stockings are to be a surprise for me."
+
+Pierre went to the children, and the shouting and laughter grew still
+louder.
+
+"Come, Anna Makarovna," Pierre's voice was heard saying, "come here into
+the middle of the room and at the word of command, 'One, two,' and when
+I say 'three'... You stand here, and you in my arms—well now! One,
+two!..." said Pierre, and a silence followed: "three!" and a rapturously
+breathless cry of children's voices filled the room. "Two, two!" they
+shouted.
+
+This meant two stockings, which by a secret process known only to
+herself Anna Makarovna used to knit at the same time on the same
+needles, and which, when they were ready, she always triumphantly drew,
+one out of the other, in the children's presence.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+Soon after this the children came in to say good night. They kissed
+everyone, the tutors and governesses made their bows, and they went out.
+Only young Nicholas and his tutor remained. Dessalles whispered to the
+boy to come downstairs.
+
+"No, Monsieur Dessalles, I will ask my aunt to let me stay," replied
+Nicholas Bolkónski also in a whisper.
+
+"Ma tante, please let me stay," said he, going up to his aunt.
+
+His face expressed entreaty, agitation, and ecstasy. Countess Mary
+glanced at him and turned to Pierre.
+
+"When you are here he can't tear himself away," she said.
+
+"I will bring him to you directly, Monsieur Dessalles. Good night!" said
+Pierre, giving his hand to the Swiss tutor, and he turned to young
+Nicholas with a smile. "You and I haven't seen anything of one another
+yet... How like he is growing, Mary!" he added, addressing Countess
+Mary.
+
+"Like my father?" asked the boy, flushing crimson and looking up at
+Pierre with bright, ecstatic eyes.
+
+Pierre nodded, and went on with what he had been saying when the
+children had interrupted. Countess Mary sat down doing woolwork; Natásha
+did not take her eyes off her husband. Nicholas and Denisov rose, asked
+for their pipes, smoked, went to fetch more tea from Sónya—who sat weary
+but resolute at the samovar—and questioned Pierre. The curly-headed,
+delicate boy sat with shining eyes unnoticed in a corner, starting every
+now and then and muttering something to himself, and evidently
+experiencing a new and powerful emotion as he turned his curly head,
+with his thin neck exposed by his turn-down collar, toward the place
+where Pierre sat.
+
+The conversation turned on the contemporary gossip about those in power,
+in which most people see the chief interest of home politics. Denisov,
+dissatisfied with the government on account of his own disappointments
+in the service, heard with pleasure of the things done in Petersburg
+which seemed to him stupid, and made forcible and sharp comments on what
+Pierre told them.
+
+"One used to have to be a German—now one must dance with Tatawinova and
+Madame Kwudener, and wead Ecka'tshausen and the bwethwen. Oh, they
+should let that fine fellow Bonaparte loose—he'd knock all this nonsense
+out of them! Fancy giving the command of the Semënov wegiment to a
+fellow like that Schwa'tz!" he cried.
+
+Nicholas, though free from Denisov's readiness to find fault with
+everything, also thought that discussion of the government was a very
+serious and weighty matter, and the fact that A had been appointed
+Minister of This and B Governor General of That, and that the Emperor
+had said so-and-so and this minister so-and-so, seemed to him very
+important. And so he thought it necessary to take an interest in these
+things and to question Pierre. The questions put by these two kept the
+conversation from changing its ordinary character of gossip about the
+higher government circles.
+
+But Natásha, knowing all her husband's ways and ideas, saw that he had
+long been wishing but had been unable to divert the conversation to
+another channel and express his own deeply felt idea for the sake of
+which he had gone to Petersburg to consult with his new friend Prince
+Theodore, and she helped him by asking how his affairs with Prince
+Theodore had gone.
+
+"What was it about?" asked Nicholas.
+
+"Always the same thing," said Pierre, looking round at his listeners.
+"Everybody sees that things are going so badly that they cannot be
+allowed to go on so and that it is the duty of all decent men to
+counteract it as far as they can."
+
+"What can decent men do?" Nicholas inquired, frowning slightly. "What
+can be done?"
+
+"Why, this..."
+
+"Come into my study," said Nicholas.
+
+Natásha, who had long expected to be fetched to nurse her baby, now
+heard the nurse calling her and went to the nursery. Countess Mary
+followed her. The men went into the study and little Nicholas Bolkónski
+followed them unnoticed by his uncle and sat down at the writing table
+in a shady corner by the window.
+
+"Well, what would you do?" asked Denisov.
+
+"Always some fantastic schemes," said Nicholas.
+
+"Why this," began Pierre, not sitting down but pacing the room,
+sometimes stopping short, gesticulating, and lisping: "the position in
+Petersburg is this: the Emperor does not look into anything. He has
+abandoned himself altogether to this mysticism" (Pierre could not
+tolerate mysticism in anyone now). "He seeks only for peace, and only
+these people sans foi ni loi * can give it him—people who recklessly
+hack at and strangle everything—Magnitski, Arakcheev, and tutti
+quanti.... You will agree that if you did not look after your estates
+yourself but only wanted a quiet life, the harsher your steward was the
+more readily your object might be attained," he said to Nicholas.
+
+* Without faith or law.
+
+"Well, what does that lead up to?" said Nicholas.
+
+"Well, everything is going to ruin! Robbery in the law courts, in the
+army nothing but flogging, drilling, and Military Settlements; the
+people are tortured, enlightenment is suppressed. All that is young and
+honest is crushed! Everyone sees that this cannot go on. Everything is
+strained to such a degree that it will certainly break," said Pierre (as
+those who examine the actions of any government have always said since
+governments began). "I told them just one thing in Petersburg."
+
+"Told whom?"
+
+"Well, you know whom," said Pierre, with a meaning glance from under his
+brows. "Prince Theodore and all those. To encourage culture and
+philanthropy is all very well of course. The aim is excellent but in the
+present circumstances something else is needed."
+
+At that moment Nicholas noticed the presence of his nephew. His face
+darkened and he went up to the boy.
+
+"Why are you here?"
+
+"Why? Let him be," said Pierre, taking Nicholas by the arm and
+continuing. "That is not enough, I told them. Something else is needed.
+When you stand expecting the overstrained string to snap at any moment,
+when everyone is expecting the inevitable catastrophe, as many as
+possible must join hands as closely as they can to withstand the general
+calamity. Everything that is young and strong is being enticed away and
+depraved. One is lured by women, another by honors, a third by ambition
+or money, and they go over to that camp. No independent men, such as you
+or I, are left. What I say is widen the scope of our society, let the
+mot d'ordre be not virtue alone but independence and action as well!"
+
+Nicholas, who had left his nephew, irritably pushed up an armchair, sat
+down in it, and listened to Pierre, coughing discontentedly and frowning
+more and more.
+
+"But action with what aim?" he cried. "And what position will you adopt
+toward the government?"
+
+"Why, the position of assistants. The society need not be secret if the
+government allows it. Not merely is it not hostile to government, but it
+is a society of true conservatives—a society of gentlemen in the full
+meaning of that word. It is only to prevent some Pugachev or other from
+killing my children and yours, and Arakcheev from sending me off to some
+Military Settlement. We join hands only for the public welfare and the
+general safety."
+
+"Yes, but it's a secret society and therefore a hostile and harmful one
+which can only cause harm."
+
+"Why? Did the Tugendbund which saved Europe" (they did not then venture
+to suggest that Russia had saved Europe) "do any harm? The Tugendbund is
+an alliance of virtue: it is love, mutual help... it is what Christ
+preached on the Cross."
+
+Natásha, who had come in during the conversation, looked joyfully at her
+husband. It was not what he was saying that pleased her—that did not
+even interest her, for it seemed to her that was all extremely simple
+and that she had known it a long time (it seemed so to her because she
+knew that it sprang from Pierre's whole soul), but it was his animated
+and enthusiastic appearance that made her glad.
+
+The boy with the thin neck stretching out from the turn-down collar—whom
+everyone had forgotten—gazed at Pierre with even greater and more
+rapturous joy. Every word of Pierre's burned into his heart, and with a
+nervous movement of his fingers he unconsciously broke the sealing wax
+and quill pens his hands came upon on his uncle's table.
+
+"It is not at all what you suppose; but that is what the German
+Tugendbund was, and what I am proposing."
+
+"No, my fwiend! The Tugendbund is all vewy well for the sausage eaters,
+but I don't understand it and can't even pwonounce it," interposed
+Denisov in a loud and resolute voice. "I agwee that evewything here is
+wotten and howwible, but the Tugendbund I don't understand. If we're not
+satisfied, let us have a bunt of our own. That's all wight. Je suis
+vot'e homme!" *
+
+* "I'm your man."
+
+Pierre smiled, Natásha began to laugh, but Nicholas knitted his brows
+still more and began proving to Pierre that there was no prospect of any
+great change and that all the danger he spoke of existed only in his
+imagination. Pierre maintained the contrary, and as his mental faculties
+were greater and more resourceful, Nicholas felt himself cornered. This
+made him still angrier, for he was fully convinced, not by reasoning but
+by something within him stronger than reason, of the justice of his
+opinion.
+
+"I will tell you this," he said, rising and trying with nervously
+twitching fingers to prop up his pipe in a corner, but finally
+abandoning the attempt. "I can't prove it to you. You say that
+everything here is rotten and that an overthrow is coming: I don't see
+it. But you also say that our oath of allegiance is a conditional
+matter, and to that I reply: 'You are my best friend, as you know, but
+if you formed a secret society and began working against the
+government—be it what it may—I know it is my duty to obey the
+government. And if Arakcheev ordered me to lead a squadron against you
+and cut you down, I should not hesitate an instant, but should do it.'
+And you may argue about that as you like!"
+
+An awkward silence followed these words. Natásha was the first to speak,
+defending her husband and attacking her brother. Her defense was weak
+and inapt but she attained her object. The conversation was resumed, and
+no longer in the unpleasantly hostile tone of Nicholas' last remark.
+
+When they all got up to go in to supper, little Nicholas Bolkónski went
+up to Pierre, pale and with shining, radiant eyes.
+
+"Uncle Pierre, you... no... If Papa were alive... would he agree with
+you?" he asked.
+
+And Pierre suddenly realized what a special, independent, complex, and
+powerful process of thought and feeling must have been going on in this
+boy during that conversation, and remembering all he had said he
+regretted that the lad should have heard him. He had, however, to give
+him an answer.
+
+"Yes, I think so," he said reluctantly, and left the study.
+
+The lad looked down and seemed now for the first time to notice what he
+had done to the things on the table. He flushed and went up to Nicholas.
+
+"Uncle, forgive me, I did that... unintentionally," he said, pointing to
+the broken sealing wax and pens.
+
+Nicholas started angrily.
+
+"All right, all right," he said, throwing the bits under the table.
+
+And evidently suppressing his vexation with difficulty, he turned away
+from the boy.
+
+"You ought not to have been here at all," he said.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+The conversation at supper was not about politics or societies, but
+turned on the subject Nicholas liked best—recollections of 1812. Denisov
+started these and Pierre was particularly agreeable and amusing about
+them. The family separated on the most friendly terms.
+
+After supper Nicholas, having undressed in his study and given
+instructions to the steward who had been waiting for him, went to the
+bedroom in his dressing gown, where he found his wife still at her
+table, writing.
+
+"What are you writing, Mary?" Nicholas asked.
+
+Countess Mary blushed. She was afraid that what she was writing would
+not be understood or approved by her husband.
+
+She had wanted to conceal what she was writing from him, but at the same
+time was glad he had surprised her at it and that she would now have to
+tell him.
+
+"A diary, Nicholas," she replied, handing him a blue exercise book
+filled with her firm, bold writing.
+
+"A diary?" Nicholas repeated with a shade of irony, and he took up the
+book.
+
+It was in French.
+
+December 4. Today when Andrúsha (her eldest boy) woke up he did not wish
+to dress and Mademoiselle Louise sent for me. He was naughty and
+obstinate. I tried threats, but he only grew angrier. Then I took the
+matter in hand: I left him alone and began with nurse's help to get the
+other children up, telling him that I did not love him. For a long time
+he was silent, as if astonished, then he jumped out of bed, ran to me in
+his shirt, and sobbed so that I could not calm him for a long time. It
+was plain that what troubled him most was that he had grieved me.
+Afterwards in the evening when I gave him his ticket, he again began
+crying piteously and kissing me. One can do anything with him by
+tenderness.
+
+"What is a 'ticket'?" Nicholas inquired.
+
+"I have begun giving the elder ones marks every evening, showing how
+they have behaved."
+
+Nicholas looked into the radiant eyes that were gazing at him, and
+continued to turn over the pages and read. In the diary was set down
+everything in the children's lives that seemed noteworthy to their
+mother as showing their characters or suggesting general reflections on
+educational methods. They were for the most part quite insignificant
+trifles, but did not seem so to the mother or to the father either, now
+that he read this diary about his children for the first time.
+
+Under the date "5" was entered:
+
+Mitya was naughty at table. Papa said he was to have no pudding. He had
+none, but looked so unhappily and greedily at the others while they were
+eating! I think that punishment by depriving children of sweets only
+develops their greediness. Must tell Nicholas this.
+
+Nicholas put down the book and looked at his wife. The radiant eyes
+gazed at him questioningly: would he approve or disapprove of her diary?
+There could be no doubt not only of his approval but also of his
+admiration for his wife.
+
+Perhaps it need not be done so pedantically, thought Nicholas, or even
+done at all, but this untiring, continual spiritual effort of which the
+sole aim was the children's moral welfare delighted him. Had Nicholas
+been able to analyze his feelings he would have found that his steady,
+tender, and proud love of his wife rested on his feeling of wonder at
+her spirituality and at the lofty moral world, almost beyond his reach,
+in which she had her being.
+
+He was proud of her intelligence and goodness, recognized his own
+insignificance beside her in the spiritual world, and rejoiced all the
+more that she with such a soul not only belonged to him but was part of
+himself.
+
+"I quite, quite approve, my dearest!" said he with a significant look,
+and after a short pause he added: "And I behaved badly today. You
+weren't in the study. We began disputing—Pierre and I—and I lost my
+temper. But he is impossible: such a child! I don't know what would
+become of him if Natásha didn't keep him in hand.... Have you any idea
+why he went to Petersburg? They have formed..."
+
+"Yes, I know," said Countess Mary. "Natásha told me."
+
+"Well, then, you know," Nicholas went on, growing hot at the mere
+recollection of their discussion, "he wanted to convince me that it is
+every honest man's duty to go against the government, and that the oath
+of allegiance and duty... I am sorry you weren't there. They all fell on
+me—Denisov and Natásha... Natásha is absurd. How she rules over him! And
+yet there need only be a discussion and she has no words of her own but
+only repeats his sayings..." added Nicholas, yielding to that
+irresistible inclination which tempts us to judge those nearest and
+dearest to us. He forgot that what he was saying about Natásha could
+have been applied word for word to himself in relation to his wife.
+
+"Yes, I have noticed that," said Countess Mary.
+
+"When I told him that duty and the oath were above everything, he
+started proving goodness knows what! A pity you were not there—what
+would you have said?"
+
+"As I see it you were quite right, and I told Natásha so. Pierre says
+everybody is suffering, tortured, and being corrupted, and that it is
+our duty to help our neighbor. Of course he is right there," said
+Countess Mary, "but he forgets that we have other duties nearer to us,
+duties indicated to us by God Himself, and that though we might expose
+ourselves to risks we must not risk our children."
+
+"Yes, that's it! That's just what I said to him," put in Nicholas, who
+fancied he really had said it. "But they insisted on their own view:
+love of one's neighbor and Christianity—and all this in the presence of
+young Nicholas, who had gone into my study and broke all my things."
+
+"Ah, Nicholas, do you know I am often troubled about little Nicholas,"
+said Countess Mary. "He is such an exceptional boy. I am afraid I
+neglect him in favor of my own: we all have children and relations while
+he has no one. He is constantly alone with his thoughts."
+
+"Well, I don't think you need reproach yourself on his account. All that
+the fondest mother could do for her son you have done and are doing for
+him, and of course I am glad of it. He is a fine lad, a fine lad! This
+evening he listened to Pierre in a sort of trance, and fancy—as we were
+going in to supper I looked and he had broken everything on my table to
+bits, and he told me of it himself at once! I never knew him to tell an
+untruth. A fine lad, a fine lad!" repeated Nicholas, who at heart was
+not fond of Nicholas Bolkónski but was always anxious to recognize that
+he was a fine lad.
+
+"Still, I am not the same as his own mother," said Countess Mary. "I
+feel I am not the same and it troubles me. A wonderful boy, but I am
+dreadfully afraid for him. It would be good for him to have companions."
+
+"Well it won't be for long. Next summer I'll take him to Petersburg,"
+said Nicholas. "Yes, Pierre always was a dreamer and always will be," he
+continued, returning to the talk in the study which had evidently
+disturbed him. "Well, what business is it of mine what goes on
+there—whether Arakcheev is bad, and all that? What business was it of
+mine when I married and was so deep in debt that I was threatened with
+prison, and had a mother who could not see or understand it? And then
+there are you and the children and our affairs. Is it for my own
+pleasure that I am at the farm or in the office from morning to night?
+No, but I know I must work to comfort my mother, to repay you, and not
+to leave the children such beggars as I was."
+
+Countess Mary wanted to tell him that man does not live by bread alone
+and that he attached too much importance to these matters. But she knew
+she must not say this and that it would be useless to do so. She only
+took his hand and kissed it. He took this as a sign of approval and a
+confirmation of his thoughts, and after a few minutes' reflection
+continued to think aloud.
+
+"You know, Mary, today Elias Mitrofanych" (this was his overseer) "came
+back from the Tambov estate and told me they are already offering eighty
+thousand rubles for the forest."
+
+And with an eager face Nicholas began to speak of the possibility of
+repurchasing Otradnoe before long, and added: "Another ten years of life
+and I shall leave the children... in an excellent position."
+
+Countess Mary listened to her husband and understood all that he told
+her. She knew that when he thought aloud in this way he would sometimes
+ask her what he had been saying, and be vexed if he noticed that she had
+been thinking about something else. But she had to force herself to
+attend, for what he was saying did not interest her at all. She looked
+at him and did not think, but felt, about something different. She felt
+a submissive tender love for this man who would never understand all
+that she understood, and this seemed to make her love for him still
+stronger and added a touch of passionate tenderness. Besides this
+feeling which absorbed her altogether and hindered her from following
+the details of her husband's plans, thoughts that had no connection with
+what he was saying flitted through her mind. She thought of her nephew.
+Her husband's account of the boy's agitation while Pierre was speaking
+struck her forcibly, and various traits of his gentle, sensitive
+character recurred to her mind; and while thinking of her nephew she
+thought also of her own children. She did not compare them with him, but
+compared her feeling for them with her feeling for him, and felt with
+regret that there was something lacking in her feeling for young
+Nicholas.
+
+Sometimes it seemed to her that this difference arose from the
+difference in their ages, but she felt herself to blame toward him and
+promised in her heart to do better and to accomplish the impossible—in
+this life to love her husband, her children, little Nicholas, and all
+her neighbors, as Christ loved mankind. Countess Mary's soul always
+strove toward the infinite, the eternal, and the absolute, and could
+therefore never be at peace. A stern expression of the lofty, secret
+suffering of a soul burdened by the body appeared on her face. Nicholas
+gazed at her. "O God! What will become of us if she dies, as I always
+fear when her face is like that?" thought he, and placing himself before
+the icon he began to say his evening prayers.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+Natásha and Pierre, left alone, also began to talk as only a husband and
+wife can talk, that is, with extraordinary clearness and rapidity,
+understanding and expressing each other's thoughts in ways contrary to
+all rules of logic, without premises, deductions, or conclusions, and in
+a quite peculiar way. Natásha was so used to this kind of talk with her
+husband that for her it was the surest sign of something being wrong
+between them if Pierre followed a line of logical reasoning. When he
+began proving anything, or talking argumentatively and calmly and she,
+led on by his example, began to do the same, she knew that they were on
+the verge of a quarrel.
+
+From the moment they were alone and Natásha came up to him with wide-
+open happy eyes, and quickly seizing his head pressed it to her bosom,
+saying: "Now you are all mine, mine! You won't escape!"—from that moment
+this conversation began, contrary to all the laws of logic and contrary
+to them because quite different subjects were talked about at one and
+the same time. This simultaneous discussion of many topics did not
+prevent a clear understanding but on the contrary was the surest sign
+that they fully understood one another.
+
+Just as in a dream when all is uncertain, unreasoning, and
+contradictory, except the feeling that guides the dream, so in this
+intercourse contrary to all laws of reason, the words themselves were
+not consecutive and clear but only the feeling that prompted them.
+
+Natásha spoke to Pierre about her brother's life and doings, of how she
+had suffered and lacked life during his own absence, and of how she was
+fonder than ever of Mary, and how Mary was in every way better than
+herself. In saying this Natásha was sincere in acknowledging Mary's
+superiority, but at the same time by saying it she made a demand on
+Pierre that he should, all the same, prefer her to Mary and to all other
+women, and that now, especially after having seen many women in
+Petersburg, he should tell her so afresh.
+
+Pierre, answering Natásha's words, told her how intolerable it had been
+for him to meet ladies at dinners and balls in Petersburg.
+
+"I have quite lost the knack of talking to ladies," he said. "It was
+simply dull. Besides, I was very busy."
+
+Natásha looked intently at him and went on:
+
+"Mary is so splendid," she said. "How she understands children! It is as
+if she saw straight into their souls. Yesterday, for instance, Mitya was
+naughty..."
+
+"How like his father he is," Pierre interjected.
+
+Natásha knew why he mentioned Mitya's likeness to Nicholas: the
+recollection of his dispute with his brother-in-law was unpleasant and
+he wanted to know what Natásha thought of it.
+
+"Nicholas has the weakness of never agreeing with anything not generally
+accepted. But I understand that you value what opens up a fresh line,"
+said she, repeating words Pierre had once uttered.
+
+"No, the chief point is that to Nicholas ideas and discussions are an
+amusement—almost a pastime," said Pierre. "For instance, he is
+collecting a library and has made it a rule not to buy a new book till
+he has read what he had already bought—Sismondi and Rousseau and
+Montesquieu," he added with a smile. "You know how much I..." he began
+to soften down what he had said; but Natásha interrupted him to show
+that this was unnecessary.
+
+"So you say ideas are an amusement to him...."
+
+"Yes, and for me nothing else is serious. All the time in Petersburg I
+saw everyone as in a dream. When I am taken up by a thought, all else is
+mere amusement."
+
+"Ah, I'm so sorry I wasn't there when you met the children," said
+Natásha. "Which was most delighted? Lisa, I'm sure."
+
+"Yes," Pierre replied, and went on with what was in his mind. "Nicholas
+says we ought not to think. But I can't help it. Besides, when I was in
+Petersburg I felt (I can say this to you) that the whole affair would go
+to pieces without me—everyone was pulling his own way. But I succeeded
+in uniting them all; and then my idea is so clear and simple. You see, I
+don't say that we ought to oppose this and that. We may be mistaken.
+What I say is: 'Join hands, you who love the right, and let there be but
+one banner—that of active virtue.' Prince Sergey is a fine fellow and
+clever."
+
+Natásha would have had no doubt as to the greatness of Pierre's idea,
+but one thing disconcerted her. "Can a man so important and necessary to
+society be also my husband? How did this happen?" She wished to express
+this doubt to him. "Now who could decide whether he is really cleverer
+than all the others?" she asked herself, and passed in review all those
+whom Pierre most respected. Judging by what he had said there was no one
+he had respected so highly as Platon Karataev.
+
+"Do you know what I am thinking about?" she asked. "About Platon
+Karataev. Would he have approved of you now, do you think?"
+
+Pierre was not at all surprised at this question. He understood his
+wife's line of thought.
+
+"Platon Karataev?" he repeated, and pondered, evidently sincerely trying
+to imagine Karataev's opinion on the subject. "He would not have
+understood... yet perhaps he would."
+
+"I love you awfully!" Natásha suddenly said. "Awfully, awfully!"
+
+"No, he would not have approved," said Pierre, after reflection. "What
+he would have approved of is our family life. He was always so anxious
+to find seemliness, happiness, and peace in everything, and I should
+have been proud to let him see us. There now—you talk of my absence, but
+you wouldn't believe what a special feeling I have for you after a
+separation...."
+
+"Yes, I should think..." Natásha began.
+
+"No, it's not that. I never leave off loving you. And one couldn't love
+more, but this is something special.... Yes, of course-" he did not
+finish because their eyes meeting said the rest.
+
+"What nonsense it is," Natásha suddenly exclaimed, "about honeymoons,
+and that the greatest happiness is at first! On the contrary, now is the
+best of all. If only you did not go away! Do you remember how we
+quarreled? And it was always my fault. Always mine. And what we
+quarreled about—I don't even remember!"
+
+"Always about the same thing," said Pierre with a smile. "Jealo..."
+
+"Don't say it! I can't bear it!" Natásha cried, and her eyes glittered
+coldly and vindictively. "Did you see her?" she added, after a pause.
+
+"No, and if I had I shouldn't have recognized her."
+
+They were silent for a while.
+
+"Oh, do you know? While you were talking in the study I was looking at
+you," Natásha began, evidently anxious to disperse the cloud that had
+come over them. "You are as like him as two peas—like the boy." (She
+meant her little son.) "Oh, it's time to go to him.... The milk's
+come.... But I'm sorry to leave you."
+
+They were silent for a few seconds. Then suddenly turning to one another
+at the same time they both began to speak. Pierre began with self-
+satisfaction and enthusiasm, Natásha with a quiet, happy smile. Having
+interrupted one another they both stopped to let the other continue.
+
+"No. What did you say? Go on, go on."
+
+"No, you go on, I was talking nonsense," said Natásha.
+
+Pierre finished what he had begun. It was the sequel to his complacent
+reflections on his success in Petersburg. At that moment it seemed to
+him that he was chosen to give a new direction to the whole of Russian
+society and to the whole world.
+
+"I only wished to say that ideas that have great results are always
+simple ones. My whole idea is that if vicious people are united and
+constitute a power, then honest folk must do the same. Now that's simple
+enough."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And what were you going to say?"
+
+"I? Only nonsense."
+
+"But all the same?"
+
+"Oh nothing, only a trifle," said Natásha, smilingly still more
+brightly. "I only wanted to tell you about Pétya: today nurse was coming
+to take him from me, and he laughed, shut his eyes, and clung to me. I'm
+sure he thought he was hiding. Awfully sweet! There, now he's crying.
+Well, good-by!" and she left the room.
+
+Meanwhile downstairs in young Nicholas Bolkónski's bedroom a little lamp
+was burning as usual. (The boy was afraid of the dark and they could not
+cure him of it.) Dessalles slept propped up on four pillows and his
+Roman nose emitted sounds of rhythmic snoring. Little Nicholas, who had
+just waked up in a cold perspiration, sat up in bed and gazed before him
+with wide-open eyes. He had awaked from a terrible dream. He had dreamed
+that he and Uncle Pierre, wearing helmets such as were depicted in his
+Plutarch, were leading a huge army. The army was made up of white
+slanting lines that filled the air like the cobwebs that float about in
+autumn and which Dessalles called les fils de la Vierge. In front was
+Glory, which was similar to those threads but rather thicker. He and
+Pierre were borne along lightly and joyously, nearer and nearer to their
+goal. Suddenly the threads that moved them began to slacken and become
+entangled and it grew difficult to move. And Uncle Nicholas stood before
+them in a stern and threatening attitude.
+
+"Have you done this?" he said, pointing to some broken sealing wax and
+pens. "I loved you, but I have orders from Arakcheev and will kill the
+first of you who moves forward." Little Nicholas turned to look at
+Pierre but Pierre was no longer there. In his place was his
+father—Prince Andrew—and his father had neither shape nor form, but he
+existed, and when little Nicholas perceived him he grew faint with love:
+he felt himself powerless, limp, and formless. His father caressed and
+pitied him. But Uncle Nicholas came nearer and nearer to them. Terror
+seized young Nicholas and he awoke.
+
+"My father!" he thought. (Though there were two good portraits of Prince
+Andrew in the house, Nicholas never imagined him in human form.) "My
+father has been with me and caressed me. He approved of me and of Uncle
+Pierre. Whatever he may tell me, I will do it. Mucius Scaevola burned
+his hand. Why should not the same sort of thing happen to me? I know
+they want me to learn. And I will learn. But someday I shall have
+finished learning, and then I will do something. I only pray God that
+something may happen to me such as happened to Plutarch's men, and I
+will act as they did. I will do better. Everyone shall know me, love me,
+and be delighted with me!" And suddenly his bosom heaved with sobs and
+he began to cry.
+
+"Are you ill?" he heard Dessalles' voice asking.
+
+"No," answered Nicholas, and lay back on his pillow.
+
+"He is good and kind and I am fond of him!" he thought of Dessalles.
+"But Uncle Pierre! Oh, what a wonderful man he is! And my father? Oh,
+Father, Father! Yes, I will do something with which even he would be
+satisfied...."
+
+
+
+
+
+SECOND EPILOGUE
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+History is the life of nations and of humanity. To seize and put into
+words, to describe directly the life of humanity or even of a single
+nation, appears impossible.
+
+The ancient historians all employed one and the same method to describe
+and seize the apparently elusive—the life of a people. They described
+the activity of individuals who ruled the people, and regarded the
+activity of those men as representing the activity of the whole nation.
+
+The question: how did individuals make nations act as they wished and by
+what was the will of these individuals themselves guided? the ancients
+met by recognizing a divinity which subjected the nations to the will of
+a chosen man, and guided the will of that chosen man so as to accomplish
+ends that were predestined.
+
+For the ancients these questions were solved by a belief in the direct
+participation of the Deity in human affairs.
+
+Modern history, in theory, rejects both these principles.
+
+It would seem that having rejected the belief of the ancients in man's
+subjection to the Deity and in a predetermined aim toward which nations
+are led, modern history should study not the manifestations of power but
+the causes that produce it. But modern history has not done this. Having
+in theory rejected the view held by the ancients, it still follows them
+in practice.
+
+Instead of men endowed with divine authority and directly guided by the
+will of God, modern history has given us either heroes endowed with
+extraordinary, superhuman capacities, or simply men of very various
+kinds, from monarchs to journalists, who lead the masses. Instead of the
+former divinely appointed aims of the Jewish, Greek, or Roman nations,
+which ancient historians regarded as representing the progress of
+humanity, modern history has postulated its own aims—the welfare of the
+French, German, or English people, or, in its highest abstraction, the
+welfare and civilization of humanity in general, by which is usually
+meant that of the peoples occupying a small northwesterly portion of a
+large continent.
+
+Modern history has rejected the beliefs of the ancients without
+replacing them by a new conception, and the logic of the situation has
+obliged the historians, after they had apparently rejected the divine
+authority of the kings and the "fate" of the ancients, to reach the same
+conclusion by another road, that is, to recognize (1) nations guided by
+individual men, and (2) the existence of a known aim to which these
+nations and humanity at large are tending.
+
+At the basis of the works of all the modern historians from Gibbon to
+Buckle, despite their seeming disagreements and the apparent novelty of
+their outlooks, lie those two old, unavoidable assumptions.
+
+In the first place the historian describes the activity of individuals
+who in his opinion have directed humanity (one historian considers only
+monarchs, generals, and ministers as being such men, while another
+includes also orators, learned men, reformers, philosophers, and poets).
+Secondly, it is assumed that the goal toward which humanity is being led
+is known to the historians: to one of them this goal is the greatness of
+the Roman, Spanish, or French realm; to another it is liberty, equality,
+and a certain kind of civilization of a small corner of the world called
+Europe.
+
+In 1789 a ferment arises in Paris; it grows, spreads, and is expressed
+by a movement of peoples from west to east. Several times it moves
+eastward and collides with a countermovement from the east westward. In
+1812 it reaches its extreme limit, Moscow, and then, with remarkable
+symmetry, a countermovement occurs from east to west, attracting to it,
+as the first movement had done, the nations of middle Europe. The
+counter movement reaches the starting point of the first movement in the
+west—Paris—and subsides.
+
+During that twenty-year period an immense number of fields were left
+untilled, houses were burned, trade changed its direction, millions of
+men migrated, were impoverished, or were enriched, and millions of
+Christian men professing the law of love of their fellows slew one
+another.
+
+What does all this mean? Why did it happen? What made those people burn
+houses and slay their fellow men? What were the causes of these events?
+What force made men act so? These are the instinctive, plain, and most
+legitimate questions humanity asks itself when it encounters the
+monuments and tradition of that period.
+
+For a reply to these questions the common sense of mankind turns to the
+science of history, whose aim is to enable nations and humanity to know
+themselves.
+
+If history had retained the conception of the ancients it would have
+said that God, to reward or punish his people, gave Napoleon power and
+directed his will to the fulfillment of the divine ends, and that reply
+would have been clear and complete. One might believe or disbelieve in
+the divine significance of Napoleon, but for anyone believing in it
+there would have been nothing unintelligible in the history of that
+period, nor would there have been any contradictions.
+
+But modern history cannot give that reply. Science does not admit the
+conception of the ancients as to the direct participation of the Deity
+in human affairs, and therefore history ought to give other answers.
+
+Modern history replying to these questions says: you want to know what
+this movement means, what caused it, and what force produced these
+events? Then listen:
+
+"Louis XIV was a very proud and self-confident man; he had such and such
+mistresses and such and such ministers and he ruled France badly. His
+descendants were weak men and they too ruled France badly. And they had
+such and such favorites and such and such mistresses. Moreover, certain
+men wrote some books at that time. At the end of the eighteenth century
+there were a couple of dozen men in Paris who began to talk about all
+men being free and equal. This caused people all over France to begin to
+slash at and drown one another. They killed the king and many other
+people. At that time there was in France a man of genius—Napoleon. He
+conquered everybody everywhere—that is, he killed many people because he
+was a great genius. And for some reason he went to kill Africans, and
+killed them so well and was so cunning and wise that when he returned to
+France he ordered everybody to obey him, and they all obeyed him. Having
+become an Emperor he again went out to kill people in Italy, Austria,
+and Prussia. And there too he killed a great many. In Russia there was
+an Emperor, Alexander, who decided to restore order in Europe and
+therefore fought against Napoleon. In 1807 he suddenly made friends with
+him, but in 1811 they again quarreled and again began killing many
+people. Napoleon led six hundred thousand men into Russia and captured
+Moscow; then he suddenly ran away from Moscow, and the Emperor
+Alexander, helped by the advice of Stein and others, united Europe to
+arm against the disturber of its peace. All Napoleon's allies suddenly
+became his enemies and their forces advanced against the fresh forces he
+raised. The Allies defeated Napoleon, entered Paris, forced Napoleon to
+abdicate, and sent him to the island of Elba, not depriving him of the
+title of Emperor and showing him every respect, though five years before
+and one year later they all regarded him as an outlaw and a brigand.
+Then Louis XVIII, who till then had been the laughingstock both of the
+French and the Allies, began to reign. And Napoleon, shedding tears
+before his Old Guards, renounced the throne and went into exile. Then
+the skillful statesmen and diplomatists (especially Talleyrand, who
+managed to sit down in a particular chair before anyone else and thereby
+extended the frontiers of France) talked in Vienna and by these
+conversations made the nations happy or unhappy. Suddenly the
+diplomatists and monarchs nearly quarreled and were on the point of
+again ordering their armies to kill one another, but just then Napoleon
+arrived in France with a battalion, and the French, who had been hating
+him, immediately all submitted to him. But the Allied monarchs were
+angry at this and went to fight the French once more. And they defeated
+the genius Napoleon and, suddenly recognizing him as a brigand, sent him
+to the island of St. Helena. And the exile, separated from the beloved
+France so dear to his heart, died a lingering death on that rock and
+bequeathed his great deeds to posterity. But in Europe a reaction
+occurred and the sovereigns once again all began to oppress their
+subjects."
+
+It would be a mistake to think that this is ironic—a caricature of the
+historical accounts. On the contrary it is a very mild expression of the
+contradictory replies, not meeting the questions, which all the
+historians give, from the compilers of memoirs and the histories of
+separate states to the writers of general histories and the new
+histories of the culture of that period.
+
+The strangeness and absurdity of these replies arise from the fact that
+modern history, like a deaf man, answers questions no one has asked.
+
+If the purpose of history be to give a description of the movement of
+humanity and of the peoples, the first question—in the absence of a
+reply to which all the rest will be incomprehensible—is: what is the
+power that moves peoples? To this, modern history laboriously replies
+either that Napoleon was a great genius, or that Louis XIV was very
+proud, or that certain writers wrote certain books.
+
+All that may be so and mankind is ready to agree with it, but it is not
+what was asked. All that would be interesting if we recognized a divine
+power based on itself and always consistently directing its nations
+through Napoleons, Louis-es, and writers; but we do not acknowledge such
+a power, and therefore before speaking about Napoleons, Louis-es, and
+authors, we ought to be shown the connection existing between these men
+and the movement of the nations.
+
+If instead of a divine power some other force has appeared, it should be
+explained in what this new force consists, for the whole interest of
+history lies precisely in that force.
+
+History seems to assume that this force is self-evident and known to
+everyone. But in spite of every desire to regard it as known, anyone
+reading many historical works cannot help doubting whether this new
+force, so variously understood by the historians themselves, is really
+quite well known to everybody.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+What force moves the nations?
+
+Biographical historians and historians of separate nations understand
+this force as a power inherent in heroes and rulers. In their narration
+events occur solely by the will of a Napoleon, and Alexander, or in
+general of the persons they describe. The answers given by this kind of
+historian to the question of what force causes events to happen are
+satisfactory only as long as there is but one historian to each event.
+As soon as historians of different nationalities and tendencies begin to
+describe the same event, the replies they give immediately lose all
+meaning, for this force is understood by them all not only differently
+but often in quite contradictory ways. One historian says that an event
+was produced by Napoleon's power, another that it was produced by
+Alexander's, a third that it was due to the power of some other person.
+Besides this, historians of that kind contradict each other even in
+their statement as to the force on which the authority of some
+particular person was based. Thiers, a Bonapartist, says that Napoleon's
+power was based on his virtue and genius. Lanfrey, a Republican, says it
+was based on his trickery and deception of the people. So the historians
+of this class, by mutually destroying one another's positions, destroy
+the understanding of the force which produces events, and furnish no
+reply to history's essential question.
+
+Writers of universal history who deal with all the nations seem to
+recognize how erroneous is the specialist historians' view of the force
+which produces events. They do not recognize it as a power inherent in
+heroes and rulers, but as the resultant of a multiplicity of variously
+directed forces. In describing a war or the subjugation of a people, a
+general historian looks for the cause of the event not in the power of
+one man, but in the interaction of many persons connected with the
+event.
+
+According to this view the power of historical personages, represented
+as the product of many forces, can no longer, it would seem, be regarded
+as a force that itself produces events. Yet in most cases universal
+historians still employ the conception of power as a force that itself
+produces events, and treat it as their cause. In their exposition, an
+historic character is first the product of his time, and his power only
+the resultant of various forces, and then his power is itself a force
+producing events. Gervinus, Schlosser, and others, for instance, at one
+time prove Napoleon to be a product of the Revolution, of the ideas of
+1789 and so forth, and at another plainly say that the campaign of 1812
+and other things they do not like were simply the product of Napoleon's
+misdirected will, and that the very ideas of 1789 were arrested in their
+development by Napoleon's caprice. The ideas of the Revolution and the
+general temper of the age produced Napoleon's power. But Napoleon's
+power suppressed the ideas of the Revolution and the general temper of
+the age.
+
+This curious contradiction is not accidental. Not only does it occur at
+every step, but the universal historians' accounts are all made up of a
+chain of such contradictions. This contradiction occurs because after
+entering the field of analysis the universal historians stop halfway.
+
+To find component forces equal to the composite or resultant force, the
+sum of the components must equal the resultant. This condition is never
+observed by the universal historians, and so to explain the resultant
+forces they are obliged to admit, in addition to the insufficient
+components, another unexplained force affecting the resultant action.
+
+Specialist historians describing the campaign of 1813 or the restoration
+of the Bourbons plainly assert that these events were produced by the
+will of Alexander. But the universal historian Gervinus, refuting this
+opinion of the specialist historian, tries to prove that the campaign of
+1813 and the restoration of the Bourbons were due to other things beside
+Alexander's will—such as the activity of Stein, Metternich, Madame de
+Stael, Talleyrand, Fichte, Chateaubriand, and others. The historian
+evidently decomposes Alexander's power into the components: Talleyrand,
+Chateaubriand, and the rest—but the sum of the components, that is, the
+interactions of Chateaubriand, Talleyrand, Madame de Stael, and the
+others, evidently does not equal the resultant, namely the phenomenon of
+millions of Frenchmen submitting to the Bourbons. That Chateaubriand,
+Madame de Stael, and others spoke certain words to one another only
+affected their mutual relations but does not account for the submission
+of millions. And therefore to explain how from these relations of theirs
+the submission of millions of people resulted—that is, how component
+forces equal to one A gave a resultant equal to a thousand times A—the
+historian is again obliged to fall back on power—the force he had
+denied—and to recognize it as the resultant of the forces, that is, he
+has to admit an unexplained force acting on the resultant. And that is
+just what the universal historians do, and consequently they not only
+contradict the specialist historians but contradict themselves.
+
+Peasants having no clear idea of the cause of rain, say, according to
+whether they want rain or fine weather: "The wind has blown the clouds
+away," or, "The wind has brought up the clouds." And in the same way the
+universal historians sometimes, when it pleases them and fits in with
+their theory, say that power is the result of events, and sometimes,
+when they want to prove something else, say that power produces events.
+
+A third class of historians—the so-called historians of
+culture—following the path laid down by the universal historians who
+sometimes accept writers and ladies as forces producing events—again
+take that force to be something quite different. They see it in what is
+called culture—in mental activity.
+
+The historians of culture are quite consistent in regard to their
+progenitors, the writers of universal histories, for if historical
+events may be explained by the fact that certain persons treated one
+another in such and such ways, why not explain them by the fact that
+such and such people wrote such and such books? Of the immense number of
+indications accompanying every vital phenomenon, these historians select
+the indication of intellectual activity and say that this indication is
+the cause. But despite their endeavors to prove that the cause of events
+lies in intellectual activity, only by a great stretch can one admit
+that there is any connection between intellectual activity and the
+movement of peoples, and in no case can one admit that intellectual
+activity controls people's actions, for that view is not confirmed by
+such facts as the very cruel murders of the French Revolution resulting
+from the doctrine of the equality of man, or the very cruel wars and
+executions resulting from the preaching of love.
+
+But even admitting as correct all the cunningly devised arguments with
+which these histories are filled—admitting that nations are governed by
+some undefined force called an idea—history's essential question still
+remains unanswered, and to the former power of monarchs and to the
+influence of advisers and other people introduced by the universal
+historians, another, newer force—the idea—is added, the connection of
+which with the masses needs explanation. It is possible to understand
+that Napoleon had power and so events occurred; with some effort one may
+even conceive that Napoleon together with other influences was the cause
+of an event; but how a book, Le Contrat Social, had the effect of making
+Frenchmen begin to drown one another cannot be understood without an
+explanation of the causal nexus of this new force with the event.
+
+Undoubtedly some relation exists between all who live contemporaneously,
+and so it is possible to find some connection between the intellectual
+activity of men and their historical movements, just as such a
+connection may be found between the movements of humanity and commerce,
+handicraft, gardening, or anything else you please. But why intellectual
+activity is considered by the historians of culture to be the cause or
+expression of the whole historical movement is hard to understand. Only
+the following considerations can have led the historians to such a
+conclusion: (1) that history is written by learned men, and so it is
+natural and agreeable for them to think that the activity of their class
+supplies the basis of the movement of all humanity, just as a similar
+belief is natural and agreeable to traders, agriculturists, and soldiers
+(if they do not express it, that is merely because traders and soldiers
+do not write history), and (2) that spiritual activity, enlightenment,
+civilization, culture, ideas, are all indistinct, indefinite conceptions
+under whose banner it is very easy to use words having a still less
+definite meaning, and which can therefore be readily introduced into any
+theory.
+
+But not to speak of the intrinsic quality of histories of this kind
+(which may possibly even be of use to someone for something) the
+histories of culture, to which all general histories tend more and more
+to approximate, are significant from the fact that after seriously and
+minutely examining various religious, philosophic, and political
+doctrines as causes of events, as soon as they have to describe an
+actual historic event such as the campaign of 1812 for instance, they
+involuntarily describe it as resulting from an exercise of power—and say
+plainly that that was the result of Napoleon's will. Speaking so, the
+historians of culture involuntarily contradict themselves, and show that
+the new force they have devised does not account for what happens in
+history, and that history can only be explained by introducing a power
+which they apparently do not recognize.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+A locomotive is moving. Someone asks: "What moves it?" A peasant says
+the devil moves it. Another man says the locomotive moves because its
+wheels go round. A third asserts that the cause of its movement lies in
+the smoke which the wind carries away.
+
+The peasant is irrefutable. He has devised a complete explanation. To
+refute him someone would have to prove to him that there is no devil, or
+another peasant would have to explain to him that it is not the devil
+but a German, who moves the locomotive. Only then, as a result of the
+contradiction, will they see that they are both wrong. But the man who
+says that the movement of the wheels is the cause refutes himself, for
+having once begun to analyze he ought to go on and explain further why
+the wheels go round; and till he has reached the ultimate cause of the
+movement of the locomotive in the pressure of steam in the boiler, he
+has no right to stop in his search for the cause. The man who explains
+the movement of the locomotive by the smoke that is carried back has
+noticed that the wheels do not supply an explanation and has taken the
+first sign that occurs to him and in his turn has offered that as an
+explanation.
+
+The only conception that can explain the movement of the locomotive is
+that of a force commensurate with the movement observed.
+
+The only conception that can explain the movement of the peoples is that
+of some force commensurate with the whole movement of the peoples.
+
+Yet to supply this conception various historians take forces of
+different kinds, all of which are incommensurate with the movement
+observed. Some see it as a force directly inherent in heroes, as the
+peasant sees the devil in the locomotive; others as a force resulting
+from several other forces, like the movement of the wheels; others again
+as an intellectual influence, like the smoke that is blown away.
+
+So long as histories are written of separate individuals, whether
+Caesars, Alexanders, Luthers, or Voltaires, and not the histories of
+all, absolutely all those who take part in an event, it is quite
+impossible to describe the movement of humanity without the conception
+of a force compelling men to direct their activity toward a certain end.
+And the only such conception known to historians is that of power.
+
+This conception is the one handle by means of which the material of
+history, as at present expounded, can be dealt with, and anyone who
+breaks that handle off, as Buckle did, without finding some other method
+of treating historical material, merely deprives himself of the one
+possible way of dealing with it. The necessity of the conception of
+power as an explanation of historical events is best demonstrated by the
+universal historians and historians of culture themselves, for they
+professedly reject that conception but inevitably have recourse to it at
+every step.
+
+In dealing with humanity's inquiry, the science of history up to now is
+like money in circulation—paper money and coin. The biographies and
+special national histories are like paper money. They can be used and
+can circulate and fulfill their purpose without harm to anyone and even
+advantageously, as long as no one asks what is the security behind them.
+You need only forget to ask how the will of heroes produces events, and
+such histories as Thiers' will be interesting and instructive and may
+perhaps even possess a tinge of poetry. But just as doubts of the real
+value of paper money arise either because, being easy to make, too much
+of it gets made or because people try to exchange it for gold, so also
+doubts concerning the real value of such histories arise either because
+too many of them are written or because in his simplicity of heart
+someone inquires: by what force did Napoleon do this?—that is, wants to
+exchange the current paper money for the real gold of actual
+comprehension.
+
+The writers of universal histories and of the history of culture are
+like people who, recognizing the defects of paper money, decide to
+substitute for it money made of metal that has not the specific gravity
+of gold. It may indeed make jingling coin, but will do no more than
+that. Paper money may deceive the ignorant, but nobody is deceived by
+tokens of base metal that have no value but merely jingle. As gold is
+gold only if it is serviceable not merely for exchange but also for use,
+so universal historians will be valuable only when they can reply to
+history's essential question: what is power? The universal historians
+give contradictory replies to that question, while the historians of
+culture evade it and answer something quite different. And as counters
+of imitation gold can be used only among a group of people who agree to
+accept them as gold, or among those who do not know the nature of gold,
+so universal historians and historians of culture, not answering
+humanity's essential question, serve as currency for some purposes of
+their own, only in universities and among the mass of readers who have a
+taste for what they call "serious reading."
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+Having abandoned the conception of the ancients as to the divine
+subjection of the will of a nation to some chosen man and the subjection
+of that man's will to the Deity, history cannot without contradictions
+take a single step till it has chosen one of two things: either a return
+to the former belief in the direct intervention of the Deity in human
+affairs or a definite explanation of the meaning of the force producing
+historical events and termed "power."
+
+A return to the first is impossible, the belief has been destroyed; and
+so it is essential to explain what is meant by power.
+
+Napoleon ordered an army to be raised and go to war. We are so
+accustomed to that idea and have become so used to it that the question:
+why did six hundred thousand men go to fight when Napoleon uttered
+certain words, seems to us senseless. He had the power and so what he
+ordered was done.
+
+This reply is quite satisfactory if we believe that the power was given
+him by God. But as soon as we do not admit that, it becomes essential to
+determine what is this power of one man over others.
+
+It cannot be the direct physical power of a strong man over a weak one—a
+domination based on the application or threat of physical force, like
+the power of Hercules; nor can it be based on the effect of moral force,
+as in their simplicity some historians think who say that the leading
+figures in history are heroes, that is, men gifted with a special
+strength of soul and mind called genius. This power cannot be based on
+the predominance of moral strength, for, not to mention heroes such as
+Napoleon about whose moral qualities opinions differ widely, history
+shows us that neither a Louis XI nor a Metternich, who ruled over
+millions of people, had any particular moral qualities, but on the
+contrary were generally morally weaker than any of the millions they
+ruled over.
+
+If the source of power lies neither in the physical nor in the moral
+qualities of him who possesses it, it must evidently be looked for
+elsewhere—in the relation to the people of the man who wields the power.
+
+And that is how power is understood by the science of jurisprudence,
+that exchange bank of history which offers to exchange history's
+understanding of power for true gold.
+
+Power is the collective will of the people transferred, by expressed or
+tacit consent, to their chosen rulers.
+
+In the domain of jurisprudence, which consists of discussions of how a
+state and power might be arranged were it possible for all that to be
+arranged, it is all very clear; but when applied to history that
+definition of power needs explanation.
+
+The science of jurisprudence regards the state and power as the ancients
+regarded fire—namely, as something existing absolutely. But for history,
+the state and power are merely phenomena, just as for modern physics
+fire is not an element but a phenomenon.
+
+From this fundamental difference between the view held by history and
+that held by jurisprudence, it follows that jurisprudence can tell
+minutely how in its opinion power should be constituted and what
+power—existing immutably outside time—is, but to history's questions
+about the meaning of the mutations of power in time it can answer
+nothing.
+
+If power be the collective will of the people transferred to their
+ruler, was Pugachev a representative of the will of the people? If not,
+then why was Napoleon I? Why was Napoleon III a criminal when he was
+taken prisoner at Boulogne, and why, later on, were those criminals whom
+he arrested?
+
+Do palace revolutions—in which sometimes only two or three people take
+part—transfer the will of the people to a new ruler? In international
+relations, is the will of the people also transferred to their
+conqueror? Was the will of the Confederation of the Rhine transferred to
+Napoleon in 1806? Was the will of the Russian people transferred to
+Napoleon in 1809, when our army in alliance with the French went to
+fight the Austrians?
+
+To these questions three answers are possible:
+
+Either to assume (1) that the will of the people is always
+unconditionally transferred to the ruler or rulers they have chosen, and
+that therefore every emergence of a new power, every struggle against
+the power once appointed, should be absolutely regarded as an
+infringement of the real power; or (2) that the will of the people is
+transferred to the rulers conditionally, under definite and known
+conditions, and to show that all limitations, conflicts, and even
+destructions of power result from a nonobservance by the rulers of the
+conditions under which their power was entrusted to them; or (3) that
+the will of the people is delegated to the rulers conditionally, but
+that the conditions are unknown and indefinite, and that the appearance
+of several authorities, their struggles and their falls, result solely
+from the greater or lesser fulfillment by the rulers of these unknown
+conditions on which the will of the people is transferred from some
+people to others.
+
+And these are the three ways in which the historians do explain the
+relation of the people to their rulers.
+
+Some historians—those biographical and specialist historians already
+referred to—in their simplicity failing to understand the question of
+the meaning of power, seem to consider that the collective will of the
+people is unconditionally transferred to historical persons, and
+therefore when describing some single state they assume that particular
+power to be the one absolute and real power, and that any other force
+opposing this is not a power but a violation of power—mere violence.
+
+Their theory, suitable for primitive and peaceful periods of history,
+has the inconvenience—in application to complex and stormy periods in
+the life of nations during which various powers arise simultaneously and
+struggle with one another—that a Legitimist historian will prove that
+the National Convention, the Directory, and Bonaparte were mere
+infringers of the true power, while a Republican and a Bonapartist will
+prove: the one that the Convention and the other that the Empire was the
+real power, and that all the others were violations of power. Evidently
+the explanations furnished by these historians being mutually
+contradictory can only satisfy young children.
+
+Recognizing the falsity of this view of history, another set of
+historians say that power rests on a conditional delegation of the will
+of the people to their rulers, and that historical leaders have power
+only conditionally on carrying out the program that the will of the
+people has by tacit agreement prescribed to them. But what this program
+consists in these historians do not say, or if they do they continually
+contradict one another.
+
+Each historian, according to his view of what constitutes a nation's
+progress, looks for these conditions in the greatness, wealth, freedom,
+or enlightenment of citizens of France or some other country. But not to
+mention the historians' contradictions as to the nature of this
+program—or even admitting that some one general program of these
+conditions exists—the facts of history almost always contradict that
+theory. If the conditions under which power is entrusted consist in the
+wealth, freedom, and enlightenment of the people, how is it that Louis
+XIV and Ivan the Terrible end their reigns tranquilly, while Louis XVI
+and Charles I are executed by their people? To this question historians
+reply that Louis XIV's activity, contrary to the program, reacted on
+Louis XVI. But why did it not react on Louis XIV or on Louis XV—why
+should it react just on Louis XVI? And what is the time limit for such
+reactions? To these questions there are and can be no answers. Equally
+little does this view explain why for several centuries the collective
+will is not withdrawn from certain rulers and their heirs, and then
+suddenly during a period of fifty years is transferred to the
+Convention, to the Directory, to Napoleon, to Alexander, to Louis XVIII,
+to Napoleon again, to Charles X, to Louis Philippe, to a Republican
+government, and to Napoleon III. When explaining these rapid transfers
+of the people's will from one individual to another, especially in view
+of international relations, conquests, and alliances, the historians are
+obliged to admit that some of these transfers are not normal delegations
+of the people's will but are accidents dependent on cunning, on
+mistakes, on craft, or on the weakness of a diplomatist, a ruler, or a
+party leader. So that the greater part of the events of history—civil
+wars, revolutions, and conquests—are presented by these historians not
+as the results of free transferences of the people's will, but as
+results of the ill-directed will of one or more individuals, that is,
+once again, as usurpations of power. And so these historians also see
+and admit historical events which are exceptions to the theory.
+
+These historians resemble a botanist who, having noticed that some
+plants grow from seeds producing two cotyledons, should insist that all
+that grows does so by sprouting into two leaves, and that the palm, the
+mushroom, and even the oak, which blossom into full growth and no longer
+resemble two leaves, are deviations from the theory.
+
+Historians of the third class assume that the will of the people is
+transferred to historic personages conditionally, but that the
+conditions are unknown to us. They say that historical personages have
+power only because they fulfill the will of the people which has been
+delegated to them.
+
+But in that case, if the force that moves nations lies not in the
+historic leaders but in the nations themselves, what significance have
+those leaders?
+
+The leaders, these historians tell us, express the will of the people:
+the activity of the leaders represents the activity of the people.
+
+But in that case the question arises whether all the activity of the
+leaders serves as an expression of the people's will or only some part
+of it. If the whole activity of the leaders serves as the expression of
+the people's will, as some historians suppose, then all the details of
+the court scandals contained in the biographies of a Napoleon or a
+Catherine serve to express the life of the nation, which is evident
+nonsense; but if it is only some particular side of the activity of an
+historical leader which serves to express the people's life, as other
+so-called "philosophical" historians believe, then to determine which
+side of the activity of a leader expresses the nation's life, we have
+first of all to know in what the nation's life consists.
+
+Met by this difficulty historians of that class devise some most
+obscure, impalpable, and general abstraction which can cover all
+conceivable occurrences, and declare this abstraction to be the aim of
+humanity's movement. The most usual generalizations adopted by almost
+all the historians are: freedom, equality, enlightenment, progress,
+civilization, and culture. Postulating some generalization as the goal
+of the movement of humanity, the historians study the men of whom the
+greatest number of monuments have remained: kings, ministers, generals,
+authors, reformers, popes, and journalists, to the extent to which in
+their opinion these persons have promoted or hindered that abstraction.
+But as it is in no way proved that the aim of humanity does consist in
+freedom, equality, enlightenment, or civilization, and as the connection
+of the people with the rulers and enlighteners of humanity is only based
+on the arbitrary assumption that the collective will of the people is
+always transferred to the men whom we have noticed, it happens that the
+activity of the millions who migrate, burn houses, abandon agriculture,
+and destroy one another never is expressed in the account of the
+activity of some dozen people who did not burn houses, practice
+agriculture, or slay their fellow creatures.
+
+History proves this at every turn. Is the ferment of the peoples of the
+west at the end of the eighteenth century and their drive eastward
+explained by the activity of Louis XIV, XV, and XVI, their mistresses
+and ministers, and by the lives of Napoleon, Rousseau, Diderot,
+Beaumarchais, and others?
+
+Is the movement of the Russian people eastward to Kazan and Siberia
+expressed by details of the morbid character of Ivan the Terrible and by
+his correspondence with Kurbski?
+
+Is the movement of the peoples at the time of the Crusades explained by
+the life and activity of the Godfreys and the Louis-es and their ladies?
+For us that movement of the peoples from west to east, without leaders,
+with a crowd of vagrants, and with Peter the Hermit, remains
+incomprehensible. And yet more incomprehensible is the cessation of that
+movement when a rational and sacred aim for the Crusade—the deliverance
+of Jerusalem—had been clearly defined by historic leaders. Popes, kings,
+and knights incited the peoples to free the Holy Land; but the people
+did not go, for the unknown cause which had previously impelled them to
+go no longer existed. The history of the Godfreys and the Minnesingers
+can evidently not cover the life of the peoples. And the history of the
+Godfreys and the Minnesingers has remained the history of Godfreys and
+Minnesingers, but the history of the life of the peoples and their
+impulses has remained unknown.
+
+Still less does the history of authors and reformers explain to us the
+life of the peoples.
+
+The history of culture explains to us the impulses and conditions of
+life and thought of a writer or a reformer. We learn that Luther had a
+hot temper and said such and such things; we learn that Rousseau was
+suspicious and wrote such and such books; but we do not learn why after
+the Reformation the peoples massacred one another, nor why during the
+French Revolution they guillotined one another.
+
+If we unite both these kinds of history, as is done by the newest
+historians, we shall have the history of monarchs and writers, but not
+the history of the life of the peoples.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+The life of the nations is not contained in the lives of a few men, for
+the connection between those men and the nations has not been found. The
+theory that this connection is based on the transference of the
+collective will of a people to certain historical personages is an
+hypothesis unconfirmed by the experience of history.
+
+The theory of the transference of the collective will of the people to
+historic persons may perhaps explain much in the domain of jurisprudence
+and be essential for its purposes, but in its application to history, as
+soon as revolutions, conquests, or civil wars occur—that is, as soon as
+history begins—that theory explains nothing.
+
+The theory seems irrefutable just because the act of transference of the
+people's will cannot be verified, for it never occurred.
+
+Whatever happens and whoever may stand at the head of affairs, the
+theory can always say that such and such a person took the lead because
+the collective will was transferred to him.
+
+The replies this theory gives to historical questions are like the
+replies of a man who, watching the movements of a herd of cattle and
+paying no attention to the varying quality of the pasturage in different
+parts of the field, or to the driving of the herdsman, should attribute
+the direction the herd takes to what animal happens to be at its head.
+
+"The herd goes in that direction because the animal in front leads it
+and the collective will of all the other animals is vested in that
+leader." This is what historians of the first class say—those who assume
+the unconditional transference of the people's will.
+
+"If the animals leading the herd change, this happens because the
+collective will of all the animals is transferred from one leader to
+another, according to whether the animal is or is not leading them in
+the direction selected by the whole herd." Such is the reply historians
+who assume that the collective will of the people is delegated to rulers
+under conditions which they regard as known. (With this method of
+observation it often happens that the observer, influenced by the
+direction he himself prefers, regards those as leaders who, owing to the
+people's change of direction, are no longer in front, but on one side,
+or even in the rear.)
+
+"If the animals in front are continually changing and the direction of
+the whole herd is constantly altered, this is because in order to follow
+a given direction the animals transfer their will to the animals that
+have attracted our attention, and to study the movements of the herd we
+must watch the movements of all the prominent animals moving on all
+sides of the herd." So say the third class of historians who regard all
+historical persons, from monarchs to journalists, as the expression of
+their age.
+
+The theory of the transference of the will of the people to historic
+persons is merely a paraphrase—a restatement of the question in other
+words.
+
+What causes historical events? Power. What is power? Power is the
+collective will of the people transferred to one person. Under what
+condition is the will of the people delegated to one person? On
+condition that that person expresses the will of the whole people. That
+is, power is power: in other words, power is a word the meaning of which
+we do not understand.
+
+If the realm of human knowledge were confined to abstract reasoning,
+then having subjected to criticism the explanation of "power" that
+juridical science gives us, humanity would conclude that power is merely
+a word and has no real existence. But to understand phenomena man has,
+besides abstract reasoning, experience by which he verifies his
+reflections. And experience tells us that power is not merely a word but
+an actually existing phenomenon.
+
+Not to speak of the fact that no description of the collective activity
+of men can do without the conception of power, the existence of power is
+proved both by history and by observing contemporary events.
+
+Whenever an event occurs a man appears or men appear, by whose will the
+event seems to have taken place. Napoleon III issues a decree and the
+French go to Mexico. The King of Prussia and Bismarck issue decrees and
+an army enters Bohemia. Napoleon I issues a decree and an army enters
+Russia. Alexander I gives a command and the French submit to the
+Bourbons. Experience shows us that whatever event occurs it is always
+related to the will of one or of several men who have decreed it.
+
+The historians, in accord with the old habit of acknowledging divine
+intervention in human affairs, want to see the cause of events in the
+expression of the will of someone endowed with power, but that
+supposition is not confirmed either by reason or by experience.
+
+On the one side reflection shows that the expression of a man's will—his
+words—are only part of the general activity expressed in an event, as
+for instance in a war or a revolution, and so without assuming an
+incomprehensible, supernatural force—a miracle—one cannot admit that
+words can be the immediate cause of the movements of millions of men. On
+the other hand, even if we admitted that words could be the cause of
+events, history shows that the expression of the will of historical
+personages does not in most cases produce any effect, that is to say,
+their commands are often not executed, and sometimes the very opposite
+of what they order occurs.
+
+Without admitting divine intervention in the affairs of humanity we
+cannot regard "power" as the cause of events.
+
+Power, from the standpoint of experience, is merely the relation that
+exists between the expression of someone's will and the execution of
+that will by others.
+
+To explain the conditions of that relationship we must first establish a
+conception of the expression of will, referring it to man and not to the
+Deity.
+
+If the Deity issues a command, expresses His will, as ancient history
+tells us, the expression of that will is independent of time and is not
+caused by anything, for the Divinity is not controlled by an event. But
+speaking of commands that are the expression of the will of men acting
+in time and in relation to one another, to explain the connection of
+commands with events we must restore: (1) the condition of all that
+takes place: the continuity of movement in time both of the events and
+of the person who commands, and (2) the inevitability of the connection
+between the person commanding and those who execute his command.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+Only the expression of the will of the Deity, not dependent on time, can
+relate to a whole series of events occurring over a period of years or
+centuries, and only the Deity, independent of everything, can by His
+sole will determine the direction of humanity's movement; but man acts
+in time and himself takes part in what occurs.
+
+Reinstating the first condition omitted, that of time, we see that no
+command can be executed without some preceding order having been given
+rendering the execution of the last command possible.
+
+No command ever appears spontaneously, or itself covers a whole series
+of occurrences; but each command follows from another, and never refers
+to a whole series of events but always to one moment only of an event.
+
+When, for instance, we say that Napoleon ordered armies to go to war, we
+combine in one simultaneous expression a whole series of consecutive
+commands dependent one on another. Napoleon could not have commanded an
+invasion of Russia and never did so. Today he ordered such and such
+papers to be written to Vienna, to Berlin, and to Petersburg; tomorrow
+such and such decrees and orders to the army, the fleet, the
+commissariat, and so on and so on—millions of commands, which formed a
+whole series corresponding to a series of events which brought the
+French armies into Russia.
+
+If throughout his reign Napoleon gave commands concerning an invasion of
+England and expended on no other undertaking so much time and effort,
+and yet during his whole reign never once attempted to execute that
+design but undertook an expedition into Russia, with which country he
+considered it desirable to be in alliance (a conviction he repeatedly
+expressed)—this came about because his commands did not correspond to
+the course of events in the first case, but did so correspond in the
+latter.
+
+For an order to be certainly executed, it is necessary that a man should
+order what can be executed. But to know what can and what cannot be
+executed is impossible, not only in the case of Napoleon's invasion of
+Russia in which millions participated, but even in the simplest event,
+for in either case millions of obstacles may arise to prevent its
+execution. Every order executed is always one of an immense number
+unexecuted. All the impossible orders inconsistent with the course of
+events remain unexecuted. Only the possible ones get linked up with a
+consecutive series of commands corresponding to a series of events, and
+are executed.
+
+Our false conception that an event is caused by a command which precedes
+it is due to the fact that when the event has taken place and out of
+thousands of others those few commands which were consistent with that
+event have been executed, we forget about the others that were not
+executed because they could not be. Apart from that, the chief source of
+our error in this matter is due to the fact that in the historical
+accounts a whole series of innumerable, diverse, and petty events, such
+for instance as all those which led the French armies to Russia, is
+generalized into one event in accord with the result produced by that
+series of events, and corresponding with this generalization the whole
+series of commands is also generalized into a single expression of will.
+
+We say that Napoleon wished to invade Russia and invaded it. In reality
+in all Napoleon's activity we never find anything resembling an
+expression of that wish, but find a series of orders, or expressions of
+his will, very variously and indefinitely directed. Amid a long series
+of unexecuted orders of Napoleon's one series, for the campaign of 1812,
+was carried out—not because those orders differed in any way from the
+other, unexecuted orders but because they coincided with the course of
+events that led the French army into Russia; just as in stencil work
+this or that figure comes out not because the color was laid on from
+this side or in that way, but because it was laid on from all sides over
+the figure cut in the stencil.
+
+So that examining the relation in time of the commands to the events, we
+find that a command can never be the cause of the event, but that a
+certain definite dependence exists between the two.
+
+To understand in what this dependence consists it is necessary to
+reinstate another omitted condition of every command proceeding not from
+the Deity but from a man, which is, that the man who gives the command
+himself takes part in the event.
+
+This relation of the commander to those he commands is just what is
+called power. This relation consists in the following:
+
+For common action people always unite in certain combinations, in which
+regardless of the difference of the aims set for the common action, the
+relation between those taking part in it is always the same.
+
+Men uniting in these combinations always assume such relations toward
+one another that the larger number take a more direct share, and the
+smaller number a less direct share, in the collective action for which
+they have combined.
+
+Of all the combinations in which men unite for collective action one of
+the most striking and definite examples is an army.
+
+Every army is composed of lower grades of the service—the rank and
+file—of whom there are always the greatest number; of the next higher
+military rank—corporals and noncommissioned officers of whom there are
+fewer, and of still-higher officers of whom there are still fewer, and
+so on to the highest military command which is concentrated in one
+person.
+
+A military organization may be quite correctly compared to a cone, of
+which the base with the largest diameter consists of the rank and file;
+the next higher and smaller section of the cone consists of the next
+higher grades of the army, and so on to the apex, the point of which
+will represent the commander-in-chief.
+
+The soldiers, of whom there are the most, form the lower section of the
+cone and its base. The soldier himself does the stabbing, hacking,
+burning, and pillaging, and always receives orders for these actions
+from men above him; he himself never gives an order. The noncommissioned
+officers (of whom there are fewer) perform the action itself less
+frequently than the soldiers, but they already give commands. An officer
+still less often acts directly himself, but commands still more
+frequently. A general does nothing but command the troops, indicates the
+objective, and hardly ever uses a weapon himself. The commander-in-chief
+never takes direct part in the action itself, but only gives general
+orders concerning the movement of the mass of the troops. A similar
+relation of people to one another is seen in every combination of men
+for common activity—in agriculture, trade, and every administration.
+
+And so without particularly analyzing all the contiguous sections of a
+cone and of the ranks of an army, or the ranks and positions in any
+administrative or public business whatever from the lowest to the
+highest, we see a law by which men, to take associated action, combine
+in such relations that the more directly they participate in performing
+the action the less they can command and the more numerous they are,
+while the less their direct participation in the action itself, the more
+they command and the fewer of them there are; rising in this way from
+the lowest ranks to the man at the top, who takes the least direct share
+in the action and directs his activity chiefly to commanding.
+
+This relation of the men who command to those they command is what
+constitutes the essence of the conception called power.
+
+Having restored the condition of time under which all events occur, we
+find that a command is executed only when it is related to a
+corresponding series of events. Restoring the essential condition of
+relation between those who command and those who execute, we find that
+by the very nature of the case those who command take the smallest part
+in the action itself and that their activity is exclusively directed to
+commanding.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+When an event is taking place people express their opinions and wishes
+about it, and as the event results from the collective activity of many
+people, some one of the opinions or wishes expressed is sure to be
+fulfilled if but approximately. When one of the opinions expressed is
+fulfilled, that opinion gets connected with the event as a command
+preceding it.
+
+Men are hauling a log. Each of them expresses his opinion as to how and
+where to haul it. They haul the log away, and it happens that this is
+done as one of them said. He ordered it. There we have command and power
+in their primary form. The man who worked most with his hands could not
+think so much about what he was doing, or reflect on or command what
+would result from the common activity; while the man who commanded more
+would evidently work less with his hands on account of his greater
+verbal activity.
+
+When some larger concourse of men direct their activity to a common aim
+there is a yet sharper division of those who, because their activity is
+given to directing and commanding, take less part in the direct work.
+
+When a man works alone he always has a certain set of reflections which
+as it seems to him directed his past activity, justify his present
+activity, and guide him in planning his future actions. Just the same is
+done by a concourse of people, allowing those who do not take a direct
+part in the activity to devise considerations, justifications, and
+surmises concerning their collective activity.
+
+For reasons known or unknown to us the French began to drown and kill
+one another. And corresponding to the event its justification appears in
+people's belief that this was necessary for the welfare of France, for
+liberty, and for equality. People ceased to kill one another, and this
+event was accompanied by its justification in the necessity for a
+centralization of power, resistance to Europe, and so on. Men went from
+the west to the east killing their fellow men, and the event was
+accompanied by phrases about the glory of France, the baseness of
+England, and so on. History shows us that these justifications of the
+events have no common sense and are all contradictory, as in the case of
+killing a man as the result of recognizing his rights, and the killing
+of millions in Russia for the humiliation of England. But these
+justifications have a very necessary significance in their own day.
+
+These justifications release those who produce the events from moral
+responsibility. These temporary aims are like the broom fixed in front
+of a locomotive to clear the snow from the rails in front: they clear
+men's moral responsibilities from their path.
+
+Without such justification there would be no reply to the simplest
+question that presents itself when examining each historical event. How
+is it that millions of men commit collective crimes—make war, commit
+murder, and so on?
+
+With the present complex forms of political and social life in Europe
+can any event that is not prescribed, decreed, or ordered by monarchs,
+ministers, parliaments, or newspapers be imagined? Is there any
+collective action which cannot find its justification in political
+unity, in patriotism, in the balance of power, or in civilization? So
+that every event that occurs inevitably coincides with some expressed
+wish and, receiving a justification, presents itself as the result of
+the will of one man or of several men.
+
+In whatever direction a ship moves, the flow of the waves it cuts will
+always be noticeable ahead of it. To those on board the ship the
+movement of those waves will be the only perceptible motion.
+
+Only by watching closely moment by moment the movement of that flow and
+comparing it with the movement of the ship do we convince ourselves that
+every bit of it is occasioned by the forward movement of the ship, and
+that we were led into error by the fact that we ourselves were
+imperceptibly moving.
+
+We see the same if we watch moment by moment the movement of historical
+characters (that is, re-establish the inevitable condition of all that
+occurs—the continuity of movement in time) and do not lose sight of the
+essential connection of historical persons with the masses.
+
+When the ship moves in one direction there is one and the same wave
+ahead of it, when it turns frequently the wave ahead of it also turns
+frequently. But wherever it may turn there always will be the wave
+anticipating its movement.
+
+Whatever happens it always appears that just that event was foreseen and
+decreed. Wherever the ship may go, the rush of water which neither
+directs nor increases its movement foams ahead of it, and at a distance
+seems to us not merely to move of itself but to govern the ship's
+movement also.
+
+Examining only those expressions of the will of historical persons
+which, as commands, were related to events, historians have assumed that
+the events depended on those commands. But examining the events
+themselves and the connection in which the historical persons stood to
+the people, we have found that they and their orders were dependent on
+events. The incontestable proof of this deduction is that, however many
+commands were issued, the event does not take place unless there are
+other causes for it, but as soon as an event occurs—be it what it
+may—then out of all the continually expressed wishes of different people
+some will always be found which by their meaning and their time of
+utterance are related as commands to the events.
+
+Arriving at this conclusion we can reply directly and positively to
+these two essential questions of history:
+
+(1) What is power?
+
+(2) What force produces the movement of the nations?
+
+(1) Power is the relation of a given person to other individuals, in
+which the more this person expresses opinions, predictions, and
+justifications of the collective action that is performed, the less is
+his participation in that action.
+
+(2) The movement of nations is caused not by power, nor by intellectual
+activity, nor even by a combination of the two as historians have
+supposed, but by the activity of all the people who participate in the
+events, and who always combine in such a way that those taking the
+largest direct share in the event take on themselves the least
+responsibility and vice versa.
+
+Morally the wielder of power appears to cause the event; physically it
+is those who submit to the power. But as the moral activity is
+inconceivable without the physical, the cause of the event is neither in
+the one nor in the other but in the union of the two.
+
+Or in other words, the conception of a cause is inapplicable to the
+phenomena we are examining.
+
+In the last analysis we reach the circle of infinity—that final limit to
+which in every domain of thought man's reason arrives if it is not
+playing with the subject. Electricity produces heat, heat produces
+electricity. Atoms attract each other and atoms repel one another.
+
+Speaking of the interaction of heat and electricity and of atoms, we
+cannot say why this occurs, and we say that it is so because it is
+inconceivable otherwise, because it must be so and that it is a law. The
+same applies to historical events. Why war and revolution occur we do
+not know. We only know that to produce the one or the other action,
+people combine in a certain formation in which they all take part, and
+we say that this is so because it is unthinkable otherwise, or in other
+words that it is a law.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+If history dealt only with external phenomena, the establishment of this
+simple and obvious law would suffice and we should have finished our
+argument. But the law of history relates to man. A particle of matter
+cannot tell us that it does not feel the law of attraction or repulsion
+and that that law is untrue, but man, who is the subject of history,
+says plainly: I am free and am therefore not subject to the law.
+
+The presence of the problem of man's free will, though unexpressed, is
+felt at every step of history.
+
+All seriously thinking historians have involuntarily encountered this
+question. All the contradictions and obscurities of history and the
+false path historical science has followed are due solely to the lack of
+a solution of that question.
+
+If the will of every man were free, that is, if each man could act as he
+pleased, all history would be a series of disconnected incidents.
+
+If in a thousand years even one man in a million could act freely, that
+is, as he chose, it is evident that one single free act of that man's in
+violation of the laws governing human action would destroy the
+possibility of the existence of any laws for the whole of humanity.
+
+If there be a single law governing the actions of men, free will cannot
+exist, for then man's will is subject to that law.
+
+In this contradiction lies the problem of free will, which from most
+ancient times has occupied the best human minds and from most ancient
+times has been presented in its whole tremendous significance.
+
+The problem is that regarding man as a subject of observation from
+whatever point of view—theological, historical, ethical, or
+philosophic—we find a general law of necessity to which he (like all
+that exists) is subject. But regarding him from within ourselves as what
+we are conscious of, we feel ourselves to be free.
+
+This consciousness is a source of self-cognition quite apart from and
+independent of reason. Through his reason man observes himself, but only
+through consciousness does he know himself.
+
+Apart from consciousness of self no observation or application of reason
+is conceivable.
+
+To understand, observe, and draw conclusions, man must first of all be
+conscious of himself as living. A man is only conscious of himself as a
+living being by the fact that he wills, that is, is conscious of his
+volition. But his will—which forms the essence of his life—man
+recognizes (and can but recognize) as free.
+
+If, observing himself, man sees that his will is always directed by one
+and the same law (whether he observes the necessity of taking food,
+using his brain, or anything else) he cannot recognize this never-
+varying direction of his will otherwise than as a limitation of it. Were
+it not free it could not be limited. A man's will seems to him to be
+limited just because he is not conscious of it except as free.
+
+You say: I am not free. But I have lifted my hand and let it fall.
+Everyone understands that this illogical reply is an irrefutable
+demonstration of freedom.
+
+That reply is the expression of a consciousness that is not subject to
+reason.
+
+If the consciousness of freedom were not a separate and independent
+source of self-consciousness it would be subject to reasoning and to
+experience, but in fact such subjection does not exist and is
+inconceivable.
+
+A series of experiments and arguments proves to every man that he, as an
+object of observation, is subject to certain laws, and man submits to
+them and never resists the laws of gravity or impermeability once he has
+become acquainted with them. But the same series of experiments and
+arguments proves to him that the complete freedom of which he is
+conscious in himself is impossible, and that his every action depends on
+his organization, his character, and the motives acting upon him; yet
+man never submits to the deductions of these experiments and arguments.
+Having learned from experiment and argument that a stone falls
+downwards, a man indubitably believes this and always expects the law
+that he has learned to be fulfilled.
+
+But learning just as certainly that his will is subject to laws, he does
+not and cannot believe this.
+
+However often experiment and reasoning may show a man that under the
+same conditions and with the same character he will do the same thing as
+before, yet when under the same conditions and with the same character
+he approaches for the thousandth time the action that always ends in the
+same way, he feels as certainly convinced as before the experiment that
+he can act as he pleases. Every man, savage or sage, however
+incontestably reason and experiment may prove to him that it is
+impossible to imagine two different courses of action in precisely the
+same conditions, feels that without this irrational conception (which
+constitutes the essence of freedom) he cannot imagine life. He feels
+that however impossible it may be, it is so, for without this conception
+of freedom not only would he be unable to understand life, but he would
+be unable to live for a single moment.
+
+He could not live, because all man's efforts, all his impulses to life,
+are only efforts to increase freedom. Wealth and poverty, fame and
+obscurity, power and subordination, strength and weakness, health and
+disease, culture and ignorance, work and leisure, repletion and hunger,
+virtue and vice, are only greater or lesser degrees of freedom.
+
+A man having no freedom cannot be conceived of except as deprived of
+life.
+
+If the conception of freedom appears to reason to be a senseless
+contradiction like the possibility of performing two actions at one and
+the same instant of time, or of an effect without a cause, that only
+proves that consciousness is not subject to reason.
+
+This unshakable, irrefutable consciousness of freedom, uncontrolled by
+experiment or argument, recognized by all thinkers and felt by everyone
+without exception, this consciousness without which no conception of man
+is possible constitutes the other side of the question.
+
+Man is the creation of an all-powerful, all-good, and all-seeing God.
+What is sin, the conception of which arises from the consciousness of
+man's freedom? That is a question for theology.
+
+The actions of men are subject to general immutable laws expressed in
+statistics. What is man's responsibility to society, the conception of
+which results from the conception of freedom? That is a question for
+jurisprudence.
+
+Man's actions proceed from his innate character and the motives acting
+upon him. What is conscience and the perception of right and wrong in
+actions that follows from the consciousness of freedom? That is a
+question for ethics.
+
+Man in connection with the general life of humanity appears subject to
+laws which determine that life. But the same man apart from that
+connection appears to be free. How should the past life of nations and
+of humanity be regarded—as the result of the free, or as the result of
+the constrained, activity of man? That is a question for history.
+
+Only in our self-confident day of the popularization of knowledge—thanks
+to that most powerful engine of ignorance, the diffusion of printed
+matter—has the question of the freedom of will been put on a level on
+which the question itself cannot exist. In our time the majority of so-
+called advanced people—that is, the crowd of ignoramuses—have taken the
+work of the naturalists who deal with one side of the question for a
+solution of the whole problem.
+
+They say and write and print that the soul and freedom do not exist, for
+the life of man is expressed by muscular movements and muscular
+movements are conditioned by the activity of the nerves; the soul and
+free will do not exist because at an unknown period of time we sprang
+from the apes. They say this, not at all suspecting that thousands of
+years ago that same law of necessity which with such ardor they are now
+trying to prove by physiology and comparative zoology was not merely
+acknowledged by all the religions and all the thinkers, but has never
+been denied. They do not see that the role of the natural sciences in
+this matter is merely to serve as an instrument for the illumination of
+one side of it. For the fact that, from the point of view of
+observation, reason and the will are merely secretions of the brain, and
+that man following the general law may have developed from lower animals
+at some unknown period of time, only explains from a fresh side the
+truth admitted thousands of years ago by all the religious and
+philosophic theories—that from the point of view of reason man is
+subject to the law of necessity; but it does not advance by a hair's
+breadth the solution of the question, which has another, opposite, side,
+based on the consciousness of freedom.
+
+If men descended from the apes at an unknown period of time, that is as
+comprehensible as that they were made from a handful of earth at a
+certain period of time (in the first case the unknown quantity is the
+time, in the second case it is the origin); and the question of how
+man's consciousness of freedom is to be reconciled with the law of
+necessity to which he is subject cannot be solved by comparative
+physiology and zoology, for in a frog, a rabbit, or an ape, we can
+observe only the muscular nervous activity, but in man we observe
+consciousness as well as the muscular and nervous activity.
+
+The naturalists and their followers, thinking they can solve this
+question, are like plasterers set to plaster one side of the walls of a
+church who, availing themselves of the absence of the chief
+superintendent of the work, should in an access of zeal plaster over the
+windows, icons, woodwork, and still unbuttressed walls, and should be
+delighted that from their point of view as plasterers, everything is now
+so smooth and regular.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+For the solution of the question of free will or inevitability, history
+has this advantage over other branches of knowledge in which the
+question is dealt with, that for history this question does not refer to
+the essence of man's free will but its manifestation in the past and
+under certain conditions.
+
+In regard to this question, history stands to the other sciences as
+experimental science stands to abstract science.
+
+The subject for history is not man's will itself but our presentation of
+it.
+
+And so for history, the insoluble mystery presented by the
+incompatibility of free will and inevitability does not exist as it does
+for theology, ethics, and philosophy. History surveys a presentation of
+man's life in which the union of these two contradictions has already
+taken place.
+
+In actual life each historic event, each human action, is very clearly
+and definitely understood without any sense of contradiction, although
+each event presents itself as partly free and partly compulsory.
+
+To solve the question of how freedom and necessity are combined and what
+constitutes the essence of these two conceptions, the philosophy of
+history can and should follow a path contrary to that taken by other
+sciences. Instead of first defining the conceptions of freedom and
+inevitability in themselves, and then ranging the phenomena of life
+under those definitions, history should deduce a definition of the
+conception of freedom and inevitability themselves from the immense
+quantity of phenomena of which it is cognizant and that always appear
+dependent on these two elements.
+
+Whatever presentation of the activity of many men or of an individual we
+may consider, we always regard it as the result partly of man's free
+will and partly of the law of inevitability.
+
+Whether we speak of the migration of the peoples and the incursions of
+the barbarians, or of the decrees of Napoleon III, or of someone's
+action an hour ago in choosing one direction out of several for his
+walk, we are unconscious of any contradiction. The degree of freedom and
+inevitability governing the actions of these people is clearly defined
+for us.
+
+Our conception of the degree of freedom often varies according to
+differences in the point of view from which we regard the event, but
+every human action appears to us as a certain combination of freedom and
+inevitability. In every action we examine we see a certain measure of
+freedom and a certain measure of inevitability. And always the more
+freedom we see in any action the less inevitability do we perceive, and
+the more inevitability the less freedom.
+
+The proportion of freedom to inevitability decreases and increases
+according to the point of view from which the action is regarded, but
+their relation is always one of inverse proportion.
+
+A sinking man who clutches at another and drowns him; or a hungry mother
+exhausted by feeding her baby, who steals some food; or a man trained to
+discipline who on duty at the word of command kills a defenseless
+man—seem less guilty, that is, less free and more subject to the law of
+necessity, to one who knows the circumstances in which these people were
+placed, and more free to one who does not know that the man was himself
+drowning, that the mother was hungry, that the soldier was in the ranks,
+and so on. Similarly a man who committed a murder twenty years ago and
+has since lived peaceably and harmlessly in society seems less guilty
+and his action more due to the law of inevitability, to someone who
+considers his action after twenty years have elapsed than to one who
+examined it the day after it was committed. And in the same way every
+action of an insane, intoxicated, or highly excited man appears less
+free and more inevitable to one who knows the mental condition of him
+who committed the action, and seems more free and less inevitable to one
+who does not know it. In all these cases the conception of freedom is
+increased or diminished and the conception of compulsion is
+correspondingly decreased or increased, according to the point of view
+from which the action is regarded. So that the greater the conception of
+necessity the smaller the conception of freedom and vice versa.
+
+Religion, the common sense of mankind, the science of jurisprudence, and
+history itself understand alike this relation between necessity and
+freedom.
+
+All cases without exception in which our conception of freedom and
+necessity is increased and diminished depend on three considerations:
+
+(1) The relation to the external world of the man who commits the deeds.
+
+(2) His relation to time.
+
+(3) His relation to the causes leading to the action.
+
+The first consideration is the clearness of our perception of the man's
+relation to the external world and the greater or lesser clearness of
+our understanding of the definite position occupied by the man in
+relation to everything coexisting with him. This is what makes it
+evident that a drowning man is less free and more subject to necessity
+than one standing on dry ground, and that makes the actions of a man
+closely connected with others in a thickly populated district, or of one
+bound by family, official, or business duties, seem certainly less free
+and more subject to necessity than those of a man living in solitude and
+seclusion.
+
+If we consider a man alone, apart from his relation to everything around
+him, each action of his seems to us free. But if we see his relation to
+anything around him, if we see his connection with anything
+whatever—with a man who speaks to him, a book he reads, the work on
+which he is engaged, even with the air he breathes or the light that
+falls on the things about him—we see that each of these circumstances
+has an influence on him and controls at least some side of his activity.
+And the more we perceive of these influences the more our conception of
+his freedom diminishes and the more our conception of the necessity that
+weighs on him increases.
+
+The second consideration is the more or less evident time relation of
+the man to the world and the clearness of our perception of the place
+the man's action occupies in time. That is the ground which makes the
+fall of the first man, resulting in the production of the human race,
+appear evidently less free than a man's entry into marriage today. It is
+the reason why the life and activity of people who lived centuries ago
+and are connected with me in time cannot seem to me as free as the life
+of a contemporary, the consequences of which are still unknown to me.
+
+The degree of our conception of freedom or inevitability depends in this
+respect on the greater or lesser lapse of time between the performance
+of the action and our judgment of it.
+
+If I examine an act I performed a moment ago in approximately the same
+circumstances as those I am in now, my action appears to me undoubtedly
+free. But if I examine an act performed a month ago, then being in
+different circumstances, I cannot help recognizing that if that act had
+not been committed much that resulted from it—good, agreeable, and even
+essential—would not have taken place. If I reflect on an action still
+more remote, ten years ago or more, then the consequences of my action
+are still plainer to me and I find it hard to imagine what would have
+happened had that action not been performed. The farther I go back in
+memory, or what is the same thing the farther I go forward in my
+judgment, the more doubtful becomes my belief in the freedom of my
+action.
+
+In history we find a very similar progress of conviction concerning the
+part played by free will in the general affairs of humanity. A
+contemporary event seems to us to be indubitably the doing of all the
+known participants, but with a more remote event we already see its
+inevitable results which prevent our considering anything else possible.
+And the farther we go back in examining events the less arbitrary do
+they appear.
+
+The Austro-Prussian war appears to us undoubtedly the result of the
+crafty conduct of Bismarck, and so on. The Napoleonic wars still seem to
+us, though already questionably, to be the outcome of their heroes'
+will. But in the Crusades we already see an event occupying its definite
+place in history and without which we cannot imagine the modern history
+of Europe, though to the chroniclers of the Crusades that event appeared
+as merely due to the will of certain people. In regard to the migration
+of the peoples it does not enter anyone's head today to suppose that the
+renovation of the European world depended on Attila's caprice. The
+farther back in history the object of our observation lies, the more
+doubtful does the free will of those concerned in the event become and
+the more manifest the law of inevitability.
+
+The third consideration is the degree to which we apprehend that endless
+chain of causation inevitably demanded by reason, in which each
+phenomenon comprehended, and therefore man's every action, must have its
+definite place as a result of what has gone before and as a cause of
+what will follow.
+
+The better we are acquainted with the physiological, psychological, and
+historical laws deduced by observation and by which man is controlled,
+and the more correctly we perceive the physiological, psychological, and
+historical causes of the action, and the simpler the action we are
+observing and the less complex the character and mind of the man in
+question, the more subject to inevitability and the less free do our
+actions and those of others appear.
+
+When we do not at all understand the cause of an action, whether a
+crime, a good action, or even one that is simply nonmoral, we ascribe a
+greater amount of freedom to it. In the case of a crime we most urgently
+demand the punishment for such an act; in the case of a virtuous act we
+rate its merit most highly. In an indifferent case we recognize in it
+more individuality, originality, and independence. But if even one of
+the innumerable causes of the act is known to us we recognize a certain
+element of necessity and are less insistent on punishment for the crime,
+or the acknowledgment of the merit of the virtuous act, or the freedom
+of the apparently original action. That a criminal was reared among male
+factors mitigates his fault in our eyes. The self-sacrifice of a father
+or mother, or self-sacrifice with the possibility of a reward, is more
+comprehensible than gratuitous self-sacrifice, and therefore seems less
+deserving of sympathy and less the result of free will. The founder of a
+sect or party, or an inventor, impresses us less when we know how or by
+what the way was prepared for his activity. If we have a large range of
+examples, if our observation is constantly directed to seeking the
+correlation of cause and effect in people's actions, their actions
+appear to us more under compulsion and less free the more correctly we
+connect the effects with the causes. If we examined simple actions and
+had a vast number of such actions under observation, our conception of
+their inevitability would be still greater. The dishonest conduct of the
+son of a dishonest father, the misconduct of a woman who had fallen into
+bad company, a drunkard's relapse into drunkenness, and so on are
+actions that seem to us less free the better we understand their cause.
+If the man whose actions we are considering is on a very low stage of
+mental development, like a child, a madman, or a simpleton—then, knowing
+the causes of the act and the simplicity of the character and
+intelligence in question, we see so large an element of necessity and so
+little free will that as soon as we know the cause prompting the action
+we can foretell the result.
+
+On these three considerations alone is based the conception of
+irresponsibility for crimes and the extenuating circumstances admitted
+by all legislative codes. The responsibility appears greater or less
+according to our greater or lesser knowledge of the circumstances in
+which the man was placed whose action is being judged, and according to
+the greater or lesser interval of time between the commission of the
+action and its investigation, and according to the greater or lesser
+understanding of the causes that led to the action.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+Thus our conception of free will and inevitability gradually diminishes
+or increases according to the greater or lesser connection with the
+external world, the greater or lesser remoteness of time, and the
+greater or lesser dependence on the causes in relation to which we
+contemplate a man's life.
+
+So that if we examine the case of a man whose connection with the
+external world is well known, where the time between the action and its
+examination is great, and where the causes of the action are most
+accessible, we get the conception of a maximum of inevitability and a
+minimum of free will. If we examine a man little dependent on external
+conditions, whose action was performed very recently, and the causes of
+whose action are beyond our ken, we get the conception of a minimum of
+inevitability and a maximum of freedom.
+
+In neither case—however we may change our point of view, however plain
+we may make to ourselves the connection between the man and the external
+world, however inaccessible it may be to us, however long or short the
+period of time, however intelligible or incomprehensible the causes of
+the action may be—can we ever conceive either complete freedom or
+complete necessity.
+
+(1) To whatever degree we may imagine a man to be exempt from the
+influence of the external world, we never get a conception of freedom in
+space. Every human action is inevitably conditioned by what surrounds
+him and by his own body. I lift my arm and let it fall. My action seems
+to me free; but asking myself whether I could raise my arm in every
+direction, I see that I raised it in the direction in which there was
+least obstruction to that action either from things around me or from
+the construction of my own body. I chose one out of all the possible
+directions because in it there were fewest obstacles. For my action to
+be free it was necessary that it should encounter no obstacles. To
+conceive of a man being free we must imagine him outside space, which is
+evidently impossible.
+
+(2) However much we approximate the time of judgment to the time of the
+deed, we never get a conception of freedom in time. For if I examine an
+action committed a second ago I must still recognize it as not being
+free, for it is irrevocably linked to the moment at which it was
+committed. Can I lift my arm? I lift it, but ask myself: could I have
+abstained from lifting my arm at the moment that has already passed? To
+convince myself of this I do not lift it the next moment. But I am not
+now abstaining from doing so at the first moment when I asked the
+question. Time has gone by which I could not detain, the arm I then
+lifted is no longer the same as the arm I now refrain from lifting, nor
+is the air in which I lifted it the same that now surrounds me. The
+moment in which the first movement was made is irrevocable, and at that
+moment I could make only one movement, and whatever movement I made
+would be the only one. That I did not lift my arm a moment later does
+not prove that I could have abstained from lifting it then. And since I
+could make only one movement at that single moment of time, it could not
+have been any other. To imagine it as free, it is necessary to imagine
+it in the present, on the boundary between the past and the future—that
+is, outside time, which is impossible.
+
+(3) However much the difficulty of understanding the causes may be
+increased, we never reach a conception of complete freedom, that is, an
+absence of cause. However inaccessible to us may be the cause of the
+expression of will in any action, our own or another's, the first demand
+of reason is the assumption of and search for a cause, for without a
+cause no phenomenon is conceivable. I raise my arm to perform an action
+independently of any cause, but my wish to perform an action without a
+cause is the cause of my action.
+
+But even if—imagining a man quite exempt from all influences, examining
+only his momentary action in the present, unevoked by any cause—we were
+to admit so infinitely small a remainder of inevitability as equaled
+zero, we should even then not have arrived at the conception of complete
+freedom in man, for a being uninfluenced by the external world, standing
+outside of time and independent of cause, is no longer a man.
+
+In the same way we can never imagine the action of a man quite devoid of
+freedom and entirely subject to the law of inevitability.
+
+(1) However we may increase our knowledge of the conditions of space in
+which man is situated, that knowledge can never be complete, for the
+number of those conditions is as infinite as the infinity of space. And
+therefore so long as not all the conditions influencing men are defined,
+there is no complete inevitability but a certain measure of freedom
+remains.
+
+(2) However we may prolong the period of time between the action we are
+examining and the judgment upon it, that period will be finite, while
+time is infinite, and so in this respect too there can never be absolute
+inevitability.
+
+(3) However accessible may be the chain of causation of any action, we
+shall never know the whole chain since it is endless, and so again we
+never reach absolute inevitability.
+
+But besides this, even if, admitting the remaining minimum of freedom to
+equal zero, we assumed in some given case—as for instance in that of a
+dying man, an unborn babe, or an idiot—complete absence of freedom, by
+so doing we should destroy the very conception of man in the case we are
+examining, for as soon as there is no freedom there is also no man. And
+so the conception of the action of a man subject solely to the law of
+inevitability without any element of freedom is just as impossible as
+the conception of a man's completely free action.
+
+And so to imagine the action of a man entirely subject to the law of
+inevitability without any freedom, we must assume the knowledge of an
+infinite number of space relations, an infinitely long period of time,
+and an infinite series of causes.
+
+To imagine a man perfectly free and not subject to the law of
+inevitability, we must imagine him all alone, beyond space, beyond time,
+and free from dependence on cause.
+
+In the first case, if inevitability were possible without freedom we
+should have reached a definition of inevitability by the laws of
+inevitability itself, that is, a mere form without content.
+
+In the second case, if freedom were possible without inevitability we
+should have arrived at unconditioned freedom beyond space, time, and
+cause, which by the fact of its being unconditioned and unlimited would
+be nothing, or mere content without form.
+
+We should in fact have reached those two fundamentals of which man's
+whole outlook on the universe is constructed—the incomprehensible
+essence of life, and the laws defining that essence.
+
+Reason says: (1) space with all the forms of matter that give it
+visibility is infinite, and cannot be imagined otherwise. (2) Time is
+infinite motion without a moment of rest and is unthinkable otherwise.
+(3) The connection between cause and effect has no beginning and can
+have no end.
+
+Consciousness says: (1) I alone am, and all that exists is but me,
+consequently I include space. (2) I measure flowing time by the fixed
+moment of the present in which alone I am conscious of myself as living,
+consequently I am outside time. (3) I am beyond cause, for I feel myself
+to be the cause of every manifestation of my life.
+
+Reason gives expression to the laws of inevitability. Consciousness
+gives expression to the essence of freedom.
+
+Freedom not limited by anything is the essence of life, in man's
+consciousness. Inevitability without content is man's reason in its
+three forms.
+
+Freedom is the thing examined. Inevitability is what examines. Freedom
+is the content. Inevitability is the form.
+
+Only by separating the two sources of cognition, related to one another
+as form to content, do we get the mutually exclusive and separately
+incomprehensible conceptions of freedom and inevitability.
+
+Only by uniting them do we get a clear conception of man's life.
+
+Apart from these two concepts which in their union mutually define one
+another as form and content, no conception of life is possible.
+
+All that we know of the life of man is merely a certain relation of free
+will to inevitability, that is, of consciousness to the laws of reason.
+
+All that we know of the external world of nature is only a certain
+relation of the forces of nature to inevitability, or of the essence of
+life to the laws of reason.
+
+The great natural forces lie outside us and we are not conscious of
+them; we call those forces gravitation, inertia, electricity, animal
+force, and so on, but we are conscious of the force of life in man and
+we call that freedom.
+
+But just as the force of gravitation, incomprehensible in itself but
+felt by every man, is understood by us only to the extent to which we
+know the laws of inevitability to which it is subject (from the first
+knowledge that all bodies have weight, up to Newton's law), so too the
+force of free will, incomprehensible in itself but of which everyone is
+conscious, is intelligible to us only in as far as we know the laws of
+inevitability to which it is subject (from the fact that every man dies,
+up to the knowledge of the most complex economic and historic laws).
+
+All knowledge is merely a bringing of this essence of life under the
+laws of reason.
+
+Man's free will differs from every other force in that man is directly
+conscious of it, but in the eyes of reason it in no way differs from any
+other force. The forces of gravitation, electricity, or chemical
+affinity are only distinguished from one another in that they are
+differently defined by reason. Just so the force of man's free will is
+distinguished by reason from the other forces of nature only by the
+definition reason gives it. Freedom, apart from necessity, that is,
+apart from the laws of reason that define it, differs in no way from
+gravitation, or heat, or the force that makes things grow; for reason,
+it is only a momentary undefinable sensation of life.
+
+And as the undefinable essence of the force moving the heavenly bodies,
+the undefinable essence of the forces of heat and electricity, or of
+chemical affinity, or of the vital force, forms the content of
+astronomy, physics, chemistry, botany, zoology, and so on, just in the
+same way does the force of free will form the content of history. But
+just as the subject of every science is the manifestation of this
+unknown essence of life while that essence itself can only be the
+subject of metaphysics, even the manifestation of the force of free will
+in human beings in space, in time, and in dependence on cause forms the
+subject of history, while free will itself is the subject of
+metaphysics.
+
+In the experimental sciences what we know we call the laws of
+inevitability, what is unknown to us we call vital force. Vital force is
+only an expression for the unknown remainder over and above what we know
+of the essence of life.
+
+So also in history what is known to us we call laws of inevitability,
+what is unknown we call free will. Free will is for history only an
+expression for the unknown remainder of what we know about the laws of
+human life.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+History examines the manifestations of man's free will in connection
+with the external world in time and in dependence on cause, that is, it
+defines this freedom by the laws of reason, and so history is a science
+only in so far as this free will is defined by those laws.
+
+The recognition of man's free will as something capable of influencing
+historical events, that is, as not subject to laws, is the same for
+history as the recognition of a free force moving the heavenly bodies
+would be for astronomy.
+
+That assumption would destroy the possibility of the existence of laws,
+that is, of any science whatever. If there is even a single body moving
+freely, then the laws of Kepler and Newton are negatived and no
+conception of the movement of the heavenly bodies any longer exists. If
+any single action is due to free will, then not a single historical law
+can exist, nor any conception of historical events.
+
+For history, lines exist of the movement of human wills, one end of
+which is hidden in the unknown but at the other end of which a
+consciousness of man's will in the present moves in space, time, and
+dependence on cause.
+
+The more this field of motion spreads out before our eyes, the more
+evident are the laws of that movement. To discover and define those laws
+is the problem of history.
+
+From the standpoint from which the science of history now regards its
+subject on the path it now follows, seeking the causes of events in
+man's freewill, a scientific enunciation of those laws is impossible,
+for however man's free will may be restricted, as soon as we recognize
+it as a force not subject to law, the existence of law becomes
+impossible.
+
+Only by reducing this element of free will to the infinitesimal, that
+is, by regarding it as an infinitely small quantity, can we convince
+ourselves of the absolute inaccessibility of the causes, and then
+instead of seeking causes, history will take the discovery of laws as
+its problem.
+
+The search for these laws has long been begun and the new methods of
+thought which history must adopt are being worked out simultaneously
+with the self-destruction toward which—ever dissecting and dissecting
+the causes of phenomena—the old method of history is moving.
+
+All human sciences have traveled along that path. Arriving at
+infinitesimals, mathematics, the most exact of sciences, abandons the
+process of analysis and enters on the new process of the integration of
+unknown, infinitely small, quantities. Abandoning the conception of
+cause, mathematics seeks law, that is, the property common to all
+unknown, infinitely small, elements.
+
+In another form but along the same path of reflection the other sciences
+have proceeded. When Newton enunciated the law of gravity he did not say
+that the sun or the earth had a property of attraction; he said that all
+bodies from the largest to the smallest have the property of attracting
+one another, that is, leaving aside the question of the cause of the
+movement of the bodies, he expressed the property common to all bodies
+from the infinitely large to the infinitely small. The same is done by
+the natural sciences: leaving aside the question of cause, they seek for
+laws. History stands on the same path. And if history has for its object
+the study of the movement of the nations and of humanity and not the
+narration of episodes in the lives of individuals, it too, setting aside
+the conception of cause, should seek the laws common to all the
+inseparably interconnected infinitesimal elements of free will.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+From the time the law of Copernicus was discovered and proved, the mere
+recognition of the fact that it was not the sun but the earth that moves
+sufficed to destroy the whole cosmography of the ancients. By disproving
+that law it might have been possible to retain the old conception of the
+movements of the bodies, but without disproving it, it would seem
+impossible to continue studying the Ptolemaic worlds. But even after the
+discovery of the law of Copernicus the Ptolemaic worlds were still
+studied for a long time.
+
+From the time the first person said and proved that the number of births
+or of crimes is subject to mathematical laws, and that this or that mode
+of government is determined by certain geographical and economic
+conditions, and that certain relations of population to soil produce
+migrations of peoples, the foundations on which history had been built
+were destroyed in their essence.
+
+By refuting these new laws the former view of history might have been
+retained; but without refuting them it would seem impossible to continue
+studying historic events as the results of man's free will. For if a
+certain mode of government was established or certain migrations of
+peoples took place in consequence of such and such geographic,
+ethnographic, or economic conditions, then the free will of those
+individuals who appear to us to have established that mode of government
+or occasioned the migrations can no longer be regarded as the cause.
+
+And yet the former history continues to be studied side by side with the
+laws of statistics, geography, political economy, comparative philology,
+and geology, which directly contradict its assumptions.
+
+The struggle between the old views and the new was long and stubbornly
+fought out in physical philosophy. Theology stood on guard for the old
+views and accused the new of violating revelation. But when truth
+conquered, theology established itself just as firmly on the new
+foundation.
+
+Just as prolonged and stubborn is the struggle now proceeding between
+the old and the new conception of history, and theology in the same way
+stands on guard for the old view, and accuses the new view of subverting
+revelation.
+
+In the one case as in the other, on both sides the struggle provokes
+passion and stifles truth. On the one hand there is fear and regret for
+the loss of the whole edifice constructed through the ages, on the other
+is the passion for destruction.
+
+To the men who fought against the rising truths of physical philosophy,
+it seemed that if they admitted that truth it would destroy faith in
+God, in the creation of the firmament, and in the miracle of Joshua the
+son of Nun. To the defenders of the laws of Copernicus and Newton, to
+Voltaire for example, it seemed that the laws of astronomy destroyed
+religion, and he utilized the law of gravitation as a weapon against
+religion.
+
+Just so it now seems as if we have only to admit the law of
+inevitability, to destroy the conception of the soul, of good and evil,
+and all the institutions of state and church that have been built up on
+those conceptions.
+
+So too, like Voltaire in his time, uninvited defenders of the law of
+inevitability today use that law as a weapon against religion, though
+the law of inevitability in history, like the law of Copernicus in
+astronomy, far from destroying, even strengthens the foundation on which
+the institutions of state and church are erected.
+
+As in the question of astronomy then, so in the question of history now,
+the whole difference of opinion is based on the recognition or
+nonrecognition of something absolute, serving as the measure of visible
+phenomena. In astronomy it was the immovability of the earth, in history
+it is the independence of personality—free will.
+
+As with astronomy the difficulty of recognizing the motion of the earth
+lay in abandoning the immediate sensation of the earth's fixity and of
+the motion of the planets, so in history the difficulty of recognizing
+the subjection of personality to the laws of space, time, and cause lies
+in renouncing the direct feeling of the independence of one's own
+personality. But as in astronomy the new view said: "It is true that we
+do not feel the movement of the earth, but by admitting its immobility
+we arrive at absurdity, while by admitting its motion (which we do not
+feel) we arrive at laws," so also in history the new view says: "It is
+true that we are not conscious of our dependence, but by admitting our
+free will we arrive at absurdity, while by admitting our dependence on
+the external world, on time, and on cause, we arrive at laws."
+
+In the first case it was necessary to renounce the consciousness of an
+unreal immobility in space and to recognize a motion we did not feel; in
+the present case it is similarly necessary to renounce a freedom that
+does not exist, and to recognize a dependence of which we are not
+conscious.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of War and Peace, by Leo Tolstoy
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diff --git a/scripts-ci/run.sh b/scripts-ci/run.sh
new file mode 100755
index 0000000..809847f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/scripts-ci/run.sh
@@ -0,0 +1,21 @@
+#!/bin/bash
+
+CP=/home/pobj/pobj-ci.jar:/usr/share/java/junit4.jar:/usr/share/java/hamcrest-core-1.3.jar
+
+SRC=./src
+
+echo "Date :"
+date
+echo
+
+echo "Répertoire courant :"
+pwd
+echo
+
+echo "Liste des fichiers :"
+ls -lR
+echo
+
+echo "Lancement des tests"
+echo java -cp $CP:. pobj.ci.Runner -c -cp $CP -sp $SRC "$@"
+java -cp $CP:. pobj.ci.Runner -c -cp $CP -sp $SRC "$@"
diff --git a/src/pobj/tme4/MultiSet.java b/src/pobj/tme4/MultiSet.java
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..8f6cec9
--- /dev/null
+++ b/src/pobj/tme4/MultiSet.java
@@ -0,0 +1,11 @@
+package pobj.tme4;
+
+public interface MultiSet<T> {
+	public boolean add(T e, int count);
+	public boolean add(T e);
+	public boolean remove(Object e);
+	public boolean remove(Object e, int count);
+	public int count(T o);
+	public void clear();	
+	public int size();
+}
diff --git a/src/pobj/tme4/test/CollectionTest.java b/src/pobj/tme4/test/CollectionTest.java
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..798c5c3
--- /dev/null
+++ b/src/pobj/tme4/test/CollectionTest.java
@@ -0,0 +1,19 @@
+package pobj.tme4.test;
+
+import static org.junit.Assert.*;
+
+import java.util.Collection;
+
+import org.junit.Test;
+
+import pobj.tme4.HashMultiSet;
+
+public class CollectionTest {
+
+	@Test
+	public void testImplementsCollection() {
+		HashMultiSet<String> m = new HashMultiSet<>();
+		assertTrue(m instanceof Collection);
+	}
+	
+}
diff --git a/src/pobj/tme4/test/HashMultiSetTest.java b/src/pobj/tme4/test/HashMultiSetTest.java
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..bb10367
--- /dev/null
+++ b/src/pobj/tme4/test/HashMultiSetTest.java
@@ -0,0 +1,20 @@
+package pobj.tme4.test;
+
+import static org.junit.Assert.*;
+
+import org.junit.Test;
+
+import pobj.tme4.HashMultiSet;
+import pobj.tme4.MultiSet;
+
+public class HashMultiSetTest {
+
+	@Test
+	public void testAdd() {
+		MultiSet<String> m = new HashMultiSet<>();
+		m.add("a");
+		m.add("a",5);
+		assertEquals(6, m.count("a"));
+	}
+
+}
diff --git a/src/pobj/tme4/test/IteratorTest.java b/src/pobj/tme4/test/IteratorTest.java
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..5fccf14
--- /dev/null
+++ b/src/pobj/tme4/test/IteratorTest.java
@@ -0,0 +1,35 @@
+package pobj.tme4.test;
+
+import static org.junit.Assert.*;
+
+import java.util.ArrayList;
+import java.util.Collections;
+import java.util.List;
+
+import org.junit.Test;
+
+import pobj.tme4.HashMultiSet;
+
+public class IteratorTest {
+
+	@Test
+	public void testIterator() {
+		HashMultiSet<String> m = new HashMultiSet<>();
+		List<String> l = new ArrayList<>();
+		m.add("a",3);
+		m.add("b");
+		m.add("c",2);
+		for (String s : m) {
+			l.add(s);
+		}
+		Collections.sort(l);
+		assertEquals(6, l.size());
+		assertEquals("a", l.get(0));
+		assertEquals("a", l.get(1));
+		assertEquals("a", l.get(2));
+		assertEquals("b", l.get(3));
+		assertEquals("c", l.get(4));
+		assertEquals("c", l.get(5));
+	}
+
+}
diff --git a/src/pobj/tme5/test/HashMultiSetTest.java b/src/pobj/tme5/test/HashMultiSetTest.java
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6a93240
--- /dev/null
+++ b/src/pobj/tme5/test/HashMultiSetTest.java
@@ -0,0 +1,33 @@
+package pobj.tme5.test;
+
+import static org.junit.Assert.*;
+
+import org.junit.Before;
+import org.junit.Test;
+
+import pobj.tme5.HashMultiSet;
+import pobj.tme5.MultiSet;
+
+public class HashMultiSetTest {
+	
+	private MultiSet<String> m;
+	
+	@Before
+	public void before() {
+		m = new HashMultiSet<>();
+	}
+	
+	@Test 
+	public void testAdd1() {
+		m.add("a");
+		m.add("a",5);
+		assertEquals(6, m.count("a"));
+	}
+
+	@Test(expected = IllegalArgumentException.class) 
+	public void testAdd2() {
+		m.add("a");
+		m.add("a",-1);
+	}
+	
+}
diff --git a/src/pobj/util/Chrono.java b/src/pobj/util/Chrono.java
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..1949cd4
--- /dev/null
+++ b/src/pobj/util/Chrono.java
@@ -0,0 +1,57 @@
+/**
+ * 
+ */
+package pobj.util;
+
+import java.util.Date;
+
+/**
+ * @author sigaud Cette classe permet de chronométrer le temps de calcul d'un
+ *         logiciel Le temps renvoyé est le temps écoulé entre l'appel du
+ *         constructeur et l'appel de la méthode stop()
+ */
+public class Chrono {
+	private long time;
+
+	public Chrono() {
+		Date d = new Date();
+		time = d.getTime();
+	}
+
+	public void stop() {
+		Date d = new Date();
+		long timeFin = d.getTime();
+		long interv = timeFin - time;
+		affiche(interv);
+	}
+
+	public void affiche(long millis) {
+		long ms, secondes, s, minutes, m, heures;
+		if (millis > 1000) {
+			secondes = millis / 1000;
+			ms = millis - secondes * 1000;
+		} else {
+			System.out.println("temps écoulé : " + millis + " millisecondes");
+			return;
+		}
+		if (secondes > 60) {
+			minutes = secondes / 60;
+			s = secondes - 60 * minutes;
+		} else {
+			System.out.println("temps écoulé : " + secondes + " s " + ms
+					+ " millisecondes");
+			return;
+		}
+		if (minutes > 60) {
+			heures = minutes / 60;
+			m = minutes - 60 * heures;
+			System.out.println("temps écoulé : " + heures + " h " + m + " mn "
+					+ s + " s " + ms + " millisecondes");
+			return;
+		} else {
+			System.out.println("temps écoulé : " + minutes + " mn " + s + " s "
+					+ ms + " millisecondes");
+			return;
+		}
+	}
+}