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Date:08/18/14
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Comment count is 38
Old_Zircon - 2014-08-18

Russian Blue Man Group.


EvilHomer - 2014-08-18

Innocent Empire of Peace.


Sudan no1 - 2014-08-18

In b4 SolRo brings up 'murkan racist biker gangs.


urbanelf - 2014-08-18

Who is wonko the sane? He's down voting everything in the hopper. It's making the children cry.


SolRo - 2014-08-18

so this is racist? I didn't watch it all...


EvilHomer - 2014-08-18

Not by the standards you hold Russia to.


SolRo - 2014-08-18

Go ahead and point out the racist parts to me you dumb stooge.


EvilHomer - 2014-08-18

I told you, it's not racist. At least, not by the standards you hold Russia to. You see something like this, and you see heritage, not hate. You see proud Slavic men standing up for their people and their culture, Viking heroes ready to die in defiance of the Jewish and Euro fascists who threaten the glorious Russian way of life. What can I say that will change your mind? Is there *anything* I could say that won't simply drive you into the classic standard, "anti-racist is code for anti-Russian"?

We know this is racist, but you think it's fine. And that's OK, that's your choice; you have a right to sympathize with the bad guys, if that's really how you feel! Freedom of thought is one of the great perks of living in the Free World, and I'm glad you're using it, because you wouldn't have that freedom in Russia.


SolRo - 2014-08-18

Go ahead and point out the racist parts (from your perspective) to me you dumb stooge.


EvilHomer - 2014-08-18

Tell you what, you point out for me the racist parts here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0kwnLzFMls


SolRo - 2014-08-18

keep on dodging


EvilHomer - 2014-08-18

No, it's not dodging. I'm illustrating a point. Can you tell me what's racist about the video I posted?


SolRo - 2014-08-18

No. You're dodging.

You're saying it's racist.

I'm asking where the racists bits are because I didn't watch the whole hour of it.

And you go off on a tangent like a retard.


Wonko the Sane - 2014-08-18

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 real-
ly 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 Pdvlovna Sch^rer, maid of
honor and favorite of the Empress Marya Fe-
dorovna. With these words she greeted Prince
Vasili Kurdgin, a man of high rank and impor-
tance, who was the first to arrive at her recep-
tion. Anna Pdvlovna 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, writ-
ten in French, and delivered by a scarlet-liver-
ied 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 be-
tween 7 and 10 Annette Sch^rer."

"Heavens! what a virulent attack!" replied
the prince, not in the least disconcerted by this
reception. He had just entered, wearing an em-
broidered 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 Pavlovna, 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 polite-
ness and affected sympathy of which indiffer-
ence and even irony could be discerned.

"Can one be well while suffering morally?
Can one be calm in tirrfes like these if one has
any feeling?" said Anna Pdvlovna. "You are
staying the whole evening, I hope?"

"And the fete at the English ambassador's?
Today is Wednesday. I must put in an appear-
ance 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 de-
cided about Novosiltsev'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 Vastti always spoke languidly, like
an actor repeating a stale part. Anna Pdvlovna
Scherer on the contrary, despite her forty years,
overflowed with animation and impulsiveness.
To be an enthusiast had become her social vo-
cation 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, al-
ways 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 Pdvlovna burst out:

"Oh, don't speak to me of Austria. Perhaps



WAR AND PEACE



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 vo-
cation and will be true to it. That is the one
thing I have faith in! Our good and wonder-
ful sovereign has to perfonn 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? . . . Eng-
land with her commercial spirit will not and
cannot understand the Emperor Alexander's
loftiness of soul. She tias refused to evacuate
Malta. She wanted to find, and still seeks, some
secret motive in our actions. What answer did
Novosiltsev get? None. The English have not
understood and cannot understand the self-
abnegation of our Emperor who wants noth-
ing for himself, but only desires the good of
mankind. And what have they promised? Noth-
ing! 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 neu-
trality 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. X propos"she added, becom-
ing calm again, "I am expecting two very in-
teresting men tonight, le Vicomte de Morte-
mart, who is connected with the Montmoren-
cys through the Rohans,oneof the best French
families. He is one of the genuine dmigrh, the
good ones. And also the Abbe* Morio. Do you
know that profound thinker? He has been re-
ceived 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 Vasfli wished to obtain this post for
his son, but others were trying through the
Dowager Empress Mdrya Fedorovna to secure
it for the baron.

Anna Pdvlovna almost closed her eyes to in-
dicate 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 Pdvlovna's
face suddenly assumed an expression of pro-
found and sincere devotion and respect min-
gled with sadness, and thisoccurred 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 indiffer-
ent. But, with the womanly and courtierlike
quickness and tact habitual to her, Anna Pdv-
lovna 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 con-
sole 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 amaz-
ingly 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 smil-
ing 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 dis-
tributed. 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 any-
one, 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



BOOK ONE



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 dif-
ference 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
Pdvlovna, 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 resigna-
tion to cruel fate by a gesture. Anna Pdvlovna
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 Bolk6nskaya."

Prince Vasili did not reply, though, with the
quickness of memory and perception befitting
a man of the world, he indicated by a move-
ment 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
Bolk6nski who had to retire from the army un-
der the late Emperor, and was nicknamed 'the
King of Prussia.' He is very clever but eccen-
tric, 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 Kutiizov's and will be here tonight."

"Listen, dear Annette," said the prince, sud-
denly taking Anna Pdvlovna's hand and for
some reason drawing it downwards. "Arrange
that affair for me and I shall always be your



most devoted slave slaje with an /, 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.

"Attendee" said Anna Pdvlovna, reflecting,
"I'll speak to Lise, young Bolk6nski'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 PAVLOVNA'S drawing room was gradually
filling. The highest Petersburg society was as-
sembled there: people differing widely in age
and character but alike in the social circle to
which they belonged. Prince Vasili's daughter,
the beautiful Hlne, 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 Bolkonskaya, known
as la femme la plus sSduisante de Pfaersbourg?
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 Vasfli's son, Hippolyte, had
come with Mortemart, whom he introduced.
The Abb6 Morio and many others had also
come.

To each new arrival Anna Pdvlovna safcl,
"You have not yet seen my aunt," or "You do
not know my aunt?" and very gravely con-
ducted 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 Pdv-
lovna 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 Pdvlovna
observed these greetings with mournful and sol-
emn 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 to-
day." And each visitor, though politeness pre-
vented his showing impatience, left the old
woman with a sense of relief at having per-
formed a vexatious duty and did not return to

1 The most fascinating woman in Petersburg.



WAR AND PEACE



her the whole evening.

The young Princess Bolk6nskaya had
brought some work in a gold-embroidered vel-
vet 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 at-
tractive woman, her defectthe shortness of
her upperlip 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 carry-
ing 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
litttle 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 Pdv-
lovna.

"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 Vasfli, and without waiting for an an-
swer she turned to speak to his daughter, the
beautiful Hlne.

"What a delightful woman this little prin-
cess isl" said Prince Vasili to Anna Pdvlovna.

One of the next arrivals was a stout, heavily
built young man with close-cropped hair, spec-
tacles, the light-colored breeches fashionable
at that time, a very high ruffle, and a brown



dress coat. This stout young man was an illegit-
imate son^of Count Bezukhov, a well-known
grandee of Catherine's time who now lay dy-
ing 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 ap-
pearance in society. Anna Pdvlovna 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 cer-
tainly 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 Pdv-
lovna, 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 Pdvlovna's alarm was justified, for
Pierre turned away from the aunt without wait-
ing to hear her speech about Her Majesty's
health. Anna Pdvlovna in dismay detained
him with the words: "Do you know the Abbe*
Morio? He is a most interesting man."

"Yes, I have heard of his scheme for perpet-
ual peace, and it is very interesting but hardly
feasible."

"You think so?" rejoined Anna Pdvlovna in
order to say something and get away to attend
to her duties as hostess. But Pierre now com-
mitted a reverse act of impoliteness. First he
had left a lady before she had finished speak-
ing to him, and now he continued to speak to
another who wished to getaway. With his head
bent, and his big feet spread apart, he began
explaining his reasons for thinking the abbess
plan chimerical.

"We will talk of it later," said Anna Pdv-
lovna 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 fore-
man of a spinning mill, when he has set the
hands to work, goes round and notices here a



BOOK ONE



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 Pavlovna moved about her
drawing room, approaching now a silent, now
a too-noisy group, and by a word or slight re-
arrangement 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 Morte-
mart to listen to what was being said there, and
again when he passed to another group whose
center was the abbe*.

Pierre had been educated abroad, and this
reception at Anna Pavlovna'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. See-
ing the self-confident and refined expression
on the faces of those present he was always ex-
pecting to hear something very profound. At
last he came up to Morio. Here the conversa-
tion seemed interesting and he stood waiting
for an opportunity to express his own views,
as young people are fond of doing.

CHAPTER III

ANNA PAVLOVNA'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 com-
pany had settled into three groups. One, chiefly
masculine, had formed round the abbe". An-
other, of young people, was grouped round
the beautiful Princess Hlne, Prince Vasfli's
daughter, and the little Princess Bolk6nskaya,
very pretty and rosy, though rather too plump
for her age. The third group was gathered
round Mortemart and Anna Pavlovna.

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 Pdvlovna was obviously serving
him up as a treat to her guests. As a clever
maitre d'hotel 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 Pavlovna served up to her guests, first
the vicomte and then the abbe*, as peculiarly



choice morsels. The group about Mortemart
immediately began discussing the murder of the
Due d'Enghien. The vicomte said that the Due
d'Enghien had perished by his own magna-
nimity, and that there were particular reasons
for Buonaparte's hatred of him.

"Ah, yes! Do tell us all about it, Vicomte,"
said Anna Pdvlovna, with a pleasant feeling
that there was something a la Louis XV in the
sound of that sentence: "Contez nous gela,
Vicomte."

The vicomte bowed and smiled courteously
in token of his willingness to comply. Anna
Pavlovna arranged a group round him, invit-
ing everyone to listen to his tale.

"The vicomte knew the due personally,"
whispered Anna Pdvlovna 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, Hlne, dear," said Anna
Pvlovna 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 en-
tered the room the smile of a perfectly beauti-
ful 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 Pavlovna. Hlene 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 victori-
ous beauty. She seemed to wish, but to be un-
able, 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 ex-
traordinary when she took her seat opposite and
beamed upon him also with her unchanging
smile.



6



WAR AND PEACE



"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 unneces-
sary. 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 read-
justed a diamond necklace. From time to time
she smoothed the folds of her dress, and when-
ever the story produced an effect she glanced
at Anna Pavlovna, 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 Helne.

"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 prin-
cess, 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 work-
bag, 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 ani-
mation, 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 gri-
mace, 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 in-
strument he could not begin to speak.

"Why no, my dear fellow," said the aston-
ished narrator, shrugging his shoulders.

"Because I hate ghost stones," said Prince
Hippolyte in a tone which showed that he only
understood die meaning of his words after he
had uttered them.



He spoke with such self-confidence that his
hearers ould 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 effrayJe, 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 Due d'Enghien had gone secretly to Paris
to visit Mademoiselle George; thatat her house
he came upon Bonaparte, who also enjoyed
the famous actress' favors, and that in his pres-
ence Napoleon happened to fall into one of
the fainting fits to which he was subject, and
was thus at the due's mercy. The latter spared
him, and this magnanimity Bonaparte subse-
quently repaid by death.

The story was very pretty and interesting,
especially at the point where the rivals sud-
denly recognized one another; and the ladies
looked agitated.

"Charming!" said Anna PAvlovna with an in-
quiring 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 Pavlovna, 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 abbe", so she hurried
to the rescue. Pierre had managed to start a
conversation with the abb 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 talk-
ing and listening too eagerly and too naturally,
which was why Anna Pavlovna disapproved.

"The means are . . . the balance of power in
Europe and the rights of the people," the abbe*
was saying. "It is only necessary for one power-
ful 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
mai n tenance 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 Pdvlovna came up and,
looking severely at Pierre, asked the Italian
how he stood the Russian climate. The Italian's
face instantly changed and assumed an offen-
sively affected, sugary expression, evidently
habitual to him when conversing with women.



BOOK

"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 abbe" and Pierre escape, Anna
Pdvlovna, 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 Bolk6nski, the little
princess' husband. He was a very handsome
young man, of medium height, with firm, clear-
cut features. Everything about him, from his
weary, bored expression to his quiet, measured
step, offered a most striking contrast to his
lively 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 Pdvlovna's hand, and screwing
up his eyes scanned the whole company.

"You are off to the war, Prince?" said Anna
Pdvlovna.

"General Kutuzov," said Bolk6nski, speak-
ing 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 wile?"

"She will go to the country."

"Are you not ashamed to deprive us of your
charming wife?"

"Andre," said his wife, addressing her hus-
band 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



ONE 7

added in a low voice so as not to disturb the
vicomte who was continuing his story.

"No, impossible 1" 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 mo-
ment Prince Vastti 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 Vasili to the Frenchman, holding him
down by the sleeve in a friendly way to prevent
his rising. "This unfortunate fete at the ambas-
sador'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 Pdvlovna.

His daughter, Princess He*lene, passed be-
tween 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 Vasili seized Pierre's hand
and said to Anna Pdvlovna: "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 PAVLOVNA smiled and promised to take
Pierre in hand. She knew his father to be
a connection of Prince Vasili's. The elderly
lady who had been sitting with the old aunt
rose hurriedly and overtook Prince Vasfli 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 Borfs, Prince?" said
she, hurrying after him into the anteroom. "1
can't remain any longer in Petersburg. Tell
me what news I may take back to my poor
boy."

Although Prince Vasili 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 Vasili, "but it is dif-



8



WAR AND PEACE



ficult for me to ask the Emperor. I should ad-
vise you to appeal to Rumydntsev through
Prince Golftsyn. That would be the best way."

The elderly lady was a Princess Drubet-
skdya, 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 Vasfli that she had obtained an invita-
tion to Anna Pdvlovna's reception and had sat
listening to the vicomte's story. Prince Vasfli's
words frightened her, an embittered look
clouded her once handsome face, but only for
a moment; then she smiled again and clutched
Prince Vasili'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 en-
treat you for God's sake to do this for my son
and I shall always regard you as a benefac-
tor," she added hurriedly. "No, don't be angry,
but promise! I have asked Golitsyn 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
Hel&ne, turning her beautiful head and look-
ing over her classically molded shoulder as
she stood waiting by the door.

Influence in society, however, is capital which
has to be economized if it is to last. Prince
Vasfli 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 influ-
ence. But in Princess Drubetskdya'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. More-
over, he could see by her manners that she was
one of those womenmostly mothers who,
having once made up their minds, will not rest
until they have gained their end, and are pre-
pared 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 Mikhdylovna," 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 re-
spect your father's memory, I will do the im-
possibleyour son shall be transferred to the



Guards. Here is my hand on it. Are you satis-
fied?" *

"My dear benefactor! This is what I ex-
pected from you I knew your kindness!" He
turned to go.

"Wait just a word! When he has been trans-
ferred to the Guards . . ." she faltered. "You
are on good terms with Michael Ilari6novich
Kuttizov . . . recommend Boris to him as adju-
tant! Then I shall be at rest, and then . . ."

Prince Vasili smiled.

"No, I won't promise that. You don't know
how Kutiizov is pestered since his appoint-
ment as Commander in Chief. He told me
himself that all the Moscow ladies have con-
spired 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-by! You hear her?"

"Then tomorrow you will speak to the Em-
peror?"

"Certainly; but about Kutiizov, I don't
promise."

"Do promise, do promise, Vasfli!" cried
Anna Mikhdylovna as he went, with the smile
of a coquettish girl, which at one time prob-
ably 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 fem-
inine arts. But as soon as the prince had gone
her face resumed its former cold, artificial ex-
pression. 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 com-
edy, the coronation at Milan?" asked Anna
Pavlovna, "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 Pdvlovna
straight in the face with a sarcastic smile.

" 'Dieu me la donne, gare a qui la touched J
They say he was very fine when he said that,"
he remarked, repeating the words in Italian:

1 God has given it to me, let him who touches it
beware)



BOOK

" 'Dio mi rha dato. Guai a chi la tocchi!' "

"I hope this will prove the last cft*op that
will make the glass run over," Anna Pavlovna
continued. "The sovereigns will not be able to
endure this man who is a menace to every-
thing."

"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 an-
imated. "And believe me, they are reaping the
reward of their betrayal of the Bourbon cause.
The sovereigns! Why, they are sending am-
bassadors 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 lor-
gnette, suddenly turned completely round to-
ward the little princess, and having asked for
a needle began tracing the Conde* coat of arms
on the table. He explained this to her with as
much gravity as if she had asked him to do it.

"Baton de gueules, engrele de gueules d'
azurmaison Condd," 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 cur-
rent 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. JPierre wished to make a remark, for
the conversation interested him, but Anna
Pdvlovna, who had him under observation, in-
terrupted:

"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 cer-
tainly 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."



ONE 9

"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," re-
plied 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 vi-
comte 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. "Aft-
er the murder of the due even the most par-
tial ceased to regard him as a hero. If to some
people," he went on, turning to Anna Pav-
lovna, "he ever was a hero, after the murder
of the due there was one martyr more in heav-
en and one hero less on earth."

Before Anna Pdvlovna and the others had
time to smile their appreciation of the vi-
comte's epigram, Pierre again broke into the
conversation, and though Anna Pdvlovna felt
sure he would say something inappropriate,
she was unable to stop him.

"The execution of the Due d'Enghien," de-
clared Monsieur Pierre, "was a political neces-
sity, and it seems to me that Napoleon showed
greatness of soul by not fearing to take on him-
self the whole responsibility of that deed."

"Dieu! Mon Dieu!" muttered Anna Pav-
lovna in a terrified whisper.

"What, Monsieur Pierre . . . Do you con-
sider 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 Eng-
lish, 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, "be-
cause 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."



1O

"Won't you come over to the other table?"
suggested Anna Pvlovna,

But Pierre continued his speech without
heeding her.

"No," cried he, becoming more and more
eager, "Napoleon is great because he rose su-
perior to the Revolution, suppressed its a-
buses, preserved all that was good in itequal-
ity 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 a-
vailing himself of it to commit murder he had
restored it to the rightful king, I should have
called him a great man," remarked the vi-
comte.

"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 ex-
treme 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 Pdv-
lovna.

"Rousseau's Contrat social," said the vi-
comte with a tolerant smile.

"I am not speaking of regicide, I am speak-
ing about ideas."

"Yes: ideas of robbery, murder, and regi-
cide," again interjected an ironical voice.

"Those were extremes, no doubt, but they
are not what is most important. What is im-
portant 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 lib-
erty and equality. Have people since the Rev-
olution become happier? On the contrary. We
wanted liberty, but Buonaparte has destroyed
it."

Prince Andrew kept looking with an a-
mused smile from Pierre to the vicomte and
from the vicomte to their hostess. In the first
moment of Pierre's outburst Anna Pdvlovna,
despite her social experience, was horror-
struck. But when she saw that Pierre's sacri-



WAR AND PEACE



legious words had not exasperated the vi-
comte, ahd 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 due or even an ordinary man
who is innocent and untried?"

"I should like," said the vicomte, "to ask
how monsieur explains the iSthBrumaire; 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, shrug-
ging her shoulders.

"He's a low fellow, say what you will," re-
marked 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 instan-
taneously 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 gen-
eral, 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 An-
drew, "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 re-
marks, rose and made a sign to his wife that it
was time to go.

Suddenly Prince Hippolyte started up mak-
ing 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 sucli Russian as a Frenchman
would speak after spending about a year in



BOOK ONE



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 car-
riage, and come with me while I make some
calls/ "

Here Prince Hippolyte spluttered andburst
out laughing long before his audience, which
produced an effect unfavorable to the narra-
tor. Several persons, among them the elderly
lady and Anna Pavlovna, 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 laugh-
ter: "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 Pdvlovna
and the others appreciated Prince Hippolyte's
social tact in so agreeably ending Pierre's un-
pleasant and unamiable outburst. After the
anecdote the conversation broke up into in-
significant small talk about the last and next
balls, about theatricals, and who would meet
whom, and when and where.

CHAPTER VI

HAVING THANKED Anna Pavlovna for her
'charming soiree, the guests began to take their
leave.

Pierre was ungainly. Stout, about the aver-
age height, broad, with huge red hands; he did
not know, as the saying is, how to enter a draw-
ing 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 in-
stead 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
Pdvlovna 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, includ-
ing Anna Pavlovna, 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 in-
differently 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 hei
through his eyeglass.

"Go in, Annette, or you will catch cold,"
said the little princess, taking leave of Anna
Pavlovna. "It is settled," she added in a low
voice.

Anna Pavlovna had already managed to
speak to Lise about the match she contem-
plated between Anatole and the little princess'
sister-in-law.

"I rely on you, my dear," said Anna Pdv-
lovna, also in a low tone. "Write to her and
let me know how her father looks at the mat-
ter. An revoir!"znd she left the hall.

Prince Hippolyte approached the little prin-
cess 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 ambas-
sador's," said Prince Hippolyte "so dull.
It has been a delightful evening, has it not?
Delightful!"

"They say die ball will be very good," re-
plied the princess, drawing up her downy lit-
tle 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,



IS

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, look-
ing 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 tak-
ing her seat in the dark carriage, her husband
was adjusting his saber; Prince Hippolyte, un-
der pretense of helping, was in everyone's
way.

"Allow me, sir/' said Prince Andrew in Rus-
sian 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 spasmod-
ically 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 car-
riage, "your little princess is very nice, very
nice indeed, quite French," and he kissed the
tips of his fingers. Hippolyte burst out laugh-
ing.

"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 Commen-
taries), and resting on his elbow, began read-
ing it in the middle.

"What have you done to Mile Sch^rer? 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 abbl is very interesting but he does



WAR AND PEACE



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 bal-
ance 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 somethingl Your
father expects it."

Pierre at the age of ten had been sent a-
broad with an abb as tutor, and had remained
away till he was twenty. When he returned to
Moscow his father dismissed the abbe* 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
Vasili, 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 any-
thing. It was about this choice that Prince
Andrew was speaking. Pierre rubbed his fore-
head.

"But he must be a Freemason," said he, re-
ferring to the abb 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 naive question.

"If no one fought except on his own con-
viction, 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. . . ."



BOOK ONE



"Well, why are you going to the war?" asked
Pierre. t

"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 mel"

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 Pdvlovna'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 mar-
ried her! Excuse me for saying so, but you
have no sense about women. What an argu-
mentative 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 himl" said she.
"I don't understand it; I don't in the least un-
derstand 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 posi-
tion. He is so well known, so much appreciated
by everyone. The other day at the Aprksins' 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 gra-
ciously. 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 de-
lightful associations must be broken off ...
and then you know, Andr . . ." (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 him-
self 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 ani-
mal, squirrel-like expression. She paused as if
she felt it indecorous to speak of her preg-
nancy 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 nai've
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 tear-
ful 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 re-
gret her words. But she went on hurriedly:

"You treat me like an invalid or a child. I



WAR AND PEACE



see it all! Did you behave like that six months
ago?"

"Lise, I beg you to desist," said Prince An-
drew 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 un-
able 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 experi-
enced . . . and so ... because . . . No, excuse
me! An outsider is out of place here . . . No,
don't distress yourself . . . Good-by!"

Prince Andrew caught him by the hand.

"No, wait, Pierre! The princess is too kind
to wish to deprive me of the pleasure of spend-
ing 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 pa-
tience is exhausted.

Suddenly the angry, squirrel-like expression
of the princess' pretty face changed into a win-
ning 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.

"M on Dieu, rnon 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 cour-
teously kissing her hand as he would have done
to a stranger.

CHAPTER VIII

THE FRIENDS were silent. Neither cared to be-
gin 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 el-
bows 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 de-
termines to speak out.

"Never, never marry, my dear fellow! That's



my advice: never marry till you can say to
yoursel f that you have done all you are capa-
ble of, and until you have ceased to love the
woman of your choice and have seen her plain-
ly 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 men-
tion this, because I like you."

As he said this Prince Andrew was less than
ever like that Bolk6nski who had lolled in
Anna Pavlovna's easy chairs and with half-
closed eyes had uttered French phrases be-
tween 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 be-
came in these moments of almost morbid irri-
tation.

"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 Bona-
parte), "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 free-
dom! And all you have of hope and strength
merely weighs you down and torments you
with regret. Drawing rooms, gossip, balls, van-
ity, 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 Pdv-



BOOK ONE



lovna's they listen to me. And that stupid set
without whom my wife cannot exist, an4 those
women ... If you only knew what those society
women are, and women in general I My father
is right. Selfish, vain, stupid, trivial in every-
thingthat'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, noth-
ing! 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 every-
thing 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 fu-
ture.

"How can he talk like that?" thought Pierre.
He considered his friend a model of perfec-
tion 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 ex-
tensive reading (he had read everything, knew
everything, and had an opinion about every-
thing), 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 particu-
larly addicted), he regarded even this not as a
defect but as a sign of strength.

Even in the best, most friendly and sim-
plest relations of life, praise and commenda-
tion are essential, just as grease is necessary to
wheels that they may run smoothly.

"My part is played out," said Prince An-
drew. "What's the use of talking about me?
Let us talk about you," he added after a si-
lence, 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. "With-
out 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 Kurdgins and lead-
ing 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 An-
drew. "Women who are comme il faut, that's
a different matter; but the Kuragins' set of
women, 'women and wine,' I -don't under-
stand!"

Pierre was staying at Prince Vasili Kurdgin's
and sharing the dissipated life of his son Ana-
tole, the son whom they were planning to re-
form 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 any-
thing. One's head aches, and one spends all
one's money. He asked me for tonight, but
1 won't go."

"You give me your word of honor not to
go?"

"On my honor!"

CHAPTER IX

1 r 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 Kuragin 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 Kuragin's," thought
he.

But he immediately recalled his promise to
Prince Andrew not to go there. Then, as hap-
pens to people of weak character, he desired
so passionately once more to enjoy that dissi-
pation he was so accustomed to that he de-
cided to go. The thought immediately occurred



i6



WAR AND PEACE



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
samel" Pierre often indulged in reflections
of this sort, nullifying all his decisions and in-
tentions. He went to Kurdgin'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 famil-
iar voices, the growling of a bear, and general
commotion. Some eight or nine young men
were crowding anxiously round an open win-
dow. 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 I" cried another.

"I bet on Dolokhovl" cried a third. "Kura-
gin, 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 Pdtya! Good man!"
cried he, addressing Pierre.

Another voice, from a man of medium
height with clear blue eyes, particularly strik-
ing among all these drunken voices by its sober
ring, criedfrom thewindow: "Comehere; part
the bets!" This was D61okhov, an officer of the
Semenov 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, and taking a glass from
the ta^le he went up to Pierre.

"First of all you must drink!"

Pierre drank one glass after another, look-
ing 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
D61okhov was betting with Stevens, an Eng-
lish 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.

D61okhov was holding the Englishman's
hand and clearly and distinctly repeating the
terms of the bet, addressing himself particu-
larly to Anatole and Pierre.

D61okhov was of medium height, with curly
hair and light-blue eyes. He was about twenty-
five. Like all infantry officers he wore no mus-
tache, 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, inso-
lent intelligence of his eyes, produced an effect
which made it impossible not to notice his
face. D61okhov was a man of small means and
no connections. Yet, though Anatole spent
tens of thousands of rubles, D61okhov lived
with him and had placed himself on such a
footing that all who knew them, including Ana-
tole himself , respected him more than they did
Anatole. D61okhov could play all games and
nearly always won. However much he drank,
he never lost his clearheadedness. Both Kurdgin
and D61okhov 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 in-
timidated 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.



BOOK ONE



"You have a try, Hercules/' said he, Burning
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 hold-
ing on," said D61okhov.

"Is the Englishman bragging? . . . Eh? Is it
all right?" said Anatole.

"First-rate," said Pierre, looking at D61ok-
hov, 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 after-
glow of sunset, was visible.

D61okhov,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 im-
perials ... or do you wish to make it a hun-
dred?" 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 with-
out holding on to anything. Is that right?"

"Quite right," said the Englishman.

Anatole turned to the Englishman and tak-
ing 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 Dolokhov, hammering with
the bottle on the window sill to attract atten-
tion. "Wait a bit, Kuragin. Listen! If anyone
else does the same, I will pay him a hundred
imperials. Do you understand?"

The Englishman nodded, but gave no in-
dication 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 D6-
lokhov'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.

"Ohl Ohl Oh!" he muttered, looking down
from the window at the stones of the pave-
ment.

"Shut up!" cried D61okhov, pushing him
away from the window. The lad jumped awk-
wardly back into the room, tripping over his
spurs.



Placing the bottle on the window sill where
he could reach it easily, D61okhov 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. Dolokhov's back in his white shirt, and
his curly head, were lit up from both sides.
Everyone crowded to the window, the English-
man in front. Pierre stood smiling but silent.
One man, older than the others present, sud-
denly pushed forward with a scared and angry
look and wanted to seize hold of Dolokhov'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?"

D61okhov turned round and, again holding
on with both hands, arranged himself on his
scat.

"If anyone comes meddling again," said he,
emitting the words separately through his thin
compressed lips, "I willthrowhim 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 D61okhov'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. Dolokhov 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 bot-
tle was lifted higher and higher and trembled
with the effort. The bottle was emptying per-
ceptibly 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 D6-
lokhov made a backward movement with his



i8



WAR AND PEACE



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 slip-
ping 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. Sud-
denly he was aware of a stir all around. He
looked up: D61okhov was standing on the win-
dow sill, with a pale but radiant face.
"It's empty!"

He threw the bottle to the Englishman, who
caught it neatly. D61okhov 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 be-
gan counting out the money. Drilokhov 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," saidD61okhov,
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 deter-
mined 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 V

"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 Vxsiii kept the promise he had given
to Princess Drubetskaya who had spoken to
him on behalf of her only son Boris on the
evening of Anna Pdvlovna's soiree. The mat-
ter was mentioned to the Emperor, an excep-
tion made, and Boris transferred into the regi-
ment of Semenov Guards with the rank of cor-



net. He received, however, no appointment
to Ku c tiizov's staff despite all Anna Mikhay-
lovna's endeavors and entreaties. Soon after
Anna Pdvlovna's reception Anna Mikhdylovna
returned to Moscow and went straight to her
rich relations, the Rost6vs, with whom she
stayed when in the town and where her darling
B6ry, 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 re-
mained in Moscow for his equipment, was to
join them on the march to Radzivilov.

It was St. Natalia's day and the name day of
two of the Rost6vs the mother and the young-
est daughter both named Nataly. Ever since
the morning, carriages with six horses had been
coming and going continually, bringing visi-
tors to the Countess Rost6va's big house on the
Povarskaya, 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, re-
sulting from weakness, gave her a distinguished
air which inspired respect. Princess Anna Mi-
kMylovna Drubetskdya, who as a member of
the household was also seated in the drawing
room, helped to receive and entertain the visi-
tors. 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 chre" he called everyone without excep-
tion 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 chtre! 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 ex-
pression 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,



BOOK ONE



drew a chair toward him or her, and jauntily
spreading out his legs and putting hi 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 dam-
ask table linen, he would call Dmitri Vasfle-
vich, a man of good family and the manager of
all his affairs, and while looking with pleasure
at the enormous table would say: "Well,
Dmitri, 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.

"Mrya Lv6vna Kardgina and her daugh-
ter!" announced the countess' gigantic foot-
man 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. How-
ever, 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 Razum6v-
ski's ball . . . and Countess Aprdksina ... 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 conver-
sations 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 Apraksina . . ." 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 Bezukhov,and about
his illegitimate son Pierre, the one who had



behaved so improperly at Anna Pdvlovna's re-
ception.

"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 Bezrikhov's distress some fifteen times.

"That's what comes of a modern educa-
tion," exclaimed the visitor. "It seems that
while he was abroad this young man was al-
lowed to do as he liked, and 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 Mikhaylovna. "Prince Vasili's son, he,
and a certain Dolokhov have, it is said, been
up to heaven only knows what! And they have
had to suffer for it. D61okhov has been de-
graded to the ranks and Bezukhov's son sent
back to Moscow. Anatole Kurdgin'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 D6-
lokhov," replied f the visitor. "He is a son of
Mdrya Ivdnovna" D6tpkhova, 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 swim-
ming 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 Vladimirovich Bezukhov'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."



2O



WAR AND PEACE



"Why do you say this young man is so rich?"
asked die countess, turning away from the
girls, who at once assumed an air of inatten-
tion. "His children are all illegitimate. I drink
Pierre also is illegitimate."

The visitor made a gesture with her hand.

"I should think he has a score of them."

Princess Anna MikMylovna 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 signifi-
cantly, 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
Mikhaylovna. "Well, as I was saying, Prince
Vasili 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 Vasili. Forty thousand serfs
and millions of rubles! I know it all very well
for Prince Vasili told me himself. Besides,
Cyril Vladimirovich is my mother's second
cousin. He's also my B6ry's godfather," she
added, as if she attached no importance at all
to the fact.

"Prince Vasili arrived in Moscow yesterday.
I hear he has come on some inspection busi-
ness," remarked the visitor.

"Yes, but between ourselves," said the prin-
cess, "that is a pretext. The fact is he has come
to see Count Cyril Vladimirovich, hearing how
ill he is."

"But do you know, my dear, that was a capi-
tal 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 usl" 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 r say and as if she were saying it to someone
Ise, with whom joking was out of the ques-
[on, "I am in love with your brother once for
11 and, whatever may happen to him or to me,
hall never cease to love him as long as I live."

Natdsha looked at S6nya with wondering

nd inquisitive eyes, and said nothing. She felt

lat Sonya was speaking the truth, that there

ras such love as S6nya was speaking of. But

_ Jatdsha had not yet felt anything like it. She

believed it could be, but did not understand it.

"Shall you write to him?" she asked.

S6nya 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?"

S6nya smiled.

"No."

"And I should be ashamed to write to Boris.
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
Pe'tya, offended by Natasha's previous remark.
"It's because she was in love with that fat one
in spectacles" (that was how Ptya described
his namesake, the new Count Bezukhov) "and
now she's in love with that singer" (he meant
Natdsha's Italian singing master), "that's why
she's ashamed!"

"Ptya, you're a stupid!" said Natdsha.

"Not more stupid than you, madam," said
the nine-year-old Ptya, with the air of an old
brigadier.

The countess had been prepared by Anna
Mikhdylovna'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 Mikhdylovna, with the let-



ter, 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 lis-
tened.

At first he heard the sound of indifferent
voices, then Anna Mikhdylovna's voice alone
in a long speech, then a cry, then silence, then
both voices together with glad intonations,
and then footsteps. Anna Mikhdylovna 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 donel" 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 al-
ternately 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. Ve>a, Natasha, S6nya, and Ptya now en-
tered the room, and the reading of the letter
began. After a brief description of the cam-
paign and the two battles in which he had tak-
en part, and his promotion, Nicholas said that
he kissed his father's and mother's hands ask-
ing for their blessing, and that he kissed Vra,
Natdsha, and PiHya. Besides that, he sent greet-
ings to Monsieur Schelling, Madame Schoss,
and his old nurse, and asked them to kiss for
him "dear S6nya, whom he loved and thought
of just the same as ever." When she heard this
S6nya 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 Vdra.
"From all he says one should be glad and not
cry."

This was quite true, but the count, the count-
ess, and Natasha 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 Dmitri, and several ac



BOOK THREE



quaintances, and the countess reread the letter
each time with fresh pleasure and each time
discovered in it fresh proofs of Nik61enka's vir-
tues. How strange, how extraordinary, how joy-
ful it seemed, that her son, the scarcely per-
ceptible 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 impercep-
tibly from the cradle to manhood, did not exist
for the countess. Her son's growth toward man-
hood, at each of its stages, had seemed as extra-
ordinary 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 let-
ter. "And what a soul! Not a word about him-
self. . . . 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 be-
ing made, rough drafts of letters to Nicholas
from all the household were written and copied
out, while under the supervision of the count-
ess and the solicitude of the count, money and
all things necessary for the uniform and equip-
ment of the newly commissioned officer were
collected. Anna Mikhaylovna, practical wom-
an 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 Constan tine Pdvlovich, who
commanded the Guards. The Rost6vs supposed
that The Russian Guards, A broad, 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 Pavlograd regiment, which was presuma-



bly somewhere in the same neighborhood. And
so it was decided to send the letters and money
by the Grand Duke's courier to Boris and Boris
was to forward them to Nicholas. The letters
were from the old count, the countess, Ptya,
Ve*ra, Natasha, and S6nya, and finally there
were six thousand rubles for his outfit and vari-
ous other things the old count sent to his son.

CHAPTER VII

ON THE twelfth of November, Kutiizov's active
army, in camp before Olmiitz, 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 Olmiitz and next morning were to
come straight to the review, reaching the field
at Olmiitz by ten o'clock.

That day Nicholas Rost6v received a letter
from Borfs, telling him that the Ismaylov regi-
ment was quartered for the night ten miles
from Olmiitz and that he wanted to see him as
he had a letter and money for him. Rostov was
particularly in need of money now that the
troops, after their active service, were stationed
near Olmiitz and the camp swarmed with well-
provisioned sutlers and Austrian Jews offering
all sorts of tempting wares. The Pavlograds
held feast after feast, celebrating awards they
had received for the campaign, and made ex-
peditions to Olmiitz to visit a certain Caroline
the Hungarian, who had recently opened ares-
taurant there with girls as waitresses. Rost6v,
who had just celebrated his promotion to a
cornetcy and bought Denfsov's horse, Bedouin,
was in debt all round, to his comrades and the
sutlers. On receiving Boris' letter he rode with
a fellow officer to Olmiitz, dined there, drank
a bottle of wine, and then set off alone to the
Guards' camp to find his old playmate. Rost6v
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 of-
ficer'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 Borfs 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 cleanli-
ness and discipline. They had come by easy



WAR AND PEACE



stages, their knapsacks conveyed on carts, and
the Austrian authorities had provided excel-
lent 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 instep (a practice on which the Guards
prided themselves), the officers on foot and at
their proper posts. Boris 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 satisfac-
torily. Boris, during the campaign, had made
the acquaintance of many persons who might
prove useful to him, and by a letter of recom-
mendation he had brought from Pierre had be-
come acquainted with Prince Andrew Bolk6n-
ski, through whom he hoped to obtain a post
on the commander in chief's staff. Berg and
Boris, 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. Boris, in the accurate way
characteristic of him, was building a little pyra-
mid 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 Rost6v. "And
Berg too! Oh, you petisenfans, allay cushay
dormir!" * he exclaimed, imitating his Russian
nurse's French, at which he and Boris used to
laugh long ago.

"Dear me, how you have changed!"

Boris rose to meet Rost6v, but in doing so
did not omit to steady and replace some chess-
men that were falling. He was about to em-
brace 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 some-
thing special on meeting his friend. He wanted
to pinch him, push him, do anything but kiss
hima thing everybody did. But notwithstand-

1 "Little children, go to bed and sleep."-TR.



ing this, Boris embraced him in a quiet, friend-
ly 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 Rost6v, with martial swagger
and with baritone notes in his voice, new to
Boris, pointing to his own mud-bespattered
breeches. The German landlady, hearing Ros-
tov'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 Boris. "I did not expect you today," he
added. "I only sent you the note yesterday by
Bolk6nski an adjutant of Kutuzov'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 Boris.

Without answering, Rostov shook the sol-
dier's Cross of St. George fastened to the cord-
ing of his uniform and, indicating a bandaged
arm, glanced at Berg with a smile.

"As you see," he said.

"Indeed? Yes, yes!" said Boris, 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 Tsarvich
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 Rost6v. "I say, send
for some wine."

Boris made a grimace.

"If you really want it," said he.

He went to his bed, drew a purse from un-
der the clean pillow, and sent for wine.

"Yes, and I have some money and a letter to
give you," he added.

Rost6v 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



BOOK THREE



133



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 Rost6v,
"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 1"
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 fel-
low; you know I speak from my heart as to an
old acquaintance."

"Oh, don't mention it, Count! I quite un-
derstand," said Berg, getting up and speaking
in a muffled and guttural voice.

"Go across to our hosts: they invited you,"
added Boris.

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 up-
wards, in the way affected by the Emperor
Alexander, and, having assured himself from
the way Rostov looked at it that his coat had
been noticed, left the room with a pleasant
smile.

"Oh dear, what a beast I am!" muttered Ros-
tov, 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 Bagrati6n which
the old countess at Anna Mikhdylovna's advice
had obtained through an acquaintance and
sent to her son, asking him to take it to its des-
tination and make use of it.

"What nonsense! Much I need it!" said Ros-
t6v, throwing the letter under the table.

"Why have you thrown that away?" asked
Boris.

"It is some letter of recommendation . . .
what the devil do I want it for!"

"Why 'What the devil'?" said Boris, 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 Boris.



"It's a lackey's job!"

"You are still the same dreamer, I see," re-
marked Boris, shaking his head.

"And you're still the same diplomatist! But
that's not the point. . . . Come, how are you?"
asked Rost6v.

"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 Rost6v, evidently think-
ing 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
Boris. "He would drink with you. I can't."

"Well, send for him . . . and how do you get
on with that German?" asked Rost6v, with a
contemptuous smile.

"He is a very, very nice, honest, and pleasant
fellow," answered Boris.

Again Rost6v looked intently into Boris*
eyes and sighed. Berg returned, and over the
bottle of wine conversation between the three
officers became animated. The Guardsmen told
Rost6v 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, shout-
ing: "Arnautsl" 1 ("Arnauts" was the Tsare"-
vich'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. With-
out boasting, you know, I may say that I know
the Army Orders by heart and know the Regu-
lations as well as I do the Lord's Prayer. So,
Count, there never is any negligence in my

1 Arnauts is a Turkish name for the Albanians,
who supplied the Turks with irregular cavalry.

-TR.



'34



WAR AND PEACE



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 andstormedand
stormed! It was not a matter of life but rather
of death, as the saying is. 'Albanians!' and 'dev-
ils!' and 'To Siberia!' " said Berg with a saga-
cious 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 Rostov, smiling.

But Boris 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 Rost6v
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. Rost6v 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, invol-
untarily, and inevitably he lapsed into false-
hood. If he had told the truth to his hearers
who like himself had often heard stories of at-
tacks 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 be-
lieved him or, still worse, would have thought
that Rostov 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 be-
side 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 duringanattack/'Prince
Andrew, whom Boris 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
Boris, who had managed to please him the day
before, he wished to do what the young man
wanted. Having been sent with papers from
Kutii/ov to the Tsardvich, he looked in on
Boris, 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 Boris a pleas-
ant smile, frowned as with half-closed eyes
he looked at Rost6v, bowed slightly and wea-
rily, and sat down languidly on the sofa: he
felt it unpleasant to have dropped in on bad
company. Rostov flushed up on noticing this,
but he did not care, this was a mere stran-
ger. Glancing, however, at Boris, 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 Rostov, from his fighting army point of
view, regarded all these little adjutants on the
staff, of whom the newcomer was evidently one,
Rost6v felt confused, blushed, and became si-
lent. Boris inquired what news there might be
on the staff, and what, without indiscretion,
one might ask about our plans.

"We shall probably advance," replied Bol-
k6nski, 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 allow-
ance of forage money to captains of companies
would be doubled. To this Prince Andrew an-
swered with a smile that he could give no
opinion on such an important government or-
der, and Berg laughed gaily.

"As to your business," Prince Andrew con-
tinued, addressing Boris, "we will talk of it
later" (and he looked round at Rost6v). "Come
to me after the review and we will do what is
possible."

And, having glanced round the room, Prince
Andrew turned to Rostov, 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?"



BOOK THREE



"I was there," said Rost6v angrily, as if in-
tending to insult the aide-de-camp.

Bolk6nski noticed the hussar's state of mind,
and it amused him. With a slightly contemptu-
ous smile, he said: "Yes, there are many stories
now told about that affair!"

"Yes, stories!" repeated Rost6v loudly, look-
ing with eyes suddenly grown furious, now at
Boris, now at Bolk6nski. "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 fel-
lows on the staff who get rewards without do-
ing 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 Rost6v'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 in-
terrupted 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,
Drubetsk6y, 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 re-
gard either myself or you as having been at all
insulted, and as a man older than you, my ad-
vice is to let the matter drop. Well then, on
Friday after the review I shall expect you,
Drubetsk6y. Au revoir!" exclaimed Prince An-
drew, and with a bow to them both he went
out.

Only when Prince Andrew was gone did
Rost6v 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 Boris, 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 Rost6v had been to see Boris,
a review was held of the Austrian and Russian
troops, both those freshly arrived from Russia
and those who had been campaigning under
Kutuzov. The two Emperors, the Russian with
his heir the Tsardvich, 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 be-
fore the fortress. Now thousands of feet and
bayonets moved and halted at the officers' com-
mand, 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 pol-
ished 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 thesame 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
drown 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: Kutiizov's
fighting army (with the Pdvlograds on the right



136



WAR AND PEACE



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 com-
ing!" Alarmed voices were heard, and a
stir of final preparation swept over all the
troops.

From the direction of Olmiitz 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 un-
folded 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 it-
self, 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 "Hur-
rah!" so deafeningly, continuously, and joy-
fully that the men themselves were awed by
their multitude and the immensity of the pow-
er they constituted.

Rostov, standing in the front lines of Kutu-
zov's army which the Tsar approached first, ex-
perienced the same feeling as every other man
in that army: a feeling of self-forgetfulness, a
proud consciousness of might, and a passion-
ate 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 insignifi-
cant atom in it) would go through fire and
water, commit crime, die, or perform deeds of
highest heroism, and so he could not but trem-
ble and his heart stand still at the imminence
of that word.

"Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!" thundered
from all sides, one regiment after another greet-
ing 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 deafen-
ing 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, hun-
dreds of riders composing the suites moved
carelessly but symmetrically and above all free-
ly, and in front of them two men the Emper-
ors. Upon them the undivided, tensely passion-
ate 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.

Rostov was not far from the trumpeters, and
with his keen sight had recognized the Tsar
and watched his approach. When he was with-
in twenty paces, and Nicholas could clearly
distinguish every detail of his handsome, hap-
py young face, he experienced a feeling of tend-
erness and ecstasy such as he had never be-
fore known. Every trait and every movement
of the Tsar's seemed to him enchanting.

Stopping in front of the Pdvlograds, the Tsar
said something in French to the Austrian Em-
peror and smiled.

Seeing that smile, Rost6v 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 impos-
sible was ready to cry. The Tsar called the colo-
nel of the regiment and said a few words to
him.

"Oh God, what would happen to me if the
Emperor spoke to me?" thought Rost6v. "I
should die of happiness!"

The Tsar addressed the officers also: "I thank
you all, gentlemen, I thank you with my whole
heart." To Rost6v 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 Rost6v.

The Tsar said something more which Ros-
t6v did not hear, and the soldiers, straining
their lungs, shouted "Hurrah!"

Rost6v too, bending over his saddle, shouted
"Hurrah!" with all his might, feeling that he



BOOK

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 Rost6v, 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 accom-
panied 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 Rost6v from
amid the suites that surrounded the Emperors.

Among the gentlemen of the suite, Rost6v
noticed Bolk6nski, sitting his horse indolently
and carelessly. Rost6v recalled their quarrel of
yesterday and the question presented itself
whether he ought or ought not to challenge
Bolk6nski. "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 rap-
ture, and such self-sacrifice, what do any of our
quarrels and affronts matter? I love and for-
give everybody now."

When the Emperor had passed nearly all
the regiments, the troops began a ceremonial
march past him, and Rost6v on Bedouin, re-
cently purchased from Denfsov, rode past too,
at the rear of his squadron that is, alone and
in full view of the Emperor.

Before he reached him, Rost6v, who was a
splendid horseman, spurred Bedouin twice
and successfully put him to the showy trot in
which the animal went when excited. Bend-
ing his foaming muzzle to his chest, his tail ex-
tended, 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.

Rost6v himself, his legs well back and his
stomach drawn in and feeling himself one with
his horse, rode past the Emperor with a frown-
ing but blissful face "like a vewy devil," as
Denfsov expressed it.

"Fine fellows, the Pdvlogradsl" remarked
the Emperor.

"My God, how happy I should be if he or-
dered me to leap into the fire this instant!"
thought Rost6v.

When the review was over, the newly ar-



THREE 137

rived officers, and also Kuttizov'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 Es-
sen 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 Em-
peror himself they could not fail to vanquish
anyone, be it whom it might: so thought Ros-
tov 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, Boris, in his best
uniform and with his comrade Berg's best
wishes for success, rode to Olmiitz to see Bol-
konski, wishing to profit by his friendliness and
obtain for himself the best post he could pref-
erably that of adjutant to some important
personage, a position in the army which seemed
to him most attractive. "It is all very well for
Rost6v, 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 Olmiitz
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 per-
sonages passing in the streets in their elegant
carriages with their plumes, ribbons, and med-
als, 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 command-
er in chief, Kutiizov, where he inquired for
Bolk6nski, all the adjutants and even the or-
derlies looked at him as if they wished to im-
press on him that a great many officers like
him were always coming there and that every-
body was heartily sick of them. In spite of this,



138



WAR AND PEACE



or rather because of it, next day, November 15,
after dinner he again went to Olmiitz and, en-
tering the house occupied by Kutiizov, asked
for Bolk6nski. Prince Andrew was in and Boris
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, near-
est the door, was sitting at the table in a Per-
sian dressing gown, writing. Another, the red,
stout Nesvitski, lay on a bed with his arms un-
der his head, laughing with an officer who had
sat down beside him. A third was playing a Vi-
ennese waltz on the clavichord, while a fourth,
lying on the clavichord, sang the tune. Bol-
k6nski was not there. None of these gentlemen
changed his position on seeing Boris. The one
who was writing and whom Boris addressed
turned round crossly and told him Bolk6nski
was on duty and that he should go through the
door on the left into the reception room if he
wished to see him. Boris 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, re-
porting something.

"Very well, then, be so good as to wait," said
Prince Andrew to the general, in Russian,
speaking with the French intonation he affect-
ed when he wished to speak contemptuously,
and noticing Boris, Prince Andrew, paying no
more heed to the general who ran after him
imploring him to hear something more, nod-
ded and turned to him with a cheerful smile.

At that moment Boris clearly realized what
he had before surmised, that in the army, be-
sides the subordination and discipline pre-
scribed 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 re-
spectfully while Captain Prince Andrew, for his
own pleasure, chose to chat with Lieutenant
Drubetsk6y. More than ever was Boris re-
solved to serve in future not according to the
written code, but under this unwritten law.
He felt now that merely by having been rec-
ommended 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 yes-
terday. I was fussing about with Germans all
day. We went with Weyrother to survey the
dispositions. When Germans start being ac-
curate, there's no end to it I"

Boris smiled, as if he understood what Prince
Andrew was alluding to as something general-
ly known. But it was the first time he had heard
Weyrother's name, or even the term "disposi-
tions."

"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 Boris
could not help blushing "of asking the com-
mander in chief. He has had a letter from
Prince Kurdgin about me. I only wanted to
ask because I fear the Guards won't be in ac-
tion," he added as if in apology.

"All right, all right. We'll talk it over," re-
plied 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 evi-
dently not sharing Boris' conception of the ad-
vantages of the unwritten code of subordina-
tionlooked so fixedly at the presumptuous
lieutenant who had prevented his finishing
what he had to say to the adjutant that Boris
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 think-
ing about you," said Prince Andrew when they
had gone into the large room where the clavi-
chord was. "It's no use your going to the com-
mander in chief. He would say a lot of pleas-
ant things, ask you to dinner" ("That would
not be bad as regards the unwritten code,"
thought Boris), "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 Kutiizov with his staff and all of us
count for nothing. Everything is now centered
round the Emperor. So we will go to Dolgoru-
kov; I have to go there anyhow and I have al-
ready 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 obtain-
ing help of this kind for another, which from
pride he would never accept for himself, he
kept in touch with the circle which confers suc-
cess and which attracted him. He very readily
took up Boris' cause and went with him to Dol-
goriikov.

It was late in the evening when they entered
the palace at Olmiitz occupied by the Emper-
ors and their retinues.

That same day a council of war had been
held in which all the members of the Hof-
kriegsrath and both Emperors took part. At
that council, contrary to the views of the old
generals Kutiizov 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 accom-
panied by Boris 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 ad-
vised waiting for something else before advanc-
ing had been so completely silenced and their
arguments confuted by such conclusive evi-
dence of the advantages of attacking that what
had been discussed at the council the coming
battle and the victory that would certainly re-
sult from it no longer seemed to be in the
future but in the past. All the advantages were
on our side. Our enormous forces, undoubted-
ly superior to Napoleon's, were concentrated
in one place, the troops inspired by the Em-
perors' 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, evi-
dently weakened, was undertaking nothing.

Dolgorukov, one of the warmest advocates
of an attack, had just returned from the coun-
cil, tired and exhausted but eager and proud
of the victory that had been gained. Prince
Andrew introduced his prot^g^, but Prince
Dolgonikov politely and firmly pressing his
hand said nothing to Boris and, evidently un-
able to suppress the thoughts which were up-
permost in his mind at that moment, addressed
Prince Andrew in French,



BOOK THREE 139

"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, my 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 local-
ity, what foresight for every eventuality, every
possibility even to the smallest detail 1 No, my
dear fellow, no conditions better than our pres-
ent ones could have been devised. This combi-
nation of Austrian precision with Russian val-
orwhat more could be wished for?"

"So the attack is definitely resolved on?"
asked Bolk6nski.

"And do you know, my dear fellow, it seems
to me that Bonaparte has decidedly lost his
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
Bolkonski.

"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 amus-
ing," he continued, with a sudden, good-na-
tured 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 Em-
peror and calling him General Bonaparte,
there is a difference," remarked Bolk6nski.

"That's just it," interrupted Dolgoriikov
quickly, laughing. "You know Bilfbin he's a
very clever fellow. He suggested addressing
him as 'Usurper and Enemy of Mankind.' "

Dolgorukov laughed merrily.

"Only that?" said Bolk6nski.

"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 franfais," said
Dolgorukov, with grave satisfaction. "Good,
wasn't it?"

"Yes, but he will dislike it extremely," said
Bolk6nski.

"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 Mark6v? Count Mark6v



140



WAR AND PEACE



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 Boris, now to Prince Andrew, told how
Bonaparte wishing to test Mark6v, our ambas-
sador, purposely dropped a handkerchief in
front of him and stood looking at Mark6v,
probably expecting Mark6v to pick it up for
him, and how Mark6v immediately dropped
his own beside it and picked it up without
touching Bonaparte's.

"Delightful!" said Bolk6nski. "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 Emper-
or.

"Oh, what a nuisance," said Dolgorukov,
getting up hurriedly and pressing the hands of
Prince Andrew and Boris. "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!"

Boris 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 fol-
lowed Prince Dolgorukov out into the corri-
dor and met coming out of the door of the
Emperor's room by which Dolgoriikov had en-
tereda 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 oth-
er turned away and went down the side of the
corridor.

"Who was that?" asked Boris.

"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 Bolk6nski with a sigh he
could not suppress, as they passed out of the
palace.



Next day, the army began its campaign, and
up to tl\e very battle of Austerlitz, Boris was
unable to see either Prince Andrew or Dol-
goriikov again and remained for a while with
the Ismdylov regiment.

CHAPTER X

AT DAWN on the sixteenth of November, Denf-
sov's squadron, in which Nicholas Rost6v served
and which was in Prince Bagrati6n's detach-
ment, moved from the place where it had
spent the night, advancing into action as ar-
ranged, and after going behind other columns
for about two thirds of a mile was stopped on
the highroad. Rost6v 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 Bagrati6n
and Dolgorukov ride past with their adjutants.
All the fear before action which he had experi-
enced as previously, all the inner struggle to
conquer that fear, all his dreams of distin-
guishing himself as a true hussar in this battle,
had been wasted. Their squadron remained in
reserve and Nicholas Rost6v spent that day in
a dull and wretched mood. At nine in the morn-
ing, he heard firing in front and shouts of hur-
rah, and saw wounded being brought back
(there were not many of them), and at last he
saw how a whole detachment of French caval-
ry was brought in, convoyed by a sdtnya of
Cossacks. Evidently the affair was over and,
though not big, had been a successful engage-
ment. 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 sun-
ny 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 adju-
tants, as they passed Rostov 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, Wost6v. 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 Denfsov's can-
teen, eating and talking.

"There! They are bringing another!" cried
one of the officers, indicating a captive French



BOOK THREE



141



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 pris-
oner.

"Sell us that horse!" Denfsov called out to
the Cossacks.

"If you like, your honor!"

The officers got up and stood round the Cos-
sacks and their prisoner. The French dragoon
was a young Alsatian who spoke French with a
German accent. He was breathless with agita-
tion, 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 pris-
oner 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 atmos-
phere of the French army, which was so alien
to us.

The Cossacks sold the horse for two gold
pieces, and Rost6v, being the richest of the of-
ficers now that he had received his money,
bought it.

"But don't hurt my little horse!" said the
Alsatian good-naturedly to Rost6v when the
animal was handed over to the hussar.

Rost6v 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 sud-
denly heard among the hussars.

All began to run and bustle, and Rost6v saw
coming up the road behind him several riders
with white plumes in their hats. In a moment
everyone was in his place, waiting.

Rost6v did not know or remember how he
ran to his place and mounted. Instantly his re-
gret at not having been in action and his de-
jected mood amid people of whom he was
weary had gone, instantly every thought of
himself had vanished. He was filled with hap-
piness 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 ar-



rives. 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 caval-
cade, but because as he drew near everything
grew brighter, more joyful, more significant,
and more festive around him. Nearer and near-
er to Rost6v 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 ac-
cord with Rostov's feeling, there was a deathly
stillness amid which was heard the Emperor's
voice.

"The Pavlograd hussars?" he inquired.

"The reserves, sire!" replied a voice, a very
human one compared to that which had said:
"The Pdvlograd hussars?"

The Emperor drew level with Rostov and
halted. Alexander's face was even more beau-
tiful than it had been three days before at the
review. It shone with such gaiety and youth,
such innocent youth, that it suggested the live-
liness 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 Rostov's and rested on them for not
more than two seconds. Whether or no the
Emperor understood what was going on in
Rostov's soul (it seemed to Rostov that he un-
derstood everything), at any rate his light-blue
eyes gazed for about two seconds into Rost6v's
face. A gentle, mild light poured from them.
Then all at once he raised his eyebrows, ab-
ruptly 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 Pavlograd
division was ordered to advance. In Wischau
itself, a petty German town, Rostov saw the
Emperor again. In the market place, where



142



WAR AND PEACE



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 Emper-
or shocked Rostov. Rost6v saw how the Em-
peror'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 sol-
dier under the arms to place him on a stretch-
er that had been brought. The soldier groaned.

"Gently, gentlyl Can't you do it more gent-
ly?" said the Emperor apparently suffering
more than the dying soldier, and he rode away.

Rostov 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 ra-
tion of vodka. The campfires crackled and the
soldiers' songs resounded even more merrily
than on theprevious night. Denisov celebrated
his promotion to the rank of major, and Ros-
t6v, 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 cer-
tain 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, gen-
tlemen? Perhaps I am not saying it right, I
have drunk a good dealbut 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, Kfrsten, shouted
enthusiastically and no less sincerely than the
twenty-year-old Rost6v.

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 mus-
tache, 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 Emper-
or, and victory over our enemies! Hurrah!" he
exclaimed in his dashing, old, hussar's bari-
tone.

The hussars crowded round and responded
heartily with loud shouts.

Late that night, when all had separated,
Denfsov with his short hand patted his favor-
ite, Rost6v, 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 Ros-
t6v. "It is such a lofty, beautiful feeling, such



"I believe it, I believe it, fwiend, and I share
and appwove. . . ."

"No, you don't understand!"

And Rostov got up and went wandering
among the campfires, dreaming of what happi-
ness it would be to die not in saving the Em-
peror'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 ex-
perience that feeling during those memorable
days preceding the battle of Austcrlitz: 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 Wis-
chau, and Villier, his physician, was repeated-
ly 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, de-
manding an audience with the Russian Em-
peror, was brought into Wischau from our out-



BOOK THREE



143



posts. This officer was Savary. The Emperor
had only just fallen asleep and so Savary had
to wait. At midday he was admitted to the Em-
peror, and an hour later he rode off with Prince
Dolgoriikovtothe advanced post of the French
army.

It was rumored that Savary had been sent to
propose to Alexander a meeting with Napo-
leon. To the joy and pride of the whole army,
a personal interview was refused, and instead
of the Sovereign, Prince Dolgorukov, the vic-
tor at Wischau, was sent with Savary to negoti-
ate with Napoleon if, contrary to expectations,
these negotiations were actuated by a real de-
sire 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 No-
vember, the army advanced two days' march
and the enemy's outposts after a brief inter-
change of shots retreated. In the highest army
circles from midday on the nineteenth, a great,
excitedly bustling activity began whLh 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 dis-
patching of adjutants was con fined to the Em-
peror's headquarters. But on the afternoon of
that day, this activity reached Kutiizov's head-
quarters 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 fol-
lowed was like the first movement of the main
wheel of a large tower clock. One wheel slow-
ly 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 ad-
vance 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 im-
pulse 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 move-
ment, but a neighboring wheel is as quiet and
motionless as though it were prepared to re-
main 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 compli-
cated motion of innumerable wheels and pul-
leys is merely a slow and regular movement of
the hands which show the time, so the result
of all the complicated human activities of
1 60,000 Russians and French all their passions,
desires, remorse, humiliations, sufferings, out-
bursts 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 hu-
man history.

Prince Andrew was on duty that day and in
constant attendance on the commander in
chief.

At six in the evening, Kutiizov 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 Tolst6y.

Bolk6nski took the opportunity to go in to
get some details of the coming action from
Dolgorukov. He felt that Kutiizov 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 Bili-
bin. "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 An-
drew. "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 engage-
ment," repeated Dolgonikov, evidently priz-
ing this general conclusion which he had ar-



144



WAR AND PEACE



rived 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 I"

"But tell me, what is he like, eh?" said Prince
Andrew again.

"He is a man in a gray overcoat, very anxi-
ous that I should call him 'Your Majesty/ but
who, to his chagrin, got no title frommel That's
the sort of man he is, and nothing more," re-
plied Dolgoriikov, looking round at Bilibin
with a smile.

"Despite my great respect for old Kutiizov,"
he continued, "we should be a nice set of fel-
lows 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 Suv6rov and his rule not to
put yourself in a position to be attacked, but
yourself to attack. Believe me in war the en-
ergy of young men often shows the way better
than all the experience of old Cunctators."

"But in what position are we going to at-
tack 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 Dolgoriikov a plan
of attack he had himself formed.

"Oh, that is all the same," Dolgoriikov said
quickly, and getting up he spread a map on
the table. "All eventualities have been fore-
seen. If he is standing before Brunn . . ."

And Prince Dolgoriikov rapidly but indis-
tinctly explained Weyrother's plan of a flank-
ing 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 Dolgoriikov 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 Kutiizov's
tonight, though; you can say all this there," re-
marked Dolgorukov.

"I will do so," said Prince Andrew, moving
away from the map.

"Whatever are you bothering about, gentle-
men?" 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 Kutiizov, there is not a single Russian in
command of a column! The commanders are:
Herr General Wimpfen, le Comte de Langer-
on, le Prince de Lichtenstein, le Prince de Ho-
henlohe, and finally Prishprish, 1 and so on like
all those Polish names."

"Be quiet, backbiter!" said Dolgoriikov. "It
is not true; there are now two Russians, Milo-
rddovich, and Dokhtiirov, and there would be
a third, Count Arakchev, if his nerves were
not too weak."

"However, I think General Kutiizov has
come out," said Prince Andrew. "I wish you
good luck and success, gentlemen!" he added
and went out after shaking hands with Dol-
gorukov and Bilibin.

On the way home, Prince Andrew could not
refrain from asking Kutiizov, who was sitting
silently beside him, what he thought of tomor-
row's battle.

Kutiizov looked sternly at his adjutant and,
after a pause, replied: "I think the battle will
be lost, and so I told Count Tolst6y and asked
him to tell the Emperor. What do you think
he replied? 'But, my dear general, I am en-
gaged 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, Wey-
rother drove with his plans to Kutiizov's quar-
ters where the council of war was to be held.
All the commanders of columns were sum-
moned to the commander in chief's and with
the exception of Prince Bagrati6n, who de-
clined 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 Kutiizov, who reluctantly played
the part of chairman and president of the
council of war. Weyrother evidently felt him-
self 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 beingpushed
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

1 General Przebysz^wski. TR.



BOOK THREE



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 Kutiizov's.

He was evidently so busy that he even for-
got to be polite to the commander in chief. He
interrupted him, talked rapidly and indistinct-
ly, without looking at the man he was address-
ing, and did not reply to questions put to him.
He was bespattered with mud and had a piti-
ful, weary, and distracted air, though at the
same time he was haughty and self-confident.

Kutiizov 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 Ku-
tiizov himself, Weyrother, and the members of
the council of war. They were drinking tea,
and only awaited Prince Bagrati6n to begin
the council. At last Bagrati6n's orderly came
with the news that the prince could not at-
tend. Prince Andrew came in to inform the
commander in chief of this and, availing him-
self of permission previously given him by Ku-
tiizov 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
Briinn was spread out.

Kutiizov, with his uniform unbuttoned so
that his fat neck bulged over his collar as if es-
caping, was sitting almost asleep in a low chair,
with his podgy old hands resting symmetri-
cally on its arms. At the sound of Weyrother's
voice, he opened his one eye with an effort.

"Yes, yes, if you please 1 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 Kutiizov 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 Kutiizov 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, No-
vember 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 pondsuhat 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 pur-
sue 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 inarches . . . 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 up-
wards, sat the ruddy Milorddovich in a mili-
tary pose, his elbows turned outwards, his
hands on his knees, and his shoulders raised.
He remained stubbornly silent, gazing at Wey-
rother's face, and only turned away his eyes
when the Austrian chief of staff finished read-
ing. Then Milorddovich looked round signifi-
cantly 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 deli-
cate fingers which rapidly twirled by its cor-
ners 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 inter-
rupted 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 Milorddovich as
if seeking an explanation, but meeting the lat-



146



WAR AND PEACE



ter's impressive but meaningless gaze drooped
his eyes sadly and again took to twirling his
snuffbox.

"A geography lesson I " he muttered as if to
himself, but loud enough to be heard.

Przebysz^wski, with respectful but dignified
politeness, held his hand to his ear toward
Weyrother, with the air of a man absorbed in
attention. Dohktiirov, 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 clear-
ly 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 Wey-
rother 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 Weyroth-
er 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
witlrmen who could teach him something in
military matters.

When the monotonous sound of Weyroth-
er's voice ceased, Kutuzov 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 mili-
tary 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 be-
forehand 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 Langer-
on.

"He has forty thousand men at most," re-
plied Weyrother, with the smile of a doctor to
whom an old wife wishes to explain the treat-
ment 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 Milorddovich who was near him.

But Milorddovich was at that moment evi-
dently thinking of anything rather than of
what the generals were disputing about.

"Ma foil" 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 retreat-
ing, which is the only thing we need fear, or
he is changing his position." (He smiled iron-
ically.) "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.

Kutuzov 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 impor-
tant . . ." he paused, "than to have a good
sleep."

He moved as if to rise. The generals bowed
and retired. It was past midnight. Prince An-
drew 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 Dolgoriikov and Wey-
rother, or Kutuzov, 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 Kutiizov 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 dis-
tant, most intimate, memories rose in his im-



BOOK

agination: 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 sof-
tened mood he went out of the hut in which
he was billeted with Nesvitski and began to
walk up and down before it.

The night was foggy and through the fog the
moonlight gleamed mysteriously. "Yes, tomor-
row, tomorrow!" he thought. "Tomorrow ev-
erything may be over for me! All these mem-
ories 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 opin-
ion to Kutuzov, to Weyrother, and to the Em-
perors. All are struck by the justness of his
views, but no one undertakes to carry them
out, so he takes a regiment, a divisionstipu-
lates that no one is to interfere with his ar-
rangementsleads 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 Kutiizov's staff, but he does everything
alone. The next battle is won by him alone.
Kutuzov 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 any-
one, 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 tri-
umph over men, of love from men I don't
know and never shall know, for the love of



THREE 147

these men here," he thought, as he listened to
voices in Kuttizov's courtyard. The voices were
those of the orderlies who were packing up;
one voice, probably a coachman's, was teasing
Kutiizov'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 pow-
er and glory that is floating here above me in
this mist!"

CHAPTER XIII

THAT SAME NIGHT, Rost6v was with a platoon
on skirmishing duty in front of Bagrati6n'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. Rostov could see nothing, peer
as he would into that foggy distance: now some-
thing 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 Denfsov, 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 Rost6v,
"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 deceiv-
ers!" And in order to realize vividly his love and
devotion to the sovereign, Rost6v 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.



148



WAR AND PEACE



"Where am I? Oh yes, in the skirmishing line
. . . pass and watchword sh aft, 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 see-
ing 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 hus-
sars. It seemed to him that it was getting light-
er. 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 Rost6v 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 . . . Natasha . . . sister, black eyes . . . Na
. . . tasha . . . (Won't she be surprised when I
tell her how I've seen the Emperor?) Natcisha
. . . take mysabretache . . .""Keep to theright,
your honor, there are bushes here," came the
voice of an hussar, past whom Rost6v was rid-
ing in the act of falling asleep. Rost6v lifted his
head that had sunk almost to his horse's mane
and pulled up beside the hussar. He was suc-
cumbing to irresistible, youthful, childish drow-
siness. "But what was I thinking? I mustn't for-
get. How shall I speak to the Emperor? No,
that's not it that's tomorrow. Oh yes! Natdsha
. . . sabretache . . . saber them . . . Whom? The
hussars . . . Ah, the hussars with mustaches.
Along the Tverskiya Street rode the hussar
with mustaches ... I thought about him too,
just opposite Guryev's house . . . Old Guryev
. . . Oh, but Denfsov's a fine fellow. But that's
all nonsense. The chief thing is that the Em-
peror 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-tdsha, 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 Rost6v, waking up. At the moment he
opened his eyes he heard in front of him, where
the enemy was, the long-drawn shouts of thou-
sands 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 loud-
er and louder. Rost6v 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
Rost6v to the hussar beside him. "That must
be the enemy's camp!"

The hussar did not reply.

"Why, don't you hear it?" Rost6v asked
again, after waiting for a reply.

"Who can tell, your honor?" replied the hus-
sar reluctantly.

"From the direction, it must be the enemy,"
repeated Rost6v.

"It may be he or it may be nothing," muttered
the hussar. "It's dark . . . Steady!" he cried to
his fidgeting horse.

Rost6v's horse was also getting restive: it
pawed the frozen ground, pricking its ears at
the noise and looking at the lights. The shout-
ing 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. Rost6v no longer wanted to
sleep. The gay triumphant shouting of the
enemy army had a stimulating effect on him.
"Vive I'Empereur! VEmpereur!" 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 ap-
peared, looming huge as an elephant.

"Your honor, the generals I "said the sergeant,
riding up to Rost6v.

Rostov, 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 Bagra-
ti6n and Prince Dolgorukov with their adju-
tants had come to witness the curious phenom-
enon of the lights and shouts in the enemy's
camp. Rost6v rode up to Bagrati6n, reported
to him, and then joined the adjutants listen-
ing to what the generals were saying.

"Believe me," said Prince Dolgorukov, ad-
dressing Bagrati6n, "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 Bagrati6n. "I saw them this



BOOK THREE



149



evening on that knoll; if they had retreated
they would have withdrawn from that too. . . .
Officer!" said Bagratidn to Rost6v, "are the en-
emy'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 Rost6v.

Bagrati6n stopped and, before replying,
tried to see Rost6v's face in the mist.

"Well, go and see," he said, after a pause.

"Yes, sir."

Rost6v spurred his horse, called to Sergeant
Fddchenko and two other hussars, told them to
follow him, and trotted downhill in the direc-
tion 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. Bagrati6n called to him from
the hill not to go beyond the stream, but Ros-
tdv pretended not to hear him and did not
stop but rodeon and on, continually mistaking
bushes for trees and gullies for men and con-
tinually discovering his mistakes. Having de-
scended the hill at a trot, he no longer saw ei-
ther 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 rid-
ing 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 Rost6v 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. Rost6v
turned his horse and galloped back. Four more
reports followed at intervals, and the bullets
passed somewhere in the fog singing in differ-
ent tones. Rost6v 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 Bagrati6n did Ros-
t6v 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
Rost6v rode up. "They might rejreat 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 excel-
lency, just where itwas in the even ing, "report-
ed Rostov, 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 Bagrati6n.
"Thank you, officer."

"Your excellency," said Rost6v, "may I ask a
favor?"

"What is it?"

"Tomorrow our squadron is to be in reserve.
May I ask to beattached to the first squadron?"

"What's your name?"

"Count Rost6v."

"Oh, very well, you may stay in attendance
on me."

"Count Ily Rost6v's son?" asked Dolgoru-
kov.

But Rost6v 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 Rost6v.
"Thank God!"

The fires and shouting in the enemy's army
were occasioned by the fact that while Napole-
on'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 I'Emper-
eurl" 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 Em-



1 5

peror exposing himself to the first blows of the
enemy, for there must be no doubt of victory, es-
pecially 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 remov-
ing the wounded! Let every man be fully imbued
with the thought that we must defeat these hire-
lings 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 Ba-
grati6n'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 de-
scend the heights to attack the French right
flank and drive it into the Bohemian moun-
tains 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 break-
fasting, the soldiers, munching biscuitand beat-
ing 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. Aus-
trian column guides were moving in and out
among the Russian troops and served as her-
alds of the advance. As soon as an Austrian of-
ficer showed himself near a commanding offi-
cer's quarters, the regiment began to move: the
soldiers ran from the fires, thrust their pipes in-
to their boots, their bags into the carts, got
their muskets ready, and formed rank. The of-
ficers buttoned up their coats, buckled on their
swords and pouches, and moved along the ranks
shouting. The train drivers and orderlies har-
nessed and packed the wagons and tied on the
loads. The adjutants and battalion and regi-
mental commanders mounted, crossed them-
selves, gave final instructions, orders, and com-
missions to the baggage men who remained be-
hind, 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 increas-
ing fog, to see either the place they were leav-
ing or that to which they were going.



WAR AND PEACE

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 sur-
rounded 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 Mitrich, 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 bat-
tleheaven knows how and whencea 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 curios-
ity. 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 in-
visible ten paces off. But the columns advanced
for a long time, always in thesame fog, descend-
ing 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 di-
rection. 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 Kiirskies have also gone
past," was being said in the ranks.

"It's wonderful what a lot of our troops have
gathered, lads 1 Last night I looked at thecamp-
fires and there was no end of them. A regular
Moscow 1"

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 af-
fair, 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 com-



BOOK THREE



municated is very difficult to define, but it cer-
tainly 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 convic-
tion, but as it was, the disorder was readily
andnaturally attributed to thestupid 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 adju-
tant, 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 an-
other, at first irregularly at varying intervals
trata . . . tat and then more and more regular-
ly 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 la-
zily and advanced and again halted, receiving
no timely orders from ttye officers or adjutants
who wandered about in the fog in those un-
known 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 col-
umn, with which Kutiizov 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 high-
er up at the village of Schlappanitz where Na-
poleon 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 hol-
low, 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 Sok-
olnitz and Schlappanitz beyond which we in-
tended 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



WAR AND PEACE



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 gleam-
ing 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 hol-
low between two hills near the village of Prat-
zen, the Russian columns, their bayonets glit-
tering, were moving continuously in one direc-
tion 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 out-
posts during the night, by the disorderly move-
ment of the Russian columns, and from all in-
dications, 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 anniver-
sary 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 every thing 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-com-
placent happiness that one sees on the face of
a boy happily in love. The marshals stood be-
feind him not venturing to distract his atten-
tion. 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 Rus-
sian troops moving down the valley to their
left

CHAPTER XV

AT EIGHT O'CLOCK Kuttizov rode to Pratzen at
the head of the fourth column, Milorddovich's,
the one that was to take the place of Przeby-
szlwski'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
chiefs suite. He was in a state of suppressed ex-
citement 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. 1 How it would come about he did not
know, but he felt sure it would do so. The lo-
cality 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 con-
tingencies and formed new projects such as
might call for his rapidity of perception and
decision.

To the left down below in the mist, the mus-
ketry 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, stand-
ard in hand, I shall go forward and break what-
ever 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 turn-
ing to dew, but in the valleys it still lay like a
milk-white sea. Nothing was visible in the val-
ley to the left into which our troops had de-
scended 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

x The scene of Napoleon's brilliant victory in
the province of Verona over greatly superior Aus-
trian forces, in 1796. TR.



BOOK THREE



153



mist, some wooded hills were discernible, and
it was there the enemy probably was, for some-
thing 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 vil-
lage similar masses of cavalry came up and dis-
appeared 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 Kutuzov
seemed worn and irritable. The infantry pass-
ing before him came to a halt without any
command being given, apparently obstructed
by something in front.

"Do order them to form into battalion col-
umns and go round the villagel" he said angri-
ly 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 ene-
my?"

"I intended to re-form them beyond the vil-
lage, your excellency," answered the general.

Kutuzov 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 Kutuzov bit-
terly. "Who told you that? . . . Kindly do as you
are ordered."

"Yes, sir."

"My dear fellow," Nesvftski 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 Kutu-
zov and asked in the Emperor's name had the
fourth column advanced into action.

Kutuzov turned round without answering
and his eye happened to fall upon Prince An-
drew, who was beside him. Seeing him, Kutu-
zov's malevolent and caustic expression sof-
tened, as if admitting that what was being done
was not his adjutant's fault, and still not an-
swering the Austrian adjutant, he addressed
Bolk6nski.

"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 him-



self, 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 con-
vinced himself that there really were no sharp-
shooters 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. Kutuzov still in the
same place, his stout body resting heavily in
the saddle with the lassitude of age, sat yawn-
ing 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 An-
drew, 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
Kutuzov in the midst of a yawn. "Plenty of
time," he repeated.

Just then at a distance behind Kutuzov was
heard the sound of regiments saluting, and
this sound rap idly came nearer along the whole
extended line of the advancing Russian col-
umns. Evidently the person they were greeting
was riding quickly. When the soldiers of the
regiment in front of which Kutuzov was stand-
ing 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 Emper-
ors followed by their suites. Kutuzov, 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 ap-
pearance and manner were suddenly trans-
formed. He put on the air of a subordinate
who obeys without reasoning. With an affecta-
tion of respect which evidently struck Alex-
ander unpleasantly, he rode up and saluted.

This unpleasant impression merely flitted
over the young and happy face of the Emperor



154



WAR AND PEACE



like a cloud of haze across a clear sky and van-
ished. After his illness he looked rather thin-
ner that day than on the field of Olmiitz where
Bolkonski 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 Olmiitz review he had seemed more
majestic; here he seemed brighter and more
energetic. He was slightly flushed after gallop-
ing 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, Novosiltsev, Prince Volk6nsky,
Str6gonov, 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 hand-
some black horse, looking about him in a lei-
surely 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 Brtinn. 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 Kutuzov's cheerless staff
with the galloping advent of all these brilliant
young men.

"Why aren't you beginning, Michael Ilari6n-
ovich?" said the Emperor Alexander hurried-
ly to Kutuzov, glancing courteously at the
same time at the Emperor Francis.

"I am waiting, Your Majesty," answered Ku-
tuzov, bending forward respectfully.

The Emperor, frowning slightly, bent his
ear forward as if he had not quite heard.

"Waiting, Your Majesty," repeated Kutiizov.
(Prince Andrew noted that Kutiizov'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 shoul-



ders and glanced at Novosiltsev who was near
him, as if complaining of Kutiizov.

"You know, Michael Ilari6novich, 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
Kutuzov 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 he clearly and distinctly.

In the Emperor's suite all exchanged rapid
looks that expressed dissatisfaction and re-
proach. "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 Kutuzov's eye waiting to hear whether he
would say anything more. But Kutuzov, with
respectfully bowed head, seemed also to be
waiting. The silence lasted for about a min-
ute.

"However, if you command it, Your Majes-
ty," said Kutiizov, lifting his head and again
assuming his former tone of a dull, unreason-
ing, but submissive general.

He touched his horse and having called Mil-
orddovich, the commander of the column, gave
him the order to advance.

The troops again began to move, and two
battalions of the N6vgorod and one of the Ap-
sheron regiment went forward past the Emper-
or.

As this Apsheron battalion marched by, the
red- faced Milorddovich, 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 Em-
peror.

"Ma foi, sire, nous ferons ce qui sera dans
noire possibility, sire"' 1 he answered gaily,
raising nevertheless ironic smiles among the
gentlemen of the Tsar's suite by his poor
French.

Milorddovich wheeled his horse sharply and

1 "Indeed, Sire, we shall do everything that it is
possible to do, Sire."



BOOK

stationed himself a little behind the Emperor.
The Apsheron men, excited by the Tsar's pres-
ence, passed in step before the Emperors and
their suites at a bold, brisk pace.

"Lads 1" shouted Milorddovich in a loud, self-
confident, and cheery voice, obviously so elat-
ed by the sound of firing, by the prospect of
battle, and by the sight of the gallant Apsher-
ons, his comrades in Suv6rov'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 fir-
ing, nor of the nearness of the Emperor Fran-
cis' 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, point-
ing to the gallant Apsherons.

CHAPTER XVI

KUTI/ZOV 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 dis-
tinct. Kutiizov had stopped and was speaking
to an Austrian general. Prince Andrew, who
was a little behind and 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 sud-
denly 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 isl



THREE 155

... for certain. . . . But how is that?" said dif-
ferent voices.

With the naked eye Prince Andrew saw be-
low them to the right, not more than five hun-
dred paces from where Kutiizov was standing,
a dense French column coining 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 Kutiizov.

"The Apsherons must be stopped, your ex-
cellency," 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 naive
terror barely two steps from Prince Andrew
shouted, "Brothers! All's lost!" And at this
voice, 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. Bolk6nski only tried not to lose
touch with it, and looked around bewildered
and unable to grasp what was happening in
front of him. Nesvftski with an angry face, red
and unlike himself, was shouting to Kutiizov
that if he did not ride away at once he would
certainly be taken prisoner. Kutiizov 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
Kutiizov, 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 dif-
ficult to get out again. One was shouting, "Get
on! Why are you hinderingus?" Another in the
same place turned round and fired in the air; a
third was striking the horse Kutiizov himself
rode. Having by a great effort got away to the
left from that flood of men, Kutiizov, with his
suite diminished by more than half, rode to-
ward a sound of artillery fire near by. Having
forced his way out of the crowd of fugitives,



156



WAR AND PEACE



Prince Andrew, trying to keep near Kutuzov,
saw on the slope of the hill amid the smoke a
Russian battery that was still firingand French-
men running toward it. Higher up stood some
Russian infantry, neither moving forward to
protect the battery nor backward with the flee-
ing crowd. A mounted general separated him-
self from the infantry and approached Kuttizov.
Of Kutrizov's suite only four remained. They
were all pale and exchanged looks in silence.

"Stop those wretches 1" gasped Kutuzov to
the regimental commander, pointing to the
flying soldiers; but at that instant, as if to pun-
ish him for those words, bullets flew hissing
across the regiment and across Kutiizov's suite
like a flock of little birds.

The French had attacked the battery and,
seeing Kutuzov, were firing at him. After this
volley the regimental commander clutched at
his leg; several soldiers fell, and a second lieu-
tenant 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 I 1 ' groaned Kutuzov despairing-
ly and looked around. . . . "Bolk6nski!" he
whispered, his voice trembling from a con-
sciousness of the feebleness of age, "Bolk6nski ! "
he whispered, pointing to the disordered bat-
talion 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 pierc-
ing 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. Sev-
eral 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 "Hur-
rah!" and overtook him. A sergeant of the bat-
talion ran up and took the flag that was sway-
ing 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 fight-
ing, while others, having abandoned theirguns,
were running toward him. He also saw French



infantry soldiers who were seizing the artillery
horses and turning the guns round. Prince An-
drew and the battalion were already within
twenty paces of the cannon. He heard the whis-
tle 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 clear-
ly 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 An-
drew 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 tri-
umphantly secured the mop and still did not
realize what awaited him, was about to be de-
cided. 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 giv-
ing way," thought he, and fell on his back. He
opened his eyes, hoping to see how the strug-
gle of the Frenchmen with the gunners ended,
whether the red-haired gunner had been killed
or not and whether the cannon had been cap-
tured 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; notat all as I ran,"
thought Prince Andrew "not as we ran, shout-
ing 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 in-
finite sky. There is nothing, nothing, but that.
But even it does not exist, there is nothing but
quiet and peace. Thank God! . . ."



BOOK THREE



'57



CHAPTER XVII

ON OUR RIGHT FLANK commanded by Bagrati6n,
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 Bagrati6n
proposed to Dolgorukov to send to inquire of
the commander in chief. Bagrati6n 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.

Bagrati6n cast his large, expressionless, sleepy
eyes round his suite, and the boyish face of Ros-
tov, 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 Rost6v, with his hand to his cap.

"You can give the message to His Majesty,"
said Dolgorukov, hurriedly interrupting Ba-
grati6n.

On being relieved from picket duty Rost6v
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, pleas-
ant, and easy.

All his wishes were being fulfilled that morn-
ing: 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 Kutiizov,
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 happi-
ness. On receiving the order he gave his horse
the rein and galloped along the line. At first
he rode along the line of Bagrati6n'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 clear-
ly heard the sound of cannon and musketry
ahead of him. The firing grew louder and loud-
er.

In the fresh morning air were now heard,
not two or three musket shots at irregular in-
tervals as before, followed by one or two can-
non shots, but a roll of volleys of musketry
from the slopes of the hill before Pratzen, in-
terrupted by such frequent reports of cannon



that sometimes several of them were not sep-
arated from one another but merged into a
general roar.

He could see puffs of musketry smoke that
seemed to chase one another down the hill-
sides, 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.

Rost6v 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 mov-
ing about, and 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 ef-
fect 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 proceed-
ed 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 Rost6v.

After passing some Austrian troops he no-
ticed 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. Rost6v
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 caval-
ry in brilliant white uniforms, mounted on
black horses, trotting straight toward him and
across his path. Rostov 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. Rost6v 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



WAR AND PEACE



cavalry that was coming to meet them.

The Horse Guards were galloping, but still
holding in their horses. Rost6v could already
see their faces and heard the command:
"Charge! "shouted by an officer who was urging
his thoroughbred to full speed. Rost6v, 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 pock-
marked fellow, frowned angrily on seeing Ros-
t6v before him, with whom he would inevita-
bly collide. This Guardsman would certainly
have bowled Rost6v and his Bedouin over
(Rost6v felt himself quite tiny and weak com-
pared to these gigantic men and horses) had it
not occurred to Rost6v to flourish his whip be-
fore 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 Rost6v before he heard
them shout, "Hurrah!" and looking back saw
that their foremost ranks were mixed up with
some foreign cavalry with red epaulets, prob-
ably French. He could see nothing more, for
immediately afterwards cannon began firing
from somewhere and smoke enveloped every-
thing.

At that moment, as the Horse Guards, hav-
ing passed him, disappeared in the smoke, Ros-
t6v 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. Rost6v 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, ancUnaybe I shall see the Emperor imme-
diately!" thojught Rost6v 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 sol-
diers' 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.



"Rost6v!"

"What?" he answered, not recognizing Boris.

"I say, we've been in the front line! Our reg-
iment attacked!" said Boris with the happy
smile seen on the faces of young men who have
been under fire for the first time.

Rost6v stopped.

"Have you?" he said. "Well, how did it go?"

"We drove them back!" said Boris with an-
imation, 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 Austri-
ans, and all at once discovered from the cannon
balls discharged by those troops that they were
themselves in the front line and had unexpect-
edly to go into action. RostcW without hearing
Boris to the end spurred his horse.

"Where are you off to?" asked Boris.

"With a message to His Majesty."

"There he is!" said Boris, thinking Rost6v
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
Rost6v, and was about to spur his horse.

"Count! Count!" shouted Berg who ran up
from the other side as eager as Boris. "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 oui
family the von Bergs have been knights!"

He said something more, but Rost6v did
not wait to hear it and rode away.

Having passed the Guards and traversed an
empty space, Rostov, 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 sud-
denly he was seized by a panic of fear for him-
self 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 com-
mander in chief here, and if all is lost it is for
me to perish with the rest."



BOOK THREE



The foreboding of evil that had suddenly
come over Rost6v was more and more con-
firmed the farther he rode into the region be-
hind 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?" Rost6v kept ask-
ing as he came up to Russian and Austrian sol-
diers running in confused crowds across his
path.

"The devil knowsl They've killed everybody!
It's all up nowl" he was told in Russian, Ger-
man, 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!" l muttered a
German.

Several wounded men passed along the road,
and words of abuse, screams, and groans min-
gled in a general hubbub, then the firing died
down. Rost6v learned later that Russian and
Austrian soldiers had been firing at one anoth-
er.

"My God! What does it all mean?" thought
he. "And here, where at any moment the Em-
peror 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 en-
ter Rostov's head. Though he saw French can-
non 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

Rosx6v had been ordered to look for Kutuzov
and the Emperor near the village of Pratzen.
But neither they nor a single commanding of-
ficer were there, only disorganized crowds of
troops of various kinds. He urged on his al-
ready weary horse to get quickly past these
crowds, but the farther he went the more dis-
organized they were. The highroad on which
he had come out was thronged with caliches,
carriages of all sorts, and Russian and Austri-
an 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 Kutuzov?"

1 "Hang these Russians!"



Rost6v kept asking everyone he could stop
but got no answer from anyone.

At last seizing a soldier by his collar he forcec
him to answer.

"Eh, brother! They've all bolted long ago!'
said the soldier, laughing for some reason anc
shaking himself free.

Having left that soldier who was evidently
drunk, Rost6v stopped the horse of a batmar
or groom of some important personage and be
gan to question him. The man announcec
that the Tsar had been driven in a carriage ai
full speed about an hour before along thatver
road and that he was dangerously wounded.

"It can't be!" said Rost6v. "It must hav<
been someone else."

"I saw him myself," replied the man with ;
self-confident smile of derision. "I ought tc
know the Emperor by now, after the times I'v<
seen him in Petersburg. I saw him just as I se<
you. . . . There he sat in the carriage as pale a
any thing. How they made the four black horse
fly! Gracious me, they did rattle past! It's tim<
I knew the Imperial horses and Ilya Ivdnych.
don't think Ilya drives anyone except th<
Tsar!"

Rost6v let go of the horse and was about t<
ride on, when a wounded officer passing by ad
dressed him:

"Who is it you want?" he asked. "The com
mander in chief? He was killed by a cannoi
ball struck in the breast before our regiment. 1

"Not killed wounded!" another officer coi
reeled him.

"Who? Kutuzov?" asked Rost6v.

"Not Kutuzov, but what's his name well
never mind . . . there are not many left alive
Go that way, to that village, all the command
ers are there," said the officer, pointing to th<
village of Hosjeradek, and he walked on.

Rost6v rode on at a footpace not knowin]
why or to whom he was now going. The Em
peror was wounded, the battle lost. It was im
possible to doubt it now. Rost6v rode in th
direction pointed out to him, in which he sa\
turrets and a church. What need to hurry
What was he now to say to the Tsar or to Ku
tiizov, even if they were alive and un wounded

"Take this road, your honor, that way yoi
will be killed at oncel" a soldier shouted t<
him. "They'd kill you there!"

"Oh, what are you talking about?" said an
other. "Where is he to go? That way is nearer.

Rost6v considered, and then went in the di
rection where they said he would be killed.

"It's all the same now. If the Emperor i



i6o



WAR AND PEACE



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 flee-
ing from Pratzen. The French had not yet oc-
cupied that region, and the Russians the un-
injured and slightly woundedhad 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
Rost6v. He put his horse to a trot to avoid see-
ing 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 Rost6v'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 Rus-
sian 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 Rost6v asked
could tell him where the Emperor or Kuttizov
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 Tolst6y, who had ridden out to the bat-
tlefield with others in the Emperor's suite. One
officer told Rost6v that he had seen someone
from headquarters behind the village to the
left, and thither Rost6v 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 Rostov; the other on a beautiful chestnut
horse (which Rost6v fancied he had seen be-



fore) 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 Rost6v and involuntarily
riveted his attention, made a gesture of refusal
with his head and hand and by that gesture
Rost6v instantly recognized his lamented and
adored monarch.

"But it can't be he, alone in the midst of this
empty field 1" thought Rost6v. At that moment
Alexander turned his head and Rost6v 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. Rost6v was happy in the assurance
that the rumors about the Emperor being
wounded were false. He was happy to be see-
ing him. He knew that he might and even ought
to go straight to him and give the message Dol-
gorukov 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
Rost6v, now that he had attained what he had
longed for more than anything else in the
world, did not know how to approach the Em-
peror, and a thousand reasons occurred to him
why it would be inconvenient, unseemly, and
impossible to do so.

"What I It is as if I were glad of a chance to
take advantage of his being alone and de-
spondent! 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 innumer-
able 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,



BOOK THREE



161



certainly I must not approach him, I must not
intrude on his reflections. Better die a thou-
sand times than risk receiving an unkind look
or bad opinion from him," Rost6v decided;
and sorrowfully and with a heart full of despair
he rode away, continually looking back at the
Tsar, who still remained in the same attitude
of indecision.

While Rost6v was thus arguing with him-
self 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 feel-
ing unwell, sat down under an apple tree and
von Toll remained beside him. Rost6v from a
distance saw with envy and remorse how von
Toll spoke long and warmly to the Emperor
and how the Emperor, evidently weeping, cov-
ered his eyes with his hand and pressed von
Toll's hand.

"And I might have been in his place!"
thought Rostov, 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 be-
yond the ditch now. Only some carts and car-
riages were passing by. From one of the drivers
he learned that Kutuzov's staff were not far off,
in the village the vehicles were going to. Ros-
tov followed them. In front of him walked Ku-
tuzov'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-mind-
edly.

"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.

Przebyszlwski and his corps had laid down



their arms. Other columns after losing half
their men were retreating in disorderly con-
fused masses.

The remains of Langeron's andDokhtiirov's
mingled forces were crowding around thedams
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 nu-
merous batteries ranged on the slopes of the
Pratzen Heights, directed at our retreating
forces.

In the rearguard, Dokhtiirov and others ral-
lying 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 tositinhistasseled
cap peacefully angling, while his grandson,
with shirt sleeves rolled up, handled the floun-
dering 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 wag-
ons and the cannon, under the horses' hoofs
and between the wagon wheels, men disfigured
by fear of death now crowded together, crush-
ing one another, dying, stepping over the dy-
ing 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 com-
pressing the air around, or a shell burst in the
midst of that dense throng, killing some and
splashing with blood those near them.

D61okhov now an officer wounded in the
arm, and on foot, with the regimental com-
mander 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, an-
other fell in front and splashed D61okhov with
blood. The crowd, pushing forward desperate-
ly, squeezed together, moved a few steps, and
again stopped.

"Move on a hundred yards and we are cer-
tainly saved, remain here another two minutes
and it is certain death," thought each one.

D61okhov who was in the midst of the crowd



162



WAR AND PEACE



forced his way to the edge of the dam, throw-
ing 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 on-
ly 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 D61okhov. Sud-
denly 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 wa-
ter 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 An-
drew Bolk6nski bleeding profusely and un-
consciously uttering a gentle, piteous, and
childlike moan.

Toward evening he ceased moaning and be-
came quite still. He did not know how long



his unconsciousness lasted. Suddenly he again
felt that he was alive and suffering from a burn-
ing, 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 any-
thing, anything at all till now. But where am
I?"

He listened and heard the sound of approach-
ing 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 bat-
teries firing at the Augesd Dam and was look-
ing 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 fir-
ing 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 Bolk6nski.

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 in-
finite 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 col-
lected 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 re-
gain consciousness till late in the day, when
with other wounded and captured Russian of-
ficers 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 Em-
peror 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 samel They say this one is the com-
mander of all the Emperor Alexander's
Guards," said the first one, indicating a Rus-
sian officer in the white uniform of the Horse
Guards.

Bolk6nski 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 Repnfn.

"You are the commander of the Emperor
Alexander's regiment of Horse Guards?" asked
Napoleon.

"Icommandedasquadron," replied Repnin.

"Your regiment fulfilled its duty honorably,"
said Napoleon.

"The praise of a great commander is a sol-
dier's highest reward," said Repnin.

"I bestow it with pleasure," said Napoleon.



BOOK THREE 163

"And who is that young man beside you?"



Prince Repnfn named Lieutenant Sukht-
len.

After looking at him Napoleon smiled.

"He's very young to come to meddle with
us."

"Youth is no hindrance to courage," mut-
tered Sukhtlen 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 remem-
bered seeing him on the battlefield and, ad-
dressing 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 sol-
diers 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.

Every thing 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 great-
ness, the unimportance of life which no one
could understand, and the still greater unim-
portance of death, the meaning of which no
one alive could understand or explain.

The Emperor without waiting for an an-
swer 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, Lar-
rey, examine their wounds. Au revoir, Prince
Repnfnl" and he spurred his horse and gal-
loped away.

His face shone with self-satisfaction and
pleasure.

The soldiers who had carried Prince An-
drew 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.



164



WAR AND PEACE



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 in-
definable, incomprehensible, which I not only
cannot address but which I cannot even ex-
press in words the Great All or Nothing"
said he to himself, "or to that God who has



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 lit-
tle 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 morningall these dreams melted
and merged into the chaos and darkness of un-
consciousenss and oblivion, which in the opin-
ion of Napoleon's doctor, Larrey, was much



been sewn into this amulet by Mary I/There is more likely to end in death than in convales-



nothing certain, nothing at all except the un-
importance of everything I understand, and
the greatness of something incomprehensible
but all-importantj

The stretchers moved on. At every jolt he
again felt unendurable pain; his feverishness



cence.

"He is a nervous, bilious subject," said Lar-
rey, "and will not recover."

And Prince Andrew, with others fatally
wounded, was left to the care of the inhabit-
ants of the district.



Book Four: 1806



CHAPTER I

EARLY IN THE YEAR 1806 Nicholas Rost6v re-
turned home on leave. Denisov was going home
to Vor6nezh and Rost6v 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, Denfsov
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 Rost6v, who grew more and more im-
patient the nearer they got to Moscow.

"How much longer? How much longer? Oh,
these insufferable streets, shops, bakers' sign-
boards, street lamps, and sleighs!" thought
Rost6v, when their leave permits had been
passed at the town gate and they had entered
Moscow.

"Denfsov! We're here! He's asleep," he add-
ed, 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 gin-
gerbread! 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
Rost6v. "Of course, it's our house! Denisov,
Denfsov I We're almost there!"

Denfsov raised his head, coughed, and made
no answer.

"Dmftri," said Rostov 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 Rostdv, fingering his new
mustache. "Now then, get on," he shouted to



the driver. "Do wake up, Vdska!" he went on,
turning to Denfsov, whose head was again nod-
ding. "Come, get on! You shall have three ru-
bles for vodka get on!" Rost6v 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 Rost6v 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 regard-
less 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 sink-
ing 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. Prok6-
fy, 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 expres-
sion 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 Prok6fy, 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 Rost6v, 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!"

Rost6v, who had completely forgotten Denf-



165



i66



WAR AND PEACE



sov, 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, be-
fore he had reached the drawing room, some-
thing 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 Natdsha, and which Ptya. Every-
one 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 . . . K61ya, a dear fel-
low . . . How he has changed! . . . Where are
the candles? . . . Tea! . . ."

"And me, kiss me!"

"Dearest . . . and mel"

S6nya, Natdsha, Pdtya, Anna Mikhdylovna,
Ve*ra, 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.

Pe*tya, clinging to his legs, kept shouting,
"And me too!"

Natdsha, after she had pulled him down to-
ward her and covered his face with kisses, hold-
ing 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.

S6nya 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.
S6nya 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

Nicholas.



the cold braiding of his hussar's jacket. Denf*
sov, who had come into the room unnoticed by
anyone, stood there and wiped his eyes at the
sight.

"Vasili Denfsov, 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 ... Natdsha, Vera, look!
Here is Denfsovl"

The same happy, rapturous faces turned to
the shaggy figure of Denisov.

"Darling Denfsovl" screamed Natdsha, be-
side herself with rapture, springing to him,
putting her arms round him, and kissing him.
This escapade made everybody feel confused.
Denfsov blushed too, but smiled and, taking
Natdsha's hand, kissed it.

Denfsov was shown to the room prepared
for him, and the Rostovs 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 broth-
er and sisters struggled for the places nearest
to him and disputed with one another who
should bring him his tea, handkerchief, and
pipe.

Rost6v 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 mascu-
line odor and a smell of tobacco.

"Hallo, Gwfska my pipe!" came Vasili
Denfsov's husky voice. "Wost6v, get up!"

Rost6v, 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 Na-
tdsha's voice. A rustle of starched petticoats
and the whispering and laughter of girls' voices
came from the adjoining room. The door was



BOOK FOUR



167



opened a crack and there was a glimpse of
something blue, of ribbons, black hair, and
merry faces. It was Natasha, S6nya, and Pdtya,
who had come to see whether they were get-
ting up.

"Nicholas! Get up!" Natasha's voice was
again heard at the door.

"Directly!"

Meanwhile, Pe" tya, having found and seized
the sabers in the outer room, with the delight
boys feel at the sight of a military elder broth-
er, and forgetting that it was unbecoming for
the girls to see men undressed, opened the bed-
room door.

"Is this your saber?" he shouted.

The girls sprang aside. Denfsov hid his hairy
legs under the blanket, looking with a scared
face at his comrade for help. The door, having
let Ptya in, closed again. A sound of laughter
came from behind it.

"Nicholas! Come outinyourdressinggownl"
said Natasha's voice.

"Is this your saber?" asked Pe*tya. "Or is it
yours?" he said, addressing the black-mustached
Denisov with servile deference.

Rost6v hurriedly put something on his feet,
drew on his dressing gown, and went out. Na-
tasha had put on one spurred boot and was
just getting her foot into .the other. S6nya,
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. S6nya ran away, but Natdsha, 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 mat-
ters which could not interest anyone but them-
selves. Natasha 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.

Rost6v 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 S6nya run away?" asked Rost6v.

"Ah, yes! That's a whole long story! How
are you going to speak to her thou or you?"

"As may happen," said Rost6v.

"No, call her you, please! I'll tell you all
about it some other time. No, I'll tell you now.
You know S6nya's my dearest friend. Such a
friend that I burned my arm for hersake.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 school-
room, and looking into Natasha's wildly bright
eyes, Rostov 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."

Natiisha 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 Natasha, so seriously
and excitedly that it was evident that what she
was now saying she had talked of before, with
tears.

Rost6v became thoughtful.

"I never go back on my word," he said. "Be-
sides, S6nya is so charming that only a fool
would renounce such happiness."

"No, no!" cried Natasha, "she and I have al-
ready talked it over. We knew you'd s,ay 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."

Rost6v saw that it had been well considered
by them. S6nya had already struck him by her
beauty on the preceding day. Today, when he



i68



WAR AND PEACE



had caught a glimpse of her, she seemed still
more lovely. She was a charming girl of six-
teen, 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, Rost6v 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 Boris?" he
continued.

"Oh, what nonsense!" cried Natdsha, laugh-
ing. "I don't think about him or anyone else,
and I don't want anything of the kind."

"Dear me I Then what are you up to now?"

"Now?" repeated Natdsha, 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, Natdsha 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 tol I'll never marry any-
one, but will be a dancer. Only don't tell any-
one."

Rost6v laughed so loud and merrily that
Denisov, in his bedroom, felt envious and Na-
tdsha 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
Boris?"

Natdsha flared up. "I don't want to marry
anyone. And I'll tell him so when I see him!"

"Dear me!" said Rost6v.

"But that's all rubbish," Natdsha chattered
on. "And is Denfsov nice?" she asked.

"Yes, indeed!"

"Oh, well then, good-by: go and dress. Is he
very terrible, Denisov?"

"Why terrible?" asked Nicholas. "No, Vdska
is a splendid fellow."

"You call him Vdska? That's funny! And is
he very nice?"

"Very."

"Well then, be quick. We'll all have break-
fast together."



And Natdsha rose and went out of the room
on tiptoe, like a ballet dancer, but smiling as
only happy girls of fifteen can smile. When
Rost6v met S6nya in the drawing room, he red-
dened. He did not know how to behave with
her. The evening before, in the first happy mo-
ment of meeting, they had kissed each other,
but today they felt it could not be done; he felt
that everybody, including his mother and sis-
ters, was looking inquiringly at him and watch-
ing to see how he would behave with her. He
kissed her hand and addressed her not as thou
but as you Sdnya. But their eyes met and said
thou, and exchanged tender kisses. Her looks
asked him to forgive her for having dared, by
Natdsha's intermediacy, to remind him of his
promise, and then thanked him for his love.
His looks thanked her for offering him his free-
dom 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 Wra, selecting a
moment when all were silent, "that S6nya and
Nicholas now say you to one another and meet
like strangers."

V^ra's remark was correct, as her remarks al-
ways were, but, like most of her observations,
it made everyone feel uncomfortable, not only
S6nya, Nicholas, .and Natdsha, but even the
old countess, who dreading this love affair
which might hinder Nicholas from making a
brilliant match blushed like a girl.

Denfsov, to Rost6v's surprise, appeared in
the drawing room with pomaded hair, per-
fumed, and in a new uniform, looking just as
smart as he made himself when going into bat-
tle, and he was more amiable to the ladies and
gentlemen than Rost6v had ever expected to
see him.

CHAPTER II

ON HIS RETURN to Moscow from the army,
Nicholas Rost6v was welcomed by his home cir-
cle as the best of sons, a hero, and their darling
Nik61enka; by his relations as a charming, at-
tractive, and polite youngman; by his acquaint-
ances as a handsome lieutenant of hussars, a
good dancer, and one of the best matches in
the city.

The Rost6vs 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



BOOK FOUR



169



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 Gavrfl to pay a
sleigh driver, his kissing S6nya on the sly he
now recalled all this as childishness he had left
immeasurably behind. Now he was a lieuten-
ant 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 com-
pany of well-known, elderly, and respected rac-
ing 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 Arkhdrovs' ball, talked about
the war with Field Marshal Kdmenski, 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 feel ings 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 in-
carnate."

During Rost6v's short stay in Moscow, before
rejoining the army, he did not draw closer to
S6nya, but rather drifted away from her. She
was very pretty and sweet, and evidently deep-
ly 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 S6nya, 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 housethat was another
matter and quite the thing for a dashing
young hussarl



At the beginning of March, old Count
Rost6v was very busy arranging a dinner in
honorof Prince Bagrati6n 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 Feoktfst, 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 commit-
tee of the Club from the day it was founded. To
him the Club entrusted theaVrangement of the
festival in honor of Bagrati6n, 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 need-
ed 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 oth-
er management could they so easily extract a
good profit for themselves from a dinner cost-
ing several thousand rubles.

"Well then, mind and have cocks' combs in
the turtle soup, you know!"

"Shall we have three cold dishes then?" asked
the cook.

The count considered.

"We can't have lessyes, three . . . the may-
onnaise, 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? Dmftri! Eh, Dmitri 1 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 im-
portance, 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 mus-
tache, 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 con-
fused before his son, "Now, if you would only



170



WAR AND PEACE



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 Bagrati6n
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 ob-
servantly and sympathetically at the father and
son.

"What have the young people come to now-
adays, 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 Bezukhob's, and
tell him 'Count Ilyd has sent you to ask for
strawberries and fresh pineapples.' We can't
get them from anyone else. He's not there him-
self, so you'll have to go in and ask the prin-
cesses; and from there go on to the Rasgulyay
the coachman Ipdtka knows and look up
the gypsy Ilyushka, the one who danced at
Count Orl6v's, you remember, in a white Cos-
sack 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
MikMylovna entered the hall. Though she
came upon thecount 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 Bezuk-
hov'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 forward-
ed me a letter from Boris. Thank God, Boris
is now on the staff."

The count was delighted at Anna Mikhay-
lovna's taking upon herself one of his com-
missions and ordered the small closed carriage
for her.

"Tell Bezukhov to come. I'll put his name
down. Is bis wife with him?" he asked.



Anna Mikhdylovna 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 Bezukhovl 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 Rostov.

Anna Mikhdylovna sighed deeply.

"D61okhov, Mary Ivdnovna's son," she said
in a mysterious whisper, "has compromised her
completely, they say. Pierre took him up, in-
vited him to his house in Petersburg, and now
... she has come here and that daredevil after
her!" said Anna Mikhylovna, wishing to show
her sympathy for Pierre, but by involuntary
intonations and a half smile betraying her
sympathy for the "daredevil," as she called
Ddlokhov. "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 tre-
mendous banquet."

Next day, the third of March, soon after one
o'clock, two hundred and fifty members of the
English Cluband fifty guests were awaiting the
guest of honor and hero of the Austrian cam-
paign, Prince Bagrati6n, 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 in-
formed forgathered 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 Dolgortikov, Valiiev, Count Mdrkov, and
Prince Vyazemski did not show themselves at
the Club, but met in private houses in inti-
mate circles, and the Moscovites who took
their opinions from others Ilya Rost6v among
them remained for a while without any defi-
nite opinion on the subject of the war and
without leaders. The Moscovites felt that some-
thing was wrong and that to discuss the bad
news was difficult, and so it was best to be si-
lent. But after a while, just as a jury comes out
of its room, the bigwigs who guided the Club's



BOOK FOUR



171



opinion reappeared, and everybody began
speaking clearly and definitely. Reasons were
found for the incredible! unheard-of, and im-
possible 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 Przeby-
szwski and of the Frenchman Langeron, Ku-
tuzov'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 de-
clared, was extraordinary and had achieved
miracles of valor. The soldiers, officers, and gen-
erals were heroes. But the hero of heroes was
Prince Bagrati6n, distinguished by his Schon
Grabern affair and by the retreat from Auster-
litz, where he alone had withdrawn his col-
umn unbroken and had all day beaten back an
enemy force twice as numerous as his own.
What also conduced to Bagrati6n's being se-
lected as Moscow's hero was the fact that he
had no connections in the city and was a stran-
ger there. In his person, honor was shown to a
simple fighting Russian soldier without con-
nections and intrigues, and to one who was as-
sociated by memories of the Italian campaign
with the name of Suv6rov. Moreover, paying
such honor to Bagrati6n was the best way of
expressing disapproval and dislike of Kutiizov.

"Had there been no Bagrati6n, it would
have been necessary to invent him," said the
wit Shinshfn, parodying the words of Voltaire.
Kutiizov no one spoke of, except some who
abused him in whispers, calling him a court
weathercock and an old satyr.

All Moscow repeated Prince Dolgonikov's
saying: "If you go on modeling and model-
ing you must get smeared with clay," suggest-
ing consolation for our defeat by the memory
of former victories; and the words of Rostop-
chfn, 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 an-
ecdotes were heard of individual examples of
heroism shown by our officers and men at Aus-
terlitz. 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 Bolk6nski, noth-



ing was said, and only those who knew him in-
timately 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 conver-
sation, like the hum of beesswarming in spring-
time. 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 kaftdns. Pow-
dered footmen, in livery with buckled shoes
and smart stockings, stood at every door anx-
iously 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 ges-
tures and voices. This class of guests and mem-
bers 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 Denfsov, Rostov, and D6-
lokhov who was now again an officer in the
Semenov regiment. The faces of these young
people, especially those who were militarymen,
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."

Nesvf tski 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 subser-
vience 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 connec-
tions he belonged to the groups of old and hon-
ored 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 Rostopchfn, Valtiev, and Nary-
shkin. Rostopchfn was describing how the Rus-
sians had been overwhelmed by flying Austri-
ans and had had to force their way through
them with bayonets.

Valiiev was confidentially telling that Uvdrov



WAR AND PEACE



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 Suv6rov crowed like a cock in reply to
the nonsense talked by the Austrian generals.
Shinshfn, standing close by, tried to make a
joke, saying that Kutuzov had evidently failed
to learn from Suv6roveven 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 Kutuzov.

Count Ilyd Rost6v, hurried and preoccupied,
went about in his soft boots between the din-
ing 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 joyful-
ly at him. Young Rost6v stood at a window
with Dolokhov, whose acquaintance he had
lately made and highly valued. The old count
came up to them and pressed D61okhov's hand.

"Please come and visit us ... you know my
brave boy . . . been together out there . . . both
playing the hero . . . Ah, Vasfli Igndtovich . . .
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 shovelthe
guests who had been scattered about in differ-
ent rooms came together and crowded in the
large drawing room by the door of the ball-
room.

Bagrati6n appeared in the doorway of the
anteroom without hat or sword, which, in ac-
cord 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 shoul-
der, as when Rost6v 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. Evi-
dently just before coming to the dinner he had
had his hair and whiskers trimmed, which
changed his appearance for the worse. There
was something naively festive in his air, which,
in con junction with his firm and virile features,
gave him a rather comical expression. Bekle-
she*v and Theodore Uvdrov, who had arrived
with him, paused at the doorway to allow him,
as the guest of honor, to enter first. Bagrati6n



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 know-
ing what to do with his hands; he was more ac-
customed 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 de-
light at seeing such a highly honored guest,
took possession of him as it were, without wait-
ing for his reply, surrounded him, and led
him to the drawing room. It was at first impos-
sible to enter the drawing-room door for the
crowd of members and guests jostling one an-
other and trying to get a good look at Bagrati6n
over each other's shoulders, as if he were some
rare animal. Count Ilyd Rost6v, 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 re-
spected members of the Club, beset the new ar-
rivals. Count Ilya, again thrusting his way
through the crowd, went out of the drawing
room and reappeared a minute later with an-
other committeeman, carrying a large silver sal-
ver which hepresented to Prince Bagrati6n.On
the salver lay some verses composed and print-
ed in the hero's honor. Bagrati6n, on seeing the
salver,glanced around in dismay, as though seek-
ing help. But all eyes demanded that he should
submit. Feeling himself in their power, he res-
olutely took the salver with both hands and
looked sternly and reproachfully at the count
who had presented it to him. Someone oblig-
ingly took the dish from Bagrati6n (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!" Bagrati6n
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. Ba-
grati6n 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 f now, Bagratidn,

And dare not Herculean Russians trouble. . . .



BOOK FOUR

But before he had finished reading, a stentori-
an major-domo announced that dinner was
ready! The door opened, and from the din-
ing room came the resounding strains of the
polonaise:



173



Conquest's joyful thunder waken,
Triumph, valiant Russians, now! . . .

and Count Rost6v, glancing angrily at the au-
thor who went on reading his verses, bowed to
Bagrati6n. Everyone rose, feeling that dinner
was more important than verses, and Bagrati6n,
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 impor-
tant nearer to the honored guest, as naturally
as water flows deepest where the land lies low-
est.

Just before dinner, Count Ilya Rost6v pre-
sented his son to Bagrati6n, who recognized
him and said a few words to him, disjointed
and awkward, as were all the words he spoke
that day, and Count Ilya looked joyfully and
proudly around while Bagrati6n spoke to his
son.

Nicholas Rost6v, with Denisov and his new
acquaintance, D61okhov, sat almost at the mid-
dle of the table. Facing them sat Pierre, beside
Prince Nesvitski. Count Ilya Rost6v with the
other members of the committee sat facing Ba-
grati6n 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 splen-
did, yet he could not feel quite at ease till the
end of the meal. He winked at the butler, whis-
pered directions to the footmen, and awaited
each expected dish with some anxiety. Every-
thing was excellent. With the second course, a
gigantic sterlet (at sight of which Ilya Rost6v
blushed with self-conscious pleasure), the foot-
men began popping corks and filling the cham-
pagne glasses. After the fish, which made a cer-
tain 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 Em-
peror!" 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!" Bagrati6n also rose
and shouted "Hurrah!" in exactly the same
voice in which he had shouted it on the field
at Schon Grabern. Young Rost6v'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 Ivano-
vich Bagrati6nl" 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
Ivanovich Kutuzov:

Russians! O'er all barriers on!

Courage conquest guarantees;

Have we not Bagratidnf

He brings foemen to their knees, . . . etc.

As soon as the singing was over, another and
another toast was proposed and Count Ilyd
Rost6v became more and more moved, more
glass was smashed, and the shouting grew loud-
er. They drank to Bekleshev, Naryshkin, Uv-
rov, Dolgoriikov, Aprdksin, Valiiev, to thecom-
mittee, to all the Club members and to all the
Club guests, and finally to Count Ilya Rost6v
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 D61okhov and Nicholas
Rost6v. 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 D61okhov's



WAR AND PEACE



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 spec-
tacles, but that his wife's connection with D61-
okhov 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 D61okhov, who was sitting opposite him.
Every time he chanced to meet Drilokhov'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 D61okhov,
Pierre saw clearly that what was said in the let-
ter might be true, or might at least seem to be
true had it not referred to his wife. He invol-
untarily remembered how D61okhov, 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,
D6Iokhov had come straight to his house, and
Pierre had put him up and lent him money. Pi-
erre recalled how Hlne had smilingly ex-
pressed disapproval of D61okhov's living at
their house, and how cynically Dolokhov 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 rid-
icule 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 real-
ly 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 Dolokhov'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 chal-
lenged a man to a duel without any reason, or
shot a post-boy's horse with a pistol. That ex-
pression was often on D61okhov'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. D61okhov, Denisov, and Rost6vwere now
sitting opposite Pierre and seemed very gay.
Rost6v was talking merrily to his two friends,



one of whom was a dashing hussar and the oth-
er a notorious duelist and rake, and every now
and then he glanced ironically at Pierre, whose
preoccupied, absent-minded, and massive fig-
ure was a very noticeable one at the dinner.
Rost6v looked inimically at Pierre, first be-
cause 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-mind-
edness had not recognized Rostov 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 Rost6v, look-
ing at him in an ecstacyof 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 Rostov.

"Why, I didn't recognize you!" he said. But
Rost6v was otherwise engaged; he was shout-
ing "Hurrah!"

"Why don't you renew the acquaintance?"
said D61okhov to Rost6v.

"Confound him, he's a fool!" said Rost6v.

"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 red-
dened and turned away.

"Well, now to the health of handsome wom-
en!" said D61okhov, and with a serious expres-
sion, 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, Pe-
tcrkin and their lovers!" he added.

Pierre, with downcast eyes, drank out of his
glass without looking at D61okhov or answer-
ing him. The footman, who was distributing
leaflets with Kutuzov's cantata, laid one before
Pierre as one of the principal guests. He was
just going to take it when D61okhov, leaning
across, snatched it from his hand and began
reading it. Pierre looked at D61okhov and his
eyes dropped, the something terrible and mon-
strous 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, Nesvitski and the neighbor on his
right quickly turned in alarm to Bezukhov.

"Don't! Don't! What are you about?" whis-
pered their frightened voices.

D61okhov looked at Pierre with clear, mirth-



BOOK FOUR



ful, 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 for-
ever sundered from her. Despite Denisov's re-
quest that he would take no part in the matter,
Rost6v agreed to be Dolokhov's second, and
after dinner he discussed the arrangements for
the duel with Nesvitski, Beziikhov's second.
Pierre went home, but Rost6v with Dolokhov
and Denfsov stayed on at the Club till late,
listening to the gypsies and other singers.

"Well then, till tomorrow at Sok61niki,"said
D61okhov, as he took leave of Rostov in the
Club porch.

"And do you feel quite calm?" Rost6v asked.

D61okhov 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 af-
fectionate 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 Kostromd used to tell me. 'Every-
one 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" *

Next day, at eight in the morning, Pierre
and Nesvftski drove to the Sok61niki forest and
found D61okhov, Denfsov, and Rost6v 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
D61okhov, 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

1 Till tomorrow, my dear fellow.



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 load-
ed, Nesvitski 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 suffi-
cient 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 Nesvftski (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 Pi-
erre. "It'sall the same Is every thing 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 ask-
ing 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 D61o-
khov to Denfsov (who on his side had been at-
tempting 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, meas-
uring the paces, left tracks in the deep wet
snow between the place where they had been



176



WAR AND PEACE



standingand Nesvftski'sand D61okhov'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 D61okhov.

"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 an-
nounced: "As the adve'sawies have wefused a
weconciliation, please pwoceed.Take your pis-
tols, and at the word thwee begin to advance.

"O-ne! T-wol Thwee!" he shouted angrily
and stepped aside.

The combatants advanced along the trodden
tracks, nearer and nearer to one another, be-
ginning to see one another through the mist.
They had the right to fire when they liked as
they approached the barrier. D61okhov walked
slowly without raising his pistol, looking in-
tently 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 careful-
ly back, because he wished to support his right
hand with it and knew he must not do so. Hav-
ing advanced six paces and strayed off the track
into the snow, Pierre looked down at his feet,
then quickly glanced at D61okhov and, bend-
ing his finger as he had been shown, fired. Not
at all expecting so loud a report, Pierre shud-
dered 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 D6-
lokhov'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. Rost6v
ran toward him and said something.

"No-o-o!" muttered D61okhov 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 D61okhov, but could not at
first pronounce the word.

"Please," he uttered with an effort.

Pierre, hardly restraining his sobs, began
running toward D61okhov and was about to
cross the space between the barriers, when D6-
lokhov cried:

"To your barrier! "and Pierre, grasping what
was meant, stopped by his saber. Only ten paces
divided them. D61okhov 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 Nesvitski.

"Cover yourself!" even Denisov cried to his
adversary.

Pierre, with a gentle smile of pity and re-
morse, his arms and legs helplessly spread out,
stood with his broad chest directly facing D6-
lokhovand looked sorrowfully at him. Dcnfsov,
Rostov, and Nesvitski closed their eyes. At the
same instant they heard a report and Dolo-
khov's angry cry.

"Missed!" shouted Dolokhov, 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 re-
peated, puckering his face.

Nesvf tski stopped him and took him home.

Rost6v and Denisov drove away with the
wounded D61okhov.

The latter lay silent in the sleigh with closed
eyes and did not answer a word to the ques-
tions addressed to him. But on entering Mos-
cow he suddenly came to and, lifting his head
with an effort, took Rost6v, who was sitting be-
side him, by the hand. Rost6v was struck by the
totally altered and unexpectedly rapturous
and tender expression on Ddlokhov's face.

"Well? How do you feel?" he asked.

"Bad! But it's not that, my friend "said D61-
okhov 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. . . ."



BOOK FOUR



177



"Who?" asked Rost6v.

"My mother! My mother, my angel, my
adored angel mother," and D61okhov pressed
Rostov's hand and burst into tears.

When he had become a little quieter, he ex-
plained to Rost6v that he was living with his
mother, who, if she saw him dying, would not
survive it. He implored Rost6v to go on and
prepare her.

Rost6v went on ahead to do what was asked,
and to his great surprise learned that D61okhov
the brawler, D61okhov the bully, lived in Mos-
cow with an old mother and a hunchback sis-
ter, 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 Bezukhovhad 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 re-
main 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 D61okhov's handsome, insolent,
hard, and mocking face as he had seen it at the
banquet, and then that same face pale, quiver-
ing, 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 Vasili'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, humili-
ating, and shameful was the recollection of
how one day soon after his marriage he came



out of the bedroom into his study a little be-
fore noon in his silk dressing gown and found
his head steward there, who, bowing respect-
fully, looked into his face and at his dressing
gown and smiled slightly, as if expressing re-
spectful understanding of his employer's hap-
piness.

"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 consider-
ing 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 be-
come 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 her-
self 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 chil-
dren, and that she was not going to have any
children by me."

Then he recalled the coarseness and blunt-
ness of her thoughts and the vulgarity of the
expressions that were natural to her, though
she had been brought up in the most aristo-
cratic circles.

"I'm not such a fool. . . . Just you try it on.
. . . Allez-vous promener/' 1 she used to say.
Often seeing the success she had with young
and old men and women Pierre could not un-
derstand why he did not love her.

"Yes, I never loved her," said he to himself;
"I knew she was a depraved woman," he re-
peated, "but dared not admit it to myself. And
now there's D61okhov sitting in the snow with
a forced smile and perhaps dying, while meet-
ing my remorse with some forced bravado!"

Pierre was one of those people who, in spite
of an appearance of what is called weak char-
acter, do not seek a confidant in their troubles.
He digested his sufferings alone.

"It is all, all her fault," he said to himself;

1 "You clear out of this."



i 7 8



WAR AND PEACE



"but what of that? Why did I bind myself to
her? Why did I say 'Je vous aime' l 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.

"Louis XVI was executed because they said
he was dishonorable and a criminal," came in-
to Pierre's head, "and from their point of view
they were right, as were those too who canon-
ized 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 him-
self calmed by such reflections, she suddenly
came into his mind as she was at the moments
when he had most strongly expressed his in-
sincere 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, Molire's words:
"Mais que diable alloit-il faire dans cette ga-
leref" * occurred to him, and he began to laugh
at himself.

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 coro-
net) entered the room, calm and majestic, ex-
cept that there was a wrathful wrinkle on her

1 1 love you.

8 "What the dickens did he get himself into that
mess for?" or, more literally, "What the devil was
he going to do in that galley?" TR.



rather prominent marble brow. With her im-
perturbable 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... "Hellene
went on. "You believe everything you're told.
You were told . . ." Hdene laughed, "that D6-
lokhov was my lover," she said in French with
her coarse plainness of speech, uttering the
word amant as casually as any otherword, "and
you believed it! Well, what have you proved?
What does this duel prove? That you're a fool,
que vous lies 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." Helene 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, frown-
ing 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



BOOK FOUR



179



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 H61ne. "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.

Hlne's face became terrible, she shrieked
and sprang aside. His father's nature showed
itself in Pierre. He felt the fascination and de-
light 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 hor-
ror. God knows what he would have done at
that moment had H^lene 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 peo-
ple of the place and that he might now be ly-
ing, recovering or dying, alone among stran-
gers 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 engage-
ments 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 Kutiizov informing the
prince of the fate that had befallen his son.



"Your son," wrote Kutiizov, "fell before my
eyes, a standard in his hand and at the head of
a regiment he fell as a hero, worthy of his fa-
ther and his fatherland. To the great regret of
myself and of the whole army it is still uncer-
tain whether he is alive or not. I comfort my-
self and you with the hope that your son is
alive, for otherwise he would have been men-
tioned 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 us-
ual 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 some-
thing gave way within her. Her eyes grew dim.
By the expression of her father's face, not sad,
not crushed, but angry and working unnatural-
ly, 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! Kutuzov 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."



i8o



WAR AND PEACE



"Scoundrels! Blackguards 1" shrieked the old
man, turning his face away from her. "Destroy-
ing the army, destroying the men! And why?
Go, go and tell Lise."

The princess sank helplessly into an arm-
chair 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 de-
struction. Go, Princess Mary. Go and tell Lise.
I will follow."

When Princess Mary returned from her fa-
ther, the little princess sat working and looked
up with that curious expression of inner, hap-
py 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 smilingexpectantly, her downy
lip rose and remained lifted in childlike hap-
piness.

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 sis-
ter-in-law, and every time began to cry. Unob-
servant 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. Be-
fore dinner the old prince, of whom she was



always afraid, came into her room with a pe-
culiarly 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 preg-
nant 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, look-
ing firmly with her radiant eyes at her sister-in-
law.

She had determined not to tell her and per-
suaded 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 cher-
ish 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 al-
ways awaiting news of his return.

CHAPTER VIII

DEAREST," said the little princess after break-
fast on themorningof thenineteenthof 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 influ-
enced 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 fruschti-
que * as F6ka the cook calls it has disagreed
with me."

"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 Bogda-
novna be sent for?" said one of the maids who
was present. (Mary Bogddnovna was a mid-

1 Fruhstiick: breakfast.



BOOK FOUR



181



wife 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 inevit-
able pain showed itself.

"No, it's only indigestion! . . . Say it's only
indigestion, say so, Mary! Say . . ." And the lit-
tle 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 Bogda* novna.

"Mon T>ieu! 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 Bogddnovna, I think it's beginning!"
said Princess Mary looking at the midwifewith
wide-open eyes of alarm.

"Well, the Lord be thanked, Princess," said
Mary Bogdnovna, 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 accord-
ance 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 mo-
ment.)

"No matter, Princess, don't be alarmed,"said
Mary Bogdnovna. "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 menservants were carry-
ing the large leather sofa from Prince An-
drew's study into the bedroom. On their faces
was a quiet and solemn look.

Princess Mary sat alone in her room listen-
ing 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, Pra-
sk6vya Sdvishna, who hardly ever came to that



room as the old prince had forbidden it, ap-
peared on the threshold with a shawl round
her head.

"I've come to sit with you a bit, Mdsha," 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 knit-
ting. Princess Mary took a book and began
reading. Only when footsteps or voices were
heard did they look at one another, the prin-
cess anxious and inquiring, the nurse encour-
aging. Everyone in the house was dominated
by the same feeling that Princess Mary experi-
enced 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 be-
ing accomplished at that moment made itself
felt.

There was no laughter in the maids' large
hall. In the menservants' hall all sat waiting,
silently and alert. In the outlying serfs' quar-
ters torches and candles were burning and no
one slept. The old prince, stepping on his
heels, paced up and down his study and sent
Tikhon to ask Mary Bogddnovna 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 Bogddnovna, giving the messenger a
significant look.

Tfkhon went and told the prince.

"Very good!" said the prince closing the
door behind him, and Tikhon 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 per-
turbed 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 in-
creased. No one slept.



i8*



WAR AND PEACE



It was one of those March nights when win-
ter seems to wish to resume its sway and scat-
ters 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 Sdvishna, knitting in hand, was tell-
ing in low tones, scarcely hearing or under-
standing her own words, what she had told
hundreds of times before: how the late prin-
cess had given birth to Princess Mary in Kish-
enev 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 a-
gainst 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 can-
dle with its chill, snowy draft. Princess Mary
shuddered; her nurse, putting down the stock-
ing she was knitting, went to the window and
leaning out tried to catch the open casement.
The cold wind flapped the ends of her ker-
chief 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
bani&ter post stood a tallow candle which gut-
tered 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 Demydn
the house steward, who was downstairs.

Then the voice said something more, Dem-
ydn replied, and the steps in the felt boots ap-
proached 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 was covered with
snow, appeared on the landing where the foot-
man 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, Msha 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 An-
drew entered and paused facing her at the foot
of the sofa on which she was lying. Her glitter-
ing eyes, filled with childlike fear and excite-
ment, 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 hus-
band, 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 child-
like reproach.

"I expected help from you and I get none,
none from you either 1" said her eyes. She was
not surprised at his having come; she did not
realize that he had come. His coming had noth-
ing to do with her sufferings or with their re-



BOOK FOUR



lief. The pangs began again and Mary Bogdd-
novna 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 An-
drew. He covered his face with his hands and
remained so for some minutes. Piteous, help-
less, 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 terri-
fied 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 in-
fant.

"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 signif-
icance 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 be-
fore and, despite the fixed eyes and the pallor
of the cheeks, the same expression was on her
charming childlike face with its upper lip cov-
ered 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 Bog-
ddnovna'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 stand-
ing 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 wax-
en 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 thentheyoung
Prince Nicholas Andntevich 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, trem-
bling 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 cere-
mony. He looked up joyfully at the baby when
the nurse brought it to him and nodded ap-
proval when she told him that the wax with
the baby's hair had not sunk in the font but
had floated.

CHAPTER X

ROSTOV'S SHARE in D61okhov's duel with Be-
ziikhov 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 ad-
jutant 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. D61okhov recov-
ered, and Rost6v became very friendly with
him during his convalescence. D61okhov lay ill
at his mother's who loved him passionately and
tenderly, and old Mary Ivnovna, who had
grown fond of Rost6v for his friendship to her



184



WAR AND PEACE



Fdya, often talked to him about her son.

"Yes, Count," she would say, "he is too no-
ble 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 Beziikhov?
And Fdya, 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 therel Beziikhov got off scot-
free, while F6dya had to bear the whole bur-
Jen 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 father-
land out there as he. And now this duel!
Have these people no feeling, or honor? Know-
ing 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 Fdya not fighting
because he owed him money! What baseness!
What meanness! I know you understand Fe"d-
ya, 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!"

D61okhov himself during his convalescence
spoke to Rost6v 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 any-
one but those I love; but those I love, I love so
that I would give my life for them, and the oth-
ers 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 harm-
ful, especially the women. Yes, dear boy," he
continued, "I have met loving, noble, high-
minded men, but I have not yet met any wom-
encountesses or cooks who were not venal. I
have not yet met that divine purity and devo-
tion 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 Ros-
tov, who was under his new friend's influence.



In the autumn the Rost6vs returned to Mos-
cow. Early in the winter Denfsov also came
back and stayed with them. The first half of
the winter of 1806, which Nicholas Rost6v
spent in Moscow, was one of the happiest, mer-
riest times for him and the whole family. Nich-
olas brought many young men to his parents'
house. Ve'ra was a handsome girl of twenty;
Sdnya a girl of sixteen with all the charm of an
opening flower; Natdsha, half grown up and
half child, was now childishly amusing, now
girlishly enchanting.

At that time in the Rost6vs' house there pre-
vailed 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, smil-
ing 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 prat-
tle* of young girls ready for anything and full
of hope experienced the same feeling; shar-
ing with the young folk of the Rost6vs' house-
hold a readiness to fall in love and an expecta-
tion of happiness.

Among the young men introduced byRost6v
one of the first was D61okhov, whom everyone
in the house liked except Natdsha. She almost
quarreled with her brother about him. She in-
sisted that he was a bad man, and that in the
duel with Beziikhov, Pierre was right and D6-
lokhov wrong, and further that he was disa-
greeable 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 calcu-
lated, and I don't like that. But Denfsov . . ."

"Oh, Denfsov is quite different," replied
Nicholas, implying that even Denfsov was noth-
ing compared to D61okhov "you must under-
stand what a soul there is in D61okhov, you
should see him with his mother. Whata heart!"

"Well, I don't know about that, but I am
uncomfortable with him. And do you know he
has fallen in love with S6nya?"

"What nonsense. . . ."

"I'm certain of it; you'll see."

Natasha's prediction proved true. D61okhov,
who did not usually care for the society of la-
dies, 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 be-



cause of S6nya. And S6nya, though she would
never have dared to say so, knew it and blushed
scarlet every time D61okhov appeared.

D61okhov often dined at the Rost6vs', never
missed a performance at which they were pres-
ent, and went to logel's balls for young people
which the Rostovs always attended. He was
pointedly attentive to S6nya 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 Natasha 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.

Rost6v noticed something new in D61okhov's
relations with S6nya, but he did not explain to
himself what these new relations were. "They're
always in love with someone," he thought
of S6nya and Natdsha. But he was not as much
at ease with S6nya and D61okhov 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. Or-
ders were given to raise recruits, ten men in
every thousand for the regular army, and be-
sides this, nine men in every thousand for the
militia. Everywhere Bonaparte was anathema-
tized and in Moscow nothing but the coming
war was talked of. For the Rostov 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 Denfsov's furlough afterChrist-
mas 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
Denfsov were leaving to join their regiment
after Epiphany. About twenty people were
present, including D61okhov and Denfsov.

Never had love been so much in the air, and
never had the amorous atmosphere made itself
so strongly felt in the Rost6vs' house as at this
holiday time. "Seize the moments of happi-
ness, love and be lovedl 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.



BOOK FOUR 185

Nicholas, having as usual exhausted two



pairs of horses, without visiting all the places
he meant to go to and where he had been in-
vited, returned home just before dinner. As
soon as he entered he noticed and felt the ten-
sion of the amorous air in the house, and also
noticed a curious embarrassment among some
of those present. S6nya, D61okhov, and the old
countess were especially disturbed, and to a
lesser degree Natdsha. Nicholas understood that
something must have happened between S6n-
ya and Dolokhov 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 logel (the dancing master) gave for
his pupils durings the holidays.

"Nicholas, will you come to logel's? Please
dol" said Natdsha. "He asked you, and Vasfli
Dmftrich * is also going."

"Where would I not go at the countess' com-
mand!" said Denfsov, who at the Rostovs' had
jocularly assumed the role of Natdsha's knight.
"I'm even weady to dance the pas de chdle."

"If I have time," answered Nicholas. "But I
promised the Arkhdrovs; they have a party."

"And you?" he asked D61okhov, but as soon
as he had asked the question he noticed that it
should not have been put.

"Perhaps," coldly and angrily replied D6-
lokhov, glancing at S6nya, 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 conclu-
sion by the fact that D61okhov left immediate-
ly after dinner. He called Natdsha and asked
her what was the matter.

"And I was looking for you," said Natdsha
running out to him. "I told you, but you would
not believe it," she said triumphantly. "He has
proposed to S6nya!"

Little as Nicholas had occupied himself with
S6nya of late, something seemed to give way
within him at this news. D61okhov was a suit-
able 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 Sonya. . . . 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 Natdsha began
again.

1 Denfsov.



i86



WAR AND PEACE



"And fancy! she refused him quite definite-
ly!" adding, after a pause, "she told him she
loved another."

"Yes, my S6nya could not have done other-
wise!" 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 Natdsha. "Do you know, Nich-
olasdon't be angrybut 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 Nich-
olas. "But I must talk to her. What a darling
S6nya is!" he added with a smile.

"Ah, she is indeed a darling! I'll send her to
you."

And Natasha kissed her brother and ran
away.

A minute later S6nya came in with a fright-
ened, 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 advanta-
geous match but a splendid, noble fellow . . .
he is my friend ..."

S6nya interrupted him.

"I have already refused," she said hurriedly.

"If you are refusing for my sake, I am afraid
that I ..."

S6nya 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 S6nya, blush-
ing.

"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
Dolokhov'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 Mos-
cow. So said the mothers as they watched their
young people executing their newly learned
steps, and so said the youths and maidens them-
selves 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 Gor-
chak6v 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 logel, 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 them-
selves 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 Natasha, who was ex-
ceptionally graceful, was first, even danced the
pas de chdle, but at this last ball only the Jcos>
saise, the anglaise, and the mazurka, which was
just coming into fashion, were danced, logel
had taken a ballroom in Bezukhov's house, and
the ball, as everyone said, was a great success.
There were many pretty girls and the Rost6v
girls were among the prettiest. They were both
particularly happy and gay. That evening,
proud of D61okhov's proposal, her refusal, and
her explanation with Nicholas, S6nya twirled
about before she left home so that the maid
could hardly get her hair plaited, and she was
transparently radiant with impulsive joy.

Natdsha 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.

Natdsha fell in love the very moment she en-
tered the ballroom. She was not in love with
anyone in particular, but with everyone. What-
ever 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 S6nya.

Nicholas and Denisov were walking up and



BOOK FOUR



187



down, looking with kindly patronage at the
dancers.

"How sweet she is she will be a weal beau-
ty 1" saidDenisov.

"Who?"

"Countess Natasha," answered Denisov.

"And how she dances! What gwace!" he said
again after a pause.

"Who are you talking about?"

"About your sister," ejaculated Denisov tes-
tily.

Rost6v smiled.

"My dear count, you were one of my best pu-
pils you must dance," said little logel coming
up to Nicholas. "Look how many charming
young ladies" He turned with the same re-
quest 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 logel, hastening to reassure
him. "You were only inattentive, but you had
talentoh yes, you had talent!"

The band struck up the newly introduced
mazurka. Nicholas could not refuse logel and
asked S6nya to dance. Denfsov sat down by the
old ladies and, leaning on his saber and beat-
ing time with his foot, told them something
funny and kept them amused, while he watched
the young people dancing, logel with Natdsha,
his pride and his best pupil, were the first cou-
ple. Noiselessly, skillfully stepping with his lit-
tle feet in low shoes, logel flew first across the
hall with Natasha, who, though shy, went on
carefully executing her steps. Denfsov 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 Rost6v 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
Natasha:

"Go and choose Denfsov. He is a real dancer,
a wonder!" he said.

When it came to Natdsha's turn to choose a
partner, she rose and, tripping rapidly across
in her little shoes trimmed with bows, ran tim-
idly to the corner where Denfsov sat. She saw
that everybody was looking at her and waiting.



Nicholas saw that Denfsov was refusing though
he smiled delightedly. He ran up to them.

"Please, Vasfli Dmftrich," Natdsha was say-
ing, "do come!"

"Oh no, let me off, Countess," Denfsov re-
plied.

"Now then, Vdska," said Nicholas.

"They coax me as if I were Vdska the cat!"
said Denfsov jokingly.

"I'll sing for you a whole evening," said Na-
tdsha.

"Oh, the faiwy! She can do anything with
me!" said Denfsov, 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
Denfsov'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. Natdsha
guessed what he meant to do, and abandoning
herself to him followed his lead hardly know-
ing 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 draw-
ing 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, Natasha
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 logel did not acknowledge this to
be the real mazurka, everyone was delighted
with Denfsov's skill, he was asked again and
again as a partner, and the old men began smil-
ingly to talk about Poland and the good old
days. Denfsov, flushed after the mazurka and
mopping himself with his handkerchief, sat



i88



WAR AND PEACE



down by Natdsha and did not leave her for the
rest of the evening.

CHAPTER XIII

FOR TWO DAYS after that Rost6v did not see
D61okhov at his own or at D61okhov'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 friendscome to the English Hotel.

About ten o'clock Rost6v 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 D61okhov
had taken for that evening. Some twenty men
were gathered round a table at which D61ok-
hov sat between two candles. On the table was
a pile of gold and paper money, and he was
keeping the bank. Rost6v had not seen him
since his proposal and S6nya's refusal and felt
uncomfortable at the thought of how they
would meet.

D61okhov's clear, cold glance met Rost6v 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 Ilyiishka will come with his chorus."

"I called once or twice at your house," said
Rost6v, reddening.

D61okhov made no reply.

"You may punt," he said.

Rost6v recalled at that moment a strange
conversation he had once had with D61okhov.
"None but fools trust to luck in play," D61ok-
hov had then said.

"Or are you afraid to play with me?" D61ok-
hov now asked as if guessing Rost6v's thought.

Beneath his smile Rostov 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.

Rost6v felt ill at ease. He tried, but failed,
to find some joke with which to reply to D61ok-
hov's words. But before he had thought of any-
thing, D61okhov, 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?" Rostov
asked himself.



"Well, you'd better not play," D61okhov
added, and springing a new pack of cards said:
"Bank, gentlemen!"

Moving the money forward he prepared to
deal. Rost6v sat down by hi side and at first
did not play. D61okhov 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."

Rost6v staked five rubles on a card and lost,
staked again, and again lost. D61okhov "killed,"
that is, beat, ten cards of Rost6v's running.

"Gentlemen," said Dolokhov after he had
dealt for some time. "Please place your money
on the cards or I may get muddled in the reck-
oning."

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 D61okhov.
"Don't stint yourself, we'll settle afterwards,"
he added, turning to Rost6v.

The game continued; a waiter kept handing
round champagne.

All Rost6v'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 Dolokhov, though he did
not seem to be even looking at Rostov, "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.

Rost6v 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 after-
wards. He laid down the seven of hearts, on
which with a broken bit of chalk he had writ-
ten "800 rubles" in clear upright figures; he
emptied the glass of warm champagne that was
handed him, smiled at D61okhov's words, and
with a sinking heart, waiting for a seven to
turn up, gazed at D61okhov's hands which held
the pack. Much depended on Rost6v's win-
ning or losing on that seven of hearts. On the
previous Sunday the old count had given his
son two thousand rubles, and though he al-
ways disliked speaking of money difficulties
had told Nicholas that this was all he could let



BOOK

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 neces-
sity of going back on his word. With a sinking
heart he watched D61okhov'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 Denfsov, Natdsha, and
S6nya, and will certainly never touch a card
again." At that moment his home life, jokes
with Ptya, talks with S6nya, duets with Natd-
sha, piquet with his father, and even his com-
fortable bed in the house on the Povarskaya
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
D61okhov'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?" re-
peated D61okhov, 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 ru-
mor going about Moscow that I'm a sharper,
so I advise you to be careful."

"Come now, deal I" exclaimed Rost6v.

"Oh, those Moscow gossips!" said D61okhov,
and he took up the cards with a smile.

"Aah!" Rost6v almost screamed lifting both
hands to his head. The seven he needed was ly-
ing uppermost, the first card in the pack. He
had lost more than he could pay.

"Still, don't ruin yourself 1" said D61okhov
with a side glance at Rost6v 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 interestwas concentrated on Ros-
t6v. Instead of sixteen hundred rubles he had
a long column of figures scored against him,



FOUR 189

which he had reckoned up to ten thousand,
but that now, as he vaguely supposed, must
have risen to fifteen thousand. In reality it al-
ready exceeded twenty thousand rubles. D6-
lokhov was no longer listening to stories or
telling them, but followed every movement of
Rostov's hands and occasionally ran his eyes
over the score against him. He had decided to
play until that score reached forty-three thou-
sand. He had fixed on that number because
forty-three was the sum of his and S6nya's joint
ages. Rost6v, 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 I . . . The knave, double
or quits ... it can't bel . . . And why is he doing
this to me?" Rostov pondered. Sometimes he
staked a large sum, but Drilokhov 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 crum-
pled 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 D61okhov 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 1
came to this table with the thought of winning
a hundred rubles to buy that casket for Mam-
ma's name day and then going home. I was so
happy, so free, so lightheartedl 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 hap-



igo



WAR AND PEACE



pen 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 noth-
ing!"

He was flushed and bathed in perspiration,
though the room was not hot. His face was ter-
rible and piteous to see, especially from its
helpless efforts to seem calm.

The score against him reached the fateful
sum of forty-three thousand. Rost6v 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 D61okhov,
slamming down the pack of cards, put it aside
and began rapidly adding up the total of Ros-
t6v'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 some-
thing in their gypsy accents. Nicholas under-
stood that it was all over; but he said in an in-
different 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 brainthat's all that's left
me!" And at the same time he said in a cheer-
ful voice:

"Come now, just this one more little card!"

"All right!" said D61okhov, 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. Rost6v 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."

D61okhov began to deal seriously. Oh, how
Rost6v 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
D61okhov, and stretching himself he rose from
the table. "One does get tired sitting so long,"
he added.

"Yes, I'm tired too," said Rost6v.

D61okhov cut him short, as if to remind him
that it was not for him to jest.



"When am I to receive the money, Count?"

Rost6v, flushing, drew D61okhov into the
next room.

"I cannot pay it all immediately. Will you
take an I.O.U.?" he said.

"I say, Rost6v," said D61okhov clearly, smil-
ing 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 Rost6v. 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 Dolokhov 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 . . ." D61okhov started to say,
but Nicholas interrupted him.

"My cousin has nothing to do with this and
it's not necessary to mention her!" he ex-
claimed fiercely.

"Then when am I to have it?"

"Tomorrow," replied Rost6v 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, con-
fess 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 Rost6v household that
winter and, now after D61okhov's proposal and
logel's ball, seemed to have grown thicker
round S6nya and Natdsha as the air does be-
fore a thunderstorm. S6nya and Natasha, 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. Vera was playing chess with Shinshin
in the drawing room. The old countess, wait-
ing for the return of her husband and son, sat
playing patience with the old gentlewoman
who lived in their house. Denfsov, with spar-
kling 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



BOOK FOUR



verses called "Enchantress," which he had com-
posed, 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 Natdsha.

"Splendid! Excellent!" exclaimed Natdsha.
"Another verse," she said, without noticing
Nicholas.

"Everything's still the same with them,"
thought Nicholas, glancing into the drawing
room, where he saw Vra and his mother with
the old lady.

"Ah, and here's Nicholas!" cried Natdsha,
running up to him.

"Is Papa at home?" he asked.

"I am so glad you've come!" said Natdsha,
without answering him. "We are en joying our-
selves! Vasfli Dmftrich is staying a day longer
for my sake! Did you know?"

"No, Papa is not back yet," said S6nya.

"Nicholas, have you come? Come here,
dear!" called the old countess from the draw-
ing 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 Natdsha to
sing.

"All wight! All wight!" shouted Denfsov.
"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.

S6nya was sitting at the clavichord, playing
the prelude to Denfsov's favorite barcarolle.
Natdsha was preparing to sing. Denfsov 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 I " thought he.



S6nya 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 all one let them sing!"

He continued to pace the room, looking
gloomily at Denfsov and the girls and avoiding
their eyes.

"Nik61enka, what is the matter?" S6nya's
eyes fixed on him seemed to ask. She noticed at
once that something had happened to him.

Nicholas turned away from her. Natdsha too,
with her quick instinct, had instantly noticed
her brother's condition. But, though she no-
ticed it, she was herself in such high spirits at
that moment, so far from sorrow, sadness, or
self-reproach, that she purposely deceived her-
self as young people of ten do." No, I am too hap-
py now to spoil my enjoyment by sympathy with
anyone's sorrow," she felt, and she said to her-
self: "No, I must be mistaken, he must be feel-
ing happy, just as I am."

"Now, Sonya!" 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, Natdsha,
rising energetically from her heels to her toes,
stepped to the middle of the room and stood
still.

"Yes, that's me!"sheseemed to say, answering
the rapt gaze with which Denfsov followed her.

"And what is she so pleased about?" thought
Nicholas, looking at his sister. "Why isn't she
dull and ashamed?"

Natdsha took the first note, her throat
swelled, her chest rose, her eyes became serious.
At that moment she was oblivious of her sur-
roundings, 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 thou-
sand and first time thrill you and make you
weep.

Natdsha, that winter, had for the first time
begun to sing seriously, mainly because Den-
fsov so delighted in her singing. She no longer
sang as a child, there was no longer in her sing-
ing 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 gener-
ally said this some time after she had finished
singing. While that untrained voice, with its
incorrect breathing and labored transitions,



WAR AND PEACE



was sounding, even the connoisseurs said noth-
ing, but only delighted in it and wished to hear
it again. In her voice there was a virginal
freshness, an unconsciousness of her own pow-
ers, and an as yet untrained velvety softness,
which so mingled with her lack of art in sing-
ing 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 1"
And suddenly the whole world centered for
him on anticipation of the next note, the next
phrase, and everything in the world was di-
vided into three beats: "Oh mio crudelc affet-
to" . . . 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 D61okhov, and anger, and honor
it's all nonsense . . . but this is real. . . . Now
then, Natdsha, 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 Rostov's soul!
And this something was apart from everything
else in the world and above everything in the
world. "What were losses, and D61okhov, and
words of honor? . . . All nonsense! One might
kill and rob and yet be happy "

CHAPTER XVI

IT WAS LONG since Rost6v had felt such enjoy-
ment from music as he did that day. But no
sooner had Natdsha 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 fa-



ther 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 spe-
cially 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 Nicho-
las.

"Well! . . ."said the old count, spreading out
his arms and sinking helplessly on the sofa.

"It can't behelped! It happens toeveryone!"
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 fa-
ther'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 every-
body! 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 ex-
planation, the mother and daughter were hav-
ing one not less important. Natdsha came run-
ning to her mother, quite excited. ,

"Mamma! . . . Mamma! . . . He has made
me . . ."

"Made what?"

"Made, made me an offer, Mamma! Mam-
ma!" she exclaimed.

The countess did not believe her ears. Den-
isov had proposed. To whom? To this chit of a
girl, Natasha, who not so long ago was playing
with dolls and who was still having lessons.

"Don't, Natdsha! What nonsense!" she said,
hoping it was a joke.

"Nonsense, indeed! lamtellingyou the fact,"



BOOK

said Natasha 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 Denfsov has made
you a proposal, tell him he is a fool, that's all I"

"No, he's not a fool!" replied Natasha indig-
nantly and seriously.

"Well then, what do you want? You're all in
love nowadays. Well, if you are in love, mar-
ry him!" said the countess, with a laugh of an-
noyance. "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 smil-
ing.

"No, I will do it myself, only tell me what to
say. It's all very well for you," said Natdsha,
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, indig-
nant that they should have dared to treat this
little Natdsha as grown up.

"No, not on any account! I will tell him my-
self, and you'll listen at the door," and Natasha
ran across the drawing room to the dancing
hall, where Denfsov 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."

"Vasfli Dmitrich, 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."



FOUR 193

Denlsov bent over her hand and she heard
strange sounds she did not understand. She
kissed his rough curly black head. At this in-
stant, they heard the quick rustle of the count-
ess' dress. She came up to them.

"Vasfli Dmitrich, I thankyou for the honor,"
she said, with an embarrassed voice, though it
sounded severe to Denlsov "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 Denfsov, with downcast
eyes and a guilty face. He tried to say more, but
faltered.

Natasha could not remain calm, seeing him
in such a plight. She began to sob aloud.

"Countess, I have done w'ong," Denfsov
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 kiss-
ing her hand, he left the room with quick reso-
lute strides, without looking at Natasha.

Next day Rost6vsaw Denfsov off. He did not
wish to stay another day in Moscow. All Denf-
sov's Moscow friends gave him a farewell en-
tertainment 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 Denfsov's departure, Rost6v spent an-
other 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.

S6nya 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 D61okhov the
whole forty-three thousand rubles and received
his receipt, he left at the end of November,
without taking leave of any of his acquaint-
ances, to overtake his regiment which was al-
ready in Poland.



Book Five: 1806-07



CHAPTER I

AFTER HIS INTERVIEW with his wife Pierre left
for Petersburg. At the Torzh6k 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 se-
cured accommodation at this station, but com-
pared to the thoughts that now occupied him
it was a matter of indifference whether he re-
mained there for a few hours or for the rest of
his life.

The postmaster, his wife, the valet, and a
peasant woman selling Torzh6k 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 Sok61niki 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 thescrew
could not get in or out, but went on turning
uselessly in the same place.

The postmaster came in and began obse-
quiously 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 Dolokhov 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 ques-
tions, 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 Torzh6k 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 her happiness or peaceof 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 virtu-



'94



BOOK FIVE



195



>us struggles of a certain Emilie de Mansfeld.
'And why did she resist her seducer when she
ioved 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
itruggle, 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
->f human wisdom."

Everything within and around him seemed
:on fused, 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
\ little for this gentleman," said the postmaster,
entering the room followed by another travel-
er, also detained for lack of horses.

The newcomer was a short, large-boned, yel-
low-faced, wrinkled old man, with gray bushy
eyebrows overhanging bright eyes of an indefi-
nite 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 newcom-
er, 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 keep-
ing 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 Beziikhov.
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 pro-
found and calm meditation. His servant was
also a yellow, wrinkled old man, without beard
or mustache, evidently not because he was shav-
en but because they had never grown. This ac-
tive 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 un-
easiness, and the need, even the inevitability, of
entering into conversation with this stranger.



The servant brought back his tumbler turned
upside down, 1 with an unfinished bit of nib-
bled sugar, and asked if anything more would
be wanted.

"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 ir-
resistibly.

CHAPTER II

"I HAVE THE PLEASURE of addressing Count Be-
ziikhov, if I am not mistaken," said the stran-
ger 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 trav-
eling 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 any reason you don't feel inclined

1 To indicate he did not want more tea.



ig6



WAR AND PEACE



to talk to me," said the old man, "say so, my
dear sir." And he suddenly smiled, in an un-
expected 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 skulla Masonic sign.

"Allow me to ask," he said, "are you a Ma-
son?"

"Yes, I belong to the Brotherhood of the
Freemasons," said the stranger, looking deep-
er 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 wa-
vering 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 knowyour 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 him-
self. Only by laying stone on stone with the co-
operation 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, regret-
fully 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 un-
happy."



"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 ex-
ulting 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? Why didst
thou, and why did the whole world, conceive
the idea of the existence of such an incompre-
hensible 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 ex-
citement 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 insig-
nificant mortal, show His omnipotence, His in-
finity, 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 under-
stand 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 under-
stand 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 weak-
ness and His greatness. . . ."

Pierre listened with swelling heart, gazing
into the Mason's face with shining eyes, not
interrupting or questioning him, but believ-



ing with his whole soul what the stranger said.
Whether he accepted the wise reasoning con-
tained in the Mason's words, or believed as a
child believes, in the speaker's tone of convic-
tion and earnestness, or the tremor of the speak-
er's voicewhich sometimes almost broke or
those brilliant aged eyes grown old in this con-
viction, or the calm firmness and certainty of
his vocation, which radiated from his whole be-
ing (and which struck Pierre especially by con-
trast 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 under-
stand," 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 in-
ner 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 rea-
son alone, not on those worldly sciences of phys-
ics, 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 sci-
ence explaining the whole creation and man's
place in it. To receive that science it is neces-
sary to purify and renew one's inner self, and
so before one can know, it is necessary to be-
lieve 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 con-
tent with thyself. What -hast thou attained re-
lying 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?"



BOOK FIVE 197

"No, I hate my life," Pierre muttered, winc-



ing.

"Thou hatest it. Then change it, purify thy-
self; 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 de-
bauchery, receiving everything from society
and giving nothing in return. You have be-
come the possessor of wealth. How have you
used it? What have you done for your neigh-
bor? 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 neigh-
bor? No! You have spent your life in idleness.
Then you married, my dear sirtook on your-
self 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 de-
ceit 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 utter-
ing 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," an-
swered the servant. "Will you not rest here?"

"No, tell them to harness."

"Can he really be going away and 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 con-
temptible 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 fas-
tening his coat. When he had finished, he turned
to Bezukhov, and said in a tone of indifferent
politeness:



198



WAR AND PEACE



"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 turn-
ed 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). "Al-
low 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 add-
ed, seeing that his servant had entered ". . . and
success."

The traveler was Joseph Alextfevich Bazd-
ev, as Pierre saw from the postmaster's book.
Bazde*ev had been one of the best-known Free-
masons and Martinists,even in Novfkov'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, irre-
proachable, virtuous future that seemed to him
so easy. It seemed to him that he had been vi-
cious 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 an-
other 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 possibil-
ity of attaining perfection, and in the possibil-
ity of active brotherly love among men, which
Joseph Alex^evich 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 eve-
ning in the official and ceremonious manner
in which D61okhov'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 Brother-
hood has made application for you to be re-
ceived 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.

"Onemore question, Count," hesaid, "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 be-
lieve 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 en-
tered 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 some-
thing 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



BOOK FIVE



199



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 re-
solved to join our Brotherhood." (Pierre nod-
ded 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 shoul-
ders 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 Alex-
evich. Loud knocks were heard at the door. Pi-
erre took the bandage off his eyes and glanced
around him. The room was in black darkness,
only a small lamp was burning inside some-
thing 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 hu-
man 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, associat-
ing 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, en-
lightenment?"

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 in-
to the Brotherhood was known). Drawing near-
er, 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 in-
structor. For a long time he could not utter a
word, so that the Rhetor had to repeat his ques-
tion.

"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, apparent-
ly satisfied with this answer. "Have you sought
for means of attaining your aim in religion?"



2OO

"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 pres-
ervation and handing on to posterity of a cer-
tain 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 mys-
tery is of such a nature that nobody can know
or use it unless he be prepared by long and dil-
igent self-purification, not everyone can hope
to attain itquickly. Hencewe 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 purifyingand regeneratingour 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 theevil 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 edify-
ing exhortation to them. He imagined to him-
self vicious and unfortunate people whom he
would assist by word and deed, imagined op-
pressors whose victims he would rescue. Of the
three objects mentioned by the Rhetor, this
last, that of improving mankind, especially ap-
pealed to Pierre. The important mystery men-
tioned by the Rhetor, though it aroused his cu-
riosity, 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



WAR AND PEACE



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, corre-
sponding to the seven steps of Solomon's tem-
ple, which every Freemason should cultivate in
himself. These virtues were: i. Discretion, the
keeping of the secrets of the Order. 2. Obedi-
ence 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, leav-
ing 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 open-
ing 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 es-
pecially 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 sub-
mit 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 sub-
mit 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 chamberwith what yousee 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 possess-
es 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



BOOK FIVE



his ordeal was about to begin.

"If you are resolved, I must begin your ini-
tiation/ 1 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 neces-
sary 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 lat-
ter.

"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? Irri-
tability? 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 him-



201

self that refreshing source of blessedness which
now flooded his heart with glad emotion.

CHAPTER IV

SOON AFTER THIS there came into the dark cham-
ber 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 timid-
ly in one slippered and one booted foot, he ad-
vanced, while Willarski held a sword to his
bare chest. He was conducted from that room
along passages that turned backwards and for-
wards 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 blindfold) questioned him as to who he
was, when and where he was born, and so on.
Then he was again led somewhere still blind-
fold, and as they went along he was told alle-
gories of the toils of his pilgrimage, of holy
friendship, of the Eternal Architect of the uni-
verse, and of the courage with which he should
endure toils and dangers. During these wander-
ings, 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 con-
ductors. He heard those around him disput-
ing 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 com-
passes 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 blindfold-
ed again.
"Now thou hast seen the lesser light," ut-



202

tered 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 mun-
di."

Pierre gradually began to recover himself
and looked about at the room and at the peo-
ple 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 abb whom
Pierre had met at Anna Pavlovna's two years
before. There were also present a very distin-
guished dignitary and a Swiss who had former-
ly been tutor at the Kuragins'. 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 var-
ious 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 sud-
denly 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, re-
membered 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, prostrat-
ed 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



WAR AND PEACE



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 em-
barrassed. Pierre himself grew still more con-
fused, 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 breth-
ren, who led Pierre up to the rug and began
reading to him from a manuscript book an ex-
planation 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 dis-
tinctions," 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 broth-
er. 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 ac-
quaintances that met him on all sides. He ac-
knowledged no acquaintances but saw in all



BOOK FIVE



203



these men only brothers, and burned with im-
patience 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 neces-
sity of humility.

The Grand Master proposed that the last du-
ty 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.

CHAPTERV

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 Vasili suddenly entered the room.

"My dear fellow, what have you been up to
in Moscow? Why have you quarreled with
Hlne, mon cherf You are under a delusion,"
said Prince Vasili, as he entered. "I know all
about it, and I can tell you positively that He*-
lene is as innocent before you as Christ was be-
fore the Jews."

Pierre was about to reply, but Prince Vasili
interrupted him.

"And why didn't you simply come straight to
me as to a friend? I know all about it and un-
derstand it all," he said. "You behaved as be-
comes a man who values his honor, perhaps too
hastily, but we won't go into that. But consid-
er 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 down-



wards, "it is simply a misunderstanding. I ex-
pect 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 Vasili gave Pierre a significant look.

"I know from reliable sources that the Dow-
ager Empress is taking a keen interest in the
whole affair. You know she is very gracious to



Pierre tried several times to speak, but, on
one hand, Prince Vasfli did not let him and, on
the other, Pierre himself feared to begin to
speak in the tone of decided refusal and dis-
agreement in which he had firmly resolved to
answer his father-in-law. Moreover, the words
of the Masonic statutes, "be kindly and courte-
ous," recurred to him. He blinked, went red,
got up and sat down again, struggling with
himself to do what was for him the most diffi-
cult thing in lifeto 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 Vasili'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 wheth-
er he would follow the same old road, or that
new path so attractively shown him by the Ma-
sons, on which he firmly believed he would be
reborn to a new life.

"Now, dear boy," said Prince Vasili playful-
ly, "say 'yes,' and I'll write to her myself, and
we will kill the fatted calf."

But before Prince Vasili 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
gol" And he jumped up and opened the door
for him.

"Gol" he repeated, amazed at himself and
glad to see the look of confusion and fear that
showed itself on Prince Vasili's face.

"What's the matter with you? Are you ill?"

"Gol" the quivering voice repeated. And
Prince Vasili 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 let-
ters to the Kiev and Odessa Masons and prom-
ised to write to him and guide him in his new
activity.



204



WAR AND PEACE



CHAPTER VI

THE DUEL between Pierre and D61okhov was
hushed up and, in spite of the Emperor's se-
verity 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 patroniz-
ing 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 himespecially as he did
not know how, and did not wish, to court so-
ciety'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 de-
parture Hlene 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 Hlene assumed a dig-
nified expression, which with characteristic
tact she had acquired though she did not un-
derstand its significance. This expression sug-
gested that she had resolved to endure her
troubles uncomplainingly and that her hus-
band was a cross laid upon her by God. Prince
Vasfli expressed his opinion more openly. He
shrugged his shoulders when Pierre was men-
tioned and, pointing to his forehead, remarked:
"A bit touched I always said so."
"I said from the first," declared Anna Pav-
lovna 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 re-
turned from abroad, and when, if you remem-
ber, 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 Pavlovna continued to give on free eve-
nings 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 so-
ciety, the bloom of the intellectual essence of
Petersburg," as she herself put it. Besides this
refined selection of society Anna Pdvlovna's
receptions were also distinguished by the fact
that she always presented some new and inter-
esting person to the visitors and that nowhere



else was the state of the political thermometer
of legitimate Petersburg court society so clear-
ly and distinctly indicated.

Toward the end of 1806, when all the sad
details of Napoleon's destruction of the Prus-
sian army at Jena and Auerstadt and the sur-
render of most of the Prussian fortresses had
been received, when our troops had already
entered Prussia and our second war with Na-
poleon was beginning, Anna Pavlovna gave one
of her soirees. The "cream of really good soci-
ety" consisted of the fascinating Hlne, for-
saken by her husband, Mortemart, the delight-
ful 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 beau-
coup de mMte), a newly appointed maid of
honor and her mother, and several other less
noteworthy persons.

The novelty Anna Pdvlovna was setting be-
fore her guests that evening was Boris Drubet-
sk6y, who had just arrived as a special mes-
senger 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 com-
manders may do to countenance Bonaparte,
and to cause me y 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 Kingof Prussia and others: 'So much the
worse for you. Tu Vas voulu, George Dandin,' l
that's all we have to say about it!"

When Boris, who was to be served up to the
guests, entered the drawing room, almost all
the company had assembled, and the conversa-
tion, guided by Anna Pdvlovna, was about our
diplomatic relations with Austria and the hope
of an alliance with her.

Boris, 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 Pavlovna 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 Kurdgin charming

1 "You would have it so." George Dandin is a
comedy by Moli&re. TR,



BOOK FIVE



205



young fellow; M. Kronqcharg d'affaires from
Copenhagen a profound intellect/' and sim-
ply, "Mr. Shftov a man of great merit" this
of the man usually so described.

Thanks to Anna Mikhdylovna's efforts, his
own tastes, and the peculiarities of his reserved
nature, Boris 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 accord-
ing to which an ensign might rank incompa-
rably higher than a general, and according to
which what was needed for success in the serv-
- ice was not effort or work, or courage, or perse-
verance, 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 un-
derstand these things. In consequence of this
discovery his whole manner of life, all his re-
lations with old friends, all his plans for his
future, were completely altered. He was not
rich, but would spend his last groat to be bet-
ter dressed than others, and would rather de-
prive himself of many pleasures than allow
himself to be seen in a shabby equipage or ap-
pear in the streets of Petersburg in an old uni-
form. He made friends with and sought the ac-
quaintance of only those above him in posi-
tion and who could therefore be of use to him.
He liked Petersburg and despised Moscow.
The remembrance of the Rostovs' house and
of his childish love for Natasha was unpleasant
to him and he had not once been to see the
Rost6vs since the day of his departure for the
army. To be in Anna Pavlovna's drawing room
he considered an important step up in the serv-
ice, 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 establish-
ing intimacy with each of those present, and
the advantages that might accrue. He took the
seat indicated to him beside the fair He"lene
and listened to the general conversation.

"Vienna considers the bases of the proposed
treaty so unattainable that not even a continu-
ity 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 nev-
er have thought of such a thing, it is only the
cabinet that says it."

"Ah, my dear vicomte," put in Anna Pdvlov-
na, "L'Urope" (for some reason she called it
Urope as if that were a specially refined French
pronunciation which she could allow herself
when con versing with a Frenchman), "L'Urope
ne sera jamais noire allide sincere." l

After that Anna Pavlovna led up to the
courage and firmness of the King of Prussia, in
order to draw Boris into the conversation.

Boris listened attentively to each of the
speakers, awaitinghis turn, but managed mean-
while to look round repeatedly at his neigh"
bor, the beautiful He4ene, whose eyes severa*
times met those of the handsome young aide
de-camp with a smile. ">

Speaking of the position of Prussia, Ann'
Pdvlovna very naturally asked Boris to te v
them about his journey to Glogau and in wha 1
state he found the Prussian army. Boris, speak-
ing with deliberation, told them in pure, cor-
rect 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 Pdvlovna felt that the novelty she
had served up was received with pleasure by
all her visitors. The greatest attention of
all to Boris* narrative was shown by Hlne.
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 con-
siderations he could not know of, this was ab-
solutely necessary.

"On Tuesday between eight and nine. It
will give me great pleasure."

Boris promised to fulfill her wish and was
about to begin a conversation with her, when
Anna PAvlovna called him away on the pretext
that her aunt wished to hear him.

"You know her husband, of course?" said
Anna Pdvlovna, dosing her eyes and indicat-
ing Hdene with a sorrowful gesture. "Ah, she
is such an unfortunate and channing woman !

1 "Europe will never be our sincere ally."



206



WAR AND PEACE



Don't mention him before her please don't I It
is too painful for her!"

CHAPTER VII

WHEN BORIS and Anna Pdvlovna 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 inter-
rogatively, again laughing, and then calmly
and seriously sat back in his chair. Anna Pdv-
lovna waited for him to go on, but asheseemed
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

. . ." she began, but Hippolyte interrupted
icr with the words: "Le Roi de Prusse . . ." and
tgain,assoon as all turned toward him, excused
timself and said no more.

Anna Pdvlovna frowned. Mortemart, Hip-
KByte's friend, addressed him firmly.

"Come now, what about your R oide Prusse?"

Hippolyte laughed as if ashamed of laugh-
ing.

"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!" l

Boris 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 Pdvlovna, shaking her little shriveled
finger at him.

"We are not fighting pour le Roi de Prusse f
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 be-
came 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 pro-
found 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."

14 Tor the King of Prussia" a phrase used in
French to denote "for a trifle of no value." TR.



"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, Hlne who
had spoken very little all the evening again
turned to Boris, asking him in a tone of caress-
ing significant command to come to her on
Tuesday.

"It is of great importance to me," she said,
turning with a smile toward Anna Pdvlovna,
and Anna Pdvlovna, with the same sad smile
with which she spoke of her exalted patroness,
supported Hdtene's wish.

It seemed as if from some words Boris had
spoken that evening about the Prussian army,
Hlne had suddenly found it necessary to see
him. She seemed to promise to explain that ne-
cessity to him when he came on Tuesday.

But on Tuesday evening, having come to
Hlrte's splendid salon, Boris 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 unexpect-
edly and in a whisper, with a strangely unsmil-
ing face: "Come to dinner tomorrow ... in the
evening. You must come . . . Come!"

During that stay in Petersburg, Boris became
an intimate in the countess* house.

CHAPTER VIII

THE WAR was flaming up and nearing the Rus-
sian frontier. Everywhere one heard curses on
Bonaparte, "the enemy of mankind." Militia-
men and recruits were being enrolled in the
villages, and from the seat of war came contra-
dictory news, false as usual and therefore vari-
ously interpreted. The life of old Prince Bol-
k6nski, 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 him-
self, and this fresh opportunity for action gave
him new energy and strength. He was continu-
ally traveling through the three provinces en-
trusted to him, was pedantic in the fulfillment
of his duties, severe to cruelty with his subordi-
nates, and went into everything down to the



BOOK FIVE



207



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 Sdvishna in the late prin-
cess 1 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. Made-
moiselle Bourienne, too, seemed passionately
fond of the boy, and Princess Mary often de-
prived 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 monu-
ment brought from Italy, representingan 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 prin-
cess. But what was still stranger, though of this
Prince Andrew said nothing to his sister, was
that in the expression the sculptor had hap-
pened 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, Bogu-
chdrovo, about twenty-five miles from Bald
Hills. Partly because of the depressing memo-
ries associated with Bald Hills, partly because
Prince Andrew did not always feel equal to
bearing with his father's peculiarities, and part-
ly because he needed solitude, Prince Andrew
made use of Bogucharovo, began building and
spent most of his time there.

After the Austerlitz campaign Prince An-
drew had firmly resolved not to continue his
military service, and when the war recom-
menced 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 ac-
tivity, expected the best results from the new
campaign, while Prince Andrew on the con-
trary, 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 ab-
sence. 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, Petriisha has
brought some papers," said one of the nurse-
maids to Prince Andrew who was sitting on a
child's little chair while, frowning and with
trembling hands, he poured drops from a medi-
cine 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 on-
to 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 burningon 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 itl" said Prince Andrew in an exasperated
whisper, evidently meaning to wound his sis-
ter.

"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, evident-
ly intimidated and confused that her opinion
had prevailed. She drew her brother's atten-
tion to the maid who was calling him in a whis-
per.

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 house-
hold 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



208



WAR AND PEACE



burden of sorrow on one another, and re-
proached and disputed with each other.

"Petriisha 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
Ivnich always says that sleep is more impor-
tant 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 Ivdnich!" 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 yougive 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. Open-
ing them mechanically he began reading. The
old prince, now and then using abbreviations,
wrote in his large elongated hand on blue pa-
per as follows :

Have just this moment received by special mes-
senger very joyful newsif it's not false. Bennig-
sen seems to have obtained a complete victory over
Buonaparte at Eyiau. In Petersburg everyone is
rejoicing, and the rewards sent to the army are
innumerable. Though he is a German I congrat-
ulate him! I can't make out what the commander
at K6rchevo a certain Khandrik6v 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 P&enka he took part in it
and it's all true. When mischief-makers don't med-
dle even a German beats Buonaparte. He is said to
be fleeing in great disorder. Mind you gallop off to
K6rchevo without delay and carry out instruc-
tions!

Prince Andrew sighed and broke the seal of
another envelope. It was a closely written let-
ter of two sheets from Bilibin. He folded it up



without reading it and reread his father's let-
ter, ending with the words: "Gallop off to K6r-
chevo 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 un-
pleasant?" thought Prince Andrew, recalling
his father's letter. "Yes, we have gained a vic-
tory over Bonaparte, just when I'm not serv-
ing. Yes, yes, he's always poking fun at me

Ah, well! Let him!" And he began reading Bil-
ibin's letter which was written in French. He
read without understanding half of it, read on-
ly 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

BIL!BIN WAS NOW at army headquarters in a
diplomatic capacity, and though he wrote in
French and used French jests and French id-
ioms, he described the whole campaign with a
fearless self-censure and self-derision genuine-
ly Russian. Bilfbin 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 Aus-
terlitz," wrote Bilfbin, "as you know, my dear
prince, I never leave headquarters. I have cer-
tainly 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 pal-
ace at Potsdam.

" 1 most ardently desire/ writes the King of
Prussia to Bonaparte, 'that Your Majesty should
be received and treated in my palace in a man-
ner agreeable to yourself, and in so far as cir-



BOOK FIVE



209



cumstances allowed, I have hastened to take
all steps to that end. May I have succeeded!'
The Prussian generals pride themselves on be-
ing 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 surren-
der. . . . 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 or-
der, 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 Prozor6vski and Kmenski the latter
was preferred. The general comes to us, Suv6-
rov-like, in a kibitka, 1 and is received with ac-
clamations 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 him-
self 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 every-
one and everything, seizes the letters, opens
them, and reads those from the Emperor ad-
dressed 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
clay to General Bennigsen:

" 'I am wounded and cannot ride and conse-
quently cannot command the army. You have
brought your army corps to Pultiisk, routed:
here it is exposed, and without fuel or forage,
so something must be done, and, as you your-
self reported to Count Buxhowden yesterday,
you must think of retreating to our frontier
which do today.'

" 'From all my riding,' he writes to the Em-
peror, '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 gen-

1 An old-fashioned wooden cart with a covered
top.-TR.



eral next in seniority, Count Buxhowden, hav-
ing sent him my whole staff and all that be-
longs 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 re-
mains, and in some regiments none at all, as
reported by the division commanders, Oster-
mann and Sedmorckzki, and all that the peas-
ants had has been eaten up. I myself will re-
main in hospital at Ostrolenka till I recover.
In regard to which I humbly submit my re-
port, with the information that if the army re-
mains 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 dishon-
ored 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 pro-
duce the slightest stir a blind man has left it.
There are thousands such as I in Russia.'

"The field marshal is angry with the Emper-
or and he punishes us all, isn't it logical?

"This is the first act. Those that follow are
naturally increasingly interesting and enter-
taining. After the field marshal's departure it
appears that we are within sight of the enemy
and must give battle. Buxhowden is command-
er in chief by seniority, but General Bennig-
sen 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 op-
portunity to fight a battle 'on his own hand* as
the Germans say. He does so. This is the battle
of Pultiisk, 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 Pultiisk. In short, we retreat
after the battle but send a courier to Peters-
burg with news of a victory, and General Ben-
nigsen, 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 in-
terregnum we begin a very original and inter-
esting 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.



210

So energetically do we pursue this aim that aft-
er crossing an unfordable river we burn the
bridges to separate ourselves from our enemy,
who at the moment is not Bonaparte but Bux-
howden. General Buxhowden was all but at-
tacked and captured by a superior enemy force
as a result of one of these maneuvers that en-
abled 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 epilep-
tic fit on Bennigsen's. But at the critical mo-
ment the courier who carried the news of our
victory at Pulttisk to Petersburg returns bring-
ing 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 mo-
ment a third enemy rises before usnamely
the Orthodox Russian soldiers, loudly demand-
ing 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 (al-
though 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.



WAR AND PEACE



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 afterlongsleeplessnessand
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 con-
firm 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 un-
der the curtain of the cot. He did not look
round, but still gazing at the infant's face lis-
tened to his regular breathing. The dark shad-
ow 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 movedslightly 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



BOOK FIVE



211



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 Broth-
erhood, Pierre went to the Kiev province,
where he had the greatest number of serfs, tak-
ing with him full directions which he had writ-
ten 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 nurs-
ing their babies were not to be sent to work,
assistance was to be given to the serfs, punish-
ments were to be admonitory and not corporal,
and hospitals, asylums, and schools were to be
established on all the estates. Some of the stew-
ards (there were semiliterate foremen among
them) listened with alarm, supposing these
words to mean that the young count was dis-
pleased with their management and embezzle-
ment of money, some after their first fright
were amused by Pierre's lisp and the new words
they had not heard before, others simply en-
joyed 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 be-
sides these changes it would be necessary to go
into the general state of affairs which was far
from satisfactory.

Despite Count Bezukhov's enormous wealth,
since he had come into an income which was
said to amount to five hundred thousand ru-
bles a year, Pierre felt himself far poorer than
when his father had made him an allowance
of ten thousand rubles. He had a dim percep-
tion 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 ali-
mony 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 stew-
ard wrote every year telling him of fires and
bad harvests, or of the necessity of rebuild-
ing 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 for-
ward matters at all. He felt that these consulta-
tions 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 theconsequent
impossibility of a speedy emancipation.

The steward did not say it was quite impos-
sible, 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 ac-
cording to him were connected with such com-
plicated measuresthe removal of injunctions,
petitions, permits, and so on that Pierre be-
came 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 at-
tending 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 acquaint-
ance and joyfully welcomed the rich newcomer,
the largest landowner of the province. Temp-
tations to Pierre's greatest weakness the one
to which he had confessed when admitted to
the Lodge were so strong that he could not re-
sist 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 re-



212



WAR AND PEACE



flection, 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 ful-
filled another of the precepts that of reform-
ing 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 ar-
ranged for the erection of large buildings-
schools, hospitals, and asylums on all the es-
tates 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 understand-
ing of his master, would touch and delude him.

The southern spring, the comfortable rapid
traveling in a Vienna carriage, and the soli-
tude 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 touch-
ingly 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 es-
tate the priest, bearing a cross, came to meet
him surrounded by children whom, by the
count's generosity, he was instructing in read-
ing, 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 village 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' pay-
ments 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 phil-
anthropic mood in which he had left Peters-
burg, 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 itl"

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 cun-
ning man who saw perfectly through the nai've
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 stew-
ard that it would be difficult to imagine hap-
pier people, and that God only knew what
would happen to them when they were free,



BOOK FIVE



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 build-
ings 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 Bolk6nski, 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 do-
mestic serfs Pierre met, in reply to inquiries as
to where the prince lived, pointed out a small
newly built lodge close to the pond. Ant6n, 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 surround-
ings in which he had last met his friend in
Petersburg.

He quickly entered the small reception room
with its sdll-un plastered wooden walls redo-
lent of pine, and would have gone farther, but
Ant6n ran ahead on tiptoe and knocked at a
door.

"Well, what is it?" came a sharp, unpleasant
voice.



"A visitor," answered Ant6n.

"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 An-
drew, 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 be-
fore their conversation could settle on any-
thing. They put questions and gave brief re-
plies about things they knew ought to be talked
over at length. At last the conversation gradu-
ally settled on some of the topics at first lightly
touched on: their past life, plans for the fu-
ture, Pierre's journeys and occupations, the
war, and so on. The preoccupation and de-
spondency which Pierre had noticed in his
friend's look was now still more clearly ex-
pressed 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 re-
vived and strengthened by his late tour. He
checked himself, fearing to seem naive, yet he
felt an irresistible desire to show his friend as
soon as possible that he was now a quite dif-
ferent, 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.



214

"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 con-
ceal 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 si-
lent.

"I'll tell you what, my dear fellow," said
Prince Andrew, who evidently also felt de-
pressed 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 din-
nertime, talking of the political news and com-
mon 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 scaf-
folding, in the midst of a talk explaining the
future arrangements of the house, he inter-
rupted 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."



WAR AND PEACE

" "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 tool"

"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 an-
other man?" he asked.

"Bad! Bad!" exclaimed Pierre. "We all know
what is bad for ourselves."

"Yes, we know that, but the harm I am con-
scious of in myself is something I cannot in-
flict on others," said Prince Andrew, growing
more and more animated and evidently wish-
ing 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 philoso-
phy now."

"And love of one's neighbor, and self-sacri-
fice?" 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 sec ,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 approv-



BOOK FIVE



215



al. So I lived for others, and not almost, but
quite, ruined my life. And I have become calm-
er 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 littlethough 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, unques-
tionable 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 some-
thing 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 cer-
tain, 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 dif-
ferent 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 An-
drew. "You talk of schools," he went on, crook-



ing 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 spir-
itual 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 condi-
tion 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 anyonel 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 re-
flected 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."



2l6



WAR AND PEACE



"But with such ideas what motive have you
for living? One would sit without moving, un-
dertaking 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 hon-
or to choose me to be their marshal; it was all
I could do to get out of it. They could not un-
derstand that I have not the necessary qualifi-
cations for it the kind of good-natured, fussy
shallowness necessary for the position. Then
there's this house, which must be built in or-
der 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 ac-
tive 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 armyl Well, as I was saying," he con-
tinued, 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 ac-
customed to unlimited power that he is terri-
ble, and now he has this authority of a com-
mander 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 Yiikhnovna hanged," said Prince An-
drew 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 ani-
mated. 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 any-
one 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 re-
morse upon themselves, stifle this remorse and
grow callous, as a result of being able to inflict
punishments justly and unjustly. It is those peo-
ple 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 misera-
ble."

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, arid not the serfs' backs
and foreheads, which, beat and shave as you
may, always remain the same backs and fore-
heads."

"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 im-
provements 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, en-
lighten, 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 sud-
denly began, lowering his head and looking



BOOK FIVE



217



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 ex-
pression of the best, the eternal, aspects of hu-
manity."

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 out-
side 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 con-
victions 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 my-
self, a part of that vast invisible chain the be-
ginning 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 pre-
vented his catching wliat 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 in-
terrupt 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 beingplaced
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 gov-
ern 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 futurelife?" 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 con-
victions.

"You say you can't see a reign of goodness
and truth on earth. Nor could I, and it can-
not be seen if one looks on our life here as the
end of everything. On earth f 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 eternallychildren of the whole uni-
verse. 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 mul-
titude of beings in whom the Deity the Su-
preme Power if you prefer the term is mani-
fest? 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 noth-
ing vanishes in this world, but that I shall al-
ways 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 con-
vince. What convinces is when one sees a be-
ing 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 trem-
bled 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 some-
one 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



2l8



WAR AND PEACE



and horses had long since been taken off, onto
the farther bank, and reharnessed. The sun
had sunk half below the horizon and an eve-
ning frost was starring the puddles near the fer-
ry, 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 theraft listening to Pierre, and he gazed with
his eyes fixed on the red reflection of the sun
gleaming on the blue waters. There was per-
fect stillness. Pierre became silent. The raft had
long since stopped and only the waves of the
current beat softly against it below. Prince An-
drew 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, child-
like, tender look at Pierre's face, flushed and
rapturous, but yet shy before his superior
friend.

"Yes, if it only were sol "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, sudden-
ly awoke, joyful and youthful, in his soul. It
vanished as soon as he returned to the custom-
ary 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, look-



ing 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 apart-
ments, 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 be-
fore 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 be-
fore her pilgrims like a hen before her chick-
ens.

"Charmde de vous voir. Je suis trs contente
de vous voir" l she said to Pierre as he kissed
her hand. She had known him as a child, and
now his friendship with Andrew, his misfor-
tune 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.

"Ah, and Ivdnushka is here tool" said Prince
Andrew, glancing with a smile at the young
pilgrim.

"Andrew!" said Princess Mary, imploringly.
"// faut que vous sachiez que c'cst une

1 "Delighted to see you. I am very glad to sec
you."



BOOK FIVE



219



fcmme" l said Prince Andrew to Pierre.

"Andrew, au nom de Dieu!" a Princess Mary
repeated.

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.

"Maw, ma bonne ami*/' said Prince Andrew,
"vous devriez au contraire m'Stre reconnais-
sante de ce que j'explique d Pierre votre inti-
mite 1 avec ce jeune homme" *

"Really?" said Pierre, gazing over his spec-
tacles with curiosity and seriousness (forwhich
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 peo-
ple's account was quite unnecessary. They were
not in the least abashed. The old woman, low-
ering 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. Ivdnushka, sip-
ping out of her saucer, looked with sly woman-
ish 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 Kol-
yzin, master, where a great and wonderful
blessing has been revealed."

"And was Ivanushka with you?"

"I go by myself, benefactor," said Ivdnushka,
trying to speak in a bass voice. "I only came
across Pelage*ya in Yiikhnovo. . . ."

Pelage*ya interrupted her companion; she
evidently wished to tell what she had seen.

"In Kolydzin, 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, Pelagya."

"No . . . why not, my dear, why shouldn't I?
I like him. He is kind, he is one of God's cho-

1 "You must know that this is a woman."

* "For heaven's sake."

* "But, my dear, you ought on the contrary to be
grateful to me for explaining to Pierre your inti-
macy with this young man."



sen, he's a benefactor, he once gave me ten ru-
bles, 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 Kolyizin 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 tome:
'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 after-
wards," 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, naively, who had listened attentively to
the pilgrim.

"Oh, master, what are you say ing?" exclaimed
the horrified Pelage* ya, turn ing 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 1 There was a general who did not be-
lieve, 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 cata-
combs came to him and said, 'Believe in meand
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 ad-
monishingly, 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.

Pelagc*ya suddenly grew quite pale and
clasped her hands.



220



WAR AND PEACE



"Oh, master, master, what a sin! And you
who have a son I" she began, her pallor sud-
denly 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 char-
ity 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, Pelagdya, I was joking," said Pierre.
"Princesse, ma parole, je n'ai pas voulu Voffen-
jer. 1 1 did not mean anything, I wasonlyjoking,"
he said, smiling shyly and trying to efface his
offense. "It was all my fault, and Andrew was
only joking."

Pelag^ya 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 Fa-
ther 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 serious-
ly. 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 feel-
ings. 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.

1 "Princess, on my word, I did not wish to offend
her/'



"How do you find Andrew?" she added hur-
riedly, not giving him time to reply to her af-
fectionate 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 per-
suade him to go abroad. He needs activity, and
this quiet regular life is very bad for him. Oth-
ers don't notice it, but I see it."

Toward ten o'clock the menservants 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, notic-
ing 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 hot-
ly with his visitor. Pierre was maintaining that
a time would come when there would be no
more wars. The old prince disputed it chaffing-
ly, 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, ev-
idently 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 Rost6v, 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, address-
ing 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 rub-
bish 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



BOOK FIVE



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 house-
hold. With the stern old prince and the gen-
tle, timid Princess Mary, though he had scarce-
ly 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 Ivdnovich and Mademoi-
selle 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 ex-
tremely 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 ex-
prtss 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, Rostov felt,
for the first time, how close was the bond that
united him to Denfsovand the whole regiment.

On approaching it, Rost6v felt as he had
done when approaching his home in Moscow.
When he saw the first hussar with the unbut-
toned uniform of his regiment, when he rec-
ognized red-haired Dem^ntyev and saw the
picket ropes of the roan horses, when Lavru-
shka gleefully shouted to his master, "The
count has cornel" and Denfsov, who had been
asleep on his bed, ran all disheveled out of the
mud hut to embrace him, and the officers col-
lected round to greet the new arrival, Rostov
experienced the same feeling as when his moth-
er, 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 com-
mander of the regiment and had been reas-
signed 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 mor-
al support, and the same senseof 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 deci-
sions; here was no ScSnya 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 D61okhov. Here, in the reg-
iment, all was clear and simple. The whole
world was divided into two unequal parts: one,
our Pdvlograd regiment; the other, all the rest.
And the rest was no concern of his. In the regi-
ment, everything was definite: who was lieu-
tenant, who captain, who was a good fellow,
who a bad one, and most of all, who was a com-
rade. 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 noth-
ing that was considered bad in the Pavlograd
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, Rost6v 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, be-
cause, after his loss to D61okhov (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 re-
ceived ten thousand rubles a year, but now re-
solved to take only two thousand and leave the
rest to repay the debt to his parents.

Our army, after repeated retreats and ad-
vances and battles at Pultiisk and Preussisch-
Eylau, was concentrated near Bartenstein. It
was awaiting the Emperor's arrival and the be-
ginning of a new campaign.

The Pdvlograd regiment, belonging to that



22*



WAR AND PEACE



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 sec-
ond half of the campaign, was attached to Pld-
tov's division.

Pldtov's division was acting independently
of the main army. Several times parts of the
Pdvlograd regiment had exchanged shots with
the enemy, had taken prisoners, and once had
even captured Marshal Oudinot's carriages. In
April the Pdvlograds were stationed immova-
bly 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 be-
came 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 in-
habitants 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 any-
thing from them, often gave them the last of
their rations.

The Pdvlograd regiment had had only two
men wounded in action, but had lost nearly half
its men from hunger and sickness. In the hos-
pitals, death was so certain that soldiers suffer-
ing 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 "Mdshka'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 or-
dered 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 "Mdshka'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 re-
ceived had sprouted and frozen.

The horses also had been fed for a fortnight



on straw from the thatched roofs and had be-
come terribly thin, though still covered with
tufts of felty winter hair.

Despite this destitution, the soldiers and of-
ficers 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 rot-
ten potatoes, told and listened to stories of Po-
tdmkin's and Suv6rov's campaigns, or to leg-
ends of Alesha the Sly, or the priest's laborer
Mik61ka.

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 gen-
eral, food for the men. The younger ones oc-
cupied 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 be-
cause nothing certain was known about it,
partly because there was a vague feeling that
in the main it was going badly.

Rost6v lived, as before, with Denfsov, and
since their furlough they had become more
friendly than ever. Denisov never spoke of Ros-
tov's family, but by the tender friendship his
commander showed him, Rost6v felt that the
elder hussar's luckless love for Natdsha played
a part in strengthening their friendship. Den-
fsov evidently tried to expose Rost6v to dan-
ger 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, Rost6v 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. Rost6v 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 com-
rades, talking of women, began chaffing Ros-
t6v, 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. Rost6v took the joke as an insult,



BOOK FIVE



223



flared up, and said such unpleasant things to
the officer that it was all Denfsov could do to
prevent aduel.Whentheofficerhad goneaway,
Denfsov, who did not himself know what Ros-
t6v's relations with the Polish girl might be, be-
gan to upbraid him for his quickness of tem-
per, and Rostov 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 be-
gan rapidly pacing the room without looking
at Rostov, as was his way at moments of deep
feeling.

"Ah, what a mad bweed you Wostovs are!"
he muttered, and Rost6v noticed tears in his
eyes.

CHAPTER XVI

IN APRIL the troops were enlivened by news
of the Emperor's arrival, but Rost6v had no
chance of being present at the review he held
at Bartenstein, as the Pavlograds were at the
outposts far beyond that place.

They were bivouacking. Denisov and Ros-
t6v 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 mid-
dle of the trench and could even sit up on the
beds if one drew close to the table. Denfsov,
who was living luxuriously because the sol-
diers 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 Denfsov called that part of the hut
and it was then so warm that the officers, of
whom there were always some with Denfsov
and Rost6v, sat in their shirt sleeves.

In April, Rost6v 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 prob-
ability of being promoted in a few days for his
last reconnoitering expedition, and was await-
ing Denisov, who had gone out somewhere and
with whom he wanted a talk.

Suddenly he heard Denisov shouting in a vi-
brating voice behind the hut, evidently much
excited. Rost6v moved to the window to see
whom he was speaking to, and saw the quarter-
master, Topche'enko.

"I ordered you not to let them eat that Mash-
ka 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.

Rost6v lay down again on his bed and
thought complacently: "Let him fuss and bus-
tle 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, bis-
cuits, 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 pla-
toon!"

"Where are they off to now?" thought Ros-
t6v.

Five minutes later, Denfsov 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 Ros-
t6v'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 Denfsov going out, and Ros-
t6v heard the hoofs of several horses splashing
through the mud. He did not % even trouble to
find out where Denfsov had gone. Having got
warm in his corner, he fell asleep and did not
leave the hut till toward evening. Denfsov had
not yet returned. The weather had cleared up,
and near the next hut two officers and a cadet
were playing svdyka, laughing as they threw
their missiles which buried themselves in the



224



WAR AND PEACE



soft mud. Rostdv joined them. In the middle
of the game, the officers saw some wagons ap-
proaching 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, Denfsov has been worrying,"
said Rost6v, "and here are the provisions."

"So they are!" said the officers. "Won't the
soldiers be glad!"

A little behind the hussars came Denfsov,
accompanied by two infantry officers with
whom he was talking.

Rost6v went to meet them.

"I warn you, Captain," one of the officers, a
short thin man, evidently very angry, was say-
ing.

"Haven't I told you I won't give them up?"
replied Denfsov.

"You will answer for it, Captain. It is mu-
tinyseizing 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 Denfsov.

"It is robbery! You'll answer for it, sir!" said
the infantry officer, raising his voice.

"Now, what are you pestewing me for?"
cried Denfsov, suddenly losing his temper. "I
shall answer for it and not you, and you'd bet-
ter not buzz about here till you get hurt. Be off I
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 Denfsov 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 Denfsov after him (the most
insulting expression a cavalryman can address
to a mounted infantryman) and riding up to
Rost6v, 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 La vnishka that the transport
was unescorted, Denfsov 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 Denfsov, and holding his fingers spread
out before his eyes said:

"This is howl look at thisaffair: I know noth-
ing 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 depart-
ment and if possible sign a receipt forsuch 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, Denfsov
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 Rostov
had never yet seen him in. Denfsov could not
speak and gasped for breath. When Rostov
asked what was the matter, he only uttered
some incoherent oaths and threats in a hoarse,
feeble voice.

Alarmed at Denfsov's condition, Rost6v sug-
gested that he should undress, drink some wa-
ter, 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 Empe-
wo' . . . Ice . . ." he muttered.

The regimental doctor, when he came, said
it was absolutely necessary to bleed Denfsov. 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 Denfsov. " 'Now then,
where's your chief's quarters?' They were point-
ed 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!' 'Wobbe-
wy,' I say, 'is not done by a man who seizes pwo-
visions 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 headquar-
ters.' 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
Denfsov, hitting the table with the fist of his
newly bled arm so violently that the table near-
ly broke down and the tumblers on it jumped
about. "Telydnin! '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 . . . 1'and I sta'ted f washing
him . . .Well, I've had a bit of fun I can tell you!"
cried Denfsov, gleeful and yet angry, his white



BOOK FIVE



225



teeth showing under his black mustache.
"I'd have killed him if they hadn't taken him
awayl"

"But what are you shouting for? Calm your-
self," said Rost6v. "You've set your arm bleed-
ing 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 Rost6v's and Denfsov's dugout with
a grave and serious face and regretfully showed
them a paper addressed to Major Denfsov 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 insubordi-
nation were now regarded, degradation to the
ranks would be the best that could be hoped
for.

The case, as represented by the offended par-
ties, was that, after seizing the transports, Ma-
jor 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 dislo-
cated the arm of one of them.

In answer to Rost6v's renewed questions,
Denfsov said, laughing, that he thought he re-
membered 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.

Denfsov spoke contemptuously of the whole
matter, but Rost6v knew him too well not to
detect that (while hiding it from others) at
heart he feared a court-martial and was wor-
ried over the affair, which was evidently tak-
ing a bad turn. Every day, letters of inquiry
and notices from the court arrived, and on the
first of May, Denfsov was ordered to hand the
squadron over to the next in seniority and ap-
pear before the staff of his division to explain
his violence at the commissariat office. On the
previous day Pldtov reconnoitered with two
Cossack regiments and two squadrons of hus-
sars. 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
Denfsov 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 Pavlograds did not take part, and
after that an armistice was proclaimed. Rost6v,
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 Denfsov 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 sun-
shine in the yard.

Directly Rost6v entered the door he was en-
veloped by a smell of putrefaction and hospital
air. On the stairs he met a Russian army doc-
tor 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 Alexe*evich in the eve-
ning. 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 Rost6v coming up-
stairs.

"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 pest-
house, sir."

"How so?" asked Rost6v.

"Typhus, sir. It's death to go in. Only we
two, Mak^ev and I" (he pointed to the assist-
ant), "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 doc-
tor with evident satisfaction. "Prussian doctors
have been invited here, but our allies don't
like it at all."

Rost6v explained that he wanted to see Ma-
jor Denfsov 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



226



WAR AND PEACE



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 hun-
dred, 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 evi-
dently vexed and impatient for the talkative
doctor to go.

"Major Denisov," Rost6v said again. "He
was wounded at Molliten."

"Dead, I fancy. Eh, Mak^ev?" 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.

Rost6v described Denisov's appearance.

"There was one like that," said the doctor,
as if pleased. "That one is dead, I fancy. How-
ever, I'll look up our list. We had a list. Have
you got it, Makev?"

"Makir Alextfevich has the list," answered
the assistant. "But if you'll step into the officers'
wards you'll see for yourself," he added, turn-
ing to Rostov.

"Ah, you'd better not go, sir," said the doc-
tor, "or you may have to stay here yourself."

But Rost6v 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.

Rost6v and the assistant went into the dark
corridor. The smell was so strong there that
Rost6v 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 un-
derclothing, limped out and, leaning against
the doorpost, looked with glittering envious
eyes at those who were passing. Glancing in at
the door,Rost6v 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, Rost6v entered the sol-
diers' ward. The foul air, to which he had al-
ready 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 wound-



ed 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 Rost6v with
the same expression of hope, of relief, re-
proach, and envy of another's health. Rost6v
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 ex-
pected 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.
Rost6v listened and made out the word. It
was "drink, drink, a drinkl" Rost6v glanced
round, looking for someone who would put
this man back in his place and bring him wa-
ter.

"Who looks after the sick here?" he asked
the assistant.

Just then a commissariat soldier, a hospital
orderly, came in from the next room, march-
ing stiffly, and drew up in front of Rost6v.

"Good day, your honor!" he shouted, roll-
ing his eyes at Rostov and evidently mistaking
him for one of the hospital authorities.

"Get him to his place and give him some
water," said Rost6v, pointing to the Cossack.

"Yes, your honor," the soldier replied com-
placently, 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 Rost6v, 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, un-
shaven, gray-bearded soldier as thin as a skele-
ton, with a stern sallow face and eyes intently
fixed on Rost6v. The man's neighbor on one
side whispered something to him, pointing at
Rost6v, 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 mo-



BOOK

tionless 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. Rost6v 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 tak-
en away taken a way at once," said the assistant
hurriedly. "Let us go, your honor."

"Yes, yes, let us go," said Rost6v hastily, and
lowering his eyes and shrinking, he tried to
pass unnoticed between the rows of reproach-
ful envious eyes that were fixed upon him, and
went out of the room.

CHAPTER XVIII

GOING ALONG the corridor, the assistant led
Rost6v 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 Rostov 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. Rost6v looked at him,
trying to remember where he had seen him be-
fore.

"See where we've met again I" said the little
man. "Tushin, Tiishin, 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 Vasili Dmft-
rich Denfsov? My neighbor," he added, when
he heard who Rost6v wanted. "Here, here,"
and Tiishin 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 Rost6v, 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.

Denfsov lay asleep on his bed with his head
under the blanket, though it was nearly noon.

"Ah, Wost6v? How are you, how are you?"



FIVE 227

he called out, still in the same voice as in the
regiment, but Rost6v noticed sadly that under
this habitual ease and animation some new,
sinister, hidden feeling showed itself in the
expression of Denfsov's face and the intona-
tions 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 Rostov. What struck him
was that Denfsov 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 Rost6v spoke of these
matters did not listen.

Rostov even noticed that Denfsov did not
like to be reminded of the regiment, or in gen-
eral of that other free life which was going on
outside the hospital. He seemed to try to for-
get that old life and was only interested in the
affair with the commissariat officers. On Ros-
t6v'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 ani-
mated when he began reading his paper and
specially drew Rostov's attention to the sting-
ing rejoinders he made to his enemies. His
hospital companions, who had gathered round
Rost6v a fresh arrival from the world outside
gradually began to disperse as soon as Denf-
sov began reading his answer. Rost6v noticed
by their faces that all those gentlemen had al-
ready 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 Tiishin still lis-
tened, shaking his head disapprovingly. In the
middle of the reading, the Uhlan interrupted
Denisov.

"But what I say is," he said, turning to Ros-
t6v, "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 Einpcwo' 1 " exclaimed Denf-
sov, 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 wob-
bers to book. Let them twy me, I'm not afwaid
of anyone. I'veserved the Tsar and mycountwy
honowably and have not stolen! And am I to



2*8



WAR AND PEACE



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 Tiishin,
"but that's not the point, Vasili Dmitrich,"
and he also turned to Rost6v. "One has to sub-
mit, and Vasili Dmftrich doesn't want to. You
know the auditor told you it was a bad busi-
ness."

"Well, let it be bad," said Denfsov.

"The auditor wrote out a petition for you,"
continued Tiishin, "and you ought to sign it
and ask this gentleman to take it. No doubt he"
(indicating Rost6v) "has connections on the
staff. You won't find a better opportunity."

"Haven't I said I'm not going to gwovel?"
Denfsov interrupted him, and went on read-
ing his paper.

Rostov had not the courage to persuade
Denisov, though he instinctively felt that the
way advised by Tiishin 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 tem-

M*r.

) When the reading of Denisov's virulent re-
'ply, which took more than an hour, was over,
Rost6v 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 lis-
tening to their stories. Denisov was moodily
silent all the evening.

Late in the evening, when Rost6v 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 walll" he said, coming from the win-
dow and giving Rost6v a large envelope. In it
was the petition to the Emperor drawn up by
the auditor, in which Denisov, without allud-
ing to the offenses of the commissariat officials,
simply asked for pardon.

"Hand it in. It seems . . ."

He did not finish, but gave a painfully un-
natural smile.

CHAPTER XIX

HAVING RETURNED to the regiment and told
the commander the state of Denisov's affairs,
Rost6v rode to Tilsit with the letter to the
Emperor.



On the thirteenth of June the French and
Russian Emperors arrived in Tilsit. Boris Dru-
betsk6y 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.

Boris looked at his general inquiringly and
immediately saw that he was being tested.

"I am speaking, Prince, of the Emperor Na-
poleon," 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.

Boris was among the few present at the Nie-
men on the day the two Emperors met. He saw
the raft, decorated with monograms, saw Napo-
leon 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 await-
ing 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, arid
how they both retired into the pavilion. Since
he had begun to move in the highest circles
Boris had made it his habit to watch attentive-
ly 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 im-
portant personages. At the moment the Em-
perors 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 oth-
er 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,
Boris felt that henceforth his position was ful-
ly assured. He had not only become known,
but people had grown accustomed to him and
accepted him. Twice he had executed commis-
sions 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 con-
sidered him a newcomer, would now have been



BOOK FIVE



229



surprised had he been absent.

Borfs lodged with another adjutant, the Pol-
ish 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 lunch-
ing with him and Boris.

On the evening of the twenty-fourth of June,
Count Zhilfnski 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 Na-
poleon's, a young lad of an old aristocratic
French family. That same day, Rost6v, profit-
ing by the darkness to avoid being recognized
in civilian dress, came to Tilsit and went to the
lodging occupied by Borfs and Zhilinski.

Rostov, in common with the whole army
from which he came, was far from having ex-
perienced the change of feeling toward Napo-
leon and the French who from being foes had
suddenly become friends that had taken place
at headquarters and in Boris. In the army, Bon-
aparte and the French were still regarded with
mingled feelings of anger, contempt, and fear.
Only recently, talkingwith one of PLltov's Cos-
sack officers, Rost6v had argued that if Napole-
on 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, Rost6v had maintained with heat
that peace was impossible between a legitimate
sovereign and the criminal Bonaparte. Rost6v
was therefore unpleasantly struck by the pres-
ence of French officers in Boris' 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 thresh-
old and asked in Russian whether Drubetsk6y
lived there. Boris, hearing a strange voice in
the anteroom, came out to meet him. An ex-
pression of annoyance showed itself for a mo-
ment on his face on first recognizing Rost6v.

"Ah, it's you? Very glad, very glad to see you,"
he said, however, coming toward him with a
smile. But Rost6v 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 jc



suis & vous," l he said, answering someone who
called him.

"I see I'm intruding," Rost6v repeated.

The look of annoyance had already disap-
peared from Borfs' face: having evidently re-
flected and decided how to act, he very quiet-
ly took both Rost6v's hands and led him into
the next room. His eyes, looking serenely and
steadily at Rost6v, seemed to be veiled by some-
thing, as if screened by blue spectacles of con-
ventionality. So it seemed to Rost6v.

"Oh, come now! As if you could come at a
wrong time!" said Boris, 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 Comic N. N. le Capi-
taine S. S.," said he, naming his guests. Rost6v
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 Rost6v. Boris did not ap-
pear to notice the constraint the newcomer
produced and, with the same pleasant compo-
sure and the same veiled look in his eyes with
which he had met Rost6v, tried to enliven the
conversation. One of the Frenchmen, with the
politeness characteristic of his countrymen, ad-
dressed the obstinately taciturn Rost6v, say-
ing that the latter had probably come to Tilsit
to see the Emperor.

"No, 1 came on business," replied Rostov,
briefly.

Rostov had been out of humor from the mo-
ment he noticed the look of dissatisfaction on
Boris' 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
Borfs.

"Anyhow, I'm in your way," he said in a low
tone. "Corrie and talk over my business and I'll
go away."

"Oh, no, not at all," said Borfs. "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 Boris
slept. Rost6v, without sitting down, began at

1 "In a minute I shall be at your disposal."



230



WAR AND PEACE



once, irritably (as if Boris 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 Boris were alone, Ros-
t6v felt for the first time that he could not look
Boris in the face without a sense of awkward-
ness. Boris, with one leg crossed over the other
and stroking his left hand with the slender fin-
gers of his right, listened to Rost6v as a general
listens to the report of a subordinate, now look-
ing aside and now gazing straight into Rost6v's
eyes with the same veiled look. Each time this
happened Rost6v 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!" Rostov almost shouted, not look-
ing Boris in the face.

Boris smiled.

"On the contrary, I will do what I can. Only
I thought . . ."

At that moment Zhilfnski's voice was heard
calling Boris.

"Well then, go, go, go . . ." said Rost6v, and
refusing supper and remaining alone in the
little room, he walked up and down for a long
time, hearing the lighthearted French conver-
sation from the next room.

CHAPTER XX

ROSTOV HAD COME toTilsiton the day least suit-
able for a petition on Denisov's behalf. He
could not himself go to the general in attend-
ance as he was in mufti and had come to Tilsit
without permission to do so, and Boris, 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 Em-
perors exchanged decorations: Alexander re-
ceived 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 Preobrazhdnsk battalion. The
Emperors were to be present at that banquet.

Rost6v felt so ill at ease and uncomfortable
with Boris that, when the latter looked in after
supper, he pretended to be asleep, and early
next morning went away, avoiding Boris. 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 hugh monograms
A and AT. In the windows of the houses also
flags and bunting were displayed.

"Boris doesn't want to help me and I don't
want to ask him. That's settled," thought Nich-
olas. "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 Rost6v, who had unconsciously re-
turned 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 Ros-
t6v. "If only I were to hand the letter direct to
him and tell him all ... could they really ar-
rest 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 be-
ing here, what would it matter?" thought he,
looking at an officer who was entering the
house the Emperor occupied. "After all, peo-
ple do go in. ... It's all nonsense! I'll go in
and hand the letter to the Emperor myself, so
much the worse for Drubetsk6y who drives me
to it!" And suddenly with a determination he
himself did not expect, Rost6v felt for the let-
ter 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 ev-
ery moment to meet the monarch, and con-
scious 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,' " Rost6v 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 Maj-
esty/' said Nicholas, with a tremor in his voice.



BOOK FIVE



231



"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, Rost6v
grew frightened at what he was doing; the
thought of meeting the Emperor at any mo-
ment 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 Rost6v 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, was standing
in that room, and his valet was buttoning on to
the back of his breeches a new pair of hand-
some silk-embroidered braces that, for some
reason, attracted Rostov's attention. This man
was speaking to someone in the ad join ing room.

"A good figure and in her first bloom," he
was saying, but on seeing Rost6v, 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 "

Rostov 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
Rost6v.

"Are you an officer?"

"Lieutenant Count Rostov."

"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.

Rost6v 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, Rost6v, 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 cam-
paign, and who had formerly commanded the
division in which Rost6v was serving.

Rost6v, in dismay, began justifying himself,
but seeing the kindly, jocular face of the gener-
al, he took him aside and in an excited voice
told him the whole affair, asking him to inter-
cede for Denfsov, whom the general knew. Hav-
ing heard Rost6v to the end, the general shook
his head gravely.

"I'm sorry, sorry for that fine fellow. Give
me the letter."

Hardly had Rost6v handed him the letter
and finished explaining Denfsov's case, when
hasty steps and the jingling of spurs were heard
on thestairs,and thegeneral, 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 Rost6v knew at
once was heard on the stairs. Forgetting the
danger of being recognized, Rostov 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 enthusi-
asm and love for his sovereign rose again in
Rostov's soul in all its old force. In the uniform
of the Preobrazh^nsk regiment white chamois-
leather breeches and high boots and wearing
a star Rost6v did not know (it was that of the
Legion d'honneur), the monarch came out in-
to the porch, putting on his gloves and carry-
ing 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 for-
mer commander of Rost6v's division, smiled
and beckoned to him.

All the suite drew back and Rostov 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
(amongwhomwas Rost6v) 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, evi-
dently 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.

Thegeneral bowed his head respectfully, and
the monarch mounted and rodedown thestreet



WAR AND PEACE



at a gallop. Beside himself with enthusiasm,
Rost6v ran after him with the crowd.

CHAPTER XXI

THE EMPEROR rode to the square where, facing
one another, a battalion of the Preobrazhnsk
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 bat-
talions, which presented arms, another group
of horsemen galloped up to the opposite flank,
and at the head of them Rostov recognized Na-
poleon. 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 rib-
bon over his shoulder. He was riding a very
fine thoroughbred gray Arab horsewith a crim-
son gold-embroidered saddlecloth. On ap-
proaching Alexander he raised his hat, and as
he did so, Rost6v, 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 I'Empereur!"
Napoleon said something to Alexander, and
both Emperors dismounted and took each oth-
er's hands. Napoleon's face wore an unpleas-
ant and artificial smile. Alexander was saying
something affable to him.

In spite of the trampling of the French gen-
darmes' horses, which were pushing back the
crowd, Rost6vkept 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 Em-
peror were an everyday matter to him.

Alexander and Napoleon, with the long train
of their suites, approached the right flank of
the Preobrazh^nsk battalion and came straight
up to the crowd standing there. The crowd un-
expectedly found itself so close to the Emper-
ors that Rostov, standing in the front row, was
afraid he might be recognized.

"Sire, I ask your permission to present the
Legion of Honor to the bra vest 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 brave-
ly in this last war," added Napoleon, accentuat-
ing each syllable, as with a composure and as-



surance exasperating to Rost6v, 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 Kozldvski, 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 Kosl6vski, in Russian in a
low voice.

"To whomever Your Majesty commands."

The Emperor knit his brows with dissatisfac-
tion and, glancing back, remarked:

"But we must give him an answer."

Kozl6vski scanned the ranks resolutely and
included Rostov in his scrutiny.

"Can it be me?" thought Rost6v.

"Ldzarevl" the colonel called, with a frown,
and Ldzarev, the first soldier in the rank,
stepped briskly forward.

"Where are you off to? Stop here!" voices
whispered to Ldzarev who did not know where
to go. Ldzarev 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, guess-
ing at once what he wanted, moved about and
whispered as they passed something from one
to another, and a page the same one Rost6v
had seen the previous evening at Boris' -ran
forward and, bowing respectfully over the out-
stretched 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 Ldzarev (who rolled his
eyes and persistently gazed at his own mon-
arch), 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 Lza-
rev'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 Ldzarev's breast and,
dropping his hand, turned toward Alexander



BOOK FIVE



as though sure that the cross would adhere
there. And it really did.

Officious hands, Russian and French, im-
mediately seized the cross and fastened it to the
uniform. Ldzarev glanced morosely at the lit-
tle man with white hands who was doing some-
thing to him and, still standing motionless pre-
senting arms, looked again straight into Alex-
ander'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 Preobrazhe*nsk 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, congratulat-
ed him, and pressed his hands. Crowds of offi-
cers 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, look-
ing cheerful and happy, passed by Rost6v.

"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 Preobrazhnskiswill
give them a dinner."

"Yes, but what luck for Ldzarev! Twelve
hundred francs' pension for life."

"Here's a cap, lads!" shouted a Preobraz-
hdnsk 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 yes-
terday it was 'Napoldon, France, bravoure';
yesterday, 'Alexandre, Russie, grandeur.' One
day our Emperor gives it and next day Napo-
leon. 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."

Borfs, too, with his friend Zhilfnski, came to
see the Preobrazhdnsk banquet. On his way
back, he noticed Rost6v standing by the cor-
ner of a house.

"Rost6v! How d'you do? We missed one an-
other," he said, and could not refrain from ask-
ing what was the matter, so strangely dismal
and troubled was Rost6v's face.

"Nothing, nothing," replied Rost6v.

"You'll call round?"

"Yes, I will."

Rost6v 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 Em-
peror, liked and respected by Alexander. Then
why those severed arms and legs and those dead
men? . . . Then again he thought of Ldzarev re-
warded and Denfsov punished and unpar-
doned. He caught himself harboring such
strange thoughts that he was frightened.

The smell of the food the Preobrazhnskis
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 conversa-
tion naturally turned on the peace. The offi-
cers, 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 pro-
cess in his mind went on tormenting him with-
out 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,
Rostov began shouting with uncalled-for wrath,
and therefore much to the surprise of the offi-
cers:

"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 compre-
hend either the Emperor'saims or his actions!"

"But I never said a word about the Emper-
or!" said the officer, justifying himself, and un-
able to understand Rostov's outburst, except
on the supposition that he was drunk.

But Rost6v did not listen to him.

"We are not diplomatic officials, we are sol-
diers and nothing more," he went on. "If we
are ordered to die, we must die. If we're pun-



234



WAR AND PEACE



ished, 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 con-
clude an alliance with him, it means that that
is the right thing to do. If once we begin judg-
ing and arguing about everything, nothing sa-
cred 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. "Hul-
lo there! Another bottle!" he shouted.

In 1808 the Emperor Alexander went to Er-
furt for a fresh interview with the Emperor Na-
poleon, 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 Al-
exander's sisters was spoken of. But besides
considerations of foreign policy, the attention
of Russian society was at that time keenly di-
rected on the internal changes that were being
undertaken in all the departments of govern-
ment.

Life meanwhile real life, with its essential
interests of health and sickness, toil and rest,
and its intellectual interests in thought, sci-
ence, poetry, music, love, friendship, hatred,
and passions went on as usual, independently
of and apart from political friendship or en-
mity with Napoleon Bonaparte and from all
the schemes of reconstruction.



Book Six: 1808-10



CHAPTER I

PRINCE ANDREW had spent two years continu-
ously in the country.

All the plans Pierre had attempted on his es-
tatesand constantly changing from one thing
to another had never accomplishedwere car-
ried out by Prince Andrew without display and
without perceptible difficulty.

He had in the highest degree a practical te-
nacity 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 chil-
dren 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 indiffer-
ence 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 hap-
pening in home and foreign affairs.

Besides being occupied with his estates and
reading a great variety of books, Prince An-
drew was at this time busy with a critical sur-
vey 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 1 809 he went to visit the Ry-
azdn estates which had been inherited by his
son, whose guardian he was.

Warmed by the spring sunshine he sat in
the caliche looking at the new grass, the first
leaves on th 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 grow-
ing 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 mo-
tionless, 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 re-
minder 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 every-
thing 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. Prob-
ably 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 evi-
dently long ago some of its branches had been
broken off and its bark scarred. With its huge



WAR AND PEACE



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 ev-
ergreen 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, mean-
ingless, 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, stick-
ing 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 An-
drew 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 ar-
rived at his old conclusion, restful in its hope-
lessness: that it was not for him to begin any-
thing 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 Ilyd Rost6v,
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 Rost6vs' 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 caliche. Ahead of the rest
and nearer to him ran a dark-haired, remark-



ably slim, pretty girl in a yellow chintz dress,
wiih 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 look-
ing 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 mil-
itary regulations or of the arrangement of the
Ryazan serfs' quitrents. Of what is she think-
ing? Why is she so happy?" Prince Andrew
asked himself with instinctive curiosity.

In 1809 Count Ilyd Rost6v was living at
Otrddnoe 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 repeat-
edly glanced at Natisha, 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 Rost6v), 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 moon-
light, 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 brilliant-
ly white trunk and branches, and above it shone



BOOK SIX



237



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,howlovelyl 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 un-
intentional presence.

"S6nyal S6nyal" he again heard the first
speaker. "Oh, how can you sleep? Only look
how glorious it is! Ah, how glorious! Do wake
up, S6nya!" she said almost with tears in her
voice. "There never, never was such a lovely
night before!"

S6nya made some reluctant reply.

"Do just come and see what a moon! . . . Oh,
how lovely! Come here. . . . Darling, sweet-
heart, 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 S6nya's
disapproving voice: "It's past one o'clock."

"Oh, you only spoil things for me. All right,

go>g ! "

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 un-
expected 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 them*
selves 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, sprin-
kling 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. Every-
thing 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 fin-
gers 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 An-
drew, and all at once he was seized by an un-
reasoning springtime feeling of joy and renew-
al. 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.



838

"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 re-
flected 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 spring-
ing up in his mind. He could not now under-
stand 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 senseless-
ly 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 argu-
ments, it had seemed obvious that he would
be degrading himself if he now, after the les-
sons he had had in life, allowed himself to be-
lieve in the possibility of being useful and in
the possibility of happiness or love. Nowreason
suggested quite the opposite. After that jour-
ney 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 por-
trait 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 sim-
ply, merrily, and inquisitively at him. And
Prince Andrew, crossing his arms behind him,
Jong paced the room, now frowning, now smil-
ing, as he reflected on those irrational, inex-
pressible thoughts, secret as a crime, which al-
tered 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



WAR AND PEACE

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 Au-
gust, 1809. It was the time when the youthful
Sperdnski was at the zenith of his fame and his
reforms were being pushed forward with the
greatest energy. That same August the Emper-
or was thrown from his cal&che, injured his leg,
and remained three weeks at Peterhof, receiv-
ing Speranski every day and no one else. At
that time the two famous decrees were being
prepared that so agitated societyabolishing
court ranks and introducing examinations to
qualify for the grades of Collegiate Assessor
and State Councilorand not merely these but
a whole state constitution, intended to change
the existing order of government in Russia: le-
gal, 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, Novosflt-
sev, Kochubdy, and Str6ganov whom he him-
self in jest had called his Comitd desalut public
were taking shape and being realized.

Now all these men were replaced by Speran-
ski on the civil side, and Arakche"ev on the mili-
tary. 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, re-
pellent 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 Bol-
k6nski'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 pro-
posal for the reform of the army regulations to



BOOK SIX



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 in-
form the Emperor. A few days later Prince An-
drew received notice that he was to go to see
the Minister of War, Count Arakchev.

On the appointed day Prince Andrew en-
tered Count Arakchev's waiting room at nine
in the morning.

He did not know Arakch^ev personally, had
never seen him, and all he had heard of him in-
spired 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 commis-
sioned to consider my project, so he alone can
get it adopted/' thought Prince Andrew as he
waited among a number of important and un-
important people in Count Arakchev's wait-
ing 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 Arak-
ch^ev's anteroom had quite a special character.
The faces of the unimportant people awaiting
their turn for an audience showed embarrass-
ment and servility; the faces of those of higher
rank expressed a common feeling of awkward-
ness, covered by a mask of unconcern and rid-
icule of themselves, their situation, and the per-
son for whom they were waiting. Some walked
thoughtfully up and down, others whispered
and laughed. Prince Andrew heard the nick-
name "SilaAndr^evich" 1 and the words, "Uncle
will give it to us hot," in reference to Count
Arakch^ev. One general (an important per-
sonage), 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 feel-
ing 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 re-
ceived 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 min-
ister's room by the adjutant on duty, an officer
who struck Prince Andrew by his humiliated
and frightened air was admitted at that terri-
ble door. This officer's audience lasted a long

l Sila means "force."



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 whis-
per, "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 wrin-
kles, scowling brows above dull greenish-hazel
eyes and an overhanging red nose. Arakch^ev
turned his head toward him without looking at
him.

"What is your petition?" asked Arakchdev.

"I am not petitioning, your excellency," re-
turned Prince Andrew quietly.

Arakchev's eyes turned toward him.

"Sit down," said he. "Prince Bolk6nski?"

"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 proj-
ect," interrupted Arakch^ev, uttering only the
first words amiably and then again without
looking at Prince Andrew relapsing gradual-
ly 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 present-
ed," said Prince Andrew politely.

"I have endorsed a resolution on your mem-
orandum and sent it to the committee. I do not
approve of it," said Arakch^ev, rising and tak-
ing 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 with-
out punctuation: "Unsoundly constructed be-
cause resembles an imitation of the French mil-
itary code and from the Articles of War need-
lessly 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 Arak-



240 WAR AND PEACE

chev. "I have the honor . . . Ehl 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, particu-
larly those he knew to be in power and whose
aid he might need. In Petersburg he now ex-
perienced the same feeling he had had on the
eve of a battle, when troubled by anxious cu-
riosity and irresistibly attracted to the ruling
circles where the future, on which the fate of
millions depended, was beingshaped. 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 command-
er 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 Sperdnski its chief promoter,
began to interest him so keenly that the ques-
tion of the army regulations quickly receded to
a secondary place in his consciousness.

Prince Andrew was most favorably placed to
secure a good reception in the highest and most
diverse Petersburg circles of the day. The re-
forming party cordially welcomed and courted
him, in the first place because he was reputed to
be clever and very well read, and secondly be-
cause by liberating his serfs he had obtained
the reputation of being a liberal. The party of
the old and dissatisfied, who censured the in-
novations, turned to him expecting his sympa-
thy in their disapproval of the reforms, simply
because he was the son of his father. The fem-
inine society world welcomed him gladly, be-
cause 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 opin-
ion 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 Ar-



akch^ev, Prince Andrew spent the evening at
Count Kochub^y's. He told the count of his
interview with Sila Andre evich (Kochube*y
spoke of Arakche*ev by that nickname with the
same vague irony Prince Andrew had noticed
in the Minister of War's anteroom).

"Mon cher f even in this case you can't do
without Michael Mikhdylovich Sperdnski. 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.

Kochube*y shook his head smilingly, as if sur-
prised at Bolk6nski's simplicity.

"We were talking to him about you a few days
ago," Kochube*y 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 Bolk6nski.

"It was a small estate that brought in no prof-
it," replied Prince Andrew, trying to extenuate
his action so as not to irritate the old man use-
lessly.

"Afraid of being late . . ." said the old man,
looking at Kochubdy.

"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 sup-
pose," replied Kochub^y, crossing his legs and
glancing round.

"Well, I have Prydniclmikov 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 Kochub^ydid 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 unusu-
al and peculiar whiteness, who was just enter-
ing. The newcomer wore a blue swallow-tail
coat with a cross suspended from his neck and a
star on his left breast. It was Sperdnski. Prince
Andrew recognized him at once, and felt a
throb within him, as happens at critical mo-
ments of life. Whether it was from respect, en-
vy, or anticipation, he did not know. Speran-
ski'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 clum-



BOOK SIX



sy 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 ex-
pressed nothing; nor had he heard such a re-
fined, smooth, soft voice; above all he had nev-
er 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 Spe-
rdnski, Secretary of State, reporter to the Em-
peror and his companion at Erfurt, where he
had more than once met and talked with Na-
poleon.

Sperdnski did not shift his eyes from one face
to another as people involuntarily do on en-
tering 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 Sperdnski's every
word and movement with particular attention.
As happens to some people, especially to men
who judge those near to them severely, he al-
ways on meeting anyone newespecially any-
one whom, like Speranski, he knew by reputa-
tionexpected to discover in him the perfec-
tion of human qualities.

Speranski told Kochubdy 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 Ko-
chube*y introduced Prince Andrew, Sperdnski
slowly turned his eyes to Bolk6nski 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.

Kochube"y said a few words about the recep-
tion Arakch^ev had given Bolk6nski. Sperdnski
smiled more markedly.

"The chairman of the Committee on Army
Regulations is my good friend Monsieur Mag-
nftski," 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 Sperdnski, and
the old man who had talked about his subordi-
nate Prydnichnikov addressed a question to
him.

Prince Andrew without joining in the con-



versation watched every movement of Sperdn-
ski's: this man, not long since an insignificant
divinity student, who now, Bolk6nski thought,
held in his hands those plump white hands
the fate of Russia. Prince Andrew was struck
by the extraordinarily disdainful composure
with which Sperdnski 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, Sperdn-
ski 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 gen-
eral circle, Sperdnski 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 Bolk6nski.

"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, evi-
dently stands above our contemporaries who
so condemn this measure which merely re-
establishes natural justice."

"I think, however, that these condemnations
have some ground," returned Prince Andrew,
trying to resist Sperdnski'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 Sperdnski. He was too
much absorbed in observing the famous man's
personality.

"Grounds of personal ambition maybe,"
Sperdnski put in quietly.

"And of state interest to some extent," said
Prince Andrew.



242



WAR AND PEACE



"What do you mean?" asked Sperdnski quiet-
ly, lowering his eyes.

"I am an admirer of Montesquieu," replied
Prince Andrew, "and his idea that le principe
des monarchies est I'honneur me paratt in-
contestable. Certains droits et privileges de la
noblesse me paraissent Stre des moyens de sou-
tenir ce sentiment." *

The smile vanished from Sperdnski'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.

Sperdnski went on to say that honor, I'hon-
neur, cannot be upheld by privileges harmful
to the service; that honor, I'honneur, is either
a negative concept of not doing what is blame-
worthy or it is a source of emulation in pursuit
of commendation and rewards, which recog-
nize it. His arguments were concise, simple,
and clear.

"An institution upholding honor, the source
of emulation, is one similar to the Legion
d'honneurot the great Emperor Napoleon, not
harmful but helpful to the success of the serv-
ice, but not a class or court privilege."

"I do not dispute that, but it cannot be de-
nied 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 Sperdnski, indicating
by a smile that he wished to finish amiably an
argument which was embarrassing for his com-
panion. "If you will do me the honor of call-
ing 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 franfaise,
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

1 "The principle of monarchies is honor seems
to me incontestable. Certain rights and privileges
for the aristocracy appear to me a means of main-
taining that sentiment."

* "If you regard the question from that point of
view."



overshadowed by the trifling cares that en-
grossed 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 noth-
ing, 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 no-
tice that he was thinking of nothing.

As he had done on their first meeting at Ko-
chuby's, Sperdnski produced a strong impres-
sion on Prince Andrew on the Wednesday,
when he received him tthe-d-tte at his own
house and talked to him long and confiden-
tially.

To Bolk6nski so many people appeared con-
temptible 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 Sperdnski he had found
this ideal of a perfectly rational and virtuous
man. Had Sperdnski sprung from the same
class as himself and possessed the same breed-
ing and traditions, Bolkonski would soon have
discovered his weak, human, unheroic sides;
but as it was, Sperdnski's strange and logical
turn of mind inspired him with respect all the
more because he did not quite understand him.
Moreover, Sperdnski, either because he appre-
ciated the other's capacity or because he con-
sidered it necessary to win him to his side,
showed off his dispassionate calm reasonable-
ness 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 reason-
ableness and profundity of one's own ideas.

During their long conversation on Wednes-
day evening, Sperdnski more than once re-
marked: "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, under-
stand what they are and who we are/'

This first long conversation with Sperdnski



BOOK SIX



243



only strengthened in Prince Andrew the feel-
ing 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 Sperdnski was
the man he would himself have wished to be
one who explained all the facts of life reason-
ably, considered important only what was ra-
tional, and was capable of applying the stand-
ard of reason to everything. Every thing seemed
so simple and clear in Sperdnski's exposition
that Prince Andrew involuntarily agreed with
him about everything. If he replied and ar-
gued, it was only because he wished to main-
tain his independence and not submit to Spe-
rdnski's opinions entirely. Everything was right
and everything was as it should be: only one
thing disconcerted Prince Andrew. This was
Sperdnski'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 mirror-
like gaze and those delicate hands irritated
Prince Andrew, he knew not why. He was un-
pleasantly struck, too, by the excessive con-
tempt for others that he observed in Sperdnski,
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 An-
drew, from one to another. Now he would take
up the position of a practical man and con-
demn 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 origi-
nal discussion.

In general the trait of Sperdnski's mentality
which struck Prince Andrew most was his ab-
solute 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 Sperdnski's mind
that particularly attracted Prince Andrew.



During the first period of their acquaintance
Bolk6nski felt a passionate admiration for him
similar to that which he had once felt for
Bonaparte. The fact that Sperdnski 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 Bolk6nski spent with
him, having mentioned the Commission for the
Revision of the Code of Laws, Sperdnski told
him sarcastically that the Commission had ex-
isted for a hundred and fifty years, had cost
millions, and had done nothing except that
Rosenkampf had stuck labels on the corre-
sponding 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 Sperdnski's request he took the
first part of the Civil Code that was being
drawn up and, with the aid of the Code Napo-
teon 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 Free-
masons. 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 single-
handed a poor house the order had founded in
Petersburg.

His life meanwhile continued as before, with
the same infatuations and dissipations. He



244 WAR AND PEACE

liked to dine and drink well, and though he
considered it immoral and humiliating could
not resist the temptations of the bachelor cir-
cles in which he moved.

Amid the turmoil of his activities and dis-
tractions, 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 involun-
tarily became to the order. When he had joined
the Freemasons he had experienced the feel-
ing 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 Alex^evich 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 Ivdn Vasilevich D., whom he knew in soci-
ety mostly as weak and insignificant men. Un-
der 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 exclusive-
ly occupied with the mystical science of the or-
der: with questions of the threefold designa-
tion 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 be-
longed, including, Pierre thought, Joseph
Alexevich himself, but he did not share their
interests. His heart was not in the mystical as-
pect of Freemasonry.
In the second category Pierre reckoned him-



self and others like him, seeking and vacillat-
ing, 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 cere-
monies, and prized the strict performance of
these forms without troubling about their pur-
port 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 be-
lief in anything, nor desire for anything, but
joined the Freemasons merely to associate with
the wealthy young Brothers who were influ-
ential 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 cor-
respondence with those abroad that Beziikhov
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 Mason-
ic cause in Russia. The Petersburg Freemasons
all came to see him, tried to ingratiate them-
selves with him, and it seemed to them all that
he was preparing something for them and con-
cealing 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 high-
est 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



BOOK SIX



245



secure the triumph of virtue," he read, "we
must cleanse men from prejudice, diffuse prin-
ciples 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 supersti-
tions, 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 pre-
ponderance of virtue over vice and must en-
deavor 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 circum-
stances? To favor revolutions, overthrow every-
thing, repel force by force? . . . No I 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 firm-
ness 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 attach-
ing 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 gov-
ernment holding universal sway, which should
be diffused over the whole world without de-
stroying the bonds of citizenship, and beside
which all other governments can continue in
their customary course and do everything ex-
cept 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 suf-
ficient. 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 impres-
sion, but created excitement in the lodge. The
majority of the Brothers, seeing in it dangerous
designs of Illuminism, 1 met it with a coldness
that surprised Pierre. The Grand Master be-
gan answering him, and Pierre began develop-
ing his views with more and more warmth. It
was long since there had been so stormy a meet-
ing. Parties were formed, some accusing Pierre
of Illuminism, others supporting him. At that
meeting l>e 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.

At the end of the meeting the Grand Master
with irony and ill-will reproved Bezukhov for
his vehemence and said it was not love of vir-
tue alone, but also a love of strife that had
moved him in the dispute. Pierre did not an-
swer him and asked briefly whether his pro-
posal 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 Peters-
burg 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, turn-
ing the conversation upon Pierre's matrimoni-
al affairs, by way of fraternal advice expressed

1 The Illuminati sought to substitute republican
for monarchical institutions.



WAR AND PEACE



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
Vasfli'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 un-
der the influence of the depression that pos-
sessed 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 Alex^evich. This is what he noted in
his diary:

Moscow, ijth November

I have just returned from my benefactor, and
hasten to write down what I have experienced.
Joseph Alexevich 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 en-
countered, and of my rupture with the Brothers.
Joseph Alexdevich, 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 sur-
prised me by asking whether I remembered the
threefold aim of the order: (i) The preservation
and study of the mystery, (a) 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 prof-
ligacy. Ilium inism is not a pure doctrine, just be-
cause it is attracted by social activity and puffed
up by pride. On this ground Joseph Alexevich
condemned my speech and my whole activity, and
in the depth of my soul I agreed with him. Talk-
ing 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 remov-
ing 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: (i) Self-knowl-
edgefor man can only know himself by compari-
son, (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 of
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, 2}rd November

I am again living with my wife. My mother-in-
law came to me in tears and said that Helene 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 refus-
ing what she wanted. In my perplexity I did not
know whose aid and advice to seek. Had my bene-
factor been here he would have told me what to
do. I went to my room and reread Joseph Alexe-
vich's letters and recalled my conversations with
him, and deduced from it all that I ought not to
refuse a suppliant, 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
Alexe"evich. 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 for-
give. 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 regenera-
tion.

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 Rumydntsev and Caulain-
court. In this group HeUene, 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 in-
tellect and polished manners.

Hellene had been at Erfurt during the fa-
mous meeting of the Emperors and had brought
from there these connections with the Napole-
onic 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." l Her success as a beautiful and ele-
gant 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." 3 The distinguished
Prince de Ligne wrote her eight-page letters.
Bilibin saved up his epigrams to produce them
in Countess Bezukhova's presence. To be re-
ceived in the Countess Bezukhova's salon was
regarded as a diploma of intellect Young men
read books before attending Hlne's evenings,
to have something to say in her salon, and
secretaries of the embassy, and even ambassa-
dors, confided diplomatic secrets to her, so that
in a way Hdene 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 con-

1 "That's a superb animal."
""Of a charming woman, as witty as she is
lovely."



BOOK SIX 247

juror who always expects his trick to be found



out at any moment. But whether because stu-
pidity 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 Hlene Bezukhova's
reputation as a lovely and clever woman be-
came so firmly established that she could say
the emptiest and stupidest things andyet every-
body would go into raptures over every word
of hers and look for a profound meaning in it
of which she herself had no conception.

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 draw-
ing room, he served, by the contrast he pre-
sented 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 to-
ward 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 in-
different to them all. Sometimes he joined in a
conversation which interested him and, regard-
less of whether any "gentlemen of the embassy"
were present or not, lispingly expressed his
views, which were sometimes not at all in ac-
cord 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, Boris Drubetsk6y, who had
already achieved great success in the service,
was the most intimate friend of the Bezukhov
household since Hlne's return from Erfurt.
Hlene 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
Boris behaved with a particularly dignified and
sad deference. This shade of deference also dis-
turbed 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 repeti-
tion, first by not being a husband to his wife,



WAR AND PEACE



and secondly by not allowing himself to sus-
pect.

"No, now that she has become a bluestock-
ing she has finally renounced her former in-
fatuations," he told himself. "There has never
been an instance of a bluestocking being car-
ried away by affairs of the heart"a statement
which, though gathered from an unknown
source, he believed implicitly. Yet strange to
say Borfs' presence in his wife's drawing room
(and he was almost always there) had a physi-
cal effect upon Pierre; it constricted his limbs
and destroyed the unconsciousness and free-
dom 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 hus-
band of a distinguished wife, a clever crank
who did nothing but harmed nobody and was
a first-rate, good-natured fellow. But a com-
plex and difficult process of internal develop-
ment 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:
November



Got up at eight, read the Scriptures, then went
to my duties. [By Joseph Alexevich'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,
(i) to conquer anger by calmness and delibera-
tion, (2) to vanquish lust by self-restraint and re-
pulsion, (3) to withdraw from worldliness, but not
avoid (a) the service of the state, (b) family du-
ties, (c) relations with my friends, and (d) the
management of my affairs.

2jth November

I got up late. On waking I lay long in bed yield-
ing to sloth. O God, help and strengthen me that I
may walk in Thy ways! Read the Scriptures, but
without proper feeling. Brother Uriisov 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 benefac-
tor's wordsthat a true Freemason should be a



zealous worker for the state when his aid is re-
quired 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 interpre-
tation of the seven pillars and steps of the Tem-
ple, 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 Borfs Drubetskoy who was ad-
mitted. 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 my-
self 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 ob-
ject 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 pre-
occupied and satisfied with the outer man to de-
sire 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 tem-
ple it seemed to me that he was smiling con-
temptuously 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 men-
tion 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 sa-
cred 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 mat-
terare 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,



BOOK SIX



holds it, and in combination produces other bod-
ies. Mercury is a fluid, volatile, spiritual essence.
Christ, the Holy Spirit, HimI . . .

3rd December

Awoke late, read the Scriptures but was apa-
thetic. 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 D61okhov, meeting me in Moscow
after our duel, said he hoped I was enjoying per-
fect 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 rec-
ollected myself and drove away that thought only
when I found myself glowing with anger, but I did
not sufficiently repent. Afterwards Boris Drubet-
sk6y 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 can-
not 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 rude-
ness 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 bit-
ing 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 legs 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 Alexevich was sitting in
my house, and that I was very glad and wished to
entertain him. It seemed as if I chattered inces-



santly with other people and suddenly remem-
bered 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 re-
marks. 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 sud-
denly 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 re-
plied 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 dark-
ness; and the darkness comprehended it not."
Joseph Alexevich's face had looked young and
bright. That day I received a letter from my bene-
factor in which he wrote about "conjugal duties."

9th December

I had a dream from which I awoke with a throb-
bing heart. I saw that I was in Moscow in my house,
in the big sitting room, and Joseph Alexevich
came in from the drawing room. I seemed to know
at once that the process of regeneration had al-
ready 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 dif-
ferent?" 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 carry-
ing 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



250



WAR AND PEACE



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 do-
ing wrong, but could not tear myself away from
them. Lord, help mel 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 de-
sertest me!



CHAPTER XI

THE Rosx6vs' MONETARY AFFAIRS had not im-
proved during the two years they had spent in
the country.

Though Nicholas Rostov had kept firmly to
his resolution and was still serving modestly in
an obscure regiment, spending comparatively
little, the way of life at Otradnoe Mftenka'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 Ve*ra and was accepted.

Though in Moscow the Rostovs belonged to
the best society without themselves giving it a
thought, yet in Petersburg their circle of ac-
quaintances 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 Rost6vs 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, Per6nskaya a maid
of honor, Pierre Beziikhov, arid the son of their
district postmaster who had obtained a post in
Petersburg. Among the men who very soon be-
came frequent visitors at the Rost6vs' house in
Petersburg were Boris, Pierre whom the count
had met in the street and dragged home with
him, and Berg who spent whole days at the
Rost6vs' and paid the eldest daughter, Count-
ess Ve'ra, 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 nar
rated that episode so persistently and with st\
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 dis-
tinguish 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 Fin-
nish 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 excel-
lent 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 com-
rade in the stalls of a Moscow theater, Berg
had pointed out Ve'ra Rost6va to him and had
said in German, "das soil mein Weib werden," 1
and from that moment had made up his mind
to marry her. Now in Petersburg, having con-
sidered the Rost6vs' position and his own, he
decided that the time had come to propose.

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 ob-
scure Livonian gentleman should propose mar-
riage to a Countess Rost6va; but Berg's chief
characteristic was such a naive and goocl-
natured egotism that the Rost6vs 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 Rostovs'
affairs were seriously embarrassed, as the suitor
could not but know; and above all, Ve'ra 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 consid-
ered it all, and should not marry if I had not
thought it all out or if it were in any way un-
suitable. But on the contrary, my papa and
mamma are now provided for I have arranged
that rent for them in the Baltic Provincesand

1 "That girl shall be my wife."



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 dishonorablebut a wife
should bring her share and a husband his. I
have my position in the service, she has con-
nections 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 dif-
ferentan 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 hap-
piness.

After the first feeling of perplexity aroused
in the parents by Berg's proposal, the holiday
tone of joyousness usual at such times took pos-
session of the family, but the rejoicing was ex-
ternal and insincere. In the family's feeling to-
ward this wedding a certain awkwardness and
constraint was evident, as if they were ashamed
of not having loved Ve*ra sufficiently and of be-
ing 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 embarrass-
ment, but it resulted from the state of his af-
fairs. He did not know at all how much he had,
what his debts amounted to, or what dowry he
could give V6ra. 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 Vera. 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
hiswifeabout it. Atone 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 morn-
ing and, with a pleasant smile, respectfully
asked his future father-in-law to let him know



BOOK SIX 251

what Wra'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 busi-
nesslike 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 Vra 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 my-
self 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 im-
portunity, 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 with-
out receiving thirty thousand in ready money.
"Or at least twenty thousand, Count," he added,
"and then a note of hand for only sixty thou-
sand."

"Yes, yes, all rightl" said the count hurried-
ly. "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

NATASHA WAS SIXTEEN and it was the year 1809,
the very year to which she had counted on her
fingers with Boris after they had kissed four
years ago. Since then she had not seen him. Be-
fore S6nya and her mother, if Boris happened
to be mentioned, she spoke quite freely of that
episode as of some childish, long-forgotten mat-
ter that was not worth mentioning. But in the
secret depths of her soul the question whether
her engagement to Boris was a jest or an im-
portant, binding promise tormented her.

Since Boris left Moscow in 1805 to join the
army he had not seen the Rostovs. He had been
in Moscow several times, and had passed near
Otradnoe, but had never been to see them.

Sometimes it occurred to Natdsha 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 Borfs was men-
tioned.

Anna Mikhaylovna also had of late visited



252



WAR AND PEACE



them less frequently, seemed to hold herself
with particular dignity, and always spoke rap-
turously and gratefully of the merits of her son
and the brilliant career on which he had en-
tered. When the Rost6vs came to Petersburg
Boris called on them.

He drove to their house in some agitation.
The memory of Natasha was his most poetic
recollection. But he went with the firm inten-
tion of letting her and her parents feel that the
childish relations between himself and Natasha
could not be binding either on her or on him.
He had a brilliant position in society thanks to
his intimacy with Countess Bezukhova, a bril-
liant position in the service thanks to the pat-
ronage of an important personage whose com-
plete confidence he enjoyed, and he was begin-
ning to make plans for marrying one of the
richest heiresses in Petersburg, plans which
might very easily be realized. When he entered
the Rost6vs' drawing room Natdsha 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.

Boris remembered Natasha 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 tak-
en aback when quite a different Natasha en-
tered, and his face expressed rapturous aston-
ishment. This expression on his face pleased
Natasha.

"Well, do you recognize your little madcap
playmate?" asked the countess.

Boris kissed Natdsha's hand and said that he
was astonished at the change in her.

"How handsome you have grown!"

"I should think sol replied Natdsha's laugh-
ing eyes.

"And is Papa older?" she asked.

Natdsha sat down and, without joining in
Boris* conversation with the countess, silently
and minutely studied her childhood's suitor.
He felt the weight of that resolute and affec-
tionate scrutiny and glanced at her occasional-
ly.

Boris* uniform, spurs, tie, and the way his
hair was brushed were all comme il faut and in
the latest fashion. This Natdsha 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 particu-
larly refined compression of his lips about the
amusements of the highest Petersburg society,
recalling with mild irony old times in Mos-



cow and Moscow acquaintances. It was not
accidentally, Natasha felt, that he alluded,
when speaking of the highest aristocracy, to an
ambassador's ball he had attended, and to in-
vitations he had received from N.N. and S.S.

All this time Natdsha sat silent, glancing up
at him from under her brows. This gaze dis-
turbed and confused Boris 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 Boris said to himself that Na-
tdsha 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. Boris made
up his mind to avoid meeting Natdsha, but de-
spite that resolution he called again a few days
later and began calling often and spending
whole days at the Rost6vs'. It seemed to him
that he ought to have an explanation with Na-
tdsha 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 hermarryhim. But he
failed to do so and felt awkward about enter-
ing on such an explanation. From day to day
he became more and more entangled. It seemed
to her mother and S6nya that Natdsha was in
love with Boris as of old. She sang him his fa-
vorite songs, showed him her album, making
him write in it, did not allow him to allude to
the past, letting it be understood how delight-
ful 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 alf end. He left off visit-
ing Hdlene and received reproachful notes
from her every day, and yet he continued to
spend whole days with the Rost6vs.

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 Natdsha, 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?" Natasha, 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 small-
er than the one below. Natasha 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 inaudi-
bly, 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 Natasha'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 Na-
tasha. "Now, just one on your throat and an-
other . . . that'll do!" And seizing her mother
round the neck, she kissed her on the throat.
In her behavior to her mother Natasha 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 mak-
ing her feel uncomfortable or displeased.

"Well, what is it tonight?" said the mother,
having arranged her pillows and waited until
Natdsha, after turning over a couple of times,
had settled down beside her under the quilt,
spread out her arms, and assumed a serious ex-
pression.

These visits of Natasha's at night before the
count returned from his club were one of the
greatest pleasures of both mother and daugh-
ter.

"What is it tonight? But I have to tell
you ..."

Natdsha put her hand on her mother's mouth.

"About Boris ... 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?"

"Natasha, you are sixteen. At your age I was
married. You say Boris 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. Natdsha was lying looking



BOOK SIX 253

steadily straight before her at one of the ma-



hogany 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 ex-
pression.

Natdsha 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 Natdsha, without changing
her position.

"Because he is young, because he is poor, be-
cause he is a relation . . . and because you your-
self don't love him."

"How do you know?"

"I know. It is not right, darling!"

"But if I want to . . ," said Natdsha.

"Leave off talking nonsense," said the count-
ess.

"But if I want to . . ."

"Natdsha, I am in earnest . . ."

Natdsha 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 witffc&to say.

"It won't do, my love! Not everyone will un-
derstand 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 Natdsha.

"I'll tell you some things about myself. I had
a cousin . . ."

"I know! Cyril Matvdich . . . but he is old."

"He was not always old. But this is what I'll
do, Natdsha, I'll have a talk with Boris. 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 Natdsha
in the tone of one being deprived of her prop-
erty. "Well, I won't marry, but let him come if
he enjoys it and I enjoy it." Natdsha smiled



254



WAR AND PEACE



and looked at her mother. "Not to marry, but
just so," she added.

"How 50, my pet?"

"Just so. There's no need for me to marry
him. But . . . just 50."

"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 Natasha. "You're
shaking the whole bedl You're awfully likeme,
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 oth-
er 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.

Natasha continued: "Don't you really un-
derstand? Nicholas would understand. . . . Be-
zukhov, 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?"
Natdsha 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 under-
stand all that she understood and all there was
in her.

"S6nya?" she thought, glancing at that curled-
up, sleeping little kitten with her enormous
plait of hair. "No, how could she? She's virtu-
ous. She fell in love with Nicholas and does
not wish to know anything more. Even Mam-
ma does not understand. It is wonderful how
clever I am and how . . . charming she is," she
went on, speaking of herself in the third per-
son, 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 in-
telligent, 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 1"



She hummed a scrap from her favorite opera
by Cherubini, threw herself on her bed, laughed
at the pleasant thought that she would imme-
diately fall asleep, called Dunydsha the maid
to put out the candle, and before Dunydsha
had left the room had already passed into yet
another happier world of dreams, where every-
thing was as light and beautiful as in reality,
and even more so because it was different.

Next day the countess called Boris aside and
had a talk with him, after which he ceased com-
ing to the Rost6vs*.

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 en-
trance which was carpeted with red baize, and
not only gendarmes but dozens of police of-
ficers 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 car-
riages 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 Rost6vs, who were to be present, were
still hurrying to get dressed.

There had been many discussions and prepa-
rations for this ball in the Rost6v family, many
fears that the invitation would not arrive, that
the dresses would not be ready, or that some-
thing would not be arranged as it should be.

Mdrya Igndtevna Per6nskaya, a thin and
shallow maid of honor at the court of the Dow-
ager Empress, who was a friend and relation of
the countess and piloted the provincial Rost6vs



BOOK SIX



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 al-
ready five minutes to ten, and the girls were
not yet dressed.

Natasha 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 con-
centrated on ensuring that they all she her-
self, Mamma, and S6nya should be as well
dressed as possible. S6nya 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 & In 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 rib-
bons were already on; the hairdressing was al-
most done. S6nya was finishing dressing and so
was the countess, but Natasha, 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 shoul-
ders. S6nya stood ready dressed in the middle
of the room and, pressing the head of a pin till
it hurt her dainty finger, was fixingon a lastrib-
bon that squeaked as the pin went through it.

"That's not the way, that's not the way,
S6nya!" cried Natdsha 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!"

S6nya sat down and Natdsha pinned the rib-
bon on differently.

"Allow me, Missl I can't do it like that," said
the maid who was holding Natasha's hair.

"Oh, dearl Well then, wait. That's right,
S6nya."

"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 Natdsha.
"You won't do it right."

"But it's already ten."

They had decided to be at the ball by half-
past ten, and Natdsha had still to get dressed
and they had to call at the Taurida Gardens.

When her hair was done, Natasha, in her
short petticoat from under which her dancing
shoes showed, and in her mother's dressing



jacket, ran up to S6nya, 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 Natasha'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 S6n-
ya, and a fourth held the whole of the gossa-
mer garment up high on one uplifted hand.

"Mdvra, 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.
Per6nskaya must be tired of waiting."

"It's ready, Miss," said the maid, holding up
the shortened gauze dress with two fingers, and
blowing arid shaking something off it, as if by
this to express a consciousness of the airiness
and purity of what she held.

Natdsha 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.

Sonya 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, Papal how nice you look! Charming!"
cried Natasha, 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 S6nya, in a
despairing voice as she looked at Natdsha, "say
what you like, it's still too long."

Natdsha 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 Mdvra, crawling on her knees after her
young lady.

"Well, if it's too long we'll take it up ...
we'll tack it up in one minute," said the reso-
lute Dunydsha taking a needle that was stuck
on the front of her little shawl and, still kneel-
ing on the floor, set to work once more.

At that moment, with soft steps, the count-
ess came in shyly, in her cap and velvet gown.

"Oo-oo, my beauty!" exclaimed the count,
"she looks better than any of you!"



WAR AND PEACE



He would have embraced her but, blushing,
she stepped aside fearing to be rumpled.

"Mamma, your cap, more to this side," said
Natdsha. "I'll arrange it," and she rushed for-
ward 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 I "

"Never mind, I'll run it up, it won't show,"
said Dunydsha.

"What a beauty a very queen!" said the
nurse as she came to the door. "And S6nya!
They are lovely I"

At a quarter past ten they at last got into
their carriages and started. But they had still
to call at the Taurida Gardens.

Per6nskaya was quite ready. In spite of her
age and plainness she had gone through the
same process as the Rost6vs, but with less flur-
ryfor to her it was a matter of routine. Her
ugly old body was washed, perfumed, and pow-
dered in just the same way. She had washed be-
hind 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 admira-
tion as the Rost6vs' servants had been.

She praised the Rost6vs' toilets. They praised
her taste and toilet, and at eleven o'clock, care-
ful of their coiffures and dresses, they settled
themselves in their carriages and drove off.

CHAPTER XV

NATASHA 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 Peters-
burg. 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
S6nya 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 try-
ing with all her might to conceal it. And this
was the very attitude that became her best. Be-
fore and behind them other visitors were en-
tering, also talking in low tones and wearing
ball dresses. The mirrors on the landing re-
flected ladies in white, pale-blue, and pink
dresses, with diamonds and pearls on their bare
necks and arms.

Natasha 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 Na-
tdsha, 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 re-
peating the same words to the various arrivals,
"Charmt de vous voir" l greeted the Rost6vs
and Per6nskaya in the same manner.

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 Natasha. 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, irre-
coverable days of her own girlhood and her
own first ball. The host also followed Natdsha
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. Natdsha 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.

Per6nskaya was pointing out to the count-
ess 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.

1 "Delighted to sec you."



BOOK SIX



257



"Ah, here she is, the Queen of Petersburg,
Countess Bezukhova," said Per6nskaya, indi-
cating Hlne who had just entered. "How
lovely! She is quite equal to Marya Ant6nov-
na. 1 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 Per6nskaya. "And look, here come her
suitors."

"That is Bezukhova's brother, Anatole Ku-
ragin," she said, indicating a handsome officer
of the Horse Guards who passed by them with
head erect, looking at somcthingover the heads
of the ladies. "He's handsome, isn't he? I hear
they will marry him to that rich girl. But your
cousin, Drubetsk6y, 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
Marya Ant6novna! And how simply she is
dressed! Lovely! And that stout one in spec-
tacles 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-natured-
ly as if he were passing through a crowd at a
fair. He pushed through, evidently looking for
someone.

Natasha looked joyfully at the familiar face
of Pierre, "the buffoon," as Per6nskaya 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. Natasha at once recognized the
shorter and younger man in the white uni-
form: it was Bolk6nski, who seemed to her
to have grown much younger, happier, and
better-looking.

"There's someone else we know Bolk6nski,
do you see, Mamma?" said Natasha, pointing

1 Alexander I's mistress. TR.



out Prince Andrew. "You remember, he stayed
a night with us at Otradnoe."

"Oh, you know him?" said Per6nskaya. "I
can't bear him. // fait & present la pluie et le
beau temps. 9 He's too proud for anything.
Takes after his father. And he's hand in glove
with Sperdnski, 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."

CHAPTER XVI

SUDDENLY EVERYBODY STIRRED, began talking,
and pressed forward and then back, and be-
tween the two rows, which separated, the Em-
peror entered to the sounds of music that had
immediately struck up. Behind him walked his
host and hostess. He walked in rapidly, bow-
ing 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 talk-
ing to the hostess. A young man, looking dis-
traught, pounced down on the ladies, asking
them to move aside. Some ladies, with faces be-
traying complete forgetfulness of all the rules
of decorum, pushed forward to the detriment
of their toilets. The men began to choose part-
ners 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 Marya
Ant6novna Naryshkina; then came ambassa-
dors, ministers, and various generals, whom
Per6nskaya diligently named. More than half
the ladies already had partners and were tak-
ing up, or preparing to take up, their positions
for the polonaise. Natasha felt that she would
be left with her mother and S6nya 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 regu-
larly, and with bated breath and glittering,
frightened eyes gazed straight before her, evi-
dently prepared for the height of joy or misery.

8 "He is all the rage just now."



WAR AND PEACE



She was not concerned about the Emperor or
any of those great people whom Per6nskaya
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 splendid-
ly I dance, and how they would enjoy dancing
with me."

The strains of the polonaise, which had con-
tinued for a considerable time, had begun to
sound like a sad reminiscence in Natasha's ears.
She wanted to cry. Per6nskaya had left them.
The count was at the other end of the room.
She and the countess and S6nya 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 An-
drew with a lady passed by, evidently not recog-
nizing them. The handsome Anatole was smil-
ingly talking to a partner on his arm and
looked at Natdsha as one looks at a wall. Boris
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 Natdsha as if there were nowhere else for
the family to talk but here at the ball. She did
not listen to or look at Vera, 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 Rostrivs requesting them to stand far-
ther back, though as it was they were already
close to the wall, and from the gallery re-
sounded the distinct, precise, enticingly rhyth-
mical 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 Bezukhova 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 part-
ner firmly round her waist, with confident de-
liberation started smoothly, gliding first round
the edge of the circle, then at the corner of the
room he caught Hlne'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.
Natdsha 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 danc-
ing shoes, stood looking animated and bright
in the front row of the circle not far from the
Rost6vs. Baron Firhoff was talking to him
about the first sitting of the Council of State to
be held next day. Prince Andrew, as one close-
ly connected with Sperdnski and participating
in the work of the legislative commission, could
give reliable information about that sitting,
concerning which various rumors were cur-
rent. But not listening to what Firhoff was say-
ing, 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 protge*e, the
young Rost6va, here. Ask her," he said.

"Where is she?" asked Bolk6nski. "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, de-
jected expression of Natdsha's face caught his
eye. He recognized her, guessed her feelings,
saw that it was her dbut, remembered her
conversation at the window, and with an ex-
pression of pleasure on his face approached
Countess Rost6va.

"Allow me to introduce you to my daughter,"
said the countess, with heightened color.

"I have the pleasure of being already ac-
quainted, if the countess remembers me," said
Prince Andrew with a low and courteous bow
quite belying Per6nskaya's remarks about his
rudeness, and approaching Natdsha he held
out his arm to grasp her waist before he had
completed his invitation. He asked her to waltz.
That tremulous expression on Natdsha's face,
prepared either for despair or rapture, sud-
denly brightened into a happy, grateful, child-
like 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 shoul-



BOOK SIX



der. They were the second couple to enter the
circle. Prince Andrew was one of the best danc-
ers of his day and Natasha danced exquisitely.
Her little feetin their white satin dancing shoes
did their work swiftly, lightly, and independ-
ently of herself, while her face beamed with
ecstatic happiness. Her slender bare arms and
neck werenot beautiful compared to Helene's
her shoulders looked thin and her bosom un-
developed. But Helene seemed, as it were, hard-
ened by a varnish left by the thousands of looks
that had scanned her person, while Natasha 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 re-
straint he disliked, caused by the Emperor's
presence, he danced, and had chosen Natasha
because Pierre pointed her out to him and be-
cause she was the first pretty girl who caught
his eye; but scarcely had he embraced that slen-
der 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 him-
self revived and rejuvenated when after leav-
ing her he stood breathing deeply and watch-
ing the other dancers.

CHAPTER XVII

AFTER PRINCE ANDREW, Boris came up to ask
Natasha fora 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 S6nya,
she did not cease dancing all the evening. She
noticed and saw nothing of what occupied ev-
eryone 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 Helene had great success andwashonored
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 live-
lier 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 moon-
light night, and told her how he had involun-
tarily overheard her. Natasha 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
notof the conventional society stamp. Andsuch
was Natasha, 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,
Natdsha, 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 every-
body, and you and I understand it all," and
much, much more was said in her smile. When
her partner left her Natasha 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.

"Whatrubbish sometimes enters one's head 1"
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 Natdsha, readjusting a rose that
was slipping on her bodice, settled herself be-
side him.

When the cotillion was over the old count in
his blue coat came up to the dancers. He invit-
ed Prince Andrew to come and see them, and
asked his daughter whether she was enjoying
herself. Natdsha did not answer at once but
only looked up with a smile that said reproach-
fully: "How can you ask such a question?"

"I have never enjoyed myself so much be-
forel" she said, and Prince Andrew noticed
how her thin arms rose quickly as if to embrace
her father and instantly dropped again. Nata-
sha 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, unhappi-
ness, 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-



260



WAR AND PEACE



minded. A deep furrow ran across his fore-
head, and standing by a window he stared
over his spectacles seeing no one.

On her way to supper Natasha 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 any-
thing?" thought Natdsha. "Especially such a
capital fellow as Bezukhov!" In Natasha'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 Rost6va 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 noth-
ing done. He kept criticizing his own work, as
he often did, and was glad when he heard some-
one coming.

The visitor was Bftski, who served on var-
ious committees, frequented all the societies in
Petersburg, and was a passionate devotee of the
new ideas and of Sperdnski, and a diligent Pe-
tersburg newsmonger one of those men who
choose their opinions like their clothes accord-
ing to the fashion, but who for that very reason
appear to be the wannest 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 au-
thority but on secure bases. The Emperor said
that the fiscal system must be reorganized and



the accounts published," recounted Bitski, em-
phasizing certain words and opening his eyes
significantly.

"Ah, yesl 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 sur-
prised 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 Bftski what the Em-
peror 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 Sperdnski's, "with only a few
friends," as the host had said when inviting
him. The prospect of that dinner in the inti-
mate home circle of the man he so admired had
greatly interested Prince Andrew, especially as
he had not yet seen Sperdnski in his domestic
surroundings, but now he felt disinclined to go
to it.

At the appointed hour, however, he entered
the modest house Sperdnski owned in the Tau-
rida Gardens. In the parqueted dining room of
this small house, remarkable for its extreme
cleanliness (suggesting that of a monastery),
Prince Andrew, who was rather late, found
the friendly gathering of Sperdnski's intimate
acquaintances already assembled at five o'clock.
There were no ladies present except Sperdnski's
little daughter (long-faced like her father) and
her governess. The other guests were Gervais,
Magnftski, and Stoly'pin. While still in the an-
teroom Prince Andrew heard loud voices and
a ringing staccato laugh a laugh such as one
hears on the stage. Someone it sounded like
Sperdnski was distinctly ejaculating ha-ha-ha.
Prince Andrew had never before heard Sperdn-
ski's famous laugh, and this ringing, high-
pitched laughter from a statesman made a
strange impression on him.

He entered the din ing room. The whole com-
pany were standing between two windows at
a small table laid with hors-d'oeuvres. Speran-
ski, wearing a gray swallow-tail coat with a star
on the breast, and evidently still the same waist-
coat 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



BOOK SIX



261



surrounded him. Magnitski, addressing him-
self to Sperdnski, was relating an anecdote,
and Sperdnski was laughing in advance at what
Magnitski was going to say. When Prince An-
drew 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 hiss-
ing chuckle, and Sperdnski in a high-pitched
staccato manner.

Still laughing, Sperdnski held out his soft
white hand to Prince Andrew.

"Very pleased to see you, Prince/' he said.
"Onemoment . . ." he wenton, turning to Mag-
nftski 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 Spe-
rdnski with astonishment, regret, and disillu-
sionment. It seemed to him that this was not
Sperdnski but someone else. Everything that
had formerly appeared mysterious and fascinat-
ing in Sperdnski 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 Magnft-
ski had finished his story someone else was anx-
ious to relate something still funnier. Most of
the anecdotes, if not relating to the state serv-
ice, 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. Sperdnski 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 every-
body concerned. Stolypin, stuttering, broke in-
to the conversation and began excitedly talk-
ing 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. Ger-
vais intervened with a joke, and the talk revert-
ed to its former lively tone.

Evidently Sperdnski 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. Sperdn ski's high-pitched voice
struck him unpleasantly, and the incessant
laughter grated on him like a false note. Prince



Andrew didnot laugh and feared that hewould
be a damper on the spirits of the company, but
no one took any notice of his being out of har-
mony with the general mood. They all seemed
very gay.

He tried several times to join in the conver-
sation, 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 Sperdnski's daughter and her
governess rose. He patted the little girl with
his white hand and kissed her. And that ges-
ture, 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 af-
fairs, which they all agreed in approving,
Prince Andrew began to express a contrary
opinion. Sperdnski smiled and, with an evi-
dent wish to prevent the conversation from
taking an unpleasant course, told a story that
had no connection with the previous conver-
sation. For a few moments all were silent.

Having sat some time at table, Sperdnski
corked a bottle of wine and, remarking, "Now-
adays 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 Sperdnski and he took them to his
study. As soon as he had left the room the gen-
eral merriment stopped and the guests began
to converse sensibly and quietly with one an-
other.

"Now for the recitation!" said Sperdnski on
return ing from his study. "A wonderful talent!"
he said to Prince Andrew, and Magnftski im-
mediately assumed a pose and began reciting
some humorous verses in French which he had
composed about various well-known Peters-
burg people. He was interrupted several times
by applause. When the verses were finished
Prince Andrew went up to Sperdnski and took
his leave.

"Where are you off to so early?" asked Spe-
rdnski.

"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 Sperdnski and



26*



WAR AND PEACE



from any of his own activities connected with
him, or ever to have attributed importance to
what Sperdnski was doing. That precise, mirth-
less laughter rang in Prince Andrew's ears long
after he had left the house.

When he reached home Prince Andrew be-
gan 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 com-
mittee of which Berg was a member. He remem-
bered how carefully and at what length every-
thing relating to form and procedure was dis-
cussed 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 him-
self. Then he vividly pictured to himself Bo-
guchdrovo, his occupations in the country, his
journey to Ryazan; he remembered the peas-
ants 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 use-
less work.

CHAPTER XIX

NEXT DAY Prince Andrew called at a few houses
he had not visited before, and among them at
the Rost6vs' with whom he had renewed ac-
quaintance at the ball. Apart from considera-
tions 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.

Natdsha 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 Rost6v family
welcomed him as an old friend, simply and cor-
dially. The whole family, whom he had former-
ly judged severely, now seemed to him to con-
sist of excellent, simple, and kindly people. The
old count's hospitality and good nature, which
struck one especially in Petersburg as a pleas-
ant surprise, were such that Prince Andrew
could not refuse to stay to dinner. "Yes," he
thought, "they are capital people, whoof course
have not the slightest idea what a treasure they



possess in Natdsha; but they are kindly folk and
form the best possible setting for this striking-
ly poetic, charming girl, overflowing with life!"

In Natdsha 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 Otrddnoe avenue and at the
window that moonlight night had already be-
gun to disconcert him. Now this world discon-
certed him no longer and was no longer alien
to him, but he himself having entered it found
in it a new enjoyment.

After dinner Natdsha, at Prince Andrew's re-
quest, went to the clavichord and began sing-
ing. 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 Natdsha 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 disillu-
sionments? . . . His hopes for the future? . . .
Yes and no. The chief reason was a sudden, viv-
id sense of the terrible contrast between some-
thing 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 himwhileshesang.

As soon as Natdsha 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 Rost6vs' 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 sleepless-
ness: 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 Natdsha; 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 educa-
tion by finding a tutor and putting the boy in
his charge, then he ought to retire from theserv-



BOOK SIX



263



ice and go abroad, and see England, Switzer-
land, 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 Peters-
burg, came to see him. Berg arrived in an im-
maculate brand-new uniform, with his hair po-
maded 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 re-
quest, but I hope, Count, I shall be more for-
tunate 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 agree-
able), "and so I wish to arrange just a small par-
ty formy own and my wife's friends." (Hesmiled
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 Hlne, considering the soci-
ety of such people as the Bergs beneath her,
could be cruel enough to refuse such an invita-
tion. Berg explained so clearly why he wanted
to collect at his house a small but select com-
pany, 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
societythat 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 explain-
ing to her that one always could and should be
acquainted with people above one, because on-
ly then does one get satisfaction from acquaint-
ances.

"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 Vcra's hand, and on the way to her
straightened out a turned-up corner of the car-
pet.) "And how have I obtained all this? Chief-
ly by knowing how to choose my acquaintances.
It goes without saying that one must be consci-
entious 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 con-
stitutes a man's dignity, what it was ein Mann
zu sein.* Wra at the same time was smiling with
a sense of superiority over her good, conscien-
tious husband, who all the same understood
life wrongly, as according to Ve*ra all men did.
Berg, judging by his wife, thought all women
weak and foolish. Vera, judging only by her
husband and generalizing from that observa-
tion, supposed that all men, though they un-
derstand nothing and are conceited and sel-
fish, ascribe common sense to themselves alone.

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 chil-
dren too soon," he continued, following an un-
conscious sequence of ideas.

"Yes," answered Ve*ra, "I don't at all want
that. We must live for society."

"Princess Yusiipova wore one exactly like
this," said Berg, pointing to the fichu with a
happy and kindly smile.

Just then Count Beziikhov 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 Vera, "because I
know what interests each of them and what to

1 To be a man.



264

say to different people."

Berg smiled again.

"It can't be helped: men must sometimes
have masculine con versa tion," said he.

They received Pierre in their small, new
drawing-room, where it was impossible to sit
down anywhere without disturbing its sym-
metry, neatness, and order; so it was quite
comprehensible and not strange that Berg, hav-
ing 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 dis-
turbed the symmetry by moving a chair for him-
self, and Berg and V^ra immediately began their
evening party, interrupting each other in their
efforts to entertain their guest.

Ve*ra, having decided in her own mind that
Pierre ought to be entertained with conversa-
tion about the French embassy, at once began
accordingly. Berg, having decided that mascu-
line 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 Ve*ra
was angry at the intrusion of the masculine el-
ement, both husband and wife felt with satis-
faction that, even if only one guest was pres-
ent, 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 Boris, Berg's old comrade, ar-
rived. There was a shade of condescension and
patronage in his treatment of Berg and Ve*ra.
After Boris came a lady with the colonel, then
the general himself, then the Rost6vs, and the
party became unquestionably exactly like all
other evening parties. Berg and Ve*ra 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. Every-
thing was just as everybody always has it, es-
pecially so the general, who admired the apart-
ment, patted Berg on the shoulder, and with
parental authority superintended the setting
out of the table for boston. The general sat
down by Count Ilya Rost6v, who was next to
himself the most important guest. The old peo-
ple sat with the old, the young with the young,
and the hostess at the tea table, on which stood



WAR AND PEACE

exactly the same kind of cakes in a silver cake



basket as the Panins had at their party. Every-
thing was just as it was everywhere else.

CHAPTER XXI

PIERRE, as one of the principal guests, had to
sit down to boston with Count Rost6v, the
general, and the colonel. At the card table he
happened to be directly facing Natdsha, 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 re-
deemed 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 Boris 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 Natasha.

"What has happened to her?" he asked him-
self 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, w-is
looking up at him, flushed and evidently try-
ing 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 Natdsha
and now facing her, but during the whole of
the six rubbers he watched her and his friend.

"Something very important is happening be-
tween 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. Natdsha on one side was talking
with S6nya and Boris, and Ve*ra with a subtle
smile was saying something to Prince Andrew.
Pierre went up to his friend and, asking wheth-
er they were talking secrets, sat down beside
them. Vra, having noticed Prince Andrew's
attentions to Natdsha, decided that at a party,



BOOK SIX



265



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 Vera 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?" Wra 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" (Vra meant herself), "love
a man once for all and remain true to him for-
ever? 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 approach-
ing them.

"Yes, that is true, Prince. In our days," con-
tinued Wra mentioning "our days" as peo-
ple of limited intelligence are fond of doing,
imagining that they have discovered and ap-
praised the peculiar! ties 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 Wra 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 nev-
er cared seriously for anyone. Now you know,
Count," she said to Pierre, "even our dear cous-
in Boris, 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 si-
lent.

"You are friendly with Bods, aren't you?"
asked V6ra.

"Yes, I know him. ..."



"I expect he has told you of his childish love
for Natasha?"

"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 dan-
gereux voisinage* Don't you think so?"

"Oh , undoubtedly I " said Prince Andrew, and
with sudden and unnatural liveliness he began
chaffing Pierre about the need to be very care-
ful 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 Natisha 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 ftf asonic
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 move-
ments, Prince Andrew approached Natdsha
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 arid the tea
cakes; only one thing was lacking that he had al-
ways seen at the evening parties he wished to
imitate. They had not yet had a loud conversa-
tion among the men and a dispute about some-
thing 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 Rost6vs and
spent the rest of the day there.

Everyone in the house realized for whose
sake Prince Andrew came, and without con-
cealing it he tried to be with Natdsha all day.
Not only in the soul of the frightened yet hap-
py and enraptured Natisha, but in the whole
house, there was a feeling of awe at something

1 "Cousinhood is a dangerous neighbor hood."



266



WAR AND PEACE



important that was bound to happen. The
countess looked with sad and sternly serious
eyes at Prince Andrew when he talked to Na-
tdsha and timidly started some artificial con-
versation about trifles as soon as he looked her
way. S6nya was afraid to leave NatAsha and
afraid of being in the way when she was with
them, Natasha grew pale, in a panic of expec-
tation, when she remained alone with him for
a moment. Prince Andrew surprised her by his
timidity. She felt that he wanted to say some-
thing to her but could not bring himself to do
so.

In the evening, when Prince Andrew had
left, the countess went up to Natdsha and
whispered: "Well, what?"

"Mamma! For heaven's sake don't ask me
anything now! One can't talk about that," said
Natdsha.

But all the same that night Natdsha, 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 Boris.

"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," an-
swered 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 Natdsha 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 cho-
sen (she was firmly convinced she had done so)
and of finding him, as it seemed, not indiffer-
ent 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 Natdsha's album.

"Mamma, one need not be ashamed of his
being a widower?"

"Don't, Natdshal Pray to God. 'Marriages
are made in heaven,' " said her mother.

"Darling Mummy, how I love you! How hap-
py I am!" cried Natdsha, 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 Na-
tdsha and his firm resolve to make her his wife.

That day Countess Hlene 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 desper-
ate efforts to combat it. Since the intimacy of
his wife with the royal prince, Pierre had un-
expectedly been made a gentleman of the bed-
chamber, 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 be-
tween his protge*e Natasha and Prince An-
drew accentuated his gloom by the contrast be-
tween his own position and his friend's. He
tried equally to avoid thinking about his wife,
and about Natasha and Prince Andrew; and
again everything seemed to him insignificant
in comparison with eternity; again the ques-
tion: for what? presented itself; and he forced
himself to work day and night at Masonic la-
bors, hoping to drive away the evil spirit that
threatened him. Toward midnight, after he
had left the countess' apartments, he was sit-
ting upstairs in a shabby dressing gown, copy-
ing out the original transactions 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 preoccu-
pied, 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 ex-
pression 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



BOOK

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 be-
side Prince Andrew.

"With Natdsha Rost6va, yes?" said he.

"Yes, yes! Who else should it be? I should
never have believed it, but the feel ing is strong-
er 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 sud-
denly, 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 philoso-
phize, 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 An-
drew, 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 some-
one."

"Well, go on, go on. I am very glad," said
Pierre, and his face really changed, his brow be-
came 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 disillusion-
ment? 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 mas-
tered him as at something strange, apart from
and independent of himself.

"1 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 feel-
ing 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 oth-
er half is everything where she is not, and there



SIX 267

all is 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 ap-
peared 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 anythingnew
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, how-
ever, 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 bril-
liant 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 fianceVs, would
not stand a year's test, or that he (the old prince
himself) would die before then, and he de-
cided to conform to his father's wishto pro-
pose, and postpone the wedding for a year.

Three weeks after the last evening he had
spent with the Rost6vs, Prince Andrew re-
turned to Petersburg.

Next day after her talk with her mother Na-
tdsha expected Bolk6nski all day, but he did
not come. On the second and third day it was



268



WAR AND PEACE



the same. Pierre did not come either and Na-
tdsha, not knowing that Prince Andrew had
gone to see his father, could not explain his ab-
sence to herself.

Three weeks passed in this way. Natdsha
had no desire to go out any where and wandered
from room to room like a shadow, idle and list-
less; 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 disappoint-
ment 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 Natdsha, who
after first listening to her mother's words, sud-
denly interrupted her:

"Leave off, Mamma! I don't think, and don't
want to think about ill 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 Natdsha put
on the old dress which she knew had the pecul-
iar 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 particu-
larly 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 mel" the expression of her
face seemed to say as she caught sight of her-



self. "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 re-
turned to her favorite moodlove of, and de-
light in, herself. "How charming that Natdsha
isl" she said again, speaking as some third, col-
lective, 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 im-
mediately felt this.

In the hall the porch door opened, and some-
one asked, "At home?" and then footsteps were
heard. Natdsha 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, Natasha ran into the draw-
ing room.

"Mamma! Bolk6nski 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 Natdsha his face
brightened. He kissed the countess' hand and
Natasha's, and sat down beside the sofa.

"It is long since we had the pleasure . . ." be-
gan the countess, but Prince Andrew inter-
rupted her by answering her intended ques-
tion, obviously in haste to say what he had to.

"I have not been to see you all this time be-
cause 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 Na-
tdsha; "I want to have a talk with you, Count-
ess," he added after a moment's pause.

The countess lowered her eyes, sighing
deeply.

"I am at your disposal," she murmured.

Natdsha knew that she ought to go away,
but was unable to do so: something gripped
her throat, and regardlessof 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 con-
vinced her that she was not mistaken. Yes, at
once, that very instant, her fate would be de-
cided.

"Go, Natasha! I will call you," said the



BOOK SIX



269



countess in a whisper.

Natasha 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 agree-
able 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 con-
sent Do you give it to me?" said Prince An-
drew.

"Yes," replied the countess. She held out her
hand to him, and with a mixed feeling of es-
trangement 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 Natasha 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 usl" she repeated
while seeking her daughter.

S6nya said that Natasha was in her bedroom.
Natasha was sitting on the bed, pale and dry-
eyed, and was gazing at the icons and whisper-
ing 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 Natasha.
"Go . . . go," said the mother, sadly and re-
proachfully, with a deep sigh, as her daughter
ran away.

Natasha 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, every-
thingl He alone is now dearer to me than every-



thing in the world." Prince Andrew came up
to her with downcast eyes.

"I have loved you from the very first mo-
ment I saw you. May I hope?"

He looked at her and was struck by the seri-
ous impassioned expression of her face. Her
face said: "Why ask? Why doubt what you can-
not 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!" Natasha murmured as if in vexa-
tion. 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 wheth-
er 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 op-
pressive 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 Natdsha "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 play-
ing 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 under-
stood his question.

"Forgive mel" he said. "But you areso young,
and I have already been through so much in
life. I am afraid for you, you do not yet know
yourself."

Natasha listened wtih concentrated atten-
tion, trying but failing to take in the meaning
of his words.

"Hard as this year which delays my happi-
ness 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



270



WAR AND PEACE



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?" Natdsha interrupted
him. "You know that from the very day you
first came to Otrddnoe I have loved you," she
cried, quite convinced that she spoke the truth.

"In a year you will learn to know your-
self. . . ."

"A whole year!" Natasha 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. Natasha 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!" Natdsha
suddenly cried, and again burst into sobs. "I
shall die, waiting a year: it's impossible, it's aw-
ful!" 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, sudden-
ly 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 fre-
quent the Rost6vs' as Natdsha's affianced lover.

CHAPTER XXIV

No BETROTHAL CEREMONY took place and Na-
tdsha's engagement to Bolk6nski was not an-
nounced; 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 Natdsha 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
Natasha nor her parents wished to hear of this,
but Prince Andrew was firm. He came every
day to the Rost6vs', but did not behave to Na-
tdsha 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 re-
call 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 sin-



cere. At first the family felt some constraint in
intercourse with Prince Andrew; he seemed a
man from another world, and for a long time
Natdsha trained the family to get used to him,
proudly assuring them all that he only ap-
peared 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 re-
straint 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 Natdsha, and about al-
bums and fancywork with S6nya. 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 Otrddnoe and their coming to Petersburg,
and the likeness between Natdsha and Prince
Andrew which her nurse had noticed on his
first visit, and Andrew's encounter with Nich-
olas in 1805, and many other incidents beto-
kening that it had to be.

In the house that poetic dullness and quiet
reigned which always accompanies the pres-
ence of a betrothed couple. Often when all sit-
ting 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 An-
drew was afraid and ashamed to speak of it.
Natdsha 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 Natdsha particu-
larly liked it in him and said that his son
would not live with them.

"Why not?" asked Natdsha in a frightened
tone.

"I cannot take him away from his grand-
father, and besides . . ."

"How I should have loved him!" said Na-
tdsha, immediately guessing his thought; "but
I know you wish to avoid any pretext for find-
ing fault with us."

Sometimes the old count would come up,
kiss Prince Andrew, and ask his advice about
Pe* tya's education or Nicholas' service. The old
countess sighed as she looked at them; S6nya
was always getting frightened lest she should
be in the way and tried to find excuses for leav-
ing them alone, even when they did not wish
it. When Prince Andrew spoke (he could tell
a story very well), Natdsha listened to him with
pride; when she spoke she noticed with fear



BOOK SIX



271



and joy that he gazed attentively and scruti-
nizingly 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 char-
acteristic of her, and then she particularly loved
to hear and see how Prince Andrew laughed.
He seldom laughed, but when he did he aban-
doned himself entirely to his laughter, and aft-
er such a laugh she always felt nearer to him.
Natdsha 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 Rostovs' once since the
ball. Pierre seemed disconcerted and embar-
rassed. He was talking to the countess, and Na-
tdsha sat down beside a little chess table with
S6nya, thereby inviting Prince Andrew to come
too. He did so.

"You have known Bezukhov 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-minded-
ness, 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 hap-
pen. 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 An-
drew continued, "I beg you, Mademoiselle
Sophie, whatever may happen, to turn to him
alone for advice and helpl He is a most absent-
minded and absurd fellow, but he has a heart
of gold."

Neither her father, nor her mother, nor S6n-
ya, nor Prince Andrew himself could have fore-
seen how the separation from her lover would
act on Natdsha. Flushed and agitated she went
about the house all that day, dry-eyed, occupied
with most trivial matters as if not understand-
ing what awaited her. She did not even cry
when, on taking leave, he kissed her hand for
the last time. "Don't gol" she said in a tone
that made him wonder whether he really ought



not to stay and which he remembered long aft-
erwards. 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



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 Bolk6nski's health and temper
became much worse. He grew still more irri-
table, and it was Princess Mary who generally
bore the brunt of his frequent fits of unpro-
voked 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 neph-
ew, little Nicholas, and religion and these
were the favorite subjects of the prince's at-
tacks and ridicule. Whatever was spoken of he
would bring round to the superstitiousness of
old maids, or the petting and spoiling of chil-
dren. "You want to make him" little Nicholas
"into an old maid like yourselfl A pity!
Prince Andrew wants a son and not an old
maid," he would say. Or, turning to Mademoi-
selle 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 cen-
tered 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 some-



WAR AND PEACE



thing, and Princess Mary noticed that before
his departure they were dissatisfied with one
another.

Soon after Prince Andrew had gone, Prin-
cess Mary wrote to her friend Julie Karagina
in Petersburg, whom she had dreamed (as aB
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, lov-
ing you, wishes to try you and your excellent
mother. Oh, my friend! Religion, and religion
alone, canI 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 lifenot 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 sis-
ter-in-lawleft 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 under-
standing, 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 pur-
est 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 ter-
rible 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 dis-
missed them with horror, but now they are very
dear 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 sur-
prised to hear that the reason for this is Buona-



parte! The case is this: my father's health is grow-
ing noticeably worse, he cannot stand any contra-
diction and is becoming irritable. This irritability
is, as you know, chiefly directed to political ques-
tions. He cannot endure the notion that Buona-
parte 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
Ivanovich 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 can-
not stand this. It seems to me that it is chiefly
because of his political views that my father is re-
luctant to speak of going to Moscow; for he fore-
sees 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 treat-
ment 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
liis 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 Peters-
burg he received only his due. I always wonder at
the way rumors fly from Petersburg to Moscow, es-
pecially such false ones as that you write about I
mean the report of my brother's betrothal to the
little Rostova. 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 step-
mother. 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 run-
ning on too long and am at the end of my second
sheet. Good-by, my dear friend. May God keep
you in His holy and mighty care. My dear friend,
Mademoiselle Bourienne, sends you kisses.

MARY



BOOK SIX



273



CHAPTER XXVI

IN THE MIDDLE of the summer Princess Mary re-
ceived an unexpected letter from Prince An-
drew in Switzerland in which he gave her
strange and surprising news. He informed her
of his engagement to Natasha Rostova. 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 under-
stand 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 dis-
pleasure without attaining her object. "Be-
sides," 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 de-
stroy 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 let-
ter 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 fa-
ther would not let her speak and, raising his
voice more and more, cried:

"Marry, marry, my boy! ... A good family I
. . . Clever people, eh? Rich, eh? Yes, a nice
stepmother little Nicholas will havel Write
and tell him that he may marry tomorrow if he
likes. She will be little Nicholas' stepmother
and I'll marry Bouriennel . . . Ha, ha, hal 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. Per-



haps you will go and live with him too?" he
added, turning to Princess Mary. "Go in heav-
en'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 vex-
ation 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 bewilder-
ment, 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, herbroth-
er 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 comfort-
ing 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 shortsightedness of men who seek
enjoyment and happiness here on earth: toil-
ing, suffering, struggling, and harming one an-
other, to obtain that impossible, visionary, sin-
ful happiness. Prince Andrew had loved his
wife, she died, but that was riot enough: he
wanted to bind his happiness to another wom-
an. 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 in-
jured their souls, their eternal souls, for the at-
tainment 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



*74



WAR AND PEACE



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 pro-
tect 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 particu-
larly 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 dis-
closed this thought to no one but to her con-
fessor, Father Akfnfi, the monk, and he ap-
proved of her intention. Under guise of a pres-
ent 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, Prin-



cess 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, me-
chanical 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 ha-
ven, 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
laboridleness 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 can-
not 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 obli-
gatory and irreproachable idleness is the lot of
a whole class the military. The chief attrac-
tion of military service has consisted and will
consist in this compulsory and irreproachable
idleness.

Nicholas Rost6v experienced this blissful
condition to the full when, after 1807, he con-
tinued to serve in the Pdvlograd regiment, in
which he already commanded the squadron he
had taken over from Denfsov.

Rost6v 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, subordi-
nates, and superiors, and was well contented
with his life. Of late, in 1809, he found in let-
ters 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 com-
fort his old parents.

Reading these letters, Nicholas felt a dread
of their wanting to take him away from sur-
roundings in which, protected from all the en-
tanglements 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 S6nya'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, begin-
ning: "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 Natasha's
engagement to Bolk6nski, and that the wed-
ding 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 Natdsha, 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 Bolk6nski that
connection with him was no such great honor
after all, and that if he loved Natdsha he might
dispense with permission from his dotard fa-
ther. For a moment he hesitated whether he
should not apply for leave in order to see Na-
tdsha before she was married, but then came
the maneuvers, and considerations about S6n-
ya 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 Mftenka
so much, and was so good-natured, that every-
body 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,



*75



276

that had not been ridden for a long time, and
when he returned with the horse all in a lather,
he informed Lavriishka (Denfsov's servant
who had remained with him) and his comrades
who turned up in the evening that he was ap-
plying 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 Rost6v 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 some-
where where everything was stupid and con-
fused. A week later he obtained his leave. His
hussar comrades not only those of his own
regiment, but the whole brigade gave Rostov
a dinner to which the subscription was fifteen
rubles a head, and at which there were two
bands and two choirs of singers. Rost6v danced
the Trepak with Major Basov; the tipsy officers
tossed, embraced, and dropped RostcW; 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 Rost6v'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
Dozhoyve*yko, his quartermaster, and to won-
der anxiously how things would be at Otrad-
noe 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 at-
traction is in inverse proportion to the square
of the distance. At the last post station before
Otrddnoe 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



WAR AND PEACE

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 uneasi-
ness 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.
S6nya 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, unalter-
able love of this girl had a gladdening effect on
hirn. P(kya and Natasha surprised Nicholas
most. Pc"tya was a big handsome boy of thir-
teen, merry, witty, and mischievous, with a
voice that was already breaking. As for Nata-
sha, 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 dignityl A prin-
cess!" he whispered to her.

"Yes,. yes, yes!" cried Natasha, joyfully.

She told him about her romance with Prince
Andrew and of his visit to Otrddnoe and
showed him his last letter.

"Well, are you glad?" Natdsha 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 Natdsha. "I
was in love with Boris, 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 con-
tented now. Not at all as before."

Nicholas expressed his disapproval of the
postponement of the marriage for a year; but
Natdsha attacked her brother with exaspera-
tion, proving to him that it could not be oth-
erwise, and that it would be a bad thing to en-
ter 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 Bolk6nski'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-



why did I hurry?" Nicholas began to settle 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 sur-
prise 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 la-
tent 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 Natdsha. 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! How-
ever, 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 interferinginthestupid
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 with-
out 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 vil-
lage 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! . . . Rob-
bing 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 MUenka out by the
scruff of the neck and applied his foot and
knee to him behind with great agility at con-
venient moments between the words, shout-
ing, "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 shrub-



BOOK SEVEN 277

bery was a well-known haven of refuge for cul-



prits at Otrddnoe. Mftenka himself, returning
tipsy from the town, used to hide there, and
many of the residents at Otrddnoe, hiding from
Mitenka, knew of its protective qualities.)

Mf tenka'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 excite-
ment 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 any thing in this crazy world."

"You were angry that he had not entered
those 700 rubles. But they were carried for-
wardand 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 em-
barrassed. 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 un-
derstand 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
Mikhdylovna 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 Mikhdylov-
na and I don't like Boris, but they were our



278



WAR AND PEACE



friends and poor. Well then, this I" and he tore
up the note, and by so doing caused the old
countess to weep tears of joy. After that, young
Rost6v took no further part in any business af-
fairs, but devoted himself with passionate en-
thusiasm 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 stub-
ble of the spring sowing and the reddish strips
of buckwheat. The wooded ravines and the
copses, which at the end of August had still
been green islands amid black fields and stub-
ble, had become golden and bright-red islands
amid the green winter rye. The hares had al-
ready 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 Rostov had not
merely reached hard winter condition, but
were so jaded that at a meetingof 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 Rost6v,
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 trans-
parent 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 bor-
zoi, a dog, catching sight of his master from the
garden path, arched his back and, rushing
headlong toward the porch with lifted tail, be-
gan rubbing himself against his legs.

"O-hoy!" came at that moment, that inimi-
table 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, Ukrain-
ian fashion, a long bent whip in his hand, and
that look of independence and scorn of every-
thing 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, dis-
dainful of everybody and who considered him-
self 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 Mflka behind
the ears.

Daniel did not answer, but winked instead.

"I sent Uvrirka 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 Uvrka."

"As you please."

"Then put off feeding them."

"Yes, sir."

Five minutes later Daniel and Uvdrka 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



BOOK SEVEN



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), Nich-
olas ordered the horses to be saddled. But just
as Daniel was about to go Natdsha came in with
rapid steps, not having done up her hair or fin-
ished dressing and with her old nurse's big
shawl wrapped round her. Pe'tya ran in at the
same time.

"You are going?" asked Natdsha. "I knew you
would! S6nya 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 reluc-
tantly, for today, as he intended to hunt seri-
ously, he did not want to take Natasha and Pe't-
ya. "We are going, but only wolf hunting: it
would be dull for you."

"You know it is my greatest pleasure," said
Natdsha. "It's not fair; you are going by your-
self, are having the horses saddled and said
nothing to us about it."

" 'No barrier bars a Russian's path' we'll
go!" shouted Pdtya.

"But you can't. Mamma said you mustn't,"
said Nicholas to Natdsha.

"Yes, I'll go. I shall certainly go," said Na-
tdsha 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 Natdsha and
Ptya 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 Done* ts,



and whistling to his own leash of borzois, set
off across the threshing ground to a field lead-
ing to the Otrddnoe wood. The old count's
horse, a sorrel gelding called Viflydnka, 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 bor-
zois 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,
and 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 Otrddnoe covert.

The horses stepped over the field as over a
thick carpet, now and then splashing into pud-
dles 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 Rostovs. 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 Rostovs', a man of small means, and their
neighbor.) "I knew you wouldn't be able to re-
sist it and it's a good thing you're going. That's
it! Come on!" (This was "Uncle's" favorite ex-
pression.) "Take the covert at once, for my Gir-
chik says the Ildgins 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. Na-
tdsha, muffled up in shawls which did not hide
her eager face and shining eyes, galloped up to
them. She was followed by Ptya who always
kept close to her, by Michael, a huntsman, and
by a groom appointed to look after her. Ptya,
who was laughing, whipped and pulled at his
horse. Natdsha sat easily and confidently on



280



WAR AND PEACE



her black Ardbchik and reined him in without
effort with a firm hand.

"Uncle" looked round disapprovingly at Pe"t-
ya and Natdsha. He did not like to combine
frivolity with the serious business of hunting.

"Good morning, Uncle! We are going too!"
shouted Ptya.

"Good morning, good morning! But don't
go overriding the hounds," said "Uncle" stern-

iy-

"Nicholas, what a fine dog Trunfla is! He
knew me," said Natdsha, referring to her favor-
ite hound.

"In the first place, Trunfla is not a 'dog/ but
a harrier," thought Nicholas, and looked stern-
ly at his sister, trying to make her feel the dis-
tance that ought to separate them at that mo-
ment. Natdsha 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 "Un-
cle," "only mind you don't fall off your horse,"
he added, "becausethat's it, come on! you've
nothing to hold on to."

The oasis of the Otrddnoe covert came in
sight a few hundred yards off, the huntsmen
were already nearing it. Rostov, having finally
settled with "Uncle" where they should set on
the hounds, and having shown Natasha where
she was to standa 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 Rost6v.
"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
hunstmen had not yet reached their places
when Count Ilyd Rostov, 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 hunt-
ing knives and horn, he mounted his good,
sleek, well-fed, and comfortable horse, Viflyan-
ka, which was turning gray, like himself. His
horses and trap were sent home. Count Ilyd
Rost6v, though not at heart a keen sportsman,
knew the rulesof the hunt well, and rode to the
bushy edge of the road where he was to stand,
arranged his reins, settled himself in the sad-



dle, and, feeling that he was ready, looked
about with a smile.

Beside him was Simon Chekmar, his person-
al 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 hun-
dred 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 glit-
tered more than usual, and as he sat in his sad-
dle, 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 mas-
ter 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 buf-
foon, who went by a woman's name, Nastdsya
Ivanovna.

"Well, Nastdsya Ivdnovna!" 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 Nas-
tdsya Ivdnovna.

"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 Zhdrov
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 Lyddov
upland, isn't he?"

"Yes, sir. He knows where to stand. He un-
derstands 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



BOOK SEVEN



281



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, evi-
dently 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 Sid6rych . . ." Simon
did not finish, for on the still air he had dis-
tinctly caught the music of the hunt with only,
two or three hounds giving tongue. He bent
down his head and listened, shaking a warn-
ing 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 snuff box 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 Dan-
iel'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. "Backl"
cried Simon to a borzoi that was pushing for-
ward out of the wood. The count started and
dropped the snuffbox. Nastasya Ivanovna dis-
mounted 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 Mit-
ka 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 suffer-
ing 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 di-
sheveled 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 I"
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'ssympathyforhis 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 ROSTOV 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



282



WAR AND PEACE



way the voices of the huntsmen approached,
receded, and rose, he realized what was hap-
pening 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 dif-
ferent conjectures as to where and from what
side the beast would come and how he would
set upon it. Hope alternated with despair. Sev-
eral times he addressed a prayer to God that
the wolf should come his way. He prayed with
that passionate and shame-faced feeling with
which men pray at moments of great excite-
ment 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 watch-
ing from over there and seize it by the throat
in a death grip!" A thousand times during that
half-hour Rost6v cast eager and restless glances
over the edge of the wood, with the two scrag-
gy 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 Ros-
t6v, "yet what wouldn't it be worth! It is not to
be! Everywhere, at cards and in war, I am al-
ways unlucky." Memories of Austerlitz and of
D61okhov 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 vari-
ation of note in the cries of the dogs.

Again he looked to the right and saw some-
thing running toward him across the deserted
field. "No, it can't be!" thought Rost6v, tak-
ing a deep breath, as a man does at the coming
of something long hoped for. The height of
happiness was reached and so simply, with-
out warning, or noise, or display, that Rost6v
could not believe his eyes and remained in
doubt for over a second. The wolf ran for-
ward 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 with-
out hurry, evidently feeling sure that no one
saw her. Rost6v, holding his breath, looked
round at the borzois. They stood or lay not see-
ing the wolf or understanding the situation.
Old Karay had turned his head and was angri-



ly searching for fleas, baring his yellow teeth
and snapping at his hind legs.

"Ulyulyulyu!" whispered Rost6v, 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 phys-
iognomy changed: she shuddered, seeing what
she had probably never seen before human
eyes fixed upon her and turning her head a
little toward Rost6v, 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 dart-
ed 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 groundover 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 Mflka suddenly raised
her tail and stiffened her forelegs.

"Ulyulyulyulyu!" shouted Nicholas.

The reddish Lyubfm rushed forward from
behind Milka, sprang impetuously at the wolf,
and seized it by its hindquarters, but immedi-
ately jumped aside in terror. The wolf crouched,
gnashed her teeth, and again rose and bound-
ed 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, watch-
ing 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



BOOK SEVEN



283



would certainly escape should she reach it. But,
coining toward him, he saw hounds and a hunts-
man galloping almost straight at the wolf.
There was still hope. A long, yellowish young
borzoi, one Nicholas did not know, from an-
other 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 some-
thing happened to Karay the borzoi was sud-
denly on the wolf, and they rolled together
down into a gully just in front of them.

That instant, when Nicholas saw the wolf
strugglingin thegullywith the dogs, while from
under them could be seen her gray hair and out-
stretched hind leg and her frightened choking
head, with her ears laid back (Karay was pin-
ning her by the throat), was the happiest mo-
ment of his life. With his hand on his saddle-
bow, 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 disen-
gaged herself from the dogs, with tail tucked
in again, went forward. Kardy, his hair bris-
tling, and probably bruised or wounded,
climbed with difficulty out of the gully. .

"Oh my God! Why?" Nicholas cried in des-
pair.

i "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 prepar-
ing to dismount each moment that the wolf
crouched back, and starting forward again ev-
ery time she shook herself and moved toward
the wood where she would be safe.

Already, at the beginning of this chase,
Daniel, hearing theulyulyuing, 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 her-
self 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 ani-
mal off. As a result of this, he galloped up to
the wolf just when she had been stopped a sec-
ond time by "Uncle's" borzois.

Daniel galloped up silently, holding a naked
dagger in his left hand and thrashing the la-
boring sides of his chestnut horse with his whip
as if it were a flail.

Nicholas neither saw nor heard Daniel un-
til 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 her-
self 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 assem-
bled with their booty and their stories, and all
came to look at the wolf, which, with her
broad-browed head hanging down and the bit-
ten stick between her jaws, gazed with great
glassy eyes at this crowd of dogs and men sur-
rounding her. When she was touched, she jerked
her bound legs and looked wildly yet simply at
everybody. Old Count Rost6valso 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.



284



WAR AND PEACE



For sole reply Daniel gave him a shy, child-
like, meek, and amiable smile.

CHAPTER VI

THE OLD COUNT went home, and Natdsha and
P^tya promised to return very soon, but as it
was still early the hunt went farther. At mid-
day 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, and there
his own huntsman stood alone in a hollow be-
hind a hazel bush. The hounds had scarcely
been loosed before Nicholas heard one he
knew, Volt6rn, giving tongue at intervals; oth-
er hounds joined in, now pausing and now a-
gain 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 theryefield 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 havinga row with
our Ivdn," said Nicholas* groom.

Nicholas sent the man to call Natasha and
Ptya 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 Natasha and
Pe"tya, 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
huntedl 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 Petya to wait for him and
rode to the spot where the enemy's, Ildgin's,
hunting party was.

The victorious huntsman rode off to join the
field, and there, surrounded by inquiring sym-
pathizers, recounted his exploits.

The facts were that Ildgin, with whom the
Rostovs had a quarrel and were at law, hunted
over places that belonged bv custom to the Ros-
tovs, and had now, as if purposely, sent his men
to the very woods the Rost6vs were hunting
and let his man snatch a fox their dogs had
chased.

Nicholas, though he had never seen Ildgin,
with his usual absence of moderation in judg-
ment, 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 ful-
ly prepared to take the most resolute and des-
perate 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 Ild-
gin a stately and courteous gentleman who was
particularly anxious to make the young count's
acquaintance. Having ridden up to Nicholas,
Ildgin 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.



BOOK SEVEN



285



Natdsha, 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 Natasha
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 Rost6vs 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 Ilagin's upland was across the
fields. The hunt servants fell into line. The
masters rode together. "Uncle," Rost6v, and
Ilagin kept stealthily glancing at one another's
dogs, trying not to be observed by their com-
panions and searching uneasily for rivals to
their own borzois.

Rost6v was particularly struck by the beauty
of a small, pure-bred, red-spotted bitch on Il-
agin's leash, slender but with muscles like steel,
a delicate muzzle, and prominent black eyes.
He had heard of the swiftness of Ilagin's bor-
zois, 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 care-
less 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 har-
vest is nothing to boast of, Count?" he went
on, continuing the conversation they had be-
gun. And considering it polite to return the
young count's compliment, Ilagin looked at
his borzois and picked out Mflka who attract-
ed his attention by her breadth. "That black-
spotted one of yours is finewell 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, M 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 Natasha) "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 bor-
zoi 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. "Well, let us course it, Count."

"Yes, we must ride up. . . . Shall we both
course it?" answered Nicholas, seeing in Erzd
and "Uncle's" red Rugay two rivals he had nev-
er 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
Ildgin toward the hare.

"A full-grown one?" asked Ilagin as he ap-
proached the whip who had sighted the hare
and not without agitation he looked round and
whistled to Erza.

"And you, Michael Nikan6rovich?" he said,
addressing "Uncle."

The latter was riding with a sullen expres-
sion on his face.

"How can I join in? Why, you've given a vil-
lage for each of your borzois! That's it, come
on! Yours are worth thousands. Try yours a-
gainst one another, you two, and I'll look on!"

"Rugay, hey, hey!" he shouted. "Rugiyush-
kal" he added, involuntarily by this diminutive
expressing his affection and the hopes he placed
on this red borzoi. Natasha saw and felt the agi-
tation 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, al-
so moved away. All were moving slowly and
sedately.

"How is it pointing?" asked Nicholas, rid-
ing 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



286



WAR AND PEACE



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 Ildgin, Nicholas, Natdsha, 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 listen-
ing to the shouting and trampling that resound-
ed from all sides at once. He took a dozen
bounds, not very quickly, letting the borzois
gain on him, and, finally having chosen his di-
rection and realized his danger, laid back his
ears and rushed off headlong. He had been ly-
ing 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 login's red-spotted Erzd passed
them, got within a length, flew at the hare with
terrible swiftness aiming at his scut, and, think-
ing she had seized him, rolled over like a ball.
The hare arched his back and bounded off yet
more swiftly. From behind Erzd rushed the
broad-haunched, black-spotted Milka and be-
gan rapidly gaining on the hare.

"Mildshka, dear!" rose Nicholas* trium-
phant cry. It looked as if Milka would immedi-
ately pounce on the hare, but she overtook him
and flew past. The hare had squatted. Again
the beautiful Erzd 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.

"Erzd, darling!" Ildgin wailed in a voice un-
like his own. Erza did not hearken to his ap-
peal. 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 Mflka were abreast,
running like a pair of carriage horses, and be-
gan 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, Rugdyushka! 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 mo-
ment later everyone had drawn up round the
crowd of dogs. Only the delighted "Uncle" dis-
mounted, and cut off a pad, shaking the hare
for the blood to drip off, and anxiously glanc-
ing 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 beat-
en 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 him-
self. "There are your thousand-ruble ones. . . .
That's it, come on! . . ."

"Rugay, here's a pad for you I "he said, throw-
ing down the hare's muddy pad. "You've de-
served 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," ILigin was saying
at the same time, breathless from his gallop and
his excitement. At the same moment Nauisha,
without drawing breath, screamed joyously, ec-
statically, and so piercingly that it set every-
one's ear tingling. By that shriek she expressed
what the others expressed by all talkingat 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 any-
one, 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 clank-
ing the ring of his leash, walked along just be-
hind "Uncle's" horse with the serene air of a
conqueror.

"Well, I am like any other dog as long as it's



BOOK SEVEN



287



not a question of coursing. But when it is, then
look out!" his appearance seem to Nicholas to
be saying.

When, much later, "Uncle" rode up to Nich-
olas 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 hunt-
ing party should spend the night in his little
village of Mikhaylovna.

"And if you put up at my house that will be
better stilL That's it, come onl" 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 Nicho-
las rode with Natdsha and Ptya 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 presenceof Natasha a worn-
an, a lady, and on horseback raised the curi-
osity 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.

"Arfnka! 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 Natdsha
directly.

"Uncle" dismounted at the porch of his lit-
tle 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 Na-
tdsha 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 liv-



ing in it aimed at keeping it spotless but nei-
ther 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 ante-
room 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 Suv6rov,
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 laugh-
ter and whispers. Natasha, Nicholas, and PeHya
took off their wraps and sat down on the sofa.
PC* tya, leaning on his elbow, fell asleep at once.
Natasha 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), Na-
tdsha gave him a wink, and neither refrained
long from bursting into a peal of ringinglaugh-
ter even before they had a pretext ready to ac-
count for it.

After a while "Uncle" came in, in a Cossack
coat, blue trousers, and small top boots. And
Natasha felt that this costume, the very one
she had regarded with surprise and amusement
at Otrddnoe, 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, offer-
ing 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



288



WAR AND PEACE



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 stout-
ness, 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 deft-
ly 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
Rost6v. How could one help understanding?
Not only Nicholas, but even Natasha under-
stood the meaning of his puckered brow and
the happy complacent smile that slightly puck-
ered his lips when Anfsya Fedorovna 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. After-
wards she brought a freshly roasted chicken,
ham, preserves made with honey, and preserves
made with sugar.

All this was the fruit of Anisya Fedorovna's
housekeeping, gathered and prepared by her.
The smell and taste of it all had a smack of
Anfsya Fedorovna herself: a savor of juiciness,
cleanliness, whiteness, and pleasant smiles.

"Take this, little Lady-Countess!" she kept
saying, as she offered Natdsha first one thing
and then another.

Natdsha 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. Anfsya Fedorovna
left the room.

After supper, over their cherry brandy, Ros-
t6v and "Uncle" talked of past and future
hunts, of Rugdy and Ildgin's dogs, while Na-
tdsha sat upright on the sofa and listened with
sparkling eyes. She tried several times to wake
Ptya that he might eat something, but he only
muttered incoherent words without waking
up. Natdsha 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 re-
ceiving 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 onl Noth-
ing will remain. Then why harm anyone?"

"Uncle's" face was very significant and even
handsome as he said this. Involuntarily Ros-
tov 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 ex-
ecutor, confided secrets to him, elected him to
be a justice and to other posts; but he always
persistently refused public appointments, pass-
ing the autumn and spring in the fields on his
bay gelding, sitting at home in winter, and ly-
ing 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 youI 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 hunts-
men's room, from which came the clear sounds
of a balaldyka on which someone, who was evi-
dently a master of the art, was playing. Natd-
sha had been listening to those strains forsome
time and now went out into the passage to
hear better.

"That's Mftka, my coachman. ... I have got
him a good balaldyka. I'm fond of it," said
"Uncle."

It was the custom for Mftka to play the bala-
ldyka in the huntsmen's room when "Uncle"
returned from the chase. "Uncle" was fond of
such music.

"How good! Really very good!" said Nich-
olas with some unintentional superciliousness,
as if ashamed to confess that the sounds pleased
him very much.

"Very good?" said Natdsha 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, morel" cried Natdsha at the
door as soon as the balaldyka ceased. Mftka
tuned up afresh, and recommenced thrum-
ming the balaldyka to the air of My Lady, with



BOOK SEVEN



289



trills and variations. "Uncle" sat listening,
slightly smiling, with his head on one side. The
air was repeated a hundred times. The balalay-
ka 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 Fedorovna came in and
leaned her portly person against the doorpost.

"You like listening?" she said to Natasha,
with a smile extremely like "Uncle's." "That's
a good player of ours," she added.

"He doesn't play that part rightl" said "Un-
cle" 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 Natasha.

"Uncle" did not answer, but smiled.

"Anisya, go and see if the strings of my gui-
tar are all right. I haven't touched it for a long
time. That's it come on! I've given it up."

Anfsya Fedorovna, with her light step, will-
ingly 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 him-
self in his armchair. He took (he guitar a little
above the fingerboard, arching his left elbow
with a somewhat theatrical gesture, and, with
a wink at Anisya Fedorovna, 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 Natdsha, arousing in them the same kind
of sober mirth as radiated from Anisya Fedo-
rovna's whole being. Anisya Fedorovna flushed,
and drawing her kerchief over her face went
laughing out of the room. "Uncle" continued
to play correctly, carefully, with energetic firm-
ness, looking with a changed and inspired ex-
pression at the spot where Anfsya Fedorovna
had just stood. Something seemed to be laugh-
ing 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 rah his fingers over the strings,
something seemed to snap.

"Lovely, lovely I Go on, Uncle, go on!"
shouted Natasha as soon as he had finished.
She jumped up and hugged and kissed him.
"Nicholas, NicholasI" she said, turning to her
brother, as if asking him: "What is it moves me
so?"



Nicholas too was greatly pleased by "Un-
cle's" playing, and "Uncle" played the piece
over again. Anfsya Fedorovna's smiling face re-
appeared in the doorway and behind hers oth-
er 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," Nauisha 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 naive and precise attitude preparatory to a
folk dance.

"Now then, niece!" he exclaimed, waving to
Natasha the hand that had just struck a chord.

Natasha threw off the shawl from her shoul-
ders, 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 count-
ess, educated by an emigree French governess,
imbibed from the Russian air she breathed
that spirit and obtained that manner which
the pas de chdle * would, one would have sup-
posed, long ago have effaced? But the spirit
and the movements were those inimitable and
un teachable 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.

She did the right thing with such precision,
such complete precision, that Anisya Fedorov-
na, who had at once handed her the handker-
chief 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 Anfsya
and in Anfsya'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 smil-
ing.

1 The French shawl dance.



WAR AND PEACE



"Oh?" said "Uncle" in surprise, looking in-
quiringly at Natdsha, 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 Bolk6nski
would not approve of or understand our gaiety.
But he would understand it all. Where is he
now?" she thought, and her face suddenly be-
came serious. But this lasted only a second.
"Don't dare to think about it," she said to her-
self, and sat down again smilingly beside "Un-
cle," 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
nai've 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 unconsid-
ered tune, like the song of a bird, was extra-
ordinarily good. Natasha 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 Natdsha and Pdtya. The
count and countess did not know where they
were and were very anxious, said one of the
men.

Ptya was carried out like a log and laid in
the larger of the two traps. Natasha and Nich-
olas got into the other. "Uncle" wrapped Na-
tdsha 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-by, dear niece," his voice called out
of the darkness not the voice Natdsha 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 Natdsha,



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 com-
fortable!" answered Natdsha, 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 near ing home she suddenly struck
up the air of As 'twas growing dark last night-
the tune of which she had all the way been try-
ing to get and had at last caught.

"Got it?" said Nicholas.

"What were you thinking about just now,
Nicholas?" inquired Natdsha.

They were fond of asking one another that
question.

"I?" said Nicholas, trying to remember.
"Well, you see, first I thought that Rugdy, 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 Otrddnoe, but in Fairyland. And
then I thought . . . No, nothing else."

"I know, I expect you thought of him," said
Nicholas, smiling as Natdsha knew by the
sound of his voice.

"No," said Natdsha, though she had in reali-
ty 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 Anfsya 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
Natdsha 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 Natdsha.

"Ah, there are still lights in the drawing-



BOOK SEVEN



291



room!" she said, pointing to the windows of
the house that gleamed invitingly in the moist
velvety darkness of the night.

CHAPTER VIII

COUNT ILYA Rosi6v had resigned the position
of Marshal of the Nobility because it involved
him in too much expense, but still his affairs
did not improve. Natasha and Nicholas often
noticed their parents conferring together anx-
iously and privately and heard suggestions of
selling the fine ancestral Rost6v house and es-
tate near Moscow. It was not necessary to en-
tertain so freely as when the count had been
Marshal, and life atOtrddnoe 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 Dimm-
ler the musician and his wife, Vogel the
dancing master and his family, Bel6va, an old
maiden lady, an inmate of the house, and many
others such as P fee ^my.

PrincciVMary beggecj him to stay one day
more, saying that she kil*w how unhappy her
father would be if AndreV 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 be-
come.

"Good-by, Andrew! Remember that misfor-
tunes 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 An-
drew as he drove out of the avenue from the
house at Bald Hills. "She, poor innocent crea-
ture, 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 An-
drew's mind.

CHAPTER IX

PRINCE ANDREW reached the general headquar-
ters 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 dissatis-
fied with the general course of affairs in the
Russian army, but no one anticipated any dan-
ger 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 ot generals and courtiers ac-
companying 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 Bolkonski stiflly 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 Kuragin, whom
Prince Andrew had hoped to find with the ar-
my, 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 cen-
ter that was conducting a gigantic war, and he
was glad to be free for a while from the distrac-
tion caused by the thought of Kuragin. Dur-
ing the first four days, while no duties were re-
quired 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 ques-
tion 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 fore-
seenare met, and on how and by whom the
whole matter is handled. To clear up this last
point for hiiqself, Prince Andrew, utilizing his
position and acquaintances, tried to fathom
the character of the control of the army arid of
the men and parties engaged in it, and he de-
duced for himself the following idea of the state
of affairs.

While the Emperor had still been at Vflna,
the forces had been divided into three armies.
First, the army under Barclay de Tolly, second-
ly, the army under Bagrati6n, and thirdly, the
one commanded by Tormdsov. The Emperor
was with the first army, but not as commander



BOOK NINE



359



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 Em-
peror, moreover, had with him not a command-
er 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 num-
ber of foreigners, but not the army staff.
Besides these, there were in attendance on the
Emperor without any definite appointments:
Arakch^ev, the ex-Minister of War; Count Bcn-
nigsen, the senior general in rank; the Grand
DukeTsard-vich Constantine Pavlovich; Count
Rumydntsev, the Chancellor; Stein, a former
Prussian minister; Armfeldt, a Swedish gener-
al; Pfuel, the chief author of the plan of cam-
paign; Paulucci, an adjutant general and Sar-
dinian emigrd; Wolzogen and many others.
Though these men had no military appoint-
ment in the army, their position gave them in-
fluence, 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, Arakchdev, 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 ex-
ecuted or not. But this was only the external
condition; the essential significance of the
presence of the Emperor and of all these peo-
ple, 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. Arakch^ev was a faithful
custodian to enforce order and acted as the sov-
ereign's bodyguard. Bennigsen was a landlord
in the Vilna province who appeared to be do-
ing the honors of the district, but was in real-
ity 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 viru-
lently hated Napoleon and was a general full
of self-confidence, a quality that always influ-
enced Alexander. Paulucci was there because
he was bold and decided in speech. The adju-
tants general were there because they always
accompanied the Emperor, and lastly and chief-
ly 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 com-
prehensible 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 sec-
ondary personages accompanying the army be-
cause their principals were there.

Among the opinions and voices in this im-
mense, 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 ad-
herentsmilitary theorists who believed in a
science of war with immutable laws laws of
oblique movements, outflankings, and so forth.
Pfuel and hisadherentsdemanded 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 no-
bles, 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 ad-
vocates ot bold action, this section also repre-
sented 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 Erm61ov's was being circulated,
that as a great favor he had petitioned the Em-
peror to make him a German. The men of that
party, remembering Suv6rov, 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 dis-
couraged.

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 Arakche'ev belonged,



WAR AND PEACE



thought and said what men who have no con-
victions but wish to seem to have some gener-
ally say. They said that undoubtedly war, par-
ticularly 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 ac-
knowledged 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 ar-
mies. 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 Tsar^vich, 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 gal-
lantly; but unexpectedly finding himself in the
front line had narrowly escaped amid the gen-
eral 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 frank-
ly said so. They said: "Nothing but sorrow,
shame, and ruin will come of all this! We have
abandoned Vilna and Vitebsk and shall aban-
don Drissa. The only reasonable thing left to
do is to conclude peace as soon as possible, be-
fore we are turned out of Petersburg.'*

This view was very general in the upper ar-
my circles and found support also in Peters-
burg and from the chancellor, Rumydntsev,
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 be-
gan like that), "he is an honest, practical man
and we have nobody better. Give him real
power, for war cannot be conducted success-
fully 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 suffer-
ing any defeats, we owe this entirely to Bar-
clay. 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 re-
verse 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 gen-
erals and imperial aides-de-camp passionately
devoted to the Emperor, not merely as a mon-
arch but as a man, adoring him sincerely and
disinterestedly, as Rost6v 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 refus-
ing 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 chiefs
staff, and, consulting experienced theoreticians
and practical men where necessary, would him-
self lead the troops, whose spirits would there-
by 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 nei-
ther 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 unthink-
able 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



BOOK

who wished to gain some advantage would &-
tract the Emperor's attention by loudly acfvo-
cating the very thing the Emperor had hinted
at the day before, and would dispute and shout
at the council, beating his breast and challeng-
ing those who did not agree with him to duels,
thereby proving that he was prepared to sac-
rifice himself for the common good. A third,
in the absence of opponents, between two coun-
cils 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 un-
der the Emperor's eye. A fifth, to achieve his
long-cherished aim of dining with the Emper-
or, 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 pop-
ulation of the army began blowing hard that
way, so that it was all the harder for the Em-
peror to turn it elsewhere. Amid the uncer-
tainties of the position, with the menace of
serious danger giving a peculiarly threaten-
ing character to everything, amid this vortex of
intrigue, egotism, conflict of views and feelings,
and the diversity of race among these people-
tins eighth and largest party of those preoccu-
pied 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 be-
ginning 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 gong on at
the staff at headquarters and to consider means
of escape from this muddle, indecision, intrica-
cy, and weakness.

The men of this party said and thought that
what was wrong resulted chiefly from the Em-
peror's presence in the army with his military
court and from the consequent presence there



NINE 361

of a-n indefinite, conditional, and unsteady fluc-
tuation 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, Shishk6v, the Secretary
of State and one of the chief representatives of
this party, wrote a letter to the Emperor which
Arakche"ev 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 sov-
ereign 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, in-
formed Bolk6nski that the sovereign wished to
see him personally, to question him about
Turkey, and that Prince Andrew was to pre-
sent 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 Napo-
leon which might endanger the army news
subsequently found to be false. And that morn-
ing 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 absurd-
ity, threatening the destruction of the Russian
army.

Prince Andrew arrived at Bennigsen's quar-
tersa country gentleman's house of moderate
size, situated on the very banks of the river,



36* WAR AND PEACE

Neither Bennigsen nor the Emperor was there,
but Chernyshev, the Emperor's aide-de-camp,
received Bolk6nski 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 draw-
ing room, and another, on the right, to the
study. Through the first door came the sound
of voices con versing in German and occasional-
ly in French. In that drawing room were gath-
ered, by the Emperor's wish, not a military
council (the Emperor preferred indefinite-
ness), but certain persons whose opinions he
wished to know in view of the impending dif-
ficulties. It was not a council of war, but, as it
were, a council to elucidate certain questions
for the Emperor personally. To this semicoun-
cil had been invited the Swedish General Arm-
feldt, Adjutant General Wolzogen, Wintzinge-
rode (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 draw-
ing room, stopped a minute to speak to Cher-
nyshev.

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 Wey-
rother, Mack, and Schmidt, and many other
German theorist-generals whom Prince An-
drew had seen in 1805, but he was more typical
than any of them. Prince Andrew had never
yet teen 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, o! 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 apart-
ment. Awkwardly holding up his sword, he ad-
dressed 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 hur-
riedly in reply to Chernyshev, and smiled iron-
ically on hearing that the sovereign was in-
specting 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 doit 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, re-
marking 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 sarcas-
tic, was particularly disturbed that day, evi-
dently by the fact that they had dared to in-
spect 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 immu-
tably self-confident men, self-confident to the
point of martyrdom as only Germans are, be-
cause 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



BOOK

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 truthscience
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 de-
duced 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 respon-
sible 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 de-
viations 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 fail-
ures 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 elo-
quently.

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 en-
tered hurriedly, and nodding to Bolk6nski,
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. Cher-



NINE 363

nyshev and Prince Andrew went out into the
porch, where the Emperor, who looked fa-
tigued, 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 Em-
peror 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 Pauluc-
ci, 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 re-
marks, and as though not hearing them, the
Emperor, recognizing Bolk6nski, 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 Vol-
k6nski and Baron Stein, and the door closed
behind them. Prince Andrew, taking advan-
tage of the Emperor's permission, accompanied
Paulucci, whom he had known in Turkey, in-
to the drawing room where the council was as-
sembled.

Prince Peter Mikhdylovich Volk6nski occu-
pied 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 gentle-
men present. What had happened was that
news (which afterwards proved to be false)
had been received during the night of a move-
ment by the French to outflank the Drissa
camp.

The first to speak was General Armfeldt
who, to meet the difficulty that presented it-
self, unexpectedly proposed a perfectly new
position away from the Petersburg and Mos-
cow 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 ex-
. pounded it not so much to answer the ques-
tions putwhich, in fact, his plan did not an-



364



WAR AND PEACE



swer 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 argu-
ments, 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 permis-
sion to read to them. In these voluminous notes
Toll suggested another scheme, totally differ-
ent from Armfeldt's or Pfuel's plan of cam-
paign. In answer to Toll, Paulucci suggested
an advance and an attack, which, he urged,
could alone extricate us from the present un-
certainty 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 con-
temptuously and turned away, to show that he
would never demean himself by replying to
such nonsense as he was now hearing. So when
Prince Volk6nski, who was in the chair, called
on him to give his opinion, he merely said:

"Why ask me? General Armfeldt has pro-
posed a splendid position with an exposed
rear, or why not this Italian gentleman's at-
tackvery fine, or a retreat, also goodl Why
ask me?" said he. "Why, you yourselves know
everything better than I do."

But when Volk6nski said, with a frown, that
it was in the Emperor's name that he asked his
opinion, Pfuel rose and, suddenly growing ani-
mated, 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 ad-
hered to," said he, drumming on the tablewith
his bony fingers. "What is the difficulty? Non-
sense, childishness!"

He went up to the map and speaking rapid-
ly began proving that no eventuality could al-
ter the efficiency of the Drissa camp, that every-
thing 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 hap-



pened, 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 exe-
cuted. He kept laughing sarcastically, he dem-
onstrated, 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. Wol-
zogen took his place and continued to explain
his views in French, every now and then turn-
ing to Pfuel and saying, "Is it not so, your ex-
cellency?" 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 ex-
plain?"

Paulucci and Michaud both attacked Wol-
/ogen simultaneously in French. Armfeldt ad-
dressed 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 ab-
surdly 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 unpleasant-
ly sarcastic, but yet he inspired involuntary re-
spect by his boundless devotion to an idea. Be-
sides 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 Na-
poleon, they expected him from every side,
and invoked his terrible name to shatter each
other's proposals. Pfuel alone seemed to con-
sider Napoleon a barbarian like everyone else
who opposed his theory. But besides this feel-
ing of respect, Pfuel evoked pity in Prince An-
drew. From the tone in which the courtiers
addressed him and the way Paulucci had al-
lowed 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-confi-
dence 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



BOOK NINE



365



despair that the sole remaining chance of veri-
fying 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 per-
sonalities, 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, ref-
utations, and shouts, felt nothing but amaze-
ment at what they were saying. A thought that
had long since and often occurred to him dur-
ing his military activitiesthe 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 ob-
vious truth. "What theory and science is possi-
ble about a matter the conditions and circum-
stances 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 con-
ditions, 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 sugges-
tions can be seen only at the moment of trial.
And why do they all speak of a 'military gen-
ius'? 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 gen-
ius it does not possess. The best generals I
have known were, on the contrary, stupid or



absent-minded men. Bagrati6n was the best,
Napoleon himself admitted that. And Bona-
parte himself 1 I remember his limited, self-
satisfied face on the field of Austerlitz. Not on-
ly does a good army commander not need any
special qualities, on the contrary he needs the
absence of the highest and best human attri-
buteslove, poetry, tenderness, and philosoph-
ic 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 lead-
er. God forbid that he should be humane, should
love, or pity, or think of what is just and un-
just. It is understandable that a theory of their
'genius' was invented for them long ago be-
cause they have power! The success of a mili-
tary action depends not on them, but on the
man in the ranks who shouts, 'We are lostl' or
who shouts, 'Hurrahl' 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 remrfin attached
to the sovereign's person, but for permission to
serve in the army.

CHAPTER XII

BEFORE THE BEGINNING of the campaign, Ros-
t6v had received a letter from his parents in
which they told him briefly of Natdsha's illness
and the breaking off of her engagement to
Prince Andrew (which they explained by Na-
tdsha'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 ab-
sence or to retire from the army, but wrote to
his parents that he was sorry Natasha was ill
and her engagement broken off, and that he
would do all he could to meet their wishes.
To S6nya he wrote separately.

"Adored friend of my soul! "he wrote. "Noth-
ing but honor could keep me from returning
to the country. But now, at the commence-
ment of the campaign, I should feel dishon-
ored, 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



366

you, to press you forever to my ardent breast."

It was, in fact, only the commencement of
the campaign that prevented Rost6v from re-
turning home as he had promised and marry-
ing S6nya. The autumn in Otradnoe with the
hunting, and the winter with the Christmas
holidays and Sonya'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 hcunds, a dozen leashes of smart
borzois, agriculture, neighbors, service by elec-
tion . . ." thought he. But now the campaign
was beginning, and he had to remain with his
regiment. And since it had to be so, Nicholas
Rost6v, 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 com-
rades, 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 in-
crease in numbers, he was again allotted his
old squadrbn.

The campaign began, the regiment was
moved into Poland on double pay, new of-
ficers arrived, new men and horses, and above
all everybody was infected with the merrily ex-
cited mood that goes with the commencement
of a war, and Rostov, conscious of his advan-
tageous position in the regiment, devoted him-
self 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 accom-
panied by a complicated interplay of interests,
arguments, and passions at headquarters. For
the Pavlograd 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 en-
ter anyone's head, he tried to be as cheerful as



WAR AND PEACE



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 be-
fore 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 provi-
sions, took also horses, carriages, and carpets
from the Polish proprietors. Rostov remem-
bered Sventsydni, 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, un-
known to him, had appropriated five barrels
of old beer. From Sventsyani they retired far-
ther and farther to Drissa, and thence again
beyond Drissa, drawing near to the frontier of
Russia proper.

On the thirteenth of July the Pdvlograds
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 re-
markable for its storms.

The two Pdvlograd squadrons were bivouack-
ing 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 Rostov, with a young officer
named Ilyfn, his protg, was sitting in a hasti-
ly constructed shelter. An officer of their regi-
ment, with long mustaches extending onto his
cheeks, who after riding to the staff had been
overtaken by the rain, entered Rost6v'ssheltcr.

"I have come from the staff, Count. Have
you heard of Ra^vski's exploit?"

And the officer gave them details of the Sal-
tanov battle, which he had heard at the staff.

Rostov, smoking his pipe and turning his
head about as the water trickled down his
neck, listened inattentively, with an occasional
glance at Ilyfn, who was pressing close to him.
This officer, a lad of sixteen who had recently
joined the regiment, was now in the same rela-
tion to Nicholas that Nicholas had been to
Denfsov seven years before. Ilyin tried to imi-
tate Rost6v in everything and adored him as
a girl might have done.

Zdrzhinski, the officer with the long mus-



BOOK NINE



tache, spoke grandiloquently of the Saltanov
dam being "a Russian Thermopylae," and of
how a deed worthy of antiquity had been per-
formed by General Ravski. He recounted how
Rae* vski had led his two sons onto the dam un-
der terrific fire and had charged with them be-
side him. Rost6v heard the story and not only
said nothing to encourage Zdrzhinski's enthu-
siasm but, on the contrary, looked like a man
ashamed of what he was hearing, though with
no intention of contradicting it. Since the cam-
paigns of Austerlitz and of 1807 Rost6v knew
by experience that men always lie when de-
scribing 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 re-
late 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 Rost6v in the narrow shanty.
Rost6v looked at him in silence. "In the first
place, there must have been such a confusion
and crowding on the dam that was being at-
tacked that if Rae*vski 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 Radvski 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 Ravski'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 Saltdnov 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 Pe*tya there,
or even Ilyin, who's a stranger to me but a nice
lad, but would have tried to put them some-
where 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 Ilyfn, no-
ticing that Rost6v did not relish Zdrzhinski's
conversation. "My stockings and shirt . . . and
the water is running on my seatl I'll go and
look for shelter. The rain seems less heavy."

Ilyfn went out and Zdrzhinski rode away.

Five minutes later Ilyfn, splashing through



567

the mud, came running back to the shanty.

"Hurrah! Rostov, 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 Hendrfkhovna's
there."

Mary Hendrfkhovna was the wife of the regi-
mental doctor, a pretty young German woman
he had married in Poland. The doctor, wheth-
er 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.

Rost6v threw his cloak over his shoulders,
shouted to Lavriishka to follow with the things,
and now slipping in the mud, now splashing
right through it set off with Ilyfn in the les-
sening rain and the darkness that was occa-
sionally rent by distant lightning.

"Rost6v, 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 of-
ficers. Mary Hendrfkhovna, a plump little
blonde German, in a dressing jacket and night-
cap, was sitting on a broad bench in the front
corner. Her husband, the doctor, lay asleep be-
hind her. Rost6v and Ilyfn, on entering the
room, were welcomed with merry shouts and
laughter.

"Dear me, how jolly we are!" said Rost6v
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.

Rostov and Ilyfn hastened to find a corner
where they could change into dry clothes
without offending Mary Hendrfkhovna'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
Hendrfkhovna obliged them with the loan
of a petticoat to be used as a curtain, and be-
hind that screen Rost6v and Ilyfn, helped
by Lavriishka who had brought their kit*.



368



WAR AND PEACE



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 Hendrfkhovna
to preside, they all crowded round her. One of-
fered her a clean handkerchief to wipe her
charming hands, another spread a jacket un-
der 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 flics
off her husband's face, lest he should wake up.

"Leave him alone," said Mary Hendrikhov-
na, smiling timidly and happily. "He is sleep-
ing well as it is, after a sleepless night."

"Oh, no, Mary Hendrikhovna," replied the
officer, "one must look after the doctor. Per-
haps 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 of-
ficers 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 Hendrikhov-
na. 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 every-
one in turn. Rost6v received his tumbler, and
adding some rum to it asked Mary Hendrik-
hovna 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 amus-
ing 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 mean-
while had pounced on.

"Use your finger, Mary Hendrfkhovna, it
will be still nicer," said Rost6v.



"Too hotl" she replied, blushing with pleas-
ure.

Ilyin put a few drops of rum into the bucket
of water and brought it to Mary Hendrikhov-
na, 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, Ros-
t6v took a pack of cards and proposed that
they should play "Kings" with Mary Hendrik-
hovna. They drew lots to settle who should
make up her set. At Rost6v'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 Hendrfkhovna
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 greet-
ing 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 of-
ficers burst into loud laughter and Mary Hen-
drikhovna 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 hap-
pily, 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 every-
thing in it would be stolen.

"But I'll send an orderly Two of them!"

said Rost6v. "What an idea, doctorl"

"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 pre-
texts. 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 un-



BOOK

easiness and his wife's delight, now they ran
out into the porch and reported what was tak-
ing place in the covered trap. Several times
Rost6v, covering his head, tried to go to sleep,
but some remark would arouse him and con-
versation would be resumed, to the accom-
paniment 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 Os-
tr6vna. Still laughing and talking, the officers
began hurriedly getting ready and again boiled
some muddy water in the samovar. But Ros-
t6v went off to his squadron without waiting
for tea. Day was breaking, the rain had ceased,
arid 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, Rost6v and Ilyin both glanced un-
der 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 Ros-
t6v 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. Rostov riding in front gave the
order "Forward!" and the hussars, with clank-
ing 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 be-
came clearly visible, still wet with the night's
rain; the drooping branches of the birches, al-
so wet, swayed in the wind and flung down
bright drops of water to one side. The soldiers'
faces were more and more clearly visible. Ros-
t6v, always closely followed by Ilyin, rode
along the side of the road between two rows of
birch trees.

When campaigning, Rost6v allowed himself
the indulgence of riding not a regimental but



NINE



3 6 9



a Cossack horse. A judge of horses and a sports-
man, he had lately procured himself a large,
fine, mettlesome, Done*ts 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, Rost6v
had felt afraid; now he had not the least feel-
ing 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 go-
ing 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 touch-
ing 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 ex-
cited 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 reap-
peared 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 Rostov had had time to consider and
determine the distance of that firing, Count
Ostermann-Tolstoy's adjutant came galloping
from Vitebsk with orders to advance at a trot
along the road.

The squadron overtook and passed the in-
fantry and the battery which had also quick-
ened their pace rode down a hill, and passing
through an empty and deserted village again



37



WAR AND PEACE



ascended. The horses began to lather and the
men to flush.

"Haiti Dress your ranks!" the order of the
regimental commander was heard ahead. "For-
ward by the left. Walk, march!" came the or-
der 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 morn ing 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 ex-
changing shots with the enemy in the dale.

At these sounds, long unheard, Rost6v'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 anoth-
er. Again all was silent and then again it
sounded as if someone were walking on deto-
nators 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 Uh-
lans started, the streamers on their spears flut-
tering, 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, whin-
ing and whistling, but fell spent without tak-
ing effect.

The sounds, which he had not heard for so
long, had an even more pleasurable and ex-
hilarating effect on Rost6v 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
dose to the French dragoons, something con-
tused 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

ROSTOV, 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 Uh-
lans 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.

Rost6v 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 Sevastyinychl" said Rost6v. "You
know, we could crush them "

"A fine thing tool" replied the captain, "and
really . . ."

Rost6v, 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 squad-
ron, sharing his feeling, was following him.
Rost6v himself did not know how or why he
did it. He acted as he did when hunting, with-
out reflecting or considering. He saw the dra-
goons near and that they were galloping in dis-
order; 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 stimu-
latingly 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 dra-
goons 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, Rost6v gave rein to his Done* ts



BOOK NINE



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. Near-
ly all the French dragoons were galloping back.
Rost6v, 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 en-
emy 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 Rost6v's
horse dashed its breast against the hindquarters
of the officer's horse, almost knocking it over,
and at the same instant Rost6v, without know-
ing why, raised his saber and struck the French-
man with it.

The instant he had done this, all Rost6v's
animation vanished. The officer fell, not so
much from the blowwhich had but slightly
cut his arm above the elbow as from the
shock to his horse and from fright. Rost6v
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 stir-
rup. His eyes, screwed up with fear as if he
every moment expected another blow, gazed
up at Rost6v 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
Rost6v had decided what to do with him, the
officer cried, "I surrenderl" He hurriedly but
vainly tried to get his foot out of the stirrup
and did not remove his frightened blue eyes
from Rost6v'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 be-
hind 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. Rost6v 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 ac-
count for, had come over him with the capture
of that officer and the blow he had dealt him.



Count Ostermann-Tolst6y met the return-
ing hussars, sent for Rostov, 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 Oster-
mann, Rost6v, remembering that he had
charged without orders, felt sure his command-
er was sending for him to punish him for
breach of discipline. Ostermann's flattering
words and promise of a reward should there-
fore 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. "Ilyfn? 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 of-
ficer with the dimple. And I remember how
my arm paused when I raised it."

Rost6v 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 Rost6v with a
feigned smile and waved his hand in greeting.
Rost6v still had the same indefinite feeling, as
of shame.

All that day and the next his friends and
comrades noticed that Rost6v, without being
dull or angry, was silent, thoughtful, and pre-
occupied. He drank reluctantly, tried to re-
main alone, and kept turning something over
in his mind.

Rostov was always thinking about that bril-
liant 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 ami"
he thought. "So that's all there is in what is
called heroism I And did I do it for my country's
sake? And how was he to blame, with his dim-
ple and blue eyes? And how frightened he wasl
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 solu-
tion of what puzzled him so, the wheel of for-
tune in the service, as often happens, turned
in his favor. After the affair at Ostr6vna he
was brought into notice, received command of



37*

an hussar battalion, and when a brave officer

was needed he was chosen.

CHAPTER XVI

ON RECEIVING NEWS of Natdsha's illness, the
countess, though not quite well yet and still
weak, went to Moscow with Pdtya and the
rest of the household, and the whole family
moved from Marya Dmftrievna's house to their
own and settled down in town.

Natdsha's illness was so serious that, fortu-
nately for her and for her parents, the consider-
ation of all that had caused the illness, her
conduct and the breaking off of her engage-
ment, receded into the background. She was
so ill that it was impossible for them to consid-
er 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 Natasha was suffering from, as no dis-
ease suffered by a live man can be known, for
every living person has his own peculiarities
and always has his own peculiar, personal, nov-
el, 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 innumer-
able combinations of the maladies of those or-
gans. 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 re-
ceived 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 use-
ful, as in fact they were to the whole Rost6v
family. Their usefulness did not depend on
making the patient swallow substances for the
most part harmful (the harm was scarcely per-
ceptible, as they were given in small doses),
but they were useful, necessary, and indispen-
sable 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



WAR AND PEACE

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 peo-
ple 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 Natdsha because
they kissed and rubbed her bump, assuring
her that it would soon pass if only the coach-
man went to the chemist's in the Arbdt 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 S6nya and the count and count-
ess 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 consola-
tion to the family circle? How would the count
have borne his clearly 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 howMe"-
tivier and Feller had not understood the symp-
toms, but Frise had, and Miidrov had diag-
nosed 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 medi-
cine 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, incompre-
hensible to others as well as to herself.

What would S6nya 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



BOOK NINE



373



the slightly harmful pills in the little gilt box
had to be administered? Even to Natasha her-
self it was pleasant to see that so many sacri-
fices 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 disregard-
ing the orders, that she did not believe in medi-
cal 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, try-
ing to conceal the action from herself and from
him, slipped a gold coin into his hand and al-
ways returned to the patient with a more tran-
quil mind.

The symptoms of Natdsha's illness were that
she ate little, slept little, coughed, and was al-
ways 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 Rostovs did riot 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.
Natdsha'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

NATASHA 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 sing-
ing in particular seemed to her like a blas-
phemy, 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 Nastisya
Ivdnovna, the buffoon. Something stood senti-
nel within her and forbade her every joy. Be-
sides, 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 Nicho-
las at Otrddnoe were what she recalled often-
est and most painfully. What would she not
have given to bring back even a single day of
that timel But it was gone forever. Her pre-
sentiment 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. Natasha 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 on-
ly with her brother Ptya. 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 per-
son, Pierre. It would have been impossible to
treat her with more delicacy, greater care, and
at the same time more seriously than did Count
Bezukhov. Natdsha unconsciously felt this del-
icacy 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 Natdsha noticed em-
barrassment and awkwardness on his part in
her presence, especially when he wanted to do
something to please her, or feared that some-
thing they spoke of would awaken memories
distressing to her. She noticed this and attrib-
uted it to his general kindness and shyness,
which she imagined must be the same toward
everyone as it was to her. After those involun-
tary 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 Natdsha of his
feelings; and it seemed plain to her that those
words, which had then so comforted her, were



374



spoken as all sorts of meaningless words are
spoken to comfort a crying child. It was not be-
cause Pierre was a married man, but because
Natasha felt very strongly with him that moral
barrier the absence of which she had experi-
enced with Kuragin that it never entered her
head that the relations between him and her-
self 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, Agra-
fna Ivdnovna Belova, a country neighbor of
the Rostovs, came to Moscow to pay her devo-
tions at the shrines of the Moscow saints. She
suggested that Natdsha should fast and pre-
pare for Holy Communion, and Natasha glad-
ly welcomed the idea. Despite the doctor's or-
ders that she should not go out early in the
morning, Natasha insisted on fasting and pre-
paring for the sacrament, not as they generally
prepared for it in the Rostov family by attend-
ing three services in their own house, but as
Agrafe"na Ivdnovna did, by going to church
every day for a week and not once missing
Vespers, Matins, or Mass.

The countess was pleased with Natasha's
zeal; after the poor results of the medical treat-
ment, 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
Natasha's wish and entrusted her to Belova.
Agrafcna Ivanovna used to come to wake Na-
tasha at three in the morning, but generally
found her already awake. She was afraid of be-
ing late for Matins. Hastily washing, and meek-
ly putting on her shabbiest dress and an old
mantilla, Natasha, shivering in the fresh air,
went out into the deserted streets lit by the
clear light of dawn. By Agraf^na Ivanovna's
advice Natasha prepared herself not in their
own parish, but at a church where, according
to the devout Agratena Ivanovna, the priest
was a man of very severe and lofty life. There
were never many people in the church; Nata-
sha 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 be-
fore something great and incomprehensible,
seized her when at that unusual morning hour,
gazing at the dark face of the Virgin illumi-
nated by the candles burning before it and by
the morning light falling from the window,



WAR AND PEACE

she listened to the words of the service which
she tried to follow with understanding. When
she understood them her personal feeling be-
came interwoven in the prayers with shades of
its own. When she did not understand, it was
sweeter still to think that the wish to under-
stand 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, and 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, Natdsha 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 hap-
piness of taking communion, or "communing"
as Agrafe"na Ivdnovna, joyously playing with
the word, called it, seemed to Natasha so great
that she felt she should never live till that
blessed Sunday.

But the happy day came, and on that memo-
rable 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 or-
dered her to continue the powders he had pre-
scribed a fortnight previously.

"She must certainly go on taking them morn-
ing and evening," said he, evidently sincerely
satisfied with his success. "Only, please be par-
ticular 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 dis-
quieting reports about the war began to spread



BOOK NINE



in Moscow; people spoke of an appeal by the
Emperor to the people, and of his coming him-
self 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 leav-
ing the army because it was in danger, it was
said that Smolensk had surrendered, that Na-
poleon had an army of a million and only a
miracle could save Russia.

On the eleventh of July, which was Satur-
day, the manifesto was received but was not
yet in print, and Pierre, who was at the Ros-
tovs', 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 Rost6vs went to Mass at
the RazurruVvskis' private chapel as usual. It
was a hot July day. Even at ten o'clock, when
the Rostovs 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 lan-
guor, that content and discontent with the pres-
ent, which is most strongly felt on a bright, hot
day in town. All the Moscow notabilities, all
the Rost6vs' acquaintances, were at the Razu-
m6vskis' 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 Natasha, at her
mother's side, passed through the crowd be-
hind a liveried footman who cleared the way
for them, she heard a young man speaking about
her in too loud a whisper.

"That's Rostova, the one who ..."

"She's much thinner, but all the same she's
prettyl"

She heard, or thought she heard, the names
of Kuragin and Bolk6nski. 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, Natasha in her
lilac silk dress trimmed with black lace walked
as women can walkwith 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



375



as it used to. On the contrary it tormented her
more than anything else of late, and particular-
ly 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, 1'myoung,
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 stand-
ing close by who was not crossing herself prop-
erly but in a cramped manner, and again she
thought with vexation that she was herself be-
ing judged and was judging others, and sud-
denly, at the sound of the service, she felt hor-
rified at her own vileness, horrified that the
former purity of her soul was again lost to her.

A comely, fresh-looking old man was con-
ducting 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 myste-
rious voice pronounced some words. Tears, the
cause of which she herself did not understand,
made Natdsha'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 prayl" thought Natasha.

"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 Natdsha.

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 mem-



376



WAR AND PEACE



bers of her own family, her father and mother
and Sonya, realizing for the first time how
wrongly she had acted toward them, and feel-
ing 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 al-
ways at the thought of enemies and those who
hated her she remembered Anatole who had
done her so much harmand 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 govern-
ing 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," Natdsha in-
wardly repeated. "Lord God, I submit myself
to Thy willl" she thought. "I want nothing,
wish for nothing; teach me what to do and
how to use my willl Take me, take mel" prayed
Natasha, with impatient emotion in her heart,
not crossing herself but letting her slender arms
hang down as if expecting some invisible pow-
er 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 Natasha knew so
well, the deacon brought out a small stool, the
one he knelt on when praying on Trinity Sun-
day, and placed it before the doors of the sanc-
tuary screen. The priest came out with his pur-
ple velvet biretta on his head, adjusted his
hair, and knelt down with an effort. Every-
body 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 gran-
diloquent 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 con-
founding Thy land, desiring to lay waste the
wholeworld, rises against us; these lawless men
are gathered together to overthrow Thy king-
dom, to destroy Thy dear Jerusalem, Thy be-
loved Russia; to defile Thy temples, to over-
throw 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 Pdvlo-
vich; be mindful of his uprightness and meek-
ness, reward him according tohis 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 them-
selves 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 faith-
ful 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 can-
not prevail against Thee!

"God of our fathers! Remember Thy boun-
teous 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, forti-
fy 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.



BOOK NINE



377



"O Lord our God, in whom we believe and
in whom we put our trust, let us not be con-
founded 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 na-
tions 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 serv-
ants! 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 Natasha's receptive condition of soul this
prayer affected her strongly. She listened to ev-
ery word about the victory of Moses over Am-
alek,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 understand-
ing 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 strengthen-
ing of the heart by faith and hope, and its an-
imation 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
Rost6vs' with Natasha'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 tor-
mented 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 horri-
fied as formerly, and did not ask himself why
men struggled so about these things when all
is so transient and incomprehensiblebut 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 jus-
tified or guilty a realm of beauty and love
which it was worth living for. Whatever world-
ly baseness presented itself to him, he said to
himself:

"Well, supposing N. N. has 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, be-
cause besides the hours he spent at the Ros-
t6vs' 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 Natasha's health began to
improve and she no longer aroused in him the
former feeling of careful pity, an ever-increas-
ing restlessness, which he could not explain,
took possession of him. He felt that the condi-
tion he was in could not continue long, that
a catastrophe was coming which would change
his whole life, and he impatiently sought ev-
erywhere for signs of that approaching catas-
trophe. One of his brother Masons had re-
vealed to Pierre the following prophecy con-
cerning 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 un-
derstanding 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;



378

and power was given unto him to contin-
ue 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 oth-
ers tens, will have the following significance:



a
i
1

20



b c

* 3
m
30 40



n



t
100



u
no



e

5
o

50

V
120



f g h
678

p q
GO 70

w



WAR AND PEACE

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 Natdsha, Antichrist,
Napoleon, the invasion, the comet, 666, L'Em-
pereurNapole'on^nd 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 hap-
piness.



i k

9
r

80 90
x y



10

s



130 140 150



z

160



Writing the words L'Empereur Napoleon in
numbers, it appears that the sum of them is
666, 1 and that Napoleon was therefore the beast
foretold in the Apocalypse. Moreover, by ap-
plying the same system to the words quarante-
deuxf 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 ques-
tion 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 mak-
ing 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

1 Including a 5 for the letter e dropped by eli-
sion from the le before Empereur. TR.
1 Forty-two.



On the eve of the Sunday when the special
prayer was read, Pierre had promised the Ros-
t6vs to bring them, from Count Rostopchfn
whom he knew well, both the appeal to the
people and the latest news from the army. In
the morning, when he went to call at Rostop-
chin's he met there a courier fresh from the ar-
my, 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 wat one from Nicholas
Rost6vto his father. Pierre took that letter, and
Rostopchfn also gave him the Emperor's ap-
peal 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
Rost6v, awarded a St. George's Cross of the
Fourth Class for courage shown in the Ostr6v-
na affair, and in the same order the name of
Prince Andrew Bolk6nski, appointed to the
command of a regiment of Chasseurs. Though
he did not want to remind the Rost6vs of Bol-
k6nski, 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 Rost6vs,
keeping the appeal, the bulletin, and the other
orders to take with him when he went to din-
ner.

His conversation with Count Rostopchin
and the latter's toneof anxious hurry, the meet-
ing with the courier who talked casually of how
badly things were going in the army, the ru-
mors of the disco very 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 expec-
tation in Pierre which he had been conscious



BOOK NINE



of ever since the appearance of the comet, and
especially since the beginning of the war.

He had long been thinking of enter ing the ar-
my 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 ab-
olition of war, and secondly, by the fact that
when he saw the great mass of Muscovites who
had donned uniform and were talking patriot-
ism, 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 any-
thing, but wait for what was bound to come to
pass.

CHAPTER XX

A FEW INTIMATE FRIENDS were dining with the
Rost6vs 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 car-
ried 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 Rost6vs' he stayed till mid-
night. The Rost6vs' footman rushed eagerly
forward to help him off with his cloak and take
his hat and stick. Pierre, from club habit, al-
ways left both hat and stick in the anteroom.

The first person he saw in the house was Na-
tasha. Even before he saw her, while taking off
his cloak, he heard her. She was practicing sol-
fa 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, turn-
ing quickly, she saw his broad, surprised face,
she blushed and came rapidly up to him.

"I want to try to sing again," she said, add-
ing as if by way of excuse, "it is, at least, some-
thing to do*"

"That's capital!"

"How glad I am you've come! I am so hap-
py today," she said, with the old animation



379



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.

Natasha 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," Natdsha answered
quickly, "but I should not like to do anything
you disapproved of. I believe in you complete-
ly. 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, Bolk6nski" (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 com-
fort her, he had said that if he were not him-
self 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 bet-
ter 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 Ptya came running in from the
drawing room.

Ptkya was now a handsome rosy lad of fifteen
with full red lips and resembled Natasha. He
was preparing to enter the university, but he
and his friend Obotenski had lately, in secret,
agreed to join the hussars.

Ptya had come rushing out to talk to hia
namesake about this affair. He had asked



380 WAR AND PEACE

Pierre to find out whether he would be accepted
in the hussars.

Pierre walked up and down the drawing
room, not listening to what Ptya was saying.

Pe"tya pulled him by the arm to attract his
attention.

"Well, what about my plan? Peter Kirttych,
for heaven's sake! You are my only hope I" said
Pekya.

"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 manifes-
to?" asked the old count. "The countess has
been to Mass at the Razumovskis' 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 Ex-
traordinary 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 al-
ready 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 Natasha, 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!" re-
marked the countess.

Natasha entered with a softened and agitat-
ed expression of face and sat down looking si-
lently at Pierre. As soon as she entered, Pierre's
features, which had been gloomy, suddenly
lighted up, and while still searching for the pa-
pers 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 S6nya, who had gone to look for the pa-
pers in the anteroom, had found them in
Pierre's hat, where he had carefully tucked
them under the lining. Pierre was about to be-
gin reading.

"No, after dinner," said the old count, evi-
dently expecting much enjoyment from that
reading.



At dinner, at which champagne was drunk to
the health of the new chevalier of St. George,
Shinshfn told them the town news, of the ill-
ness of the old Georgian princess, of Mdtivier's
disappearance from Moscow, and of how some
German fellow had been brought to Rostop-
chin and accused of being a French "spyer" (so
Count Rostopchin had told thestory),and how
Rostopchfn 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?" Shinshin asked.
"Prince Golitsyn 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, ad-
dressing 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 com-
fortably in an easy chair and with a serious
face asked Sonya, who was considered an ex-
cellent 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 be-
loved country,"

Sonya read painstakingly in her high-pitched
voice. The count listened with closed eyes,
heaving abrupt sighs at certain passages.

Natasha 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 dis-
approvingly and angrily at every solemn expres-
sion in the manifesto. In all these words she
saw only that the danger threatening her son
would not soon be over. Shinshin, with a sar-
castic smile on his lips, was evidently preparing
to make fun of anything that gave him the op-
portunity: S6nya's reading, any remark of the
count's, or even the manifesto itself should no
better pretext present itself.



BOOK

After reading about the dangers that threat-
ened Russia, the hopes the Emperor placed on
Moscow and especially on its illustrious nobil-
ity, S6nya, with a quiver in her voice due chief-
ly 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 others parts of
our realm for consultation, and for the direction
of all our levies, both those now barring the ene-
my'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 itl" 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 noth-
ing."

Before Shinshin had time to utter the joke
he was ready to make on the count's patriotism,
Natdsha jumped up from her place and ran to
her father.

"What a darling our Papa isl" she cried, kiss-
ing 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 Shin-
shin.

"Not a patriot at all, but simply . . ." Natdsha
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 Germansl"

"But did you notice, it says, 'for consulta-
tion'?" said Pierre.

"Never mind what it's for. . . ."

At this moment, Ptya, to whom nobody
was praying 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 Mam-
ma 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 heav-
en, 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.



NINE 381

"Come, come!" said he. "Here's a fine war-
rior! No! Nonsense! You must study."

"It's not nonsense, Papa. Fedya Obotenski is
younger than I, and he's going too. Besides, all
the same I can't study now when . . ." Petya
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 sacri-
fice everything."

"Pckya! 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 Kirttych 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 Kiiilych, let's go and have a
smoke," he said.

Pierre was agitated and undecided. Natasha's
unwontedly brilliant eyes, continually glancing
at him with a more than cordial look, had re-
duced him to this condition.

"No, I think I'll go home."

"Home? Why, you meant to spend the eve-
ning with us. ... You don't often come nowa-
days as it is, and this girl of mine," said the
count good-naturedly, pointing to Natasha,
"only brightens up when you're here."

"Yes, I had forgotten ... I really must
go home . . . business . . ." said Pierre hur-
riedly.

"Well, then, au revoir!" said the count, and
went out of the room.

"Why are you going? Why are you upset?"
asked Natdsha, 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 forme to come less of ten
. . . because . . . No, simply I have business "

"Why? No, tell me!" Natdsha began resolute-
ly 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 Ros-
t6vs' any more.



382



WAR AND PEACE



CHAPTER XXI

AFTER THE definite refusal he had received, Pe*t-
ya 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, every-
body pretended not to notice anything.

Next day the Emperor arrived in Moscow,
and several of the Rost6vs' domestic serfs
begged permission to go to have a look at him.
That morning Pckya was a long time dressing
and arranging his hair and collar to look like
a grown-up man. He frowned before his look-
ing 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. P(hya 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 sur-
rounded by gentlemen-in-waiting) that he,
Count Rost6v, in spite of his youth wished to
serve his country; that youth could be no hin-
drance to loyalty, and that he was ready to ...
While dressing, Pc^tya 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 PeHya counted for success in reaching the
Emperor he even thought how surprised every-
one would be at his youthfulriess 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 Pe"tya
stood a peasant woman, a footman, two trades-
men, and a discharged soldier. After standing
some time in the gateway, Ptftya tried to move
forward in front of the others without waiting
for all the carriages to pass, and he began reso-
lutely 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 P^tya into a very filthy corner
of the gateway.

P6tya 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 acquaint-
ance of the Rostcws', and P^tya thought of ask-
ing 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, car-
rying Ptya with it, streamed forward into the
Krdmlin Square which was already full of peo-
ple. There were people not only in the square,
but everywhere on the slopes and on the roofs.
As soon as Ptftya found himself in the square
he clearly heard the sound of bells and the joy-
ous 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. PC* tya was be-
ing pressed so that he could scarcely breathe,
and everybody shouted, "Hurrah! hurrah! hur-
rah!" Pe*tya stood on tiptoe and pushed and
pinched, but could see nothing except the peo-
ple about him.

All the faces bore the same expression of ex-
citement and enthusiasm. A tradesman's wife
standing beside Pe"tya sobbed, and the tears
ran down her cheeks.

"Father! Angel! Dear one!" she kept repeat-
ing, 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, P^tya, clinching his
teeth and rolling his eyes ferociously, pushed
forward, elbowing his way and shouting "hur-
rah!" 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 every body- shouted
"hurrah!"

"So this is what the Emperor is I" thought
Pehya. "No, I can't petition him myself that



BOOK NINE



383



would be too bold." But in spite of this he con-
tinued 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 As-
sumptionand P(kya 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 conscious-
ness. When he came to himself, a man of cleri-
cal 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 withone 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 Ptftya pale and breath-
lessto the Tsar-cannon. 1 Several people were
sorry for Pe*tya, and suddenly a crowd turned
toward him and pressed round him. Those
who stood nearest him attended to him, un-
buttoned 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.

Ptya soon came to himself, the color re-
turned 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 re-
turning that way. P(hya no longer thought of
presenting his petition. If he could only see
the Emperor he would be happy 1

While the service was proceeding in the
Cathedral of the Assumption it was a com-
bined 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, sell-
ing kvas, gingerbread, and poppyseed sweets
(of which Ptya was particularly fond), and-

1 A very large cannon cast in 1488 and preserved
in the Moscow Kremlin as a curiosity. TR.



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 Pt-
yawas talking to a functionary about the priests
who were officiating that day with the bishop.
The clerk several times used the word "plena-
ry" (of the service), a word P^tya did not un-
derstand. 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 par-
ticular charm for P^tya at his age, but they did
not interest him now. He sat on his elevation
the pedestal of the cannon still agitated as be-
fore 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 in-
tensified his sense of the importance of the oc-
casion.

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 embank-
ment to watch the firing. Pe"tya 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 of-
ficers, 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 cathe-
dral doors. "Hurrah! hurrah!" shouted the
crowd again.

"Which is he? Which?" asked P^tya in a
tearful voice, of those around him, but no one
answered him, everybody was too excited; and
Pdtya, 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 Em-
perorfrantically shouted "Hurrah!" and re-
solved 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 Ptya had not eaten any-
thing and was drenched with perspiration, yet
he did not go home but stood with that dimin-
ishing, but still considerable, crowd before the
palace while the Emperor dined looking in
at the palace windows, expecting he knew not



WAR AND PEACE



what, .and envying alike the notables he saw
arriving at the entrance to dine with the Em-
peror and the court footmen who served at
table, glimpses of whom could be seen through
the windows.

While the Emperor was dining, Valuev, look-
ing out of the window, said:

"The people are still hoping to see Your
Majesty again."

The dinner was nearly over, and the Emper-
or, munching a biscuit, rose and went out onto
the balcony. The people, with Petya among
them, rushed toward the balcony.

"Angel! Dear one! Hurrah! Father! . . ."
cried the crowd, and Ptya with it, and again
the women and men of weaker mold, Pdtya
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. Ptya'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.
Pe*tya 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 I said if only we waited and so it
was!" was being joyfully said by various peo-
pie.

Happy as Ptya 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
Obol^nski, who was fifteen and was also enter-
ing the regiment. On returning home Ptya
announced resolutely and firmly that if he was
not allowed to enter the service he would run
away. And next day, Count Ilyd Rost6v though
he had not yet quite yielded went to inquire
how he could arrange for Ptya 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 Slob6da 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 move-
ment 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 uni-
form some in that of Catherine's day, others
in that of the Emperor Paul, others again in
the new uniforms of Alexander's time or the
ordinary uniform of the nobility, and the gen-
eral characteristic of being in uniform imparted
something strange and fantastic to these di-
verse 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 them-
selves to someone younger. On all these faces,
as on the faces of the crowd Petya 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,ZinafdaDmi-
trievna's health, and so on.

Pierre was there too, buttoned up since early
morning in a nobleman's uniform that had be-
come too tight for him. He was agitated; this
extraordinary gathering not only of nobles but
also of the merchant-class les dtats gdntraux
(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 Con-
trat 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 discus-
sing it. Besides the ordinary topics of conver-
sation, Pierre heard questions of where the



BOOK

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 unde-
cided and indefinite. Then all preferred listen-
ing to speaking.

A middle-aged man, handsome and virile, in
the uniform of a retired naval officer, was speak-
ing in one of the rooms, and a small crowd was
pressing round him. Pierre went up to the cir-
cle that had formed round the speaker and lis-
tened. Count Ilyd Rost6v, in a military uni-
form 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 swallow-
ing his r's and generally slurring his conso-
nants: the voice of a man calling out to his serv-
ant, "Heah! Bwing me my pipe!" It was indic-
ative of dissipation and the exercise of author-
ity.

"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 awis-
tocwacy of the pwovince of Moscow thinks fit,
it can show its loyalty to our sov'weign the
Empewah in othah 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 llyd Rost6v smiled blandly and nod-
ded approval.

"And was our militia of any use to the Em-
pia? Not at all! It only wuined our farmingl
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



NINE 385

to the Emperor) "need only say the word and
we'll all die fo* him!" added the orator with
animation.

Count Rost6v'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 with-
out a tooth in his head, with a shrewd though
angry expression, standing near the first speak-
er, interrupted him. Evidently accustomed to
managing debates and to maintaining an ar-
gument, 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 em-
pire at the present moment to adopt conscrip-
tion 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 authori-
ty. . . ."

Pierre suddenly saw an outlet for his excite-
ment. He hardened his heart against the sena-
tor 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, occasional-
ly 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 ad-
dress him formally.) "Though I don't agree
with the gentleman . . ." (he hesitated: he
wished to say, "Mon ires honorable pr^opin-
ant""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 Father-
land! 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."

Many persons withdrew from the circle, no-
ticing the senator's sarcastic smile and the free-
dom of Pierre's remarks. Only Count Rost6v

1 "Food for cannon."



386



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 ques-
tions," 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 ac-
quaintance, a boston player who had always
been well disposed toward him, Stepan Step-
anovich Adraksin. Adraltsin 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, Adrdksin shouted
at Pierre:

"In the first place, I tell you we have no right
to question the Emperor about that, and sec-
ondly, 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 medi-
um height and about forty years of age, whom
Pierre had formerly met at the gypsies' and
knew as a bad cardplayer, and who, also trans-
formed by his uniform, came up to Pierre, in-
terrupted Adrdksin.

"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 no-
bleman smote his breast. "We will all arise,
every one 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 Rus-
sia!"

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 Rost6v at the back of the crowd was
expressing approval; several persons, briskly



WAR AND PEACE

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 Rost6v 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 at-
tempt to speak unsuccessful, but he was rude-
ly 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 thunder-
claps, 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 lengthswhich found expression in
the tones and looks more than in the substance
of the speeches infected him too. He did not



BOOK

renounce his opinions, but felt himself in
some way to blame and wished to justify him-
self.

"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 di-
verted by an exclamation at the other side of
the table.

"Yes, Moscow will be surrenderedl She will
be our expiation!" shouted one man.

"He is the enemy of mankind!" cried anoth-
er. "Allow me to speak. . . ." "Gentlemen, you
are crushing me! . . ."

CHAPTER XXIII

AT THAT MOMENT Count Rostopchfn with his
protruding chin and alert eyes, wearing the
uniform of a general with sash over his shoul-
der, entered the room, stepping briskly to the
front of the crowd of gentry.

"Our sovereign the Emperor will be here in
a moment," said Rostopchfn. "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 con-
sultation 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 d6wn, 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.



NINE 387

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 Emperof with aquiv-
ering 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 Rus-
sian nobles, but today it has surpassed my ex-
pectations. 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 ex-
clamations were heard from all sides.

"Yes, most precious ... a royal word," said
Count Rost6v, with a sob. Hestood at the back,
and, though he had heard hardly anything, un-
derstood everything in his own way.

From the hall of the nobility the Emperor
went to that of the merchants. There he re-
mained about ten minutes. Pierre was among
those who saw him come out from the mer-
chants' 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. 1
The other was the mayor, a man with a thin
sallow face and narrow beard. Both were weep-
ing. 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 de-
sire 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 consti-
tutional tendency and sought an opportunity
of effacing it. Having heard that Count Mam6-
nov was furnishing a regiment, Beztikhov at
once informed Rostopchfn that he would give
a thousand men and their maintenance.

*A dealer in spirits one who leased from the
government the monopoly of the sale of spirits for
a certain district.-Tn,



388 WAR AND PEACE

Old Rost6v could not tell his wife of what sembled nobles all took off their uniforms and

had passed without tears, and at once con- settled down again in their homes and clubs,

sented to P6tya's request and went himself to and not without some groans gave orders to

enter his name. their stewards about the enrollment, feeling

Next day the Emperor left Moscow, The as- 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 uni-
form 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. Rostov
charged the French because he could not re-
strain 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, circum-
stances, and aims. They were moved by fear or
vanity, rejoiced or were indignant, reasoned,
imagining that they knew what they were do-
ing and did it of their own free will, but they
all were involuntary tools of history, carrying
on a work concealed from them but compre-
hensible 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, anci nothing remains of that
time but its historic results.

Providence compelled all these men, striv-
ing to attain personal aims, to further the ac-
complishment 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 giv-
en 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 con-
flict with a raw army of half its numerical
strength, and led by inexperienced command-
ers as the Russian army was. Not only did no
one see this, but on the Russian side every ef-
fort 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 sum-
mer, 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 cam-
paign was even then understood. Russian au-
thors 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 forgot-
ten the thousands and millions of hints and
expectations to the contrary which were cur-
rent 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



389



WAR AND PEACE



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 at-
tribute such conceptions to Napoleon and his
marshals, or such plans to the Russian com-
manders. 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 ad-
vantage if we meant to retire and lure the en-
emy into the depths of the country. Our Em-
peror joined the army to encourage it to de-
fend every inch of Russian soil and not to re-
treat. 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 re-
tired. 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 pro-
voked at the thought that our forces were re-
treating into the depths of the country.

Napoleon having cut our armies apart ad-
vanced 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 ad-
vance was evidently ruinous to him.

The facts clearly show that Napoleon did
not foresee the danger of the advance on Mos-
cow, nor did Alexander and the Russian com-
manders then think of luring Napoleon on,
but quite the contrary. The luring of Napo-
leon 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 per-
ception 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 ad-
vance, 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
Bagrati6n (who would come under his com-
mand), and Bagrati6n 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 Bar-
clay, whose rank was inferior to his own.

The Emperor was with the army to encour-
age it, but his presence and ignorance of what
steps to take, and the enormous number of ad-
visers and plans, destroyed the first army's en-
ergy and it retired.

The intention was to make a stand at the
Drissa camp, but Paulucci, aiming at becom-
ing commander in chief, unexpectedly em-
ployed 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 lim-
ited. The armies were divided, there was no
unity of command, and Barclay was unpopu-
lar; 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 Bar-
clay, been in command) and on the other an
ever-increasing indignation against the foreign-
ers and an increase in patriotic zeal.

At last the Emperor left the army, and as the
most convenient and indeed the only pretext



BOOK TEN



for his departure it was decided that it was nec-
essary 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 com-
mander 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 contused and enfee-
bled. Bennigsen, the Tsare*vich, and a swarm
of adjutants general remained with the army
to keep the commander in chief under obser-
vation and arouse his energy, and Barclay,
feeling less free than ever under the observa-
tion of all these "eyes of the Emperor," be-
came still more cautious of undertaking any
decisive action and avoided giving battle.

Barclay stood for caution. The Tsare*vich
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 Bagrati6n disliked it.

Bagrati6n 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 Bagrati6n.

Despite his seniority in rank Bagrati6n, in
this contest of magnanimity, took his orders
from Barclay, but, having submitted, agreed
with him less than ever. By the Emperor's or-
ders Bagration reported direct to him. He
wrote to Arakche'ev, the Emperor's confidant:
"It must be as my sovereign pleases, but I can-
not 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 sov-
ereign and the Fatherland, but it turns out
that I am serving Barclay. I confess I do not
want to."

The swarm of Bronnftskis and Wintzinge-
rodes and their like still further embittered the
relations between the commanders in chief,
and even less unity resulted. Preparations were
made to fight th Frencn 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 Neve*-
rovski's division and reached the walls of Smo-
tensk.

It was necessary to fight an unexpected bat-
tle at Smolensk to save our lines of communi-
cation. 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 peo-
ple. But Smol6nsk was burned by its own in-
habitants who had been misled by their gov.-
ernor. 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! Satis-
fied, 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 fa-
ther 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 ex-
cluded her from his room, but did not admit
Mademoiselle Bourienne either. Tikhon 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 opera-
tions 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



39* WAR AND PEACE

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 signif-
icance of this war, which seemed to her like all
previous wars. She did not realize the signifi-
cance of this war, though Dessalles with whom
she constantly conversed was passionately in-
teresteegan at the invitation of
the townsfolk ttf turn into the yards and to
draw up at the entrances of the houses in Po-
varskdya Street. Natdsha was evidently pleased
to be dealing with new people outside the ordi-
nary routine of her life. She and Mdvra Kuz-
minichna tried to get as many of the wounded
as possible into their yard.

"Your Papa must be told, though," said Md-
vra Kuzminichna.

"Never mind, never mind, what does it mat-
ter? For one day we can move into the draw-
ing 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."



488

"Well, I'll ask."

Natdsha ran into the house and went on tip-
toe through the half-open door into the sitting
room, where there was a smell of vinegar and
Hoffman's drops. 1

"Are you asleep, Mamma?"

"Oh, what sleep?" said the countess,
waking up just as she was dropping into a
doze.

"Mamma darlingl" said Natdsha, kneeling
by her mother and bringing her face close to
her mother's, "I am sorry, forgive me, I'll nev-
er do it again; I woke you up! Mavra Kuzmfn-
ichna 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.

Natdsha laughed, and the countess too smiled
slightly.

"I knew you'd give permission ... so I'll tell
them," and, having kissed her mother, Nata-
sha got up and went to the door.

In the hall she met her father, who had re-
turned 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 Natdsha.

"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 tomor-
row we must go, go, go! . . ."

And the count gave a similar order to the
major-domo and the servants.

At dinner Ptya having returned home told
them the news he had heard. He said the peo-
ple 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,

1 A medicine much used in Russia. TR.



WAR AND PEACE

and obstinate which there would be no con-
tradicting, and her plans would be spoiled;
and so, hoping to arrange to leave before then
and take Pe* tya 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 invol-
untary 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 Myasnftski Street. When returning
by that street she had been unable to pass be-
cause 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 bar-
rels at the drink store, having received orders
to do so.

After dinner the whole Rost6v household
set to work with enthusiastic haste packing
their belongings and preparing for their de-
parture. 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 themstill
more. Pctya directed things in the yard. S6nya,
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. Natdsha, with the ar-
dor 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 Natdsha 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



BOOK ELEVEN

in from the storeroom. A third case was needed
and servants had gone to fetch it.

"S6nya, wait a bit we'll pack everything in-
to these," said Natdsha.

"You can't, Miss, we have tried to," said the
butler's assistant.

"No, wait a minute, please."

And Natdsha began rapidly taking out of
the case dishes and plates wrapped in paper.

"The dishes must go in here among the car-
pets," said she.

"Why, it's a mercy if we can get the carpets
alone into three cases," said the butler's assist-
ant.

"Oh, wait, please!" And Natdsha 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, Natdsha! Leave it alone! We'll get
it all packed," urged S6nya reproachfully.

"What a young lady she is!" remarked the
major-domo.

But Natdsha 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 Natd-
sha insisted on having her own way. She
packed, repacked, pressed, made the butler's
assistant and P^tya whom she had drawn in-
to the business of packing press on the lid,
and made desperate efforts herself.

"That's enough, Natdsha," said S6nya. "I
see you were right, but just take out the top
one."

"I won't!" cried Natdsha, with one hand
holding back the hair that hung over her per-
spiring face, while with the other she pressed
down the carpets. "Now press, Pe'tya! Press,
Vasflich, press hard!" she cried.

The carpets yielded and the lid closed; Na-
tdsha, clapping her hands, screamed with de-
light 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 Natdsha had countermanded an order of



489

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 Na-
tasha's directions the work now Tvent on ex-
peditiously, unnecessary things were left, and
the most valuable packed as compactly as pos-
sible.

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.

S6nya and Natasha slept in the sitting room
without undressing.

That night another wounded man was
driven down the Povarskdya, and Mdvra Kuz-
mfnichna, who was standing at the gate, had
him brought into the Rost6vs' yard. Mdvra
Kuzminichna concluded that he w;is a very im-
portant man. He was being conveyed in a ca-
Idchevfitli 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 Mdvra Kuzmfnichna. "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 cal&che,
looked into it, shook his head disconsolately,
told the driver to turn into the yard, and
stopped beside Mdvra 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 up-
stairs, 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 Bol-
k6nski.



49



WAR AND PEACE



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 re-
alize what awaited the city.

Only two things indicated the social condi-
tion 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, semi-
narists, and gentry were mingled, had gone
early that morning to the Three Hills. Having
waited there for Rostopchfn 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 af-
fairs. 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 re-
moving valuable goods, such as cloth, and re-
ceiving in payment a half of what they carted,
while peasant horses were fetching five hun-
dred rubles each, and furniture, mirrors, and
bronzes were being given away for nothing.

In the Rostovs' staid old-fashioned house the
dissolution of former conditions of life was but
little noticeable. As to the serfs the only indi-
cation 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 Rost6vs' yard, and wounded men
dragged themselves there from the Rost6vs'
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 en treaties were addressed,
though he was sorry for the wounded, resolute-
ly refused, saying that he dare not even men-
tion the matter to the count. Pity these wound-
ed 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 Ilyd Ros-
t6v 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, Vasflich, 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 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. Vasilich,
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 or-
der.

But at the same moment an expression of
warm gratitude on the officer's face had al-
ready 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 excel-
lency," 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



BOOK

Matrena Timoteevna, 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 be-
cause 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 lug-
gage 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 yardwe asked them in our-
selves 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 chil-
dren's interests, such as the building of a new
gallery or conservatory, the inauguration of a
private theater or an orchestra. She was accus-
tomed always to oppose anything announced
in that timid tone and considered it her duty
to do so.

She assumed her dolefully submissive man-
ner 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 1 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 Lopukhfns opposite, they cleared out
everything two days ago. That's what other peo-
ple do. It's only we who are such fools. If you
have no pity on me, have some for the chil-
dren."

Flourishing his arms in despair the count
left the room without replying.

"Papa, what are you doing that for?" asked
Natasha, who had followed him into her
mother's room.

"Nothing! What business is it of yours?"



ELEVEN 491

muttered the count angrily.

"But I heard," said Natdsha. "Why does
Mamma object?"

"What business is it of yours?" cried the
count.

Natdsha stepped up to the window and pon-
dered.

"Papa! Here's Berg coming to see us," said
she, looking out of the window.

CHAPTER XVI

BERG, the Rost6vs' son-in-law, was already a
colonel wearing the orders of Vladimir and
Anna, and he still filled the quiet and agree-
able 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 domes-
tic 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 Natdsha and S6nya, 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 coun-
cil. No one knows what is coming. But in gen-
eral 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-sixththere 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



49*



restrain those . . . those . . . yes, those exploits
of antique valor," he went on rapidly. "Gen-
eral Barclay de Tollyrisked his life everywhere
at the head of the troops, I can assure you. Our
corps was stationed on a hillside. You can im-
agine!"

And Berg related all that he remembered of
the various talcs he had heard those days. Na-
tdsha 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 Natasha, and as if anxious to conciliate her,
replying to her intent look with a smile. " 'Rus-
sia 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 sit-
ting room with a weary and dissatisfied expres-
sion. Berg hurriedly jumped up, kissed her
hand, asked about her health, and, swaying his
head from side to side to express sympathy, re-
mained 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 handker-
chief as if to blow his nose and, seeing the knot
in it, pondered, shaking his head sadly and sig-
nificantly.

"And I have a great favor to ask of you, Pa-
pa," said he.

"Hm . . ." said the count, and stopped.

"I was driving past Yusupov's house just
now," said Berg with a laugh, "when the stew-
ard, 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 Ve"ra wanted a chiffonier like that and
how we had a dispute about it." (At the men-
tion of the chiffonier and dressing table Berg
involuntarily changed his tone to one of pleas-
ure at his admirable domestic arrangements.)
"And it's such a beautyl It pulls out and has



WAR AND PEACE

a secret English drawer, you know! And dear
Vera has long wanted one. I wish to give her a
surprise, you see. I saw so many of those peas-
ant 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 Wra'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, Mammal Yes, these are very hard
times!" said Berg.

Natdsha left the room with her father and,
as if finding it difficult to reach some decision,
first followed him and then ran downstairs.

Petya 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?" Pdtya asked
Natasha.

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 Pdtya. "Vasilich
told me. I consider . . ."

"I consider," Natdsha suddenly almost shout-
ed, turning her angry face to Petya,"! 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 consol-
ing her with the respectful attention of a rela-
tive. The count, pipe in hand, was pacing up
and down the room, when Natasha, 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, per-
plexed and frightened. The count stood still
at the window and listened.

"Mamma, it's impossible: see what is going
on in the yard I" she cried. "They will be
left! . . ."



BOOK ELEVEN
you? Who are



493



"What's the matter with
'they'? What do you want?"

"Why, the wounded! It's impossible, Mam-
ma. 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 any-
one?" 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 Natdsha. "We will still take all the
most necessary things."

The count nodded affirmatively, and Na-
tdsha, at the rapid pace at which she used to
run when playing at tag, ran through the ball-
room to the anteroom and downstairs into the
yard.

The servants gathered round Natdsha, but
could not believe the strange order she brought
them until the count himself, in his wile'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 be-
hind 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 Rost6vs' 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 possibili-
ties 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 in-
cluded, was bright and animated. Natdsha 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 Natasha.

"The count's books."

"Leave it, Vasilich 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,
Ptya?" cried Natdsha.

S6nya too was busy all this time, but the aim
of her efforts was quite different from Natd-
sha'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 Ros-
t6vs' 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 caliche in which Prince Andrew was be-
ing taken attracted S6nya'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.



494



WAR AND PEACE



"Whose caleche is that?" she inquired, lean-
ing 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 Bolk6n-
ski himself! They say he is dying," replied the
maid with a sigh.

S6nya jumped out of the coach and ran to
the countess. The countess, tired out and al-
ready 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. Natdsha was not in the room.

"Mamma," said S6nya, "Prince Andrew is
here, mortally wounded. He is going with us."

The countess opened her eyes in dismay and,
seizing S6nya's arm, glanced around.

"Natasha?" she murmured.

At that moment this news had only one sig-
nificance for both of them. They knew their
Natdsha, and alarm as to what would happen
if she heard this news stifled all sympathy for
the man they both liked.

"Natdsha does not know yet, but he is go-
ing with us," said S6nya.

"You say he is dying?"

S6nya nodded.

The countess put her arms around S6nya
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 Natdsha, as with animated
face she ran into the room.

"Nothing," answered the countess. "If ev-
erything is ready let us start."

And the countess bent over her reticule to
hide her agitated face. S6nya embraced Na-
tsha and kissed her.

Natdsha looked at her inquiringly.

"What is it? What has happened?"

"Nothing . . . No . . ."

"Is it something very bad for me? What is
it?" persisted Natdsha with her quick intuition.

Sonya sighed and made no reply. The
count, Pdtya, Madame Schoss, Mdvra Kuzmf-
nichna, and Vasflich 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 an-
other.



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 em-
braced Mdvra Kuzmfnichna and Vasflich, 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 count-
ess went into the oratory and there S6nya 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
Ptya 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 carnage
steps waiting to help the countess in, while
maids rushed with cushions and bundles from
the house to the carriages, the caleche, the pha-
eton, and back again.

"They always will forget every thingl" said
the countess. "Don't you know I can't sit like
that?"

And Dunyasha, with clenched teeth, with-
out replying but with an aggrieved look on her
face, hastily got into the coach to rearrange the
seat.

"Oh, those servants!" said the count, sway-
ing 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 be-
hind him. From thirty years' experience he
knew it would be some time yet before the or-
der, "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 pa-
tience 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



BOOK ELEVEN



495



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 oth-
er 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 foot-
man 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 cale-
che f 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 trav-
elers off.

Rarely had Natasha 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. Occasion-
ally 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 caliche. She did not know
who was in it, but each time she looked at the
procession her eyes sought that caleche. She
knew it was right in front.

In Kiidrino, from the Nikftski, Prdsnya, and
Podnovinsk Streets came several other trains
of vehicles similar to the Rost6vs', and as they
passed along the Sad6vaya Street the carriages
and carts formed two rows abreast.

As they were going round the Siikharev wa-
ter tower Natasha, who was inquisitively and
alertly scrutinizing the people driving or walk-
ing past, suddenly cried out in joyful surprise:

"Dear me! Mamma, S6nya, look, it's he!"

"Who? Who?"

"Look! Yes, on my word, it's Bezukhov!"
said Natdsha, putting her head out of the car-
riage and staring at a tall, stout man in a coach-
man's long coat, who from his manner of walk-
ing and moving was evidently a gentleman in
disguise, and who was passing under the arch
of the Siikharev tower accompanied by a small,
sallow-faced, beardless old man in a frieze coat.

"Yes, it really is Bezukhov in a coachman's
coat, with a queer-looking old boy. Really,"
said Natdsha, "look, lookl"

"No, it's not he. How can you talk such non-
sense?"



"Mamma," screamed Natdsha, "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 Meshchdnski Street came more carts and
carriages, and the Rost6vs were being shouted
at to move on and not block the way.

In fact, however, though now much farther
off than before, the Rost6vs all saw Pierre or
someone extraordinarily like him in a coach-
man's coat, going down the street with head
bent and a serious face beside a small, beard-
less old man who looked like a footman. That
old man noticed a face thrust out of the car-
riage 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 under-
stand him. At length when he had understood
and looked in the direction the old man indi-
cated, he recognized Natdsha, 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.

Natdsha's face, leaning out of the window,
beamed with quizzical kindliness.

"Peter Kirilovich, come here! We have rec-
ognized 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 Natdsha 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. Goodby!"

"Ah, if only I were a man! I'd certainly stay
with you. How splendid!"said Natdsha. "Mam-
ma, if you'll let me, I'll stay!"

Pierre glanced absently at Natdsha and was
about to say something, but the countess inter-
rupted him.

"You were at the battle, we heard."

"Yes, I was," Pierre answered. "There will
be another battle tomorrow . . ." he began, but
Natdsha interrupted him.



WAR AND PEACE



"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-by,
good-byl" he muttered. "It's an awful time!"
and dropping behind the carriage he stepped
onto the pavement.

Natdsha continued to lean out of the win-
dow for a long time, beaming at him with her
kindly, slightly quizzical, happy smile.

CHAPTER XVIII

FOR THE LASTTWO DAYS, ever since leavinghome,
Pierre had been living in the empty house of
his deceased benefactor, Bazddev. This is how
it happened.

When he woke up on the morning after his
return to Moscow and his interview with
Count Rostopchfn, 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 let-
ter from his wife, the Countess Hellene, he felt
suddenly overcome by that sense of confusion
and hopelessness to which he was apt to suc-
cumb. 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 French-
man who had brought the letter from the
countess was very anxious to see him if only
for a minute, and that someone from Bazdev's
widow had called to ask Pierre to take charge
of her husband's books, as she herself was leav-
ing 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 fore-
head 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 stair-
case 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 Bazd^ev'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 Bazdev'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 balanc-
ing his bulky body so as not to slip out ^f 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 dis-
tributed today at the Krdmlin and that tomor-
row 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 Bazddevs' 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 Torzh6k five years before
with Joseph Ba/dcev, came out in answer to
his knock.

"At home?" asked Pierre.

"Owing to the present state of things Sophia
Danilovna has gone to theTorzhok 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 Alex^evich,
the brother of my late master may the king-
dom 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 Alex^evich was
Joseph Bazddev'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.



BOOK ELEVEN

"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 any-
one 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 bene-
factor's lifetime. The room, dusty and un-
touched since the death of Joseph Bazd^ev, was
now even gloomier.

Gerdsim 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 Bazdev's notes and explana-
tion.. 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.

Gerdsim 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 hon-
or?"

"Oh yes!" said Pierre, rousing himself and
rising hurriedly. "Look here," he added, tak-
ing Gerasim by a button of his coat and look-
ing 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 peas-
ant clothes and a pistol," said Pierre, unex-
pectedly blushing.

"Yes, your excellency," said Gcrdsim 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



497

taking up his residence in the house without
surprise, and seemed pleased to have someone
to wait on. That same eveningwithout 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 Alex^evich 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 coach-
man's coat which Gerdsim had procured for
him and had disinfected by steam) was on his
way with the old man to buy the pistol at the
Siikharev market that he met the Rost6vs.

CHAPTER XIX

KUTUZOV'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 bear-
ing down on them from behind, and an un-
reasoning hurry and alarm overcame them.
They all rushed forward to the bridge, onto
it, and to the fords and the boats. Kutiizov
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 rearguard remained in
the Dorogomilov suburb, where they had am-
ple 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 stand-
ing among his troops on the Pokl6nny 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
Borodinti to the entry of the French into Mos-
cow, during the whole of that agitating, mem-
orable week, there had been the extraordi-
nary 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 strength-
ened and refreshed by inhaling the aromatic



498



WAR AND PEACE



autumn air, when even the nights are warm,
and when in those dark warm nights, golden
stars startle and delight us continually by fall-
ing from the sky.

At ten in the morning of the second of Sep-
tember this weather still held.

The brightness of the morning was magical.
Moscow seen from the Pokl6nny Hill lay spa-
ciously 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 pecul-
iar architecture, such as he had never seen be-
fore, 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 Po-
k!6nny 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 4g-
Uses, Moscou la saint e. La voil& done en fin ,
cette fameuse ville! II 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.

"A town captured by the enemy is like a
maid who has lost her honor," thought he (he
had said so to Tuchk6v 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 re-
alized. In the clear morning light he gazed
now at the city and now at the plan, consider-
ing 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 Alex-
ander 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

1 "That Asiatic city of the innumerable churches,
holy Moscow! Here it is then at last, that famous
city. It was high time."



those fainthearted rnen, M he reflected, glanc-
ing 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 Napo-
leon that the chief import of what was taking
place lay in the personal struggle between him-
self 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 gen-
erations 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 r on m'amene les boyars" a said he to his
suite.

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 Pokl6nny 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.

1 "Bring the boyars to me."



BOOK ELEVEN

Having learned that there were many chari-
table institutions in Moscow he mentally de-
cided 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 Rus-
siansand being like all Frenchmen unable to
imagine anything sentimental without a refer-
ence to ma ch&re, ma tendre, ma pauvre m&re *
he decided that he would place an inscrip-
tion on all these establishments in large letters:
"This establishment is dedicated to my dear
mother." Or no, it should be simply: Maison
de ma Mtrefhe 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.

Meanwhile an agitated consultation was be-
ing 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 every-
one had left it. The faces of those who were
not conferring together were pale and per-
turbed. They were not alarmed by the fact that
Moscow had been abandoned by its inhabi-
tants (grave as that fact seemed), but by the
question how to tell the Emperor without
putting him in the terrible position of appear-
ing ridiculous that he had been awaiting the
boyars so long in vain: that there were drunk-
en 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



499

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 the Tver,
Kaluga, and Dorogomflov 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 Doro-
gomilov gate, but there again stopped and, dis-
mounting from his horse, paced for a long
time by the Kammer-Kolle'zski rampart, await-
ing the deputation.



The position was the more awkward because
the Emperor, meditating upon his magnani-
mous plans, was pacing patiently up and down
before the outspread map, occasionally glanc-
ing along the road to Moscow from under his
lifted hand with a bright and proud smile.

"But it's impossible . . ." declared the gentle-
men of the suite, shrugging their shoulders but
not venturing to utter the implied word le
ridicule. . . .

At last the Emperor, tired of futile expecta-
tion, his actor's instinct suggesting to him that
the sublime moment having been too long

1 "My dear, my tender, my poor mother."
1 "House of my Mother."



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 beekeep-
er's tap on the wall of the sick hive, instead
of the former instant unanimous humming
of tens of thousands of bees with their ab-
domens threateningly compressed, and pro-
ducing by the rapid vibration of their wings
an aerial living sound, the only reply is a dis-
connected buzzing from different parts of the
deserted hive. From the alighting board, in-
stead 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



5 oo



WAR AND PEACE



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
beestamed 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 clus-
ters down to the floor of the hive, drowsy
shriveled bees crawl about separately in vari-
ous 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 skill-
ful 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 awk-
wardly against the walls of the hive in their
flight. Here and there among the cells con-
taining dead brood and honey an angry buzz-
ing can sometimes be heard. Here and there a
couple of bees, by force of habit and custom
cleaning out the brood cells, with efforts be-
yond 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 know-
ing whether they do it with friendly or hostile
intent. In a third place a crowd of bees, crush-
ing 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 ex-
amine 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 Kdmmer-Kollez-
ski 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 re-
mained 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 de-
serted!" he said to himself. "What an incredi-
ble 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,Yatiza bridges.

While the troops, dividing into two parts
when passing around the Kremlin, were throng-
ing the Moskvil and the Stone bridges, a great
many soldiers, taking advantage of the stop-
page and congestion, turned back from the
bridges and slipped stealthily and silently past
the church of Vasili 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 ingra-
tiating 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



BOOK ELEVEN



501



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 drum-
mers 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. 1 Two officers,
one with a scarf over his uniform and mounted
on a lean, dark-gra'y horse, the other in an
overcoat and on foot, stood at the corner of
the Ilyfnka Street, talking. A third officer gal-
loped 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 pas-
sage. "Stop, you rascals!"

"But how are you going to stop them?" re-
plied another officer. "There is no getting
them together. The array should push on be-
fore the rest bolt, that's all!" >T

"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, hur-
riedly and ostentatiously approached the of-
ficer, 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. . . ."

1 Prisoners who had been released from jail.
TR.



Several shopkeepers crowded round the of-
ficer.

"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, Ivdn 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
first 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 shav-
en 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 Moskvi 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 Vasili
the Beatified in the direction from which the
screams carne.

The officer mounted his horse and rode aft-
er him. When he reached the bridge he saw
two unlhnbered guns, the infantry crossing
the bridge, several overturned carts, and fright-
ened and laughing faces among the troops. Be-
side 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, be-
side a child's chair with its legs in the air, sat
a peasant woman uttering piercing and des-
perate 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
Erm61ov, 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



502

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 Povarskdya was quite still and deserted.
The huge courtyard of the RosttWs' 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 pageboy Mishka, Vasilich'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 be-
hind them the voice of Mavra Kuzmfnichna
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 Vasi-
lich 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 Mdvra Kuzminichna, raising her
arm threateningly. "Go and get the samovar to
boil for your grandfather."

Mdvra Kuzmfnichna 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 con-
sider where she should go next to drink tea
in the servants' wing with Vasflich, 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?"



WAR AND PEACE

"The count Count Ilya Andrevich Ros-
t6v."

"And who are you?"

"An officer, I have to see him," came the
reply in a pleasant, well-bred Russian voice.

Mavra Kuzmfnichna opened the gate and
an officer of eighteen, with the round face of a
Rost6v, entered the yard.

"They have gone away, sir. Went away yes-
terday at vespertime," said Mdvra Kuzminich-
na 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, Mdvra Kuzminichna was atten-
tively and sympathetically examining the fa-
miliar Rost6v features of tlie 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 kins-
man 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 . . ."

Mdvra Kuzmfnichna 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 Mdvra Kuzmfnichna was running to
her room the officer walked about the yard gaz-
ing 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 Rog6zhski
gate?" thought he. Just then Mdvra Kuzmi-
nichna 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



BOOK ELEVEN

kinsman he would of course . . . but as it is . . ."

Mdvra Kuzminichna grew abashed and con-
fused. The officer did not decline, but took the
note quietly and thanked her.

"If the count had been at home . . ." Ma" vra
Kuzmfnichna 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 Ma* vra 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.



53



CHAPTER XXIII

FROM AN UNFINISHED HOUSE on the Varvdrka,
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 pos-
sessed by some idea, he stood over those who
were singing, and solemnly and jerkily flour-
ished above their heads his white arm with the
sleeve turned up to the elbow, trying unnatu-
rally 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
tavernkecper, fell face downward on the pave-
ment.

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 tak-
ing 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 surround-
ing 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 nowadays!" 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 be-
hind, 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



WAR AND PEACE



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 pub-
lican, taking advantage of the increased crowd,
dropped behind and returned to his tavern.

The tall youth, not noticing the disappear-
ance of his foe, waved his bare arm and went
on talking incessantly, attracting general at-
tention 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 with-
out 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 govern-
ment 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 ukdsel Read-
ing an ukise!" 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 col-
lected 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 visi-
tors 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 un-
derstood the last part. In particular, the words
"I will come back to dinner," evidently dis-
pleased both reader and audience. The peo-
ple's minds were tuned to a high pitch and
this was too simple and needlessly comprehen-
sibleit was what any one of them might have
said and therefore was what an ukase emanat-
ing from the highevSt 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 hadgone
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



BOOK ELEVEN



55



said, and looking at the departing trap.

The superintendent of police turned round
at that moment with a scared look, said some-
thing 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 voices, 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 Kutuzov, Count Rostopchin
had returned to Moscow mortified and of-
fended because he had not been invited to at-
tend the council of war, and because Kutuzov
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,
Rostopchfn had returned to Moscow. After
supper he lay down on a sofa without undress-
ing, and was awakened soon after midnight
by a courier bringing him a letter from Kutu-
zov. 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 in-
terview the previous day with Kutuzov on the
Pokl6nny Hill but ever since the battle of
Borodin6, 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 inhabi-
tants had left the city with Rostopchfn'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 or-
der from Kutuzov, and received at night, break-
ing in on his beauty sleep.

When later on in his memoirs Count Ros-
topchin 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 de-
parture of the inhabitants. If one accepts this
twofold aim all Rostopchfn's actions appear ir-
reproachable. "Why were the holy relics, the
arms, ammunition, gunpowder, and stores of
corn not removed? Why were thousands of in-
habitants deceived into believing that Moscow
would not be given up and thereby ruined?"
"To preserve the tranquillity of the city," ex-
plains Count Rostopchin. "Why were bundles
of useless papers from the government offices,
and Leppich's balloon and other articles re-
moved?" "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 tranquil-
lity.

On what, then, was Count Rostopchfn's fear
for the tranquillity of Moscow based in 1812?
What reason was there for assuming any prob-
ability of an uprising in the city? The inhabi-
tants 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, assem-
bled 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 Borodin6, when
the surrender of Moscow became certain or at
least probable, Rostopchin instead of exciting
the people by distributing arms and broad-
sheets 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 senti-
ments, was a sanguine and impulsive man who
had always moved in the highest administra-
tive 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



WAR AND PEACE



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. Rostopchfn 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 in-
habitants left against his wishes. If the govern-
ment 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 imagina-
tion, 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 sim-
ply directed toward arousing in the masses his
own feeling of patriotic hatred of the French.

But when events assumed their true histori-
cal 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 ac-
tion all the depth of their national feeling,
then the role chosen by Rostopchin suddenly
appeared senseless. He unexpectedly felt him-
self ridiculous, weak, and alone, with no ground
to stand on.

When, awakened from his sleep, he received
that cold, peremptory note from Kutiizov, 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 Mos-
cow 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 Rostopchfn issued or-
ders, 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 Regis-
trar'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 informa-
tion. . . . What are your orders about the Fire
Brigade? From the governor of the prison . . .
from the superintendent of the lunatic asy-
lum . . ." All night long such announcements
were continually being received by the count.

To all these inquiries he gave brief and an-
gry 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 Depart-
ment, "that he should remain to guard his
documents. Now why are you asking silly ques-
tions 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 com-
mands?"

"My commands? Let them go away, that's all.
. . . And let the lunatics out into the town.
When lunatics command our armies God evi-
dently means these other madmen to be free."

In reply to an inquiry about the convicts in
the prison, Count Rostopchfn shouted angrily
at the governor:

"Do you expect me to give you two battal-
ionswhich we have not got for a convoy? Re-
lease them, that's all about it!"

"Your excellency, there are some political
prisoners, Meshk6v, Vereshchagin . . ."

"Vereshchdgin! Hasn't he been hanged yet?"
shouted Rostopchfn. "Bring him to me!"

CHAPTER XXV

TOWARD NINE O'CLOCK in the morning, when
the troops were already moving through Mos-
cow, nobody came to the count any more for



BOOK ELEVEN

instructions. Those who were able to get away
were going of their own accord, those who re-
mained behind decided for themselves what
they must do.

The count ordered his carriage that he might
drive to Sok61niki, 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 ef-
forts that the whole population under his rule
is kept going, and in this consciousness of be-
ing indispensable every administrator finds the
chief reward of his labor and efforts. While the
sea of history remains calm the ruler-adminis-
trator 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 independent-
ly with its own enormous motion, the boat
hook no longer reaches the moving vessel, and
suddenly the administrator, instead of appear-
ing a ruler and a source of power, becomes an
insignificant, useless, feeble man.

Rostopchfn 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 Rostopchf n 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 some-
thing with a stern look. The bloodstained smith
stood beside him with a gloomy face. A drone
of voices was audible through the closed win-
dow.

"Is my carriage ready?" asked Rostopchfn,
stepping back from the window.

"It is, your excellency," replied the adjutant.

Rostopchfn went again to the balcony door.

"But what do they want?" he asked the su-
perintendent of police.

"Your excellency, they say they have got
ready, according to your orders, to go against



507

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 mas-
tered 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 Rostopchfn, as if struck by
an unexpected recollection.

And rapidly opening the door he went reso-
lutely out onto the balcony. The talking in-
stantly ceased, hats and caps were doffed, and
all eyes were raised to the count.

"Good morning, lads!" said the count brisk-
ly 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 seel 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 hurried-
ly 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. Rostopchfn, 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



508



WAR AND PEACE



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 irreso-
lute 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, hold-
ing 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, Vereshchdgin, is the scoun-
drel by whose doing Moscow is perishing."

The young man in the fur-lined coat, stoop-
ing 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 shift-
ed his feet on the step.

"He has betrayed his Tsar and his country,
he had 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 sudden-
ly he glanced down at Vereshchagin who con-
tinued to stand in the same submissive atti-



tude. As if inflamed by the sight, he raised his
arm and addressed the people, almost shout-
ing:

"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 atmos-
phere, to be unable to stir, and to await some-
thing unknown, uncomprehendecl, and terri-
ble, was becoming unbearable. Those stand-
ing 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 Ros-
topchin. "Cut him clown. 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 Vereshchdgin in the midst of the mo-
mentary 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
Rostopchfn, suddenly growing pale like Vere-
shchagin.

"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 Veresh-
chdgin.

"Saber him!" the dragoon officer almost
whispered.

And one of the soldiers, his face all at once
distorted with fury, struck Vereshchdgin on
the head with the blunt side of his saber.

"Ah!" cried Vereshchdgin 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 Vereshchdgin he uttered a
plaintive cry of pain, and that cry was fatal.
The barrier of human feeling, strained to the



BOOK ELEVEN



utmost, that had held the crowd in check sud-
denly broke. The crime had begun and must
now be completed. The plaintive moan of re-
proach was drowned by the threatening and
angry roar of the crowd. Like the seventh and
last wave that shatters a ship, that last irresisti-
ble wave burst from the rear and reached the
front ranks, carrying them of! 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 un-
der the feet of the pressing, struggling crowd.

Some beat and tore at Vcreshcndgin, 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 be-
gun, 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 . . . tena-
cious . . . serve 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 pros-
trate, bleeding corpse begin rapidly to change
places. Each one came up, glanced at what had
been done, and with horror, reproach, and as-
tonishment 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 court-



yard 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 Vereshchdgin 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 in-
dicated. At the back entrancestood his caliche.
The distant roar of the yelling crowd was audi-
ble 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 remem-
bered 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!" Vereshcha* gin'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 Vasilye-
vich Rostopchin (he fancied that Theodore
Vasflyevich Rostopchfn was sacrificing him-
self for the public good) but himself as gov-
ernor, the representative of authority and of
the Tsar. "Had I been simply Theodore Vasfl-
yevich my course of action would have been
quite different, but it was my duty to safe-
guard my life and dignity as commander in
chief."

Lightly swaying on the flexible springs of nis
carriage and no longer hearing the terrible



5 io



WAR AND PEACE



sounds of the crowd, Rostopchfn grew physi-
cally calm and, as always happens, as soon as
he became physically tranquil his mind de-
vised reasons why he should be mentally tran-
quil too. The thought which tranquillized Ros-
topchfn was not a new one. Since the world be-
gan 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 wel-
fare 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 op-
portunity to punish a criminal and at the same
time pacify the mob.

"Vereshchdgin was tried and condemned to
death," thought Rostopchin (though the Sen-
ate 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 pun-
ished a miscreant."

Having reached his country house and be-
gun to give orders about domestic arrange-
ments, the count grew quite tranquil.

Half an hour later he was driving with his
fast horses across the Sok61niki field, no longer
thinking of what had occurred but considering
what was to come. He was driving to the Yaiiza
bridge where he had heard that Kutuzov was.
Count Rostopchfn was mentally preparing the
angry and stinging reproaches he meant to
address to Kutuzov 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 Kutuzov,
Rostopchfn turned angrily in his caliche and
gazed sternly from side to side.

The Sok61niki 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 Rostopchfn's carriage, and the count
himself, his coachman, jnd his dragoons looked



with vague horror and curiosity at these re-
leased lunatics and especially at the one run-
ning toward them.

Swaying from side to side on his long, thin
legs in his fluttering dressing gown, this luna-
tic 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 caliche he ran be-
side 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 Veresh-
cMgin. He turned away. "Go fas ... faster!"
he cried in a trembling voice to his coachman.
The caliche 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, fright-
ened, bloodstained face of "the traitor" in the
fur-lined coat.

Recent as that mental picture was, Rostop-
chfn already felt that it had cut deep into his
heart and drawn blood. Even now he felt clear-
ly that the gory trace of that recollection would
not pass with time, but that the terrible mem-
ory 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.



BOOK ELEVEN



Troops were still crowding at the Yauza
bridge. It was hot. Kutuzov, dejected and
frowning, sat on a bench by the bridge toying
with his whip in the sand when a caliche
dashed up noisily. A man in a general's uni-
form with plumes in his hat went up to Kutti-
zov and said something in French. It was Count
Rostopchfn. He told Kutuzov 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.

Kutuzov looked at Rostopchfn as if, not
grasping what was said to him, he was trying
to read something peculiar written at that mo-
ment on the face of the man addressing him.
Rostopchfn grew confused and became silent.
Kutuzov slightly shook his head and not tak-
ing his penetrating gaze from Rostopchfn's
face muttered softly:

"No! I shall not give up Moscow without a
battle!"

Whether Kutuzovwas thinkingofsomething
entirely different when he spoke those words,
or uttered them purposely, knowing them to
be meaningless, at any rate Rostopchfn made
no reply and hastily left him. And strange to
say, the Governor of Moscow, the proud Count
Rostopchfn, 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 Mur-
at's troops were entering Moscow. In front rode
a detachment of Wiirttemberg hussars and be-
hind 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 be-
hind 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 cita-
del 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 Vozdvfzhen-
ka Street they halted and drew up in the Square.
Several French officers superintended the plac-
ing 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 Kutdfyev 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, of-
ficers, 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 Kutdfyev Street, nor the Trd-
itsa 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



5**



WAR AND PEACE



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 fig-
ure 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 Znmenka.

"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 re-
moved 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 be-
gan 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 Kre*m-
lin and encamped along the Moros^yka, the
Lubynka, and Pokr6vka Streets. Others quar-
tered themselves along the Vozdvizhenka, the
Nik61ski, and the Tversk6y Streets. No masters
of the houses being found any where, 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 re-
duced to a third of their original number, the
French entered Moscow in good marching or-



der. 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 ^.s the
men of the various regiments began td dis-
perse among the wealthy and deserted hotises,
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 Mos-
cow, they no longer formed an army. They
were a mob of marauders, each carrying a
quantity of articles which seemed to him valu-
able 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 ac-
quired. Like a monkey which puts its paw in-
to 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 inevi-
tably 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 mon-
key 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 cook-
ing; or frightening, amusing, or caressing wom-
en 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 eve-
ning. But despite all these measures the men,
who had till then constituted an army, flowed
all over the wealthy, deserted city with its com-
forts 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 di-



BOOK ELEVEN



513



rections from the Kremlin into which they had
first marched. The cavalry, on entering a mer-
chant'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 caleches and coaches for them-
selves. The few inhabitants who had remained
invited commanding officers to their houses,
hoping thereby to secure themselves from be-
ing 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 loot-
ing 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 peo-
ple, responsible for it. Moscow was burned be-
cause 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 hun-
dred and thirty inferior fire engines. Deserted
Moscow had to burn as inevitably as a heap of
shavings has to burn on which sparks continu-
ally fall for several days. A town built of wood,
where scarcely a clay passes without conflagra-
tions when the house owners are in residence
and a police force is present, cannot help burn-
ing when its inhabitants have left it and it is
occupied by soldiers who smoke pipes, make
campfires of the Senate chairs in the Senate

1 To Rostopchfn's ferocious patriotism.



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 patrio-
tisme feroce deRostopchine"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 careless-
ness 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.

However tempting it might be for the French
to blame Rostopchfn's ferocity and for Rus-
sians 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 wel-
come the French with bread and salt, nor bring
them the keys of the city.

CHAPTER XXVII

THE ABSORPTION of the French by Moscow, ra-
diating starwise as it did, only reached the
quarter where Pierre was staying by the eve-
ning 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 ob-
sessed 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 ap-
peared to him like a dream.

He had left home only to escape the intri-
cate tangle of life's demands that enmeshed
him, and which in his present condition he was
unable to unravel. He had gone to Joseph
Alexe*evich's house, on the plea of sorting the



WAR AND PEACE



deceased's books and papers, only in search of
rest from life's turmoil, for in his mind the
memory of Joseph Alexevich was connected
with a world of eternal, solemn, and calm
thoughts, quite contrary to the restless confu-
sion into which he felt himself being drawn.
He sought a quiet refuge, and in Joseph Alex-
evich'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, particu-
larly of the battle of Borodin6 and of that
vague sense of his own insignificance and in-
sincerity compared with the truth, simplicity,
and strength of the class of men he mentally
classed as they. When Gerdsim 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 Gerdsim to get him a peas-
ant's coat and a pistol, confiding to him his in-
tentions of remaining in Joseph Alexevich's
house and keeping his name secret. Then dur-
ing 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
Rost6vs and Natdsha 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 mere-
ly a possibility had now become absolutely nec-
essary and inevitable. He must remain in Mos-
cow, concealing his name, and must meet Na-
poleon 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 ir-
resistibly to this purpose. The first was a feel-
ing of the necessity of sacrifice and suffering in
view of the common calamity, the same feeling
that had caused him to go to Mozhdysk 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 accus-
tomed, to sleep on a hard sofa without undress-
ing and eat the same food as Gerdsim. The oth-
er was that vague and quite Russian feeling of
contempt for everything conventional, artifi-
cial, 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 Slob6da Palace, when
he had suddenly felt that wealth, power, and
lifeall that men so painstakingly acquire and
guard if it has any worth has so only by rea-
son 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 feel-
ing which causes a man to perform actions
which from an ordinary point of view are in-
sane, to test, as it were, his personal power and
strength, affirming the existence of a higher,
no n human criterion of life.

From the very day Pierre had experienced
this feeling for the first time at the Slob6da
Palace he had been continuously under its in-
fluence, 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 Mos-
cow like everyone else, his flight from home,
the peasant coat, the pistol, and his announce-
ment to the Rost6vs that he would remain in
Moscow would all become not merely mean-
ingless 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



BOOK ELEVEN



sleepless nights passed on a short sofa without
bedding all this kept him in a state of excite-
ment 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 en-
joyment imagined his own destruction and
heroic endurance.

"Yes, alone, for the sake of all, I must do it
or perish I" he thought. "Yes, I will approach
. . . and then suddenly . . . with pistol or dag-
ger? 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 ap-
peared the figure of Makar Alexevich, 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 im-
mediately 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.

Gerdsim and the porter, who had followed
Makar Alexevich, stopped him in the vesti-
bule 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 Alexdevich, frowning with exer-
tion, held on to the pistol and screamed hoarse-
ly, 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 Geraim, trying carefully to steer Ma-
kar Alexevich by the elbows back to the door.



5*5
shouted



"Who are you? Bonaparte! .
Makar Alexevich.

"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 Alex^evich, brandish-
ing the pistol. "Board them!"

"Catch hold!" whispered Gerdsim to the
porter.

They seized Makar Alex^evich 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.

Gerdsim and the porter let Makar Alexe*-
evich 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 car-
ried out his design he would disclose neither
his identity nor his knowledge of French, stood
at the half-open door of the corridor, intend-
ing 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, lean-
ing on a stick and slightly limping. When he
had advanced a few steps he stopped, having
apparently decided that these were good quar-
ters, 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 hjs mustache and light-
ly touched his hat.

"Bon/our, la compagnie!"* said he gaily,
smiling and looking about him.

No one gave any reply.

"Vous ties le bourgeois!" * the officer asked
Gerasim.

Gerdsim gazed at the officer with an alarmed
and inquiring look.

1 "Good day, everybody!"
1 "Are you the master nere?"



WAR ANi> PEACE



"Quartier, quartier, logement!" said the of-
ficer, looking down at the little man with a con-
descending and good-natured smile. "Les fran-
caissont de bons enfants. Que diable! Voyons!
Ne nous factions pas, mon vieux!" * added he,
clapping the scared and silent Gerdsim 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.

Again the officer turned to Gerdsim 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 Alexdevichappcaringat the open kitch-
en door with the pistol in his hand. With a
madman's cunning, Makar Alexe"evicheyed 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 Ma-
kdr Alex^evich at last got his fingerson the trig-
ger, there was a deafening report, and all were
enveloped in a cloud of smoke. The French-
man 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 oc-
curred," said Pierre rapidly, quite forgetting
the part he had intended to play. "He is an un-
fortunate madman who did not know what he
was doing."

The officer went up to Makdr Alex^evichand
took him by the collar.

Makar Alexeevich was standing with parted

1 "Quarters, quarters, lodgings! The French are
good fellows. What the devil! There, don't let us
be cross, old fellow!"



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 dig-
nity and a fine energetic gesture.

Pierre continued, in French, to persuade the
officer not to hold that drunken imbecile to ac-
count. The Frenchman listened in silence with
the same gloomy expression, but suddenly
turned to Pierre with a smile. For a few sec-
onds he looked at him in silence. His hand-
some face assumed a melodramatically gentle
expression arid he held out his hand.

"You have saved my life. You are French,"
said he.

For a Frenchman that deduction was indu-
bitable. Only a Frenchman could perform a
great deed, and to save his life the life of M.
Ramballc, captain of the igth 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 pres-
ently. 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, hav-
ing once received that loftiest of human appel-
lations he could not renounce it, said the offi-
cer'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 hap-
pened, and expressed their readiness to punish
the culprits, but the officer sternly checked
them.



BOOK ELEVEN



"You will be called in when you are wanted,"
he said.

The soldiers went out again, and the order-
ly, 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 cap-
tain.

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 as-
surances that he was not a Frenchman, the
captain, evidently not understanding how any-
one 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 for-
ever bound to Pierre by gratitude for saving
his life.

Had this man been endowed with the slight-
est capacity for perceiving the feelings of oth-
ers, 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 incog-
nito," said the officer, looking at Pierre's fine
though dirty linen and at the ring on his fin-
ger. "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 131!! Light Reg-
iment, Chevalier of the Legion of Honor for
the affair on the seventh of September," he in-
troduced 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 pleas-



antly, 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 serv-
ice. 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. . . .
Excellent! 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, Ram-
balle 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 kitch-
en for them to try. That beverage was already
known to the French and had been given a
special name. They called it limonade de co-
chon (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 bot-
tle up to its neck in a table napkin and poured
out wine for himself and for Pierre. The satis-
faction of his hunger and the wine rendered
the captain still more lively and he chatted in-
cessantly 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 Smo-
tensk" 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. Sacrd Dieu! It was splen-
did! That deluge of fire was worth seeing. It



WAR AND PEACE



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 betterl You are
certainly brave foes. The great redoubt held
out well, by my pipe!" continued the French-
man. "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 grena-
diers 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, Mon-
sieur 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 naively and good-humor-
edly 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 fin-
ished his remark for him.

The captain looked at Pierre. He had a hab-
it of stoppingshort in the middle of his talk and
gazing intently with his laughing, kindly eyes.

"Well, if you hadn't told me you were Rus-
sian, 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 Tal-
ma, la Duch^nois, Potier, the Sorbonne, the



boulevards," x and noticing that his conclusion
was weaker than what had gone before, he add-
ed quickly: "There is only one Paris in the
world. You have been to Paris and have re-
mained 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 involun-
tarily 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 ar-
my is in Moscow. What a chance those girls
have missed! Your peasants, now that's an-
other thing; but you civilized people, you
ought to know us better than that. We took
Vienna, Berlin, Madrid, Naples, Rome, War-
saw, 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, jus-
tice, 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 fa-
ther 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 hus-
sars 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.

1 The famous tragedian Talma, the actress Du-
che'nois, the comedian Potier. TR.



The captain had their senior sergeant called
in, and in a stern voice asked him to what reg-
iment 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 com-
mander 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 po-
sition 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 conversa-
tion with this good-natured man had destroyed
the mood of concentrated gloom in which he
had spent the last few days and which was es-
sential for the execution of his design. The pis-
tol, dagger, and peasant coat were ready. Napo-
leon 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 con-
fession 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 previ-
ously amused Pierre now repelled him. The
tune he was whistling, his gait, and the gesture



BOOK ELEVEN 519

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 amus-
ing thought.

"The colonel of those Wurttembergers is de-
lightful," 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 Unterkunjt."

"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 Mos-
cow 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 candle-
light 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 any-
thing 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 friend-



5*0



WAR AND PEACE



ship!" 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 naive
frankness the captain told Pierre the story of
his ancestors, his childhood, youth, and man-
hood, and all about his relations and his finan-
cial and family affairs, "ma pauvre mtre" play-
ing 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 hand-
some, 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 al-
luringly that Pierre listened to him with curi-
osity.

It was plain that I' amour which the French-
man 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 Natasha. (Ramballe de-
spised 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 incon-
gruities 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 charm-
ing, innocent child of seventeen, daughter of
the bewitching marquise. The conflict of mag-
nanimity between the mother and the daugh-
ter, 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 re-
counted 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 en-
trusted to him his enchanting wife (parisienne
de cceur) while himself entering the French
service. The captain was happy, the enchant-
ing Polish lady wished to elope with him, but,
prompted by magnanimity, the captain re-
stored 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 cap-
tain 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 Natasha 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 de-
tail 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 itseemed to him that that meeting had had
in it something very important and poetic.

"Peter Kirflovich, come herel We have rec-
ognized 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



BOOK ELEVEN



something pathetic and touching in all this.

Having finished his tale about the enchant-
ing 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 es-
pecially 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, some-
thing loosened Pierre's tongue. Speaking thick-
ly and with a faraway look in his shining eyes,
he told the whole story of his life: his marriage,
Natasha's love for his best friend, her betrayal
of him, and all his own simple relations with
her. Urged on oy Ramballe's questions he also
told what he had at first concealed his own po-
sition 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 conceal-
ing his name and station.

When it was late at night they went out to-
gether into the street. The night was warm and
light. To the left of the house on the Pokr6vka
a fire glowed the first of those that were be-
ginning 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 Gerdsim, the cook, and
two Frenchmen. Their laughter and their mu-
tually incomprehensible remarks in two lan-
guages 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 re-
turning 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 Rostov party spent the night at Mytish-
chi, fourteen miles from Moscow. They had
started so late on the first of September, the
road had been so blocked by vehicles a nd 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 Mytfshchi. At ten o'clock
that evening the Rost6v family and the wound-
ed traveling with them were all distributed in
the yards and huts of that large village. The
Rostovs' servants and coachmen and the or-
derlies 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 Rac" vski's adjutant
with a fractured wrist. The awful pain he suf-
fered made him moan incessantly and piteous-
ly, and his moaning sounded terrible in the
darkness of the autumn night. He had spent
the first night in the same yard as the Rostovs.
The countess said she had been unable to close
her eyes on account of his moaning, and at
Mystfshchi she moved into a worse hut simply
to be farther away from the wounded man.

In the darkness of the night one of the serv-
ants noticed, above the high body of a coach
standing before the porch, the small glow of



5**



WAR AND PEACE



another fire. One glow had long been visible
and everybody knew that it was Little Mytish-
chi burning set on fire by Mam6nov's Cos-
sacks.

"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 Mam6nov'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 Sushchvski or
the Rog6zhski 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 Ter^ntich, the count's valet (as
he was called), came up to the group and shout-
ed at Mishka.

"What are you staring at, you good-for-noth-
ing? . . . The count will be calling and there's
nobody there; go and gather the clothes to-
gether."

"I only ran out to get some water," said
Mishka.

"But what do you think, Daniel Ter^ntich?
Doesn't it look as if that glow were in Mos-
cow?" remarked one of the footmen.

Daniel Ter^ntich 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 Ter^ntich,
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. S6nya and Madame Schoss, who had not
yet undressed, went out with him. Only Nata-
sha and the countess remained in the room.
Ptya was no longer with the family, he had
gone on with his regiment which was making
for Tr6itsa.

The countess, on hearing that Moscow was
on fire, began to cry. Natdsha, 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 S6nya, returning
from the yard chilled and frightened. "I be-
lieve the whole of Moscow will burn, there's an
awful glow! Natdsha, do look! You can see it
from the window," she said to her cousin, evi-
dently wishing to distract her mind.

But Natdsha looked at her as if not under-
standing 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 morn-
ing, when S6nya, to the surprise and annoy-
ance of the countess, had for some unaccount-
able reason found it necessary to tell Natdsha
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
S6nya. S6nya had cried and begged to be for-
given and now, as if trying to atone for her
fault, paid unceasing attention to her cousin.

"Look, Natdsha, how dreadfully it is burn-
ing! "said she.

"What's burning?" asked Natdsha. "Oh, yes,
Moscow."

And as if in order not to offend S6nya 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," Natdsha replied in a
voice that pleaded to be left in peace.

Both the countess and S6nya understood
that, naturally, neither Moscow nor the burn-
ing of Moscow nor anything else could seem of
importance to Natdsha.

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 Natd-



BOOK ELEVEN



5*3



sha 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 Natasha.

When Natdsha 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 go-
ing? 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 serious-
ly 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 tor-
mented her.

"Natdsha, 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," Natasha 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. Natdsha 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 S6nya.

"Lie down, darling; lie down, my pet," said
the countess, softly touching Natasha's shoul-
ders. "Come, lie down."

"Oh, yes ... I'll lie down at once," said Na-
tdsha, 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 re-
plaiting 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.

"Natdsha, you'd better lie in the middle,"
said S6nya.

"I'll stay here," muttered Natdsha. "Do lie
down," she added crossly, and buried her face
in the pillow.

The countess, Madame Schoss, and S6nya
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 Ma-
m6nov's Cossacks had set up across the street,
and the adjutant's unceasing moans could still
be heard.

For a long time Natdsha 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 1 familiar whistling snore and S6nya's
gentle breathing. Then the countess called to
Natdsha. Natdsha did not answer.

"I think she's asleep, Mamma," said S6nya
softly.

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

Soon after that Natdsha heard her mother's
even breathing. Natdsha 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.
Natdsha sat up.

"S6nya, are you asleep? Mamma?" she whis-
pered.

No one replied. Natdsha rose slowly and care-
fully, crossed herself, and stepped cautiously
on the cold and dirty floor with her slim, sup-
ple, 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



WAR AND PEACE



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, Natasha 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 moan-
ing 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
Tim6khin 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.
Tim6khin, 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 Natdsha ap-
proach 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 inno-
cent, 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 Borodin6. His feverish state and the
inflammation of his bowels, which were in-
jured, 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 Mos-
cow had been fairly warm and he had remained
in the caltche, 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 motion-
less with closed eyes. Then he opened them
and whispered softly: "And the tea?" His re-
membering 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 be-
cause he knew by experience that if his patient
did not die now, he would do so a little later
with greater suffering. Tim6khin, 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 battleofBorodin6. They were accompanied
by a doctor, Prince Andrew's valet, his coach-
man, 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 under-
stand and remember something.

"I don't want any more. Is Tim6khin here?"
he asked.

Tim6khin 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



BOOK

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 uncomfort-
able 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 mor-
tifying 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 me 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 aft-
er 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 caliche had stopped at Mytishchi. Aft-
er growing confused from pain while being
carried into the hut he again regained con-
sciousness, 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 un-
comfortable 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; some-
one 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



ELEVEN 525

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 re-
members innumerable things simultaneously,
but has the power and will to select one se-
quence 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 simultane-
ously. At times his brain suddenly began to
work with a vigor, clearness, and depth it had
never reached when he was in health, but sud-
denly 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 semi-darkness 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 mana happiness of the soul alone, the
happiness of loving. Every man can under-
stand it, but to conceive it and enjoin it was
possible only for God. But how did God en-
join 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 rhyth-
mically repeating "piti-piti-piti," and then "ti-
ti," 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 slow-
ly rising to the sound of whispered rhythmic
music "it stretches, stretches, spreading out
and stretching," said Prince Andrew to him-
self. 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



526



WAR AND PEACE



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 sensa-
tion 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 im-
portance. 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 can-
not 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 him-
self Natdsha, not as he had done in the past
with nothing but her charms which gave him
delight, but for the first time picturing to him-
self 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 some-



thing 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 shir tl ike 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 Natdsha 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 re-
turn to that former world of pure thought, but
he could not, and delirium drew him back into
its domain. The soft whispering voice con-
tinued its rhythmic murmur, something op-
pressed 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 con-
sciousness. When he came to himself, Natdsha,
that same living Natdsha whom of all people
he most longed to love wtih this new pure
divine love that had been revealed to him, was
kneeling before him. He realized that it was
the real living Natdsha, and he was not sur-
prised but quietly happy. Natdsha, 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 fortunatel"

With a rapid but careful movement Natdsha
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 ... I"

"Forgive what?" he asked.

"Forgive me for what I ha-ve do-ne!" fal-
tered Natdsha 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



BOOK ELEVEN



527



so as to look into her eyes.

Those eyes, filled with happy tears, gazed at
him timidly, compassionately, and with joyous
love. Natasha'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. Tim6khin, who had not
slept at all because of the pain in his leg, had
long been watching all that was going on, care-
fully 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
Natasha went out of the room and, returning
to her hut, fell sobbing on her bed.

From that time, during all the rest of the
Rostovs' journey, at every halting place and
wherever they spent a night, Natdsha never
left the wounded Bolk6nski, 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 Natasha. Though with
the intimacy now established between the
wounded man and Natasha the thought oc-
curred that should he recover their former en-
gagement would be renewed, no one least of
all Natasha and Prince Andrew spoke of this:
the unsettled question of life and death, which
hung not only over Bolk6nski 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 uncomfort-
able on his body, and his mind had a dim con-
sciousness of something shameful he had done
the day before. That something shameful was
his yesterday's conversation with Captain Ram-
balle.

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, prob-
ably he won't make his entry into Moscow be-
fore noon."

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

After arranging his clothes, he took the pis-
tol and was about to go out. But it then oc-
curred to him for the first time that he certain-
ly could not carry the weapon in his hand
through the streets. It was difficult to hide such
a big pistol even under his wide coat. He could
not carry it unnoticed in his belt or under his
arm. Besides, it had been discharged, and he
had not had time to reload it. "No matter, the
dagger will do," he said to himself, though
when planning his design he had more than
once come to the conclusion that the chief
mistake made by the student in 1809 had been
to try to kill Napoleon with a dagger. But as
his chief aim consisted not in carrying out his
design, but in proving to himself that he would
not abandon his intention and was doing all
he could to achieve it, Pierre hastily took the
blunt jagged dagger in a green sheath which
he had bought at the 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. Mos-
cow was on fire in several places. The build-
ings in Carriage Row, across the river, in the
Bazaar and the Povarsk6y, as well as the barges
on the Moskva* River and the timber yards by
the Dorogomflov 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 be-
fore 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 Rus-
sians with anxious and timid faces, and French-
men 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 suf-



5*8

fering in his face and whole figure, the Rus-
sians stared at him 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 Rus-
sians 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 ask-
ing if he did not know French.

Pierre shook his head and went on. In an-
other 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 previ-
ous 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 Do-
rogomflov 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 im-
mediately to extinguish the fire, to prevent
looting, and to reassure the inhabitants. But
Pierre did not know this; he was entirely ab-
sorbed in what lay before him, and was tor-
turedas those are who obstinately undertake
a task that is impossible for them not because
of its difficulty but because of its incompati-
bility with their natures by the fear of weaken-
ing 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
Povarsk6y.

As Pierre approached that street the smoke
became denser and denser he even felt the
heat of the fire. Occasionally curly tongues of
flame rose from under the roofs of the houses.
He met more people in the streets and they
were more excited. But Pierre, though he felt
that something unusual was happening around
him, did not realize that he was approaching
the fire. As he was going along a footpath across



WAR AND PEACE



a wide-open space adjoining the Povarsk6y on
one side and the gardens of Prince Gruzfnski'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 : feather beds, 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 mut-
tering 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, bare-
footed maid was sitting on a trunk, and, hav-
ing 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 of-
ficial, with sausage-shaped whiskers and show-
ing under his square-set cap the hair smoothly
brushed forward over his temples, with ex-
pressionless 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 1 My youngest daughter is left be-
hind. She's burned! Ooh! Was it for this I
nursed you. . . . Ooh!"

"Don't, Mary Nikoldevna!" said her hus-
band 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 an-
grily, suddenly ceasing to weep. "You have no
heart, you don't feel for your own child! An-
other 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 along-
side, and blew our way, the maid called out
Tire!' and we rushed to collect our things. We
ran out just as we were. . . . This is what we



BOOK ELEVEN



529



have brought away. . . . The icons, and my
dowry bed, all the rest is lost. We seized the
children. But not Katie! Oohl 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. . . .
Anfska,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 Povarsk6y. 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 con-
flagration. 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.

"This way, uncle," cried the girl. "We'll pass
through the side street, by the Nikulins'I"

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

10 You can't pass!"



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 ex-
pression 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 sa-
ber 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 fall-
ing walls and ceilings, the whistle and hiss of
the flames, the excited shouts of the people,
and the sight of the swayingsmoke, now gather-
ing 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 mo-
tion, 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 crack-
ing 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, evident-
ly 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 fromabove.
"I did hear something squealing in the garden.
Perhaps it's his brat that the fellow is look-



53

ing for. After all, one must be human, you

know. . . ."

"Where is it? Where?" said Pierre.

"There! There!" shouted the Frenchman at
the window, pointing to the garden at the back
of the house. "Wait a bit I'm coming down."

And a minute or two later the Frenchman, a
black-eyed fellow with a spot on his cheek, in
shirt sleeves, really did jump out of a window
on the ground floor, and clapping Pierre on
the shoulder ran with him into the garden.

"Hurry up, you others!" he called out to his
comrades. "It's getting hot."

When they reached a gravel path behind
the house the Frenchman pulled Pierre by the
arm and pointed to a round, graveled space
where a three-year-old girl in a pink dress was
lying under a seat.

"There is your child! Oh, a girl, so much the
better!" said the Frenchman. "Good-by, Fatty.
We must be human, we are all mortal you
know!" and the Frenchman with the spot on
his cheek ran back to his comrades.

Breathless with joy, Pierre ran to the little
girl and was going to take her in his arms. But
seeing a stranger the sickly, scrofulous-looking
child, unattractively like her mother, began to
yell and run away. Pierre, however, seized her
and lifted her in his arms. She screamed des-
perately 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, impossi-
ble to get back the way he had come; the maid,
Anfska, 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 gar-
den seeking another way out.

CHAPTER XXXIV

HAVING RUN through different yards and side
streets, Pierre got back with his little burden
to the Gruzfnski garden at the corner of the
Povarsk6y. 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



WAR AND PEACE

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. Glow-
ing 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 ani-
mal. 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 Geor-
gian 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 eye-
brows and the extraordinarily soft, bright col-
or 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 un-
der her long lashes with motionless, large, al-
mond-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 Anfrovs?No," said the woman. "They
left in the morning. That must be either Mary
Nikoldevna's or the Ivanovs'l"

"He says 'a woman/ and Mary Nikoldevna
is a lady," remarked a house serf.

"Do you know her? She's thin, with long
teeth," said Pierre.

"That's Mary Nikoldevna! They went in-
side the garden when these wolves swooped
down," said the woman, pointing totheFrench
soldiers.

"O Lord, have mercy!" added the deacon.

"Go over that way, they're there. It's shel
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 watch-
ing 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 par-
ticularly struck Pierre, was a long, lank, round-
shouldered, fair-haired man, slow in his move-
ments 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 some-
thing, 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 hctnds in his pockets stood staring at
her, motionless and silent.

"Here, take the child!" said Pierre peremp-
torily 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 di-
rected 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.



BOOK ELEVEN 531

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 tear-
ing from her neck the necklace the young
Armenian was wearing, and the young wom-
an, clutching at her neck, screamed pierc-
ingly.

"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 to-
ward Pierre.

"Voyons, pas de bStises!" * he cried.

Pierre was in such a transport of rage that
he remembered nothing and his strength in-
creased 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 ap-
proval 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 re-
membered 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
soldters 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 ar-
rested 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

1 "Look here, no nonsense!"



532 WAR AND PEACE

manner of speaking Pierre at once knew him
to be a French salesman from one of the Mos-
cow 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 peas-
ant 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 in-



creased at the sight of the little girl he had
saved.

"What does she want?" he murmured. "She
is bringing me my daughter whom I have just
saved from the flames," said he. "Good-by!"
And without knowing how this aimless lie had
escaped him, he went along with resolute and
triumphant steps between the French soldiers.

The French patrol was one of those sent out
through the various streets of Moscow by Du-
rosnel's order to put a stop to the pillage, and
especially to catch the incendiaries who, ac-
cording 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 Rumyantsev, the French, Marya Fe-
dorovna, the Tsarvich, and others, drowned
as usual by the buzzing of the court drones. But
the calm, luxurious life of Petersburg, con-
cerned 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 Rus-
sian people. There were the same receptions
and balls, the same French theater, the same
court interests and service interests and in-
trigues as usual. Only in the very highest cir-
cles 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 Marya, concerned for the welfare of
the charitable and educational institutions un-
der her patronage, had given directions that
they should all be removed to Kazdn, and the
things belonging to these institutions had al-
ready been packed up. The Empress Elisabeth,
however, when asked what instructions she
would be pleased to give with her characteris-
tic Russian patriotism had replied that she
could give no directions about state institu-
tions 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 Pavlovna's on the twenty-sixth of
August, the very day of the battle of Borodin6,
there was a soiree, the chief feature of which
was to be the reading of a letter from His Lord-
ship the Bishop when sending the Emperor
an icon of the Venerable Sergius. It was re-
garded af a model of ecclesiastical, patriotic
eloquence. Prince Vasili himself, famed for his
elocution, was to read it. (He used to read at
the Empress'.) The art of his reading was sup-
posed to lie in rolling out the words, quite in-
dependently of their meaning, in a loud and



singsong voice alternating between a despair-
ing 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 al-
ways the case at Anna Pavlovna's soirees, had
a political significance. That evening she ex-
pected 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 Pavlovna, 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 Bezukhova. She had fallen
ill unexpectedly a few days previously, had
missed several gatherings of which she was
usually the ornament, and was said to be receiv-
ing no one, and instead of the celebrated Pe-
tersburg 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 consist-
ed in removing such inconvenience; but in
Anna Pavlovna'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 old 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 en-
chanting woman."

"You are speaking of the poor countess?"
said Anna Pavlovna, coming up just then. "I
sent to ask for news, and hear that she is a lit-



534



WAR AND PEACE



tie better. Oh, she is certainly the most charm-
ing 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 un-
fortunate!" added Anna Pdvlovna.

Supposing that by these words Anna Pav-
lovna 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 Pavlovna suddenly and venomously re-
torted on the inexperienced young man, "but
I know on good authority that this doctor is a
very learned and able man. He is private phy-
sician to the Queen of Spain."

And having thus demolished the young man,
Anna Pavlovna turned to another group where
Bilibin was talking about the Austrians: hav-
ing wrinkled up his face he was evidently pre-
paring 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 Vi-
enna 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 Pdvlovna,
securing silence for the mot, which she had
heard before.

And Bilfbin repeated the actual words of
the diplomatic dispatch, which he had himself
composed.

"The Emperor returns these Austrian ban-
ners," said Bilibin, "friendly banners gone
astray and found on a wrong path," and his
brow became smooth again.

"Charming, charming!" observed Prince
Vasili.

"The path to Warsaw, perhaps," Prince Hip-
polyte remarked loudly and unexpectedly. Ev-
erybody looked at him, not 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 re-
ceived as very witty, and at every opportunity
he uttered in that way the first words that en-
tered his head. "It may turn out very well," he
thought, "but if not, they'll know how to ar-
range matters." And really, during the awk-
ward silence that ensued, that insufficiently pa-



triotic person entered whom Anna Pdvlovna
had been waiting for and wished to convert,
and she, smiling and shaking a finger at Hip-
polyte, invited Prince Vasfli to the table and
bringing him two candles and the manuscript
begged him to begin. Everyone became silent.

"Most Gracious Sovereign and Emperor!" Prince
Vasili sternly declaimed, looking round at his au-
dience as if to inquire whether anyone had any-
thing to say to the contrary. But no one said any-
thing. "Moscow, our ancient capital, the New Jeru-
salem, receives her Christ" he placed a sudden
emphasis on the word her "as a mother receives
her /calous 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 Vasili 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
Pdvlovna whispered the next words in advance,
like an old woman muttering the prayer at
Communion: "Let the bold and insolent Goli-
ath . . ." she whispered.

Prince Vasili 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 blood-thirsty 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 wan-
ing strength prevents my rejoicing in the sight of
your most gracious presence. 1 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 Pdvlovna'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 Pdvlovna, "that to-
morrow, on the Emperor's birthday, we shall
receive news. I have a favorable presentiment!"

CHAPTER II

ANNA PAVLOVNA'S presentiment was in fact ful-
filled. Next day during the service at the palace
church in honor of the Emperor's birthday,
Prince Volkdnski was called out of the church
and received a dispatch from Prince Kutuzov.



BOOK TWELVE



535



It was Kutuzov's report, written from Tatari-
nova on the day of the battle. Kunizov 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 Pavlovna's presentiment was justified,
and all that morning a joyously festive mood
reigned in the city. Everyone believed the vic-
tory 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 Kutuzov's re-
port of the Russian losses, among which fig-
ured the names of Tuchk6v, Bagrati6n, and
Kutaysov. In the Petersburg world this sad
side of the affair again involuntarily centered
round a single incident: Kutdysov's death. Ev-
erybody knew him, the Emperor liked him, and
he was young and interesting. That day every-
one met with the words:

"What a wonderful coincidence! Just during
the service. But what a loss Kutdysov is! How
sorry I am!"

"Whatdid I tell you about Kutiizov?" Prince
Vasfli now said with a prophet's pride. "1 al-
ways said he was the only man capable of de-
feating 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 Kutiizov as they had
done the day before, they condemned him as
the cause of the Emperor's anxiety. That day
Prince Vasili no longer boasted of his protege*
Kutiizov, but remained silent when the com-
mander 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



Hdene Beziikhova had suddenly died of that
terrible malady it had been so agreeable to
mention. Officially, at large gatherings, every-
one said that Countess Beziikhova had died of
a terrible attack of angina pectoris, but in in-
timate 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 H61ne, 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 re-
plied, had suddenly taken a very large dose of
the drug, and had died in agony before assist-
ance could be rendered her. It was said that
Prince Vasfli 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 melan-
choly facts: the Emperor's lack of news, the loss
of Kutaysov, and the death of Hlne.

On the third day after Kutuzov'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 ter-
rible! What a position for the Emperor to be
in! Kutiizov was a traitor, and Prince Vasfli
during the visits of condolence paid to him
on the occasion of his daughter's death said of
Kutiizov, 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 Kutiizo\ 's adjutant has brought me a let-
ter in which he demands police officers to guide
the army to the Ryazan road. He writes that he is
regretfully abandoning Moscow. Sire! Kutuzov's
action decides the fate of the capital and of your
empire! Russia will shudder to learn of the aban-
donment of the city in which her greatness is cen-
tered and in which lie the ashes of your ancestors!
I shall follow the army. I have had everything re-
moved, and it only remains for me to weep over
the fate of my fatherland.

On receiving this dispatch the Emperor sent
Prince Volk6nski to Kutiizov with the follow-
ing rescript:

Prince Michael Ilari6novich! Since the twenty-



536

ninth of August I have received no communica-
tion from you, yet on the first of September I re-
ceived 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 Vol-
kdnski, 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 Kutuzov reached Petersburg
with the official announcement of that event.
This messenger was Michaud, a Frenchman
who did not know Russian, but who was quoi-
que Stranger, russe de cceur et d'dme* as he
said of himself.

The Emperor at once received this messenger
in his study at the palace on Stone Island. Mi-
chaud, who had never seen Moscow before the
campaign and who did not know Russian, yet
felt deeply moved (as he wrote) when he ap-
peared before notre trts gracieux souverain *
with the news of the burning of Moscow, dont
les flammes tclairaient sa route. 3

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
Kutuzov had entrusted to him, which was that
it had been impossible to fight before Moscow,
and that as the only remaining choice was be-
tween 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 look-
ing 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 de-
cided tone, but glancing at the Emperor he
was frightened by what he had done.

1 Though a foreigner, Russian in heart and soul.

* Our most gracious sovereign.

' Whose flames illumined his route.



WAR AND PEACE

The Emperor began to breathe heavily and
rapidly, his lower lip trembled, and tears in-
stantly 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 no-
tice discouragement? . . ."

Seeing that his most gracious ruler was calm
once more, Michaud also grew calm, but was
not immediately ready to reply to the Emper-
or's direct and relevant question which re-
quired 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."

"Sirel" said Michaud with a subtle, scarcely
perceptible smile on his lips, having now pre-
pared a well-phrased reply, "sire, I left the
whole army, from its chiefs to the lowest sol-
dier, without exception in desperate and ago-
nized 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 burn-
ing for the combat," declared this representa-
tive 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 ad-
dressing 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
andsouse the last resources of my empire. It still



offers me more than my enemies suppose," said
the Emperor growing more and more ani-
mated; "but should it ever be ordained by Di-
vine Providence," he continued, raising to heav-
en 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 mean-
est of my peasants, rather than sign the dis-
grace 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 Em-
peror's mild and handsome face was flushed
and his eyes gleamed with resolution and an-
ger.

"Colonel Michaud, do not forget what I say
to you here, perhaps we may recall it with pleas-
ure someday . . . Napoleon or I," said the Em-
peror, 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 ex-
pression of firm resolution in the Emperor's
eyes, Michaud quoique etranger, russe de
cceur et d'dmeat that solemn moment felt
himself enraptured by all that he had heard
(as he used afterwards to say), and gave ex-
pression to his own feelings and those of the
Russian people whose representative he con-
sidered himself to be, in the following words:

"Sirel" said he, "Your Majesty is at this mo-
ment signing the glory of the nation and the
salvation of Europe!"

With an inclination of the head the Emper-
or 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 weep-
ing over its downfall. The tales and descrip-
tions of that time without exception speak on-



BOOK TWELVE 537

ly of the self-sacrifice, patriotic devotion, de-
spair, grief, and the heroism of the Russians.
But it was not really so. It appears so to us be-
cause 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 al-
ways 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 up-
side down, and all they did for the common
good turned out to be useless and foolishlike
Pierre's and Mamonov's regiments which loot-
ed Russian villages, and the lint the young
ladies prepared and that never reached the
wounded, and so on. Even those, fond of in-
tellectual talk and of expressing their feelings,
who discussed Russia's position at the time in-
voluntarily introduced into their conversation
either a shade of pretense and falsehood or use-
less condemnation and anger directed against
people accused of actions no one could pos-
sibly be guilty of. In historic events the rule
forbidding us to eat of the fruit of the Tree of
Knowledge is specially applicable. Only un-
conscious 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 ar-
my 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 quar-
ters, of Matreshka the vivandiere, and like
matters.

As the war had caught him in the service,
Nicholas Rost6v took a close and prolonged
part in the defense of his country, but did so
casually, without any aim at self-sacritice, and
he therefore looked at what was going on in



538 WAR AND PEACE

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 Kutuzov 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 with-
out 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 Borodin6,
Nicholas received the necessary money and war-
rants, and having sent some hussars on in ad-
vance, he set out with post horses for Vor6nezh.

Only a man who has experienced it that is,
has passed some months continuously in an at-
mosphere of campaigning and war can under-
stand the delight Nicholas felt when he es-
caped from the region covered by the army's
foraging operations, provision trains, and hos-
pitals. 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 graz-
ing, 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 offi-
cer should joke with them.

In the highest spirits Nicholas arrived at
night at a hotel in Vor6nezh, 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 re-
ceived 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 indi-
cated 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 Ilyi Rost6v'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, Nich-
olas hired post horses and, taking his squad-
ron quartermaster with him, drove at a gallop
to the landowner, fourteen miles away, who
had the stud. Everything seemed to him pleas-
ant and easy during that first part of his stay
in Vor6nezh 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 seven-
teen 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 ex-
changed kisses with the landowner, with whom
he was already on the friendliest terms gal-
loped back over abominable roads, in the
brightest frame of mind, continually urging
on the driver so as to be in time for the gov-
ernor'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 an-
nounced, but everyone knew that Catherine
Petr6vna would play valses and the tcossaise
on the clavichord and that there would be
dancing, and so everyone had corneas 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 ar-
rival 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 poundwho cares?"
spirit, and the inevitable small talk, instead of



BOOK TWELVE



5S9



turning on the weather and mutual acquaint-
ances, now turned on Moscow, the army, and
Napoleon.

The society gathered together at the gover-
nor's was the best in Vor6nezh.

There were a great many ladies and some of
Nicholas* Moscow acquaintances, but there
were no men who could at all vie with the cav-
alier of St. George, the hussar remount officer,
the good-natured and well-bred Count Rost6v.
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 Ital-
ian in the same light, and he treated him cor-
dially 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 re-
peated several times by others, people clustered
around him; all eyes turned on him, and he
felt at once that he had entered into his prop-
er position in the province that of a universal
favorite: a very pleasant position, and intox-
icatingly so after his long privations. At post-
ing 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 inex-
haustible number of pretty young women, mar-
ried and unmarried, impatiently awaiting his
notice. The women and girls flirted with him
and, from the first day, the old 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
Rost6v as a near relative and called him "Nich-
olas."

Catherine Petrdvna did actually play valses
and the tcossaise, and dancing began in which
Nicholas still further captivated the provincial
society by his agility. His particularly free man-
ner of dancing even surprised them all. Nicho-
las was himself rather surprised at the way he
danced that evening. He had never danced like
that in Moscow and would even have consid-
ered such a very free and easy manner improp-
er and in bad form, but here he felt it incum-
bent 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 naive conviction of young men in a merry
mood that other men's wives were created for
them, Rost6v did not leave the lady's side and
treated her husband in a friendly and conspira-
torial 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 Rost6v. But the lat-
ter's good-natured nai'vet 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 be-
came 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 shift-
ing the position of his legs in their tight rid-
ing 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
Vor6nezh.

"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 Ivzhiych!" cried Nicholas, rising
politely, and as if wishing Nikita Ivnych to
share his joke, he began to tell him of his in-
tention 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 Ignityevna wants to see you, Nicho-
las," said she, pronouncing the name so that
Nicholas at once understood that Anna Ignat-
yevna was a very important person. "Come,
Nicholasl You know you let me call you so?"

"Oh, yes, Aunt. Who is she?"

"Anna Igndtyevna Malvintseva. She has
heard from her niece how you rescued her. . . .
Can you guess?"



540

"I rescued such a lot of them!" said Nic^io-
las.

"Her niece, Princess Bolk6nskaya. She is here
in Vor6nezh 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 al-
ways lived in Voronezh. When Rost6v ap-
proached her she was standing settling up for
the game. She looked at him and, screwing up
her eyes sternly, continued to upbraid the gen-
eral 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 evident-
ly not liked, and having asked what Nicholas
knew of Prince Andrew, who also was evident-
ly no favorite of hers, the important old lady
dismissed Nicholas after repeating her invita-
tion 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 under-
stand.

When he had parted from Malvintseva Nich-
olas 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 imme-
diately withdrew so as not to be in her way.

"Do you know, dear boy," began the gov-
ernor'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 Nicho-
las.

"I will make a match for you with the prin-
cess. Catherine Petr6vna 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



AND PEACE

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 talk-
ing to herself. "But, my dear boy, among oth-
er 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 1 have been saying to
the governor's wife!" thought Nicholas sud-
denly at supper. "She will really begin to ar-
range a match . . . and Sonya . . . ?" And on
taking leave of the governor's wife, when she
again smilingly said to him, "Well then, re-
member!" he drew her aside.

"But see here, to tell you 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 im-
pulse 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, to-
gether 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 Bolk6nskaya 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 circum-
stancesso strangely, the idea of ten 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, some-
how it had always happened that we did not
meet. And as long as my sister Natasha was en-
gaged 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 Natdsha's engagement had been
broken off ... and then everything , , . So you



BOOK TWELVE



see ... I never told this to anyone and never
will, only to you."

The governor's wife pressed his elbow grate-
fully.

"You know S6nya, 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 S6nya 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 S6nya if she's a girl with a heart?
Your mother in despair, and you all ruined. . . .
No, my dear, you and S6nya ought to under-
stand that."

Nicholas remained silent. It comforted him
to hear these arguments.

"All the same, Aunt, it is impossible," he re-
joined with a sigh, after a short pause. "Be-
sides, 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
Rost6v, 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 Malvfntseva at Vor6nezh. That feel-
ing akin to temptation which had tormented
her during her father's illness, since his death,
and especially since her meeting with Rost6v
was smothered by arrangements for the jour-
ney, anxiety about her brother, settling in a
new house, meeting new people, and attend-
ing to her nephew's education. She was sad.
Now, after a month passed in quiet sur-
roundings, she felt more and more deeply the
loss of her father which was associated in her
mind with the ruin of Russia. She was agitat-
ed and incessantly tortured by the thought of
the dangers to which her brother, the only in-
timate person now remaining to her, was ex-
posed. She was worried too about her nephew's
education for which she had always felt her-
self incompetent, but in the depths of her soul
she felt at peace a peace arising from con-
sciousness 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 Rost6v.

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 betroth-
al was, of course, not to be thought of, all the
same the young people might be brought to-
gether and could get to know one another.
Malvintseva expressed approval, and the gov-
ernor's wife began to speakof Rost6vin Mary's
presence, praising him and telling how he had
blushed when Princess Mary's name was men-
tioned. But Princess Mary experienced a pain-
ful 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 Ros-
t6v 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 re-
ceive 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 gover-
nor's wife had intentions concerning herself
and Rost6v their looks and words at times
seemed to confirm this supposition then she
told herself tnat only she, with her sinful na-
ture, could think this of them: they could not
forget that situated as she was, while still wear-
ing 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 foot-
man announced in the drawing room that
Count Rostov had called, the princess showed
no confusion, only a slight blush suffused her
cheeks and her eyes lit up with a new and ra-
diant 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 Rost6v 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 Iqpk with shining eyes. With a



54*



WAR AND PEACE



movement full of dignity and grace she half
rose with a smile of pleasure, held out her slen-
der, delicate hand to him, and began to speak
in a voice in which for the first time new deep
womanly notes vibrated. Mademoiselle Bouri-
enne, 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 capableof 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 Rostov 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, ar-
tistic 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, in-
ward travail through which she had lived ap-
peared 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 ev-
ery trait of her gentle face.

Rost6v 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 bet-
ter than, anyone he had met before, and above
all better than himself.

Their conversation was very simple and un-
important. They spoke of the war, and like
everyone else unconsciously exaggerated their
sorrow about it; they spoke of their last meet-
ingNicholas trying to change the subject
they talked of the governor's kind wife, of Nich-
olas' relations, and of Princess Mary's.

She did not talk about her brother, divert-
ing the conversation as soon as her aunt men-
tioned 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 ob-



servation unusual to him, and everything con-
firmed his conviction that she was a quite un-
usual 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
vist, Nicholas, as is usual when there are chil-
dren, turned to Prince Andrew's little son, ca-
ressing 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, and 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 him-
self to Princess Mary. For this purpose she ar-
ranged a meeting between the young people at
the bishop's house before Mass.

Though Rostov told the governor's wife that
he would not make any declaration to Princess
Mary, he promised to go.

As at Tilsit Rostov had not allowed himself
to doubt that what everybody considered right
was right, so now, after a short but sincere strug-
gle between his effort to arrange his life by his
own sense of justice, and in obedient submis-
sion to circumstances, he chose the latter and
yielded to the power he felt irresistibly carry-
ing him he knew not where. He knew that aft-
er his promise to S6nya 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
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



BOOK TWELVE

lim and he often thought about her. But he
lever thought about her as he had thought of
ill the young ladies without exception whom
he had met in society, nor as he had for a long
.ime, and at one time rapturously, thought
ibout S6nya. He had pictured each of those
roung 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
it the tea table, his wife's carriage, little ones,
Mamma and Papa, their relations to her, and
o on and these pictures of the future had giv-
zn him pleasure. But with Princess Mary, to
whom they were trying to get him engaged, he
could never picture anything of future mar-
ried life. If he tried, his pictures seemed in-
congruous and false. It made him afraid.



543



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
beard, he had not seen her again himself) to set
off in search of Prince Andrew.

When he received the news of the battle of
Borodin6 and the abandonment of Moscow,
Rost6v was not seized with despair, anger, the
desire for vengeance, or any feeling of that
kind, but everything in Vor6nezh suddenly
seemed to him dull and tiresome, and he ex-
perienced 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 an-
gry with his servant and squadron quartermas-
ter.

A few days before his departure a special
thanksgiving, at which Nicholas was present,
was held in the cathedral for the Russian vic-
tory. 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 gov-
ernor'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, ti-
midity, 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, in-
ner, spiritual labor, but now it was quite dif-
ferently lit up. There was a pathetic expres-
sion of sorrow, prayer, and hope in it. As had
occurred before when she was present, Nicho-
las went up to her without waiting to be
prompted by the governor's wife and not ask-
ing 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 sympa-
thized with his whole soul. As soon as she heard
his voice a vivid glow kindled in her face, light-
ing up both her sorrow and her joy.

"There is one thing I wanted to tell you,
Princess," said Rostov. "It is that if your broth-
er, Prince Andrew Nikolaevich, 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 expres-
sion of regretful sympathy on his face.

"And I have known so many cases of a splin-
ter 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, look-
ing 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, reflect-
ing on his life, a thing he rarely did.

Princess Mary had made an agreeable im-
pression on him when he had met her in Smo-
16nsk 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



544

Vor6nezh 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, how-
ever, preparing to go away and it had not en-
tered his head to regret that he was thus de-
priving 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 radi-
ant 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 Rost6v 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 irresist-
ible 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 S6nya?"
And he involuntarily compared the two: the
lack of spirituality in the one and the abun-
dance of it in the other a spirituality he him-
self 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 S6n-
ya, and that was all clear and simple just be-
cause it had all been thought out and he knew
all there was in S6nya, but it was impossible to
picture a future with Princess Mary, because
he did not understand her but simply loved
her.

Reveries about S6nya 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 S6nya . . . She was right," he thought, re-
membering what the governor's wife had said:
"Nothing but misfortune can come of marry-
ing S6nya. Muddles, grief for Mamma . . . busi-
ness difficulties . . . muddles, terrible muddles!
Besides, I don't love her not as I should. O,



WAR AND PEACE

God! release me from this dreadful, inextric-
able position!" he suddenly began to pray.
"Yes, prayer can move mountains, but one
must have faith and not pray as Natdsha 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 Lavnishka came in with some
papers.

"Blockhead! Why do you come in without
being called?" cried Nicholas, quickly chang-
ing 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 S6n-
ya. He recognized them by the handwriting
and opened S6nya'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 pray-
ing for with confidence that God would hear
him had come to pass; but Nicholas was as
much astonished as if it were something ex-
traordinary 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 fyad prayed, but by some ordinary
coincidence.

This unexpected and, as it seemed to Nich-
olas, quite voluntary letter from S6nya 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 al-
most the whole of the Rost6vs' Moscow prop-
ertyand the countess* repeatedly expressed
wish that Nicholas should marry Princess Bol-
k6nskaya, together with his silence and cold-
ness of late, had all combined to make her de-
cide to release him from his promise and set
him completely free.



BOOK TWELVE



545



It would be too painful to me to think that I
night be a cause of sorrow or discord in the fam-
ly that has been so good to me (she wrote), and
ny love has no aim but the happiness of those I
ove; so, Nicholas, I beg you to consider yourself
r rce, and to be assured that, in spite of everything,
10 one can love you more than does

YOUR SONYA

Both letters were written from Tr6itsa. The
:>ther, from the countess, described their last
iays in Moscow, their departure, the fire, and
the destruction of all their property. In this
letter the countess also mentioned that Prince
\ndrew was among the wounded traveling
ivith them; his state was very critical, but the
:ioctor said there was now more hope. S6nya
md Natasha were nursing him.

Next day Nicholas took his mother's letter
ind went to see Princess Mary. Neither he nor
>he said a word about what "Natasha 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
an her journey to Yaroslavl, and a few days
later left to rejoin his regiment.

CHAPTER VIII

SONYA'S LETTKR written from Tr6itsa, which
had come as an answer to Nicholas* prayer, was
prompted by this: the thought of getting Nich-
olas married to an heiress occupied the old
countess' mind more and more. She knew that
>6nya was the chief obstacle to this happening,
and Sonya's life in the countess' house had
Epown harder and harder, especially after they
had received a letter from Nicholas telling of
his meeting with Princess Mary in Bogucharo-
vo. The countess let no occasion slip of mak-
ing humiliating or cruel allusions to Sonya.

But a few days before they left Moscow,
moved and excited by all that was going on,
she called S6nya to her and, instead of re-
proaching and making demands on her, tear-
fully implored her to sacrifice herself and re-
pay 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."

S6nya 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 her-



self for others was Sonya's habit. Her position
in the house was such that only by sacrifice
could she show her worth, and she was accus-
tomed to this and loved doing it. But in all her
former acts of self-sacrifice she had been hap-
pily 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 con-
stituted 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 Natasha
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 S6nya felt that out of her pure, quiet love
for Nicholas a passionate feeling was begin-
ning to grow up which was stronger than prin-
ciple, virtue, or religion. Under the influence
of this feeling S6nya, 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 or-
der to set him free but on the contrary at that
meeting to bind him to her forever.

The bustle and terror of the Rostovs' last
days in Moscow stifled the gloomy thoughts
that oppressed Sonya. She was glad to find es-
cape 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
Natdsha, she was seized by a joyful and super-
stitious feeling that God did not intend her to
be separated from Nicholas. She knew that
Natasha loved no one but Prince Andrew and
had never ceased to love him. She knew that
being thrown together again under such ter-
rible 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 Sonya.

At the Tr6itsa monastery the Rost6vs first
broke their journey for a whole day.

Three large rooms were assigned to them in
the monastery hostelry, one of which was oc-
cupied by Prince Andrew. The wounded man



546 WAR AND PEACE

was much better that day and Natdsha was sit-
ting with him. In the next room sat the count
and countess respectfully conversing with the
prior, who was calling on them as old acquaint-
ances and benefactors of the monastery. S6n-
ya was there too, tormented by curiosity as to
what Prince Andrew and Natasha were talking
about. She heard the sound of their voices
through the door. That door opened and Na-
tdsha 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 S6nya and took her hand.

"Natdsha, what are you about? Come here!"
said the countess.

Natdsha went up to the monk for his bless-
ing, and he advised her to turn for aid to God
and His saint.

As soon as the prior withdrew, Natdsha took
her friend by the hand and went with her into
the unoccupied room.

"S6nya, will he live?" she asked. "S6nya,
how happy I am, and how unhappy! . . . S6n-
ya, dovey, everything is as it used to be. If only
he lives! He cannot . . . because . . . because . . .
of . . ." and Natdsha burst into tears.

"Yes! I knew it! Thank God!" murmured
S6nya. "He will live."

Sonya 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 Natd-
sha. "If only he lives!" she thought. Having
wept, talked, and wiped away their tears, the
two friends went together to Prince Andrew's
door. Natdsha opened it cautiously and glanced
into the room, S6nya 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 breath-
ing.

"O, Natdsha!" S6nya suddenly almost
screamed, catching her companion's arm and
stepping back from the door.

"What? What is it?" asked Natdsha.

"It's that, that . . ." said S6nya, with a white
face and trembling lips.

Natdsha softly closed the door and went with
Sonya to the window, not yet understanding
what the latter was telling her.

"You remember," said S6nya with a solemn
and frightened expression. "You remember
when I looked in the mirror for you ... at
Otrddnoe at Christinas? Do you remember
what I saw?"



"Yes, yes!" cried Natdsha opening her eyes
wide, and vaguely recalling that S6nya had
told her something about Prince Andrew
whom she had seen lying down.

"You remember?" S6nya went on. "I saw
it then and told everybody, you and Dunydsha.
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
saidthat 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 Natdsha,
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 medita-
tively.

"Oh, I don't know, it is all so strange," re-
plied S6nya, clutching at her head.

A few minutes later Prince Andrew rang
and Natdsha went to him, but S6nya, 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 writ-
ing to her son.

"S6nyal" said the countess, raising her eyes
from her letter as her niece passed, "S6nya,
won't you write to Nicholas?" She spoke in a
soft, tremulous voice, and in the weary eyes
that looked over her spectacles S6nya 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 readi-
ness for relentless hatred in case of such refusal.

S6nya went up to the countess and, kneeling
down, kissed her hand.

"Yes, Mamma, I will write," said she.

S6nya was softened, excited, and touched by
all that had occurred that day, especially by



BOOK TWELVE

the mysterious fulfillment she had just seen of
her vision. Now that she knew that the renewal
of Natdsha's relations with Prince Andrew
would prevent Nicholas from marrying Prin-
cess Mary, she was joyfully conscious of a re-
turn 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 deedinterrupted several times
by the tears that dimmed her velvety black
eyes she wrote that touching letter the arrival
of which had so amazed Nicholas.



547



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 hostil-
ity as a result of their recent personal conflict
with him.

But when the guard was relieved next morn-
ing, 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 vigor-
ous 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 Rus-
sians, 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 concentra-
tion 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 sepa-
rate 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 es-
pecially as he spoke French. Pierre felt sad at
hearing them making fun of him.

That evening he learned that all these pris-
oners (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 definite-
ness 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 re-
moved 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 em-
ployed. 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 de-
mand 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 man-
ner 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 pro-
tect 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 de-
clined 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
Ziibovski 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



548 WAR AND PEACE

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 rath-
er mysterious power.

These first days, before the eighth of Sep-
tember 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 avery
important one judging by the respect the
guards showed him entered the coach house
where the prisoners were. This officer, proba-
bly 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 black-
ened 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 Krm-
lin, which was not destroyed, gleamed white in
the distance with its towers and the belfry of
Ivan the Great. The domes of the New Con-
vent 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 or-
der of life that had been destroyed, Pierre un-
consciously felt that a quite different, firm,
French order had been established over this
ruined nest. He felt this in the looks of the sol-
diers who, marching in regular ranks briskly
and gaily, were escorting him and the other
criminals; he felt it in the looks of an impor-
tant 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 pris-
oners 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 ter-
rible, 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 Shcherba-
tov'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 Eckmiihl (Davout).

They were taken to the entrance and led in-
to 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



BOOK TWELVE

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 posi-
tion was dangerous and embarrassing. So he
was silent. But before he had decided what to
do, Davout raised his head, pushed his spec-
tacles back on his forehead, screwed up his
eyes, and looked intently at him.

"I know that man," he said in a cold, meas-
ured 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 nev-
er 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 be-
gan:

"No, monseigneur," he said, suddenly re-
membering that Davout was a duke. "No, mon-
seigneur, you cannot have known me. I am a
militia officer and have not quitted Moscow."

"Your name?" asked Davout.

"Bezukhov."

"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 condi-
tions of war and law, that look established hu-
man relations between the two men. At that
moment an immense number of things passed
dimly through both their minds, and they re-
alized that they were both children of human-
ity 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 mo-
ment.

"How can you show me that you are telling
the truth?" said Davout coldly.

Pierre remembered Ramballe, and named



549

him and his regiment and the street where the
house was.

"You are not what you say," returned Da-
vout.

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 ad-
jutant 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 direc-
tion 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 adju-
tant was putting another question to Davout.

"Yes, of coursel" 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 direc-
tion. 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 ex-
amined him not one of them had 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, kill-
ing 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 circum-
stances.

A system of some sort was killing him
Pierre depriving him of life, of everything,
annihilating him.



CHAPTER XI

FROM PRINCE SHCHERBJITOV'S house the pris-
oners were led straight down the Virgin's Field,
to the left of the nunnery, as far as a kitchen



55



WAR AND PEACE



garden in which a post had been set up. Be-
yond 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 con-
sisted of a few Russians and many of Napo-
leon's soldiers who were not on dutyGer-
mans, 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 or-
der, according to the list (Pierre was sixth),
and were led to the post. Several drums sud-
denly 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 hap-
pen 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 some-
thing they understand, but as people hurry to
finish a necessary but unpleasant and incom-
prehensible 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 resem-
bling 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 hap-
pen. 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 onlook-
ers 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 fright-
ful 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, breath-
ing 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 I"
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 wit-
ness 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 tha t screami ng was useless or wheth-
er 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.



BOOK TWELVE

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 him-
self 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, straight-
ened 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 sud-
denly 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 awk-
wardly from the post and began pushing it in-
to 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 rhythmical-
ly 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 cen-
ter of the circle, ran back to their places as the
companies passed by.

Pierre gazed now with dazed eyes at these



55 1

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, non-
commissioned officer ran out of the ranks and
taking him by the elbow dragged him to his
company. The crowd of Russians and French-
men 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 move-
ment 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 un-
derstanding 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 surround-
ed Pierre. He looked at them without under-
standing 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 consid-
er 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 main-
spring of his life, on which everything de-
pended and which made everything appear
alive, had suddenly been wrenched out and
everything had collapsed into a heap of mean-
ingless rubbish. Though he did not acknowl-
edge it to himself, his faith in the right order-



55*



WAR AND PEACE



ing 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 re-
mained, 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 stand-
ing and evidently something about him inter-
ested 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 be-
cause 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 un-
winding 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
bead* 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 con-
scious 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 sim-
plicity 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 con-
tinued 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, with-
out 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 some-
thing 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 arid 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 grandl" 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 . . . 1" said the little man. "Ah, what



BOOK TWELVE



553'



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 incendi-
ary."

"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 regi-
ment. 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 Plat-
on, 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?
Moscowshe's the mother of cities. How can
one see all this and not feel sad? But 'the mag-
got 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 hap-
pen not as we plan but as God judges," he re-
plied, 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 wel-
come, but there's none as dear as one's own
mother 1" 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
thine is to live in harmony. . . ."



"But it's all the same now," Pierre could not
help saying.

"Ah, my dear fellow!" rejoined Karatdev,
"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 home-
stead, 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 peas-
ants. It so happened . . ."

And Platon Karatdev 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. 1 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, andonly 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 Plat6n
hadn't been shaved for a soldier, Michael
would have had to go.' He 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 under-
stand?' he says. That's how it is, dear fellow.
Fate looks for a head. But we are always judg-
ing, 'that's not wellthat'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 Plat6n 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 repeat-
ing:

"Lord Jesus Christ, holy Saint Nicholas,
Frola and Lavra! Lord Jesus Christ, holy Saint
Nicholas, Frola and Lavra! Lord Jesus Christ,
have mercv on us and save us I" he concluded,



554



WAR AND PEACE



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 Plat6n, who had almost
fallen asleep. "What was I saying? I was pray-
ing. Don't you pray?"

"Yes, I do," said Pierre. "But what was that
you said: Frola and Lavra?"

"Well, of course," replied Plat6n 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 Kara-
tev, 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 Plat6n 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 founda-
tions.

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
Plat6n Karatdev, 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 neigh-
bor next morning at dawn the first impression
of him, as of something round, was fully con-
firmed: Plat6n'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 em-
brace something, were rounded, his pleasant
smile and his large, gentle brown eyes were
also round.

Plat6n Karataev must have been fifty, judg-
ing 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 deter-
mine 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 especial-
ly 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 con-
sidered what he had said or was going to say,
and consequently the rapidity and justice of
his intonation had an irresistible persuasive-
ness.

His physical strength and agility during the
first days of his imprisonment were such that
he seemed not to know what fatigue and sick-
ness 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 get-
ting 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 with-
out 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 one-
self or walks about to get rid of stiffness, and
the sounds were always high-pitched, mourn-
ful, 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," l 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 "Chris-

1 The peasants wear their shirts fastened by a
girdle at the waist and hanging loose outside their
breeches, whereas a soldier's shirt is tucked inside.
-TR.



BOOK TWELVE



555



tian" 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 insig-
nificant, but when used appositely suddenly ac-
quire 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 com-
monest events sometimes just such as Pierre
had witnessed without taking notice of them
assumed in Karatdev's speech 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 at-
tachments, friendships, or love, as Pierre un-
derstood them, but loved and lived affection-
ately with everything life brought him in con-
tact with, particularly with man not any par-
ticular 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 affection-
ate tenderness for him (by which he uncon-
sciously gave Pierre's spiritual life its due) he
would not have grieved for a moment at part-
ing from him. And Pierre began to feel in the
same way toward Karataev.

To all the other prisoners Plat6n Karataev
seemed a most ordinary soldier. They called
him "little falcon" or "Plat6sha," 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.

Plat6n Karataev knew nothing by heart ex-
cept 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
Plat6n 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 un-
known to him, which was his life. But his life,
as he regarded it, had no meaning as a sepa-
rate 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 ex-
hales 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 Rost6vs at Yaro-
slavl 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, pos-
sible or impossible, she did not ask and did
not want to know: it was her duty not only
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 him-
self, 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 Nich-
olas and his tutor, her old nurse, three maids,
Tikhon, 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 Prin-
cess Mary was obliged to take through Lipetsk,
Ryazan, Vladimir, and Shuya was very long
and, as post horses were not everywhere ob-
tainable, 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 serv-
ants 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 Vor6nezh had



55 6

been the happiest of her life. Her love for Ros-
t6v 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 in-
terview with Nicholas, when he had come to
tell her that her brother was with the Rostovs.
Not by a single word had Nicholas alluded to
the fact that Prince Andrew's relations with
Natdsha 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 con-
siderate, delicate, and loving not only re-
mained 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 spir-
itual nature did not prevent her feeling grief
for her brother with full force; on the contrary,
that spiritual tranquillity 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 dif-
ficulties and preoccupations of the journey,
which she took so actively in hand, saved her
fora while from her grief and gave her strength.

As always happens when traveling, Princess
Mary thought only of the journey itself, for-
getting its object. But as she approached Yaro-
slavl the thought of what might await her
there not after many days, but that very eve-
ningagain presented itself to her and her agi-
tation increased to its utmost limit.

The courier who had been sent on in ad-
vance to find out where the Rost6vs were stay-
ing 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 excel-
lency: the Rost6vs are staying at the merchant
Brdnnikov's house, in the Square not far
from here, right above the V61ga," said the
courier.



WAR AND PEACE

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 sit-
ting 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 S6nya.) Princess Mary ran up the steps.
"This way, this wayl" 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." *

Despite her excitement, Princess Mary re-
alized 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
dearl Is this his son?" said the countess, turn-
ing to little Nicholas who was coming in
with Dessalles. "There will be room for every-
body, this is a big house. Oh, what a lovely
boy!"

The countess took Princess Mary into the

1 "My childl I love you and have known you a
long time."



BOOK TWELVE

drawing room, where S6nya was talking to
Mademoiselle Bourienne. The countess ca-
ressed 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 con-
tinually 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 peo-
pie.

"This is my niece," said the count, intro-
ducing S6nya "You don't know her, Princess?"

Princess Mary turned to S6nya and, trying
to stifle the hostile feeling that arose in her
toward the girl, she kissed her. But she felt op-
pressed 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. Natasha is with him,"
answered S6nya, 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 Natdsha coming
in, almost running that Natasha whom she
had liked so little at their meeting in Moscow
long since.

But hardly had the princess looked at Na-
tdsha'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 Natdsha, sitting at the head of
Prince Andrew's bed, heard of Princess Mary's
arrival, she softly left his room and hastened to



557

her with those swift steps that had sounded
buoyant to Princess Mary.

There was only one expression on her agitat-
ed 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 passion-
ate desire to give herself entirely to helping
them. It was plain that at that moment there
was in Natasha'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 Nata-
sha's face, and wept on her shoulder with sor-
rowful pleasure.

"Come, come to him, Mary," said Natdsha,
leading her into the other room.

Princess Mary raised her head, dried her
eyes, and turned to Natdsha. 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. Natasha's face and eyes would
have to tell her all more clearly and profound-



Natdsha 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 lumi-
nous eyes which penetrated into the very
depths of her heart, it was impossible not to
tell the whole truth which she saw. And sud-
denly, Natdsha'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 Natasha
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.

Natdsha told her that at first there had been
danger from his feverish condition and the
pain he suffered, but at Tr6itsa that had passed
and the doctor had only been afraid of gan-
grene. That danger had also passed. When
they reached Yarosldvl the wound had begun
to fester (Natdsha knew all about such things



WAR AND PEACE



as festering) and the doctor had said that the
festering might take a normal course. Then fe-
ver set in, but the doctor had said the fever was
not very serious.

"But two days ago this suddenly happened,"
said Natdsha, 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 NATASHA opened Prince Andrew's door
with a familiar movement and let Princess
Mary pass into the room before her, the prin-
cess felt the sobs rising 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 Natasha had
meant by the words: "two clays ago this sudden-
ly happened." She understood those words to
mean that he had suddenly softened and that
this softening and gentleness were signs of ap-
proaching 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 ut-
tered 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 short-
sighted 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 Prin-
cess Mary's pace suddenly slackened, she felt
her tears dry up and her sobs ceased. She sud-
denly felt guilty and grew timid on catching
the expression of his face and eyes.

"But in what am I to blame?" she asked her-
self. 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 out-
wards but inwards there was an almost hostile
expression as he slowly regarded his sister and
Natdsha.

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 Prin-
cess 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." l

Princess Mary pressed his hand. The pres-
sure 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 every-
thing 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 si-
lence and pointing to Natasha. "She looks aft-
er me all the time."

Princess Mary heard him and did not under-
stand 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 indiffer-
ent, because something else, much more im-
portant, had been revealed to him.

1 "Thank you for coming, my dear."



BOOK TWELVE



559



The conversation was cold and disconnect-
ed and continually broke off.

"Mary came by way of Ryazdn," said Nata-
sha.

Prince Andrew did not notice that she called
his sister Mary, and only after calling her so in
his presence did Natisha notice it herself.

"Really?" he asked.

"They told her that all Moscow has been
burned down, and that . . ."

Natasha stopped. It was impossible to talk.
It was plain that he was making an effort to lis-
ten, 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, evident-
ly wishing to speak pleasantly to them. "He
wrote here that he took a great liking to you,"
he went on simply and calmly, evidently un-
able 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 Natasha.

Nat&sha, 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 in to 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 under-
stood that she was crying at the thought that
little Nicholas would be left without a father.
With a great effort he tried toreturn to lifeand
to see things from their point of view.

"Yes, to them it must seem sadl" 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 fa-
ther, Mary, and Natasha, than he had then. He
understood it completely, and, leaving the room
without crying, went silently up to Natdsha
who had come out with him and looked shyly
at her with his beautiful, thoughtful eyes, then
his uplifted, rosy upper lip trembled and lean-
ing 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 Na-
tAsha of whom he seemed even fonder than
of his aunt, and clung to them quietly and
shyly.

When Princess Mary had left Prince An-
drew she fully understood what Natdsha's face
had told her. She did not speak any more to
Natdsha 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 evi-
dent.



5 6

CHAPTER XVI

NOT ONLY did Prince Andrew know he would
die, but he felt that he was dying and was al-
ready half dead. He was conscious of an aloof-
ness 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 com-
prehensible 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 in-
stantly 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 wound-
ed, 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 ev-
erybody and always to sacrifice oneself for love
meant not to love anyone, not to live this earth-
ly 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 un-
observed into his heart and once more bound
him to life. And joyful and agitating thoughts
began to occupy his mind. Recalling the mo-
ment at the ambulance station when he had
seen KurAgin, he could not now regain the
feeling he then had, but was tormented by the
question whether Kurdgin was alive. And he
dared not inquire.



WAR AND PEACE

His illness pursued its normal physical
course, but what Natdsha 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 Natdsha, 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 pre-
ternaturally clear. S6nya 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 S6nya's place sat Natasha
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 can-
dle 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 involun-



BOOK TWELVE

tarily groaned, from a/iabit acquired during
his sufferings.

On hearing that sound Natdsha put down
the stocking, leaned nearer to him, and sud-
denly, noticing his shining eyes, stepped light-
ly 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."

Natdsha drew closer to him. Her face shone
with rapturous joy.

"Natdsha, I love you too muchl 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
think, what do you feel in your soul, your
whole soul shall I live? What do you think?"

"I am sureof it, surel" Natdsha almost shout-
ed, taking hold of both his hands with a pas-
sionate movement.

He remained silent awhile.

"How good it would be!" and taking her
hand he kissed it.

Natasha 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, repress-
ing her joy. "Try to sleep . . . please!"

He pressed her hand and released it, and
she went back to the candleand 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 fin-
ished.

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, every-
thing that I understand, I understand only
because I love. Everything is, everything ex-
ists, only because 1 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



561

brain-spun. And there was the former agita-
tion and obscurity. He fell asleep.

He dreamed that he was lying in the room he
really was in, but that hewas quite well and un-
wounded. Many various, indifferent, and insig-
nificant 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 per-
sons 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 painfullystrained 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 to-
ward the door, that dreadful something on the
other side was already pressing against it
and forcing its way in. Something not hu-
mandeathwas 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 re-
membered 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, Natdsha went up and
asked him what was the matter. He did not
answer and looked at her strangely, not under-
standing.

That was what had happened to him two
days before Princess Mary's arrival. From that



56*

day, as the doctor expressed it, the wasting
fever assumed a malignant character, but what
the doctor said did not interest Natasha, 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 dura-
tion 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 Na-
tdsha, 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: ev-
eryone came to take leave of him. When they
brought his son to him, he pressed his lips to



WAR AND PEACE

the boy's and turnec|taway, not because he
felt it hard and sad (Princess Mary and Nat-
sha 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 Natdsha were present.

"Is it over?" said Princess Mary when his
body had for a few minutes lain motionless,
growing cold before them. Natdsha 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
S6nya cried from pity for Natasha and because
he was no more. The old count cried because
he felt that before long, he, too, must take the
same terrible step.

Natdsha and Princess Mary also wept now,
but not because of their own personal grief;
they wept with a reverent and softening emo-
tion 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 com-
plexity 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, aft-
er 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 under-
stand die 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 hap-
pened because it had to happen, as there is be-
tween 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 direct-
ing events, and some of these laws are known
to us while we are conscious of others we can-
not 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 Borodin6 and the occupation of Mos-
cow by the enemy and its destruction by fire,
th'e most important episode of the war of 1812
was the movement of the Russian army from
the Ryazan to the Kaluga road and to the
Tarutino camp the so-called flank march
across the Krdsnaya Fakhra River. They as-
cribe the glory of that achievement of genius
to different men and dispute as to whom the
honor is due. Even foreign historians, includ-
ing the French, acknowledge the genius of the
Russian commanders when they speak of that
Rank 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 Rus-
sia 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 at-
tacked 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 re-
treat 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, accom-
panied, 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



563



564



not remained inactive? If the Russian army at
Krasnaya Fakhra had given battle as Berinig-
sen and Barclay advised? What would have
happened had the French attacked the Rus-
sians while they were marching beyond the
Fakhra? What would have happened if on ap-
proaching Tarutino, Napoleon had attacked
the Russians with but a tenth of the energy he
had shown when he attacked them at Smo-
le*nsk? 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 Fill, it did not suggest itself to anyone in
its entirety, but resultedmoment 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 ac-
complished 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
Lansk6y, who was in charge of the commissa-
riat department. Lanskoy informed the com-
mander 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 re-
treated 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-
N6vgorod.The army turned more to the south,
along the Ryazan road and nearer to its sup-
plies. Subsequently the inactivity of the French
(who even lost sight of the Russian army), con-
cern for the safety of the arsenal at Tula, and
especially the advantages of drawing nearer to
its supplies caused thearmy to turn still further
south to the Tula road. Having crossed over,
by a forced march, to the Tula road beyond the
Fakhra, the Russian commanders intended to
remain at Podolsk and had no thought of the
Tartitino position; but innumerable circum-
stances and the reappearance of French troops



WAR AND PEACE

who had for a time lost touch with the Rus-
sians, 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 toTariitino, which was be-
tween 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 de-
cided to move to Tarutino. Only when the
army had got there, as the result of innumer-
able 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 consist-
ed in this: after the advance of the French had
ceased, the Russian army, which had been con-
tinually retreating straight back from the in-
vaders, deviated from that direct course and,
not finding itself pursued, was naturally drawn
toward the district where supplies were abun-
dant.

If instead of imagining to ourselves com-
manders of genius leading the Russian army,
we picture that army without any leaders, it
could not have done anything but make a re-
turn 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 Ry-
azdn, Tula, and Kaluga roads was so natural
that even the Russian marauders moved in that
direction, and demands were sent from Peters-
burg for Kutuzov to take his army that way.
At Tarutino Kutuzov 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 po-
sition 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 Borodin6, the Russian army
when the strength of that impetus was exhaust-
ed and no fresh push was received assumed
the position natural to it.

Kutuzov's merit lay, not in any strategic ma-
neuver 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
Borodin6 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 use-
less engagements.

The beast wounded at Borodin6 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 Ku-
tuzov's camp with overtures for peace.

Napoleon, with his usual assurance that
whatever entered his head was right, wrote to
Kutuzov 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 in-
teresting questions with you. I beg your Highness
to credit what he says to you, especially when he
expresses the sentiment of esteem and special re-
gard I have long entertained for your person. This
letter having no other object, I pray God t mon-
sieur le prince Koutouzov f to keep you in His holy
and gracious protection! NAPOLEON

Moscow, October 30, 1812

Kutuzov replied: "I should be cursed by pos-
terity 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 at-
tacking.

During the month that the French troops
were pillaging in Moscow and the Russian
troops were quietly encamped at Tariitino, a
change had taken place in the relative strength
of the two armies both in spirit and in num-
beras a result of which the superiority had
passed to the Russian side. Though the condi-
tion and numbers of the French army were un-
known 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 pro-
visions 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



BOOK THIRTEEN 565

to the French stationed at Tarutino; the news
of easy successes gained by peasants and guer-
rilla 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 con-
sciousness in every soldier's mind that the rel-
ative 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 in-
creased activity, whirring, and chiming in the
higher spheres.



CHAPTER III

THE RUSSIAN ARMY was commanded by Kutu-
zov and his staff, and also by the Emperor from
Petersburg. Before the news of the abandon-
ment of Moscow had been received in Peters-
burg, a detailed plan of the whole campaign
had been drawn up and sent to Kutuzov 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. Kutu-
zov only replied that movements arranged
from a distance were always difficult to execute.
So fresh instructions were sent for the solu-
tion of difficulties that might be encountered,
as well as fresh people who were to watch Ku-
tiizov's actions and report upon them.

Besides this, the whole staff of the Russian
army was now reorganized. The posts left va-
cant by Bagrati6n, 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 Kutuzov
and Bennigsen, his Chief of Staff, the presence
of confidential representatives of the Emperor,
and these transfers, a more than usually com-
plicated 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 possi-
ble combinations and permutations. In all
these plottings the subject of intrigue was gen-
erally the conduct of the war, which all these
men believed they were directing; but this af-
fair of the war went on independently of them,



5 66



WAR AND PEACE



as it had to go: that is, never in the way peo-
ple devised, but flowing always from the es-
sential attitude of the masses. Only in the high-
est spheres did all these schemes, crossings, and
interminglings appear to be a true reflection
of what had to happen.

Prince Michael Ilarionovich! (wrote the Em-
peror on the second of October in a letter that
reached Kutuzov 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 de-
tachment and Tula with its famous arsenal, so in-
dispensable to the army, is in danger. From Gen-
eral Wintzingerode's reports, I see lhat an enemy
corps of ten thousand men is moving on the Peters-
burg road. Another corps of several thousand men
is moving on Dmftrov. A third has advanced along
the Vladimir road, and a fourth, rather consider-
able detachment is stationed between Ruza and
Mozhaysk. Napoleon himself was in Moscow as
late as the twenty-fifth. In view of all this informa-
tion, 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 con-
trary, he is probably pursuing you with detach-
ments, 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 enemy
and annihilate him, or at least oblige him to re-
treat, 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 si/e
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 experi-
enced 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,
Kutuzov had found himself unable any longer
to restrain the army he commanded from at-



tacking and a battle had taken place.

On the second of October a Cossack, Shapo-
valov, 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, en-
camped 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 com-
mander.

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 in-
cident to a general on the staff. The state of
things on the staff had of late been exceeding-
ly strained. Erm61ov had been to see Bennig-
sen 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 sup-
posed power, his intellect, his experience, and
his knowledge of men, Kutiizov having taken
into consideration the Cossack's report, a note
from Bennigsen who sent personal reports to
the Emperor, the wishes he supposed the Em-
peror to hold, and the fact that all the generals
expressed the same wishcould 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

BKNNIGSEN'S NOTE and the Cossack's informa-
tion that the left flank of the French was un-
guarded 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
Kutuzov signed the dispositions. Toll read
them to Erm61ov, asking him to attend to the
further arrangements.

"All right all right. I haven't time just now,"
replied Erm61ov, and left the hut.

The dispositions drawn up by Toll were very



BOOK THIRTEEN

good. As in the Austerlitz dispositions, it was
writtenthough 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 dis-
positions, 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 Ermo-
lov to deal with. A young officer of the Horse
Guards, Kutuzov's orderly, pleased at the im-
portance of the mission entrusted to him, went
to Erm61ov's quarters.

"Gone away," said Erm61ov'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 Erm61ov 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 stop-
ping 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.
Milorddovich too was away, but here he was
told that he had gone to a ball at General Ki-
kin's and that Erm61ov was probably there
too.

"But where is it?"

"Why, there, over at Echkino," said a Cos-
sack 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 1
Two bands and three sets of singers!"
f 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



567

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 al-
ready 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 ad-
mitted and immediately saw all the chief gen-
erals 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 trepdk with much spirit and agil-
ity.

"Ha, ha, ha! Bravo, Nicholas Ivdnych! Ha,
ha, ha!"

The officer felt that by arriving with impor-
tant 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, hear-
ing what he had come about, informed Erm6-
lov.

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 pur-
pose to get Konovnitsyn into trouble. You'll
see what a mess there'll be tomorrow."

CHAPTER V

NEXT DAY the decrepit Kutiizov, 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 caleche and drove from Leta-
sh6vka (a village three and a half miles from
Tariitino) to the place where the attacking
columns were to meet. He sat in the caltche,
dozing and waking up by turns, and listening
for any sound of firing on the right as an indi-
cation that the action had begun. But all was
still quiet. A damp dull autumn morning was
just dawning. On approaching Tariitino Ku-
tiizov noticed cavalrymen leading their horses
to water across the road along which he was
driving. Kutiizov looked at them searchingly,



568

stopped his carriage, and inquired what regi-
ment 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 mis-
take," thought the old commander in chief.
But a little further on he saw infantry regi-
ments 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 . . ." Kutuzov began, but
checked himself immediately and sent for a
senior officer. Getting out of his caltche, he
waited with drooping head and breathing
heavily, pacing silently up and down. When
Efkhen, the officer of the general staff whom
he had summoned, appeared, Kutuzov 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 Br6zin, who hap-
pened 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 Kutu-
zov in a hoarse voice, waving his arms and reel-
ing.

He was suffering physically. He, the com-
mander in chief, a Serene Highness who every-
body said possessed powers such as no man had
ever had in Russia, to be placed in this posi-
tionmade the laughingstock of the whole ar-
my! "I needn't have been in such a hurry to
pray about today, or have kept awake think-
ing 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 dis-
tress. 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
caliche and drove back in silence.

His wrath, once expended, did not return,
and blinking feebly he listened to excuses and
self-justifications (Erm61ov 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 exe-



WAR AND PEACE

cuted next day. And once more Kutiizov had
to consent.

CHAPTER VI

NEXT DAY the troops assembled in their ap-
pointed 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 ad-
vanced 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 Orlov-Denisov with his Cos-
sacks (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 Dmftrovsk.

Toward dawn, Count Orlov-Denfsov, 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 serv-
ice: 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 Orl6v-Denfsov consulted his
fellow officers.

The offer was too tempting to be refused.
Everyone volunteered to go and everybody ad-
vised making the attempt. After much disput-
ing and arguing, Major-General Grkov with
two Cossack regiments decided to go with the
Polish sergeant.

"Now, remember," said Count Orl6v-Denf-
sov 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 reso-
lute air, mounted and rode away with Grkov
whose men had quickly assembled. They dis-



BOOK THIRTEEN



569



appeared into the forest, and Count Orl6v-
Denfsov, having seen Grkov 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 Orl6v,
looking at the camp.

As often happens when someone we have
trusted is no longer before our eyes, it sudden-
ly 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 Orlov felt distrustful
of the adventure when he looked at the en-
emy'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 backl" said
Count Orlov with sudden determination, look-
ing at his watch. "It will be too late. It is quite
light."

And the adjutant galloped through the
forest after Grkov. When Grkov returned,
Count Orl6v-Denfsov, 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 excite-
ment.

"Mountl" he commanded in a whisper. The
men took their places and crossed themselves.
. . . "Forward, with God's aid!"

"Hurrah-ah-ahl" 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, abandon-
ing cannons, muskets, and horses.

Had the Cossacks pursued the French, with-
out 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 Cos-
sacks 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 Cos-
sacks) 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 Cos-
sacks all busied themselves.

The French, not being farther pursued, be-
gan to recover themselves: they formed into
detachments and began firing. Orl6v-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 hap-
pens, had got somewhere, but not to their ap-
pointed 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 even-
tually 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 as-
siduously from place to place, finding every-
thing upside down everywhere. Thus he stum-
bled on Bagovut's corps in a wood when it was
already broad daylight, though the corps should
long before have joined Orl6v-Denisov. Ex-
cited 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 Bagoviit, a fight-
ing old soldier of placid temperament, being



57

also upset by all the delay, confusion, and
cross-purposes, fell into a rage to everybody's
surprise and quite contrary to his usual char-
acter 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 consider-
ing 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 divi-
sion remained under fire for some time quite
uselessly.

CHAPTER VII

MEANWHILE ANOTHER COLUMN was to have at-
tacked the French from the front, but Kutu
zov 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, in-
dolently 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 Milora-
dovich who asked permission to advance.

"We couldn't take Murat prisoner this morn-
ing or get to the place in time, and nothing
can be done now!" he replied to someone else.

When Kutuzov was informed that at the
French rear where according to the reports
of the Cossacks there had previously been no-
bodythere were now two battalions of Poles,
he gave a sidelong glance at Erm61ov who was
behind him and to whom he had not spoken
since the previous day.

"You see! They are asking to attack and mak-
ing plans of all kinds, but as soon as one gets
to business nothing is ready, and the enemy,
forewarned, takes measures accordingly."

Erm61ov screwed up his eyes and smiled
faintly on hearing these words. He understood
that for him the storm had blown over, and
that Kutuzov 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.



WAR AND PEACE

Soon after this, Erm61ov moved up to Kutu-
zov and respectfully remarked:

"It is not too late yet, your Highnessthe
enemy has not gone away if you were to or-
der an attack! If not, the Guards will not so
much as see a little smoke."

Kutuzov did not reply, but when they re-
ported to him that Murat's troops were in re-
treat he ordered an advance, though at every
hundred paces he halted for three quarters of
an hour.

The whole battle consisted in what Orl6v-
Denisov's Cossacks had done: the rest of the
army merely lost some hundreds of men use-
lessly.

In consequence of this battle Kutuzov re-
ceived a dianiond decoration, and Bennigsen
some diamonds and a hundred thousand ru-
bles, others also received pleasant recognitions
corresponding to their various grades, and fol-
lowing 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 gen-
erals 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 peo-
ple who talk like that either do not know what
they are talking about or deliberately deceive
themselves. No battle Tarutino, Borodin6, or
Austerlitz takes place as those who planned
it anticipated. That is an essential condition.
. A countless number of free forces (for no-
where 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 nev-
er can be known in advance and never coin-
cides with the direction of any one force.

If many simultaneously and variously di-
rected 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 previ-
ously formed plans, the only conclusion to be
drawn is that those descriptions are false.

The battle of Tariitino 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 Orl6v-
Denisov may have had in view to take Murat
prisoner; nor the result of immediately de-



BOOK THIRTEEN

stroying 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 dis-
tinguish 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 re-
sulted 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 Tanitino, just because of its incon-
gruities, 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 bat-
tle. With a minimum of effort and insignifi-
cant 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
Frdnch, and the administration of that shock
which Napoleon's army had only awaited to
begin its flight.



57*



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 Rus-
sian army with double its strength and destroy
it; negotiate an advantageous peace, or in case
of a refusal make a menacing move on Peters-
burg, or even, in the case of a reverse, return
to Smolensk or Vflna; 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 Mos-
cow 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 con-
trol 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-N6vgorod, or retiring
by a more northerly or more southerly route
(say by the road Kuttizov afterwards took),
nothing more stupid or disastrous can be im-
agined 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 Mos-
cow, approached Kutuzov without joining bat-
tle, turned to the right and reached Malo-
Yarosldvets, again without attempting to break
through and take the road Kutuzov took, but
retiring instead to Mozhdysk along the dev-
astated 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 com-
pletely have accomplished that purpose, inde-
pendently 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 be-
cause 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 Na-
poleon's faculties as having weakened in Mos-
cow, 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 previous-
ly and as he did subsequently in 1813. His ac-
tivity 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 for-
tresses 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, kave no need to recognize his gen-



57*



WAR AND PEACE



ius 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 or-
der 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 dep-
utation, 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 do-
ings of the enemy, or of the welfare of the peo-
ple of Russia, or of the direction of affairs in
Paris, or of diplomatic considerations con-
cerning 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 Kutuzov. Then he gave careful
directions about the fortification of the Kre*m-
lin, and drew up a brilliant plan for a future
campaign over the whole map of Russia.

With regard to diplomatic questions, Napo-
leon 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 Rostop-
chin had managed affairs badly in Moscow, he
dispatched Ydkovlev to Petersburg.

Having similarly explained his views and his
magnanimity to Tut61min, 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 exe-
cute'the incendiaries. And the scoundrel Ros-
topchfn was punished by an order to burn
down his houses.

With regard to administrative matters, Mos-
cow was granted a constitution. A municipality
was established and the following announce-
ment 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 pun-
ishes disobedience and crime. Strict measures have
been taken to put an end to disorder and to re-
establish public security. A paternal administra-
tion, 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 foot-
ing, and better order already prevails in conse-
quence of its activity. The government has ap-
pointed 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 ignomin-
ious death awaits those who make any attempt
on your persons or on what remains of your prop-
erty, 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-estab-
lish 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 in-
tentions 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, Napo-
leon decreed that all the troops in turn should
enter Moscow d la maraude * to obtain provi-
sions for themselves, so that the army might
have its future provided for.

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 provision-
ing 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 find-

1 As looters.



BOOK THIRTEEN



57S



ing 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. Inhabi-
tants, 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 protec-
tion 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: (i) 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 re-
turn 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 con-
stantly held and rewards distributed. The Em-
peror 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 vir-
tue of crowned heads, Napoleon also did all in
his power. He caused the words Maison de ma
M&re to be inscribed on the charitable institu-
tions, thereby combining tender filial affection
with the majestic benevolence of a monarch.



He visited the Foundling Hospital and, allow-
ing the orphans saved by him to kiss his white
hands, graciously conversed with Tutolmin.
Then, as Thiers eloquently recounts, he or-
dered 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 dis-
tributed to those who had been burned out.
But as food was too precious to be given to
foreigners, who were for the most part ene-
mies, Napoleon preferred to supply them with
money with which to purchase food from out-
side, and had paper rubles distributed to them."
With reference to army discipline, orders
were continually being issued to inflict severe
punishment for the non performance of mili-
tary 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 de-
vised 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 Mosqute (as Na-
poleon termed the church of Basil the Beati-
fied) was to have been razed to the ground,
proved quite useless. The mining of the Krm-
lin 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 re-
sult. The French generals lost touch with the
Russian army of sixty thousand men, and ac-
cording to Thiers it was only eventually found,
like a lost pin, by the skilland apparently the
genius of Murat.

With reference to diplomacy, all Napoleon's
arguments as to his magnanimity and justice,
both to Tut61min and to Ykovlev (whose
chief concern was to obtain a greatcoat and a



574



WAR AND PEACE



conveyance), proved useless; Alexander did
not receive these envoys and did not reply to
their embassage.

With regard to legal matters, after the exe-
cution 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 be-
ing looted.

With regard to religion, as to which in Egypt
matters had so easily been settled by Napo-
leon'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 proclama-
tion to industrious workmen and to peasants
evoked no response. There were no industri-
ous workmen, and the peasants caught the com-
missaries 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 inef-
fectiveness of the orders given by the authori-
ties at that time was Napoleon's attempt to
stop the looting and re-establish discipline.

This is what the army authorities were re-
porting:

"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 $rd Corps
who, not satisfied with taking from the unfor-
tunate inhabitants hiding in the cellars the
little they have left, even have the ferocity to
wound them with their sabers, as I have re-
peatedly 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 1 1."

"The Emperor is extremely displeased that
despite the strict orders to stop pillage, parties
of marauding Guards are continually seen re-
turning to the Kremlin. Among the Old Guard
disorder and pillage were renewed more vio-
lently than ever yesterday evening, last night,
and today. The Emperor sees with regret that
the picked soldiers appointed to guard his per-
son, 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 them-
selves 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, disinte-
grated 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 trans-
port trains on the Smolensk road, and by the
battle of Tanitino. 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 trdsor, 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 caliches
and carriages in which soldiers were riding and



BOOK THIRTEEN

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 per-
ishing 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 ani-
mal. 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 disadvanta-
geous 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.



575



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 Karatacv 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 play-
ing 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



Karatdev'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 appearanccof solidityandstrength
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 ener-
getic 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 riv-
er, 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 vari-
ous 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 in-
vigorating freshness of the morning frost still
in the air.

On everything far and near lay the magic
crystal glitter seen only at that tinieof 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 be-
side the fence. And even that ruined and be-
fouled house which in dull weather was re-
pulsively 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



576

name for Pierre.) "Eh? Just like springl"

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. Soko-
lov, 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 every-
thing 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 educa-
tion, who speaks French. He is a Russian sei-
gneur who has had misfortunes, but he is a man.
He knows what's what. ... If he wants any-
thing 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 cor-
poral went away. (The affair he had alluded
to had happened a few days beforea fight be-
tween 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 immedi-
ately 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 fin-
gers 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



WAR AND PEACE



had given out to the prisoners to make up into
boots and shirts for them.

"Ready, ready, dear fellow!" said Karatdev,
coming out with a neatly folded shirt.

Karatdev, 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 Plat6n,
smiling and unfolding the shirt he had sewn.

The Frenchman glanced around uneasily
and then, as if overcoming his hesitation, rapid-
ly 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!" Plat6n 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
Plat6n 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 Karatdev, still admiring his handi-
work. "You'll be nice and comfortable. . . ."

"Thank*s, 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 Karatdev. "But give me the
pieces that are over."

Pierre saw that Plat6n did not want to un-
derstand what the Frenchman was saying, and
he looked on without interfering. Karatdev
thanked the Frenchman for the money and
went on admiring his own work. The French-
man insisted on having the pieces returned
that were left over and asked Pierre to trans-
late what he said.

"What does he want the bits for?" said Kara-
tdev. "They'd make fine leg bands for us. Well,
never mind."

And Karatdev, with a suddenly changed and



BOOK THIRTEEN

saddened expression, took a small bundle of
scraps from inside his shirt and gave it to the
Frenchman without looking at him. "Oh dear 1"
muttered Karataev and went away. The French-
man looked at the linen, considered for a mo-
ment, then looked inquiringly at Pierre and,
as if Pierre's look had told him something, sud-
denly blushed and shouted in a squeaky voice:

"Platoche! Eh, Platochel Keep them your-
self 1" And handing back the odd bits he turned
and went out.

"There, look at that," said Kara tdev, 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.



577



CHAPTER XII

FOUR WEEKS had passed since Pierre had been
taken prisoner and though the French had of-
fered to move him from the men's to the of-
ficers' shed, he had stayed in the shed where he
was first put.

In burned and devastated Moscow Pierre
experienced almost the extreme limits of pri-
vation a man can endure; but thanks to his
physical strength and health, of which he had
till then been unconscious, and thanks especial-
ly 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 im-
pressed him in the soldiers at the battle of Bo-
rodino. 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 Natdsha; he had sought it by
reasoning and all these quests and experi-
ments had failed him. And now without think-
ing about it he had found that peace and in-
ner harmony only through the horror of death,
through privation, and through what he rec-
ognized in Karatdev.

Those dreadful moments he had lived
through at the executions had as it were for-
ever 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 con-
cerning them and therefore could not do so.
"Russia and summer weather are not bound
together," he thought, repeating words of Ka-
ratacv's which he found strangely consoling.
His intention of killing Napoleon and his cal-
culations of the cabalistic number of the beast
of the Apocalypse now seemed to him mean-
ingless 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 Bezukhov?

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 on-
ly 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 nev-
er be satisfied. But Pierre believed it without
any mental reservation. The absence of suffer-
ing, the satisfaction of one's needs and conse-
quent freedom in the choice of one's occupa-
tion, that is, of one's way of life, now seemed
to Pierre to be indubitably man's highest hap-
piness. 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 fel-
low man when he wished to talk and to hear a
human voice. The satisfaction of one's needs-
good food, cleanliness, and freedomnow 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 choice was so restricted seemed to him
such an easy matter that he forgot that a super-
fluity 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 posi-
tion had given him in his own life is just
what makes the choice of occupation in-
solubly difficult and destroys the desire and



578

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 cap-
tivity, of those irrecoverable, strong, joyful
sensations, and chiefly of the complete peace
of mind and inner freedom which he experi-
enced 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 pur-
ple distance, when he felt the contact of the
fresh air and heard the noise of the crows fly-
ing 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 hoar-
frost, 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 be-
fore 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 of-
ficers); 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 with-
out doing anything (which seemed to them in-
comprehensible), he appeared to them a rather
mysterious and superior being. The very quali-
ties 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 opin-
ion 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.



WAR AND PEACE

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, Sokol6v, 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 be-
ing left alone.

Pierre, girt with a rope round his waist and
wearing shoes Karatdev 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, Sokol6v, they are not all going
away! They have a hospital here. You may be
better off than we others/' said Pierre.

"O LordI 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 knap-
sacks 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 sud-
denly heard from both sides. The corporal
frowned at Pierre's wdrds 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 ist . . . It again! . . ." said Pierre to
himself, and an involuntary shudder ran down
his spine. In the corporal's changed face, in



BOOK THIRTEEN

the sound of his voice, in the stirring and deaf-
ening noise of the drums, he recognized that
mysterious, callous force which compelled peo-
ple 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 es-
cape that force, to address entreaties or exhor-
tations to those who served as its tools, was use-
less. 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 frown-
ing by the door of the hut.

When that door was opened and the pris-
oners, crowding against one another like a flock
of sheep, squeezed into the exit, Pierre pushed
his way forward and approached that very cap-
tain 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 ap-
peared that same it which Pierre had recog-
nized in the corporal's words and in the roll of
the drums.

"Pass on, pass on I" 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 onl" he continued
without looking at Pierre.

"But he is dying," Pierre again began.

"Be so good . . ." shouted the captain, frown-
ing angrily.

"Dram- da- da- dam, dam-dam . . ." rattled the
drums, and Pierre understood that this mysteri-
ous 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 sal-
low, bloated, angry face, who was wear ing a Ka-
zan dressing grown 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,



579

the major grumbled and growled at everybody
because hp thought he was being pushed and
that they were all hurrying when they had no-
where to hurry to and were -all surprised at
something when, there was nothing to be sur-
prised 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 wear-
ing 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 differ-
ent 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 Zubova, and in the Krm-
lin. . . . Just look! There's not half of it left. Yes,
I told you the whole quarter beyond the riv-
er, 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 Kham6v-
niki (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 some-
thing!"

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.



5 8o



WAR AND PEACE



CHAPTER XIV

THROUGH THE CROSS STREETS of the Khamovni-
ki quarter the prisoners marched, followed
only by their escort and the vehicles and wag-
ons belonging to that escort, but when they
reached the supply stores they came among a
huge and closely packed train of artillery min-
gled 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 bag-
gage trains before and behind them. To the
right, where the Kaluga road turns near Nes-
kuchny, endless rows of troops and carts
stretched away into the distance. These were
troops of Beauharnais' corps which had start-
ed 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 Ka-
luga road when the vanguard of Ney's army
was already emerging from the Great Ordy nka
Street.

When they had crossed the Crimean bridge
the prisoners moved a few steps forward, halt-
ed, and again moved on, and from all sides ve-
hicles and men crowded closer and closer to-
gether. 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 Transmoskvd. ward and the Kaluga road
converge, and the prisoners jammed close to-
gether had to stand for some hours at that cross-
way. 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 them-
selves!"

Again, as at the church in Kham6vniki, 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 car-
riages involved among the munition carts, close-
ly squeezed together, sat women with rouged
faces, dressed in glaring colors, who were shout-
ing something in shrill voices.

From the moment Pierre had recognized the
appcaranceof themysterious 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 ruihs 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 re-
ceive 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 flow-
ing 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 reso-
lute and coldly cruel expression that had struck
Pierre thatmorningon 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



BOOK THIRTEEN



581



with shouts and quarrels forced his way in
among the baggage trains, and the prisoners,
hemmed in on all sides, emerged onto the Ka-
luga 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 pris-
oners 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 all 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 call-
ing 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 cap-
tain 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 or-
der 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 inde-
pendent 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 an-
nounced to them. As if in reaction against the
worsening of their position they were all par-
ticularly animated and gay. They spoke of per-
sonal reminiscences, of amusing scenes they
had witnessed during the campaign, and avoid-
ed 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 com-
panions, 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 un-
der 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 him-
self. Pierre stopped laughing, got up, went
farther away from the inquisitive man, and
looked around him.

The huge, endless bivouac that had previ-
ously resounded with the cracklingof campfires
and the voices of many men had grown quiet,
the red campfires were growing paler and dy-
ing down. High up in the light sky hung the
full moon. Forests and fields beyond the camp,
unseen before, were now visible in the dis-



582

tance. And farther still, beyond those forests
and fields, the bright, oscillating, limitless dis-
tance 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 II" 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 Kutuzov with a letter from Napoleon
proposing peace and falsely dated from Mos-
cow, though Napoleon was already not far
from Kutuzov on the old Kaluga road. Kutu-
zov 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
D6rokhov's guerrilla detachment operating to
the left of Tariitino 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 Tanitino, urged Kutuzov
to carry out Dorokhov's suggestion. Kutuzov
did not consider any offensive necessary. The
result was a compromise which was inevitable:
a small detachment was sent to Formfnsk to
attack Broussier.

By a strange coincidence, this task, which
turned out to be a most difficult and important
one, was entrusted to Dokhtiirov that same
modest little Dokhtiirov whom no one had de-
scribed to us as drawing up plans of 'battles,
dashing about in front of regiments, shower-
ing crosses on batteries, and so on, and who
was thought to be and was spoken of as un-
decided 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 rearguard. Ill with fever
he went to Smolensk with twenty thousand
men to defend the town against Napoleon's
whole army. In Smolensk, at the Maldkhov
Gate, he had hardly dozed off in a paroxysm of
fever before he was awakened by the bombard-
ment of the town and Smolensk held out all
day long. At the battle of Borodin6, when



WAR AND PEACE

Bagrati6n 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 Dokhtiirov Kut-
uzov hastening to rectify a mistake he had
made by sending someone else there first. And
the quiet little Dokhtiirov rode thither, and
Borodin6 became the greatest glory of the
Russian army. Many heroes have been de-
scribed to us in verse and prose, but of Dokh-
tiirov scarcely a word has been said.

It was Dokhtiirov again whom they sent to
Formfnsk and from there to Mdlo-Yarosldvets,
the place where the last battle with the French
was fought and where the obvious disintegra-
tion of the French army began; and we are
told of many geniuses and heroes of that
period of the campaign, but of Dokhtiirov
nothing or very little is said and that dubi-
ously. And this silence about Dokhtiirov is the
clearest testimony to his merit.

It is natural for a man who docs not under-
stand 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 Dokhtiirov
had gone halfway to Forminsk and stopped at
the village of Arist6vo, preparing faithfully to
execute the orders he had received, the whole
French army having, in its convulsive move-
ment, 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 Formfnsk,
where only Broussier had been till then. At
that time Dokhtiirov had under his command,
besides D6rokhov's detachment, the two small
guerrilla detachments of Figner and Sesldvin.

On the evening of October 1 1 Seslvin came
to the Arist6vo headquarters with a French
guardsman he had captured. The prisoner
said that the troops that had entered Formfnsk
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 Dokhtii-



BOOK THIRTEEN

rov's detachment reported having sighted the
French Guards marching along the road to
B6rovsk. 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 di-
rectionalong 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 Formfnsk. But
only Broussier had been there at that time and
now the whole French army was there. Erm6-
lov wished to act on his own judgment, but
Dokhturov insisted that he must have Kutii-
zov's instructions. So it was decided to send a
dispatch to the staff.

For this purpose a capable officer, Bolkhovf-
tinov, was chosen, who was to explain the
whole affair by word of mouth, besides deliver-
ing a written report. Toward midnight Bolk-
hovitinov, having received the dispatch and
verbal instructions, galloped off to the General
Staff accompanied by a Cossack with spare
horses.



583



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 en-
tered a dark passage.

"The general on duty, quickl It's very im-
portant!" 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 Alexdy Petr6-
vich. Napoleon is at Forminsk," said Bolkhovl-
tinov, unable to see in the dark who was speak-
ing 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/ 1 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 gen-
eral 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 itl" he added.

The orderly was striking a light and Shcher-
bfnin was fumbling for something on the
candlestick.

"Oh, the nasty beasts!" said he with disgust.

By the light of the sparks Bolkhovftinov 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 Shchfer-
binin, 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 cov-
ered by a greatcoat. "Peter PetrovichI" said he.
(Konovnftsyn 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 checks flushed by fever,
there still remained for an instant a faraway
dreamy expression remote from present af-
fairs, but then he suddenly started and his
face assumed its habitual calm and firm ap-
pearance.

"Well, what is it? From whom?" he asked
immediately but without hurry, blinking at
the light.

While listening to theofficer's report Konov-
nftsyn broke the seal and read the dispatch.
Hardly had he done so before he lowered his



WAR AND PEACE



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."

Konovnftsyn 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 unex-
pressed 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 Petr6vich Konovnftsyn, like Dokhtu-
rov, seems to have been included merely for
propriety's sake in the list of the so-called
heroes of 1812 the Barclays, Ra^vskis, Erm6-
lovs, Pldtovs, and Milordoviches. Like Dokh-
turov 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 gen-
eral 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 Kutuzov re-
proved him for it and feared to send him to
the front, and like Dokhturov he was one of
those unnoticed cogwheels that, without clat-
ter 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, espe-
cially Bennigsen, who ever since Tariitino had
been at daggers drawn with Kutuzov; and how
they would make suggestions, quarrel, issue
orders, and rescind them. And this premoni-
tion was disagreeable to him though he knew
it could not be helped.

And in fact Toll, to whom he went to com-
municate the news, immediately began to ex-
pound his plans to a general sharing his quar-
ters, until Konovnftsyn, who listened in weary
silence, reminded him that they must go to
see his Highness.



CHAPTER XVII

Kurtizov like all old people did not sleep
much at night. He often fell asleep unex-
pectedly 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 peer-
ing 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, Kutuzov was more at ease as to the pos-
sibility of himself and his troops being obliged
to take part in useless aggressive movements.
The lesson of the Tariitino battle and of the
day before it, which Kutuzov 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
Kutuzov. He knew that an apple should not
be plucked while it is green. It will fall of it-
self when ripe, but if picked unripe the apple
is spoiled, the tree is harmed, and your teeth
are set on edge. Like an experienced sports-
man 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 unde-
cided question. Now by the fact of Lauriston
and BarthtHemi having been sent, and by the
reports of the guerrillas, Kutuzov 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 contin-
gencies" (he remembered the general plan
sent him from Petersburg) "they have fore-
seen everything. But the contingencies are
endless."

The undecided question as to whether the
wound inflicted at Borodin6 was mortal or not
had hung over Kutuzov's head for a whole



month. On the one hand the French had oc-
cupied Moscow. On the other Kutiizov 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 mor-
tal. 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 gen-
erals for doing. He imagined all sorts of pos-
sible 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 move-
ments 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.
Kutuzov even imagined that Napoleon's army
might turn back through Medyn and Yukh-
nov, but the one thing he could not foresee
was what happenedthe insane, convulsive
stampede of Napoleon's army during its first
eleven days after leaving Moscow: a stampede
which made possible what Kutuzov had not
yet even dared to think of the complete ex-
termination of the French. Dorokhov's report
about Broussier's division, the guerrillas' re-
ports of distress in Napoleon's army, rumors
of preparations for leaving Moscow, all con-
firmed the supposition that the French army
was beaten and preparing for flight. But these
were only suppositions, which seemed im-
portant to the younger men but not to Kutu-
zov. 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 him-
self 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 destruc-
tion of the French, which he alone foresaw,
was his heart's one desire.



BOOK THIRTEEN 585

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
Bolkhovftinov.

"Eh, who's there? Come in, come in I 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 Kutuzov with a
look which, when the candle was lit, struck
Toll by its cold severity.

"There can be no doubt about it, your High-
ness."

"Call him in, call him here."

Kutuzov 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 Bolk-
hovitinov 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 re-
port.

"Speak quicker, quicker! Don't torture
me!" Kutuzov interrupted him.

Bolkhovitinov told him everything and was
then silent, awaiting instructions. Toll was be-
ginning to say something but Kutuzov check-
ed 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 XV11I

FROM THE TIME he received this news to the
end of the campaign all Kutuzov's activity
was directed toward restraining his troops, by
authority, by guile, and by entreaty, from use-
less attacks, maneuvers, or encounters with
the perishing enemy. Dokhtiirov went to
Mlo-Yarosldvets, but Kuti'izov lingered with
the main army and gave orders for the evacua-
tion of Kaluga a retreat beyond which town



586

seemed to him quite possible*

Everywhere Kuttizov retreated, but the en-
emy 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 prov-
inces.

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 in-
evitable ruin. How could that army which
had found abundant supplies in Moscow and
had trampled them underfoot instead of keep-
ing 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 Borodin6 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 con-
scious.

So it came about that at the council at
Malo-Yaroslavets, when the generals pretend-
ing to confer together expressed various opin-
ions, 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 over-
come that shame, and this shock came in due
time. It was what the French called "le hourra
de I'Empereur" 1

1 Hourra was the cheer the Russian troops gave
when charging the enemy. TR.



WAR AND PEACE

The day after the council at Mdlo-Yarosla-
vets 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 in-
specting the army and the scene of the pre-
vious and of the impending battle. Some Cos-
sacks 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 destroy-
ing the French army, the booty on which the
Cossacks fell. Here as at Tanitino 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 Cos-
sacks 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 Mozhdysk (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



BOOK THIRTEEN



58?



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 await-
ed 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 them-
selves, 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 individ-
ual 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 them-
selves 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 possi-
bility and rendered it not only difficult but
impossible for the Russians to stop this move-
ment, to which the French were directing all
their energies. Beyond a certain limit no me-
chanical disruption of the body could hasten
the process of decomposition.

A lump of snow cannot be melted instan-



taneously. 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 be-
comes.

Of the Russian commanders Kutuzov alone
understood this. When the flight of the French
army along the Smolensk road became well de-
fined, what Konovnitsyn had foreseen on the
night of the eleventh of October began to oc-
cur. The superior officers all wanted to dis-
tinguish themselves, to cut off, to seize, to
capture, and to overthrow the French, and all
clamored for action.

Kutuzov alone used all his power (and such
power is very limited in the case of any com-
mander 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 unfor-
tunate wretches? What is the use of that, when
a third of their army has melted away on the
road from Moscow to Vydzma 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, rend-
ing and exulting over the dying beast.

Erm61ov, Milorddovich, Pldtov, and others
in proximity to the French near Vydzma could
not resist their desire to cut off and break up
two French corps, and by way of reporting
their intention to Kutuzov they sent him a
blank sheet of paper in an envelope.

And try as Kutuzov might to restrain the
troops, our men attacked, trying to bar the
road. Infantry regiments, we are told, ad-
vanced to the attack with music and with
drums beating, and killed and lost thousands
of men.

But they did not cut off or overthrow any-
body and the French army, closing up more
firmly at the danger, continued, while steadily
melting away, to pursue its fatal path to Smo-
tensk.



Book Fourteen: 1812



CHAPTER I

THE BATTLE OF BoRODiN6, 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 activ-
ity 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 in-
creases 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 mil-
lions, 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 un-
intelligible 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 conquer-
ing 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 Auer-
stadt 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 Rus-
sians, or that after Moscow there were other
battles that destroyed Napoleon's army, is im-
possible.

After the French victory at Borodin6 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 ex-
ample taken from the history of China, we
might say that it was not an historic phenom-
enon (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 con-
dition of the French army before it left Mos-
cow, 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



BOOK FOURTEEN



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 vic-
tory 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 accord-
ing 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 his-
torians 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 Boro-
din6 and the renewed retreat, the burning of
Moscow, the capture of marauders, the seizure
of transports, and the guerrilla war were all de-
partures 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 Kutuzov 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 com-
plaints of the French as to the nonobservance
of the rules, in spite of the fact that to some
highly placed Russians it seemed rather dis-
graceful to fight widi a cudgel and they wanted
to assume a pose en quarie or en tierce accord-
ing 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 any-
thing else, it rose and fell with stupid simplic-



589



ity, 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 con-
tempt 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 moun-
tain tribes in the Caucasus, and by the Russians
in 1812.

People have called this kind of war "guer-
rilla 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 di-
rectly 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. Mili-
tary science says that the more troops the
greater the strength. Les gros bataillons ont
tou jours raison. 1

For military science to say this is like defin-
ing 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 innumer-
able instances of the fact that the size of any

1 Large battalions are always victorious.



590



army does not coincide with its strength and
that small detachments defeat larger ones, ob-
scurely admits the existence of this unknown
factor and tries to discover itnow in a geo-
metric formation, now in the equipment em-
ployed, 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 readi-
ness 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 re-
peat 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 equa-
tions and comparing the relative significance
of this factor, can we hope to define the un-
known.

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=i5)j. Consequently
x/y=i$/4. This equation does not give us the
value of the unknown factor but gives us a
ratio between two unknowns. And by bring-
ing variously selected historic units (battles,
campaigns, periods of war) into such equa-
tions, a series of numbers could be obtained in



WAR AND PEACE

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 at-
tacks. But this rule which leaves out of account
the spirit of the army continually proves in-
correct 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 ac-
cording to tactics they should have separated
into detachments to defend themselves con-
gregated 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 in-
duce 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 peas-
ants, who killed them off as instinctively as dogs
worry a stray .mad dog to death. Denis Davy-
dov, with his Russian instinct, was the first to
recognize the value of this terrible cudgel
which regardless of the rules of military sci-
ence destroyed the French, and to him belongs
the credit for taking the first step toward regu-
larizing this method of warfare.

On August 24 Davydov's first partisan de-
tachment was formed and then others were
recognized. The further the campaign pro-
gressed 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 char-



BOOK FOURTEEN

icters. There were some that adopted all the
irmy methods and had infantry, artillery,
rtaffs, and the comforts of life. Others con-
sisted solely of Cossack cavalry. There were
also small scratch groups of foot and horse, and
groups of peasants and landowners that re-
mained unknown. A sacristan commanded one
party which captured several hundred prison-
ers in the course of a month; and there was
Vasilfsa, the wife of a village elder, who slew
hundreds of the French.

The partisan warfare flamed up most fiercely
In the latter daysof 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 expect-
ing 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 dis-
tance from the French, still regarded many
things as impossible. The small bands that had
started their activities long before and had al-
ready 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 morn-
ing 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 prison-
ers separated from the rest of the army, which
as was learned from spies and prisoners was
moving under a strong escort to Smolensk. Be-
sides Denisov and D61okhov (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 Denfsov
expressed it, were sharpening their teeth for
it. Two of the commanders of large parties-
one a Pole and the other a German sent in-
vitations to Denisov almost simultaneously, re-
questing him to join up with their divisions
to attack the convoy.

"No, bwother, I have gwown mustaches my-
self," said Denisov on reading these docu-
ments, and he wrote to the German that, de-
spite his heartfelt desire to serve under so val-



591

iant 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, inform-
ing him that he was already under the com-
mand of the German.

Having arranged matters thus, Denfsov and
D61okhov intended, without reporting mat-
ters 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 Mikiilino to that of Shamshevo. To the left
of the road between Mikulino and Shdmshevo
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 Denfsov 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 morn-
ing, 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 move-
ments of the French without attacking. It was
necessary to let the French reach Shdmshevo
quietly without alarming them and then, after
joining Dolokhov who was to come that eve-
ning 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 Miku-
lino where the forest came right up to the
road, six Cossacks were posted to report if any
fresh columns of French should show them-
selves.

Beyond Shdmshevo, D61okhov 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. Denfsov had two hundred, and D61okhov
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 col-
umn. 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 noth-
ing definite about the troops in that column.



59*



WAR AND PEACE



Denisov considered it dangerous to make a
second attack for fear of putting the whole
column on the alert, so he sent Tikhon Shcher-
baty, a peasant of his party, to Shdmshevo to
try and seize at least one of the French quarter-
masters 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, 1 Denfsov's
fellow worker, also in felt cloak and sheepskin
cap, and riding a large sleek Don horse.

Esaul Lovdyski the Third was a tall man as
straight as an arrow, pale-faced, fair-haired,
with narrow light eyes and with calm self-satis-
faction 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 Denfsov 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 Kirg-
hiz 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 rais-
ing his eyebrows gazed about him with sur-
prise. This was the French drummer boy cap-
tured that morning.

Behind them along the narrow, sodden, cut-
up forest road came hussars in threes and fours,
and then Cossacks: some in felt cloaks, some
in French greatcoats, and some with horse-
cloths over their heads. The horses, being

1 A captain of Cossacks.



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 D61okhov
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 at-
tack them by oneself, and if we put it off till an-
other 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 D61okhov.

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 Denfsov
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 re-
appeared 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. Be-
hind him, standing in the stirrups, trotted a
Cossack. The officer, a very young lad with a
broad rosy face and keen merry eyes, galloped



BOOK FOURTEEN

up to Denisov and handed him a sodden en-



593



velope.

"From the general," said the officer. "Please
excuse its not being quite dry."

Denfsov, 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 Denfsov was reading the dis-
patch. "But Komar6v 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 pris-
oner? You've already been in action? May I
speak to him?"

"Wost6v! Ptya!" exclaimed Denisov, hav-
ing 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 Pe" tya Rost6v.

All the way Ptya had been preparing him-
self to behave with Denisov as befitted a grown-
up man and an officer without hinting at
their previous acquaintance. But as soon as
Denfsov smiled at him Petya brightened up,
blushed with pleasure, forgot the official man-
ner he had been rehearsing, and began telling
him how he had already been in a battle near
Vydzma and how a certain hussar had distin-
guished himself there.

"Well, I am glad to see you," Denisov inter-
rupted him, and his face again assumed its
anxious expression.

"Michael Feoklftych," said he to the esaul,
"this is again fwom that German, you know.
He" he indicated Pdtya "is serving under
him."

And Denisov told the esaul that the dis-
patch just delivered was a repetition of the Ger-
man 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,
Pdtya 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 no-
tice it, while maintaining as martial an air as
possible.

"Will there be any orders, your honor?" he
asked Denfsov, holding his hand at the salute
and resuming the game of adjutant and gen-
eral for which he had prepared himself, "or
shall I remain with your honor?"

"Orders?" Denfsov repeated thoughtfully.



But can you stay till tomowwow?"
"Oh, please . . . May I stay with you?" cried



"But, just what did the genewal tell you?
To weturn at once?" asked Denfsov.

P


dairyqueenlatifah - 2014-08-18

What the fuck? Where's the rest of it?

How can you leave me hanging like this!?!?!?


Oscar Wildcat - 2014-08-18

Well played, Wonko. Well played.


SteamPoweredKleenex - 2014-08-18

So who pissed in Wonko's Corn Flakes this morning?


SteamPoweredKleenex - 2014-08-18

Since his continuation of War and Peace consisted of downvoting everything in the hopper.


Mr. Purple Cat Esq. - 2014-08-18

I actually read war and peace and enjoyed it


Mr. Purple Cat Esq. - 2014-08-18

Also my thing of choice for trolling message boards and whatnot is.. the entirety of Miltons Paradise lost.
(I keep it handy in a text document in my root!)


Change - 2014-08-18

hi wonko

hi


SolRo - 2014-08-18

Maybe that and this are his personal war on Russia?

Fight on, brave internet soldier!


StanleyPain - 2014-08-18

cool story, comrade


SolRo - 2014-08-18

FYI, Crimea wasn't annexed. Its people voted to separate from Ukraine.

Voting is still legal, right? Or only if the west allows it?


EvilHomer - 2014-08-18

What are you going to do when the bombs start dropping and the Russian propaganda channels dry up? Do they, like, send you guys packets in the mail, so you can keep fighting the good fight once Moscow Rose stops broadcasting to you?


Azmo23 - 2014-08-18

you talking about international law?
as in United Nations General Assembly Resolution 68/262?


SolRo - 2014-08-18

so...voting is illegal?


SolRo - 2014-08-18

Kosovo independence from Serbia legal.

Crimean independence from Ukraine illegal.

Because the west says so.



Got it.


EvilHomer - 2014-08-18

The Southern States voted to secede from the Union, and that was a genuine desire for secession, not an astroturfed power-grab by a foreign nation that planted it's military right outside the voting booths. Being that you're deeply committed to the democratic right of secession, and not in any way just operating as a mouthpiece for jingoistic Russian propaganda, am I correct in assuming you're pro-Dixie as well?

I hope you are. They didn't like fags and liberals any more than the Ruskies do.


SolRo - 2014-08-18

I know you're impossibly ignorant of the situation, but Right Sector, the fascist nationalist group that fomented the overthrow of the legitimate government of Ukraine and now holds massive sway over the new leaders, is anti-gay!

Yep, your freedom from Russia friends hate gays. And so by your own logic, you also hate gays.


You disgusting homophobe.


EvilHomer - 2014-08-18

Please don't dodge the question. Are you really committed to the point you just tried to make about democratically mandated secession, or are you simply cherry-picking your principles in order to support your pre-formed conclusion that Russian imperialism is good, European solidarity is bad?

Again, I'd like to stress that I won't judge you for your answer. Being a Lost Cause secessionist doesn't necessarily mean you're a racist, and even if you were a racist, you can still have a lot of valuable things to say.


SolRo - 2014-08-18

Coming up next on Fox News, with your host, EvilHomer.


SteamPoweredKleenex - 2014-08-18

Keep dodging.

It's something that the West has to learn as well: If you let countries decide votes for themselves, they often put in leaders other nations won't like.

It's no secret you don't like the people who aren't Russian nationalists. Fine and dandy. Just don't pretend that the whole vote wasn't a sham put on by Russia, even if the alternative is a group you despise.


SolRo - 2014-08-18

Funny thing is, Ukraine had a sham election, while half the country was a warzone and the other in unrest with fascists burning protesters alive.

No one in the west is questioning that votes legitimacy. I wonder why...


SolRo - 2014-08-18

and for your idiotic and stupid assumptions about me;

"It's no secret you don't like the people who aren't Russian nationalists."

Go fuck yourself. I only have a problem with idiots like you that spout anti-Russian propaganda whenever their mouths open.


SteamPoweredKleenex - 2014-08-19

"Propaganda?" Oh, right. I forgot to open the ol' envelope from my handlers. Let's see here...

"Putin is a wanker."

There. That's . Or it could be that you're about as sensitive to someone pointing out that Russia is no more a paragon of international virtue and democracy than the CIA is in Central America and the Middle East. Anything is propaganda to you if it's not praising the Kremlin, it seems.

Or, if profanity is the way you want to play it, I could say that some of us who open our mouths don't do so while they're full of Putin's cock. Does that register?


Albuquerque Halsey - 2014-08-19

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memedumpster - 2014-08-19

I sincerely find it fascinating that poeTV is getting its own YouTube style schizo-underbelly, and that one can accidentally find their way to it.


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