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 Vera’s sake."
"Oh, go to the devil, all of you! To the devil, the devil, the devil..."
cried the old count. "My head’s in a whirl!"
And he left the room. The countess began to cry.
"Yes, Mamma! Yes, these are very hard times!" said Berg.
Natasha 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?" Petya 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
Petya. "Vasilich told me. I consider..."
"I consider," Natasha suddenly almost shouted, turning her angry face to
Petya, "I consider it so horrid, so abominable, so... I don’t know what.
Are we despicable Germans?"
Her throat quivered with convulsive sobs and, afraid of weakening and
letting the force of her anger run to waste, she turned and rushed
headlong up the stairs.
Berg was sitting beside the countess consoling her with the respectful
attention of a relative. The count, pipe in hand, was pacing up and down
the room, when 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, perplexed and frightened. The count
stood still at the window and listened.
"Mamma, it’s impossible: see what is going on in the yard!" she cried.
"They will be left!..."
"What’s the matter with you? Who are ‘they’? What do you want?"
"Why, the wounded! It’s impossible, Mamma. It’s monstrous!... No, Mamma
darling, it’s not the thing. Please forgive me, darling.... Mamma, what
does it matter what we take away? Only look what is going on in the
yard... Mamma!... It’s impossible!"
The count stood by the window and listened without turning round.
Suddenly he sniffed and put his face closer to the window.
The countess glanced at her daughter, saw her face full of shame for her
mother, saw her agitation, and understood why her husband did not turn
to look at her now, and she glanced round quite disconcerted.
"Oh, do as you like! Am I hindering anyone?" she said, not surrendering
at once.
"Mamma, darling, forgive me!"
But the countess pushed her daughter away and went up to her husband.
"My dear, you order what is right.... You know I don’t understand about
it," said she, dropping her eyes shamefacedly.
"The eggs... the eggs are teaching the hen," muttered the count through
tears of joy, and he embraced his wife who was glad to hide her look of
shame on his breast.
"Papa! Mamma! May I see to it? May I?..." asked Natasha. "We will still
take all the most necessary things."
The count nodded affirmatively, and Natasha, at the rapid pace at which
she used to run when playing at tag, ran through the ballroom to the
anteroom and downstairs into the yard.
The servants gathered round Natasha, but could not believe the strange
order she brought them until the count himself, in his wife’s name,
confirmed the order to give up all the carts to the wounded and take the
trunks to the storerooms. When they understood that order the servants
set to work at this new task with pleasure and zeal. It no longer seemed
strange to them but on the contrary it seemed the only thing that could
be done, just as a quarter of an hour before it had not seemed strange
to anyone that the wounded should be left behind and the goods carted
away but that had seemed the only thing to do.
The whole household, as if to atone for not having done it sooner, set
eagerly to work at the new task of placing the wounded in the carts. The
wounded dragged themselves out of their rooms and stood with pale but
happy faces round the carts. The news that carts were to be had spread
to the neighboring houses, from which wounded men began to come into the
Rostovs’ yard. Many of the wounded asked them not to unload the carts
but only to let them sit on the top of the things. But the work of
unloading, once started, could not be arrested. It seemed not to matter
whether all or only half the things were left behind. Cases full of
china, bronzes, pictures, and mirrors that had been so carefully
packed the night before now lay about the yard, and still they went on
searching for and finding possibilities of unloading this or that and
letting the wounded have another and yet another cart.
"We can take four more men," said the steward. "They can have my trap,
or else what is to become of them?"
"Let them have my wardrobe cart," said the countess. "Dunyasha can go
with me in the carriage."
They unloaded the wardrobe cart and sent it to take wounded men from a
house two doors off. The whole household, servants included, was bright
and animated. Natasha 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, Petya?" cried Natasha.
Sonya too was busy all this time, but the aim of her efforts was quite
different from Natasha’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 Rostovs’ 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 caleche in which Prince Andrew was being taken attracted Sonya’s
attention as it passed the front porch. With the help of a maid she was
arranging a seat for the countess in the huge high coach that stood at
the entrance.
"Whose caleche is that?" she inquired, leaning out of the carriage
window.
"Why, didn’t you know, Miss?" replied the maid. "The wounded prince: he
spent the night in our house and is going with us."
"But who is it? What’s his name?"
"It’s our intended that was - Prince Bolkonski himself! They say he is
dying," replied the maid with a sigh.
Sonya jumped out of the coach and ran to the countess. The countess,
tired out and already dressed in shawl and bonnet for her journey,
was pacing up and down the drawing room, waiting for the household to
assemble for the usual silent prayer with closed doors before starting.
Natasha was not in the room.
"Mamma," said Sonya, "Prince Andrew is here, mortally wounded. He is
going with us."
The countess opened her eyes in dismay and, seizing Sonya’s arm, glanced
around.
"Natasha?" she murmured.
At that moment this news had only one significance for both of them.
They knew their Natasha, and alarm as to what would happen if she heard
this news stifled all sympathy for the man they both liked.
"Natasha does not know yet, but he is going with us," said Sonya.
"You say he is dying?"
Sonya nodded.
The countess put her arms around Sonya 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 Natasha, as
with animated face she ran into the room.
"Nothing," answered the countess. "If everything is ready let us start."
And the countess bent over her reticule to hide her agitated face. Sonya
embraced Natasha and kissed her.
Natasha looked at her inquiringly.
"What is it? What has happened?"
"Nothing... No..."
"Is it something very bad for me? What is it?" persisted Natasha with
her quick intuition.
Sonya sighed and made no reply. The count, Petya, Madame Schoss, Mavra
Kuzminichna, and Vasilich came into the drawing room and, having closed
the doors, they all sat down and remained for some moments silently
seated without looking at one another.
The count was the first to rise, and with a loud sigh crossed himself
before the icon. All the others did the same. Then the count embraced
Mavra Kuzminichna and Vasilich, who were to remain in Moscow, and while
they caught at his hand and kissed his shoulder he patted their backs
lightly with some vaguely affectionate and comforting words. The
countess went into the oratory and there Sonya 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 Petya had armed with swords
and daggers, with trousers tucked inside their high boots and with belts
and girdles tightened, were taking leave of those remaining behind.
As is always the case at a departure, much had been forgotten or put in
the wrong place, and for a long time two menservants stood one on
each side of the open door and the carriage steps waiting to help the
countess in, while maids rushed with cushions and bundles from the house
to the carriages, the caleche, the phaeton, and back again.
"They always will forget everything!" said the countess. "Don’t you know
I can’t sit like that?"
And Dunyasha, with clenched teeth, without replying but with an
aggrieved look on her face, hastily got into the coach to rearrange the
seat.
"Oh, those servants!" said the count, swaying his head.
Efim, the old coachman, who was the only one the countess trusted to
drive her, sat perched up high on the box and did not so much as glance
round at what was going on behind him. From thirty years’ experience
he knew it would be some time yet before the order, "Be off, in God’s
name!" would be given him: and he knew that even when it was said
he would be stopped once or twice more while they sent back to fetch
something that had been forgotten, and even after that he would again
be stopped and the countess herself would lean out of the window and beg
him for the love of heaven to drive carefully down the hill. He knew
all this and therefore waited calmly for what would happen, with more
patience than the horses, especially the near one, the chestnut Falcon,
who was pawing the ground and champing his bit. At last all were
seated, the carriage steps were folded and pulled up, the door was shut,
somebody was sent for a traveling case, and the countess leaned out
and said what she had to say. Then Efim deliberately doffed his hat and
began crossing himself. The postilion and all the other servants did the
same. "Off, in God’s name!" said Efim, putting on his hat. "Start!" The
postilion started the horses, the off pole horse tugged at his collar,
the high springs creaked, and the body of the coach swayed. The footman
sprang onto the box of the moving coach which jolted as it passed out
of the yard onto the uneven roadway; the other vehicles jolted in
their turn, and the procession of carriages moved up the street. In the
carriages, the caleche, and the phaeton, all crossed themselves as they
passed the church opposite the house. Those who were to remain in Moscow
walked on either side of the vehicles seeing the travelers off.
Rarely had 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. Occasionally she leaned out of the
carriage window and looked back and then forward at the long train of
wounded in front of them. Almost at the head of the line she could see
the raised hood of Prince Andrew’s caleche. 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 Kudrino, from the Nikitski, Presnya, and Podnovinsk Streets came
several other trains of vehicles similar to the Rostovs’, and as they
passed along the Sadovaya Street the carriages and carts formed two rows
abreast.
As they were going round the Sukharev water tower Natasha, who was
inquisitively and alertly scrutinizing the people driving or walking
past, suddenly cried out in joyful surprise:
"Dear me! Mamma, Sonya, look, it’s he!"
"Who? Who?"
"Look! Yes, on my word, it’s Bezukhov!" said Natasha, putting her head
out of the carriage and staring at a tall, stout man in a coachman’s
long coat, who from his manner of walking and moving was evidently
a gentleman in disguise, and who was passing under the arch of the
Sukharev tower accompanied by a small, sallow-faced, beardless old man
in a frieze coat.
"Yes, it really is Bezukhov in a coachman’s coat, with a queer-looking
old boy. Really," said Natasha, "look, look!"
"No, it’s not he. How can you talk such nonsense?"
"Mamma," screamed Natasha, "I’ll stake my head it’s he! I assure you!
Stop, stop!" she cried to the coachman.
But the coachman could not stop, for from the Meshchanski Street came
more carts and carriages, and the Rostovs were being shouted at to move
on and not block the way.
In fact, however, though now much farther off than before, the Rostovs
all saw Pierre - or someone extraordinarily like him - in a coachman’s coat,
going down the street with head bent and a serious face beside a small,
beardless old man who looked like a footman. That old man noticed a
face thrust out of the carriage window gazing at them, and respectfully
touching Pierre’s elbow said something to him and pointed to the
carriage. Pierre, evidently engrossed in thought, could not at first
understand him. At length when he had understood and looked in the
direction the old man indicated, he recognized Natasha, 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.
Natasha’s face, leaning out of the window, beamed with quizzical
kindliness.
"Peter Kirilovich, come here! We have recognized you! This is
wonderful!" she cried, holding out her hand to him. "What are you doing?
Why are you like this?"
Pierre took her outstretched hand and kissed it awkwardly as he walked
along beside her while the coach still moved on.
"What is the matter, Count?" asked the countess in a surprised and
commiserating tone.
"What? What? Why? Don’t ask me," said Pierre, and looked round at
Natasha whose radiant, happy expression - of which he was conscious
without looking at her - filled him with enchantment.
"Are you remaining in Moscow, then?"
Pierre hesitated.
"In Moscow?" he said in a questioning tone. "Yes, in Moscow. Good-by!"
"Ah, if only I were a man! I’d certainly stay with you. How splendid!"
said Natasha. "Mamma, if you’ll let me, I’ll stay!"
Pierre glanced absently at Natasha and was about to say something, but
the countess interrupted him.
"You were at the battle, we heard."
"Yes, I was," Pierre answered. "There will be another battle
tomorrow..." he began, but Natasha interrupted him.
"But what is the matter with you, Count? You are not like yourself...."
"Oh, don’t ask me, don’t ask me! I don’t know myself. Tomorrow... But
no! Good-by, good-by!" he muttered. "It’s an awful time!" and dropping
behind the carriage he stepped onto the pavement.
Natasha continued to lean out of the window for a long time, beaming at
him with her kindly, slightly quizzical, happy smile.
CHAPTER XVIII
For the last two days, ever since leaving home, Pierre had been living
in the empty house of his deceased benefactor, Bazdeev. This is how it
happened.
When he woke up on the morning after his return to Moscow and his
interview with Count Rostopchin, he could not for some time make out
where he was and what was expected of him. When he was informed that
among others awaiting him in his reception room there was a Frenchman
who had brought a letter from his wife, the Countess Helene, he felt
suddenly overcome by that sense of confusion and hopelessness to which
he was apt to succumb. He felt that everything was now at an end, all
was in confusion and crumbling to pieces, that nobody was right or
wrong, the future held nothing, and there was no escape from this
position. Smiling unnaturally and muttering to himself, he first sat
down on the sofa in an attitude of despair, then rose, went to the door
of the reception room and peeped through the crack, returned flourishing
his arms, and took up a book. His major-domo came in a second time to
say that the Frenchman who had brought the letter from the countess
was very anxious to see him if only for a minute, and that someone from
Bazdeev’s widow had called to ask Pierre to take charge of her husband’s
books, as she herself was leaving for the country.
"Oh, yes, in a minute; wait... or no! No, of course... go and say I will
come directly," Pierre replied to the major-domo.
But as soon as the man had left the room Pierre took up his hat which
was lying on the table and went out of his study by the other door.
There was no one in the passage. He went along the whole length of this
passage to the stairs and, frowning and rubbing his forehead with
both hands, went down as far as the first landing. The hall porter was
standing at the front door. From the landing where Pierre stood there
was a second staircase leading to the back entrance. He went down that
staircase and out into the yard. No one had seen him. But there were
some carriages waiting, and as soon as Pierre stepped out of the gate
the coachmen and the yard porter noticed him and raised their caps to
him. When he felt he was being looked at he behaved like an ostrich
which hides its head in a bush in order not to be seen: he hung his head
and quickening his pace went down the street.
Of all the affairs awaiting Pierre that day the sorting of Joseph
Bazdeev’s books and papers appeared to him the most necessary.
He hired the first cab he met and told the driver to go to the
Patriarch’s Ponds, where the widow Bazdeev’s house was.
Continually turning round to look at the rows of loaded carts that were
making their way from all sides out of Moscow, and balancing his bulky
body so as not to slip out of the ramshackle old vehicle, Pierre,
experiencing the joyful feeling of a boy escaping from school, began to
talk to his driver.
The man told him that arms were being distributed today at the Kremlin
and that tomorrow everyone would be sent out beyond the Three Hills
gates and a great battle would be fought there.
Having reached the Patriarch’s Ponds Pierre found the Bazdeevs’ house,
where he had not been for a long time past. He went up to the gate.
Gerasim, that sallow beardless old man Pierre had seen at Torzhok five
years before with Joseph Bazdeev, came out in answer to his knock.
"At home?" asked Pierre.
"Owing to the present state of things Sophia Danilovna has gone to the
Torzhok estate with the children, your excellency."
"I will come in all the same, I have to look through the books," said
Pierre.
"Be so good as to step in. Makar Alexeevich, the brother of my late
master - may the kingdom of heaven be his - has remained here, but he is in
a weak state as you know," said the old servant.
Pierre knew that Makar Alexeevich was Joseph Bazdeev’s half-insane
brother and a hard drinker.
"Yes, yes, I know. Let us go in..." said Pierre and entered the house.
A tall, bald-headed old man with a red nose, wearing a dressing gown and
with galoshes on his bare feet, stood in the anteroom. On seeing Pierre
he muttered something angrily and went away along the passage.
"He was a very clever man but has now grown quite feeble, as your honor
sees," said Gerasim. "Will you step into the study?" Pierre nodded. "As
it was sealed up so it has remained, but Sophia Danilovna gave orders
that if anyone should come from you they were to have the books."
Pierre went into that gloomy study which he had entered with such
trepidation in his benefactor’s lifetime. The room, dusty and untouched
since the death of Joseph Bazdeev was now even gloomier.
Gerasim opened one of the shutters and left the room on tiptoe. Pierre
went round the study, approached the cupboard in which the manuscripts
were kept, and took out what had once been one of the most important,
the holy of holies of the order. This was the authentic Scotch Acts
with Bazdeev’s notes and explanations. He sat down at the dusty writing
table, and, having laid the manuscripts before him, opened them out,
closed them, finally pushed them away, and resting his head on his hand
sank into meditation.
Gerasim looked cautiously into the study several times and saw Pierre
always sitting in the same attitude.
More than two hours passed and Gerasim took the liberty of making a
slight noise at the door to attract his attention, but Pierre did not
hear him.
"Is the cabman to be discharged, your honor?"
"Oh yes!" said Pierre, rousing himself and rising hurriedly. "Look
here," he added, taking Gerasim by a button of his coat and looking down
at the old man with moist, shining, and ecstatic eyes, "I say, do you
know that there is going to be a battle tomorrow?"
"We heard so," replied the man.
"I beg you not to tell anyone who I am, and to do what I ask you."
"Yes, your excellency," replied Gerasim. "Will you have something to
eat?"
"No, but I want something else. I want peasant clothes and a pistol,"
said Pierre, unexpectedly blushing.
"Yes, your excellency," said Gerasim after thinking for a moment.
All the rest of that day Pierre spent alone in his benefactor’s study,
and Gerasim heard him pacing restlessly from one corner to another and
talking to himself. And he spent the night on a bed made up for him
there.
Gerasim, being a servant who in his time had seen many strange things,
accepted Pierre’s taking up his residence in the house without surprise,
and seemed pleased to have someone to wait on. That same evening - without
even asking himself what they were wanted for - he procured a coachman’s
coat and cap for Pierre, and promised to get him the pistol next day.
Makar Alexeevich came twice that evening shuffling along in his galoshes
as far as the door and stopped and looked ingratiatingly at Pierre. But
as soon as Pierre turned toward him he wrapped his dressing gown around
him with a shamefaced and angry look and hurried away. It was when
Pierre (wearing the coachman’s coat which Gerasim had procured for him
and had disinfected by steam) was on his way with the old man to buy the
pistol at the Sukharev market that he met the Rostovs.
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
bearing down on them from behind, and an unreasoning hurry and alarm
overcame them. They all rushed forward to the bridge, onto it, and
to the fords and the boats. Kutuzov himself had driven round by side
streets to the other side of Moscow.
By ten o’clock in the morning of the second of September, only the rear
guard remained in the Dorogomilov suburb, where they had ample room. The
main army was on the other side of Moscow or beyond it.
At that very time, at ten in the morning of the second of September,
Napoleon was standing among his troops on the Poklonny Hill looking at
the panorama spread out before him. From the twenty-sixth of August
to the second of September, that is from the battle of Borodino to the
entry of the French into Moscow, during the whole of that agitating,
memorable week, there had been the extraordinary autumn weather that
always comes as a surprise, when the sun hangs low and gives more heat
than in spring, when everything shines so brightly in the rare clear
atmosphere that the eyes smart, when the lungs are strengthened and
refreshed by inhaling the aromatic autumn air, when even the nights
are warm, and when in those dark warm nights, golden stars startle and
delight us continually by falling from the sky.
At ten in the morning of the second of September this weather still
held.
The brightness of the morning was magical. Moscow seen from the Poklonny
Hill lay spaciously spread out with her river, her gardens, and her
churches, and she seemed to be living her usual life, her cupolas
glittering like stars in the sunlight.
The view of the strange city with its peculiar architecture, such as
he had never seen before, filled Napoleon with the rather envious and
uneasy curiosity men feel when they see an alien form of life that has
no knowledge of them. This city was evidently living with the full force
of its own life. By the indefinite signs which, even at a distance,
distinguish a living body from a dead one, Napoleon from the Poklonny
Hill perceived the throb of life in the town and felt, as it were, the
breathing of that great and beautiful body.
Every Russian looking at Moscow feels her to be a mother; every
foreigner who sees her, even if ignorant of her significance as the
mother city, must feel her feminine character, and Napoleon felt it.
"Cette ville asiatique aux innombrables eglises, Moscou la sainte. La
voilà donc enfin, cette fameuse ville! Il etait temps," * said he, and
dismounting he ordered a plan of Moscow to be spread out before him, and
summoned Lelorgne d’Ideville, the interpreter.
* "That Asiatic city of the innumerable churches, holy
Moscow! Here it is then at last, that famous city. It was
high time."
"A town captured by the enemy is like a maid who has lost her honor,"
thought he (he had said so to Tuchkov at Smolensk). From that point of
view he gazed at the Oriental beauty he had not seen before. It seemed
strange to him that his long-felt wish, which had seemed unattainable,
had at last been realized. In the clear morning light he gazed now at
the city and now at the plan, considering its details, and the assurance
of possessing it agitated and awed him.
"But could it be otherwise?" he thought. "Here is this capital at my
feet. Where is Alexander now, and of what is he thinking? A strange,
beautiful, and majestic city; and a strange and majestic moment! In what
light must I appear to them!" thought he, thinking of his troops.
"Here she is, the reward for all those fainthearted men," he reflected,
glancing at those near him and at the troops who were approaching and
forming up. "One word from me, one movement of my hand, and that ancient
capital of the Tsars would perish. But my clemency is always ready to
descend upon the vanquished. I must be magnanimous and truly great. But
no, it can’t be true that I am in Moscow," he suddenly thought.
"Yet here she is lying at my feet, with her golden domes and crosses
scintillating and twinkling in the sunshine. But I shall spare her. On
the ancient monuments of barbarism and despotism I will inscribe great
words of justice and mercy.... It is just this which Alexander will
feel most painfully, I know him." (It seemed to Napoleon that the chief
import of what was taking place lay in the personal struggle between
himself and Alexander.) "From the height of the Kremlin - yes, there
is the Kremlin, yes - I will give them just laws; I will teach them the
meaning of true civilization, I will make generations of boyars remember
their conqueror with love. I will tell the deputation that I did not,
and do not, desire war, that I have waged war only against the false
policy of their court; that I love and respect Alexander and that in
Moscow I will accept terms of peace worthy of myself and of my people.
I do not wish to utilize the fortunes of war to humiliate an honored
monarch. ‘Boyars,’ I will say to them, ‘I do not desire war, I desire
the peace and welfare of all my subjects.’ However, I know their
presence will inspire me, and I shall speak to them as I always do:
clearly, impressively, and majestically. But can it be true that I am in
Moscow? Yes, there she lies."
"Qu’on m’amene les boyars," * said he to his suite.
* "Bring the boyars to me."
A general with a brilliant suite galloped off at once to fetch the
boyars.
Two hours passed. Napoleon had lunched and was again standing in the
same place on the Poklonny Hill awaiting the deputation. His speech to
the boyars had already taken definite shape in his imagination. That
speech was full of dignity and greatness as Napoleon understood it.
He was himself carried away by the tone of magnanimity he intended to
adopt toward Moscow. In his imagination he appointed days for assemblies
at the palace of the Tsars, at which Russian notables and his own would
mingle. He mentally appointed a governor, one who would win the
hearts of the people. Having learned that there were many charitable
institutions in Moscow he mentally decided that he would shower favors
on them all. He thought that, as in Africa he had to put on a burnoose
and sit in a mosque, so in Moscow he must be beneficent like the Tsars.
And in order finally to touch the hearts of the Russians - and being like
all Frenchmen unable to imagine anything sentimental without a reference
to ma chere, ma tendre, ma pauvre mere * - he decided that he would
place an inscription on all these establishments in large letters:
"This establishment is dedicated to my dear mother." Or no, it should
be simply: Maison de ma Mere, *(2) he concluded. "But am I really in
Moscow? Yes, here it lies before me, but why is the deputation from the
city so long in appearing?" he wondered.
* "My dear, my tender, my poor mother."
* (2) "House of my Mother."
Meanwhile an agitated consultation was being carried on in whispers
among his generals and marshals at the rear of his suite. Those sent to
fetch the deputation had returned with the news that Moscow was empty,
that everyone had left it. The faces of those who were not conferring
together were pale and perturbed. They were not alarmed by the fact
that Moscow had been abandoned by its inhabitants (grave as that fact
seemed), but by the question how to tell the Emperor - without putting
him in the terrible position of appearing ridiculous - that he had been
awaiting the boyars so long in vain: that there were drunken mobs left
in Moscow but no one else. Some said that a deputation of some sort must
be scraped together, others disputed that opinion and maintained that
the Emperor should first be carefully and skillfully prepared, and then
told the truth.
"He will have to be told, all the same," said some gentlemen of the
suite. "But, gentlemen..."
The position was the more awkward because the Emperor, meditating upon
his magnanimous plans, was pacing patiently up and down before the
outspread map, occasionally glancing along the road to Moscow from under
his lifted hand with a bright and proud smile.
"But it’s impossible..." declared the gentlemen of the suite, shrugging
their shoulders but not venturing to utter the implied word - le
ridicule....
At last the Emperor, tired of futile expectation, his actor’s instinct
suggesting to him that the sublime moment having been too long drawn out
was beginning to lose its sublimity, gave a sign with his hand. A single
report of a signaling gun followed, and the troops, who were already
spread out on different sides of Moscow, moved into the city through the
Tver, Kaluga, and Dorogomilov gates. Faster and faster, vying with
one another, they moved at the double or at a trot, vanishing amid the
clouds of dust they raised and making the air ring with a deafening roar
of mingling shouts.
Drawn on by the movement of his troops Napoleon rode with them as far as
the Dorogomilov gate, but there again stopped and, dismounting from his
horse, paced for a long time by the Kammer-Kollezski rampart, awaiting
the deputation.
CHAPTER XX
Meanwhile Moscow was empty. There were still people in it, perhaps a
fiftieth part of its former inhabitants had remained, but it was empty.
It was empty in the sense that a dying queenless hive is empty.
In a queenless hive no life is left though to a superficial glance it
seems as much alive as other hives.
The bees circle round a queenless hive in the hot beams of the midday
sun as gaily as around the living hives; from a distance it smells of
honey like the others, and bees fly in and out in the same way. But one
has only to observe that hive to realize that there is no longer any
life in it. The bees do not fly in the same way, the smell and the sound
that meet the beekeeper are not the same. To the beekeeper’s tap on the
wall of the sick hive, instead of the former instant unanimous
humming of tens of thousands of bees with their abdomens threateningly
compressed, and producing by the rapid vibration of their wings an
aerial living sound, the only reply is a disconnected buzzing from
different parts of the deserted hive. From the alighting board, instead
of the former spirituous fragrant smell of honey and venom, and the warm
whiffs of crowded life, comes an odor of emptiness and decay mingling
with the smell of honey. There are no longer sentinels sounding the
alarm with their abdomens raised, and ready to die in defense of the
hive. There is no longer the measured quiet sound of throbbing activity,
like the sound of boiling water, but diverse discordant sounds of
disorder. In and out of the hive long black robber bees smeared with
honey fly timidly and shiftily. They do not sting, but crawl away from
danger. Formerly only bees laden with honey flew into the hive, and they
flew out empty; now they fly out laden. The beekeeper opens the lower
part of the hive and peers in. Instead of black, glossy bees - tamed by
toil, clinging to one another’s legs and drawing out the wax, with a
ceaseless hum of labor - that used to hang in long clusters down to the
floor of the hive, drowsy shriveled bees crawl about separately in
various directions on the floor and walls of the hive. Instead of a
neatly glued floor, swept by the bees with the fanning of their wings,
there is a floor littered with bits of wax, excrement, dying bees
scarcely moving their legs, and dead ones that have not been cleared
away.
The beekeeper opens the upper part of the hive and examines the super.
Instead of serried rows of bees sealing up every gap in the combs and
keeping the brood warm, he sees the skillful complex structures of the
combs, but no longer in their former state of purity. All is neglected
and foul. Black robber bees are swiftly and stealthily prowling about
the combs, and the short home bees, shriveled and listless as if they
were old, creep slowly about without trying to hinder the robbers,
having lost all motive and all sense of life. Drones, bumblebees, wasps,
and butterflies knock awkwardly against the walls of the hive in their
flight. Here and there among the cells containing dead brood and honey
an angry buzzing can sometimes be heard. Here and there a couple of
bees, by force of habit and custom cleaning out the brood cells, with
efforts beyond their strength laboriously drag away a dead bee or
bumblebee without knowing why they do it. In another corner two old bees
are languidly fighting, or cleaning themselves, or feeding one another,
without themselves knowing whether they do it with friendly or hostile
intent. In a third place a crowd of bees, crushing one another, attack
some victim and fight and smother it, and the victim, enfeebled or
killed, drops from above slowly and lightly as a feather, among the heap
of corpses. The keeper opens the two center partitions to examine
the brood cells. In place of the former close dark circles formed by
thousands of bees sitting back to back and guarding the high mystery
of generation, he sees hundreds of dull, listless, and sleepy shells of
bees. They have almost all died unawares, sitting in the sanctuary they
had guarded and which is now no more. They reek of decay and death. Only
a few of them still move, rise, and feebly fly to settle on the enemy’s
hand, lacking the spirit to die stinging him; the rest are dead and fall
as lightly as fish scales. The beekeeper closes the hive, chalks a mark
on it, and when he has time tears out its contents and burns it clean.
So in the same way Moscow was empty when Napoleon, weary, uneasy, and
morose, paced up and down in front of the Kammer-Kollezski rampart,
awaiting what to his mind was a necessary, if but formal, observance of
the proprieties - a deputation.
In various corners of Moscow there still remained a few people aimlessly
moving about, following their old habits and hardly aware of what they
were doing.
When with due circumspection Napoleon was informed that Moscow was
empty, he looked angrily at his informant, turned away, and silently
continued to walk to and fro.
"My carriage!" he said.
He took his seat beside the aide-de-camp on duty and drove into the
suburb. "Moscow deserted!" he said to himself. "What an incredible
event!"
He did not drive into the town, but put up at an inn in the Dorogomilov
suburb.
The coup de theâtre had not come off.
CHAPTER XXI
The Russian troops were passing through Moscow from two o’clock at night
till two in the afternoon and bore away with them the wounded and the
last of the inhabitants who were leaving.
The greatest crush during the movement of the troops took place at the
Stone, Moskva, and Yauza bridges.
While the troops, dividing into two parts when passing around the
Kremlin, were thronging the Moskva and the Stone bridges, a great many
soldiers, taking advantage of the stoppage and congestion, turned back
from the bridges and slipped stealthily and silently past the church of
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 ingratiating affability inviting customers to
enter; there were no hawkers, nor the usual motley crowd of female
purchasers - but only soldiers, in uniforms and overcoats though without
muskets, entering the Bazaar empty-handed and silently making their way
out through its passages with bundles. Tradesmen and their assistants
(of whom there were but few) moved about among the soldiers quite
bewildered. They unlocked their shops and locked them up again, and
themselves carried goods away with the help of their assistants. On the
square in front of the Bazaar were drummers beating the muster call.
But the roll of the drums did not make the looting soldiers run in the
direction of the drum as formerly, but made them, on the contrary, run
farther away. Among the soldiers in the shops and passages some men were
to be seen in gray coats, with closely shaven heads. Two officers, one
with a scarf over his uniform and mounted on a lean, dark-gray horse,
the other in an overcoat and on foot, stood at the corner of Ilyinka
Street, talking. A third officer galloped up to them.
"The general orders them all to be driven out at once, without fail.
This is outrageous! Half the men have dispersed."
"Where are you off to?... Where?..." he shouted to three infantrymen
without muskets who, holding up the skirts of their overcoats, were
slipping past him into the Bazaar passage. "Stop, you rascals!"
"But how are you going to stop them?" replied another officer. "There is
no getting them together. The army should push on before the rest bolt,
that’s all!"
"How can one push on? They are stuck there, wedged on the bridge, and
don’t move. Shouldn’t we put a cordon round to prevent the rest from
running away?"
"Come, go in there and drive them out!" shouted the senior officer.
The officer in the scarf dismounted, called up a drummer, and went with
him into the arcade. Some soldiers started running away in a group. A
shopkeeper with red pimples on his cheeks near the nose, and a calm,
persistent, calculating expression on his plump face, hurriedly and
ostentatiously approached the officer, swinging his arms.
"Your honor!" said he. "Be so good as to protect us! We won’t grudge
trifles, you are welcome to anything - we shall be delighted! Pray!...
I’ll fetch a piece of cloth at once for such an honorable gentleman,
or even two pieces with pleasure. For we feel how it is; but what’s all
this - sheer robbery! If you please, could not guards be placed if only to
let us close the shop...."
Several shopkeepers crowded round the officer.
"Eh, what twaddle!" said one of them, a thin, stern-looking man. "When
one’s head is gone one doesn’t weep for one’s hair! Take what any of you
like!" And flourishing his arm energetically he turned sideways to the
officer.
"It’s all very well for you, Ivan Sidorych, to talk," said the first
tradesman angrily. "Please step inside, your honor!"
"Talk indeed!" cried the thin one. "In my three shops here I have a
hundred thousand rubles’ worth of goods. Can they be saved when the army
has gone? Eh, what people! ‘Against God’s might our hands can’t fight.’"
"Come inside, your honor!" repeated the tradesman, bowing.
The officer stood perplexed and his face showed indecision.
"It’s not my business!" he exclaimed, and strode on quickly down one of
the passages.
From one open shop came the sound of blows and vituperation, and just
as the officer came up to it a man in a gray coat with a shaven head was
flung out violently.
This man, bent double, rushed past the tradesman and the officer. The
officer pounced on the soldiers who were in the shops, but at that
moment fearful screams reached them from the huge crowd on the Moskva
bridge and the officer ran out into the square.
"What is it? What is it?" he asked, but his comrade was already
galloping off past Vasili the Beatified in the direction from which the
screams came.
The officer mounted his horse and rode after him. When he reached the
bridge he saw two unlimbered guns, the infantry crossing the bridge,
several overturned carts, and frightened and laughing faces among the
troops. Beside the cannon a cart was standing to which two horses were
harnessed. Four borzois with collars were pressing close to the wheels.
The cart was loaded high, and at the very top, beside a child’s chair
with its legs in the air, sat a peasant woman uttering piercing and
desperate shrieks. He was told by his fellow officers that the screams
of the crowd and the shrieks of the woman were due to the fact that
General Ermolov, coming up to the crowd and learning that soldiers were
dispersing among the shops while crowds of civilians blocked the bridge,
had ordered two guns to be unlimbered and made a show of firing at the
bridge. The crowd, crushing one another, upsetting carts, and shouting
and squeezing desperately, had cleared off the bridge and the troops
were now moving forward.
CHAPTER XXII
Meanwhile, the city itself was deserted. There was hardly anyone in the
streets. The gates and shops were all closed, only here and there round
the taverns solitary shouts or drunken songs could be heard. Nobody
drove through the streets and footsteps were rarely heard. The
Povarskaya was quite still and deserted. The huge courtyard of the
Rostovs’ house was littered with wisps of hay and with dung from the
horses, and not a soul was to be seen there. In the great drawing
room of the house, which had been left with all it contained, were
two people. They were the yard porter Ignat, and the page boy Mishka,
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 behind them the voice of Mavra
Kuzminichna who had entered silently. "How he’s grinning, the fat mug!
Is that what you’re here for? Nothing’s cleared away down there and
Vasilich is worn out. Just you wait a bit!"
Ignat left off smiling, adjusted his belt, and went out of the room with
meekly downcast eyes.
"Aunt, I did it gently," said the boy.
"I’ll give you something gently, you monkey you!" cried Mavra
Kuzminichna, raising her arm threateningly. "Go and get the samovar to
boil for your grandfather."
Mavra Kuzminichna flicked the dust off the clavichord and closed it, and
with a deep sigh left the drawing room and locked its main door.
Going out into the yard she paused to consider where she should go
next - to drink tea in the servants’ wing with Vasilich, or into the
storeroom to put away what still lay about.
She heard the sound of quick footsteps in the quiet street. Someone
stopped at the gate, and the latch rattled as someone tried to open it.
Mavra Kuzminichna went to the gate.
"Who do you want?"
"The count - Count Ilya Andreevich Rostov."
"And who are you?"
"An officer, I have to see him," came the reply in a pleasant, well-bred
Russian voice.
Mavra Kuzminichna opened the gate and an officer of eighteen, with the
round face of a Rostov, entered the yard.
"They have gone away, sir. Went away yesterday at vespertime," said
Mavra Kuzminichna cordially.
The young officer standing in the gateway, as if hesitating whether to
enter or not, clicked his tongue.
"Ah, how annoying!" he muttered. "I should have come yesterday.... Ah,
what a pity."
Meanwhile, Mavra Kuzminichna was attentively and sympathetically
examining the familiar Rostov features of the young man’s face, his
tattered coat and trodden-down boots.
"What did you want to see the count for?" she asked.
"Oh well... it can’t be helped!" said he in a tone of vexation and
placed his hand on the gate as if to leave.
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285
286
287
288
289
290
291
292
293
294
295
296
297
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316
317
318
319
320
321
322
323
324
325
326
327
328
329
330
331
332
333
334
335
336
337
338
339
340
341
342
343
344
345
346
347
348
349
350
351
352
353
354
355
356
357
358
359
360
361
362
363
364
365
366
367
368
369
370
371
372
373
374
375
376
377
378
379
380
381
382
383
384
385
386
387
388
389
390
391
392
393
394
395
396
397
398
399
400
401
402
403
404
405
406
407
408
409
410
411
412
413
414
415
416
417
418
419
420
421
422
423
424
425
426
427
428
429
430
431
432
433
434
435
436
437
438
439
440
441
442
443
444
445
446
447
448
449
450
451
452
453
454
455
456
457
458
459
460
461
462
463
464
465
466
467
468
469
470
471
472
473
474
475
476
477
478
479
480
481
482
483
484
485
486
487
488
489
490
491
492
493
494
495
496
497
498
499
500
501
502
503
504
505
506
507
508
509
510
511
512
513
514
515
516
517
518
519
520
521
522
523
524
525
526
527
528
529
530
531
532
533
534
535
536
537
538
539
540
541
542
543
544
545
546
547
548
549
550
551
552
553
554
555
556
557
558
559
560
561
562
563
564
565
566
567
568
569
570
571
572
573
574
575
576
577
578
579
580
581
582
583
584
585
586
587
588
589
590
591
592
593
594
595
596
597
598
599
600
601
602
603
604
605
606
607
608
609
610
611
612
613
614
615
616
617
618
619
620
621
622
623
624
625
626
627
628
629
630
631
632
633
634
635
636
637
638
639
640
641
642
643
644
645
646
647
648
649
650
651
652
653
654
655
656
657
658
659
660
661
662
663
664
665
666
667
668
669
670
671
672
673
674
675
676
677
678
679
680
681
682
683
684
685
686
687
688
689
690
691
692
693
694
695
696
697
698
699
700
701
702
703
704
705
706
707
708
709
710
711
712
713
714
715
716
717
718
719
720
721
722
723
724
725
726
727
728
729
730
731
732
733
734
735
736
737
738
739
740
741
742
743
744
745
746
747
748
749
750
751
752
753
754
755
756
757
758
759
760
761
762
763
764
765
766
767
768
769
770
771
772
773
774
775
776
777
778
779
780
781
782
783
784
785
786
787
788
789
790
791
792
793
794
795
796
797
798
799
800
801
802
803
804
805
806
807
808
809
810
811
812
813
814
815
816
817
818
819
820
821
822
823
824
825
826
827
828
829
830
831
832
833
834
835
836
837
838
839
840
841
842
843
844
845
846
847
848
849
850
851
852
853
854
855
856
857
858
859
860
861
862
863
864
865
866
867
868
869
870
871
872
873
874
875
876
877
878
879
880
881
882
883
884
885
886
887
888
889
890
891
892
893
894
895
896
897
898
899
900
901
902
903
904
905
906
907
908
909
910
911
912
913
914
915
916
917
918
919
920
921
922
923
924
925
926
927
928
929
930
931
932
933
934
935
936
937
938
939
940
941
942
943
944
945
946
947
948
949
950
951
952
953
954
955
956
957
958
959
960
961
962
963
964
965
966
967
968
969
970
971
972
973
974
975
976
977
978
979
980
981
982
983
984
985
986
987
988
989
990
991
992
993
994
995
996
997
998
999
1000