However tempting it might be for the French to blame Rostopchin’s
ferocity and for Russians to blame the scoundrel Bonaparte, or later
on to place an heroic torch in the hands of their own people, it is
impossible not to see that there could be no such direct cause of the
fire, for Moscow had to burn as every village, factory, or house must
burn which is left by its owners and in which strangers are allowed to
live and cook their porridge. Moscow was burned by its inhabitants, it
is true, but by those who had abandoned it and not by those who remained
in it. Moscow when occupied by the enemy did not remain intact like
Berlin, Vienna, and other towns, simply because its inhabitants
abandoned it and did not welcome the French with bread and salt, nor
bring them the keys of the city.
CHAPTER XXVII
The absorption of the French by Moscow, radiating starwise as it did,
only reached the quarter where Pierre was staying by the evening of the
second of September.
After the last two days spent in solitude and unusual circumstances,
Pierre was in a state bordering on insanity. He was completely obsessed
by one persistent thought. He did not know how or when this thought had
taken such possession of him, but he remembered nothing of the past,
understood nothing of the present, and all he saw and heard appeared to
him like a dream.
He had left home only to escape the intricate tangle of life’s demands
that enmeshed him, and which in his present condition he was unable
to unravel. He had gone to Joseph Alexeevich’s house, on the plea of
sorting the deceased’s books and papers, only in search of rest from
life’s turmoil, for in his mind the memory of Joseph Alexeevich was
connected with a world of eternal, solemn, and calm thoughts, quite
contrary to the restless confusion into which he felt himself being
drawn. He sought a quiet refuge, and in Joseph Alexeevich’s study he
really found it. When he sat with his elbows on the dusty writing table
in the deathlike stillness of the study, calm and significant memories
of the last few days rose one after another in his imagination,
particularly of the battle of Borodino and of that vague sense of his
own insignificance and insincerity compared with the truth, simplicity,
and strength of the class of men he mentally classed as they. When
Gerasim roused him from his reverie the idea occurred to him of taking
part in the popular defense of Moscow which he knew was projected. And
with that object he had asked Gerasim to get him a peasant’s coat and
a pistol, confiding to him his intentions of remaining in Joseph
Alexeevich’s house and keeping his name secret. Then during the first
day spent in inaction and solitude (he tried several times to fix his
attention on the Masonic manuscripts, but was unable to do so) the idea
that had previously occurred to him of the cabalistic significance of
his name in connection with Bonaparte’s more than once vaguely presented
itself. But the idea that he, L’russe Besuhof, was destined to set a
limit to the power of the Beast was as yet only one of the fancies that
often passed through his mind and left no trace behind.
When, having bought the coat merely with the object of taking part among
the people in the defense of Moscow, Pierre had met the Rostovs and
Natasha had said to him: "Are you remaining in Moscow?... How splendid!"
the thought flashed into his mind that it really would be a good thing,
even if Moscow were taken, for him to remain there and do what he was
predestined to do.
Next day, with the sole idea of not sparing himself and not lagging in
any way behind them, Pierre went to the Three Hills gate. But when he
returned to the house convinced that Moscow would not be defended, he
suddenly felt that what before had seemed to him merely a possibility
had now become absolutely necessary and inevitable. He must remain in
Moscow, concealing his name, and must meet Napoleon and kill him, and
either perish or put an end to the misery of all Europe - which it seemed
to him was solely due to Napoleon.
Pierre knew all the details of the attempt on Bonaparte’s life in 1809
by a German student in Vienna, and knew that the student had been shot.
And the risk to which he would expose his life by carrying out his
design excited him still more.
Two equally strong feelings drew Pierre irresistibly to this purpose.
The first was a feeling of the necessity of sacrifice and suffering in
view of the common calamity, the same feeling that had caused him to go
to Mozhaysk on the twenty-fifth and to make his way to the very thick
of the battle and had now caused him to run away from his home and, in
place of the luxury and comfort to which he was accustomed, to sleep
on a hard sofa without undressing and eat the same food as Gerasim.
The other was that vague and quite Russian feeling of contempt for
everything conventional, artificial, and human - for everything the
majority of men regard as the greatest good in the world. Pierre had
first experienced this strange and fascinating feeling at the Sloboda
Palace, when he had suddenly felt that wealth, power, and life - all that
men so painstakingly acquire and guard - if it has any worth has so only
by reason of the joy with which it can all be renounced.
It was the feeling that induces a volunteer recruit to spend his last
penny on drink, and a drunken man to smash mirrors or glasses for no
apparent reason and knowing that it will cost him all the money he
possesses: the feeling which causes a man to perform actions which from
an ordinary point of view are insane, to test, as it were, his personal
power and strength, affirming the existence of a higher, nonhuman
criterion of life.
From the very day Pierre had experienced this feeling for the first time
at the Sloboda Palace he had been continuously under its influence, but
only now found full satisfaction for it. Moreover, at this moment Pierre
was supported in his design and prevented from renouncing it by what he
had already done in that direction. If he were now to leave Moscow like
everyone else, his flight from home, the peasant coat, the pistol, and
his announcement to the Rostovs that he would remain in Moscow would all
become not merely meaningless but contemptible and ridiculous, and to
this Pierre was very sensitive.
Pierre’s physical condition, as is always the case, corresponded to his
mental state. The unaccustomed coarse food, the vodka he drank during
those days, the absence of wine and cigars, his dirty unchanged linen,
two almost sleepless nights passed on a short sofa without bedding - all
this kept him in a state of excitement bordering on insanity.
It was two o’clock in the afternoon. The French had already entered
Moscow. Pierre knew this, but instead of acting he only thought about
his undertaking, going over its minutest details in his mind. In his
fancy he did not clearly picture to himself either the striking of the
blow or the death of Napoleon, but with extraordinary vividness and
melancholy enjoyment imagined his own destruction and heroic endurance.
"Yes, alone, for the sake of all, I must do it or perish!" he thought.
"Yes, I will approach... and then suddenly... with pistol or dagger?
But that is all the same! ‘It is not I but the hand of Providence that
punishes thee,’ I shall say," thought he, imagining what he would say
when killing Napoleon. "Well then, take me and execute me!" he went on,
speaking to himself and bowing his head with a sad but firm expression.
While Pierre, standing in the middle of the room, was talking to himself
in this way, the study door opened and on the threshold appeared
the figure of Makar Alexeevich, always so timid before but now quite
transformed.
His dressing gown was unfastened, his face red and distorted. He
was obviously drunk. On seeing Pierre he grew confused at first, but
noticing embarrassment on Pierre’s face immediately grew bold and,
staggering on his thin legs, advanced into the middle of the room.
"They’re frightened," he said confidentially in a hoarse voice. "I say I
won’t surrender, I say... Am I not right, sir?"
He paused and then suddenly seeing the pistol on the table seized it
with unexpected rapidity and ran out into the corridor.
Gerasim and the porter, who had followed Makar Alexeevich, stopped him
in the vestibule and tried to take the pistol from him. Pierre, coming
out into the corridor, looked with pity and repulsion at the half-crazy
old man. Makar Alexeevich, frowning with exertion, held on to the pistol
and screamed hoarsely, evidently with some heroic fancy in his head.
"To arms! Board them! No, you shan’t get it," he yelled.
"That will do, please, that will do. Have the goodness - please, sir, to
let go! Please, sir..." pleaded Gerasim, trying carefully to steer Makar
Alexeevich by the elbows back to the door.
"Who are you? Bonaparte!..." shouted Makar Alexeevich.
"That’s not right, sir. Come to your room, please, and rest. Allow me to
have the pistol."
"Be off, thou base slave! Touch me not! See this?" shouted Makar
Alexeevich, brandishing the pistol. "Board them!"
"Catch hold!" whispered Gerasim to the porter.
They seized Makar Alexeevich by the arms and dragged him to the door.
The vestibule was filled with the discordant sounds of a struggle and of
a tipsy, hoarse voice.
Suddenly a fresh sound, a piercing feminine scream, reverberated from
the porch and the cook came running into the vestibule.
"It’s them! Gracious heavens! O Lord, four of them, horsemen!" she
cried.
Gerasim and the porter let Makar Alexeevich go, and in the now silent
corridor the sound of several hands knocking at the front door could be
heard.
CHAPTER XXVIII
Pierre, having decided that until he had carried out his design he would
disclose neither his identity nor his knowledge of French, stood at the
half-open door of the corridor, intending to conceal himself as soon
as the French entered. But the French entered and still Pierre did not
retire - an irresistible curiosity kept him there.
There were two of them. One was an officer - a tall, soldierly, handsome
man - the other evidently a private or an orderly, sunburned, short, and
thin, with sunken cheeks and a dull expression. The officer walked in
front, leaning on a stick and slightly limping. When he had advanced
a few steps he stopped, having apparently decided that these were good
quarters, turned round to the soldiers standing at the entrance, and in
a loud voice of command ordered them to put up the horses. Having done
that, the officer, lifting his elbow with a smart gesture, stroked his
mustache and lightly touched his hat.
"Bonjour, la compagnie!" * said he gaily, smiling and looking about him.
* "Good day, everybody!"
No one gave any reply.
"Vous êtes le bourgeois?" * the officer asked Gerasim.
* "Are you the master here?"
Gerasim gazed at the officer with an alarmed and inquiring look.
"Quartier, quartier, logement!" said the officer, looking down at the
little man with a condescending and good-natured smile. "Les français
sont de bons enfants. Que diable! Voyons! Ne nous fâchons pas, mon
vieux!" * added he, clapping the scared and silent Gerasim on the
shoulder. "Well, does no one speak French in this establishment?" he
asked again in French, looking around and meeting Pierre’s eyes. Pierre
moved away from the door.
* "Quarters, quarters, lodgings! The French are good
fellows. What the devil! There, don’t let us be cross, old
fellow!"
Again the officer turned to Gerasim and asked him to show him the rooms
in the house.
"Master, not here - don’t understand... me, you..." said Gerasim, trying
to render his words more comprehensible by contorting them.
Still smiling, the French officer spread out his hands before Gerasim’s
nose, intimating that he did not understand him either, and moved,
limping, to the door at which Pierre was standing. Pierre wished to go
away and conceal himself, but at that moment he saw Makar Alexeevich
appearing at the open kitchen door with the pistol in his hand. With
a madman’s cunning, Makar Alexeevich eyed the Frenchman, raised his
pistol, and took aim.
"Board them!" yelled the tipsy man, trying to press the trigger. Hearing
the yell the officer turned round, and at the same moment Pierre threw
himself on the drunkard. Just when Pierre snatched at and struck up the
pistol Makar Alexeevich at last got his fingers on the trigger, there
was a deafening report, and all were enveloped in a cloud of smoke. The
Frenchman turned pale and rushed to the door.
Forgetting his intention of concealing his knowledge of French, Pierre,
snatching away the pistol and throwing it down, ran up to the officer
and addressed him in French.
"You are not wounded?" he asked.
"I think not," answered the Frenchman, feeling himself over. "But I have
had a lucky escape this time," he added, pointing to the damaged plaster
of the wall. "Who is that man?" said he, looking sternly at Pierre.
"Oh, I am really in despair at what has occurred," said Pierre rapidly,
quite forgetting the part he had intended to play. "He is an unfortunate
madman who did not know what he was doing."
The officer went up to Makar Alexeevich and took him by the collar.
Makar Alexeevich was standing with parted lips, swaying, as if about to
fall asleep, as he leaned against the wall.
"Brigand! You shall pay for this," said the Frenchman, letting go
of him. "We French are merciful after victory, but we do not pardon
traitors," he added, with a look of gloomy dignity and a fine energetic
gesture.
Pierre continued, in French, to persuade the officer not to hold that
drunken imbecile to account. The Frenchman listened in silence with the
same gloomy expression, but suddenly turned to Pierre with a smile. For
a few seconds he looked at him in silence. His handsome face assumed a
melodramatically gentle expression and he held out his hand.
"You have saved my life. You are French," said he.
For a Frenchman that deduction was indubitable. Only a Frenchman could
perform a great deed, and to save his life - the life of M. Ramballe,
captain of the 13th Light Regiment - was undoubtedly a very great deed.
But however indubitable that conclusion and the officer’s conviction
based upon it, Pierre felt it necessary to disillusion him.
"I am Russian," he said quickly.
"Tut, tut, tut! Tell that to others," said the officer, waving his
finger before his nose and smiling. "You shall tell me all about that
presently. I am delighted to meet a compatriot. Well, and what are we
to do with this man?" he added, addressing himself to Pierre as to a
brother.
Even if Pierre were not a Frenchman, having once received that loftiest
of human appellations he could not renounce it, said the officer’s look
and tone. In reply to his last question Pierre again explained who Makar
Alexeevich was and how just before their arrival that drunken imbecile
had seized the loaded pistol which they had not had time to recover from
him, and begged the officer to let the deed go unpunished.
The Frenchman expanded his chest and made a majestic gesture with his
arm.
"You have saved my life! You are French. You ask his pardon? I grant it
you. Lead that man away!" said he quickly and energetically, and taking
the arm of Pierre whom he had promoted to be a Frenchman for saving his
life, he went with him into the room.
The soldiers in the yard, hearing the shot, came into the passage asking
what had happened, and expressed their readiness to punish the culprits,
but the officer sternly checked them.
"You will be called in when you are wanted," he said.
The soldiers went out again, and the orderly, who had meanwhile had time
to visit the kitchen, came up to his officer.
"Captain, there is soup and a leg of mutton in the kitchen," said he.
"Shall I serve them up?"
"Yes, and some wine," answered the captain.
CHAPTER XXIX
When the French officer went into the room with Pierre the latter again
thought it his duty to assure him that he was not French and wished to
go away, but the officer would not hear of it. He was so very polite,
amiable, good-natured, and genuinely grateful to Pierre for saving his
life that Pierre had not the heart to refuse, and sat down with him in
the parlor - the first room they entered. To Pierre’s assurances that he
was not a Frenchman, the captain, evidently not understanding how anyone
could decline so flattering an appellation, shrugged his shoulders and
said that if Pierre absolutely insisted on passing for a Russian let it
be so, but for all that he would be forever bound to Pierre by gratitude
for saving his life.
Had this man been endowed with the slightest capacity for perceiving the
feelings of others, and had he at all understood what Pierre’s feelings
were, the latter would probably have left him, but the man’s animated
obtuseness to everything other than himself disarmed Pierre.
"A Frenchman or a Russian prince incognito," said the officer, looking
at Pierre’s fine though dirty linen and at the ring on his finger.
"I owe my life to you and offer you my friendship. A Frenchman never
forgets either an insult or a service. I offer you my friendship. That
is all I can say."
There was so much good nature and nobility (in the French sense of the
word) in the officer’s voice, in the expression of his face and in
his gestures, that Pierre, unconsciously smiling in response to the
Frenchman’s smile, pressed the hand held out to him.
"Captain Ramballe, of the 13th Light Regiment, Chevalier of the Legion
of Honor for the affair on the seventh of September," he introduced
himself, a self-satisfied irrepressible smile puckering his lips under
his mustache. "Will you now be so good as to tell me with whom I have
the honor of conversing so pleasantly, instead of being in the ambulance
with that maniac’s bullet in my body?"
Pierre replied that he could not tell him his name and, blushing,
began to try to invent a name and to say something about his reason for
concealing it, but the Frenchman hastily interrupted him.
"Oh, please!" said he. "I understand your reasons. You are an officer...
a superior officer perhaps. You have borne arms against us. That’s not
my business. I owe you my life. That is enough for me. I am quite at
your service. You belong to the gentry?" he concluded with a shade of
inquiry in his tone. Pierre bent his head. "Your baptismal name, if you
please. That is all I ask. Monsieur Pierre, you say.... That’s all I
want to know."
When the mutton and an omelet had been served and a samovar and vodka
brought, with some wine which the French had taken from a Russian cellar
and brought with them, Ramballe invited Pierre to share his dinner, and
himself began to eat greedily and quickly like a healthy and hungry man,
munching his food rapidly with his strong teeth, continually smacking
his lips, and repeating - "Excellent! Delicious!" His face grew red and
was covered with perspiration. Pierre was hungry and shared the dinner
with pleasure. Morel, the orderly, brought some hot water in a saucepan
and placed a bottle of claret in it. He also brought a bottle of kvass,
taken from the kitchen for them to try. That beverage was already known
to the French and had been given a special name. They called it limonade
de cochon (pig’s lemonade), and Morel spoke well of the limonade de
cochon he had found in the kitchen. But as the captain had the wine they
had taken while passing through Moscow, he left the kvass to Morel and
applied himself to the bottle of Bordeaux. He wrapped the bottle up
to its neck in a table napkin and poured out wine for himself and for
Pierre. The satisfaction of his hunger and the wine rendered the captain
still more lively and he chatted incessantly all through dinner.
"Yes, my dear Monsieur Pierre, I owe you a fine votive candle for
saving me from that maniac.... You see, I have bullets enough in my
body already. Here is one I got at Wagram" (he touched his side) "and a
second at Smolensk" - he showed a scar on his cheek - "and this leg which as
you see does not want to march, I got that on the seventh at the great
battle of la Moskowa. Sacre Dieu! It was splendid! That deluge of fire
was worth seeing. It was a tough job you set us there, my word! You may
be proud of it! And on my honor, in spite of the cough I caught there, I
should be ready to begin again. I pity those who did not see it."
"I was there," said Pierre.
"Bah, really? So much the better! You are certainly brave foes. The
great redoubt held out well, by my pipe!" continued the Frenchman. "And
you made us pay dear for it. I was at it three times - sure as I sit here.
Three times we reached the guns and three times we were thrown back
like cardboard figures. Oh, it was beautiful, Monsieur Pierre! Your
grenadiers were splendid, by heaven! I saw them close up their ranks six
times in succession and march as if on parade. Fine fellows! Our King of
Naples, who knows what’s what, cried ‘Bravo!’ Ha, ha! So you are one of
us soldiers!" he added, smiling, after a momentary pause. "So much
the better, so much the better, Monsieur Pierre! Terrible in battle...
gallant... with the fair" (he winked and smiled), "that’s what the
French are, Monsieur Pierre, aren’t they?"
The captain was so naïvely and good-humoredly gay, so real, and so
pleased with himself that Pierre almost winked back as he looked merrily
at him. Probably the word "gallant" turned the captain’s thoughts to the
state of Moscow.
"Apropos, tell me please, is it true that the women have all left
Moscow? What a queer idea! What had they to be afraid of?"
"Would not the French ladies leave Paris if the Russians entered it?"
asked Pierre.
"Ha, ha, ha!" The Frenchman emitted a merry, sanguine chuckle, patting
Pierre on the shoulder. "What a thing to say!" he exclaimed. "Paris?...
But Paris, Paris..."
"Paris - the capital of the world," Pierre finished his remark for him.
The captain looked at Pierre. He had a habit of stopping short in the
middle of his talk and gazing intently with his laughing, kindly eyes.
"Well, if you hadn’t told me you were Russian, I should have wagered
that you were Parisian! You have that... I don’t know what, that..." and
having uttered this compliment, he again gazed at him in silence.
"I have been in Paris. I spent years there," said Pierre.
"Oh yes, one sees that plainly. Paris!... A man who doesn’t know Paris
is a savage. You can tell a Parisian two leagues off. Paris is Talma, la
Duchenois, Potier, the Sorbonne, the boulevards," and noticing that
his conclusion was weaker than what had gone before, he added quickly:
"There is only one Paris in the world. You have been to Paris and have
remained Russian. Well, I don’t esteem you the less for it."
Under the influence of the wine he had drunk, and after the days he had
spent alone with his depressing thoughts, Pierre involuntarily enjoyed
talking with this cheerful and good-natured man.
"To return to your ladies - I hear they are lovely. What a wretched idea
to go and bury themselves in the steppes when the French army is in
Moscow. What a chance those girls have missed! Your peasants, now - that’s
another thing; but you civilized people, you ought to know us better
than that. We took Vienna, Berlin, Madrid, Naples, Rome, Warsaw, all
the world’s capitals.... We are feared, but we are loved. We are nice to
know. And then the Emperor..." he began, but Pierre interrupted him.
"The Emperor," Pierre repeated, and his face suddenly became sad and
embarrassed, "is the Emperor...?"
"The Emperor? He is generosity, mercy, justice, order, genius - that’s
what the Emperor is! It is I, Ramballe, who tell you so.... I assure you
I was his enemy eight years ago. My father was an emigrant count.... But
that man has vanquished me. He has taken hold of me. I could not resist
the sight of the grandeur and glory with which he has covered France.
When I understood what he wanted - when I saw that he was preparing a bed
of laurels for us, you know, I said to myself: ‘That is a monarch,’ and
I devoted myself to him! So there! Oh yes, mon cher, he is the greatest
man of the ages past or future."
"Is he in Moscow?" Pierre stammered with a guilty look.
The Frenchman looked at his guilty face and smiled.
"No, he will make his entry tomorrow," he replied, and continued his
talk.
Their conversation was interrupted by the cries of several voices at
the gate and by Morel, who came to say that some Wurttemberg hussars had
come and wanted to put up their horses in the yard where the captain’s
horses were. This difficulty had arisen chiefly because the hussars did
not understand what was said to them in French.
The captain had their senior sergeant called in, and in a stern voice
asked him to what regiment he belonged, who was his commanding officer,
and by what right he allowed himself to claim quarters that were already
occupied. The German who knew little French, answered the two first
questions by giving the names of his regiment and of his commanding
officer, but in reply to the third question which he did not understand
said, introducing broken French into his own German, that he was the
quartermaster of the regiment and his commander had ordered him to
occupy all the houses one after another. Pierre, who knew German,
translated what the German said to the captain and gave the captain’s
reply to the Wurttemberg hussar in German. When he had understood what
was said to him, the German submitted and took his men elsewhere. The
captain went out into the porch and gave some orders in a loud voice.
When he returned to the room Pierre was sitting in the same place as
before, with his head in his hands. His face expressed suffering. He
really was suffering at that moment. When the captain went out and he
was left alone, suddenly he came to himself and realized the position
he was in. It was not that Moscow had been taken or that the happy
conquerors were masters in it and were patronizing him. Painful as
that was it was not that which tormented Pierre at the moment. He was
tormented by the consciousness of his own weakness. The few glasses of
wine he had drunk and the conversation with this good-natured man had
destroyed the mood of concentrated gloom in which he had spent the last
few days and which was essential for the execution of his design. The
pistol, dagger, and peasant coat were ready. Napoleon was to enter the
town next day. Pierre still considered that it would be a useful and
worthy action to slay the evildoer, but now he felt that he would not
do it. He did not know why, but he felt a foreboding that he would not
carry out his intention. He struggled against the confession of his
weakness but dimly felt that he could not overcome it and that his
former gloomy frame of mind, concerning vengeance, killing, and
self-sacrifice, had been dispersed like dust by contact with the first
man he met.
The captain returned to the room, limping slightly and whistling a tune.
The Frenchman’s chatter which had previously amused Pierre now repelled
him. The tune he was whistling, his gait, and the gesture with which
he twirled his mustache, all now seemed offensive. "I will go away
immediately. I won’t say another word to him," thought Pierre. He
thought this, but still sat in the same place. A strange feeling of
weakness tied him to the spot; he wished to get up and go away, but
could not do so.
The captain, on the other hand, seemed very cheerful. He paced up and
down the room twice. His eyes shone and his mustache twitched as if he
were smiling to himself at some amusing thought.
"The colonel of those Wurttembergers is delightful," he suddenly said.
"He’s a German, but a nice fellow all the same.... But he’s a German."
He sat down facing Pierre. "By the way, you know German, then?"
Pierre looked at him in silence.
"What is the German for ‘shelter’?"
"Shelter?" Pierre repeated. "The German for shelter is Unterkunft."
"How do you say it?" the captain asked quickly and doubtfully.
"Unterkunft," Pierre repeated.
"Onterkoff," said the captain and looked at Pierre for some seconds with
laughing eyes. "These Germans are first-rate fools, don’t you think so,
Monsieur Pierre?" he concluded.
"Well, let’s have another bottle of this Moscow Bordeaux, shall we?
Morel will warm us up another little bottle. Morel!" he called out
gaily.
Morel brought candles and a bottle of wine. The captain looked at Pierre
by the candlelight and was evidently struck by the troubled expression
on his companion’s face. Ramballe, with genuine distress and sympathy in
his face, went up to Pierre and bent over him.
"There now, we’re sad," said he, touching Pierre’s hand. "Have I
upset you? No, really, have you anything against me?" he asked Pierre.
"Perhaps it’s the state of affairs?"
Pierre did not answer, but looked cordially into the Frenchman’s eyes
whose expression of sympathy was pleasing to him.
"Honestly, without speaking of what I owe you, I feel friendship for
you. Can I do anything for you? Dispose of me. It is for life and death.
I say it with my hand on my heart!" said he, striking his chest.
"Thank you," said Pierre.
The captain gazed intently at him as he had done when he learned that
"shelter" was Unterkunft in German, and his face suddenly brightened.
"Well, in that case, I drink to our friendship!" he cried gaily, filling
two glasses with wine.
Pierre took one of the glasses and emptied it. Ramballe emptied his too,
again pressed Pierre’s hand, and leaned his elbows on the table in a
pensive attitude.
"Yes, my dear friend," he began, "such is fortune’s caprice. Who would
have said that I should be a soldier and a captain of dragoons in the
service of Bonaparte, as we used to call him? Yet here I am in Moscow
with him. I must tell you, mon cher," he continued in the sad and
measured tones of a man who intends to tell a long story, "that our name
is one of the most ancient in France."
And with a Frenchman’s easy and naïve frankness the captain told Pierre
the story of his ancestors, his childhood, youth, and manhood, and all
about his relations and his financial and family affairs, "ma pauvre
mere" playing of course an important part in the story.
"But all that is only life’s setting, the real thing is love - love! Am I
not right, Monsieur Pierre?" said he, growing animated. "Another glass?"
Pierre again emptied his glass and poured himself out a third.
"Oh, women, women!" and the captain, looking with glistening eyes at
Pierre, began talking of love and of his love affairs.
There were very many of these, as one could easily believe, looking
at the officer’s handsome, self-satisfied face, and noting the eager
enthusiasm with which he spoke of women. Though all Ramballe’s love
stories had the sensual character which Frenchmen regard as the special
charm and poetry of love, yet he told his story with such sincere
conviction that he alone had experienced and known all the charm of love
and he described women so alluringly that Pierre listened to him with
curiosity.
It was plain that l’amour which the Frenchman was so fond of was not
that low and simple kind that Pierre had once felt for his wife, nor
was it the romantic love stimulated by himself that he experienced for
Natasha. (Ramballe despised both these kinds of love equally: the one
he considered the "love of clodhoppers" and the other the "love
of simpletons.") L’amour which the Frenchman worshiped consisted
principally in the unnaturalness of his relation to the woman and in a
combination of incongruities giving the chief charm to the feeling.
Thus the captain touchingly recounted the story of his love for a
fascinating marquise of thirty-five and at the same time for a charming,
innocent child of seventeen, daughter of the bewitching marquise. The
conflict of magnanimity between the mother and the daughter, ending in
the mother’s sacrificing herself and offering her daughter in marriage
to her lover, even now agitated the captain, though it was the memory of
a distant past. Then he recounted an episode in which the husband played
the part of the lover, and he - the lover - assumed the role of the husband,
as well as several droll incidents from his recollections of Germany,
where "shelter" is called Unterkunft and where the husbands eat
sauerkraut and the young girls are "too blonde."
Finally, the latest episode in Poland still fresh in the captain’s
memory, and which he narrated with rapid gestures and glowing face, was
of how he had saved the life of a Pole (in general, the saving of
life continually occurred in the captain’s stories) and the Pole had
entrusted to him his enchanting wife (parisienne de cœur) while himself
entering the French service. The captain was happy, the enchanting
Polish lady wished to elope with him, but, prompted by magnanimity, the
captain restored the wife to the husband, saying as he did so: "I have
saved your life, and I save your honor!" Having repeated these words the
captain wiped his eyes and gave himself a shake, as if driving away the
weakness which assailed him at this touching recollection.
Listening to the captain’s tales, Pierre - as often happens late in the
evening and under the influence of wine - followed all that was told him,
understood it all, and at the same time followed a train of personal
memories which, he knew not why, suddenly arose in his mind. While
listening to these love stories his own love for 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 detail of his last meeting with the object of
his love at the Sukharev water tower. At the time of that meeting it had
not produced an effect upon him - he had not even once recalled it. But
now it seemed to him that that meeting had had in it something very
important and poetic.
"Peter Kirilovich, come here! We have recognized you," he now seemed
to hear the words she had uttered and to see before him her eyes, her
smile, her traveling hood, and a stray lock of her hair... and there
seemed to him something pathetic and touching in all this.
Having finished his tale about the enchanting Polish lady, the captain
asked Pierre if he had ever experienced a similar impulse to sacrifice
himself for love and a feeling of envy of the legitimate husband.
Challenged by this question Pierre raised his head and felt a need to
express the thoughts that filled his mind. He began to explain that he
understood love for a woman somewhat differently. He said that in all
his life he had loved and still loved only one woman, and that she could
never be his.
"Tiens!" said the captain.
Pierre then explained that he had loved this woman from his earliest
years, but that he had not dared to think of her because she was too
young, and because he had been an illegitimate son without a name.
Afterwards when he had received a name and wealth he dared not think of
her because he loved her too well, placing her far above everything in
the world, and especially therefore above himself.
When he had reached this point, Pierre asked the captain whether he
understood that.
The captain made a gesture signifying that even if he did not understand
it he begged Pierre to continue.
"Platonic love, clouds..." he muttered.
Whether it was the wine he had drunk, or an impulse of frankness, or the
thought that this man did not, and never would, know any of those who
played a part in his story, or whether it was all these things together,
something loosened Pierre’s tongue. Speaking thickly and with a faraway
look in his shining eyes, he told the whole story of his life: his
marriage, Natasha’s love for his best friend, her betrayal of him, and
all his own simple relations with her. Urged on by Ramballe’s questions
he also told what he had at first concealed - his own position and even
his name.
More than anything else in Pierre’s story the captain was impressed by
the fact that Pierre was very rich, had two mansions in Moscow, and that
he had abandoned everything and not left the city, but remained there
concealing his name and station.
When it was late at night they went out together into the street. The
night was warm and light. To the left of the house on the Pokrovka a
fire glowed - the first of those that were beginning in Moscow. To the
right and high up in the sky was the sickle of the waning moon and
opposite to it hung that bright comet which was connected in Pierre’s
heart with his love. At the gate stood Gerasim, the cook, and two
Frenchmen. Their laughter and their mutually incomprehensible remarks in
two languages could be heard. They were looking at the glow seen in the
town.
There was nothing terrible in the one small, distant fire in the immense
city.
Gazing at the high starry sky, at the moon, at the comet, and at the
glow from the fire, Pierre experienced a joyful emotion. "There now,
how good it is, what more does one need?" thought he. And suddenly
remembering his intention he grew dizzy and felt so faint that he leaned
against the fence to save himself from falling.
Without taking leave of his new friend, Pierre left the gate with
unsteady steps and returning to his room lay down on the sofa and
immediately fell asleep.
CHAPTER XXX
The glow of the first fire that began on the second of September was
watched from the various roads by the fugitive Muscovites and by the
retreating troops, with many different feelings.
The Rostov party spent the night at Mytishchi, fourteen miles from
Moscow. They had started so late on the first of September, the road
had been so blocked by vehicles and troops, so many things had been
forgotten for which servants were sent back, that they had decided to
spend that night at a place three miles out of Moscow. The next morning
they woke late and were again delayed so often that they only got as far
as Great Mytishchi. At ten o’clock that evening the Rostov family and
the wounded traveling with them were all distributed in the yards and
huts of that large village. The Rostovs’ servants and coachmen and the
orderlies of the wounded officers, after attending to their masters, had
supper, fed the horses, and came out into the porches.
In a neighboring hut lay Raevski’s adjutant with a fractured wrist. The
awful pain he suffered made him moan incessantly and piteously, and his
moaning sounded terrible in the darkness of the autumn night. He had
spent the first night in the same yard as the Rostovs. The countess said
she had been unable to close her eyes on account of his moaning, and at
Mytishchi she moved into a worse hut simply to be farther away from the
wounded man.
In the darkness of the night one of the servants noticed, above the high
body of a coach standing before the porch, the small glow of another
fire. One glow had long been visible and everybody knew that it was
Little Mytishchi burning - set on fire by Mamonov’s Cossacks.
"But look here, brothers, there’s another fire!" remarked an orderly.
All turned their attention to the glow.
"But they told us Little Mytishchi had been set on fire by Mamonov’s
Cossacks."
"But that’s not Mytishchi, it’s farther away."
"Look, it must be in Moscow!"
Two of the gazers went round to the other side of the coach and sat down
on its steps.
"It’s more to the left, why, Little Mytishchi is over there, and this is
right on the other side."
Several men joined the first two.
"See how it’s flaring," said one. "That’s a fire in Moscow: either in
the Sushchevski or the Rogozhski quarter."
No one replied to this remark and for some time they all gazed silently
at the spreading flames of the second fire in the distance.
Old Daniel Terentich, the count’s valet (as he was called), came up to
the group and shouted at Mishka.
"What are you staring at, you good-for-nothing?... The count will be
calling and there’s nobody there; go and gather the clothes together."
"I only ran out to get some water," said Mishka.
"But what do you think, Daniel Terentich? Doesn’t it look as if that
glow were in Moscow?" remarked one of the footmen.
Daniel Terentich made no reply, and again for a long time they were all
silent. The glow spread, rising and falling, farther and farther still.
"God have mercy.... It’s windy and dry..." said another voice.
"Just look! See what it’s doing now. O Lord! You can even see the crows
flying. Lord have mercy on us sinners!"
"They’ll put it out, no fear!"
"Who’s to put it out?" Daniel Terentich, who had hitherto been silent,
was heard to say. His voice was calm and deliberate. "Moscow it is,
brothers," said he. "Mother Moscow, the white..." his voice faltered,
and he gave way to an old man’s sob.
And it was as if they had all only waited for this to realize the
significance for them of the glow they were watching. Sighs were heard,
words of prayer, and the sobbing of the count’s old valet.
CHAPTER XXXI
The valet, returning to the cottage, informed the count that Moscow was
burning. The count donned his dressing gown and went out to look. Sonya
and Madame Schoss, who had not yet undressed, went out with him. Only
Natasha and the countess remained in the room. Petya was no longer
with the family, he had gone on with his regiment which was making for
Troitsa.
The countess, on hearing that Moscow was on fire, began to cry. Natasha,
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 Sonya returning from the yard chilled and
frightened. "I believe the whole of Moscow will burn, there’s an awful
glow! Natasha, do look! You can see it from the window," she said to her
cousin, evidently wishing to distract her mind.
But Natasha looked at her as if not understanding what was said to her
and again fixed her eyes on the corner of the stove. She had been in
this condition of stupor since the morning, when Sonya, to the surprise
and annoyance of the countess, had for some unaccountable reason found
it necessary to tell Natasha 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 Sonya. Sonya had cried and begged to be forgiven and now,
as if trying to atone for her fault, paid unceasing attention to her
cousin.
"Look, Natasha, how dreadfully it is burning!" said she.
"What’s burning?" asked Natasha. "Oh, yes, Moscow."
And as if in order not to offend Sonya 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," Natasha replied in a voice that pleaded to be left
in peace.
Both the countess and Sonya understood that, naturally, neither Moscow
nor the burning of Moscow nor anything else could seem of importance to
Natasha.
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 Natasha 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 Natasha had been told that morning that Prince Andrew was seriously
wounded and was traveling with their party, she had at first asked many
questions: Where was he going? How was he wounded? Was it serious? And
could she see him? But after she had been told that she could not see
him, that he was seriously wounded but that his life was not in danger,
she ceased to ask questions or to speak at all, evidently disbelieving
what they told her, and convinced that say what she might she would
still be told the same. All the way she had sat motionless in a corner
of the coach with wide open eyes, and the expression in them which the
countess knew so well and feared so much, and now she sat in the same
way on the bench where she had seated herself on arriving. She was
planning something and either deciding or had already decided something
in her mind. The countess knew this, but what it might be she did not
know, and this alarmed and tormented her.
"Natasha, 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. Natasha 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 Sonya.
"Lie down, darling; lie down, my pet," said the countess, softly
touching Natasha’s shoulders. "Come, lie down."
"Oh, yes... I’ll lie down at once," said Natasha, and began hurriedly
undressing, tugging at the tapes of her petticoat.
When she had thrown off her dress and put on a dressing jacket, she sat
down with her foot under her on the bed that had been made up on the
floor, jerked her thin and rather short plait of hair to the front,
and began replaiting it. Her long, thin, practiced fingers rapidly
unplaited, replaited, and tied up her plait. Her head moved from side
to side from habit, but her eyes, feverishly wide, looked fixedly before
her. When her toilet for the night was finished she sank gently onto the
sheet spread over the hay on the side nearest the door.
"Natasha, you’d better lie in the middle," said Sonya.
"I’ll stay here," muttered Natasha. "Do lie down," she added crossly,
and buried her face in the pillow.
The countess, Madame Schoss, and Sonya undressed hastily and lay down.
The small lamp in front of the icons was the only light left in
the room. But in the yard there was a light from the fire at Little
Mytishchi a mile and a half away, and through the night came the noise
of people shouting at a tavern Mamonov’s Cossacks had set up across the
street, and the adjutant’s unceasing moans could still be heard.
For a long time Natasha listened attentively to the sounds that reached
her from inside and outside the room and did not move. First she heard
her mother praying and sighing and the creaking of her bed under
her, then Madame Schoss’ familiar whistling snore and Sonya’s gentle
breathing. Then the countess called to Natasha. Natasha did not answer.
"I think she’s asleep, Mamma," said Sonya softly.
After a short silence the countess spoke again but this time no one
replied.
Soon after that Natasha heard her mother’s even breathing. Natasha 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. Natasha sat up.
"Sonya, are you asleep? Mamma?" she whispered.
No one replied. Natasha rose slowly and carefully, crossed herself, and
stepped cautiously on the cold and dirty floor with her slim, supple,
bare feet. The boards of the floor creaked. Stepping cautiously from one
foot to the other she ran like a kitten the few steps to the door and
grasped the cold door handle.
It seemed to her that something heavy was beating rhythmically against
all the walls of the room: it was her own heart, sinking with alarm and
terror and overflowing with love.
She opened the door and stepped across the threshold and onto the cold,
damp earthen floor of the passage. The cold she felt refreshed her. With
her bare feet she touched a sleeping man, stepped over him, and opened
the door into the part of the hut where Prince Andrew lay. It was dark
in there. In the farthest corner, on a bench beside a bed on which
something was lying, stood a tallow candle with a long, thick, and
smoldering wick.
From the moment she had been told that morning of Prince Andrew’s wound
and his presence there, 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
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