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WAR AND PEACE 



BY 

COUNT LYOF N. TOLSTOI 



FROM THE RUSSIAN BY 

NATHAN HASKELL DOLE 



A VTHORIZED TRANSLA TION 



IN FOUK VOLUMES 
VOL. Ill 



NEW YORK 

THOMAS Y. CROWELL & COMPANY 
PUBLISHERS 



COPYRIGHT, 1889, BY 
T. Y. CROWELL & CO. 

COPYRIGHT, 1917, BY 
NATHAN HASKELL DOLE 





il 

3 

WAR AND PEACE. 



VOL. III. PART FIRST. 
CHAPTER I. 

TOWARD the end of the year 1811, a tremendous armament 
and concentration of forces took place in Western Europe ; 
and in 1812, these forces millions of men, counting those 
who were concerned in the transport and victualling of the 
armies were moved from west to east toward the borders of 
Russia, where the Russian forces were drawn up just as they 
had been the year before. 

On the 24th of June, the forces of Western Europe crossed 
the Russian frontier, and war began : in other words, an event 
took place opposed to human reason and human nature. 

Millions of men committed against one another an infinite 
number of crimes : deception, treachery, robbery, forgery, 
issues of false assignats, depredations, incendiary fires, mur- 
ders, such as the annals of all the courts in all the world could 
not equal in the aggregate of centuries ; and yet which, at 
that period, the perpetrators did not even regard as crimes. 

What brought about this extraordinary event ? 

What were its causes ? 

The historians, with naive credulity, assure us that the 
causes of this event are to be found in the affront offered to 
the Duke of Oldenbourg, in the disregard of the " Continental 
System," in Napoleon's ambition, Alexander's firmness, the 
mistakes of diplomatists, and what not. 

Of course, in that case, to put a stop to the war, it would 
have merely required Metternich, Rumyantsef, or Talleyrand, 
between a levee and a rout, to have made a little effort and 
skilfully composed a state paper; or, Napoleon to have 
written to Alexander: Monsieur, mon Fr&re, je consens a 
rendre le duche au Due d' Oldenbourg. 

It is easily understood that the matter presented itself in 
that light to the men of that day. It is easily understood 

VOL. a. i. 1 



2 WAR AND PEACE. 

that Napoleon attributed the cause of the war to England's 
intrigues (indeed, he said so on the island of St. Helena) ; it 
is easily understood that the members of the British Parlia- 
ment attributed the cause of the war to Napoleon's ambition ; 
that Prince Oldenbourg considered the war to have been 
caused by the insult which he had received ; that the mer- 
chants regarded the " Continental System," which was ruining 
European trade, as responsible for it ; that old veterans and 
generals saw the chief cause for it in the necessity to find 
them something to do ; the legitimists of that day, in the 
necessity of upholding les ban princlpes ; and the diplomatists 
in the fact that they had not been skilful enough to hoodwink 
Napoleon in regard to the Russian alliance with Austria in 
1809, or that it had been aAvkward to draw up memorandum 
No. 178. 

It is easily understood that these, and an endless number of 
other reasons the diversity of which is simply proportioned to 
the infinite diversity of standpoints satisfied the men who 
were living at that time ; but for us, Posterity, who are far 
enough removed to contemplate the magnitude of the event 
from a wider perspective, and who seek to fathom its simple and 
terrible meaning, such reasons appear insufficient. To us it is 
incomprehensible that millions of Christian men killed and tor- 
tured each other because Napoleon was ambitious, Alexander 
firm ; English policy, astute ; and Duke Oldenbourg, affronted. 
It is impossible to comprehend what connection these circum- 
stances have with the fact itself of murder and violence : why, 
in consequence of the affront put upon the duke, thousands 
of men from the other end of Europe should have killed and 
plundered the people of the governments of Smolensk and 
Moscow, and have been killed by them. 

For us, Posterity, who are not historians, and not carried 
away by any far-fetched processes of reasoning, and who can, 
therefore, contemplate the phenomena with unclouded and 
healthy vision, the causes thereof arise before us in all their 
innumerable quantity. The deeper we delve into the investi- 
gation of causes, the more numerous do they open up before 
us ; and every separately considered cause, or whole series of 
causes, appears equally efficient in its own nature, and equally 
fallacious by reason of its utter insignificance in comparison 
with the prodigiousness of the events ; and equally fallacious 
also by reason of its inability, without the co-operation of all 
the other causes combined, to produce the events in question. 

Such a cause as the refusal of the Napoleon to draw his 



WAR AND PEACE. 3 

army back within the Vistula, and to restore the duchy of 
Oldenbourg, has as much weight in this consideration .as the 
willingness or unwillingness of a single French corporal to 
take part in the campaign ; whereas, if he had refused, and a 
second, and a third, and a thousand corporals and soldiers had 
likewise refused, Napoleon's army would have been so greatly 
reduced that the war could not have occurred. 

If Napoleon had not been offended by the demand to retire 
his troops beyond the Vistula, and had not issued orders for 
them to give battle, there would have been no war ; but if all 
the sergeants had refused to go into action, there also would 
have been no war. And there would also have been no war if 
there had been no English intrigues, and 110 Prince Oldenbourg ; 
and if Alexander had not felt himself aggrieved ; and if there 
had been no autocratic power in Russia; and if there had been 
no French Revolution, and no Dictatorship, and Empire follow- 
ing it j and nothing of all that led up to the Revolution, and so 
on. Had any one of these causes been missing, war could 
have taken place. Consequently, all of them milliards 
of causes must have co-operated to bring about what re- 
sulted. 

And, as a corollary, there could have been no exclusive final 
cause for these events ; and the great event was accomplished 
simply because it had to be accomplished. And so millions of 
men, renouncing all their human feelings, and their reason, 
had to march from west to east, and kill their fellows ; exactly 
the same as, several centuries before, swarms of men had swept 
from east to west, likewise killing their fellows. 

The deeds of Napoleon and Alexander, on whose fiat appar- 
ently depended this or that occurrence, were just as far from 
being spontaneous and free as the actions of the merest sol- 
dier taking part in the expedition, either as a conscript or as 
recruit. This was inevitably the case, because, in order that 
Napoleon's or Alexander's will should be executed they be- 
ing apparently the men on whom the event depended the 
co-operation of countless factors was requisite, one of which 
failing, the event could not have occurred. It was indispensa- 
ble that millions of men, in whose hands was really all the 
power, soldiers who fought, and men who transported muni- 
tions of war and cannon, should consent to carry out the will 
of these two feeble human units ; and they were brought 
to this by an endless number of complicated and varied 
causes. 

Fatalism in history is inevitable, if we would explain its il- 



i WAR AND PEACE. 

logical phenomena (that is to say, those events the reason for 
which. is beyond our comprehension). The more \ve strive by 
our reason to explain these phenomena in history, the more 
illogical and incomprehensible to 'us they become. 

Every man lives for himself, and enjoys sufficient freedom 
for the attainment of his own personal ends, and is conscious 
in his whole being that he can instantly perform or refuse to 
perform any action ; but as soon as he has done it, this action, 
accomplished in a definite period of time, becomes irrevocable 
and forms an element in history, in which it takes its place 
with a fully pre-ordained and no longer capricious significance. 

Every man has a twofold life : on one side is his personal 
life, which is free in proportion as its interests are abstract ; 
the other is life as an element, as one bee in the swarm ; and 
here a man has no chance of disregarding the laws imposed 
upon him. 

Man consciously lives for himself ; but, at the same time, he 
serves as an unconscious instrument for the accomplishment 
of historical and social ends. An action once accomplished 
is fixed ; and when a man's activity coincides with others, with 
the millions of actions of other men, it acquires historical sig- 
nificance. The higher a man stands on the social ladder, the 
more men he is connected with ; the greater the influence he 
exerts over others, the more evident is the predestined and 
unavoidable necessity of his every action. 

" The king's heart is in the hand of the Lord." 

The king is the slave of history. 

History, that is to say, the unconscious, universal life of 
humanity, in the aggregate, every moment profits by the life 
of kings for itself, as an instrument for the accomplishment of 
its own ends. 

Napoleon, though never before had it seemed so evident to 
him as now in this year. 1809, that it depended upon him 
whether he should shed or not shed the blood of his people 
verser le sany de ses peuples, as Alexander expressed it in his 
last letter to him was in reality never before so subordinated 
to the inevitable laws which compelled him even while, as it 
seemed to him, working in accordance with his own freewill 
to accomplish for the world in general, for history, what was 
destined to be accomplished. 

The men of the West moved toward the East so as to kill 
each other. And, by the law of co-ordination, thousands 
of trifling causes made themselves into the guise of final 



WAR AND PEACE. 5 

causes, and coinciding with this event, apparently explained 
this movement and this war : the dissatisfaction with the 
" Continental System ; " and the Duke of Oldenbourg ; and the 
invasion of Prussia, undertaken (as it seemed to Napoleon) 
simply for the purpose of bringing about an armed neutrality ; 
and the French Emperor's love and habit of war coinciding with 
the disposition of his people ; the attraction of grander prepa- 
rations, and the outlays for such preparations, and the necessity 
for indemnities for meeting these outlays ; and the intoxicat- 
ing honors paid at Dresden ; and the diplomatic negotiations 
which, in the opinion of contemporaries, were conducted with a 
sincere desire to preserve peace, but which merely offended the 
pride of either side ; and millions and millions of other causes, 
serving as specious reasons for this event which had taken 
place, and coinciding with it. 

When an apple is ripe and falls, what makes it fall ? Is it 
the attraction of gravitation ? or is it b?cause its stem withers ? 
or because the sun dries it up ? or because it is heavy ? or 
because the wind shakes it ? or because the small boy standing 
underneath is hungry for it ? 

There is no such proximate cause. The whole thing is the 
result of all those conditions, in accordance with which every 
vital, organic, complex event occurs. And the botanist who 
argues that the apple fell from the effect of decomposing vege- 
table tissue, or the like, is just as much in the right as the boy 
who, standing below, declares that the apple fell because he 
wanted to eat it, and prayed for it. 

Equally right and equally wrong would be the one who 
should say that Napoleon went to Moscow because he wanted 
to go, and was. ruined because Alexander wished him to be 
ruined ; equally right and equally wrong would be the man who 
should declare that a mountain, weighing millions of tons and 
undermined, fell in consequence of the last blow of the mat- 
tock dealt by the last laborer. In the events of history, so- 
called great men are merely tags that supply a name to the 
event, and have quite as little connection with the event itself 
as the tag. 

Every one of their actions, though apparently performed by 
their own free will, is, in its historical significance, out of the 
scope of volition, and is correlated with the whole trend of his- 
tory ; and is, consequently, pre-ordained from all eternity, 



WAR AND PEACE. 



CHAPTER II. 

ON the 10th of June, Napoleon, started from Dresden, where 
he had been for three weeks the centre of a court composed of 
princes, dukes, kings, and at least one emperor. 

Before his departure, Napoleon showed his favor to the 
princes, kings, and the emperor, who deserved it : he turned a 
cold shoulder on the kings and princes who had incurred his 
displeasure; he gave the Empress of Austria pearls and dia- 
monds, which he called his own, though they had been stolen 
from other kings, and then tenderly embracing the Empress 
Maria Louisa, as the historian terms her, left her heart-broken 
by his absence, which it seemed to her, now that she considered 
herself his consort, although he had another consort left behind 
in Paris, was too hard to be endured. 

Although the diplomats stoutly maintained their belief 
in the possibility of peace, and were working heartily for this 
end ; although Napoleon himself wrote a letter to the Emperor 
Alexander, calling him Monsieur, mon Frere, and sincerely assur- 
ing him that he had no desire for war, and that he should 
always love and respect him ; still, he was off for the army, 
and at every station was issuing new rescripts having in view 
to expedite the movement of the troops from west to east. 

He travelled in a calash drawn by six horses, and accom- 
panied by his pages, aides, and an -escort, and took the route 
through Posen, Thorn, Dantzic, and Konigsberg. The army 
was moving from the west to the east, and relays of fresh horses 
bore him in the same direction. On the 22d of June, he over- 
took the army, and spent the night in the Wilkowisky forest, 
on the estate^of a Polish count, where quarters had been made 
ready for him. 

On the following day Napoleon, outstripping the army, 
drove to the Niemen in his calash ; and, for the purpose of 
reconnoitring the spot where the army was to cross, he put 
on a Polish uniform, and went down to the banks of the 
river. 

When he saw on the other side the Cossacks, and the wide- 
stretching steppes, in the centre of which was Moscou, la ville 
sainte, the capital of that empire, which reminded him of the 
Scythian one, against which Alexander of Macedon had 
marched, Napoleon, unexpectedly and contrary to all strategi- 
cal as well as diplomatic considerations, gave orders for the 



WAR AND PEACE. 7 

advance, and on the next day the troops began to cross the 
Niemen. 

Early on the morning of the twenty-fourth, he emerged 
from his tent, which had been pitched on the steep left bank 
of the river, and looked through his field-glass at the torrents 
of his troops pouring forth from the Wilkowisky forest, and 
streaming across the three bridges thrown over the Niemen. 

The troops were aware of the presence of the emperor ; 
they searched for him with their eyes, and when they discov- 
ered him on the cliff, standing in front of his tent, and distin- 
guished from his suite by his figure, in an overcoat and cocked 
hat, they flung their caps in the air, and shouted, " Vive I'em- 
pereur ! " and then, rank after rank, a never-ceasing stream, they 
poured forth and still poured forth from the mighty forest 
that till now had concealed them, and, dividing into three 
currents, crossed over the bridges to the other side. 
' " Something'll be done this time ! Oh, when he takes a 
hand, he makes things hot ! God save us. There he is ! 
Hurrah for the emperor ! " 

" So these are the Steppes of Asia ? Beastly country all 
the same ! " 

" Good-by ! Beauche, I'll save the best palace in Moscow 
for you. Good-by ! Luck to you ! " 

" Have you seen him ? The emperor ? Hurrah for the 
emperor ror ror ! " 

" If I am made Governor of India, Gerard, I'll appoint you 
minister at Cashmir ; that's a settled thing." 

" Hurrah for the emperor ! Hurrah ! hurrah ! hurrah ! " 

" Those rascally Cossacks ! how they run ! Hurrah for the 
emperor ! " 

" There he is ! Do you see him ? Twice I've seen him as 
plain as I see you, the l Little Corporal ! ' J 

"I saw him give the cross to one of our vets. Hurrah for 
the emperor ! " * 

Such were the remarks and shouts made by men, both 
young and old, of the most widely differing characters and 

* " On fera du chemin cette fois-ci. Oh ' qiiand il s'en mele hit meme ca 
chaujff'e. Nom de Dieu ! Le voila ! Vive I'empereur ! Les voila done 
les Steppes de I'Asie ! Villain pays, tout de meme ! A revoir, Beauche ; je le 
reserve le plus beau palais de Moscou. A revoir ! Bonne chance. L'as tu 
vu, I'empereur? Vive I'empereur preur .' Si on me fait gouverneur 
aux Indes, Gerard, je tefais ministre de Cachemir ; c'est arrete". Vive I'em- 
pereur ! Vive! Vive! Vive! Ces gredins de Cosaques, comme Us filent ! 
Vive I'empereur .' Le voila ! Le vois tu ? je I'ai vu deux fois comme je te 
vois ! Le petit caporal ! Je I'ai vu donner la croix a I'un des vieux. Vive 
temper eur .' " 



8 WAR AND PEACE. 

positions in the world. The faces of all these men bore one 
aniversal expression of delight at the beginning of the long 
expected campaign, and of enthusiasm and devotion for the 
man in the gray overcoat, standing on the hill. 

On the twenty-fifth of June a small thoroughbred Arab 
steed was brought to Napoleon, and he mounted and set off at 
a gallop down to one of the three bridges over the Niemen, 
greeted all the way by enthusiastic acclamations, which he 
evidently endured for the reason that it was impossible to 
prevent the men from expressing by these shouts their love 
for him ; but these acclamations, which accompanied him 
wherever he went, fatigued him, and distracted his attention 
from the military task that met him at the moment that he 
reached the army. 

He rode across the bridge that shook under his horse's 
hoofs, and, on reaching the farther side, turned abruptly to 
the left, and galloped off in the direction of Kovno, preceded 
by his mounted guards, who, crazy with delight and enthu- 
siasm, cleared the way for him through the troops pressing on 
ahead. On reaching the broad river Vistula, he reined in his 
horse near a regiment of Polish Uhlans, that was halted on 
the bank. 

" Hurrah ! " shouted the Polyaks, no less enthusiastically, 
as they fell out of line, elbowing each other, in their efforts 
to get a sight of him. Napoleon contemplated the river; then 
dismounted and sat down on a log that happened to be lying 
on the bank. At a mute signal, his telescope was handed 
him ; he rested it on the shoulder of one of his pages, who 
came forward beaming with delight, and began to reconnoitre 
the other shore. Then he remained lost in study of a map 
spread out over the driftwood. Without' lifting his head he 
said something, and two of his aides galloped off toward the 
Polish Uhlans. 

" What was it ? What did he say ? " was heard in the 
ranks of the Uhlans, as one of the aides came hurrying toward 
them. 

The order was that they should find a ford, and cross to the 
other side. 

The Polish colonel, who commanded the Uhlans, a hand- 
some old man, flushing and stumbling in his speech from 
excitement, asked the aide-de-camp whether he might be 
permitted to swim the river with his men, instead of trying to 
tind the ford. He was evidently as apprehensive of receiving 
a refusal as a schoolboy who asks permission to ride on horse- 



WAR AND PEACE. 9 

back ; and what he craved was the chance to swim the river 
under his emperor's eyes. 

The aide-de-camp replied that in all probability the em- 
peror would not be displeased with this superfluity of 
zeal. 

As soon as the aide-de-camp had said this, the old musta- 
chioed officer, with beaming face and gleaming eyes, waved his 
sword and cried Vivat ! And ordering his Uhlans to follow 
him, he plunged spurs into his horse and dashed down to the 
river. He angrily struck the horse, that shied at the task, and 
forced him into the water, striking out boldly into the swift 
current where it was deepest. The water was cold, and the 
swiftness of the current made the passage difficult. The 
Uhlans clung to one another, in case they were dismounted 
from their horses. Several of the horses were drowned, and 
some of the men ; the others endeavored to swim, one clinging 
to his saddle, another to his horse's mane. Their endeavor 
was to swim to the farther side, and, although there was 
a ford only half a verst below, they were proud of swim- 
ming and drowning in that river under the eye of the man 
sitting on the log, and not even noticing what they were 
doing ! 

When the aide-de-camp on his return found a favorable 
moment, he allowed himself to call the emperor's attention to 
the devotion of these Polyaks to his person. The little man 
in the gray great-coat got up, and, calling Berthier, began to 
walk with him back and forth on the river bank, giving him 
orders, and occasionally casting a dissatisfied glance at the 
drowning Uhlans, who distracted his attention. 

It was nothing new in his experience that his presence any- 
where, in the deserts of Africa as well as in the Moscovite 
steppes, was sufficient to stimulate and drive men into the 
most senseless self-sacrifice. He commanded a horse to be 
brought, and rode back to his bivouac. 

Forty Uhlans were drowned in the river, although boats 
were sent to their aid. The majority gave up the task, and 
returned to the hither side. The colonel and a few of the 
men swam across the river, and with great difficulty crept up 
on the farther shore. But as soon as they were on the land, 
though their garments were streaming with water, they 
shouted Vivat, gazing with rapture at the spot where Napoleon 
had been, but from which he had vanished, and counting 
themselves fortunate. 

In the afternoon, after making arrangements for procuring 



10 WAR AND PEACE. 

with all possible despatch the counterfeit Russian assignats. 
that had been prepared for use in Russia ; and after issuing an 
order to shoot a certain Saxon, who, in a letter that had been 
intercepted, gave information in regard to the disposition of 
the French forces ; Napoleon, in still a third order, caused the 
Polish colonel who had quite needlessly flung himself into the 
river, to be enrolled in the Legion d'Honneur,* of which he him- 
self was the head. 

Quos vult perdere dementat.'f 



CHAPTER III. 

THE Russian emperor, meantime, had been now for more 
than a month at Vilno, superintending reviews and ma- 
noeuvres. 

Nothing was ready for the war, though all had foreseen that 
it was coming, and though the emperor had left Petersburg 
to prepare for it. The vacillation as to what plan, from among 
the many that had been prepared, was to be selected, was still 
more pronounced after the emperor had been for a month at 
headquarters. 

Each of the three divisions of the army had a separate com- 
mander ; but there was no nachalnik, or responsible chief, over 
all the forces ; and the emperor did not see fit to assume this 
position. 

The longer the emperor staid at Vilna, the less ready for 
the war were they who had grown weary of expecting it. The 
whole purpose of those who surrounded the sovereign seemed 
directed toward making him pass the time agreeably, and for- 
get about the impending conflict. 

After a series of balls and festivities, given by Polish mag- 
nates, and by the courtiers, and by the emperor himself, a 
Polish adjutant proposed one fine June day, that the im- 
perial staff should give a banquet and ball, in his majesty's 
honor. 

The suggestion was gladly adopted by all. The sovereign 
g-ranted his sanction. The imperial adjutants collected the 
necessary funds by a subscription. A lady, who it was thought 
would be most acceptable to the emperor, was invited to do 
the honors. Count Benigsen, a landed proprietor of the Viliiq 

* Instituted by Napoleon, May 19, 1802 ; carried out, July 14, 1814. 
t Those whom God wishes to destroy, he fia-st makes mad. 



WAR AND PEACE. \\ 

government, tendered the use of his country house for the 
festivity, which was set for the 25th of June ; and it was 
decided that the ball and banquet, together with a regatta and 
fireworks, should take place at Zakreto, Count Benigsen's 
country place. 

On that very day on which Napoleon gave orders to cross 
the Niemen, and the vanguard of his army drove back the 
Cossacks and set foot on Russian soil, Alexander was spend- 
ing the evening at Count Benigsen's villa, at a ball given by 
his staff ! 

It was a gay, brilliant occasion. Connoisseurs in such mat- 
ters declared that never before had so many pretty women 
been gathered in one place. The Countess Bezukhaya, who, 
with other Russian ladies, had followed the sovereign from 
Petersburg to Vilno, was at this ball ; by her overwhelming 
so-called Russian beauty quite putting into the shade the more 
refined and delicate Polish ladies. She attracted much atten- 
tion, and the sovereign did her the honor of dancing with 
her. 

Boris Drubetskoi, having left his wife at Moscow, was also 
present at this ball^?i gar^on, as he expressed it j and, although 
not on his majesty's staff, was a participant in the festivities 
in virtue of having subscribed a large sum toward the expenses. 
Boris was now a rich man, who had already arrived at high 
honors, and now no longer required patronage ; but stood on 
an equal footing with any of his own age, no matter how lofty 
their rank might be. 

He had met Ellen at Vilno, not having seen her for some 
time ; but he made no reference to the past. But as Ellen 
was "enjoying the favor" of a very influential individual, 
and Boris had not long been married, it suited their purposes 
to meet as good old friends. 

At midnight, they were still dancing. Ellen, finding no 
partner to her taste, had herself proposed to Boris to dance 
the mazurka. They were in the third set. Boris, with cool in- 
difference glancing at Ellen 7 s dazzling, bare shoulders, set off 
by a dark gauze dress, shot with gold, was talking about old 
acquaintances ; and, at the same time, neither he nor any one 
else observed that, not for a single second, did he cease to 
watch the emperor, who was in the same hall. 
1 The emperor was not dancing : he was standing in the door- 
way, and addressing, now to one and now to another, those 
gracious words which % he, of all men alone, had the art of speak 
ing. 

- 



12 WAR AND PEACE. 

Just before the beginning of the mazurka, Boris noticed 
that the General- Adjutant Balashof, who stood on terms of 
special intimacy with the sovereign, approached him as he 
was talking with a Polish lady, and, contrary to court etiquette, 
stood waiting at a short distance from him. While still talk- 
ing, the sovereign looked up inquiringly, and, evidently per- 
ceiving that only weighty considerations would have caused 
Balashof to act thus, he gave the lady a slight bow, and turned 
to the adjutant. 

At Balashof's very first words, an expression like amazement 
came over the sovereign's face. He took Balashof's arm, and, 
together with him, crossed the ballroom, so absorbed that he 
did not notice how the company parted, making a sort of lane, 
three sazhens wide, through which he passed. 

Boris observed Arakcheyef's agitated face, as the sovereign 
walked out with Balashof. Arakcheyef, looking askance at 
the emperor, and snuffing through his red nose, moved out 
from the throng, as though expecting that the sovereign would 
address him. It was clear to Boris that Arakcheyef hated 
Balashof, and was much dissatisfied that any news of impor- 
tance should be brought to the sovereign otherwise than through 
him. 

But the sovereign, not heeding Arakcheyef, passed out. 
together with Balashof, through the open door, into the br' 
liantly illuminated garden. Arakcheyef, grasping the hilt 
his sword, and viciously glancing around, followed th< 
twenty steps in the rear. 

While Boris continued to perform the proper figures of the 
mazurka, he was continually tortured by the thought of what 
news Balashof had brought, arid how he might get hold of it 
before the others. 

In the figure, when he had to choose a lady, he whispered 
to Ellen that he wanted to get the Countess Potocka, who, he 
believed, had gone out on the balcony. Hastily crossing the 
marquetry floor, he slipped out of the open door into the 
garden ; and there, perceiving the sovereign walking along 
the terrace in company with Balashof, he stepped to one side, j 
The sovereign and Balashof were directing their steps toward 
the door. Boris, pretending that in spite of all his efforts ..e 
had not time to get out of the way, respectfully crowded up 
against the lintel and bowed. 

The sovereign, with the agitated face of a man personally 
offended, uttered these words : 

" To make war against Russia without any declaration ! I 



WAR AND PEACE. 13 

will never consent to peace so long as a single armed foe 
remains in my land ! " said he. It seemed to Boris that the 
sovereign took a delight in uttering these words ; he was satis- 
fied with the form in which his thought was couched, but he 
was annoyed that Boris had overheard him. ( < Let not a word 
of this be known," he added, with a frown. Boris understood 
that this was a hint to him, and, closing his eyes, he again 
bowed slightly. The sovereign returned to the ballroom, and 
remained for about half an hour longer. 

Boris was the first to learn the news of the French army 
having crossed the Niemen ; and, turning his luck to good use, 
made several important personages think that many things 
concealed from the others were known to him, and thereby he 
succeeded in rising still higher in their estimation. 

The news of the French crossing the Niemen, unexpected 
as it was, was peculiarly unexpected after a long month of 
strained expectancy, and by reason of being announced at a 
ball ! The sovereign, at the first instant of receiving the news, 
under the influence of inner revolt and indignation, made use 
of that bold sentiment which gave him such satisfaction, and 
so exactly expressed his feeling, at the time, and afterwards 
became famous. 

On his return to his residence after the ball, the sovereign 

3nt, at two o'clock in the morning, for his secretary, Shish- 

in ; and dictated a general order to his troops, and a re- 

jript to Field-Marshal Prince Saltuikof, strictly charging 

nim to use the words about his refusal to make peace so 

long as a single armed Frenchman remained, on Russian 

soil. On the next day, the following note was written to 

Napoleon : 

MY BROTHER: I learned yesterday that, notwithstanding the fidelity 
with which I have adhered to my engagements towards your majesty, 
your troops have crossed the Russian frontier; and I have this moment 
received from Petersburg a note wherein Count Lauriston, in order to ex- 
plain this aggression, announces that your majesty considered himself at 
war with me from the time that Prince Kurakin demanded his pass- 
ports. The grounds on which the Duke of Bassano refused to grant it 
would never have allowed me to suppose that this step could serve as a 
pretext for the aggression. In fact, my ambassador was never authorized 
to take this step, as he himself explicitly declared; and, as soon as I was 
informed of it, I manifested the extent of my disapproval by ordering him 
to remain at his post. If your majesty is not obstinately bent upon shed- 
ding the blood of our peoples through a misunderstanding of this sort, and 
will consent to withdraw your troops from the Russian territory, I will 
regard what has passed as non-existent, and we may arrive at some 



14 WAR AND PEACE. 

accommodation. In the opposite case, your majesty, I shall be com- 
pelled to repulse an attack which I have done nothing to provoke. 
There is still a chance for your majesty to avoid the calamities of a 
new war. I am, etc., 

(Signed) ALEXANDER.* 



CHAPTER IV. 

ON the twenty-fifth of June, at two o'clock in the morning, 
the sovereign, having summoned Balashof, and read over to 
him his letter to Napoleon, ordered him to take it and deliver 
it to the French emperor in person. In despatching Balashof, 
the sovereign once more repeated what he had said about not 
making peace so long as a single armed foe remained on Rus- 
sian soil, and he ordered him to quote these exact words to 
Napoleon. The sovereign did not incorporate this threat in 
his letter to Napoleon, because his tact made him feel that 
they were inappropriate at a moment when the last efforts 
were making for reconciliation ; but he strenuously com- 
manded Balashof to repeat them to Napoleon verbally. 

Setting off that very same night, Balashof, accompanied by 
a bugler and two Cossacks, by daybreak reached the village of 
Rykonty, on the Russian side of the Niemen, where the French 
vanguard were stationed. He was brought to a halt by the 
French videttes. A non-commissioned officer of hussars, in a 
crimson uniform and shaggy cap, challenged the approaching 
envoy, and ordered him to halt. Balashof did not come in- 

* Monsieur mon Fr"ere : J'ai appris hier que malgre la ioyaute, avec 
laquellej'ai maintenu mes engagements envers votre majeste, sen troupes 
ont franchi les frontieres de la Russie, et je reqois a V instant de 
Petersbourg une note par laquelle le Comte Lauriston, pour cause de 
cette aggression, annonce que votre majeste s'est consideree comine 
en etat de guerre avec moi des le moment ou le prince Kourakine a fait 
la demande de ses passeports. Les motifs sur lesqitelles le due de Bas- 
sanofondait son refus de les lui delivrer, n'auraient jamais pu me faire 
supposer que cette demarche servir ait jamais de pretext e a I* aggression. 
En effet cet ambassadeur n'y a jamais ete autorise comme il Va declare 
lui meme, et aussitdt qne j^enfusmforme^jelid aifait connaitre combien 
je le desapprouvait en lui donnant Vordre de rester a son poste. Si votre 
majeste n'est pas intentionnee de verser le sang de nos peuples pour un 
mdlentendu de ce genre et qiCelle consente a retirer ses troupes du terri- 
toire ruxse,je regarderai ce qui s-est passe comme non avenu et un ac- 
commodement entre nous sera possible. Dans le cas contraire, votre 
majeste, je me verrai force de repousser une attaque que rien n'a 
provoquee de ma part. II depend encore de votre majeste, d'emter a 
Vhumanite les calamites d'une nouvelle guerre. 

Je snis, etc., (Signe) ALEXANDRE. 



WAR AND PEACE. 15 

stantly to a pause, but continued to advance at a footpace 
along the roacl. 

The subaltern, scowling and muttering some abusive epi- 
thet, blocked Balashof's way with his horse, and rudely 
shouted to the Russian general, demanding if he were deaf, 
that he paid no attention to what was said to him. Balashof 
gave his name. The subaltern sent a soldier to the officer in 
command. 

Paying no further heed to Balashof, the non-commissioned 
officer began to talk with his comrades concerning their pri- 
vate affairs, and did not even look at the Russian general. 

It was an absolutely new experience for Balashof, after 
being so accustomed to proximity to the very fountain head of 
power and might, after just coming from a three hours' con- 
versation with his sovereign, and having been universally 
treated with respect, to find this, here on Russian soil, hostile 
and peculiarly disrespectful display of brutal insolence. 

The sun was just beginning to break through the clouds ; 
the air was .cool and fresh with dew. Along the road from 
the village they were driving the cattle to pasture. Over the 
fields, one after another, like bubbles in the water, soared the 
larks with their matin songs. 

Balashof looked about him while waiting for the officer to 
arrive from the village. The Russian Cossacks and the bugler 
and the French hussars occasionally exchanged glances, but no 
one spoke. 

A French colonel of hussars, evidently just out of bed, came 
riding up from the village on a handsome, well fed, gray 
horse, accompanied by two hussars. The officer, the soldiers, 
and their horses had an appearance of content and jauntiness. 

It was the first period of the campaign, while the army was 
still in the very best order, almost lit for a review in time of 
peace, with just a shade of martial smartness in their attire, 
and with their minds a trifle stirred up to that gayety and 
cheerfulness and spirit of enterprise that always characterize 
the beginning of an expedition. 

The French colonel with difficulty overcame a fit of yawn- 
ing, but he was courteous, and evidently appreciated Balashof's 
high dignity. He conducted him past his soldiers inside the 
lines, and informed him that his desire to have a personal 
interview with the emperor would in all probability be imme- 
diately granted, since the imperial headquarters, he believed, 
were not far distant. 

They approached the village of Rykonty, riding by pickets, 



16 WAR AND PEACE. 

sentinels, and soldiery, who saluted their colonel, and gazed 
with curiosity at the Russian uniforms, and finally came to 
the other side of the village. According to the colonel, the. 
chief of division, who would receive Balashof and arrange the 
interview, would be found two kilometers distant. 

The sun was now mounting high, and shone bright and 
beautiful over the vivid green of the fields. 

They had just passed a pot-house on a hillside, when they 
saw, coming to meet them up the hill, a little band of horse- 
men, led by a tall man in a red cloak and in a plumed hat, 
under which long dark loaks rolled down upon his shoulders. 
He rode a coal-black horse, whose housings glittered in the 
sun, and his long legs were thrust forward in the fashion affected 
by French riders. This man came at a gallop toward Bala- 
shof, flashing and waving in the bright June sun, with his 
plumes and precious stones and gold galloons. 

Balashof was within the length of two horses from this 
enthusiastically theatrical-looking individual, who was gallop- 
ing to meet him in all his bravery of bracelets, plumes, neck- 
laces, and gold, when lulner, the French colonel, respectfully 
said, in a deferential whisper, " Le roi de Naples.' 17 

This was indeed Murat, who was still called the King of 
Naples. Although it was wholly incomprehensible in what 
respect he was the king of Naples, still he bore that title ; and' 
he himself was convinced of its validity, and consequently he 
assumed a more majestic and important aspect than ever 
before. He was so convinced that he was actually King of 
Naples that when, on the day before his departure from that 
city, as he was walking with his wife through the streets of 
Naples, and a few Italians acclaimed him with Viva il 
re Hurrah for the king he turned to his consort and said, 
with a melancholy smile, " Oh, poor creatures, they do not 
know that I am going to leave them to-morrow." 

But though he firmly believed that he was King of Naples, and 
was grieved for the sorrow that was coming upon his faith- 
ful subjects in losing him, still when he was commanded to 
enter the military service again, and especially since his meet- 
ing with Napoleon at Danzig, when his august brother-in- 
law had said to him, " I made you king to reign in my way, 
not in yours," * he had cheerfully taken up the business which 
he understood so well, and, like a carriage horse, driven but 
not overworked, feeling himself in harness, he was frisky 
even between the thills, and, decked out in the most gorgeous 
* Je vous aifait roi pour rcyner a ma mamere, mats pat a la votre. 



WAR AND PEACE. 17 

and costly manner possible, galloped gayly and contentedly 
along the Polish highway, not knowing whither or wherefore. 

As soon as he api .reached the Eussian general, he threw his 
head back in royal fashion, and solemnly, with his black curls 
flowing down over his shoulders, looked inquiringly at the 
French colonel. The colonel respectfully explained to his Ma- 
jesty Balashof's errand, though he could not pronounce his name. 

" De Bal-ma-cheve" said the king, his self-confidence help- 
ing him to overcome the difficulty that had floored the colonel. 
" Channe de faire votre connaissance, general" he added, with 
a royally gracious gesture. 

The moment the king began to speak loud and rapidly all 
the kingly dignity instantly deserted him, and, without his 
suspecting such a thing himself, changed into a tone of good-' 
natured familiarity. He laid his hand on the withers of Bal- 
ashof's horse. 

" Well, general, everything looks like war, it seems," said 
he, as though he regretted a state of things concerning which 
he was in no position to judge. 

" Your majesty," replied Balashof, " the Russian emperor, my 
sovereign, has no desire for war, and, as your majesty sees," . . . 
said Balashof, and thus he went on, with unavoidable affects 
tion, repeating the title votre majeste at every opportunity 
during his conversation with this individual, for whom it was 
still a novelty. 

Murat's face glowed with dull satisfaction while he listened 
to Monsieur de Balachoff. But royaute oblige ; and he felt 
that it was indispensable for him, as king and ally, to converse 
with Alexander's envoy, on matters of state. He dismounted, 
and, taking Balashof's arm, and drawing him a few paces aside 
from his suite, waiting respectfully, he began to walk up and 
down with him, trying to speak with all authority. He in- 
formed him that the Emperor Napoleon was offended by the 
demand made upon him to withdraw his forces from Prussia : 
especially as this demand was made publicly, and, therefore, 
was an insult to the dignity of France. 

Balashof said that there was nothing insulting in this 
demand, "because" 

Murat interrupted him, 

" So then you do not consider the Emperor Alexander as the 
instigator of the war ? " he asked, suddenly, with a stupidly 
good-natured smile. 

Balashof explained why he really supposed that Napoleon 
was the aggressor. 
VOL. 3. 2. 



18 WAR AND PEACE. 

" Ah, my dear general," again exclaimed Murat, interrupt- 
ing him, "I desire, with all my heart, that the emperors 
should come to a mutual understanding, and that the war, 
begun in spite of me, should be brought to a termination as soon 
as possible," * said he, in the tone of servants who wish to remain 
good friends, though their masters may quarrel. And he pro- 
ceeded to make inquiries about the grand duke, and the state 
of his health, and recalled the jolly good times which they had 
enjoyed together at Naples. Then, suddenly, as though re- 
membering his kingly dignity, Murat drew himself up haugh- 
tily, struck the same attitude in which he had stood during his 
coronation, and, waving his right hand, said, 

" I will not detain you longer, general ; I wish you all suc- 
cess in your mission ; " and then, with his embroidered red 
mantle, and his plumes gayly waving, and his precious trin- 
kets glittering in the sun, he rejoined his suite, which had 
been respectfully waiting for him. 

Balashof went on his way, expecting, from what Murat said, 
to be very speedily presented to Napoleon himself. But, in- 
stead of any such speedy meeting with Napoleon, the sentinels 
of Davoust's infantry corps detained him again at the next 
village just as he had been halted at the outposts until an 
aide of the corps commander, who was sent for, conducted him 
to Marshal Davoust, in the village. 



CHAPTER V. 

DAVOLST was the Emperor Napoleon's Arakcheyef Arak- 
cheyef except in cowardice : just the same, punctilious and 
cruel ; and knowing no other way of manifesting his devotion 
except by cruelty. 

In the mechanism of imperial organism, such men are neces- 
sary, just as wolves are necessary in the organism of nature ; 
and they always exist and manifest themselves and maintain 
themselves, however incompatible their presence and proxim- 
ity to the chief power may seem. Only by this indispensable- 
ness can it be explained how Arakcheyef a cruel man, who 
personally pulled the mustache of a' grenadier, and who by 
reason of weakness of nerves could not endure any danger, and 

* Eh, mon cher general, je desire de tout mon cceur, que les empereurs s'ar- 
rangent entre eux, et que la guerre commencee malgre moi se termme le 
plus tot possible. 



WAR AND PEACE. 19 

was ill-bred and ungentlemanly could maintain power and 
influence with a character so chivalrous, noble, and affectionate 
as Alexander's. 

In the barn attached to a peasant's cottage, Balashof found 
Marshal Davoust, sitting on a keg, and busily engaged in 
clerk's business (he was verifying accounts). An aide stood 
near him. He might have found better accommodations ; but 
Marshal Davoust was one of those men who purposely make 
the conditions of life as disagreeable as possible for themselves, 
:n order to have an excuse for being themselves disagreeable. 
Consequently, they are always hurried and obstinate. " How 
can I think of the happy side of life when, as you see, I am 
sitting on a keg, in a dirty barn, and working ? " the expres- 
sion of his face seemed to say. The chief satisfaction and 
requirement of such men are that they should be brought into 
contact with men of another stamp, and to make before them an 
enormous display of disagreeable and obstinate activity. This 
gratification was granted Davoust when Balashof was ushered 
into his presence. He buried himself more deeply than ever 
in his work when the Russian general appeared. He glanced 
over his spectacles at Balashof's face, animated by the spirit 
of the beautiful morning and the meeting with Murat, but he 
did not get up or even stir. He put on a still more portentous 
frown, and smiled sardonically. 

Noticing the impression produced on Balashof by this recep- 
tion, Davoust raised his head, and chillingly demanded what 
he wanted. 

Supposing that this insulting reception was given him 
because Davoust did not know that he was the Emperor Alex- 
ander's general-adjutant, and, what was more, his envoy to 
Napoleon, Balashof hastened to inform him of his name and 
mission. Contrary to his expectation, Davoust, after listening 
to Balashof's communication, became still more gruff and rude. 

" Where is your packet ? " he demanded. "Give it to me ; 
I will send it to the emperor." 

Balashof replied that he was ordered to give the package 
personally to the emperor. 

" Your emperor's orders are carried out in your army ; but 
here," said Davoust, "you must do as you are told." And, as 
though to make the Russian general feel still more keenly how 
completely he was at the mercy of brute force, Davoust sent 
an aide for the officer of the day. 

Balashof took out the packet containing the sovereign's note, 
and laid it on t{ie table a table improvised of a door, with 



20 WAR AND PEACE. 

the torn hinges still protruding, and laid on a couple of barrels. 
Davoust took the packet and read the superscription. 

" You have a perfect right to treat me with respect, or not 
to treat me with respect," said Balashof . " But permit me to 
remark that I have the honor of being one of his Majesty's 
aides " 

Davoust gazed at him without saying a word ; but a trace 
of annoyance and confusion, betrayed in Balashof's face, evi- 
dently afforded him gratification. 

" All due respect will be showed you," said he ; and, pla- 
cing the envelope in his pocket, he left the barn. 

A moment later, the marshal's aide, Monsieur de Castrier, 
made his appearance, and conducted Balashof to the lodgings 
made ready for him ; Balashof dined that same day with the 
marshal, in the barn, the boards on the barrels serving as the 
table ; early in the morning of the following day, Davoust came, 
and, taking Balashof to one side, told him confidentially that 
he was requested to stay where he was ; though, if the baggage 
train received orders to advance, he was to advance with it, 
and not to communicate with any one except with Monsieur 
de Castrier. 

At the end of four days of solitude, of tedium, of bitter con- 
sciousness of his helplessness and insignificance all the more 
palpable through contrast with the atmosphere of autocracy to 
which he had so recently been accustomed, after a number of 
transfers with the marshal's baggage and the French forces 
which occupied the whole region, Balashof was brought back 
to Vilno now in possession of the French : he re-entered the 
town by the same gate by which he had left it four days 
before. 

On the following day the Imperial Chamberlain, Monsieur 
de Turenne, came to Balashof and announced that the Emperor 
Napoleon would be pleased to grant him an audience. 

Four days previously sentinels from the Preobrazhensky 
regiment had been standing in front of the mansion into which 
Balashof was conducted ; now two French grenadiers in blue 
uniforms opened over the chest, and in shaggy caps, an escort 
of hussars and Uhlans and a brilliant suite of aides, pages, and 
generals, were standing at the steps near his saddle horse and 
his Mameluke Eustan, waiting for him to make his appear- 
ance. 

Napoleon received Balashof in the same house in Vilno from 
which Alexander had despatched him. 



WAR AND PEACE. 21 



CHAPTER VI. 

THOUGH Balashof was accustomed to court magnificence, the 
sumptuousness and display of Napoleon's court surprised him. 
Count Turenne conducted him into the great drawing-room, 
where a throng of generals, chamberlains, and Polish magnates, 
many of whom Baiashof had seen at court during the sojourn 
of the Russian emperor, were in waiting. Duroc told the 
Russian general, that the Emperor Napoleon would receive 
him before going out to ride. 

At the end of some moments of expectation the chamber- 
lain on duty came into the great drawing-room, and, bowing 
courteously, invited Balashof to follow him. 

Balashof passed into a small drawing-room which opened 
into the cabinet, into the very same cabinet where the Rus- 
sian Emperor had given him his directions. Balashof stood a 
couple of minutes waiting. Then hasty steps were heard in 
the other room. The folding doors were hastily flung open. 
All was silent, and then firm, resolute steps were heard coining 
from the cabinet : it was Napoleon. He had only just completed 
his toilet for riding on horseback. He was in a blue uni- 
form coat thrown open over a white waistcoat that covered the 
rotundity of his abdomen ; he wore white chamois-skin small- 
clothes that fitted tightly over the stout thighs of his short 
legs, and Hessian boots. His short hair had evidently only 
just been brushed, but one lock of hair hung down over the 
centre of his broad brow. His white, puffy neck was in sharp 
contrast with the dark collar of his uniform coat ; he exhaled 
a strong odor of eau-de-Cologne. His plump and youthful- 
looking face with its prominent chin wore an expression of 
benevolence entirely compatible with his imperial majesty. 

He came in, giving little quick jerks as he walked along, 
and holding his head rather high. His whole figure, thick- 
set and short, with his broad, stout shoulders and with . the 
abdomen and breast involuntarily thrust forward, had that 
portly, stately carriage which men of forty who have lived in 
comfort are apt to have. Moreover it was evident that on 
this particular day he was in the most enviable frame of mind. 
He inclined his head in response to Balashof's low and re- 
spectful bow, and, approaching him, began immediately to 
speak like a man who values every moment of his time, 
and does not condescend to make set speeches, but is con- 



22 WAR AND PEACE. 

vinced in his own mind that he always speaks well and to 
the point. 

" How are you, general ? " said he. " I have received the 
Emperor Alexander's letter which you brought, and I am very 
glad to see you." 

He scrutinized Balashof' s face with his large eyes, and then 
immediately looked past him. It was evident that Balashof s 
personality did not interest him in the least. It was evident 
that only what came into his own mind had any interest for 
him. Everything outside of him had no consequence, because, 
as it seemed to him, everything in the world depended on his 
will alone. 

" I have not desired war, and I do not desire it now," said 
he. " But I have been driven to it. Even now " he laid a 
strong stress on the word "I am ready to accept any expla- 
nation which you can offer." 

And he began clearly and explicitly to state the grounds for 
his dissatisfaction with the Russian Government. Judging by 
the calm, moderate, and even friendly tone in which the French 
Emperor spoke, Balashof was firmly convinced that he was 
anxious for peace and intended to enter into negotiations. 

" Sire, VEmpereur, mon maitre " Balashof began his long 
prepared speech when Napoleon, having finished what he had 
to say, looked inquiringly at the Russian envoy : but the look 
in the Emperor's eyes, fastened upon him, confused him. 
"You are confused, regain your' self-possession," Napoleon 
seemed to say as he glanced with a hardly perceptible smile at 
Balashof's uniform and sword. Balashof recovered his self- 
possession and began to speak. He declared that the Em- 
peror Alexander did not consider Kurakin's demand for his 
passport a sufficient ground for war, that Kurakin had pro- 
ceeded on his own responsibility and without the sovereign's 
sanction, that the Emperor Alexander did not wish for war 
and that he had no understanding with England. 

" None as yet," suggested Napoleon, and, as though fearing 
to commit himself, he scowled and slightly inclined his head, 
giving Balashof to understand that he might go on. 

Having said all that he had been empowered to say, Balashof 
declared that the Emperor Alexander desired peace, but that 
he would not enter into negotiations except on condition 
that Here Balashof stopped short. He recollected the 
words which the Emperor Alexander had not incorporated in 
the letter, but which he had strenuously insisted should be in- 
serted in the rescript to Saltuikof, and which he had com- 



WAR AND PEACE. _23 

manded Balashof to repeat to Napoleon. Balashof remembered 
these words, " so long as an armed foe remains on Eussian 
soil," but some strange and complicated feeling restrained him. 
He found it impossible to repeat these words, although his 
desire to do so was great. He hesitated and said, " On condi- 
tion that the French troops retire beyond the Memen." 

Napoleon remarked Balashof's confusion as he said those 
last words. His face twitched ; the calf of his left leg began to 
tremble nervously. Not stirring from the place where he was 
standing, he began to speak in a higher key, and more rapidly 
than before. All the time that he was speaking, Balashof, not 
once shifting his eyes, involuntarily watched the twitching of 
Napoleon's left calf, which increased in violence in proportion 
as he raised his voice. 

" I desire peace no less than the Emperor Alexander," said 
he. "Have I not for eighteen months done everything to 
preserve it ? I have been waiting eighteen months for an 
explanation. But what is demanded of me before negotiations 
can begin ? " he asked, with a frown, and emphasizing his 
question with an energetic gesture of his little, white, plump 
hand. 

"The withdrawal of the troops beyond the Niemen, sire," 
replied Balashof. 

" Beyond the Niemen," repeated Napoleon. " So that is all 
that is wanted now, is it, ' beyond the Niemen/ merely 
beyond the Niemen," insisted Napoleon, looking straight at 
Balashof. 

Balashof respectfully inclined his head. 

" Four months ago the demand was to evacuate Pomerania, 
but now all that is required is to retire beyond the Niemen." 
Napoleon abruptly turned away and began to pace up and 
down the room. " You say that it is demanded of me to 
retire beyond the Niemen before there can be any attempt at 
negotiations, but in exactly the same way two months ago all 
that was required of me was to retire beyond the Oder and the 
Vistula, and yet you can still think of negotiating ? " 

He walked in silence from one corner of the room to the 
other, and then stopped in front of Balashof. Balashof 
noticed that his left leg trembled even faster than before, and 
his face seemed petrified in its sternness of expression. This 
trembling Napoleon himself was aware of. He afterwards 
said, " La vibration de mon mollet gauche est un grand signe 
chez moi" 

" Any such propositions as to abandon the Oder or the 



24 WAR AND PEACE. 

Vistula may be made to the Prince of Baden, but not to me," 
Napoleon almost screamed, the words seeming to take him by 
surprise. " If you were to give me Petersburg and Moscow, 
I would not accept such conditions. You declare that I began 
this war. But who went to his army first ? The Emperor 
Alexander, and not I. And you propose negotiations when I 
have spent millions, when you have made an alliance with 
England, and when your position is critical you propose 
negotiations with me ! But what was the object of your alli- 
ance with England ? What has she given you ? " he asked, 
hurriedly, evidently now making no effort to show the advan- 
tages of concluding peace, and deciding upon the possibilities 
of it, but simply to prove his own probity and power, and 
Alexander's lack of probity and blundering statecraft. 

At first he was evidently anxious to show what an advanta- 
geous position he held, and to prove that, nevertheless, he 
would be willing to have negotiations opened again. But he 
was now fairly launched in his declaration, and the longer 
he spoke the less able he was to control the current of his dis- 
course. The whole aim of his words now seemed to exalt 
himself and to humiliate Alexander, which was precisely 
what he least of all wished to do at the beginning of the inter- 
view. 

" It is said you have concluded peace with the Turks ? " 

Balashof bent his head affirmatively. "Peace has been 
dec " he began ; but Napoleon gave him no chance to 
speak. It was plain that he wished to have the floor to him- 
self, and he went on talking with that eloquence and excess 
of irritability to which men who have been spoiled -are so 
prone. 

" Yes, I know that you have concluded peace with the 
Turks, and without securing Moldavia and Valakhia. But I 
would have given your sovereign these provinces just as I 
gave him Finland ! Yes," he went on to say, " I promised the 
Emperor Alexander the provinces of Moldavia and Valakhia, 
and I would have given them to him ; but now he shall not 
have those beautiful provinces. He might, however, have 
united them to his empire, and, in his reign alone, he would 
have made Russia spread from the Gulf of Bothnia to the 
mouths of the Danube. Catherine the Great could not have 
done more," exclaimed Napoleon, growing more and more 
excited, as he strode up and down the room, and saying to 
Balashof almost the same words which he had said to Alex- 
ander himself at Tilsit. " All that my friendship would have 



WAR AND PEACE. 25 

brought to him ! Oh, what a glorious reign ! what a glorious 
reign ! " he repeated several times. He paused and took out 
a gold snuff-box, and greedily sniffed at it. " What a glorious 
reign the Emperor Alexander's might have been ! " * 

He gave Balashof a compassionate look, but as soon as the 
general started to make some remark, Napoleon hastened to 
interrupt him again. 

" What could he have wished or sought for that he would 
not have secured by being my friend ? " Napoleon asked, 
shrugging his shoulders in perplexity. " No, he preferred to 
surround himself with my enemies, and what enemies ? " pur- 
sued Napoleon. " He has attached to himself Steins, Arm- 
feldts, Benigsens, Winzengerodes ! Stein, a traitor banished 
from his own country ; Armfeldt, a scoundrel and intriguer ; 
Winzengerode, a fugitive French subject ; Benigsen, a rather 
better soldier than the others, but still incapable, who had no 
idea how to act in 1807, and who ought to arouse horrible 
recollections in the emperor's mind. We will grant that he 
might make some use of them, if they had any capacity," pur- 
sued Napoleon, scarcely able in his speech to keep up with the 
arguments that kept rising in his mind in support of his right 
or might the two things being one in his view. " But there 
is nothing of the sort : they are of no use either for war or 
peace ! Barclay, they say, is better than all the rest of them ; 
but I should not say so, judging by his first movements. But 
what are they doing ? What are all these courtiers doing ? 
Pfuhl proposes ; Armfeldt argues ; Benigsen considers ; and 
Barclay, when called upon to act, knows not what plan of 
action to decide upon, and time slips away, and nothing is 
accomplished. Bagration alone is a soldier. He is stupid, 
but he has experience, a quick eye, and decision. And what 
sort of a part is your young sovereign playing in this hopeless 
throng ? They are compromising him, and making him re- 
sponsible for everything that takes place. A sovereign has no 
right to be with his army unless he is a general," said he, 
evidently intending these words to be taken as a direct chal- 
lenge to the Russian emperor. Napoleon was well aware 
how desirous the Emperor Alexander was to be a military com- 
mander. 

"The campaign has not been begun a week, and you could 
not defend Vilno. You are cut in two, and driven out of the 
Polish provinces. .Your army is already grumbling." 

* Tout cela il I'aurait du a mon amifie. Ah ! quel beau regne ! quel bean 
regne ' Quel beau regne await pu celui $e I'empereur Alexdnclre, 



26 WAR AND PEACE. 

"On the contrary, your majesty," said Balashof, scarcely 
remembering what had been said to him, and finding it hard 
to follow this pyrotechnic of words, " the troops are full of 
zeal " 

" I know all about it," said Napoleon, interrupting him. " I 
know the whole story ; and I know the contingent of your 
oatt aliens as well as that of my own. You have not two 
hundred thousand men ; and I have three times as many. 
I give you my word of honor," said Napoleon, who forgot 
that his word of honor might have very little weight, "I 
give you my word of honor that I have five hundred and 
thirty thousand men on this side of the Vistula. The Turks 
will be no help to you : they are never of any use ; and 
they have proved this by making peace with you. The 
Swedes it is their fate to be ruled by madmen. Their 
king was crazy : they got rid of him, and chose another 
Bernadotte, who instantly lost his wits : because it is sure 
proof of madness that a Swede should enter into alliance with 
Kussia." 

Napoleon uttered this with a vicious sneer, and again car- 
ried the snuff-box to his nose. 

To each of Napoleon's propositions, Balashof was ready and 
willing to give an answer ; he kept making the gestures of a 
man who has somewhat to say ; but Napoleon gave him no 
chance to speak. In refutation of the Swedes being mad, 
Balashof was anxious to state that Sweden was isolated if 
Kussia were against her; but Napoleon interrupted him, 
shouting at the top of his voice, so as to drown his words. 
Napoleon had worked himself up into that state of irritation 
in which a man must talk, and talk, and talk, if for nothing 
else but to convince himself that he is in the right of a 
question. 

Balashof began to grow uncomfortable : as an envoy he 
began to fear that he was compromising his dignity ; and he 
felt it incumbent upon him to reply ; but, as a man, he had a 
moral shrinking before the assault of such unreasonable fury 
as had evidently come upon Napoleon. He was aware that 
anything Napoleon might say in such circumstances had no 
special significance ; that he himself, when he came to think 
it over, would be ashamed. Balashof stood with eyes cast 
down, looking at Napoleon's restless stout legs, and tried to 
avoid meeting his eyes. 

" But what do I care for your allies ? " demanded Napoleon. 
" I too have allies these Poles, eighty thousand of them ; 






WAR AND PEACE. 27 

they fight like lions, and there will be two hundred thousand of 
them." 

And, probably, still more excited by the fact that in making 
this statement he was uttering a palpable falsehood, and by 
Balashof standing there, in silent submission to his fate, 1 he 
abruptly turned back, came close to Balashof, and, making 
rapid and energetic gestures with his white hands, he almost 
screamed, 

" Understand ! If you incite Prussia against me, I assure 

I you, I will wipe her off from the map of Europe," said he, his 

I face pale and distorted with rage, and energetically striking 

one white hand against the other. " Yes, and I will drive you 

; beyond the Dwina and the Dnieper ; and I will erect against 

I you that barrier which Europe was stupid and blind enough 

to permit to be overthrown. That is what will become of you, 

that is what you will have lost in alienating me," said he, and 

once more began to pace the room in silence, a number of 

times jerking his stout shoulders. 

He replaced his snuff-box in his waistcoat pocket, took it out 

again, carried it to his nose several times, and halted directly 

' in front of Balashof. He stood thus without speaking, and 

gazed directly into Balashof's eyes, with a satirical expression ; 

then he said, in a low tone, 

" Et cependant quel beau regne aurait pu avoir votre maitre 
what a glorious reign your master might have had ! " 

Balashof, feeling it absolutely indispensable to make some 
answer, declared that affairs did not present themselves to the 
eyes of the Russians in such a gloomy aspect. Napoleon said 
nothing, but continued to look at him with the same satirical 
expression, and apparently had not heard what he said. Bal- 
ashof declared that in Russia the highest hopes were enter- 
tained of the issue of the war. Napoleon tossed his head con- 
i descendingly, as much as to say. " I know it is your duty to 
i say so, but you do not believe it ; my arguments have con- 
vinced you." 

When Balashof had finished what he had to say, Napoleon 
once more raised his snuff-box, took a sniff from it, and then 
stamped twice on the floor, as a signal. The door was flung 
open : a chamberlain, respectfully approaching, handed the 
emperor his hat and gloves ; another brought him his handker- 
chief. Napoleon, not even looking at them, addressed Bala- 
shof, 

" Assure the Emperor Alexander, in my name," said he, as 
he took his hat, " that I esteem him as warmly as before : I 

. 



28 WAR AND PEACE. 

know him thoroughly, and I highly appreciate his lofty quali- 
ties. Je ne vous retiensplus, general ; vous recevrez ma lettre a 
Vempereur" 

And Napoleon swiftly disappeared through the door. All 
in the reception-room hurried forward and down the stairs. 



CHAPTER VII. 

AFTER all that Napoleon had said to him, after those ex- 
plosions of wrath, and after those last words spoken so coldly, 
" Je ne vous retiensplus, general ; vous recevrez ma lettre" Bal- 
ashof was convinced that Napoleon would not only have no 
further desire to see him, but would rather avoid seeing him, 
a humiliated envoy, and, what was more, a witness of his un- 
dignified heat. But, to his amazement, he received through 
Duroc an invitation to dine that day with the emperor. 

The guests were Bessieres, Caulaincourt, and Berthier. 

Napoleon met Balashof with a cheerful face and affably. There 
was not the slightest sign of awkwardness or self-reproach for 
his outburst of the morning, but, on the contrary, he tried to 
put Balashof at his ease. It was plain to see that Napoleon 
was perfectly persuaded that there was no possibility of his 
making any mistakes and that in his understanding of things 
all that he did was well, not because it was brought into com- 
parison with the standards of right and wrong, but simply 
because he did it. 

The emperor was in excellent spirits after his ride through 
Vilno, where he was received and followed by the acclamations 
of a throng of people. In all the windows along the streets 
where he passed were displayed tapestries, flags, and decora- 
tions ornamented with his monogram, while Polish ladies 
saluted him and waved their handkerchiefs. 

At dinner he had Balashof seated next himself and treated 
him not only cordially but as though he considered him one of his 
own courtiers, one of those who sympathized in his plan and 
rejoiced in his success. Among other topics of conversation 
he brought up Moscow and began to ask Balashof about the 
Russian capital, not merely as an inquisitive traveller asks 
about a new place which he has in mind to visit, but as though 
he were convinced that Balashof, as a Russian, must be flat- 
tered by his curiosity. 

"How many inhabitants are there in Moscow ? How many 



WAR AND PEACE. $& 

houses ? Is it a fact that Moscow is called Moscow la Sainte ? 
How many' churches are there in Moscow ? " he asked 

And when told that there were upwards of two hundred he 
asked, " What is the good of such a host of churches ? " 

" The Russians are very religious," replied Balashof. 

"Nevertheless a great number of monasteries and churches 
is always a sign that a people are backward," said Napoleon, 
glancing at Caulaincourt for confirmation in this opinion. 

Balashof respectfully begged leave to differ from the French 
emperor's opinion. 

" Every country has its own customs," said he. 

" But nowhere else in Europe is there anything like it," 
remarked Napoleon. 

"I beg your majesty's pardon," replied Balashof. "There 
is Spain as well as Russia where monasteries and churches 
abound." 

This reply of Balashof's, which had a subtile hint at the 
recent defeat of the French in Spain, was considered very 
clever when Balashof repeated it at the Emperor Alexander's 
court ; but it was not appreciated at Napoleon's table, and 
passed unnoticed. 

The^ indifferent and perplexed faces of the marshals plainly 
betrayed the fact that they did not understand where the 
point of the remark came in, or realize Balashof's insinuation. 
" If that had been witty, then we should have understood it ; 
consequently it could not have been witty," the marshals' 
faces seemed to say. So little was this remark appreciated 
that even Napoleon did not notice it, and naively asked Bala- 
shof the names of the cities through which the direct road to 
Moscow led. 

Balashof. who throughout the dinner was on the alert, replied, 
" Just as all roads lead to Rome, so all roads lead to Moscow ; " 
that there were many roads, and that among these different 
routes was the one that passed through Pultava, which Charles 
XII. had chosen. Thus replied Balashof, involuntarily flush- 
ing with delight at the cleverness of this answer. Balashof 
had hardly pronounced the word "Pultava" when Caulain- 
court began to complain of the difficulties of the route from 
Petersburg to Moscow and to recall his Petersburg experiences. 

After dinner they went into Napoleon's cabinet to drink 
their coffee ; four days before it had been the Emperor Alex- 
ander's cabinet ; Napoleon sat down, 'stirring his coffee in a 
Sevres cup and pointed Balashof to a chair near him. 

There is a familiar state of mind that comes over a man 



SO WAR AND PEACE. 

after a dinner, and, acting with greater force than all the die- 
tates of mere reason, compels him to be satisfied with himself 
and to consider all men his friends. Napoleon was now in 
this comfortable mental condition. It seemed to him that he 
was surrounded by men who adored him. He was persuaded 
that even Balashof , after having eaten dinner with him, was his 
friend and worshipper. Napoleon addressed him with a 
pleasant and slightly satirical smile, 

" This is the very room, I am informed, which the Emperor 
Alexander used. Strange, isn't it, general?" he asked, evi- 
dently not having any idea that such a remark could fail to 
be agreeable to his guest, as it insinuated that he, Napoleon, 
was superior to Alexander. 

Balashof could have nothing to reply to this, and merely 
inclined his head. 

" Yes, in this room, four days ago, Winzengerode and Stein 
were holding council," pursued Napoleon with the same self- 
confident, satirical smile. " What I cannot understand is that 
the Emperor Alexander has taken to himself all my personal 
enemies. I do not understand it. Has it never occurred 
to him that I might do the same thing ? " And this question 
directed to Balashof evidently aroused his recollection qf the 
cause of his morning's fury, which was still fresh in his mind. 

"And have him know that I will do so." said Napoleon, get- 
ting up and pushing away his cup. "I will drive all his 
kindred out of Germany, those of Wiirtemberg, Weimar, 
Baden yes, I will drive them all out. Let him be getting 
ready for them an asylum in Russia ! " 

Balashof bowed, and signified that he was anxious to with- 
draw, and that he listened simply because he could not help 
listening to what Napoleon said. But Napoleon paid no heed 
to this motion ; he addressed Balashof not as his enemy's en- 
\roy, but as a man who was for the time being entirely 
devoted to him and must needs rejoice in the humiliation of 
his former master. 

" And why has the Emperor Alexander assumed the command 
of his forces ? What is the reason of it ? War' is my trade, 
and his is to rule and not to command armies. Why has he 
taken upon him such responsibilities ? " 

Napoleon again took his snuff-box, silently strode several 
times from one end of the room to the other, and then suddenly 
and unexpectedly went straight up to Balashof and with a slight 
smile he unhesitatingly, swiftly, simply, as though he were 
doing something not only important, but rather even agreeable 



WAR AND PEACE. 31 

to Balashof, put his hand into his face and, taking hold of his 
ear, gave it a little pull, the smile being on his lips alone. 
To have one's ear pulled by the Emperor was considered the 
greatest honor and favor at the French court. 

" Eh bien, vous ne dites rien, admirateur et courtisan de 
VEmpereur Alexandre ? " asked Napoleon, as though it were an 
absurdity in his presence to be an admirer and courtier of any 
one besides himself. " Are the horses ready for the general ? " 
he added, slightly bending his head in answer to Balashof s 
bow. " Give him mine, he has far to go" 

The letter which was intrusted to Balashof was the last 
that Napoleon ever wrote to Alexander. All the particulars of 
the interview were communicated to the Russian emperor, 
and the war began. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

AFTER his interview with Pierre, Prince Andrei went to 
Petersburg on business, as he told his relatives, but in reality 
to find Prince Anatol Kuragin there, since he considered it 
his bounden duty to fight him. But Kuragin, whom he in- 
quired after as soon as he reached Petersburg, was no longer 
there. Pierre had sent word to his brother-in-law that Prince 
Andrei was in search of him. Anatol Kuragin had immedi- 
ately secured an appointment from the minister of war, and 
gone to the Moldavian army. 

During this visit to Petersburg Prince Andrei met Kutuzof, 
his former general, who was always well disposed to him, and 
Kutuzof proposed that he should go with him to the Molda- 
vian army, of which the old general had been appointed com- 
mander-in-chief. Prince Andrei, having thereupon received 
his appointment as one of the commander's staff, started for 
Turkey. 

Prince Andrei felt that it would not be becoming to write 
Kuragin and challenge him. Having no new pretext for a 
duel, he felt that a challenge from him would compromise the 
Countess Rostova, and therefore he sought for a personal 
interview with Kuragin, when he hoped he should be able to 
invent some new pretext for the duel. But in Turkey also he 
failed of finding Kuragin, who had returned to Russia as soon 
as he learned of Prince Andrei's arrival. 

In a new country, and under new conditions, life began to 
seem easier to Prince Andrei, After the faithlessness of his 



32 WAR AND PEACE. 

betrothed, which had affected him all the more seriously from 
his very endeavor to conceal from all the grief that it had 
really caused him, the conditions of life in which he had 
found so much happiness had grown painful to him, and still 
more painful the very freedom and independence which he 
had in times gone by prized so highly. He not only ceased to 
harbor those thoughts which had for the first time occurred to 
him as he looked at the heavens on the field of Austerlitz, 
which he so loved to develop with Pierre, and which were the 
consolations of his solitude at Bogucharovo, and afterwards in 
Switzerland and Rome, but he even feared to bring up^ the 
recollection of these thoughts, which opened up such infinite 
and bright horizons. He now concerned himself solely with 
the narrowest and most practical interests, entirely discon- 
nected with the past, and busied himself with these with all 
the greater avidity because the things that were past were 
kept" from, his remembrance. That infinite, ever-retreating 
vault of the heavens which at that former time had arched 
above him had, as it were, suddenly changed into one low and 
finite oppression, where all was clear, but there was nothing 
eternal and mysterious. 

Of all the activities that offered themselves to his choice, 
the military service was the simplest and best known to him. 
Accepting the duties of general inspector on Kutuzof's staff, 
he entered into his work so doggedly and perseveringly that 
Kutuzof was amazed at his zeal and punctuality. Not finding 
Kuragin in Turkey, he did not think it worth his while to fol- 
low him back to Russia ; but still he was well aware that, no 
matter how long a time should elapse, it would be impossible 
for him, in spite of all the scorn which he felt for him, in 
spite of all the arguments which he used in his own mind to 
prove that he ought not to stoop to any encounter with him, 
he was aware, I say, that if ever he met him he would _be 
obliged to challenge him, just as a starving man throws him- 
self on food. And this consciousness that the insult had not 
yet been avenged, that his anger had not been vented, but still 
lay on his heart, poisoned that artificial serenity which Prince 
Andrei by his apparently indefatigable and somewhat ambi- 
tious and ostentatious activity procured for himself in Turkey. 
When, in 1812, the news of the war with Napoleon reached 
Bukharest, where for two months Kutuzof had been living, 
spending his days and nights with his Wallachian mistress, 
Prince Andrei asked his permission to be transferred to the 
western army. Kutuzof, who had already grown weary of the 



WAR AND PEACE. 33 

excess of Bolk on sky's activity, which was a constant reproach 
to his own indolence, willingly granted his request, and gave 
him a commission to Barclay de Tolly. 

Before joining the army, which, during the month of May, 
was encamped at Drissa, Prince An4rei drove to Luisiya 
Gorui, which was directly in his route, being only three versts 
from the Smolensk highway. 

During the last three years of Prince Andrei's life, there 
had been so many changes, he had thought so much, felt so 
much, seen so much, for he had travelled through both the 
east and the west, that he felt a sense of strangeness, of 
unexpected amazement, to find at Luisiya Gorui exactly the 
same manner of life even to the smallest details. As he 
entered the driveway, and passed the stone gates that guarded 
his paternal home, it seemed as though it were an enchanted 
castle, where everything was fast asleep. The same sobriety, 
the same neatness, the same quietude reigned in the house ; 
the same furniture, the same walls, the same sounds, the same 
odor, and the same timid faces, only grown a little older. 

The Princess Mariya was the same timid, plain body, only 
grown into an old maid, and living out the best years of her 
life in fear and eternal moral sufferings, without profit and 
without happiness. Bourienne was the same coquettish, self- 
satisfied person, cheerfully getting profit out of every moment 
of her life, and consoling herself with the most exuberant 
hopes ; only it seemed to Prince Andrei that she showed an 
increase of assurance. 

The tutor, Dessalles, whom Prince Andrei had brought from 
Switzerland, wore an overcoat of Russian cut ; his unmanagea- 
ble tongue involved itself in Russian speech with the servants, 
but otherwise he was the same pious and pedantical tutor of 
somewhat limited intelligence. 

The only physical change in the old prince was a gap left 
by the loss of a tooth, from one corner of his mouth ; morally, 
he was just the same as before, only, with an accentuation of his 
ugly temper, and his distrust in the genuineness of everything 
that was done in the world. 

Nikolushka, with his rosy cheeks and dark, curly hair, had 
been the one person to grow and change ; and, unconsciously, 
gay and merry, he lifted the upper lip of his pretty little 
mouth, just as the lamented princess, his mother, had done. 
He, alone, refused to obey the laws of immutability in this 
enchanted, sleeping castle. But, though externally every- 
thing remained as it had always been, the internal relations 
VOL. 3. 3. 



34 WAR AND PEACE. 

of all these people had altered since Piince Andrei had seen 
them. 

The members of the household were divided into two alien 
and hostile camps, which made common cause now simply 
because he was there, for his sake changing the ordinary 
course of their lives. To the one party belonged the old 
prince, Bourienne, and the architect : to the other, the Prin- 
cess Mariya, Dessalles, Nikolushka, and all the women of the 
establishment. 

During his brief stay at Luisiya Gorui, all the family dined 
together ; but it was awkward for them all, and Prince Andrei 
felt that he was a guest for whose sake an exception was made, 
and that his presence was a constraint upon them. At dinner, 
the first day, Prince Andrei, having this consciousness, was invol- 
untarily taciturn ; and the old prince, remarking the unnatural- 
ness of his behavior, also relapsed into a moody silence, and, 
immediately after dinner, retired to his room. When, later, 
Prince Andrei joined him there, and, with the desire of entertain- 
ing him, began to tell him about the young Count Kamiensky's 
campaign, the old prince unexpectedly broke out into a tirade 
against the Princess Mariya, blaming her for her superstition, 
and her dislike of Mademoiselle Bourienne. who, according to 
him, was the only person truly devoted to him. 

The old prince laid the cause of his feeble health entirely 
to the Princess Mariya, insisting that she all the time annoyed 
and exasperated him ; and that, by her injudicious coddling, 
and foolish talk, she was spoiling the little Prince Nikolai. 
The old prince was perfectly well aware that it was he who 
tormented his daughter, and that her life was rendered exceed- 
ingly trying; bub he was also aware that he could not help 
tormenting her, and that she deserved it. 

" Why does not Prince Andrei, who sees how things are, say 
anything to me about his sister ? " wondered the old prince. 
" He thinks, I suppose, that I am a wicked monster, or an old 
idiot, who has unreasonably estranged himself from his 
daughter, and taken a Frenchwoman in her place. He does 
not understand ; and so I must explain to him, and he must lis- 
ten to me," thought the old prince. And he began to expound 
the reasons that made it impossible to endure his daughter's 
absurd character. 

" Since you ask my opinion," said Prince Andrei, not look- 
ing at his father for he was condemning him for the first 
time in his life " but I did not wish to talk about it ; since 
you ask me ; however, I will tell you frankly my opinion, in 



WAR AND PEACE. 35 

regard to this matter. If there is any misunderstanding and 
discord between you and Masha, I could never blame her for 
it, for I know how she loves and reveres you. And if you 
ask me further," pursued Prince Andrei, giving way to his 
irritation, because he had become of late exceedingly prone to 
fits of irritation, " then I must have one thing to say : if there 
is any such misunderstanding, the cause of it is that vulgar 
woman, who is unworthy to be my sister's companion." 

The old man at first gazed at his son with staring eyes, and, 
by his forced smile, uncovered the new gap caused by the loss 
of the tooth, to which Prince Andrei could not accustom him- 
self. 

" What companion, my dear ? Ha ! Have you already 
been talking that over ? Ha ! " 

"Batyushka, I do not wish to judge you," said Prince 
Andrei, in a sharp and choleric voice ; " but you have driven 
me to it ; and I have said, and always shall say, that the 
Princess Mariya is net to blame ; but they are to blame the 
little Frenchwoman is to blame " 

" Ha ! you condemn me ! you condemn me ! " cried the old 
man, in a subdued voice, and with what seemed confusion to 
Prince Andrei; but then suddenly he sprang up, and 
screamed, 

" Away ! away with you ! Don't dare to come here again ! " 

Prince Andrei intended to take his departure immediately ; 
but the Princess Mariya begged him to stay another day. He 
did not meet his father that day ; the old prince kept in his 
room, and admitted no one except Mademoiselle Bourienne 
and Tikhon ; but he inquired several times whether his son 
had yet gone. On the following day, just before dinner, 
Prince Andrei went to his little son's apartment. The bloom- 
ing lad, with his curly hair, just like his mother's, sat on his 
knee. Prince Andrei began to tell him the story of Bluebeard ; 
but, right in the midst of it, he lost the thread, and fell into a 
brown study. He did not give a thought to this pretty 
little lad, his son, while he held him on his knee, but 
he was thinking about himself. With a sense of horror, 
he sought, and failed to find, any remorse in the fact 
that he had exasperated his father ; and no regret that he was 
about to leave him after the first quarrel that they had ever 
had in their lives. More serious than all else was his discov- 
ery that he did not feel the affection for his son which he 
hoped to arouse, as of old, by caressing the lad and taking him 
on his knee. 



36 WAR AND PEACE. 

" Well, go on, papa ! " said the boy. Prince Andrei, with- 
out responding, set him down from his knees, and left the 
room. The moment Prince Andrei suspended his daily occu- 
pations, and especially the moment he encountered the former 
conditions of his life, in which he had been engaged in 
the old, happy days, the anguish of life took possession of him 
with fresh force ; and he made all haste to leave the scene of 
these recollections, and to find occupation as soon as possible. 

" Are you really going, Andre ? " asked his sister. 

u Thank God, I can go," replied Prince Andrei. " I am very 
sorry that you cannot also." 

"What makes you say so ?" exclaimed his sister. "Why 
do you say so, now that you are going to this terrible war ? 
and he is so old ! Mademoiselle Bourienne told me that he 
had asked after you." As soon as she recalled this subject, 
her lips trembled, and the tears rained down her cheeks. 
Prince Andrei turned away, and began to pace up and down 
the room. 

" Oh ! my God ! my God ! " * he cried. " And how do you 
conceive that any one that such a contemptible creature can 
bring unhappiness to others ! " he exclaimed, with such an out- 
burst of anger that it frightened the Princess Mariya. She 
understood that, in speaking of " such contemptible creatures," 
he had reference not alone to Mademoiselle Bourienne, who 
had caused him misery, but also to that man who had destroyed 
his happiness. 

" Andre ! one thing I want to ask you ; I beg of you," 
said she, lightly touching his elbow arid gazing at him with 
her eyes shining through her tears. " I understand you." 
The Princess Mariya dropped her eyes. " Do not think that 
sorrow is caused by men. Men are His instruments." She 
gazed somewhat above her brother's head, with that confident 
look that people have who are accustomed to look at the place 
where they know a portrait hangs. " Sorrow is sent by Him, 
and comes not from men. Men are His instruments ; they are 
not accountable. If it seem to you that any one is culpable 
toward you, forget it and forgive. We have no right to pun- 
ish. And you will find happiness in forgiving." 

" If I were a woman I would, Marie ! Forgiveness is a 
woman's virtue. But a man has no right and no power to for- 
give and forget," said he, and, although he was not at that 
instant thinking of Kuragin, all his unsatisfied vengeance 
suddenly surged up in his heart. "If the Princess Mariya at 
* Akh! Bozhe moi .' Bozhe moi! 



WAR AND PEACE. 37 

this late day urges me to forgive, it is proof positive that I 
ought long ago to have punished," he said to himself. And, 
not stopping to argue with his sister, he began to dream of 
that joyful moment of revenge when he should meet Kuragin, 
who (as he knew) had gone to the army. 

The Princess Mariya urged her brother to delay his jour- 
ney yet another day, assuring him how unhappy her father 
would be if Andrei went off without a reconciliation with 
him ; but Prince Andrei replied that in all probability he 
should soon return from the army, that he would certainly 
write to his father, and that now the longer he staid the 
more bitter this quarrel would become. 

" Adieu, Andre ! remember that sorrows come from God, 
and that men are never accountable for them ; " those were 
the last words that his sister said as they bade each other 
farewell. 

" Such is our fate ! " said Prince Andrei to himself as he 
turned out of the avenue of the Luisogorsky mansion. " She, 
poor innocent creature, is left to be devoured by this crazy old 
man. The old man is conscious that he is doing wrong, but 
he cannot change his nature. My little lad is growing up and 
enjoying life, though he will become like all the rest of us, 
deceivers or deceived. I am going to the army for what 
purpose I myself do not know, and I am anxious to meet a 
man, whom I despise, so as to give him a chance to kill me 
and exult over me." 

In days gone by the same conditions of life had existed, but 
then there was a single purpose ramifying through them and 
connecting them, but now everything was in confusion. Iso- 
lated, illogical thoughts, devoid of connection, arose one after 
another in Prince Andrei's mind. 



CHAPTER IX. 

PRINCE ANDREI reached the army headquarters toward the 
first of July. The troops of the first division, commanded by 
the sovereign in person, were intrenched in a fortified camp 
on the Drissa; the troops of the second division were in retreat 
though they were endeavoring to join the first, from which, as 
the report went, they had been cut off by a strong force of 
the French. All were dissatisfied with the general conduct of 
military affairs in the Russian army ; but no one ever dreamed 
of any of the Russian provinces being invaded, and no one had 



38 WAR AND PEACE. 

supposed that the war would be carried beyond the western 
government of Poland. 

Prince Andrei found Barclay de Tolly on the bank of the 
Drissa. As there was no large town or village within easy 
reach of the camp, all this enormous throng of generals and 
courtiers who were present with the army were scattered in 
the best houses of the little villages for a distance of ten 
versts from the camp, on both sides of the river. 

Barclay de Tolly was stationed about four versts from the 
sovereign. 

He gave Bolkonsky a dry and chilling welcome, and, speak- 
ing in his strong German accent, told him that he should have 
to send in his name to the sovereign for any definite employ- 
ment, but proposed that for the time being he should remain 
on his staff. Anatol Kuragin, whom Prince Andrei hoped to i 
find at the army, was no longer there ; he had gone to Peters- 
burg, and this news was agreeable to Bolkonsky. He was 
absorbed in the interest of being at the very centre of a 
mighty war just beginning, and he was glad to be, for a short 
time, freed from the provocation which the thought of 
Kuragin produced in him. 

During the first four days, as no special duties were required 
of him, Prince Andrei made the circuit of the whole fortified 
camp, and by the aid of his natural intelligence and by making 
inquiries of men who were well informed he managed to 
acquire a very definite comprehension of the position. But 
the question whether this camp were advantageous or not 
remained undecided in his mind. He had already come to the 
conclusion, founded on his own military experience, that even 
those plans laid with the profoundest deliberation are of little 
consequence in battle how plainly he had seen this on the 
field of Austerlitz ! that everything depends on what was 
done to meet the unexpected and impossible-to-be-foreseen 
tactics of the enemy, that all depended on how and by whom 
the affair was conducted. 

Therefore in order to settle this last question in his own 
mind Prince Andrei, taking advantage of his position and his 
acquaintances, tried to penetrate the character of the adminis- 
tration of the armies, and of the persons and parties that took 
part in it, and he drew up for his own benefit the following 
digest of the position of affairs. 

While the sovereign was still at Vilno, the troops had been 
divided into three armies : the first was placed under command 
of Barclay de Tolly ; the second under the command of 



WAR AND PEACE. 39 

3agration ; the third under command of Tonnasof. The 
emperor was present with the first division, but, not in his 
quality of Commander-in-chief. In the orders of the day it 
was simply announced that the sovereign would not take 
command, but would simply be present with the army. More- 
over the sovereign had no personal staff, as would have been 
;he case had he been commander-in-chief, but only a staff 
appropriate to the imperial headquarters. Attached to him 
were the chief of the imperial staff, the General-Quartermaster 
Prince Volkonsky, generals, fliigel-adjutants, diplomatic chi- 
novniks and a great throng of foreigners ; but *these did not 
form a military staff. Besides these there were attached to 
lis person, but without special functions, Arakcheyef, the 
t5X-minister of war ; Count Benigsen, with the rank of senior 
general ; the grand duke, the Tsesarevitch Konstantin Pavlo- 
vitch, Count Rumyantsef ; the Chancellor Stein, who had been 
Minister in Prussia ; Armf eldt, a Swedish general ; Pfuhl, the 
principal originator of the plan of the campaign; Paulucci, 
general-adjutant and a Sardinian refugee ; Woltzogen, and 
many others. 

Although these individuals were present without any spe- 
cial military function, still by their peculiar position they 
wielded a powerful influence, and oftentimes the chief of the 
corps, and even the commander-in-chief, did not know in what 
capacity Benigsen or the Grand Duke or Arakcheyef or 
Prince Volkonsky asked questions or proffered advice, and 
could not tell whether such and such an order, couched in the 
form of a piece of advice, emanated from the speaker or the 
sovereign, and whether it was incumbent upon him or not in- 
cumbent upon him to carry it out. But these were merely a 
stage accessory; the essential idea why the emperor was 
present and all these men were present was perfectly palpable 
bo all from the point of view of courtiers, and in the pres- 
ence of the sovereign all were courtiers. 

This idea was as follows : The monarch did not assume the 
title of commander-in-chief, but he exercised control over all the 
troops ; the men who surrounded him were his aids ; Arakcheyef 
was the faithful guardian of law and order, and the sovereign's 
body guard. Benigsen was a landowner in the Vilno government, 
who, as it were, did les honneurs of the region, and in reality was 
an excellent general, useful in council, and ready, in case he were 
needed, to take Barclay's place. The Grand Duke was there 
because it was a pleasure for him to be. Ex-Minister Stein 
was there because he was needed to give advice, and because 



40 WAR AND PEACE. 

the Emperor Alexander had a very high opinion of his per- 
sonal qualities. Armi'eldt was Napoleon's bitter enemy, and 
a general possessed of great confidence in his own ability, 
which always had an influence upon Alexander. Paulucci was 
there because he was bold and resolute in speech. The gen- 
eral-adjutants were there because they were always attendant 
on the sovereign's movements ; and, last and not least, Pfuhl 
was there because he had conceived a plan for the campaign 
against Napoleon, and had induced Alexander to place his con- 
fidence in the expedience of this plan, thereby directing the 
entire action qf the war. Pfuhl was attended by Woltzogen, 
a keen, self-conceited cabinet theorist, who scorned all things, 
and had the skill to dress Pfuhl's schemes in a more pleasing 
form than Pfuhl himself could. 

In addition to these individuals already mentioned, Rus- 
sians and foreigners, especially foreigners, who each day 
proposed new and unexpected plans with that boldness char- 
acteristic of men engaged in activities in a land not their own, 

there were a throng of subordinates who were present with 
the army because their principals were there. 

Amid all the plans and voices in this tremendous, restless, 
brilliant, and haughty world, Prince Andrei distinguished the 
following sharply outlined subdivisions of tendencies and 
parties. 

The first party consisted of Pfuhl and his followers, military 
theorists, who believed that there was such a thing as a 
science of war, and that this science had its immutable laws 

the laws for oblique movements, for outflanking, and so on. 
Pfuhl and his followers insisted on retreating into the interior 
of the country, according to definite principles prescribed by 
the so-styled science of war, and in every departure from this 
theory they saw nothing but barbarism, ignorance, or evil inten- 
tions. To this party belonged the German princes, and Wolt- 
zogen, Winzengerode, and others ; notably the Germans. 

The second party was diametrically opposed to the first. 
And, as always happens, they went to quite opposite extremes. 
The men of this party were those who insisted on making 
Vilno the base of a diversion into Poland, and demanded to be 
freed from all preconceived plans. Not only were the leaders 
of this party the representatives of the boldest activity, but at 
the same time they were also the representatives of nation- 
alism, in consequence of which they showed all the more 
urgency in maintaining their side of the dispute. Such were 
the Russians Bagration, Yermolof, who was just beginning 



WAR AND PEACE. 41 

to come into prominence, and many others. It was at this 
time that Yermolof s famous jest was quoted extensively : it 
i was said that he asked the emperor to grant him the favor of 
1 promoting him to be a German ! The men of this party re- 
i called Suvorof, and declared that there was no need of making 
plans or marking the map up with pins, but to fight, to beat 
! the foe, not to let him enter Russia, and not to let the army 
lose heart. 

The third party, in which the sovereign placed the greatest 
i confidence, consisted of those courtiers who tried to find a 
happy mean between the two previous tendencies. These 
men for the most part civilians, and Arakcheyef was in their 
number thought and talked as men usually talk who have no 
convictions, and do not wish to show their lack of them. 
They declared that unquestionably the war, especially with 
such a genius as Bonaparte, for they now called him Bona- 
parte again, demanded the profoundest consideration, and 
a thorough knowledge of the science, and, in this respect, 
Pfuhl was endowed with genius ; but, at the same time, it was 
impossible not to acknowledge that theorists were apt to be 
one-sided, and, therefore, it was impossible to have perfect 
confidence in them : it was necessary to heed also what Pfuhl's 
opposers had to say, and also what was said by men who had 
had practical experience in military affairs, and then to balance 
the two. The men of this party insisted on retaining the 
camp along the Drissa, according to Pfuhl's plan, but in 
changing the movements of the other divisions. 

The fourth decided tendency was the one of which the 
ostensible representative was the Grand Duke, the Tsesare- 
vitch * Konstantin, heir-apparent to the throne, who could not 
forget his disappointment at the battle of Austerlitz, when he 
rode out at the head of his guards, dressed in casque and 
jacket as for a parade, expecting to drive the French gallantly 
before him, and, unexpectedly finding himself within range 
of the enemy's guns, was by main force involved in the gen- 
eral confusion. The men of this party showed in their opin- 
ions both sincerity and lack of sincerity. They were afraid of 
Napoleon ; they saw that he was strong while they were weak, 
and they had no hesitation in saying so. They said, " JSToth- 
tng but misfortune, ignominy, and defeat will, come out of 
ill this. Here we have abandoned Vilno ; we have abandoned 

* Any son of the Tsar is properly tsarevitch, but the crown prince bears 
the distinctive title tsesarevitch (literally, son of the Caesar). Count Tolstoi 
emphasizes his position by using also the term nasty dm/c, successor, heir. 



42 WAR AND PEACE. 

Vitebsk ; we shall abandon the Drissa in like manner. The 
only thing left for us to do in all reason is to conclude peace, 
and as speedily as possible, before we are driven out of Peters- 
burg." 

This opinion; widely current in the upper spheres of the 
army, found acceptance also in Petersburg, and was supported 
by the Chancellor Rumyantsef , who for other reasons of state 
was also anxious for peace. 

A fifth party was formed by those who were partisans ot 
Barclay de Tolly not as a man, but simply because he was 
minister of war and commander-in-chief . These said, " What- 
ever he is," and that was the way they always began, < 
" he is an honest, capable man, and he has no superior. Give 
him actual power because the war can never come to any suc- 
cessful issue without some one in sole control, and then he 
will show what he can do, just as he proved it in Finland. 
We owe it to this Barclay, and to him alone, that our forces 
are well organized and powerful, and made the retreat to the 
Drissa without suffering any loss. If now Barclay is replaced 
by Benigsen all will go to rack and ruin, because Bemgsen 
made an exhibition of his incapacity in 1807," said the men 

of this party. 

A sixth party the Benigsenists claimed the contrary; 
that there was no one more capable and experienced than 
Benigsen, " and, however far they go out of his way, they IJ 
have to return to him." Let them make their mistakes 
now ! " And the men of this party argued that our whole 
retreat to the Drissa was a disgraceful defeat- and an uninter- 
rupted series of blunders. "The more blunders they make 
now the better, or, at least, the sooner they will discover that 
things cannot go on in this way," said they. " Such a man as 
Barclay is not needed, but a man like Benigsen, who showed 
what he was in 1807. Napoleon himself has done him justice, 
and he is a man whose authority all would gladly recognize, 
and such a man is Benigsen and no one else." 

The seventh party consisted of individuals such as are 
always found especially around young monarchs and Alex- 
ander the emperor had a remarkable number of such namely, , 
generals and flugel-ad jut ants who were passionately devoted j 
to their sovereign, not in his quality as emperor, but worshipped I 
him as a man, heartily and disinterestedly, just as Kostof| 
had worshipped him in 1805, and saw in him not only all 
virtues but all human qualities. These individuals, although 
they praised their sovereign's modesty in declining to assume 



WAR AfrD PEACE. 43 

the duties of commander-in-chief, still criticised this excess of 
i modesty, and had only one desire which they insisted upon, 
| that their adored monarch, overcoming his excessive lack of 
i confidence in himself, should openly announce that he would 
! take his place at the head of his armies, gather around him 
| the appropriate staff of a commander-in-chief, and, while con- 
i suiting in cases of necessity with theorists and practical men 
iof experience, himself lead his troops, who by this mere fact 
would be roused to the highest pitch of enthusiasm. 

The eighth and by all odds the largest group of individuals, 
which in comparison with the others all put together would 
rank as ninety-nine to one, consisted of men who desired 
neither peace nor war nor offensive operations, nor a defensive 
camp on the Drissa or anywhere else, nor Barclay, nor the 
sovereign, nor Pfuhl, nor Benigsen, but simply wished one 
and the same essential thing : the utmost possible advan- 
tages and enjoyments for themselves. In these troubled 
waters of intertangled and complicated intrigues such as 
abounded at the sovereign's headquarters, it became possible 
to succeed in many things which would have been infeasible 
at any other time. One whose sole desire was not to lose his 
advantageous position was to-day on Pfuhl's side, to-morrow 
allied with his opponent, on the day following, for the sake 
merely of shirking responsibility and pleasing the sovereign, 
would declare that he had 110 opinion in regard to some well- 
known matter. 

A second, anxious to curry favor, would attract the sover- 
eign's attention by boisterously advocating at the top of his 
voice something which the sovereign had merely hinted at the 
day before, by arguing and yelling at the council meeting, 
pounding himself in the chest and challenging to a duel any 
one who took the other side, and thereby show how ready he 
was to be a martyr for the public weal. 

A third would simply demand between two meetings of the 
council and while his enemies were out of sight a definitive sub- 
vention in return for his faithful service of the state, knowing 
very well that they would never be able to refuse him. A fourth 
would forever by the merest chance let the sovereign see how 
overwhelmed with work he was ! A fifth, in order to attain 
ihis long cherished ambition of being invited to dine at the 
sovereign's table, would stubbornly argue the right or wrong 
of some newly conceived opinion and bring up for this purpose 
more or less powerful and well founded arguments. 

All the men of this party were hungry for rubles, honorary 



44 WAR AND PEACE. 

crosses, promotions, and- in their pursuit of these things they 
watched the direction of the weathercock of the sovereign's 
favor, and just as soon as it was seen that the weathercock 
pointed in any cue direction all this population of military 
drones would begin to blow in the same direction so that it 
was sometimes all the harder for the sovereign to change about 
to the other side. In this uncertainty of position, in presence 
of the real danger that was threatening and which impressed 
upon everything a peculiarly disquieting character, amid this 
vortex of intrigues, selfish ambitions, collisions, diverse opin- 
ions and feelings, with all the variety of nationalities repre- 
sented- by all these men, this eighth and by far the largest 
party of men, occupied with private interests, gave great com- 
plication and confusion to affairs in general. \Vhatever ques- 
tion came up, instantly this swarm of drones, before they had 
finished their buzzing over the previous theme, would fly off 
to the new one and deafen every one and entirely drown out 
the genuine voices who had something of worth to say. 

Just about the time that Prince Andrei arrived at the army, 
still a ninth party was forming out of all these others, and 
beginning to let its voice be heard. This was the party of 
veteran statesmen, men of sound wisdom and experience, who, 
sharing in none of all these contradictory opinions, were able 
to look impartially upon all that was going on at headquarters 
and to devise means for escaping from this vagueness, indecis- 
ion, confusion, and weakness. 

The men of this party said and thought that nothing but 
mischief resulted pre-eminently from the presence of the 
sovereign with a military court at the front, introducing into 
the army that indeterminate, conditional, and fluctuating irreg- 
ularity of relations which, however useful at court, were 
ruinous to the troops ; that it was the monarch's business to 
govern, and not to direct the army ; that the only cure for all 
these troubles was for the sovereign and his court, to take 
their departure ; that the mere fact of the emperor being with 
the army paralyzed the movements of fifty thousand men whc 
were required to protect him from personal peril ; that the 
most incompetent general-in-chief, if he were independent, 
would be better than the best, hampered by the sovereign's 
presence. 

While Prince Andrei was at Drissa, without stated position, 
Shishkof, the imperial secretary, who was one of the chief 
members of this faction, wrote "the sovereign a letter which 
Balashof and Arakcheyef agreed to sign. Taking advantage 



WAR AND PEACE. 45 

of the permission accorded him by' the sovereign to make 
suggestions concerning the general course of events, he re- 
spectfully, and under the pretext that it was necessary for 
the sovereign to stir the people of the capital to fresh enthu- 
siasm for this war, in this letter proposed that he should leave 
the army. 

The fanning of the enthusiasm of the people by the sover- 
eign and his summons to defend the fatherland. the very 
thing which led to the ultimate triumph of Russia and to 
which so largely his personal presence in Moscow contributed 
was therefore offered to the emperor and accepted by him 
as a pretext for quitting the army. 



CHAPTEE X. 

THIS letter had not as yet been placed in the sovereign's 
hands, when Barclay at dinner informed Bolkonsky that his 
majesty would be pleased to have a personal interview with 
him, in order to make some inquiries concerning Turkey, and 
that he, Prince Andrei, was to present himself at Benigsen's 
lodgings at six o'clock that evening. 

On that day a report had been brought to the sovereign's 
residence concerning a new movement on the part of Napo- 
leon which might prove dangerous for the army a report 
which afterward proved to be false, however. And on that 
very same morning, Colonel Michaud, in company with the 
emperor, had ridden around the fortifications on the Drissa 
and had proved conclusively to the sovereign that this forti- 
fied camp, which had been laid out under Pfuhl's direction 
and had been up to that time considered a chef cFceuvre of tac- 
tical skill destined to be the ruin of Napoleon, that this 
camp was a piece of folly and a source of danger for the Rus- 
sian army. 

* Prince Andrei proceeded to the lodging of General Benig- 
sen, who had established himself in a small villa on the very 
bank of the river. Neither Benigsen nor the sovereign was 
there ; but Chernuishef, the emperor's fltigel-adjutant, received 
Bolkonsky and explained that the sovereign had gone with 
General Benigsen and the Marchese Paulucci for a second 
time that day on a tour of inspection of the fortified camp of 
the Drissa, as to the utility of which serious doubts had begun 
to be conceived. 

Chernuishef was sitting with a French novel at one of the 



46 WAR AND PEACE. 

windows of the front room. This room had at one time 
probably been a ballroom ; there still stood in it an organ on 
which were piled a number of rugs, and in one corner stood 
the folding bed belonging to Benigsen's adjutant. This adju- 
tant was there. Apparently overcome by some merry-making 
or perhaps by work he lay stretched out on the bed and was 
fast asleep. 

Two doors led from this hall ; one directly into the former 
drawing-room, the other to the right into the library. Through 
the first voices were heard conversing in German and occa- 
sionally in French. Yonder, in that former drawing-room were 
gathered together at the sovereign's request not a council of 
war for the "sovereign was fond of indefiniteness but a 
meeting of a number of individuals whose opinions concerning 
the existing difficulties he was anxious of ascertaining. It 
was not a council of war but a sort of committee of gentlemen 
convened to explain certain questions for the sovereign's 
personal gratification. To this semi-council were invited the 
Swedish general Armfeldt, General-adjutant Woltzogen, 
Winzengerode, whom Napoleon had called a fugitive French 
subject, Michaud, Toll, who was also not at all a military man. 
Count Stein, and finally Pf uhl himself, who, as Prince Andrei 
had already heard, was la cheville ouvriere the mainspring 
of the whole affair. Prince Andrei had an opportunity of 
getting a good look at him, as Pfuhl arrived shortly after he 
did and came into the drawing-room, where he stood for a 
minute or two talking with Chernuishef. 

Pfuhl, dressed like a Russian general in a uniform that was 
clumsily constructed and set on him without the slightest 
attempt at a graceful fit, seemed to Prince Andrei at first 
glance like an old acquaintance, although he had never seen 
him before. He was of the same type as Weirother and Mack 
and Schmidt and many other German theorist-generals whom 
Prince Andrei had seen in 1805 ; but he was more character 
istic of the type than all the rest. Never in his life had 
Prince Andrei seen a German theorist who so completely 
united in himself all that was typical of those Germans. 

Pfuhl was short and very thin, but big-boned, of coarse, 
healthy build, with a broad pelvis and prominent shoulder- 
blades. His face was full of wrinkles, and he had deep-set 
eyes. His hair had been evidently brushed in some haste for- 
ward by the temples, but behind it stuck out in droll little 
tufts. Looking round sternly and nervously, he came into the 
room as though he were afraid of every one. With awkward 



WAR AND PEACE. 47 

gesture grasping his sword, he turned to Chernuishef and 
asked in German where the emperor was. It was evident that 
he was anxious to make the round of the room as speedily as 
possible, to put an end to the salutations and greetings and to 
seat himself before the map, where alone he felt that he was 
quite at home. He abruptly tossed his head in reply to Cher- 
nuishef's answer and smiled ironically at the report that the 
sovereign had gone to inspect the fortifications which Pfuhl 
himself had constructed in accordance with his theory. In a 
deep, gruff voice characteristic of all self-conceited Germans 
he grumbled to himself, " Stupid blockhead ! Ruin the whole 
business ; pretty state of things will be the result." * 

Prince Andrei did not listen to him and was about to go, 
but Chernuishef introduced him to Pfuhl, remarking that he 
had just come from Turkey, where the war had been brought 
to a successful termination. Pfuhl gave a fleeting glance not 
so much at Prince Andrei as through him, and muttered with 
a smile, " That must have been a fine tactical campaign." f And, 
scornfully smiling, he went into the room where the voices 
were heard. 

Evidently Pfuhl, who was always disposed to be ironical 
and irritable, was on this day especially stirred up because they 
had dared without him to inspect his camp and criticise him. 

Prince Andrei, simply by this brief interview with Pfuhl, 
re-enforced by his experiences at Austerlitz, had gained a suffi- 
ciently clear insight into the character of this man. Pfuhl was 
one of those hopelessly, unalterably self-conceited men who 
would suffer martyrdom rather than yield his opinion, a genu- 
ine German, for the very reason that Germans alone are abso- 
lutely certain, in their own minds, of the solid foundation 
of that abstract idea, Science ; that is to say, the assumed 
knowledge of absolute truth. 

The Frenchman is self-conceited because he considers him- 
self individually, both as regards mind and body, irresistibly 
captivating to either men or women. The Englishman is con- 
ceited through his absolute conviction that he is a citizen of 
the most fortunately constituted kingdom in the world, and 
because, as an Englishman, he knows, always and in all cir- 
cumstances what it is requisite for him to do, and also knows 
that all that he does as an Englishman is correct beyond cavil. 
The Italian is conceited because he is excitable, and easily f or- 

* Dummkopf ! Zum Grunde die gnnze Geschichte 's wird was ge< 
scheites drans werden. 

t Da muss ein schoner tactischer Krieg gewesen *efo. 



48 WAR AND PEACE. 

gets himself and others. The Russian is conceited for the 
precise reason that he knows nothing, and wishes to know 
nothing, because he believes that it is impossible to know any- 
thing. But the German is conceited in a worse way than all the 
rest, because he imagines that he knows the truth, the sci- 
ence which he has himself invented, but which for him is 
absolute truth ! 

Evidently such a man was Pfuhl. He had his science, 
the theory of oblique movements, which he had deduced from 
the history of the wars of Friedrich the Great, and every- 
thing that he saw in the warfare of more recent date seemed 
to him nonsense, barbarism, ignorant collisions in which, on 
both sides, so many errors were committed that these wars had 
no right to be called wars. They did not come under his theory, 
and could not be judged as a subject for science. 

In 1806 Pfuhl had been one of these who elaborated the plan 
of the campaign that culminated at Jena and Auerstadt, but 
the unfortunate issue of that campaign did not open his eyes 
to see the slightest fault in his theory. On the contrary, the 
fact that his theory had been, to a certain extent, abandoned, 
was in his mind the sole cause of the whole failure ; and he 
said, in the tone of self-satisfied irony characteristic of him, 
" Ich sagte ja dass die ganze Geschichte zum Ten f el gehen 
iverde, I predicted that the whole thing would go to the 
deuce." 

Pfuhl was one of those theorists who are so in love with 
their theory that they forget the object of the theory, its rela- 
tion to practice. In his fanatic devotion to his theory he hated 
everything practical, and could not listen to it. He even de- 
lighted in the failure of any enterprise, because this failure, 
resulting from the abandonment of theory for practice, was 
proof positive to him of how correct his theory was. 

He spoke a few words with Prince Andrei and Chernuishef 
about the existing war with the expression of a man who knew 
in advance that all was going to the dogs, and that he, for one, 
did not much regret the fact. The little tufts of unkempt hair 
that stuck out on his occiput, and the hastily brushed love- 
locks around his temples, spoke eloquently of this. 

He went into the adjoining room, and instantly they heard 
the deep-set and querulous sounds of his voice. 



WAR AND PEACE. 49 



CHAPTER XL 

PRINCE ANDREI had no time to let his eyes follow Pfuhl, as 
Count Benigsen just at that moment came hastily into the 
room, and, inclining his head to Bolkonsky, but not pausing, 
went directly into the library, giving his adjutant some order 
as he went. Benigsen had hurried home in advance of the 
sovereign in order to make some preparations, and to be there 
to receive him. 

Chernuishef and Prince Andrei went out on the steps. The 
emperor, with an expression of fatigue, was dismounting from 
his horse. The Marchese Paulucci was making some remark. 
The sovereign, with his head bent over to the left, was listen- 
ing with a discontented air to Paulucci, who was speaking with 
his usual vehemence. The sovereign started forward, evidently 
desirous of cutting short this harangue ; but the flushed and 
excited Italian, forgetting the proprieties, followed him, still 
talking, 

" As for the man who advised this camp, the camp of Drissa," 
Paulucci was saying just as the sovereign, mounting the steps 
and perceiving Prince Andrei, glanced into his face, though he 
did not recognize him. " As to him, Sire," pursued Paulucci, 
in a state of desperation, as though quite unable to control 
himself , " as for the man who advised this camp of Drissa, 
I see no other alternative for him than the insane asylum or 
the gallows." * 

The sovereign, not waiting for the Italian to 'finish what he 
had to say, and as though not even hearing his words, came 
closer to Bolkonsky, and, recognizing him, addressed him gra- 
ciously, 

" Very glad to see you. Come in where the gentlemen are, 
and wait for me." 

The sovereign went into the library. He was followed by 
Prince Piotr Mikhailovitch Volkonsky and Baron Stein, and 
the door was shut. Prince Andrei, taking advantage of the 
sovereign's permission, joined Paulucci, whom he had known 
in Turkey, and went into the drawing-room where the council 
was held. 

Prince Piotr Mikhailovitch Volkonsky held the position of 
nachalnik, or chief of the sovereign's staff. Volkonsky came 

* Quant a celui, Sire, qui a conseillele camp de Drissa, je ne voispasd'au 
tre alternative que la rnaisonjaune ou le gibet. 
VOL. 3. 4. 



50 WAR AND PEACE. 

out of the cabinet and carried "into the drawing-room a quan- 
tity of maps and papers, and as he deposited them upon the 
table he communicated the questions in regard to which he was 
anxious to have the opinions of the gentlemen present. The 
questions arose from the fact that news, afterwards proved to 
be false, had been received the night before concerning a move- 
ment of the French toward outflanking the camp on the 
Drissa. 

General Armfeldt was the first to begin the debate, and he 
unexpectedly proposed, as an escape from the impending diffi- 
culty, that they should choose an entirely new position at a 
little distance from the highways leading to Moscow and Peters- 
burg ; and there, as he expressed it, let the army be increased 
to its full strength, and await the enemy. No one could see 
any reason for his advocating such a scheme, unless it came 
from his desire to show that he, as well as the rest, had ideas 
of his own. 

It was evident that Armfeldt had long ago evolved this 
scheme, and that he proposed it now not so much with the 
design of responding to the questions laid before the meeting 

questions which this scheme of his entirely failed to answer 

as it was with the design of using his chance to enunciate it. 
This was only one of the millions of proposals which, not hav- 
ing any reference to the character which the war was likely to 
assume, had equally as good foundations as others of the same 
sort for successful accomplishment. 

Some of those present attacked his suggestions, others de- 
fended them. The young Colonel Toll attacked the opinions 
of the Swedish general more fiercely than the others, and dur- 
ing the discussion took out of his side pocket a manuscript 
note-book, which he begged permission to read. In this dif- 
fusely elaborated manuscript Toll proposed still another plan 
of campaign, diametrically the opposite of those suggested by 
Armfeldt and Pfuhl. 

Paulucci, combating Toll, proposed the plan of an advance 
and attack, which, according to his views, was the only possible 
way to extricate us from the present suspense, and from the 
" trap/'' as he called the camp on the Drissa, in which we now 
found ourselves. 

During the course of these discussions and criticisms Pfuhi 
and Woltzogen, his interpreter (his "bridge," in Court par- 
lance), maintained silence. Pfuhl merely snorted scornfully 
and turned away, signifying that he would never sink- so low 
as to reply to all this rubbish to which he was now listening. 



WAR AND PEACE, 51 

So when Prince Volkonsky, as chairman of the meeting, called 
upon him to express his opinion, he merely said, 

"Why do you ask me? General Armfeldt has proposed a 
beautiful position, with the rear exposed, and you have heard 
about the offensive operations proposed by this Italian gentle- 
man. Sehr schon ! Or the retreat. Auch gut ! So why do 
you ask me ? " he replied ; " for, you see, you yourselves know 
more about all this than I do." 

But when Volkonsky frowned, and said that he asked his 
opinion in the name of the sovereign, then Pfuhl got up, and, 
growing suddenly excited, began to speak : 

" You have spoiled everything, you have thrown everything 
into confusion. You pretend to know more about the whole 
thing than I do, but here you are coming to me now. How can 
things be remedied ? There's no possibility of remedying 
them. It is necessary to carry out to the letter my design, on 
the lines which I have laid down," said he, pounding the table 
with his bony knuckles. " Where is the difficulty ? Kubbish ! 
Kinderspiel ! " He stepped up to the table and began to talk 
rapidly, scratching with his finger-nail on the map, and demon- 
strating that no contingency could alter the effectiveness of 
the camp on the Drissa ; that everything had been foreseen, 
and that if the enemy were actually to outflank them, then the 
enemy would be inevitably annihilated. 

Paulucci, who did not understand German, began to question 
him in French. Woltzogen came to the aid of his leader, who 
spoke French but badly, and began to translate his words, 
though he could hardly keep up with Pfuhl, who rapidly de- 
monstrated that everything, everything, not only what had 
happened but whatever could possibly happen, had been pro- 
vided for in his plan, and that if there were any complications 
the whole blame lay simply in the fact that his plan had not 
been accurately carried out. He kept smiling ironically as he 
made his demonstration, and finally he scornfully stopped ad- 
ducing arguments, just as a mathematician ceases to verify the 
various steps of a problem which has once been found correctly 
solved. Woltzogen took his place, proceeding to explain in 
French his ideas, and occasionally turning to Pfuhl with a 
" Nicht wahr, Excellent ? " for confirmation. 

Pfuhl, like a man so excited in a battle that he attacks his 
own side, cried testily to his own faithful follower, to Woltzo- 
gen, " Why, of course ; it's as plain as daylight." * 

Paulucci and Michaud both at once fell on Woltzogen in 
* Nunjal was soil denn da noch expliziert werden I 



52 WAR AND PEACE. 

French, Armfeldt addressed a question to Pfuhl in German^ 
Toll explained the matter in Kussian to Prince Volkonsky. 
Prince Andrei listened without speaking, and watched the pro- 
ceedings. 

Of all these individuals the exasperated, earnest, and ab- 
surdly self-conceited Pfuhl awoke the most sympathy in Prince 
Andrei. He alone, of all present, evidently had no taint of 
self-seeking, nor had he any hatred of any one, but simply 
desired that his plan, elaborated from his theory which had 
been deduced from his studies during long years, should be car- 
ried into execution. He was ridiculous, his use of sarcasm 
made him disagreeable ; but at the same time he awakened 
involuntary respect by his boundless devotion to an idea. 

Besides, in all the remarks made by those who were present, 
with the sole exception of Pfuhl's, there was one common fea- 
ture which had never been manifested in the council of war 
in the year 1805, and this was a panic fear, even though 
sophisticated, in presence of the genius of Napoleon, which 
showed itself in every argument. They took it for granted 
that Napoleon could do anything. They looked for him on 
every side, and by the magic of his terrible name each one of 
them demolished the proposals of the other. Pfuhl alone, it 
seemed, regarded even Napoleon as a barbarian, like all the 
other opponents of his theory. 

Over and above his feeling of respect for Pfuhl, Prince Andrei 
was conscious also of a feeling of pity for the man. By the 
tone in which he was addressed by the courtiers, by the way 
in which Paulucci had permitted himself to speak of him to 
the emperor, and, above all, by a certain desperate expression 
manifested by Pfuhl himself, it was plain to see that the others 
knew, and he himself felt, that his fall was at hand. And, 
aside from his self-conceit and his grumbling German irony, 
he was pitiable by reason of his hair brushed forward into little 
love-locks on his temples, and the little tufts standing out on 
his occiput. Although he did his best to dissimulate it under 
the guise of exasperation and scorn, he was in despair because 
his only chance of showing his theory on a tremendous scale, 
and proving it before all the world, was slipping from him. 

The discussion lasted a long time, and the longer it lasted 
the more heated grew the arguments, which were like quarrels 
by reason of the raised voices and personalities ; and the less 
possible was it to come to any general conclusion from all that 
was said. Prince Andrei, listening to this polyglot debate and 
these propositions, plans, and counter-plans, and shouts, was 



WAR AND PEACE. 53 

simply astonished at what they all said. The idea which had 
early and often suggested itself to him during the time of his 
former military service, that there was not, and could not 
be, any such thing as a military science, and consequently could 
not be any so-called military genius, now seemed to him a 
truth beyond a peradventure. 

" How. can there be any theory and science in a matter the 
conditions and -circumstances of which are unknown and can- 
not be determined, in which the force employed by those 
who make the war is still less capable of measurement ? No 
one can possibly know what will be the position of our army 
and that of the enemy's a day from now, and no one can know 
what is the force of this or that division. Sometimes when 
there is no coward in the front to cry, 'We are cut off,' and 
to start the panic, and there is a jovial, audacious man there 
to shout, ' Hurrah ! ' . a division of five thousand is worth 
thirty thousand, as was the case at Schongraben ; and sometimes 
fifty thousand will fly be'fore eight, as happened at Aus- 
terlitz. What science, then, can there be in such a business, 
where nothing can be pre-determined, as in any practical busi- 
ness, and where everything depends on numberless conditions, 
the resolving of which is defined at some one moment, but 
when no one can possibly foretell. Armfeldt says that our 
army is cut off, and Paulucci declares that we have got the 
French army between two fires. Michaud says that the use- 
lessness of the camp on the Drissa consists in this, that the 
river is back of it, while Pfuhl declares that therein consists 
its strength. Toll proposes one plan, Armfeldt proposes 
another, and all are good and all are bad, and the advantages 
of each and every proposition can be proven only at the 
moment when the event occurs. And why do they all use the 
term, ' military genius ' ? Is that man a genius who manages 
to keep his army well supplied with biscuits, and commands 
them to go, some to the left and some to the right ? Merely 
because military men are clothed with glory and power, and 
crowds of sycophants are always ready to flatter Power, ascrib- 
ing to it the inappropriate attributes of genius. On the other 
hand, the best generals whom T have ever known were stupid 
or absent-minded men. The best was Bagration ; N&poleon 
himself called him so. And Bonaparte himself ! I remember 
his self-satisfied and narrow-minded face on the field of Aus- 
terlitz. A good leader on the field of battle needs not genius 
or any of the special qualities so much as he needs the exact 
opposite, or the lack of these highest human qualities love, 



54 WAR AND PEACE. 

poetry, affection, a philosophical, investigating scepticism. 
He must be narrow-minded, firmly convinced that what he is 
doing is absolutely essential (otherwise he will not have pa- 
tience), and then only will he be a brave leader. God pity him 
if he is a man who has any love for any one, or any pity, or 
has any scruples about right or wrong. It is perfectly com- 
prehensible that in old times they invented a theory of gen- 
iuses because they held power. Credit for success in battle 
depends not upon them but upon that man in the ranks who 
cries, ' They are on us,' or who shouts, ' Hurrah.' And only 
in the ranks can you serve with any assurance that you are 
of any service." 

Thus mused Prince Andrei as he listened to the arguments, 
and he came out of his brown study only when Paulucci 
called him and the meeting was already adjourned. 

On the following day, during a review, the sovereign asked 
Prince Andrei where he preferred to serve, and Prince Andrei 
forever lost caste in the eyes of the courtiers because he did 
not ask for a place near the sovereign's person, but asked per- 
mission to enter active service. 



CHAPTER XII. 

KOSTOF, before the opening of the campaign, received a letter 
from his parents, in which, after briefly announcing Natasha's 
illness and the rupture of the engagement with Prince Andrei, 
this rupture, they explained, was Natasha's own work, 
they again urged him to retire from the service and come 
home. 

Nikolai, on receipt of this letter, made no attempt to secure 
either a furlough or permission to go upon the retired list, but 
wrote his parents that he was very sorry for Natasha's illness 
and breach with her lover, and that he would do all that he 
possibly could in order to fulfil their desires. He wrote a 
separate letter to Sonya. 

" Adored friend of my heart," he wrote, "nothing except 
honor could keep me from returning home. But just now, at 
the opening of the campaign, I should consider myself dis- 

faced not only before all my comrades but in my own eyes if 
were to prefer my pleasure to my duty, and my love to my 
coTintry. But this is our last Separation. Be assured that im- 
mediately after the war, if I am alive and you still love me, I 



WAR AND PEACE. 55 

will give up everything and fly to thee to clasp thee forever 
to my ardent heart ! " 

He was telling the truth : it was only the opening of the 
campaign that detained Nikolai, and prevented him from ful- 
filling his promise by at once returning home and marrying 
Sonya. The autumn at Otradnoye, with its sport, and the 
winter with the Christmas holidays, and his love for Sonya, 
had opened up before him a whole perspective of the pleasures 
of a country nobleman, and of domestic contentment, which he 
had never known before and which now beckoned to him with 
their sweet allurements. 

" A glorious wife, children, a good pack of hunting dogs, a 
leash of ten or twenty spirited greyhounds, the management 
of the estate, the neighbors and service at the elections," he 
said to himself. But now there was a war in prospect, and he 
was obliged to remain with his regiment. And since this was 
a matter of necessity, Nikolai Kostof, in accordance with his 
character, was content with the life which he led in the regi- 
ment, and had the skill to arrange it so that it was agreeable. 

On his return from his furlough, having met with a cordial 
reception from his comrades, Nikolai was sent out to secure 
fresh horses , and he brought back with him from Little 
Russia an excellent remount, such as gladdened his own heart, 
and procured for him the praise of his superiors. During his 
absence, he had been promoted to the rank of rotmistr, or cap- 
tain of cavalry, and, when the regiment was restored to a war 
footing, with increased complement, he was put in charge of 
his former squadron. 

The campaign had begun; the regiment was moved x into 
Poland, double pay was granted ; there were new officers 
present, new men and horses, and, above all, there was an in- 
crease of that excitement and bustle which always accompanies 
the beginning of a campaign ; and Kostof, recognizing his ad- 
vantageous position in the regiment, gave himself up, heart 
and soul, to the pleasures and interests of military service, 
although he knew well that, sooner or later, he would have to 
leave it. 

The troops evacuated Vilno for various complicated reasons, 
imperial, political, and tactical. For there, at headquarters, 
every step of the retreat was accompanied by a complicated 
play of interests, arguments, and passions. For the hussars of 
the Pavlogradsky regiment, all this backward movement, in 
the best part of the summer, with abundance of provisions, 
was a most simple and enjoyable affair. At headquarters, 



56 WAR AND PEACE. 

men might lose heart, and grow nervous, and indulge in in- 
trigues to their hearts' content, but in the ranks no one thought 
of asking where or wherefore they were moving. If they in- 
dulged in regrets at the retreat, it was simply because they 
were compelled to leave pleasant quarters and the pretty 
Polish pani. If it occurred to any one that affairs were going 
badly, then, as became a good soldier, the man who had such 
a thought would try to be jovial, and not think at all of the 
general course of events, but only of what nearest concerned 
himself. 

At first, they were agreeably situated near Vilno, having 
jolly acquaintances among the Polish landed proprietors, and 
constantly expecting the sovereign, and other commanders 
highest in station, to review them, and as constantly being 
disappointed. 

Then came the order to retire to Swienciany, and to destroy 
all provisions that they could not carry away with them. 
Swienciany was memorable to the hussars simply because it was 
the " drunken camp," as the entire army called it, from their 
stay at the place, and because many complaints had been made 
of the troops having taken unfair advantage of the order 
to forage for provisions, and had included under this head 
horses and carriages and rugs stolen from the Polish pans, 
or nobles. 

Eostof had a vivid remembrance of, Swienciany, because on 
the first day of their arrival at the place he had dismissed a 
quartermaster, and had not been able to do anything with the 
men of his squadron, all of whom were tipsy, having, without 
his knowledge, brought away five barrels of old beer. 

From Swienciany, they had retired farther, and then farther 
still, until they reached the Drissa ; and then they had retired 
from the Drissa, all the time approaching the Russian front- 
ier. 

On the 25th of July, the Pavlogradsui, for the first time, took 
part in a serious engagement. 

On the 24th of July, the evening before the engagement, 
there was a severe thunder-storm, with rain and hail. That 
summer of the year 1812 was throughout remarkable for its 
tempests. 

Two squadrons of the Pavlogradsui had bivouacked in a 
field of rye, already eared, but completely trampled down by 
the horses and cattle. It was raining in torrents, and Rostof, 
with a young officer named Ilyin, who was his protege, was 
sitting under the shelter of a sort of wigwam, extemporized 



WAR AND PEACE. 57 

at short notice. An officer of their regiment, with long mus- 
taches bristling forth and hiding his Cheeks, came along, on 
his way to headquarters, and, being oVertaken by the rain, 
asked shelter of Kostof. 

" Count, I have just come from headquarters. Have you 
heard of Rayevsky's great exploit ? " And the officer pro- 
ceeded to relate the particulars of the battle of Saltanovo, 
which he had learned about at headquarters. 

Rostof, hunching his shoulders as the water trickled down 
his neck, lighted his pipe, and listened negligently, now and 
then giving a look at the young officer Ilyin, who was squeezed 
in close to him. This officer, a lad of only sixteen, had not 
been very long connected with the regiment, and was now in 
the same relation to Rostof that Rostof had borne toward 
Denisof seven years before. Ilyin had taken Rostof as 
his pattern in every respect, and loved him as a woman 
might. 

The officer with the long mustaches, Zdrzhinsky by name, 
declared emphatically that the dike at Saltanovo was the Ther- 
mopylse of the Russians, and that the exploit performed by 
General Rayevsky was worthy of the deeds of antiquity. 
Zdrzhinsky described how Rayevsky went out on the dike, 
with his two sons, under a deadly fire, and, side by side with 
them, rushed to the attack. 

Rostof listened to the story, and not only had nothing to 
say in response to the narrator's enthusiasm, but, on tiB con- 
trary, had the air of a man ashamed of what is told him, 
although he has no intention of rebutting it. 

Rostof, after the battle of Austerlitz, and the campaign of 
1807, knew, from his own personal experience, that those who 
talk of military deeds always lie ; just as he himself had lied 
in relating such things. In the second place, his experience 
had taught him that, in a battle, every event is quite the re- 
verse of what we might imagine and relate it. And, there- 
fore, he took no stock in Zdrzhinsky 's story, and was not pleased 
with Zdrzhinsky himself; who, with his cheeks hidden by 
those long mustaches, had the habit of leaning over close, to 
the face of the person to whom he was talking; and then-, 
besides, he was in the way in the narrow hut. 

Rostof looked at him without speaking. "In the first 
place, there must have been such a crush and confusion on the 
dike which they were charging that even if Rayevsky had 
led his sons upon it, it could not have had any effect upon" 
any one gave perhaps a dozen men who were in his immediate. 



58 WAR AND PEACE. 

vicinity," thought Eostof. "The rest could not have seen 
at all how or with whom Eayevsky was rushing upon the 
dike. And then tho'se who did see it could not have been 
very greatly stimulated, because what would they have cared 
for Eayevsky's affectionate paternal feeling, when the only 
thing of interest to them was the caring for their own 
skin! Then again, the fate of the country in no wise 
depended on whether they took the dike at Saltanovo or 
not, as is supposed to have been the case at Thermopylae. And 
therefore what was the use of risking such a sacrifice ? And, 
then, why should he have exposed his children in the affair ? 
I should not have exposed my brother Petya to it, no, nor 
even this Ilyin here, though he is no relation to me but a 
good fellow all the same but I should have tried to put 
them safe out of harm's way somewhere," pursued Eostof, in 
his thoughts, all the while listening to Zdrzhinsky. But he 
did not speak his thoughts aloud ; in regard to this also he 
had learned wisdom by experience. He knew that this story 
redounded to the glory of our arms, and therefore it was re- 
quisite to make believe that he had no doubt of it. And so 
he did. 

"Well, there's one thing, I can't stand this," exclaimed 
Ilyin, perceiving that Eostof was not pleased with Zdrzhin- 
sky 's chatter ; " my stockings and my shirt are wet through, 
and it is running under me here. I am going in search of 
shelter. It seems to me it is slacking up." 

Ilyin went out and Zdrzhinsky mounted and rode off. 
At the end of five minutes Ilyin, slopping through the mud, 
came hurrying up to the wigwam. 

" Hurrah ! Eostof, come on quick ! There's a tavern a 
couple of hundred paces from here, and a lot of our men are 
there already. We can get dry there, and Marie Heinrichoviia 
is there too." 

Marie Heinrichoviia was the regimental doctor's wife, a 
pretty young German girl whom the doctor had married in 
Poland. Either because the doctor had no means or because 
he did not wish to be separated from his bride during the 
early period of his married life, he took her wherever he 
went in his travels with the hussars, and his jealousy became 
a constant source of amusement and jest among the officers of 
the regiment. 

Eostof flung his cloak over him, called Lavrushka to follow 
with the luggage, and went with Ilyin, ploughing through the 
mud, plodding straight onward amid the now rapidly dimin- 



WAR AND PEACE. 59 

ishing shower, into the darkness of the evening, occasionally 
interrupted by flashes of distant lightning. 

" Rostof, where are you ? " 

" Here I am ! what lightning ! " was what they said as they 
marched along. 

CHAPTER XIII. 

AT the tavern before which stood the doctor's kibitka or 
travelling carriage, five officers were already gathered. Marie 
Heinrichovna, a plump, light-haired German, in jacket and 
night-cap, was sitting in the front room on a wide bench. 
Her spouse, the doctor, was asleep behind her. Rostof and 
Ilyin, welcomed by acclamations and roars of laughter, walked 
into the room. 

" Ee ! you have something very jolly going on," said Rostof, 
with a laugh. 

"And what brings you here so late ! " 

" You are fine specimens ! Look at the way they are stream- 
ing ! Don't drown out our parlor floor ! " 

" Be careful how you daub Marie Heinrichovna's dress," 
cried the voices. 

Rostof and Ilyin made haste to find a corner where, without 
shocking Marie Heinrichovna's modesty, they might change 
their wet garments. They had gone behind the partition to 
make the change, but the little room, which was scarcely 
more than a closet, was entirely filled by three officers, sitting 
on an empty chest, and playing cards by the light of a single 
candle ; and nothing would induce them to evacuate the 
place. 

Accordingly, Marie Heinrichovna surrendered her petticoat 
to them, and they hung it up in place of a screen ; and behind 
this, Rostof and Ilyin, with Lavrushka's aid, who had brought 
their saddle-bags, exchanged their wet clothing for dry. 

A fire had been started in a broken-down stove. They pro- 
cured a board, laid it across a pair of saddles? covered it with 
a caparison ; the samovar was set up, a bottle-case unpacked, 
and half a bottle of rum got out, and Marie Heinrichovna was 
requested to do the honors ; all gathered around her. One 
offered her a clean handkerchief to wipe her lovely little 
hands ; another spread his overcoat under her feet, to keep 
them from the dampness ; a third hung his cloak in the win- 
dow, to keep away the draught ; a fourth waved the flies away 
from her husband's face, so that he would not wake up. \ 



60 WAR AND PEACE. 

"Never mind him," said Marie Heinrichovna, smiling tim- 
idly and happily. "He always sleeps sound and well after he 
has been up all night." 

"Oh, that is all right, Marie Heinrichovna! " exclaimed the 
officer. " We must take good care of the doctor. All things 
are possible ; and he would have pity on me, if ever he came 
to saw off an arm or a leg for me." 

There were only three glasses ; the water was so muddy 
that it was impossible to tell whether the tea were too strong 
or too weak ; and the samouarchik held only water enough for 
six glasses ; but it was all the more fun to take turns, and to 
receive, in order of seniority, each his glass from Marie Hein- 
richovna's plump little hands, though her short nails were not 
perfectly clean ! 

All the officers seemed to be, and were, in love that evening 
with Marie Heinrichovna. Even the three who had been 
playing cards in the little room made haste to throw up their 
hands, and came out to the samovar, giving way to the common 
feeling of worship for Marie Heinrichovna's charms. 

Marie Heinrichovna, seeing herself surrounded by these 
brilliant and courteous young men. fairly beamed with delight, 
in spite of all her efforts to hide it, and her manifest alarm 
every time her husband, on the bench back of her, moved in 
his sleep. 

There was only one spoon, while there was a superfluity of 
sugar; but, as it was slow in melting, it was decided that 'she 
should stir each glass of tea in turn. Rostof, having received 
his glass and seasoned it with rum, asked Marie Heinrichovna 
to stir it for him. 

" But you haven't put the sugar in, have you?" said she, 
constantly smiling, as though all that she said, and all that 
the others said, was as funny as it could be, and concealed 
some deep hidden meaning. 

" No, I haven't any sugar yet ; all it needs is for you to stir 
it with your little hand." 

Marie Heinrichovna consented, and began to look for the 
spoon, which some one had meanwhile appropriated. 

" Stir it with your dainty little finger, Marie Heinrichovna," 
said Rostof. ' It will make it all the sweeter ! " 

" It's hot ! " exclaimed Marie Heinrichovna, blushing with 
gratification. 

Ilyin too"k a pail of water, and, throwing a little rum into it, 
came to Marie Heinrichovna, begging her to stir it with her 
finger. 



WAR AND PEACE. 61 

v This is my cup," said he. " Just dip your finger in it, and 
J will drink it all up." 

When the samovar had been entirely emptied, Rostof took 
a pack of cards, and proposed to play koroli* with Marie 
Heinrichovna. Lots were cast as to who should be first to 
play with her. 

At Rostof s suggestion, the game was so arranged that the 
one who became " king " should have the privilege of kissing 
Marie Heinrichovna's little hand ; while he who came out 
prdkhvost, or provost, as they called the loser, should have to 
-jtart the samovar afresh for the doctor, when he awoke. 

" Well, but supposing Marie Heinrichovna should be king ? " 
asked Ilyin. 

"She's our queen anyway. And her word shall be our 
law ! " 

The game had hardly begun, before the doctor's dishevelled 
head appeared behind Marie Heinrichovna. He had been 
awake for some time, and had overheard all that had been 
said ; and it was perfectly evident that he found nothing very 
jolly, amusing, or diverting in all that had been said and done. 
His face was glum and sour. He exchanged no greeting with 
the officers, but scratched his head, and asked them to make 
way, so that he could get out. As soon as he had left the room, 
all the officers burst into a roar of laughter, while Marie Hein- 
richovna blushed till the tears came, and thereby became all 
the more fascinating in the eyes of all those young men. 

On his return from out-of-doors, the doctor told his wife, 
who had now ceased to smile that happy smile, and was looking 
at him in timid expectation of a scolding, that the storm had 
passed, and they must go and camp out in their kibitka, other- 
wise all their effects would be stolen. 

" But I will send a soldier to stand on guard two of them,' 5 
said Rostof. " What nonsonse, doctor ! " 

" I'll stand guard myself," said Ilyin. 

" No, gentlemen ; you have had your rest, but I have not 
had any sleep for two nights," said the doctor, and sat down 
gloomily next his wife, to wait for the end of the game. 

As they saw the doctor's lowering face bent angrily on his 
wife, the officers became more jovial still, and many of them 
could not refrain from bursts of merriment, plausible pretexts 
for which they kept striving to invent. When the doctor went 

* Koroli, Kings, is a South Russian game at cards, somewhat like the 
French games of ecarte and triomphe. The winner is called korol t king, and 
can make the other pay a forfeit. 



62 WAR AND PEACE. 

out, taking his wife with him, and ensconced themselves in 
the snug little kibitka for the night, the officers wrapped 
themselves up in their damp cloaks and lay down anywhere in 
the tavern ; but it was long before they could go to sleep, 
because of the talk that still went on ; some of them recalling 
the doctor's jealous fear, and the doktorsha's jollity ; while 
others went out on the steps, and came back to report what 
was going on in the kibitka. 

Several times, Rostof, muffling up his ears, tried to go to 
sleep ; but then some one would make a remark, and arouse 
his attention ; and again the conversation would go on, and 
again they would break out into nonsensical, merry laughter, 
as though they were children. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

IT was three o'clock in the morning, and no one had caught 
a wink of sleep, when fche quartermaster made his appearance 
with the orders to proceed to the little village of Ostrovno. 

Still chattering and laughing as before, the officers made 
haste to get ready ; they again set up the samovar, with the . 
same dirty water. But Rostof, -not waiting for tea, started 
off for his squadron. 

It was already growing light , the rain had ceased ; the 
clouds were scattering. It was damp and cold especially 
in well-soaked clothes. As they came out of the tavern, 
Rostof and Ilyin looked at the doctor's leathered kibitka, the 
leathered cover 01 which, wet with the rain, gleamed in the 
early morning twilight, while the doctor's long legs protruded 
from under the apron ; and, in the interior, among the 
cushions, the doktorsha's nightcap could be dimly seen, and 
heard the measured breathing, as she slept. 

" Fact, she's very pretty ! " said Rostof to Ilyin, who ac- 
companied him. 

" Yes, what a charming woman she is ! " replied the other, 
with all the seriousness of sixteen. 

Within half an hour, the squadron was drawn up on the 
road. The command was heard : " To saddle." The men 
crossed themselves, and proceeded to mount. Rostof, taking 
the lead, gave the command, " Marsch ! " and, filing off four 
abreast, the hussars, with the sound of hoofs splashing in the 
pools, the clinking of sabres, and subdued conversation, started 



WAR AND PEACE. 63 

along the broad road, lined with birch-trees, and following the 
infantry and artillery, which had gone on ahead. 

Scattere,"!. purplish blue clouds, growing into crimson in the 
east, were swiftly fleeting before the wind. It was growing 
lighter and lighter. More distinguishable became the crisp 
grass which always grows on country cross-roads ; it was still 
wet with the evening's rain, the pendulous foliage of the 
birches, also dripping with moisture, shook in the wind, and 
tossed aside the sparkling drops. Clearer and clearer grew 
the faces of the soldiers. Rostof rode along with Ilyin, who 
was his inseparable companion ; they kept to one side of the 
road, which led between a double row of trees. 

Rostof, during this campaign, had permitted himself to ride 
a Cossack horse, instead of his regular horse of the line. Be- 
ing both a connoisseur and a huntsman, he had recently 
selected a strong, mettlesome, dun-colored pony, from the Don, 
which no one could think of matching in a race. It was a 
perfect delight for Rostof to ride on this steed. His thoughts 
now ran on horses, the beauty* of the morning, the doctor's 
wife, and not once did he let the possibility of serious danger 
occur to him. 

In days gone by, Rostof, on approaching an engagement, 
would have felt a pang of dismay ; now he experienced not 
the slightest sensation of timidity. He was devoid of all fear, 
not because he was wonted to fire it is impossible to become 
wonted to danger but rather because he had learned to con- 
trol his heart in the presence of danger. On going into an 
engagement, he had accustomed himself to think about every- 
thing except the one thing which would have been most 
absorbing of all the impending peril. In spite of all his 
efforts, in spite of all his self-reproaches for his cowardice, 
during the first term of his service, he had not been able to 
reach this point ; but, in the course of years, it had come of 
itself. He rode now with Ilyin, side by side, between the 
birch-trees, occasionally tearing off a leaf from a down-hanging 
branch, occasionally prodding the horse in the groin, occasion- 
ally, not even turning round, handing his exhausted pipe to the 
hussar just behind him, with such a calm and unconcerned ap- 
pearance that one would have thought he was riding for pleasure. 

He felt a pang of pity to look at Ilyin's excited face, as he 
rode along, talking fast and nervously. He knew from expe- 
rience that painful state of mind at the expectation of danger 
and death, which the young cornet was now experiencing, and 
he knew that nothing but time could cure him. 



64 WAR AND PEACE. 

As soon as the sun came into sight, in the clear strip of sky 
below the clouds, the wind died down, as though it dared not 
mar in the slightest degree the perfect beauty of the summer 
morning after the storm ; the drops still fell from the trees, 
but it was now broad daylight and all was calm and still. 

The sun came up full and round, poised on the horizon, and 
then mounted and disappeared behind a long, narrow cloud. 
But, in the course of a few minutes, it burst forth brighter 
than ever on the upper edge of the cloud, cutting its edge. 

The world was full of light and brilliancy. And simulta- 
neously with this burst of light, and as though saluting it, 
rang out the heavy booming of cannon at the front. 

Eostof had no time to ponder and make up his mind how 
far distant these cannon-shots were, when an adjutant from 
Count Ostermann-Tolstoi came galloping up from Vitebsk, 
with the order to advance with all speed. 

The squadron outstripped the infantry and artillery, which 
were also hurrying forward, plunged down a hill, and, dashing 
through a village deserted of its inhabitants, galloped up a 
slope at the other side. The horses were all of a lather with 
sweat, the men flushed and breathless. 

" Halt ! Dress ranks," rang out the command of the division 
leader, at the front. " Guide left ! Shagom marsch ! " (that 
is, forward at a foot-pace) again rang the command. And the 
hussars rode along the line of the troops toward the left flank 
of the position, and drew rein just behind our uhlans, who 
were in the front rank. At the right stood our infantry, in a 
solid mass : they were the reserves : higher up on the slope 
could be seen in the clear, clear atmosphere, our cannon shin- 
ing in the slanting rays of the bright morning sun, on the very 
horizon. 

Forward, beyond a ravine, were heard our infantry, already 
involved in the action, and merrily exchanging shots with the 
enemy. 

Kostofs heart beat high with joy, as he heard these sounds 
which he had not heard for many a long day, and now seemed 
like the notes of the j oiliest music. Trap-ta-ta-tap, several 
shots cracked, sometimes together, suddenly, then rapidly, 
one after another. 

The hussars stood for about an hour in one place. The can- 
nonade had also begun. Count Ostermann and his suite came 
riding up behind the squadron, and, drawing rein, had a short 
conversation with the commander of the regiment, and then 
rode off toward the cannon at the height. 



WAR AND PEACE. 65 

As soon as Ostermann rode away, the uhlans heard the com- 
mand : " V kolonnu, k atdkye stro'isya ! " (In column : ready to 
charge ! ) 

The infantry in front of them parted their ranks to let the 
cavalry through. The uhlans started away, the pennons on 
their lances waving gayly, and down the slope they dashed at 
a trot, toward the French cavalry, which began to appear at 
the foot of the slope at the left. 

As soon as the uhlans started down the slope, the hussars 
were ordered to move forward and protect the battery on the 
height. While the hussars were stationed in the position 
before occupied by the uhlans, bullets flew high over their 
heads, buzzing and humming through the air. 

These sounds, which had not been heard by Rostof for long 
years, had a more pleasing and stimulating influence than 
the roar of musketry before. Straightening himself up in the 
saddle, he scrutinized the battle-field spread full before his 
eyes from the height where he was stationed, and his wLole 
heart followed the uhlans into the charge. 

They had now flown almost down to the French dragoons ; 
there was a scene of confusion and collision in the smoke, a,nd, 
at the end of five minutes, the uhlans were being pressed 
back ; not in the same place, indeed, but farther to the left. 
Mixed in with the orange-uniformed uhlans, on their chestnut 
horses, and behind them, in a compact mass, could be seen the 
blue French dragoons, 011 their gray horses. 



CHAPTER XV. 

ROSTOF, with his keen huntsman's eye, was one of the first 
to notice these French dragoons in blue pressing back our 
uhlans. Nearer, nearer, in disorderly masses, came the uhlans, 
and the French dragoons in pursuit of them. 

It was plain to all how these men. dwarfed by the distance, 
were jostling each other, driving each other, and brandishing 
their arms and their sabres, at the foot of the hill. 

Rostof looked on at the fight, as though he were present at 
some mighty tournament. His instinct told him that if the 
hussars could now add their impetus to that of the uhlans, the 
French dragoons could not stand it ; but if the blow was to be 
struck, it was to be done immediately, on the instant, else it 
would be too late. He glanced around : a captain stationed 
VOL. 3. 5. 



66 WAR AND PEACE. 

near him had likewise his eyes fixed steadfastly on the cavalry 
contest below. 

" Andrei Sevastyanuitch ! " said Eostof . " We might crush 
them down." 

" 'Twould be a dashing piece of work, but still " 

Eostof, not waiting to hear him through, gave spurs to his 
horse, dashed along in front of his squadron, and before' he 
had even given the word for the advance, the whole squadron 
to a man, experiencing exactly what he had, scoured after him. 

Eostof himself did not know how and why he did this thing. 
The whole action was as instinctive, as unpremeditated, as 
though he were out hunting. He saw that the dragoons 
were near at hand, that they were galloping forward, in dis- 
orderly ranks. He knew that they would not withstand a 
sudden attack ; he knew that it was the matter of a single 
moment, which would not return if he let it have the go-by. 
The bullets whizzed and whistled around him so stimulatingly, 
his horse dashed on ahead so hotly, that he could not but 
yield. He plunged the spurs still deeper in his horse's side, 
shouted his command, and, at that same instant, hearing behind 
him the hoof-clatter of his squadron, breaking into the charge, 
at full trot, he gave his horse his head down the hill, at the 
dragoons. No sooner had they reached the bottom of the 
slope, than their gait changed involuntarily from trot to gal- 
lop, growing ever swifter and swifter in proportion as they 
approached the uhlans and the French dragoons who were 
driving them back. 

The dragoons were close to them. The foremost, seeing the 
hussars, started to turn ; those in the rear paused. Feel- 
ing as though he were galloping to cut off an escaping wolf, 
Eostof, urging his Don pony to his utmost, dashed on toward 
the disconcerted French dragoons. One of the uhlans reined 
in his horse ; one, who had been dismounted, threw himself 
on the ground to escape being crushed; a riderless steed 
. dashed in among the hussars. Almost all the French dragoons 
were now in full retreat. 

Eostof, selecting one of them, mounted on a gray steed, 
started in pursuit of him. On the way, he found himself 
rushing at a bush ; his good steed, without hesitating, took it 
at a leap ; and, almost before Eostof had settled himself in his 
saddle again, he saw that he should' within a few seconds 
have overtaken the man whom he had selected as his objective 
point. This Frenchman, evidently an officer by his uniform, 
bending forward, was urging on his gray horse, striking him 



WAR AND PEACE. 67 

with his sabre. A second later, Rostof's horjt3 hit the other's 
rear with his chest, almost knocking him over ; and, at the 
same instant, Rostof, not knowing why, raised his sabre and 
struck at the Frenchman. 

The instant he did so, all Rostof s e?^er excitement sud- 
denly vanished. The officer fell, not so ranch from the effect 
of the sabre-stroke, which had only Buratched him slightly 
above the elbow, as it was from the collision of the horses, and 
from panic. Rostof pulled up to look for his enemy, and see 
whom he had vanquished. The French officer of dragoons was 
hopping along, with one foot on the ground and the other en- 
tangled in the stirrup. With his eyes squinting with fear, as 
though he expected each instant to be struck down again, he was 
looking up at Rostof, with an expression of horror. His pale 
face, covered with mud, fair and young, with dimpled chin and 
bright blue eyes, was one not made for the battle-field, not the 
face of an enemy, but a simple home face. 

Even before Rostof had made up his mind what to do with 
him, the officer cried : " Je me rends." In spite of all his 
efforts, he could not extricate his foot from the stirrup ; and 
still, with frightened eyes, he kept gazing at Rostof. Some 
of the hussars, who had come galloping up, freed his foot for 
him, and helped him to mount. The hussars were coming 
back in all directions with dragoons as prisoners : one was 
wounded ; but, with his face all covered with blood, would not 
surrender his horse ; another was seated on the crupper of a 
hussar's horse, with his arm around the man's waist ; a third, 
assisted by a hussar, was clambering upon the horse's back. 

In front the French infantry were in full retreat, firing as 
they went. 

The hussars swiftly returned to their position with their 
prisoners. Rostof spurred back with the rest, a prey to a 
peculiarly disagreeable feeling which oppressed his heart. A 
certain vague perplexity, which he found it utterly impossible 
to account for, overcame him at the capture of that young offi-" 
cer, and the blow which he had given him. 

Count Ostermann-Tolstoi met the hussars on their return, 
summoned Rostof, and thanked him, saying that he should 
report to the sovereign his gallant exploit, and recommend 
him for the cross of the George. When the summons to Count 
Ostermami came, Rostof remembered that the charge had been 
made without orders ; and he was therefore fully persuaded 
that the commander called for him to punish him for his pre- 
sumptuous action. Consequently, Ostermann's flattering words, 



68 WAR AND PEACE. 

and his promise of a reward, ought to have been all the more 
agreeable to Rostof ; but that same vague, disagreeable feeling 
still tortured his mind. 

" What can it be that troubles me so, I wonder ? " he asked 
himself, as he rode away from the interview. " Ilyin ? No, 
he is safe and sound. " Have I anything to be ashamed 
of ? No, nothing of the sort at all." It was an entirely dif- 
ferent feeling, like remorse. " Yes, yes, that French officer 
with the dimple. And how distinctly I remember hesitating 
before I struck him." 

' Rostof saw the prisoners about to be conducted away, and 
he galloped up to them, in order to have another look at the 
officer with the dimpled chin. He was sitting, in his foreign 
uniform, on a hussar's stallion, and was glancing around un- 
easily. The wound. on his arm was scarcely deserving of the 
name. He gave Rostof a hypocritical smile, and waved his 
hand at him, as a sort of salute. Rostof had still the same 
feeling of awkwardness, and something seemed to weigh on 
his conscience. 

All that day, and the day following, Rostof fl friends and 
comrades noticed that he was not exactly gloomy or surly, 
but taciturn, thoughtful, and concentrated. He drank, as it 
were, under protest, tried to be alone, and evidently had some- 
thing on his mind. 

Rostof was, all the time, thinking about his brilliant exploit, 
which, much to his amazement, had given him the cross of the 
George, and had even given him the reputation of being a 
hero ; und he found it utterly incomprehensible. 

" And so they are still more afraid of us than we are of 
them ! " he said to himself. " Is this all there is of what is 
called heroism ? Did I do that for my country's sake ? And 
wherein was he to blame, with his dimple and his blue eyes ? 
And how frightened he was ! He thought I was going to kill 
him ! My hand trembled ; but still they have given me the 
Georgievsky cross. I don't understand it at all, not at all ! ' 

But while Nikolai was working over these questions in his 
own mind, and still failed to find any adequate solution of 
what was so confusing to him. the wheel of fortune, as so 
often happens in the military service, had been given a turn 
in his favor. He was promoted after the engagement at 
Ostrovno, and given command of a battalion ; and when 
there was any necessity of employing a brave officer, he was 
given the chance. 



WAR AND PEACE. 69 



CHAPTER XVI. 

ON learning of Natasha's illness, the countess, still very fai 
herself from well, and suffering from weakness, went to Mos- 
cow, taking Petya and the whole household ; and all the Ros- 
tofs left Marya Dmitrievna's, and went to their own house, 
and settled down in the city for good. 

Natasha's illness was so serious that, fortunately for her 
happiness, and for the happiness of her relations, the thought 
of all that had been the cause of her illness, her misconduct, 
and the breach with her betrothed, were relegated to the back- 
ground. She was so ill that it was impossible to take up the 
consideration of how far she had been blameworthy in the 
matter ; for she had no appetite, and she could not sleep, she 
lost flesh, and had a cough, and was, as the doctors gave 
them to understand, in a decidedly critical state. 

There was nothing else to be thought of than to give her all 
the aid they could devise : the doctors came to see her, both 
singly and in consultation ; talked abundantly in French, in 
German, and Latin ; criticised one another ; prescribed the 
most varied remedies adapted to cure all the diseases 
known to their science ; but it did not occur to one of 
them, simple as it might seem, that the disease from which 
Natasha was suffering might be unknown to them, just 
as every ailment which attacks mortal man is beyond their 
power of understanding : since each mortal man has his own 
distinguishing characteristics, and whatever disease he has 
must, necessarily, be peculiar and new, and unknown to medi- 
cine ; not a disease of the lungs, of the liver, of the skin, of 
the heart, of the nerves, and so on, as described in works on 
medicine, but an ailment produced from any one of endless 
complications connected with diseases of these organs. 

This simple idea could not occur to the doctors (any more 
than it could ever occur to a warlock that his incantations were 
idle) ; because it is their life work to practise medicine, because 
it is their way of earning money ; and because they spend the 
best years of their lives at this business. 

But the chief reason why 'this thought could not occur to 
the doctors was because they saw that they were unquestiona- 
bly of service ; and, in deed and truth, they were of service to 
all the Rostof household. They were of service not because 
they made the sick girl swallow drugs, for the most part harm- 



70 WAR AND PEACE. 

ful though the harmf ulness was of little moment, because 
the noxious drugs were given in small quantities, but they 
were of service, they were needful, they were indispensable 
and this is the reason that there are, and always will be, 
alleged " curers " quacks, homo3opaths and allopaths 
because they satisfied the moral demands of the sick girl, and 
those who loved her. They satisfied that eternal human 
demand for hope and consolation ; that demand for sym- 
pathy and activity which a man experiences at a time of 
suffering. 

They satisfied that eternal human demand noticeable in a 
child in its simplest and most primitive form to have the 
bruised place rubbed. The child tumbles down, and immedi- 
ately runs to its mother or its nurse to be kissed, and have the 
sore place rubbed, and its pains are alleviated as soon as the 
sore place is rubbed or kissed. The child cannot help believ- 
ing that those who are stronger and wiser than he must have 
the means of giving him aid for his sufferings. And this hope 
of alleviation and expression of sympathy at the time when 
the mother rubs the bump are a comfort. 

The doctors in Natasha's case were of service, because they 
kissed and rubbed the bobo, assuring her that it would go away 
if the coachman would only hurry down to the Arbatskaya 
apothecary shop and get a ruble and seventy kopeks' worth of 
powders and pellets in a neat little box, and if the sick girl 
would take these powders, dissolved in boiling water, regularly 
every two hours, not a moment more or a moment less. 

What would Sonya and the count and the countess have 
done if they had merely looked on without taking any part ; 
if there had been no little pellets every two hours, no tepid 
drinks, no chicken cutlets to prepare, and none of all those 
little necessary things prescribed by the doctor, the observance 
of which gave occupation and consolation to the friends ? 

How would the count have borne his beloved daughter's 
illness if he had not known that it was going to cost him 
some thousands of rubles, and that he would not grudge 
thousands more to do her any good ; if he had not known 
that in case she did not recover speedily, he should not 
grudge still other thousands in taking her abroad, and then 
going to the expense of consultations ; if he had not been 
able to tell in all its details how Mctivier and Teller had not 
understood the case, while Friese had and Mudrof had still 
more successfully predicated the disease ? 

What would the countess have done if she could not have 



WAR AND PEACE. 71 

occasionally scolded Natasha because she did not fully con- 
form to the doctor's orders ? 

" You will never get well," she would say, " if you don't 
obey the doctor, and if you don't take your medicine regularly. 
You must not treat it lightly, because, if you do, it may go 
into pneumonia," the countess would say ; and she found a 
great consolation in repeating this one word, which was some- 
thing incomprehensible for her and others beside. 

What would Sonya have done if she had not had the joy- 
ful consciousness that, during the first part of the time, she 
had not undressed for three nights, so that she might be 
ready to carry out to the least detail all the doctor's prescrip- 
tions ; and that even now she lay awake all night, lest she 
should sleep over the hours when it was necessary to adminis- 
ter the not very hurtful pellets from the little gUt box ? 

Even Natasha herself, who, although she declared that no 
medicine could cure her, and that this w.as all nonsense, could 
not help a feeling of gratification that they were making so 
many sacrifices for her, and so willingly consented to take the 
medicine at the hours prescribed. And likewise she felt glad 
to show by her neglect to carry out the doctor's orders that 
she did not believe in medicine, and did not value her life. 

The doctor came every day, felt of her pulse, looked at her 
tongue, and, paying no attention to her dejected face, laughed 
and joked with her. But then, when he had gone into the 
next room, and the countess hastily followed him, he would 
pull a serious face and shake his head dubiously, saying that, 
though the patient was in a critical state, still he had good 
hopes for the efficacy of the medicine he had just prescribed, 
and that they must wait and see ; that the ailment was more 
mental but 

The countess, who tried as far as possible to shut her own 
eyes, and the doctor's, to Natasha's behavior, thrust the gold 
piece into his hand, and each time, with a relieved heart, went 
back to her little invalid. 

The symptoms of Natasha's illness were loss of appetite, sleep- 
lessness, a cough, and a constant state of apathy. The doctors 
declared that it was impossible for her to dispense with medi- 
cal treatment, and, consequently, she was kept a prisoner in 
the sultry air of the city. And, during the summer of 1812, 
the Eostofs did not go to their country place. 

In spite of the immense quantity of pellets, drops, and pow- 
ders swallowed by Natasha, out of glass jars and gilt boxes, of 
which Madame Schoss, who was a great lover of such things. 



72 WAR AND PEACE. 

had made a large collection, in spite of being deprived of her 
customary life in the country, youth at last got the upper 
hand : Natasha's sorrow began to disappear under the impres- 
sions of every-day life ; it ceased to lie so painfully on her 
heart, it began to appear past and distant, and Natasha's phy- 
sical health showed signs of improvement. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

NATASHA was more calm, but not more cheerful. She not 
only avoided all the external scenes of gayety, balls, driv- 
ing, concerts, the theatre ; but, even when she laughed, it 
seemed as though the tears were audible back of her laughter. 
She could not sing. As soon as she started to laugh, or 
essayed, when all alone by herself, to sing, the tears choked 
her : tears of repentance, tears of remembrance, of regret, of 
the irrevocable, happy days ; tears of vexation that she had 
thus idly wasted her young life, which might have been so 
happy. Laughter and song seemed to her like sacrilege 
toward her sorrow. 

She never once thought of coquetry ; and that she kept 
from such a thing was not by any conscious effort of the will. 
She declared, and she felt, that, at this time, all men were for 
her no more than the buffoon Nastasya Ivanovna. An inward 
monitor strenuously interdicted every pleasure. Moreover, 
she showed no interest, as of old, in that girlish round of ex- 
istence, so free of care and full of hope. , She recalled more 
frequently, and with keener pain than aught else, those 
autumn months with the hunting, and the " little uncle," 
and the holidays with Nikolai at Otradnoye. What would she 
not have given for the return of even a single day of that van- 
ished time ! But it was past forever ! She had not been mis- 
taken in that presentiment that she had felt at that time that 
that condition of careless freedom and susceptibility to every 
pleasant influence would never more return. But to live was 
a necessity. 

It was a consolation for her to think not that she was 
better, as she had formerly thought, but that she was worse, 
vastly worse, than anybody else in the world. But this was a 
little thing. She knew it, and asked herself: "What more 
is there ? " But there was nothing more in store for her. 
There was no further joy in life ; and yet life went on. Na- 
tasha's sole idea evidently was not to be a burden to any one, 



WAR AND PEACE. 73 

and not to interfere with any one, while, for her own personal 
gratification, she asked for nothing at all. She kept aloof 
from the other members of the household, and only with her 
brother Petya did she feel at all at ease. She liked to be with 
him more than with the others, and sometimes, when they 
were alone together, she would laugh. She scarcely ever went 
out of the house, and of those who came to call, there was only 
one man whom she was glad to see, and that was Pierre. 

It could not have been possible for any one to have shown 
more tenderness and discretion, and, at the same time, more 
seriousness, in his treatment of her, than did Count Bezukhoi. 
Natasha unconsciously fell under the spell of this affectionate 
tenderness, and, accordingly, she took great delight in his 
society. But she was not even thankful to him for the way 
in which he treated her. Nothing that Pierre did of good 
seemed to her other than spontaneous. It seemed to her that 
it was so perfectly natural for Pierre to be kind to every one, 
that he deserved no credit for his acts of kindness to her. 
Sometimes Natasha noticed his confusion and awkwardness in 
her presence, especially when he was desirous of doing her 
some favor, or when he was apprehensive lest something in 
their talk might suggest disagreeable recollections. She 
noticed this, and ascribed it to his natural kindness and shy- 
ness, which, in her opinion, so' far as she knew, must be shown 
to all, just as it was to her. 

Since those ambiguous words, " if he were free, he should, 
on his knees, sue for her heart and her hand," spoken at a 
moment of such painful excitement on her part, Pierre had 
never made any allusion whatever to his feelings for Natasha ; 
and, as far as she was concerned, it was evident that those 
words, so consoling to her at the time, had had no more mean- 
ing to her than most thoughtless, unconsidered words, spoken 
for the consolation of a heart-broken child. It never entered 
her head that her relations with Pierre might lead to love on 
either side much less on his or even to that form of ten- 
der, self-acknowledged, poetic friendship between a man and a 
woman, of which she had known several examples ; and this, 
not because Pierre was a married man, but because Natasha 
was conscious that between him and her, in all its reality, 
existed that barrier of moral obstacles, the absence of which 
she had been conscious of in Kuragin. 

Toward the end of the mid-summer's fast * of Saint Peter, 
Agrafena Ivanovna Bielova, one of the Rostofs' neighbors at 
* Saint Peter's day is June 29, O, S., July 11, N, S, 



74 WAR AND PEACE'. 

Otradnoye, came to Moscow to worship at the shrines of the 
saints there. She proposed to Natasha to join in her devo- 
tions, and Natasha gladly entertained the suggestion. Not- 
withstanding the doctor's prohibition of her going out early in 
the morning, Natasha insisted on preparing for the sacrament, 
and doing so not as it was usually managed at the Kostofs', 
by listening to three services in the house, but rather to prepare 
for it as Agrafena Ivanovna did, that is, taking the whole week, 
without missing a single vespers, mass, or matins. 

The countess was pleased with this zeal of Natasha's. _ After 
all the failure of the physicians' remedies, she hoped in the 
depths of her heart that prayer might prove to be a more pow- 
erful medicament ; and though she did it with some apprehen- 
sion, and concealed it from the knowledge of the doctors, 
she yielded to Natasha's desire, and let her go with Bielova. 

Agrafena Ivanovna came at three o'clock in the morning to 
arouse Natasha ; and yet generally she found her already wide 
awake. Natasha was afraid of sleeping over the hour of matins. 
Making hasty ablutions, and humbly dressing in her shabbiest 
gown and an old mantle, shivering with the chill of morning, 
Natasha would venture out into the empty streets, dimly 
lighted by the diaphanous light of early dawn. 

In accordance with the pious Agrafena Ivanovna's advice, 
Natasha performed her devotions not in her own parish, but 
at a church where, according to her, there was a priest of very 
blameless and austere life. At this church there were always 
very few people. Natasha would take her usual place with 
Bielova before the ikon of the Mother of God, enshrined at 
the back of the choir, at the left ; and a new feeling of calm- 
ness came over her before the vast and incomprehensible mys- 
tery, when, at that unprecedentedly early hour of the morning, 
she gazed at the darkened face of the Virgin's picture, lighted 
by the tapers burning before it, as well as by the morning 
light that came in through the windows, as she listened to 
the sounds of the service, which she tried to follow under- 
standingly. 

When she understood it, her personal feeling entered into 
and tinged the meaning of the prayer ; but when she could not 
understand it, it was all the more delicious for her to think 
that the very desire to comprehend everything was in itself a 
form of pride, that it is impossible to comprehend, and that 
all that is requisite and necessary is to have faith and trust in 
God, who at that moment, she was conscious, reigned in her 
heart She would cross herself and bow low ; and when the 



WAR AND PEACE. ft 

service was too deep for her comprehension, then only, horror- 
stricken at her own baseness, she would beseech God to par- 
don her for everything, for everything, and have mercy upon 
her. 

The prayers which she followed with the most fervor were 
those expressing remorse. Returning home in the early hours 
of the morning, when the only men she met were masons going 
;o their work, and dvorniks sweeping the streets, and every- 
body in all the houses was still asleep, Natasha experienced 
a new sense of the possibility of being purged of her sins, and 
the possibility of a new, pure life and happiness. 

During all that week, while she was leading this new life, 
;his feeling grew stronger every day. And the happy thought 
of taking the communion or, as Agraf ena, playing on the word, 
called it, the communication * seemed to her so majestic that 
it seemed to her she should never live till that blessed Sunday. 

But the happy day came, and when Natasha, on this memo- 
rable Sunday, returned home in her white muslin dress, from 
communion, she, for the first time after many months, felt 
tranquil and not burdened by the thought of living. 

When the doctor came that day to see Natasha, he ordered 
ler to continue taking the last prescription of powders which 
had begun a fortnight before. 

"Don't fail to take them morning and evening," said he, 
evidently feeling honestly satisfied and even elated at the 
success of his treatment. " Only be more regular, please. Rest 
quite easy, countess," said the doctor, in a jovial tone, skil- 
fully clutching the gold piece in his plump hands. " She will 
soon be singing and enjoying herself. The last medicine has 
3een very, very efficacious. She has already begun to gain." 

The countess looked at her finger-nails, and spat t as she 
returned to the drawing-room with a radiant face. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

DURING the first weeks of July, more and more disquieting 
rumors about the progress of the war began to be circulated 
in Moscow : much was said about the sovereign's appeal to his 
people, and about the sovereign's leaving the army and coming 
to Moscow. And as the manifesto and summons were not 
received in Moscow until the twenty-third of July, exaggerated 
reports about them and about the position of Russia were 
* Sodbshchitsa, instead of pritibshchitsa. t For the omen's sake. 



76 



WAR AND PEACE. 



current. It was said that the sovereign was coming because 
the army was in a critical position ; it was said that Smolensk 
had surrendered, that Napoleon had a million men, and that 
only a miracle could save Russia. 

The manifesto was received on the twenty-third ot July, on 
a Saturday, but as yet it had not been published, and Pierre 
who was at the Kostofs', promised to come to dinner the next 
day, Sunday, and bring the manifesto and the proclamation, 
which he would get of Count Rostopchin. 

On that Sunday the Rostofs, as usual, went to mass at the 
private chapel of the Razumovskys. It was a sultry July day. 
Even at ten o'clock, when the Rostofs' carriage drew up in 
front of the church, the heated atmosphere, the shouts of ped- 
lers, the bright, light-colored, summer dresses of the ladies, the 
dust-covered leaves of the trees along the boulevard, the sounds 
of music, and the white trousers of a regiment marching by on 
its way to parade, the rattle of carriages over the pavement, and 
the dazzling radiance of the July sun, all spoke ot that sum- 
mer lano-uor and content as well as discontent with the present 
which is always felt with especial keenness on a bright, sultry 
day in the city. . 

The chapel of the Razmnovskya was a gathering-place tor 
all the elite of Moscow, all the acquaintances of the Rostots 
_ for that year very many of the wealthy families who usually 
went off to their country estates had remained in town. 

Preceded by a liveried lackey, who cleared a way through 
the throng, Natasha, as she walked in with her mother, over- 
heard a young man making a remark about her in a whisper, 
that was too loud. 

'< That is the Rostova the very one ! 
How thin she has grown ! but still she is pretty. ^ 
She heard or thought she heard the names of Kuragm and 
Bolkonsky mentioned. This, however, was a common experi- 
ence of hers. It always seemed to her that those who looked 
at her immediately began to recall what had happened. 

With pain and sinking at heart, as always was the case in a 
throng Natasha walked on in her lilac silk dress trimmed 
with black lace, and giving the appearance, as women can so 
easily do, of being calm and dignified, for the very reason 
that her heart was full of pain and shame. She knew that 
she was pretty, and she was not mistaken ; but the knowledge 
did not now give her the same pleasure as before. On the 
contrary, it annoyed her above everything of late, and espe- 
cially on that bright hot day in the city. 



WAR AND PEACE. 77 

" Still another Sunday, still another week gone," she said to 
herself, as she remembered for what purpose she was there 
that clay. " And fore\ er the same life that is not life, and 
the same conditions in which it used to be so easy to live in 
days gone by. I am pretty, I am young, and I know that now 
I am good whereas before I was naughty ; but now I am good 
I know it," she said to herself ; " but it's all for nothing that 
the best, best years of my life have gone and are going." 

She took her place with her mother, and exchanged greet- 
ings with the acquaintances around her. Out of old habit she 
noticed the toilets of the ladies ; she criticised the tenue of 
one lady who happened to be standing near her, and the 
indecorous mannei in which she hastily crossed herself; then 
she thought with inward vexation that the others were prob- 
ably criticising her just as she was criticising them, and then 
suddenly, as she heard the sounds of the service, she was 
horror-struck at her depravity ; she was horror-struck at the 
thought that she had again sullied that purity with which she 
had begun the service. 

A lovely-looking, clean, and venerable priest officiated with 
that honeyed unction which has such a majestic and sanctifying 
influence upon the hearts of worshippers. The " Holy Gate " 
was closed, the curtain was slowly drawn, a mysterious, sol- 
emn voice murmured undistinguishable words. Natasha's 
bosom heaved with tears too deep for comprehension, and she 
was agitated by a feeling of joy and tormenting pain. 

"Teach me what I must do, how to direct my life, how to do 
right for ever and ever," she prayed in her heart. 

The deacon came out to the ambon, used his thumb to pull 
his long hair out from under his surplice, and, pressing his 
cross to his heart, began to read in a loud and solemn voice the 
words of the prayer. 

" Let all the people pray unto the Lord ! " 

" Let the community, all united, without distinctions of 
rank, but joined together in brotherly love let us pray," 
was Natasha's thought. 

" For the heavenly peace and the salvation of our souls ! " 

" For all the angels and the spirits of all incorporeal exist- 
ences, which dwell above us," prayed Natasha. 

During the prayer for the army, she remembered her 
brother and Denisof. 

During the prayer for those who were travelling on sea or 
on land, she thought of Prince Andrei, and prayed for him, 
and prayed that God would pardon the wrong that she had 
done him. 



78 WAR AND PEACE. 

During the prayer for those who love us, she prayed for 
those of her household : her father, her mother, Sonya, and 
now, for the first time, she realized all the wrong that she 
had done them, and felt how deep and strong was her love 
toward them. 

When the prayer for those who hate us was read, she tried 
to think of her enemies, and those who hated her, in order to 
pray for them. Among her enemies she reckoned her father's 
creditors, and all those who had dealings with him, and every 
time, at the thoughts of her enemies and those who hated her, 
she remembered Anatol, who had done her such injury, and, 
although he had not hated her, she prayed gladly for him as 
for an enemy. 

It was only during the prayer that she was able to think 
calmly and clearly about Prince Andrei and about Anatol, as 
about men toward whom her feelings had been entirely swal- 
lowed up in her fear and worship of God. 

When the prayer was read for the imperial family, and for 
the Synod, she made a very low bow and crossed herself, with 
the thought that if she could not understand, she at least could 
not doubt, and consequently must love, the directing Synod, 
and pray for it. 

Having finished the liturgy,* the deacon crossed himself on 
the front of his stole, and exclaimed : 

" Let us give ourselves and our bodies to Christ our God," 

" Let us give ourselves to God," repeated Natasha, in her 
own heart. " My God, I give myself up to thy will," said she 
to herself. " I have no wishes, I have no desires ! Teach me 
what to do, how to fulfil thy will ! Yea, take me, take me ! " 
cried Natasha, in her heart, with touching impatience, forget- 
ting to cross herself, but letting her slender arms drop by her 
side, and as though expecting that instantly some viewless 
Power would take her and bear her up, and free her from her 
sorrows, desires, short-comings, hopes, and faults. 

The countess many times during the service glanced at her 
daughter's pathetic face and glistening eyes, and besought 
God to give her his aid. 

Unexpectedly, in the middle of the service, and out of the 
usual order of things, which Natasha knew so well, a diachok 
brought out the wooden stool 011 which the priest kneels when 
he reads the prayers on Trinity Sunday, and placed it in front 
of the "Holy Gates." 

The priest made his appearance in his lilac velvet calotte, 
* The ycktenii/d, or liturgical prayer for the Imperial family. 



WAR AND PEACE. 79 

rubbed his hand over his hair, and with some effort got upon 
his knees. 

All followed his example, looking with perplexity at each 
other. This was the prayer which had only just been received 
from the Synod, the prayer for the salvation of Russia from 
the invasion of her enemies. 

" Lord God our strength ! God our salvation ! " began the 
priest, in that clear, undemonstrative, sweet voice, which is 
characteristic of the reading of no other clergy except the 
Slavonic, and which has such an irresistible effect upon the 
Russian heart. 

"Lord God our Strength ! God our salvation ! Protect in thy Infinite 
mercy and bounty thy humble people, and charitably hear us and spare 
us and have mercy upon us. The enemy are bringing destruction upon 
thy land, and would fain make the universe a wilderness. Rise thou up 
against him. This lawless multitude have gathered themselves together 
to destroy thy inheritance, to lay waste thy holy Jerusalem, thy beloved 
Russia: to desecrate thy temples, to overturn thy altars, and toprofane 
our sanctuary. How long, oh, Lord, how long shall sinners triumph? 
How long shall they be permitted to transgress thy laws ? 

"Sovereign Lord! hear thou us that cry unto thee ! By thy might 
strengthen thou our most devout autocrat and ruler, our great sovereign 
the Emperor Alexander Pavlovitch! remember his equity and meekness! 
Requite him for his virtues, and let them be the safeguard of us, thy 
beloved Israel. Bless his counsels, !tis 'undertakings, and his deeds. 
Establish by thy almighty right hand his realm, and grant him victory over 
his enemies, as thou didst to Moses over Amalek, Gideon over Midian, 
and David over Goliath. Protect thou his armies. Uphold with the 
brazen bow the arms of those who have gone forth to battle in thy name, 
and gird them with strength for the ivar. Take thy sword and thy buck- 
ler, and arise and help us, and put to sltame and confusion those who 
have plotted evil against us, so that they mayfly before the faces of those 
who trust in thee as chaff is driven before the wind, and give thy angels 
power to confound them and pursue them. May the net come upon them 
without their knowing it, and may the draught of fish which they meant 
to take surround them on all sides, and may they fall under the feet of 
thy slaves, and may they be trampled under the feet of our warriors. 
Oh, Lord! thou art able to save in great things and in small. Thou 
art God, and no man can do aught against thee. 

" God of our fathers ! Let thy bounty and thy mercy guard us as from 
everlasting to everlasting. Hide not thy face from us ; let not thy wrath 
be kindled against our iniquities ; but in the magnitude of thy merci/ and 
the abundance of thy grace pardon our lawlessness and our sin. Create 
a clean heart within us, and renew a right spirit in our inner parts ; 
strengthen 'thou our faith in thee ; inspire hope ; kindle true love among 
us ; arm us with a single impulse to the righteous defence of the inher- 
itance which thou hast given to us and to our fathers, and let not the 
sceptre of the ungodly decide the destiny of those whom thou hast conse- 
crated. 

" Oh, Lord, our God, in tfiee do we put our trust, and our hopes are 
set on thee. Let us not despair of thy mercy, and give a sign, in order 



go WAR AND PEACE. 

that those <vho hate us and our orthodox faith may be confounded and 
destroyed, and that all nations may see that thy name is the Lord, 
and we are thy people. Shoio us thy mercy, oh, Lord, this day, 
and vouchsafe to us thy salvation. Rejoice the heart of thy slaves by thy 
(jrace ; strike our enemies, and crush them tinder the Jeet of those that 
believe in thee. For thon art the defence, the succor, and the victory to 
them that trust in thee, and to thee be the glory to the Father and to 
the Son and to the Holt/ Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever 
shall be, world without end. Amen.-' 

In that condition of rapt excitement to which Natasha had 
attained, this prayer * had a very powerful effect upon her. 
She listened to every word about " the victory of Moses over 
Amalek, of Gideon over Midian, and David over Goliath, and 
the laying waste of thy Jerusalem," and she prayed to God 
with that tenderness of spirit and melting of the heart which 
she now felt. But she was somewhat confused in her mind as 
to what she should pray God for. With all her heart she 
could join in the petition for a right spirit, for fortifying the 
zeal with faith and hope, and stimulating their love. 

But she could not pray that the enemy might be crushed 
under their feet, because only a few moments before her only 
regret was that she had no more of them, so that she might 
pray for them. 

But at the same time she could not doubt the rightfulness 
of the prayer which the kneeling priest had read. She felt in 
her heart a genuine and anxious terror at the thought of the 
punishment which must befall men on account of their sins, 
and especially for her own sins, and she besought God to forgive 
them all, and her as well, and to give them all and her tran- 
quillity and happiness in life. 

And it seemed to her that God heard her prayer. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

FROM the day when Pierre, as he left the Rostofs' with 
Natasha's grateful looks still fresh in his mind, and looked at 
the comet stretched across the sky, and felt that he had made 
a new discovery, the eternally tormenting question as to the 
vanity and folly of all things'' earthly had ceased to occupy his 
thoughts. This terrible question, Why? Wherefore? which 
before had come up before him amid every occupation, had 

* The effect of this prayer is enhanced in the original by the dignified 
Slavonic, the church language, in which it is couched. 



WAR AND PEACE. 81 

now merged itself for him not into another problem, and not 
into any answer to his question, but into her image. 

Whether he listened or took the lead himself in trivial 
conversations, whether he read or heard about the baseness 
and absurdity of men, he no longer felt that sense of horror 
as before ; he did not ask himself what caused them to strug- 
gle so, when life was so short and incomprehensible, but he 
recalled how she looked when he saw her the last time, and all 
his doubts vanished, not because she had given the answer to 
his questions, but because her image instantly lifted him into 
another world, serene and full of spiritual activity, where 
there could be no question of right or wrong, the world of 
beauty and love which alone accounts for life. Whatever 
baseness in life might be brought to his attention, he would 
say to himself : 

" Well, then, let N. N. plunder the government and the 
Tsar, and let the government and the Tsar load him with 
honors ; but she smiled on me last evening, and asked me 
to come again, and I love her, and no one shall ever know it ! " 

And his soul became calm and clear. 

Pierre continued as before to go into gay society, and drank 
heavily, and led the same idle and dissipated life, for the 
reason that at such times as he was not able to spend at the 
liostofs', there were still many hours every day that he had to 
spend in some manner, and his habits and acquaintances at 
Moscow invariably allured him to this mode of existence, which 
had such a firm hold upon him. 

But of late, now that the news from the theatre of the war 
became constantly more and more disquieting, and now that 
Natasha's health had fairly begun to improve, and she ceased 
to arouse in him that former feeling of anxiety and pity, 
he began to become the prey of a restlessness that was wholly 
incomprehensible, and grew more and more so. He was con- 
scious that the position in which he found himself could not 
last very long, that some catastrophe was at hand, which was 
destined to change his whole life, and he impatiently sought 
to find in everything the presages of this imminent catas- 
trophe. 

One of the brotherhood of Freemasons had called his atten- 
tion to the following prophecy concerning Napoleon, which 
was derived from the revelation of Saint John. In the 
eighteenth verse of the thirteenth chapter of the Apocalypse 
it is written, " Here is ivisdom. He that hath understanding, 
let him count the number of the beast ; for it is the number of a 
VOL. 3. 6. 



g2 WAR AND PEACE. 

man : and his number is six hundred and sixty and six." And 
the fifth verse of the same chapter says, " And there was given 
unto him a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies. And 
there was given unto him authority to do his works during forty 
and two months" 

The letters of the French alphabet when disposed in ac- 
cordance with the Hebrew enumeration, which gives the first 
nine letters the value of units, and the rest that of tens, have 
the following significance : 

abcdefsliiklmnopqrst uv w x yz 
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 110 120 130 140 150 160 

If the words VEmpereur Napoleon are written letter for 
letter with this cipher, the result is that the sum of 
these letters amounts to six hundred and sixty-six, and that 
therefore Napoleon is the beast described in the Apocalypse. 
Moreover, if you apply to this same alphabetic cipher the 
words Quarante deux, that is the time, forty-two months, 
during which authority was given to the beast to speak great 
things and blaspheme, the sum of these letters according to 
the same scheme will amount to six hundred and sixtj^-six, 
whence it results that Napoleon's power was to be allowed to 
last until the year 1812, when he would have reached the age 
of forty-two. 

Pierre was greatly amazed by this method of divination, 
and he frequently asked himself what could possibly put an 
end to the power of the beast, that is to say, Napoleon ; and 
he made use of the same cipher and mode of reckoning, in 
order to find an answer to the question that he had propounded. 
Thus he wrote, as an experiment, VEmpereur Alexandre, and 
La nation russe, but the sum of the letters came out either 
greater or less than six hundred and sixty-six. 

One time, while occupying himself with this enumeration, he 
wrote his own name, Comte Pierre Besouhoff ; * the sum of 
the figures did not agree. Then changing the spelling, substi- 
tuting z for 8, he added the particule " de," he added the arti- 
cle " le," and still he failed to attain the desired result. 

Then it occurred to him that if the answer desired for the 

* In the course of " War and Peace," Pierre's family name appears under 
at least three different forms of spelling: Bezukhoi, which the translator 
has retained throughout, Bezukhi, and Bezukhof; the Russian character A- A 
corresponds to ch in German, and is often represented in French by h. It 
may be here remarked also a propos of the " particule " dc that the French 
and German way of representing titled Russians' names with a de or a von is 
incorrect ; the Russian nobility is dependent upon neither titles nor particles. 



WAR AND PEACE. 83 

question was included in his name, it would certainly have 
also to include his nationality. He wrote Le Russe Besuhof, 
and, reckoning up the figures, he made six hundred and sev- 
enty-one. Only five too much J Five corresponds to e, the 
very same e which was elided in the article before the word 
"Empereur." Eliding this e, though it was contrary to the 
rule, Pierre found the wished-for answer, VRusse Besuhof, 
equal to six hundred and sixty-six. 

This discovery excited him. How, by what bond, he was 
united to this mighty event foreshadowed in the Apocalypse 
he knew not ; but not for an instant did he have any doubt of 
the bond. His love for Natasha, the Antichrist, Napoleon's 
invasion, the comet, six hundred and sixty-six, V Empereur 
Napoleon, and V Russe Besuhof all taken together, could not 
fail to ripen and burst and bring him forth from that en- 
chanted, do-nothing world of Moscovite habits, in which he 
felt himself a prisoner, and carry him to some mighty exploit 
and some mighty happiness. 

Pierre, on the evening before the Sunday when the prayer 
was read, had promised the Kostofs to bring them from Count 
Rostopchin, whose very -good friend he was, the proclamation 
to the Russians and the last news from the army. That morn- 
ing, on his arrival at Count Rostopchin's, Pierre found a 
courier, who had just come from the army. This courier was 
an acquaintance of Pierre's, a regular habitue of the Moscow 
ballrooms. 

" For God's sake, couldn't you help me out ? " asked the 
courier. "I have a whole bagful of letters for friends and 
relatives." 

Among these letters was one from Nikolai Rostof to his 
father. Pierre took charge of it. Besides this, Count Rostop- 
chin gave Pierre a copy of the sovereign's appeal to Moscow, 
which had just come from the press, the last orders to the 
army, and his own " placard." Glancing over the army 
orders, Pierre found in one of them, which mentioned the 
names of the killed, wounded, or rewarded, that Nikolai Ros- 
tof had been decorated with a " George " of the fourth class 
on account of his gallantry in the affair at Ostrovno ; and in 
the same " general order," the nomination of Prince Andrei 
Bolkonsky as commander of a regiment of Jagers. Although 
h<> had no wish to remind the Rostofs of Bolkonsky, still 
he could not restrain the desire to rejoice their hearts by the 
news of the reward granted their son, and so, keeping in his 



84 WAR AND PEACE. 

own possession the proclamation, the "placard," and the 
other orders, with which to entertain them during dinner, he 
immediately sent them the printed order and Nikolai's letter. 

His conversation with Count Rostopchin, whose tone of 
anxiety and nervousness struck him, his meeting with the 
courier, who had some careless story to tell of things going ill 
in the army, the rumors of spies found in Moscow, and of a 
paper circulating in the city which declared that Napoleon by 
autumn had promised to occupy both of the Russian capitals, 
the talk about the expected arrival of the sovereign on the 
morrow, all this gave new strength to that feeling of excite- 
ment and expectation which had not left him since the night 
when the comet had first appeared, and especially since the 
outbreak of the war. 

The notion of entering the active military service had, for 
some time, been much in his mind ; and he would assuredly 
have done so if, in the first place, he had not been deterred by 
the fact that he belonged to that Masonic fraternity, to which 
he had bound himself by a solemn pledge, and which preached 
eternal peace and the cessation of war ; and, in the second 
place, because, as he beheld the great numbers of the inhab- 
itants of Moscow who had donned uniforms and were preach- 
ing patriotism, it would have seemed, somehow, ridiculous for 
him to do so. But the chief reason which deterred him from 
carrying out the idea of entering the military service was to 
be found in that obscure conception that he, VRusse Besuhof, 
who carried with him the number of the Beast, 666, was 
destined to take some great part in putting bounds to the 
power of the Beast that spoke great things and blasphemies ; 
and that, therefore, he ought not to undertake anything, but 
to await and see what was meant for him to accomplish. 



CHAPTER XX. 

THE Rostofs, as usual on Sundays, had some of their inti- 
mate friends to dine with them. 

Pierre went early, so as to find them alone. 

Pierre had grown so stout this year that he would have 
seemed monstrous had he not been so tall, so broad-shouldered, 
and so strong, that he carried his weight with evident ease. 

Panting, and muttering something to himself, he hurried 
upstairs. His coachman no longer thought of asking him 
whether he should wait for him. He knew, by this time, that 






WAR AND PEACE. 85 

when the count was at the Rostofs', he would stay till mid- 
night. The Rostofs' lackeys cheerfully hastened forward to 
take his cloak, and receive his hat and caiie. Pierre, from 
club habit, left his cane and hat in the ante-room. 

The first person whom he saw was Natasha. Even before 
he had caught sight of her, and while he was taking off his 
cloak in the ante-room, he heard her singing solfeggios ir. 
the music-room. 

He knew that she had not sung a note since her illness, and, 
therefore, the sounds of her voice surprised and delighted him. 
He gently opened the door, and saw Natasha in the lilac- 
colored dress, in which she had been to mass, pacing up and 
down the room and singing. She was walking with her back 
toward him when he opened the door, but when she turned 
short about, and recognized his stout, amazed face, she blushed 
and came swiftly toward him. 

" I want to get into the habit o'f singing again," said she. 
" It is quite an undertaking," she added, as though to excuse 
herself. 

"Audit is. splendid!" 

" How glad I am that you have come ! I am so happy to- 
day," she cried with something of that old vivacity, which 
Pierre had so long missed in her. " You know Nicolas has 
received the G-eorgievsky cross. I am so proud of him ! " 

" Certainly : I sent you the f order of the day.' Well, I will 
not interrupt you," he added, " but I'll go into the drawing- 
room." 

Natasha called him back : 

" Count, tell me, is it wrong in me to be singing ? " she 
asked, with a blush, but looking inquiringly into Pierre's face, 
without dropping her eyes. 

" No ! why ? On the contrary But why did you ask 
me?" 

" I am sure I don't know," replied Natasha, quickly ; " but 
I did not wish to do anything that you would not approve. I 
have such perfect confidence in you ! You don't know what 
you are to me, how much you have done for me ! " She spoke 
rapidly, and noticed not how Pierre reddened at these words. 
" I saw that he I mean Bolkonsky " she spoke this name 
in a hurried whisper " was mentioned in the same order, so 
then he is serving in.Russia again. What do you think ? " she 
asked, still speaking rapidly, evidently in haste to finish what 
she had to say, lest she should not have the strength necessary 
to do so "Will he ever forgive me? Will he not always 



86 WAR AND PEACE. 

bear me ill will ? What do you think about it? What do 
you think about it ? " 

" I think," Pierre began, " I think he has nothing to for- 
give. If I were in his place " 

By the force of recollection, Pierre was, in an instant, carried 
back, in his imagination, to that moment when, in order to 
comfort her, he had said that if he were the best man in the 
world, and free, he would, on his knees, ask for her hand ; and 
now the same feeling of pity, tenderness, and love, seized 
upon him, and the same words were on his lips. But she did 
not give him time to say them. 

" Yes, you, you" said she with a peculiar solemnity, repeat- 
ing and dwelling on the pronoun ' you that is another 
thing. I know no man who is kinder, nobler, better ; and 
there could not be. If it had not been for you then, and 
now too, I don't know what would have become of me, for " 
the tears suddenly filled her eyes ; she turned around, hid 
her face behind her music, and began to sing her scales, and 
walk up and down the room once more. 

At this moment, Petya came running in from the drawing- 
room. Petya was now a handsome, ruddy lad of fifteen, with 
thick, red lips, and the image of Natasha. He was preparing 
for the university, but lately he and his comrade, Obolyensky, 
had secretly resolved that they would enter the hussars. 

He sprang forward to his namesake, in order to speak with 
him about a matter of importance. He had been begging him 
to find out whether he could be admitted to the hussars. Pierre 
went into the drawing-room, not heeding the lad. Petya gave 
his arm a twitch, in order to attract his attention. 

" Now tell me, Piotr Kiriluitch, for Heaven's sake, how is 
my business getting on ? Is there any hope for us ? " asked 
Petya. 

" Oh, yes, your business. The hussars, is it ? I will in- 
quire about it ; I will inquire about it, I will this very day." 

" Well now, mon cher, have you brought the manifesto ? " 
asked the old count. " The l little countess ' was at mass at 
the Eazumovskys' and heard the new prayer. Very fine, they 
say!" 

" Yes, I have brought it," replied Pierre. " The sovereign 
will be here to-morrow. A special meeting of the nobility has 
been called, and they say there is to be a levy of ten out of 
every thousand. And I congratulate you ! " 

" Yes, yes, glory to God. Now tell me what is the news 
from the army ? " 



WAR AND PEACE. 87 

"Ours are still retreating. They are at Smolensk by this 
time, so they say," replied Pierre. 

".My God! My God!" exclaimed the count. " Where is 
the manifesto ? " 

" The proclamation ? Oh, yes ! " 

Pierre began to search in all his pockets for the papers, but 
could not find them. While still rummaging through his 
pockets, he kissed the countess's hand, who, at that moment, 
came in, and he looked around uneasily, evidently expecting 
to see Natasha, who had ceased to sing, but had not as yet 
rejoined the others. 

" Ma parole, I don't know what I have done with them ! " 
he exclaimed. 

" Well, you're always losing things," exclaimed the countess. 

Natasha came in with a softened, agitated expression of 
countenance, and sat down, looking at Pierre, without speak- 
ing. As soon as she appeared, Pierre's face, till then dark- 
ened with a frown, grew bright, and though he was still 
searching for the papers, he kept looking at her. 

" By Heavens ! * I must have left them at home. I will go 
after them. Most certainly " 

" But you will be late to dinner." 

" Akh ! and my coachman has gone, too ! " 

Sonya, however, who had gone into the ante-room to look 
for the missing papers, found them in Pierre's hat, where he 
had carefully stuck them under the lining. Pierre wanted to 
read them immediately. 

" No, not till after dinner," said the old count, evidently 
anticipating the greatest treat in this reading. 

At dinner, during which they drank the health of the new 
knight of St. George in champagne, Shinshm related all the 
'gossip of the town : about the illness of the old Princess of 
Gruzia, and how Metivier had disappeared from Moscow, and 
how some German had been arrested and brought to Rostop- 
chin, and represented to be a shampinion.^ Count Rostopchin 
had himself told the story, and how Rostopchin had com- 
manded them to let the shampinion go, assuring the people 
that he was not a shampinion, but simply a German toad- 
stool ! 

"They'll catch it! they'll catch it !" said the count; "I 
have been telling the countess that she mustn't talk French so 
much. It is not the time to do it now." 

* Yet Bogu. 

t French champignon, a mushroom. Slang term, meaning a Frenchman 



88 WAR AND PEACE. 

" And have you heard ? " proceeded Shinshin. " Prince G> 
litsuin has taken a Russian tutor to teach him Russian 
il commence d devenir dangereUx de parler fran^ais dans les 
rues." 

" Well, Count Piotr Kiriluitch, if they are going to mobilize 
the landwehr, you'll have to get on horseback, won't you ? " 
asked the old count, addressing Pierre. 

Pierre was taciturn and thoughtful all dinner-time. As 
though not comprehending, he gazed at the old count when 
thus addressed. 

'' Yes, yes, about the war," said he. " No ! what kind of a 
soldier should I be ? But, after all, how strange everything 
is ! how strange ! I can't understand it myself. I don't 
know ; my tastes are so far from being military, but as things 
are now no one can tell what he may do." 

After dinner the count seated himself comfortably in his 
chair, and, with a grave face, asked Sonya, who was an accom- 
plished reader, to read. 

" To Moscow our chief capital : 

"The enemy has come with overwhelming force to invade 
the boundaries of Russia. He is here to destroy our beloved 
fatherland," read Sonya, in her clear voice. The count 
listened with his eyes shut, sighing heavily at certain pas- 
sages. 

Natasha, with strained attention, sat looking inquiringly now 
at her father and now at Pierre. 

Pierre was conscious of her glance fastened upon him, and 
strove not to look round. The countess shook her head 
sternly and disapprovingly at each enthusiastic expression 
contained in the manifesto, for everything made her see that 
the danger threatening her son would not soon pass by. 

Shinshin, with his lips formed to a satiric smile, was evi- 
dently making ready to turn into ridicule whatever first gave 
him a good opportunity : whether Sonya's reading, or what the 
count should say, or even the proclamation itself, if that 
offered him a suitable pretext. 

Having read about the perils threatening Russia, the hopes 
which the sovereign placed in Moscow, and especially in its 
illustrious nobility, Sonya, with a trembling voice, which was 
caused principally by the fact that they were following her 
so closely, read the following words : 

" We shall not be slow to take our place amidst our people 
in this capital, and in other cities of our empire, so as to lead 
in deliberations and to take the direction of all our troops, not 



WAR AND PEACE. 89 

only those which are at the present time blocking the way of 
the foe, but also those that are gathering to cause his defeat 
wherever he may show himself. And may the destruction in 
which he thinks to involve us re- act upon his own head, and 
may Europe, delivered from servitude, magnify the name of 
Eussia ! " 

" That's the talk ! " cried the count, opening his moist eyes, 
and several times catching his breath with a noise as though 
a bottle of strong-smelling salts had been put to his nose : he 
went on to say, " Only say the word, sire, and we will sacri- 
fice everything without a regret ! " 

Shinshin had no time to utter the little joke which he had 
ready at the expense of the count's patriotism 'before Natasha 
sprang up from her place and ran to her father. 

" How lovely he is this papa of mine ! " she exclaimed, 
giving him a kiss \ and then she glanced at Pierre again with 
the same unconscious coquetry which had come back to her 
together with her animation. 

" What a little patriotka * she is ! " cried Shinshin. 

u Not a patriotka at all, but simply " began Natasha, 
offended. " You turn everything into ridicule, but this is no 
laughing matter " 

" Laughing matter ! " exclaimed the count. " Let him 
only say the word, and we will all follow we are not Ger- 
mans or " 

" And did you notice," said Pierre, " that it spoke about 
deliberations ? " 

" Well, whatever he is here' for " 

At that moment Petya, to whom no one had been paying 
any attention, came up to his father, and, all flushed, said, in 
that voice of his, which was now breaking, and was sometimes 
bass and sometimes treble, " Now, then, papenka, my mind is 
perfectly made up and, mamenka, too, if you please I tell 
you both my mind is made up : you must let me go into the 
military service, because I cannot and that's the end of 
it" 

The countess raised her eyes in dismay, and clasped her 
hands, and, turning severely to her husband, said, " Just think 
what he has said ! " 

But the count instantly recovered from his emotion. 

u Well, well ! " said he. " A fine soldier you are ! A truce 
to such folly ! You must study ! " 

" It is not folly, papenka. Fedya Obolyensky is younger 
* The feminine of patriot. 



90 WAR AND PEACE. 

than I am, and he is going ; but, even if he weren't, I could 
never think of studying now when " 

Petya hesitated, and flushed so that the sweat stood out on 
his forehead, but still finished, " When the country is in 
danger." 

" There ! there ! enough of this nonsense ! " 
" But you yourself just said that we would sacrifice every- 
ttiing ! " 

" Petya ! I tell you hold your tongue ! " cried the count, 
glancing at his wife, who had turned white, and was gazing 
with fixed eyes at her youngest son. 

" But I tell you and here is Piotr Kirillovitch will speak 
about it " ' 

" And I tell you it is all rubbish ! the milk isn't dry on 
your lips yet ; and here you are wanting to go into the army ! 
Nonsense, I tell you ! " and the count, gathering up the 
papers, which he evidently intended to read over again in his 
cabinet before going to bed, started to leave the room. 

" Piotr Kirillovitch, come and have a smoke." 

Pierre was in a state of confusion and uncertainty. Na- 
tasha's unnaturally brilliant and animated eyes fixed upon 
him steadily rather than affectionately had brought him into 
this state. 

" No, I think I will go home." 

" What ? Go home ? I thought you were going to spend 
the evening with us. And, besides, we don't see so much of 
you as we did. And this girl of mine," said the count, gayly 
indicating Natasha, "is merry only when you are here." 

" Yes, but I had forgotten something. I must certainly go 
home. Some business," said Pierre, hastily. 

" Well, then, good-by," * said the count, and he -left the 
room. 

" Why must you go ? Why are you so out of spirits ? 
What is it ? " asked Natasha, looking inquiringly into Pierre's 
eyes. 

" Because I love thee ! " was what was on his lips to say, 
but he did not say it ; he reddened till the tears came, and 
dropped his eyes. 

" Because it is better for me not to be here so much 
because No, simply because I have some business." 

" What is it ? No ! Tell me," Natasha began resolutely, 
but suddenly stopped. The two looked at each other in dis- 
may arid confusion. He tried to smile, but it was a vain 
* Do svidcinya, like an revoir, auf wiedewehen. 



WAR AND PEACE. 91 

attempt : his smile expressed his suffering ; and he kissed her 
hand without speaking, and left the house. 

Pierre solemnly made up his mind not to visit at the Eos- 
tofs' any more. 



CHAPTEE XXI. 

I 

PETYA, after the decided repulse which he had received, 
went to his room and there, apart from every one, wept bitterly. 
All pretended, however, not to remark his red eyes, when he 
came down to tea, silent and gloomy. 

On the following day, the sovereign arrived. Several of 
the Eostofs' household serfs asked permission to go and see 
the tsar. 

That morning it took Petya a long time to dress, comb his 
hair, and arrange his collar, so as to make it look as full-grown 
men wore theirs. He stood scowling before the mirror, mak- 
ing gestures, lifting his shoulders, and, at last, saying nothing 
to any one, he put on his cap and left the house by the back 
door, so as not to be observed. 

Petya had made up his mind to go straight to the place 
where the sovereign would be, and' to give a perfectly 
straightforward explanation to one of the chamberlains he 
supposed the sovereign was always surrounded by chamber- 
lains and tell him that he, Count Eostof , in spite of his 
youth, wished to serve his country, that his youth could not 
be an obstacle in the w#y of devotion, and that he was ready 

Petya, by the time he was all dressed, was well fortified with 
fine words which he should say to the chamberlain. 

Petya relied for the success of his application to the sover- 
eign on the very fact that he was a mere child he thought 
even that they would all be amazed at his youth and, at the 
same time, by the arrangement of his nice little collar, and 
the combing of his hair, and his slow and dignified gait, he 
was anxious to give the impression of being a full-grown man. 

But the farther he went, and the more he -was involved in 
the throngs and throngs of people gathering around the Kreml, 
the more he forgot to keep up that appearance of dignity and 
moderation which marks the full-grown man. 

As he approached the Kreml, he had a hard struggle to keep 
from being jostled ; and this he did by putting on a decidedly 
threatening face, and resolutely applying his elbows to oppos- 
ing ribs. But at Trinity Gate, in spite of all his resolution, the 



92 WA'R AND PEACE. 

people, who evidently had no idea what patriotic object brought 
him to the Kreml, crushed him up against the wall in such a way 
that he had to make a virtue of the necessity, and pause, while 
through the gateway rolled the equipages, thundering by under 
the vaulted arch. 

Near Petya stood a peasant woman and a lackey, two mer- 
chants, and a retired soldier. After waiting some time at the 
Gate, Petya determined not to wait until all the carriages had 
passed, but to push farther on in advance of the others ; and 
he began to work his elbows vigorously ; but the peasant 
woman, who stood next him, and was the first to feel the appli- 
cation of his elbows, screamed at him angrily, 

" Here, my little barchuk* what are you poking me for ? 
Don't you see every one is standing still ? Where are you 
trying to get to ? " 

"That's a game more than one can work," said the lackey, 
and also vigorously plying his elbows, he sent Petya into the 
ill-smelling corner of the gateway. 

Petya wiped the sweat from his face with his hands, and 
tried to straighten up his collar, which had collapsed with the 
moisture that collar which, when he had left home, so well 
satisfied him with the effect of maturity that it gave him. He 
felt that he now was in an unpresentable state, and he was 
afraid that if he went to the chamberlain in such a 
plight, he would not be allowed to approach the sovereign. 
But to put himself to rights, or to get from where he was to 
another place, was an impossibility, owing to the throng. A 
general, who happened to be passing at .that moment, was an 
acquaintance of the Rostofs. It occurred to Petya to shout 
to him for help ; but he came to the conclusion that that would 
not be compatible with manliness. 

After all the equipages had passed, the throng burst through, 
and carried Petya along with it into the square, which was 
also full of the populace. Not the square alone, but the slopes 
and the housetops, every available place, was full of people. 
As soon as Petya got fairly into the square, the sounds of the 
bells filling all the Kreml, and the joyous shouts of the people, 
made themselves manifest to his ears. 

At one time there was more room on the square, but sud- 
denly every head was bared, and the whole mass of people 
rushed forward. Petya was so crushed that he could hardly 
breathe, and still the acclamations rent the air : Hurrah ! hur- 

* BdrchenoJc, barchuk, is the popular diminutive of bdritch, that is to say, 
the son of a barin, or nobleman, gentleman. 



WAR AND PEACE. 93 

rah ! hurrah ! Petya got upon his tiptoes, pushed and pinched, 
but still he could see nothing except the people around him. 

All faces wore one and the same expression of emotion and 
enthusiasm. One woman, a merchant's wife, standing near 
Petya, sobbed, and the tears streamed from her eyes, 

" Father ! angel ! batyushka ! " she cried, rubbing the tears 
away with her fingers. 

The huzzas resounded on every side. 

The throng, for a single instant, stood still in one place ; 
then it rushed onward again. 

Petya, entirely forgetting himself, set his teeth together 
like a wild beast, and, with his eyes starting from his head, 
plunged forward, using his elbows, and shouting "Hurrah" at 
the top of his voice, as though he were ready and willing that 
moment to kill himself and every one else ; while on every 
side of him there were ever the same wild faces uttering the 
same huzzas. 

" So, then, that's the kind of a man the sovereign is ! " 
thought Petya. "No, it would be impossible for me to 
deliver my petition in person ; it would be quite too auda- 
cious." 

Nevertheless, he still struggled desperately forward, and, 
;,ust beyond the backs in front of him, he could see an empty 
space, with a lane covered with red cloth ; but at this instant 
'the throng ebbed back ; the police in front were driving them 
away from the path of the procession, wfiich they were incom- 
moding ; the sovereign was on his way from the palace to the 
Uspiensky Cathedral, and Petya unexpectedly received such a 
blow in the ribs, and was so crushed, that suddenly every- 
thing grew confused before his eyes, and he lost conscious- 
ness. 

When he came to himself, some strange priest, appar- 
ently a diachok, in a well-worn, blue cassock, and with a 
long mane of gray hair) was supporting him with one arm, 
and with the other defending him from the pressure of the 
throng. 

" You have crushed a young nobleman !" * cried the diachok. 
" Look out, there ! Easy ! You have crushed him ! You 
have crushed him ! " 

The sovereign entered the Uspiensky Cathedral. The crowd 

again thinned out a little, and the priest took Petya, pale and 

hardly able to breathe, to the Tsar-puslika, or King of Guns. 

Several individuals had pity on Petya, but then suddenly the 

* Edrchenok, nobleman's son. 



94 WAR AND -PEACE. 

throng surged up against him again, and he was already 
involved in the billows of the mob. But those who stood 
nearest to him gave him a helping hand, while others unbut- 
toned his coat, and got him up to the top of the cannon, and 
reviled some of those who had abused him so. 

" Would you crush him to death that way ! " " What do 
you mean ? " " Why, it's downright murder ! " " See the 
poor fellow, he's as white as a sheet ! " said various voices. 

Petya quickly recovered himself, the color returned to his 
cheek, his pain passed off, and, as a compensation for this 
momentary discomfort, he had his place on the cannon, from 
which he hoped to see the sovereign pass by on his way back. 
Petya no longer even thought of preferring his request. If he 
could only see him, then he should consider himself perfectly 
happy ! 

During the time of the service in the Uspiensky Cathedral, 
which consisted of a Te Deum in honor of the sovereign's arri- 
val, and a thanksgiving for the conclusion of peace with 
Turkey, the throng thinned out, pedlers of kvas, gingerbread, 
and poppy seeds which Petya specially affected made 
their appearance proclaiming their wares, and the ordinary 
chatter of a crowd was heard. 

A merchant's wife was lamenting her torn shawl, and tell- 
ing how dear it had cost her. Another made the remark that 
at the present time all sorts of silk stuffs were costly. The 
diachok, Petya's rescuer, was disputing with an official as to 
who and who were assisting His Eminence in the service. 
The priest several times repeated the word sobornye* which 
Petya did not understand. Two young fellows were jesting 
with some servant girls, who were munching nuts. 

All these conversations, especially the jokes with the girls, 
which ordinarily would have been extremely fascinating to 
Petya at his age, now failed entirely to attract his attention. 
He sat on his coign of vantage the cannon just as much 
excited as ever at the thought of his sovereign and of his love 
for him. The coincidence of his feeling of pain and terror 
when they were crushing him, and his feeling of enthusiasm 
still more strengthened in him the consciousness of the im- 
portance of this moment. Suddenly, from the embankment 
were heard the sounds of cannon-shots, they were fired in 
commemoration of the peace with the Turks, and the 
throng rushed eagerly toward the embankment to see them 
fire the cannon. 

* A Slavonic word signifying that all the clergy of the cathedral (toboii 
assisted. 



WAR AND PEACE. 9 

Petya wanted to go, too, but the priest who Jiad taken the 
young nobleman under his protection would not permit him. 
These guns were still firing when from the Uspiensky Cathe- 
dral came a number of officers, generals, and chamberlains ; 
then, more deliberately, came still others ; again heads were 
uncovered, and those who had rushed to see the firing came 
running back. Last of all there emerged from the portal of 
the cathedral four men in uniforms and ribbons. " Hurrah ! 
hurrah ! " shouted the throng. 

" Which is he ? Which one ? " asked Petya, in a tearful 
voice, of those around him, but no one gave him any answer ; 
all were too much pre-occupied : and Petya, selecting one of 
these four personages, which he had some difficulty in doing, 
owing to the tears of joy that blinded his eyes, concen- 
trated on him all his enthusiasm although it happened not 
to be the monarch ! and shouted " Hurrah " in a frenzied 
voice, and made up his mind that, the very next day, cost what 
it might, he would become a soldier. 

The throng rushed after the sovereign, accompanied him to 
the palace, and then began to disperse. It was already late, 
and Petya had eaten nothing, and the sweat streamed from 
him ; still he had no idea of going home yet, and he stood in 
front of the palace with the diminished but still enormous 
throng all through the time that the sovereign was eating his 
dinner, gazing at the windows of the palace, still expecting 
something, and envying the dignitaries who came up to the 
doorway to take part in the dinner, and even the footmen, 
who were serving the tables, and passing swiftly in front of 
the windows. 

During the dinner Valuyef, glancing out of the window, 
remarked to the sovereign, "The people are still hoping to 
have another glimpse of your majesty." 

When the banquet was over, the sovereign arose, still eating 
the last of a biscuit, and went out on the balcony. The 
throng,. Petya in the number, rushed toward the balcony, 
shouting, " Angel ! batyushka ! hurrah ! " 

" Father ! " cried the people, and Petya also, and again the 
women and some of the men of weaker mould Petya among 
the number wept for joy. 

A pretty good-sized piece of the biscuit, which the sovereign 
held in his hand, crumbled and dropped upon the railing of 
the balcony, and from the railing to the ground. A coachman 
in a sleeveless coat, standing nearer than any one else, sprang 
forward and seized this crumb. Several of the throng flung 



96 WAR AND PEACE. 

themselves on the coachman. The sovereign, perceiving this, 
commanded a plate of biscuits to be handed to him, and began 
to toss them from the balcony. 

Petya' s eyes were bloodshot ; the danger of being crushed 
to death again threatened him, but he rushed for the bis- 
cuits. He knew not why, but his ' happiness depended on 
having one of those biscuits from the tsar's hand, and he was 
bound he would not give in. He sprang forward and overset 
an old woman who was just grasping a biscuit. But the old 
woman had no idea of considering herself vanquished, although 
she was flat on the ground, for she held the biscuit clutched 
in her fist, and had not dropped it. Petya knocked it out of 
her hand with his knee, and seized it, and, as though fearing 
that he should be too late, he shouted " Hurrah," with his 
hoarse voice. 

The sovereign retired, and after this the larger part of the 
crowd began to separate. " I said there'd be something more 
to see, and so it turned out/" said various voices, joyously, 
amid the throng. 

Happy as Petya was, it was, nevertheless, a gloomy pros- 
pect for him to go home, and know that all the happiness of 
the day was done. Instead, therefore, of going home, lie left 
the Kreml, and went to find his comrade. Obolyensky, who was 
also fifteen years old, and who also was bent upon going into 
the army. 

When, at last, he reached his home, he clearly and definitely 
declared that, if they would not give him their permission, he 
would run away. And. on the next day, Count Ilya Andre- 
yitch, though not fully decided to give his assent, went to learn 
in what way some place might be found for Petya, where he 
would be least exposed to danger. 



CHAPTER XXII. 

Ox the morning of the 27th, three days later, a countless 
throng of equipages were drawn up in the vicinity of the Slo- 
bodsky palace. 

The halls were all crowded. In the front room were the 
nobles in their uniforms ; in the second room were the mer- 
chants, wearing medals, beards, and blue kaftans. 

There was a bustle and movement in the room where the 
nobles were gathered. Around a great table, over which hung 
a portrait of the sovereign, sat the most distinguished digni- 



WAR AND PEACE. 97 

taries, in high-backed chairs ; but the majority of the nobles 
were walking up and down. 

All the nobles the very men whom Pierre was accustomed 
to see every day at the club or at their own homes were in uni- 
forms, some dating from Catherine's time, some from Paul's, 
some in the newer-fashioned ones that had come in with Alex- 
ander, some in the ordinary uniform of the Russian nobil- 
ity ; and this universality of uniform gave a certain strange 
and fantastic character to these individuals, of such varying 
a^es and types, well known as they were to Pierre. Especially 
noticeable were the old men, dull-eyed, toothless, bald, with 
flesh turning to yellow fat, or wrinkled and thin. These, for 
the most part, sat in their places and had nothing to say ; and, 
if they walked about and talked, they addressed themselves to 
men their juniors. Likewise, as in the faces of the throng 
which Petya had seen on the Kreml square, so here these 
faces wore a most astounding contrariety of expressions : the 
general expectation of some solemn event, as opposed to what 
usually happened : the party of boston, Petrusha the cook's 
dinner, the exchange of greetings with Zinaida Dmitrievna 
and things of the sort. 

Pierre, who since early morning had been pinched into a 
court uniform that was awkward for him, because it was too 
tight in its fit, was present. He was in a high state of excite- 
ment : a meeting extraordinary, not only of the nobility, but 
also of the merchant class a legislative assembly, etats gene- 
raux had awakened in him a whole throng of ideas about 
the Contrat social, and the French Revolution ideas which 
he had long ago ceased to entertain, but were, nevertheless, 
deeply engraven in his mind. The words of the proclamation 
which said that the sovereign was coming to his capital, for 
the purpose of deliberating with his people, confirmed him in 
this opinion. And thus supposing that the important reform 
which he had been long waiting to see introduced would now 
be tried, he walked about, looked on, listened to the conversa- 
tions, but nowhere found any one expressing the ideas that 
occupied him. 

The sovereign's manifesto was read, arousing great enthusi- 
asm ; and then the assembly broke up into groups, discussing 
affairs. Pierre heard men talking not only about matters of 
universal interest, but also about such things as where the 
marshals of the nobility should stand when the sovereign 
came, when the ball should be given to his majesty, whether 
the division should be made by districts or taking the whole 
VOL. 3. 7. 



98 WAR AND PEACE. 

government, and other questions of the sort. But as soon as 
the war became a topic of conversation, or the object of calling 
the meeting of the nobility was mentioned, the discussions 
became vague and irresolute. All preferred to listen rather 
than to talk. 

One middle-aged man of strikingly gallant bearing, and 
wearing the uniform of a retired officer of the navy, was talk- 
ing in one room, and a group was gathered around him. Pierre 
joined it, and began to listen. Count Ilya Audrey itch, in his 
Voevode's kaftan of Catherine's time, after making his way 
through the crowd, with a pleasant greeting for every one, also 
approached this same group, and began to listen, as he always 
listened, with his good-natured smile, and nodding his head to 
signify that his sentiments were in accord with the speaker's. 

The retired naval man spoke very boldly as could be 
judged by the faces of his listeners, and because certain of 
Pierre's acquaintances, well known for their submissive and 
gentle natures, turned away from him, or disagreed with what 
he said. Pierre forced his way into the centre of this group, 
and gave good heed, and came to the conclusion that the speaker 
was genuinely liberal, but in a very different sense from what 
Pierre understood by liberality. The naval man spoke in that 
peculiar, ringing, singsong baritone characteristic of the Rus- 
sian nobility, with an agreeable slurring of the r's and short- 
ening of consonants a voice, too, fitted to issue a command. 

" Suppose the people of Smolensk have offered to raise mili- 
tia for the sov'e'n. Can the Smolenskites lay down the law for 
us ? If the ge'm'en of the Muscovite iiobil'ty find it neces'y, 
they can show their devotion to their sove'n and emp'r in some 
other way. We haven't forgotten the calling out of the land- 
wehr in 1807, have we ? Only rasc'ly priests' sons and plun- 
d'r's got any good from it." 

Count Ilya Andreyitch, with a shadow of a smile, nodded 
his head approvingly. 

" And I should like to know if our militia have ever done 
the empire any good ? Not the least. They have merely 
ruined our farming int'rests. A levy is much better for 
the militia man comes back to you neither a soldier nor a 
muzhik, but simply spoiled and good for nothing. The nobles 
don't grudge their lives ; we are perfectly willing to take the 
field ourselves and bring along recruits with us ; the sove'n * 
has only to speak the word and we will all die for him," added 
the orator, growing excited. 

* "He pronounced Gosudar, gusai: " parenthesis in text. 



WAR AND PEACE. 99 

Ilya Andreyitch swallowed down the spittle in his mouth 
with gratification at hearing such sentiments, and nudged 
Pierre, but Pierre also had a strong desire to speak. He 
pushed still farther forward ; he felt that he was excited, but 
he had no idea what should cause him to speak, and as yet he 
had still less idea of what he was going to say. He had just 
opened his mouth to speak when a senator, who had absolutely 
no teeth at all, but who had a stern, intelligent face, sud- 
denly interrupted Pierre. He had been standing near the 
naval orator. Evidently used to leading in debate, and hold- 
ing his own in argument, he spoke in a low but audible 
voice : 

" I suppose, my dear sir," said the senator the words 
sounding thick, owing to his toothless mouth "I suppose 
that we have been summoned here not for the purpose of 
deciding whether at the present moment enlistment of soldiers 
or levies of militia will be most beneficial for the empire, but 
we have been summoned here to respond to the proclamation 
which the emperor our sovereign has deigned to address to 
us. And the decision of the question which is the more 
advantageous recruits or militia we may safely leave to 
his supreme autho " 

Pierre suddenly found an outlet for his excitement. He 
was indignant with the senator for taking such a strict and 
narrow view of the functions of the nobility. Pierre took a 
step forward and interrupted the senator. He himself knew 
not what he was going to say, but he began hotly, occasionally 
breaking out into French expressions, and when he spoke in 
Russian "talking like a book." 

" Excuse me, your excellency," he began. Pierre was well 
acquainted with this senator, but now he felt that it was in- 
cumbent upon him to address him with perfunctory formality. 
"Although I cannot agree with the gentleman" Pierre hesi- 
tated. He wanted to say Mon tres-h onorable preopinant " with 
the gentleman que je n'ai pas Vhonneur de connaitre still 
I suppose that the nobility have been called together now not 
alone to express their sympathy and enthusiasm, but likewise 
to decide on the measures by which we may aid the father- 
land. I suppose," said he, growing still more animated, "I 
suppose that the sovereign himself would have been sorry if 
he saw in us nothing but owners of peasants whom we should 
give him as meat for as chair a canon but rather as co 
co counsellors " 

Several moved away from this group as they noticed the 



100 WAR AND PEACE. 

senator's scornful smile and the excitement under which 
Pierre was laboring ; only Ilya Andreyitch was content with 
Pierre's deliverance, just as he had been with the naval man's 
speech and the senator's, and, as a general rule, with the last 
one which he ever happened to hear. 

" I suppose that before we decide these questions," pursued 
Pierre, "we ought to ask the sovereign, we ought most re- 
spectfully to ask his majesty to give us a full and definite 
account of how many troops we have, in what condition they 
are, and then " 

But Pierre was not allowed to finish his sentence ; he was 
attacked from three sides at once. More violently than by 
any one else he was assailed by an acquaintance of his of very 
long standing, always well disposed to him and frequently his 
partner at boston, Stepan Stepanovitch Adraksin. Stepan 
Stepanovitch was in uniform, and either it was the uniform or 
some other reason that made Pierre see himself opposed by 
an entirely different man from what he had ever known. 
Stepan Stepanovitch, with an expression of senile wrath sud- 
denly flushing his face, screamed out at Pierre : 

" In the first place I would have you understand that we 
have no right to ask the sovereign any such thing, and in the 
second place even if the Russian nobility had such a right, 
even then the sovereign could not answer us. The movements 
of our troops depend upon those of the enemy the troops 
increase and decrease " % 

Another man, of medium height, forty years old, whom 
Pierre had seen in days gone by at the Gypsies' and knew as 
a wretched card player, and who now like the rest had a 
wholly changed aspect in his uniform, interrupted Adraksin : 
" Yes, and besides it is not the time to criticise," said the 
voice of this noble, " but we must act ; the war is in Russia. 
The enemy are coming to destroy Russia, to desecrate the 
tombs of our sires, to lead into captivity our wives and our 
children." The nobleman struck his chest a ringing blow. 
" Let us all arise, let us all go as one man in defence of our 
batyushka, the tsar ! " he cried, wildly rolling his bloodshot 
eyes. 

Several approving voices were heard in the throng. 

"We Russians will never begrudge our lives for the defence 
of the faith, the throne, and the fatherland ; but we must re- 
nounce day dreams if we are the true sons of the country. 
Let us show Europe how Russia can defend Russia ! " cried a 
nobleman. 



WAR AND PEACE. 101 

Pierre wanted to make a reply, but he could not say a word. 
He was conscious that even the sound of his voice inde- 
pendent of the meaning of what he would say was less 
audible than the sound of the nobleman's voice. 

Ilya Andreyitch stood just behind the circle, looking on 
approvingly ; several applauded the speaker when he finished, 
and shouted, 

"Hear! Hear!" 

Pierre was anxious to say that while he would be ready to 
sacrifice himself to any extent, either in money or in his 
peasants, still he should like to know how affairs were situated 
before he could help, but he found it impossible to get a word 
in. Many voices spoke and shouted all at once, so that Ilya 
Andreyitch had no chance even to nod his head in assent to 
everything, and the group grew in size, broke asunder, and 
then formed again swaying and tumultuous, and moved across 
the room toward the great table. 

Not only was Pierre prevented from speaking, but he was 
rudely interrupted, assailed, and pushed aside, and treated as 
though he were a common foe. This was not because they 
were dissatisfied with the sentiments which he expressed, for 
they had already forgotten what he had said after the multi 
tude of other things spoken since, but what was necessary tc 
excite the throng was some palpable object of love and some 
palpable object of hatred. Pierre had made himself the lat- 
ter. Many orators followed the excited nobleman, and all 
spoke in the same tone. Many spoke eloquently and with 
originality. 

The editor of the Russky Vyestnik, Glinka,* who was well 
known, and was greeted with shouts of " The writer ! the 
writer ! " declared that hell must contend with hell ; that he 
had seen a child smiling at the flashing of lightning and at the 
crashing of thunder, but that we should not be like such a 
child as that. 

" No ! no ! we must not ! " was heard approvingly spcken in 
the most distant circles. 

The throng drifted up to the great table where sat the sep- 
tuagenarian notables, old and gray and bald, in uniforms and 
ribbons, veterans whom Pierre had seen, almost without excep- 
tion, at home under jolly circumstances or at the club-house 

* Sergyei Nikolayevitch Glinka, born at Smolensk 1776, founded the 
Russian Messenger, 1808, which, in 1812, was the very pillar of nationalism,' 
he also, at his own cost, furnished twenty men for the rnilitia; died, 1^*47 
leaving one hundred and fifty volumes of works. 



102 WAR AND PEACE. 

or playing boston. The throng drew near the table, and still 
the roar of shouting and talk went on. One after the other, 
and sometimes two at once, pressing up against the high-backed 
chairs, the orators spoke their thoughts. Those who stood in 
the rear finished saying what any orator had no time to say to 
the end, and filled out the omitted passages. Others, in spite 
of the heat and closeness, racked their brains trying to find 
some new idea and to give it utterance. Pierre's friends, the 
aged notables, sat and gazed, now at one, now at the other, and 
the expression of the majority of their faces merely said that 
it was very hot. 

Pierre, however, felt intensely excited, and a great desire 
came over him to have the meeting understand that he was as 
ready as the rest to be moved' and stirred by that which was 
expressed more in the sounds of their voices and their looks 
than in the sense of the words they spoke. He had no inten- 
tion of renouncing his convictions, but he somehow felt as 
though he were in the wrong, and he wanted to set himself 
right. 

" I merely said that it would be easier for us to make sacri- 
fices if we could know what was needed," he began to say, try- 
ing to outshout the rest. 

A little old man who happened to be standing near him 
looked at him, but was immediately attracted by a shout raised 
at the other side of the table. 

" Yes, Moscow shall be delivered ! She shall be the deliv- 
erer ! " some one was shouting. 

" He is the enemy of the human race ! " cried another. 

"Allow me to speak " 

" Gentlemen, you are crushing me ! " 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

AT this moment, Count Rostopchin, in a general's uniform 
and with a broad ribbon across his shoulder, with his promi- 
nent chin and keen eyes, came into the room, and swiftly 
passed through the throng of nobles, who made way before 
him. 

"Our sovereign, the emperor, will be here immediately," 
said Rostopchin. "I have just come from there. I think 
that in the position in which we find ourselves there is very 
little room for debate. The sovereign has done us the honor 
of calling us together, and the merchant class," said Counf 



WAR AND PEACE. 103 

Rostopchin. "They in there control millions," he pointed 
to the hall where the merchants were, " and it is our busi- 
ness to furnish the landwehr, and not to spare ourselves. That 
is the least that we can do ! " 

The notables, sitting by themselves at the table, held a con- 
sultation. The consultation could hardly be described as sub- 
dued. There was even a melancholy effect produced when, 
after all the noise and enthusiasm, these senile voices were 
heard, one after the other, saying, " I am content," or, for the 
sake of variety, " That is my opinion," and the like. 

The secretary of the meeting was bidden to write that the 
Moscovites, in a meeting of the nobility, had unanimously 
resolved to follow the example of Smolensk, and offer a levy 
of ten men out of every thousand, completely armed and 
equipped. 

The gentlemen who had been sitting arose, as though freed 
from a heavy task, noisily pushed back their chairs, and stirred 
about the hall so as to stretch their legs, perchance taking the 
arm of some acquaintance, and talking matters over. 

" The sovereign ! the sovereign ! " was the cry suddenly 
shouted through the halls, and the whole throng rushed to 
the entrance. 

Through a broad lane, between a wall of nobles, the sover- 
eign entered the hall. All faces expressed a reverent and 
awesome curiosity. Pierre was standing at some little dis- 
tance, and could not fully catch all that the sovereign said in 
his address. 

He comprehended only from what he heard that the sover- 
eign spoke about the peril in which the country stood, and the 
hopes which he placed upon the Muscovite nobility. Some 
one spoke in response to the sovereign's address, and merely 
confirmed the resolution which had just before been engrossed. 

" Gentlemen," said the sovereign's trembling voice ; a ripple 
of excitement ran through the throng, and then dead silence 
reigned again, and this time Pierre distinctly heard the sover- 
eign's extremely agreeable voice, affected with genuine emo- 
tion, saying, 

" I have never doubted the devotion of the Russian nobility. 
But this day it has exceeded my expectations. I thank you 
in the name of the fatherland. Gentlemen, let us act time 
is precious " 

The sovereign ceased speaking ; the throng gathered round 
him, and on every side were heard enthusiastic exclamations. 

"Yes, precious indeed the tsar's word!" said Ilya An 



104 WAR AND PEACE. 

drey itch, with a sob ; he had heard nothing, but put his own 
interpretation on everything. 

The sovereign passed from the hall where the nobles were 
into that where the merchants were gathered. He remained 
there about ten minutes. Pierre and several others saw him 
on his way from their hall with tears of emotion in his eyes. 
As was learned afterwards, the sovereign had hardly begun 
his speech to the merchants before the tears had streamed 
from his eyes, and he had ended it in a voice broken with 
emotion. When Pierre saw him, he was coming out accom- 
panied by two merchants. One was an acquaintance of Pierre's 
a stout brandy farmer ; the other was the city provost, a 
man with a thin yellow face and a peaked beard. Both of 
them were in tears. The thin man wept, but the stout brandy 
farmer was sobbing like a child, and kept saying, 

" Take our lives and our all, your majesty ! " 

Pierre at this moment felt no other desire than to prove 
how little he treasured anything, and that he was ready to 
make any sacrifice. He reproached himself for his speech 
with its constitutional tendency ; he tried to think of some 
means to efface the impression which it had made. Learning 
that Count Mamonof had offered a regiment, Bezukhoi imme- 
diately announced to Count Rostopchin that he would give a 
thousand men and their maintenance. 

Old Rostof could not refrain from tears when he told his 
wife what had been done, and he then and there granted 
Petya's request, and went himself to see that his name was 
enrolled. 

The next day the sovereign took his departure. All the 
nobles who had assembled took off their uniforms, once 
more resumed their ordinary avocations at home and in their 
clubs, and, groaning, gave orders to their overseers in regard to 
the landwehr levy, and marvelled at what they had done. 



PART SECOND. 
CHAPTER I. 

NAPOLEON entered upon the war with Russia because he 
had to go to Dresden, had to lose his judgment from excess of 
honors, had to put on a Polish uniform, had to feel the stimu- 
lating impression of a July morning, and had to give way to 
an outburst of fury in the presence of Kurakin and afterwards 
of Balashof. 

Alexander refused to hear to any negotiations, because he 
felt that he had been personally insulted. 

Barclay de Tolly strove to direct the troops in the very best 
way, so that he might do his duty and win the renown of 
being a great commander. 

Rostof charged the French because he could not resist the 
temptation to make a dash across an open field. 

And thus acted in exactly the same way, in accordance with 
vheir own natural characteristics, habits, dispositions, and 
aims, all the innumerable individuals who took part in this 
war. They had their fears and their vanities, they had their 
enjoyments and their fits of indignation, and they all supposed 
that they knew what they were doing, and that they were 
doing it for themselves ; but they were in reality the irre- 
sponsible tools of history, and they brought about a work 
which they themselves could not realize, but which is plain 
for us to see. 

Such is the inevitable fate of all who take an active part in 
life, and the higher they stand in the social hierarchy the less 
free are they. Now, those who took part in the events of the 
year 1812 have long ago passed from the scene ; their personal 
interests have vanished without leaving a trace, and only the 
historical results of that time are before us. 

Let us now once admit that the armies of Europe, under the 
leadership of Napoleon, had to plunge into the depths 'of Rus- 
sia, and there to perish, and all the self-contradictory, sense- 
less, atrocious deeds of those who took part in this war be- 
come comprehensible for us. 

105 



106 WAR AND PEACE. 

Providence obliged all these men, who were each striving 
to attain his own ends, to work together for the accomplish- 
ment of one tremendous result, of which no man neither 
Napoleon nor Alexander any more than the most insignificant 
participant had the slightest anticipation. 

It is now plain to us what caused the destruction of the 
French army in the year 1812. No one will attempt to dis- 
pute that the cause of the destruction of Napoleon's French 
troops was, on the one hand, their plunging into the depths of 
Russia too late in the season, and without sufficient prepara- 
tion ; and, on the other hand, the character given to the war 
by the burning of the Russian cities, and the consequent awak- 
ening in the Russian people of hatred against the foe. 

But at that time not only had no one any idea of such a 
thing, though now it seems so evident, that an army of 
eight hundred thousand men, the best that the world had ever 
seen, and conducted by the greatest of leaders, could only in 
this way have met with its destruction in a collision with an 
army of half its size, inexperienced, and under the lead of in- 
experienced generals ; not only no one had any idea of such a 
thing, but, moreover, all the exertions of the Russians were 
systematically directed toward preventing the only thing that 
could save Russia, and all the exertions of the French, in spite 
of Napoleon's experience and his so-called military genius, 
were directed toward reaching Moscow by the end of the 
summer : in other words, doing the very thing which was 
bound to prove his ruin. 

French authors, in their accounts of the year 1812, are very 
fond of declaring that Napoleon felt the risk he ran in extend- 
ing his line, that he sought to give battle, that his marshals 
advised him to halt at Smolensk. And they bring forward 
other arguments of the sort, to prove that even then the peril 
of the Russian campaign was foreseen. 

On the other hand, Russian authors are even more fond of 
declaring that, at the very beginning of the campaign, the 
scheme was already conceived of decoying Napoleon into the 
depths of Russia, after the manner of the Scythians, and 
some ascribe this scheme to Pfuhl, others to some Frenchman, 
others again to Toll, and still others to the Emperor Alexan- 
der himself. For their proof, they cite certain memoirs, sug- 
gestions, and letters, in which it really happens that allusions 
to some such mode of action can be found. 

But all these allusions, suggesting that what was done 
either by the French or the Russians was the result of calcu- 



WAR AND PEACE. 107 

lation, are made to look so at the present day simply because 
what actually took place has justified them. 

If the event had not taken place, then these allusions would 
have been neglected, just as thousands and millions of hints 
and suggestions of entirely opposite character are now forgot- 
ten, though they were all the vogue at that time, but, having 
been found to be incorrect, were therefore relegated to the 
limbo of forgetfulness. 

The issue of any event whatever is always involved in so 
many hypotheses, that no matter how it really turns some one 
will be found to say, " I told you it would happen so," entirely 
forgetting that among the numberless hypotheses others were 
made which proved to be perfectly erroneous. 

To suppose that Napoleon foresaw the peril of extending 
his line and that the Russians thought of alluring the enemy 
into the depths of their country, evidently belongs to this 
category, and it is only by very forced reasoning that his- 
torians can ascribe such divination to Napoleon and such 
schemes to the Russian generals. 

All the facts are absolutely opposed to such hypotheses. 

The Russians throughout the war not only had no thought or 
desire to decoy the French into the depths of the country, but, 
Ion the other hand, everything was done to prevent them from 
I making the first advance beyond their borders, and Napoleon 
not only had no fear of extending his line, but he felt a joy 
amounting to enthusiasm at every onward movement, and .he 
showed no such eagerness as in his earlier campaigns to give 
battle. 

At the very beginning of the campaign our armies are 
separated, and our single aim, in which we employ all our 
energies, is to unite them, whereas if it had been our intention 
to retreat and decoy the enemy into following us, there would 
not have been the slightest advantage in making a junction 
of the forces. 

The emperor is with the army in order to inspire the troops 

to defend the Russian land and not to yield an inch of ground. 

The enormous fortified camp of the Drissa is established 

According to Pfuhl's design, and there is no thought of retreat- 

ing. The sovereign reproaches the commander-in-chief for 

ievery backward step. The emperor could never have dreamed 

i either of the burning of Moscow or the presence of the enemy 

at Smolensk, and when the armies are united the sovereign is 

i exasperated because Smolensk is taken and burned, and be- 

I cause a general engagement is not delivered under its walls. 



108 WAR AND PEACE. 

Such are the sovereign's views, but the Russian ge lerals 
and all the Russian people are still more exasperated at the 
mere suggestion of retreating before the enemy. 

' Napoleon, having cut our armies asunder, moves on into the 
interior of the country, and allows to pass several opportuni- 
ties for giving battle. In August he is at Smolensk, and his 
sole thought is how to advance into Russia, although, as we 
see now, this forward movement was certainly to be destruc- 
tive to him. 

The facts prove that Napoleon did not foresee the risk of 
an advance upon Moscow, and that Alexander and the Rus- 
sian generals had no idea at that time of decoying Napoleon, 
but quite the contrary. 

Napoleon's army was enticed into the heart of the country 
not in accordance with any plan, for no one had seen even the 
possibility of such a plan, but in consequence of the compli- 
cated play of intrigues, desires, and ambitions of the men who 
took part in this war and had no conception of what was 
destined to be, or that . it would result in the only salvation 
of Russia. 

Everything proceeds in the most unexpected way. Our 
armies are divided at the opening of the campaign. We try 
to unite them with the evident aim of giving battle and check- 
ing the invasion of the enemy, but in trying to effect this 
union our troops avoid battle, because the enemy are stronger, 
and. in our involuntary avoidance of them we form an acute 
angle, and draw the French as far as Smolensk. But it is not 
enough to say that we give way at an acute angle because the 
French are moving between our two armies ; the angle grows 
still more acute and we retreat still farther because Bagration 
hates Barclay de Tolly,* an unpopular German. Bagration, 
who is his superior officer and the commander of the other 
army, endeavors as far as possible to delay the conjunction, in 
order not to be under Barclay's orders. 

Bagration long delays the union of the two armies though 
this has been the chief object of all the Russian generals, 
and he does so because he imagines that to make this march 
would endanger his troops and that it is better for him to 
draw off farther to the left and toward the south and harass 
the enemy on the flank and in the rear, and recruit his army 
in the Ukraina. 

* Barclay de Tolly (1759-1818) was not German, but of the old Scotch 
family of Barclay, a branch of which settled in Russia in the seventeenth 
century. 



WAR AND PB.6CR. 109 

But this was a mere pretext. He conceived this plan be- 
cause he is anxious not to put himself under the command of 
Barclay, the hated German, whose rank is inferior to his own. 

The emperor is with the army to inspire it, but his presence, 
and his tergiversation, the tremendous throng of advisers and 
plans paralyze the energy of the army, and it beats a retreat. 

The plan then is to make a stand in the camp at Drissa, but 
suddenly Paulucci, who aims to be commander-in-chief, makes 
such an impression upon Alexander by his energy, that 
Pfuhl's whole plan is abandoned, and the task is confided to 
Barclay. But, as Barclay is not able to instil confidence, his 
power is limited. 

The armies are separated ; there is no unity, no head : Bar- 
clay is unpopular ; but all this confusion, division, and the 
unpopularity of the German Commander-in-chief produce 
irresolution and the evasion of an encounter with the enemy, 
which would have been inevitable if the union of the armies 
had been accomplished, and if Barclay had not been designated 
as commander-in-chief, while on the other hand the same cir- 
| 'cumstances continually increase the feeling against the Ger- 
mans, and more and more arouse the spirit of patriotism. 

Finally, the sovereign leaves the army under the sole and 

most reasonable pretext that he is needed at Moscow and 

i Petersburg to stir up the people and incite a national defence. 

And the sovereign's journey to Moscow triples the strength of 

the Russian troops. 

The truth is, the sovereign leaves the army in order that he 
may not interfere with the power of the commander-in-chief, 
and hopes that more decisive measures will be taken. But 
the position of the chief of the army grows more and more 
confused and helpless. Benigsen, the Grand Duke, and a 
whole swarm of general-adjutants remain 'in the army to 
watch the actions of the commander-in-chief and to stimulate 
him to energetic action; arid Barclay, feeling himself still less 
free under the eyes of all these imperial censors, grows still 
more cautious about undertaking any decided operation, and 
carefully avoids a battle. 

Barclay stands on his guard. The tsesarevitch hints at 
treason and demands a general attack. Liubomirsky, Bran- 
nitsky. Vlotzky, and others of their ilk, add so much to all 
this tumult that Barclay, to rid himself of them, sends the 
Polish gene?al-adjutaats to Fetefslarg with pretended mes- 
sages ior the tsar, and enters into an open dispute witfc 
the Grand Duke. 



110 WAR AND PEACE. 

At last, against the wishes of Bagration, the union of the 
two armies is effected at Smolensk. 

Bagration drives in his carriage to Barclay's headquarters. 
Barclay puts on his scarf, comes out to meet him, and salutes 
him as his superior in rank. Bagration, not to be outdone in- 
magnanimity, places himself under Barclay's command, in 
spite of his superiority of rank, but though he takes a sub- 
ordinate position he is still more opposed to him. Bagration 
by the sovereign's express order makes direct reports. He 
writes to Arakcheyef : 4 

" My sovereign's will be done, but I can never work with the minister 
[Barclay!. For God's sake send me where you will, give me only a single 
regiment to command, but I cannot stay here. Headquarters are full of 
Germans, so that it is impossible for a Russian to breathe here, and there 
is no sense in anything. I thought that I was serving the sovereign and 
my country, but I am really serving Barclay. I confess this does not 
suit me." 

The swarm of Brannitskys, of Winzengerodes, and others 
like them, still further poisons the relations between the two 
chiefs, and united action becomes more and more impossible. 

They get ready to attack the French at Smolensk. A gen- 
eral is sent to inspect the position. This general, hating Bar- 
clay, instead of obeying orders, goes to one of his friends, a 
corps commander, remains with him all day, and returns at 
night to Barclay, to criticise a field of battle which he has 
not even seen. 

While quarrels and intrigues concerning the battle-field are 
in progress, while we are trying to find the French, because 
we are ignorant of their whereabouts, the French encounter 
Nevyerovsky's division, and approach the very walls of Smo- 
lensk. 

It is necessary 'to accept an unexpected battle at Smolensk 
in order to save our communications. The battle takes place, 
thousands of men on both sides are killed. 

Contrary to the wishes of the sovereign and the people, 
Smolensk is abandoned. But the inhabitants of Smolensk, 
betrayed by their governor, set fire to the city, and, offering 
this example to other Russian towns, take refuge in Moscow, 
only deploring their losses and kindling hatred against the 
enemy. 

Napoleon advances ; we retreat, and the result is that the 
very measure necessary for defeating Napoleon is employed. 



WAR AND PEACE. HI 



CHAPTER II. 

ON the day following his son's departure, Prince Nikolai 
Andreyitch summoned the Princess Mariya. 

" There, now, are you satisfied ? " he demanded. " You 
have involved me in a quarrel with my son ! Satisfied ? That 
was what you wanted ! Satisfied ? This has been painful, 
painful, to me. I am old and feeble, and this was what you 
wished. Well, take your pleasure in it, take your pleasure in 
it!" 

And after that the Princess Mariya saw no more of her father 
for a whole week. He was ill and did not leave his cabinet. 

To her amazement, the princess noticed that during this ill- 
ness the old prince did not permit even Mademoiselle Bourienne 
to come near him. Only Tikhon was admitted. 

At the end of the week, the prince came out and began to 
lead his former life again, occupying himself with special zeal 
in his buildings and garden, but discontinuing all his former 
relations with Mademoiselle Bourienne. His looks and his 
coolness toward the Princess Mariya seemed to say to her, 

" Here, you see, you have lied about me, you have slandered 
me to Prince Andrei in regard to my relations with this. 
Frenchwoman, and you have made me quarrel with him ; but, 
you see, I can get along without you or the Frenchwoman 
either." 

One-half of the day the Princess Mariya spent with Niko- 
lushka, attending to his lessons ; she herself taught him Rus- 
sian and music, and talked with Dessalles ; the remainder of 
the day she spent with her books, her old nyanya, and her 
" God's people," who sometimes came to see her clandestinely 
by the back stairs. 

The Princess Mariya had such thoughts about the war as 
women generally have regarding war. She trembled for her 
brother, who was in it ; she was horror-struck at the cruelty 
which led men to slaughter each other, though she had little 
comprehension of its reality ; but she did not appreciate the 
significance of this particular war, which seemed to her ex- 
actly like the wars that had preceded it. 

She did not realize it, although Dessalles, with whom she 
was constantly associated, followed its course with passionate 
interest, and tried to explain what he felt about it ; and 
although the " G-od's people " who came to see her brcaght to 



112 WAR AND PEACE. 

her the popular rumors about the invasion of Antichrist ; and 
although Julie, now the Princess Drubetskaya, who had again 
commenced to correspond with her, wrote her patriotic letters 
from Moscow. 

"I am going to write to you in Russian, pa Russki, my dear 
friend." wrote Julie, " because I hate all the French, and their language 
likewise. I cannot even bear to hear it spoken. Here in Moscow we are 
all carried away by our enthusiasm for our idolized emperor. 

" My poor husband is enduring hunger and privations at Jewish taverns; 
but the tidings which I get from him still further excite me. 

" You have undoubtedly heard of the heroic action of Rayevsky, who 
embraced his two sons, saying, ' I will perish with them, but we will 
never yield.' And, indeed, though the enemy was twice as strong as we 
were, we did not yield. 

'' We spend our time as best we can : during war, it must be as during 
war. The Princess Alina and Sophie spend whole days with me, and we 
wretched widows of living husbands, while ravelling lint, have good long 
talks; only you, my dear, are absent." And so on. 

The principal reason why the Princess Mariya did not real- 
ize the whole significance of this war, was that the old prince 
never said a word about it, never mentioned it, and, at dinner, 
often laughed at Dessalles, who would grow eloquent over it. 
The prince's tone was so calm and firm that the Princess 
Mariya believed in him without question. 

All through the month of July, the old prince was extraor- 
dinarily active and energetic. He set out another new orchard, 
and built a new building for the use of his household serfs. 
The only thing that disquieted the Princess Mariya was that 
he slept very little, and, relinquishing his ordinary habit of 
sleeping in his cabinet, he each day changed his sleeping-room. 
One time he gave orders to have his camp bedstead set up in 
the gallery ; then he would try the sofa, or the Voltaire easy- 
chair in the drawing-room, and doze without undressing, while 
the lad Petrusha and not Mademoiselle Bourienne read 
aloud to him : then, again, he would spend the night in the 
dining-room.* 

Early in August, he received a second letter from Prince 
Andrei. In the first, which came soon after his departure for 
the army, Prince Andrei humbly begged his father's pardon 
for what he had permitted himself to say to him, and besought 
him to restore him to favor. The old prince had replied to 
this in an affectionate letter, and it was shortly after that he 
gave up his intimacy with the Frenchwoman. 

Prince Andrei's second letter, written from near Vitebsk, 
* This was a characteristic of Napoleon at- St. Helena. 



WAR-A-ND PEACE. 113 

after it had been captured by the French, contained a brief 
account of the campaign, with the plan of it sketched out, and 
also his ideas as to the ultimate issue of it. In the same let- 
ter Prince Andrei represented to his father the inconvenience 
of his position so near to'the theatre of the war, in the very line 
of inarch of the armies, and urged him to go to Moscow. 

At dinner that day, hearing Dessalles mentioning the rumor 
that the French had already reached Vitebsk, the old prince 
remembered his letter from Prince Andrei. 

"Had a letter from Prince Andrei to-day,' 7 said he. 
" Haven't you read it ? " 

" Xo, man pere" replied the princess timidly. She could 
not possibly have read the letter, as she did not even know 
that one had been received. 

" He writes me about this campaign," said the old prince, 
with that scornful smile which had become habitual with him, 
and which always accompanied any mention of the war then 
in progress. 

" It must be very interesting," said Dessalles. " The prince 
is in a position to know " 

"Ah, very interesting," interrupted Mademoiselle Bourienne. 

"Go and fetch it to me," said the old prince to Mademoi- 
selle Bourienne. " It's on the little table, you know, under 
the paper-weight." 

Mademoiselle Bourienne sprang away with eager haste. 

"Oh, no," he cried, scowling; " do you go, Mikhail Ivan- 
uitch." 

Mikhail Ivanuitch got up and went into the cabinet. But, 
as he did not immediately return with it, the old prince, un- 
easily glancing around, threw down his napkin and went him- 
self.' 

" He won't be able to find it ; he'll upset everything." 

While he was gone, the Princess Mariya, Dessalles, Mile. 
Bourienne, and even Nikolushka silently exchanged glances. 
The old prince came hurrying back, accompanied by Mikhail 
Ivanuitch, and bringing the letter and a plan ; but instead of 
letting them be read during the dinner time he placed them by 
his side. 

Passing into the drawing-room, he handed the letter to the 
Princess Mariya and, spreading out the plan of the new build' 
ing, he began to study it, but at the same time commanded the 
Princess Mariya to read the letter aloud. After she had read 
it, she looked inquiringly at her father. He was studying the 
plan, apparently immersed in his thoughts. 
VOL. 3. 8. 



114 WAR AND PEACE. 

"What do you think about this, prince?" asked Dessalles, 
hazarding the question. 

"I I ? " exclaimed the prince, as though being aroused to 
some disagreeable reality, but still not taking his eyes from 
the plan. 

"It is quite possible that the theatre of the war may be 
approaching us " 

" Ha ! ha ! ha ! the theatre of war ! " exclaimed the prince. 
"I have said, and I still say, that the theatre of the war is 
in. Poland, and the enemy will never venture to cross the 
Niemen." 

Dessalles looked in amazement at the prince, who spoke of 
the Niemen when the enemy was already at the Dnieper ; but 
the Princess Mariya, who had forgotten the geographical posi- 
tion of the Niemen, supposed that what her father said was 
correct. 

" As soon as the snow begins to thaw they will be swallowed 
up in the swamps of Poland. Only they cannot see it," pur- 
sued the old prince, evidently thinking of the campaign of 
1807, which, as it seemed to liim, had not been so long ago. 
" Benigsen ought to have marched into Prussia before this ; 
then the affair would have taken another direction"- 

"But, prince," timidly suggested Dessalles, "Vitebsk is 
mentioned in the letter" 

"Ah ! in the letter ! Yes " involuntarily exclaimed the 
prince. "Yes yes" His face had suddenly assumed a 
sour expression. He paused for a moment. " Yes, he writes 
that the French were beaten near some river what was 
it?" 

Dessalles dropped his eyes. "The prince wrote nothing 
about that," said he in a low tone. 

"Didn't he, indeed ! Well, I certainly did not imagine it !" 

A long silence ensued. 

"Yes yes Well, Mikhail Ivanuitch ! " he suddenly 
exclaimed, raising his head and pointing at the plan of the 
new building. " Tell me how you propose to change this " 
Mikhail Ivanuitch drew up to the table; and the prince, after 
discussing the plan of the new edifice, left the room, casting 
an angry glance on the Princess Mariya and Dessalles. 

The princess noticed Dessalles's confused and wondering 
look fastened on her father, remarked his silence, and was 
dumfounded at her father having forgotten to take his son's 
letter from the drawing-room table ; but she was afraid 
to speak or to ask Dessalles the cause of his confusion 



WAR AND PEACE. 115 

and silence, and she was afraid even to think what it 
might be. 

In the evening, Mikhail Ivanuitch was sent by the prince 
for his son's letter, which had been forgotten in the drawing- 
room. The Princess Mariya handed him the letter. And, 
although it was a trying thing for her to do, she permitted 
herself to ask him what her father was doing. 

"He is always busy," replied Mikhail Ivanuitch, with a 
polite but sarcastic smile that made the Princess Mariya turn 
pale. " He is very much interested in the new building. He 
has been reading a little, but just now," continued Mikhail 
Ivanuitch, lowering his voice, " he is at his desk ; he must be 
working over his ( will.' " 

Latterly, one of the prince's favorite occupations had been 
to arrange the papers which were to be left after his death, 
and which he called his " will." 

"And is he sending Alpatuitch to Smolensk?" asked the 
Princess Mariya. 

" He is ; he has been waiting for some time." 



CHAPTER III. 

WHEN Mikhail Ivanuitch returned to the cabinet, he found 
the prince sitting at his open bureau, with his spectacles on 
and his eyes shaded by an abat-jour. He was reading by the 
light of a shaded candle and with a peculiarly solemn expres- 
sion, holding very far from his eyes the manuscript his 
Remarki, he called it which he wished to have presented to 
the sovereign after his death. 

When Mikhail Ivanuitch came in, the old prince's eyes were 
rilled with tears started by the recollection of the time when 
he had written what he was now reading. He snatched the 
letter from Mikhail Ivanuitch's hand, thrust it in his pocket, 
replaced the manuscript, and summoned the long-waiting 
Alpatuitch. 

He held a sheet of paper on which was jotted down what he 
wished to be done at Smolensk, and as he paced back and 
forth through the room past the servant standing at the door, 
he delivered his instructions. 

" First, do you hear ? letter-paper like this specimen, 
gilt-edged here's the pattern so as not to make any mis- 
take ; varnish ; sealing-wax " following Mikhail Ivan- 
uitch's memorandum. 



116 WAR AND PEACE. 

He paced up and down the room, and kept glancing at the 
memorandum of purchases. 

"Then be sure to give this letter about the deed to the 
governor in person." 

Then he laid special stress on getting the bolts for his new 
edifice, which must be of a special pattern invented by him- 
self. Then a folio was wanted for holding his "will." It 
took more than two hours to charge Alpatuitch with all the 
commissions, and still the prince did not let him go. He sat 
dowiij tried to think, and, closing his eyes, fell into a doze. 
Alpatuitch stirred uneasily. 

" Well, get you gone ! get you gone ! if I need anything 
more I will send for you." 

Alpatuitch left the room. The prince went to the bureau 
again, glanced into it, touched the papers with his hand, 
closed it again, and, going to his table, sat down to write his 
note to the governor. 

It was already late when, having sealed the letter, he got up. 
He wanted to go to bed, but he knew that he should not 
sleep, and that the most miserable thoughts would haunt him 
as soon as he lay down. He rang for Tikhon, and went with 
him through the rooms, so as to select the place where to set 
the bed for the night. He went about measuring every corner. 

There w'as no place that seemed to please him, but anything 
was better than his usual sofa in his cabinet. This divan was 
terrible to him, apparently on account of the trying thoughts 
which passed through his mind as he lay upon it. There was 
no place that satisfied him, but he was best of all pleased with 
the corner in the divan-room behind the piano-forte ; he had 
never before slept there. 

Tikhon and a man servant brought in the bedstead, and 
began to make the bed. 

" Not that way ! Not that way ! " cried the prince, and 
with his own hand he pushed it an inch or two farther away 
from the corner, and then nearer again. 

" Well, at last, I have done everything ; let me rest," 
thought the prince, and he commanded Tikhon to undress him. 

Painfully scowling at the effort required to take off hi 
kaftan and pantaloons, the prince at last got undressed, and 
let himself drop heavily on his bed. and then seemed lost ii> 
thought as he gazed scornfully at his yellow, shrivelled legs. 
Thought, however, was absent ; he was merely sluggish about 
undertaking the labor of lifting those same legs and getting 
them into bed. " Okh ! wha'5 trial ! Okh ! why must the 



WAR AND PEACE. 117 

end he so slow in coming ! Why can't you leave me. in 
peace ? " he said to himself. Screwing up his lips, he, for the 
twenty-thousandth time, made the effort, and then lay down. 
But he was scarcely on his back before the whole bed sud- 
denly began, with slow and regular motion, to rock backward 
and forward, as though it were heavily breathing and tossing. 
This thing happened to him almost every night. He opened 
Ins eyes, which he had just closed. 

" No repose ! Curse it ! " he exclaimed, full of fury against 
something. " Yes, yes ! there must have been something else 
of importance, of very great importance, which I kept till I 
should go to bed. Was it the bolts ? No, I told him about 
that. No, it was something that happened in the drawing- 
room. The Princess Mariya had some nonsense to repeat. 
Dessalles that idiot! made some remark.- There was 
something in my pocket ! I can't remember. Tishka ! what 
were we talking about at dinner time ? " 

" About Prince Mikhail " 

" Hold your tongue ! " 

The prince thumped his hand on the table. "Now, I know 
it was Prince Andrei's letter. The Princess Mariya read it 
aloud. Dessalles said something about Vitebsk. Now, I will 
read it." 

He bade Tikhon fetch him the letter from his pocket, and 
place a small table near the bed, with his lemonade and a wax 
taper, and, putting on his spectacles, he began to read. There 
only, as he read the letter, in the silence of the night, by the 
feeble light of the candle under the green shade, he for the 
first time for a moment took in its full significance. 

"The French at Vitebsk! in four marches they can reach 
Smolensk ; maybe they are there now. Tishka ! " Tikhon 
sprang forward. " No matter ! Nothing ! nothing ! " he 
cried. 

He slipped the letter under the candle-stick, and closed his 
eyes. 

And there arose before him the Danube, a brilliant noon- 
day, the rushes, the Russian camp and himself, a young 
general with not a single wrinkle on his face : hale and hearty, 
gay and ruddy, going into Potemkin's bright-colored tent, and 
the burning feeling of hatred against the " favorite " stirs in him 
now as violently as it did even then. And he recalls all the 
words which were spoken at his first interview with Potem- 
kin. And his fancy brings up before him again a stout, short 
woman, with a fat, sallow face, matushka-imperatritsa, 



118 WAR AND PEACE. 

the little mother empress, her smile, her words of flattery, 
when she for the first time gave him audience, and he remem- 
bers her face as it appeared on the catafalque, and then the 
quarrel with Zubof, which took place over her coffin, over the 
right to approach her hand. 

" Akh ! would that those old times could return, and that 
the present would all come to an end soon soon that I 
might' at last find rest ! " 



CHAPTER IV. 

LUISIYA GORUI, Prince Nikolai Andreyitch Bolkonsky's 
estate, was situated about sixty versts from Smolensk and 
three versts from the Moscow highway. 

That evening, while the prince was giving Alpatuitch his 
commissions, Dessalles asked for a few moments' talk with the 
Princess Mariya, and told her that as the prince, her father, 
was not very well, and refused to adopt any measures for their 
safety, while from Prince Andrei's letter it was evident that 
to remain at Luisiya Gorui was not unattended with danger, 
he respectfully advised her to send a letter by Alpatuitch to 
the nachalnik of the government at Smolensk, asking him 
to let her know the real state of affairs, and the measure oi 
danger to which Luisiya Gorui was exposed. 

Dessalles wrote the letter for her to the governor, and she 
signed it, and it was put into Alpatuitch's hands with strict 
injunctions to hand it to the governor, and in case the danger 
were urgent to return as soon as possible. 

Having received all his instructions, Alpatuitch, in a white 
beaver hat, a gift of the prince's, with a cudgel, exactly 
like that carried by the prince, went, escorted by all the ser- 
vants, to get into the leather-covered kibitka, to which a 
troika of fat, roan steeds had been attached. 

The duga-bell was tied up, and the little harness bells were 
stuffed with paper. The prince .would not allow bells to be 
used at Luisiya Gorui. But Alpatuitch liked the sounds of 
them on a long journey. His fellow servants, the zemsky 
or communal scribe, the house clerk, the pastry cook, and | 
the scullery maid, two old women, a young groom, the coach- i 
man, and a number of other household serfs, accompanied i 
him. 

His daughter stuffed back of the seat and under it some 
down cushions covered with chintz. His wife's sister, an old 



WAR AND PEACE. 119 

woman, stealthily thrust in a small bundle. One of the 
coachmen helped him to get to his place. 

" Well, well ! woman's fussiness ! Oh ! women, women ! " 
he exclaimed, puffing and speaking in the same short, hurried 
way as the old prince did; and he took his place in the 
kibitka. Having given his last orders to the zemsky in regard 
to the work, Alpatuitch removed his hat from his bald head 
and crossed himself thrice and in this respect he certainly 
did not imitate the prince. 

"If anything should you you will hurry back, Yakof 
Alpatuitch ; for Christ's sake, have pity on us ! " screamed his 
wife, with a covert reference to the rumors of the war and the 
enemy. 

" Oh, women, women ! women's fussiness ! " growled Alpa- 
tuitch to himself, and he rode away, glancing around him at 
the fields, some of which were covered with yellowing rye, 
others with thick crops of oats still green, others where the men 
were just beginning to do the second ploughing. He rode on, 
admiring the summer wheat, which gave an unusually abun- 
dant crop that year ; then he gazed with delight at the rye- 
fields, where the reapers were already beginning to work, and 
he made mental calculations as to future sowing and gathering 
of crops, and wondered if he had forgotten any of the prince's 
commissions. 

Having stopped twice on the road to bait his horses, Alpa- 
tuitch, on the sixteenth of August, reached the city. 

On the way he met and passed wagon trains and detach- 
ments of troops. As he approached Smolensk, he heard the 
sounds of distant firing, but these reports did not surprise 
him. He was more surprised than at anything else to see, in 
the vicinity of the city, tents pitched in the midst of a mag- 
nificent field of oats, which some soldiers were mowing appar- 
ently for the sake of fodder ; this circumstance surprised 
Alpatuitch, but it quickly slipped his mind, which was ab- 
sorbed in his own business. 

All the interests of Alpatuitch's life had been for more than 
thirty years confined to fulfilling the prince's wishes, and he 
had never taken a step outside of this narrow circle. Every- 
thing that did not appertain to carrying out the prince's 
directions did not interest him, and might be said not even to 
exist for Alpatuitch. 

Arriving on the evening of August sixteenth at Smolensk, 
Alpatuitch put up at an inn, kept by the dvornik Ferapontof, 
across the Dnieper, in the Gachensky suburb, where he had 



120 WAR AND PEACE. 

been in the habit of making his headquarters for the past 
thirty years. Ferapontof, thirty years before, had, with the 
connivance of Alpatuitch, bought a piece of woodland of the 
prince, and begun to trade, and now he had a home of his 
own, a tavern, and a grain shop. Ferapontof was a stout, dark- 
complexioned, good-looking muzhik of middle age, with thick 
lips, with a thick nobbed nose, and with knobs over his black, 
scowling brows, and with a portly belly. 

Ferapontof was standing at the street door of his shop, in 
his colored chintz shirt and waistcoat. Catching sight of 
Alpatuitch, he came out to meet him. 

"Welcome, Yakof Alpatuitch. The people are leaving 
town, and here you are coming to town ! " exclaimed the land- 
lord. 

" What do you mean ? Leaving town ? " asked Alpatuitch. 

" I mean what I say. The people are fools. They're all 
afraid of a Frenchman ! " 

" Woman's chatter ! woman's chatter ! " grumbled Alpa- 
tuitch. 

" That's my opinion, Yakof Alpatuitch. I tell 'em there's 
orders not to let him in ; so, of course, he won't get in. And 
yet those muzhiks ask three rubles for a horse and cart. 
That isn't Christian of 'em ! " 

Yakof Alpatuitch paid little attention to what he said. He 
asked for a samovar and some hay for his horses, and, after 
he had sipped his tea, he went to bed. 

All night long the troops went tramping by the tavern' 
along the street. The next morning Alpatuitch put on his 
kamzol, which he always wore only in town, and set forth to 
do his errands. The morning was sunny, and at eight o'clock 
it was already hot. " A fine day for the wheat harvest," 
Alpatuitch said to himself. Beyond the city the sounds of 
firing had been audible since early morning. About eight 
o'clock a heavy cannonading made itself heard in addition to 
the musketry. 

The streets were crowded with people hurrying to and fro ; 
there were throngs of soldiery ; but, just as usual, izvoshchiks 
were driving about, merchants were standing at their shop 
doors, and the morning service was going on in the churches. 

Alpatuitch did his errands at the shops, at the government 
offices, at the post-office, and at the governor's. At the gov- 
ernment offices, at the shops, at the post-office, everywhere, 
every one was talking of the war and the enemy, who was 
even now making his descent upon the city. Every one was 



WAR AND PEACE. 121 

asking every one else what was to be done, and every one 
was trying to re-assure every one else. 

At the governor's house, Alpatuitch found a great throng of 
people, Cossacks, and a travelling carriage belonging to the 
governor. On the doorstep Yakof Alpatuitch met t\vo of the 
local gentry, one of whom he knew. The nobleman whom he 
knew, a former ispravnik, or district captain of police, was 
talking with some heat. 

" But I tell you this is no joke ! " he was saying. " It's very 
well for a man who is alone. One can endure to be single and 
poor ; but to have thirteen in your family, and your whole 
property at stake ! What do the authorities amount to if 
they let such things come on us ? Ekh ! they ought to hang 
such cut-throats " 

" There, there ! calm yourself ! " said the other. 

" What difference does it make to me ; let them hear ! 
Why, we are not dogs ! " said the ex-ispravnik, and, looking 
round, he caught sight of Alpatuitch. " Ah ! Yakof Alpa- 
tuitch, what brings you here ? " 

"On an errand from his illustriousness to the governor," 
replied Alpatuitch, proudly lifting his head, and placing his 
hand in the breast of his coat which he always did when he 
remembered the prince. " He sent me to ascertain the posi- 
tion of affairs," said he. 

" Well, then, ' ascertain it," cried the proprietor. " Not a 
cart to be had nothing ! There, do you hear that ? " he 
exclaimed, calling their attention to the direction in which the 
firing could be heard. "That's the pass they've brought us 
to ! ruining us all the cut-throats ! " he muttered again, and 
turned down the steps. 

Alpatuitch shook his head, and went upstairs. In the 
reception room were merchants, women, chinovniks, silently 
exchanging glances. The door into the governor's cabinet was 
opened, and all stood up and crowded forward. Out of the 
room hurried a chinovnik, exchanged some words with a mer- 
chant, beckoned to a stout chinovnik, with a cross around his 
neck, to follow him, and again disappeared behind the door, 
evidently avoiding all the glances and questions that followed 
him. 

Alpatuitch pressed forward, and, when the chinovnik came 
out again, placing his hand under the breast of his overcoat, he 
addressed the official, and handed him the two letters. 

" For the Baron Asche, from General-in-Chief Prince Bolkon- 
sky," he said, so solemnly and significantly that the c 



122 WAR AND PEACE. 

turned round to him and took the letters. At the end of a 
few moments the governor summoned Alpatuitch, and said to 
him hurriedly : 

" Inform the prince and the princess that I know nothing 
about it at all. I have been acting in accordance with supe- 
rior instructions. Here ! " 

He gave a paper to Alpatuitch. 

" However, as the prince is ailing, my advice to him is to 
go to Moscow. I am going there myself immediately. Tell 
him." 

But the governor did not finish his sentence ; an officer, 
breathless and covered with sweat came rushing in, and hur- 
riedly said something in French. An expression of horror 
crossed the governor's face. 

" Go," said he, nodding to Alpatuitch ; and then he began 
to ply the officer with questions. Pitiful, frightened, helpless 
glances followed Alpatuitch as he came out of the governor's 
cabinet. Involuntarily listening now to the cannonading, con- 
stantly growing nearer and more violent, Alpatuitch hastened 
back to the inn. 

The paper which the governor had given him was as fol- 
lows : 

" I assure you that the city of Smolensk is not in the slightest danger, 
and it is entirely unlikely that it will be exposed to any. I, on the one 
hand, and Prince Bagration, on the other, shall effect a junction before 
Smolensk; and this will take place on the 22d instant, and the two 
armies, with united forces, will defend their fellow-countrymen of the 
government committed to your charge, until their efforts shall have 
driven away the foes of the fatherland, or until the last warrior shall 
have perished from their gallant ranks. You will see from this that you 
have a perfect right to calm the inhabitants of Smolensk, since any one 
defended by two such brave armies may well be confident that victory 
will be theirs." (Order of the day, from Barclay de Tolly to Baron 
Asche, the civil governor of Smolensk, 1812.) 

The inhabitants were roaming anxiously about the streets. 

Teams, loaded to repletion with domestic utensils, chairs, 
clothes-presses, and furniture of every description, were com- 
ing out of the courtyard-gates of the houses and proceeding 
along the streets. At the house next Ferapontof's stood a 
number of teams, and the women were bidding each other 
good-by, and exchanging parting gossip. The house-dog was 
barking and frisking around the heads of the horses. 

Alpatuitch, with a brisker gait than he usually took, went 
into the courtyard and proceeded directly to the barn where his 
team and horses were. The coachman was asleep : he aroused 



WAR AND PEACE. 123 

him, told him to hitch up, and went into the house. In the 
landlord's room were heard the wailing of a child, the broken 
sobs of a woman, and Ferapontof's furious, harsh tones. The 
cook, fluttering about the bar-room like a frightened hen, cried 
as soon as she saw Alpatuitch : " He's been beating her to 
death been beating the missis ! He just beat her, and 
dragged her round ! " 

" What made him do it ? " asked Alpatuitch. 

" She begged him to go ! Just like a woman ! ( Take us 
away,' says she, ' don't let 'em kill me and the little ones ; 
everybody,' says she, ' 's going, and why,' says she, < shouldn't 
we go too ? ' And so he began to beat her. He just threshed 
her and dragged her round ! " 

Alpatuitch nodded, his head as though he approved, and, 
iaot caring to hear any more about it, went to the room where 
his purchases had been left. It was opposite the landlord's 
family room. 

" You villain, you wretch ! " at this moment cried a thin, 
pale woman, with a baby in her arms, and with a torn ker- 
chief on her head, who came rushing out of that room, and 
flew downstairs into the court. 

Ferapontof came out behind her, and when he saw Alpa- 
tuitch, he pulled down his waistcoat, smoothed his hair, and 
followed Alpatuitch into the room. 

" And so you are going so soon ? " he asked. 

Not paying any attention to this question, and not looking 
at the landlord, Alpatuitch, after making a bundle of his pur- 
chases, asked how much he should pay for the accommodation. 

u We will settle that by and by. How was it at the gov- 
ernor's ? " asked Ferapontof. " What was the talk there ? " 

Alpatuitch replied that the governor had not said anything 
very decisive to him. 

" How can we possibly get away with our things ? Why, 
they ask seven rubles to go to . Dorogobuzh ! And I tell you 
there's mighty little Christianity about them!" said he. 
" Selivanof made a good thing Thursday, sold some flour to the 
army at nine rubles a sack. Say, will you have some tea ? " 
he added. 

While the horses were being put to, Alpatuitch and Fera- 
pontof sipped their tea and talked about the price of wheat, 
about the crops, and the splendid weather for harvest. 

"Well, it seems to be calming down a little," said Ferapon- 
tof, getting up after his three cups of tea. " Ours must have 
had the best of it. They told us they would not let 'eni in. 



124 WAR A.\D l-bAC-E. 

Of course we'ie strong enough. They say Matvyei Ivanuitch 
Platof drove eighteen thousand of 'em into the Marina t'other 
day and drowned 'em all." 

Alpatuitch picked up his purchases and gave them to the 
coachman, who came in ; then he settled his account with the 
landlord. The sound of carriage wheels was heard outside the 
door, the trampling of the horses, and the jingling of bells, as 
the kibitka drove up. It was by this time long into the after- 
noon. One side of the street was in shadow j the other was 
brightly lighted by the sun. Alpatuitch glanced out of 
the window, and went to the door. Suddenly he heard the 
strange sound of a distant whizzing, and a dull thud, immedi- 
ately followed by the long reverberating roar of a cannon 
which made the windows rattle. 

Alpatuitch went out into the street; a couple of men were, 
running down toward the bridge. In various directions could 
be heard the whistling and crashing of round shot, and the 
bursting of bomb-shells falling into the city. But these sounds 
attracted little attention among the citizens compared with 
the roar of the cannonading heard beyond the city. This was 
the bombardment which Napoleon commanded to be opened 
at five o'clock, from one hundred and thirty cannon. The 
people at first did not realize the significance of this bombard- 
ment. The crash of falling shells and cannon-balls at first 
wakened only a sort of curiosity. Ferapontof's wife, who had 
been steadily wailing and weeping in the barn, dried her tears 
and came out to the gates with her baby in her arms, and 
gazed silently at the people and listened to the noise. 

The cook and the shop-tender came down to the gates. All 
looked with eager curiosity at the projectiles flying over their 
heads. Around the corner came several men, talking with 
great animation. 

" What force there was ! " one was saying. " Smashed the 
roof and the ceiling all into kindling-wood." 

"And it ploughed up the ground just like a hog!" said 
another. 

" It was a good shot ! Lively work ! " said he, with a 
laugh. 

"You had to look out mighty sharp and jump, else 'twould 
have smeared you ! " 

The people gathered round the new-comers. They stopped 
and told how shots had been falling into a house near them. 
Meantime, other projectiles, round shot, with a not disagreeable 
whistling, and shells, with a swift, melancholy hissing, kept fly 



WAR AND PEACE. 125 

ing over the heads of the people. But not a single projectile 
fell near them ; all flew over and beyond. Alpatuitch took 
his seat in his kibitka. The landlord was standing at his 
gates. " You are showing too much ! " he cried to the cook, 
who, with sleeves rolled up above her bare elbows, had gone, , 
holding up her red petticoat, down to the corner to hear the 
news. "But it was miraculous," she was just saying, but 
when she heard the sound of the landlord's voice she turned 
round and let her petticoat drop. 

Once more, but very near this time, came something with 
a whistling sound, like a bird flying toward the ground ; there 
was a flash of fire in the middle of the street, a loud, stunning 
crash, and the street was filled with smoke. 

" You rascal, what did you do that for ? " cried the land- 
lord, rushing down to the cook. At the same instant, the 
pitiful screaming of women was heard on various sides ; a 
child wailed in terror, and the people gathered in silence with 
pale faces round the cook. Above all other sounds were heard 
the groans and exclamations of the cook. 

" Oi-o-okh ! my darlings ! my poor darlings ! Don't let them 
kill me ! My poor darlings ! " 

Five minutes later, not a soul was left in the street. The 
cook, whose thigh had been broken by a fragment of the 
bomb, was carried into the kitchen. Alpatuitch, his coach- 
man, and Ferapontofs wife and children and the hostler, were 
cowering in the cellar, with ears alert. The roar of cannon, 
the whistle of projectiles, and the pitiful groans of the cook, 
which overmastered all else, ceased not for a single instant. 
The landlord's wife rocked and crooned her infant at one 
moment, and at the next she would ask in a terrified whisper 
of all who came down into the cellar where her husband, who 
had remained in the street, was. 

The shop-tender came down into the cellar, and reported 
that her husband had gone with the crowd to the cathedral to 
get the wonder-working ikon of Smolensk. 

Toward twilight, the cannonade began to grow less violent. 
Alpatuitch went out of the cellar and stood in the doorway. 
The evening sky, which before had been cloudless, was now 
shrouded in smoke. And through this smoke strangely shone 
the sickle of the young moon high in the west. After the 
cessation of the terrible roar of the cannon, silence fell upon 
the city, broken only by what seemed to be a constantly in- 
creasing rumble of hurrying steps, groans, distant shouts, and 
the crackling of flames. The cook's groaning had ceased. In 



126 WAK AND PEACK. 

two different directions, volumes of black smoke arose from 
the conflagrations and spread over the city. Soldiers in vari- 
ous uniforms, mixed all in together, no longer in orderly ranks, 
but like ants from a demolished ant-hill, came running and 
walking from various directions down the street. It seemed 
to Alpatuitch that some of them were making for Ferapontof 's 
tavern. Alpatuitch went down to the gates. A regiment 
marching in serried ranks and hurrying along blocked the 
street from side to side. 

" The city is surrendered ! Off with you ! off with you ! " 
cried an officer who noticed him, and then he turned to his 
soldiers : " I tell you, keep out of the yards," he cried. 
. Alpatuitch went back to the tavern, and, summoning the 
coachman, bade him start away. Alpatuitch and the coach- 
man were followed by all Ferapontof's household. When 
they saw the smoke and the yellow tongues of the fire, which 
now began to shine out in the gathering gloom, the women, till 
now perfectly silent, suddenly unloosed their tongues as they 
looked toward the city, and broke out into what seemed like 
an echo of the lamentations that were to be heard at the other 
end of the street. Alpatuitch and the coachman, with trem- 
bling hands, straightened the entangled reins and traces under 
the shed. 

As Alpatuitch drove out of the gates, he saw half a score of 
soldiers in Ferapontof's open shop, with loud discussion, en- 
gaged in filling bags and knapsacks with wheaten flour and 
sunflower seeds. Just at that time, Ferapontof himself hap- 
pened to come into his shop from the street. When he saw 
the soldiers, he started to give them some abuse, but suddenly 
paused, and, clutching his hair, he broke out into laughter that 
was like a lamentation. 

" Take it all, boys. Don't leave any for those devils," he 
cried, grasping the bags himself, and helping to fling them out 
into the street. Some of the soldiers, frightened, ran away ; 
others still continued to fill their sacks. Seeing Alpatuitch, 
Ferapontof called to him, 

"It's all up with Roosha," * he shouted. "Alpatuitch, it's 
all up with us ! I myself helped set the fires. All ruined ! " 

Ferapontof started into the courtyard. The passing regi- 
ments so completely blocked the street that Alpatuitch could 
not make his way along, and he had to wait. Ferapontof's 
wife and family were also seated in their telyega, waiting also 
for a chance to get away. 

* He calls it Rasseya, instead of Rossiya. 



WAR AND PEACE. 127 

' It was now well into the evening. The sky was studded 
with stars, and occasionally the young moon gleamed out from 
behind the billows of smoke. On the slope down toward the 
Dnieper, the teams of Alpatuitch and the landlord, which had 
at last been slowly advancing amid the ranks of soldiery and 
other equipages, were obliged to halt. A short distance from the 
cross-roads where the teams had halted, a house and some shops 
were burning on the side street. The lire was burning itself 
out. The flame would die down and lose itself in black smoke, 
then suddenly flash forth brilliantly again, bringing out with 
strange distinctness the faces of the spectators standing on 
the cross-roads. In front of the fire, the dark forms of men 
were darting to arid fro, and above the still audible crackling 
of the fire were heard shouts and cries. Alpatuitch, dismount- 
ing from his kibitka, as he saw that he should not be able to 
proceed for some time yet, walked down the cross-street to 
look at the conflagration. Soldiers were constantly busying 
themselves with the fire, passing back and forth, and Alpa- 
tuitch saw two soldiers, in company with another man in a 
frieze coat, dragging from the fire some burning lumber across 
the street into the next dvor ; others were adding fagots of 
straw. 

Alpatuitch joined the great throng of people who were stand- 
ing in front of a tall warehouse that was one mass of roaring 
flames. The walls were all on fire, the rear had fallen in, the 
timbered roof was giving way, the girders were blazing. The 
throng were evidently waiting for the roof to cave in. At all 
events, that was what Alpatuitch was waiting for. 

"Alpatuitch!" A well-known voice suddenly called the 
old man by name. " Batyushka ! your Illustriousness ! " re- 
plied Alpatuitch, instantly recognizing the voice of his young 
prince. 

Prince Andrei, in a riding-cloak, and mounted on a black 
horse, was stationed beyond the crowd and looking straight at 
Alpatuitch. 

" How come you here ? " he asked. 

" Your your Illustriousness," stammered Alpatuitch, and 
he sobbed. " Your your I I is are we lost ? Your 
father" 

" How come you here ? " demanded Prince Andrei a second 
time. 

The flame blazed out again at that moment and revealed to 
Alpatuitch his young barin's pale, weary face. Alpatuitch 
told how he had been sent and what difficulty he had met with 



128 WAR AND PEACE. 

in getting out of town. " But tell me, your Illustriousness, 
are we really lost ? " he asked once more. 

Prince Andrei, without replying, drew out a note-book, and, 
spreading it on his knee, hastily pencilled a few lines on a 
torn leaf. He wrote his sister : 

"Smolensk is abandoned; Luisiya Gorui will be occupied by the 
enemy inside of a week. Go immediately to Moscow. Send me word as 
soon as you start, by an express to Usviazh." 

Having written this note and handed it to Alpatuitch, he 
was giving him some verbal instructions about the arrange- 
ments for the journey of the prince and princess and his son 
and the tutor, and how and where to communicate with him 
immediately. He had not had time to finish these instructions 
when a mounted staff nachalnik accompanied by a suite came 
galloping up to him. 

" You, a colonel ? " cried the staff nachalnik in a German 
accent and a voice that Prince Andrei instantly recognized. 
" In your very presence they are setting houses on fire, and 
you allow it ? What is the meaning of this ? You shall 
answer for it ! " 

This was Berg, who now had the position of deputy chief 
of staff to the deputy chief of staff of the nachalnik of the 
infantry corps of the left flank of the first division of the 
army a place that was very agreeable and " in sight " as 
Berg expressed it. 

Prince Andrei glanced at him, and, without replying, went 
on with his instructions to Alpatuitch : 

" Tell them that I shall expect an answer by the twenty- 
second, and that if by that time I do not get word that they 
have all gone, I myself shall be obliged to throw up every- 
thing and go to Luisiya Gorui." 

"I prince, I only spoke as I did," explained Berg, as soon 
as he recognized Prince Andrei, "because, because it is my 
duty to carry out my orders, and I am always very scrupulous 
in carrying them out. I beg you to excuse me," said Berg, 
trying to apologize. 

There was a crash in the burning building. The fire for an 
instant died down ; volumes of black smoke rolled up from 
the roof. Again there was a strange crashing sound, and the 
huge building fell in. 

" Urroorooroo ! " yelled the throng, with a roar rivalling that 
of the fallen grain-house, from which now came an odor like 
hot cakes, caused by the burning flour. The flames darted up 



WAR AND PEACE. 129 

and sent a bright reflection over the throng standing around 
the fire with gleefully excited or exhausted faces. 

The man in the frieze coat waved his arm and cried, " Well 
done ! she draws well now ! Well done, boys ! " 

"That's the owner himself," various voices were heard 
saying. 

" So then," said Prince Andrei, addressing Alpatuitch, " give 
the message just as I have told you," and, not vouchsafing a 
single word to Berg, who still stood near dumb with amaze- 
ment, he set spurs to his horse and rode down the side street. 



CHAPTER V. 

THE armies continued to retreat from Smolensk. The 
enemy followed. On the twenty-second of August the regi- 
ment which Prince Andrei commanded was moving along the 
high-road past the "prospekt" which led to Luisiya Gorui. 

For. more than three weeks there had been a hot spell and 
drought. Each day cirrous clouds moved across the sky and 
occasionally veiled the sun ; but by evening the heavens were 
clear again, and the sun set in brownish purple haze. The only 
refreshing that the earth got was from the heavy dew at night. 
The standing crops of wheat were parched, and wasted their 
seed. The marshes shrunk away. The cattle bellowed from 
hunger, finding no grass along the ponds, which were dried 
away in the sun. Only at night and in the depths of the forest, 
while still the dew lay cool and wet, was there any freshness. 

But on the roads, on the high-road where the troops were 
marching, even at night, even in the shelter of the forests, this 
coolness was not to be found. The dew was imperceptible on 
the sandy dust, which was more than four inches deep. 

At the first ray of dawn the troops were set in motion. The 
baggage train and the field-pieces ploughed along noiselessly, 
sinking almost up to the hubs of the wheels, and the infantry 
struggled through the soft, stifling, heated dust that settled 
not even at night. One part of this sandy dust impeded feet 
and wheels; the other arose in the air and hovered like a 
cloud over the troops, filling eyes, hair, ears, and nostrils, and 
above all the lungs, of men and beasts alike as they moved 
slowly along this highway. The higher the sun rose, the higher 
rose this cloud of dust ; and though the sky was cloudless, the 
naked eye could endure to look at the sun through this curtain 
of fine hot dust. 
VOL. 3. 9, 



130 WAR AND PEACE. 

The sun looked like a purple ball. There was not a breath 
of air stirring, and the men suffocated in the motionless atmos- 
phere. They tramped along, covering their noses and mouths 
with handkerchiefs. If they reached a village, they rushed 
pell-mell for the wells. They fought for water, and drank it 
every drop till .nothing but mud was left. 

Prince Andrei was the commander of the regiment, and he 
was deeply concerned in its organization and the well-being 
of the men, and the carrying-out of the indispensable orders 
which had to be given and received. The burning of Smo- 
lensk and its abandonment marked an epoch in his life. The 
first feeling of hatred against the enemy made him forget his 
own personal sorrow. He devoted himself exclusively to the 
affairs of his command ; he was indefatigable in the service- 
of his men and his subordinate officers, and treated them more 
than courteously. In the regiment they all called him " our 
prince," they were proud of him and loved him. 

But his kindness and affability were only for his own men 
Timokhin and the like, men who were perfect strangers to him 
and his life, men who could not know him or recall his past ; 
the moment he fell in with any one of his former acquaintances, 
his fellow staff officers, he immediately became all bristles ; he 
grew fierce, sarcastic, and scornful. Everything that served 
as a connection with the past revolted him, and consequently 
all he did so far as this former life was concerned was simply 
to try not to be unjust and to do his duty. 

It is true, everything appeared to Prince Andrei gloomy and 
even desperate, especially after the eighteenth of August, and 
the abandonment of Smolensk, which in his opinion might 
and should have been defended, and after his ailing father 
had been forced to fly to Moscow, and consign to spoliation 
his too well beloved Luisiya Gorui, which he had taken such 
infinite pains to cultivate and settle ; but, in spite of this, 
thanks to Prince Andrei's occupation with his regiment, he 
could let his mind be engrossed with other thoughts, entirely 
disconnected with the general course of events ; namely, his 
regiment. 

On the twenty-second of August the column of which his 
regiment formed a part was opposite Luisiya Gorui. Prince 
Andrei, two days before, had received word that his father, 
his little son, and his sister had gone to Moscow. Although 
there was nothing to call him to Luisiya Gorui, he determined 
that it was his duty to go there, feeling a peculiar morbid 
desire to enjoy the bitterness of his grief. 



WAR AND PEACE. 131 

He ordered his horse to be saddled, and started off to ride 
to the estate where he had been born and had spent his child- 
hood. 

As he rode by the pond, where generally there were a dozen 
chattering women beating and rinsing their linens, Prince 
Andrei noticed that it was deserted, and the little float had 
drifted out into the middle of the pond, and was tipped over 
and half full of water. Prince Andrei rode up to the gate- 
keeper's lodge ; but there was no one near the stone gate-way, 
and the door was unlocked. The garden paths were already 
overgrown, and calves and horses were wandering about the 
" English park," Prince Andrei went up to the orangery ; the 
panes of glass were broken ; some of the tubs were overturned ; 
some of the trees were dried up. 

He shouted to Taras, the gardener. No one replied. Passing 
around the orangery, he saw that the carved deal fence was 
broken down, and the plum-trees were stripped of their fruit. 
An old muzhik Prince Andrei remembered as a boy having 
seen him years before at the gates was plaiting bast shoes 
as he sat on "the green-painted bench. 

He was deaf, and did not hear Prince Andrei approach. He 
was sitting on the bench, which had been the old prince's 
favorite seat, and near him, on the branches of a broken and 
dried-up magnolia, hung his strips of bast. 

Prince Andrei went to the house. Some of the linden-trees 
in the old park had been felled ; a piebald mare, with her 
colt, was browsing in front of the house itself, among the rose 
beds. The window shutters ,were closed. One window alone 
on the ground floor was open. A little peasant lad, catching 
sight of Prince Andrei, ran into the house. 

Alpatuitch, having got the household away, was the only 
one left at Luisiya Gorui. He was sitting in the house, and 
reading " The Lives of the Saints." When he heard that 
Prince Andrei had come, he came out, with his spectacles on 
his nose, buttoning up his clothes, and hurried up to the 
prince, and, before he said a word, bursl into tears, kissing 
Prince Andrei's knee. 

Then he turned away, angry at, his own weakness, and 
began to give him an account of the state of affairs. Every- 
thing of any value and worth had been despatched to Bogu- 
charovo. One hundred chetverts * of wheat had also been 
sent ; the crops of hay and corn, which, according to Alpa- 
tuitch, had been wonderful that year, had been taken standing 
* A chetvert is 5.77 bushels. 



132 WAR AND PEACE. 

and carried off by the troops. The peasantry were all ruined : 
some had gone to Bogucharovo ; a very few were left. 

Prince Andrei, without heeding what he said, asked when 
his father and sister had left, meaning when had they gone to 
Moscow. Alpatuitch, supposing he knew that they had gone 
to Bogucharovo, replied that they had started on the nine- 
teenth, and then again began to enlarge on the condition of 
the estate, and ask what arrangements he should make. 

" Do you order to let them have the oats in return for a 
receipt ? We have still six hundred chetverts left," asked 
Alpatuitch. 

" What answer shall I give him ? " queried Prince Andrei, 
looking down at the bald head gleaming in the sun, and read- 
ing in the expression of his face a consciousness that the old 
man himself realized the incongruity of such questions, but 
asked them simply for the sake of drowning his own sorrow. 

" Yes, do so," said he. 

" If you will deign to notice the disorder in the garden," 
pursued Alpatuitch ; " but it was impossible tq prevent it : 
three regiments came and camped here for the night. The 
dragoons especially I took down the rank and the name of 
the commander, so as to lodge a complaint." 

" Well, but what are you going to do ? Shall you remain if 
the enemy come ? " asked Prince Andrei. 

Alpatuitch, turning his face full on Prince Andrei, looked at 
him. And then suddenly, with a solemn gesture, he raised his 
hands to heaven. " He is my protector ; His will be done ! " 
he exclaimed. 

A throng of muzhiks and household serfs came trooping 
across the meadow, and approached Prince Andrei with un- 
covered heads. 

"Well, prashcha'i good-by," said Prince Andrei, bending 
down to Alpatuitch. " Escape yourself, take what you can, 
aild tell the people to go to the Riazan property, or our pod- 
Moskovnaya." 

Alpatuitch pressed up against his leg, and sobbed. Prince 
Andrei gently pushed him away, and, giving spurs to his 
horse, rode at a gallop down the driveway. 

To all appearance as impassive as a fly on the face of a dear 
dead friend, still sat the old man, and thumped on his shoe 
Aast. Two young girls, with their skirts full of plums, which 
they had gathered from the trees, were coming away from the 
orangery, and met Prince Andrei. When they saw their 
young barin, the older of the two girls, with an expression of 






WAR AND PEACE. 138 

terror on her face, seized her companion by the arm, and the 
two hid behind a birch-tree, without having time to gather up 
the green fruit that had fallen from their skirts. 

Prince Andrei, with a feeling of compunction, hastened to 
look the other way, so that they might think he had not seen 
them. He felt sorry to have frightened the pretty little girls. 
He was afraid to look at them, but, at the same time, he had 
an overwhelming desire to do so. A new, joyful, ^nd tran- 
quillizing sense took possession of him at the sight of these 
little girls : he recognized that there existed other human in- 
terests entirely apart from his own existence, and yet just as 
lawful as those with which he was occupied. These two 
young girls had evidently only one passionate desire to 
carry off and eat those green plums, and not be found out ; 
and Prince Andrei sympathized with them, and hoped for the 
success of their enterprise. He could not refrain from looking 
back at them once more. 

Supposing that their peril was happily past, they had sprung 
out from their hiding-place, and, shouting something in shrill 
voices, they were running gayly across the meadow as fast as 
their bare, sun-burned little legs would take them. 

Prince Andrei felt somewhat refreshed by his digression 
from the dusty high-road, where the troops had been marching. 
But not very far from Luisiya Gorui, he again struck the main 
thoroughfare, and found his own regiment halting on the em- 
bankment of a small pond. 

It was about two o'clock in the afternoon. The sun, shining 
through the dust like a red ball, was unendurably hot, and 
burned his back under his black coat. The dust still hung 
like a cloud over the companies while they halted amid a hum 
of voices. There was no wind. As Prince Andrei rode along 
the embankment, he caught the faint scent of the mud and 
fresh coolness of the pond. He felt an inclination to take a 
plunge into the water, muddy as it was. He gazed at the 
pond, from which rose the sounds of shouts and laughter. 
The little sheet, muddy, and green with slime, had evidently 
risen and was now washing up against the embankment, sim- 
ply because it was full of human bodies, the bare bodies of 
soldiers floundering about in it, their white skins making vivid 
contrast to their brick-red arms, faces, and necks. All this 
mass of bare human flesh was wriggling about, with shouts 
and laughter, in that filthy water, like carps flopping in a 
scoop. This wriggling carried the name of enjoyment, and for 
that very reason it was particularly melancholy. 



134 WAR AND PEACE. 

One blond young soldier Prince Andrei had already 
noticed him of the third company, with a leather string 
around his calf, crossed himself, stepped back a little so as 
to get a good start, and dived into the water ; another man, a 
dark-complexioned non-commissioned officer, with rumpled 
hair, was up to his middle in the water, ducking his mus- 
cular form, and, snorting joyfully, was pouring the water over 
his heacj from hands black even to the wrists. There was a 
sound of splashing and yelling and plunging. 

On the shores, on the embankment, in the pond itself, every- 
where was the spectacle of white, healthy, muscular human 
flesh. The officer, Timokhin, with his short, red nose, was 
rubbing himself down with a towel on the embankment, and 
was rather ashamed at seeing the prince ; however, he addressed 
him, 

" Pretty good, your Illustriousness ; you ought to try it," 
said he. 

" Dirty," said Prince Andrei, making up a face. 

" We will have it cleared out for you, in a moment." And 
Timokhin, still undressed, ran down to the water, shouting : 
" The prince wants a bath." 

" What prince ? Ours ? " shouted various voices, and all 
were so zealous that Prince Andrei had some difficulty in ap- 
peasing them. He felt that he would much rather take a 
bath in a barn. 

" Flesh, body ! chair a canon ! " said he to himself, as he 
looked down at his bare body, and he trembled, not so much 
from chill as from his aversion and horror, incomprehensible 
even to himself, at the sight of that tremendous mass of bodies 
rinsing themselves in that filthy pond. 

On the nineteenth of August, Prince Bagration, at his en- 
campment of Mikhailovka on the Smolensk highway, had 
written the following letter to Arakcheyef ; but he knew that 
it would be read by the sovereign, and, consequently, he 
weighed every word to the very best of his ability. 

" MY DEAR COUNT ALEKSEI ANDREYEVITCH : I suppose the minister 
has already reported to you concerning the surrender of Smolensk to the 
enemy. It is saddening and painful, and the whole army are in despair 
that such an important place should have been needlessly abandoned. I. 
for my part, personally besought him most earnestly, and at last even 
wrote him. I swear on my honor that never before was Napoleon ' in such 
a box,' and he might have lost half of his army, but he could not have 
taken Smolensk. Our troops have been and still are fighting as never 
before. I held out with fifteen thousand men for more than thirty-five 



WAR AND PEACE. 135 

hours, and beat them, but he was not willing to wait even fourteen hours. 
It is a shame and a blot on our army, and methinks he ought not to live 
in this world. If h-e reports that our losses are heavy, it is false pos- 
sibly four thousand, not more than that; even if it had been ten thou- 
sand, what would it have been ? This is war. But, to offset it, the 
enemy lost a host. 

" What was to prevent him holding out two days longer? Without 
question they would have been forced to give it up: they had no water for 
men and horses. He gave me his word that he would not give way, but 
suddenly he sent me word that he was going to desert the city by night. 
We cannot make war that way, and we shall soon be having the enemy 
at Moscow. 

" The rumor that you are thinking of peace, God forbid! After all our 
sacrifices, and after such an idiotic retreat, the idea of making peace! 
You will have all Russia against you, and we shall all be ashamed of 
wearing the Russian uniform. Since things have gone so far as they 
have, we must fight so long as Russia can, and so long as we have a man 
alive. 

"It is essential that one man and not two should have supreme command. 
Your minister is perhaps excellent in the ministry, but as a general it is 
not enough to say that he is bad! he is abominable! and yet in his hands 
is intrusted the fate of our whole country. 

" I assure you I am beside myself with vexation ; forgive me for writing 
so frankly. It is plain to my mind that any one who advises peace, and 
approves of confiding the command of the troops to the minister, is no 
true friend to the sovereign, and wishes to involve vis all in a common de- 
struction. And so I write you the truth. Arm the landwehr! Here 
the minister, in the most masterly fashion, is conducting his guests to the 
capital. 

" Mr. Woltzogen, the fliigel-adjutant, is giving the army great cause for 
suspicion. They say he is even less favorable to us than Napoleon him- 
self, and that he" inspires all that the minister does. 

" I am not merely polite to him, I am as obedient as a corporal, 
although I am older than he is. It is painful, but as I love my sovereign 
and benefactor, I subordinate myself. Only I am sorry that the sovereign 
should intrust him with such a glorious army. Just imagine! In our 
retreat we have lost more than fifteen thousand through fatigue and in 
hospitals; now, if we had advanced, this would not have happened. For 
God's sake, have it proclaimed that our Russia our mother will call 
us cowards, and will demand why we have handed over such a good and 
glorious cquntry to a mob, thus stirring up hatred and humiliation in the 
heart of every subject. What should make us cowards ? Whom do we 
fear ? It is not my fault that the minister is irresolute, cowardly, dull of 
apprehension, dilatory, and has all the worst qualities. The v/hole army 
are entirely discouraged, and load him with execrations." 



CHAPTER VI. 

AMONG the innumerable subdivisions into which the phe- 
nomena of life can be disposed, there is one category where 
matter predominates in contradistinction to another where 
form predominates. A contrast of this kind may be observed 



136 WAR AND PEACE. 

between life in the country, in the village, in the govern- 
mental town nay, even in Moscow, and that which can be 
seen at Petersburg, and especially in the Petersburg salons. 
This sort of life goes on always the same. 

Since 1805 we had been quarrelling and making up with 
Bonaparte ; we had been making constitutions and unmaking 
them, and yet Anna Pavlovna's salon was exactly the same as 
it had been seven years before, and Ellen's salon was exactly 
the same as it had been five years before. Just exactly as 
before, at Anna Pavlovna's, they were amazed and perplexed 
at Bonaparte's successes, and detected, not only in his suc- 
cesses, but also in the subservience of the sovereigns of 
Europe, a wicked conspiracy, the sole object of which was to 
disgust and alarm the courtly circle that regarded Anna Pav- 
lovna as its representative. 

And just exactly the same way at Ellen's (where Rumyant- 
sef himself was gracious enough to be a frequent visitor, con- 
sidering her a remarkably intelligent woman) in 1812, as in 
1808, they talked with enthusiasm of the " great nation " 
and "the great man,'' and ivgretted the rupture with the 
French, which in the opinion of the habitues of Ellen's salon 
ought to end with peace. 

Latterly, since the sovereign's departure from the army, 
these rival clique-salons were the scenes of some excitement ; 
and demonstrations of mutual hostility were made, but the 
general characteristics of the two cliques remained the same. 

Anna Pavlovna's clique received no Frenchmen, except a 
few inveterate legitimists. It was here that the patriotic idea 
originated of people being in duty bound to stay away from 
the French theatre, and the criticism was made that it cost as 
much to maintain the troupe as to maintain a whole army 
corps. Here the course of military affairs was eagerly fol- 
lowed, and the most advantageous reports of our armies found 
ready credence. 

In Ellen's clique, where Eumyantsef and the French v^e're 
in favor, the reports as to the barbarities of the enemy and of 
the war were contradicted, and all Xapoleon's overtures for 
reconciliation were discussed. This clique were loud in 
reproaching those who showed what they considered too great 
haste in making preparations to remove to Kazan, the " Im- 
perial Institute for the education of young ladies of the 
nobility," the patroness of which was the empress dowager. 
Anyway, those who frequented Ellen's salon regarded the 
war merely as an empty demonstration, which would be very 



WAR AND PEACE. 137 

quickly followed by peace, and here they made great use of a 
witticism of Bilibin's, who was now a frequent visitor at 
Ellen's, as indeed it behooved every sensible man to be, to the 
effects that the affair should be settled not by gunpowder, but 
by the man who invented it.* 

In this clique there was much laughter caused by the 
witty and ironical, though always guarded observations upon 
the enthusiasm at Moscow, news of which had arrived at 
Petersburg simultaneously with the return of the sovereign. 

Anna Pavlovna's clique, on the contrary, were enraptured 
with this enthusiasm, and spoke of the acts of the Moscovites 
as Plutarch speaks of the glorious deeds of antiquity. 

Prince Vasili, who, just the same as of yore, held important 
functions, formed a bond of union between the two cliques. 

He was equally at home with ma bonne amie, Anna Pavlovna, 
and in the salon diplomatique de m.a fille, and frequently, ow- 
ing to his constant visits from one camp to the other, he got 
confused, and said at Ellen's what he should have said at Anna 
Pavlovna's and vice versa. 

Shortly after the sovereign's arrival, Prince Vasili was at 
Anna Pavlovna's, conversing about the war, sharply criticis- 
ing Barclay de Tolly, and frankly confessing his doubt as to 
the fit person to call to the head of the armies. 

One of the visitors, who was known as Vhoinme de beau- 
coup de merite, the man of great merit, mentioning the 
fact that he had that day seen Kutuzof, the newly appointed 
chief of the Petersburg landwehr, at the Court of Exchequer, 
enrolling volunteers, allowed himself cautiously to suggest that 
Kutuzof would be the man to satisfy all demands. 

Anna Pavlovna smiled sadly, and remarked that Kutuzof 
caused the sovereign nothing but unpleasantness. 

" I have said, and I have said in the chamber of nobles," 
interrupted Prince Vasili, " but they would not heed me, I 
have said that his election as commandant of the landwehr 
would not please the sovereign. They would not listen to me. 
It is this everlasting mania for petty intrigue," pursued Prince 
Vasili. " And for what purpose ? Simply because we want 
to ape that stupid Moscow enthusiasm," said Prince Vasili, 
becoming confused for a moment, and forgetting that it was at 
Ellen's where it was considered correct to make sport of Mos- 
cow enthusiasm, but the fashion to praise it at Anna Pav- 
lovna's. But he instantly corrected himself. 

* 11 n'a pas invente la pou$re : He will uever set the Thames OB fare. The 
Russian idiom is similar- 



138 WAR AND PEACE. 

" 'Now, then, is it fit for Count Kutuzof, Russia's oldest gen- 
eral, to be holding such sessions at the court ? et il en restera 
pour sa peine that's as far as he will get. Is it possible to 
make a man commander-iii-chief who cannot sit a horse, who 
dozes during council meetings, a man of the worst possi- 
ble manners ? He Avon a fine reputation for himself at Buka- 
rest, didn't he ? And I have nothing to say about his qualities 
as a general ; but is it possible, under present circumstances, to 
nominate to such a place a man who is decrepit and blind, 
simply blind ? A blind general would be a fine thing ! He 
can't see anything at all ! He might play blind-man's-buff 
but, really, he can't see anything ! " 

No one raised any objection to this. 

On the twenty-fifth of August this was perfectly correct. 
But, five days later, Kutuzof received the title of prince of the 
empire. This advance in dignities might also signify that 
they wanted to shelve him, and, therefore, Prince Yasili's crit- 
icism would continue to be well- received, although he was not 
so ready to deliver himself of it. But, on the twentieth of 
August, a committee was summoned, composed of Field-Mar- 
shal Saltuikof, Arakcheyef, Viazmitinof, Lopukhin, and Ko- 
tchubey, to consider the conduct of the war. The committee 
decided that the failures were attributable to the division of 
command ; and, although the individuals composing the com- 
mittee well knew the sovereign's disaffection for Kutuzof, they 
determined, after a brief deliberation, to place him at the head 
of the armies. 

And, on that same day, Kutuzof was made plenipotentiary 
commander-in-chief of the armies, and of the whole district 
occupied by the troops. 

On the twenty-first, Prince Vasili and the " man of great 
merit " met again at Anna Pavlovna's. "IShomme de beau- 
coup de merite " was dancing attendance on Anna Pavlovna, 
with the hope of securing the appointment of trustee to a 
woman's educational institute. 

Prince Vasili entered the drawing-room with the air of a 
rejoicing conqueror who had reached the goal of all his ambi- 
tions. 

" Well, you know the great news : Prince Kutuzof is 
appointed field-marshal.* All discords are at an end ! I am 
so happy, so glad ! " exclaimed Prince Vasili. " There's a 
man for you ! enfin volla un komme ! " he added with sig- 

* Eh bien, vous savez la grande nouvelle? Le Prince Koutouzoff est mar- 
echal ! 



WAR AND PEACE. 139 

nificant emphasis, surveying all in the room with a stern 
glance. 

" L'homme de beaucoup de merite" in spite of his anxiety to 
obtain a place, could not refrain from reminding Prince Vasili 
of his former criticism. This was an act of discourtesy both 
toward Prince Vasili, in Anna Pavlovna's drawing-room, but 
also toward Anna Pavlovna herself, who had also been greatly 
delighted with the news ; but he could not refrain. 

" But it is said that he is blind, prince," * he suggested, 
quoting Prince Vasili's own words. 

" Oh, pshaw ! he sees well enough," replied Prince Vasili, 
in quick, deep tones, and clearing his throat his usual resort 
? or getting himself out of an awkward situation. "Allez ! il y 
voit," he repeated. " And what makes me glad," he went 
on to say, " is that the sovereign has given him full powers 
over all the forces, and over the whole district such powers 
as never commander-in-chief enjoyed before. This makes him 
;he second autocrat," he said, in conclusion, with a triumphant 
smile. 

" God grant it, God grant it," said Anna Pavlovna. 

" Uhomme de beaucoup de merite" who was still somewhat 
of a novice in courtly circles, and wishing to flatter Anna Pav- 
ovna by taking the ground which she had formerly taken in 
regard to the same subject, said, 

" They say it went against the sovereign's heart" to allow 
;hese powers to Kutuzof. They say that Kutuzof blushed like 
a school-girl hearing ' Joconde,' when the emperor said : ' The 
sovereign and your country grant you this honor.' " f 

" Possibly his heart had nothing to do with it," said Anna 
Pavlovna. 

" Oh, no, certainly not," hotly cried Prince Vasili, coming 
to his defence. He could not now allow any one to surpass 
him in his zeal for Kutuzof. According to his idea at the 
present time, not only was Kutuzof himself the best of men, 
mt every one simply worshipped him. " No, that is impos- 
sible, because his majesty long ago appreciated his worth," 
said he. 

" Only, God grant," ejaculated Anna Pavlovna, " God 
grant that Prince Kutuzof may have actual power, and will 
not allow any one whatever to put a spoke in his wheels 
des batons dans les roues" 

* Mais Von dit qiCil est aveuc/le, mon prince. 

t On dit qu'il rouyit comme une demoiselle a laquelle on lira.it Joconde, en 
\ui disant : " Le souverain et lapatrie vous decernent cet honneur," 



140 WAR AND PEACE. 

Prince Vasili instantly understood whom she meant by any 
one. He said in a whisper, 

" I know for a certainty that Kutuzof demanded as an abso- 
lute condition that the tsesarevitch should not have anything 
to do with the army. You know what he said to the empe- 
ror ? " and Prince Vasili repeated the words which it was sup- 
posed Kutuzof spoke to the sovereign, 'I cannot punish him 
if he does wrong, or reward him if he does well.' Oh ! he is a 
shrewd man, that Prince Kutuzof je le connais de longue 
date." 

"But they do say," insisted I'homme de beaucoup de merite, 
failing still to -employ the tact required at court, " they do 
say that his' serene highness made it a sine qua non that the 
sovereign himself should keep away from the army." 

The moment he had spoken those words, Prince Vasili ami 
A_ima Pavlovna simultaneously turned their backs on him, 
and, with a sigh of pity for his naivete, exchanged a melan- 
choly look. 



CHAPTER VII. 

WHILE this was going on at Petersburg, the French had 
already left Smolensk behind, and were constantly drawing 
nearer and nearer to Moscow. 

Thiers, the historian of Napoleon, like other historians of 
Napoleon, in trying to justify his hero, says that he was drawn 
on to the walls of Moscow against his will. He and all simi- 
lar historians are correct on the assumption that the explana- 
tion of all historical events is to be found 1 in tke will of a 
single man. He is right, just as the Russian historians are 
right, who assert that Napoleon was lured on to Moscow by 
the skill of the Russian generals. Here, unless one goes 
according to the laws of retrospection, by which, from the 
vantage-ground of distance, all that has gone before is seen 
to be the preparation for a given event, everything will seem 
confused and complicated. A good chess-player, on losing a 
game, becomes convinced that the cause of it was to be found 
in his own blunder, and he seeks to find what false move he 
made at the beginning of his game ; but he forgets that at 
each step throughout the game there were similar blunders, so 
that not a single move of his was correct. The blunder to 
which he directs his attention he notices because his opponent 
took advantage of it. But how much more complicated is 



WAR AND PEACE. 141 

this game of war, which proceeds under the temporal condi- 
tions where it is impossible that a single will should animate 
the lifeless machine, but where everything results from the 
numberless collisions of various volitions ! 

After quitting Smolensk, Napoleon tried to force a battle 
near Dorogobuzh, at Viazma, then at Tsarevo-Zainiishehe ; * but 
it happened through these same "innumerable collisions of 
circumstances " that the Russians were unable to meet the 
French in battle until they reached Borodino, one hundred and 
twelve versts from Moscow. At Viazma, Napoleon issued his 
orders to march straight upon Moscow : Moscow, the Asiatic 
capital of this great empire, the sacred city of Alexander's 
populations, Moscow with its countless churches like Chinese 
pagodas, t 

This Moscou allowed Napoleon's imagination no rest. On 
the march from Viazma to Tsarevo-Zaimishche, Napoleon rode 
his English-groomed bay ambler, accompanied by his Guards, 
his body-guard, his pages, and his aides. His chief of staff, 
Berthier, had remained behind to interrogate a Russian who 
had been taken prisoner by the cavalry. And now, accom- 
panied by his interpreter, Lelorme d'Ideville, he overtook 
Napoleon at a gallop, and with a beaming face reined in his 
horse. 

"Eh, bien?" asked Napoleon. 

" One of Platof's Cossacks : he says Platof s corps is just 
joining the main army, that Kutuzof has been appointed com- 
mander-in-chief . Very intelligent and talkative tres-intelli- 
gent et bavard" 

Napoleon smiled, ordered this Cossack to be furnished with 
a horse, and brought to him. He wished to have a talk with 
him. Several aides galloped off, and within an hour Denisof's 
serf, who had been turned by him over to Rostof, Lavrushka, 
in a denshchik's roundabout, came riding up to Napoleon on a 
French cavalryman's saddle, with his rascally, drunken face 
shining with jollity. Napoleon ordered him to ride along by 
his side, and proceeded to question him. 

" You are a 'Cossack, are you ? " 

" I am, your nobility." 

"The Cossack," says Thiers, in telling this episode, "not 
knowing his companion, for there was nothing in Napoleon's 

* Zaimisfyhc means "a field frequently overflowed." 

t Moscow, la capitale asiatique de ce grande empire, la capitale sacree des 
peuples d'Alexandre, Moscou avec ses innombrables eylises en forme de 
pagodes chinoises. 



142 WAR AND PEACE. 

appearance that could suggest the presence of a sovereign to 
an Oriental imagination, conversed with the utmost famil- 
iarity concerning the occurrences of the war." * 

In reality, Lavrushka, who had been drunk the evening 
before, and had failed to provide his barin with any din- 
ner, had been thrashed and sent off to some village after 
fowls, and there he was tempted by his opportunity for 
marauding, and was taken prisoner by the French. 

Lavrushka was one of those coarse, insolent lackeys who 
have seen every kind of life, who consider it to their advan- 
tage to do everything by treachery and trickery, who are 
ready to subserve their masters in anything, and are shrewd 
in divining their evil thoughts, especially those that are vain 
and petty. 

Being brought now into the company of Napoleon, whom 
he was sharp enough to recognize, Lavrushka did not in the 
slightest degree lose his presence of mind, and merely set to 
work with all his soul to get into the good graces of his new 
masters. 

He knew perfectly well that it was Napoleon himself, and 
there was no more reason for him to be abashed in Napoleon's 
presence than in Rostof's or the sergeant's Avith his knout, for 
the simple reason that there was nothing of which either the 
sergeant or Napoleon could deprive him. 

He glibly rattled off all the gossip that was current among 
the denshchiks. Much of this was true. But when Napoleon 
asked him whether the Russians anticipated winning a vic- 
tory over Napoleon or not, Lavrushka frowned and deliberated. 
Here he saw some subtile craft, just as men like Lavrushka 
always see craft in everything, and he contracted his brows 
and was silent for a little. 

"This is about the way of it : f there's a battle pretty 
soon, then yours will beat. That's a fact. But if three days 
pass then if there's a battle it'll be a long one." 

This was interpreted to Napoleon as follows : Si la bataille 
est donnee avant trois jours, les Franqais la gagneraient, mais 
que si elle serait donnee plus tard, Dieu salt ce qui en arri- 
verait "If the battle takes place within three days, the 
French would win, but if it were postponed longer, Heaven 
knows what would come of it," Thus it was delivered by 

* Le cosaque ignorant la compagnie clems litquelle il se trouvait+car la sim- 
plicite de Napoleon n'avait rien qui put reveler a une imagination orientate la 
presence d'un souverain, s'entretint avec la plus yrande familiarite des affaires 
de la (jtierre actuelle. 



WAR AND PEACE. 143 

Lelorme d'Ideville with a smile. Napoleon, though he was 
evidently in a genial frame of mind, did not smile, and ordered 
these words to be repeated. 

Lavrushka noticed this, and, in order to" amuse him, pre- 
tended that he did not know who he was. 

" We know that you have Napoleon on your side : he's 
whipped everybody on earth, but then he'll find us of a differ- 
ent mettle, " - said he, not knowing himself what made him 
introduce this boastful patriotism into his words. The inter- 
preter passed over the last clause and translated the first part 
only, and Napoleon smiled. "Lajeune Cosaque Jit sourireson 
puissant interlocnteur the young Cossack's remark made his 
powerful companion smile," says Thiers. 

After riding a few steps farther in silence, Napoleon spoke 
to Berthier and said that he would like to try the effect that 
would be produced on this enfant du Don on learning that the 
man with whom he, this enfant du Don, had been conversing 
was the emperor himself, the very emperor who had written 
his eternally victorious name on the pyramids. 

The information was communicated. 

Lavrushka, comprehending that this had been done so as 
to embarrass him, and that Napoleon would expect him to 
show signs of fear, and wishing to please his new masters, 
immediately pretended to be overwhelmed with astonishment 
and struck dumb ; he, dropped his eyes and put on such a face 
as he usually drew when he was led off for a thrashing. 

Says Thiers : " Hardly had Napoleon's interpreter revealed 
his name, ere the Cossack was overwhelmed with confusion ; 
he did not utter another word and rode on with his eyes 
steadily fixed on that conqueror whose name had reached even 
his ears across the steppes of the East. All his loquacity was 
suddenly checked and gave place to unaffected, silent admira- 
tion. Napoleon, having rewarded him, set him at liberty, as a 
bird is restored to its native fields." * 

Napoleon went on his way, but the bird restored to its 
native fields galloped off to the picket lines, thinking up 
beforehand what sort of a romance he should tell his ac- 
quaintances. The thing that had actually happened to him 

* A peine V interprets de Napoleon avait-il parle, que le Cosaque, sain 
d'une sorte d'abaissement, ne prof era plus une parole et marcha les yeux con- 
stamment attaches sur ce conquerant, dont le nom avait penetre jusqu'a lui, 
a travers les steppes de V orient. Toute sa loqaacite' s'e'tait subitement arrete'e, 
pour faire place a un sentiment d'admiration naive et silencieuse. Napoleon, 
apres Vavoir recompense, lui fit donner la liberte comme a un oiseau qu'on 
rend aux champs qui I'ont vu naitre. 



144 WAR AND PEACE. 

he had no intention of telling, for the simple reason that it 
seemed to him unworthy of narration. He rode up to the 
Cossacks and made inquiries as to where he should find his 
regiment, which now formed a part of Platof s division, and 
toward evening he reported to his barin, Nikolai Kostof, who 
was bivouacking at Yankovo and had just mounted to make 
a reconnoissance of the neighboring villages. He gave La- 
vrushka a fresh horse and took him with him. 



CHAPTEE VIII. 

THE Princess Mariya was not at Moscow and out of harm's 
way, as her brother supposed. 

When Alpatuitch returned from Smolensk, the old prince 
seemed suddenly to wake, as it were, from a dream. He 
ordered the peasantry to be formed into the landwehr and 
armed, and wrote a letter to the commander-in-chief, inform- 
ing him of his intention to remain at Luisiya Gorui and de- 
fend himself till the last extremity, leaving it to his consider- 
ation whether to take measures or not for the defence of the 
place where one of the oldest of Russian generals proposed to 
be taken prisoner or to die. At the same time he announced 
to his household that he should remain at Luisiya Gorui. 

But, while determined himself not to quit Luisiya Gorui, he 
insisted that the princess with Dessalles and the young prince 
should go to Bogucharovo, and from there to Moscow. The 
princess, alarmed by her father's feverish, sleepless activity 
so suddenly taking the place of his former lethargy, could not 
bring herself to leave him alone, and for the first time in her 
life permitted -herself to disobey him. She refused to leave, 
and this drew upon her a terrific storm of fury from the 
prince. He brought up against her everything which he 
could find that was most unjust toward her. In his en- 
deavors to incriminate her, he declared that she was a torment 
to him, that she had made him quarrel with his son, that she 
had harbored shameful suspicions of him, that she made it 
the task of her life to poison his life, and finally he drove her 
out of his 'cabinet, saying that if he never set eyes on her 
again, it would be all the same to him. 

He declared that he would never have her name mentioned, 
and henceforth she might do what she pleased, but let her 
never dare to come into his sight again. The fact that, in 
spite of the Princess Mariya's apprehensions, he did not order 



WAR AND PEACE. 145 

her to be carried away by main force, but simply forbade her 
to come into his sight, was a comfort to her. She knew this 
proved that in the secret depths of his heart he was glad of 
her determination to stay at home and not go. 

On the morning of the day after Nikolushka's departure, 
the old prince put on his full uniform and prepared to visit 
the Commander-in-chief. The carriage was already at the 
door. The Princess Mariya saw him as he left the house in 
his uniform and all his orders, and went down into the park 
to review his peasantry and household serfs under arms. The 
Princess Mariya sat at the window and listened to the tones 
of his voice echoing through the park. Suddenly a number of 
men came running from the avenue with frightened faces. 

The Princess Mariya hastened down the steps, along the 
flower-bordered walk and into the avenue. Here she was met 
by a great throng of the landwehr and the household serfs, 
and in the centre of this throng several men were carrying 
the poor little veteran in his uniform and orders. 

The Princess Mariya ran up to him, and, in the shifting 
play of the sunbeams falling in little circles through the lime- 
tree boughs, and flecking the ground, she could not clearly 
make out what change had taken place in her father's face. 
The one thing that she noticed was that the former stern and 
resolute expression of his face had changed into an expression 
of timidity and submission. When- he caught sight of his 
daughter, he moved his lips, but his words were unintelligible, 
and the only sound that came forth was a hoarse rattling. 
It was impossible to understand what he wished to say. They 
took him carefully in their arms, carried him into his cabinet, 
and laid him on that divan where he had been of late so loath 
to lie. 

The doctor who was summoned that same night took blood 
from him, and announced that paralysis had affected his right 
side. 

As it grew more and more dangerous to remain at Luisiya 
Gorui, the day after the stroke the prince was removed to 
Bogucharovo. The doctor went with him. 

When they reached Bogucharovo, Dessalles and the little 
prince had already started for Moscow. 

The old prince lay for three weeks in. the same condition, 
neither better nor worse, in the new house which his son had 
erected at Bogucharovo. He lay in a lethargic state. He was 
like a mutilated corpse. He kept constantly muttering some- 
thing with twitching brows and lips, but it was impossible to 
VOL. 3. 10. 



146 WAR AND PEACE. 

make out whether or not he realized what was going on around 
him. 

The only thing that was certain was that he struggled and 
felt the necessity of saying something ; but what it was no 
one could divine. Was it the whim of a sick and semi-deliri- 
ous man ? Did it refer to the general course of affairs ? Or 
was it in regard to the circumstances of the family ? This 
was a question that no one could decide. 

The doctor insisted that there was no significance to be 
found in this restlessness, that it proceeded wholly from 
physical causes ; but the Princess Mariya felt certain that he 
wished to say something to her, and the fact that her presence 
always increased his agitation confirmed her in this supposi- 
tion. 

He apparently suffered both physically and mentally. There 
was no hope of his recovery. It was impossible to remove 
him. And what would have been done had he died on the 
road? 

" Would not the end, would not death be far better ? " the 
Princess Mariya sometimes asked herself. She sat by him 
night and day, almost denying herself sleep ; and, terrible to 
say, she often watched him closely, not with the hope of dis- 
covering symptoms of improvement, but rather with the wish 
that she might discover the approaching end. 

Strange as it was for the princess to confess to this f&eling, 
still it was there. And what was still more horrible for her 
was that since the illness of her father even if it were not 
earlier, the time, say, when she had elected to stay by him 
with some vague expectation all her long-forgotten hopes 
and desires seemed to wake and take possession of her once 
more. What she had long years ago ceased to think of the 
thought of a life free from the terror of her father's tyranny, 
even the dream of love, and the possibility of family happi- 
ness, constantly arose in her imagination like the suggestions 
of the evil one. 

PO matter how strenuously she tried to put them all away, 
the thought would constantly arise in her mind how she 
would henceforth, after this was over, arrange her life. This 
was a temptation from the devil, and the Princess Mariya 
knew it. She knew that the only weapon against this was 
prayer, and she tried to pray. She put herself into the atti- 
tude of prayer, she looked at the holy pictures, she read the 
words of the breviary, but she could not pray. She felt that 
now she was going to be brought into contact with the world 



WAR AND PEACE. 147 

of life, of hard and yet free activity, so different, so wholly 
opposed to that moral world in which she had been hitherto 
surrounded ; in which her best consolation had been prayer. She 
found it impossible to pray, impossible to shed a tear; the 
new laborious delight of living had taken possession of her. 

It was growing still more perilous to remain at Bogu- 
charovo. From every direction came rumors of the approach 
of the French, and in a village only fifteen versts distant a 
farmhouse had been pillaged by French marauders. 

The doctor insisted that it was necessary to get his patient 
farther away. The predvodityel, or marshal of the nobility, 
sent an officer to the Princess Mariya, urging her to get away 
as speedily as possible. The district ispravnik, coming in 
person to Bogucharovo, insisted on the same thing, declaring 
that the French were only forty versts off, that the French 
proclamations were circulating among the villages, and that if 
the princess did not get her father away by the twenty-seventh, 
he would not answer for the consequences. 

The princess resolved to start on the twenty-seventh. The 
labors in preparation, the manifold orders which she had to 
give, as every one came to her for directions, kept her busy all 
day long. The night of the twenty-sixth she spent as usual, 
without undressing, in the room next to that occupied by her 
father. Several times, arousing from her doze, she heard his 
hoarse breathing and muttering, the creaking of his bed. and 
the steps of Tikhon and the doctor as they turned him over. 
Several times she listened at the door, and it seemed to her 
that he muttered more distinctly than hitherto, and turned 
over more frequently. She could not sleep, and many times she 
went to the door and listened, wishing to go in, and yet not 
having the courage to do so. Although he could not tell her 
so, still she had seen and she knew how much he was annoyed 
by every expression of solicitude on his account. She had ob- 
served how he impatiently avoided her glance, which she 
sometimes fixed upon him, in spite of herself, full of anxiety. 
She knew that her intrusion at night, at such an unusual time, 
would annoy him. 

But never before had she felt so sad, so terribly sad, at the 
thought of losing him. She recalled all her life with him, 
and discovered the expression of his love for her in his every 
word and every deed. Occasionally these recollections would 
be interrupted by those promptings of the devil, the thoughts 
of what would happen after he was gone, and how she would 
arrange her new life of freedom. But she dismissed such 



148 WAR AND PEACE. 

thoughts with loathing. Toward morning he became quieterj 
and she fell into a sound sleep. 

She awoke late. The clear-sightedness which is a concomi- 
tant of our waking hours made her realize that her father's 
illness was the one predominant occupation of her life. As 
she woke up she listened for what was going on in the next 
room, and, hearing his hoarse breathing, she said to herself 
with a sigh that there was no change. 

" But what should it be ? What is it that I wish ? I am 
looking forward to his death," she told herself, revolted at 
the very thought. 

She changed her dress, made her toilet, said her prayers, 
and went out on the steps. In front of the door the carriages 
were standing without horses ; a number of things had been 
already packed. 

The morning was warm and hazy. The Princess Mariya 
was standing on the steps, her mind still full of horror at the 
thought of her moral depravity, and striving to bring some 
order into her mental state before going in to see him. 

The doctor came downstairs and approached her. 

"He is better to-day," said he. "I was looking for you. 
You may be able to catch something of what he says. His 
mind is clearer. Come. He is calling for you " 

The Princess Mariya's heart beat so violently at this news 
that she turned pale and leaned up against the door lest she 
should fall. To see him, to speak with him, to come under 
the power of his eyes now when her soul had just been full of 
these terrible, criminal, sinful temptations was too painful a 
union of joy and horror. 

" Come," said the doctor. 

The princess went to her father's room and approached his 
bed. He was lying propped high up, with his small, bony 
hands covered with knotted purple veins resting on the 
counterpane, with his left eye straight as it always had been, 
and with his right eye drawn down, though now his brows and 
lips were motionless. He was the same little lean, weazened, 
pitiful old man. His face seemed all shrivelled, so that the 
features seemed to be without character or coherence. The 
Princess Mariya approached him and kissed his hand. His 
left hand gave her hand a returning pressure that made it 
evident he had been for some time expecting her. He held 
her hand, and his brows and lips moved impatiently. 

She looked at him in terror, striving to get an inkling of 
what he desired of her. When she changed her "position and 



WAR AND PEACE. 149 

moved so that he could see her face with his left eye, he 
seemed satisfied and for several seconds did not let her out of 
his sight. Then his brows and lips quivered; he uttered 
sounds and began to speak, looking at her timidly and suppli- 
catingly, evidently apprehensive that she would not under- 
stand him. 

The Princess Mariya, concentrating all her powers of atten- 
tion, looked at him. The comic difficulty he had in managing 
his tongue caused her to drop her eyes and made it hard for 
her to choke down the sobs that rose in her throat. He said 
something, several times repeating his words. The Princess 
Mariya could not understand them, but in her attempts to 
get at the gist of what he said she uttered several sentences 
questioningly. 

" Gaga bo'i bo'i " he repeated several times. It was 
impossible to make any sense out of those sounds. The doc- 
tor thought that he had found the clew, and, trying to come 
the nearest to those sounds, asked : " Do you mean, Is the 
princess * afraid ? " He shook his head and again repeated 
the same sounds. 

" His mind, his mind troubles him ! " t suggested the prin- 
cess. He uttered a sort of roar by way of affirmation, seized 
her hand and pressed it here and there on his chest, as though 
trying to find a place suitable for it to rest. 

" Think all the time about thee," he then said far 
more distinctly than before, now that he was persuaded 
that they understood him. The Princess Mariya bowed her 
head down to his hand to hide her sobs and tears. 

He smoothed her hair. " I was '- calling thee - all night," 
he went on saying. 

" If I had only known," said she through her tears. " I 
was afraid to come in." 

He pressed her hand. "Were you not asleep ? " 

"No, I was not asleep," replied the princess, shaking her 
head. Falling under the influence of her father's condition, 
she now, in spite of herself, had to speak, as he did, more by 
signs, and almost found it difficult to manage her tongue. 

" Darling," % or did he say little daughter ? she could 
not tell, but she was assured by his look that he had called 
her some affectionate, caressing name, which he had never 
before done, " why didn't you come in ? " 

* Knyazhnya boitsa. 
t Diisha, diisha bolit. 
| Dushenka, (little soul) or Druzhtik, diminutive of friend or love. 



150 WAR AND PEACE. 

" And I was wishing him dead, wishing him dead," thought 
the Princess Mariya. 

He lay silent. "Thank thee daughter, dearest for all, 
for everything. Forgive. Thank thee forgive thank 
thee!" And the tears trickled from his eyes. "Call An- 
dryusha," said he suddenly, and, making this request, a child- 
ishly puzzled and distrustful expression came into his face. 
It seemed as though he himself knew that there was some- 
thing out of the way about this request. So at least it seemed 
to the Princess Mariya. 

" I have had a letter from him," replied the Princess Mariya. 
He gazed at her in puzzled amazement. 

"Where is he ? " 

" He is with the army, mon pere, at Smolensk." 

He closed his eyes and remained long silent. Then he 
opened his eyes and nodded his head affirmatively as though 
in answer to his own doubts, as much as to say that now he 
understood and remembered everything. 

" Yes," said he in a low but distinct voice. " Russia is 
ruined, lost ! They have ruined her ! " And again he sobbed 
and the tears rolled down his cheeks. The Princess Mariya 
could no longer contain herself, and she also wept as she looked 
into his face. 

He again closed his eyes. His sobs ceased. He made a 
gesture toward his eyes with his hand, and Tikhon, understand- 
ing what he meant, wiped his eyes for him. Then he opened 
his eyes and made some remark which no one for some time 
understood : at last Tikhon made out what he had said, and 
said it over after him. The Princess Mariya had been trying 
to connect the sense of his words with what he had just 
before been speaking about. She thought he might be speak- 
ing either of Russia, or of Prince Andrei, or of herself, or of 
his grandson, or of his own death. 

And consequently she could not make it out. "Put on 
your white dress ; I like it," was what he had said. 
- On hearing this, the Princess Mariya sobbed still more 
violently ; and the doctor, taking her by the arm, led her from 
the room, put upon the terrace, telling her to calm herself and 
then finish the preparations for the departure. After his 
daughter had left him he again spoke about his son, about the 
war, about the sovereign, and scowled angrily, and tried to 
raise his hoarse voice, and then came the second and finishing 
stroke. 

The Princess Mariya had remained on the terrace, The 






WAR AND PEACE. 151 

\veather was now clear ; it was sunny and hot. She found it 
impossible to realize anything, or to think of anything, or to 
feel anything, except her passionate love for her father, a love 
which, it seemed to her, she had never felt until that moment. 
She ran into the park, and, still sobbing, hastened down to 
the pond, along the avenues of lindens that her brother had 
recently planted. 

" Yes I I I wished for his death. Yes, I wished it 
to end quickly ! I wanted to rest. But what will become 
of me ? What peace shall I ever find when he is gone ? " 
muttered the princess, aloud, as she walked through the park 
with swift steps and beat her breast, which was heaving with 
convulsive sobs. 

After having made the round of the park, which brought her 
back to the house again, she saw Mademoiselle Bourienne 
who had remained at Bogucharovo, and had refused to go 
away coming toward her, in company with a man whom she 
did not recognize. This was the district predvodityel, who 
had come in person to impress upon the princess the impera- 
tive need of their immediate departure. 

The Princess Mariya heard what he said, but his words had 
no meaning for her : she conducted him into the house, asked 
him to remain to breakfast, and sat down with him. Then, 
excusing herself, she went to the old prince's door. The doc- 
tor, with a frightened face, came to her, and said she could not 
go in. " Retire, princess ; go away, go away ! " 

The princess went into the park again, and down the slope 
to the pond, and threw herself on the turf, where no one could 
see her. She- knew not how long she remained there. 
Women's steps running along the avenue roused her from her 
revery. She got up and saw her maid Dunyasha, who was 
evidently in search of her, suddenly stop with a terrified face 
at sight of her mistress. 

" Please, princess the prince " stammered Dunyasha, 
in a broken voice. 

"Instantly I am coming I am coming," cried the prin- 
cess, not giving Dunyasha time to finish telling what she had 
to say, and ran to the house, trying not to look at the 
maid. 

" Princess, God's will is done ; you must be prepared for 
the worst," said the predvodityel, who met her at the door- 
way. 

" Leave me ! It is false ! " she cried, angrily. 

The doctor tried to hold her back. She pushed him away. 



152 WAR AND PEACE. 

and ran into the room. " Why do these people look so 
frightened ? Why do they try to keep me away ? I do not 
need them. What are they doing here ? " 

She opened the door, and the bright sunlight in the room 
that a short time ago had been kept so dark filled her with 
terror. The old nyanya and other women were busy in the 
room. They all moved away from the bed, and made room 
for her to approach. He still lay on the same bed ; but the 
stern aspect of his face, calm in death, rooted the Princess 
Mariya to the threshold. 

" No ! he is not dead ! It cannot be ! " said the Princess 
Mariya to herself ; she went to him, and, overcoming the hor- 
ror which seized her, she pressed her lips to his cheek. But 
instantly she recoiled from the bed. Suddenly all the affec- 
tion for him which she had just felt so powerfully vanished, 
and instead came a feeling of horror for what was before 
her. 

" No ! he is no more ! He is gone ! And in his place here, 
where he was, is this strange and unfriendly thing ; this 
frightful, blood-curdling, repulsive mystery ! " 

And, covering her face with her hands, the Princess Mariya 
fell into the arms of the doctor, who was there to catch her. 

Under the superintendence of Tikhon and the doctor, the 
women laved that which had been the prince ; they tied a 
handkerchief around his head, so that his jaw might not 
stiffen with the mouth open, and they bound together his legs 
with another handkerchief. Then they dressed him in his 
uniform, with his orders, and laid out his little, weazened body 
on a table. God knows under whose direction and at what 
time all this was accomplished, but everything seemed to be 
done of itself. 

By night the candles were burning around the coffin, the 
pall was laid over it ; juniper was strewn upon the floor ; a 
printed prayer was placed under the wrinkled head of the 
dead, and in the room sat the diachok reading the psalter. 

Just as horses shy and crowd together and neigh at the 
sight of a dead horse, so in the drawing-room, around the 
coffin of the dead prince, gathered a throng of strangers and 
the members of the household, the predvodityel. and the 
starosta, and the peasant women, and all, with staring eyes 
and panic-stricken, crossed themselves and bowed low and 
kissed the aged prince's cold, stiff hand. 



WAR AND PEACE. 153 



CHAPTER IX. 

UNTIL Prince Andrei went to reside at Bogucharovo, the 
place had always been an " absentee " estate, and the peas- 
antry bore an entirely different character from those of Luisjya 
Gorui. They differed in speech and in dress and in customs. 
They called themselves " children of the steppe." The old 
prince praised them for their endurance in work when they 
came over to Luisiya Gorui to help get. in the crops or dig out 
the pond and ditches ; but he did not like them, because of 
their boorishness. 

Their manners had not been softened since Prince Andrei's 
last residence there, in spite of his dispensaries and schools, 
and the lightening of the obrok or quit-rent ; on the contrary, 
those traits of character which the old prince called boorish- 
ness seemed to have been intensified. Strange, obscure 
rumors were always finding credence among them ; at one 
time they got the notion that they were all to be enrolled as 
Cossacks ; another time, it was a new religion which they were 
to be forced to accept ; then, again, there was talk about certain 
imperial dispensations ; then, at the time they took the oath 
of allegiance to Paul Petrovitch, in 1797, they got the notion 
that their freedom had been granted them, but that their mas- 
ters had deprived them of it; and, again, it was the return 
of Peter Feodorovitch * to the throne, who would be tsar in 
seven years, and give them absolute freedom, so that every- 
thing would be simple and easy, and they would have no laws 
at all. 

The rumors of the war and of Napoleon and his invasion 
were connected in their minds with obscure notions of Anti- 
christ, the end of the world, and perfect freedom. 

In the vicinity of Bogucharovo were a number of large vil- 
lages, belonging to the crown or to non-resident proprietors. 
It was very rarely that these proprietors came to reside on 
their estates : there were also very few domestic serfs, or 
people who knew how to read and write ; and the lives of the 
peasantry of this region were more noticeably and powerfully 
affected than elsewhere by those mysterious currents character- 
istic of the common people in Russia, the significance and 
causes of which are so inexplicable to contemporaries. 

A phenomenon which illustrates this had taken rjlace a 
* Peter III, 



154 WAR AND PEACE. 

score of years before, when an exodus of the peasantry was 
made toward certain "hot rivers." Hundreds of peasants, 
including some from Bogucharovo, suddenly sold their cattle 
and set off with their families " somewhere " toward the south- 
east. Just as birds fly " somewhere " across the sea, so these 
men, with their wives and children, made every endeavor to 
reach that unknown Southeast, where none of them had ever 
been before. They marched in caravans ; here and there one 
bought his freedom ; others ran away, and set forth in wagons 
or on foot for the " hot rivers " ! Many were caught and pun- 
ished ; many were sent to Siberia ; many perished of cold and. 
starvation on the road ; many returned of their own accord ; 
and, at last, this migration died out of itself, just as it had 
begun, without any visible reason. But these underground 
currents ceased not to flow among this people, and they were 
gathering impetus for some new outbreak, likely to prove just 
as perplexing, as unexpected, and, at the same time, as simple, 
natural, and violent. 

At the present time, in 1812, any man whose life brought 
him in contact with the people might have observed that these 
hidden currents were working with extraordinary energy, and 
were all ready for an eruption. 

Alpatuitch, who had arrived at Bogucharovo some little 
time before the old prince's decease, had observed that there 
was considerable excitement among the peasantry : while in the 
region of Luisiya G-orui only sixteen versts distant all 
the peasants had deserted their homes, leaving their villages 
to be marauded by the Cossacks ; here, on the contrary, in 
the " Steppe " belt, in the region of Bogucharovo, the peas- 
antry, so the report ran, had dealings with the French, were in 
receipt of certain papers which were circulating among them, 
and had no thought of leaving their homes. 

He knew, through certain of the household serfs who were 
faithful to him, that a muzhik named Karp, who had great 
influence over the mir, or peasant commune, had lately 
returned from driving a crown wagon-train, and was spreading 
the report that the Cossacks were ravaging the villages that 
had been deserted by their inhabitants, while the French were 
not touching them. 

He was informed on good authority that another muzhik, 
the evening before, had brought from the village of Vislo- 
ukhovo, where the French were, a proclamation from a French 
genera*!, representing to the inhabitants that no harm would be 
done to them, and that cash should be paid for whatever was 



WAR AND PEACE. 155 

taken, provided they remained in their homes. As proof posi- 
tive of this, the muzhik brought with him from Vislo-iikhovo 
a hundred rubles in assignats he did not know that they 
were counterfeit which had been paid to him for his hay. 

Finally, and more important than all, Alpatuitch found that 
on that very day when he had commanded the starosta to pro- 
cure wagons for the conveyance of the princess's effects from 
Bogucharovo, the peasants had held a morning meeting in 
the village, at which it had been voted that they should not 
stir from the place, but wait. And meantime there was no 
time to lose. 

The predvodityel, on the very day on which the prince had 
died, the twenty -seventh, had come to urge the princess 
to depart without further delay, at the risk was growing con- 
stantly more imminent. He had declared that after the twenty- 
eighth he would not be responsible for the consequences. 
That same evening, after the prince's demise, he had gone 
away, promising to be present at the funeral on the next day. 
But on the next day it was impossible for him to be present, 
since news had been brought to him of an unexpected 
approach of the French, and he had barely time to remove his 
own family and valuables from his estate. 

For thirty years, Dron, whom the old prince always called 
by the affectionate diminutive, Dronushka, had exercised the 
functions of starosta, or bailiff, at Bogucharovo. 

Dron was one of those muzhiks powerful, physically and 
morally who, as soon as they come to years of discretion, 
grow a patriarchal beard, and live on without change till they 
are sixty or seventy years old, without a gray hair or the loss 
of a tooth, just as erect and powerful at sixty as they were at 
thirty. 

Dron, shortly after his returning from his expedition to the 
"hot rivers," in which he had taken part, had been made starosta- 
burmistr, or bailiff headman of the village of Bogucharovo ; 
and, since that time, he had performed without reproach all 
the functions of that office. The muzhiks feared him more 
than they feared their barin. His masters both the old 
prince and the young prince respected him, and, in jest, 
called him " minister." During all the time of his service, 
Dron had never once been drunk or sick. Never, even after sleep- 
less nights' or after the most exhausting labors, was he known 
to show the slightest slothfulness, and, though he did not know 
his letters, he never made the slightest mistakes in his money 
accounts, or as to the number of poods of flour which he 



156 WAR AND PEACE. 

carried in monstrous loads and sold, or as to the amount of a 
single rick of corn harvested in the fields of Bogucharovo. 

Alpatuitch, on his arrival from the devastated Luisiya Gorui, 
summoned this Dron, on the very day of the funeral, and 
ordered him to have ready a dozen horses for the princess's 
conveyance, and eighteen teams for the luggage which she was 
to take with her from Bogucharovo. Although the peasantry 
paid an obrok or quit-rent, Alpatuitcli never dreamed that 
there would be any difficulty in having this order carried out, 
since the villages contained two hundred and thirty taxable 
households, and the muzhiks were well-to-do. 

But the starosta, Dron, on receiving this order, dropped his 
eyes and made no answer. Alpatuitcli named certain peasants 
whom he knew, and ordered him to make the requisitions on 
them. 

Dron replied that these men's horses were off on carrier 
duty. Alpatuitcli named still other muzhiks. And these 
men, also, according to Dron, had no horses : some were off 
with the government trains ; others were out of condition ; 
still others had lost theirs through lack of forage. According 
to Dron's report, it was impossible to secure horses for the car- 
riages, to say nothing of those for the baggage-wagons. 

Alpatuitch looked sharply at the starosta and scowled. In 
the same way as Dron was a model of what a peasant starosta 
should be, in the same way Alpatuitch had not managed the 
prince's estates for nothing all those twenty years, and he 
also was a model overseer. He was in the highest degree 
qualified to understand, as by a sort of scent, the wants and 
instincts of the people with whom he had to do, and this made 
him a surpassingly excellent overseer. He knew by a single 
glance at Dron, that Dron's answers were not the expression 
of Dron's individual opinions, but merely the expression of 
the general disposition of the Bogucharovo commune, in 
which the starosta was evidently involved. But. at the same 
time, he knew that Dron, who had grown rich and was hated 
by the commune, must necessarily waver between the two 
camps, the peasants' and the master's. This wavering he 
could detect in his eyes, and, therefore, Alpatuitch, with a 
frown, drew near to Dron. 

" Listen, you, Dronushka ! " said he. " You need not tell 
me idle tales. His Illustriousness Prince Andrei iJSTikolaitch 
himself gave me orders that all the peasantry should leave, 
and not remain behind with the enemy ; and those are the 
tsar's orders also. So any one who stays is a traitor to the 
tsar. Do you hear ? " 



WAR AND PEACE. 157 

'' Yes, I hear," replied Dron, not raising his eyes. 

Alpatuitch was not satisfied with this answer. 

"Ah! Dron! Ill will come of it!" exclaimed Alpatuitch, 
shaking his head. 

" You have the power,'' returned Dron mournfully. 

"Ah, Dron ! Give it up ! " exclaimed Alpatuitch, taking his 
hand out from the breast of his coat, and, with a solemn ges- 
ture, pointing under Droir s feet. " Not only do I see through 
and through you, but I can see three arshins under you : every- 
thing there is," said he, looking down at Dron's feet. 

Dron grew confused ; he gave Alpatuitch a fleeting look, and 
then dropped his eyes again. 

" Stop all this nonsense, and tell the people to get ready to 
leave for Moscow, and have the teams ready to-morrow morn- 
ing for the princess, and mind you don't attend any more of 
their meetings ! Do you hear ? " 

Dron suddenly threw himself at his feet. 

" Yakof Alpatuitch ! discharge me ! Take the keys from 
me ! discharge me, for Christ's sake ! " 

" Stop ! " said Alpatuitch sternly. " I can see three arshins 
deep under you ! " he repeated, knowing that his skill in going 
after bees, his knowledge of the times and seasons for sowing, 
and the fact that for a score of years he had succeeded in satis- 
fying the old prince, had long ago given him the reputation of 
being a koldoon, or wizard, and that to koldoons was attrib- 
uted the power of seeing three arshins under a man. 

Dron got to his feet, and tried to say something, but Alpa- 
tuitch interrupted him. 

" Come now ! What is your idea in all this ? Ha ? What 
are you dreaming of ? Ha ? " 

" What shall I do with the people ? " asked Dron. " They 
are all stirred up ! And, besides, I have told them." 

" What's the good of telling them ? " he asked. " Are they 
drunk ? " he 'demanded laconically. 

" All stirred up, Yakof Alpatuitch ! They have just brought 
another cask ! " 

" Now, then, listen ! I will go to the ispravnik, and you 
hasten back to the people, and bid them quit all this sort of 
thing, and get ready the teams." 

" I obey," replied Dron. 

Yakof Alpatuitch insisted on nothing more. He had been 
in control of the people too long not to know that the principal 
way of bringing the people to subordination was not to show 
the slightest doubt that they would become subordinate. 



158 ^VAR AND PEACE. 

Having wrung from Dron the submissive " slushdyu-s, I 
obey," - Yakof Alpatuitch contented himself with that, 
although lie not merely suspected, but was even certain in his 
own mind, that, without the assistance of a squad of militia, 
nothing would be done. 

And, in point of fact, there were no teams forthcoming, as 
he supposed. Another meeting of the peasantry was held at 
the village tavern ; and this meeting voted to drive the horses 
out into the woods and not to furnish the teams. Saying 
nothing of all this to the princess, Alpatuitch gave orders to 
have the carts that had brought his own effects from Luisiya 
Gorui unloaded, and to have his horses put to the Princess 
Mariya's carriage, and he himself went to consult with the 
authorities. 

CHAPTER X. 

THE Princess Mariya, after her father's funeral, shut her- 
self up in her room, and admitted no one. Her maid came to 
the door to say that Alpatuitch was there to learn her wishes 
in regard to the departure. (This 'was before his interview 
with Dron.) The princess sat up on the sofa where she 
had been lying, and spoke through the closed door, declaring 
that she would never go away anywhere, and asked her to 
leave her in peace. 

The windows of the room which the Princess Mariya occu- 
pied faced the south. She lay on the sofa, with her face 
turned toward the wall, and picking with her fingers at the 
buttons on the leathern cushion, which was the only thing that 
she could see, while her vague thoughts were concentrated on 
one thing : she was thinking about the unavoidableness of 
death and of her own moral baseness, which had now been re- 
vealed to her for the first time in its manifestation during her 
father's illness. She wanted but she dared not to pray ; she 
dared not, in that state of mind in which she found herself, 
to turn to God in prayer. Long she lay in that position. 

The sun had gone round to the other side of the house, and 
its slanting afternoon beams, which fell through the opened 
windows, lighted up the room and lay on the cushion at which 
she was looking. The train of sombre thoughts suddenly 
ceased. She instinctively sat up, smoothed her hair, got to 
her feet, and went to the window, where, without thinking 
she filled her lungs with the cool air of the bright but windy 
afternoon. 



WAR AND PEACE. 159 

"Yes, now you can enjoy your fill of the evening! He is 
gone, and no one is here to interfere with you," said she to 
herself, and, dropping into a chair, leaned her head on the 
window-seat. Some one, in a soft, affectionate voice, called her 
name from the park side of the window, and kissed her on the 
head. She looked up. 

It was Mademoiselle Bourienne, in a black dress trimmed 
with white. She had softly approached the Princess Mariya, 
kissed her with a* sigh, and immediately burst into tears. 
The princess looked at her. All her previous . collisions with 
her, her jealousy of her, came back to her remembrance ; she 
also remembered how he of late had changed toward Mad- 
emoiselle Bourienne, could not even bear to see her, and 
consequently how unjust had been the reproaches with which 
the Princess Mariya had loaded her. " Yes, and can I, I who 
have just been wishing for his death, can I judge any one 
else ? " she asked herself. 

The Princess Mariya had a keen sense of Mademoiselle Bou- 
rienne's trying situation, held by her at a distance, and yet at 
the same time dependent upon her, and dwelling under a stran- 
ger's roof. And she began to feel a pity for her. She looked 
at her with a sweet, questioning look, and stretched out her 
hand. Mademoiselle Bourienne immediately had a fresh par- 
oxysm of tears, began to kiss the princess's hand, and to speak 
of the affliction that had come upon her, and claimed to be a 
sympathizer in that affliction. She declared that her only 
consolation in this sorrow was that the princess allowed her 
to share it with her. She said that all their previous mis- 
understandings ought to be forgotten in presence of this terri- 
ble loss, fhat she felt that her conscience was clear before all 
men, and that he from above would bear witness to her love 
and gratitude. 

The princess listened to her without comprehending what 
she was saying, but she looked at her from time to time, and 
heard the sounds of her voice. 

" Your position is doubly terrible, dear princess," said Mad- 
emoiselle Bourienne, after a short silence. " I understand how 
it is that you could not have thought that you cannot 
think about yourself ; but, from the love which I bear you, I 
am compelled to do so for you. Has Alpatuitch been to see 
you ? Has he said anything to you about going away ? " she 
asked. 

The Princess Mariya made no reply. She could not realize 
who was going away or where it was. 



160 WAR AND PEACE. 

" Why undertake anything just now ? Why think of any- 
thing ? What difference does it make ? " She made no 
answer. 

" Do you know, chere Marie," asked Mademoiselle Bouri- 
enne, " do you know that we are in peril, that we are sur- 
rounded by the French ? It is dangerous to go now. If we 
were to start, we should almost certainly be taken prisoner, 
and God knows " 

The Princess Mariya looked at her friend without compre- 
hending what she was saying. 

" Akh ! if you could only know how little, how little I care 
now," said she. " Of course, I should never wish such a 
thing as to go away and leave kirn. Alpatuitch said some- 
thing to me about going away. Talk it over with him ; I 
cannot and I will not hear " " 

" I have spoken with him. He hopes that we shall be able 
to get away to-morrow; but it is my opinion that we had 
better remain here now," said Mademoiselle Bourienne. 
" Because you must agree with me, chere Marie to fall 
into the hands of the soldiers or insurgent peasants would be 
horrible." 

Mademoiselle Bourienne drew forth from her reticule a 
proclamation printed on paper different from that used 
generally in Russia from the French general Rameau, 
in which the inhabitants were advised not to abandon their 
homes, since full protection would be vouchsafed them by the 
French authorities ; this she handed to the princess. 

" I think it would be better to apply to this general," said 
Mademoiselle Bourienne. " And I am convinced that we 
should be treated with due consideration." 

The Princess Mariya read the paper, and her face contracted 
with a sort of tearless sob. 

" From whom did you get this ? " she demanded. 

" They probably knew that I am French from my name," 
said Mademoiselle Bourienne, with a blush. 

The princess, with the paper in her hand, got up from the 
window, and with a blanched face left the room, and went 
into Prince Andrei's cabinet, which adjoined. 

" Dunyasha, summon Alpatuitch, Drdnushka, any one," ex- 
claimed the Princess Mariya, " and tell Amalie Karlovna not 
to come near me," she added, hearing Mademoiselle Bouri- 
enne's voice. " Go quick ! quick ! " exclaimed the Princess 
Mariya, panic-stricken at the thought that she might be left 
in the power of the French, 



WAR AND PEACE. 161 

" What if Prince Andrei knew that she were under the pro- 
tection of the French ! That she, the daughter of Prince 
Nikolai Andreyitch Bolkonsky, had asked General Rameau to 
grant her his protection, and put herself under obligations for 
benefits received from him ! " 

The mere suggestion of such a thing filled her with horror, 
made her shudder, turn red, and feel still more violently than 
ever before those impulses of anger and outraged pride. 

She now vividly realized all the difficulties, and, above all, 
the humiliations of her position. 

"They the French will take possession of this house ; 
M. le general Rameau will make use of Prince Andrei's cabi- 
net ; for their amusement they will ransack and read his 
letters and papers. Mademoiselle Bourienne lui fera les hon- 
neurs de Bogueharovo ! They will out of special favor grant 
me a sleeping-room ; the soldiers will tear open my father's 
newly made grave in orcler to rob him of his crosses and stars ; 
they will boast before me of their victories over the Russians, 
they will pretend to sympathize in my grief/ 7 thought the 
Princess Mariya, and these were not her own thoughts, but 
she felt herself compelled to think as her father and brother 
would have thought. 

For her personally it was a matter of utter indifference 
where she staid or what happened to her ; but at the same 
time she felt that she was the representative of her late father 
and of Prince Andrei. She could not help thinking these 
thoughts and feeling these feelings. Whatever they would 
have said, whatever they would have done, now this she felt 
that it was indispensable for her to do. She went into Prince 
Andrei's cabinet, and, in her endeavors to follow out what 
would be his ideas, she reviewed her position. 

The demands of life, which she had felt had been annihi- 
lated at the moment of her father's death, suddenly, with new, 
never-before-experienced violence, rushed up before her, and 
took possession of her. 

Flushed with excitement, she walked up and down the 
room, summoning first Alpatuitch, then Mikhail Ivanovitch, 
then Tikhon, then Dron. Dunyasha, the old nyanya, and all 
the maids were equally unable to say how far Mademoiselle 
Bourienne was correct in what she had declared. Alpatuitch 
was not at home ; he had gone to consult with the authorities. 
Mikhail Ivanuitch, the architect, on being summoned, came 
into the Princess Mariya's presence with sleepy eyes, and 
could tell her absolutely nothing. He replied to her questions 
VOL. 3. 11. 



162 WAR AND PEACE. 

with precisely the same non-committal smile with which for 
fifteen years he had been in the habit of dealing with the old 
prince, and she could get nothing definite from his replies. 

Then the old valet Tikhon was called, and with a downcast 
and impassive face, bearing all the symptoms of incurable woe, 
he replied to all her questions with his " slushayu-s I obey," 
and could scarcely refrain from sobbing as he looked at her. 

At last the starosta Dron came into the room, and, making 
her a low obeisance, stood respectfully at the threshold. 

The Princess Mariya glided through the- room and paused 
in front of him. 

" Dronushka ! " said she, seeing in him an undoubted friend, 
the same Dronushka who had always brought home pieces of 
gingerbread with him from his trips to the yarmarka or 
annual bazaar at Viasma, and presented to her with a smile. 
" Dronushka ! now, since our sad loss," She began and 
then paused, unable to proceed. 

"All our goings are under God," said he with a sigh. 
Neither spoke. 

" Dronushka ! Alpatuitch has gone ; I have no one to turn 
to ; is it true, what I am told, that we cannot get away ? " 

" Not get away ? Certainly you can get away, princess," 
said Dron. 

" They tell me there is danger from the enemy. My friend,* 
I am helpless, I don't understand anything about it, I am 
entirely alone. I decidedly wish to start to-night or to-morrow 
morning early." 

Dron made no sound. He looked from under his brows at 
the princess. 

" No horses," said he at last, " and I have told Yakof Al- 
patuitch so." 

" How is that ? " demanded the princess. 

" It is God's punishment," said Dron ; " what horses we had 
have been taken by the troops, and the rest have perished. 
That's the way it is this year. 'Twouldn't so much matter 
about feeding the horses, if we ourselves weren't perishing of 
starvation. Often for three days at a time we go without a 
bite. We have nothing at all ; we are utterly ruined." 

The Princess Mariya listened attentively to what he said. 

" The peasantry are ruined ? You say they have no corn ? " 
she asked. 

" They are perishing of famine," said Dron. " And us foi 
teams " 

* Golubchik. 



WAR AND PEACE. 163 

" But why haven't you told me of this before, Dronushka ? 
Can't they be helped ? I will do all in my power " 

It was strange for the Princess Mariya to think that now, 
at this moment when her heart was filled with such sorrow, 
there could be poor men and rich, and that the rich did not 
help the poor. She had a general notion that when the mas- 
ters had a reserve of corn, it was distributed among the serfs. 
She knew also that neither her father nor her brother would 
refuse to help the peasantry in case of need; all that she 
feared was that she might make some blunder in speaking 
about this distribution of corn which she was anxious to 
make. She was glad of some pretext for active work : some- 
thing that would allow her without pangs of conscience to 
forget her own sorrow. She proceeded to interrogate Dron- 
ushka in regard to the necessities of the muzhiks and the 
store of reserve corn belonging to the estate at Bogucharovo. 

" We have corn belonging to the estate ; have we not, 
brother ? " she demanded. 

"The master's corn is untouched," said Dron with pride. 
" Our prince had not ordered it to be sold." 

" Give that to the peasantry ; give them all they need. I 
grant it in my brother's name," said the Princess Mariya. 

Dron made no reply and drew a long sigh. 

"You give them this corn, if there is enough for them. 
Give it all to them. I order it in my brother's name, and tell 
them : ' What is ours is always theirs.' We shall not grudge 
it for them. Tell them so." ' 

Dron looked steadily at the princess while she was saying this. 

"Discharge me, matushka, for God's sake; order the keys 
to lie taken from me," said he. " I have been in service for 
twenty -three years ! I have never done anything dishonest ; 
discharge me, for God's sake ! " 

The Princess Mariya could not understand what he wanted 
of her, or why he wished to be relieved of his office. She re- 
plied that she had never conceived a doubt of his devotion, and 
that she was always ready to do anything for him or for any of 
the muzhiks. 

CHAPTER XI. 

AN hour later Dunyasha came to the princess with the 
news that Dron was there, and that all the muzhiks had col- 
lected in accordance with the princess's orders at the granary, 
and wished to have speech with their mistress. 



164 WAR AND PEACE. 

" But I never called them," said the Princess Mariya ; " I . 
merely told Dronushka to give them corn." 

" Then, for God's sake, prmcecs-matushka, order them to 
disperse and don't go to them. They are deceiving you," ex- 
claimed Dunyasha. " Yakof Alpatuitck will soon be back, and 
then we will go and don't you allow " 

" How are they deceiving me ? " asked the princess in 
amazement. 

" But I am certain of it ! Only heed my words, for God's 
sake. Just ask nurse here. They declare they will not go 
away at your orders." 

" You have got it entirely wrong. Besides, I have never 
ordered them to go away," said the Princess Mariya. "Fetch 
Dronushka," 

Dron came in and confirmed what Dunyasha said : the 
muzhiks had assembled at the princess's orders. 

"But I never summoned them," said the princess. "You 
did not give my message correctly. I only told you to give 
them corn." 

Dron made no reply ; merely sighed. 

" If you order it they will disperse," said he. 

"No, no, I will go to them," said the princess. 

In spite of the persuasion of Dunyasha and the old nyanya, 
the Princess Mariya. went down the steps. Dronushka, Dun- 
yasha, the old nyanya, and Mikhail Ivanuitch followed her. 

" They apparently think that I give them the corn so that 
they should stay at home, while I myself am going away, 
abandoning them to the mercy of the French," thought the 
Princess Mariya. "But I will promise them rations and 
quarters at our pod-Moskovnaya ; I am sure Andre would do 
even more in my place," she said to herself as she went 
toward the throng that had gathered in the twilight on the 
green near the granary. 

The throng showed some signs of confusion, and moved and 
swayed a little, and hats were removed as she approached. 
The Princess Mariya, with downcast eyes, and getting her 
feet entangled in her dress, went toward them. So many dif- 
ferent eyes from faces young and old were fixed upon her, and 
so many different people were collected, that the princess did 
not distinguish any particular person ; and, as she felt that it 
was requisite for her to address them all at once, she did not 
know how to set about it. But once more the consciousness 
that she was the representative of her father and brother gave 
her courage, and she boldly began to speak. 



WAR AND PEACE. 165 

" I am very glad that you came," she began, not raising her 
eyes, and conscious of her heart beating fast and strong. 
" Dronushka told me that you were ruined by the war. That 
is our common misfortune, and I shall spare no endeavor to 
help you. I myself am going away because it is dangerous 
here and the enemy are near because I will give you 
everything, friends, and I beg of you to take all, all our corn, 
so that you may not suffer from want. And if you have been 
told that I distribute the corn among you so as to keep you 
here, that is a falsehood. On the contrary, I beg of you to go 
with all your possessions to our pod-Moskovnaya, and I will 
engage and promise that you shall not suffer. You shall be 
given homes and provisions." 

The princess paused. In the throng sighs were heard, and 
that was all. 

" I do not give this of myself," continued the princess, " but 
I do it in the name of my late father, who was a good barin to 
you, and in behalf of my brother and his son." 

She again paused. No one broke in upon her silence. " Our 
misfortune is universal, and we will share everything together. 
All that is mine is yours," said she, gazing at the faces ranged 
in front of her. 

All eyes were fixed on her with one expression, the signifi- 
cance of which she could not riddle. Whether it were curios- 
ity, devotion, gratitude, or fear, or distrust, that expression, 
whatever it was, was the same in all. 

" Very grateful for your kindness, but we don't want to take 
the master's corn," said a voice in the rear of the throng. 

" Yes, but why not ? " asked the princess. 

No one replied, and the Princess Mariya, glancing around the 
throng, observed that now all eyes which met hers immedi- 
ately turned away. 

" Why are you unwilling ? " she asked again. 

No one replied. 

The Princess Mariya felt awkward at this silence. She tried 
to catch some one's eye. 

" Why don't you speak ? " demanded the princess, address- 
ing an aged man, who, leaning on his cane, was standing in 
front of her. " Tell me if you think that anything else is 
needed. I will do everything for you," said she, as she caught 
his eye. But he, as though annoyed by this, hung his head 
and muttered, 

" Why should we ? We don't want your corn." 

"What ! us abandon everything ? We don't agree to it." 



166 WAR AND PEACE. 

" We don't agree to it." " Not with our consent." " We are 
sorry, but it sha'n't be done with our consent." " Go off by 
yourself alone ! " rang out from the mob on different sides. 
And again all the faces of the throng had one and the same 
expression; but this time it was assuredly not curiosity or 
gratitude, but one of angry, obstinate resolution. 

" Oh, but you have not understood me," exclaimed the Prin- 
cess Mariya, with a melancholy smile. "Why are you unwill- 
ing to go ? I promise to give you new homes and feed you. 
But if you stay here the enemy will ruin you." But her voice 
was drowned by the voices of the mob. 

"Not with our consent. Let him destroy us. We won't 
touch your corn. Not with our consent." 

The Princess Mariya tried again to catch the eyes of some 
other person in the crowd ; but not one was directed toward 
her : their eyes evidently avoided her. She felt strange, and 
ill at ease. 

" There, now ! she's a shrewd one. Follow her to prison. 
They want to get our houses, and make serfs of us again 
the idea ! We won't touch your corn," rang the various 
voices. 

The Princess Mariya, hanging her head, left the crowd, and 
went back to the house. Reiterating her orders to Dron to 
have the horses ready against their departure the next day, 
she went to her room and remained alone with her thoughts. 



CHAPTER XII. 

THE Princess Mariya sat long that night beside her open 
window in her room, listening to the hubbub of voices which 
came up to her from the peasant village ; and yet she was not 
thinking of them. She felt that the more she thought about 
them, the less she should understand them. Her mind was 
concentrated on one thing : her affliction, which now, after the 
interruption caused by her labors in connection with the 
present situation, seemed already far in the past. She could 
now think calmly, could weep, and could pray. 

With the sunset the breeze had died down. The night was 
calm and cool. By twelve o'clock the voices began to grow 
still ; a cock crew ; the full moon began to rise up from behind 
the lindens ; a cool, white dew-mist arose, and peace reigned 
over the village and over the house. 

One after the other passed before her mind the pictures of 



WAR AND PEACE. 167 

the recent past : the illness and the last moments of her father. 
And, with a melancholy joy, she now dwelt upon these pic- 
tures, repelling with horror only one : the vision of his death, 
a thing which she felt wholly unable to contemplate, even in 
imagination, at that calm, mysterious hour of night. And 
these pictures came before her with such vividness,' and with 
such fulness of detail, that they seemed to her now like the 
reality, and then, again, like something past, or, again, like 
something that was to come. 

Now she vividly recalled the moment when he received the 
stroke, and was borne in the arms of his men into the house 
at Luisiya Gorui, muttering unintelligible words with his dis- 
obedient tongue, knitting his grizzled brows, and looking anx- 
iously and timidly at her. 

" Even then, he wanted to tell me what he said on the very 
day of his death," she said to herself. " What he said to me 
then was all the time in his mind." 

And then she imagined, with all its details, that night at Luis- 
iya Gorui, on the evening before the apoplectic stroke, when, 
with a presentiment of evil, she remained with him against his 
will. She could not sleep, and she went down late at night pn 
her tiptoes, and, going to the door of the greenhouse, where 
her father had tried to sleep that night, had listened to him. 
He was talking to Tikhon in a peevish, weary voice. He was 
telling him something about the Crimea, about the genial 
nights, about the empress. He was evidently in a talkative 
mood. 

" And why did he not call me ? Why did he not allow me 
then to take Tikhon's place ? " 

She asked herself that question then, and again she asked 
it now. " He was never one to confide in any one what he 
kept locked up in the chambers of his heart. And now never 
again for him and for me will return that moment when he 
might say all he wished to say, and then I, and not Tikhon, 
might have listened and understood him. Why did I not go 
in where he was ? " wondered the Princess Mariya. " Maybe 
even then he would have told me what he said on the day of 
his death. While he was talking with Tikhon he twice asked 
about me. He wished to see me, and there I was standing at 
the door. He found it tiresome and stupid to talk with Ti- 
khon, for he could not understand him. I remember how he 
spoke with him about Liza, as though she were still alive, 
he had forgotten that she was dead, and Tikhon reminded 
him that she nad passed away, and he cried, ' Durak idiot ! T 



168 WAR AND PEACE. 

It was hard for him. As I stood outside I heard him groan, 
and lie down on the bed and cry aloud, ' My God ! ' Why 
didn't I go in then and there ? What would he have done to 
me ? What trouble might I not have made ? Perhaps even 
then he would have been comforted ; perhaps he would have 
called me - what he did." And the princess repeated aloud 
the caressing word which he had spoken to her on the day of his 
death : " Diishenka," Dear heart, " Dii-shen-ka," repeated 
the princess, and she burst into tears that lightened the sor- 
row of her soul. 

Now she saw his face plainly before her : and not that face 
which she had known ever since her earliest remembrance, 
and which she; had always seen afar off, as it were, but that 
weak, submissive face which she, for the first time in her mem- 
ory, as she bent down close to it to catch the last words that 
fell from his mouth, saw near at hand with all its wrinkles 
and details. 

" Drfshenka ! " she repeated. 

" What thoughts were in his mind when he said that word ? 
What is lie thinking now ? " 

That question suddenly occurred to her, and for answer to it 
she seemed to see him before her with that same expression 
of face which he had worn in his coffin with the white hand 
kerchief binding up his face. And that horror which had 
seized her then, when she had touched him, and then felt so 
assured that this thing not only was not he, but something 
mysterious and repulsive, came over her again. She tried 
to think of something else, she tried to pray, and she could 
do neither. With wide, staring eyes she gazed at the moon- 
light and at the shadows, every instant expecting to see his 
dead face, and she felt that the silence that hung over the 
house and in the house was turning her to stone. 

" Dunyasha ! " she whispered. " Dimyasha ! " she cried, in 
a wild voice, and, tearing herself away from the silence, she 
ran into the domestics' room, meeting the old nyanya and the 
women, who came to meet her at her cry. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

ON the twenty-ninth of August Rostof and Ilyin, accompa^ 
nied only by Lavrushka, just back from his brief captivity, 
and an orderly sergeant of hussars, set forth from their biv- 
ouac at Yankovo, fifteen versts from Bogucharovo, to make 



WAR AND PEACE. 169 

trial of a new horse which Ilyin had recently purchased, and 
to find whether there was any fodder in the villages round 
about. 

Bogucharovo, during the last three days, had been midway 
between two hostile armies, so that it was just as likely to be 
occupied by the Russian rearguard as by the French van- 
guard ; and consequently, Rostof, like the thoughtful squadron 
commander that he was, conceived the notion of taking pos- 
session of the provisions at Bogucharovo in anticipation of 
the French. 

Rostof and Ilyin were in the most jovial mood. On the way 
to Bogucharovo, to the princely estate and farm where they 
hoped to find a great throng of domestics and pretty young 
girls, they now questioned Lavrushka about Napoleon, and 
made merry over his tale, and then they ran races to test 
Ilyin's horse. 

Rostof had not the slightest notion that this village where 
he was bound was the estate of that very same Bolkonsky who 
had been betrothed to his sister. 

He and Ilyin made a final spurt in trial of their horses 
down the slope in front of Bogucharovo, and Rostof, outriding 
Ilyin, was the first to enter the street of the village. 

" You got in first ! " cried Ilyin, growing red in the face. 

" Yes, always ahead, not only on the level, but here also," 
replied Rostof, smoothing the flank of his foam-flecked Donets. 

" And I on my Franzuska, your illustriousness," exclaimed 
Lavrushka, coming up behind them on his cart-jade, which he 
called " Franzuska," or " Frenchy," in honor of his adventure. 
" I'd ha' come in first only I didn't want to mortify you." 

They rode at a foot-pace up to the granary, near which a 
great crowd of muzhiks were gathered. 

Some of them took off their caps ; some, not taking off their 
caps, gazed at the new-comers. Two lank muzhiks, with 
wrinkled faces and thin .beards, came out from the public- 
house, reeling, and trolling some incoherent snatch of a song, 
and approached the officers. 

" Say, my hearties," sung out Rostof, with a laugh, " have 
you any hay ? " 

" Like as two peas," exclaimed Ilyin. 

" We're jo-ol-ly g-oo-d f-fel-el-lo-ows," sang one of the men, 
with an effusively good-natured smile. 

A muzhik came out of the throng and approached Rostof. 

" Which side are you from ? " he asked. 

" The French," replied Rostof, jokingly, with a smile, 



170 WAR AND PEACE. 

" And that's Napoleon himself," he added, pointing to Lav- 
rushka. 

" Of course, you're Russians, ain't you ? " asked the muzhik. 

"Is there a large party of you?" asked another, a little 
man, who also joined them. 

" Ever so many," replied Eostof. " And what brings you 
all together here," he added. " A holiday festival ? " 

" The elders have collected for communal business," replied 
the muzhik who first came out. 

At this time two women and a man in a white hat made 
their appearance on the road from the mansion, coming 
toward the officers. " The one in pink is mine ! Don't dare 
cheat me of her ! " exclaimed Ilyin, catching sight of Dun- 
yasha coming resolutely toward him. 

" She shall be yours," replied Lavrushka, with a wink. 

" What do you want, my beauty ? " asked Ilyin, with a j 
smile. 

" The princess has sent to ask what is your regiment and 
your name." 

" I am Count Eostof, squadron commander, and I am your | 
humble servant." 

" De-e-ev-lish jo-ol-ly g-ga-gals," sang one of the drunken 
muzhiks, with a jovial grin, and giving Ilyin a meaning look, 
as he stood talking with the maid. Dunyasha was followed i 
by Alpatuitch, who, at some distance, took off his hat in 
Eostof's presence. 

"I make bold to trouble your nobility," said he, politely, ; 
but manifesting a certain scorn of the officer's youthful appear- 
ance, and placing his hand in the breast of his coat. "My 
mistress, the daughter of Greneral0<7&0/*, the late Prince 
Nikolai Andreyevitch Bolkonsky, who died on the twenty- 
seventh instant, finds herself in difficulty on account of the 
insubordination and boorishness of these individuals here " 
he pointed to the muzhiks "and she begs you to confer with 
her if it would not be asking too much," said Alpatuitch, 
with a timid smile, " if jou would come a few steps farther 
and besides it is not so pleasant in presence of" He 
indicated the two drunken muzhiks, who were circling round 
them and in their rear like gadflies round a horse. 

" Hey ! Alpatuitch Hey ! Yakof Alpatuitch " - " Ser'ous . 
shing ! 'Sense us ! Ser'ous shing ! " " 'Sense us, for Christ's 
sake ! Hey ! " said the muzhiks, leering at him. Eostoi 
looked at the drunken muzhiks, and smiled. 

" Or perhaps this amuses your illustriousness ? " suggested 



WAR AND PEACE. 171 

Alpatuitch, with a sedate look, and indicating the old men 
with his other hand the one not in the breast of his coat. 

"No, there's no amusement in that," said Kostof, and started 
off. "What is the trouble ? " he asked. 

" I make bold to explain to your illustriousness, that these 
coarse peasants here are not willing that their mistress should 
leave her estate, and they threaten to take her horses out ; 
and though everything has been packed up since morning, her 
illustriousness can't get away." 

" Incredible ! " cried Kostof. 

" I have the honor of reporting to you the essential truth," 
maintained Alpatuitch. 

Kostof dismounted, and, throwing the reins to his orderly, 
went with Alpatuitch to the house, questioning him on the 
state of affairs. In point of fact, the offer of corn which the 
princess had made to the muzhiks the evening before, her 
explanations to Dron and to the meeting, had made affairs so 
much worse that Dron had definitively laid down his keys, and 
taken sides with the peasantry, and had refused to obey Alpa- 
tuitch's summons ; and that morning, when the princess had 
ordered to have the horses put in so as to take her departure, 
the muzhiks had gone in a regular mob to the granary, and 
sent a messenger declaring that they would not allow the prin- 
cess to leave the village, that orders had come not to leave and 
they should unharness the horses. Alpatuitch had gone to 
them, and reasoned with them, but they had replied Karp 
being their spokesman for the most part Dron did not show 
himself at all that it was impossible to let the princess take 
her departure, that there was a law against it : " only let her 
stay at home, and they would serve her as they always had 
done, and obey her in everything." 

At the moment that Rostof and Ilyin had come spurring up 
the avenue, the Princess Mariya, in spite of the dissuasion of 
Alpatuitch, the old nyanya, and her women, had given orders 
to have the horses put in, and had made up her mind to start ; 
but when the coachmen saw the cavalrymen galloping up, 
they took them for the French, and ran away ; and wailing 
and lamentations of women were heard in the house. 

" Batyushka ! " " Blessed father ! " - " God has sent you," 
were the words of welcome that met him, as Kostof passed 
through the anteroom. 

The Princess Mariya, entirely bewildered and weak with 
fright, was sitting in the drawing-room when Kostof was 
brought in to her. She had no idea who he was and why he 



172 WAR AND PEACE. 

was there and what was going to become of her. When she 
saw his Russian face, and recognized by his manner and the 
first words he spoke that he was a man of her own walk in life, 
she looked at him with her deep, radiant eyes, and began to 
speak in broken tones, her voice trembling with emotion. 

Rostof immediately found something very romantic in this 
adventure. " An unprotected maiden, overwhelmed with grief, 
left alone to the mercy of rough, insurgent muzhiks ! And 
what a strange fate has brought me here ! " thought Rostof, 
as he listened to her and looked at her. "And what sweetness 
and gratitude in her features and her words ! " he said to him- 
self, as he listened to her faltering tale. 

When she related all that had taken place on the day after 
her father's obsequies, her voice trembled. She turned aside, 
and then, as though she were afraid Rostof would take her 
words to be an excuse for rousing his pity, she glanced at him 
with a timidly questioning look. 

The tears stood in Rostof's eyes. The Princess Mariya 
observed it, and she looked gratefully at him with those bril- 
liant eyes of hers, which made one forget the plainness of her 
face. 

"I cannot tell you, princess, how happy I am at the chance 
that brought me here, and puts me in position to show you 
how ready I am to serve you," said Rostof, rising. " You can 
start immediately, and I pledge you my word of honor that no 
one shall dare to cause you the slightest unpleasantness, if you 
will only permit me to serve as your escort," and, making her 
a courtly bow such as are made to ladies of the imperial blood, 
he went to the door. By the courtliness of his tone, Rostof 
seemed to show that, in spite of the fact that he should con- 
sider it an honor to be acquainted with her, he would not 
think of taking advantage of her hour of misfortune to inflict 
his acquaintance upon her. 

The Princess Mariya understood and appreciated this deli- 
cacy. 

" I am very, very grateful to you," said she, in French. 
"But I hope that this was merely a misunderstanding, and 
that no one is to blame for it " She suddenly broke down. 
" Forgive me," said she. 

Rostof once more made a low obeisance, and left the room 
with an angry scowl. 






WAR AND PEACE. 17; 



CHAPTER XIV. 

" WELL, now, pretty ? ah, brother, my pink one's a beauty 
and her name is Dunyasha " 

But as he glanced into Rostof s face Ilyin held his tongue. 
He saw that his hero and commander had come back in an 
entirely dii'ferent frame of mind. 

Rostof gave Ilyin a wrathful glance, and, without, deigning 
to give him any answer, he strode swiftly down to the village. 

" I will teach them ! I'll give it to those cut-throats," he 
muttered to himself. 

Alpatuitch, with a sort of swimming gait that was just 
short of running, found it hard to overtake him. 

" What decision have you been pleased to come to ? " he 
asked, at last catching up with him. Rostof halted and, doub- 
ling his fists, made a threatening movement toward Alpatuitch 
suddenly. 

" Decision ? What decision ? You old dotard ! " cried he. 
" What are you staring at ? Ha ? The muzhiks are in 
revolt and you can't bring them to terms ? You yourself are 
;a traitor ! I know you. I'll take the hide off you, the whole of 
you " And, as though afraid of wasting the reserve fund of 
his righteous wrath, he left Alpatuitch and hastened forward. 

Alpatuitch, evidently crushing down his sense of injured 
innocence, hastened after Rostof with that swimming gait of 
his, and continued to give him his opinions in regard to the 
matter. He declared that the muzhiks had got themselves 
into such a state of recalcitrancy, that at the present moment 
it would be imprudent to contrarize them, unless one had a 
squad of soldiers, so that it would be better to send after the 
soldiers first. 

"I'll give them a squad of soldiers I'll show how to con- 
trarize them," replied Rostof, not knowing what he was say- 
ing, and breathing hard from his unreasoning, keen indignation 
and the necessity which he felt of expressing this indignation. 
With no definite plan of action he rushed with strong, reso- 
lute steps straight at the mob. 

And the nearer he approached it, the more firmly convinced 
grew Alpatuitch that this imprudent action of his might lead 
to excellent results. The muzhiks in the throng felt the same 
thing as they saw his swift, unswerving movements and his 
resolute, scowling face. 



174 WAR AND PEACE. 

After the hussars had entered the village and Rostof had 
gone to see the princess, a certain perplexity and division of 
counsels had prevailed among the peasantry. It began to be 
bruited among them that these visitors were Russians, and 
some of the muzhiks declared that they would be angry 
because their baruishnya was detained. Dron was of this 
opinion, but as soon as he had so expressed himself, Karp and 
the other muzhiks attacked their former starosta. 

" How many years have you been getting your belly full out 
of this commune ? " cried Karp. " It's all the same to you. 
You'll dig up your pot of money and be off ! What do you 
care whether they burn up our houses or not ? " 

" The .order was to keep good order : no one to go from their 
homes and not carry off the value of a speck o' dust and 
there she goes with all she's got," cried another. 

" 'Twas your son's turn, but you were too soft on your young 
noodle," suddenly exclaimed a little old man, pitching into 
Dron. " But they shaved my Vanka. Ekh ! we shall die ! " 

" Certainly we shall die ! "' 

"I'm not quit of the commune yet," said Dron. 

" Of course you're not. You've filled your belly, though ! " 

Then two long, lank muzhiks said their say. As soon as 
Rostof, accompanied by Ilyin, Lavrushka, and Alpatuitch, drew 
near the mob, Karp, thrusting his fingers in his belt, and 
slightly smiling, came forward. Dron, on the contrary, got 
into the rear ranks, and the throng crowded closer together. 

" Hey ! Which of you is the starosta here ? " cried Rostof, 
coming up to the mob with swift strides. 

" The starosta ? What do you want of him ? " asked Karp. 

But before he had a chance to utter another word his cap 
flew off, and he was sent reeling with a powerful blow. 

" Hats off, you traitors ! " cried Rostof in a stentorian voice. 
" Where is the starosta ? " he thundered in a frenzied voice. 

" The starosta, he wants the starosta. Dron Zakaruitch 
you ! " was spoken by various officiously submissive voices, 
and every hat was doffed. 

" We should never think of rebelling ; we preserve order," 
insisted Karp, and several voices in the rear ranks at the same 
instant suddenly shouted : 

" It was what the council of elders decided ; we have to 
obey " 

" Do you dare answer back ? Mob ! cut-throats ! trai- 
tors ! " sung out Rostof, beside himself with rage and in an 
unnatural voice, while he seized Karp by the collar. " Bind 






WAR AND PEACE. 175 

him ! Bind him ! " he cried, though there was no one to 
execute his orders except Lavrushka and Alpatuitch. 

Lavrushka, however, sprang forward and seized Karp by 
the arms from behind. " Do you wish us to summon ours 
from below ? " he cried. 

Alpatuitch turned to' the muzhiks, calling two by name, to 
bind Karp's arms. These muzhiks submissively stepped forth 
from the throng and began to unfasten their belts. 

" Where is the starosta ? " cried Eostof. 

Dron. with a pale and frowning face, stood out. 

"You the starosta ? Bind him, Lavrushka," cried Eostof, 
as though it were impossible for this command to meet with 
resistance. And, in point of fact, two other muzhiks began 
to bind Dron, who, in order to facilitate the operation, took off 
his girdle and handed it to them. 

" And see here do you all obey me ! " Eostof had turned 
to the muzhiks. " Disperse to your homes instantly, and 
don't let me hear a word from one of you ! " 

" Come, now ! we hain't done no harm ! " " We've only been 
acting silly." " Made fools of ourselves, that's all." "I 
said there wasn't no such orders," said various voices, re- 
proaching each other. 

" That's what I told you," said Alpatuitch, re-assuming his 
rights. " 'Twasn't right of you, boys." 

Our foolishness, Yakof Alpatuitch," replied the voices, 
and the crowd immediately began to break up and scatter to 
their homes. 

The two muzhiks, with their arms bound, were taken to the 
master's house.* The two drunken men followed. 

Ekh ! now I get a good look at you ! " said one of them, 
addressing Karp. 

How could you, with your betters in that way ? What 
were you thinking of ? Durak ! idiot ! " exclaimed the other. 
" Truly you were an idiot ! " 

Inside of two hours the teams were ready in the dvor of 
the Bogucharovo mansion. The men were zealously lugging 
out and packing up the master's belongings, and Dron, at the 
princess's intercession let out of the shed where he had been 
locked up, directed the muzhiks at their work. 

" Don't pack that away so clumsily," said one of the mu- 
zhiks, a tall man, with a round, smiling face, taking a casket 
from the hands of a chambermaid. " You see, that must 'a' 
cost summat ! Don't sling it in that way, or poke it under a 

clvor, 



176 WAR AND PEACE. 

pile of rope why, it'll get spoiled ! I don't like it that 
way. Lot everything be done neat, according to law ! There, 
that's the way under this mat, and tuck hay round it. 
That's the way to do it ! " 

" Oh, these books ! these books ! " exclaimed another mu- 
zhik, bending under the weight of the bookcases from Prince 
Andrei's library. " Don't you touch them ! Heavy, I tell you, 
boys ! healthy lot of books ! " 

" Yes, that man kept his pen busy, and didn't gad much," 
said the tall, moon-faced muzhik, winking significantly, and 
pointing to some lexicons lying on top. 

Rostof, not wishing to impose his acquaintance upon the j 
princess, did not return to her, but remained in the village, 
waiting for her to pass on her way. Having waited until the 
Princess Mariya's carriages had left the house, Rostof mounted 
and accompanied her on horseback along the highway occu- 
pied by our troops for a dozen versts. 

At Yankovo, where his 'bivouac was, he politely took leave 
of her, and for the first time permitted himself the liberty of | 
kissing her hand. 

" Ought you not to be ashamed of yourself ! " replied Ros- 
tof, reddening, as the Princess Mariya expressed her gratitude 
for his having saved her for so she spoke of what he had 
done. " Any policeman * would have done as much. If we 
had only peasants to fight with, we should not have let the 
enemy advance so far," said he, feeling a twinge of shame, and 
anxious to change the topic. " I am only delighted that this 
has given me a chance of making your acquaintance. Farewell, 
prashcha'ite, princess. I wish you all happiness and conso- 
lation, and I hope that we shall meet under more favorable cir- 
cumstances. If you wish to spare my blushes, please do not 
thank me." 

But the princess, if she did not thank him further in word, 
could not help expressing her gratitude in every feature of 
her face, which fairly beamed with recognizance and gentle- 
ness. She could not believe him when he said that she had 
nothing for which to thank him. On the contrary, it was be- 
yond question that if it had not been for him, she would have 
been utterly lost either at the hands of the insurgent peas- 
ants, or the French ; that he, in order to rescue her, had 
exposed himself to the most palpable and terrible peril ; and 
still less was it a matter of doubt that he was a man of high, 

* StanovOi. 



WAR AND PEACE. 177 

noble spirit, capable of realizing her position and misfortune. 
His kindly, honest eyes, which had filled with sympathetic 
tears when she herself was weeping, and seemed to speak with 
her about her loss, she could not keep out of her thoughts. 

When she bade him farewell, and was left alone, the Prin- 
cess Mariya suddenly felt her eyes fill with tears, and then, it 
seemed not for the first time, the strange question came into 
her mind, " Did she love him ? " 

During the rest of the journey to Moscow, though her posi- 
tion was far from agreeable, the princess, as Dunyasha, who 
rode with her in the carriage, more than once observed, looked 
out of the window and smiled, as though at pleasant-melan- 
choly thoughts. 

" Well, supposing I did fall in love with him," mused the 
Princess Mariya. 

Shameful as it was for her to acknowledge to herself that 
she fell in love at first sight with a man who, perhaps, might 
never reciprocate her love, ctill she comforted herself with 
the thought that no one would ever know it, and that she 
would not be to blame if, even to the end of her life, she, 
without ever telling any one, loved this man whom she loved 
for the first time and the last. 

Sometimes she recalled his looks, his sympathetic interest, 
his words, and happiness seemed to her not out of the bounds 
of the possible. And it was at such times that Dunyasha 
observed that she smiled as she gazed out of the carriage win- 
dow. 

" And it was fate that he should come to Bogucharovo, and 
at such a time ! " said the Princess Mariya. " And it was fate 
that his sister should jilt Prince Andrei ! " And in all this 
the Princess Mariya saw the workings of Providence. 

The impression' made upon Kostof by the Princess Mariya 
was very agreeable. When his thoughts recurred to her, hap- 
piness filled his heart, and when his comrades, learning of his 
adventure at Bogucharovo, joked him because, in going after 
hay, he had fallen in with one of the richest heiresses of 
Russia, Rostof lost his temper. He lost his temper for the 
very reason that the idea of marrying the princess, who had 
impressed him so pleasantly, and who had such an enormous, 
property, had more than once, against his will, occurred to 
him. As far as he personally was concerned, he could not 
wish a better wife than the Princess Mariya. To marry her 
would give great delight to the countess, his mother, and would 
help him to extricate his fathers affairs from their wreck** 
VOL. 3. 12. 



178 WAR AND PEACE. 

and then, again, Nikolai felt this, it would be for the Prin- 
cess Mariya's happiness. 

But Sonya ? And his plighted troth ? And that was the 
reason Rostof grew angry when they joked him about the 
Princess Bolkonskaya. 



CHAPTEE XV. 

HAVING accepted the command of the armies, Kutuzof 
remembered Prince Andrei, and sent word to him to join him 
at headquarters. Prince Andrei reached Tsarevo-Zai-mishche 
on the very day and at the very time when Kutuzof was mak- 
ing his first review of the troops. 

He stopped in the village, at the house of a priest, in front 
of which the chief commander's carriage was standing, and 
took his seat on the bench in front of the door, waiting for 
his " serene highness,'' * as every one now called Kutuzof. 
From the field back of the village came the sound of martial 
music, then the roar of a trem ^ndous throng of men shouting 
" Hurrah ! Hurrah ! " in honor of the commander-in-chief. 

A dozen steps or so from Prince Andrei stood a couple of 
Kutuzof's servants the courier and his house-steward, 
profiting by the prince's absence and the beautiful weather to 
come out to the-gates. 

A dark-complexioned little lieutenant-colonel of hussars, 
with a portentous growth of mustache and side-whiskers, came 
riding up to the gates, and, seeing Prince Andrei, asked if his 
serene highness lodged there, and if he would soon return. 

Prince Andrei replied that he was not a member of his 
serene highness's staff, and had, likewise, only just arrived. 

The lieutenant-colonel turned to the spruce-looking denshchik 
with the same question ; and the chief commander's denshchik 
answered him with that contemptuous indifference with which 
the servants of commanders-iii-chief are apt to treat under- 
officers. 

" What ? His serene highness ? Likely to be here before 
long. What do you want ? " 

The lieutenant laughed in his mustaches at the denshchik's 
tone, dismounted from his horse, gave the bridle to his orderly, 
and joined Bolkonsky, making him a stiff little bow. Bolkon- 
sky made room for him on the bench. The officer of hussars 
sat down next him. 

Svietletshfi, 



WAR AND PEACE. 179 

"So you're waiting for the commander-in-chief too, are 
you ? " asked the lieutenant-colonel. " He's weported to be 
vewy accessible ! Thank God for that ! That was the twouble 
with those sausage-stuffers. There was some weason in Yer- 
molof asking to be weckoned as a German. Now pe'w'aps we 
'Ussians may have something to say about things now. The 
devil knows what they've been doing ! Always wetweating 
always wetweating ! Have you been making the campaign ? " 
he asked. 

" I have had that pleasure," replied Prince Andrei. " Not 
only have I taken part in the retreat, but I have lost thereby 
all that I hold dear, to say nothing of my property and the 
home of my ancestors, my father, who died of grief. I am 
Smolensk." 

" Ah ? Are you Pwince Bolkonsky ? Wight glad to make 
your acquaintance : Lieutenant-Colonel Denisof, better 
known as Vaska," said Denisof, shaking hands with Prince 
Andrei, and looking with a peculiarly gentle expression into 
.lis face. " Yes, I heard about it," said he sympathetically ; 
and, after a short pause, he continued, " And so this is Scy- 
thian warfare. It's all vewy good except for those whose 
"vribs are bwoken. And you are Pwince Andrei Bolkonsky ? " 
He shook his head. " Vewy, vewy glad, pwince, vewy glad to 
make your acquaintance," he repeated for the second time, 
squeezing his hand. 

Prince Andrei had known from Natasha that Denisof was her 
first suitor. This recollection, at once sweet and bitter, brought 
back to him those painful sensations which of late he had not 
allowed himself to harbor, but which were always in his heart. 
E-ecently so many other and more serious impressions like 
the evacuation of Smolensk, his visit to Luisiya Gorui, the 
news of his father's death and so many new sensations had 
been experienced by him that it was some time since he had 
even thought of his disappointment, and now, when he was 
reminded of it, it seemed so long ago that it did not affect him 
with its former force. 

For Denisof, also, the series of recollections conjured up in 
his mind by Bolkonsky's name belonged to a distant, poetic 
past, to that time when he, after the supper, and after Natasha 
\ad sung for him,' himself not realizing what he was doing, 
Offered himself to a maiden of fifteen ! He smiled from his 
secollection of that time, and of his love for Natasha, and im- 
/nediately proceeded to the topic which at the present pas- 
sionately occupied him to the exclusion of everything eise. 



180 WAR AND PEACE. 

This was a plan of campaign which, he had developed during 
the retreat, while on dut} r at the outposts. He had proposed 
this plan to Barclay de Tolly, and was now bent on proposing 
it to Kutuzof. The plan was based on the fact that the 
French line of operations was too widely spread out, and his 
idea was that, instead of attacking them in front, or, possibly, 
in connection with offensive attacks at the front, so as to block 
their road, it was necessary to act against their communica- 
tions. 

" They can't sustain such a long line. It is impossible ! 
I'll pwomise to bweak thwough them ; give me five hundwed 
men and I'll cut my way thwough, twuly. A sort of system 
of guwillas." 

Denisof had got up in his excitement, and as he lajd his 
plan before Bolkonsky he gesticulated eagerly. In the midst 
of his exposition, the acclamations of the military, more than 
ever incoherent, more than ever diffused and mingled with 
music and songs, were heard in the direction of the review- 
grounds. The trampling of horses and shouts were heard in 
the village. 

" Here he comes," shouted the Cossack guard. Bolkonsky 
and Denisof went down to the gates, where were gathered a 
little knot of soldiers, composing the guard of honor, and 
saw Kutuzof coming down the street, mounted on his little 
bay cob. A tremendous suite of generals accompanied him ; 
Barclay de Tolly was riding almost abreast of him. A throng 
of officers followed them and closed in around them on all 
sides, shouting " Hurrah ! " 

His adjutants galloped on ahead of him into the yard, 
Kutuzof impatiently spurring his steed, which cantered along 
heavily under his weight, and constantly nodding his head 
and raising his hand to his white cavalier-guard cap, which 
was decorated with a red I3ancl and without a visor. As he 
came up to his guard of honor composed of gallant grenadiers. 
for the most part cavalrymen, who presented arms, he 
for an instant gazed silently and shrewdly at them with the 
stubborn look of one used to command, and turned back to 
the throng of generals and other officers standing around 
him. Over his face suddenly passed an artful expression ; he 
shrugged his shoulders with a gesture of perplexity. 

"The idea of retreating, and retreating with such gallant 
fellows!" said he. "Well, good-by,* general," he added, and 
turned his horse into the gates, past Prince Andrei and Denisof. 

* Do svidanya. 



WAR AND PEACE. 181 

"Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!" The acclamations rent 
the aii' behind him. 

Kutuzof, since Prince Andrei had last seen him, had grown 
stouter than ever ; he fairly weltered in fat. But the 
whitened eye, and the wound, and that expression of lassitude 
in face and figure, which he knew so well, were the same. He 
was dressed in a military long coat a whip hung by a slen- 
der ribbon over his shoulder and he wore his white cava- 
lier-guard shako. Heavily sprawled out and swaying, he sat 
his little horse. His fiu fiu fiu could be heard almost 
distinctly as he rode, breathing sharply, into the courtyard. 

His face had that expression of relief which a man shows 
when he makes up his mind to have a rest after a public 
exhibition. He extricated his left leg from the stirrup, leaned 
back with his whole body, and, scowling with the exertion of 
getting his leg up over the saddle, rested with his knee a 
moment, and then with a quack like a duck he let himself 
down into the arms of the Cossacks and adjutants, who were 
waiting to assist him. 

He straightened himself up, glanced around with blinking 
eyes, and, catching sight of Prince Andrei, he evidently failed 
to recognize him, and set out with his clumsy, plunging gait 
for the steps. Fiu fiu fiu he puffed, and again he glanced 
at Prince Andrei. The impression made by Prince Andrei's 
face, though it was reached only after several seconds, as is 
often the case with old men, at last connected itself with 
the recollection of who he was. 

" Ah ! good-day, prince, good-day. How are you, my good 
fellow ? * come with me," he said wearily, glancing round, and 
beginning heavily to mount the steps, which groaned under 
his weight. Then he unbuttoned his uniform and sat down 
on the bench at the top of the steps. 

" Well, how is your father ? " 

"Yesterday I received news of his death," said Prince 
Andrei abruptly. 

Kutuzof looked at Prince Andrei with startled, wide-opened 
eyes ; then he took off his cap and crossed himself. 

"The kingdom of heaven be his. God's will be done to us 
all." 

He drew a deep, heavy sigh and was long silent. " I loved 
him dearly and I realized his worth, and I sympathize with 
you with all my heart." 

He embraced Prince Andrei, pressed him to his fat chest 
* Gohtbchik. 



182 WAR AND PEACE. 

and held him there long. When at last he released him, 
Prince Andrei saw that his blubbery lips trembled, and that 
his eyes were full of tears. He sighed and took hold of the 
bench with both hands so as to rise. 

" Come, come to my room and let us talk ! " said he, but 
just at that instant Denisof, who was as little apt to quail 
before his superiors as before his enemies, strode with jingling 
spurs to the steps, in spite of the adjutants, who with indig- 
nant whispers tried to stop him. Kutuzof, still clinging to 
the bench, gave him a displeased look. 

Denisof, introducing himself, explained that he had some- 
thing of the greatest importance for the good of the country 
to communicate to his serene highness. Kutuzof, with his 
weary look, continued to stare at Denisof, and, with a gesture 
of annoyance, released his hands and folded them on his belly, 
repeating : "For the good of the country ? Well, what is it ? 
Speak ! " 

Denisof reddened like a girl how strange it was to see 
the blush on the mustachioed, bibulous face of the veteran, 
and he began boldly to evolve his plan for breaking through 
the enemy's effective line between Smolensk and Viazma. 
Denisof's home was in this region, and he was well acquainted 
with every locality. His plan seemed unquestionably excel- 
lent, especially owing to the force of conviction which he put 
into his words. Kutuzof regarded his own legs, and occa- 
sionally looked over into the dvor or yard of the adjoining 
cottage, as though he were expecting something unpleasant to 
appear from there. And in reality from the cottage at which 
he was looking, during Denisof's speech, emerged a general 
with a portfolio under his arm. 

" What ? " exclaimed Kutuzof, interrupting Denisof in the 
midst of his exposition. "Ready so soon ?" 

" Yes, your serene highness," replied the general. Kutuzof 
shook his head as much as to say, "How can one man have 
time for all this ? " and went on listening to Denisof. 

"I give my twuest word of honor as a 'Ussian officer," 
insisted Denisof, " that I will cut off Napoleon's communica- 
tions." 

" What ! is Kirill Andreyevitch Denisof, Ober-intendant, any 
relation of yours ? " asked Kutuzof, interrupting him. 

"My own uncle, your serene highness." 

" Oh, we were good friends," exclaimed Kutuzof, jovially. 
" Very good, very good, my dear.* Stay here at headquar- 
ters ; we will talk it over to-morrow." 

* Golubchik. 



WAR AND PEACE 183 

[Nodding to Denisof, he turned away, and stretched out his 
hand for the papers, which Konovnitsuin had brought him. 

" Would not your serene highness find it more comfortable 
to come into the house ? " suggested the officer of the day, in a 
dissatisfied tone. " It's absolutely essential to look over some 
plans, and to sign a number of documents." 

An adjutant, appearing at the door, announced that his 
rooms were all ready. But Kutuzof evidently wanted not to 
go indoors until he was free. He scowled. 

" No, have a table brought out, my dear ; I'll look at them 
here," said he. " Don't you go," he added, addressing Prince 
Andrei. Prince Andrei remained on the steps, and listened to 
the officer of the day. 

During the rendering of the report, Prince Andrei heard in 
the passageway the whispering of a woman's voice and the rus- 
tling of a woman's silken gown. Several times, as he glanced 
in that direction, he caught sight of a round, ruddy-faced, 
pretty woman, in a pink dress, and with a lilac silk handker- 
chief over her head, holding a dish in her hands, and evi- 
dently waiting for the return of the commander-in-chief. One 
of Kutuzofs adjutants explained to Prince Andrei in a whis- 
per that this was the mistress of the house, the pope's wife, 
who was all ready to offer his serene highness the khleb-sol* 
Ker husband had already met his highness with the cross at 
the church, and here she was at home with the bread and salt. 

" Very pretty ! " added the adjutant, with a smile. Kutu- 
zof looked up on hearing that. He had been listening to the 
general's report, the principal feature of which was a 
critique on the position at Tsarevo-Zaimishche, just exactly 
as he had listened to Denisof, just exactly as he had listened 
to the discussions at the council on the night before the battle 
of Austerlitz, seven years previously. It was evident that 
he listened merely because he had ears, which could not help 
hearing, although one of them was stuffed full of tarred hemp ; 
but it was plain that nothing that the general on duty could 
say could either arouse him or interest him, and that he knew 
in advance what would be said, and listened only because he 
had to listen, as he might have to listen to the singing of a 
Te Deum. 

All that Denisof said was practical and sensible. What the 

general on duty said was still more practical and sensible, 

but it was evident that Kutuzof scorned both knowledge and 

sense, and took for granted that something else was needed to 

* Bread and salt, typical of Russian hospitality. 



184 WAR AND PEACE. 

decide the matter ; something else, and quite independent of 
sense and knowledge. 

Prince Andrei attentively watched the expression of the 
chief commander's face, and the only expression which he 
could distinguish in it was one of tedium, or of curiosity as to 
the meaning of a woman's whispering inside the door, and the 
desire to save appearances. 

It was evident that Kutuzof scorned sense and knowledge, 
and even the patriotic feeling shown by Denisof, but that he 
did not scorn them by his own superior sense and knowledge 
and feeling for he did not try to manifest these qualities, 
but he scorned them from some other reason. He scorned 
them because of his advanced age, because of his experience 
of life. 

The one single disposition which Kutuzof felt called upon to 
make in connection with this report related to the marauding 
of the Russian soldiers. The general on duty, on finishing 
his report, presented to his serene highness, to sign, a paper 
granting a favorable answer to a proprietor who had peti- 
tioned for the military authorities to reimburse him for the 
loss of, his standing oats, which had been taken on requisition. 

Kutuzof smacked his lips and shook his head when he heard 
about this. 

"Into the stove with it burn it! I tell you, once and 
for all, my dear," said he, " throw all such things into the 
fire. Let 'em reap the grain and burn the wood as they need. 
I don't order it, and I don't allow it, but, if it is done, I can't 
pay for it. It can't be helped. ' If wood is cut, the chips 
fly.' " * He glanced once more at the paper. " Oh, German 
punctilio ! " he exclaimed, shaking his head. 



CHAPTEE XVI. 

"WELL, that is all, is it ? " asked Kutuzof, affixing his name 
to the last of the documents ; and, rising laboriously, and 
settling the folds of his white, puffy neck, he went to the door 
with a cheerful face. 

The pope's wife, with flushed face, grasped for the plate, 
which, though she had' prepared it so long in advance, she 
nevertheless failed to present in time. And, with a low obei- 
sance, she offered the bread and salt to Kutuzof. Kutuzof's 
eyes twinkled ; he smiled, chucked her under the chin, and 
said : 

* Kussian proverb. 






WAR AND PEACE. 185 

" What a pretty woman you are ! Thanks, sweetheart ! " * 

He drew out of his trousers pocket a few gold pieces, and 
laid them in the plate. " Well, then, how are we situated ? " 
said he, going toward the room reserved for his private use. 

The pope's wife, with every dimple in her rosy face smil- 
ing, followed him into the chamber. 

An adjutant came to Prince Andrei, as he stood on the 
steps, and invited him to breakfast. In half an hour he was 
again summoned to Kutuzof. Kutuzof was sprawled out in an 
easy-chair, with his uniform coat unbuttoned.. He held a 
French book in his hand, and, when Prince Andrei came in, 
he laid it down, marking the place with a knife. This book, 
as Prince Andrei could see by the cover, was Les Chevaliers 
du Cygne, a work by Madame de Genlis. 

" Well, now, sit down, sit down here," said K,utuzof. " It's 
sad, very sad. But remember, my boy, that I am a father to 
you a second father.'' 

Prince Andrei told Kutuzuf all that he knew about his 
father's death, and what he had seen at Luisiya Gorui as he 
passed through. 

" To what to what have they brought us ! " suddenly 
exclaimed Kutuzof, in an agitated voice, evidently getting 
from Prince Andrei's story a clear notion of the state in which 
Russia found herself. 

" Wait a bit ! wait a bit ! " he added, with a wrathful ex- 
pression, and then, evidently not wishing to dwell on this 
agitating topic, he went on to say : 

" I have summoned you to keep you with me." 

" I thank your serene highness," replied Prince Andrei, 
"but I fear that I am not good for staff service," he explained 
with a smile which Kutuzof remarked. " And chiefly," added 
Prince Andrei, "I am used to my regiment. I have grown 
very fond of the officers, and the men, so far as I can judge, 
are fond of me. I should be sorry to leave my regiment. If 
I decline the honor of being on your staff, believe me, it is " 

A keen, good-natured, and at the same time shrewdly sar- 
castic expression flashed over Kutuzof's puffy face. He inter- 
rupted Bolkonsky. 

" I am sorry. You might have been useful to me ; but you 
are right, you are right. We don't need men here ! There 
are everywhere plenty of advisers, but not of men. Our regi- 
ments would be very different if all the advice-givers would 
serve in them as you do. I remember you at Austerlitz 

* Golubushka. 



186 WAR AND PEACE. 

I remember you ; I remember you with the standard," said 
Kutuzof, and a flush of pleasure spread over Prince Andrei's 
face at this recollection. Kutuzof drew him close, and stroked 
his cheek, and again Prince Andrei observed tears in his eyes. 
Though Prince Andrei knew that tears were Kutuzof 's weak 
point, and that he was especially flattering to him, and was 
anxious to express his sympathy for his loss, still Prince Andrei 
felt particularly happy and gratified at this allusion to Aus- 
terlitz. 

" Go, and God bless you ! I know, your road is the road 
of honor." 

He paused. 

" I missed you sadly at Bukarest. I had to send a mes- 
senger." 

And, changing the conversation, Kutuzof began to talk 
about the Turkish war and the peace which had been con- 
cluded. 

" Yes, they abused me not a little," said he, " both for the 
war and for the peace ; but all came about in time. Tout vient 
a point a cdui qui sait attendre. There I had just as many 
advisers as I have here," he went on to say, turning to the 
counsellors who were evidently his pre-occupation. " Okh ! 
these counsellors, these counsellors ! " he exclaimed. " If 
their advice had been taken, we should be still in Turkey, and 
peace would not have been signed, and the war would not be 
over yet. Everything in haste, but ' fast never gets far.' If 
Kamiensky had not died, he would have been ruined. He 
stormed a fortress with thirty thousand men. There's noth- 
ing hard in taking a fortress ; it's hard to gain a campaign. 
And to do that, not to storm and attack, but patience and time 
are what is required. Kamiensky sent his soldiers against 
Kushchuk ; and while I employed nothing but time and 
patience, I took more fortresses than Kamiensky ever did, and 
I made the Turks feed on horse-flesh." He shook his head. 
" And the French will do the same. Take my word for it," 
he exclaimed, growing more animated, and pounding his chest, 
" if I have anything to do with it, they will be eating horse- 
flesh too ! " And again his eyes overflowed with tears. 

" Still, you'll have to accept a battle, won't you ? " asked 
Prince Andrei. 

"Certainly, if every one demands it, there's no help for 
it. But trust me, my boy.* There are no more powerful 
fighters than these two, Time and Patience ; they do every 



WAR AND PEACE. 187 

thing. But our advisers n'entendent pas de cette oreille, voila 
le mat ; that's the trouble. They won't see it in that light. 
Some are in favor, and some are opposed. What's to be done ? " 
he asked, and waited for an answer. " Yes, what is it you 
advise doing ? " he repeated, and his eyes gleamed with an 
expression of deep cunning. " I will tell you what is to be 
done," he went on to say, when Prince Andrei still refrained 
from expressing ?ny opinion. " I will tell you what is to be 
done, and I shall do it. Dans le doute, mon cher" he hesi- 
tated, " abstiens-toi. When in doubt, don't)" he repeated, 
after an interval. " Well, good-by, prashchai, my dear boy. 
Remember that I sympathize with all my heart in your loss, 
and that to you I am not His Serene Highness nor prince nor 
commander-in-chief, but a father to you. If you want any- 
thing, apply directly to me. Good-by, my dear." * 

He again embraced and kissed him. And before Prince 
Andrei had actually reached the door, Kutuzof drew a long 
sigh of relief, and had resumed his unfinished novel by 
Madame de Grenlis, Les Chevaliers du Cygne. 

Prince Andrei could not account to himself for the why or 
wherefore of it, but it was a fact that after this interview with 
Kutuzof, he returned to his regiment much relieved as to the 
general course of affairs, and as to the wisdom of intrusting 
them to this man whom he had just seen. The more he real- 
ized the utter absence of all self-seeking in this old man, who 
seemed to have outlived ordinary passions, and whose intel- 
lect that is, the power of co-ordinating events and drawing 
conclusions had resolved itself into the one faculty of 
calmly holding in check the course of events, the more 
assured Prince Andrei felt that everything would turn out as 
it should. 

"There is nothing petty and personal about him. He 
won't give way to his imaginations ; he won't do anything 
rash," said Prince Andrei to himself, " but he will listen to 
all suggestions; he will remember everything; he will have 
everything in its place ; he will hinder nothing that is useful, 
and permit nothing that is harmful ; he will remember that 
there is something more powerful and more tremendous than 
his will, the inevitable course of events, and he will have 
the brains to see them ; he will have the ability to realize 
their significance, and, in view of this significance, he will be 
sensible enough to see what a small part he himself and his 
own will have to play in them. But chief of all," thought 
* Prashchai, golubchik. 



188 WAR AND PEACE. 

Prince Andrei, " what makes me have confidence in him is 
that he is Russian, hi spite of his French romance of Madame 
de Genlis and his French phrases ; because his voice trembled 
when he exclaimed, f What have they brought us to ? ' and 
because he sobbed when he declared that he would make them 
eat horse-flesh." 

It was due to this feeling, which all felt more or less vaguely, 
that Kutuzof's selection as commander-in-chief, in spite of 
court cabals, met with such unanimous and general recognition 
among the people. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

AFTER the sovereign's departure from Moscow, the life in 
the capital flowed on in its ordinary channels, and the current 
of this life was so commonplace that it was hard to recall 
those days of patriotic enthusiasms and impulses, and hard to 
believe that Russia was actually in peril, and that the mem- 
bers of the English Club were at the same time " Sons of the 
Fatherland," and had declared themselves prepared for any 
sacrifice. 

The only thing that recalled the general spasm of patriotic 
enthusiasm that had taken place during the sovereign's recent 
visit to Moscow, was the demand for men and money, which, 
comh/g now in legal, official form, had to be met, the sacrifice- 
having once been offered. 

Though the enemy were approaching Moscow, the Mos- 
covites were not inclined to regard their situation with any 
greater degree of seriousness : on the contrary, the matter was 
treated with peculiar lightness, as is always the case with 
people who see a great catastrophe approaching. 

At such a time, two voices are always heard speaking loudly 
in the heart of man : the one, with perfect reasonableness, 
always preaches the reality of the peril, and counsels him to 
seek for means of avoiding it : the other, with a still greater 
show of reason, declares that it is too painful and difficult to 
think about danger, since it is not in the power of man to fore- 
see everything or to escape the inevitable course of events ; 
and, therefore, it is better to shut the eyes to the disagreeable, 
until it actually comes, and to think only of the present. 

When a man is alone, he generally gives himself up to the 
first voice, but in society, on the contrary, to the second. And 
this was the case at the present time with the inhabitants of 
Moscow. - 



WAR AND PEACE. 

Moscow had not been so gay for a long time as it was that 
year. Rostopchin's placards, called affiches, or afishki, were 
read and criticised just as were the couplets of Vasili Lvovitch 
Pushkin.* On the top of them were represented the picture 
of a drinking-house and the tapster and Moscovite meshchanin, 
Karpushka Chigirin, who, having been an old soldier, on hearing 
that Bonaparte was 'marching upon Moscow, fortified himself 
with a brimming nog of liquor' in the shop, flew into a passion, 
heaped every sort of vile epithets upon all the French, stepped 
forth from the drinking-house, and harangued the crowd col- 
lected under the eagle. 

At the club, in the corner room, men collected to read these 
bulletins, and some were pleased when Karpushka made sport 
of the French and said, " They would swell up with cabbage, 
burst their bellies with kasha gruel, choke themselves with shchi, 
that they were all dwarfs, and that a peasant woman would toss 
three of them at once with a pitchfork" 

Some, however, criticised this tone, and declared that it was 
rude and stupid. It was reported that Rostopchin had sent 
the French, and, indeed, all other foreigners, out of Moscow ; 
that Napoleon had spies and agents among them ; but this 
story was told merely for the sake of repeating certain sar- 
donic words which Rostopchin was credited with saying about 
their destination. These foreigners were embarked on the 
Volga at Nizhni, and Rostopchin said to them, 

" Rentrez en vous-memes, entrez dans la barque, et n'en faites 
pas une barque de Charon Creep into yourselves," that is, 
keep out of sight " creep on board the boat, and try not to let 
it become a Charon's bark for you." 

It was also reported that the courts of justice had been 
removed from the city, and here there was a chance given for 
repeating one of Shinshin's jests, to the effect that for this, at 
least, Moscow ought to be grateful to Napoleon. 

It was said that Mamonof's regiment would cost him eight 
hundred thousand, that Bezukhoi was spending still more on 
his warriors ; but the best joke of all was that the count him- 

* Vasili Lvovitch Pushkin, the uncle of the poet Aleksandr Sergyeyevitch 
Pushkin, was born at Moscow in April, 1770; served in the body guard in the 
Izmailovsky regiment till 1797; began to contribute to the Petersburg " Mer- 
cury," 1793; wrote an immense number of epistles, elegies, fables, epigrams, 
madrigals, etc. The war of 1812 sent him to Nizhni Novgorod, where he 
remained till 1815. He died September 1, 1830, about seven years before his 
more famous namesake was killed. His best known work, " Opdsnui 
Sosyed A Dangerous Neighbor," has been thrice republished : Munich, 
1815 ; Leipsic, 1855 ; Berlin, 1859. 



190 WAR AND PEACE. 

self was going to buckle on his uniform and ride in front of 
his regiment ; and those who would be in the front to see this 
great sight would not sell their chances for any money. 

" You have no mercy on any one," said Julie Drubetskaya, 
picking up and squeezing a bunch of picked lint between her 
slender fingers covered with rings. 

Julie had determined to leave Moscow the next day, and 
she was giving her last reception. " Bezukhoi is ridicule, but 
he is so good, so kind ! What is the pleasure to be so cans- 
tique ? " 

"Fined!" exclaimed a young man, in a militia-uniform, 
whcm Julie called " Mon chevalier" and who was going to 
accompany her to Nizhni. 

In Julie's set, as in many other sets of Moscow society, it 
had been agreed to speak only in Russian, and those who for- 
got themselves and made use of French words in conversation, 
had to pay a fine, which was turned over to the committee of 
public defence. 

" That's a double fine, for a Gallicism," said a Russian 
author who was in the drawing-room. " < Pleasure to be ' is 
not good Russian." 

" You show no mercy upon any one," pursued Julie, paying 
heed to the author's criticism. 

( For using the word caustique, I admit my guilt, and will 
pay my fine for it, and for the pleasure, to tell you the truth, 
I am ready to pay another fine ; but for Gallicisms I am not 
to be held answerable," she said, turning to the author. " I 
have neither the money nor the time to hire a teacher and take 
Russian lessons, as Prince Golitsuin is doing." 

" Ah, there he is," exclaimed Julie. " Quand on No, no," 
said she to the militia-man, " do not count that one, I'll say 
it in Russian : ' When we speak of the sun we see his rays/ " 
said the hostess, giving Pierre a fascinating smile u We 
were just talking about you. We were saying that your regi- 
ment would be really much better than Mamonof's," said she, 
with one of those white lies so characteristic of society women. 

" Akh ! don't speak to me about my regiment," replied 
Pierre, kissing the hostess's hand, and taking a chair near her. 
" I am tired to death of it." 

" But surely you are going to take the command of it your- 
self ? " asked Julie, shooting a glance of cunning and ridicule 
at the militia-man. 

The militia-man in Pierre's presence was not so caustique, 
and his face expressed some perplexity at the meaning ex 



WAR AND PEACE. 191 

pressed in Julie's smile. In spite of his absent-mindedness 
and good humor, Pierre's personality immediately cut short 
all attempts to make a butt of him in his own presence. 

" No," replied Pierre, with a glance down at his big, portly 
frame, "I should be too good a mark for the French, and. I 
am afraid that I could not get on a horse." 

Among those who came up as a subject for gossip in the 
course of the shifting conversation were the Eostofs. 

"They say their affairs are in a very bad condition," re- 
marked Julie. " And the count himself is so utterly lacking 
in common sense ! The Razumovskys wanted to buy his 
house and his pod-Moskovnaya, and it is still in abeyance. 
He asks too much." 

"No, I believe the sale was effected a few days ago/' said 
some one. " Though now it is nonsense for any one to buy 
property in Moscow." 

' Why ? " asked Julie. " Do you imagine there is any real 
danger for Moscow ? " 

" What makes you go away ? " 

" I ? That is an odd question. I am going because, be- 
eause, well I am going because everybody's going, and 
because I am not a Joan d'Arc and not an Amazon." 

" There, now, give me some more rags." 

" If he can only economize, he may be able to settle all ' his 
debts," pursued the militia-man, still speaking of Count 
Rostof. 

"A good old man, but a very pauvre sire. And why have 
they been living here so long ? They intended long ago to 
start for the country. Nathalie, I believe, is perfectly restored 
to health ? Isn't she ? " asked Julie of Pierre with a mali- 
cious smile. 

" They are waiting for their youngest son," replied Pierre. 
" He was enrolled among Obolyensky's Cossacks and was sent 
to Byelaya Tserkov.* The regiment was ' mobilizing there. 
But now he has been transferred to my regiment and is 
expected every day. The count wanted to start long ago, but 
the countess utterly refused to leave Moscow until her son 
came." 

" I saw them three days ago at the Arkharofs'. Nathalie 
has grown very pretty again and was very gay. She sang a 
romanza. How easy it is for some people to forget every- 
thing." 

" Forget what ? " asked Pierre impulsively. 
* White church. 



192 WAR AND PEACE. 

Julie smiled. " You know, count, that knights like you 
are to be found only in the romances of Madame de Souza." 

" What sort of knights ? Why, what do you mean ? " 
asked Pierre, reddening. 

" Oh, fie now ! dear count, cest la fable de tout Moscou. Je 
vous admire, ma parole d'honneur ! " 

" Fined ! Fined ! " exclaimed the militia-man. 

"Very well, then! It's impossible to talk; how annoying!" 

" Qwest ce qui est la fable de tout Moscou?" asked Pierre, 
angrily rising to his feet. 

" Oh ! fie ! count. You know ! " 

" I don't know at all what you mean," said Pierre. 

" I know that you and Nathalie were good friends, and con- 
sequently No, I always liked Viera better. Cette chere 
Vera ! " 

" Non, Madame" pursued Pierre in a tone of annoyance. 
"I have never in the slightest degree taken upon myself to 
play the role of knight to Mile. Rostova, and I have not been 
at their house for almost a month. But I do not understand 
the cruelty " 

" Qui s' excuse s' accuse" said Julie, smiling and waving the 
lint, and, in order to have the last* word herself, she abruptly 
changed the conversation. "What do you suppose I heard 
last night ? poor Marie Bolkonskaya arrived in Moscow yes- 
terday. Have you heard ? She has lost her father ! " 

" Really ? Where is she ? I should like very much to see 
her," said Pierre. 

" I spent last evening with her. She is going to-day or to- 
morrow morning with her little nephew to their pod-Moskov- 
naya." 

" But -what about her ? How is she ? " insisted Pierre. 

" Well, but sad. But do you know who rescued her ? It's 
a perfect romance ! Nicolas Rostof ! She was surrounded ; 
they would have killed her ; her people were wounded. He 
rushed in and saved her " 

" Lots of romances ! " exclaimed the militia-man. " Really 
this general stampede seems to have been made for providing 
husbands for all the old maids. Catiche is one, the princess 
Bolkonskaya two " 

" Do you know, really I think that she is un petit pen 
amoureuse du jeune homme?" 

" Fined ! Fined ! Fined ! " 

" But really how do you say that in Russian ? " 



WAR AND PEACE. 193 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

WHEN Pierre reached home he was handed two of Kostop- 
chin's bulletins, which had been distributed that very day. 

In the first the count denied having forbidden any one to 
leave Moscow, and declared that, on the contrary, he was de- 
lighted to have ladies of rank and merchants' wives leave 
town. ''Less panic, less gossip!" said the bulletin. "But 
I assure the inhabitants that the villain will never be in 
Moscow. 7 ' 

By these words Pierre was for the first time fairly convinced 
that the French would get to Moscow. 

The second affiche proclaimed that our headquarters were 
at Viazma, that Count Wittgenstein had beaten the French, 
but that, as very many of the inhabitants had expressed a 
desire to arm themselves, there were plenty of weapons for 
them at the arsenal : sabres, pistols, muskets, which could 
be bought at the lowest prices. 

The tone of this affiche was not nearly so full of grim 
humor as those which had been before attributed to the tap- 
ster Chigirin. Pierre pondered over these bulletins. Evi- 
dently that threatening storm-cloud which he looked forward 
to with all the powers of his soul, andwhich at the same time 
aroused in him involuntary horror, evidently this storm- 
cloud was drawing near. 

" Shall I enter the military service and join the army, or 
shall I wait ? " This question arose in his mind for the hun- 
dredth time. He took a pack of cards which was lying on the 
table near him and began to lay out a game of patience. 

" If this game comes out," said he to himself as he shuffled 
the cards, held them in his hand and looked up " if it comes 
out right, then it means What shall it mean ? " 

Before he had time to decide on what it should mean, he 
heard at the door of his cabinet the voice of the oldest prin- 
cess, asking if she might come in. 

"Well, it shall mean that I must join the army," said Pierre 
to himself. " Come in, come in," he added, replying to the 
princess. 

Only the oldest of the three princesses the one with the 
long waist continued to make her home at Pierre's ; the two 
younger ones were married. 

" Forgive me, mon cousin, for disturbing you," said she, in 
VOL. 3. 13. 



194 WAR AND PEACE. 

an agitated voice. " But you see it is high time to reach some 
decision. What is going to be the outcome of this ? Every- 
body is leaving Moscow, and the people are riotous. Why do 
we stay ? " 

"On the contrary, everything looks very propitious, ma 
cousine," said Pierre, in that tone of persiflage which, in order 
to hide his confusion at having to play the part of benefactor 
before the princess, he always adopted in his dealings with 
her. 

" Yes, everything is propitious ! Certainly a fine state of 
affairs ! This very day Varvara Ivanovna was telling me how 
our armies had distinguished themselves. . It brings them the 
greatest possible honor. But still the servants are exceed- 
ingly refractory ; they won't obey at all ; my maid why, 
she was positively insolent ! And before we know it they will 
be massacring us. It is impossible to go into the streets. 
But if the French are liable to be here to-day or to-morrow, 
why should we wait for them ? I ask for only one favor, 
mon cousin," pleaded the princess. " Give orders to have me 
taken to Petersburg. Whatever I am, I cannot endure to live 
under the sway of Bonaparte ! " 

"There, there, ma cousine f Where have you gotten your 
information ? On the contrary " 

" I will not submit to your Napoleon ! Others may If 
you do not wish to do this for me " 

" Yes, I will do it. I will give orders immediately." 

The princess was evidently annoyed that she had no one 
to quarrel with. She sat on the edge of her chair, muttering 
to herself. 

"Nevertheless, this has been reported to you all wrong," 
said Pierre. " All is quiet in the city, and there is not the 
slightest danger. Here, I was just this moment reading." 
Pierre showed the princess Rostopchin's bulletins. " The count 
writes that he will be personally responsible for the enemy 
never entering Moscow." 

" Akh ! this count of yours," exclaimed the princess, angrily. 
" He's a hypocrite, a rascal ! who has himself been exciting 
the people to sedition. Wasn't he the one who wrote in these 
idiotic affiches that, if there was any one found, to take him 
by the top-knot and drag him to the police office how 
stupid ! And whoever should take one should have glory and 
honor. That is a fine way of doing ! Varvara Ivanovna told 
me that the mob almost killed her because she spoke French." 

" Well, there's something in that. But you take everything 



WAR AtfD PEACE. 195 

too much to heart," said Pierre, and he began to lay out his 
patience. 

His game of patience came out correctly, and yet Pierre did 
not join the army, but he remained in deserted Moscow, in the 
same fever of anxiety and indecision and fear, and, at the 
same time, joy, though he was expecting something horrible. 

Toward evening of the following day the princess took her 
departure, and Pierre's head overseer came to him with the 
report that the money required by him for the equipment of 
his regiment could not possibly be raised except by selling 
one of his estates. The head overseer explained' to him that 
such expensive caprices as fitting out regiments would be his 
ruin. Pierre, with difficulty repressing a smile, listened to 
the man's despair. 

" Well, sell it, then," he replied. " There's no help for it 
now. I cannot go back 011 my promise." 

The worse the situation of affairs in general, and his own in 
particular, the more agreeable it was to Pierre ; the more evi- 
dent it seemed to him that the long expected catastrophe was 
drawing near. . Already there was almost none of his acquaint- 
ances left in town. Julie had gone ; the Princess Mariya had 
gone. Of near acquaintances only the Eostofs were left ; but 
Pierre staid away from their house. 

That day, in order to get a little recreation, Pierre drove 
out to the village of Vorontsovo to see a great air-balloon, 
which Leppich had built for the destruction of the enemy, and 
a trial balloon, which was to be let off on the next day. This 
balloon was not yet ready ; but, as Pierre knew, it had been 
constructed at the sovereign's desire. The emperor had 
written to Count Rostopchin as follows, in regard to this 
balloon : 

" As soon as Leppich is ready, furnish him with a crew for 
his boat, composed of tried and intelligent men, and send a 
courier to General Kutuzof to inform him. I have already 
instructed him concerning the affair. 

" I beg of you to enjoin upon Leppich to be exceedingly 
careful where he descends for the first time, that he may not 
make any mistake and fall into the hands of the enemy. It is 
essential that he should co-operate with the comrnander-in- 
chief." * 

* " Aussitot que^ Leppich sera pret, compose? lui un equipage pour sa 
nacelle d'hommes surs et intelliffents et depechez un courrier au general Kou- 
touzoff pour Ven prevenir. Je Vai instruit de la. chose. Recommandez,je 
vous prie, a Leppich d'etre bien attentif sur Vendroit ou il dcscendra la pre- 
miere fo is, pour ne pas se tromper et tie pas tomber dans les mains de I'eiuie- 
7714. 77 est indispensable qu'il combine ses mouvements avec le general-en-chef." 



196 WAR AND PEACE. 

On his way home from Vorontsovo, as he was crossing the 
Bolotnaya Ploshchad, Pierre saw a great crowd collected around 
the Lobnoye Myesto (place of executions) ; he stopped and got 
out of his drozhsky. They were watching the punishment of a 
French cook, charged with being a spy. The flogging had 
oniy just come to an end, and the executioner was untying 
from " the mare," or whipping-post, a stout man, with reddish 
side-whiskers, dressed in blue stockings and a green kamzol, 
who was piteously groaning. Another prisoner, lean and 
pallid, was also standing there. Both, to judge by their faces, 
were French.* Pierre, with a face as scared and pale as that 
of the lean Frenchman, elbowed his way through the throng. 

" What does this mean ? Who is it ? What have they 
done ? " he demanded. But the attention of the throng 
chinovniks, burghers, merchants, peasants, and women in 
cloaks and furs was so eagerly concentrated on what was 
taking place on the Lobnoye Myesto that no one replied to 
him. 

The stout man straightened himself up, shrugged his shoul- 
ders with a scowl, and, evidently wishing to make a show of 
stoicism, and not looking around him, tried to put on his 
kamzol ; but suddenly his lips trembled, and he burst into 
tears, as though he was angry at himself, just as full-grown 
men of sanguine temperament are apt to weep. The crowd 
gave vent to loud remarks as it seemed to Pierre, for the 
sake of drowning their own sense of compassion. 

" Some prince's cook " 

" Well, Moosioo, evidently Russian sauce goes well with a 
Frenchman. Set your teeth on edge ? Hey ? " cried a 
wrinkled law clerk, standing near Pierre, as the Frenchman 
burst into tears. The law clerk glanced around, expecting 
applause for his sarcasm. A few laughed, a few continued to 
gaze with frightened curiosity at the executioner, who was 
stripping the second. Pierre gave a snort, scowled deeply, 
and, swiftly returning to his drozhsky, kept muttering to him- 
self even after he was once more seated. During the transit 
he several times shuddered, and cried out so loud that the 
driver asked him : 

" What do you order ? " 

" Where on earth are you going ? " shouted Pierre as the 
coachman turned down the Lubyanka. 

"You bade me drive to the govenaor-general's," replied the 
coachman. 

" Idiot ! ass ! " screamed Pierre, berating his coachman as 



WAR AND PEACE. 197 

he scarcely ever had been known to do. " I ordered you to 
drive home, and make haste, you blockhead ! I have got to get 
off this very day," muttered Pierre to himself. 

Pierre, at the sight of the flogged Frenchmen and the 
throng surrounding the LoJDnoye Myesto, had come to so defi- 
nite a decision not to stay another day in Moscow but to join 
the army immediately, that it seemed to him he had already 
spoken to his coachman about it, or at least that the coach- 
man was in duty bound to have known it. 

On reaching home Pierre gave his coachman, Yevstafye- 
vitch, who knew everything, and could do everything, and 
was one of the notabilities of Moscow, orders to have his sad- 
dle-horses sent to Mozhaisk, where he was going that very 
day to join the army. 

It was impossible to do everything on that one day, how- 
ever, and accordingly Pierre, on Yevstafyevitch's representa- 
tion, postponed his departure to the following day, so that 
relays of horses might be sent on ahead. 

On the fifth of September foul weather was followed by fair, 
and that day after idinner Pierre left Moscow. In the even- 
ing, while stopping to change horses at Perkhushkovo, Pierre 
learned that a great battle had been fought that afternoon. 
He was told that there at Perkhushkovo the cannon had 
shaken the ground ; but when Pierre inquired who had been 
victorious, no one could give him any information. 

This was the battle of Shevardino, which was fought on 
the fifth of September. 

By daybreak Pierre was at Mozhaisk. All the houses at 
Mozhaisk were filled with troops ; and at the tavern, in the 
yard of which Pierre was met by his grooms and coachmen, 
there were no rooms to be had. All the places were pre- 
empted by officers. 

In the town and behind the town, everywhere, regiments 
were stationed- or on the move. Cossacks, infantry, cavalry, 
baggage wagons, caissons, cannons, were to be seen on all 
sides. 

Pierre made all haste to reach the front, and the farther he 
went from Moscow, and the deeper he penetrated into this sea 
of troops, the more he was overmastered by anxiety, disqui- 
etude, and a feeling of joy, which he had never before experi- 
enced. It was somewhat akin to that which he head experi- 
enced at the Slobodsky palace, at the time of the sovereign's 
visit, a feeling that it was indispensable to do something 
and make some sacrifice. 



198 WAR AND PEACE. 

He now felt the pleasant consciousness that all that consti- 
tute? the happiness of men the comforts of life, wealth, 
even fife itself was rubbish, which it was a delight to re- 
nounce in favor of something else. 

Still Pierre could not account \o himself, and indeed he 
made no attempt to analyze, for whom or for what the sacrifice 
of everything, which gave him such a sense of charm, was 
made. He did not trouble himself with the inquiry for what 
he wished to sacrifice himself ; the mere act of sacrifice con- 
stituted for him a new and joyful feeling. 



CHAPTER XIX. 






ON the fifth of September was fought the battle at the 
redoubt of Shevardino ; on the sixth not a single shot was 
fired on either side ; on the seventh came the battle of Boro- 
dino. 

For what" purpose and how was it that these battles at 
Shevardino and Borodino were fought ? Why was the battle 
of Borodino fought ? Neither for the French nor for the 
Russians had it the slightest meaning. The proximate result 
was, and necessarily was, for the Russians an onward step 
toward the destruction of Moscow a thing that we dreaded 
more than anything else in the world ; and for the French, 
an onward step toward the destruction of their entire army 
a thing that they dreaded more than anything else in the I 
world. This result was therefore fully to be expected, and 
yet Napoleon offered battle, and Kutuzof accepted his chal- 
lenge. 

If the commanders had been gov-erned by motives of reason, 
it would seem as if it ought to have been clear to Napo- 
leon that, at a distance of two thousand versts in an enemy's 
country, to accept a battle under the evident risk of losing a 
quarter of his army was to march to certain destruction ; and 
it should have been equally as clear to Kutuzof that, in 
accepting an engagement, and in likewise risking the loss of 
half of his army, he was actually losing Moscow. For Kutu- 
zof this was mathematically demonstrable, just as in a game 
of checkers, if I have one draught less than my adversary, by 
exchanging I lose, and, therefore, I ought not to risk the ex- 
change. 

If my adversary has sixteen checkers, and I have fourteen, 
then I am only one-eighth weaker than he is ; but when I 



WAR AND PEACE. 199 

shall have exchanged thirteen draughts with him, then he 
becomes thrice as strong as I am. 

Up to the battle of Borodino our forces were to the French 
in the approximate proportion of five to six, but after the 
battle, of one to two. That is, before the battle, 100,000 : 
120,000 ; but after the battle, 50 : 100. And yet the wise and 
experienced Kutuzof accepted battle. 

Napoleon, also, the leader of genius, as he* was called, 
offered battle, losing a fourth of his army, and still further 
extending his line. If it be said that he expected, by the 
occupation of Moscow, to end the campaign, as he did in 
the case of Vienna, this theory can be rebutted by many 
proofs. The historians of Napoleon themselves admit that he 
was anxious to call a halt at Smolensk ; that he knew the risk 
he ran in his extended position, and knew that the capture of 
Moscow would not be the end of the campaign, because he 
had seen, by the example of Smolensk, in what a state the 
Russian cities would be left to him, and he did not receive a 
single response to his reiterated offers for negotiations. 

In offering and accepting the battle of Borodino, Kutuzof and 
Napoleon both acted contrary to their intentions and their 
good sense. But the historians have affected to fit to these 
accomplished facts an ingeniously woven tissue of proofs of 
the foresight and genius of these commanders, who, of all the 
involuntary instruments for the execution of cosmic events, 
were the most totally subject and involuntary. 

The ancients left us examples of historical poems in which 
the heroes themselves constitute all the interest of the story ; 
and we cannot yet accustom ourselves to the fact that history 
of this kind, applied to our own day, is wholly lacking in 
sense. 

As to the second question 1 : how came the battle of Borodino 
and the battle of Shevardino, which preceded it, to be fought ? 
there exists an explanation just as positive and universally 
known, but absolutely fallacious. All the historians describe 
the affair as follows : 

The Russian army, in its retreat from Smolensk, sought 
the most favorable position for a general battle, and found such 
a position at Borodino. 

The Russians beforehand fortified this position at the left 
of the road, almost in a right angle from Borodino to Utitsa, 
the very point where the battle was fought. 

In front of this position, to keep watch of the enemy, a for- 
tified redoubt was established upon the hill of Shevardino. On 



fOO WAR AND PEACE. 

the fifth of September, Napoleon attacked the redoubt, and took 
it by storm ; September 7, he attacked the entire Russian army, 
which was then in position on the field of Borodino. 

Thus it is described in the histories ; and yet the whole 
thing is perfectly wrong, as any one may be easily convinced 
who will care to investigate the facts. 

The Russians did not seek the most favorable position ; but, 
on the contrary, in their retreat they passed by many positions 
which were more favorable than the one at Borodino. They 
did not halt at any one of these positions, because Kutuzof 
would not occupy any position that he had not himself selected, 
and because the popular demand for an engagement was not 
yet expressed with sufficient force ; and because Milorado- 
vitch had not come up with the landwehr ; and for many other 
reasons besides, which are too numerous to mention. 

It is a fact that the former positions were superior in 
strength, and that the position at Borodino the one where 
the battle was fought was not only not strong, but was in 
no respect superior to any other position in the whole Russian 
empire, such as one might at haphazard point out on the map 
with a pin. 

The Russians not only did not fortify their position on the 
field of Borodino, at the left, at a right angle to the road in 
other words, at the place where the battle took place but, 
moreover, up till the sixth of September, they never even 
dreamed of the possibility of a battle taking place there. 

This is proved, in the first place, by the fact that until the 
sixth of September there were no fortifications on the ground ; 
but, moreover, the defences begun on the sixth were not even 
completed on the seventh. 

In the second place, this is proved by the position of the 
Shevardino redoubt a redoubt at Shevardino, in front of the 
position where the battle was accepted, had no sense. Why 
was this redoubt fortified more strongly than all the other 
points ? And why were the troops weakened, and six thousand 
men sacrificed, in vain attempts to hold this position until late 
on the night of the fifth ? For all observations of the enemy, 
a Cossack patrol would have been sufficient. 

In the third place, that the position where the battle was 
fought was not a matter of foresight, and that the Shevardino 
redoubt was not the advanced work of this position, is proved 
by the fact that Barclay de Tolly and Bagration, up to the 
sixth instant, were convinced that the Shevardino redoubt was 
the left flank of the position ; and even Kutuzof himself, in 



WAR AND PEACE. 201 

bis report, written in hot haste after the battle, calls the She- 
vardino redoubt the left flank of the position. 

It was only some time subsequently, when the report of the 
oattle of Borodino was written, with abundant time for reflec- 
ion, that, probably for the sake of smoothing over the blunder 
f the commander-in-chief, who had to be held infallible, the 
'alse and strange ideas were promulgated that the Shevardino 
iredoubt made the advanced post : when, in reality, it was 
Dnly an intrenchment on the left flank ; and that the battle 
Df Borodino was accepted by us in a position well forti- 
fied, and selected in advance : when, in reality, it was fought 
in a position perfectly unpremeditated, and almost unfor- 
tified. 

The affair, evidently, happened this way : a position was 
selected on the river Kalotcha, where it crosses the highroad, 
not at right, but at acute angles, so that the left flank 'was at 
Shevardino, the right not far from the village of Novoye ; and 
che centre at Borodino, near the confluence of the rivers Kalot- 
cha and Vo'ina. .That this was the position, covered by the 
river Kalotcha, for an army having for its end to check an 
Bnemy moving along the Smolensk highway, against Moscow, 
must be evident to any one who studies the battle-field of 
Borodino, and forgets how the battle really took place. 

Napoleon, who reached Yaluyevo on the fifth of September, 
failed so the histories tell us to discover the position 
)f the Russians, stretching from Utitsa to Borodino, he 
3ould not have discovered this position because there was no 
such position, and did not discover the advanced post of the 
Russian army, but, in pursuing the Russian rearguard, he 
Irove them in upon the left flank of the position of the Rus- 
sians at the Shevardino redoubt, and, unexpectedly to the 
Russians, crossed the Kalotcha with his troops. And the Rus- 
sians, not having succeeded in bringing on a general engage- 
ment, withdrew their left wing from a position which they 
lad intended to hold, and took up another position, which was 
lot anticipated and not fortified. 

Napoleon, having crossed over to the left bank of the 
Kalotcha at the left of the highway, transferred the coming 
oattle from the right to left (relative to the Russians) and 
Drought it into the field between Utitsa, Semenovskoye, and 
Borodino into a field which had no earthly advantage over 
iny other field that might have been chosen at random any- 
vvhere in Russia and here it was that the great battle took 
place on the seventh. 



202 



WAR AND PEACE. 



Koughly sketched, the plan of the ideal battle and of the 
actual battle is here appended : 




If Napoleon had not reached the Kalotcha on the afternoon 
of the fifth and had not given orders immediately to storm 
the redoubt, but had postponed the attack until the next 
morning, no one could seriously doubt that the Shevardino 
redoubt would have been the left flank of our position and the 
battle would have been fought as we expected. In such a 
contingency, we should have defended still more stubbornly 
the Shevardino redoubt as being our left flank ; we should 
have attacked Napoleon at his centre or right, and on the fifth 
of September there would have been a general engagement in 
that position which had been previously selected and defended. 



WAR AND PEACE:. 208, 

But as the attack on our left flank was made in the after- 
noon, after the retreat of our rearguard, that is to say, imme- 
diately after the skirmish at Gridneva, and as the Russian 
leaders would not or could not begin a general engagement in 
the afternoon of the fifth, therefore the principal action of the 
battle of Borodino was already practically lost on the fifth, 
and undoubtedly led to the loss of the battle that was fought 
on the seventh. 

After the loss of the Shevardino redoubt on the morning of 
the sixth, we were left without any position on our left flank 
and were reduced to the necessity of straightening our left 
wing and of making all haste to fortify it as best we 
could. 

Not only were the Russian troops on the seventh of Sep- 
tember protected by feeble, unfinished intrenchments, but the 
disadvantage of this situation was still further enhanced by the 
fact that the Russian leaders, refusing to recognize a fact 
settled beyond a peradventure, namely, the loss of their 
defences on the left flank and the transfer of the whole future 
engagement from right to left remained in their altogether 
too extended position from Novoye to Utitsa, and the conse- 
quence was they were obliged, during the engagement, to 
transfer their troops from right to left. 

Thus, throughout the engagement, the Russians had the 
entire force of the French army directed against their left 
wing, which was not half as strong. (Poniatowski's demon- 
stration against Utitsa and Uvarovo on the right flank of 
the French was independent of the general course of the 
battle.) 

Thus the battle of Borodino was fought in a way entirely 
different from the descriptions of it which were written for 
the purpose of glossing over the mistakes of our leaders and 
consequently dimming the glory of the Russian army and 
people. The battle of Borodino did not take place on a se- 
lected and fortified position or with forces only slightly dis- 
proportioned, but the battle, in consequence of the loss of the 
Shevardino redoubt, was accepted by the Russians at an ex- 
posed and almost unfortified position, with forces doubly 
strong opposed to them ; in other words, under conditions 
whereby it was not only unfeasible to fight ten hours and then 
leave the contest doubtful, but unfeasible to keep the army 
even three hours from absolute confusion and flight. 



204 WAR AND PEACE. 



CHAPTER XX. 

PIERRE left Mozhaisk on the morning of the seventh. 

On the monstrously steep and precipitous hillside down 
which winds the road from the city, just beyond the cathedral 
that crowns the hill on the right, where service was going on 
and the bells were pealing, Pierre dismounted from his car- 
riage and proceeded on foot. 

Behind him came, laboriously letting themselves down, a 
regiment of cavalry led by its singers. 

A train of telyegas, full of men wounded in the last even- 
ing's engagement, met him on its way up the hill. The peas- 
ant drivers, shouting at their horses and lashing them with 
their knouts, ran from one side to the other. The telyegas, 
on which lay or sat three and four wounded soldiers, bumped 
over the rough stones which were scattered about and did duty 
as a causeway on the steep road. The soldiers, bandaged with 
rags, pale, and with compressed lips and knit brows, clung to 
the sides as they were bounced and jolted in the carts. 
Nearly all of them looked with naive, childlike curiosity at 
Pierre's white hat and green coat. 

Pierre's coachman shouted angrily to the ambulance train 
to keep to one side. The cavalry regiment with their singers, 
as they came down the hill, overtook Pierre's drozhsky and 
blocked up the whole road. Pierre halted, squeezing himself 
to the very edge of the road, which was hollowed out of the 
hillside. The hillside shelved over, and as the sun did not 
succeed in penetrating into this ravine, it was cool and damp 
there. Over Pierre was the bright August morning sky, and 
the merry pealing of the chimes rang through the air. 

One team with its load of wounded drew up at the edge of 
the road near where Pierre had halted. The teamster, in his 
bast shoes, and puffing with the exercise, came running up 
with some stones, and hastily blocked the hinder wheels, which 
were untired, and proceeded to arrange the breeching of his 
little, patient horse. 

An old soldier who had been wounded and had one arm in 
a sling and was following the telyega on foot, took hold of it 
with his sound hand and looked at Pierre. 

" Say, friend,* will they leave us here, or is it to Moscow ? " 

* Zemhdtchek, affectionate diminutive of zemliak, countryman, fellow- 
countryman. 



WAR AND PEACE. 205 

Pierre was so absorbed in his thoughts that he did not hear 
what the man said. He stared now at the cavalry regiment, 
which had met face to face with the ambulance train, and now 
at the telyega, which had halted near him with two wounded 
men sitting up and one lying down, and it seemed to him that 
here was the definite solution of the question that perplexed 
him so. 

One of the two soldiers sitting in the cart had been appar- 
ently wounded in the cheek. His whole head was bound up 
in rags, and one cheek was swollen up as big as the head of a 
child. His mouth and nose were all on one side. This soldier 
looked at the cathedral, and crossed himself. 

The other, a 3 r oung lad, a raw recruit, blond, and as pale as 
though his delicate face was completely bloodless, gazed at 
Pierre with a fixed, good-natured smile. 

The third was lying down, and his face was hidden. 

The cavalry singers had now come abreast of the telyega : 

" Akh! zapropala da yezhova golovd. 
Da ! na chuzhoi storone zhivutchi." 

" Yes, living in a foreign land," rang out the voices, trolling 
a soldiers' dancing-song. As though seconding the merry song, 
but in a different strain, far up from the heights above pealed 
the metallic sounds of the cathedral chimes. And, in still 
another strain of gayety, the bright sunbeams flooded the 
summit of the acclivity over opposite. But under the hill- 
side where Pierre stood, near the telyega with the wounded 
men and the little panting horse, it was damp, and in shadow 
and in gloom. 

The soldier wi^Ji the swollen cheek looked angrily at the 
cavalry singers. 

" Okh ! the dandies ! " he muttered, scornfully. 

" I have seen something besides soldiers to-day : muzhiks 
is what I have seen ! Muzhiks, and whipped into battle, 
too !" said the soldier standing behind the telyega, and turn- 
ing to Pierre with a melancholy smile. " Not much picking 
and choosing nowadays. They are trying to sweep in the 
whole nation in one word, Moscow. They want to do it at 
one fell swoop." 

In spite of the incoherence of the soldier's words, Pierre 
understood all that he meant, and he nodded his head affirma- 
tively. 

The road was at last cleared, and Pierre walked to the foot 



206 ' WAR AND PEACE. 

of the hill, and then proceeded on his way. He drove along, 
glancing at both sides of the road, trying to distinguish some 
familiar face, and everywhere encountering only strangers be- 
longing to the various divisions of the troops, who, without 
exception, looked with amazement at his white hat and green 
coat. 

After proceeding about four versts he met his first acquaint- 
ance, and joyfully accosted him. This acquaintance was one 
of the physicians to the staff. Pierre met him as he came driv- 
ing along in his britchka, accompanied by a young doctor, and 
when he recognized Pierre he ordered the Cossack who was 
seated on the box in place of his coachman to stop. 

" Count ! your illustriousness ! How come you here ? " 

u Why, I wanted to see what was going on." 

" Well, you'll have enough to see." 

Pierre got out again, and paused to talk with the doctor, 
to whom he confided his intention of taking part in the 
battle. 

The doctor advised Bezukhoi to apply directly to his serene 
highness. " God knows what would become of you during a 
battle if you are not with friends," said he, exchanging glances 
with his young colleague ; " but his serene highness, of course, 
knows you, and will receive you graciously. I'd do that if I 
were you, batyushka," said the doctor. 

The doctor looked tired and sleepy. 

" You think so, do you ? But I was going to ask you 
where is our position ? " said Pierre. 

" Our position ? " repeated the doctor. " That is something 
that is not in my line. Go to Tatarinovo. Lot of them dig- 
ging something or other there. There you'll find a hill, 
and from the top of it you can get a good view," said the 
doctor. 

" A good view ? " repeated Pierre. " If you would " 

But the doctor interrupted him, and turned to his britchka. 

" I would show you the way ; yes, I would, by God but " 
(and the doctor indicated his throat) " I am called to a corps 
commander. You see how it is with us ? You know, count, 
there's a battle to-morrow : out of a hundred thousand, we 
must count on at least twenty thousand wounded. And we 
have neither stretchers nor hammocks nor assistant surgeons 
nor medicines enough for even six thousand ! We have ten 
thousand telyegas, but something else is necessary, certainly. 
We must do the best we can." 

The strange thought that out of all these thousands of 



WAR AND PEACE. 207 

living, healthy men, young and old, who looked at his white 
hat with such jovial curiosity, probably twenty thousand were 
doomed to suffer wounds and death (maybe the very men whom 
he that moment saw), struck Pierre. 

"They, very possibly, will be dead men to-morrow; why, 
then, can they be thinking of anything besides death ? " 

And, suddenly, by some mysterious association of ideas, he 
had a vivid recollection of the steep descent from Mozhaisk 
the telyegas with the wounded, the chiming bells, the slanting 
rays of the sun, and the songs of the cavalrymen. 

"The cavalry are going into action, and they meet the 
wounded, and not for a single instant do they think of what 
is awaiting them, but they gallop by and greet the wounded ; 
and out of all these men, twenty thousand are doomed to die, 
and yet they are interested in my hat ! Strange ! " thought 
Pierre, as he proceeded on his way to Tatarinovo. 

At the mansion of a landed proprietor, on the left-hand side 
of the road, stood equipages, baggage wagons, a throng of den- 
shchiks and sentinels. Here his serene highness was quar- 
tered, but when Pierre arrived he was out, and almost all of his 
staff. All were at a Te Deum service. 

Pierre drove on farther, to Gorki. Mounting the hill, and 
passing beyond the narrow street of the village, Pierre saw for 
the first time the peasant-landwehr, with crosses on their caps, 
and in white shirts, working with a will, with boisterous talk 
and laughter at something, on a high, grass-grown mound to 
the right of the road. 

Some of them had shovels, and were digging at the hill ; 
others were transporting dirt in wheelbarrows, along planks ; 
still others were standing about, doing nothing. Two officers 
were stationed on the mound, directing operations. 

Pierre, seeing these muzhiks evidently enjoying the novelty 
of military service, again recalled the wounded soldiers at 
Mozhaisk, and he saw still deeper meaning in what the sol- 
dier had tried to express when he said they are trying to 
sweep in the whole nation. . The sight of these bearded mu- 
zhiks working in the battle-field, in their clumsy boots, with 
their sweaty necks, and some with shirt-collars rolled back, 
exposing to sight their sunburned collar-bones, made a deeper 
impression on Pierre than all else that he had seen or heard 
hitherto concerning the solemnity and significance of the 
actual crisis. 



208 WAR AND PEACE. 



CHAPTER XXI. 

PIERRE left his equipage, and, passing by the laboring land- 
wehr, he directed his steps to the mound, from which, as the 
doctor had told him, the whole battle-field was visible. 

It was eleven o'clock in the morning. The sun stood a trifle 
to Pierre's left and rear, and sent its beams down through the 
pure, rarefied atmosphere, brilliantly lighting up the immense 
panorama of hill and vale that spread before him, as in an 
amphitheatre. 

Above, and to the left, cutting across this amphitheatre, he 
could see the great Smolensk highway, passing through a vil- 
lage with a white church situated five hundred paces distant 
from the mound and below it. This was Borodino. Near this 
village the road crossed the river by a bridge, and, winding 
and bending, mounted higher and higher, till it reached Va- 
luyevo, visible six versts away. (Here Napoleon now was.) 
Beyond Valuyevo the road was lost to sight in a forest, which 
showed yellow against the horizon. In this forest of birches 
and firs, to the left from tli3 highway, could be seen glisten- 
ing in the sun the distant cross and belfry of the Kolotsky 
monastery. Over all this blue distance, to the left and to the 
right of the forest and the road, in various positions, could be 
seen the smoke of camp-fires, and indeterminate masses of the 
French and Russian troops. 

At the right, looking down the rivers Kalotcha and Moskva, 
the country was full of ravines and hills. Among these hills, 
far away, could be seen the villages of Bezzubovo and Zakha- 
rino. At the left the country was more level ; there were 
cornfields, and the ruins^of a village that had been set on fire, 
Semenovskoye, were still smoking. 

All that Pierre saw on his right hand and his left was so 
confused that he found nothing that in any degree answered 
to his expectations. Nowhere could he find any such field of 
battle as he had counted upon seeing, but only fields, clearings, 
troops, woodland, bivouac fires, villages, hills, brooks ; and in 
spite of all his efforts he could not make out any definite posi- 
tion in this varied landscape, nor could he even distinguish 
our troops from the enemy's. 

" I must ask of some one who knows," he said to himself, 
and he addressed himself to one of the officers, who was look- 
ing inquisitively at his huge, unmilitary figure. 



WAR AND PEACE. 209 

" May I ask," said Pierre, turning to this officer, " what that 
village is yonder ? " 

" Burdino, isn't it ? " replied the officer, referring to his 
comrade. 

" Borodino/' said the other, correcting him. 

The officer, evidently pleased to have a chance to talk, 
approached Pierre. 

" Are those ours yonder ? " 

"Yes, and still farther are the French," said the officer. 
" There they are, there. Can you see ? " 

" Where ? where ? " asked Pierre. 

" You can see them with the naked eye. See there." 

The officer pointed at the columns of smoke rising at the 
left, on the farther side of the river, and his face assumed that 
'stern and grave expression which Pierre had noticed on many 
faces that he had lately seen. 

" Ah ! is that the French ? But who are yonder ? " Pierre 
indicated a mound at the left, where troops were also visible. 

" Those are ours." 

" Oh, ours ! But there ? " Pierre pointed to another hill in 
the distance, where there was a tall tree near a village show- 
ing up in a valley, and with smoking bivouac fires and a strange 
black mass. 

" That is he again," explained the officer (this was the She- 
vardino redoubt). " Yesterday it was ours, but now it's his" 

" What is our position ? " 

" Our position," repeated the officer, with a smile of satisfac- 
tion : " I can explain it to you clearly, because I arranged almost 
all our defences. There,' do you see ? our centre is at Borodino, 
over yonder." He pointed to the village with the white church, 
directly in front. " There is where you cross the Kalotcha. 
Then here, do you see, down in that bottom land, where the 
windrows of hay are lying ? there is a bridge there. That 
is our centre. Our right flank is about yonder," he indicated 
a place far distant, between the hills at the extreme right, 
" the river Moskva is there, and there we have thrown up three 
very strong earthworks. Our left flank " here the officer 
hesitated. " You see, that is somewhat hard to explain to you. 
Yesterday our left flank was yonder at Shevardino ; there, do 
you see, where that oak-tree is ? but now we have withdrawn 
the left wing, and now, now do you see, yonder, that village 
and the smoke, that is Semenovskoye, it is about there." 
He pointed to the hill of Rayevsky. " But it's hard to tell if 
the action will come off there. He has brought his forces in 
VOL. 3. 14. 



210 WAR AND PEACE. 

that direction, but that's a ruse. He will probably try to out- 
flank us from the side of the Moskva. Well, at all events, a 
good many of us will be counted out to-morrow," said the officer. 

An old non-commissioned officer, who had approached the 
speaker while he was talking, waited until his superior should 
finish, but at this juncture, evidently dissatisfied with what 
the officer was saying, interrupted him. " We must send for 
gabions," said he gravely. 

The officer seemed to be abashed, seemed to come to a real- 
izing sense that, while it was permissible to think how many 
would be missing on the morrow, it was not proper to speak 
about it. 

" All right, send Company Three again," said the officer hur- 
riedly. " And who are you ? One of the doctors, are you ? " 

" Ndj I was merely looking." And Pierre again descended 
the hill, past the men of the landwehr. 

" Akh ! curse 'em ! " exclaimed the officer, following him and 
holding his nose as he ran by the laborers. 

" There they are ! " " They've got here, they're coming ! " 
"There they are !" " They'll be here in a minute!" 
such were the exclamations suddenly heard, and officers, 
soldiers, and the men of the landwehr rushed down the road. 

Up the long slope of the hill came a church procession from 
Borodino. At the forefront, along the dusty road, in fine order, 
came a company of infantry with their shakoes off, and trail- 
ing arms. Back of the infantry was heard a church chant. 

Soldiers and landwehr men, outstripping Pierre, ran ahead 
to meet the coming procession. 

" They are bringing our Matuskha ! The Intercessor. The 
Iverskaya Virgin ! " 

" The Smolensk Matushka," said another, correcting the 
former speaker. 

The landwehr men, both those who belonged to the village 
and those who had been working at the battery, threw down 
their shovels and ran to meet the procession. 

Behind the battalion which came marching along the dusty 
road walked the priests in their chasubles, one little old man 
in a cowl, accompanied by the clergy and chanters. Behind 
them, soldiers and officers bore a huge ikon, with tarnished face, 
in its frame. This was the ikon which had been brought away 
from Smolensk, and had ever since followed the army. Be- 
hind it and around it and in front of it came hurrying throngs 
of soldiers, baring their heads and making obeisances to the 
very ground. 



WAR AND PEACE. 211 

When the ikon reached the top of the hill it stopped. The 
men who had been lugging the holy image on carved staves 
were relieved, the diatchoks again kindled their censers, and 
the Te Deum began. The sun poured his hot rays straight 
down from the zenith ; a faint, fresh breeze played with the 
hair on the uncovered heads, and fluttered the ribbons with 
which the ikon was adorned ; the chant sounded subdued under 
the vault of heaven. 

A tremendous throng of officers, soldiers, and landwehr men, 
all with uncovered heads, surrounded the ikon. Back of the 
priest and diatchok, on a space cleared and reserved, stood 
the officers of higher rank. One bald-headed general, with the 
George around his neck, stood directly back of the priest and 
did not cross himself, he was evidently a German, but 
waited patiently for the end of the Te Deum, which he con- 
sidered it necessary to listen to, probably so as to arouse the 
patriotism of the Russian nation. 

Another general stood in a military position, and kept 
moving his hand in front of his chest and glancing around. 

Pierre, who had taken his position amid a throng of mu- 
zhiks, recognized a" number of acquaintances in this circle of 
officials ; but he did not look at them ; his whole attention 
was absorbed by the serious expression on the faces of the 
throng of soldiers and militia, with one consent gazing with 
rapt devotion at the wonder-working ikon. 

When the weary sacristans who had been performing the 
Te Deum for the twentieth time began to sing "Save from 
their sorrows thy servants, Holy Mother of God ! " and the 
priest and diatchok, in antiphonal service, took up the strain, 
"Verily we all take refuge in Thee, as in a steadfast bul- 
wark and defence," Pierre noticed that all faces wore that 
expression of consciousness of the solemnity of the moment, 
which he had marked at the foot of the hill near Mozhaisk, 
and by fits and snatches on many faces that had met him that 
morning. Heads were bent even more frequently, hair tossed 
up, and sighs and the sounds of crosses striking chests were 
heard. 

The throng surrounding the ikon suddenly opened its ranks 
and jostled against Pierre. 

Some one, evidently a very important personage, to judge 
by the eagerness with which they made way for him, ap- 
proached the ikon. 

It was Kutuzof, who had been out reconnoitring the posi- 
tion. On his way to Tatarinovo, he came to hear the Te Deum 



212 WAR AND PEACE. 

service. Pierre instantly recognized him by the peculiarity 
of his figure, which distinguished him from all the throng. 

In a long overcoat, covering the huge bulk of his body, with 
a stoop in his back, with his white head bared, and with his 
hollow, white eye and puffy cheeks, Kutuzof advanced with 
his plunging, staggering gait inside the circle, and stood be- 
hind the priest. He crossed himself with a reverent gesture, 
touched his hand to the ground, and with a deep sigh bent his 
gray head. Behind Kutuzof were Benigsen and his suite. 
Notwithstanding the presence of the commander-in-chief, who 
attracted the attention of all those of higher rank, the men 
of the landwehr and the soldiers, without looking at him, con- 
tinued to offer their prayers. 

When the service was concluded, Kutuzof went to the ikon, 
heavily let himself down on one knee, bowed to the ground j 
then he tried for some time to rise ; his weight and feebleness 
made his efforts vain. His gray head shook from side to side 
in his exertion. 

At last he got to his feet again, and, with a childishly na'ive 
thrusting-out of his lips, kissed the ikon and again bent over 
and touched the ground with his hand. The generals present 
followed his example ; then the officers, and then, crowding, 
pushing, jostling, and stepping on each other, with excited 
faces came the soldiers and militia. 



CHAPTER XXII. 

EXTRICATING himself from the crowd that pressed about 
him, Pierre looked around. 

" Count, Piotr Kiriluitch ! How come you here ? " cried 
some one's voice. Pierre looked in that direction. Boris 
Drubetskoi, brushing the dust from his knee, he had ap- 
parently, like the rest, been making his genuflections before 
the ikon, came up to Pierre, smiling. Boris was elegantly 
attired, with just a shade of the wear and tear from having 
been on service. He wore a long frock coat and a whip over 
his shoulder in imitation of Kutuzof. 

Kutuzof, meantime, had returned to the village, and sat 
down in the shadow cast by the adjoining house, on a bench 
brought out in all haste by a Cossack, while another had 
covered it with a rug. A large and brilliant suite gathered 
about him. 

The ikon had gone farther on its way, accompanied by a 



WAR AND PEACE. 213 

throng. Pierre, engaged in talking with Boris, remained 
standing about thirty paces from Kutuzof. He was explain- 
ing his intention of being present at the battle, and of recon- 
noitring the position. 

" You do this way," said Boris. " Je vous ferai les honneurs 
du camp. The best thing is for you to see the whole affair 
from where Count Benigsen will be. You see, I am with 
him. I will propose it to him. And if you would like to 
ride round the position we will do it together : we are just 
going over to the left flank. And when we return I will beg 
you to do me the favor of spending the night with me and we 
will get up a party. I think you are acquainted with Dmitri 
Sergeyevitch. He lodges over yonder." 

He indicated the third house in Gorki. 

" But I should like to see the right flank ; it is very strong," 
protested Pierre. "I should like to ride over the whole posi- 
tion, from the Moskva River." 

" Well, you can do that afterwards ; but the main thing is 
the left flank." 

" Yes, yes. But where is Prince Bolkonsky's regiment ? 
Can't you show me ? " demanded Pierre. 

"Andrei Nikolayevitch's ? We shall ride directly past it : 
I will take you to him." 

"What were you going to say about the left flank ? " asked 
Pierre. 

" To tell you the truth, entre nous, our left flank is wretch- 
edly placed," said Boris, lowering his voice to 1 a confidential 
tone. " Count Benigsen proposed something entirely different. 
He proposed to fortify that hill yonder ; not at all this way ; 
but" Boris shrugged his shoulders "his serene highness 
would not hear to it, or he was over-persuaded. You see " 

But Boris did not finish what he was going to say, because 
just at that instant Kaisarof, one of Kutuzof s adjutants, 
approached Pierre. 

" Ah ! Pa'isi Sergeyitch," exclaimed Boris, with a free and 
easy smile, turning to Kaisarof. " Here I was just trying to 
explain our position to the count. It is a marvel to me how 
his serene highness could have succeeded so well in penetrat- 
ing the designs of the French ! " 

" Were you speaking of the left flank ? " asked Kaisarof. 

"Yes, yes, just that. Our left flank is now very, very 
strong." 

Although Kutuzof had dismissed all superfluous mem- 
bers from his staff, Boris, after the changes that had been 



214 WAR AND PEACE. 

made, had managed in keeping his place at headquarters. He 
had procured a place with Count Benigsen. Count Benigsen, 
like all the other men under whom Boris had served, con- 
sidered the young Prince Drubetskoi an invaluable man. 

In the headquarters of the army, there were two sharply 
defined parties : that of Kutuzof and that of Benigsen, chief 
of staff. Boris belonged to the latter party ; and no one was 
more skilful than^he, even while expressing servile deference 
to Kutuzof, to insinuate that the old man was incapable, and 
that really everything was due to Benigsen. 

They were now on the eve of a decisive engagement, which 
would be likely either to prove Kutuzof's ruin, and put the 
power in Benigsen's hands, or, even supposing Kutuzof were 
to win the battle, to make it seem probable that all the credit 
was due to Benigsen. In any case, great rewards would be 
distributed on account of the coming battle, and new men 
would be brought to the fore. Arid, in consequence of this, 
Boris all that day had been in a state of feverish excitement. 

Pierre was joined by other acquaintances, who came up 
after Ka'isarof, and he had no time to answer all the inquiries 
about Moscow with which they inundated him ; and he had no 
time to listen to the stories which they told him. Excitement 
and anxiety were written in all faces. But it seemed to Pierre 
that the cause of these emotions, in some cases at least, was 
to be attributed rather to the possibility of personal success ; 
and he found it impossible to help comparing them with that 
other expression of emotion which he had seen on other faces, 
and which was eloquent of something besides merely personal 
matters, but of the eternal questions of life and of death. 

Kutuzof caught sight of Pierre's figure, and the group that 
had gathered round him. 

"Bring him to me," said Kutuzof. An adjutant communi- 
cated his serene highness's message, and Pierre started to the 
place where he was sitting. But, before he got there, a private 
of militia approached Kutuzof. 

It was Dolokhof. 

" How comes this man here ? " asked Pierre. 

" He's su