War and Peace (142 page)

“Why so?” said Julie. “Surely you don’t suppose that Moscow is in any danger.”

“Why are you leaving it then?”

“I? That’s a strange question. I am going because … well, because everybody’s going, and I am not a Jeanne d’Arc nor an Amazon.”

“Oh, oh! Give me another strip of linen to scrape.”

“He ought to be able to pay off all his debts, if he sets about it properly,” the volunteer observed of Count Rostov.

“He’s a good-hearted old fellow, but very foolish.”

“And why are they staying on here so long? They were meaning to
leave for the country long ago. Natalie is quite well again now, I suppose?” Julie asked Pierre, with a sly smile.

“They are waiting for their younger son,” said Pierre. “He went into Obolensky’s Cossacks, and was sent off to Byela Tserkov. The regiment is being formed there. But now they have transferred him to my regiment, and he is expected every day. The count wanted to get away long ago, but nothing would induce the countess to leave Moscow till her son’s return.”

“I saw them the day before yesterday at the Arharovs’. Natalie has quite recovered her looks and her spirits. She sang a song. How easily some people get over everything!”

“Get over what?” Pierre asked, looking displeased.

Julie smiled.

“O count, you know, such chivalrous knights as you are only to be found in Madame Suza’s novels.”

“Knights! What do you mean?” Pierre asked blushing.

“Come now, my dear count.
C’est la fable de tout Moscou. Je vous admire, ma parole d’honneur
.”

“Forfeit! forfeit!” said the volunteer.

“Oh, very well. One cannot talk, what a bore it is!”

“What is the talk of all Moscow?” said Pierre angrily, rising to his feet.

“Nonsense, count, you know!”

“I know nothing about it,” said Pierre.

“I know what great friends you have always been with Natalie, and so … But, I was always more friendly with Vera. That darling Vera.”

“No, madam,” Pierre persisted in a tone of annoyance. “I have by no means taken upon myself the rôle of Countess Rostov’s knight; indeed, it’s almost a month since I have been near them. But I cannot understand the cruelty …”

“
Qui s’excuse s’accuse
,” cried Julie, smiling, and waving the lint triumphantly, and that she might have the last word, she promptly changed the subject. “By the way, I have heard poor Marie Bolkonsky arrived in Moscow yesterday. Have you heard she has lost her father?”

“Really? Where is she? I should like to see her,” said Pierre.

“I spent the evening with her yesterday. She is going on to-day or to-morrow morning to their estate in the province with her nephew.”

“Well, how is she? Tell me,” said Pierre.

“Oh, she is well, but very sad. But do you know who rescued her? It is
quite a romance. Nikolay Rostov. She was surrounded; they tried to kill her and wounded her servants. He rushed in and saved her.…”

“Another romance,” said the volunteer. “This general flight is evidently intended to marry off all the old maids. Katish is one, Princess Bolkonsky another.”

“You know, I really do believe she’s
un petit peu amoureuse du jeune homme
.”

“Forfeit! forfeit! forfeit!”

“But how is one to say that in Russian?”

When Pierre returned home, he was handed two new placards of Rastoptchin’s that had just appeared.

The first declared that the rumour, that it was forbidden to leave Moscow by Count Rastoptchin’s order, was false, and that, on the contrary, he was glad that ladies and merchants’ wives were leaving the town. “There will be less panic and less false news,” said the notice; “but I will stake my life on it that the miscreant will never enter Moscow.”

These words first showed Pierre clearly that the French certainly would enter Moscow. In the second placard it was announced that our headquarters were at Vyazma, that Count Wittgenstein had defeated the French, but that since many of the inhabitants of Moscow were desirous of arming themselves, weapons had been provided to meet their wishes in the arsenal; swords, pistols, and guns could all be procured there at a low rate.

The tone of this notice was not as jocose as the former supposed discourses of Tchigirin. The two placards made Pierre ponder. It was evident to him that the menacing storm cloud, for the advent of which his whole soul longed, though it roused an involuntary thrill of horror, it was evident that that cloud was coming closer.

“Shall I enter the service and join the army or wait here?” Pierre thought, a question he had put to himself a hundred times already. He took up a pack of cards that lay on the table to deal them for a game of patience.

“If I succeed in this game of patience,” he said to himself, shuffling the pack as he held it in his hand and looked upwards; “if I succeed, it means … what does it mean?” … He had not time to decide this question
when he heard at the door of his study the voice of the eldest princess, asking whether she might come in. “Then it will mean that I must set off to join the army,” Pierre told himself. “Come, come in,” he said to the princess.

The eldest of his cousins, the one with the long waist and the stony face, was the only one still living in Pierre’s house; the two younger sisters had both married.

“Excuse my coming to you, cousin,” she said in a tone of reproach and excitement. “Some decision really must be come to, you know. What is going to happen? Every one has left Moscow, and the populace are becoming unruly. Why are we staying on?”

“On the contrary, everything seems going on satisfactorily,
ma cousine
,” said Pierre in the habitually playful tone he had adopted with his cousin, to carry off the embarrassment he always felt at being in the position of a benefactor to her.

“Oh, yes, satisfactorily … highly satisfactory, I dare say. Varvara Ivanovna told me to-day how our troops are distinguishing themselves. It is certainly a credit to them. And the populace, too, is in complete revolt, they won’t obey any one now; even my maid has begun to be insolent. If it goes on like this, they will soon begin killing us. One can’t walk about the streets. And the worst of it is, in another day or two the French will be here. Why are we waiting for them? One favour I beg of you,
mon cousin
,” said the princess, “give orders for me to be taken to Petersburg; whatever I may be, any way I can’t live under Bonaparte’s rule.”

“But what nonsense,
ma cousine
! where do you get your information from? On the contrary …”

“I’m not going to submit to your Napoleon. Other people may do as they like.… If you won’t do this for me …”

“But I will, I’ll give orders for it at once.”

The princess was obviously annoyed at having no one to be angry with. Muttering something, she sat down on the edge of the chair.

“But you have been incorrectly informed,” said Pierre. “All’s quiet in the town, and there’s no sort of danger. See I have just read …” Pierre showed the princess the placards. “The count writes that he will stake his life on it that the enemy will never be in Moscow.”

“Ah, your count,” the princess began spitefully, “he’s a hypocrite, a miscreant who has himself stirred the mob on to disorder. Didn’t he write in his idiotic placards that they were to take anybody whoever it might be and drag by the hair to the lock-up (and how silly it is!). Honour
and glory, says he, to the man who does so. And this is what he has brought us to. Varvara Ivanovna told me the mob almost killed her for speaking French.”

“Oh, well, well … You take everything too much to heart,” said Pierre, and he began dealing out the patience.

Although he did succeed in the game, Pierre did not set off to join the army, but stayed on in Moscow, now rapidly emptying, and was still in the same agitation, uncertainty and alarm, and, at the same time, joyful expectation of something awful.

Next day the princess set off in the evening, and Pierre’s head-steward came to inform him that it was impossible to raise the money he required for the equipment of his regiment unless he sold one of his estates. The head-steward impressed on Pierre generally that all this regimental craze would infallibly bring him to ruin. Pierre could hardly conceal a smile as he listened to the head-steward.

“Well, sell it then,” he said. “There’s no help for it, I can’t draw back now!”

The worse the position of affairs, and especially of his own affairs, the better pleased Pierre felt, and the more obvious it was to him that the catastrophe he expected was near at hand. Scarcely any of Pierre’s acquaintances were left in the town. Julie had gone, Princess Marya had gone. Of his more intimate acquaintances the Rostovs were the only people left; but Pierre did not go to see them.

To divert his mind that day, Pierre drove out to the village of Vorontsovo, to look at a great air balloon which was being constructed by Leppich to use against the enemy, and the test balloon which was to be sent up the following day. The balloon was not yet ready; but as Pierre learned, it was being constructed by the Tsar’s desire. The Tsar had written to Count Rastoptchin about it in the following terms:

“As soon as Leppich is ready, get together a crew for his car consisting of thoroughly trustworthy and intelligent men, and send a courier to General Kutuzov to prepare him for it. I have mentioned it to him. Impress upon Leppich, please, to take careful note where he descends the first time, that he may not go astray and fall into the hands of the enemy. It is essential that he should regulate his movements in accordance with the movements of the commander-in-chief.”

On his way home from Vorontsovo, Pierre drove through Bolotny Square, and seeing a crowd at Lobnoye Place, stopped and got out of his chaise. The crowd were watching the flogging of a French cook, accused
of being a spy. The flogging was just over, and the man who had administered it was untying from the whipping-post a stout, red-whiskered man in blue stockings and a green tunic, who was groaning piteously. Another victim, a thin, pale man, was standing by. Both, to judge by their faces, were Frenchmen. With a face of sick dread like that of the thin Frenchman, Pierre pushed his way in among the crowd.

“What is it? Who are they? What for?” he kept asking. But the attention of the crowd—clerks, artisans, shopkeepers, peasants, women in pelisses and jackets—was so intently riveted on what was taking place on the Lobnoye Place that no one answered. The stout man got up, shrugged his shoulders frowning, and evidently trying to show fortitude, began putting on his tunic without looking about him. But all at once his lips quivered and to his own rage he began to cry, as grown-up men of sanguine temperament do cry. The crowd began talking loudly, to drown a feeling of pity in themselves, as it seemed to Pierre.

“Some prince’s cook.…”

“Eh, monsieur, Russian sauce is a bit strong for a French stomach … sets the teeth on edge,” said a wrinkled clerk standing near Pierre, just when the Frenchman burst into tears. The clerk looked about him for signs of appreciation of his jest. Several persons laughed, but some were still gazing in dismay at the man who was undressing the second Frenchman and about to flog him.

Pierre choked, scowled, and turning quickly, went back to his chaise, still muttering something to himself as he went, and took his seat in it. During the rest of the way he several times started, and cried out so loudly that the coachman at last asked him what he desired.

“Where are you driving?” Pierre shouted to the coachman as he drove to Lubyanka.

“You told me to drive to the governor’s,” answered the coachman.

“Fool! dolt!” shouted Pierre, abusing his coachman, a thing he very rarely did. “I told you home; and make haste, blockhead! This very day I must set off,” Pierre said to himself.

At the sight of the tortured Frenchman and the crowd round the Lobnoye Place, Pierre had so unhesitatingly decided that he could stay no longer in Moscow, and must that very day set off to join the army, that it seemed to him either that he had told the coachman so, or that the coachman ought to know it of himself.

On reaching home Pierre told his omniscient and omnipotent head-coachman, Yevstafitch, who was known to all Moscow, that he was
going to drive that night to Mozhaisk to the army, and gave orders for his saddle horses to be sent on there. All this could not be arranged in one day, and therefore by Yevstafitch’s representations Pierre was induced to defer his departure till next day to allow time for relays of horses to be sent on ahead.

The 24th was a bright day after a spell of bad weather, and after dinner on that day Pierre set out from Moscow. Changing horses in the night at Perhushkovo, Pierre learned that a great battle had been fought that evening. He was told that the earth had been vibrating there at Perhushkovo from the cannon. No one could answer Pierre’s question whether the battle was a victory or a defeat. This was the battle of the 24th at Shevardino. Towards dawn Pierre approached Mozhaisk.

Troops were quartered in all the houses in Mozhaisk, and at the inn, where Pierre was met by his coachman and postillion, there was not a room to spare; the whole place was full of officers.

From Mozhaisk onwards troops were halting or marching everywhere. Cossacks, foot soldiers, horse soldiers, waggons, gun-carriages, and cannons were everywhere.

Pierre pushed on as fast as possible, and the further he got and the more deeply he plunged into this ocean of soldiers, the stronger became the thrill of uneasiness and of a new pleasurable sensation. It was a feeling akin to what he had felt at the Slobodsky Palace on the Tsar’s visit, a sense of the urgent necessity of taking some step and making some sacrifice. He was conscious now of a glad sense that all that constitutes the happiness of life, comfort, wealth, even life itself, were all dust and ashes, which it was a joy to fling away in comparison with something else.… What that something else was Pierre could not have said, and indeed he did not seek to get a clear idea, for whose sake and for what object he found such peculiar joy in sacrificing all. He was not interested in knowing the object of the sacrifice, but the sacrifice itself afforded him a new joyful sensation.