War and Peace (160 page)

“Why, I was told by military men,” said Pierre, “that there could be no fighting in the town itself, and the position …”

“To be sure, that’s just what we are saying,” said the first speaker.

“But what does that mean: ‘One of my eyes was bad, but now I look out of both’?” asked Pierre.

“The count had a sty in his eye,” said the adjutant smiling; “and he was very much put out when I told him people were coming to ask what was the matter. And oh, count,” he said suddenly, addressing Pierre with a smile, “we have been hearing that you are in trouble with domestic anxieties, that the countess, your spouse …”

“I have heard nothing about it,” said Pierre indifferently. “What is it you have heard?”

“Oh, you know, stories are so often made up. I only repeat what I hear.”

“What have you heard?”

“Oh, they say,” said the adjutant again with the same smile, “that the countess, your wife, is preparing to go abroad. It’s most likely nonsense.”

“It may be,” said Pierre, looking absent-mindedly about him. “Who is that?” he asked, indicating a tall old man in a clean blue overcoat, with a big, snow-white beard and eyebrows and a ruddy face.

“That? Oh, he’s a merchant; that is, he’s the restaurant-keeper, Vereshtchagin. You have heard the story of the proclamation, I dare say?”

“Oh, so that’s Vereshtchagin!” said Pierre, scrutinising the firm, calm face of the old merchant, and seeking in it some token of treachery.

“That’s not the man himself. That’s the father of the fellow who wrote the proclamation,” said the adjutant. “The young man himself is in custody, and I fancy it will go hard with him.”

A little old gentleman with a star, and a German official with a cross on his neck, joined the group.

“It’s a complicated story, you see,” the adjutant was relating. “The proclamation appeared two months ago. It was brought to the count. He ordered inquiry to be made. Well, Gavrilo Ivanitch made investigations; the proclamation had passed through some sixty-three hands. We come to one and ask, From whom did you get it? From so and so. And the next refers us on to so and so; and in that way they traced it to Vereshtchagin … a half-educated merchant’s son, one of those pretty dears, you know,” said the adjutant smiling. “He too was asked, From whom did you get it? And we knew very well from whom he had it really. He could have had it from no one but the director of the post-office. But it was clear there was an understanding between them. He says he got it from no one, but had composed it himself. And threaten him and question him as they would, he stuck to it, he had written it himself. So the matter was reported, and the count had him sent for. ‘From whom did you get the proclamation?’ ‘I wrote it myself.’ Well! you know the count,” said the adjutant, with a smile of pride and delight. “He was fearfully angry; and only fancy the insolence, and lying, and stubbornness!”

“Oh! the count wanted him to say it was from Klutcharyov, I understand,” said Pierre.

“Oh no, not at all,” said the adjutant in dismay. “Klutcharyov had sins enough to answer for without that, and that’s why he was banished. But any way, the count was very indignant. ‘How could you write it?’ says the count. He took up the
Hamburg Gazette
that was on the table. ‘Here it is. You did not compose it, but translated it, and very badly too, because you don’t even know French, you fool.’ What do you think? ‘No,’ says he, ‘I have never read any gazettes; I made it up.’ ‘But if so, you’re a traitor, and I’ll hand you over for judgment, and you will be hanged.’ ‘Tell us from whom you got it.’ ‘I have not seen any gazettes; I composed it.’ So the matter rests. The count sent for the father; he sticks to the same story. And they had him tried, and he was sentenced, I believe, to hard labour. Now the father has come to petition in his favour. But he is a worthless young scamp! You know the style of spoilt
merchant’s son, a regular dandy and lady-killer; has attended lectures of some sort, and so fancies that he’s above everybody. A regular young scamp! His father has an eating-house here on the Kamenny bridge; and in the shop, you know, there is a great picture of God the Supporter of All, represented with a sceptre in one hand and the empire in the other; well, he took that picture home for a few days, and what do you suppose he did! He got hold of some wretched painter …”

In the middle of this new story Pierre was summoned to the governor.

He went into Count Rastoptchin’s study. Rastoptchin, frowning, passed his hand across his forehead and eyes as Pierre entered. A short man was saying something, but as soon as Pierre walked in he stopped, and went out.

“Ah! greetings to you, valiant warrior,” said Rastoptchin as soon as the other man had left the room. “We have been hearing about your
prouesses!
But that’s not the point.
Mon cher, entre nous
, are you a mason?” said Count Rastoptchin in a severe tone, that suggested that it was a crime to be so, but that he intended to pardon it. Pierre did not speak.
“Mon cher, je suis bien informé
; but I know that there are masons and masons, and I hope you don’t belong to those among them who, by way of regenerating the human race, are trying to ruin Russia.”

“Yes, I am a mason,” answered Pierre.

“Well then, look here, my dear boy. You are not unaware, I dare say, of the fact that Speransky and Magnitsky have been sent—to their proper place—and the same has been done with Klutcharyov and the others who, under the guise of building up the temple of Solomon, have been trying to destroy the temple of their fatherland. You may take it for granted there are good reasons for it, and that I could not have banished the director of the post-office here if he had not been a dangerous person. Now, it has reached my ears that you sent him your carriage to get out of the town, and that you have even taken charge of his papers. I like you, and wish you no harm, and as you are half my age, I advise you, as a father might, to break off all connection with people of that sort, and to get away from here yourself as quickly as you can.”

“But what was Klutcharyov’s crime?” asked Pierre

“That’s my business; and it’s not yours to question me,” cried Rastoptchin.

“If he is accused of having circulated Napoleon’s proclamation, the charge has not been proved,” said Pierre, not looking at Rastoptchin. “And Vereshtchagin …”

“
Nous y voilà
,” Rastoptchin suddenly broke in, scowling and shouting louder than ever. “Vereshtchagin is a traitor and a deceiver, who will receive the punishment he deserves,” he said, with the vindictiveness with which people speak at the recollection of an affront. “But I did not send for you to criticise my actions, but in order to give you advice or a command, if you will have it so. I beg you to break off all connection with Klutcharyov and his set, and to leave the town. And I’ll knock the nonsense out of them, wherever I may find it.” And, probably becoming conscious that he was taking a heated tone with Bezuhov, who was as yet guilty of no offence, he added, taking Pierre’s hand cordially: “We are on the eve of a public disaster, and I haven’t time to say civil things to every one who has business with me. My head is at times in a perfect whirl. Well, what are you going to do, you personally?”

“Oh, nothing,” answered Pierre, with his eyes still downcast, and no change in the expression of his dreamy face

The count frowned.

“
Un conseil d’ami, mon cher
. Decamp, and as soon as may be, that’s my advice.
A bon entendeur, salut!
Good-bye, my dear boy. Oh, by the way,” he called after him at the door, “is it true the countess has fallen into the clutches of the holy fathers of the Society of Jesus?”

Pierre made no answer. He walked out from Rastoptchin’s room, scowling and wrathful as he had never been seen before.

By the time he reached home it was getting dark. Eight persons of different kinds were waiting on him that evening. A secretary of a committee, the colonel of his battalion of militia, his steward, his bailiff, and other persons with petitions. All of them had business matters with Pierre, which he had to settle. He had no understanding of their questions, nor interest in them, and answered them with the sole object of getting rid of these people. At last he was left alone, and he broke open and read his wife’s letter.

“
They
—the soldiers on the battery, Prince Andrey killed … the old man.… Simplicity is submission to God’s will. One has to suffer … the significance of the whole … one must harness all together … my wife is going to be married.… One must forget and understand …” And, without undressing, he threw himself on his bed and at once fell asleep.

When he waked up next morning his steward came in to announce
that a police official was below, sent expressly by Count Rastoptchin to find out whether Count Bezuhov had gone, or was going away.

A dozen different people were waiting in the drawing-room to see Pierre on business. Pierre dressed in haste, and instead of going down to see them, he ran down the back staircase and out by the back entry to the gates.

From that moment till the occupation of Moscow was over, no one of Bezuhov’s household saw him again, nor could discover his whereabouts, in spite of every effort to track him down.

The Rostovs remained in Moscow till the 1st of September, the day before the enemy entered the city.

After Petya had joined Obolensky’s regiment of Cossacks and had gone away to Byely Tserkov, where the regiment was being enrolled, the countess fell into a panic of terror. The idea that both her sons were at the war, that they had both escaped from under her wing, that any day either of them—and possibly even both at once, like the three sons of a lady of her acquaintance—might be killed, seemed for the first time that summer to strike her imagination with cruel vividness. She tried to get Nikolay back, wanted to go herself after Petya, or to obtain some post for him in Petersburg; but all these seemed equally impossible. Petya could not be brought back except by the return of his regiment, or through being transferred to another regiment on active service. Nikolay was somewhere at the front, and nothing had been heard from him since the letter in which he had given a detailed account of his meeting with Princess Marya. The countess could not sleep at nights, and when she did sleep, she dreamed that her sons had been killed. After much talking the matter over, and many consultations of friends, the count at last hit on a means for soothing the countess. He got Petya transferred from Obolensky’s regiment to Bezuhov’s, which was in formation near Moscow. Though, even so, Petya remained in the army, by this exchange the countess had the consolation of seeing one son at least again under her wing; and she hoped to manage not to let her Petya escape her again, but to succeed in getting him always appointed to places where there would be no risk of his being in battle. While Nikolay had been the only one in danger, the countess had fancied (and had
suffered some pricks of conscience on the subject) that she loved her elder son better than the other children. But now that her younger boy, the scapegrace Petya, always idle at his lessons, always in mischief, and teasing every one, her little Petya, with his snub-nose, his merry black eyes, his fresh colour, and the soft down just showing on his cheeks, had slipped away into the company of those big, dreadful, cruel men, who were fighting away somewhere about something, and finding a sort of pleasure in it—now it seemed to the mother that she loved him more, far more, than all the rest. The nearer the time came for the return of her longed-for Petya to Moscow, the greater was the uneasiness of the countess. She positively thought she would never live to see such happiness. Not only Sonya’s presence, even her favourite Natasha’s, even her husband’s company, irritated the countess. “What do I want with them, I want no one but Petya!” she thought. One day towards the end of August, the Rostovs received a second letter from Nikolay. He wrote from the province of Voronezh, where he had been sent to procure remounts. This letter did not soothe the countess. Knowing that one son was out of danger, she seemed to feel even greater alarm on Petya’s account.

Although by the 20th of August almost all the Rostovs’ acquaintances had left Moscow; although everybody was trying to persuade the countess to get away as quickly as possible, she would not hear of leaving till her treasure, her idolised Petya, had come back. On the 28th of August Petya arrived. The morbidly passionate tenderness with which his mother received him was by no means gratifying to the sixteen-year-old officer. Though his mother concealed her intention of never letting him escape from under her wing again, Petya divined her plans, and instinctively afraid of his mother’s making him too soft, of her “making a ninny” of him (as he expressed it in his own mind), he treated her rather coolly, avoided being with her, and during his stay in Moscow devoted himself exclusively to Natasha, for whom he had always had the warmest brotherly affection, almost approaching adoration.

The count, with his characteristic carelessness, had by the 28th made no preparations for leaving, and the waggons that were to come from their Moscow and Ryazan estate to remove all their property out of the house only arrived on the 30th.

From the 28th to the 31st, Moscow was all bustle and movement. Every day thousands of wounded from the field of Borodino were brought in at the Dorogomilov gate and conveyed across Moscow, and
thousands of vehicles, full of residents and their belongings, were driving out at the gates on the opposite side of the city. In spite of Rastoptchin’s placards—either arising independently of them, or perhaps in consequence of them—the strangest and most contradictory rumours were circulating about the town. Some said that every one was forbidden to leave the city; others asserted that all the holy pictures had been taken from the churches, and every one was to be driven out of Moscow by force. Some said there had been another battle after Borodino, in which the French had been utterly defeated; others declared that the whole Russian army had been annihilated. Some talked of the Moscow militia, which was to advance, preceded by priests, to Three Hills; others whispered that Father Augustin had been forbidden to leave, that traitors had been caught, that the peasants were in revolt, and were plundering those who left the town, and so on. But all this was only talk: in reality even though the council at Fili, at which it was decided to abandon Moscow, had not yet taken place, all—those who were leaving and those who were staying—felt that Moscow would be surrendered, though they did not say so freely, and felt that they must make all haste to escape, and to save their property. There was a feeling that there must come a general crash and change, yet till the 1st of September everything went on unchanged. Like a criminal being led to the gallows, who knows in a minute he must die, and yet stares about, and puts straight the cap awry on his head, Moscow instinctively went on with the daily routine of life, though aware that the hour of ruin was approaching, when all the customary conditions of life would be at an end.