War and Peace (172 page)

The last episode was one in Poland, still fresh in the captain’s memory, and described by him with rapid gestures and a glowing face. The story was that he had saved the life of a Pole—the episode of saving life was continually cropping up in the captain’s anecdotes—and that Pole had intrusted to his care his bewitching wife, a Parisian in heart, while he himself entered the French service. The captain had been happy, the bewitching Polish lady had wanted to elope with him; but moved by a magnanimous impulse, the captain had restored the wife to the husband with the words: “I saved your life, and I save your honour.”

As he repeated these words, the captain wiped his eyes and shook himself, as though to shake off the weakness that overcame him at this touching recollection.

As men often do at a late hour at night, and under the influence of wine, Pierre listened to the captain’s stories, and while he followed and understood all he told him, he was also following a train of personal reminiscences which had for some reason risen to his imagination. As he listened to those love affairs, his own love for Natasha suddenly came into his mind, and going over all the pictures of that love in his imagination, he mentally compared them with Ramballe’s stories. As he heard the account of the conflict between love and duty, Pierre saw before him every detail of the meeting with the object of his love at the Suharev Tower. That meeting had not at the time made much impression on
him; he had not once thought of it since. But now it seemed to him that there was something very significant and romantic in that meeting.

“Pyotr Kirillitch, come here, I recognise you”; he could hear her words now, could see her eyes, her smile, her travelling cap, and the curl peeping out below it … and he felt that there was something moving, touching in all that.

When he had finished his tale about the bewitching Polish lady, the captain turned to Pierre with the inquiry whether he had had any similar experience of self-sacrifice for love and envy of a lawful husband.

Pierre, roused by this question, lifted his head and felt an irresistible impulse to give expression to the ideas in his mind. He began to explain that he looked upon love for woman somewhat differently. He said he had all his life long loved one woman, and still loved her, and that that woman could never be his.

“
Tiens!
” said the captain.

Then Pierre explained that he had loved this woman from his earliest youth, but had not dared to think of her because she was too young, and he had been an illegitimate son, with no name of his own. Then when he had received a name and wealth, he had not dared think of her because he loved her too much, because he set her too high above all the world, and so even more above himself. On reaching this point, Pierre asked the captain, did he understand that.

The captain made a gesture expressing that whether he understood it or not, he begged him to proceed.

“Platonic love; moonshine …” he muttered. The wine he had drunk, or an impulse of frankness, or the thought that this man did not know and never would know, any of the persons concerned in his story, or all together loosened Pierre’s tongue. With faltering lips and with a faraway look in his moist eye, he told all his story; his marriage and the story of Natasha’s love for his dearest friend and her betrayal of him, and all his own simple relations with her. In response to questions from Ramballe, he told him, too, what he had at first concealed—his position in society—and even disclosed his name.

What impressed the captain more than anything else in Pierre’s story was the fact that Pierre was very wealthy, that he had two palatial houses in Moscow, and that he had abandoned everything, and yet had not left Moscow, but was staying in the town concealing his name and station.

Late in the night they went out together into the street. The night was warm and clear. On the left there was the glow of the first fire that
broke out in Moscow, in Petrovka. On the right a young crescent moon stood high in the sky, and in the opposite quarter of the heavens hung the brilliant comet which was connected in Pierre’s heart with his love. At the gates of the yard stood Gerasim, the cook, and two Frenchmen. Pierre could hear their laughter and talk, incomprehensible to one another. They were looking at the glow of the fire burning in the town.

There was nothing alarming in a small remote fire in the immense city.

Gazing at the lofty, starlit sky, at the moon, at the comet and the glow of the fire, Pierre felt a thrill of joyous and tender emotion. “How fair it all is! what more does one want?” he thought. And all at once, when he recalled his design, his head seemed going round; he felt so giddy that he leaned against the fence so as not to fall.

Without taking leave of his new friend, Pierre left the gate with unsteady steps, and going back to his room lay down on the sofa and at once fell asleep.

From various roads, and with various feelings, the inhabitants running and driving away from Moscow, and the retreating troops, gazed at the glow of the first fire that broke out in the city on the 2nd of September.

The Rostovs’ party stopped for that night at Mytishtchy, twenty versts from Moscow. They had started so late on the 1st of September, the road had been so blocked by waggons and troops, so many things had been forgotten, and servants sent back to get them, that they had decided to halt for the first night five versts from Moscow. The next morning they waked late, and there were again so many delays that they only reached Great Mytishtchy. At ten o’clock the Rostov family, and the wounded soldiers travelling with them, had all found places for the night in the yards and huts of the greater village. The servants, the Rostovs’ coachmen, and the orderlies of the wounded officers, after settling their masters for the night, supped, fed their horses, and came out into the porch of a hut.

In the next hut lay Raevsky’s adjutant with a broken wrist, and the terrible pain made him moan incessantly, and these moans had a gruesome
sound in the autumn darkness of the night. On the first night this adjutant had spent the night in a building in the same yard as the hut in which the Rostovs slept. The countess declared that she had not closed her eyes all night from that moaning, and at Mytishtchy she had moved into a less comfortable hut simply to get further away from the wounded man. One of the servants noticed in the dark night sky, above the high carriage standing at the entry, another small glow of fire. One such glow had been seen long before, and every one knew it was Little Mytishtchy, which had been set on fire by Mamonov’s Cossacks.

“I say, mates, there’s another fire,” said the man. All of them looked towards the glow.

“Why, they told us Mamonov’s Cossacks had fired Little Mytishtchy.” “Nay! that’s not Mytishtchy, it’s further.” “Look’ee, it’s in Moscow seemingly.” Two of the men left the porch, went to a carriage and squatted on the step. “It’s more to the left! Why, Mytishtchy is away yonder, and that’s quite the other side.”

Several more men joined the first group.

“I say it is flaring,” said one; “that’s a fire in Moscow, my friends; either in Sushtchovsky or in Rogozhsky.”

No one answered this remark. And for a good while all these men gazed in silence at the flames of this new conflagration glowing far away. An old man, the count’s valet (as he was called), Danilo Terentyitch, came up to the crowd and called Mishka.

“What are you gaping at?… The count may ask for you and nobody to be found; go and put the clothes together.”

“Oh, I only ran out for some water,” said Mishka.

“And what do you say, Danilo Terentyitch? that’s a fire in Moscow, isn’t it?” said one of the footmen.

Danilo Terentyitch made no reply, and for a long while all were mute again. The glow spread wider, and flickered further and further away.

“God have mercy!… a wind and the drought …” said a voice again.

“Look’ee, how it’s spreading. O Lord! why, one can see the jackdaws! Lord, have mercy on us poor sinners!”

“They’ll put it out, never fear.”

“Who’s to put it out?” cried the voice of Danilo Terentyitch, silent till that moment. His voice was quiet and deliberate. “Moscow it is, mates,” he said; “it’s she, our mother, the white city …” his voice broke, and he suddenly burst into the sobs of old age. And it seemed as though all had been waiting for that to grasp the import for all of that glow they
were watching. Sighs were heard and muttered prayers, and the sobs of the old valet.

The valet on going in informed the count that Moscow was on fire. The count put on his dressing-gown and went out to look. With him went Sonya, who had not yet undressed, and Madame Schoss, Natasha and the countess were left alone within. Petya was no longer with the family; he had gone on ahead with his regiment marching to Troitsa.

The countess wept on hearing that Moscow was in flames. Natasha, pale, with staring eyes, sat on the bench under the holy images, the spot where she had first thrown herself down on entering, and took no notice of her father’s words. She was listening to the never-ceasing moan of the adjutant, audible three huts away.

“Oh! how awful!” cried Sonya, coming in chilled and frightened from the yard. “I do believe all Moscow is burning: there’s an awful fire! Natasha, do look; you can see now from the window here,” she said, obviously trying to distract her friend’s mind. But Natasha stared at her, as though she did not understand what was asked of her, and fixed her eyes again on the corner of the stove. Natasha had been in this petrified condition ever since morning, when Sonya, to the amazement and anger of the countess, had for some incomprehensible reason thought fit to inform Natasha of Prince Andrey’s wound, and his presence among their train. The countess had been angry with Sonya, as she waited all the while on her friend, as though trying to atone for her fault.

“Look, Natasha, how frightfully it’s burning,” said Sonya.

“What’s burning?” asked Natasha. “Oh yes, Moscow.”

And to get rid of Sonya, and not hurt her by a refusal, she moved her head towards the window, looking in such a way that it was evident she could see nothing, and sat again in the same attitude as before.

“But didn’t you see?”

“Yes, I really did see,” she declared in a voice that implored to be left in peace.

Both the countess and Sonya could readily understand that Moscow, the burning of Moscow, anything whatever in fact, could be of no interest to Natasha.

The count came in again behind the partition wall and lay down. The
countess went up to Natasha, put the back of her hand to her head, as she did when her daughter was ill, then touched her forehead with her lips, as though to find out whether she were feverish, and kissed her.

“You are chilled? You are all shaking. You should lie down,” she said.

“Lie down? Yes, very well, I’ll lie down. I’ll lie down in a minute,” said Natasha.

When Natasha had been told that morning that Prince Andrey was seriously wounded, and was travelling with them, she had at the first moment asked a great many questions, how and why and where she could see him. But after she had been told that she could not see him, that his wound was a serious one, but that his life was not in danger, though she plainly did not believe what was told her, she saw that she would get the same answer whatever she said, and gave up asking questions and speaking at all. All the way Natasha had sat motionless in the corner of the carriage with those wide eyes, the look which the countess knew so well and dreaded so much. And she was sitting in just the same way now on the bench in the hut. She was brooding on some plan; she was making, or already by now had made some decision, in her own mind—that the countess knew, but what that decision was she did not know, and that alarmed and worried her.

“Natasha, undress, darling, get into my bed.”

For the countess only a bed had been made up on a bedstead. Madame Schoss and the two girls were to sleep on hay on the floor.

“No, mamma, I’ll lie here on the floor,” said Natasha irritably; she went to the window and opened it. The moans of the adjutant could be heard more distinctly from the open window. She put her head out into the damp night air, and the countess saw her slender neck shaking with sobs and heaving against the window frame. Natasha knew it was not Prince Andrey moaning. She knew that Prince Andrey was in the same block of huts as they were in, that he was in the next hut just across the porch, but that fearful never-ceasing moan made her sob. The countess exchanged glances with Sonya.

“Go to bed, darling, go to bed, my pet,” said the countess, lightly touching Natasha’s shoulder. “Come, go to bed.”

“Oh yes … I’ll go to bed at once, at once,” said Natasha, hurriedly undressing, and breaking the strings of her petticoats. Dropping off her dress, and putting on a dressing-jacket, she sat down on the bed made up on the floor, tucking her feet under her, and flinging her short, fine hair over her shoulder, began plaiting it. Her thin, long, practised fingers
rapidly and deftly divided, plaited, and tied up her hair. Natasha’s head turned from side to side as usual as she did this, but her eyes, feverishly wide, looked straight before her with the same fixed stare. When her toilet for the night was over, Natasha sank softly down on to the sheet laid on the hay nearest the door.

“Natasha, you lie in the middle,” said Sonya.

“I’ll stay here,” said Natasha. “And do go to bed,” she added in a tone of annoyance. And she buried her face in the pillow.

The countess, Madame Schoss, and Sonya hurriedly undressed and went to bed. The lamp before the holy images was the only light left in the room. But out of doors the fire at Little Mytishtchy lighted the country up for two versts round, and there was a noisy clamour of peasants shouting at the tavern across the street, which Mamonov’s Cossacks had broken into, and the moan of the adjutant could be heard unceasingly through everything.

For a long while Natasha listened to the sounds that reached her from within and without, and she did not stir. She heard at first her mother’s prayers and sighs, the creaking of her bed under her, Madame Schoss’s familiar, whistling snore, Sonya’s soft breathing. Then the countess called to Natasha. Natasha did not answer.