##  BOOK ONE: 1805

##  CHAPTER I

“Well, Prince, so Genoa and Lucca are now just family estates of the Buonapartes. But I warn you, if you don’t tell me this means war, if you still try to defend the crimes and horrors committed by that Antichrist—I truly believe he is the Antichrist—I’ll have nothing more to do with you, and you’ll no longer be my friend, no longer my ‘faithful slave,’ as you call yourself! But how are you? I see I’ve frightened you—sit down and tell me all the news.”

It was July 1805, and the speaker was the well-known Anna Pávlovna Schérer, maid of honor and favorite of the Empress Márya Fëdorovna. With these words, she welcomed Prince Vasíli Kurágin, a man of high rank and importance, who was the first to arrive at her gathering. Anna Pávlovna had had a cough for several days. She said she was suffering from *la grippe*; *grippe* was then a new word in St. Petersburg, used only by the elite.

All her invitations, written in French and delivered by a scarlet-liveried footman that morning, read as follows:

“If you have nothing better to do, Count (or Prince), and if the thought of spending an evening with a poor invalid is not too terrible, I would be very pleased to see you tonight between 7 and 10—Annette Schérer.”

“Heavens! What a fierce greeting!” replied the prince, not at all disturbed by this reception. He had just entered, dressed in an embroidered court uniform, knee breeches, and shoes, with stars on his breast and a calm expression on his flat face. He spoke in that refined French our grandfathers not only spoke but thought in, with the smooth, patronizing intonation natural to a man of consequence who had grown old in society and at court. He approached Anna Pávlovna, kissed her hand, showing her his bald, perfumed, and shiny head, and contentedly seated himself on the sofa.

“First of all, dear friend, tell me how you are. Put your friend’s mind at ease,” he said, without changing his tone, hiding indifference—and even irony—beneath his polite and seemingly caring words.

“How can one feel well when suffering morally? How can anyone be calm at a time like this, if they have any feelings?” said Anna Pávlovna. “You’re staying for the whole evening, I hope?”

“And the party at the English ambassador’s? Today is Wednesday. I must show up there,” said the prince. “My daughter is coming to take me.”

“I thought tonight’s party was canceled. To be honest, all these celebrations and fireworks are starting to get tiresome.”

“If they’d known you wanted it, the event would have been postponed,” said the prince, who, like a clockwork toy, out of habit said things he didn’t even expect anyone to believe.

“Don’t tease! Well, what has been decided about Novosíltsev’s dispatch? You know everything.”

“What is there to say?” replied the prince in a cold, uninterested tone. “What did they decide? They decided that Buonaparte has burned his boats, and I believe we’re ready to burn ours.”

Prince Vasíli always spoke with a kind of weariness, like an actor reciting a worn-out role. Anna Pávlovna Schérer, on the other hand, despite being forty, was full of animation and zeal. Being an enthusiast had become her social calling and, sometimes, even if she didn’t feel like it, she acted enthusiastic so as not to disappoint those who expected it of her. The faint smile that—though it didn’t suit her faded features—always played about her lips suggested, as in a spoiled child, a constant awareness of her own charming flaw, which she neither wished nor could, nor thought necessary, to correct.

In the middle of a political conversation Anna Pávlovna burst out:

“Oh, don’t talk to me about Austria. Maybe I don’t understand things, but Austria never has wished, and doesn’t wish, for war. She is betraying us! Russia alone must save Europe. Our gracious sovereign recognizes his high calling and will remain true to it. That is the one thing I believe in! Our good and wonderful sovereign must play the noblest part on earth, and he is so virtuous and noble that God will not abandon him. He’ll fulfill his purpose and crush the hydra of revolution, now more terrible than ever in the form of this murderer and villain! We alone must avenge the blood of the just one…. Whom, I ask you, can we rely on?… England, with her commercial spirit, will not and cannot understand Emperor Alexander’s magnanimity. She has refused to evacuate Malta. She wanted—and still wants—to find some hidden motive in our actions. What answer did Novosíltsev get? None. The English haven’t understood, can’t understand, the self-sacrifice of our Emperor, who wants nothing for himself, but only seeks the good of all. And what have they promised? Nothing! And even the little they have promised, they won’t do! Prussia has always claimed that Buonaparte is invincible, and that Europe is helpless against him…. And I don’t believe a word Hardenburg says, nor Haugwitz either. This so-called Prussian neutrality is just a trap. I trust only in God and in the great destiny of our beloved monarch. He will save Europe!”

She suddenly stopped, smiling at her own outburst.

“I think,” said the prince with a smile, “that if you had gone instead of dear Wintzingerode, you would have won the King of Prussia’s consent by storm. You are so eloquent. Will you make me some tea?”

“In a moment. *À propos*,” she added, calming down again, “I’m expecting two very interesting men tonight: the Vicomte de Mortemart, linked to the Montmorencys through the Rohans, one of the best French families. He’s a true *émigré*, one of the good ones. And also Abbé Morio. Do you know that profound thinker? He has been received by the Emperor. Did you hear?”

“I’ll be delighted to meet them,” said the prince. “But tell me,” he added, carelessly, as though it had just occurred to him—though the question was the real reason for his visit—“is it true the Dowager Empress wants Baron Funke appointed first secretary in Vienna? By all accounts, the baron is a poor choice.”

Prince Vasíli hoped to get this position for his son, but others, through Dowager Empress Márya Fëdorovna, tried to secure it for the baron.

Anna Pávlovna nearly closed her eyes, showing neither she nor anyone else had the right to question what the Empress wished or approved.

“Baron Funke was recommended to the Dowager Empress by her sister,” was all she said, in a dry and sorrowful tone.

When she mentioned the Empress, Anna Pávlovna’s face suddenly showed deep, sincere devotion and respect mixed with sadness, as it always did when she named her esteemed patroness. She added that Her Majesty had graciously shown Baron Funke *beaucoup d’estime*, and once again, her expression turned gloomy.

The prince stayed silent and looked indifferent. But, with the swift, courtly tact of which she was a master, Anna Pávlovna wanted both to rebuke him (for daring to speak as he had of a man favored by the Empress) and console him at the same time, so she said:

“Now about your family. Do you know that since your daughter came out, everyone is enchanted by her? They say she’s strikingly beautiful.”

The prince bowed, showing his respect and thanks.

“I often think,” she continued after a short pause, moving closer to the prince and smiling kindly as if to show political and social topics were over and the conversation was now personal, “I often think how unfairly life’s joys are divided. Why did fate give you two such wonderful children? I’m not talking about Anatole, your youngest. I don’t like him,” she added, in a final tone, raising her eyebrows. “Two such charming children. And really you value them less than anyone, and so you don’t deserve them.”

She smiled her ecstatic smile.

“I can’t help it,” said the prince. “Lavater would say I lack the bump of fatherhood.”

“Don’t joke; I want to speak seriously. I’m not happy with your younger son, you know. Between ourselves” (her face took on a sorrowful look), “he was mentioned at Her Majesty’s, and you were pitied….”

The prince didn’t answer, but she looked at him meaningfully, waiting for a reply. He frowned.

“What would you have me do?” he said at last. “You know I did everything a father could for their education, and both have turned out fools. Hippolyte is at least a quiet fool, but Anatole is an active fool. That’s the only difference.” He said this with a smile more genuine and lively than usual, so that the lines around his mouth revealed something unexpectedly harsh and unpleasant.

“And why must men like you have children? If you weren’t a father, there’d be nothing I could blame you for,” said Anna Pávlovna, looking up thoughtfully.

“I am your faithful slave, and to you alone I’ll confess—my children are the bane of my life. It is the cross I bear. That’s how I explain it to myself. It can’t be helped!”

He said nothing more, but gestured to show his resignation to a cruel fate. Anna Pávlovna thought for a moment.

“Have you never thought of marrying off your prodigal son Anatole?” she asked. “People say old maids are obsessed with matchmaking, and though I don’t feel that urge yet, I know a young woman who’s very unhappy with her father. She’s related to you, Princess Mary Bolkónskaya.”

Prince Vasíli didn’t answer, but with the worldly quickness of mind and recall, he nodded, showing he understood this information.

“You know,” he said finally, unable to stop his own unhappy thoughts, “Anatole is costing me forty thousand rubles a year. And,” he went on after a pause, “what will it be in five years if he goes on like this?” After a moment, he added: “That’s what fathers have to put up with…. Is this princess of yours rich?”

“Her father is very rich and stingy. He lives in the country. He’s the well-known Prince Bolkónski who had to retire from the army under the late Emperor, and was called ‘the King of Prussia.’ He’s very smart, but eccentric, and a bore. The poor girl is very unhappy. She has a brother; I think you know him—he recently married Lise Meinen. He’s an aide-de-camp to Kutúzov and will be here tonight.”

“Listen, dear Annette,” said the prince, suddenly taking Anna Pávlovna’s hand and, for some reason, drawing it downward. “Arrange that matter for me and I will always be your most devoted slave—*slafe* with an *f*, as a village elder of mine writes in his reports. She is wealthy and from a good family, and that’s all I require.”

With the easy familiarity and graceful manner unique to him, he lifted the maid of honor’s hand to his lips, kissed it, and swung it back and forth as he lounged in his armchair, looking elsewhere.

*“Attendez,”* said Anna Pávlovna, thinking it over, “I’ll speak to Lise, young Bolkónski’s wife, this very evening, and maybe it can be arranged. It shall be for your family’s sake that I begin my apprenticeship as an old maid.”

##  CHAPTER II

Anna Pávlovna’s drawing room was slowly filling. The most distinguished people in Petersburg society were gathering there: individuals of various ages and personalities, but all members of the same social circle. Prince Vasíli’s daughter, the beautiful Hélène, came to take her father to the ambassador’s soirée; she wore a ball dress and her badge as a maid of honor. The young Princess Bolkónskaya, known as *la femme la plus séduisante de Pétersbourg*,* was also present. She had married that last winter, and, now pregnant, she only attended small gatherings rather than large events. Prince Vasíli’s son, Hippolyte, had arrived with Mortemart, whom he introduced. The Abbé Morio and many others also came.

\* The most fascinating woman in Petersburg.

To each new arrival Anna Pávlovna said, “You have not yet met my aunt,” or “Do you know my aunt?” She would gravely lead each newcomer to a little old lady, identified by the large ribbon bows in her cap, who would appear from another room as soon as guests began arriving. Anna Pávlovna would slowly turn her gaze from the guest to her aunt, introduce their name, and then leave them together.

Every guest went through the ritual of greeting this old aunt, whom none of them knew, none wanted to know, and none cared about; Anna Pávlovna observed these introductions with sorrowful and solemn attention, silently approving. The aunt would repeat the same phrases to each guest about their health, her own, and the health of Her Majesty, “who, thank God, was better today.” And each guest, though politeness kept them from showing impatience, left the old lady relieved to have finished this annoying obligation and did not return to her again that evening.

The young Princess Bolkónskaya had brought some embroidery in a gold-embroidered velvet bag. Her pretty upper lip, with a delicate dark down just visible, was a little short for her teeth yet lifted all the more charmingly, and was especially lovely when she occasionally pressed it down to meet her lower lip. As is often true of truly attractive women, her “flaw”—the shortness of her upper lip and her slightly open mouth—seemed to be an essential part of her unique beauty. Everyone brightened at the sight of this pretty young woman, soon to become a mother, so healthy and full of life as she gracefully carried her pregnancy. Old men and disheartened young ones, after being in her company and speaking with her, felt as if they too became as lively and cheerful as she was. All who spoke with her—and at every word saw her bright smile and constant flash of white teeth—felt themselves in a particularly amiable mood that day.

The little princess moved around the table with brisk, short, swaying steps, her workbag on her arm, and, happily arranging her dress, sat down on a sofa near the silver samovar, as if all she did was a pleasure to herself and everyone around her. “I have brought my work,” she said in French, showing her bag and addressing everyone present. “Annette, I hope you haven’t played a trick on me,” she added, turning to her hostess. “You wrote it would be a very small gathering, and just look—how poorly I am dressed!” She spread her arms to reveal her high-waisted, lace-trimmed, delicate gray dress, belted with a wide ribbon just below her chest.

“*Soyez tranquille, Lise*, you will always be prettier than everyone else,” replied Anna Pávlovna.

“You know,” said the princess in the same tone and still in French, turning to a general, “my husband is leaving me. He’s going to get himself killed. Tell me, what is this dreadful war for?” she added, addressing Prince Vasíli, and, without waiting for a reply, turned to speak to his daughter, the beautiful Hélène.

“What a delightful woman this little princess is!” Prince Vasíli remarked to Anna Pávlovna.

One of the next to arrive was a stout, broad-shouldered young man with close-cropped hair, spectacles, light-colored breeches fashionable at the time, a very high ruffle, and a brown coat. This young man was an illegitimate son of Count Bezúkhov, a famous noble of Catherine’s reign who was now dying in Moscow. The young man had not yet entered either the military or civil service, as he had just returned from studying abroad, and this was his first appearance in society. Anna Pávlovna greeted him with the nod she reserved for the lowest ranking in her drawing room. Yet despite this lowest-grade reception, a look of anxiety and discomfort, as if she had seen something oversized and out of place, crossed her face when Pierre entered. Though Pierre was certainly bigger than most men present, her concern came from the bright, shy yet intelligent and natural look that set him apart from everyone else in the room.

“It is very kind of you, Monsieur Pierre, to visit a poor invalid,” said Anna Pávlovna, exchanging an uneasy glance with her aunt as she led him there.

Pierre muttered something indistinct, continuing to look around as if searching for something. On his way to the aunt, he smiled cordially at the little princess, as if she were an old friend.

Anna Pávlovna’s concern was well-founded, for Pierre turned away from the aunt without pausing to hear her remarks about Her Majesty’s health. Anna Pávlovna, distressed, stopped him, saying: “Do you know the Abbé Morio? He is a most interesting man.”

“Yes, I have heard of his idea for perpetual peace, and it is quite interesting, but not really practical.”

“You think so?” Anna Pávlovna replied, just to say something as she hurried to handle her duties as hostess. But Pierre then made a second social misstep. First, he had left a lady before she had finished speaking, and now he kept talking to someone who wanted to leave. With his head down, feet apart, he began explaining why he thought the abbé’s plan was unrealistic.

“We will talk of it later,” Anna Pávlovna said with a smile.

Having escaped this young man who did not know the rules of society, she returned to her hosting duties, continuing to listen and watch, ready to step in whenever the conversation seemed to lag. Like a foreman in a spinning mill who, after setting the workers going, walks around checking and adjusting the machines, Anna Pávlovna moved through her drawing room, joining a quiet group here, calming a noisy group there, and by a word or gesture keeping the flow of conversation even and steady. Still, her concern about Pierre was clear. She anxiously watched him join the group around Mortemart to listen, then move to another group centered on the abbé.

Having been educated abroad, Pierre was attending Anna Pávlovna’s gathering for the first time in Russia. He knew that all the bright minds of Petersburg society were there, and, like a child in a toyshop, could not decide where to turn first, afraid of missing any clever conversation. Seeing the composed and refined looks of those around him, he was constantly expecting to hear something truly profound. Finally, he went over to Morio. Here, the conversation seemed intriguing, and he stood waiting for a chance to share his own thoughts, as young people often do.

##  CHAPTER III

Anna Pávlovna’s reception was in full swing. The spindles hummed steadily and ceaselessly all around. Except for the aunt, next to whom sat only one elderly lady—whose thin, careworn face seemed rather out of place in this dazzling company—the guests had divided into three groups. One, mostly men, had gathered around the abbé. Another, composed of young people, clustered around the beautiful Princess Hélène, Prince Vasíli’s daughter, and the little Princess Bolkónskaya, who was very pretty and rosy, though a bit too plump for her age. The third group had formed around Mortemart and Anna Pávlovna.

The vicomte was a handsome young man with gentle features and polished manners, who clearly saw himself as a celebrity but, out of courtesy, modestly made himself available to the circle he found himself in. Anna Pávlovna was clearly presenting him to her guests as a special treat. Just as a clever maître d’hôtel serves a particularly choice delicacy that no one would have fancied straight from the kitchen, so Anna Pávlovna showcased first the vicomte and then the abbé as especially refined guests. The group around Mortemart immediately started discussing the murder of the Duc d’Enghien. The vicomte said that the Duc d’Enghien had died because of his own magnanimity, and that there were special reasons for Bonaparte’s hatred of him.

“Ah, yes! Do tell us all about it, Vicomte,” said Anna Pávlovna, pleased by the hint of *à la Louis XV* elegance in her words: *“Contez nous çela, Vicomte.”*

The vicomte bowed and smiled courteously, signaling his willingness to oblige. Anna Pávlovna gathered a little group around him, inviting everyone to listen to his story.

“The vicomte knew the duc personally,” Anna Pávlovna whispered to one guest. “The vicomte is a wonderful storyteller,” she told another. “How evident it is he belongs to the best society,” she said to a third; and the vicomte was presented to the company in the most flattering style, like a perfectly garnished roast on a hot platter.

The vicomte was about to begin his tale, offering a subtle smile.

“Come over here, Hélène, dear,” said Anna Pávlovna to the young, beautiful princess, who was sitting a little ways off as the center of another group.

The princess smiled. She rose with the same unchanging smile she’d worn since entering the room—that serene smile of a perfectly beautiful woman. With a gentle rustle of her white dress, trimmed with moss and ivy, and a shimmer of white shoulders, glossy hair, and sparkling diamonds, she moved gracefully between the men who parted to let her pass. She didn’t look at any of them, but smiled at all, as if graciously granting them the privilege of admiring her lovely figure, shapely shoulders, back, and bosom—which, in the fashion of the day, were quite exposed. She seemed to bring the glow of a ballroom with her as she walked toward Anna Pávlovna. Hélène was so lovely that she showed not a trace of coquetry; instead, she even seemed shy about her undeniable and all-too-triumphant beauty. She seemed to wish she could soften its effect but couldn’t.

“How beautiful!” said everyone who saw her; the vicomte shrugged his shoulders and dropped his eyes, almost startled by her extraordinary presence as she sat opposite him and smiled with her ever-present radiance.

“Madame, I doubt my ability before such an audience,” he said, smiling and inclining his head.

The princess rested her bare, round arm on a small table and thought a reply unnecessary. She smiled and waited. Throughout the story, she sat up straight, looking sometimes at her beautiful arm, now altered in shape by the table’s pressure, sometimes admiring her even more beautiful bosom, where she adjusted a sparkling diamond necklace. Now and then she smoothed the folds of her dress; whenever the tale created an effect, she glanced at Anna Pávlovna and immediately mirrored whatever expression she saw on the host’s face—then she would return to her radiant smile.

The little princess had also left the tea table to follow Hélène.

“Wait a second, I’ll get my work…. Now then, what are you thinking of?” she said, turning to Prince Hippolyte. “Fetch me my workbag.”

There was a general shuffle as the princess, smiling and chatting cheerfully to everyone at once, settled merrily into her seat.

“Now I am all set,” she said, and after asking the vicomte to begin, she took up her embroidery.

Prince Hippolyte, having fetched the workbag, joined the circle and, moving a chair close, sat beside her.

*Le charmant Hippolyte* was remarkable for looking so much like his beautiful sister, but even more so because, despite this resemblance, he was exceptionally unattractive. His features were similar to his sister’s, but while hers were full of animated, self-assured, youthful, and constant cheerful smiles—with the exquisite beauty of her form—his face was dulled by stupidity and a constant look of sullen self-confidence, while his body was thin and weak. His eyes, nose, and mouth all seemed drawn into a vacant, tired expression, and his arms and legs always fell into awkward, unnatural positions.

“It isn’t going to be a ghost story, is it?” he asked, sitting down by the princess and hurriedly fixing his lorgnette, as if he couldn’t speak without it.

“Of course not, my dear fellow,” the surprised narrator replied, shrugging his shoulders.

“Because I can’t stand ghost stories,” said Prince Hippolyte in a tone that made it clear he only realized the meaning of his words after saying them.

He spoke with such confidence that listeners couldn’t decide if what he said was very clever or very foolish. He was dressed in a dark green coat, knee-breeches in the color *cuisse de nymphe effrayée*, as he called it, shoes, and silk stockings.

The vicomte told his story elegantly. It was an anecdote—then making the rounds—that claimed the Duc d’Enghien had gone secretly to Paris to visit Mademoiselle George; that in her home he encountered Bonaparte, who was also favored by the famous actress, and that while there, Napoleon was seized by one of his fainting spells, leaving him at the duc’s mercy. The duc spared him, and Bonaparte later repaid this generosity with death.

The story was charming and intriguing, especially at the part where the rivals suddenly recognize each other; the ladies looked visibly moved.

“Charming!” said Anna Pávlovna, glancing at the little princess for her reaction.

“Charming!” echoed the little princess, stabbing her needle into her work as if to show that the tale was so fascinating she could not continue stitching.

The vicomte appreciated this silent compliment, and with a grateful smile prepared to go on, but just then Anna Pávlovna, who had been keeping a watchful eye on the young man who made her so uneasy, noticed that he was speaking too loudly and passionately with the abbé, so she hurried over to intervene. Pierre had managed to begin a conversation with the abbé about the balance of power, and the latter, apparently interested in the young man’s eager openness, was explaining his favorite theory. Both were talking and listening too intensely—something Anna Pávlovna disapproved of.

“The means are … the balance of power in Europe and the rights of the people,” the abbé was saying. “If only one powerful nation like Russia—even if considered barbarous—would selflessly lead an alliance to maintain Europe’s balance of power, it would save the world!”

“But how can you achieve that balance?” Pierre was asking.

Just then Anna Pávlovna came over and, giving Pierre a stern look, asked the Italian how he found the Russian climate. The Italian’s face instantly changed, taking on an exaggerated, sugary expression that was clearly his usual manner around women.

“I am so enchanted by the brilliance of the wit and culture of your society—especially of the women—I have not even had time to think about the climate,” he replied.

Not letting the abbé and Pierre escape, Anna Pávlovna, wishing to keep an eye on them, led them over to the larger circle.

##  CHAPTER IV

Just then, another guest entered the drawing room: Prince Andrew Bolkónski, the little princess’s husband. He was a very handsome young man of medium height, with sharp, well-defined features. Everything about him—from his tired, bored expression to his calm, measured walk—stood in striking contrast to his gentle, petite wife. It was obvious that he not only knew everyone in the room, but also found them so dull that it wearied him just to look at or listen to them. And of all these tedious faces, none seemed to bore him as much as that of his attractive wife. He turned from her with a grimace that distorted his otherwise handsome features, kissed Anna Pávlovna’s hand, and, squinting, looked over the assembled company.

“You are off to the war, Prince?” said Anna Pávlovna.

“General Kutúzov,” said Bolkónski, speaking French and accenting the last syllable of the general’s name like a Frenchman, “has graciously accepted me as an aide-de-camp….”

“And Lise, your wife?”

“She will go to the country.”

“Aren’t you ashamed to deprive us of your charming wife?”

*“André,”* said his wife, addressing him in the same flirtatious tone she used with other men, “the vicomte has just told us the most amusing story about Mademoiselle George and Buonaparte!”

Prince Andrew squinted and turned away. Pierre, who since Prince Andrew’s arrival had watched him with happy, affectionate eyes, now approached and took his arm. Before turning, Prince Andrew frowned again, showing his annoyance at being touched, but when he saw Pierre’s cheerful face he gave him an unexpectedly warm and friendly smile.

“There now!… So you, too, are part of society these days?” he said to Pierre.

“I knew you’d be here,” Pierre replied. “I’ll come to supper with you. May I?” he added quietly, not wanting to interrupt the vicomte’s story.

“No, impossible!” said Prince Andrew, laughing and squeezing Pierre’s hand to show the request was unnecessary. He meant to say something else, but just then Prince Vasíli and his daughter stood to leave, and the two young men got up to let them pass.

“You must excuse me, dear Vicomte,” said Prince Vasíli to the Frenchman, holding him by the sleeve in a friendly way to keep him sitting. “This unfortunate event at the ambassador’s deprives me of a pleasure and forces me to leave you. I’m truly sorry to have to leave your delightful party,” he said, turning to Anna Pávlovna.

His daughter, Princess Hélène, glided between the chairs, lightly lifting the folds of her dress, and her smile radiated even more beautifully. Pierre gazed at her with rapt, almost frightened eyes as she passed by.

“Very lovely,” said Prince Andrew.

“Very,” said Pierre.

As he left, Prince Vasíli took Pierre’s hand and said to Anna Pávlovna: “Educate this bear for me! He’s been with me an entire month, and this is the first time I’ve seen him at a social gathering. Nothing is more important for a young man than the company of intelligent women.”

Anna Pávlovna smiled and promised to take Pierre under her wing. She knew his father was connected to Prince Vasíli. The older lady who had been sitting with the elderly aunt got up quickly and caught up to Prince Vasíli in the anteroom. All the pretense of interest she’d shown had faded from her kindly, timeworn face, which was now filled only with anxiety and concern.

“How is my son Borís, Prince?” she said, hurrying after him into the anteroom. “I can’t stay in Petersburg much longer. What news can I bring back to my poor boy?”

Although Prince Vasíli listened reluctantly—and not very politely—to the lady, even showing some impatience, she gave him an ingratiating and pleading smile, holding his hand so he couldn’t leave.

“What would it cost you to say just a word to the Emperor? Then he would be transferred to the Guards at once,” she said.

“Believe me, Princess, I am ready to do all I can,” answered Prince Vasíli. “But it is difficult for me to ask the Emperor. I’d suggest you appeal to Rumyántsev through Prince Golítsyn. That would be the best way.”

The woman, Princess Drubetskáya, belonged to one of the finest families in Russia, but she was poor, and being out of society for many years had lost her old influential connections. She had come to Petersburg just to get her only son an appointment in the Guards. In fact, she had secured the invitation to Anna Pávlovna’s reception solely to meet Prince Vasíli and had sat, listening to the vicomte’s story, waiting for a chance to ask him. Prince Vasíli’s words frightened her; a pained expression crossed her once-beautiful face, but only for an instant. Then she smiled again, clinging more tightly to his arm.

“Listen to me, Prince,” she said. “I’ve never asked anything of you, and never will again, nor have I ever reminded you of my father’s friendship for you; but now, for God’s sake, I beg you to do this for my son, and I’ll always consider you my benefactor,” she added hurriedly. “No, don’t be angry, but promise! I’ve asked Golítsyn and he refused. Please, be the kindhearted person you always were,” she said, trying to smile through her tears.

“Papa, we will be late,” said Princess Hélène, turning her beautiful head and looking over her classically shaped shoulder as she waited at the door.

Influence in society, however, is a kind of capital that must be managed carefully to last. Prince Vasíli knew this, and realizing that if he pleaded on behalf of everyone who asked him, he would soon lose the ability to ask for himself, he was careful with his influence. Still, in Princess Drubetskáya’s case, after her second plea, he felt a pang of conscience. She reminded him—rightly—of the debt he owed her father for the start of his own career. Also, he knew from her manner that she was one of those women—mostly mothers—who, once determined, would not rest until they succeeded and would persist day after day if needed, even to the point of making a scene. This last point moved him.

“My dear Anna Mikháylovna,” he said in his usual familiar and weary tone, “it’s almost impossible for me to do what you ask; but to show you my devotion and how much I respect your father’s memory, I will do the impossible—your son will be transferred to the Guards. Shake on it. Are you satisfied?”

“My dear benefactor! This is just what I expected from you—I knew your kindness!” She let him go.

“Wait—just one more thing! Once he’s transferred to the Guards…” she began hesitantly, “you’re on good terms with Michael Ilariónovich Kutúzov… please recommend Borís to him as adjutant! Then I could truly rest, and then…”

Prince Vasíli smiled.

“No, I won’t promise that. You can’t imagine how pestered Kutúzov is since he became Commander in Chief. He told me himself that all the ladies of Moscow have conspired to get all their sons appointed adjutants.”

“No, you must promise! I won’t let you go! My dear benefactor…”

“Papa,” repeated his beautiful daughter in the same tone, “we’ll be late.”

“Well, *au revoir!* Good-bye! You hear her?”

“So tomorrow you will speak to the Emperor?”

“Certainly; but about Kutúzov, I can’t promise.”

“Do promise, do promise, Vasíli!” pleaded Anna Mikháylovna as he left, managing a flirtatious smile—probably natural to her in her youth, but now quite out of place on her careworn face.

It seemed she had forgotten her age and, by force of habit, still used all her old feminine wiles. But as soon as the prince departed, her face returned to its usual cold, artificial expression. She went back to the group where the vicomte was still talking and again pretended to listen, just waiting for the right time to leave. Her goal was accomplished.

##  CHAPTER V

“And what do you think of the latest comedy, the coronation at Milan?” asked Anna Pavlovna. “And of the farce with the people of Genoa and Lucca presenting their petitions to Monsieur Buonaparte, and Monsieur Buonaparte sitting on a throne, granting the requests of nations? Adorable! It’s enough to make one’s head spin! It’s as if the entire world has gone mad.”

Prince Andrew looked Anna Pavlovna straight in the face and smiled sarcastically.

*“‘Dieu me la donne, gare à qui la touche!’”* \* They say he looked very impressive when he said that,” he added, repeating the words in Italian: *“‘Dio mi l’ha dato. Guai a chi la tocchi!’”*

\* God has given it to me, let him who touches it beware!

“I hope this will be the last straw that makes the glass overflow,” Anna Pavlovna continued. “The sovereigns won’t be able to endure this man who threatens everything.”

“The sovereigns? I’m not speaking of Russia,” said the vicomte, polite but hopeless. “The sovereigns, madame… What have they done for Louis XVII, for the Queen, or for Madame Elizabeth? Nothing!” He became more animated. “And believe me, they are now paying for betraying the Bourbon cause. The sovereigns! They’re even sending ambassadors to congratulate the usurper.”

He sighed in disdain and shifted in his seat again.

Prince Hippolyte, who had been gazing at the vicomte for some time through his lorgnette, suddenly turned fully toward the little princess. After asking for a needle, he began outlining the Condé coat of arms on the table, explaining this to her with as much gravity as if she had actually requested it.

*“Bâton de gueules, engrêlé de gueules d’azur—maison Condé,”* he said.

The princess listened with a smile.

“If Buonaparte stays on the throne in France for even another year,” the vicomte continued, with the manner of someone who knows the subject better than anyone and doesn’t even listen to others, “then things will have gone too far. Through intrigues, violence, exile, and executions, French society—I mean true French society—will be destroyed forever, and then…”

He shrugged and spread his hands wide. Pierre was eager to say something, for he was interested in the conversation, but Anna Pavlovna, who was keeping an eye on him, cut in:

“The Emperor Alexander,” she said, with the melancholy that always accompanied her references to the Imperial family, “has declared that he will let the French people decide what government they want; and I believe that once they are freed from the usurper, the whole nation will surely throw itself into the arms of its rightful king,” she concluded, trying to be gracious to the royalist émigré.

“That is doubtful,” said Prince Andrew. “Monsieur le Vicomte is quite right in thinking things may have gone too far. I think it will be difficult to return to the old regime.”

“From what I’ve heard,” Pierre said, blushing and jumping into the discussion, “almost all the aristocracy has already sided with Bonaparte.”

“That’s what the Buonapartists claim,” replied the vicomte, not even glancing at Pierre. “Currently, it’s hard to know what French public opinion really is.”

“Bonaparte has said as much,” added Prince Andrew, smiling sarcastically.

It was clear he did not like the vicomte and was directing his remarks at him, even as he avoided looking his way.

“‘I showed them the path to glory, but they did not follow it,’” Prince Andrew went on after a pause, again quoting Napoleon. “‘I opened my antechambers and they crowded in.’ I’m not sure how justified he was in saying that.”

“Not at all,” replied the vicomte. “After the duke’s murder, even his most ardent supporters stopped considering him a hero. If to some,” he continued, turning to Anna Pavlovna, “he ever was a hero, after the duke’s murder there was one more martyr in heaven and one less hero on earth.”

Before Anna Pavlovna and the others could smile at the vicomte’s epigram, Pierre once more entered the conversation; and though Anna Pavlovna was sure he would say something inappropriate, she could not stop him.

“The execution of the Duc d’Enghien,” Monsieur Pierre declared, “was a political necessity, and I believe Napoleon showed greatness of soul by not fearing to take full responsibility for that act.”

*“Dieu! Mon Dieu!”* whispered Anna Pavlovna in terror.

“What, Monsieur Pierre… You think assassination shows greatness of soul?” asked the little princess, smiling and drawing her work closer.

“Oh! Oh!” several voices cried.

“Capital!” said Prince Hippolyte in English, and began slapping his knee with his palm.

The vicomte only shrugged. Pierre looked at his listeners over his spectacles, serious, and continued.

“I say so,” he went on desperately, “because the Bourbons fled the Revolution, abandoning the people to anarchy, and Napoleon alone understood and settled the Revolution. For the public good, he couldn’t stop to consider one man’s life.”

“Won’t you come over to the other table?” Anna Pavlovna suggested.

But Pierre continued, ignoring her.

“No,” he cried, getting more passionate, “Napoleon is great because he overcame the Revolution, stopped its abuses, and preserved what was good—like equality of citizenship and freedom of speech and the press. That’s why he gained power.”

“Yes, if after gaining power, without resorting to murder, he had restored it to the legitimate king, I’d call him a great man,” remarked the vicomte.

“He couldn’t do that. The people only gave him power to rid them of the Bourbons, and because they saw he was great. The Revolution was a great thing!” Monsieur Pierre exclaimed, his extreme youth and eagerness making him bold and provocative.

“What? Revolution and regicide, a great thing?… Well, in that case… But won’t you move to the other table?” Anna Pavlovna repeated.

“Rousseau’s *Contrat Social*,” the vicomte said with a tolerant smile.

“I’m not talking about regicide, I’m talking about ideas.”

“Yes, ideas of robbery, murder, and regicide,” another voice put in ironically.

“Those were extremes, of course, but they aren’t what matters most. The important things are the rights of man, freedom from prejudice, and equality of citizenship; all those ideas Napoleon has maintained.”

“Liberty and equality,” sneered the vicomte, as if finally deciding it was worth his time to show this young man how foolish his words were. “High-sounding words, which have long been discredited. Who doesn’t love liberty and equality? Even our Savior taught liberty and equality. Are people happier now, after the Revolution? On the contrary. We wanted liberty, but Buonaparte has destroyed it.”

Prince Andrew kept glancing with an amused smile from Pierre to the vicomte and from the vicomte to their hostess. At the instant of Pierre’s outburst, Anna Pávlovna, despite all her social experience, was horrified. But when she saw that the vicomte was not offended by Pierre’s irreverent words, and realized it was impossible to stop him, she regained her composure and joined the vicomte in a vigorous attack on their outspoken guest.

“But, my dear Monsieur Pierre,” she said, “how do you explain a great man executing a duc—or even an ordinary man—who is innocent and untried?”

“I should like,” said the vicomte, “to ask monsieur how he explains the 18th Brumaire; wasn’t that just a deception? It was a swindle, nothing like the conduct of a true great man!”

“And the prisoners he killed in Africa? That was horrible!” said the little princess, shrugging her shoulders.

“He’s a vulgar fellow, say what you will,” remarked Prince Hippolyte.

Pierre, not knowing whom to answer, looked at each of them and smiled. His smile was unlike the half-smiles of other people. When he smiled, his serious, even rather gloomy, expression was instantly transformed into another—a childlike, friendly, even slightly foolish look, as if he were asking for forgiveness.

The vicomte, meeting him for the first time, now clearly saw that this young Jacobin was not as intimidating as his words made him seem. Everyone fell silent.

“How do you expect him to answer all of you at once?” said Prince Andrew. “Besides, when judging the actions of a statesman, one has to distinguish between his acts as a private person, as a general, and as an emperor. At least, that’s how it seems to me.”

“Yes, yes, of course!” Pierre agreed eagerly, happy to find support.

“One must admit,” Prince Andrew continued, “that Napoleon as a man was great on the bridge of Arcola, and in the hospital at Jaffa where he gave his hand to those suffering from plague; but ... but then there are other acts that are hard to defend.”

Prince Andrew, clearly wanting to smooth over the awkwardness caused by Pierre’s remarks, stood and signaled to his wife that it was time to leave.

Suddenly Prince Hippolyte jumped up, waving to everyone to pay attention and asking them all to be seated. He began:

“I was told a delightful Moscow story today and simply must share it. Forgive me, Vicomte—I have to tell it in Russian or the point will be lost….” And Prince Hippolyte began the story in the kind of Russian a Frenchman might speak after about a year in Russia. Everyone waited, so emphatic and excited was his demand for their attention.

“In Moscow there’s a lady, *une dame*, very stingy. She insisted on having two footmen behind her carriage, and they had to be very large men. That was her style. And she had a lady’s maid, also large. She said….”

Here Prince Hippolyte paused, struggling to gather his thoughts.

“She said… Oh yes! She said, ‘Girl,’ to the maid, ‘put on a livery, get up behind the carriage, and come with me while I pay some calls.’”

At this point Prince Hippolyte began spluttering and burst out laughing before his listeners, undermining his own story. Several people, including the elderly lady and Anna Pávlovna, did manage to smile.

“So she went. Suddenly a strong wind came up. The girl lost her hat and her long hair came down….” He could no longer contain himself, and went on, in fits of laughter: “And the whole world saw….”

And so the anecdote ended. It was never clear why he had told the story, or why it needed to be told in Russian, but Anna Pávlovna and the others appreciated Prince Hippolyte’s social finesse in pleasantly ending Pierre’s uncomfortable and unsociable outburst. After the story, the conversation dissolved into insignificant small talk about recent and upcoming balls, about theatricals, and about who would meet whom, and when and where.

##  CHAPTER VI

After thanking Anna Pávlovna for her delightful soiree, the guests began to take their leave.

Pierre was awkward. He was stout, of average height, broad, with large red hands; he didn’t know, as the saying goes, how to enter a drawing room, and even less how to leave one—that is, how to say something particularly pleasant as he departed. Besides this, he was absent-minded. When he stood up to go, he accidentally took the general’s three-cornered hat instead of his own, and held it, idly playing with the plume, until the general asked him to return it. All his absent-mindedness and social clumsiness, however, were offset by his kind, simple, and modest expression. Anna Pávlovna turned towards him and, with a Christian gentleness that showed she forgave his awkwardness, nodded and said: “I hope to see you again, but I also hope you will change your opinions, my dear Monsieur Pierre.”

When she said this, he didn’t reply and only bowed, but again everyone noticed his smile, which seemed to say nothing except perhaps, “Opinions are opinions, but you can see I’m a thoroughly good-natured fellow.” Everyone, including Anna Pávlovna, felt this.

Prince Andrew had gone out into the hall and, turning his back to the footman helping him with his cloak, listened indifferently to his wife’s chatter with Prince Hippolyte, who had also entered the hall. Prince Hippolyte stood close to the pretty, pregnant princess and watched her intently through his eyeglass.

“Go in, Annette, or you’ll catch cold,” said the little princess, saying goodbye to Anna Pávlovna. “It’s settled,” she added quietly.

Anna Pávlovna had already managed to discuss with Lise the match she was planning between Anatole and the little princess’s sister-in-law.

“I’m counting on you, my dear,” Anna Pávlovna whispered as well. “Write to her and tell me what her father thinks about it. *Au revoir!*”—and she left the hall.

Prince Hippolyte approached the little princess and, bending close to her, began to whisper something.

Two footmen, the princess’s and his own, stood holding a shawl and a cloak, waiting for the conversation to finish. They listened to the French sentences, which were meaningless to them, with an expression of understanding while trying not to appear as if they were listening. The princess, as usual, spoke with a smile and responded with laughter.

“I’m very glad I didn’t go to the ambassador’s,” said Prince Hippolyte. “It would have been so dull. This has been a wonderful evening, hasn’t it? Wonderful!”

“They say the ball is going to be very good,” replied the princess, pursing her soft lower lip. “All the society beauties will be there.”

“Not all, since you won’t be there; not all,” said Prince Hippolyte with a joyful smile. Snatching the shawl from the footman, even pushing him aside, he began wrapping it around the princess. Whether it was from awkwardness or on purpose (no one could have said which), after the shawl was arranged, he kept his arm around her for a long time, as if embracing her.

Still smiling, she moved away gracefully, glancing back at her husband. Prince Andrew’s eyes were closed, and he looked utterly exhausted and sleepy.

“Are you ready?” he asked his wife, looking past her.

Prince Hippolyte hurriedly put on his cloak, which, following the latest style, reached to his heels, and, stumbling over it, ran out onto the porch after the princess, whom a footman was helping into the carriage.

*“Princesse, au revoir,”* he called, stumbling over both his words and his feet.

The princess, lifting her dress, was getting into the dark carriage; her husband was adjusting his saber; Prince Hippolyte, pretending to help, was just in everyone’s way.

“Allow me, sir,” said Prince Andrew in Russian, in a cold, unpleasant tone to Prince Hippolyte, who was blocking his way.

“I’m expecting you, Pierre,” the same voice said, but softly and kindly.

The postilion started, the carriage wheels rattled. Prince Hippolyte laughed spasmodically as he stood in the porch waiting for the vicomte, whom he had promised to take home.

“Well, *mon cher*,” said the vicomte, having seated himself beside Hippolyte in the carriage, “your little princess is very charming, very charming indeed, quite French,” and he kissed the tips of his fingers. Hippolyte burst out laughing.

“You know, for all your innocent airs, you’re quite a rascal,” continued the vicomte. “I pity the poor husband, that little officer who acts like a monarch.”

Hippolyte spluttered again and, still laughing, said, “And you were saying that Russian ladies aren’t equal to the French? One just needs to know how to handle them.”

Being the first to arrive home, Pierre went into Prince Andrew’s study as if he were at home, and, out of habit, immediately lay down on the sofa, grabbed the first book he found (it was Caesar’s *Commentaries*), and, propping himself on his elbow, began to read in the middle.

“What have you done to Mlle Schérer? She’ll be quite ill now,” said Prince Andrew, entering the study and rubbing his small white hands.

Pierre turned his whole body, making the sofa creak. He looked eagerly up at Prince Andrew, smiled, and waved his hand.

“That abbé is very interesting, but he doesn’t look at things the right way…. In my opinion, perpetual peace is possible, but—I don’t know how to say it… not by balancing political powers….”

It was clear Prince Andrew wasn’t interested in such abstract talk.

“You can’t always say exactly what you think, *mon cher*. Well, have you finally decided anything? Are you going to be a guardsman or a diplomat?” Prince Andrew asked after a brief pause.

Pierre sat up on the sofa, tucking his legs under him.

“Honestly, I still don’t know. I don’t like either option.”

“But you must choose something! Your father expects it.”

When Pierre was ten, he’d been sent abroad with an abbé as tutor, and had stayed away until he was twenty. When he returned to Moscow, his father dismissed the abbé and said to the young man, “Now go to Petersburg, explore, and choose your profession. I’ll agree to anything. Here’s a letter to Prince Vasíli, and here’s money. Write to me about everything, and I’ll help you in any way.” Pierre had already been deciding on a profession for three months and still hadn’t settled on anything. It was about that choice Prince Andrew was speaking. Pierre rubbed his forehead.

“But he must be a Freemason,” Pierre said, referring to the abbé he had met that evening.

“That’s all nonsense,” Prince Andrew interrupted again. “Let’s talk about business. Have you been to the Horse Guards?”

“No, I haven’t; but here’s what I’ve been thinking and wanted to tell you. There’s a war going on against Napoleon. If it were a war for freedom, I’d understand and would be the first to join the army; but to help England and Austria against the greatest man in the world doesn’t feel right.”

Prince Andrew only shrugged at Pierre’s naive words. He took on the air of someone who thought it impossible to respond to such nonsense, but in fact, it would have been hard to give any answer other than the one Prince Andrew gave to this innocent question.

“If no one fought unless it was for his own beliefs, there would be no wars,” he said.

“And that would be wonderful,” Pierre replied.

Prince Andrew smiled wryly.

“It would probably be wonderful, but it will never happen….”

“Well then, why are you going to the war?” asked Pierre.

“Why? I don't know. I have to. Besides, I'm going….” He paused. “I'm going because the life I lead here doesn't suit me!”

##  CHAPTER VII

The rustle of a woman’s dress was heard in the next room. Prince Andrew straightened, as if waking up, and his face took on the expression it had worn in Anna Pávlovna’s drawing room. Pierre quickly moved his feet from the sofa. The princess entered. She had changed into a house dress, fresh and stylish like the other. Prince Andrew stood and politely offered her a chair.

“How is it,” she began, as usual in French, settling quickly and fussily into the easy chair, “how is it Annette never got married? How foolish you men all are not to have married her! Forgive me for saying so, but you truly don’t understand women. What a debater you are, Monsieur Pierre!”

“And I am still arguing with your husband. I can't understand why he wants to go to war,” said Pierre, addressing the princess without any of the awkwardness young men often show around young women.

The princess started. Clearly, Pierre’s words struck close to home.

“Oh, that's exactly what I tell him!” she said. “I don't understand it; I simply cannot understand why men can't live without wars. Why is it we women don’t want such things, don’t need them? Judge between us. I always tell him: He’s Uncle’s aide-de-camp—a wonderful position. He’s so well known, so appreciated by everyone. The other day at the Apráksins’ I heard a lady ask, ‘Is that the famous Prince Andrew?’ I really did.” She laughed. “He’s so well received everywhere. He could easily become the Emperor’s aide-de-camp. You know the Emperor spoke to him with such grace. Annette and I were talking about how to arrange it. What do you think?”

Pierre glanced at his friend, and seeing that Andrew didn’t enjoy the subject, said nothing.

“When are you leaving?” he asked.

“Oh, don’t talk about him going—please don’t! I don't want to hear about it,” said the princess in the same petulant playful tone she'd used with Hippolyte in the drawing room, which was out of place in the family circle where Pierre was almost a member. “Today when I remembered that all these wonderful connections will be broken off … and then you know, André…” (she looked at her husband significantly) “I'm afraid, I'm afraid!” she whispered, a shiver running down her back.

Her husband looked at her, as if surprised to realize someone besides Pierre and himself were in the room, and spoke to her in a tone of cold politeness.

“What exactly are you afraid of, Lise? I don't understand,” he said.

“There, you see—all men are selfish, every one of you! Just because of his own whim, who knows what for, he leaves me and shuts me up in the country alone.”

“With my father and sister, remember,” Prince Andrew said gently.

“Alone all the same, without *my* friends…. And he expects me not to be afraid.”

Her tone now sounded complaining and her lip curled, giving her not a happy but a nervous, squirrel-like look. She stopped, feeling it improper to speak of her pregnancy before Pierre, though that was really what it was about.

“I still don’t understand what you’re afraid of,” Prince Andrew said slowly, watching his wife.

The princess blushed, and raised her arms in a gesture of despair.

“No, Andrew, I must say—you’ve changed. Oh, how you have….”

“Your doctor says you should go to bed earlier,” said Prince Andrew. “You’d better go.”

The princess didn’t reply, but suddenly her small, soft lip trembled. Prince Andrew stood up, shrugged, and began pacing the room.

Pierre looked over his spectacles, now at Andrew, now at the princess, surprised and unsure, starting to stand as well, but stopped himself.

“Why should I mind Monsieur Pierre being here?” burst out the little princess suddenly, her pretty face twisting into a look of tearful distress. “I've wanted to ask you for a long time, Andrew—why have you grown so cold toward me? What have I done to you? You're going to war and you don’t care about me at all. Why?”

“Lise!” was all Prince Andrew said. That one word was a plea, a warning, and above all a conviction she’d regret what she was saying. But she hurried on:

“You treat me like an invalid or a child. I see it so clearly! Did you act this way six months ago?”

“Lise, I beg you, that's enough,” said Prince Andrew, even more firmly.

Pierre, growing increasingly agitated while listening, got up and came closer to the princess. He seemed unable to watch her cry and almost ready to cry himself.

“Please calm yourself, Princess! It only seems that way to you because… I can tell you I myself have felt… and so… No, forgive me! I shouldn’t be here… Please don’t upset yourself… Good-bye!”

Prince Andrew took him by the hand.

“No, wait, Pierre! The princess is too kind to want to deprive me of the pleasure of your company this evening.”

“No, he thinks only of himself,” muttered the princess, not trying to hide her angry tears.

“Lise!” Prince Andrew said sharply, raising his voice slightly in frustration.

Suddenly the princess’ tense, squirrel-like expression softened into a look of frightened appeal. Her beautiful eyes glanced nervously at her husband’s face, and her own wore the fearful, apologetic look of a dog timidly wagging its tail.

*“Mon Dieu, mon Dieu!”* she whispered, and raising her dress with one hand, walked over to her husband and kissed him on the forehead.

“Good night, Lise,” he said, rising and politely kissing her hand as if she were a stranger.

##  CHAPTER VIII

The friends sat in silence. Neither wanted to be the first to speak. Pierre kept glancing at Prince Andrew; Prince Andrew rubbed his forehead with his small hand.

“Let’s go have supper,” he said with a sigh, heading toward the door.

They entered the elegant, newly decorated, and luxurious dining room. Everything, from the table napkins to the silver, china, and glass, bore that sense of newness found in the households of newlyweds. Halfway through supper, Prince Andrew leaned his elbows on the table and, with a look of nervous agitation that Pierre had never seen on his face before, began to speak—as someone who has long carried a heavy thought and suddenly decides to let it out.

“Never, never marry, my dear fellow! That’s my advice: never marry until you can honestly say you have done all you are capable of, and until you no longer love the woman you’ve chosen and can see her clearly as she is, or you’ll make a cruel and irreversible mistake. Get married only when you’re old and good for nothing—or else all that is good and noble in you will be lost, wasted on trivialities. Yes! Yes! Yes! Don’t look so surprised. If you marry expecting anything from your future self, you will feel at every step that for you, life is over, all is finished except for the drawing room, where you’ll be lined up with a court lackey and an idiot!… But what's the use?…” and he waved his arm.

Pierre took off his spectacles, which made his face look different and his good-natured expression even more obvious, and stared at his friend in astonishment.

“My wife,” continued Prince Andrew, “is an excellent woman, one of those rare people with whom your honor is safe; but, oh God, what wouldn’t I give now to be unmarried! You are the first and only one I’m telling this to, because I like you.”

As he said this, Prince Andrew looked less like the Bolkónski who lounged in Anna Pávlovna’s easy chairs, muttering French phrases through half-closed eyes. Every muscle of his thin face was now trembling with nervous tension; his eyes, which usually looked lifeless, now shone brightly. It was clear that the more lifeless he seemed at other times, the more passionate he became during these moments of near-morbid agitation.

“You don’t understand why I’m telling you this,” he went on, “but it’s the story of life itself. You talk about Bonaparte and his career,” he said (though Pierre had not actually mentioned Bonaparte), “but Bonaparte worked toward his goal, step by step. He was free; he only had to think about his purpose, and he achieved it. But tie yourself to a woman and, like a chained convict, you lose all your freedom! Whatever hope or strength you have just drags you down and torments you with regret. Drawing rooms, gossip, balls, vanity, triviality—these are the enchanted circle I can't escape. I’m heading off to war, the greatest war there’s ever been, and I know nothing and am good for nothing. I’m very pleasant and have a biting wit,” continued Prince Andrew, “and at Anna Pávlovna’s they listen to me. And that stupid crowd without whom my wife can’t live, and those women… If only you knew what those society women are, and women in general! My father is right. Selfish, vain, foolish, trivial in everything—that’s what women are when you see them truly! When you meet them in society, it seems like there’s something in them, but there’s nothing, nothing, nothing! No, don’t marry, my dear fellow; don’t marry!” finished Prince Andrew.

“It seems strange to me,” said Pierre, “that *you, of all people,* should think of yourself as incapable and your life as wasted. You have everything before you, everything. And you…”

He didn’t finish his sentence, but his tone showed how highly he thought of his friend and how much he expected from him in the future.

“How can he talk like that?” thought Pierre. He considered his friend a model of perfection because Prince Andrew had, to the highest degree, just the very qualities Pierre lacked, which could best be described as strength of will. Pierre was always amazed at Prince Andrew’s calm way of dealing with everyone, his remarkable memory, his vast reading (he had read everything, knew everything, and had an opinion about everything), but above all, at his ability to work and study. And if Pierre was sometimes struck by Andrew’s lack of ability for deep meditation (which Pierre himself especially enjoyed), he didn’t see it as a flaw, but as a sign of real strength.

Even in the best, most friendly, and simplest relationships, praise and recognition are necessary, just as grease is needed for wheels to run smoothly.

“My part is over,” said Prince Andrew. “What’s the use of talking about me? Let’s talk about you,” he added after a pause, smiling at his reassuring thoughts.

That smile was instantly mirrored on Pierre’s face.

“But what’s there to say about me?” said Pierre, breaking into a carefree, cheerful smile. “What am I? An illegitimate son!” He suddenly blushed deep red, and it was clear he had made a great effort to say this. “Without a name and without means… And it really…” But he didn’t finish what “it really” was. “For now, I’m free and it’s all right. Only I have no idea what I ought to do; I wanted to ask your honest advice.”

Prince Andrew looked kindly at him, yet his gaze—friendly and affectionate as it was—still expressed a sense of his own superiority.

“I’m fond of you, especially because you’re the only truly alive person in our whole set. Yes, you’re all right! Do what you want; it’s all the same. You’ll do well anywhere. But look here: stop visiting those Kurágins and living that kind of life. It doesn’t suit you at all—this debauchery, dissipation, and all the rest!”

“What would you have me do, my dear fellow?” replied Pierre, shrugging. “Women, my dear fellow; women!”

“I don’t understand it,” said Prince Andrew. “Women who are *comme il faut*—that’s different. But the Kurágins’ crowd, ‘women and wine,’ I just don’t understand!”

Pierre was staying at Prince Vasíli Kurágin’s, sharing the wild life of his son Anatole, the son they were planning to reform by marrying him off to Prince Andrew’s sister.

“You know?” said Pierre, as if suddenly struck by a happy thought, “honestly, I’ve been thinking about that for a long time…. Living like this, I can’t settle down or think seriously about anything. You get a headache, and you end up spending all your money. He asked me to come tonight, but I won’t go.”

“Will you give me your word you won’t go?”

“On my honor!”

##  CHAPTER IX

It was past one o’clock when Pierre left his friend. It was a clear, northern summer night. Pierre took an open cab, planning to go straight home. But the closer he got to his house, the more he felt it was impossible to go to bed on such a night. It was bright enough to see far down the empty street, and it seemed more like morning or evening than night. On the way, Pierre remembered that Anatole Kurágin was expecting the usual group for cards that evening, after which there was usually a drinking party, often ending with outings that Pierre particularly enjoyed.

“I’d like to go to Kurágin’s,” he thought.

But he immediately remembered his promise to Prince Andrew not to go there. Then, as often happens to people with weak resolve, he felt such a strong desire to once again indulge in the wild habits he was so used to, that he decided to go. He quickly reasoned that his promise to Prince Andrew didn’t count, because before he made it he had already promised Anatole to attend; “besides,” he thought, “all these ‘words of honor’ are just formalities and not really binding, especially when you consider that by tomorrow you could be dead, or something so strange might happen that honor and dishonor would mean the same!” Pierre often had such thoughts, which made him undo all his resolutions and plans. He went to Kurágin’s.

Arriving at the large house near the Horse Guards’ barracks where Anatole lived, Pierre entered the brightly lit porch, went upstairs, and entered through the open door. There was no one in the anteroom; empty bottles, coats, and overshoes were scattered about; there was a smell of alcohol, and voices and shouting could be heard from further inside.

Cards and supper had finished, but the guests hadn't yet left. Pierre tossed off his cloak and entered the first room, where the remains of supper were scattered. A footman, thinking he was unobserved, was quietly drinking what was left in the glasses. From the third room came laughter, familiar voices shouting, a bear growling, and general chaos. About eight or nine young men were anxiously crowded around an open window. Three others were playing with a young bear, one pulling it by a chain and trying to set it on the others.

“I bet a hundred on Stevens!” someone shouted.

“No grabbing!” cried another.

“I’ll bet on Dólokhov!” called a third. “Kurágin, you separate our hands.”

“Leave Bruin alone; here’s a proper bet,” another shouted.

“He has to drink it all at once, or he loses!” a fourth yelled.

“Jacob, bring a bottle!” shouted the host, a tall and handsome fellow who stood among the group, coatless, with his fine linen shirt unbuttoned at the front. “Hang on, everyone... Here’s Pétya! Good man!” he said, calling out to Pierre.

A different voice, belonging to a man of medium height with striking clear blue eyes, and which stood out as sober among the drunken shouts, called from the window: “Come here; sort the bets!” This was Dólokhov, an officer in the Semënov regiment, a notorious gambler and duelist, who was living with Anatole. Pierre smiled as he looked around cheerfully.

“I don’t get it. What’s going on?”

“Wait, he’s not drunk yet! Bring a bottle,” said Anatole, and picking up a glass from the table, he handed it to Pierre.

“First, you have to drink!”

Pierre drank one glass after another, glancing sideways at the tipsy guests who had gone back to the window, listening to their chatter. Anatole kept filling Pierre’s glass and explained that Dólokhov was betting with Stevens, an English naval officer, that he could drink a full bottle of rum while sitting on the outer ledge of a third-story window with his legs hanging outside.

“Go on, you have to finish it,” said Anatole, handing Pierre the last glass, “or I won’t let you go!”

“No, I won’t,” said Pierre, pushing Anatole aside, and he went over to the window.

Dólokhov was holding the Englishman’s hand and repeating the terms of the bet clearly and distinctly, especially to Anatole and Pierre.

Dólokhov was of average height, with curly hair and light blue eyes. He was about twenty-five. Like most infantry officers, he wore no mustache, so his mouth—the most remarkable feature of his face—was clearly visible. The lines of his mouth were sharply, beautifully curved. The middle of his upper lip formed a pointed wedge and pressed firmly against the strong lower one, and it seemed as if two different smiles played constantly at both corners of his lips; this, along with the confident, intelligent boldness in his eyes, made his face impossible to ignore. Dólokhov was poor and had no good family connections. Yet, even though Anatole spent tens of thousands of rubles, Dólokhov lived with him and managed to be so respected that everyone who knew them, including Anatole himself, respected him more than Anatole. Dólokhov could play any game and almost always won. No matter how much he drank, he never lost his sharpness. Both Kurágin and Dólokhov were, at this time, infamous among the wild crowd of Petersburg.

The bottle of rum was brought. The window frame, which kept anyone from sitting on the outer sill, was being forced out by two footmen, clearly nervous and intimidated by the gentlemen’s orders and shouts.

Anatole, swaggering, strode up to the window. He wanted to break something. He shoved the footmen aside and pulled at the frame but couldn’t budge it. He broke a pane of glass.

“Give it a try, Hercules,” he said, nodding to Pierre.

Pierre grabbed the crossbeam, pulled, and tore the oak frame out with a crash.

“Take it all the way out, or they’ll think I’m holding on,” said Dólokhov.

“Is the Englishman just talking?… Well? Is it set?” asked Anatole.

“Perfect,” said Pierre, looking at Dólokhov, who now, rum bottle in hand, approached the window, through which the sky was visible, the dawn blending with sunset’s afterglow.

Dólokhov, still holding the bottle, jumped onto the window sill. “Listen!” he shouted, standing there and addressing everyone in the room. There was silence.

“I bet fifty imperials”—he spoke in French so the Englishman would understand, though not very well—“I bet fifty imperials... or do you want to make it a hundred?” he added, turning to the Englishman.

“No, fifty,” the Englishman replied.

“All right. Fifty imperials... that I’ll drink the whole bottle of rum in one go without taking it from my mouth, sitting outside the window right here” (he stooped down and pointed to the sloping ledge outside the window) “and without holding on to anything. Is that agreed?”

“Quite right,” said the Englishman.

Anatole turned to the Englishman, grabbed one of the buttons of his coat, and, since the Englishman was short, looked down at him while repeating the terms of the bet in English.

“Wait!” shouted Dólokhov, banging the bottle on the window sill to get attention. “Hold on, Kurágin. Listen! If anyone else does the same thing, I’ll pay him a hundred imperials. Understood?”

The Englishman nodded, but didn’t show whether he planned to take the challenge. Anatole still held onto him, and even though the Englishman kept nodding to show he understood, Anatole continued translating Dólokhov’s words into English. A thin young hussar from the Life Guards, who had been losing all evening, climbed onto the sill, leaned over, and looked down.

“Oh! Oh! Oh!” he murmured, looking down at the stone pavement.

“Get away!” Dólokhov shouted, pushing him from the window. The young man awkwardly jumped back into the room, tripping over his spurs.

Placing the bottle within easy reach on the window sill, Dólokhov carefully and slowly climbed through the window, lowered his legs, braced himself on both sides, settled onto his spot, let go with his hands, shifted a bit right and left, then reached for the bottle. Anatole brought over two candles and put them on the window sill, though it was already bright. Dólokhov’s back in his white shirt, and his curly hair, were lit from both sides. Everyone crowded to the window, the Englishman at the front. Pierre stood smiling but silent. One man, older than the others, suddenly stepped forward, looking scared and angry, and tried to grab Dólokhov’s shirt.

“I’m telling you, this is crazy! He’ll get himself killed,” said this more sensible man.

Anatole stopped him.

“Don’t touch him! You’ll startle him and then he’ll be killed. Eh?… What then?… Eh?”

Dólokhov turned around and, still holding on with both hands, positioned himself on his seat.

“If anyone comes meddling again,” he said, forcing out the words individually through his tight, pressed lips, “I’ll throw him down there. Now then!”

With that, he turned back around, dropped his hands, grabbed the bottle and lifted it to his lips, tilted his head back, and raised his free hand to steady himself. One of the footmen, who had bent down to pick up some broken glass, stayed in that position, unable to take his eyes off the window and Dólokhov’s back. Anatole stood tall, staring wide-eyed. The Englishman watched from the side, lips pursed. The man who had tried to stop the affair ran to a corner and flung himself onto a sofa, turning his face to the wall. Pierre hid his face, and though a faint smile lingered, his features now showed horror and fear. Everyone was silent. Pierre uncovered his eyes. Dólokhov sat still in the same pose, but now his head was thrown even further back, so that his curly hair touched his shirt collar, and the hand holding the bottle was raised higher and higher, shaking from the effort. The bottle visibly emptied as it rose, and his head tilted back even more. “Why is it taking so long?” thought Pierre. It seemed to him that more than half an hour had passed. Suddenly, Dólokhov jerked his back, and his arm shook nervously; this slight motion was enough to cause his whole body to slip where he sat on the sloping ledge. As he began to slide down, his head and arm wavered even more with the strain. One hand twitched as if to grab the window sill, but he kept from touching it. Pierre covered his eyes again, thinking he would never open them. All of a sudden, he sensed a commotion around him. He looked up: Dólokhov was now standing on the window sill, pale but with a glowing face.

“It’s empty.”

He tossed the bottle to the Englishman, who caught it handily. Dólokhov jumped down. He smelled strongly of rum.

“Well done!… Fine fellow!… There’s a bet for you!… Devil take you!” came shouts from every direction.

The Englishman pulled out his purse and began counting out the money. Dólokhov stood there, frowning in silence. Pierre jumped onto the window sill.

“Gentlemen, who wants to bet with me? I’ll do the same thing!” he suddenly shouted. “Even without a bet, just watch! Someone bring me a bottle. I’ll do it…. Bring a bottle!”

“Let him do it, let him do it,” Dólokhov said, smiling.

“What now? Are you crazy?… No one will let you!… You get dizzy just on a staircase,” several voices cried.

“I’ll drink it! Bring a bottle of rum!” yelled Pierre, banging the table with a determined, drunken gesture and getting ready to climb out the window.

They tried to restrain him by the arms, but he was so strong that everyone who touched him was thrown aside.

“No, you’ll never manage him that way,” said Anatole. “Wait a bit, I’ll handle this…. Listen! I’ll take your bet tomorrow, but now we’re all going to ——’s.” “Come on then,” shouted Pierre. “Come on!… And we’ll take Bruin with us.”

He grabbed the bear, lifted it in his arms, and began dancing around the room with it.

##  CHAPTER X

Prince Vasíli kept the promise he had made to Princess Drubetskáya, who had spoken to him on behalf of her only son Borís on the evening of Anna Pávlovna’s soirée. The matter was brought to the Emperor’s attention, an exception was granted, and Borís was transferred to the regiment of Semënov Guards with the rank of cornet. However, despite all Anna Mikháylovna’s efforts and pleas, he was not given an appointment to Kutúzov’s staff. Shortly after Anna Pávlovna’s reception, Anna Mikháylovna returned to Moscow and went straight to her wealthy relatives, the Rostóvs, with whom she always stayed in the city. It was also where her beloved Bóry, who had just entered a regiment of the line and was now immediately being transferred to the Guards as a cornet, had been educated from childhood and had lived for years at a time. The Guards had already left Petersburg on the tenth of August, and her son, who had remained in Moscow for his equipment, was due to join them on the march to Radzivílov.

It was St. Natalia’s day and the name day of two members of the Rostóv family—the mother and the youngest daughter—both named Nataly. Since the morning, carriages pulled by six horses had been coming and going nonstop, bringing visitors to Countess Rostóva’s large house on the Povarskáya, so well known all over Moscow. The countess herself and her beautiful eldest daughter were in the drawing room with the guests who arrived to offer their congratulations, each group quickly replacing the last.

The countess was a woman of about forty-five, with a slender face of Oriental type, clearly worn out by childbirth—she had borne twelve children. A certain languor in her movements and speech, due to weakness, gave her a distinguished air that inspired respect. Princess Anna Mikháylovna Drubetskáya, who as a family member was also seated in the drawing room, helped receive and entertain the guests. The younger members of the household were in one of the inner rooms, not feeling it necessary to take part in greeting visitors. The count personally welcomed the guests and saw them out, inviting every one of them to dinner.

“I am very, very grateful to you, *mon cher*,” or *“ma chère”*—he called everyone without exception and without the slightest difference in his tone, “my dear,” regardless of whether they ranked above or below him—“I thank you for myself and for our two dear ones whose name day we are celebrating. But you must come to dinner or I will be offended, *ma chère!* On behalf of the whole family I beg you to come, *mon cher!*” He repeated these words to every single person, never varying them, and with the same look on his full, cheerful, clean-shaven face, the same firm handshake, and the same quick, repeated bows. As soon as he had escorted one guest out, he would return to one of those still in the drawing room, pull up a chair for them, and, jauntily spreading his legs and placing his hands on his knees with the air of a man who enjoys life and knows how to live, he would rock back and forth with dignity, remark on the weather, or discuss matters of health—sometimes in Russian, sometimes in very poor but confident French. Then, like someone growing tired but still committed to his duty, he would rise again to see more guests out, and, smoothing his thin gray hair over his bald spot, would again invite them to dinner. Sometimes, on his way back from the anteroom, he would pass through the conservatory and pantry into the large marble dining hall, where tables were being set for eighty people; and, watching the footmen bringing in silverware, arranging tables, and laying out damask linen, he would call Dmítri Vasílevich, a respectable man who managed all his affairs, and, gazing with pleasure at the enormous table, would say: “Well, Dmítri, you’ll make sure everything is just right? Good! The main thing is the serving, that’s what counts.” And with a satisfied sigh, he would return to the drawing room.

“Márya Lvóvna Karágina and her daughter!” announced the countess’s gigantic footman in his deep voice as he entered the drawing room. The countess paused for a moment and took a pinch of snuff from a gold snuffbox with her husband’s portrait on it.

“I’m quite worn out by all these visitors. Well, I’ll see her and then no more. She is so affected. Ask her in,” she said to the footman in a weary tone, as if to say, “All right, just finish me off.”

A tall, stout, and dignified woman, accompanied by her round-faced, smiling daughter, entered the drawing room, their dresses rustling.

“Dear Countess, it’s been ages… She was laid up, the poor child … at the Razumóvski’s ball … and Countess Apráksina … I was so delighted…” came the lively, overlapping voices of women, mixed with the rustling of dresses and the scraping of chairs. Then came one of those conversations that last until, at the first pause, the guests rise with another rustle of skirts and say, “I am so delighted… Mamma’s health… and Countess Apráksina…” and then, still rustling, move into the anteroom, put on their cloaks, and depart. The subject was the main topic of the day: the sickness of the wealthy and famous beau of Catherine’s era, Count Bezúkhov, and his illegitimate son Pierre, the one who had behaved so scandalously at Anna Pávlovna’s reception.

“I feel so sorry for the poor count,” said the visitor. “He is in such bad health, and now this upset about his son could finish him off!”

“What is that?” asked the countess, as if unaware of what the visitor referred to—though she had already heard of the cause of Count Bezúkhov’s distress at least fifteen times.

“That’s what you get with a modern education,” exclaimed the visitor. “Apparently, while he was abroad this young man was allowed to have his own way, and now in Petersburg I hear he has done such disgraceful things that he’s been expelled by the police.”

“You don’t say so!” replied the countess.

“He picked the wrong friends,” added Anna Mikháylovna. “Prince Vasíli’s son, him, and a certain Dólokhov have been up to who knows what! And now they’re paying for it. Dólokhov has been demoted to the ranks, and Bezúkhov’s son has been sent back to Moscow. Anatole Kurágin’s father managed somehow to get his son’s situation hushed up, but even then he was ordered out of Petersburg.”

“But what exactly did they do?” asked the countess.

“They’re true ruffians, especially Dólokhov,” answered the visitor. “He’s the son of Márya Ivánovna Dólokhova, such a respectable woman, but imagine! Those three caught a bear somewhere, put it in a carriage, and took it to visit some actresses! When the police tried to intervene, what did the young men do? They tied a policeman and the bear back to back and put the bear in the Moyka Canal. So there was the bear swimming around with the policeman on his back!”

“What an amusing sight the policeman must have been, my dear!” shouted the count, roaring with laughter.

“Oh, how dreadful! How can you laugh at that, Count?”

Yet the women themselves couldn’t help laughing.

“They barely managed to rescue the poor man,” continued the visitor. “And to think it was Cyril Vladímirovich Bezúkhov’s son who entertains himself in this way! He was supposed to be so well-educated and bright. That’s what his foreign education did for him! I hope that here in Moscow no one will receive him, regardless of his fortune. They tried to introduce him to me, but I refused: I have my daughters to consider.”

“Why do you say this young man is so wealthy?” asked the countess, turning away from the girls, who instantly put on an air of disinterest. “All his children are illegitimate. I think Pierre is illegitimate too.”

The visitor made a dismissive gesture.

“I imagine he has a score of them.”

Princess Anna Mikháylovna joined the conversation, clearly wanting to show her connections and familiarity with society matters.

“The truth is,” she said meaningfully, and also in a half-whisper, “everyone knows Count Cyril’s reputation… He’s lost count of his children, but Pierre was always his favorite.”

“How handsome the old man still was only a year ago!” remarked the countess. “I have never seen a more handsome man.”

“He’s changed a lot now,” said Anna Mikháylovna. “Well, as I was saying, Prince Vasíli is the next heir through his wife, but the count is very fond of Pierre, oversaw his education, and wrote to the Emperor about him; so that if he dies—and he is so ill that he could die any moment, and Dr. Lorrain has come from Petersburg—no one knows who will inherit his huge fortune, Pierre or Prince Vasíli. Forty thousand serfs and millions of rubles! I know all about it because Prince Vasíli told me himself. Besides, Cyril Vladímirovich is my mother’s second cousin. He’s also my Bóry’s godfather,” she added, as if that fact was of no consequence to her.

“Prince Vasíli arrived in Moscow yesterday. I hear he’s here on some inspection business,” the visitor remarked.

“Yes, but between us,” said the princess, “that’s just a cover. The real reason is to see Count Cyril Vladímirovich, since he heard how ill he is.”

“But you know, my dear, that was a brilliant joke,” said the count; and seeing the older visitor wasn’t listening, he turned to the young ladies. “I can just picture the policeman’s face!”

And as he waved his arms, imitating the policeman, his stout figure again shook with deep, hearty laughter—the laugh of someone who always eats well and, above all, drinks well. “So do come and dine with us!” he said.

##  CHAPTER XI

Silence followed. The countess looked at her guests, smiling warmly, though it was clear she wouldn’t mind if they stood up and took their leave now. The visitor’s daughter was already smoothing her dress, glancing at her mother for direction, when suddenly, from the next room, came the clatter of boys and girls running toward the door, a chair falling over, and a thirteen-year-old girl darted into the room, hiding something in the folds of her short muslin dress. She stopped abruptly, obviously not expecting her dash to carry her so far. Behind her in the doorway appeared a student with a red collar, an officer of the Guards, a fifteen-year-old girl, and a plump, rosy-cheeked boy in a short jacket.

The count jumped up, swaying a little, spread his arms wide, and embraced the little girl who had run in.

“Ah, here she is!” he exclaimed, laughing. “My darling, whose name day it is. My dear pet!”

“Ma chère, there’s a time for everything,” said the countess with mock severity. “You spoil her, Ilyá,” she added, turning to her husband.

“How are you, my dear? I wish you many happy returns of your name day,” said the visitor. “What a charming child,” she added, turning to the mother.

This black-eyed, wide-mouthed girl, not exactly pretty but full of energy—with her childish bare shoulders heaving from her run, her black curls tossed back, thin bare arms, little legs in lace-trimmed drawers, and feet in low slippers—was just at that wonderful age when a girl is no longer a child, but not quite a young woman. Escaping from her father, she ran to hide her flushed face in her mother’s lace mantilla—completely ignoring her mother’s stern comment—and burst out laughing. She laughed, and in broken sentences tried to explain about a doll she pulled from the folds of her dress.

“Do you see?... My doll... Mimi... You see…” was all Natásha managed to say (everything seemed funny to her). Leaning against her mother, she began to laugh so loudly and joyously that even the prim visitor couldn’t help but join in.

“Now then, go along and take your monstrosity with you,” said her mother, pushing her away with playful sternness. Then, turning to the visitor, she added, “She’s my youngest girl.”

Natásha, looking up for a moment from her mother’s mantilla, glanced at her mother through her tears of laughter, then buried her face again.

The visitor, feeling obliged to take part in this family moment, spoke up.

“Tell me, my dear,” she said to Natásha, “is Mimi a relation of yours? A daughter, I suppose?”

Natásha didn’t like the visitor’s patronizing tone toward her childish things. She didn’t reply, but looked back at her seriously.

Meanwhile, the younger set—Borís, the officer and Anna Mikháylovna’s son; Nicholas, the student and the count’s elder son; Sónya, the count’s fifteen-year-old niece; and little Pétya, his youngest boy—had all settled into the drawing room, clearly working to hide the excitement and laughter on their faces. Obviously, the conversation they’d left behind in the back rooms had been much livelier than the usual drawing-room talk of society gossip, the weather, and Countess Apráksina. Every so often, they’d exchange glances, barely managing to hold back their laughter.

The two young men, the student and the officer, childhood friends, were the same age and both good-looking, though not much alike. Borís was tall and fair, with calm, regular, delicate features. Nicholas was shorter, with curly hair and an open, enthusiastic face. Dark hair was beginning to show on his upper lip, and his whole expression was spirited and eager. Nicholas blushed when he entered the drawing room. He seemed to search for something to say, but couldn’t find the words. Borís, on the other hand, quickly composed himself and related, quietly and with humor, how he had known Mimi the doll when she was quite the young lady before her nose got broken; how she had aged in the five years he’d known her, and how her head had cracked right across the skull. As he finished, he glanced at Natásha. She turned away from him and looked at her younger brother, who was squinting and shaking with barely-contained laughter, and, unable to contain herself any longer, she sprang up and ran from the room as fast as her nimble little feet would allow. Borís did not laugh.

“You were about to go out, weren’t you, Mamma? Do you want the carriage?” he asked his mother with a smile.

“Yes, yes, go and tell them to get it ready,” she answered, returning his smile.

Borís quietly left the room to look for Natásha. The plump boy ran after them, annoyed, as though upset their plans had been interrupted.

##  CHAPTER XII

The only young people left in the drawing room, aside from the young lady visitor and the countess’s eldest daughter (who was four years older than her sister and already behaved like an adult), were Nicholas and Sónya, the niece. Sónya was a slender little brunette with a gentle look in her eyes, which were shaded by long lashes. Her thick black braids wound twice around her head, and she had a tawny tint to her complexion, especially noticeable in the color of her slender yet graceful and strong arms and neck. In the gracefulness of her movements, the softness and flexibility of her small limbs, and a certain shyness and reserve in her manner, she was reminiscent of a pretty half-grown kitten that promises to become a beautiful little cat. She clearly thought it proper to seem interested in the general conversation by smiling, but no matter how hard she tried, her eyes—hidden under those long lashes—watched her cousin who was about to join the army, with such intense, youthful adoration that her smile could not deceive anyone. It was obvious the kitten had only settled down for a moment and was ready to pounce up again and play with her cousin as soon as they too could, like Natásha and Borís, slip away from the drawing room.

“Ah yes, my dear,” said the count, addressing the visitor and nodding toward Nicholas, “his friend Borís has become an officer, and so, out of friendship, he’s leaving the university and me, his old father, to join the military, my dear. And he had a place all ready for him in the Archives Department! Isn’t that a sign of friendship?” the count said, seeking affirmation.

“But they say war has been declared,” replied the visitor.

“They’ve been saying that for a long time,” said the count, “and they’ll keep saying it, and that’ll be all. My dear, there’s friendship for you,” he repeated. “He’s joining the hussars.”

The visitor, unsure what to say, simply shook her head.

“It’s not friendship at all,” Nicholas insisted, his face flushing as he turned away as though insulted. “It’s not about friendship; I just know the army is my calling.”

He glanced at his cousin and the young lady visitor, both of whom looked at him approvingly.

“Schubert, the colonel of the Pávlograd Hussars, is dining with us today. He’s been here on leave and is taking Nicholas back with him. There’s nothing to be done!” said the count with a shrug, trying to speak lightly about something that obviously troubled him.

“I’ve already told you, Papa,” said his son, “that if you don’t want me to go, I’ll stay. But I know I’m no good anywhere except the army; I’m not a diplomat or a government clerk—I don’t know how to hide what I feel.” As he spoke, he glanced flirtatiously between Sónya and the young lady visitor.

The little kitten, her eyes drinking him in, seemed at any moment ready to bounce up and show her playful nature.

“All right, all right!” the old count said. “He’s always full of fire! This Buonaparte has gotten into their heads; they all think of how he rose from an ensign to become Emperor. Well, God grant it,” he added, missing the visitor’s sarcastic smile.

The adults began discussing Bonaparte. Julie Karágina addressed young Rostóv.

“It’s such a shame you weren’t at the Arkhárovs’ on Thursday. It was so dull without you,” she said, giving him a warm smile.

Flattered, the young man moved his chair closer to her, smiling coquettishly, and started an intimate conversation with the smiling Julie. He didn’t notice that his involuntary smile had wounded Sónya, who blushed and forced a strained smile. In the middle of his conversation, he glanced over at her. She shot him a look of angry passion, barely holding back tears and struggling to keep her forced smile. She got up and left the room. All of Nicholas’s lively mood left him. Waiting for a break in the conversation, he slipped out with a troubled expression to go after Sónya.

“How easily all these young people show their feelings!” said Anna Mikháylovna, pointing to Nicholas as he left. *“Cousinage—dangereux voisinage,”* \* she added.

\* Cousinhood is a dangerous neighborhood.

“Yes,” said the countess, when the brightness the young people brought to the room had faded; and, as if answering an unasked question but one that was always on her mind, she continued, “and how much suffering, how much worry we’ve gone through to now be able to enjoy them! And really, the worry is greater now than the joy. One is always, always anxious! Especially at this age, which is so risky for both boys and girls.”

“It all depends on how they are brought up,” observed the visitor.

“Yes, you’re absolutely right,” the countess replied. “Up to now, thank God, I’ve always been my children’s friend and had their complete trust,” she said, repeating the common mistake of parents who believe their children have no secrets from them. “I know I’ll always be my daughters’ first confidante, and even if Nicholas, with his impulsive nature, gets into trouble (a boy can’t help it), he’ll never end up like those Petersburg young men.”

“Yes, they are wonderful, wonderful young people,” chimed in the count, who liked to solve complicated issues by declaring everything to be splendid. “Just imagine: wants to be a hussar. What’s one to do, my dear?”

“What a charming child your younger girl is,” said the visitor; “a little volcano!”

“Yes, a real volcano,” said the count. “Takes after me! And what a voice she has; though she’s my daughter, I can say honestly she’ll be a singer, a second Salomoni! We’ve hired an Italian to give her lessons.”

“Isn’t she too young? I’ve heard that starting vocal training so young is bad for the voice.”

“Oh no, not at all too young!” replied the count. “Why, our mothers used to be married at twelve or thirteen.”

“And she’s already in love with Borís. Can you imagine?” said the countess with a gentle smile, glancing at Borís, and then continued, apparently preoccupied with a thought always on her mind: “Now, if I were strict with her and forbade it… who knows what they’d get up to in secret” (she meant kissing), “but as it is, I know every word she says. She’ll run to me of her own accord in the evening and tell me everything. Maybe I spoil her, but honestly, that seems the best approach. With her older sister, I was stricter.”

“Yes, I was raised very differently,” remarked the elegant elder daughter, Countess Véra, with a smile.

But the smile didn’t add to Véra’s beauty as smiles usually do; instead, it made her expression look unnatural and therefore unpleasant. Véra was attractive, not at all foolish, quick to learn, well educated, and had a pleasant voice; what she said was always true and on point, yet, for some reason, everyone—the visitors and the countess included—looked at her as if puzzled by her words, and things felt awkward.

“People are always too clever with their first children and try to make something extraordinary out of them,” said the visitor.

“Why deny it, my dear? Our dear countess was too clever with Véra,” said the count. “But so what? She’s turned out wonderfully anyway,” he added, winking at Véra.

The guests got up and took their leave, promising to return for dinner.

“What manners! I thought they would never leave,” said the countess once she had seen her guests out.

##  CHAPTER XIII

When Natásha ran out of the drawing room, she only went as far as the conservatory. There she paused and listened to the conversation in the drawing room, waiting for Borís to come out. She was becoming impatient, stamping her foot and almost ready to cry at his delay, when she heard the young man’s careful steps approaching—neither fast nor slow. At this, Natásha darted quickly among the flower tubs and hid.

Borís paused in the middle of the room, looked around, brushed a little dust off his uniform sleeve, and went over to a mirror to inspect his handsome face. Natásha, perfectly still, watched him from her hiding place, curious to see what he would do. He stood before the mirror for a moment, smiled, and walked toward the other door. Natásha was about to call him, but changed her mind. “Let him look for me,” she thought. Hardly had Borís left, when Sónya, flushed, in tears, and muttering angrily, entered through the other door. Natásha restrained her first impulse to run to her, and stayed hidden, watching—as if invisible—to see what would happen next. She was feeling a new and strange excitement. Sónya, muttering to herself, kept glancing towards the drawing room door. It opened, and Nicholas came in.

“Sónya, what’s wrong with you? Why are you like this?” he said, hurrying over to her.

“It’s nothing, nothing; leave me alone!” Sónya sobbed.

“Ah, I know what it is.”

“Well, if you do, so much the better, and you can go back to her!”

“Só-o-onya! Listen! Why torture yourself and me over something imagined?” Nicholas said, taking her hand.

Sónya didn’t pull her hand away and stopped crying. Natásha, not moving or hardly breathing, watched from her hiding place with sparkling eyes. “What will happen now?” she thought.

“Sónya! Who matters to me in the whole world? You alone are everything!” Nicholas declared. “And I’ll prove it to you.”

“I don’t like you talking like that.”

“All right, then I won’t—but just forgive me, Sónya!” He pulled her close and kissed her.

“Oh, how nice,” thought Natásha; and when Sónya and Nicholas left the conservatory, she followed and called Borís over.

“Borís, come here,” she said with a sly and meaningful look. “I have something to tell you. Here, here!” She led him into the conservatory to the hidden spot among the tubs where she had been earlier.

Borís followed her, smiling.

“What is it?” he asked.

She blushed, looked around, and seeing the doll she had tossed onto one of the tubs, picked it up.

“Kiss the doll,” she said.

Borís looked kindly and carefully at her eager face, but didn’t answer.

“Don’t want to? Well then, come here,” she said, moving further in among the plants and tossing the doll aside. “Closer, closer!” she whispered.

She took the young officer by his cuffs, a look of seriousness and fear showing on her flushed face.

“And me? Would you like to kiss me?” she whispered, almost inaudible, glancing up at him from beneath her brows, smiling, and nearly crying from excitement.

Borís blushed.

“You’re so funny!” he said, bending toward her and blushing even more, but he hesitated and did nothing.

Suddenly she jumped up on a tub to stand taller than he was, threw her slender bare arms around his neck, and, tossing back her hair, kissed him full on the lips.

Then she slipped down among the flowerpots on the other side of the tubs and stood with her head bowed.

“Natásha,” he said, “you know I love you, but…”

“You love me?” Natásha broke in.

“Yes, I do, but please, let’s not act like this… In another four years… then I’ll ask for your hand.”

Natásha thought for a moment.

“Thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen,” she counted on her slender fingers. “All right! So, it’s a deal?”

A joyful, satisfied smile lit up her eager face.

“It’s a deal!” replied Borís.

“Forever?” said the little girl. “Till death?”

She took his arm, and with a happy face went with him into the next sitting room.

##  CHAPTER XIV

After receiving her visitors, the countess was so tired that she gave orders not to admit anyone else, but the porter was instructed to be sure to invite everyone who came “to congratulate” to dinner. The countess wanted to have a private conversation with her childhood friend, Princess Anna Mikháylovna, whom she hadn’t had a proper visit with since returning from Petersburg. Anna Mikháylovna, her face lined with tears but still pleasant, moved her chair closer to the countess’s.

“I’ll be completely honest with you,” said Anna Mikháylovna. “There aren't many of us old friends left! That’s why I value your friendship so much.”

Anna Mikháylovna glanced at Véra and paused. The countess squeezed her friend’s hand.

“Véra,” she said to her eldest daughter, who was clearly not a favorite, “how can you be so tactless? Don’t you see you’re not wanted here? Go join the other girls, or…”

The beautiful Véra smiled disdainfully but didn’t seem hurt at all.

“If you had told me sooner, Mamma, I would have left,” she replied, getting up to go to her own room.

But as she passed the sitting room, she noticed two couples by the windows. She paused and smiled scornfully. Sónya was sitting close to Nicholas, who was copying out some verses for her—the first he had ever written. Borís and Natásha were at the other window and stopped talking when Véra entered. Sónya and Natásha looked at Véra with guilty, happy expressions.

It was sweet and touching to see these young girls in love; but apparently, the sight brought no pleasure to Véra.

“How many times have I asked you not to take my things?” she said. “You have your own room,” and she took the inkstand from Nicholas.

“One minute, one minute,” he said, dipping his pen.

“You always manage to do things at the wrong time,” Véra continued. “You burst into the drawing room so everyone was embarrassed by you.”

Though what she said was quite fair, maybe for that very reason, no one replied, and the four just looked at each other. She lingered in the room, inkstand in hand.

“And at your age, what kind of secrets could Natásha and Borís have—or you two? It's all ridiculous!”

“Now, Véra, why does it matter to you?” said Natásha gently in her defense.

She seemed, that day, especially kind and loving to everyone.

“Very silly,” Véra said. “I’m ashamed of you. Secrets, indeed!”

“Everyone has secrets,” Natásha replied, her voice warming. “We don’t get involved with you and Berg.”

“I would hope not,” said Véra, “because there can never be anything improper in my behavior. But I’ll just tell Mamma how you’re behaving with Borís.”

“Natálya Ilyníchna behaves very well to me,” remarked Borís. “I have nothing to complain about.”

“Don’t, Borís! You’re such a diplomat, it’s really annoying,” said Natásha in a hurt voice that trembled a little. (She used the word “diplomat,” which was a popular term among the children at the time, in their own special sense.) “Why does she bother me?” She added, turning to Véra, “You’ll never understand, because you’ve never loved anyone. You have no heart! You’re just a Madame de Genlis, nothing more” (this nickname Nicholas had given Véra was considered a major insult), “and your greatest pleasure is making people miserable! Go flirt with Berg all you want,” she finished quickly.

“At least I don't chase after young men in front of company…”

“Well, you’ve gotten what you wanted now,” Nicholas put in—“insulting everyone and making us upset. Let’s go to the nursery.”

All four, like a flock of startled birds, got up and left the room.

“All the unpleasant things were said to me,” Véra remarked, “I didn’t say anything to anyone.”

“Madame de Genlis! Madame de Genlis!” called out laughing voices through the door.

The beautiful Véra, who managed to irritate everyone so much, simply smiled and, clearly unfazed by what had been said to her, went to the mirror to fix her hair and scarf. Looking at her reflection, she seemed even colder and calmer.

In the drawing room the conversation continued.

“Ah, my dear,” said the countess, “my life isn’t all roses either. I know that if we keep living like this, our finances won’t last long. It’s all the Club and his easygoing ways. Even in the country, do we ever rest? Plays, hunting, and heaven knows what else! But let's not talk about me; tell me how you manage everything. I’m always amazed at you, Annette—how, at your age, you can rush off alone to Moscow, Petersburg, to those ministers and important people, and know how to deal with them all! It’s remarkable. How do you get things done? I could never do it.”

“Oh, my dear,” answered Anna Mikháylovna, “God grant you never know what it’s like to be left a widow with no resources and a son you adore! You learn a lot then,” she added, with a hint of pride. “That lawsuit taught me a lot. When I want to see those big people, I write a note: ‘Princess So-and-So requests an interview with So-and-So,’ and then I take a cab and go myself two, three, or four times—until I get what I need. I don’t care what they think of me.”

“So, who did you approach about Bóry?” the countess asked. “Your son is already an officer in the Guards, while my Nicholas is just going as a cadet. No one’s interested in helping him. Whom did you speak to?”

“To Prince Vasíli. He was so kind. He immediately agreed to help and brought the matter to the Emperor,” said Princess Anna Mikháylovna enthusiastically, forgetting all the humiliation she had endured to reach her goal.

“Has Prince Vasíli aged much?” asked the countess. “I haven’t seen him since we acted together at the Rumyántsovs’ theatricals. I expect he’s forgotten me. He paid me special attention back then,” said the countess with a smile.

“He’s just the same as always,” replied Anna Mikháylovna, “as charming as ever. His status hasn't gone to his head. He said to me, ‘I’m sorry I can do so little for you, dear Princess. I am at your service.’ Yes, he’s a good man and a very kind relation. But, Nataly, you know how much I love my son: I’d do anything for his happiness! And my affairs are in such a bad way that I’m in a terrible position,” Anna Mikháylovna went on sadly, lowering her voice. “My miserable lawsuit takes all I have and goes nowhere. Would you believe that I have literally not a penny and don’t know how I’ll outfit Borís.” She took out her handkerchief and started to cry. “I need five hundred rubles, but I have only one twenty-five-ruble note. I’m desperate…. My only hope now is Count Cyril Vladímirovich Bezúkhov. If he won’t help his godson—you know he’s Bóry’s godfather—or at least give him something for his expenses, all my efforts will have been wasted…. I just won’t be able to prepare him properly.”

The countess’s eyes filled with tears and she sat silently, thinking.

“Sometimes I think, though maybe it’s wrong,” said the princess, “that Count Cyril Vladímirovich Bezúkhov lives here, so rich, all alone… that enormous fortune… and what does his life amount to? It’s a burden to him, and Bóry’s life is just starting….”

“Surely he’ll leave something to Borís,” said the countess.

“Heaven only knows, my dear! Rich grandees can be so selfish. Still, I’ll take Borís and go see him right away, and I’ll speak to him directly. Let people think what they will of me; it’s all the same when my son’s future is at stake.” The princess stood up. “It’s two o’clock now and you dine at four. There’s just enough time.”

And, like the practical Petersburg lady who knows how to make the best use of her time, Anna Mikháylovna sent someone to find her son and went with him into the anteroom.

“Goodbye, my dear,” she said to the countess, who walked with her to the door, and added in a whisper so her son wouldn’t hear, “Wish me luck.”

“Are you going to see Count Cyril Vladimirovich, my dear?” said the count as he came out from the dining hall into the anteroom. He added, “If he’s feeling better, ask Pierre to dine with us. You know he’s been to the house before and danced with the children. Be sure to invite him, my dear. We’ll see how Tarás distinguishes himself today. He says Count Orlov never gave a dinner as grand as ours will be!”

##  CHAPTER XV

“My dear Borís,” said Princess Anna Mikháylovna to her son as Countess Rostóva’s carriage, in which they sat, rolled over the straw-covered street and turned into the wide courtyard of Count Cyril Vladímirovich Bezúkhov’s house. “My dear Borís,” she repeated, drawing her hand from under her old cloak and laying it gently and tenderly on her son’s arm, “be affectionate and attentive to him. Count Cyril Vladímirovich is your godfather, after all, and your future depends on him. Remember that, my dear, and behave nicely to him, as you know so well how to do.”

“If only I knew that anything other than humiliation would come of it…” her son answered coldly. “But I have promised, and I’ll do it for your sake.”

Although the hall porter saw there was already a carriage at the entrance, after scrutinizing the mother and son—who, without asking to be announced, had walked directly through the glass porch between rows of statues in niches—and noting the lady’s worn cloak, he asked whether they wished to see the count or the princesses. On hearing they wished to see the count, he said his excellency was worse today and was not receiving anyone.

“We may as well go back,” the son said in French.

“My dear!” his mother exclaimed imploringly, again placing her hand on his arm, as if her touch might calm or rouse him.

Borís said nothing more but looked questioningly at his mother, without removing his cloak.

“My friend,” Anna Mikháylovna said gently to the hall porter, “I know Count Cyril Vladímirovich is very ill… that is why I have come… I am a relation. I won’t disturb him, my friend… I only need to see Prince Vasíli Sergéevich: he is here, isn’t he? Please announce me.”

The hall porter sullenly pulled a bell that rang upstairs, then turned away.

“Princess Drubetskáya to see Prince Vasíli Sergéevich,” he called to a footman, dressed in knee breeches, shoes, and a swallow-tail coat, who hurried downstairs and peered over from the halfway landing.

The mother smoothed the folds of her dyed silk dress in front of a large Venetian mirror on the wall, and briskly, in her worn shoes, made her way up the carpeted stairs.

“My dear,” she said to her son, once again urging him on with a touch, “you promised me!”

The son lowered his eyes and followed her quietly.

They entered the large hall, from which one door led to the apartments assigned to Prince Vasíli.

Just as the mother and son, having reached the center of the hall, were about to ask an elderly footman—who had jumped up as they entered—for directions, the bronze handle of one of the doors turned and Prince Vasíli came out. He wore a velvet coat with a single star on his chest, as he usually did at home, and was seeing off a good-looking, dark-haired man: the famous Petersburg doctor, Lorrain.

“Then it is certain?” said the prince.

“Prince, *humanum est errare*,\* but…” replied the doctor, swallowing his r’s and pronouncing the Latin with a French accent.

\* To err is human.

“Very well, very well…”

Seeing Anna Mikháylovna and her son, Prince Vasíli dismissed the doctor with a bow and approached them silently, with an inquisitive look. The son noticed his mother’s face suddenly showed deep sorrow, and he smiled slightly.

“Ah, Prince! In such sad circumstances we meet again! And how is our dear patient?” she asked, as if unaware of his cold and unfriendly gaze.

Prince Vasíli stared questioningly and confusedly at her and Borís. Borís bowed politely. Prince Vasíli, without acknowledging the bow, turned to Anna Mikháylovna, responding to her question with a slight movement of his head and lips, indicating little hope for the invalid.

“Is it possible?” Anna Mikháylovna exclaimed. “Oh, how awful! It is terrible to think…. This is my son,” she added, gesturing to Borís. “He wanted to thank you himself.”

Borís bowed again, politely.

“Believe me, Prince, a mother’s heart will never forget what you have done for us.”

“I’m glad I was able to help you, my dear Anna Mikháylovna,” said Prince Vasíli, adjusting his lace frill, and, here in Moscow, to Anna Mikháylovna—whom he had now put under an obligation—he spoke with a tone of much greater importance than he had used in Petersburg at Anna Schérer’s reception.

“Try to serve well and show yourself worthy,” he added, turning to Borís with severity. “I am glad…. Are you here on leave?” he continued in his usual indifferent tone.

“I am awaiting orders to join my new regiment, your excellency,” Borís replied, showing neither irritation at the prince’s brusque manner nor a wish to continue the conversation, but speaking so calmly and respectfully that the prince gave him a searching glance.

“Are you living with your mother?”

“I am staying at Countess Rostóva’s,” Borís answered, once more adding, “your excellency.”

“That is, with Ilyá Rostóv, who married Nataly Shinshiná,” said Anna Mikháylovna.

“I know, I know,” Prince Vasíli answered in his monotonous voice. “I’ve never understood how Nataly could bring herself to marry that uncouth bear! An absolutely ridiculous and stupid man, and I hear he’s a gambler, too.”

“But a very kind man, Prince,” Anna Mikháylovna said with a sad smile, as though she, too, knew Count Rostóv deserved criticism, but begged him not to be too harsh on the old man. “What do the doctors say?” she asked after a pause, her worn face showing deep sorrow again.

“They are not hopeful,” the prince replied.

“And I would so much like to thank *Uncle* just once for all his kindness to me and Borís. He is his godson,” she added, suggesting that this fact ought to give Prince Vasíli much satisfaction.

Prince Vasíli became thoughtful and frowned. Anna Mikháylovna saw that he was afraid she might be a rival for Count Bezúkhov’s fortune, and quickly reassured him.

“If it weren’t for my sincere affection and devotion to *Uncle*,” she said, pronouncing the word with particular confidence and ease, “I know his character: noble, upright … but you see he has no one with him except the young princesses…. They are still quite young….” She bent her head and continued in a whisper, “Has he received his last rites, Prince? Those final moments are so precious! It can do no harm, and it is absolutely necessary to prepare him if he is so ill. We women, Prince,” and she smiled softly, “always know how to say these things. I absolutely must see him, however painful it may be for me. I am used to suffering.”

It was clear the prince understood her and, as at Anna Pávlovna’s, realized it would be hard to get rid of Anna Mikháylovna.

“Wouldn’t such a meeting be too much for him, dear Anna Mikháylovna?” he said. “Let’s wait until evening. The doctors expect a crisis.”

“But at such a moment, Prince, one cannot delay! Remember that the welfare of his soul is at stake. Ah, it is terrible: the duties of a Christian…”

A door to one of the inner rooms opened, and one of the princesses—the count’s niece—entered with a cold, stern expression. Her body seemed strikingly long compared to her short legs. Prince Vasíli turned to her.

“Well, how is he?”

“Still the same; but what can you expect, with all this noise…” said the princess, glancing at Anna Mikháylovna as if she were a stranger.

“Oh, my dear, I hardly recognized you,” said Anna Mikháylovna with a warm smile, hurrying lightly up to the count’s niece. “I’ve come to help you take care of *my uncle*. I can only imagine what you’ve been through,” she added, sympathetically rolling her eyes upward.

The princess didn’t respond or even smile, but left the room as Anna Mikháylovna removed her gloves and, having claimed her place, settled into an armchair, inviting Prince Vasíli to sit beside her.

“Borís,” she said to her son with a smile, “I’m going to see the count, my uncle; but you, dear, should go to Pierre for now—and don’t forget to give him the Rostóvs’ invitation. They’ve asked him to dinner. I suppose he won’t go?” she continued, turning to the prince.

“On the contrary,” the prince replied, now clearly dispirited, “I’ll be only too glad if you take that young man off my hands…. Here he is, and the count hasn’t asked for him even once.”

He shrugged. A footman led Borís down one flight of stairs and up another, to Pierre’s rooms.

##  CHAPTER XVI

Pierre, in the end, had still not chosen a career for himself in Petersburg, and had been expelled from there for riotous conduct and sent to Moscow. The story told about him at Count Rostóv’s was true. Pierre had taken part in tying a policeman to a bear. He had now been in Moscow for several days and was staying, as usual, at his father’s house. Although he expected that news of his escapade would already be known in Moscow, and that the women around his father—who were never kindly disposed toward him—would have used it to turn the count against him, he nevertheless went to his father’s side of the house on the day he arrived. Entering the drawing room, where the princesses spent most of their time, he greeted the ladies: two were sitting at embroidery frames, while a third was reading aloud. It was the eldest who was reading—the one who had met Anna Mikháylovna. The two younger ones were embroidering: both were rosy and pretty and only differed in that one had a small mole on her lip, which made her look even prettier. Pierre was received as if he were a corpse or a leper. The eldest princess paused in her reading and silently stared at him with frightened eyes; the second mirrored her expression exactly; while the youngest, the one with the mole, cheerful and lively by nature, bent over her frame to hide a smile, probably amused by the scene she anticipated. She pulled her wool through the canvas and, barely able to keep from laughing, bent down as if studying the pattern.

“How do you do, cousin?” said Pierre. “You don’t recognize me?”

“I recognize you only too well, far too well.”

“How is the count? Can I see him?” Pierre asked, awkwardly as always, but unashamed.

“The count is suffering both physically and mentally, and apparently you have done your best to add to his mental suffering.”

“Can I see the count?” Pierre asked again.

“Hm… If you want to kill him, to kill him outright, you can see him… Olga, go check whether Uncle’s beef tea is ready—it must be almost time,” she added, making it clear to Pierre that they were busy, and busy making his father comfortable, while he, Pierre, was only there to cause trouble.

Olga left. Pierre stood looking at the sisters; then he bowed and said, “Then I will go to my rooms. Please let me know when I can see him.”

And he left the room, followed by the low but ringing laughter of the sister with the mole.

The next day, Prince Vasíli arrived and moved into the count’s house. He sent for Pierre and said to him, “My dear fellow, if you behave here as you did in Petersburg, you will end very badly; that is all I have to say. The count is very, very ill, and you must not see him at all.”

Since then, Pierre had not been disturbed and had spent all his time upstairs in his rooms.

When Borís appeared at his door, Pierre was pacing up and down his room, stopping now and then in a corner to make threatening gestures at the wall, as if running a sword through an invisible enemy, glaring savagely over his spectacles, then resuming his walk, muttering indistinctly, shrugging his shoulders, and gesturing.

“England is done for,” he muttered, scowling and pointing his finger at someone unseen. “Mr. Pitt, as a traitor to the nation and to the rights of man, is sentenced to…” But before Pierre—who at that moment imagined himself Napoleon himself, having just made the dangerous crossing of the Straits of Dover and captured London—could pronounce Pitt’s sentence, he saw a well-built and handsome young officer coming into his room. Pierre stopped. He had left Moscow when Borís was a boy of fourteen, and had quite forgotten him, but in his usual impulsive, hearty way, he shook Borís’ hand with a friendly smile.

“Do you remember me?” Borís asked quietly, with a pleasant smile. “I’ve come with my mother to see the count, but it seems he’s unwell.”

“Yes, it seems he is ill. People are always disturbing him,” Pierre replied, trying to remember who this young man was.

Borís sensed that Pierre did not recognize him but did not bother to introduce himself, and, without the slightest embarrassment, looked Pierre straight in the face.

“Count Rostóv invites you to dinner today,” he said, after a considerable pause that made Pierre uncomfortable.

“Ah, Count Rostóv!” exclaimed Pierre joyfully. “Then you are his son, Ilyá? Only fancy, I didn’t recognize you at first. Do you remember how we went to the Sparrow Hills with Madame Jacquot?… That was ages ago…”

“You are mistaken,” said Borís deliberately, with a confident and slightly sarcastic smile. “I’m Borís, son of Princess Anna Mikháylovna Drubetskáya. Rostóv, the father, is Ilyá, and his son is Nicholas. I never knew any Madame Jacquot.”

Pierre shook his head and waved his arms as if fending off mosquitoes or bees.

“Oh dear, what am I thinking? I’ve mixed everything up. One has so many relatives in Moscow! So you’re Borís? Of course. Well, now we’ve sorted it out. And what do you think of the Boulogne expedition? The English will be in trouble, you know, if Napoleon gets across the Channel. I think the expedition is quite possible. If only Villeneuve doesn’t botch things!”

Borís knew nothing about the Boulogne expedition; he didn’t read the papers and this was the first time he had heard Villeneuve’s name.

“We here in Moscow care more about dinner parties and gossip than about politics,” he replied in his quiet, ironic tone. “I know nothing about it and haven’t given it any thought. Moscow is mostly preoccupied with scandal,” he went on. “At the moment, they’re talking about you and your father.”

Pierre smiled kindly, as if worried that his companion might regret what he was about to say. But Borís spoke distinctly, clearly, and unemotionally, looking straight into Pierre’s eyes.

“Moscow has nothing to do but gossip,” Borís continued. “Everyone’s wondering to whom the count will leave his fortune, though he may easily outlive us all, as I sincerely hope he will…”

“Yes, it’s all very unpleasant,” Pierre interrupted. “Very unpleasant.”

Pierre still feared that this officer might accidentally say something embarrassing to him.

“And surely it seems to you,” Borís said, flushing a little but not changing his tone or manner, “it must seem to you that everyone is trying to get something from the rich man?”

“So it does,” thought Pierre.

“But I just want to say, to avoid any misunderstanding, that you’re quite mistaken if you count me or my mother among those people. We are very poor, but for my own part at least, precisely because your father is rich, I do not consider myself a relation of his, and neither I nor my mother would ever ask or accept anything from him.”

For a while Pierre didn’t understand, but then he jumped up from the sofa, grabbed Borís by the elbow in his quick, awkward way, and—blushing much more than Borís—began to speak with mixed embarrassment and annoyance.

“Well, this is strange! Do you suppose I… Who could think?… I know very well…”

But Borís interrupted him again.

“I’m glad I’ve spoken frankly. Maybe you didn’t like it? You must excuse me,” he said, putting Pierre at ease rather than waiting for Pierre to do so, “but I hope I haven’t offended you. I always make it a rule to speak openly… Well, what answer should I take back? Will you come to dinner at the Rostóvs’?”

And Borís, now relieved to have spoken his mind and removed himself from an awkward position—while placing Pierre in one—became quite pleasant again.

“No, but really,” said Pierre, calming down, “you are a wonderful fellow! What you just said is good, very good. Of course, you don’t know me. We haven’t met in ages… not since we were children. You might think that I… I understand, I truly do. I could not have done it myself, I wouldn’t have had the courage, but it’s excellent. I’m very glad to have met you. It is odd,” he added after a pause, “that you thought such a thing of me!” He started to laugh. “Well, never mind! I hope we’ll get to know each other better,” and he pressed Borís’ hand. “You know, I haven’t once been to see the count. He hasn’t sent for me… I feel sorry for him as a man, but what can one do?”

“So you think Napoleon will actually get an army across?” asked Borís with a smile.

Pierre saw that Borís wanted to change the subject, and feeling the same, began explaining the advantages and disadvantages of the Boulogne expedition.

A footman came in to summon Borís—the princess was leaving. Pierre, eager to get to know Borís better, promised to come to dinner, and warmly shook his hand, looking kindly over his spectacles into Borís’ eyes. After he had gone, Pierre continued pacing up and down the room for a long while, no longer stabbing at imaginary enemies with an imaginary sword, but smiling at the memory of that pleasant, intelligent, and resolute young man.

As often happens in early youth, especially for someone who leads a lonely life, he felt an unexplained affection for this young man and decided that they would become friends.

Prince Vasíli saw the princess off. She held a handkerchief to her eyes, her face streaked with tears.

“It is dreadful, dreadful!” she was saying. “But, no matter what it costs me, I will do my duty. I will come and stay the night. He must not be left like this. Every moment is precious. I can’t understand why his nieces delayed. Perhaps God will help me find a way to prepare him!... Goodbye, Prince! May God support you…”

*“Goodbye, my dear,”* replied Prince Vasíli, turning away from her.

“Oh, he is in a terrible state,” the mother said to her son once they were in the carriage. “He barely recognizes anyone.”

“I don’t understand, Mamma—how does he feel about Pierre?” asked the son.

“The will is going to reveal that, my dear; our future depends on it too.”

“But why do you think he’ll leave us anything?”

“Ah, my dear! He’s so rich, and we are so poor!”

“Well, that’s hardly a good enough reason, Mamma…”

“Oh, Heaven! How sick he is!” the mother exclaimed.

##  CHAPTER XVII

After Anna Mikháylovna had left with her son to visit Count Cyril Vladímirovich Bezúkhov, Countess Rostóva sat alone for quite some time, dabbing her eyes with her handkerchief. At last, she rang for her maid.

“What’s the matter with you, my dear?” she said irritably to the maid, who had kept her waiting several minutes. “Don’t you want to serve me? Then I’ll find someone else.”

The countess was distressed by her friend’s troubles and humiliating poverty, and so was out of sorts—a mood that, with her, always showed itself in calling her maid “my dear” and addressing her with an exaggerated politeness.

“I’m very sorry, ma’am,” replied the maid.

“Ask the count to come to me.”

The count entered, moving toward his wife with his usual slightly guilty expression.

“Well, little countess? What a *sauté* of game *au madère* we’ll have, my dear! I tried it. The thousand rubles I spent on Tarás were well worth it. He’s worth every bit!”

He sat down beside his wife, resting his elbows on his knees and running his hands through his gray hair.

“What would you like, little countess?”

“You see, my dear… What’s that stain?” she asked, pointing to his waistcoat. “It must be the *sauté*,” she added with a smile. “Well, Count, I need some money.”

Her expression turned sad.

“Oh, little countess!” … and the count began bustling to pull out his pocketbook.

“I need a lot, Count! I need five hundred rubles,” she said, taking out her fine handkerchief and beginning to wipe her husband’s waistcoat.

“Yes, right away, right away! Hey, who’s there?” he called out in the tone people use when they’re sure they’ll be immediately obeyed. “Send Dmítri to me!”

Dmítri, a well-bred man who had grown up in the count’s household and now managed all his affairs, quietly entered the room.

“Here’s what I need, my friend,” said the count to the polite young man who had come in. “Bring me…” he thought for a moment, “yes, bring me seven hundred rubles. Yes! But don’t bring me those tattered, dirty notes like last time—bring nice, clean ones for the countess.”

“Yes, Dmítri, clean ones, please,” echoed the countess with a deep sigh.

“When would you like them, your excellency?” asked Dmítri. “May I inform you… But, don’t worry,” he added, seeing the count begin to breathe heavily and quickly, which always signaled his rising anger. “I forgot… Would you like it brought right away?”

“Yes, yes, exactly! Bring it. Give it to the countess.”

“What a treasure that Dmítri is,” said the count with a smile once the young man left. “He never says ‘impossible’! I can’t stand that—everything should be possible.”

“Ah, money, Count, money! How much sorrow it causes in the world,” said the countess. “But I desperately need this sum.”

“You, my little countess, are a notorious spendthrift,” replied the count, and after kissing his wife’s hand, returned to his study.

When Anna Mikháylovna came back from Count Bezúkhov’s, the money—all in clean notes—was ready, lying under a handkerchief on the countess’s small table, and Anna Mikháylovna could see that something was troubling her.

“Well, my dear?” asked the countess.

“Oh, what a dreadful state he is in! You wouldn’t recognize him, he’s so ill! I was only there a moment and barely said a word…”

“Annette, for heaven’s sake, don’t refuse me,” the countess began, blushing—a strange sight on her thin, dignified, elderly face—as she took the money from under the handkerchief.

Anna Mikháylovna immediately guessed her intention and leaned in, ready to embrace the countess at the right moment.

“This is for Borís from me—for his outfit.”

Anna Mikháylovna was already embracing her, weeping. The countess wept as well. They wept because they were friends, because they were kindhearted, and because they—friends since childhood—had to concern themselves with something as base as money, and because their youth had passed… Yet those tears were a comfort to them both.

##  CHAPTER XVIII

Countess Rostova, accompanied by her daughters and many guests, was already sitting in the drawing room. The count brought the gentlemen into his study to show them his prized collection of Turkish pipes. Now and then he would step out and ask, “Hasn’t she arrived yet?” They were waiting for Marya Dmitrievna Akhrosimova, famously known in society as *le terrible dragon*, a woman distinguished not by rank or wealth, but by her common sense and straightforward honesty. Marya Dmitrievna was familiar to the Imperial family and to everyone in Moscow and Petersburg. Both cities marveled at her, privately laughed at her bluntness, and shared many stories about her, but, without exception, everyone respected and feared her.

In the count’s room, thick with tobacco smoke, the conversation turned to the war, just announced in a manifesto, and the new draft of soldiers. None of them had actually seen the manifesto, but all knew it was out. The count sat on the sofa between two guests who were smoking and talking. He neither smoked nor joined in but leaned his head first one way, then the other, enjoying watching the smokers and listening to the back-and-forth of his two companions, whom he subtly encouraged to debate each other.

One was a sallow, clean-shaven civilian with a thin, wrinkled face showing early signs of age, though he dressed like the height of young fashion. He lounged with his legs on the sofa as if at home and, having sunk an amber mouthpiece into his mouth, drew at his pipe in quick puffs, eyes squinting. This was Shinshin, an old bachelor and cousin to the countess—a man known as having “a sharp tongue” in Moscow society. He appeared to be indulging the company of his companion. That was a fresh-faced, rosy officer of the Guards, perfectly groomed and buttoned, who held his pipe carefully between his lips, gently inhaling and letting the smoke curl from his handsome mouth in rings. This was Lieutenant Berg, an officer in the Semyonov regiment, with whom Boris was to travel to join the army, and whom Natasha had affectionately teased her elder sister Vera about, calling him her “intended.” The count sat between them, listening closely. When not playing boston—a card game he loved—his favorite pastime was listening in, especially when he could get two talkative types going at each other.

“Well then, old friend, *mon très honorable* Alphonse Karlovich,” said Shinshin, laughing ironically and mixing everyday Russian expressions with elegant French phrases—a signature of his speech. “*Vous comptez vous faire des rentes sur l’état*; \* you’re hoping to profit from your service?”

\* You expect to make an income out of the government.

“No, Peter Nikolaevich; I only wish to point out that in the cavalry, the benefits are far less than in the infantry. Just look at my own situation, Peter Nikolaevich…”

Berg always spoke softly, courteously, and with precision. His conversation revolved entirely around himself; he remained calm and quiet if the topic had no direct relevance to him, never awkward or causing discomfort. But as soon as the focus shifted to himself, he would speak at length and with obvious pleasure.

“Just look at my case, Peter Nikolaevich. If I were in the cavalry, even as a lieutenant, I’d get no more than two hundred rubles every four months. But as it is, I receive two hundred and thirty,” he said, glancing at Shinshin and the count with a delighted smile, as though his success must certainly be everyone’s chief concern.

“On top of that, Peter Nikolaevich, by transferring to the Guards, I’m in a more distinguished position,” Berg went on, “and promotions are much more common in the Foot Guards. And just consider what can be done with two hundred and thirty rubles! I even manage to save a little and send some to my father,” he added, letting out another smoke ring.

“*La balance y est*… \* A German knows how to squeeze a kopek, as the proverb says,” quipped Shinshin, shifting his pipe to the other side of his mouth and winking at the count.

\* So that squares matters.

The count laughed aloud. The other guests, noticing Shinshin was talking, gathered around to listen. Berg, undisturbed by any irony or lack of interest from others, continued explaining how, by transferring to the Guards, he had already advanced ahead of his old Cadet Corps friends; that if, during wartime, a company commander were killed, he would likely be promoted as the senior officer; how well-liked he was in the regiment, and how satisfied his father was with him. Berg clearly enjoyed going over all this and seemed not to imagine that others might have concerns besides his. Yet, his manner was so earnestly proper, his youthful self-importance so transparent, that he won over his listeners.

“Well, my boy, you’ll get on fine anywhere—infantry or cavalry—no question about that,” said Shinshin, giving him a friendly clap on the shoulder and putting his feet down from the sofa.

Berg beamed. The count, followed by his guests, entered the drawing room.

It was just before a large dinner, the moment when assembled guests, expecting the call to *zakúska*, \* avoided lengthy conversation but felt obliged to move and mingle, to show they were not impatient for food. The host and hostess eyed the door, glancing occasionally at each other, and the guests tried to read from these looks who or what they were waiting for—whether some important relation was late, or a dish was not ready.

\* Hors d’oeuvres.

Pierre had arrived right at dinnertime and was sitting awkwardly on the first chair he found, blocking the way for others. The countess tried to make conversation, but he just gazed around naïvely through his spectacles, answering all her questions in single words. He was in everyone’s way but the only one unaware of it. Most of the guests, having heard about the bear incident, looked at this big, quiet, unassuming man with curiosity, wondering how he could have pulled such a prank on a policeman.

“You’ve only just arrived?” the countess asked him.

*“Oui, madame,”* he replied, still looking about.

“You haven’t seen my husband yet?”

*“Non, madame.”* He smiled at the wrong moment.

“I hear you’ve just returned from Paris? I suppose it’s very interesting.”

“Very interesting.”

The countess exchanged a glance with Anna Mikhaylovna. She understood she was being recruited to keep this young man entertained, and sat beside him, trying to speak about his father. But he responded to her questions just as briefly as to the countess’s. The rest of the guests chatted among themselves. “The Razumovskis… How delightful… You are so kind… Countess Apraksina…” could be heard all around. The countess got up and went into the ballroom.

“Marya Dmitrievna?” her voice called out from there.

“Here I am,” came the reply in a gruff tone, and Marya Dmitrievna entered.

All the unmarried women and even many of the married ones, except the eldest, stood up. Marya Dmitrievna stopped in the doorway. Tall and robust, holding her fifty-year-old head high, gray curls framing her face, she looked over the guests and calmly rolled up her wide sleeves further. Marya Dmitrievna always spoke in Russian.

“Health and happiness to her whose name day we’re celebrating and to her children,” she declared, her booming voice overwhelming all others. “Well, you old sinner,” she added, turning to the count, who was kissing her hand, “life must be dull for you in Moscow! No hunting with your hounds? But what can we do, old friend? Just look at these chicks growing up,” she said, gesturing at the girls. “You’ll have to find husbands for them, whether you want to or not….”

“Well,” she continued, “how’s my Cossack?” (Marya Dmitrievna always called Natasha her Cossack), stroking Natasha’s arm as the bright and fearless girl approached to kiss her hand. “I know she can be a rascal, but I like her.”

She took a pair of pear-shaped ruby earrings from her enormous reticule and handed them to Natasha, who radiated delight at her name-day celebration, then immediately turned to Pierre.

“Eh, eh, my friend! Come here a moment,” she said, switching to a softer, higher voice. “Come, my dear…” and she tucked her sleeves up even further, a comic warning. Pierre walked toward her, looking at her wide-eyed through his glasses.

“Come closer, come closer, friend! I was always the one to speak frankly to your father when he was in favor, and now I’m obliged to do the same by you.” She paused. All grew quiet, waiting for what was clearly just her warm-up.

“A fine lad! By heavens, a fine lad!… While his father lies dying, he’s off amusing himself by putting a policeman on a bear! For shame, sir, for shame! You’d be better off at the front.”

She turned away and gave her hand to the count, who could barely keep from laughing.

“Well, I think it’s time for dinner, don’t you?” said Marya Dmitrievna.

The count led Marya Dmitrievna in first; the countess followed, escorted by a hussar colonel, important to them because Nicholas would be joining his regiment. Then came Anna Mikhaylovna and Shinshin. Berg escorted Vera. The smiling Julie Karagina entered with Nicholas. One after another, the other couples filled the dining hall, followed last by the children, tutors, and governesses. The footmen began moving around, chairs scraped, and the band started up in the gallery as guests took their seats. The sound of the household band soon gave way to the clatter of cutlery, guests’ voices, and the quiet steps of footmen. At one end of the table sat the countess with Marya Dmitrievna to her right, Anna Mikhaylovna to her left, and other lady guests further down. At the opposite end, the count sat with the hussar colonel to his left and Shinshin and other gentlemen to his right. In the middle, the older young people sat—Vera beside Berg, and Pierre beside Boris—while on the other, the children, tutors, and governesses were seated. From behind the crystal decanters and fruit vessels, the count kept glancing toward his wife and her tall blue-ribboned cap, making sure to fill his neighbors’ glasses as well as his own. The countess, while tending to her duties as hostess, briefly studied her husband from behind the pineapples, noting how his cheerful, red face and bald head were even more vivid beside his gray hair. The ladies’ side bustled with steady conversation, while on the men’s side the voices grew louder, especially that of the hussar colonel, who, as he grew more red-faced, ate and drank so much the count held him up as a model to the group. Berg was saying tenderly to Vera that love is something divine, not of this earth. Boris, identifying the guests for Pierre, kept exchanging glances with Natasha, who sat opposite. Pierre spoke little but observed the new faces and ate heartily. Of the two soups, he chose turtle with savory patties and then proceeded to the game, trying every dish and wine. These last the butler discreetly passed, wrapped in a napkin, from behind the next guest, murmuring: “Dry Madeira”… “Hungarian”… or “Rhine wine” as appropriate. Of the four crystal glasses engraved with the count’s monogram before his plate, Pierre selected one at random, drinking contentedly and watching the other guests with growing warmth. Natasha, across from him, watched Boris the way a girl of thirteen looks at the boy she loves and has just kissed for the first time. That same lively glance sometimes found its way to Pierre, and her playful look almost made him laugh, though he didn’t know why.

Nicholas sat some distance from Sonya, beside Julie Karagina, talking with the same involuntary smile as before. Sonya wore a polite smile but was clearly consumed by jealousy; she went pale, then blushed, straining to listen to Nicholas and Julie’s conversation. The governess kept glancing around anxiously, poised to defend the children from any neglect. The German tutor was busy memorizing all the dishes, wines, and desserts, so he could send a thorough account of the dinner back home, and was deeply offended when the butler, carrying a bottle in a napkin, ignored him. He frowned, wanting to appear uninterested, but felt hurt knowing no one understood it was not greed or thirst that motivated him—only a conscientious quest for knowledge.

##  CHAPTER XIX

At the men’s end of the table, the conversation became more and more lively. The colonel told them that the declaration of war had already appeared in Petersburg, and that a copy—which he had seen himself—had that day been sent by courier to the commander in chief.

“And why on earth are we going to fight Bonaparte?” remarked Shinshín. “He’s silenced Austria’s chatter, and I fear it will be our turn next.”

The colonel, a stout, tall, red-faced German, was clearly devoted to the service and patriotically Russian. He took offense at Shinshín’s remark.

“It is for the reason, my good sir,” he said, speaking with a German accent, “for the reason that the Emperor knows that. He states in the manifesto that he cannot view with indifference the danger threatening Russia and that the safety and dignity of the Empire, as well as the sanctity of its *alliances*...” He stressed this last word as if it contained the heart of the matter.

Then, with the unerring official memory that defined him, he recited from the start of the manifesto:

... *and the wish, which constitutes the Emperor’s sole and absolute aim—to establish peace in Europe on firm foundations—has now decided him to send part of the army abroad and to create a new condition for the attainment of that purpose*.

“That, my dear sir, is why...” he finished, drinking a glass of wine with dignity, looking to the count for approval.

“*Connaissez-vous le Proverbe:* ‘Jerome, Jerome, do not roam, but turn spindles at home!’?” said Shinshín, furrowing his brows and smiling. “*Cela nous convient à merveille.*” Suvórov now—he knew what he was doing; yet they beat him *à plate couture*, and where are we to find Suvórovs now? *Je vous demande un peu*,” he said, constantly switching from French to Russian.

\* Do you know the proverb?

\*(2) That suits us perfectly.

\*(3) Completely.

\*(4) I just ask you that.

“We must fight to the last drop of our blood!” said the colonel, thumping the table. “And we must die for our Emperor, and then all will be well. And we must discuss it as little as poss-i-ble...” He emphasized the word *possible*—“as poss-i-ble,” he finished, again looking to the count. “That is how we old hussars see it, and that’s the end of it! And you, as a young man and a young hussar, how do you see it?” he added, addressing Nicholas, who, upon hearing the subject of war, had turned from his partner to listen closely to the colonel.

“I entirely agree with you,” replied Nicholas, suddenly impassioned, turning his plate and moving his wineglasses about with as much resolve and fervor as if he were facing some great danger. “I am convinced that we Russians must die or win,” he finished, aware—as were others—after saying it, that his words were a bit too passionate and emphatic for the occasion and so felt awkward.

“What you just said was wonderful!” said his partner Julie.

Sónya turned red all over and blushed to her ears, behind them, down her neck and shoulders while Nicholas spoke.

Pierre listened to the colonel’s speech and nodded in agreement.

“That’s good,” he said.

“The young man’s a true hussar!” the colonel shouted, thumping the table once again.

“What are you making such a noise about over there?” Márya Dmítrievna’s deep voice suddenly called from the other end of the table. “Why are you pounding on the table?” she demanded of the hussar, “and why are you getting so worked up? Do you think the French are here?”

“I am speaking the truth,” replied the hussar with a smile.

“It’s all about the war,” the count called down the table. “You know my son’s going, Márya Dmítrievna? My son is going.”

“I have four sons in the army and still I don’t worry. It’s all in God’s hands. You might die in your bed or God might spare you in battle,” replied Márya Dmítrievna in her deep voice, which easily carried the length of the table.

“That’s true!”

Again, the conversations split—the ladies’ at one end, the men’s at the other.

“You won’t ask,” Natásha’s little brother was saying, “I know you won’t ask!”

“I will,” replied Natásha.

Her face suddenly flushed with bold and joyful determination. She half rose, inviting Pierre—who sat across from her—with a glance to listen, and turned to her mother:

“Mamma!” rang out the clear contralto of her childish voice, audible all down the table.

“What is it?” asked the countess, startled; but seeing by her daughter’s face that it was only some mischief, she shook her finger sternly, warning her with a movement of her head.

The conversation stopped.

“Mamma! What sweets are we going to have?” Natásha’s voice came out even stronger and more determined.

The countess tried to frown, but couldn’t. Márya Dmítrievna shook her fat finger.

“Cossack!” she said, threateningly.

Most of the guests, unsure how to react to this jest, looked to the elders.

“You’d better be careful!” said the countess.

“Mamma! What sweets are we going to have?” Natásha cried out once more, boldly and playfully, confident that her joke would be taken well.

Sónya and little fat Pétya burst out laughing.

“See! I *have* asked,” Natásha whispered to her little brother and to Pierre, glancing at him again.

“Ice pudding, but you won’t get any,” said Márya Dmítrievna.

Natásha realized there was nothing to be afraid of, so she stood up even to Márya Dmítrievna.

“Márya Dmítrievna! What kind of ice pudding? I don’t like ice cream.”

“Carrot ices.”

“No! What kind, Márya Dmítrievna? What kind?” she nearly shouted; “I want to know!”

Márya Dmítrievna and the countess burst out laughing, and all the guests joined in. Everyone laughed, not at Márya Dmítrievna’s answer, but at the remarkable boldness and cleverness of this little girl who had dared to speak to Márya Dmítrievna that way.

Natásha only stopped when she was told there would be pineapple ice. Before the ices, champagne was served. The band began to play again, the count and countess kissed, and the guests, leaving their seats, went up to “congratulate” the countess and reached across the table to clink glasses with the count, with the children, and with each other. Again the footmen hurried about, chairs scraped, and in the same order as they had entered but with redder faces, the guests returned to the drawing room and to the count’s study.

##  CHAPTER XX

The card tables were set up, groups formed for boston, and the count’s guests settled themselves—some in the two drawing rooms, some in the sitting room, others in the library.

The count, holding his cards spread out like a fan, struggled not to drift off into his usual after-dinner nap, and laughed at everything. The young people, prompted by the countess, gathered around the clavichord and harp. By everyone’s request, Julie played first. After performing a short piece with variations on the harp, she joined the other young ladies in urging Natásha and Nicholas—both known for their musical talent—to sing something. Treated as if she were an adult now, Natásha was obviously proud of this, but at the same time felt shy.

“What should we sing?” she asked.

“‘The Brook,’” suggested Nicholas.

“All right, then, let’s hurry. Borís, come over here,” said Natásha. “But where is Sónya?”

She looked around and, noticing her friend was not there, went to find her.

Natásha first checked Sónya’s room and, not finding her there, ran to the nursery, but Sónya was not there either. Natásha decided she must be sitting on the chest in the passage—the spot where the younger girls of the Rostóv household went to grieve. And indeed, there was Sónya, lying face down on Nurse’s old feather bed on top of the chest, her gauzy pink dress rumpled beneath her, her face hidden by her slender fingers, sobbing so hard that her bare little shoulders shook. Natásha’s face, which had been so radiant with happiness all that saint’s day, changed suddenly: her eyes glazed, then a shiver ran down her broad neck and her mouth turned down at the corners.

“Sónya! What’s wrong? What’s the matter?... Oo… Oo… Oo…” Natásha’s wide mouth stretched even more, making her look quite unattractive, and she started wailing like a baby, not knowing why except that Sónya was crying. Sónya tried to lift her head to answer but couldn’t, burying her face even deeper in the bed. Natásha sat on the blue-striped feather bed, hugging her friend and weeping. With effort, Sónya sat up, wiped her eyes, and began to explain.

“Nicholas is leaving in a week—his… papers… have come… he told me himself… but still I shouldn’t cry,” she said, showing a piece of paper in her hand with the verses Nicholas had written, “still, I shouldn’t cry, but you can’t… nobody can understand… what a soul he has!”

And she started crying again, overwhelmed by the nobility of his soul.

“It’s all easy for you… I’m not jealous… I love you and Borís too,” she went on, finding a bit more strength. “He’s nice, there are no obstacles for you… But Nicholas is my cousin… to marry him, we’d need permission from…the Metropolitan himself… and even then, it probably isn’t possible. And besides, if she tells Mama,” (Sónya saw the countess as her mother and called her so) “that I’m ruining Nicholas’ future, that I’m ungrateful and selfish, and truly… God is my witness,” she crossed herself, “I love her so much, and all of you, except for Véra… And why? What have I ever done to her? I’m so grateful that I’d gladly give everything, only I have nothing….”

Sónya couldn’t continue, hiding her face again in her hands and in the feather bed. Natásha started to comfort her, her own expression showing she understood how serious her friend’s pain was.

“Sónya,” she suddenly exclaimed, as if she’d figured out the real reason for her friend’s sorrow, “I bet Véra said something to you after dinner, didn’t she?”

“Yes, these verses Nicholas wrote himself, and I copied some others, and she found them on my table and said she’d show them to Mama, and that I was ungrateful, and that Mama would never let him marry me and that he’ll marry Julie. You saw how he’s been acting with her all day… Natásha, what did I do to deserve this?…”

Again, she started sobbing, more bitterly than before. Natásha lifted her up, hugged her, and, smiling through her tears, began to cheer her.

“Sónya, don’t believe her, darling! Don’t believe her! You remember how we and Nicholas, all three of us, talked in the sitting room after supper? Remember, we figured out how everything would work out. I can’t completely recall how, but don’t you remember that it all seemed possible and wonderful? Uncle Shinshín’s brother married his first cousin. And we’re only second cousins, you know. And Borís says it’s perfectly possible. You know I’ve told him everything. He’s so smart and so kind!” Natásha said. “Don’t cry, Sónya, dear love, sweet Sónya!” And she kissed her and laughed. “Véra’s just being mean; never mind her! Everything will be all right, and she won’t say anything to Mama. Nicholas will talk to her himself, and he doesn’t care about Julie at all.”

Natásha kissed her friend on the hair.

Sónya sat up. The little kitten brightened up, its eyes shining, ready to flick its tail, jump down quietly, and start playing with its ball of yarn just like a kitten should.

“Do you think so?… Really? Honestly?” she asked, quickly smoothing her dress and hair.

“Really, honestly!” Natásha replied, tucking a curly lock back under her friend’s braid.

Both burst out laughing.

“Well, let’s go sing ‘The Brook.’”

“Let’s go!”

“You know, that fat Pierre who sat across from me is so funny!” Natásha said, suddenly stopping. “I feel so happy!”

And she took off running down the hall.

Sónya, brushing off a bit of down that stuck to her and tucking the verses into her dress near her thin little chest, hurried after Natásha down the passage and into the sitting room, her face flushed and her steps light and joyful. At the guests’ request, the young people sang the quartet, “The Brook,” to everyone’s delight. Then Nicholas sang a song he had just learned:

At nighttime in the moon’s fair glow  
    How sweet, as fancies wander free,  
To feel that in this world there’s one  
    Who still is thinking but of thee!

That while her fingers touch the harp  
    Wafting sweet music o’er the lea,  
It is for thee thus swells her heart,  
    Sighing its message out to thee…

A day or two, then bliss unspoilt,  
    But oh! till then I cannot live!…

He hadn’t finished the last verse before the young people started getting ready to dance in the large hall, and soon the sound of footsteps and the musicians’ coughing echoed from the gallery.

Pierre was sitting in the drawing room, where Shinshín had drawn him, as a man just returned from abroad, into a political conversation that a few others joined but that Pierre found dull. When the music started, Natásha entered and went straight up to Pierre, laughing and blushing:

“Mama told me to invite you to dance.”

“I’m afraid I’ll miss the steps,” Pierre replied. “But if you’ll be my teacher…” And lowering his big arm, he offered it to the slender young girl.

While the couples gathered and the musicians tuned up, Pierre sat down with his young partner. Natásha was filled with joy; she was about to dance with a *grown-up* man, who had been *abroad*. She sat in a prominent place, talking to him like an adult lady. She held a fan that one of the ladies had given her. Striking the pose of a high-society woman (it was a mystery when or how she’d learned it), she chatted with her partner, fanned herself, and smiled over the fan.

“Just look at her!” exclaimed the countess as she crossed the ballroom, pointing at Natásha.

Natásha blushed and laughed.

“Well, really, Mamma! Why should you? What’s there to be surprised about?”

In the middle of the third *écossaise*, there was the sound of chairs being pushed back in the sitting room, where the count and Márya Dmítrievna had been playing cards with most of the more distinguished and older guests. They now entered the ballroom, stretching after sitting so long and putting away their purses and pocketbooks. First came Márya Dmítrievna and the count, both wearing cheerful expressions. With playful ceremony, a bit like a ballet, the count offered his bent arm to Márya Dmítrievna. He straightened up, his face lit with a cheerful gallantry, and as soon as the last figure of the *écossaise* ended, he clapped his hands for the musicians and called up to their gallery, addressing the first violin:

“Semën! Do you know the *Daniel Cooper?*”

This was the count’s favorite dance, which he had danced in his youth. (Strictly speaking, *Daniel Cooper* was one figure of the *anglaise*.)

“Look at Papa!” Natásha shouted to everyone, and completely forgetting she was dancing with an adult partner, she bent her curly head down to her knees and filled the room with her laughter.

And truly, everyone in the room looked on with smiling pleasure at the jovial old gentleman, who, standing next to his tall and heavy partner, Márya Dmítrievna, curved his arms, kept time, straightened his back, turned out his toes, tapped the floor lightly with his foot, and, as his smile grew broader and broader, prepared everyone for what was coming next. As the lively, playful strains of *Daniel Cooper* (which somewhat resembled a cheerful peasant dance) began, all the ballroom doorways were suddenly filled by the house serfs—men on one side, women on the other—who, beaming, had come to watch their master enjoying himself.

“Just look at the master! He’s a real eagle!” called out the nurse, standing in one of the doorways.

The count danced well and knew it. But his partner couldn’t, and didn’t want to, dance well. Her huge frame stood upright, her powerful arms hung down (she had given her reticule to the countess), and only her stern yet handsome face truly joined in the dance. Everything the count expressed through his plump movements was shown by Márya Dmítrievna in her increasingly beaming face and twitching nose. But while the count, as he got more into the rhythm, delighted everyone with the surprise of his nimble moves and the lively way he skipped about on his light feet, Márya Dmítrievna was just as impressive with much less effort—even the smallest move of her shoulders, a bend of her arms as she turned, or a stamp of her foot—because of her size and usual strictness. The dance became more and more lively. The other couples couldn’t get anyone to notice their own steps and didn’t even try. Everyone was watching the count and Márya Dmítrievna. Natásha kept tugging at people’s sleeves and dresses, urging them to “look at Papa!” though really, nobody took their eyes off the pair. During the breaks in the dance, the count, breathing hard, waved and called out to the musicians to play faster. Faster, faster, and still faster; lighter, lighter, and lighter whirled the count, spinning around Márya Dmítrievna, sometimes on his toes, sometimes on his heels; until at last, turning his partner back to her seat, he finished the final *pas*, lifting his soft foot behind him, bowing his sweaty head, smiling, and sweeping his arm wide amid loud applause and laughter, led by Natásha. Both dancers stood still, breathing heavily and wiping their faces with their cambric handkerchiefs.

“That’s how we used to dance in our day, *ma chère*,” said the count.

“That *was* a *Daniel Cooper!*” exclaimed Márya Dmítrievna, pulling up her sleeves and puffing hard.

##  CHAPTER XXI

While the sixth *anglaise* was being danced in the Rostóvs’ ballroom, to a tune the exhausted musicians fumbled through, and while tired footmen and cooks prepared the supper, Count Bezúkhov suffered his sixth stroke. The doctors declared recovery impossible. After a silent confession, communion was given to the dying man, preparations were made for the sacrament of unction, and the house was filled with the anxious commotion typical at such moments. Outside the estate gates, a group of undertakers—hiding whenever a carriage approached—waited in anticipation of a lucrative order for an extravagant funeral. The Military Governor of Moscow, who had diligently sent aides-de-camp to inquire after the count’s health, arrived himself that evening to pay a final farewell to the famed grandee of Catherine’s court, Count Bezúkhov.

The grand reception room was crowded. Everyone rose respectfully when the Military Governor, after spending about half an hour alone with the dying man, exited, briefly acknowledging their bows and eager to escape the stares from doctors, clergy, and family. Prince Vasíli, looking thinner and paler than usual over the past days, saw him to the door, repeating something quietly to him several times.

After the Military Governor left, Prince Vasíli sat by himself on a chair in the ballroom, crossing one leg high over the other, resting his elbow on his knee, and covering his face with his hand. After sitting like this for a while, he got up, glanced around with anxious eyes, and hurried unusually fast down the long corridor to the back of the house, toward the eldest princess’s room.

Those in the dimly lit reception room spoke in nervous whispers, and each time someone entered or left the dying man’s room, the room fell silent as curious or expectant eyes turned to the door, which creaked gently when opened.

“The limits of human life...are set and cannot be passed,” said an old priest to a lady who had sat beside him, listening innocently to his words.

“I wonder, is it not too late for unction?” asked the lady, adding the priest’s clerical title as though she had no personal view.

“Ah, madam, it is a great sacrament,” replied the priest, passing his hand over the thin gray strands brushed over his bald head.

“Who was that? The Military Governor himself?” someone asked on the other side of the room. “He looks so young!”

“Yes, and he’s over sixty. I hear the count no longer recognizes anyone. They wanted to give him unction.”

“I knew someone who received that sacrament seven times.”

The second princess had just left the sickroom, her eyes red from crying, and sat beside Dr. Lorrain, who was sitting gracefully under a portrait of Catherine, leaning his elbow on a table.

“Beautiful,” said the doctor in response to a comment about the weather. “The weather is beautiful, Princess; and besides, in Moscow, one almost feels like one is in the countryside.”

“Yes, indeed,” replied the princess with a sigh. “So he may have something to drink?”

Lorrain paused to consider.

“Has he taken his medicine?”

“Yes.”

The doctor checked his watch.

“Take a glass of boiled water and add a pinch of cream of tartar,” he said, showing with delicate fingers the amount he meant.

“Dere has neffer been a gase,” a German doctor was telling an aide-de-camp, “dat one liffs after de sird stroke.”

“And what a well-preserved man he was!” remarked the aide-de-camp. “And who will inherit his fortune?” he whispered.

“It von’t go begging,” replied the German with a smile.

Everyone turned to the door again as it creaked and the second princess entered with the drink made according to Lorrain’s directions. The German doctor approached Lorrain.

“Do you think he can last till morning?” asked the German in poorly spoken French.

Lorrain pursed his lips and gave a grave negative wave of his finger before his nose.

“Tonight, not later,” he said quietly, moving off with a decorous, self-satisfied smile at his clear understanding and diagnosis of the patient’s state.

Meanwhile, Prince Vasíli had opened the princess’s door.

Inside, the room was nearly dark; only two small lamps burned before the icons, and there was a pleasant scent of flowers and burnt pastilles. The space was crowded with little pieces of furniture—whatnots, cabinets, and small tables. Behind a screen, the quilt of a tall, white feather bed was barely visible. A small dog started barking.

“Ah, is it you, cousin?”

She rose and smoothed her hair, which was, as always, so sleek it seemed a single piece with her head and coated with varnish.

“Has anything happened?” she asked. “I’m so frightened.”

“No, there’s no change. I just came to talk business with you, Catiche,”* the prince muttered, sitting wearily on the chair she had just left. “You’ve made it really warm in here,” he remarked. “Well, sit down: let’s have a talk.”

\* Catherine.

“I thought perhaps something had happened,” she said, her expression always unchangingly severe; and, sitting across from the prince, she prepared to hear him out.

“I wanted to try for a nap, *mon cousin*, but I can’t.”

“Well, my dear?” said Prince Vasíli, taking her hand and bending it down as was his custom.

It was clear this “well?” referred to much they both understood without having to explain.

The princess, whose body was straight and rigid—strangely long for her legs—looked at Prince Vasíli directly, her prominent gray eyes betraying no emotion. She shook her head and glanced at the icons with a sigh. This could have signaled sorrow and devotion, or just exhaustion and a hope for rest soon. Prince Vasíli took it as a sign of weariness.

“And me?” he said, “do you think it’s easier for me? I’m as worn out as a post horse, but still I must talk to you, Catiche, a very serious talk.”

Prince Vasíli fell silent, and his cheeks began to twitch nervously, sometimes on one side, sometimes on the other, giving his face an unpleasant look never seen in the drawing room. His eyes, too, were odd; at one moment impudently sly, the next glancing around in alarm.

The princess, holding her little dog on her lap with her thin, bony hands, looked intently into Prince Vasíli’s eyes, clearly determined not to be the first to break the silence, even if she had to wait until morning.

“Well, you see, my dear princess and cousin, Catherine Semënovna,” continued Prince Vasíli, returning to his topic, apparently not without some inner struggle, “at a time like this, one must think of everything. One must think of the future, of all of you… I love you all as if you were my own children, as you know.”

The princess kept looking at him without moving, with the same dull expression.

“And then, of course, my family must also be considered,” Prince Vasíli went on, testily pushing away a little table without looking at her. “You know, Catiche, that we—you three sisters, Mámontov, and my wife—are the count’s only direct heirs. I know, I know how hard it is for you to talk or think about these matters. It’s no easier for me; but, my dear, I’m nearly sixty and must be prepared for anything. Do you know I have sent for Pierre? The count,” pointing to his portrait, “definitely demanded that he should be called.”

Prince Vasíli looked at the princess questioningly, but couldn’t tell whether she was considering what he had just said or simply staring at him.

“There is one thing I constantly pray to God for, *mon cousin*,” she replied, “and that is for Him to be merciful to him and allow his noble soul to peacefully leave this…”

“Yes, yes, of course,” interrupted Prince Vasíli impatiently, rubbing his bald head and pulling back toward him the little table he had just pushed away. “But… in short, the fact is… you know yourself that last winter the count made a will by which he left all his property, not to us his direct heirs, but to Pierre.”

“He’s made enough wills!” the princess quietly remarked. “But he cannot leave the estate to Pierre. Pierre is illegitimate.”

“But, my dear,” said Prince Vasíli suddenly, clutching the little table, becoming more animated and speaking more quickly: “What if a letter was written to the Emperor in which the count asks for Pierre’s legitimation? Do you realize that, given the count’s service, his request would be granted?…”

The princess smiled as people do when they think they know more about the subject than those they are talking to.

“I can tell you more,” continued Prince Vasíli, seizing her hand, “that letter was written, though not sent, and the Emperor knew of it. The only question is, has it been destroyed or not? If not, then as soon as *all is over*”—and Prince Vasíli sighed to imply what he meant by *all is over*—“and the count’s papers are opened, the will and letter will be delivered to the Emperor, and the petition will certainly be granted. Pierre will receive everything as the legitimate son.”

“And our share?” asked the princess, smiling ironically, as if anything might occur except that.

“But, my poor Catiche, it is as clear as day! He will then be the legal heir to everything and you won’t get anything. You must know, my dear, whether the will and letter were written and whether they have been destroyed or not. And if by chance they were overlooked, you ought to know where they are and must find them, because…”

“What next?” the princess interrupted, smiling sardonically and not changing the expression of her eyes. “I am a woman, and you think we are all stupid; but I know this: an illegitimate son cannot inherit… *un bâtard!*”\* she added, as if thinking that this translation would prove beyond doubt to Prince Vasíli that his claim was invalid.

\* A bastard.

“Well, really, Catiche! Can’t you understand? You’re so clever, how is it you don’t see that if the count has written a letter to the Emperor asking him to recognize Pierre as legitimate, then Pierre will not be Pierre any longer but Count Bezúkhov, and he will inherit everything under the will? And if the will and letter haven’t been destroyed, then all you’ll have left is the satisfaction of having been dutiful *et tout ce qui s’ensuit!*”\* That’s certain.

\* And all that follows therefrom.

“I know the will was made, but I also know that it is invalid; and you, *mon cousin*, seem to think I am a complete fool,” said the princess with the expression women use when they think they are saying something clever and biting.

“My dear Princess Catherine Semënovna,” began Prince Vasíli impatiently, “I didn’t come here to quarrel, but to talk about your interests as family—as a good, kind, true relation. And I tell you for the tenth time that if the letter to the Emperor and the will in Pierre’s favor are among the count’s papers, then, my dear girl, you and your sisters are not the heiresses! If you don’t believe me, ask an expert. I’ve just spoken to Dmítri Onúfrich” (the family solicitor) “and he says the same.”

At this, a sudden change came over the princess; her thin lips grew pale, though her eyes didn’t change, and her voice, when she began to speak, went through such transitions as she herself apparently did not expect.

“That would be a fine thing!” she said. “I never wanted anything and I don’t now.”

She pushed the little dog off her lap and smoothed her dress.

“And this is gratitude—this is what we get for those who sacrificed everything for his sake!” she cried. “It’s splendid! Wonderful! I don’t want anything, Prince.”

“Yes, but you are not the only one. There are your sisters…” replied Prince Vasíli.

But the princess was not listening to him.

“Yes, I knew it long ago but I’d forgotten. I knew I could expect nothing but meanness, deceit, envy, intrigue, and ingratitude—the absolute blackest ingratitude—in this house…”

“Do you or do you not know where that will is?” insisted Prince Vasíli, his cheeks twitching more than ever.

“Yes, I was a fool! I still believed in people, loved them, and sacrificed myself. But only the base and vile succeed! I know who has been plotting!”

The princess tried to stand, but the prince held her by the hand. She looked as though she had suddenly lost faith in all humanity. She gave her companion an angry glare.

“There is still time, my dear. You must remember, Catiche, that it was all done in a fit of anger, of illness, and was afterwards forgotten. Our duty, my dear, is to correct his mistake, to ease his last moments by not letting him commit this injustice, and not to let him die feeling he is making those who—”

“Who sacrificed everything for him,” the princess chimed in, attempting again to stand while the prince still held her hand, “though he never could appreciate it. No, *mon cousin*,” she added with a sigh, “I shall always remember that in this world one cannot expect any reward, that there is neither honor nor justice here. In this world one must be cunning and cruel.”

“Now, come, come! Be reasonable. I know your excellent heart.”

“No, my heart is wicked.”

“I know your heart,” repeated the prince. “I value your friendship and want you to have a good opinion of me. Don’t upset yourself, and let us talk sensibly while there is still time, whether it’s a day or just an hour… Tell me all you know about the will, and above all, where it is. You must know. We’ll get it at once and show it to the count. He has surely forgotten it and will want to destroy it. You understand that my only wish is to carry out his desires honestly; that’s why I’m here. I came solely to help him and you.”

“Now I see it all! I know who has been plotting—I know!” the princess cried.

“That’s not the point, my dear.”

“It’s that protégé of yours, that sweet Princess Drubetskáya, that Anna Mikháylovna whom I wouldn’t take for a housemaid… the infamous, vile woman!”

“Let’s not waste time—”

“Oh, don’t talk to me! Last winter she talked her way in here and told the count the most shameful, disgraceful stories about us, especially about Sophie—I can’t repeat them—they made the count so ill that he wouldn’t see us for a whole fortnight. I know it was then that he wrote this vile, infamous paper, but I thought it was invalid.”

“We’ve gotten to the root of it at last—why didn’t you tell me about it sooner?”

“It’s in the inlaid portfolio that he keeps under his pillow,” said the princess, ignoring his question. “Now I know! Yes, if I have a sin, a great sin, it’s hatred for that vile woman!” the princess nearly screamed, now completely changed. “And why does she come sneaking in here? But I’ll give her a piece of my mind. The time will come!”

##  CHAPTER XXII

While these conversations were taking place in the reception room and the princess’s room, a carriage carrying Pierre (who had been summoned) and Anna Mikháylovna (who felt it was necessary to accompany him) was driving into the courtyard of Count Bezúkhov’s house. As the wheels rolled quietly over the straw beneath the windows, Anna Mikháylovna, after offering Pierre some words of comfort, realized that he was asleep in his corner and woke him. Stirring, Pierre followed Anna Mikháylovna out of the carriage, and only then began to think about the meeting with his dying father that awaited him. He noticed that they had arrived not at the front entrance, but at the back door. While he was climbing down from the carriage, two men—who looked like shopkeepers—hurried from the entrance and hid in the shadows along the wall. Pausing for a moment, Pierre noticed several other men of the same kind hiding in the shadow of the house on both sides. Yet neither Anna Mikháylovna nor the footman nor the coachman, who surely saw these people, paid them any attention. “It must be all right,” Pierre thought, and followed Anna Mikháylovna. She quickly climbed the narrow, dimly lit stone staircase, calling for Pierre, who was trailing behind, to keep up. Though he didn’t understand why he needed to see the count at all—much less why he had to use the back stairs—he judged by Anna Mikháylovna’s confident and urgent manner that it was all absolutely necessary. Halfway up the stairs, they were almost bowled over by some men carrying pails who rushed down, their boots clattering. These men pressed against the wall to let Pierre and Anna Mikháylovna pass and didn’t seem at all surprised to see them there.

“Is this the way to the princesses’ rooms?” Anna Mikháylovna asked one of them.

“Yes,” replied a footman in a bold, loud voice, as if now anything was allowed. “The door to the left, ma’am.”

“Perhaps the count didn’t ask for me,” Pierre said when he reached the landing. “Maybe I should go to my own room.”

Anna Mikháylovna paused, waiting for him to catch up.

“Oh, my friend!” she said, touching his arm as she had done her son’s that afternoon. “Believe me, I suffer as much as you do, but you must be strong!”

“But shouldn’t I really go away?” he asked, looking kindly at her over his spectacles.

“My dear friend! Forget any past wrongs. Remember that he is your father… perhaps near death.” She sighed. “I have loved you like a son from the start. Trust yourself to me, Pierre. I will not forget your interests.”

Pierre didn’t understand any of this, but the feeling that all this was necessary only grew stronger, and he meekly followed Anna Mikháylovna, who was already opening a door.

The door led to a back anteroom. An old man, a servant of the princesses, sat in the corner knitting a stocking. Pierre had never been in this part of the house and didn’t even know these rooms existed. Anna Mikháylovna, calling a maid (who was hurrying past with a decanter on a tray) “my dear” and “my sweet,” asked about the princess’s health and then led Pierre along a stone passageway. The first door on the left led into the princesses’ apartments. In her rush, the maid with the decanter hadn’t closed the door (everything in the house was being done in a hurry at that time), and Pierre and Anna Mikháylovna glanced into the room as they passed, where Prince Vasíli and the eldest princess were sitting together talking. When they saw them passing, Prince Vasíli drew back with obvious impatience, and the princess jumped up and desperately slammed the door as hard as she could.

This action was so different from her usual calmness, and the fear on Prince Vasíli’s face so out of character for him, that Pierre stopped and looked questioningly over his spectacles at his guide. Anna Mikháylovna seemed unsurprised; she only smiled faintly and sighed, as if to say she had expected nothing less.

“Be strong, my friend. I will look after your interests,” she said in answer to his look, and hurried even faster down the passage.

Pierre couldn’t figure out what was happening, and even less what “looking after his interests” meant, but decided that all these things simply had to happen. From the passage, they entered a large, dimly lit room adjoining the count’s reception room. It was one of those grand but cold apartments Pierre knew only from the front approach, but even here an empty bath now sat, and water had spilled on the carpet. They were met by a deacon with a censer and by a servant who slipped out on tiptoe without noticing them. They entered the familiar reception room, with its two Italian windows to the conservatory and its large bust and full-length portrait of Catherine the Great. The same people were still here in almost the same spots as before, still whispering. Everyone became quiet and looked at the pale, tear-stained Anna Mikháylovna as she entered, and at the large, sturdy Pierre who, hanging his head, meekly followed her.

Anna Mikháylovna’s face showed she knew the decisive moment had come. With the confident manner of a practical Petersburg lady, she entered the room even more boldly than that afternoon, keeping Pierre at her side. She felt that because she brought the person the dying man wished to see, her own entry was guaranteed. Glancing quickly around the room and noticing the count’s confessor present, she approached him with a kind of ambling step, not quite bowing but seeming to shrink, and respectfully received the blessing of each priest.

“Thank God you are here in time,” she said to one of the priests; “All of us relatives have been so anxious. This young man is the count’s son,” she added in a softer voice. “What a terrible moment!”

She then went up to the doctor.

“Dear doctor,” she said, “This young man is the count’s son. Is there any hope?”

The doctor glanced up quickly and silently shrugged his shoulders. Anna Mikháylovna gave exactly the same shrug and upward glance, her eyes almost closing, then sighed and turned away from the doctor to Pierre. In a particularly respectful and sadly tender voice, she said:

“Trust His mercy!” and, showing him a small sofa where he could wait for her, she went silently to the door everyone was watching. It creaked only slightly as she disappeared behind it.

Pierre, having decided to obey Anna Mikháylovna fully, went to the sofa she had indicated. As soon as she had left, he noticed that everyone in the room turned their eyes to him with something more than curiosity or sympathy. He saw them whisper to each other, casting significant looks his way with a mix of awe and even deference. A kind of respect he’d never experienced before was shown to him. A strange lady, who had been speaking to the priests, rose and offered him her seat; an aide-de-camp picked up and returned a glove Pierre had dropped; the doctors grew respectfully quiet as he passed and made room for him. At first, Pierre wanted to take a different seat so as not to bother the lady, and he also wanted to pick up his own glove and walk around the doctors who weren’t really in his way; but suddenly he felt that wouldn’t do, and that tonight he was someone required to perform some kind of solemn rite everyone expected from him, and so he must accept their assistance. He took the glove silently from the aide-de-camp and sat in the lady’s chair, placing his large hands on his knees in the naïve posture of an Egyptian statue, and told himself that this was how things should be, and that to avoid losing his head and making mistakes, he mustn’t act on his own ideas tonight but entrust himself fully to those guiding him.

Not two minutes passed before Prince Vasíli entered the room with his head held high, looking majestic. He wore his long coat with three stars on his chest. He seemed thinner than that morning, and his eyes looked larger than usual as he glanced around and saw Pierre. He approached, took Pierre’s hand (something he never used to do), and pressed it down as if testing whether it was firmly attached.

“Courage, courage, my friend! He has asked to see you. That is good!” And he turned to go.

But Pierre felt he had to ask, “How is…” and hesitated, uncertain if it was proper to call the dying man “the count,” but embarrassed to call him “father.”

“He had another stroke about half an hour ago. Courage, my friend…”

Pierre’s mind was in such confusion that the word “stroke” made him think of an actual blow. He looked at Prince Vasíli, puzzled, and only later realized that a stroke was an illness. Prince Vasíli said something to Lorrain in passing and walked through the door on tiptoe, though he couldn’t really walk quietly, and his whole body jerked with each step. The eldest princess followed, and the priests, deacons, and some servants also went in. Through the door came the sounds of things being moved, and at last Anna Mikháylovna, wearing the same pale, resolute expression and dutiful as ever, ran out and touched Pierre lightly on the arm, saying:

“The divine mercy is inexhaustible! Unction is about to be given. Come.”

Pierre entered the room, stepping softly, and noticed the strange lady, the aide-de-camp, and several servants all following, as if now no one needed permission to come in.

##  CHAPTER XXIII

Pierre knew this large room well, divided by columns and an arch, its walls covered with Persian carpets. The space behind the columns, with a high mahogany bedstead draped in silk curtains on one side and an enormous case of icons on the other, was brightly lit with red light, like a Russian church during evening service. Beneath the shining icons stood a long invalid chair, and in that chair, on snowy-white, freshly changed smooth pillows, Pierre saw—covered to the waist by a bright green quilt—the familiar, majestic figure of his father, Count Bezúkhov, with his gray mane of hair above his broad forehead, reminiscent of a lion, and the deep, characteristically noble wrinkles of his handsome, ruddy face. He lay directly under the icons; his large thick hands rested atop the quilt. In his right hand, palm down, a wax taper had been placed between his forefinger and thumb, and an old servant, leaning over from behind the chair, held it steady. By the chair stood the priests, their long hair falling over their splendid, glittering vestments, holding lighted tapers as they slowly and solemnly conducted the service. A little behind them stood the two younger princesses, holding handkerchiefs to their eyes, and in front of them their eldest sister, Catiche, with a determined, almost harsh look fixed on the icons, as if to warn everyone that she could not answer for her actions if she looked away. Anna Mikháylovna, with a meek, sorrowful, and all-forgiving expression, stood near the door beside the unfamiliar lady. Prince Vasíli, in front of the door near the invalid chair, a wax taper in his left hand, leaned his left arm on the carved back of a velvet chair he had turned around for the purpose, crossing himself with his right hand, his eyes raised heavenward each time he touched his forehead. His face was calm, expressing piety and acceptance of God's will. “If you do not understand these sentiments,” his expression seemed to say, “so much the worse for you!”

Behind him stood the aide-de-camp, the doctors, and the menservants; the men and women had separated as in church. All were silently crossing themselves, and only the reading of the church service, the muted chanting of deep bass voices, and, in the pauses, sighs and the shuffling of feet, broke the silence. Anna Mikháylovna, with an air of knowing importance, as if she was sure of her role, crossed the room to where Pierre was standing and handed him a taper. He lit it and, distracted by watching those around him, began crossing himself with the hand holding the taper.

Sophie, the youngest princess, rosy and cheerful with the mole, watched him. She smiled, hid her face in her handkerchief, and kept it hidden for a while; then, looking up and seeing Pierre, began to laugh again. She clearly couldn’t look at him without laughing, but couldn’t resist glancing his way; so, to avoid temptation, she quietly slipped behind one of the columns. In the middle of the service, the priests' voices suddenly stopped, they whispered among themselves, and the old servant holding the count’s hand got up and said something to the ladies. Anna Mikháylovna stepped forward and, bending over the dying man, beckoned Lorrain from behind her. The French doctor was without a taper; he leaned against one of the columns in a respectful manner, implying that he, a foreigner, fully understood—even if of a different faith—the importance of the ritual and even approved of it. He now approached the sick man with the silent steps of someone full of life, delicately raising the hand that was free from the green quilt, and after feeling the pulse, paused to reflect. The sick man received something to drink, there was some commotion around him, and then everyone returned to their places and the service continued. During this interval, Pierre noticed that Prince Vasíli left his chair, and—with an air suggesting he knew exactly what he was doing and, should others fail to understand, that was their problem—did not approach the dying man but instead joined the eldest princess, moving with her to the side of the room with the high bedstead and its silken drapes. After leaving the bed, both Prince Vasíli and the princess exited through a back door, but returned separately before the service ended. Pierre paid no more attention to this incident than to anything else happening that evening, firmly believing that everything he witnessed was, in some way, vitally important.

The chanting of the service ceased, and the priest’s voice was heard respectfully congratulating the dying man on having received the sacrament. The dying man remained as motionless and lifeless as before. Around him, everyone began to stir: footsteps and whispers became audible, among which Anna Mikháylovna’s was clearest.

Pierre heard her say:

“Certainly he must be moved onto the bed; it’s impossible here…”

So many doctors, princesses, and servants surrounded the sick man that Pierre could no longer see the reddish-yellow face with its gray mane—which, even while looking at other faces, he had not taken his eyes off throughout the service. He judged from the careful movements of those around the invalid chair that they were lifting the dying man and moving him.

“Hold my arm or you’ll drop him!” he heard one of the servants say in a frightened whisper. “Hold underneath. Here!” exclaimed various voices; and the bearers’ heavy breathing and shuffling feet grew more hurried, as though the weight were too much for them.

As the bearers, including Anna Mikháylovna, passed the young man, he caught a momentary glimpse, between their heads and backs, of the dying man’s broad, uncovered chest and powerful shoulders, raised by those supporting him under the armpits, and of his gray, curly, leonine head. This head, with its exceptionally wide brow and cheekbones, its handsome, sensual mouth, and its cold, majestic expression, was not marred by the approach of death. It was just as Pierre remembered it three months before, when the count had sent him to Petersburg. Now, however, this head swayed helplessly with the uneven movements of the bearers, its cold, vacant gaze fixed on nothing.

After a few minutes’ activity near the high bedstead, those who had carried the sick man moved away. Anna Mikháylovna touched Pierre’s hand and said, “Come.” Pierre went with her to the bed, where the sick man had been laid in a dignified pose befitting the completed ceremony. His head was propped high on the pillows. His hands rested symmetrically on the green silk quilt, palms down. When Pierre approached, the count was staring straight at him, but with a look whose meaning no ordinary person could grasp. Either this look meant nothing, merely that one with eyes must focus somewhere, or it meant too much. Pierre hesitated, unsure what to do, and glanced questioningly at his guide. Anna Mikháylovna quickly gestured with her eyes toward the sick man’s hand and moved her lips as if to kiss it. Pierre, stretching his neck carefully to avoid touching the quilt, followed her cue and pressed his lips to the large, heavy hand. Neither the hand nor a single muscle on the count’s face moved. Once again, Pierre glanced at Anna Mikháylovna to see what he should do next. Anna Mikháylovna nodded toward a chair next to the bed. Pierre obediently sat down, looking at her to see if that was correct. Anna Mikháylovna nodded in approval. Again Pierre assumed the stiffly symmetrical pose of an Egyptian statue, clearly uncomfortable with how much space his big, awkward body took up and trying his best to make himself as small as possible. He looked at the count, who was still gazing at the spot where Pierre’s face had been before he sat. Anna Mikháylovna’s demeanor showed her awareness of the moving significance of these last moments between father and son. This lasted about two minutes, which felt like an hour to Pierre. Suddenly, the broad muscles and lines of the count’s face began to twitch. The twitching increased, his handsome mouth was drawn to one side (only then did Pierre fully realize how close his father was to death), and from that twisted mouth came an indistinct, hoarse sound. Anna Mikháylovna looked closely into the dying man’s eyes, trying to understand what he wanted; she pointed first at Pierre, then at a drink, then mentioned Prince Vasíli in a questioning whisper, and then pointed at the quilt. The sick man’s eyes and face showed impatience. He tried to look at the servant who permanently stood at the head of the bed.

“He wants to turn onto his other side,” whispered the servant, standing up to turn the count’s heavy body toward the wall.

Pierre rose to help him.

While the count was being turned over, one of his arms fell back limp and he tried unsuccessfully to pull it forward. Whether he noticed Pierre’s look of terror at that lifeless arm or some other thought crossed his dying mind, he glanced at the unresponsive arm, at Pierre’s frightened face, and then back at the arm, and for a moment, a faint, pitiable smile appeared on his lips, quite unlike his usual features, as if making fun of his own helplessness. At the sight of that smile, Pierre felt an unexpected quiver in his chest and a tickling in his nose, and tears blurred his eyes. The sick man was turned onto his side, facing the wall. He sighed.

“He is dozing,” said Anna Mikháylovna, seeing one of the princesses approach for her turn at watching. “Let’s go.”

Pierre left.

##  CHAPTER XXIV

Now, there was no one left in the reception room except Prince Vasíli and the eldest princess, who were sitting beneath the portrait of Catherine the Great, talking with great urgency. As soon as Pierre and his companion entered, they fell silent, and Pierre thought he saw the princess quickly hide something as she whispered:

“I can’t stand the sight of that woman.”

“Catiche has arranged to have tea served in the small drawing room,” said Prince Vasíli to Anna Mikháylovna. “Go have something, my poor Anna Mikháylovna, or you won’t be able to hold out.”

He said nothing to Pierre, just gave his arm a sympathetic squeeze below the shoulder. Pierre went with Anna Mikháylovna into the small drawing room.

“There is nothing so refreshing after a sleepless night as a cup of this excellent Russian tea,” Lorrain was saying with a controlled energy as he stood sipping tea from a delicate Chinese handleless cup before a table set with tea and a cold supper in the small circular room. Around the table, everyone who had been at Count Bezúkhov’s house that night had gathered to recover their strength. Pierre remembered this small circular drawing room well, with its mirrors and little tables. During balls at the house, Pierre, who didn’t know how to dance, liked to sit here and watch the ladies in their ball dresses, with diamonds and pearls on their bare shoulders, as they passed through and admired themselves in the brightly lit mirrors that repeated their reflections again and again. Now that same room was dimly lit by two candles. On one small table, tea things and supper dishes were scattered in disorder, and in the middle of the night a mixed group of people sat there, not celebrating, but whispering somberly, betraying by every word and movement that none of them forgot what was happening or about to happen in the bedroom. Pierre didn’t eat anything, though he very much wanted to. He looked questioningly at his guardian and saw that she was once again tiptoeing back to the reception room, where they had left Prince Vasíli and the eldest princess. Pierre decided this too was necessary, and after a short wait, followed her. Anna Mikháylovna was standing beside the princess, both speaking in agitated whispers.

“Permit me, Princess, to know what is necessary and what is not necessary,” said the younger of the two, clearly still as upset as when she had slammed her bedroom door earlier.

“But, dear princess,” answered Anna Mikháylovna kindly but firmly, blocking the way to the bedroom and preventing the other from passing, “wouldn’t this be too much for poor Uncle at a time when he needs to rest? Worldly talk at a moment when his soul is already prepared…”

Prince Vasíli was seated in an easy chair in his usual way, with one leg crossed high over the other. His cheeks, heavy and flabby, were twitching violently; but he had the look of a man only mildly interested in whatever the two ladies were saying.

“Come now, dear Anna Mikháylovna, let Catiche do as she wishes. You know how fond the count is of her.”

“I don’t even know what’s in this paper,” said the younger lady, addressing Prince Vasíli and pointing to an inlaid portfolio she held. “All I know is that his real will is in his writing table, and this is a paper he’s forgotten….”

She tried to pass Anna Mikháylovna, but the latter sprang forward to block her path.

“I understand, my dear, kind princess,” said Anna Mikháylovna, seizing the portfolio so firmly it was obvious she would not let go easily. “Dear princess, I beg and implore you, have some pity on him! *Je vous en conjure*…”

The princess did not reply. Their struggle over the portfolio was the only sound in the room, but it was clear that if the princess spoke, her words would not be kind to Anna Mikháylovna. Though Anna Mikháylovna held on tenaciously, her voice remained sweet and steady.

“Pierre, my dear, come here. I think you will not be out of place in a family consultation; isn’t that so, Prince?”

“Why don’t you speak, cousin?” suddenly shrieked the princess so loudly that everyone in the drawing room was startled. “Why do you say nothing when a complete stranger dares to interfere, causing a scene at the very door of a dying man’s room? Intriguer!” she hissed angrily, and pulled the portfolio as hard as she could.

But Anna Mikháylovna stepped forward a few paces to maintain her grip on the portfolio and shifted her hold.

Prince Vasíli stood up. “Oh!” he said with reproach and surprise, “this is ridiculous! Come on, let go, I tell you.”

The princess let go.

“And you too!”

But Anna Mikháylovna did not release her hold.

“Let go, I tell you! I’ll take responsibility. I myself will go in and ask him, I will!… will that satisfy you?”

“But, Prince,” said Anna Mikháylovna, “after such a solemn sacrament, allow him a moment’s peace! Here, Pierre, tell them what you think,” she said, turning to the young man, who had come quite close and was staring in astonishment at the angry, undignified face of the princess and the twitching cheeks of Prince Vasíli.

“Remember, you’ll answer for the consequences,” said Prince Vasíli sternly. “You don’t know what you’re doing.”

“Vile woman!” shouted the princess, suddenly rushing at Anna Mikháylovna and snatching the portfolio from her.

Prince Vasíli bowed his head and opened his hands in despair.

At that moment, the dreaded door Pierre had so long watched—always opening quietly before—burst open noisily and slammed against the wall. The second of the three sisters rushed out wringing her hands.

“What are you doing!” she cried passionately. “He is dying and you leave me alone with him!”

Her sister dropped the portfolio. Anna Mikháylovna quickly stooped, grabbed the disputed item, and hurried into the bedroom. The eldest princess and Prince Vasíli, regaining their composure, followed her. A few minutes later, the eldest sister came out with a pale, hardened face, biting her lower lip. When she saw Pierre, her expression revealed deep, unconcealable hatred.

“Yes, now you can rejoice!” she exclaimed. “This is what you’ve been waiting for.” Crying, she covered her face with her handkerchief and rushed from the room.

Prince Vasíli came next, staggering to the sofa where Pierre was sitting and dropping onto it, covering his face with his hand. Pierre noticed that he was pale and his jaw shook as if with chills.

“Ah, my friend!” he said, taking Pierre by the elbow, his voice now containing a sincerity and vulnerability Pierre had never heard before. “How often we sin, how much we deceive, and all for what? I am almost sixty, dear friend… I too… Everything ends in death, everything! Death is dreadful…” and he began to weep.

Anna Mikháylovna came out last. She approached Pierre with slow, quiet steps.

“Pierre!” she said.

Pierre looked at her questioningly. She kissed him on the forehead, her tears wetting his skin. Then after a pause, she said:

“He is gone….”

Pierre looked back at her over his spectacles.

“Come, I’ll go with you. Try to cry, nothing is as relieving as tears.”

She led him into the dark drawing room, and Pierre was grateful no one could see his face. Anna Mikháylovna left him, and when she returned he was sleeping deeply, his head resting on his arm.

In the morning Anna Mikháylovna said to Pierre:

“Yes, my dear, this is a great loss for all of us, not just for you. But God will support you: you are young and now, I hope, in possession of a great fortune. The will has not yet been opened. I know you well enough to be sure that this won’t go to your head, but with this fortune come responsibilities, and you must be a man.”

Pierre was silent.

“Perhaps later, my dear boy, I’ll tell you that if I hadn’t been there, God only knows what might have happened! You know, Uncle promised me just the day before yesterday not to forget Borís. But he didn’t have time. I hope, my dear friend, you will carry out your father’s wish?”

Pierre didn’t understand any of this, and, blushing shyly, silently looked at Princess Anna Mikháylovna. After her talk with Pierre, Anna Mikháylovna returned to the Rostóvs’ house and went to bed. When she woke up in the morning, she told the Rostóvs and all her acquaintances the details of Count Bezúkhov’s death. She said the count had died as she herself would wish to die, and that his end was not only moving but uplifting. As for the last meeting between father and son, it was so touching she couldn’t think of it without tears, and didn’t know who had behaved better during those awful moments—the father, who remembered everything and everyone at the end and spoke such moving words to his son, or Pierre, who was so overcome with grief that it was heartbreaking to see, though he tried hard to hide it so as not to upset his dying father. “It is painful, but it does one good. It uplifts the soul to see such men as the old count and his worthy son,” she said. She spoke disapprovingly of the behavior of the eldest princess and Prince Vasíli, but only in whispers and as a great secret.

##  CHAPTER XXV

At Bald Hills, Prince Nicholas Andréevich Bolkónski’s estate, the arrival of young Prince Andrew and his wife was expected daily, but this anticipation did not disrupt the regular routine of life in the old prince’s household. General in Chief Prince Nicholas Andréevich (nicknamed in society, “the King of Prussia”) had lived there continuously with his daughter, Princess Mary, and her companion, Mademoiselle Bourienne, ever since Emperor Paul had exiled him to his country estate. Though, under the new reign, he was free to return to the capitals, he still chose to remain in the country, saying that anyone who wished to see him could make the hundred-mile journey from Moscow to Bald Hills, while he himself needed no one and nothing. He used to say that there are only two sources of human vice—idleness and superstition—and only two virtues—activity and intelligence. He personally undertook his daughter’s education, and to cultivate these two main virtues in her, gave her lessons in algebra and geometry until she was twenty, and arranged her life so that all her time was occupied. He himself was always busy: writing his memoirs, solving advanced math problems, making snuffboxes on his lathe, working in the garden, or overseeing the never-ending construction on his estate. As regularity promotes activity, he insisted on rigorous punctuality in his household. He always came to table under exactly the same conditions, not only at the same hour but at the same minute. With everyone around him, from his daughter to his serfs, the prince was sharp and consistently demanding, so that, though not hardhearted, he inspired a fear and respect that few truly hard men could have produced. Although he was now retired and uninvolved in politics, every high official appointed to the province where the prince’s estate was located felt obligated to visit him, and waited in the lofty antechamber just like the architect, gardener, or Princess Mary, until the prince appeared precisely at the appointed time. Everyone in this antechamber experienced the same blend of respect and fear when the enormous study door opened and revealed the figure of a rather small old man, with a powdered wig, small withered hands, and thick gray eyebrows that, when he frowned, sometimes concealed the glint of his sharp, youthful eyes.

On the morning the young couple was to arrive, Princess Mary entered the antechamber at the usual time for the morning greeting, crossing herself nervously and whispering a silent prayer. Every morning she came in this way, and every morning she prayed that the daily meeting would go smoothly.

An old, powdered servant who sat in the antechamber rose quietly and said in a whisper: “Please walk in.”

From behind the door came the steady hum of a lathe. The princess timidly opened the door, which moved smoothly and silently. She paused at the threshold. The prince was working at his lathe and, after glancing at her, continued his work.

The huge study was filled with objects obviously in constant use. The large table was covered with books and plans, the tall glass-fronted bookcases had keys in their locks, the high desk for standing up to write had an open exercise book on it, and the lathe, with tools ready to hand and shavings scattered around, all showed ongoing, varied, and orderly activity. The motion of his small foot in a Tartar boot embroidered with silver, and the firm pressure of his lean, sinewy hand, showed that the prince retained the tenacity and vigor of a hardy old man. After a few more turns of the lathe, he removed his foot from the pedal, wiped his chisel, dropped it into a leather pouch attached to the lathe, and, approaching the table, called his daughter over. He never gave his children his blessing, so he simply offered his bristly cheek (still unshaven) and, regarding her kindly yet attentively, said sternly:

“All well? Good, then sit down.” He picked up the exercise book containing the geometry lessons he had written himself and drew up a chair with his foot.

“For tomorrow!” he said, quickly finding the page and marking between paragraphs with his hard fingernail.

The princess leaned over the exercise book on the table.

“Wait a moment, here’s a letter for you,” the old man said suddenly, taking a letter addressed in a woman’s hand from a bag hanging over the table, onto which he tossed it.

At the sight of the letter, red patches appeared on the princess’s face. She took it quickly and bent her head over it.

“From Héloïse?” the prince asked, with a cold smile that showed his sound, yellowish teeth.

“Yes, it’s from Julie,” the princess replied with a timid glance and a shy smile.

“I’ll allow two more letters, but the third I’ll read,” said the prince sternly. “I’m afraid you write too much nonsense. I’ll read the third!”

“Read this if you want, Father,” said the princess, blushing more and holding out the letter.

“The third, I said the third!” cried the prince abruptly, pushing the letter away, and leaning his elbows on the table he drew toward him the exercise book with the geometric diagrams.

“Well, madam,” he began, bending over the book close to his daughter and placing an arm on the chair’s back, so she felt completely surrounded by the familiar scent of old age and tobacco. “Now, madam, these triangles are equal; notice that angle *ABC*…”

The princess looked, frightened, into her father’s eyes glittering near her; the red patches on her face came and went, and it was clear that she understood nothing, so scared that her fear made her unable to follow any of his further explanations, however clear. Whether it was the teacher’s or the pupil’s fault, the same thing happened every day: the princess’s eyes grew cloudy, she saw and heard nothing, only became aware of her stern father’s withered face near her, his breath and his scent, and could only think about wanting to escape to her room to work out the problem in peace. The old man was exasperated: he noisily moved his chair back and forth, tried to control himself, but almost always lost patience, scolded, and sometimes threw the exercise book aside.

The princess gave a wrong answer.

“Well then, isn’t she a fool!” shouted the prince, pushing the book aside and turning sharply away; but rising at once, he paced the room, lightly touched his daughter’s hair, and sat down again.

He scooted up his chair and continued:

“This won’t do, Princess; this won’t do,” he said, as Princess Mary, having taken and closed the exercise book with the next day’s lesson, was about to leave. “Mathematics are so important, madam! I don’t want to see you turn into one of those silly ladies. Get used to it and you’ll enjoy it,” and he patted her cheek. “It will keep all that nonsense out of your mind.”

She turned to go, but he stopped her with a gesture and took an uncut book from the tall desk.

“Here’s some sort of *Key to the Mysteries* your Héloïse has sent you. Religious! I don’t interfere with anyone’s beliefs… I glanced at it. Take it. Well, now go. Go.”

He patted her shoulder and closed the door after her.

Princess Mary returned to her room with the sad, anxious look that rarely left her and which made her plain, sickly face appear even plainer. She sat down at her writing desk, crowded with miniature portraits, books, and papers. The princess was as untidy as her father was orderly. She set down the geometry book and eagerly broke the seal of her letter. It was from her closest childhood friend, the same Julie Karágina who had attended the Rostóvs’ name-day party.

Julie wrote in French:

Dear and precious Friend, How terrible and frightening separation is! Though I tell myself that half my life and half my happiness are tied up in you, and that despite the distance between us our hearts are bound by unbreakable ties, my heart rebels against fate and, despite all the pleasures and distractions here, I cannot shake a secret sadness that has weighed on me since we parted. Why aren’t we together as we were last summer, in your big study, on the blue sofa, the confidential sofa? Why can’t I now, as three months ago, draw fresh moral strength from your look—so gentle, calm, and insightful—a look I loved so and seem to see now as I write?

Having reached this point, Princess Mary sighed and looked into the mirror standing to her right. It reflected a weak, awkward figure and a thin face. Her eyes, always sad, now looked especially hopeless at her reflection in the mirror. “She flatters me,” the princess thought, turning away and reading on. But Julie was not flattering her friend. The princess’s eyes—large, deep, and luminous (sometimes radiating warm light)—were beautiful enough that, despite her otherwise plain face, they gave her a kind of attraction greater than beauty. But the princess never saw the beauty of her own eyes—the look they had when she wasn’t thinking of herself. Like everyone, her face became strained and unnatural as soon as she saw herself in a mirror. She went on reading:

All Moscow talks about nothing but war. One of my two brothers is already abroad, the other is with the Guards, who are leaving for the frontier. Our dear Emperor has left Petersburg, and people believe he means to risk his precious self in war. God grant that the Corsican monster who is destroying Europe’s peace may be overthrown by the angel whom Heaven, in its goodness, has given us as sovereign! Not to mention my brothers, this war has deprived me of one of my constants: young Nicholas Rostóv, who, full of enthusiasm, could not sit idle and has left university to join the army. I’ll confess, dear Mary, that despite his youth his leaving for the army was a great sorrow for me. This young man I told you about last summer is so noble-hearted and is truly youthful, a quality rarely found even in old men of twenty, and above all he is so honest and warm-hearted. He is so pure and poetic that, brief as our acquaintance was, it became one of the greatest comforts to my poor heart, already much wounded. Someday I will tell you about our parting and all that was said then. It’s still too fresh to recount. Ah, dear friend, you are lucky not to know these piercing joys and sorrows. You are fortunate, for the latter are often the stronger! I know very well that Count Nicholas is too young ever to be more to me than a friend, but this sweet friendship, this poetic and pure intimacy, is just what my heart needed. But enough about that! The main news, which all of Moscow is gossiping about, is the death of old Count Bezúkhov, and his inheritance. Imagine! The three princesses received very little, Prince Vasíli nothing, and it is Monsieur Pierre who has inherited everything and been recognized as legitimate; so now he is Count Bezúkhov and owns the finest fortune in Russia. Rumor has it that Prince Vasíli behaved quite scandalously in this affair and returned to Petersburg very crestfallen.

I admit I understand little of wills and inheritances; but now that this young man, who was just plain Monsieur Pierre, has become Count Bezúkhov and one of Russia’s wealthiest men, I am quite amused at how the mothers with marriageable daughters—and the young ladies themselves—have changed their manner toward him. Though, honestly, he always seemed a poor specimen to me. People have spent the last two years trying to marry me off (often to men I barely know), and now the Moscow matchmakers talk of me as the future Countess Bezúkhova. But you understand, I have no desire for that role. Speaking of marriages: did you know that not long ago that *universal auntie* Anna Mikháylovna confided in me, under strict secrecy, about a plan to marry you? It seems they want to reform Prince Vasíli’s son, Anatole, by marrying him to someone rich and *distinguée*, and it is you his family have chosen. I don’t know what you will think of it, but I feel it’s my duty to tell you. He is said to be very handsome and a notorious scamp. That is all I have learned about him.

But enough gossip. I have reached the end of my second sheet of paper, and Mamma has called me to dine at the Apráksins’. Read the mystical book I am sending you; it is immensely popular here. Though some parts are hard for the feeble human mind to grasp, it is an admirable book that calms and elevates the soul. Farewell! Please give my respects to your father and my compliments to Mademoiselle Bourienne. I embrace you with all my love.

JULIE

P.S. Let me know of your brother and his charming young wife.

The princess paused for a while, smiling thoughtfully, and her luminous eyes lit up so her whole face was transformed. Then she suddenly stood up and heavily crossed to the table. She took out a sheet of paper and her hand moved quickly over it. This is the reply she wrote, also in French:

Dear and precious Friend, Your letter of the 13th brought me great joy. So you still love me, my romantic Julie? Separation, which you describe so sorrowfully, does not seem to have changed you much. You complain of our separation. Then what should I say, if I *dared* complain, I who am deprived of all who are dear to me? Oh, if it weren’t for religion, life would be unbearably sad. Why do you suppose I would judge you for your feelings for that young man? On matters of the heart, I am strict only with myself. I understand such feelings in others, and even if I have never felt them, I neither approve nor judge them. Only, it seems to me that Christian love, love for one’s neighbor—even one’s enemy—is nobler, sweeter, and better than the love inspired in a romantic young girl by a handsome young man.

We learned of Count Bezúkhov’s death before your letter arrived, and my father was quite affected. He says the count was the last or nearly the last representative of the great age, and that now it is his own turn, though he insists he will make it come as late as possible. May God protect us from such a terrible loss!

I cannot agree with you about Pierre, whom I’ve known since childhood. He always seemed to have an excellent heart, and that’s what I value most in people. As to his inheritance and Prince Vasíli’s conduct, it is a sad affair for both. Ah, dear friend, our divine Savior’s words, that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God, are terribly true. I pity Prince Vasíli but feel even more sorry for Pierre. So young and burdened with such riches—to what temptations will he be exposed! If I could have anything on earth, I would wish to be poorer than the poorest beggar. Thank you, dear friend, for the book you sent, which is so popular in Moscow. Yet since you say it contains not only good things but others beyond our weak understanding, it seems pointless to read what cannot be understood or benefit us. I never understood why some people enjoy confusing themselves with mystical books that only stir up doubts and overexcite the imagination, leading them into exaggerations that are so far from true Christian simplicity. Let’s rather read the Epistles and Gospels. Let’s not try to force understanding of their mysteries; for how can we, poor sinners as we are, know the holy secrets of Providence while we remain in this fleshly body, which forms a barrier between us and the Eternal? Let’s confine ourselves to studying the noble teachings our Savior left us. Let’s try to follow them, and be sure that the less our weak human minds wander, the more we will please God, who rejects all knowledge not from Him; and the less we strive to uncover what He has hidden, the sooner He’ll reveal it to us through His Spirit.

My father hasn’t mentioned a suitor, but only told me he’s gotten a letter and expects Prince Vasíli to visit. About this proposed marriage, I’ll tell you, dear friend, that I see marriage as a divine institution to which we must submit. However hard it may be for me, if God gives me the duties of wife and mother I’ll try to fulfill them as best I can, without troubling myself by considering my feelings toward the man He may choose for me.

I’ve had a letter from my brother, who says he’s coming soon to Bald Hills with his wife. But this pleasure will be brief, for he’ll soon leave again for this unhappy war we’ve been drawn into—God knows how or why. Not just where you are—at the heart of everything—is war being talked about; even here, amid the farmwork and calm countryside townsfolk think is typical of rural life, rumors of war are everywhere and deeply felt. My father talks of nothing but marches and countermarches, things I do not understand; and the day before yesterday, during my walk through the village, I witnessed a heartbreaking scene… It was a convoy of conscripts taken from our peasants to join the army. You should have seen the mothers, wives, and children of those leaving, and you should have heard the sobs. It seems as if mankind has forgotten the laws of our Savior, who taught love and forgiveness—and that people now give the highest praise to skill in killing each other.

Adieu, dear and kind friend; may our divine Saviour and His most Holy Mother keep you in their holy and all-powerful care!

MARY

“Ah, you’re sending a letter, Princess? I’ve already sent mine. I’ve written to my poor mother,” said the smiling Mademoiselle Bourienne quickly, in her pleasant, mellow voice, with her guttural *r*’s. She brought into Princess Mary’s intense, sorrowful, and gloomy world a completely different atmosphere—one that was carefree, cheerful, and self-assured.

“Princess, I must warn you,” she continued, lowering her voice and clearly enjoying how she sounded, speaking with exaggerated *grasseyement*, “the prince has been scolding Michael Ivánovich. He’s in a very bad mood, very morose. Be ready.”

“Oh, dear friend,” replied Princess Mary, “I have asked you never to warn me about my father’s mood. I do not allow myself to judge him and would not have others do so.”

The princess glanced at her watch and, seeing she was five minutes late to start her practice on the clavichord, hurried into the sitting room with a worried expression. From twelve to two o’clock, as her daily schedule dictated, the prince rested and the princess played the clavichord.

##  CHAPTER XXVI

The gray-haired valet sat drowsily, listening to the prince’s snoring in his large study. From the far side of the house, through closed doors, came the sound of a difficult passage—a sonata by Dussek—being practiced and repeated over and over.

Just then, a closed carriage and another with a hood arrived at the porch. Prince Andrew stepped out, helped his petite wife down, and let her enter the house before him. Old Tíkhon, wearing a wig, poked his head out of the antechamber door, quietly reported that the prince was sleeping, and quickly closed the door. Tíkhon knew that nothing—not even the arrival of the prince’s son—should disturb the set routine. Prince Andrew seemed to know this as well as Tíkhon did; he glanced at his watch as if to check whether his father’s habits had changed since his last visit, and, seeing they hadn’t, he turned to his wife.

“He’ll get up in twenty minutes. Let’s go to Mary’s room,” he said.

The little princess had put on some weight, but her eyes and her short, soft, cheerful lip lifted just as merrily and prettily as ever when she spoke.

“This place is a palace!” she said to her husband, looking around with the same expression people use when complimenting a host at a ball. “Let’s go, quick, quick!” She glanced around, smiling at Tíkhon, her husband, and the footman who was with them.

“Is that Mary playing? Let’s sneak up and surprise her.”

Prince Andrew followed with a polite but somber expression.

“You’ve gotten older, Tíkhon,” he said as he passed by the old man, who kissed his hand.

Before they reached the room where the clavichord music came from, the pretty, fair-haired Frenchwoman, Mademoiselle Bourienne, rushed out, apparently overjoyed.

“Oh! What happiness for the princess!” she exclaimed. “Finally! I must tell her.”

“No, no, please don’t… You’re Mademoiselle Bourienne,” said the little princess, kissing her. “I already know you through my sister-in-law’s fondness for you. She wasn’t expecting us?”

They approached the door to the sitting room, from which the repeated sonata passage could be heard. Prince Andrew paused and made a grimace, as if bracing for something unpleasant.

The little princess stepped in. The music stopped abruptly, a cry sounded, followed by Princess Mary’s heavy footsteps and the noise of kissing. When Prince Andrew entered, the two princesses—who’d only met briefly once at his wedding—held each other closely, pressing their lips to whatever part of each other’s faces they could. Mademoiselle Bourienne stood nearby, pressing her hand to her heart, smiling blissfully and clearly ready to either cry or laugh. Prince Andrew shrugged and frowned, like a lover of music who’s heard a wrong note. The two women released each other, then, almost fearing it was too late, seized each other’s hands, kissed them, pulled them away, and again kissed each other on the face. Then, to Prince Andrew’s surprise, they both began to cry and kissed again. Mademoiselle Bourienne also began crying. Prince Andrew was clearly uncomfortable, but to the women it seemed perfectly natural to cry, and they didn’t seem to consider that there could have been any other reaction to this meeting.

“Oh, my dear!… Oh, Mary!…” they suddenly exclaimed, and then laughed. “I dreamed last night…”—“You didn’t expect us?…” “Oh, Mary, you’ve become thinner?…” “And you’ve gotten plumper!…”

“I knew the princess right away,” Mademoiselle Bourienne added.

“And I had no idea!…” Princess Mary exclaimed. “Oh, Andrew, I didn’t see you.”

Prince Andrew and his sister, hand in hand, kissed, and he told her she was still as much a crybaby as ever. Princess Mary had turned to her brother, and through her tears the loving, warm, gentle look in her large, luminous eyes—especially beautiful at that moment—rested on Prince Andrew’s face.

The little princess talked non-stop, her short, downy upper lip frequently and quickly touching her rosy lower lip when necessary and immediately lifting again as her face lit up with a smile of bright teeth and sparkling eyes. She talked about an accident they’d had on Spásski Hill—which could have been serious for her in her condition—and right after, mentioned she’d left all her clothes in Petersburg and now didn’t know what she’d wear here; then she said Andrew had really changed, and that Kitty Odýntsova had married an old man, and that there was a suitor for Mary, a real one, but that they’d talk about that later. Princess Mary kept looking silently at her brother, and her beautiful eyes were full of love and sadness. It was clear she was deep in thought, separate from her sister-in-law’s chatter. In the middle of detailing the latest Petersburg social event, she addressed her brother:

“So you’re really going to war, Andrew?” she asked with a sigh.

Lise sighed as well.

“Yes, and already tomorrow,” her brother replied.

“He’s leaving me here, for who knows what reason, when he could have gotten a promotion…”

Princess Mary didn’t listen to the end, but, following her own line of thought, turned to her sister-in-law with a gentle glance at her figure.

“Is it certain?” she asked.

The little princess’s face changed. She sighed and said, “Yes, quite certain. Oh! it’s very dreadful…”

Her lip quivered. She leaned close to her sister-in-law, and suddenly began to cry again.

“She needs rest,” said Prince Andrew with a frown. “Don’t you, Lise? Take her to your room and I’ll go to Father. How is he? Just the same?”

“Yes, just the same. Though I don’t know what you’ll think,” the princess answered brightly.

“And the hours? And the walks in the alleys? And the lathe?” asked Prince Andrew with a slight smile, showing that, despite his love and respect for his father, he was aware of his eccentricities.

“The hours are the same, and the lathe, and even my geometry lessons,” said Princess Mary gleefully, as if those lessons were one of the greatest joys of her life.

When twenty minutes had passed and it was time for the old prince to get up, Tíkhon came to summon the young prince to his father. The old man, in honor of his son’s arrival, departed from his usual routine: he allowed him into his rooms while dressing for dinner. The old prince always dressed in an old-fashioned style, with an antique coat and powdered hair. When Prince Andrew entered his father’s dressing room (not with the disdainful manner he wore in drawing rooms, but with the animated face he reserved for conversations with Pierre), the old man was seated in a large leather chair, wrapped in a powdering mantle, trusting his head to Tíkhon.

“Ah! Here’s the warrior! Ready to defeat Buonaparte?” said the old man, shaking his powdered head as much as Tíkhon, who was holding his hair tightly to braid, allowed.

“You’ll have to handle him properly, or else if he keeps going, he’ll make us his subjects too! How are you?” And he held out his cheek.

The old man was in good spirits after his pre-dinner nap. (He always said a nap “after dinner was silver—before dinner, golden.”) He shot happy, sidelong glances at his son from under thick, bushy eyebrows. Prince Andrew walked up and kissed his father on the appointed spot. He didn’t respond to his father’s favorite subject—mocking the military men of the time, especially Bonaparte.

“Yes, Father, I’ve come to you and brought my pregnant wife,” said Prince Andrew, watching every expression on his father’s face with eager respect. “How is your health?”

“Only fools and rakes fall ill, my boy. You know me: I keep busy from morning till night and live moderately, so of course I’m well.”

“Thank God,” his son said with a smile.

“God has nothing to do with it! Well, go on,” he continued, returning to his favorite topic, “tell me how the Germans have taught you to fight Bonaparte with this new ‘strategy’ science of yours.”

Prince Andrew smiled.

“Give me a moment to collect my thoughts, Father,” he said, smiling in a way that showed his father’s peculiarities did nothing to lessen his love and respect. “I haven’t even had time to settle in yet!”

“Nonsense, nonsense!” the old man exclaimed, shaking his pigtail to check that it was firmly braided, and grasping his son by the hand. “The house for your wife is ready. Princess Mary will take her over and show her around, and they’ll talk a mile a minute—that’s how women are! I’m glad to have her here. Sit down and let’s talk. I understand about Mikhelson’s army—Tolstóy’s too… a simultaneous expedition… But what’s the southern army supposed to do? Prussia is neutral—I know that. What about Austria?” he asked, getting up and walking around the room, with Tíkhon following close behind, handing him different pieces of clothing. “And Sweden? How will they cross through Pomerania?”

Seeing that his father wouldn’t let the matter drop, Prince Andrew began—at first reluctantly, but gradually with more energy, slipping from Russian into French out of habit—to explain the campaign plan. He detailed how a ninety-thousand-strong army was to threaten Prussia to force her out of neutrality and into the war; how part of that army was meant to join Swedish forces at Stralsund; how two hundred and twenty thousand Austrians, along with a hundred thousand Russians, were to operate in Italy and on the Rhine; how fifty thousand Russians and as many English were to land at Naples; and how altogether, a five-hundred-thousand-man force would attack the French from many sides. The old prince showed not the slightest interest during this explanation and, as if he weren’t even listening, continued getting dressed while pacing around, interrupting three times at random. Once, he stopped to shout: “The white one, the white one!”

This meant that Tíkhon wasn’t handing him the waistcoat he wanted. Another time, he interrupted to ask:

“And will she be confined soon?” Then, shaking his head with disapproval, he said, “That’s bad! Go on, go on.”

The third interruption came as Prince Andrew was wrapping up his description. The old man started singing, in the cracked voice of old age: *“Malbrook s’en va-t-en guerre. Dieu sait quand reviendra.”* \*

\* “Marlborough is going to the wars; God knows when he’ll return.”

His son just smiled.

“I’m not saying I approve of this plan,” the son said; “I’m just telling you what it is. Napoleon has surely come up with a plan of his own by now, just as good as this one.”

“Well, you haven’t told me anything new,” the old man said, repeating pensively and quickly: “*Dieu sait quand reviendra*. Go to the dining room.”

##  CHAPTER XXVII

At the appointed hour the prince, freshly powdered and clean-shaven, entered the dining room where his daughter-in-law, Princess Mary, and Mademoiselle Bourienne were already waiting for him. Joining them was his architect, who—by a peculiar whim of the prince’s—was allowed to dine at the table, even though his lowly position would never have led him to expect such an honor. The prince, who normally observed strict social distinctions and rarely invited even high-ranking government officials to his table, had unexpectedly chosen Michael Ivánovich (who always retreated to a corner to blow his nose on his checked handkerchief) to illustrate his belief that all men are equal, and had repeatedly impressed on his daughter that Michael Ivánovich was “not a whit worse than you or I.” At meals, the prince typically spoke to the silent Michael Ivánovich more than to anyone else.

In the dining room, which—like all the rooms in the house—was extremely high-ceilinged, the members of the household and the footmen—one behind each chair—stood waiting for the prince to arrive. The head butler, napkin over his arm, surveyed the table setting, signaled to the footmen, and anxiously glanced from the clock to the door through which the prince would enter. Prince Andrew was studying a large, gilt-framed genealogical tree of the Princes Bolkónski that was new to him, hanging opposite another frame that held a badly painted portrait (clearly by the estate’s own artist) of a crowned prince—an alleged descendant of Rúrik and forebear of the Bolkónskis. Looking at the genealogical tree again, Prince Andrew shook his head and laughed, as one does at a portrait so true to the original that it’s amusing.

“How much that looks like him!” he said to Princess Mary, who had come up beside him.

Princess Mary looked at her brother in surprise. She didn’t understand what he found so funny. Everything her father did inspired her with awe, and was never to be questioned.

“Everyone has his Achilles’ heel,” Prince Andrew went on. “Imagine, with *his* powerful mind, indulging in such foolishness!”

Princess Mary couldn’t understand her brother’s bold criticism and was about to answer when the anticipated footsteps approached from the study. The prince entered briskly and energetically, as was his habit, as if purposefully contrasting his lively manner with the strictness of his household. Just then, the great clock chimed two, and another, with a shrill tone, chimed in from the drawing room. The prince paused; his sharp, glittering eyes under their thick, bushy brows sternly surveyed everyone and settled on the little princess. She felt, as courtiers do in the presence of the Tsar, the mix of fear and respect the old man inspired in everyone around him. He stroked her hair, then awkwardly patted the back of her neck.

“I’m glad, glad to see you,” he said, peering attentively into her eyes, and then quickly went to his seat and sat down. “Sit down, sit down! Sit down, Michael Ivánovich!”

He indicated the seat beside him for his daughter-in-law. A footman pulled out her chair.

“Ho, ho!” said the old man, glancing at her rounded figure. “You’ve been in a hurry. That’s not good!”

He laughed in his usual dry, cold, unpleasant manner, moving only his lips, not his eyes.

“You must walk, walk as much as possible, as much as possible,” he said.

The little princess either did not hear or did not want to hear his words. She stayed silent and seemed embarrassed. The prince asked her about her father, and she began to smile and chat. He asked about acquaintances, and she grew even more lively, sharing greetings and retelling the latest city gossip.

“Countess Apráksina, poor thing, lost her husband and has cried her eyes out,” she said, becoming more and more animated.

As she grew more animated, the prince looked at her with increasing sternness and, suddenly, as though he had studied her enough and formed a clear judgment, he turned away and addressed Michael Ivánovich.

“Well, Michael Ivánovich, our Bonaparte is in for a hard time. Prince Andrew”—he always referred to his son this way—“has been telling me what forces are being gathered against him! While you and I never thought much of him.”

Michael Ivánovich had no idea when “you and I” had ever discussed Bonaparte, but understanding that he was needed as a pretext for the prince’s favorite topic, he looked inquiringly at the young prince, wondering what would be said next.

“He’s a great tactician!” the prince said to his son, pointing to the architect.

The conversation turned again to the war, to Bonaparte, and to the generals and statesmen of that time. The old prince seemed convinced not only that all the men of the day were mere children who didn’t know the basics of war or politics, and that Bonaparte was a petty Frenchman, successful only because there were no more Potëmkins or Suvórovs left to oppose him, but also that there were no real political challenges in Europe and no true war—merely a puppet show in which people pretended to accomplish something real. Prince Andrew good-naturedly endured his father’s disparagement of the new leaders, provoking and listening to him with obvious enjoyment.

“The past always seems better,” said Prince Andrew, “but didn’t Suvórov himself fall into a trap Moreau set for him, one he couldn’t escape?”

“Who told you that? Who?” cried the prince. “Suvórov!” He jerked away his plate, which Tíkhon quickly caught. “Suvórov!… Think about it, Prince Andrew. Two… Frederick and Suvórov; Moreau!… Moreau would have been a prisoner if Suvórov had had a free hand, but he was tangled with the *Hofs-kriegs-wurst-schnapps-Rath*. That would have stumped the devil himself! When you get there, you’ll see what those *Hofs-kriegs-wurst-Raths* are! Suvórov couldn’t deal with them, so what chance does Michael Kutúzov have? No, my boy,” he went on, “you and your generals won’t stand a chance against Buonaparte; you’ll have to call in the French so that birds of a feather can fight each other. The German, Pahlen, has been sent to New York in America to bring back the Frenchman, Moreau,” he said, referring to the invitation that year for Moreau to join the Russian army…. “Amazing!… Were Potëmkins, Suvórovs, and Orlóvs Germans? No, either you young men have all lost your minds, or I have outlived mine. May God help you, but we’ll see how it turns out. Buonaparte has supposedly become a great commander among them! Hm!…”

“I’m not saying that all our plans are perfect,” said Prince Andrew, “I’m just surprised at your opinion of Bonaparte. Laugh as much as you want, but Bonaparte *is* a great general!”

“Michael Ivánovich!” shouted the prince to the architect who, absorbed with his roast, had hoped he’d been forgotten: “Didn’t I tell you Buonaparte was a great tactician? Here, he says so too.”

“Certainly, your excellency,” replied the architect.

The prince again gave his icy laugh.

“Buonaparte was born with a silver spoon. He’s got excellent soldiers. Besides, he started by attacking Germans. And only the lazy have ever failed to beat the Germans. Since the beginning of time, everyone has beaten the Germans. They beat no one—except each other. That’s how he made his reputation.”

Then the prince began explaining all the blunders he believed Bonaparte had made both in campaigns and politics. His son offered no argument, but it was clear that, whatever evidence was given, he was as unlikely as his father to change his mind. He listened, holding back any response, and couldn’t help but wonder how this old man, living alone in the country for so many years, could know and discuss recent European military and political affairs in such detail and with such insight.

“You think I’m just an old man who doesn’t understand the modern world?” his father concluded. “But it worries me. I can’t sleep at night. Now, where has this great commander of yours shown his brilliance?” he finished.

“That’d take too long to explain,” answered his son.

“Well, then be off to your Buonaparte! Mademoiselle Bourienne, here’s another fan of your powder-monkey emperor,” he exclaimed in flawless French.

“You know, Prince, I am not a Bonapartist!”

*‘Dieu sait quand reviendra.’* the prince hummed off-key, and with an even more discordant laugh, he left the table.

The little princess, silent through the whole discussion and the rest of dinner, glanced nervously at her father-in-law and at Princess Mary. When they left the table, she took her sister-in-law by the arm and led her into another room.

“Your father is such a clever man,” she said. “Maybe that’s why he frightens me.”

“Oh, he is so kind!” replied Princess Mary.

##  CHAPTER XXVIII

Prince Andrew was set to leave the next evening. The old prince, not changing his routine, retired as usual after dinner. The little princess was in her sister-in-law’s room. Prince Andrew, in a traveling coat without epaulettes, had been packing with his valet in the rooms assigned to him. After checking the carriage himself and making sure the trunks were loaded, he ordered the horses to be harnessed. Only the things he always kept with him remained in his room: a small box, a large canteen fitted with silver plate, two Turkish pistols, and a saber—a gift from his father, who had brought it back from the siege of Ochákov. All of these traveling items of Prince Andrew’s were in excellent condition: new, clean, and in cloth covers neatly tied with tapes.

When preparing for a journey or a change in lifestyle, thoughtful men are usually in a serious mood. Such moments prompt one to reflect on the past and plan for the future. Prince Andrew’s face appeared very pensive and gentle. With his hands behind his back, he paced quickly from corner to corner of the room, staring straight ahead and thoughtfully shaking his head. Did he fear going to war, or was he sad to leave his wife?—perhaps both, but it was clear he didn’t want anyone to see him in that state, for when he heard footsteps in the hallway he hurriedly unclasped his hands, paused at a table as if tying the cover of the small box, and assumed his usual calm and unreadable expression. It was Princess Mary’s heavy footsteps he had heard.

“I hear you’ve given orders to have the horses harnessed,” she exclaimed, out of breath (she had apparently been running), “and I really wanted to talk to you alone one more time! God knows how long we’ll be apart again. You’re not angry with me for coming, are you? You’ve changed so much, Andrúsha,” she added, as if to explain her question.

She smiled as she used his pet name, “Andrúsha.” It clearly felt strange to her to think that this stern, handsome man was the same Andrúsha—the slender, mischievous boy who had been her playmate in childhood.

“And where is Lise?” he asked, answering her question only with a smile.

“She was so tired that she fell asleep on the sofa in my room. Oh, Andrew! You have such a treasure of a wife,” she said, sitting down on the sofa, facing her brother. “She really is a child: such a dear, cheerful child. I’ve grown so fond of her.”

Prince Andrew stayed silent, but the princess noticed the ironic and somewhat contemptuous look that crossed his face.

“One must be tolerant of little weaknesses; who among us is free from them, Andrew? Don’t forget that she was raised and educated in society, so her situation now isn’t very rosy. We should try to understand everyone’s position. *Tout comprendre, c’est tout pardonner*. \* Just think what it must be like for her, poor thing, after what she’s been used to, to be parted from her husband and left alone in the country, especially in her condition! It’s very hard.”

\* To understand all is to forgive all.

Prince Andrew smiled at his sister, as we do at those we feel we fully understand.

“You live in the country and don’t think this life is terrible,” he replied.

“I... that’s different. Why talk about me? I don’t want any other life, and couldn’t, since I know no other. But think, Andrew: for a young woman from society to be buried in the country during the best years of her life, all alone—for Papa is always busy, and I... well, you know what little company I can offer to someone used to the best circles. There’s only Mademoiselle Bourienne….”

“I don’t care for your Mademoiselle Bourienne at all,” said Prince Andrew.

“No? She’s very pleasant and kind and, above all, very much to be pitied. She has no one, no family. If I’m honest, I don’t really need her, and she sometimes gets in my way. You know I’ve always been a bit wild, and now I’m even more so. I like being alone…. Father likes her a lot. She and Michael Ivánovich are the two people he is always gentle and kind to, because he’s been their benefactor. As Sterne says: ‘We don’t love people so much for the good they have done us, as for the good we have done them.’ Father took her in when she was homeless, after losing her own father. She’s very good-natured, and my father likes her manner of reading. She reads to him in the evenings, and does it beautifully.”

“To be honest, Mary, I imagine Father’s temperament must make things difficult for you at times, doesn’t it?” Prince Andrew suddenly asked.

Princess Mary was first surprised, then taken aback by the question.

“For me? For me?... Difficult for me!…” she repeated.

“He’s always been a bit harsh; and now I’d assume he’s getting even more so,” said Prince Andrew, seemingly talking lightly of their father to tease or test his sister.

“You’re good in every way, Andrew, but you have this kind of intellectual pride,” said the princess, following her own train of thought rather than the flow of the conversation—“and that’s a big sin. How can one judge Father? But even if it were possible, what feeling but reverence could a man like my father inspire? And I am so content and happy with him. I only wish you were all as happy as I am.”

Her brother shook his head in disbelief.

“The only thing that is hard for me… I’ll be honest, Andrew… is Father’s way of handling religious matters. I can’t understand how a man of his incredible intellect can fail to see what is so clear, and can go so astray. That is the only thing that upsets me. But even with this, I’ve noticed a slight improvement lately. His satire hasn’t been as bitter, and there was a monk he received and had a long conversation with.”

“Ah, my dear, I’m afraid you and your monk are wasting your effort,” Prince Andrew said teasingly, but gently.

“Ah! *mon ami*, I only pray, and hope that God will hear me. Andrew…” she said timidly after a brief pause, “I have a great favor to ask of you.”

“What is it, dear?”

“No—promise first that you won’t refuse! It will cause you no trouble and isn’t beneath you, but it would comfort me. Promise, Andrúsha!…” She reached into her reticule but didn’t yet pull out what she held inside, as if it were the subject of her request and couldn’t be revealed until the promise was given.

She looked at her brother timidly.

“Even if it were quite a bit of trouble…” answered Prince Andrew, as though he guessed what it was about.

“Think whatever you like! I know you’re just like Father. Think as you will, but do this for me! Please! Father’s father, our grandfather, wore it in all his wars.” (She still hadn’t taken out what she held in her reticule.) “So you promise?”

“Of course. What is it?”

“Andrew, I bless you with this icon, and you must promise me you’ll never take it off. Will you promise me?”

“If it doesn’t weigh a hundred pounds and won’t break my neck… To please you…” said Prince Andrew. But immediately, noticing the hurt look his joke brought to his sister’s face, he regretted it and added: “I mean it; really, dear, I am glad.”

“Against your will He will save and have mercy on you and bring you to Himself, for in Him alone is truth and peace,” she said, her voice shaking with emotion, solemnly holding up for her brother a small, oval, antique, dark-faced icon of the Savior, in a gold setting on a finely wrought silver chain.

She crossed herself, kissed the icon, and handed it to Andrew.

“Please, Andrew, for my sake!…”

A gentle light shone from her large, timid eyes. Those eyes seemed to illuminate her whole thin, sickly face and made it beautiful. Her brother reached to take the icon, but she stopped him. Andrew understood, crossed himself, and kissed the icon. There was a tenderness in his look, as he was touched, but also a hint of irony on his face.

“Thank you, my dear.” She kissed him on the forehead and sat down again on the sofa. They were silent for a moment.

“As I was saying, Andrew, be kind and generous as you always used to be. Don’t judge Lise harshly,” she began. “She is so sweet, so good-natured, and her situation now is very difficult.”

“I don’t believe I have complained about my wife to you, Másha, or blamed her. Why do you say this to me?”

Red spots appeared on Princess Mary’s cheeks, and she became silent, as if feeling guilty.

“I haven’t said anything to you, but you’ve already been told. And I’m sorry about that,” he continued.

The red patches deepened on her forehead, neck, and cheeks. She tried to respond but couldn’t. Her brother had guessed correctly: the little princess had been crying after dinner, sharing her fears about her confinement, how much she dreaded it, and had complained about her fate, her father-in-law, and her husband. After crying, she had fallen asleep. Prince Andrew felt sorry for his sister.

“Listen, Másha: I can’t reproach, haven’t reproached, and never will reproach *my wife* for anything, and I can’t reproach myself for anything concerning her; and that will always be true, no matter what happens. But if you want the truth… if you want to know if I’m happy? No! Is she happy? No! But why this is, I don’t know…”

As he said this, he stood up, went to his sister, and, bending over, kissed her forehead. His handsome eyes shone with a thoughtful, kind, and unusual brightness, but he was looking not at his sister, but past her toward the darkness of the open doorway.

“Let’s go to her—I must say goodbye. Or—go and wake her up and I’ll come in a minute. Petrúshka!” he called to his valet: “Come here, take these things away. Put this on the seat, and this on the right.”

Princess Mary got up and moved toward the door, then paused and said, “Andrew, if you had faith you would have turned to God and asked Him to give you the love you don’t feel, and your prayer would be answered.”

“Well, maybe!” said Prince Andrew. “Go, Másha; I’ll come right away.”

On his way to his sister’s room, walking through the corridor connecting one wing to the other, Prince Andrew met Mademoiselle Bourienne, who was smiling sweetly. It was the third time that day she had met him in a secluded passage with the same ecstatic and innocent smile.

“Oh! I thought you were in your room,” she said, blushing and dropping her eyes for some reason.

Prince Andrew glared at her, and a look of anger suddenly crossed his face. He said nothing but gazed at her forehead and hair—without meeting her eyes—with such disdain that the Frenchwoman blushed even deeper and walked away without a word. When he reached his sister’s room, his wife was already awake, and her cheerful voice, hurrying from one word to the next, came through the open door. As usual, she was speaking in French, and—as if making up for a long period of holding back—she seemed eager to talk.

“No, but just imagine the old Countess Zúbova, with her false curls and a mouth full of false teeth, as if she’s trying to cheat old age… Ha, ha, ha! Mary!”

This exact comment about Countess Zúbova and that same laugh Prince Andrew had already heard from his wife in company at least five times. He entered the room quietly. The little princess, plump and rosy, was sitting in an easy chair with her needlework, chattering nonstop, repeating stories and even phrases from Petersburg. Prince Andrew approached, stroked her hair, and asked if she was rested after the journey. She answered and continued her animated chatter.

The coach with six horses was waiting at the entrance. It was an autumn night, so dark the coachman couldn’t see the carriage pole. The servants, carrying lanterns, were bustling around the porch. The immense house blazed with light shining through its tall windows. The household serfs crowded the hall, waiting to say farewell to the young prince. The entire family gathered in the reception hall: Michael Ivánovich, Mademoiselle Bourienne, Princess Mary, and the little princess. Prince Andrew had been summoned to his father’s study; the old man wished to say goodbye to him alone. They were all waiting for them to come out.

When Prince Andrew entered, the old man—wearing his spectacles and the white dressing gown he received only his son in—sat at the table writing. He glanced around.

“Going?” he said, and kept writing.

“I’ve come to say goodbye.”

“Kiss me here,” he said, tapping his cheek. “Thanks, thanks!”

“What are you thanking me for?”

“For not dawdling and for not hanging on a woman’s apron strings. Duty comes first. Thanks, thanks!” And he returned to his writing, so that his quill spluttered and squeaked. “If you have something to say, say it. I can do two things at once,” he added.

“It’s about my wife… I’m already ashamed to be leaving her in your care….”

“Why say such nonsense? Speak your mind.”

“When her time comes, have someone go to Moscow for an *accoucheur*… Have him brought here….”

The old prince stopped writing and stared at his son, as if not understanding, his look stern.

“I know there’s nothing anyone can do if nature doesn’t take its course,” said Prince Andrew, clearly embarrassed. “Out of a million cases, only one goes wrong, but it’s her wish and mine. People have been frightening her. She dreamt something and now she’s afraid.”

“Hm… Hm…” muttered the old prince, finishing his writing. “I’ll arrange it.”

He signed with a flourish, then, suddenly turning to his son, began to laugh.

“It’s a tough situation, isn’t it?”

“What’s tough, Father?”

“The wife!” the old prince said briefly and with meaning.

“I don’t understand!” said Prince Andrew.

“No—nothing can be done, boy,” said the prince. “They’re all the same; once married, it’s for life. Don’t worry—I won’t tell anyone, but you know it yourself.”

He gripped his son’s hand with his small, bony fingers, gave it a shake, stared straight into his son’s face with piercing eyes as if he saw right through him, and again gave his frosty laugh.

The son sighed, silently admitting his father understood him. The old man went on folding and sealing his letter, snatching up and dropping the wax, the seal, and the paper with his usual speed.

“What’s to be done? She’s pretty! I’ll do everything. Don’t worry,” he said in quick phrases while sealing the letter.

Andrew didn’t reply; he was both glad and troubled that his father understood him. The old man stood and handed his son the letter.

“Listen!” he said. “Don’t worry about your wife; everything possible will be done. Now listen! Give this letter to Michael Ilariónovich. \* I’ve written telling him to use you appropriately and not keep you too long as an adjutant—it’s a bad position! Tell him I remember him and like him. Write and let me know how he treats you. If all is well, serve under him. Nicholas Bolkónski’s son doesn’t have to serve under anyone if he’s out of favor. Now come here.”

\* Kutúzov.

He spoke so quickly that he left many words unfinished, but his son was used to understanding him. He brought him to the desk, lifted its lid, pulled out a drawer, and took an exercise book filled with his bold, tall, close handwriting.

“I’ll probably die before you. So remember—these are my memoirs. Give them to the Emperor after I’m gone. Here’s a Lombard bond and a letter; it’s a reward for anyone who writes a history of Suvórov’s campaigns. Send it to the Academy. Here are some notes for you to read after I’m gone. You’ll find them useful.”

Andrew didn’t tell his father that he would surely live a long time yet. He felt it wasn’t the moment to say so.

“I’ll do everything, Father,” he said.

“Well then, good-bye!” He offered his hand for his son to kiss, then embraced him. “Remember this, Prince Andrew: if you’re killed, it will pain me, your old father…” He paused unexpectedly, then suddenly shrieked in a querulous voice, “but if I hear that you haven’t behaved like the son of Nicholas Bolkónski, I’ll be ashamed!”

“You didn’t need to say that to me, Father,” his son replied with a smile.

The old man fell silent.

“I also wanted to ask you,” Prince Andrew continued, “if I’m killed, and if I have a son, don’t let him be taken from you—as I said yesterday… let him grow up with you… please.”

“Not let the wife have him?” the old man said, laughing.

They stood silently facing each other. The old man’s sharp eyes were fixed straight on his son’s. Something twitched in the lower part of the old prince’s face.

“We’ve said good-bye. Go!” he suddenly shouted in a loud, angry voice, throwing open his door.

“What is it? What happened?” both princesses asked when, for a moment at the door, they saw Prince Andrew and the figure of the old man in a white dressing gown, spectacled and wigless, shouting angrily.

Prince Andrew sighed and made no reply.

“Well!” he said, turning to his wife.

And this “Well!” sounded coldly ironic, as if he were saying, “Now, get on with your performance.”

“Andrew, already!” the little princess said, turning pale and looking in alarm at her husband.

He embraced her. She screamed and collapsed unconscious onto his shoulder.

He gently supported her, looked into her face, and carefully placed her into an easy chair.

“Goodbye, Mary,” he said softly to his sister, taking her hand and kissing it. Then he left the room with quick steps.

The little princess lay in the armchair, with Mademoiselle Bourienne rubbing her temples. Princess Mary, supporting her sister-in-law, still gazed with her beautiful tear-filled eyes toward the door through which Prince Andrew had left and made the sign of the cross in his direction. From the study, like pistol shots, came the frequent sounds of the old man angrily blowing his nose. Hardly had Prince Andrew gone when the study door opened quickly and the stern figure of the old man in the white dressing gown looked out.

“Gone? That’s good!” he said; and, casting an angry look at the unconscious little princess, shook his head reprovingly and slammed the door.

##  BOOK TWO: 1805

##  CHAPTER I

In October 1805, a Russian army was occupying the villages and towns of the Archduchy of Austria, while more regiments, newly arrived from Russia, settled near the fortress of Braunau and burdened the local people on whom they were billeted. Braunau served as the headquarters for the commander in chief, Kutúzov.

On October 11, 1805, one of the infantry regiments that had just reached Braunau halted half a mile from the town, waiting to be inspected by the commander in chief. Despite the appearance of the area—not Russian at all, with its fruit gardens, stone fences, tiled roofs, and distant hills—and although the local people (who watched the soldiers with curiosity) were not Russians, the regiment looked exactly like any Russian regiment getting ready for an inspection in the heart of Russia.

On the evening after the last day’s march, an order was received that the commander in chief would inspect the regiment as it marched. Although the order’s wording was unclear to the regimental commander, and there was debate over whether the troops should be in marching order or not, it was decided in a meeting of the battalion commanders to present the regiment in parade order, on the principle that it is always better to “bow too low than not bow low enough.” So, the soldiers, after a twenty-mile march, spent the whole night mending and cleaning, without getting any sleep, while the adjutants and company commanders double-checked everything. By morning, the regiment—instead of being the straggling, disorderly crowd it had been the day before—stood as a well-ordered formation of two thousand men, each knowing his place and his duty. Every button and strap was in place, and everything shone with cleanliness. And not only was everything correct on the surface: if the commander in chief had looked beneath the uniforms, he would have found that every man wore a clean shirt, and every knapsack held the proper number of articles, “awl, soap, and all,” as the soldiers put it. There was just one issue that left everyone uneasy: the condition of the soldiers’ boots. More than half of them wore boots with holes. But this wasn’t the regimental commander’s fault—for despite repeated requests, the Austrian commissariat hadn’t issued new boots, and the regiment had already marched about seven hundred miles.

The regimental commander was an elderly, choleric, thick-set general, with grizzled eyebrows and whiskers, broader from chest to back than from shoulder to shoulder. He wore a brand-new uniform still showing the folds from packing, and thick gold epaulettes that seemed to rest firmly on his massive shoulders. He had the air of a man proudly fulfilling one of the most important duties of his life. He walked up and down in front of the line, pulling himself up a little straighter with every step. It was clear he admired his regiment, took joy in it, and that his mind was wholly preoccupied with it—yet his proud manner hinted that, besides military matters, he also gave much thought to society and women.

“Well, Michael Mítrich, sir?” he said, addressing one of the battalion commanders, who stepped forward with a smile (clearly, both men were pleased). “We were busy last night. Still, I think the regiment looks pretty good, right?”

The battalion commander caught the good-natured irony and laughed.

“It wouldn’t be forced off the field, even on the Tsarítsin Meadow.”

“What?” asked the commander.

Just then, on the road from the town—where signalers had been posted—two men appeared on horseback: an aide-de-camp followed by a Cossack.

The aide-de-camp was sent to clarify the order—unclearly worded the previous day—that the commander in chief wanted to see the regiment just as it had looked while on the march: in their greatcoats, wearing their packs, and with no special preparation.

The day before, a member of the Hofkriegsrath had come from Vienna to Kutúzov with proposals and demands for him to unite with the army of Archduke Ferdinand and Mack. Kutúzov, not thinking this union was wise, planned to use, among other arguments, the poor condition of the troops from Russia as proof. For this reason, he intended to meet the regiment himself—so the worse their state, the better the commander in chief would like it. Though the aide-de-camp didn’t know these details, he still passed on the clear order that the men should be in their greatcoats and in marching order, otherwise the commander in chief would be unhappy. Upon hearing this, the regimental commander hung his head, shrugged his shoulders, and spread out his arms in frustration.

“A fine mess we’ve made of it!” he said.

“There now! Didn’t I tell you, Michael Mítrich, if it said ‘on the march’ it meant in greatcoats?” he said reproachfully to the battalion commander. “Oh my God!” he added, stepping forward with determination. “Company commanders!” he shouted, in a voice used to giving orders. “Sergeants major!... When will he be here?” he asked the aide-de-camp, showing polite respect for the important person he referred to.

“In about an hour, I’d say.”

“Will we have time to change clothes?”

“I don’t know, General...”

The regimental commander, walking along the line himself now, commanded the soldiers to change into their greatcoats. Company commanders rushed back to their units, sergeants major scrambled (the greatcoats weren’t in the best shape), and instantly, the squares that had just been neat and silent began to shift and buzz with movement and voices. All around, soldiers ran back and forth, swinging their knapsacks up onto their shoulders and pulling the straps over their heads, unstrapping their coats and thrusting their arms through the sleeves.

In half an hour everything was in order again, except now the squares appeared gray instead of black. The regimental commander marched stiffly to the front and inspected his regiment from afar.

“What is that? This!” he shouted, stopping. “Commander of the third company!”

“Commander of the third company wanted by the general!... commander to the general... third company to the commander.” The message was passed quickly along the lines and an adjutant rushed off to find the missing officer.

When the shouted—but misquoted—order reached its mark as: “The general to the third company,” the missing officer came out from behind his company. Though middle-aged and not used to running, he trotted awkwardly on his toes toward the general. The captain’s face bore the anxious look of a schoolboy asked to recite a lesson he hasn’t learned. His nose was blotchy—clearly from drinking—and his mouth twitched nervously. The general looked him up and down as he approached, panting and slowing his pace.

“You’ll soon be dressing your men in petticoats! What is this?” shouted the regimental commander, jutting out his jaw and pointing at a soldier in the third company’s line, wearing a blueish greatcoat which stood out from the rest. “What have you been doing? The commander in chief is expected and you leave your position? Eh? I’ll teach you to dress the men up for a parade... Eh...?”

The company commander, eyes locked on his superior, pressed his fingers ever more tightly to his cap, as if this pressure were his only hope.

“Well, why don’t you answer? Who’s that dressed up like a Hungarian?” the commander demanded.

“Your excellency...”

“Well, your excellency, what? Your excellency! And what about your excellency?... nobody knows.”

“Your excellency, it’s Officer Dólokhov, who was reduced to the ranks,” the captain said softly.

“Well? Has he been demoted to field marshal, or to a soldier? If he’s a soldier, he should wear regulation uniform like everyone else.”

“Your excellency, you gave him permission yourself while on the march.”

“Gave him leave? Permission? That’s just like you young officers,” said the regimental commander, cooling a little. “Permission, indeed... One word to you and you... What?” he added, his irritation rising again. “I ask you to dress your men properly.”

With that, the commander turned to glare at the adjutant and marched briskly down the line, clearly pleased with his own show of anger. Approaching the regiment, he looked for another excuse to flare up. He snapped at one officer over an unpolished badge, at another over a crooked line, and then reached the third company.

“H-o-o-w are you standing? Where is your leg? Your leg?” the commander shouted in a voice heavy with annoyance, even though there were still five soldiers between him and Dólokhov in his blue-gray coat.

Dólokhov slowly straightened his bent knee, fixing the general with his clear, defiant eyes.

“Why the blue coat? Off with it... Sergeant major! Change his coat... the ras—” he trailed off.

“General, I will obey orders, but I won’t endure—” Dólokhov broke in quickly.

“No talking in the ranks!... No talking, no talking!”

“I’m not bound to endure insults,” Dólokhov finished loudly and clearly.

Their eyes met. The general fell silent, furiously pulling at his stiff scarf.

“I ask you to kindly change your coat,” he said as he turned away.

##  CHAPTER II

“He’s coming!” shouted the signaler at that moment.

The regimental commander, his face flushing, ran to his horse, grabbed the stirrup with trembling hands, swung himself across the saddle, straightened up, drew his saber, and with a joyful and resolute look, mouth askew, prepared to shout. The regiment fluttered like a bird preening its feathers and then became still.

“Attention!” the regimental commander shouted with a voice that shook souls—full of joy for himself, strictness for the regiment, and welcome for the approaching commander.

Along the broad country road, lined with trees on both sides, came a high, light blue Viennese *calèche*, its springs slightly creaking, drawn by six horses at a brisk trot. Behind the *calèche* rode the suite and a Croat escort. Next to Kutúzov sat an Austrian general in a white uniform, which looked out of place among the black uniforms of the Russians. The *calèche* stopped in front of the regiment. Kutúzov and the Austrian general spoke softly together, and Kutúzov smiled slightly as, stepping heavily, he got out of the carriage—as if those two thousand men watching him breathlessly, and the waiting regimental commander, didn’t exist.

The command rang out, and again the regiment shivered, presenting arms with a jingling clatter. Then, in the silence, the feeble voice of the commander in chief could be heard. The regiment shouted, “Health to your ex… len… len… lency!” and all fell silent again. At first Kutúzov stood still while the regiment moved; then he and the general in white, followed by the suite, strolled between the ranks.

From the way the regimental commander saluted the commander in chief and stared at him eagerly, straightening up almost obsequiously, and from the way he walked through the ranks behind the generals, bending forward and barely able to contain his jerky movements, darting ahead at every word or gesture from the commander in chief, it was clear he performed his role as a subordinate with even more enthusiasm than his role as commander. Thanks to his strictness and dedication, the regiment—compared with others arriving in Braunau at the same time—was in excellent shape. Only 217 sick or stragglers. Everything was in order except the boots.

Kutúzov walked through the ranks, sometimes stopping to exchange a few friendly words with officers he recognized from the Turkish war, and sometimes with the soldiers. Looking at their boots, he shook his head sadly several times, pointing them out to the Austrian general with a look that seemed to say he wasn’t blaming anyone, but couldn’t ignore the sorry state they were in. The regimental commander rushed forward each time, afraid to miss a single word the commander in chief might say about the regiment. Behind Kutúzov, close enough to hear every softly spoken word, followed about twenty men of his suite. These gentlemen conversed quietly among themselves and sometimes laughed. Closest to the commander in chief walked a handsome adjutant—Prince Bolkónski. Next to him was his comrade Nesvítski, a tall, extremely stout staff officer with a kind, smiling, handsome face and moist eyes. Nesvítski could barely hold back laughter, prompted by a dark-skinned hussar officer beside him. This hussar, with a solemn face and without a smile or a change in his fixed expression, watched the regimental commander’s back and mimicked his every move. Each time the commander started and bent forward, so did the hussar, in perfect imitation. Nesvítski laughed, nudging the others so they’d see the spectacle.

Kutúzov walked slowly and languidly past thousands of eyes nearly bursting out of their sockets to watch their chief. When he reached the third company he stopped suddenly, and his suite, caught off guard, pressed closer.

“Ah, Timókhin!” he said, recognizing the red-nosed captain who’d been reprimanded about the blue greatcoat.

It seemed impossible for a man to straighten himself more than Timókhin had when his regimental commander scolded him, but now that the commander in chief addressed him, he straightened up so much that it seemed he couldn’t have sustained it if the commander in chief had kept looking his way. Kutúzov, clearly understanding and wishing him well, quickly turned aside, a faint smile flickering over his scarred and puffy face.

“Another Ismail comrade,” he said. “A brave officer! Are you satisfied with him?” he asked the regimental commander.

And the latter—unaware he was being parodied by the hussar officer just like a mirror—jerked forward and replied, “Highly satisfied, your excellency!”

“We all have our weaknesses,” said Kutúzov with a smile as he walked away. “He used to have a fondness for Bacchus.”

The regimental commander, worried about being blamed for this, said nothing. At that moment, the hussar noticed the red-nosed captain’s face and his drawn-in stomach, and mimicked both with such accuracy that Nesvítski couldn’t help laughing. Kutúzov turned around. The officer, fully in control of his expression, managed to grimace and then assumed the most serious, respectful, and innocent look just as Kutúzov was turning.

The third company was the last, and Kutúzov seemed lost in thought, as if trying to remember something. Prince Andrew stepped forward from the suite and said in French:

“You asked me to remind you about the officer Dólokhov, reduced to the ranks in this regiment.”

“Where is Dólokhov?” asked Kutúzov.

Dólokhov, already changed into a soldier’s gray greatcoat, didn’t wait to be summoned. His well-built, fair-haired figure, with clear blue eyes, stepped from the ranks, approached the commander in chief, and presented arms.

“Have you a complaint to make?” Kutúzov asked with a slight frown.

“This is Dólokhov,” Prince Andrew said.

“Ah!” said Kutúzov. “I hope this will be a lesson to you. Do your duty. The Emperor is gracious, and I won’t forget you if you serve well.”

Dólokhov’s clear blue eyes looked at the commander in chief just as boldly as they had the regimental commander, seeming by their gaze to pierce that veil of formality that so strictly separates a commander in chief from a private.

“One thing I ask of your excellency,” Dólokhov said firmly and deliberately, his voice ringing out. “I ask for the chance to redeem myself and show my loyalty to His Majesty the Emperor and to Russia!”

Kutúzov turned away. The same faint smile that he’d given to Captain Timókhin appeared on his face again. He turned away with a grimace, as if to say that everything Dólokhov had just said—and anything he might add—was already known to him, he was tired of it, and it wasn’t what he cared about. He turned and went to the carriage.

The regiment broke up into companies and headed to their assigned quarters near Braunau, hoping to receive new boots and clothing and rest from their difficult marches.

“You won’t hold it against me, Prokhór Ignátych?” the regimental commander asked, catching up with the third company as it marched and riding up to Captain Timókhin, who was leading. (Now that the inspection was thankfully over, the regimental commander’s face shone with irrepressible joy.) “It’s in the Emperor’s service… can’t be helped… sometimes one’s a bit hasty on parade… I’m the first to apologize, you know me!… He was very pleased!” He extended his hand to the captain.

“Don’t mention it, General. As if I’d be so bold!” replied the captain. His nose flushed redder as he smiled, showing where two front teeth were missing—knocked out by a rifle butt at Ismail.

“And let Mr. Dólokhov know I won’t forget him—he can set his mind at ease. And tell me, please—I’ve been meaning to ask—how is he behaving generally…”

“In service matters, he’s absolutely proper, your excellency; but as for his character…” said Timókhin.

“And what about his character?” asked the regimental commander.

“It varies by the day,” answered the captain. “Some days he’s sensible, well-mannered, and good-natured; other days he’s a wild animal… In Poland, for example, he nearly killed a Jew.”

“Oh, well, well!” remarked the regimental commander. “Still, we must feel for a young man in trouble. You know he has important connections… Well, then, just…”

“I will, your excellency,” said Timókhin, his smile showing he understood exactly what his commander wanted.

“Well, of course, of course!”

The regimental commander sought out Dólokhov in the ranks, reined in his horse, and said:

“After the next action… epaulettes.”

Dólokhov looked around but didn’t reply, nor did the mocking smile leave his lips.

“Well, that’s settled,” the regimental commander went on. “A cup of vodka for the men from me,” he added so the soldiers could hear. “Thank you all! God be praised!” And he rode past that company and overtook the next.

“Well, he’s really a good fellow; you can serve under him,” Timókhin said to the subaltern walking beside him.

“In a word, a hearty one…” said the subaltern, laughing (the regimental commander was nicknamed *King of Hearts*).

The officers’ cheerful mood after the inspection spread to the soldiers. The company marched on in high spirits. The soldiers’ voices were heard all around.

“And they said Kutúzov was blind in one eye?”

“And so he is! Totally blind!”

“No, my friend, he’s sharper-eyed than you are. Boots and leg bands… he noticed everything…”

“When he looked at my feet, friend… well, I thought to myself…”

“And that other one with him, the Austrian, looked as if he were covered in chalk—as white as flour! I suppose they polish him up like they do the guns.”

“Hey, Fédeshon!… Did he say when the battles will start? You were close to him. Everyone said that Buonaparte himself was at Braunau.”

“Buonaparte himself!… Just listen to this fool. He doesn’t know anything! The Prussians are up in arms now. The Austrians, you see, are putting them down. After that’s done, the war with Buonaparte will start. And he says Buonaparte is in Braunau! Shows you don’t know what you’re talking about. You’d better pay better attention!”

“What devils these quartermasters are! Look, the fifth company is turning into the village already… they’ll have their buckwheat ready before we even get to our quarters.”

“Give me a biscuit, you devil!”

“And did you give me tobacco yesterday? That’s just it, friend! Ah, well, never mind, here you go.”

“They might call a halt here, or else we’ll have to go another four miles without eating.”

“Wasn’t it great when those Germans gave us rides! You just sit and get pulled along.”

“And here, friend, the people are pretty poor. There, they all seemed to be Poles—all under the Russian crown—but here they’re all real Germans.”

“Singers to the front,” came the captain’s order.

And from the different ranks about twenty men ran to the front. A drummer, their leader, turned around to face the singers, and, waving his arm, started a long, drawn-out soldiers’ song, beginning with the words: *“Morning dawned, the sun was rising,”* and ending: *“On then, brothers, on to glory, led by Father Kámenski.”* This song had been composed during the Turkish campaign, and now, being sung in Austria, the only change was that “Father Kámenski” was replaced by “Father Kutúzov.”

After shouting out these last words as soldiers do, and waving his arms as if throwing something on the ground, the drummer—a lean, handsome forty-year-old soldier—looked seriously at the singers and squinted. Then, making sure all eyes were on him, he raised both arms as if lifting some invisible but precious thing above his head, held it there for a few seconds, then suddenly flung it down and began:

*“Oh, my bower, oh, my bower…!”*

*“Oh, my bower new…!”* chimed in twenty voices, and the castanet player, despite the weight of his gear, dashed out to the front. Walking backward before the company, he jerked his shoulders and waved his castanets as if threatening someone. The soldiers, swinging their arms and naturally keeping time, marched with long steps. Behind the company were the sounds of wheels, the creaking of springs, and the tramp of horses’ hooves. Kutúzov and his staff were returning to the town. The commander in chief signaled for the men to keep marching at ease, and he and his whole staff clearly enjoyed the singing, the sight of the dancing soldier, and the lively, sharply marching men. In the second file from the right flank, beside which the carriage passed, a blue-eyed soldier particularly drew attention. It was Dólokhov, marching with extra grace and boldness in time with the song, looking at those riding by as if he pitied anyone not marching with the company at that moment. The hussar cornet from Kutúzov’s staff who had mimicked the regimental commander fell back from the carriage and rode over to Dólokhov.

Hussar cornet Zherkóv had once, in Petersburg, been part of the wild crowd led by Dólokhov. Zherkóv had met Dólokhov abroad when he was a private and hadn’t thought it worth recognizing him. But now that Kutúzov had spoken to the gentleman ranker, he greeted him like an old friend.

“My dear fellow, how are you?” he said over the singing, making his horse match the pace of the company.

“How am I?” Dólokhov replied coldly. “As you see.”

The lively song added a special tone of free-spirited cheer to Zherkóv’s words and to Dólokhov’s deliberately cool reply.

“And how do you get along with the officers?” Zherkóv asked.

“All right. They’re good fellows. And how did you get onto the staff?”

“I was attached; I’m on duty.”

Both were silent.

*“She let the hawk fly upward from her wide right sleeve,”* sang the men, stirring a natural feeling of bravery and good spirits. Their conversation would likely have been different if not for the song.

“Is it true the Austrians have been beaten?” Dólokhov asked.

“No one really knows! That’s what they say.”

“I’m glad,” Dólokhov replied briefly and clearly, as the rhythm of the song seemed to require.

“Hey, come around some evening, and we’ll have a game of faro!” said Zherkóv.

“What, have you got too much money?”

“Just come.”

“I can’t. I’ve sworn not to. I won’t drink and won’t gamble until I get reinstated.”

“Well, that’ll only last until the first engagement.”

“We’ll see.”

They fell silent again.

“Come if you need anything. At least one can be of use on the staff…”

Dólokhov smiled. “Don’t worry. If I want something, I won’t ask—I’ll take it!”

“Well, never mind; I just…”

“And I just…”

“Goodbye.”

“Take care…”

*“It’s a long, long way  
To my native land…”*

Zherkóv nudged his horse with his spurs; it pranced restlessly, unsure which hoof to start with, then took off, galloping past the company, and caught up with the carriage, still keeping time with the song.

##  CHAPTER III

After returning from the review, Kutúzov brought the Austrian general into his private room and, calling for his adjutant, requested some reports concerning the condition of the troops upon arrival, as well as letters from Archduke Ferdinand, who commanded the advance army. Prince Andrew Bolkónski entered with the requested papers. Kutúzov and the Austrian member of the Hofkriegsrath were seated at a table covered with a map.

“Ah!…” said Kutúzov, glancing at Bolkónski, as if this exclamation asked the adjutant to wait. Then he continued the conversation in French.

“All I can say, General,” he said with a gracious style and intonation that made one listen carefully to each deliberate word. It was clear that Kutúzov took pleasure in his own voice. “All I can say, General, is that if the matter depended on my personal wishes, His Majesty Emperor Francis’s will would have been fulfilled long ago. I would have joined the archduke already. And believe me, on my honor, that personally I would be pleased to hand the supreme command of the army over to a more knowledgeable and skillful general—of which Austria has many—and be rid of this heavy responsibility. But sometimes circumstances are too strong for us, General.”

Kutúzov smiled as if to say, “You’re free to disbelieve me, and I don’t even mind whether you do, but you can’t say so to my face. And that’s precisely the point.”

The Austrian general looked dissatisfied, but had little choice but to reply in the same manner.

“On the contrary,” he said, with a querulous and irritable tone that contrasted with his flattering words, “on the contrary, your excellency’s involvement in the joint action is highly valued by His Majesty; but we believe the current delay is depriving the magnificent Russian troops and their commander of the laurels they have long been accustomed to winning in battle,” he finished his obviously prepared statement.

Kutúzov bowed with the same smile.

“But that is my belief, and judging by the most recent letter with which His Highness the Archduke Ferdinand honored me, I imagine the Austrian troops, under the skillful leadership of General Mack, have by now already won a decisive victory and no longer require our help,” said Kutúzov.

The general frowned. Although there was no confirmed news of an Austrian defeat, many factors supported the unfavorable rumors circulating, and Kutúzov’s claim of an Austrian victory sounded almost sarcastic. But Kutúzov kept smiling pleasantly, as if he had every right to assume so. In fact, the last letter he had received from Mack’s army spoke of a victory and stated that their strategic position was very favorable.

“Give me that letter,” Kutúzov said, turning to Prince Andrew. “Please take a look at it”—and Kutúzov, with an ironic smile at the corners of his mouth, read aloud the following excerpt in German from Archduke Ferdinand’s letter:

We have fully concentrated forces of nearly seventy thousand men, ready to attack and defeat the enemy should he cross the Lech. Also, as we control Ulm, we cannot lose the advantage of commanding both banks of the Danube. If the enemy does not cross the Lech, we can cross the Danube, attack his communications, recross the river farther down, and thwart him if he tries to move all his forces against our loyal ally. So we are confidently waiting until the Imperial Russian army is fully equipped, and then, together, we can easily find a way to deliver the fate the enemy deserves.

Kutúzov sighed deeply after finishing this passage and looked gently and attentively at the Hofkriegsrath member.

“But you know the wise saying, your excellency, advising one to be prepared for the worst,” said the Austrian general, obviously wanting to move past sarcasm and get down to business. He glanced involuntarily at the aide-de-camp.

“Excuse me, General,” Kutúzov interrupted, also turning to Prince Andrew. “Look here, my dear fellow, get all the scout reports from Kozlóvski. Here are two letters from Count Nostitz, one from His Highness the Archduke Ferdinand, and these others,” he said, handing him several papers. “Prepare a concise memorandum in French from all this, summarizing what we know of the Austrian army’s movements, and give it to his excellency.”

Prince Andrew nodded in acknowledgment, showing he understood not only what was said but also what Kutúzov left unsaid. He gathered the papers, bowed to both men, quietly crossed the carpet, and left to the waiting room.

Though little time had passed since Prince Andrew left Russia, he had changed noticeably in that period. In his expression, movements, and walk, almost nothing remained of his former affected laziness and apathy. He now looked like a man who, while still concerned with the impression he made, was engaged in rewarding and interesting work. His face showed more self-assurance and satisfaction with those around him; his smile and eyes were livelier and more appealing.

Kutúzov, whom he had caught up with in Poland, had welcomed him warmly, promised not to forget him, treated him as superior to the other adjutants, taken him to Vienna, and entrusted him with more serious responsibilities. From Vienna Kutúzov wrote to his old friend, Prince Andrew’s father.

Your son is likely to become an officer distinguished for his diligence, determination, and promptness. I consider myself fortunate to have such a subordinate beside me.

On Kutúzov’s staff, among fellow officers and throughout the army, Prince Andrew had—as in Petersburg society—two completely opposite reputations. A minority regarded him as different from themselves and others, expected much from him, listened to him, admired, imitated, and found him natural and pleasant. The majority, however, disliked him and considered him arrogant, cold, and unfriendly. But among these people, Prince Andrew managed to hold himself in such a way that they respected and even feared him.

Leaving Kutúzov’s office and entering the waiting room with the papers, Prince Andrew approached his friend, aide-de-camp Kozlóvski, who sat reading by the window.

“Well, Prince?” Kozlóvski asked.

“I’ve been ordered to write a memorandum explaining why we aren’t advancing.”

“And why is that?”

Prince Andrew shrugged.

“Any news from Mack?”

“No.”

“If he really had been defeated, we’d have known by now.”

“Probably,” said Prince Andrew, heading toward the outer door.

At that moment, a tall Austrian general in a greatcoat, the Order of Maria Theresa worn at his neck and a black bandage around his head, clearly just arrived, rushed in, slamming the door. Prince Andrew halted.

“Commander in Chief Kutúzov?” the new general said quickly, with a harsh German accent, scanning the room as he headed straight for the inner door.

“The commander in chief is busy,” Kozlóvski replied, moving quickly to stop the stranger at the door. “Whom shall I announce?”

The unknown general looked down at Kozlóvski with disdain, surprised that anyone wouldn’t know him.

“The commander in chief is busy,” Kozlóvski calmly repeated.

The general’s face darkened, his lips trembled. He pulled out a notebook, quickly scribbled something with a pencil, tore out the page, handed it to Kozlóvski, hurried to the window, and threw himself into a chair, glaring around the room as if to ask, “Why are they looking at me?” Then he raised his head, craned his neck as if about to speak, but immediately, affectingly indifferent, began to hum quietly, the sound breaking off abruptly. The private office door opened and Kutúzov appeared in the doorway. The general, head bandaged, leaned forward as if fleeing from some danger, and, taking long, quick steps on his thin legs, hurried to Kutúzov.

*“Vous voyez le malheureux Mack,”* he uttered in a broken voice.

Kutúzov’s face, as he stood in the open doorway, stayed perfectly still for several moments. Then wrinkles swept across his features like a wave, his forehead smoothed out, he respectfully bowed his head, closed his eyes, let Mack enter ahead of him, and quietly shut the door behind them.

The rumor that the Austrians had been defeated and their entire army had surrendered at Ulm turned out to be true. Within half an hour, adjutants were sent in different directions with orders that made it clear that the Russian troops, who had so far done nothing, would soon have to face the enemy.

Prince Andrew was one of those rare staff officers whose main interest was the overall course of the war. When he saw Mack and heard the details of his disaster, he understood that half the campaign was lost, grasped all the difficulties now facing the Russian army, and vividly pictured what lay ahead and the part he would play in it. Without intending to, he felt a thrill of excitement at the humiliation of proud Austria, and that within a week he might witness and participate in the first Russian clash with the French since Suvórov. He worried that Bonaparte’s genius might outweigh all the bravery of the Russian troops, but he could not bring himself to imagine his hero disgraced.

Excited and unsettled by these thoughts, Prince Andrew headed for his room to write to his father, as he did every day. In the hallway he met Nesvítski, his roommate, along with the joker Zherkóv; as usual, they were laughing.

“Why are you so glum?” asked Nesvítski, noticing Prince Andrew’s pale face and shining eyes.

“There’s nothing to be cheerful about,” answered Bolkónski.

Just as Prince Andrew met Nesvítski and Zherkóv, Strauch, an Austrian general on Kutúzov’s staff responsible for provisioning the Russian army—and the member of the Hofkriegsrath who had arrived the previous evening—came toward them from the other end of the corridor. The corridor was wide enough for the generals to pass the three officers easily, but Zherkóv, pushing Nesvítski aside with his arm, said in a breathless voice,

“They’re coming!… they’re coming!… Step aside, make way, please, make way!”

The generals walked by, looking as if they wanted to avoid any awkward attention. Suddenly, a foolish grin of glee appeared on Zherkóv’s face, which he seemed unable to suppress.

“Your Excellency,” he said in German, stepping forward and addressing the Austrian general, “I have the honor to congratulate you.”

He bowed his head and shuffled, awkwardly scraping first one foot and then the other, like a child at a dance lesson.

The member of the Hofkriegsrath looked at him sternly but, seeing the earnestness of Zherkóv’s foolish smile, couldn’t help giving him a moment’s attention. He squinted, signaling that he was listening.

“I have the honor to congratulate you. General Mack has arrived, quite well, only a little bruised just here,” he added, pointing with a beaming smile to his head.

The general frowned, turned away, and continued on.

*“Gott, wie naiv!”* \* he said angrily after a few steps.

\* “Good God, what simplicity!”

Nesvítski, laughing, threw his arms around Prince Andrew, but Bolkónski, growing even paler, pushed him away with an angry look and turned to Zherkóv. The nervous frustration caused by Mack’s arrival, the news of his defeat, and the thoughts of what awaited the Russian army erupted in anger at Zherkóv’s ill-timed joke.

“If you, sir, choose to make a *buffoon* of yourself,” he said sharply, his lower jaw slightly trembling, “I can’t stop you from doing so; but I warn you, if you *dare* to play the fool in my presence, I will teach you to behave yourself.”

Nesvítski and Zherkóv were so surprised by this outburst that they stared at Bolkónski in silence, eyes wide.

“What’s the matter? I only congratulated them,” said Zherkóv.

“I am not joking with you; please be quiet!” shouted Bolkónski, and taking Nesvítski’s arm he walked away, leaving Zherkóv, who didn’t know what to say.

“Come on, what’s wrong, old friend?” said Nesvítski, trying to calm him.

“What’s wrong?” exclaimed Prince Andrew, stopping in his agitation. “Don’t you understand that either we are officers serving our Tsar and our country, rejoicing in our successes and grieving over the misfortunes of our common cause, or we are mere lackeys who care nothing for our master’s business? *Quarante mille hommes massacrés et l’armée de nos alliés détruite, et vous trouvez là le mot pour rire,”* \* he said, as if reinforcing his views with this French sentence. *“C’est bien pour un garçon de rien comme cet individu dont vous avez fait un ami, mais pas pour vous, pas pour vous*.” \*(2) Only a *hobbledehoy* could amuse himself in this way,” he added in Russian—but pronounced the word with a French accent—having noticed that Zherkóv could still hear him.

\* “Forty thousand men massacred and our allies’ army destroyed, and you find that a cause for laughter!”

\* (2) “That’s all very well for that good-for-nothing fellow you have made your friend, but not for you, not for you.”

He waited a moment to see whether the cornet would reply, but then he turned and left the corridor.

##  CHAPTER IV

The Pávlograd Hussars were stationed two miles from Braunau. The squadron in which Nicholas Rostóv served as a cadet was quartered in the German village of Salzeneck. The best quarters in the village were assigned to cavalry captain Denísov, the squadron commander, known throughout the whole cavalry division as Váska Denísov. Cadet Rostóv, ever since he had caught up with the regiment in Poland, had been living with the squadron commander.

On October 11, the day when everyone at headquarters was in a stir over the news of Mack’s defeat, life for the officers of this squadron went on as usual. Denísov, who had been losing at cards all night, had not yet come home when Rostóv rode back early in the morning from a foraging expedition. Rostóv, wearing his cadet uniform, gave a jerk to his horse, rode up to the porch, swung his leg over the saddle with a supple, youthful motion, lingered for a moment in the stirrup as if reluctant to part from his horse, and finally jumped down and called to his orderly.

“Ah, Bondarénko, my friend!” he said to the hussar who hurried up to take the horse. “Walk him up and down for me, please,” he continued, with the cheerful, friendly warmth that good-natured young people show when they are happy.

“Yes, your excellency,” replied the Ukrainian gaily, tossing his head.

“Make sure you walk him up and down well!”

Another hussar also hurried toward the horse, but Bondarénko had already thrown the reins of the snaffle bridle over the horse’s head. It was clear that the cadet was generous with his tips and that it paid to serve him. Rostóv patted the horse’s neck and then his flank, lingering for a moment.

“Splendid! What a horse he will be!” he thought with a smile, and, holding up his saber and with his spurs jingling, he ran up the steps of the porch. His landlord, who was wearing a waistcoat and pointed cap and had a pitchfork in his hand, was clearing manure from the cowhouse. He looked out, and his face immediately lit up when he saw Rostóv. *“Schön gut Morgen! Schön gut Morgen!”* \* he said, winking with a cheerful smile, clearly glad to see the young man.

\* “A very good morning! A very good morning!”

*“Schon fleissig?”* \* said Rostóv, with that same cheerful, friendly smile that never left his eager face. *“Hoch Oestreicher! Hoch Russen! Kaiser Alexander hoch!”* \*(2) he said, quoting the words the German landlord often repeated.

\* “Busy already?”

\* (2) “Hurrah for the Austrians! Hurrah for the Russians! Hurrah for Emperor Alexander!”

The German laughed, came out of the cowshed, took off his cap, and waving it over his head, cried:

*“Und die ganze Welt hoch!”* \*

\* “And hurrah for the whole world!”

Rostóv waved his cap over his head like the German and shouted, *“Und vivat die ganze Welt!”* Though neither the German, cleaning his cowshed, nor Rostóv, back with his platoon from gathering hay, had any real reason to rejoice, they looked at each other with joyful delight and friendly affection, nodded their heads in mutual goodwill, and then parted smiling, the German going back to his cowshed and Rostóv entering the cottage where he and Denísov stayed.

“What about your master?” he asked Lavrúshka, Denísov’s orderly, who was known throughout the regiment as a rogue.

“He hasn’t been in since last night. Must have lost,” answered Lavrúshka. “I know by now—if he wins, he’s back early to brag about it, but if he stays out till morning, it means he’s lost and will come back angry. Want some coffee?”

“Yes, bring some.”

Ten minutes later, Lavrúshka brought the coffee. “He’s coming!” he said. “Now there’ll be trouble!” Rostóv looked out the window and saw Denísov arriving. Denísov was a small man with a red face, sparkling black eyes, and untidy black mustache and hair. He wore an open cloak, wide breeches hanging loose and creased, and a crumpled shako on the back of his head. He walked up to the porch gloomily, head down.

“Lavwúska!” he shouted loudly and angrily, “take it off, blockhead!”

“I am taking it off,” replied Lavrúshka’s voice.

“Oh, you’re up already,” said Denísov, entering the room.

“A while now,” answered Rostóv, “I’ve already gone for hay and seen Fräulein Mathilde.”

“Weally! And I’ve been losing, brother. I lost yesterday like a damned fool!” cried Denísov, not pronouncing his *r*’s. “Such bad luck! Such bad luck. The moment you left, it started and just kept going. Hullo there! Tea!”

Frowning, though still smiling, and showing his short, strong teeth, he began to ruffle up his thick, tangled black hair with the stubby fingers of both hands.

“And what the devil made me go to that rat?” (an officer nicknamed “the rat”) he said, rubbing his forehead and face with both hands. “Just imagine, he didn’t let me win a single card, not one.”

He took the lit pipe handed to him, gripped it in his fist, and tapped it on the floor, making sparks fly, as he went on ranting.

“He lets you win a single and grabs it all back as soon as you double it; gives away singles and snatches the doubles!”

He scattered the burning tobacco, broke the pipe, and threw it away. Then he fell silent for a while and suddenly looked cheerfully at Rostóv with his glittering black eyes.

“If only we had some women here; but there’s nothing to do but dwink. If we could just get to fighting soon. Hullo, who’s there?” he said, turning to the door as he heard the sound of heavy boots, the clink of spurs, and a respectful cough.

“The squadron quartermaster!” said Lavrúshka.

Denísov’s face wrinkled even more.

“Wretched!” he muttered, throwing down a purse with some gold coins. “Wostóv, my dear fellow, just see how much is left and shove the purse under the pillow,” he said, and went out to the quartermaster.

Rostóv took the money and, automatically sorting the old and new coins into separate piles, began counting them.

“Ah! Telyánin! How are you? They fleeced me last night,” came Denísov’s voice from the next room.

“Where? At Bykov’s, at the rat’s… I knew it,” replied a piping voice, as Lieutenant Telyánin, a small officer from the same squadron, entered the room.

Rostóv shoved the purse under the pillow and shook the cold, damp little hand extended to him. Telyánin had, for some reason, just been transferred from the Guards before this campaign. He behaved quite properly in the regiment but was not liked; Rostóv in particular disliked him and couldn’t get over or hide his instinctive antipathy.

“Well, young cavalryman, how’s my Rook behaving?” he asked. (Rook was a young horse Telyánin had sold to Rostóv.)

The lieutenant never looked directly at whoever he was speaking to; his eyes always wandered from one thing to another.

“I saw you riding this morning…” he added.

“Oh, he’s all right—a good horse,” replied Rostóv, even though the horse he’d paid seven hundred rubles for wasn’t worth half that amount. “He’s started to go a bit lame on his left foreleg,” he added.

“The hoof is cracked! That’s nothing. I’ll show you what to do and what kind of rivet to use.”

“Yes, please do,” said Rostóv.

“I’ll show you, I’ll show you! It’s no secret. And you’ll thank me for this horse.”

“Then I’ll have him brought around,” said Rostóv, wanting to avoid Telyánin, and he went out to give the order.

In the hallway, Denísov, with a pipe, was squatting on the threshold facing the quartermaster, who was making a report to him. Seeing Rostóv, Denísov screwed up his face and, pointing over his shoulder with his thumb toward the room where Telyánin was, frowned and shuddered in disgust.

“Ugh! I don’t like that fellow,” he said, not caring that the quartermaster was there.

Rostóv shrugged as if to say: “Nor do I, but what can you do?” and, after giving his order, went back to Telyánin.

Telyánin was sitting just as Rostóv had left him, lazily rubbing his small white hands.

“Well, there certainly are disgusting people,” thought Rostóv as he came in.

“Did you tell them to bring the horse?” asked Telyánin, getting up and glancing around carelessly.

“I have.”

“Let’s go ourselves. I just came by to ask Denísov about yesterday’s order. Do you have it, Denísov?”

“Not yet. But where are you off to?”

“I want to show this young man how to shoe a horse,” said Telyánin.

They went through the porch and into the stable. The lieutenant explained how to rivet the hoof and then went off to his own quarters.

When Rostóv came back, there was a bottle of vodka and a sausage on the table. Denísov was sitting there, scratching with his pen on a sheet of paper. He looked gloomily at Rostóv and said: “I’m writing to her.”

Leaning his elbows on the table with his pen in hand, and clearly happy to say aloud what he meant to write, he told Rostóv what the letter said.

“You see, my friend,” he said, “we only sleep when we don’t love. We’re children of dust… but when we fall in love, we’re gods; as pure as on the first day of creation… Who’s that now? Send him away, I’m busy!” he called to Lavrúshka, who came in without the slightest embarrassment.

“Who should it be? You told him to come yourself. It’s the quartermaster for the money.”

Denísov frowned and was about to snap back but stopped.

“Miserable business,” he muttered to himself. “How much is left in the purse?” he asked Rostóv.

“Seven new and three old imperials.”

“Oh, it’s wretched! Well, what are you standing there for, you scarecrow? Go call the quartermaster,” he shouted to Lavrúshka.

“Please, Denísov, let me lend you some—I have some, really,” said Rostóv, blushing.

“I don’t like borrowing from my own men, I don’t,” growled Denísov.

“But if you refuse to take money from me as a friend, you’ll hurt my feelings. Really, I have some,” Rostóv repeated.

“No, I told you.”

And Denísov went to the bed to fetch the purse from under the pillow.

“Where have you put it, Rostóv?”

“Under the lower pillow.”

“It’s not there.”

Denísov tossed both pillows on the floor. The purse wasn’t there.

“That’s a miracle.”

“Wait, maybe you dropped it?” said Rostóv, picking up the pillows one by one and shaking them.

He pulled off the quilt and shook it. The purse was not there.

“Dear me, could I have forgotten? No, I remember thinking you kept it under your head like a treasure,” said Rostóv. “I put it right here. Where is it?” he asked, turning to Lavrúshka.

“I haven’t been in the room. It must be where you left it.”

“But it isn’t?…”

“You’re always like that; you throw things down anywhere and forget about them. Check your pockets.”

“No, if I hadn’t thought of it as a treasure,” said Rostóv, “but I remember putting it there.”

Lavrúshka turned over all the bedding, looked under the bed and under the table, searched everywhere, and then stood still in the middle of the room. Denísov silently watched Lavrúshka’s movements, and when Lavrúshka, with surprise, threw up his arms saying it was nowhere to be found, Denísov looked over at Rostóv.

“Rostóv, you haven’t been playing schoolboy tricks…”

Rostóv felt Denísov’s gaze fixed on him, raised his eyes, and immediately lowered them again. All the blood that had felt stuck below his throat suddenly rushed to his face and eyes. He could barely breathe.

“And there hasn’t been anyone in the room except the lieutenant and yourselves. It must be here somewhere,” said Lavrúshka.

“Now then, you devil’s puppet, get moving and look for it!” shouted Denísov suddenly, turning purple and rushing at the man with a threatening gesture. “If the purse isn’t found I’ll flog you, I’ll flog all of you.”

Rostóv, avoiding Denísov’s eyes, began buttoning his coat, buckled on his saber, and put on his cap.

“I must have that purse, I’m telling you!” shouted Denísov, shaking his orderly by the shoulders and knocking him against the wall.

“Denísov, leave him alone. I know who took it,” said Rostóv, heading for the door without raising his eyes. Denísov stopped, thought for a moment, and, clearly understanding what Rostóv was getting at, seized his arm.

“Nonsense!” he cried, and the veins on his forehead and neck stood out like cords. “You’re mad, I tell you. I won’t allow it. The purse is here! I’ll skin this scoundrel alive and it will be found.”

“I know who has taken it,” repeated Rostóv in an unsteady voice, and walked to the door.

“And I tell you, don’t you dare do it!” shouted Denísov, rushing at the cadet to stop him.

But Rostóv pulled his arm free and, with as much anger as if Denísov were his worst enemy, looked directly into his face.

“Do you understand what you’re saying?” he said, his voice trembling. “No one else was in the room except me. So if that’s not the case, then…”

He couldn’t finish, and ran out of the room.

“Ah, may the devil take you and everybody,” were the last words Rostóv heard.

Rostóv went to Telyánin’s quarters.

“The master is not in, he’s gone to headquarters,” said Telyánin’s orderly. “Has something happened?” he added, surprised at the cadet’s troubled look.

“No, nothing.”

“You just missed him,” said the orderly.

The headquarters were two miles away from Salzeneck, and Rostóv, without going home, took a horse and rode there. There was an inn in the village that the officers often visited. Rostóv rode up to it and saw Telyánin’s horse at the porch.

In the second room of the inn, the lieutenant was sitting over a dish of sausages and a bottle of wine.

“Ah, you’ve come here too, young man!” he said, smiling and raising his eyebrows.

“Yes,” said Rostóv, as if it cost him a great effort to say the word; and he sat down at the nearest table.

Both were silent. There were two Germans and a Russian officer in the room. No one spoke, and the only sounds were the clatter of knives and the lieutenant’s chewing.

When Telyánin had finished his lunch, he pulled out a double purse from his pocket and, drawing its rings apart with his small, white, upturned fingers, took out a gold imperial and, raising his eyebrows, gave it to the waiter.

“Please be quick,” he said.

The coin was a new one. Rostóv got up and walked over to Telyánin.

“Let me see your purse,” he said in a low, almost inaudible, voice.

With shifty eyes, though his eyebrows were still raised, Telyánin handed him the purse.

“Yes, it’s a nice purse. Yes, yes,” he said, suddenly turning pale, and added, “Look at it, young man.”

Rostóv took the purse in his hand, examined it and the money inside, and looked at Telyánin. The lieutenant was glancing around as usual and suddenly seemed very cheerful.

“If we get to Vienna I’ll get rid of it there. But in these wretched little towns, there’s nowhere to spend it,” he said. “Well, let me have it, young man, I’m going.”

Rostóv remained silent.

“And you? Are you going to have lunch too? They feed you quite well here,” Telyánin continued. “Now then, let me have it.”

He reached out to take the purse. Rostóv let go of it. Telyánin took the purse and began carelessly slipping it into his riding breeches pocket, his eyebrows lifted and his mouth slightly open as if to say, “Yes, yes, I’m putting my purse in my pocket and it’s nobody else’s business.”

“Well, young man?” he said with a sigh, glancing up at Rostóv from under his raised brows.

For a moment, something like an electric spark flashed from Telyánin’s eyes to Rostóv’s and back again, several times in an instant.

“Come here,” said Rostóv, grabbing Telyánin’s arm and almost dragging him to the window. “That money is Denísov’s; you took it…” he whispered just above Telyánin’s ear.

“What? What? How dare you? What?” said Telyánin.

But these words sounded like a desperate, pleading cry and a request for forgiveness. As soon as Rostóv heard them, a huge weight of doubt lifted from him. He felt relieved, and at the same time began to pity the miserable man standing before him, but the task he had started had to be finished.

“Heaven only knows what people here might think,” muttered Telyánin, picking up his cap and moving toward a small empty room. “We need to talk this over…”

“I know it and will prove it,” said Rostóv.

“I…”

Every muscle in Telyánin’s pale, frightened face began to tremble, his eyes still shifted from side to side but now looked downward, never meeting Rostóv’s gaze, and his sobs could be heard.

“Count!… Don’t ruin a young man… here is this miserable money, take it…” He threw it on the table. “I have elderly parents!…”

Rostóv took the money, avoiding Telyánin’s eyes, and left the room without saying a word. But at the door he paused, then went back. “O God,” he said, tears in his eyes, “how could you do it?”

“Count…” said Telyánin, stepping closer.

“Don’t touch me,” said Rostóv, stepping back. “If you need it, keep the money,” and he threw the purse to him and ran out of the inn.

##  CHAPTER V

That same evening, a lively discussion took place among the squadron’s officers in Denísov’s quarters.

“And I’m telling you, Rostóv, that you must apologize to the colonel!” said a tall, grizzled-haired staff captain with enormous mustaches and many wrinkles on his large features, to Rostóv, who was red with agitation.

The staff captain, Kírsten, had twice been demoted to the ranks for matters of honor and had twice regained his commission.

“I will allow no one to call me a liar!” cried Rostóv. “He called me a liar, and I told him he lied. That’s where it stands. He can keep me on duty every day or put me under arrest, but no one can make me apologize, because if he, as commander of this regiment, thinks it beneath his dignity to give me satisfaction, then…”

“Just wait a moment, my friend, and listen,” interrupted the staff captain in his deep bass, calmly stroking his long mustache. “You told the colonel in front of other officers that an officer had stolen…”

“I couldn’t help where the conversation started. Maybe I shouldn’t have spoken in front of them, but I’m no diplomat. That’s why I joined the hussars—thinking there’d be no need for finessing here; and he tells me that I’m lying—so let him answer for it…”

“That’s all well and good. No one thinks you’re a coward, but that’s not the point. Ask Denísov if it’s even possible for a cadet to demand satisfaction from his regimental commander.”

Denísov sat gloomily, biting his mustache and listening without any desire to join in. He answered the staff captain’s question with a disapproving shake of his head.

“You talked to the colonel about this nasty business in front of other officers,” the staff captain continued, “and Bogdánich”—the colonel’s nickname—“shuts you down.”

“He didn’t shut me down, he said I was telling an untruth.”

“Well, be it so, and you said a lot of foolish things to him and must apologize.”

“Absolutely not!” exclaimed Rostóv.

“I didn’t expect this from you,” said the staff captain, serious and stern. “You don’t want to apologize, but, man, you owe it not only to him but to the whole regiment—all of us—you’re in the wrong all around. The point is this: you should have thought things over and asked advice; but no, you blurt it all out in front of the officers. Now what was the colonel to do? Put the officer on trial and disgrace the whole regiment? Disgrace the whole regiment because of one scoundrel? Is that really how you see it? We don’t see it that way. And Bogdánich was noble: he just said you weren’t telling the truth. It’s not pleasant, but what can you do, my friend? You put yourself in this position. And now, when we want to smooth things over, some pride keeps you from apologizing, and you want to make the whole affair public. You’re offended by a bit of extra duty, but why not apologize to an old and honorable officer? Whatever Bogdánich may be, he’s an honorable and brave old colonel! You’re quick to take offense, but you don’t mind disgracing the whole regiment!” The staff captain’s voice quivered. “You’ve been in the regiment barely any time, my lad; you’re here today, and tomorrow they’ll make you an adjutant and you can just shrug when they say, ‘There are thieves among the Pávlograd officers!’ But it matters to us! Isn’t that right, Denísov? It’s not the same to us!”

Denísov remained silent and still, but occasionally glanced at Rostóv with his sharp black eyes.

“You care about your own pride and don’t want to apologize,” the staff captain went on, “but we old fellows, who have grown up in this regiment and—God willing—are going to die in it, we value the honor of the regiment, and Bogdánich knows that. Oh, we value it, friend! And this is not right, not right at all! You can be offended or not, but I always stick to the truth. It’s not right!”

The staff captain stood up and turned away from Rostóv.

“That’s true, devil take it!” shouted Denísov, jumping up. “Now then, Rostóv, now then!”

Rostóv, flushing and paling in turns, looked from one officer to the other.

“No, gentlemen, no… don’t think… I understand. You’re wrong to think that of me… I… for me… for the honor of the regiment I’d… Well, I’ll prove it in action, and for me, the honor of the flag… Well, never mind, it’s true I’m at fault, at fault in every way. Well, what else do you want?…”

“Come, that’s right, Count!” cried the staff captain, turning back and clapping Rostóv’s shoulder with his big hand.

“I’m telling you,” shouted Denísov, “he’s a fine fellow.”

“That’s better, Count,” said the staff captain, now addressing Rostóv by his title as if in recognition of his admission. “Go and apologize, your excellency. Yes, go!”

“Gentlemen, I’ll do anything. No one will hear a word from me,” said Rostóv in an imploring tone, “but I can’t apologize—by God, I can’t—no matter what! How can I go and apologize like a little boy asking for forgiveness?”

Denísov started laughing.

“It’s going to be rougher for you. Bogdánich holds grudges, and you’ll pay for your stubbornness,” said Kírsten.

“No, honestly, it’s not stubbornness! I can’t explain the feeling. I just can’t…”

“Well, do as you please,” said the staff captain. “And what happened to that scoundrel?” he asked Denísov.

“He reported himself sick—he’s to be struck off the list tomorrow,” muttered Denísov.

“It’s an illness, there’s no other way to explain it,” said the staff captain.

“Illness or not, he’d better not cross my path. I’d kill him!” yelled Denísov in a bloodthirsty tone.

At that moment Zherkóv entered the room.

“What brings you here?” the officers called out, turning to the newcomer.

“We’re going into action, gentlemen! Mack has surrendered with his whole army.”

“That’s not true!”

“I saw him myself!”

“What? Saw the real Mack? In the flesh?”

“Into action! Into action! Bring him a bottle for such news! But how did you end up here?”

“I’ve been sent back to the regiment all because of that devil, Mack. An Austrian general complained about me. I congratulated him on Mack’s arrival… What’s the matter, Rostóv? You look as if you’ve just come out of a hot bath.”

“Oh, my dear fellow, we’ve been in a stew here these last two days.”

The regimental adjutant came in and confirmed the news Zherkóv had brought. They were under orders to advance the next day.

“We’re going into action, gentlemen!”

“Well, thank God! We’ve been sitting here too long!”

##  CHAPTER VI

Kutúzov retreated toward Vienna, destroying the bridges behind him over the rivers Inn (at Braunau) and Traun (near Linz). On October 23, the Russian troops were crossing the river Enns. At midday, the Russian baggage train, artillery, and columns of troops were marching through the town of Enns on both sides of the bridge.

It was a warm, rainy autumn day. The wide plain before the heights where the Russian batteries stood guarding the bridge was sometimes hidden by a sheer curtain of slanting rain, and then suddenly illuminated by sunlight so that distant objects sparkled as if freshly varnished. Down below, the little town could be seen with its white, red-roofed houses, cathedral, and bridge, both sides crowded with surging Russian troops. At the bend of the Danube, there were vessels, an island, and a castle with a park surrounded by the waters of the Enns and Danube joining, along with the rocky left bank of the Danube covered in pine forests and mysterious green treetops and bluish ravines. The turrets of a convent appeared beyond a wild, untouched pine forest, and far away on the other side of the Enns, the enemy’s cavalry patrols could be seen.

Among the field guns at the top of the hill, the general commanding the rearguard stood with a staff officer, surveying the area through his fieldglass. A little behind them sat Nesvítski, who had been sent to the rearguard by the commander in chief, resting on the trail of a gun carriage. A Cossack attending him handed over a knapsack and flask, and Nesvítski treated some officers to pies and real *doppelkümmel*. The officers gladly gathered around him, some kneeling, some squatting in a Turkish style on the damp grass.

“Yes, the Austrian prince who built that castle wasn’t a fool. It’s a fine place! Why aren’t you eating, gentlemen?” Nesvítski was saying.

“Thank you very much, Prince,” replied one of the officers, happy to be speaking with such an important staff officer. “It’s a lovely place! We passed close to the park and saw two deer… and what a splendid house!”

“Look, Prince,” said another, who was tempted by another pie but pretended to examine the landscape instead—“See, our infantry already got there. Look in the meadow behind the village, three of them are dragging something. They’ll ransack that castle,” he added, clearly approving.

“So they will,” said Nesvítski. “But what I’d really like,” he added, chewing a pie with his moist, handsome mouth, “is to sneak over there.”

He pointed with a smile to a turreted nunnery, and his eyes narrowed and sparkled.

“That would be nice, gentlemen!”

The officers laughed.

“Just to stir up the nuns a bit. They say there are Italian girls among them. Honestly, I’d give five years of my life for that!”

“They must be bored too,” said one of the bolder officers, laughing.

Meanwhile, the staff officer in front pointed something out to the general, who looked through his fieldglass.

“Yes, so it is, so it is,” said the general irritably, lowering the fieldglass and shrugging. “They’ll be fired on at the crossing. Why are they wasting time there?”

On the opposite bank, the enemy was visible with the naked eye, and from their battery a milk-white smoke cloud rose. Then came a distant report of a shot, and our troops could be seen hurrying to the crossing.

Nesvítski got up, puffing, and walked over to the general, smiling.

“Would your excellency like a little refreshment?” he asked.

“It’s a bad situation,” the general replied, not answering directly. “Our men have wasted time.”

“Should I ride over, your excellency?” asked Nesvítski.

“Yes, please do,” the general responded, repeating the detailed order he had previously given: “Tell the hussars they are to cross last and to burn the bridge as I ordered; and the inflammable materials on the bridge must be reinspected.”

“Very good,” answered Nesvítski.

He called his Cossack with his horse, told him to put away the knapsack and flask, and easily swung his heavy frame into the saddle.

“I really will stop by the nuns,” he said to the officers, who watched him with easy smiles, and he rode off down the winding hill path.

“Now then, let’s see how far it will carry, Captain. Give it a try!” said the general, turning to an artillery officer. “Some fun to pass the time.”

“Crew, to your guns!” ordered the officer.

In a moment the men ran cheerfully from their campfires and began loading.

“One!” came the command.

Number one quickly jumped aside. The gun boomed with a loud metallic roar, and a whistling grenade sailed over the heads of our troops below the hill, landing well short of the enemy, a little smoke marking the burst.

Officers and soldiers alike brightened at the sound. Everyone stood up to watch the movements of our troops below, clear as if only a stone’s throw away, and observed the approaching enemy farther off. At that moment, the sun came fully out from behind the clouds, and the bright sound of the solitary shot and the brilliance of the sunshine merged into one joyful, spirited impression.

##  CHAPTER VII

Two of the enemy’s shots had already flown across the bridge, where there was a crush. Halfway across stood Prince Nesvítski, who had dismounted from his horse and whose large body was squeezed against the railings. He looked back, laughing, at the Cossack who stood a few steps behind him, holding two horses by their bridles. Each time Prince Nesvítski tried to move forward, soldiers and carts pushed him back again and pressed him against the railings, and all he could do was smile.

“What a fine fellow you are, friend!” said the Cossack to a convoy soldier with a wagon, who was pressing into the infantrymen crowded together near his wheels and horses. “What a guy! You can’t wait a moment! Don’t you see the general wants to get by?”

But the convoyman ignored the word “general” and shouted at the soldiers blocking his way. “Hey there, boys! Keep to the left! Hold on a bit.” But the soldiers, packed shoulder to shoulder with their bayonets tangling, pressed over the bridge in a dense crowd. Looking down over the rails, Prince Nesvítski saw the quick, noisy little waves of the Enns, swirling and rippling around the piles of the bridge as they chased each other along. Looking back on the bridge he saw equally uniform waves of soldiers—shoulder straps, covered shakos, knapsacks, bayonets, long muskets, and, under the shakos, faces with broad cheekbones, hollow cheeks, and weary blank expressions, and feet trudging through the sticky mud covering the bridge planks. Sometimes, through the monotonous swell of men, like a spot of white foam on the Enns, an officer in a cloak with a face different from the others squeezed his way along; sometimes, like a twig turning in the river, a hussar on foot, an orderly, or a townsman was carried through the waves of infantry; and sometimes, like a log floating downstream, an officers’ or company’s baggage wagon—heaped high, covered in leather, and surrounded on all sides—moved across the bridge.

“It’s like a dam has burst,” said the Cossack, hopelessly. “Are there many more of you coming?”

“A million minus one!” replied a joker in a torn coat, winking, and passed by, followed by another, an old man.

“If *he*”—meaning the enemy—“starts firing at the bridge now,” said the old soldier grimly to a companion, “you’ll forget to scratch yourself.”

That soldier continued on, and after him came another sitting on a cart.

“Where the devil have the leg bands gone?” said an orderly, running behind the cart and searching in the back.

He too passed on with the wagon. Then came a few cheerful soldiers, who had clearly been drinking.

“And then, old man, he gives him one right in the teeth with the butt of his gun…” a soldier whose greatcoat was well tucked up said merrily, swinging his arm wide.

“Yes, the ham was just delicious…” another replied with a loud laugh. And they, too, moved on, so that Nesvítski never found out who got hit in the teeth, or what the ham had to do with it.

“Bah! Look at them scurry. He sends one ball and they think they’ll all be killed,” a sergeant said angrily and reproachfully.

“As it whizzed by me, Daddy—the ball, I mean,” said a young soldier with an enormous mouth, barely suppressing laughter, “I thought I’d die of fright. I did, honestly, I got that scared!” he said, as though boasting of his fear.

He too passed by. Then came a cart unlike any before. It was a German cart with a pair of horses led by a German man, and appeared loaded with an entire household’s things. A fine brindled cow with a big udder was tied to the back. A woman with a nursing baby, an old woman, and a healthy German girl with bright red cheeks sat on some feather beds. Clearly these refugees had special permission to cross. All the soldiers’ eyes turned toward the women, and while the cart moved by at a walking pace, all the soldiers’ remarks were about the two younger women. Every face wore almost the same smile, betraying improper thoughts about them.

“Just look, the German sausage is making a getaway too!”

“Sell me your wife,” said another soldier, addressing the German, who, angry and frightened, walked on quickly with his eyes downcast.

“Look how she’s dolled herself up! Oh, the devils!”

“Hey, Fedótov, you should be quartered there!”

“I’ve seen this before, mate!”

“Where are you going?” asked an infantry officer who was eating an apple, also half smiling as he looked at the pretty girl.

The German closed his eyes to show he did not understand.

“Take it if you want,” said the officer, giving the girl an apple.

The girl smiled and accepted it. Nesvítski, like the rest of the men on the bridge, kept his eyes on the women until they passed. Once they were gone, the same flow of soldiers followed, with the same sort of talk, and at last everything stopped. As often happens, the horses of a convoy wagon grew restless at the end of the bridge, and the whole crowd had to wait.

“So why are they stopping? There’s no order here!” the soldiers complained. “Where are you shoving? Devil take you! Can’t you wait? It’ll be worse if he fires on the bridge. See, here’s an officer stuck too”—different voices said in the crowd, as men looked at each other and everyone pushed toward the bridge exit.

Looking down at the Enns under the bridge, Nesvítski suddenly heard a new sound, something quickly approaching… something large, that splashed into the water.

“Look how far it goes!” a nearby soldier remarked grimly, glancing about at the noise.

“Trying to hurry us up,” another said nervously.

The crowd moved forward again. Nesvítski realized it was a cannonball.

“Hey, Cossack, my horse!” he called. “Now then, you there! Get out of the way! Make room!”

With great effort he managed to reach his horse, and, shouting constantly, moved on. The soldiers squeezed together to let him by, but pressed against his leg so that he was jammed, and those closest to him weren’t to blame—they were themselves even more tightly pressed from behind.

“Nesvítski, Nesvítski! You numbskull!” came a hoarse voice from behind.

Nesvítski looked back and saw, about fifteen paces away but separated by the solid mass of moving infantry, Váska Denísov—red-faced and rough, with his cap perched on the back of his dark head and his cloak slung jauntily over his shoulder.

“Tell these devils, these fiends, to let me through!” shouted Denísov in a fit of rage, his coal-black eyes with bloodshot whites glittering and rolling as he waved his sheathed saber in one small, bare hand as red as his face.

“Ah, Váska!” Nesvítski replied joyfully. “What brings you here?”

“The squadron can’t get through!” shouted Váska Denísov, flashing his white teeth ferociously and spurring his black thoroughbred Arab, which twitched its ears as bayonets touched it and snorted, spraying white foam from its bit, stamping the bridge planks with its hooves, and seeming ready to jump over the railings if allowed. “What is this? They’re like sheep! Just like sheep! Out of the way!… Let us pass!… Stop there, you devil with the cart! I’ll slash you with my saber!” he yelled, actually drawing his saber from its scabbard and waving it around.

The soldiers crammed together with frightened faces, and Denísov joined Nesvítski.

“How is it you’re not drunk today?” Nesvítski said once Denísov had ridden up to him.

“They don’t even give you time to drink!” replied Váska Denísov. “They keep dragging the regiment to and fro all day. If they mean to fight, let’s fight. But the devil knows what this is.”

“What a dandy you are today!” said Nesvítski, eyeing Denísov’s new cloak and saddlecloth.

Denísov smiled, took a handkerchief from his sabretache that gave off a scent of perfume, and held it to Nesvítski’s nose.

“Of course. I’m going into action! I’ve shaved, brushed my teeth, and put on some scent.”

The impressive figure of Nesvítski, followed by his Cossack, along with Denísov’s determined presence as he flourished his sword and shouted energetically, had enough impact that they managed to squeeze through to the far side of the bridge and stop the infantry. Beside the bridge, Nesvítski found the colonel to whom he needed to deliver the order, and after doing so he rode back.

After clearing the way, Denísov stopped at the end of the bridge. Casually holding back his stallion, which was neighing and stamping the ground, eager to join its companions, he watched his squadron approach. Then the sound of hooves—several horses galloping—rang out on the planks of the bridge, and the squadron, officers in front and men four abreast, spread across the bridge and started to appear on his side.

The infantry who had been stopped crowded close to the bridge in the trampled mud and watched with the usual mix of resentment, distance, and mockery with which troops of different branches often regard one another, as the clean, sharp-looking hussars moved past them in perfect order.

“Smart guys! Only fit for a parade!” one said.

“What good are they? They’re just marched about for show!” remarked another.

“Don’t kick up the dust, you infantry!” joked a hussar whose lively horse had splashed mud onto some of the foot soldiers.

“I’d like to see you on a two-day march with a knapsack! Your fancy cords would get worn out quick,” said an infantryman, wiping mud from his face with his sleeve. “Sitting up there, you look more like a bird than a man.”

“There now, Zíkin, they should put you on a horse. You’d look great,” said a corporal, teasing a small thin soldier who was struggling under his heavy knapsack.

“Grab a stick and put it between your legs, that’ll do you for a horse!” the hussar called back.

##  CHAPTER VIII

The last of the infantry hurried across the bridge, bunching together as they approached as if being squeezed through a funnel. Finally, with all the baggage wagons over, the press lessened, and the last battalion moved onto the bridge. Only Denísov’s squadron of hussars was left on the far side, facing the enemy, who could be seen from the hill on the opposite bank, though still hidden from view from the bridge itself, as the line of sight in the valley was blocked by the rising ground half a mile away. Wasteland stretched at the foot of the hill, with only a few scattered Cossack scouts moving across it. Suddenly, on the road at the top of the hill, artillery and troops in blue uniforms appeared—these were the French. The Cossack scouts retreated down the hill at a trot. All the officers and men in Denísov’s squadron, though they tried to talk about other topics and look elsewhere, were really thinking only of what was on the hilltop, and kept glancing at the shapes taking form on the skyline, knowing these were enemy troops. The weather had cleared again since noon, and the sun was setting brightly on the Danube and the dark surrounding hills. It was calm, and from time to time bugle calls and shouts from the enemy could be heard from the hill. Now, only a few scattered skirmishers separated the squadron from the enemy. Seven hundred yards of empty space separated them. The enemy stopped firing, and that stern, threatening, impassable, and intangible line dividing two hostile armies was felt all the more strongly.

“One step beyond that boundary—as sharp as the line separating the living from the dead—there lies uncertainty, suffering, and death. And what is there? Who is there—beyond that field, that tree, that sunlit roof? No one knows, but you want to know. You fear and yet long to cross it, and you know that sooner or later you must, and you will have to find out what’s there, just as you’ll eventually find out what lies beyond death. Yet you feel strong, healthy, cheerful, and excited, surrounded by others who are just as animated and healthy.” So thinks, or at least feels, anyone who comes in sight of the enemy, and that feeling gives a special glamour and heightened sense to everything that happens at such moments.

On the high ground where the enemy waited, cannon smoke rose, and a shot whistled over the heads of the hussar squadron. The officers, who had been standing together, hurried to their places. The hussars carefully aligned their horses. A heavy silence fell over the entire squadron. All eyes were on the enemy ahead and the squadron commander, awaiting the command. A second and third cannonball flew past. Clearly, the enemy was aiming at the hussars, but the shots, with their quick, rhythmic whistle, soared over the horsemen and landed beyond them. The hussars didn’t look back, but at each shot, as if commanded, the whole squadron, their faces so alike and yet individual, held their breath as the cannonball rushed past, then rose in their stirrups and sat back again. Without turning their heads, the soldiers glanced at each other, curious to see how their comrades reacted. Every face, from Denísov’s to the bugler’s, showed one common look of tension, irritation, and excitement around the chin and mouth. The quartermaster frowned, glaring at the men as if ready to punish someone. Cadet Mirónov ducked every time a shot passed. Rostóv, on the left flank, riding his horse Rook—a handsome animal despite its lame leg—wore the happy expression of a schoolboy called up in front of a large audience for an exam he’s sure to ace. He looked around at everyone with a clear, bright gaze, as if asking them to see how calmly he sat under fire. Still, despite himself, that same hint of something both new and stern appeared around his mouth.

“Who’s bowing there? Cadet Mirónov! That’s not right! Look at me,” shouted Denísov, who, unable to keep still, kept pivoting his horse before the squadron.

The black, hairy, snub-nosed face of Váska Denísov, with his whole short, sturdy frame—sinewy, hairy hands, stumpy fingers gripping the hilt of his unsheathed saber—looked as it usually did, especially by evening after his second bottle; he was just redder than before. With his shaggy head thrown back like a bird drinking, driving his spurs mercilessly into the sides of his good horse, Bedouin, sitting as if falling backward in the saddle, he galloped over to the squadron’s other flank and shouted hoarsely to the men to check their pistols. He rode up to Kírsten. The staff captain, on his steady, broad-backed mare, walked out to meet him. His long-mustached face was as serious as ever, just with brighter eyes than usual.

“Well, what do you think?” he said to Denísov. “It won’t come to a fight. You’ll see—we’ll withdraw.”

“Who knows what the devil they’re doing!” muttered Denísov. “Ah, Rostóv!” he called, noticing the cadet’s bright face, “you’re feeling it at last.”

He smiled approvingly, clearly pleased with Rostóv. Rostóv felt completely happy. Just then, the commander appeared on the bridge. Denísov galloped up to him.

“Your excellency! Let us attack them! I’ll drive them off.”

“Attack? Nonsense!” said the colonel in a bored voice, wrinkling his nose as if shooing away a bothersome fly. “Why are you loitering here? Don’t you see the skirmishers are falling back? Lead the squadron back.”

The squadron crossed the bridge and moved out of range without losing a single man. The second squadron that had been at the front followed, and the last Cossacks left the riverbank.

Both Pávlograd squadrons, after crossing, retreated uphill one after another. Their colonel, Karl Bogdánich Schubert, rode up near Denísov’s squadron, passing close to Rostóv, though he paid him no attention, even though it was their first meeting since the incident involving Telyánin. Rostóv, aware that he was at the front and under the authority of a man he now admitted he’d wronged, didn’t lift his eyes from the colonel’s athletic back, his light-haired nape, and red neck. Rostóv felt Bogdánich was only pretending not to notice him, and that his main aim was to test the cadet’s courage; so, Rostóv straightened up and looked around with a merry air. Then he suspected Bogdánich was riding so near just to display his own courage. Next, he thought his enemy would send the squadron into a desperate attack just to punish him—Rostóv. Then he imagined the colonel coming up to him after the charge, as he lay wounded, and generously offering reconciliation.

Zherkóv’s high-shouldered figure, well known to the Pávlograds who remembered him as a former comrade, rode up to the colonel. After his dismissal from headquarters, Zherkóv hadn’t stayed with the regiment, openly saying he wasn’t a fool to risk his neck at the front when he could earn greater rewards doing nothing on the staff, and had managed to get attached as an orderly officer to Prince Bagratión. Now, he brought an order to his old commander from the rear guard leader.

“Colonel,” he said, addressing Rostóv’s adversary with a somber air and glancing around at his old comrades, “there’s an order to stop and set the bridge on fire.”

“An order to whom?” the colonel asked, frowning.

“I don’t know myself ‘to whom,’” Zherkóv replied seriously. “But the prince told me to ‘go and tell the colonel that the hussars must hurry back and set the bridge on fire.’”

An officer of the commander’s suite rode up behind Zherkóv with the same order for the hussar colonel. Right after him, the portly Nesvítski hurried up on a Cossack horse nearly buckling under his weight.

“What’s this, Colonel?” he shouted as he rode up. “I told you to burn that bridge, and now there’s been a mix-up; everyone’s losing their heads and you can’t make sense of things over there.”

The colonel reined in the regiment and turned to Nesvítski deliberately.

“You mentioned inflammable material being set, but said nothing about lighting it,” he said.

“But, my dear sir,” said Nesvítski, taking off his cap and pushing back his sweat-drenched hair with his pudgy hand, “wasn’t I telling you to fire the bridge when the material was in place?”

“I am not your ‘dear sir,’ Mr. Staff Officer, and you did not order me to burn the bridge! I know my duty, and I strictly obey orders. You said the bridge would be burned, but who would do it, I could not know by the holy spirit!”

“Ah, it’s always like this!” Nesvítski said, dismissing him with a wave. “How did you get here?” he asked Zherkóv.

“On the same mission. But you’re drenched! I should wring you out!”

“You were saying, Mr. Staff Officer…” the colonel continued, sounding slighted.

“Colonel,” the suite officer cut in, “You need to hurry or the enemy will move up their guns and use grapeshot.”

The colonel silently looked from the suite officer to the portly staff officer and then to Zherkóv, frowning.

“I will set the bridge on fire,” he declared solemnly, as if announcing that despite all this exasperation he would still do the right thing.

He spurred his horse sharply, as if it were at fault for everything, and ordered the second squadron—Rostóv’s, under Denísov—to return to the bridge.

“There, just as I thought,” Rostóv told himself. “He wants to test me!” His heart tightened and blood rushed to his face. “Let him see whether I’m a coward!” he thought fiercely.

Again, on all the bright faces of the squadron, the serious expression appeared that they’d shown under fire. Rostóv watched his adversary, the colonel, searching for any sign of his theory, but the colonel didn’t glance his way, remaining, as always at the front, solemn and stern. Then came the word of command.

“Move quickly! Quickly!” came several voices from the ranks.

With sabers catching on bridles and spurs jingling, the hussars quickly dismounted, still unclear what they were to do. The men crossed themselves. Rostóv no longer looked at the colonel; there was no time. He was too anxious to keep up with the others—not wanting to fall behind made his heart stop momentarily. His hand shook as he handed his horse to an orderly, and his pulse hammered in his ears. Denísov rode past, yelling something as he leaned back in his saddle. All Rostóv saw were hussars dashing about, spurs tangling, sabers clattering.

“Stretchers!” someone yelled behind him.

Rostóv didn’t pause to consider what the call for stretchers meant; he just dashed forward, intent on being ahead of the others. Near the bridge, not watching his footing, he tripped in some sticky, trampled mud and fell on his hands. The others ran past.

“At the sides, Captain,” he heard the colonel’s voice—Bogdánich, having ridden ahead, had stopped near the bridge, looking triumphant and pleased.

Rostóv, wiping his muddy hands on his breeches, looked at his rival and started to run on, thinking that the further he went to the front, the better. But Bogdánich, without recognizing or even looking directly at Rostóv, called out:

“Who’s that in the middle of the bridge? To the right! Come back, Cadet!” he cried angrily; and turning to Denísov, who was showing off his boldness by riding onto the bridge planks:

“Why take such risks, Captain? You should dismount,” he said.

“Oh, every bullet has its billet,” answered Váska Denísov, turning in his saddle.

Meanwhile, Nesvítski, Zherkóv, and the officer of the suite were standing together out of range of the gunfire, watching first the small group of men with yellow shakos, dark green jackets braided with cord, and blue riding breeches, who were busy near the bridge, and then what was approaching from the distance on the opposite side—blue uniforms and groups with horses, easily recognized as artillery.

“Will they burn the bridge or not? Who’ll reach it first? Will they get there in time to set it on fire, or will the French get within grapeshot range and destroy them?” These were the questions on the minds of every man in the troops on the high ground above the bridge, each watching the bridge and the hussars in the bright evening light, and the advancing blue-coated soldiers from the other side with their bayonets and guns, all with sinking hearts.

“Ugh. The hussars are going to catch it hard!” said Nesvítski. “They’re within grapeshot range now.”

“He shouldn’t have taken so many men,” said the officer of the suite.

“That’s true enough,” replied Nesvítski. “Two good men could have done the job just as well.”

“Ah, your excellency,” chimed in Zherkóv, his eyes on the hussars, but with that innocent air that made it impossible to tell if he was joking or serious. “Ah, your excellency! Look at it this way! Send just two men? And who then would give us the Vladimir medal and ribbon? But as it is, even if they get hit, the squadron might be recommended for honors and he might get a ribbon. Our Bogdánich knows how these things are done.”

“There now!” exclaimed the officer of the suite, “that’s grapeshot.”

He pointed at the French guns, whose limbers were being detached and hastily moved away.

On the French side, among the groups with cannons, a cloud of smoke appeared, then a second and third almost at the same time, and just as the first report was heard, a fourth cloud was seen. Then two shots one right after the other, and finally a third.

“Oh! Oh!” groaned Nesvítski as if in real pain, grabbing the officer of the suite by the arm. “Look! Someone’s been hit! Down, down!”

“Two, I think.”

“If I were Tsar, I would never go to war,” said Nesvítski, turning away.

The French guns were quickly reloaded. The blue-coated infantry advanced at a run towards the bridge. Smoke appeared again, but at uneven intervals, and grapeshot rattled and cracked onto the bridge. But this time, Nesvítski couldn't see what was happening there, as a thick cloud of smoke rose from it. The hussars had managed to set it on fire, and now the French batteries were firing at them, not to stop them any longer, but simply because their guns were trained and there were targets to shoot at.

The French fired three rounds of grapeshot before the hussars reached their horses. Two shots were off-target and flew too high, but the last round landed among the group of hussars, knocking three of them down.

Rostóv, preoccupied by his thoughts about Bogdánich, had paused on the bridge, unsure of what to do. There was no one to cut down (as he always imagined battles would be), nor could he help set the bridge on fire because, unlike the other soldiers, he hadn’t brought any burning straw. He stood looking around, when suddenly he heard a rattling sound on the bridge, like nuts being spilled, and the hussar closest to him fell against the railing with a groan. Rostóv rushed over with the others. Again someone shouted, “Stretchers!” Four men grabbed the hussar and began lifting him.

“Oooh! For Christ’s sake, leave me alone!” cried the wounded man, but still he was picked up and put on the stretcher.

Nicholas Rostóv turned away and, as if searching for something, looked off into the distance at the Danube’s water, at the sky, and at the sun. How beautiful the sky looked—so blue, so calm, and so deep! How bright and glorious the setting sun! How softly the waters of the far-off Danube shimmered. Even more beautiful were the distant blue mountains beyond the river, the nunnery, the mysterious ravines, the pine forests, their tops hidden in mist... There was peace and happiness there... “I would wish for nothing else, nothing, if only I were there,” thought Rostóv. “In myself and in that sunshine there is so much happiness; but here... groans, suffering, fear, this uncertainty and rush... There— they're shouting again, and everyone is running back somewhere, and I’ll run with them, and it—death—is above me and all around... Another moment and I may never again see the sun, this water, that gorge!…”

Just then, the sun began to slip behind the clouds, and more stretchers came into view in front of Rostóv. And the fear of death, the stretchers, and his love of the sun and life all blended into a single overwhelming feeling.

“O Lord God! You who are in heaven, save, forgive, and protect me!” Rostóv whispered.

The hussars ran back to the men holding their horses; their voices sounded louder and steadier, and the stretchers disappeared from sight.

“Well, friend? So you’ve had a whiff of powder!” shouted Váska Denísov right by his ear.

“It’s all over; but I’m a coward—yes, a coward!” thought Rostóv, and with a deep sigh, he took Rook, his horse, who stood resting on one foot, from the orderly and began to mount.

“Was that grapeshot?” he asked Denísov.

“Yes, without a doubt!” cried Denísov. “You worked like real bricks and it’s nasty work! An attack’s pleasant work! Slashing away at the enemy! But this sort of thing is the very devil, with them shooting at you like you’re a target.”

And Denísov rode up to a group that had paused near Rostóv, which included the colonel, Nesvítski, Zherkóv, and the officer from the suite.

“Well, it seems no one noticed,” thought Rostóv. And it was true. No one had noticed, for everyone understood what a cadet under fire for the first time was feeling.

“Here’s something for you to report,” said Zherkóv. “Just watch—I’ll get promoted to sublieutenant.”

“Tell the prince I’ve fired the bridge!” said the colonel, triumphant and cheerful.

“And if he asks about losses?”

“Just a trifle,” said the colonel in his deep voice: “two hussars wounded, and one knocked out,” he added, unable to hide a pleased smile and pronouncing “knocked out” with special emphasis.

##  CHAPTER IX

Pursued by the French army of one hundred thousand men under Bonaparte’s command; encountering a hostile population; losing confidence in its allies; suffering from shortages; and forced to operate under unexpected conditions, the Russian army—thirty-five thousand strong under Kutúzov—was retreating hastily along the Danube. They stopped only when overtaken by the enemy, fighting rear-guard actions solely when necessary to retreat without losing their heavy equipment. There had been engagements at Lambach, Amstetten, and Melk, but despite the bravery and endurance the Russians displayed—even acknowledged by their enemies—the only result was an even faster retreat. Austrian troops that had avoided capture at Ulm and joined Kutúzov at Braunau now separated from the Russian army, leaving Kutúzov with only his exhausted and diminished forces. The defense of Vienna was now unthinkable. Instead of carrying out an offensive plan—one carefully crafted according to modern military science and handed to Kutúzov in Vienna by the Austrian Hofkriegsrath—his only, nearly unreachable goal was to unite with the Russian reinforcements advancing from the homeland, without losing his army as Mack had at Ulm.

On October twenty-eighth, Kutúzov led his army across to the left bank of the Danube and for the first time took a position with the river between them and the main body of the French. On the thirtieth, he attacked Mortier’s division on the left bank and routed it. In this action, for the first time, trophies were captured: banners, guns, and two enemy generals. For the first time after two weeks of retreat, the Russians had stopped and, after fighting, not only held the field but also pushed back the French. Though the soldiers were poorly clothed, exhausted, and had lost a third of their number in dead, wounded, sick, and stragglers; though many sick and wounded had been left behind on the far side of the Danube, entrusted in a letter from Kutúzov to the enemy’s compassion; and although the large hospitals and the houses in Krems, which were converted to military hospitals, could no longer contain all the sick and wounded, still the stand at Krems and the victory over Mortier lifted the army’s spirits greatly. Throughout the ranks and at headquarters, joyful—though mistaken—rumors spread about Russian columns approaching, Austrian victories, and Bonaparte’s retreat in panic.

During the battle, Prince Andrew served with Austrian General Schmidt, who was killed in action. His horse had been wounded beneath him, and his own arm was grazed by a bullet. As a mark of the commander in chief’s special favor, he was chosen to take news of the victory to the Austrian court, now no longer in Vienna (which the French threatened) but in Brünn. Despite his seemingly delicate build, Prince Andrew could handle physical fatigue better than many men far stronger than he looked. On the night of the battle, though he arrived at Krems excited but not tired, carrying dispatches from Dokhtúrov to Kutúzov, he was immediately sent off with a special dispatch to Brünn. To receive such an assignment was not only an honor but also an important step forward in his career.

The night was dark but starry, the road black against the snow that had fallen the day before—the day of the battle. As he rode, Prince Andrew replayed his recent experiences, thought about how the news of victory would be received, and recalled the send-off given to him by the commander in chief and fellow officers. He galloped along in a post chaise, relishing the feeling of finally beginning to achieve a long-sought happiness. Whenever he closed his eyes, he seemed to hear the wheels’ rattle and feel the thrill of victory anew. Sometimes he imagined the Russians fleeing and himself being killed, but quickly he would rouse himself, happy to realize that this was not the case; that, in fact, the French had retreated. Once more he recalled all the detailed memories of victory and his own calm courage during the battle, and reassured, he dozed off…. The dark, starry night was followed by a bright, cheerful morning. The snow was melting in the sun, the horses sped on, and forests, fields, and villages lined both sides of the road.

At one post station, he overtook a convoy of wounded Russian soldiers. The Russian officer in charge lay back in the front cart, cursing a soldier abusively. In each long German cart, six or more pale, dirty, bandaged men bounced over the rough road. Some spoke to each other in Russian, others ate bread; the more seriously wounded stared in silence, with the tired interest of sick children, at the envoy hurrying past.

Prince Andrew told his driver to stop and asked a soldier how he’d been wounded. “Day before yesterday, on the Danube,” the soldier answered. Prince Andrew took out his purse and gave the man three gold pieces.

“That’s for all of you,” he told the officer who approached.

“Get well soon, men!” he added to the soldiers. “There’s still plenty of work ahead.”

“What news, sir?” the officer asked, clearly hoping to chat.

“Good news!... Go on!” Andrew called to the driver, and off they went again.

By the time Prince Andrew rumbled over the paved streets of Brünn it was fully dark. He found himself surrounded by tall buildings, shop lights, street lamps, fine carriages, and all the vibrant life of a large town—always so tempting to a soldier after camp life. Despite his rapid travel and sleepless night, Prince Andrew, when he arrived at the palace, felt fresher and more alert than before. Only his eyes shone with a feverish light and his thoughts came with uncommon speed and clarity. He recalled the details of the battle, now clear and sharp—exactly as he planned to present them to Emperor Francis. He could vividly imagine the Emperor’s questions and his own answers. He expected to see the Emperor immediately. But at the main palace entrance, an official hurried out, and, learning that he was a special messenger, led him to a different entrance.

“To the right from the corridor, *Euer Hochgeboren!* There you will find the adjutant on duty,” the official said. “He will take you to the Minister of War.”

The on-duty adjutant greeted Prince Andrew, asked him to wait, and then entered the Minister of War’s office. Five minutes later, he returned and, bowing very formally, led Prince Andrew down a corridor to the room where the Minister was working. By his very attentive courtesy, the adjutant seemed to want to discourage any informal behavior from the Russian envoy.

Prince Andrew’s joy faded somewhat as he neared the minister’s door. He felt snubbed, and almost without realizing it, his sense of slight turned into a disdain he had no real reason to feel. His quick mind at once found a way for him to look down on the adjutant and the minister. “Far away from the smell of gunpowder, these people must think winning battles is easy!” he thought. Narrowing his eyes with disdain, he walked into the Minister’s office with slow, deliberate steps. This feeling grew stronger when he saw the minister sitting at a large table, reading papers and making notes, and for two or three minutes did not acknowledge Andrew’s arrival. A wax candle stood on either side of the minister’s bowed, balding head with gray temples. He read to the end of his paper without lifting his eyes at the sound of the door or the footsteps.

“Take this and deliver it,” he told his adjutant, handing over the papers—still ignoring the special messenger.

Prince Andrew felt that either the Minister of War cared less about Kutúzov’s army than any other matters, or he wanted to appear so. “But that doesn’t matter to me,” Andrew thought. The minister gathered up his papers, aligned them, and finally looked up. He had a distinctive, intellectual head, but as soon as he faced Prince Andrew, the intelligent, firm expression disappeared—replaced, in what was obviously a practiced and deliberate gesture, by the bland artificial smile of a man dealing with many petitioners one after another.

“From General Field Marshal Kutúzov?” he asked. “I hope it’s good news? There’s been an engagement with Mortier? A victory? It was about time!”

He took the dispatch, addressed to him, and read it with an unhappy look.

“Oh, my God! My God! Schmidt!” he exclaimed in German. “What a calamity! What a calamity!”

Having read through, he put the dispatch on the table and regarded Prince Andrew, thinking.

“Ah, what a calamity! You say the affair was decisive? But Mortier isn’t captured.” He pondered again. “Still, I’m glad you bring good news, although Schmidt’s loss is a high price for victory. His Majesty will undoubtedly wish to see you, though not today. Thank you! You must rest. Attend the levee tomorrow after the parade. I will let you know.”

The artificial smile, which had briefly vanished, returned to his face.

“*Au revoir!* Thank you very much. His Majesty will probably wish to see you,” he said, bowing.

When Prince Andrew left the palace, he felt that all the satisfaction and excitement the victory had brought him was now left behind with the indifferent Minister and the polite adjutant. His mood changed instantly; the battle felt like the distant memory of an event long ago.

##  CHAPTER X

Prince Andrew stayed in Brünn with Bilíbin, a Russian acquaintance of his in the diplomatic service.

“Ah, my dear prince! I couldn't have a more welcome visitor,” said Bilíbin as he came out to greet Prince Andrew. “Franz, put the prince’s things in my bedroom,” he said to the servant ushering Bolkónski in. “So you’re a bearer of good news—a victory? Wonderful! And here I am, sitting ill, as you can see.”

After washing and changing, Prince Andrew entered the diplomat’s luxurious study and sat down to the dinner prepared for him. Bilíbin settled in comfortably beside the fire.

After his journey and the campaign, during which he had been deprived of all comforts of cleanliness and the refinements of life, Prince Andrew felt a pleasant sense of relaxation in such luxurious surroundings—just as he had been used to since childhood. Besides, after his cold reception by the Austrians, it was a relief, even if not in Russian (for they spoke French), at least to converse with a Russian who, he assumed, shared the prevailing Russian dislike for the Austrians, which was particularly strong at that time.

Bilíbin was thirty-five years old, a bachelor, and belonged to the same social circle as Prince Andrew. They had met before in Petersburg, but became closer when Prince Andrew was in Vienna with Kutúzov. Just as Prince Andrew was a promising young man in the military, Bilíbin, even more so, promised a bright future in diplomacy. Though still young, he was no longer a novice diplomat, having joined the service at sixteen, worked in Paris and Copenhagen, and now held a significant post in Vienna. Both the foreign minister and the Russian ambassador in Vienna knew and valued him. He wasn't like those many diplomats who are praised for having certain negative qualities, for simply avoiding action and speaking French. He was one of those who liked to work and knew how to do it; and despite his natural laziness, he would sometimes spend whole nights at his writing table. He did his assignments well, no matter their significance. He cared less about the “why” of a diplomatic issue than the “how”—what mattered to him was doing reports, memoranda, or circulars beautifully, skillfully, and pointedly. Bilíbin was valued not just for his writing, but also for his skill in dealing with, and talking to, those in high positions.

Bilíbin enjoyed conversation as much as work, but only when it could be made witty and refined. In company, he always waited for a chance to turn a phrase and joined in only when he could say something memorable. His conversation was always peppered with cleverly crafted sayings of general interest, prepared in his mind with care so even the most superficial socialites could carry them from salon to salon. In fact, Bilíbin’s witticisms were traded about the Viennese drawing rooms and often influenced opinions on important matters.

His thin, sallow, lined face was always as fresh and well-washed as fingers after a Russian bath. The play of his wrinkles formed most of his facial expression: sometimes deep furrows creased his forehead and lifted his eyebrows, then his eyebrows would drop and lines formed on his cheeks. His small, deep-set eyes always twinkled and stared straight ahead.

“Well, now tell me about your exploits,” he said.

Bolkónski, modestly and without ever mentioning himself, recounted the engagement and his reception by the Minister of War.

“They received me and my news as one receives a dog in a game of skittles,” he concluded.

Bilíbin smiled, and the wrinkles on his face disappeared.

*“Cependant, mon cher,”* he said, examining his nails from a distance and puckering the skin above his left eye, *“malgré la haute estime que je professe pour* the Orthodox Russian army, *j’avoue que votre victoire n’est pas des plus victorieuses.”* \*

\* “But my dear fellow, with all my respect for the Orthodox Russian army, I must say that your victory was not particularly victorious.”

He continued like this in French, only using Russian words when he wanted to put special emphasis on them.

“Come now! With all your forces you fall upon poor Mortier and his one division, and even then Mortier slips through your fingers! Where is the victory there?”

“But seriously,” said Prince Andrew, “we can at least say without boasting that it was a bit better than at Ulm…”

“Why didn’t you capture at least one marshal for us?”

“Because things don't always go as planned or as smoothly as on parade. We expected, as I told you, to get at their rear by seven in the morning, but didn't reach it until five in the afternoon.”

“And why didn’t you do it at seven? You should have been there at seven in the morning,” returned Bilíbin with a smile. “You should’ve been there at seven, no?”

“Why did you fail to make Bonaparte see, by diplomatic means, that he’d best leave Genoa alone?” retorted Prince Andrew in the same tone.

“I know,” interrupted Bilíbin, “you think it’s very easy to take marshals sitting on a sofa by the fire! That’s true, but even so, why didn’t you capture him? So don’t be surprised if not only the Minister of War but also His Majesty the Emperor and King Francis himself aren’t much impressed by your victory. Even I, a mere secretary here, don’t feel inclined to reward my Franz with a thaler or let him go out with his *Liebchen* to the Prater… Though there’s no Prater here…”

He looked straight at Prince Andrew and suddenly smoothed his brow.

“Now it’s my turn to ask you ‘why?’ *mon cher*,” said Bolkónski. “I confess, I don’t understand: maybe there are diplomatic subtleties beyond my humble intelligence, but I can’t figure it out. Mack loses a whole army, Archduke Ferdinand and Archduke Karl make no moves and keep blundering, and only Kutúzov finally scores a real victory, breaking the French spell of invincibility, yet the Minister of War is not even interested in the details.”

“That’s just it, my dear fellow. You see, it’s *hurrah* for the Tsar, for Russia, for the Orthodox faith! All that's fine, but what does that matter to us, I mean the Austrian court? Bring us good news of a victory by Archduke Karl or Ferdinand (one archduke’s as good as any other, as you know), and we’ll celebrate—even if it’s just over one of Bonaparte’s fire brigades. But this sort of thing—it feels done on purpose to annoy us. Archduke Karl does nothing, Archduke Ferdinand disgraces himself, you abandon Vienna, don’t defend it—as if to say: ‘Heaven is with us, but good luck with your capital!’ The one general we all admired, Schmidt, you let get shot, and then you congratulate us on your victory! Admit it—your news could hardly be more irritating. It’s almost as if it were intentional. And besides, even if you’d won a brilliant victory, or even if Archduke Karl had, what would it really matter at this stage? Vienna is occupied by the French army!”

“What? Occupied? Vienna occupied?”

“Not only occupied; Bonaparte is at Schönbrunn, and Count Vrbna, our dear count, goes to him for orders.”

After the exhaustion of travel, his reception, and especially a good dinner, Bolkónski found he couldn't fully grasp the meaning of what he heard.

“Count Lichtenfels was here this morning,” Bilíbin continued, “and showed me a letter describing the French parade in Vienna in detail: Prince Murat *et tout le tremblement*… So, you see, your victory is nothing to celebrate, and you can't expect to be welcomed as a savior.”

“Really, I don't care about that, not at all,” said Prince Andrew, starting to realize that his news of the earlier battle was insignificant in light of Austria’s capital falling. “But how was Vienna taken? What about the bridge, the famous bridgehead, and Prince Auersperg? We heard that Prince Auersperg was defending Vienna,” he said.

“Prince Auersperg is here, on our side of the river, and is defending us—badly, I think, but he's defending us. Vienna, though, is on the other side. No, the bridge hasn’t been taken yet and I hope it won’t be—it’s mined and orders have been given to blow it up. If not for that, we would have long ago been in the Bohemian mountains, and you and your army would have had a tough time between two fires.”

“But even now, that does not mean the campaign is finished,” said Prince Andrew.

“Well, I think it is. The bigwigs here think so too, even if they dare not say it aloud. It will be as I said at the start of the campaign—it won’t be skirmishes at Dürrenstein, or gunpowder, that decide the matter, but those who started all this,” said Bilíbin, quoting another of his catchphrases, letting the wrinkles drop from his forehead, and pausing. “The only question is what will come from the meeting between Emperor Alexander and the King of Prussia in Berlin. If Prussia joins the Allies, Austria will have no choice but to continue the war. Otherwise it’s just a matter of deciding where to sign the new Campo Formio preliminaries.”

“What an extraordinary genius!” Prince Andrew suddenly exclaimed, clenching his small fist and striking the table, “and what luck that man has!”

“Buonaparte?” Bilíbin said with a questioning look, puckering his forehead as if about to say something witty. “Buonaparte?” he repeated, stressing the *u*: “Now that he lays down the law to Austria from Schönbrunn, *il faut lui faire grâce de l’u!* \* I’ll take the liberty of adopting an innovation and call him simply Bonaparte!”

\* “We must let him off the u!”

“But all joking aside,” said Prince Andrew, “do you really think the campaign is over?”

“This is what I think. Austria’s been made a fool of, and she’s not used to that. She’ll want revenge. She’s been tricked, first because her provinces have been plundered—they say the Holy Russian army loots terribly—her army is shattered, her capital taken, and all that for the *beaux yeux* \* of His Sardinian Majesty. So—I’m speaking just between us—I instinctively feel we’re being deceived, and my instinct tells me there are negotiations with France, and plans for a separate secret peace.”

\* Fine eyes.

“Impossible!” cried Prince Andrew. “That would be too disgraceful.”

“If we live, we’ll see,” replied Bilíbin, his face once again smoothing over to signal the conversation was finished.

When Prince Andrew entered the room prepared for him and lay down in a clean shirt on the feather bed with its warmed, fragrant pillows, the battle he had reported on felt very far away. Thoughts of the Prussian alliance, Austria’s betrayal, Bonaparte’s latest triumph, tomorrow’s levee and parade, and his upcoming audience with Emperor Francis filled his mind.

He closed his eyes, and immediately the sounds of cannon fire, musketry, and rattling carriage wheels seemed to fill his ears. Once more, he imagined the musketeers, drawn out in a thin line, descending the hill, the French firing, his heart pounding as he rode next to Schmidt with bullets whistling all around, and he felt the thrill of life tenfold, as he hadn’t since childhood.

He woke up…

“Yes, that all happened!” he said, smiling happily to himself like a child, then fell into a deep, youthful sleep.

##  CHAPTER XI

The next day, he woke up late. As he recalled his recent experiences, his first thought was that today he had to be presented to Emperor Francis; he remembered the Minister of War, the polite Austrian adjutant, Bilíbin, and last night’s discussion. After dressing for court in his full parade uniform, which he hadn’t worn for some time, he went to Bilíbin’s study feeling refreshed, energetic, and handsome, with his hand bandaged. There were four men from the diplomatic corps in the study. Prince Hippolyte Kurágin, a secretary to the embassy, was already known to Bolkónski. Bilíbin introduced him to the others.

The gentlemen gathered at Bilíbin’s were young, wealthy, and lively members of society who, as in Vienna, formed a special circle that Bilíbin, their leader, called *les nôtres*. \* This group, made up almost entirely of diplomats, clearly had its own interests, separate from the war or politics, focusing instead on high society, certain women, and the official side of service. These men accepted Prince Andrew as one of their own, an honor they didn’t often grant. Out of politeness and to start conversation, they asked him a few questions about the army and the battle, then shifted to cheerful jokes and gossip.

\* Ours.

“But the best part was,” said one, talking about a fellow diplomat’s misfortune, “that the Chancellor told him flat out his appointment to London was a promotion and he was to consider it as such. Can you imagine how he looked?…”

“But the worst of it, gentlemen—and I’m exposing Kurágin to you all—is that the man is suffering, and this Don Juan, this wicked fellow, is taking full advantage!”

Prince Hippolyte lounged in a chair with his legs flung over its arm. He began to laugh.

“Tell me more about that!” he said.

“Oh, you Don Juan! You serpent!” several shouted.

“You, Bolkónski, don’t know,” Bilíbin said, turning to Prince Andrew, “that all the French army’s atrocities (or the Russian’s, for that matter) are nothing compared to what this man has done to the women!”

*“La femme est la compagne de l’homme,”* \* announced Prince Hippolyte, and began peering at his raised legs through his lorgnette.

\* “Woman is man’s companion.”

Bilíbin and the rest of “ours” burst out laughing in Hippolyte’s face, and Prince Andrew realized that Hippolyte—about whom, he admitted, he’d been almost jealous for his wife’s sake—was the joke of this group.

“Oh, I have to show you something,” Bilíbin whispered to Bolkónski. “Kurágin is priceless when he starts talking politics—his seriousness is a spectacle!”

He sat down beside Hippolyte and, wrinkling his forehead, started a political conversation. Prince Andrew and the others gathered around the pair.

“The Berlin cabinet cannot express a feeling of alliance,” Hippolyte began, looking around at the others with importance, “without expressing… as in its last note… you understand… Besides, unless His Majesty the Emperor departs from the principle of our alliance…

“Wait, I haven’t finished…” he said to Prince Andrew, grabbing his arm, “I believe intervention will be stronger than nonintervention. And…” he paused. “Finally, one cannot blame the nonreceipt of our dispatch of November 18. That’s how it will end.” He let go of Bolkónski’s arm to show he was done.

“Demosthenes, I know you by the pebble you hide in your golden mouth!” said Bilíbin, his mop of hair moving with satisfaction.

Everyone burst out laughing—Hippolyte louder than anyone. He clearly felt embarrassed and breathed heavily, but could not stop the wild laughter that shook his usually blank face.

“Well then, gentlemen,” said Bilíbin, “Bolkónski is my guest here in Brünn. I want to give him every pleasure this place can offer. In Vienna it would be easy, but here, in this miserable Moravian hole, it’s more difficult, so I ask for your help. Brünn’s charms must be shown to him. You take care of the theater, I’ll handle society, and you, Hippolyte, the women, of course.”

“We must introduce him to Amelie, she’s divine!” said one of “ours,” kissing his fingertips.

“We really must turn this bloodthirsty soldier toward more civilized interests,” said Bilíbin.

“I probably won’t be able to take advantage of your hospitality, gentlemen—it’s time for me to go,” replied Prince Andrew, glancing at his watch.

“Where to?”

“To see the Emperor.”

“Oh! Oh! Oh!”

“Well, *au revoir*, Bolkónski! *Au revoir*, Prince! Come back early for dinner,” several said. “We’ll take care of you.”

“When you speak to the Emperor, make sure you praise the way provisions are supplied and the routes provided,” Bilíbin said, walking him to the hall.

“I’d like to praise them, but honestly, based on what I know, I can’t,” Bolkónski replied, smiling.

“Well, say what you can, anyway. He loves giving audiences, but he doesn’t like to talk and, as you’ll see, isn’t good at it.”

##  CHAPTER XII

At the levee, Prince Andrew stood among the Austrian officers as instructed, and Emperor Francis merely looked intently at him and nodded with his long head. But after the ceremony, the adjutant he had seen the previous day came over formally and told Bolkónski that the Emperor wished to grant him an audience. Emperor Francis received him standing in the middle of the room. Before the conversation began, Prince Andrew noticed that the Emperor seemed uneasy and blushed, as though not knowing what to say.

“Tell me, when did the battle begin?” he asked hurriedly.

Prince Andrew answered. More questions followed, just as simple: “Was Kutúzov well? When did he leave Krems?” and so on. The Emperor spoke as if his only purpose was to ask a certain number of questions—the answers themselves, as was very clear, did not interest him.

“At what o’clock did the battle begin?” asked the Emperor.

“I cannot inform Your Majesty exactly when the battle began at the front, but at Dürrenstein, where I was, our attack started after five in the afternoon,” replied Bolkónski, becoming more animated and hoping he would have the chance to provide a detailed account, which he had prepared in his mind, of all he knew and had seen. But the Emperor smiled and interrupted him.

“How many miles?”

“From where to where, Your Majesty?”

“From Dürrenstein to Krems.”

“Three and a half miles, Your Majesty.”

“The French have abandoned the left bank?”

“According to the scouts, the last of them crossed on rafts during the night.”

“Is there enough forage in Krems?”

“Forage has not been supplied to the extent—”

The Emperor interrupted him.

“At what o’clock was General Schmidt killed?”

“At seven o’clock, I believe.”

“At seven o’clock? That’s very sad, very sad!”

The Emperor thanked Prince Andrew and bowed. Prince Andrew withdrew and was immediately surrounded by courtiers from all sides. Everywhere he received friendly looks and heard pleasant words. Yesterday’s adjutant lightly scolded him for not staying at the palace and offered him his own house. The Minister of War approached and congratulated him on receiving the Maria Theresa Order, third grade, which the Emperor would bestow upon him. The Empress’ chamberlain invited him to visit Her Majesty. The archduchess also wished to see him. He did not know whom to answer first, and for a few moments gathered his thoughts. Then the Russian ambassador took him by the shoulder, led him to the window, and began speaking with him.

Contrary to Bilíbin’s prediction, the news he brought was happily received. A thanksgiving service was arranged, Kutúzov was awarded the Grand Cross of Maria Theresa, and the whole army received rewards. Bolkónski was invited everywhere and had to spend the entire morning calling on the leading Austrian dignitaries. Between four and five in the afternoon, after completing his round of visits, he was returning to Bilíbin’s house, planning a letter to his father about the battle and his visit to Brünn. At the door he found a carriage half filled with luggage. Franz, Bilíbin’s servant, was struggling to drag a portmanteau out the front door.

Before returning to Bilíbin’s, Prince Andrew had gone to a bookshop to get some books for the campaign and had spent some time there.

“What is it?” he asked.

“Oh, your excellency!” said Franz, struggling to load the portmanteau into the carriage, “we are to move on even farther. The scoundrel is at our heels again!”

“Eh? What?” asked Prince Andrew.

Bilíbin came out to meet him. His usually calm face was showing excitement.

“There now! Admit this is delightful,” he said. “That business with the Thabor Bridge, at Vienna…They’ve crossed without resistance!”

Prince Andrew was confused.

“But where do you come from not to know what every coachman in the city knows?”

“I come from the archduchess’s. I heard nothing there.”

“And you didn’t notice everyone is packing?”

“I did not… What is going on?” inquired Prince Andrew impatiently.

“What’s happening? The French have crossed the bridge Auersperg was guarding, and the bridge wasn’t blown up: now Murat is racing down the road to Brünn and will be here in a day or two.”

“What? Here? But why didn’t they blow up the bridge if it was mined?”

“That’s what I want to know. No one, not even Bonaparte, knows why.”

Bolkónski shrugged.

“But if they crossed the bridge, the army is lost? It’ll be cut off,” he said.

“Exactly,” answered Bilíbin. “Listen! The French entered Vienna, as I told you. Very well. The next day, which was yesterday, those gentlemen, *messieurs les maréchaux*,\* Murat, Lannes, and Belliard, mount their horses and ride to the bridge. (Note all three are Gascons.) ‘Gentlemen,’ says one, ‘you know the Thabor Bridge is mined and doubly mined, and there are threatening fortifications at its head, and an army of fifteen thousand men ordered to blow up the bridge and block us? But it will please our sovereign, the Emperor Napoleon, if we seize this bridge, so let’s three go and take it!’ ‘Yes, let’s!’ say the others. Off they go, take the bridge, cross it, and now with their whole army are on this side of the Danube, advancing on us, you, and your supply lines.”

\* The marshals.

“Enough joking,” said Prince Andrew, sadly and seriously. This news troubled him, but at the same time pleased him.

As soon as he learned that the Russian army was in such a desperate situation, it occurred to him that perhaps he was fated to lead it out of this trap; that here was the Toulon that would raise him from the ranks of unknown officers and offer him his first step towards glory! Listening to Bilíbin, he was already imagining how, on reaching the army, he would give an opinion at the war council that would be the only one capable of saving the army, and how he alone would be trusted with carrying out the plan.

“Stop this joking,” he said.

“I am not joking,” Bilíbin continued. “Nothing could be more true or sad. These gentlemen ride up to the bridge alone and wave white handkerchiefs; they assure the officer on duty that they, the marshals, are on their way to negotiate with Prince Auersperg. The officer lets them enter the *tête-de-pont* (bridgehead).\* They spin a thousand tall tales, claiming that the war is over, that Emperor Francis is arranging a meeting with Bonaparte, that they wish to see Prince Auersperg, and so on. The officer sends for Auersperg; these gentlemen embrace the officers, make jokes, sit on the cannon, and meanwhile a French battalion advances onto the bridge unnoticed, throws the bags of incendiary material into the water, and approaches the *tête-de-pont*. At last, the lieutenant general—our dear Prince Auersperg von Mautern—arrives. ‘Dearest foe! Flower of the Austrian army, hero of the Turkish wars! Hostilities are at an end, let us shake hands…. Emperor Napoleon is eager to meet Prince Auersperg.’ In short, these gentlemen, truly Gascons, bewilder him with flattery, and he is so taken by his sudden intimacy with the French marshals, so dazzled by Murat’s cloak and ostrich plumes, *qu’il n’y voit que du feu, et oublie celui qu’il devait faire faire sur l’ennemi!”*\*(2) Despite his animated storytelling, Bilíbin paused after this phrase to let it sink in. “The French battalion charges the bridgehead, spikes the guns, and the bridge is taken! But the best part of all,” he continued, his excitement softened by the pleasure of telling the story, “is that the sergeant in charge of the cannon, who was supposed to give the signal to fire the mines and blow up the bridge—this sergeant sees the French rushing onto the bridge and gets ready to fire, but Lannes stops him. The sergeant, apparently wiser than his general, approaches Auersperg and says, ‘Prince, you are being deceived, there are the French!’ Murat, seeing the situation is lost if the sergeant is allowed to speak, turns to Auersperg with fake surprise (he is a real Gascon) and says: ‘I don’t recognize the world-famous Austrian discipline if you allow a subordinate to address you like that!’ It was genius. Prince Auersperg, feeling his pride at stake, orders the sergeant to be arrested. You have to admit, this affair of the Thabor Bridge is wonderful! It's not really stupidity, nor trickery….”

\* Bridgehead.

\*(2) That their lies distract him so much he forgets he should be firing at the enemy.

“It might be treason,” said Prince Andrew, clearly imagining the gray coats, the wounds, the smoke of gunpowder, the sounds of firing, and the glory that awaited him.

“Not that either. That casts the court in too dark a light,” replied Bilíbin. “It’s not treason or trickery or stupidity: it’s just like at Ulm... it is…”—he seemed to be searching for the right word. *“C’est… c’est du Mack. Nous sommes mackés* (It is… it is a bit of Mack. We are *Macked*),” he finished, feeling he had coined a clever new phrase that would catch on. His wrinkled brow smoothed in satisfaction, and with a slight smile he began inspecting his nails.

“Where are you going?” he suddenly asked Prince Andrew, who had stood up and was heading toward his room.

“I’m leaving.”

“Where to?”

“To the army.”

“But you were going to stay another two days?”

“But now I’m leaving immediately.”

And Prince Andrew, after giving his departure instructions, went to his room.

“You know, *mon cher*,” said Bilíbin, following him, “I have been thinking about you. Why are you going?”

And as if to prove how convincing his argument was, all the wrinkles vanished from his face.

Prince Andrew looked at him questioningly and didn’t answer.

“Why are you going? I know you think it’s your duty to ride back to the army because it’s in danger. I understand. *Mon cher*, that’s heroism!”

“Not at all,” said Prince Andrew.

“But since you’re a philosopher, be consistent—look at the other side, and you’ll see your duty is actually to take care of yourself. Leave it to those who are fit for nothing else…. You haven't been ordered to return and haven’t been dismissed from here; so, you can stay and go with us wherever our bad luck leads. They say we are headed to Olmütz, and Olmütz is quite a decent town. You and I will travel comfortably in my *calèche*.”

“Stop joking, Bilíbin,” Bolkónski exclaimed.

“I mean it sincerely, as a friend! Think about it! Where and why are you going when you could stay here? There are only two possibilities,” and the skin above his left temple creased, “either you won’t reach your regiment before peace is signed, or you’ll share defeat and disgrace with Kutúzov’s whole army.”

And Bilíbin smoothed his temple, feeling his dilemma was unanswerable.

“I can’t argue about it,” replied Prince Andrew coldly, though he thought, “I am going to save the army.”

“My dear fellow, you are a hero!” said Bilíbin.

##  CHAPTER XIII

That same night, after saying goodbye to the Minister of War, Bolkónski set out to rejoin the army, not knowing where he would find it and fearing that he might be captured by the French on the way to Krems.

In Brünn, everyone connected with the court was packing, and the heavy baggage was already being sent off to Olmütz. Near Hetzelsdorf, Prince Andrew reached the main road along which the Russian army was moving with great speed and in utter confusion. The road was so clogged with carts that it was impossible to pass in a carriage. Prince Andrew took a horse and a Cossack from a Cossack commander, and, hungry and tired, made his way past the baggage wagons, riding in search of the commander in chief and his own luggage. As he went, he heard alarming reports about the army’s situation, and the disorderly flight of the troops he saw only confirmed these rumors.

*“Cette armée russe que l’or de l’Angleterre a transportée des extrémités de l’univers, nous allons lui faire éprouver le même sort—(le sort de l’armée d’Ulm).”* \* He recalled these words from Bonaparte’s address to his army at the start of the campaign, and they filled him with amazement at his hero’s genius, wounded pride, and a hope for glory. “And if there’s nothing left but to die?” he thought. “Well, if it comes to that, I won’t do it any worse than anyone else.”

\* “That Russian army which has been brought from the ends of the earth by English gold, we shall cause to share the same fate—(the fate of the army at Ulm).”

He looked with disdain at the endless, tangled mass of detachments, carts, guns, artillery, and yet more baggage wagons and vehicles of every kind, jostling each other and blocking the muddy road three, sometimes four, abreast. From all directions, as far as he could hear, there was the rattle of wheels, the creaking of carts and gun carriages, the trampling of horses, cracking of whips, shouts, urging of teams, and the cursing of soldiers, orderlies, and officers. Along the road’s edges were fallen horses, some skinned, some not, and broken-down carts beside which lone soldiers waited for something, and everywhere soldiers straggling from their units—crowds wandering off to nearby villages or coming back with sheep, chickens, hay, and bulging sacks. At every rise or dip in the road, the crowds grew denser and the shouting even louder. Soldiers, knee-deep in mud, pushed the guns and wagons themselves. Whips cracked, hooves slipped, traces snapped, and voices strained with shouting. Officers managing the march rode back and forth among the carts, their orders barely audible over the uproar; their faces showed that they had given up hope of restoring order.

“Here’s our good old Orthodox Russian army,” thought Bolkónski, recalling Bilíbin’s words.

Wanting to find out where the commander in chief was, he rode up to a convoy. Right in front of him appeared a strange one-horse vehicle, obviously cobbled together by soldiers from any materials at hand and looking like a mix between a cart, a cabriolet, and a *calèche*. A soldier was driving, with a woman bundled up in shawls sitting behind the apron under the vehicle's leather hood. Prince Andrew rode up, about to ask a soldier his question, when his attention was caught by the desperate shrieks of the woman in the carriage. A transport officer was beating the soldier who was driving the woman for trying to move ahead of others, and his whip struck the apron of the vehicle. The woman screamed shrilly. Seeing Prince Andrew, she leaned out from behind the apron, waving her thin arms from under her woollen shawl, and cried:

“Mr. Aide-de-camp! Mr. Aide-de-camp!… For heaven’s sake… Help me! What will happen to us? I am the wife of the doctor of the Seventh Chasseurs… They won’t let us through, we are left behind and have lost our people…”

“I’ll flatten you into a pancake!” the angry officer shouted at the soldier. “Turn back with your tart!”

“Mr. Aide-de-camp! Help me!… What does this mean?” screamed the doctor’s wife.

“Let this cart through, will you? Don’t you see there’s a woman?” said Prince Andrew, riding up to the officer.

The officer glared at him and, without replying, turned again to the soldier. “I’ll teach you to push on!… Back!”

“Let them through, I tell you!” repeated Prince Andrew, tightening his lips.

“And who are you?” the officer shouted back at him with drunken fury, “who are *you?* Are you in command here? Eh? I am commander here, not you! Go back or I’ll flatten you into a pancake,” he repeated, clearly enjoying the phrase.

“That was a nice snub for the little aide-de-camp,” a voice remarked nearby.

Prince Andrew saw the officer was in that senseless, drunken rage where a man doesn’t know what he’s saying. He realized that standing up for the doctor’s wife in her odd carriage might expose him to what he feared most—ridicule; but his instinct drove him on. Before the officer finished his sentence, Prince Andrew, his face twisted with anger, rode up to him and raised his riding whip.

“Kind—ly let—them—through!”

The officer waved his arm and quickly rode away.

“It’s all these staff fellows’ fault that there’s this mess,” he muttered. “Do as you please.”

Prince Andrew, not looking up, sped away from the doctor’s wife, who was calling him her rescuer, and, thinking with disgust about every detail of the humiliating episode, he galloped on to the village where he was told the commander in chief was.

When he reached the village, he dismounted and approached the nearest house, hoping to rest even if only for a moment, eat something, and try to untangle the disturbing and tormenting thoughts that clouded his mind. “This is a crowd of scoundrels, not an army,” he was thinking as he walked up to the first house’s window, when a familiar voice called his name.

He turned around. Nesvítski’s handsome face was peering out of the small window. Nesvítski, his lips moving as he chewed something, waved him to come inside.

“Bolkónski! Bolkónski!… Don’t you hear? Eh? Come here, quickly…” he shouted.

Entering the house, Prince Andrew saw Nesvítski and another adjutant eating something. They quickly turned to him, asking if he had any news, and on their familiar faces he could see anxiety and worry. This was especially clear on Nesvítski’s usually laughing face.

“Where is the commander in chief?” asked Bolkónski.

“Here, in that house,” the adjutant replied.

“So, is it true that there’s peace and capitulation?” Nesvítski asked.

“I was going to ask you. I know nothing except that just getting here was a struggle.”

“And us, my friend! It’s horrible! I shouldn’t have laughed at Mack, we’re getting it even worse,” said Nesvítski. “Sit down and eat something.”

“You won’t be able to find your baggage or anything else now, Prince. And who knows where your man Peter is,” said the other adjutant.

“Where are headquarters?”

“We’re to spend the night in Znaim,” he answered.

“Well, I’ve packed everything I need onto two horses,” said Nesvítski. “They’ve made great packs for me—good enough to cross the Bohemian mountains with. It’s a bad business, old boy! But what’s wrong with you? You must be sick, you’re shivering,” he added, noticing that Prince Andrew flinched as if from an electric shock.

“It’s nothing,” replied Prince Andrew.

He had just recalled his recent scene with the doctor’s wife and the convoy officer.

“What’s the commander in chief doing here?” he asked.

“I can’t figure it out at all,” said Nesvítski.

“Well, all I can say is that everything is disgraceful, disgraceful, simply disgraceful!” said Prince Andrew, and he left for the house where the commander in chief was.

Passing Kutúzov’s carriage and the tired saddle horses of his staff, whose Cossacks were talking loudly among themselves, Prince Andrew entered the passage. He was told that Kutúzov was inside with Prince Bagratión and Weyrother. Weyrother was the Austrian general who had succeeded Schmidt. In the passage, little Kozlóvski was crouched in front of a clerk. The clerk, with his sleeves rolled up, was quickly writing at a tub turned upside down. Kozlóvski’s face looked worn—clearly he too had not slept the night. He glanced at Prince Andrew but didn’t even nod hello.

“Second line…have you written it?” he continued dictating to the clerk. “The Kiev Grenadiers, Podolian…”

“One can’t write that fast, your honor,” said the clerk, glancing at Kozlóvski with irritation and a lack of respect.

From behind the door came the sounds of Kutúzov’s voice—excited and dissatisfied—interrupted by another, unfamiliar voice. From the tone of these voices, the distracted way Kozlóvski looked at him, the disrespectful attitude of the exhausted clerk, the fact that both the clerk and Kozlóvski were squatting on the floor next to a tub so close to the commander in chief, and the loud laughter of the Cossacks holding the horses outside the window, Prince Andrew sensed that something important and disastrous was about to happen.

He turned to Kozlóvski with urgent questions.

“Right away, Prince,” said Kozlóvski. “Orders for Bagratión.”

“What about surrender?”

“Nothing like that. Orders are being given for a battle.”

Prince Andrew moved toward the door from which the voices were coming. Just as he was about to open it, the voices stopped, the door opened, and Kutúzov appeared in the doorway with his eagle nose and puffy face. Prince Andrew stood directly in front of Kutúzov, but the expression in the commander in chief’s lone sound eye showed he was so absorbed in thought and anxiety that he did not even notice Andrew. He looked right at his adjutant’s face without recognizing him.

“Well, is it finished?” he asked Kozlóvski.

“One moment, your excellency.”

Bagratión, a lean, middle-aged man of average height with a firm, unreadable face of Eastern type, came out after the commander in chief.

“I have the honor to present myself,” repeated Prince Andrew, a bit louder, handing Kutúzov an envelope.

“Ah, from Vienna? Very good. Later, later!”

Kutúzov walked out onto the porch with Bagratión.

“Well, goodbye, Prince,” he said to Bagratión. “My blessing, and may Christ be with you in your great effort!”

His face suddenly softened, and tears came to his eyes. With his left hand he drew Bagratión to him, and with his right, bearing a ring, he made the sign of the cross over him with a gesture that was evidently habitual, offering his puffy cheek, though Bagratión kissed him on the neck instead.

“Christ be with you!” Kutúzov repeated and headed for his carriage. “Ride with me,” he said to Bolkónski.

“Your excellency, I would like to be of service here. Please let me stay with Prince Bagratión’s detachment.”

“Get in,” said Kutúzov, and seeing that Bolkónski hesitated, he added, “I need good officers myself, need them!”

They got into the carriage and rode for several minutes in silence.

“There is still much, very much ahead of us,” he said, as if, with an old man’s insight, he understood all that was on Bolkónski’s mind. “If even a tenth of his detachment returns, I shall thank God,” he added, as if speaking to himself.

Prince Andrew glanced at Kutúzov’s face, only a foot away from his own, and couldn’t help but notice the carefully washed seams of the scar near his temple—where an Ismail bullet had pierced his skull—and the empty eye socket. “Yes, he has the right to speak with such calm about the deaths of those men,” thought Bolkónski.

“That’s why I beg you to assign me to that detachment,” he said.

Kutúzov gave no reply. He seemed to have forgotten what he’d just said, and sat lost in thought. Five minutes later, gently swaying with the carriage’s soft springs, he turned to Prince Andrew. His face showed not a trace of agitation. With a touch of delicate irony, he questioned Prince Andrew about details of his interview with the Emperor, about comments he’d heard at court regarding the Krems affair, and about some ladies they both knew.

##  CHAPTER XIV

On November 1, Kutúzov had received news from a spy that the army under his command was in an almost hopeless situation. The spy reported that the French, after crossing the bridge at Vienna, were advancing in great force on Kutúzov’s lines of communication with the troops arriving from Russia. If Kutúzov decided to stay at Krems, Napoleon’s army of one hundred and fifty thousand men would cut him off completely and surround his exhausted army of forty thousand, putting him in the same desperate position as Mack at Ulm. If Kutúzov chose to abandon the road connecting him with the Russian reinforcements, he would be forced to march without a road into the unknown Bohemian mountains, defending himself against superior enemy forces and giving up hope of meeting up with Buxhöwden. If Kutúzov decided to retreat along the road from Krems to Olmütz, to join the advancing Russian troops, he risked having the French—who had already crossed the Vienna bridge—beat him to it, and, encumbered by baggage and transport, he’d have to fight while marching against an enemy three times as strong closing in from two sides.

Kutúzov chose this last option.

According to the spy, the French, having crossed the Vienna bridge, were advancing by forced marches toward Znaim, which was sixty-six miles along Kutúzov’s line of retreat. If Kutúzov reached Znaim before the French, there was a good chance of saving the army. If the French got there first, the whole army could face disgrace like Ulm—or total destruction. But it was impossible to beat the French to Znaim with the whole Russian army; the road from Vienna to Znaim for the French was both shorter and better than for the Russians from Krems.

The night he got the news, Kutúzov sent Bagratión’s vanguard, four thousand strong, to the right across the hills from the Krems-Znaim road to the Vienna-Znaim road. Bagratión was to march without resting, halt facing Vienna with Znaim behind him, and if he arrived before the French, hold them back as long as possible. Kutúzov himself, with all the baggage, took the road toward Znaim.

Marching thirty miles that wild night across trackless hills, with hungry, ill-shod soldiers, losing a third of his men as stragglers along the way, Bagratión arrived on the Vienna-Znaim road at Hollabrünn just a few hours ahead of the French coming from Vienna. Kutúzov, with all the baggage, had still a few days’ march before reaching Znaim. Thus, Bagratión and his four thousand worn-out, hungry men would have to hold off the entire enemy army at Hollabrünn for days—which was clearly impossible. But a strange twist of fate made the impossible possible. The trick that let the French capture the Vienna bridge without a fight had encouraged Murat to try to fool Kutúzov in much the same way. Encountering Bagratión’s small detachment on the Znaim road, he mistook it for Kutúzov’s whole force. To be certain of crushing it, he waited for more troops from Vienna, and with this in mind, offered a three-day truce, on condition that both armies stay put. Murat claimed that peace talks were going on, and offered the truce to avoid unnecessary bloodshed. Count Nostitz, the Austrian general manning the advanced posts, believed Murat’s envoy and withdrew, leaving Bagratión’s division exposed. Another envoy came to the Russians, announcing the peace negotiations and proposing the three-day truce. Bagratión replied that he had no authority to accept or reject a truce, and sent his adjutant to Kutúzov to report the offer.

A truce was Kutúzov’s one chance to buy time—giving Bagratión’s exhausted men a short rest, and allowing the baggage and heavy convoys (their movements hidden from the French) to move even one stage closer to Znaim. The truce offer gave the one and only, though unexpected, chance of rescuing the army. Upon hearing the news, he immediately sent Adjutant General Wintzingerode, who was with him, to the enemy camp. Wintzingerode was to accept the truce and also propose terms of capitulation; meanwhile, Kutúzov sent his adjutants back to hurry the movements of the baggage trains along the Krems-Znaim road as much as possible. Bagratión’s exhausted, hungry detachment, which alone was covering for the retreat of transports and the whole army, had to hold its ground against an enemy eight times its size.

Kutúzov’s hopes—that the proposal of capitulation (which was not actually binding) would buy time for at least part of the convoy to get through, and that Murat’s mistake would soon be discovered—turned out to be right. As soon as Bonaparte (then at Schönbrunn, sixteen miles from Hollabrünn) got Murat’s dispatch about the truce and possible surrender, he saw through the trick and wrote the following letter to Murat:

Schönbrunn, 25th Brumaire, 1805,

at eight o’clock in the morning

To PRINCE MURAT,

I am at a loss for words to describe my displeasure. You command only my advance guard, and you had no right to arrange an armistice without my orders. You are making me lose the fruits of the campaign. Break the armistice immediately and attack the enemy. Tell him that the general who signed that capitulation had no authority to do so—only the Emperor of Russia has that right.

If, however, the Russian Emperor approves the agreement, I will approve it; but it is just a trick. Advance and destroy the Russian army… You are in a position to take their baggage and artillery.

The Russian Emperor’s aide-de-camp is an imposter. Officers are nothing without authority, and this one had none… The Austrians were tricked at the Vienna bridge; now you are being fooled by the Emperor’s aide-de-camp.

NAPOLEON

Bonaparte’s adjutant rode at full speed with this threatening letter to Murat. Bonaparte himself, not trusting his generals, set out with all the Guards for the battlefield, afraid to let his ready prey escape. Meanwhile, Bagratión’s four thousand men cheerfully built campfires, dried off and warmed themselves, cooked porridge for the first time in three days, and none of them knew or even suspected what was about to happen.

##  CHAPTER XV

Between three and four o’clock in the afternoon, Prince Andrew, who had insisted on his request to Kutúzov, arrived at Grunth and reported to Bagratión. Bonaparte’s adjutant had not yet reached Murat’s detachment, and the battle had not yet started. In Bagratión’s detachment, no one knew anything about the overall situation. Some discussed peace but did not believe it was possible; others spoke of a battle but doubted an engagement was imminent. Bagratión, knowing Bolkónski was a favorite and trusted adjutant, received him with distinction and special marks of favor. He explained that there would probably be a battle that day or the next, giving him complete freedom either to remain with him during the battle or join the rearguard to help oversee the order of retreat, “which is also very important.”

“However, there will hardly be an engagement today,” said Bagratión, as if to reassure Prince Andrew.

“If he’s just another little staff dandy sent to earn a medal, he can get his reward just as well in the rearguard, but if he wants to stay with me, let him… he’ll be of use here if he’s a brave officer,” thought Bagratión. Prince Andrew, without replying, asked the prince’s permission to ride around the position to look at the arrangement of forces, so he would know his bearings should he be sent to carry out an order. The officer on duty, a handsome, elegantly dressed man with a diamond ring on his forefinger, who liked to speak French though he spoke it poorly, offered to show Prince Andrew around.

On every side they saw rain-soaked officers with gloomy faces who seemed to be searching for something, and soldiers dragging doors, benches, and fencing from the village.

“There now, Prince! We can’t stop those fellows,” said the staff officer, pointing to the soldiers. “The officers don’t keep them under control. And there,” he pointed to a sutler’s tent, “they crowd in and sit around. This morning I threw them all out, and now look, it’s full again. I must go in, Prince, and scare them a bit. It won’t take a moment.”

“Yes, let’s go in, and I’ll get myself a roll and some cheese,” said Prince Andrew, who had not yet had time to eat.

“Why didn’t you mention it, Prince? I would have offered you something.”

They dismounted and entered the tent. Several officers, with flushed and weary faces, were sitting at the table eating and drinking.

“What does this mean, gentlemen?” said the staff officer, in the reproachful tone of someone who has repeated the same thing many times before. “You know you mustn’t leave your posts like this. The prince ordered that no one should leave his post. Now you, Captain,” and he turned to a thin, dirty little artillery officer who, without his boots (he had given them to the canteen keeper to dry), and only in his stockings, got up as they entered, smiling not entirely at ease.

“Well, aren’t you ashamed of yourself, Captain Túshin?” he continued. “One would think as an artillery officer you’d set a good example, yet here you are without your boots! The alarm will be sounded and you’ll be in quite the predicament without your boots!” (The staff officer smiled.) “Kindly return to your posts, gentlemen, all of you!” he added in a commanding tone.

Prince Andrew smiled involuntarily as he looked at the artillery officer Túshin, who stood silent and smiling, shifting from one stockinged foot to the other, glancing questioningly with his large, intelligent, kind eyes from Prince Andrew to the staff officer.

“The soldiers say it feels easier without boots,” said Captain Túshin, smiling shyly in his uncomfortable situation, clearly hoping to make a joke. But before he finished, he realized the jest was out of place and hadn’t worked. He grew embarrassed.

“Kindly return to your posts,” said the staff officer, trying to maintain a serious tone.

Prince Andrew looked again at the artillery officer’s small figure. There was something unusual about him, quite unlike a typical soldier, somewhat comic, but very appealing.

The staff officer and Prince Andrew mounted their horses and rode on.

Having gone past the village, continually meeting and passing soldiers and officers from various regiments, they saw on their left some entrenchments being constructed, the freshly dug clay standing out red. Several battalions of soldiers, in their shirt sleeves despite the cold wind, swarmed over the earthworks like a host of white ants; spadefuls of red clay were constantly being tossed up from behind the bank by unseen hands. Prince Andrew and the officer rode up, looked at the entrenchment, and moved on. Just behind it, they came upon groups of soldiers, continually replaced by others, who ran from the entrenchment. They had to hold their noses and urge their horses into a trot to escape the foul smell of these latrines.

*“Voilà l’agrément des camps, monsieur le prince,”* \* said the staff officer.

\* “This is one of the pleasures you get in camp, Prince.”

They rode up the opposite hill. From there, the French could already be seen. Prince Andrew stopped and began studying the position.

“That’s our battery,” said the staff officer, pointing to the highest point. “It’s in charge of that odd fellow we saw without his boots. You can see everything from there; let’s go up, Prince.”

“Thank you very much, I’ll go on alone,” said Prince Andrew, wishing to be rid of the staff officer’s company. “Please don’t trouble yourself further.”

The staff officer remained behind, and Prince Andrew rode on alone.

The farther forward and closer to the enemy he went, the more orderly and cheerful the troops became. The greatest disorder and gloom had been in the baggage train he’d passed that morning on the Znaim road, seven miles from the French. At Grunth, too, there had been some apprehension and alarm, but the closer Prince Andrew came to the French lines, the more confident our troops appeared. The soldiers in their greatcoats stood in lines, the sergeants major and company officers counted the men, prodding the last man in each section and telling him to hold up his hand. Soldiers scattered across the area were dragging logs and brushwood, building shelters with cheerful chatter and laughter. Around the fires, others, dressed and undressed, dried their shirts and leg bands or mended boots or overcoats, crowding around the boilers and porridge cookers. In one company, dinner was ready, and the soldiers watched eagerly as the quartermaster sergeant carried a sample in a wooden bowl to an officer sitting on a log in front of his shelter.

Another company—a lucky one, for not all had vodka—crowded around a pockmarked, broad-shouldered sergeant major who, tipping a keg, filled the canteen lids held out to him. The soldiers lifted the lids to their lips respectfully, drank, savoring the vodka in their mouths, and walked away from the sergeant major with brighter expressions, licking their lips and wiping them on their coat sleeves. All their faces were calm, as if this were happening at home before a peaceful encampment, and not within sight of the enemy before a battle where at least half would be left on the field. After passing a chasseur regiment and the lines of the Kiev grenadiers—fine fellows engaged in similar peaceful matters—near the shelter of the regimental commander, which was taller and different from the others, Prince Andrew came across a platoon of grenadiers before whom a naked man lay on the ground. Two soldiers held him while two others shouted and struck his bare back with their switches. The man screamed unnaturally. A stout major paced up and down the line, and, ignoring the screams, kept repeating:

“It’s a disgrace for a soldier to steal; a soldier must be honest, honorable, and brave, but if he robs his comrades, there is no honor in him, he’s a scoundrel. Keep going! Keep going!”

So the swishing of the strokes, and the desperate but unnatural screams, continued.

“Go on, go on!” said the major.

A young officer with a confused and pained look stepped away from the man and looked inquiringly at the adjutant as he rode by.

Prince Andrew, having reached the front line, rode along it. Our front line and that of the enemy were far apart on the right and left flanks, but in the center, where the men with a flag of truce had passed that morning, the lines were so close together that the men could see each other’s faces and talk to one another. Besides the soldiers who formed the picket line on each side, there were many curious onlookers who, joking and laughing, stared at their strange foreign enemies.

Since early morning—despite an order not to approach the picket line—the officers could not keep sightseers away. The soldiers forming the picket line, like showmen watching over a curiosity, no longer looked at the French but watched the sightseers and grew bored waiting for relief. Prince Andrew stopped to observe the French.

“Look! Look over there!” one soldier said to another, pointing to a Russian musketeer who had gone up to the picket line with an officer and was rapidly and excitedly talking to a French grenadier. “Listen to him jabber! It’s great, isn’t it? The Frenchy can barely keep up with him. There you go, Sídorov!”

“Just wait and listen. It’s good!” answered Sídorov, who was considered skilled at French.

The soldier the laughers mentioned was Dólokhov. Prince Andrew recognized him and stopped to listen to what he was saying. Dólokhov had come from the left flank, where their regiment was stationed, with his captain.

“Come on, go on!” encouraged the officer, leaning forward and trying not to miss a word that was incomprehensible to him. “More, please: more! What’s he saying?”

Dólokhov did not answer the captain; he was caught up in a heated argument with the French grenadier. They were, as usual, talking about the campaign. The Frenchman, confusing the Austrians with the Russians, tried to claim that the Russians had surrendered and fled all the way from Ulm, while Dólokhov insisted the Russians had not surrendered but had beaten the French.

“We’ve got orders to drive you out of here, and we will drive you out,” said Dólokhov.

“Just make sure you and your Cossacks don’t all get captured!” said the French grenadier.

The French spectators laughed.

“We’ll make you dance as we did under Suvórov…,” \* said Dólokhov.

\* *“On vous fera danser.”*

*“Qu’est-ce qu’il chante?”* \* asked a Frenchman.

\* “What’s he singing about?”

“It’s ancient history,” said another, guessing it referred to a previous war. “The Emperor will teach your Suvara as he has taught the others…”

“Bonaparte…” began Dólokhov, but the Frenchman cut him off.

“Not Bonaparte. He is the Emperor! *Sacré nom…!”* he shouted angrily.

“To the devil with your Emperor.”

And Dólokhov cursed him in rough soldier’s Russian, slung his musket over his shoulder, and walked away.

“Let’s go, Iván Lukích,” he said to the captain.

“Now, that’s the way to speak French,” said the picket soldiers. “Now, Sídorov, you give it a try!”

Sídorov turned to the French, winked, and started babbling meaningless sounds very quickly: *“Kari, mala, tafa, safi, muter, Kaská,”* he said, trying to sound expressive.

“Ho! ho! ho! Ha! ha! ha! ha! Ouh! ouh!” peals of healthy, good-natured laughter rang out from the soldiers, so infectious that even the French couldn’t resist, and it seemed as though the only thing left was to unload the muskets, blow up the ammunition, and go home as fast as possible.

But the guns stayed loaded, the loopholes in blockhouses and earthworks remained just as threatening, and the unlimbered cannons still faced each other as before.

##  CHAPTER XVI

After riding along the whole line from the right flank to the left, Prince Andrew made his way to the battery from which the staff officer had told him the entire field could be seen. Here he dismounted and stood beside the outermost of the four unlimbered cannons. In front of the guns, an artillery sentry paced up and down; he stood at attention when the officer arrived but, at a gesture, resumed his measured, monotonous walk. Behind the guns stood their limbers, and farther back were picket ropes and the artillerymen’s campfires. To the left, not far from the last cannon, was a small, newly built wattle shed from which the sound of officers’ animated conversation could be heard.

It was true—a view opened out from this battery over nearly the entire Russian position and most of the enemy’s. Directly opposite, on the crest of the hill, they could see the village of Schön Grabern, and in three places to the left and right, the French troops, most of them apparently in the village and behind the hill, were visible through the smoke of their fires. To the left of that village, in the haze, something that looked like a battery could be seen, but it was impossible to make it out with the naked eye. Our right flank was posted on a fairly steep slope that dominated the French position. Our infantry was stationed there, with the dragoons at the far end. In the center, where Túshin’s battery stood and from which Prince Andrew was surveying the field, was the easiest and most direct route down and up from the brook that divided us from Schön Grabern. On the left, our troops were close to a thicket, where the bonfires of infantrymen felling wood smoked. The French line was wider than ours, and it was clear they could easily outflank us on both sides. Behind our line, a steep and deep depression made it hard for artillery and cavalry to withdraw. Prince Andrew took out his notebook, and leaning on the cannon, sketched a map of the position. He made notes on two points, intending to mention them to Bagratión. His idea was, first, to concentrate all the artillery in the center, and second, to move the cavalry to the far side of the dip. Prince Andrew, being always near the commander-in-chief, closely following the major movements and general orders, and constantly studying historical accounts of battles, naturally pictured the coming battle in broad strokes. He imagined only significant possibilities: “If the enemy attacks the right flank,” he thought, “the Kiev grenadiers and the Podólsk chasseurs must hold out until reserves from the center arrive. Then the dragoons could strike at the flank. If the center is attacked, we, with the central battery on this high ground, can withdraw the left under its cover and retreat to the dip by echelons.” So he reasoned…. All the while he stood by the gun, he had heard the officers’ voices quite clearly, but as often happens, hadn’t registered what they were saying. Suddenly, though, a voice from the shed caught his attention, its tone so sincere he couldn’t help but listen.

“No, friend,” said a pleasant and, as it seemed to Prince Andrew, familiar voice, “what I’m saying is, if we could know what’s beyond death, none of us would be afraid of it. That’s it, friend.”

Another, younger voice interrupted, “Afraid or not, there’s no escaping it anyway.”

“Even so, it’s frightening! Oh, you clever folks,” a third, robust voice cut in. “You artillerymen are smart because you get to bring everything with you—vodka and snacks.”

And the owner of the deep voice, clearly an infantry officer, laughed.

“Yes, it is frightening,” continued the first speaker, the one with the familiar voice. “It’s fear of the unknown—that’s what it is. Whatever we say about the soul rising to heaven… we know there’s no heaven, only atmosphere.”

The robust voice cut in again.

“Well, let’s have some of your herb vodka, Túshin,” he said.

“Why,” thought Prince Andrew, “that’s the captain who stood up in the sutler’s hut without boots.” He recognized the pleasant, philosophical voice with delight.

“Some herb vodka? Certainly!” said Túshin. “But still, if we try to imagine a future life…”

He didn’t finish. At that moment, a whistling sound filled the air; closer and closer, faster and louder, louder and faster, a cannonball, as if it hadn’t finished saying what it needed to, slammed into the ground near the shed with tremendous force, throwing up a mass of dirt. The ground seemed to groan at the terrible impact.

Immediately, Túshin, with a short pipe in the corner of his mouth and his kind, intelligent face a little pale, rushed out of the shed, followed by the owner of the robust voice—a dashing infantry officer running back to his company, buttoning his coat as he went.

##  CHAPTER XVII

Mounting his horse again, Prince Andrew lingered with the battery, watching the puff of smoke from the gun that had fired the shot. His eyes quickly scanned the wide expanse, but all he saw was that the previously motionless French masses were now shifting, and that there was indeed a battery on their left. The smoke above it hadn’t yet cleared. Two mounted Frenchmen, likely adjutants, were galloping up the hill. A small but clearly visible enemy column was descending the hill, probably to reinforce the front line. The smoke from the first shot still hovered when another puff appeared, quickly followed by the report. The battle had begun! Prince Andrew turned his horse and galloped back to Grunth to find Prince Bagration. Behind him, the cannonade was growing louder and more frequent. Clearly, our guns had started to respond. From the bottom of the slope, where the parleys had taken place, came the sound of musket fire.

Lemarrois had just arrived at a gallop with Bonaparte’s stern letter, and Murat, humiliated and eager to make up for his mistake, immediately ordered his forces to attack the center and outflank both Russian wings, hoping to crush the “contemptible” detachment before evening and before the Emperor arrived.

“It has begun. Here it is!” thought Prince Andrew, feeling his blood surge. “But where and how will my Toulon present itself?”

Passing between the companies, who had been eating porridge and drinking vodka just fifteen minutes earlier, he saw soldiers everywhere hurriedly forming ranks and readying their muskets. On all their faces, he recognized the same excitement that filled his own heart. “It’s begun! Here it is, dreadful yet exhilarating!” was the look on each soldier’s and officer’s face.

Before he reached the embankments being built, he noticed, in the dusky autumn light, mounted men coming toward him. Leading them, wearing a Cossack cloak and lambskin cap and riding a white horse, was Prince Bagration. Prince Andrew stopped, waiting for him; Prince Bagration reined in his horse, recognized Prince Andrew, and nodded. Still looking ahead, he listened to what Prince Andrew had to say.

The feeling, “It has begun! Here it is!” could be seen even on Prince Bagration’s hard brown face, with its half-closed, dull, sleepy eyes. Prince Andrew watched his impassive face with anxious curiosity, wishing he could know what, if anything, this man was thinking or feeling right now. “Is there really anything behind that unmoved face?” Prince Andrew wondered. Prince Bagration nodded in agreement and said, “Very good!” in a tone suggesting that everything happening was precisely as he had expected. Out of breath from his fast ride, Prince Andrew spoke quickly. Prince Bagration, speaking with an Oriental accent, replied especially slowly, as if deliberately showing there was no need to hurry. Still, he set his horse at a trot towards Túshin’s battery. Prince Andrew followed with the suite. Behind Bagration rode his personal adjutant, Zherkov, an orderly, the staff officer on duty—on a fine bobtailed horse—and a civilian: an accountant who had asked for permission to witness the battle out of curiosity. The accountant, a stout, round-faced man, looked about with a naïve smile of satisfaction and cut an odd figure among the hussars, Cossacks, and adjutants, in his camlet coat and unsteady atop his horse, using a convoy officer’s saddle.

“He wants to see a battle,” Zherkov said to Bolkonski, nodding at the accountant, “but he already has a pain in his stomach.”

“Oh, come now!” replied the accountant in a beaming but slightly sly smile, as if flattered by Zherkov’s joke and pretending to be even more naive than he was.

“It’s very strange, *mon Monsieur Prince*,” said the staff officer. (He remembered there was some special way to address a prince in French but couldn’t recall exactly.)

By now they were nearing Túshin’s battery, and a cannonball landed on the ground ahead of them.

“What was that that just fell?” asked the accountant with a naïve smile.

“A French pancake,” Zherkov replied.

“So that’s how they hit you?” the accountant asked. “How awful!”

He seemed almost to swell with satisfaction. He had barely finished speaking when they again heard a violent, unexpected whistle which ended suddenly in a thud… *f-f-flop!* — and a Cossack, riding just to their right and behind the accountant, crashed to the ground with his horse. Zherkov and the staff officer bent low to their saddles and turned their horses away. The accountant stopped, facing the fallen Cossack, and watched with curious attention. The Cossack was dead, but his horse still struggled.

Prince Bagration narrowed his eyes, looked around, and, seeing the cause of the commotion, turned away indifferently, as though to say, “Is it worth noticing such trifles?” He carefully reined in his horse like a practiced rider and leaned slightly to free his saber, which had snagged in his cloak. It was an old-fashioned saber, rarely used anymore. Prince Andrew remembered the tale of Suvorov giving that saber to Bagration in Italy, and the memory was particularly pleasant at that moment. They reached the battery where Prince Andrew had earlier surveyed the battlefield.

“Whose company?” Prince Bagration asked an artilleryman by the ammunition wagon.

He asked, “Whose company?” but really meant, “Are you afraid here?” and the artilleryman understood.

“Captain Túshin’s, your excellency!” shouted the red-haired, freckled gunner in a cheerful voice, standing at attention.

“Yes, yes,” muttered Bagration thoughtfully, riding past the limbers to the furthest cannon.

As he approached, a ringing shot fired, deafening him and his suite, and in the sudden smoke around the gun, they could see the crew quickly rolling it back to position. A huge, broad-shouldered gunner, Number One, holding a mop and standing with his feet wide apart, jumped to the wheel, while Number Two, his hand trembling, placed a charge in the cannon’s mouth. The short, round-shouldered Captain Túshin, stumbling over the gun carriage’s tail, moved forward, shading his eyes from the smoke with his small hand, without noticing the general.

“Raise it two lines more and it’ll be perfect!” he cried in a feeble voice, trying to sound bold in a way that didn’t suit his small figure. “Number Two!” he squeaked. “Fire, Medvedev!”

Bagration called him over, and Túshin, raising three fingers to his cap with a bashful and awkward gesture, much more like a priest’s blessing than a military salute, approached the general. Though Túshin’s guns had been ordered to cannonade the valley, he was firing incendiary shells at the village of Schön Grabern opposite, in front of which large French forces were advancing.

No one had told Túshin where or at what to fire, but after consulting his sergeant-major, Zakharchenko—whom he greatly respected—he’d decided it would be best to set the village on fire. “Very good!” Bagratión replied to the officer’s report, then deliberately began to examine the battlefield stretched before him. The French were nearest on our right. Below the hill where the Kiev regiment stood, in the hollow along the stream, the thrilling roll and crack of musket fire sounded, and farther right, beyond the dragoons, the staff officer pointed out a French column moving to outflank us. To the left, the woods marked the horizon. Prince Bagration ordered two battalions from the center to reinforce the right flank. The staff officer suggested that removing those battalions would leave the guns unsupported. Prince Bagration turned to look at him in silence with his dull eyes. Prince Andrew thought the remark was fair and that there really was no satisfactory answer. But at that moment, an adjutant arrived with a message from the regimental commander in the hollow, reporting that immense numbers of French were descending on them, and that his regiment was overwhelmed and retreating toward the Kiev grenadiers. Prince Bagration bowed his head in assent. He then rode at a walk to the right and sent an adjutant to the dragoons with orders to attack the French. However, this adjutant returned half an hour later to report that the dragoons’ commander had already retreated beyond the dip, as he was taking heavy fire and losing men needlessly, and had hastened to send some sharpshooters into the woods.

“Very good!” said Bagration.

As he was leaving the battery, firing erupted on the left as well, but since it was too far for him to reach in time, Prince Bagration sent Zherkov to tell the general in command (the one who had paraded his regiment before Kutuzov at Braunau) that he must retreat quickly behind the hollow to the rear, since the right flank likely wouldn’t hold much longer. All thoughts of Túshin and the battalion supporting his battery were forgotten. Prince Andrew listened carefully to Bagration’s discussions with the senior officers and the orders he gave, and, to his surprise, realized that actual orders were scarcely given. Instead, Bagration tried to make it seem that whatever happened by necessity, accident, or subordinate commanders’ decisions was done by his will, or at least in agreement with his intentions. Prince Andrew noticed, though, that even when events happened by chance and outside the commander’s control, Bagration’s tact made his presence valuable. Officers who came to him with anxious faces became calm; soldiers and officers greeted him with good spirits, grew more cheerful near him, and were clearly eager to show their courage in his presence.

##  CHAPTER XVIII

Prince Bagration, having reached the highest point of our right flank, began riding downhill toward the area where the musket fire was loudest, but where, because of the smoke, nothing could be seen. The closer they got to the hollow, the less they could see, but the more they sensed the closeness of the real battle. They began to encounter wounded men. One, with a bleeding head and no cap, was being dragged along by two soldiers supporting him under the arms. Blood bubbled in his throat as he spat it out—a bullet had clearly struck him in the throat or mouth. Another, moving on his own but without his musket, groaned aloud and swung his newly injured arm, blood pouring over his greatcoat as from a bottle. He had just been wounded and his face showed fear more than pain. They crossed a road, went down the steep slope, and saw several men lying on the ground; they also met a crowd of soldiers, some unwounded. These soldiers were climbing the hill, breathing heavily, and, despite the general’s presence, talking loudly and waving their arms. Ahead, rows of gray coats were visible through the smoke, and when an officer spotted Bagration, he rushed after the retreating soldiers, shouting orders to return. Bagration rode up to the ranks, where shots now cracked in various places, drowning out voices and commands. The air was thick with smoke. The excited soldiers’ faces were blackened by it. Some were handling their ramrods, others putting powder on the touchpans or taking cartridges from their pouches, while others were firing—though it was impossible to see whom, since the smoke clung to the air without enough wind to clear it. Bullets hummed and whistled past pleasantly. “What is this?” thought Prince Andrew as he approached the crowd of soldiers. “It can’t be an attack—they’re not moving; it can’t be a square—they’re not formed that way.”

The regimental commander, a thin, frail-looking old man with a pleasant smile—his eyelids drooping over his eyes, giving him a gentle expression—rode up to Bagration and greeted him as a host would an honored guest. He reported that his regiment had been attacked by French cavalry and, though they had repulsed the attack, more than half his men had been lost. He used the military term “repulsed” to describe the event, though he really did not know what had happened during that half hour and could not say for sure whether the attack had been driven off or his regiment had been broken. All he knew was that at the start of the action, balls and shells had begun flying and hitting men, and that afterward, someone had shouted “Cavalry!” and their men started firing. They were still firing—but now at French infantry, as the cavalry had vanished. Prince Bagration nodded as if this was exactly what he had wanted and expected. Turning to his adjutant, he ordered him to bring down the two battalions of the Sixth Chasseurs they had just passed. Prince Andrew was struck by the change in Bagration’s expression. It now showed the concentrated, happy determination of a man about to dive into water on a hot day. The dull, sleepy look was gone, as was the air of great thoughtfulness. His sharp hawk’s eyes looked forward eagerly and even a bit disdainfully, without focusing on anything, though his movements remained slow and deliberate.

The regimental commander pleaded with Bagration to leave this dangerous spot. “Please, your excellency, for God’s sake!” he kept saying, glancing at a staff officer for support, who turned away. “There, you see!” he pointed at the bullets whistling and hissing all around them. His tone was part request, part reproach, like a carpenter scolding a gentleman for picking up an ax: “We are used to it, but you, sir, will blister your hands.” He spoke as though the bullets were harmless to him, and his half-closed eyes added sincerity to his words. The staff officer also joined in the appeals, but Bagration only gave an order to cease firing and reform, leaving space for the two approaching battalions. As he spoke, the curtain of smoke covering the hollow, pushed by a rising wind, began to drift from right to left as if pulled by an unseen force, revealing the opposite hill, where the French moved about. Everyone’s eyes locked onto the French column advancing toward them, winding over the rough ground. They could now see the soldiers’ shaggy caps, pick out officers from rank and file, and watch the standard wave.

“They march splendidly,” someone in Bagration’s suite remarked.

The front of the French column was already entering the hollow. The clash would take place on this side of it…

What was left of our regiment, which had been in action, quickly formed up and moved to the right; behind it, pushing aside stragglers, came two battalions of the Sixth Chasseurs in excellent order. Even before they had reached Bagration, the heavy sound of hundreds of feet marching in step could be heard. On their left flank, closest to Bagration, marched a company commander—a stocky, round-faced man with a somewhat simple and happy look—the same man who had rushed from the wattle shed. At this moment, he seemed concerned with nothing but looking impressive as he passed the commander.

With the self-assurance of a man on parade, he stepped lightly with his strong legs, upright and at ease, so different from the heavy march of the soldiers who kept step beside him. He held a narrow, unsheathed sword (short, curved, hardly resembling a real weapon) and looked alternately at the higher officers and back at his men, always in step. His whole powerful body moved smoothly. It seemed that all his energy was focused on passing the commander as flawlessly as possible, and feeling that he was succeeding made him happy. “Left… left… left…” he appeared to repeat to himself with every step; in rhythm with this, with grim but determined faces, the wall of soldiers burdened with knapsacks and muskets marched along, each seemingly repeating the same “Left… left… left…” A plump major waddled around a bush, puffing and losing step; a straggling soldier scrambled to catch up with his company, looking alarmed at falling behind. A cannon ball soared over Bagration and his suite, landing in the column to the rhythm of *“Left… left!”* “Close up!” barked the company commander jovially. The soldiers split around the impact site, and an old noncommissioned officer who had paused beside the fallen rushed to catch up and, hopping into line, glared back angrily, as if resuming the endless beat of *left… left… left.*

“Well done, lads!” said Prince Bagration.

“Glad to do our best, your ex’len-lency!” came a muddled shout from the ranks. A grim-faced soldier on the left turned his eyes on Bagration as he shouted, as if to say: “We already know that!” Another, without turning, shouted with his mouth wide open, and moved on, seeming afraid to relax.

The order was given to halt and drop knapsacks.

Bagration rode around the newly arrived ranks and dismounted. He handed his reins to a Cossack, took off and handed over his felt coat, stretched his legs, and straightened his cap. The head of the French column, with its officers ahead, appeared from below the hill.

“Forward, with God!” said Bagration in a clear, strong voice, turning briefly to the front line, and swinging his arms slightly, walked forward over the uneven field with the awkward stride of a cavalryman. Prince Andrew felt as though an invisible force pulled him onward, and felt immense happiness.

The French were already close. Walking beside Bagration, Prince Andrew could clearly see their bandoliers, red epaulets, and even faces. (He distinctly saw an old French officer struggling uphill with gaitered legs and turned-out feet.) Bagration gave no more orders and silently kept out in front. Suddenly the French fired a volley, smoke shot out along their jagged line, and muskets thundered. Several of our men fell, among them the round-faced officer who had marched with such cheerful pride. But with the first gunshot, Bagration turned and shouted, “Hurrah!”

“Hurrah—ah!—ah!” came a long, drawn-out roar from our ranks. Surging past Bagration, they rushed down the hill in a wild, joyous crowd at the disordered enemy.

##  CHAPTER XIX

The attack by the Sixth Chasseurs secured the retreat of our right flank. In the center, Túshin’s overlooked battery—having managed to set fire to Schön Grabern village—delayed the French advance. The French attempted to extinguish the spreading fire, and this gave us time to withdraw. The retreat of the center to the far side of the dip in the ground was hurried and noisy, but the separate companies did not mingle. Our left, however—made up of the Azov and Podolsk infantry and the Pavlograd hussars—was at the same moment attacked and outflanked by Lannes’s larger French force, resulting in confusion. Bagration had sent Zherkov to the general commanding the left flank, with orders to retreat immediately.

Zherkov, without removing his hand from his cap, turned his horse and galloped off. But as soon as he was out of sight of Bagration, he lost his nerve. Panic seized him, and he could not force himself to go where it was dangerous.

Reaching the left flank, instead of riding to where the fighting was, he searched for the general and his staff in places where they could not possibly be, and so did not deliver the order.

Command of the left flank belonged, by seniority, to the colonel of the regiment that Kutuzov had reviewed at Braunau (where Dolokhov was a private). However, the command of the far left had been assigned to the Pavlograd regimental commander, Rostov’s leader, causing confusion. The two commanders grew thoroughly exasperated with each other, and while the action began on the right and the French were already advancing, they were still arguing, each intent on insulting the other. Meanwhile, both the cavalry and infantry were totally unprepared for battle—from privates to generals, none expected a fight and were occupied with routine tasks, cavalry tending their horses and infantry gathering wood.

“He higher iss dan I in rank,” sputtered the German colonel of the hussars, flushing and addressing an adjutant who had ridden up. “So let him do what he vill, but I cannot sacrifice my hussars… Bugler, sount ze retreat!”

But acting quickly was now urgent. Cannon and musket fire thundered from the right and center, while Lannes’s sharpshooters’ cloaks could be seen crossing the milldam and forming up within twice musket range. The infantry general went toward his horse with quick, jerky steps. Mounting, he sat tall and straight and rode to the Pavlograd commander. The two leaders exchanged polite bows, but harbored intense hostility.

“Once again, Colonel,” said the general, “I can't leave half my men in the woods. I *beg* you, I *beg* you,” he repeated, “to occupy the *position* and prepare for attack.”

“I peg of you yourself not to mix in vot is not your business!” snapped the irritated colonel. “If you vere in the cavalry…”

“I am not in the cavalry, Colonel, but I am a Russian general, and if you are not aware of that…”

“Quite avare, your excellency,” the colonel suddenly shouted, spurring his horse and turning purple. “Vill you be so goot to come to ze front and see dat zis position iss no goot? I don’t vish to destroy my men for your pleasure!”

“You forget yourself, Colonel. I am not considering my own pleasure, and I won’t allow such a statement!”

The general viewed the colonel’s outburst as a question of courage, so he puffed out his chest and, frowning, rode with him to the lines, as if the dispute would be settled by standing together under fire. They reached the front, several bullets whistled past, and they stopped in silence. The view was no different here—just as before, it was obvious cavalry couldn’t operate amid the bushes and uneven ground, and that the French were outflanking our left. The general and the colonel glared at each other like fighting cocks, each trying to spot cowardice in the other. Both passed the test of nerve. As there was nothing else to say, and neither wanted to be accused of being first to quit the firing line, they would likely have lingered much longer, if just then musket fire and a muffled cry had not erupted in the woods behind them. The French had attacked the men gathering wood in the copse. The hussars could no longer retreat with the infantry—they had been cut off from the left by the French. No matter how bad the position, now they had to attack to break through.

Rostov’s squadron barely had time to mount before they were halted facing the enemy. Again, as at the Enns bridge, there was nothing between them and the enemy— and once more, that dreadful line, the boundary between the living and the dead, divided them. Everyone felt this invisible line and was troubled by whether and how they would cross it.

The colonel rode to the front, snapped out an angry reply to his officers, then issued an order with desperate insistence. None answered directly, but word of an attack spread through the squadron. The cry to form up rang out, and sabers flashed from their scabbards. Still, no one moved. The men of the left flank, infantry and hussars alike, sensed that even the commander didn’t know what to do, and that hesitation spread among them.

“If only they'd hurry!” thought Rostov, feeling the moment had finally come to enjoy the thrill of attack he’d so often heard his fellow hussars describe.

“Fo’ward, with God, lads!” Denísov’s voice rang out. “At a twot fo’ward!”

The front line’s horses’ rumps began to sway. Rook tugged at the reins and started on his own.

In front, to his right, Rostov saw the front line of hussars and even farther ahead a dark blur—presumably, the enemy. Shots sounded nearby, but still at a distance.

“Faster!” came the command, and Rostov felt Rook’s flanks sink as he surged into a gallop.

Rostov matched his horse’s movements and became increasingly exhilarated. He noticed a solitary tree up ahead. Moments ago, the tree had been on the far side of the threatening line—now Rostov himself was over that line, and nothing was frightening, everything seemed ever more exhilarating. “Oh, how I’ll slash at him!” thought Rostov, gripping his saber.

“Hur-a-a-a-ah!” the men roared. “Let anyone come my way now,” thought Rostov, spurring Rook and racing ahead. He soon overtook the others. The enemy could now be seen ahead. Suddenly, something like a birch broom swept across the squadron. Rostov raised his saber to strike, but in that instant, trooper Nikitenko, galloping ahead, shot past him, and Rostov had the dreamlike sensation of speeding forward yet standing still. From behind, Bondarchuk, a hussar he knew, bumped angrily into him. Bondarchuk’s horse swerved and galloped on.

“How is it I am not moving? I have fallen, I am killed!” Rostov asked himself and answered at the same instant. He was alone in a field. No longer seeing the hussars’ backs and moving horses, he saw only the motionless ground and its stubble. He felt hot blood under his arm. “No, I’m wounded and the horse is down.” Rook tried to rise on his forelegs but collapsed, pinning Rostov’s leg. Blood streamed from the horse’s head; he struggled but could not get up. Rostov also tried to stand but fell—his sabretache was tangled in the saddle. He couldn't tell where the Russian or French were. No one was nearby.

Freeing his leg, he stood. “Where, on which side, is now the line that just a moment ago separated the armies?” he asked himself, with no answer. “Has something terrible happened to me?” he wondered as he got up, noticing something strange on his numb left arm—his wrist felt like it wasn’t his own. He examined his hand for blood. “Ah, here come people,” he thought hopefully, seeing figures approaching at a run. “They’ll help me!” Leading was a man in a foreign shako and a blue cloak, dark-skinned, sunburned, hooked-nosed. Two more, and still more, came behind. One said something unfamiliar, not Russian. Among the laggards Rostov recognized a Russian hussar being held by the arms, his horse led behind him.

“One of ours—a prisoner. Yes. Maybe they’ll take me too? Who are these men?” Rostov thought, hardly believing his eyes. “Can they be French?” He gazed at the oncoming French and, although only moments ago he’d been racing to attack and cut them down, their proximity now seemed so terrible he could not believe it. “Who are they? Why are they running? Are they coming for me? To kill me? *Me,* whom everyone loves?” He thought of his mother’s love, his family’s love, his friendships, and the idea that a stranger could kill him seemed impossible. “But maybe they will!” For more than ten seconds he stood frozen, unable to grasp the reality. The first Frenchman, with the hooked nose, was now close enough to make out his face. The excited, foreign expression, bayonet lowered, breath held as he ran, terrified Rostov. Rostov pulled out his pistol, but instead of firing, he threw it at the Frenchman and ran with all his strength toward the bushes. Now he did not run with the doubt and conflict he felt at the Enns bridge; instead, he acted like a rabbit fleeing the hounds, every thought concentrated on fear for his young, happy life. Leaping across furrows with the speed he once had at games of tag, he now and then looked back, his kind, pale face scared. A shiver of terror seized him: “No, better not look back,” he decided, but as he reached the bushes, he glanced over his shoulder. The French lagged behind, and just as he turned, the first one slowed his run and shouted loudly to a comrade farther back. Rostov stopped. “No, there’s some mistake,” he thought. “They can’t have wanted to kill me.” But at the same time his left arm felt heavy, as if weighted with seventy pounds. He could run no farther. The Frenchman also stopped and took aim. Rostov shut his eyes and bent down. A bullet, then another, whistled past. He mustered his last strength, grabbed his left hand with his right, and reached the brush. Behind it, Russian sharpshooters waited.

##  CHAPTER XX

The infantry regiments that had been caught off guard on the edge of the woods ran out, the different companies getting mixed together, and retreated in a disorderly mob. One soldier, out of fear, cried out the senseless word, “Cut off!”—a cry dreaded in battle—and that word spread panic through the whole crowd.

“Surrounded! Cut off? We’re lost!” shouted the fleeing soldiers.

The moment he heard the gunfire and the cry from behind, the general realized something terrible had happened to his regiment, and the thought that he—an exemplary officer of many years’ service who had never been at fault—might be blamed at headquarters for negligence or incompetence shook him so much that, forgetting the stubborn cavalry colonel, his own dignity as a general, and even the danger and thoughts of self-preservation, he grabbed the crupper of his saddle and, spurring his horse, galloped to the regiment under a hail of bullets that luckily missed him. His one desire was to find out what was happening and, at all costs, fix or make up for the mistake if it was his, so that he, an officer with twenty-two years of distinguished service who had never been reprimanded, would not be held responsible.

Having galloped safely past the French, he reached a field behind the copse, across which our men—disregarding orders—were running down into the valley. That decisive moment of moral hesitation, which determines the outcome of battles, had arrived. Would this disorderly mass of soldiers listen to their commander’s voice or, ignoring him, keep fleeing? Despite his desperate shouts—once so terrifying to the soldiers—despite his furious, purple face, twisted beyond recognition, and the waving of his saber, the men kept running, talking, firing wildly, and disobeying orders. The critical hesitation, determining the battle’s fate, was clearly turning into panic.

The general, overcome by shouting and powder smoke, began coughing and stopped in despair. Everything seemed lost. Just then, the attacking French suddenly—and for no clear reason—ran back and disappeared from the edge of the woods. Russian sharpshooters appeared in the copse. It was Timókhin’s company, which alone had kept order in the woods and, lying in ambush in a ditch, now unexpectedly attacked the French. Timókhin, armed only with a sword, had charged the enemy with such a wild cry and crazed, drunken resolve that the startled French dropped their muskets and fled. Dólokhov, running beside Timókhin, killed a Frenchman at close range and was the first to grab the surrendering French officer by the collar. Our fugitives returned, the battalions re-formed, and the French—who had nearly cut our left flank in half—were, for the moment, pushed back. Our reserve units were able to join, and the fight ended. The regimental commander and Major Ekonómov had stopped beside a bridge, letting the retreating companies file past, when a soldier came up, grabbed the commander’s stirrup, and almost leaned against him. The man wore a bluish broadcloth coat, had no knapsack or cap, his head was bandaged, and a French munitions pouch hung over his shoulder. He carried an officer’s sword. The soldier was pale, his blue eyes looked boldly at the commander’s face, and he was smiling. Though the commander was busy giving orders to Major Ekonómov, he couldn’t help but notice the soldier.

“Your Excellency, here are two trophies,” said Dólokhov, pointing to the French sword and pouch. “I’ve taken an officer prisoner. I stopped the company.” Dólokhov, breathing heavily from exhaustion, spoke in clipped sentences. “The whole company can confirm it. Please remember this, your Excellency!”

“All right, all right,” replied the commander, turning to Major Ekonómov.

But Dólokhov didn’t leave; he untied the handkerchief on his head, pulled it off, and showed the blood clotted in his hair.

“A bayonet wound. I stayed at the front. Remember, your Excellency!”

Túshin’s battery had been forgotten, and only at the very end of the action did Prince Bagratión—still hearing gunfire in the center—send his orderly staff officer, and later Prince Andrew as well, to order the battery to retreat as quickly as possible. When the supports attached to Túshin’s battery had been sent away by someone’s order in the middle of the fight, the battery kept firing. The only reason it wasn’t captured by the French was that the enemy couldn’t imagine anyone would have the nerve to keep firing with four completely unprotected guns. In fact, the battery’s bold action made the French believe that the main Russian forces were concentrated there—in the center. Twice they tried to attack that spot, but each time they were driven back by grapeshot from the four isolated guns on the hill.

Soon after Prince Bagratión left, Túshin managed to set fire to Schön Grabern.

“Look at them run! It’s burning! See the smoke! Brilliant! Great! Look at the smoke, the smoke!” cried the artillerymen, cheering up.

All the guns, without awaiting orders, fired toward the blaze. Urging each other on, the soldiers shouted after every shot: “Great! That’s it! Look… Grand!” The wind-fed fire spread quickly. The French columns that had advanced beyond the village fell back; but, almost as if in revenge, the enemy set up ten guns to the right of the village and opened fire on Túshin’s battery.

So caught up in their childlike excitement—thanks to the fire and their luck in shelling the French—the artillerymen only noticed this battery when two balls, and then four more, landed among their guns, one knocking down two horses and another tearing off a munition-wagon driver’s leg. Their spirits, once lifted, weren’t lessened by this, only changed in nature. The horses were replaced with others from a reserve gun carriage, the wounded were carried off, and the four guns were now turned on the ten-gun French battery. Túshin’s fellow officer had died early in the fighting, and within an hour, seventeen of the forty gunners had been disabled, but the artillerymen stayed as cheerful and energetic as ever. Twice they saw the French appear below them, and each time fired grapeshot at them.

Little Túshin, moving stiffly and clumsily, kept telling his orderly, “Refill my pipe for that one!” and then, scattering sparks from it, ran forward, shading his eyes with his small hand to scan the French.

“Hit them, lads!” he kept repeating, grabbing the gun wheels and working the screws himself.

Amidst the smoke and deafened by the constant blasts—which always made him flinch—Túshin, never removing his pipe from his mouth, ran from gun to gun, sometimes aiming, sometimes counting charges, sometimes giving orders to replace dead or wounded horses and harness fresh ones, all while shouting in his thin, high-pitched, wavering voice. His face grew more and more animated. Only when someone was killed or wounded did he frown and turn away, snapping at the men who—as always—hesitated to lift the dead or injured. The soldiers, most of them tall, strong men—always the case in an artillery company, where men are taller and broader than their officer—all looked at their commander like children put on the spot, and whatever was on his face was reflected on theirs.

Due to the deafening noise and the need for focused action, Túshin never felt the least bit of fear, and the idea that he might be killed or badly wounded never entered his mind. On the contrary, his excitement only grew. It seemed to him that it had been a very long time—even a day—since he had first seen the enemy and fired the opening shot, and that the corner of the field he stood on was now well-known ground. Though he thought of and did everything an excellent officer would in his place, he was almost in a trance, feverish or a bit drunk from the experience.

Between the thunder of his own guns around him, the whistling and thuds of enemy balls, the flushed and sweaty faces of men working feverishly at the guns, the sight of blood on men and horses, the puffs of smoke from the enemy lines (each followed by a projectile flying past and striking dirt, man, gun, or horse)—from all these things, a fantastic world took over his mind and at that moment gave him pleasure. In his imagination, the enemy guns weren’t really guns, but pipes blown now and then by an unseen smoker.

“There… he’s puffing again,” Túshin muttered to himself, spotting a small cloud rising from the hill and carried left by the wind.

“Now watch for the ball… let’s send it back.”

“What do you need, sir?” asked an artilleryman nearby, overhearing him mumble.

“Nothing… just a shell…” Túshin replied.

“Come on, our Matvévna!” he said to himself. “Matvévna”\* was the name he jokingly gave the oldest, largest gun in the battery. The French clustered around their guns seemed to him like ants. In that world, the rugged drunk called Number One of the second gun was “uncle”; Túshin glanced at him more than anyone else and enjoyed seeing his every move. The musket fire at the foot of the hill, now fading, now swelling, sounded like someone’s breathing. He listened carefully to this rhythm of noise.

\* Daughter of Matthew.

“Ah! Breathing again, breathing!” he muttered to himself.

He imagined himself a giant, throwing cannonballs at the French with both hands.

“Now, Matvévna, old lady, don’t fail me!” he said as he stepped away from the gun. Suddenly, a strange, unfamiliar voice called out above him: “Captain Túshin! Captain!”

Túshin spun around in alarm. It was the staff officer who had ejected him from the booth at Grunth. He was yelling, out of breath:

“Are you insane? You’ve been ordered to retreat twice, and you…”

“Why are they picking on me?” Túshin wondered, eyeing his superior nervously.

“I… don’t…” he mumbled, touching two fingers to his cap. “I…”

But the staff officer didn’t finish. A cannonball zipped by, forcing him to duck and hunch over his horse. He paused, and just as he was about to say more, another ball cut him off. He turned his horse and galloped away.

“Retreat! All of you, retreat!” he shouted from a distance.

The soldiers laughed. An adjutant soon arrived with the same order.

It was Prince Andrew. The first thing he saw riding up to Túshin’s gun position was a horse, leg broken, unharnessed and lying nearby, whinnying in pain. Blood was spurting from its leg like a fountain. Nearby among the limbers were several dead men. Shells continued to fly overhead as he approached, sending a nervous shudder down his spine. But simply thinking of fear stirred his will. “I cannot be afraid,” he decided, and slowly dismounted among the guns. He gave the order and did not leave the battery. He was determined to have the guns pulled from their positions and withdrawn in his presence. Together with Túshin, stepping over bodies and braving intense French fire, he helped with the removal of the guns.

“A staff officer was here a minute ago, but dashed off,” said an artilleryman to Prince Andrew. “Not like your honor!”

Prince Andrew said nothing to Túshin. They were both so occupied that they hardly noticed each other. After they had managed to limber up the only two guns still intact out of four, and began moving them down the hill (one wrecked gun and one unicorn were left behind), Prince Andrew rode up to Túshin.

“Well, until we meet again…” he said, holding out his hand to Túshin.

“Goodbye, my dear fellow,” said Túshin. “Dear soul! Goodbye, my dear fellow!” and, for some unknown reason, tears suddenly filled his eyes.

##  CHAPTER XXI

The wind had died down and black clouds, mixing with the powder smoke, hung low over the battlefield on the horizon. It was getting dark, and the glow of two fires stood out even more. The cannonade was subsiding, but the rattle of musketry behind and to the right sounded more often and closer. As soon as Túshin with his guns, constantly maneuvering around or coming upon wounded men, was out of range and had descended into the dip, he was met by some members of the staff, including the staff officer and Zherkóv, who had been sent twice to Túshin’s battery but had never reached it. Interrupting each other, they all gave and relayed orders on what to do next, reprimanding and scolding him. Túshin gave no orders and rode silently—afraid to speak because he felt that he might cry at any moment for reasons he didn't understand—following on his artillery horse. Though the orders were to leave the wounded behind, many of them dragged themselves after the troops, begging for seats on the gun carriages. The lively infantry officer who, just before the battle, had rushed out of Túshin’s wattle shed, was now laid with a bullet in his stomach on “Matvévna’s” carriage. At the bottom of the hill, a pale hussar cadet, holding one hand with the other, came up to Túshin and asked for a seat.

“Captain, for God’s sake! I've injured my arm,” he said timidly. “Please... I can’t walk. Please!”

It was obvious this cadet had already asked for a ride more than once and been refused. He asked in a hesitant, pleading tone.

“Tell them to let me have a seat, please!”

“Give him a seat,” said Túshin. “Lay a cloak for him to sit on, lad,” he said to his favorite soldier. “And where is the wounded officer?”

“He was taken off. He died,” someone replied.

“Help him up. Sit down, dear fellow, sit down! Spread out the cloak, Antónov.”

The cadet was Rostóv. Holding one hand with the other, he was pale and his jaw trembled, shivering from fever. They placed him on “Matvévna,” the gun from which they had just removed the dead officer. The cloak they spread for him was wet with blood, staining his breeches and arm.

“What, are you wounded, my lad?” said Túshin, coming up to the gun where Rostóv sat.

“No, it’s just a sprain.”

“Then what’s this blood on the gun carriage?” asked Túshin.

“It was the officer, your honor, that stained it,” replied the artilleryman, wiping away the blood with his coat sleeve, as though apologizing for the state of his gun.

They barely managed to get the guns up the slope with help from the infantry, and when they reached the village of Gruntersdorf, they stopped. It was now so dark that you couldn’t distinguish uniforms ten paces away, and the firing had started to fade. Suddenly, nearby on the right, shouting and firing broke out again. Shots flared in the darkness. This was the final French attack, which was repelled by soldiers sheltering in village houses. They all rushed out of the village again, but Túshin’s guns couldn’t move, and the artillerymen, Túshin, and the cadet exchanged silent glances as they waited for their fate. The firing faded, and soldiers, talking excitedly, poured out from a side street.

“Not hurt, Petróv?” asked one.

“We gave it to them good, mate! They won’t try that again,” said another.

“You couldn’t see a thing. They even fired at their own men! Nothing was visible. Pitch-dark, brother! Isn’t there anything to drink?”

The French had been beaten back for the last time. Again and again, in the complete darkness, Túshin’s guns advanced, surrounded by the humming infantry like a frame.

In the darkness, it felt as if a gloomy, unseen river was endlessly flowing in one direction, buzzing with whispers, talk, and the sounds of hooves and wheels. Amid the general noise, the groans and voices of the wounded were heard more distinctly than anything else in the night. The darkness surrounding the army was filled with their groans, which seemed to blend into the night itself. After a while, the moving mass stirred; someone rode past on a white horse followed by his entourage, and said something as he passed: “What did he say? Where to, now? Halt, is it? Did he thank us?” came eager questions from all sides. The whole column pressed closer, and a rumor went around that they were ordered to halt; evidently, those in front had stopped. Everyone remained where they were, in the middle of the muddy road.

Fires were lit and the talk became more audible. Captain Túshin, after giving orders to his company, sent a soldier to find a dressing station or a doctor for the cadet, and sat down by a bonfire the soldiers had built on the road. Rostóv also dragged himself to the fire. From pain, cold, and damp, his whole body shook with fever. Drowsiness overwhelmed him, but a sharp pain in his arm, for which he could find no comfortable position, kept him awake. He kept closing his eyes, then staring at the fire—which seemed blindingly red to him—and at the frail, round-shouldered figure of Túshin who sat cross-legged like a Turk beside him. Túshin’s large, kind, intelligent eyes rested on Rostóv with sympathy and pity. Rostóv saw that Túshin sincerely wished to help him but couldn't.

All around, the sounds of infantry footsteps and voices could be heard as the men marched, rode by, and settled nearby. The noise of voices, tramping feet, the horses’ hooves in mud, and the crackling fires near and far merged into one trembling rumble.

Now, it was no longer like a dark, unseen river flowing through the gloom, but a dark sea swelling and gradually calming after a storm. Rostóv watched and listened idly to what happened around him. An infantryman came to the fire, squatted on his heels, warmed his hands, and turned his face away.

“You don’t mind, your honor?” he asked Túshin. “I’ve lost my company, sir. I don’t know where… such bad luck!”

With him, an infantry officer with a bandaged cheek came to the fire and asked Túshin to move the guns a bit so a wagon could pass. After he left, two soldiers rushed to the campfire, quarreling and fiercely fighting, each trying to take a boot from the other.

“You picked it up?… I bet! You’re very clever!” one of them shouted hoarsely.

Then a thin, pale soldier with his neck wrapped in a bloodstained bandage approached and angrily asked the artillerymen for water.

“Must one die like a dog?” he said.

Túshin told them to give him some water. Then a cheerful soldier ran up, asking for a little fire for the infantry.

“A nice little hot torch for the infantry! Good luck to you, brothers. Thanks for the fire—we’ll pay you back,” he said, carrying a glowing stick into the darkness.

Next came four soldiers carrying something heavy on a cloak. They passed by the fire. One stumbled.

“Who the devil put logs on the road?” he grumbled.

“He’s dead—why carry him?” said another.

“Shut up!”

And they disappeared into the darkness with their burden.

“Still aching?” Túshin asked Rostóv quietly.

“Yes.”

“Your honor, the general wants you. He’s in the hut here,” a gunner said to Túshin.

“I’m coming.”

Túshin got up, buttoned his greatcoat, straightened it, and walked away from the fire.

Not far from the artillery campfire, in a hut prepared for him, Prince Bagratión sat at dinner, talking with some commanding officers who had gathered at his quarters. The little old man with half-closed eyes was there, greedily chewing a mutton bone; the general who had served blamelessly for twenty-two years, flushed from a glass of vodka and the meal; the staff officer with the signet ring and Zherkóv, anxiously glancing at everyone; and Prince Andrew, pale, with tightly pressed lips and feverishly bright eyes.

In a corner of the hut stood a standard captured from the French, and the accountant with the naïve face was feeling its texture, shaking his head in confusion—perhaps because the banner genuinely interested him, or maybe because, hungry as he was, it was hard to watch others dine while there was no place for him at the table. In the next hut, a French colonel captured by our dragoons was being shown off, and our officers gathered to view him. Prince Bagratión was thanking the commanders and asking about the details of the engagement and our losses. The general whose regiment had been inspected at Braunau was telling the prince that as soon as the action started, he had withdrawn from the woods, gathered the men who’d been woodcutting, allowed the French to pass, and then charged with two battalions, scattering the French forces.

“When I saw, your excellency, that their first battalion was disorganized, I stopped in the road and thought: ‘I’ll let them come on and meet them with a volley from the whole battalion’—and that’s just what I did.”

The general had so much wanted to do this, and regretted so much that he hadn’t managed to, that he almost believed he really had. Maybe it had happened that way? Who could know for sure, amid all the confusion, what actually did or didn’t happen?

“By the way, your excellency, I should mention,” he went on—remembering Dólokhov’s conversation with Kutúzov and his last interaction with the gentleman-ranker—“that Private Dólokhov, who had been demoted, took a French officer prisoner in my presence and really distinguished himself.”

“I saw the Pávlograd hussars attack over there, your excellency,” chimed in Zherkóv, glancing nervously around. He hadn’t seen the hussars all day, but had heard about them from an infantry officer. “They broke up two squares, your excellency.”

Several present smiled at Zherkóv’s words, expecting one of his usual jokes. But since what he said reflected so well on their arms and on the accomplishments of the day, they assumed serious expressions, though many knew he was lying outright. Prince Bagratión turned to the old colonel:

“Gentlemen, I thank you all; every branch has behaved heroically: infantry, cavalry, and artillery. How was it that two guns were abandoned in the center?” he asked, searching the faces for someone. (Prince Bagratión didn’t ask about the guns on the left flank; he knew all the guns there had been lost at the very beginning.) “I believe I sent you?” he added, turning to the staff officer on duty.

“One was damaged,” the staff officer replied, “and the other, I can’t explain. I was there giving orders the whole time and had just left…. It’s true, it was a hot spot,” he added quietly.

Someone mentioned that Captain Túshin was bivouacked near the village and had already been sent for.

“Oh, but you were there?” said Prince Bagratión, addressing Prince Andrew.

“Of course, we just missed each other,” said the staff officer, smiling at Bolkónski.

“I did not have the pleasure of seeing you,” Prince Andrew replied, coldly and abruptly.

The room fell silent. Túshin appeared at the doorway and made his way hesitantly behind the generals. As he slipped past them in the crowded hut, feeling awkward as he always did around high-ranking officers, he didn’t notice the banner staff and stumbled over it. Several men laughed.

“How was it that a gun was abandoned?” Bagratión asked, frowning—not so much at the captain as at those who were laughing, with Zherkóv laughing loudest.

Only now, faced with the stern authorities, did Túshin feel the full weight of guilt and shame for having lost two guns but still being alive. In his excitement, he hadn’t thought about it until this moment. The officers’ laughter confused him even more. He stood before Bagratión, lower jaw trembling, barely able to stammer: “I don’t know… your excellency… I had no men… your excellency.”

“You might have taken some from the covering troops.”

Túshin didn’t say that there were no covering troops, though that was the truth. He didn’t want to get another officer in trouble, and stared silently at Bagratión, like a student hoping for mercy from a teacher.

The silence lasted for a while. Prince Bagratión, seemingly unwilling to be harsh, found nothing to say; no one else dared step in. Prince Andrew watched Túshin from under his brows, his fingers twitching nervously.

“Your excellency!” Prince Andrew broke the silence with his abrupt voice. “You were pleased to send me to Captain Túshin’s battery. I arrived to find two-thirds of his men and horses knocked out, two guns smashed, and no supports at all.”

Prince Bagratión and Túshin both looked at Bolkónski, who spoke with suppressed agitation.

“And, if your excellency will allow me, I think today’s success is chiefly thanks to that battery’s action and the bravery of Captain Túshin and his men.” Without waiting for a reply, Prince Andrew rose and left the table.

Prince Bagratión looked at Túshin, clearly unwilling to doubt Bolkónski’s strong statement but not able to fully believe it. He nodded his head and told Túshin he could go. Prince Andrew went out with him.

“Thank you; you saved me, my dear fellow!” Túshin said.

Prince Andrew gave him a look, but said nothing and left. He felt sad and discouraged. Everything was so strange, so unlike what he had hoped.

“Who are these people? Why are they here? What are they after? And when will it all end?” thought Rostóv, watching the shifting shadows in front of him. The pain in his arm kept growing worse. An overwhelming drowsiness took hold; red rings swam before his eyes, and the sound of voices and faces, along with his sense of loneliness, blended with his physical pain. It was they, these soldiers—wounded and unwounded—who seemed to be crushing, weighing down, twisting the sinews, and burning the flesh of his strained arm and shoulder. To escape them, he closed his eyes.

For a moment he dozed off, but in that short time countless images flashed through his dreams: his mother’s large white hand, Sónya’s slender shoulders, Natásha’s sparkling eyes and laughter, Denísov with his voice and mustache, and Telyánin, along with everything that had happened with Telyánin and Bogdánich. That affair was the same as this soldier with the loud voice, and both that incident and this soldier were now agonizingly, relentlessly tugging and pressing his arm and always pulling it in one direction. He tried to get away from them, but they wouldn’t let his shoulder go, not even a hair’s breadth. It wouldn’t hurt—it would heal—if only they would stop pulling, but there was no escaping them.

He opened his eyes and looked up. The dark canopy of night hovered just above the red glow of the charcoal. Flakes of snow drifted in the firelight. Túshin had not returned, the doctor hadn’t come. He was alone now, except for a soldier sitting naked on the other side of the fire, warming his thin yellow body.

“Nobody cares about me!” Rostóv thought. “There’s no one to help or feel sorry for me. Yet I was once at home, strong, happy, and loved.” He sighed and, as he did, groaned involuntarily.

“Hey, is something hurting you?” the soldier asked, shaking his shirt out over the fire. Without waiting for an answer, he grunted and added, “So many men crippled today—terrible!”

Rostóv ignored him. He watched the snowflakes swirling above the fire and recalled a Russian winter at his warm, bright home, his soft fur coat, his quick sleigh rides, his healthy body, and the love and care of his family. “Why did I ever come here?” he wondered.

The next day the French didn’t renew their attack, and what remained of Bagratión’s detachment joined up with Kutúzov’s army.

##  BOOK THREE: 1805

##  CHAPTER I

Prince Vasíli was not someone who carefully planned his actions. Even less did he ever intend to harm anyone for his own gain. He was simply a worldly man who had risen in life, and for whom advancement had become second nature. Schemes and plans that he never consciously analyzed but that provided the main interest in his life were always forming in his mind, arising from the situations and people he encountered. He didn’t just have one or two of these plans brewing—there were dozens: some only beginning, some nearing completion, and some falling apart. He did not, for example, say to himself: “That man now has influence, I must gain his trust and friendship and, through him, secure a special favor.” Nor did he think: “Pierre is wealthy, I must tempt him to marry my daughter and lend me the forty thousand rubles I need.” But whenever he met someone of importance, his instinct at once told him that this person could be useful, and without any forethought, Prince Vasíli seized the first chance to win his confidence, flatter him, become close, and then eventually make his request.

He had Pierre readily available in Moscow and got him an appointment as Gentleman of the Bedchamber, a post that then conferred the status of Councilor of State, and insisted that the young man accompany him to Petersburg and stay at his home. With what seemed like absent-mindedness, yet with a sure sense that he was doing what was right, Prince Vasíli did everything possible to get Pierre to marry his daughter. Had he planned it out ahead of time, he couldn’t have been so natural or shown such effortless ease with everyone, regardless of their social rank. Something always drew him toward those wealthier or more powerful than he was, and he had a rare talent for recognizing the best moment to use people to further his aims.

After unexpectedly becoming Count Bezúkhov and a wealthy man, Pierre—following his recent loneliness and lack of responsibilities—found himself so harassed and busy that he could only be alone in bed. He had to sign documents, appear at government offices whose purpose he didn’t understand, question his chief steward, visit his estate near Moscow, and receive many people who previously had no interest in him but who would now have felt offended if he chose not to see them. All kinds of people—businessmen, relatives, and acquaintances—were eager to treat the young heir in a most friendly and flattering way. They all clearly believed in Pierre’s admirable qualities. He constantly heard phrases like: “With your remarkable kindness,” or, “With your excellent heart,” “You are so honorable yourself, Count,” or, “If only he were as clever as you,” and so on, until Pierre truly began to believe in his own exceptional kindness and intelligence—especially since, deep down, he’d always thought he was indeed very kind and smart. Even those who previously disliked him or had been unfriendly now became warm and affectionate. The angry eldest princess, with her long torso and hair slicked down like a doll’s, had come into Pierre’s room after the funeral. With downcast eyes and frequent blushes, she told him she regretted their past disagreements and didn’t feel right asking him for anything now, except to let her stay a few weeks longer in the house she loved and where she had sacrificed so much, given what she had suffered. She wept as she said this. Moved to see this proud princess transformed, Pierre took her hand and begged her forgiveness, without even knowing the reason. From that day, the eldest princess’s attitude changed completely toward Pierre, and she began knitting a striped scarf for him.

“Do this for me, *mon cher*; after all, she put up with a lot from the deceased,” said Prince Vasíli, handing Pierre a deed to sign on the princess’s behalf.

Prince Vasíli decided it was necessary to throw the poor princess this bone—a bill for thirty thousand rubles—so that she wouldn’t think of mentioning his involvement in the matter of the inlaid portfolio. Pierre signed the document, and after that, the princess became even kinder. The younger sisters grew affectionate as well, especially the youngest, the pretty one with the mole, who often left him confused with her smiles and her own shyness whenever their paths crossed.

It felt so natural to Pierre that everyone should like him, and so unnatural that anyone wouldn’t, that he couldn’t help but believe in the sincerity of those around him. Besides, he didn’t have time to wonder if they were genuine or not. He was always busy and always felt a gentle, cheerful sort of excitement, as if he was at the center of something important and communal; that everyone expected something from him, that if he didn’t do it people would be sad and disappointed, but if he did what was required, everything would turn out well. Yet no matter what he did, that happy outcome was always somewhere in the future.

More than anyone else, Prince Vasíli took over Pierre’s business and, really, Pierre himself during those first days. Ever since Count Bezúkhov’s death, he never let go of the young man. He seemed weighed down by responsibilities, tired and troubled, yet determined out of pity not to leave this helpless youth—his old friend’s son and the owner of so much wealth—to the mercy of fate and opportunists. While he was still in Moscow after Count Bezúkhov’s death, he would call Pierre to him, or go to see Pierre himself, and in a tired yet confident manner tell him what should be done, always with the tone of someone saying, “You know I’m overwhelmed with things, and it’s really only out of kindness that I bother with you—plus, you know very well that what I suggest is the only reasonable course.”

“Well, my dear fellow, we’re off at last tomorrow,” Prince Vasíli said one day, closing his eyes and absentmindedly fingering Pierre’s elbow, speaking as if this had long since been agreed and couldn’t be changed now. “We’re leaving tomorrow, and I’ve reserved a seat for you in my carriage. I’m very happy. All our big business here is finished now—I should have left a while ago. Here’s something from the chancellor. I requested it for you, and you’ve been admitted to the diplomatic corps and made a Gentleman of the Bedchamber. A diplomatic career is now open to you.”

Despite the assured and tired tone of all this, Pierre—who had often thought about what he’d do for a career—tried to make some suggestion. But Prince Vasíli interrupted him in the special low, persuasive coo he used in the rare cases when he needed to truly persuade someone.

“*Mais, mon cher*, I did this for my own sake, to ease my conscience. There’s no need to thank me. No one ever complained of being too much loved. Besides, you’re free; you could quit tomorrow. You’ll see how things are when you get to Petersburg. It’s high time for you to get away from these painful memories.” Prince Vasíli sighed. “Yes, yes, my boy. And my valet will ride in your carriage. Ah! I was almost forgetting,” he added. “You know, *mon cher*, your father and I had some accounts to settle, so I’ve received what was owed from the Ryazán estate and will keep it; you won’t need it. We’ll sort out the accounts later.”

By “what was owed from the Ryazán estate,” Prince Vasíli meant several thousand rubles in rent collected from Pierre’s peasants, which the prince had kept for himself.

In Petersburg, just as in Moscow, Pierre found himself surrounded by kindness and attention. He couldn’t refuse the post, or rather the status (since he actually did nothing), that Prince Vasíli had secured for him, and social calls, invitations, and obligations multiplied until, even more than in Moscow, he felt bewildered, rushed, and always waiting for some good thing just ahead, never quite reached.

Many of his old bachelor friends were no longer in Petersburg. The Guards had gone to the front; Dólokhov had been demoted to the ranks; Anatole was serving in the provinces; Prince Andrew was abroad; so Pierre lacked the chance now to spend his nights as he once liked, or to open his heart in conversation with an older, respected friend. Nearly all his time went to dinners and balls, often spent at Prince Vasíli’s house, mostly with the stout princess, his wife, and his beautiful daughter Hélène.

Like everyone else, Anna Pávlovna Schérer also showed Pierre the change in society’s attitude toward him.

Previously, when Pierre was in Anna Pávlovna’s presence, his remarks, clever as they seemed in his own head, always felt out of place and awkward aloud—while Hippolyte’s silliest comments seemed witty by comparison. Now, everything Pierre said was *charmant*. Even if Anna Pávlovna didn’t say so, Pierre could see she wanted to, only holding back out of respect for his modesty.

Early in the winter of 1805-6, Pierre received one of Anna Pávlovna’s usual pink invitation notes, with an extra line: “You will find the beautiful Hélène here, whom it is always delightful to see.”

Reading those words, Pierre felt for the first time that others saw a connection growing between him and Hélène, and that thought both unsettled him, like he was being given a duty he couldn’t fulfill, and pleased him as a playful idea.

Anna Pávlovna’s “At Home” was much like the earlier gathering, except her new novelty for the guests was not Mortemart, but a diplomat just in from Berlin with the latest news of Emperor Alexander’s visit to Potsdam, and how the two august friends had sworn an unbreakable bond to defend justice against the enemy of humanity. Anna Pávlovna welcomed Pierre with a touch of sorrow related to his recent loss after Count Bezúkhov’s death (everyone seemed to feel obliged to remind Pierre how deeply he ought to be mourning the father he had barely known), and her sorrow was much like the lofty sadness she showed when speaking of her Imperial Majesty, the Empress Márya Fëdorovna. Pierre was flattered by this. Anna Pávlovna arranged the groups in her drawing room with her usual skill. The main group, including Prince Vasíli and the generals, was enjoying the diplomat’s company. Another was at the tea table. Pierre wanted to join the main group, but Anna Pávlovna—who seemed like a battle commander overwhelmed by brilliant ideas—saw Pierre, tapped his sleeve, and said:

“Wait a moment, I have something planned for you this evening.” (She looked at Hélène and smiled at her.) “My dear Hélène, please be kind to my poor aunt who adores you. Spend ten minutes with her. And so it’s not too boring, here’s our dear count who won’t refuse to keep you company.”

The beauty went to the aunt, but Anna Pávlovna held Pierre back, as if to give some last instruction.

“Isn’t she exquisite?” she said to Pierre, pointing to the elegant beauty as Hélène glided away. “And how she carries herself! For someone so young, she has such tact, such perfect manners! It comes from the heart. Lucky is the man who marries her! With her, even the least worldly man would have a brilliant place in society. Don’t you think? I just wanted your opinion,” and Anna Pávlovna let Pierre go.

Pierre agreed, honestly, about Hélène’s flawless manners. If he ever thought about her, it was just about her beauty or her remarkable skill in always appearing dignified and silent in society.

The old aunt received the two young people in her corner but seemed eager to hide her adoration of Hélène, trying instead to show she was mostly afraid of Anna Pávlovna. She looked at her niece as if asking what to do with these guests. As Anna Pávlovna left them, she tapped Pierre’s sleeve again, saying, “I hope you won’t say it’s dull in my house tonight,” and glanced at Hélène.

Hélène smiled, as if to say she couldn’t imagine anyone seeing her without being enchanted. The aunt coughed, swallowed, and said in French how glad she was to see Hélène, then repeated the same to Pierre, with the same expression. In the middle of a dull and awkward conversation, Hélène turned to Pierre with that beautiful, bright smile she gave everyone. Pierre was so used to that smile—and it meant so little to him—that he barely noticed it. The aunt had just brought up a collection of snuffboxes that belonged to Pierre's father, Count Bezúkhov, and showed them her own box. Princess Hélène wanted to see the portrait of the aunt’s husband on the box lid.

“That’s probably Vinesse’s work,” said Pierre, naming a well-known miniaturist, as he leaned over the table to take the snuffbox, all while trying to catch what was being said at the other table.

He half rose to go around the table, but the aunt passed him the snuffbox behind Hélène’s back. Hélène leaned forward to make space, turning with a smile. As always at parties, she was wearing the latest fashion—a dress cut very low in front and back. Her bust, which had always seemed to Pierre like marble, was so close that his nearsighted eyes could clearly see the living allure of her neck and shoulders, so near that had he bent just a little, his lips would have touched her. He was aware of the warmth of her body, the scent of her perfume, and the creak of her corset as she moved. He no longer saw her as a remote statue in a lovely dress, but suddenly as a woman whose body was merely veiled by her clothes. And once he saw that, he couldn’t forget, just as you can’t see an illusion again after you realize what it really is.

“So you’ve never noticed how beautiful I am?” Hélène’s look seemed to say. “You never realized I’m a woman—someone who might belong to anyone, even to you,” said her glance. And at that moment, Pierre felt not only that Hélène could be his wife—but that she must, and that it couldn’t be any other way.

He knew this as surely as if he were already standing with her at the altar. How or when it would happen, he had no idea—even feeling somehow (he couldn’t say why) that it would be a bad thing—but still, he knew it would come to pass.

Pierre averted his eyes, then looked again, wanting to see her once more as a distant beauty, as he always had, but he couldn’t. Just as a man staring through mist at a clump of steppe grass and thinking it a tree can no longer see it as a tree once he knows the truth, Pierre couldn’t restore his old image of Hélène. She was frighteningly close—she now held power over him, with nothing between them but the barrier of his own will.

“Well, I’ll leave you in your little corner,” came Anna Pávlovna’s voice. “I see you’re doing fine there.”

Pierre, anxiously wondering if he’d done anything embarrassing, looked up, blushing. He felt sure everyone must know what had just happened to him.

A bit later, when he went to join the main group, Anna Pávlovna said to him, “I hear you’re renovating your Petersburg house?”

This was true. The architect had told him it was necessary, and Pierre, not really understanding why, was having his vast Petersburg house fixed up.

“That’s good, but don’t leave Prince Vasíli’s just yet. It’s wise to have a friend like the prince,” she said, smiling at Prince Vasíli. “I know something about that, don’t I? And you’re still so young. You need good advice. Don’t be angry at me for claiming an old woman’s privilege.”

She paused, as women often do after mentioning their age, expecting a compliment. “If you marry, of course, it would be different,” she continued, including both Pierre and Hélène in one glance. Pierre didn’t look at Hélène, nor she at him. But she was still only too close. He muttered something and blushed.

When he got home, Pierre couldn’t sleep for a long time thinking about what had happened. But what had happened? Nothing. He had simply realized that the woman he’d known since childhood—of whom, when her beauty was mentioned, he had absentmindedly said, “Yes, she’s pretty”—he now understood might possibly become his.

“But she’s stupid. I have myself said she’s stupid,” he thought. “There’s something unpleasant, something wrong, about the feeling she gives me. I’ve been told her brother Anatole was in love with her and she with him, that there was quite a scandal and he was sent away. Hippolyte is her brother . . . Prince Vasíli her father . . . It’s all bad …,” he reflected, but even as this thought remained unfinished, he found himself smiling, aware that a different train of thought was forming: that while thinking of her faults, he was dreaming of marrying her, of how she would change and love him and how all he’d heard about her might not be true. He again saw her not as Prince Vasíli’s daughter but pictured her entire form only barely concealed by a gray dress. “But no! Why didn’t this idea ever occur to me before?” and still he told himself it was impossible—that marrying her would be unnatural and, as it seemed to him, dishonorable. He remembered her words and glances, and those of everyone who had seen them together. He remembered Anna Pávlovna’s hints about his home, remembered countless subtle suggestions from Prince Vasíli and others, and was suddenly terrified that he might already have, in some way, bound himself to something wrong that he shouldn’t do. And even as he tried to convince himself of this, in another part of his mind her image would come back to him in all its feminine beauty.

##  CHAPTER II

In November 1805, Prince Vasíli had to go on an inspection tour through four different provinces. He had arranged this himself so he could visit his long-neglected estates, pick up his son Anatole—whose regiment was stationed nearby—and take him to see Prince Nicholas Bolkónski to arrange a marriage with the daughter of that wealthy old man. But before leaving home to manage these new affairs, Prince Vasíli first needed to address matters with Pierre, who, it’s true, had lately spent whole days at home—that is, in Prince Vasíli’s house where he was staying—and had acted ridiculously, excitable, and foolish in Hélène’s presence (as a lover might), but still had not proposed to her.

“This is all very nice, but things must be settled,” Prince Vasíli said to himself with a heavy sigh one morning, feeling that Pierre, to whom he had done such favors (“But never mind that”), was not behaving properly in this situation. “Youth, frivolity… well, God bless him,” he thought, savoring his own good-heartedness, “but it must be brought to a conclusion. The day after tomorrow is Lëlya’s name day. I’ll invite two or three people, and if he doesn’t understand what he’s supposed to do then, it will be my business—yes, my business. I am her father.”

Six weeks had passed since Anna Pávlovna’s “At Home” and the sleepless night when Pierre decided that marrying Hélène would be a disaster and he should avoid her and leave. Yet, Pierre, despite this decision, hadn’t left Prince Vasíli’s house and was terrified to see that each day everyone believed he was more deeply entangled with her, that he couldn’t get back to how he once thought of her, that he couldn’t break away from her, and that, dreadful as it seemed, he would have to tie his fate to hers. He might have been able to free himself, but now Prince Vasíli—who had rarely given parties before—hardly let a day go by without having an evening gathering at which Pierre felt obligated to be present unless he wanted to ruin everyone’s enjoyment and disappoint their expectations. Prince Vasíli, in his rare moments at home, would take Pierre’s hand in passing and gently pull it downward, or absentmindedly offer his clean-shaven, wrinkled cheek for Pierre to kiss and say: “Till tomorrow,” or, “Be in for dinner or I’ll miss you,” or, “I’m staying in just for you,” and similar things. And even though Prince Vasíli, during these supposed stays for Pierre’s sake, barely exchanged a couple of words with him, Pierre felt powerless to refuse him. Every day he thought the same thing: “It’s time I understood her and decided what she truly is. Was I mistaken before, or am I mistaken now? No, she isn’t stupid; she’s an excellent girl,” he sometimes told himself. “She never makes mistakes, never says anything foolish. She speaks little, but when she does it’s always clear and simple, therefore she’s not stupid. She was never embarrassed and isn’t embarrassed now, so she can’t be a bad woman!” He had often begun to reflect or speak aloud in her company, and she always replied either with a brief but fitting remark—showing she didn’t care—or with a silent look and smile, which more clearly than anything else showed Pierre her superiority. She was right to consider all arguments pointless beside that smile.

She always addressed him with a radiant, trusting smile meant just for him, in which there was something more meaningful than in her usual smile for everyone else. Pierre knew that everyone waited for him to say the word and cross a certain line, and he knew that sooner or later he would, but some inexplicable terror seized him at the thought of that decisive step. A thousand times during that month and a half, as he felt himself drawn closer and closer to that frightening point, Pierre thought, “What am I doing? I need resolve. Is it possible I have none?”

He wanted to decide, but to his dismay felt that in this matter he lacked the strength of will he knew he had and really did possess in other things. Pierre was one of those who are strong only when they feel completely innocent, and since the day when, bending over the snuffbox at Anna Pávlovna’s, he had been overcome by his feelings of desire, the hidden sense of guilt had sapped his will.

On Hélène’s name day, only a small party of their own closest people—as his wife put it—gathered for supper at Prince Vasíli’s. All these friends and relations understood that the young girl’s fate would be decided that evening. The guests sat down for supper. Princess Kurágina, a large, imposing woman who had once been beautiful, sat at the head of the table. On either side of her were the main guests—an old general and his wife, and Anna Pávlovna Schérer. At the other end sat the younger and less important guests, as well as the family members, Pierre and Hélène side by side. Prince Vasíli did not have supper; he moved about the table in a jovial mood, sitting briefly by one guest or another. To each he made some offhand but agreeable remark, except to Pierre and Hélène, at whom he hardly seemed to glance. He was the life of the party. The wax candles shone brightly, the silver and crystal sparkled, as did the ladies’ gowns and the gold and silver of the men’s epaulets; servants in scarlet liveries moved around the table, the sounds of plates, knives, and glasses blending with the lively hum of several conversations. At one end, the old chamberlain could be heard assuring an old baroness he loved her passionately, at which she laughed; at the other, someone shared tales of some Mary Víktorovna’s misfortunes. In the middle, Prince Vasíli had everyone’s attention. With a joking smile, he was telling the ladies about last Wednesday’s Imperial Council meeting, where Sergéy Kuzmích Vyazmítinov, the new military governor general of Petersburg, had received and read the now-famous rescript from Emperor Alexander to Sergéy Kuzmích, in which the Emperor declared he was receiving declarations of loyalty from all sides, that the one from Petersburg was especially pleasing, and that he was proud to lead such a nation and would strive to be worthy of it. The rescript began, “Sergéy Kuzmích, From all sides reports reach me,” and so on.

“Well, so he never got past, ‘Sergéy Kuzmích’?” asked one lady.

“Exactly, not a syllable further,” answered Prince Vasíli, laughing. “‘Sergéy Kuzmích… From all sides… From all sides… Sergéy Kuzmích…’ Poor Vyazmítinov could get no further! He kept starting the rescript over and over, but as soon as he said *‘Sergéy’* he had to sob, then *‘Kuz-mí-ch,’* then tears, and *‘From all sides’* drowned in sobs, he couldn’t get further. And then the handkerchief came out, and again: *‘Sergéy Kuzmích, From all sides…’* and tears, until at last someone else had to read it.”

“Kuzmích… From all sides… and then tears,” someone echoed with a laugh.

“Don’t be cruel,” called Anna Pávlovna from her end of the table, raising a warning finger. “He’s such a good and worthy man, our dear Vyazmítinov….”

Everyone laughed heartily. At the head of the table, among the honored guests, everyone seemed in high spirits, caught up in a range of emotions. Only Pierre and Hélène sat quietly side by side near the bottom of the table, a shy smile brightening both their faces, a smile that had nothing to do with Sergéy Kuzmích—a smile of embarrassment at their own feelings. But no matter how much the others laughed, talked, joked, enjoyed their Rhine wine, the *sauté,* and the ices, and however hard they tried not to look at the young couple, as careless and detached as they appeared, it was clear from their occasional glances that the story about Sergéy Kuzmích, the laughter, and the feast were all just a facade, and the true focus of the whole company was—Pierre and Hélène. Prince Vasíli mimicked Sergéy Kuzmích’s sobs, but his eyes flickered toward his daughter, and while he laughed, his face clearly said: “Yes, it’s almost done, it will all be settled tonight.” Anna Pávlovna scolded him about “our dear Vyazmítinov,” but her eyes, as they briefly met Pierre’s, congratulated him on being her future son-in-law and wished happiness to his daughter. The old princess sighed sadly as she poured wine for the elderly lady beside her and gave an angry glance at her daughter, her sigh seeming to say: “Yes, there’s nothing left for us but to sip sweet wine, my dear; now it’s these young ones’ turn for such bold, open happiness.” “What foolishness is all this that I’m saying!” thought a diplomat, glancing at the lovers’ happy faces. “That’s happiness!”

Into the shallow, trivial, artificial interests uniting that society had come the simple attraction of a healthy, handsome young man and woman for each other. This human emotion dominated everything and rose above all their pretenses. Jokes fell flat, news was dull, and the party’s liveliness was clearly forced. Not just the guests but even the footmen waiting at the table sensed this, and they neglected their duties as they gazed at the beautiful Hélène glowing and at Pierre’s red, broad, happy but awkward face. It was as if the very light of the candles shone only on those two joyful faces.

Pierre felt himself at the center of it all, both pleased and embarrassed. He was like someone absorbed in a task. He didn’t really see, hear, or understand anything. Only now and then snatches of reality popped into his mind.

“So it’s all over!” he thought. “How did it happen? How fast! Now I know it’s not just because of her, or just me, but because of everyone, *it* has to happen. They all expect *it*; they’re so sure it will happen, I just can’t—cannot—disappoint them. But what will it be like? I don’t know, but it definitely will happen!” thought Pierre, glancing at the dazzling shoulders close to him.

Or he’d suddenly feel ashamed, unsure why. It felt awkward to be the focus of attention and to be seen as a lucky man and, with his plain looks, to be compared to a Paris who has found his Helen. “But surely this is always how it goes!” he reassured himself. “And besides, what did I do to cause it? How did it begin? I traveled from Moscow with Prince Vasíli. Then nothing. Why not stay at his house? Then I played cards with her, picked up her bag, drove out with her. When did it start, how did it all come together?” And now here he was, sitting by her as her fiancé, seeing, hearing, feeling her nearness, her breathing, her movements, her beauty. Then it would suddenly seem to Pierre that he—and not she—was the truly beautiful one, and that’s why they all looked at him, flattered him, and he’d throw out his chest, lift his head, and bask in his good luck. Suddenly a familiar voice had to repeat something to him a second time. But Pierre was so lost in thought he didn’t understand.

“I’m asking you when you last heard from Bolkónski,” Prince Vasíli repeated a third time. “How absent-minded you are, my dear fellow.”

Prince Vasíli smiled, and Pierre realized everyone was smiling at him and Hélène. “So what, if you all know?” thought Pierre. “It’s true!” And he smiled his gentle, boyish smile, and Hélène smiled as well.

“When did you get the letter? Was it from Olmütz?” Prince Vasíli asked, pretending to settle a debate.

“How can anyone talk or think about such trivia?” thought Pierre.

“Yes, from Olmütz,” he answered, sighing.

After supper Pierre and his partner followed the others into the drawing room. The guests began to leave, some without saying goodbye to Hélène. Some, as if not wanting to interrupt her important business, hurried over just briefly and left quickly, not allowing her to see them out. The diplomat kept a mournful silence as he left the room, comparing the emptiness of his own diplomatic work to Pierre’s happiness. The old general grumbled when his wife asked about his leg. “Old fool,” he thought. “Princess Hélène will still be beautiful when she’s fifty.”

“I think I may congratulate you,” Anna Pávlovna whispered to the old princess, giving her a big kiss. “If I didn’t have this headache I’d have stayed longer.”

The old princess didn’t answer, tormented by jealousy of her daughter’s happiness.

While guests were leaving, Pierre sat alone with Hélène in the small drawing room for a long time. He had sat alone with her many times over the last six weeks, but had never spoken of love. Now it felt inevitable, yet he couldn’t bring himself to take the final step. He felt embarrassed; he felt he was in someone else’s place beside Hélène. “This happiness isn’t for you,” some inner voice whispered. “This happiness is for people who don’t have whatever it is you have.”

But since he had to say something, he started by asking if she enjoyed the party. She answered in her usual simple way that this name day had been one of the happiest she’d ever had.

Several of the closest relatives still hadn’t left. They sat in the large drawing room. Prince Vasíli walked up to Pierre in slow, languid steps. Pierre stood up and said it was getting late. Prince Vasíli gave him a look of sharp questioning, as though Pierre’s words were so odd they were hard to grasp. But then Vasíli’s severe look softened, he took Pierre’s hand, made him sit, and smiled warmly.

“Well, Lëlya?” he asked, turning instantly to his daughter in that casual, affectionate tone typical of parents who’ve always spoiled their children—but which Prince Vasíli had only learned to imitate from others.

And once again he turned to Pierre.

“Sergéy Kuzmích—From all sides—” he said, unbuttoning his waistcoat’s top button.

Pierre smiled, but his smile made it clear he knew it wasn’t the story of Sergéy Kuzmích that mattered to Prince Vasíli at that moment, and Prince Vasíli saw him realize it. He suddenly muttered something and left. To Pierre, it seemed even the prince was unsettled. The sight of that polished old man’s discomfort touched Pierre: he looked at Hélène, and she too seemed embarrassed, her look saying: “Well, it’s your own fault.”

“I have to take the step, but I can’t, I can’t!” thought Pierre, and once more began talking about meaningless things—about Sergéy Kuzmích—asking her what the point of the story was, as he hadn’t caught it. Hélène replied with a smile that she had missed it too.

When Prince Vasíli came back to the drawing room, the princess, his wife, was speaking quietly to the older lady about Pierre.

“Of course, it’s a very brilliant match, but happiness, my dear…”

“Marriages are made in heaven,” replied the older lady.

Prince Vasíli passed by, seeming not to hear the women, and sat down on a sofa in a far corner. He closed his eyes as if dozing; his head dropped, then he roused himself.

“Aline,” he said to his wife, “go see what’s happening with them.”

The princess approached the door, passed by with dignified indifference, and glanced into the small drawing room. Pierre and Hélène still sat talking as before.

“Still the same,” she reported to her husband.

Prince Vasíli frowned, twisted his mouth, his cheeks quivered, and his face took on that harsh, unpleasant look unique to him. Shaking himself, he stood, straightened, and purposefully walked past the ladies into the little drawing room. He strode quickly and cheerfully straight up to Pierre. His expression was so intensely triumphant that Pierre stood up, startled by it.

“Thank God!” said Prince Vasíli. “My wife has told me everything!” (He put one arm around Pierre and the other around his daughter.)—“My dear boy… Lëlya… I am very pleased.” (His voice trembled.) “I loved your father… and she will make you a good wife… God bless you!…”

He embraced his daughter, then Pierre again, and kissed him with his foul-smelling mouth. Tears actually moistened his cheeks.

“Princess, come here!” he called.

The old princess entered and also wept. The elderly lady was using her handkerchief as well. Pierre was kissed, and he kissed the beautiful Hélène’s hand several times. After a while, they were left alone again.

“All this had to happen and couldn’t have been otherwise,” thought Pierre, “so it’s useless to wonder whether it is good or bad. It’s good because it’s settled and the old tormenting doubt is gone.” Pierre held his betrothed’s hand in silence, watching her beautiful chest rise and fall as she breathed.

“Hélène!” he said aloud and paused.

“There’s always something special people say at times like this,” he thought, but couldn’t remember what it was. He looked at her face. She moved closer to him. Her face flushed.

“Oh, take those off… those…” she said, pointing to his spectacles.

Pierre took them off, and his eyes, not only with the odd look eyes have just after removing spectacles, also had a frightened, questioning expression. He was about to lean down and kiss her hand, but with a swift, almost forceful motion, she turned her head and met his lips with her own. Her face struck Pierre with its changed, overly excited expression.

“It’s too late now, it’s done; besides, I love her,” thought Pierre.

*“Je vous aime!”* \* he said, recalling the proper words for such a moment—but his voice sounded so weak he felt embarrassed.

\* “I love you.”

Six weeks later, he was married and settled in Count Bezúkhov’s large, newly furnished Petersburg house, the proud owner, as people said, of a wife known for her beauty and of millions in wealth.

##  CHAPTER III

Old Prince Nicholas Bolkónski received a letter from Prince Vasíli in November 1805, announcing that he and his son would be visiting him. “I am starting on a journey of inspection, and of course I won’t mind traveling an extra seventy miles to see you at the same time, my honored benefactor,” wrote Prince Vasíli. “My son Anatole will be accompanying me on his way to the army, so I hope you’ll allow him to express in person the deep respect that, following in his father’s footsteps, he feels for you.”

“It seems we won’t have to bring Mary out—suitors are coming to us on their own,” the little princess remarked incautiously after hearing the news.

Prince Nicholas frowned but said nothing.

Two weeks after the letter, Prince Vasíli’s servants arrived one evening to prepare, and he and his son arrived the next day.

Old Bolkónski had always thought poorly of Prince Vasíli’s character, but even more so recently, since in the new reigns of Paul and Alexander, Prince Vasíli had risen to high office and honors. Now, from the hints in his letter and those dropped by the little princess, he saw what Prince Vasíli’s intentions were, and his low opinion turned into a feeling of contemptuous ill will. He snorted whenever he mentioned him. On the day of Prince Vasíli’s arrival, Prince Bolkónski was especially discontented and irritable. Whether it was Vasíli’s visit that put him in a bad mood, or simply that his bad mood made him more annoyed by Vasíli’s arrival, he was certainly out of temper. That morning, Tíkhon had already warned the architect not to bother the prince with his report.

“Do you hear his footsteps?” Tíkhon said, drawing the architect’s attention to the sound. “He’s walking flat on his heels—we know what that means….”

Still, at nine o’clock the prince, in his velvet coat trimmed with sable and his cap, went out for his usual walk. It had snowed the day before, and the path to the hothouse, which the prince favored, had been swept; the broom marks were still visible in the snow, and a shovel had been left stuck in one of the soft snowbanks lining the path. The prince walked through the conservatories, the serfs’ quarters, and the outbuildings, frowning and silent.

“Can a sleigh pass?” he asked his overseer, a dignified old man who resembled his master in both manner and appearance, and who was accompanying him back to the house.

“The snow is deep. I am having the avenue swept, your honor.”

The prince nodded and went back to the porch. “Thank God,” thought the overseer, “the storm has passed!”

“It would have been hard to drive up, your honor,” he added. “I heard, your honor, that a minister is coming to visit.”

The prince turned to the overseer, fixing his eyes on him and frowning.

“What? A minister? What minister? Who gave orders?” he demanded in his shrill, harsh voice. “The road is not swept for my daughter the princess, but for a minister! For me, there are no ministers!”

“Your honor, I thought…”

“You thought!” shouted the prince, his words coming faster and less distinctly. “You thought!… Rascals! Good-for-nothings!… I’ll teach you to think!” And raising his stick, he swung it and would have hit Alpátych, the overseer, if the latter hadn’t instinctively dodged the blow. “Thought… Good-for-nothings…” the prince shouted rapidly.

But though Alpátych, frightened by his own boldness in dodging, came up to the prince, bowing his bald head with resignation—or perhaps because of that—the prince, though he kept shouting, “Good-for-nothings!… Throw the snow back on the road!” didn’t raise his stick again, but hurried into the house.

Before dinner, Princess Mary and Mademoiselle Bourienne, who both knew the prince was in a foul mood, stood waiting for him; Mademoiselle Bourienne with a bright face that seemed to say: “I know nothing, I am just the same as always,” and Princess Mary pale, frightened, and with downcast eyes. What was hardest for her was knowing that in such moments she ought to behave like Mademoiselle Bourienne but never could. She thought: “If I pretend not to notice, he’ll think I don’t care; if I look sad and gloomy too, he’ll say (as he has said before) that I’m sulking.”

The prince glanced at his daughter’s frightened face and snorted.

“Fool… or dummy!” he muttered.

“And the other one isn’t here. They’ve been gossiping,” he thought, referring to the little princess who wasn’t in the dining room.

“Where is the princess?” he asked. “Hiding?”

“She’s not feeling well,” answered Mademoiselle Bourienne with a cheerful smile. “So she won’t be coming down. It’s natural in her condition.”

“Hm! Hm!” muttered the prince, sitting down.

His plate didn’t seem quite clean to him, and pointing out a spot, he flung it away. Tíkhon caught it and handed it to a footman. The little princess was not unwell, but so deeply afraid of the prince that, hearing he was in a bad mood, she had decided not to appear.

“I’m afraid for the baby,” she said to Mademoiselle Bourienne. “Heaven knows what a fright might do.”

Generally, at Bald Hills, the little princess lived in constant fear and with a sense of dislike toward the old prince, though she didn’t realize it because her fear was so much stronger. The prince returned her dislike, but for him, contempt was the prevailing feeling. Once the little princess got used to life at Bald Hills, she became quite fond of Mademoiselle Bourienne, spent whole days with her, asked her to sleep in her room, and often talked with her about the old prince and criticized him.

“So we are to have visitors, *mon prince*?” said Mademoiselle Bourienne, unfolding her white napkin with her rosy fingers. “His Excellency Prince Vasíli Kurágin and his son, I believe?” she said inquiringly.

“Hm!—his excellency is a puppy…. I got him his appointment in the service,” said the prince disdainfully. “Why his son is coming, I don’t know. Maybe Princess Elizabeth and Princess Mary know. I don’t want him.” (He looked at his blushing daughter.) “Are you unwell today? Eh? Afraid of the ‘minister’ as that fool Alpátych called him this morning?”

“No, *mon père*.”

Even though Mademoiselle Bourienne’s choice of topic wasn’t successful, she didn’t stop talking, but went on chatting about the conservatories and the beauty of a flower that had just bloomed, and after the soup, the prince became more pleasant.

After dinner, he went to see his daughter-in-law. The little princess was sitting at a small table, chatting with Másha, her maid. She turned pale when she saw her father-in-law.

She had changed a lot. She was now more plain than pretty, her cheeks had sunk, her lip was drawn up, and her eyes drooped.

“Yes, I feel a kind of heaviness,” she replied when the prince asked how she was feeling.

“Do you want anything?”

“No, *merci, mon père*.”

“Well, all right, all right.”

He left the room and went to the waiting room, where Alpátych stood with bowed head.

“Has the snow been shoveled back?”

“Yes, your excellency. Please forgive me… It was only my stupidity.”

“All right, all right,” interrupted the prince. Laughing in his unnatural way, he extended his hand for Alpátych to kiss, then went to his study.

Prince Vasíli arrived that evening. He was met on the avenue by coachmen and footmen who, with loud shouts, dragged his sleighs up to one of the lodges, which had been purposefully covered with snow.

Prince Vasíli and Anatole were given separate rooms.

After taking off his overcoat, Anatole sat with his arms akimbo at a table, absentmindedly smiling and fixing his large, handsome eyes on a corner. He viewed his entire life as a constant cycle of pleasure, which someone else was always responsible for providing. He considered this visit to a grumpy old man and a wealthy but unattractive heiress in the same light: it might turn out well and be entertaining. “And why not marry her if she really has so much money? That never does any harm,” thought Anatole.

He shaved and perfumed himself with the habitual care and elegance he had developed, and—with his handsome head held high—entered his father’s room, radiating the good-humored and victorious air that was natural to him. Prince Vasíli’s two valets were busy dressing him. Looking around with much animation, he cheerfully nodded to his son as he entered, as if to say: “Yes, that’s how I want you to look.”

“I say, Father, seriously, is she very hideous?” Anatole asked, as if continuing a conversation they’d had several times during the trip.

“Enough! Nonsense! Most importantly, be respectful and careful with the old prince.”

“If he starts a scene, I’ll leave,” said Prince Anatole. “I can’t stand those old men! Eh?”

“Remember, everything depends on this for you.”

Meanwhile, not only did the maidservants know the minister and his son had arrived, but both men’s appearances had been thoroughly described. Princess Mary sat alone in her room, struggling vainly to calm her anxiety.

“Why did they write, why did Lise tell me about it? It can never happen!” she said, looking at herself in the mirror. “How can I go into the drawing room? Even if I like him, I can’t be myself with him now.” The mere thought of her father’s gaze filled her with terror. The little princess and Mademoiselle Bourienne had already received a report from Másha, the lady’s maid, detailing how handsome the minister’s son was, with rosy cheeks and dark eyebrows, and how difficult it was for the father to go upstairs while the son followed like an eagle, three steps at a time. Armed with this information, the little princess and Mademoiselle Bourienne, their voices echoing in the corridor, went into Princess Mary’s room.

“You know they’ve arrived, Marie?” said the little princess, waddling in and sinking heavily into an armchair.

She was no longer in the loose morning gown she usually wore but had changed into one of her best dresses. Her hair was carefully styled, and her face was animated, though it couldn’t hide its sunken and faded features. Dressed as she used to be in Petersburg society, her plainness was even more apparent. Some subtle touch had been added to Mademoiselle Bourienne’s outfit, making her fresh and pretty face even more attractive.

“What! Are you going to stay like this, dear princess?” she began. “They’ll soon announce that the gentlemen are in the drawing room, and we’ll have to go down, but you haven’t fixed yourself up at all!”

The little princess stood, rang for the maid, and cheerfully began planning how Princess Mary should be dressed. Princess Mary’s self-esteem suffered because the arrival of a suitor made her so nervous, and even more because her companions couldn’t imagine reacting any differently. To tell them she felt embarrassed for herself and them would expose her anxiety, while refusing their help would only prolong their playful insistence. She blushed; her beautiful eyes grew dim, red blotches appeared on her face, and she had the unattractive, martyred expression she often wore, as she let Mademoiselle Bourienne and Lise dress her. Both women *genuinely* tried to make her look pretty. Mary was so plain that neither saw her as a rival, so they dressed her with honest intent and the naive confidence women often have that clothing can make a face attractive.

“No, really, my dear, this dress is not pretty,” said Lise, glancing sideways at Princess Mary from a distance. “Get your maroon dress, please. You know your whole future might depend on this. But this one is too light—it doesn’t suit you!”

It wasn’t the dress, but Princess Mary’s face and figure that weren’t attractive, though neither Mademoiselle Bourienne nor the little princess recognized this. They still hoped that with a blue ribbon in her hair, the hair brushed up, and a blue scarf on the best maroon dress, all would be well. They forgot that they couldn’t change a frightened face or awkward figure and that no matter how they dressed her, she would still appear pitiful and plain. After two or three changes, to which Princess Mary meekly agreed, her hair was arranged high on her head (which only made her look worse), and she put on a maroon dress with a pale-blue scarf. The little princess walked around her twice, adjusting a fold here, the scarf there, and tilting her head from side to side.

“No, it won’t do,” she said firmly, clapping her hands. “No, Mary, this dress doesn’t suit you. I like you better in your little gray everyday dress. Please, do it for me. Katie,” she said to the maid, “bring the princess her gray dress, and you’ll see, Mademoiselle Bourienne, how I’ll arrange it,” she added, smiling, already enjoying the artistic challenge.

But when Katie brought the gray dress, Princess Mary stayed seated in front of the mirror, her eyes filled with tears and her mouth trembling, ready to sob.

“Come now, dear princess,” said Mademoiselle Bourienne, “just one more little try.”

The little princess, taking the dress from the maid, came up to Princess Mary.

“Well, now we’ll choose something really simple and flattering,” she said.

The three voices—hers, Mademoiselle Bourienne’s, and Katie’s, who was laughing—blended in a cheerful sound, like birds chirping.

“No, leave me alone,” said Princess Mary.

Her voice was so serious and sad that the cheerful chatter stopped instantly. They looked at her large, thoughtful, beautiful eyes, full of tears and emotion, shining and pleading, and realized it was useless and even cruel to keep insisting.

“At least change your hairstyle,” said the little princess. “Didn’t I tell you,” she went on, turning reproachfully to Mademoiselle Bourienne, “Mary’s face isn’t suited for this style. Not at all! Please change it.”

“Leave me alone, please, just leave me alone! It’s all the same to me,” she replied, her voice thick with tears.

Mademoiselle Bourienne and the little princess had to admit to themselves that Princess Mary now looked even plainer than usual, but it was too late. She looked at them with a familiar thoughtful and sad expression. This look never frightened anyone (Princess Mary never inspired fear), but they knew that when it was on her face, she would not budge from her decision.

“You’ll change it, won’t you?” said Lise. When Princess Mary didn’t reply, she left the room.

Princess Mary was left alone. She ignored Lise’s request—not only did she leave her hair as it was, but she didn’t even look at her reflection. Letting her arms drop helplessly, she sat with her eyes cast downward, lost in thought. A husband—a strong, dominant, yet strangely attractive man—appeared in her imagination and swept her into a completely different, happy world of his making. She pictured a child—her own, like the one she had seen the day before in her nurse’s daughter’s arms—at her breast, with her husband standing by, gazing at her and the child with tenderness. “But no, it’s impossible. I am too ugly,” she thought.

“Please come to tea. The prince will join you in a moment,” the maid’s voice called from the door.

She gathered herself, horrified by what she had been thinking. Before going down, she went into the room where the icons hung and, fixing her eyes on the dark face of a large icon of the Saviour illuminated by a lamp, stood before it with hands folded for a few moments. A painful doubt filled her soul. Could she ever experience the joy of earthly love for a man? In her dreams of marriage, Princess Mary imagined happiness and children, but her deepest, most hidden longing was for earthly love. The more she tried to hide this from others and herself, the stronger it grew. “O God,” she prayed, “how can I stifle these temptations in my heart? How can I forever renounce these sinful fantasies and calmly do Your will?” Hardly had she asked when God answered in her heart. “Desire nothing for yourself; seek nothing; do not be anxious or envious. Man’s future and your fate remain hidden from you, but live so that you are ready for anything. If it is God’s will to test you in marriage, then be prepared to do His will.” With this comforting thought (yet still with hope for her forbidden earthly longing), Princess Mary sighed, crossed herself, and went down, thinking nothing of her dress or hair or of how she would enter or what she would say. What did any of that matter compared to God’s will, without whose care not a single hair of a person’s head falls?

##  CHAPTER IV

When Princess Mary came down, Prince Vasíli and his son were already in the drawing room, talking to the little princess and Mademoiselle Bourienne. When she entered with her heavy step, walking on her heels, the gentlemen and Mademoiselle Bourienne stood up, and the little princess, introducing her to the gentlemen, said: *“Voilà Marie!”* Princess Mary saw everyone and noticed every detail. She saw Prince Vasíli’s face turn serious for a moment at the sight of her but then immediately smile again. She saw the little princess watching closely to see what impression “Marie” made on the visitors. She also noticed Mademoiselle Bourienne, with her ribbon, pretty face, and unusually animated look, which was fixed on *him*—though *him* she could not see clearly; she only saw something large, striking, and handsome moving toward her as she entered the room. Prince Vasíli approached first; she kissed the bold forehead that bent to her hand and replied to his question, saying that, on the contrary, she remembered him quite well. Then Anatole came up to her. Still, she could not see him; she only felt a soft hand taking hers firmly, and her lips touched a white forehead covered with beautiful light-brown hair scented with pomade. When she looked up, she was struck by his good looks. Anatole stood with his right thumb under a button of his uniform, his chest expanded, his back arched, lightly swinging one foot, and, with his head slightly tilted, looked at the princess with a beaming face, without speaking and clearly not thinking about her at all. Anatole was not witty, quick, or eloquent in conversation, but he had an invaluable trait in society: a calm and unshakable self-confidence. If a man lacking confidence remains silent when first introduced—and shows that he knows this silence is awkward and is anxious to find something to say—it makes a bad impression. But Anatole was silent, swung his foot, and smiled as he examined the princess’ hair. It was clear he could keep silent like this for a very long time. “If anyone finds this silence awkward, let them talk; I don’t want to,” he seemed to say. 

Furthermore, when dealing with women Anatole had a manner that made them especially curious, uneasy, and even attracted—a certain arrogant sense of his own superiority. It was as if he were saying to them: “I know all about you, but why should I care? Naturally, you’d be delighted.” Perhaps he didn’t really think this when he met women—probably he didn’t, since he rarely thought much about anything—but his looks and manner gave that impression. The princess sensed this, and as if wanting to show him that she didn’t even dare hope to interest him, she turned to his father. The conversation became lively and animated, thanks to Princess Lise’s voice and the little downy lip that lifted over her white teeth. She greeted Prince Vasíli with that playful tone often used by lively, talkative people, pretending there were some inside jokes and shared memories between herself and the person she addressed—even when there were none, as was the case here. Prince Vasíli quickly responded in the same spirit, and the little princess included Anatole—whom she hardly knew—in these amusing recollections of things that had never happened. Mademoiselle Bourienne joined in as well, and even Princess Mary was pleasantly drawn into these cheerful “memories.”

“Here, at least, we’ll get to enjoy your company to ourselves, dear prince,” said the little princess (naturally, in French) to Prince Vasíli. “It’s not like at Annette’s* receptions, where you always ran away; you remember *cette chère Annette!*”

* Anna Pávlovna.

“Ah, but you won’t talk politics to me like Annette!”

“And our little tea table?”

“Oh, yes!”

“Why were you never at Annette’s?” the little princess asked Anatole. “Ah, I know, I know,” she said with a sly look, “your brother Hippolyte told me about your escapades. Oh!” and she wagged her finger at him, “I’ve even heard about your adventures in Paris!”

“And didn’t Hippolyte tell you?” asked Prince Vasíli, turning to his son and catching the little princess’s arm as if she were trying to escape and he had just caught her, “didn’t he tell you how he himself was pining for the dear princess, and how she showed him the door? Oh, she’s a pearl among women, Princess,” he added, turning to Princess Mary.

When Paris was mentioned, Mademoiselle Bourienne used the opportunity to join in on the reminiscing. 

She asked whether Anatole had left Paris long ago and how he liked the city. Anatole answered the Frenchwoman easily and, smiling at her, talked with her about her homeland. Seeing the pretty little Bourienne, Anatole decided Bald Hills wouldn’t be dull after all. “Not bad at all!” he thought, looking her over, “not bad at all, that little companion! I hope she’ll come along when we get married, *la petite est gentille.*”*

* The little one is charming.

The old prince dressed slowly in his study, frowning and thinking about what he should do. The arrival of these visitors annoyed him. “What are Prince Vasíli and that son of his to me? Prince Vasíli is a pompous boaster and his son is probably a fine example,” he grumbled to himself. What irritated him most was that these visitors revived in his mind an unresolved issue he always tried to ignore—one about which he always deceived himself. The question was whether he could bring himself to part with his daughter and give her to a husband. The prince never directly asked himself that question, knowing in advance he’d have to answer honestly—and honesty conflicted not only with his feelings but with his whole way of life. Life without Princess Mary, little as he seemed to value her, was unimaginable for him. “And why should she marry?” he thought. “To be miserable, certainly. Look at Lise, married to Andrew—a better husband would be hard to find nowadays—but is she happy? And who would marry Marie for love? She’s plain and awkward! They’ll only marry her for her connections and fortune. Aren’t there women who stay single and are even happier that way?” So reasoned Prince Bolkónski while getting dressed, but still the question he kept delaying now demanded an immediate answer. Prince Vasíli had obviously brought his son with the intention of proposing, and today or tomorrow he’d probably ask for an answer. His background and social standing weren’t bad. “Well, I have nothing against it,” the prince told himself, “but he must deserve her. And that, we shall see.”

“That is what we shall see! That is what we shall see!” he said out loud.

He entered the drawing room with his usual brisk step, glancing quickly around at everyone. He noticed the change in the little princess’s dress, Mademoiselle Bourienne’s ribbon, Princess Mary’s unflattering hairstyle, Mademoiselle Bourienne’s and Anatole’s smiles, and his daughter’s isolation in the midst of the lively conversation. “Dressed herself up like a fool!” he thought irritably, looking at her. “She’s shameless, and he ignores her!”

He went straight to Prince Vasíli.

“Well! How d’ye do? How d’ye do? Glad to see you!”

“Friendship laughs at distance,” began Prince Vasíli in his usual quick, confident, familiar way. “Here’s my second son; please love and befriend him.”

Prince Bolkónski looked Anatole over.

“Fine young fellow! Fine young fellow!” he said. “Well, come and kiss me,” and he offered his cheek.

Anatole kissed the old man and looked at him with curiosity and perfect composure, waiting for the odd behavior his father had warned him about.

Prince Bolkónski settled into his usual seat in the corner of the sofa, pulled up an armchair for Prince Vasíli, and began asking him about politics and current events. He seemed to listen attentively, but kept glancing at Princess Mary.

“And so they’re writing from Potsdam already?” he repeated from Prince Vasíli’s last sentence. Then, suddenly standing up, he walked over to his daughter.

“Did you dress up like this for the visitors, eh?” he asked. “Fine, very fine! You’ve fixed your hair in this new style for them, and in front of the visitors I tell you that in the future, you must never change your style of dress without my permission.”

“It was my fault, *mon père*,” interceded the little princess, blushing.

“You may do as you please,” said Prince Bolkónski, bowing to his daughter-in-law, “but she doesn’t need to make a fool of herself; she’s plain enough as it is.”

He sat down again and ignored his daughter, who was left in tears.

“On the contrary, that hairstyle suits the princess very well,” said Prince Vasíli.

“Now you, young prince—what’s your name?” said Prince Bolkónski, turning to Anatole, “come here, let’s talk and get acquainted.”

“Now the fun begins,” thought Anatole, sitting beside the old prince with a smile.

“Well, my dear boy, I hear you’ve been educated abroad—not taught to read and write by the deacon like your father and me. Now tell me, my dear boy, are you serving in the Horse Guards?” asked the old man, watching Anatole closely and intently.

“No, I’ve been transferred to the line,” replied Anatole, barely able to keep from laughing.

“Ah! That’s good. So, my dear boy, you want to serve the Tsar and the country? It’s wartime. A fine fellow like you must serve. Well, are you off to the front?”

“No, Prince, our regiment has gone to the front, but I am attached… what am I attached to, Papa?” said Anatole, turning to his father with a laugh.

“A splendid soldier, splendid! ‘What am I attached to!’ Ha, ha, ha!” laughed Prince Bolkónski, and Anatole laughed even louder. Suddenly Prince Bolkónski frowned.

“You may go,” he said to Anatole.

Anatole, still smiling, went back to the ladies.

“And so you’ve had him educated abroad, Prince Vasíli?” the old prince asked Prince Vasíli.

“I have done my best for him, and I can assure you the education there is much better than ours.”

“Yes, everything is different nowadays, everything’s changed. The lad’s a fine fellow, a fine fellow! Well, come with me now.” He took Prince Vasíli’s arm and led him to his study. As soon as they were alone, Prince Vasíli told the old prince about his hopes and intentions.

“Well, do you think I’ll stop her, that I can’t live without her?” the old prince said angrily. “What an idea! I’m ready for it tomorrow! But let me tell you, I want to know my son-in-law better. You know my principles—everything out in the open! I’ll ask her tomorrow in your presence; if she agrees, then he can stay. He can stay, and I’ll see.” The old prince snorted. “Let her marry, it’s all the same to me!” he shouted in the same piercing tone as when he parted from his son.

“I’ll be honest with you,” said Prince Vasíli, in the tone of a shrewd man who knows it’s pointless to pretend with someone so perceptive. “You know, you see straight through people. Anatole isn’t a genius, but he’s an honest, good-hearted fellow; an excellent son or relative.”

“All right, all right, we’ll see!”

As often happens when women live alone for some time without male company, with Anatole’s arrival, all three women of Prince Bolkónski’s household suddenly felt that their lives had been unreal until now. Their abilities to reason, feel, and observe seemed to grow tenfold, and their lives, which felt as if they had been lived in darkness, were suddenly illuminated by a new brightness, full of meaning.

Princess Mary became completely unaware of her face and hair. The handsome, open face of the man who might become her husband absorbed all her attention. To her, he seemed kind, brave, determined, manly, and generous. She was certain of it. Countless dreams of a future family life constantly filled her thoughts. She tried to push them away and hide them.

“But am I being too cold to him?” the princess wondered. “I try to act reserved because, deep down, I already feel too close to him, but he can’t know how I feel and might think I don’t like him.”

Princess Mary tried, but couldn’t manage, to be warm to her new guest. “Poor girl, she’s dreadfully ugly!” thought Anatole.

Mademoiselle Bourienne, also excited by Anatole’s arrival, had her own thoughts. She, a beautiful young woman without a clear position, without family or even a country, had no intention of spending her life serving Prince Bolkónski, reading aloud to him, and being friends with Princess Mary. Mademoiselle Bourienne had long dreamed of a Russian prince who, at a glance, would appreciate her superiority over the plain, poorly dressed, awkward Russian princesses, fall in love, and carry her away; and now, at last, here was a Russian prince. Mademoiselle Bourienne knew a story, told by her aunt but with an ending she had invented, that she liked to repeat to herself. It was about a girl who had been seduced, whose poor mother (*sa pauvre mère*) appeared to her and reproached her for giving herself to a man without marriage. Mademoiselle Bourienne was often moved to tears as, in her mind, she told this story to *him*, her seducer. And now *he*, a real Russian prince, had come. He would take her away and then *sa pauvre mère* would appear and he would marry her. So her future shaped itself in Mademoiselle Bourienne’s mind even as she talked to Anatole about Paris. It wasn’t calculation (she never once considered what she ought to do); all this was already familiar to her, and now that Anatole had appeared it just settled around him, and she wanted and tried to please him as much as she could.

The little princess, like an old warhorse at the sound of the trumpet, unconsciously and completely forgetting her condition, prepared herself for the familiar game of flirting—without any ulterior motive or struggle, but with a naïve and cheerful lightness.

Although Anatole usually acted as if he were tired of being chased by women, his vanity was flattered by seeing how much effect he had on these three women. Besides that, he was beginning to feel for the pretty and flirtatious Mademoiselle Bourienne that irresistible animal attraction which tended to overwhelm him suddenly and drive him to the crudest and most reckless behavior.

After tea, everyone went into the sitting room and Princess Mary was asked to play the clavichord. Anatole, laughing and in high spirits, came and leaned on his elbows, facing her and sitting next to Mademoiselle Bourienne. Princess Mary felt his gaze with a bittersweet happiness. Her favorite sonata carried her into a deeply poetic world, and his gaze seemed to make that world even more beautiful. But Anatole’s look, though he stared at her, was not about her but about the movement of Mademoiselle Bourienne’s small foot, which he was touching with his own under the clavichord. Mademoiselle Bourienne was also watching Princess Mary, and in her lovely eyes was a look of scared joy and hope that was also new to the princess.

“How much she loves me!” thought Princess Mary. “How happy I am now, and how happy I might be with such a friend and such a husband! Husband? Can this be real?” she wondered, not daring to look at his face, though she still felt his gaze.

Later that evening, after supper, as everyone was about to go to bed, Anatole kissed Princess Mary’s hand. She didn’t know where she found the courage, but she looked straight at his handsome face as it came near her nearsighted eyes. After Princess Mary, he turned and kissed Mademoiselle Bourienne’s hand. (This wasn’t proper etiquette, but he did everything so naturally and confidently!) Mademoiselle Bourienne blushed and gave Princess Mary a frightened look.

“What delicacy!” thought the princess. “Could Amélie” (Mademoiselle Bourienne) “really think I’d be jealous of her, and not value her pure affection and loyalty to me?” She went up to her and kissed her warmly. Anatole moved to kiss the little princess’s hand.

“No! No! No! When your father writes to tell me that you are behaving well, then I’ll let you kiss my hand. Not before then!” she said. And, smiling and wagging a finger at him, she left the room.

##  CHAPTER V

They all went their separate ways, but except for Anatole, who fell asleep as soon as he got into bed, everyone stayed awake for a long time that night.

“Is he really going to be my husband, this stranger who is so kind—yes, kind, that is the main thing,” thought Princess Mary; and a fear she rarely felt came over her. She was afraid to look around; it seemed to her someone was standing behind the screen in the dark corner. And that someone was *he*—the devil—and *he* was also this man with the white forehead, black eyebrows, and red lips.

She rang for her maid and asked her to sleep in her room.

Mademoiselle Bourienne walked up and down the conservatory for a long time that evening, vainly waiting for someone. She smiled as if at someone, then worked herself into tears with the imagined words of her *pauvre mère* rebuking her for her fall.

The little princess complained to her maid that her bed was badly made. She couldn’t lie on her face or her side. Every position felt awkward and uncomfortable, and her condition now weighed on her more than ever, because Anatole’s presence had vividly reminded her of the time when she was not like this and when everything had been light and joyful. She sat in an armchair in her dressing jacket and nightcap, while Katie, sleepy and disheveled, beat and turned the heavy feather bed for the third time, muttering to herself.

“I told you it was all lumps and holes!” the little princess repeated. “I wish I could fall asleep, so it’s not my fault!” Her voice quivered like that of a child about to cry.

The old prince did not sleep either. Tíkhon, half asleep, heard him pacing angrily about and snorting. The old prince felt as if he had been insulted through his daughter. The insult hurt him more because it was aimed not at himself but at his daughter, whom he loved more than himself. He kept telling himself that he would consider the matter and decide what was right and what he should do, but instead, he only grew more agitated.

“The first man who turns up—she forgets her father and everything else, runs upstairs, does her hair, wags her tail, and acts unlike herself! Willing to throw her father over! And she knew I would notice. Fr… fr… fr! And don’t I see that idiot was only interested in Bourienne—I’ll have to get rid of her. And how can she not have enough pride to see that? If she doesn’t have pride for herself, she might at least have some for my sake! She must be shown that fool thinks nothing of her and only looks at Bourienne. No, she has no pride… but I’ll let her see….”

The old prince knew that if he told his daughter she was making a mistake and that Anatole only wanted to flirt with Mademoiselle Bourienne, Princess Mary’s self-esteem would be hurt and, as a result, she wouldn’t want to leave him—so comforting himself with this, he called Tíkhon and began to undress.

“What devil brought them here?” he thought, as Tíkhon slid the nightshirt over his dried-out old body and gray-haired chest. “I never invited them. They’ve come to disrupt my life—and there’s not much of it left.”

“Devil take them!” he muttered while his head was still covered by the shirt.

Tíkhon knew his master’s habit of thinking aloud, so he met the prince’s angrily inquisitive look with a calm face as the old man emerged from the shirt.

“Gone to bed?” the prince asked.

Tíkhon, like all good valets, instantly understood his master’s thoughts. He knew the question referred to Prince Vasíli and his son.

“They have gone to bed and put out their lights, your excellency.”

“No good… no good…” said the prince quickly, and slipping his feet into his slippers and his arms into the sleeves of his dressing gown, he went to the couch where he slept.

Although no words had passed between Anatole and Mademoiselle Bourienne, they understood each other perfectly concerning their budding romance, up to the appearance of the *pauvre mère*; they knew they had much to say to each other in private, and so had been seeking an opportunity since morning to meet alone. When Princess Mary went to her father’s room at the usual hour, Mademoiselle Bourienne and Anatole met in the conservatory.

Princess Mary approached the door of the study with particular anxiety. It seemed not only did everyone know her fate would be decided that day, but that they also knew what she thought about it. She read this in Tíkhon’s face and in that of Prince Vasíli’s valet, who bowed deeply as she passed him in the corridor carrying hot water.

The old prince was very affectionate and attentive toward his daughter that morning. Princess Mary immediately recognized this careful expression of her father’s. His face wore that look when his dry hands clenched with irritation at her not understanding a sum in arithmetic, and when, rising from his chair, he would walk away from her, muttering the same words quietly to himself several times.

He got straight to the point, addressing her formally.

“I have had a proposal made about you,” he said with an unnatural smile. “I expect you’ve guessed that Prince Vasíli hasn’t come and brought his pupil with him” (for some reason, Prince Bolkónski referred to Anatole as a “pupil”) “for the sake of my beautiful eyes. Last night, a proposal was made regarding you, and, as you know my principles, I leave it up to you.”

“How am I to understand you, *mon père?*” said the princess, growing pale and then blushing.

“‘How understand me!’” cried her father angrily. “Prince Vasíli finds you suitable as a daughter-in-law and makes a proposal on his pupil’s behalf. That’s how it’s to be understood! ‘How understand it’!… And I ask you!”

“I do not know what you think, Father,” whispered the princess.

“I? Me? Leave me out of it. I’m not the one getting married. What about *you?* That’s what I want to know.”

The princess saw her father disapproved of the matter, but at that moment she realized her fate would be decided now or never. She lowered her eyes so she wouldn’t meet his gaze—knowing she couldn’t think under it and would only end up giving in out of habit—then said: “I only wish to do your will, but if I had to say what I want…” She did not finish. The old prince cut her off.

“That’s wonderful!” he shouted. “He’ll take you with your dowry and Mademoiselle Bourienne, too. She’ll be the wife, while you…”

The prince stopped. He saw how his words had affected his daughter. She lowered her head and was about to burst into tears.

“Now then, now then, I’m only joking!” he said. “Remember, Princess, I stick to the principle that a young woman has every right to choose. I give you your freedom. Just remember that your happiness depends on your decision. Don’t mind me!”

“But I do not know, Father!”

“There’s nothing more to say! He gets his instructions and will marry you or anyone; but you are free to choose…. Go to your room, think it over, and come back in an hour and tell me your answer in his presence: yes or no. I know you’ll pray about it. Well, pray if you want, but you’d better *think* it over. Go! Yes or no, yes or no, yes or no!” he kept shouting after the princess, who, as if lost in a fog, had already staggered out of the study.

Her fate was decided, and happily so. But what her father had said about Mademoiselle Bourienne was horrible. It was untrue, of course, but still it was awful, and she couldn’t help thinking about it. She was walking straight through the conservatory, not seeing or hearing anything, when suddenly Mademoiselle Bourienne’s familiar whisper caught her attention. She looked up, and just two steps away, saw Anatole embracing the Frenchwoman and whispering something to her. With a horrified look on his handsome face, Anatole glanced at Princess Mary, but did not immediately remove his arm from Mademoiselle Bourienne’s waist, who hadn’t yet seen her.

“Who’s that? Why? Wait a moment!” Anatole’s face seemed to say. Princess Mary stared at them without a word. She couldn’t understand it. Eventually, Mademoiselle Bourienne gave a scream and ran off. Anatole bowed to Princess Mary with a cheerful smile, as if inviting her to laugh at the strange event, and then, with a shrug, went through the door to his own room.

An hour later, Tíkhon came to call Princess Mary to the old prince; he added that Prince Vasíli was also there. When Tíkhon found her, Princess Mary was sitting on the sofa in her room, holding the weeping Mademoiselle Bourienne in her arms and gently stroking her hair. The princess’s beautiful eyes, full of their former calm radiance, looked with tender affection and pity at Mademoiselle Bourienne’s pretty face.

“No, Princess, I’ve lost your affection forever!” said Mademoiselle Bourienne.

“Why? I love you more than ever,” said Princess Mary, “and I will try to do all I can for your happiness.”

“But you despise me. You, who are so pure, can never understand being carried away by passion. Oh, only my poor mother…”

“I completely understand,” answered Princess Mary, with a sad smile. “Calm yourself, my dear. I will go to my father,” she said, and left.

Prince Vasíli, with one leg thrown high over the other and a snuffbox in his hand, was sitting there with a smile of deep emotion on his face, as if moved to his heart’s core and both regretting and laughing at his own sentimentality, when Princess Mary entered. He hurriedly took a pinch of snuff.

“Ah, my dear, my dear!” he began, rising and taking her hands in both of his. Then, with a sigh, he added, “My son’s fate is in your hands. Decide, my dear, good, gentle Marie, whom I have always loved as a daughter!”

He stepped back, and a genuine tear appeared in his eye.

“Fr... fr...” snorted Prince Bolkónski. “The prince is making you a proposal on behalf of his pupil—I mean, his son. Do you want or not to be Prince Anatole Kurágin’s wife? Answer: yes or no,” he shouted, “and then I shall give my opinion as well. Yes, my opinion, and only my opinion,” added Prince Bolkónski, turning to Prince Vasíli and replying to his pleading look. “Yes, or no?”

“My wish is never to leave you, Father, never to separate my life from yours. I do not wish to marry,” she replied firmly, looking at both Prince Vasíli and her father with her beautiful eyes.

“Nonsense! Rubbish! Nonsense, nonsense, nonsense!” cried Prince Bolkónski, frowning and taking his daughter’s hand; he did not kiss her, but only bent his forehead to hers, just touching it, and squeezed her hand so tightly that she winced and cried out.

Prince Vasíli stood up.

“My dear, I must tell you that this is a moment I shall never, ever forget. But, my dear, could you not give us a small hope of reaching this kind and generous heart? Say ‘perhaps’... The future is so long. Say ‘perhaps.’”

“Prince, what I have said is all that is in my heart. I thank you for the honor, but I shall never be your son’s wife.”

“Well, so that’s settled, my dear fellow! I am very glad to have seen you. Very glad! Go back to your rooms, Princess. Go!” said the old prince. “Very, very glad to have seen you,” he repeated, embracing Prince Vasíli.

“My calling is different,” thought Princess Mary. “My calling is to find happiness of another kind, the happiness of love and self-sacrifice. And whatever it takes, I will arrange poor Amélie’s happiness; she loves him so desperately and regrets so deeply. I will do all I can to arrange the match between them. If he isn’t wealthy, I’ll provide for her; I’ll ask my father and Andrew. I’ll be so happy when she is his wife. She is so unfortunate—a stranger, alone, helpless! And, oh God, how deeply she must love him if she could forget herself so much! Maybe I might have done the same!…” thought Princess Mary.

##  CHAPTER VI

It had been a long time since the Rostóvs had received any news from Nicholas. Not until midwinter did the count finally get a letter in his son’s handwriting. When he received it, he tiptoed in alarm and haste to his study, trying not to be noticed, closed the door, and began to read.

Anna Mikháylovna, who was always aware of everything that happened in the house, heard about the arrival of the letter and quietly entered the room. She found the count with the letter in his hand, both sobbing and laughing at the same time.

Anna Mikháylovna, though her situation had improved, was still living with the Rostóvs.

“My dear friend?” she said with a tone of gentle concern, ready to offer sympathy of any kind.

The count sobbed even more.

“Nikólenka… a letter… wa… a… s… wounded… my darling boy… the countess… promoted to officer… thank God… How will I tell the little countess!”

Anna Mikháylovna sat down beside him, used her own handkerchief to wipe the tears from his eyes and from the letter, then, after drying her own eyes, comforted the count. She decided that during dinner and until tea she would prepare the countess, and after tea, with God’s help, she would tell her.

At dinner, Anna Mikháylovna talked the whole time about the war news and about Nikólenka, twice asking when the last letter had been received from him, though she already knew, and commented that they might very well get a letter from him that day. Each time these hints began to worry the countess and she looked uneasily at the count and Anna Mikháylovna, the latter skillfully steered the conversation to minor topics. Natásha, who, of everyone in the family, was most sensitive to changes in tone, looks, and expressions, quickly sensed that there was a secret between her father and Anna Mikháylovna, that it was about her brother, and that Anna Mikháylovna was trying to prepare them. Bold as she was, Natásha knew how sensitive her mother was about anything concerning Nikólenka, so she didn’t risk asking questions at dinner. She was, however, too excited to eat and kept squirming in her seat despite her governess’s remarks. After dinner, she raced after Anna Mikháylovna and, when she caught up to her in the sitting room, threw herself on her neck.

“Auntie, darling, please tell me what it is!”

“Nothing, my dear.”

“No, dearest, sweet one, honey, I won’t give up—I know you know something.”

Anna Mikháylovna shook her head.

“You’re a little slyboots,” she said.

“A letter from Nikólenka! I’m sure of it!” exclaimed Natásha, reading confirmation in Anna Mikháylovna’s face.

“But, for heaven’s sake, be careful, you know how this might affect your mother.”

“I will, I will, only tell me! You won’t? Then I’ll go and tell right away.”

Anna Mikháylovna, in just a few words, told her the contents of the letter, on the condition that she told no one else.

“No, on my true word of honor,” said Natásha, crossing herself, “I won’t tell anyone!” and immediately ran off to find Sónya.

“Nikólenka… wounded… a letter,” she announced, triumphant and excited.

*“Nicholas!”* was all Sónya said, instantly turning pale.

Seeing Sónya’s reaction to the news of her brother’s wound, Natásha, for the first time, felt the sad side of the news.

She rushed to Sónya, hugged her, and started to cry.

“A small wound, but he’s been made an officer; he’s well now, he wrote it himself,” she said through her tears.

“There now! It’s true—all you women are crybabies,” declared Pétya, pacing the room with big, determined strides. “Now I’m very glad, very glad indeed, that my brother has distinguished himself so. You’re all blubberers and understand nothing.”

Natásha smiled through her tears.

“You haven’t read the letter?” asked Sónya.

“No, but she said that it’s all over and he’s now an officer.”

“Thank God!” said Sónya, crossing herself. “But maybe she tricked you. Let’s go to Mama.”

Pétya walked around the room in silence for a while.

“If I had been in Nikólenka’s place, I’d have killed even more of those Frenchmen,” he said. “What nasty brutes they are! I’d have killed so many that there’d be a heap of them.”

“Be quiet, Pétya, what a goose you are!”

“I’m not a goose—you are, for crying about nothing,” Pétya replied.

“Do you remember him?” Natásha suddenly asked, after a moment of silence.

Sónya smiled.

“Do I remember *Nicholas?*”

“No, Sónya, but do you remember him clearly, every detail?” said Natásha, with a meaningful gesture, obviously trying to make her point clear. “I remember Nikólenka too, I remember him perfectly,” she said. “But I don’t remember Borís. I don’t remember him at all.”

“What! You don’t remember Borís?” asked Sónya in surprise.

“It’s not that I don’t remember—I know what he looks like, but not the way I remember Nikólenka. With him, I just close my eyes and remember, but Borís… No!” (She shut her eyes.) “No! There’s nothing at all.”

“Oh, Natásha!” said Sónya, gazing at her friend with rapture and earnestness, as if she didn’t think Natásha was worthy of hearing what she truly meant and as if she were saying it to someone else, with whom there could be no joking, “I am in love with your brother once and for all, and whatever happens to him or to me, I shall never stop loving him as long as I live.”

Natásha looked at Sónya with curious, questioning eyes and said nothing. She sensed that Sónya was telling the truth—that there really was a kind of love like the one Sónya spoke about. But Natásha had never felt anything like it herself. She believed such love could exist, but she didn’t yet understand it.

“Will you write to him?” she asked.

Sónya became thoughtful. The question of how—or even whether—she should write to Nicholas tormented her. Now that he was an officer and a wounded hero, was it right to remind him of her, and perhaps of the promises he had made to her?

“I don’t know. I think if he writes, I’ll write too,” she answered, blushing.

“And you wouldn’t feel embarrassed to write to him?”

Sónya smiled.

“No.”

“And I would feel embarrassed to write to Borís. I’m not going to.”

“Why would you be embarrassed?”

“Well, I don’t know. It just feels awkward and would make me ashamed.”

“And I know why she’s embarrassed,” said Pétya, still annoyed by what Natásha had said earlier. “It’s because she fell for that fat one with spectacles”—that’s how Pétya described his namesake, the new Count Bezúkhov—“and now she’s in love with that singer”—referring to Natásha’s Italian singing teacher—“that’s why she’s embarrassed!”

“Pétya, you’re being silly!” said Natásha.

“No sillier than you, madam,” replied the nine-year-old Pétya, with the manner of an old brigadier.

The countess had already been prepared by Anna Mikháylovna’s hints at dinner. When she retired to her room, she sat in an armchair, staring at a miniature portrait of her son on the lid of a snuffbox, tears continually coming to her eyes. Anna Mikháylovna, carrying the letter, tiptoed to the countess’ door and paused.

“Don’t come in,” she said to the old count, who followed her. “Come later.” Then she entered, closing the door behind her.

The count pressed his ear to the keyhole to listen.

At first, he heard casual voices, then Anna Mikháylovna’s alone in a long speech, then a cry, followed by silence, then both voices together with happy tones, and finally footsteps. Anna Mikháylovna opened the door, her face wearing the proud expression of a surgeon who has just performed a difficult operation and is now letting onlookers admire the result.

“It’s done!” she said to the count, pointing triumphantly at the countess, who sat holding the snuffbox with Nicholas’ portrait in one hand and the letter in the other, alternately pressing them to her lips.

When she saw the count, she stretched out her arms to him and embraced his bald head. Then, glancing again at the letter and portrait, she gently moved the bald head aside to press them to her lips once more. Véra, Natásha, Sónya, and Pétya all crowded into the room, and the reading of the letter began. After briefly describing the campaign, the two battles he took part in, and his promotion, Nicholas wrote that he kissed his father’s and mother’s hands, asking for their blessing, and that he sent kisses to Véra, Natásha, and Pétya. He also sent regards to Monsieur Schelling, Madame Schoss, and his old nurse, and asked them to kiss “dear Sónya, whom he loved and thought of just the same as ever,” for him. On hearing this, Sónya blushed so deeply that tears came to her eyes. Unable to bear everyone looking at her, she ran into the dancing hall, spun around it at full speed with her dress billowing like a balloon, and, flushed and smiling, sank to the floor. The countess was weeping.

“Why are you crying, Mamma?” asked Véra. “From everything he says, we should be glad, not crying.”

That was perfectly true, but the count, the countess, and Natásha looked at her reproachfully. “Who does she take after?” wondered the countess.

Nicholas’s letter was read over hundreds of times, and anyone considered worthy to hear it had to come to the countess, because she refused to let it leave her hands. Tutors came, and the nurses, Dmítri, and several acquaintances, and each time the countess reread the letter with renewed pleasure, always finding new proof of Nikólenka’s virtues. It seemed so strange, so extraordinary, so joyful, that the child whose tiny movements she’d felt inside her twenty years ago, the same child about whom she used to argue with the indulgent count, the child who had first learned to say “pear” and then “granny”—that this boy was now away in a foreign land, in strange surroundings, a grown warrior doing a man’s work on his own, without help or guidance. The age-old experience that children do grow up imperceptibly, from cradle to adulthood, didn’t exist for the countess. Her son’s journey to manhood, at each stage, had always seemed just as extraordinary to her as if no one else in history had ever grown in the same way. As twenty years ago it seemed impossible that the little being under her heart would someday cry, nurse, and talk, so now she couldn’t believe that little being had become this strong, brave man—this model son and officer, so the letter suggested.

“What *style!* How beautifully he writes!” she exclaimed, reading the descriptive part of the letter. “And such a soul! Not a word about himself… Not a word! He mentions some Denísov or other, though I’m sure he himself is braver than all of them. He’s silent about his hardships. What a heart! It’s just like him! And how thoughtfully he remembers everyone! Not forgetting a single person. I always said, even when he was just this high—I always said….”

For over a week, preparations continued—rough drafts of letters to Nicholas were written and recopied by everyone in the household. Under the countess’s supervision and the count’s attentive care, money and all the supplies needed for the new officer’s uniform and equipment were collected. Anna Mikháylovna, ever practical, had managed through her connections in the army to secure a useful way to send letters to her son. She was able to send them to the Grand Duke Constantine Pávlovich, who commanded the Guards. The Rostóvs believed that “The Russian Guards, Abroad” was a concrete address, and that if a letter reached the Grand Duke in command, it would surely reach the Pávlograd regiment, supposedly stationed nearby. So it was decided to send the letters and money to Borís via the Grand Duke’s courier, and Borís would then forward them to Nicholas. Letters came from the old count, the countess, Pétya, Véra, Natásha, and Sónya; along with them went six thousand rubles for his outfit and various other items that the old count sent his son.

##  CHAPTER VII

On November twelfth, Kutúzov’s active army, camped before Olmütz, was preparing to be reviewed the next day by the two Emperors—the Russian and the Austrian. The Guards, who had just arrived from Russia, spent the night ten miles from Olmütz and were to go directly to the review the next morning, reaching the field at Olmütz by ten o’clock.

That day Nicholas Rostóv received a letter from Borís, telling him that the Ismáylov regiment was staying for the night ten miles from Olmütz and that he wished to see him, as he had a letter and some money for him. Rostóv especially needed money now, with the troops stationed near Olmütz after their active service, and the camp filled with well-provisioned sutlers and Austrian Jews offering all sorts of tempting goods. The Pávlograds were celebrating, holding feast after feast for the awards received during the campaign, and making trips to Olmütz to visit a certain Caroline the Hungarian, who had recently opened a restaurant there with girls as waitresses. Rostóv, who had just celebrated his promotion to cornet and bought Denísov’s horse Bedouin, was in debt everywhere—to his comrades and to the sutlers. After receiving Borís’ letter, he rode with a fellow officer to Olmütz, dined there, drank a bottle of wine, and then set off alone to the Guards’ camp to find his old playmate. Rostóv had not yet had time to get his new uniform. He wore a shabby cadet jacket, adorned with a soldier’s cross, equally shabby cadet’s riding breeches lined with worn leather, and an officer’s saber with a sword knot. The Don horse he was riding had been bought from a Cossack during the campaign, and he wore a crumpled hussar cap pushed jauntily back on one side of his head. As he rode up to the camp, he imagined how he would impress Borís and his comrades in the Guards with his appearance—that of a seasoned hussar who had been under fire.

The Guards had marched the whole way as if on a pleasure trip, proudly displaying their cleanliness and discipline. They had traveled at an easy pace, with their knapsacks carried in carts, and the Austrian authorities had provided excellent dinners for the officers at every stop. The regiments had entered and left towns with their bands playing, and, by order of the Grand Duke, the men had marched the entire way in step (a practice the Guards valued), the officers walking at their proper posts. Borís had been quartered and had marched with Berg, who was already commanding a company. Berg, who had received his captaincy during the campaign, had gained the confidence of his superiors by his promptness and accuracy and had managed his finances very well. Borís, during the campaign, had met many people who might be useful to him, and by a letter of recommendation he had brought from Pierre, became acquainted with Prince Andrew Bolkónski, through whom he hoped to get a post on the commander in chief’s staff. Berg and Borís, after resting from yesterday’s march, were sitting, clean and neatly dressed, at a round table in the tidy quarters assigned to them, playing chess. Berg held a smoking pipe between his knees. Borís, in his precise way, was building a little pyramid of chessmen with his delicate white fingers while he waited for Berg’s move, watching his opponent’s face, clearly focused only on the game at hand.

“Well, how are you going to get out of that?” he asked.

“We’ll try to,” replied Berg, touching a pawn and then taking his hand away.

At that moment, the door opened.

“Here he is at last!” shouted Rostóv. “And Berg too! Oh, you *petisenfans, allay cushay dormir!*” he exclaimed, imitating his Russian nurse’s French, which he and Borís used to laugh about long ago.

“Dear me, how you have changed!”

Borís stood to greet Rostóv, but as he did so, he carefully steadied some chessmen that were falling over. He was about to embrace his friend, but Nicholas avoided him. With that peculiar feeling of youth—a dread of following the crowd and a wish to express himself differently from his elders, often insincerely—Nicholas wanted to do something special on meeting his friend. He wanted to pinch him, push him, anything but kiss him, which everyone did. Yet, despite this, Borís embraced him in a quiet, friendly manner and kissed him three times.

They had not seen each other for nearly half a year, and at an age when young men are just starting out in life, each noticed great changes in the other, changes that reflected the new society each had entered. Both had changed greatly since they last met, and both were eager to show the other how they themselves had changed.

“Oh, you damned dandies! Clean and fresh as if you’d been to a party, not like us poor souls in the line,” cried Rostóv with a martial swagger and deep baritone notes in his voice, new to Borís, as he pointed to his own mud-stained breeches. The German landlady, hearing Rostóv’s loud voice, popped her head through the door.

“Eh, is she pretty?” he asked with a wink.

“Why do you shout so? You’ll frighten them!” said Borís. “I didn’t expect you today,” he added. “I just sent you the note yesterday with Bolkónski—an adjutant of Kutúzov’s, who’s a friend of mine. I didn’t think it would reach you so quickly…. Well, how are you? Been under fire already?” Borís asked.

Without answering, Rostóv shook the soldier’s Cross of St. George attached to his uniform’s cording and, indicating a bandaged arm, glanced at Berg with a smile.

“As you see,” he said.

“Really? Yes, yes!” said Borís, smiling. “And we’ve had a great march, too. You know His Imperial Highness rode with our regiment the entire way, so we had every comfort and all sorts of advantages. You should have seen the receptions we got in Poland! The dinners and balls—I can’t describe them. And the Tsarévich was very gracious to all our officers.”

The two friends then shared stories of their experiences: one telling of hussar revels and life on the front lines, the other about the pleasures and privileges of serving with members of the Imperial family.

“Oh, you Guards!” said Rostóv. “I say, send for some wine.”

Borís made a face.

“If you really want it,” he said.

He went to his bed, took a purse from under the clean pillow, and sent for wine.

“Yes, and I have some money and a letter to give you,” he added.

Rostóv took the letter, tossed the money onto the sofa, put both arms on the table, and began to read. After reading a few lines, he glanced angrily at Berg, then, meeting his eyes, hid his face behind the letter.

“Well, they’ve sent you a tidy sum,” said Berg, eyeing the heavy purse sinking into the sofa. “As for us, Count, we get along on our pay. Speaking for myself…”

“I say, Berg, my dear fellow,” said Rostóv, “when you get a letter from home and meet one of your own people who you want to talk everything over with, and I happen to be there, I’ll leave at once, to give you some privacy! Just go somewhere, anywhere… to the devil!” he exclaimed, and immediately grabbing Berg by the shoulder and looking amiably into his face, clearly wishing to soften the rudeness, he added, “Don’t take it badly, my dear fellow; you know I speak from the heart and as an old friend.”

“Oh, don’t mention it, Count! I quite understand,” said Berg, rising and speaking in a muffled, guttural voice.

“Go next door to our hosts—they invited you,” added Borís.

Berg put on his cleanest coat, without a spot or speck of dust, stood before a mirror and brushed his temples upwards, imitating the style favored by Emperor Alexander, and, noticing from Rostóv’s look that his coat had been seen, left the room with a pleasant smile.

“Oh dear, what a beast I am!” muttered Rostóv, as he read the letter.

“Why?”

“Oh, what a pig I am, not to have written and to have frightened them so! Oh, what a pig I am!” he repeated, suddenly flushing. “Well, have you sent Gabriel for some wine? All right, let’s have some!”

Enclosed with the letter from his parents was a letter of recommendation to Bagratión, which the old countess, following Anna Mikháylovna’s advice, had obtained through an acquaintance and sent to her son, asking him to deliver it and use it to his advantage.

“What nonsense! As if I need it!” said Rostóv, tossing the letter under the table.

“Why did you throw that away?” asked Borís.

“It’s some letter of recommendation… what do I need it for, really?”

“Why ‘what do I need it for’?” said Borís, picking it up and reading the address. “This letter could be very useful for you.”

“I don’t want anything, and I won’t be anybody’s adjutant.”

“Why not?” asked Borís.

“It’s a lackey’s job!”

“You’re still the same dreamer, I see,” said Borís, shaking his head.

“And you’re still the same diplomat! But that’s not the point… So, how are you?” asked Rostóv.

“Well, as you see. So far, everything’s all right, but I’ll admit I’d really like to be an adjutant and not stay at the front.”

“Why is that?”

“Because once a man joins the military, he should try to make the best career of it possible.”

“Oh, that’s it!” replied Rostóv, clearly thinking of something else.

He looked intently and searchingly into his friend’s eyes, obviously trying in vain to find the answer to some question.

Old Gabriel brought in the wine.

“Should we send for Berg now?” asked Borís. “He’d have a drink with you. I can’t.”

“Well, send for him then… and how do you get on with that German?” Rostóv asked with a sarcastic smile.

“He’s a very nice, honest, and pleasant fellow,” answered Borís.

Rostóv looked closely into Borís’s eyes again and sighed. Berg returned, and over the wine, the conversation between the three officers became lively. The Guardsmen told Rostóv about their march and how warmly they had been received in Russia, Poland, and abroad. They shared stories and anecdotes about their commander, the Grand Duke—his kindness and his bad temper. Berg, as usual, stayed quiet unless the topic was himself, but regarding the Grand Duke’s quick temper, he eagerly recounted how in Galicia he had managed to handle the Grand Duke when he inspected the regiments and grew annoyed at a mistake in formation. Smiling, Berg recounted how the Grand Duke rode up to him in a fury, shouting: “Arnauts!” (“Arnauts” was the Tsarévich’s favorite insult when he was angry) and called for the company commander.

“Would you believe it, Count, I wasn’t even nervous, because I knew I was right. Not to brag, you know, but I know the Army Orders by heart and know the Regulations like the Lord’s Prayer. So, Count, there’s never any negligence in my company, and my conscience was at ease. I stepped forward….” (Berg stood up and demonstrated how he presented himself, hand to cap, his face the picture of respect and smug satisfaction.) “Well, he stormed at me—really stormed and stormed! To use a phrase, it was more a matter of death than life. ‘Albanians!’ and ‘devils!’ and ‘To Siberia!’” Berg said, smiling wisely. “I knew I was right, so I stayed quiet; wasn’t that best, Count?… ‘Hey, are you dumb?’ he yelled. Still, I kept silent. And what do you think? The next day, nothing was even mentioned in the Orders of the Day. That’s what it means to keep your head. That’s the way, Count,” said Berg, lighting his pipe and blowing smoke rings.

“Yes, that was good,” said Rostóv, smiling.

But Borís saw that Rostóv was about to make fun of Berg, so he smoothly changed the subject and asked Rostóv to tell them how and where he’d received his wound. This delighted Rostóv, and he began talking about it, becoming more and more excited as he went on. He told them about his Schön Grabern incident just as most people who’ve been in battle describe such events: the way they want it to have been, as they’ve heard it from others, and as it sounds best—not as it really happened. Rostóv was a truthful young man and would never have told a deliberate lie. He started his story meaning to tell everything exactly as it happened, but gradually, without realizing it, and inevitably, he drifted into exaggeration. If he had told the truth to his listeners—who, like himself, had heard many battle tales and expected to hear something dramatic—they wouldn’t have believed him, or worse, would have blamed Rostóv, since the usual dramatic things hadn’t happened to him. He couldn’t just tell them that everyone moved forward at a trot, he fell off his horse and sprained his arm, and then ran as fast as he could from a Frenchman into the woods. Besides, telling the plain truth would have required an act of will. It is hard to tell the truth, and young people rarely manage it. His audience expected a vivid story—how he, fired up with excitement, charged the enemy, cut his way in, slashed left and right, his saber tasted blood, and then he collapsed from exhaustion. So that’s the story he told.

In the middle of his tale, just as he said: “You can’t imagine what a wild frenzy you feel during an attack,” Prince Andrew, whom Borís was expecting, walked into the room. Prince Andrew, who enjoyed helping young men, was pleased to be asked for help and felt well disposed toward Borís, who had impressed him the day before. He had just come with papers from Kutúzov to the Tsarévich, and stopped in, hoping Borís would be alone. When he entered and saw a line hussar recounting his exploits (Prince Andrew disliked that sort of man), he gave Borís a polite smile, frowned slightly as he took in Rostóv, nodded wearily, and sat languidly on the sofa: he didn’t like having ended up in company he found distasteful. Rostóv immediately blushed at this, but didn’t care—this was just a stranger. Looking at Borís, though, he saw that Borís, too, seemed embarrassed by the line hussar.

Despite Prince Andrew’s dismissive, ironic manner, and despite the contempt with which Rostóv, from his *fighting* army point of view, looked on the staff officers like this newcomer, Rostóv grew confused, blushed, and fell silent. Borís asked if there was any news from the staff, and, if it wasn’t a secret, about any plans.

“We’ll probably advance,” replied Bolkónski, clearly not wanting to say more in front of a stranger.

Berg quickly took the chance to ask, very politely, whether the rumor was true that captains of companies would have their forage money doubled. Prince Andrew only smiled and said he couldn’t give an opinion on such an important government order. Berg laughed cheerfully.

“As for your business,” Prince Andrew continued, turning to Borís, “we’ll talk about that later” (and glanced at Rostóv). “Come to see me after the review and we’ll see what can be done.”

Then, surveying the room, Prince Andrew addressed Rostóv, whose childish embarrassment was now turning into anger, and said: “I believe you were talking about the Schön Grabern affair? Were you there?”

“I was there,” Rostóv answered brusquely, as if to challenge the aide-de-camp.

Bolkónski recognized the hussar’s mood, and it amused him. With a faintly mocking smile, he said, “Yes, there are so many stories going around about that!”

“Yes, stories!” Rostóv repeated loudly, looking, his eyes suddenly full of anger, first at Borís, then at Bolkónski. “Yes, lots of stories! But our stories are from men who’ve really been under enemy fire! *Our* stories mean something, not like those staff officers who win rewards without doing anything!”

“You mean me?” said Prince Andrew, with a calmly pleasant smile.

A strange blend of irritation and respect for the man’s composure stirred in Rostóv.

“I’m not talking about you,” he said. “I don’t know you, and to be honest, I don’t want to. I’m speaking of the staff in general.”

“I’ll tell you this,” Prince Andrew interrupted in a calm, authoritative tone. “You want to insult me, and I’ll admit it would be easy enough to do if you didn’t have enough self-respect, but surely you see this isn’t the time or place for it. Soon we’ll all take part in a far more serious duel, and besides, Drubetskóy—who calls himself your friend—isn’t at all to blame that my face happens to annoy you. However,” he added, standing up, “you know my name and where to find me, but don’t forget that I don’t consider either myself or you insulted. And as a man older than you, my advice is to let it go. Well then, on Friday after the review I’ll expect you, Drubetskóy. *Au revoir!*” With a nod to both of them, Prince Andrew left.

Only after Prince Andrew had gone did Rostóv think of what he should have said, making him even more frustrated at missing the opportunity. He immediately ordered his horse and, coldly saying goodbye to Borís, rode home. All the way, he debated whether he should go to headquarters the next day and challenge that affected adjutant, or truly let it go. He angrily imagined the satisfaction of seeing that small, frail but proud man frightened under his pistol, and at the same time was surprised to realize that, of all the men he knew, there was no one he would rather have as a friend than this very adjutant whom he so detested.

##  CHAPTER VIII

The day after Rostóv visited Borís, a review was held for both the Austrian and Russian troops—those freshly arrived from Russia and those who had campaigned under Kutúzov. The two Emperors—the Russian, accompanied by his heir the Tsarévich, and the Austrian with the Archduke—inspected the allied army of eighty thousand men.

From early morning, the crisp, clean troops were on the move, forming up on the field before the fortress. Thousands of boots and bayonets moved and halted at officers’ commands, turned with banners flying, formed up at intervals, and wheeled around other similar masses of infantry in various uniforms. The rhythmic beat of hooves and the jingling of ornate cavalry, clad in blue, red, and green braided uniforms with smartly dressed bandsmen in front, mounted on black, roan, or gray horses, filled the air. Then, spreading out with the clatter of polished cannons quivering on their carriages and the scent of linstocks, the artillery crawled between the infantry and cavalry, taking up its appointed place. Not just the generals in full parade uniforms—with their trimmed waists, red necks squeezed into stiff collars, wearing sashes and all their decorations—nor only the elegant, pomaded officers, but every soldier, with his freshly washed and shaven face and his weapon polished to perfection, and every horse, brushed until its coat shone like satin with its moist mane smoothed flat, sensed that something far from ordinary was happening. Every general and every soldier felt his own smallness, merely a drop in this ocean of men, and yet, at the same time, was conscious of his strength as part of that vast whole.

From early morning, strenuous efforts had begun, and by ten o’clock everything was in perfect order. The ranks were drawn up on the vast field. The entire army stood in three lines: cavalry in front, artillery behind, and infantry at the back.

A space like a street separated each line of troops. The three sections of the army were clearly defined: Kutúzov’s fighting army (with the Pávlograds on the right flank of the front), the recently arrived Guard and line regiments from Russia, and the Austrian troops. But all stood together in rows, under one command, and in similar order.

A wave of excited whispers swept through: “They’re coming! They’re coming!” Alarmed voices were heard, and a last flurry of preparation swept over the troops.

From Olmütz, a group approached in the distance. Just then, though the day was still, a faint breeze ruffled the streamers on the lances and caused the unfolded standards to flutter. It seemed as if, in that subtle motion, the army itself was expressing its joy at the Emperors’ approach. A voice shouted: “Eyes front!” Then, like roosters crowing at sunrise, it echoed from all sides, and everything fell silent.

In the deathly stillness, only the tramp of horses could be heard—the Emperors’ suites. The Emperors rode up to the flank, and the trumpets of the first cavalry regiment played the general march. It seemed as if not just the trumpeters but the entire army was rejoicing at the Emperors’ approach, bursting naturally into music. Amid these sounds, the kindly, youthful voice of Emperor Alexander was clearly heard as he gave his greeting; the first regiment roared “Hurrah!” so loudly, continuously, and joyfully that they themselves were awed by their numbers and the immense power they represented.

Rostóv, standing in the front lines of Kutúzov’s army, which the Tsar approached first, felt exactly what every other man there felt: a sense of self-forgetfulness, a proud consciousness of their power, and a passionate attraction to the one responsible for this triumph.

He felt that at a single word from that man, this entire vast mass (with himself only a tiny part of it) would rush through fire and water, commit crimes, die, or perform the most heroic deeds—and so he could not help trembling, his heart pausing in anticipation of that word.

“Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!” thundered from all sides, as one regiment after another greeted the Tsar with the march, followed by more shouts of “Hurrah!”… The music continued, and the cheers grew louder and fuller, merging into an overwhelming roar.

Until the Tsar reached each regiment, they stood in stillness like lifeless bodies, but as soon as he appeared, they came alive, their thunder joining the roar of the whole line behind him. Through this deafening noise, amid the motionless ranks, hundreds of riders from the suites moved with carefree symmetry and, most of all, freedom, and at their front, two men—the Emperors. Upon these two men, the undivided, intense attention of all those soldiers was focused.

The handsome young Emperor Alexander, dressed in the Horse Guards’ uniform and wearing a cocked hat with peaks both front and back, with his pleasant face and resonant, though not loud, voice, attracted everyone’s attention.

Rostóv stood close to the trumpeters. With his keen sight, he recognized the Tsar, watching him approach. When he was within twenty paces, and Nicholas could clearly see every detail of his handsome, youthful face, he felt a tenderness and ecstasy he had never experienced before. Everything about the Tsar seemed enchanting to him.

Stopping before the Pávlograds, the Tsar said something in French to the Austrian Emperor and smiled.

Seeing that smile, Rostóv involuntarily smiled himself, feeling an even stronger surge of love for his sovereign. He longed to show that love somehow, and, knowing it was impossible, he was on the verge of tears. The Tsar called the colonel and addressed him.

“Oh God, what would happen to me if the Emperor spoke to me?” thought Rostóv. “I would die of happiness!”

The Tsar addressed the officers, too: “I thank you all, gentlemen, I thank you with all my heart.” Every word sounded to Rostóv like a voice from heaven. How gladly would he have died that very moment for his Tsar!

“You have earned the St. George’s standards and will be worthy of them.”

“Oh, to die, to die for him,” Rostóv thought.

The Tsar said more, but Rostóv didn’t hear it. The soldiers, straining their lungs, shouted “Hurrah!”

Rostóv too, bending over his saddle, shouted “Hurrah!” as loudly as he could, wishing that even the shout might injure him if only to fully express his rapture.

The Tsar paused for a few minutes in front of the hussars, as if undecided.

“How can the Emperor be undecided?” thought Rostóv, but even that hesitation seemed majestic and enchanting, like everything else the Tsar did.

That moment lasted only an instant. The Tsar’s foot, in the narrowly pointed boots then in fashion, touched the flanks of his bobtailed bay mare, his gloved hand gathered the reins, and he set off, surrounded by the bustling sea of aides-de-camp. He moved farther and farther away, stopping at other regiments, until only the white plumes of his hat were visible to Rostóv amid the suites encircling the Emperors.

Among the gentlemen of the suite, Rostóv spotted Bolkónski, sitting indolently and carelessly on his horse. Rostóv remembered their quarrel of the day before and wondered if he ought to challenge Bolkónski. “Of course not!” he thought. “Why even think or speak of it at a moment like this? With all this love, rapture, and self-sacrifice, what do our quarrels matter? I love and forgive everyone now.”

Once the Emperor had nearly passed all the regiments, the troops began the ceremonial march past him, and Rostóv, riding Bedouin, recently bought from Denísov, rode by too—at the rear of his squadron, that is, alone and in full view of the Emperor.

Before he reached the Tsar, Rostóv, who was an excellent rider, spurred Bedouin twice and put him into the splendid trot the horse used when excited. Bedouin, bending his foaming muzzle to his chest, tail stretched out, as if conscious of the Emperor’s eyes, performed magnificently, lifting his feet high and gracefully—as though flying through the air without touching the ground.

Rostóv, his legs back, stomach drawn in, feeling one with his horse, rode past the Emperor with a frowning but blissful face—“like a vewy devil,” as Denísov would say.

“Fine fellows, the Pávlograds!” remarked the Emperor.

“My God, how happy I would be if he ordered me to leap into fire this instant!” Rostóv thought.

After the review, the recently arrived officers—and Kutúzov’s as well—gathered in groups to talk about awards, the Austrians and their uniforms, their formations, Bonaparte, and how badly the latter would fare now, especially if the Essen corps arrived and Prussia joined them.

But in every group, the real topic was Emperor Alexander. Every word and gesture of his was repeated with ecstasy.

They all had but one wish: to advance as soon as possible against the enemy under the Emperor’s command. With the Emperor himself leading them, there was no doubt about victory—so thought Rostóv and most of the officers after the review.

All were more confident of victory now than even winning two battles could make them.

##  CHAPTER IX

The day after the review, Borís, dressed in his best uniform and with his comrade Berg’s good wishes for success, rode to Olmütz to see Bolkónski. He hoped to make use of Bolkónski’s friendliness to secure the best post he could for himself—preferably as an adjutant to some important person, a position in the army that seemed most appealing to him. “It’s all very well for Rostóv, whose father sends him ten thousand rubles at a time, to talk about not wanting to bow to anyone or to be anyone’s lackey, but I, who have nothing except my brains, have to make a career and can’t afford to miss opportunities—I have to take them when I can!” he thought.

He did not find Prince Andrew in Olmütz that day, but the sight of the town—where the headquarters, diplomatic corps, and the two Emperors with their entourages were staying—only increased his desire to join that higher world.

He didn’t know anyone, and despite his sharp Guardsman’s uniform, all these exalted people passing by in their elegant carriages with plumes, ribbons, and medals—both courtiers and military men—seemed so far above him, an unremarkable officer of the Guards, that they not only didn’t want to notice him, but it was as if they simply couldn’t even be aware of his existence. At the quarters of the commander in chief, Kutúzov—where he asked for Bolkónski—all the adjutants, even the orderlies, looked at him as if to let him know that many officers like him were always appearing there and everyone was thoroughly tired of them. In spite of this, or perhaps because of it, the next day, November 15, after dinner, he returned to Olmütz and, entering Kutúzov’s residence, asked again for Bolkónski. Prince Andrew was in, and Borís was shown to a large hall—probably once used for dancing but now holding five beds and various bits of furniture: a table, chairs, and a clavichord. One adjutant near the door, in a Persian dressing gown, was writing at the table. Another, the red, stout Nesvítski, lay on a bed with his hands under his head, laughing with an officer sitting beside him. A third was playing a Viennese waltz on the clavichord, while a fourth lay on top of the instrument, singing the tune. Bolkónski was not there. None of these men changed their position when they saw Borís. The one who was writing, and to whom Borís addressed himself, turned around impatiently and said Bolkónski was on duty, and that if Borís wanted to see him, he should go through the door on the left into the reception room. Borís thanked him and went to the reception room, where he found about ten officers and generals.

When he entered, Prince Andrew, eyes lowered contemptuously (with that expression of polite weariness that plainly says, "If it weren't my duty, I wouldn’t talk to you even for a moment"), was listening to an old Russian general with many decorations, who stood very straight, almost on tiptoe, with a deferential soldier’s look on his purple face, reporting something.

“Very well, then, please wait,” said Prince Andrew to the general in Russian, speaking with the French intonation he used when he wanted to sound superior. Noticing Borís, Prince Andrew, paying no more attention to the general—who hurried after him, trying to say more—nodded and turned to Borís with a cheerful smile.

At that moment, Borís clearly realized what he’d suspected before: that in the army, besides the official subordination and discipline everyone knew in the regiment, there was another, more important hierarchy. It made this tightly-laced, purple-faced general wait respectfully while Captain Prince Andrew, for his own pleasure, chatted with Lieutenant Drubetskóy. More than ever, Borís was resolved to serve according to this unwritten code, not just the written one. He now felt that simply by being recommended to Prince Andrew, he had already risen above the general, who, at the front, would have the power to destroy him, a Guards lieutenant. Prince Andrew came up and shook his hand.

“I’m very sorry you didn’t find me in yesterday. I was busy all day with Germans. We went with Weyrother to survey the dispositions. When Germans start being precise, there’s no end to it!”

Borís smiled as if he understood, though it was the first time he’d heard Weyrother’s name or the term “dispositions.”

“Well, my friend, you still want to be an adjutant? I’ve been thinking about you.”

“Yes, I was thinking”—for some reason Borís blushed—“of speaking to the commander in chief. He had a letter from Prince Kurágin about me. I just wanted to ask because I’m afraid the Guards won’t see action,” he added, almost apologetically.

“All right, all right. We’ll talk it over,” replied Prince Andrew. “Just let me report this gentleman’s business, then I’ll be at your disposal.”

While Prince Andrew went to report the purple-faced general’s issue, that general—clearly not sharing Borís’ view of the unwritten code—stared so intently at the presumptuous lieutenant who’d prevented him from finishing what he had to say, that Borís felt uncomfortable. He turned away and waited impatiently for Prince Andrew’s return from the commander in chief’s room.

“You see, my friend, I’ve been thinking about you,” said Prince Andrew when they’d gone into the large room where the clavichord was. “It’s no use your going to the commander in chief. He would say nice things, invite you to dinner” (“Not a bad thing regarding the unwritten code,” thought Borís), “but nothing more would come of it. Soon, there will be a whole battalion of us aides-de-camp and adjutants! But here’s what we’ll do: I have a good friend, an adjutant general and an excellent man—Prince Dolgorúkov; and though you may not realize it, the truth is that now Kutúzov with his staff—all of us—count for nothing. Everything now centers around the Emperor. So, we’ll go to Dolgorúkov; I have to go there anyway and I’ve already mentioned you to him. We’ll see if he can attach you to himself or find you a place closer to those in power.”

Prince Andrew always became especially enthusiastic when mentoring a young man or helping someone succeed in the world. By getting help for another—which, out of pride, he would never accept for himself—he stayed connected to the circles where success was decided, a world that fascinated him. He readily took up Borís’s cause and went with him to Dolgorúkov.

It was late in the evening when they entered the palace at Olmütz, where the Emperors and their entourages were staying.

That same day, a council of war had been held, attended by all members of the Hofkriegsrath and both Emperors. At that council, despite the views of the old generals Kutúzov and Prince Schwartzenberg, it had been decided to advance immediately and engage Bonaparte in battle. The council had just ended when Prince Andrew and Borís arrived at the palace to find Dolgorúkov. Everyone at headquarters was still filled with excitement from the day’s meeting, in which the younger officers had prevailed. Those who had advised waiting and delay had been so thoroughly silenced, and their arguments so completely refuted by evidence for attack, that what had been discussed—the coming battle and the certain victory—no longer seemed in the future, but already in the past. Everything seemed in their favor: their enormous army, certainly superior to Napoleon’s, concentrated in one place; the troops were enthusiastic from the Emperors’ presence and eager for battle. The area where operations would take place was thoroughly familiar to the Austrian General Weyrother: by chance, the Austrian army had maneuvered just the previous year on the very fields where the French now had to be fought; the adjacent area was known in every detail on the maps, and Bonaparte, clearly weakened, was doing nothing.

Dolgorúkov, a leading advocate of the attack, had just returned from the council, tired but proud of their triumph. Prince Andrew introduced Borís, but Prince Dolgorúkov only shook Borís’s hand politely and firmly, saying nothing, and, unable to hold back his thoughts, began speaking to Prince Andrew in French.

“Ah, my dear friend, what a victory we won today! May God grant the real battle will be as successful! Still, I must admit,” he continued abruptly and eagerly, “I was unfair to the Austrians and especially to Weyrother. Such precision, such attention to detail, such knowledge of the area, such foresight for every possibility, every minor detail! No, my friend, no circumstances could be better than our present ones. This combination of Austrian precision and Russian bravery—what more could we want?”

“So the attack is definitely set?” asked Bolkónski.

“And do you know, my friend, I think Bonaparte has completely lost his grip. You know a letter came from him to the Emperor today.” Dolgorúkov smiled knowingly.

“Really? What did he say?” asked Bolkónski.

“What could he say? Tra-di-ri-di-ra, and so on… just trying to gain time. I tell you, he’s in our hands, that’s certain! But the funniest thing,” he continued, suddenly laughing good-naturedly, “was that we couldn’t decide how to address our reply! If not as ‘Consul’ and certainly not as ‘Emperor,’ it seemed to me we should use ‘General Bonaparte.’”

“But there’s a difference between not recognizing him as Emperor and calling him General Bonaparte,” said Bolkónski.

“Exactly!” Dolgorúkov interrupted, laughing. “You know Bilíbin—he’s clever. He suggested addressing him as ‘Usurper and Enemy of Mankind.’”

Dolgorúkov laughed heartily.

“Just that?” said Bolkónski.

“Still, it was Bilíbin who found the right form for the address. He’s wise and clever.”

“What was it?”

“To the Head of the French Government… *Au chef du gouvernement français*,” said Dolgorúkov with great satisfaction. “Good, isn’t it?”

“Yes, but he’ll dislike it intensely,” said Bolkónski.

“Oh, very much! My brother knows him; he’s dined with him—the current Emperor—several times in Paris, and says he never met a more cunning or subtle diplomat—a real mix of French cleverness and Italian drama! Do you know the story about him and Count Markóv? Count Markóv was the only one who knew how to handle him. Have you heard the handkerchief story? It’s marvelous!”

The talkative Dolgorúkov, now turning to Borís, now to Prince Andrew, told how Bonaparte, wishing to test Markóv, our ambassador, deliberately dropped a handkerchief in front of him and stood watching, probably expecting Markóv to pick it up, but how Markóv dropped his own beside it and picked up his own without touching Bonaparte’s.

“Marvelous!” said Bolkónski. “But I’ve come to you, Prince, to make a request on this young man’s behalf. You see…” But before Prince Andrew could finish, an aide-de-camp arrived to call Dolgorúkov to the Emperor.

“Oh, what a nuisance,” said Dolgorúkov, getting up quickly and shaking hands with Prince Andrew and Borís. “You know I’d be glad to help you both—especially this dear young man.” He pressed Borís’s hand again, with a look of genuine and lively friendliness. “But you see… another time!”

Borís was excited by how close he now felt to those in power. He was aware that here he was touching the levers that moved the great mass which, back in his regiment, he felt himself just a small, obedient part of. They followed Prince Dolgorúkov into the corridor and met—coming out of the Emperor’s room—a short man in civilian clothes, with a clever face and a sharply jutting jaw that, far from spoiling his looks, gave him an energetic and restless air. This short man nodded to Dolgorúkov as an old friend and stared at Prince Andrew with a cool, piercing gaze, walking straight toward him and clearly expecting him to step aside or bow. Prince Andrew did neither. A look of hostility came over his face, and the other man turned away and walked down the corridor.

“Who was that?” asked Borís.

“He’s one of the most remarkable, but to me most disagreeable men—the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Prince Adam Czartorýski… It’s men like him who decide the fate of nations,” added Bolkónski with a sigh he couldn’t suppress, as they left the palace.

The next day, the army began its campaign, and until the battle of Austerlitz, Borís was unable to see either Prince Andrew or Dolgorúkov again, and remained for a time with the Ismáylov regiment.

##  CHAPTER X

At dawn on the sixteenth of November, Denísov’s squadron—where Nicholas Rostóv served, and which was part of Prince Bagratión’s detachment—moved from where it had camped for the night, advancing into action as planned. After marching behind other columns for about two-thirds of a mile, they were halted on the highroad. Rostóv watched the Cossacks, then the first and second squadrons of hussars, and the infantry battalions and artillery, pass by and move ahead, followed by Generals Bagratión and Dolgorúkov with their adjutants. All his fears before battle, the internal struggle to overcome them, and his dreams of proving himself a true hussar in this fight, had come to nothing. Their squadron remained in reserve, and Nicholas Rostóv spent that day in a gloomy, dejected mood. Around nine in the morning, he heard firing up ahead and shouts of *hurrah*, and saw a few wounded being brought back (though not many). Finally, he saw a whole group of captured French cavalry escorted in by a *sótnya* of Cossacks. Clearly, the action was over and, though not large, it had ended successfully. The soldiers and officers returning spoke of a brilliant victory—of the taking of the town of Wischau and the capture of a whole French squadron. The day was bright and sunny after a sharp night frost, and the cheerful brilliance matched the victorious mood, reflected not only in the words but in the joyful faces of soldiers, officers, generals, and adjutants as they passed Rostóv. Nicholas, who had needlessly suffered the anxiety before battle only to spend the victorious day idly, was all the more dispirited.

“Come here, Wostóv. Let’s dwink to dwown our gwief!” shouted Denísov, who had settled by the roadside with a flask and some food.

The officers gathered around Denísov’s canteen, eating and talking.

“There! They are bringing another!” cried one of the officers, pointing to a captured French dragoon being led on foot by two Cossacks.

One Cossack led by the bridle a fine large French horse taken from the prisoner.

“Sell us that horse!” Denísov called to the Cossacks.

“If you like, your honor!”

The officers stood up and gathered around the Cossacks and their prisoner. The French dragoon was a young Alsatian who spoke French with a German accent. Out of breath and flustered, his face red, the moment he heard some French he started talking to the officers, addressing first one, then another. He insisted he would not have been captured if not for the corporal who sent him for horsecloths—though he had warned there were Russians nearby. With every sentence he added, “But don’t hurt my little horse!” and stroked the animal. It was clear he didn’t fully realize where he was. Sometimes he excused himself for being captured, sometimes, imagining he was before his own officers, he asserted his discipline and devotion. He brought into the Russian rearguard all the freshness and unfamiliarity of the French army.

The Cossacks sold the horse for two gold pieces, and Rostóv, the richest among the officers after recently receiving his money, bought it.

“But don’t hurt my little horse!” the Alsatian said kindly to Rostóv as the animal was handed over.

Rostóv smiled, reassured the dragoon, and gave him money.

“Alley! Alley!” said the Cossack, urging the prisoner to move on.

“The Emperor! The Emperor!” was suddenly heard among the hussars.

Everyone sprang up and bustled, and Rostóv saw several riders with white plumes in their hats coming up the road. In an instant everyone was at his place, waiting.

Rostóv could not remember how he ran to his post and mounted. Instantly, all his regret at not seeing action and his boredom among people he was weary of vanished. He was overwhelmed with happiness at being near the Emperor. He felt this nearness made up for the dull day. He was as happy as a lover when the longed-for meeting arrives. Not daring to look around, he was blissfully aware of *his* approach. He felt it not just from the sound of hoofbeats, but because as *he* drew nearer everything grew brighter, more joyful, and more festive. Closer and closer to Rostóv came this sun, radiating mild, majestic light; he already felt enveloped in its beams, and heard *his* voice—kind, calm, majestic, yet so simple! In accord with Rostóv’s feeling, there was a hush in which the Emperor’s voice could be heard.

“The Pávlograd hussars?” he asked.

“The reserves, sire!” answered a voice, remarkably ordinary next to the Emperor’s.

The Emperor rode up to Rostóv and paused. Alexander’s face was even handsomer than it had been three days before at the review. It shone with gaiety and youth, with such innocent freshness that it seemed like a fourteen-year-old boy’s, yet it was the majestic Emperor’s face. As he surveyed the squadron, the Emperor’s eyes met Rostóv’s for no more than two seconds. Whether or not he truly understood what was happening in Rostóv’s soul (Rostóv felt he understood everything), for those moments his light-blue eyes rested on Rostóv’s. A gentle, mild light radiated from them. Suddenly, he raised his eyebrows, nudged his horse with his left foot, and galloped onward.

The young Emperor could not restrain his desire to be at the battle, and despite his courtiers’ objections, at noon he left the third column, with which he had been traveling, and rode to the vanguard. Before reaching the hussars, several adjutants met him with reports of the successful outcome.

This battle, which involved the capture of a French squadron, was treated as a brilliant victory, and so the Emperor—and the entire army, especially while the field still smoked—believed the French had been defeated and were retreating unwillingly. A few minutes after the Emperor passed, the Pávlograd division was ordered forward. In Wischau itself, a small German town, Rostóv saw the Emperor again. In the market square, where there had been heavy firing shortly before the Emperor arrived, several killed and wounded soldiers still lay, having not yet been moved. The Emperor, surrounded by his suite of officers and courtiers, was riding a bobtailed chestnut mare (different from the one at the review), and, leaning to one side, gracefully held a gold lorgnette to his eyes, looking at a soldier lying prone with blood on his uncovered head. The wounded soldier was so filthy, rough, and pitiful that his presence near the Emperor shocked Rostóv. He saw the Emperor’s rather rounded shoulders shudder as though a chill passed over him, his left foot nervously tapping the horse’s side with the spur, while the well-trained horse, unconcerned, remained still. An adjutant dismounted, lifted the soldier under the arms, and tried to place him on a stretcher. The soldier groaned.

“Gently, gently! Can’t you do it more gently?” said the Emperor, clearly suffering more than the wounded man himself, and he rode away.

Rostóv saw the Emperor’s eyes fill with tears and heard him, as he rode away, say to Czartorýski: “What a terrible thing war is: what a terrible thing! *Quelle terrible chose que la guerre!*”

The advance troops camped in front of Wischau, within sight of the enemy lines, which all day had given ground at the slightest firing. The Emperor’s gratitude was announced, awards were promised, and the men received double rations of vodka. Campfires crackled, and the soldiers’ songs rang out even more joyfully than the night before. Denísov celebrated his promotion to major, and Rostóv, already tipsy, proposed a toast to the Emperor at the end of the feast. “Not ‘our Sovereign, the Emperor,’ like at official dinners,” he said, “but to our Sovereign, that good, enchanting, and great man! Let’s drink to his health and to the certain defeat of the French!”

“If we fought before,” he declared, “not letting the French pass, like at Schön Grabern, what won’t we do now when *he* is here at the front? We’ll all gladly die for him! Isn’t that so, gentlemen? Maybe I’m not saying it right—I’ve had a bit to drink—but that’s what I feel, and you do too! To the health of Alexander the First! Hurrah!”

“Hurrah!” the officers shouted enthusiastically.

And the old cavalry captain, Kírsten, cried out with as much sincerity as the twenty-year-old Rostóv.

After the officers had emptied and smashed their glasses, Kírsten filled more and, in shirtsleeves and breeches, went with a glass in hand to the soldiers’ bonfires. With his long gray mustache and white chest showing under his open shirt, he struck a majestic pose in the campfire’s glow, waving his raised arm.

“Lads! Here’s to our Sovereign, the Emperor, and victory over our enemies! Hurrah!” he proclaimed in his bold, old hussar’s baritone.

The hussars gathered around, responding joyfully with cheers.

Late that night, after everyone had dispersed, Denísov affectionately patted Rostóv on the shoulder.

“As there’s no one to fall in love with on campaign, he’s fallen in love with the Tsar,” he joked.

“Denísov, don’t make fun of it!” Rostóv cried. “It’s such a noble, beautiful feeling, such a—”

“I believe it, I believe it, friend, and I share and appwove—”

“No, you don’t understand!”

Rostóv stood and wandered among the campfires, dreaming how wonderful it would be to die—not saving the Emperor’s life (he didn’t even dare imagine that), but simply to die in front of him. He really was in love with the Tsar, the glory of Russian arms, and the hope for future triumphs. He was not alone in this feeling during those memorable days before the battle of Austerlitz: nine-tenths of the Russian army were also in love, though less ecstatically, with their Tsar and the glory of Russian arms.

##  CHAPTER XI

The next day, the Emperor stopped at Wischau, and his physician, Villier, was summoned several times to see him. News spread at headquarters and among the nearby troops that the Emperor was unwell. According to those around him, he ate nothing and had slept poorly that night. The cause of his illness was said to be the deep impression made on his sensitive mind by seeing the dead and wounded.

At daybreak on the seventeenth, a French officer carrying a flag of truce and requesting an audience with the Russian Emperor was escorted into Wischau from our outposts. This officer was Savary. The Emperor had just fallen asleep, so Savary had to wait. Around midday, he was admitted to see the Emperor, and an hour later, he set off with Prince Dolgorúkov to the French army’s advanced post.

There were rumors that Savary had been sent to propose a meeting between Alexander and Napoleon. To the joy and pride of the whole army, a personal interview was refused, and instead of the Sovereign, Prince Dolgorúkov—victor at Wischau—was sent with Savary to negotiate with Napoleon, in case these negotiations were genuinely conducted in the interest of peace.

Toward evening, Dolgorúkov returned, went straight to the Tsar, and remained alone with him for a long time.

On November eighteenth and nineteenth, the army advanced two days’ march, and after a brief exchange of shots, the enemy’s outposts pulled back. In the highest army circles from midday on the nineteenth, a great and excited bustle began, lasting until the morning of the twentieth, when the famous Battle of Austerlitz was fought.

Until midday on the nineteenth, this activity—the eager conversations, constant movement, and the dispatching of adjutants—was limited to the Emperor’s headquarters. But by that afternoon, the activity reached Kutúzov’s headquarters and the commanders’ staff columns. By evening, adjutants had spread it throughout the army, and during the night from the nineteenth to the twentieth, the entire eighty thousand allied troops got up from their bivouacs to the hum of voices, and the army moved forward in one vast mass, six miles long.

The concentrated activity that began at the Emperor’s headquarters that morning, setting off the ensuing movement, was like the initial turning of the main wheel of a large tower clock. One wheel turned slowly, another was set in motion, then a third, and soon wheels started revolving faster, levers and cogwheels clicked into action, chimes played, figures appeared, and the hands advanced regularly as a result of all that activity.

Just as in the mechanism of a clock, in the machinery of the army, once an impulse is given it leads to the final result; and just as in a clock, the parts of the mechanism not yet in motion are completely still, unaware of the impulse until it reaches them. Wheels creak on their axles as cogs mesh and the pulleys whirl ever faster, while the next wheel remains idle, as though it might stay so for a hundred years—until the moment arrives that the lever catches it, and it too creaks into motion, joining the common movement toward an end it cannot see.

Just as a clock’s complex interplay of countless wheels and pulleys results only in the slow, regular movement of the hands displaying the time, so all the complicated human actions of the 160,000 Russians and French—their passions, hopes, remorse, humiliations, sufferings, outbursts of pride, fears, and enthusiasm—produced only the defeat at Austerlitz, the so-called battle of the three Emperors; that is, a slow movement of the hand on the dial of human history.

Prince Andrew was on duty that day, constantly attending the commander in chief.

At six in the evening, Kutúzov went to the Emperor’s headquarters and, after a short visit with the Tsar, went to see the grand marshal of the court, Count Tolstóy.

Bolkónski took the opportunity to visit Dolgorúkov to learn more about the coming action. He sensed that Kutúzov was uneasy and displeased about something and that at headquarters there was discontent with Kutúzov. He also noticed that at the Emperor’s headquarters, everyone acted as if they knew something others did not, so he wanted to speak with Dolgorúkov.

“Well, how are you, my dear fellow?” said Dolgorúkov, sitting at tea with Bilíbin. “The celebration is tomorrow. How’s your old man? Out of sorts?”

“I wouldn’t say he’s out of sorts, but I think he’d like to be heard.”

“But they listened to him at the council of war, and they’ll listen again if he talks sense. But to hesitate and wait now, when Bonaparte fears nothing so much as a general battle, is impossible.”

“Yes, you have seen him?” said Prince Andrew. “What is Bonaparte like? How did he strike you?”

“Yes, I saw him, and I am sure he’s more afraid of a general engagement than anything else,” repeated Dolgorúkov, clearly valuing the conclusion he’d drawn from his meeting with Napoleon. “If he weren’t afraid of a battle, why would he ask for that meeting? Why negotiate, and more importantly, why retreat, when retreating is so unlike his way of waging war? Believe me, he’s afraid—a general battle is what he fears most. His hour has come! Remember my words!”

“But tell me, what is he like, really?” said Prince Andrew again.

“He’s a man in a gray overcoat, very intent on getting me to call him ‘Your Majesty,’ but who, much to his annoyance, got no such title from me! That’s the kind of man he is, and nothing more,” Dolgorúkov replied, glancing at Bilíbin with a smile.

“Despite my deep respect for old Kutúzov,” he went on, “we’d be fools to wait and give him a chance to escape or outmaneuver us now that we finally have him in our grasp! No, we mustn’t forget Suvórov’s rule—don’t put yourself in a position to be attacked, but attack first yourself. Believe me, in war the energy of young men often leads better than the cautious delays of seasoned Cunctators.”

“But in what formation are we supposed to attack? I’ve been out to the lines today and it’s impossible to say where his main forces are positioned,” said Prince Andrew.

He wanted to explain to Dolgorúkov a plan of attack he had devised himself.

“Oh, it’s all the same,” Dolgorúkov said quickly, getting up and spreading a map on the table. “All options have been foreseen. If he’s in front of Brünn...”

And Prince Dolgorúkov rapidly but imprecisely explained Weyrother’s plan for a flanking maneuver.

Prince Andrew began to reply and explain his own plan, which might have been just as good as Weyrother’s, but for the disadvantage that Weyrother’s had already been approved. As soon as Prince Andrew started to point out the flaws in the accepted plan and the strengths of his own, Prince Dolgorúkov stopped listening and looked absent-mindedly not at the map, but at Prince Andrew’s face.

“There will be a council of war at Kutúzov’s tonight; you can say all this there,” remarked Dolgorúkov.

“I will,” said Prince Andrew, stepping away from the map.

“What are you two worrying about?” said Bilíbin, who had been listening with an amused smile and was evidently ready with a quip. “Whether tomorrow brings victory or defeat, the glory of Russian arms is safe. Except for your Kutúzov, there isn’t a single Russian commanding a column! The commanders are: Herr General Wimpfen, le Comte de Langeron, le Prince de Lichtenstein, le Prince de Hohenlohe, and finally Prishprish, and so on with all those Polish names.”

“Quiet, you backbiter!” said Dolgorúkov. “That’s not true. Now we have two Russians, Milorádovich and Dokhtúrov, and there would be a third, Count Arakchéev, if his nerves weren’t too weak.”

“Anyway, I think General Kutúzov has come out,” said Prince Andrew. “I wish you gentlemen good luck and success!” He shook hands with Dolgorúkov and Bilíbin and left.

On the way home, Prince Andrew couldn’t help asking Kutúzov, who sat silently beside him, what he thought of the next day’s battle.

Kutúzov looked sternly at his adjutant and after a pause replied, “I think the battle will be lost, and I told Count Tolstóy as much, asking him to relay it to the Emperor. Do you know what he said? ‘But, my dear general, I’m busy with rice and cutlets, look after military matters yourself!’ Yes... That was the answer I got!”

##  CHAPTER XII

Shortly after nine o’clock that evening, Weyrother arrived with his plans at Kutúzov’s quarters, where the council of war was to be held. All the column commanders were summoned to the commander in chief’s, and with the exception of Prince Bagratión, who declined to attend, all were present at the scheduled time.

Weyrother, who was fully in control of the proposed battle, came across as eager and energetic—a sharp contrast to the dissatisfied and drowsy Kutúzov, who unwillingly assumed the role of chairman and president of the war council. Weyrother clearly felt he was leading a movement already unstoppable. He was like a horse running downhill, harnessed to a heavy cart, unsure if he was pulling or being pushed, but rushing forward so fast he could not reflect on where this movement might end. That evening, Weyrother had twice reconnoitered personally at the enemy’s picket line, visited both the Russian and Austrian Emperors to report and explain, and been to his headquarters where he dictated the orders in German. Now, very exhausted, he arrived at Kutúzov’s.

He was clearly so busy he even forgot to be courteous to the commander in chief. He interrupted, spoke quickly and indistinctly without making eye contact, and did not respond to questions. He was splattered with mud and had a pitiful, weary, and distracted look, yet at the same time was haughty and self-assured.

Kutúzov was staying in a nobleman’s small castle near Ostralitz. In the large drawing room, now serving as the commander in chief’s office, were Kutúzov, Weyrother, and the members of the war council. They were drinking tea and only awaited Prince Bagratión to begin. Finally, Bagratión’s orderly came with the message that the prince would not attend. Prince Andrew entered to inform the commander in chief of this and, using permission previously given by Kutúzov to attend the council, remained in the room.

“Since Prince Bagratión isn’t coming, we may begin,” said Weyrother, quickly standing up and going to the table with a huge map of the Brünn area spread out.

Kutúzov, his uniform unbuttoned so his fat neck bulged over the collar as if escaping, sat nearly asleep in a low chair, his plump old hands symmetrically resting on the arms. At the sound of Weyrother’s voice, he opened his one eye with effort.

“Yes, yes, please! It’s already late,” he said, letting his head drop and closing his eye again.

If at first the members of the council thought Kutúzov was only pretending to sleep, the sounds from his nose during the following reading made clear their chief was engaged in something much more serious than feigning indifference—he was responding to the irresistible human need for sleep. He truly was asleep. Weyrother, with the air of a man too busy to waste a moment, glanced at Kutúzov; after confirming his sleep, he picked up a paper and began loudly and monotonously to read out the arrangements for the impending battle, including its heading:

“Dispositions for an attack on the enemy position behind Kobelnitz and Sokolnitz, November 30, 1805.”

The orders were complicated and difficult. They began:

“As the enemy’s left wing rests on wooded hills and his right extends along Kobelnitz and Sokolnitz behind the ponds there, while our own left wing far outflanks his right, it will be advantageous to attack the latter wing—especially if we occupy the villages of Sokolnitz and Kobelnitz. By this, we can strike his flank and pursue him over the plain between Schlappanitz and the Thuerassa forest, avoiding the defiles of Schlappanitz and Bellowitz covering his front. For this purpose it is necessary that… The first column marches… The second column marches… The third column marches…” and so on, read Weyrother.

The generals seemed to listen to these difficult orders with reluctance. The tall, fair-haired General Buxhöwden leaned against the wall, eyes fixed on a burning candle, and seemed not to listen—or even to want to appear to listen. Directly facing Weyrother, with eyes wide open and mustache twisted upward, sat the ruddy Milorádovich in a military pose: elbows out, hands on knees, shoulders raised. He stubbornly watched Weyrother’s face but only looked away when the Austrian chief of staff finished reading. Then Milorádovich looked around significantly at the others, though it was impossible to judge from his look if he agreed, disagreed, was satisfied, or not with the arrangements. Next to Weyrother sat Count Langeron, who watched his own delicate fingers spinning a gold snuffbox with a portrait on its lid, a subtle smile never leaving his typically southern French face throughout the reading. In the middle of a long sentence, he stopped the snuffbox’s spinning, lifted his head, and with a polite hostility in the corners of his mouth, interrupted Weyrother, apparently wanting to comment. But the Austrian general, continuing his reading, frowned and jerked his elbows as if to say, “Keep your remarks until later, and please look at the map and listen.” Langeron, puzzled, turned to Milorádovich as if for support, but met only the other’s impressive but meaningless gaze, so he sadly resumed twirling the snuffbox.

“It’s a geography lesson!” he muttered, loud enough to be heard.

Przebyszéwski, with courteous but dignified attention, cupped his ear toward Weyrother, as if deeply absorbed. Dohktúrov, a small man, sat opposite Weyrother with an industrious and modest demeanor, leaning over the map, conscientiously studying the arrangements and unfamiliar region. Several times, he asked Weyrother to repeat words and village names he hadn’t caught. Weyrother obliged, and Dohktúrov carefully wrote them down.

When the reading, which lasted more than an hour, was over, Langeron stopped spinning his snuffbox and, without looking at Weyrother or anyone in particular, commented on the difficulty of carrying out such a plan. The enemy’s position was assumed to be known, when in reality it might not be, as the enemy was on the move. Langeron’s objections were valid, but it was obvious his main goal was to show Weyrother—who read his orders as confidently as if lecturing schoolchildren—that he was dealing not with fools, but with men who knew a thing or two about war.

When Weyrother’s monotonous voice finally fell silent, Kutúzov opened his eye, like a miller roused as the mill wheel’s droning stops. He listened briefly, as if to say, “Still wasting time with that nonsense!” then closed his eye again, letting his head sink even lower.

Langeron, as pointedly as he could, pressed Weyrother’s pride as author of the plan, arguing that Bonaparte could easily attack instead of being attacked, making the whole plan useless. Weyrother met all objections with a firm, contemptuous smile, clearly prepared for any counterargument.

“If he could attack us, he would have done so today,” he replied.

“So you think he’s powerless?” said Langeron.

“He has forty thousand men at the most,” replied Weyrother, with the smile of a doctor listening to an old woman suggest a treatment.

“In that case, he’s inviting his own defeat by waiting for our attack,” said Langeron, with a subtly ironic smile, glancing to Milorádovich for support.

But Milorádovich was evidently thinking of anything but the argument at hand.

*“Ma foi!”* he said, “tomorrow we’ll see all that on the battlefield.”

Weyrother again wore that smile suggesting it was bizarre and ridiculous to face objections from Russian generals, and to have to prove what he had not only convinced himself of, but also the Emperors.

“The enemy’s fires have gone out, and a continual noise is heard from his camp,” he said. “What does that mean? Either he is retreating—which is our only real worry—or he is repositioning.” (He smiled ironically.) “But even if he moved into the Thuerassa, it actually saves us trouble and our plans in every detail remain the same.”

“How is that?…” began Prince Andrew, who had long been waiting to express his doubts.

Kutúzov now awoke, coughed heavily, and looked at the generals.

“Gentlemen, the orders for tomorrow—or rather, for today, as it’s past midnight—cannot now be changed,” he said. “You’ve heard them, and we shall all do our duty. But before a battle, nothing is more important…” he paused, “than getting a good sleep.”

He moved as if to rise. The generals bowed and withdrew. It was past midnight. Prince Andrew went out.

The council of war, where Prince Andrew had not been able to express his opinion as he hoped, left him with a vague, uneasy feeling. Whether Dolgorúkov and Weyrother, or Kutúzov, Langeron, and the others who disapproved of the attack plan, were right—he could not tell. “But was it really impossible for Kutúzov to say what he thought to the Emperor? Is it possible that, for the sake of court and personal interests, tens of thousands of lives, and my own life, *my* life,” he thought, “have to be risked?”

“Yes, it’s very likely I’ll be killed tomorrow,” he thought. Suddenly, at that thought of death, a stream of distant, intimate memories filled his mind: his latest parting from his father and wife; the days he first loved her. He thought of her pregnancy and felt sorry for her and for himself, and, emotionally softened, he left the hut where he was quartered with Nesvítski and paced in front of it.

The night was foggy, the moonlight shining mysteriously through the mist. “Yes, tomorrow, tomorrow!” he thought. “Tomorrow everything could be over for me! All these memories would be gone, with no meaning for me. Tomorrow, maybe even certainly—I have a feeling for the first time I’ll show all I am capable of.” His imagination pictured the battle: its loss, the fighting focused at one point, the hesitation of all commanders. Then, at last, that happy moment—that Toulon he’d awaited—comes for him. He bravely and clearly voices his opinion to Kutúzov, Weyrother, and the Emperors; all are struck by how right he is, but no one acts, so he takes command of a regiment, a division—insists on no interference—leads his division to the key point, and wins the victory alone. “But death, and suffering?” a different voice asked. Prince Andrew ignored it, and kept dreaming of his victories. He plans the coming battle entirely by himself. Though only an adjutant on Kutúzov’s staff, he alone does everything. The next battle too is won by him alone. Kutúzov is removed, and he is appointed… “Well, and then?” asked the other voice. “Suppose you’re not shot, wounded, or betrayed before that, what then?…” “Well then,” Prince Andrew answered himself, “I don’t know what will happen, don’t want to know, and can’t know. But if I want this—if I want glory, to be known and loved by people, it’s not my fault I want that and nothing else, and live only for that. Yes, for that alone! I’ll never tell anyone, but, oh God! what can I do if I love nothing but fame and others’ respect? Death, wounds, loss of family—I fear nothing. And as precious and dear as many people are to me—father, sister, wife—even though it seems dreadful and unnatural, I’d give them all at once for a moment of glory and triumph, the love of men I don’t know, will never know, just like the love of these men here,” he thought, listening to voices in Kutúzov’s courtyard. The voices belonged to the orderlies who were packing; one, probably a coachman, was teasing Kutúzov’s old cook—a man Prince Andrew knew, called Tit. He was saying, “Tit, hey, Tit!”

“Well?” replied the old man.

“Go on, Tit, do a bit of threshing!” the joker called out.

“Oh, get lost!” came a voice drowned in a burst of laughter from the orderlies and servants.

“All the same, I love and value nothing but triumph over them all. I value this mystical power and glory that’s drifting here above me in this mist!”

##  CHAPTER XIII

That same night, Rostóv was with a platoon on skirmishing duty in front of Bagratión’s detachment. His hussars were spaced along the line in pairs, and he rode back and forth, struggling to stay awake as drowsiness kept overtaking him. Behind him stretched a vast expanse, the campfires of their army glowing dimly through the fog; before him, only misty darkness. Rostóv strained his eyes but could make out nothing in that hazy distance: sometimes something seemed to gleam gray, or appear black; sometimes little lights glittered where the enemy should be; at other times, he thought it was just his imagination. His eyelids drooped, and in his thoughts flashed the Emperor, Denísov, and memories of Moscow. He would then snap awake, seeing only the horse’s head and ears right in front of him, and, at times, if he passed near, the shadowy shapes of hussars six paces off. In the distance, however, there remained only the same misty darkness. “Why not?... It could easily happen,” Rostóv thought, “that the Emperor will meet me and give me an order, as he would to any other officer. He’ll say: ‘Go and find out what is there.’ There are many tales of him meeting an officer by chance and then taking him into his service! What if he gave me a position near him? How I would protect him, how I would tell him the truth, how I would expose his deceivers!” To make his devotion to the Emperor even more vivid, Rostóv pictured himself facing an enemy or a treacherous German—not just killing him, but slapping his face in front of the Emperor. Suddenly, a shout in the distance startled him. He sat up, eyes open.

“Where am I? Oh yes, on the skirmishing line… pass and watchword—*shaft, Olmütz.* How annoying that our squadron is in reserve tomorrow,” he thought. “I’ll ask permission to go to the front—this might be my only chance to see the Emperor. My shift will be over soon. I’ll take one more round, and then go to the general and ask him.” He straightened in his saddle and urged his horse forward to check on his hussars again. He thought it was getting lighter. To his left, he saw a sloping slope illuminated, and ahead, a black hill that was as steep as a wall. On this hill was a white patch that Rostóv couldn’t make out: was it a moonlit glade in the woods, unmelted snow, or perhaps a cluster of white houses? He even thought he saw movement on the white spot. “I bet it’s snow… that patch… a spot—*une tache*,” he mused. “Wait—no, it’s not a *tache*… Natásha… sister, black eyes… Na… tasha… (She’ll be surprised when I tell her I’ve seen the Emperor!) Natásha… take my sabretache…”—“Keep right, your honor, there are bushes there,” said a hussar, as Rostóv almost fell asleep riding past him. Rostóv raised his head, which had nearly rested on his horse’s mane, and pulled up beside the hussar. He was overcome by an irresistible, boyish sleepiness. “What was I thinking about? I mustn’t forget. How should I talk to the Emperor? No, that’s tomorrow. Oh yes! Natásha… sabretache… saber them… Who? The hussars… Oh, the hussar with mustaches on Tverskáya Street… I thought about him too, just across from Gúryev’s house… Old Gúryev… But Denísov is a great guy. But that doesn’t matter. The main thing is, the Emperor is here. How he looked at me and wanted to say something, but didn’t dare… No, I was the one who didn’t dare. But that’s nothing, the important thing is, don’t forget what I meant to do. Yes, Na-tásha, sabretache, oh yes, yes! That’s it!” His head drooped again onto the horse’s neck. Suddenly, it seemed to him he was under fire. “What? What? What?… Cut them down! What?…” muttered Rostóv, waking abruptly. As he opened his eyes, he heard ahead of him—where the enemy was—the prolonged shouts of thousands of voices. His horse and the hussar’s next to him pricked up their ears at the noise. Where the shouting came from, a fire flared up, vanished, then another appeared, and soon, all along the French line on the hill, fires blazed up and the shouting grew louder. Rostóv could hear French words but couldn’t make them out. The din was too great; all he could distinguish were exclamations like: “ahahah!” and “rrrr!”

“What’s that? What do you make of it?” Rostóv asked the hussar beside him. “That must be the enemy’s camp!”

The hussar didn’t answer.

“Can’t you hear it?” Rostóv asked again after waiting.

“Who can say, your honor?” the hussar replied grudgingly.

“From the direction, it has to be the enemy,” Rostóv repeated.

“It might be them, or it might be nothing,” muttered the hussar. “It’s dark… Steady!” he said, calming his restless horse.

Rostóv’s own horse was getting nervous; it pawed at the frozen ground, ears twitching toward the noise and lights. The shouting swelled to a roar only a massive army could make. The lights spread farther, likely following the French camp line. Rostóv was wide awake now. The exuberant, triumphant shouts of the enemy army stirred him. *“Vive l’Empereur! l’Empereur!”* he could now hear clearly.

“They can’t be far—just beyond the stream, probably,” he said to the nearby hussar.

The man only sighed and coughed gruffly. From the line of hussars, the sounds of hooves trotting approached; out of the fog, a hussar sergeant’s figure loomed, huge and elephantine.

“Your honor, the generals!” said the sergeant, riding up to Rostóv.

Rostóv, still watching the fires and shouts, followed the sergeant to where mounted officers were approaching. One rode a white horse. Prince Bagratión and Prince Dolgorúkov, with their aides, had come to see for themselves the unusual fires and shouts from the enemy camp. Rostóv rode up to Bagratión, reported, and then joined the aides listening to what the generals discussed.

“Believe me,” said Prince Dolgorúkov, turning to Bagratión, “it’s just a trick! He’s retreated and told the rearguard to light fires and make noise to fool us.”

“Unlikely,” said Bagratión. “I saw them on that hill this evening; if they’d retreated, they would’ve left that place too… Officer!” he called to Rostóv, “are the enemy’s skirmishers still there?”

“They were this evening, but now I can’t say for certain, your excellency. Shall I go with some hussars to check?” Rostóv replied.

Bagratión stopped, and before responding, tried to make out Rostóv’s face through the fog.

“Well, go and see,” he said after a pause.

“Yes, sir.”

Rostóv spurred his horse, called Sergeant Fédchenko and two other hussars, told them to follow, and trotted downhill toward the shouting. Riding alone with three hussars into the unknown, foggy, and dangerous distance, he felt both anxious and thrilled. Bagratión called to him not to go beyond the stream, but Rostóv pretended not to hear and rode on, constantly mistaking bushes for trees and ravines for men, only to realize his errors. At a trot down the hill, he lost sight of both friendly and enemy fires, but the French shouting was now louder and clearer. In the valley ahead of him, he thought he saw a river, but as he approached, it turned out to be a road. Unsure whether to ride along it or cross into the dark field and up the hill, he hesitated. The road, shining in the mist, seemed safer since you could spot people on it more easily. “Follow me!” he called, crossed the road, and galloped up the hill to where the French pickets had been that evening.

“Your honor, there he is!” one of the hussars behind him shouted. And before Rostóv could see what dark shape appeared in the fog, there was a flash and a shot, a bullet whistling high over his head and vanishing. Another gun clicked but just flashed in the pan. Rostóv turned and rode back at a gallop. Four more shots rang out at intervals, bullets whizzing through the fog in varying tones. Rostóv reined in his horse, whose spirits, like his own, rose at the gunfire, and walked back slowly. “Come on, more! More!” a cheerful voice was exclaiming inside him. But no more shots came.

When he neared Bagratión again, Rostóv broke into a gallop, came up, and saluted.

Dolgorúkov was still arguing that the French had retreated and lit the fires just to mislead them.

“What does that prove?” he was saying as Rostóv approached. “They might leave pickets behind even if they pull back.”

“It’s clear not all have gone yet, Prince,” said Bagratión. “Wait till morning. We’ll know everything then.”

“The picket is still on the hill, your excellency, just as it was this evening,” Rostóv reported, bending forward in salute and unable to hide a smile of excitement from the ride—especially the sound of the bullets.

“Very good, very good,” said Bagratión. “Thank you, officer.”

“Your excellency,” said Rostóv, “may I ask a favor?”

“What is it?”

“Tomorrow our squadron is to be in reserve. May I ask to be assigned to the first squadron instead?”

“What’s your name?”

“Count Rostóv.”

“Oh, very well, you may stay as my aide.”

“Count Ilyá Rostóv’s son?” asked Dolgorúkov.

But Rostóv said nothing.

“Then I may count on it, your excellency?”

“I’ll give the order.”

“Tomorrow I may be sent to deliver a message to the Emperor,” Rostóv thought.

“Thank God!”

The fires and shouting in the enemy’s camp were caused by the fact that, while Napoleon’s proclamation was being read to the troops, the Emperor himself rode around his bivouacs. The soldiers, on seeing him, lit wisps of straw and ran after him, shouting, *“Vive l’Empereur!”* Napoleon’s proclamation was as follows:

Soldiers! The Russian army is advancing against you to avenge the Austrian army of Ulm. They are the same battalions you defeated at Hollabrünn and have chased ever since to this place. The position we occupy is a strong one, and while they are marching to outflank me on the right, they will expose a flank to me. Soldiers! I will personally command your battalions. I will stay out of fire if you, with your usual bravery, bring disorder and confusion into the enemy’s ranks, but should victory be in doubt, even for a moment, you will see your Emperor taking the first blows of the enemy, for there must be no doubt of victory, especially today when what is at stake is the honor of the French infantry, so essential to the honor of our nation.

Do not break ranks under the pretext of helping the wounded! Let each man truly understand that we must defeat these English hirelings, so full of hatred towards our nation! This victory will end our campaign and we can return to winter quarters, where fresh French troops being raised in France will join us, and the peace I will secure will be worthy of my people, of you, and of myself.

NAPOLEON

##  CHAPTER XIV

At five in the morning it was still completely dark. The troops of the center, the reserves, and Bagration’s right flank had not yet moved, but on the left flank the columns of infantry, cavalry, and artillery—which were to be the first to descend the heights and attack the French right flank, driving it into the Bohemian mountains according to plan—were already up and active. The smoke from the campfires, into which they were throwing anything unnecessary, stung their eyes. It was cold and dark. The officers hurriedly drank tea and had breakfast, while the soldiers, munching biscuits and stamping their feet to keep warm, gathered around the fires, throwing into the flames the remains of sheds, chairs, tables, wheels, tubs, and anything they did not want or could not take with them. Austrian column guides moved in and out among the Russian troops, acting as heralds of the advance. As soon as an Austrian officer appeared near a commanding officer’s quarters, the regiment began to move: the soldiers rushed from the fires, shoved their pipes into their boots, their bags into the carts, grabbed their muskets, and formed ranks. The officers buttoned up their coats, buckled on their swords and pouches, and walked along the ranks shouting. The wagon drivers and orderlies harnessed and loaded the wagons and tied on the loads. The adjutants and battalion and regimental commanders mounted, crossed themselves, gave final instructions, orders, and messages to the baggage men staying behind, and the monotonous tramp of thousands of feet resounded. The column marched forward without knowing where it was going and unable, because of the crowd around them, the smoke, and the increasing fog, to see either the place they were leaving or where they were headed.

A soldier on the march is surrounded and carried along by his regiment as much as a sailor is by his ship. However far he goes, no matter what strange, unknown, or dangerous places he reaches, just as a sailor is always surrounded by the decks, masts, and rigging of his ship, so the soldier always has the same comrades, the same ranks, the same sergeant major Iván Mítrich, the same company dog Jack, and the same commanders around him. The sailor seldom cares to know the latitude where his ship sails, but on the day of battle—no one knows exactly how or why—a serious note, sensed by all, fills the moral atmosphere of the army, announcing the approach of something significant and solemn, and awakening an unusual curiosity in the men. On the day of battle, the soldiers eagerly try to look beyond the concerns of their regiment; they listen intently, look around, and anxiously ask about what is happening around them.

The fog became so thick that, although it was growing lighter, they could not see ten paces ahead. Bushes looked like huge trees and flat ground appeared as cliffs and slopes. Anywhere, on any side, one might run into an enemy unseen until just ten paces away. But the columns marched on for a long time, always in the same fog, going up and down hills, skirting gardens and fences, crossing new and unfamiliar ground, but nowhere did they find the enemy. On the contrary, the soldiers noticed that in front, behind, and on all sides, other Russian columns were moving in the same direction. Every soldier was glad to know that wherever he was going, many more of their own men were going too.

“There now, the Kursk troops have also gone past,” was being said in the ranks.

“It’s amazing how many of our troops there are, boys! Last night I saw the campfires and there was no end to them. Like Moscow itself!”

Though none of the column commanders came up to the ranks or talked to the men (the commanders, as we saw at the council of war, were out of sorts and unhappy with the situation, and so didn’t attempt to encourage the men but just followed orders), still the troops marched cheerfully, as they always do when marching into battle, especially for an attack. But after about an hour in the dense fog, most of the men had to stop, and an uneasy sense of confusion and mistake spread through the ranks. How this feeling is communicated is hard to define, but it certainly passes rapidly, subtly, and irresistibly, as water does in a creek. If the Russian army had been alone without any allies, it might have taken much longer before this feeling of disorganization became a firm belief, but, as it was, the disorder was easily and naturally blamed on the foolish Germans, and everyone was sure that a dangerous mess had been created by the sausage eaters.

“Why have we stopped? Is the way blocked? Or have we already run into the French?”

“No, we can’t hear them. They’d be firing if we had.”

“They rushed us to get started, and now we just stand here in the middle of a field for no reason. It’s all those damned Germans’ confusion! What fools!”

“Yes, I’d send them ahead, but no, they’re crowding up behind. And now here we stand hungry.”

“I say, will we be clear soon? They say the cavalry are blocking the way,” said an officer.

“Ah, those damn Germans! They don’t know their own country!” said another.

“What division are you?” shouted an adjutant, riding up.

“The Eighteenth.”

“Then why are you here? You should have gone on long ago, now you won’t get there until evening.”

“What stupid orders! They don’t know what they’re doing themselves!” said the officer, and rode off.

Then a general rode past, angrily shouting something, but not in Russian.

“Tafa-lafa! But nobody can understand what he’s babbling,” said a soldier, mimicking the general who had ridden away. “I’d shoot them, scoundrels!”

“We were ordered to be at the place before nine, but we’re not even halfway. Great orders!” was being repeated all around.

And the enthusiasm with which the troops had started began to turn into irritation and anger at the poor arrangements and at the Germans.

The reason for the confusion was that, while the Austrian cavalry was moving toward our left flank, the higher command realized that our center was too far separated from our right flank, so all the cavalry were ordered to turn back to the right. Several thousand cavalry passed in front of the infantry, who had to wait.

At the front, a dispute took place between an Austrian guide and a Russian general. The general angrily demanded that the cavalry be stopped; the Austrian insisted that it wasn’t his fault, but the higher command’s. Meanwhile, the troops stood there, growing bored and discouraged. After an hour’s delay, they finally moved forward, descending the hill. The fog, which was clearing on the hill, lay even thicker in the low ground they were descending into. Ahead, in the fog, a shot was heard, then another, first irregularly at varying intervals—trata…tat—and then more and more regularly and rapidly, and the fighting at the Goldbach Stream began.

Not expecting to encounter the enemy by the stream, and having stumbled upon them in the fog, hearing no encouraging words from their commanders, feeling the sense of lateness spreading through the ranks, and—above all—being unable to see anything in the thick fog, the Russians exchanged shots with the enemy half-heartedly and advanced and then stopped again, receiving no timely orders from the officers or adjutants who wandered in the fog unable to find their own regiments. In this way, the fighting began for the first, second, and third columns, which had gone down into the valley. The fourth column, with Kutuzov, remained on the Pratzen Heights.

Below, where the fighting was beginning, the fog was still thick; on the higher ground it was clearing, but nothing could be seen of what was happening in front. Whether the enemy’s main forces were, as we thought, six miles away, or right nearby in that sea of mist, no one knew until after eight o’clock.

It was nine o’clock in the morning. The fog below was still unbroken like a sea, but higher up at the village of Schlappanitz—where Napoleon stood with his marshals around him—it was quite clear. Above him stretched a blue sky, and the sun’s immense orb quivered like a huge hollow, crimson buoy on the surface of the milky mist. The entire French army, and even Napoleon himself with his staff, were not on the far side of the streams and hollows of Sokolnitz and Schlappanitz (beyond which we planned to take our position and start the action), but on this side—so close to our forces that Napoleon, with the naked eye, could tell a mounted man from a man on foot. Napoleon, in the blue coat he had worn on his Italian campaign, sat on his small gray Arab horse a little in front of his marshals. He gazed silently at the hills rising out of the mist, where the Russian troops moved in the distance, and listened to the sounds of firing in the valley. Not a single muscle of his thin face moved. His piercing eyes were fixed intently on one spot. His predictions were coming true. Part of the Russian force had already moved down into the valley toward the ponds and lakes, and part were leaving these Pratzen Heights, which he planned to attack and saw as the key to the position. He could see, above the mist, that in a hollow between two hills near the village of Pratzen, the Russian columns, their bayonets shining, were moving steadily toward the valley and disappearing one by one into the mist. Based on information from the night before, the sounds of wheels and footsteps heard by the outposts, the disorderly movement of the Russian columns, and all signs, he was certain that the Allies believed him to be far away in front of them, and that the columns near Pratzen formed the center of the Russian army—that this center was now weak enough to attack successfully. Still, he did not begin the engagement.

Today was a great day for him—the anniversary of his coronation. Before dawn he had slept a few hours, and refreshed, energetic, and in high spirits, he mounted his horse and rode out into the field in the cheerful mood when everything appears possible and likely to succeed. He sat motionless, looking at the heights above the mist, his cold face showing that special look of confident, satisfied happiness seen on the face of a young man in love. The marshals stood behind him, not daring to disturb him. He glanced now at the Pratzen Heights, now at the sun as it rose from the mist.

When the sun was fully above the fog, lighting up the fields and mist with dazzling brightness—as if he had waited just for this to begin the attack—he drew the glove from his elegant white hand, signaled with it to the marshals, and ordered the assault to begin. The marshals, followed by adjutants, galloped off in different directions, and a few minutes later the main French forces advanced rapidly toward those Pratzen Heights, which were increasingly abandoned by Russian troops moving down into the valley to their left.

##  CHAPTER XV

At eight o’clock, Kutúzov rode to Pratzen at the head of the fourth column—Milorádovich’s—the one meant to take the place of Przebyszéwski’s and Langeron’s columns, which had already descended into the valley. He greeted the men of the leading regiment and gave them the order to march, indicating that he intended to lead that column himself. When he reached the village of Pratzen, he halted. Prince Andrew was behind him, among the vast number making up the commander in chief’s staff. He was suppressing excitement and irritation, although remaining outwardly calm—as a man is before a long-anticipated moment. He was completely convinced that this would be the day of his Toulon, or his bridge of Arcola. He didn’t know how it would happen, but he was certain it would. The location and position of their troops were known to him as much as anyone in the army could know them. His own strategic plan, now obviously impossible to carry out, was forgotten. Now, adopting Weyrother’s plan, Prince Andrew considered possible developments and came up with new projects that might require his quick perception and decision.

To the left, down below in the mist, the musket fire of unseen forces could be heard. Prince Andrew thought the fighting would focus there. “There we shall face difficulties, and there,” he thought, “I’ll be sent with a brigade or division, and there, standard in hand, I’ll go forward and break whatever stands in front of me.”

He couldn’t watch the passing battalions’ standards without emotion. Seeing them, he kept thinking, “That might be the very standard with which I’ll lead the army.”

That morning, all that lingered of the night mist on the heights was a hoar frost turning to dew, but in the valleys it still lay like a milk-white sea. Nothing could be seen in the valley to the left, where their troops had gone down and from where the sounds of firing came. Above the heights was a dark, clear sky, and to the right the sun’s vast orb. In front, far on the other shore of this sea of mist, some wooded hills could be made out, and it was there the enemy likely was, for something was visible. On the right, the Guards were entering the misty region accompanied by the sound of hoofs and wheels and occasional gleams of bayonets; to the left, beyond the village, similar bodies of cavalry came up and disappeared into the sea of mist. Infantry moved in front and behind. The commander in chief was standing at the end of the village, letting the troops march past him. That morning, Kutúzov seemed tired and irritable. The infantry before him stopped without any order being given, apparently blocked by something ahead.

“Order them to form into battalion columns and go around the village!” he said angrily to a general who had ridden up. “Don’t you understand, your excellency, my dear sir, that you mustn’t march through narrow village streets when advancing against the enemy?”

“I intended to reform them beyond the village, your excellency,” the general replied.

Kutúzov laughed bitterly.

“You’ll do well, deploying in full view of the enemy! Very fine!”

“The enemy is still far away, your excellency. According to the dispositions…”

“The dispositions!” Kutúzov exclaimed bitterly. “Who told you that?… Kindly follow your orders.”

“Yes, sir.”

“My dear fellow,” Nesvítski whispered to Prince Andrew, “the old man’s as grumpy as a dog.”

An Austrian officer in a white uniform with green plumes in his hat galloped up to Kutúzov and asked, in the Emperor’s name, whether the fourth column had moved into action.

Kutúzov turned away without answering; his gaze happened to fall on Prince Andrew, who was beside him. Upon seeing him, Kutúzov’s harsh and sarcastic expression softened, as if acknowledging that his adjutant was not to blame for what was happening, and, still not answering the Austrian adjutant, he addressed Bolkónski.

“Go, my dear fellow, and see if the third division has passed the village. Tell them to stop and wait for my orders.”

Hardly had Prince Andrew started off when Kutúzov stopped him.

“And ask whether sharpshooters have been deployed,” he added. “What are they doing? What are they doing?” he muttered to himself, still ignoring the Austrian.

Prince Andrew galloped off to carry out the command.

Passing the advancing battalions, he halted the third division and found that there truly were no sharpshooters ahead of their columns. The colonel leading the regiment was very surprised at the commander in chief’s order to send out skirmishers. He had been sure that other troops were in front and that the enemy was at least six miles away. There really was nothing visible ahead but a barren slope shrouded in thick mist. Giving the orders in the commander in chief’s name to correct this oversight, Prince Andrew rode back. Kutúzov, still in the same spot, his heavy body slumped in the saddle with the weariness of age, sat yawning sleepily with his eyes closed. The troops had stopped moving and stood with their muskets’ butts on the ground.

“All right, all right!” he said to Prince Andrew, and turned to a general who, watch in hand, insisted it was time to start, since all the columns on the left flank had already descended.

“Plenty of time, your excellency,” Kutúzov muttered through a yawn. “Plenty of time,” he repeated.

Just then, some distance behind Kutúzov, regiments could be heard saluting, and the sound quickly drew nearer along the extended line of advancing Russian columns. Evidently, someone important was riding quickly along the front. When the soldiers of the regiment where Kutúzov stood began to cheer, he moved to one side and looked back with a frown. Down the road from Pratzen galloped what looked like a squadron of horsemen in various uniforms. Two rode in front, side by side and at a full gallop. One, in a black uniform with white plumes in his hat, rode a bobtailed chestnut horse; the other, in a white uniform, rode a black horse. These were the two Emperors, followed by their staffs. Kutúzov, adopting the manner of a veteran at the front, gave the command, “Attention!” and rode up to the Emperors with a salute. His whole demeanor was instantly transformed. He assumed the air of a subordinate who obeys without questioning. With an exaggerated respect that clearly displeased Alexander, he rode over and saluted.

This unpleasant impression only fleetingly crossed the young, happy face of the Emperor—like a haze passing over a clear sky—and vanished. After his illness, he looked thinner that day than he had at the Olmütz parade, where Bolkónski had first seen him abroad, but he still had that fascinating mixture of majesty and gentleness in his fine gray eyes, and the same capacity for expression and the same prevailing look of kind, innocent youth on his delicate lips.

At the Olmütz review he had appeared more majestic; here he seemed livelier and more energetic. He was slightly flushed from a two-mile gallop, and, reining in his horse, sighed contentedly and looked around at the faces of his staff, who were as young and animated as he. Czartorýski, Novosíltsev, Prince Volkónsky, Strógonov, and the others—all richly dressed, cheerful young men on splendid, perfectly groomed, freshly exercised horses—were exchanging remarks and smiling as they rode behind the Emperor. Emperor Francis, a rosy, long-faced young man, sat very upright on his handsome black horse, looking around in a leisurely and absorbed way. He beckoned to one of his white-uniformed adjutants and asked a question—“Most likely he’s asking when they started,” thought Prince Andrew, watching his old acquaintance with a smile he couldn’t suppress as he recalled his welcome at Brünn. In the Emperors’ suite were the elite young staff officers from the Guard and line regiments, Russian and Austrian. Among them were grooms leading the Tsar’s beautiful relay horses, covered with embroidered cloths.

Just as opening a window lets a breath of fresh air from the fields into a stuffy room, so a breeze of youth, energy, and confidence in victory swept through Kutúzov’s gloomy staff with the lively arrival of these brilliant young men.

“Why aren’t you starting, Michael Ilariónovich?” Emperor Alexander asked Kutúzov quickly, glancing courteously at the same time at Emperor Francis.

“I am waiting, Your Majesty,” replied Kutúzov, bending forward respectfully.

The Emperor, frowning a little, leaned forward as if he hadn’t quite heard.

“Waiting, Your Majesty,” repeated Kutúzov. (Prince Andrew noticed that Kutúzov’s upper lip twitched strangely when he said “waiting.”) “Not all the columns have formed up yet, Your Majesty.”

The Tsar heard but clearly didn’t like the answer; he shrugged his rather round shoulders and glanced at Novosíltsev, who was near him, as though complaining about Kutúzov.

“You know, Michael Ilariónovich, we are not on the Empress’ Field where a parade doesn’t begin until all the troops are assembled,” the Tsar said, glancing again at Emperor Francis, inviting him at least to listen, if not join in. But Emperor Francis kept looking around and did not pay attention.

“That’s exactly why I do not begin, sire,” said Kutúzov in a ringing voice, clearly wanting to avoid being misheard, and again his face seemed to twitch—“That’s exactly why I don’t begin, sire, because we are not on parade and not on the Empress’ Field,” he said clearly and firmly.

Within the Emperor’s suite, everyone exchanged quick looks of disapproval and reproach. “Old as he is, he should not, he definitely should not, speak like that,” their glances seemed to say.

The Tsar looked closely and intently into Kutúzov’s eyes, waiting to see if he would say anything else. But Kutúzov, respectfully bowing his head, also seemed to be waiting. The silence lasted about a minute.

“However, if you order it, Your Majesty,” said Kutúzov, raising his head and again taking on his earlier manner of a dull, dutiful, but subordinate general.

He nudged his horse forward, and after summoning Milorádovich, the column’s commander, gave the order to advance.

The troops started moving again, and two battalions of the Nóvgorod and one of the Ápsheron regiment marched forward, passing the Emperor.

As the Ápsheron battalion went by, the red-faced Milorádovich, without his overcoat, his Orders displayed on his chest and an enormous tuft of plumes in his cocked hat (worn sideways, with its corners front and back), galloped forward energetically, and, giving a spirited salute, reined in his horse before the Emperor.

“God be with you, general!” said the Emperor.

*“Ma foi, sire, nous ferons ce qui sera dans notre possibilité, sire,”* \* he answered cheerfully, though his poor French raised ironic smiles among the gentlemen in the Tsar’s suite.

\* “Indeed, Sire, we shall do everything that is possible, Sire.”

Milorádovich quickly wheeled his horse and positioned himself just behind the Emperor. The Ápsheron men, excited by the Tsar’s presence, marched in step before the Emperors and their entourages at a bold, brisk pace.

“Lads!” Milorádovich shouted in a loud, confident, and cheerful voice. He was clearly so elated by the firing, the prospect of battle, and the sight of the brave Ápsherons—his comrades from Suvórov’s time—now marching gallantly before the Emperors, that he forgot the presence of the sovereigns. “Lads, this isn’t the first village you’ve had to take!” he called.

“Glad to do our best!” shouted the soldiers.

The Emperor’s horse startled at the sudden cry. The same horse that had carried the sovereign at reviews in Russia now bore him here, on the field of Austerlitz, enduring the careless blows of his left foot and pricking its ears at the sound of gunfire just as it had done on the Empress’ Field—not understanding the meaning of the firing, the closeness of Emperor Francis’ black cob, or all that was said, thought, and felt by its rider that day.

The Emperor turned with a smile to one of his followers and made a remark, pointing to the brave Ápsherons.

##  CHAPTER XVI

Kutúzov, followed by his adjutants, rode at a walking pace behind the carabineers.

After covering less than half a mile behind the column, he stopped at a solitary, deserted house, likely once an inn, where two roads diverged. Both led downhill, with troops marching along each.

The fog had begun to clear, and enemy troops were now faintly visible about a mile and a half away on the opposite heights. Down below, on the left, the gunfire had become clearer. Kutúzov had stopped and was conversing with an Austrian general. Prince Andrew, who was riding a little behind and watching them, turned to an adjutant to ask for a field glass.

“Look, look!” said this adjutant, not looking at the distant troops but gazing down the hill before him. “It’s the French!”

The two generals and the adjutant grabbed the field glass, each trying to take it from the other. Their expressions suddenly changed to horror. The French, believed to be a mile and a half away, had suddenly and unexpectedly appeared right in front of us.

“It’s the enemy?… No!… Yes, see, it is!… for sure…. But how can that be?” said different voices.

With the naked eye, Prince Andrew saw below to the right, no more than five hundred paces from where Kutúzov was standing, a dense French column advancing toward the Ápsherons.

“Here it is! The decisive moment has arrived. My turn has come,” thought Prince Andrew, and spurring his horse, he rode up to Kutúzov.

“The Ápsherons must be stopped, your excellency!” he cried. But just then a cloud of smoke billowed all around, gunfire sounded very close by, and a voice filled with naïve terror just steps from Prince Andrew shouted, “Brothers! All’s lost!” At this, as though on command, everyone began to run.

A confused and ever-growing crowd rushed back to where, only five minutes before, the troops had marched past the Emperors. Not only would it have been difficult to stop that crowd, it was impossible not to be swept back by it yourself. Bolkónski merely tried not to lose touch with the others, looking around bewildered and unable to grasp what was happening before him. Nesvítski, his face red and unusually angry, was shouting to Kutúzov that if he didn’t ride out at once, he would certainly be captured. Kutúzov remained where he was and, without replying, took out a handkerchief. Blood was flowing from his cheek. Prince Andrew pushed through to him.

“You’re wounded?” he asked, barely able to control the trembling of his jaw.

“The wound isn’t here, it’s there!” said Kutúzov, pressing the handkerchief to his bleeding cheek and pointing to the fleeing soldiers. “Stop them!” he shouted, and at that moment, probably realizing it was impossible, spurred his horse and rode to the right.

Another wave of the fleeing crowd swept over him and carried him back.

The troops were running in such a tight mass that once surrounded, it was very hard to get out. Someone was shouting, “Go on! Why are you blocking us?” Another, in the same spot, turned and fired into the air; a third was striking the horse that Kutúzov rode. With great effort, Kutúzov managed to pull away to the left from the rush of men, and, his suite now reduced by more than half, rode toward the sound of nearby artillery fire. After forcing his way free, Prince Andrew tried to keep near Kutúzov and saw, on the hillside amid smoke, a Russian battery still firing, and French soldiers running toward it. Higher up, some Russian infantry stood but neither advanced to protect the battery nor retreated with the others. A mounted general left the infantry and approached Kutúzov. Only four of Kutúzov’s suite remained, all pale, exchanging silent looks.

“Stop those wretches!” gasped Kutúzov to the regimental commander, gesturing at the fleeing soldiers; but at that moment, as if in retribution for those words, bullets zipped across the regiment and past Kutúzov’s suite like a flock of little birds.

The French had attacked the battery, and on seeing Kutúzov, were firing at him. After this volley the regimental commander grabbed his leg; several soldiers fell, and a second lieutenant holding the flag dropped it. It swayed, fell, but caught on the nearest soldiers’ muskets. The soldiers began firing without orders.

“Oh! Oh! Oh!” Kutúzov groaned in despair, looking around…. “Bolkónski!” he whispered, his voice trembling with the frailty of age, “Bolkónski!” he repeated, pointing to the disorganized battalion and the enemy, “what’s that?”

But before he finished speaking, Prince Andrew—choking with tears of shame and anger—had already leapt from his horse and run to the standard.

“Forward, lads!” he shouted, his voice piercing like a child’s.

“Here it is!” he thought, seizing the flagstaff and hearing with pleasure the whistle of bullets clearly aimed at him. Several soldiers fell.

“Hurrah!” Prince Andrew shouted, and, barely able to hold up the heavy standard, he ran forward with full confidence the whole battalion would follow.

And indeed he only ran a few steps alone. One soldier moved, then another, and soon the entire battalion rushed forward shouting “Hurrah!” and overtook him. A battalion sergeant ran up and took the flag, swaying from its weight in Prince Andrew’s hands, but was immediately killed. Prince Andrew seized the standard again and, dragging it by the staff, charged on with the battalion. Ahead he saw artillerymen, some fighting, others abandoning their guns and running toward him. He also saw French infantrymen seizing the battery horses and turning the guns. Prince Andrew and the battalion were just twenty paces from the cannon. He heard bullets whizzing constantly above and beside him while soldiers moaned and dropped to the ground. But he didn’t look at them: he looked only at the battery ahead. Now he could see clearly the red-haired gunner, his shako knocked askew, pulling one end of a mop as a French soldier tugged at the other. He could clearly see the distraught yet angry faces of these two men, who obviously had no idea what they were doing.

“What are they doing?” thought Prince Andrew, watching them. “Why doesn’t the red-haired gunner run? He’s unarmed. Why doesn’t the Frenchman stab him? He won’t escape before the Frenchman remembers his bayonet and stabs him….”

And indeed, another French soldier, musket trailing, ran to the struggling men, and the fate of the red-haired gunner—who had triumphantly seized the mop but still hadn’t realized his peril—was about to be decided. But Prince Andrew didn’t see how it ended. It seemed as if someone next to him struck him on the head with a heavy club. It hurt a bit, but the worst part was the pain distracted him from what he’d been watching.

“What’s this? Am I falling? My legs are giving way,” he thought, and collapsed onto his back. He opened his eyes, hoping to see the outcome of the gunners’ and Frenchmen’s struggle—whether the red-haired gunner was killed or not, whether the cannon was taken or saved. But he saw nothing. Above him now was only the sky—vast, immeasurably high, with gray clouds gliding slowly. “How quiet, peaceful, and solemn; nothing like how I ran,” thought Prince Andrew—“not as we ran, shouting and fighting, not at all like the gunner and Frenchman struggling fiercely for the mop. How differently those clouds move across that infinite sky! How did I not see that sky before? And how happy I am to have finally found it! Yes! All is vanity, all falsehood, except that infinite sky. There is nothing—nothing but that. But even it doesn’t exist; there is only silence and peace. Thank God!…”

##  CHAPTER XVII

On our right flank, commanded by Bagratión, at nine o’clock the battle had not yet started. Not wanting to give in to Dolgorúkov’s demand to start the action, and wishing to avoid responsibility, Prince Bagratión suggested Dolgorúkov send someone to ask the commander in chief. Bagratión knew that since the distance between the two flanks was more than six miles, even if the messenger wasn’t killed (which was quite possible) and managed to find the commander in chief (which would be very hard), he wouldn’t get back before evening.

Bagratión turned his large, expressionless, sleepy eyes toward his staff, and the youthful face of Rostóv, breathless with excitement and hope, was the first to catch his attention. He sent him.

“And if I meet His Majesty before I meet the commander in chief, Your Excellency?” asked Rostóv, saluting.

“You can give the message to His Majesty,” Dolgorúkov said, quickly interrupting Bagratión.

After being relieved from picket duty, Rostóv had managed to get a few hours’ sleep before morning. He felt cheerful, bold, and resolute, with a spring in his step, full of faith in his good luck, and generally in that state of mind where everything seems possible, pleasant, and easy.

All his wishes were coming true that morning: there was to be a general engagement in which he was taking part. More than that, he was orderly to the bravest general, and what’s more, he was going with a message to Kutúzov, perhaps even to the Tsar himself. The morning was bright, he was riding a good horse, and his heart was overflowing with joy and happiness. Receiving the order, he released the reins and galloped along the line. First, he rode along Bagratión’s troops, who had not yet gone into action but were standing motionless; then he reached the area occupied by Uvárov’s cavalry, where he noticed a stir and signs of readiness for battle. Passing Uvárov’s cavalry, he clearly heard the sound of cannon and musket fire ahead of him. The shooting grew louder and louder.

In the fresh morning air, there were now not just two or three musket shots at irregular intervals as before, followed by one or two cannon blasts, but volleys of musket fire from the hills before Pratzen, interrupted by such frequent cannon reports that sometimes several merged into a continuous roar.

He could see puffs of musket smoke chasing each other down the hillsides, and clouds of cannon smoke rolling, spreading, and blending together. Through the smoke, by the gleam of bayonets, he could make out moving masses of infantry and narrow lines of artillery with green caissons.

Rostóv reined in his horse briefly on a hillock to see what was happening, but no matter how hard he tried, he could not make sense of it: in the smoke, men moved about, lines of troops shifted in front and behind; but who they were, what they were doing, and why, was impossible to tell. These sights and sounds didn’t discourage or intimidate him; on the contrary, they fired him up and increased his determination.

“Go on! Go on! Give it to them!” he thought at these sounds, and again galloped further along the line, delving deeper into the part of the field where the army was already engaged.

“Whatever happens there, it’ll be all right!” thought Rostóv.

After passing some Austrian troops, he saw that the next part of the line (the Guards) was already in action.

“All the better! I’ll see it up close,” he thought.

He was riding nearly along the front line. Suddenly, a small group came galloping toward him. They were our Uhlans, returning from the attack in disordered ranks. Rostóv moved aside and saw that one of them was bleeding, but galloped on.

“That’s none of my concern,” he thought. He had not ridden very far when, to his left across the field, he saw a huge mass of cavalry in brilliant white uniforms, mounted on black horses, trotting directly across his path. Rostóv spurred his horse to a full gallop to get out of their way, and he might have managed if they hadn’t continued to pick up speed, with some horses already at a gallop. Rostóv heard the pounding of hooves and the clang of weapons, and saw their horses, figures, and even faces more and more clearly. They were our Horse Guards, advancing to attack the French cavalry moving to meet them.

The Horse Guards were galloping, but still holding back their horses. Rostóv could now see their faces, and heard an officer shout “Charge!” as he urged his thoroughbred to full speed. Fearing he’d be crushed or swept up in the attack, Rostóv raced along the front as fast as his horse would go, but he still couldn’t avoid them.

The last Horse Guard, a huge pockmarked man, frowned angrily at Rostóv, who was directly in his way and would surely collide with him. This Guardsman would certainly have bowled Rostóv and his Bedouin horse over—Rostóv felt tiny and frail compared to these giant men and horses—if not for the idea to wave his whip in front of the Guardsman’s horse. The big black horse, sixteen hands high, shied, flattening its ears; but the pockmarked Guardsman drove in his huge spurs, making the horse lash its tail, stretch its neck, and gallop even faster. Hardly had the Horse Guards raced past Rostóv before he heard them shout, “Hurrah!” and looking back, he saw their leading ranks already tangled with some foreign cavalry in red epaulets, likely French. He saw nothing more, for cannon soon began firing somewhere nearby and smoke covered everything.

At that moment, as the Horse Guards disappeared into the smoke ahead of him, Rostóv hesitated between galloping after them or going where he was sent. This was the Horse Guards’ brilliant charge, which even amazed the French. Later, Rostóv was horrified to hear that out of all that mass of huge and handsome men, all those splendid, wealthy young officers and cadets who had galloped past him on their thousand-ruble horses, only eighteen were left after the charge.

“Why should I envy them? My chance isn’t lost, and maybe I’ll see the Emperor right away!” thought Rostóv, and galloped on.

When he came level with the Foot Guards, he noticed that cannon balls were flying around them—and about them—not because he heard their sound, but because he saw uneasiness in the soldiers’ faces and a solemn, unnatural warlike look among the officers.

Riding behind a line of Foot Guards, he heard a voice call his name.

“Rostóv!”

“What?” he answered, not recognizing Borís.

“I say, we’ve been in the front line! Our regiment attacked!” said Borís, smiling like young men do after being under fire for the first time.

Rostóv stopped.

“You have?” he said. “Well, how did it go?”

“We drove them back!” Borís replied animatedly, growing talkative. “Imagine it!” He began describing how the Guards, after taking up their position and seeing troops ahead, thought they were Austrians—until the cannon balls fired by those troops revealed they were in the front line and suddenly had to go into action. Rostóv, not waiting to hear Borís out, spurred his horse.

“Where are you going?” asked Borís.

“With a message to His Majesty.”

“There he is!” said Borís, thinking Rostóv meant “His Highness,” and pointed to the Grand Duke, who, with his high shoulders and furrowed brow, stood a hundred paces off wearing his helmet and Horse Guards’ jacket, shouting at a pale Austrian officer in white.

“But that’s the Grand Duke, I need the commander in chief or the Emperor,” said Rostóv, about to spur his horse.

“Count! Count!” called Berg, hurrying up from the other side, as eager as Borís. “Count! I’m wounded in my right hand”—he showed his bleeding hand, wrapped in a handkerchief—“and I stayed at the front. I held my sword in my left hand, Count. All our family—the von Bergs—have been knights!”

He said more, but Rostóv didn’t wait and rode away.

Having passed the Guards and crossed an empty space, Rostóv, not wanting to end up in front of the first line again as when the Horse Guards charged, followed the reserves, circling far around the area where musket fire and cannon shots were the fiercest. Suddenly he heard musket fire very close in front of him, behind our own troops, where he never expected the enemy to be.

“What could that be?” he thought. “The enemy behind our army? Impossible!” Suddenly, he was struck by fear for himself and for the outcome of the entire battle. “But whatever it is,” he told himself, “I can’t go around it now. I have to look for the commander in chief here—and if all is lost, then I’ll die with everyone else.”

The sense of dread that suddenly came over Rostóv grew more intense as he rode farther into the region behind the village of Pratzen, which swarmed with troops of all sorts.

“What does it mean? What is this? Who is firing? Who are they shooting at?” Rostóv kept asking Russian and Austrian soldiers running in confused crowds across his path.

“Who knows! They’ve killed everyone! It’s all over!” he heard in Russian, German, and Czech from the fleeing crowds—none of whom understood any better than he.

“Kill the Germans!” shouted one.

“May the devil take them—the traitors!”

*“Zum Henker diese Russen!”* \* muttered a German.

\* “Hang these Russians!”

Several wounded men passed along the road, with angry shouts, abuse, screams, and groans all mixing together in a general uproar, until the firing finally faded away. Rostóv later learned that Russian and Austrian soldiers had been firing at each other.

“My God! What does all this mean?” he thought. “And here, where the Emperor might see them at any moment…. But no, it must just be a handful of troublemakers. This will be over soon, it can’t really be *that*, it can’t! I’ve just got to get past them—faster, faster!”

The idea of defeat and retreat couldn’t even come into Rostóv’s mind. Even though he saw French cannons and French troops on the Pratzen Heights—exactly where he had been sent to find the commander in chief—he could not, and did not want to, believe *that*.

##  CHAPTER XVIII

Rostóv had been ordered to find Kutúzov and the Emperor near the village of Pratzen. But neither they nor any commanding officers were there—only disorganized crowds of troops of every kind. He urged his already exhausted horse forward to get past these throngs quickly, but the farther he went, the more disorderly the scene became. The main road he reached was jammed with *calèches*, various types of carriages, and Russian and Austrian soldiers from every branch, some wounded, some not. This entire mass droned and jostled in confusion, all under the gloomy shadow of cannonballs flying from the French batteries on the Pratzen Heights.

“Where is the Emperor? Where is Kutúzov?” Rostóv kept asking anyone he could stop, but received no answer from anyone.

At last, grabbing a soldier by the collar, he forced him to reply.

“Eh, brother! They’ve all run away long ago!” the soldier said, laughing for some reason and shaking himself free.

Leaving that clearly drunk soldier behind, Rostóv stopped the horse of a batman or groom serving some important personage and began questioning him. The man said that the Tsar had sped by in a carriage about an hour ago along the same road, and had been badly wounded.

“That can’t be!” said Rostóv. “It must have been someone else.”

“I saw him myself,” replied the man, wearing a confident, mocking smile. “I ought to know the Emperor by now after seeing him so many times in Petersburg. I saw him as clearly as I see you… There he was, pale as anything, in that carriage. How those four black horses flew! By goodness, they really raced past! I’d recognize the Imperial horses and Ilyá Iványch anywhere. I don’t think Ilyá drives anyone but the Tsar!”

Rostóv let go of the horse and was just about to ride on when a passing wounded officer spoke to him:

“Who do you want?” he asked. “The commander in chief? He was killed by a cannonball—hit in the chest in front of our regiment.”

“Not killed—wounded!” another officer corrected him.

“Who? Kutúzov?” asked Rostóv.

“Not Kutúzov, but what’s his name—oh, never mind… not many are left alive. Go that way, to that village. All the commanders are there,” said the officer, pointing toward the village of Hosjeradek, then walked on.

Rostóv rode on at a walk, not knowing why or to whom he was going anymore. The Emperor had been wounded, the battle lost. It was impossible to doubt now. He followed the direction given, toward some turrets and a church. Why hurry now? What could he even say to the Tsar or Kutúzov, if they were alive and unhurt?

“Take this road, your honor, that way you’ll be killed straight away!” a soldier shouted to him. “They’d kill you there!”

“Oh, what’s it to you?” said another. “Where else should he go? That way’s closer.”

Rostóv considered, then went in the direction where they said he’d be killed.

“It’s all the same now. If the Emperor is wounded, should I try to save myself?” he thought. He rode on into the area where the most men had perished fleeing Pratzen. The French hadn’t yet occupied that district, and the Russians—those unhurt or lightly wounded—had left long before. All across the field, like heaps of manure on well-kept plowland, lay from ten to fifteen dead and wounded for every couple of acres. The wounded huddled together in twos and threes, and one could hear their agonized screams and groans, some of which seemed fake—or so it appeared to Rostóv. He urged his horse to a trot to avoid seeing all these suffering men, feeling afraid—not for his life, but for the courage he needed and which he feared would fail at the sight of these poor souls.

The French, who had stopped firing into that field littered with dead and wounded—since there was no one left to shoot at—spotted an adjutant riding across and aimed a gun at him, firing several shots. The terror of those awful whistling sounds, combined with the corpses all around, merged in Rostóv’s mind into a single sensation of terror and self-pity. He remembered his mother’s last letter. “What would she feel,” he thought, “if she saw me here now, on this field with the cannons aimed at me?”

In the village of Hosjeradek there were still Russian troops retreating from the battlefield. Though still somewhat confused, they were less disorganized. The French cannon couldn’t reach there and the musket fire sounded far in the distance. Here everyone clearly realized and said that the battle was lost. No one Rostóv asked could tell him where the Emperor or Kutúzov was. Some said the rumor about the Emperor being wounded was true, others said it was false, explaining that the story had spread because the Emperor’s carriage had sped off the field, but it was actually the pale and terrified Ober-Hofmarschal Count Tolstóy, who had gone out to the battlefield with others from the Emperor’s suite. One officer told Rostóv he had seen someone from headquarters behind the village to the left, so Rostóv headed that way, not really hoping to find anyone, but simply to ease his conscience. After riding about two miles and passing the last Russian troops, he saw, near a kitchen garden surrounded by a ditch, two men on horseback facing the ditch. One, with a white plume in his hat, seemed familiar to Rostóv; the other, on a beautiful chestnut horse (which Rostóv thought he had seen before), rode up to the ditch, spurred his horse, and let it leap lightly over. Only a little earth crumbled from the bank under the horse’s hind hooves. Turning sharply, he jumped the ditch again and respectfully addressed the rider with the white plume, apparently encouraging him to do the same. The rider, whose figure fascinated Rostóv and caught his involuntary attention, gestured refusal with his head and hand, and by that gesture Rostóv instantly recognized his beloved and lamented monarch.

“But it can’t be him, alone here in the middle of this empty field!” thought Rostóv. Then Alexander turned his head and Rostóv saw the beloved features carved so deeply in his memory. The Emperor was pale, his cheeks sunken and his eyes hollow, but the charm and gentleness of his features were even stronger. Rostóv was relieved to be sure that the rumors about the Emperor being wounded were false. He felt happy to see him. He knew he could—and even ought to—ride straight to him and deliver Dolgorúkov’s message.

But as a young lover grows nervous, loses his composure, and can’t voice thoughts he’s dreamed about for nights, instead searching for an excuse to delay or escape when he’s finally alone with her, so Rostóv—now having reached what he wanted more than anything—did not know how to approach the Emperor, and thought of a thousand reasons why it would be awkward, inappropriate, and impossible.

“What! It would look like I want to take advantage of him being alone and discouraged! A strange face might be unpleasant, even painful, to him right now; besides, what could I possibly say when my heart fails me and my mouth feels dry just seeing him?” None of the many speeches to the Emperor he had composed in his imagination came to mind now. Those speeches were meant for completely different circumstances—usually after a victory, or when he was dying heroically and the sovereign thanked him for his valor, and as he died, expressed the love his actions had proven.

“Besides, how can I ask the Emperor for instructions for the right flank when it’s nearly four o’clock and the battle is lost? No, I must not approach, I must not disturb his thoughts. Better to die a thousand times than risk a cold look or a bad opinion from him,” Rostóv decided. So, sorrowful and with despair filling his heart, he rode away, constantly glancing back at the Tsar, who still stood there, undecided.

While Rostóv agonized like this and rode away in sadness, Captain von Toll happened to ride to the same spot, saw the Emperor, rode up to him at once, offered his services, and helped him cross the ditch on foot. The Emperor, feeling unwell and wishing to rest, sat down under an apple tree, and von Toll remained with him. Rostóv, from a distance, watched with envy and regret as von Toll spoke with the Emperor for a long time, and saw the Emperor, clearly weeping, cover his eyes with his hand and take von Toll’s hand.

“And I could have been in his place!” Rostóv thought, barely holding back tears of pity for the Emperor. He rode on, in complete despair, not knowing where or why he was going.

His despair was all the worse because he knew his own weakness was to blame for his grief.

He might—not just might, but should—have ridden up to the sovereign. It was a perfect chance to show his devotion to the Emperor, and he had wasted it…. “What have I done?” he wondered. He turned around and galloped back to where he’d seen the Emperor, but now there was no one beyond the ditch—just some carts and carriages rolling by. From a driver, he learned Kutúzov’s staff weren’t far off, in the village where the vehicles were headed. Rostóv followed. In front of him walked Kutúzov’s groom, leading horses in blankets. Then came a cart, and behind that, an old, bow-legged house serf in a peaked cap and sheepskin coat.

“Tit! Hey, Tit!” called the groom.

“What?” answered the old man absent-mindedly.

“Go on, Tit! Give it a go!”

“Oh, you fool!” said the old man, spitting angrily. Some time of silence passed, then the same joke was made again.

By five in the evening, the battle was lost everywhere. More than a hundred cannons were already in French hands.

Przebyszéwski and his corps had surrendered. Other columns, after losing half their men, were retreating in confused, disorderly masses.

The remains of Langeron’s and Dokhtúrov’s combined forces crowded around the dams and banks of the ponds near the village of Augesd.

After five o’clock, only at the Augesd Dam did a heavy cannonade—conducted by the French alone—continue, with many batteries on the slopes of the Pratzen Heights, firing at the retreating Russian forces.

In the rearguard, Dokhtúrov and others, rallying a few battalions, kept up musket fire at the French cavalry pursuing the troops. Evening was falling. On the narrow Augesd Dam, where for years the old miller had sat in his tasseled cap calmly fishing while his grandson, sleeves rolled up, handled the wriggling silvery fish in the watering can—on that dam, over which for so many years Moravians in shaggy caps and blue jackets had peacefully driven their two-horse wheat carts and returned dusty with flour whitening their loads—on that narrow dam, amid wagons and cannons, under horses’ hooves and between wagon wheels, men twisted by fear of death now crowded, trampling each other, dying, stepping on the dying, and killing each other, just to move forward a few paces and be slain in the same way.

Every ten seconds, a cannonball flew by, compressing the air, or a shell burst in the dense crowd, killing some and splattering blood on those nearby.

Dólokhov—now an officer—was wounded in the arm and on foot, with the regimental commander on horseback and only about ten men left from the whole regiment. Pushed by the crowd, they were jammed at the dam entrance and stopped, as a horse in front had fallen under a cannon and the crowd was pulling it out. A cannonball killed someone behind them; another landed in front, splashing Dólokhov with blood. The crowd, pressing desperately forward, budged a few steps, then stopped again.

“Move on a hundred yards and we’re certainly saved, stay here another two minutes and it’s certain death,” each one thought.

Dólokhov, who was in the middle of the crowd, pushed his way to the edge of the dam, knocking two soldiers off their feet, and ran onto the slippery ice covering the millpond.

“This way!” he shouted, leaping over the ice as it creaked beneath him. “This way!” he called to those with the gun. “The ice will hold!…”

The ice held him, but it swayed and creaked, making it clear that it would soon give way—not just under a cannon or a crowd, but soon even under his own weight. The men stared at him, hesitating to step onto the ice, and pressed closer to the bank. The general on horseback at the entrance to the dam raised his hand and opened his mouth to address Dólokhov. Suddenly, a cannonball hissed so low above the crowd that everyone ducked. It landed with a splash, and the general fell from his horse into a pool of blood. No one gave him a glance or thought of helping him.

“Get onto the ice, over the ice! Move! Turn! Don’t you hear? Move!” countless voices suddenly shouted after the cannonball hit the general, the men not even knowing what or why they were yelling.

One of the rear guns that was heading onto the dam veered onto the ice. Crowds of soldiers from the dam began running onto the frozen pond. The ice gave way beneath one of the soldiers in front, and one leg slipped into the water. He tried to steady himself but fell in up to his waist. The nearest soldiers shrank back, and the gun driver stopped his horse, but from behind, the shouts kept coming: “Onto the ice, why stop? Move! Move!” And there were cries of horror in the crowd. The soldiers near the gun waved their arms and whipped the horses to make them turn and move forward. The horses moved off the bank. The ice, which had borne the weight of those on foot, collapsed in a great sheet, and about forty men who were on it rushed—some forward and some back—causing many to drown one another.

Still, the cannonballs kept whistling and splashing onto the ice, into the water, and most often into the crowd that covered the dam, the pond, and the bank.

##  CHAPTER XIX

On the Pratzen Heights, where he had fallen with the flagstaff in his hand, Prince Andrew Bolkónski lay bleeding heavily, unconsciously letting out a soft, pitiful, childlike moan.

Toward evening his moaning stopped, and he became completely still. He didn’t know how long he remained unconscious. Suddenly, he felt again that he was alive and suffering from a burning, agonizing pain in his head.

“Where is that lofty sky that I hadn’t known before, but saw today?” was his first thought. “And I didn’t know this kind of suffering either,” he thought. “Yes, I didn’t know anything at all until now. But where am I?”

He listened and heard the sound of approaching horses and people speaking French. He opened his eyes. Above him was the same vast sky with clouds rising and floating even higher, and between them shone the endless blue. He didn’t turn his head or see those who, judging by the sound of hoofs and voices, had ridden up and stopped nearby.

It was Napoleon, accompanied by two aides-de-camp. Bonaparte, riding over the battlefield, had given his final orders to reinforce the batteries firing at the Augesd Dam and was observing the dead and wounded left on the field.

“Fine men!” remarked Napoleon, looking at a dead Russian grenadier who, with his face buried in the ground and his blackened neck exposed, lay on his stomach with an arm already stiffened and flung out wide.

“The ammunition for the guns in position is exhausted, Your Majesty,” said an adjutant who had just come from the batteries firing at Augesd.

“Bring some from the reserve,” said Napoleon, and after riding a few steps further, he stopped before Prince Andrew, who lay on his back with the flagstaff beside him. (The flag had already been taken by the French as a trophy.)

“That’s a fine death!” said Napoleon as he looked at Bolkónski.

Prince Andrew understood that these words were about him, and that it was Napoleon who said them. He heard the speaker addressed as *Sire*. But the words reached him as if they were just the buzzing of a fly. They meant nothing to him, so little did they interest him that he immediately forgot them. His head was burning, he felt himself bleeding out, and above him he saw only the distant, lofty, everlasting sky. He knew it was Napoleon—his hero—but right now, Napoleon seemed to him such a small, insignificant being compared to what was happening between himself and that vast, infinite sky with its drifting clouds. At this moment, it didn't matter who stood over him or what was being said about him; he was just grateful someone was near him and wished only that they would help him and bring him back to life, which now seemed so beautiful since today he had come to understand it so differently. Gathering all his strength, he tried to move and utter a sound. He feebly moved his leg and gave a faint, sickly groan that made him pity himself.

“Ah! He is alive,” said Napoleon. “Lift this young man up and carry him to the dressing station.”

Having said this, Napoleon rode on to meet Marshal Lannes, who, with hat in hand, rode up smiling to the Emperor to congratulate him on the victory.

Prince Andrew remembered nothing after this: he lost consciousness from the terrible pain of being lifted onto the stretcher, the jolting of the move, and the probing of his wound at the dressing station. He didn’t regain consciousness until late in the day, when with other wounded and captured Russian officers he was brought to the hospital. During this move he felt a bit stronger and was able to look around and even speak.

The first words he heard as he came to were those of a French officer in the convoy, who said quickly, “We must halt here; the Emperor will pass shortly, he’ll be pleased to see these gentlemen prisoners.”

“There are so many prisoners today—nearly the whole Russian army—that he’s probably tired of them,” said another officer.

“Still! They say this one is the commander of all Emperor Alexander’s Guards,” said the first, pointing to a Russian officer in the white uniform of the Horse Guards.

Bolkónski recognized Prince Repnín, whom he had met at society events in Petersburg. Beside him stood a nineteen-year-old lad, also a wounded officer of the Horse Guards.

Bonaparte, riding up at a gallop, stopped his horse.

“Which is the senior?” he asked upon seeing the prisoners.

They named the colonel, Prince Repnín.

“You are commander of Emperor Alexander’s regiment of Horse Guards?” Napoleon asked.

“I commanded a squadron,” Repnín replied.

“Your regiment fulfilled its duty honorably,” said Napoleon.

“The praise of a great commander is a soldier’s highest reward,” said Repnín.

“I give it gladly,” said Napoleon. “And who is that young man beside you?”

Prince Repnín named Lieutenant Sukhtélen.

Looking at him, Napoleon smiled.

“He’s very young to come meddle with us.”

“Youth is no hindrance to courage,” Sukhtélen muttered with a weak voice.

“A splendid reply!” said Napoleon. “Young man, you will go far!”

Prince Andrew, also brought before the Emperor along with the other prisoners, could not help but catch the Emperor’s attention. Apparently Napoleon remembered seeing him on the battlefield and, addressing him, again used the epithet “young man,” which he now associated with Prince Andrew in his memory.

“Well, and you, young man,” he said. “How do you feel, *mon brave?*”

Though just five minutes earlier, Prince Andrew had been able to exchange a few words with the soldiers carrying him, now, locking eyes with Napoleon, he stayed silent…. In that moment, all Napoleon’s concerns seemed so insignificant, and his hero himself appeared so small with his petty vanity and joy in victory, compared to the vast, fair, and gentle sky that Prince Andrew had seen and understood, that he couldn’t answer.

Everything else seemed pointless and insignificant compared to the serious and solemn train of thought that his weakness, suffering, blood loss, and the nearness of death brought on. Gazing into Napoleon’s eyes, Prince Andrew pondered the insignificance of greatness, the triviality of life that no one could understand, and the even greater triviality of death, whose meaning no living person could grasp or explain.

The Emperor, not waiting for an answer, turned away and said to one of the officers as he left, “Have these gentlemen attended to and taken to my bivouac; let my doctor, Larrey, examine their wounds. *Au revoir*, Prince Repnín!” And he spurred his horse and rode off.

His face was shining with satisfaction and pleasure.

The soldiers who had carried Prince Andrew had noticed and taken the little gold icon Princess Mary had hung around her brother’s neck, but seeing the favor shown by the Emperor to the prisoners, they quickly returned the holy image.

Prince Andrew didn’t know how or by whom it was replaced, but the little icon with its slender gold chain suddenly was back on his chest outside his uniform.

“It would be good,” thought Prince Andrew, glancing at the icon his sister had so emotionally and reverently placed around his neck, “it would be good if everything were as clear and simple as it seems to Mary. How good it would be to know where to seek help in this life and what to expect after it, beyond the grave! How happy and calm I would be if I could now say, ‘Lord, have mercy on me!’… But to whom should I say that? Either to an indefinable, incomprehensible Power that I not only can’t address but can’t even put into words—the Great All or Nothing—” he said to himself, “or to that God whom Mary’s sewn into this amulet! There is nothing certain, nothing at all except the insignificance of everything I understand, and the greatness of something incomprehensible but all-important.”

The stretchers moved on. With every jolt, he felt unbearable pain again; his fever worsened and he became delirious. Visions of his father, wife, sister, his future son, and the tenderness he had felt the night before the battle, the image of the insignificant little Napoleon, and—most of all—the vast, lofty sky, became the main themes of his delirious thoughts.

He imagined the quiet home life and peaceful happiness of Bald Hills. He felt as though he was already experiencing that happiness, when suddenly that little Napoleon had appeared, with his unsympathetic, shortsighted delight at others’ misery. After that came doubts and torment, and only the heavens offered any promise of peace. By morning, all these dreams dissolved and faded into a chaotic darkness and unconsciousness, which, according to Napoleon’s doctor, Larrey, was much more likely to end in death than recovery.

“He is a nervous, bilious type,” said Larrey, “and he will not recover.”

And so Prince Andrew, along with other mortally wounded men, was left in the care of the local people.

##  BOOK FOUR: 1806

##  CHAPTER I

Early in 1806, Nicholas Rostóv returned home on leave. Denísov was heading home to Vorónezh, and Rostóv convinced him to travel with him as far as Moscow and to stay there with him. At the last post station before Moscow, Denísov met a comrade and drank three bottles of wine with him. Despite the jolting ruts across the snow-covered road, Denísov slept the whole way, lying at the bottom of the sleigh beside Rostóv, who grew more and more impatient the closer they got to Moscow.

“How much longer? How much longer? Oh, these unbearable streets, shops, bakers’ signs, street lamps, and sleighs!” thought Rostóv, after their leave permits were checked at the town gate and they entered Moscow.

“Denísov! We’re here! He’s asleep,” he added, leaning forward with his whole body, as if that might somehow make the sleigh go faster.

Denísov did not answer.

“There’s the corner at the crossroads, where the cabman, Zakhár, has his stand, and there’s Zakhár himself with the same old horse! And here’s the little shop where we used to buy gingerbread! Can’t you go any faster? Come on now!”

“Which house is it?” asked the driver.

“That one, right at the end, the big one. Don’t you see? That’s our house,” said Rostóv. “Of course, it’s our house! Denísov, Denísov! We’re almost there!”

Denísov raised his head, coughed, and said nothing.

“Dmítri,” Rostóv said to his valet on the box, “those are the lights in our house, right?”

“Yes, sir, and there’s a light in your father’s study.”

“Then they haven’t gone to bed yet? What do you think? And don’t forget to lay out my new coat,” Rostóv added, fingering his new mustache. “Now, hurry up,” he shouted to the driver. “Wake up, Váska!” he said to Denísov, whose head was nodding again. “Come on, get moving! You’ll get three rubles for vodka—just move!” Rostóv shouted, when the sleigh was only three houses away. It seemed to him the horses weren’t moving at all. At last, the sleigh turned to the right, pulled up at the entrance, and Rostóv saw overhead the familiar cornice, with a bit of plaster broken off, the porch, and the post by the pavement. He jumped out before the sleigh stopped and ran into the hall. The house was cold and silent, as if it didn’t care who had arrived. There was no one in the hall. “Oh God! Is everyone all right?” he thought, pausing with a sinking heart, then rushing along the hall and up the warped steps of the familiar staircase. The old door handle—the one that always annoyed the countess when it wasn’t polished—turned as loosely as ever. A single tallow candle burned in the anteroom.

Old Michael was sleeping on the chest. Prokófy, the footman, so strong he could lift the back of the carriage, sat plaiting slippers out of cloth selvedges. He looked up as the door opened, and his sleepy, indifferent look turned into one of delighted wonder.

“Gracious heavens! The young count!” he cried, recognizing his master. “Can it be? My treasure!” Prokófy, trembling with excitement, rushed toward the drawing room door, probably to announce him, but changed his mind, came back, and stooped to kiss Nicholas’s shoulder.

“Is everyone well?” asked Rostóv, pulling his arm away.

“Yes, thank God! Yes! They’ve just finished supper. Let me see you, your excellency.”

“Everything is all right?”

“Thank the Lord, yes!”

Rostóv, completely forgetting Denísov and not wanting anyone to announce him first, threw off his fur coat and ran on tiptoe through the big dark ballroom. Everything was the same: the old card tables, the chandelier with its cover; but someone had already noticed him, and before he reached the drawing room, something flew out from a side door like a tornado and began hugging and kissing him. Another and then another figure rushed from other doors—more hugging, more kissing, more exclamations and tears of joy. He couldn’t tell who was Papa, who was Natásha, who was Pétya. Everyone was shouting, talking, and kissing him at once. Only his mother wasn’t there, he noticed.

“And I didn’t know… Nicholas… My darling!…”

“Here he is… our own… Kólya, \* dear fellow… How he’s changed!… Where are the candles?… Tea!…”

\* Nicholas.

“And me, kiss me!”

“Dearest… and me!”

Sónya, Natásha, Pétya, Anna Mikháylovna, Véra, and the old count all hugged him, and the servants, men and maids, poured into the room, exclaiming in delight.

Pétya, clinging to his legs, kept shouting, “And me too!”

Natásha, after pulling him down to kiss his face, clung to his coat and then leaped away and hopped up and down in place like a goat, shrieking with joy.

Everywhere were loving eyes filled with tears of happiness; everywhere were lips seeking kisses.

Sónya, all rosy and glowing, clung to his arm and, shining with joy, looked up at him, waiting for the look she so wanted. Sónya was now sixteen and very pretty, especially in this moment of joyful excitement. She gazed at him, not taking her eyes off him, smiling and holding her breath. He gave her a grateful look, but he was still waiting and searching for someone. The old countess still hadn’t appeared. But now hurried steps sounded at the door, so fast they hardly seemed like his mother’s.

Yet it was her, in a new dress made since he had left. The others let him go, and he ran to her. When they met, she fell onto his chest, sobbing. She couldn’t lift her face, only pressed it to the cold braiding of his hussar’s jacket. Denísov, who had come in unnoticed, stood by, wiping his eyes at the sight.

“Vasíli Denísov, your son’s friend,” he said, introducing himself to the count, who looked at him questioningly.

“You are most welcome! I know, I know,” said the count, kissing and embracing Denísov. “Nicholas wrote to us… Natásha, Véra, look! Here is Denísov!”

The same happy, ecstatic faces turned to the shaggy Denísov.

“Darling Denísov!” screamed Natásha, overwhelmed with joy, running to him, throwing her arms around his neck, and kissing him. This made everyone feel a bit awkward. Denísov blushed too, but smiled, took Natásha’s hand, and kissed it.

Denísov was shown to the room prepared for him, and the Rostóvs all gathered around Nicholas in the sitting room.

The old countess, never letting go of his hand, kept kissing it: the others crowded around, watching every move, word, and look of his, never taking their adoring eyes off him. His brother and sisters fought for the places closest to him and argued about who would bring him his tea, handkerchief, and pipe.

Rostóv was delighted by their love for him; but the first moments of their reunion had been so heavenly that his present happiness felt too little, and he kept hoping for even more.

The next morning, after the exhaustion of the journey, the travelers slept until ten o’clock.

In the room next to their bedroom, there was a jumble of sabers, satchels, sabretaches, open bags, and dirty boots. Two pairs, freshly cleaned and spurred, were placed by the wall. The servants brought in jugs and basins, hot water for shaving, and their neatly brushed clothes. The place smelled like men and tobacco.

“Hallo, Gwíska—my pipe!” came Vasíli Denísov’s husky voice. “Rostóv, get up!”

Rostóv, rubbing his eyes, which felt glued shut, lifted his tousled head from the warm pillow.

“Is it late?” he asked.

“Late! It’s nearly ten o’clock,” answered Natásha’s voice. The sound of rustling starched petticoats and the whispers and laughter of girls came from the next room. The door opened a crack, and there was a glimpse of something blue—ribbons, black hair, and happy faces. It was Natásha, Sónya, and Pétya, who had come to see whether they were getting up.

“Nicholas! Get up!” Natásha called again at the door.

“Coming!”

Meanwhile, Pétya, having found and grabbed the sabers in the outer room, with the delight of a boy admiring his soldier brother, and forgetting it wasn’t proper for the girls to see men undressed, opened the bedroom door.

“Is this your saber?” he shouted.

The girls quickly moved aside. Denísov hid his hairy legs under the blanket, looking at his friend with a scared expression, hoping for help. The door, after letting Pétya in, closed again. Laughter echoed from behind it.

“Nicholas! Come out in your dressing gown!” said Natásha's voice.

“Is this your saber?” asked Pétya. “Or is it yours?” he asked, looking at the black-mustached Denísov with eager deference.

Rostóv quickly slipped something on his feet, put on his dressing gown, and went out. Natásha had one spurred boot on and was just sliding her foot into the other. Sónya, when he walked in, was spinning around, about to fluff her dress out like a balloon and sit down. They were both wearing matching new pale-blue dresses and looked fresh, rosy, and bright. Sónya ran away, but Natásha, taking her brother’s arm, led him into the sitting room, where they began talking. They barely gave each other enough time to ask or answer a thousand little questions about things only they would care about. Natásha laughed at every word, either his or her own—not because anything was funny, but because she felt so happy, and her joy spilled out as laughter.

“Oh, how nice, how wonderful!” she said to everything.

Rostóv felt that, under the warmth of this love, that innocent childlike smile—which he hadn’t shown since leaving home—appeared on his face again for the first time in eighteen months, brightening his soul.

“No, but listen,” she said, “now you’re really a man, aren’t you? I’m so glad you’re my brother.” She touched his mustache. “I want to know what men are like. Are you just like us? No?”

“Why did Sónya run away?” Rostóv asked.

“Oh, yes! That’s a whole story! How are you going to speak to her—*thou* or *you?*”

“Whichever happens,” said Rostóv.

“No, please call her *you*! I’ll tell you all about it another time. No, I’ll tell you now. You know Sónya’s my dearest friend. Such a friend that I burned my arm for her. Look here!”

She pulled up her muslin sleeve and showed him a red scar on her long, slender, delicate arm, high above the elbow—even above where a ball dress would cover.

“I did this to prove my love for her. I just heated a ruler in the fire and pressed it here!”

Sitting on the sofa with its little arm cushions, in what used to be his schoolroom, and looking into Natásha’s brightly shining eyes, Rostóv felt himself return to that world of home and childhood that meant nothing to anyone else but gave him some of his life’s greatest happiness; the burning of an arm as proof of friendship didn’t seem strange to him—he understood and wasn’t surprised.

“Well, is that all?” he asked.

“We’re such friends! That ruler thing was just silly, but we’ll be friends forever. She, when she loves someone, loves for life, but I don’t understand that—I forget quickly.”

“Well, what then?”

“She loves me and you like that.”

Natásha suddenly blushed.

“Remember before you went away?… Well, she wants you to forget all of that…. She says: ‘I’ll love him always, but let him be free.’ Isn’t that wonderful and noble! Yes, very noble, don’t you think?” Natásha asked, serious and excited, making it clear she’d talked of this before, with tears.

Rostóv grew thoughtful.

“I never break my word,” he said. “Besides, Sónya’s so charming that only a fool would give up such happiness.”

“No, no!” cried Natásha, “she and I already talked about it. We knew you’d say that. But it can’t be, because if you say that—if you think you’re bound by your promise—it’ll seem as if she didn’t really mean it. It would make it seem like you’re marrying her out of obligation, and that wouldn’t do at all.”

Rostóv realized they had really thought it out between themselves. Sónya had already struck him with her beauty the day before. Today, with another glance, she seemed even lovelier. She was a charming sixteen-year-old girl, so clearly in love with him (he never doubted it for a moment). Why shouldn’t he love her now, maybe even marry her, Rostóv wondered—but for now there were so many other pleasures and interests ahead of him! “Yes, they’ve made a wise decision,” he thought, “I should stay free.”

“Well then, that’s great,” he said. “We’ll talk about it later. Oh, I’m so happy to have you!”

“So, are you still true to Borís?” he continued.

“Oh, what nonsense!” Natásha cried, laughing. “I don’t think about him or anyone else, and I don’t want anything like that.”

“Really? Then what are you doing now?”

“Now?” Natásha repeated, and a joyful smile lit her face. “Have you seen Duport?”

“No.”

“Haven’t seen Duport—the famous dancer? Then you wouldn’t understand. That’s what I’m up to now.”

Holding out her skirts like a dancer, Natásha ran back a few steps, spun, leaped, brought her little feet together sharply, and took a few steps on the very tips of her toes.

“See, I’m standing! See!” she said, but could hold her balance on her toes no longer. “That’s what I’m up to! I’ll never marry anyone, I’ll be a dancer. But don’t tell anyone.”

Rostóv laughed so loudly and cheerfully that Denísov, in his bedroom, felt a pang of envy, and Natásha couldn’t help but join in.

“No, but don’t you think it’s nice?” she kept repeating.

“Nice! So you don’t want to marry Borís anymore?”

Natásha flared up. “I don’t want to marry anyone. And I’ll tell him that when I see him!”

“My goodness!” said Rostóv.

“But that’s all nonsense,” Natásha went on, chattering. “And is Denísov nice?” she asked.

“Yes, absolutely!”

“Oh, well then, good-bye. Go and get dressed. Is he very scary, Denísov?”

“Why scary?” asked Nicholas. “No, Váska is a great guy.”

“You call him Váska? That’s funny! And is he really nice?”

“Very.”

“Well then, hurry up. We’ll all have breakfast together.”

And Natásha got up and walked out of the room on tiptoe, like a ballet dancer, but smiling in that special way only truly happy fifteen-year-old girls can smile. When Rostóv met Sónya in the drawing room, he blushed. He wasn’t sure how to act around her. The night before, in the happiness of their reunion, they had kissed, but now it didn’t seem possible; he felt like everyone—including his mother and sisters—was watching him, waiting to see how he would treat her. He kissed her hand and spoke to her using *you—Sónya* instead of *thou*. But their eyes met and said *thou*, and exchanged gentle looks, full of meaning. Her eyes asked him to forgive her for daring, through Natásha, to remind him of his promise, and then thanked him for his love. His look thanked her for offering him his freedom and told her that no matter what, he could never stop loving her, because that would be impossible.

“How strange,” said Véra, picking a moment when everyone was silent, “that Sónya and Nicholas now address each other as *you* and act like strangers.”

Véra’s comment was accurate, as all her comments were, but, like most of her observations, it made everyone uncomfortable—not just Sónya, Nicholas, and Natásha, but even the old countess, who, worried that this romance would prevent Nicholas from securing a brilliant match, blushed like a young girl.

To Rostóv’s surprise, Denísov appeared in the drawing room with his hair pomaded, smelling of perfume, and wearing a new uniform. He looked just as sharp as he did when going into battle, and he was more pleasant with the ladies and gentlemen than Rostóv had ever expected him to be.

##  CHAPTER II

When Nicholas Rostóv returned to Moscow from the army, his family welcomed him as the best of sons, a hero, and their beloved Nikólenka; his relatives saw him as a charming, attractive, and polite young man; and his acquaintances regarded him as a handsome hussar lieutenant, an excellent dancer, and one of the most eligible bachelors in the city.

The Rostóvs knew everyone in Moscow. That year, the old count had plenty of money, as all his estates had been remortgaged, and Nicholas acquired a trotter of his own, very fashionable riding breeches of the newest cut, unlike anything yet seen in Moscow, and boots in the latest style, with extremely pointed toes and small silver spurs. He enjoyed himself immensely. After a brief period of readjusting to his former way of life, Nicholas found it very pleasant to be home again. He felt that he had matured greatly. He looked back on his despair over failing a Scripture exam, borrowing money from Gavríl to pay a sleigh driver, and secretly kissing Sónya as childish things he had long since outgrown. Now, as a hussar lieutenant in a silver-laced jacket, wearing the Cross of St. George awarded for bravery in action, and in the company of well-known, older, and respected racing men, he was training his own trotter for a race. He knew a lady on one of the boulevards whom he visited in the evenings. He led the mazurka at the Arkhárovs’ ball, discussed the war with Field Marshal Kámenski, visited the English Club, and enjoyed close friendship with a forty-year-old colonel who had been introduced by Denísov.

His passion for the Emperor had cooled somewhat in Moscow. Yet, since he did not see the Emperor and had no chance of doing so, he often spoke about him and his devotion, hinting that he had not revealed everything and that there was something unique in his feelings that not everyone could understand. With all his heart, he joined in the widespread adoration for the Emperor, who was described as the “angel incarnate.”

During Rostóv’s brief stay in Moscow before rejoining the army, he grew distant from Sónya rather than closer. She was very pretty and sweet, and obviously deeply in love with him, but he was at that age when there seemed so many things to do that there was *no time* for such matters, and a young man fears commitment and values his freedom for so many other pursuits. When he thought of Sónya during his stay in Moscow, he would say to himself, “Ah, there will be, and there are, many more such girls somewhere whom I haven’t met yet. There will be time enough for love when I want it, but for now I have no time.” Besides, he felt that women’s company was somewhat beneath his sense of manhood. He attended balls and visited ladies only with an air of doing so reluctantly. The races, the English Club, outings with Denísov, and visits to certain houses—that was another matter and the real thing for a spirited young hussar!

In early March, old Count Ilyá Rostóv was very busy organizing a dinner in honor of Prince Bagratión at the English Club.

The count paced the hall in his dressing gown, giving instructions to the club steward and the renowned Feoktíst, the club’s head chef, about asparagus, fresh cucumbers, strawberries, veal, and fish for the dinner. The count had been a member and on the club’s committee since its founding. The club entrusted him with arranging the festival for Bagratión because few knew how to plan such a generous, welcoming celebration, and even fewer could and would fill any gaps from their own resources to ensure the event’s success. The cook and steward listened to his orders with pleased expressions, knowing that under no other supervision could they so easily secure a good profit for themselves from a dinner costing several thousand rubles.

“Well then, be sure to include cocks’ comb in the turtle soup, you know!”

“Shall we have three cold dishes, then?” asked the cook.

The count considered.

“We can’t have fewer—yes, three… the mayonnaise, that’s one,” he said, bending down a finger.

“Then shall I order those large sterlets?” asked the steward.

“Yes, we have no choice if they won’t take less. Ah, dear me! I almost forgot. We need another entrée. Ah, goodness gracious!” He clutched his head. “Who will get me the flowers? Dmítri! Eh, Dmítri!” he called to the attendant who responded to his summons. “Hurry to our Moscow estate,” he ordered. “Tell Maksím, the gardener, to set the serfs to work. Tell him everything from the greenhouses must be brought here well wrapped in felt. I need two hundred pots here by Friday.”

After giving several more instructions, he was about to go to his “little countess” to rest, but recalling something important, he returned, called the cook and steward back, and began giving more orders. A light footstep and the clinking of spurs were heard at the door, and the young count, handsome and rosy, with a small dark mustache and clearly refreshed by his comfortable life in Moscow, entered the room.

“Ah, my boy, my head’s spinning!” said the old man with a smile, as if a bit embarrassed before his son. “If only you’d help me! I need singers too. I’ll have my own orchestra, but shouldn’t we invite the gypsy singers as well? You military men like that.”

“Really, Papa, I think Prince Bagratión worried less before the battle of Schön Grabern than you do now,” his son said with a smile.

The old count pretended to be angry.

“Yes, you jest, but try it yourself!”

He turned to the cook, who, with a clever and respectful look, observed the father and son with interest.

“What’s become of young people these days, eh, Feoktíst?” he said. “Laughing at us old fellows!”

“That’s right, your excellency, all they do is enjoy a good dinner, while providing for it and serving it isn’t their concern!”

“Exactly, exactly!” exclaimed the count, joyfully grabbing his son’s hands. “Now I’ve got you, take the sleigh and pair at once, go to Bezúkhov’s, and tell him ‘Count Ilyá sent you to ask for strawberries and fresh pineapples.’ No one else can get them. He’s not home himself, so you’ll need to ask the princesses; and from there, go to Rasgulyáy—the coachman Ipátka knows—and find the gypsy Ilyúshka, the one who danced at Count Orlóv’s, remember, in a white Cossack coat, and bring him to me.”

“And should I bring the gypsy girls with him?” Nicholas asked, laughing. “Dear me!…”

At that moment, with quiet steps and her usual businesslike, absorbed, yet humbly Christian expression, Anna Mikháylovna entered the hall. Though she saw the count in his dressing gown daily, he always became flustered and asked her pardon for his attire.

“No matter at all, my dear count,” she said, gently closing her eyes. “But I’ll go to Bezúkhov’s myself. Pierre has arrived, and now we can get anything we need from his greenhouses. I need to see him anyway. He has sent me a letter from Borís. Thank God, Borís is now on the staff.”

The count was delighted that Anna Mikháylovna had taken on one of his errands and ordered the small closed carriage for her.

“Tell Bezúkhov to come—I’ll add his name to the list. Is his wife with him?” he asked.

Anna Mikháylovna rolled her eyes upward, a deep sadness appearing on her face.

“Ah, my dear friend, he is very unfortunate,” she said. “If what we’ve heard is true, it is dreadful. Who would have imagined such a thing when we rejoiced at his happiness? And such a noble, angelic soul as young Bezúkhov! Yes, I pity him sincerely and will try to comfort him as best I can.”

“What’s the matter?” both young and old Rostóv asked.

Anna Mikháylovna sighed deeply.

“Dólokhov, Mary Ivánovna’s son,” she whispered conspiratorially, “has completely compromised her, they say. Pierre befriended him, invited him to his home in Petersburg, and now… she’s come here and that daredevil after her!” Anna Mikháylovna tried to show her sympathy for Pierre but, by her involuntary tone and half-smile, revealed her sympathy for the ‘daredevil,’ as she called Dólokhov. “They say Pierre is quite broken by his misfortune.”

“Dear me! Still, tell him to come to the club—it’ll blow over. It’ll be a tremendous banquet.”

The next day, March 3rd, soon after one o’clock, two hundred and fifty English Club members and fifty guests were awaiting the guest of honor and hero of the Austrian campaign, Prince Bagratión, for dinner.

When the news of the battle of Austerlitz first arrived, Moscow had been stunned. Russians were so used to victories that on hearing news of defeat, some simply refused to believe it, while others tried to find extraordinary explanations for such an unlikely event. At the English Club, where all the distinguished, important, and well-informed gathered, as the news arrived in December, no one mentioned the war or the latest battle, as if all were secretly agreeing to stay silent. The men who set the tone—Count Rostopchín, Prince Yúri Dolgorúkov, Valúev, Count Markóv, and Prince Vyázemski—did not show themselves at the club but met privately, leaving Moscovites who took their cues from others—including Ilyá Rostóv—temporarily without opinions or leaders. People sensed something was wrong, and since it was difficult to talk about bad news, they agreed it was best to keep silent. But after a while, like a jury emerging from deliberation, the influential men returned to the club, and everyone began to speak openly and clearly. Reasons were found for the incredible, unheard-of Russian defeat; everything became clear, and everywhere in Moscow the same explanations were repeated. These included the treachery of the Austrians, problems with supplies, the treachery of the Pole Przebyszéwski and the Frenchman Langeron, Kutúzov’s incompetence, and (it was whispered) the youth and inexperience of the sovereign, who had trusted unworthy and insignificant advisers. But the army, the Russian army, everyone declared, was exceptional and had performed miracles of valor. The soldiers, officers, and generals were all heroes. But above all stood Prince Bagratión, famed for his actions at Schön Grabern and for the retreat from Austerlitz, where he alone had withdrawn his column intact and fought off an enemy force twice his size all day long. Part of the reason Bagratión became Moscow’s hero was that he had no connections in the city and was a stranger. In him, they honored a simple, fighting Russian soldier, unconnected to intrigues, and someone associated through the Italian campaign with Suvórov’s legacy. Moreover, celebrating Bagratión was the best way to express criticism and dislike of Kutúzov.

“If there had been no Bagratión, we would have had to invent him,” said the wit Shinshín, echoing Voltaire’s remark. Few mentioned Kutúzov, except some who criticized him quietly as a court sycophant and an old satyr.

All Moscow repeated Prince Dolgorúkov’s saying: “If you go on modeling and modeling you must get smeared with clay,” finding comfort in past victories; and Rostopchín’s words, that the French have to be stirred into battle with fancy speeches, the Germans persuaded with logical reasons that it’s more dangerous to retreat than advance, but Russian soldiers only need to be held back! Everywhere, new anecdotes were heard about individual acts of heroism by officers and men at Austerlitz. One had saved a standard, another had killed five Frenchmen, a third had loaded five cannons by himself. Berg, even among those who didn’t know him, was spoken of as having, though wounded in the right hand, taken his sword in his left and pushed forward. Of Bolkónski, nothing was said, and only his close friends mourned that he had died so young, leaving his pregnant wife and eccentric father.

##  CHAPTER III

On the third of March, all the rooms in the English Club buzzed with conversation, like bees swarming in spring. The members and guests of the club wandered around, sitting, standing, meeting, and parting; some wore uniforms, others evening dress, and a few could be seen with powdered hair and in Russian *kaftáns*. Powdered footmen in livery with buckled shoes and neat stockings stood ready at every door, watching visitors’ movements so they could offer their services. Most of those present were elderly, respected men with broad, confident faces, fat fingers, and decisive gestures and voices. These guests and members sat in their usual places and gathered in familiar groups. Among the minority were occasional guests—mainly young men, including Denísov, Rostóv, and Dólokhov—who was once again an officer in the Semënov regiment. The faces of these young people, especially the military men, displayed a condescending respect toward their elders, as if to say, “We’re ready to respect and honor you, but remember, the future belongs to us.”

Nesvítski was present as a longtime club member. Pierre, at his wife’s request, had let his hair grow and stopped wearing spectacles; now, fashionably dressed, he wandered the rooms looking sad and bored. Here too, he was surrounded by people who deferred to his wealth, and being used to commanding such people, he treated them with distracted contempt.

By age, he should have been among the younger men, but by his wealth and connections, he belonged with the older, respected guests, so he moved from group to group. Some of the most important older men were the centers of groups that even strangers listened to, eager to hear the opinions of well-known figures. The largest circles formed around Count Rostopchín, Valúev, and Narýshkin. Rostopchín was describing how the Russians had been forced to break through the fleeing Austrians with bayonets.

Valúev spoke confidentially, saying that Uvárov had been sent from Petersburg to find out what the people of Moscow thought about Austerlitz.

In the third circle, Narýshkin recounted an Austrian Council of War meeting, at which Suvórov had crowed like a rooster in response to the nonsense spouted by the Austrian generals. Shinshín, nearby, tried to make a joke that Kutúzov had apparently failed to learn even the simple art of crowing like a rooster from Suvórov, but the elder members looked at him sternly, making it clear that such talk of Kutúzov was inappropriate at that time and place.

Count Ilyá Rostóv, rushed and occupied, walked around in his soft boots between the dining and drawing rooms, quickly greeting everyone—important or not—as if they were all equals, while his eyes occasionally searched for his tall, handsome young son, resting on him and winking at him joyfully. Young Rostóv stood by a window with Dólokhov, a new friend whom he greatly admired. The old count came over and shook Dólokhov’s hand.

“Please come and visit us... you know my brave boy... you’ve served together... both heroes... Ah, Vasíli Ignátovich... How are you, old friend?” he said, turning to greet an old man passing by. But before he could finish his greeting, a stir went through the room, and a footman ran in, face pale, to announce: “He’s arrived!”

Bells rang, the stewards hurried in, and—like grain shaken together on a shovel—the guests who had been scattered through different rooms all crowded into the large drawing room by the ballroom doors.

Bagratión appeared in the doorway of the anteroom without hat or sword, which, according to club custom, he had given to the hall porter. He wore no lambskin cap or whip over his shoulder, as Rostóv had seen him on the eve of Austerlitz, but was dressed in a crisp new uniform with Russian and foreign Orders, including the Star of St. George on his left breast. Clearly, he had his hair and whiskers trimmed just before coming, which did not suit him. There was something sincerely festive about his air, which, combined with his strong, masculine features, gave him a slightly comical look. Bekleshëv and Theodore Uvárov, who arrived with him, paused at the doorway out of politeness, letting him, as the guest of honor, enter first. Bagratión was embarrassed, not wanting to take such precedence, causing some delay, but in the end, he went in first. He walked awkwardly and shyly over the polished floor of the reception room, unsure what to do with his hands; he was more used to marching across a plowed field under fire, as he had while leading the Kursk regiment at Schön Grabern—and that would have been easier for him. The committee members met him at the entrance and, expressing their delight at having such a distinguished guest, more or less took charge of him, surrounding him and leading him to the drawing room, not waiting for his response. At first it was impossible to enter the drawing room because of the crowd, everyone wanting to catch a glimpse of Bagratión as if he were a rare animal. Count Ilyá Rostóv, laughing and repeating, “Make way, dear boy! Make way, make way!” pushed through more energetically than anyone, guided the guests into the drawing room, and seated them on the central sofa. The bigwigs, the most respected club members, pressed around the new arrivals. Count Ilyá, pushing through the crowd once more, came back into the drawing room a moment later with another committee member, both carrying a large silver tray, which he presented to Prince Bagratión. On the tray were some verses composed and printed in the hero’s honor. Bagratión, seeing the tray, looked around in confusion, as though searching for help. But everyone’s eyes required him to comply. Feeling he was in their power, he bravely took the tray with both hands and looked sternly, almost accusingly, at the count who gave it to him. Someone quickly relieved Bagratión of the dish (otherwise he might have held on to it all evening, even taking it to dinner) and showed him the verses.

“Well, I’ll read them, then!” Bagratión seemed to think, and fixing his tired eyes on the paper, started reading with a serious, focused look. But then the author himself took the verses and started reading them aloud. Bagratión bowed his head and listened:

Bring glory then to Alexander’s reign  
And on the throne our Titus shield.  
A dreaded foe be thou, kindhearted as a man,  
A Rhipheus at home, a Caesar in the field!  
E’en fortunate Napoleon  
Knows by experience, now, Bagratión,  
And dare not Herculean Russians trouble…

But before he finished reading, the booming voice of the major-domo announced that dinner was ready! The door opened, and from the dining room came the lively notes of the polonaise:

Conquest’s joyful thunder waken,  
Triumph, valiant Russians, now!…

and Count Rostóv, eyeing the author who kept reading his verses with annoyance, bowed to Bagratión. Everyone stood, recognizing dinner was more important than poetry, and Bagratión, again leading the way, went in for dinner. He was seated in the place of honor between two Alexanders—Bekleshëv and Narýshkin—a not so subtle nod to the name of the Tsar. Three hundred people took their seats in the dining room, according to rank and importance: the higher-ranked sat closer to the guest of honor, as naturally as water fills the lowest places.

Just before dinner, Count Ilyá Rostóv introduced his son to Bagratión, who recognized him and said a few words, awkward and halting like all his speech that day, while Count Ilyá looked around proudly and with delight.

Nicholas Rostóv, Denísov, and his new friend Dólokhov sat near the center of the table. Across from them were Pierre and Prince Nesvítski. Count Ilyá Rostóv, with the other committee members, sat facing Bagratión and, as the very embodiment of Moscow hospitality, played host to the prince.

His efforts weren’t in vain. The dinner, including both Lenten and regular dishes, was splendid, but he couldn’t relax until it was almost over. He winked at the butler, whispered orders to the footmen, and waited anxiously for each dish. Everything went perfectly. With the second course, a huge sterlet (which made Ilyá Rostóv blush with pride), the footmen began to pop corks and pour champagne. After the fish, which was a sensation, the count exchanged looks with the other committee members. “There’ll be plenty of toasts; time to start,” he whispered, and, taking up his glass, stood up. Everyone fell silent, waiting.

“To the health of our Sovereign, the Emperor!” he cried, his kind eyes filling with joyful, enthusiastic tears. The band immediately struck up “Conquest’s joyful thunder waken…” Everyone stood and shouted, “Hurrah!” Bagratión also stood and cried “Hurrah!” in exactly the same way he had done on the field at Schön Grabern. Young Rostóv’s passionate voice could be heard above the three hundred others. He was nearly in tears. “To the health of our Sovereign, the Emperor!” he shouted, “Hurrah!” and, draining his glass in one gulp, dashed it to the floor. Many followed his example, and the wild cheering went on for a long time. When the shouting died away, the footmen cleaned up the broken glass, and everyone sat back down, smiling at the commotion and sharing comments. The old count stood up again, glanced at a note next to his plate, and proposed a toast, “To the health of the hero of our last campaign, Prince Peter Ivánovich Bagratión!” and, once again, his blue eyes brimmed with tears. “Hurrah!” cried three hundred voices, and this time a choir began singing a cantata by Paul Ivánovich Kutúzov:

Russians! O’er all barriers on!  
Courage conquest guarantees;  
Have we not Bagratión?  
He brings foemen to their knees,… etc.

As soon as the choir finished, one toast followed another, and Count Ilyá Rostóv became even more moved, more glasses were smashed, and the noise only grew. They drank to Bekleshëv, Narýshkin, Uvárov, Dolgorúkov, Apráksin, Valúev, to the committee, to every club member and guest, and finally to Count Ilyá Rostóv himself, as the organizer of the banquet. At that, the count took out his handkerchief and, covering his face, wept openly.

##  CHAPTER IV

Pierre sat opposite Dólokhov and Nicholas Rostóv. As usual, he ate and drank a lot, and with enthusiasm. But those who knew him well noticed that something significant had changed in him that day. He was silent throughout dinner, looking around, blinking and scowling, or, with a vacant stare and a completely absent-minded expression, kept rubbing the bridge of his nose. His face was somber and gloomy. He seemed unaware of what was happening around him, absorbed by some troubling and unresolved issue.

The problem haunting him stemmed from hints made by the princess, his cousin, in Moscow about Dólokhov’s close relationship with his wife, as well as an anonymous letter he had received that morning. The letter, written in the mocking tone typical of anonymous notes, said he didn’t see well even with spectacles, but that his wife’s affair with Dólokhov was a secret to everyone except himself. Pierre did not believe either the princess’s hints or the letter, but now he was afraid to look at Dólokhov, who sat across from him. Each time Pierre happened to meet Dólokhov’s handsome, insolent gaze, he felt something terrible and monstrous rising inside and looked away quickly. As he involuntarily thought about his wife’s past and her connection to Dólokhov, Pierre realized that what the letter described might be true—or at least believable—if it weren’t about *his own wife*. He couldn’t help but recall how Dólokhov, who had regained his old status after the campaign, had come back to Petersburg and visited him. Taking advantage of their friendship, Dólokhov had come straight to Pierre’s house, where Pierre had hosted him and lent him money. Pierre remembered how Hélène had smiled disapprovingly at Dólokhov living with them, and how cynically Dólokhov had complimented his wife’s beauty, and how, from then until they left for Moscow, Dólokhov had not left their company for a single day.

“Yes, he is very handsome,” thought Pierre, “and I know what he’s like. He would especially enjoy dishonoring me and making a fool of me, precisely because I helped him, befriended him, and supported him. I can understand the satisfaction he’d get from deceiving me if it really were true. Yes, *if* it were true. But I don’t believe it. I have no right to, and can’t, believe it.” He remembered the cruel expression that would appear on Dólokhov’s face, like when he tied the policeman to the bear and threw them into the water, or when he challenged someone to a duel without cause, or shot a post-boy’s horse. That look was often there when Dólokhov gazed at him. “Yes, he’s a bully,” Pierre thought. “Killing a man means nothing to him. He thinks everyone is afraid of him, and he enjoys that. He must assume I’m afraid of him—and, in fact, I am,” Pierre admitted to himself, feeling again that terrible and monstrous thing rising inside. Dólokhov, Denísov, and Rostóv now sat across from Pierre, all appearing quite cheerful. Rostóv talked animatedly to his two friends—one a daring hussar, the other a notorious duelist and rake—and he occasionally cast a mocking glance at Pierre, whose distracted and absent-minded demeanor, and massive size, made him stand out. Rostóv looked at Pierre with hostility: first, because Pierre’s appearance as a wealthy civilian and husband of a beautiful woman seemed weak to his hussar’s eyes, and second, because Pierre, distracted and absent-minded, hadn’t recognized or returned his greeting. When everyone toasted the Emperor’s health, Pierre, lost in thought, did not rise or lift his glass.

“What’s wrong with you?” Rostóv shouted, exasperated. “Don’t you hear, it’s His Majesty the Emperor’s health?”

Pierre sighed, stood up obediently, drained his glass, and, after everyone sat again, turned to Rostóv with his characteristic kind smile.

“Oh, I didn’t recognize you!” he said. But Rostóv was preoccupied; he was shouting “Hurrah!”

“Why don’t you reconnect?” Dólokhov said to Rostóv.

“Forget him, he’s an idiot!” said Rostóv.

“One should befriend the husbands of beautiful women,” said Denísov.

Pierre didn’t catch what they said but knew they were speaking about him. Embarrassed, he turned away.

“Well then, to the health of beautiful women!” said Dólokhov. With a serious look but a hidden smile, he raised his glass to Pierre.

“Here’s to the health of beautiful women, Peterkin—and to their lovers!” he added.

Pierre, eyes downcast, finished his glass without looking at Dólokhov or replying. The footman, handing out copies of Kutúzov’s cantata, set one before Pierre, as a principal guest. Pierre reached for it, but Dólokhov leaned over and grabbed it first, starting to read. Pierre glanced at Dólokhov and quickly looked away; that same terrible, monstrous feeling overcame him again. He leaned across the table.

“How dare you take it?” he shouted.

At Pierre’s outburst and seeing whom he’d addressed, Nesvítski and the man on his right turned toward Bezúkhov, startled.

“Don’t! Don’t! What are you doing?” came their anxious whispers.

Dólokhov looked at Pierre with clear, amused, cruel eyes and a smile that seemed to say, “Ah! This is what I enjoy!”

“You won’t have it!” he replied firmly.

Pale, his lips trembling, Pierre snatched back the sheet.

“You…! you… scoundrel! I challenge you!” he exclaimed, pushing back his chair and standing up.

In that very moment, as he uttered those words, Pierre felt the question of his wife’s guilt—which had plagued him all day—was at last, undeniably resolved for him: she was guilty. He hated her and knew they were now forever separated. Although Denísov asked him to stay out of it, Rostóv agreed to be Dólokhov’s second, and after dinner he discussed the duel arrangements with Nesvítski, who was Bezúkhov’s second. Pierre went home, but Rostóv stayed at the club with Dólokhov and Denísov until late, listening to gypsies and other singers.

“Well then, till tomorrow at Sokólniki,” said Dólokhov, saying goodbye to Rostóv at the club entrance.

“And are you quite calm?” Rostóv asked.

Dólokhov paused.

“Well, I’ll tell you the real secret of dueling in just two words. If you’re going to fight and you make a will and write loving letters to your parents and think you might be killed—you’re a fool and you’re lost for sure. But if you go with a clear intention to kill your man as quickly and surely as possible, everything will be fine—just as our bear huntsman at Kostromá used to say to me. ‘Everyone’s afraid of a bear,’ he says, ‘but when you see one your fear vanishes—you just want to be sure it doesn’t get away!’ That’s how I feel. *À demain, mon cher*.” \*

\* Till tomorrow, my dear fellow.

The next day at eight in the morning, Pierre and Nesvítski drove to the Sokólniki forest and found Dólokhov, Denísov, and Rostóv already waiting. Pierre looked like a man absorbed in thoughts completely unrelated to what was happening. His haggard, yellow face showed he hadn’t slept. He glanced around absent-mindedly and squinted, as if the sun hurt his eyes. Two things filled his mind: his wife’s guilt, which after a sleepless night seemed completely certain to him, and the innocence of Dólokhov, who had no particular reason to care about the honor of someone unrelated to him.... “Maybe I would have done the same thing if I were in his place,” Pierre thought. “In fact, I’m sure I would have. So why this duel? Why this killing? Either I’ll kill him, or he’ll shoot me in the head, or arm, or leg. Can I just leave—run away, disappear somewhere?” flitted through his mind. But exactly when he had such thoughts, he would ask with a calm, absent-minded manner that impressed the bystanders, “Will it be long? Are we ready?”

Once everything was prepared—the sabers marking the barriers stuck in the snow and the pistols loaded—Nesvítski approached Pierre.

“I wouldn’t be doing my duty, Count,” he said quietly, “and wouldn’t justify the confidence and honor you’ve shown by choosing me as your second if I didn’t speak honestly at this serious, very serious, moment. I don’t think there’s enough reason for this affair, or for anyone to shed blood over it…. You were in the wrong, not entirely right, you acted rashly…”

“Oh yes, it’s terribly stupid,” said Pierre.

“Then let me express your regrets, and I’m sure your opponent will accept them,” suggested Nesvítski (who, like the others, still didn’t believe this would end in an actual duel). “You know, Count, it’s much more honorable to admit your mistake than to let things go too far. Nobody was really insulted. Let me….”

“No! There’s nothing to discuss,” Pierre replied. “It’s all the same…. Are we ready?” he added. “Just tell me where to stand and where to shoot,” he said with an unusually gentle smile.

He picked up the pistol and started asking about the trigger, never having handled a pistol before—something he didn’t want to admit.

“Oh yes, like that, I remember, I just forgot,” he said.

“No apologies, absolutely none,” Dólokhov told Denísov (who had also been trying to make peace), and took his place for the duel.

The chosen spot was about eighty paces from the road, where they’d left the sleds, in a small clearing in the pine forest covered with melting snow, as the frost had started to give way in recent days. The opponents stood forty paces apart at the edge of the clearing. The seconds marked out the paces, leaving tracks in the deep, wet snow from where they had stood to where Nesvítski’s and Dólokhov’s sabers were stuck ten paces apart to mark the barrier. It was thawing and misty; at forty paces, nothing was easily visible. Everything had been ready for three minutes, but they all hesitated and the silence stretched on.

##  CHAPTER V

“Well, begin!” said Dólokhov.

“All right,” said Pierre, still smiling in the same way. A sense of dread filled the air. It was clear that the matter, which had started so lightly, could no longer be avoided; it was now unfolding on its own, beyond anyone’s control.

Denísov first walked to the barrier and announced, “Since the adversaries have refused a reconciliation, please proceed. Take your pistols, and at the count of *three*, begin to advance.

“O-ne! T-wo! Th-ree!” he shouted angrily and stepped aside.

The duelists advanced along the packed tracks, coming closer and closer, beginning to see each other through the mist. They had the right to fire whenever they chose as they neared the barrier. Dólokhov walked slowly, not raising his pistol, staring intently with his bright, sparkling blue eyes at his opponent’s face. His mouth held its usual hint of a smile.

“So I can fire when I want!” Pierre said, and at the word “three,” he moved quickly forward, stepping off the trodden path and into the deep snow. He held the pistol in his right hand at arm’s length, as if afraid he might shoot himself. He carefully held his left hand back, wanting to support his right, though knowing he mustn’t. After taking six paces and veering into the snow, Pierre looked down at his feet, then quickly glanced at Dólokhov. Bending his finger as he’d been taught, he fired. Not at all expecting such a loud report, Pierre flinched at the sound and then, smiling at his own reaction, stood still. The smoke, made thicker by the mist, blocked his view for a moment, but there was no second shot as he expected. He only heard Dólokhov’s hurried steps, and saw his shape emerge through the smoke. Dólokhov was pressing one hand to his left side, while the other gripped his drooping pistol. His face was pale. Rostóv ran up to him and said something.

“No-o-o!” muttered Dólokhov through his teeth, “no, it’s not over.” After stumbling a few staggering steps all the way to the saber, he sank into the snow beside it. His left hand was bloody; he wiped it on his coat and propped himself up with it. His pallid, frowning face was trembling.

“Plea…” Dólokhov began, but at first could not get the word out.

“Please,” he managed with effort.

Pierre, barely holding back his sobs, ran toward Dólokhov and was about to cross the space between the barriers when Dólokhov shouted:

“To your barrier!” and Pierre, understanding, stopped by his saber. Only ten paces separated them. Dólokhov bent his head down to the snow, bit at it hungrily, then looked up again, adjusted himself, drew in his legs, and sat up, searching for balance. He swallowed the cold snow, his lips shook, but his eyes, still smiling, glinted with determination and frustration as he gathered his remaining strength. He lifted his pistol and aimed.

“Sideways! Protect yourself with your pistol!” cried Nesvítski.

“Cover yourself!” even Denísov shouted to Pierre.

Pierre, with a gentle smile of pity and regret, his arms and legs spread out helplessly, stood with his broad chest directly facing Dólokhov and stared sorrowfully at him. Denísov, Rostóv, and Nesvítski closed their eyes. At the same moment they heard a shot and Dólokhov’s angry cry.

“Missed!” shouted Dólokhov, and he collapsed helplessly, face down in the snow.

Pierre clutched his head, turned, and wandered into the forest, trudging through the deep snow and muttering incoherent words:

“Foolishness… foolishness! Death… lies…” he repeated, wincing.

Nesvítski stopped him and took him home.

Rostóv and Denísov rode away with the wounded Dólokhov.

Dólokhov lay silent in the sleigh with his eyes closed and did not answer any questions. But upon arriving in Moscow, he suddenly came to, and with effort lifted his head and took Rostóv, who was sitting beside him, by the hand. Rostóv was amazed by the completely changed and unexpectedly rapturous and tender expression on Dólokhov’s face.

“Well? How do you feel?” he asked.

“Bad! But that’s not it, my friend—” said Dólokhov in a strained voice. “Where are we? I know, Moscow. I don't matter, but I have killed her, killed… She won’t recover! She won’t survive….”

“Who?” asked Rostóv.

“My mother! My mother, my angel, my beloved angel mother,” and Dólokhov squeezed Rostóv’s hand and burst into tears.

When he had calmed down a little, he explained to Rostóv that he was living with his mother, who, if she saw him dying, would not survive it. He begged Rostóv to go ahead and prepare her.

Rostóv went on ahead as requested, and to his surprise discovered that Dólokhov, the notorious fighter, the bully, lived in Moscow with his elderly mother and hunchbacked sister, and was the most loving of sons and brothers.

##  CHAPTER VI

Pierre had recently seldom seen his wife alone. Both in Petersburg and Moscow, their house was always filled with visitors. The night after the duel, he did not go to his bedroom but, as he often did, remained in his late father’s room—the enormous room where Count Bezúkhov had died.

He lay down on the sofa, hoping to fall asleep and forget everything that had happened to him, but he couldn’t. Suddenly, a storm of feelings, thoughts, and memories arose within him so powerfully that he couldn’t sleep or even stay still; he had to jump up and pace the room rapidly. Now he seemed to see her in the early days of their marriage—her bare shoulders, that languid and passionate look on her face—then he immediately pictured next to her Dólokhov’s striking, arrogant, harsh, and mocking face just as he’d seen it at the banquet, and then the same face, pale and shaking with pain, as it had been when he reeled and sank in the snow.

“What has happened?” he asked himself. “I have killed her *lover*, yes, killed my wife’s lover. That’s what it is! And why did I do it? How did it happen?”—“Because you married her,” an inner voice replied.

“But how was I to blame?” he asked. “For marrying her without loving her; for deceiving both myself and her.” He vividly recalled that moment after supper at Prince Vasíli’s, when he spoke the words he had found so hard to say: “I love you.” “It all stems from that! Even then I felt it,” he thought. “I already knew it wasn’t true, that I had no right. And now it’s all clear.”

He remembered his honeymoon and blushed at the memory. Especially vivid and humiliating was the memory of the day soon after his marriage when he came out from the bedroom into his study a little before noon in his silk dressing gown and found his head steward there. The steward, bowing respectfully, looked at Pierre’s face and at the dressing gown, and smiled faintly, as if expressing respectful understanding of his master’s happiness.

“But how often I’ve felt proud of her, proud of her regal beauty and social skill,” he thought; “proud of my house where she welcomed all Petersburg, proud of her apparent inaccessibility and beauty. So that’s what I was proud of! I thought I didn’t understand her. How often, when thinking about her character, have I told myself that it was my fault for not understanding her, for not recognizing the constant composure, the satisfaction with everything, and the absence of any real interest or desire—yet the truth behind it all is the terrible reality that she is a depraved woman. Now that I’ve said that terrible word to myself, everything makes sense.

“Anatole used to come borrow money from her and would kiss her bare shoulders. She didn’t give him the money, but let him kiss her. Her father, jokingly, tried to spark her jealousy, and she replied calmly that she wasn’t foolish enough to be jealous: ‘Let him do what he pleases,’ she used to say of me. Once, I asked her if she had any signs of pregnancy. She laughed contemptuously and said she wasn’t stupid enough to want children, and she certainly wasn’t going to have any children by *me*.”

He then remembered the crudeness and bluntness of her thoughts, and how vulgar her language seemed, even though she’d grown up in the most aristocratic circles.

“I’m not that stupid… Just try it… *Allez-vous promener*,”\* she used to say. Often, seeing how successful she was with both men and women, young and old, Pierre couldn’t comprehend why he didn’t love her.

\* “You clear out of this.”

“Yes, I never loved her,” he admitted to himself. “I knew she was a depraved woman,” he repeated, “but I was afraid to admit it. Now Dólokhov is sitting in the snow, forcing a smile and perhaps dying, and meeting my guilt with some kind of forced bravado!”

Pierre was one of those people who, despite appearing to have a weak character, don’t seek others to confide in when troubled. He endured his suffering alone.

“It’s all, all her fault,” he told himself; “but so what? Why did I tie myself to her? Why did I say *‘Je vous aime’* \* to her, when it was a lie, and worse than a lie? I am guilty and must bear… what? A stain on my name? Misery for life? Oh, that’s nonsense,” he thought. “The stain on my name and honor—that’s all beside the point.”

\* I love you.

“Louis XVI was executed because they said he was dishonorable and a criminal,” ran through Pierre’s mind, “and from their point of view they were right—just as those who canonized him and died as martyrs for him were right. Then Robespierre was beheaded as a tyrant. Who’s right and who’s wrong? No one! But if you’re alive—live: tomorrow you could die just as I could have died an hour ago. So why torture yourself, when all of life is just a fleeting moment compared to eternity?”

But just as he imagined himself soothed by these thoughts, *she* suddenly came to mind, just as she’d been in the moments when he’d most forcefully professed his false love for her. He felt his heart pounding and had to get up, walk around, breaking or tearing whatever was at hand. “Why did I tell her *‘Je vous aime’?*” he kept repeating to himself. After saying it a dozen times, Molière’s words: *“Mais que diable allait-il faire dans cette galère?”*\* came to him, and he began to laugh at himself.

\* “But what the devil was he doing in that galley?”

That night, he called his valet and told him to pack for a trip to Petersburg. He couldn’t imagine how he could speak to her now. He decided to leave the next day and send her a letter stating his intention to separate from her forever.

In the morning, when the valet came in with his coffee, Pierre was asleep on the ottoman with an open book in his hand.

He awoke and looked around with a bewildered expression, unable for a moment to remember where he was.

“The countess asked me to see if your excellency was at home,” said the valet.

Before Pierre could decide what reply to send, the countess herself entered in a white satin dressing gown embroidered with silver, her hair simply styled (with two thick braids wrapped twice around her beautiful head like a crown). She was calm and majestic, except for an angry wrinkle on her prominent marble forehead. With her customary calm, she did not speak in front of the valet. She knew about the duel and had come to discuss it. She waited until the valet set down the coffee tray and left the room. Pierre peered at her timidly over his spectacles, like a hare pinned by hounds—trying to appear absorbed in his book. But realizing how pointless this was, he looked at her again, nervously. She didn’t sit down but stood gazing at him with a contemptuous smile, waiting for the valet to leave.

“Well, what now? What have you been up to this time, I’d like to know?” she asked sternly.

“I? What have I…?” Pierre stammered.

“So, you’re a hero now, are you? Come, what was that duel about? What was it supposed to prove? What? Tell me.”

Pierre shifted heavily on the ottoman and opened his mouth, but couldn’t reply.

“If you won’t answer, I’ll tell you…” Hélène continued. “You believe everything you’re told. You were told…” Hélène laughed, “that Dólokhov was my lover,” she said in French with her usual bluntness, uttering the word *amant* as casually as any other, “and you believed it! Well, what have you proved? What does this duel prove? That you’re a fool, *que vous êtes un sot*, but everyone already knew that. The result? I’ll be a laughingstock in all Moscow; everyone will say that you, drunk and out of your senses, challenged a man you were jealous of without reason.” Hélène raised her voice, becoming more and more animated, “A man who’s superior to you in every way…”

“Hm… Hm…!” Pierre grumbled, frowning, not looking her way, and not moving.

“And why did you believe he was my lover? Why? Because I like his company? If you were more clever or agreeable, I'd prefer yours.”

“Don’t talk to me… I beg you,” Pierre said hoarsely.

“Why shouldn’t I talk? I’ll speak as I please, and I’ll tell you frankly: there aren’t many wives with husbands like you who wouldn’t take lovers (*des amants*), but I haven’t,” she said.

Pierre wanted to say something, looked at her with a strange expression she couldn’t interpret, and lay down again. He was suffering physically at that moment—a heaviness on his chest so he couldn’t breathe. He knew he needed to do something to end this pain, but what he wanted to do was too terrible to contemplate.

“We should separate,” he muttered in a broken voice.

“Separate? Fine, but only if you give me a fortune,” said Hélène. “Separate! As if that would scare me!”

Pierre sprang up from the sofa and staggered toward her.

“I’ll kill you!” he shouted, seizing a marble-topped table with a strength new to him, and took a step toward her, brandishing the stone slab.

Hélène's face became terrifying; she screamed and sprang aside. In that moment, Pierre’s father’s nature came out in him. He felt both the delight and the horror of frenzy. He dropped the marble slab, shattering it, and lunged at her with outstretched hands, shouting, “Get out!” with such a terrible voice that the whole house heard it in horror. God knows what he would have done if Hélène hadn’t fled the room.

A week later, Pierre gave his wife full authority over all his estates in Great Russia, which made up the larger part of his property, and left for Petersburg alone.

##  CHAPTER VII

Two months had passed since the news of the battle of Austerlitz and the loss of Prince Andrew had reached Bald Hills. Despite the letters sent through the embassy and all the searches made, his body had not been found, nor was he listed among the prisoners. What was worst for his family was the lingering possibility that he might have been found on the battlefield by locals and might now be lying, recovering or dying, alone among strangers and unable to send word about himself. The gazettes, from which the old prince first heard of the defeat at Austerlitz, stated—very briefly and vaguely, as usual—that after brilliant engagements, the Russians had to retreat and had withdrawn in perfect order. The old prince understood from this official report that their army had been defeated. A week after the gazette reported the battle of Austerlitz, a letter from Kutúzov arrived, informing the prince of what had happened to his son.

“Your son,” wrote Kutúzov, “fell before my eyes, a standard in his hand and at the head of a regiment—he fell as a hero, worthy of his father and his country. To the deep regret of myself and the whole army, it is still uncertain whether he is alive or not. I comfort myself and you with the hope that your son is alive, for otherwise he would have been mentioned among the officers found on the field of battle, a list of whom has been sent to me under a flag of truce.”

After receiving this news late in the evening, while alone in his study, the old prince went for his walk as usual the next morning. However, he was silent with his steward, the gardener, and the architect. Though he looked more grim than usual, he said nothing to anyone.

When Princess Mary came to him at her usual hour, he was working at his lathe and, as usual, did not look around at her.

“Ah, Princess Mary!” he said suddenly in an unnatural voice, throwing down his chisel. (The wheel continued to spin on its own momentum, and Princess Mary remembered the dying creak of that wheel, which merged in her memory with everything that followed.)

She approached him, saw his face, and something broke inside her. Her eyes grew dim. From her father’s expression—not sad, not defeated, but angry and unnaturally strained—she understood that hanging over her was a terrible misfortune, the worst in life, something she had never yet endured, irreparable and incomprehensible: the death of someone she loved.

“Father! Andrew!” said the awkward, ungraceful princess with such an indescribable charm of sorrow and self-forgetfulness that her father could not bear to meet her gaze and turned away with a sob.

“Bad news! He’s not among the prisoners, nor among the dead! Kutúzov writes…” and he screamed shrilly, as if trying to force the princess away with his cry… “Killed!”

The princess did not faint or fall. She was already pale, but on hearing these words her face changed and something brightened in her beautiful, radiant eyes. It was as if a higher joy—one apart from earthly joys and sorrows—overflowed the great grief inside her. She forgot all fear of her father, walked up to him, took his hand, and drew him down, putting her arm around his thin, scraggy neck.

“Father,” she said, “don’t turn away from me, let us weep together.”

“Scoundrels! Blackguards!” shrieked the old man, turning his face away. “Ruining the army, ruining the men! And for what? Go, go and tell Lise.”

The princess collapsed helplessly into an armchair beside her father and wept. She saw her brother as he had looked when he said goodbye to her and to Lise, tender yet proud. She remembered him amused and gentle as he put on the little icon. “Did he believe? Had he repented of his unbelief? Was he now there—in the world of eternal peace and blessedness?” she wondered.

“Father, tell me how it happened,” she asked through her tears.

“Go! Go! Killed in battle, where the best of Russian men and Russia’s glory were led to destruction. Go, Princess Mary. Go and tell Lise. I’ll follow.”

When Princess Mary left her father, the little princess was sitting and working, looking up with that curious expression of inner, peaceful calm unique to pregnant women. Clearly, her eyes did not see Princess Mary but gazed inward… at something joyful and mysterious happening within her.

“Mary,” she said, moving away from the embroidery frame and lying back, “give me your hand.” She took her sister-in-law’s hand and held it below her waist.

Her eyes shone expectantly, her soft lip rising and staying raised in childlike happiness.

Princess Mary knelt in front of her and buried her face in her sister-in-law’s dress.

“There, do you feel it? I feel so strange. And you know, Mary, I’m going to love him so much,” said Lise, looking with bright and happy eyes at her sister-in-law.

Princess Mary could not lift her head; she was weeping.

“What’s the matter, Mary?”

“Nothing… only I feel sad… sad about Andrew,” she replied, wiping her tears on her sister-in-law’s knee.

Several times throughout the morning Princess Mary tried to prepare her sister-in-law, and each time she began to cry. The little princess, unobservant as she was, could not help but be disturbed by these tears, whose cause she didn’t understand. She said nothing but looked about uneasily, as if searching for something. Before dinner, the old prince—who always frightened her—came into her room with an especially restless and harsh expression, and then left without a word. She looked at Princess Mary, then sat thinking for a while, with that inner-focused look only seen in pregnant women, and suddenly began to cry.

“Has anything come from Andrew?” she asked.

“No, you know it’s too soon for news. But my father is worried and I feel afraid.”

“So there’s nothing?”

“Nothing,” answered Princess Mary, looking resolutely with her radiant eyes at her sister-in-law.

She had decided not to tell her and persuaded her father to keep the terrible news from her until after her confinement, which was expected within a few days. Princess Mary and the old prince each bore and hid their grief in their own way. The old prince did not allow himself to hope: he convinced himself that Prince Andrew had been killed, and though he sent an official to Austria to search for his son, he ordered a monument from Moscow that he planned to erect in his own garden in Andrew’s memory, and told everyone his son had been killed. He tried not to change his daily routine, but his strength declined. He walked less, ate less, slept less, and grew weaker every day. Princess Mary kept hoping. She prayed for her brother as if he were alive and always waited for news of his return.

##  CHAPTER VIII

“Dearest,” said the little princess after breakfast on the morning of March nineteenth. Her soft, delicate lip quivered out of habit, and although sorrow had marked every smile, every word, and every step in the house since the dreadful news had arrived, now the little princess’s smile—though influenced by the prevailing mood she didn’t fully understand—only made the atmosphere of sadness more noticeable.

“Dearest, I’m afraid this morning’s *fruschtique* \*—as Fóka the cook calls it—hasn’t agreed with me.”

\* Frühstück: breakfast.

“What’s wrong, my darling? You look pale. Oh, you are very pale!” said Princess Mary, alarmed. She hurried, her steps heavy but gentle, to her sister-in-law.

“Your excellency, shouldn’t Mary Bogdánovna be sent for?” asked one of the maids present. (Mary Bogdánovna was a midwife from the nearby town, who had been at Bald Hills for the past two weeks.)

“Oh yes,” agreed Princess Mary, “perhaps that’s it. I’ll go. Be brave, my angel.” She kissed Lise and was about to leave.

“Oh, no, no!” And beyond the paleness and physical suffering on the little princess’s face, there was a look of childlike fear at the inevitable pain to come.

“No, it’s just indigestion?… Please say it’s just indigestion, Mary! Say…” And the little princess began to cry capriciously, like a suffering child, wringing her small hands with a bit of exaggeration. Princess Mary rushed from the room to get Mary Bogdánovna.

“*Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu!* Oh!” she heard as she went out.

The midwife was already approaching, rubbing her small, plump, white hands with an air of calm importance.

“Mary Bogdánovna, I think it’s started!” said Princess Mary, watching her with wide, alarmed eyes.

“Well, thank the Lord, Princess,” said Mary Bogdánovna, not hurrying. “You young ladies shouldn’t know anything about it.”

“But why isn’t the doctor from Moscow here yet?” asked the princess. (According to Lise’s and Prince Andrew’s wishes, they had sent in good time for a doctor from Moscow and were expecting him at any moment.)

“It’s alright, Princess, don’t worry,” said Mary Bogdánovna. “We’ll manage just fine without a doctor.”

Five minutes later, Princess Mary, from her own room, heard something heavy being carried by. She looked out and saw the menservants carrying the large leather sofa from Prince Andrew’s study into the bedroom. Their faces were calm and solemn.

Princess Mary sat alone, listening to the sounds of the house, sometimes opening her door when people passed, watching the activity in the hallway. Some women quietly moved in and out of the bedroom, glancing at her then looking away. She didn’t dare ask them anything and would close the door, sometimes sitting in her easy chair, sometimes picking up her prayer book, sometimes kneeling before the icon stand. To her surprise and distress, her prayers didn’t calm her nerves. Suddenly, her door opened gently and her old nurse, Praskóvya Sávishna, who hardly ever came in (the old prince had forbidden it), appeared at the threshold with a shawl over her head.

“I’ve come to keep you company, Másha,” said the nurse, “and I’ve brought the prince’s wedding candles to light by his saint, my dear,” she sighed.

“Oh, nurse, I’m so glad!”

“God is merciful, little bird.”

The nurse lit the gilded candles before the icons and sat by the door with her knitting. Princess Mary picked up a book to read. Only when footsteps or voices sounded did they look at each other—Mary, anxious and seeking reassurance; the nurse, encouraging. Everyone in the household was gripped by the same feeling that Princess Mary had. But, because of the superstition that the fewer people who know about a birth, the less the woman suffers, everyone tried to act as if nothing was happening; no one spoke of it, but on top of the usual calm and respectful manners in the prince’s household, a shared anxiety, a gentler attitude, and a sense that something significant and mysterious was happening could be felt.

There was no laughter in the maids’ large hall. In the menservants’ hall, everyone sat quietly, waiting and alert. In the outlying serfs’ quarters, torches and candles burned, and no one slept. The old prince, walking heavily on his heels, paced his study and sent Tíkhon to ask Mary Bogdánovna for news.—“Simply say ‘the prince told me to ask,’ and come back and tell me what she says.”

“Tell the prince that labor has started,” replied Mary Bogdánovna, giving the messenger a meaningful look.

Tíkhon went and told the prince.

“Very good!” said the prince, shutting the door behind him. Tíkhon heard not a sound from the study after that.

After a while, he re-entered, pretending to snuff the candles. Seeing the prince lying on the sofa, he noticed the troubled expression on his face, shook his head, and, silently approaching, kissed the prince’s shoulder, then left the room without snuffing the candles or mentioning why he had come. The world’s most profound mystery continued. Evening passed into night, and the sense of anticipation and heightened emotion only grew. No one slept.

It was one of those March nights when winter seems to want to reclaim its grip, throwing out its last bursts of snow and storms in a final flurry. Horses had been sent up the main road to meet the German doctor from Moscow, expected at any time, and riders with lanterns were dispatched to the crossroads to guide him along the uneven, snowy country road.

Princess Mary had long since put her book aside. She sat quietly, her bright eyes fixed on her nurse’s wrinkled face—every line familiar—the strand of gray hair escaping her kerchief, and the loose skin hanging below her chin.

Nurse Sávishna, knitting in her hands, was quietly telling stories she had repeated hundreds of times before, barely hearing her own words: how the late princess had given birth to Princess Mary in Kishenëv with only a Moldavian peasant woman to help, instead of a midwife.

“God is merciful, doctors are never needed,” she said.

Suddenly, a gust of wind slammed against the window from which the double frame had already been removed (by the prince’s orders, one frame was always removed from each room as soon as the larks returned). The wind blew open a loose latch, set the damask curtain flapping, and snuffed out the candle with its cold, snowy draft. Princess Mary shivered; the nurse, putting down her knitting, went to the window, leaned out, and tried to catch the open casement. The cold wind blew the ends of her kerchief and her gray hair.

“Princess, my dear, someone’s coming up the avenue!” she said, holding the window open. “With lanterns. Most likely the doctor.”

“Oh, my God! Thank God!” said Princess Mary. “I must go meet him. He doesn’t know Russian.”

Princess Mary threw a shawl over her head and hurried out to meet the newcomer. As she crossed the anteroom, she could see through the window a carriage with lanterns waiting at the entrance. She stepped out onto the stairs. On a post stood a tallow candle flickering in the draft. On the landing below, Philip the footman stood, looking frightened and holding another candle. Below, beyond a turn on the staircase, heavy steps in felt boots could be heard, along with a voice that Princess Mary thought she recognized.

“Thank God!” said the voice. “And Father?”

“Gone to bed,” replied Demyán the house steward, who was downstairs.

The voice said something else, Demyán replied, and the steps in the felt boots quickly drew nearer.

“It’s Andrew!” thought Princess Mary. “No, it can’t be, that would be too much,” and just as she thought this, Prince Andrew appeared on the landing where the footman stood with the candle—pale, thin, with a changed and strangely softened yet anxious expression. He came up the stairs and embraced his sister.

“Did you not get my letter?” he asked, and without waiting for a reply—which he would not have gotten, since the princess was speechless—he turned and hurried up the stairs again with the doctor, who had come in just behind him (they had traveled together from the last post station), and hugged his sister once more.

“What a strange turn of fate, Másha darling!” And after he removed his cloak and felt boots, he went straight to the little princess’s room.

##  CHAPTER IX

The little princess lay propped up with pillows, wearing a white cap on her head (the pains had just subsided). Strands of her black hair clung to her flushed and perspiring cheeks, and her pretty rosy mouth with its soft lips was open as she smiled joyfully. Prince Andrew came in and stopped at the foot of the sofa where she lay. Her sparkling eyes, full of childlike fear and excitement, looked at him without changing expression. Her gaze seemed to say, “I love everyone and have done harm to no one; why must I suffer like this? Help me!” She saw her husband, but didn't understand the significance of his being there now. Prince Andrew walked around the sofa and kissed her forehead.

“My darling!” he said—a word he had never used to her before. “God is merciful….”

She looked at him questioningly, with a childlike sense of reproach.

“I hoped for help from you and I get none, nothing from you either!” her eyes said. She wasn't surprised he had come; she didn't even realize that he had. His presence meant nothing for her suffering or its relief. The pains started again and Mary Bogdánovna advised Prince Andrew to leave the room.

The doctor entered. Prince Andrew stepped out and, finding Princess Mary, joined her. They began to whisper, but their conversation broke off every moment. They waited and listened.

“Go, dear,” Princess Mary said.

Prince Andrew went in again to see his wife and sat waiting in the adjoining room. A woman came out of the bedroom with a frightened face and became confused when she saw Prince Andrew. He covered his face with his hands for several minutes. Pitiful, helpless, animal-like moans came from behind the door. Prince Andrew got up, went to the door, and tried to open it. Someone was holding it closed.

“You can't come in! You can't!” exclaimed a terrified voice from within.

He began pacing the room. The screaming stopped, and a few seconds passed. Then, suddenly, a terrible shriek—it couldn't be hers, she couldn't possibly scream like that—came from the bedroom. Prince Andrew rushed to the door; the scream stopped and then he heard the wailing of an infant.

“Why did they bring a baby in there?” was Prince Andrew’s initial thought. “A baby? What baby…? Why is there a baby? Or is the baby born?”

Suddenly, he understood the joyful meaning of that cry; tears choked him, and leaning on the window sill, he began to sob like a child. The door opened. The doctor, with his shirt sleeves rolled up, without a coat, pale and with a trembling jaw, emerged from the room. Prince Andrew turned to him, but the doctor only gave him a confused look and passed by without speaking. A woman hurried out, and on seeing Prince Andrew, hesitated at the threshold. He entered his wife's room. She was lying dead in the same position as five minutes earlier, and despite her fixed eyes and pale cheeks, she still wore the same childlike, charming expression on her face with its upper lip covered in fine black hair.

“I love everyone, and have done no harm to anyone; and what have you done to me?” her sweet, pitiful, dead face seemed to say.

In the corner, something small and red made little noises and cried out in Mary Bogdánovna’s trembling white hands.

Two hours later Prince Andrew, stepping softly, entered his father's room. The old man already knew everything. He was waiting near the door and, as soon as it opened, his rough old arms wrapped tightly around his son's neck, and without a word, he began to sob like a child.

Three days later, the little princess was buried, and Prince Andrew went up the steps to the coffin to give her a farewell kiss. There in the coffin was the same face, though the eyes were closed. “Ah, what have you done to me?” it still seemed to say, and Prince Andrew felt something break inside him and knew himself guilty of a sin he could neither repair nor forget. He could not weep. The old man, too, approached and kissed her waxen little hands that lay calmly crossed on her breast, and to him as well, her face seemed to ask, “Ah, what have you done to me, and why?” At this, the old man turned away angrily.

Five days later, Prince Nicholas Andréevich, the baby, was baptized. The wet nurse supported the blanket with her chin, while the priest with a goose feather anointed the baby’s little red and wrinkled soles and palms.

His grandfather, acting as godfather, trembled and feared he might drop the child as he carried him around the battered tin font, then handed him over to the godmother, Princess Mary. Prince Andrew sat in another room, faint with anxiety lest the baby drown in the font, and waited for the ceremony to end. He looked up joyfully at the baby when the nurse brought him and nodded approvingly when she told him that the wax with the baby’s hair had not sunk in the font but had floated.

##  CHAPTER X

Rostóv’s involvement in Dólokhov’s duel with Bezúkhov was quietly covered up thanks to the efforts of the old count, and instead of being demoted to the ranks, as he expected, he was made adjutant to the governor general of Moscow. Because of this, he couldn't go to the country with the rest of his family, but had to stay in Moscow all summer because of his new duties. Dólokhov recovered, and during his recovery, Rostóv became very close friends with him. Dólokhov stayed at his mother’s, who loved him dearly, and old Mary Ivánovna, who had come to like Rostóv for his friendship with her Fédya, often spoke to him about her son.

“Yes, Count,” she would say, “he is too noble and pure-hearted for our corrupt world. No one values virtue anymore; it seems to make people uncomfortable. Now tell me, Count, was it right, was it honorable of Bezúkhov? And Fédya, with his noble soul, loved him and still never says a word against him. Those pranks in Petersburg when they played tricks on a policeman—didn't they do it together? And yet, Bezúkhov got off scot-free, while Fédya had to take all the blame. Imagine what he suffered! It’s true he has been reinstated, but how could they not? I doubt there were many such gallant sons defending the country as him. And now—this duel! Do people have no feelings, or honor? Knowing he’s an only son, to challenge him and shoot so directly! It’s lucky God was merciful. And what was the reason? Who doesn't have affairs nowadays? If he was so jealous, it seems he should have shown it sooner, but he let it go on for months. Then he challenges him, counting on Fédya not fighting because he owes him money! What baseness! What meanness! I know you understand Fédya, dear count; that's why I’m so fond of you. Few people do. He has such a lofty, angelic soul!”

Dólokhov himself, as he recovered, spoke to Rostóv in a way no one would have expected from him.

“I know people think I’m a bad man!” he said. “Let them! I don’t care a bit about anyone except those I love; but those I love, I’d give my life for, and anyone else I’d strangle if they stood in my way. I have a beloved, priceless mother, and two or three friends—you among them—and as for the rest, I only care about them if they’re helpful or harmful. Most are harmful, especially women. Yes, dear boy,” he went on, “I have met loving, noble, high-minded men, but I have never met any women—countesses or cooks—who were not mercenary. I haven’t yet met that pure devotion I seek in women. If I found such a one, I’d give my life for her! But those others!…” and he made a dismissive gesture. “And believe me, if I still value my life at all, it’s only that I still hope to meet such a perfect creature, who will renew, purify, and inspire me. But you don’t get it.”

“Oh, yes, I understand,” answered Rostóv, who was under the sway of his new friend.

That autumn, the Rostóvs returned to Moscow. Early in the winter, Denísov also came back and stayed with them. The first half of the winter of 1806, which Nicholas Rostóv spent in Moscow, was one of the happiest, most joyous times for him and the whole family. Nicholas brought many young men to his parents’ house. Véra was a beautiful girl of twenty; Sónya a sixteen-year-old with all the charm of a blossoming flower; Natásha, half grown up and half child, was sometimes playfully childish, sometimes enchantingly girlish.

At that time in the Rostóvs’ home there was an air of romance, typical of households with very young and attractive girls. Every young man who came—seeing those cheerful, bright faces (perhaps smiling at their own happiness), feeling the lively energy all around, and hearing the bursts of music and the friendly, lively chatter of hopeful, ready-for-anything young girls—couldn't help but feel the same way; sharing in the Rostóv family’s spirit of falling in love and expecting happiness.

Among the young men introduced by Rostóv, one of the first was Dólokhov, whom everyone liked except Natásha. She nearly argued with her brother over him. She insisted he was a bad man, that Pierre was right and Dólokhov wrong in the duel, and, moreover, that he was disagreeable and unnatural.

“There’s nothing for me to understand,” she exclaimed stubbornly, “he’s wicked and heartless. Even though Denísov is a rake and all that, I still like him; so you see, I do understand. I don’t know how to explain…with this one, everything is calculated, and I don’t like that. But Denísov…”

“Oh, Denísov is completely different,” replied Nicholas, implying even Denísov was nothing compared to Dólokhov—“you should understand how much soul Dólokhov has, you should see him with his mother. Such a heart!”

“Well, I don’t know about that, but he makes me uncomfortable. And do you know he’s in love with Sónya?”

“What nonsense…”

“I’m sure of it; you’ll see.”

Natásha’s prediction was correct. Dólokhov, not usually interested in the company of ladies, began to visit frequently, and the question of who he came for (though no one spoke of it) was soon answered—he came for Sónya. And Sónya, though she wouldn’t have dared say so, knew it and blushed deep red every time Dólokhov appeared.

Dólokhov often dined with the Rostóvs, never missed any performance they attended, and went to Iogel’s dances for young people, which the Rostóvs always attended. He paid obvious attention to Sónya and looked at her in such a way that not only did she blush, but even the old countess and Natásha did too.

It was obvious this strange, strong man was under the irresistible influence of the graceful, dark-haired girl who loved another.

Rostóv noticed something new in Dólokhov’s relationship with Sónya, but didn't think through what those relations meant. “They’re always in love with someone,” he thought of Sónya and Natásha. But he now felt less comfortable around Sónya and Dólokhov and visited home less often.

In the autumn of 1806, everyone began talking about the war with Napoleon even more eagerly than the year before. Orders called for new recruits, ten per thousand for the regular army, and another nine per thousand for the militia. Everywhere, Bonaparte was denounced, and in Moscow, the only topic was the coming war. For the Rostóvs, the main point of interest in all these preparations was that Nicholas refused to stay in Moscow, waiting only for Denísov’s leave to end after Christmas to return with him to their regiment. His coming departure didn’t keep him from enjoying himself; in fact, it made his pleasures more exciting. He spent most of his time away from home, at dinners, parties, and balls.

##  CHAPTER XI

On the third day after Christmas, Nicholas dined at home, something he had rarely done recently. It was a grand farewell dinner, as he and Denísov were leaving to rejoin their regiment after Epiphany. About twenty people were present, including Dólokhov and Denísov.

Never had love been so present in the air, and never had the romantic atmosphere been so strongly felt in the Rostóvs’ house as during this holiday season. “Seize the moments of happiness, love and be loved! That is the only reality in the world, all else is folly. It is the one thing that interests us here,” seemed to be the spirit of the place.

Nicholas, as usual, had worn out two pairs of horses without managing to visit all the places he intended to go or had been invited, and returned home just before dinner. As soon as he entered, he noticed the tension charged with romance in the house, and also saw a curious embarrassment among some of those present. Sónya, Dólokhov, and the old countess were especially unsettled, and to a lesser extent, Natásha. Nicholas understood that something must have happened between Sónya and Dólokhov before dinner, and with the kindly sensitivity natural to him, was very gentle and careful with both of them at dinner. That same evening, one of the balls that Iogel (the dancing master) held for his pupils during the holidays was to take place.

“Nicholas, will you come to Iogel’s? Please do!” said Natásha. “He invited you, and Vasíli Dmítrich\* is also going.”

\* Denísov.

“Where would I not go at the countess’ command!” replied Denísov, who, at the Rostóvs’, had jokingly taken on the role of Natásha’s knight. “I’m even weady to dance the *pas de châle*.”

“If I have time,” answered Nicholas. “But I promised the Arkhárovs; they’re having a party.”

“And you?” he asked Dólokhov, but as soon as he asked, he realized it was a mistake.

“Perhaps,” Dólokhov replied coldly and angrily, glancing at Sónya. Scowling, he gave Nicholas just the kind of look he’d once given Pierre at the club dinner.

“There is something going on,” Nicholas thought, and this was confirmed for him when Dólokhov left immediately after dinner. He called Natásha and asked her what the matter was.

“And I was looking for you,” said Natásha, running up to him. “I told you, but you wouldn’t believe it,” she said triumphantly. “He has proposed to Sónya!”

Though Nicholas had paid little attention to Sónya lately, something seemed to give way inside him at this news. Dólokhov was a suitable and, in some respects, an impressive match for the dowerless, orphaned girl. From the point of view of the old countess and society, it was out of the question for her to refuse him. Therefore, Nicholas’ first feeling on hearing the news was one of anger with Sónya... He tried to say, “That’s wonderful; of course she’ll forget her childish promises and accept the proposal,” but before he could say it, Natásha continued.

“And imagine! She refused him outright!” she added, after a pause, “She told him she loved someone else.”

“Yes, my Sónya couldn’t have done otherwise!” thought Nicholas.

“No matter how much Mama pressed her, she refused, and I know she won’t change once she’s said—”

“And Mama pressed her!” said Nicholas, reproachfully.

“Yes,” said Natásha. “You know, Nicholas—don’t be angry—but I know you aren’t going to marry her. I know, heaven knows how, but I know for certain you won’t marry her.”

“That’s nonsense, you don’t know that at all!” said Nicholas. “But I must talk to her. What a dear Sónya is!” he added with a smile.

“Ah, she really is a darling! I’ll send her to you.”

And Natásha kissed her brother and ran off.

A minute later Sónya came in, looking frightened, guilty, and nervous. Nicholas went up to her and kissed her hand. This was the first time since his return that they had talked alone about their feelings.

“Sophie,” he began, timid at first, but gradually gaining confidence, “if you wish to refuse someone who is not only a distinguished and advantageous match, but a fine, noble man... he is my friend…”

Sónya interrupted him.

“I have already refused,” she said quickly.

“If you’re refusing because of me, I’m afraid that I—”

Sónya interrupted again, giving him an imploring, frightened look.

“Nicholas, don’t say that!” she said.

“No, but I must. Maybe it’s arrogant of me, but it’s best to say it. If you’re refusing him because of me, I must tell you the whole truth. I love you, and I think I love you more than anyone else...”

“That’s enough for me,” said Sónya, blushing.

“No, but I have been in love a thousand times and shall fall in love again, though for no one do I feel the friendship, trust, and love I feel for you. Still, I am young. Mama doesn’t want it. In short, I make no promise. And I beg you to consider Dólokhov’s offer,” he said, forcing himself to say his friend’s name.

“Don’t say that to me! I want nothing. I love you as a brother and always will, and I want nothing more.”

“You are an angel: I am not worthy of you, but I am afraid of misleading you.”

And Nicholas again kissed her hand.

##  CHAPTER XII

Iogel’s were considered the most enjoyable balls in Moscow. That’s what the mothers said as they watched their children perform their newly learned steps, what the young people themselves agreed as they danced until exhausted, and what the older youths who came with an air of condescension claimed and secretly enjoyed. That year, two marriages had resulted from these balls: the two lovely Princesses Gorchakóv had met suitors there and married, further adding to the balls’ reputation. What set these balls apart was the absence of a formal host or hostess and the constant presence of the good-natured Iogel, darting about lightly and bowing as he collected tickets from every guest, as was his custom. Only those genuinely eager to dance and have fun attended—young girls of thirteen and fourteen wearing long dresses for the first time. Almost all of them were, or at least seemed to be, beautiful—their smiles so radiant, their eyes so lively. Sometimes the best pupils—of whom Natásha, exceptionally graceful, was foremost—even danced the *pas de châle*. But at this last ball, only the *écossaise*, the *anglaise*, and the mazurka, just becoming fashionable, were performed. Iogel had rented a ballroom in the Bezúkhov house, and as everyone agreed, the ball was a great success. Many girls were beautiful, but the Rostóv sisters stood out among the prettiest. Both felt especially happy and exuberant. That evening, full of pride over Dólokhov’s proposal, her own refusal, and her discussion with Nicholas, Sónya spun about before leaving home so energetically that her maid had a hard time braiding her hair, and her joy was plain for all to see.

Natásha, equally proud of her first long dress and of attending a real ball, was even happier. Both girls wore white muslin dresses with pink ribbons.

Natásha fell in love the instant she walked into the ballroom. She wasn't in love with any one person, but with everyone; whoever she happened to look at, she instantly adored at that moment.

“Oh, how delightful this is!” she kept saying, running up to Sónya.

Nicholas and Denísov walked together, watching the dancers with a look of benevolent amusement.

“How sweet she is—she’ll be a real beauty!” said Denísov.

“Who?”

“Countess Natásha,” replied Denísov.

“And how she dances! What grace!” he continued after a pause.

“Who are you talking about?”

“About your sister,” Denísov exclaimed impatiently.

Rostóv smiled.

“My dear count, you were one of my best pupils—you simply must dance,” said little Iogel, coming up to Nicholas. “Just look at all these charming young ladies—” He turned and addressed Denísov as well, who had also once been his student.

“No, my dear fellow, I’ll just be a wallflower,” said Denísov. “Don’t you remember how badly I put your lessons to use?”

“Oh no!” Iogel hurried to reassure him. “You were only inattentive, but you had talent—oh yes, you had talent!”

The musicians struck up the newly popular mazurka. Nicholas couldn’t say no to Iogel and asked Sónya to dance. Denísov sat among the older women, leaning on his saber, tapping his foot to the rhythm, telling funny stories to keep them entertained, all the while watching the younger people dance. Iogel and Natásha—his pride and best pupil—were the first pair. Gliding expertly in his soft shoes, Iogel led Natásha, who, though shy, precisely followed every step. Denísov couldn't take his eyes off her and tapped along with his saber in a way that made it very clear that he wasn't dancing by choice, not by inability. In the middle of a figure, he motioned to Rostóv, who was passing by:

“This is nothing like it should be,” he said. “What sort of Polish mazurka is this? But she does dance beautifully.”

Knowing Denísov’s reputation in Poland as a master of the mazurka, Nicholas hurried over to Natásha:

“Choose Denísov—he’s the real dancer, an absolute marvel!” he urged.

When it was Natásha’s turn to choose a partner, she got up and, moving quickly in her little shoes with bows, nervously made her way to where Denísov was sitting. She saw everyone watching her expectantly. Nicholas saw Denísov refusing, though delighted.

“Please, Vasíli Dmítrich,” Natásha pleaded, “do come!”

“Oh no, let me be, Countess,” answered Denísov.

“Oh, come on now, Váska,” said Nicholas.

“You’re coaxing me as if I were Váska the cat!” Denísov joked.

“I’ll sing for you all evening,” Natásha promised.

“Oh, the fairy! She can get anything she wants from me!” Denísov exclaimed, unhooking his saber. He stepped around the chairs, took his partner’s hand confidently, tossed back his head, and set his foot in position, waiting for the music’s cue. Only on horseback or dancing the mazurka did Denísov’s short stature go unnoticed—he looked every bit the fine fellow he felt himself to be. When the music struck, he glanced sideways at his partner with a joyful, triumphant expression, suddenly stamped his foot, leapt into the air, and swept around the room with Natásha. He glided silently across the floor on one foot, almost heading straight into the chairs when, clinking his spurs and extending his legs, he stopped abruptly on his heels, paused a moment, stamped on the spot, whirled rapidly, and, clicking his left heel against the right, spun again in a circle. Natásha understood what he was doing and, letting herself be guided, followed without really knowing how. First he spun her around, holding her first with one hand, then the other; then, dropping to one knee, he spun her around himself; leaping up again, he pushed forward so energetically it seemed he might go barreling through every room without stopping, then suddenly stopped and improvised new, unexpected steps. Finally, swirling her one last time before her chair, he brought their dance to a stop with a snap of his spurs and bowed. Natásha did not even curtsy; she gazed at him, astonished, beaming as if she hardly recognized him.

“What does this mean?” she managed to say.

Even though Iogel didn’t recognize this as a true mazurka, everyone was thrilled by Denísov’s performance. He was repeatedly asked to dance, and the older men began reminiscing with smiles about Poland and days gone by. Denísov, flushed from dancing and wiping his brow with his handkerchief, sat next to Natásha and stayed by her side for the rest of the evening.

##  CHAPTER XIII

For two days after that, Rostóv did not see Dólokhov either at his own home or at Dólokhov’s; on the third day, he received a note from him:

As I do not intend to visit your house again for reasons you know of, and as I am leaving to rejoin my regiment, I am giving a farewell supper tonight for my friends—come to the English Hotel.

Around ten o’clock, Rostóv went to the English Hotel directly from the theater, where he had been with his family and Denísov. He was immediately shown to the best room, which Dólokhov had reserved for the evening. About twenty men were gathered around a table at which Dólokhov sat between two candles. On the table was a pile of gold and paper money, and he was the banker. Rostóv had not seen him since his proposal and Sónya’s refusal, and felt awkward thinking about how they would meet.

Dólokhov’s clear, cold gaze met Rostóv as soon as he walked in, as though he had been expecting him for some time.

“It’s been a while since we met,” he said. “Thanks for coming. I’ll just finish dealing, then Ilyúshka will come with his chorus.”

“I called at your house once or twice,” said Rostóv, blushing.

Dólokhov made no reply.

“You may play,” he said.

At that moment, Rostóv recalled a strange conversation he’d once had with Dólokhov. “Only fools count on luck in gambling,” Dólokhov had said then.

“Or are you afraid to play with me?” Dólokhov now asked, as if reading Rostóv’s thoughts.

Behind his smile, Rostóv sensed that familiar mood in Dólokhov—the one he’d shown at the club dinner and other times—when, tired of ordinary life, he seemed to need escape through some strange, often cruel, action.

Rostóv felt uneasy. He tried, but failed, to think of some joke to respond to Dólokhov’s words. But before he could come up with anything, Dólokhov, looking straight into his face, said slowly and deliberately so everyone could hear:

“Do you remember our talk about cards… ‘He’s a fool who trusts to luck; one should make sure’—and I want to try.”

“To try his luck or certainty?” Rostóv wondered.

“Well, you’d better not play,” Dólokhov added, and opening a fresh pack of cards said, “Bank, gentlemen!”

Pushing the money forward, he prepared to deal. Rostóv sat down beside him and at first did not play. Dólokhov kept glancing at him.

“Why don’t you play?” he asked.

Strangely, Nicholas felt he couldn’t help taking a card, putting a small stake on it, and starting to play.

“I have no money with me,” he said.

“I’ll trust you.”

Rostóv placed five rubles on a card and lost, staked again, and lost again. Dólokhov “killed” ten of Rostóv’s cards in a row.

“Gentlemen,” said Dólokhov after dealing for a time, “please place your money on the cards, or I might get confused with the reckoning.”

One of the players said he hoped he could be trusted.

“Yes, you might, but I’m afraid of mixing up the accounts. So I ask you to put your money on your cards,” Dólokhov replied. Turning to Rostóv, he added, “Don’t hold back, we’ll settle later.”

The game went on; a waiter kept serving champagne.

All Rostóv’s cards lost, and he had eight hundred rubles marked against him. He wrote “800 rubles” on a card, but while the waiter filled his glass, he changed his mind and reduced it to his usual stake of twenty rubles.

“Leave it,” said Dólokhov, though he didn’t even seem to be looking at Rostóv, “you’ll win it back sooner that way. I lose to the others but win from you. Or are you afraid of me?” he asked again.

Rostóv complied. He let the eight hundred remain and put down a seven of hearts with a torn corner, which he’d picked up from the floor. He remembered that seven afterward. He laid down the seven of hearts, on which, with a bit of chalk, he had written “800 rubles” in clear upright numbers; he drank the warm champagne that was handed to him, smiled at Dólokhov’s words, and with a sinking feeling, waited for a seven to be dealt, watching Dólokhov’s hands as they held the pack. Much depended on whether Rostóv won or lost on that seven of hearts. The previous Sunday, the old count had given his son two thousand rubles, and though he disliked talking about financial difficulties, he had told Nicholas that this was all he could spare until May, and asked him to be more frugal this time. Nicholas replied it would be more than enough and gave his word of honor not to ask for more until spring. Now, only twelve hundred rubles were left from that sum, so this seven of hearts meant not only losing sixteen hundred rubles, but also going back on his word. With sinking heart he watched Dólokhov’s hands, thinking, “Come on, just let me have this card and I’ll take my cap and go home to supper with Denísov, Natásha, and Sónya, and I’ll certainly never touch a card again.” At that moment, his home life—jokes with Pétya, talks with Sónya, duets with Natásha, piquet with his father, and even his comfortable bed in the house on Povarskáya—rose before him so vividly and enticingly, it felt like all that recently discovered happiness was already lost. He could not believe that an accidental turn of a card—if the seven went to the right instead of the left—could take away all this happiness and plunge him into deep, uncertain misery. It seemed impossible, yet with dread he watched Dólokhov’s hands. Those wide, reddish hands, with hairy wrists sticking out from the shirt cuffs, put down the pack and picked up a glass and a pipe that were given to him.

“So, you’re not afraid to play with me?” repeated Dólokhov, and as if starting a good story, put down the cards, leaned back in his chair, and began deliberately with a smile:

“Yes, gentlemen, I’ve heard there’s a rumor in Moscow that I’m a card sharp, so I advise you to be careful.”

“Come on, deal!” exclaimed Rostóv.

“Oh, those Moscow gossips!” said Dólokhov, picking up the cards with a smile.

“Aah!” Rostóv almost screamed, lifting both hands to his head. The seven he needed lay on top, the first card in the pack. He had lost more than he could pay.

“Still, don’t ruin yourself!” said Dólokhov, glancing sideways at Rostóv as he kept dealing.

##  CHAPTER XIV

An hour and a half later, most of the players had little interest left in their own games.

Everyone's attention was now focused on Rostóv. Instead of sixteen hundred rubles, he now had a long column of losses marked against him, which he had tallied up to ten thousand rubles, but now, as he vaguely guessed, must have risen to fifteen thousand. In truth, it already exceeded twenty thousand rubles. Dólokhov was no longer listening to or telling stories, but was closely watching every movement of Rostóv’s hands, occasionally glancing at the mounting score against him. He had decided to play until that score reached forty-three thousand. He chose that number because forty-three was the sum of his and Sónya’s combined ages. Rostóv, with his head resting on both hands, sat at the table covered with scribbled numbers, sticky with spilled wine, and cluttered with cards. One tormenting feeling wouldn’t leave him: those broad, reddish hands with hairy wrists showing under the shirt cuffs—hands he both loved and hated—seemed to have him completely under their control.

“Six hundred rubles, ace, a corner, a nine… winning it back is impossible… Oh, how pleasant it was at home!… The knave, double or quits… it can’t be!… And why is he doing this to me?” Rostóv wondered. Sometimes he placed a large bet, but Dólokhov refused it and set the stake himself. Nicholas submitted, and at moments he prayed to God like he had on the battlefield at the bridge over the Enns, then believed that the first card he grabbed from the messy pile under the table would save him. Other times he counted the cords on his coat and bet that amount, then staked the total of his losses on that number, then glanced around for help from the other players, or searched the now cold face of Dólokhov, trying to read what he was thinking.

“He surely knows what this loss means to me. He can’t want to ruin me. Wasn’t he my friend? Didn’t I like him? But it’s not his fault. What can he do if he has such luck?… And it’s not my fault either,” he thought, “I haven’t done anything wrong. Did I kill anyone, or insult or wish harm on anyone? Why such a terrible misfortune? And when did it all start? Not long ago I came to this table thinking I’d win a hundred rubles to buy that casket for Mama’s name day and then go home. I was so happy, so free, so lighthearted! And I didn’t even realize how happy I was! When did that end and when did this new, terrible feeling start? What changed? I’ve sat here in the same place the whole time, picking and placing cards, watching those same broad, agile hands. When did it happen and what has happened? I am still healthy and strong, still the same, still in the same place. No, it can’t be! Surely it will all turn out to be nothing!”

He was flushed and drenched with sweat, even though the room was not hot. His face looked terrible and pitiable, especially because he so helplessly tried to seem calm.

The score against him reached the dreaded sum of forty-three thousand. Rostóv had just prepared a card, bending the corner so he could try to double the three thousand he had just added to his score, when Dólokhov, slamming down the pack of cards, put them aside and quickly began adding up Rostóv’s total debt, breaking the chalk as he wrote the numbers in his bold, clear hand.

“Supper, it’s time for supper! And here are the gypsies!”

Some dark-skinned men and women were indeed coming in from the cold night, speaking in their gypsy accents. Nicholas realized it was all over, but he said in an indifferent tone:

“Well, aren’t you going to go on? I had a great card ready,” as if it was just the game’s fun that interested him.

“It’s finished! I’ve lost!” he thought. “Now a bullet through my brain—that’s all that’s left!” And yet, at the same time, he spoke in a cheerful voice:

“Come now, just this one more little card!”

“All right!” said Dólokhov, finishing his calculations. “All right! Twenty-one rubles,” he said, pointing to the figure by which the total went over the round sum of forty-three thousand; and picking up a pack, he got ready to deal. Rostóv obediently unbent the corner of his card and, instead of the six thousand he had intended, carefully wrote twenty-one.

“Makes no difference to me,” he said. “I just want to see if you’ll let me win this ten, or beat it.”

Dólokhov began dealing earnestly. Oh, how Rostóv hated those hands in that moment—the short, reddish fingers and hairy wrists that seemed to hold him captive…. The ten came to him.

“You owe forty-three thousand, Count,” said Dólokhov, stretching and rising from the table. “You do get tired sitting so long,” he added.

“Yes, I’m tired too,” said Rostóv.

Dólokhov cut him off, as if to remind him it wasn’t his place to joke.

“When am I to receive the money, Count?”

Rostóv, blushing, drew Dólokhov into the next room.

“I can’t pay it all at once. Will you take an I.O.U.?” he asked.

“I say, Rostóv,” said Dólokhov clearly, smiling and looking Nicholas straight in the eyes, “you know the saying, ‘Lucky in love, unlucky at cards.’ Your cousin is in love with you, I know.”

“Oh, it’s horrible to feel so much in this man’s power,” thought Rostóv. He knew what a shock this news would be to his father and mother, and how much of a relief it would be to avoid all this, and he felt Dólokhov knew he could save him from all this shame and sorrow, but now wanted to toy with him like a cat with a mouse.

“Your cousin…” Dólokhov began, but Nicholas interrupted him.

“My cousin has nothing to do with this and there’s no need to bring her up!” he exclaimed fiercely.

“Then when am I to have it?”

“Tomorrow,” replied Rostóv, and left the room.

##  CHAPTER XV

Saying “tomorrow” in a dignified tone wasn't hard, but going home alone, seeing his sisters, brother, mother, and father, and having to confess and ask for money he had no right to after giving his word of honor—that was terrible.

At home, they hadn't gone to bed yet. The younger family members, just back from the theater, had had supper and were gathered around the clavichord. As soon as Nicholas entered, he felt surrounded by the poetic atmosphere of love that filled the Rostóv home that winter. And now, after Dólokhov’s proposal and Iogel’s ball, that mood seemed to hang even thicker around Sónya and Natásha, like the air before a thunderstorm. Sónya and Natásha, still wearing the light-blue dresses from the theater and looking pretty and aware of it, were standing by the clavichord, happy and smiling. Véra was playing chess with Shinshín in the drawing room. The old countess, waiting for her husband and son to return, sat playing patience with the elderly gentlewoman who lived with them. Denísov, eyes sparkling and hair ruffled, sat at the clavichord, striking chords with his short fingers, his legs kicked back and his eyes rolling as he sang—his small, husky but true voice performing some verses called “Enchantress,” which he had written and was now trying to set to music:

Enchantress, say, to my forsaken lyre  
What magic power is this recalls me still?  
What spark has set my inmost soul on fire,  
What is this bliss that makes my fingers thrill?

He sang with passion, gazing intently with his bright, black-agate eyes at the startled yet happy Natásha.

“Wonderful! Excellent!” exclaimed Natásha. “Sing another verse,” she said, not noticing Nicholas.

“Everything’s still the same with them,” thought Nicholas, glancing into the drawing room, where he saw Véra, his mother, and the old lady.

“Ah, and here’s Nicholas!” cried Natásha, running up to him.

“Is Papa at home?” he asked.

“I’m so glad you’re here!” said Natásha, ignoring his question. “We’re having such a good time! Vasíli Dmítrich is staying an extra day for my sake! Did you know?”

“No, Papa’s not home yet,” said Sónya.

“Nicholas, you’re here? Come here, dear!” called the old countess from the drawing room.

Nicholas went to her, kissed her hand, and sat silently at her table watching as she arranged the cards. Laughter and cheerful voices still came from the other room, trying to persuade Natásha to sing.

“All right! All right!” shouted Denísov. “You can’t make excuses now! It’s your turn to sing the barcarolle—I entreat you!”

The countess looked at her silent son.

“What’s the matter?” she asked.

“Oh, nothing,” he replied, as if tired of always being asked the same thing. “Will Papa be back soon?”

“I expect so.”

“Everything’s the same for them. They know nothing! Where should I go?” thought Nicholas, and returned to the music room where the clavichord was.

Sónya sat at the clavichord, playing the prelude to Denísov’s favorite barcarolle. Natásha was getting ready to sing. Denísov watched her, entranced.

Nicholas began pacing up and down the room.

“Why do they want her to sing? How can she sing? There’s nothing to be happy about!” he thought.

Sónya played the first chord of the prelude.

“My God, I’m a ruined and dishonored man! A bullet through my brain is the only thing left for me—not singing!” his thoughts raced. “Leave? But where? It’s all the same—let them sing!”

He kept pacing, looking gloomily at Denísov and the girls, avoiding their eyes.

“Nikólenka, what’s wrong?” Sónya’s eyes seemed to ask as she looked at him. She immediately noticed something had happened to him.

Nicholas turned away. Natásha, too, with her quick intuition, saw at once that something was wrong with her brother. But although she noticed, she was so happy in that moment—so far from sadness or guilt—that she deliberately ignored it, as young people sometimes do. “No, I’m too happy now to spoil my fun worrying about someone else’s troubles,” she thought, telling herself, “No, I must be mistaken, he must be happy, just as I am.”

“Now, Sónya!” she said, heading to the center of the room, where she thought the acoustics were best.

Lifting her head and letting her arms fall loosely, like a ballet dancer, Natásha stepped energetically from her heels to her toes, stopped in the middle of the room, and stood still.

“Yes, that’s me!” she seemed to say as she responded to Denísov’s rapt attention.

“And what’s she so happy about?” thought Nicholas, looking at his sister. “Why isn’t she sad or ashamed?”

Natásha took the first note, her throat swelling, her chest rising, her eyes turning serious. In that moment she was completely absorbed, and from her smiling lips came sounds that anyone could reproduce at the same intervals and lengths, but which might leave you unmoved a thousand times and, the thousand and first time, move you to tears.

That winter, Natásha had begun to sing seriously for the first time, mainly because Denísov was so captivated by her singing. She no longer sang like a child—there was no longer the comical, painstaking childish quality her singing had before. But she still didn’t sing well, as every expert who heard her said: “The voice isn’t trained, but it’s beautiful and must be trained.” However, people usually said that after she finished singing; while her untrained voice, with its imperfect breathing and awkward transitions, filled the room, even experts were silent, simply enjoying it and wishing to hear more. There was a virginal freshness in her voice, an unawareness of her own talent, and an untrained velvety softness that combined so perfectly with her inexperience that any change might spoil it.

“What is this?” thought Nicholas, listening with wide eyes. “What’s happened to her? How beautifully she’s singing today!” Suddenly, the entire world for him focused on each coming note, each phrase, dividing everything into three beats: *“Oh mio crudele affetto.”*… One, two, three… one, two, three… One… *“Oh mio crudele affetto.”*… One, two, three… One. “Oh, this crazy life of ours!” Nicholas thought. “All this misery, and money, and Dólokhov, and anger, and honor—it’s all meaningless… but this is real…. Now, Natásha, now, dearest! Now, darling! How will she hit that *si?* She’s got it! Thank God!” And, without realizing he was singing, he supported her high note by singing a second, a third below her. “Ah, God! How beautiful! Did I really do that? How lucky!” he thought.

Oh, how that chord resonated, and how deeply something was stirred in Rostóv’s soul! That feeling was separate from and above everything else in the world. “What were losses, and Dólokhov, and words of honor?… All nonsense! A person could kill, could steal, and still be happy….”

##  CHAPTER XVI

It had been a long time since Rostóv had enjoyed music as much as he did that day. But as soon as Natásha finished her barcarolle, reality quickly returned. He got up without saying a word and went downstairs to his own room. A quarter of an hour later, the old count came back from his club, cheerful and content. Nicholas heard him arrive and went to meet him.

“Well—did you have a good time?” said the old count, smiling warmly and proudly at his son.

Nicholas tried to say “Yes,” but couldn’t—he almost burst into tears. The count was lighting his pipe and didn’t notice his son's state.

“Ah, it can’t be helped!” thought Nicholas, for the first and last time. Then suddenly, in as casual a tone as possible—which made him ashamed of himself—he said, as if simply asking his father for the carriage to go into town:

“Papa, I came about some business. I almost forgot. I need some money.”

“Really!” said his father, who was in an especially good mood. “I told you it wouldn’t be enough. How much?”

“A lot,” said Nicholas, blushing and forcing a careless, foolish smile—one he wouldn’t forgive himself for a long time. “I’ve lost a little—I mean a good deal—a great deal. Forty-three thousand.”

“What! To whom?… Nonsense!” cried the count, suddenly reddening, his neck and nape turning as flushed as older people sometimes do.

“I promised to pay tomorrow,” said Nicholas.

“Well!…” the old count exclaimed, spreading his arms and sinking helplessly onto the sofa.

“It can’t be helped! It happens to everyone!” said the son, in what sounded like a bold, relaxed tone, though inside he felt like a worthless scoundrel whose whole life could not make up for his fault. He longed to kiss his father’s hands and beg forgiveness, but instead he spoke in a careless, even rude voice, saying such things happen to everyone!

The old count cast his eyes down at his son’s words and began busily searching for something.

“Yes, yes,” he muttered, “it will be difficult, I fear, difficult to raise… happens to everybody! Yes, who hasn’t done it?”

With a furtive glance at his son's face, the count left the room…. Nicholas had expected a struggle, but not this.

“Papa! Pa-pa!” he called after him, sobbing. “Forgive me!” He seized his father’s hand, pressed it to his lips, and burst into tears.

While father and son were having their conversation, the mother and daughter were having one just as important. Natásha came running to her mother, quite excited.

“Mamma!… Mamma!… He has proposed to me…”

“He did what?”

“He—he proposed to me, Mamma! Mamma!” she exclaimed.

The countess couldn’t believe her ears. Denísov had proposed? To whom? To this slip of a girl, Natásha, who not so long ago was playing with dolls and still studying.

“Don’t, Natásha! What nonsense!” she said, hoping it was a joke.

“Nonsense, indeed! I am telling you the truth,” said Natásha indignantly. “I come to ask you what to do, and you call it ‘nonsense!’”

The countess shrugged.

“If it’s true that Monsieur Denísov proposed, tell him he’s a fool, that’s all!”

“No, he’s not a fool!” replied Natásha, indignant and serious.

“Well then, what do you want? You’re all in love these days. If you’re in love, marry him!” said the countess, laughing with frustration. “Good luck to you!”

“No, Mamma, I’m not in love with him—I guess I’m not in love with him.”

“Well then, tell him so.”

“Mamma, are you angry? Don’t be angry, dear! Is it my fault?”

“No, but what is it, my dear? Do you want me to go and tell him?” the countess said with a smile.

“No, I’ll do it myself, only tell me what I should say. It’s easy for you,” Natásha replied with a matching smile. “You should have seen how he said it! I know he didn’t mean to say it, but it just slipped out.”

“Well, all the same, you must refuse him.”

“No, I can’t! I feel so sorry for him! He’s so nice.”

“Well then, accept his proposal. It’s high time you got married,” the countess answered sharply and sarcastically.

“No, Mamma, but I’m just so sorry for him. I don’t know how I can tell him.”

“There’s nothing for you to say. I’ll speak to him myself,” said the countess, indignant that they would treat her little Natásha as if she were already grown up.

“No, don’t! I’ll tell him myself, and you can listen at the door,” said Natásha, running across the drawing room to the ballroom, where Denísov sat on the same chair by the clavichord with his face in his hands.

He jumped up at the sound of her quick footsteps.

“Nataly,” he said, moving swiftly toward her, “decide my fate. It is in your hands.”

“Vasíli Dmítrich, I feel so sorry for you!... No, but you are so kind... but this isn’t possible... not like that... but as a friend, I will always love you.”

Denísov bent over her hand and she heard strange sounds she didn’t understand. She kissed his rough, curly black head. At that moment, they heard the quick rustle of the countess’s dress. She came up to them.

“Vasíli Dmítrich, I thank you for the honor,” she said, her voice embarrassed though it sounded severe to Denísov, “but my daughter is so young, and I thought that, as my son’s friend, you would have spoken to me first. In that case you would not have forced me to give this refusal.”

“Countess...” said Denísov, with downcast eyes and a guilty look. He tried to say more, but faltered.

Natásha couldn’t stay calm, seeing him in such a state. She began to sob aloud.

“Countess, I have done wrong,” Denísov continued in an unsteady voice, “but believe me, I adore your daughter and your whole family so much that I would give my life twice over...” He glanced at the countess, and seeing her stern face, said: “Well, good-bye, Countess,” and, kissing her hand, he left the room with quick, resolute strides, not looking at Natásha.

The next day Rostóv saw Denísov off. He did not want to remain another day in Moscow. All Denísov’s friends in Moscow gave him a farewell party at the gypsies’, with the result that he had no memory of how he was put in the sleigh or of the first three stages of his journey.

After Denísov left, Rostóv spent another two weeks in Moscow, not leaving the house, waiting for the money his father couldn’t immediately provide, and he spent most of his time in the girls’ room.

Sónya was more tender and devoted to him than ever. It was as if she wanted to show him that his losses made her love him even more, but Nicholas now felt he was unworthy of her.

He filled the girls’ albums with verses and music, and having finally sent Dólokhov all forty-three thousand rubles and received his receipt, he left at the end of November without taking leave of any acquaintances, heading off to rejoin his regiment, which was already in Poland.

##  BOOK FIVE: 1806 - 07

##  CHAPTER I

After his meeting with his wife, Pierre left for Petersburg. At the Torzhók post station, either there were no horses or the postmaster refused to provide any. Pierre had to wait. Without undressing, he lay down on the leather sofa in front of a round table, put his large feet in overboots on the table, and began to reflect.

“Shall I bring in the portmanteaus? And have a bed prepared and tea made?” his valet asked.

Pierre didn’t answer, for he didn’t hear or see anything. He was still thinking about the last station, pondering the same question—one so important to him that he ignored his surroundings. Not only was he indifferent about whether he arrived in Petersburg sooner or later, or whether he found accommodation at this station, but compared to the thoughts occupying him now, it didn’t matter if he remained there for a few hours or for the rest of his life.

The postmaster, his wife, the valet, and a peasant woman selling Torzhók embroidery came in offering their services. Still in his relaxed posture, Pierre looked at them over his spectacles, unable to understand what they wanted or how they could go on living without having solved the problems consuming him. Ever since he returned from Sokólniki after the duel and endured that first agonizing, sleepless night, these thoughts had claimed him. Now, alone on the journey, they seized him more intensely. Whatever he thought about, he always came back to these same questions, which he could neither solve nor stop asking himself. It was as if the main screw holding his life together had a stripped thread, so that the screw could not wind in or out, but kept turning uselessly in place.

The postmaster returned, obsequiously begging his excellency to wait just two hours, after which, come what may, he would provide the courier horses. It was clear he was lying and just wanted more money from the traveler.

“Is this good or bad?” Pierre wondered. “It’s good for me, bad for another traveler, and for himself it’s necessary, because he needs money to eat; the man said an officer once beat him for letting a private traveler have the courier horses. But the officer beat him because he had to travel as quickly as possible. And I,” continued Pierre, “shot Dólokhov because I felt wronged, and Louis XVI was executed because he was thought a criminal, and a year later they executed those who executed him—also for some supposed reason. What is bad? What is good? What should one love, and what hate? What do we live for? And what am I? What is life, and what is death? What power controls everything?”

There was no answer to any of these questions, except one—and it wasn’t a logical answer, or even a response at all. The answer was: “You’ll die, and all will end. You’ll die and know everything, or stop asking.” But dying was also terrifying.

The Torzhók peddler woman, in a whining voice, kept offering her wares, especially a pair of goatskin slippers. “I have hundreds of rubles I don’t know what to do with, and she stands here in her tattered cloak, looking timidly at me,” he thought. “And what does she want the money for? As if that money could add the slightest bit to happiness or peace of mind. Can anything in the world make her or me less prey to evil or death?—death that ends everything and must come today or tomorrow—at any rate, in an instant compared with eternity.” And again he turned the screw with the stripped thread, and again it moved uselessly.

His servant handed him a half-read novel, in the form of letters, by Madame de Souza. He began reading about the sufferings and virtuous struggles of a certain Emilie de Mansfeld. “And why did she resist her seducer, though she loved him?” he wondered. “God could not have put into her heart an impulse that was against His will. My wife—as she once was—didn’t struggle, and maybe she was right. Nothing has been discovered, nothing explained,” Pierre told himself again. “All we know is that we know nothing. And that’s the height of human wisdom.”

Everything within and around him seemed confused, senseless, and unpleasant. Yet in this very aversion to all his circumstances, Pierre found a certain teasing satisfaction.

“I must ask your excellency to move a little for this gentleman,” said the postmaster, coming in with another traveler, also waiting for horses.

The newcomer was a short, large-boned, yellow-faced, wrinkled old man, with gray bushy eyebrows over bright eyes of an indefinite grayish color.

Pierre took his feet off the table, stood up, and lay down on a bed that had been prepared for him, glancing now and then at the newcomer, who, looking gloomy and tired, was wearily taking off his wraps with his servant’s help, and not looking at Pierre. With a pair of felt boots on his thin, bony legs, and keeping on a worn, nankeen-covered sheepskin coat, the traveler sat on the sofa, leaned back his big head with its broad temples and closely cropped hair, and looked at Bezúkhov. The stern, shrewd, penetrating expression in that look struck Pierre. He felt an urge to speak to the stranger, but by the time he decided to ask him a question about the roads, the traveler had closed his eyes. His shriveled old hands were folded, and on one finger Pierre noticed a large cast iron ring with a seal showing a death’s head. The stranger sat motionless, either resting or, as it seemed to Pierre, lost in profound and calm meditation. His servant was also a yellow, wrinkled old man, without a beard or moustache—not because he was shaven, but evidently because it had never grown. This active old servant was unpacking the traveler’s canteen and preparing tea. He brought in a boiling samovar. When everything was ready, the stranger opened his eyes, moved to the table, poured himself a glass of tea and one for the beardless old man, to whom he handed it. Pierre began to feel uneasy, and felt the need—even the inevitability—of starting a conversation with this stranger.

The servant brought back his glass turned upside down, \* with an unfinished bit of nibbled sugar, and asked if anything else was needed.

\* To indicate he did not want more tea.

“No. Give me the book,” said the stranger.

The servant handed him a book, which Pierre thought was a devotional work, and the traveler became absorbed in it. Pierre watched him. Suddenly the stranger closed the book, marking his place, and again, leaning back with his arms on the sofa, sat in his old pose with his eyes closed. Pierre looked at him and hadn’t had time to look away when the old man, opening his eyes, fixed his steady and serious gaze straight at Pierre’s face.

Pierre felt embarrassed and wanted to avoid that look, but the bright old eyes attracted him irresistibly.

##  CHAPTER II

“I have the pleasure of addressing Count Bezúkhov, if I am not mistaken,” said the stranger in a deliberate, loud voice.

Pierre looked silently and inquisitively at him over his spectacles.

“I have heard of you, my dear sir,” the stranger continued, “and of your misfortune.” He seemed to emphasize the last word, as if to say—“Yes, misfortune! Call it what you please, I know that what happened to you in Moscow was indeed a misfortune.”—“I regret it very much, my dear sir.”

Pierre blushed and, quickly lowering his legs from the bed, leaned forward toward the old man with a forced and timid smile.

“I am not bringing this up out of curiosity, my dear sir, but for more important reasons.”

He paused, still watching Pierre, then moved aside on the sofa, inviting Pierre to sit beside him. Pierre felt unwilling to talk with this old man, but, unable to resist, he came up and sat down next to him.

“You are unhappy, my dear sir,” the stranger continued. “You are young, and I am old. I would like to help you as much as I can.”

“Oh, yes!” said Pierre with a forced smile. “I’m very grateful to you. Where are you traveling from?”

The stranger’s face was not friendly, it was even cold and severe. Still, both his face and his words drew Pierre in powerfully.

“But if for any reason you would rather not speak to me,” said the old man, “just say so, my dear sir.” And suddenly he smiled in a surprising and warmly paternal way.

“Oh no, not at all! On the contrary, I’m very glad to meet you,” said Pierre. Again glancing at the stranger’s hands, he looked more closely at the ring with its skull—a Masonic emblem.

“May I ask,” he said, “are you a Mason?”

“Yes, I belong to the Brotherhood of Freemasons,” replied the stranger, gazing deeper into Pierre’s eyes. “And in their name and my own I reach out a brotherly hand to you.”

“I’m afraid,” said Pierre, smiling, wavering between the confidence inspired by the Mason’s personality and his own tendency to mock Masonic beliefs, “I’m afraid I’m very far from understanding—how should I say?—I’m afraid my way of seeing the world is so different from yours that we won’t understand each other.”

“I know your outlook,” said the Mason. “The view of life you describe, which you think stems from your own reasoning, is the view held by most people, and is always the result of pride, laziness, and ignorance. Forgive me, my dear sir, but if I hadn’t known this, I wouldn’t have approached you. Your view of life is a tragic delusion.”

“Just as I might suppose you are deluded,” said Pierre with a faint smile.

“I would never presume to claim I know the truth,” said the Mason, whose words struck Pierre increasingly with their clarity and firmness. “No one can find truth by himself. Only by laying stone upon stone with the cooperation of all—from our forefather Adam down to our own times—do we build that temple worthy to be the dwelling place of the Great God,” he added, closing his eyes.

“I should tell you that I do not believe… do not believe in God,” said Pierre, regretfully and with effort, feeling it necessary to speak the whole truth.

The Mason looked intently at Pierre and smiled as a wealthy man might smile at a poor soul who confessed he didn’t even have the five rubles that would bring him relief.

“Yes, you do not know Him, my dear sir,” said the Mason. “You cannot know Him. You do not know Him, and that is why you are unhappy.”

“Yes, yes, I am unhappy,” agreed Pierre. “But what should I do?”

“You do not know Him, my dear sir, and therefore you are miserable. You do not know Him, but He is here—He is in me, He is in my words, He is in you, and even in those blasphemous words you just spoke!” the Mason declared in a stern and trembling voice.

He paused and sighed, clearly working to compose himself.

“If He were not,” he said quietly, “you and I would not be speaking of Him, my dear sir. About what, about whom are we speaking? Whom have you denied?” he suddenly challenged with a proud, commanding tone. “Who invented Him, if He does not exist? Where did your idea of such an incomprehensible Being come from? Did you dream it up—and why did the whole world conceive the existence of such a Being—one who is all-powerful, eternal, and infinite in all His attributes?…”

He stopped, remaining silent for a long time.

Pierre could not and did not want to break the silence.

“He exists, but understanding Him is difficult,” the Mason resumed, looking not at Pierre but straight ahead, nervously turning the pages of his book with his old, excited hands. “If you doubted the existence of a man, I could bring him to you, take him by the hand, and show him to you. But how can I, an insignificant mortal, show you God’s omnipotence, His infinity, and all His mercy to someone who is blind, or closes his eyes on purpose—not to see or understand Him, nor to see or understand his own wretchedness and sinfulness?” He paused again. “Who are you? You think yourself wise because you dared to utter those blasphemous words,” he went on darkly, smiling with scorn. “But you are more foolish and unreasonable than a small child who, playing with the pieces of a skillfully made watch, says that because he doesn’t understand it, he can’t believe in the master who made it. To know Him is difficult…. From Adam to our own day, for ages, we have tried to attain that knowledge, and we are still infinitely far from it; but in our ignorance, we see only our own weakness and His greatness….”

Pierre listened, heart swelling, gazing into the Mason’s face with shining eyes, never interrupting or questioning, but fully believing what the stranger said. Whether he accepted the wisdom of the Mason’s words, or simply believed as a child believes—in the speaker’s tone of conviction and earnestness, in the trembling of his voice that sometimes nearly broke, in those brilliant, aged eyes made old by this conviction, or in the calm confidence radiating from his entire being (an attitude that struck Pierre especially compared to his own despair and hopelessness)—in any case, Pierre longed with all his soul to believe, and he did believe, and felt a joyful sense of comfort, renewal, and return to life.

“He cannot be understood by reason, but by living,” said the Mason.

“I don’t understand,” said Pierre, alarmed as doubts returned. He feared any lack of clarity or weakness in the Mason’s arguments; he was anxious he would not be able to believe. “I don’t understand,” he said, “how it can be that the human mind cannot grasp the knowledge you talk about.”

The Mason smiled his gentle, fatherly smile.

“The highest wisdom and truth are like the purest liquid we might want to drink,” he said. “Can I pour that pure liquid into an impure vessel and then judge its purity? Only by purifying myself within can I retain even some of the purity of what I receive.”

“Yes, yes, that’s true,” Pierre replied joyfully.

“The highest wisdom isn’t based on reason alone, nor on those worldly sciences—physics, history, chemistry, and the like—into which intellectual learning is divided. The highest wisdom is one thing. The highest wisdom includes just one science—the science of the whole, the science that explains all creation and a person’s place in it. To receive that science, one must cleanse and renew their inner self—so before you can know, you must believe and perfect yourself. And to attain this, we have the light called conscience that God has placed in our souls.”

“Yes, yes,” agreed Pierre.

“Now, look into yourself with your spiritual eyes, and ask yourself whether you are satisfied with yourself. What have you achieved by relying only on reason? What are you? You are young, you are rich, intelligent, and well educated. And what have you done with all those gifts? Are you satisfied with yourself and with your life?”

“No, I hate my life,” Pierre muttered, cringing.

“You hate it. Then change it, purify yourself; as you do, you’ll gain wisdom. Look at your life, my dear sir. How have you spent it? In wild indulgence and debauchery, taking everything from society and giving nothing back. You inherited wealth. How have you used it? What have you done for your neighbor? Have you ever thought about your tens of thousands of serfs? Have you helped them physically or morally? No! You benefited from their labor to live a reckless life. That’s what you have done. Have you taken up a position where you could serve your neighbor? No! You’ve spent your life in laziness. Then you married, my dear sir—taking responsibility for guiding a young woman; and what have you done? Instead of helping her find the path of truth, you’ve thrown her into an abyss of deceit and misery. A man insulted you, and you shot him, and you say you don’t know God and hate your life. There’s nothing strange in that, my dear sir!”

After saying this, the Mason, as if tired by his lengthy speech, again leaned back on the sofa and closed his eyes. Pierre looked at that old, stern, motionless, almost lifeless face and mouthed words without making a sound. He wanted to say, “Yes, a vile, idle, vicious life!” but did not dare to break the silence.

The Mason cleared his throat in a rough, husky way, as old men often do, and called for his servant.

“What about the horses?” he asked, without looking at Pierre.

“The relay horses have just arrived,” the servant replied. “Would you like to rest here?”

“No, tell them to harness the carriage.”

“Is he really leaving me here alone, without telling me everything, and without promising to help me?” thought Pierre, rising with his head downcast. He began to pace the room, glancing at the Mason from time to time. “Yes, I never realized it before, but I have led a shameful and reckless life, even though I didn’t like it and never truly wanted it,” Pierre thought. “But this man knows the truth and, if he wanted to, could reveal it to me.”

Pierre wanted to say this to the Mason, but did not dare. The traveler, packing up his things with practiced hands, began buttoning his coat. Once he had finished, he turned to Bezúkhov and said politely, but with indifference:

“Where are you headed now, my dear sir?”

“Me?… I’m going to Petersburg,” Pierre answered in a hesitant, almost childlike voice. “Thank you. I agree with everything you have said. But please don’t think me so bad. With all my soul, I want to become the person you hope I can be, but I’ve never had help from anyone… But it is I, above all, who am to blame for everything. Help me, teach me, and maybe I can…”

Pierre could not finish. He swallowed hard and turned away.

The Mason was silent for a long time, clearly thinking things over.

“Help comes from God alone,” he finally said, “but whatever help our Order can give you, it will, my dear sir. You are going to Petersburg. Give this to Count Willarski”—he took out his notebook and wrote a few words on a large sheet of paper, folding it in four. “Let me give you some advice: when you reach the capital, first spend some time alone and truly reflect on yourself, and don’t go back to your old way of life. And now I wish you a safe journey, my dear sir,” he added as his servant came in, “and success.”

The traveler was Joseph Alexéevich Bazdéev, as Pierre saw from the postmaster’s book. Bazdéev had been one of the best-known Freemasons and Martinists, even back in Novíkov’s day. For a long while after he left, Pierre did not go to bed or order horses, but paced the room—reflecting on his immoral past, and, with a rapturous sense of a fresh start, imagined a blissful, flawless, virtuous future that now seemed so easy to him. It seemed clear to him he had been immoral only because he had somehow forgotten how good it was to live virtuously. Not a trace of his old doubts remained in his heart. He firmly believed in the possibility of a brotherhood of men united to support each other in virtue, and that is how Freemasonry now appeared to him.

##  CHAPTER III

When Pierre arrived in Petersburg, he did not tell anyone of his return, went nowhere, and spent entire days reading Thomas à Kempis—a book sent to him by an unknown sender. As he read, Pierre kept realizing something new to him: the joy of believing in the possibility of reaching perfection, and in the possibility of real, active brotherly love between people, which Joseph Alexéevich had shown him. A week after his arrival, the young Polish count, Willarski, whom Pierre had known only casually in Petersburg society, entered his room one evening with the same official and ceremonious manner in which Dólokhov’s second had once called on him. After closing the door and making sure no one else was present, Willarski addressed Pierre.

“I have come to you with an offer and a message, Count,” he said, not sitting down. “A person of the highest standing in our Brotherhood has proposed that you be admitted into our Order before the usual period and has designated me as your sponsor. I feel it is a sacred duty to fulfill that person’s wishes. Do you want to enter the Brotherhood of Freemasons with me as your sponsor?”

Pierre was surprised by the cold, severe tone of Willarski, whom he had previously seen only at balls, cheerfully smiling among the brightest women.

“Yes, I do wish it,” he replied.

Willarski bowed his head.

“One more question, Count,” he said, “and I ask you to answer sincerely—not as a future Mason, but as an honest man: have you renounced your former beliefs—do you believe in God?”

Pierre thought for a moment.

“Yes… yes, I believe in God,” he answered.

“In that case…” began Willarski, but Pierre interrupted him.

“Yes, I do believe in God,” Pierre repeated.

“In that case, we can go,” said Willarski. “My carriage is at your service.”

Willarski remained silent during the drive. When Pierre asked what he was supposed to do or how to answer, Willarski only replied that brothers more worthy than he would examine him, and Pierre’s task was simply to tell the truth.

They entered the courtyard of a large building where the Lodge had its headquarters and went up a dark staircase, reaching a small, well-lit anteroom where they took off their cloaks themselves, without the help of a servant. From there they entered another room. At the door, a man in strange clothing appeared. Willarski stepped toward him, said something quietly in French, then approached a small wardrobe in which Pierre saw garments unlike anything he’d seen before. Willarski took a kerchief from it, blindfolded Pierre, and tied it tightly at the back, catching some of Pierre’s hair painfully in the knot. He then gently pulled down Pierre’s face, kissed him, and led him forward by the hand. The caught hairs hurt Pierre, and he wore a mixture of discomfort and a self-conscious, embarrassed smile. His large figure, arms hanging down and face puckered though still smiling, followed Willarski with uncertain and nervous steps.

After about ten paces, Willarski stopped.

“No matter what happens to you,” he said, “you must endure it courageously if you are truly resolved to join our Brotherhood.” (Pierre nodded in agreement.) “When you hear a knock at the door, remove your blindfold,” added Willarski. “I wish you courage and success,” and, pressing Pierre’s hand, he left.

Alone, Pierre continued smiling awkwardly. Once or twice, he shrugged and raised his hand as if to remove the blindfold, but dropped it again. The five minutes with his eyes covered felt like an hour. His arms went numb, his legs felt weak; he felt utterly exhausted. A swirl of emotions overtook him—anxious about what would happen, but even more anxious not to show any fear. He was curious about what he would experience and discover; above all, he was delighted that the moment had finally come for him to embark on the path of renewal and virtuous living he’d dreamed of since meeting Joseph Alexéevich. There were loud knocks at the door. Pierre removed the blindfold and looked around. The room was completely dark except for a small lamp burning inside something white. Pierre approached and discovered the lamp stood on a black table, next to an open book: the Gospel. The white object holding the lamp was a human skull with its cavities and teeth visible. After reading the opening words of the Gospel: “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God,” Pierre walked around the table and saw a large open box filled with something. It was a coffin with bones inside. None of this surprised him. Although hoping to begin a new life, he expected everything to be unusual—perhaps even stranger than what he was seeing. A skull, a coffin, the Gospel—he felt as if he had expected exactly these things, if not more. Trying to feel even more deeply, he looked around: “God, death, love, the brotherhood of man,” he kept repeating inwardly, linking these words with vague but joyful feelings. The door opened and someone entered.

By the dim light, to which Pierre’s eyes had now adjusted, he saw a rather short man. Coming from light into darkness, the man paused, then walked carefully to the table and rested his small leather-gloved hands on it.

This short man wore a white leather apron that covered his chest and part of his legs; around his neck was some kind of necklace, above which rose a high white ruffle outlining his longish face, lit from below.

“Why have you come here?” the newcomer asked, turning toward Pierre at his slightest movement. “Why have you, who do not believe in the truth of the Light and who have not seen the Light, come here? What do you seek from us? Wisdom, virtue, enlightenment?”

At the moment the door opened and the stranger entered, Pierre felt a sense of awe and reverence, just as he had as a child at confession; he was aware of being in the presence of someone who was socially a stranger, yet deeply connected as a fellow human. With a pounding heart and bated breath, he moved toward the Rhetor (as the brother who prepared new candidates for the Brotherhood was called). Coming closer, Pierre recognized the Rhetor as Smolyanínov—someone he knew—which embarrassed him; he wished to see not an old acquaintance, but simply a brother and worthy instructor. He was at a loss for words, so the Rhetor repeated his question.

“Yes… I… I… desire regeneration,” Pierre managed to say.

“Very well,” said Smolyanínov at once. “Do you have any idea how our holy Order will help you achieve your goal?” he asked quietly and swiftly.

“I… hope… for guidance… help… in regeneration,” Pierre replied, his voice trembling, struggling as he was not used to speaking on abstract subjects in Russian.

“What is your understanding of Freemasonry?”

“I think Freemasonry is the fraternity and equality of people who have virtuous goals,” said Pierre, feeling his words fell short for such a solemn moment. “I suppose…”

“Good!” said the Rhetor quickly, satisfied with the reply. “Have you sought ways to reach your goal through religion?”

“No, I thought religion was in error and did not follow it,” said Pierre so softly the Rhetor could not hear him and asked him to repeat. “I have been an atheist,” Pierre admitted.

“You seek the truth so you can live by its laws, so you seek wisdom and virtue. Is that right?” the Rhetor asked after a brief silence.

“Yes, yes,” Pierre agreed.

The Rhetor cleared his throat, crossed his gloved hands over his chest, and began to speak.

“Now I must reveal to you the central aim of our Order,” he said, “and if this matches your own aims, you can enter our Brotherhood with benefit. The first and most important purpose of our Order—the foundation upon which it stands and which no human power can destroy—is to preserve and pass down to future generations a certain important mystery… one that has come to us from the most ancient times, even from the first man—a mystery upon which perhaps the fate of humanity depends. But this mystery is of such a nature that no one can know or use it without being prepared by long and diligent self-purification. Not everyone can expect to attain it quickly. Therefore, our secondary aim is to prepare our members as much as possible to reform their hearts, to purify and enlighten their minds by the means handed down by those who pursued the mystery, making them capable of receiving it.

“By purifying and regenerating our members, we also aim, thirdly, to improve the entire human race, offering in our members an example of piety and virtue, and to fight with all our strength the evil that rules the world. Think this over, and I will return to you.”

“To fight the evil that rules the world…” Pierre repeated to himself, picturing his future work in this cause. He imagined people like he had been two weeks before, and pictured himself offering them uplifting advice. He imagined troubled and unlucky people he could help, and oppressors from whom he could rescue victims. Of the three aims the Rhetor described, this last—improving humanity—especially appealed to Pierre. The important mystery intrigued him, but seemed less essential, and the second aim, purifying and regenerating himself, did not interest him much because at this moment he felt, with joy, that he was already freed from his previous faults and prepared for all good.

Half an hour later, the Rhetor returned to explain the seven virtues, symbolizing the seven steps leading to Solomon’s temple, which every Freemason should cultivate. These virtues were: 1. *Discretion*, keeping the secrets of the Order. 2. *Obedience* to superiors in the Order. 3. *Morality*. 4. *Love of mankind*. 5. *Courage*. 6. *Generosity*. 7. *The love of death*.

“For the seventh, try, by thinking often of death,” the Rhetor said, “to learn to see it not as a dreaded enemy, but as a friend who frees the soul, weary from a life of virtue, from this troubled world and leads it to its true reward and peace.”

“Yes, that must be true,” thought Pierre, as the Rhetor left him alone after these words. “It must be true, but I am still so weak that I treasure my life, the meaning of which is only now opening up before me.” But five of the other virtues, which Pierre counted on his fingers, he already felt within himself: *courage, generosity, morality, love of mankind*, and especially *obedience*—which he didn’t even see as a virtue but as a pleasure. (He was now so relieved to be free from his own unruliness and to surrender his will to those who knew the proven truth.) He couldn’t recall what the seventh virtue was.

The Rhetor returned a third time, more quickly, and asked Pierre if he still felt firm in his intention and was ready to comply with all that would be demanded of him.

“I am ready for everything,” said Pierre.

“I must also let you know,” said the Rhetor, “that in our Order, instruction is given not only through words but also by other means, which may have an even greater impact on those truly seeking wisdom and virtue. This room, and what you see here, should have already suggested more to your heart, if you are sincere, than any words could do. In your further initiation, you may encounter similar methods of enlightenment. Our Order imitates the ancient societies that used hieroglyphics to explain their teachings. A hieroglyph,” the Rhetor said, “is a symbol of something not directly grasped by the senses, but which has qualities similar to the thing it represents.”

Pierre knew very well what a hieroglyph was, but he did not dare to speak. He listened to the Rhetor in silence, realizing from everything he said that his ordeal was about to begin.

“If you are resolved, I must begin your initiation,” said the Rhetor, moving closer to Pierre. “As a token of generosity, I ask you to give me all your valuables.”

“But I have nothing here,” replied Pierre, thinking he was being asked to give up all he owned.

“What you have with you: watch, money, rings…”

Pierre quickly took out his purse and watch, but struggled for some time to remove the wedding ring from his thick finger. When he had finally done so, the Rhetor said:

“As a token of obedience, I ask you to undress.”

Pierre took off his coat, waistcoat, and left boot as the Rhetor instructed. The Mason pulled back Pierre’s shirt from his left breast and, bending down, pulled up the left leg of his trousers above the knee. Pierre hurriedly began to take off his right boot as well and was about to roll up the other trouser leg to save the stranger the trouble, but the Mason told him that was unnecessary and gave him a slipper for his left foot. With a childlike, embarrassed, doubtful, and self-mocking smile that appeared on his face against his will, Pierre stood with his arms at his sides and legs apart before his brother Rhetor, awaiting further instructions.

“And now, as a token of candor, I ask you to reveal to me your chief passion,” the Rhetor said.

“My passion! I have had so many,” replied Pierre.

“That passion which, more than all others, made you waver from the path of virtue,” said the Mason.

Pierre paused, searching for an answer.

“Wine? Gluttony? Idleness? Laziness? Irritability? Anger? Women?” He reviewed his vices in his mind, uncertain which deserved the most blame.

“Women,” he said in a low, barely audible voice.

The Mason did not move and for some time said nothing after this answer. At last, he approached Pierre and, taking the handkerchief from the table, again covered Pierre’s eyes.

“For the last time, I tell you—turn all your attention inward, control your senses, and seek happiness not in passion but in your own heart. The source of happiness is not outside us but within…”

Pierre had already long felt within himself that refreshing source of happiness which now filled his heart with joyful emotion.

##  CHAPTER IV

Soon after, someone came into the dark chamber to fetch Pierre—not the Rhetor, but Pierre’s sponsor, Willarski, whom he recognized by his voice. To further questions about the firmness of his resolve, Pierre replied, “Yes, yes, I agree,” and with a beaming, childlike smile, his large chest bare, walking unevenly and timidly in one slipper and one boot, he moved forward while Willarski held a sword to his bare chest. He was led from that room through corridors that twisted back and forth and was finally brought to the doors of the Lodge. Willarski coughed, and this was answered by the Masonic knocking with mallets; the doors opened before them. A deep voice (Pierre was still blindfolded) questioned him about who he was, when and where he was born, and so on. Then he was again led somewhere while still blindfolded, and as they walked he was told allegories of the hardships of his journey, of sacred friendship, of the Eternal Architect of the universe, and of the courage he should display in facing hardships and dangers. During these wanderings, Pierre noticed that he was now referred to as the “Seeker,” then as the “Sufferer,” and now as the “Postulant,” accompanied by various knockings with mallets and swords. As he was led up to some object, he sensed uncertainty and hesitation among his guides. He heard those around him whispering and disputing, with one insisting that he be led along a particular carpet. After that, they took his right hand, placed it on some object, and told him to hold a pair of compasses to his left breast with his other hand and to repeat after someone who read aloud an oath of loyalty to the laws of the Order. The candles were then extinguished and some spirit was lit, as Pierre could tell by the smell, and he was informed that he would now see the lesser light. The blindfold was removed from his eyes and, by the dim light of the burning spirit, Pierre, as if in a dream, saw several men standing before him, wearing aprons like the Rhetor’s and holding swords pointed at his chest. Among them stood a man whose white shirt was stained with blood. Seeing this, Pierre moved forward with his chest toward the swords, prepared for them to pierce him. But the swords were withdrawn and he was quickly blindfolded again.

“Now thou hast seen the lesser light,” a voice said. Then the candles were relit and he was informed that he would now see the full light; the blindfold was again removed and more than ten voices said together: *“Sic transit gloria mundi.”*

Pierre gradually regained his composure and looked around the room and at the people in it. Around a long, black-covered table sat about twelve men wearing the same kind of garments he had already seen. Some of them Pierre recognized from Petersburg society. In the President’s chair sat a young man he did not know, with a distinctive cross hanging from his neck. On his right sat the Italian abbé whom Pierre had met at Anna Pávlovna’s two years earlier. Present also were a very high-ranking dignitary and a Swiss who had previously been a tutor to the Kurágins. All maintained a solemn silence, listening to the President, who held a mallet in his hand. Set into the wall was a star-shaped light. On one side of the table was a small carpet with several figures embroidered on it, on the other side was something like an altar on which lay a Testament and a skull. Around it stood seven large candlesticks similar to those used in churches. Two of the brothers led Pierre up to the altar, placed his feet at right angles, and instructed him to lie down, saying that he must prostrate himself at the Gates of the Temple.

“He must first receive the trowel,” whispered one of the brothers.

“Oh, hush, please!” said another.

Pierre, confused, looked around with his nearsighted eyes without obeying, and suddenly doubts crept into his mind. “Where am I? What am I doing? Are they laughing at me? Will I be embarrassed to remember this?” But these doubts lasted only a moment. Pierre looked at the serious faces around him, remembered all he had already gone through, and realized he could not stop halfway. Shocked at his hesitation and trying to rekindle his former devotion, he prostrated himself before the Gates of the Temple. And truly, the feeling of devotion returned to him even stronger than before. When he had lain there for a while, he was told to get up. A white leather apron, like those of the others, was put on him; he was given a trowel and three pairs of gloves, and then the Grand Master addressed him. The Grand Master told him he should try to do nothing to stain the white apron, which symbolized strength and purity; regarding the mysterious trowel, he said Pierre should work with it to cleanse his own heart of vice and gently smooth the hearts of his neighbors. The Grand Master said the first pair of gloves, a man’s, had a meaning Pierre could not yet know but that he must keep them. The second pair of men’s gloves he was to wear at meetings, and finally the third, a pair of women’s gloves: “Dear brother, these women’s gloves are for you as well. Give them to the woman you honor most of all. This gift will be a pledge of your pure heart to the one you choose as your worthy helpmate in Masonry.” After a pause, he added: “But beware, dear brother, that these gloves do not adorn unclean hands.” As the Grand Master said these last words, Pierre thought he became embarrassed. Pierre himself grew even more uncomfortable, blushed like a child until tears came to his eyes, began looking around uneasily, and an awkward silence followed.

This silence was broken by one of the brothers, who led Pierre to the rug and began reading to him from a manuscript an explanation of all the symbols on it: the sun, the moon, a hammer, a plumb line, a trowel, a rough stone and a finished stone, a pillar, three windows, and so on. Then Pierre was assigned a place, shown the signs of the Lodge, told the password, and finally allowed to sit down. The Grand Master began reading the statutes. They were very long, and Pierre—in his joy, excitement, and embarrassment—could not focus well on what was being read. Only the last words of the statutes stayed in his mind.

“In our temples we recognize no other distinctions,” read the Grand Master, “except those between virtue and vice. Beware of making any distinctions that undermine equality. Rush to a brother’s aid, whoever he may be; help him who goes astray; raise up the one who has fallen, and never bear malice or hostility toward your brother. Be kind and courteous. Ignite the flame of virtue in all hearts. Share your happiness with your neighbor, and never let envy taint the purity of that joy. Forgive your enemy, do not take revenge except by doing him good. By fulfilling the highest law you will regain traces of the ancient dignity you have lost.”

He finished and, rising, embraced and kissed Pierre, who, with tears of joy in his eyes, looked around, not knowing how to respond to the congratulations and greetings from acquaintances on all sides. He recognized no acquaintances but saw only brothers among them, and was burning with impatience to get to work with them.

The Grand Master struck his mallet. All the Masons took their seats, and one of them read an exhortation on the importance of humility.

The Grand Master suggested that the last duty be performed, and the distinguished dignitary known as the “Collector of Alms” went around to all the brothers. Pierre wanted to give all he had, but, fearing it would be seen as pride, donated the same amount as the others.

The meeting ended, and when Pierre reached home, he felt as if he had returned from a long journey that had lasted many years; he felt completely changed and as though he had left his former habits and way of life entirely behind.

##  CHAPTER V

The day after being accepted into the Lodge, Pierre sat at home reading a book, trying to understand the meaning of the Square, with one side symbolizing God, another moral things, a third physical things, and the fourth a combination of these. Now and then, his attention drifted from the book and the Square as he imagined a new plan for his life. The previous evening at the Lodge, he had learned that a rumor about his duel had reached the Emperor and that it would be wiser for him to leave Petersburg. Pierre considered traveling to his estates in the south to attend to the welfare of his serfs. He was enthusiastically planning this new chapter when Prince Vasíli suddenly entered the room.

“My dear fellow, what have you been up to in Moscow? Why have you quarreled with Hélène, *mon cher?* You’re mistaken,” said Prince Vasíli as he walked in. “I know all about it, and I can assure you Hélène is as innocent before you as Christ was before the Jews.”

Pierre was about to answer, but Prince Vasíli cut him off.

“And why didn’t you just come straight to me as a friend? I know everything and understand it all,” he said. “You acted as a man who values his honor should, perhaps a bit rashly, but let’s not dwell on that. Think about the situation you’re putting her and me in, in the eyes of society and even the court,” he added, lowering his voice. “She’s living in Moscow and you’re here. Remember, dear boy,” and he tugged Pierre’s arm downward, “it’s just a misunderstanding. I expect you feel that yourself. Let’s write her a letter right away, and she’ll come here and everything will be cleared up, or else, my dear boy, let me warn you it’s quite likely you’ll suffer for it.”

Prince Vasíli gave Pierre a meaningful look.

“I know from reliable sources that the Dowager Empress is taking a serious interest in the entire matter. You know she is very gracious to Hélène.”

Pierre tried several times to speak, but on one hand Prince Vasíli would not let him, and on the other Pierre was himself afraid to start speaking in the tone of determined refusal and disagreement he had firmly decided to use with his father-in-law. Besides, the words from the Masonic statutes, “be kindly and courteous,” came back to him. He blinked, turned red, stood up and sat down again, struggling to do what was for him the hardest thing in life—to say something unpleasant to a person’s face, to speak words the other person, no matter who they were, did not expect. He was so accustomed to submitting to Prince Vasíli’s tone of confident casualness that he felt he couldn’t stand up to it now, but he also sensed that what he said now would determine his future—whether he would follow the same old path or the new one the Masons had shown him, on which he truly believed he would be reborn to a new life.

“Now, dear boy,” said Prince Vasíli in a playful tone, “just say ‘yes’ and I’ll write to her myself, and we’ll celebrate.”

But before Prince Vasíli could finish his playful speech, Pierre, without looking at him, and with a kind of fury that made him resemble his father, muttered in a whisper:

“Prince, I didn’t ask you here. Go, please go!” And he jumped up and opened the door for him.

“Go!” he repeated, surprised at himself and glad to see the look of confusion and fear that appeared on Prince Vasíli’s face.

“What’s wrong with you? Are you ill?”

“Go!” the trembling voice repeated. And Prince Vasíli had to leave without an explanation.

A week later, Pierre, after saying goodbye to his new friends, the Masons, and leaving them large sums of money for charity, departed for his estates. His new brothers gave him letters of introduction to the Kiev and Odessa Masons and promised to write and guide him in his new pursuits.

##  CHAPTER VI

The duel between Pierre and Dólokhov was hushed up, and despite the Emperor’s strictness about duels at that time, neither the main participants nor their seconds suffered any consequences. Yet the story of the duel, confirmed by Pierre’s break with his wife, was the talk of society. Pierre, who had once been regarded with patronizing condescension as an illegitimate son and was indulged and praised when he was considered the best match in Russia, had fallen greatly in society’s esteem after his marriage—especially when mothers and their marriageable daughters could no longer hope for anything from him. This was especially true as he did not know how, nor did he want, to try to win society’s favor. Now, he alone was blamed for what had happened; he was said to be insanely jealous and, like his father, given to fits of bloodthirsty rage. And when, after Pierre’s departure, Hélène returned to Petersburg, she was received by her acquaintances not just cordially, but even with a certain deference owed to her misfortune. When conversation turned to her husband, Hélène took on a dignified expression—one she had learned with characteristic tact, though she didn’t really understand its meaning. This expression suggested she had resolved to endure her troubles without complaint, and that her husband was a burden laid on her by God. Prince Vasíli was more open in his opinion. He shrugged when Pierre was mentioned and, tapping his forehead, remarked:

“A bit touched—I always said so.”

“I said from the start,” declared Anna Pávlovna about Pierre, “I said then and before anyone else”—she insisted on her priority—“that that foolish young man was spoiled by the corrupt ideas of our times. I said it even when everyone was raving about him, when he had just come back from abroad, when, if you remember, he pretended to be a kind of Marat at one of my soirees. And how has it turned out? I was against this marriage even then and I foresaw everything that’s happened.”

Anna Pávlovna continued to host on her free evenings the same kind of soirees as before—which she alone had the talent to arrange—where “the best of the truly good society, the very bloom of Petersburg’s intellectual elite,” as she put it, could be found. Besides this carefully chosen company, Anna Pávlovna’s gatherings were also notable for always featuring some new and interesting person, and nowhere else was the status of the political climate in legitimate Petersburg court society so clearly and distinctly displayed.

Toward the end of 1806, after all the grim details of Napoleon’s destruction of the Prussian army at Jena and Auerstädt and the surrender of most of the Prussian fortresses had come in, when Russian troops had already entered Prussia and a second war with Napoleon was beginning, Anna Pávlovna gave one of her soirees. The “cream of truly good society” included the charming Hélène, abandoned by her husband, Mortemart, the delightful Prince Hippolyte just back from Vienna, two diplomats, the old aunt, a young man referred to in that drawing room as “a man of great merit” (*un homme de beaucoup de mérite*), a newly appointed maid of honor and her mother, and several other, less noteworthy guests.

Anna Pávlovna’s novelty for her guests that evening was Borís Drubetskóy, who had just arrived as a special courier from the Prussian army and was aide-de-camp to an important figure.

The state of the political climate, as revealed to the guests that evening, was this:

“Whatever the European sovereigns and commanders may do to support Bonaparte, and to cause *me*, and *us* in general, annoyance and humiliation, our opinion of Bonaparte will not change. We will continue to express our sincere views on the matter, and can only say to the King of Prussia and others: ‘So much the worse for you. *Tu l’as voulu, George Dandin*,’ that’s all we can say about it!”

By the time Borís—about to be presented to the guests—entered the drawing room, nearly everyone had assembled. The conversation, guided by Anna Pávlovna, was about Russia’s diplomatic relations with Austria and the hope of an alliance.

Borís, now more manly in appearance, looking fresh, rosy, and self-possessed, entered elegantly dressed in the uniform of an aide-de-camp and was properly brought over to greet the aunt, then led back to the main circle.

Anna Pávlovna offered him her withered hand to kiss and introduced him to several people he didn’t know, giving a whispered description of each.

“Prince Hippolyte Kurágin—a charming young man; M. Kronq,—chargé d’affaires from Copenhagen—a profound intellect,” and simply, “Mr. Shítov—a man of great merit”—about the man usually described that way.

Thanks to Anna Mikháylovna’s efforts, his own tastes, and the peculiarities of his reserved character, Borís had, during his service, managed to position himself quite advantageously. He was aide-de-camp to a very important personage, had been sent on an important mission to Prussia, and had just returned as a special messenger. He had become completely familiar with that unwritten code that had pleased him so much at Olmütz: the code under which an ensign might outrank a general, and in which success in service depended not on effort, work, courage, or perseverance, but on knowing how to get along with those who could reward you. He was often surprised at how quickly he advanced and at others’ failure to understand how things really worked. Because of this discovery, his whole way of life—his relationships with old friends and his future plans—changed completely. He was not wealthy, but would spend his last penny to dress better than others, and preferred to go without many pleasures rather than be seen in a shabby carriage or be spotted in Petersburg in an old uniform. He made friends and sought out the acquaintance only of people above him in rank, those who could be helpful. He preferred Petersburg and looked down on Moscow. Remembering the Rostóvs’ house and his youthful love for Natásha was unpleasant, and he had not visited the Rostóvs since leaving for the army. Being at Anna Pávlovna’s soiree was, to him, a significant step up in his career, and he quickly understood his role, letting his hostess use whatever interest he had to offer. He took care to examine each face, assessing the chance of closeness with each guest, and what benefits might result. He sat in the place indicated, beside the beautiful Hélène, and listened to the conversation.

“Vienna considers the terms of the proposed treaty so unrealistic that not even a string of the most brilliant victories could secure them, and she doubts our ability to achieve them. That’s exactly how the Vienna cabinet puts it,” said the Danish chargé d’affaires.

“The doubt is flattering,” said “the man of profound intellect,” with a subtle smile.

“We must distinguish between the Vienna cabinet and the Emperor of Austria,” said Mortemart. “The Emperor of Austria could never have thought such a thing—it’s only the cabinet that says so.”

“Ah, my dear vicomte,” put in Anna Pávlovna, *“L’Urope”* (for some reason she called it *Urope*, as if that was a special, refined French pronunciation she could allow herself when speaking to a Frenchman), *“L’Urope ne sera jamais notre alliée sincère.”* \*

\* “Europe will never be our sincere ally.”

After that, Anna Pávlovna moved the conversation to the courage and determination of the King of Prussia, in order to draw Borís into the discussion.

Borís listened carefully to each speaker, waiting for his turn, but still managed to glance often at his neighbor, the beautiful Hélène, whose eyes met those of the handsome young aide-de-camp several times, each time with a smile.

While speaking about Prussia’s situation, Anna Pávlovna, quite naturally, asked Borís to tell them about his journey to Glogau and the state of the Prussian army when he saw them. Borís, speaking deliberately, told them in pure, polished French many interesting details about the armies and the court, carefully avoiding any personal opinion on the facts he described. He held the group’s attention for some time, and Anna Pávlovna could tell the novelty she had prepared was pleasing to her guests. Hélène paid the greatest attention to his story. She asked him several questions about his journey and seemed very interested in the state of the Prussian army. When he finished, she turned to him with her usual smile.

“You absolutely must come and see me,” she said, in a tone that implied, for reasons he could not know, that it was absolutely necessary.

“On Tuesday, between eight and nine. I would be delighted.”

Borís promised to fulfill her request and was about to continue speaking with her when Anna Pávlovna called him away, saying her aunt wished to hear from him.

“You know her husband, of course?” said Anna Pávlovna, closing her eyes and indicating Hélène with a sorrowful gesture. “Ah, she is such an unfortunate and charming woman! Please, don’t mention him in her presence—it’s too painful for her!”

##  CHAPTER VII

When Borís and Anna Pávlovna returned to the others, Prince Hippolyte had captured the group's attention.

Leaning forward in his armchair he said, *“Le Roi de Prusse!”* and after saying this, he laughed. Everyone turned toward him.

*“Le Roi de Prusse?”* Hippolyte repeated, questioning, again laughed, and then calmly and seriously settled back in his chair. Anna Pávlovna waited for him to continue, but since he seemed quite determined to say nothing more, she began to tell the story of how, at Potsdam, the impious Bonaparte had stolen the sword of Frederick the Great.

“It is the sword of Frederick the Great which I…” she began, but Hippolyte interrupted her with, *“Le Roi de Prusse…”* and once everyone had turned toward him again, he excused himself and said nothing more.

Anna Pávlovna frowned. Mortemart, Hippolyte’s friend, addressed him firmly.

“Come now, what about your *Roi de Prusse?*”

Hippolyte laughed as if embarrassed by his own laughter.

“Oh, it's nothing. I only meant to say…” (he wanted to repeat a joke he had heard in Vienna and had been trying all evening to work in) “I only meant to say that we are wrong to fight *pour le Roi de Prusse!*”

Borís smiled cautiously, so that his reaction could be seen as either ironic or appreciative, depending on how the joke was received. Everyone laughed.

“Your joke is quite terrible; clever, but not fair,” said Anna Pávlovna, shaking her little shriveled finger at him.

“We are not fighting *pour le Roi de Prusse*, but for righteous principles. Oh, that wicked Prince Hippolyte!” she said.

The conversation stayed lively all evening and focused mainly on political news. It grew especially animated toward the end of the evening when the rewards given by the Emperor were discussed.

“You know N— N— received a snuffbox with the portrait last year?” said “the man of profound intellect.” “Why shouldn't S— S— get the same honor?”

“Excuse me! A snuffbox with the Emperor’s portrait is a reward, but not an honor,” said the diplomat—“it’s more of a gift.”

“There are precedents; I could mention Schwarzenberg.”

“It’s impossible,” replied another.

“Want to bet? The ribbon of the order is a different matter….”

When everyone got up to leave, Hélène, who had spoken little during the evening, again turned to Borís, asking him in a tone of affectionate, meaningful command to come to her on Tuesday.

“It is very important to me,” she said, turning with a smile toward Anna Pávlovna, and Anna Pávlovna, with the same mournful smile she used when speaking of her exalted patroness, supported Hélène’s request.

It seemed as if from some remarks Borís had made that evening about the Prussian army, Hélène had suddenly felt it necessary to see him. She seemed to promise to explain why when he visited on Tuesday.

But on Tuesday evening, when Borís arrived at Hélène’s splendid salon, he received no real explanation as to why his visit had been necessary. There were other guests and the countess spoke little with him, and only as he kissed her hand before leaving did she say unexpectedly and in a whisper, with a strangely unsmiling face: “Come to dinner tomorrow… in the evening. You must come…. Come!”

During that stay in Petersburg, Borís became a regular guest at the countess's house.

##  CHAPTER VIII

The war was flaring up and approaching the Russian frontier. Everywhere people cursed Bonaparte, “the enemy of mankind.” Militiamen and recruits were being enlisted in the villages, and conflicting, often false news arrived from the front, leading to various interpretations. The lives of old Prince Bolkónski, Prince Andrew, and Princess Mary had changed significantly since 1805.

In 1806, the old prince was made one of the eight commanders-in-chief appointed to oversee the nationwide enlistment decreed throughout Russia. Despite his increasing frailty—especially noticeable since he had thought his son was killed—he felt it his duty to accept an appointment from the Emperor himself, and this renewed call to action gave him fresh energy and strength. He was constantly traveling through the three provinces entrusted to him, meticulous in carrying out his duties, severe to the point of cruelty with his subordinates, and he personally attended to every detail. Princess Mary had stopped taking mathematics lessons from her father, and when the old prince was at home, she would go to his study with the wet nurse and little Prince Nicholas (as his grandfather called him). The baby Prince Nicholas stayed with his wet nurse and nurse Sávishna in his late mother’s rooms, and Princess Mary spent most of her day in the nursery, doing her best to fill a mother’s role for her young nephew. Mademoiselle Bourienne also seemed to dote on the boy, and Princess Mary often gave up her own time to let her friend dandle the little *angel*—as she called her nephew—and play with him.

Near the altar of the church at Bald Hills, there was a chapel over the tomb of the little princess. In this chapel stood a marble monument from Italy depicting an angel with outspread wings, ready to ascend. The angel’s upper lip was slightly raised as if about to smile, and once, on leaving the chapel, Prince Andrew and Princess Mary admitted to each other that the angel’s face strangely resembled the little princess. Stranger still—though Prince Andrew said nothing about it to his sister—was that in the expression which the sculptor had given the angel's face, Prince Andrew saw the same gentle reproach he had seen on his late wife's face: “Ah, why have you done this to me?”

Soon after Prince Andrew returned, the old prince gave him a large estate, Boguchárovo, about twenty-five miles from Bald Hills. Partly because of the sad memories attached to Bald Hills, partly because he could not always cope with his father’s eccentricities, and partly because he craved solitude, Prince Andrew began to use Boguchárovo. He started building there and spent most of his time on the estate.

After the Austerlitz campaign, Prince Andrew had firmly resolved not to return to military service. When war broke out again and everyone was compelled to serve, he took a post under his father in recruitment to avoid active duty. Since the campaign of 1805, the old prince and his son seemed to have switched roles. The old man, energized by his activity, expected the best from the new campaign, while Prince Andrew, staying out of active service and secretly regretting it, saw only its dark side.

On February 26, 1807, the old prince set off on one of his inspection rounds. Prince Andrew stayed at Bald Hills as usual during his father’s absence. Little Nicholas had been unwell for four days. The coachman who had driven the old prince to town returned with papers and letters for Prince Andrew.

Not finding the young prince in his study, the valet took the letters to Princess Mary’s rooms, but he was not there. He was told the prince had gone to the nursery.

“If you please, your excellency, Pétrusha has brought some papers,” said one of the nursemaids to Prince Andrew, who was sitting on a child’s chair, frowning and with trembling hands as he poured drops from a medicine bottle into a wineglass half full of water.

“What is it?” he said irritably, and, his hand shaking involuntarily, he poured too many drops into the glass. He threw the mixture away and asked for fresh water. The maid brought it.

The room contained a child’s cot, two boxes, two armchairs, a table, a child’s table, and the little chair where Prince Andrew was seated. The curtains were drawn and a single candle, shaded by a bound music book to keep the light from the cot, burned on the table.

“My dear,” said Princess Mary, approaching her brother from beside the cot, “better to wait a bit… later…”

“Oh, stop it! You’re always talking nonsense and putting things off—and see what happens!” said Prince Andrew irritably in a whisper, clearly intending to hurt his sister.

“My dear, really… it’s better not to wake him… he’s asleep,” said the princess pleadingly.

Prince Andrew got up and silently tiptoed to the child’s bed, wineglass in hand.

“Perhaps it really is best not to wake him,” he said, hesitating.

“As you wish… really… I think so… but as you like,” said Princess Mary, apparently flustered and embarrassed that her opinion had been followed. She drew her brother’s attention to the maid, who was calling him in a whisper.

It was now their second sleepless night, watching over the feverish boy. Distrusting the household doctor and waiting for another from town, they had been trying different remedies in turn. Exhausted from lack of sleep and anxiety, they shifted the weight of their distress onto each other, disputing and reproaching one another.

“Pétrusha has come with papers from your father,” whispered the maid.

Prince Andrew went out.

“Devil take them!” he muttered, and after listening to the instructions his father had sent and collecting the correspondence and letter, he returned to the nursery.

“Well?” he asked.

“Still the same. Wait, for heaven’s sake. Karl Ivánich always says sleep is the most important thing,” Princess Mary whispered with a sigh.

Prince Andrew approached the child and felt his forehead. He was burning hot.

“Damn you and your Karl Ivánich!” He took the glass of medicine and went back to the cot.

“Andrew, don’t!” said Princess Mary.

But he glared at her angrily, although suffering was also clear in his eyes, and bent with the glass over the boy.

“But I want to,” he said. “I beg you—give it to him!”

Princess Mary shrugged but took the glass and, calling the nurse, began giving the medicine. The child screamed hoarsely. Prince Andrew winced, clutched his head, went out, and sat on a sofa in the next room.

He still held all the letters. Opening them mechanically, he began to read. The old prince, often using abbreviations, wrote in his large, flowing hand on blue paper as follows:

Have just this moment received by special messenger very joyful news—if it’s not false. Bennigsen seems to have obtained a complete victory over Buonaparte at Eylau. In Petersburg everyone is rejoicing, and the rewards sent to the army are innumerable. Though he is a German—I congratulate him! I can’t make out what the commander at Kórchevo—a certain Khandrikóv—is up to; till now the additional men and provisions have not arrived. Gallop off to him at once and say I’ll have his head off if everything is not here in a week. Have received another letter about the Preussisch-Eylau battle from Pétenka—he took part in it—and it’s all true. When mischief-makers don’t meddle even a German beats Buonaparte. He is said to be fleeing in great disorder. Mind you gallop off to Kórchevo without delay and carry out instructions!

Prince Andrew sighed and broke the seal of another envelope. It was a closely-written letter of two sheets from Bilíbin. He folded it up without reading it and reread his father’s letter, which ended: “Gallop off to Kórchevo and carry out instructions!”

“No, excuse me, I won’t go now until the child is better,” he thought, going to the door and looking into the nursery.

Princess Mary still stood by the cot, gently rocking the baby.

“Ah yes, what else did he say that’s unpleasant?” Prince Andrew thought, recalling his father’s letter. “Yes, we have gained a victory over Bonaparte, and it’s right when I’m not serving. Yes, yes, he is always mocking me… Well! Let him!” And he began reading Bilíbin’s letter, which was written in French. He hardly understood half of it, reading only to distract himself, if only for a moment, from what he had been painfully dwelling upon to the exclusion of all else.

##  CHAPTER IX

Bilíbin was now at army headquarters in a diplomatic role, and though he wrote in French and used French jokes and expressions, he described the entire campaign with a fearless self-criticism and self-mockery that was genuinely Russian. Bilíbin wrote that the burden of diplomatic secrecy tormented him, and he was glad to have Prince Andrew as a trustworthy correspondent to whom he could vent all the bitterness he had built up at the sight of everything happening in the army. The letter was old, having been written before the battle at Preussisch-Eylau.

“Since the day of our brilliant success at Austerlitz,” wrote Bilíbin, “as you know, my dear prince, I haven’t left headquarters. I have certainly developed a taste for war, and it’s just as well for me; what I’ve seen in these last three months is unbelievable.

“I’ll begin *ab ovo*. ‘The enemy of the human race,’ as you know, attacks the Prussians. The Prussians are our loyal allies, who have only betrayed us three times in three years. We take up their cause, but it turns out that ‘the enemy of the human race’ pays no attention to our fine speeches and, in his rough and wild way, throws himself on the Prussians without giving them time to finish the parade they’d started, and in two quick moves he crushes them and installs himself in the palace at Potsdam.

“‘I most ardently desire,’ writes the King of Prussia to Bonaparte, ‘that Your Majesty should be received and treated in my palace in a manner agreeable to yourself, and as circumstances allowed, I have hastened to take all steps to that end. May I have succeeded!’ The Prussian generals are proud of being polite to the French and surrender at the first request.

“The head of the garrison at Glogau, with ten thousand men, asks the King of Prussia what to do if he’s called upon to surrender…. All this is absolutely true.

“In short, hoping to resolve things by taking up a warlike stance, we find ourselves in a war, and what’s more, in a war on our own borders, *with* and *for* the King of Prussia. Everything is in perfect order here, except for one little thing: a commander in chief. Since it was thought that the Austerlitz victory might have been more decisive if the commander in chief hadn’t been so young, all our octogenarians were considered, and between Prozoróvski and Kámenski, the latter was chosen. Our general arrives, Suvórov-style, in a *kibítka*, and is received with cheers and celebration.

“On the 4th, the first courier arrives from Petersburg. The mail is delivered to the field marshal’s room, since he likes to deal with everything himself. I’m called in to help sort the letters and take those meant for us. The field marshal looks on, waiting for his own letters. We search, but find none addressed to him. The field marshal grows impatient, starts searching himself, and finds letters from the Emperor to Count T., Prince V., and others. Then he throws one of his wild fits, rages at everyone and everything, grabs the letters, opens them, and reads those from the Emperor addressed to others. ‘Ah! So that’s how they treat me! No confidence in me! Ah, they’re told to keep an eye on me! Very well then! Out of my sight!’ So he writes the famous order of the day to General Bennigsen:

“‘I’m wounded and can’t ride and therefore can’t command the army. You’ve brought your army corps to Pultúsk, beaten: here it is exposed, and without fuel or forage, so something must be done, and, as you yourself reported to Count Buxhöwden yesterday, you must consider retreating to our frontier—do so today.’

“‘From all my riding,’ he writes to the Emperor, ‘I’ve developed a saddle sore, which, after all my previous travels, completely prevents me from riding and commanding such a large army, so I’ve passed the command to the general next in seniority, Count Buxhöwden, having sent him my whole staff and everything pertaining to it, advising him if bread is short to move further into the interior of Prussia, as only one day’s ration remains, and in some regiments none at all, as reported by division commanders Ostermann and Sedmorétzki, and all the peasants’ stores have been exhausted. I myself will remain in hospital at Ostrolenka until I recover. In this connection, I humbly submit my report, informing you that if the army stays in its current bivouac two weeks longer there won’t be a healthy man left by spring.

“‘Grant leave to retire to his country estate to an old man already disgraced by being unable to fulfill the great and glorious task for which he was chosen. I will await your gracious permission here in hospital, so I don’t have to play the part of a *secretary* rather than *commander* in the army. My removal does not cause the slightest commotion—a blind man has left. There are thousands like me in Russia.’

“The field marshal is angry with the Emperor, and so he punishes us all—isn’t that logical?

“This is the first act. The following acts are, of course, even more interesting and amusing. After the field marshal’s departure it turns out that we’re within sight of the enemy and must fight. Buxhöwden is commander in chief by seniority, but General Bennigsen doesn’t quite accept that; especially since he and his corps are facing the enemy, and he wants to seize the opportunity to fight ‘on his own hand,’ as the Germans say. He does so. This is the battle of Pultúsk, called a great victory, but in my opinion it was nothing of the sort. We civilians, as you know, have a very crude method for judging a battle’s outcome. Those who retreat after a battle have lost, is what we say; and by that rule, we lost the battle of Pultúsk. In short, we retreat after the fight, but send a courier to Petersburg with victory news, and General Bennigsen, hoping to get the post of commander in chief as a reward, doesn’t yield command to General Buxhöwden. During this gap in authority, we begin a very unusual and interesting series of maneuvers. Our goal is no longer, as it should be, to avoid or attack the real enemy, but simply to avoid General Buxhöwden, who by seniority should be our leader. We pursue this so vigorously that after crossing an unfordable river we burn the bridges to separate ourselves from our enemy—who at the moment is not Bonaparte, but Buxhöwden. General Buxhöwden was nearly attacked and captured by a superior enemy force thanks to one of these maneuvers that helped us escape him. Buxhöwden chases us—we run. He barely crosses the river to our side before we cross back to the other. Finally, our enemy, Buxhöwden, catches up and attacks us. Both generals are furious, leading to a challenge from Buxhöwden and an epileptic fit from Bennigsen. But at the crucial moment, the courier returns from Petersburg with news of our victory at Pultúsk and with Bennigsen’s appointment as commander in chief—and our first foe, Buxhöwden, is defeated; now we can turn to our second, Bonaparte. But just then, another enemy appears—the *Orthodox Russian soldiers*, who loudly demand bread, meat, biscuits, fodder, and everything else! Supplies are gone, roads are impassable. The Orthodox start looting, in a manner our last campaign can’t compare with. Half the regiments split off, raid the countryside, and burn and plunder everything. The population is ruined, hospitals are overflowing, and famine is everywhere. Twice, marauders even attack our headquarters, and the commander in chief has to request a battalion to scatter them. During one of these attacks, they carried off my empty portmanteau and my dressing gown. The Emperor proposes giving all division commanders authority to shoot marauders, but I rather fear this will require one half of the army to shoot the other.”

At first Prince Andrew read only with his eyes, but after a while, in spite of himself (even though he knew how far he could trust Bilíbin), what he read began to interest him more and more. When he had read this far, he crumpled the letter and threw it away. It wasn’t the contents that upset him, but the fact that life there, in which he now had no part, could still disturb him. He closed his eyes, rubbed his forehead as if to rid himself of all interest in what he’d read, and listened to the nursery. Suddenly he thought he heard a strange noise through the door. He was gripped by fear that something had happened to the child while he’d been reading the letter. He walked quietly to the nursery door and opened it.

Just as he entered, he saw the nurse hiding something from him with a frightened expression, and Princess Mary was no longer beside the cradle.

“My dear,” he heard what sounded like her despairing whisper behind him.

As often happens after long sleeplessness and anxiety, he was seized by an unreasoning panic—it struck him that the child was dead. Everything he saw and heard seemed to confirm this fear.

“All is over,” he thought, as a cold sweat broke out on his forehead. He went to the cradle in confusion, sure it would be empty and that the nurse was hiding the dead baby. He drew back the curtain and for a while, his anxious, restless eyes couldn’t find the baby. At last, he saw him: the rosy boy had tossed about until he lay across the bed with his head lower than the pillow, smacking his lips in his sleep and breathing evenly.

Prince Andrew was as relieved to find the boy like that as if he had already lost him. He bent over and, as his sister had taught him, gently touched the child’s forehead with his lips to see if there was still a fever. The soft skin was damp. Andrew felt the child’s head with his hand; even the hair was wet from heavy perspiration. He was not dead, but clearly the crisis had passed and he was recovering. Prince Andrew wanted desperately to snatch up, squeeze, and hold this helpless little being to his heart, but he dared not. He stood there, gazing at the child’s head and the little arms and legs visible under the blanket. He heard a rustle behind him and saw a shadow appear under the curtain of the cot. He didn’t look back, but, still watching the child’s face, listened to his regular breathing. The shadow was Princess Mary, who approached quietly, lifted the curtain, and let it fall behind her. Prince Andrew recognized her without looking and held out his hand. She pressed it.

“He has sweated,” said Prince Andrew.

“I was coming to tell you so.”

The child shifted in his sleep, smiled, and rubbed his forehead against the pillow.

Prince Andrew looked at his sister. In the dim light of the curtain, her shining eyes were brighter than usual with tears of joy. She bent over to her brother and kissed him, accidentally brushing the curtain of the cot. They each made a warning gesture and stood still in the gentle light under the curtain, as if wishing never to leave that small world they shared. Prince Andrew was the first to turn away, ruffling his hair against the muslin curtain.

“Yes, this is the one thing left to me now,” he said with a sigh.

##  CHAPTER X

Soon after joining the Masonic Brotherhood, Pierre traveled to the Kiev province, where he had the largest number of serfs. He brought with him detailed instructions he had written for himself on how to manage his estates.

Upon his arrival in Kiev, he summoned all his stewards to the main office and explained his intentions and wishes. He told them that steps would immediately be taken to free his serfs—and until then, they should not be overworked. Women caring for infants were not to be sent to labor, help should be given to the serfs, punishments were to be admonitory rather than physical, and hospitals, asylums, and schools were to be set up on every estate. Some of the stewards (there were barely literate foremen among them) listened with alarm, believing these proposals meant the young count was unhappy with their management or suspected them of embezzlement. Some, after their initial fright, found amusement in Pierre’s lisp and the new words he used, while others simply enjoyed hearing how their master spoke. The most perceptive, including the chief steward, understood from his speech how best to manipulate their master for their own benefit.

The chief steward expressed great sympathy with Pierre’s plans but pointed out that, aside from these reforms, the overall state of affairs was far from satisfactory and needed attention.

Despite Count Bezúkhov’s vast fortune—since he inherited an income said to be five hundred thousand rubles a year—Pierre felt poorer than when his father gave him an allowance of ten thousand rubles. He had only a vague understanding of his finances:

About 80,000 rubles went as payments on all the estates to the Land Bank; about 30,000 was spent on maintaining the estate near Moscow, the town house, and allowances to the three princesses; about 15,000 was paid in pensions, with the same amount for asylums; 150,000 rubles in alimony to the countess; about 70,000 for interest on debts. The construction of a new church, already begun, had cost about 10,000 in each of the past two years, and he had no idea where the rest—about 100,000 rubles—was going. Almost every year he needed to borrow money. In addition, every year the chief steward wrote to him about fires and bad harvests or the need to rebuild factories and workshops. So, Pierre’s first challenge was one for which he had little talent or desire—practical business.

He discussed estate matters daily with his chief steward, but felt this achieved nothing. These meetings seemed detached from actual affairs, not advancing or connecting with them. On one hand, the chief steward described matters in the worst possible light, stressing the need to pay off debts and begin new projects with serf labor, which Pierre opposed. On the other hand, Pierre insisted on steps to free the serfs, but the steward answered by saying the loans from the Land Bank must be paid off first—making emancipation impossible for now.

The steward never said outright it was impossible, but suggested selling the forests in the Kostromá province, the riverside land, and the Crimean estate to make it possible. Each of these, however, supposedly involved such complex procedures—lifting bans, petitions, permits, and so on—that Pierre was left bewildered, only replying:

“Yes, yes, do so.”

Pierre lacked the practical persistence to see to business himself, and so he avoided it, merely pretending to the steward that he was attending to it. The steward, for his part, pretended he found these meetings quite valuable for the proprietor and troublesome for himself.

In Kiev, Pierre found some acquaintances, and strangers hurried to be introduced to him, joyfully welcoming the wealthy newcomer, the province’s largest landowner. Temptations to Pierre’s chief weakness—the one he admitted upon entering the Lodge—were so great that he could not resist. Again, whole days, weeks, and months of his life flew by, just as busy as his time in Petersburg, filled with evening parties, dinners, lunches, and balls, leaving him no time for reflection. Instead of the new life he had hoped to begin, he found himself living the old life, only in a different place.

Of the three tenets of Freemasonry, Pierre realized he failed to live up to the one instructing every Mason to be a model of moral conduct, and that of the seven virtues, he was lacking two—morality and the love of death. He reassured himself that he did practice another tenet—reforming humanity—and had other virtues: love for his neighbor and especially generosity.

In spring 1807, he decided to return to Petersburg. On the way, he planned to visit all his estates, to see for himself how well his orders had been carried out and to observe the state of the serfs whom God had entrusted to his care—and whom he hoped to help.

The chief steward, who thought the young count’s efforts were nearly insane and a loss for himself, the count, and the serfs, made some concessions. Continuing to depict the liberation of the serfs as impossible, he arranged for the construction of large buildings—schools, hospitals, and asylums—on every estate before the master arrived. Preparations were made not for grand ceremonies (which he knew Pierre would dislike), but for displays of gratitude and religious devotion, with offerings of icons and bread and salt, as, in his opinion, would move and fool his master.

The southern spring, the comfort of quick travel in a Viennese carriage, and the solitude of the journey all had a cheering effect on Pierre. The estates he had never visited before were each more beautiful than the last; everywhere, the serfs seemed healthy and deeply grateful for the benefits they received. The receptions, though they embarrassed Pierre, sparked a joyful feeling deep in his heart. In one place, the peasants gave him bread and salt and an icon of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, asking to build a new chapel at their own expense, in honor of Peter and Paul, his patron saints. In another, women with babies in their arms greeted him to thank him for freeing them from heavy work. On a third estate, the priest, carrying a cross, came to welcome him, surrounded by children whom, thanks to the count’s generosity, he was teaching to read, write, and learn religion. On all his estates, Pierre saw new or half-finished brick buildings, all built to the same plan, for hospitals, schools, and almshouses—awaiting opening. Everywhere, he saw the stewards’ reports showing that manorial labor for the serfs had supposedly been reduced, and heard heartfelt thanks from groups of serfs in their traditional blue coats.

What Pierre did not know was that the place where he was presented with bread and salt and asked about building a chapel to Peter and Paul was a market village where a fair was held on St. Peter’s day, and that the wealthiest peasants (who made up the delegation) had started the chapel long before, while nine-tenths of the peasants there were in deep poverty. He did not know that the nursing mothers, no longer sent to do manorial labor, were now working even harder on their own small plots. He was unaware that the priest who greeted him with the cross actually oppressed the peasants with his demands, and that the parents of the children resented having to let him take them, buying their release at a high cost. He didn’t know that the brick buildings, built according to plan, were being erected by serfs whose manorial burdens were thus increased, only made to look reduced on paper. He did not know that where the steward’s reports showed serfs’ dues had been cut by a third, their compulsory labor had, in fact, been increased by half. So Pierre was delighted with his tour of his estates and completely regained the philanthropic spirit with which he’d left Petersburg, writing enthusiastic letters to his “brother-instructor,” as he called the Grand Master.

“How easy it is, how little effort is needed to do so much good,” Pierre thought, “and how little attention we normally give it!”

He was pleased by the gratitude he received, though it made him feel awkward. This gratitude reminded him of all he could still do for these simple, kind people.

The chief steward, a rather stupid but cunning man who saw right through the naïve and intelligent count and played with him like a toy, noticed how much these prearranged welcomes affected Pierre, and pressed him even harder with evidence of the supposed impossibility and above all the uselessness of freeing the serfs, who he insisted were perfectly happy as things stood.

Pierre, deep down, agreed with the steward that it was hard to imagine happier people, and that only God knew what would happen if they were freed, but he kept insisting, though without much conviction, on what he believed was right. The steward promised to do all he could to fulfill the count’s wishes, feeling sure that Pierre would never be able to find out whether all necessary steps had been taken to sell lands and forests or clear them from the Land Bank, and would probably never even ask, never knowing that the new buildings stood empty and that the serfs were still giving in money and labor as much as serfs elsewhere—that is, as much as could possibly be taken from them.

##  CHAPTER XI

Returning from his journey through South Russia in a particularly happy state of mind, Pierre finally fulfilled his long-standing intention of visiting his friend Bolkónski, whom he hadn’t seen in two years.

Boguchárovo was set in a flat, rather unremarkable part of the country, surrounded by fields and partially cleared fir and birch forests. The house stood behind a newly dug pond, filled right up to the edge with water and bordered by bare banks not yet covered with grass. It was at the end of a village stretched along the highroad, nestled within a young copse dotted with a few fir trees.

The estate consisted of a threshing floor, various outbuildings, stables, a bathhouse, a lodge, and a large brick house with a semicircular façade which was still being completed. Around the house was a recently planted garden. The fences and gates were new and sturdy; two fire pumps and a water cart, painted green, stood in a shed; the paths were straight, and the bridges were solid and had handrails. Everything showed signs of orderliness and good management. Some household serfs whom Pierre met, when asked where the prince lived, pointed to a small newly built lodge near the pond. Antón, the man who had cared for Prince Andrew in his youth, helped Pierre out of his carriage, said the prince was at home, and led him into a neat little anteroom.

Pierre was struck by the simplicity of the small but clean house, especially after the luxury where he had last seen his friend in Petersburg.

He quickly entered the modest reception room, its unplastered wooden walls still smelling of pine, and would have gone farther, but Antón hurried ahead on tiptoe and knocked on a door.

“Well, what is it?” came a sharp, unpleasant voice.

“A visitor,” answered Antón.

“Ask him to wait,” followed by the sound of a chair being pushed back.

Pierre quickly approached the door and suddenly found himself face to face with Prince Andrew, who appeared frowning and aged. Pierre embraced him, lifted his spectacles, kissed his friend on the cheek, and studied him closely.

“Well, I didn’t expect you. I’m very glad,” said Prince Andrew.

Pierre said nothing; he looked closely at his friend, surprised. He was struck by the changes in him. Though Prince Andrew’s words were kindly and he smiled, his eyes were dull and lifeless; despite his efforts, he couldn’t make them shine with joy. Prince Andrew was thinner, paler, and more striking in appearance, but what truly surprised and distanced Pierre, until he adjusted, was the prince’s inertia and a furrowed brow showing the effects of long-term concentration on a single thought.

As often happens with people meeting after a long separation, it took a while for their conversation to find its rhythm. They asked questions and gave brief answers about topics they both knew deserved more discussion. Eventually, the conversation settled on subjects first touched on lightly: their past lives, future plans, Pierre’s travels and activities, the war, and more. The distracted sadness Pierre had seen in his friend’s look now showed even more clearly in his smile, especially when Pierre spoke animatedly about the past or future. It was as if Prince Andrew wanted to share Pierre’s feelings, but simply couldn’t. Pierre soon felt it was in poor taste to talk about his enthusiasms, dreams, and hopes for happiness or virtue in Andrew’s company. He was embarrassed to mention his renewed and strengthened Masonic beliefs after his recent trip. He held back, afraid of seeming naïve, yet he felt a restless urge to show his friend how much he had changed for the better since Petersburg.

“I can’t tell you how much I’ve experienced since then. I hardly recognize myself.”

“Yes, we’ve changed a lot, very much, since then,” said Prince Andrew.

“Well, and you? What are your plans?”

“Plans!” Prince Andrew repeated ironically. “My plans?” he said, as if surprised to even hear the word. “Well, you see, I’m building. I plan to settle here for good next year….”

Pierre looked silently and searchingly into Prince Andrew’s face, which was much older now.

“No, I meant to ask…” Pierre began, but Prince Andrew interrupted.

“But why talk about me?… Talk to me—yes, tell me about your travels and what you’ve been doing with your estates.”

Pierre began describing the work he had done on his estates, trying to downplay his own role in the improvements. Prince Andrew occasionally encouraged Pierre’s story, as though it were all a tale from long ago, and he listened not just disinterestedly, but almost as if embarrassed by what Pierre was telling him.

Pierre soon felt awkward and even depressed in his friend’s company and eventually fell silent.

“I’ll tell you what, my dear fellow,” said Prince Andrew, who clearly also felt uncomfortable with his guest, “I’m only temporarily living here and have just come to look around. I’m going back to my sister today. I’ll introduce you to her. But of course you already know her,” he said, clearly trying to entertain a guest with whom he now felt little in common. “We’ll go after dinner. Would you like to look around my place now?”

They went out and walked about until dinnertime, talking politics and mutual acquaintances like people not closely connected. Prince Andrew spoke with some energy and interest only about the new estate he was building and its structures, but even there, while showing off the scaffolding and explaining the planned arrangements of the house, he broke off:

“However, this really isn’t interesting. Let’s have dinner, and then we’ll set off.”

During dinner, the conversation turned to Pierre’s marriage.

“I was very surprised to hear about it,” said Prince Andrew.

Pierre blushed, as he always did whenever it came up, and said hurriedly, “I’ll tell you later how it all happened. But you know, it’s all over—and forever.”

“Forever?” said Prince Andrew. “Nothing is forever.”

“But you do know how it ended, don’t you? You heard about the duel?”

“So you had to go through that too!”

“One thing I thank God for is that I didn’t kill that man,” said Pierre.

“Why is that?” asked Prince Andrew. “Killing a vicious dog is often a very good thing, really.”

“No, to kill a man is wrong—bad.”

“Why is it wrong?” pressed Prince Andrew. “People can’t know what’s truly right or wrong. Men have always made mistakes about that, and always will—especially about what’s right and wrong.”

“What harms someone else is wrong,” said Pierre, pleased that for the first time since his arrival Prince Andrew was animated and eager to talk about what was really on his mind.

“And who has told you what’s bad for someone else?” asked Prince Andrew.

“Bad! Bad!” exclaimed Pierre. “We all know what’s bad for ourselves.”

“Yes, we know that, but the harm I’m aware of in myself, I can’t inflict on others,” said Prince Andrew, getting more passionate and eager to share his new perspective with Pierre. He switched to French. “I know of only two real evils in life: remorse and illness. The only good is being without those two evils. Living just to avoid them—that’s my new philosophy.”

“And what about loving your neighbor, and self-sacrifice?” began Pierre. “No, I just can’t agree with you! Living only to avoid evil and regret isn’t enough. I lived like that—I lived for myself and ruined my life. Only now that I’m living, or at least trying” (Pierre’s humility made him correct himself) “to live for others, do I understand life’s happiness. No, I won’t agree, and you can’t really believe what you’re saying.” Prince Andrew looked at Pierre in silence with an ironic smile.

“When you meet my sister, Princess Mary, you’ll get along with her,” he said. “Maybe you’re right for yourself,” he added after a short pause, “but everyone lives in their own way. You lived for yourself and say you nearly ruined your life and only found happiness when you started living for others. For me, it was the opposite. I lived for glory.—And what is glory, really? Just another form of seeking love from others, a desire to do something for them, a wish for their approval.—So I lived for others, and not almost, but entirely, ruined my life. And I’ve become calmer since I started living only for myself.”

“But what do you mean by living only for yourself?” asked Pierre, getting more animated. “What about your son, your sister, and your father?”

“But that’s all the same as myself—they aren’t *others*,” Prince Andrew explained. “The others, our neighbors, *le prochain*, as you and Princess Mary call them, are the main source of all error and evil. *Le prochain*—your Kiev peasants whom you want to help.”

He looked at Pierre with a mocking, challenging expression. He clearly wanted to provoke him.

“You’re joking,” replied Pierre, growing more and more passionate. “What error or evil could there be in my wanting to do good, and even doing a little—though I did very little and did it badly? What harm is there if unfortunate people, our serfs, people like us, were growing up and dying with no idea of God or truth except empty rituals and prayers, and now are taught a comforting faith in a future life, justice, reward, and consolation? What’s wrong with it, if people were dying of illness without help, but I provided a doctor, a hospital, and a home for the elderly? Isn’t it obviously good if a peasant or a mother with a baby gets no rest day or night, and I give them a break and some leisure?” Pierre said, speaking quickly, his words tumbling out. “I’ve done that, though badly and on a small scale; but I’ve done something, and you can’t convince me it wasn’t good, and even more, I know you don’t really believe otherwise. And more than anything,” he went on, “I know for certain that the joy of doing good is the only true happiness in life.”

“Yes, if you put it that way, it’s a different matter,” said Prince Andrew. “I build a house and lay out a garden, and you build hospitals. Either can be a pastime. But what’s right and good can only be judged by someone who knows everything, not by us. Well, you want an argument,” he added, “let’s have one, then.”

They left the table and sat down in the front porch, which served as a veranda.

“Come, let’s argue then,” said Prince Andrew. “You mention schools,” he continued, folding a finger, “education and so on; you want to lift him”—pointing to a peasant passing by, doffing his cap—“from his animal condition and stir spiritual needs in him, but I think that animal happiness is the only real kind for him, and that’s exactly what you want to take away. I envy him, but you want to make him what I am—without giving him my resources. Then you say, ‘lighten his toil.’ But I see it that physical labor is as necessary for him—a condition of his existence—as thinking is for you or me. You can’t help thinking. I go to bed after two in the morning, my mind won’t stop, so I toss and turn till dawn, and it’s because I can’t stop thinking, just like he can’t help plowing and mowing; if he didn’t, he’d end up at the tavern or get sick. Just as I couldn’t stand his hard labor—I’d die from it in a week—so he couldn’t handle my idleness, he’d get fat and die. The third thing—what else did you mention?” Prince Andrew folded a third finger. “Ah, yes, hospitals and medicine. He has a seizure, he’s dying, and you come and bleed him and patch him up. He’ll stagger about as a cripple, a burden to everyone, for another ten years. It would be much easier and simpler for him to die. More are born every day, there’s no shortage of them. It’d be different if you were worried about losing a laborer—that’s my view of him—but you want to cure him out of love. And he doesn’t want that. And besides, what an idea that medicine actually cured anyone! Killed them, yes!” he said, frowning angrily and turning away from Pierre.

Prince Andrew laid out his thoughts so clearly and precisely that it was obvious he’d thought about this before, and he spoke quickly and easily, like someone who hasn’t talked in a long time. His look became more animated as his reasoning grew steadily darker.

“Oh, that’s terrible, so terrible!” said Pierre. “I don’t see how anyone can live with such beliefs. I’ve had such moments myself not long ago, in Moscow and while traveling, but then I collapse—I can’t live at all; everything seems hateful… most of all myself. I won’t eat, won’t wash… and how is it with you?…”

“Why not wash? That’s not clean,” said Prince Andrew. “On the contrary, one should try to make life as pleasant as possible. I’m alive, that’s not my fault, so I must live my life as well as I can and not harm anyone.”

“But with those kinds of views, what reason do you have for living? One would just sit still, doing nothing….”

“Life as it is doesn’t give you any rest. I’d be glad to do nothing, but here, for example, the local nobility have honored me by choosing me as their marshal; it took all I had to turn it down. They couldn’t understand I lack the qualities—the easy, good-natured fussiness—that are required for the job. Then there’s this house that needs to be built so I can have a bit of peace for myself. And now there’s this recruiting.”

“Why aren’t you serving in the army?”

“After Austerlitz!” Prince Andrew said darkly. “No, thank you! I promised myself I wouldn’t serve again in the active Russian army. And I won’t—not even if Bonaparte were here at Smolensk threatening Bald Hills—even then I wouldn't serve in the Russian army! Anyway, as I was saying,” he continued, collecting himself, “now there’s this recruiting. My father is the chief of the Third District, and the only way I can avoid actual service is to serve under him.”

“So you are serving?”

“I am.”

He hesitated for a moment.

“And why are you serving?”

“Because of this! My father is one of the most remarkable men of our time. But he’s getting old and, while not exactly cruel, is very forceful. He’s so used to absolute authority that he’s become terrifying, and now he has this power as commander in chief of recruitment, granted by the Emperor. If I had been two hours late a fortnight ago, he would have had a paymaster’s clerk at Yukhnovna hanged,” Prince Andrew said with a smile. “So I’m serving because only I can influence my father, and sometimes I can stop him from doing things that would haunt him later.”

“Well, you see!”

“Yes, but it’s not how you think,” Prince Andrew went on. “I didn’t, and don’t, care a bit about that scoundrel of a clerk who stole boots from the recruits; in fact, I’d have been happy to see him hanged, but I was sorry for my father—that again, is for myself.”

Prince Andrew grew more and more lively. His eyes shone feverishly as he tried to prove to Pierre that none of his actions came from a desire to help his neighbor.

“There it is—you want to free your serfs,” he continued. “That’s a good thing, but not for you—I doubt you ever had anyone flogged or sent to Siberia—and much less for your serfs. If they’re beaten or sent to Siberia, I doubt they’re any worse off. In Siberia, they live the same basic life, the marks heal, and they’re as happy as before. But it’s good for landowners, who can otherwise destroy themselves morally, become remorseful, suppress that remorse, and grow numb, just because they have the power to punish rightly or wrongly. It’s those people I pity, and for their sake, I’d like to free the serfs. You might not have seen it, but I have seen good men brought up with these traditions of absolute power, who as they age, get stricter and crueler, are aware of it but can’t stop, and become more and more miserable.”

Prince Andrew spoke so sincerely that Pierre couldn’t help but think these thoughts were inspired by Andrew’s father.

He said nothing.

“That’s what I feel sorry for—human dignity, peace of mind, purity—not the serfs’ backs and foreheads, which, no matter how much you beat or shave them, are always the same.”

“No, no! A thousand times no! I can never agree with you,” said Pierre.

##  CHAPTER XII

In the evening, Andrew and Pierre got into the open carriage and rode to Bald Hills. Prince Andrew, glancing at Pierre, occasionally broke the silence with remarks that showed he was in a good mood.

Pointing to the fields, he spoke about the improvements he was making in his farming.

Pierre remained silently gloomy, answering only in monosyllables, seemingly lost in his own thoughts.

He was thinking that Prince Andrew was unhappy, had lost his way, didn’t see the true light, and that he, Pierre, should help, enlighten, and lift him up. But as soon as he thought of what to say, he felt that Prince Andrew, with just one word or argument, could overturn all his ideas, and he hesitated to begin—afraid to expose what was precious and sacred to him to possible ridicule.

“No, but why do you think so?” Pierre suddenly said, lowering his head and looking like a bull about to charge, “why do you think so? You shouldn’t think that way.”

“Think? About what?” asked Prince Andrew in surprise.

“About life, about man’s destiny. It can’t be like that. I used to think that way myself, and do you know what saved me? Freemasonry! No, don’t laugh. Freemasonry isn’t some religious ceremonial sect, like I thought it was. Freemasonry is the best expression of the highest, eternal aspects of humanity.”

And he began explaining Freemasonry as he understood it to Prince Andrew. He said that Freemasonry is the teaching of Christianity freed from the constraints of State and Church, a teaching about equality, brotherhood, and love.

“Only our holy brotherhood gives life real meaning—everything else is just a dream,” said Pierre. “Understand, my dear friend, that outside this union everything is full of deceit and falsehood. I agree with you that, for an intelligent and good man, nothing is left but to spend life, like you, simply trying not to harm others. But take our basic convictions to heart, join our brotherhood, give yourself to us, let us guide you, and right away, you’ll feel, as I have, like part of that vast invisible chain whose beginning is hidden in heaven,” Pierre said.

Prince Andrew, looking straight ahead, listened quietly to Pierre’s words. More than once, when the noise of the wheels kept him from catching what Pierre said, he asked him to repeat it. By the unusual glow in Prince Andrew’s eyes and his silence, Pierre realized his words weren't in vain, and that Andrew wouldn’t interrupt or laugh at what he said.

They reached a river that had overflowed its banks, which they had to cross by ferry. While the carriage and horses were being placed on it, they also stepped onto the raft.

Prince Andrew, leaning his arms on the railing, gazed silently at the flooded waters sparkling in the setting sun.

“Well, what do you think?” Pierre asked. “Why are you so quiet?”

“What do I think? I’m listening to you. It’s all fine... You say: join our brotherhood and we’ll show you the purpose of life, the destiny of man, and the laws that govern the world. But who are *we?* Just people. How is it you know everything? Why is it only I don’t see what you see? You see a reign of goodness and truth on earth, but I don’t see it.”

Pierre interrupted.

“Do you believe in an afterlife?” he asked.

“An afterlife?” Prince Andrew repeated, but Pierre, not letting him answer, took the repetition as a denial—especially since he knew about Prince Andrew’s earlier atheistic beliefs.

“You say you can’t see goodness and truth ruling on earth. Neither could I, and you simply can’t, if you look at this life as the end of everything. Here—on *earth*" (Pierre pointed to the fields), “there is no truth; all is false and evil. But in the universe, in the entire universe, there is a kingdom of truth, and we who are now of the earth are—eternally—children of the whole universe. Don’t I feel in my soul that I am part of that vast harmonious whole? Don’t I feel that I am one link, one step, between lower and higher beings in this grand chain where the Deity—the Supreme Power, if you prefer—is revealed? If I clearly see that ladder leading from a plant up to a man, why should I suppose it stops with me and goes no further? I feel I cannot vanish, because nothing vanishes in this world. I will always exist and always have existed. I feel that, beyond and above me, there are spirits, and that truth exists in the world.”

“Yes, that’s Herder’s theory,” said Prince Andrew, “but that’s not what convinces me, my friend—it's life and death that convince. What convinces is when someone dear to you, intertwined with your own life, someone you wanted to set things right with” (Prince Andrew's voice trembled and he turned away), “and suddenly that person is seized with pain, suffers, and is gone… Why? There must be an answer, and I believe there is... That’s what convinces me,” said Prince Andrew.

“Yes, yes, of course,” said Pierre, “isn’t that what I’m saying?”

“No. All I’m saying is that it’s not arguments that convince me about the need for an afterlife; it’s this: when you’re walking together with someone and suddenly that person disappears—*there, into nowhere*—and you’re left at the edge of that abyss, looking in. And I have looked in...”

“Well, that’s it! You know there is a *there*, and there is a *Someone*! The *there* is the afterlife. The *Someone* is God.”

Prince Andrew didn’t reply. The carriage and horses had long been unloaded on the far bank and reharnessed. The sun had sunk halfway below the horizon, and an evening frost was forming stars on the puddles near the ferry. But Pierre and Andrew, to the surprise of the footmen, coachmen, and ferrymen, still stood on the raft talking.

“If there’s a God and an afterlife, then there is truth and goodness, and man’s highest happiness is to strive for them. We must live, we must love, and we must believe that we exist not only today, on this scrap of earth, but have lived and always will live, there, in the Whole,” said Pierre, pointing to the sky.

Prince Andrew stood leaning on the raft railing listening to Pierre, his eyes fixed on the red reflection of the sun shining on the blue waters. There was complete stillness. Pierre became silent. The raft had long since stopped, and only the waves of the current softly beat against it below. Prince Andrew felt as if the sound of the waves continued a refrain to Pierre’s words, whispering:

“It is true, believe it.”

He sighed and glanced at Pierre’s face with a bright, childlike, tender look—Pierre’s face was flushed, full of enthusiasm, yet still shy before his admired friend.

“Yes, if only it were so!” said Prince Andrew. “Anyway, it’s time to get going,” he added, and, stepping off the raft, he looked up at the sky where Pierre had pointed, and for the first time since Austerlitz saw that high, eternal sky he’d seen while lying on the battlefield; and something that had long been dormant—something that was the best within him—suddenly awakened, joyful and youthful, in his soul. It vanished as soon as he returned to his usual life, but he knew that this feeling, which he did not yet know how to develop, existed within him. His meeting with Pierre became a turning point in Prince Andrew’s life. Though outwardly he continued as before, inwardly, he began a new life.

##  CHAPTER XIII

It was getting dark when Prince Andrew and Pierre arrived at the front entrance of the house at Bald Hills. As they approached, Prince Andrew, smiling, pointed out to Pierre a commotion happening at the back porch. An elderly woman, hunched with age and carrying a wallet on her back, along with a young, long-haired man in a black garment, had rushed back toward the gate as soon as they saw the carriage approaching. Two women ran out after them, and all four, glancing back at the carriage, hurried anxiously up the steps of the back porch.

“Those are Mary’s ‘God’s folk,’” said Prince Andrew. “They have mistaken us for my father. This is the one area in which she disobeys him. He orders these pilgrims to be turned away, but she welcomes them.”

“But who are ‘God’s folk’?” Pierre asked.

Prince Andrew didn’t have time to answer. The servants came out to greet them, and he asked where the old prince was and whether he was expected back soon.

The old prince had gone to the town and was expected back any minute.

Prince Andrew led Pierre to his own rooms, which were always kept perfectly prepared and ready for him in his father’s house; he himself went to the nursery.

“Let’s go and see my sister,” he said to Pierre when he returned. “I haven’t seen her yet; she’s hiding now, sitting with her ‘God’s folk.’ It will serve her right, she’ll be embarrassed, but you’ll get to see her ‘God’s folk.’ It’s actually very interesting.”

“What are ‘God’s folk’?” Pierre asked again.

“Come, and you’ll see for yourself.”

Princess Mary really was flustered, and red patches appeared on her face as they entered. In her cozy room, with lamps glowing before the icon stand, a young person with a long nose and long hair, wearing a monk’s cassock, sat on the sofa beside her, behind a samovar. Near them, in an armchair, sat a thin, shriveled old woman, with a gentle expression on her childlike face.

“Andrew, why didn’t you warn me?” the princess said with gentle reproach as she stood before her pilgrims like a hen before her chicks.

*“Charmée de vous voir. Je suis très contente de vous voir,”* \* she said to Pierre as he kissed her hand. She had known him since he was a child, and now his friendship with Andrew, his misfortune with his wife, and especially his kind, open face made her feel warmly toward him. She looked at him with her beautiful, radiant eyes and seemed to say, “I like you very much, but please don’t laugh at my people.” After exchanging a few words, they sat down.

\* “Delighted to see you. I am very glad to see you.”

“Ah, and Ivánushka is here too!” Prince Andrew said, glancing with a smile at the young pilgrim.

“Andrew!” Princess Mary said, pleadingly. *“Il faut que vous sachiez que c’est une femme,”* \* said Prince Andrew to Pierre.

“Andrew, *au nom de Dieu!*” \*(2) Princess Mary repeated.

\* “You must know that this is a woman.”

\* (2) “For heaven’s sake.”

It was clear that Prince Andrew’s ironic tone about the pilgrims and Princess Mary’s helpless efforts to protect them were their usual, established way of dealing with the subject.

*“Mais, ma bonne amie,”* said Prince Andrew, *“vous devriez au contraire m’être reconnaissante de ce que j’explique à Pierre votre intimité avec ce jeune homme.”* \*

\* “But, my dear, you should really be grateful to me for explaining to Pierre your closeness with this young man.”

“Really?” Pierre said, gazing with curiosity and seriousness over his spectacles at Ivánushka (for which Princess Mary was especially grateful to him), who, realizing she was being discussed, looked around at them all with cunning eyes.

Princess Mary’s embarrassment about *her people* was unnecessary. They were not the least bit discomfited. The old woman, lowering her eyes but stealing glances at the newcomers, had turned her cup upside down and put a nibbled piece of sugar beside it, sitting quietly in her chair, hoping to be offered more tea. Ivánushka, sipping from her saucer, looked with sly, feminine eyes from under her brows at the young men.

“Where have you been? To Kiev?” Prince Andrew asked the old woman.

“I have, good sir,” she answered eagerly. “Just at Christmas, I was blessed enough to take communion at the saint’s shrine. And now I’m from Kolyázin, master, where a great and wonderful miracle has happened.”

“And was Ivánushka with you?”

“I travel alone, benefactor,” said Ivánushka, trying to speak in a deep voice. “I only met Pelagéya in Yúkhnovo….”

Pelagéya interrupted her companion; she clearly wanted to tell her story.

“In Kolyázin, master, a wonderful blessing has been revealed.”

“What is it? Some new relics?” Prince Andrew asked.

“Andrew, please stop,” Princess Mary said. “Don’t tell him, Pelagéya.”

“No… why not, my dear, why shouldn’t I? I like him. He is kind, he’s one of God’s chosen, a benefactor, he once gave me ten rubles, I remember. When I was in Kiev, Crazy Cyril said to me (he’s one of God’s own, goes barefoot all year), he says, ‘Why aren’t you going to the right place? Go to Kolyázin where a wonder-working icon of the Holy Mother of God has been revealed.’ When I heard that, I said goodbye to the holy people and went.”

Everyone was silent. Only the pilgrim woman continued in solemn tones, catching her breath.

“So I go, master, and the people tell me: ‘A great miracle has appeared, holy oil flows from the cheeks of our blessed Mother, the Holy Virgin Mother of God.’…”

“All right, all right, you can finish later,” Princess Mary said, blushing.

“Let me ask her,” Pierre said. “Did you see it yourself?” he asked.

“Oh yes, master, I was found worthy. Such brightness on her face, like the light of heaven, and from the blessed Mother’s cheek it drips and drips….”

“But, dear me, that must be a trick!” Pierre said innocently, having listened closely to the pilgrim.

“Oh, master, how can you say that?” protested the horrified Pelagéya, turning to Princess Mary for support.

“They deceive people,” he repeated.

“Lord Jesus Christ!” exclaimed the pilgrim woman, crossing herself. “Oh, don’t say that, master! There was a general who didn’t believe and said, ‘The monks cheat,’ and as soon as he said it, he went blind. Then he dreamed that the Holy Virgin Mother of the Kiev catacombs came to him and said, ‘Believe in me and I will heal you.’ So he begged: ‘Take me to her, take me to her.’ I’m telling you the honest truth, I saw it myself. So they brought him, completely blind, right to her, and he went up to her, fell down, and said, ‘Heal me,’ he said, ‘and I’ll give you what the Tsar granted me.’ I saw it myself, master, the star is set into the icon. Well, and what do you think? He got his sight back! It’s a sin to talk like that. God will punish you,” she said, reprovingly, turning to Pierre.

“How did the star get into the icon?” Pierre asked.

“And was the Holy Mother promoted to the rank of general?” said Prince Andrew, with a smile.

Pelagéya suddenly turned quite pale and clasped her hands.

“Oh, master, master, what a sin! And you have a son!” she began, her pallor turning suddenly to a bright red. “Master, what have you said? God forgive you!” And she crossed herself. “Lord forgive him! My dear, what does this mean?…” she asked, turning to Princess Mary. She got up and, nearly crying, began to arrange her wallet. She clearly felt frightened and ashamed to have accepted charity in a house where such things could be said, and at the same time, sorry to have to give up the charity of this house.

“Now, why must you do that?” said Princess Mary. “Why did you come to me?…”

“Come now, Pelagéya, I was just joking,” said Pierre. “*Princesse, ma parole, je n’ai pas voulu l’offenser.* \* I didn’t mean anything by it, I was only joking,” he said, smiling shyly and trying to make amends. “It was all my fault, and Andrew was only joking.”

\* “Princess, on my word, I did not wish to offend her.”

Pelagéya paused uncertainly, but Pierre’s expression was so sincerely apologetic, and Prince Andrew looked so humbly now at her and now at Pierre, that she was gradually reassured.

##  CHAPTER XIV

The pilgrim woman was calmed and, being encouraged to talk, gave a long account of Father Amphilochus, who lived such a holy life that his hands smelled of incense; and how, on her last visit to Kiev, some monks she knew gave her the keys to the catacombs, and how she, taking some dried bread with her, had spent two days in the catacombs with the saints. “I’d pray a while to one, meditate a while, then move on to another. I’d sleep a bit, and then again go and kiss the relics, and there was such peace all around, such blessedness, that you don’t even want to come out, not even into the light of day again.”

Pierre listened to her attentively and seriously. Prince Andrew left the room, and then, leaving “God’s folk” to finish their tea, Princess Mary took Pierre into the drawing room.

“You are very kind,” she said to him.

“Oh, I really didn’t mean to hurt her feelings. I understand them so well and respect them deeply.”

Princess Mary looked at him silently and smiled warmly.

“I have known you a long time, you know, and love you like a brother,” she said. “How do you find Andrew?” she added quickly, not giving him time to respond to her fond words. “I am very worried about him. His health was better in the winter, but last spring his wound reopened and the doctor said he ought to go away for treatment. And I’m also very worried about him spiritually. He’s not like us women, who, when we suffer, can cry away our pain. He keeps it all inside. Today he’s cheerful and in good spirits, but that’s only because you’re here—he’s not usually like that. If only you could persuade him to go abroad. He needs activity, and this quiet, regular life is very bad for him. Others don’t notice it, but I see it.”

Around ten o’clock, the male servants ran to the front door, hearing the bells of the old prince’s carriage approaching. Prince Andrew and Pierre also went out to the porch.

“Who’s that?” asked the old prince, noticing Pierre as he got out of the carriage.

“Ah! Very glad! Give me a kiss,” he said, after learning who the young visitor was.

The old prince was in a good mood and very gracious to Pierre.

Before supper, Prince Andrew, coming back into his father’s study, found him having a heated debate with his guest. Pierre was arguing that a time would come when there would be no more wars. The old prince disagreed lightheartedly, but without anger.

“Drain the blood from men’s veins and put in water instead, then there will be no more war! Women’s nonsense—women’s nonsense!” he repeated, but he still patted Pierre affectionately on the shoulder, and then went over to the table where Prince Andrew, obviously not wanting to join the conversation, was looking over the papers his father had brought from town. The old prince came up to him and began talking business.

“The marshal, a Count Rostóv, hasn’t sent half his contingent. He came to town and wanted to invite me to dinner—I gave him a good dinner!… And here, look at this… Well, my boy,” the old prince continued, addressing his son and patting Pierre on the shoulder. “A fine fellow—your friend—I like him! He stirs me up. One says clever things and you don't care to listen, but this one talks nonsense and yet rouses an old man. Well, go! Go on! Maybe I’ll come sit with you at supper. We’ll have another debate. Make friends with my little fool, Princess Mary,” he shouted after Pierre, through the door.

Only now, during his visit to Bald Hills, did Pierre fully realize the strength and charm of his friendship with Prince Andrew. That charm showed itself not so much in his interactions with Andrew as with all his family and household. Even with the stern old prince and the gentle, timid Princess Mary, whom he had barely known, Pierre immediately felt like an old friend. They all already liked him. Not only Princess Mary, won over by his kindness to the pilgrims, gave him her brightest smiles, but even the one-year-old “Prince Nicholas” (as his grandfather called him) smiled at Pierre and let himself be held, and Michael Ivánovich and Mademoiselle Bourienne looked at him pleasantly when he talked to the old prince.

The old prince joined them for supper; clearly on Pierre’s account. During Pierre’s two-day visit, the old prince was very kind to him and told him to visit again.

When Pierre left and the household gathered, they began to share their opinions of him, as people do after a new acquaintance leaves; but, as rarely happens, no one said anything except what was good about him.

##  CHAPTER XV

When returning from his leave, Rostóv felt for the first time just how strong the bond was that united him with Denísov and the whole regiment.

As he approached, Rostóv felt as he had when returning home to Moscow. Seeing the first hussar in the familiar unbuttoned uniform of his regiment, recognizing red-haired Deméntyev, spotting the picket ropes of the roan horses, hearing Lavrúshka joyfully shout, “The count has come!” and watching Denísov—who had been asleep on his bed—run out disheveled from the mud hut to embrace him, and the officers gather around to greet him, filled Rostóv with the same feeling as when his mother, father, and sister embraced him. Tears of joy choked him so that he couldn’t speak. The regiment was another home, just as dear and precious as his parents’ house.

After reporting to the regiment commander, being reassigned to his old squadron, going on duty, and foraging again, Rostóv once more became involved in all the little affairs of the regiment. He felt bound by the strict and unchanging life, but also the same sense of peace, support, and belonging as beneath his family’s roof. Here there was none of the turmoil of the larger world, where he never knew his true place or chose wrongly; here there was no Sónya he needed to explain himself to or not; here there was no question of going out or not going out; there weren’t twenty-four hours a day to be spent in endless ways; there was no crowd of people, none closer or farther from him than others; and there were no uncertain money matters with his father, nor haunting memories of that dreadful loss to Dólokhov. In the regiment, everything was clear and simple. The whole world split into two parts: the Pávlograd regiment, and everything else. And the rest was none of his concern. In the regiment, everything had its place: who was lieutenant, who was captain, who was a good fellow, who wasn’t, and, above all, who was truly a comrade. The canteenkeeper ran a tab, pay arrived every four months—there was nothing to figure out or decide. You just had to avoid anything considered bad in the Pávlograd regiment, and, when an order was given, carry it out clearly, precisely, and definitely—and all would be well.

Settling back into this well-defined regimental life, Rostóv felt the joy and relief a tired person feels when lying down to rest. Life in the regiment, during this campaign, was all the more pleasant for him because, after his loss to Dólokhov (for which, despite his family’s efforts to console him, he could not forgive himself), he had resolved to atone by serving not just as before, but truly well—as an exceptional comrade and officer—in short, as a thoroughly decent man, something that seemed so difficult in the outside world, but so possible in the regiment.

After his losses, he decided to repay his parents’ debt within five years. He received ten thousand rubles a year, but now resolved to take only two thousand for himself, leaving the rest to pay back his parents.

The army, after repeated retreats, advances, and battles at Pultúsk and Preussisch-Eylau, was concentrated near Bartenstein, awaiting the Emperor’s arrival and the start of a new campaign.

The Pávlograd regiment, which had served in the 1805 campaign, had been restored to full strength in Russia, and arrived too late to take part in the first actions. They had missed Pultúsk and Preussisch-Eylau, and joined the field army halfway through the campaign, being attached to Plátov’s division.

Plátov’s division operated independently from the main army. Several times, parts of the Pávlograd regiment exchanged fire with the enemy, took prisoners, and once even captured Marshal Oudinot’s carriages. In April, the Pávlograds were stationed for several weeks in a totally destroyed and deserted German village.

A thaw had set in; it was muddy and cold, the river ice broke, and the roads became impassable. For days, neither food for the men nor fodder for the horses was issued. With transports unable to arrive, the men scattered through abandoned villages searching for potatoes, but found very few.

Everything had been eaten, and the villagers had fled—if any remained, they were worse off than beggars, and nothing more could be taken from them; even the soldiers, often quite pitiless, would sometimes give these people the last of their rations instead of taking from them.

The Pávlograd regiment had only two men wounded in combat, but nearly half the men were lost to hunger and illness. The hospital was so deadly that soldiers suffering from fever or swelling from bad food chose to remain on duty, barely able to walk, rather than go to the hospital. With spring, soldiers found a plant just breaking ground that looked like asparagus, which for some reason they called “Máshka’s sweet root.” It was very bitter, but they wandered the fields searching for it, dug it up with their sabers, and ate it, although they were ordered not to, as it was a harmful plant. That spring a new illness struck the men—a swelling of arms, legs, and face, which doctors blamed on eating this root. Still, Denísov’s squadron mainly survived on “Máshka’s sweet root,” as for two weeks the last biscuits were being issued at half a pound per man, and the last potatoes had sprouted and frozen.

The horses, too, had been fed for two weeks on thatch from roofs and had grown terribly thin, although they still had patches of thick winter hair.

Yet despite such hardship, the soldiers and officers lived as usual. Despite pale, swollen faces and ragged uniforms, the hussars lined up for roll call, kept everything in order, groomed their horses, polished their weapons, brought straw from roofs for fodder, and sat around the cauldrons for meals, rising up still hungry but joking about their miserable food and hunger. In their spare time, as always, they lit bonfires, steamed themselves naked before them, smoked, picked out and baked rotten sprouting potatoes, and told or listened to stories from Potëmkin’s or Suvórov’s campaigns, as well as tales of Alësha the Sly or the priest’s laborer Mikólka.

The officers, as usual, lived two or three to a roofless, half-ruined house. The senior ones tried to gather straw and potatoes and generally to find food for the men. The younger ones kept busy as before, some playing cards (there was plenty of money, if little food), some with more innocent games like quoits and skittles. The campaign itself was rarely discussed, partly for lack of information, partly from a sense that things were generally going badly.

Rostóv lived as before with Denísov, and since their time on leave they had become closer than ever. Denísov never spoke of Rostóv’s family, but by the tenderness of their friendship, Rostóv sensed that Denísov’s unlucky love for Natásha had helped strengthen their bond. Denísov clearly tried to shield Rostóv from danger whenever possible, and greeted his safe return after any action with obvious relief. On one of his foraging expeditions to a ruined village, Rostóv found a family: an old Pole, his daughter, and her infant. They were half-clothed, starving, too weak to leave, and had no way to get away. Rostóv brought them to his quarters, gave them shelter, and kept them for some weeks while the old man recovered. One of his comrades, speaking of women, teased Rostóv, saying he was slyer than any of them and that it wouldn’t be a bad idea to introduce the pretty Polish girl he had rescued. Rostóv took this as an insult, flared up, and replied so sharply that Denísov had difficulty preventing a duel. When the officer left, Denísov, who wasn’t sure what Rostóv’s real relationship with the Polish girl was, began to scold him for his quick temper, and Rostóv answered:

“Say what you like… She’s like a sister to me, and I can’t tell you how much it offended me… because… well, for that reason….”

Denísov patted him on the shoulder and began to pace quickly around the room, not looking at Rostóv, as he always did when deeply moved.

“Ah, what a mad breed you Wostóvs are!” he muttered, and Rostóv noticed tears in his eyes.

##  CHAPTER XVI

In April, the troops were cheered by news of the Emperor’s arrival, but Rostóv had no chance to attend the review the Emperor held at Bartenstein, as the Pávlograds were stationed far beyond that at the outposts.

They were bivouacking. Denísov and Rostóv lived together in an earth hut, dug out for them by the soldiers and roofed with branches and turf. This type of hut had recently become popular. A trench was dug, three and a half feet wide, four feet eight inches deep, and eight feet long. At one end, steps were cut as an entrance and vestibule. The trench itself was the room, and those lucky enough—like the squadron commander—had a board laid on piles at the end opposite the entrance to serve as a table. On each side of the trench, the earth was hollowed out about two and a half feet wide to serve as beds and couches. The roof was built so that one could stand upright in the center and even sit up in bed if close to the table. Denísov, who lived comfortably thanks to the goodwill of his squadron’s soldiers, also had a board in the roof at the far end, with a piece of broken but mended glass for a window. When it was very cold, embers from the soldiers’ campfire were brought in on a bent iron sheet and placed on the steps in the “reception room,” as Denísov called that part of the hut. It would become so warm that the officers who were always visiting Denísov and Rostóv sat around in shirt sleeves.

That April, Rostóv was on orderly duty. One morning, between seven and eight, after a sleepless night, he sent for embers, changed his rain-soaked underclothes, said his prayers, drank tea, warmed up, straightened things on the table and in his own corner, and, with his face aglow from the wind and dressed only in his shirt, lay down on his back with his arms behind his head. He was contentedly thinking about the likelihood of being promoted soon for his last scouting assignment and was waiting for Denísov, who had gone out, as he wanted to talk with him.

Suddenly, he heard Denísov shouting in an agitated voice behind the hut. Rostóv moved to the window to see whom he was speaking to, and spotted the quartermaster, Topchéenko.

“I ordered you not to let them eat that Máshka root stuff!” Denísov was shouting. “And I saw with my own eyes how Lazarchúk brought some from the fields.”

“I have repeated the order, your honor, but they won’t obey,” replied the quartermaster.

Rostóv lay down again, thinking contentedly: “Let him fuss and bustle—my work is done, and I’m lying down—splendid!” He could also hear Lavrúshka, Denísov’s shrewd, daring orderly, talking with the quartermaster. Lavrúshka spoke about loaded wagons, biscuits, and oxen he had seen on his trip for provisions.

Then Denísov’s voice could be heard, shouting farther and farther off. “Saddle! Second platoon!”

“Where are they off to now?” thought Rostóv.

Five minutes later, Denísov came back into the hut, climbed onto the bed in muddy boots, lit his pipe, furiously scattered his things, grabbed his loaded whip, buckled on his saber, and left again. To Rostóv’s question about where he was going, he replied vaguely and irritably that he had some business.

“Let God and our great monarch judge me afterwards!” declared Denísov as he left, and Rostóv heard the hoofbeats of several horses splashing through the mud. He didn’t even bother to find out where Denísov had gone. After getting warm, he fell asleep and didn’t leave the hut until evening. Denísov had not yet returned. The weather had cleared, and near the next hut two officers and a cadet were playing *sváyka*, laughing as they threw their missiles deep into the soft mud. Rostóv joined them. In the middle of the game, the officers noticed wagons approaching, with fifteen hussars on their thin horses following. The wagons, escorted by the hussars, stopped at the picket ropes, and a crowd of hussars gathered around.

“Well, Denísov’s been fussing,” said Rostóv, “and here are the provisions.”

“So they are!” said the officers. “The soldiers will be delighted!”

A little behind the hussars came Denísov, flanked by two infantry officers with whom he was talking.

Rostóv went to meet them.

“I warn you, Captain,” one of the officers, a short, thin, very angry man, was saying.

“Didn’t I say I won’t give them up?” Denísov retorted.

“You’ll answer for this, Captain. It is mutiny—seizing transport from your own army. Our men haven’t eaten in two days.”

“And mine haven’t eaten for two weeks,” answered Denísov.

“It’s robbery! You’ll answer for it, sir!” the infantry officer said, raising his voice.

“Why are you pestering me?” shouted Denísov, suddenly losing his temper. “I’ll answer for it, not you! And you’d better not hang around here or you’ll regret it. Go on! Go!” he yelled at the officers.

“Very well, then!” the little officer shot back, refusing to leave. “If you insist on robbing, I’ll—”

“Go to the devil! Quick march, while you’re safe!” and Denísov turned his horse on the officer.

“Fine, fine,” muttered the officer threateningly, turning his horse and trotting away, bouncing in the saddle.

“A dog astride a fence! A real dog astride a fence!” Denísov shouted after him (the greatest insult a cavalryman could aim at a mounted infantryman), and riding up to Rostóv, he burst out laughing.

“I’ve taken transports from the infantry by force!” he said. “After all, I can’t let our men starve.”

The wagons that reached the hussars had been assigned to an infantry regiment, but after Lavrúshka learned the transport was unescorted, Denísov and his hussars seized it by force. The soldiers were generously issued biscuits and even shared them with other squadrons.

The next day, the regimental commander called for Denísov and, holding his fingers splayed before his eyes, said:

“This is how I see the matter: I know nothing about it and won’t start proceedings, but I advise you to ride over to the staff and settle things at the commissariat department, and if possible sign a receipt for such and such stores received. Otherwise, since the request was recorded against an infantry regiment, there will be trouble and the matter could end badly.”

Following the commander’s advice, Denísov went straight to the staff, sincerely intending to resolve it. That evening he returned to his dugout in a state Rostóv had never seen before. Denísov couldn’t speak and seemed unable to breathe. When Rostóv asked what happened, he only managed a few incoherent oaths and threats in a hoarse, weak voice.

Concerned, Rostóv suggested that Denísov undress, drink water, and call the doctor.

“Try me for robbery... oh! More water... Let them try me, but I’ll always thrash scoundrels... and I’ll tell the Emperor... Ice...” he muttered.

The regimental doctor, when he came, insisted it was necessary to bleed Denísov. A deep saucerful of dark blood was taken from his hairy arm, and only then was he able to explain what had happened.

“I get there,” began Denísov. “‘Now then, where’s your chief’s quarters?’ They pointed it out. ‘Please wait.’ ‘I’ve ridden twenty miles, have duties, and can’t wait. Announce me.’ Very well, their head man comes out—decides to lecture me: ‘It’s robbery!’—‘Robbery,’ I say, ‘isn’t what a man does to feed his soldiers, it’s what someone does to line his own pockets!’ ‘Will you please be silent?’ ‘Very well!’ Then he says: ‘Go give a receipt to the commissioner, but your case will go up to headquarters.’ So I go to the commissioner. I walk in, and at the table... who do you think? No, just wait! Who is it that’s starving us?” shouted Denísov, pounding the table with his freshly-bled fist so violently that the table nearly broke and the glasses jumped. “Telyánin! ‘What? So you’re the one starving us! Are you? Take this and this!’ and I hit him, right on his nose... ‘Ah, what a... what a...!’ and I started thrashing him... Well, I enjoyed that, I can tell you!” Denísov cried, at once gleeful and furious, his white teeth visible under his black mustache. “I’d have finished him off if they hadn’t taken him away!”

“But why are you yelling? Calm down,” said Rostóv. “You’ve made your arm bleed again. Hold on, we need to bandage it anew.”

Denísov was bandaged again and put to bed. The next day he woke up calm and cheerful.

But at noon, the regiment’s adjutant arrived at Rostóv and Denísov’s dugout with a grave face, regretfully presenting a paper addressed to Major Denísov from the regimental commander, asking for an account of yesterday’s events. The adjutant explained that the affair could turn out badly: a court-martial had been ordered, and considering how harshly marauding and insubordination were now dealt with, demotion to the ranks was probably the best possible outcome.

According to the offended parties, after seizing the transports, Major Denísov—while drunk—went to the chief quartermaster, called him a thief without provocation, threatened him, and upon being removed, stormed into the office and beat two officials, dislocating one man’s arm.

When Rostóv questioned him further, Denísov only laughed. He said he thought someone else got involved, but claimed it was all nonsense and rubbish, and insisted he didn’t fear any kind of trial; if those fools tried to go after him, he would give them a reply they wouldn’t forget.

Denísov spoke contemptuously about the whole situation, but Rostóv knew him too well not to notice that—while he hid it from others—he was actually worried about facing a court-martial and was anxious about how things were developing for the worse. Every day letters of inquiry and summonses from the court arrived, and on the first of May, Denísov was ordered to hand the squadron over to his next in command and report to the divisional staff to explain his actions at the commissariat office. The day before, Plátov had gone out on reconnaissance with two Cossack regiments and two squadrons of hussars. As usual, Denísov rode in front of the outposts, showing off his courage. A bullet from a French sharpshooter hit him in the fleshy part of his leg. At another time Denísov might not have left the regiment over such a slight wound, but now he used it as an excuse not to appear before the staff and went to the hospital.

##  CHAPTER XVII

In June, the battle of Friedland took place, which the Pávlograds did not participate in, and afterwards an armistice was declared. Rostóv missed his friend greatly, having had no news from him since he left, and was very concerned about his wound and his circumstances. Taking advantage of the armistice, Rostóv got leave to visit Denísov in the hospital.

The hospital was located in a small Prussian town that had already been devastated twice by both Russian and French troops. Although it was summer, when the countryside should have been beautiful, the small town looked especially bleak, with broken roofs and fences, filthy streets, ragged people, and sick or drunken soldiers wandering about.

The hospital itself was housed in a brick building; some of the window frames and panes were broken, and the yard was surrounded by what remained of a wooden fence that had been torn apart. Several bandaged soldiers with pale, swollen faces were sitting or walking in the sunlight in the yard.

As soon as Rostóv entered the building, he was overwhelmed by the smell of decay and hospital odors. On the stairs, he met a Russian army doctor smoking a cigar, followed by a Russian assistant.

“I can’t be in two places at once,” the doctor was saying. “Come see Makár Alexéevich in the evening. I’ll be there then.”

The assistant asked a few more questions.

“Oh, just do the best you can! Isn’t it all the same?” The doctor noticed Rostóv coming up the stairs.

“What do you want, sir?” the doctor asked. “What do you want? The bullets spared you, and now you want to try typhus? This is a pesthouse, sir.”

“What do you mean?” Rostóv asked.

“Typhus, sir. If you enter, you risk death. Only we two, Makéev and I”—he gestured at the assistant—“stay on here. About five of us doctors have already died here.... Any new doctor who comes lasts barely a week,” said the doctor, with a note of grim satisfaction. “Prussian doctors were asked to help, but our allies aren’t keen on the idea.”

Rostóv explained that he wanted to see Major Denísov of the hussars, who had been wounded.

“I don’t know. I can’t say, sir. Just think! I’m responsible for three hospitals with over four hundred patients! Luckily, the charitable Prussian ladies send us two pounds of coffee and some lint each month, or we’d be sunk!” He laughed. “Four hundred patients, and they’re always sending me new ones. There *are* four hundred, aren’t there?” he asked, turning to the assistant.

The assistant looked exhausted, clearly annoyed and eager for the talkative doctor to move on.

“Major Denísov,” Rostóv repeated. “He was wounded at Molliten.”

“Probably dead. What do you think, Makéev?” the doctor asked, indifferently.

But the assistant didn’t confirm the doctor’s words.

“Is he tall, with reddish hair?” the doctor inquired.

Rostóv described Denísov’s appearance.

“There was someone like that,” said the doctor, as though pleased by the recollection. “I think he’s dead. Still, I’ll check our list. We used to have one. Do you have it, Makéev?”

“Makár Alexéevich has the list,” replied the assistant. “But if you’ll come into the officers’ wards, you can see for yourself,” he added, turning to Rostóv.

“Ah, it’s better you don’t go in, sir,” said the doctor, “or you might end up staying here yourself.”

But Rostóv politely ended the conversation and asked the assistant to show him the way.

“Just don’t blame me!” the doctor called after him.

Rostóv and the assistant walked down a dark corridor. The stench was so strong that Rostóv pinched his nose and had to pause to steady himself before continuing. A door on the right opened, and a gaunt, sallow man on crutches—barefoot and in his underclothes—limped out, leaning against the doorframe and watching the passersby with glittering, envious eyes. Looking in through the door, Rostóv saw sick and wounded men lying on the floor on straw and overcoats.

“May I go in and look?”

“What is there to see?” said the assistant.

But, precisely because the assistant obviously wanted to stop him, Rostóv entered the soldiers’ ward. The foul air, which he had gotten used to in the corridor, was even worse inside. It was different, more pungent, unmistakable as the very source of the smell.

In the long, brightly sunlit room, the sick and wounded lay in two rows with their heads to the walls and a passage in the middle. Most were unconscious and ignored the new arrivals. Those who were awake raised themselves or lifted their thin, yellow faces, each looking at Rostóv with hope, relief, reproach, and envy of his health. Rostóv walked to the middle of the room and looked through open doors into the adjoining rooms, seeing the same scene repeated. He stood silently, looking around. This was nothing like what he had expected. Right in front of him, almost across the middle of the passage on the bare floor, lay a sick man, probably a Cossack judging by his haircut. The man was on his back, arms and legs sprawled out. His face was purple, his eyes turned back so only the whites showed, and the veins on his bare, red legs and arms stood out like cords. He was banging the back of his head on the floor and hoarsely repeating a single word. Rostóv listened and discerned it: “Drink, drink, a drink!” Rostóv looked around, hoping someone would help this man and bring him some water.

“Who takes care of the sick in here?” he asked the assistant.

Just then a commissariat soldier—a hospital orderly—came in from the next room, stepped stiffly to attention, and saluted Rostóv, clearly mistaking him for a hospital official.

“Good day, your honor!” he shouted, rolling his eyes at Rostóv.

“Help that man back to his place and give him some water,” said Rostóv, pointing to the Cossack.

“Yes, your honor,” replied the orderly, standing even straighter and rolling his eyes even more, but making no move to help.

“No, there’s no way to improve things here,” thought Rostóv, looking down. As he was about to leave, he felt an intense gaze fixed on him from the right. He turned and saw, sitting in a corner on an overcoat, an old, unshaven, gray-bearded soldier, as thin as a skeleton, with a stern, sallow face and eyes fixed intently on Rostóv. The man’s neighbor whispered something, pointing at Rostóv, and Rostóv noticed the old man wanted to speak. He stepped closer and saw that the old soldier had only one leg, bent under him—the other had been amputated above the knee. Lying a little apart on the other side was a young soldier with a snub nose. His head was thrown back, his pale, waxy face still freckled, his eyes rolled up. Rostóv looked at the young man and felt a chill run down his back.

“This man seems—” he began, turning to the assistant.

“And how we’ve begged, your honor,” the old soldier said, his jaw shaking. “He’s been dead since morning. After all, we’re men, not dogs.”

“I’ll send someone at once. He’ll be taken away—right away,” the assistant said quickly. “Let’s go, your honor.”

“Yes, let’s go,” said Rostóv hurriedly, lowering his eyes and shrinking away as he tried to slip between the rows of reproachful, envious eyes that stared at him, and left the room.

##  CHAPTER XVIII

Walking down the corridor, the assistant led Rostóv to the officers’ wards, which consisted of three rooms with their doors standing open. There were beds in these rooms, and the sick and wounded officers were lying or sitting on them. Some walked about the rooms in hospital dressing gowns. The first person Rostóv saw in the officers’ ward was a thin little man with one arm, walking around the first room in a nightcap and hospital dressing gown, with a pipe between his teeth. Rostóv looked at him, trying to remember where he had seen him before.

“See where we meet again!” said the little man. “Túshin, Túshin, don’t you remember, who gave you a lift at Schön Grabern? And I’ve lost a bit, you see…” he continued with a smile, pointing to the empty sleeve of his dressing gown. “Looking for Vasíli Dmítrich Denísov? He’s my neighbor,” he added, when he heard who Rostóv wanted. “Here, this way,” and Túshin led him into the next room, where several laughing voices could be heard.

“How can they laugh, or even live at all here?” thought Rostóv, still aware of the smell of decomposing flesh that had been so strong in the soldiers’ ward, and still seeming to see those envious looks that had followed him out from both sides, along with the face of that young soldier with his eyes rolled back.

Denísov was asleep on his bed with his head under the blanket, even though it was nearly noon.

“Ah, Wostóv? How are you, how are you?” he called out, speaking in the same tone he used in the regiment. But Rostóv sadly noticed that beneath this usual ease and animation, a new, dark, hidden feeling could be seen in Denísov’s expression and the way he spoke.

His wound, though a minor one, had still not healed, even six weeks after he had been hit. His face had the same swollen pallor as the other hospital patients, but that wasn’t what struck Rostóv. What struck him was that Denísov didn’t seem happy to see him, and his smile was forced. He didn’t ask about the regiment or the general situation, and when Rostóv brought up these topics, he didn’t listen.

Rostóv even realized that Denísov disliked being reminded of the regiment, or of that other free life going on outside the hospital. He seemed determined to forget that old life and was only interested in the matter with the commissariat officers. When Rostóv asked about how that business was going, Denísov immediately pulled out a paper from under his pillow, which he had received from the commission, along with a rough draft of his answer. He became animated as he read his paper, especially pointing out to Rostóv the scathing remarks he made against his enemies. Denísov’s hospital companions, who had gathered around Rostóv as a newcomer from the outside world, gradually started to leave as soon as Denísov began to read his answer. Rostóv saw on their faces that all those gentlemen had heard that story more than once and were tired of it. Only the man in the next bed, a burly Uhlan, kept sitting on his bed, frowning and smoking a pipe, and little one-armed Túshin still listened, shaking his head disapprovingly. In the middle of the reading, the Uhlan broke in.

“But what I say is,” he said, turning to Rostóv, “it would be best just to petition the Emperor for a pardon. They say great rewards are going to be given out now, and surely a pardon would be granted….”

“Me petition the Empewo’!” exclaimed Denísov, in a voice where he tried hard to muster the old energy and fire, but which sounded more like frustrated helplessness. “What for? If I were a wobber I would ask for mercy, but I’m being court-martialed for punishing robbers. Let them try me, I’m not afraid of anyone. I’ve served the Tsar and my country honorably and have not stolen! And am I to be disgraced?… Listen, I’m writing to them directly. This is what I say: ‘If I had robbed the Treasury…’”

“It’s certainly well written,” said Túshin, “but that’s not the point, Vasíli Dmítrich,” and he too turned to Rostóv. “You just have to give in, and Vasíli Dmítrich won’t. You know the auditor already told you it’s a bad business.”

“Well, let it be bad,” said Denísov.

“The auditor wrote a petition for you,” Túshin went on, “and you ought to sign it and ask this gentleman to take it. No doubt he”—indicating Rostóv—“has connections on the staff. You won’t find a better opportunity.”

“Haven’t I said I’m not going to grovel?” Denísov interrupted him, and continued reading his paper.

Rostóv didn’t have the courage to persuade Denísov, though he instinctively felt that the path suggested by Túshin and the other officers was the safest, and he would have liked to help Denísov. But he knew Denísov’s stubborn will and straightforward, quick temper.

When Denísov finished reading his bitter reply, which took more than an hour, Rostóv said nothing, and spent the rest of the day in a very downcast mood among Denísov’s hospital comrades, telling them what he knew and listening to their stories. Denísov was silent and moody all evening.

Late at night, when Rostóv was about to leave, he asked Denísov if there was anything he wanted him to do.

“Yes, wait a minute,” said Denísov, glancing at the officers, and taking his papers from under his pillow, he went to the window, where he kept an inkpot, and sat down to write.

“It seems there’s no use banging one’s head against the wall!” he said, coming back from the window and handing Rostóv a large envelope. Inside was the petition to the Emperor written by the auditor, in which Denísov, without mentioning the misdeeds of the commissariat officials, simply asked for a pardon.

“Hand it in. It seems…”

He didn’t finish, but gave a painfully forced smile.

##  CHAPTER XIX

After returning to the regiment and reporting Denísov’s situation to the commander, Rostóv rode to Tilsit with the letter for the Emperor.

On June 13th, the French and Russian Emperors arrived in Tilsit. Borís Drubetskóy had asked the important person he served to include him in the suite assigned for the stay at Tilsit.

“I’d like to see the great man,” he said, referring to Napoleon, whom he, like everyone else until now, had always called Buonaparte.

“You mean Buonaparte?” asked the general, smiling.

Borís looked at his general questioningly and immediately realized he was being tested.

“I am speaking, Prince, of the Emperor Napoleon,” he replied. The general patted him on the shoulder, smiling.

“You’ll go far,” he said, and brought him along to Tilsit.

Borís was among the few present at the Niemen on the day the two Emperors met. He saw the raft decorated with monograms, saw Napoleon pass before the French Guards on the far side of the river, saw the thoughtful face of Emperor Alexander as he silently sat in a tavern on the Niemen’s bank waiting for Napoleon’s arrival, saw both Emperors board the boats, and watched as Napoleon—reaching the raft first—stepped forward quickly to meet Alexander and offered his hand, after which they both went into the pavilion. Since moving in the highest circles, Borís made it a habit to watch closely everything happening around him and record it. At the meeting at Tilsit, he asked the names of those with Napoleon and about the uniforms they wore, and listened carefully to conversations among important figures. When the Emperors entered the pavilion, he checked his watch and made sure to look again when Alexander emerged. The meeting lasted an hour and fifty-three minutes. He noted this down that evening, among other details he considered historically important. Because the Emperor’s suite was very small, being at Tilsit for this meeting was critical for someone who cared about his career, and since he had managed it, Borís felt that his position was now fully secure. Not only had he become known, but people had grown used to him and accepted him. Twice, he had carried out errands for the Emperor himself, so the latter now recognized his face, and everyone at court—far from avoiding him as they did when he was a newcomer—would have been surprised now if he were absent.

Borís shared lodgings with another adjutant, the Polish Count Zhilínski. Zhilínski, a Pole raised in Paris, was wealthy and loved the French; almost every day during their stay at Tilsit, French officers of the Guard and from French headquarters would dine with him and Borís.

On the evening of June 24th, Count Zhilínski arranged a supper for his French friends. The guest of honor was one of Napoleon’s aide-de-camps, along with several French officers of the Guard and a page of Napoleon’s—a young man from an old aristocratic French family. That same day, Rostóv, taking advantage of darkness to avoid being recognized in civilian dress, came to Tilsit and went to the lodgings shared by Borís and Zhilínski.

Rostóv, like the entire army he came from, had not felt the change in attitude toward Napoleon and the French—who, from being enemies, had suddenly become friends—that had occurred at headquarters and with Borís. In the army, Bonaparte and the French were still regarded with a mix of anger, contempt, and fear. Not long ago, talking with one of Plátov’s Cossack officers, Rostóv had argued that if Napoleon were captured he would be treated, not as a sovereign, but as a criminal. Recently, when he met a wounded French colonel on the road, Rostóv insisted heatedly that peace was impossible between a legitimate sovereign and the criminal Bonaparte. So Rostóv was unpleasantly surprised to find French officers in Borís’ lodgings, wearing uniforms he was used to seeing only from the outposts at the flank. The moment he spotted a French officer poking his head out the door, the warlike hostility he always felt at seeing the enemy surged up in him. He stopped at the threshold and asked in Russian if Drubetskóy lived there. Upon hearing a strange voice in the entryway, Borís came out to meet him. A look of irritation showed briefly on his face when he first recognized Rostóv.

“Ah, it’s you? Very glad, very glad to see you,” he said, coming toward him with a smile. But Rostóv noticed his first reaction.

“I’ve come at a bad time, I think. I shouldn’t have come, but I have business,” he said coldly.

“No, I just wonder how you managed to get away from your regiment. *Dans un moment je suis à vous*,”* he said, answering someone who called him.

\* “In a minute I shall be at your disposal.”

“I see I’m intruding,” Rostóv repeated.

The look of annoyance had already vanished from Borís’ face; having clearly decided how to handle the situation, he calmly took both of Rostóv’s hands and led him to the next room. His eyes, looking serene and steady at Rostóv, now seemed veiled—shielded as though by blue spectacles of conventionality. That’s how it seemed to Rostóv.

“Oh, come now! As if you could come at a bad time!” said Borís, leading him into the room where the table was set for supper and introducing him to his guests, explaining that he was not a civilian but a hussar officer and an old friend.

“Count Zhilínski—*le Comte* N. N.—*le Capitaine* S. S.,” he said, naming his guests. Rostóv, frowning at the Frenchmen, bowed unenthusiastically and kept silent.

Zhilínski clearly didn’t welcome the addition of this new Russian to his circle and didn’t speak to Rostóv. Borís seemed not to notice the discomfort the newcomer caused, and with the same calm, pleasant demeanor and the same veiled eyes with which he’d welcomed Rostóv, tried to enliven the conversation. One of the Frenchmen, with the politeness common to his countrymen, addressed the stubbornly quiet Rostóv, suggesting that he had probably come to Tilsit to see the Emperor.

“No, I came on business,” replied Rostóv curtly.

Rostóv had been in a bad mood since he noticed Borís’ initial look of displeasure, and, as often happens to those out of sorts, he believed everyone was looking at him with annoyance and that he was in the way. He truly was in their way, as he alone didn’t join in the now-general conversation. The glances the visitors gave him seemed to say, “And what is he sitting here for?” He stood up and approached Borís.

“I’m in your way, anyway,” he said quietly. “Let’s talk about my business and then I’ll go.”

“Oh, no, not at all,” said Borís. “But if you’re tired, come lie down in my room and rest.”

“Yes, actually…”

They went into the small room where Borís slept. Rostóv, not sitting down, immediately—irritated, as if Borís were somehow at fault—began telling him about Denísov’s affair, asking if, through his general, he could and would try to intercede with the Emperor and pass on Denísov’s petition. Alone with Borís, Rostóv felt for the first time unable to meet his gaze without embarrassment. Borís, with one leg crossed over the other and stroking his left hand with the slender fingers of his right, listened to Rostóv as a general listens to a subordinate’s report, sometimes looking away, sometimes looking directly into Rostóv’s eyes with that same veiled look. Each time it happened, Rostóv felt uncomfortable and dropped his eyes.

“I’ve heard of such cases and know that His Majesty is very strict in such matters. I think it would be better not to bring it before the Emperor, but to apply to the corps commander instead... But in general, I think—”

“So you don’t want to do anything? If so, just say so!” Rostóv almost shouted, not meeting Borís’ eyes.

Borís smiled.

“On the contrary, I’ll do what I can. I just thought—”

At that moment Zhilínski’s voice called out for Borís.

“Well then, go, go, go…” said Rostóv, and refused supper. Left alone in the little room, he paced up and down for a long time, listening to the cheerful French conversation from the next room.

##  CHAPTER XX

Rostóv had arrived in Tilsit on the very worst day to submit a petition on Denísov’s behalf. He couldn’t go to the general in attendance himself because he was dressed in civilian clothes and was in Tilsit without proper permission, and Borís—even if he had wanted to—couldn’t do so on the following day. That day, June 27, the preliminaries of peace were signed. The Emperors exchanged decorations: Alexander received the Cross of the Legion of Honor and Napoleon was given the Order of St. Andrew of the First Degree, and a dinner was scheduled for the evening, hosted by a battalion of the French Guards for the Preobrazhénsk battalion. The Emperors were to attend the banquet.

Rostóv felt so uneasy and uncomfortable with Borís that, when Borís stopped by after supper, he pretended to be asleep, and early the next morning he left, avoiding Borís. In his civilian clothes and a round hat, he wandered around the town, staring at the French soldiers and their uniforms, and at the streets and houses where the Russian and French Emperors were staying. In a square, he saw tables being set and preparations for the dinner; he saw Russian and French flags draped across the streets, with huge *A* and *N* monograms. Flags and decorations also hung in the windows of the houses.

“Borís doesn’t want to help me and I don’t want to ask him. That’s that,” Nicholas thought. “It’s all over between us, but I won’t leave here without doing everything I can for Denísov, and certainly not without getting his letter to the Emperor. The Emperor!… He’s here!” Rostóv thought, unconsciously returning to the house where Alexander was staying.

Saddled horses stood before the house and members of the suite were gathering, clearly getting ready for the Emperor to come out.

“I might see him at any minute,” Rostóv thought. “If only I could give the letter directly to him and explain everything... Could they really arrest me for wearing civilian clothes? Surely not! He’d understand who is in the right. He understands everything, knows everything. Who could be more just, more magnanimous than he? And even if they did arrest me for being here, what difference would it make?” he mused, watching an officer enter the Emperor’s house. “People go in and out... It’s nonsense! I’ll just go in and give the letter to the Emperor myself—too bad for Drubetskóy for pushing me to this!” Suddenly, filled with a resolve he hadn’t expected from himself, Rostóv felt for the letter in his pocket and went directly to the house.

“No, I won’t miss my chance this time, as I did after Austerlitz,” he thought, expecting at any moment to meet the Emperor and feeling his heart race at the idea. “I’ll fall to his feet and plead with him. He’ll lift me up, listen, and even thank me. ‘I’m happy when I can do good, but to correct injustice is the greatest happiness,’” Rostóv imagined the sovereign saying. Passing people who watched him with curiosity, he entered the porch of the Emperor’s house.

A broad staircase led directly up from the entrance, and to the right was a closed door. Below, under the stairs, was a door to the lower floor.

“Who are you here to see?” someone inquired.

“To deliver a letter, a petition, to His Majesty,” Nicholas said, his voice trembling.

“A petition? This way, to the officer on duty,” the person said, indicating the door downstairs. “But it won’t be accepted.”

Hearing this indifferent reply, Rostóv grew frightened by what he was doing; the idea of meeting the Emperor was so thrilling and, at the same time, so alarming that he was ready to run away, but the official who questioned him opened the door, and Rostóv went in.

A short, stout man of about thirty, in white breeches and high boots and a batiste shirt that he obviously had just put on, was standing in the room while his valet fastened a handsome new pair of silk-embroidered braces to the back of his breeches—which, for some reason, caught Rostóv’s attention. The man was speaking to someone in the adjoining room.

“A fine figure and in her first bloom,” he was saying, but when he saw Rostóv, he stopped and frowned.

“What is it? A petition?”

“What is it?” called the person in the other room.

“Another petitioner,” replied the man with the braces.

“Tell him to come later. He’ll be coming out shortly; we have to go.”

“Later... later! Tomorrow. It’s too late...”

Rostóv turned to leave, but the man with the braces stopped him.

“Who sent you? Who are you?”

“I come from Major Denísov,” Rostóv replied.

“Are you an officer?”

“Lieutenant Count Rostóv.”

“What nerve! Submit it through your commander. Now move along... go,” he said, continuing to put on the uniform his valet handed him.

Rostóv returned to the hall and noticed that in the porch there were many officers and generals in full dress uniform, whom he now had to walk past.

Cursing his boldness, his heart sinking at the thought of possibly finding himself face to face with the Emperor and being disgraced and arrested, acutely aware now of how improper his conduct was, Rostóv, eyes downcast, started to exit the house through the brilliant parade of the suite—when a familiar voice called him and a hand stopped him.

“What are you doing here, sir, in civilian dress?” asked a deep voice.

It was a cavalry general who had received special favor from the Emperor during this campaign, and who had previously commanded the division in which Rostóv had served.

In distress, Rostóv started to explain, but seeing the general’s kindly, jovial face, he took him aside and, in an excited voice, told him the whole story, asking him to speak on Denísov’s behalf, since the general knew Denísov. When Rostóv finished, the general shook his head gravely.

“I’m sorry, sorry for that fine fellow. Give me the letter.”

Rostóv had barely handed him the letter and finished explaining Denísov’s situation when hurried steps and the jingling of spurs were heard on the stairs. The general left him and went to the porch. Members of the Emperor’s suite rushed down the stairs to their horses. Hayne, the same groom who had been at Austerlitz, led up the Emperor’s horse, and the faint sound of a footstep, instantly familiar to Rostóv, was heard on the stairs. Forgetting his fear of being recognized, Rostóv moved closer to the porch, mingling with the inquisitive civilians, and again, after two years, saw the features he so admired: the same face, expression, and step, the same blend of majesty and mildness.... Rostóv’s old feelings of enthusiasm and love for his sovereign surged anew. Dressed in the uniform of the Preobrazhénsk regiment—white chamois-leather breeches, high boots—and wearing a star Rostóv didn’t recognize (it was the *Légion d’honneur*), the monarch came out onto the porch, putting on his gloves and carrying his hat under his arm. He stopped and looked around, brightening everything around him with his gaze. He spoke briefly to some generals, and, recognizing Rostóv’s former divisional commander, smiled and beckoned to him.

The whole suite stepped back and Rostóv saw the general speaking for some time with the Emperor.

The Emperor said a few words to him and moved toward his horse. Again the crowd of suite members and curious onlookers (including Rostóv) pressed closer. Pausing by his horse, with his hand on the saddle, the Emperor turned to the cavalry general and said in a loud voice, clearly choosing to be overheard:

“I cannot do it, General. I cannot, because the law is stronger than I am,” and he raised his foot to the stirrup.

The general bowed respectfully, and the monarch mounted and rode down the street at a gallop. Overcome with enthusiasm, Rostóv ran after him with the crowd.

##  CHAPTER XXI

The Emperor rode to the square where, facing each other, a battalion of the Preobrazhénsk regiment stood on the right and a battalion of the French Guards in their bearskin caps on the left.

As the Tsar approached one flank of the battalions, which presented arms, another group of horsemen galloped up to the opposite flank, and in the lead Rostóv recognized Napoleon. It could be no one else. He came at a gallop, wearing a small hat, a blue uniform open over a white vest, and the St. Andrew ribbon over his shoulder. He was riding a fine gray Arab thoroughbred with a crimson, gold-embroidered saddlecloth. As he neared Alexander, he raised his hat, and when he did, Rostóv, with his cavalryman’s eye, couldn’t help but notice that Napoleon did not sit well or securely in the saddle. The battalions shouted, “Hurrah!” and *“Vive l’Empereur!”* Napoleon said something to Alexander, and both Emperors dismounted and shook hands. Napoleon’s face wore an unpleasant, artificial smile. Alexander was saying something friendly to him.

Despite the trampling of the French gendarmes’ horses, which were pushing the crowd back, Rostóv kept his attention fixed on every movement of Alexander and Bonaparte. He was surprised that Alexander treated Bonaparte as an equal, and that the latter seemed completely at ease with the Tsar, as if such relations with an Emperor were ordinary to him.

Alexander and Napoleon, with the long train of their staffs, moved toward the right flank of the Preobrazhénsk battalion and came right up to the crowd standing there. The crowd unexpectedly found itself so close to the Emperors that Rostóv, standing in the front row, worried he might be recognized.

“Sire, I request your permission to present the Legion of Honor to the bravest of your soldiers,” said a sharp, precise voice, pronouncing every letter clearly.

This was spoken by the short Napoleon, looking straight up into Alexander’s eyes. Alexander listened carefully to what was said to him and, with a bend of his head, smiled pleasantly.

“To him who has displayed the most bravery in this last war,” added Napoleon, stressing each syllable, and with a composure and confidence that irritated Rostóv, he looked over the Russian ranks formed before him, all presenting arms, their eyes fixed on their Emperor.

“Will Your Majesty allow me to consult the colonel?” said Alexander, and hurried over to Prince Kozlóvski, the battalion commander.

Bonaparte meanwhile began to remove the glove from his small white hand, tearing it in the process, and tossed it aside. An aide-de-camp behind him rushed forward and picked it up.

“To whom shall it be given?” Emperor Alexander asked Kozlóvski in Russian, his voice low.

“To whomever Your Majesty commands.”

The Emperor frowned with dissatisfaction, and glancing back, remarked:

“But we must give him an answer.”

Kozlóvski resolutely scanned the ranks, including Rostóv in his look.

“Is it me?” Rostóv wondered.

“Lázarev!” the colonel called, frowning, and Lázarev, the first soldier in the rank, quickly stepped forward.

“Where are you going? Stay here!” voices whispered to Lázarev, who didn’t know where to go. Lázarev stopped, casting a sideways, nervous glance at his colonel. His face twitched, as often happens to soldiers called before the ranks.

Napoleon slightly turned his head and reached his plump little hand behind him as if to take something. His staff, immediately understanding what he wanted, moved about and whispered, passing something from one to another, and a page—the same one Rostóv had seen the previous evening at Borís’—ran forward and, bowing respectfully over the outstretched hand without delay, placed an Order on a red ribbon in it. Without looking, Napoleon pressed his fingers together, securing the badge. Then he approached Lázarev (who rolled his eyes and kept looking at his own monarch), glanced at Emperor Alexander to show that what he was doing was for the sake of his ally, and let his small white hand holding the Order touch one of Lázarev’s buttons. It was as if Napoleon knew that all it took was his hand deigning to touch that soldier's chest for him to be forever happy, honored, and set apart from everyone else. Napoleon merely placed the cross on Lázarev’s chest and, dropping his hand, turned to Alexander as if sure the cross would stay there. And in fact, it did.

Zealous hands, Russian and French, immediately grabbed the cross and fastened it to the uniform. Lázarev looked gloomily at the little man with white hands doing something to him, and still standing at attention presenting arms, looked directly again into Alexander’s eyes, as if to ask whether he should stand, move away, or do something else. But receiving no orders, he remained in that stiff position for some time.

The Emperors remounted and rode off. The Preobrazhénsk battalion, breaking formation, mingled with the French Guards and sat down at the tables prepared for them.

Lázarev sat in the place of honor. Russian and French officers embraced him, congratulated him, and shook his hands. Crowds of officers and civilians drew near just to see him. The air around the tables in the square buzzed with Russian and French voices and laughter. Two officers, faces flushed, looking cheerful and happy, passed by Rostóv.

“What do you think of the feast? All served on silver!” said one. “Have you seen Lázarev?”

“I have.”

“I hear the Preobrazhénskis will host them for dinner tomorrow.”

“Yes, but what luck for Lázarev! Twelve hundred francs' pension for life.”

“Here’s a cap, boys!” shouted a Preobrazhénsk soldier, putting on a shaggy French cap.

“It’s great! Top notch!”

“Have you heard the password?” one Guards officer asked another. “The day before yesterday it was *‘Napoléon, France, bravoure’*; yesterday, *‘Alexandre, Russie, grandeur.’* One day our Emperor gives it, and the next day Napoleon. Tomorrow our Emperor will send a St. George’s Cross to the bravest of the French Guards. It has to be done. He has to reciprocate.”

Borís, too, with his friend Zhilínski, came to see the Preobrazhénsk banquet. On the way back, he noticed Rostóv standing by a street corner.

“Rostóv! How are you? We missed each other,” he said, unable to stop himself from asking what was wrong, so strange and troubled was Rostóv’s expression.

“Nothing, nothing,” answered Rostóv.

“Will you stop by?”

“Yes, I will.”

Rostóv remained at the corner for a long while, watching the feast from a distance. In his mind, a painful struggle was going on which he couldn’t resolve. Terrible doubts rose in his soul. He thought of Denísov with his changed look, his submission, and the entire hospital, with its torn-off arms and legs, its filth and disease. The stench of dead flesh in that hospital was so vivid in his memory that he looked around to see where the smell was coming from. Then he thought of that self-satisfied Bonaparte with his small white hand, now an Emperor, liked and respected by Alexander. Then why all those severed limbs and dead men?… Next he thought of Lázarev rewarded while Denísov was punished and left unpardoned. He caught himself entertaining such strange thoughts that he became frightened.

The smell of the food the Preobrazhénskis were eating and his growing hunger pulled him back from these reflections; he needed to eat before leaving. He went to a hotel he had noticed that morning. There he found so many people, among them officers who, like himself, were dressed in civilian clothes, that he barely managed to get a dinner. Two officers from his own division joined him. Their talk naturally turned to the peace. The officers, like most of the army, were dissatisfied with the peace that had followed the battle of Friedland. They said that if they had held out just a little longer, Napoleon would have been defeated, as his troops had neither provisions nor ammunition. Nicholas ate and drank (mostly the latter) in silence. The conflict in his mind continued to torment him without resolution. He was afraid to give in to his thoughts, but couldn’t shake them. Suddenly, when one of the officers remarked it was humiliating to see the French, Rostóv began shouting with unexpected anger, to the surprise of the officers:

“How can you know what’s best?” he shouted, his face suddenly flushed. “How can you judge the Emperor’s decisions? What right have we to argue? We can’t understand either the Emperor’s objectives or his actions!”

“But I never said a word about the Emperor!” said the officer, trying to justify himself and thinking Rostóv must be drunk, as he couldn't understand his outburst otherwise.

But Rostóv wasn’t listening.

“We’re not diplomats, we’re just soldiers, nothing more,” he continued. “If we’re ordered to die, we must die. If we’re punished, it means we deserved it; it’s not for us to judge. If the Emperor chooses to recognize Bonaparte as Emperor and ally with him, then that’s the right thing to do. If we start judging and arguing about everything, nothing sacred will remain! Soon we’ll be saying there’s no God—nothing!” Nicholas shouted, pounding the table—making little sense to his listeners, but completely relevant to the storm of thoughts in his own mind.

“Our business is to do our duty, to fight, and not to think! That’s all….” he said.

“And to drink,” added one of the officers, not wanting to provoke an argument.

“Yes, and to drink,” agreed Nicholas. “Hey there! Another bottle!” he called out.

In 1808, Emperor Alexander went to Erfurt for another meeting with Emperor Napoleon, and much was said in the upper circles of Petersburg about the grandeur of this important event.

##  CHAPTER XXII

In 1809, the relationship between “the world’s two arbiters,” as Napoleon and Alexander were now called, had grown so close that when Napoleon declared war on Austria, a Russian corps crossed the border to cooperate with our old enemy Bonaparte against our longtime ally the Emperor of Austria. In court circles, people talked about the possibility of a marriage between Napoleon and one of Alexander’s sisters. Along with these matters of foreign policy, Russian society’s attention was also keenly focused on internal changes being made in every government department.

Meanwhile, life itself—real life, with its core concerns of health and illness, work and rest, and its intellectual interests in thought, science, poetry, music, love, friendship, hatred, and passions—continued as always, unaffected by political friendship or enmity toward Napoleon Bonaparte and all the plans for reform.

##  BOOK SIX: 1808 - 10

##  CHAPTER I

Prince Andrew had spent two years in the country, without interruption.

All the reforms that Pierre had tried—and constantly abandoned—on his estates were completed by Prince Andrew, who did it all calmly and efficiently.

He possessed an extremely practical persistence that Pierre lacked, and without making a fuss or straining himself, Prince Andrew got things moving.

On one of his estates, the three hundred serfs were freed and became agricultural laborers—this was one of the first cases of its kind in Russia. On his other estates, the serfs’ required labor was replaced with a cash payment. He hired a trained midwife for Boguchárovo at his own expense, and paid a priest to teach reading and writing to the children of the peasants and house serfs.

Prince Andrew spent half of his time at Bald Hills with his father and his son, who was still being cared for by nurses. The other half, he spent at “Boguchárovo Cloister,” as his father called the estate. Despite his supposed indifference to world affairs, which he’d expressed to Pierre, he closely followed current events, received many books, and noticed, to his surprise, that visitors from Petersburg—the very center of society—were actually behind him in knowledge about both domestic and foreign affairs, even though he never left the countryside.

Besides working on his estates and reading a wide range of books, Prince Andrew was also busy at this time with a critical review of our last two unsuccessful campaigns, and was preparing a proposal to reform the army’s rules and regulations.

In the spring of 1809, he went to visit the Ryazán estates that his son had inherited, for whom he was the guardian.

Warmed by the spring sun, he sat in the *calèche* looking at the fresh grass, the first leaves on the birch trees, and the first wisps of white spring clouds drifting across the clear blue sky. He wasn’t really thinking about anything, but gazed absentmindedly and cheerfully around him.

They crossed the ferry where he had talked with Pierre the previous year. They passed through the muddy village, by threshing floors and green rye fields, down hills where snow still lingered by the bridge, up hills where rain had turned the clay to mud, past strips of stubble and bushes beginning to show green here and there, and into a birch forest flanking both sides of the road. In the forest it was almost hot and completely still. The birch trees, with their sticky new leaves, were motionless, and lilac-colored flowers and the first blades of green grass were poking up, pushing aside last year’s leaves. The harsh evergreen of the little fir trees scattered among the birches was an unpleasant reminder of winter. As they entered the forest, the horses began to snort and were visibly sweating.

Peter the footman said something to the coachman; the coachman agreed. But apparently that wasn’t enough for Peter, and he turned toward his master on the box.

“How pleasant it is, your excellency!” he said with a respectful smile.

“What?”

“It’s pleasant, your excellency!”

“What is he talking about?” thought Prince Andrew. “Oh, of course—the spring,” he realized as he turned around. “Yes, everything really is green already…. How early it is! The birches, cherry trees, and even the alders are sprouting…. But the oaks aren’t showing anything yet. Ah, here’s an oak!”

By the roadside stood an oak. Probably ten times older than the birches that formed the forest, it was ten times thicker and twice as tall. It was a massive tree, so wide two men could barely encircle it with their arms, and long ago some of its branches had broken off and its bark was scarred. With its huge, awkward limbs stretching out unevenly and its gnarled hands and fingers, the oak stood like an old, stern, and scornful giant among the smiling birches. Only the dead-looking evergreen firs scattered throughout the forest, and this oak, refused to respond to the charm of spring or even seem to notice the season or the sunshine.

“Spring, love, happiness!” this oak seemed to say. “Aren’t you tired of that silly, meaningless, endlessly repeated trick? Always the same, always a lie? There’s no spring, no sun, no happiness! Look at those cramped, dead firs, always the same, and look at me, too—my broken and battered fingers stick out wherever they’ve grown, from my back or my sides: I stand just as I grew, and I don’t believe in your hopes and your lies.”

As he traveled through the forest, Prince Andrew kept glancing back at the oak, as if expecting something from it. Beneath the oak there were flowers and grass too, but the oak stood among them, frowning, rigid, misshapen, and as grim as ever.

“Yes, the oak is right, a thousand times right,” Prince Andrew thought. “Let others—those who are young—fall for that trick again, but we know life; our life is over!”

A whole flow of new thoughts, hopeless yet sorrowfully comforting, came to him connected with that tree. During this journey, he seemed to look at his life once more and reached his usual, restful conclusion: that it was not for him to start anything new—but simply to live out his days, content to do no harm, without disturbing himself or wanting for more.

##  CHAPTER II

Prince Andrew had to meet with the Marshal of the Nobility for the district about matters concerning the Ryazán estate, of which he was the trustee. This Marshal was Count Ilyá Rostóv, and in the middle of May, Prince Andrew went to visit him.

It was now warm spring weather. The whole forest was already dressed in green. It was dusty and so hot that, passing by water, one longed to go for a swim.

Prince Andrew, feeling downcast and preoccupied with the business he needed to discuss with the Marshal, was driving up the avenue in the grounds of the Rostóvs’ house at Otrádnoe. He heard joyful girlish voices behind some trees on the right and saw a group of girls running to cross the path of his *calèche*. Leading the group and closest to him ran a dark-haired, remarkably slender, pretty girl in a yellow chintz dress, her head covered with a white handkerchief from under which loose locks of hair escaped. The girl was shouting something but, noticing he was a stranger, ran back laughing, not looking at him.

Suddenly, and he couldn’t say why, he felt a pang. The day was so beautiful, the sun so bright, everything so joyful around him, yet that slender, pretty girl didn’t know, or care to know, of his existence and was perfectly happy and content in her own separate—probably foolish—but bright and cheerful life. “What is she so happy about? What is she thinking? Not about military regulations or sorting out the Ryazán serfs’ quitrents, that’s for certain. What’s on her mind? Why is she so cheerful?” Prince Andrew wondered, instinctively curious.

In 1809, Count Ilyá Rostóv was living at Otrádnoe just as he had always done, that is, entertaining almost the whole province with hunts, plays, dinners, and music. He was happy to see Prince Andrew—as he was happy to see any new guest—and insisted he stay the night.

During what was a dull day, in which he was entertained by his elderly hosts and by the more important guests (the old count’s house was crowded due to an upcoming name day), Prince Andrew repeatedly glanced at Natásha, vibrant and laughing among the younger people, and each time he wondered, “What is she thinking? Why is she so happy?”

That night, alone in unfamiliar surroundings, he couldn’t sleep for a long time. He read for a while and then put out his candle, only to relight it again. It was hot in the room, whose inside shutters were closed. He felt annoyed with the foolish old man (as he called Rostóv) who had made him stay, insisting that some necessary documents had not yet arrived from town, and he was irritated with himself for agreeing to stay.

He got up and went to the window to open it. The very moment he opened the shutters, the moonlight, as if it had been waiting for this, burst into the room. He opened the window. The night was fresh, bright, and very still. Just outside the window was a row of pollard trees, their one side black and the other aglow with silvery light. Beneath the trees grew thick, wet, bushy plants with silvery leaves and stems here and there. In the distance, beyond the dark trees, a roof glittered with dew; on the right was a leafy tree with a dazzlingly white trunk and branches, and above shone the nearly full moon, in a pale, almost starless spring sky. Prince Andrew leaned his elbows on the window sill and gazed out at the sky.

His room was on the first floor. The rooms above were also awake; he heard women’s voices overhead.

“Just once more,” said a girlish voice above him, which Prince Andrew immediately recognized.

“But when are you coming to bed?” replied another voice.

“I won’t, I can’t sleep! What’s the use? Come now, just this once.”

Two girlish voices sang a musical passage—the end of some song.

“Oh, how lovely! Now go to sleep, that’s the end of it.”

“You go to sleep, but I can’t,” said the first voice, coming closer to the window. She was clearly leaning far out, as the rustle of her dress and even her breathing could be heard. Everything was as still as the moonlight and the shadows. Prince Andrew, too, dared not move, afraid to betray his unintended presence.

“Sónya! Sónya!” the first speaker called again. “Oh, how can you sleep? Just look how beautiful it is! Ah, how beautiful! Wake up, Sónya!” she said almost with tears in her voice. “There never, never was such a wonderful night before!”

Sónya made a half-awake reply.

“Just come and see what a moon!… Oh, how lovely! Come here… Darling, sweetheart, come here! There, do you see? I feel like sitting down on my heels, hugging my knees tight, as tight as I can, and then flying away! Just like this...”

“Be careful, you’ll fall out.”

He heard the sounds of a scuffle and Sónya’s disapproving voice: “It’s past one o’clock.”

“Oh, you only ruin it for me. Fine, go, go!”

All was silent again, but Prince Andrew knew she was still sitting there. From time to time he heard a soft rustle or a sigh.

“Oh God, oh God! What does it all mean?” she suddenly exclaimed. “Off to bed, then, if I must!” and she slammed the window shut.

“To her, I might as well not exist!” thought Prince Andrew as he listened to her voice, for some reason expecting and yet fearing she might say something about him. “There she goes again! As if it were on purpose,” he thought.

All at once, in his heart arose such a sudden turmoil of youthful thoughts and hopes, so at odds with how he’d lately lived, that unable to explain his feelings, he lay down and fell asleep at once.

##  CHAPTER III

The next morning, after saying goodbye only to the count and not waiting for the ladies to appear, Prince Andrew set off for home.

It was already early June when, on his way back, he drove into the birch forest where the gnarled old oak had once made such a striking and memorable impression on him. In the forest, the harness bells sounded even more muffled than they had six weeks before, for now all was thick, shady, and dense, and the young firs scattered throughout no longer clashed with the general beauty, but instead blended into the mood, with delicate green and fluffy new shoots.

The whole day had been hot. Somewhere, a storm was gathering, but only a small cloud had dropped a few light raindrops, sprinkling the road and the fresh leaves. The left side of the forest was dark in shade, while the right side sparkled in the sunlight, wet and shiny, and scarcely moved by the breeze. Everything was in bloom; the nightingales sang, and their songs echoed, now close, now far away.

“Yes, here in this forest stood that oak I agreed with,” thought Prince Andrew. “But where is it?” he wondered again, glancing to the left side of the road, and without realizing it, he admired the very oak he was looking for. The old oak, utterly changed, spread out a canopy of vivid dark-green leaves, standing silent and gently trembling in the rays of the evening sun. Neither the gnarled branches nor old scars—nor old doubts or sorrows—were anywhere to be seen now. Even where no twigs had grown, fresh leaves had sprouted through the hard, centuries-old bark, leaves such that one could barely believe the old veteran tree could produce.

“Yes, it’s the same oak,” thought Prince Andrew, and suddenly a springtime feeling of unexplainable joy and renewal took hold of him. All the best moments of his life suddenly came to mind: Austerlitz with its lofty skies, his wife’s dead, reproachful face, Pierre at the ferry, that girl thrilled by the night’s beauty, that night itself and the moon, and... all of it rushed back to him at once.

“No, life is not over at thirty-one!” Prince Andrew suddenly decided, firmly and at last. “It’s not enough for me just to know what’s inside me—everyone needs to know it: Pierre, that young girl who wanted to soar into the sky, everyone must know me, so that my life isn’t lived for myself alone while others live separately from it, but so that my life is reflected in all of them, and they and I might live in harmony!”

When he reached home, Prince Andrew decided he would go to Petersburg that autumn, and he found all sorts of reasons for this decision. Sensible and logical considerations showing it was essential for him to go to Petersburg, and even to re-enter active service, kept springing to mind. Now, he couldn’t understand how he had ever doubted the need to take an active part in life, just as a month before he hadn’t understood how he could ever consider leaving the peace of the country. It now seemed obvious that all his life experience would be pointless unless he used it for some kind of work and took part in life again. He no longer remembered how, before, using the same kind of flimsy logical arguments, it had seemed self-evident he would be humiliating himself if he, after all the lessons life had taught him, let himself believe in being useful, or in the possibility of happiness or love. Now, reason told him the opposite. After his journey to Ryazán, the country felt boring; his old pursuits no longer interested him, and often, sitting alone in his study, he got up, walked to the mirror, and looked long at his own face. Then he’d turn to the portrait of his late Lise, who, her hair curled *à la grecque*, looked out at him tenderly and cheerfully from her gilded frame. Now she didn’t say those terrible words to him as before, but looked simply, kindly, and with curiosity. And Prince Andrew, crossing his arms behind his back, would pace the room for a long time, sometimes frowning, sometimes smiling, lost in those irrational, unspoken thoughts—secret as a crime—that changed his whole life and were linked with Pierre, with glory, with the girl at the window, with the oak, with woman’s beauty and love. If anyone entered his room at such moments, he became especially cold, stern, and, above all, unpleasantly logical.

“My dear,” Princess Mary would say, entering at such a time, “little Nicholas can’t go outside today, it’s very cold.”

“If it were hot,” Prince Andrew would reply very dryly to his sister, “he could go out in his smock, but since it’s cold, he should wear warm clothes, which are made for that purpose. That’s what follows from the fact that it’s cold; it doesn’t mean that a child who needs fresh air should have to stay indoors,” he would add, with excessive logic, as if punishing someone for the secret, illogical emotions that stirred in him.

At such times, Princess Mary would think how intellectual work can dry a man out.

##  CHAPTER IV

Prince Andrew arrived in Petersburg in August 1809. At this time, the young Speránski was at the height of his fame, and his reforms were being pushed forward with great energy. That same August, the Emperor was thrown from his *calèche*, injured his leg, and spent three weeks at Peterhof, receiving Speránski daily and no one else. During this period, two famous decrees that stirred society were being prepared—abolishing court ranks and introducing examinations for the ranks of Collegiate Assessor and State Councilor. Not only these, but an entire state constitution, intended to change the system of government in Russia—legal, administrative, and financial—from the Council of State down to the district tribunals—was in development. The vague liberal ideals with which Emperor Alexander had come to the throne, and had tried to put into practice with the help of his associates, Czartorýski, Novosíltsev, Kochubéy, and Strógonov—whom he jokingly called his *Comité de salut public*—were now taking real form and becoming a reality.

All these men had now been replaced by Speránski in civil affairs and Arakchéev in military matters. Shortly after his arrival, Prince Andrew, as a Gentleman of the Chamber, presented himself at court and at a levee. The Emperor, though he encountered him twice, did not say a word to him. Prince Andrew had always felt that he was unsympathetic to the Emperor and that the Emperor disliked both his face and character, and the Emperor’s cold, distant glance now seemed to confirm this suspicion. The courtiers explained the Emperor’s neglect of him by His Majesty’s displeasure that Bolkónski had not served since 1805.

“I know myself that one cannot control one’s likes and dislikes,” thought Prince Andrew. “So, it’s not wise to present my proposal for army reform directly to the Emperor, but the project will speak for itself.”

He mentioned his written proposal to an old field marshal, a friend of his father. The field marshal arranged a meeting, received him graciously, and promised to tell the Emperor. A few days later, Prince Andrew was notified to go see the Minister of War, Count Arakchéev.

On the appointed day, Prince Andrew entered Count Arakchéev’s waiting room at nine in the morning.

He did not know Arakchéev personally, had never seen him, and everything he had heard about him had given him little respect for the man.

“He is the Minister of War, a man trusted by the Emperor, and I need not worry about his personal qualities: he’s been assigned to review my project, so only he can get it accepted,” thought Prince Andrew as he waited among a crowd of both important and unimportant people in Count Arakchéev’s waiting room.

During his service, mostly as an adjutant, Prince Andrew had seen the waiting rooms of many high officials and knew the different types well. Count Arakchéev’s waiting room had a unique character. The faces of those waiting for an audience showed embarrassment and servility for the less important, and for those of higher rank, a shared awkwardness hidden by a mask of indifference and mockery of themselves, their situation, and of Arakchéev himself. Some paced thoughtfully, others whispered and laughed. Prince Andrew heard the nickname “Síla Andréevich” and the words, “*Uncle* will give it to us hot,” spoken about Count Arakchéev. One general—clearly important and offended by the wait—sat, crossing and uncrossing his legs, and smiling contemptuously to himself.

But as soon as the door opened, everyone shared the same emotion—fear. For a second time, Prince Andrew asked the adjutant on duty to announce him, but received only an ironic look and was told his turn would come. After others had gone in and out, an officer who appeared especially humbled and frightened was admitted at that dreaded door. His meeting lasted quite a while. Suddenly, a harsh voice was heard from inside, and the officer—his face pale and lips trembling—came out clutching his head, passing quickly through the waiting room.

After this, Prince Andrew was shown to the door, and the officer on duty whispered, “To the right, by the window.”

Prince Andrew walked into a plain, tidy room and saw at the table a man of forty, long-waisted, with close-cropped hair, deep wrinkles, scowling eyebrows over dull greenish-hazel eyes, and an overhanging red nose. Arakchéev turned his head toward him, without looking directly at him.

“What is your petition?” asked Arakchéev.

“I am not petitioning, your excellency,” Prince Andrew replied calmly.

Arakchéev turned his eyes toward him.

“Sit down,” he said. “Prince Bolkónski?”

“I am not petitioning about anything. His Majesty the Emperor has seen fit to send your excellency a project submitted by me…”

“You see, my dear sir, I have read your project,” interrupted Arakchéev, saying only the first words amiably before slipping back, without looking directly at Prince Andrew, into a tone of grumbling contempt. “You suggest new military laws? There are already many laws, but no one to enforce the old ones. Nowadays, everyone drafts laws—it’s easier to write than to carry out.”

“I came at His Majesty the Emperor’s wish to learn from your excellency what you plan to do with the memorandum I’ve submitted,” said Prince Andrew politely.

“I have endorsed a resolution on your memorandum and sent it to the committee. I do not approve of it,” said Arakchéev, standing up and taking a paper from his writing table. “Here!” He handed it to Prince Andrew.

Across the paper, in pencil, without capital letters, misspelled, and without punctuation, was scrawled: “Unsoundly constructed because resembles an imitation of the French military code and from the Articles of War needlessly deviating.”

“To which committee has the memorandum been referred?” asked Prince Andrew.

“To the Committee on Army Regulations, and I have recommended that your honor be appointed a member, but without a salary.”

Prince Andrew smiled.

“I don’t want one.”

“A member without salary,” repeated Arakchéev. “I have the honor… Eh! Call the next one! Who else is there?” he shouted, bowing to Prince Andrew.

##  CHAPTER V

While waiting for news of his appointment to the committee, Prince Andrew sought out his former acquaintances—especially those in positions of power whose help he might need. In Petersburg, he felt the same sensation he’d had before a battle: anxious curiosity and an irresistible draw toward the powerful circles where the future, which would determine the fate of millions, was being shaped. From the irritation of the older men, the curiosity of outsiders, the reserve of those in the know, the hectic rush and preoccupation of everyone, and the countless committees and commissions he heard about each day, he sensed that here in Petersburg, in 1809, a massive civil conflict was brewing. Its commander-in-chief was a mysterious man he had never met but who was reputed to be a genius—Speránski. This movement of reconstruction, about which Prince Andrew had only a vague idea and with Speránski as its driving force, began to interest him so much that the matter of army regulations quickly took a back seat in his mind.

Prince Andrew was in an excellent position to be well received in the highest and most diverse Petersburg circles of the time. The reform party welcomed and courted him—first, because he was considered smart and well educated, and second, because by freeing his serfs he had gained the reputation of being a liberal. The conservative and discontented, who criticized the reforms, turned to him expecting him to share their views just because he was his father’s son. High society women welcomed him enthusiastically because he was wealthy, distinguished, a good catch, and almost a newcomer, with the allure of romance due to his supposed death and the tragic loss of his wife. On top of this, everyone who had known him before agreed that he had greatly changed in the past five years: he had softened and grown more mature, lost his old affectation, pride, and sarcastic irony, and gained the calm that comes with age. People talked about him, were curious about him, and wanted to meet him.

The day after his meeting with Count Arakchéev, Prince Andrew spent the evening at Count Kochubéy’s. He told the count about his interview with *Síla Andréevich* (Kochubéy referred to Arakchéev by that nickname with the same subtle irony Prince Andrew had noticed in the Minister of War’s waiting room).

“*Mon cher*, even in this case you can’t do without Michael Mikháylovich Speránski. He runs everything. I’ll speak to him. He promised to come this evening.”

“What does Speránski have to do with the army regulations?” asked Prince Andrew.

Kochubéy shook his head and smiled, as if surprised at Bolkónski’s naïveté.

“We were talking about you a few days ago,” Kochubéy continued, “and about your freed plowmen.”

“Oh, so it is you, Prince, who freed your serfs?” said an old man from Catherine’s time, turning toward Bolkónski contemptuously.

“It was a small estate that wasn’t profitable,” replied Prince Andrew, trying to downplay his action so as not to provoke the old man needlessly.

“Afraid of being late…” said the old man, glancing at Kochubéy.

“There’s something I don’t understand,” he went on. “Who will plow the land if they’re freed? It’s easy to write laws, but hard to govern… Just like now—I ask you, Count—who will be department heads if everybody has to pass exams?”

“Those who pass the exams, I suppose,” replied Kochubéy, crossing his legs and looking around.

“Well, Pryánichnikov works for me. He’s excellent, irreplaceable, but he’s sixty. Is he supposed to take an exam?”

“Yes, that is a problem, since education isn’t widespread, but…”

Count Kochubéy left the sentence unfinished. He stood up, took Prince Andrew by the arm, and went to meet a tall, bald, fair man of about forty with a broad, open forehead and a long, unusually pale face, who had just entered the room. The newcomer wore a blue tailcoat with a cross hanging from his neck and a star on his left breast. It was Speránski. Prince Andrew recognized him immediately, and felt a jolt inside, as one does at critical moments in life. Whether it was respect, envy, or anticipation, he couldn’t tell. Speránski’s entire appearance was unusual and made him easily identifiable. In the circles Prince Andrew moved in, he had never met anyone who combined such awkward and clumsy gestures with such calm and self-confidence; nor one with such a determined yet gentle look in those half-closed, rather moist eyes, or whose smile was so steady and revealing nothing. He’d never heard such a refined, smooth, soft voice, and above all, he’d never seen such delicately pale skin and hands—hands that were broad, very plump, soft, and white. Prince Andrew had only seen such whiteness and softness on the faces of soldiers who had spent a long time in the hospital. This was Speránski, Secretary of State, reporter to the Emperor and his companion at Erfurt, where he had more than once met and spoken with Napoleon.

Speránski didn’t glance from face to face as people usually do when entering a large group and was in no rush to speak. He talked slowly, confident he would be listened to, and looked only at the person he was speaking with.

Prince Andrew watched Speránski’s every word and gesture closely. As sometimes happens—especially with men who are critical of those near them—he expected, when meeting someone new and renowned like Speránski, to see the perfection of human qualities.

Speránski told Kochubéy he was sorry he hadn’t arrived sooner, as he’d been detained at the palace. He didn’t say the Emperor had kept him, and Prince Andrew noticed this hint of modesty. When Kochubéy introduced Prince Andrew, Speránski slowly turned his gaze to Bolkónski with his usual smile and looked at him in silence.

“I’m very glad to meet you. I had heard of you, as everyone has,” he said after a pause.

Kochubéy made a few comments about the reception Arakchéev had given Bolkónski. Speránski smiled more noticeably.

“The chairman of the Committee on Army Regulations is my good friend Monsieur Magnítski,” he said, articulating every word and syllable clearly. “If you wish, I can introduce you to him.” He paused. “I hope you’ll find him agreeable and willing to help with everything reasonable.”

Soon, a circle formed around Speránski, and the old man who’d spoken about his subordinate Pryánichnikov asked him a question.

Prince Andrew, without joining in, watched Speránski’s every move: this man, not long ago just an insignificant theology student, now, Bolkónski thought, held in his hands—those plump white hands—the fate of Russia. Prince Andrew was struck by Speránski’s extraordinary composure as he answered the old man. It seemed he was addressing him from an immense height. When the old man grew too loud, Speránski just smiled and calmly replied that he couldn’t judge the advantages or disadvantages of whatever pleased the sovereign.

After a short time in the main circle, Speránski stood up and, coming over to Prince Andrew, led him to the other end of the room. It was clear that he felt it important to take an interest in Bolkónski.

“I couldn’t speak to you during the lively conversation that venerable gentleman drew me into,” he said with a mildly dismissive smile, as if hinting that he and Prince Andrew both understood the insignificance of those he’d just been talking with. This flattered Prince Andrew. “I’ve known about you for a long time: first for what you did for your serfs—a first example that ought to have more imitators; and secondly because you’re among those chamberlains who haven’t felt insulted by the new decree about courtiers’ ranks, which is causing so much gossip.”

“No,” said Prince Andrew, “my father didn’t want me to benefit from the privilege. I began service from the lower rank.”

“Your father, a man of the last century, is clearly above our contemporaries who complain about this measure, which merely reestablishes natural justice.”

“I do think, though, that there’s some reason for their complaints,” replied Prince Andrew, trying to resist Speránski’s influence, which he was beginning to feel. He didn’t want to agree on everything and wished to object. Even though he usually spoke well, he found it harder to express himself now, being so fixed on the man’s personality.

“Perhaps reasons of personal ambition,” Speránski replied gently.

“And to some degree, reasons of state,” Prince Andrew said.

“What do you mean?” Speránski asked quietly, lowering his eyes.

“I am an admirer of Montesquieu,” replied Prince Andrew, “and his idea that *le principe des monarchies est l’honneur me paraît incontestable. Certains droits et privilèges de la noblesse me paraissent être des moyens de soutenir ce sentiment.*”\*

\* “The principle of monarchies is honor, which seems unquestionable to me. Certain rights and privileges for the nobility appear to me to be a way to maintain that feeling.”

The smile faded from Speránski’s white face, which actually looked better with the change. Clearly, Prince Andrew’s comment interested him.

*“Si vous envisagez la question sous ce point de vue,”*\* he began, pronouncing French with some difficulty and speaking even slower than he did in Russian, but calmly.

\* “If you look at it from that point of view.”

Speránski continued, saying that honor, *l’honneur*, can’t be maintained by privileges that harm service; that honor, *l’honneur*, is either not doing what is wrong, or it’s a drive to seek recognition and rewards. His reasoning was brief, simple, and clear.

“An institution that encourages honor—that serves as a motivation—is something like the *Légion d’honneur* of the great Emperor Napoleon. This is not harmful, but actually assists the efficiency of service; it’s not just a class or court privilege.”

“I don’t disagree with that, but it’s still true that court privileges have achieved the same effect,” Prince Andrew said. “Every courtier feels bound to live up to his position.”

“Yet you don’t wish to take advantage of that privilege, Prince,” said Speránski, indicating with a smile that he wanted to end the argument on friendly terms, as it was becoming uncomfortable for his companion. “If you do me the honor of calling on me Wednesday,” he added, “after I speak with Magnítski, I’ll let you know what might interest you, and we can also have a more detailed conversation.”

Closing his eyes, he bowed in the French style, forgoing formal farewells, and left the room trying to attract as little attention as possible.

##  CHAPTER VI

During his first weeks in Petersburg, Prince Andrew felt that the entire pattern of thought he had developed during his time in seclusion was completely overshadowed by the trivial demands that absorbed him in the city.

Each evening, when he returned home, he would jot down four or five calls or appointments in his notebook, each with their precise times. The mechanics of daily life—organizing his schedule to be everywhere on time—consumed most of his energy. He accomplished nothing, didn’t even think or find time to reflect, but merely talked, and talked successfully, about ideas he’d formed while living in the country.

Occasionally he noticed with some dissatisfaction that he would repeat the same remark in different circles on the same day. But he was so busy all day, every day, that he didn’t even realize that he wasn’t truly thinking at all.

Just as he had at their first meeting at Kochubéy’s, Speránski deeply impressed Prince Andrew when he received him privately at home that Wednesday and spoke with him in a long, confidential conversation.

To Bolkónski, who found so many people contemptible and insignificant, and who desperately hoped to find a living example of the perfection he strove toward, it was easy to believe that he had found such an ideal in Speránski—a man who seemed perfectly rational and virtuous. Had Speránski come from the same background as himself and shared the same upbringing and traditions, Bolkónski would probably have easily seen through to his weaknesses, his flaws, and his unheroic sides. But as things stood, Speránski’s unique, clear way of thinking made Prince Andrew respect him all the more precisely because he didn’t completely understand him. Furthermore, Speránski—whether because he valued Bolkónski’s intelligence, or because he wanted to win him over—showed off his cool, impartial logic and subtly flattered Andrew with the kind of praise that comes from self-confidence, creating the sense that the two of them alone could understand the foolishness of others and the depth of their own ideas.

During their long conversation that Wednesday evening, Speránski repeatedly said things like: “We regard everything that rises above common habits…” or, with a smile, “But *we* want to feed the wolves and keep the sheep safe…” or: “*They* can’t get this…”—always in a tone that suggested: “*We*, you and I, understand what *they* are and what *we* are.”

That first long discussion with Speránski only deepened the feeling Prince Andrew had experienced at their first meeting. He saw in Speránski an extraordinary, clear-thinking man of great intellect, who—with energy and persistence—had reached power, which he was using purely for the good of Russia. To Prince Andrew, Speránski was everything he wished he himself could be: someone who could offer rational explanations for all of life’s facts, valued only what was logical, and applied reason to everything. Speránski’s explanations made everything seem so straightforward that Prince Andrew found himself agreeing almost without thinking. If he replied or argued, it was only to assert his independence and avoid completely surrendering to Speránski’s ideas. Everything seemed right and just as it should be. But one thing unsettled him: Speránski’s cold, mirrored gaze, which hid his soul, and his delicate white hands, which Andrew watched—just as one does the hands of powerful people. That cold gaze and those refined hands irritated Prince Andrew, though he wasn’t sure why. He was also disturbed by the excessive contempt for others he noticed in Speránski, as well as by his use of all types of arguments except for analogy, and the bold way he would jump from one line of reasoning to another. At times Speránski would take a practical stance, dismissing dreamers, then that of a satirist, mocking his opponents, then become strictly logical, or suddenly leap into metaphysical territory—a move he frequently made. He would loft a topic onto metaphysical heights, define concepts like space, time, and thought, draw his desired conclusion, and then come back down to the original point.

Overall, the most striking trait of Speránski’s intellect for Prince Andrew was his total, unshakable faith in the power and authority of reason. It was clear that the thought—which seemed so natural to Andrew—never crossed Speránski’s mind: that maybe it’s impossible to communicate everything one thinks, or, “Isn’t everything I believe actually nonsense?” This quality especially attracted Prince Andrew.

During their early acquaintance, Bolkónski developed a strong admiration for Speránski, similar to what he had once felt for Bonaparte. The fact that Speránski was the son of a village priest, and that foolish people might look down on him for his humble background (as many did), made Prince Andrew cherish his respect for him even more, and unconsciously intensified it.

On their first evening together, while discussing the Commission for the Revision of the Code of Laws, Speránski sarcastically told him that the commission had existed for 150 years, had cost millions, and achieved nothing—except Rosenkampf sticking labels on the corresponding paragraphs of the different codes.

“And that’s all the state has to show for the millions it’s spent,” he said. “We want to give the Senate new legal powers, but we don’t have any laws. That’s why it’s a crime for people like you, Prince, not to serve in times like these!”

Prince Andrew said that the work required a legal education which he lacked.

“But nobody has one, so what do you suggest? It’s a vicious circle we have to break out of.”

A week later, Prince Andrew was a member of the Committee on Army Regulations, and—to his surprise—chairman of a section of the committee for revising the laws. At Speránski’s request, he took the first part of the Civil Code being drafted and, using the *Code Napoléon* and the Institutes of Justinian, worked on the section concerning Personal Rights.

##  CHAPTER VII

Nearly two years earlier, in 1808, when Pierre returned to Petersburg after a visit to his estates, he found himself, almost without meaning to, in a leading role among the Freemasons there. He organized dining and funeral lodge meetings, brought in new members, worked at uniting the various lodges and getting official charters. He donated money toward building temples, and contributed as much as he could to collections for charity—areas in which most members were stingy or unreliable. Almost singlehandedly, he supported a poorhouse the order had established in Petersburg.

Meanwhile, his personal life continued as before, with the same passions and excesses. He enjoyed good food and drink, and though he saw it as wrong and degrading, he couldn’t resist the temptations of bachelor society.

Still, amid all these distractions and activities, after a year Pierre began to feel that the more he tried to stand firmly on his Masonic foundation, the less secure that ground became. Yet the more it crumbled, the more firmly he seemed bound to the order. When he first joined the Freemasons, he’d felt like someone confidently stepping onto what looked like solid ground, only to feel his foot sink into a bog. To test it, he put his other foot down, sank even deeper, and got stuck, wading up to his knees in the muck.

Joseph Alexéevich was not in Petersburg; recently, he had kept aloof from the city’s Masonic goings-on, living almost entirely in Moscow. All the other lodge members were men Pierre knew in ordinary life, and it was difficult for him to see them merely as fellow Brothers rather than as Prince B. or Iván Vasílevich D.—men he usually saw as weak and insignificant. Under their Masonic aprons and symbols, Pierre saw the uniforms and decorations they were after in their worldly lives. Often, after collecting charity—usually just twenty or thirty rubles, mostly in promises from a dozen members (half of whom could pay as easily as he could)—Pierre remembered the Masonic vow in which every Brother promised to devote all his belongings to his neighbor, and troubling doubts crept into his mind, though he tried not to focus on them.

Pierre divided his fellow Brothers into four groups. The first included those not actively involved in either lodge or worldly affairs, who instead focused entirely on the mystical side of the order: the questions of God’s threefold designation, the primordial elements (sulphur, mercury, and salt), and the symbols of Solomon’s temple. Pierre respected these Brothers, mostly older men—including (he thought) Joseph Alexéevich himself—but he didn’t share their interests. The mystical side of Freemasonry didn’t move him.

The second category included Pierre himself and others like him, who were searching and uncertain—who hadn’t found in Freemasonry a direct and clear path, but still hoped to.

The third group, which included most Brothers, were those who cared only for the outward forms and ceremonies of the order, cherishing strict observance while not troubling their heads over the true purpose or meaning. Willarski was in this group, and even the Grand Master of the main lodge.

Lastly, the fourth category—also large, especially among new arrivals—consisted, according to Pierre, of men who didn’t believe or want anything, but joined just to socialize with the wealthy, well-connected Brothers. There were many such men in the lodge.

Pierre started to feel dissatisfied with his role. To him, at least as he saw it here, Freemasonry seemed rooted mainly in appearances. He didn’t doubt Freemasonry itself but suspected that the Russian lodges had strayed from their original principles. So toward the end of the year, he traveled abroad to be initiated into the higher secrets of the order.

In summer 1809, Pierre returned to Petersburg. The Russian Freemasons—knowing from their contacts abroad that Bezúkhov had gained the trust of important people, been initiated into new mysteries, raised to a higher rank, and was bringing back ideas that could help the Masonic cause in Russia—all came to meet him, eager to win his favor, and suspected he was plotting something and hiding it from them.

A full meeting of the lodge of the second degree was convened, where Pierre promised to deliver a message from the highest leaders of their order. The lodge was packed. After the usual ceremonies, Pierre stood, blushing and stumbling, with his speech in hand.

“Dear Brothers,” he began, “it’s not enough to practice our mysteries in the privacy of our lodge—we must act—act! We’re half-asleep, but we must act.” Pierre lifted his notebook and began reading.

“For the spread of truth and the victory of virtue,” he read, “we must free people from prejudice, promote principles that match the spirit of our age, educate the young, unite with the wisest, bravely yet prudently conquer superstition, disbelief, and folly, and form a body closely bound by common purpose, with real authority and power.

“To achieve this, virtue must outweigh vice and we must make sure honest people can receive real rewards in this life for their virtue. But in these great efforts, we’re hindered by the current political institutions. What should we do? Encourage revolutions, tear everything down, fight force with force?… No! We’re very far from that. Any violent reform deserves criticism, because it doesn’t really remove evil as long as people remain the same, and because wisdom takes no pleasure in violence.

“Our entire plan as an order should be based on preparing men of firmness and virtue, united by a common belief, intent on punishing vice and supporting talent and virtue: raising the worthy from obscurity and bringing them into our Brotherhood. Only then can we, quietly and indirectly, tie the hands of those who protect disorder and control them without their even knowing. In short, we must create a universal form of government that spreads everywhere without breaking citizenship ties, and beside which all other governments can continue their usual work, doing everything but what blocks our great goal: to secure the triumph of virtue over vice. This was also Christianity’s aim—to make people wise and good and encourage them to follow the example and teachings of the best and wisest, for their own benefit.

“At that time, when everything was in darkness, preaching alone was enough—Truth was new and powerful—but now we need much stronger methods. Today man, ruled by his senses, must find virtue attractive to those senses. We can’t get rid of the passions, but we must aim to guide them toward a noble goal; everyone must be able to satisfy his passions within the limits of virtue. Our order should provide the means for this.

“Once we have enough worthy men in every country, each training two more, and all tightly bound together, anything will be possible for our order. It has already secretly done much good for humanity.”

This speech didn’t just leave a strong impression; it created a stir. Most Brothers, seeing hints of Illuminism in it, \* reacted coldly, and their attitude surprised Pierre. The Grand Master replied, and Pierre pressed on with more and more passion. There hadn’t been such a heated meeting in a long time. Factions formed—some accusing Pierre of Illuminism, others defending him. For the first time, Pierre realized just how endless is the variety of minds, and how no one truth ever appears the same to two people. Even his supporters understood him with so many adjustments and conditions that he found he couldn’t agree with them, since what he wanted most was to convey his idea exactly as he felt it.

\* The Illuminati sought to replace monarchies with republics.

At the end of the meeting, the Grand Master, with irony and ill will, rebuked Bezúkhov for his intensity and said love of strife, as much as love of virtue, drove his arguments. Pierre didn’t respond, but simply asked if his proposal would be accepted. He was told it would not, and without waiting for the usual formalities, left the lodge and went home.

##  CHAPTER VIII

Once again, Pierre was overtaken by the depression he so dreaded. For three days after delivering his speech at the lodge, he lay at home on the sofa, seeing no one and going nowhere.

It was during this time that he received a letter from his wife, pleading with him to see her. She expressed how distressed she was about him and how she wished to devote her whole life to him.

At the end of the letter, she informed him that she would soon be returning to Petersburg from abroad.

After this letter, one of the Masonic Brothers—whom Pierre respected less than the others—forced his way in to see him. Steering the conversation to Pierre’s marital issues and, speaking as a brotherly advisor, he expressed the opinion that Pierre's harshness toward his wife was wrong, and that by not forgiving a penitent he was neglecting one of Freemasonry’s primary rules.

At the same time, his mother-in-law, Prince Vasíli’s wife, sent for him, begging him to come, if only for a few minutes, to talk about a most important matter. Pierre realized there was a conspiracy against him—an effort to reunite him with his wife. In his current mood, he didn't even find this unpleasant. Nothing mattered to him. Nothing in life seemed important, and in his depression, he cared little for either his freedom or his decision to punish his wife.

“No one is right and no one is to blame; so she is not to blame either,” he thought.

If he did not immediately agree to a reunion with his wife, it was only because in his depression he felt unable to take any action. Had his wife come to him, he would not have turned her away. Compared to what occupied his mind, was it not trivial whether he lived with his wife or not?

Without replying to his wife or his mother-in-law, Pierre, late one night, prepared for a journey and set off for Moscow to see Joseph Alexéevich. This is what he wrote in his diary:

*Moscow, 17th November*

I have just returned from my benefactor, and hurry to write down all I have experienced. Joseph Alexéevich is living in poverty and has suffered from a painful bladder disease for three years. No one has ever heard him complain or even groan. From morning until late at night, except when eating his simple meals, he works at science. He welcomed me kindly and had me sit on the bed where he lay. I gave the sign of the Knights of the East and of Jerusalem, and he returned it, gently smiling as he asked what I had learned and gained in the Prussian and Scottish lodges. I told him everything as best I could, including what I had suggested to our Petersburg lodge, the poor reception I received, and my falling out with the Brothers. Joseph Alexéevich, after remaining silent and thoughtful for a long time, gave me his opinion, which immediately clarified my whole past and pointed the way I should go in the future. He surprised me by asking if I recalled the threefold aim of the order: (1) Preserving and studying the mystery; (2) Purifying and reforming oneself for its reception; and (3) Improving the human race by striving for such purification. Which of these is the principal *aim*? Certainly self-reformation and self-purification. Only to this aim can we always strive, independently of circumstances. Yet this aim demands our greatest efforts; and so, led astray by pride, losing sight of it, we occupy ourselves either with the mystery, which we are unworthy to receive due to our impurity, or with reforming the human race while offering merely an example of baseness and profligacy. Illuminism is not a pure doctrine because it is caught up in social activity and puffed up with pride. On this basis, Joseph Alexéevich criticized my speech and all my activity, and deep down I agreed with him. Regarding my family matters, he told me, “the chief duty of a true Mason, as I’ve told you, is to perfect oneself. We often think that by removing all the difficulties of life we’ll reach our aim more quickly, but on the contrary, my dear sir, it’s only amid the cares of the world that we can achieve our three main aims: (1) Self-knowledge—for a man can only know himself through comparison; (2) Self-perfection, which can only be reached through struggle; and (3) Achieving the chief virtue—love of death. Only life’s ups and downs show us its vanity and develop in us an innate love of death or rebirth to new life.” These words are especially remarkable because, despite his great physical suffering, Joseph Alexéevich is never weary of life, though he loves death, for which—even with all the purity and loftiness of his spirit—he does not yet feel himself fully ready. My benefactor then fully explained to me the meaning of the Great Square of creation and pointed out that the numbers three and seven underpin everything. He advised me not to avoid contact with the Petersburg Brothers, but to take only second-grade posts in the lodge—to try, while turning the Brothers from pride, to guide them toward the true path of self-knowledge and self-perfection. For myself personally, he especially advised me to watch over myself, and to that end, he gave me this notebook—the one I am writing in now, and in which I shall in the future record all my actions.

*Petersburg, 23rd November*

I am once again living with my wife. My mother-in-law came to me in tears, saying Hélène was here and begged me to see her; that she was innocent and upset at my leaving her, and much more. I knew if I let myself see her, I wouldn’t have the strength to keep refusing what she wanted. In my uncertainty, I didn’t know whose aid or advice to seek. If my benefactor had been here, he would have told me what to do. I went to my room, re-read Joseph Alexéevich’s letters, and recollected my conversations with him. From it all, I concluded that I ought not to turn away anyone pleading, and should reach a helping hand to everyone—especially someone so closely united with me—and that I must bear my cross. But if I forgive her to do what’s right, then let our union have only a spiritual aim. That is what I decided, and what I wrote to Joseph Alexéevich. I told my wife I asked her to forget the past, to forgive me whatever wrong I had done, and that I had nothing to forgive. It brought me joy to say this. She need not know how hard it was for me to see her again. I have settled on the upper floor of this big house, experiencing a happy sense of renewal.

##  CHAPTER IX

At that time, as so often happens, the highest society that gathered at court and at the grand balls was divided into several circles, each with its own particular tone. The largest of these was the French circle of the Napoleonic alliance, those around Count Rumyántsev and Caulaincourt. In this group, Hélène, once she had settled in Petersburg with her husband, took a very prominent place. She was visited by members of the French embassy and by many people from that circle, known for their brains and polished manners.

Hélène had been at Erfurt during the famous meeting of the Emperors and had formed these relationships with Napoleonic notables. At Erfurt, her success had been dazzling. Napoleon himself noticed her in the theater and remarked: *“C’est un superbe animal.”* \* Her triumph as a beautiful and elegant woman did not surprise Pierre, for she had become even lovelier than before. What did astonish him was that in the last two years, his wife had gained the reputation *“d’une femme charmante, aussi spirituelle que belle.”* \*(2) The distinguished Prince de Ligne wrote her letters eight pages long. Bilíbin reserved his epigrams to show them off in Countess Bezúkhova’s presence. To be welcomed in the Countess Bezúkhova’s salon was regarded as a mark of intellect. Young men would read books before attending Hélène’s evenings, just to have something to offer in her salon; secretaries of the embassy, and even ambassadors, confided diplomatic secrets to her, making Hélène a person of influence. Pierre, who knew she was not at all intelligent, sometimes attended—with a peculiar feeling of perplexity and dread—her evenings and dinner parties, where politics, poetry, and philosophy were discussed. At these parties, he felt like a conjuror waiting for his trick to be discovered any minute. Yet, whether stupidity was exactly what was needed to run such a salon, or because those being deceived enjoyed the deception, somehow it was never exposed—and Hélène Bezúkhova’s reputation as both beautiful and clever became so firm that she could utter nonsense and everyone would rave and search for deep meaning in her words—meanings she herself did not even grasp.

\* “That’s a superb animal.”

\* (2) “Of a charming woman, as witty as she is lovely.”

Pierre was the perfect husband for a brilliant society woman—a distracted, eccentric, *grand seigneur* spouse who inconvenienced no one and, instead of spoiling the high tone of the drawing room, actually provided, by contrast, a flattering background for his elegant and tactful wife. Over the last two years, as a result of his constant preoccupation with abstract ideas and genuine disregard for everything else, Pierre acquired in his wife's circle—one that didn't interest him—the air of nonchalance, indifference, and kindness toward all that can’t be faked and therefore commands involuntary respect. He would enter his wife’s drawing room almost like he was attending a theater, knew everyone, was equally glad to see everyone, and equally indifferent to them all. Sometimes he would join a discussion that interested him and, regardless of whether any “gentlemen of the embassy” were there or not, he would lisp out his views, sometimes quite opposed to the accepted mood of the time. But general opinion about the odd husband of “the most distinguished woman in Petersburg” was so well established that no one took his oddities seriously.

Among the many young men who visited her house daily, Borís Drubetskóy—who had already achieved great success in government—was the closest friend of the Bezúkhov household since Hélène’s return from Erfurt. Hélène called him *“mon page”* and treated him like a child. Her smile for him was the same as for everyone else, but sometimes that smile unsettled Pierre. Toward Pierre, Borís behaved with a notably dignified and melancholy respect. This touch of deference also unsettled Pierre. He had suffered so painfully three years earlier from the humiliation his wife had subjected him to, that he now protected himself from its recurrence; first, by not being a husband to her, and second, by refusing to allow himself to suspect.

“No, now that she’s become a bluestocking, she has finally given up her past flirtations,” he told himself. “There has never been a single case of a bluestocking being carried away by affairs of the heart” – a statement he believed absolutely, despite having no real evidence. Yet, oddly enough, Borís’ presence in his wife’s drawing room (and he was almost always there) had a physical effect on Pierre; it made his limbs tense and disrupted his usual ease of movement.

“What a strange antipathy,” thought Pierre, “yet I used to like him very much.”

In society’s eyes, Pierre was a great gentleman—the somewhat blind and absurd husband of a distinguished wife, a clever oddball who did nothing, harmed no one, and was a genuinely good natured fellow. But all this while, in Pierre’s heart, a complex and difficult process of inner change was happening, revealing much to him and causing him many spiritual doubts and joys.

##  CHAPTER X

Pierre continued his diary, and this is what he wrote at the time:

*24th November*

Got up at eight, read the Scriptures, then went to my duties. (By Joseph Alexéevich’s advice, Pierre had entered state service and was working on one of the committees.) Returned home for dinner and dined alone—the countess had many visitors I don’t like. I ate and drank moderately, and after dinner I copied out some passages for the Brothers. In the evening, I went down to the countess and told a funny story about B., and remembered only after everyone laughed loudly that I shouldn’t have told it.

I’m going to bed with a happy and tranquil mind. Great God, help me to walk in Your path: (1) to conquer anger with calm and thought; (2) to overcome lust with self-restraint and rejection; (3) to withdraw from worldliness, but not neglect (a) service to the state, (b) family duties, (c) friendships and the management of my affairs.

*27th November*

I got up late. On waking I lay long in bed, yielding to laziness. O God, help and strengthen me so that I may walk in Your ways! Read the Scriptures, but without proper feeling. Brother Urúsov came and we gossiped about worldly things. He told me about the Emperor’s new projects. I began to criticize them, but remembered my rules and my benefactor’s words—that a true Freemason should be an eager worker for the state when asked and a quiet observer when not called to help. My tongue is my enemy. Brothers G. V. and O. visited me and we had a preliminary talk about the reception of a new Brother. They assigned me the role of Rhetor. I feel weak and unworthy. Then our talk turned to the meaning of the seven pillars and steps of the Temple: the seven sciences, the seven virtues, the seven vices, and the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit. Brother O. was very eloquent. In the evening, the admission took place. The new decorations made the event even more impressive. It was Borís Drubetskóy who was admitted. I proposed him and served as the Rhetor. A strange feeling agitated me the whole time I was alone with him in the dark chamber. I caught myself feeling hatred for him, which I tried in vain to overcome. That is why I would truly like to save him from evil and guide him to the path of truth, but bad thoughts toward him wouldn’t leave me. It seemed to me that his purpose for joining the Brotherhood was simply to get close to and favored by members of our lodge. Apart from the fact that he had asked me several times about whether N. and S. belonged to our lodge (a question I couldn’t answer), and from my observation that he doesn’t seem able to respect our sacred order and is too focused on and pleased with the superficial to want spiritual growth, I had no cause to doubt him. Still, he seemed insincere, and the whole time in the dark temple, I thought he was mocking me with a contemptuous smile, and I wished I could actually stab his bare chest with the sword I held to it. I wasn’t able to be eloquent, nor could I speak openly about my doubts to the Brothers and the Grand Master. Great Architect of Nature, help me find the true path out of this labyrinth of lies!

After this, three pages are blank in the diary, and then the following is written:

I have had a long and instructive talk alone with Brother V., who encouraged me to stick close to Brother A. Even though I’m unworthy, much has been revealed to me. Adonai is the name of the creator of the world. Elohim is the name of the ruler of all. The third name is the unutterable name which means the *All*. Conversations with Brother V. strengthen, refresh, and support me on the path of virtue. In his presence, doubt disappears. The difference between the paltry teachings of secular science and our sacred, all-encompassing doctrine is clear to me. Human sciences take things apart to understand them, killing everything in the process. In our order’s holy science, everything is one—everything is known wholly and alive. The Trinity—the three elements of matter—are sulphur, mercury, and salt. Sulphur is oily and fiery; combined with salt, its fire provokes a desire in salt, which attracts mercury, grasps it, holds it, and together they bring forth other substances. Mercury is a liquid, volatile, spiritual essence. Christ, the Holy Spirit, Him!…

*3rd December*

Woke up late, read the Scriptures but felt apathetic. Then I wandered up and down the large hall, intending to meditate, but instead I went back to imagining an incident from four years ago, when Dólokhov, meeting me in Moscow after our duel, said he hoped I was enjoying perfect peace of mind despite my wife’s absence. Back then I gave no reply. Now I remembered every detail of that meeting and in my mind, I gave him the most spiteful and bitter answers. I pulled myself together and banished that thought only when I realized I was boiling with anger, but I did not repent deeply enough. Later Borís Drubetskóy came and started talking about various adventures. His arrival annoyed me from the start, and I said something disagreeable to him. He answered, and I lost my temper, saying many unpleasant and even rude things. He went silent, and too late I realized my mistake. My God, I truly can’t get along with him. The reason is my egoism. I put myself above him, and so end up worse than him, for he tolerates my rudeness, while I, on the other hand, harbor contempt for him. O God, grant that in his presence I may see my own failings, and behave so that he may benefit as well. After dinner, I dozed off, and as I was falling asleep, I clearly heard a voice in my left ear say, “Thy day!”

I dreamed I was walking in the dark and was suddenly surrounded by dogs, but I continued on undaunted. Suddenly a small dog bit my left thigh and wouldn’t let go. I started choking it with my hands. As soon as I tore it off, another, bigger one started biting me. I picked it up, but the higher I lifted it, the bigger and heavier it grew. Suddenly Brother A. appeared, took my arm, and led me to a building we could only enter by crossing a narrow plank. I stepped onto it, but it bent and gave way, and I began to climb a fence I could barely reach with my hands. After much effort, I pulled myself up, my leg on one side, my body on the other. Looking around, I saw Brother A. standing on the fence, pointing to a wide avenue and garden, and in the garden was a large and beautiful building. I woke up. O Lord, great Architect of Nature, help me tear these dogs—my passions, especially the last, which merges all the others—away from myself, and help me enter the temple of virtue I glimpsed in my dream.

*7th December*

I dreamed Joseph Alexéevich was at my house, and I was very happy and eager to entertain him. It felt like I was chatting endlessly with others and then suddenly remembered he would not like this, and I wanted to come close to him and embrace him. But as soon as I approached, his face had changed and become young, and he was quietly telling me something about our order’s teachings, but so softly that I couldn’t hear. Then it seemed we all left the room and something strange happened. We sat or lay on the floor. He was speaking, and I wanted to show my sensitivity—rather than listen, I started imagining my inner self and God’s grace sanctifying me. Tears filled my eyes, and I was glad he saw them. But he looked at me with frustration and stood up, cutting off his remarks. I was embarrassed and asked if what he was saying didn’t concern me, but he didn’t answer, just gave me a kind look. Suddenly we were in my bedroom, with a double bed. He lay on the edge and I was burning to embrace him and lie down, too. He said, “Tell me honestly, what is your chief temptation? Do you know it? I think you already do.” Embarrassed by this, I said sloth was my chief temptation. He shook his head skeptically; even more embarrassed, I said that though I was living with my wife as he advised, I was not being her husband. He replied that a man should not deprive his wife of affection, hinting that this was my duty. But I said I was too ashamed, and suddenly everything vanished. I awoke, and in my mind was the Gospel text: “The life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.” Joseph Alexéevich’s face seemed young and bright. That day I received a letter from my benefactor about “conjugal duties.”

*9th December*

I had a dream from which I woke with my heart pounding. I dreamed I was in Moscow at my house, in the big sitting room, and Joseph Alexéevich entered from the drawing room. Instantly I knew that the process of renewal had already taken place in him, and I ran to meet him, embracing and kissing his hands, and he said, “Have you noticed my face is different?” I looked, still holding him, and saw his face was young, hairless, his features completely changed. I said, “I would have recognized you if I met you by chance,” and thought to myself, “Am I telling the truth?” Suddenly I saw him lying as if dead; then he slowly revived and accompanied me into my study with a large book of drawing paper. I said, “I drew that,” and he responded by bowing his head. I opened the book, and every page had excellent drawings. In my dream, I knew these drawings represented the soul’s love adventures with its beloved. Among the pictures was a beautiful illustration of a maiden in sheer robes, her body transparent, flying to the clouds. I knew this maiden symbolized the Song of Songs. As I gazed at the drawings, even knowing it was wrong, I couldn’t tear myself away. Lord, help me! My God, if my being forsaken is Thy doing, Thy will be done; but if I am the cause, teach me what I must do! I shall perish of my debauchery if You leave me utterly!

##  CHAPTER XI

The Rostóvs’ financial situation had not improved during the two years they had spent in the country.

Although Nicholas Rostóv had stuck to his resolution and was still serving humbly in an obscure regiment, spending relatively little, the way of life at Otrádnoe—especially Mítenka’s management—meant that the debts inevitably increased each year. The only obvious solution for the old count was to apply for an official post, so he had come to Petersburg to seek one and also, as he put it, to let the girls enjoy themselves one more time.

Soon after their arrival in Petersburg, Berg proposed to Véra and was accepted.

While in Moscow the Rostóvs belonged to the best society without even thinking about it, in Petersburg their circle of acquaintances was much more mixed and uncertain. In Petersburg they were viewed as country folk, and the very people they had entertained in Moscow without wondering about their standing now looked down on them.

The Rostóvs lived as hospitably in Petersburg as they had in Moscow, and their suppers brought together the most varied guests. Country neighbors from Otrádnoe, impoverished old squires and their daughters, Perónskaya the maid of honor, Pierre Bezúkhov, and the son of their district postmaster who had gotten a job in Petersburg all gathered there. Among the men who soon became frequent visitors at the Rostóvs’ house in Petersburg were Borís, Pierre—whom the count had bumped into on the street and brought home—and Berg, who spent whole days at the Rostóvs’ and paid their eldest daughter, Countess Véra, the kind of attention a young man gives when he plans to propose.

It was no accident Berg proudly showed everyone his right hand, wounded at Austerlitz, and carried a completely unnecessary sword in his left. He recounted that incident so persistently and with such importance that everyone believed in the merit and usefulness of his deed, and he received two decorations for Austerlitz.

During the Finnish war, he also found a way to stand out. He picked up a fragment of grenade that had killed an aide-de-camp near the commander-in-chief and brought it to his own commander. Just as after Austerlitz, he told this story at such length and so insistently that everyone again believed it had been essential for him to do it, and he received two more decorations for the Finnish war. By 1809, he was a captain in the Guards, wore medals, and held some especially lucrative posts in Petersburg.

Although some skeptics smirked at Berg’s supposed merits, it was undeniable that he was diligent and brave, had excellent relations with his superiors, and was a moral young man with a promising career and a secure place in society.

Four years earlier, after spotting a German friend of his at a Moscow theater, Berg had pointed out Véra Rostóva to him and said in German, *“das soll mein Weib werden,”* \* and from that moment had decided to marry her. Now, considering the Rostóvs’ situation and his own, he decided the time to propose had come.

\* “That girl shall be my wife.”

Berg’s proposal was at first met with a puzzlement that wasn’t particularly flattering for him. At first, it seemed odd that the son of an obscure Livonian gentleman should propose to Countess Rostóva; but Berg’s main trait was such a naïve and kindly egotism that the Rostóvs naturally came to believe it made sense, simply because Berg was so certain it was an excellent idea. Moreover, the Rostóvs’ affairs were seriously troubled—as the suitor surely knew; and above all, Véra was twenty-four, had been taken out into society, and though certainly good-looking and sensible, no one had yet proposed to her. So, they agreed.

“You see,” Berg told his comrade—whom he called “friend” purely because he knew everyone is supposed to have friends—“you see, I’ve thought it all through, and I would not marry if I hadn’t considered it carefully or if it were in any way improper. On the contrary, my father and mother are provided for now—I’ve arranged rent for them in the Baltic Provinces—and I can live in Petersburg on my salary. With her fortune and my good management, we’ll do well. I’m not marrying for money—that would be dishonorable—but a wife should bring her share and a husband his. I have my position, she has connections and some means. Nowadays, that’s worth something, isn’t it? Most importantly, she’s attractive and respectable, and she loves me…”

Berg blushed and smiled.

“And I love her, because her character is sensible and very good. Now, the other sister, although they’re from the same family, is entirely different—unpleasant, and not as clever. She’s just… you know?… Unpleasant… But my fiancée!… Well, you’ll be coming—” he almost said, “to dinner,” but quickly changed it to “to have tea with us,” and, curling his tongue, blew a perfect little smoke ring, the picture of his dream of happiness.

After the parents’ initial bewilderment at Berg’s proposal, the festive spirit usually felt during such occasions swept through the family, but the joy was only on the surface and not quite genuine. There was a certain discomfort in the family’s attitude toward this wedding, as if they were embarrassed for not having loved Véra enough and now felt almost too eager to see her married off. The old count felt this most keenly. He probably couldn’t have explained why he felt uneasy, but it was due to his financial situation. He didn’t know at all how much he had, what he owed, or what dowry he could give Véra. When his daughters were born, he had assigned each an estate with three hundred serfs as a dowry; but one of those estates had already been sold, and the other had been mortgaged with such overdue interest it would have to be sold soon, making it impossible to give it to Véra. He had no money to give, either.

Berg had already been engaged for a month, and only a week was left before the wedding, but the count still hadn’t decided what Véra’s dowry would be, nor talked to his wife about it. At one point he considered giving her the Ryazán estate or selling a forest, at another, borrowing money on a promissory note. Just days before the wedding, Berg entered the count’s study early in the morning and, with a polite smile, respectfully asked what Véra’s dowry would be. The count, flustered by this long-expected question, blurted out the first thing that came to mind. “I like your businesslike approach… I like it. You’ll be satisfied…”

He patted Berg on the shoulder and stood up, hoping to finish the conversation. But Berg, still smiling, explained that unless he knew clearly how much Véra would get, and unless he received at least part of the dowry in advance, he’d have to break things off.

“Because consider, Count—if I allowed myself to marry now without definite means to support my wife, I would be acting irresponsibly…”

The conversation ended with the count, wanting to be generous and avoid further insistence, saying he would give a promissory note for eighty thousand rubles. Berg thanked him gratefully and politely, but said it was impossible for him to start his new life without receiving thirty thousand in ready money. “Or at least twenty thousand, Count,” he added, “and then just a note for sixty thousand.”

“Yes, yes, all right!” said the count quickly. “Just pardon me, my dear fellow, I’ll give you twenty thousand and a promissory note for eighty thousand as well. Yes, yes! Give me a kiss.”

##  CHAPTER XII

Natásha was sixteen, and it was 1809—the very year she had counted out with Borís on her fingers after their kiss four years before. Since then, she hadn’t seen him. When Borís was mentioned in front of Sónya and her mother, she spoke of that episode quite openly, as if it were just a childish, long-forgotten affair not worth mentioning. Still, deep down, the question of whether her engagement to Borís was just a joke or a serious, binding promise tormented her.

Since Borís had left Moscow in 1805 to join the army, he had not seen the Rostóvs. He had visited Moscow several times and even passed near Otrádnoe, but never called on them.

Sometimes Natásha suspected he didn’t want to see her, and this suspicion was reinforced by the sad tone her elders used when speaking about him.

“Nowadays old friends are forgotten,” the countess would say when Borís was mentioned.

Anna Mikháylovna had also been visiting them less and held herself with a new dignity, always talking in glowing and grateful terms of her son’s achievements and the brilliant career he had begun. When the Rostóvs came to Petersburg, Borís called on them.

He drove to their house a bit agitated. His memory of Natásha was his most poetic. However, he went determined to make her and her parents understand that the childish relationship between him and Natásha could not obligate either of them. He now had a brilliant standing in society—thanks to his close friendship with Countess Bezúkhova—and a promising career in the service, owing to a powerful patron who trusted him completely. He was starting to plan to marry one of Petersburg’s wealthiest heiresses, a plan that could well succeed. When he entered the Rostóvs’ drawing room, Natásha was in her own room. On hearing of his arrival, she almost ran into the drawing room, her face flushed and beaming with a more than friendly smile.

Borís remembered Natásha as a little girl in a short dress, with bright eyes under her curls and wild, childish laughter, as she had been four years ago; so he was taken aback when a very different Natásha entered, and his face showed delighted surprise. Natásha was pleased at his reaction.

“Well, do you recognize your little madcap playmate?” the countess asked.

Borís kissed Natásha’s hand and said he was amazed at her transformation.

“How beautiful you’ve become!”

“I should think so!” Natásha’s laughing eyes seemed to reply.

“And is Papa older?” she asked.

Natásha sat down and, without joining in Borís’ conversation with the countess, silently and thoroughly observed her childhood suitor. He felt the weight of that determined and affectionate gaze and glanced at her now and then.

Borís’ uniform, spurs, tie, and the way his hair was styled were all *comme il faut* and very much in the latest fashion. Natásha noticed this immediately. He sat slightly sideways in his chair next to the countess, fussing with the cleanest of gloves that fit his left hand like a second skin, and spoke with a particular refinement about the pleasures of Petersburg’s highest society, mentioning old Moscow times and acquaintances with gentle irony. Natásha could tell it was not by accident that he referred to prestigious balls he had attended and invitations he’d received from N.N. and S.S.

Throughout this, Natásha remained quiet, looking at him out of the corners of her eyes. This gaze unsettled and confused Borís more and more; he turned toward her more often and lost his train of thought. He stayed less than ten minutes, then left. The same curious, challenging, and slightly mocking eyes followed him as he departed. After this first visit, Borís admitted to himself that he was just as attracted to Natásha as before, but he must not give in to those feelings, since marrying her—a nearly penniless girl—would ruin his career, while reviving their old relationship without any intent to marry would be dishonorable. Borís resolved to avoid seeing Natásha, but despite his intentions, he came again a few days later, and soon began visiting frequently, sometimes spending entire days with the Rostóvs. He felt he ought to have an honest conversation with Natásha and tell her the past was behind them, that despite everything, she could not be his wife, and he had no means, and her family would never agree. But he failed to do so, feeling awkward about starting such a talk. Each day, he became more and more involved. To her mother and Sónya, it seemed as though Natásha was once again in love with Borís. She sang him his favorite songs, showed him her album and made him write in it, refused to let him mention the past, hinting instead at the happiness of the present; and every day Borís left without having explained himself, confused about what he was doing or why he kept coming back, or how things would end. He stopped visiting Hélène and received reproachful notes from her every day, yet still continued to spend whole days with the Rostóvs.

##  CHAPTER XIII

One night, the old countess—wearing her nightcap and dressing jacket, without her false curls and with her thin little knot of hair visible beneath the white cotton cap—knelt sighing and groaning on a rug, bowing to the ground in prayer. Suddenly her door creaked open and Natásha, also in a dressing jacket, with slippers on her bare feet and her hair in curlers, hurried in. The countess, her prayerful mood interrupted, looked around and frowned. She was finishing her last prayer: “Could it be that this couch will be my grave?” Natásha, flushed and eager, noticing her mother in prayer, suddenly checked her rush, half sat down, and unconsciously stuck out her tongue as if scolding herself. Realizing her mother was still praying, she crept tiptoe to the bed, quickly slid one foot against the other, slipped off her slippers, and jumped onto the bed the countess had feared might become her resting place. The bed was high, made with a feather mattress and five pillows, each one smaller than the next. Natásha leaped onto it, sank into the feather bed, rolled over to the wall, and began tucking in the bedclothes as she settled, drawing her knees up under her chin, kicking out, and laughing almost silently—now covering herself completely, and now peeking at her mother. The countess finished her prayers and walked over to the bed with a stern face, but when she saw Natásha’s head covered, she smiled in her gentle, weak way.

“Now then, now then!” she said.

“Mamma, can we have a talk? Please?” said Natásha. “Now, just one kiss on your throat and another… that’s enough!” And grabbing her mother around the neck, she kissed her throat. While Natásha could seem rough with her mother, she was so sensitive and considerate that, no matter how she embraced her, she always managed to avoid hurting or troubling her.

“Well, what is it tonight?” asked her mother, after fixing her pillows and waiting for Natásha, who turned over a couple of times before settling down beside her, spreading out her arms and putting on a serious look.

These nighttime visits from Natásha before the count came back from his club were one of the greatest pleasures for both mother and daughter.

“What is it tonight?—But I have to tell you…”

Natásha placed her hand on her mother’s mouth.

“About Borís… I know,” she said seriously. “That’s why I came. Don’t say it—I already know. No, tell me!” she insisted, taking her hand away. “Tell me, Mamma! He’s nice?”

“Natásha, you are sixteen. At your age, I was married. You say Borís is nice. Yes, he is, and I love him like a son. But then what?… What are you thinking? You’ve completely turned his head, I can see that….”

As she said this, the countess glanced over at her daughter. Natásha was lying on her side, staring intently at one of the mahogany sphinxes carved on the bedstead’s corners, so her mother only saw her face in profile. That face struck her by how unusually serious and focused it looked.

Natásha was listening, thinking it over.

“Well, what then?” she asked.

“You’ve turned his head entirely, and why? What do you want from him? You know you can’t marry him.”

“Why not?” Natásha asked, not moving.

“Because he’s young, because he’s poor, because he’s a relation… and because you don’t love him.”

“How do you know?”

“I know. It’s not right, my dear!”

“But if I want to…” Natásha began.

“Don’t talk nonsense,” said the countess.

“But what if I want to…”

“Natásha, I mean it…”

Natásha didn’t let her mother finish. She drew the countess’ large hand to her, kissed it on the back and then on the palm, then turned it over again and began kissing first one knuckle, then the space between them, then the next knuckle, whispering, “January, February, March, April, May. Say something, Mamma, why aren’t you speaking? Say something!” she urged, turning to her mother, who was gazing tenderly at her daughter and seemed to have forgotten all she had planned to say.

“It won’t do, my love! Not everyone understands this friendship that's been around since your childhood, and having him so close to you might hurt your reputation with other young men who visit us. Above all, it only torments him for no reason. He could find a suitable and wealthy match already, and now he’s half-crazed.”

“Crazy?” Natásha repeated.

“I’ll tell you something about myself. I had a cousin…”

“I know! Cyril Matvéich… but he’s old.”

“He wasn’t always old. But here’s what I’ll do, Natásha—I’ll talk to Borís. He doesn’t need to visit so often….”

“Why not, if he enjoys it?”

“Because I know it won’t lead anywhere….”

“How can you know that? No, Mamma, don’t talk to him! That’s nonsense!” said Natásha defensively, as if something of hers was being taken away. “Fine, I won’t marry him, but let him come if it’s fun for both of us.” Natásha smiled and looked at her mother. “Not to get married, just because,” she added.

“How *just because*, dear?”

“Just *because*. There’s no reason for me to marry him. But—just *because*.”

“Just because, just because,” the countess repeated, and shaking all over, burst into a good-humored, unexpected, elderly laugh.

“Don’t laugh, stop!” cried Natásha. “You’re shaking the whole bed! You’re so much like me, just the same kind of giggler…. Wait…” She grabbed the countess’ hands and kissed a knuckle of her little finger, saying, “June,” and went on, kissing, “July, August,” on the other hand. “But, Mamma, is he really in love? What do you think? Was anyone ever so in love with you? He is really nice, very, very nice. Just not quite my taste—he’s so narrow, like the dining room clock…. Can’t you see? Narrow, you know—gray, light gray…”

“What nonsense you’re talking!” said the countess.

Natásha went on: “Don’t you really get it? Nicholas would understand…. Bezúkhov is blue, dark-blue and red, and he’s square.”

“You flirt with him too,” the countess said, laughing.

“No, he’s a Freemason, I found out. He’s fine—dark-blue and red…. How do I explain it to you?”

“Little countess!” called the count’s voice from behind the door. “You’re not asleep?” Natásha jumped up, grabbed her slippers, and hurried barefoot to her own room.

It was a long time before she could fall asleep. She kept thinking that no one could truly understand all that she understood and everything inside her.

“Sónya?” she thought, glancing at that curled-up, sleeping kitten with her thick braid of hair. “No, how could she? She’s virtuous. She fell in love with Nicholas and doesn’t want to know anything else. Even Mama doesn’t understand. It’s amazing how clever I am and how… charming she is,” she continued, referring to herself in the third person, and imagining it was some very wise man—the wisest and best of men—saying this about her. “There is everything, everything in her,” the man went on. “She is extraordinarily intelligent, charming… and then she *is* pretty, unusually pretty, and graceful—she swims and rides wonderfully… and her voice! You really could say it’s a marvelous voice!”

She hummed a bit from her favorite opera by Cherubini, threw herself on her bed, laughed at the delightful thought that she would fall asleep right away, called Dunyásha the maid to put out the candle, and before Dunyásha had left the room had already drifted into another even happier world of dreams, where everything was as bright and beautiful as in reality, and even more so because it was different.

The next day the countess called Borís aside and spoke with him, after which he stopped coming to the Rostóvs’.

##  CHAPTER XIV

On the thirty-first of December, New Year's Eve, 1809-10, an old grandee from Catherine's era was hosting a ball with a midnight supper. The diplomatic corps and the Emperor himself were expected to attend.

The grandee's famous mansion on the English Quay sparkled with countless lights. Police stood at the brightly lit entrance, which was covered in red baize, and not only gendarmes but dozens of officers and even the chief of police himself stood at the porch. Carriages kept departing as new ones arrived, with footmen in red livery and others in plumed hats. From the carriages stepped men dressed in uniforms, with stars and ribbons, while ladies in satin and ermine carefully descended the carriage steps that were let down for them with a clatter, then hurried quietly over the baize into the entrance.

Almost every time a carriage drew up, a whisper ran through the crowd and hats were removed.

"The Emperor? ... No, a minister... prince... ambassador. Don't you see the plumes?" people whispered among the crowd.

One man, better dressed than the others, seemed to know everyone and named the most important dignitaries as they arrived.

A third of the guests had already arrived, but the Rostóvs, who were also invited, were still hurrying to get dressed.

Within the Rostóv family, there had been many discussions and preparations for this ball, along with many worries that the invitation might not come, that the dresses wouldn't be ready, or that something else might not be arranged as it should be.

Márya Ignátevna Perónskaya, a thin and shallow maid of honor at the Dowager Empress's court, who was both a friend and relative of the countess and acted as guide for the provincial Rostóvs in Petersburg high society, was to accompany them to the ball.

They were supposed to pick her up at her house in the Taurida Gardens at ten o'clock, but it was already five minutes to ten and the girls were still not dressed.

Natásha was about to attend her first grand ball. She had gotten up at eight that morning, bubbling with excitement and activity all day. Since morning, all her energy had focused on ensuring that she, Mamma, and Sónya would be as well dressed as possible. Sónya and her mother put themselves completely in her hands. The countess was to wear a claret-colored velvet dress, and the two girls were to wear white gauze over pink silk slips, with roses on their bodices and their hair styled *à la grecque*.

Everything essential had already been done: feet, hands, necks, and ears washed, perfumed, and powdered, as befits a ball; the openwork silk stockings and white satin shoes with ribbons were already on; the hairdressing was nearly finished. Sónya was almost dressed, as was the countess, but Natásha, who had been bustling around helping everyone else, was behind schedule. She was still sitting in front of a mirror with a dressing jacket draped over her slender shoulders. Sónya, fully dressed, stood in the middle of the room, pressing a pin into a last ribbon until it hurt her delicate finger, fixing it as the pin squeaked through the fabric.

"That's not the way, that's not the way, Sónya!" cried Natásha, turning her head and clutching at her hair with both hands, which the maid doing her hair hadn't had time to let go of. "That bow isn't right. Come here!"

Sónya sat down, and Natásha arranged the ribbon differently.

"Let me do it, Miss! I can't manage it that way," said the maid holding Natásha's hair.

"Oh, dear! Well then, wait. That's right, Sónya."

"Aren't you ready? It's almost ten," came the countess's voice.

"Right away! Right away! And you, Mamma?"

"I just have to pin on my cap."

"Don't do it without me!" called Natásha. "You won't do it right."

"But it's already ten."

They had planned to be at the ball by half-past ten, and Natásha still needed to finish dressing, and they had to pick up Perónskaya at the Taurida Gardens.

When her hair was done, Natásha—in her short petticoat with her dancing shoes peeking out from underneath, and in her mother's dressing jacket—ran up to Sónya, inspected her, and then ran to her mother. Turning her mother's head this way and that, she fastened on the cap and, quickly kissing her gray hair, hurried back to the maids who were turning up her skirt's hem.

The reason for the delay was Natásha's skirt, which was too long. Two maids were hemming the skirt, biting off the thread ends in a hurry. A third maid, with pins in her mouth, was running between the countess and Sónya, while a fourth held the entire delicate garment aloft with one raised hand.

"Mávra, faster, darling!"

"Pass me my thimble, Miss, from over there..."

"When will you ever be ready?" asked the count as he came to the door. "Here is some scent. Perónskaya must be tired of waiting."

"It's ready, Miss," said the maid, holding up the shortened gauze dress with two fingers, blowing and shaking something off it, as if to show just how light and pure what she held was.

Natásha began putting on the dress.

"In a minute! In a minute! Don't come in, Papa!" she shouted to her father as he opened the door—speaking from beneath the filmy skirt, which still covered her face.

Sónya slammed the door. A minute later, they let the count in. He wore a blue swallowtail coat, shoes and stockings, was scented, and his hair was pomaded.

"Oh, Papa! You look so handsome! Charming!" cried Natásha, standing in the center of the room, smoothing out the folds of her gauze dress.

"If you please, Miss! Let me," said the maid, kneeling as she pulled the skirt straight, shifting the pins in her mouth from side to side with her tongue.

"Say what you like," exclaimed Sónya in despair as she looked at Natásha, "say what you like, it's still too long."

Natásha stepped back to look at herself in the pier glass. The dress *was* too long.

"Really, madam, it is not at all too long," insisted Mávra, crawling on her knees after her young lady.

"Well, if it's too long we'll tack it up... we'll tack it up in one minute," said the determined Dunyásha, taking a needle from the front of her little shawl and, still kneeling on the floor, set to work again.

At that moment, the countess came in softly, wearing her cap and velvet gown, looking shy.

"Ooh, my beauty!" exclaimed the count. "She looks better than any of you!"

He moved to embrace her, but she stepped aside, blushing, afraid he would muss her dress.

“Mama, your cap, a bit more to this side,” said Natásha. “Let me fix it,” and she rushed forward so quickly that the maids tacking up her skirt couldn’t keep up, and a piece of gauze was torn off.

“Oh dear! What happened? Honestly, it wasn’t my fault!”

“Don’t worry, I’ll sew it up, it won’t show,” said Dunyásha.

“What a beauty—a real queen!” the nurse exclaimed as she came to the door. “And Sónya! They’re both lovely!”

At a quarter past ten, they finally got into their carriages and set off. But they still had to stop at the Taurida Gardens.

Perónskaya was already prepared. Despite her age and plain looks, she had gone through the same preparations as the Rostóvs, but with less fuss—since for her, it was routine. Her plain old body had been washed, perfumed, and powdered in the same way. She made sure to wash behind her ears just as carefully, and when she entered her drawing room in her yellow dress, wearing her badge as maid of honor, her elderly lady’s maid was as filled with delighted admiration as the Rostóvs’ servants had been.

She complimented the Rostóvs’ outfits. They praised her taste and dress in return, and at eleven o’clock, all careful of their hairstyles and dresses, they settled in their carriages and drove off.

##  CHAPTER XV

Natásha hadn’t had a free moment since early morning and hadn’t once been able to think about what lay ahead.

In the damp, chilly air and the cramped, swaying carriage, she imagined for the first time what awaited her at the ball, in those brightly lit rooms—with music, flowers, dancing, the Emperor, and all the brilliant young people of Petersburg. The prospect was so wonderful that she could hardly believe it would actually happen, it seemed so out of place with the chilly darkness and stuffiness in the carriage. She only realized what was awaiting her once, after stepping over the red baize at the entrance, she entered the hall, took off her fur cloak, and—beside Sónya and in front of her mother—walked up the brilliantly lit stairs among the flowers. Only then did she remember how she should behave at a ball, and tried to put on the grand air she thought proper for an occasion like this. But, luckily for her, she felt her eyes grow misty, could hardly see anything, her pulse beat wildly, and her heart thudded. She couldn’t manage the pose, which would have made her seem ridiculous, and she moved on almost faint with excitement, trying her best to hide it. This, in fact, suited her best. Before and behind them, other guests were arriving, also speaking in low tones and wearing ball gowns. The mirrors along the landing reflected ladies in white, pale blue, and pink dresses, with diamonds and pearls on their bare necks and arms.

Natásha glanced in the mirrors and couldn’t distinguish her reflection from the others. Everything blended into one dazzling procession. Entering the ballroom, the steady hum of voices, footsteps, and greetings overwhelmed Natásha, and the lights and glitter dazzled her even more. The host and hostess, who had been standing by the door for half an hour repeating the same greeting to all the guests, *“Charmé de vous voir,”* \* welcomed the Rostóvs and Perónskaya the same way.

\* “Delighted to see you.”

The two girls, dressed in white with roses in their dark hair, both curtsied the same way, but the hostess’s gaze lingered longer on the slim Natásha. She looked at her and, in addition to the usual hostess smile, gave her a special one. Watching her, she may have recalled the golden, irretrievable days of her girlhood and her own first ball. The host, too, watched Natásha and asked the count which one was his daughter.

“Charming!” he said, kissing the tips of his fingers.

In the ballroom, guests crowded at the entrance doors, waiting for the Emperor. The countess found a place in one of the front rows. Natásha could hear and feel that people were asking about her and looking at her. She understood that those noticing her liked her, and the realization helped calm her nerves.

“There are some like us and some not as good,” she thought.

Perónskaya was pointing out the most important people at the ball to the countess.

“That’s the Dutch ambassador, do you see? That gray-haired man,” she said, indicating an older man with a head full of silver-gray curls, surrounded by ladies laughing at something he said.

“Oh, here she is, the Queen of Petersburg, Countess Bezúkhova,” said Perónskaya, pointing out Hélène, who had just come in. “How beautiful! She’s every bit as fine as Márya Antónovna. See how men, young and old, all gather around her. Beautiful *and* clever… they say Prince —— is completely taken with her. But notice—those two, even though they’re not pretty, are even more sought after.”

She pointed to a lady making her way across the room, followed by a very plain daughter.

“That one’s a great catch, a millionairess,” said Perónskaya. “Look, here come her suitors.”

“That’s Bezúkhova’s brother, Anatole Kurágin,” she said, pointing to a strikingly handsome officer of the Horse Guards who passed by with his head held high, looking over the ladies’ heads. “He’s handsome, isn’t he? I’ve heard they want to marry him to that rich girl. But your cousin, Drubetskóy, pays her a lot of attention, too. They say she’s got millions. Ah yes, that’s the French ambassador himself!” she replied to the countess’s question about Caulaincourt. “He looks just like a king! The French are charming, very charming. No one’s more delightful in society. Ah, here she is! Yes, she’s still the most beautiful of them all, our Márya Antónovna! And how simply she’s dressed! Beautiful! And that heavyset one in spectacles is the universal Freemason,” she added, motioning to Pierre. “Put him next to his wife and he looks ridiculous!”

Pierre, swaying his broad frame, moved through the crowd, nodding to right and left as casually and kindly as though he was walking through a fair. He pushed forward, clearly looking for someone.

Natásha joyfully spotted the familiar face of Pierre—“the buffoon,” as Perónskaya called him—and knew he was searching for them, for her especially. He had promised to attend the ball and introduce her to partners.

But before reaching them, Pierre stopped beside a very handsome, dark-haired man of medium height in a white uniform, who stood by a window talking to a tall man with decorations and a ribbon. Natásha recognized immediately that the younger, shorter man in the white uniform was Bolkónski, who seemed to her to have grown much younger, happier, and more attractive.

“There’s someone else we know—Bolkónski, do you see, Mama?” said Natásha, pointing out Prince Andrew. “You remember, he stayed the night with us at Otrádnoe.”

“Oh, you know him?” said Perónskaya. “I can’t stand him. *Il fait à présent la pluie et le beau temps.* \* He’s far too proud. Takes after his father. And he’s thick with Speránski, writing some new project together. Just look how he treats the ladies! There’s one talking to him and he’s turned his back to her,” she said, pointing at him. “I’d show him if he ever treated me like that.”

\* “He is all the rage just now.”

##  CHAPTER XVI

Suddenly, everyone stirred, began talking, and surged forward and then back, and between the two rows, which parted, the Emperor entered to the sounds of music that immediately started up. Behind him came his host and hostess. He walked in briskly, bowing to the right and left as if eager to get the first moments of the reception over. The band played the polonaise that was popular at that time, thanks to the lyrics that had been set to it, beginning: “Alexander, Elisaveta, all our hearts you ravish quite…” The Emperor moved on to the drawing room, and the crowd rushed for the doors, with several people, their faces excited, hurrying to and fro. Then the crowd quickly pulled back from the drawing room door, where the Emperor reappeared talking to the hostess. A young man, looking flustered, darted down toward the ladies, asking them to move aside. Some ladies, their faces betraying complete disregard for all the rules of decorum, surged forward, endangering their dresses. The men began to select partners and take their places for the polonaise.

Everyone drew back, and the Emperor came smiling out of the drawing room, leading his hostess by the hand but not keeping time with the music. The host followed with Márya Antónovna Narýshkina; then came ambassadors, ministers, and various generals, whom Perónskaya dutifully identified. More than half the ladies already had partners and were taking up, or preparing to take up, their positions for the polonaise. Natásha felt she would be left with her mother and Sónya among the minority of women who crowded near the wall, not having been invited to dance. She stood with her slender arms hanging by her sides, her barely defined bosom rising and falling regularly, and with bated breath and sparkling, nervous eyes gazed straight ahead, clearly prepared for the utmost joy or sorrow. She was not interested in the Emperor or any of the important people Perónskaya was pointing out—she had only one thought: “Is it possible no one will ask me, that I won't be among the first to dance? Is it possible that not one of all these men will notice me? They don’t even seem to see me, or if they do, their look seems to say, 'Ah, she's not the one I want, so there's no reason to look at her!' No, that can't be,” she thought. “They must know how much I long to dance, how wonderfully I dance, and how enjoyable it would be to dance with me.”

The strains of the polonaise, which had gone on for quite a while, began to sound like a sad memory to Natásha’s ears. She wanted to cry. Perónskaya had left them. The count was at the other end of the room. She, the countess, and Sónya stood alone, as if deep in a forest surrounded by a crowd of strangers, with no one interested in them and not wanted by anyone. Prince Andrew passed by with a lady, clearly not recognizing them. The handsome Anatole was talking and laughing with his partner and looked at Natásha as if she were part of the wall. Borís passed them twice, each time turning away. Berg and his wife, who were not dancing, came up to them.

This family grouping seemed embarrassing to Natásha—as if there was nowhere else for the family to talk but here at the ball. She wasn't listening to or looking at Véra, who was saying something about her own green dress.

At last the Emperor stopped beside his final partner (he had danced with three in total) and the music ceased. A worried aide-de-camp hurried up to the Rostóvs, asking them to move farther back, although they were already right by the wall, and from the gallery came the clear, precise, irresistibly rhythmic strains of a waltz. The Emperor looked down the room with a smile. A minute passed, but no one had begun dancing yet. An aide-de-camp, the Master of Ceremonies, went up to Countess Bezúkhova and asked her to dance. She smilingly raised her hand and placed it on his shoulder without looking at him. The aide-de-camp, skillful in his craft, held his partner securely at the waist, and with confident grace started off smoothly, gliding along the edge of the circle. Then at the corner of the room he took Hélène’s left hand and turned her, the only sound apart from the accelerating music being the rhythmic click of his spurs on his rapid, agile feet, while every third beat made his partner’s velvet dress fan out and flash as she spun. Natásha watched them and was ready to cry because she wasn't the one dancing that first turn of the waltz.

Prince Andrew, in the white uniform of a cavalry colonel, wearing stockings and dancing shoes, looked lively and cheerful in the front row of the circle not far from the Rostóvs. Baron Firhoff was speaking to him about the first sitting of the Council of State to be held the next day. Prince Andrew, being closely connected with Speránski and involved in the legislative commission, could provide reliable information about the meeting, about which there were many rumors. But, not listening to Firhoff, he was watching both the sovereign and the men who intended to dance but hadn't yet gathered the courage to step into the circle.

Prince Andrew was observing these men, nervous in the Emperor’s presence, and the women who were breathlessly hoping to be asked to dance.

Pierre came over and caught his arm.

“You always dance. I have a protégée here, the young Rostóva. Ask her,” he said.

“Where is she?” asked Bolkónski. “Excuse me!” he added, turning to the baron. “We’ll finish this conversation elsewhere—at a ball, one must dance.” He stepped in the direction Pierre pointed out. The desperate, dejected look on Natásha’s face caught his eye. He recognized her, guessed her feelings, saw it was her début, remembered their conversation at the window, and with a friendly expression moved toward Countess Rostóva.

“Allow me to introduce you to my daughter,” said the countess, her face flushed.

“I have the pleasure of already being acquainted, if the countess recalls,” said Prince Andrew with a low and courteous bow—quite disproving Perónskaya's remarks about his rudeness—and, stepping up to Natásha, he offered his arm to her waist even before finishing his invitation. He asked her to waltz. That trembling look on Natásha’s face, on the verge of either despair or happiness, instantly brightened into a joyful, grateful, childlike smile.

“I have long been waiting for you,” her smile seemed to say—happy, timid, and as if keeping back tears as she raised her hand to Prince Andrew’s shoulder. They were the second couple to enter the circle. Prince Andrew was one of the best dancers of his day, and Natásha danced beautifully. Her small feet in white satin shoes moved swiftly, lightly, and almost independently of her, while her face shone with radiant happiness. Her slender bare arms and neck weren’t especially beautiful—next to Hélène, her shoulders seemed thin and her chest undeveloped. But Hélène seemed to be coated in a varnish left by thousands of admiring glances, while Natásha was like a girl being unveiled for the first time, who might have been deeply embarrassed had she not been reassured that this was perfectly natural.

Prince Andrew enjoyed dancing, and wanting to escape as soon as possible from the political and clever conversations everyone kept trying to have with him, as well as break up the stiff circle caused by the Emperor’s presence, he danced—and had chosen Natásha because Pierre had pointed her out and because she was the first pretty girl he noticed; but hardly had he embraced that slender, supple figure, felt her move so close and smile so near, than her charm seemed to intoxicate him, and he found himself reenergized and feeling younger when, after leaving her, he stood catching his breath and watching the other dancers.

##  CHAPTER XVII

After Prince Andrew, Borís came to ask Natásha for a dance, then the aide-de-camp who had opened the ball, and several other young men, so that, flushed and happy, and handing off her extra partners to Sónya, she did not stop dancing all evening. She noticed and saw none of the things that occupied everyone else. Not only did she fail to observe that the Emperor spoke for a long time with the French ambassador, and was especially gracious to a certain lady, or that Prince So-and-so and So-and-so did and said this or that, and that Hélène had great success and was honored by the special attention of So-and-so, she didn’t even notice the Emperor, and only realized he had left because the ball suddenly became livelier after his departure. For one of the joyful cotillions before supper, Prince Andrew was again her partner. He reminded her of their first meeting in the Otrádnoe avenue, how she had been unable to sleep that moonlit night, and told her he had overheard her unintentionally. Natásha blushed at the memory and tried to excuse herself, as if there was something to be ashamed of in what Prince Andrew had overheard.

Like all men brought up in society, Prince Andrew enjoyed meeting someone who wasn't of the typical society mold. And such was Natásha, with her surprise, delight, shyness, and even her mistakes in speaking French. With her he acted with special care and tenderness, sitting beside her and talking of the simplest and most trivial things; he admired her shy charm. In the middle of the cotillion, after one of the figures, Natásha, still out of breath, was returning to her seat when another dancer chose her. She was tired and panting and clearly considered refusing, but immediately put her hand cheerfully on the man’s shoulder, smiling at Prince Andrew.

“I’d be glad to sit beside you and rest: I’m tired; but you see how they keep asking me, and I’m glad of it, I’m happy and I love everybody, and you and I understand it all,” and much more was said in her smile. When her partner left, Natásha ran across the room to pick two ladies for the next figure.

“If she goes to her cousin first and then to another lady, she’ll be my wife,” Prince Andrew thought to himself, rather to his own surprise, as he watched her. She did go first to her cousin.

“What nonsense sometimes comes into one's head!” thought Prince Andrew. “But what is certain is that this girl is so charming, so original, she won’t be dancing here for a month before she’s married… Girls like her are rare here,” he mused, as Natásha, readjusting a slipping rose on her bodice, settled back beside him.

When the cotillion was over, the old count in his blue coat came up to the dancers. He invited Prince Andrew to visit them and asked his daughter if she was enjoying herself. Natásha didn’t answer right away but only looked up with a smile that gently reproached: “How can you even ask that?”

“I have never enjoyed myself so much before!” she finally said, and Prince Andrew noticed how her thin arms rose quickly as if to hug her father and immediately dropped again. Natásha was happier than she had ever been in her life. She was at that peak of happiness when one becomes completely kind and good, and doesn't believe in the existence of evil, unhappiness, or sorrow.

At that ball, Pierre for the first time felt humiliated by the role his wife played in court circles. He was gloomy and preoccupied. A deep furrow crossed his forehead, and he stood by a window, staring over his spectacles at nothing in particular.

On her way to supper Natásha passed him.

Pierre’s sombre, unhappy look struck her. She stopped in front of him, wanting to help, to share the overflow of her own happiness.

“How delightful it is, Count!” she said. “Isn’t it?”

Pierre smiled distractedly, clearly not grasping what she said.

“Yes, I’m very glad,” he replied.

“How can people be dissatisfied with anything?” thought Natásha. “Especially someone as wonderful as Bezúkhov!” In Natásha’s eyes, all the people at the ball were good, kind, and splendid, loving one another, none capable of hurting another—and so they all ought to be happy.

##  CHAPTER XVIII

The next day, Prince Andrew thought about the ball, but didn’t dwell on it for long. “Yes, it was a very splendid ball,” he reflected, and then... “Yes, that little Rostóva is very charming. There’s something fresh, original, and unlike Petersburg about her that makes her stand out.” That was all he thought of yesterday’s ball, and after his morning tea, he set to work.

But either from fatigue or lack of sleep, he felt unfit for work and got nothing done. He kept finding fault with his own work, as he often did, and was glad when he heard someone coming.

The visitor was Bítski, who served on various committees, attended all the societies in Petersburg, and was a fervent fan of the new ideas, of Speránski, and was an enthusiastic Petersburg newsmonger—one of those men who choose their opinions like their clothes, according to fashion, but for that very reason seem to be the most zealous supporters. Hardly had he removed his hat before he rushed into Prince Andrew’s room with a busy air and immediately began talking. He had just heard details of that morning’s session of the Council of State, opened by the Emperor, and he spoke of it with excitement. The Emperor’s speech had been extraordinary. It was a speech such as only constitutional monarchs give. “The Sovereign clearly said that the Council and Senate are *estates* of the realm, he said the government must be based not on authority but on secure foundations. The Emperor said that the fiscal system must be reorganized and the accounts published,” recounted Bítski, emphasizing certain words and opening his eyes meaningfully.

“Ah, yes! Today’s events mark an era, the greatest era in our history,” he finished.

Prince Andrew listened to the story of the opening of the Council of State, which he had anticipated so eagerly and to which he had given such importance, and was surprised that this event, now that it had happened, did not affect him and even seemed completely unimportant. He listened with quiet irony to Bítski’s enthusiastic account. A very simple thought came to him: “What difference does it make to me or to Bítski what the Emperor said at the Council? Can any of that make me happier or better?”

And this simple reflection suddenly wiped out all the interest Prince Andrew had felt in the forthcoming reforms. That evening, he was supposed to dine at Speránski’s, “with just a few friends,” as the host had said when inviting him. The idea of dining in the intimate home circle of the man he so admired had greatly interested Prince Andrew, especially since he hadn’t yet seen Speránski at home, but now he felt reluctant to go.

At the scheduled time, however, he entered the modest house Speránski owned in the Taurida Gardens. In the parquet-floored dining room of this small home, remarkable for its extreme cleanliness (almost like a monastery), Prince Andrew, who was somewhat late, found Speránski’s close friends already gathered at five o’clock. There were no women present except Speránski’s young daughter (long-faced like her father) and her governess. The other guests were Gervais, Magnítski, and Stolýpin. While still in the entryway, Prince Andrew heard loud voices and a sharp, staccato laugh—a laugh like one hears on the stage. Someone—it sounded like Speránski—was distinctly exclaiming *ha-ha-ha*. Prince Andrew had never before heard Speránski’s famous laugh, and this clear, high-pitched laughter from a statesman made a strange impression on him.

He entered the dining room. The company was standing between two windows at a small table set with hors d’oeuvres. Speránski, wearing a gray swallow-tail coat with a star on the chest and clearly still in the same waistcoat and tall white stock he’d worn at the Council meeting, stood at the table with a radiant look. His guests were gathered around him. Magnítski, addressing Speránski, was telling an anecdote, and Speránski was already laughing at what was coming. When Prince Andrew entered the room, Magnítski’s words were met with more laughter. Stolýpin gave a deep bass guffaw as he ate a piece of bread and cheese. Gervais laughed softly with a hissing chuckle, and Speránski in a high, staccato manner.

Still laughing, Speránski extended his soft white hand to Prince Andrew.

“Very pleased to see you, Prince,” he said. “One moment…” he continued, turning to Magnítski and interrupting his story. “We all agreed that this dinner is for enjoyment, not a word about business!” and turning again to Magnítski, he began laughing anew.

Prince Andrew looked at the laughing Speránski with surprise, disappointment, and disillusionment. It seemed to him that this was not Speránski, but someone else. Everything that had seemed mysterious and fascinating in Speránski suddenly became clear and unappealing.

At dinner, the conversation didn’t pause for a moment and seemed like the contents of a book of comedic anecdotes. Before Magnítski had finished his story, someone else wanted to tell an even funnier one. Most of these stories, if not about state service, were about people in the service. It seemed assumed in this group that those people were so insignificant, the only proper stance toward them was mild ridicule. Speránski recounted how, at the Council that morning, a deaf dignitary, when asked for his opinion, replied that he agreed too. Gervais shared a long tale of an official review, notable for the stupidity of all involved. Stolýpin, who stuttered, started to talk excitedly about the abuses under the former system, threatening to turn the conversation serious. Magnítski teased Stolýpin about his intensity. Gervais jumped in with a joke, and the talk went back to its former cheerful tone.

Clearly, Speránski liked to relax after his labors and enjoy himself among friends, and his guests tried to cheer him up and amuse themselves. But to Prince Andrew, their merriment seemed hollow and dull. Speránski’s high-pitched voice bothered him, and the constant laughter felt grating, like a false note. Prince Andrew didn’t laugh and worried he was spoiling the mood, but no one seemed to care that he wasn’t in step with the general cheer. They all seemed very happy.

He tried several times to join in the conversation, but each of his remarks was brushed aside, like a cork tossed on water, and he couldn’t joke along with them.

There was nothing wrong or improper about their conversation—it was clever and might have been funny—but it was missing that quality which is the true spice of humor, and they didn’t even realize it.

After dinner, Speránski’s daughter and her governess got up. He patted the little girl’s head with his white hand and kissed her. That gesture, too, seemed unnatural to Prince Andrew.

The men stayed at the table over port, English style. In the midst of a conversation about Napoleon’s Spanish affairs, which they all agreed were admirable, Prince Andrew began to offer a different opinion. Speránski smiled and, clearly wanting to steer the conversation away from unpleasantness, told a story unrelated to what had been discussed. For a moment, everyone was silent.

After they’d sat at the table for a while, Speránski corked a bottle of wine and, commenting, “Nowadays good wine travels by carriage and pair,” handed it to the servant and rose. All the men stood, still talking loudly, and moved to the drawing room. Two letters brought by a courier were given to Speránski, and he took them to his study. As soon as he left the room, the general merriment stopped and the guests began to converse calmly and sensibly.

“Now for the recitation!” exclaimed Speránski as he returned from his study. “A wonderful talent!” he said to Prince Andrew, and Magnítski immediately struck a pose and began reciting some humorous verses in French, which he had written about various well-known Petersburg people. He was interrupted several times by applause. When the verses were finished, Prince Andrew went up to Speránski and said goodbye.

“Where are you off to so early?” asked Speránski.

“I promised to go to a reception.”

They said no more. Prince Andrew looked closely into Speránski’s mirror-like, impenetrable eyes and realized how absurd it had been to expect anything from Speránski or from his own activities related to him, or ever to have thought what Speránski was doing was important. That precise, joyless laughter rang in Prince Andrew’s ears long after he had left the house.

When he got home, Prince Andrew began thinking about his life in Petersburg during the past four months as if it were something new. He recalled his efforts and petitions, and the history of his army reform project, which had been accepted for consideration but was being quietly ignored because another, much worse, project had already been submitted to the Emperor. He thought about the committee meetings, where Berg was a member. He remembered how carefully and at length everything relating to procedures and rules was discussed, and how anything relating to the actual purpose of the business was promptly avoided. He recalled his work on the Legal Code, how meticulously he had translated Roman and French legal articles into Russian, and he felt ashamed. Then he imagined Boguchárovo, his activities in the country, his trip to Ryazán; he remembered the peasants and Dron the village elder, and mentally applied to them the Personal Rights he had split into paragraphs, and he was amazed he could have spent so much time on such pointless work.

##  CHAPTER XIX

The next day, Prince Andrew called on a few households he hadn’t yet visited, including the Rostóvs, whom he had become reacquainted with at the ball. Besides social obligations that required the call, he wanted to see that original, eager girl who had left such a pleasant impression on him, in her own home.

Natásha was among the first to greet him. She was wearing a dark-blue house dress in which Prince Andrew found her even prettier than in her ball gown. She and the whole Rostóv family welcomed him as an old friend, warm and sincere. The whole family, whom he had previously judged harshly, now seemed to him excellent, simple, and kind people. The old count’s hospitality and good nature—which stood out even in Petersburg—surprised Prince Andrew so much that he couldn’t refuse to stay for dinner. “Yes,” he thought, “they are wonderful people, who of course have no idea what a treasure they have in Natásha. But they are good-hearted and provide the perfect setting for this remarkably poetic, charming girl, so full of life!”

In Natásha, Prince Andrew sensed a world entirely different from his own, full of joys unknown to him—a different world, one that in the Otrádnoe avenue and at the window that moonlit night had already begun to unsettle him. Now this world was no longer unsettling or foreign, but now that he had entered it, he found new happiness there.

After dinner, at Prince Andrew’s request, Natásha went to the clavichord to sing. Prince Andrew stood by a window talking to the ladies while listening. In the middle of a phrase, he stopped talking and suddenly felt tears well up, something he thought was impossible for him. He looked at Natásha as she sang, and something new and joyful stirred in his soul. He felt happy, and at the same time, sad. There was nothing he should cry about, yet he felt ready to cry. Cry over what? His former love? The little princess? His disappointments?… His hopes for the future?… Yes and no. The main reason was a sudden, striking sense of the huge contrast between something infinite and limitless within him, and that limited, material something that both he and even she were. This contrast weighed on him and yet cheered him as she sang.

As soon as Natásha finished, she went to him and asked how he liked her singing. She asked and then became embarrassed, feeling she shouldn’t have. He smiled at her and said he liked her singing as he liked everything she did.

Prince Andrew left the Rostóvs’ late in the evening. He went to bed out of habit, but soon realized he couldn’t sleep. Lighting his candle, he sat up, then got out of bed, then lay down again, undisturbed by his wakefulness: his spirit felt as refreshed and joyful as if he had stepped from a stuffy room into God’s fresh air. It didn’t occur to him that he was in love with Natásha; he wasn’t even thinking of her, but only picturing her in his mind, and so all of life seemed transformed. “Why do I strive, why do I confine myself to this narrow, cramped frame, when all life and all its joys are open to me?” he thought. And for the first time in a very long while, he began making hopeful plans. He decided he must arrange his son’s education by finding a tutor and placing the boy in his care, then he should retire from service and go abroad—to see England, Switzerland, and Italy. “I must take advantage of my freedom while I still feel so much strength and youth in me,” he thought. “Pierre was right when he said you have to believe in the possibility of happiness in order to be happy, and now I do believe in it. Let the dead bury their dead, but while one has life, one must live and be happy!” he thought.

##  CHAPTER XX

One morning Colonel Berg, whom Pierre knew as he knew everyone in Moscow and Petersburg, came to see him. Berg arrived in a spotless, brand-new uniform, with his hair slicked and brushed forward over his temples in the style worn by Emperor Alexander.

“I have just been to see the countess, your wife. Unfortunately, she could not grant my request, but I hope, Count, I will have better luck with you,” he said with a smile.

“What is it you wish, Colonel? I am at your service.”

“I am now quite settled in my new rooms, Count,” (Berg said this with absolute confidence that this information would surely be pleasing), “and so I wish to arrange just a small gathering for my own and my wife’s friends.” (He smiled even more pleasantly.) “I wanted to ask the countess and you to do me the honor of coming for tea and supper.”

Only Countess Hélène, considering the company of people like the Bergs beneath her, could be so unkind as to refuse such an invitation. Berg explained so clearly why he wanted to have a small but select group at his house, and why it would make him happy, and why—though he begrudged spending money on cards or anything wasteful—he was willing to spend a little for the sake of good company, that Pierre could not refuse and promised to come.

“But please don’t be late, Count, if I may ask; about ten minutes to eight, please. We’ll make up a rubber. Our general is coming. He is very kind to me. We’ll have supper, Count. So you will do me this favor.”

Unlike his usual habit of being late, Pierre arrived at the Bergs’ house that day not at ten, but at fifteen minutes to eight.

Having prepared everything needed for the gathering, the Bergs were ready for their guests to arrive.

In their new, tidy, and bright study with its small busts, pictures, and new furniture sat Berg and his wife. Berg, tightly buttoned up in his new uniform, sat beside his wife, explaining to her that one always could and should get to know people above oneself, because that is when one gets real satisfaction from acquaintances.

“You can learn something, you can ask for something. Just see how I managed after my first promotion.” (Berg measured his life not by years but by promotions.) “My friends are still nobodies, while I am just waiting for a vacancy to command a regiment, and have the happiness to be your husband.” (He got up and kissed Véra’s hand, and on his way to her straightened a turned-up corner of the carpet.) “And how did I get all this? Mainly by knowing how to pick my acquaintances. Of course, one must also be conscientious and organized.”

Berg smiled, feeling superior to his gentle wife, and paused, thinking that this dear woman was, after all, only a weak woman who could not understand everything that makes up a man’s dignity, what it meant *ein Mann zu sein.* \* Véra at the same time smiled, feeling superior to her good, honest husband, who, she believed, like all men, misunderstood life. Berg, judging by his wife, thought all women weak and foolish. Véra, based only on her husband and generalizing from that, assumed all men, even though they understand nothing and are conceited and selfish, think only they possess common sense.

\* To be a man.

Berg rose and embraced his wife carefully, so as not to crush her lace fichu for which he had paid a good price, kissing her straight on the lips.

“The only thing is, we mustn’t have children too soon,” he continued, following an unconscious line of thought.

“Yes,” answered Véra, “I don’t want that at all. We must live for society.”

“Princess Yusúpova wore one exactly like this,” said Berg, pointing to the fichu with a pleased and kind smile.

Just then Count Bezúkhov was announced. Husband and wife looked at each other, both smiling with self-satisfaction, and each inwardly claiming the honor of this visit.

“This is what comes of knowing how to make acquaintances,” thought Berg. “This is due to knowing how to behave yourself.”

“But please don’t interrupt me when I’m entertaining the guests,” said Véra, “because I know what interests each of them and what to say to different people.”

Berg smiled again.

“It can’t be helped: men must sometimes have men’s conversations,” he said.

They received Pierre in their small, new drawing room, where it was impossible to sit down anywhere without disturbing its symmetry, neatness, and order; so it was completely natural and not at all odd that Berg, after kindly offering to disturb the perfection of an armchair or the sofa for his dear guest, but being apparently painfully undecided about it himself, finally left it to the visitor to decide where to sit. Pierre broke the symmetry by moving a chair for himself, and Berg and Véra immediately began their evening party, interrupting each other as they tried to entertain their guest.

Véra, deciding Pierre should be entertained with talk about the French embassy, began at once. Berg, thinking a manly conversation was needed, interrupted his wife’s remarks and brought up the subject of the war with Austria, then unconsciously shifted from the general topic to personal matters—his own invitations to join the Austrian campaign and the reasons he had declined. Though the conversation was very disjointed and Véra was annoyed by the intrusion of the masculine element, both husband and wife felt satisfied that, even though there was only one guest, their evening had started very well and was exactly like every other evening party with its conversation, tea, and candlelight.

Before long Borís, Berg’s old friend, arrived. There was a hint of condescension and patronizing in the way he treated Berg and Véra. After Borís came a lady with the colonel, then the general himself, and then the Rostóvs, and the gathering became unquestionably just like any other evening party. Berg and Véra could not hide their smiles of satisfaction at the sight of all this activity in their drawing room, the sound of scattered conversation, the rustling dresses, and the bowing and scraping. Everything was just as it always was, especially the general, who admired the apartment, patted Berg on the shoulder, and with parental authority supervised the arrangement of the table for boston. The general sat next to Count Ilyá Rostóv, who was, after himself, the most distinguished guest. The older guests sat with the older, the young with the young, and the hostess at the tea table, on which there were exactly the same kind of cakes in a silver cake basket as the Panins had at their party. Everything was just as it was everywhere else.

##  CHAPTER XXI

Pierre, as one of the principal guests, had to sit down to play boston with Count Rostóv, the general, and the colonel. At the card table, he happened to be sitting directly across from Natásha, and noticed a curious change in her since the ball. She was quiet, and not only less pretty than she had been at the ball, but her gentle indifference to everything around her was the only thing that saved her from seeming plain.

“What’s wrong with her?” thought Pierre, glancing at her. She was sitting by her sister at the tea table and reluctantly, without looking at him, gave some reply to Borís who had sat down beside her. After playing out a whole suit and, to his partner’s delight, taking five tricks, Pierre, hearing greetings and the footsteps of someone entering the room while he was picking up his tricks, glanced at Natásha again.

“What has happened to her?” he asked himself, even more surprised.

Prince Andrew was standing before her, saying something to her with a look of gentle concern. She, having lifted her head, was looking up at him, blushing and clearly trying to control her quickened breathing. The bright glow of some inner flame that had been suppressed was now shining in her again. She was completely transformed—instead of plain, she was once more as beautiful as she had appeared at the ball.

Prince Andrew walked over to Pierre, and Pierre noticed a fresh and youthful look on his friend’s face.

Pierre changed his seat several times during the game, sitting now with his back to Natásha and now facing her, but during all six rubbers he watched her and his friend.

“Something very important is going on between them,” thought Pierre, and a feeling that was both happy and painful stirred him and made him neglect the game.

After six rubbers, the general stood up, saying that it was useless to play like that any longer, and Pierre was free. On one side, Natásha was talking with Sónya and Borís, and Véra, with a subtle smile, was saying something to Prince Andrew. Pierre went over to his friend and, asking whether they were discussing secrets, sat down beside them. Véra, having noticed Prince Andrew’s attentions to Natásha, decided that at a real evening party, subtle suggestions about romance were absolutely necessary. Seeing a chance when Prince Andrew was alone, she began a conversation with him about feelings in general and about her sister. With so intellectual a guest as she believed Prince Andrew to be, she felt she must show her diplomatic finesse.

When Pierre joined them, he noticed that Véra was carried away by her self-satisfied talk, but that Prince Andrew seemed uncomfortable, something that almost never happened with him.

“What do you think?” Véra was saying with an arch smile. “You’re so perceptive, Prince, and understand people’s characters so quickly. What do you think of Natalie? Could she be constant in her attachments? Could she, like some women”—Véra meant herself—“love a man once and be true to him forever? That’s what I believe real love is. What do you think, Prince?”

“I know your sister too little,” replied Prince Andrew, with a sarcastic smile meant to hide his embarrassment, “to be able to answer such a delicate question, and I’ve noticed that the less attractive a woman is, the more likely she is to be constant,” he added, and looked up at Pierre who was just approaching.

“Yes, that is true, Prince. In our days,” Véra continued—using “our days” as people of limited insight like to do, thinking they have identified and judged what is special about “our days” and that human nature changes with the times—“in our days a girl has so much freedom that the thrill of being courted often smothers true feeling in her. And we must admit that Natalie is very impressionable.” This return to the topic of Natalie made Prince Andrew knit his brows uncomfortably. He was about to stand up, but Véra went on with an even subtler smile:

“I think no one has been more courted than she,” she continued, “but until recently she never cared seriously for anyone. Now you know, Count,” she said to Pierre, “even our dear cousin Borís, who, between ourselves, was very far gone into the realm of tenderness…” (referring to a map of love popular at the time).

Prince Andrew frowned and stayed silent.

“You're friends with Borís, aren’t you?” Véra asked.

“Yes, I know him….”

“I assume he told you about his childhood love for Natásha?”

“Oh, was there a childish love?” Prince Andrew suddenly asked, blushing unexpectedly.

“Yes, you know among cousins, closeness often leads to affection. *Le cousinage est un dangereux voisinage.* \* Don’t you think so?”

\* “Cousinhood is a dangerous neighborhood.”

“Oh, definitely!” said Prince Andrew, and with sudden, unnatural energy, he started teasing Pierre about needing to be very careful with his fifty-year-old Moscow cousins. In the midst of these joking remarks, he got up, took Pierre by the arm, and led him aside.

“Well?” Pierre asked, surprised by his friend’s strange excitement and noticing the look Andrew gave Natásha as he stood.

“I must… I must talk to you,” said Prince Andrew. “You know those women’s gloves?” (referring to the Masonic gloves given to a newly initiated Brother to give to the woman he loves.) “I… but no, I’ll talk to you later,” and with a strange light in his eyes and restless movements, Prince Andrew went over to Natásha and sat down beside her. Pierre saw Prince Andrew ask her something and saw her blush as she replied.

But just then Berg came up to Pierre and insisted that he join in an argument between the general and the colonel about affairs in Spain.

Berg was satisfied and happy. The pleased smile never left his face. The party was a great success and just like other parties he had attended. Everything was the same: the ladies’ clever talk, the cards, the general raising his voice at the card table, and the samovar and the tea cakes; only one thing was missing, something he had always seen at the evening parties he tried to copy. They had not yet had a loud conversation among the men or a debate on something important and intelligent. Now the general had started such a discussion, so Berg drew Pierre into it.

##  CHAPTER XXII

The next day, after being invited by the count, Prince Andrew dined with the Rostóvs and spent the rest of the day there.

Everyone in the house understood why Prince Andrew came, and he made no effort to hide that he wanted to be with Natásha all day. Not only did the anxious, happy, and enraptured Natásha feel something important was about to happen, but the whole house shared a sense of awe. The countess watched Prince Andrew with sad, serious eyes when he talked to Natásha and nervously tried to start small talk whenever he looked her way. Sónya was afraid to leave Natásha but also afraid of intruding when they were together. Natásha would turn pale and feel a panic of anticipation whenever she was briefly alone with him. Prince Andrew surprised her with his shyness. She sensed that he wanted to say something but couldn’t quite bring himself to do it.

In the evening, after Prince Andrew had left, the countess went up to Natásha and whispered, “Well, what happened?”

“Mamma! Please don’t ask me anything now! We can’t talk about this,” said Natásha.

Still, that night Natásha—excited and frightened—lay for a long time in her mother’s bed, staring ahead. She described how he had complimented her, told her he was going abroad, asked her where they would spend the summer, and then asked about Borís.

“But it was such a... such a... I’ve never experienced anything like it before!” she exclaimed. “Yet I feel afraid when I’m around him. I’m always nervous when I’m with him. What does that mean? Does it mean it’s real? Yes? Mamma, are you asleep?”

“No, my love; I’m frightened myself,” her mother replied. “Now go!”

“Still, I won’t fall asleep. How silly, to sleep now! Mummy! Mummy! nothing like this has ever happened to me before,” Natásha said, both surprised and alarmed at what she felt inside. “And could we ever have imagined this?…”

Natásha felt as if she had fallen in love with Prince Andrew the very first time she saw him at Otrádnoe. She seemed almost afraid of this strange, unexpected happiness of meeting again the very man she believed she had already chosen (she was convinced of it) and of finding him, it seemed, now interested in her.

“And it had to happen that he would come to Petersburg just when we are here. And that we would meet again at that ball. It’s fate. It’s obviously fate that everything led to this! Even *then*, as soon as I saw him, I sensed something special.”

“What else did he say to you? What about those verses? Read them…” her mother said thoughtfully, referring to some verses Prince Andrew had written in Natásha’s album.

“Mamma, is it shameful for him to be a widower?”

“Don’t say that, Natásha! Pray to God. ‘Marriages are made in heaven,’” her mother replied.

“Dear Mummy, how I love you! How happy I am!” Natásha cried, shedding tears of joy and excitement as she embraced her mother.

At that exact time, Prince Andrew was with Pierre, confiding in him about his love for Natásha and his firm resolve to make her his wife.

That day Countess Hélène hosted a reception at her home. The French ambassador attended, along with a foreign prince (recently a frequent guest) and many fashionable ladies and gentlemen. Pierre, who had come downstairs, wandered through the rooms and struck everyone by his distracted, absent-minded, and gloomy manner.

Since the ball, he had felt the approach of a nervous depression and did his best to fight it. Ever since his wife had become close to the royal prince, Pierre had unexpectedly been appointed a gentleman of the bedchamber, and from then on felt uncomfortable and ashamed among court society. Dark thoughts about the vanity of all things came to him more often. At the same time, seeing the connection grow between his protégée Natásha and Prince Andrew made his gloom worse by reminding him of the contrast with his own situation. He tried to avoid thinking about both his wife and about Natásha and Prince Andrew. Once again, it all seemed insignificant to him compared with eternity; once more, he faced the question: for what? He forced himself to work day and night at his Masonic activities, trying to drive away the darkness that threatened him. Around midnight, after he had left the countess’s apartments, he sat upstairs in a shabby dressing gown, copying the original transaction of the Scottish lodge of Freemasons at a table in his small, tobacco-filled room, when someone entered. It was Prince Andrew.

“Oh, it’s you!” Pierre said, with a distracted, unhappy look. “And as you see, I’m hard at work.” He pointed to his manuscript book with the air of someone escaping life’s troubles by pouring himself into his work.

Prince Andrew, beaming with renewed life, paused before Pierre and, not noticing his friend’s sadness, smiled at him with all the selfishness of someone in love.

“Well, my friend,” he said, “I wanted to tell you yesterday, but I’ve come today. I’ve never felt like this before. I’m in love, my friend!”

Suddenly Pierre let out a deep sigh and flopped his large frame onto the sofa beside Prince Andrew.

“With Natásha Rostóva, right?” he said.

“Yes, yes! Who else could it be? I would never have believed it, but this feeling is stronger than I am. Yesterday, I tormented myself and suffered, but I wouldn’t trade even that torment for anything in the world. I haven’t lived until now. At last I’m living, but I can’t live without her! But can she love me?… I’m too old for her…. Why don’t you say anything?”

“Me? What did I tell you?” Pierre cried, suddenly getting up and pacing the room. “I always thought so… That girl is such a treasure… she’s extraordinary…. My dear friend, please, don’t overthink it, don’t doubt—just marry her, marry her, marry her…. And I’m sure you’ll be the happiest man alive.”

“But what about her?”

“She loves you.”

“Don’t say nonsense…” Prince Andrew said, smiling and looking into Pierre’s eyes.

“She does, I’m sure,” Pierre insisted passionately.

“But listen,” said Prince Andrew, taking Pierre by the arm. “Do you realize what state I’m in? I have to talk to someone about it.”

“All right, go ahead. I’m very happy for you,” said Pierre, and his face truly changed; his brow smoothed, and he listened eagerly to Prince Andrew. Prince Andrew truly seemed like a different, entirely new man. The bitterness, the contempt for life, the disappointment were gone. Pierre was the only person Prince Andrew felt comfortable confiding in, and to him he revealed everything in his heart. Now he confidently and cheerfully made plans for a long future, declaring he could not give up his own happiness for his father’s whims, talking about either getting his father’s consent to the marriage and having his love, or managing without his consent. Then he marveled at how the feeling had overtaken him as if it were something separate from himself.

“I wouldn’t have believed anyone who told me I was capable of loving like this,” Prince Andrew admitted. “It’s not at all like anything I felt before. Now the whole world for me is split in two: one half is her—there’s all the joy, hope, and light there; the other half is everything else, and that’s all gloom and darkness…”

“Darkness and gloom,” echoed Pierre. “Yes, yes, I understand that.”

“I can’t help loving the light; it’s not my fault. And I’m so happy! Do you understand me? I know you’re glad for me.”

“Yes, yes,” Pierre agreed, looking at his friend with a moved and sad expression. The brighter Prince Andrew’s future seemed, the darker Pierre felt about his own.

##  CHAPTER XXIII

Prince Andrew needed his father’s consent to marry, so he left for the country the next day.

His father received the news with outward composure, but inward anger. He couldn’t understand why anyone would want to change his life or bring anything new into it when his own life was nearly over. “If only they would let me end my days as I wish,” thought the old man, “then they could do whatever they like.” With his son, however, he used the diplomacy he reserved for important occasions, and discussed the entire matter in a calm tone.

First, he argued, the marriage was not an advantageous one in terms of birth, wealth, or rank. Second, Prince Andrew was no longer young and his health was poor (the old man emphasized this), while she was very young. Third, he had a son, and it would be unwise to entrust him to an inexperienced girl. “Fourthly and finally,” the father said, looking ironically at his son, “I ask you to postpone it for a year: go abroad, take a cure, and, as you intended, find a German tutor for Prince Nicholas. Then, if your love, or passion, or stubbornness—call it what you will—is still as strong, then marry! And that’s my final word. Understand, the final…” concluded the prince, in a tone making clear he would not change his mind.

Prince Andrew clearly saw that the old man hoped his feelings, or his fiancée’s, would not endure a year, or that he himself (the old prince) would die before then, and decided to respect his father’s wish—to propose, but postpone the wedding for a year.

Three weeks after that last evening with the Rostóvs, Prince Andrew returned to Petersburg.

The day after her conversation with her mother, Natásha waited all day for Bolkónski, but he did not come. The same happened the second and third days. Pierre did not visit either, and as Natásha did not know Prince Andrew had gone to see his father, she couldn’t explain his absence.

Three weeks passed this way. Natásha had no desire to go out and wandered from room to room like a shadow, idle and listless; she wept secretly at night and did not visit her mother in the evenings. She blushed constantly and was irritable. It seemed to her that everyone knew of her disappointment and was mocking her and feeling sorry for her. As strong as her internal grief was, the wound to her pride made her misery even greater.

Once she came to her mother, tried to speak, and suddenly began to cry. Her tears were like those of a hurt child who doesn’t understand why they are being punished.

The countess tried to comfort Natásha, who, after first listening to her mother’s soothing words, suddenly interrupted:

“Leave off, Mamma! I don’t think about it, and don’t want to think about it! He just came and then stopped, stopped….”

Her voice trembled, and she almost cried again, but composed herself and continued quietly:

“And I don’t want to get married at all. And I’m afraid of him; now I’ve become completely calm, completely calm.”

The day after this conversation, Natásha put on the old dress she knew always made her feel cheerful in the mornings, and that day she returned to her old routines, long abandoned since the ball. After finishing her morning tea, she went to the ballroom, which she especially loved for its loud echo, and began singing her solfeggio. When she finished her first exercise, she stood in the center of the room and sang a musical phrase she especially liked. She listened joyfully—as if she hadn’t expected it—to the charm of the notes reverberating through the empty ballroom and fading away; suddenly, she felt cheerful. “Why make so much of it? Things are fine as they are,” she thought, and started walking up and down the room, stepping purposefully from heel to toe (she was wearing a new and favorite pair of shoes), listening to the regular tap of the heel and the creak of the toe as joyfully as she had listened to her own singing. Passing a mirror, she glanced at her reflection. “There, that’s me!” her expression seemed to say. “Well, and very nice too! I don’t need anyone.”

A footman tried to come in to tidy something, but she wouldn’t let him, and after closing the door behind him, she continued her walk. That morning she had returned to her favorite state—happiness in, and delight with, herself. “How charming Natásha is!” she said once more, as if speaking as another, collective, masculine voice. “Pretty, good voice, young, and in no one’s way, if only they let her be.” But even with all the peace she wanted, she could not truly find it now, and she was instantly aware of this.

In the hall, the porch door opened, and someone asked, “At home?” then footsteps were heard. Natásha was facing the mirror, not seeing herself. She listened intently to the sounds in the hall. When she finally saw her reflection, her face was pale. It was *him*. She was sure of it, even though she barely heard his voice through the closed doors.

Pale and nervous, Natásha ran into the drawing room.

“Mamma! Bolkónski has come!” she said. “Mamma, it’s awful, it’s unbearable! I don’t want… to be tormented! What should I do?…”

Before the countess could reply, Prince Andrew entered the room, agitated and serious. As soon as he saw Natásha, his face lit up. He kissed the countess’ hand and then Natásha’s, and sat down beside the sofa.

“It’s been a long time since we’ve had the pleasure…” the countess began, but Prince Andrew cut her off, clearly eager to say what he had come for.

“I haven’t visited you because I have been with my father. I had to discuss an important matter with him. I only returned last night,” he said, glancing at Natásha. “I would like to speak to you, Countess,” he added after a short pause.

The countess lowered her eyes and sighed deeply.

“I am at your service,” she murmured.

Natásha knew she ought to leave, but couldn’t: something stuck in her throat, and without caring for manners she stared straight at Prince Andrew with wide, anxious eyes.

“Now? This very moment!… No, it can’t be!” she thought.

He looked at her again, and that look assured her she was not mistaken. Yes, right now, that very moment, her fate would be decided.

“Go, Natásha! I will call you,” the countess whispered.

Natásha looked pleadingly at Prince Andrew and her mother, and left.

“I have come, Countess, to ask for your daughter’s hand,” said Prince Andrew.

The countess’s face turned red, but she said nothing.

“Your offer…” she finally began formally. He stayed silent, watching her. “Your offer…” (she grew confused) “is agreeable to us, and I accept your offer. I am glad. And my husband… I hope… but it will depend on her….”

“I will speak to her when I have your permission…. Do you give it to me?” asked Prince Andrew.

“Yes,” replied the countess. She offered her hand to him, and with a mix of detachment and warmth pressed her lips to his forehead as he bent to kiss her hand. She wanted to love him as a son, but felt he was a stranger and a rather intimidating man. “I’m sure my husband will consent,” she said, “but your father…”

“My father, to whom I have explained my intentions, has made it clear that his approval depends on us waiting a year before marrying. I wanted you to know that,” said Prince Andrew.

“It’s true that Natásha is still young, but—a whole year?…”

“It can’t be helped,” said Prince Andrew with a sigh.

“I’ll send her to you,” said the countess, and left the room.

“Lord have mercy on us!” she repeated as she went in search of her daughter.

Sónya said Natásha was in her bedroom. Natásha was sitting on the bed, pale and dry-eyed, gazing at the icons and whispering something as she quickly crossed herself. Seeing her mother, she jumped up and rushed to her.

“Well, Mamma?… Well?…”

“Go, go to him. He’s asking for your hand,” said the countess, her tone sounding cold to Natásha. “Go… go,” her mother added, with sadness and reproach, letting out a deep sigh as her daughter hurried away.

Natásha could never remember how she entered the drawing room. When she came in and saw him, she stopped. “Is it possible that this stranger has now become *everything* to me?” she wondered, and immediately answered herself, “Yes, everything! He alone is now dearer to me than anything in the world.” Prince Andrew approached her, eyes cast down.

“I have loved you since the very first moment I saw you. May I hope?”

He looked at her and was struck by the serious and passionate expression on her face. Her face seemed to say: “Why ask? Why doubt what you surely know? Why speak, when words cannot express what one feels?”

She moved closer to him and stopped. He took her hand and kissed it.

“Do you love me?”

“Yes, yes!” Natásha murmured, almost irritated. Then she sighed deeply and, catching her breath faster and faster, began to sob.

“What is it? What’s wrong?”

“Oh, I am so happy!” she replied, smiling through her tears, leaning closer to him, pausing for an instant as if wondering if she might, then kissed him.

Prince Andrew held her hands, looked into her eyes, and did not find in his heart the same love for her as before. Something inside him had suddenly changed; the old poetic and mysterious charm of desire was gone, replaced by pity for her womanly and childish weakness, a fear of her devotion and trust, and an overwhelming yet joyful sense of duty that now tied him to her forever. The feeling he now had, though less bright and romantic than before, was stronger and more serious.

“Did your mother tell you that it cannot be for a year?” asked Prince Andrew, still searching her eyes.

“Is it possible that I—the ‘chit of a girl,’ as everyone called me,” thought Natásha—“is it possible that I am now to be the *wife* and the equal of this strange, dear, clever man whom even my father esteems? Can it be true? Is it really true that there’s no more playing with life, that I am now an adult, that now I’m responsible for every word and deed? Yes, but what did he just ask me?”

“No,” she answered, but hadn’t really understood his question.

“Forgive me!” he said. “But you are so young, and I have already been through so much in life. I am afraid for you; you do not yet know yourself.”

Natásha listened intently, trying but failing to understand what he meant.

“Hard as this year that delays my happiness will be,” Prince Andrew continued, “it will give you time to be sure of yourself. I ask you to make me happy in a year, but you are free: our engagement shall remain secret, and should you realize that you do not love me, or that you come to love another…” said Prince Andrew, with a strained smile.

“Why do you say that?” Natásha interrupted. “You know that from the very day you first came to Otrádnoe I have loved you,” she insisted, fully believing what she said.

“In a year you will learn to know yourself….”

“A whole year!” Natásha repeated suddenly, only now realizing the marriage was to be postponed for a year. “But why a year? Why a year?…”

Prince Andrew began explaining the reasons for the delay. Natásha did not hear him.

“Can’t it be helped?” she asked. Prince Andrew didn’t answer, but his expression showed that changing the decision was impossible.

“It’s terrible! Oh, it’s terrible! Terrible!” Natásha cried out, bursting into sobs again. “I’ll die waiting a year; it’s impossible, it’s awful!” She looked at her lover’s face and saw compassion and confusion there.

“No, no! I’ll do anything!” she said, suddenly stopping her tears. “I am so happy.”

The father and mother came into the room and gave the betrothed couple their blessing.

From that day, Prince Andrew began to visit the Rostóvs as Natásha’s fiancé.

##  CHAPTER XXIV

No betrothal ceremony was held, and Natásha’s engagement to Bolkónski was not announced; Prince Andrew insisted on this. He said that since he was responsible for the delay, he should bear the whole burden of it; he had given his word and committed himself forever, but he did not want to bind Natásha and gave her complete freedom. If, after six months, she felt she did not love him, she would have every right to reject him. Naturally, neither Natásha nor her parents wanted to hear of this, but Prince Andrew remained firm. He visited the Rostóvs every day but did not act as a fiancé: he did not use the familiar *thou*, but addressed her formally as *you*, and only kissed her hand. After their engagement, new, close, and natural relations developed between them. It was as if they had never truly known each other until now. They enjoyed recalling how they had regarded one another when they were still *nothing* to each other; they now felt like completely different people: before, they were artificial, now they were genuine and sincere. At first, the family felt somewhat awkward around Prince Andrew; he seemed to come from another world, and for some time Natásha had to help the family get used to him, confidently assuring them that he only seemed different but was really just like the rest of them, that she wasn’t afraid of him, and no one else should be either. After a few days, they grew accustomed to him and freely continued their usual way of life even in his presence, in which he took part. He could discuss rural affairs with the count, fashions with the countess and Natásha, and albums and needlework with Sónya. Sometimes, both among themselves and in his presence, the household would marvel at how it all came about, and at the clear signs that had foretold it: Prince Andrew’s visit to Otrádnoe, their coming to Petersburg, the resemblance between Natásha and Prince Andrew that her nurse had noticed during his first visit, Andrew’s meeting with Nicholas in 1805, and many other incidents, all suggesting that this was destined to happen.

In the house, there reigned that poetic quietness and calm that always accompanies the presence of an engaged couple. Often, while sitting together, everyone would fall silent. Sometimes, others would stand and leave, and the couple, left alone, would still remain silent. They rarely spoke about their future life. Prince Andrew was afraid and embarrassed to speak of it. Natásha felt the same, sharing all his feelings, which she constantly sensed. Once, she began asking him about his son. Prince Andrew blushed, as he often did now—something Natásha especially liked about him—and said his son would not live with them.

“Why not?” Natásha asked in a frightened tone.

“I cannot take him away from his grandfather, and besides…”

“How I should have loved him!” said Natásha, immediately understanding his feeling. “But I know you want to avoid any excuse for complaints about us.”

Sometimes the old count would come by, kiss Prince Andrew, and ask his advice about Pétya’s education or Nicholas’ service. The old countess sighed as she looked at them; Sónya was always afraid she was in the way and tried to find reasons to leave them alone, even when they didn’t want her to. When Prince Andrew spoke (he was an excellent storyteller), Natásha listened with pride; when she spoke, she noticed—half with fear, half with delight—that he watched her closely and attentively. She wondered, “What does he look for in me? He’s trying to find something by watching me! What if what he’s looking for isn’t there?” Sometimes she would fall into one of her wild, joyful moods, and then she especially enjoyed seeing and hearing Prince Andrew laugh. He rarely laughed, but when he did, he gave himself up to it completely, and after such laughter she always felt even closer to him. Natásha would have been perfectly happy if not for the looming separation, which terrified her, just as the mere thought made him turn pale and cold.

On the eve of his departure from Petersburg, Prince Andrew brought Pierre with him, who hadn’t visited the Rostóvs once since the ball. Pierre seemed uneasy and uncomfortable. He was talking to the countess, and Natásha sat down beside a small chess table with Sónya, thus inviting Prince Andrew to join them, which he did.

“You have known Bezúkhov a long time?” he asked. “Do you like him?”

“Yes, he’s lovable, but very odd.”

And as usual when talking about Pierre, she started sharing stories of his absent-mindedness, some of which were even invented about him.

“Did you know I’ve entrusted him with our secret? I’ve known him since childhood. He has a heart of gold. I ask you, Natalie,” Prince Andrew said suddenly, very seriously, “I am going away, and heaven knows what may happen. You may stop—well, all right, I know I mustn’t say that. Only this: whatever may happen while I’m gone…”

“What can happen?”

“Whatever trouble may come,” Prince Andrew went on, “I ask you, Mademoiselle Sophie, whatever may happen, to turn to him alone for advice and help! He is the most absent-minded and ridiculous fellow, but he has a heart of gold.”

Neither her father, mother, Sónya, nor Prince Andrew himself could have foreseen the effect the separation from her fiancé would have on Natásha. Flushed and agitated, she spent the day busying herself with trivial matters, acting as if she didn’t comprehend what was coming. She did not even cry when, as he took his leave, he kissed her hand for the last time. “Don’t go!” she said, in a tone that made him wonder if he ought to stay—a tone he remembered for a long time. Nor did she cry after he left; but for several days, she sat in her room, dry-eyed and uninterested in everything, only occasionally saying, “Oh, why did he leave?”

But two weeks after his departure, to the surprise of those around her, she recovered from her melancholy as suddenly as she had fallen ill, becoming her old self again, though with a change in her moral expression, as a child rises after a long sickness with a changed countenance.

##  CHAPTER XXV

During the year after his son’s departure, Prince Nicholas Bolkónski’s health and temper worsened. He became even more irritable, and Princess Mary mostly had to bear the brunt of his frequent, unprovoked outbursts of anger. He seemed to carefully seek her most sensitive points to torment her as much as possible. Princess Mary had two passions, and therefore two joys—her nephew, little Nicholas, and religion—and these became her father’s favorite targets for mockery and ridicule. Whatever topic came up, he would bring it back around to the superstitions of old maids or the spoiling of children. “You want to make him”—little Nicholas—“into an old maid like yourself! What a pity! Prince Andrew wants a son, not an old maid,” he would say. Or, turning to Mademoiselle Bourienne, he would ask her, in Princess Mary’s presence, how she liked Russian village priests and icons, and then joke about them.

He constantly hurt and tormented Princess Mary, but it took her no effort to forgive him. Could he really be at fault towards her, or could her father—whom she knew still loved her despite everything—be unjust? And what is justice? The princess never thought about that proud word “justice.” For her, all the complex laws of people were summed up by a single, clear law—the law of love and self-sacrifice taught by Him who lovingly suffered for mankind, though He himself was God. What did the justice or injustice of others matter to her? She simply had to endure and love, and that she did.

During the winter, Prince Andrew visited Bald Hills and was cheerful, gentle, and more affectionate than Princess Mary had seen him for a long time. She felt that something had changed within him, but he said nothing to her of his love. Before leaving, he had a long conversation with his father about something, and Princess Mary noticed they were dissatisfied with each other when Andrew departed.

Soon after Prince Andrew left, Princess Mary wrote to her friend Julie Karágina in Petersburg (whom she had once hoped her brother would marry, as all girls dream, and who was now mourning her own brother killed in Turkey).

Sorrow, it seems, is our common lot, my dear, tender friend Julie.

Your loss is so terrible that I can only understand it as a special act of God’s providence, who, loving you, wishes to test you and your excellent mother. Oh, my friend! Only religion, and religion alone, can—not simply comfort us, but actually save us from despair. Only religion can explain what is otherwise incomprehensible: why, for what reason, do kind and noble people, able to find happiness in life and necessary to others' happiness, get called to God, while cruel, useless, harmful people, or those who are a burden to themselves and others, are left alive? The first death I witnessed, and one I shall never forget—the death of my dear sister-in-law—left this impression on me. Just as you question fate about your wonderful brother’s death, I questioned why that angel Lise, who not only never wronged anyone, but was incapable of even an unkind thought, had to die. And do you know, dear friend? Five years have passed, and now I, with my limited understanding, begin to see why she had to die, and how her death was actually a sign of the infinite goodness of our Creator, whose every act, however incomprehensible it may generally be to us, is simply a manifestation of His boundless love for His creatures. Often I think that perhaps she was too angelically innocent to be strong enough for all the duties of a mother. As a young wife, she was perfect; perhaps as a mother, she could not have remained so. As it is, she has left us, and especially Prince Andrew, with only the purest memories and regrets—and perhaps in heaven, she has a place I dare not even hope for myself. But even beyond speaking of her alone, that early and terrible death has had the most beneficial effect on both me and my brother, despite all our grief. Then, at the time of our loss, such thoughts didn’t come to me—I would have rejected them in horror, but now they are perfectly clear and certain. I write all this to you, dear friend, only to assure you of the Gospel truth that has become my foundation: not a single hair falls from our heads without His will. And His will is always ruled by infinite love for us, so anything that happens to us is for our good.

You ask if we’ll spend the next winter in Moscow. Much as I’d like to see you, I don't think so, nor do I want to. You’ll be surprised, but the reason is Buonaparte! Here’s the situation: my father’s health is obviously worse, he cannot bear any contradiction, and gets irritable. This irritability is, as you know, mostly about political topics. He cannot stand the thought of Buonaparte negotiating as an equal with all the sovereigns of Europe, especially our own, the grandson of the Great Catherine! You know I am indifferent to politics, but from my father’s remarks and his talks with Michael Ivánovich, I learn all about world affairs, and especially about the honors bestowed on Buonaparte, who—so it seems—is admired everywhere except at Bald Hills, where he’s recognized as neither a great man nor, certainly, as Emperor of France. My father can’t stand this. It seems his political opinions are the main reason he is against going to Moscow; because he knows he would clash with others by expressing his opinions so freely. Any health benefits he might gain from treatment would be erased by the quarrels about Buonaparte that would erupt inevitably. We’ll decide soon, in any case.

Our life at home goes on as it always has, apart from my brother Andrew’s absence. He, as I wrote you before, has changed a great deal lately. After his earlier sorrow, he only fully recovered this year. He’s become again as I knew him as a child: kind, loving, with that golden heart I know nowhere else. It seems to me he has realized life isn’t over for him. But along with this change in spirit, he has grown much weaker physically. He’s thinner and more nervous now. I am worried about him and glad he’s taking the trip abroad the doctors have long urged. I hope this will cure him. You say that in Petersburg he is regarded as one of the most active, cultured, and promising young men. Forgive my pride—as a relative, I never doubted it. The good things he’s done for everyone here, from his peasants to the gentry, are beyond measure. When he arrived in Petersburg, he was only receiving his due. I am always amazed how rumors travel from Petersburg to Moscow, especially the false ones you mention—I mean the story of my brother’s engagement to the young Rostóva. I don’t think my brother will ever remarry, certainly not her; and here’s why: first, I know that even though he rarely mentions his late wife, that grief is too deep for him ever to give her a successor, or his little angel a stepmother. Second, I feel that girl is not the kind of woman who would appeal to Prince Andrew. I don’t think he would choose her, and frankly, I don’t wish it either. But I am going on too long, and have reached the end of my second page. Good-bye, my dear friend. May God keep you in His holy and mighty care. My dear friend, Mademoiselle Bourienne, sends her kisses.

MARY

##  CHAPTER XXVI

In the middle of summer, Princess Mary received an unexpected letter from Prince Andrew in Switzerland, with strange and surprising news. He told her of his engagement to Natásha Rostóva. The whole letter expressed his joyful love for his fiancée and deep, trusting affection for his sister. He wrote that he had never loved as he now did, and that only now did he truly understand what life was. He asked his sister to forgive him for not telling her of his decision during his last visit to Bald Hills, even though he had spoken to their father about it. He hadn’t told her for fear she might plead with their father for his consent, making him angry and causing her unnecessary trouble without gaining anything. “Besides,” he wrote, “the situation wasn’t as settled then as it is now. My father insisted on a year’s delay, and now already *six months*—half the time—have passed, and I am more determined than ever. Were it not for the doctors keeping me here at the spas, I would already be back in Russia, but now I must delay my return by three months. You know my relationship with Father. I want nothing from him. I have always been and will remain independent; but to oppose his will and provoke his anger, now that perhaps he has so little time left with us, would spoil much of my happiness. I am writing him about this same matter, and ask you to choose a good moment to give him my letter and let me know how he feels about it and whether there’s any hope that he may agree to shorten the waiting period by four months.”

After long hesitation, doubt, and prayer, Princess Mary handed her father the letter. The next day, the old prince quietly said to her:

“Write your brother and tell him to wait until I’m dead…. It won’t be long—I’ll soon set him free.”

The princess was about to respond, but her father cut her off and, raising his voice, exclaimed:

“Marry, marry, my boy!… Good family!… Clever people, aren’t they? Rich, too? Yes, little Nicholas will have a fine stepmother! Write and tell him he can marry tomorrow, if he likes. She’ll be little Nicholas’s stepmother, and I’ll marry Bourienne myself!… Ha, ha, ha! He shouldn’t be without a stepmother either! One thing, though, no more women in my house—let him marry and live on his own. Maybe you’ll go live with him too?” he added, turning to Princess Mary. “Go, by all means! Go out into the frost… the frost… the frost!”

After this outburst, the prince did not mention the subject again. But his irritation at his son’s lack of spirit now appeared in how he treated his daughter. In addition to his former reasons for sarcasm, he now added allusions to stepmothers and kindnesses toward Mademoiselle Bourienne.

“Why shouldn’t I marry her?” he asked his daughter. “She’ll make a wonderful princess!”

And lately, to her surprise and confusion, Princess Mary noticed her father was really spending more and more time with the Frenchwoman. She wrote to Prince Andrew about how his letter was received but tried to reassure him that there was hope for reconciling their father to the idea.

Little Nicholas and his education, her brother Andrew, and religion were Princess Mary’s joys and comforts; but besides these, as everyone must have personal hopes, Princess Mary secretly held a hope and dream that was the chief consolation of her life. This comforting hope and dream were inspired by *God’s folk*—the half-witted and the pilgrims who came to visit her in secret, without the prince’s knowledge. The longer she lived, and the more she saw of life, the more she marveled at people’s blindness: how they worked, suffered, struggled, and harmed one another in the hopeless pursuit of earthly happiness—fleeting, impossible, and sinful happiness. Prince Andrew had loved his wife and lost her, but that was not enough: he wanted to pin his happiness to another woman. Her father opposed this, wanting a more prominent and wealthier match for Andrew. And all of them struggled, suffered, hurt one another, and wound their souls, striving for things that last only a moment. Not only do we know this ourselves, but Christ, the Son of God, came to earth and taught that this life is only a trial, a moment; yet we still cling to it, looking for happiness here. “How is it no one realizes this?” thought Princess Mary. “No one except these humble *God’s folk* who, sack over their shoulders, come to me by the back door, not out of fear of being mistreated by Father but to avoid tempting him to sin. To leave family, home, and worldly cares, and without attachment wander from place to place in simple clothes, under an assumed name, causing no harm to anyone and praying for all—for those who drive them out as well as for those who offer them shelter: there is no life or truth higher than theirs!”

Among these pilgrims was a quiet, pockmarked woman of fifty, Theodosia, who for more than thirty years had traveled barefoot and worn heavy chains. Princess Mary was especially fond of her. Once, sitting in a dim lamp-lit room before the icon, Theodosia told her story, and the idea that Theodosia alone had found the right path struck Princess Mary so strongly that she decided she must become a pilgrim herself. When Theodosia was asleep, Princess Mary thought about this for a long time and finally decided that, strange as it seemed, she must go on a pilgrimage. She told no one but her confessor, Father Akínfi the monk, who approved of her plan. Pretending it was a gift for the pilgrims, Princess Mary prepared a full pilgrim’s outfit for herself: a coarse shirt, bast shoes, a plain coat, and a black scarf. Often, as she approached the drawer where this secret was kept, Princess Mary would pause, unsure if the time had come to carry out her plan.

Often, listening to the pilgrims’ stories—plain to them but deeply meaningful to her—she was so moved that more than once she was on the verge of leaving everything behind to run away. In her mind, she pictured herself with Theodosia, wearing coarse clothes and carrying a staff and knapsack, wandering from one saint’s shrine to another, free from envy, earthly love, or desire, and at last reaching that place where there is no sorrow or sighing, but only eternal joy and peace.

“I shall come to a place and pray there, and before I get used to it or grow attached, I’ll move on farther. I will keep going until my legs give way, and lie down and die somewhere, and at last reach that eternal, quiet haven where there is neither sorrow nor sighing…” thought Princess Mary.

But afterward, when she saw her father and especially little Koko (Nicholas), her resolve softened. She wept quietly, feeling she was a sinner because she loved her father and little nephew more than God.

##  BOOK SEVEN: 1810 - 11

##  CHAPTER I

The Bible tells us that living without labor—idleness—was part of the first man’s blessedness before the Fall. Since then, people have kept a love of idleness, but the curse on humankind is not just that we must earn our bread by the sweat of our brows, but that our nature makes it impossible to be both idle and at peace. An inner voice tells us we’re in the wrong if we are idle. If there were a way to feel that, even while idle, one was still fulfilling a duty, then people would have recovered some of that original blessedness. And such a state of necessary and blameless idleness is the privilege of a whole class—the military. The main appeal of military service has always been, and still is, this enforced and unquestioned idleness.

Nicholas Rostóv experienced this state of bliss completely after 1807, as he continued serving in the Pávlograd regiment, now commanding the squadron he had inherited from Denísov.

By now, Rostóv had turned into a hearty, good-natured man, someone his Moscow friends might have thought a bit rough, but who was well liked and respected by his comrades, subordinates, and officers. He was quite content with his life. Recently, in 1809, his mother’s letters home often included more complaints that their affairs were getting messier and it was time for him to return and cheer up his aging parents.

When Nicholas read these letters, he dreaded the idea that they might want to take him away from a place where, shielded from all of life’s complications, he was living so peacefully and quietly. He felt that, sooner or later, he would have to dive back into the chaos of life, with all its troubles—accounts to settle, quarrels, intrigues, social obligations, Sónya’s love, and his promise to her. It all seemed terribly hard and complicated. He replied to his mother’s letters with cold, formal notes in French—starting: “My dear Mamma,” and ending: “Your obedient son”—without ever mentioning when he might return. In 1810, he received letters from his parents saying that Natásha was engaged to Bolkónski, and that the wedding would be in a year since the old prince was causing delays. This letter left Nicholas both sad and upset. For one, he hated to think Natásha—whom he cared for more than anyone else in the family—would be lost to the home; and second, from his hussar’s perspective, he wished he’d been there to show Bolkónski that being connected to them wasn’t such an honor after all, and that if he truly loved Natásha, he didn’t need his slow old father’s permission. For a moment, Nicholas considered asking for leave to visit Natásha before her marriage, but then came the maneuvers, worries about Sónya, and their growing financial confusion, so he put it off again. But in the spring, he got a letter from his mother, written without his father’s knowledge, and this letter finally persuaded him to return. She wrote that if he did not come home and take charge, the whole estate would be sold at auction and they’d all be left begging. The count was so weak, trusted Mítenka too much, and was so soft-hearted that everyone took advantage and things kept getting worse. “For God’s sake, I beg you, come at once if you don’t want to make me and the whole family miserable,” wrote the countess.

This letter moved Nicholas. He relied on the common sense of a practical man, which told him what needed to be done.

The proper thing now was, if not to retire from the army, at least go home on leave. He couldn’t have said exactly why, but after his afternoon nap, he ordered Mars, a vicious gray stallion that hadn’t been ridden in a long time, to be saddled. When he came back from his ride, the horse foaming, he announced to Lavrúshka (Denísov’s servant who stayed on with him) and to his comrades, who gathered in the evening, that he was applying for leave and going home. Even though it felt odd and difficult to leave without having heard from staff—he was very interested to know if he’d be promoted to captain or receive the Order of St. Anne for the last maneuvers—and without having sold his three roans to the Polish Count Golukhovski, who wanted to buy the horses Nicholas had bet would fetch two thousand rubles; and even though it was strange to miss the grand ball the hussars were throwing to rival the Uhlans’ ball for their own Polish Mademoiselle Borzozowska—he understood he had to leave this good, happy world and return to a place where everything seemed so stupid and confused. A week later, he got his leave. His hussar comrades—not only those in his own regiment but the whole brigade—held a dinner for Rostóv, with a subscription of fifteen rubles each; there were two bands and two choirs of singers. Rostóv danced the Trepák with Major Básov; the tipsy officers tossed him, hugged him, and dropped him; the soldiers of the third squadron tossed him as well, shouting “hurrah!” Then they bundled him into his sleigh and escorted him to the first post station.

During the first half of the journey—from Kremenchúg to Kiev—all of Rostóv’s thoughts, as usually happens in these cases, were still back with his squadron. But once he’d passed halfway, he started to forget his three roans and Dozhoyvéyko, his quartermaster, and instead began to worry about what he would find at Otrádnoe. Thoughts of home became stronger as he got closer—much stronger, obeying the law by which the force of attraction increases the closer you get. At the last post station before Otrádnoe, he gave the driver a three-ruble tip, and on his arrival he dashed breathlessly, like a boy, up the steps of his home.

After the excitement of homecoming, and after that odd feeling of unmet expectation—the sense that “everything’s just the same, so why did I hurry?”—Nicholas began settling back into his old world. His father and mother were much the same, just a little older. What was new in them was a certain uneasiness and occasional discord which hadn’t been there before, and which Nicholas soon realized came from the poor state of their affairs. Sónya was almost twenty; she wasn’t growing prettier anymore but was, as ever, perfectly lovely, and that was enough. She radiated happiness and love as soon as Nicholas returned, and the reliable, undying love of this girl was a happiness for him. Pétya and Natásha surprised Nicholas most. Pétya had become a big, handsome boy of thirteen—lively, witty, mischievous, with a breaking voice. Natásha, especially, made Nicholas laugh every time he looked at her.

“You’re not the same at all,” he said.

“How? Do I look worse?”

“On the contrary, but what dignity! A princess!” he whispered to her.

“Yes, yes, yes!” Natásha cried, delighted.

She told him about her romance with Prince Andrew, about his visit to Otrádnoe, and showed him his last letter.

“Well, are you happy?” Natásha asked. “I’m so calm and happy now.”

“I’m very glad,” replied Nicholas. “He’s an excellent man…. And are you really very much in love?”

“How should I say it?” Natásha answered. “I was in love with Borís, with my teacher, and with Denísov, but this is different. I feel peaceful and settled. I know no better man exists, and now I’m calm and satisfied. Not like it was before.”

Nicholas let her know he disapproved of waiting a whole year to marry, but Natásha argued against him, insisting it couldn’t be done any other way, that entering a family against the father’s wishes was wrong, and that she herself wanted it this way.

“You just don’t understand,” she said.

Nicholas stayed quiet and agreed with her.

He often wondered at her. She didn’t seem at all like a girl in love who was separated from her betrothed. She was always steady, calm, and as cheerful as ever. This amazed Nicholas and even made him doubt whether Bolkónski was courting her seriously. He couldn’t believe her fate was settled, especially since he hadn’t witnessed her together with Prince Andrew. There always seemed to be something a little wrong about this planned marriage.

“Why the delay? Why no engagement?” he thought. Once, when he brought up the topic with his mother, he discovered, to his surprise and a degree of relief, that deep down she too had doubts about the match.

“You see he writes,” she said, showing Nicholas a letter from Prince Andrew, with the hidden irritation all mothers feel regarding their daughter’s future happiness, “he says he won’t come before December. What’s keeping him? Illness, probably! His health is so delicate. Don’t tell Natásha. And don’t put too much faith in her being cheerful: that’s just because she’s enjoying these last days of girlhood, but I know what she’s like every time a letter arrives from him! Still, God grant everything turns out well!” (She always finished that way.) “He’s an excellent man!”

##  CHAPTER II

After returning home, Nicholas was initially serious and even gloomy. He was troubled by the impending need to deal with the tedious business matters that had brought him home at his mother's request. Wanting to get this responsibility over with as soon as possible, on the third day after his arrival he went, angry and frowning, to Mítenka’s lodge without answering questions about where he was going, and demanded an *account of everything*. But Nicholas understood even less than the startled and confused Mítenka what an *account of everything* might actually be. The conversation and review of the accounts with Mítenka did not last long. The village elder, a peasant delegate, and the village clerk, who were waiting anxiously in the hallway, listened with both fear and delight to the young count’s voice, which roared and snapped, growing louder and louder, followed by curses and harsh words, uttered one after another.

“Robber!… Ungrateful wretch!… I’ll tear the dog to pieces! I’m not my father!… Stealing from us!…” and so on.

Then, with just as much fear and delight, they saw the young count, red-faced and wild-eyed, drag Mítenka out by the scruff of the neck, kicking him with his foot and knee at just the right moments between the shouting, and yelling, “Get out! Never show your face here again, you scoundrel!”

Mítenka went tumbling headfirst down the six steps and ran into the shrubbery. (This shrubbery was a familiar refuge for those in trouble at Otrádnoe. Mítenka himself, after returning drunk from the town, would hide there, and many others at Otrádnoe, hiding from Mítenka, knew about its protection.)

Mítenka’s wife and sisters-in-law peeked their frightened faces out of the door of a room where a bright samovar boiled and the steward’s high bedstead stood beneath its patchwork quilt.

The young count ignored them, breathing heavily, and walked past with determined strides into the house.

The countess, who heard from the maids what had happened at the lodge, was reassured by the thought that now things would surely improve, but at the same time felt anxious about the effect this outburst might have on her son. She went several times to his door on tiptoe and listened to him lighting one pipe after another.

The next day the old count called his son aside and, with an awkward smile, said to him:

“But you know, my dear boy, it’s a shame you got so upset! Mítenka told me everything.”

“I knew,” thought Nicholas, “I would never understand anything in this crazy world.”

“You were angry that he didn’t enter those 700 rubles. But they were carried forward—and you didn’t look at the other page.”

“Papa, he’s a scoundrel and a thief! I know he is! What I’ve done, I’ve done; but if you want, I won’t talk to him again.”

“No, my dear boy” (the count also felt awkward. He knew he had mismanaged his wife’s property and was at fault toward his children, but didn’t know how to fix it). “No, I want you to oversee the business. I’m old. I…”

“No, Papa. Forgive me if I’ve caused you trouble. I understand all this even less than you do.”

“Devil take all these peasants and money matters and all this carrying forward from page to page,” he thought. “I used to understand what a ‘corner’ and the stakes at cards meant, but carrying amounts forward to another page is beyond me,” he told himself, and after that he didn’t interfere in business matters. However, once the countess called her son and told him she had a promissory note from Anna Mikháylovna for two thousand rubles, and asked what he wanted to do about it.

“This,” Nicholas replied. “If you say it’s up to me, well, I don’t like Anna Mikháylovna or Borís, but they were our friends once, and they’re poor. Well, then, this!” and he tore up the note, making the old countess cry tears of joy. After that, young Rostóv took no further interest in business matters, devoting himself with passionate enthusiasm to his new pursuit—the chase—for which his father kept a large establishment.

##  CHAPTER III

The weather was already turning wintry, and morning frosts hardened the earth soaked from the autumn rains. The grass had grown thick and its bright green stood out starkly against the brown strips of winter rye trampled by cattle and the pale-yellow stubble of the spring buckwheat. The wooded ravines and the copses, which at the end of August had been green islands amid black fields and stubble, had now turned into golden and bright-red islands among the green winter rye. The hares were already halfway into their winter coats, the fox cubs were beginning to scatter, and the young wolves were bigger than dogs. It was the best time of year for hunting. The hounds of the passionate young sportsman Rostóv were not just in peak condition, but so worn out that at a meeting of the huntsmen it was decided to give them three days’ rest and then, on the sixteenth of September, set out on a distant expedition, starting from the oak grove where there was an untouched litter of wolf cubs.

All that day the hounds stayed home. It was frosty and the air was sharp, but toward evening the sky clouded over and it began to thaw. On the fifteenth, when young Rostóv, still in his dressing gown, looked out his window, he saw that it was a perfect morning for hunting: it seemed as if the sky were melting and sinking to earth with no wind. The only motion in the air was from the tiny particles of drizzling mist. The bare twigs in the garden were beaded with clear drops that fell onto the freshly fallen leaves. The earth in the kitchen garden looked wet and black and sparkled like poppy seed, blending into the dull, damp mist a short distance away. Nicholas went out onto the wet and muddy porch. There was a smell of decaying leaves and dogs. Mílka, a black-spotted, broad-hipped bitch with big black eyes, got up when she saw her master, stretched her back legs, lay down like a hare, then suddenly jumped up and licked him right on the nose and mustache. Another borzoi, a male, spotted his master from the garden path, arched his back, and charged headlong toward the porch, tail raised, brushing himself against Nicholas’s legs.

“O-hoy!” came just then, that unique huntsman’s call that blends the deepest bass with the highest tenor, and around the corner appeared Daniel the head huntsman and chief kennelman, a gray, wrinkled old man with hair cut straight across his forehead in the Ukrainian style, a long curved whip in his hand, and that look of independence and contempt for all else only seen in huntsmen. He doffed his Circassian cap to his master and gazed at him menacingly. This scorn did not bother his master. Nicholas knew that this Daniel, disdainful of everyone and believing himself superior, was still his serf and huntsman.

“Daniel!” Nicholas said timidly, aware at the sight of the weather, the hounds, and the huntsman that he was being swept away by that irresistible love for sport that makes a man forget all his earlier decisions, just as a lover forgets himself in his beloved’s presence.

“What are your orders, your excellency?” said the huntsman in his deep, deacon-like bass, made hoarse by years of shouting, his two black eyes flashing from under his brows at his silent master. “Can you resist it?” those eyes seemed to ask.

“It’s a good day, isn’t it? For a hunt and a ride, eh?” asked Nicholas, scratching Mílka behind the ears.

Daniel didn’t reply, but winked instead.

“I sent Uvárka at dawn to listen,” his bass rumbled after a moment’s pause. “He says *she’s moved them* into the Otrádnoe enclosure. They were howling there.” (This meant the she-wolf, whom they both knew of, had moved her cubs to the Otrádnoe copse, a small patch about a mile and a half from the house.)

“We should go, don’t you think?” said Nicholas. “Come with Uvárka to me.”

“As you wish.”

“Then hold off on feeding them.”

“Yes, sir.”

Five minutes later, Daniel and Uvárka were standing in Nicholas’s large study. Though Daniel was not a big man, seeing him indoors was like seeing a horse or bear among human furniture. Daniel himself was aware of this, and, as usual, stood just inside the door, trying to speak softly and stay still for fear of breaking something, eager to finish what was needed and get back outdoors under the sky.

Having finished his questions and gotten Daniel’s opinion that the hounds were fit (Daniel, for his part, wanted to hunt), Nicholas ordered the horses to be saddled. But just as Daniel was about to leave, Natásha came in quickly, her hair still undone, not yet fully dressed, with her old nurse’s big shawl wrapped around her. Pétya ran in at the same time.

“You’re going?” asked Natásha. “I knew you would! Sónya said you wouldn’t, but I knew that today is the kind of day you couldn’t resist.”

“Yes, we’re going,” Nicholas replied reluctantly, since today, intending to hunt seriously, he did not want to take Natásha and Pétya along. “We are going, but only wolf hunting: it would be boring for you.”

“You know it’s my favorite thing,” said Natásha. “It’s not fair; you’re going by yourself, having the horses saddled, and didn’t even tell us about it.”

“‘No barrier bars a Russian’s path’—we’ll go!” shouted Pétya.

“But you can’t. Mamma said you mustn’t,” said Nicholas to Natásha.

“Yes, I will. I’m definitely going,” said Natásha firmly. “Daniel, tell them to saddle up for us too, and Michael must bring my dogs,” she added to the huntsman.

Daniel found being in a room unpleasant and dealing with a young lady seemed even more impossible to him. He dropped his eyes and hurried out as if it was none of his concern, being careful not to accidentally bump into the young lady on his way out.

##  CHAPTER IV

The old count, who had always maintained a huge hunting establishment but had now turned over full control to his son, was in especially good spirits that fifteenth of September and made preparations to go out with the others.

Within an hour the entire hunting party gathered at the porch. Nicholas, wearing a stern and focused expression that made it clear this was no time for distractions, passed by Natásha and Pétya, who were trying to get his attention. He inspected all the hunting arrangements, sent a pack of hounds and huntsmen ahead to seek the quarry, mounted his chestnut Donéts, and, whistling for his own set of borzois, rode across the threshing ground toward a field leading to the Otrádnoe woods. The old count’s horse, a sorrel gelding named Viflyánka, was led by his groom, while the count himself was to ride out in a small trap directly to a designated spot.

They brought along fifty-four hounds, with six hunting attendants and whippers-in. Besides the family, there were eight borzoi kennelmen and over forty borzois. Including the family borzois on their leash, the total came to about a hundred and thirty dogs and twenty horsemen.

Each dog recognized its master and responded to his call. Every man in the hunt knew his role, his position, and what he needed to do. As soon as they passed the fence, they all fanned out evenly and quietly, without any noise or idle chatter, along the road and field heading to the Otrádnoe cover.

The horses stepped across the field as if over a thick carpet, occasionally splashing through puddles where they crossed the road. The hazy sky still seemed to hang evenly and imperceptibly closer to the earth; the air remained still, warm, and silent. Now and then, the whistle of a huntsman, the snort of a horse, the crack of a whip, or the whine of a hound lagging behind was heard.

After less than a mile, five more riders with dogs emerged from the mist and approached the Rostóvs. Leading them was a fresh-faced, distinguished-looking old man with a large gray mustache.

“Good morning, Uncle!” Nicholas said as the old man came near.

“That’s it. Come on!… I knew it,” began “Uncle.” (He was a distant relation of the Rostóvs, a man of modest means, and their neighbor.) “I knew you wouldn’t be able to resist—and it’s good that you’re coming along. That’s it! Come on!” (This was “Uncle’s” favorite phrase.) “Hit the covert right away, because my Gírchik says the Ilágins are at Kornikí with their hounds. That’s it. Come on!… They’ll snatch the cubs from under your very noses.”

“That’s just where I’m heading. Should we combine our packs?” Nicholas asked.

The hounds were joined into one pack, and “Uncle” and Nicholas rode on together. Natásha, bundled in shawls that couldn’t hide her eager face and sparkling eyes, galloped up to them. Pétya followed her, always staying close, alongside Michael the huntsman and a groom assigned to assist her. Pétya, laughing, whipped and tugged at his horse. Natásha handled her black Arábchik with an easy confidence, reining him in firmly but effortlessly.

“Uncle” looked over at Pétya and Natásha with disapproval. He didn’t care for mixing frivolity with the serious matter of hunting.

“Good morning, Uncle! We’re going too!” Pétya called out.

“Good morning, good morning! But don’t get ahead of the hounds,” “Uncle” said sternly.

“Nicholas, Truníla is such a fine dog! He recognized me,” said Natásha, talking about her favorite hound.

“In the first place, Truníla is not a ‘dog,’ but a harrier,” Nicholas thought, and gave his sister a stern look, trying to impress on her the seriousness of the moment. Natásha picked up on it.

“We won’t get in anyone’s way, Uncle,” she said. “We’ll stay in our spots and won’t move.”

“A good thing too, little countess,” “Uncle” replied, “just be careful you don’t fall off your horse,” he added, “because—that’s it, come on!—you’ve nothing to grab onto.”

The oasis of the Otrádnoe covert appeared a few hundred yards ahead; the huntsmen were already closing in on it. Rostóv, after settling with “Uncle” where to unleash the hounds and showing Natásha her post—a spot where nothing could possibly escape—rode around above the ravine.

“Well, nephew, you’re going for a big wolf,” said “Uncle.” “Make sure you don’t let her slip away!”

“That’s up to fate,” Rostóv replied. “Karáy, here!” he shouted, responding to “Uncle’s” remark by calling his borzoi. Karáy was an old shaggy dog with a droopy jowl, famous for having taken down a big wolf alone. Everyone assumed their places.

The old count, aware of his son’s passion for hunting, hurried so as not to be late. The huntsmen hadn’t reached their places yet when Count Ilyá Rostóv, jovial, flushed, and with trembling cheeks, arrived with his black horses over the winter rye to the spot set aside for him, where a wolf might show itself. After adjusting his coat and fastening on his hunting knives and horn, he mounted his comfortable, well-groomed, sturdy horse, Viflyánka, who was turning gray like himself. His horses and trap were sent home. Though the count was not a true sportsman at heart, he knew the rules of hunting well and rode to the brushy roadside edge where he was to stand, arranged his reins, settled in the saddle, and, feeling ready, looked around with a smile.

Beside him was Simon Chekmár, his personal attendant—a seasoned horseman, though now somewhat stiff in the saddle. Chekmár held three fierce wolfhounds on a leash, but these, like their master and his horse, had grown rather plump. Two wise old dogs rested unleashed. About a hundred paces away at the wood’s edge stood Mítka, the count’s other groom, a daring horseman and keen rider to hounds. According to tradition, before the hunt, the count had drunk a silver cup of mulled brandy, eaten a snack, and washed it down with half a bottle of his favorite Bordeaux.

He was slightly flushed from the wine and the ride. His eyes were a bit moist and shone more than usual, and as he sat in his saddle, bundled in his fur coat, he resembled a child taken out for an excursion.

The gaunt-faced Chekmár, having prepared everything, kept glancing at his master—whom he’d served in close company for thirty years—and, reading his mood, anticipated some pleasant conversation. A third person now rode up carefully out of the woods (clearly he had been warned) and stopped behind the count. This was an old man with a gray beard, wearing a woman’s cloak and a tall pointed cap. He was the buffoon, who went by a woman’s name, Nastásya Ivánovna.

“Well, Nastásya Ivánovna!” whispered the count, winking at him. “If you scare off the wolf, Daniel will give you trouble!”

“I know a thing or two myself!” said Nastásya Ivánovna.

“Hush!” the count whispered, turning to Simon. “Have you seen the young countess?” he asked. “Where is she?”

“With young Count Peter, by the Zhárov rank grass,” Simon replied with a smile. “Though she’s a lady, she’s very fond of hunting.”

“And you’re impressed with how she rides, Simon, aren’t you?” said the count. “She’s as skilled as many a man!”

“Of course! It’s remarkable. So bold, so effortless!”

“And Nicholas? Where’s he? Up by the Lyádov upland, right?”

“Yes, sir. He knows just where to stand. He’s so knowledgeable about it that Daniel and I are often astonished,” Simon said, well aware of what would please his master.

“Rides well, eh? And such a handsome figure on his horse, right?”

“A perfect picture! How he chased that fox from the tall grass by the Zavárzinsk thicket the other day! Took a dangerous leap; what a sight when they burst from the covert… that horse is worth a thousand rubles, but the rider is priceless! You’d have to search far and wide to find one so sharp.”

“To search far…” repeated the count, evidently wishing Simon had said even more. “To search far,” he murmured, pulling back his coat to reach for his snuffbox.

“The other day after he came out of Mass in full uniform, Michael Sidórych…” Simon was interrupted, for he suddenly caught the sound of the hunt: only two or three hounds baying. He bent his head to listen, warning his master with a finger. “They’re on the cubs’ scent…” he whispered, “headed for the Lyádov uplands.”

The count, forgetting to wipe the smile off his face, stared ahead into the distance down the narrow open ground, holding his snuffbox but not using it. After the barking came the deep notes of Daniel’s hunting horn; the pack joined the first few hounds and broke into a full cry, their voices rising in that way that signals they’re after a wolf. The whippers-in stopped urging the hounds and switched their call to *ulyulyu*, and over them all rang Daniel’s voice: now a deep bass, then piercingly high. His call filled the entire woods, carrying far across the open field.

After standing in silence for a few moments, the count and his attendant realized the hounds had split into two packs: the main pack’s eager baying faded off into the distance, while the other pack rushed past the woods near the count, Daniel’s *ulyulyu* ringing with them. The sounds of both packs rose and fell, mingling and separating as they ran farther and farther.

Simon sighed, crouching to untangle a young borzoi’s leash; the count sighed too and, noticing the snuffbox in his hand, opened it to take a pinch. “Back!” Simon called to a borzoi peeking out of the woods. The count started and let the snuffbox fall. Nastásya Ivánovna dismounted to pick it up. The count and Simon watched him.

Then, unexpectedly, as often happens, the sound of the hunt suddenly drew near, as if the hounds in full cry and Daniel *ulyulyuing* were right in front of them.

The count turned and saw, on his right, Mítka staring at him wide-eyed, raising his cap and pointing ahead to the other side.

“Look out!” he shouted, his voice clearly revealing how long he had wanted to say those words. Letting the borzois loose, he galloped toward the count.

The count and Simon galloped out of the woods and saw, to their left, a wolf moving with a steady, swaying gait, heading calmly farther to the left—straight toward where they stood. The angry borzois whined and, breaking free of the leash, rushed past the horses' hooves toward the wolf.

The wolf paused, turning its heavy forehead toward the dogs awkwardly, like someone suffering from quinsy, and, still faintly swaying, gave a couple of leaps and, with a swish of its tail, vanished into the edge of the woods. At the same moment, with a cry like a wail, first one hound, then another, then another, dashed out helter-skelter from the woods opposite, and the entire pack raced across the field toward where the wolf had disappeared. The hazel bushes parted behind the hounds and Daniel’s chestnut horse appeared, dark with sweat. Daniel sat hunched forward on its long back, capless, his disheveled gray hair hanging over his flushed, sweating face.

*“Ulyulyulyu! ulyulyu!…”* he cried. When he caught sight of the count, his eyes sparkled with anger.

“Blast you!” he shouted, brandishing his whip threateningly at the count.

“You’ve let the wolf go!… What sportsmen!” And, as if too angry to say any more to the frightened and embarrassed count, he whipped the flanks of his sweaty chestnut gelding with all the fury the count had provoked and galloped off after the hounds. The count, feeling like a scolded schoolboy, looked around, hoping for a sympathetic smile from Simon. But Simon was gone, already galloping near the bushes, while the rest of the field was closing in from both sides, all trying to head off the wolf. But she disappeared into the woods before they could catch her.

##  CHAPTER V

Meanwhile, Nicholas Rostóv remained at his post, waiting for the wolf. From the way the hunt drew closer and receded, the familiar cries of the dogs, and the rising and falling voices of the huntsmen, he understood what was happening in the copse. He knew there were both young and mature wolves present, that the hounds had split into two packs, that a wolf was being chased, and that something had gone wrong. He expected the wolf to come his way any moment. He imagined countless scenarios about where and from which side the beast would appear, and how he would set upon it. Hope alternated with hopelessness. Several times, he silently prayed that the wolf might come his way, those passionate yet embarrassed prayers that come during intense excitement over trivial things. “What would it cost You to do this for me?” he said to God. “I know You are great, and it may be sinful to ask, but for God’s sake, let the old wolf come my way and let Karáy spring at it—right in front of ‘Uncle,’ who is watching from over there—and get it by the throat in a death grip!” A thousand times in that half-hour, Rostóv cast eager, restless glances at the edge of the woods, at the two scraggly oaks above the aspen undergrowth, the gully with its eroded bank, and “Uncle’s” cap barely visible over the bush to his right.

“No, I won’t be that lucky,” thought Rostóv. “But what wouldn’t it be worth! It’s never to be! In cards and war, I’m always unlucky.” Memories of Austerlitz and of Dólokhov flashed rapidly and vividly through his mind. “Just once in my life to get an old wolf, that’s all I want!” he thought, straining his eyes and ears, scanning left and right, alert to every nuance in the dogs’ cries.

He glanced right and saw something running toward him across the empty field. “No, it can’t be!” thought Rostóv, taking a deep breath, as someone does when something long hoped for finally occurs. The peak of happiness came so simply, with no announcement or fuss, that Rostóv couldn’t believe his eyes and was unsure for more than a second. The wolf ran forward and leaped heavily over a gully in her path. She was old, with a gray back and a big reddish belly. She ran calmly, confident that no one saw her. Rostóv, holding his breath, looked at the borzois. They stood or lay about, unaware of the wolf and oblivious to the drama. Old Karáy had turned his head and was furiously hunting fleas, baring his yellow teeth and snapping at his hind legs.

*“Ulyulyulyu!”* Rostóv whispered, pouting his lips. The borzois jumped to their feet, tugging at the leash rings and pricking their ears. Karáy stopped scratching, cocked his ears, and stood up, tail quivering, tufts of matted hair dangling from it.

“Shall I loose them or not?” Nicholas wondered, as the wolf neared him from the copse. Suddenly, the wolf’s whole appearance changed: she shuddered, seeing, perhaps for the first time, human eyes fixed on her, and, glancing toward Rostóv, paused.

“Back or forward? Eh, no matter—forward…” the wolf seemed to decide, and she moved ahead again without looking back, running with a steady, determined lope.

*“Ulyulyu!”* cried Nicholas, his voice unrecognizable, as his good horse, almost on its own, darted headlong down the hill, leaping over gullies in an effort to intercept the wolf, the borzois sprinting ahead even faster. Nicholas was barely aware of his own cry or the gallop, or the borzois, or the ground rushing beneath him. He saw only the wolf, who, picking up speed, raced along the hollow. First to approach was Mílka, with her black markings and powerful build, closing in on the wolf. Closer and closer… now she was ahead, but the wolf turned to face her, and instead of her usual burst of speed, Mílka raised her tail and stiffened her forelegs.

*“Ulyulyulyulyu!”* shouted Nicholas.

The reddish Lyubím rushed forth from behind Mílka, sprang fiercely at the wolf, seizing her by the haunch, but instantly jumped aside in fright. The wolf crouched, gnashed her teeth, then rose and bounded forward again, trailed only a few feet behind by all the borzois, none able to draw closer.

“She’ll get away! No, it can’t be!” thought Nicholas, still shouting hoarsely.

“Karáy, *ulyulyu!*…” he cried, looking around for his old borzoi, now his last hope. Karáy, with every bit of strength left in his aging body, stretched to his limit and galloped heavily to intercept the wolf. But the wolf’s quick lope and Karáy’s slower pace made it clear he had misjudged. Nicholas could already see the edge of the woods not far ahead—if the wolf made it there, she’d be safe. But coming toward him, he saw hounds and a huntsman riding almost directly at the wolf. There was still hope. A long, yellowish young borzoi—one Nicholas didn’t recognize, from another leash—charged at the wolf from the front and nearly bowled her over. But the wolf sprang up quicker than anyone would expect and, gnashing her teeth, lunged at the yellowish borzoi, which, with a piercing cry, fell with its head to the ground, bleeding from a wound in its side.

“Karáy? Old fellow!…” Nicholas wailed.

Luckily, that interruption allowed the old dog, his thigh covered in felted hair, to close within five steps of her. Realizing the danger, the wolf turned her eyes on Karáy, tucked her tail tighter between her legs, and tried to run faster. Just then, Nicholas saw Karáy suddenly lunge onto the wolf, and they rolled together into a gully right in front of them.

In that instant—seeing the wolf tangled with the dogs in the gully, her gray fur and outstretched hind leg visible from under them, her terrified, choking head pressed flat, Karáy clutching her by the throat—Nicholas felt the happiest moment of his life. With his hand on his saddle bow, he was ready to dismount and stab the wolf, when she abruptly pushed her head out from among the dogs. Then, her forepaws reached the gully's edge. She snapped her jaws (Karáy had lost his hold), leaped out of the gully with her hind legs, shook off the dogs, and, tail tucked tightly, moved ahead once more. Karáy, bristling and likely bruised or wounded, struggled wearily out of the gully.

“Oh my God! Why?” Nicholas cried in despair.

“Uncle’s” huntsman was now galloping across the wolf’s path from the other side, and his borzois blocked the animal again. Again, she was hemmed in.

Nicholas and his attendant, with “Uncle” and his huntsman, rode in a circle around the wolf, crying *“ulyulyu!”* and shouting, each ready to dismount as soon as the wolf tried to crouch back, resuming the chase each time she shook herself and moved toward the cover of the woods.

At the beginning of all this, Daniel, hearing the ulyulyuing, had rushed out from the woods. He saw Karáy seize the wolf and halted, thinking it was over. But seeing the horsemen hadn't dismounted and the wolf had broken free, Daniel spurred his chestnut toward the woods, cutting the animal off, just as Karáy had attempted. So he arrived just as the wolf was stopped a second time by “Uncle’s” borzois.

Daniel galloped up without a sound, wielding a naked dagger in his left hand and beating the heaving flanks of his chestnut as if with a flail.

Nicholas neither saw nor heard Daniel until the chestnut, breathing heavily, panted past him. Then he saw Daniel pitching onto the wolf’s back among the dogs, trying to seize her by the ears. By then, it was obvious to everyone—the dogs, the hunters, and the wolf herself—that it was over. The terrified wolf pressed back her ears and tried to get up, but the borzois were on her. Daniel managed to get up slightly, took a step, and then brought his whole weight down on the wolf, grabbing her ears. Nicholas was about to stab her, but Daniel said quietly, “Don’t! We’ll gag her!” Changing position, he pressed his foot on the wolf’s neck. A stick was jammed between her jaws and she was bound with a leash like a bridle; her legs were tied, and Daniel rolled her over from side to side.

With happy but exhausted faces, they placed the live old wolf on a skittish, snorting horse and, surrounded by the dogs yelping at her, took her to the meeting place. The hounds had killed two of her cubs and the borzois, three. The huntsmen gathered with their trophies and tales, and everyone came to see the wolf—her broad-browed head drooping, clenched on the stick between her jaws, staring with huge, glassy eyes at the crowd of men and dogs. When touched, she jerked her tied legs and looked around, wild-eyed but simply, at everyone. Old Count Rostóv rode up and touched her, too.

“Oh, what a formidable one!” he said. “A formidable one, eh?” he asked Daniel, who was standing nearby.

“Yes, your excellency,” Daniel quickly replied, doffing his cap.

The count remembered the wolf he had let escape and his earlier encounter with Daniel.

“Ah, but you’re a crusty one, my friend!” the count said.

Daniel merely answered with a shy, childlike, gentle, and amiable smile.

##  CHAPTER VI

The old count went home, and Natásha and Pétya promised to return very soon, but since it was still early, the hunt continued farther. At midday, they set the hounds into a ravine densely overgrown with young trees. Nicholas, standing in a fallow field, could see all his whips.

Facing him was a field of winter rye, where his own huntsman stood alone, hidden in a hollow behind a hazel bush. The hounds had barely been released when Nicholas heard one he recognized—Voltórn—barking at intervals; the other hounds joined in, sometimes pausing, sometimes barking in unison. Soon after, he heard a cry from the wooded ravine that a fox had been found, and the whole pack came together, rushing along the ravine toward the rye field and away from Nicholas.

He saw the whips in their red caps galloping along the ravine’s edge; he even saw the hounds and expected a fox to appear at any moment in the rye field opposite him.

The huntsman in the hollow moved and let loose his borzois, and Nicholas saw a strange, short-legged red fox with a fine tail racing across the field. The borzois charged toward it... Now they drew close to the fox, which started dodging across the field in sharper and sharper curves, trailing its tail, when suddenly a strange white borzoi rushed in, followed by a black one, and chaos ensued. The borzois formed a star-shaped cluster, barely moving their bodies, tails turned away from the center of the group. Two huntsmen galloped up to the dogs; one wore a red cap, the other, a stranger, had a green coat.

“What’s this?” thought Nicholas. “Where is that huntsman from? He is not ‘Uncle’s’ man.”

The huntsmen caught the fox, but lingered there for a long time without strapping it to the saddle. Their horses, bridled and sporting high saddles, stood nearby, and the dogs lay near them. The huntsmen waved their arms and did something to the fox. Then, from their spot, a horn sounded—the prearranged signal in case of a quarrel.

“That’s Ilágin’s huntsman fighting with our Iván,” said Nicholas’ groom.

Nicholas sent the man to call Natásha and Pétya to him and rode slowly to the place where the whips were gathering the hounds. Several others in the field galloped to where the dispute was happening.

Nicholas dismounted, and with Natásha and Pétya, who had ridden up, stopped near the hounds, waiting to see how the matter would end. Out of the bushes came the huntsman who had been fighting, riding toward his young master, the fox tied to his saddle. Still at a distance, he took off his cap and tried to speak respectfully, but he was pale and breathless, his face angry. One of his eyes was blackened, but he probably did not notice it.

“What happened?” asked Nicholas.

“A fine thing—killing a fox our dogs had hunted! And it was my gray bitch that caught it! Go to law, indeed!... He tries to grab the fox! So I gave him a taste of my fox. Here it is on my saddle! Do you want some of this?” said the huntsman, pointing to his dagger, probably still imagining he was addressing his enemy.

Nicholas, without taking time to speak to the man, asked his sister and Pétya to wait for him and rode to where Ilágin’s hunting party was.

The victorious huntsman rode off to join the others in the field, where he was surrounded by sympathetic listeners as he recounted his exploits.

The truth was that Ilágin, with whom the Rostóvs had an ongoing dispute and legal case, hunted in places traditionally belonging to the Rostóvs. Now, as if intentionally, he had sent his men into the very woods where the Rostóvs were hunting and let his huntsman take a fox their dogs had chased.

Nicholas, though he had never met Ilágin, disliked him greatly from stories of his high-handedness and violence, regarding him as his worst enemy. He rode over in angry agitation, holding his whip tight, fully prepared to take decisive and even desperate action against his foe.

He had barely rounded the edge of the wood when a portly gentleman in a beaver cap came riding toward him on a splendid raven-black horse, with two hunt servants in attendance.

Instead of an enemy, Nicholas found Ilágin to be a dignified and courteous gentleman, especially eager to become acquainted with the young count. Approaching Nicholas, Ilágin raised his beaver cap and expressed deep regret for what had happened, promising to punish the man who had dared seize a fox hunted by someone else’s borzois. He hoped to know the count better and invited him to draw his covert.

Natásha, worried her brother might do something rash, had followed in some excitement. Seeing the supposed enemies exchange friendly greetings, she rode up to them. Ilágin lifted his beaver cap even higher for Natásha and, smiling pleasantly, remarked that the young countess resembled Diana in her passion for hunting as well as in her beauty, which he had heard much about.

To make amends for his huntsman’s offense, Ilágin insisted the Rostóvs come to an upland about a mile away that he usually reserved for himself, which, he said, was teeming with hares. Nicholas agreed, and now, with both parties combined, the hunt continued.

The route to Ilágin’s upland cut across the fields. The hunt servants formed a line. The gentlemen rode together. “Uncle,” Rostóv, and Ilágin kept subtly glancing at each other’s dogs, trying not to be noticed, looking uneasily for rivals to their own borzois.

Rostóv was especially struck by the beauty of a small, purebred, red-spotted bitch on Ilágin’s leash—slender, with muscles like steel, a delicate muzzle, and striking black eyes. He had heard of the speed of Ilágin’s borzois and in that beautiful bitch saw a rival to his own Mílka.

In the middle of a subdued conversation Ilágin started about the year’s harvest, Nicholas pointed to the red-spotted bitch.

“A fine little bitch, that!” he said casually. “Is she quick?”

“That one? Yes, she’s a good dog, gets what she’s after,” Ilágin replied indifferently about the red-spotted bitch, Erzá, for whom, a year earlier, he had given a neighbor three families of house serfs. “So in your area, too, there’s little to brag about with the harvest, Count?” he continued, picking up the earlier conversation. Wanting to return the young count’s compliment, Ilágin looked at his borzois and selected Mílka, who caught his attention by her broad build. “That black-spotted one of yours is fine—well shaped!” he said.

“Yes, she’s fast enough,” Nicholas replied, thinking, “If only a full-grown hare would cross the field now, I’d show you what kind of borzoi she is,” and told his groom he would give a ruble to anyone who found a hare.

“I don’t understand,” Ilágin went on, “how some sportsmen can be so jealous about game and dogs. For myself, I can tell you, Count, I like riding in company like this… what could be better?” (he again raised his cap to Natásha) “but for counting kills and what one takes, I don't care about that.”

“Of course not!”

“Or being upset if someone else’s borzoi and not mine catches something. All that matters is the thrill of the chase, isn’t it, Count? I consider that—”

*“A-tu!”* came the long, drawn-out call of one of the borzoi whippers-in, who had stopped. He stood on a knoll in the stubble, holding his whip aloft, and again gave his long call, *“A-tu!”* (This cry and the raised whip meant he saw a hare sitting.)

“Ah, he’s found one, I think,” said Ilágin carelessly. “Yes, we must ride up... Shall we both give chase?” asked Nicholas, seeing in Erzá and “Uncle’s” red Rugáy two rivals he had never yet raced against his own borzois. “What if they both beat my Mílka at once!” he thought, riding together with “Uncle” and Ilágin toward the hare.

“A full-grown one?” Ilágin asked the whip who had spotted the hare—and he looked around, not without excitement, whistling for Erzá.

“And you, Michael Nikanórovich?” he said to “Uncle.”

The latter rode with a gloomy look.

“How can I join in? Why, you’ve given a whole village for each of your borzois! That’s it, go ahead! Yours are worth thousands. Try yours against each other, and I’ll watch!”

“Rugáy, hey, hey!” he shouted. “Rugáyushka!” he added, unconsciously using the affectionate diminutive that showed his love and the hopes he placed on this red borzoi. Natásha saw and felt the excitement the two older men and her brother tried to hide, and she herself grew excited.

The huntsman stood halfway up the knoll, holding up his whip; the gentry rode up to him at a slow pace; the hounds far off in the distance turned away from the hare, and the whips—though not the gentlemen—also moved away. Everyone was moving slowly and deliberately.

“How is it moving?” Nicholas asked, riding within a hundred paces of the whip who had sighted the hare.

Before the whip could answer, the hare, sensing the coming frost, was unable to sit still and leaped up. The pack on leash raced downhill after it, and from all sides the untethered borzois darted after the hounds and the hare. All the hunt, who had been moving slowly, shouted, “Stop!” to call in the hounds, while the borzoi whips, with a cry of *“A-tu!”* galloped across the field, turning the borzois onto the hare. The formerly calm Ilágin, along with Nicholas, Natásha, and “Uncle,” sped across the field, caring nothing for direction or path, seeing only the borzois and the hare and fearing only to lose sight of the chase, even for a moment. The hare they had flushed was a strong and swift one. When it jumped up, it did not bolt immediately but pricked up its ears, listening to the shouts and thundering hooves from every side at once. It took a dozen leaps—not very quickly—letting the borzois get closer, and only after choosing its route and sensing the danger did it lower its ears and dash away at full speed. It had been hiding in the stubble, but ahead was a freshly sowed field, the ground still soft. The two borzois whose huntsman had spotted the hare were closest and first to give chase, but not far behind, Ilágin’s red-spotted Erzá overtook them, came within a length, lunged toward the hare’s tail with stunning speed, and, thinking she had seized it, tumbled over like a ball. The hare arched its back and sprang off even faster. Right behind Erzá came the broad-backed, black-spotted Mílka, swiftly gaining on the hare.

“Miláshka, darling!” came Nicholas’s triumphant shout. It seemed as if Mílka would catch the hare at once, but she overtook it and sped past. The hare had flattened against the ground. Again the beautiful Erzá reached it, but when she came close to the hare's tail, she paused, as if gauging the distance to avoid making a mistake this time and to seize its hind leg.

“Erzá, darling!” Ilágin cried out, his voice sounding unlike himself. Erzá paid no attention to his plea. Just as she was about to catch her prey, the hare moved and darted down the ridge between the winter rye and the stubble. Once again, Erzá and Mílka ran side by side, as swift as a pair of carriage horses, and started gaining on the hare. But it was easier for the hare to run along the ridge, and the borzois didn’t catch up as quickly.

“Rugáy, Rugáyushka! That’s it, come on!” a third voice shouted just then. “Uncle’s” red borzoi, stretching and arching its back, caught up with the two leading borzois, pushed past them despite the intense effort, then charged forward, close to the hare. The dog knocked it off the ridge onto the rye field, then sprinted even harder, sinking to its knees in the muddy field. All anyone could see was the dog tumbling with the hare, its back covered in mud. The other borzois formed a ring around him. A moment later everyone gathered around the cluster of dogs. Only the delighted “Uncle” dismounted, sliced off a pad, shook the hare to let the blood drip off, and anxiously looked around with restless eyes while his arms and legs twitched. He spoke without realizing who he was talking to or what he was saying. “That’s it, come on! That’s a dog!… There, it’s beaten them all, both the thousand-ruble and the one-ruble borzois. That’s it, come on!” he said, panting and glaring around as if he were scolding someone, as if they were all his rivals and had wronged him, and now at last he had vindicated himself. “There you have your thousand-ruble dogs… That’s it, come on!…”

“Rugáy, here’s a pad for you!” he said, tossing down the hare’s muddy pad. “You’ve earned it; that’s it, come on!”

“She wore herself out, she ran it down three times on her own,” Nicholas said, also not listening to anyone and not caring if he was heard or not.

“But what’s impressive about just running across it like that?” Ilágin’s groom said.

“Once she’d missed it and turned it away, any mutt could have taken it,” Ilágin said at the same time, out of breath from his ride and his excitement. Just then Natásha, without stopping for breath, let out a joyful, ecstatic, piercing scream that made everyone’s ears ring. That shout expressed what the others were all saying at once, and it was so strange that she must have been embarrassed by such a wild cry—anyone else would have been surprised to hear it at any other time. “Uncle” twisted up the hare, flung it smartly across his horse’s back as if to rebuke everyone with the gesture, and, acting as though he didn’t wish to talk to anyone, mounted his bay and rode off. The others followed, feeling disheartened and embarrassed, and only much later did they recover their previous air of indifference. For a long time, they kept looking at the red Rugáy, who—with his arched back splattered in mud and the ring of his leash clanking—walked just behind “Uncle’s” horse with the composure of a conqueror.

“Well, I’m like any other dog as long as it’s not about coursing. But when it is, then watch out!” his look seemed to Nicholas to be saying.

Much later, when “Uncle” rode up to Nicholas and started talking to him, Nicholas felt honored that, after what had happened, “Uncle” chose to speak to him.

##  CHAPTER VII

Toward evening, Ilágin took his leave of Nicholas, who realized they were so far from home that he accepted “Uncle’s” invitation for the hunting party to spend the night in his small village of Mikháylovna.

“And if you stay at my house, that would be even better. That’s it, come on!” said “Uncle.” “See, the weather’s damp and you could rest, and the young countess could be driven home in a trap.”

“Uncle’s” offer was accepted. A huntsman was sent to Otrádnoe to fetch a trap, while Nicholas rode with Natásha and Pétya to “Uncle’s” house.

About five male household serfs, both big and small, hurried out to the front porch to greet their master. A dozen or more women serfs, old and young, along with children, bustled out from the back entrance to get a glimpse of the arriving hunters. The presence of Natásha—a woman, a lady, and on horseback—aroused such curiosity among the serfs that many came right up to her, stared at her face, and made remarks about her openly, as if she were some kind of spectacle and not someone who could hear or understand their comments.

“Arínka! Look, she sits sideways! There she sits, and her skirt swings… Look, she’s got a little hunting horn!”

“Goodness gracious! Look at her knife…”

“Isn’t she a Tartar!”

“How did you manage not to fall off?” asked the boldest one, addressing Natásha directly.

“Uncle” dismounted at the porch of his small wooden house, set among an overgrown garden, and after glancing at his servants, authoritatively shouted that the unnecessary ones should go away and that all needed preparations be made for the guests.

The serfs dispersed at once. “Uncle” helped Natásha off her horse and, taking her hand, led her up the creaky wooden steps of the porch. The house, with its bare, unplastered log walls, was not particularly clean—it didn’t seem like the people living there aimed for spotless perfection—but it wasn’t obviously neglected either. In the entryway, there was the scent of fresh apples, and wolf and fox skins hung around.

“Uncle” led the guests from the entry through a small hall with a folding table and red chairs, then into the drawing room with a round birchwood table and a sofa, and finally into his private room, which had a tattered sofa, a worn carpet, and portraits of Suvórov, the host’s parents, and himself in military uniform. The study smelled strongly of tobacco and dogs. “Uncle” told his guests to sit down and make themselves comfortable, and then stepped out. Rugáy, still muddy, came into the room and lay down on the sofa, cleaning himself with his tongue and teeth. Off the study was a hallway with a partition draped with ragged curtains. From behind this came women’s laughter and whispers. Natásha, Nicholas, and Pétya took off their wraps and sat on the sofa. Pétya, leaning on his elbow, fell asleep right away. Natásha and Nicholas were quiet. Their faces shone—they were hungry and very cheerful. They looked at each other (now that the hunt was over and they were indoors, Nicholas no longer felt the need to show his masculine superiority over his sister); Natásha gave him a wink, and soon both burst into peals of ringing laughter, not even trying to hide it before inventing a reason.

After a while, “Uncle” came in, wearing a Cossack coat, blue trousers, and small top boots. Natásha felt that this outfit, which had once amused her at Otrádnoe, suited the scene perfectly—just as good as a swallowtail or a frock coat. “Uncle” was also in high spirits, and far from being offended by the siblings’ laughter (the idea they might be mocking his way of life never occurred to him), he joined right in with their merriment.

“That’s the way, young countess! That’s it, come on! I’ve never seen anyone like her!” he said, offering Nicholas a long-stemmed pipe and, with a flick of three fingers, taking down another that had been shortened. “She’s ridden all day like a man, and she’s still as fresh as ever!”

Soon after “Uncle” returned, the door opened—judging by the sound, by a barefoot girl—and in walked a stout, rosy, attractive woman of about forty, with a double chin and full red lips, carrying a large, loaded tray. Every move and glance radiated hospitable dignity and genuine warmth. She looked at the visitors, smiled, and bowed respectfully. Despite her notable size, which made her puff out her chest and belly and tip her head back, this woman (“Uncle’s” housekeeper) moved with remarkable lightness. She set down the tray, and with her plump white hands deftly took off the bottles and dishes, arranging them on the table. When finished, she stepped aside and paused by the door, still smiling. “Here I am. I am the one! Now do you understand ‘Uncle’?” her expression said to Rostóv. And who could not understand? Not only Nicholas, but even Natásha understood the meaning of “Uncle’s” creased brow and the happy, contented smile tugging at his lips when Anísya Fëdorovna entered. On the tray were bottles of herb wine, various vodkas, pickled mushrooms, rye cakes made with buttermilk, honeycomb, still mead and sparkling mead, apples, nuts (raw and roasted), and nut-and-honey treats. Afterwards she brought a freshly roasted chicken, ham, preserves made with honey, and preserves made with sugar.

All these were the result of Anísya Fëdorovna’s careful housekeeping, gathered and prepared by her. Both the scent and taste reflected her own essence: juicy, clean, white, and full of pleasant smiles.

“Take some, little Lady-Countess!” she kept saying, offering Natásha one thing after another.

Natásha tasted everything and thought she had never seen or eaten such buttermilk cakes, such fragrant jam, such nut-and-honey candy, or such chicken anywhere else. Anísya Fëdorovna left the room.

After supper, over cherry brandy, Rostóv and “Uncle” talked about past and future hunts, Rugáy, and Ilágin’s dogs, while Natásha sat upright on the sofa, listening with sparkling eyes. She tried several times to wake Pétya so he could eat, but he only muttered and didn’t wake up. Natásha felt so lighthearted and happy in this new setting, she only worried the trap would arrive to take her away too soon. After a lull, the kind that often happens when people receive guests for the first time in their home, “Uncle,” seeming to answer the thoughts on their minds, said:

“This is how I’m finishing my days, you see… Death will come. That’s it, come on! Nothing will remain. So why harm anyone?”

“Uncle’s” face was especially meaningful and even handsome as he said this. Involuntarily, Rostóv remembered all the good he’d heard about him from his father and the neighbors. Throughout the province “Uncle” was known as the most honorable and unselfish of eccentrics. Families called him to settle disputes, made him executor, entrusted him with secrets, elected him to judicial and other posts; but he always refused public office, spending autumn and spring in the fields on his bay gelding, keeping to his house in winter, and lying in his overgrown garden in summer.

“Why don’t you serve in the government, Uncle?”

“I did once, but gave it up. I’m not fit for it. That’s it, come on! I can’t make sense of it. That’s for you—I don’t have the brains for it. Now, hunting, that’s something else—there’s sense in that, come on! Open the door, there!” he shouted. “Why’s it shut?”

The door at the end of the hallway led to the huntsmen’s room, as they called the servants’ room for the hunt.

There was the quick patter of bare feet, and an unseen hand opened the door into the huntsmen’s room, from which came the clear sound of a balaláyka played masterfully by someone. Natásha had already been listening to this music and now went into the passage to hear better.

“That’s Mítka, my coachman…. I got him a good balaláyka. I like it,” said “Uncle.”

It was Mítka’s custom to play the balaláyka in the huntsmen’s room whenever “Uncle” returned from the hunt. “Uncle” was fond of that music.

“How good! Really very good!” said Nicholas, with a hint of unintentional condescension, as if embarrassed to admit how much he enjoyed it.

“Very good?” said Natásha, rebuking his tone. “Not ‘very good’—it’s simply wonderful!”

Just as “Uncle’s” pickled mushrooms, honey, and cherry brandy had seemed to her the best in the world, so now this music seemed to her the peak of musical delight.

“More, please, more!” Natásha called at the door as soon as the balaláyka stopped. Mítka tuned up again and resumed the balaláyka, playing the tune of *My Lady*, with trills and variations. “Uncle” sat, listening, slightly smiling, his head tilted to one side. The melody was repeated dozens of times. The balaláyka was retuned repeatedly, and the same theme played again, but no one tired of listening and wanted it to keep going. Anísya Fëdorovna came in and leaned her ample figure against the doorpost.

“Do you like listening?” she said to Natásha, her smile remarkably like “Uncle’s.” “That’s one of our good players,” she added.

“He’s not playing that part right!” “Uncle” said suddenly, gesturing energetically. “Here’s where he should burst out—that’s it, come on!—he should burst out.”

“You play, then?” Natásha asked.

“Uncle” didn’t reply, but smiled.

“Anísya, go check if my guitar’s strings are in order. I haven’t touched it for ages. That’s it—come on! I’ve given up playing.”

Anísya Fëdorovna, moving lightly, gladly went to do as asked and brought back the guitar.

Without glancing at anyone, “Uncle” blew the dust off, tapped the case with his bony fingers, tuned the guitar, and settled himself in his armchair. He held the guitar just above the fingerboard, arching his left elbow with a somewhat theatrical flair, and, with a wink at Anísya Fëdorovna, struck a single, clear, ringing chord, then began to play gently, smoothly, and confidently, not *My Lady* but the traditional song: *Came a maiden down the street.* The tune, played with exactness and careful tempo, began to stir in Nicholas and Natásha the same lively but grounded joy that radiated from Anísya Fëdorovna. She blushed, pulled her kerchief over her face, and left the room laughing. “Uncle” continued to play with correctness and energy, gazing with a new and inspired look at the spot where Anísya Fëdorovna had just stood. There seemed to be a hint of laughter in one corner of his mouth under his gray mustache—especially as the song picked up speed, and when here and there, as his fingers swept the strings, something would almost seem to snap.

“Lovely, lovely! Go on, Uncle, go on!” Natásha cried as soon as he finished. She jumped up, hugged him, and kissed him. “Nicholas, Nicholas!” she said, turning to her brother as if to ask, “What is it that moves me so?”

Nicholas was also delighted by “Uncle’s” playing, and “Uncle” played the tune again. Anísya Fëdorovna’s smiling face appeared in the doorway again, and behind her, other faces…

*Fetching water, clear and sweet,  
Stop, dear maiden, I entreat*—

“Uncle” played once more, running his fingers skillfully over the strings, then stopped abruptly and shrugged his shoulders.

“Go on, Uncle dear,” Natásha pleaded, her tone so imploring it seemed her life depended on it.

“Uncle” stood up, and it was as if there were two men inside him: one seriously smiling at the jovial fellow, while the merry side struck a naïve and precise pose, preparing for a folk dance.

“Now then, niece!” he called out, waving to Natásha with the same hand that had just struck a chord.

Natásha threw the shawl off her shoulders, ran to face “Uncle,” put her arms akimbo, moved her shoulders, and struck a pose.

How, where, and when had this young countess—educated by a French émigrée governess—absorbed from the Russian air she breathed that very spirit and style the *pas de châle* \* would be expected to have erased long ago? Yet the spirit and movements were those unique and inimitable Russian ones that “Uncle” had hoped for. As soon as she struck her pose and smiled triumphantly, proudly, and with sly amusement, the worry Nicholas and the others felt—that she might make a mistake—vanished. They already admired her.

\* The French shawl dance.

She did everything with such care, such complete accuracy, that Anísya Fëdorovna—who had quickly given her the handkerchief needed for the dance—was moved to tears, even as she laughed, watching this slim, graceful countess, brought up in silks and velvets, so different from herself, yet able to understand everything that was in Anísya, her father, her mother, her aunt, and in every Russian man and woman.

“Well, little countess, that’s it—come on!” cried “Uncle” with a joyful laugh, finishing the dance. “Well done, niece! Now a fine young man must be found as husband for you. That’s it—come on!”

“He’s already chosen,” Nicholas said, smiling.

“Oh?” said “Uncle,” surprised, looking at Natásha with a questioning glance. She nodded happily.

“And such a one!” she added. But as soon as she said it, new thoughts and feelings came to her. “What did Nicholas’ smile mean when he said, ‘already chosen’? Is he happy about it or not? It’s as if he thinks my Bolkónski wouldn’t approve of or understand our fun. But he would understand it all. Where is he now?” she wondered, and her face turned serious for a moment. But this passed quickly. “Don’t think about it,” she told herself, and sat down smiling beside “Uncle,” urging him to play more.

“Uncle” played another song and then a waltz; after a pause, he cleared his throat and sang his favorite hunting song:

*As it was growing dark last night  
Fell the snow so soft and light...*

“Uncle” sang just as peasants do—with total, sincere conviction that the whole meaning of a song lies in the words, that the tune arises naturally, and that, apart from the words, there isn’t really a melody—the music just gives rhythm to the words. Because of this, the unplanned melody, like a bird’s song, was remarkably good. Natásha was enchanted by “Uncle’s” singing. She resolved to quit learning the harp and only play the guitar. She asked “Uncle” for his guitar and immediately found the chords to his song.

After nine o’clock, two carriages and three horsemen—who had been sent to find them—arrived to fetch Natásha and Pétya. The count and countess didn’t know where they were and were very anxious, one of the men said.

Pétya was carried out like a log and laid in the larger of the two carriages. Natásha and Nicholas got into the other. “Uncle” wrapped Natásha up warmly and said goodbye to her with a new tenderness. He walked alongside them as far as the bridge, which they couldn’t cross, so they had to go by the ford, and he sent huntsmen ahead with lanterns.

“Goodbye, dear niece,” came his voice from the darkness—not the voice Natásha had known before, but the one that had sung *As it was growing dark last night*.

In the village they passed through, there were red lights and a cheerful scent of smoke.

“What a darling Uncle is!” Natásha said as they reached the highroad.

“Yes,” Nicholas replied. “Are you cold?”

“No. I’m perfectly all right. I feel so comfortable!” Natásha answered, almost baffled by her own feelings. They rode in silence for a long time. The night was dark and damp. They couldn’t see the horses, just heard them splashing through the unseen mud.

What was going on in that receptive, childlike soul, always eager to absorb all the varied experiences of life? How did she find room for them all? But she was truly happy. As they neared home, she suddenly started singing *As it was growing dark last night*—the melody she had been trying to grasp all the way and had finally caught.

“Got it?” Nicholas asked.

“What were you just thinking about, Nicholas?” Natásha asked.

They liked to ask each other that question.

“Me?” Nicholas said, trying to remember. “Well, first I thought Rugáy, the red hound, was like Uncle; if he were a man, he’d always keep Uncle near—if not for his riding, then for his character. What a good fellow Uncle is! Don’t you think so?… Well, and you?”

“Me? Wait, wait... Yes, at first I thought we’re riding and thinking we’re going home, but maybe in the darkness we’re really going somewhere else, and when we arrive, we’ll find we’re not in Otrádnoe, but in Fairyland. Then I thought... No, nothing else.”

“I know—you were thinking of him,” Nicholas said, smiling in the way Natásha could tell by his voice.

“No,” said Natásha, though she actually had been thinking of Prince Andrew along with everything else, and how he would have liked “Uncle.” “And I was telling myself all the way, ‘How well Anísya carried herself—how well!’” Nicholas heard her spontaneous, joyful laughter. “And you know,” she suddenly said, “I know I’ll never be as happy and as peaceful as I am right now.”

“Nonsense, that’s rubbish!” Nicholas exclaimed, thinking: “How wonderful my Natásha is! I have no other friend like her and never will. Why should she marry? We could always travel together!”

“What a darling this Nicholas of mine is!” thought Natásha.

“Look, there are still lights in the drawing room!” she said, pointing to their house windows that shone invitingly in the moist, velvety darkness of the night.

##  CHAPTER VIII

Count Ilyá Rostóv had resigned from his position as Marshal of the Nobility because it was too expensive, but even so, his financial situation did not improve. Natásha and Nicholas often noticed their parents having anxious, private discussions, and they heard talk of possibly selling the fine old Rostóv house and the estate near Moscow. Although it was no longer necessary to entertain as lavishly as when the count was Marshal, and life at Otrádnoe was quieter than in previous years, the enormous house and its outbuildings were still full of people, with more than twenty sitting down to meals each day. These were all people connected to the family who had essentially become permanent residents, or people who, for various reasons, seemed obliged to live at the count’s house. Among them were Dimmler the musician and his wife, Vogel the dancing master and his family, Belóva, an elderly unmarried woman, who lived in the house, as well as others such as Pétya’s tutors, the girls’ former governess, and various people who simply found it easier and more beneficial to live with the count’s family than on their own. They had fewer guests than before, but the old ways, which the count and countess could not imagine life without, remained unchanged. There was still the hunting establishment, which Nicholas had even expanded, the same fifty horses and fifteen grooms in the stables, the same lavish gifts and dinner parties for the entire district on name days; the count still played whist and boston, spreading out his cards so everyone could see them, allowing himself to be taken for hundreds of rubles each day by his neighbors, who considered playing cards with Count Rostóv a very profitable source of income.

The count conducted his affairs as if caught in a vast net, refusing to believe he was trapped but getting more entangled with every move, feeling too helpless either to break free or to patiently untangle the mess. The countess, with her loving heart, sensed that her children’s futures were being jeopardized, though she knew it wasn’t the count’s fault—he simply couldn’t help being who he was—and she understood that even though he tried to hide it, he was deeply distressed about their ruin as well as his own. She tried to find some way to fix things. From her perspective, the only solution was for Nicholas to marry a wealthy heiress. She saw this as their last hope, and felt that if Nicholas turned down the match she had found for him, she would have to give up on ever setting things right. The match in question was with Julie Karágina, the daughter of respectable and virtuous parents, a girl the Rostóvs had known since childhood, who had just become a wealthy heiress after the death of her last brother.

The countess wrote directly to Julie’s mother in Moscow, suggesting that their children should marry, and received an encouraging reply. Madame Karágina answered that she agreed, and everything depended on her daughter’s feelings. She invited Nicholas to visit Moscow.

Several times, the countess, with tears in her eyes, told her son that now both her daughters were settled, her only wish left was to see him married. She said that if he married, she could go to her grave in peace. Then she would tell him about a wonderful girl she knew, trying to find out what he thought about marriage.

At other times, she praised Julie and advised Nicholas to go to Moscow during the holidays to have a good time. Nicholas understood what his mother’s hints were leading to, and during one of these conversations, he got her to speak openly. She admitted that her only hope to fix the family’s affairs now was for him to marry Julie Karágina.

“But, Mamma, what if I loved a girl who had no fortune? Would you want me to sacrifice my feelings and my honor just for money?” he asked, unaware of how harsh his question was, only wanting to show his noble-mindedness.

“No, you misunderstand me,” his mother replied, at a loss for how to defend herself. “You haven’t understood me, Nikólenka. I want only your happiness,” she added, knowing she wasn’t telling the truth and getting caught up in her own words. She began to cry.

“Mamma, don’t cry! Just tell me you want it, and you know I would give my life, anything, to make you happy,” Nicholas said. “I would give up anything for you—even my own feelings.”

But the countess didn’t want the issue put like that; she didn’t want her son to feel obliged to sacrifice himself—she wanted to be the one making the sacrifice for him.

“No, you’ve misunderstood me, let’s not talk about this,” she answered, wiping her tears away.

“Maybe I really do love a poor girl,” Nicholas thought to himself. “Should I give up my feelings and honor for money? How could Mamma say that to me? Because Sónya doesn’t have any money, I mustn’t love her, mustn’t return her devoted, faithful love? Still, I know I’d be much happier with her than with some doll-like Julie. I can sacrifice my own feelings for the sake of my family,” he reasoned, “but I can’t force myself to feel differently. If I love Sónya, that love is for me stronger and more important than anything.”

Nicholas did not go to Moscow, and the countess did not bring up marriage with him again. She watched, with sadness and sometimes irritation, the growing bond between her son and the penniless Sónya. She blamed herself, but still couldn’t stop herself from scolding or worrying Sónya, often criticizing her without reason, addressing her with a formal “my dear,” and using the formal “you” instead of the intimate “thou.” The kindhearted countess was even more upset with Sónya because her poor, dark-eyed niece was so gentle, so kind, so gratefully devoted to her guardians, so constant, loyal, and unselfish in her love for Nicholas, that there was no reason to accuse her of anything.

Nicholas was spending the remainder of his leave at home. A fourth letter had arrived from Prince Andrew, from Rome, saying that he would have returned to Russia already, but his wound had reopened unexpectedly in the warm climate, and now he would have to delay his return until the start of the new year. Natásha was still very much in love with her fiancé, still found comfort in her love, and was just as ready as ever to throw herself into every pleasure of life; but after four months apart, she began to have spells of depression she couldn’t control. She felt sorry for herself: sorry that her youth and energy were being wasted, that she was of no use to anyone—despite knowing she was so capable of loving and being loved.

Things were not cheerful in the Rostóvs’ home.

##  CHAPTER IX

Christmas arrived, and aside from the ceremonial Mass, the formal and tedious Christmas greetings from neighbors and servants, and the new dresses everyone wore, there were no special celebrations. Yet the calm frost of twenty degrees Réaumur, the brilliant sunshine during the day, and the starlit winter nights seemed to call for some special observance of the season.

On the third day of Christmas week, after midday dinner, everyone in the house scattered to different rooms. It was the dullest time of day. Nicholas, who had spent the morning visiting neighbors, was napping on the sitting-room sofa. The old count was resting in his study. Sónya sat in the drawing room at the round table, copying an embroidery design. The countess was playing patience. Nastásya Ivánovna the buffoon sat with a sad expression at the window with two elderly ladies. Natásha came into the room, walked over to Sónya, glanced at what she was doing, then went to her mother and stood silently.

“Why are you wandering around like an outcast?” her mother asked. “What do you want?”

“*Him*… I want him… right now! I want *him!*” said Natásha, her eyes shining and her face serious.

The countess lifted her head and studied her daughter closely.

“Don’t look at me, Mamma! Don’t look; I’ll cry any second.”

“Sit here with me a little,” said the countess.

“Mamma, I want *him*. Why should I be wasted like this, Mamma?”

Her voice broke, tears streamed from her eyes, and she quickly turned away to hide them before leaving the room.

She walked into the sitting room, paused to think, and then entered the maids’ room. There, an old maidservant was scolding a young girl who stood panting, having just run in from the serfs’ quarters in the cold.

“Stop playing—there’s a time for everything,” said the old woman.

“Let her be, Kondrátevna,” said Natásha. “Go, Mavrúshka, go.”

After freeing Mavrúshka, Natásha crossed the dancing hall and went to the vestibule. There, an old footman and two younger ones were playing cards. They stopped and stood as she entered.

“What can I do with them?” thought Natásha.

“Oh, Nikíta, please go… where can I send him?… Yes, go to the yard and fetch a fowl, a cock, and you, Misha, bring me some oats.”

“Just a few oats?” Misha replied, cheerful and eager.

“Go, go quickly,” urged the old man.

“And you, Theodore, get me a piece of chalk.”

On her way past the butler’s pantry, she told them to prepare a samovar, though it wasn’t at all time for tea.

Fóka, the butler, was the most bad-tempered person in the house. Natásha liked to test her power over him. He doubted the order and asked whether the samovar was really needed.

“Oh dear, what a young lady!” Fóka said, pretending to frown at Natásha.

No one in the house sent people on errands or gave as much trouble as Natásha did. She couldn’t watch people idly; she had to send them on some task. It was as if she was probing to see if anyone would get annoyed or moody with her; but the serfs obeyed her orders more willingly than anyone else’s. “What can I do, where can I go?” she wondered as she walked slowly down the corridor.

“Nastásya Ivánovna, what sort of children will I have?” she asked the buffoon, who was coming toward her in a woman’s jacket.

“Why, fleas, crickets, grasshoppers,” the buffoon replied.

“Oh Lord, oh Lord, it’s always the same! Oh, where should I go? What am I supposed to do?” And tapping her heels, she rushed upstairs to visit Vogel and his wife, who lived on the upper floor.

Two governesses sat with the Vogels at a table with plates of raisins, walnuts, and almonds. The governesses were debating whether it was cheaper to live in Moscow or Odessa. Natásha sat down, listened to their discussion with a grave, thoughtful expression, and then got up again.

“The island of Madagascar,” she said. “Ma-da-gas-car,” she repeated, carefully pronouncing each syllable, and, ignoring Madame Schoss who asked her what she meant, left the room.

Her brother Pétya was upstairs as well; with his attendant he was preparing fireworks for that night.

“Pétya! Pétya!” she called. “Carry me downstairs.”

Pétya ran up and let her climb onto his back. She wrapped her arms around his neck, and he pranced along with her.

“No, don’t… the island of Madagascar!” she said, and jumping down, she went downstairs.

Having, so to speak, surveyed her kingdom, tested her authority, and reassured herself that everyone followed her lead—yet finding it all dull—Natásha withdrew to the ballroom, picked up her guitar, sat in a dim corner behind a bookcase, and began plucking the bass strings, trying to recall a passage from an opera she had heard in Petersburg with Prince Andrew. To others, the sounds meant nothing, but for her, a whole chain of memories arose. She sat behind the bookcase, eyes fixed on a sliver of light coming from the pantry door, listening to herself and reflecting. She was in a mood for reminiscing about the past.

Sónya passed by the pantry with a glass in her hand. Natásha glanced at her and at the light under the pantry door, and it seemed to her she remembered that light shining through the crack before, and Sónya passing with a glass in her hand. “Yes, it was exactly the same,” thought Natásha.

“Sónya, what is this?” she called, plucking a thick string.

“Oh, you’re there!” Sónya said, startled, and drew near to listen. “I don’t know. A storm?” she guessed timidly, afraid of making a mistake.

“There! That’s exactly how she started, and how she came up smiling shyly when this happened before,” Natásha thought, “and just as before, I felt there was something missing in her.”

“No, it’s the chorus from *The Water-Carrier*, listen!” said Natásha, singing the chorus so Sónya could catch the tune. “Where were you going?” she asked.

“To change the water in this glass. I’m just finishing the design.”

“You always find something to do, but I can’t,” Natásha said. “And where’s Nicholas?”

“Asleep, I think.”

“Sónya, go and wake him,” said Natásha. “Tell him I want him to come and sing.”

She sat for a while, wondering what it could mean that all of this seemed to have happened before. Without solving the mystery, and not really regretting failing to do so, she let her imagination wander again to the time when she was with *him*, and he looked at her with loving eyes.

“Oh, if only he would come sooner! I’m so afraid it will never happen! And worst of all, I’m getting older—that’s the problem! Then I won’t have what I do now. But maybe he’ll arrive today, maybe he’ll come right away. Maybe he’s already here and sitting in the drawing room. Maybe he came yesterday and I’ve forgotten it.” She stood up, put down the guitar, and went into the drawing room.

Everyone in the household—tutors, governesses, and guests—were already at the tea table. The servants stood around the table, but Prince Andrew wasn’t there, and life was going on as usual.

“Ah, here she is!” said the old count when he saw Natásha come in. “Well, sit down by me.” But Natásha stayed near her mother and looked around as if searching for something.

“Mamma!” she whispered, “give him to me, give him, Mamma, quickly, quickly!” and again she struggled to hold back her sobs.

She sat at the table and listened to the conversation between the older family members and Nicholas, who had also joined them. “My God, my God! The same faces, the same talk, Papa holding his cup and blowing on it the same way!” Natásha thought, feeling a wave of horror and a strange sense of disgust rising up in her toward the whole household, simply because they never changed.

After tea, Nicholas, Sónya, and Natásha went into the sitting room, to their favorite corner where their most intimate conversations always began.

##  CHAPTER X

“Do you ever feel,” said Natásha to her brother as they settled into the sitting room, “as if there’s nothing more to look forward to—nothing; that everything good has already happened? Not exactly bored, but sad?”

“I sure do!” he replied. “I’ve felt that way even when everything was going well and everyone was happy. The thought would come to me that I was already tired of it all, and that we all have to die. Once, in the regiment, I skipped some party with music... and suddenly I felt so down...”

“Oh yes, I know, I know, I know!” Natásha interrupted him. “When I was little I felt that way sometimes. Do you remember when I was punished once about some plums? You were all dancing, and I sat crying in the schoolroom? I’ll never forget it: I felt sad and sorry for everyone, for myself and for everyone. And I was innocent—that was the main thing,” said Natásha. “Do you remember?”

“I remember,” Nicholas answered. “I remember I came to you afterward and tried to comfort you, but you know, I felt too shy. We were so silly. I had a funny doll then and wanted to give it to you. Do you remember?”

“And do you remember,” Natásha asked with a thoughtful smile, “how once, long, long ago, when we were very little, Uncle called us into the study—that was in the old house—and it was dark—we went in and suddenly there stood...”

“A Negro,” Nicholas chimed in with a delighted smile. “Of course I remember. Even now I don’t know if there really was a Negro, or if we just dreamed it or were told about him.”

“He was gray, you remember, with white teeth, and just stood looking at us...”

“Sónya, do *you* remember?” asked Nicholas.

“Yes, yes, I do remember something too,” Sónya replied shyly.

“You know, I’ve asked Papa and Mamma about that Negro,” said Natásha, “and they say there never was such a person. But you see, you remember!”

“Of course I do, I remember his teeth like I just saw them.”

“How strange! It’s like a dream! I love that.”

“And do you remember how we rolled hard-boiled eggs in the ballroom, and suddenly two old women started spinning around on the carpet? Was that real or not? Do you remember how much fun we had?”

“Yes, and do you remember how Papa, in his blue overcoat, fired a gun on the porch?”

They journeyed through their memories, smiling in delight—not the sad memories of old age, but fresh, poetic, youthful ones—those impressions from the distant past where dreams and reality merge—and they laughed quietly in enjoyment.

Sónya, as usual, wasn’t quite on the same wavelength, even though she shared the same memories.

Much of what they recalled had faded for her, and what she did remember didn’t give her the same poetic feeling. She simply enjoyed seeing their happiness and tried to join in.

She only truly joined the conversation when they spoke of Sónya’s first arrival. She told them how scared she had been of Nicholas because he wore a corded jacket and her nurse had said she too would be sewn up with cords.

“And I remember being told you were born under a cabbage,” said Natásha, “and I remember that I didn’t quite dare disbelieve it back then, but I knew it wasn’t true and it made me so uncomfortable.”

As they talked, a maid poked her head in through the other door of the sitting room.

“They’ve brought the cock, Miss,” she whispered.

“It’s not needed, Pólya. Tell them to take it away,” Natásha replied.

While they talked in the sitting room, Dimmler came in and went over to the harp standing in a corner. He took off the cloth cover, and the harp made a jarring sound.

“Mr. Dimmler, please play my favorite nocturne by Field,” called the old countess from the drawing room.

Dimmler played a chord and, turning to Natásha, Nicholas, and Sónya, remarked, “How quiet you young people are!”

“Yes, we’re philosophizing,” said Natásha, glancing up for a moment and then continuing the conversation. They were now talking about dreams.

Dimmler began to play; Natásha quietly tiptoed to the table, picked up a candle, took it away, and returned, sitting down silently in her old place. It was dark in the room, especially where they were seated on the sofa, but through the large windows, the silvery light of the full moon shone on the floor. Dimmler finished the piece but kept gently running his fingers over the strings, unsure whether to stop or play something else.

“You know,” Natásha whispered, moving closer to Nicholas and Sónya, “that if you keep remembering things, eventually you start to recall what happened before you were born...”

“That’s metempsychosis,” said Sónya, who always studied well and remembered everything. “The Egyptians believed our souls used to live in animals, and will become animals again.”

“No, I don’t think we were ever animals,” said Natásha, still whispering even though the music had stopped. “But I’m sure we were angels somewhere *up there*, and we’ve come here, and that’s why we remember...”

“May I join you?” said Dimmler, who had come up quietly and now sat by them.

“If we were angels, why did we fall lower?” said Nicholas. “No, that can’t be!”

“Not lower, who says we’re lower?… How do I know what I was before?” Natásha replied confidently. “The soul is immortal—so if I’m always going to live, I must have lived before, lived for all eternity.”

“Yes, but it’s hard for us to picture eternity,” Dimmler observed, having joined the young people with a mildly condescending smile, but now speaking just as quietly and seriously as they did.

“Why is it hard to imagine eternity?” Natásha said. “It’s now today, and it’ll be tomorrow, and forever; and there was yesterday, and the day before...”

“Natásha! Now it’s your turn. Sing me something,” they heard the countess call. “Why are you sitting there like conspirators?”

“Mamma, I really don’t want to,” Natásha answered, though she still got up.

None of them, not even the older Dimmler, wanted to end the conversation and leave their quiet corner, but Natásha stood and Nicholas took his place at the clavichord. Standing as usual at the best spot for the acoustics, Natásha began her mother’s favorite song.

She had said she didn’t feel like singing, but it had been so long since she sang, and it would be a long time before she sang like that again. The count, from his study where he was speaking with Mítenka, heard her and, like a schoolboy eager to go out and play, stumbled over his words as he gave orders to the steward, finally stopping while Mítenka stood before him, also listening and smiling. Nicholas couldn’t take his eyes off his sister and breathed in time with her. Sónya, listening, thought about the huge difference between herself and Natásha, and how impossible it was for her to ever be as charming as her cousin. The old countess sat with a blissful yet sad smile, tears in her eyes, sometimes shaking her head. She thought about Natásha and her own youth, and how there was something unnatural and dreadful about Natásha’s upcoming marriage to Prince Andrew.

Dimmler, who had seated himself beside the countess, listened with his eyes closed.

“Ah, Countess,” he eventually said, “that’s a real European talent—she has nothing left to learn. What softness, tenderness, and strength….”

“Oh, how afraid I am for her, how afraid I am!” said the countess, not realizing to whom she was speaking. Her maternal instinct told her that Natásha had too much of something, and that because of this, she would not find happiness. Before Natásha had finished singing, fourteen-year-old Pétya rushed in, delighted, to announce that a group of mummers had arrived.

Natásha stopped abruptly.

“Idiot!” she screamed at her brother and, running to a chair, threw herself onto it, sobbing so violently that she couldn't stop for a long time.

“It’s nothing, Mamma, really it’s nothing; only Pétya startled me,” she said, trying to smile, but her tears kept flowing and sobs continued to choke her voice.

The mummers—some of the household serfs—were dressed up as bears, Turks, innkeepers, and ladies; both frightening and funny, bringing in the cold from outside and filling the house with a sense of fun, they crowded first timidly into the anteroom. Then, hiding behind each other, they pushed into the ballroom where, shy at first and then growing merrier and more enthusiastic, they began to sing, dance, and play Christmas games. The countess, after recognizing them and laughing at their costumes, went into the drawing room. The count stayed in the ballroom, beaming with smiles and applauding the players. The young people had disappeared.

Half an hour later, among the other mummers in the ballroom, an old lady appeared in a hooped skirt—this turned out to be Nicholas. Pétya was dressed as a Turkish girl. Dimmler was a clown. Natásha was an hussar, and Sónya, with burnt-cork mustache and eyebrows, was a Circassian.

After the appropriate surprise, nonrecognition, and praise from those who weren’t dressed up themselves, the young people decided their costumes were so good they ought to be shown off elsewhere.

Nicholas, noticing how good the roads were, wanted to take everyone out for a drive in his troika. He suggested that they bring a dozen of the serf mummers and ride to “Uncle’s.”

“No, why disturb the old man?” said the countess. “Besides, there wouldn’t be room for turning around there. If you have to go, visit the Melyukóvs’ instead.”

Melyukóva was a widow who, with her family and their tutors and governesses, lived three miles from the Rostóvs.

“That’s the idea, my dear,” chimed in the old count, entirely delighted. “I’ll dress up now and go with them. I’ll make Pashette open her eyes.”

But the countess wouldn’t allow him to go; his leg had been bad for days. It was decided the count must stay home, but if Louisa Ivánovna (Madame Schoss) would go with them, the young ladies could visit the Melyukóvs’. Sónya, usually so timid and shy, more eagerly than anyone else begged Louisa Ivánovna not to refuse.

Sónya’s costume was the best of all. Her mustache and eyebrows were extremely flattering. Everyone told her she looked quite handsome, and she was in an energetic, spirited mood rare for her. Some inner voice told her that now or never her fate would be decided, and, dressed as a man, she felt like a completely different person. Louisa Ivánovna agreed to go, and in half an hour, four troika sleighs with large and small bells, their runners squeaking and whistling over the frozen snow, pulled up at the porch.

Natásha led the cheerful holiday mood, which spread from person to person, growing stronger and reaching its peak as they all came out into the cold and climbed into the sleighs, talking, calling to each other, laughing, and shouting.

Two of the troikas were the usual household sleighs, the third was the old count’s, with a trotter from the Orlóv stud as the shaft horse, the fourth was Nicholas’ own with a short, shaggy black shaft horse. Nicholas, wearing his old lady’s dress belted over his hussar overcoat, stood in the center of the sleigh, reins in hand.

It was so bright outside that he could see the moonlight reflecting off the metal harness disks and from the eyes of the horses, who looked back nervously at the loud group under the porch.

Natásha, Sónya, Madame Schoss, and two maids got into Nicholas’ sleigh; Dimmler, his wife, and Pétya into the old count’s, and the rest of the mummers seated themselves in the other two sleighs.

“You go first, Zakhár!” Nicholas shouted to his father’s coachman, hoping for a chance to race past him.

The old count’s troika, with Dimmler and his party, set off, its runners squeaking as if freezing to the snow, its deep-toned bell clanging. The side horses, pressing against the center horse’s shafts, sank into the snow, which, dry and glittering like sugar, scattered all around.

Nicholas set off, following the first sleigh; behind him, the others moved noisily, runners squeaking. At first, they trotted steadily along the narrow road. Passing the garden, the shadows of the bare trees often fell across the road and hid the brilliant moonlight, but once past the fence, the snowy plain spread out—motionless, moonlit, shining like diamonds, dappled with bluish shadows. *Bang, bang!* went the first sleigh over a cradle hole in the road’s snowy surface, each following sleigh jolting the same way, rudely breaking the stillness as the troikas sped along one after the other.

“A hare’s track—a lot of tracks!” Natásha’s voice rang through the frosty air.

“How bright it is, Nicholas!” came Sónya’s voice.

Nicholas glanced at Sónya, bending down to see her face more closely. A completely new, sweet face—black eyebrows and mustaches—peeked out at him from sable furs, so close but so distant in the moonlight.

“That used to be Sónya,” he thought, looking at her with a smile.

“What is it, Nicholas?”

“Nothing,” he replied, then turned again to the horses.

When they reached the highroad—worn down by sleigh runners and gouged by rough-shod horses, the marks visible in the moonlight—the horses began tugging at the reins on their own, picking up speed. The near side horse, arching his head and breaking into a short canter, pulled harder. The shaft horse swayed side to side, moving his ears as if to ask, “Isn’t it time to start now?” Far ahead, the deep bell of the lead sleigh rang further and further away, and Zakhár’s black horses were clearly visible against the snow. From that sleigh, shouts, laughter, and the mummers’ voices carried back.

“Gee up, my darlings!” Nicholas shouted, pulling the reins to one side and waving the whip.

You could tell how fast the troika was flying only by the sharper wind that hit them and by the jerks of the side horses, pulling harder and increasing their gallop. Nicholas looked back. With screams, squeals, and whips waving—so much that even the shaft horses galloped—the other sleighs followed. The shaft horse kept a steady pace under the bow over its head, never thinking of slowing and ready to speed up if needed.

Nicholas overtook the first sleigh. They were driving downhill, coming out onto a wide, packed path across a meadow near a river.

“Where am I?” he thought. “That must be the Kosóy meadow. But no—this is something new, something I’ve never seen. It’s not the Kosóy meadow or the Dëmkin hill, and heaven only knows what it is! Something new and magical. Well, whatever it is…” And, shouting to his horses, he began to pass the first sleigh.

Zakhár reined in his horses and looked back, his face already frosted up to his eyebrows.

Nicholas let his horses run, and Zakhár, stretching out his arms, clicked his tongue and let his horses go.

“Careful now, master!” he called.

Still faster the two troikas flew side by side, and the feet of the galloping side horses sped up. Nicholas began to pull ahead. Zakhár, still holding his arms out, raised one hand with the reins.

“No you won’t, master!” he shouted.

Nicholas pushed all his horses into a gallop and passed Zakhár. The horses tossed fine dry snow onto the faces of those in their sleigh—nearby, quick ringing bells sounded, and they caught glimpses of rapidly moving legs and the shadows of the troika being passed. The runners whistled on the snow, and girls’ screams came from different directions.

Again, Nicholas slowed his horses and looked around. They were still surrounded by the magical, moonlit plain, glittering with stars.

“Zakhár keeps shouting that I should turn left, but why to the left?” Nicholas wondered. “Are we approaching the Melyukóvs’? Is this Melyukóvka? Who knows where we’re actually heading, and who knows what’s really happening to us—but whatever it is, it feels so strange and wonderful.” He glanced around the sleigh.

“Look, his mustache and eyelashes are completely white!” said one of the unfamiliar but lovely people—the one with the fine eyebrows and mustache.

“I think that must have been Natásha,” Nicholas thought, “and that was Madame Schoss, but maybe not, and I don’t recognize this Circassian woman with the mustache, but I love her.”

“Aren’t you cold?” he asked.

They didn’t reply, but started laughing instead. Dimmler, from the sleigh behind, shouted something—probably a joke—but they couldn’t make out what he said.

“Yes, yes!” several voices called back, laughing.

Here was a magical forest with dark shifting shadows, sparkling like diamonds, a sweep of marble steps, the silver roofs of fairy-tale buildings, and the wild yells of some animals. “And if this actually is Melyukóvka, it’s even stranger that we drove who knows where and somehow ended up at Melyukóvka,” Nicholas thought.

It really was Melyukóvka. Maids and footmen with cheerful faces hurried out onto the porch carrying candles.

“Who is it?” someone called from the porch.

“The mummers from the count’s. I can tell by the horses,” some voices answered.

##  CHAPTER XI

Pelagéya Danílovna Melyukóva, a broad-shouldered, energetic woman wearing spectacles, sat in the drawing room in a loose dress, surrounded by her daughters, whom she was trying to keep from getting bored. They were quietly dripping melted wax into snow and watching the shadows the wax shapes cast on the wall when they heard the steps and voices of new arrivals in the vestibule.

Hussars, ladies, witches, clowns, and bears, after clearing their throats and brushing the frost from their faces in the vestibule, entered the ballroom, where candles were quickly lit. The clown—Dimmler—and the lady—Nicholas—began a dance. Surrounded by the excited children, the mummers, their faces covered and voices disguised, bowed to their hostess and arranged themselves around the room.

"Goodness! You can’t recognize anyone! And Natásha! See whom she resembles! She really reminds me of someone. But Herr Dimmler—isn’t he good! I didn’t recognize him! And how he dances. My goodness, there’s a Circassian. Really, how becoming it is to dear Sónya. And who is that? Well, you have brightened things up! Nikíta and Vanya—clear away the tables! And we were sitting so quietly. Ha, ha, ha!... The hussar, the hussar! Just like a boy! And those legs!... I can’t watch him..." different voices were saying.

Natásha, the Melyukóv youngsters’ favorite, slipped away with them into the back rooms, where a cork and various dressing gowns and men’s garments were requested and handed over by the footman to the girls’ bare arms reaching out from behind the door. Ten minutes later, all the young Melyukóvs joined the mummers.

Pelagéya Danílovna, having ordered the rooms to be cleared for the guests and organized refreshments for both the gentry and the serfs, moved among the mummers without taking off her spectacles, peering into their faces with a suppressed smile and failing to recognize any of them. It wasn’t just Dimmler and the Rostóvs she didn’t know—she didn’t even recognize her own daughters, or her late husband’s dressing gowns and uniforms, which they had put on.

"And who is this?" she asked her governess, peering at her own daughter disguised as a Kazán-Tartar. "I suppose it is one of the Rostóvs! Well, Mr. Hussar, what regiment do you serve in?" she asked Natásha. "Here, give some fruit jelly to the Turk!" she told the butler, who was passing refreshments. "That's not forbidden by his religion."

Sometimes, as she watched the amusing antics of the dancers, who—having decided that, in disguise, no one could know them—were completely uninhibited, Pelagéya Danílovna hid her face in her handkerchief, and her whole sturdy body shook with uncontrollable, good-natured, elderly laughter.

"My little Sásha! Look at Sásha!" she said.

After Russian country dances and chorus dances, Pelagéya Danílovna had both the serfs and the gentry join hands in one large circle: a ring, a string, and a silver ruble were brought out, and everyone played games together.

After an hour, all the costumes were crumpled and disordered. The corked eyebrows and mustaches had smeared over the flushed, sweaty, cheerful faces. Pelagéya Danílovna started to recognize the mummers, admired their clever costumes, especially how well they suited the young ladies, and thanked everyone warmly for entertaining her so well. The guests were invited to supper in the drawing room, and the serfs were served something in the ballroom.

"Now, telling fortunes in the empty bathhouse is truly frightening!" said an old maid living with the Melyukóvs during supper.

"Why?" asked the eldest Melyukóv girl.

"You wouldn’t go; it takes courage..."

"I’ll go," said Sónya.

"Tell them what happened to the young lady!" said the second Melyukóv girl.

"Well," began the old maid, "a young lady once went out, took a rooster, laid a table for two, all properly, and sat down. After waiting a bit, she suddenly hears someone coming... a sleigh arrives with bells; she hears someone coming! He walks in, just like a man, an officer—comes in and sits at the table with her."

"Ah! ah!" screamed Natásha, rolling her eyes in horror.

"Yes? And how... did he speak?"

"Yes, just like a man. Everything was quite normal, and he began persuading her; and she should have kept him talking until dawn, but she got scared—just got frightened and hid her face in her hands. Then he snatched her up. It was lucky the maids came in just then...."

"Now, why are you scaring them?" said Pelagéya Danílovna.

"Mamma, you used to try your fate yourself..." her daughter said.

"And how does one do it in a barn?" Sónya asked.

"Well, if you go to the barn now and listen. It depends on what you hear; hammering and knocking—that's bad; but if you hear shifting grain, that's good, and sometimes you’ll hear that, too."

"Mamma, tell us what happened to you in the barn."

Pelagéya Danílovna smiled.

"Oh, I’ve forgotten..." she replied. "But none of you would go?"

"Yes, I will; Pelagéya Danílovna, let me! I’ll go," said Sónya.

"Well, why not, if you’re not afraid?"

"Louisa Ivánovna, may I?" Sónya asked.

Whether they were playing the ring and string game or the ruble game, or just talking as they were now, Nicholas never left Sónya’s side and looked at her with an entirely new expression. It seemed to him that only today, thanks to that burnt-cork mustache, he had come to truly know her. And really, that evening, Sónya was livelier, brighter, and prettier than Nicholas had ever seen her before.

"So that's what she’s like; what a fool I've been!" he thought, gazing at her sparkling eyes, and under the mustache, a happy, rapturous smile dimpled her cheeks—a smile he’d never seen until now.

"I’m not afraid of anything," said Sónya. "May I go right now?" She stood up.

They told her where the barn was, how she should stand and listen, and handed her a fur cloak. She threw it over her head and shoulders and glanced at Nicholas.

"What a darling that girl is!" he thought. "And what have I been thinking about till now?"

Sónya stepped into the hall to head to the barn. Nicholas, saying he felt too hot, hurried to the front porch. The crowded house truly was stuffy.

Outside, there was the same cold stillness and the same moon, but even brighter than before. The light was so strong and the snow sparkled with so many stars that one hardly wanted to look up at the sky, and the real stars went unnoticed. The sky was black and bleak, while the earth seemed cheerful.

"I’m a fool, an utter fool! What have I been waiting for?" Nicholas thought, and running out from the porch he went around the corner of the house to the path that led to the back porch. He knew Sónya would pass that way. Halfway along lay some snow-topped piles of firewood and over them a network of shadows from the naked lime trees played across the snow and the path. This path led to the barn. The log barn walls and the snowy roof, looking as if carved from a precious stone, sparkled in the moonlight. A tree in the garden cracked in the frost, and then all grew perfectly silent again. Nicholas felt as if he was breathing not air but the strength and joy of eternal youth.

From the back porch came the sound of feet descending the steps; the bottom one, coated in snow, gave a ringing squeak, and he heard the voice of an old maidservant saying, "Straight ahead, straight along the path, Miss. Just don’t look back."

"I’m not afraid," answered Sónya, and along the path toward Nicholas came the crunching, whistling sound of Sónya’s feet in her thin shoes.

Sónya came along, wrapped in her cloak. She was only a few steps away when she saw him, and to her as well, he was not the Nicholas she had known and always slightly feared. He was dressed in women's clothes, with tousled hair and a joyful smile that was new to Sónya. She ran quickly toward him.

"Completely different and yet the same," thought Nicholas, looking at her face, illuminated by the moonlight. He slipped his arms under the cloak that covered her head, embraced her, held her close, and kissed her on lips that had a mustache and smelled of burnt cork. Sónya kissed him fully on the lips, and then, freeing her small hands, pressed them to his cheeks.

"Sónya!... Nicholas!"... was all they said. They ran to the barn and then back again, re-entering—he by the front and she by the back porch.

##  CHAPTER XII

When they all returned from Pelagéya Danílovna’s, Natásha—who always noticed everything—arranged for herself and Madame Schoss to ride back in the sleigh with Dimmler, while Sónya rode with Nicholas and the maids.

On the way back, Nicholas drove at a steady pace instead of racing and, by that fantastic, all-transforming light, kept looking into Sónya’s face, searching beneath the eyebrows and mustache for the Sónya he remembered—and the Sónya before him now—from whom he had decided never to be separated again. He looked and recognized in her both the old and new Sónya. Reminded by the scent of burnt cork of their kiss, he inhaled the frosty air deeply and, gazing at the ground flying beneath him and the sparkling sky, felt as though he were in a fairy tale once more.

“Sónya, are you happy?” he asked from time to time.

“Yes!” she replied. “And you?”

When they were halfway home, Nicholas handed the reins to the coachman, ran over to Natásha’s sleigh, and stood on its edge.

“Natásha!” he whispered in French, “do you know I’ve made up my mind about Sónya?”

“Have you told her?” asked Natásha, suddenly beaming with joy.

“Oh, how odd you look with that mustache and those eyebrows!… Natásha—are you glad?”

“I am so glad, so glad! I was starting to get upset with you. I didn’t tell you, but you haven’t treated her well. What a heart she has, Nicholas! I can be awful sometimes, but I felt ashamed to be happy while Sónya wasn’t,” Natásha continued. “Now I’m so glad! Go back to her now.”

“No, wait a minute… Oh, how funny you look!” Nicholas exclaimed, peering into her face and noticing something new, unusual, and wonderfully tender in his sister that he hadn’t seen before. “Natásha, isn’t it magical?”

“Yes,” she replied. “You have done splendidly.”

“If I’d seen her before as she is now,” thought Nicholas, “I’d have asked her what to do and done whatever she said, and everything would have turned out well.”

“So you’re glad and I did the right thing?”

“Oh, absolutely right! I had a quarrel with Mamma about it a while ago. Mamma said she was angling for you. How could she say that! I nearly lost my temper. I won’t let anyone say anything bad about Sónya, for there’s nothing but good in her.”

“Then everything’s all right?” Nicholas said, trying to read his sister’s face to be sure she meant it. Then he jumped down, his boots crunching in the snow, and ran back to his sleigh. The same happy, smiling Circassian, with mustache and bright eyes sparkling from under a sable hood, was still waiting there—and that Circassian was Sónya—and that Sónya was definitely his future, happy, loving wife.

When they got home and told their mother how they’d spent the evening at the Melyukóvs’, the girls went to their bedroom. Once they had changed out of their costumes, but left the cork mustaches in place, they sat and talked for a long time about their happiness—how life would be once they were married, how their husbands would be friends, and how happy they all would be. On Natásha’s table stood two looking glasses that Dunyásha had set there earlier.

“When will it all happen? I’m afraid it never will… it would be too good!” Natásha exclaimed, getting up and going to the looking glasses.

“Sit down, Natásha; maybe you’ll see him,” said Sónya.

Natásha lit the candles, one on each side of one of the mirrors, and sat down.

“I see someone with a mustache,” said Natásha, seeing her own face.

“You mustn’t laugh, Miss,” said Dunyásha.

With Sónya’s and the maid’s help, Natásha arranged the glass in the right position opposite the other; with her face turning serious, she sat silently. She looked for a long time at the line of candles reflected in the mirrors, hoping (because of stories she’d heard) to see a coffin or him—Prince Andrew—in the last faint square. But although she was ready to believe any slight shape was a man or a coffin, she saw nothing. She began blinking quickly and moved away from the mirrors.

“Why do other people see things, and I never do?” she said. “You try, Sónya, please! You must, tonight! Do it for me… tonight I feel so scared!”

Sónya sat down before the glasses, arranged them, and began watching.

“Now, Miss Sónya is sure to see something,” whispered Dunyásha, “while you do nothing but laugh.”

Sónya heard this, along with Natásha’s whisper:

“I know she will. She saw something last year.”

For about three minutes, everyone was silent.

“Of course she will!” Natásha whispered, but didn’t finish. Suddenly, Sónya pushed away the mirror and covered her eyes with her hand.

“Oh, Natásha!” she cried.

“You saw? Did you? What did you see?” exclaimed Natásha, picking up the mirror.

Sónya actually hadn’t seen anything—she had just wanted to blink and get up when she heard Natásha say, “Of course she will!” She didn’t want to disappoint Dunyásha or Natásha, but it was hard to sit still. She herself didn’t know how or why the cry escaped her when she covered her eyes.

“You saw him?” Natásha urged, grabbing her hand.

“Yes. Wait… I… saw him,” Sónya replied, not quite sure if Natásha meant Nicholas or Prince Andrew.

“But why shouldn’t I say I saw something? Others do! Besides, who can say whether I saw anything or not?” flashed through Sónya’s mind.

“Yes, I saw him,” she said.

“How? Standing or lying down?”

“No, I saw… At first there was nothing, then I saw him lying down.”

“Andrew lying? Is he ill?” Natásha asked, her frightened eyes fixed on her friend.

“No, on the contrary, on the contrary! His face was cheerful, and he turned to me.” And while saying this, she herself imagined she had truly seen what she described.

“Well, and then, Sónya?…”

“After that, I couldn't quite make out what there was; something blue and red….”

“Sónya! When will he come back? When will I see him again? Oh, God, how afraid I am for him, for myself, for everything!…” exclaimed Natásha, and without responding to Sónya’s comforting words, she got into bed. Long after her candle was out, she lay wide-eyed and still, staring at the moonlight shining through the frosty windowpanes.

##  CHAPTER XIII

Soon after the Christmas holidays, Nicholas told his mother about his love for Sónya and his unwavering decision to marry her. The countess, who had long noticed what was happening between them and had expected this declaration, listened to him silently. She then told her son he was free to marry whom he wished, but that neither she nor his father would bless such a union. For the first time, Nicholas realized his mother disapproved of him and that, despite her love, she would not give in. Without looking at her son, she coolly summoned her husband and, when he arrived, briefly and coldly explained the situation in Nicholas’s presence. Unable to contain herself, she broke down in tears of frustration and left the room. The old count hesitantly began to reason with Nicholas, asking him to reconsider. Nicholas replied that he could not break his promise, and his father, sighing and clearly uneasy, quickly fell silent and entered the countess’s room. Each time he dealt with his son, the count felt guilty for having squandered the family fortune and could not get angry at Nicholas for refusing to marry an heiress and choosing Sónya, who had no dowry. At that moment, he felt even more strongly that if the family’s finances weren’t in disarray, no better wife for Nicholas than Sónya could be desired, and that only his own actions with Mítenka and his bad habits had led to the family's current situation.

The parents did not bring up the matter to their son again, but a few days later, the countess called Sónya in and, with a harshness neither of them expected, reproached her for trying to ensnare Nicholas and for her ingratitude. Sónya sat silently, eyes downcast, not understanding what was being asked of her. She was willing to sacrifice everything for her benefactors—self-sacrifice was her highest value—but in this case, she didn’t know what, or for whom, she should give up. She couldn’t stop loving the countess and the Rostóv family, but she also couldn’t stop loving Nicholas or ignore that his happiness depended on that love. She stayed quiet and sad, unable to answer. Nicholas found the situation unbearable and went to his mother for a talk. He first pleaded for forgiveness for both himself and Sónya, begging her to consent to their marriage; then he threatened that if she harassed Sónya any more, he would immediately marry her in secret.

With a coldness Nicholas had never before seen in her, the countess replied that he was of age, that Prince Andrew was marrying without his father’s consent, and he could do the same—but she would never accept that *schemer* as her daughter.

At the word *schemer*, Nicholas, his voice rising, told his mother he had never expected her to try to make him betray his feelings, and if that was the case, he would say, for the last time…. But he didn’t have a chance to say the final word, which the look on his face made his mother fear, and which might have become a cruel, lifelong memory for them both. He didn’t get the chance, because Natásha came in, pale and resolute, from the doorway where she had been listening.

“Nicholas, you’re talking nonsense! Be quiet, be quiet, be quiet, I tell you!…” she almost screamed, trying to drown out his voice.

“Mamma dear, it’s not at all like that… my poor, sweet darling,” she said to her mother, who, realizing how close they had come to a break, stared at her son in terror but, caught up in the stubborn tension of the moment, could neither give in nor back down.

“Nicholas, I’ll explain it to you. Go away! Listen, Mamma dear,” said Natásha.

Her words weren’t coherent, but they achieved exactly what she intended.

The countess, sobbing heavily, hid her face on her daughter’s breast, while Nicholas rose, grabbed his head, and left the room.

Natásha worked to make peace, and managed to secure a promise from her mother not to trouble Sónya, while Nicholas promised on his side not to do anything without his parents’ knowledge.

Determined, after putting his affairs in order in the regiment, to retire from the army and return to marry Sónya, Nicholas—serious, sorrowful, and at odds with his parents, but, as he believed, passionately in love—left at the beginning of January to rejoin his regiment.

After Nicholas left, the atmosphere in the Rostóv household was gloomier than ever, and the countess fell ill from emotional strain.

Sónya was unhappy at being apart from Nicholas, but even more so because of the unfriendly way the countess kept treating her. The count was more anxious than ever about his affairs, which demanded decisive action. They had to sell their town house and their estate near Moscow, and for this they needed to travel there. Yet, the countess’s health forced them to keep postponing their departure.

Natásha, who had managed the initial period of separation from her fiancé lightly and even cheerfully, now grew more anxious and impatient with each passing day. The thought that her best years, which she wanted to spend loving him, were being wasted with no benefit to anyone tormented her endlessly. His letters usually irritated her. It wounded her to think that while she lived only for thoughts of him, he was out living a real life, seeing new places and people who interested him. The more engaging his letters were, the more vexed she felt. Writing to him gave her no comfort; instead, it felt tedious and artificial. She could not imagine being able to honestly communicate in a letter even a fraction of what she conveyed with her voice, smile, or a look. She wrote him formal, repetitive, lifeless letters—which she herself thought meant little—and the rough drafts were corrected for spelling by the countess.

The countess’s health was still unchanged, but it was impossible to postpone the journey to Moscow any longer. Natásha’s trousseau needed to be ordered and the house had to be sold. Also, Prince Andrew was expected in Moscow, where old Prince Bolkónski was spending the winter, and Natásha felt certain he had already arrived.

So the countess remained in the country, and the count, taking Sónya and Natásha, left for Moscow at the end of January.

##  BOOK EIGHT: 1811 - 12

##  CHAPTER I

After Prince Andrew’s engagement to Natásha, Pierre—without any clear reason—suddenly found it impossible to keep living as he had. As convinced as he was of the truths his benefactor had shown him, and as happy as he’d been working on perfecting himself—all his enthusiasm for such a life vanished after Andrew and Natásha’s engagement and the news of Joseph Alexéevich’s death, which reached him almost at the same time. Only the shell of his life remained: his house, a glamorous wife now favored by a very important person, acquaintances all over Petersburg, and his tedious court position. Life, all at once, seemed disgusting to Pierre. He stopped keeping a diary, avoided the Brotherhood, returned to the club, drank heavily, and resumed his bachelor friendships, leading such a lifestyle that Countess Hélène felt compelled to give him a severe talking-to about it. Pierre admitted she was right, and to avoid causing her trouble, left to go to Moscow.

In Moscow, as soon as he entered his vast house where the faded, aging princesses still lived, with its large staff; as soon as, driving through the city, he saw the Iberian shrine with countless candles burning before the golden icons, the Kremlin Square with its untracked snow, the sleigh drivers and hovels on Sívtsev Vrazhók, those old Moscovites who wanted nothing, hurried nowhere, and spent their days at leisure; when he saw the old Moscow women, the balls, and the English Club, he felt he was home, in a cozy, familiar haven. In Moscow he felt at peace, at home, comfortable as in an old dressing gown.

Moscow society, from the oldest ladies to the children, welcomed Pierre like a long-expected guest whose place was always waiting. To Moscow society, Pierre was the friendliest, kindest, most intelligent, cheerful, and generous of eccentrics—a thoughtless, openhearted nobleman of the old Russian type. His purse was always empty, because it was always open to everyone.

Benefit performances, mediocre paintings, statues, charities, gypsy choirs, schools, subscription dinners, wild parties, Freemasons, churches, books—nothing and no one was turned down by him. If not for two friends who had borrowed large sums and taken him under their wing, he would have given everything away. At the club, there was never a dinner or soirée without him. As soon as he settled onto the sofa after two bottles of Margaux, people gathered around, and the talking, debating, and joking began. Whenever there were arguments, his kind smile and well-timed humor would smooth things over. The Masonic dinners were dull when he wasn’t there.

After a bachelor supper, if he stood up with his friendly and warm smile, yielding to the pleas of the others to go out with them, cheers and shouts of joy arose among the young men. At balls, he danced if a partner was needed. Young women—married and single—liked him because, without flirting with any of them, he remained equally pleasant to all, especially after supper. *“Il est charmant; il n’a pas de sexe,”* \* they would say about him.

\* “He is charming; he has no sex.”

Pierre was one of those retired gentlemen-in-waiting, of whom there were hundreds, good-naturedly passing the end of their days in Moscow.

How horrified he would have been seven years ago, when he first arrived from abroad, if told he didn’t need to seek or plan anything, that his rut was already shaped, eternally destined, and that whatever he did, he would become just what all men in his position had always been. He would never have believed it! Hadn’t he once passionately wanted to found a republic in Russia; then to be a Napoleon; after that, a philosopher; and later, a strategist, a conqueror of Napoleon? Hadn’t he seen the possibility of, and longed for, the salvation of the sinful human race and his own progress to perfection? Hadn’t he set up schools and hospitals and freed his serfs?

Instead of all that—here he was: the wealthy husband of an unfaithful wife, a retired gentleman-in-waiting, fond of eating and drinking and, as he loosened his waistcoat, complaining a bit about the government—a member of the Moscow English Club, and a favorite of Moscow society. It took him a long time to accept that he had become one of those very retired Moscow gentlemen-in-waiting he had so despised seven years before.

Sometimes he comforted himself by thinking this life was just temporary; then he would be shocked remembering all those who had entered Moscow society “temporarily,” full of life, and only left it when none of their teeth or hair remained.

At times, proud of his position, he felt he was truly different from those other gentlemen-in-waiting he once despised: they were shallow, foolish, content, happy where they were. “While I am still discontent and want to do good for mankind. But maybe all my friends struggled the same way, wanted to find their own path, and, like me, were forced by fate, society, and their upbringing—by some unstoppable force—into the same life I live,” he thought in humbler moments. After a time in Moscow, he stopped despising these comrades and instead began to feel attached to, to respect, and even to pity them—as he pitied himself.

Pierre no longer suffered his old moments of despair, depression, or disgust with life, but the malady that had shown in those intense moods now went inward and never fully left him. “What for? Why? What is happening in the world?” he would ask himself in confusion several times each day, instinctively thinking again about life’s meaning; but, knowing from past experience that there were no answers, he’d turn away from these questions, pick up a book, or rush off to the club or to Apollón Nikoláevich’s for some city gossip.

“Hélène, who has never cared about anything except her own body and is one of the emptiest women alive,” thought Pierre, “is seen by everyone as the height of intelligence and sophistication, and they idolize her. Napoleon Bonaparte was despised by all while he was powerful, but now that he’s become a pitiful showman, Emperor Francis wants to give him his daughter in an unlawful marriage. The Spaniards, through their Catholic priests, thank God for their victory over the French on June fourteenth, and the French, through their own clergy, thank God because they defeated the Spaniards on that same day. My fellow Masons swear by their blood to sacrifice everything for their neighbor, but none will give even a ruble for the poor, and they scheme—the Astraea Lodge against the Manna Seekers—worried about a real Scottish rug and a charter no one needs and whose meaning even its author doesn’t understand. We all claim to follow the Christian law of forgiveness and love of our neighbor—the law for which we’ve built Moscow’s countless churches—but just yesterday, a deserter was flogged to death and, before his execution, a priest offered him the cross to kiss in the name of that same law of love and forgiveness.” So Pierre thought, and the sheer extent of this universal deception—which everyone accepted—struck him each time as if it were something new. “I see this deception and confusion,” he thought, “But how do I tell everyone what I see? I’ve tried, and have always found that they too, deep down, understand as I do; they simply don’t want to see it. So it must be that way! But I—what is to become of me?” He had the unfortunate ability many people have, especially Russians, to believe in the possibility of goodness and truth, but to see life’s evil and falsehood so clearly that he couldn’t take life seriously. Every field of work seemed tainted with evil and hypocrisy to him. Whatever he tried, whatever he joined, the injustice and deception would drive him away, closing off every path. Still, he had to live and find something to do. It was unbearable to be weighed down by these questions, and so he threw himself into every possible distraction to forget them. He involved himself in all sorts of gatherings, drank heavily, bought paintings, took on building projects, and above all—read.

He read, reading everything that came his way. When he arrived home, even while his valets were still helping him undress, he would pick up a book and start reading. From reading, he’d move to sleeping; from sleeping to gossip at the drawing rooms or the club; from gossip to parties and women; from parties back to gossip, reading, and wine. Drinking became both a physical and a moral necessity. Though his doctors warned him that alcohol was dangerous for a man of his size, he still drank heavily. He felt truly comfortable only after several glasses of wine had warmed his body and filled him with amiability and a readiness to respond to any idea, without thinking too deeply. Only after finishing a bottle or two did he sense dimly that life—the complicated, tangled web that had frightened him so—was not as bad as he thought. He was always vaguely aware of it, as, with a headache after supper, he chatted or listened to conversation or read. But under the influence of wine, he told himself, “It doesn’t matter. I’ll figure it all out. I already have a solution, but there’s no time now—I’ll think of it later!” But *later* never came.

In the morning, on an empty stomach, all the old questions returned as unsolvable and frightening as ever, and Pierre would quickly pick up a book, and be glad if anyone came to see him.

Sometimes he remembered that he’d heard soldiers at war, trapped under enemy fire, would look desperately for any kind of activity to take their minds off the danger. To Pierre, all people seemed like those soldiers, searching for distraction from life: some in ambition, some in gambling, some in making laws, some with women, some with toys, some with horses, some with politics, some in sports, some in alcohol, some in government work. “Nothing is trivial, nothing is important—it’s all the same: only to save yourself as best you can,” thought Pierre. “Just don’t see *it*, that dreadful *it!*”

##  CHAPTER II

At the beginning of winter, Prince Nicholas Bolkónski and his daughter moved to Moscow. By then, enthusiasm for Emperor Alexander’s regime had faded, and a patriotic, anti-French sentiment prevailed in the city. Because of this, combined with his past, intellect, and originality, Prince Nicholas Bolkónski immediately became someone the Moscovites especially respected, and the center of the Moscow opposition to the government.

The prince had aged dramatically that year. He showed clear signs of old age—dozing off frequently, forgetting recent events, vividly recalling distant ones, and a childish pride in being the head of the Moscow opposition. Despite this, the old man inspired in all his visitors the same feeling of deep respect—especially in the evenings when he would appear for tea in his old-fashioned coat and powdered wig. Roused by conversation, he would tell abrupt stories from the past or deliver even sharper criticisms of the present. To all of them, the old-fashioned house with its huge mirrors, pre-Revolution furniture, powdered footmen, and the stern, clever old man—a relic of the previous century—with his gentle daughter and the charming Frenchwoman, both devoted to him, presented a grand and pleasant sight. But the visitors did not consider that, besides the few hours they spent with their host, there were also twenty-two other hours in the day, during which the private and personal life of the household went on.

Lately, that private life had become very difficult for Princess Mary. In Moscow, she was deprived of her greatest joys—the conversations with pilgrims and the solitude that refreshed her at Bald Hills—and she gained none of the pleasures or advantages of city life. She did not go out into society; everyone knew her father would not let her go anywhere without him, and his failing health kept him from going out, so she was never invited to dinners or evening parties. She had entirely given up hope of getting married. She noticed the coldness and suspicion with which the old prince greeted and dismissed the young men—possible suitors—who occasionally visited. She had no friends: during this visit to Moscow, she was disappointed in the two people who had been closest to her. Mademoiselle Bourienne, with whom she had never been able to be truly open, had now become unpleasant to her, and for several reasons, Princess Mary avoided her. Julie, her pen-pal for the last five years, was in Moscow, but when they met, Julie felt completely foreign to her. At that time, Julie, now one of the richest heiresses in Moscow after the death of her brothers, was caught up in the excitement of society life. She was surrounded by young men who, she believed, had just realized her value. Julie had reached that stage in a society woman’s life where she feels her last chance to marry has come and that her future must be decided now or never. On Thursdays, Princess Mary would remember—sometimes with a sad smile—that she now had no one to write to, since Julie, who gave her no pleasure in person, was nearby and they met every week. Like the old *émigré* who refused to marry the lady he had spent countless evenings with, she regretted Julie’s presence—and having no one to write to. In Moscow, Princess Mary had no one to talk to, no one in whom she could confide her sorrows, and many sorrows befell her just then. Prince Andrew’s return and marriage were approaching, but his request that she prepare their father for it had not been met; in fact, the situation seemed hopeless, because whenever Countess Rostóva’s name was mentioned, the old prince (already often in a bad mood) would lose control. She had another recent sorrow, one that came from her lessons with her six-year-old nephew. To her dismay, she noticed in herself—particularly in teaching little Nicholas—some signs of her father’s irritability. No matter how often she reminded herself not to get angry, almost every time she tried, pointer in hand, to teach him the French alphabet—desperate to fill the child with her own knowledge quickly—she became anxious, flustered, raised her voice, and sometimes pulled him by the arm or put him in the corner. Then, after sending him to the corner, she would begin to cry about her own cruel, bad nature, and Nicholas, following her example, would sob too. Without asking, he would leave his corner, come to her, pull her wet hands from her face, and try to comfort her. But what hurt the princess most was her father’s irritability, which was always directed at her and had recently become almost cruel. Had he forced her to prostrate herself all night, beaten her, or made her fetch wood or water, she would never have felt her position was hard. But this loving tyrant—more cruel because he loved her and thus tormented both her and himself—knew how not just to wound or humiliate her on purpose, but to show her she was always at fault. Lately, he had developed a new habit that caused Princess Mary more misery than anything else: his increasing closeness with Mademoiselle Bourienne. The idea that had first come to him as a joke, when he learned of his son’s intentions—that if Andrew married, he himself would marry Bourienne—had clearly pleased him, and recently, seemingly just to offend his daughter, he had been especially affectionate to her companion, demonstrating his dissatisfaction with his daughter by publicly displaying his affection for Bourienne.

One day in Moscow, in Princess Mary’s presence (she thought her father did this deliberately when she was there), the old prince kissed Mademoiselle Bourienne’s hand and, pulling her towards him, embraced her affectionately. Princess Mary flushed and ran from the room. A few minutes later, Mademoiselle Bourienne entered Princess Mary’s room, smiling and making cheerful remarks in her pleasant voice. Princess Mary quickly wiped away her tears, went up to Mademoiselle Bourienne, and, not realizing what she was doing, began shouting at her angrily and hastily, her voice trembling: “It’s horrible, vile, inhuman, to take advantage of the weakness…” She did not finish. “Leave my room,” she cried, and burst into tears.

The next day, the prince did not speak a word to his daughter, but she noticed that at dinner he ordered Mademoiselle Bourienne to be served first. After dinner, when the footman brought the coffee and, by habit, began with the princess, the prince suddenly lost his temper, threw his stick at Philip, and instantly ordered him to be conscripted into the army.

“He doesn’t obey… I said it twice… and he doesn’t obey! She is the most important person here; she’s my best friend,” shouted the prince. “And if you allow yourself,” he yelled, addressing Princess Mary for the first time, “to forget yourself before her again as you dared to do yesterday, I’ll show you who is master in this house. Go! Don’t let me see you; beg her pardon!”

Princess Mary apologized to Mademoiselle Bourienne, and also asked forgiveness from her father for herself and for Philip the footman, who had begged her to intervene.

At times like this, a sense of sacrificial pride filled her soul. And suddenly that father she had judged would, in her presence, search for his spectacles near his eyes and not see them, forget something that had just happened, take a wrong step because of his weak legs and look around to see if anyone noticed, or, most painfully of all, at dinner—when there were no guests to enliven him—suddenly fall asleep, letting his napkin slip and his trembling head droop over his plate. “He’s old and weak, and I dare to judge him!” she would think during such moments, feeling instant shame at herself.

##  CHAPTER III

In 1811, a French doctor named Métivier was living in Moscow and had quickly become very fashionable. He was extremely tall, handsome, charming as Frenchmen often are, and was considered by everyone in Moscow to be an exceptionally skilled doctor. He was welcomed in the best homes not just as a physician but as an equal.

Prince Nicholas had always mocked medicine, but recently, on Mademoiselle Bourienne’s advice, he had allowed this doctor to visit and had gotten used to him. Métivier came to see the prince about twice a week.

On December 6—St. Nicholas’ Day and the prince’s name day—all of Moscow showed up at the prince’s front door, but he gave instructions to admit no one and to invite only a select few to dinner, handing Princess Mary a list of their names.

Métivier, who came in the morning with his congratulations, considered it his professional privilege as a doctor *de forcer la consigne*,\* as he told Princess Mary, and went in to see the prince. It happened that on the morning of his name day, the prince was in one of his worst moods. He had spent the morning moving about the house, finding fault with everyone, pretending not to understand what was said to him and refusing to be understood himself. Princess Mary knew this state of quiet, absorbed irritability well, which usually ended in an outburst of anger, and she spent the whole morning as if facing a cocked and loaded gun, waiting for the inevitable explosion. Until the doctor’s arrival, the morning had gone by without incident. After letting the doctor in, Princess Mary sat in the drawing room near the door, with a book, so she could hear everything happening in the study.

\* To force the guard.

At first she heard only Métivier’s voice, then her father’s, then both speaking at once. Suddenly, the door was thrown open, and on the threshold appeared the striking figure of the frightened Métivier, his shock of black hair out of place, and the prince in his dressing gown and fez, his face contorted with rage and his pupils rolled downward.

“You don’t understand?” shouted the prince. “But I do! French spy, lackey of Bonaparte, spy, get out of my house! Get out, I say…” and he slammed the door.

Métivier, shrugging, went over to Mademoiselle Bourienne, who had run in from an adjoining room when the shouting started.

“The prince is not well: bile and a rush of blood to the head. Stay calm, I’ll call again tomorrow,” said Métivier; pressing his fingers to his lips, he hurried away.

From the study door came the sound of slippered feet and the cry: “Spies, traitors, traitors everywhere! Not a moment’s peace in my own house!”

After Métivier left, the old prince called his daughter in, and the full brunt of his anger fell on her. She was to blame for admitting a spy. Hadn’t he told her, yes, told her to make a list and not to let in anyone not on the list? Then why was that scoundrel allowed in? It was all her fault. With her around, he said, he could never have a moment’s peace and couldn’t die in peace.

“No, ma’am! We must part, we must part! Do you understand that, understand it! I cannot put up with this any longer,” he said, and left the room. Then, as if worried she might find some comfort somewhere, he returned, trying to seem calm, and added: “And don’t think I said this in a moment of anger. I am calm. I have thought it over, and it will happen—we must part; so find a place for yourself….” But he couldn’t hold back and, with the intensity only the truly loving know, obviously suffering himself, he shook his fists at her and screamed:

“If only some fool would marry her!” Then he slammed the door again, called for Mademoiselle Bourienne, and shut himself in his study.

At two o’clock, the six invited guests gathered for dinner.

These guests—the renowned Count Rostopchín, Prince Lopukhín with his nephew, General Chatróv (an old war comrade of the prince's), and from the younger generation, Pierre and Boris Drubetskóy—waited for the prince in the drawing room.

Boris, who had come to Moscow on leave a few days earlier, had wanted to be presented to Prince Nicholas Bolkónski and had managed to ingratiate himself so well that the old prince made an exception to his rule of not receiving bachelors in the house.

The prince’s home was not what one called *fashionable society*, but his small circle—though little spoken of in town—was one of the most coveted to enter. Boris realized this the week before, when the commander in chief, in his presence, invited Rostopchín to dinner on St. Nicholas’ Day, and Rostopchín had replied that he could not attend:

“On that day I always pay my respects to the relics of Prince Nicholas Bolkónski.”

“Oh, yes, yes!” replied the commander in chief. “How is he?…”

The small group that assembled before dinner in the high-ceilinged, old-fashioned drawing room with its antique furniture resembled the solemn gathering of a court of justice. Everyone was quiet or spoke in low voices. Prince Nicholas entered, looking serious and reserved. Princess Mary seemed even quieter and more withdrawn than usual. The guests hesitated to speak to her, sensing she was not in the mood for conversation. Only Count Rostopchín kept things going, sharing the latest town news and political gossip.

Lopukhín and the old general occasionally joined in the conversation. Prince Bolkónski listened like a presiding judge receiving reports, only now and then indicating by a word or a look that he understood what was being discussed. The conversation made it clear that no one approved of the current political developments. Stories were told that only confirmed the sense that everything was getting worse, but when sharing an opinion or story, each speaker would stop short before their criticism might seem to target the sovereign himself.

At dinner, the topic turned to politics: Napoleon’s seizure of the Duke of Oldenburg’s lands and the Russian Note—hostile to Napoleon—that had been sent to all the European governments.

“Bonaparte treats Europe like a pirate does a captured ship,” said Count Rostopchín, repeating a line he had used before. “It’s amazing how patient or blind the crowned heads are. Now it’s the Pope’s turn, and Bonaparte doesn’t hesitate to depose the head of the Catholic Church—yet everyone stays silent! Only our sovereign has protested the taking of the Duke of Oldenburg’s territory, and even…” Count Rostopchín paused, sensing he had reached the point beyond which criticism could not go.

“Other territories have been offered in exchange for the Duchy of Oldenburg,” said Prince Bolkónski. “He moves the Dukes around as I might move my serfs from Bald Hills to Bogucharovo, or from my Ryazan estates.”

“The Duke of Oldenburg bears his troubles with admirable strength of character and resignation,” said Boris, respectfully joining the conversation.

He said this because, on his way from Petersburg, he had had the honor of meeting the Duke. Prince Bolkónski looked at the young man as if about to say something, but thought better of it, clearly considering Boris too young.

“I have read our protests about the Oldenburg affair and was surprised at how badly the Note was written,” said Count Rostopchín in the casual tone of someone familiar with the subject.

Pierre looked at Rostopchín with innocent surprise, not understanding why bad writing should be a problem.

“Does it matter, Count, how the Note is phrased,” he asked, “as long as its message is strong?”

“My dear fellow, with our five hundred thousand troops, surely we can manage good style,” replied Count Rostopchín.

Pierre now understood the count’s dissatisfaction with the Note’s wording.

“You’d think there would be enough scribblers,” said the old prince. “In Petersburg, they’re always writing—not just notes but even new laws. My Andrew there has written a whole book of laws for Russia. These days they’re always writing!” and he laughed awkwardly.

There was a brief pause; the old general cleared his throat for attention.

“Did you hear about what happened at the last review in Petersburg? The scene with the new French ambassador.”

“Eh? Yes, I heard something: he said something inappropriate to His Majesty.”

“His Majesty pointed out the Grenadier division and the march past,” continued the general, “and apparently the ambassador ignored him and replied: ‘We in France pay no attention to such trifles!’ The Emperor didn’t see fit to reply. At the next review, they say, the Emperor never once spoke to him.”

No one spoke. On this matter involving the Emperor personally, making any comment was out of the question.

“Impudent fellows!” said the prince. “You know Métivier? I threw him out of my house this morning. He was here; they let him in in spite of my orders that no one should be admitted,” he said, glancing angrily at his daughter.

And he related his whole conversation with the French doctor and what convinced him that Métivier was a spy. Although his reasons were quite unclear and insufficient, no one argued with him.

After the roast, champagne was served. The guests stood up to congratulate the old prince. Princess Mary also made her way to him.

He gave her a cold, angry look and offered his wrinkled, clean-shaven cheek for her to kiss. His whole expression made it clear that he had not forgotten their conversation that morning, that his decision still stood, and only the presence of visitors kept him from bringing it up with her now.

When everyone went into the drawing room, where coffee was served, the older men sat together.

Prince Nicholas became more animated and shared his thoughts on the coming war.

He said that our wars with Bonaparte would be disastrous as long as we looked for alliances with the Germans and involved ourselves in European matters, into which we had been drawn by the Peace of Tilsit. “We shouldn’t fight either for or against Austria. All our political interests are in the East, and regarding Bonaparte, the only solution is to keep an armed frontier and a firm policy, and he will never dare to cross the Russian border, just as in 1807!”

“How can we fight the French, Prince?” said Count Rostopchín. “Can we arm ourselves against the very people who are our teachers and idols? Look at our young men, look at our ladies! The French are our gods: Paris is our heaven.”

He started speaking louder, clearly wanting everyone to hear.

“French fashions, French ideas, French feelings! Just now, you threw Métivier out by the scruff of his neck because he’s a Frenchman and a scoundrel, but our ladies fawn over him. I went to a party last night, and out of five women, three were Roman Catholics and had the Pope’s indulgence to do embroidery on Sundays. Yet, they sit there almost naked, like the signs outside our Public Baths, if you’ll excuse me. Ah, when one sees our young people, Prince, you feel like taking Peter the Great’s old cudgel from the museum and whacking them in true Russian fashion until all that nonsense is knocked out of them.”

Everyone was silent. The old prince looked at Rostopchín with a smile and nodded approvingly.

“Well, good-bye, your excellency, take care!” said Rostopchín, getting up with his usual brisk energy and offering his hand to the prince.

“Good-bye, my dear friend… His words are music; I never tire of listening to him!” said the old prince, holding on to Rostopchín's hand and offering his cheek for a kiss.

Following Rostopchín’s example, the others rose as well.

##  CHAPTER IV

Princess Mary, as she sat listening to the old men’s conversation and complaints, understood nothing of what she heard; she only wondered whether the guests had noticed her father’s hostile attitude toward her. She did not even notice the special attention and friendliness shown her during dinner by Borís Drubetskóy, who was visiting them for the third time already.

Princess Mary turned with an absentminded, questioning look to Pierre, who, hat in hand and smiling, was the last of the guests to approach her after the old prince had left and they were alone in the drawing room.

“May I stay a little longer?” he asked, letting his stout body sink into an armchair beside her.

“Oh yes,” she replied. “Did you notice anything?” her look seemed to ask.

Pierre was in a pleasant after-dinner mood. He looked straight ahead and smiled quietly.

“Have you known that young man long, Princess?” he asked.

“Who?”

“Drubetskóy.”

“No, not long….”

“Do you like him?”

“Yes, he is a pleasant young man…. Why do you ask me that?” said Princess Mary, still thinking about that morning's conversation with her father.

“Because I’ve noticed that when a young man comes home from Petersburg to Moscow, it’s usually to marry an heiress.”

“You’ve noticed that?” said Princess Mary.

“Yes,” replied Pierre with a smile, “and this young man now arranges things so that wherever there’s a wealthy heiress, there he is too. I can read him like a book. Right now he’s hesitating whom to pursue—you or Mademoiselle Julie Karágina. He’s very attentive to her.”

“He visits them?”

“Yes, very often. And do you know the new way of courting?” said Pierre with an amused smile, obviously in that good-humored, teasing mood he often criticized himself for in his diary.

“No,” said Princess Mary.

“To please Moscow girls these days, a man has to be melancholy. He’s very melancholy with Mademoiselle Karágina,” said Pierre.

“Really?” asked Princess Mary, looking into Pierre’s kind face, though her mind was still on her own sorrow. “It would be a relief,” she thought, “if I dared to confide my feelings to someone. I want to tell everything to Pierre. He’s kind and generous. It would be a comfort. He’d give me advice.”

“Would you marry him?”

“Oh, my God, Count, there are moments when I would marry anyone!” she suddenly cried, surprising herself, with tears in her voice. “Ah, how bitter it is to love someone close to you and feel that…” she went on in a trembling voice, “that you can do nothing for him except make him unhappy, and to know you cannot change this. Then there’s only one thing left—to go away, but where could I go?”

“What’s wrong? What is it, Princess?”

But before finishing, Princess Mary burst into tears.

“I don’t know what’s the matter with me today. Don’t pay any attention—please just forget what I said!”

Pierre’s good mood vanished immediately. He anxiously urged the princess to confide fully and tell him what troubled her; but she only repeated that she begged him to forget what she’d said, that she didn’t remember what she’d said, and that she had no trouble except the one he already knew about—that Prince Andrew’s marriage threatened to cause a break between father and son.

“Have you any news of the Rostóvs?” she asked, changing the subject. “I was told they’re coming soon. I’m also expecting Andrew any day. I’d like them to meet here.”

“And how does he feel about it now?” asked Pierre, referring to the old prince.

Princess Mary shook her head.

“What can be done? In a few months, the year will be up. It’s impossible. I only wish I could spare my brother those first moments. I wish they’d come sooner. I hope to become friends with her. You’ve known them a long time,” said Princess Mary. “Tell me honestly the whole truth: what sort of girl is she, and what do you think of her?—The real truth, because you know Andrew is risking so much going against his father’s wishes that I want to know….”

Some instinct told Pierre that all these explanations and repeated requests for the *whole truth* were signs of Princess Mary’s ill will toward her future sister-in-law, and a wish that he would disapprove of Andrew’s choice; but in reply he said what he truly felt rather than what he thought he should say.

“I don’t know how to answer your question,” he said, blushing without quite knowing why. “I honestly don’t know what kind of girl she is; I can’t analyze her at all. She’s enchanting, but why, I don’t know. That’s all anyone can say.”

Princess Mary sighed, and her face showed: “Yes, that’s what I expected and feared.”

“Is she clever?” she asked.

Pierre considered.

“I don’t think so,” he said, “and yet—yes. She doesn’t bother to be clever… Oh no, she’s simply enchanting, that’s all.”

Princess Mary again shook her head disapprovingly.

“Ah, I so want to like her! Tell her that if you see her before I do.”

“I hear they’re expected very soon,” said Pierre.

Princess Mary told Pierre about her plan to become close to her future sister-in-law as soon as the Rostóvs arrived, and to try to get the old prince used to her.

##  CHAPTER V

Borís had not managed to secure a wealthy marriage in Petersburg, so, with the same goal, he came to Moscow. There, he hesitated between the two richest heiresses: Julie and Princess Mary. Though Princess Mary, despite her plainness, seemed more appealing to him than Julie, he, without really knowing why, felt uncomfortable courting her. When they had last met on the old prince’s name day, she had answered all his attempts at sentimental conversation at random, clearly not listening to what he was saying.

Julie, on the other hand, accepted his attentions readily, though in her own peculiar way.

She was twenty-seven. After her brothers’ death, she had become very wealthy. By now she was decidedly plain, but believed herself not only to be as good-looking as before, but even more attractive. She was convinced of this illusion by the fact that she was now a wealthy heiress and also because, as she grew older, she became less of a threat to men, allowing them to associate with her freely and enjoy her suppers, soirées, and the lively company at her home without any feeling of obligation. A man who, ten years earlier, would have hesitated to visit daily when she was seventeen—afraid of compromising her and becoming entangled—now went every day confidently and treated her not as a marriageable girl but as a platonic acquaintance.

That winter, the Karágins’ home was the most pleasant and hospitable in Moscow. Besides the formal evening and dinner parties, a large group, mostly men, gathered there every day, dining late at night and staying until three in the morning. Julie never missed a ball, a promenade, or a play. Her dresses were always of the latest style. Yet, in spite of all this, she acted disillusioned with everything, telling everyone that she did not believe in friendship or love, or any of life’s joys, and that she expected peace only “beyond.” She took on the manner of someone who had suffered great disappointment, like a girl who had lost her love or been badly deceived by a man. Though nothing of this sort had ever happened to her, she was seen in that way, and eventually even she believed that she had suffered much in life. This melancholy, which did not stop her from having fun, also did not prevent the young people visiting her house from enjoying themselves. Every guest, upon arriving, acknowledged her mood, and then went on to amuse themselves with gossip, dancing, intellectual games, and *bouts rimés*, which were in vogue at the Karágins’ home. Only a few of these young men, including Borís, responded on a deeper level to Julie’s sadness; with them she had long private talks about how pointless everything was, and she showed them her albums filled with somber sketches, maxims, and verses.

Julie was especially gracious to Borís: she regretted his early disillusionment with life, offered him the friendship of one who herself had suffered so much, and showed him her album. Borís drew two trees in the album and wrote: “Rustic trees, your dark branches cast gloom and melancholy upon me.”

On another page he drew a tomb and wrote:

*La mort est secourable et la mort est tranquille.
Ah! contre les douleurs il n’y a pas d’autre asile.* \*

\* Death gives relief and death is peaceful.
Ah! from suffering there is no other refuge.

Julie said this was delightful.

“There is something so enchanting in the smile of melancholy,” she told Borís, quoting word for word a passage she had copied from a book. “It is a ray of light in the darkness, a shade between sadness and despair, hinting at the possibility of comfort.”

In reply, Borís wrote these lines:

*Aliment de poison d’une âme trop sensible,
Toi, sans qui le bonheur me serait impossible,
Tendre mélancholie, ah, viens me consoler,
Viens calmer les tourments de ma sombre retraite,
Et mêle une douceur secrète
A ces pleurs que je sens couler.* \*

\* Poisonous nourishment of a too sensitive soul,
You, without whom happiness would be impossible for me,
Tender melancholy, ah, come console me,
Come calm the torments of my gloomy retreat,
And blend a secret sweetness
With these tears I feel flowing.

For Borís, Julie played the most mournful nocturnes on her harp. Borís read *Poor Liza* aloud to her, several times stopping, overcome by emotion. When they met at larger gatherings, Julie and Borís saw each other as the only people who truly understood one another in a world of indifferent company.

Anna Mikháylovna, who often visited the Karágins, while playing cards with the mother, made discreet inquiries about Julie’s dowry (she was to inherit two estates in Pénza and the Nizhegórod forests). Anna Mikháylovna regarded the sad connection between her son and the wealthy Julie with emotion and acceptance of the Divine will.

“You are always charming and melancholy, my dear Julie,” she said to the daughter. “Borís says his soul finds peace at your home. He has suffered many disappointments and is so sensitive,” she told the mother. “Ah, my dear, I can’t say how fond I’ve become of Julie lately,” she told her son. “But who could help loving her? She’s an angelic creature! Oh, Borís, Borís!”—she paused. “And how I pity her mother,” she continued; “just today she showed me her accounts and letters from Pénza (they have huge estates there), and she, poor woman, has no help at all, and they cheat her terribly!”

Borís smiled almost imperceptibly listening to his mother. He was amused by her simple diplomacy but still listened carefully, sometimes asking her direct questions about the Pénza and Nizhegórod estates.

Julie had long been expecting a proposal from her melancholy admirer and was ready to accept it. But some secret aversion to her, her intense desire to marry, her artifice, and a dread of giving up real love, still held Borís back. His leave was ending. He spent every day, whole days, at the Karágins’, and each day, after thinking it over, told himself he would propose tomorrow. But in Julie’s presence—seeing her reddish, almost always powdered face and chin, her moist eyes, and her ever-ready expression to switch instantly from melancholy to an exaggerated joy at married bliss—Borís couldn’t say the words, though in his imagination he already saw himself the owner of those Pénza and Nizhegórod estates and had even mentally divided up their income. Julie sensed Borís’ hesitation, and sometimes the idea occurred to her that he found her repulsive, but her feminine self-deception would quickly comfort her, telling herself it was just shyness from love. Her melancholy, however, began to shift to irritability, and not long before Borís’ departure she made a definite plan of action. Just as Borís’ leave was about to end, Anatole Kurágin arrived in Moscow, naturally appearing in the Karágins’ drawing room, and Julie suddenly abandoned her melancholy, becoming lively and very attentive to Kurágin.

“My dear,” Anna Mikháylovna said to her son, “I know from a reliable source that Prince Vasíli has sent his son to Moscow to marry Julie. I am so fond of Julie that I’d be sorry for her. What do you think, my dear?”

The thought of being made a fool of—of having wasted a whole month of painstakingly melancholy attention on Julie, and watching all the income from those Pénza estates, already mentally divided up, fall into someone else’s hands, especially that idiot Anatole—pained Borís. He went to the Karágins’ determined to propose. Julie greeted him cheerfully and carelessly, talked casually about how she’d enjoyed yesterday’s ball, and asked when he would leave. Though Borís had meant to speak lovingly, he instead irritatedly complained about women’s inconsistency, how quickly their moods turn from sadness to joy, and how their feelings seemed to depend entirely on their admirers. Julie was offended, responding that women, like anyone else, need variety and the same thing over and over would be tiresome.

“Then I’d suggest you…” Borís began, hoping to sting her, but then the worrying thought struck him that he might have to leave Moscow without accomplishing his aim, and all his effort would be wasted—which was something he never allowed.

He stopped mid-sentence, lowered his eyes to avoid seeing her irritated and indecisive face, and said:

“I didn’t come here to quarrel with you. On the contrary…”

He glanced at her to be sure he could continue. Her irritation had instantly vanished, and her anxious, pleading eyes were fixed on him with hopeful expectation. “I can always arrange things so I won’t have to see her often,” thought Borís. “What’s begun must be finished!” He blushed intensely, met her gaze, and said:

“You know how I feel about you!”

There was no need to say more: Julie’s face lit up with triumph and satisfaction. Still, she made Borís say all the customary things—that he loved her and had never loved anyone more. She knew that, for the Pénza estates and Nizhegórod forests, she could expect this, and she got what she wanted.

The engaged couple, moving on from talk of gloomy trees, began planning a splendid house in Petersburg, calling on acquaintances, and preparing everything for a brilliant wedding.

##  CHAPTER VI

At the end of January, old Count Rostóv went to Moscow with Natásha and Sónya. The countess was still unwell and unable to travel, but it was impossible to wait for her recovery. Prince Andrew was expected in Moscow any day, the trousseau had to be ordered, and the estate near Moscow had to be sold. Besides, there was also the opportunity to introduce his future daughter-in-law to old Prince Bolkónski while he was in Moscow, which could not be missed. The Rostóvs’ Moscow house had not been heated that winter, and since they had come only for a short visit and the countess was not with them, the count decided to stay with Márya Dmítrievna Akhrosímova, who had long been urging them to accept her hospitality.

Late one evening, the Rostóvs’ four sleighs pulled into Márya Dmítrievna’s courtyard on old Konyúsheny Street. Márya Dmítrievna lived alone. She had already married off her daughter, and her sons were all in the service.

She still carried herself very upright, told everyone her opinions frankly, loudly, and bluntly as ever, and her entire manner seemed to scold others for any weakness, passion, or temptation—the very possibility of which she did not acknowledge. From early in the morning, wearing a dressing jacket, she took care of her household chores, then went out: on holy days to church, and afterwards to jails and prisons on business that she never spoke of to anyone. On ordinary days, after dressing, she received petitioners from various classes, of whom there were always some. Then she had dinner, a hearty and tempting meal, always with three or four guests; after dinner, she played a game of boston, and in the evening she had the newspapers or a new book read to her while she knitted. She rarely made exceptions to go out visiting, and then only to the most important people in town.

She had not yet gone to bed when the Rostóvs arrived and the pulley of the hall door squeaked from the cold as it let the Rostóvs and their servants inside. Márya Dmítrievna, with her spectacles hanging from her nose and her head thrown back, stood in the hall doorway with a stern, grim look at the new arrivals. One might have thought she was angry with the travelers and would immediately turn them out, if she had not, at the same time, been giving the servants very careful instructions about accommodating the visitors and handling their things.

“The count’s things? Bring them here,” she said, pointing to the portmanteaus and not greeting anyone. “The young ladies’? There, to the left. Now what are you dawdling for?” she shouted at the maids. “Get the samovar ready!… You’ve grown plumper and prettier,” she remarked, pulling Natásha (whose cheeks were glowing from the cold) to her by her hood. “Phew! You *are* cold! Now take off your things, quickly!” she called out to the count, who was about to kiss her hand. “You’re half frozen, I’m sure! Bring some rum for tea!… *Bonjour*, Sónya dear!” she added, turning to Sónya and making it clear by using a French greeting that she viewed her with slight contempt, though affectionate.

When they came in for tea, having taken off their outerwear and tidied themselves up after their journey, Márya Dmítrievna kissed them all in turn.

“I’m truly glad you’ve come and are staying with me. It was high time,” she said, shooting Natásha a meaningful look. “The old man is here and his son’s expected any day. You’ll need to meet him. But we'll talk about that later,” she added, glancing at Sónya in a way that made it clear she did not want to discuss it in her presence. “Now listen,” she said to the count. “Who do you want to see tomorrow? Whom will you send for? Shinshín?” she bent one of her fingers. “The sniveling Anna Mikháylovna? That makes two. She’s here with her son. The son is getting married! Then Bezúkhov, right? He’s here too, with his wife. He ran away from her and she came chasing after him. He had dinner with me on Wednesday. As for them”—she pointed to the girls—“tomorrow I’ll first take them to the Iberian shrine of the Mother of God, then we’ll go to the Super-Rogue’s. I suppose you’ll want everything new. Don’t judge by me: sleeves these days are this big! The other day young Princess Irína Vasílevna came to see me; she was a sight—looked like she had put two barrels on her arms. You know, there isn’t a day now without some new fashion… And what do you need to do yourself?” she asked the count sternly.

“One thing on top of another: her clothes to buy, and now there’s a buyer for the Moscow estate and the house. If you wouldn’t mind, I’ll arrange a time and go down to the estate just for a day, and leave my girls with you.”

“All right. All right. They’ll be safe with me, as safe as if they were in Chancery! I’ll take them where they need to go, scold them a bit, and spoil them a bit,” said Márya Dmítrievna, touching her goddaughter and favorite, Natásha, on the cheek with her large hand.

The next morning, Márya Dmítrievna took the young ladies to the Iberian shrine of the Mother of God and to Madame Suppert-Roguet, who was so intimidated by Márya Dmítrievna that she always sold her costumes at a loss just to get rid of her. Márya Dmítrievna ordered almost the entire trousseau. When they got home she cleared everyone out of the room except Natásha and then called her favorite to her armchair.

“Well, now we’ll talk. Congratulations on your engagement. You’ve caught a fine fellow! I’m glad for your sake, and I’ve known him since he was knee-high.” She held her hand a couple of feet from the floor. Natásha blushed with happiness. “I like him and his whole family. Now listen! You know old Prince Nicholas doesn’t want his son to marry. The old man’s rather cranky! Of course, Prince Andrew isn’t a child and can manage on his own, but it isn’t pleasant to join a family against the father’s will. It’s better to do things peacefully and with love. You’re a smart girl, and you’ll know how to handle things. Be kind and thoughtful. Then it will all turn out well.”

Natásha stayed silent, which Márya Dmítrievna took for shyness, but in truth, Natásha didn’t like anyone interfering in matters concerning her love for Prince Andrew. To her, it seemed so far removed from ordinary life that no one else could understand it. She loved and knew Prince Andrew, he loved only her, and he would come one of these days and take her. She wanted nothing more.

“You see, I’ve known him a long time and I’m also fond of Mary, your future sister-in-law. ‘Husbands’ sisters bring up blisters,’ but this one wouldn’t hurt a fly. She’s asked me to bring the two of you together. Tomorrow you’ll go with your father to meet her. Be very nice and affectionate to her: you’re younger than she is. When *he* arrives, he’ll find you already know his sister and father and are liked by them. Am I right or not? Wouldn’t that be best?”

“Yes, it would,” Natásha replied reluctantly.

##  CHAPTER VII

The next day, following Márya Dmítrievna’s advice, Count Rostóv took Natásha to visit Prince Nicholas Bolkónski. The count was not cheerful about this visit; deep down, he was anxious. He remembered all too well his last meeting with the old prince during the enrollment, when, instead of a polite conversation, he had received a stern reprimand for failing to supply his full quota of men. Natásha, on the other hand, dressed in her best gown, was in high spirits. “They can’t help but like me,” she thought. “Everyone always has liked me, and I’m so willing to do anything they want, so ready to be fond of him—for being *his* father—and of her—for being *his* sister—that there’s no reason they shouldn’t like me….”

They drove up to the gloomy old house on Vozdvízhenka Street and entered the vestibule.

“Well, Lord have mercy on us!” said the count, half-joking, half-serious; but Natásha noticed her father was flustered upon entering the anteroom and asked timidly and softly whether the prince and princess were at home.

When they were announced, a sense of disturbance was noticeable among the servants. The footman sent to announce them was stopped by another in the large hall and they whispered to each other. Then a maidservant ran into the hall and hurriedly said something, mentioning the princess. At last, an old, stern-looking footman came and announced to the Rostóvs that the prince was not receiving visitors, but that the princess invited them to come upstairs. The first person to meet the guests was Mademoiselle Bourienne. She greeted the father and daughter with particular politeness and showed them to the princess’s room. The princess, looking tense and nervous, her cheeks blotched with color, hurried into the room to meet them, treading heavily and trying in vain to appear warm and comfortable. From their first glance, Princess Mary did not like Natásha. She thought Natásha was too fashionably dressed, frivolously cheerful, and vain. She did not realize that, before ever seeing her future sister-in-law, she had been prejudiced against her by a natural envy of Natásha’s beauty, youth, and happiness, as well as by jealousy over her brother’s affection. Besides this deep-seated aversion, Princess Mary was agitated because, as soon as the Rostóvs had been announced, the old prince shouted that he did not wish to see them, that the princess might if she wished, but they were not to see him. Princess Mary had decided to receive them but feared that the prince might, at any moment, do something unpredictable, as he seemed much disturbed by their visit.

“There, my dear princess, I’ve brought you my songbird,” said the count, bowing and looking around uneasily as if afraid the old prince might appear. “I am so glad you two can get to know each other… very sorry the prince is still unwell,” and after a few more polite remarks he stood up. “If you don’t mind, Princess, I’ll leave my Natásha with you for a quarter of an hour while I go visit Anna Semënovna—it’s quite close on the Dogs’ Square—then I’ll come back for her.”

The count had come up with this diplomatic maneuver (as he later explained to his daughter) to give the future sisters-in-law a chance to talk freely; but another reason was to avoid the risk of meeting the old prince, whom he feared. He did not mention this to his daughter, but Natásha noticed his nervousness and anxiety and felt embarrassed for him. She blushed for her father, grew even more angry at herself for blushing, and looked at the princess with a bold and defiant expression that said she was not afraid of anyone. The princess told the count she would be glad, and only asked him to stay longer at Anna Semënovna’s, and he left.

Despite Princess Mary’s uneasy looks—since she wished for a private talk with Natásha—Mademoiselle Bourienne stayed in the room and persistently talked about Moscow diversions and the theater. Natásha felt offended by the hesitancy she had sensed in the anteroom, her father’s nervousness, and the unnatural manner of the princess, who—Natásha thought—acted as if granting her a favor by receiving her; thus, everything bothered her. She did not like Princess Mary, whom she found very plain, affected, and cold. Natásha suddenly withdrew into herself and unconsciously took on a casual, careless air that further distanced Princess Mary. After five minutes of uncomfortable, strained conversation, they heard the rapid approach of slippered feet. Princess Mary looked frightened.

The door opened and the old prince, wearing a dressing gown and a white nightcap, walked in.

“Ah, madam!” he began. “Madam, Countess… Countess Rostóva, if I’m not mistaken… I beg you to excuse me, to excuse me… I did not know, madam. God is my witness, I didn’t know you had honored us with a visit, and I came in such a state only to see my daughter. I beg you to excuse me… God is my witness, I didn’t know—” he repeated, emphasizing “God” so strangely and unpleasantly that Princess Mary stood with her eyes downcast, not daring to look at either her father or Natásha.

Natásha, having stood up and curtsied, also did not know what to do. Only Mademoiselle Bourienne smiled pleasantly.

“I beg you to excuse me, excuse me! God is my witness, I didn’t know,” the old man muttered, and, after looking Natásha over from head to toe, left the room.

Mademoiselle Bourienne was the first to recover after this episode, and she began talking about the prince’s illness. Natásha and Princess Mary looked at each other in silence, and the longer they did so without saying what was on their minds, the more their dislike for one another grew.

When the count returned, Natásha was openly relieved and hurried to leave: at that moment she resented the stiff, elderly princess who could leave her in such an awkward position and spend half an hour with her without once mentioning Prince Andrew. “I couldn’t talk about him in front of that Frenchwoman,” thought Natásha. Princess Mary was plagued by the same thought. She knew what she should have said to Natásha, but hadn’t been able to because Mademoiselle Bourienne was there, and because, for some reason, she found it very hard to talk about the marriage. As the count was leaving the room, Princess Mary hurried over to Natásha, took her hand, and with a deep sigh said:

“Wait, I must…”

Natásha glanced at her ironically, not knowing why.

“Dear Natalie,” Princess Mary said, “I want you to know that I am glad my brother has found happiness….”

She paused, aware that she wasn’t being truthful. Natásha sensed this and guessed why.

“I think, Princess, it is not suitable to discuss this right now,” she said with outward dignity and coldness, though she felt tears choking her.

“What have I said and what have I done?” she wondered as soon as she left the room.

That day, they waited a long time for Natásha to come to dinner. She sat in her room, crying like a child, blowing her nose and sobbing. Sónya stood beside her, kissing her hair.

“Natásha, what’s wrong?” she asked. “What do they matter to you? It will all pass, Natásha.”

“But if you only knew how hurtful it was… as if I…”

“Don’t talk about it, Natásha. It wasn’t your fault, so why should you care? Kiss me,” said Sónya.

Natásha lifted her head and, kissing her friend on the lips, pressed her tear-streaked face against her.

“I can’t tell you, I don’t know. No one’s to blame,” said Natásha—“It’s my fault. But it hurts so much. Oh, why doesn’t he come?…”

She came in to dinner with red eyes. Márya Dmítrievna, who knew how the prince had received the Rostóvs, acted as if she did not notice how upset Natásha was and, in a determined and loud manner, joked with the count and the other guests at table.

##  CHAPTER VIII

That evening, the Rostóvs went to the Opera, for which Márya Dmítrievna had reserved a box.

Natásha didn't want to go, but couldn’t refuse Márya Dmítrievna’s kind offer, which was meant especially for her. When she came into the ballroom dressed and ready, waiting for her father, and looked in the large mirror, she saw that she was pretty—very pretty—and felt even sadder, though it was a sweet, tender kind of sadness.

“Oh God, if he were here now, I wouldn’t behave as I did then—I’d act differently. I wouldn’t be silly or afraid; I’d just embrace him, cling to him, and make him look at me with those searching, inquiring eyes he’s looked at me with so many times, and then I’d make him laugh as he used to. And his eyes—how well I remember those eyes!” thought Natásha. “And what do his father and sister matter to me? I love only him, just him, with that face and those eyes, with his smile, both manly and childlike… No, I’d better not think of him—not think, but forget him, truly forget him for now. I can’t bear this waiting—I’ll start crying any minute!” She turned away from the mirror, trying not to cry. “And how can Sónya love Nicholas so calmly and quietly, wait so long and so patiently?” she wondered, looking at Sónya, who also entered, ready, fan in hand. “No, she’s completely different. I can’t do it!”

At that moment, Natásha felt so softened and tender that simply loving and knowing she was loved wasn’t enough; she wanted right now to embrace the man she loved, to hear and say words of love that filled her heart. As she sat in the carriage beside her father, thoughtfully watching the street lamps flicker on the frozen window, she felt even sadder, more in love, and forgot where she was going and with whom. Falling in line with the other carriages, the Rostóvs’ carriage pulled up to the theater, its wheels creaking over the snow. Natásha and Sónya, lifting their skirts, quickly jumped out. The count got out with help from the footmen, and, moving among the men and women entering and the program sellers, all three made their way down the corridor to the first row of boxes. Through the closed doors, the music was already audible.

“Natásha, your hair!…” whispered Sónya.

An attendant respectfully and quickly slipped ahead of the ladies and opened the door to their box. The music grew louder, and through the doorway, rows of brightly lit boxes filled with ladies with bare arms and shoulders, and the noisy stalls shining with uniforms, glittered before their eyes. A lady entering the box next door gave Natásha a quick, envious glance. The curtain hadn’t yet risen, and the overture was being played. Natásha, smoothing her gown, entered with Sónya and sat down, studying the brilliant tiers of boxes opposite. She felt a sensation she hadn’t experienced in a long time—the feeling of hundreds of eyes looking at her bare arms and neck—affecting her both pleasantly and unpleasantly, stirring up a flood of memories, desires, and emotions connected with that feeling.

The two remarkably pretty girls, Natásha and Sónya, together with Count Rostóv—who hadn’t been seen in Moscow for a long while—attracted a lot of notice. Besides, everyone knew in a vague way about Natásha’s engagement to Prince Andrew, and that the Rostóvs had lived in the country ever since; all were curious to see the fiancée of one of the best matches in Russia.

Natásha’s appearance, as everyone had told her, had improved in the country, and that evening, with her excitement, she was especially beautiful. She struck observers with her vibrancy and beauty, combined with her indifference to everything around her. Her dark eyes scanned the crowd without searching for anyone in particular, and her slender arm, bare to above the elbow, rested unconsciously on the velvet edge of the box while she opened and closed her hand in time with the music, crumpling her program. “Look, there’s Alénina,” said Sónya, “with her mother, isn’t it?”

“Goodness, Michael Kirílovich has grown even stouter!” the count remarked.

“And look at our Anna Mikháylovna—what a headdress she’s wearing!”

“The Karágins, Julie—and Borís is with them. You can tell right away that they’re engaged….”

“Drubetskóy proposed?”

“Oh yes, I heard it today,” said Shinshín, coming into the Rostóvs’ box.

Natásha looked where her father was glancing and saw Julie beside her mother, looking happy, with a string of pearls around her thick red neck—Natásha knew it was powdered. Behind them, with a smile, leaning toward Julie, was Borís, his handsome, well-groomed head turned their way. He looked at the Rostóvs from beneath his brows and said something to his fiancée, smiling.

“They’re talking about us—me and him!” thought Natásha. “No doubt he’s reassuring her jealousy over me. They needn’t worry! If only they knew how little I care about any of them.”

Behind them sat Anna Mikháylovna with a green headdress and a contented, resigned look. Their box radiated the atmosphere of an engaged couple, which Natásha recognized and liked. She turned away, and suddenly remembered all the humiliating things from her visit that morning.

“What right does he have not to want me in his family? Oh, better not think about it—not until he returns!” she told herself, and began scanning the familiar and unfamiliar faces in the stalls. In front, right in the center, leaning against the orchestra rail, stood Dólokhov in a Persian costume, his curly hair brushed up in a big shock. He placed himself boldly in sight of the whole audience, completely aware of the attention he attracted, yet as at ease as if in his own room. Around him clustered Moscow’s brightest young men, all clearly under his influence.

The count, laughing, nudged the blushing Sónya and pointed toward her former admirer.

“Recognize him?” he said. “And where did he pop up from?” he asked Shinshín. “Didn’t he disappear somewhere?”

“He did,” answered Shinshín. “He went to the Caucasus and ran off from there. They say he’s been serving as a minister to some Persian prince, where he killed the Shah’s brother. Now every Moscow lady is wild about him! It’s ‘Dólokhov the Persian’ these days! There’s no conversation where Dólokhov isn’t mentioned—they practically offer him like a delicacy. Dólokhov and Anatole Kurágin have turned the heads of all the ladies.”

A tall, striking woman with a mass of braided hair and much exposed, plump white shoulders and neck, around which she wore a double string of large pearls, entered the adjoining box, her heavy silk dress rustling, and took a long time settling in.

Natásha found herself staring at that neck, the shoulders, the pearls, and the hairstyle, admiring the beauty of the shoulders and the jewelry. When she gazed at the woman a second time, the lady turned, met the count’s eyes, nodded, and smiled. She was Countess Bezúkhova, Pierre’s wife, and the count, who knew everyone in society, leaned over to speak to her.

“Have you been here long, Countess?” he asked. “I’ll have to come by and kiss your hand. I came here on business and brought my girls. They say Semënova performs wonderfully. Count Pierre never used to forget us. Is he here?”

“Yes, he meant to come by,” Hélène answered, and looked carefully at Natásha.

Count Rostóv sat back in his seat.

“She’s beautiful, isn’t she?” he whispered to Natásha.

“Wonderful!” Natásha replied. “She’s a woman you could easily fall in love with.”

Just then the last chords of the overture were heard and the conductor tapped his baton. Some late arrivals took their seats in the stalls, and the curtain rose.

As soon as it did, everyone in the boxes and stalls fell silent, and all the men, old and young, in uniforms and evening clothes, and all the women wearing jewels on bare skin, focused eagerly and fully on the stage. Natásha, too, began to watch.

##  CHAPTER IX

The floor of the stage was made of smooth boards; painted cardboard trees stood at the sides, and at the back, a cloth was stretched over some boards. In the center of the stage, several girls in red bodices and white skirts sat together. One very plump girl in a white silk dress sat apart on a low bench, to the back of which a piece of green cardboard was attached. They all sang something. When they finished their song, the girl in white walked over to the prompter’s box, and a man with tight silk trousers pulled over his stout legs, holding a plume and a dagger, approached her and started singing, waving his arms around.

First, the man in the tight trousers sang alone; then she sang; then they both paused while the orchestra played, and the man fiddled with the hand of the girl in white, clearly waiting for the cue to sing with her. They sang together and everyone in the theater started clapping and cheering, while the man and woman onstage—who played lovers—smiled, spread their arms, and bowed.

After life in the country and with her current serious mood, all of this seemed grotesque and astonishing to Natásha. She couldn’t follow the opera or even listen to the music; she saw only the painted cardboard and the oddly dressed men and women who moved, spoke, and sang so strangely in that dazzling light. She understood what it was all supposed to represent, but it was so obviously fake and unnatural that she first felt embarrassed for the actors, and then amused by them. She looked at the faces of the audience, searching for the same sense of ridicule and confusion she felt, but they all seemed engrossed in what was happening on stage and expressed a delight that, to Natásha, seemed staged. “I suppose it has to be like this!” she thought. She kept glancing between the rows of greased heads in the stalls and the half-dressed women in the boxes, especially at Hélène in the next box, who—apparently almost unclothed—sat with a calm, serene smile, her eyes fixed on the stage. Feeling the intense light filling the whole place and the warm air heated by the crowd, Natásha gradually slipped into a kind of intoxication she hadn’t felt in a long time. She didn’t realize who or where she was, nor what was happening before her. As she looked and thought, odd and disconnected ideas flitted through her mind: she imagined jumping onto the edge of the box and singing the aria the actress was singing, then wanted to touch with her fan an old gentleman sitting nearby, then to lean over to Hélène and tickle her.

At a moment when everything was quiet before the start of a song, a door leading to the stalls near the Rostóvs’ box creaked open, and the footsteps of a latecomer were heard. “There’s Kurágin!” whispered Shinshín. Countess Bezúkhova turned and smiled at the newcomer, and Natásha, following her gaze, saw an exceptionally handsome adjutant approaching their box, moving with self-assurance but also politeness. It was Anatole Kurágin, whom she had noticed before at the ball in Petersburg. He was now in an adjutant’s uniform, with one epaulet and a shoulder knot. He walked with a controlled swagger that might have seemed ridiculous if he hadn’t been so attractive, and if his handsome face hadn’t shown such easygoing confidence and cheerfulness. Even though the performance continued, he walked deliberately down the carpeted aisle, his sword and spurs lightly clinking and his well-groomed, perfumed head held high. Having glanced at Natásha, he went over to his sister, placed his gloved hand on the edge of her box, nodded to her, and leaning forward, asked a question, gesturing toward Natásha.

*“Mais charmante!”* he said, obviously about Natásha, who didn’t quite catch his words but understood them from his lips. Then he took his seat in the front row of the stalls next to Dólokhov, nudging Dólokhov with his elbow in a friendly, casual manner—Dólokhov, whom others treated so obsequiously. He winked at him cheerfully, smiled, and propped his foot on the orchestra barrier.

“How much the brother resembles the sister,” remarked the count. “And how attractive they both are!”

Shinshín, lowering his voice, began telling the count about some intrigue of Kurágin’s in Moscow, and Natásha tried to listen just because he had called her *“charmante.”*

The first act ended. In the stalls, everyone started moving about, coming and going.

Borís came to the Rostóvs’ box, received their congratulations modestly, and—with a distractedly smiling raise of his eyebrows—conveyed to Natásha and Sónya his fiancée’s invitation to her wedding before leaving. Natásha, with a lively, flirtatious smile, spoke with him and congratulated on his upcoming wedding that same Borís with whom she used to be in love. In her intoxicated state, everything felt simple and natural.

The scantily dressed Hélène smiled at everyone in the same way, and Natásha gave Borís a similar smile.

Hélène’s box was crowded and surrounded by the most distinguished and cultured men, all seemingly competing to show that they knew her.

Throughout the whole intermission, Kurágin stood with Dólokhov at the front of the orchestra barrier, staring at the Rostóvs’ box. Natásha knew he was talking about her, and this pleased her. She even shifted a bit so that he could see her profile at what she thought was its most attractive angle. As the second act was about to begin, Pierre appeared in the stalls. The Rostóvs hadn’t seen him since they arrived. His face looked sad, and he had become even stouter since Natásha last saw him. He made his way to the front rows, not noticing anyone. Anatole approached and started talking to him, gesturing toward the Rostóvs’ box. As soon as Pierre spotted Natásha, he brightened, and, quickly making his way between the rows, came up to their box. When he arrived, he leaned on his elbows and smiled, chatting with her for a long time. While talking with Pierre, Natásha heard a man’s voice in Countess Bezúkhova’s box, and something told her it was Kurágin. She turned, and their eyes met. Almost smiling, he gazed directly at her with such an enchanted, affectionate look that it was strange to be so close to him, to look at him like that, to be so sure he admired her—and yet not actually know him.

In the second act, the scenery showed tombstones, with a round hole in the canvas to represent the moon; shades covered the footlights, and from the horns and contrabass came deep notes as many people entered from the right and left wearing black cloaks and wielding things that looked like daggers. They waved their arms about. Then others rushed in and began to drag away the maiden who had been in white and was now in light blue. They didn’t remove her immediately, but sang with her for a long time and finally dragged her off, while something metallic was struck three times offstage and everyone knelt and sang a prayer. These events were repeatedly broken by enthusiastic cheers from the audience.

During this act, whenever Natásha looked toward the stalls, she saw Anatole Kurágin with his arm thrown over the back of his chair, staring at her. She enjoyed seeing that he was captivated by her, and it never occurred to her that anything was improper about it.

When the second act ended, Countess Bezúkhova got up, turned to the Rostóvs’ box—her chest entirely exposed—beckoned the old count with a gloved finger, and, ignoring those entering her own box, started a friendly conversation with him.

“Please, introduce me to your charming daughters,” she said. “The whole town is talking about them and I don’t even know them!”

Natásha stood and curtsied to the glamorous countess. She was so pleased by the compliment from this celebrated beauty that she blushed.

“I want to settle in Moscow now,” Hélène said. “How can you bear to keep such pearls hidden in the country?”

Countess Bezúkhova truly lived up to her reputation as a fascinating woman. She could easily and naturally say things she didn’t believe—especially flattery.

“Dear count, you must let me look after your daughters! Even though I’m not here for long this time—and neither are you—I’ll try to entertain them. I’ve already heard much about you in Petersburg and wanted to meet you,” she said to Natásha, with her practiced and lovely smile. “I heard about you from my page, Drubetskóy. Did you know he’s getting married? And also from my husband’s friend, Bolkónski, Prince Andrew Bolkónski,” she added with special emphasis, hinting that she knew about their connection. To get better acquainted, she suggested that one of the young ladies should join her in her box for the rest of the performance, and Natásha moved over.

The third act’s scene depicted a palace with many burning candles and portraits of knights with short beards hanging on the walls. In the middle stood what were presumably a king and queen. The king waved his right arm, and apparently nervous, sang badly and sat on a crimson throne. The maiden who had first been in white and then light blue now wore only a smock and stood by the throne with her hair down. She sang something mournfully to the queen, but the king waved her off sternly, and men and women with bare legs entered from both sides and started dancing together. Then the violins played very shrilly and cheerfully, and one woman with thick bare legs and thin arms, leaving the group, slipped backstage to adjust her bodice, came back to the center, and started jumping and striking one foot rapidly against the other. The whole crowd in the stalls clapped and yelled, “bravo!” Then a man stepped into a corner of the stage. The cymbals and horns in the orchestra grew louder, and this man with bare legs jumped very high, kicking his feet rapidly. (This was Duport, who earned sixty thousand rubles a year for this skill.) Everyone in the stalls, boxes, and galleries began shouting and clapping as loud as possible, and the man stopped, smiling and bowing to all sides. Then other men and women, all with bare legs, danced. The king shouted again over the music, and everyone started singing. But suddenly, a storm erupted: chromatic scales and diminished sevenths crashed from the orchestra, everyone ran off stage, dragging one of their number, and the curtain fell. Once again there was a tremendous uproar among the audience, and with ecstatic faces, everyone started shouting: “Duport! Duport! Duport!” Natásha no longer thought this odd. She looked around, enjoying herself and smiling happily.

“Isn’t Duport wonderful?” Hélène asked her.

“Oh, yes,” replied Natásha.

##  CHAPTER X

During the intermission, a gust of cold air entered Hélène’s box as the door opened and Anatole stepped in, stooping so as not to brush against anyone.

“Let me introduce my brother to you,” said Hélène, her eyes shifting uneasily from Natásha to Anatole.

Natásha turned her pretty little head toward the elegant young officer and smiled at him over her bare shoulder. Anatole, who was just as handsome up close as he was from a distance, sat down beside her and told her he had long hoped for this pleasure—ever since the Narýshkins’ ball, in fact, where he had the memorable joy of seeing her. Kurágin was much more at ease and natural with women than with men. He spoke boldly and naturally, and Natásha was strangely and pleasantly surprised to find that there was nothing intimidating about this man, despite all the talk about him; in fact, his smile was quite innocent, cheerful, and kind.

Kurágin asked her for her opinion of the performance and told her how, at a previous one, Semënova had fallen down on stage.

“And do you know, Countess,” he said, suddenly addressing her as if they were old friends, “we are organizing a costume tournament; you should take part! It will be great fun. We shall all meet at the Karágins’! Please come! No, really, won’t you?” he said.

As he spoke, he kept his smiling eyes on her face, her neck, and her bare arms. Natásha knew for sure that he was enchanted with her. She liked this, yet his presence also made her feel uneasy and tense. When she wasn’t looking at him, she felt his eyes on her shoulders, and she would catch his gaze, preferring he meet her eyes rather than look elsewhere. But when she did look into his eyes, she was startled, realizing that the barrier of modesty she had always felt with men seemed to be missing with him. She couldn’t understand how, in just five minutes, she had come to feel so alarmingly close to this man. When she turned away, she was afraid he might suddenly grab her by her bare arm and kiss her neck. They spoke of ordinary things, but she felt closer to him than she had ever been to any man. Natásha glanced at Hélène and her father as if seeking their guidance, but Hélène was deep in conversation with a general and didn’t notice her look, and her father’s eyes only said what they always did: “Having a good time? Well, I’m glad of it!”

During one of these awkward silences, while Anatole’s bright eyes gazed steadily at her, Natásha, trying to break the silence, asked him how he liked Moscow. She blushed as she asked, feeling all the while that talking to him was somehow improper. Anatole smiled, as if to encourage her.

“At first I didn’t like it much, because what makes a town pleasant *ce sont les jolies femmes*,* isn’t that so? But now I like it very much indeed,” he said, giving her a meaningful look. “Will you come to the costume tournament, Countess? Do! And—,” he reached out for her bouquet and spoke in a lower voice, “you will be the prettiest one there. Please come, dear countess, and give me this flower as a promise!”

*It’s the pretty women.

Natásha didn’t really understand what he was saying, no more than he understood himself, but she felt that his meaningless words had an improper intent. She didn’t know how to respond and turned away as if she hadn’t heard. Yet, as soon as she turned, she felt that he was right there behind her, so close.

“How is he now? Confused? Angry? Should I smooth things over?” she wondered, unable to resist turning back. She looked straight into his eyes, and his closeness, confidence, and good-natured smile overpowered her. She smiled just as he did, looking directly into his eyes. And again she was horrified to sense that there was no barrier at all between them.

The curtain went up again. Anatole left the box, serene and cheerful. Natásha returned to her father in the other box, now entirely accepting of the world she was in. Everything happening around her now seemed perfectly natural, while her previous thoughts of her fiancé, of Princess Mary, and of life in the country didn’t cross her mind again and felt as if they belonged to a distant past.

In the fourth act there was some kind of devil who sang, waving his arms around, until the boards were pulled out from under him and he vanished below. That was the only part of the fourth act that Natásha saw. She felt agitated and troubled, and the cause was Kurágin, whom she couldn’t help watching. As they were leaving the theater, Anatole approached, called for their carriage, and helped them in. As he was helping Natásha in, he pressed her arm above the elbow. Flushed and agitated, she turned around. He was looking at her with sparkling eyes, smiling softly.

Only once she was home could Natásha truly think over what had just happened. When she suddenly remembered Prince Andrew, she was horrified, and at the tea table after the opera, she suddenly cried out, blushed, and ran from the room.

“O God! I’m lost!” she thought. “How could I let him?” She sat for a long time hiding her flushed face in her hands, trying to understand what had just happened, but she couldn’t make sense of either the events or her feelings. Everything felt unclear, confusing, and dreadful. There, in that enormous, brightly lit theater, where bare-legged Duport in a glittering jacket danced to the music on wet boards, and young girls and old men, and the nearly naked Hélène with her proud, calm smile, all shouted “bravo!”—in the presence of Hélène it had all seemed obvious and simple; but now, alone, it seemed incomprehensible. “What was it? Why did I feel that fear of him? What is this pang of conscience I feel now?” she wondered.

Natásha could only have told all she was feeling to her mother, the old countess, at night in bed. She knew that Sónya, with her strict and simple outlook, wouldn’t understand at all or would be shocked by such a confession. So Natásha tried to make sense of her torment on her own.

“Am I now unworthy of Andrew’s love or not?” she asked herself, then answered herself mockingly: “How silly of me to wonder! Nothing happened! I did nothing, I didn’t encourage him at all. Nobody will ever know and I’ll never see him again,” she told herself. “So it’s clear that nothing happened and there’s nothing to regret, and Andrew can still love me. But why ‘still’? Oh God, why isn’t he here?” Natásha calmed herself for a moment, but once again some instinct told her that, true as all of that was and no matter that nothing had happened, the former purity of her love for Prince Andrew was gone. And once more in her mind she relived the entire encounter with Kurágin, again seeing the face, gestures, and gentle smile of the confident, handsome man as he pressed her arm.

##  CHAPTER XI

Anatole Kurágin was staying in Moscow because his father had sent him away from Petersburg, where he had been spending twenty thousand rubles a year in cash and had debts for just as much more, which his creditors then demanded from his father.

His father told him he would pay off half his debts for the last time, but only if he went to Moscow as adjutant to the commander in chief—a position his father had arranged for him—and that he should finally try to make a good match there. He pointed out Princess Mary and Julie Karágina as possible brides.

Anatole agreed and went to Moscow, where he stayed at Pierre’s house. Pierre received him reluctantly at first, but eventually got used to him and sometimes even joined him on his wild outings, giving him money as “loans.”

As Shinshín had mentioned, from the time he arrived, Anatole had charmed the Moscow ladies, especially by showing preference for gypsy girls and French actresses—including Mademoiselle George, with whom he was said to have a close relationship—rather than society ladies. He never missed a party at Danílov’s or any Moscow reveler’s, drank through the night, outdrinking everyone, and appeared at all the best society balls and parties. There were rumors of his affairs with some of the women, and he flirted with a few at the balls. But he did not pursue the unmarried girls, especially the wealthy heiresses, who were mostly plain. There was a particular reason for this: he had secretly gotten married two years earlier—a fact known only to his closest friends. While serving with his regiment in Poland, a minor Polish landowner had forced him to marry his daughter. Anatole quickly abandoned his wife, and for a payment he agreed to send his father-in-law, he arranged to be free to present himself as a bachelor.

Anatole was always satisfied with his circumstances, with himself, and with everyone else. He was instinctively and completely sure that he could not live in any other way and that he had never done anything wrong in his life. He was incapable of considering how his actions affected others or what consequences they might have. He believed that, just as a duck is designed to live in water, so God had made him to spend thirty thousand rubles a year and always occupy a leading place in society. He believed this so firmly that others, looking at him, believed it too, and neither denied him a leading social place nor money, which he borrowed from anyone and obviously never repaid.

He was not a gambler, at least, he didn’t care about winning. He wasn’t vain. He didn’t care what people thought of him. Nor did he have any ambition. He had repeatedly annoyed his father by wrecking his own career, and he laughed at all distinctions. He was not stingy and never refused anyone who asked something of him. All he cared for was fun and women, and because in his view there was nothing wrong in these pleasures, and he couldn’t see what satisfying his desires did to others, he honestly thought himself blameless, sincerely despised scoundrels and bad people, and, with a clear conscience, held his head high.

Rakes—those male counterparts to Magdalenes—have a secret sense of innocence much like that of female Magdalenes, based on the same hope for forgiveness. “All will be forgiven her, for she loved much; and all will be forgiven him, for he enjoyed much.”

Dólokhov, who had returned to Moscow that year after his exile and his adventures in Persia, and was living a life of luxury, gambling, and wildness, had renewed his friendship with Kurágin from Petersburg and made use of him for his own purposes.

Anatole genuinely liked Dólokhov for his cleverness and daring. Dólokhov, who needed Anatole Kurágin’s name, position, and connections to lure wealthy young men into his gambling circle, used him and amused himself at his expense without Anatole realizing it. Beyond his advantage, the very act of controlling another’s will was in itself a pleasure, a habit, and a necessity for Dólokhov.

Natásha had deeply impressed Kurágin. Over supper after the opera, he described to Dólokhov, with the air of a connoisseur, the appeal of her arms, shoulders, feet, and hair and declared his intention to pursue her. Anatole had no thought—and could not even consider—what might result from such an affair, just as he never considered the consequences of anything he did.

“She’s first-rate, my dear fellow, but not for us,” replied Dólokhov.

“I’ll tell my sister to invite her to dinner,” said Anatole. “Eh?”

“You’d better wait until she’s married….”

“You know, I adore young girls, they lose their heads right away,” Anatole continued.

“You’ve already been caught by a ‘little girl’ once,” said Dólokhov, who knew about Kurágin’s marriage. “Watch out!”

“Well, that can’t happen twice! Eh?” Anatole replied with a good-natured laugh.

##  CHAPTER XII

The day after the opera, the Rostóvs stayed home and didn’t receive any visitors. Márya Dmítrievna spoke privately to the count about something they purposely kept from Natásha. Natásha guessed they were discussing the old prince and making some kind of plans, which made her uneasy and offended. She was expecting Prince Andrew at any moment and, twice that day, she sent a servant to Vozdvízhenka to see if he had arrived. He still hadn’t come. She suffered even more now than during her first days in Moscow. To her impatience and longing for him, she now added the unpleasant memory of her meeting with Princess Mary and the old prince, along with a vague fear and anxiety she could not explain. She was always imagining that either he would never arrive or that something might happen to her before he did. She could no longer think of him with calm and focus as she once had. Whenever she began to think of him, memories of the old prince, Princess Mary, the theater, and Kurágin all mixed into her thoughts. The question of whether she was guilty, whether she had already betrayed Prince Andrew, returned again, and again she recalled in minute detail every word, gesture, and subtle expression on the face of the man who had aroused such a strange and frightening feeling in her. To her family, Natásha seemed more lively than before, but she was actually much less calm and far less happy.

On Sunday morning, Márya Dmítrievna invited her guests to Mass at her parish church—the Church of the Assumption, built above the graves of victims of the plague.

“I don’t care for those fashionable churches,” she said, clearly proud of her independent thinking. “God is the same everywhere. We have an excellent priest; he conducts the service properly and with dignity, and the deacon is just as good. What’s holy about putting on concerts in the choir? I don’t like it, it’s just self-indulgence!”

Márya Dmítrievna enjoyed Sundays and took them seriously. Her whole house was scrubbed and cleaned on Saturdays; neither she nor the servants worked, and everyone wore holiday clothes and went to church. At her table, there were extra dishes at dinner, and the servants had vodka with roast goose or suckling pig. But nowhere in the house was the holiday more obvious than in Márya Dmítrievna’s broad, stern face, which on that day always wore a look of solemn festivity.

After Mass, when they had finished their coffee in the dining room where the furniture covers had been removed, a servant announced the carriage was ready, and Márya Dmítrievna stood up with a stern expression. She put on her holiday shawl, the one she wore when calling on others, and declared she was going to visit Prince Nicholas Bolkónski to have a discussion with him about Natásha.

Once she had left, a dressmaker from Madame Suppert-Roguet visited the Rostóvs, and Natásha, greatly pleased with this distraction, shut herself in a room next to the drawing room to try on new dresses. Just as she had put on a sleeveless, half-finished bodice and was turning to see how the back looked in the mirror, she heard her father’s lively voice and that of another—a woman’s—in the drawing room, making her flush. It was Hélène. Natásha barely had time to take off the bodice before the door opened and Countess Bezúkhova, dressed in a purple velvet gown with a high collar, entered the room beaming with amiable smiles.

“Oh, my enchantress!” she exclaimed to the blushing Natásha. “Charming! No, this is really beyond anything, my dear count,” she said to Count Rostóv who had followed her in. “How can you live in Moscow and never go out? No, I won’t allow it! Mademoiselle George is reciting at my house tonight and there will be guests, and unless you bring your lovely girls—who are far prettier than Mademoiselle George—I won’t forgive you! My husband is away in Tver or else I’d send him to fetch you myself. You must come. You simply must! Between eight and nine.”

She nodded to the dressmaker, whom she knew and who curtsied respectfully, and sat down in an armchair by the mirror, arranging the folds of her velvet dress tastefully. She didn’t stop chattering, cheerfully and warmly, always praising Natásha’s beauty. She admired Natásha’s dresses and praised them, as well as a new one of her own made from “metallic gauze” she had just received from Paris, and advised Natásha to get one like it.

“But anything looks good on you, my dear!” she added.

A happy smile stayed on Natásha’s face. She felt joyful, as if she were blooming under the praise of this dear Countess Bezúkhova who had once seemed so distant and important but now was so kind. Natásha brightened and felt almost in love with this woman, who was so beautiful and gracious. For her part, Hélène was genuinely charmed by Natásha and wanted to give her a good time. Anatole had asked Hélène to arrange a meeting with Natásha, and she was visiting the Rostóvs for that reason. The idea of bringing her brother and Natásha together amused her.

Though she had once been irritated with Natásha in Petersburg for distracting Borís, she no longer thought of that, and now sincerely wished Natásha well. As she was leaving the Rostóvs, she called Natásha aside.

“My brother dined with me yesterday—we laughed so hard—he ate nothing and kept sighing for you, my dear! He’s madly, absolutely madly, in love with you, my dear.”

Natásha blushed bright red at these words.

“How she blushes, how she blushes, my pretty one!” said Hélène. “You must come, absolutely. If you’re in love with someone, my dear, that’s no reason to hide away. Even if you are engaged, I’m sure your fiancé would rather you go out and enjoy yourself than be bored to death.”

“So she knows I’m engaged, and she and her husband Pierre—that good Pierre—have talked and laughed about it. So it’s all right.” And again, under Hélène’s influence, what had seemed so terrible now seemed simple and harmless. “And she’s such a *grande dame*, so kind, and clearly likes me so much. Why not enjoy myself?” thought Natásha, looking at Hélène with wide, amazed eyes.

Márya Dmítrievna returned for dinner quiet and serious, obviously having suffered defeat with the old prince. She was still too upset by the meeting to speak calmly about it. In answer to the count’s questions, she replied that everything was fine and said she’d tell more the next day. On hearing of Countess Bezúkhova’s visit and the evening’s invitation, Márya Dmítrievna remarked:

“I don’t trouble myself with Bezúkhova and I don’t advise you to either; however, if you’ve promised—go. It might help distract you,” she added, speaking to Natásha.

##  CHAPTER XIII

Count Rostóv took the girls to Countess Bezúkhova’s house. There were many people there, but nearly all were strangers to Natásha. Count Rostóv was displeased to see that the company was composed almost entirely of men and women known for their freedom of conduct. Mademoiselle George stood in a corner of the drawing room, surrounded by young men. Several Frenchmen were present, among them Métivier, who had become close to Hélène since her arrival in Moscow. The count decided not to join the card games or let his daughters out of his sight, and to leave as soon as Mademoiselle George’s performance was over.

Anatole was at the door, clearly waiting for the Rostóvs. Immediately after greeting the count, he approached Natásha and followed her. As soon as Natásha saw him, she felt the same sensation she had experienced at the opera—a pleased vanity from his admiration, mixed with fear at the lack of any moral barrier between them.

Hélène welcomed Natásha warmly, loudly admiring her beauty and her dress. Soon after their arrival, Mademoiselle George left the room to change her costume. People in the drawing room began arranging chairs and taking their seats. Anatole moved a chair for Natásha and was about to sit next to her, but the count—who never lost sight of her—took the seat himself. Anatole sat down behind her.

Mademoiselle George, with her bare, plump, dimpled arms and a red shawl draped over one shoulder, entered the space left for her and assumed an unnatural pose. Enthusiastic whispering could be heard.

Mademoiselle George looked sternly and gloomily at the audience and began reciting French verses describing her guilty love for her son. At times she raised her voice, at others she whispered and lifted her head triumphantly; sometimes she paused, making hoarse sounds while rolling her eyes.

“Adorable! Divine! Delicious!” came from all sides.

Natásha looked at the plump actress but neither saw nor heard nor understood anything happening in front of her. She only felt herself, once again, swept away into this strange, senseless world—so far from her old life—a world in which it was impossible to discern right from wrong, reasonable from unreasonable. Behind her sat Anatole, and aware of his presence, she felt a frightened sense of anticipation.

After the first monologue, the entire company rose and surrounded Mademoiselle George to express their enthusiasm.

“How beautiful she is!” Natásha said to her father, who had also risen and was moving through the crowd toward the actress.

“I don’t think so when I look at you!” said Anatole, speaking quietly so only Natásha could hear. “You are enchanting… from the moment I saw you, I have never stopped…”

“Come, come, Natásha!” said the count as he turned back for his daughter. “How beautiful she is!” Natásha, without saying anything, stepped up to her father and looked at him with surprised, questioning eyes.

After several recitations, Mademoiselle George left, and Countess Bezúkhova invited her guests into the ballroom.

The count wanted to go home, but Hélène begged him not to spoil her improvised ball, so the Rostóvs stayed. Anatole asked Natásha for a waltz, and as they danced he pressed her waist and hand, telling her she was captivating and that he loved her. During the *écossaise*, which she also danced with him, Anatole said nothing when they found themselves alone, but simply gazed at her. Natásha raised her frightened eyes to him, but there was such confident tenderness in his affectionate look and smile that, while looking at him, she could not say what she needed to. She looked down.

“Don’t say such things to me. I am engaged and love another,” she said quickly… She glanced at him.

Anatole was neither upset nor hurt by what she said.

“Don’t talk to me about that! What can I do?” he replied. “I tell you I am madly, wildly in love with you! Is it my fault you are so enchanting?… It’s our turn to begin.”

Animated and excited, Natásha looked around with wide, frightened eyes and seemed even more cheerful than usual. She barely understood anything happening that evening. They danced the *écossaise* and the *Grossvater.* Her father asked her to come home, but she pleaded to stay. Wherever she went and whoever she spoke to, she could feel *his* eyes on her. Later, she remembered asking her father’s permission to go to the dressing room to adjust her dress, that Hélène had followed her and, laughing, spoke of her brother’s love, and that she met Anatole again in the little sitting room. Hélène then disappeared, leaving them alone, and Anatole took her hand and said softly:

“I cannot come to visit you but is it possible I shall never see you? I love you desperately. Will I never…?” and, blocking her path, he leaned closer to her.

His large, bright, masculine eyes were so close to hers that she saw nothing else.

“Natalie?” he whispered questioningly as he gripped her hands tightly. “Natalie?”

“I don’t understand. I have nothing to say,” her eyes answered.

Burning lips touched hers, and in the same instant she felt herself released, and heard Hélène’s footsteps and the rustle of her dress in the room. Natásha glanced at her, then, red and shaking, gave a frightened questioning look at Anatole and moved toward the door.

“One word, just one, for God’s sake!” cried Anatole.

She paused, desperate for a word from him that would explain what had just happened—something to which she could find no answer.

“Natalie, just a word, only one!” he repeated, clearly not knowing what to say, and kept saying it until Hélène joined them.

Hélène returned with Natásha to the drawing room. The Rostóvs left without staying for supper.

When she got home, Natásha did not sleep at all that night. She was tormented by the impossible question of whether she loved Anatole or Prince Andrew. She loved Prince Andrew—she remembered clearly how deeply she loved him. But now she also loved Anatole, there was no doubt. “Otherwise how could all this have happened?” she wondered. “If, after that, I could return his smile while saying goodbye; if I let things go so far, it means I loved him from the beginning. It means he is kind, noble, and wonderful, and I could not help loving him. What am I to do if I love him and the other too?” she asked herself, unable to find an answer to these troubling questions.

##  CHAPTER XIV

Morning arrived with its usual cares and bustle. Everyone got up and began to move about and talk, and the dressmakers returned again. Márya Dmítrievna appeared, and they were called to breakfast. Natásha kept glancing anxiously at everyone with wide-open eyes, as if hoping to intercept every look directed at her, and tried to act as usual.

After breakfast, which was her favorite time, Márya Dmítrievna sat down in her armchair and called Natásha and the count over to her.

“Well, my friends, I have now considered everything carefully and here is my advice,” she began. “Yesterday, as you know, I went to see Prince Bolkónski. Well, I talked with him… He suddenly started shouting, but I’m not someone who lets herself get shouted down. I said what I needed to say!”

“Well, and what did he do?” asked the count.

“He? He’s out of his mind… he wouldn’t listen. But what good is talking about it? As it is, we’ve worn the poor girl out,” said Márya Dmítrievna. “My advice to you is to finish your business here and go back home to Otrádnoe… and wait there.”

“Oh, no!” exclaimed Natásha.

“Yes, go back,” said Márya Dmítrievna, “and wait there. If your fiancé comes here now—there will be no avoiding a quarrel. But if he’s alone with the old man, they’ll talk things over, and then he’ll come to you.”

Count Rostóv approved of this suggestion, recognizing how sensible it was. If the old man came around, it would be all the better to visit him in Moscow or at Bald Hills later; and if not, the wedding, against his wishes, could only happen at Otrádnoe.

“That’s perfectly true. And I’m sorry I went to see him and brought her along,” said the old count.

“No, don’t be sorry. Once you were here, you had to pay your respects. But if he refuses—that’s his business,” said Márya Dmítrievna, rummaging in her reticule. “Besides, the trousseau is ready, so there’s nothing to wait for; and what isn’t ready, I’ll send after you. Though I don’t like letting you go, it’s the best way. So go, with God’s blessing!”

Having found what she was searching for in her reticule, she handed it to Natásha. It was a letter from Princess Mary.

“She’s written to you. How she tortures herself, poor thing! She’s afraid you might think she doesn’t like you.”

“But she doesn’t like me,” said Natásha.

“Don’t talk nonsense!” cried Márya Dmítrievna.

“I won’t believe anyone; I know she doesn’t like me,” Natásha replied boldly as she took the letter, her face showing a cold and angry determination that made Márya Dmítrievna look at her more intently and frown.

“Don’t answer that way, my good girl!” she said. “What I’m telling you is true! Write her a reply!”

Natásha said nothing and went to her room to read Princess Mary’s letter.

Princess Mary wrote that she was in despair over the misunderstanding that had arisen between them. Whatever her father’s feelings might be, she begged Natásha to believe that she could not help loving her as the one chosen by her brother, for whose happiness she was ready to sacrifice everything.

“Do not think, however,” she wrote, “that my father is ill-disposed toward you. He is an invalid and an old man who must be forgiven; but he is good and noble-hearted and will love the woman who makes his son happy.” Princess Mary continued by asking Natásha to pick a time when they could meet again.

After reading the letter, Natásha sat down at the writing table to reply. “Dear Princess,” she wrote quickly and mechanically in French, then paused. What else could she write after all that had happened the night before? “Yes, yes! All this has happened, and now everything is changed,” she thought as she sat with the unfinished letter before her. “Must I break things off with him? Must I really? That’s awful…” and to escape these tormenting thoughts, she went to Sónya and began sorting patterns with her.

After dinner, Natásha went to her room and again looked at Princess Mary’s letter. “Can it be that it’s all over?” she wondered. “Can it be that all this happened so quickly and ruined all that came before?” She remembered her love for Prince Andrew, as strong as ever, and at the same time felt that she loved Kurágin. She vividly imagined herself as Prince Andrew’s wife, recreating in her mind the many scenes of happiness she had envisioned, and yet, flushed with excitement, she also recalled every detail of yesterday’s meeting with Anatole.

“Why couldn’t that happen too?” she sometimes asked herself in utter confusion. “Only that way could I be perfectly happy; but now I have to choose, and I can’t be happy without either of them. Only,” she thought, “it’s impossible either to tell Prince Andrew what’s happened or to hide it from him. But with *that one* nothing is ruined. But am I really to give up forever the happiness of Prince Andrew’s love, in which I have lived so long?”

“Please, Miss!” whispered a maid, entering the room with a secretive look. “A man told me to give you this—” and she handed Natásha a letter.

“Only, for Christ’s sake…” the girl continued, while Natásha, without thinking, automatically broke the seal and read a love letter from Anatole, of which, without really comprehending, she only realized it was a letter from him—the man she loved. Yes, she loved him, or else how could what had happened have happened? And how could she be holding a love letter from him in her hand?

With trembling hands, Natásha held that passionate love letter, which Dólokhov had written for Anatole, and as she read it she found in it an echo of all she believed she was feeling.

“Since yesterday evening my fate has been sealed; to be loved by you or to die. There is no other way for me,” the letter began. He went on to say that he knew her parents would not give her to him—for reasons he could tell only her—but that if she loved him she need only say “yes,” and no earthly power could stop their happiness. Love would conquer all. He would whisk her away and carry her off to the ends of the earth.

“Yes, yes! I love him!” thought Natásha, reading the letter for the twentieth time and finding a particularly deep meaning in each word.

That evening Márya Dmítrievna planned to go to the Akhárovs’ and suggested taking the girls with her. Natásha, claiming a headache, stayed at home.

##  CHAPTER XV

When Sónya returned late in the evening, she went to Natásha’s room and, to her surprise, found her still dressed and asleep on the sofa. Open on the table next to her lay Anatole’s letter. Sónya picked it up and read it.

As she read, she looked at the sleeping Natásha, trying to find in her face some explanation for what she was reading, but found none. Natásha’s face was calm, gentle, and happy. Clutching her chest as if to keep herself from choking, Sónya, pale and trembling with fear and agitation, sat down in an armchair and burst into tears.

“How did I not notice anything? How could it have gone so far? Can she have stopped loving Prince Andrew? And how could she let Kurágin go this far? He’s a deceiver and a villain, that’s clear! What will Nicholas, dear noble Nicholas, do when he finds out? So this explains her nervous, determined, unnatural look these last couple of days,” thought Sónya. “But she can’t possibly love him! She probably opened the letter without knowing who it was from. She’s probably upset by it. She couldn’t do such a thing!”

Sónya wiped away her tears and went over to Natásha, again studying her face.

“Natásha!” she said, just above a whisper.

Natásha woke and saw Sónya.

“Oh, you’re back?”

And with the decisiveness and affection that often come upon waking, she embraced her friend. But, noticing Sónya’s embarrassed expression, her own face showed confusion and suspicion.

“Sónya, you read that letter?” she asked.

“Yes,” replied Sónya softly.

Natásha smiled with joy.

“No, Sónya, I can’t keep it from you any longer!” she said. “I can’t hide it from you anymore. You know, we love each other! Sónya, dearest, he writes… Sónya…”

Sónya stared wide-eyed at Natásha, unable to believe what she was hearing.

“And Bolkónski?” she asked.

“Oh, Sónya, if only you knew how happy I am!” Natásha cried. “You don’t know what love is….”

“But, Natásha, can *that* all be over?”

Natásha looked at Sónya with wide-open eyes, as if she couldn’t understand the question.

“So, are you refusing Prince Andrew, then?” Sónya asked.

“Oh, you don’t understand anything! Don’t talk nonsense—just listen!” said Natásha, briefly irritated.

“But I can’t believe it,” insisted Sónya. “I don’t understand. How can you have loved someone for a whole year, and then suddenly... You’ve only seen him three times! Natásha, I don’t believe you, you’re joking! In three days, to forget everything and then—”

“Three days?” Natásha said. “It feels like I’ve loved him for a hundred years. It feels like I’ve never loved anyone before. You can’t understand it... Sónya, wait a minute, sit here,” and Natásha hugged and kissed her.

“I had heard it happens like this, and you must have heard it too, but now I really feel this love. It’s not the same as before. The moment I saw him I knew he was my master, and I was his slave, and I couldn’t help but love him. Yes, his slave! Whatever he commands, I’ll do. You don’t get it. What can I do? What can I do, Sónya?” Natásha cried with a look that was both happy and afraid.

“But think about what you’re doing,” cried Sónya. “I can’t leave it at this. This secret correspondence... How could you let him go so far?” she continued, with a horror and disgust she could barely hide.

“I told you I have no will of my own,” Natásha replied. “Why can’t you understand? I love him!”

“Then I won’t let it go this far... I’m going to tell!” Sónya burst out, beginning to cry.

“What do you mean? For heaven’s sake... If you tell, you’re my enemy!” Natásha declared. “You want me to be miserable, you want us to be separated….”

Seeing Natásha’s fear, Sónya began to cry tears of shame and pity for her friend.

“But what’s happened between you two?” she asked. “What has he said to you? Why doesn’t he come to our house?”

Natásha didn’t answer her questions.

“For God’s sake, Sónya, don’t tell anyone, don’t torture me,” Natásha begged. “Remember, no one should interfere in such matters! I’ve confided in you….”

“Then why all this secrecy? Why doesn’t he come to the house?” Sónya asked. “Why doesn’t he openly propose? You know Prince Andrew gave you complete freedom—if this is even real; but I don’t believe it! Natásha, have you thought about what these *secret reasons* might actually be?”

Natásha looked at Sónya in amazement. Clearly, this question had just occurred to her for the first time and she didn’t know how to answer.

“I don’t know what the reasons are. But there must be reasons!”

Sónya sighed and shook her head in disbelief.

“If there were reasons…” she began.

But Natásha, guessing her doubts, interrupted her in alarm.

“Sónya, you can’t doubt him! You can’t, you can’t! Don’t you understand?” she exclaimed.

“Does he love you?”

“Does he love me?” Natásha repeated, smiling with pity at her friend’s lack of understanding. “Why, you read his letter and you’ve seen him.”

“But what if he is dishonorable?”

“He! Dishonorable? If you only knew!” exclaimed Natásha.

“If he is an honorable man, he should either declare his intentions or stop seeing you; and if you won't do this, I will. I will write to him, and I will tell Papa!” said Sónya resolutely.

“But I can’t live without him!” cried Natásha.

“Natásha, I don’t understand you. What are you saying? Think of your father and of Nicholas.”

“I don’t want anyone, I don’t love anyone but him. How dare you say he is dishonorable? Don’t you know that I love him?” screamed Natásha. “Go away, Sónya! I don’t want to quarrel with you, but please, for God’s sake, go! Can’t you see how much I am suffering?” Natásha cried angrily, her voice filled with despair and suppressed irritation. Sónya burst into tears and ran from the room.

Natásha went to the table and, without a moment’s hesitation, wrote that reply to Princess Mary which she hadn’t been able to write all morning. In this letter, she briefly said that all their misunderstandings were over; that taking advantage of the generosity of Prince Andrew, who, when he went abroad, gave her back her freedom, she begged Princess Mary to forget everything and forgive her if she had been at fault, but that she could not be his wife. At that moment, everything seemed perfectly simple, easy, and clear to Natásha.

On Friday the Rostóvs were supposed to return to the country, but on Wednesday the count left with the prospective buyer to his estate near Moscow.

The day the count left, Sónya and Natásha were invited to a big dinner party at the Karágins’, and Márya Dmítrievna took them there. At the party, Natásha saw Anatole again, and Sónya noticed she spoke to him, trying not to be overheard, and that throughout dinner she was more agitated than ever. When they got home, Natásha was the first to begin the explanation Sónya had been expecting.

“You see, Sónya, you were talking such nonsense about him,” Natásha began in a gentle voice, like a child hoping to be praised. “We had an explanation today.”

“Well, what happened? What did he say? Natásha, how glad I am you’re not angry with me! Tell me everything—the honest truth. What did he say?”

Natásha grew thoughtful.

“Oh, Sónya, if you knew him as I do! He asked me what I had promised Bolkónski. He was glad I was free to refuse him.”

Sónya sighed sorrowfully.

“But you haven’t refused Bolkónski, have you?” she said.

“Perhaps I have. Maybe it’s all over between me and Bolkónski. Why do you think so badly of me?”

“I’m not thinking anything, I just don’t understand all this…”

“Wait a bit, Sónya, you’ll understand everything. You’ll see what kind of man he is! Now don’t think badly of me or of him. I don’t think badly of anyone: I love and feel sorry for everyone. But what can I do?”

Sónya wasn’t won over by Natásha’s gentle tone. The more emotional and ingratiating Natásha’s expression became, the more serious and stern Sónya looked.

“Natásha,” she said, “you asked me not to speak to you, and I haven’t, but now since you've begun, I have to say—I don’t trust him, Natásha. Why all this secrecy?”

“Again, again!” Natásha interrupted.

“Natásha, I’m afraid for you!”

“Afraid of what?”

“I’m afraid you’re heading for your own ruin,” said Sónya firmly, shocked at her own words.

Anger flashed again on Natásha’s face.

“Fine, I’ll go to my ruin, I will, as soon as possible! It’s not your business! It’s not you, but me, who will suffer. Leave me alone, leave me alone! I hate you!”

“Natásha!” moaned Sónya, horrified.

“I hate you, I hate you! You’re my enemy forever!” And Natásha ran out of the room.

Natásha avoided Sónya after that and would not speak to her. She moved about the house with the same expression of anxious surprise and guilt, starting one task after another and dropping them right away.

As hard as it was for Sónya, she kept watch over her friend and did not let her out of her sight.

The day before the count’s return, Sónya noticed that Natásha sat by the drawing room window all morning as if she were expecting someone and that she signaled to an officer who drove past, whom Sónya thought was Anatole.

Sónya began watching Natásha even more closely and saw that at dinner, and throughout the evening, Natásha was in a strange and unnatural state. She answered questions at random, left sentences unfinished, and laughed at everything.

After tea, Sónya noticed a housemaid timidly waiting at Natásha’s door to be let in. Sónya let the girl go in, and then, listening at the door, learned that another letter had been delivered.

Suddenly, it became clear to Sónya that Natásha was planning something dreadful for that evening. Sónya knocked on her door, but Natásha refused to let her in.

“She’ll run away with him!” thought Sónya. “She’s capable of anything. There was something especially pitiful and determined in her face today. She cried when she said goodbye to Uncle,” Sónya remembered. “Yes, that’s it, she means to elope with him, but what am I supposed to do?” she wondered, recalling all the signs that clearly showed Natásha had some terrible intention. “The count is away. What should I do? Write to Kurágin demanding an explanation? But why should he be obliged to answer? Write to Pierre, as Prince Andrew asked me to if anything bad happened?… But maybe she actually has already refused Bolkónski—she sent a letter to Princess Mary yesterday. And Uncle is away….” To tell Márya Dmítrievna, who had such faith in Natásha, seemed terrible to Sónya. “Well, anyway,” Sónya thought as she stood in the dark hallway, “now or never I must prove that I remember how good the family has been to me and that I love Nicholas. Yes! Even if I don’t sleep for three nights, I won’t leave this hallway and will hold her back with all my strength and will, and I won’t let the family be disgraced,” she resolved.

##  CHAPTER XVI

Anatole had recently moved in with Dólokhov. The plan for abducting Natalie Rostóva had been made, and Dólokhov had organized the preparations a few days earlier. On the day Sónya, after eavesdropping at Natásha’s door, decided to protect her, the plan was set to be carried out. Natásha had promised to meet Kurágin at the back porch at ten that evening. Kurágin would put her into a troika he had prepared, and drive her forty miles to the village of Kámenka, where a defrocked priest was waiting to perform a marriage ceremony. At Kámenka, a fresh team of horses would be ready to take them to the Warsaw highway, and from there they would quickly leave the country with post horses.

Anatole had a passport, an order for post horses, ten thousand rubles he took from his sister, and another ten thousand borrowed with Dólokhov’s help.

Two witnesses for the sham marriage—Khvóstikov, a retired petty official Dólokhov used in his gambling dealings, and Makárin, a retired hussar, a kind but weak-willed fellow with a deep affection for Kurágin—were sitting at tea in Dólokhov’s front room.

In his large study, the walls covered to the ceiling with Persian rugs, bearskins, and weapons, Dólokhov sat in a traveling cloak and high boots, at an open desk where an abacus and several bundles of paper money lay. Anatole, with his uniform unbuttoned, walked back and forth from the room where the witnesses sat, through the study, and into another room, where his French valet and others were packing the last of his belongings. Dólokhov was counting the money and making notes.

“Well,” he said, “Khvóstikov must have two thousand.”

“Give it to him, then,” Anatole replied.

“Makárka”—their nickname for Makárin—“would walk through fire and water for you for nothing. So our accounts are all settled,” Dólokhov said, showing him the memorandum. “Is that right?”

“Yes, of course,” answered Anatole, clearly not listening and gazing straight ahead with a fixed smile.

Dólokhov slammed his desk shut and turned to Anatole with a sarcastic smile:

“You know, you’d really better call it off. There’s still time!”

“Idiot,” shot back Anatole. “Don’t talk nonsense! If you only knew… it’s the devil knows what!”

“No, seriously, give it up!” said Dólokhov. “I’m being serious. This scheme of yours isn’t a joke.”

“What, joking again? Go to hell! Eh?” Anatole made a face. “Really, this isn’t the time for your stupid jokes,” and he left the room.

Dólokhov smiled mockingly and indulgently as Anatole walked out.

“Just wait,” he called after him. “I’m not joking, I mean it. Come here, come here!”

Anatole returned, looking at Dólokhov, trying to focus on him and clearly yielding to his authority.

“Now listen. I’m saying this for the last time. Why would I joke about it? Did I get in your way? Who arranged all this for you? Who found the priest and got the passport? Who raised the money? I did everything.”

“Well, thank you for it. Do you think I’m not grateful?” Anatole sighed and hugged Dólokhov.

“I helped, but I still have to tell you the truth; this is dangerous, and, if you think about it—a foolish business. Say you carry her off—all right! Do you think it’ll end there? They’ll find out you’re already married. You’ll end up in criminal court….”

“Oh, nonsense, nonsense!” Anatole burst out, making another face. “Didn’t I already explain? What?” And Anatole, with the dull stubbornness of people attached to their own reasoning, repeated the same argument he’d already made to Dólokhov a hundred times. “Didn’t I say that here’s my conclusion: if this marriage is invalid,”—he crook a finger—“then I’ve got nothing to answer for; but if it’s valid, no matter! Abroad, no one will know anything. Isn’t that right? And don’t talk to me, don’t, don’t.”

“Seriously, you should give up on this! You’ll only get yourself into trouble!”

“Go to hell!” yelled Anatole, grabbing his hair as he left—but he came straight back and flopped into an armchair across from Dólokhov, tucking his feet under himself. “It’s the very devil! What? Feel how it beats!” He took Dólokhov’s hand and placed it over his heart. “What a figure, my friend! What eyes! A goddess!” he added in French. “Eh?”

Dólokhov, with a cold smile and a glint in his handsome, insolent eyes, looked at him, clearly ready for more amusement.

“So, when the money’s gone, what then?”

“What then? Eh?” repeated Anatole, genuinely puzzled by the future. “What then?… Then, I don’t know…. But what’s the use talking nonsense!” He glanced at his watch. “It’s time!”

Anatole went to the back room.

“Now then! Nearly ready? You’re slow!” he shouted at the servants.

Dólokhov put away the money, called for a footman to bring food and drink before they left, and went to the room where Khvóstikov and Makárin were sitting.

Anatole reclined on the study sofa, propped on one elbow, smiling thoughtfully and murmuring softly to himself.

“Come and eat something. Have a drink!” Dólokhov called from the other room.

“I don’t want any,” Anatole replied, still smiling.

“Come on! Balagá is here.”

Anatole got up and went into the dining room. Balagá was a renowned troika driver who had known Dólokhov and Anatole for about six years, and had given them excellent service. More than once, when Anatole’s regiment was in Tver, he had taken him from Tver in the evening, delivered him to Moscow by morning, and brought him back again the next night. He had often helped Dólokhov escape when chased. Many times, he had driven them through town with gypsies and “ladykins,” as he called the courtesans. More than once while working for them, he’d run down pedestrians and upset carriages in Moscow’s streets, and always escaped the consequences thanks to “my gentlemen,” as he referred to them. He had ruined more than one horse in their service. They had beaten him at times, and often made him drunk on champagne and Madeira, which he loved; and he knew things about both of them that would have sent an ordinary man to Siberia long ago. They often invited Balagá to their parties, drinking and dancing at the gypsies’, and he had handled more than a thousand rubles of their money. For them, he risked his neck and his life twenty times a year, and had lost more horses than their money would buy. But he liked them; he loved the reckless rides at twelve miles an hour, knocking over drivers or running down pedestrians, and racing through Moscow at full speed. He liked hearing the wild, drunken shouts behind him: “Get on! Get on!” when it was already impossible to go faster. He enjoyed cracking his whip on the neck of some peasant already scrambling out of the way. “Real gentlemen!” he thought of them.

Anatole and Dólokhov liked Balagá, too, for his expert driving and his fondness for the same pleasures as theirs. With other clients Balagá bargained, asking twenty-five rubles for a two-hour drive, and rarely drove himself, usually sending his men. But with “his gentlemen” he drove personally and never asked for payment. Only once or twice a year—when he learned from their valets that they had money on hand—would he come by in the morning, perfectly sober, and with a respectful bow, ask them for help. They always had him sit down.

“Help me out, Theodore Iványch, sir,” or “your excellency,” he’d say. “I’m all out of horses. Give me whatever you can so I can go to the fair.”

And Anatole and Dólokhov, if they had money, would give him a thousand or two thousand rubles.

Balagá was a fair-haired, short, snub-nosed peasant of about twenty-seven; red-faced, with a notably thick red neck, sharp little eyes, and a small beard. He wore a fine, dark blue, silk-lined coat of cloth over his sheepskin.

Coming into the room now, he crossed himself, facing the front corner, and approached Dólokhov, offering a small, dark hand.

“Theodore Iványch!” he said, bowing.

“How do you do, friend? Well, here he is!”

“Good day, your excellency!” he said, once again reaching out his hand to Anatole, who had just walked in.

“I say, Balagá,” said Anatole, placing his hands on the man’s shoulders, “do you care about me or not? Eh? Come on, do me a favor…. What kind of horses have you brought? Eh?”

“As your messenger ordered, your special horses,” replied Balagá.

“Well, listen, Balagá! Drive all three to death if you must, but get me there in three hours. Eh?”

“When they’re dead, what will I drive?” said Balagá with a wink.

“Careful, I’ll smash your face in! Stop making jokes!” cried Anatole, suddenly rolling his eyes.

“Why joke?” said the driver, laughing. “As if I’d begrudge my gentlemen anything! As fast as the horses can run, that’s how fast we’ll go!”

“Ah!” said Anatole. “Well, sit down.”

“Yes, sit down!” said Dólokhov.

“I’ll stand, Theodore Iványch.”

“Sit down; nonsense! Have a drink!” said Anatole, filling a large glass of Madeira for him.

The driver’s eyes lit up at the sight of the wine. After politely refusing at first, he drank it and wiped his mouth with a red silk handkerchief he took out of his cap.

“And when do we leave, your excellency?”

“Well…” Anatole glanced at his watch. “We’ll leave right away. Remember, Balagá! You’ll get there in time, right? Eh?”

“That depends on our luck getting started, otherwise why wouldn’t we be there in time?” replied Balagá. “Didn’t we get you to Tver in seven hours? I think you remember that, your excellency?”

“You know, one Christmas I drove from Tver,” Anatole said, smiling at the memory and turning to Makárin, who looked at him in wonder with wide-open eyes. “Will you believe it, Makárka, it took your breath away, the speed we flew at. We ran into a line of loaded sleighs and went right over two of them. Eh?”

“Those were horses!” Balagá continued the story. “That time I had harnessed two young side-horses with the bay in the shafts,” he went on, turning to Dólokhov. “Would you believe it, Theodore Iványch, those horses ran forty miles? I couldn’t hold them, my hands went numb from the sharp frost, so I threw down the reins—‘Take them yourself, your excellency!’ I said, and I just toppled onto the bottom of the sleigh and laid there. There was no point urging them on, there was no stopping them until we arrived. The devils got us there in three hours! Only the near one died from it.”

##  CHAPTER XVII

Anatole left the room and returned a few minutes later wearing a fur coat fastened with a silver belt and a sable cap set at a jaunty angle, which suited his handsome face. After glancing in a mirror and posing before Dólokhov as he had before, he lifted a glass of wine.

“Well, good-bye, Theodore. Thanks for everything and farewell!” said Anatole. “Well, comrades and friends…” he paused for a moment “…of my youth, farewell!” he said, turning to Makárin and the others.

Though they were all accompanying him, Anatole clearly wanted to make this farewell to his friends something emotional and solemn. He spoke slowly, in a loud voice, and puffed out his chest, swaying one leg slightly.

“Everyone take a glass; you too, Balagá. Well, comrades and friends of my youth, we’ve had our fun and lived life to the fullest. Eh? And now, when will we meet again? I am going abroad. We’ve had a good time—now farewell, lads! To our health! Hurrah!…” he shouted, and after draining his glass, he threw it on the floor.

“To your health!” said Balagá, who also finished his glass and wiped his mouth with his handkerchief.

Makárin embraced Anatole, tears in his eyes.

“Ah, Prince, how sorry I am to part from you!

“Let’s go. Let’s go!” cried Anatole.

Balagá started to leave the room.

“No, wait!” said Anatole. “Shut the door; we have to sit down first. That’s how it should be.”

They closed the door and all sat down.

“Now, quick march, lads!” said Anatole, standing up.

Joseph, his valet, handed him his sabretache and saber, and they all went out into the vestibule.

“And where’s the fur cloak?” asked Dólokhov. “Hey, Ignátka! Go to Matrëna Matrévna and ask her for the sable cloak. I know how elopements go,” continued Dólokhov with a wink. “She’ll run out half dead with fright, just in whatever she’s wearing; if you wait at all there’ll be tears and cries of ‘Papa’ and ‘Mamma,’ and she’ll freeze in a minute and want to go back—but you need to wrap her in the fur cloak right away and carry her to the sleigh.”

The valet brought a woman’s fox-lined cloak.

“Fool, I told you the sable one! Hey, Matrëna, the sable!” he shouted, his voice echoing through the rooms.

A beautiful, slim, pale-faced gypsy girl with glittering black eyes and curly blue-black hair, wrapped in a red shawl, ran out carrying a sable mantle over her arm.

“Here, I won’t begrudge it—take it!” she said, clearly afraid of her master but also sad to hand over her cloak.

Dólokhov, without replying, took the cloak, threw it over Matrëna, and wrapped her up in it.

“That’s it,” said Dólokhov, “and then like this!” He turned the collar up around her head, leaving only a bit of her face visible. “And then see?” and he pushed Anatole’s face toward the gap in the collar, through which Matrëna’s brilliant smile shone.

“Well, good-bye, Matrëna,” said Anatole, kissing her. “Ah, my wild days here are over. Say hello to Stëshka for me. All right, good-bye! Good-bye, Matrëna, wish me luck!”

“Well, Prince, may God give you great fortune!” said Matrëna in her gypsy accent.

Two troikas stood at the porch and two young drivers held the horses. Balagá took his seat in the first one, lifting his elbows high and carefully arranging the reins. Anatole and Dólokhov got in with him. Makárin, Khvóstikov, and a valet settled into the other sleigh.

“Well, ready?” asked Balagá.

“Go!” he shouted, winding the reins around his hands, and the troika sped down the Nikítski Boulevard.

“Tproo! Out of the way! Hey!… Tproo!…” Only the shouts of Balagá and the sturdy young fellow on the box could be heard. On the Arbát Square, the troika struck a carriage; something cracked, there were shouts, and the troika raced down Arbát Street.

After turning along Podnovínski Boulevard, Balagá began to slow the horses, then turned back and stopped at the intersection of old Konyúsheny Street.

The young fellow on the box jumped down to hold the horses, and Anatole and Dólokhov walked along the pavement. When they got to the gate, Dólokhov whistled. The whistle was answered, and a maidservant hurried out.

“Come into the courtyard or you’ll be seen; she’ll be out soon,” she said.

Dólokhov stayed by the gate. Anatole followed the maid into the courtyard, turned a corner, and ran up to the porch.

He was met by Gabriel, Márya Dmítrievna’s huge footman.

“Come to the mistress, please,” said the footman in his deep bass, blocking any escape.

“To what Mistress? Who are you?” Anatole asked in a breathless whisper.

“Please come in, my orders are to bring you in.”

“Kurágin! Come back!” shouted Dólokhov. “It’s a trap! Back!”

Dólokhov, after Anatole had entered, remained by the wicket gate and struggled with the yard porter, who was attempting to lock it. With a final desperate effort, Dólokhov pushed the porter aside, and when Anatole ran back, grabbed him by the arm, pulled him through the wicket, and together they raced back to the troika.

##  CHAPTER XVIII

Márya Dmítrievna, having found Sónya crying in the corridor, made her confess everything, and, intercepting the note intended for Natásha, read it before going into Natásha’s room with it in hand.

“You shameless good-for-nothing!” she said. “I won’t hear a word from you.”

Pushing Natásha back—who looked at her with astonished but tearless eyes—she locked her in. After ordering the yard porter to admit the people coming that evening but not let them out again, and telling the footman to bring them up to her, she seated herself in the drawing room to await the supposed abductors.

When Gabriel came to report that the men who had arrived had run away again, she stood up, frowning, and, clasping her hands behind her back, walked through the rooms for a long time, considering what to do. Near midnight, she went to Natásha’s room, fingering the key in her pocket. Sónya was sitting outside, sobbing in the corridor. “Márya Dmítrievna, for God’s sake, let me in to her!” she pleaded, but Márya Dmítrievna unlocked the door and entered without replying…. “Disgusting, abominable… In my house… horrible girl, hussy! I only pity her father!” she thought, trying to restrain her anger. “As hard as it is, I’ll make everyone hold their tongues and hide it from the count.” She entered the room decisively. Natásha was lying on the sofa, her head buried in her hands, just as Márya Dmítrievna had left her before.

“A fine girl! Very nice!” said Márya Dmítrievna. “Arranging meetings with lovers in my house! No use pretending: you listen when I speak to you!” Márya Dmítrievna touched her arm. “Listen! You’ve disgraced yourself like the worst of hussies. I’d treat you differently, but I feel sorry for your father, so I’ll cover it up.”

Natásha didn’t change position, but her whole body shook with silent, convulsive sobs that choked her. Márya Dmítrievna looked at Sónya, then sat down on the sofa next to Natásha.

“It’s lucky for him he got away from me; but I’ll find him!” she said in her rough voice. “Do you hear what I’m saying or not?” she added.

She put her large hand under Natásha’s face and turned it toward her. Both Márya Dmítrievna and Sónya were shocked at how Natásha looked. Her eyes were dry and shining, her lips pressed tight, her cheeks sunken.

“Leave me alone!… What does it matter to me?… I shall die!” Natásha muttered, pulling away from Márya Dmítrievna’s hands with a fierce effort and sinking back into her former position.

“Natalie!” said Márya Dmítrievna. “I want what’s best for you. Lie still, stay like that then, I won’t touch you. But listen. I won’t tell you how guilty you are—you know that already. But when your father comes back tomorrow, what am I to tell him? Eh?”

Again Natásha’s body shook with sobs.

“What if he finds out, and your brother, and your fiancé?”

“I have no fiancé: I have refused him!” cried Natásha.

“All the same,” continued Márya Dmítrievna. “If they hear about this, will they ignore it? Your father, I know him… if he challenges him to a duel, will that be all right? Eh?”

“Oh, leave me alone! Why did you interfere at all? Why? Why? Who asked you to?” shouted Natásha, sitting up on the sofa and glaring angrily at Márya Dmítrievna.

“But what did you want?” cried Márya Dmítrievna, growing angry again. “Were you kept locked away? Who kept him from coming to the house? Why abduct you as if you were some traveling gypsy singer?… Even if he had taken you away… did you think they wouldn’t have found him? Your father, or brother, or fiancé? And he’s a scoundrel, a wretch—that’s a fact!”

“He is better than any of you!” Natásha exclaimed, getting up. “If you hadn’t interfered… Oh, my God! What is all this? What is it? Sónya, why?… Get out!”

She burst into sobs with the desperate intensity of someone mourning a disaster they feel responsible for. Márya Dmítrievna was about to speak again, but Natásha cried out:

“Go away! Go away! You all hate and despise me!” and she threw herself back onto the sofa.

Márya Dmítrievna continued to admonish her for some time, instructing her that everything must be kept from her father and assuring her that no one would know anything if only Natásha promised to forget it all and not let on that something had happened. Natásha did not respond, nor did she sob anymore, but she became cold and started to shiver. Márya Dmítrievna placed a pillow under her head, covered her with two quilts, and brought her some lime-flower water herself, but Natásha didn’t respond.

“Well, let her sleep,” said Márya Dmítrievna as she left the room, assuming Natásha was asleep.

But Natásha wasn’t sleeping; her pale face and wide, fixed eyes stared straight ahead. All night she neither slept nor cried and didn’t speak to Sónya, who got up several times to check on her.

The next day, Count Rostóv returned from his estate near Moscow in time for lunch, as promised. He was in great spirits; the transaction with the buyer was progressing well, and nothing kept him in Moscow any longer, away from the countess whom he missed. Márya Dmítrievna met him and explained that Natásha had been very unwell the day before and that they had called the doctor, but she was better now. Natásha had not left her room that morning. With dry, parched lips and fixed empty eyes, she sat by the window, anxiously watching the people outside and glancing quickly at anyone who entered. She was clearly expecting news from him, expecting he would come or write to her.

When the count came to see her, she turned anxiously at the sound of a man’s footsteps, and then her face returned to its cold, resentful expression. She didn’t even rise to greet him. “What is the matter with you, my angel? Are you ill?” asked the count.

After a moment’s silence, Natásha replied, “Yes, I’m ill.”

In reply to his anxious questions as to why she was so upset and whether anything had happened to her fiancé, she assured him nothing had happened and asked him not to worry. Márya Dmítrievna supported Natásha’s assurance that nothing had happened. From the pretense of illness, his daughter’s distress, and the anxious faces of Sónya and Márya Dmítrievna, the count saw clearly that something had happened during his absence. But it was so awful for him to believe anything shameful could have happened to his beloved daughter, and he so valued his own cheerful peace of mind, that he avoided further questions and tried to convince himself that nothing significant had occurred—only feeling frustrated that her illness delayed their return to the country.

##  CHAPTER XIX

From the day his wife arrived in Moscow, Pierre had been planning to leave—just to get away from her. Shortly after the Rostóvs came to Moscow, Natásha's effect on him pushed him to finally carry out this plan. He went to Tver to see Joseph Alexéevich’s widow, who had long promised to give him some papers belonging to her late husband.

When Pierre returned to Moscow, he received a letter from Márya Dmítrievna asking him to visit her about a very serious matter concerning Andrew Bolkónski and his fiancée. Pierre had been avoiding Natásha because he felt his feelings for her were stronger than what was proper for a married man toward his friend's fiancée. Yet fate seemed to constantly bring them together.

“What could have happened? And why do they want me?” he wondered as he got dressed to go to Márya Dmítrievna’s. “If only Prince Andrew would come quickly and marry her!” he thought on his way to the house.

On the Tverskóy Boulevard, a familiar voice called out to him.

“Pierre! Back long?” someone shouted. Pierre looked up. In a sleigh drawn by two gray trotting horses, which were sending up snow onto the dashboard, Anatole and his ever-present companion Makárin sped past. Anatole sat upright in the classic pose of a military dandy, the lower part of his face hidden in his beaver collar, his head slightly bent. His face was fresh and rosy, and his white-plumed hat, tilted at an angle, showed off his curled, pomaded hair dusted with snow.

“Yes, that’s a true sage,” thought Pierre. “He sees nothing beyond the pleasure of the moment, nothing troubles him, so he’s always cheerful, content, and calm. What wouldn’t I give to be like him!” Pierre thought enviously.

In Márya Dmítrievna’s entryway, the footman who helped Pierre out of his fur coat told him the mistress wanted him to come to her bedroom.

When Pierre opened the ballroom door, he saw Natásha sitting at the window, her face thin, pale, and bitter. She glanced at him, frowned, and left the room with a look of cold dignity.

“What’s happened?” Pierre asked as he entered Márya Dmítrievna’s room.

“Quite the situation!” Dmítrievna answered. “In fifty-eight years of life, I’ve never seen anything so disgraceful!”

And after making Pierre promise not to repeat anything she told him, Márya Dmítrievna informed him that Natásha had broken off her engagement to Prince Andrew without telling her parents, and that the cause was Anatole Kurágin, into whose company Pierre’s wife had pushed her, and with whom Natásha had attempted to elope while her father was away, intending a secret marriage.

Pierre shrugged and listened in astonishment, barely able to believe what he heard. That Prince Andrew’s beloved fiancée—Natásha Rostóva, once so charming—would give up Bolkónski for that fool Anatole, who was already secretly married (as Pierre knew), and love him enough to run away with him, was beyond Pierre’s comprehension.

He couldn’t reconcile the wonderful impression he held of Natásha, whom he’d known since childhood, with this new view of her as base, foolish, and cruel. He thought of his own wife. “They’re all the same!” he told himself, reflecting that he wasn’t the only man unlucky enough to be tied to a bad woman. And yet, he pitied Prince Andrew deeply and sympathized with his wounded pride; the more he pitied his friend, the more contempt and even disgust he felt for Natásha, who had just passed him in the ballroom with such cold dignity. He didn’t realize that Natásha’s soul was filled with despair, shame, and humiliation, and that her face looked calm and severe by mere chance.

“But how could they marry?” said Pierre, in response to Márya Dmítrievna. “He can’t marry her—he’s already married!”

“Things are getting worse by the hour!” exclaimed Márya Dmítrievna. “What a scoundrel! And she’s still expecting him—she’s been waiting since yesterday. She needs to know! Then at least she’ll stop waiting.”

After hearing the details about Anatole's marriage from Pierre, and expressing her outrage at Anatole, Márya Dmítrievna explained why she had sent for Pierre. She was afraid that the count or Bolkónski, who might arrive at any time, would discover the affair (which she hoped to keep from them) and challenge Anatole to a duel. So she asked Pierre to tell his brother-in-law, in her name, to leave Moscow immediately and never appear before her again. Only now, realizing the real danger to the old count, Nicholas, and Prince Andrew, Pierre promised to do as she wished. After clearly and briefly stating her wishes, she sent him to the drawing room.

“Remember, the count knows nothing. Act as if you know nothing, too,” she said. “And I’ll go tell her there’s no point waiting for him! Stay for dinner if you wish!” she called after Pierre.

Pierre met the old count, who seemed anxious and upset. That morning, Natásha had told him that she had turned down Bolkónski.

“Trouble, trouble, my dear fellow!” the count said to Pierre. “So much trouble with these girls without their mother! How I regret coming here…. Let me be honest. Have you heard she broke off her engagement without telling anyone? It's true, I was never that fond of the match. He is a good man, but with his father's disapproval, they wouldn't have been happy, and Natásha will never lack for suitors. Still, it went on so long and to end it without her father or mother’s consent! And now she’s ill, and no one knows why! It’s so hard, Count, hard to manage daughters when their mother's away….”

Pierre saw the count was deeply troubled and tried to change the subject, but the count kept returning to his worries.

Sónya entered the room, looking anxious.

“Natásha isn't feeling well; she’s in her room and wants to see you. Márya Dmítrievna is with her and asks you to come too.”

“Yes, you’re a close friend of Bolkónski’s, so she probably wants to send him a message,” said the count. “Oh dear! Oh dear! How happy everything once was!”

And clutching the few gray hairs at his temples, the count left the room.

When Márya Dmítrievna told Natásha that Anatole was married, Natásha refused to believe it and insisted Pierre confirm it himself. Sónya told Pierre this as she led him down the corridor to Natásha’s room.

Natásha, pale and stern, sat beside Márya Dmítrievna, her feverish eyes locking onto Pierre the moment he entered. She neither smiled nor nodded, but only stared at him, her gaze asking a single question: was he a friend, or like the others, Anatole’s enemy? To Pierre, it was clear he didn’t exist for her otherwise.

“He knows everything,” said Márya Dmítrievna, gesturing to Pierre and addressing Natásha. “Let him tell you if I spoke the truth.”

Natásha looked from one to the other as a wounded animal eyes the approaching dogs and hunters.

“Natálya Ilyníchna,” Pierre began, lowering his gaze as pity for her mixed with loathing for what he had to do, “whether it’s true or not shouldn’t matter to you, because…”

“Then it’s not true that he’s married!”

“Yes, it’s true.”

“Has he been married long?” she asked. “On your honor?…”

Pierre gave his word of honor.

“Is he still here?” she asked quickly.

“Yes, I have just seen him.”

She was clearly unable to speak and gestured for them to leave her alone.

##  CHAPTER XX

Pierre did not stay for dinner, but left the room and went away immediately. He drove through the town searching for Anatole Kurágin, whose very thought now sent his blood rushing and made it hard to breathe. Anatole was not at the ice hills, nor with the gypsies, nor at Komoneno’s. Pierre went to the Club. There, everything was as usual. The members gathering for dinner sat in groups, greeted Pierre, and chatted about town news. The footman, knowing Pierre’s habits and friends, told him there was a seat saved for him in the small dining room and that Prince Michael Zakhárych was in the library, but Paul Timoféevich had not arrived yet. As Pierre discussed the weather with an acquaintance, the man asked if he had heard about Kurágin’s supposed abduction of Rostóva, which everyone was gossiping about, and whether it was true. Pierre laughed and dismissed it as nonsense, saying he had just come from the Rostóvs’. He asked everyone about Anatole. One man told him Anatole hadn’t arrived, another that he was expected for dinner. Pierre found it strange to see this calm, indifferent crowd while such turmoil roiled inside him. He wandered through the ballroom, waited until everyone had gathered, and since Anatole never appeared, Pierre did not stay for dinner but went home.

Anatole, whom Pierre was seeking, had dinner that day with Dólokhov, discussing how to fix the unfortunate situation. Anatole felt it essential to see Natásha. That evening he went to his sister’s to plan with her how to arrange a meeting. When Pierre returned home after searching all over Moscow in vain, his valet told him that Prince Anatole was with the countess. The countess’s drawing room was full of guests.

Without greeting his wife—whom he had not seen since his return and, at that moment, found more repulsive than ever—Pierre entered the drawing room and, seeing Anatole, went straight to him.

“Ah, Pierre,” said the countess, approaching her husband. “You don’t know what trouble our Anatole…”

She broke off, noticing in the thrust of her husband’s head, his glowing eyes, and his determined stride, the dreadful signs of that anger and strength she remembered from his duel with Dólokhov.

“Where you are, there is vice and evil!” Pierre said to his wife. “Anatole, come with me! I must speak to you,” he added in French.

Anatole glanced at his sister and got up obediently, ready to follow Pierre. Pierre took him by the arm, pulled him closer, and began leading him out of the room.

“If you allow yourself in my drawing room…” whispered Hélène, but Pierre did not respond and left the room.

Anatole followed with his usual jaunty walk but his face showed anxiety.

Once in his study, Pierre closed the door and spoke to Anatole without looking at him.

“You promised Countess Rostóva to marry her and were planning to elope with her, isn’t that true?”

*“Mon cher,”* answered Anatole (the whole conversation was in French), “I don’t consider myself obliged to answer questions asked in that tone.”

Pierre’s already pale face contorted with fury. He grabbed Anatole by the collar of his uniform with his large hand and shook him violently until Anatole looked visibly terrified.

“When I say that I must talk to you!…” Pierre repeated.

“Come now, this is foolish. What?” said Anatole, fiddling with a button on his collar that had been torn loose with a bit of the fabric.

“You’re a scoundrel and a blackguard, and I don’t know what keeps me from smashing your head with this!” Pierre said, using stilted language as he spoke in French.

He picked up a heavy paperweight and raised it threateningly, but then set it back on the desk.

“Did you promise to marry her?”

“I… I didn’t think of it. I never promised, because…”

Pierre cut him off.

“Do you have any letters from her? Any letters?” he asked, moving toward Anatole.

Anatole glanced at him, then quickly reached into his pocket and took out his pocketbook.

Pierre took the letter Anatole handed to him, shoved aside a table that was in his way, and threw himself on the sofa.

“I won’t be violent, don’t worry!” Pierre said, responding to Anatole’s frightened gesture. “First, the letters,” he said, as if repeating a lesson to himself. “Second,” he added after a short pause, getting up again and pacing the room, “tomorrow you must leave Moscow.”

“But how can I?…”

“Third,” Pierre continued, ignoring him, “you must never breathe a word about what happened between you and Countess Rostóva. I know I can’t stop you, but if you have any conscience at all…” Pierre paced the room silently for a while.

Anatole sat at a table, frowning and biting his lips.

“After all, you must understand that besides your own pleasure, other people’s happiness and peace exist—that you’re ruining an entire life just to amuse yourself! Amuse yourself with women like my wife—there you’re within your rights, because they know what to expect from you. They are protected by their own experience with depravity. But to promise to marry a *maiden*… to deceive, to kidnap her… Don’t you see that it’s as low as beating an old man or a child?”

Pierre stopped and looked at Anatole, no longer with anger but with a questioning expression.

“I don’t know about that, eh?” said Anatole, regaining some confidence as Pierre calmed down. “I don’t know that, and I don’t want to,” he said, not meeting Pierre’s eyes and with a slight tremor in his jaw, “but the words you’ve used to me—‘mean’ and so on—as a man of honor, I can’t allow anyone to use those about me.”

Pierre stared at him in bewilderment, unable to grasp his meaning.

“Even though it was tête-à-tête,” Anatole continued, “still I can’t…”

“Do you want satisfaction?” Pierre said ironically.

“You could at least take back your words. What? If you want me to do as you ask, eh?”

“I take them back, I take them back!” Pierre said. “And I ask you to forgive me.” Pierre’s eyes drifted involuntarily to the torn button. “And if you need money for your journey…”

Anatole smiled. That contemptible, fawning smile—which Pierre recognized so well from his wife—repulsed him.

“Oh, vile and heartless brood!” he exclaimed, and left the room.

The next day Anatole left for Petersburg.

##  CHAPTER XXI

Pierre went to Márya Dmítrievna’s house to tell her that her wish was fulfilled—Kurágin was being banished from Moscow. The whole house was in a state of alarm and upheaval. Natásha was very ill; as Márya Dmítrievna confided to him, she had poisoned herself the night after learning Anatole was married, using arsenic she had secretly obtained. After swallowing a little, she became so frightened that she woke Sónya and confessed what she had done. The necessary antidotes were given in time, and now she was out of danger, but so weak it was impossible to move her to the country. The countess had been sent for. Pierre saw the distraught count, and Sónya with tear-stained cheeks, but he was not allowed to see Natásha.

That day, Pierre dined at the club and everywhere heard gossip about Rostóva’s attempted abduction. He adamantly denied these rumors, assuring everyone that nothing had happened except that his brother-in-law had proposed and been refused. Pierre felt it was his duty to conceal the entire affair and restore Natásha’s reputation.

He was dreading Prince Andrew’s return and went daily to the old prince's for news of him.

Old Prince Bolkónski heard every rumor circulating in town from Mademoiselle Bourienne, and had read Natásha’s letter to Princess Mary breaking off the engagement. He seemed in better spirits than usual and was awaiting his son with great impatience.

A few days after Anatole’s departure, Pierre received a note from Prince Andrew announcing his arrival and inviting Pierre to visit him.

As soon as he arrived in Moscow, Prince Andrew had received from his father Natásha’s letter to Princess Mary ending the engagement (Mademoiselle Bourienne had stolen it from Princess Mary and given it to the old prince), and from him also heard the story of Natásha’s planned elopement, with embellishments.

Prince Andrew arrived in the evening, and Pierre visited him the next morning. Pierre expected to find Prince Andrew in a state similar to Natásha’s, and so was surprised, upon entering the drawing room, to hear him speaking animatedly in the study about a political intrigue in Petersburg. The old prince’s voice and another interrupted him occasionally. Princess Mary came out to greet Pierre. She sighed, glancing at the study door, clearly intending to show her sympathy for her brother’s grief, but Pierre could see by her face that she was pleased both by what had happened and by how well her brother had taken Natásha’s betrayal.

“He says he expected it,” she remarked. “I know his pride won’t let him show his feelings, but still, he has taken it far better than I imagined. Evidently it was inevitable….”

“But is it possible that everything is truly over?” Pierre asked.

Princess Mary looked at him in surprise. She couldn’t understand how he could even ask.

Pierre entered the study. Prince Andrew, greatly changed and evidently healthier, but with a new deep horizontal crease on his brow, stood in civilian clothes facing his father and Prince Meshchérski, engaged in an energetic argument. They were discussing Speránski—the news of whose sudden exile and supposed treachery had just reached Moscow.

“Now he’s condemned and blamed by all those who were praising him just a month ago,” Prince Andrew was saying, “and by those who never understood what he was doing. It’s easy to judge a man who’s fallen out of favor and to blame him for the mistakes of others. But I insist, if anything good has been done in this reign, it was due to him, to him alone.”

He paused at seeing Pierre. His face trembled and quickly assumed a harsh expression.

“History will judge him fairly,” he finished, then turned directly to Pierre.

“Well, how are you? Still getting stouter?” he asked animatedly, though the new crease on his forehead deepened. “Yes, I’m well,” he replied to Pierre’s inquiry, and smiled.

To Pierre that smile clearly meant: “I’m healthy, but my health no longer matters to anyone.”

After briefly discussing the terrible roads from the Polish frontier, acquaintances in Switzerland who knew Pierre, and about M. Dessalles, whom he’d brought from abroad to tutor his son, Prince Andrew again energetically joined the discussion about Speránski with the two older men.

“If there were any treason or proof of secret dealings with Napoleon, it would have come out,” he said passionately. “I never liked Speránski personally, but I value justice!”

Pierre now recognized in his friend a need he knew all too well—to get absorbed in arguments about unrelated topics, hoping to suppress thoughts that were too painful, too personal. When Prince Meshchérski left, Prince Andrew took Pierre by the arm and led him to his room. A bed was set up there, open trunks and bags scattered about. Prince Andrew went to one, took out a small casket, and drew from it a packet wrapped in paper. He did this quickly and without a word. He stood, coughing, his face dour, lips pressed tight.

“Forgive me for troubling you….”

Pierre saw Prince Andrew was about to speak of Natásha, and his broad face showed pity and sympathy. This annoyed Prince Andrew, and in a firm, clear, slightly harsh tone, he continued:

“I have received a refusal from Countess Rostóva and have heard tales of your brother-in-law seeking her hand, or something along those lines. Is that true?”

“It’s both true and not true,” Pierre began, but Prince Andrew cut him off.

“Here are her letters and her portrait,” he said.

He picked up the packet and handed it to Pierre.

“Give this to the countess… if you see her.”

“She’s very ill,” Pierre said.

“She’s still here then?” asked Prince Andrew. “And Prince Kurágin?” he added quickly.

“He left long ago. She has been at death’s door.”

“I regret her illness,” said Prince Andrew, and he smiled coldly, maliciously, unpleasantly—just like his father.

“So Monsieur Kurágin did not honor Countess Rostóva with his hand?” Prince Andrew said, snorting a few times.

“He could not marry her—he was already married,” Pierre explained.

Prince Andrew gave a disagreeable laugh, again reminiscent of his father.

“And where is your brother-in-law now, if I may ask?” he said.

“He went to Peters... But I’m not sure,” said Pierre.

“Well, it doesn’t matter,” said Prince Andrew. “Tell Countess Rostóva that she was, and is, completely free, and that I wish her everything good.”

Pierre took the packet. Prince Andrew, as if trying to remember if he had more to say, or waiting to see if Pierre would, stared fixedly at him.

“I say, do you remember our talk in Petersburg?” Pierre asked, “about…”

“Yes,” said Prince Andrew quickly. “I said a fallen woman should be forgiven, but I never said I could forgive her. I can’t.”

“But can this be compared…?” Pierre began.

Prince Andrew interrupted him and exclaimed sharply, “Yes, ask for her hand again, be magnanimous, and so on?… Yes, that would be very noble, but I can’t follow in that gentleman’s footsteps. If you want to be my friend, never speak to me about that… about any of it! Well, good-bye. So you’ll give her the packet?”

Pierre left the room and went to see the old prince and Princess Mary.

The old man seemed more energetic than usual. Princess Mary was her usual self, but beneath her sympathy for her brother, Pierre noticed she was somewhat pleased that the engagement had ended. Looking at them, Pierre realized just how much contempt and animosity they all felt towards the Rostóvs, and that it was impossible even to mention the name of the one who could give up Prince Andrew for anyone else in their presence.

At dinner, the conversation turned to the war, whose approach was becoming obvious. Prince Andrew talked endlessly, arguing now with his father, now with the Swiss tutor Dessalles, and showing an unnatural excitement—the reason for which Pierre understood all too well.

##  CHAPTER XXII

That same evening, Pierre went to the Rostóvs’ to carry out the task entrusted to him. Natásha was in bed, the count was at the club, and after handing the letters to Sónya, Pierre went to see Márya Dmítrievna, who was eager to know how Prince Andrew had taken the news. Ten minutes later, Sónya came to Márya Dmítrievna.

“Natásha insists on seeing Count Peter Kirílovich,” she said.

“But how? Are we to bring him up to her? The room hasn’t been tidied up.”

“No, she’s gotten dressed and gone into the drawing room,” Sónya replied.

Márya Dmítrievna just shrugged her shoulders.

“When will her mother return? She’s worried me to death! Now, mind, don’t tell her everything!” she said to Pierre. “One hasn’t the heart to scold her, she is so much to be pitied, so much to be pitied.”

Natásha was standing in the middle of the drawing room—thin, pale, but not at all ashamed as Pierre had expected. When he appeared in the doorway, she became anxious, clearly unsure whether to go to him or wait for him to approach.

Pierre hurried to her. He thought she would give him her hand as usual, but as she stepped up to him, she stopped, breathing heavily, her arms hanging lifelessly—the same pose she took when she walked to the center of the ballroom to sing, but now with an entirely different expression.

“Peter Kirílovich,” she began quickly, “Prince Bolkónski was your friend— is your friend,” she corrected herself. (It seemed to her that everything from before had to be different now.) “He told me once to turn to you…”

Pierre sniffed as he looked at her, but said nothing. Until now, he had quietly blamed her and tried to despise her, but now he felt so sorry for her that there was no more room in his heart for reproach.

“He’s here now: tell him… to for… forgive me!” she stopped and breathed even faster, but didn’t cry.

“Yes… I’ll tell him,” Pierre replied, “but…”

He didn’t know what else to say.

Natásha was obviously alarmed by what he might think she meant.

“No, I know it’s all over,” she said quickly. “No, it can never be. I’m only tormented by the wrong I’ve done him. Tell him only that I beg him to forgive, forgive, forgive me for everything….”

She trembled all over and sat down on a chair.

A compassion Pierre had never felt before overflowed in his heart.

“I’ll tell him, I’ll tell him everything again,” Pierre said. “But… I’d like to know one thing….”

“What?” Natásha’s eyes asked.

“I’d like to know, did you love…” Pierre didn’t know how to refer to Anatole and blushed at the thought—“did you love that bad man?”

“Don’t call him bad!” said Natásha. “But I don’t know, I don’t know at all….”

She began to cry, and an even deeper sense of pity, tenderness, and affection filled Pierre. He felt the tears slip under his spectacles and hoped no one noticed.

“We won’t talk about it anymore, my dear,” said Pierre, and his soft, warm tone suddenly seemed very odd to Natásha.

“We won’t talk about it, my dear—I’ll tell him everything; but I beg you, consider me your friend, and if you ever need help, advice, or simply someone to open your heart to—not now, but when you’re feeling clearer—think of me!” He took her hand and kissed it. “I’ll be happy if I can…”

Pierre grew embarrassed.

“Don’t talk to me like that. I don’t deserve it!” Natásha exclaimed and turned to leave, but Pierre kept hold of her hand.

He sensed he had more to say to her. But when he spoke, he was surprised by his own words.

“Wait, wait! You have your whole life ahead of you,” he told her.

“My life? No! It’s all over for me,” she replied, full of shame and self-abasement.

“All over?” he repeated. “If I were not myself, but the handsomest, cleverest, and best man in the world, and were free, I would this very moment ask on my knees for your hand and your love!”

For the first time in many days, Natásha wept tears of gratitude and tenderness, and glancing at Pierre, she left the room.

When she had gone, Pierre too almost ran into the anteroom, suppressing tears of tenderness and joy, and without finding the sleeves of his fur cloak, threw it on and climbed into his sleigh.

“Where to now, your excellency?” the coachman asked.

“Where to?” Pierre wondered. “Where can I go now? Surely not to the Club or to pay calls?” All men seemed so pitiful, so small, compared to this feeling of tenderness and love he now felt—compared to the softened, grateful, last look Natásha had given him through her tears.

“Home!” said Pierre, and despite a temperature of twenty-two degrees below zero Fahrenheit, he threw open the bearskin cloak from his broad chest and breathed the air with joy.

The night was clear and cold. Above the dirty, poorly lit streets and black roofs stretched the dark, starry sky. Only when he looked up at the sky did Pierre stop feeling how sordid and humiliating all earthly things were compared to the heights his soul had just reached. At the entrance to the Arbát Square, an immense stretch of dark sky met his eyes. Almost in its center, above the Prechístenka Boulevard, surrounded and sprinkled everywhere by stars but distinguished by how close it was to earth, its white light, and its long raised tail, the enormous and brilliant comet of 1812 shone—the comet said to foretell every kind of calamity and the end of the world. For Pierre, however, this comet with its long, shining tail brought no fear. On the contrary, he looked up joyfully, his eyes wet with tears, at the bright comet which, after speeding through the unimaginable vastness of space, now seemed, like an arrow, to stand still in a chosen spot, holding its tail upright, shining and displaying its white light among countless other sparkling stars. It seemed to Pierre that this comet expressed exactly what was happening in his own softened and uplifted soul, now blossoming into new life.

##  BOOK NINE: 1812

##  CHAPTER I

From the end of 1811, the arming and concentration of Western Europe’s forces intensified, and in 1812, these forces—millions of men, counting those who transported and fed the army—moved from west to east, toward the Russian frontier. Since 1811, Russian forces had likewise been gathering there. On June 12, 1812, the armies of Western Europe crossed the Russian border and war began—an event that defies human reason and nature. Millions of men committed against each other countless crimes, deceptions, betrayals, thefts, forgeries, production of counterfeit money, burglaries, arson, and murders—more than are recorded in all the law courts of the world over centuries—yet those who committed them did not at the time consider them crimes at all.

What caused this extraordinary event? What were its true reasons? Historians tell us, with naïve certainty, that the causes were the wrongs done to the Duke of Oldenburg, the failure to observe the Continental System, Napoleon’s ambition, Alexander’s firmness, the mistakes of diplomats, and so on.

So, if only Metternich, Rumyántsev, or Talleyrand, between a reception and an evening party, had taken more care and written a cleverer note, or if Napoleon had simply written to Alexander, “My respected Brother, I agree to restore the duchy to the Duke of Oldenburg,” then there would have been no war.

We can understand that contemporaries saw it that way. Naturally it seemed to Napoleon that the war was caused by England’s schemes (as he said on St. Helena). To the English Parliament, the cause of the war was Napoleon’s ambition; to the Duke of Oldenburg, it was the violence done to him; to businessmen, it was the Continental System destroying Europe; to generals and veterans, the main reason was the need to give them employment; to legitimists of the day, it was the need to restore *les bons principes*; and to diplomats, that everything came from the fact that the alliance between Russia and Austria in 1809 was not well hidden from Napoleon, and from clumsy wording in Memorandum No. 178. Naturally these—and countless other reasons, depending on the endless variety of perspectives—presented themselves to those people. But to us, to descendants who can see the event in all its immensity and understand its plain and terrible meaning, these reasons seem insufficient. It is impossible to comprehend that millions of Christian men killed and tortured each other just because Napoleon was ambitious, Alexander was firm, England’s policy was clever, or the Duke of Oldenburg was wronged. We cannot see the connection between these circumstances and the fact of killing and destruction: why, because a Duke was wronged, thousands of men from faraway Europe should kill and ruin the people of Smolensk and Moscow, and die themselves.

To us, their descendants, who are not historians involved in the minutiae of research, and who can look at the event with clear common sense, a limitless number of causes appear. The deeper we search for these causes, the more we find. Each separate cause, or series of causes, seems just as valid in itself—and just as insignificant compared to the scale of the events—and just as powerless, without the cooperation of all the other contributing factors, to produce the outcome. To us, the willingness or refusal of a single French corporal to serve a second term seems as much a cause as Napoleon’s refusal to withdraw his troops beyond the Vistula and to return the duchy of Oldenburg; for if he had not wanted to serve, and if a second, third, or a thousand corporals and privates also refused, Napoleon’s army would have had fewer men and the war might not have happened.

Had Napoleon not taken offense at the demand to withdraw beyond the Vistula, and not ordered the advance, there would have been no war; but if all his sergeants had refused a second term, there would have been no war either. Nor would the war have happened without English intrigues, or without the Duke of Oldenburg, or if Alexander had not felt insulted, or if Russia was not under autocracy, or if the French Revolution and its resulting dictatorship and Empire had not occurred, or if whatever led to the French Revolution had not happened, and so forth. Only with each of these causes could it happen. So all these reasons—a multitude of reasons—came together to bring it about. Thus, there was not one cause for the event; it had to happen because it had to. Millions of men, putting aside their human feelings and reason, had to move from west to east and kill their fellows, just as centuries earlier, masses of people moved from east to west and did the same.

The actions of Napoleon and Alexander, on whom the event seemed to depend, were no more voluntary than those of any soldier conscripted or drawn by lot into the campaign. It could not have been otherwise, because for the will of Napoleon and Alexander (which seemed to dictate events) to be carried out, a host of conditions had to converge, any one of which, missing, would have prevented it. It required that millions of people, who actually held the power—the soldiers who fired, transported supplies and cannons—agreed to carry out the wishes of these relatively powerless individuals, having been persuaded by an endless variety of causes.

We are forced to turn to fatalism to explain irrational events—events whose logic escapes us. The more we try to explain such events in history by reason, the more unreasonable and incomprehensible they appear.

Each person lives for themselves, using their freedom to achieve their own aims, and feels, deep down, that at each moment they can choose whether or not to act; but as soon as an action is done, at a particular instant in time, it becomes impossible to undo, and now belongs to history—not as a free act, but as something destined.

There are two sides to every person’s life: their individual life, which is freer the more abstract its interests, and their collective life, in which they must inevitably obey laws set for them.

Man lives consciously for himself, but unconsciously serves as an instrument for the historic, universal aims of humanity. An act done is unchangeable, and its outcome—coinciding in time with the actions of millions of others—takes on historic meaning. The higher a person stands on the social ladder, the more people are connected to and directed by him, the more obvious the predestination and inevitability of every action becomes.

“The king’s heart is in the hands of the Lord.”

A king is a slave of history.

History—the unconscious, collective life of humanity—uses every moment of a king’s life as a tool for its own purposes.

Even though at that time, in 1812, Napoleon was more convinced than ever that it depended on him, *verser (ou ne pas verser) le sang de ses peuples*—as Alexander phrased it in the last letter he wrote him—Napoleon had never in fact been more under the grip of inevitable laws, which forced him, even as he thought he was acting freely, to do what “hive life,” that is, history, required.

*To shed (or not to shed) the blood of his peoples.*

The people of the west moved eastwards to kill their fellow men, and by the law of coincidence, thousands of causes, big and small, came together to make that movement and war: charges around ignoring the Continental System, the Duke of Oldenburg’s wrongs, the movement of troops into Prussia meant (as Napoleon thought) only to secure an armed peace, the Emperor’s taste and habit for war matching his people’s inclinations, the allure and cost of preparations and the need to gain something to pay for those costs, the intoxicating honors Napoleon received in Dresden, diplomatic negotiations carried on with apparent sincerity but that only wounded the pride of both sides, and millions of other causes that fit or coincided with the unfolding events.

When a ripe apple falls, why does it fall? Is it because it’s drawn by gravity, because its stem withers, because the sun dries it, because it gets heavier, because the wind shakes it, or because the boy below wants to eat it?

None of these are “the” cause. All these things are only the coinciding conditions in which all living, organic, and elemental events occur. The botanist who says the apple falls because its tissue decomposes is just as right as the child who says it falls because he wanted it and prayed for it. Equally right—or equally wrong—is the person who says Napoleon went to Moscow because he wanted to, and was defeated because Alexander wanted his destruction, and the man who says a million-ton hill collapsed because the last laborer struck it one last time with his pick. In historic events, so-called great men are only labels for the events, and like labels they have but minimal connection with the event itself.

Every deed that appears to them as their own will is, in the historical sense, involuntary and only relates to the larger course of history, predestined for all time.

##  CHAPTER II

On May 29, Napoleon left Dresden, where he had spent three weeks surrounded by a court that included princes, dukes, kings, and even an emperor. Before departing, Napoleon showed favor to the emperor, kings, and princes who deserved it, reprimanded those he found wanting, gave pearls and diamonds (which he himself had taken from other kings) to the Empress of Austria, and, as his historian relates, tenderly embraced Empress Marie Louise—who thought of him as her husband, though he had left another wife in Paris—thus leaving her deeply saddened by a parting she could hardly bear. Even though the diplomats still firmly believed in the possibility of peace and worked energetically toward it, and even though Emperor Napoleon himself wrote to Alexander, addressing him as *Monsieur mon frère* and sincerely assuring him that he did not want war and would always love and honor him—still, he set out to join his army, and at every stop gave new orders to hasten the eastward movement of his troops. He traveled in a coach drawn by six horses, surrounded by pages, aides-de-camp, and an escort, along the road to Posen, Thorn, Danzig, and Königsberg. In each of these towns, thousands welcomed him with excitement and enthusiasm.

The army moved from west to east, and relays of six horses carried him in the same direction. On June 10,* having caught up with the army, he spent the night in quarters prepared for him on the estate of a Polish count in the Vilkavisski forest.

\* Old style.

The next day, overtaking the army, he rode in a carriage to the Niemen and, changing into a Polish uniform, went to the riverbank to select a place for the crossing.

Seeing, on the far side, some Cossacks *(les Cosaques)* and the vast steppes where lay the holy city of Moscow *(Moscou, la ville sainte)*, capital of a land like the Scythia that Alexander the Great had once entered—Napoleon unexpectedly, and against both strategic and diplomatic considerations, ordered an advance, and the next day his army began crossing the Niemen.

Early on the morning of June 12, he came out of his tent, which was pitched that day on the steep left bank of the Niemen, and looked through a spyglass at the streams of his troops pouring out of the Vilkavisski forest and over the three bridges built across the river. The soldiers, knowing the Emperor was there, searched for him, and when they spotted a man in an overcoat and cocked hat standing away from his suite in front of his tent on the hill, they tossed their caps and shouted, *“Vive l’Empereur!”* One after another, they poured in a nonstop stream out from the great forest that had concealed them and, splitting up, moved over the three bridges to the far side.

“Now we’ll see action. Oh, when he takes charge himself, things get hot… by heaven!… There he is!… *Vive l’Empereur!* So these are the steppes of Asia! Nasty country, though. *Au revoir*, Beauché; I’ll save the finest palace in Moscow for you! *Au revoir*. Good luck!… Did you see the Emperor? *Vive l’Empereur!*—If they make me Governor of India, Gérard, I’ll make you Minister of Kashmir—that’s agreed. *Vive l’Empereur!* Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah! The Cossacks—those rascals—see how they run! *Vive l’Empereur!* There he is, you see him? I’ve seen him twice, just like I see you now. The little corporal… I saw him giving a cross to a veteran…. *Vive l’Empereur!*” came the voices, old and young, from men of all manner of backgrounds and classes. All had the same expression—joy at the opening of the long-awaited campaign, and rapturous devotion to the man in the gray coat on the hill.

On June 13, a rather small, thoroughbred Arab horse was brought to Napoleon. He mounted and galloped to one of the bridges over the Niemen, continually surrounded by eager and wild cheers that he clearly endured only because it was impossible to prohibit the soldiers from expressing their affection for him in such a manner—but the shouting, which followed him everywhere, disturbed and distracted him from the military tasks that had absorbed him since joining the army. He crossed one of the swaying pontoon bridges to the far side, turned sharply left, and raced toward Kovno, led by delighted mounted chasseurs of the Guard who, breathless with excitement, rushed ahead to clear the way through the troops. When he reached the wide River Viliya, he stopped near a regiment of Polish Uhlans stationed by the river.

*“Vivat!”* shouted the Poles in ecstasy, breaking ranks to get a look at him.

Napoleon glanced up and down the river, dismounted, and sat on a log at the bank. At a silent signal, a telescope was passed to him, which he set on the back of a pleased page who rushed up, and he looked across to the far bank. Then he focused on a map spread out on the logs. Without lifting his head, he said something, and two aides-de-camp quickly rode off to the Polish Uhlans.

“What? What did he say?” people asked in the ranks as the aide-de-camp rode up.

The order was to find a ford and cross the river. The colonel of the Polish Uhlans, a distinguished old man, flushed and stammered with excitement as he asked the aide-de-camp if he could be allowed to swim across with his Uhlans instead of looking for a ford. Anxious that he might be refused, like a boy begging to ride a horse, he asked to swim across in front of the Emperor. The aide-de-camp replied that the Emperor would probably not be displeased by such zeal.

As soon as the aide-de-camp said this, the mustached old officer, beaming and eyes shining, raised his saber, exclaimed *“Vivat!”* and, ordering his Uhlans to follow, spurred into the river. He jabbed his restive horse and plunged into the swift current, heading for the deepest water. Hundreds of Uhlans followed. It was cold and eerie in the torrent, and the Uhlans grabbed onto each other as they fell off their horses. Some horses drowned; some men did too; the rest tried to swim onward—some still in the saddle, some clinging to their horses’ manes. They forced their way to the far bank, and even though a ford was only a third of a mile away, they prided themselves on swimming (and drowning) in front of the man on the log, who was not even watching. When the aide-de-camp, returning and finding a suitable moment, pointed out the Poles’ devotion to the Emperor, the little man in the gray coat stood up and, calling Berthier over, paced up and down with him on the riverbank, giving orders and occasionally glancing with displeasure at the drowning Uhlans who distracted him.

Napoleon was no longer surprised that his presence anywhere—from Africa to the steppes of Russia—was enough to stun people and make them perform insane acts of self-forgetfulness. He called for his horse and headed to his quarters.

About forty Uhlans drowned in the river, though boats were sent to rescue them. Most struggled back to the original bank. The colonel and some men made it across and with effort climbed out on the far side. As soon as they stood on the bank, shivering and wet, they shouted *“Vivat!”* and looked with ecstasy at the place where Napoleon had been—though he was already gone—and at that moment they considered themselves lucky.

That evening, between ordering that fake Russian banknotes be quickly distributed for use in Russia, and ordering the execution of a Saxon, who had been caught with a letter containing information about French army orders, Napoleon also directed that the Polish colonel who had led the reckless river crossing be inducted into the *Légion d’honneur*, of which Napoleon was the head.

*Quos vult perdere dementat.* \*

\* Those whom (God) wishes to destroy, he drives mad.

##  CHAPTER III

The Emperor of Russia had, meanwhile, been in Vílna for over a month, reviewing troops and overseeing maneuvers. Nothing was ready for the war that everyone expected and for which the Emperor had come from Petersburg to prepare. There was no clear plan of action. The indecision among the various proposed plans had only grown worse after the Emperor had been at headquarters for a month. Each of the three armies had its own commander in chief, but there was no overarching leader for all the forces, and the Emperor did not take on that role himself.

The longer the Emperor stayed in Vílna, the less prepared everyone seemed—people grew tired of waiting and lost motivation to get ready for the war. All the efforts of those around the sovereign seemed focused solely on keeping him entertained and helping him forget that war was imminent.

In June, after many balls and festivities hosted by Polish nobles, by courtiers, and by the Emperor himself, it occurred to one of the Polish aides-de-camp that the aides-de-camp should host a dinner and ball for the Emperor. The idea was eagerly embraced. The Emperor approved. The aides-de-camp pooled money through subscriptions. The woman considered most pleasing to the Emperor was invited to serve as hostess. Count Bennigsen, being a landowner in the Vílna province, offered his country house for the party, and June 13 was chosen for a ball, dinner, regatta, and fireworks at Zakret, Count Bennigsen’s estate.

On the very day Napoleon gave the order to cross the Niemen, and his vanguard drove off the Cossacks and crossed the Russian border, Alexander spent the evening at the event held by his aides-de-camp at Bennigsen’s country house.

It was a lively and dazzling event. Connoisseurs said that rarely had so many beautiful women gathered in one place. Countess Bezúkhova was there among other Russian ladies who had come with the sovereign from Petersburg to Vílna, and her imposing, so-called Russian type of beauty outshined the refined Polish ladies. The Emperor noticed her and honored her by inviting her to dance.

Borís Drubetskóy, who had left his wife in Moscow and was for the time *en garçon* (as he put it), was also present and, although not an aide-de-camp, had contributed a large amount to the expenses. Borís was now a wealthy man who had risen to great honors and no longer sought patrons—he stood on equal footing with the highest men of his age. He was seeing Hélène again in Vílna after not having met her for a long while, and he didn’t think of the past. Since Hélène was enjoying the attention of an important personage and Borís was recently married, they met as old friends.

By midnight, the dancing continued. Hélène, not having a suitable partner, herself asked Borís to dance the mazurka with her. They were the third couple. Borís, calmly looking at Hélène’s striking bare shoulders as she emerged from a dark, gold-embroidered, gauze dress, talked with her about old acquaintances while, without realizing it himself and unnoticed by others, he never stopped observing the Emperor, who was in the same room. The Emperor was not dancing; he stood in the doorway, pausing now one couple and then another with gracious remarks that only he knew how to deliver.

As the mazurka began, Borís saw that Adjutant General Balashëv, one of the Emperor’s closest attendants, went up to him and, against court etiquette, stood near him as he spoke to a Polish lady. Finishing his conversation with her, the Emperor gave Balashëv a questioning look and, apparently understanding that Balashëv was acting unusually for good reason, nodded slightly to the lady and turned to him. No sooner had Balashëv started to speak than a look of surprise appeared on the Emperor’s face. He took Balashëv by the arm and crossed the room with him, unconsciously clearing a wide path as everyone made way. Borís noticed Arakchéev’s tense expression when the sovereign went out with Balashëv. Arakchéev eyed the Emperor from beneath his brows and, sniffling with his red nose, stepped forth from the crowd as if expecting the Emperor to address him. (Borís realized that Arakchéev envied Balashëv and was annoyed that such important news had reached the Emperor through someone other than himself.)

But the Emperor and Balashëv passed out into the brightly lit garden, not noticing Arakchéev, who, clutching his sword and glaring around angrily, followed about twenty paces behind.

All the while Borís was performing the mazurka, he wondered what news Balashëv had brought and how he could find out before anyone else. In the figure where he had to pick two ladies, he whispered to Hélène that he meant to choose Countess Potocka, whom he believed had stepped onto the veranda, and glided over the parquet to the door into the garden. There, seeing Balashëv and the Emperor returning to the veranda, he paused. They were approaching the door. Borís, flustered as if he hadn’t had time to slip away, respectfully pressed himself against the doorframe with bowed head.

The Emperor, visibly upset as if personally insulted, was finishing with these words:

“To enter Russia without declaring war! I will not make peace as long as a single armed enemy remains in my country!” Borís thought it pleased the Emperor to say these words. He seemed content with how he had phrased his thoughts, but displeased that Borís had overheard.

“Let no one know of it!” the Emperor added, frowning.

Borís understood this was directed at him and, closing his eyes, bowed his head. The Emperor returned to the ballroom and stayed there about half an hour longer.

Thus, Borís was first to learn that the French army had crossed the Niemen and, because of this, managed to show certain important people that he was often aware of things hidden from others, which raised him further in their estimation.

The unexpected news of the French army crossing the Niemen was especially shocking after a month of unmet expectations, and for it to happen during a ball. Upon hearing it, driven by anger and outrage, the Emperor came up with a phrase that satisfied him and perfectly expressed his feelings—one that later became famous. On returning home at two in the morning, he summoned his secretary, Shishkóv, and ordered him to write an order to the troops and a rescript to Field Marshal Prince Saltykóv, insisting that the text include that he would not make peace as long as a single armed Frenchman was on Russian soil.

The next day, the following letter was sent to Napoleon:

*Monsieur mon frère,*

Yesterday I learned that, despite the loyalty with which I have kept my agreements with Your Majesty, your forces have crossed the Russian frontier, and I have just received from Petersburg a note in which Count Lauriston states, as the reason for this aggression, that Your Majesty has regarded yourself as being in a state of war with me since Prince Kurákin requested his passports. The reasons which the Duc de Bassano gave for refusing to issue them would never have led me to believe that such a thing could be used as a pretext for aggression. In fact, the ambassador himself has said that he was never authorized to make that request, and as soon as I heard of it I let him know how much I disapproved and told him to stay at his post. If Your Majesty does not wish the blood of our peoples to be shed over such a misunderstanding, and agrees to withdraw your troops from Russian territory, I will treat what has happened as if it never occurred and an understanding between us will still be possible. Otherwise, Your Majesty, I will be forced to repel an attack that nothing on my part has provoked. It is still up to Your Majesty to spare humanity the disaster of another war.

I am, etc.,

(signed) Alexander

##  CHAPTER IV

At two in the morning on the fourteenth of June, the Emperor called for Balashëv, read him his letter to Napoleon, and ordered him to deliver it personally to the French Emperor. When dispatching Balashëv, the Emperor repeated to him that he would not make peace as long as a single armed enemy remained on Russian soil, instructing him to pass those words on to Napoleon. Alexander did not include this phrase in his letter to Napoleon; with his characteristic tact, he sensed it was unwise to put it in writing during a final attempt at reconciliation, but he made sure Balashëv would repeat it personally to Napoleon.

Having left in the early hours of the fourteenth, accompanied by a bugler and two Cossacks, Balashëv reached the French outposts at the village of Rykónty, on the Russian side of the Niemen, by dawn. There, French cavalry sentinels stopped him.

A French noncommissioned hussar officer, dressed in a crimson uniform and a shaggy cap, called out to Balashëv to halt as he approached. Balashëv did not stop immediately, but continued advancing along the road at walking speed.

The noncommissioned officer frowned and, muttering curses, rode his horse up to Balashëv, put his hand on his saber, and rudely shouted at the Russian general, asking if he was deaf for not following orders. Balashëv announced who he was. The noncommissioned officer then spoke with his comrades about regimental matters, ignoring the Russian general.

After residing at the center of authority and power, having conversed with the Emperor less than three hours earlier, and being accustomed to the respect accorded to his rank, Balashëv found it strange to encounter such hostility—and, even more, such disrespectful use of brute force—against himself here on Russian soil.

The sun was just peeking out from behind the clouds; the air was fresh and dewy. A herd of cattle was being driven along the road from the village, and across the fields larks were rising, trilling one after another like bubbles in water.

Balashëv glanced around, waiting for an officer from the village to appear. The Russian Cossacks and bugler and the French hussars looked at each other in silence from time to time.

A French colonel of hussars, who appeared to have just left his bed, rode from the village on a handsome, sleek gray horse, accompanied by two hussars. The officer, his soldiers, and their horses all looked smart and well groomed.

It was that opening period of a campaign when troops are still in full trim—almost like during peacetime maneuvers—but with an extra touch of martial swagger in their attire, and a bit of the high spirits and adventurous energy that always mark the start of a campaign.

The French colonel stifled a yawn, but was polite and clearly recognized Balashëv’s importance. He led him past his soldiers and the outposts, saying that Balashëv's request to see the Emperor would likely be granted at once, as the Emperor's quarters were probably not far away.

They rode through the village of Rykónty, passing tethered French hussar horses, sentinels, and soldiers who saluted the colonel and looked with curiosity at the Russian uniform, and soon exited the other side of the village. The colonel mentioned that the commander of the division was about a mile and a quarter away, and would receive Balashëv and then take him to his destination.

By now the sun was up, shining cheerfully on the bright greenery.

They had barely ridden up a hill past a tavern when they saw a group of horsemen coming toward them. At the head of the group, on a black horse decked with glittering trappings in the sunlight, rode a tall man with plumes in his hat and black hair curling onto his shoulders. He wore a red mantle and stretched his long legs out in the French manner. This man rode toward Balashëv at a gallop, his plumes flying and his jewels and gold lace glinting in the bright June light.

Balashëv was scarcely two horse lengths from the equestrian decked in bracelets, plumes, necklaces, and gold embroidery, galloping toward him with a theatrically solemn expression, when Julner, the French colonel, respectfully whispered: “The King of Naples!” It was, in fact, Murat, now called “King of Naples.” Though it was completely unclear why he was King of Naples, that was his title, and he was firmly convinced of it, so he adopted an even grander and more important manner than before. He was so certain he truly was the King of Naples that when, on the eve of his departure from that city, while walking the streets with his wife, some Italians called out to him: *“Viva il re!”*\* he turned to his wife with a pensive smile and said, “Poor fellows, they don’t know I’m leaving tomorrow!”

\* “Long live the king.”

But even though he fully believed himself King of Naples and felt sorry for the grief of the people he was leaving, recently, after being ordered to return to military service—and especially after his latest meeting with Napoleon in Danzig, when his august brother-in-law had told him, “I made you King that you should reign in my way, not yours!”—he cheerfully returned to his old duties. Like a well-fed but not over-fat horse that feels itself in harness and becomes frisky between the shafts, he dressed in the most colorful and expensive clothes possible, and galloped cheerfully and happily along the roads of Poland, not really knowing why or where he was headed.

When he spotted the Russian general, he tossed back his head—with its long curls to the shoulders—in a majestic royal manner and looked at the French colonel for explanation. The colonel respectfully informed His Majesty about Balashëv’s mission, though he couldn't pronounce the name.

“De Bal-machève!” said the King (his confidence overcoming the colonel's difficulty). “Charmed to make your acquaintance, General!” he added, making a gesture of kingly graciousness.

But as soon as the King started speaking loudly and quickly, his royal dignity vanished, and without realizing it, he slipped into his natural good-natured, familiar manner. He put his hand on Balashëv’s horse’s withers and said:

“Well, General, it all looks like war,” as though regretting a situation he couldn't control.

“Your Majesty,” replied Balashëv, “my master, the Emperor, does not desire war, and as Your Majesty sees…” said Balashëv, carefully using the phrase *Your Majesty* at every chance, with the exaggerated politeness that comes with repeatedly addressing someone to whom the title is still unfamiliar.

Murat’s face glowed with foolish satisfaction as he listened to “Monsieur de Bal-machève.” But *royauté oblige!*\* and he felt it his duty as a king and ally to discuss state matters with Alexander’s envoy. He dismounted, took Balashëv’s arm, and moved a few steps away from his suite, who waited respectfully, and began to pace with him, trying to sound important. He mentioned that Emperor Napoleon had taken offense at the demand to remove his troops from Prussia, particularly since the request became public knowledge and the dignity of France was thereby slighted.

\* “Royalty has its obligations.”

Balashëv replied that “there was nothing offensive in the demand, because…” but Murat interrupted.

“So you don’t see Emperor Alexander as the aggressor?” he asked unexpectedly, with a kindly but foolish smile.

Balashëv explained why he considered Napoleon the instigator of the war.

“Oh, my dear general!” Murat interrupted again, “With all my heart I hope the Emperors settle this matter between them, and that this war—which began through no wish of mine—ends as quickly as possible!” he said, in the tone of a servant eager to stay friendly with a peer despite a quarrel between their masters.

He then moved on to ask after the Grand Duke and his health, and to reminisce about the pleasant, amusing times he had spent with him in Naples. Suddenly, as if remembering his royal dignity, Murat struck a solemn pose—the one he had used at his coronation—waved his right arm and said:

“I won’t keep you longer, General. I wish your mission success,” and, cloaked in his embroidered red mantle, his feathers streaming, and his dazzling ornaments sparkling, he returned to his suite, who awaited him respectfully.

Balashëv continued on, assuming from Murat’s words that he would soon be brought before Napoleon himself. Instead, at the next village, the sentinels of Davout’s infantry corps detained him, just as the previous pickets had, and an adjutant of the corps commander was summoned to escort him into the village to Marshal Davout.

##  CHAPTER V

Davout was to Napoleon what Arakchéev was to Alexander—though unlike Arakchéev, he was no coward; he was just as meticulous, just as harsh, and just as unable to show his loyalty to his monarch except through cruelty.

In the structure of states, men like this are necessary, just as wolves are necessary in the balance of nature; they always exist, always appear and maintain their place, no matter how inappropriate their presence seems so close to the head of government. Only this inevitability can explain how the cruel Arakchéev, who once tore out a grenadier’s mustache with his own hands, whose weak nerves prevented him from facing danger, and who was neither educated nor a courtier, managed to keep his powerful position with Alexander, whose own nature was chivalrous, noble, and gentle.

Balashëv found Davout sitting on a barrel in the shed of a peasant’s hut, doing paperwork—he was auditing accounts. Better quarters could have been found for him, but Marshal Davout was one of those people who deliberately place themselves in the most dismal conditions to have an excuse for being sullen. For the same reason, they always stay busy and in a hurry. “How can I think of the cheerful side of life when, as you see, I’m sitting on a barrel working in a filthy shed?” his expression seemed to say. The chief pleasure and need of such men, when they encounter someone showing any liveliness, is to assert their own grim, relentless activity. Davout indulged that pleasure when Balashëv was brought in. He immersed himself even more deeply in his work as the Russian general entered, and after peering over his spectacles at Balashëv’s face—brightened by the beauty of the morning and his talk with Murat—he didn’t rise or even move, but only scowled more and sneered malevolently.

When he noticed the displeasure on Balashëv’s face at this chilly reception, Davout raised his head and asked coldly what he wanted.

Thinking that he could have only been received like this because Davout didn’t know that he was adjutant general to Emperor Alexander and even his envoy to Napoleon, Balashëv quickly mentioned his rank and his mission. Contrary to what he expected, Davout became even more surly and rude after hearing him.

“Where is your dispatch?” he demanded. “Give it to me. I’ll send it to the Emperor.”

Balashëv replied that he had been ordered to deliver it personally to the Emperor.

“Your Emperor’s orders are followed in your army, but here,” said Davout, “you must do as you’re told.”

And, as if to make the Russian general feel even more sharply his reliance on brute force, Davout sent an adjutant to call for the officer on duty.

Balashëv took out the packet containing the Emperor’s letter and placed it on the table (made out of a door with its hinges still attached, placed across two barrels). Davout picked up the packet and read the inscription.

“You are entirely free to treat me with respect or not,” protested Balashëv, “but I must point out that I have the honor to be adjutant general to His Majesty….”

Davout looked at him in silence and clearly took pleasure from the agitation and confusion on Balashëv’s face.

“You will be treated as is fitting,” he said, and, putting the packet in his pocket, left the shed.

A minute later, the marshal’s adjutant, de Castrès, entered and led Balashëv to the quarters assigned to him.

That day he dined with the marshal, at the same improvised table set atop barrels.

Next day Davout rode out early, and after asking Balashëv to come to him, peremptorily ordered him to stay put, to move out with the baggage train if it received marching orders, and to speak to no one but Monsieur de Castrès.

After four days of isolation, boredom, and a sense of powerlessness and insignificance—even more acute in contrast with the influence he had so recently enjoyed—and after several marches with the marshal’s baggage train and the French army, which occupied the entire district, Balashëv was finally brought to Vílna—now held by the French—through the very gate by which he had left it four days earlier.

The following day, the imperial gentleman-in-waiting, the Comte de Turenne, came to Balashëv and notified him that Emperor Napoleon wished to grant him an audience.

Just four days earlier, sentinels from the Preobrazhénsk regiment had stood guard in front of the house to which Balashëv was now led, and now two French grenadiers stood there in blue uniforms left unbuttoned in front and with shaggy caps on their heads, along with an escort of hussars and Uhlans and a splendid retinue of aides-de-camp, pages, and generals, all waiting for Napoleon to appear, gathered around his saddle horse and his Mameluke, Rustan. Napoleon received Balashëv in the very house in Vílna from which Alexander had sent him out on his mission.

##  CHAPTER VI

Although Balashëv was accustomed to imperial grandeur, he was astonished by the luxury and magnificence of Napoleon’s court.

The Comte de Turenne led him into a large reception room where many generals, gentlemen-in-waiting, and Polish nobles—several of whom Balashëv had seen at the Russian Emperor’s court—were waiting. Duroc informed him that Napoleon would receive the Russian general before going for his ride.

After a few minutes, the duty gentleman-in-waiting entered the great reception room and, bowing courteously, asked Balashëv to follow him.

Balashëv went into a small reception room, with one door leading into a study—the very one from which the Russian Emperor had sent him on his mission. He stood for a minute or two, waiting. He heard hurried footsteps beyond the door; both halves were opened quickly. All was silent, and then from the study came the sound of other steps, firm and resolute—they were Napoleon’s. He had just finished dressing for his ride and wore a blue uniform, open in front over a long white waistcoat that covered his round stomach, white leather breeches fitting tightly over the thick thighs of his short legs, and Hessian boots. His short hair had clearly just been brushed, but a lock hung down in the middle of his broad forehead. His plump white neck was well defined above the black collar of his uniform, and he smelled of Eau de Cologne. His full face, which looked rather youthful and had a prominent chin, bore a gracious and majestic expression of imperial welcome.

He entered briskly, moving with a slight jerk at every step and his head a bit thrown back. His whole short, stout figure with broad thick shoulders, chest, and stomach protruding, had that imposing and dignified presence seen in men of forty who live comfortably. It was also clear that he was in excellent spirits that day.

He nodded in response to Balashëv’s deep and respectful bow, and, approaching him immediately, began speaking like someone who values every moment and who never bothers to prepare his words, confident he will always say the right thing and say it well.

“Good day, General!” he said. “I have received the letter you brought from Emperor Alexander and am very glad to see you.” He glanced with his large eyes at Balashëv’s face and instantly looked past him.

It was clear that Balashëv’s personality did not interest him at all. Obviously, only what happened within *his own* mind mattered to him. Nothing outside himself seemed significant, because everything in the world, he believed, depended entirely on his will.

“I do not, and did not, want war,” he continued, “but it has been forced on me. Even *now*” (he emphasized the word) “I am ready to hear any explanations you can offer.”

And he began to state clearly and concisely his reasons for being dissatisfied with the Russian government. Judging by the calm, moderate, and cordial tone in which the French Emperor spoke, Balashëv was firmly convinced that he wanted peace and wished to begin negotiations.

When Napoleon finished speaking and looked questioningly at the Russian envoy, Balashëv began the speech he had prepared ahead of time: “Sire! The Emperor, my master…” but the sight of the Emperor’s eyes on him made him falter. “You are anxious—compose yourself!” Napoleon seemed to say, as with a barely noticeable smile he looked at Balashëv’s uniform and sword.

Balashëv regained his composure and began to speak. He said that Emperor Alexander did not regard Kurákin’s request for his passports as a valid cause for war; that Kurákin had acted on his own initiative and without his sovereign’s approval; that Emperor Alexander did not want war and had no relations with England.

“Not *yet!*” interrupted Napoleon, and, as if restraining his emotions, he frowned and gave a slight nod signaling Balashëv to continue.

After stating all he had been instructed to say, Balashëv added that Emperor Alexander wanted peace but would not begin negotiations except on the condition that… Here Balashëv hesitated, remembering the words Emperor Alexander had not written in his letter but had specially included in the rescript to Saltykóv and instructed Balashëv to repeat to Napoleon. Balashëv recalled the words, “So long as a single armed foe remains on Russian soil,” but some complicated feeling held him back. He could not bring himself to say them, even though he wanted to. He became embarrassed and said, “On condition that the French army withdraws beyond the Niemen.”

Napoleon noticed Balashëv’s unease as he said these last words; his face twitched and the calf of his left leg began to quiver rhythmically. Without moving from where he stood he began to speak louder and faster than before. During this speech, Balashëv, who several times lowered his gaze, could not help but notice the quivering of Napoleon’s left leg, which increased as Napoleon’s voice rose.

“I want peace, no less than Emperor Alexander,” he began. “Have I not spent eighteen months doing everything to achieve it? I have waited eighteen months for explanations. But what is required of me before negotiations can begin?” he asked, frowning and making an emphatic gesture with his small, plump white hand.

“The withdrawal of your army beyond the Niemen, sire,” replied Balashëv.

“The Niemen?” repeated Napoleon. “So now you want me to withdraw beyond the Niemen—just the Niemen?” he repeated, looking directly at Balashëv.

Balashëv bowed his head respectfully.

Instead of the demand, four months earlier, to withdraw from Pomerania, now only a retreat beyond the Niemen was requested. Napoleon turned quickly and began to pace the room.

“You say the demand now is that I retreat beyond the Niemen before starting negotiations, but two months ago it was to withdraw beyond the Vistula and Oder, and even then you were willing to negotiate.”

He walked silently from one corner of the room to the other and stopped again in front of Balashëv. Balashëv saw that his left leg was quivering even faster and his face seemed frozen in a stern expression. This quivering in his left leg was something of which Napoleon was aware. “The vibration of my left calf is a great sign with me,” he remarked at a later time.

“Such demands—to retreat beyond the Vistula and Oder—might be made to a Prince of Baden, but not to me!” Napoleon almost shouted, surprising even himself. “If you gave me Petersburg and Moscow, I could not accept such terms. You claim I started this war! Who gathered their army first? Emperor Alexander, not I! And you offer negotiations after I have spent millions, when you are allied with England, and when your situation is weak. You offer me negotiations! But what is the purpose of your alliance with England? What has she given you?” he continued rapidly, now clearly not trying to show any advantages of peace or discuss its possibility, but only to prove his own rightness and strength and Alexander’s mistakes and duplicity.

The beginning of his speech had obviously been meant to highlight the benefits of his position and to show he was still willing to negotiate. But once he started talking, the more he spoke, the less he could control his words.

Now the whole point of his remarks was clearly to praise himself and insult Alexander—exactly what he had least intended at the start of the conversation.

“I hear you have made peace with Turkey?”

Balashëv bowed affirmatively.

“Peace has been agreed…” he started.

But Napoleon did not let him finish. He clearly wanted to control all the conversation, and kept speaking with the kind of eloquence and unchecked irritability that spoiled people often display.

“Yes, I know you have made peace with the Turks without obtaining Moldavia and Wallachia; I would have given your sovereign those provinces as I gave him Finland. Yes,” he went on, “I promised and would have given Emperor Alexander Moldavia and Wallachia, and now he refuses these splendid provinces. He could have added them to his empire and, in a single reign, extended Russia from the Gulf of Bothnia to the mouths of the Danube. Catherine the Great could not have accomplished more,” Napoleon said, growing increasingly excited as he paced the room, almost repeating to Balashëv the same words he used with Alexander himself at Tilsit. “All that, he would have owed to my friendship. What a splendid reign!” he repeated several times, then paused, pulled a gold snuffbox from his pocket, lifted it to his nose, and took a deep sniff.

“What a splendid reign Emperor Alexander’s *could have been!*”

He looked at Balashëv with pity, and as soon as Balashëv tried to respond, quickly interrupted him.

“What could he want or desire that he wouldn’t have through my friendship?” asked Napoleon, shrugging his shoulders in bewilderment. “But no, he has chosen to surround himself with my enemies, and with whom? With Steins, Armfeldts, Bennigsens, and Wintzingerodes! Stein, a traitor exiled from his own country; Armfeldt, a rake and plotter; Wintzingerode, a former French subject on the run; Bennigsen, more of a soldier than the others, but still incapable—he couldn’t accomplish anything in 1807 and should bring terrible memories to Emperor Alexander’s mind…. Granted, if they were competent, they might be useful,” Napoleon went on—barely able to keep up in words with the rush of thoughts proving how right and strong he was (to him, these were one and the same)—“but they’re not even that! They are fit neither for war nor for peace! Barclay is considered the most capable among them, but I cannot agree, judging by his initial actions. And what are they all doing, these courtiers? Pfuel proposes, Armfeldt contradicts, Bennigsen deliberates, and Barclay, given the duty to act, can’t make up his mind, and time slips by without result. Bagratión alone is a soldier. He’s not bright, but he has experience, a sharp eye, and determination… And what part is your young monarch playing in that bizarre assembly? They undermine him and make him responsible for everything. A sovereign shouldn’t be with the army unless he’s a general!” Napoleon declared, clearly issuing these words as a direct challenge to the Emperor. He knew how much Alexander longed to be a military commander.

“The campaign began only a week ago, and you haven’t even managed to defend Vílna. You’ve been split in two and pushed out of the Polish provinces. Your army is complaining.”

“On the contrary, Your Majesty,” said Balashëv, hardly able to recall what had been said as he struggled to follow Napoleon’s barrage of words, “the troops are burning with eagerness…”

“I know everything!” Napoleon cut him off. “I know everything. I know the number of your battalions as well as I know my own. You do not have two hundred thousand men, and I have three times that number. I give you my word of honor,” Napoleon declared, forgetting that his word of honor could carry no weight—“I give you my word of honor that I have five hundred and thirty thousand men this side of the Vistula. The Turks will be of no help to you; they are worthless, as proven by making peace with you. As for the Swedes—it is their fate to be ruled by insane kings. Their king was mad and they replaced him with another—Bernadotte, who soon went mad—for no Swede would ally himself with Russia unless he were insane.”

Napoleon grinned spitefully and again took snuff.

Balashëv knew how to answer each of Napoleon’s statements and would have done so; repeatedly, he made the gesture of someone about to respond, but Napoleon continuously interrupted him. When Napoleon called the Swedes insane, Balashëv wanted to reply that with Russia on their side, Sweden is essentially an island; but Napoleon drowned out his words with an angry exclamation. Napoleon was in that irritable state where a man has to talk and talk, just to convince himself he’s right. Balashëv began to feel uncomfortable: as envoy, he was reluctant to compromise his dignity and sensed the need to reply; but personally, he shrank from confronting the groundless outburst of anger that had clearly overtaken Napoleon. He recognized that none of Napoleon’s remarks now meant anything, and that Napoleon himself would later be ashamed of them. Balashëv stood with eyes downcast, watching the movements of Napoleon’s stout legs, trying to avoid looking him in the eye.

“But what do I care about your allies?” Napoleon said. “I have allies—the Poles. There are eighty thousand of them and they fight like lions. And soon there will be two hundred thousand of them.”

And likely even more disturbed by the fact that he had just spoken an obvious falsehood, and that Balashëv still stood silently before him in the same posture of resigned submission, Napoleon suddenly turned around, moved close to Balashëv’s face, and, gesticulating rapidly and vigorously with his white hands, nearly shouted:

“Know that if you incite Prussia against me, I’ll erase it from the map of Europe!” he declared, his face pale and distorted with anger, striking one of his small hands energetically with the other. “Yes, I will drive you back beyond the Dvína and beyond the Dnieper, and will reestablish that barrier which it was both foolish and criminal of Europe to permit to fall. Yes, that is what awaits you. That is what you have earned by making me your enemy!” He then walked up and down the room several times in silence, his broad shoulders twitching.

He put his snuffbox into his waistcoat pocket, took it out again, brought it several times to his nose, and stopped in front of Balashëv. Pausing, he looked with irony straight into Balashëv’s eyes and said in a calm voice:

“And yet, what a splendid reign your master *could have had!*”

Balashëv, feeling it necessary to reply, said that from the Russian perspective, things did not appear so grim. Napoleon was silent, still looking at him with mockery and clearly not listening. Balashëv added that in Russia, expectations were high for the war’s outcome. Napoleon nodded condescendingly, as if to say, “I know you must say that, but you don’t believe it yourself. I have persuaded you.”

When Balashëv finished, Napoleon again took out his snuffbox, sniffed at it, and stamped his foot twice on the floor as a signal. The door opened; a gentleman-in-waiting, bowing respectfully, handed the Emperor his hat and gloves. Another brought him a pocket handkerchief. Napoleon, without acknowledging them, turned to Balashëv:

“Assure Emperor Alexander for me,” he said, taking his hat, “that I remain as devoted to him as ever: I know him thoroughly and hold his lofty qualities in the highest esteem. I will detain you no longer, General; you shall receive my letter to the Emperor.”

And Napoleon strode quickly to the door. Everyone in the reception room hurried forward and descended the staircase.

##  CHAPTER VII

After all that Napoleon had said—his outbursts of anger and those last curt words: “I will detain you no longer, General; you shall receive my letter,” Balashëv was certain that Napoleon would not wish to see him again, and would even avoid further contact with him—an offended envoy—especially after he had witnessed such unbecoming anger. But, to his surprise, Balashëv received, through Duroc, an invitation to dine with the Emperor that very day.

Bessières, Caulaincourt, and Berthier were present at that dinner.

Napoleon greeted Balashëv warmly and cheerfully. He showed not the slightest sign of awkwardness or self-reproach about his earlier outburst, but instead seemed eager to put Balashëv at ease. It was clear that Napoleon was firmly convinced he could not be mistaken, and that, in his eyes, whatever he did was right—not because it agreed with any idea of right and wrong, but because *he* did it.

The Emperor was in high spirits after his ride through Vílna, where crowds of people had joyfully greeted and followed him. From every window on the streets through which he rode, rugs, flags, and his monogram were displayed, and the Polish ladies welcomed him, waving their handkerchiefs.

At dinner, with Balashëv seated beside him, Napoleon not only treated him cordially but acted as if Balashëv were one of his own courtiers—someone sympathetic to his plans and expected to celebrate his successes. In conversation, Napoleon asked about Moscow, not merely as an interested traveler asks about a city he intends to see, but as if convinced that Balashëv, as a Russian, must be flattered by his curiosity.

“How many people live in Moscow? How many houses are there? Is it true that Moscow is called ‘Holy Moscow’? How many churches are in Moscow?” he inquired.

And when told there were more than two hundred churches, he remarked:

“Why so many churches?”

“The Russians are very religious,” answered Balashëv.

“But a large number of churches and monasteries always signals a people’s backwardness,” Napoleon said, turning to Caulaincourt for agreement.

Balashëv respectfully disagreed with the French Emperor.

“Every country has its own character,” he said.

“But nowhere else in Europe is there anything like that,” Napoleon replied.

“I beg your Majesty’s pardon,” Balashëv responded, “besides Russia there is Spain, which also has many churches and monasteries.”

This comment from Balashëv, which alluded to the recent French defeats in Spain, was well appreciated when retold at Alexander’s court, though it went unnoticed at Napoleon’s dinner.

The uninterested and confused faces of the marshals suggested they were unsure what Balashëv’s tone implied. “If there was a point, we don’t see it, or it was not at all witty,” their looks seemed to say. So little was his rejoinder appreciated that Napoleon did not notice it and, quite naïvely, asked Balashëv which towns the direct road from there to Moscow passed through. Balashëv, alert throughout the dinner, replied that just as “all roads lead to Rome,” all roads lead to Moscow; there were many, “including the road through *Poltáva*, which Charles XII took.” Balashëv blushed with pleasure at the aptness of his response, but as soon as he mentioned *Poltáva*, Caulaincourt began talking about the poor road from Petersburg to Moscow and about his Petersburg memories.

After dinner, they went to drink coffee in Napoleon’s study, which had, just four days earlier, belonged to Emperor Alexander. Napoleon sat down, fidgeted with his Sèvres coffee cup, and motioned for Balashëv to take a seat beside him.

Napoleon was in that familiar after-dinner mood which, more than any logical reason, makes a man satisfied with himself and inclined to regard everyone as his friend. He felt surrounded by people who adored him; and he was confident that, after his dinner, Balashëv too was now his friend and admirer. Napoleon turned to him with a pleasant, though faintly ironic, smile.

“They tell me this is the room Emperor Alexander used? Strange, isn’t it, General?” he said, clearly assuming this remark would please his listener, since it would prove his—Napoleon’s—superiority to Alexander.

Balashëv said nothing and bowed his head quietly.

“Yes. Four days ago in this room, Wintzingerode and Stein were deliberating,” Napoleon continued, wearing the same mocking and self-assured smile. “What I can’t understand,” he went on, “is why Emperor Alexander has surrounded himself with people who are my personal enemies. That I do not… understand. Does he not see that I could do the same?” He looked questioningly at Balashëv, and it was clear that this thought brought him back to his earlier anger, still fresh in his mind.

“And let him know that I will do just that!” said Napoleon, rising and pushing away his cup. “I’ll drive all his Württemberg, Baden, and Weimar relatives out of Germany… Yes. I’ll drive them all out. Let him prepare asylum for them in Russia!”

Balashëv inclined his head, indicating a desire to take his leave, and listened only because he could not help hearing. Napoleon did not notice this; he treated Balashëv not as an envoy from his enemy, but as a man now fully in his favor, who must be delighted at his former master’s humiliation.

“And why has Emperor Alexander taken command of the armies? What’s the point of that? War is my profession, but his duty is to reign, not to command armies! Why take such a burden on himself?”

Again, Napoleon pulled out his snuffbox, paced the room several times in silence, then suddenly and unexpectedly walked up to Balashëv. With a slight smile—calmly, quickly, and as confidently as if he were doing something both important and agreeable to Balashëv—he reached out and, taking the Russian general (now forty) by the ear, gave it a gentle pull, smiling only with his lips.

To have one’s ear pulled by the Emperor was considered the highest honor and mark of favor at the French court.

“Well, follower and courtier of Emperor Alexander, why are you so quiet?” he said, as if it were absurd, in his presence, to admire anyone but himself, Napoleon. “Are the horses ready for the general?” he added, with a slight nod to Balashëv’s bow. “Let him use mine, he has a *long journey ahead!*”

Or in other words, the conception of a cause is inapplicable to the phenomena we are examining.

##  CHAPTER VIII

After his meeting with Pierre in Moscow, Prince Andrew went to Petersburg, telling his family it was for business, but in reality, he went to confront Anatole Kurágin, whom he felt it necessary to confront. Upon arriving in Petersburg, he looked for Kurágin, but found he had already left the city. Pierre had warned his brother-in-law that Prince Andrew was looking for him. Anatole Kurágin quickly secured an appointment from the Minister of War and went to join the army in Moldavia. While in Petersburg, Prince Andrew met Kutúzov, his former commander, who had always been well-disposed toward him, and Kutúzov suggested that he join him with the army in Moldavia, where the old general had been appointed commander in chief. So Prince Andrew, after receiving an appointment to the headquarters staff, set off for Turkey.

Prince Andrew did not think it proper to write and challenge Kurágin to a duel. He felt that if he did so without fresh cause, it might compromise young Countess Rostóva, so he wanted to see Kurágin in person to find a new pretext for a confrontation. But again he failed to meet Kurágin in Turkey, because soon after Andrew arrived, Kurágin returned to Russia. In a new country, with new circumstances, Prince Andrew found life easier to bear. After his betrothed broke faith with him—which he felt even more strongly the more he tried to hide its effects—the environment in which he had once been happy became intolerable to him, and the freedom and independence he once valued so highly now pressed on him even more. Not only could he no longer think the thoughts that first occurred to him as he lay gazing at the sky at Austerlitz and later shared with Pierre—thoughts that had filled his solitude at Boguchárovo and then in Switzerland and Rome—but he even dreaded recalling them and the vast, bright prospects they had brought. Now, he was concerned only with practical matters unrelated to his former interests, and he seized on these even more eagerly as his former hopes were closed to him. It was as if the lofty, infinite sky that had once stretched above him had become a heavy, low vault pressing down on him—everything clear, but nothing eternal or mysterious.

Of all the activities available to him, army service was the simplest and most familiar. As a general on duty on Kutúzov’s staff, he devoted himself to work with zeal and persistence, surprising Kutúzov with his diligence and precision. Having missed Kurágin in Turkey, Prince Andrew did not feel it necessary to rush back to Russia after him, but he knew, no matter how long it might be before he met Kurágin, despite his contempt for him and all his attempts to convince himself it was beneath him to fight, that when they did meet he would not be able to restrain himself from challenging him—just as a starving man cannot help grabbing at food. And the knowledge that the insult had not been avenged, that his resentment was unspent, weighed on his heart and poisoned the artificial calm he managed to find in Turkey through restless, ambitious, and somewhat vain activity.

In 1812, when news of war with Napoleon reached Bucharest—where Kutúzov had been living for two months, spending his days and nights with a Wallachian woman—Prince Andrew asked Kutúzov to transfer him to the Western Army. Kutúzov, who was by then tired of Bolkónski’s energy, which seemed to reproach his own idleness, gladly let him go and gave him a mission to Barclay de Tolly.

Before joining the Western Army, which in May was encamped at Drissa, Prince Andrew visited Bald Hills, which was directly on his route, only two miles from the Smolénsk highroad. In the last three years there had been so many changes in his life—he had thought, felt, and seen so much (traveling both east and west)—that upon arriving at Bald Hills he was struck by the strange and unexpected way time seemed to have stood still. Passing through the gates with their stone pillars and driving up the avenue to the house felt like entering an enchanted, sleeping castle. The same old dignity, the same cleanliness, the same silence reigned, and inside there was the same furniture, walls, sounds, and smells, and the same timid faces, only somewhat older. Princess Mary was still the same shy, plain woman, needlessly and joylessly spending her best years in fear and constant suffering. Mademoiselle Bourienne was still the coquet, self-satisfied girl, enjoying every moment and full of joyful hope for the future; she had just become more self-confident, Andrew thought. Dessalles, the tutor Prince Andrew had brought from Switzerland, now wore a coat in Russian style and spoke broken Russian to the servants, but was still the same narrow-minded, meticulous, and conscientious instructor. The old prince had changed only in appearance, having lost a tooth that left a visible gap on one side of his mouth; his character was the same, except his irritability and skepticism about the world had increased. Only little Nicholas had changed. He had grown, his cheeks were rosier, his dark hair curled, and, when he laughed, he unconsciously lifted the upper lip of his pretty mouth just like his mother, the little princess, used to. He alone did not follow the law of unchanging order in the enchanted, sleeping castle. But, while everything on the surface stayed the same, the inner relations among these people had changed since Prince Andrew last saw them. The household was now divided into two opposing camps, who changed their habits just for his benefit and met only for his sake. On one side were the old prince, Mademoiselle Bourienne, and the architect; on the other, Princess Mary, Dessalles, little Nicholas, and all the old nurses and maids.

During his stay at Bald Hills, the whole family dined together, but they were uncomfortable and Prince Andrew felt like a visitor for whom an exception was being made and whose presence made everyone awkward. Sensing this during dinner on the first night, he was silent, and the old prince, noticing this, also became grim and soon left for his apartments after dinner. In the evening, when Prince Andrew went to see him and, trying to cheer him up, began telling him about young Count Kámensky’s campaign, the old prince unexpectedly started talking about Princess Mary, blaming her for her superstitions and her dislike of Mademoiselle Bourienne, who, he insisted, was the only one truly devoted to him.

The old prince said if he was ill, it was only because of Princess Mary: that she deliberately worried and irritated him, and that her indulgence and silly talk were spoiling little Nicholas. He was well aware that he tormented his daughter and that her life was very hard, but he also knew he couldn’t help tormenting her, and believed she deserved it. “Why does Prince Andrew, who sees this, say nothing to me about his sister? Does he think me a villain, or an old fool who, for no reason, keeps his own daughter at a distance and attaches this Frenchwoman to himself? He doesn’t understand, so I must explain, and he’ll have to hear me out,” thought the old prince. He began to explain why he couldn’t tolerate his daughter’s unreasonable character.

“If you ask me,” said Prince Andrew, not looking up (for the first time in his life criticizing his father), “I didn’t want to speak about this, but since you ask, I’ll give you my honest opinion. If there’s any misunderstanding or discord between you and Mary, I cannot blame her. I know how much she loves and respects you. Since you ask me,” continued Prince Andrew, growing irritable as he often did lately, “I can only say that if there are misunderstandings, they’re caused by that worthless woman, who isn’t fit to be my sister’s companion.”

The old man at first stared steadily at his son, and an odd smile revealed the new gap in his teeth, which Prince Andrew still wasn’t used to.

“What companion, my dear boy? Eh? You’ve already been talking it over! Eh?”

“Father, I did not want to judge,” said Prince Andrew, his tone hard and bitter, “but you challenged me, and I have said, and always will say, that Mary isn’t to blame, and the one who is to blame is that Frenchwoman.”

“Ah, he has passed judgment… passed judgment!” the old man said quietly, and, it seemed to Andrew, with some embarrassment. But then he suddenly burst out: “Go, go! Don’t leave a trace of yourself here!…”

Andrew wished to leave at once, but Princess Mary convinced him to stay another day. That day he did not see his father, who remained in his rooms and admitted only Mademoiselle Bourienne and Tíkhon, but asked several times whether his son had gone. The next day, before leaving, Prince Andrew went to see his son. The boy, with curly hair like his mother’s and full of health, sat on his knee, and Prince Andrew started to tell him the story of Bluebeard, but fell into a daydream without finishing. He thought not of his pretty child, his son, but of himself. He searched in himself for either remorse for having upset his father, or regret at leaving home for the first time without reconciling with him, and was horrified to find neither. Even more upsetting was that he tried and failed to find the old tenderness for his son he hoped to rekindle by holding the boy on his knee.

“Well, go on!” said his son.

Without replying, Prince Andrew set him down and left the room.

As soon as Prince Andrew abandoned his daily tasks, especially after returning to the life he’d once enjoyed, weariness of life returned as before, and he hurried to escape his memories and find work as soon as possible.

“So you’ve decided to go, Andrew?” his sister asked.

“Thank God that I can,” Prince Andrew replied. “I am very sorry you can’t.”

“Why do you say that?” Princess Mary asked. “Why do you say that, when you’re the one going to this terrible war, and he is so old? Mademoiselle Bourienne says he’s been asking about you….”

As she began to mention this, her lips trembled and she began to cry. Prince Andrew turned away and walked briskly about the room.

“Oh, my God! my God! When you think who and what—what nonsense—can make people miserable!” he said, with a bitterness that frightened Princess Mary.

She understood that by “nonsense” he meant not only Mademoiselle Bourienne, the cause of her suffering, but also the man who had ruined his own happiness.

“Andrew! There’s something I beg, I implore you!” she said, touching his arm and looking at him with eyes shining through tears. “I understand you” (she looked down). “Don’t think sorrow is the work of *men*. Men are His tools.” She gazed a little above Prince Andrew’s head with a confident, accustomed expression, as if looking at the spot where a familiar portrait hangs. “Sorrow is sent by *Him*, not by men. Men are His instruments; they aren’t to blame. If you feel wronged by someone, forget it and forgive! We have no right to punish. Only then will you know the happiness of forgiving.”

“If I were a woman, I would do so, Mary. That is a woman’s virtue. But a man should not, and cannot, forgive and forget,” he said, and though he had not been thinking of Kurágin, all his suppressed anger suddenly surged up in his heart.

“If Mary is already telling me to forgive, then I should have punished him long ago,” he thought. Without another word, he began thinking of the sweet moment of vengeance when he would finally meet Kurágin, who he knew was now in the army.

Princess Mary pleaded with him to remain one more day, saying that she knew how unhappy her father would be if Andrew left without being reconciled with him. But Prince Andrew replied that he would likely be back soon from the army and would certainly write to his father, but that the longer he stayed now the more bitter their conflict would grow.

“Good-bye, Andrew! Remember that misfortunes come from God, and people are never to blame,” were his sister’s last words as he left.

“Then it must be so!” thought Prince Andrew as he drove away down the avenue from Bald Hills. “She, poor innocent soul, is left to be tormented by an old man who has outlived his senses. The old man knows he is guilty, but cannot change. My boy is growing up and is full of joy for a life in which, like everyone, he will either deceive or be deceived. And I am off to the army. Why? I do not even know. I want to meet that man I despise, just to give him a chance to kill and laugh at me!”

All these life circumstances had been the same before, but then they were connected; now they had broken apart. Only meaningless things, without order, presented themselves, one after another, to Prince Andrew’s mind.

##  CHAPTER IX

Prince Andrew arrived at the army’s general headquarters at the end of June. The first army, with the Emperor, occupied the fortified camp at Drissa; the second army was retreating, trying to join with the first after supposedly being cut off by large French forces. Everyone was dissatisfied with how things were progressing in the Russian army, but no one expected the French to invade Russian provinces, nor did anyone think the war would go beyond the western—Polish—regions.

Prince Andrew found Barclay de Tolly, to whom he had been assigned, on the banks of the Drissa. Since there was no town or large village near the camp, the many generals and courtiers with the army were quartered in the best houses of the villages on both sides of the river, across an area stretching six miles. Barclay de Tolly’s quarters were nearly three miles from the Emperor. He received Bolkónski stiffly and coldly and told him, in his foreign accent, that he’d mention him to the Emperor for a job, but for now, he should remain on his staff. Anatole Kurágin, whom Prince Andrew had hoped to find with the army, was not there—he had gone to Petersburg—but Prince Andrew was relieved to hear this. He was preoccupied with the great war effort at its center and was glad for a break from the distraction of thoughts about Kurágin. During the first four days, with no specific tasks, Prince Andrew rode around the entire fortified camp. Using his military knowledge and speaking with experts, he tried to form a clear opinion about it. Yet he couldn’t decide whether the camp was advantageous or not. From past military experience—including the Austrian campaign—he had concluded that carefully worked-out plans meant little in war, and that success depended on handling the enemy’s unexpected movements and on who responded to these events and how they did so. To clarify this last point for himself, Prince Andrew used his connections to investigate the leadership of the army and those involved, arriving at the following understanding of events.

While the Emperor was still in Vílna, the forces were split into three armies. The first was under Barclay de Tolly, the second under Bagratión, and the third under Tormásov. The Emperor was with the first army, but not as commander-in-chief. Orders stated not that the Emperor would take command, but just that he would be with the army. Moreover, the Emperor had with him not a commanding staff but the imperial headquarters staff. With him were the head of the imperial staff, Quartermaster General Prince Volkónski, as well as generals, imperial aides-de-camp, diplomats, and many foreigners, but not the army staff. Additionally, the Emperor was accompanied by men without definite appointments: Arakchéev, the former Minister of War; Count Bennigsen, the senior general in rank; the Grand Duke Tsarévich Constantine Pávlovich; Count Rumyántsev, the Chancellor; Stein, a former Prussian minister; Armfeldt, a Swedish general; Pfuel, who authored the campaign plan; Paulucci, an adjutant general and Sardinian *émigré*; Wolzogen—and others. Although these men held no official military positions, their presence gave them influence, and often a corps commander, or even the commander-in-chief himself, didn’t know in what capacity he was being questioned by Bennigsen, the Grand Duke, Arakchéev, or Prince Volkónski—or whether advice offered was personal or came from the Emperor, and if an order framed as advice had to be obeyed or not. This confusion was only the outward appearance; the real reason for the Emperor’s presence and all these people, from a courtier’s viewpoint (and near an emperor everyone becomes a courtier), was obvious to everyone. Simply put: the Emperor did not take the title of commander-in-chief but controlled all the armies; the people around him were his assistants. Arakchéev enforced order and was the sovereign’s bodyguard. Bennigsen, a local landlord from Vílna province, acted as a host but was actually a competent general and a backup for Barclay. The Grand Duke was there because it pleased him. Stein was present because his advice was valued and the Emperor respected him personally. Armfeldt hated Napoleon and was a general full of self-confidence—a trait that strongly influenced Alexander. Paulucci was present for his boldness and directness. The adjutants general were, as usual, with the Emperor. Most importantly, Pfuel was there because he had drafted the campaign plan against Napoleon and convinced Alexander of its merit, so he directed the whole war effort. Wolzogen was Pfuel’s interpreter, expressing Pfuel’s ideas more clearly than Pfuel himself, who was a strict, bookish theorist, extremely self-confident to the point of dismissing everyone else.

Besides these Russians and foreigners—who presented new and unexpected ideas daily (especially the foreigners, who did so with the boldness of guests working in a country not their own)—many lesser figures followed these leaders because their superiors were there.

Within this vast, restless, brilliant, and proud environment, Prince Andrew saw the following sharply defined groups and viewpoints:

The first group included Pfuel and his followers—military theorists who believed war obeyed fixed scientific laws, like oblique movements or flanking maneuvers. They advocated retreating deep into Russia according to their theory and saw only ignorance, barbarism, or malice in any deviation from it. This party included the foreign nobles—mostly Germans like Wolzogen and Wintzingerode.

The second group was the opposite: for every extreme, there is a reaction. These men wanted to advance from Vílna into Poland and to dispense with elaborate plans. They advocated bold action and were also outspoken nationalists, making them especially one-sided. They were Russians: Bagratión, Ermólov (now coming to prominence), and others. At the time, a famous joke by Ermólov was circulating: as a special favor, he had requested to be made a German. This party, in the spirit of Suvórov, said that one should not overthink or make plans on maps, but fight, beat the enemy, keep him out of Russia, and maintain army morale.

The third group—those the Emperor trusted most—were courtiers trying to find middle ground between the first two camps. Predominantly civilians, including Arakchéev, they said what people without strong beliefs but wishing to appear thoughtful often say: that war, especially against a genius like Bonaparte (as they now called Napoleon), needs deep strategy and scientific planning, so Pfuel was a genius, but theorists are often one-sided. Therefore, both the theorists and their practical opponents should be heard, and a compromise should be found. They supported keeping the camp at Drissa—per Pfuel’s plan—but changing the movements of the other armies. Even though this achieved nothing definite, it seemed best to these men.

The fourth group’s most visible member was the Tsarévich, who could not let go of his disappointment at Austerlitz—where, expecting a parade, he found himself on the front lines and barely escaped in the chaos. People of this party were frank in their opinions, both for better and worse. They feared Napoleon, recognized his strength and their own weakness, and said so openly: “This will bring nothing but grief, shame, and disaster! We’ve already abandoned Vílna and Vítebsk and will leave Drissa. The only sensible option is to make peace as soon as possible, before we’re driven from Petersburg.”

This was a common view in high army circles and was supported in Petersburg and by the chancellor, Rumyántsev, who for his own reasons favored peace.

The fifth party supported Barclay de Tolly—not mainly because of him personally, but as Minister of War and commander-in-chief. “Be he what he may” (they always started that way), “he’s an honest, practical man and we have no one better. Give him real authority—for war needs a single leader—and he’ll prove himself, as he did in Finland. If our army is strong, well organized, and reached Drissa without defeat, it’s thanks to Barclay. If Bennigsen replaces Barclay, all is lost, since Bennigsen failed in 1807.”

The sixth party—the Bennigsenites—claimed there was no one more energetic and experienced than Bennigsen: “No matter what you do, you’ll end up with Bennigsen in charge. Let the others make mistakes!” They argued that the retreat to Drissa was disgraceful and a string of blunders. “The more mistakes, the better, so it’s realized sooner that this can’t continue. What we need isn’t some Barclay, but a man like Bennigsen—recognized by Napoleon in 1807—who has real authority and whom people will follow. Bennigsen is that man.”

The seventh party consisted of those always found around young sovereigns—especially many now surrounding Alexander—generals and aides-de-camp passionately loyal to the Emperor, not just as ruler but as a person. They sincerely adored and unselfishly admired him, as Rostóv had done in 1805, seeing in him all possible virtues and talents. Though they praised him for not seizing command, they criticized his extreme modesty, longing for him to set that aside and lead the army directly. They believed the Emperor, gathering a true staff and consulting both experts and men of experience, should lead the troops himself, boosting morale tremendously.

The eighth and by far the largest group—outnumbering all others—consisted of those who wanted neither peace nor war, neither an advance nor a defensive camp at Drissa or elsewhere, neither Barclay nor the Emperor, neither Pfuel nor Bennigsen, but only the main thing: as much benefit and personal pleasure as possible. In the chaos of schemes swirling around headquarters, a man seeking to keep his comfortable post might agree with Pfuel today, then with his opponents tomorrow, or claim to have no opinion—just to avoid responsibility or curry favor. Another, seeking advancement, would echo whatever the Emperor suggested, argue loudly in council, and make grand gestures to prove self-sacrifice for the public good. A third would, in the confusion between councils, settle personal matters like requesting special rewards for service, knowing officials would be too distracted to refuse. A fourth, pretending to be overwhelmed by duties, would ensure he caught the Emperor’s eye. A fifth, striving simply to dine with the Emperor, would tenaciously argue for or against some idea, producing arguments mainly to secure his invitation.

All these men were seeking rubles, honors, and promotions, following only the winds of imperial favor. As soon as they sensed a shift, the entire mass would push that way, making it even harder for the Emperor to steer things elsewhere. In this climate of uncertainty and looming danger, amid the intrigue, selfishness, conflicting views, and diverse nationalities, this vast eighth party kept the overall aim confused and unclear. With every new issue, this swarm—before the prior debate was even finished—would dive into the next topic, drowning out honest voices with their buzzing.

When Prince Andrew arrived at the army, a new, ninth group was being formed and was beginning to speak up. This was the party of elder statesmen—reasonable, experienced men who could stand apart from all the strife at headquarters and seek a way out of the confusion, indecision, and weakness.

These men argued that the main problem was the Emperor’s presence in the army with his court, and from all the ever-changing, undefined relationships. What was suitable for a court was harmful in an army; a sovereign should reign but not command. The only solution was for the Emperor and court to leave. The Emperor’s presence occupied fifty thousand men just to protect him, and even the worst independent commander-in-chief would be better than the best one hampered by the monarch’s authority.

While Prince Andrew was waiting at Drissa, Shishkóv, the Secretary of State and a leading member of this party, wrote a letter to the Emperor, co-signed by Arakchéev and Balashëv. Taking advantage of the Emperor’s permission to comment on broader affairs, Shishkóv respectfully suggested—on the pretext that the sovereign needed to inspire a warlike spirit in the capital—that the Emperor should leave the army.

That inspiration—the Tsar’s personal appeal for national defense—was the real force behind Russia’s later victory at Moscow; but at this moment, it was offered to the Emperor and accepted as an excuse to quit the army.

##  CHAPTER X

This letter had not yet been given to the Emperor when, at dinner, Barclay told Bolkónski that the sovereign wished to see him, to question him about Turkey, and that Prince Andrew was to come to Bennigsen’s quarters at six that evening.

That same day, the Emperor received reports of a new French movement that might endanger the army—though these warnings later turned out to be false. That morning, Colonel Michaud had ridden around the Drissa fortifications with the Emperor, showing him that the camp designed by Pfuel—previously hailed as a tactical masterpiece capable of defeating Napoleon—was actually a flawed position, threatening the Russian army with disaster.

Prince Andrew arrived at Bennigsen’s quarters—a moderately sized country house on the riverbank. Bennigsen and the Emperor were not there, but Chernýshev, the Emperor’s aide-de-camp, greeted Bolkónski and explained that the Emperor, with Bennigsen and Marquis Paulucci, had gone for another inspection of the Drissa fortifications, whose effectiveness was now being questioned.

Chernýshev was sitting at a window in the front room, reading a French novel. The room, probably once a music room, still had an organ with rugs piled on it, and in a corner was the folding bedstead of Bennigsen’s adjutant, who was there too, half-asleep on the bedding—clearly tired from work or celebration. Two doors led out from the room: one opened into what used to be the drawing room, the other, on the right, to the study. Through the first door came voices, speaking in German and occasionally in French. In that drawing room were gathered, by the Emperor’s request, not an official council of war (he preferred vagueness), but selected individuals whose opinions he wanted regarding current troubles. It was not a council of war, but more like a council to clarify questions for the Emperor personally. Those present included Swedish General Armfeldt; Adjutant General Wolzogen; Wintzingerode (once referred to by Napoleon as a traitorous French subject); Michaud; Toll; Count Stein, who was not a soldier; and Pfuel—the driving force behind it all. Prince Andrew got a good look at Pfuel, who arrived soon after him and, on his way to the drawing room, stopped to speak with Chernýshev.

At first glance, Pfuel, in his ill-fitting Russian general’s uniform, looked familiar to Prince Andrew, though this was their first meeting. He reminded him of Weyrother, Mack, Schmidt, and other German theorist-generals Andrew had met in 1805, only he was the most characteristic of them all. Never before had Prince Andrew met a German theorist who so completely embodied all their qualities.

Pfuel was short and very thin, yet broad-boned and strongly built, with wide hips and prominent shoulder blades. His face was deeply wrinkled and his eyes sunken. His hair seemed hastily smoothed in front, but stuck out in untidy tufts behind. He came in, glancing restlessly and irritably around, as if anxious in the large room. Awkwardly holding his sword, he asked Chernýshev in German where the Emperor was. Clearly, he wanted to get through the rooms quickly, finish with formalities, and settle in front of a map—where he felt in his element. He nodded quickly in reply to Chernýshev and smiled ironically upon hearing that the Emperor was examining the fortifications he, Pfuel, had devised. Muttering to himself in a gruff, bass voice, as self-assured Germans do—perhaps saying “foolish fellow”… or “the whole thing will be ruined,” or “something absurd will result”—Prince Andrew did not catch it and would have moved on, but Chernýshev introduced him, noting that Prince Andrew had just returned from the successful Turkish campaign. Pfuel barely glanced—not so much at Prince Andrew, but past him—and remarked with a laugh, “That must have been a fine tactical war.” He laughed scornfully and entered the next room, where voices could be heard.

Pfuel, usually inclined to sarcastic irritability, was especially upset that day—evidently irritated that anyone would review his camp without him. From this short meeting, and recalling his experiences at Austerlitz, Prince Andrew easily understood the type of man Pfuel was. Pfuel was one of those hopelessly, completely self-confident men—self-assured to the point of martyrdom—in the way only Germans are, believing that their abstract concept—science, or supposed knowledge of absolute truth—makes them completely right. A Frenchman is self-assured because he believes in his own irresistible charm and wit. An Englishman is self-confident as a citizen of the world’s best-governed nation, and so knows all his decisions, as an Englishman, are right. An Italian is self-confident due to his passionate temperament, which lets him forget himself and everyone else. A Russian is self-assured because he knows nothing and wants to know nothing, believing nothing can be known. But German self-confidence is the most stubborn and off-putting, because it stems from believing he possesses the absolute truth—science—which he himself has invented.

Pfuel was exactly that type. He had developed a "science"—theory of oblique movements taken from Frederick the Great’s wars—and regarded all more recent war history as absurd and barbarous: chaotic battles with so many mistakes that they didn’t deserve the name war, being outside his theory and therefore not usable in his "science."

In 1806, Pfuel was partly responsible for the plan that ended in disaster at Jena and Auerstädt, but saw no fault in his theory. Instead, he believed the disasters happened only because his strategy wasn’t followed, and with a kind of triumphant sarcasm would say, “There, I said the whole affair would go to ruins!” He was one of those theorists who care more for their theory than for its purpose—practical results. Because he loved theory, he disliked anything practical, and refused to consider it. Failures pleased him, as he considered them proof that not following his theory led to disaster.

He made a few brief remarks to Prince Andrew and Chernýshev about the present war, with the air of someone convinced in advance that all would go wrong, and not being displeased by that prospect. The messy tufts of hair at the back of his head, in contrast with the smoothed part in front, seemed to accentuate this attitude.

He went into the next room, and soon his deep, complaining voice could be heard from there.

##  CHAPTER XI

Prince Andrew’s eyes were still following Pfuel out of the room when Count Bennigsen entered hurriedly. He nodded to Bolkónski, but without stopping, went directly into the study, giving instructions to his adjutant as he walked. The Emperor was coming behind him, and Bennigsen had hurried ahead to make preparations and be ready to receive the sovereign. Chernýshev and Prince Andrew stepped out onto the porch, where the Emperor, looking tired, was dismounting. Marquis Paulucci was talking to him with particular passion, and the Emperor, with his head bent to the left, listened with a dissatisfied expression. The Emperor moved forward, clearly wanting to end the conversation, but the flushed and excited Italian, ignoring proper etiquette, followed him and kept talking.

“And as for the man who advised forming this camp—the Drissa camp,” said Paulucci, as the Emperor went up the steps and, noticing Prince Andrew, scanned his unfamiliar face, “as for that person, Sire…” Paulucci went on desperately, seemingly unable to restrain himself, “the man who advised the Drissa camp—I see no alternative but the lunatic asylum or the gallows!”

Without reacting to the end of the Italian’s remarks, and as if he had not heard them, the Emperor, recognizing Bolkónski, greeted him cordially.

“I am very glad to see you! Go in there where they are meeting, and wait for me.”

The Emperor entered the study. He was followed by Prince Peter Mikháylovich Volkónski and Baron Stein, and the door closed behind them. Prince Andrew, taking advantage of the Emperor’s permission, went with Paulucci, whom he had met in Turkey, into the drawing room where the council was gathered.

Prince Peter Mikháylovich Volkónski essentially held the position of chief of the Emperor’s staff. He emerged from the study into the drawing room with some maps, which he spread out on a table, and put forward questions to get the opinions of those present. The situation was that news (later proven to be false) had arrived in the night of a French movement to outflank the Drissa camp.

General Armfeldt was the first to speak and, to address the issue, unexpectedly proposed a completely new position away from the Petersburg and Moscow roads. The reason for this was unclear (unless he simply wanted to show he could have an opinion too), but he insisted that at this point the army should unite and wait for the enemy. It was obvious Armfeldt had worked out this plan long ago and now presented it not so much to answer the question asked—which his plan didn’t actually address—as to use the opportunity to put it forward. It was one idea among many, all about equally valid, since no one yet knew what course the war would take. Some argued against his plan, others defended it. Young Count Toll objected to the Swedish general’s view most passionately, and during the argument pulled from his pocket a thick notebook, which he asked permission to read aloud. In his lengthy notes, Toll proposed an entirely different scheme, unlike either Armfeldt’s or Pfuel’s plan of campaign. In response to Toll, Paulucci argued in favor of an advance and attack, which, he insisted, was the only way to escape the current uncertainty and get out of the trap (as he called the Drissa camp) they were in.

Throughout these discussions, Pfuel and his interpreter, Wolzogen (his “bridge” in court relations), remained silent. Pfuel merely snorted in contempt and turned away, making it clear he wouldn’t lower himself by replying to what he regarded as nonsense. When Prince Volkónski, who was chairing the meeting, called on him for his opinion, he simply said:

“Why ask me? General Armfeldt has proposed a splendid position with an exposed rear, or why not this Italian gentleman’s attack—very fine, or a retreat, also good! Why ask me?” he repeated. “You yourselves know everything better than I do.”

But when Volkónski said sternly that the Emperor himself was requesting his opinion, Pfuel got up and, suddenly becoming animated, began to speak:

“Everything has been spoiled, everything muddled, everybody thought they knew better than I did, and now you come to me! How can matters be fixed? There is nothing to fix! The principles set by me must be strictly followed,” he said, drumming his bony fingers on the table. “What is the difficulty? Nonsense, childishness!”

He walked to the map and, speaking quickly, began to demonstrate that no scenario could lessen the value of the Drissa camp; everything had been accounted for, and if the enemy really tried to outflank it, they would inevitably be destroyed.

Paulucci, who didn’t know German, began to question him in French. Wolzogen assisted his chief, who spoke French poorly, and began translating for him, barely able to keep up as Pfuel rapidly demonstrated that not only all that had happened, but everything that could happen, had been anticipated by his plan, and if any problems had arisen they were only because his plan wasn’t followed precisely. He kept laughing sarcastically, giving explanations, and finally stopped with a tone of contempt, like a mathematician who refuses to keep proving a problem already resolved. Wolzogen took over, continuing in French and occasionally turning to Pfuel and asking, “Isn’t it so, your excellency?” But Pfuel, like a man caught up in a fight and lashing out at his own side, angrily shouted at Wolzogen:

“Well, of course, what more is there to explain?”

Paulucci and Michaud attacked Wolzogen at once in French. Armfeldt spoke to Pfuel in German. Toll explained to Volkónski in Russian. Prince Andrew listened and watched in silence.

Of all these men, Prince Andrew sympathized most with Pfuel—even though he was angry, determined, and absurdly self-confident. Of everyone present, it was clear that Pfuel alone wasn’t seeking personal gain, held no grudge against anyone, and simply wanted his plan—developed from years of hard work on theory—to be put into action. He was ridiculous and caustically sarcastic, but still commanded involuntary respect for his unwavering devotion to his idea. Besides, all the comments except Pfuel’s shared a trait not seen at the 1805 war council: a panic-stricken fear of Napoleon’s genius, which, though hidden, was evident in every response. The others acted as if Napoleon could do anything; they expected him from every direction and invoked his terrifying name to defeat each other’s suggestions. Pfuel alone seemed to think of Napoleon as just another barbarian opposing his theory. Yet, aside from respect, Prince Andrew also felt pity for Pfuel. From the way the courtiers spoke to him and how Paulucci dared to talk about him to the Emperor—and especially from a certain desperation in Pfuel’s own words—it was clear the others knew, and Pfuel himself sensed, that his downfall was approaching. Despite his self-confidence and irritable German sarcasm, he was pitiable, with his hair neatly brushed at the temples and sticking up at the back. Though he tried to hide it with shows of irritation and contempt, he was clearly despairing as the last chance to test his theory with a huge experiment, and prove its correctness to the world, slipped away from him.

The debates went on a long time, and the longer they continued, the more heated the arguments and personal remarks became, and the less likely it seemed that any general conclusion could be reached. Prince Andrew, listening to this mixture of languages, guesses, plans, objections, and outbursts, felt only astonishment at what was being said. A thought that had occurred to him many times during his military career—that there is not, and cannot be, any true science of war, and therefore no such thing as a military genius—now struck him as a self-evident truth. “What theory or science can there be about something whose conditions are unknown and undefinable, especially when the strengths of opposing forces can’t be determined? No one ever knows what shape our army or the enemy’s will be in tomorrow, and no one can judge the strength of a detachment. Sometimes—if there isn’t a coward running from the front shouting, ‘We are cut off!’ but instead a brave, cheerful fellow shouting ‘Hurrah!’—a force of five thousand is worth thirty thousand, as at Schön Grabern, while sometimes fifty thousand run from eight thousand, as at Austerlitz. What science can there be in a field where, as in all practical matters, nothing can be defined and everything depends on countless circumstances, the importance of which is decided at a specific moment, a moment no one can foresee? Armfeldt claims our army is split in two, Paulucci says we have trapped the French army; Michaud says the Drissa camp is flawed because of the river behind it, while Pfuel says that is its strength; Toll suggests one plan, Armfeldt another, and all are both right and wrong—any advantage can only be seen in action. And why do they talk about ‘military genius’? Is someone a genius who can order bread delivered on time and tell people who should go left or right? That myth exists only because military leaders wield power and crowds of flatterers attribute to them qualities they don’t possess. The best generals I’ve known were, more often, stupid or absent-minded. Bagratión was the best—Napoleon himself admitted it. And Bonaparte himself! I remember his smug, limited expression on the field of Austerlitz. A good army commander doesn’t need any special qualities—actually, it’s better if he lacks the highest and best human qualities: love, imagination, gentleness, or philosophical doubt. He should be somewhat limited and totally convinced that what he does is vitally important (otherwise he’d lack patience), and only then will he be a bold leader. God forbid he should be humane, loving, or worried about justice. The myth of their ‘genius’ was invented long ago because they have power! But the outcome of a battle doesn’t depend on them, but on the ordinary soldier who shouts, ‘We are lost!’ or ‘Hurrah!’ Only in the ranks can someone serve knowing he is useful.”

So thought Prince Andrew as he listened, and he only stirred when Paulucci called him and everyone began leaving.

At the review next day, the Emperor asked Prince Andrew where he wanted to serve, and Prince Andrew forever lost his standing at court by not asking to remain near the sovereign, but by requesting permission to serve with the army.

##  CHAPTER XII

Before the campaign began, Rostóv received a letter from his parents. In it, they briefly told him about Natásha’s illness and the breaking off of her engagement to Prince Andrew (which they explained by saying Natásha had rejected him) and again asked Nicholas to leave the army and return home. Upon receiving this letter, Nicholas did not even attempt to get leave or retire from the army, but wrote back to his parents saying he was sorry about Natásha’s illness and her broken engagement, and that he would do everything he could to fulfill their wishes. He wrote separately to Sónya.

“Beloved friend of my soul!” he wrote. “Only honor keeps me from returning home. But now, at the start of the campaign, I would feel dishonored—not just in the eyes of my comrades but in my own—if I put my own happiness before my love and duty to the Fatherland. But this will be our last separation. Believe me, as soon as the war is over, if I am still alive and still loved by you, I will give up everything and fly to you, to hold you forever to my passionate heart.”

In truth, it was only the start of the campaign that kept Rostóv from returning home as he had promised and marrying Sónya. The autumn at Otrádnoe, with the hunting, and the winter with the Christmas holidays and Sónya’s love, had opened up for him a vision of peaceful rural happiness and tranquility he had never known before, and which now greatly appealed to him. “A wonderful wife, children, a good pack of hounds, a dozen leashes of smart borzois, farming, neighbors, elected service…” he thought. But now the campaign was beginning, and he had to stay with his regiment. Since it had to be that way, Nicholas Rostóv, true to his nature, felt content with his life in the regiment and managed to find pleasure in it.

When Nicholas returned from his furlough, he was warmly welcomed by his comrades and sent to gather remounts. He brought back excellent horses from Ukraine, which pleased him and earned praise from his commanders. During his absence, he had been promoted to captain; and when the regiment was expanded for wartime, he was once again given command of his old squadron.

The campaign began; the regiment moved into Poland with double pay, new officers arrived, new men and horses, and most importantly, everyone caught the cheerful excitement that comes with the beginning of a war. Rostóv, aware of his favorable position in the regiment, devoted himself completely to the pleasures and interests of military life, even though he knew he would have to give them up sooner or later.

The troops withdrew from Vílna for various complicated reasons—state, political, and strategic. Each step of the retreat came with a complex tangle of interests, arguments, and emotions at headquarters. But for the Pávlograd hussars, the whole retreat, during the finest part of summer and with enough supplies, was a very simple and pleasant experience.

Depression, anxiety, and intrigues existed only at headquarters; among the rest of the army, no one wondered where or why they were going. If they regretted leaving, it was only because they had to give up familiar billets or perhaps leave behind a pretty young Polish woman. If anyone happened to think things looked bad, he tried to stay as cheerful as a good soldier should and focused on the task closest at hand. First, they cheerfully camped near Vílna, making acquaintances with Polish landowners, preparing for reviews, and being reviewed by the Emperor and other top commanders. Then came the order to retreat to Sventsyáni and destroy any supplies they couldn’t carry. Sventsyáni was remembered by the hussars only as the *drunken camp*—the name the whole army gave that encampment—because there were many complaints against the troops, who, taking advantage of the order to gather provisions, also took horses, carriages, and carpets from Polish landowners. Rostóv remembered Sventsyáni because, on the first day there, he changed his sergeant major and couldn’t control all the drunken men in his squadron who, without his knowledge, had seized five barrels of old beer. From Sventsyáni they retreated farther to Drissa, and then beyond Drissa, getting closer to the frontier of Russia proper.

On July 13, the Pávlograds took part in serious fighting for the first time.

On July 12, the day before the action, there was a strong storm of rain and hail. In general, the summer of 1812 was notable for its storms.

The two Pávlograd squadrons were bivouacked in a field of rye, which was already in ear but completely trampled by cattle and horses. Rain was pouring down, and Rostóv, with a young officer named Ilyín, his protégé, was sitting in a hastily built shelter. An officer of their regiment, who had long mustaches that stretched onto his cheeks, entered Rostóv’s shelter after being caught by the rain on his way back from staff duty.

“I’ve just come from the staff, Count. Have you heard about Raévski’s exploit?”

The officer gave them details of the Saltánov battle, which he had heard at the staff.

Rostóv, smoking his pipe and turning his head as water trickled down his neck, listened with little interest, occasionally glancing at Ilyín, who was pressed close beside him. This officer, only sixteen and just recently joined the regiment, was now to Nicholas what Nicholas had once been to Denísov seven years ago. Ilyín tried to copy everything Rostóv did and adored him almost as a girl might.

Zdrzhinski, the officer with the long mustache, spoke grandly about the Saltánov dam being “a Russian Thermopylae,” and told how General Raévski had done something worthy of the ancients. He described how Raévski had led his two sons onto the dam under heavy fire and charged forward with them at his side. Rostóv heard the story and not only refrained from encouraging Zdrzhinski’s enthusiasm, but actually looked like a man embarrassed by what he was hearing, though he had no intention of arguing. Ever since the campaigns of Austerlitz and 1807, Rostóv had learned from experience that people always exaggerate or fabricate military exploits, just as he himself had done; and besides, he knew that nothing in war ever happens quite as we imagine or tell it. So he didn’t like Zdrzhinski’s story, nor Zdrzhinski himself, who, with mustaches stretching over his cheeks, leaned close to his listener’s face and crowded Rostóv in the narrow shelter. Rostóv stared at him silently. “First of all, there must have been so much confusion and crowding on the dam that if Raévski did lead his sons there, it couldn’t have made much difference except maybe to a dozen men nearest him,” he thought. “The rest couldn’t have seen how or with whom Raévski got onto the dam. And even those who did see probably weren’t inspired by it—what did they care about Raévski’s fatherly feelings when their own lives were in danger? Plus, the fate of the Fatherland didn’t depend on whether they took the Saltánov dam, as they say happened at Thermopylae. So why would he make such a sacrifice? Why risk his own children in battle? I wouldn’t have brought my brother Pétya there, nor even Ilyín—who isn’t even family but is a good kid—but would have tried to put them safely under cover,” Nicholas thought as he listened to Zdrzhinski. But he didn’t say anything, as he’d learned to keep quiet on such matters. He knew stories like this were believed to bring glory to their forces, so one had to pretend not to doubt them. And he played along.

“I can’t stand this anymore,” said Ilyín, noticing that Rostóv didn’t enjoy Zdrzhinski’s conversation. “My stockings and shirt… and the water is running down my seat! I’ll go look for shelter. The rain seems lighter.”

Ilyín went out, and Zdrzhinski rode away.

Five minutes later, Ilyín, splashing through the mud, ran back to the hut.

“Hurrah! Rostóv, come quickly! I’ve found it! About two hundred yards away there’s a tavern where *our people* have already gathered. We can at least get dry there, and Mary Hendríkhovna’s there.”

Mary Hendríkhovna was the wife of the regimental doctor, a pretty young German woman whom he had married in Poland. The doctor, either from lack of money or just not wanting to part from his young wife so soon after the wedding, took her with him wherever the hussar regiment went, and his jealousy had become a running joke among the hussar officers.

Rostóv threw his cloak over his shoulders, shouted to Lavrúshka to bring the things, and—sometimes slipping, sometimes splashing straight through the mud—set off with Ilyín in the easing rain and the darkness, which was occasionally lit up by distant lightning.

“Rostóv, where are you?”

“Here. What lightning!” they called to each other.

##  CHAPTER XIII

In the tavern, outside which the doctor’s covered cart was already parked, there were about five officers gathered. Mary Hendríkhovna, a plump little blonde German woman, dressed in a jacket and nightcap, sat on a broad bench in the front corner. Her husband, the doctor, slept behind her. When Rostóv and Ilyín entered, they were greeted with cheerful shouts and laughter.

“My goodness, what a lively bunch we are!” Rostóv said, laughing.

“And why are you just standing there staring?”

“What fine fellows! Look, water is streaming off of them! Don’t get our drawing room all wet.”

“Don’t spoil Mary Hendríkhovna’s dress!” other voices called out.

Rostóv and Ilyín hurried to find a corner where they could change out of their wet clothes without offending Mary Hendríkhovna’s modesty. They wanted to use a small alcove behind a partition, but found it already filled by three officers playing cards by candlelight on an empty box, and these officers refused to give up their spot. Mary Hendríkhovna kindly lent them a petticoat to use as a curtain, and behind that screen, with Lavrúshka’s help bringing their kits, Rostóv and Ilyín changed into dry clothes.

They built up a fire in the old brick stove. Someone found a board and set it on two saddles, covered it with a horsecloth, set out a little samovar, a cellaret, and half a bottle of rum. Having invited Mary Hendríkhovna to preside, they all gathered around her. One offered her a clean handkerchief to wipe her pretty hands, another laid a jacket under her feet to keep them from the damp, another hung his coat over the window to block the draft, and yet another waved the flies off her husband’s face, so he wouldn’t wake up.

“Let him be,” Mary Hendríkhovna said, smiling shyly yet happily. “He’s sleeping so well after a sleepless night.”

“Oh, no, Mary Hendríkhovna,” an officer replied, “we must take care of the doctor. Maybe he’ll take pity on me one day when he has to cut off my arm or leg.”

There were only three tumblers, and the water was so muddy that you couldn’t tell whether the tea was strong or weak. The samovar only held six tumblers of water, which made it even nicer to take turns, in order of rank, to receive a tumbler from Mary Hendríkhovna’s plump hands with their short and not very clean fingernails. All the officers seemed to be—and really were—smitten with her that evening. Even those playing cards behind the partition soon gave up their game and joined the samovar, swept up in the general wish to court Mary Hendríkhovna. She, surrounded by so many bright and polite young men, glowed with satisfaction, though she tried to hide it, and seemed uneasy whenever her husband moved in his sleep behind her.

There was just one spoon, and sugar was more plentiful than anything else, but it wouldn’t dissolve easily, so they decided Mary Hendríkhovna should stir the sugar for everyone in turn. Rostóv took his tumbler, added some rum, and asked Mary Hendríkhovna to stir it.

“But you take it without sugar?” she asked, smiling as if everything she or others said was amusing and had a double meaning.

“It’s not the sugar I want, only your little hand to stir my tea.”

Mary Hendríkhovna agreed and started looking for the spoon, which someone had already snatched up.

“Use your finger, Mary Hendríkhovna, that’ll be even nicer,” joked Rostóv.

“It’s too hot!” she replied, blushing with pleasure.

Ilyín poured a few drops of rum into the bucket of water and brought it to Mary Hendríkhovna, asking her to stir it with her finger.

“This is my cup,” he said. “Just dip your finger in and I’ll drink it all up.”

After they finished the samovar, Rostóv pulled out a deck of cards and suggested they play “Kings” with Mary Hendríkhovna. They drew lots to see who would get to join her team. At Rostóv’s suggestion, it was agreed that the “King” could kiss Mary Hendríkhovna’s hand, while the “Booby” would have to refill and reheat the samovar for the doctor when he woke up.

“But what if Mary Hendríkhovna is ‘King’?” Ilyín asked.

“She’s already the Queen, and her word is law!”

They had barely started playing when the doctor’s disheveled head suddenly poked out from behind Mary Hendríkhovna. He had been awake for some time, listening to their chatter, and clearly found nothing entertaining about it. He looked sad and downcast. Without greeting the officers, he scratched himself and asked to get by, since they were in the way. As soon as he left the room, all the officers burst out laughing, and Mary Hendríkhovna blushed so much her eyes filled with tears—making her even more attractive to them. When the doctor returned from the yard and saw his wife (who was no longer smiling as before and looked at him anxiously, awaiting his verdict), he said the rain had stopped and they must go sleep in their covered cart, or else everything inside would be stolen.

“But I’ll send an orderly... two of them!” said Rostóv. “What an idea, doctor!”

“I’ll stand guard myself!” said Ilyín.

“No, gentlemen, you’ve had your sleep, but I haven’t slept for two nights,” the doctor replied, and he sat down gloomily by his wife, waiting for the game to end.

Seeing the doctor scowl at his wife, the officers became even more cheerful, and some could not help laughing, for which they quickly invented excuses. When he left, taking his wife with him and settling with her in their covered cart, the officers lay down in the tavern, wrapping themselves in their wet cloaks. But they didn’t sleep for a long time—now they made remarks about the doctor’s irritation and his wife’s pleasure, now they rushed out to the porch to report on what was happening in the covered cart. Several times Rostóv pulled the cloak over his head, trying to sleep, but some comment would wake him and the conversation would start up again, mixed with spontaneous, merry, childlike laughter.

##  CHAPTER XIV

It was nearly three o’clock and no one had gone to sleep yet, when the quartermaster arrived with orders to move on to the small town of Ostróvna. Still laughing and talking, the officers quickly began preparing to leave and once more boiled muddy water in the samovar. But Rostóv left for his squadron without waiting for tea. Day was breaking, the rain had stopped, and the clouds began to clear. It was damp and cold, especially in clothing still wet from the rain. As they left the tavern in the dim dawn light, Rostóv and Ilyín both looked under the wet, shiny leather roof of the doctor’s cart, from beneath which his feet stuck out, and in the center of which his wife’s nightcap was visible as she slept, her gentle breathing audible.

“She really is a dear little thing,” Rostóv said to Ilyín, who was walking behind him.

“A charming woman!” agreed Ilyín, saying it with all the seriousness of a boy of sixteen.

Half an hour later the squadron was assembled on the road. The command, “Mount!” was heard, and the soldiers crossed themselves and got on their horses. Rostóv, riding at the front, gave the order, “Forward!” and the hussars, with sabers clanking and muffled voices, their horses' hooves splashing through the mud, moved in columns of four along the wide road lined with birch trees on both sides, following the infantry and a battery that had moved ahead.

Torn, blue-purple clouds, glowing red in the east, hurried across the sky before the wind. It grew brighter and brighter. The curly grass always found by country roads became clearly visible, still wet from last night’s rain; the drooping birch branches, also wet, swayed in the wind and scattered bright water droplets. The soldiers’ faces grew ever clearer. Rostóv, always with Ilyín close behind, rode along the roadside between the birch trees.

While on campaign, Rostóv allowed himself the luxury of riding not a regimental, but a Cossack horse. A skilled horseman and judge of horses, he had recently acquired a large, handsome, spirited Donéts horse, dun-colored with a light mane and tail, and on it, no one could outrun him. Riding this horse was a joy for him, and he thought of the horse, the morning, and the doctor’s wife, but not once about the danger ahead.

In the past, when going into battle, Rostóv had felt afraid; now he felt no fear at all. He was not fearless because he had grown used to being under fire (no one can completely get used to danger), but because he had learned how to manage his thoughts during dangerous moments. He had developed a habit of deliberately thinking of anything except the obvious—impending danger—when heading into action. Early in his service, he could not do this, no matter how hard he tried or how much he accused himself of cowardice, but with time, it happened naturally. Now, riding beside Ilyín under the birch trees, he would pluck a leaf from any branch near his hand, nudge his horse’s side with his foot, or, without looking back, hand a finished pipe to the hussar behind him, appearing as relaxed and unconcerned as though he were simply out for a ride. He looked with sympathy at Ilyín’s excited face, recognizing the anxiety and anticipation of battle that only experience could ease.

As soon as the sun appeared in a clear patch of sky beneath the clouds, the wind died down, almost as if it did not dare spoil the beauty of the summer morning after the storm; drops still fell, but straight down now, and everything was still. The whole sun appeared at the horizon and then vanished behind a long, narrow cloud hovering overhead. A few minutes later it shone even brighter from behind the cloud, tearing its edge. Everything became bright and sparkled. And with that light, as if in response to it, came the sound of cannons ahead.

Before Rostóv had time to measure or judge the distance to this gunfire, Count Ostermann-Tolstóy’s adjutant hurried from Vítebsk with orders to advance at a trot along the road.

The squadron caught up with and passed the infantry and the battery—both of which had quickened their pace—descended a hill, and, passing through an empty, deserted village, began climbing again. The horses started to lather and the men turned red-faced.

“Halt! Dress your ranks!” the regimental commander's voice rang out. “Forward by the left. Walk, march!” came the next order from the front.

The hussars, moving past the troops on the left flank of our position, stopped behind our Uhlans, who were in the front line. To the right, our infantry stood in a tight formation: the reserves. On the top of the hill, clearly visible in the sharp morning sunlight, our guns appeared in the distance. Beyond a hollow valley in front, the enemy’s columns and guns could be seen. Our advance lines, already engaged, could be heard briskly trading shots with the enemy in the valley.

As these sounds, long unheard, reached him, Rostóv’s spirits lifted, as if at lively music. *Trap-ta-ta-tap!* snapped the shots, sometimes together, sometimes quickly one after another. Silence would fall, then again it sounded as if someone was treading on detonators, setting them off.

The hussars stayed in place for about an hour. A cannonade began. Count Ostermann with his staff rode up behind the squadron, halted, spoke to the regimental commander, then rode up the hill toward the guns.

After Ostermann left, an order was given to the Uhlans.

“Form column! Prepare to charge!”

The infantry in front split into platoons to let the cavalry pass through. The Uhlans began to move, their lance streamers fluttering, and trotted downhill toward the French cavalry visible below on the left.

As soon as the Uhlans went down the hill, the hussars were ordered up to support the battery. As they took the Uhlans’ places, bullets flew from the front, whining and whistling, but landed spent and harmless.

These sounds, which he hadn’t heard for so long, gave Rostóv an even stronger, more exhilarating feeling than the earlier gunfire. Straightening himself, he looked out over the battlefield opening before him from the hilltop, and with all his attention followed the Uhlans’ movements. They dashed close to the French dragoons; there was some confusing action amid the smoke, and five minutes later our Uhlans were galloping back—not to where they had started, but farther left—and among the orange-clad Uhlans on chestnut horses and behind them, a large group of blue-uniformed French dragoons on gray horses could be seen.

##  CHAPTER XV

Rostóv, with his sharp sportsman’s eye, was among the first to notice these blue French dragoons chasing our Uhlans. Closer and closer, in scattered groups, came the Uhlans and the French dragoons, hot on their heels. He could already see these men, small at the bottom of the hill, bumping into each other, passing, waving their arms and sabers in the air.

Rostóv watched what was happening with the feeling of a hunt. He sensed instinctively that if the hussars charged now, the French dragoons would not be able to withstand them, but if it was to be done, it had to be done immediately—this very moment—or it would be too late. He looked around. A captain beside him was gazing at the scene below just as intently.

“Andrew Sevastyánych!” whispered Rostóv. “We could really crush them now….”

“A fine idea!” replied the captain, “and honestly…”

Rostóv, not waiting for him to finish, nudged his horse, galloped to the front of his squadron, and before he’d even finished giving the command, the whole squadron, sharing his instinct, was following him. Rostóv himself did not know how or why he did it. He acted as he would while hunting—without pausing to think. He saw the dragoons near and in disarray; he knew they couldn’t stand up to a charge—knew it was now or never. The bullets were whining and whistling around him in a strangely stimulating way, and his horse was so eager to run that he couldn’t hold back. He spurred his horse, gave the word of command, and at once, to the sound of galloping hooves behind him, led the deployed squadron at a full trot down the hill toward the dragoons. As soon as they reached the bottom, their pace, by natural instinct, changed to a gallop, faster and faster as they approached our Uhlans and the French dragoons. The dragoons were close at hand now. Spotting the hussars, the leading French began to turn while those behind started to halt. With the same excitement as when crossing the path of a wolf, Rostóv let his Donéts horse race ahead, aiming to cut off the disordered line of dragoons. One Uhlan came to a stop, another—on foot—threw himself to the ground to avoid being run over, and a riderless horse tumbled among the hussars. Nearly all the French dragoons began galloping back. Rostóv singled out one enemy on a gray horse and dashed after him. A bush lay ahead; his spirited horse leapt it easily, and as soon as Rostóv settled back into the saddle, he saw he would soon overtake the enemy officer he’d picked. The Frenchman, by his uniform an officer, galloped, crouched low on his gray horse, urging it on with his saber. In a moment, Rostóv’s horse rammed the hindquarters of the officer’s mount, almost throwing it down, and at the same instant Rostóv, without knowing why, raised his saber and struck the Frenchman with it.

At that moment, all Rostóv’s excitement faded. The officer fell, not so much from the blow—which only lightly cut his arm above the elbow—as from the shock to his horse and from fright. Rostóv reined in his horse, searching with his eyes for the enemy he had defeated. The French dragoon officer was hopping on one foot, the other trapped in the stirrup. His eyes, tightly shut in fear as if expecting another blow any second, looked up at Rostóv in terror. His pale, mud-splattered face—fair, young, with a dimpled chin and light-blue eyes—seemed unsuitable for a battlefield, nothing more than an ordinary, friendly face. Before Rostóv could decide what to do, the officer shouted, “I surrender!” He tried in vain to free his foot from the stirrup, not once taking his frightened eyes off Rostóv. Some hussars rode up, freed his foot, and helped him onto a packhorse. Meanwhile, all around, the hussars were handling the dragoons; one, his face bleeding, refused to give up his horse; another sat behind a hussar, clinging to him; a third was being helped to mount. Ahead, the French infantry fired as they ran. The hussars hurried back with their prisoners. Rostóv returned too, feeling a troubling sense of depression in his heart. Something vague and confusing—impossible to explain—had overcome him after taking the officer prisoner and striking him.

Count Ostermann-Tolstóy met the returning hussars, summoned Rostóv, thanked him, and told him he would report his courageous deed to the Emperor and recommend him for the St. George’s Cross. When sent for, Rostóv, recalling that he’d charged without orders, expected a reprimand for disobeying regulations. Instead, Ostermann’s praise and promise of reward should have gratified him, but he still felt that same vague, unpleasant sense of moral discomfort. “But what’s bothering me?” he wondered as he rode away. “Ilyín? No, he’s all right. Did I disgrace myself in some way? No, it’s not that.” Something else, like remorse, gnawed at him. “Yes, that French officer with the dimple. I remember how I hesitated as I raised my arm.”

Rostóv saw the prisoners being led away and rode after them to see his Frenchman with the chin dimple. Sitting on a hussar’s packhorse in his foreign uniform, the officer looked around uneasily. The slash on his arm was hardly a wound. He glanced at Rostóv with a forced smile and waved in greeting. Yet Rostóv still felt that same unsettled sense, almost like shame.

For the rest of that day and the next, Rostóv’s friends and comrades noticed that, although not gloomy or angry, he became quiet, thoughtful, and withdrawn. He drank little, sought solitude, and kept turning something over in his mind.

Rostóv kept thinking about his supposed "brilliant exploit," which to his surprise earned him the St. George’s Cross and a reputation for bravery, and he couldn’t make sense of it. “So others are even more afraid than I am!” he reflected. “So that’s really all that heroism is! And did I do it for my country? And how was he to blame, with his blue eyes and dimple? And how scared he was! He really thought I would kill him. Why should I kill him? My hand trembled. And now they’ve given me a St. George’s Cross… I just can’t figure it out.”

But while Nicholas pondered all these questions and still found no answer, fortune, as so often happens in military life, turned in his favor. After the incident at Ostróvna, he gained recognition, was given command of a battalion of hussars, and was chosen whenever a brave officer was needed.

##  CHAPTER XVI

When the news of Natásha’s illness reached the countess, she, though still unwell and weak, traveled to Moscow with Pétya and the rest of the household. The entire family left Márya Dmítrievna’s house and settled in their own home in town.

Natásha’s illness was so severe that, fortunately for her and her parents, all thoughts about what had caused her illness—her behavior and the broken engagement—faded into the background. She was so ill that it became impossible for them to consider how much she was to blame for what had happened. She could not eat or sleep, became visibly thinner, coughed constantly, and, as the doctors made clear to them, was in real danger. Their minds were occupied solely with figuring out how to help her. Doctors visited her individually and in consultations, spoke at length in French, German, and Latin, criticized each other, and prescribed a great variety of medicines for every disease they knew, yet not one of them thought of the simple truth: they could not possibly know exactly what Natásha was suffering from, because every living person has their own unique and complicated combination of health issues that medicine does not describe—never just a straightforward disease of the lungs, liver, skin, heart, or nerves as found in medical books. Each person’s illness is its own particular mix of those maladies. This simple idea could not occur to the doctors (just as a magician never doubts his powers), for their whole profession was founded on curing—this was their livelihood and their life’s work. Most importantly, though, they avoided this thought because they saw themselves as actually useful, as indeed they were to the whole Rostóv family. Their usefulness didn’t depend on making the patient take substances that were mostly harmless (since they were given in very small doses), but because they fulfilled an emotional need for the patient and her loved ones—hence there always have been and always will be folk healers, wise women, homeopaths, and traditional doctors alike. They satisfied the eternal human need for hope, for sympathy, and for the sense that *something* is being done—a need felt by all who suffer. This is the same basic need a child feels when it wants someone to rub a spot it has bumped. A child, after hurting itself, immediately runs to its mother or nurse to have the sore spot rubbed or kissed, and feels better once this is done. The child cannot believe that those it trusts most have no cure for its pain, and the hope of relief and the show of sympathy as the mother rubs the bump is comforting. The doctors were helpful to Natásha in the same way—they “rubbed her bump,” assuring her that she would get well if only the coachman rushed to the pharmacy in the Arbát for a powder and some pills in a nice little box for a ruble and seventy kopeks, and if she took them in boiled water at exactly two-hour intervals.

What would Sónya, the count, and the countess have done if nothing was being done, if there were no pills to give on schedule, no warm drinks, chicken cutlets, or all the other routines the doctors prescribed to keep everyone busy and somewhat consoled? How could the count have borne his beloved daughter’s illness if he didn’t know he was spending a thousand rubles and would gladly spend thousands more for her sake; if he didn’t know that if her illness went on, he would cheerfully pay even more and take her abroad for more consultations; or if he wasn’t able to discuss how Métivier and Feller had failed to understand her symptoms, but Frise had, and Múdrov had diagnosed even more astutely? What would the countess have done if she couldn’t sometimes scold the patient for not following the doctor’s orders to the letter?

“You’ll never get better if you keep that up,” she would say, her grief momentarily forgotten in her annoyance, “if you don’t obey the doctor and take your medicine on time! You mustn’t trifle with it, you know, or it may turn to *pneumonia*,” she would add, finding relief in using that foreign word, which was just as mysterious to her as to everyone else.

What would Sónya have done without the satisfaction of knowing she hadn’t taken off her clothes in three nights so she could follow the doctor’s orders exactly, and that she still stayed awake at night so as not to miss the time when the mildly harmful pills in the little gold box had to be given? Even for Natásha, it was soothing to see so many sacrifices made for her, and to know she needed to take medicine at strict hours, though she insisted no medicine could help her and it was all nonsense. It was even satisfying to act against the doctors’ advice to show she didn’t believe in the treatment and didn’t value her own life.

The doctor came every day, felt her pulse, looked at her tongue, and, despite her sorrowful face, joked with her. But when he went into another room, where the countess always followed him hurriedly, his manner became serious; shaking his head thoughtfully, he would say there was danger but hope too, that this new medicine might help, and that time would tell; her problems were mainly mental, but… And the countess, trying not to realize what she was doing, secretly slipped a gold coin into his hand and always returned calmer.

The signs of Natásha’s illness were that she ate little, slept little, coughed, and constantly felt downhearted. The doctors said she couldn’t recover without medical treatment, and so she was kept in the stifling city air, and the Rostóvs stayed in Moscow through the summer of 1812.

Despite all the pills, drops, and powders Madame Schoss—who delighted in these things—collected, and despite being kept from the outdoor life she was used to, youth triumphed. Natásha’s sorrow was gradually laid aside, pressed down beneath everyday life. It stopped tormenting her so painfully, slowly faded into the past, and she began to recover physically.

##  CHAPTER XVII

Natásha was calmer but no happier. She not only avoided all outward pleasures—balls, strolls, concerts, theaters—but also never laughed without some trace of tears in her laughter. She could not sing. Whenever she tried to laugh or sing by herself, tears would choke her: tears of regret, tears recalling the pure days that could never return, tears of frustration over having ruined, so needlessly, a life that could have been happy. Laughter and singing now seemed almost blasphemous in her sorrow. She didn’t need to restrain herself; she had no desire to flirt or seek attention. She said and truly felt that no man meant more to her than Nastásya Ivánovna, the joker. Something inside her stood guard and forbade any joy. Besides, she had lost all her old interests—the carefree hopes of youth were gone. The previous autumn with Uncle and the Christmas holidays spent at Otrádnoe with Nicholas came back to her mind most often and most painfully. What wouldn’t she give to have even one day of that time back! But that was lost for good. She had sensed even then that this free, open state of readiness for any happiness would never come again. Yet she had to keep living.

She found comfort in thinking not that she was better, as she had once imagined, but that she was actually worse, far worse, than anyone else. But even that wasn’t enough—she knew that and asked herself, “What next?” But there was nothing ahead. There was no pleasure in life, yet life kept moving. Natásha seemed to make every effort not to burden anyone, wanted nothing for herself, and stayed away from everyone except her brother Pétya, in whose company she felt most at ease and sometimes even laughed. She hardly ever left the house, and of all their visitors found pleasure in only one—Pierre. No one could have been more gentle, more considerate, or more genuinely serious with her than Count Bezúkhov. Natásha sensed his delicacy, and so felt great comfort in his company. But she wasn’t even grateful—his kindness seemed so effortless, so natural, she couldn't see it as something special. Occasionally, she noticed Pierre’s embarrassment or awkwardness, especially when he tried to please her or worried that something he said might stir up difficult memories. She saw this and took it as part of his general shyness and kindness, believing he must be the same with everyone. Since those impulsive words—that if he were free he would have asked on his knees for her hand and her love—spoken when she was deeply upset, Pierre had never mentioned his feelings again; and Natásha took it for granted that those words, which had briefly comforted her, were just the meaningless things people say to soothe a crying child. It was not because Pierre was married, but because Natásha sensed very strongly with him a moral boundary—the lack of which she’d felt with Kurágin—that she never once imagined their relationship could turn into love, or even the kind of tender, self-conscious romantic friendship between men and women she’d seen before.

Before the end of St. Peter's fast, Agraféna Ivánovna Belóva, a country neighbor of the Rostóvs, came to Moscow to visit the city’s holy shrines. She suggested Natásha prepare for Holy Communion by fasting, and Natásha eagerly agreed. Against the doctor’s advice not to go out early, Natásha insisted on both fasting and preparing for the sacrament—not just by attending three services at home, as the Rostóvs typically did, but as Belóva did: going to church every day for a week, never missing Vespers, Matins, or Mass.

The countess was pleased with Natásha's zeal. After the poor results of medical treatment, she quietly hoped that prayer might help her daughter more than medicine, and—though nervous and keeping it from the doctor—she agreed to Natásha’s wish and put her in Belóva’s care. Agraféna Ivánovna came to wake Natásha at three in the morning, though she usually found Natásha already awake, anxious not to be late for Matins. After a quick wash, meekly dressed in her plainest gown and old mantilla, Natásha would go out shivering into the empty, dawn-lit streets. Following Agraféna Ivánovna’s advice, she prepared not at the family’s local church but at one where, according to the devout Belóva, the priest lived a particularly strict and holy life. There were never many people there; Natásha always stood by Belóva before an icon of the Blessed Virgin set into the choir screen on the left side, and a new feeling of humility before something vast and mysterious came over her as, at that unusual morning hour, she looked at the dark face of the Virgin shining by candlelight, with dawn light through the window, and listened to the service, trying to understand the words. When she understood them, her personal feelings mingled with the prayers. When she did not, it felt even sweeter—proof, she thought, that wanting to understand everything was pride, and that it was enough simply to believe and entrust herself to God, whose guidance she felt in those moments. She would cross herself, bow low, and when she couldn't follow the service, simply ask God in shame at her unworthiness to forgive her all, to have mercy on her. The prayers she surrendered to most were those of repentance. Walking home at that early hour, passing only bricklayers or sweepers, with everyone else asleep, Natásha felt something new—a sense that she could fix her mistakes, could live a new, clean life, could still be happy.

Through the week she spent like this, that feeling grew daily. The joy of taking communion—or “communing,” as Agraféna Ivánovna liked to say, playing with the word—seemed so great to Natásha that she thought she could never live to see that blessed Sunday arrive.

At last the happy day came. On that memorable Sunday, dressed in white muslin, she returned home after communion, and, for the first time in many months, she felt calm, no longer weighed down by thoughts of the future.

The doctor, visiting that day, told her to keep taking the powders he had prescribed two weeks before.

“She must absolutely go on with them, morning and evening,” he said, clearly pleased with his results. “Only, please, be strict about it.

“Don’t worry,” he went on playfully, skillfully tucking the gold coin into his hand, “she’ll soon be singing and running about. The last medicine has helped her tremendously. She looks much better.”

The countess, her face bright, looked down at her nails and spat for luck as she returned to the drawing room.

##  CHAPTER XVIII

At the beginning of July, increasingly troubling news about the war began to circulate in Moscow. People spoke of an appeal by the Emperor to the people, and of his possible arrival from the army to Moscow. And since, up to the eleventh of July, no official manifesto or appeal had been received, rumors—often exaggerated—spread about both the manifesto and Russia’s situation. It was said that the Emperor was leaving the army because it was in danger, that Smolénsk had been surrendered, that Napoleon had an army of a million men, and that only a miracle could save Russia.

On Saturday, the eleventh of July, the manifesto arrived but had not yet been printed. Pierre, who was at the Rostóvs’, promised to come to dinner the next day, Sunday, and bring a copy of the manifesto and appeal, which he would get from Count Rostopchín.

That Sunday, the Rostóvs went to Mass at the Razumóvskis’ private chapel, as usual. It was a hot July day. Even at ten o’clock, when the Rostóvs stepped out of their carriage at the chapel, the heavy air, the shouts of vendors, the light, cheerful summer clothing of the crowd, the dusty leaves on the boulevard trees, the music from the band, the white trousers of a battalion marching to parade, the rattle of wheels on the cobblestones, and the brilliant, hot sunshine—all were filled with that summer languor, that mix of contentment and restlessness, which is most felt on a bright, hot day in the city. All of Moscow’s notabilities, all of the Rostóvs’ acquaintances, were at the Razumóvskis’ chapel; for, as if expecting something to happen, many wealthy families who usually left for their country estates had stayed in town that year. As Natásha, alongside her mother, walked through the crowd behind their liveried footman who cleared a path for them, she overheard a young man talking about her in too-loud a whisper.

“That’s Rostóva, the one who…”

“She’s much thinner, but still pretty!”

She heard, or thought she heard, the names Kurágin and Bolkónski. But she was always suspecting that. It always seemed to her that everyone looking at her was thinking only of what had happened to her. With a sinking heart, miserable as she always now felt in crowds, Natásha, in her lilac silk dress trimmed with black lace, walked—as only women can—with even greater poise and dignity the deeper her pain and shame went. She knew she was pretty, but it no longer brought her the pleasure it once had. On the contrary, lately it tormented her more than anything else, especially on this bright, hot summer day. “It’s Sunday again—another week gone,” she thought, remembering that she had been here the Sunday before, “and always the same life that isn’t really living, and the same surroundings where it used to be so easy to be happy. I’m pretty, I’m young, and I know I am good now. I used to be bad, but I know I’m good now,” she thought, “but my best years are slipping away and they’re of no use to anyone.” She stood beside her mother and exchanged nods with nearby acquaintances. Out of habit, she examined the ladies’ dresses, disapproved of the posture of a nearby woman who wasn’t crossing herself properly but awkwardly, and again felt annoyed that she herself was both judging and being judged. Suddenly, at the sound of the service, she was appalled at her own baseness, horrified that her former purity had once more slipped away from her.

A handsome, fresh-faced old man was conducting the service with that gentle solemnity that so uplifts and soothes worshipers’ souls. The sanctuary doors were closed, the curtain slowly drawn, and from behind it a gentle, mysterious voice uttered some words. Tears—of a kind she herself did not understand—rose in Natásha’s breast, and a joyful but overwhelming feeling stirred her.

“Show me what I should do, how to live my life, how I can be good—always, always!” she prayed.

The deacon came onto the raised platform before the altar screen, and, with his thumb extended, drew his long hair out from under his dalmatic. Making the sign of the cross on his chest, he began in a loud, solemn voice to recite the words of the prayer...

“In peace let us pray to the Lord.”

“As one community, without class distinction, without enmity, united in brotherly love—let us pray!” thought Natásha.

“For the peace that comes from above, and for the salvation of our souls.”

“For the world of angels and all the spirits above us,” prayed Natásha.

When they prayed for the warriors, she thought of her brother and Denísov. When they prayed for all traveling by land or sea, she remembered Prince Andrew, prayed for him, and asked God to forgive all the wrongs she’d done him. When they prayed for those who love us, she prayed for her own family—her father, mother, and Sónya—realizing for the first time how wrongly she’d treated them, and suddenly feeling all her love for them. When they prayed for those who hate us, she tried to think of her enemies, anyone who might hate her, to pray for them too. She counted among her enemies the creditors and anyone involved in her father’s business, and always, when she thought of enemies and those who hated her, she remembered Anatole, who had harmed her so much—and even though he didn’t hate her, she gladly prayed for him as for an enemy. Only in prayer could she think calmly and clearly of Prince Andrew and Anatole, as men whose place in her mind was insignificant compared to her awe and devotion to God. When they prayed for the Imperial family and the Synod, she bowed deeply and made the sign of the cross, telling herself that even if she didn’t understand, she could never doubt, and in any case she loved the governing Synod and prayed for it.

When the deacon finished the Litany, he crossed his stole over his chest and said, “Let us commit ourselves and our whole lives to Christ our Lord!”

“Commit ourselves to God,” Natásha repeated inwardly. “Lord God, I submit to Your will!” she thought. “I want nothing, wish for nothing; show me how to use my will! Take me, take me!” prayed Natásha, with urgent emotion in her heart, not crossing herself but letting her slender arms hang down, as if expecting some invisible power at any moment to take her and free her from herself, her regrets, desires, remorse, hopes, and sins.

The countess glanced several times at her daughter’s softened face and shining eyes, praying for God to help her.

Unexpectedly, in the middle of the service, and not in the usual order Natásha knew so well, the deacon brought out a small stool—the one he knelt on when praying on Trinity Sunday—and placed it before the sanctuary doors. The priest came out with his purple velvet biretta, adjusted his hair, and knelt down with effort. Everyone joined in, exchanging looks of surprise. Then began the prayer just received from the Synod—a prayer for Russia’s deliverance from hostile invasion.

“Lord God of might, God of our salvation!” the priest began in that voice, clear—not pompous, but gentle—with which only the Slavic clergy read, and which acts so irresistibly on a Russian heart.

“Lord God of might, God of our salvation! Look today in mercy and blessing upon Your humble people, and graciously hear us, spare us, and have mercy upon us! This enemy confounding Your land, wishing to lay waste the whole world, rises against us; these lawless men are gathered to destroy Your kingdom, to ruin Your dear Jerusalem, Your beloved Russia; to desecrate Your temples, to overthrow Your altars, and to profane our holy places. How long, O Lord, how long shall the wicked triumph? How long shall they wield unjust power?

“Lord God! Hear us when we pray to You; strengthen with Your might our most gracious sovereign lord, Emperor Alexander Pávlovich; remember his righteousness and humility, reward him as he deserves, and let his virtue protect us, Your chosen Israel! Bless his plans, his undertakings, and his work; support his kingdom with Your almighty hand, and grant him victory over his enemy as You granted Moses victory over Amalek, Gideon over Midian, and David over Goliath. Protect his army, place a bow of brass in the hands of those who fight in Your name, and gird their loins with strength for battle. Take up your spear and shield and arise to help us; scatter and shame those who plan evil against us, let them be as dust before Your faithful warriors, and may Your mighty Angel drive them away; may they be trapped unknowingly, and may their secret plots be turned against them; let them fall before Your servants’ feet and be brought down by our hosts! Lord, You are able to save both great and small; You are God, and man cannot prevail against You!

“God of our fathers! Remember Your generous mercy and loving-kindness from of old; do not turn Your face from us, but be gracious to our unworthiness. In Your great goodness and many mercies do not regard our sins and wrongs! Create in us a clean heart and renew a right spirit within us, strengthen us all in Your faith, fortify our hope, inspire among us true love for one another, arm us with unity in the just defense of the heritage You gave us and our fathers, and let not the scepter of the wicked rule over those You have sanctified.

“O Lord our God, in whom we believe and trust, do not let us be shamed in our hope of Your mercy. Give us a sign of Your blessing, that those who hate us and our Orthodox faith may see it, be shamed, and perish, and may all nations know that You are the Lord and we are Your people. Show Your mercy upon us this day, O Lord, and grant us Your salvation; fill the hearts of Your servants with joy in Your mercy; strike down our enemies and destroy them swiftly beneath the feet of Your faithful servants! For You are the defense, the help, and the victory of those who trust in You, and to You be all glory, to Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, now and forever, world without end. Amen.”

In Natásha’s open and tender state of soul, this prayer moved her deeply. She followed each word about Moses’ victory over Amalek, Gideon over Midian, and David over Goliath, and about the destruction of “Your Jerusalem,” and she prayed to God with the tenderness and intensity her heart was overflowing with, though she did not fully understand what she was asking for in that prayer. She joined wholeheartedly in the prayer for righteousness, for strength of heart through faith and hope, and for love. But she could not pray that her enemies be trampled underfoot when, only minutes before, she’d been wishing she had more enemies so she could pray for them. However, she could not doubt the justice of the prayer being offered on bended knees. She felt a sincere and tremulous awe at the idea of punishment following sin, especially her own sins, and she prayed for forgiveness for everyone—including herself—and to grant all of them, including her, peace and happiness. And it seemed to her that God heard her prayer.

##  CHAPTER XIX

From the day when Pierre, after leaving the Rostóvs’ with Natásha’s grateful look still fresh in his mind, had gazed at the comet that seemed fixed in the sky and felt that something new was appearing on his own horizon—from that day, the problem of the vanity and uselessness of all earthly things, which had constantly tormented him, no longer troubled him as before. That tormenting question “Why?” “Wherefore?” which would arise in his mind during any activity, was now replaced—not by another question or an answer to that old question, but by *her* image. When he listened to or took part in trivial conversations, when he read or heard about human baseness or foolishness, he was no longer horrified as he once had been. He didn’t ask himself why people struggled over such things when life was so fleeting and mysterious—instead, he remembered her as he had last seen her, and all his doubts disappeared. It was not that she had answered those questions haunting him, but rather that his idea of her instantly transported him into a different, brighter realm of spiritual life, where no one could be completely justified or guilty—a realm of beauty and love, which made life worthwhile. Whenever he was confronted by worldly baseness, he told himself:

“Well, even if N. N. deceived both the country and the Tsar, and even if the country and the Tsar honor him for it, what does that matter? She smiled at me yesterday and invited me back, and I love her, and no one will ever know.” And his soul felt calm and peaceful.

Pierre still went out into society, drank as much as before, and continued the same idle and dissipated lifestyle, because aside from the hours spent at the Rostóvs’, there were still other hours to pass, and the habits and acquaintances he’d gathered in Moscow seemed to carry him along almost without resistance. But recently, as news from the front became more troubling and Natásha’s health improved—no longer inspiring the same careful pity in him—a growing restlessness he could not explain took hold of him. He sensed that things could not go on as they were, that some great upheaval was about to happen which would change his life entirely, and he impatiently looked everywhere for signs of this coming disaster. One of his fellow Masons had shared with Pierre a prophecy about Napoleon, based on the book of Revelation.

In chapter 13, verse 18, of the Apocalypse, it states:

Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.

And in the fifth verse of the same chapter:

And there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies; and power was given unto him to continue forty and two months.

If the French alphabet is written with the same numerical values as the Hebrew alphabet, where the first nine letters are units and the others are tens, it comes out as follows:

          a   b   c   d   e   f   g   h   i   k
          1   2   3   4   5   6   7   8   9   10
           l    m    n    o    p    q    r    s
          20   30   40   50   60   70   80   90
                 t    u    v    w    x    y
                100  110  120  130  140  150
                            z
                           160

If you write the words *L’Empereur Napoléon* using these numbers, the sum is 666, and so Napoleon was believed to be the beast foretold in the Apocalypse. Furthermore, applying the same method to the words *quarante-deux*,\* the period allotted to the beast who “spoke great things and blasphemies,” you also get the number 666—showing that the limit of Napoleon’s power had been reached in 1812, when the French emperor was forty-two. Pierre found this prophecy very appealing and often asked himself what would bring an end to the beast’s power—that is, Napoleon’s power—and he tried other combinations, adding up the values of letters to seek the answer to this question that obsessed him. He wrote out the phrases *L’Empereur Alexandre, La nation russe* and added their totals, but the sums were either above or below 666. Once, when experimenting with these calculations, he wrote his own name in French—Comte Pierre Besouhoff—but the numbers didn’t match. He tried changing the spelling, replacing ‘s’ with ‘z’ and adding *de* and the article *le*, but it still didn’t add up to the desired number. Then he realized that, if the answer truly involved him, his national identity should be part of the answer. So he wrote *Le russe Besuhof*, and when he added up the numbers, the total was 671. This was just five too many, with five being represented by the letter *e*—the very letter left out of the article *le* before *Empereur*. By omitting the *e*, even though it was technically incorrect, Pierre arrived at the number he sought. *L’russe Besuhof* added up to 666. This discovery excited him. He didn’t know exactly how he might be linked to the event foretold in Revelation, but he had no doubt he was connected. His love for Natásha, thoughts of Antichrist, Napoleon, the French invasion, the comet, 666, *L’Empereur Napoléon*, and *L’russe Besuhof*—all of it seemed to be building toward some great culmination, something that would finally pull him from his routine, confined Moscow existence and bring him to great accomplishment and happiness.

\* Forty-two.

On the Saturday before the special prayer was to be read, Pierre had promised the Rostóvs to bring them, from Count Rostopchín—whom he knew well—both the Tsar’s appeal to the people and news from the army. That morning, as he went to visit Rostopchín, he encountered there a courier just arrived from the army, who was a casual acquaintance and was often seen at Moscow balls.

“Please, for heaven’s sake, take something off my hands!” said the courier. “I’m carrying a sackful of letters to families.”

Among those letters was one from Nicholas Rostóv to his father. Pierre took that letter, and Rostopchín also gave him the Emperor’s newly printed appeal to Moscow, the latest army orders, and Rostopchín’s most recent bulletin. Skimming through the army orders, Pierre found among the lists of the dead, wounded, and decorated, the name of Nicholas Rostóv, who was awarded a St. George’s Cross of the Fourth Class for bravery at the Ostróvna affair, and, in the same order, the name of Prince Andrew Bolkónski, appointed to lead a regiment of Chasseurs. Though Pierre hesitated to remind the Rostóvs of Bolkónski, he couldn’t resist gladdening them with the news of their son’s decoration, so he sent them the printed order and Nicholas’ letter, keeping the appeal, the bulletin, and the other orders to bring with him when he went for dinner.

Pierre’s conversation with Count Rostopchín, the latter’s tense, hurried manner, the meeting with the unconcerned courier who talked easily about how badly the war was going, the rumors of spies found in Moscow, the circulating pamphlet claiming Napoleon would take both Russian capitals by autumn, and talk that the Emperor himself was expected the next day—all these stirred up again that feeling of anxiety and expectation that Pierre had felt since first seeing the comet and especially since the start of the war.

He had long thought about joining the army, and would have done so if not for two main reasons: first, his oath-bound membership in the Freemasons, whose teachings opposed war and promoted peace; second, whenever he saw the crowds of Muscovites dressed in uniform and loudly proclaiming patriotism, he felt a kind of embarrassment that kept him from joining. Above all, however, the main reason he never followed through with his intention to enter the army was the vague yet powerful idea that he was *L’russe Besuhof*, who bore the number 666, the number of the beast; that his role in ending the reign of the beast, who “spoke great and blasphemous things,” had been predestined from the beginning, and that therefore he should not take any personal initiative, but wait for what fate had already decided would happen.

##  CHAPTER XX

A few close friends were dining with the Rostóvs that day, as was usual on Sundays.

Pierre arrived early so that he could find them alone.

He had grown so stout this year that he would have seemed unusual if not for being so tall, broad-shouldered, and strong that he carried his size with obvious ease.

He went up the stairs, puffing and muttering to himself. His coachman didn’t even ask whether he should wait; he knew that when his master visited the Rostóvs, he always stayed until midnight. The Rostóvs' footman eagerly hurried forward to help him off with his cloak and take his hat and stick. Out of habit from the club, Pierre always left both his hat and stick in the anteroom.

The first person he saw in the house was Natásha. Even before he saw her—while taking off his cloak—he heard her. She was practicing solfège in the music room. He knew she hadn’t sung since her illness, so the sound of her voice surprised and delighted him. He opened the door quietly and saw her, in the lilac dress she had worn at church, walking around the room singing. She had her back to him when he opened the door. But when she turned quickly and saw his broad, surprised face, she blushed and came up to him quickly.

“I want to try singing again,” she said, adding as if to explain, “it’s at least something to do.”

“That’s wonderful!”

“How happy I am you’ve come! I’m so happy today,” she said, with the old liveliness Pierre hadn’t seen in her for a long time. “Do you know Nicholas has received a St. George’s Cross? I’m so proud of him.”

“Oh yes, I sent that announcement. But I don’t want to interrupt you,” he added, about to go to the drawing room.

Natásha stopped him.

“Count, is it wrong for me to sing?” she said, blushing, fixing her eyes on him as if seeking his opinion.

“No… Why should it be? On the contrary… But why do you ask me?”

“I don’t know myself,” Natásha answered quickly, “but I wouldn’t want to do anything you disapproved of. I trust you completely. You don’t know how important you are to me, how much you’ve done for me….” She spoke quickly and didn’t notice how Pierre flushed at her words. “I saw in that same army order that *he*, Bolkónski” (she whispered the name hurriedly), “is in Russia, and in the army again. What do you think?”—she was speaking rapidly, clearly afraid she might lose her strength—“Will he ever forgive me? Will he not always have a bitter feeling toward me? What do you think? What do you think?”

“I think…” Pierre replied, “that he has nothing to forgive… If I were in his place…”

By association of ideas, Pierre was immediately reminded of the day when, trying to comfort her, he had said that if he were not himself but the best man in the world and free, he would ask for her hand on his knees; and the same feeling of pity, tenderness, and love came over him and the same words came to his lips. But she didn’t give him time to say them.

“Yes, you… you…” she said, uttering the word *you* with rapture—“that’s different. I know no one kinder, more generous, or better than you; nobody could be! Had you not been there then, and now too, I don’t know what would have become of me, because…”

Tears suddenly filled her eyes, she turned away, lifted her music before her eyes, began singing again, and once more began walking around the room.

Just then Pétya came running in from the drawing room.

Pétya was now a handsome, rosy-cheeked lad of fifteen with full red lips, and he resembled Natásha. He was getting ready to enter the university, but he and his friend Obolénski had lately, in secret, decided to join the hussars.

Pétya had come rushing in to talk to his namesake about this plan. He had asked Pierre to find out whether he would be accepted into the hussars.

Pierre paced up and down the drawing room, not listening to what Pétya was saying.

Pétya pulled him by the arm to get his attention.

“Well, what about my plan? Peter Kirílych, for heaven’s sake! You’re my only hope,” said Pétya.

“Oh yes, your plan. To join the hussars? I’ll mention it, I’ll bring it up today.”

“Well, *mon cher*, have you got the manifesto?” asked the old count. “The countess has been to Mass at the Razumóvskis’ and heard the new prayer. She says it’s very fine.”

“Yes, I have it,” said Pierre. “The Emperor is coming tomorrow… there’s to be an Extraordinary Meeting of the nobility, and they’re talking about a levy of ten men per thousand. Oh yes, let me congratulate you!”

“Yes, yes, thank God! Well, and what news from the army?”

“We’re retreating again. They say we’re already near Smolénsk,” Pierre replied.

“O Lord, O Lord!” exclaimed the count. “Where’s the manifesto?”

“The Emperor’s appeal? Oh, yes!”

Pierre began searching his pockets for the papers, but couldn’t find them. Still patting his pockets, he kissed the hand of the countess, who entered the room and looked around uneasily, clearly expecting Natásha, who had stopped singing but hadn’t come into the drawing room yet.

“Honestly, I don’t know what I’ve done with it,” he said.

“There he is, always losing everything!” remarked the countess.

Natásha entered with a softened and agitated expression and sat down, looking silently at Pierre. As soon as she entered, Pierre’s features, which had been solemn, suddenly brightened, and while still searching for the papers he glanced at her several times.

“No, really! I’ll drive home, I must have left them there. I’ll certainly—”

“But you’ll be late for dinner.”

“Oh! And my coachman has left.”

But Sónya, who had gone to look for the papers in the anteroom, had found them in Pierre’s hat, where he had tucked them carefully under the lining. Pierre was about to begin reading.

“No, after dinner,” said the old count, clearly expecting to enjoy the reading very much.

At dinner, where champagne was drunk to the health of the new Chevalier of St. George, Shinshín shared the latest town news: the illness of the old Georgian princess, Métivier’s disappearance from Moscow, and the story of a German man who had been brought before Rostopchín, accused of being a French “spy” (as Count Rostopchín had told it), and how Rostopchín had released him, assuring everyone that he was “not a spy at all, but just an old German ruin.”

“People are being arrested…” said the count. “I’ve told the countess she shouldn’t speak so much French. Now isn’t the time for it.”

“And have you heard?” Shinshín asked. “Prince Golítsyn has hired a tutor to teach him Russian. It’s becoming dangerous to speak French on the streets.”

“And what about you, Count Peter Kirílych? If they call up the militia, you’ll have to get on a horse too,” the old count remarked, addressing Pierre.

Pierre had been silent and distracted through dinner, hardly seeming to follow the conversation. He looked at the count.

“Oh yes, the war,” he said. “No! What kind of soldier would I make? Still, everything is so strange, so strange! I can’t make sense of it. I don’t know—I’m not at all inclined toward military life, but these days no one can answer for themselves.”

After dinner, the count settled into an easy chair and with a serious look asked Sónya, who was known as an excellent reader, to read the appeal.

“To Moscow, our ancient Capital!

“The enemy has entered the borders of Russia with immense forces. He comes to plunder our beloved country.”

Sónya read carefully in her high-pitched voice. The count listened with his eyes closed, sighing deeply at certain passages.

Natásha sat upright, looking intently first at her father, then at Pierre.

Pierre could feel her eyes on him and tried not to turn around. The countess silently shook her head in anger and disapproval at every solemn phrase in the manifesto. In all those words, she saw only that the danger threatening her son would not pass soon. Shinshín, with a sarcastic smile, was clearly waiting to mock anything he could: Sónya’s reading, one of the count’s remarks, or the manifesto itself if nothing else presented itself.

After the reading about the threats Russia faced and the hopes the Emperor placed on Moscow and its renowned nobility, Sónya, her voice trembling partly from the attention she was receiving, read the final words:

“We ourselves will not delay to appear among our people in the Capital and in other regions for consultation and for directing all our levies, both those now holding back the enemy and those newly formed to defeat him wherever he appears. May the ruin he plans for us rebound on his own head, and may Europe, freed from bondage, glorify the name of Russia!”

“Yes, that’s it!” the count cried, opening his moist eyes and sniffing repeatedly, as if a strong vinaigrette had been held to his nose; he added, “Let the Emperor just give the word, and we will sacrifice everything and hold nothing back.”

Before Shinshín had time to make the joke he was preparing about the count’s patriotism, Natásha jumped up from her seat and ran to her father.

“What a darling our Papa is!” she exclaimed, kissing him. Then she looked at Pierre again, the playful charm back in her eyes along with her good spirits.

“There! There’s a patriot for you!” said Shinshín.

“Not a patriot at all, just…” Natásha replied, offended. “You find everything funny, but this really isn’t a joke….”

“A joke, indeed!” said the count. “Let him just give the order, and we’ll all go…. We’re not Germans!”

“But did you notice it says, ‘for consultation’?” said Pierre.

“Never mind what it’s for….”

At that moment, Pétya, who hadn’t received any attention, approached his father. With a very flushed face and a breaking voice that now sounded deep, now shrill, he said:

“Well, Papa, I’m telling you definitely, and Mamma too, it’s up to you, but I say for sure that you must let me join the army, because I can’t… that’s all….”

The countess, alarmed, looked up to heaven, clasped her hands, and turned angrily to her husband.

“That’s because of your talk!” she said.

But the count had already regained his composure.

“Come, come!” he said. “Look at this would-be warrior! No! Nonsense! You must focus on your studies.”

“It isn’t nonsense, Papa. Fédya Obolénski is younger than I am, and he’s going. Besides, I just can’t study now when…” Pétya broke off, flushing and sweating, but managed to add, “when our Fatherland is in danger.”

“That’s enough, that’s enough—nonsense….”

“But you said yourself we would sacrifice everything.”

“Pétya! Be quiet, I said!” cried the count, glancing at his wife, who had turned pale and was staring hard at her son.

“And I’m telling you—Peter Kirílych here will also tell you…”

“Nonsense, I say. Your mother’s milk has barely dried on your lips and you want to go off to war! Enough, I said,” and the count started to leave the room, taking the papers, probably to reread them in his study before his nap.

“Well, Peter Kirílych, let’s go have a smoke,” he said.

Pierre was agitated and uncertain. Natásha’s unusually bright eyes kept turning to him with a gaze warmer than usual, which left him unsettled.

“No, I think I’ll go home.”

“Home? But you planned to spend the evening with us…. You don’t come often these days, and this daughter of mine,” the count said kindly, pointing to Natásha, “seems to come to life only when you’re here.”

“Yes, I forgot… I really must go home… business…” Pierre said hurriedly.

“Well then, *au revoir!*” said the count, and left the room.

“Why are you leaving? Why are you upset?” asked Natásha, looking challengingly into Pierre’s eyes.

“Because I love you!” was what he wanted to say, but he did not; instead, he blushed until tears came to his eyes and looked down.

“Because I ought to come less often… because… No, simply, I have business….”

“Why? No, tell me!” Natásha insisted resolutely, then suddenly stopped.

They looked at each other with dismayed and embarrassed expressions. He tried to smile but couldn’t: his smile revealed his pain. He quietly kissed her hand and left.

Pierre decided not to visit the Rostóvs anymore.

##  CHAPTER XXI

After the definite refusal he had received, Pétya went to his room, locked the door, and wept bitterly. When he later came in for tea, silent, gloomy, and with a tear-stained face, everyone pretended not to notice.

The next day, the Emperor arrived in Moscow, and several of the Rostóvs’ household serfs begged for permission to go see him. That morning Pétya took a long time dressing and arranging his hair and collar to look grown-up. He frowned at himself in the mirror, gestured, shrugged his shoulders, and finally, without saying a word to anyone, put on his cap and left through the back door, hoping not to be noticed. Pétya decided to go straight to where the Emperor was and to bravely explain to some gentleman-in-waiting (he imagined the Emperor was always surrounded by them) that he, Count Rostóv, despite his youth, wished to serve his country, that age was no obstacle to loyalty, and that he was ready to… While getting dressed, Pétya had rehearsed many impressive things he intended to say to the gentleman-in-waiting.

Pétya was convinced that his youth would help him succeed in seeing the Emperor—he even thought everyone would be amazed at how young he was—and yet, in fixing his collar and hair and by his steady, measured walk, he tried to appear more adult. But the farther he went, and the more his attention was caught by the growing crowds heading for the Kremlin, the less he remembered to act like a grown man. As he neared the Kremlin, he started shoving to avoid being squashed, sticking out his elbows determinedly. But within the Trinity Gateway, he was pressed against the wall by people who probably weren’t aware of his patriotic intentions, and no matter how strong his resolve, he had to stop while carriages rumbled under the archway. Next to Pétya stood a peasant woman, a footman, two tradesmen, and a discharged soldier. After waiting in the gateway for some time, Pétya tried to move ahead of the others before all the carriages had passed, pushing forward with his elbows. The woman ahead of him, the first to feel his determined elbows, snapped at him:

“What are you shoving for, young master? Don’t you see we’re all standing still? Why push?”

“Anyone can shove,” said the footman, who also started elbowing, pushing Pétya into a particularly dirty corner of the gateway.

Pétya wiped his sweaty face and tried to fix the collar he had adjusted so carefully at home to look adult.

He realized he no longer looked presentable, and worried that in this state he wouldn’t be admitted to the Emperor by the gentlemen-in-waiting. But there was no way to tidy up or move, because of the crush. One of the generals passing by was an acquaintance of the Rostóvs, and Pétya considered asking for help, but decided that would not be manly. When the carriages were all through, the crowd swept Pétya forward into Kremlin Square, already packed with people. People were not only in the square, but also on the slopes and rooftops. As soon as Pétya reached the square, he clearly heard the bells ringing and the joyous shouts filling the Kremlin.

For a moment, the crowd loosened, but suddenly all heads were uncovered and everyone rushed forward in one direction. Pétya was so tightly squeezed that he could barely breathe, and everyone shouted, “Hurrah! hurrah! hurrah!” Pétya stood on tiptoe, pushed, pinched, but could only see the people around him.

Every face wore the same expression of excitement and joy. Next to Pétya, a tradesman’s wife was weeping, tears streaming down her cheeks.

“Father! Angel! Dear one!” she kept saying, wiping her tears with her fingers.

“Hurrah!” resounded from every side.

For a moment, the crowd was still; then it surged forward again.

Completely carried away, Pétya, clenching his teeth and rolling his eyes wildly, shoved forward, elbowing his way, and shouting “hurrah!” as if prepared to die right then and there. But on each side of him, others with equally fierce faces did the same, and all shouted “hurrah!”

“So this is what the Emperor is like!” thought Pétya. “No, I can’t petition him myself—that would be too bold.” Still, he fought his way forward, and through gaps among the people in front, caught glimpses of an open space with a red carpet; just then, however, the crowd lurched back—police were pushing away those crowding the procession: the Emperor was passing from the palace to the Cathedral of the Assumption—and Pétya suddenly received such a blow to his side and was squeezed so tightly that everything went blurry and he lost consciousness. When he came to, a clerical-looking man with a tuft of gray hair and a shabby blue cassock—probably a church clerk and chanter—was holding Pétya under one arm and pushing the crowd away with the other.

“You’ve crushed the young gentleman!” said the clerk. “What are you doing? Easy!... They’ve squashed him, crushed him!”

The Emperor entered the Cathedral of the Assumption. The crowd spread out more evenly, and the clerk led Pétya—pale and breathless—to the Tsar Cannon. Several people felt sorry for Pétya, and soon a group gathered around him. Those nearest helped him—unbuttoned his coat, settled him on the cannon’s pedestal, and scolded those (whoever they were) who had crushed him.

“It’s dangerous to behave like that! What do they think they’re doing—killing people? Poor boy, he’s as white as a sheet!”—various voices said.

Soon Pétya revived, his color returned, the pain disappeared, and thanks to his ordeal he had a place by the cannon from which he hoped to see the Emperor when he returned. Pétya no longer thought of presenting his petition. If only he could see the Emperor, he would be happy!

As the service continued in the Cathedral of the Assumption—a joint prayer for the Emperor’s arrival and thanksgiving for peace with the Turks—the crowd outside relaxed and hawkers appeared selling kvass, gingerbread, and poppyseed sweets (which Pétya especially liked), and normal conversation returned. A tradesman’s wife showed a tear in her shawl, telling how expensive it was; another commented that all silk goods were more costly now. The clerk who rescued Pétya chatted with an official about the priests serving with the bishop that day. The clerk used the word “plenary” (describing the service) several times, a word Pétya didn’t understand. Two young townsfolk joked with some serf girls cracking nuts. Usually, such things might have interested Pétya, but today they didn’t. He sat on the cannon pedestal, still caught up in thoughts of the Emperor and the affection he felt for him. The pain and fear he’d just experienced, mixed with his sense of rapture, only heightened the importance of the day for him.

Suddenly, cannon fire sounded from the embankment, celebrating peace with the Turks, and the crowd rushed to see it. Pétya too tried to run, but the clerk still watched over the young gentleman and stopped him. The gun salute was still going when officers, generals, and gentlemen-in-waiting ran out of the cathedral, followed by others more slowly; hats were lifted again, and those who had gone to see the firing hurried back. At last, four uniformed and sashed men exited the cathedral doors. “Hurrah! hurrah!” the crowd shouted again.

“Which is he? Which one?” Pétya asked those around him in a choked, tearful voice, but no one answered—everyone was too caught up in the moment. Pétya focused all his admiration on one of the four, whom he could barely see for the tears of joy in his eyes—though it was not the Emperor—and shouted “Hurrah!” with all his might, vowing that tomorrow, no matter what, he’d join the army.

The crowd followed the Emperor to the palace and began to disperse. It was late; Pétya hadn’t eaten and was soaked in sweat, yet he didn’t go home but waited with the thinning—but still significant—crowd outside the palace while the Emperor dined, watching the palace windows, hoping for something he could not define, envying both the dignitaries arriving to dine with the Emperor and the palace footmen he could glimpse through the windows.

While the Emperor was at dinner, Valúev, looking out the window, said:

“The people are still hoping to see Your Majesty again.”

The dinner was nearly over when the Emperor, finishing a biscuit, stood and came out onto the balcony. The crowd, Pétya included, rushed forward.

“Angel! Dear one! Hurrah! Father!…” cried the crowd, Pétya with them, and again the women and softer-hearted men, Pétya among them, wept with joy.

A large piece of biscuit broke off from the Emperor’s hand, fell onto the balcony ledge, then to the ground. A coachman in a jerkin, standing closest, grabbed it up. Several people dashed at the coachman. Seeing this, the Emperor had a plateful of biscuits brought out and threw them to the crowd from the balcony. Pétya’s eyes turned bloodshot with excitement, and, caught up in the crush, he lunged at the biscuits. He didn’t know why, but he had to get one from the Tsar’s hand and felt he must not give up. Pushing ahead, he knocked over an old woman also going for a biscuit; she, undaunted, reached for one, but Pétya pushed her hand away with his knee, seized a biscuit, and, as if racing against time, again shouted “Hurrah!” in an ever-deepening, hoarse voice.

The Emperor went inside, and most of the crowd began to disperse.

“There! I said if only we waited—we’d get something!” several people said happily.

Although Pétya was happy, he felt sad that the day’s excitement was ending. He didn’t go directly home from the Kremlin, but stopped to see his friend Obolénski, who was fifteen and also joining the regiment. When he finally returned, Pétya firmly declared that if he wasn’t allowed to serve, he would run away. And the next day, Count Ilyá Rostóv—though not entirely resigned—went to find out how Pétya might serve with the least possible danger.

##  CHAPTER XXII

Two days later, on the fifteenth of July, an immense number of carriages lined up outside the Slobóda Palace.

The grand halls were filled. In the first, the nobility and gentry wore their various uniforms; in the second, bearded merchants in full-skirted blue coats, decorated with medals. In the noblemen’s hall, there was a constant movement and buzz of conversation. The chief magnates sat on high-backed chairs at a large table under a portrait of the Emperor, while most of the gentry strolled about the room.

All these nobles, whom Pierre saw daily at the Club or in their homes, now wore uniforms—some from Catherine’s era, others from Emperor Paul’s, and still others in the current attire of Alexander’s reign or the standard nobility uniform. The uniformity gave a strange and fantastic air to these otherwise familiar figures, young and old. The older men—dim-eyed, toothless, bald, sallow, and bloated, or gaunt and wrinkled—were especially striking. Most sat quietly in their places and remained silent, or, if they walked about and talked, attached themselves to someone younger. On all these faces, as on those Pétya had seen in the Square, was a noticeable contradiction: the general anticipation of a solemn event, and at the same time concerns about common matters like the boston card game, Peter the cook, Zinaída Dmítrievna’s health, and so on.

Pierre was there too, buttoned since early morning into a nobleman’s uniform that had grown too tight for him. He was agitated; this extraordinary assembly, which included not just nobles but also the merchant class—*les états généraux* (States-General)—brought to mind a series of ideas long dormant but deeply embedded in his soul: thoughts of the *Contrat Social* and the French Revolution. The words from the Emperor’s appeal—that the sovereign was coming to consult with his people—strengthened this impression. Imagining that something significant, long awaited, might be imminent, he walked about, watching and listening to conversations, but nowhere found confirmation for the ideas that occupied him.

The Emperor’s manifesto was read, triggering enthusiasm, and then everyone moved about, discussing it. Besides the usual topics of conversation, Pierre overheard debates about where the marshals of the nobility should stand when the Emperor entered, when a ball should be held in the Emperor’s honor, whether they should group themselves by districts or provinces, and so on; but whenever the war or the reason for the assembly was mentioned, the conversation became vague. Then everyone preferred listening over speaking.

A handsome, virile middle-aged man in a retired naval officer’s uniform was speaking in one of the rooms, and a small crowd formed around him. Pierre joined the circle and listened. Count Ilyá Rostóv, in a Catherine-era military uniform, wandered through the crowd with a pleasant smile, greeting everyone. He, too, came over and listened with a kindly smile and nods of approval, as he always did, to the speaker’s words. The retired naval man spoke boldly, as shown by the listeners’ expressions and by the fact that some usually meek men walked away or disagreed. Pierre edged into the circle, listened, and concluded that the man was indeed a liberal, but with views very different from his own. The naval officer spoke in a particularly rich, musical, and aristocratic baritone, rolling his *r*’s and slurring his consonants: the voice of a man commanding a servant, “Heah! Bwing me my pipe!”—suggestive of dissipation and authority.

“What if the Smolénsk people have offahd to waise militia for the Empewah? Ah we to take Smolénsk as our patte’n? If the noble awistocwacy of the pwovince of Moscow thinks fit, it can show its loyalty to our sov’weign the Empewah in other ways. Have we fo’gotten the waising of the militia in the yeah ‘seven? All that did was to enwich the pwiests’ sons and thieves and wobbahs….”

Count Ilyá Rostóv smiled amicably and nodded his approval.

“And was our militia of any use to the Empia? Not at all! It only wuined our farming! Bettah have another conscwiption… o’ ou’ men will wetu’n neithah soldiers no’ peasants, and we’ll get only depwavity fwom them. The nobility don’t gwudge theah lives—evewy one of us will go and bwing in more wecwuits, and the sov’weign” (meaning the Emperor) “need only say the word and we’ll all die fo’ him!” the orator added with excitement.

Count Rostóv’s mouth watered with pleasure and he nudged Pierre, but Pierre wanted to speak himself. He pressed forward, stirred, though uncertain exactly what he wanted to say. Barely had he opened his mouth when one of the senators, a toothless man with a shrewd, angry face standing near the first speaker, interrupted. Apparently used to steering debates and holding his ground, he began in a low but firm tone:

“I imagine, sir,” he said, mumbling through his toothless mouth, “that we have been summoned here not to debate whether it would be better for the empire right now to adopt conscription or call out the militia. We have been summoned to reply to the appeal with which our sovereign the Emperor has honored us. But to judge what is best—conscription or the militia—we can leave to the supreme authority….”

Pierre suddenly saw an outlet for his excitement. He braced himself against the senator, who was bringing a rigid and narrow view into the nobles’ discussions. Pierre stepped forward and interrupted him. He himself did not yet know exactly what he would say, but he started to speak passionately, sometimes slipping into French or using bookish Russian.

“Excuse me, your excellency,” he began. (Although well acquainted with the senator, he thought it necessary to speak formally here.) “Though I don’t agree with the gentleman…” (he hesitated, wishing to say *“Mon très honorable préopinant”*—“My very honorable opponent”) “with the gentleman… whom I have not the honor of knowing, I suppose that the nobility have been summoned not merely to express their sympathy and enthusiasm, but also to consider the ways in which we can assist our Fatherland! I imagine,” he continued, growing more passionate, “that the Emperor himself would not be satisfied to find in us merely owners of serfs whom we are ready to devote to his service, and *chair à canon* \* we are prepared to make of ourselves—and not to obtain from us any co-co-counsel.”

\* “Food for cannon.”

Several people withdrew from the circle, noticing the senator’s mocking smile and the boldness of Pierre’s remarks. Only Count Rostóv enjoyed the speech, as he did those of the naval officer, the senator, and generally whatever he had just heard.

“I think that before we discuss these questions,” Pierre went on, “we should ask the Emperor—most respectfully ask His Majesty—to inform us about the number of our troops and the current state of our army and forces, and then…”

But Pierre had barely spoken these words before he was attacked from three sides. The strongest objection came from an old acquaintance, a boston player known for his kindness toward Pierre, Stepán Stepánovich Adráksin. Adráksin, now in uniform, appeared to Pierre as a changed man. With sudden hostility on his aged face, Adráksin shouted at Pierre:

“First of all, I tell you we have no right to question the Emperor about that, and secondly, if the Russian nobility did have that right, the Emperor couldn’t answer such a question. The troops move depending on the enemy, and their numbers grow and shrink….”

Another voice joined in, that of a nobleman of medium height, around forty, whom Pierre had once met at the gypsies’ and knew as a poor cardplayer—and who, also transformed by his uniform, approached Pierre and interrupted Adráksin.

“Yes, and this is not a time for discussion,” he continued, “but for action: there’s war in Russia! The enemy is advancing to destroy Russia, to desecrate the tombs of our fathers, to carry off our wives and children.” The nobleman struck his chest. “We will all rise, each one of us will go, for our father the Tsar!” he shouted, his bloodshot eyes rolling. Several approving voices rang out from the crowd. “We are Russians and will not spare our blood to defend our faith, the throne, and the Fatherland! We must stop babbling if we are sons of our Fatherland! We’ll show Europe how Russia stands up for herself!”

Pierre tried to reply, but could not get in a word. He felt that, apart from their meaning, his words were simply drowned out by his opponents’ voices.

Count Rostóv was expressing approval from the back; several people, turning briskly away from the previous speaker, said:

“That’s right, absolutely! Exactly so!”

Pierre wanted to say he was ready to sacrifice his money, his serfs, or himself—only that it was necessary to know the true situation in order to improve it—but he could not be heard. Many voices spoke at once, so Count Rostóv could not approve them all, and the group swelled, dispersed, re-formed, and then moved, buzzing, into the largest hall and toward the big table. Not only was Pierre’s attempt to speak unsuccessful, but he was now rudely interrupted, pushed aside, and people turned away from him as from an enemy. This happened not because his speech displeased them—indeed, it had already been forgotten after the many that followed—but because the crowd needed a focus for their emotions: someone to love, someone to hate. Pierre became the latter. Many other speakers followed the impassioned nobleman, all in the same vein. Many spoke with eloquence and originality.

Glínka, the editor of the *Russian Messenger*, recognized by calls of “author! author!” in the crowd, said that “hell must be repulsed by hell,” and that he had seen a child smile at lightning and thunder, but “we will not be that child.”

“Yes, yes, at thunderclaps!” voices called in approval from the rear of the crowd.

The crowd gathered at the large table, where gray-haired or bald seventy-year-old magnates sat, decorated and uniformed, most of whom Pierre had seen in their own homes with their jesters, or playing boston at the clubs. Amid a constant hum, the crowd pressed forward. Hemmed in against the tall-backed chairs, the orators spoke one after another, sometimes two at once. Those behind would notice something a speaker omitted and rush to supply it. Others racked their brains for thoughts and hurried to share them. The old magnates, whom Pierre recognized, sat and turned, looking first at one speaker and then another, their faces mostly showing that they found it very hot. Pierre, however, felt excited, and the general urge to demonstrate willingness for sacrifice—expressed more in tone and looks than substance—infected him too. He did not abandon his opinions, but felt in some way to blame and wanted to justify himself.

“I only said it would make more sense to make sacrifices once we know what is needed!” he said, struggling to be heard above the noise.

One of the old men nearby glanced at him, but was immediately distracted by an exclamation on the other side of the table.

“Yes, Moscow will be surrendered! She will be our expiation!” one man shouted.

“He is the enemy of mankind!” cried another. “Allow me to speak….” “Gentlemen, you are crushing me!…”

##  CHAPTER XXIII

At that moment Count Rostopchín, with his jutting chin and alert eyes, dressed in a general’s uniform with a sash over his shoulder, entered the room, moving briskly to the front of the gathered gentry.

“Our sovereign the Emperor will arrive any moment,” said Rostopchín. “I’ve come straight from the palace. Given our circumstances, I believe there’s little need for more discussion. The Emperor has graciously summoned us and the merchants. Millions will pour out from there”—he gestured toward the merchants’ hall—“but our task is to provide men and not spare ourselves… That is the least we can do!”

A conference took place consisting only of the dignitaries seated at the table. The entire consultation proceeded with remarkable quiet. After so much previous commotion, the sound of their aged voices repeating, “I agree,” or occasionally, “I am of the same opinion,” gave the meeting a rather somber tone.

The secretary was instructed to record the resolution of the Moscow nobility and gentry: they would supply ten fully equipped men for every thousand serfs, as the Smolénsk gentry had pledged. Chairs scraped as the gentlemen who had held council stood with an air of relief and began strolling arm in arm, stretching their legs and talking in pairs.

“The Emperor! The Emperor!” a sudden cry rang out through the halls, and the entire gathering rushed toward the entrance.

The Emperor entered the hall along a wide path between two rows of nobles. Every face showed respectful, awe-filled curiosity. Pierre stood somewhat far off and could not hear all that the Emperor said. From what he did hear, he gathered that the Emperor spoke of the peril facing the empire and the trust he placed in the Moscow nobility. A voice responded, informing him of the decision just reached.

“Gentlemen!” said the Emperor, his voice trembling.

There was a movement in the crowd, then it quieted again, so Pierre clearly heard the Emperor’s sincere and emotional voice:

“I never doubted the loyalty of the Russian nobility, but today you have exceeded my expectations. I thank you in the name of the Fatherland! Gentlemen, let us act! Time is most precious…”

The Emperor finished speaking, the crowd began pressing in around him, and enthusiastic exclamations were heard from every side.

“Yes, indeed… a royal word,” said Count Rostóv, tearing up. He stood at the back and, though he had hardly heard anything, understood everything in his own way.

From the nobility’s hall the Emperor proceeded to the hall of the merchants. He stayed there for about ten minutes. Pierre was among those who saw him exit the merchants’ hall with tears of emotion in his eyes. As was learned later, he had barely begun to address the merchants before tears flowed from his eyes and he finished his speech with a trembling voice. When Pierre saw the Emperor, he was emerging accompanied by two merchants, one of whom Pierre recognized—a stout *otkupshchík*. The other was the mayor, a man with a thin, sallow face and a narrow beard. Both were weeping. Tears streamed from the thin man’s eyes, and the fat *otkupshchík* sobbed openly like a child, repeating over and over:

“Our lives and property—take them, Your Majesty!”

Pierre’s only feeling at that moment was a wish to prove he was ready to go to any length and prepared to sacrifice everything. He now felt embarrassed by his earlier speech with its focus on constitutional ideas, and looked for a chance to make amends. Hearing that Count Mamónov was providing a regiment, Bezúkhov immediately told Rostopchín he would contribute a thousand men and fund their upkeep.

Old Rostóv could not tell his wife what had happened without shedding tears, and he instantly agreed to Pétya’s request, going himself to register his name.

The next day, the Emperor left Moscow. The assembled nobles all took off their uniforms and settled back into their homes and clubs, and, with some sighs, issued orders to their stewards about enrolling soldiers, still amazed at what they had done.

##  BOOK TEN: 1812

##  CHAPTER I

Napoleon began the war with Russia because he could not resist going to Dresden, could not avoid having his head turned by the homage he received, could not help putting on a Polish uniform and giving in to the stimulation of a June morning, and could not stop himself from fits of anger in the presence of Kurákin and then Balashëv.

Alexander refused negotiations because he felt personally insulted. Barclay de Tolly tried to command the army to the best of his ability because he wanted to fulfill his duty and gain renown as a great commander. Rostóv charged the French because he could not hold back his desire to gallop across a wide-open field; and in the same way, the countless people who took part in the war acted according to their personal qualities, habits, circumstances, and goals. They were moved by fear or vanity, felt joy or indignation, and reasoned, imagining they knew what they were doing and acted of their own free will, yet they all were involuntary instruments of history, carrying out a purpose hidden from them but clear to us. Such is the inevitable fate of people of action, and the higher they stand in society, the less freedom they truly have.

The participants of 1812 have long since left the stage, their personal interests have disappeared without a trace, and all that remains from that time are its historical results.

Providence compelled all these people, striving to achieve personal aims, to further the realization of a tremendous result none of them expected—not Napoleon, not Alexander, not even those actually fighting.

The cause of the destruction of the French army in 1812 is clear to us now. No one will deny that the causes were, on one hand, its advance deep into Russia late in the season without preparation for a winter campaign, and, on the other hand, the nature the war took on from the burning of Russian towns and the resulting hatred toward the enemy among the Russian people. But no one at the time predicted (what now seems so evident) that this was the only way an army of eight hundred thousand men—the best in the world led by the best general—could be destroyed when facing a raw army half its size, led by inexperienced commanders, as the Russian army was. *Not only did no one foresee this*, but *on the Russian side* every effort was made to prevent the one thing that could save Russia, while *on the French side*, despite Napoleon’s experience and supposed military genius, every effort focused on pushing on to Moscow at the end of summer—that is, doing exactly what would guarantee their destruction.

In historical accounts of 1812, French writers often claim Napoleon recognized the danger of extending his lines, that he sought battle, and that his marshals advised him to halt at Smolénsk, among other similar statements to imply the campaign's dangers were already understood. Russian authors are even more fond of stating that from the start a Scythian strategy was employed to lure Napoleon deep into Russia, attributing this plan variously to Pfuel, to some Frenchman, to Toll, or to Alexander himself—pointing to notes, projects, and letters that hint at such a course of action. But all these hints, from both the French and Russian sides, are only put forward because they fit what actually happened. If events had gone a different way, these hints would have been forgotten, as thousands and millions of contrary hints and expectations, once current, have now been forgotten because history disproved them. There are always so many theories about the outcome of any event that, however it ends, there will always be some who say: “I said it would be so,” conveniently forgetting that among all their predictions, many were the exact opposite.

Theories about Napoleon’s awareness of the risks of overextending his line, and—on the Russian side—about intentionally luring the enemy deep into Russia, clearly belong to that type and only with great effort can historians attribute such purposeful thinking to Napoleon and his marshals, or such detailed plans to the Russian commanders. All the facts stand plainly against such interpretations. Throughout the war, not only was there no Russian desire to draw the French farther into the country, but from their first entry into Russia everything possible was done to stop them. Likewise, not only was Napoleon unafraid of stretching his line, but he embraced each step forward as a triumph and, unlike in previous campaigns, did not seek battle with the same eagerness, but rather sluggishly.

At the very beginning of the war, our armies were separated, and our sole aim was to unite them, although uniting the armies would have served no purpose if our aim was simply to retreat and lure the enemy further into the country. Our Emperor joined the army to inspire it to defend every bit of Russian ground, not to retreat. The vast Drissa camp was established according to Pfuel’s plan, with no intention to withdraw further. The Emperor blamed the commanders-in-chief for every step backward. He could not stand the thought of letting the enemy reach even Smolénsk, much less contemplate the burning of Moscow, and when our armies did unite, he was disappointed that Smolénsk was abandoned and burned without a major battle fought at its walls.

So thought the Emperor, and the Russian commanders and people were even more troubled by the retreat of our forces deeper into the country.

Napoleon, after dividing our armies, pressed deeper into the country and missed several chances for battle. In August he reached Smolénsk and thought only of how to advance further, though we now see that advance was obviously disastrous for him.

The facts make it clear that Napoleon did not foresee the consequences of advancing on Moscow, nor did Alexander and the Russian commanders have a plan to lure Napoleon in; in fact, just the opposite. The drawing of Napoleon deep into Russia was not part of any plan, because no one thought it possible; it came about through a very complex interplay of intrigues, aims, and desires among those involved in the war, who had no sense of what was inevitable or of the only way Russia could be saved. Everything happened by accident. The armies were divided at the start of the campaign. We tried to unite them, clearly intending to risk battle and stop the enemy’s advance, but by this effort to unite the forces while avoiding battle with a much stronger enemy, and by continually pulling the armies back at a sharp angle—we led the French straight to Smolénsk. But our retreat became even more pronounced, not only because the French advanced between our two armies; the angle became steeper and we retreated further, because Barclay de Tolly, an unpopular foreign commander, was disliked by Bagratión (who would fall under his command), and Bagratión—leading the second army—delayed joining and coming under Barclay’s authority as long as possible. Bagratión was slow in joining up—though this was headquarters’ main goal—because he claimed bringing his army together exposed it to danger on the march, and he preferred to retire farther to the left and south, harassing the enemy from the flanks and rear and recruiting men from Ukraine for his army; and it seems he did this mostly to avoid serving under Barclay, the unpopular foreigner whose rank was lower than his own.

The Emperor remained with the army to encourage it, but his presence, his inexperience, and the huge number of advisers and plans sapped the first army’s strength, so it retreated.

The plan was to hold firm at the Drissa camp, but Paulucci, seeking the position of commander-in-chief, unexpectedly used his influence on Alexander, so Pfuel’s whole plan was abandoned and command passed to Barclay. Yet Barclay failed to inspire trust, so his power was limited. The armies remained divided, there was no unified command, and Barclay was disliked; but from this confusion, division, and the unpopularity of a foreign commander-in-chief, there resulted on one hand hesitation and a tendency to avoid a battle (which might not have happened if the armies had been unified and someone other than Barclay in charge) and on the other hand growing anger at the foreigners and a surge in patriotic feeling.

At length the Emperor left the army, and, as the most convenient—and indeed only—pretext for doing so, it was decided he must inspire the people in the capitals and stir the nation to a patriotic war. With this visit by the Emperor to Moscow, the strength of the Russian army tripled.

He departed so as not to impede the commander-in-chief’s authority over the army, hoping that more decisive actions might then be taken, but the command became even more confused and weakened. Bennigsen, the Tsarévich, and a host of adjutant generals stayed with the army to supervise the commander-in-chief and “revive his energy,” and Barclay, feeling watched by this crowd of “eyes of the Emperor,” grew even more cautious about taking decisive action, avoiding battle all the more.

Barclay stood for caution. The Tsarévich hinted at betrayal, demanding a general battle. Lubomírski, Bronnítski, Włocki, and others in that group stirred up even more trouble, so that Barclay, using the excuse of sending paperwork to the Emperor, sent these Polish adjutant generals to Petersburg and began an open quarrel with Bennigsen and the Tsarévich.

At Smolénsk, the armies finally came together, much as Bagratión disliked it.

Bagratión arrived by carriage at the house where Barclay was staying. Barclay put on his sash and went out to greet and report to his superior officer, Bagratión.

Despite his senior rank, Bagratión, in this contest of generosity, took orders from Barclay, but agreeing to serve under him made him less agreeable than ever. By the Emperor’s orders, Bagratión reported directly to him. He wrote to Arakchéev, the Emperor’s confidant: “It must be as my sovereign pleases, but I cannot work with the *Minister* (meaning Barclay). For God’s sake, send me somewhere else, even if only in command of a regiment. I cannot stand it here. Headquarters are so full of Germans that a Russian cannot exist and nothing makes sense. I thought I was truly serving my sovereign and my country, but it turns out I am serving Barclay. I confess I do not want to.”

The presence of the Bronnítskys and Wintzingerodes and their like only worsened relations between the commanders-in-chief, leading to even less unity. Preparations were made to meet the French outside Smolénsk. A general was sent to survey the field. This general, who hated Barclay, visited a corps commander friend of his, spent the day with him, then went back to Barclay and declared the battlefield—without having seen it—unsuitable from every point of view.

While disputes and intrigues swirled about the choice of a battlefield, and while we searched for the French—not knowing their position—the French happened upon Nevérovski’s division and reached the walls of Smolénsk.

It became necessary to fight an unexpected battle at Smolénsk to save our lines of communication. The battle was fought, and thousands died on both sides.

Smolénsk was abandoned against the wishes of the Emperor and the public. The city was burned by its own people, misled by their governor. These ruined citizens, setting an example for other Russians, went to Moscow thinking only of their own losses but igniting hatred of the enemy. Napoleon advanced further and we retreated, bringing about the very result that caused his destruction.

##  CHAPTER II

The day after his son left, Prince Nicholas summoned Princess Mary to his study.

“Well? Are you satisfied now?” he said. “You’ve made me quarrel with my son! Satisfied, are you? That’s all you wanted! Satisfied?… It hurts me, it hurts. I’m old and weak, and this is what you wanted. Well then, enjoy it! Enjoy it!”

After that, Princess Mary didn’t see her father for a whole week. He was ill and stayed in his study.

Princess Mary was surprised to notice that during this illness, the old prince not only kept her out of his room, but also did not allow Mademoiselle Bourienne in. Only Tíkhon attended to him.

At the end of the week, the prince reappeared and resumed his usual routine, throwing himself with particular energy into building projects and rearranging the gardens while completely cutting off his relationship with Mademoiselle Bourienne. His cold looks and tone toward his daughter seemed to say: “There, you see? You plotted against me, you lied to Prince Andrew about my relationship with that Frenchwoman and made me quarrel with him, but you see I need neither her nor you!”

Princess Mary spent half of each day with little Nicholas, overseeing his lessons, teaching him Russian and music herself, and talking with Dessalles; she spent the rest of the day with her books, her old nurse, or with the “God’s folk” who sometimes came to visit her by the back door.

Princess Mary thought about the war as women often do. She feared for her brother, who was involved, was horrified and amazed by the strange cruelty that drives men to kill each other, but she did not understand the significance of this war, which seemed to her like all previous wars. She did not grasp the importance of this war, even though Dessalles—who spoke with her frequently—was passionately interested in its progress and tried to explain his own understanding, and even though the “God’s folk” brought her their own reports about rumors of an invasion by Antichrist, and even though Julie (now Princess Drubetskaya), who had resumed writing to her, sent patriotic letters from Moscow.

“I write to you in Russian, my dear friend,” Julie wrote in her French-accented Russian, “because I now detest the French and their language—I cannot even stand to hear it spoken… Here in Moscow we are filled with enthusiasm for our adored Emperor.

“My poor husband is suffering pains and hunger in Jewish taverns, but the news that I have inspires me all the more.

“You have probably heard of Raevsky’s heroic actions, embracing his two sons and saying: ‘I will perish with them, but we will not falter!’ And truly, though the enemy was twice as strong as we were, we stood firm. We pass the time as best we can, but it’s war, after all! Princesses Aline and Sophie spend days with me, and we, unhappy widows of living men, have beautiful conversations over our *charpie*—only you, my friend, are missing…” and so on.

The main reason Princess Mary did not understand the full meaning of this war was that her father never spoke of it, did not acknowledge it, and mocked Dessalles if he brought it up at dinner. The prince’s calm and confident manner made Princess Mary believe him without hesitation.

All that July, the old prince was extremely active, even lively. He planned another garden and began construction on a new building for the household serfs. The only thing that worried Princess Mary was that he slept very little and, instead of sleeping in his study as usual, changed his sleeping place every day. One day he would order his camp bed set up in the glass gallery, another day he would sleep on the couch or lounge chair in the drawing room, dozing there without undressing—while instead of Mademoiselle Bourienne, a serf boy read to him. Then again, he might spend the night in the dining room.

On August 1, a second letter arrived from Prince Andrew. In his first letter, which had arrived soon after he left home, Prince Andrew had dutifully asked his father’s forgiveness for what he had said, and begged to be restored to his good favor. To this letter, the old prince had replied warmly and from then on kept the Frenchwoman at a distance. Prince Andrew’s second letter, written near Vítebsk after the French occupied the town, gave a brief account of the entire campaign and included a plan he had drawn, along with predictions for how the war might develop. In this letter, Prince Andrew warned his father about the danger of staying at Bald Hills, so close to the war and directly on the army’s route, and advised him to move to Moscow.

At dinner that day, when Dessalles mentioned that the French were rumored to have entered Vítebsk, the old prince remembered his son’s letter.

“There was a letter from Prince Andrew today,” he said to Princess Mary. “Haven’t you read it?”

“No, Father,” she replied in a frightened voice.

She could not have read the letter, since she did not even know it had arrived.

“He writes about this war,” said the prince, with the ironic smile he always used when speaking of the current war.

“That must be very interesting,” said Dessalles. “Prince Andrew is in a good position to know…”

“Oh, very interesting!” added Mademoiselle Bourienne.

“Go and get it for me,” said the old prince to Mademoiselle Bourienne. “You know—under the paperweight on the little table.”

Mademoiselle Bourienne jumped up eagerly.

“No, don’t!” he exclaimed with a frown. “You go, Michael Ivanovich.”

Michael Ivanovich got up and left for the study. But as soon as he left the room, the old prince looked around uneasily, threw down his napkin, and went himself.

“They can’t do anything… always making a mess,” he muttered.

While he was gone, Princess Mary, Dessalles, Mademoiselle Bourienne, and even little Nicholas exchanged silent glances. The old prince returned briskly, accompanied by Michael Ivanovich, with the letter and a plan. He set them beside himself, not letting anyone read them during dinner.

Once they moved to the drawing room, he handed the letter to Princess Mary and, spreading out the plan of the new building before him and focusing on it, asked her to read the letter aloud. When she finished, Princess Mary looked at her father, seeking a response. He was busy examining the plan, clearly consumed by his own ideas.

“What do you think of it, Prince?” Dessalles ventured.

“I? I?…” said the prince, as if unpleasantly startled, without lifting his eyes from the building plan.

“Very possibly the theater of war will move so close to us that…”

“Ha ha ha! The theater of war!” the prince said. “I have said and still say that the theater of war is Poland, and the enemy will never get past the Niemen.”

Dessalles looked at the prince in surprise, since he was talking about the Niemen when the enemy was already at the Dnieper, but Princess Mary, forgetting exactly where the Niemen was, thought her father must be right.

“When the snow melts they’ll get bogged down in the Polish swamps. Only they could fail to see it,” the prince went on, still thinking about the campaign of 1807, which seemed so recent to him. “Bennigsen should have advanced into Prussia sooner, then things would have turned out differently…”

“But, Prince,” Dessalles began timidly, “the letter mentions Vítebsk….”

“Ah, the letter? Yes…” replied the prince peevishly. “Yes… yes…” His face suddenly became sullen. He paused. “Yes, he writes that the French were defeated at… at… what river is it?”

Dessalles lowered his eyes.

“The prince doesn’t mention that,” he said gently.

“Doesn’t he? Well, I didn’t make it up myself.”

No one spoke for a long time.

“Yes… yes… Well, Michael Ivánovich,” he suddenly continued, raising his head and pointing to the plan of the building, “tell me how you intend to change it….”

Michael Ivánovich walked over to the plan, and after the prince spoke to him about the building, he cast an angry look at Princess Mary and Dessalles before heading to his own room.

Princess Mary noticed Dessalles’ embarrassed and astonished gaze fixed on her father, his silence, and was struck by the fact that her father had forgotten his son’s letter on the drawing room table; but she was not only afraid to mention it or ask Dessalles why he seemed confused and quiet, she was even afraid to think about it.

That evening, Michael Ivánovich, sent by the prince, came to Princess Mary for Prince Andrew’s letter, which had been left in the drawing room. She handed it to him and, though it was uncomfortable for her, dared to ask what her father was doing.

“Always busy,” replied Michael Ivánovich with a respectfully ironic smile that made Princess Mary pale. “He’s worrying a lot about the new building. He’s done a bit of reading, but now”—Michael Ivánovich lowered his voice—“now he’s at his desk, working on his will, I think.” (One of the prince’s favorite recent pastimes was preparing some papers he intended to leave behind when he died, which he called his “will.”)

“And Alpátych is being sent to Smolénsk?” Princess Mary asked.

“Oh, yes, he’s been ready to leave for some time.”

##  CHAPTER III

When Michael Ivánovich returned to the study with the letter, the old prince, wearing spectacles and a shade over his eyes, was sitting at his open desk by shielded candles, holding a paper in his outstretched hand, and in a somewhat theatrical pose was reading his manuscript—his “Remarks,” as he called it—which was to be delivered to the Emperor after his death.

When Michael Ivánovich entered, there were tears in the prince’s eyes, brought on by memories of the time when the paper he was now reading had been written. He took the letter from Michael Ivánovich, put it in his pocket, gathered up his papers, and called Alpátych, who had been waiting for a long time.

The prince had a list of items to buy in Smolénsk and, pacing back and forth past Alpátych, who stood by the door, he gave his instructions.

“First, notepaper—do you hear? Eight quires, like this sample, gilt-edged… it must be exactly like the sample. Varnish, sealing wax, as on Michael Ivánovich’s list.”

He paced for a while and glanced at his notes.

“Then hand the letter to the governor in person about the deed.”

Next, he needed bolts for the doors of the new building, and they had to be of a special design the prince had created himself, and a leather case had to be ordered to keep the “will” in.

His instructions to Alpátych lasted more than two hours, and still the prince did not dismiss him. He sat down, sank into thought, closed his eyes, and dozed off. Alpátych shifted slightly.

“Well, go, go! If anything else is needed, I’ll send after you.”

Alpátych left. The prince walked over to his desk again, checked his papers, closed the desk, and sat down at the table to write to the governor.

It was already late when he finished sealing the letter. He wanted to sleep, but knew he wouldn’t be able to and that the most depressing thoughts would come to him in bed. So he called Tíkhon and went with him through the rooms to decide where the bed should be made up for the night.

He inspected every corner. Everywhere seemed unsuitable, but worst of all was his usual couch in the study. That spot was dreadful to him, probably because of the heavy thoughts he’d had while lying there. Nowhere satisfied him, but the corner behind the piano in the sitting room was better than the other spots: he had never slept there before.

With a footman’s help, Tíkhon brought in the bedstead and began setting it up.

“That’s wrong! That’s not right!” the prince exclaimed, and himself pushed it a few inches away from the corner and then closer in.

“Well, at last I’m done, now I’ll rest,” thought the prince, and let Tíkhon help him undress.

Frowning, irritated by the effort needed to remove his coat and trousers, the prince undressed, sat heavily on the bed, and looked contemplatively at his withered yellow legs. He wasn’t really thinking, just putting off the effort it would take to lift his legs and turn onto the bed. “Ugh, how hard it is! Oh, that this work would end and *you* would release me!” he thought. Pressing his lips together, he braced himself for what felt like the twenty-thousandth time and lay down. But as soon as he did, he felt the bed rocking beneath him as if it were breathing and shaking. This happened almost every night. He opened his eyes while they were closing.

“No peace, damn them!” he muttered angrily, not sure at whom. “Ah yes, there was something important, very important, I meant to do in bed. The bolts? No, I told him about those. No, it was something, something in the drawing room. Princess Mary talked some nonsense. Dessalles, that fool, said something. Something in my pocket—I can’t remember….”

“Tíkhon, what did we talk about at dinner?”

“About Prince Michael…”

“Be quiet, quiet!” The prince slapped his hand on the table. “Yes, I know, Prince Andrew’s letter! Princess Mary read it. Dessalles said something about Vítebsk. Now I’ll read it.”

He had the letter taken from his pocket and the table—where there was a glass of lemonade and a spiral wax candle—was moved next to his bed, and after putting on his spectacles he started reading. Only now, in the quiet of the night, reading by the dim light under the green shade, did he fully understand its meaning for a moment.

“The French at Vítebsk, in four days’ march they could be at Smolénsk; maybe they’re already there! Tíkhon!” Tíkhon jumped up. “No, no, I don’t want anything!” he shouted.

He put the letter under the candlestick and closed his eyes. And suddenly, the Danube in bright daylight came to mind: reeds, the Russian camp, and himself as a young general, his face unwrinkled, vigorous and alert, entering Potëmkin’s brightly colored tent, and that old, burning sense of jealousy toward “the favorite” seized him just as strongly as it had then. He recalled every word spoken at that first meeting with Potëmkin. He saw before him a plump, rather sallow-faced, short, stout woman—the Empress Mother—with her smile and her words at his first gracious reception, and then that same face on the catafalque, and his encounter with Zúbov over her coffin regarding his right to kiss her hand.

“Oh, faster, faster! To return to that time and be free of everything in the present! Faster, faster—may they leave me in peace!”

##  CHAPTER IV

Bald Hills, Prince Nicholas Bolkónski’s estate, was situated forty miles east of Smolénsk and two miles from the main road to Moscow.

That same evening, after the prince gave his instructions to Alpátych, Dessalles, having requested to speak with Princess Mary, told her that since the prince was not feeling well and was taking no steps to ensure his safety—even though Prince Andrew’s letter made it clear that staying at Bald Hills might be dangerous—he respectfully advised her to send a letter with Alpátych to the Provincial Governor at Smolénsk. The letter would ask for details about the current situation and the extent of the danger facing Bald Hills. Dessalles wrote this letter to the Governor for Princess Mary, she signed it, and it was entrusted to Alpátych with directions to deliver it to the Governor and return as quickly as possible if there was any danger.

After receiving all his orders, Alpátych, wearing a white beaver hat—a gift from the prince—and carrying a stick like the prince did, went out accompanied by his family. Three well-fed roan horses were ready, hitched to a small carriage with a leather hood.

The large bell was muffled and the small bells on the harness were stuffed with paper. The prince allowed no one at Bald Hills to drive with ringing bells; but on a long journey, Alpátych liked to have them. His entourage—the senior clerk, a clerk from the countinghouse, a scullery maid, a cook, two old women, a little page boy, the coachman, and various household serfs—were there to see him off.

His daughter placed chintz-covered down cushions for him to sit on and behind his back. His old sister-in-law slipped in a small bundle, and one of the coachmen helped him into the carriage.

“There! There! Women’s fuss! Women, women!” said Alpátych, puffing and speaking quickly just as the prince did, as he climbed into the trap.

After giving the clerk his orders about the work to be done, Alpátych, no longer imitating the prince, removed the hat from his bald head and crossed himself three times.

“If anything happens… come back, Yákov Alpátych! For Christ’s sake, think of us!” cried his wife, referring to the rumors of war and the enemy.

“Women, women! Women’s fuss!” muttered Alpátych to himself as he started his journey, looking around at the fields of yellow rye, the still-green, thick stands of oats, and other freshly plowed, dark fields being turned for a second time.

As he rode, he enjoyed the sight of the year’s magnificent crop of grain, inspected the strips of rye fields where harvesting had already begun, calculated the work remaining for sowing and harvest, and wondered whether he had forgotten any of the prince’s instructions.

After stopping to feed the horses twice along the way, he reached the town towards evening on the fourth of August.

Alpátych kept encountering and passing baggage trains and troops on the road. As he neared Smolénsk, he heard the sounds of distant gunfire, but these did not worry him. What struck him most was the sight of a splendid field of oats where a soldiers’ camp had been set up and the oats were being cut down, clearly for fodder. This affected Alpátych, but thinking of his own duties, he soon put it out of his mind.

All his interests for over thirty years had been defined by the prince’s will, and he never strayed beyond that boundary. Anything not related to carrying out the prince’s orders simply didn’t concern, or even exist for, Alpátych.

Arriving in Smolénsk on the evening of August fourth, he stayed in the Gáchina suburb across the Dnieper, at the inn owned by Ferapóntov, where he had been staying for the past thirty years. It was about thirty years ago that, on Alpátych’s advice, Ferapóntov had bought timber from the prince, started trading, and now owned a house, an inn, and a grain dealer’s shop in the province. He was a stocky, dark, red-faced peasant in his forties, with thick lips, a broad knob of a nose, similar bumps over his black frowning brows, and a round belly.

Wearing a vest over his cotton shirt, Ferapóntov was standing in front of his shop, which opened onto the street. When he saw Alpátych, he walked over to him.

“You’re welcome, Yákov Alpátych. Folks are leaving the town, but you’ve come to it,” he said.

“Why are they leaving the town?” Alpátych asked.

“That’s what I wonder. Folks are foolish! Always afraid of the French.”

“Women’s fuss, women’s fuss!” said Alpátych.

“Exactly what I think, Yákov Alpátych. What I say is: orders have been given not to let them in, so that must be right. And the peasants are charging three rubles for carting—it’s not Christian!”

Yákov Alpátych listened without paying much attention. He asked for a samovar and hay for his horses, and after having his tea, went to bed.

All through the night, troops passed by the inn. The next morning, Alpátych put on a jacket he wore only in town and went out on his business. The morning was sunny, and by eight o’clock it was already hot. “A good day for harvesting,” Alpátych thought.

Since early morning, the sound of gunfire could be heard from beyond the city. At eight o’clock, the booming of cannons joined the musket fire. Many people hurried through the streets, and there were plenty of soldiers, but cabs still drove about, tradesmen stood at their shops, and church services were held as usual. Alpátych visited shops, government offices, the post office, and the Governor’s office. In every office, shop, and at the post office, everyone was talking about the army and the enemy, who was already attacking the town; everyone was asking what should be done, while all tried to reassure each other.

In front of the Governor’s house, Alpátych found many people, Cossacks, and the Governor’s traveling carriage. On the porch, he met two landowners, one of whom he knew. This man, a former police captain, was saying angrily:

“It’s no joke, you know! It’s all very well if you’re single. ‘One man ruined is just one,’ as the proverb says, but with thirteen in your family and all your property… They’ve ruined us! What kind of governors are they? They ought to be hanged—the brigands!…”

“Oh come, that’s enough!” said the other.

“What do I care? Let him hear! We aren’t dogs,” said the ex-captain of police, and, looking around, he noticed Alpátych.

“Oh, Yákov Alpátych! What have you come for?”

“To see the Governor on his excellency’s orders,” replied Alpátych, lifting his head and proudly placing his hand inside his coat as he always did when mentioning the prince…. “He has ordered me to inquire into the state of affairs,” he added.

“Yes, go and find out!” shouted the angry gentleman. “They’ve brought things to where there are no carts or anything!… There it is again, do you hear?” he said, pointing toward the gunfire.

“They’ve ruined us all… the brigands!” he repeated, and went down the porch steps.

Alpátych nodded and went upstairs. In the waiting room were tradesmen, women, and officials, all staring silently at each other. The door to the Governor’s office opened and everyone stood and moved forward. An official ran out, said something to a merchant, summoned a stout official with a cross on his neck to follow him, and hurried away again, obviously trying to avoid the questioning looks and inquiries. Alpátych moved forward, and when the official returned, approached him, one hand placed in the breast of his buttoned coat, and gave him two letters.

“To his Honor Baron Asch, from General-in-Chief Prince Bolkónski,” he announced with such solemnity and importance that the official turned to him and took the letters.

A few minutes later, the Governor received Alpátych and hurriedly said:

“Inform the prince and princess that I knew nothing: I acted on the highest instructions—here…” and he handed a paper to Alpátych. “Still, since the prince is unwell, my advice is that they go to Moscow. I am leaving myself. Inform them…”

But the Governor didn’t finish: a dusty, sweating officer ran into the room and began to speak in French. The Governor’s face showed terror.

“Go,” he said, nodding to Alpátych, then began questioning the officer.

Eager, frightened, helpless eyes followed Alpátych as he left the Governor’s office. Now, listening to the gunfire—which had grown closer and stronger—Alpátych hurried to his inn. The document he received from the Governor said:

“I assure you that the town of Smolénsk is not in any immediate danger and is unlikely to be threatened. I from one side and Prince Bagratión from the other are marching to join forces before Smolénsk. That junction will take place on the 22nd of this month, and both armies, united, will defend our fellow citizens of the province entrusted to your care until our efforts have driven back the enemies of our Fatherland, or until the last warrior in our brave ranks has fallen. From this you can see you have every right to reassure the inhabitants of Smolénsk, as those defended by two such brave armies may confidently expect victory.” (Instructions from Barclay de Tolly to Baron Asch, the civil governor of Smolénsk, 1812.)

People were anxiously roaming the streets.

Carts piled high with household utensils, chairs, and cupboards kept streaming out of the yard gates and moving along the streets. Loaded carts stood at the house next to Ferapóntov’s, while women cried and lamented as they said goodbye. A small watchdog darted around barking in front of the harnessed horses.

Alpátych entered the inn yard at a quicker pace than usual and went straight to the shed where his horses and carriage were kept. The coachman was asleep; Alpátych woke him, ordered him to harness the horses, and went into the passage. From the host’s room came the sound of a child crying, the desperate sobbing of a woman, and the hoarse, angry shouting of Ferapóntov. The cook began running back and forth in the passage like a frightened hen just as Alpátych entered.

“He’s done her in. Killed the mistress!… Beat her… dragged her about so!…”

“What for?” asked Alpátych.

“She kept begging to leave. She’s a woman! ‘Take me away,’ she says, ‘don’t let me die with my children! Everyone,’ she says, ‘is gone, so why,’ she says, ‘can’t we leave?’ And he started hitting and pulling her like that!”

At these words, Alpátych nodded as if in approval, and, not wanting to hear more, went to the door of the room opposite the innkeeper’s, where he had left his purchases.

“You brute, you murderer!” screamed a thin, pale woman who, with a baby in her arms and her kerchief torn from her head, rushed through the door at that moment and down the steps into the yard.

Ferapóntov came out after her, but on seeing Alpátych he adjusted his waistcoat, smoothed his hair, yawned, and followed Alpátych into the other room.

“Leaving already?” he asked.

Alpátych, without replying or looking at his host, sorted his packages and asked how much he owed.

“We’ll settle up! Well, did you get to the Governor’s?” asked Ferapóntov. “What did they decide?”

Alpátych replied that the Governor hadn’t told him anything specific.

“With our business, how can we leave?” said Ferapóntov. “They want seven rubles a cartload to Dorogobúzh, and I tell them it’s un-Christian to charge that! Selivánov, now, made a good deal last Thursday—sold flour to the army at nine rubles a sack. Would you like some tea?” he added.

While the horses were being harnessed, Alpátych and Ferapóntov had tea together and talked about the price of grain, the crops, and the excellent weather for harvesting.

“Well, it seems to be quieter now,” noted Ferapóntov, finishing his third cup of tea and standing up. “Ours must have the upper hand. The orders were not to let them in. So we’re holding strong, it seems…. They say the other day Matthew Iványch Plátov drove them into the river Márina and drowned some eighteen thousand in one day.”

Alpátych gathered his parcels, handed them to the coachman who had come in, and settled up with the innkeeper. The noise of wheels, hooves, and bells came from the gateway as a little carriage passed out.

It was by then late afternoon. Half the street was in shadow, the other half brightly lit by the sun. Alpátych looked out the window and went to the door. Suddenly, a strange, distant whistling and thud was heard, followed by the boom of cannon blending into a dull roar that rattled the windows.

He went out into the street: two men were running past toward the bridge. From different directions came the whistling and thud of cannonballs and exploding shells falling on the town. But these sounds hardly drew attention compared to the racket of the gunfire outside the town. The town was being bombarded by a hundred and thirty guns which Napoleon had ordered up after four o’clock. The people did not immediately understand what this bombardment meant.

At first, the noise of falling bombs and shells only aroused curiosity. Ferapóntov’s wife, who until then had been crying under the shed, became quiet, and with the baby in her arms went to the gate, listening to the sounds and watching the people in silence.

The cook and a shop assistant came to the gate. Everyone tried with eager curiosity to see the projectiles fly overhead. Several people came around the corner, talking excitedly.

“What force!” said one. “It smashed the roof and ceiling to bits!”

“Tore up the earth like a pig,” said another.

“That’s something, it gets you going!” laughed the first. “Lucky you jumped aside, or you’d have been flattened!”

More people joined those men and shared how cannonballs had struck a house near them. Meanwhile, more projectiles, sometimes with the sharp sinister whistle of a cannonball, sometimes with the strange, variable whistle of a shell, flew continually overhead, but none landed nearby—they all passed over. Alpátych was getting into his carriage. The innkeeper stood at the gate.

“What are you staring at?” he yelled to the cook, who, in her red skirt with sleeves rolled up, swinging her bare elbows, had stepped to the corner to listen to the talk.

“What wonders!” she exclaimed, but upon hearing her master’s voice, she turned back, pulling her skirt down.

Once again something whistled, but this time very close, swooping down like a small bird; a flash appeared in the middle of the street, something exploded, and the street filled with smoke.

“Scoundrel, what are you doing?” shouted the innkeeper, rushing to the cook.

At that moment, the pitiful wailing of women was heard from different directions, the terrified baby began to cry, and people crowded silently with pale faces around the cook. Her wailing was the loudest sound in the group.

“Oh-h-h! Dear souls, dear kind souls! Don’t let me die! My good souls!…”

Five minutes later, no one remained in the street. The cook, with her thigh broken by a shell splinter, had been carried into the kitchen. Alpátych, his coachman, Ferapóntov’s wife and children, and the house porter were all sitting in the cellar, listening. The roar of guns, the whistling of projectiles, and the pitiful moaning of the cook—which rose above every other sound—continued without stopping. The mistress rocked and hushed her baby and, whenever anyone entered the cellar, whispered anxiously about her husband who was still outside. A shopman who came in told her her husband had gone with others to the cathedral, where they were fetching the wonder-working icon of Smolénsk.

Toward dusk the cannonade started to quiet. Alpátych left the cellar and stopped in the doorway. The evening sky, which had been clear, was now clouded with smoke, through which the sickle of the new moon shone oddly. Now that the horrible noise of the guns had ended, a hush seemed to fall over the town, broken only by the sound of footsteps, moaning, distant cries, and the crackle of fires that seemed to be spreading everywhere. The cook’s moans had now lessened. On both sides, black clouds of smoke twisted upward from the fires. Soldiers in various uniforms walked or ran confusedly through the streets, like ants from a ruined hill. Several rushed into Ferapóntov’s yard in front of Alpátych’s eyes. Alpátych went out to the gate. A retreating regiment, crowded and in a hurry, blocked the street.

Noticing him, an officer said, “The town is being abandoned. Leave, leave!” and then, turning to the soldiers, shouted:

“I’ll teach you to run into the yards!”

Alpátych went back into the house, told the coachman to get ready to leave. Ferapóntov’s whole household came out too, following Alpátych and the coachman. The women, silent until then, suddenly began wailing as they saw the fires—whose smoke and even flames could be seen in the fading twilight—and as if in answer, the same kind of wailing came from other parts of the street. Inside the shed, Alpátych and the coachman, with shaking hands, sorted out the tangled reins and traces of their horses.

As Alpátych was driving out of the gate, he saw about ten soldiers in Ferapóntov’s open shop, talking loudly as they filled their bags and knapsacks with flour and sunflower seeds. Ferapóntov then returned and entered his shop. When he saw the soldiers, he was about to shout at them, but suddenly stopped and, grabbing his hair, burst into sobs and laughter:

“Take everything, lads! Don’t let those devils have it!” he cried, grabbing some bags of flour himself and throwing them into the street.

Some soldiers got scared and ran away, while others kept filling their bags. Seeing Alpátych, Ferapóntov turned to him:

“Russia is finished!” he cried. “Alpátych, I’ll set the place on fire myself. We’re finished!…” and Ferapóntov ran into the yard.

Soldiers were passing in a steady stream along the street, blocking it completely, so that Alpátych couldn’t get through and had to wait. Ferapóntov’s wife and children were also sitting in a cart, waiting until they could drive out.

Night had fallen. Stars were in the sky, and the new moon shone through the smoke that veiled it. On the sloping descent to the Dnieper, Alpátych’s cart and the innkeeper’s wife’s cart, which were moving slowly amid the lines of soldiers and other vehicles, had to stop. In a side street near the crossroads where the vehicles halted, a house and some shops were on fire. This fire was already starting to burn out. The flames would die down and disappear into the black smoke, then suddenly flare up again, brightly lighting the faces of the people crowded at the crossroads with an odd clarity. Dark figures moved quickly in front of the blaze, and over the constant crackling of the flames, voices talking and shouting could be heard. Seeing that his trap wouldn’t be able to move on for some time, Alpátych got down and turned into the side street to look at the fire. Soldiers were constantly rushing back and forth near it, and he saw two of them and a man in a frieze coat dragging burning beams into another yard across the street, while others carried bundles of hay.

Alpátych approached a large crowd standing before a tall barn that was burning fiercely. The walls were all on fire, and the back wall had collapsed; the wooden roof was caving in, and the rafters were burning. The crowd was clearly watching for the roof to fall, and Alpátych watched as well.

“Alpátych!” a familiar voice suddenly called out to the old man.

“Mercy on us! Your excellency!” replied Alpátych, immediately recognizing the voice of his young prince.

Prince Andrew, in his riding cloak, mounted on a black horse, was looking at Alpátych from behind the crowd.

“Why are you here?” he asked.

“Your… your excellency,” stammered Alpátych and burst into sobs. “Are we really lost? Master!…”

“Why are you here?” Prince Andrew repeated.

At that moment, the flames flared up and revealed his young master’s pale, worn face. Alpátych explained how he had been sent there and how hard it was to get away.

“Are we really completely lost, your excellency?” he asked again.

Prince Andrew, without responding, took out a notebook and, raising his knee, began writing in pencil on a page, which he tore out. He wrote to his sister:

“Smolénsk is being abandoned. Bald Hills will be occupied by the enemy within a week. Leave immediately for Moscow. Let me know at once when you will set out. Send a special messenger to Usvyázh.”

After writing this and giving the paper to Alpátych, he told him how to arrange for the departure of the prince, the princess, his son, and the boy’s tutor, as well as how and where to inform him at once. Before he had finished giving these instructions, a chief of staff, followed by his suite, galloped up to him.

“You are a colonel?” shouted the chief of staff with a German accent, in a voice Prince Andrew recognized. “Houses are burning in your presence and you stand by! What does this mean? You will answer for it!” shouted Berg, who was now assistant to the chief of staff of the commander of the left flank of the infantry of the first army—a post Berg called “very agreeable and quite *en évidence*.”

Prince Andrew looked at him, and without replying went on speaking to Alpátych.

“So tell them that I shall await a reply until the tenth, and if by the tenth I don’t receive news that everyone is safely away, I’ll have to leave everything and come to Bald Hills myself.”

“Prince,” said Berg, recognizing Prince Andrew, “I only said something because I have to follow orders, because I always do just what I’m told.... Please excuse me,” he added apologetically.

Something cracked in the flames. The fire died down momentarily, and coils of black smoke rolled from beneath the roof. There was another terrible crash and something large collapsed.

“Ou-rou-rou!” yelled the crowd, echoing the crash of the falling barn roof, the burning grain inside spreading a cake-like aroma all around. The flames blazed up again, illuminating the excited, delighted, exhausted faces of the onlookers.

The man in the frieze coat raised his arms and shouted:

“It’s great, lads! Now it’s really going... It’s great!”

“That’s the owner himself,” several voices called out.

“Well then,” Prince Andrew continued to Alpátych, “report to them as I told you.” Without replying to Berg, who now stood silent beside him, he touched his horse and rode down the side street.

##  CHAPTER V

From Smolénsk, the troops kept retreating, with the enemy close behind. On August tenth, the regiment under Prince Andrew’s command was marching along the highroad past the avenue that led to Bald Hills. For more than three weeks, the weather had been hot and dry. Each day, fleecy clouds floated across the sky, sometimes shading the sun, but by evening, the sky always cleared and the sun set in a reddish-brown haze. Only the heavy night dews brought any refreshment to the land. The unharvested grain was scorched and shedding its seeds. Marshes had dried up. Cattle, hungry, mooed as they found no food in the sun-baked meadows. Only at night or in the forests, while dew lasted, was there any coolness. But on the road—the highroad where the troops marched—there was no such relief, not even at night or where the road passed through the woods; the dew was unnoticed on the deep sandy dust, stirred up to more than six inches deep. As soon as dawn broke, the march would start. The artillery and baggage wagons moved silently through the deep dust that rose to the very hubs, while the infantry sank ankle-deep into the hot, stifling dust that never cooled, even after nightfall. Some of this dust was pressed down by feet and wheels, while the rest rose and hung like a cloud over the column, settling into eyes, ears, hair, nostrils—worst of all into the lungs of men and animals. The higher the sun climbed, the higher rose this dust cloud, and through its hot, fine particles, one could look with the naked eye at the sun, which appeared like a large crimson ball in the clear sky. There was no wind, and the men choked in the still air. They marched with handkerchiefs over their noses and mouths. When they passed through a village, everyone ran to the wells, fighting for water and drinking it down to the mud.

Prince Andrew was in charge of a regiment, and running it, caring for the men, and the constant flow of orders absorbed his attention. The burning and abandonment of Smolénsk marked a turning point in his life. A new sense of anger toward the enemy made him forget his personal grief. He devoted himself completely to his regiment’s affairs, showing care and kindness to his men and officers. Within the regiment, they called him “our prince,” took pride in him, and loved him. But he was kind and gentle only to those of his regiment, like Timókhin and others who were new to him and belonged to a different world—people who couldn’t know or understand his past. Whenever he encountered a former acquaintance or anyone from headquarters, he immediately bristled, turning spiteful, sarcastic, and contemptuous. Anything that reminded him of his past was distasteful, so with that former circle, he limited himself to simply fulfilling his duty and being fair.

In truth, everything seemed bleak and gloomy to Prince Andrew, especially after Smolénsk was abandoned on August sixth (he believed it could and should have been defended) and his sick father was forced to flee to Moscow, leaving Bald Hills—his cherished home, which he had built and filled—to be looted. Still, because of his regiment, Prince Andrew had other matters to think about apart from general worries. Two days earlier, he learned that his father, son, and sister had left for Moscow, and though he had no business at Bald Hills, Prince Andrew, in his typical way of nurturing his own sorrow, decided he must ride there.

He ordered his horse and, leaving his regiment on the march, rode to his father’s estate—his birthplace and childhood home. As he passed the pond where he’d once seen dozens of women chattering and washing clothes, Prince Andrew noticed it was deserted, and the little washing platform, torn from its place and half-submerged, was floating on its side in the middle of the pond. He rode on to the keeper’s lodge. No one stood at the stone entrance gates, which were open. Grass was already growing on the garden paths, and horses and calves wandered in the English park. Prince Andrew rode to the hothouse; some panes were broken, and some potted trees were tipped over while others were dried out. He called for Tarás, the gardener, but got no reply. Circling the hothouse to the ornamental garden, he saw the carved fence broken and branches of the plum trees torn off, fruit and all. An old peasant, whom Prince Andrew had often seen at the gate in his childhood, sat on a green garden bench, plaiting a bast shoe.

The old man, deaf, didn’t hear Prince Andrew ride up. He sat on the bench that the old prince had liked to use, with strips of bast hanging from the broken, withered magnolia branch beside him.

Prince Andrew rode up to the house. Several lime trees in the old garden had been cut down, and a piebald mare with her foal strayed in front of the house among the roses. All the shutters were closed, except one open window. A little serf boy, seeing Prince Andrew, ran into the house. Alpátych, who had sent his family away, was alone at Bald Hills, reading the *Lives of the Saints*. On hearing that Prince Andrew had arrived, he went out, spectacles on his nose, buttoning his coat, and, hurrying to meet him, said nothing but began crying and kissing Prince Andrew’s knee.

Ashamed of his emotion, he turned away and started to report the state of the estate. Everything precious had been moved to Boguchárovo. Seventy quarters of grain had also been carted off. The hay and spring corn—of which, Alpátych said, there had been a remarkable crop that year—had been requisitioned by the troops and mown green. The peasants were ruined; some had left for Boguchárovo, only a few remained.

Without letting him finish, Prince Andrew asked:

“When did my father and sister leave?” meaning for Moscow.

Alpátych, thinking he meant Boguchárovo, replied they’d left on the seventh and continued with estate business, asking for orders.

“Am I to let the troops take the oats and get a receipt? We still have six hundred quarters left,” he inquired.

“What can I say to him?” thought Prince Andrew as he looked at the old man’s bald head, shining in the sun, and saw by his expression that even he knew how pointless these questions were and only asked to distract himself from grief.

“Yes, let them have it,” answered Prince Andrew.

“If you noticed any mess in the garden,” continued Alpátych, “it couldn’t be helped. Three regiments spent the night here—dragoons, mostly. I wrote down the name and rank of the commander, to file a complaint.”

“Well, and what will you do if the enemy moves in?” asked Prince Andrew.

Alpátych turned toward him, looked up, and suddenly made a solemn gesture, raising his arm.

“He is my refuge! His will be done!” he declared.

A group of bareheaded peasants was approaching across the meadow toward the prince.

“Well, good-bye!” said Prince Andrew, leaning over to Alpátych. “You should leave, too—take what you can, and tell the serfs to go to the Ryazán estate or the one near Moscow.”

Alpátych clung to his leg, weeping. Gently freeing himself, Prince Andrew spurred his horse and galloped down the avenue.

The old man was still sitting in the ornamental garden, like a fly, unmoved on the face of a loved one who has died, tapping the last as he made his bast shoe. Two little girls ran out from the hothouse, carrying in their skirts plums they’d picked; when they saw Prince Andrew, the older girl, frightened, grabbed her companion’s hand and hid behind a birch, dropping green plums as they went.

Prince Andrew quickly averted his gaze, not wanting them to notice he’d seen them. He felt sorry for the pretty, frightened girl, was afraid to look at her, but couldn’t help wanting to do so. Seeing them, he felt a strange sense of comfort and relief—realizing there were other human cares, separate from his own, just as real and important. Clearly, the girls wanted nothing more than to sneak away and eat the green plums without being caught—and Prince Andrew wished for them to succeed. He glanced at them again. Thinking they were safe, the girls dashed from their hiding place, calling out in high-pitched voices, holding up their skirts, their little sunburned feet running quickly across the grass.

Prince Andrew was somewhat revived after leaving the dusty highroad. But not far from Bald Hills, he rejoined his regiment at their stop by a dam over a small pond. It was after one o’clock. The dusty red sun beat down on his back through his black coat, burning and scorching. The dust hung unmoving above the murmuring voices of the resting troops. There was no wind. Crossing the dam, Prince Andrew smelled the pond’s dank freshness. He longed to bathe, however dirty the water, and gazed at the pool, from which came shrieks and laughter. The little muddy green pond had risen more than a foot, flooding the dam, because it was crammed with naked white bodies of soldiers, brick-red on their hands, necks, and faces, all splashing. All that human flesh, laughing and shrieking, floundered in the dirty pond like carp packed into a watering can, their rough play making the sight oddly touching.

A fair-haired young soldier from the third company, whom Prince Andrew knew, with a strap around one calf, crossed himself, stepped back for a good run, and dove into the water. Another, a dark noncommissioned officer known for his shagginess, stood waist-deep, joyfully twisting his muscular torso and pouring water over his head with hands black from the wrists down. There was slapping, yelling, puffing everywhere.

On the banks, on the dam, and in the pond, healthy, white, muscular bodies abounded. Officer Timókhin, his small red nose shining, stood on the dam drying off with a towel, embarrassed to see the prince, but found the courage to speak.

“It’s very pleasant, your excellency! Won’t you join us?” he said.

“It’s filthy,” Prince Andrew replied, pulling a face.

“We’ll clear it right out for you,” said Timókhin, and, still undressed, ran to urge the men out of the pond.

“The prince wants to bathe.”

“What prince? Ours?” many voices called, and the men cleared out so quickly, the prince could barely stop them. He decided he’d rather bathe in the barn with water.

“Flesh, bodies, cannon fodder!” he thought, looking at his own naked body and shivering—not from cold, but from a sense of disgust and horror at seeing so many bodies splashing in the dirty water.

On August seventh, Prince Bagratión wrote from his quarters at Mikháylovna on the Smolénsk road:

Dear Count Aléxis Andréevich—(He was writing to Arakchéev, but knew the Emperor would read the letter, so he weighed every word as best he could.)

I expect the Minister (Barclay de Tolly) has already reported the abandonment of Smolénsk to the enemy. It is pitiful and sad, and the entire army is desperate that this vital place has been carelessly given up. For my part, I pleaded with him personally and finally in writing, but he would not agree. I swear on my honor, Napoleon was in the worst position ever and could have lost half his army—he still could not have taken Smolénsk. Our troops fought, and are fighting, as never before. With fifteen thousand men I held them off for thirty-five hours and beat them; but *he* would not hold out even fourteen hours. It’s a disgrace, a stain on our army, and as for him, he ought, it seems to me, not to live. If he reports our losses as heavy, it’s not true; at most about four thousand, probably less; but even if it were ten thousand—that’s war! The enemy has lost even more….

What would it have cost him to hold on two more days? The enemy would have had to retreat themselves—there was no water for their men or horses. He promised me he would not retreat, but suddenly sent word that he was withdrawing that night. We cannot fight like this, or soon the enemy will reach Moscow…

I hear rumors you are considering peace. God forbid you make peace after all our sacrifices and these insane retreats! All Russia would turn against you—we would all be ashamed to wear our uniforms. If it has come to this, we must fight as long as Russia and Russian men can stand…

One man must command, not two. Your Minister may be a good Minister, but as a general he is not just bad—he is terrible, yet he is entrusted with our country’s fate…. I am frantic with frustration; forgive my bluntness. It is clear: whoever pushes for peace and puts the Minister in command does not care for our sovereign and seeks our ruin. So I am honest: call up the militia. For the Minister is leading these French guests to Moscow in the cleverest way. The army mistrusts the Imperial aide-de-camp Wolzogen. People say he’s more on Napoleon’s side than ours, and he constantly advises the Minister. I not only treat him civilly, I obey him like a corporal, though I outrank him. This is painful, but loving my benefactor and sovereign, I obey. Only I pity the Emperor for trusting the army to such men. Know that on this retreat, we have lost more than fifteen thousand men by exhaustion or left in hospitals—if we had attacked, this would not have happened. Tell me, for God’s sake, what will Russia say about our fear, and why are we giving up our fine, brave country to enemies and planting shame and hatred in our people? What are we afraid of? Whom do we fear? I am not to blame that the Minister is hesitant, cowardly, slow, stubborn—all the worst qualities. The whole army grieves for this and curses him…

##  CHAPTER VI

Among the many ways to categorize human life, one can distinguish between those where substance prevails and those where form dominates. The latter—unlike village, country, provincial, or even Moscow life—includes Petersburg society, and especially the life of its salons. The life of the salons is unchanging. Since 1805, we have made peace and broken it again with Bonaparte, created and then undone constitutions, yet the salons of Anna Pávlovna and Hélène have remained exactly as they were—one seven and the other five years before. At Anna Pávlovna’s they still spoke with confusion about Bonaparte’s successes and saw in them, and in the deference shown to him by European monarchs, a malicious scheme meant only to cause distress and worry to the court circle Anna Pávlovna represented. Meanwhile, at Hélène’s salon—frequented even by Rumyántsev, who regarded Hélène as an astoundingly intelligent woman—the same excitement reigned in 1812 as in 1808 for the “great nation” and the “great man.” They lamented our break with France, insisting this breach should be swiftly healed by making peace.

Since the Emperor’s recent return from the army, these rival salon circles had been especially animated, with occasional signs of hostility, but each group kept to its own beliefs. In Anna Pávlovna’s circle, only deeply committed legitimists among the French were admitted, and they voiced patriotic opinions, such as the belief that no one should attend the French theater, and that keeping the French troupe was as costly for the government as an entire army corps. The course of the war was closely followed, and only the most flattering reports about our army were circulated. In Hélène and Rumyántsev’s French circle, reports about the enemy's cruelty and the war itself were denied, and all of Napoleon’s peace efforts discussed. In that group, those who urged hasty preparations for moving the court and the girls’ schools under the Dowager Empress's protection to Kazán were dismissed. Hélène’s circle saw the war as a series of empty gestures that would soon end in peace, and Bilíbin—now very much at home in Petersburg at Hélène’s house (a place every clever man felt obliged to visit)—held forth that outcomes would be decided not by gunpowder but by those who invented it. There, the Moscow enthusiasm—news of which reached Petersburg at the same time as the Emperor’s return—was cleverly and sarcastically ridiculed, though always with great discretion.

Anna Pávlovna’s circle, by contrast, was delighted by this enthusiasm, speaking of it as Plutarch wrote of the deeds of the ancients. Prince Vasíli, still holding his old important posts, served as a link between these two circles. He visited his “good friend Anna Pávlovna” as well as his daughter’s “diplomatic salon,” and frequently, in his constant trips between the two, lost track and said at Hélène’s what he ought to have said at Anna Pávlovna’s, and vice versa.

Soon after the Emperor’s return, while discussing the war at Anna Pávlovna’s, Prince Vasíli sharply criticized Barclay de Tolly, but was uncertain who ought to be appointed commander in chief. One of the guests—referred to as “a man of great merit”—shared that he had seen Kutúzov, the newly appointed chief of the Petersburg militia, presiding over the enrollment of recruits at the Treasury that day, and cautiously suggested that Kutúzov might be the right person for the job.

Anna Pávlovna replied with a sad smile that Kutúzov had done nothing but annoy the Emperor.

“I have spoken and spoken at the Assembly of the Nobility,” Prince Vasíli interrupted, “but they paid me no heed. I told them electing him chief of the militia would displease the Emperor. They didn’t listen.

“It’s this mania for opposition,” he continued, “And for whom? All because we want to mimic the silly enthusiasm of those Muscovites,” Prince Vasíli went on, momentarily forgetting that while mocking the Moscow fervor was appropriate at Hélène’s, it was expected to be praised at Anna Pávlovna’s. He quickly corrected himself. “But really, is it right for Count Kutúzov, the oldest general in Russia, to preside over that tribunal? He gains nothing by it! How could they make a commander in chief out of a man who can't mount a horse, who falls asleep during councils, and who has the worst morals! Some reputation he earned at Bucharest! I’m not talking about his generalship, but appointing a decrepit, blind old man—truly blind—at a time like this? Imagine having a blind general! He can’t see a thing. Like playing blindman’s buff! He simply can’t see!”

No one answered his comments.

This was entirely accurate as of the twenty-fourth of July. But by July twenty-ninth, Kutúzov received the title of Prince. This might have suggested a wish to sideline him, so Prince Vasíli’s view remained valid, though he was no longer eager to share it. Then, on August eighth, a committee composed of Field Marshal Saltykóv, Arakchéev, Vyazmítinov, Lopukhín, and Kochubéy convened to consider the progress of the war. The committee concluded our setbacks were due to a lack of unity in command and, though they knew the Emperor disliked Kutúzov, agreed after brief discussion to recommend his appointment as commander in chief. That same day, Kutúzov was named commander in chief with full authority over the armies and the entire region they occupied.

On August ninth, Prince Vasíli again met the “man of great merit” at Anna Pávlovna’s. This man was eager to please Anna Pávlovna, hoping to be appointed director of one of the young ladies’ educational institutions. Prince Vasíli entered the room like a triumphant conqueror who had just achieved his aim.

“Well, have you heard the wonderful news? Prince Kutúzov is field marshal! All disagreements are at an end! I’m so pleased, so delighted! At last we have a real man!” he announced, casting a stern and meaningful look around the drawing room.

The “man of great merit,” despite wanting to become director, couldn’t help reminding Prince Vasíli of his earlier opinion. Although this was bad form in Anna Pávlovna’s salon and disrespectful to her, given she was so happy with the news, he could not resist.

“But, Prince, they say he’s blind!” he said, reminding Prince Vasíli of his previous comments.

“Eh? Nonsense! He sees well enough,” replied Prince Vasíli quickly, his deep voice accompanied by a slight cough—the tone and gesture he used to dismiss all difficulties.

“He sees perfectly,” he added. “And what really delights me,” he went on, “is that our sovereign granted him complete authority over all the armies and the region—powers no previous commander in chief ever had. He’s a second autocrat,” he finished with a triumphant smile.

“God grant it! God grant it!” said Anna Pávlovna.

The “man of great merit,” still new to court society and wanting to please Anna Pávlovna by supporting her former stance, commented:

“They say the Emperor was hesitant to give Kutúzov those powers. It’s said he blushed like a young girl listening to *Joconde* when he said to Kutúzov: ‘Your Emperor and the Fatherland bestow this honor upon you.’”

“Perhaps the heart had no part in that speech,” said Anna Pávlovna.

“Oh, no, no!” Prince Vasíli protested warmly, unwilling now to let anyone criticize Kutúzov; in his view, Kutúzov was not only excellent himself, but adored by everyone as well. “No, that’s not possible,” he said, “for our sovereign always held him in the highest regard.”

“God grant that Prince Kutúzov truly takes power and lets *no one* sabotage his work,” observed Anna Pávlovna.

Understanding who she meant, Prince Vasíli whispered:

“I know for certain that Kutúzov made it an absolute condition that the Tsarévich would not be present with the army. Do you know what he told the Emperor?”

And Prince Vasíli repeated the statement supposedly made by Kutúzov to the Emperor: “I can neither punish him if he does wrong nor reward him if he does right.”

“Oh, what a wise man Prince Kutúzov is! I've known him a long time!”

“They even say,” added the “man of great merit,” who hadn’t yet learned court tact, “that His Excellency insisted that the sovereign himself shouldn’t be with the army.”

As soon as he finished, both Prince Vasíli and Anna Pávlovna turned away and looked at each other sadly, sighing at his naïveté.

##  CHAPTER VII

While this was happening in Petersburg, the French had already passed Smolénsk and were drawing closer and closer to Moscow. Napoleon’s historian Thiers, like other historians trying to justify their hero, claims that Napoleon was drawn to the walls of Moscow against his will. He is just as correct as other historians who try to explain historic events by the will of a single individual; just as correct as those Russian historians who argue that Napoleon was lured to Moscow by the skill of the Russian commanders. Here, besides the law of hindsight—which sees the entire past as preparation for later events—the law of mutual influence comes into play, complicating the whole matter. A skilled chess player who has lost a game sincerely believes his loss resulted from a mistake he made and looks for that error in the opening, forgetting that at every stage of the game there were similar missteps, and that none of his moves were perfect. He only notices the mistake to which he pays attention because his opponent capitalized on it. How much more complex is the game of war, which unfolds within specific time limits, and where it is not a single will manipulating lifeless pieces, but rather the result of countless clashes between various wills!

After Smolénsk, Napoleon sought battle beyond Dorogobúzh, at Vyázma, and then at Tsárevo-Zaymíshche, but as a result of a combination of countless circumstances, the Russians could not offer battle until they reached Borodinó, seventy miles from Moscow. From Vyázma, Napoleon ordered a direct advance on Moscow.

*Moscou, la capitale asiatique de ce grand empire, la ville sacrée des peuples d’Alexandre, Moscou avec ses innombrables églises en forme de pagodes chinoises*, \* this Moscow gave Napoleon’s imagination no rest. On the march from Vyázma to Tsárevo-Zaymíshche, he rode his light bay bobtailed ambler, accompanied by his Guards, his bodyguard, pages, and aides-de-camp. Berthier, his chief of staff, lagged behind to question a Russian prisoner captured by the cavalry. Followed by Lelorgne d’Ideville, an interpreter, he caught up to Napoleon at a gallop and reined in his horse with an amused look.

\* “Moscow, the Asiatic capital of this great empire, the sacred city of Alexander’s people, Moscow with its innumerable churches shaped like Chinese pagodas.”

“Well?” asked Napoleon.

“One of Plátov’s Cossacks says that Plátov’s corps is joining up with the main army and that Kutúzov has been made commander in chief. He’s a sharp and talkative fellow.”

Napoleon smiled and told them to give the Cossack a horse and bring him to him. Napoleon wanted to speak with him personally. Several adjutants galloped off, and an hour later, Lavrúshka, the serf Denísov had turned over to Rostóv, rode up to Napoleon in an orderly’s jacket and on a French cavalry saddle, with a cheerful and tipsy face. Napoleon told him to ride by his side and began to question him.

“You’re a Cossack?”

“Yes, a Cossack, your Honor.”

“The Cossack, not knowing whom he was with—since Napoleon’s plain appearance revealed nothing to an Eastern mind about the presence of an emperor—spoke with great familiarity about the incidents of the war,” says Thiers, describing this episode. In reality, Lavrúshka, having gotten drunk the previous day and left his master dinnerless, had been whipped and sent to the village to find chickens, where he started looting instead until the French captured him. Lavrúshka was one of those coarse, brazen lackeys who have seen all sorts of things, who believe everything must be handled in a sly, underhanded way, always ready to do any favor for their master, and quick to sense their master’s baser impulses—especially those stemming from vanity and pettiness.

Finding himself with Napoleon, whose identity he had easily—and certainly—recognized, Lavrúshka was not at all embarrassed but instead simply tried his best to win favor with his new master.

He knew perfectly well that this was Napoleon, but Napoleon’s presence no more intimidated him than Rostóv’s did, or that of a sergeant major with the rods would have, since neither the sergeant major nor Napoleon had anything that they could take away from him.

So he chattered on, repeating all the gossip he had picked up among the orderlies, much of which was true. But when Napoleon asked whether the Russians thought they would defeat Bonaparte or not, Lavrúshka squinted and thought it over.

In that question he sensed some subtle trickery, as men of his kind always do, and so he frowned and didn’t answer at once.

“It’s like this,” he said thoughtfully. “If there’s a battle soon, yours will win. That’s right. But if three days pass, then after that—well, that same battle will not soon be over.”

Lelorgne d’Ideville interpreted this for Napoleon with a smile: “If a battle takes place within the next three days, the French will win, but if it’s later, who knows what will happen.” Napoleon didn’t smile, though he was clearly in excellent spirits, and he asked for these words to be repeated.

Lavrúshka noticed this and, hoping to keep amusing him, pretended not to know who Napoleon was and added:

“We know that you’ve got Bonaparte and that he’s beaten everyone in the world, but we are a different matter…”—not knowing himself how or why this bit of boastful patriotism slipped in at the end.

The interpreter translated the words but omitted the last phrase, and Bonaparte smiled. “The young Cossack made his mighty interlocutor smile,” says Thiers. After a few paces in silence, Napoleon turned to Berthier and said he wanted to see how the news that he was speaking to the Emperor himself—the very one whose immortal winning name was written on the Pyramids—would affect this *enfant du Don*.\*

\* “Child of the Don.”

The news was passed to Lavrúshka.

Lavrúshka, sensing this was meant to confuse him and that Napoleon expected him to be frightened, quickly pretended to be stunned and awestruck, widened his eyes, and put on the same look he wore whenever he was about to be whipped. “As soon as Napoleon’s interpreter spoke,” Thiers writes, “the Cossack, seized with amazement, did not say another word but rode on, his eyes fixed on the conqueror whose fame had reached him across the steppes of the East. All his chattiness suddenly stopped, replaced by a simple, silent admiration. Napoleon, after gifting the Cossack, had him set free like a bird restored to its native fields.”

Napoleon rode on, daydreaming of the Moscow that so fascinated his imagination, and “the bird returned to its native fields” galloped back to our outposts, inventing on the way everything that hadn’t happened but that he intended to tell his comrades. What had truly happened he didn’t want to share, as it didn’t seem worth telling. He found the Cossacks, asked for the regiment attached to Plátov’s detachment, and by evening found his master, Nicholas Rostóv, quartered at Yankóvo. Rostóv was just getting on his horse to ride around neighboring villages with Ilyín; he gave Lavrúshka another horse and took him along.

##  CHAPTER VIII

Princess Mary was not in Moscow and out of danger as Prince Andrew believed.

After Alpátych returned from Smolénsk, the old prince suddenly seemed to wake up as if from a dream. He ordered the militiamen to be gathered from the villages and armed, and wrote a letter to the commander in chief, informing him that he had decided to remain at Bald Hills to the very end and defend it. He left it to the commander in chief's judgment whether or not to make arrangements for the defense of Bald Hills, where one of Russia’s oldest generals might be captured or killed; he also announced to his household that he would not leave Bald Hills.

But while he himself stayed, he gave instructions for the princess and Dessalles, along with the little prince, to leave for Boguchárovo and then to Moscow. Princess Mary, alarmed by her father's feverish and restless activity after his previous apathy, could not bring herself to leave him alone and, for the first time in her life, dared to disobey him. She refused to leave, and her father's anger broke over her in a terrible outburst. He recalled every injustice he had ever inflicted on her. Trying to make her feel guilty, he told her she had worn him out, caused his quarrel with his son, harbored nasty suspicions about him, and made it her life's aim to poison his existence. He drove her from his study, telling her that even if she did not go away, it was all the same to him. He declared that he did not wish to remember her existence and warned her not to dare let him see her. The fact that he did not, as she had feared, order her to be taken away by force but only said not to let him see her encouraged Princess Mary. She knew that, deep down, he was glad she was staying home and had not left.

The morning after little Nicholas left, the old prince dressed in his full uniform and got ready to visit the commander in chief. His *calèche* was already at the door. Princess Mary saw him leave the house in his uniform, wearing all his orders, and go down the garden to review his armed peasants and domestic serfs. She sat at the window, listening to his voice reaching her from the garden. Suddenly, several men came running up the avenue with anxious faces.

Princess Mary ran out to the porch, down the flower-bordered path, and into the avenue. A large crowd of militiamen and servants were moving toward her, and in their midst several men were supporting by the armpits and dragging along a little old man in uniform and decorations. She hurried to him and, in the patchy sunlight that fell in spots through the shade of the lime-tree avenue, could not be sure what change had come over his face. All she could see was that his once stern and determined expression had become one of timidity and submission. When he saw his daughter, he moved his helpless lips and made a hoarse sound. It was impossible to make out what he wanted. He was lifted up, carried to his study, and laid on the very couch he had so recently dreaded.

The doctor, who came that same night, bled him and said the prince had suffered a seizure that paralyzed his right side.

It was becoming more and more dangerous to stay at Bald Hills, and the next day they moved the prince to Boguchárovo, with the doctor accompanying him.

By the time they arrived at Boguchárovo, Dessalles and the little prince had already left for Moscow.

For three weeks the old prince lay paralyzed in the new house Prince Andrew had built at Boguchárovo, always in the same state, getting neither better nor worse. Unconscious, he lay like a distorted corpse. He muttered constantly, his eyebrows and lips twitching, and it was impossible to know whether he understood what was happening around him or not. One thing was certain—he was suffering and wanted to say something. But what it was, no one could tell: it might be a whim of a sick mind, or it might concern public affairs, or perhaps family matters.

The doctor said this restlessness meant nothing and was due to physical causes; but Princess Mary believed he wanted to tell her something, and the fact that being near her always increased his restlessness strengthened her belief.

He was clearly suffering both physically and mentally. There was no hope for recovery. He could not travel further, and it would not do to let him die on the road. "Would it not be better if the end did come, the very end?" Princess Mary sometimes thought. Day and night, hardly sleeping at all, she watched over him and, terrible to admit, often watched not in hope of improvement but hoping to see signs that the end was near.

Strange as it was to face this feeling in herself, yet it existed. And what seemed even more dreadful was that since her father's illness began (perhaps even before, when she stayed with him fearing something would happen), all the personal desires and dreams that had been forgotten or dormant within her had awakened. Thoughts that had not crossed her mind for years—thoughts of a life free from fear of her father and even the possibility of love and happiness in a family—kept appearing in her mind like temptations of the devil. No matter how she tried to push them away, questions kept recurring about how she would arrange her life now, after *that*. She knew these were temptations of the devil. She knew that her only weapon against *him* was prayer, and she tried to pray. She took a prayerful posture, looked at the icons, repeated prayers, but found she could not pray. She felt as if a different world now held her—the world of active, free living, so unlike the spiritual world she had known, where her biggest consolation had been prayer. She could not pray, could not weep, and worldly concerns filled her mind.

It was becoming dangerous to remain in Boguchárovo. News of the French approaching came from all sides, and in a village ten miles away, a homestead had been looted by French marauders.

The doctor insisted that the prince must be moved; the provincial Marshal of the Nobility sent an official to Princess Mary urging her to leave as soon as possible, and the head of the rural police, having come to Boguchárovo, insisted as well, saying the French were only about twenty-five miles away, French proclamations were circulating in the villages, and that if the princess did not take her father away before the fifteenth, he could not be responsible for what might happen.

The princess decided they would leave on the fifteenth. The work of preparing and giving orders—which everyone came to her for—kept her busy all day. She spent the night of the fourteenth as usual, without undressing, in the room next to where her father lay. Several times, upon waking, she heard his groans and muttering, the creak of his bed, and the steps of Tíkhon and the doctor as they turned him. More than once she listened at the door, and it seemed his mutterings were louder and they turned him more often than usual. She could not sleep and several times went to the door, wanting to enter but not daring to do so. Though he did not speak, Princess Mary saw and knew how unpleasant every sign of concern for him was to her father. She had noticed how, with irritation, he turned away from the anxious look she sometimes gave him. She knew that if she entered his room at an odd hour during the night, it would upset him.

But she had never before felt so sorry for him, nor so afraid of losing him. She recalled her whole life with him and found in every word and deed an expression of his love for her. Sometimes, among these memories, temptations would surge into her mind: thoughts of how things might be after his death, and how her new, free life would be arranged. But she pushed these thoughts away with disgust. Toward morning, he quieted down and she fell asleep.

She woke up late. That honesty which often comes with waking made clear to her the real nature of her thoughts about her father's illness. On waking, she listened to what was happening behind the door and, hearing him groan, thought with a sigh that nothing had changed.

"But what could have happened? What was I wanting? I want his death!" she cried, feeling hatred for herself.

She washed, dressed, said her prayers, and went out to the porch. In front of it stood carriages without horses, while things were being loaded into the vehicles.

It was a warm, gray morning. Princess Mary paused at the porch, still shaken by her spiritual failings and trying to collect herself before visiting her father. The doctor came downstairs and out to her.

"He is a little better today," he said. "I was looking for you. One can make out something in what he’s saying. His head is clearer. Come in, he is asking for you…."

Princess Mary's heart beat so fast at this news that she turned pale and leaned against the wall so she wouldn't faint. To see him, speak with him, feel his eyes on her now, when her soul was full of those awful, wicked temptations, was both torment and joy.

"Come," said the doctor.

Princess Mary went into her father's room and approached his bed. He was lying on his back, sitting up high, and his small, bony hands with their knotted purple veins lay on the quilt; his left eye looked straight ahead, his right eye was awry, and his brows and lips were motionless. He seemed altogether so thin, small, and pitiful. His face seemed shrunken, his features smaller. Princess Mary went up and kissed his hand. His left hand squeezed hers so she knew he had been waiting for her. He pulled at her hand, and his brows and lips quivered with irritation.

She looked at him anxiously, trying to guess what he wanted from her. When she moved so his left eye could see her face, he calmed down, not taking his eyes off her for a few seconds. Then his lips and tongue moved, sounds came, and he began to speak, gazing at her timidly and pleadingly, obviously afraid she might not understand.

Concentrating with all her might, Princess Mary watched him. The awkward way he moved his tongue almost made her look away, and she struggled to hold back sobs. He said something, repeating the same words several times. She couldn’t understand, but tried to guess and repeated back the sounds he made.

"Mmm…ar…ate…ate…" he repeated several times.

It was completely impossible to understand. The doctor thought he guessed and, questioning, repeated: *"Mary, are you afraid?"* The prince shook his head and again repeated the same sounds.

*"My mind, my mind aches?"* asked Princess Mary.

He murmured a confirmation, took her hand, and started pressing it to different parts of his chest, as if searching for the right spot.

"Always thoughts… about you… thoughts…" he then said, much clearer than before, now that he was sure she understood.

Princess Mary pressed her head against his hand, trying to hide her sobs and tears.

He moved his hand over her hair.

"I have been calling you all night…" he managed to say.

"If only I had known…" she replied through her tears. "I was afraid to come in."

He squeezed her hand.

"Weren’t you asleep?"

"No, I did not sleep," said Princess Mary, shaking her head.

Unconsciously echoing her father, she now tried to express herself as he did, as much as possible using gestures, her own words coming with difficulty.

“Dear one… Dearest…” Princess Mary couldn’t quite make out what he had said, but from his expression it was clear that he had spoken a tender, affectionate word he had never used with her before. “Why didn’t you come in?”

“And I was wishing for his death!” thought Princess Mary.

He was silent for a while.

“Thank you… daughter dear!… for everything, for everything… forgive me!… thank you!… forgive me!… thank you!…” and tears began to stream from his eyes. “Call Andrew!” he said suddenly, and a childlike, timid look of doubt appeared on his face as he spoke.

He himself seemed to realize that his request was meaningless. At least, that’s how it seemed to Princess Mary.

“I have a letter from him,” she replied.

He looked at her with timid surprise.

“Where is he?”

“He’s with the army, Father, at Smolénsk.”

He closed his eyes and stayed silent for a long time. Then, as if to answer his own doubts and to show he now understood and remembered everything, he nodded and reopened his eyes.

“Yes,” he said, softly and clearly. “Russia has perished. They’ve destroyed her.”

And he began to sob, and once again tears ran down his cheeks. Princess Mary could no longer hold back and wept as she gazed at his face.

He closed his eyes again. His sobs stopped, he pointed to his eyes, and Tíkhon, understanding, wiped away his tears.

Then he opened his eyes again and said something none of them could understand for a long time, until finally Tíkhon understood and repeated it. Princess Mary tried to interpret his words according to the mood in which he’d spoken. She thought he was referring to Russia, or Prince Andrew, or herself, or his grandson, or his own death, and so she couldn’t guess what he meant.

“Put on your white dress. I like it,” was what he said.

When Princess Mary understood this, she sobbed even louder, and the doctor took her arm and led her out to the veranda, comforting her and urging her to prepare for her departure. After she had left the room, the prince began to speak again about his son, about the war, and about the Emperor, angrily twitching his eyebrows and raising his hoarse voice. Then he had a second and final stroke.

Princess Mary stayed on the veranda. The day had cleared up; it was hot and sunny. She could understand nothing, think of nothing, and feel nothing except a passionate love for her father, a love she thought she had never truly felt until that moment. She ran out, sobbing, into the garden and down to the pond, along the avenues of young lime trees Prince Andrew had planted.

“Yes… I… I… I wished for his death! Yes, I wanted it to end sooner…. I wished for peace…. But what will become of me? Of what use will peace be when he is gone?” Princess Mary murmured, walking hurriedly through the garden and pressing her hands to her chest as she sobbed uncontrollably.

After she had walked around the garden and returned to the house, she saw Mademoiselle Bourienne—who had stayed at Boguchárovo and did not want to leave—coming toward her with a stranger. This was the Marshal of the Nobility of the district, who had come in person to tell the princess that she must leave quickly. Princess Mary listened without understanding him; she led him to the house, offered him lunch, and sat down with him. Then, making her excuses, she went to the old prince’s room. The doctor came out looking shaken and told her she could not go in.

“Go away, Princess! Please go… go away!”

She returned to the garden and sat down on the grass at the foot of the terrace by the pond, where she couldn’t be seen. She didn’t know how long she had been there when she was startled by the sound of a woman’s footsteps running down the path. She stood and saw Dunyásha, her maid, clearly searching for her but stopping suddenly with alarm upon seeing her mistress.

“Please come, Princess… The Prince,” Dunyásha said in a trembling voice.

“I’m coming right away, I’m coming!” replied the princess hastily, not letting Dunyásha finish what she was saying, and avoiding the girl’s gaze, she ran toward the house.

“Princess, it’s God’s will! You must prepare yourself for anything,” said the Marshal, meeting her at the door.

“Leave me alone; it’s not true!” she shouted angrily at him.

The doctor tried to stop her. She pushed past him and hurried to her father’s door. “Why are these people with frightened faces stopping me? I don’t want any of them! And what are they all doing here?” she thought. She opened the door, and the bright daylight in that room, once darkened, startled her. In the room were her nurse and other women. They all stepped away from the bed to make room for her. He was still lying on the bed as before, but the stern expression on his quiet face made Princess Mary stop at the threshold.

“No, he’s not dead—it’s impossible!” she told herself as she approached him, fighting the fear that gripped her. She pressed her lips to his cheek, but pulled back immediately. All the love she had been feeling for him vanished at once and was replaced by a sense of horror at what she saw before her. “No, he is no more! He’s gone, and in his place is something strange and alien, some dreadful, terrifying mystery!” And hiding her face in her hands, Princess Mary collapsed into the arms of the doctor, who supported her.

With Tíkhon and the doctor present, the women washed the body, tied his head with a handkerchief so that his mouth wouldn’t stiffen open, and with another tied together his legs, already beginning to spread. They dressed him in uniform with his medals, and placed his small, shriveled body on a table. Heaven only knows who took care of everything or when, but somehow it was all done as if by itself. That evening, candles burned around his coffin, a pall was draped over it, juniper branches were scattered on the floor, a printed band was tucked under his shriveled head, and in one corner a chanter sat reading the psalms.

Just as horses shy and gather around a dead horse, so the household and strangers crowded together in the drawing room around the coffin—the Marshal, the village Elder, peasant women—all with fixed, fearful eyes, crossing themselves, bowing, and kissing the old prince’s cold and stiffened hand.

##  CHAPTER IX

Until Prince Andrew settled in Boguchárovo, its owners had always been absent, and its peasants were quite different from those of Bald Hills. They differed in language, clothing, and temperament. They were known as steppe peasants. The old prince used to praise them for their endurance at work when they came to Bald Hills to help with the harvest or to dig ponds and ditches, but he disliked their coarseness.

Prince Andrew’s last stay at Boguchárovo—when he introduced hospitals and schools and reduced the quitrent the peasants had to pay—had not softened their mood but had instead reinforced the traits that the old prince called coarse. Various vague rumors constantly circulated among them: at one time, a rumor that they would all be enrolled as Cossacks; at another, of a new religion to which they would all be converted; then of some proclamation from the Tsar and of an oath to Tsar Paul in 1797 (in connection with which it was rumored that freedom had been granted but the landowners had withheld it); then of Peter Fëdorovich’s return to the throne in seven years, when everything would be made free and so “simple” that there would be no more restrictions. Rumors of the war with Bonaparte and his invasion were linked in their minds with the same vague ideas of Antichrist, the end of the world, and “true freedom.”

Near Boguchárovo were large villages owned by the crown or by owners whose serfs paid quitrent and could work as they pleased. There were few resident landlords in the area, and very few household or literate serfs. In the lives of the peasants there, the mysterious undercurrents in Russian life, whose causes and meaning so puzzle contemporaries, were more obvious and powerful than elsewhere. For example, about twenty years earlier, there had been a movement among the peasants to migrate to some unknown “warm rivers.” Hundreds of peasants—including those from Boguchárovo—suddenly began selling their cattle and moving in whole families toward the southeast. As birds migrate far away, so did these people, with their wives and children, travel southeast to places where none had ever been. They set off in caravans, bought their freedom one by one or ran away, and drove or walked toward the “warm rivers.” Many were punished, some sent to Siberia, many died of cold and hunger on the road, and many returned, and the movement faded away just as it had started—suddenly and without clear reason. But such forces still lingered among the people and were gathering strength, ready to show themselves just as strangely, unexpectedly, and at the same time simply, naturally, and forcefully. In 1812, anyone living closely with these people could see that these undercurrents were strong and close to erupting.

Alpátych, who arrived at Boguchárovo shortly before the old prince’s death, noticed the agitation among the peasants. Unlike in the Bald Hills district, where all the peasants within a forty-mile radius were leaving their villages to be ravaged by the Cossacks, the peasants in the steppe around Boguchárovo were rumored to be in contact with the French, receiving leaflets from them that passed from hand to hand, and were not fleeing. He learned from loyal household serfs that Karp, a peasant with great influence in the village commune who had recently been away on a government transport job, had returned with news that the Cossacks were destroying abandoned villages, but that the French did not harm them. Alpátych also learned that the day before, another peasant had brought from the village of Visloúkhovo—which was occupied by the French—a proclamation by a French general stating that no harm would come to the inhabitants and that if they stayed they would be paid for anything taken. As proof, the peasant brought back a hundred rubles in notes (not knowing they were counterfeit), paid to him in advance for hay.

Even more importantly, Alpátych learned that on the very morning he had given the Elder orders to gather carts to move the princess’s luggage from Boguchárovo, a village meeting had been held and a decision made not to leave but to wait. Yet there was no time to lose. On the fifteenth—the day the old prince died—the Marshal had insisted that Princess Mary leave at once, as it was getting dangerous. He told her that after the sixteenth he could not be responsible for what might happen. On the evening of the old prince’s death, the Marshal left, promising to return the next day for the funeral. But he was unable to do so, as he received news that the French had suddenly advanced and he barely had time to remove his own family and valuables.

For about thirty years, Boguchárovo had been managed by the village Elder, Dron, whom the old prince affectionately called “Drónushka.”

Dron was one of those physically and mentally strong peasants who grow big beards as soon as they come of age and remain unchanged until they are sixty or seventy, without a gray hair or losing a tooth, as straight and robust at sixty as they had been at thirty.

Shortly after the migration to the “warm rivers,” in which he also took part, Dron was appointed village Elder and overseer of Boguchárovo, and had held that position irreproachably for twenty-three years. The peasants feared him more than they did their master. The masters—both the old prince and the young one—and the steward respected him and called him “the Minister” as a joke. Throughout his service, Dron had never been drunk or sick; no matter how sleepless the nights or difficult the work, he never showed any weariness, and though he could not read, he never forgot a single money account or the amount of flour in any of the countless cartloads he sold for the prince, nor a single sheaf of the entire corn crop on any acre of the Boguchárovo fields.

When Alpátych arrived from the devastated Bald Hills estate, he summoned Dron on the day of the prince’s funeral and ordered him to prepare twelve horses for the princess’s carriages and eighteen carts for moving goods from Boguchárovo. Though the peasants paid quitrent, Alpátych expected no resistance, for there were two hundred and thirty households at Boguchárovo and the peasants were prosperous. But when he heard the order, Dron lowered his eyes and stayed silent. Alpátych named certain peasants he knew, from whom Dron was to take the carts.

Dron replied that those peasants’ horses were away hauling elsewhere. Alpátych named others, but they too, according to Dron, had no horses available: some were away on government work, others were too weak, and some had died from lack of fodder. It seemed no horses could be found, not even for the carriages, much less for the carts.

Alpátych looked closely at Dron and frowned. As Dron was a model village Elder, Alpátych himself had not managed the prince’s estates for twenty years without learning; he was a model steward, with a keen sense for the needs and instincts of those around him. From his glance at Dron he instantly understood that Dron’s answers reflected not his own opinion but the general mood of the Boguchárovo commune, which the Elder had already fallen in with. But he also knew that Dron, who had prospered and was disliked by the commune, must be caught between two sides: the masters and the peasants. He saw Dron’s hesitation and came nearer to him, frowning.

“Now listen, Drónushka,” he said. “Don’t play games with me. His Excellency Prince Andrew himself ordered that all the people were to be taken away and not left for the enemy, and there’s an order from the Tsar as well. Anyone who stays is a traitor to the Tsar. Do you understand?”

“I understand,” Dron answered, not raising his eyes.

Alpátych was dissatisfied with this answer.

“Eh, Dron, this will end badly!” he said, shaking his head.

“The power is in your hands,” Dron replied mournfully.

“Eh, Dron, stop it!” Alpátych repeated, taking his hand out of his jacket and solemnly pointing at the floor by Dron’s feet. “I see right through you, and three yards under the ground beneath you,” he went on, staring at the spot in front of Dron.

Dron looked unsettled, glanced sideways at Alpátych, and again dropped his gaze.

“Stop this foolishness and tell the people to get ready to leave their homes and go to Moscow, and to prepare the carts for tomorrow morning for the princess’s belongings. And don't go to any meeting yourself, do you hear?”

Dron suddenly fell to his knees.

“Yákov Alpátych, dismiss me! Take the keys and let me go, for God’s sake!”

“Stop that!” Alpátych cried sternly. “I see through you and three yards beneath you,” he repeated, knowing that his skill as a beekeeper, his sense of the right time to sow oats, and his ability to stay in the old prince’s good graces for twenty years had given him a reputation as a wizard—and being able to see three yards under a person is considered a wizard’s trait.

Dron got up, about to say something, but Alpátych cut him off.

“What’s gotten into everyone, eh? What are you thinking, hm?”

“What am I to do with the people?” said Dron. “They’re not themselves; I’ve already told them…”

“Told them, I bet!” said Alpátych. “Are they drinking?” he asked sharply.

“Completely out of their minds, Yákov Alpátych—they’ve brought out another barrel.”

“Well then, listen! I’ll go to the police officer, and you pass that along, and make sure they stop this, and the carts are ready.”

“I understand.”

Alpátych did not push further. He had managed people for a long time and knew that the best way to make them obey is to not show any doubt that they might disobey. Having gotten a submissive “I understand” from Dron, Alpátych let it rest, though he not only doubted but was nearly certain that without troops, the carts would never appear.

And so it was. When evening came, no carts had been brought. In the village, outside the tavern, another meeting was underway, where a decision was made to drive the horses into the woods and not provide the carts. Alpátych, without telling the princess anything about this, had his own things taken off the carts that had come from Bald Hills and got those horses ready for the princess’s carriages. Meanwhile, he set out to speak with the police authorities.

##  CHAPTER X

After her father’s funeral, Princess Mary shut herself in her room and refused to see anyone. A maid came to the door to say that Alpátych was waiting for instructions regarding their departure. (This was before his conversation with Dron.) Princess Mary raised herself on the sofa where she had been lying and answered through the closed door that she had no intention of leaving and begged to be left alone.

The windows of her room faced west. She lay on the sofa with her face turned to the wall, idly touching the buttons on the leather cushion and seeing nothing but that cushion, her confused thoughts fixed on a single subject—the finality of death and her own spiritual weakness, which she had never suspected until it revealed itself during her father’s illness. She wanted to pray but did not dare, feeling unable in her current state of mind to address God. She remained in that position for a long time.

The sun had moved across to the opposite side of the house, and its angled rays now shone through the open window, lighting up part of the room and some of the morocco cushion that Princess Mary had been staring at. All at once, her stream of thoughts broke off. Without realizing it, she sat up, smoothed her hair, stood, and walked to the window, breathing in the freshness of the clear but windy evening.

“Yes, now you can enjoy the evening! He is gone, and no one will stop you,” she told herself, then sank into a chair and let her head fall onto the window sill.

Someone softly called her name from the garden and kissed her head tenderly. She looked up. It was Mademoiselle Bourienne, dressed in black and wearing mourning bands. She quietly approached Princess Mary, sighed, kissed her, and immediately began to weep. The princess looked at her. All the old tensions and her own jealousy came back to her mind. But she also recalled how *he* had changed recently toward Mademoiselle Bourienne and had found it hard to see her, showing how unfair Princess Mary’s inner reproaches had been. “Besides, who am I, who secretly wished for his death, to judge anyone?” she thought.

Princess Mary vividly imagined Mademoiselle Bourienne’s position, having lately kept her at a distance, yet still dependent on and living in her house. She felt pity for her and reached out her hand in gentle inquiry. Mademoiselle Bourienne immediately started to cry again, kissed her hand, and spoke of the princess’s sorrow, making herself a partner in it. She said her only comfort was that the princess allowed her to share in her grief, that all their past misunderstandings should disappear in the face of such great pain, that she felt innocent toward everyone, and that *he*, from above, would see her affection and gratitude. The princess listened, not focusing on her words but occasionally glancing up and hearing the gentle sound of her voice.

“Your situation is doubly hard, dear princess,” Mademoiselle Bourienne said after a pause. “I know that you could not, and cannot, think of yourself, but with my care for you I must do so… Has Alpátych been to you? Has he spoken about leaving?” she asked.

Princess Mary didn’t answer. She neither understood who was supposed to leave nor where. “Can anything be planned or thought about now? Does any of it matter?” she wondered, and gave no reply.

“You know, *chère Marie*,” said Mademoiselle Bourienne, “that we are in danger—we are surrounded by the French. Moving now would be risky. If we try to go, we’re almost certain to be captured, and who knows…”

Princess Mary looked at her companion, not understanding what she meant.

“Oh, if people understood how little anything matters to me now,” she said. “Of course I would not want to go away from him for anything… Alpátych did mention leaving… Speak to him; I can do nothing, nothing, and do not want to…”

“I have spoken to him. He hopes we might get away tomorrow, but I think it would be better to stay here now,” Mademoiselle Bourienne said. “Because, you must agree, *chère Marie*, falling into the hands of soldiers or riotous peasants would be terrible.”

Mademoiselle Bourienne took from her bag a proclamation (not printed on regular Russian paper) from General Rameau, urging people not to leave their homes and promising that the French authorities would give them proper protection. She handed it to the princess.

“I think it would be best to ask for help from that general,” she continued, “and I am certain you would be treated with all due respect.”

Princess Mary read the paper, and her face began to twitch with barely suppressed sobs.

“From whom did you get this?” she asked.

“They must have recognized that I’m French, by my name,” Mademoiselle Bourienne replied, blushing.

Princess Mary, holding the paper, got up from the window and, pale-faced, left the room, going into what had been Prince Andrew’s study.

“Dunyásha, send Alpátych, or Drónushka, or someone to me!” she said, “and tell Mademoiselle Bourienne not to come in,” she added, hearing Mademoiselle Bourienne’s voice. “We must leave at once, immediately!” she insisted, horrified at the thought of being left in the hands of the French.

“If Prince Andrew learned that I was at the mercy of the French! That I, the daughter of Prince Nicholas Bolkónski, had asked General Rameau for protection and accepted his favor!” The very thought appalled her, made her shudder, blush, and feel an intense surge of anger and pride as never before. Everything distressing and especially everything humiliating about her situation sprang sharply to mind. “The French would settle in this house: M. le Général Rameau would take over Prince Andrew’s study and amuse himself by reading his letters and papers. Mademoiselle Bourienne would entertain the general in Boguchárovo. I would be given a small room as a favor, the soldiers would desecrate my father’s fresh grave to steal his medals, they would speak of their victories over the Russians and pretend to sympathize with my grief…” thought Princess Mary, not thinking her own ideas but feeling obligated to follow her father’s and brother’s thoughts. For herself, she did not care what happened or where she ended up, but she felt she represented her dead father and Prince Andrew. She could not help but think their thoughts and feel what they would feel. Whatever they would have said or done, she felt she must say and do. She entered Prince Andrew’s study, determined to fully take on his perspective, and tried to assess her situation.

The requirements of life, which had seemed erased by her father’s death, all of a sudden appeared before her with a new, unfamiliar urgency and took control of her.

Restless and flushed, she paced the room, sending for Michael Ivánovich, then for Tíkhon or Dron. Dunyásha, the nurse, and the other maids could not confirm how accurate Mademoiselle Bourienne’s warnings were. Alpátych was away, having gone to the police. The architect Michael Ivánovich, when summoned, entered bleary-eyed and could not provide Princess Mary with any useful information. With the same agreeable smile he had shown the old prince for fifteen years, never sharing his own opinions, he now gave Princess Mary noncommittal answers. The old valet Tíkhon, his face hollow and marked by inconsolable grief, answered: “Yes, Princess” to everything and nearly broke down in tears whenever he looked at her.

At last, Dron, the village Elder, entered the room and, with a deep bow to Princess Mary, stopped by the doorpost.

Princess Mary walked up and down, then halted in front of him.

“Drónushka,” she said, feeling trust in this Drónushka who used to bring her a special gingerbread every year from the Vyázma fair, offering it to her with a smile, “Drónushka, now after our misfortune…” she began, but could not go on.

“We are all in God’s hands,” he said with a sigh.

They were silent for a while.

“Drónushka, Alpátych has gone off somewhere and I have no one to turn to. Is it true, as they tell me, that I can’t even leave?”

“Why shouldn’t you go, your excellency? You can go,” Dron replied.

“I was told it would be dangerous because of the enemy. Dear friend, I can do nothing. I understand nothing. I have nobody! I want to leave tonight or early tomorrow morning.”

Dron hesitated. He glanced sideways at Princess Mary and said: “There are no horses; I told Yákov Alpátych so.”

“Why aren’t there any?” asked the princess.

“It’s all God’s doing,” said Dron. “The horses we had were taken for the army or have died—such a year as this! We can’t even feed the horses—we might starve ourselves! As it is, some of us go three days with nothing to eat. We’ve lost everything, been ruined.”

Princess Mary listened closely to all he told her.

“The peasants are ruined? They have no bread?” she asked.

“They’re starving,” said Dron. “We can’t even consider traveling.”

“But why didn’t you tell me, Drónushka? Can’t we help them? I’ll do whatever I can…”

To Princess Mary it felt strange that now, when such personal sorrow filled her soul, there could still be a divide between rich and poor, and that the wealthy could withhold help from the needy. She had vaguely heard of “landlord’s corn” that was sometimes given to the peasants. She also knew that neither her father nor her brother would ever refuse aid to peasants in hardship; she only worried she might say the wrong thing when talking about distributing the grain she hoped to give. She was glad for such concerns, as they allowed her to set aside her own grief without guilt. She began asking Dron about the peasants’ needs and what resources in Boguchárovo belonged to the landlord.

“But we have grain belonging to my brother?” she said.

“The landlord’s grain is all safe,” replied Dron proudly. “Our prince did not order it to be sold.”

“Give it to the peasants, let them take as much as they need; I give you permission in my brother’s name,” she said.

Dron did not respond but sighed deeply.

“Give them that grain if there is enough. Distribute all of it. I give this order in my brother’s name; and tell them what belongs to us is theirs as well. We do not begrudge them anything. Tell them this.”

Dron looked closely at the princess while she spoke.

“Dismiss me, little mother, for God’s sake! Order the keys to be taken from me,” he said. “I have served twenty-three years and have done no wrong. Release me, for God’s sake!”

Princess Mary did not understand what he wanted from her or why he was asking to be dismissed. She replied that she had never doubted his loyalty and that she was willing to do anything for him and for the peasants.

##  CHAPTER XI

An hour later, Dunyásha came to tell the princess that Dron had arrived, and all the peasants had gathered at the barn by the princess’s order and wished to speak with their mistress.

“But I never told them to come,” said Princess Mary. “I only told Dron to let them have the grain.”

“Only, for God’s sake, Princess dear, have them sent away and don’t go out to them. It’s all a trick,” said Dunyásha. “And when Yákov Alpátych returns, let’s get away… and please don’t…”

“What do you mean, a trick?” asked Princess Mary, surprised.

“I just know it is, only listen to me, for God’s sake! Ask nurse too! They say they won’t agree to leave Boguchárovo as you ordered.”

“You must be mistaken. I never ordered them to leave,” said Princess Mary. “Call Drónushka.”

Dron came and confirmed Dunyásha’s words; the peasants had gathered at the princess’s order.

“But I never sent for them,” insisted the princess. “You must have misunderstood my message. I only said to give them the grain.”

Dron only sighed in reply.

“If you order it, they will leave,” he said.

“No, no, I’ll go out to them,” said Princess Mary, and despite the nurse’s and Dunyásha’s protests, she went out to the porch; Dron, Dunyásha, the nurse, and Michael Ivánovich followed her.

“They probably think I’m offering them grain as a bribe so they’ll stay here while I leave them at the mercy of the French,” thought Princess Mary. “I’ll offer them monthly rations and housing at our Moscow estate. I’m sure Andrew would do even more if he were in my place,” she thought as she walked out into the twilight toward the crowd gathered by the barn.

The men moved closer together, stirred, and quickly took off their hats. Princess Mary lowered her eyes and, tripping over her skirt, approached them. So many different eyes, old and young, stared at her, and there were so many different faces, that she couldn’t distinguish any of them. Feeling she had to speak to them all at once, she didn’t know how. But again, the sense that she represented her father and brother gave her courage, and she began to speak confidently.

“I’m very glad you’ve come,” she said without raising her eyes, her heart beating quickly and fiercely. “Drónushka tells me that the war has ruined you. That is our common misfortune, and I will spare nothing to help you. I am going away myself because it’s dangerous here… the enemy is near… so… I am giving you everything, my friends, and I beg you to take it all, all our grain, so you will not suffer from want! And if anyone has told you that I am giving you the grain to make you stay here—that’s not true. On the contrary, I ask you to go, with all your belongings, to our estate near Moscow, and I promise I will make sure that you want for nothing there. You will be provided with food and shelter.”

The princess stopped. Sighs were the only sound that came from the crowd.

“I’m not doing this for myself,” she continued. “I do it in the name of my late father, who was a good master to you, and in the name of my brother and his son.”

Again she paused. No one broke the silence.

“Ours is a common misfortune, and we will share it together. All that is mine is yours,” she concluded, looking over the faces before her.

All eyes were fixed on her with the same expression. She couldn’t tell if it was curiosity, devotion, gratitude, or fear and distrust—but the expression on every face was the same.

“We’re all very thankful for your kindness, but it wouldn’t be right for us to take the landlord’s grain,” said a voice from the back of the crowd.

“But why not?” asked the princess.

No one replied, and Princess Mary, looking around at the crowd, saw that every eye she met was quickly dropped.

“But why don’t you want to take it?” she asked again.

No one answered.

The silence began to weigh on the princess and she tried to meet someone’s gaze.

“Why don’t you speak?” she asked a very old man standing right in front of her, leaning on his stick. “If you think something else is needed, tell me! I’ll do anything,” she said, catching his eye.

But, as if angered by this, he bowed his head low and muttered:

“Why should we agree? We don’t want the grain.”

“Why should we give up everything? We won’t agree. We don’t agree… We’re sorry for you, but we don’t want this. Go away yourself, alone…” came from various people in the crowd.

And again, all the faces in that crowd bore the same expression, though now it was certainly not one of curiosity or gratitude, but of angry resolve.

“But you must have misunderstood me,” said Princess Mary with a sad smile. “Why don’t you want to go? I promise you food and shelter, while here the enemy would ruin you…”

But her voice was drowned out by the crowd.

“We don’t want to. Let them ruin us! We won’t take your grain. We don’t agree.”

Again, Princess Mary tried to meet someone’s gaze, but not a single person in the crowd would look at her; clearly they were all avoiding her eyes. She felt strange and uncomfortable.

“Oh yes, a crafty story! Follow her into slavery! Tear down your houses and go into bondage! I can believe it! ‘I’ll give you grain, indeed!’ she says,” voices in the crowd said.

With her head bowed, Princess Mary left the crowd and went back inside. After repeating her order to Dron to have horses ready for her departure the next morning, she went to her room, where she remained alone with her thoughts.

##  CHAPTER XII

For a long time that night, Princess Mary sat by the open window of her room, listening to the voices of the peasants drifting up from the village, but it was not them she was thinking about. She felt she could never understand them, no matter how much she pondered it. Her mind was fixed on one thing: her sorrow, which, after the interruption caused by the demands of the present, already seemed to belong to the past. Now, she could remember it and allow herself to weep or pray.

After sunset, the wind had died down. The night was calm and refreshing. As midnight approached, the voices grew quieter, a rooster crowed, the bright full moon rose from behind the lime trees, a fresh, white, dewy mist began to gather, and stillness settled over the village and the house.

Images from the recent past—her father's illness and final moments—rose one after another in her memory. With bittersweet pleasure, she now lingered over these memories, pushing away only the final one with horror: the moment of his death, which she felt she could not bear to imagine even in this calm and mysterious hour of the night. These images came to her so vividly and in such detail, they felt sometimes present, sometimes past, and sometimes still to come.

She remembered clearly the first time he had a stroke, and how he was dragged by his armpits through the garden at Bald Hills, muttering with his powerless tongue, his gray eyebrows twitching, and looking at her with fearful, uncertain eyes.

“Even then he wanted to tell me what he said on the day he died,” she thought. “He had always thought what he said then.” She recalled in detail the night at Bald Hills before his last stroke, when, with a sense of impending disaster, she had stayed home against his wishes. She hadn’t slept and had crept quietly downstairs, tiptoeing to the conservatory door where he was sleeping. She listened at the door. In a tired, suffering voice, he was saying something to Tíkhon, speaking of the Crimea, its warm nights, and about the Empress. Clearly, he had wanted to talk. “Why didn’t he call me? Why didn’t he let me be with him instead of Tíkhon?” Princess Mary wondered, as she had back then. “Now he will never tell anyone what he kept in his heart. That moment will never come again for him or for me, when he might have said all he wanted, and I—not Tíkhon—could have heard and understood him. Why didn’t I just go in?” she thought. “Maybe he would have told me then what he told me on the day he died. While talking to Tíkhon, he asked about me twice. He wanted to see me, and I was right there, just outside the door. It was hard and sad for him to talk to Tíkhon, who didn’t understand him. I remember how he started talking about Lise as if she were still alive—he forgot she had died—and Tíkhon reminded him, and he shouted, ‘Fool!’ He was so upset. From behind the door, I heard him lie down on his bed, groan, and cry out loudly, ‘My God!’ Why didn’t I go in then? What could he have done to me? What could I have lost? Maybe then he would have been comforted, and would have said that word to me.” And Princess Mary uttered aloud the affectionate word he had said to her on the day he died. “Dearest!” she repeated, and began to sob, tears finally easing her soul. She saw his face before her then—not the face she’d always known from a distance, but the timid, weak face she’d seen for the first time close-up, with all its lines and details, when she bent near his mouth to catch his words.

“Dearest!” she repeated again.

“What was he thinking when he said that word? What is he thinking now?” As this question flashed into her mind, she saw him before her, with the same expression he had in his coffin, his chin tied up in a white handkerchief. The horror she’d felt when she touched him—and realized that was not truly him, but something mysterious and frightening—gripped her again. She tried to think of something else, to pray, but could do neither. With wide-open eyes, she stared at the moonlit shadows, expecting at any moment to see his dead face, and felt as if the silence within and around the house held her captive.

“Dunyásha,” she whispered. “Dunyásha!” she suddenly screamed, tearing herself out of the silence and running to the servants’ quarters, where her old nurse and the maidservants rushed out to meet her.

##  CHAPTER XIII

On August seventeenth, Rostóv and Ilyín, accompanied by Lavrúshka—who had just returned from captivity—and a hussar orderly, left their quarters at Yankóvo, ten miles from Boguchárovo. They set out for a ride to test a new horse Ilyín had bought and to see if any hay could be found in the nearby villages.

For the past three days, Boguchárovo had been located between the two opposing armies, so it was just as easy for the Russian rearguard to reach it as it was for the French vanguard. Rostóv, as a cautious squadron commander, wanted to collect any remaining supplies at Boguchárovo before the French arrived.

Rostóv and Ilyín were in high spirits. On their way to Boguchárovo—a princely estate with a manor house and farm, where they expected to find many domestic serfs and pretty girls—they asked Lavrúshka about Napoleon and laughed at his stories, racing each other to test Ilyín’s horse.

Rostóv had no idea that the village he was entering belonged to the very Bolkónski who had once been engaged to his sister.

Rostóv and Ilyín let their horses run freely for a final race down the slope before reaching Boguchárovo, and Rostóv, pulling ahead of Ilyín, was the first to gallop into the village street.

“You’re first!” cried Ilyín, his face flushed.

“Yes, always first, both on the meadow and here,” replied Rostóv, stroking his heated Donéts horse.

“And I would have won on my Frenchy, your excellency,” said Lavrúshka from behind, referring to his shabby cart horse, “only I didn’t want to hurt your feelings.”

They slowed their horses and rode at a walk toward the barn, where a large crowd of peasants was gathered.

Some of the men took off their hats; others just stared at the newcomers without uncovering their heads. Two tall old peasants with wrinkled faces and thin beards emerged from the tavern, smiling, staggering, and singing a slurred song as they approached the officers.

“Fine fellows!” said Rostóv, laughing. “Is there any hay here?”

“And how much they look like each other,” said Ilyín.

“A mo-o-st me-r-r-y co-o-m-pa…!” one of the peasants sang blissfully.

A man stepped out from the crowd and approached Rostóv.

“Who do you belong to?” he asked.

“The French,” Ilyín replied jokingly, “and here is Napoleon himself”—he pointed to Lavrúshka.

“So you’re Russians then?” the peasant asked again.

“And are there many of you here?” said another, a short man, stepping up.

“Very many,” answered Rostóv. “But why have you all gathered here?” he asked. “Is it a holiday?”

“The old men are meeting to discuss commune matters,” replied the peasant, moving away.

At that moment, from the direction of the big house, two women and a man in a white hat were seen coming toward the officers.

“The one in pink is mine, so keep your distance!” said Ilyín, noticing Dunyásha running determinedly toward him.

“She’ll be ours!” Lavrúshka said to Ilyín, winking.

“What do you want, my pretty one?” Ilyín asked with a smile.

“The princess sent me to ask your regiment and your name.”

“This is Count Rostóv, squadron commander, and I am your humble servant.”

“Co-o-om-pa-ny!” shouted the drunken peasant blissfully as he watched Ilyín talking to the girl. Following Dunyásha, Alpátych made his way to Rostóv, having removed his hat while still some distance away.

“May I take the liberty of troubling your honor?” he said respectfully, but with a trace of contempt for the young officer and his hand tucked into his breast. “My mistress, daughter of General in Chief Prince Nicholas Bolkónski, who died on the fifteenth of this month, finds herself in difficulties because of the insolence of these people”—he gestured to the peasants—“and asks you to come up to the house…. Could you please ride on a bit further,” Alpátych added with a sad smile, “it’s not quite convenient to discuss this in front of…?” He indicated the two peasants who hovered as closely as horseflies.

“Ah!… Alpátych… Ah, Yákov Alpátych… Wonderful! Forgive us, for Christ’s sake, will you?” the peasants said, grinning at him.

Rostóv looked at the drunken peasants and smiled.

“Or perhaps they amuse your honor?” Alpátych remarked formally, gesturing at the old men with his free hand.

“No, there’s not much to laugh about here,” said Rostóv, riding a little further. “What’s going on?” he asked.

“I must report to your honor that the peasants here refuse to let the mistress leave the estate and threaten to unharness her horses, so even though everything has been ready since morning, her excellency can’t get away.”

“Impossible!” exclaimed Rostóv.

“I have the honor to tell you the plain truth,” said Alpátych.

Rostóv dismounted, handed his horse to the orderly, and followed Alpátych to the house, questioning him about the situation. It turned out that the princess’s offer of grain to the peasants the previous day, and her conversation with Dron at the meeting, had actually made things worse. Dron had finally given up the keys, joined the peasants, and didn’t appear when Alpátych sent for him; that morning, when the princess ordered her carriage harnessed, the peasants gathered by the barn and announced they wouldn’t let her leave: there was an order to stay, and they would unharness the horses if needed. Alpátych went out to reason with them, but was told (mainly by Karp, as Dron did not show himself) that they could not let the princess leave, that they were ordered otherwise, but if she stayed, they would serve and obey her as before.

At the moment when Rostóv and Ilyín were galloping up the road, Princess Mary, despite Alpátych’s and the nurses’ and maids’ attempts to dissuade her, had ordered the carriage prepared and meant to leave. But when the cavalrymen were spotted, they were thought to be French, the coachman ran off, and the women in the house began to wail.

“Father! Benefactor! God has sent you!” cried deeply moved voices as Rostóv entered the anteroom.

Princess Mary was sitting helpless and bewildered in the large sitting room when Rostóv was shown in. She couldn’t understand who he was, why he had come, or what was happening. But when she saw his Russian face, and by his walk and the first words he spoke recognized him as a man of her own class, she looked at him with her deep, radiant eyes and began to speak in a voice trembling with emotion. The meeting seemed instantly romantic to Rostóv. “A helpless girl, overwhelmed with grief and left to the mercy of unruly peasants! And what a strange fate brought me here! What gentleness and nobility are in her features and expression!” he thought as he watched her and listened to her timid story.

When she began to tell him that all this had happened the day after her father’s funeral, her voice shook. She turned away, and then, as if afraid he might think she was trying to move him to pity, looked at him with a nervous, questioning glance. There were tears in Rostóv’s eyes. Princess Mary saw this and gave him a grateful look, that radiant expression which made her plain features momentarily forgotten.

“I can’t express, Princess, how glad I am that I happened to come here and that I can show my willingness to be of service to you,” said Rostóv, standing up. “Go whenever you wish, and I give you my word of honor that no one will dare to bother you, if you will only let me act as your escort.” And, bowing respectfully, as if to a lady of royal blood, he went toward the door.

Rostóv’s respectful manner seemed to show that, while he would be happy to know her, he did not want to take advantage of her hardships to impose himself.

Princess Mary understood and valued his sensitivity.

“I am very, very grateful to you,” she said in French, “but I hope it was just a misunderstanding and that no one is to blame for it.” She suddenly began to cry.

“Excuse me!” she said.

Rostóv, frowning, left the room with another low bow.

##  CHAPTER XIV

“Well, is she pretty? Ah, my friend—my pink one is delightful; her name is Dunyásha….”

But when Ilyín glanced at Rostóv’s face, he stopped short. He saw that his hero and commander was preoccupied with entirely different thoughts.

Rostóv looked angrily at Ilyín and, without answering, strode quickly toward the village.

“I’ll show them; I’ll deal with them, those brigands!” he muttered to himself.

Alpátych, moving at a brisk trot and barely managing not to run, struggled to keep up with him.

“What decision have you come to, sir?” he asked.

Rostóv stopped, clenched his fists, and suddenly turned sharply on Alpátych.

“Decision? What decision? You old fool!…” he shouted. “What have you been doing? Eh? The peasants are rioting, and you can’t control them? You’re a traitor yourself! I know you. I’ll skin you all alive!…” And as if afraid of exhausting his anger, he left Alpátych and continued forward at a rapid pace. Alpátych, swallowing his hurt feelings, kept up with Rostóv at a gliding gait and went on explaining his views. He said the peasants were stubborn and that, at the moment, it would be unwise to “overresist” them without military support. Wouldn’t it be better to call for the soldiers first?

“I’ll give them armed force… I’ll ‘overresist’ them!” Rostóv muttered, almost incoherently, breathless with wild, irrational fury and a desperate need to let it out.

Without thinking what he would do next, he moved unconsciously with quick, determined steps toward the crowd. And the closer he got, the more Alpátych sensed that this reckless action might have a positive effect. The peasants in the crowd felt a similar impression as they saw Rostóv approaching rapidly, his steps firm and his face set and stern.

After the hussars arrived in the village and Rostóv had gone to see the princess, some confusion and disagreements broke out among the crowd. Some peasants said that these newcomers were Russians and might be offended that the mistress was being detained. Dron shared this view, but as soon as he expressed it, Karp and others turned on their former Elder.

“How many years have you been living off the commune?” Karp shouted at him. “It’s all the same to you! You’ll dig up your stash of money and take it away…. What do you care if our homes are ruined?”

“We’ve been told to keep order, and that no one is to leave or take a single grain, and that’s that!” another cried.

“It was your son’s turn to be conscripted, but of course, you wouldn’t have it! You kept back your loaf of a son,” a little old man suddenly shouted at Dron—“so they took my Vánka to be shaved for a soldier! But we all have to die.”

“That’s true, we all have to die. I’m not against the commune,” said Dron.

“That’s it—not against it! You’ve had it good….”

The two tall peasants gave their opinions. As soon as Rostóv, along with Ilyín, Lavrúshka, and Alpátych, came up to the crowd, Karp, with his hands thrust in his belt and a slight grin, stepped forward. Dron, on the other hand, retreated to the back, and the crowd closed in tighter.

“Who’s your Elder here? Hey?” Rostóv shouted at the crowd, approaching with brisk steps.

“The Elder? What do you want with him?…” Karp asked.

But before he finished speaking, his cap flew off and a sharp blow jerked his head aside.

“Caps off, traitors!” Rostóv yelled angrily. “Where’s the Elder?” he demanded furiously.

“The Elder… He wants the Elder!… Dron Zakhárych, you!” timid and confused voices called here and there, and caps began to come off heads.

“We’re not rioting; we’re following orders,” Karp protested, just as several voices started talking at once.

“The old men decided it—too many people are giving orders.”

“Arguing? Rebellion!… Brigands! Traitors!” Rostóv shouted irrationally, grabbing Karp by the collar. “Tie him up, tie him up!” he cried, though there were only Lavrúshka and Alpátych to restrain him.

Lavrúshka, however, ran up to Karp and grabbed his arms from behind.

“Should I call our men from behind the hill?” he called out.

Alpátych faced the peasants and ordered two by name to come tie up Karp. They obediently came out of the crowd and started removing their belts.

“Where’s the Elder?” Rostóv demanded loudly.

With a pale, frowning face, Dron stepped out of the crowd.

“Are you the Elder? Tie him up, Lavrúshka!” Rostóv shouted, as though that order, too, could not possibly be disobeyed.

And indeed, two more peasants began tying up Dron, who removed his own belt and handed it over to help them.

“And now all of you listen to me!” Rostóv said to the peasants. “Go home at once, and don’t let me hear another word from any of you!”

“Why, we haven’t done anything wrong! It was just foolishness. It was all nonsense…. I always said it wasn’t right,” voices could be heard arguing.

“There! What did I say?” Alpátych chimed in, regaining his confidence. “It’s wrong, boys!”

“All our fault, Yákov Alpátych,” came the responses, and immediately the crowd began dispersing through the village.

The two men who had been tied up were led off to the master’s house. The two drunken peasants followed after them.

“Ah, when I look at you!…” one said to Karp.

“How could you talk to the masters like that? What were you thinking, you fool?” added the other—“A real fool!”

Two hours later, the carts stood in the courtyard of the Boguchárovo house. The peasants were busily carrying out the proprietor’s belongings and loading them onto the carts, and Dron, released at Princess Mary’s request from the cupboard where he had been kept, was now in the yard directing the men.

“Don’t just toss it in carelessly,” said one of the peasants, a round-faced man with a cheerful smile, as he took a casket from a housemaid. “You know this cost money! How can you just throw it in like that, or shove it under the cord where it’ll get scratched? I don’t like doing things that way. Let’s do it properly, the right way. Look, put it under the bast matting and cover it with hay—that’s the way!”

“Hey, books, books!” another peasant said, bringing out Prince Andrew’s library cupboards. “Careful you don’t bump it! That’s heavy, lads—solid books.”

“Yes, they worked all day and didn’t play!” said the tall, round-faced peasant seriously, winking in emphasis as he pointed at the dictionaries stacked on top.

Not wanting to intrude on the princess, Rostóv didn’t go back to the house but stayed in the village, waiting for her departure. When her carriage finally left, he mounted up and accompanied her for eight miles from Boguchárovo to where the road was occupied by our troops. At the inn at Yankóvo he respectfully took his leave, for the first time allowing himself to kiss her hand.

“How can you say that!” he replied with embarrassment when Princess Mary expressed her gratitude for her rescue, as she described it. “Any police officer would have done the same! If we had only peasants to fight, we would never have let the enemy get so far,” he added, feeling ashamed and wanting to change the topic. “I am only glad to have had the chance to meet you. Good-bye, Princess. I wish you happiness and peace, and I hope we’ll meet again under better circumstances. If you don’t want to make me blush, please don’t thank me!”

But even if she did not thank him again in words, the princess thanked him with every look, her entire face glowing with gratitude and tenderness. She couldn’t believe there was nothing to thank him for. On the contrary, she was certain that if he hadn’t been there she would have died at the hands of the mutineers or the French, and that he had risked terrible and obvious danger to save her; even more so, she was sure he was a man of high and noble spirit, able to understand her situation and grief. His kind, honest eyes—filling with tears as she herself had begun to cry about her loss—remained in her memory.

Once she had said goodbye and was alone, her eyes suddenly filled with tears, and then, not for the first time, the strange question arose in her mind: did she love him?

For the rest of the journey to Moscow, though the princess’s situation was far from joyful, Dunyásha, who rode with her in the carriage, more than once noticed her mistress leaning out the window and smiling to herself with an expression of mixed joy and sorrow.

“Well, what if I do love him?” Princess Mary thought.

Ashamed as she was to admit to herself that she had fallen in love with a man who might never care for her, she comforted herself thinking that no one would ever know it, and that she wouldn’t be at fault if, without ever telling anyone, she continued to love the man she had fallen in love with, for the first and last time in her life.

Sometimes, when she recalled his looks, his sympathy, and his words, happiness no longer seemed impossible. It was at those moments that Dunyásha noticed her smiling as she looked out the carriage window.

“Was it not fate that brought him to Boguchárovo at that very moment?” thought Princess Mary. “And that caused his sister to refuse my brother?” In all these things Princess Mary saw the hand of Providence.

The impression the princess made on Rostóv was a very pleasant one. Remembering her gave him pleasure, and when his comrades, having heard about his adventure at Boguchárovo, teased him about going to search for hay and ending up meeting one of the wealthiest heiresses in Russia, it made him angry. He was upset precisely because the thought of marrying the gentle Princess Mary—who attracted him and had a great fortune—had, against his will, entered his mind more than once. Personally, Nicholas could wish for no better wife: by marrying her, he would please his mother, could put his father’s affairs in order, and truly—he felt it—make Princess Mary happy.

But Sónya? And the promise he had made to her? That was why Rostóv grew angry when people joked about Princess Bolkónskaya.

##  CHAPTER XV

When Kutúzov took command of the armies, he remembered Prince Andrew and sent an order for him to report to headquarters.

Prince Andrew arrived at Tsárevo-Zaymíshche on the very day and at the exact hour that Kutúzov was reviewing the troops for the first time. He stopped at the priest’s house in the village, in front of which stood the commander in chief’s carriage, and sat down on a bench by the gate, waiting for his Serene Highness, as Kutúzov was now called by everyone. From the field beyond the village came sounds of regimental music and the loud shouts of many voices cheering “Hurrah!” for the new commander in chief. Two orderlies, a courier, and a major-domo were standing nearby, some ten paces from Prince Andrew, taking advantage of Kutúzov’s absence and the pleasant weather. A short, swarthy lieutenant colonel of hussars with thick mustaches and whiskers rode up to the gate and, glancing at Prince Andrew, asked if his Serene Highness was staying there and if he would be back soon.

Prince Andrew answered that he was not on his Serene Highness’s staff but was a new arrival himself. The lieutenant colonel turned to a crisp, well-dressed orderly who, with the particular disdain that a commander-in-chief’s orderly often shows to officers, replied:

“What? His Serene Highness? I expect he’ll be here soon. What do you want?”

The hussar lieutenant colonel smiled beneath his mustache at the orderly’s tone, dismounted, handed his horse to a dispatch runner, and approached Bolkónski with a slight bow. Bolkónski made space for him on the bench, and the lieutenant colonel sat down next to him.

“You’re also waiting for the commander in chief?” he said. “They say he receives everyone, thank God!... It’s dreadful with those sausage eaters! Ermólov had a reason to ask to be promoted to a German! Now maybe us Russians will get a look in. Before, who knows what was happening. We kept retreating and retreating. Did you take part in the campaign?” he asked.

“I had the pleasure,” replied Prince Andrew, “not only of taking part in the retreat but of losing everything dear to me during it—not to mention the estate and home where I was born—my father, who died of grief. I’m from the province of Smolénsk.”

“Ah? You’re Prince Bolkónski? Very glad to meet you! I’m Lieutenant Colonel Denísov, better known as ‘Váska,’” said Denísov, shaking Prince Andrew’s hand and studying his face with a particularly kind attention. “Yes, I heard,” he said sympathetically, and after a brief pause added, “Yes, it’s Scythian warfare. It’s all very well—except for those who have to suffer for it. So you are Prince Andrew Bolkónski?” He shook his head. “Very pleased, Prince, to make your acquaintance!” he repeated, smiling sadly, and again pressed Prince Andrew’s hand.

Prince Andrew knew Denísov from what Natásha had told him about her first suitor. This memory brought back, both painfully and sweetly, feelings that he hadn’t thought about lately but still lived in his soul. Recently, he had experienced so many new and serious events—the retreat from Smolénsk, his visit to Bald Hills, and the recent news of his father’s death—and had been through so many emotions, that those memories hadn’t entered his mind for a while, and now, they affected him much less than before. For Denísov, too, the memories brought up by the name of Bolkónski belonged to a distant, romantic past, when, after supper and Natásha’s singing, he had proposed to a fifteen-year-old girl, not realizing what he was doing. He smiled at the memory of those days and his love for Natásha and quickly moved on to what now absorbed him completely: a campaign plan he had devised while serving at the outposts during the retreat. He had proposed the plan to Barclay de Tolly and now wanted to present it to Kutúzov. The plan was based on the fact that the French line of operation was spread too thin, and it suggested that, instead of—or along with—facing the French head-on, they should attack their lines of communication. He began explaining his plan to Prince Andrew.

“They can’t guard that whole line. Impossible. I’ll break through, just give me five hundred men, and I’ll break the line, that’s certain! There’s only one way—guerrilla warfare!”

Denísov got up and began gesturing as he explained his plan to Bolkónski. In the middle of his explanation, shouts were heard from the army: they grew more scattered and mixed with music and songs, coming from the field where the review was happening. The sound of hoofbeats and voices came closer to the village.

“He’s coming! He’s coming!” shouted a Cossack standing at the gate.

Bolkónski and Denísov went to the gate, where a group of soldiers (a guard of honor) stood, just as they saw Kutúzov riding down the street on a rather small sorrel horse. A large group of generals rode behind him. Barclay was riding almost beside him, and a crowd of officers ran after and around them, shouting, “Hurrah!”

His adjutants galloped into the yard before him. Kutúzov was impatiently urging his horse on, and he tipped his white Horse Guard’s cap with a red band and no visor, nodding his head repeatedly. When he reached the guard of honor—a fine group of Grenadiers, most wearing medals and saluting him—he looked at them silently and seriously for almost a minute with the steady gaze of a commander, then turned to the crowd of generals and officers around him. Suddenly his face took on a subtle look; he shrugged his shoulders with a puzzled air.

“And with such fine fellows, to retreat and retreat! Well, good-bye, General,” he added, riding into the yard past Prince Andrew and Denísov.

“Hurrah! hurrah! hurrah!” shouted those behind him.

Since Prince Andrew last saw him, Kutúzov had grown even more heavyset, soft, and fat. But the bleached eyeball, the scar, and the familiar tired look were still the same. He wore the white Horse Guard’s cap and a military overcoat with a whip hanging across his shoulder by a thin strap. He sat heavily and rocked gently on his lively little horse.

“Whew… whew… whew!” he whistled faintly as he rode into the yard. His face looked relieved, like a man ready to rest after a ceremony. He pulled his left foot out of the stirrup and, shifting his whole body and wrinkling his face with the effort, managed to lift his leg onto the saddle, leaned on his knee, groaned, and slid down into the arms of the waiting Cossacks and adjutants.

He recomposed himself, glanced around, squinted, and looked at Prince Andrew. Apparently not recognizing him, he waddled toward the porch. “Whew… whew… whew!” he whistled again and glanced once more at Prince Andrew. As often happens with elderly men, it took several seconds for the impression made by Prince Andrew’s face to link up with Kutúzov’s memory.

“Ah, how do you do, my dear prince? How do you do, my dear boy? Come along…” he said, looking around wearily, and went up onto the porch, which creaked under his weight.

He unbuttoned his coat and sat down on a bench in the porch.

“And how’s your father?”

“I received news of his death yesterday,” replied Prince Andrew abruptly.

Kutúzov stared at him, eyes wide with shock, then took off his cap and crossed himself:

“May he rest in the kingdom of Heaven! God’s will be done to us all!” He sighed deeply, shaking his whole chest, and was silent for a moment. “I loved him and respected him, and I sympathize with you with all my heart.”

He embraced Prince Andrew, pressing him to his fat chest, and for a while did not let him go. When he released him, Prince Andrew saw Kutúzov’s flabby lips trembling and tears in his eyes. He sighed and pressed down on the bench with both hands to lift himself.

“Come! Come with me, we’ll have a talk,” he said.

But just then, Denísov, no more intimidated by his superiors than by the enemy, came up the porch steps with jingling spurs, despite the angry whispers of the adjutants trying to stop him. Kutúzov, still pressing on the seat, glanced at him glumly. After giving his name, Denísov declared he had to communicate something of great importance for the country’s welfare to his Serene Highness. Kutúzov looked tiredly at him and, lifting his hands with an annoyed gesture, folded them on his stomach, repeating: “For our country’s welfare? Well, what is it? Speak!” Denísov blushed like a girl (the color was odd to see on his rugged, time-worn face) and bravely began to outline his plan for cutting the enemy’s communications between Smolénsk and Vyázma. Denísov was from that area and knew the land well. His plan seemed clearly a good one, especially considering the confidence with which he spoke. Kutúzov looked down at his own legs and occasionally glanced at the door of the next hut as if expecting something unpleasant to come out. And while Denísov was speaking, a general with a portfolio under his arm indeed appeared from that hut.

“What?” said Kutúzov, in the middle of Denísov’s explanation, “are you ready so soon?”

“Ready, your Serene Highness,” the general replied.

Kutúzov shook his head, as if to say, “How can one man deal with all this?” and listened again to Denísov.

“I give my word of honor as a Russian officer,” said Denísov, “that I can break Napoleon’s line of communication!”

“What relation are you to Intendant General Kiríl Andréevich Denísov?” Kutúzov asked, interrupting him.

“He is my uncle, your Serene Highness.”

“Ah, we were friends,” said Kutúzov, smiling. “All right, all right, friend, stay here with the staff and we’ll talk tomorrow.”

He nodded to Denísov and turned away, reaching his hand for the papers Konovnítsyn had brought.

“Wouldn’t your Serene Highness like to come inside?” the general on duty asked in a discontented tone. “The plans need to be examined and several papers have to be signed.”

An adjutant came out and announced that everything was ready inside. But Kutúzov clearly did not want to go in until he was finished outside. He made a face...

“No, tell them to bring a small table out here, my dear boy. I’ll look at them here,” he said. “Don’t go away,” he added, turning to Prince Andrew, who stayed on the porch and listened to the general's report.

While this was being given, Prince Andrew heard the whisper of a woman’s voice and the rustle of a silk dress behind the door. Several times, when he glanced that way, he noticed behind that door a plump, rosy, attractive woman in a pink dress with a lilac silk kerchief on her head, holding a dish and clearly waiting for the commander in chief to come in. Kutúzov’s adjutant whispered to Prince Andrew that this was the wife of the priest whose house this was, and that she intended to offer his Serene Highness bread and salt. “Her husband has welcomed his Serene Highness with the cross at the church, and now she wants to welcome him in their home… She’s very pretty,” added the adjutant with a smile. At these words Kutúzov looked around. He was listening to the general’s report—which was mostly a critique of the position at Tsárevo-Zaymíshche—as he had listened to Denísov, and as he had listened seven years ago to the discussion at the Austerlitz council of war. It was obvious he listened only because he had ears which, though there was a bit of tow in one, still could not help but hear; but it was clear that nothing the general could say would surprise or even interest him. He knew all that would be said beforehand and listened only because he had to, as one must listen to the chanting of a prayer service. Everything Denísov had said was clever and to the point. What the general was saying was even cleverer and more relevant, but it was clear that Kutúzov dismissed knowledge and cleverness, knowing that something else would decide the matter—something independent of cleverness and knowledge. Prince Andrew watched the commander in chief’s face intently, but the only expression he saw was one of boredom, some curiosity about the feminine whispering behind the door, and a wish to observe proper etiquette. It was clear that Kutúzov disregarded cleverness, education, and even the patriotic feeling shown by Denísov—but not because of his own intellect, feelings, or learning—he did not try to show any of those—but for another reason. He looked down on such things because of his old age and experience with life. The only instruction Kutúzov gave of his own accord during the report had to do with Russian troops looting. At the end of the report, the general presented a document for him to sign regarding the recovery of payment from army commanders for green oats cut down by soldiers, when landowners filed petitions for compensation.

After hearing the matter, Kutúzov smacked his lips and shook his head.

“Into the stove… into the fire with it! I tell you once and for all, my dear fellow,” he said, “into the fire with all those things! Let them cut the crops and burn wood as much as they want. I don’t order it or allow it, but I won’t collect compensation, either. One can’t get by without it. ‘When wood is chopped, the chips will fly.’” He looked at the paper again. “Oh, this German precision!” he muttered, shaking his head.

##  CHAPTER XVI

“Well, that’s all!” said Kutúzov, as he signed the last of the documents. Rising heavily and smoothing out the folds in his thick white neck, he walked toward the door with a more cheerful look.

The priest’s wife, blushing a bright rosy red, grabbed the dish she had not managed to present at the right moment, though she had long been preparing for it, and with a low bow offered it to Kutúzov.

He squinted his eyes, smiled, lifted her chin with his hand, and said:

“Ah, what a beauty! Thank you, sweetheart!”

He took a few gold pieces from his trouser pocket and placed them on the dish for her. “Well, my dear, how are we getting along?” he asked as he made his way to the room set aside for him. The priest’s wife smiled, and with dimples in her rosy cheeks, followed him into the room. The adjutant came out to the porch and invited Prince Andrew to have lunch with him. Half an hour later, Prince Andrew was called to see Kutúzov again. He found him lying back in an armchair, still wearing the same unbuttoned overcoat. He held in his hand a French book, which he closed as Prince Andrew entered, marking his place with a knife. Prince Andrew saw from the cover that it was *Les Chevaliers du Cygne* by Madame de Genlis.

“Well, sit down, sit down here. Let’s have a talk,” said Kutúzov. “It’s sad, very sad. But remember, my dear fellow, that I am a father to you, a second father….”

Prince Andrew told Kutúzov all he knew about his father’s death, and what he had witnessed at Bald Hills when he passed through there.

“What… what they have brought us to!” Kutúzov suddenly cried in a shaken voice, clearly picturing to himself, from Prince Andrew’s story, Russia’s present condition. “But give me time, give me time!” he said with a grim look, evidently not wanting to continue such an upsetting conversation, and added, “I sent for you to keep you with me.”

“I thank your Serene Highness, but I’m afraid I am no longer suited for the staff,” replied Prince Andrew with a smile, which Kutúzov noticed.

Kutúzov looked at him inquiringly.

“But above all,” added Prince Andrew, “I’ve grown attached to my regiment, I care for the officers, and I think the men like me too. I would regret leaving the regiment. If I decline the honor of being with you, please believe me…”

A shrewd, kind, but slightly mocking look lit up Kutúzov’s plump face. He stopped Bolkónski.

“I’m sorry, for I need you. But you’re right, you’re right! It’s not here that men are needed most. Advisers are always plentiful; real men are not. The regiments wouldn’t be what they are if all those would-be advisers served there as you do. I remember you at Austerlitz… I remember, yes, I remember you with the standard!” said Kutúzov, and a flush of pleasure came over Prince Andrew’s face at this memory.

Taking his hand and drawing him closer, Kutúzov offered his cheek to be kissed, and again Prince Andrew noticed tears in the old man’s eyes. Even though Prince Andrew knew Kutúzov was easily moved to tears, and was especially gentle and considerate to him out of sympathy for his loss, this reminder of Austerlitz was both pleasing and flattering.

“Go your way, and God be with you. I know your path is the path of honor!” He paused. “I missed you at Bucharest, but I needed someone to send.” And changing the subject, Kutúzov began discussing the Turkish war and the peace that had been concluded. “Yes, I was blamed a lot,” he said, “for both that war and the peace… but everything came at just the right time. *Tout vient à point à celui qui sait attendre.*\* And there were just as many advisers there as here…” he continued, returning to the topic of “advisers,” which clearly preoccupied him. “Ah, those advisers!” he said. “If we had listened to them, we wouldn’t have made peace with Turkey and wouldn’t be done with that war. Everything in a hurry, but more haste, less speed. Kámenski would have been lost if he hadn’t died. He stormed fortresses with thirty thousand men. It’s not hard to capture a fortress, but winning a campaign is another matter. For that, not storming and attacking but *patience and time* are needed. Kámenski sent soldiers to Rustchuk, but I only used those two things and took more fortresses than Kámenski, and made those Turks eat horseflesh!” He nodded his head. “And the French shall too, believe me,” he continued, growing more animated and beating his chest, “I’ll make them eat horseflesh!” Again, his eyes filled with tears.

\* “Everything comes in time to him who knows how to wait.”

“But won’t we have to accept battle?” remarked Prince Andrew.

“We will if everybody insists; it can’t be helped…. But believe me, my dear boy, there’s nothing stronger than these two things: *patience and time*—they’ll do it all. But the advisers *n’entendent pas de cette oreille, voilà le mal.*\* Some want one thing, others another. What can you do?” he asked, clearly expecting an answer. “Well, what do you say we should do?” he repeated, scanning him with a deep, shrewd look. “I’ll tell you what to do,” he continued, seeing that Prince Andrew did not reply. “I will tell you what to do, and what I do. *Dans le doute, mon cher*,” he paused, *‘abstiens-toi’*\*(2)—he said the French proverb deliberately.

\* “They don’t see it that way, that’s the problem.”

\* (2) “When in doubt, my dear fellow, do nothing.”

“Well, good-bye, my dear fellow; remember that with all my heart I share your sorrow, and for you I am not a Serene Highness, nor a prince, nor a commander in chief, but a father! If you need anything, come directly to me. Good-bye, my dear boy.”

Again he embraced and kissed Prince Andrew, but before the latter had left the room Kutúzov gave a sigh of relief and went back to his unfinished novel, *Les Chevaliers du Cygne* by Madame de Genlis.

Prince Andrew could not explain quite how or why, but after that meeting with Kutúzov he went back to his regiment feeling reassured about the general course of affairs and the man to whom it had been entrusted. The more he realized the absence of personal motive in the old man—in whom there seemed to remain only the habit of passions, and in place of an intellect (analyzing events and drawing conclusions), only the ability to calmly watch the course of events—the more confident he felt that everything would turn out as it should. “He won’t introduce any plan of his own. He won’t invent or undertake anything himself,” thought Prince Andrew, “but he will hear everything, remember everything, and put everything in its place. He won’t prevent anything useful nor allow anything harmful. He understands there is something greater and more important than his own will—the inevitable flow of events, and he can see and understand their meaning, and because he sees that, he can stay out of the way and set aside his personal opinions. And most of all,” thought Prince Andrew, “one trusts him because he’s Russian, despite the novel by Genlis and the French proverbs, and because his voice trembled when he said: ‘What they have brought us to!’ and he choked up when he said he would ‘make them eat horseflesh!’”

It was on such feelings, shared more or less vaguely by everyone, that the unity and general approval were based, with which, despite court influence, the people's choice of Kutúzov as commander in chief was welcomed.

##  CHAPTER XVII

After the Emperor left Moscow, life continued there as usual, so much so that it was hard to recall the recent days of patriotic excitement and passion. It was difficult to believe that Russia was truly in danger and that the members of the English Club were also sons of the Fatherland, ready to sacrifice everything for it. The only thing that reminded people of the patriotic enthusiasm everyone had shown during the Emperor’s visit was the call for men and funds—a necessity that, once the promises were made, quickly became official, legal, and unavoidable.

As the enemy approached Moscow, the attitude of the Muscovites did not become more serious; instead, it grew even more frivolous, just as often happens when people see great danger approaching. When danger is near, two voices speak with equal authority in the human soul: one sensibly urges a person to assess the nature of the threat and look for ways to escape it; the other, even more reasonably, insists it is too depressing and painful to dwell on the danger, as humans cannot foresee or stop every outcome, so it’s better to ignore what is unpleasant until it arrives and focus on what’s enjoyable. In solitude, people usually heed the first voice; in society, the second. So it was in Moscow. It had not been as lively in Moscow for a long time as it was that year.

Rostopchín’s public notices, illustrated with woodcuts of a tavern, a bar worker, and a Moscow commoner named Karpúshka Chigírin, *“who—having served in the militia and had a few too many at the tavern—heard Napoleon meant to come to Moscow, became angry, cursed the French coarsely, left the tavern, and, under the eagle's sign, began to address the crowd,”* were widely read and discussed, along with the latest of Vasíli Lvóvich Púshkin’s *bouts rimés*.

In the Club’s corner room, members gathered to read these broadsheets. Some enjoyed how Karpúshka mocked the French, saying: *“They’ll swell up from eating Russian cabbage, burst from our buckwheat porridge, and choke on cabbage soup. They’re all runts, and one peasant woman could toss three of them with a pitchfork.”* Others disliked such talk, calling it foolish and vulgar. People said Rostopchín had driven out all Frenchmen—and even all foreigners—from Moscow, and that some had turned out to be Napoleon’s spies and agents. But this was repeated mainly to introduce Rostopchín’s witty remark on that occasion. The foreigners were sent by boat to Nízhni, and Rostopchín had told them in French: *“Rentrez en vous-mêmes; entrez dans la barque, et n’en faites pas une barque de Charon.”* \* There were stories that all government offices had already been moved from Moscow, and to this, people added Shinshín’s quip—that for that reason alone Moscow should thank Napoleon. Rumor had it that Mamónov’s regiment would cost him eight hundred thousand rubles, and that Bezúkhov had spent even more on his own, but the best thing was that Bezúkhov himself would put on a uniform and command his regiment without charging anything for the spectacle.

\* “Think it over; get into the boat, and be careful not to make it Charon’s boat.”

“You don’t spare anyone,” said Julie Drubetskáya as she gathered and pressed together a bunch of frayed lint with her thin, ringed fingers.

Julie was packing to leave Moscow the next day and was hosting a farewell soiree.

“*Bezúkhov est ridicule*, but he is so kind and good-natured. Why bother being so *caustique*?”

“A forfeit!” exclaimed a young man in militia uniform whom Julie called *“mon chevalier,”* who was accompanying her to Nízhni.

In Julie’s circle, as in many others in Moscow, an agreement had been made to speak only Russian, and whoever slipped and spoke French had to pay a fine to the Committee of Voluntary Contributions.

“Another forfeit for a Gallicism,” said a Russian writer who was present. “‘What pleasure is there to be’ isn’t Russian!”

“You spare no one,” Julie continued to the young man, ignoring the writer’s comment.

“For *caustique*—I’m guilty and I’ll pay, and I’m ready to pay again for the pleasure of speaking the truth. As for Gallicisms, I won’t take responsibility,” she said to the writer. “I don’t have the money or the time, like Prince Galítsyn, to hire a tutor to teach me Russian!”

“Oh, here he is!” she added. “*Quand on*… No, no,” she said to the militia officer, “you won’t catch me. Speak of the sun and you see its rays!” She smiled warmly at Pierre. “We were just talking about you,” she said, easily shifting into a polite lie as was natural for a society lady. “We were saying your regiment will surely be better than Mamónov’s.”

“Oh, please, don’t talk to me about my regiment,” replied Pierre, kissing the hostess’s hand and sitting beside her. “I am so tired of it.”

“You will, of course, command it yourself?” asked Julie, casting a sly, teasing look toward the militia officer.

With Pierre present, the officer had stopped being sarcastic, and now looked puzzled as to what Julie’s smile might mean. Despite his absent-mindedness and good nature, Pierre’s presence always immediately stopped anyone from openly making fun of him.

“No,” said Pierre, glancing with a laugh at his large, stout body. “I’d make too good a target for the French, and I doubt I’d even be able to get up onto a horse.”

The Rostóvs were also a topic chosen for gossip by Julie’s guests.

“I hear they’re in a very bad financial situation,” said Julie. “And he’s so unreasonable—the count himself, I mean. The Razumóvskis wanted to buy his house and estate near Moscow, but it drags on and on. He asks too much.”

“No, I think the sale will go through in a few days,” someone replied. “Though it’s crazy to buy anything in Moscow right now.”

“Why?” asked Julie. “You don’t really think Moscow is in danger?”

“Then why are you leaving?”

“Me? What kind of question is that! I’m going because… well, because everyone else is going. And besides—I’m not Joan of Arc or an Amazon.”

“Of course, of course! Pass me some more strips of linen.”

“If he sorts out the business properly, he’ll be able to pay off all his debts,” said the militia officer about Rostóv.

“A kind old man, but not very capable. And why are they staying so long in Moscow? They meant to move to the country a while ago. Natalie is well again now, isn’t she?” Julie asked Pierre with a knowing smile.

“They’re waiting for their younger son,” Pierre replied. “He joined Obolénski’s Cossacks and went to Bélaya Tsérkov, where the regiment is being formed. But now they’ve transferred him to my regiment and are expecting him any day. The count wanted to leave long ago, but the countess refuses to leave Moscow until her son comes home.”

“I met them two days ago at the Arkhárovs’. Natalie looks healthy again and seems happier. She sang a song. Some people recover from anything so easily!”

“Recover from what?” Pierre asked, looking displeased.

Julie smiled.

“You know, Count, knights like you only exist in Madame de Souza’s novels.”

“What knights? What do you mean?” Pierre asked, blushing.

“Oh, come now, my dear count! *C’est la fable de tout Moscou. Je vous admire, ma parole d’honneur!”* \*

\* “It’s the talk of all Moscow. Honestly, I admire you!”

“Forfeit, forfeit!” the militia officer called.

“All right, one can’t speak—how annoying!”

“What is ‘the talk of all Moscow’?” Pierre asked angrily, standing up.

“Come now, Count, you know!”

“I don’t know anything about it,” said Pierre.

“I know you were friendly with Natalie, and so… but I was always closer with Véra—that dear Véra.”

“No, madame!” Pierre continued, sounding displeased, “I have not taken on the role of Natalie Rostóva’s protector at all, and I haven’t been to their house for nearly a month. But I cannot understand the cruelty…”

*“Qui s’excuse s’accuse,”* \* said Julie, smiling and triumphantly waving the lint. Wanting to have the last word, she quickly changed the subject. “Do you know what I heard today? Poor Mary Bolkónskaya arrived in Moscow yesterday. Do you know she has lost her father?”

\* “Who excuses himself, accuses himself.”

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

“I spent the evening with her yesterday. She is going to their estate near Moscow either today or tomorrow morning, with her nephew.”

“Well, and how is she?” Pierre asked.

“She is well, but sad. But do you know who rescued her? It is quite a story. Nicholas Rostóv! She was surrounded, and they wanted to kill her and had wounded some of her people. He rushed in and saved her….”

“Another romance,” said the militia officer. “Really, this whole evacuation seems to have been arranged just to get all the old maids married. Catiche is one and Princess Bolkónskaya is another.”

“You know, I actually believe she is *un petit peu amoureuse du jeune homme.*” \*

\* “A little bit in love with the young man.”

“Forfeit, forfeit, forfeit!”

“But how could one say that in Russian?”

##  CHAPTER XVIII

When Pierre returned home, he was handed two of Rostopchín’s broadsheets that had arrived that day.

The first announced that the report claiming Count Rostopchín had forbidden people from leaving Moscow was false; on the contrary, he was glad that ladies and merchants’ wives were leaving the city. “There will be less panic and less gossip,” read the broadsheet, “but I will stake my life on it that that scoundrel will not enter Moscow.” These words made it clear to Pierre for the first time that the French would enter Moscow. The second broadsheet said that our headquarters were at Vyázma, that Count Wittgenstein had defeated the French, but since many residents of Moscow wanted to be armed, weapons were ready for them at the arsenal: sabers, pistols, and muskets could be obtained at a low price. The proclamation’s tone was less playful than earlier Chigírin talks. Pierre reflected on these broadsheets. Clearly, the terrible stormcloud he had longed for with all his heart—but which still filled him with involuntary dread—was drawing near.

“Should I join the army and enter service, or wait?” he asked himself for the hundredth time. He picked up a deck of cards from the table and began setting up a game of patience.

“If this patience works out,” he told himself after shuffling and holding the cards, “if it works out, it means... what does it mean?”

He hadn’t decided what it should mean when he heard the voice of the eldest princess at the door, asking if she could come in.

“Then it will mean I must go to the army,” Pierre thought. “Come in, come in!” he called to the princess.

Only the eldest princess, the one with the stony face and long waist, was still living in Pierre’s house. The two younger sisters had both married.

“Excuse my coming to you, cousin,” she said in an agitated and reproachful tone. “You know we must reach some decision. What is happening? Everyone has left Moscow, and people are rioting. Why are we still here?”

“On the contrary, things seem fine, *ma cousine*,” Pierre replied in the bantering tone he always used with her, never feeling comfortable in his role as her benefactor.

“Fine, indeed! Very fine! Barbara Ivánovna told me today how our troops are distinguishing themselves. It certainly does them credit! And the people are practically mutinous—they don’t obey anymore; even my maid has begun to be rude. At this rate, they’ll soon start beating us. You can’t walk in the streets. But above all, the French will be here any day now, so what are we waiting for? I ask just one thing, cousin,” she continued, “arrange for me to be taken to Petersburg. Whatever else, I cannot live under Bonaparte’s rule.”

“Oh, come now, *ma cousine!* Where do you get your information? Actually…”

“I won’t submit to your Napoleon! Others may if they wish… If you don’t want to do this…”

“But I will, I’ll give the order immediately.”

The princess seemed irritated for lack of anyone to be angry with. Muttering to herself, she sat down.

“But you’ve been misinformed,” said Pierre. “It’s quiet in the city, and there’s no danger. See, I was just reading…” He showed her the broadsheet. “Count Rostopchín writes that he’ll stake his life the enemy won’t enter Moscow.”

“Oh, that count of yours!” the princess said resentfully. “He is a hypocrite, a scoundrel who has stirred up the people to riot himself. Didn’t he write in those silly broadsheets that anyone, ‘whoever it might be, should be dragged to the lockup by his hair’? (How foolish!) ‘And honor and glory to whoever captures him,’ he says. This is what his flattery has brought us to! Barbara Ivánovna told me the mob nearly killed her for saying something in French.”

“Oh, but it’s so... You take everything so much to heart,” said Pierre, as he began dealing out his cards for patience.

Although that game did succeed, Pierre still did not join the army, but stayed in deserted Moscow, always in the same state of agitation, indecision, and alarm, yet at the same time eagerly expecting something dreadful.

The next evening, the princess left, and Pierre’s head steward came to tell him that the money needed to equip his regiment could not be found without selling one of the estates. In general, the head steward tried to persuade Pierre that his plan to raise a regiment would ruin him. Pierre listened, barely hiding a smile.

“Well then, sell it,” he said. “What else can be done? I can’t back out now!”

The worse things became, especially his own affairs, the more pleased Pierre was and the more certain it felt that the catastrophe he anticipated was coming closer. Almost everyone he knew had left town. Julie was gone, as was Princess Mary. Of his close friends, only the Rostóvs remained, but he did not visit them.

To distract himself, he drove that day to the village of Vorontsóvo to see the great balloon Leppich was building to destroy the enemy, as well as a trial balloon that would be launched the next day. The balloon wasn’t ready yet, but Pierre learned it was being built at the Emperor’s request. The Emperor had written to Count Rostopchín as follows:

As soon as Leppich is ready, select a crew of reliable and intelligent men for his car and send a courier to General Kutúzov to inform him. I have notified him about this.

Please impress upon Leppich the importance of being extremely careful where he lands the first time, so he does not make a mistake and fall into enemy hands. It is essential for him to coordinate his movements with those of the commander in chief.

On his way back from Vorontsóvo, while passing Bolótnoe Place, Pierre, seeing a large crowd at Lóbnoe Place, stopped and got out of his carriage. A French cook, accused of being a spy, was being flogged. The beating had just ended, and the executioner was freeing a stout man with red whiskers, blue stockings, and a green jacket from the flogging bench. The man moaned pitifully. Beside him stood another criminal, thin and pale. Judging by their faces, both were Frenchmen. With a frightened, pained look like that on the thin Frenchman’s face, Pierre pushed through the crowd.

“What is it? Who is it? What is it for?” he kept asking.

But the crowd—officials, townsfolk, shopkeepers, peasants, and women in cloaks and pelisses—was so focused on what was happening in Lóbnoe Place that nobody answered him. The stout man got up, scowled, shrugged, and, trying to appear strong, began to put on his jacket without looking around, but then his lips quivered and he started to cry, the way strong grown men sometimes cry, though he seemed angry at himself for doing it. The crowd began speaking loudly, it seemed to Pierre, to cover their feelings of pity.

“He’s cook to some prince.”

“Eh, monsieur, Russian sauce tastes too sour for a Frenchman… turns his stomach!” joked a wrinkled clerk standing behind Pierre, as the Frenchman began to weep.

The clerk looked around, hoping his joke would be appreciated. Some laughed; others watched quietly, distressed, as the executioner undressed the other man.

Pierre choked up, his face contorted, and he quickly turned away, went back to his carriage muttering something, and sat down. As they drove off, he shuddered and murmured several times, loud enough for the coachman to ask:

“What is your wish?”

“Where are you going?” Pierre shouted to the driver, who was heading for Lubyánka Street.

“To the Governor’s, as you ordered,” answered the coachman.

“Fool! Idiot!” Pierre shouted, scolding his coachman—a thing he rarely did. “Home, I told you! And drive faster, blockhead!” “I must leave today,” he muttered to himself.

Seeing the tortured Frenchman and the crowd around the Lóbnoe Place, Pierre had now made up his mind that he could not remain any longer in Moscow and would leave for the army that very day. He felt either he had already told the coachman this or that the man should have known it instinctively.

When he arrived home Pierre ordered Evstáfey—his head coachman, who knew everything, could manage anything, and was well-known throughout Moscow—that he would leave that night for the army at Mozháysk, and that his saddle horses should be sent there. All this couldn’t be arranged that day, so on Evstáfey’s advice Pierre had to postpone his departure until next day, to allow time for the relay horses to be sent ahead.

On the twenty-fourth, the weather cleared after a spell of rain, and after dinner Pierre left Moscow. When changing horses that night in Perkhúshkovo, he learned that there had been a great battle that evening. (This was the battle of Shevárdino.) He was told that in Perkhúshkovo, the earth shook from the gunfire, but no one could tell him who had won. At dawn the next day Pierre approached Mozháysk.

Every house in Mozháysk had soldiers quartered in it, and at the inn where Pierre was met by his groom and coachman there was no room available. It was full of officers.

Everywhere in Mozháysk and beyond, troops were stationed or marching. Cossacks, infantry and cavalry, wagons, caissons, and cannons were everywhere. Pierre pressed forward as quickly as he could, and the farther he left Moscow behind and the deeper he waded into this sea of troops, the more he was swept up by restless agitation and a new, joyful feeling he hadn’t felt before. It was similar to what he had experienced at the Slobóda Palace during the Emperor’s visit—a sense of needing to undertake something and make sacrifices. Now, he felt keenly that all the things that make up human happiness—the comforts of life, wealth, even life itself—were worthless, enjoyable only to cast aside for something greater… For what? Pierre could not say, nor did he try to determine for whom or for what he was so eager to give up everything. He was not concerned with what he would sacrifice for; the very act of sacrificing gave him this new and joyful feeling.

##  CHAPTER XIX

On August twenty-fourth, the battle of the Shevárdino Redoubt was fought; on the twenty-fifth, neither side fired a shot; and on the twenty-sixth, the battle of Borodinó itself took place.

Why and how were the battles of Shevárdino and Borodinó offered and accepted? Why was the battle of Borodinó fought? There was no real sense in it for either the French or the Russians. The direct result for the Russians was, and had to be, moving closer to the destruction of Moscow—which they feared above all else. For the French, the direct result was bringing their army closer to destruction—which was their greatest fear. The likely outcome was obvious, and still Napoleon offered, and Kutúzov accepted, the battle.

If the commanders had acted rationally, it should have been clear to Napoleon that, by advancing thirteen hundred miles and risking a battle with the chance of losing a quarter of his army, he was heading towards certain ruin. It should also have been equally clear to Kutúzov that, by accepting battle and risking the loss of a quarter of his army, he would inevitably lose Moscow. This was mathematically obvious to Kutúzov, just as it is clear that if, when playing checkers, I have one man less and continue trading pieces, I will surely lose, and so should not trade. When my opponent has sixteen men and I have fourteen, I’m only one-eighth weaker, but after trading thirteen more pieces, my opponent is three times as strong.

Before Borodinó, our strength compared to the French was about five to six; but after the battle it was little more than one to two: before, we had a hundred thousand men against a hundred and twenty thousand; afterwards, just over fifty thousand against a hundred thousand. Yet the shrewd and experienced Kutúzov accepted the battle, while Napoleon, supposedly a genius commander, gave it—losing a quarter of his army and stretching his lines of communication even further. If it is argued that he hoped to end the campaign by taking Moscow as he had ended a previous campaign by taking Vienna, there is plenty of evidence to the contrary. Napoleon’s own historians say that, from Smolénsk onwards, he wanted to halt, knew the risks of his extended position, and realized that occupying Moscow wouldn’t end the campaign; he had seen the ruined state of Russian towns at Smolénsk and had received no answer to his repeated overtures to negotiate.

In giving and accepting battle at Borodinó, Kutúzov acted involuntarily and unreasonably. But afterward, to make sense of what happened, historians concocted clever explanations about the foresight and genius of generals who, of all the blind tools of history, were the most bound and unfree.

The ancients left us heroic epics centering the entire story on the heroes. We still struggle to accept that, for our own time, such history is meaningless.

There’s another common and well-known, but entirely false, idea about how the battle of Borodinó and the one before at Shevárdino were fought. Historians all describe it in the following way:

*The Russian army*, they say, *while retreating from Smolénsk, found and chose the best position for a decisive battle at Borodinó.*

*The Russians*, they claim, *prepared this position in advance on the left of the highroad (from Moscow to Smolénsk), almost at a right angle to it, from Borodinó to Utítsa, exactly where the battle happened.*

*In front of this position*, they continue, *an outpost was fortified on the Shevárdino mound to watch the enemy. On the twenty-fourth*, we’re told, *Napoleon attacked this outpost and took it, and, on the twenty-sixth, attacked the entire Russian army positioned at Borodinó.*

That is how the histories put it, but it’s completely inaccurate, as anyone willing to look into the matter can see.

The Russians did not seek out the best position—on the contrary, they passed many positions stronger than Borodinó during the retreat. They didn’t stop at any of these because Kutúzov didn’t want to take up a position he hadn’t picked himself, because public calls for a battle weren’t yet loud enough, because Milorádovich hadn’t arrived with the militia, and for many other reasons. In fact, the other positions they passed were stronger, and the position at Borodinó—the one where the battle was actually fought—wasn’t more a *position* than any random spot in Russia you might hit with a pin on the map.

Not only did the Russians not fortify the Borodinó field to the left of, and at a right angle to, the highroad (meaning the position where the fight happened), but until August twenty-fifth, 1812, they had not even considered the possibility of fighting there. First, there were no earthworks there by the twenty-fifth, and the ones started on the twenty-fifth and twenty-sixth weren’t finished; secondly, the Shevárdino Redoubt’s position made no sense for the field where the battle was accepted. Why was it so much more fortified than any other post? Why were so many efforts spent and six thousand men lost to hold it till late at night on the twenty-fourth? A Cossack patrol would have been enough to watch the enemy. Third, further proof that the final battlefield had not been earlier foreseen, and that the Shevárdino Redoubt was not an advanced post for that field, is the fact that up to the twenty-fifth, Barclay de Tolly and Bagratión believed Shevárdino Redoubt was the *left flank* of the position, and Kutúzov himself, in his hasty post-battle report, calls the Shevárdino Redoubt the *left flank* of the position. Much later, when leisurely reports about the battle were written, the false and extraordinary idea arose (probably to excuse a commander-in-chief who had to be shown as flawless) that the Shevárdino Redoubt was an *advanced* post, when really it was just a fortified point on the left flank—and that the Borodinó battle was fought on a carefully chosen, fortified line, when in fact it was fought on a totally unexpected, nearly unfortified site.

The reality was this: a position was chosen along the river Kolochá—which crosses the highroad not at a right but at an acute angle—so that the left flank was at Shevárdino, the right by the village of Nóvoe, and the center at Borodinó where the Kolochá and Vóyna rivers join.

For anyone viewing Borodinó field without knowledge of how the battle was actually fought, this position, protected by the Kolochá, seems an obvious choice for an army wanting to stop an enemy advancing on the Smolénsk road toward Moscow.

Napoleon, riding to Valúevo on the twenty-fourth, did not (as the history books claim) see the Russian line stretching from Utítsa to Borodinó (he couldn’t have seen it because it didn’t exist), nor did he see any real advanced Russian post, but while pursuing the Russian rearguard, he came upon their left flank—at Shevárdino Redoubt—and, to the Russians’ surprise, sent his army across the Kolochá. The Russians, unable or unwilling to start a major battle that evening, pulled their left wing back from their intended place and set up instead where they were, in a spot neither chosen nor fortified. By moving beyond the Kolochá to the left of the highroad, Napoleon shifted the whole upcoming battle to the left (from the Russian view), onto the plain between Utítsa, Semënovsk, and Borodinó—a stretch with no more advantages than any other field in Russia—and there, on August twenty-sixth, the main battle was fought.

Had Napoleon not ridden out to the Kolochá on the evening of the twenty-fourth, and not ordered an immediate attack but waited until the next morning, everyone would have taken the Shevárdino Redoubt for our left flank and the battle would have taken place in our planned, prepared position. In that case, we probably would have held the Shevárdino Redoubt—our left flank—even more stubbornly. We would have attacked Napoleon in the center or on the right, and the fighting would have broken out on the twenty-fifth at a site we expected and had fortified. But as the attack came in the evening after our rear guard retreated (i.e., right after the Gridnëva fight), and since the Russian commanders didn’t want to, or weren’t ready to, begin a general action that night, the first key phase of the Borodinó battle was already lost on the twenty-fourth—guaranteeing the loss on the twenty-sixth as well.

After losing the Shevárdino Redoubt, we awoke on the morning of the twenty-fifth without a position for our left, forced to bend it backward and hurriedly dig-in wherever it happened to be.

Not only was the Russian army on the twenty-sixth behind weak, unfinished entrenchments, but the problem was made worse because the Russian leaders—failing to fully realize the consequence of losing our left flank and the shift leftward of the whole battle—kept their sweeping line from Nóvoe to Utítsa, and so had to move forces from right to left during the fight. The result was that, throughout the entire battle, the Russians faced the massed French attacks on our left with only half as many soldiers. (Poniatowski’s offensive near Utítsa, and Uvárov’s on the right against the French, were separate from the main action.) So, contrary to efforts to cover up our commanders’ mistakes—sometimes even by downplaying the achievement of the Russian army and people—the battle of Borodinó was not fought on a chosen, fortified position with nearly equal numbers. Because of losing the Shevárdino Redoubt, the Russians fought Borodinó on an open, barely fortified field, with only half as many troops as the French—in conditions not only unfriendly to a ten-hour battle with an indecisive outcome, but under which it should have been impossible to keep the army from breaking up and fleeing.

##  CHAPTER XX

On the morning of the twenty-fifth, Pierre was leaving Mozháysk. As he went down the steep hill where a winding road led out of the town past the cathedral on the right—where a service was underway and the bells were ringing—Pierre got out of his carriage and continued on foot. Behind him, a cavalry regiment was coming down the hill, led by its singers. Coming up toward him was a convoy of carts carrying men who had been wounded in the engagement the day before. The peasant drivers, shouting and whipping their horses, kept weaving from side to side. The carts, each with three or four wounded soldiers lying or sitting, jolted over the stones that had been scattered on the steep slope to make it something like a road. The wounded, bandaged with rags, pale-faced, with tight lips and furrowed brows, held onto the sides of the carts as they bumped against each other. Almost all of them stared at Pierre’s white hat and green swallow-tail coat with simple, childlike curiosity.

Pierre’s coachman shouted angrily at the convoy of wounded to stay to one side of the road. The cavalry regiment, descending the hill with its singers, surrounded Pierre’s carriage and blocked the way. Pierre had to stop, pressed against the side of the cutting in which the road ran. The sunlight from behind the hill didn’t reach into the cut, and there it was cold and damp, but above Pierre’s head the bright August sun was shining, and the bells were ringing merrily. One of the carts with wounded stopped by the side of the road close to Pierre. The driver, in his bast shoes, ran up panting, placed a stone under one of its bare hind wheels, and started fixing the harness on his little horse.

One of the wounded, an older soldier with a bandaged arm who was walking beside the cart, grabbed hold of it with his good hand and turned to look at Pierre.

“I say, fellow countryman! Will they leave us here, or take us on to Moscow?” he asked.

Pierre was so deep in thought that he didn’t hear the question. He was looking now at the cavalry regiment that had met the convoy of wounded, now at the cart by which he was standing, in which two wounded men were sitting and one was lying down. One of the seated soldiers had likely been wounded in the cheek; his head was completely wrapped in rags, and one cheek was swollen to the size of a child’s head. His nose and mouth were twisted to one side. This soldier was looking at the cathedral and crossing himself. Another, a young, fair-haired recruit as pale as if there were no blood left in his thin face, looked at Pierre kindly with a fixed smile. The third man lay face down so his face was hidden. The cavalry singers were passing close by:

*Ah lost, quite lost… is my head so keen,  
Living in a foreign land…*

they sang their soldiers’ dance song.

As if responding to them but in a different kind of cheerfulness, the metallic ringing of the bells echoed high above, and the hot rays of the sun flooded the top of the opposite slope with yet another kind of joy. But below the hill, near the cart with the wounded beside the panting little horse where Pierre stood, it was damp, gloomy, and sad.

The soldier with the swollen cheek glared at the cavalry singers.

“Oh, the peacocks!” he muttered reproachfully.

“It’s not just the soldiers,” said the soldier behind the cart, turning to Pierre with a sad smile. “I’ve seen peasants today, too… Even the peasants—they have to go now. No distinctions nowadays… They want the whole nation to go at them—in short, it’s for Moscow! They want to finish it.”

Though the soldier’s words were unclear, Pierre understood his meaning and nodded in agreement.

The road was open again; Pierre went down the hill and continued on.

He kept scanning each side of the road for familiar faces but only saw strangers—various military men from different branches, all looking at his white hat and green tail coat with surprise.

After traveling nearly three miles, he finally saw someone he knew and eagerly called out. It was one of the chief army doctors, riding toward Pierre in a covered gig, sitting beside a young surgeon. Recognizing Pierre, he told the Cossack driving the gig to stop.

“Count! Your Excellency, what brings you here?” asked the doctor.

“Well, you know, I wanted to see…”

“Yes, yes, there will be something to see…”

Pierre got out and talked to the doctor, explaining his intent to take part in a battle.

The doctor advised him to go directly to Kutúzov.

“Why be off who knows where, out of sight during the battle?” he said, exchanging glances with his young companion. “After all, his Serene Highness knows you and will welcome you. That’s what you should do.”

The doctor seemed tired and in a hurry.

“You think so?… Ah, I also wanted to ask you exactly where our position is?” said Pierre.

“The position?” repeated the doctor. “Well, that’s not really my area. Drive past Tatárinova—there’s a lot of digging going on there. Go up the hillock and you’ll see.”

“Can you see from there?… If you would—”

But the doctor interrupted and moved toward his gig.

“I’d go with you but honestly I’m up to here”—he pointed to his throat. “I’m rushing to the corps commander. How do you think it looks?… You know, Count, there’ll be a battle tomorrow. Out of an army of a hundred thousand we can expect at least twenty thousand wounded, and we don’t have enough stretchers, beds, nurses, or doctors for even six thousand. We have ten thousand carts, but we need so much more—we’ll have to manage somehow!”

The strange thought that of the thousands of men, young and old, who had looked with friendly surprise at his hat (maybe even those he’d just seen), twenty thousand were destined for wounds and death, stunned Pierre.

“They may die tomorrow; why are they thinking of anything but death?” And by some hidden train of thought, the descent of the Mozháysk hill, the carts with the wounded, the ringing bells, the slanting sunlight, and the cavalrymen’s songs came back vividly to his mind.

“The cavalry rides by and see the wounded, but don’t for a moment think of what awaits them—they just pass on, winking at the wounded. Yet among these men, twenty thousand are doomed to die, and they’re surprised at my hat! How strange!” Pierre thought as he continued on to Tatárinova.

In front of a landowner’s house on the left side of the road stood carriages, wagons, and crowds of orderlies and sentries. The commander in chief was staying there, but just as Pierre arrived, he was out and hardly any of the staff were present—they had all gone to the church service. Pierre continued on toward Górki.

When he had climbed the hill and reached the little village street, he saw for the first time peasant militiamen in their white shirts and with crosses on their caps. They were talking and laughing loudly, excited and perspiring, working on a huge grassy knoll to the right of the road.

Some of them dug, some wheeled barrows of earth along planks, while others stood around doing nothing.

Two officers stood on the knoll, directing the men. Seeing these peasants, who were clearly still amused by the novelty of being soldiers, Pierre once again remembered the wounded men at Mozháysk and understood what the soldier had meant when he said, “They want the whole nation to fall on them.” The sight of these bearded peasants working on the battlefield, with their awkward, heavy boots and sweaty necks, and shirts buttoned from the left toward the middle and unfastened at the chest, revealing their sunburned collarbones, struck Pierre more deeply with the seriousness and significance of the moment than anything else he had seen or heard so far.

##  CHAPTER XXI

Pierre stepped out of his carriage and, passing the laboring militiamen, climbed the knoll from which, according to the doctor, the whole battlefield could be seen.

It was about eleven o’clock. The sun shone a bit to his left and behind him, brightly lighting up the vast panorama, which, rising like an amphitheater, stretched out before him in the clear, thin air.

Above and to the left, cutting across that amphitheater, wound the Smolénsk highroad. It passed through a village with a white church about five hundred paces in front of the knoll and below it. This was Borodinó. Below the village, the road crossed the river by a bridge and, winding down and up, rose higher and higher toward the village of Valúevo, visible about four miles away, where Napoleon was then stationed. Beyond Valúevo, the road disappeared into a yellowing forest on the horizon. Far in the distance, in that birch and fir forest to the right of the road, the cross and belfry of the Kolochá Monastery gleamed in the sun. Here and there, across the whole blue expanse—to the right and left of the forest and the road—smoking campfires could be seen and vague masses of troops—ours and the enemy’s. The ground to the right, along the Kolochá and Moskvá rivers, was broken and hilly. Between the hollows, the villages of Bezúbova and Zakhárino could be seen far off. On the left the ground was flatter—there were fields of grain, and the smoking ruins of Semënovsk, which had been burned down, were visible.

All Pierre saw was so indistinct that neither the left nor the right of the field met his expectations. Nowhere could he see the kind of battlefield he had imagined; there were just fields, meadows, troops, woods, campfire smoke, villages, hills, and streams. No matter how hard he tried, he could not make out any clear military “position” in this place bustling with life, nor could he even distinguish our troops from the enemy.

“I must ask someone who knows,” he thought, and addressed an officer who was watching his large, obviously unmilitary figure with curiosity.

“Could you tell me,” said Pierre, “what village is that in front?”

“Búrdino, isn’t it?” said the officer, turning to his companion.

“Borodinó,” the other corrected him.

The officer, clearly glad for a chance to talk, stepped up to Pierre.

“Are those our men there?” Pierre asked.

“Yes, and over there, farther on, are the French,” the officer replied. “See, there they are, you can spot them.”

“Where? Where?” Pierre asked.

“You can see them with the naked eye… Over there!”

The officer pointed to the smoke visible on the left beyond the river, and the same stern, serious look Pierre had seen on many faces that morning appeared on his face.

“Ah, those are the French! And over there?” Pierre pointed to a knoll on the left, by some troops.

“Those are ours.”

“Ah, ours! And there?” Pierre asked, pointing to another knoll further away with a large tree, near a village in a hollow where campfires smoked and something dark was visible.

“That’s *his* again,” said the officer. (It was the Shevárdino Redoubt.) “It was ours yesterday, now it’s *his*.”

“Then what about our position?”

“Our position?” replied the officer with a pleased smile. “I can show you exactly, since I helped build nearly all our entrenchments. There, you see? There’s our center, at Borodinó, just there,” and he pointed to the village in front of them with the white church. “That’s where one crosses the Kolochá. You see down there, by the rows of hay in the hollow? That’s the bridge. That’s our center. Our right flank is over there”—he pointed sharply right, into the broken ground—“That’s where the Moskvá River is, and we’ve built three redoubts there; very strong ones. The left flank…” here the officer hesitated. “Well, you see, that’s harder to explain… Yesterday our left was there, at Shevárdino, where that oak stands, but now we’ve pulled our left wing back—now it’s over there. See that village and the smoke? That’s Semënovsk, yes, right there,” he pointed to Raévski’s knoll. “But the battle probably won’t be there. *His* shifting his troops there is just a trick; *he* will likely go around to the right of the Moskvá. But wherever it happens, many a man will be gone tomorrow!” he added.

An elderly sergeant, who had come up while the officer spoke, waited patiently for him to finish, but now, apparently disliking the officer’s comment, interrupted sternly.

“Gabions must be sent for,” he said curtly.

The officer looked embarrassed, as if realizing that thinking about how many men would be lost tomorrow was one thing, saying it out loud another.

“Well, send number three company again,” the officer replied quickly.

“And you, are you one of the doctors?”

“No, I’ve come on my own,” answered Pierre, and he went down the hill again, passing the militiamen.

“Oh, those damned fellows!” grumbled the officer, who followed him, holding his nose as he hurried past the men working.

“There they are… bringing her, coming… There they are… They’ll be here in a minute…” voices suddenly called out; and officers, soldiers, and militiamen began hurrying forward along the road.

A church procession was coming up the hill from Borodinó. First along the dusty road came the infantry in ranks, bareheaded and with arms reversed. From behind them came the sound of church singing.

Soldiers and militiamen ran bareheaded past Pierre toward the procession.

“They are bringing her, our Protectress!… The Iberian Mother of God!” someone cried.

“The Smolénsk Mother of God,” another corrected.

The militiamen, both those in the village and those working on the battery, threw down their spades and ran to meet the procession. After the battalion came priests in their vestments—one little old man in a hood with attendants and choir. Behind them, soldiers and officers carried a large, dark-faced icon with an embossed metal cover. This was the icon that had been brought from Smolénsk and had since accompanied the army. Alongside, before, and behind it, crowds of militiamen with bare heads walked, ran, and bowed to the ground.

At the summit of the hill they stopped with the icon. Those holding it by the linen bands were replaced by others, the singers relit their censers, and the service began. The hot sun shone down, and a fresh, gentle wind played with the hair of the bare heads and the ribbons on the icon. The singing was not loud in the open air. An immense crowd of bareheaded officers, soldiers, and militiamen surrounded the icon. Behind the priest and a chanter stood the notables on a reserved spot. A bald general with a St. George’s Cross at his neck stood right behind the priest, and, without crossing himself (he was clearly a German), patiently waited out the service, which he felt obligated to listen to, probably to inspire the patriotism of the Russians. Another general stood in a martial pose, crossing himself by shaking his hand in front of his chest as he glanced around. Among the crowd of peasants, Pierre saw several acquaintances among these notables, but did not look at them—his full attention was on the serious expressions of the soldiers and militiamen, all intently gazing at the icon. Whenever the tired singers, performing the service for the twentieth time that day, began to chant a sluggish, mechanical “Save from calamity Thy servants, O Mother of God,” and the priest and deacon joined in: “For to Thee under God we all flee as to an inviolable bulwark and protection,” that same look of awareness of the solemn moment shone on every face—the same look Pierre had noticed at the foot of the hill at Mozháysk and on many faces that morning. Heads bowed more often, hair was pushed back, and sighs and the soft sounds of crossing themselves could be heard.

The crowd suddenly parted and pressed against Pierre. Someone very important, as shown by how quickly people made way, was approaching the icon.

It was Kutúzov, who had been inspecting the position and was returning to Tatárinova, stopping where the service was held. Pierre recognized him by his distinctive figure.

Wearing a long overcoat over his very stout, round-shouldered body, with his white head uncovered and his puffy face revealing the white of his lost eye, Kutúzov made his way through the crowd with a heavy, swaying walk and stopped behind the priest. He crossed himself with a practiced motion, bent down to touch the ground with his hand, and bowed his white head with a deep sigh. Behind him was Bennigsen and the retinue. Despite the presence of the commander in chief, who drew the attention of all senior officers, the militiamen and soldiers continued to pray, not looking at him.

When the service ended, Kutúzov stepped up to the icon, sank heavily to his knees, bowed to the earth, and struggled for a long time to rise, unable to do so quickly due to his weakness and size. His white head twitched with the effort. Finally, he rose, kissed the icon with childlike sincerity, and again bowed, touching the ground with his hand. The other generals followed suit, then the officers, and after them, with excited faces, pushing and crowding, the soldiers and militiamen hurried to do the same.

##  CHAPTER XXII

Staggering through the crowd, Pierre looked around him.

“Count Peter Kirílovich! How did you get here?” said a voice.

Pierre turned. Borís Drubetskóy, brushing off his knees (he had probably soiled them while kneeling before the icon as well), approached him with a smile. Borís was dressed elegantly, with a slightly military flair fitting for a campaign. He wore a long coat and, like Kutúzov, had a whip slung across his shoulder.

Meanwhile, Kutúzov had reached the village and seated himself in the shade of the nearest house, on a bench that one Cossack had fetched and another had quickly covered with a rug. An enormous and distinguished suite surrounded him.

The icon was carried on, followed by the crowd. Pierre stopped about thirty paces from Kutúzov, speaking with Borís.

He explained his wish to be present at the battle and to see the position.

“This is what you should do,” said Borís. “I’ll give you a tour of the camp. You’ll see everything best from where Count Bennigsen will be. I’m attending him, you know; I’ll mention it to him. But if you want to ride around the position, join us. We’re just heading to the left flank. After that, when we return, please spend the night with me and we’ll arrange a game of cards. Of course you know Dmítri Sergéevich? Those are his quarters,” he said, pointing to the third house in the village of Górki.

“But I’d like to see the right flank. They say it’s very strong,” said Pierre. “I’d like to start from the Moskvá River and ride around the entire position.”

“Well, you can do that later, but the main thing is the left flank.”

“Yes, yes. But where is Prince Bolkónski’s regiment? Can you show me?”

“Prince Andrew’s? We’ll pass it and I’ll take you to him.”

“What about the left flank?” Pierre asked.

“To be honest, just between us, God only knows what state our left flank is in,” said Borís, confidentially lowering his voice. “It isn’t at all what Count Bennigsen had planned. He wanted to fortify that knoll differently, but…” Borís shrugged, “his Serene Highness wouldn’t allow it, or someone convinced him otherwise. You see…” but Borís didn’t finish, for just then Kaysárov, Kutúzov’s adjutant, approached Pierre. “Ah, Kaysárov!” Borís said, greeting him with a confident smile, “I was just explaining our position to the count. It’s amazing how his Serene Highness can anticipate the French intentions!”

“You mean the left flank?” asked Kaysárov.

“Yes, exactly; the left flank is now extremely strong.”

Though Kutúzov had dismissed all unnecessary staff members, Borís had managed to stay at headquarters after the shake-up. He had established himself with Count Bennigsen, who, like everyone else Borís served, considered young Prince Drubetskóy to be invaluable.

In the higher command, there were two sharply defined parties: Kutúzov’s and that of Bennigsen, the chief of staff. Borís belonged to the latter, and no one else—while outwardly showing servile respect to Kutúzov—could so subtly give the impression that the old man was not up to the task and that Bennigsen ran everything. Now the decisive moment of battle had come—when Kutúzov would be disgraced and power would pass to Bennigsen; or, even if Kutúzov won, it would be assumed everything was accomplished by Bennigsen. Either way, many major rewards would be given for the next day’s actions, and new men would rise. So Borís was full of nervous energy all day.

After Kaysárov, others Pierre knew approached him, and he didn’t have time to answer all the questions about Moscow or listen to everything he was told. The faces all showed excitement and unease, but to Pierre, it seemed the source of some people’s excitement was mostly their own hopes for personal success; his mind, however, was occupied by a different look he saw on other faces—a look that spoke not of personal matters but of the universal subjects of life and death. Kutúzov noticed Pierre’s figure and the group gathering around him.

“Call him to me,” said Kutúzov.

An adjutant told Pierre of his Serene Highness’s wish, and Pierre started toward Kutúzov’s bench. But a militiaman got there first. It was Dólokhov.

“How did that fellow get here?” Pierre asked.

“He always manages to squeeze in anywhere!” came the reply. “He’s been demoted, you know. Now he’s trying to rise up again. He’s proposed some scheme or other and even snuck into the enemy’s picket line at night… He’s a brave one.”

Pierre removed his hat and bowed respectfully to Kutúzov.

“I thought that if I reported directly to your Serene Highness, you might send me away or say you already knew what I was to report, in which case I’d lose nothing…” Dólokhov was saying.

“Yes, yes.”

“But if I’m right, I’ll be serving my country—something I’m willing to die for.”

“Yes, yes.”

“And should your Serene Highness need a man who won’t spare himself, please think of me… Perhaps I can be useful to your Serene Highness.”

“Yes… Yes…” Kutúzov repeated, his smiling eyes narrowing further as he looked at Pierre.

Just then Borís, with his effortless courtier’s grace, stepped up beside Pierre near Kutúzov and, in a perfectly natural manner without raising his voice, said to Pierre as if continuing a conversation:

“The militia have put on clean white shirts, ready to die. What heroism, Count!”

Borís clearly said this for Pierre but intended Kutúzov to overhear. He knew Kutúzov would be interested, and he was.

“What are you saying about the militia?” Kutúzov asked Borís.

“Preparing for tomorrow, your Serene Highness—for death—they’ve put on clean shirts.”

“Ah… a wonderful, a remarkable people!” said Kutúzov; and he closed his eyes and nodded his head. “A remarkable people!” he repeated with a sigh.

“So you want to smell gunpowder?” he said to Pierre. “Yes, it’s a good smell. I have the honor of being one of your wife’s admirers. Is she well? My quarters are at your service.”

And as often happens with the elderly, Kutúzov began looking around absent-mindedly, as if forgetting what he wanted to say or do.

Then, apparently remembering, he beckoned Andrew Kaysárov, his adjutant’s brother.

“Those verses… those verses by Márin… how do they go, eh? The ones about Gerákov: ‘Lectures for the corps inditing’… Recite them, recite them!” he said, clearly preparing to laugh.

Kaysárov recited…. Kutúzov smiled and nodded his head to the rhythm of the verses.

When Pierre left Kutúzov, Dólokhov approached him and took his hand.

“I’m very glad to meet you here, Count,” he said loudly, undeterred by the presence of others, speaking in a particularly resolute and solemn tone. “On the eve of a day when only God knows who among us will survive, I’m glad for this opportunity to tell you that I regret the misunderstandings that have happened between us, and I hope you bear no ill feelings toward me. Please, forgive me.”

Pierre looked at Dólokhov with a smile, unsure of what to say. With tears in his eyes, Dólokhov embraced Pierre and kissed him.

Borís exchanged a few words with his general, and Count Bennigsen turned to Pierre and suggested he ride with him along the line.

“You’ll find it interesting,” he said.

“Yes, very much,” Pierre replied.

Half an hour later Kutúzov departed for Tatárinova, and Bennigsen and his suite, with Pierre among them, set out to ride along the line.

##  CHAPTER XXIII

From Górki, Bennigsen went down the highroad to the bridge which, when viewed from the hill, the officer had indicated as the center of their position and where rows of fragrant, freshly mown hay were by the riverside. They rode across that bridge into the village of Borodinó and then turned left, passing numerous troops and guns, arriving at a high knoll where militiamen were digging. This was the redoubt, not yet named, which later became known as the Raévski Redoubt, or the Knoll Battery. However, Pierre paid no particular attention to it at the time. He had no idea that it would become more memorable to him than any other place on the plain of Borodinó.

They then crossed the hollow to Semënovsk, where soldiers were removing the last logs from the huts and barns. Next, they rode downhill and then uphill, across a rye field that was trampled and beaten down as if by hail, following a fresh track made by artillery over the furrows of the plowed land, until they reached some *flèches* \* which were still being dug.

\* A kind of entrenchment.

At the *flèches*, Bennigsen stopped to examine the Shevárdino Redoubt opposite, which had been theirs the day before, and where several horsemen could be seen. The officers suggested that either Napoleon or Murat was among them, and they all watched the small group of horsemen eagerly. Pierre also tried to discern which barely visible figure might be Napoleon. Eventually, the mounted men rode away from the mound and disappeared.

Bennigsen spoke to a general who approached him and started explaining the whole arrangement of their troops. Pierre listened, straining to grasp the essential points of the upcoming battle, but was frustrated to find his mind unequal to the task. He could make nothing of it. Bennigsen stopped speaking and, noticing Pierre listening, suddenly said to him:

“I doubt this is of any interest to you?”

“On the contrary, it’s very interesting!” Pierre replied, not entirely truthfully.

From the *flèches* they continued still farther to the left, along a winding road through a dense, low-growing birch forest. In the middle of the woods, a brown hare with white feet sprang out and, frightened by the clatter of so many horses, became so confused that it ran along the road in front of them for a while, attracting general attention and laughter, before several voices shouted at it and it darted off into the thicket. After traveling through the woods for about a mile and a half, they emerged into a clearing where soldiers from Túchkov’s corps were stationed to defend the left flank.

Here, at the extreme left, Bennigsen spoke at length and with much emotion, and, so it seemed to Pierre, issued orders of considerable military importance. Ahead of Túchkov’s troops was some high ground not yet occupied by soldiers. Bennigsen loudly denounced this oversight, saying it was madness to leave an unoccupied height that dominated the surrounding country and to station troops below it. Several generals shared his view, one in particular insisting with martial fervor that they had been stationed there to be slaughtered. Bennigsen, acting on his own authority, ordered the troops to occupy the high ground. This action on the left flank only deepened Pierre’s doubts about his ability to understand military matters. Listening to Bennigsen and the generals critique the deployment of troops behind the hill, Pierre fully agreed with their reasoning, which only made it harder for him to understand how anyone could have made such an obvious and glaring error as to leave the heights without troops.

What Pierre did not know was that these troops were not, as Bennigsen supposed, left there to defend the position, but were actually concealed in ambush, so they wouldn’t be seen and could strike the approaching enemy by surprise. Bennigsen didn’t realize this and had the troops moved forward according to his own judgment, without informing the commander in chief.

##  CHAPTER XXIV

On that clear evening of August 25, Prince Andrew lay propped on his elbow in a rundown shed in the village of Knyazkóvo, at the far end of his regiment’s camp. Through a gap in the broken wall he could see, beside a wooden fence, a row of thirty-year-old birches with their lower branches trimmed, a field with sheaves of oats standing, and some bushes near the source of campfire smoke—the soldiers’ kitchens.

Though his life now felt narrow, burdensome, and useless to anyone, Prince Andrew, on the eve of battle, felt restless and irritable, as he had seven years earlier at Austerlitz.

He had given and received all the orders for the next day's battle and had nothing left to do. But his thoughts—the simplest, clearest, and therefore the most unsettling—gave him no peace. He knew that tomorrow’s battle would be the most terrible he had ever fought, and for the first time, the possibility of death confronted him—not in connection with any worldly affairs or its effect on others, but simply in regard to himself, his own soul—vividly, clearly, terribly, and almost with certainty. And as he pondered this, all the things that had previously troubled and occupied him seemed lit up by a cold, clear light—without shadows, without perspective, without distinction. Life itself appeared to him like magic lantern images, at which he had long gazed by artificial light through a glass. Now, suddenly, he saw those poorly painted pictures in full daylight without any glass. “Yes, there they are, those false images that agitated, delighted, and troubled me,” he thought, recalling the main images from the magic lantern of his life, viewing them now in the cold clarity of his perception of death. “There they are, those crudely painted shapes that once seemed grand and full of mystery. Glory, the good of society, love for a woman, the Fatherland itself—how important these things seemed to me, what deep meaning they appeared to have! And now it’s all just so plain, pale, and crude in the cold light of this morning I feel is coming for me.” The three great griefs of his life especially focused his attention: his love for a woman, his father’s death, and the French invasion that had swept across half of Russia. “Love… that girl who seemed filled with mystical energy! Yes, I did love her. I dreamed up romantic plans of love and happiness with her! Oh, what a boy I was!” he said aloud bitterly. “Ah, I actually believed in some ideal kind of love that would keep her loyal to me through my whole year of absence! Like the gentle dove in the fable, she was supposed to pine away, separated from me…. But the reality was much simpler…. All of it was very simple and horrible.”

“When my father built Bald Hills, he believed the land was his: his land, his air, his peasants. But Napoleon came and brushed him aside, oblivious to his existence, as if brushing a crumb from his path, and Bald Hills and his entire life were destroyed. Princess Mary says this is a trial sent from above. But what is the trial for, when he is gone and will never return? He is not here! So who, then, is the trial for? The Fatherland, the destruction of Moscow! And tomorrow I might die—perhaps not even by a Frenchman, but by one of our own, by a soldier firing his musket close to my ear as happened yesterday—and the French will come and toss me into a hole just so I don’t stink under their noses. New circumstances will arise that will seem perfectly natural to others—and I’ll know nothing about them. I simply will not exist….”

He looked at the row of birches shining in the sunlight, with their unmoving green and yellow leaves and white bark. “To die… to be killed tomorrow… For me not to exist… For all this to still be here, but not me….”

And the birches, their light and shade, the curling clouds, the campfire smoke, and everything around him seemed to change; they appeared menacing and terrible. A cold shiver ran down his spine. He quickly stood, went outside, and began to pace.

After he returned, voices sounded outside the shed. “Who’s there?” he called.

The red-nosed Captain Timókhin—who had once commanded Dólokhov’s squadron but was now a battalion commander due to a shortage of officers—shyly entered the shed, followed by an adjutant and the regimental paymaster.

Prince Andrew rose quickly, listened to what they needed, gave a few more instructions, and was about to dismiss them when he heard a familiar lisping voice behind the shed.

“Devil take it!” exclaimed a voice as someone stumbled over something.

Prince Andrew looked out and saw Pierre, who had nearly tripped on a pole, approaching him. It was uncomfortable for Prince Andrew to meet people from his own circle in general, and Pierre especially, as he reminded him of all the painful moments of his last visit to Moscow.

“You? What a surprise!” he said. “What brings you here? I didn’t expect this!”

As he said this, his expression was not just cold but actually hostile—a fact Pierre noticed immediately. Pierre had approached the shed full of energy, but upon seeing Prince Andrew’s face, he felt awkward and uneasy.

“I’ve come… just… you know… came… it interests me,” said Pierre, who had repeatedly used that word “interesting” throughout the day without much thought. “I wanted to see the battle.”

“Oh yes, and what do your Masonic brothers say about war? How would they stop it?” Prince Andrew asked sarcastically. “So, how is Moscow? And my people? Have they reached Moscow yet?” he asked, more seriously.

“Yes, they have. Julie Drubetskáya told me. I went to see them but missed them—they’ve gone to your estate near Moscow.”

##  CHAPTER XXV

The officers were about to take their leave, but Prince Andrew, seemingly reluctant to be left alone with his friend, asked them to stay and have tea. Seats were brought in and so was the tea. The officers looked with surprise at Pierre’s huge, stout figure and listened to his talk about Moscow and the disposition of our army, around which he had ridden. Prince Andrew remained silent, and his expression was so forbidding that Pierre directed his remarks mainly to the good-natured battalion commander.

“So you understand the whole position of our troops?” Prince Andrew interrupted him.

“Yes—that is, what do you mean?” said Pierre. “Not being a military man I can’t say I understand it fully, but I grasp the general situation.”

“Well, then, you know more than anyone else, whoever it may be,” said Prince Andrew.

“Oh!” said Pierre, peering over his spectacles at Prince Andrew in confusion. “Well, and what do you think of Kutuzov’s appointment?” he asked.

“I was very glad of his appointment, that’s all I can say,” replied Prince Andrew.

“And what is your opinion of Barclay de Tolly? In Moscow they are saying all sorts of things about him… What do you think?”

“Ask them,” replied Prince Andrew, gesturing toward the officers.

Pierre looked at Timokhin with the condescendingly curious smile with which everyone instinctively addressed that officer.

“We see light again since his Serenity has been appointed, your excellency,” said Timokhin timidly, continually glancing toward his colonel.

“Why is that?” asked Pierre.

“Well, to mention just firewood and fodder, let me explain. When we were retreating from Sventsyani we didn’t dare touch a stick or a wisp of hay or anything. You see, we were withdrawing, so *he* would get it all; wasn’t that so, your excellency?” Again Timokhin turned to the prince. “But we didn’t dare. In our regiment two officers were court-martialed for such things. But when his Serenity took command everything became straightforward. Now we see the way forward….”

“Then why was it forbidden?”

Timokhin looked around, confused, not knowing how to answer. Pierre put the same question to Prince Andrew.

“Why, so as not to devastate the land we were abandoning to the enemy,” said Prince Andrew with bitter irony. “It is very logical: one can’t allow the country to be pillaged and the troops to become used to looting. At Smolensk too he reasoned correctly that the French might outflank us, since they had more forces. But he couldn’t grasp this,” cried Prince Andrew in a high, strained voice that seemed to escape him involuntarily: “he couldn’t understand that there, for the first time, we were fighting for Russian soil, and that there was a spirit among the men like I’d never seen before, that we had held the French for two days, and that success had increased our strength tenfold. He ordered us to retreat, and all our efforts and losses amounted to nothing. He never intended to betray us, he tried his best, he thought everything through, and that is why he’s unsuitable. He’s unsuitable now, just because he plans everything out so meticulously and accurately as every German tends to do. How can I explain?… Well, think of your father having a German valet, and he is a splendid valet and meets your father’s needs better than you do; then it’s fine to let him serve. But if your father is on his deathbed, you’ll send the valet away and take care of him yourself with your inexperienced, awkward hands, and will comfort him better than any skilled stranger could. That’s how it is with Barclay. While Russia was thriving, a foreigner could serve her and do well; but once she’s in danger she needs one of her own. But in your Club they’ve been painting him as a traitor! They malign him as a traitor, and the only result will be that, ashamed of their false accusations, they’ll later call him a hero or a genius instead of a traitor, and that’s even more unjust. He’s an honest and very precise German.”

“And they say he’s a skillful commander,” Pierre added.

“I don’t understand what is meant by ‘a skillful commander,’” replied Prince Andrew ironically.

“A skillful commander?” said Pierre. “Well, someone who anticipates every possible situation… and foresees the enemy’s intentions.”

“But that’s impossible,” said Prince Andrew, as if it had been settled long ago.

Pierre looked at him in surprise.

“Yet they say that war is like a game of chess,” he remarked.

“Yes,” replied Prince Andrew, “but with this important difference: in chess you can think over each move as long as you wish and are not pressed for time; and also, a knight is always stronger than a pawn, and two pawns are always stronger than one, while in war a battalion is sometimes stronger than a division and sometimes weaker than a company. The relative strength of troops can never be truly known to anyone. Believe me,” he continued, “if things depended on plans made by the staff, I’d be there making plans. But instead I have the honor to serve here in the regiment with these gentlemen, and I believe that tomorrow’s battle will depend on us, not on the staff. Success never depends, and never will depend, on position, or equipment, or even numbers, and least of all on position.”

“But on what then?”

“On the spirit that’s in me and in him,” he pointed to Timokhin, “and in every soldier.”

Prince Andrew looked at Timokhin, who regarded him with alarm and confusion. In contrast to his usual reserved silence, Prince Andrew now seemed animated. He apparently couldn’t keep from voicing the thoughts that suddenly came to him.

“A battle is won by those who are determined to win it! Why did we lose at Austerlitz? The French losses were nearly the same as ours, but very early we told ourselves we were losing, and so we lost. We told ourselves that because we had nothing to fight for there, and we wanted to leave the field as soon as possible. ‘We’ve lost, let’s run,’ and we ran. If we hadn’t said that until evening, who knows what could have happened. But tomorrow we won’t say it! You speak about our position, the weak left flank, the right too extended,” he continued. “That’s all nonsense, there’s nothing like that. What waits for us tomorrow? A hundred million different chances that will be settled in the moment by whether our men or theirs run or don’t, and whether this man or that is killed; but all the preparations now are just child’s play. Those men you rode around with, not only don’t help matters, they get in the way. They only care about their own trivial interests.”

“At such a moment?” said Pierre reproachfully.

*“At such a moment!”* Prince Andrew repeated. “To them it’s only an opportunity to undermine a rival and get another medal or ribbon. For me, tomorrow means this: one hundred thousand Russians and one hundred thousand French will fight, and what matters is that these two hundred thousand men *will* fight, and the side that fights with most passion and sacrifices itself the least, will win. And if you wish, I’ll tell you directly: whatever the outcome and whatever blunders the commanders may make, we’ll win tomorrow’s battle. Whatever happens tomorrow, we’ll win!”

“There now, your excellency! That’s the truth, the real truth,” said Timokhin. “Who would spare himself now? The soldiers in my battalion, believe me, won’t even drink their vodka! ‘This isn’t the day for that!’ they say.”

Everyone was silent. The officers rose. Prince Andrew went out of the shed with them, giving final instructions to the adjutant. After they had gone, Pierre walked up to Prince Andrew and was about to start a conversation when they heard the clatter of three horses’ hoofs on the road near the shed. Looking in that direction, Prince Andrew recognized Wolzogen and Clausewitz, with a Cossack accompanying them. They rode close by, still talking, and Prince Andrew couldn’t help hearing these words:

*“Der Krieg muss in Raum verlegt werden. Der Ansicht kann ich nicht genug Preis geben,”* \* said one of them.

\* “The war must be extended widely. I cannot sufficiently commend that view.”

*“Oh, ja,”* said the other, *“der Zweck ist nur den Feind zu schwächen, so kann man gewiss nicht den Verlust der Privat-Personen in Achtung nehmen.”*\*

\* “Oh, yes, the only aim is to weaken the enemy, so naturally one cannot concern oneself with the losses of private individuals.”

“Oh, no,” agreed the other.

“Extend widely!” Prince Andrew snorted angrily, after they had ridden past. “In that ‘extend’ were my father, son, and sister, at Bald Hills. That’s all the same to him! That’s what I was trying to tell you—those German gentlemen won’t win the battle tomorrow; they’ll only cause a mess, because all they have in their German heads are theories not worth an empty eggshell, and they don’t have in their hearts the one thing needed tomorrow—that which Timokhin has. They’ve surrendered all of Europe to *him*, and have now come to teach us. Fine teachers!” Again his voice rose shrilly.

“So you believe we’ll win tomorrow’s battle?” asked Pierre.

“Yes, yes,” answered Prince Andrew absentmindedly. “There’s one thing I would do, if I had the authority,” he began again, “I wouldn’t take prisoners. Why should we take prisoners? It’s chivalry! The French have destroyed my home and are on their way to destroy Moscow; they have outraged and are still outraging me at every turn. They are my enemies. As I see it, they are all criminals. Timokhin and the whole army feel the same. They should be executed! Since they are my foes, they can’t be my friends, no matter what was said at Tilsit.”

“Yes, yes,” mumbled Pierre, his eyes shining as he looked at Prince Andrew. “I quite agree with you!”

The question that had troubled Pierre on the Mozháysk hill and throughout the day now seemed perfectly clear and completely resolved. He now understood the full meaning and importance of this war and the upcoming battle. Everything he had seen that day—all the serious and determined expressions on the faces he passed—was now illuminated by a new understanding. He recognized that underlying heat (as it’s called in physics) of patriotism that was present in all these men, and this explained to him why they all prepared for death so calmly, even lightheartedly.

“Not taking prisoners,” Prince Andrew continued, “would by itself completely change the nature of the war and make it less cruel. But as things are, we’ve been playing at war—that’s what’s shameful! We act magnanimous and spout all that nonsense. That kind of magnanimity and sensibility is like the kindness of a lady who faints at the sight of a calf being slaughtered—she’s too gentle to see blood, but enjoys eating the calf when it’s prepared with sauce. They talk to us about the rules of war, chivalry, flags of truce, mercy for the unfortunate, and so on. It’s all nonsense! I saw chivalry and flags of truce in 1805; they tricked us and we tricked them. They loot other people’s houses, issue counterfeit money, and worst of all, they kill my children and my father, then talk about the rules of war and generosity toward enemies! Don’t take prisoners—kill and be killed! Only those who’ve come to this through the same suffering I have…”

Prince Andrew, who had believed it made no difference to him whether Moscow was taken as Smolénsk had been, was suddenly stopped mid-sentence by an unexpected cramp in his throat. He paced silently a few times, but his eyes glinted feverishly and his lips trembled as he spoke again.

“If there were none of this false magnanimity in war, we’d only go to war when it was truly worth risking certain death—as now. Then there wouldn’t be wars just because Paul Ivánovich insulted Michael Ivánovich. And when there was a real war like this, then it would be war! The resolve of the troops would be absolutely different. All the Westphalians and Hessians Napoleon leads wouldn’t follow him into Russia, and we wouldn’t go off to fight in Austria and Prussia not even knowing why. War isn’t about courtesy—it’s the most terrible thing in life; we ought to recognize that and not treat it as a game. We need to face this horrible necessity sternly and seriously. That’s what’s needed: to get rid of the lies and let war be war, not a pastime. As it is, war is the favorite game of the idle and frivolous. The military profession is the most highly honored.

“But what is war? What is required for success in warfare? What are the customs of military life? The aim of war is murder; the methods of war are spying, treachery, promoting these things, destroying people’s lives, robbing them, stealing to supply the army, and deception and falsehood dressed up as military strategy. The habits of the military class are a lack of freedom (that is, strict discipline), laziness, ignorance, cruelty, debauchery, and drunkenness. And despite all that, it’s considered the highest class, respected by everyone. All kings, except the Chinese, wear military uniforms, and the man who kills the most people gets the grandest rewards.

“They come together—as we’ll do tomorrow—to murder each other; they kill and wound tens of thousands, then hold thanksgiving services because they killed so many (exaggerating the numbers), and proclaim a victory, thinking their achievement is greater the more people they have killed. How must God look upon them and hear them?” exclaimed Prince Andrew, his voice shrill and piercing. “Ah, my friend, lately it’s become difficult for me to live. I see that I’m beginning to understand too much. And it doesn’t do for a man to taste from the tree of knowledge of good and evil…. Ah well, it won’t be for long!” he added.

“Anyway, you’re sleepy, and I should sleep too. Go back to Górki!” Prince Andrew said abruptly.

“Oh no!” Pierre replied, looking at Prince Andrew with fearful, sympathetic eyes.

“Go, go! Before a battle, you have to sleep,” Prince Andrew insisted.

He quickly approached Pierre, embraced him, and kissed him. “Goodbye, off you go!” he shouted. “Whether we meet again or not…” Turning away quickly, he went into the shed.

It was already dark, and Pierre couldn’t tell whether Prince Andrew’s face was angry or tender.

For a while, Pierre stood in silence, unsure whether to follow or leave. “No, he doesn’t want me to,” Pierre decided. “And I know this is our last meeting.” He sighed deeply and rode back to Górki.

Back inside the shed, Prince Andrew lay down on a rug, but couldn’t sleep.

He closed his eyes. Images passed through his mind one after another. He lingered joyfully on one. He vividly recalled an evening in Petersburg. Natásha, animated and excited, had told him how she went looking for mushrooms the previous summer and got lost in the big forest. She had given a rambling account of the forest depths, her feelings, and a conversation with a beekeeper she met, often stopping herself to say, “No, I can’t! I’m not telling it right; no, you don’t understand,” even though he assured her he did, and truly, he had understood everything she meant. But Natásha wasn’t satisfied with her own words; she felt they couldn’t express the passionately poetic feeling she’d experienced and wanted to convey. “He was such a wonderful old man, and it was so dark in the forest… and he was so kind… No, I can’t describe it,” she’d said, flushed and excited. Prince Andrew now smiled the same happy smile as then, when he’d looked into her eyes. “I understood her,” he thought. “I didn’t just understand—what I loved in her was that very inner, spiritual force, that sincerity, that openness of soul—that soul of hers that seemed trapped in her body—it was that soul I loved so intensely and happily…” Suddenly he remembered how that love had ended. “*He* needed none of that. *He* neither saw nor understood any of it. He only saw in her a pretty and *fresh* young girl, not worthy to join his destiny. And I?… and he is still alive and carefree!”

Prince Andrew leapt up as if he’d been burned, and began pacing again in front of the shed.

##  CHAPTER XXVI

On August 25, the day before the battle of Borodinó, M. de Beausset, prefect of the French Emperor’s palace, arrived at Napoleon’s quarters at Valúevo with Colonel Fabvier—Beausset coming from Paris, Fabvier from Madrid.

Putting on his court uniform, M. de Beausset ordered a box he had brought for the Emperor to be carried before him and entered the first compartment of Napoleon’s tent, where he began opening the box while chatting with Napoleon’s aides-de-camp gathered around him.

Fabvier, not entering the tent, waited at the entrance, talking to some generals he knew.

Emperor Napoleon was still in his bedroom, finishing his toilette. Snorting and grunting softly, he turned now his back and now his plump, hairy chest to the valet who was rubbing him down with a brush. Another valet stood with his finger over the mouth of a bottle, spritzing Eau de Cologne onto the Emperor’s pampered body with the air of someone convinced he alone knew precisely where and how much should be applied. Napoleon’s short hair was wet and plastered to his forehead, but despite his puffy, sallow face, he looked physically content. “Go on, harder, go on!” he muttered to the valet, twitching and grunting a bit. An aide-de-camp, who had entered to report the number of prisoners taken in yesterday’s action, was standing by the door, waiting for permission to withdraw after delivering his message. Napoleon, frowning, looked at him from under his brows.

“No prisoners!” he repeated after the aide-de-camp. “They are forcing us to wipe them out. So much the worse for the Russian army… Go on… harder, harder!” he muttered, hunching his back and presenting his broad shoulders.

“All right. Let Monsieur de Beausset come in—and Fabvier too,” he said, nodding to the aide-de-camp.

“Yes, sire,” the aide-de-camp replied, disappearing through the tent’s door.

Two valets swiftly dressed His Majesty, and wearing the blue uniform of the Guard, he strode with firm, quick steps to the reception room.

Meanwhile, de Beausset’s hands were busy setting up the present he had brought from the Empress, placing it on two chairs directly in front of the entrance. But Napoleon dressed and emerged so quickly that de Beausset didn’t have enough time to finish preparing the surprise.

Napoleon immediately noticed what was happening and realized they weren’t ready yet. Not wanting to spoil the pleasure of their surprise, he pretended not to notice de Beausset and called Fabvier over to him, listening silently, with a stern frown, as Fabvier reported on the heroism and devotion of his troops fighting at Salamanca, at the other end of Europe, all striving to be worthy of their Emperor and fearful only of disappointing him. The outcome of that battle had been unfortunate. Napoleon responded to Fabvier’s account with ironic comments, as if he could not have expected anything but failure in his absence.

“I must make up for that in Moscow,” Napoleon said. “I’ll see you later,” he added, and called for de Beausset, who by that time had finished arranging the surprise and had placed something on the chairs, covering it with a cloth.

De Beausset bowed deeply, with that courtly French bow only the old retainers of the Bourbons understood, and stepped forward, presenting an envelope.

Napoleon turned to him cheerfully and pulled his ear.

“You hurried here. I’m very glad. Well, what is Paris saying?” he asked, abruptly changing from his sternness to a warmer tone.

“Sire, all Paris regrets your absence,” de Beausset replied, as etiquette required.

Though Napoleon knew de Beausset had to say this, and though he understood in his clear moments that it was untrue, he nevertheless enjoyed hearing it from him. Again he honored him by touching his ear.

“I am very sorry to have made you travel so far,” Napoleon said.

“Sire, I expected nothing less than to find you at the gates of Moscow,” replied de Beausset.

Napoleon smiled and, tilting his head absently, glanced to the right. An aide-de-camp approached silently and offered him a gold snuffbox, which he accepted.

“Yes, things have turned out well for you,” he said, raising the open snuffbox to his nose. “You are fond of travel, and in three days you’ll see Moscow. Surely you did not expect to visit that Asiatic capital. You’ll have a pleasant journey.”

De Beausset bowed gratefully at this acknowledgment of his supposed love for travel (of which he hadn’t previously been aware).

“Ha, what’s this?” Napoleon asked, noticing everyone looking at something concealed under a cloth.

With practiced elegance, de Beausset half-turned and, without turning his back to the Emperor, stepped back two paces, simultaneously snatching away the cloth, and announced:

“A present to Your Majesty from the Empress.”

It was a portrait, painted in bright colors by Gérard, of the son Napoleon had by the daughter of the Emperor of Austria, the boy everyone for some reason called “The King of Rome.”

A very pretty curly-headed boy, reminiscent of the Christ in the Sistine Madonna, was shown playing with a stick and ball. The ball represented the globe, and the stick in his other hand was a scepter.

Though it wasn’t clear what the artist intended by showing the so-called King of Rome spearing the earth with a stick, the allegory seemed just as obvious and pleasing to Napoleon as it had to everyone else in Paris.

“The King of Rome!” he exclaimed, pointing to the portrait with a graceful gesture. “Admirable!”

With the natural talent of an Italian for changing his facial expression at will, Napoleon moved closer to the portrait and assumed an air of thoughtful tenderness. He sensed that what he now said and did would be remembered historically, and thought it appropriate—since his greatness allowed his son to play ball with the globe—to display the simplest paternal affection in contrast. His eyes grew misty; he moved forward, glanced at a chair (which seemed to find its way under him), and sat down before the portrait. At a single gesture from him, everyone tiptoed out, leaving the great man alone with his feelings.

After sitting quietly for a while, he touched—he himself didn’t know why—the thick spot of paint marking a highlight in the portrait, then rose and summoned de Beausset and the officer on duty. He ordered the portrait to be carried out of his tent, so that the Old Guard stationed nearby could also enjoy seeing the King of Rome—the son and heir of their beloved emperor.

And while he was honoring M. de Beausset by breakfasting with him, they heard, as Napoleon had anticipated, the rapturous shouts of the officers and men of the Old Guard who had rushed to see the portrait.

*“Vive l’Empereur! Vive le roi de Rome! Vive l’Empereur!”* rang out in ecstatic cries.

After breakfast, with de Beausset present, Napoleon dictated his order of the day to the army.

“Short and energetic!” he remarked when he had read over the proclamation, which he had dictated straight off without corrections. It read:

Soldiers! This is the battle you have so longed for. Victory depends on you. It is essential for us; it will give us all we need: comfortable quarters and a speedy return to our country. Behave as you did at Austerlitz, Friedland, Vítebsk, and Smolénsk. Let our remotest posterity recall your achievements this day with pride. Let it be said of each of you: “He was in the great battle before Moscow!”

“Before Moscow!” Napoleon repeated, and inviting M. de Beausset, so fond of travel, to join him on his ride, he went out to where the horses stood saddled.

“Your Majesty is too kind!” replied de Beausset to the invitation to ride with the Emperor; he wanted to sleep, did not know how to ride, and was afraid to try.

But Napoleon nodded at the traveler, and de Beausset had no choice but to mount. As Napoleon left the tent, the shouts of the Guards before his son’s portrait grew even louder. Napoleon frowned.

“Take him away!” he said, pointing with a graceful, majestic gesture to the portrait. “It’s too soon for him to see a battlefield.”

De Beausset closed his eyes, bowed his head, and sighed deeply, to show how deeply he appreciated and understood the Emperor’s words.

##  CHAPTER XXVII

On August 25th, according to his historians, Napoleon spent the entire day on horseback, inspecting the area, reviewing plans submitted by his marshals, and personally giving orders to his generals.

The original position of the Russian forces along the river Kolochá had been disrupted by the capture of the Shevárdino Redoubt on the 24th, and part of the line—the left flank—had been drawn back. That section of the line was not fortified, and in front of it the ground was more open and level than elsewhere. It was obvious to anyone, military or not, that this was where the French should attack. It would seem that little thought was needed to reach this conclusion, nor any special effort or difficulty on the part of the Emperor and his marshals, nor was there a need for that unique and supreme quality called genius, which people so often attribute to Napoleon. Yet, historians who later recounted the event, those around Napoleon at the time, and Napoleon himself, thought differently.

Napoleon rode over the plain, surveyed the area with a serious expression and in silence, nodded approvingly or shook his head doubtfully, and without sharing with his generals the deeper reasoning behind his decisions, simply gave them his final conclusions in the form of commands. When he listened to a suggestion from Davout—now known as Prince d’Eckmühl—to turn the Russian left wing, Napoleon said it should not be done, without explaining his reasoning. To a proposal from General Campan (who was to attack the *flèches*) to lead his division through the woods, Napoleon agreed, even though the so-called Duke of Elchingen (Ney) remarked that moving through the woods was risky and might disrupt the division.

After inspecting the area opposite the Shevárdino Redoubt, Napoleon considered quietly for a while, and then pointed out where two batteries should be set up by the next day to fire on the Russian fortifications, and where, in line with these, the field artillery should be positioned.

After giving these and other orders, he returned to his tent, and the battle plans were written down from his dictation.

These plans, which French historians describe with enthusiasm and other historians with deep respect, were as follows:

At dawn, the two new batteries set up during the night on the plain occupied by Prince d’Eckmühl will open fire on the enemy’s batteries.

At the same time, the commander of the artillery of the 1st Corps, General Pernetti, with thirty cannon from Campan’s division and all the howitzers of Dessaix’s and Friant’s divisions, will advance, open fire, and bombard the enemy battery, against which the following will take action:

            24 guns from the Guards’ artillery
            30 guns from Campan’s division

     and     8 guns from Friant’s and Dessaix’s divisions
            —

     a total of 62 guns.

The commander of the artillery of the 3rd Corps, General Fouché, will place the howitzers of the 3rd and 8th Corps, sixteen in all, on the flanks of the battery that will bombard the entrenchment on the left, which will thus have forty guns directed at it.

General Sorbier must be ready, at the first command, to advance with all the howitzers of the Guard’s artillery against either of the entrenchments.

During the cannonade, Prince Poniatowski is to advance through the woods toward the village and outflank the enemy’s position.

General Campan will move through the woods to take the first fortification.

After the attack has begun in this way, further orders will be given according to the enemy’s movements.

The cannonade on the left flank will begin as soon as the guns of the right wing are heard. The sharpshooters from Morand’s division and the vice-King’s division will start heavy fire when the attack begins on the right wing.

The vice-King will occupy the village and cross by its three bridges, advancing to the same heights as Morand’s and Gibrard’s divisions, which, under his leadership, will be directed against the redoubt and brought in line with the rest of the forces.

All this must be done in good order (*le tout se fera avec ordre et méthode*), keeping troops in reserve as much as possible.

The Imperial Camp near Mozháysk,

September 6, 1812.

These plans, which are quite unclear and confusing if one looks at them without a kind of religious reverence for his genius, had to do with Napoleon’s orders for four points—four separate orders. Not one of these was, or could be, carried out.

In the plans, it says first *that the batteries placed where Napoleon chose, along with Pernetti’s and Fouché’s guns, 102 guns altogether, were to open fire and shell the Russian* flèches *and redoubts.* This could not be done, because from the locations Napoleon picked, the projectiles did not reach the Russian positions, and those 102 guns fired into the air until the nearest commander, against Napoleon’s orders, moved them forward.

The second order was that *Poniatowski, moving toward the village through the woods, should outflank the Russian left side.* This could not and did not happen, since Poniatowski, moving through the woods toward the village, met Túchkov, who blocked his way, and he could not and did not outflank the Russian position.

The third order was: *General Campan will move through the woods to seize the first fortification*. Campan’s division did not seize the first fortification but was driven back, because on emerging from the woods it had to reorganize under grapeshot, something Napoleon did not know.

The fourth order was: *The vice-King will occupy the village* (Borodinó) *and cross by its three bridges, advancing to the same heights as Morand’s and Gérard’s divisions* (for which there are no directions), *which, under his leadership, will be directed against the redoubt and brought into line with the rest of the forces.*

As far as one can tell—not so much from this unclear sentence as from the vice-King’s attempts to carry out the orders—he was supposed to advance from the left through Borodinó toward the redoubt, while Morand’s and Gérard’s divisions were to move against it from the front at the same time.

All this, like the other parts of the plan, was not and could not be executed. After passing through Borodinó, the vice-King was pushed back to the Kolochá and could not advance further, while Morand’s and Gérard’s divisions did not take the redoubt but were forced back. The redoubt was only taken near the end of the battle by the cavalry (something probably unforeseen and unknown to Napoleon). So not one of the orders in the plan was, or could be, carried out. But the plan also says that, *after the fight has begun in this way, orders will be given according to the enemy’s movements*, and so one might suppose that all necessary arrangements would be made by Napoleon during the battle. But this did not and could not happen, since during the entire battle Napoleon was so far away that, as later became clear, he could not know the real course of the fight and not a single one of his orders during the action could be carried out.

##  CHAPTER XXVIII

Many historians claim that the French did not win the Battle of Borodinó because Napoleon had a cold, and that if he hadn’t been ill, his orders before and during the battle would have shown even greater genius, Russia would have fallen, and the course of the world would have changed. To historians who believe that Russia was shaped by the will of one man—Peter the Great—and that France shifted from a republic to an empire, sending its armies to Russia at the whim of one man—Napoleon—it may seem logical and convincing to argue that Russia remained a power because Napoleon had a cold on August twenty-fourth.

If it had truly depended on Napoleon’s will whether to fight or not at the Battle of Borodinó, and if every arrangement hinged on his will, then, obviously, a cold that affected how he expressed his will might have saved Russia. In that case, the valet who forgot to bring Napoleon his waterproof boots on the twenty-fourth would be the savior of Russia. If you follow that logic, such a conclusion is inescapable—just as inescapable as the conclusion Voltaire jokingly made (not realizing what he was joking about) when he said the Massacre of St. Bartholomew happened because Charles IX had an upset stomach. But for those who do not accept that Russia was formed solely by the will of one man, Peter I, or that the French Empire and the war with Russia began solely by the will of one man, Napoleon, this argument seems not just untrue and irrational, but completely at odds with human reality. To the question of what causes historic events, there is another answer: that the course of human events is predetermined from above—dependent on the combined wills of everyone involved—and that Napoleon’s influence on these events is merely superficial and illusory.

As strange as it may initially seem to suppose that the Massacre of St. Bartholomew wasn’t caused by Charles IX’s will, even though he gave the order and believed it happened because of that order; and just as strange as it may seem to claim that the killing of eighty thousand men at Borodinó wasn’t due to Napoleon’s will, even though he ordered the attack and thought the battle happened at his command; odd as these ideas seem, yet human dignity—which tells me that each of us is, if not more at least not less, a person than the great Napoleon—demands we accept this view, and historical evidence fully supports it.

At the Battle of Borodinó, Napoleon didn’t personally shoot or kill anyone. All of that was done by the soldiers. Therefore, he was not the one who killed people.

The French soldiers went to kill and be killed at the Battle of Borodinó not because Napoleon ordered it, but by their own choice. The whole army—French, Italian, German, Polish, and Dutch—hungry, ragged, and tired of the campaign, upon seeing an army blocking their way to Moscow, felt that the wine had been poured and must now be drunk. If Napoleon had then forbidden them to fight the Russians, they would have killed him and gone on to fight anyway, because it was inevitable.

When they heard Napoleon’s proclamation promising them, as compensation for injury and death, the recognition of future generations for having fought before Moscow, they shouted *“Vive l’Empereur!”* just as they had when they saw the portrait of the boy piercing the globe with a toy stick, and just as they would have shouted *“Vive l’Empereur!”* at any nonsense they were told. They had nothing left but to shout *“Vive l’Empereur!”* and fight, so they could get food and rest as conquerors in Moscow. So it wasn’t because of Napoleon’s commands that they killed their fellow men.

And it wasn’t Napoleon who truly directed the course of the battle, for none of his orders were followed and during the battle he did not know what was happening before him. Thus, the manner in which these people fought and killed was not directed by Napoleon’s will, but occurred independently, according to the will of hundreds of thousands of participants. It *only seemed* to Napoleon that all was happening according to his will. So the question of whether he had a cold has no more historical importance than the cold of the lowest transport soldier.

Furthermore, the claim by various writers that his cold caused his decisions to be less well-planned than usual, or that his orders during the battle were worse than before, is baseless—again showing that Napoleon’s cold on August twenty-sixth was unimportant.

The strategies outlined above are not at all worse, and are even better, than earlier plans by which he had won victories. His supposed orders during the battle were also no worse than in the past, but much the same as always. These plans and orders only seem worse than earlier ones because Borodinó was the first battle Napoleon did not win. The most profound and skillful plans and commands look very poor, and every military theorist criticizes them confidently, when they involve a lost battle; but the worst plans and orders seem excellent, and people write entire volumes to praise them, when they involve a battle that has been won.

The strategies drafted by Weyrother for the Battle of Austerlitz were considered models of perfection for such documents, but still they were criticized—criticized for being too perfect, too detailed.

At Borodinó, Napoleon fulfilled his role as a figure of authority just as well or better than at other battles. He did nothing to hinder the progress of the battle; he leaned toward the most reasonable opinions, he created no confusion, he did not contradict himself, he was not frightened or driven off the battlefield, but with his great tact and military experience fulfilled his role of appearing to command, calmly and with dignity.

##  CHAPTER XXIX

After returning from a second inspection of the lines, Napoleon remarked:

“The chessmen are set up; the game will begin tomorrow!”

Ordering punch and summoning de Beausset, he began to talk with him about Paris and some changes he wanted to make in the Empress’s household, surprising the prefect with how well he remembered even the smallest details about the court.

He took an interest in little things, joked about de Beausset’s love of travel, and chatted casually, like a renowned, self-assured surgeon rolling up his sleeves and putting on his apron while a patient is being strapped to the operating table. “The matter is in my hands, and it’s clear and definite in my mind. When the time comes to get to work, I’ll do it as no one else could, but for now I can jest. The more I joke and the calmer I am, the more relaxed and confident you ought to be—and the more amazed by my genius.”

After finishing his second glass of punch, Napoleon went to rest before the serious business he believed was waiting for him the next day. He was so absorbed in that task that he couldn’t sleep. Despite his cold, which had worsened from the evening dampness, he entered the large section of the tent at three in the morning, loudly blowing his nose. He asked if the Russians had withdrawn, and was told the enemy’s fires were still in the same places. He nodded in approval.

The adjutant on duty came into the tent.

“Well, Rapp, do you think we’ll do good business today?” Napoleon asked him.

“Without a doubt, sire,” Rapp replied.

Napoleon looked at him.

“Do you remember, sire, what you honored me by saying at Smolénsk?” Rapp continued. “The wine is drawn and must be drunk.”

Napoleon frowned and sat silent for a long time, leaning his head on his hand.

“This poor army!” he suddenly remarked. “It has shrunk a lot since Smolénsk. Fortune is truly a courtesan, Rapp. I’ve always said so, and I’m beginning to feel it myself. But the Guards, Rapp, the Guards are intact?” he asked.

“Yes, sire,” replied Rapp.

Napoleon took a lozenge, put it in his mouth, and glanced at his watch. He wasn’t sleepy, and it was still nowhere near morning. There were no more orders to give just to pass the time; all the orders had been given and were being carried out.

“Have the biscuits and rice been distributed to the Guard regiments?” Napoleon asked sternly.

“Yes, sire.”

“The rice too?”

Rapp replied that he had given the Emperor’s order about the rice, but Napoleon shook his head in dissatisfaction, as if he didn’t believe the order had been carried out. An attendant came in with punch. Napoleon told him to bring another glass for Rapp and silently sipped his own.

“I’ve neither taste nor smell,” he remarked, sniffing at his glass. “This cold is annoying. They talk about medicine—what’s the use of medicine if it can’t cure a cold? Corvisart gave me these lozenges, but they don’t help at all. What can doctors cure? They can’t cure anything. Our body is a machine for living. It's built for that; it's its nature. Let life go on within it without hindrance and let it defend itself—it will do more than if you weaken it by burdening it with remedies. Our body is like a perfect watch that’s meant to run for a certain time; the watchmaker can’t open it up—he can only make adjustments by fumbling, and blindly at that… Yes, our body is just a machine for living, nothing more.”

As he often did, Napoleon, once he began defining things, suddenly and unexpectedly came up with a new definition.

“Do you know, Rapp, what military art is?” he asked. “It’s the art of being stronger than the enemy at a given moment. That’s all.”

Rapp didn’t reply.

“Tomorrow we’ll have to deal with Kutúzov!” Napoleon said. “We shall see! Do you remember at Braunau, he commanded an army for three weeks and never once mounted a horse to inspect his fortifications… We shall see!”

He looked at his watch; it was still only four o’clock. He didn’t feel sleepy. The punch was finished and there was still nothing to do. He got up, paced back and forth, put on a warm overcoat and hat, and went out of the tent. The night was dark and damp, with a faint moisture falling from above. Nearby, the campfires among the French Guards glowed dimly, while in the distance those of the Russian line shone through the smoke. The weather was calm, and the rustling and tramping of the French troops, already starting to move to take up their positions, could be clearly heard.

Napoleon walked around in front of his tent, looked at the fires, and listened to these sounds. As he was passing a tall guardsman in a shaggy cap, standing sentinel before his tent and drawing himself up like a black pillar upon seeing the Emperor, Napoleon stopped in front of him.

“What year did you join the service?” he asked, using that blend of military bluntness and geniality he always showed toward the soldiers.

The man answered him.

“Ah! One of the old ones! Has your regiment had its rice?”

“It has, Your Majesty.”

Napoleon nodded and walked away.

At half-past five, Napoleon rode to the village of Shevárdino.

It was growing light, the sky was clearing, with just a single cloud in the east. The abandoned campfires were dying out in the pale morning light.

On the right, a single deep cannon report echoed and faded into the prevailing silence. Several minutes passed. Then a second and a third report shook the air, followed by a fourth and a fifth booming solemnly nearby on the right.

The first cannon shots had not yet stopped reverberating before others rang out, soon mingling and overlapping with one another.

Napoleon and his suite rode up to the Shevárdino Redoubt, where he dismounted. The game had begun.

##  CHAPTER XXX

When Pierre returned to Górki after seeing Prince Andrew, he ordered his groom to prepare the horses and wake him early in the morning, then immediately fell asleep behind a partition in a corner that Borís had given up to him.

Before Pierre was fully awake the next morning, everyone had already left the hut. The windowpanes rattled, and his groom was shaking him.

“Your excellency! Your excellency! Your excellency!” the groom repeated persistently as he shook Pierre by the shoulder, not looking at him, apparently having almost given up on waking him.

“What? Has it started? Is it time?” Pierre asked as he woke.

“Hear the firing,” said the groom, a former soldier. “All the gentlemen have gone out, and his Serene Highness himself rode past long ago.”

Pierre dressed quickly and ran out to the porch. Outside, everything was bright, fresh, dewy, and cheerful. The sun, just emerging from behind a cloud that had covered it, was shining with rays still half-hidden by the clouds over the roofs of the street opposite, on the dew-speckled dust of the road, on the house walls, the windows, the fence, and on Pierre’s horses standing in front of the hut. The sound of guns was clearer outside. An adjutant accompanied by a Cossack rode past at a brisk trot.

“It’s time, Count; it’s time!” the adjutant called out.

Telling the groom to follow with the horses, Pierre walked down the street to the knoll from which he had viewed the battlefield the day before. A crowd of military men had gathered there; members of the staff could be heard talking in French, and Kutúzov’s gray head in a white cap with a red band was visible, his gray neck sunk between his shoulders. He was looking through a field glass down the high road ahead.

Climbing the steps to the knoll, Pierre gazed at the scene, spellbound by its beauty. It was the same panorama he had admired the day before, but now the whole area was filled with troops and covered with drifting clouds of smoke from the guns. The slanting rays of the bright sun, rising just to Pierre’s left, cast penetrating streaks of rosy, gold-tinted light and long dark shadows through the clear morning air. The forest at the farthest edge of the panorama looked as if it was carved from a precious yellow-green stone; its undulating outline stood out against the horizon and was pierced beyond Valúevo by the Smolénsk highroad crowded with troops. Closer, golden fields of grain sparkled, dotted with groves. Troops could be seen everywhere: in front, to the right, and to the left. It was all vivid, majestic, and unexpected; but what impressed Pierre most was the view of the battlefield itself, of Borodinó and the hollows on both sides of the Kolochá.

Above the Kolochá, in Borodinó and on both sides of it—especially to the left, where the Vóyna, running between marshy banks, joins the Kolochá—a mist had spread that seemed to dissolve and become translucent as the brilliant sun appeared, magically coloring and outlining everything. The smoke from the guns blended with the mist, and over the whole scene, through that haze, the rays of the morning sun reflected, flashing back like lightning from the water, from the dew, and from the soldiers’ bayonets pressed together by the riverbanks and in Borodinó. A white church was visible through the mist, along with the roofs of huts in Borodinó, dense masses of soldiers, and green ammunition chests and cannons. All of it moved, or seemed to move, as the smoke and mist spread. Just as in the misty hollow near Borodinó, so along the entire line outside and above it—especially in woods and fields to the left, in valleys and on high ground—clouds of gunpowder smoke seemed to erupt endlessly, now one at a time, now in groups, some thin and others dense. These clouds swelled, rolled, and blended, stretching over the whole scene.

These puffs of smoke and—strangely—the sounds of firing were what gave the scene its greatest beauty.

*“Puff!”*—suddenly a round, dense cloud of smoke appeared, changing from violet to gray to milky white, followed a moment later by—*“boom!”*—the report.

*“Puff! puff!”*—two clouds rose, pushing and blending with each other; and *“boom, boom!”* followed, confirming the evidence of the eyes with sound.

Pierre watched where the first cloud had appeared as a solid ball; now, balloons of smoke floated off to one side, and—*“puff”* (pause)—*“puff, puff!”* three and then four more appeared, with the same intervals—*“boom—boom, boom!”*—the fine, clear, precise sounds answering each sight. It seemed as though these clouds sometimes moved and sometimes stayed still, while woods, fields, and sparkling bayonets passed by them. From the left, over fields and bushes, the large balls of smoke kept appearing, each followed by its deep report, while nearer in the hollows and woods, small clouds burst from muskets, quickly disappearing but echoing just the same. *“Trakh-ta-ta-takh!”* came the frequent crackling of musketry, but it was irregular and weak compared to the thunder of the cannon.

Pierre longed to be there—among the smoke, the flashing bayonets, the movement, the sounds. He turned to look at Kutúzov and his staff, wanting to compare his impressions to theirs. They were all gazing at the battlefield just as he was, and, it seemed to him, with the same feelings. Their faces now glowed with that quiet warmth Pierre had noticed the day before and fully understood after talking to Prince Andrew.

“Go, my dear fellow, go… and Christ be with you!” Kutúzov said to a general beside him, without taking his eyes from the battlefield.

After receiving this order, the general passed Pierre on his way down from the knoll.

“To the crossing!” said the general coldly and firmly to a staff member who asked where he was heading.

“I’ll go there too, I will!” Pierre thought, and followed the general.

The general mounted a horse a Cossack had brought him. Pierre went to his groom, who was holding the horses, and asked which was the calmest to ride. He climbed onto it, grabbed the mane, turned his toes out, pressed his heels to its sides, and—feeling his spectacles sliding off but unable to let go of the mane and reins—galloped after the general, making the staff officers smile as they watched from the knoll.

##  CHAPTER XXXI

After descending the hill, the general Pierre was following turned sharply to the left. Pierre, losing sight of him, rode into ranks of infantry who were marching ahead. He tried to move either in front, or to the right or left of them, but there were soldiers everywhere, all with a distracted look, busy with some unseen but clearly important job. All of them looked at this stout man in a white hat with the same dissatisfied and inquiring expression, wondering why he was about to trample them under his horse’s hooves.

“Why ride into the middle of the battalion?” one of them shouted at him.

Another soldier poked his horse with the butt of a musket. Pierre, bending over his saddlebow and barely able to rein in his nervous horse, hurried ahead of the soldiers where there was an open space.

Ahead was a bridge, with more soldiers standing and firing. Pierre rode up to them. Without realizing it, he had come to the bridge over the Kolochá between Górki and Borodinó, which the French, having taken Borodinó, were attacking in the first phase of the battle. Pierre saw the bridge ahead and soldiers working on both sides of it and in the meadow, amongst the rows of freshly cut hay he hadn’t noticed the day before in the smoke from campfires; but even with the constant shooting, he didn’t realize this was the battlefield. He didn’t notice the bullets whistling from every direction or the projectiles flying over him, nor did he see the enemy on the other side of the river. For a long time, he did not notice the wounded and dead, though many fell near him. He looked around with a smile that never left his face.

“Why’s that fellow in front of the line?” someone shouted at him again.

“To the left!… Keep to the right!” soldiers shouted at him.

Pierre went to the right and unexpectedly met one of Raévski’s adjutants, whom he knew. The adjutant looked at him angrily, evidently ready to shout too, but, recognizing Pierre, he nodded.

“How did you get here?” he asked, then rode on.

Pierre, feeling out of place and worried about getting in the way, galloped after the adjutant.

“What’s happening here? May I come with you?” he asked.

“One moment, one moment!” replied the adjutant. Riding up to a stout colonel who was standing in the meadow, he delivered a message and then turned to Pierre.

“Why have you come here, Count?” he asked with a smile. “Still curious?”

“Yes, yes,” Pierre agreed.

But the adjutant turned his horse and rode on.

“It’s tolerable here,” he said, “but with Bagratión on the left flank they’re getting it terribly hot.”

“Really?” said Pierre. “Where’s that?”

“Come with me up our knoll. From there, you can see everything, and in our battery it’s still manageable,” said the adjutant. “Want to come?”

“Yes, I’ll come,” Pierre replied, looking around for his groom.

Only now did he notice the wounded men staggering by or being carried on stretchers. In the very same meadow he had crossed the day before, a soldier lay across the rows of fragrant hay, his head thrown back awkwardly, shako off.

“Why haven’t they carried him away?” Pierre was about to ask, but seeing the stern look of the adjutant, who was watching too, he stayed quiet.

Pierre didn’t find his groom and rode along the hollow with the adjutant toward Raévski’s Redoubt. His horse lagged behind the adjutant’s, jolting him with every step.

“You don’t seem used to riding, Count?” remarked the adjutant.

“No, it’s not that, but she moves so roughly,” Pierre replied, puzzled.

“Why… she’s wounded!” said the adjutant. “In the off foreleg above the knee. A bullet, no doubt. I congratulate you, Count, on your baptism of fire!”

They rode through the smoke past the Sixth Corps and the artillery, which had been moved forward and was in action, deafening them with the gunfire. Soon, they came to a small wood, where it was cool and quiet with the scent of autumn. Pierre and the adjutant dismounted and walked up the hill on foot.

“Is the general here?” the adjutant asked when they reached the knoll.

“He was here just a minute ago but has gone that way,” someone said, pointing to the right.

The adjutant looked at Pierre, unsure what to do with him now.

“Don’t worry about me,” Pierre said. “May I go up onto the knoll?”

“Yes, go on. You’ll see everything from there, and it’s less dangerous. I’ll come for you.”

Pierre went to the battery and the adjutant rode off. They didn’t meet again, and Pierre only learned much later that the adjutant lost an arm that day.

The knoll Pierre climbed was the famous one that the Russians later called the Knoll Battery or Raévski’s Redoubt, and the French called *la grande redoute, la fatale redoute, la redoute du centre*, around which tens of thousands died, and which the French saw as the key to the whole position.

This redoubt was a knoll with trenches dug on three sides. Inside the entrenchment, ten guns stood firing through earthwork openings.

Aligned with the knoll on both sides stood more guns firing constantly. Just behind the guns stood infantry. As Pierre climbed the knoll, he had no idea this spot—with its small trenches and a few guns firing—was the most important point of the battle.

On the contrary, simply because he happened to be there, he thought it was one of the less important parts of the field.

Reaching the knoll, Pierre sat at the end of a trench around the battery and watched everything around him with an unconsciously cheerful smile. Sometimes he stood and walked about the battery, still smiling, trying not to get in the way of soldiers loading and moving the guns, or running past with bags and charges. The guns fired one after another with deafening roars, filling the area with powder smoke.

Unlike the fear felt by the supporting infantrymen, in the battery—a small group set apart by the trench—everyone shared a sort of family feeling, and a sense of energy.

Pierre’s obvious civilian appearance in his white hat made an unpleasant first impression. The soldiers eyed him suspiciously and even uneasily as they passed. The senior artillery officer, a tall, long-legged, pockmarked man, moved over as if to check the farthest gun and looked at Pierre with curiosity.

A young, round-faced officer—still a boy, just out of Cadet College, zealously commanding his two guns—addressed Pierre sternly.

“Sir,” he said, “please step aside. You must not be here.”

The soldiers shook their heads disapprovingly as they looked at Pierre. But when they saw that this man in the white hat meant no harm, either sitting quietly on the slope of the trench with a shy smile or politely making way for the soldiers as he paced up and down the battery under fire as calmly as if he were strolling down a boulevard, their feeling of hostile distrust gradually turned into a kind and playful sympathy, the sort soldiers often feel for their dogs, roosters, goats, and generally for the animals that live with the regiment. The men soon accepted Pierre as one of their own, gave him a nickname (“our gentleman”), and good-naturedly teased him among themselves.

A shell tore up the ground just two steps from Pierre, and he looked around with a smile as he brushed some of the earth it threw up from his clothes.

“And how is it you’re not afraid, sir, truly?” a red-faced, broad-shouldered soldier asked Pierre, grinning and revealing a mouth full of healthy, white teeth.

“Are you afraid, then?” Pierre replied.

“What else do you expect?” answered the soldier. “She has no mercy, you know! When she comes spluttering down, out go your insides. You can’t help being afraid,” he said, laughing.

Several of the men, faces bright and friendly, stopped beside Pierre. They didn’t seem to expect him to talk like anyone else, and discovering that he did delighted them.

“It’s a soldier’s job to be here. But for a gentleman—it’s something special! There’s a real gentleman for you!”

“To your places!” cried the young officer to the men gathered around Pierre.

The young officer was obviously carrying out his duties for the first or second time and so treated both his superiors and the men with the utmost precision and formality.

The booming of cannons and the rattle of musketry were growing more intense all over the field, especially to the left where Bagratión’s *flèches* were, but where Pierre was, the smoke from the firing made it nearly impossible to see anything. Besides, he was completely absorbed in watching the little family circle—set apart from everything else—formed by the men in the battery. His first unconscious feeling of lively excitement brought on by the sights and sounds of the battlefield had now changed, especially since he’d seen that soldier lying alone in the hayfield. Now, seated on the slope of the trench, he watched the faces of those around him.

By ten o’clock, some twenty men had already been carried away from the battery; two guns were smashed and cannonballs were landing more frequently, while spent bullets whizzed and whistled by. But the men in the battery seemed to take no notice, and cheerful voices and jokes could be heard everywhere.

“A live one!” shouted a man as a whistling shell came near.

“Not this way! Go hit the infantry!” another shouted with loud laughter, seeing the shell fly past and fall into the ranks of the supporting troops.

“Are you bowing to a friend, eh?” another joked, teasing a peasant who ducked low as a cannonball flew overhead.

Several soldiers gathered by the trench wall, peering out to see what was happening ahead.

“They’ve pulled back the front line, it’s retreated,” they said, pointing over the earthwork.

“Mind your own business,” an old sergeant shouted at them. “If they’ve pulled back, it’s because there’s work for them farther behind.”

And the sergeant, taking one man by the shoulders, gave him a shove with his knee, causing a burst of laughter.

“To the fifth gun, wheel it up!” came shouts from one side.

“Now then, all together, like barge haulers!” shouted the cheerful voices of those moving the gun.

“Oh, she nearly knocked our gentleman’s hat off!” called the red-faced comedian, showing his teeth as he teased Pierre. “Awkward baggage!” he added reproachfully to a cannonball that struck a cannon wheel and a man’s leg.

“Come on, you foxes!” said another, laughing at some militiamen who, hunched over, entered the battery to carry away the wounded man.

“So this gruel’s not to your taste? Oh, you crows! You’re scared!” they yelled at the militiamen who stood hesitating before the man whose leg had been torn off.

“There, lads… oh, oh!” they mimicked the peasants. “They don’t like it at all!”

Pierre noticed that with every ball that hit the redoubt, and with every loss, the mood grew even more lively.

Just as a thunderstorm’s hidden fire glows more brightly and quickly as it comes closer, so too did the hidden flame in these men’s faces burn more intensely, almost in defiance of what was happening around them.

Pierre didn’t look out at the battlefield and didn’t care what was happening there; he was completely absorbed in watching this fire, which burned ever brighter in the faces around him and which he sensed was lighting up in his own soul in the same way.

At ten o’clock the infantry that had been among the bushes in front of the battery and along the Kámenka stream retreated. From the battery, they could be seen running back, carrying their wounded on their muskets. A general with his staff approached the battery, and after speaking with the colonel, gave Pierre an angry look and left, having ordered the infantry supports behind the battery to lie down so they’d be less exposed to fire. After that, from among the ranks of infantry to the right of the battery came the sound of a drum and orders shouted out, and from the battery you could see those ranks move forward.

Pierre looked over the trench wall and was especially struck by a pale young officer who, holding his sword down, was walking backward and kept glancing around uneasily.

The infantry ranks disappeared into the smoke, but their drawn-out shouts and rapid musket fire could still be heard. A few minutes later, crowds of wounded men and stretcher-bearers came back from that direction. Projectiles were falling more and more frequently in the battery. Several men were lying about, not yet removed. Around the cannon, the men moved more briskly and efficiently than ever. No one paid attention to Pierre anymore. Once or twice someone shouted at him for being in the way. The senior officer hurried from gun to gun, striding quickly with a frowning face. The young officer, more flushed than ever, commanded his men with even greater attention to detail. The soldiers handed up charges, turned, loaded, and did their work with intense precision. They gave little hops as they walked, as if they were on springs.

The storm had overtaken them, and in every face Pierre saw the fire he had been watching kindle burn brightly. Pierre stood by the commanding officer. The young officer, hand to his shako, ran up to his superior.

“I have the honor to report, sir, that only eight rounds are left. Should we continue firing?” he asked.

“Grapeshot!” the senior shouted, without answering the question, looking over the trench wall.

Suddenly, something happened: the young officer gave a gasp and, bending forward, sat down on the ground like a bird shot from the sky. Everything became strange, confused, and blurry in Pierre’s eyes.

One cannonball after another whistled by and struck the earthwork, a soldier, or a gun. Pierre, who hadn’t noticed these sounds before, now heard nothing else. On the right of the battery, soldiers shouting “Hurrah!” were running—not forwards, but backwards, or so it seemed to Pierre.

A cannonball struck the very end of the earthwork beside him, crumbling the earth; a black ball flashed before his eyes and instantly thudded into something. Some militiamen entering the battery turned and ran back.

“All with grapeshot!” the officer shouted.

The sergeant ran up to the officer and, in a frightened whisper (the way a butler might quietly tell his master at dinner that a certain wine has run out), informed him there were no more charges.

“The scoundrels! What are they doing?” shouted the officer, turning to Pierre.

The officer’s face was red and sweaty, and his eyes glittered beneath his frowning brow.

“Run to the reserves and bring up the ammunition boxes!” he yelled, angrily avoiding Pierre’s gaze and speaking to his men.

“I’ll go,” said Pierre.

The officer, without replying, strode over to the other side.

“Don’t fire… Wait!” he shouted.

The man who had been told to fetch the ammunition bumped into Pierre.

“Hey, sir, this isn’t a place for you,” he said, then ran down the slope.

Pierre ran after him, steering clear of the spot where the young officer was sitting.

One cannonball, then another, and a third flew over him, falling in front, beside, and behind him. Pierre ran down the slope. “Where am I going?” he suddenly wondered when he was already near the green ammunition wagons. He stopped, uncertain whether to turn back or go on. Suddenly, a tremendous explosion threw him backwards to the ground. At that instant, a great flash of flame dazzled him, and immediately a deafening roar, crackling, and whistling made his ears ring.

When he came to, he was sitting on the ground, propped on his hands; the ammunition wagons he had been approaching no longer existed—just charred green boards and rags littered the scorched grass, and a horse, dragging pieces of its shaft, galloped past, while another horse lay, like Pierre, on the ground, uttering long, piercing cries.

##  CHAPTER XXXII

Overwhelmed with terror, Pierre jumped up and ran back to the battery, seeking refuge from the horrors around him.

Inside the earthwork, he noticed men doing something, but no shots were being fired from the battery. He didn’t have time to process who these men were. He saw the senior officer lying on the earth wall with his back turned, as if examining something below, and one of the soldiers Pierre had noticed earlier was struggling forward, shouting “Brothers!” and trying to free himself from the grip of some men holding him by the arm. He also saw something else strange.

But he hadn’t realized yet that the colonel had been killed, that the soldier shouting “Brothers!” was a prisoner, or that another man had been bayoneted in the back right before his eyes, because as soon as he ran into the redoubt, a thin, sallow-faced, sweaty man in a blue uniform rushed at him, sword in hand, shouting something. Instinctively bracing for the impact—for they had both been running at full speed before spotting each other—Pierre reached out and grabbed the man (a French officer) by the shoulder with one hand and by the throat with the other. The officer, dropping his sword, grabbed Pierre by the collar.

For a few seconds, they stared at each other’s unfamiliar faces with frightened eyes, both puzzled about what they had done and what to do next. “Have I been taken prisoner or did I capture him?” each was thinking. But the French officer clearly thought he had been captured, as Pierre’s strong, fearful grip tightened around his throat. The Frenchman was about to speak, when suddenly, just overhead, a cannonball whistled—terrible and low—and it seemed to Pierre that the French officer’s head had been torn off, so quickly did he duck.

Pierre also ducked and released his grip. Without another thought about who had captured whom, the Frenchman ran back to the battery and Pierre ran down the slope, stumbling over the dead and wounded who, it seemed to him, reached out and grabbed at his feet. But before he reached the bottom of the knoll, he was met by a dense crowd of Russian soldiers, who, stumbling, tripping, and shouting, ran joyfully and wildly toward the battery. (This was the attack Ermólov later claimed credit for, insisting that only his courage and luck made such a feat possible: the one where he supposedly threw some St. George’s Crosses he had in his pocket into the battery for the first soldiers who got there.)

The French who had occupied the battery fled, and the Russians, shouting “Hurrah!” chased them so far beyond the battery that it was hard to call them back.

Prisoners were brought down from the battery, among them a wounded French general whom the officers surrounded. Crowds of wounded—some Pierre knew, others he didn’t—Russians and French, their faces contorted by pain, walked, crawled, or were carried on stretchers away from the battery. Pierre went up onto the knoll again where he had spent over an hour, and, of the group that had welcomed him before, he didn’t find a single one. There were many dead he didn’t know, but he recognized some. The young officer still sat hunched in a pool of blood at the edge of the earth wall. The red-faced man was still twitching, but they hadn’t carried him away.

Pierre ran down the slope once more.

“Now they’ll stop this, now they’ll be horrified at what they’ve done!” he thought, aimlessly heading toward a group of stretcher bearers moving off the battlefield.

But behind the veil of smoke the sun was still high, and ahead, especially to the left near Semënovsk, something seemed to be boiling in the haze, and the roar of cannon and musketry did not lessen, but instead grew more desperate—like a man screaming with all his remaining strength.

##  CHAPTER XXXIII

The main action of the battle of Borodinó was fought within the seven thousand feet between Borodinó and Bagratión’s *flèches*. Beyond that area, on one side there was a demonstration by the Russians with Uvárov’s cavalry at midday, and on the other side, beyond Utítsa, Poniatowski’s encounter with Túchkov; but these two were isolated and weak skirmishes compared to the action in the center of the field. On the open ground between Borodinó and the *flèches*, beside the woods, the day’s main fighting happened in plain sight of both armies and was fought in the simplest, most straightforward way.

The battle began on both sides with a cannonade from several hundred guns.

Then, when smoke had covered the entire field, two divisions—Campan’s and Dessaix’s—advanced from the French right, while Murat’s troops attacked Borodinó from the French left.

From the Shevárdino Redoubt, where Napoleon stood, the *flèches* were two-thirds of a mile away, and Borodinó was more than a mile off as the crow flies, making it impossible for Napoleon to clearly see what was happening there, especially as the smoke and mist hid everything. The soldiers of Dessaix’s division, advancing against the *flèches*, could be seen only until they descended into the hollow that separated them from the *flèches*. Once they entered that hollow, the smoke from the guns and muskets on the *flèches* became so thick it hid the entire approach. Through the haze, only glimpses of something black—probably men—and the occasional glint of bayonets could be seen. But whether they were moving or still, French or Russian, couldn’t be determined from the Shevárdino Redoubt.

The sun had risen brightly, and its slanting rays struck directly into Napoleon’s face as he shielded his eyes with his hand, looking toward the *flèches*. The smoke drifted before him, sometimes seeming to move, sometimes making the troops appear to move. Occasionally shouts could be heard through the gunfire, but it was impossible to tell what was happening there.

Napoleon, standing on the knoll, looked through a field glass, and in its small circle saw smoke and men, sometimes French, sometimes Russian, but whenever he looked again with the naked eye, he couldn’t tell where he’d seen them.

He stepped down from the knoll and began walking back and forth in front of it.

At times, he would stop, listen to the guns, and gaze intently at the battlefield.

But not only was it impossible to see what was happening from where he stood on the ground or from the knoll above, where some of his generals were gathered, but even from the *flèches* themselves—in which at various times now Russian, now French soldiers were present, sometimes both, whether dead, wounded, alive, terrified, or crazed—it was impossible to tell what was happening. For hours, amid unending cannon and musket fire, now only Russians were there, now only French, sometimes infantry, sometimes cavalry: soldiers would appear, fire, fall, clash, not knowing what to do together, scream, and then retreat.

Adjutants from the battlefield and orderlies from his marshals kept riding up to Napoleon with reports on the battle’s progress, but all those reports were inaccurate: both because in the heat of battle it was impossible to say what was happening at any given moment, and because many adjutants relied on what they’d heard from others instead of witnessing it for themselves; and furthermore, as an adjutant rode more than a mile to Napoleon, the situation would change and his news was already out-of-date. For example, an adjutant rode in from Murat, saying Borodinó had been taken and the French held the bridge over the Kolochá. He asked whether Napoleon wanted the troops to cross. Napoleon ordered them to form up on the far side and wait. But almost before the order was given—in fact, as soon as that adjutant had left Borodinó—the bridge had been retaken by the Russians and burned, in the very skirmish where Pierre had been present at the start of the battle.

An adjutant sped in from the *flèches* with a pale, anxious face and reported to Napoleon that their attack had been repulsed, that Campan was wounded, and Davout killed; yet, at that very moment, while the adjutant was told the French had been driven back, the *flèches* were being recaptured by other French troops, and Davout was alive with only a minor bruise. Based on these inevitably unreliable reports, Napoleon gave his orders, which had either already been carried out or couldn’t be—so they weren’t.

The marshals and generals, being closer to the battle than Napoleon but, like him, not participating directly and only occasionally moving within musket range, made their own plans without consulting Napoleon and issued orders about where to fire, where to send cavalry or infantry. But even their orders, like Napoleon’s, were seldom obeyed, and then only partially. Most of the time, things happened contrary to their commands. Soldiers ordered to advance would retreat when hit with grapeshot; soldiers ordered to hold their ground, suddenly encountering Russians before them, sometimes ran back and sometimes forward, and cavalry pursued fleeing Russians without waiting for orders. Two cavalry regiments, for example, dashed through the Semënovsk hollow but, on reaching the top, turned and raced back the way they had come. The infantry did much the same, often running to entirely different places than those assigned. All orders about moving guns, sending in infantry or cavalry—such commands were given by the nearest officers at the scene, without asking Ney, Davout, or Murat, much less Napoleon. They had no fear of being punished for failing to follow orders or for acting on their own, for in battle the most precious thing to a man—his own life—is at stake, and safety can seem to lie in running away or in charging forward; so, caught in the heat of battle, they acted according to the mood of the moment. In truth, all these movements, forward and back, did little to change the troops’ position. All their dashing and swirling at one another caused little harm; the real damage—the casualties and death—came from the shot and shell flying over those fields where men dashed about. As soon as they left the area under fire, their officers in the rear re-formed them and brought them back under discipline, marching them back into the zone of fire, where, under threat of death, discipline crumbled again and they scattered, following the random urgings of the mob.

##  CHAPTER XXXIV

Napoleon’s generals—Davout, Ney, and Murat, who were close to that region of fire and sometimes even entered it—repeatedly led huge masses of well-organized troops into the fray. But unlike what had always happened in their previous battles, instead of the expected news that the enemy was fleeing, these orderly masses returned in disorganized and terrified mobs. The generals re-formed them, but their numbers kept shrinking. Around midday, Murat sent his adjutant to Napoleon to request reinforcements.

Napoleon was sitting at the base of the knoll, drinking punch, when Murat’s adjutant galloped up, confidently assuring him that the Russians would be defeated if His Majesty would allow him another division.

“Reinforcements?” Napoleon said in a tone of stern surprise, looking at the adjutant—a handsome young man with long black curls styled like Murat’s own—as if he didn’t understand what he had said.

“Reinforcements!” Napoleon thought to himself. “How could they need reinforcements when they already have half the army aimed at a weak, unfortified Russian flank?”

“Tell the King of Naples,” he said sternly, “that it’s not noon yet, and I don’t yet see my chessboard clearly. Go!…”

The handsome young adjutant with the long hair sighed deeply, keeping his hand on his hat, and galloped back toward the carnage.

Napoleon stood up and, after calling Caulaincourt and Berthier, began discussing matters unrelated to the battle.

In the middle of this conversation, which was starting to engage Napoleon’s interest, Berthier’s eyes turned to a general and his entourage, galloping toward the knoll on a foaming horse. It was Belliard. He dismounted and approached the Emperor quickly, loudly insisting on the urgent need for reinforcements. He swore on his honor that the Russians would be defeated if the Emperor would only give him another division.

Napoleon shrugged and continued walking back and forth, not answering. Belliard started speaking eagerly and loudly to the generals nearby.

“You are very fiery, Belliard,” said Napoleon when he came around again. “In the heat of battle it’s easy to make a mistake. Go take another look, then come back to me.”

Before Belliard was out of sight, a messenger from another area of the battlefield galloped up.

“Well, what do you want?” Napoleon asked, sounding irritated at the continual interruptions.

“Sire, the prince...” began the adjutant.

“Is asking for reinforcements?” Napoleon said with an angry gesture.

The adjutant nodded in confirmation and began to explain, but the Emperor turned away, took a few steps, stopped, returned, and called Berthier.

“We need to send reserves,” he said, making a slight gesture with his arms. “Who do you think should go there?” he asked Berthier (whom he later called “that gosling I have made an eagle”).

“Send Claparède’s division, sire,” answered Berthier, who knew every regiment and battalion of every division by heart.

Napoleon nodded in agreement.

The adjutant galloped off to Claparède’s division, and a few minutes later the Young Guard, stationed behind the knoll, moved forward. Napoleon watched silently in that direction.

“No!” he suddenly said to Berthier. “I can’t send Claparède. Send Friant’s division.”

Though there was no benefit to sending Friant’s division instead of Claparède’s—and even a clear inconvenience and delay in stopping Claparède and sending Friant instead—the order was executed exactly. Napoleon didn’t realize that he was acting like a doctor who only hinders with his treatments—a role he otherwise so rightly recognized and criticized.

Friant’s division disappeared into the battlefield smoke as the others had. From every side, adjutants continued to gallop up, and as if in concert, all said the same thing. They all asked for reinforcements and all reported that the Russians were holding their positions, maintaining a hellish fire that was depleting the French army.

Napoleon sat on a campstool, lost in thought.

M. de Beausset, the man so fond of travel, having fasted all morning, came up to the Emperor and respectfully suggested that His Majesty might like some lunch.

“I hope I may now congratulate Your Majesty on a victory?” he said.

Napoleon silently shook his head in denial. Assuming the denial only meant there was no victory, not that lunch was out of the question, M. de Beausset, with gentle humor, remarked that there was no reason not to have lunch when it was available.

“Go away...” Napoleon suddenly said, morosely, then turned away.

A beatific smile of regret, repentance, and ecstasy shone on M. de Beausset’s face as he slipped away toward the other generals.

Napoleon was feeling a depression like that of a gambler who has always been lucky, recklessly throwing around money and always winning, but suddenly, just when he’s calculated every chance, finds that the more he thinks about it, the more surely he loses.

His troops were the same, his generals were the same, he had made the same preparations, the same dispositions, and delivered the same *courte et énergique* proclamation, and he was the same man—more experienced and skillful than ever. Even his enemy was the same as at Austerlitz and Friedland—yet now, the feared power of his arm had become miraculously impotent.

All the old tactics that had brought certain success: concentrating batteries on one point, sending in reserves to break the enemy’s line, a cavalry charge by “the men of iron”—all these had already been tried, and yet not only was there no victory, but from every side came the same reports of generals killed and wounded, reinforcements needed, the impossibility of pushing back the Russians, and chaos among his own troops.

Before, after giving two or three orders and speaking a few words, marshals and adjutants would come galloping up, smiling and congratulating him, announcing captured trophies—prisoners, eagles and standards, cannon, and supplies—and Murat would beg to unleash the cavalry to seize the baggage wagons. That’s how it had been at Lodi, Marengo, Arcola, Jena, Austerlitz, Wagram, and the rest. But now, something strange was happening to his army.

Despite reports that the *flèches* had been taken, Napoleon saw this wasn’t the same—nothing like his past victories. He saw that everyone around him, knowledgeable in the art of war, felt what he himself was feeling. All their faces were glum, everyone avoided each other’s eyes—only a de Beausset could fail to notice what was happening.

But Napoleon, with his long experience, knew what it meant when a battle wasn’t won by the attacking side in eight hours, after every effort had been made. He knew it was a lost battle, and that the slightest accident might now—with everything balanced so dangerously—destroy him and his army.

As he thought back over this strange Russian campaign, in which not a single battle had been won, and not a flag, cannon, or corps taken in two months, as he looked at the concealed misery on the faces around him and heard confirmation that the Russians still held their ground, a terrible nightmare feeling came over him. He thought of all the unlucky events that could now ruin him: the Russians might assault his left flank, break through his center, he himself might be struck down by a stray cannonball. All this was now possible. In former battles, he’d only thought of ways to succeed, but now, countless unlucky outcomes appeared in his mind, and he anticipated them all. Yes—it was like a nightmare, where a man dreams a ruffian is about to attack him and, raising his arm for a mighty blow that should destroy his foe, finds his arm collapses, powerless and limp, and a horror of unavoidable defeat overwhelms him in his helplessness.

The report that the Russians were attacking the French left flank triggered that horror in Napoleon. He sat, silent, on a campstool below the knoll, with bowed head and elbows on his knees. Berthier approached and suggested they ride along the lines to check the state of affairs.

“What? What did you say?” asked Napoleon. “Yes, tell them to bring my horse.”

He mounted and rode toward Semënovsk.

Through the powder smoke, slowly clearing over the space Napoleon rode through, horses and men lay in pools of blood, singly or in heaps. Neither Napoleon nor any of his generals had ever seen such horrors, or so many dead in so small a space. The roar of cannons, unceasing for ten hours, wearied the ear and gave a strange significance to the scene, as music does to *tableaux vivants*. Napoleon rode up the hill at Semënovsk and, through the haze, saw ranks of soldiers in unfamiliar uniforms. They were Russians.

The Russians stood in tightly packed ranks behind Semënovsk village and its hill, and their cannons thundered constantly along their line, sending up clouds of smoke. It was no longer a battle; it had become a relentless slaughter, serving no purpose for either the French or the Russians. Napoleon stopped his horse and again fell into the contemplation from which Berthier had earlier roused him. He could not stop what was happening before him and all around him—events that were supposed to be under his command and depend on his decisions—and, due to its lack of success, this affair, for the first time, seemed to him both needless and horrific.

One of the generals rode up to Napoleon and dared to suggest leading the Old Guard into action. Ney and Berthier, standing near Napoleon, exchanged glances and smiled scornfully at this general’s foolish proposal.

Napoleon bowed his head and remained silent for a long time.

“At eight hundred leagues from France, I will not have my Guard destroyed!” he said, and turning his horse, rode back to Shevárdino.

##  CHAPTER XXXV

Kutúzov sat on the rug-covered bench where Pierre had seen him that morning, his gray head bowed and his heavy body relaxed. He gave no orders himself, only agreeing or disagreeing with others' suggestions.

“Yes, yes, do that,” he answered to various proposals. “Yes, yes: go, dear boy, and have a look,” he would say to one of those around him; or, “No, don’t, we’d better wait!” He listened to the reports brought to him and issued directions only when his subordinates insisted. But while listening, it seemed as if the content of their words was less important to him than something else—the look and tone of voice of those reporting. With years of military experience and the wisdom of age, he understood that no one man could direct hundreds of thousands struggling with death. He knew that the outcome of battle is not decided by the commander in chief’s orders, or the position of the troops, or the count of cannons or casualties, but by that intangible power called the spirit of the army. He watched for this force and tried to guide it as much as he could.

Kutúzov’s general expression was one of focused, quiet attention, and his face looked strained, as though he struggled to control the fatigue of his aging, frail body.

At eleven o’clock, he received news that the *flèches* captured by the French had been retaken, but that Prince Bagratión was wounded. Kutúzov groaned and swayed his head.

“Ride over to Prince Peter Ivánovich and find out exactly what happened,” he said to an adjutant, then turned to the Duke of Württemberg standing behind him.

“Will Your Highness please take command of the first army?”

Soon after the duke left—before he could possibly have reached Semënovsk—his adjutant returned and told Kutúzov that the duke requested more troops.

Kutúzov grimaced and sent an order for Dokhtúrov to assume command of the first army, along with a message to the duke—explaining that he could not spare him at such a critical moment—to return to him. When news arrived that Murat had been taken prisoner, and the staff officers congratulated him, Kutúzov smiled.

“Wait a little, gentlemen,” he said. “The battle is won, and there’s nothing extraordinary about Murat’s capture. Still, it’s better to wait before we celebrate.”

Nevertheless, he sent an adjutant to spread the news throughout the army.

When Scherbínin came galloping from the left flank with news that the French had captured the *flèches* and the village of Semënovsk, Kutúzov, sensing from the battle noises and Scherbínin’s looks that the news was bad, got up as if to stretch his legs and, taking Scherbínin’s arm, led him aside.

“Go, my dear fellow,” he said to Ermólov, “and see if something can’t be done.”

Kutúzov was at Górki, near the center of the Russian position. Napoleon’s attacks on the left flank had been repelled several times. In the center, the French hadn’t advanced past Borodinó, and on their left flank Uvárov’s cavalry had driven the French back.

Around three o’clock, the French attacks stopped. On the faces of everyone coming from the battlefield, and those standing nearby, Kutúzov saw an expression of extreme tension. He was satisfied with the day’s results—a success beyond his expectations—but the old man’s strength was giving out. Several times his head drooped so low it seemed to fall, and he dozed off. Dinner was brought to him.

Adjutant General Wolzogen, the man who, riding past Prince Andrew, had said, “the war should be extended widely,” and whom Bagratión so disliked, rode up while Kutúzov was dining. Wolzogen had come from Barclay de Tolly to report on the situation at the left flank. The prudent Barclay de Tolly, seeing crowds of wounded fleeing and the disorder behind the army, weighed all the circumstances, concluded that the battle was lost, and sent his favorite officer to the commander in chief with this news.

Struggling to chew a piece of roast chicken, Kutúzov looked at Wolzogen, his eyes lighting up beneath puckered eyelids.

Wolzogen, stretching his legs nonchalantly, approached Kutúzov with a half-contemptuous smile, barely touching the brim of his cap.

He treated his Serene Highness with a certain studied irreverence, as if to show that, as a properly trained military man, he left it to Russians to revere this ineffective old man, but he knew the reality. *“Der alte Herr”* (as the Germans in their circles called Kutúzov) “is making himself very comfortable,” thought Wolzogen, and staring sternly at Kutúzov’s dinner, he began to report on the situation at the left flank as Barclay had ordered and as he had seen it.

“All points of our position are in the enemy’s hands and we cannot dislodge them for lack of troops, the men are fleeing and cannot be stopped,” he reported.

Kutúzov stopped chewing and stared at Wolzogen in astonishment, as if he didn’t understand what was being said. Wolzogen, noticing “the old gentleman’s” agitation, smiled and said:

“I have not thought it right to hide from your Serene Highness what I have seen. The troops are in complete disorder….”

“You have seen? You have seen?…” Kutúzov shouted. Frowning and standing up quickly, he approached Wolzogen.

“How… how dare you!…” he shouted, choking with anger and shaking his arms threateningly: “How dare you, sir, say that to *me?* You know nothing about it. Tell General Barclay from me that his information is wrong and that I, the commander in chief, know better than he the real course of the battle.”

Wolzogen was about to reply, but Kutúzov cut him off.

“The enemy has been repulsed on the left and defeated on the right. If you are mistaken, sir, do not presume to say what you do not know! Be so kind as to ride to General Barclay and inform him of my firm intention to attack the enemy tomorrow,” Kutúzov said sternly.

All were silent, the only sound the labored breathing of the old general.

“They are repulsed everywhere, for which I thank God and our brave army! The enemy is beaten, and tomorrow we will drive him from the sacred soil of Russia,” said Kutúzov, crossing himself, and suddenly sobbed as his eyes filled with tears.

Wolzogen, shrugging and curling his lips, silently stepped aside, amazed by “the old gentleman’s” self-assured ignorance.

“Ah, here he is, my hero!” said Kutúzov, as a portly, handsome, dark-haired general approached the knoll.

This was Raévski, who had spent the entire day in the most vital area of the Borodinó battlefield.

Raévski reported that the troops were holding firmly and the French no longer dared to attack.

After hearing him, Kutúzov said in French:

“Then you do not think, *like some others*, that we must retreat?”

“On the contrary, your Highness, in indecisive actions it is always the most stubborn who become victors,” replied Raévski, “and in my opinion…”

“Kaysárov!” Kutúzov called to his adjutant. “Sit down and write out the order of the day for tomorrow. And you,” he said to another, “ride along the line and announce that tomorrow we attack.”

While Kutúzov spoke with Raévski and dictated the order of the day, Wolzogen returned from Barclay and said that General Barclay wanted written confirmation of the order the field marshal had given.

Without looking at Wolzogen, Kutúzov gave instructions to have the order written out, which the former commander in chief, wishing to avoid personal responsibility, very wisely wanted in writing.

And by means of that mysterious, indefinable bond that maintains through an army a unified spirit—known as “the spirit of the army,” and forming the backbone of war—Kutúzov’s words, his order for battle the next day, quickly became known throughout the army.

What reached the farthest parts of that chain was far from the same words or even the same order that Kutúzov had spoken. The stories spreading from person to person didn’t even resemble what he said, but the intent of his words was felt everywhere, because what he said was not born of clever calculation but from a feeling that was in the soul of the commander in chief, as in every Russian.

And upon learning that the enemy was to be attacked the next day—and hearing confirmation from the highest sources of something they wanted to believe—the exhausted, uncertain men felt comforted and uplifted.

##  CHAPTER XXXVI

Prince Andrew’s regiment was among the reserves, stationed inactive behind Semënovsk under heavy artillery fire until after one o’clock. Toward two o’clock, having already lost more than two hundred men, the regiment was moved forward into a trampled oatfield between Semënovsk and the Knoll Battery—the gap where thousands perished that day and a focused, intense fire from several hundred enemy guns rained down between one and two o’clock.

Without moving from that spot or firing a single shot, the regiment lost another third of its men. From the front and especially from the right, shrouded in smoke, the guns thundered, and from that mysterious wall of smoke over the field, a steady barrage of whistling cannon balls and hissing shells flew. Occasionally, as though offering a reprieve, a quarter of an hour would pass with all the projectiles flying overhead, but sometimes several men would be taken in a minute, and the dead and wounded were constantly being carried away.

With every new blow, the chance of survival for those left grew slimmer. The regiment stood in battalion columns, three hundred paces apart, yet the men remained in much the same mood. They were uniformly silent and sullen. Conversation was rare in the ranks, ceasing altogether at the sound of a well-aimed shot and the call for “stretchers!” For the most part, by order of the officers, the men sat on the ground. One would take off his shako, carefully loosen and then retighten its lining; another would rub dry clay between his hands to polish his bayonet; a third adjusted the strap and buckle of his bandolier, while another would straighten and refold his leg bands before putting his boots back on. Some built tiny houses out of the clumps of earth, while others wove baskets from straw in the field. They all seemed engrossed in these activities. When men were killed or wounded, or stretchers passed, or troops retreated, or large bodies of the enemy appeared through the smoke, no one paid much attention. Yet when our artillery or cavalry advanced or infantry moved forward, approving words rang out up and down the line. Still, the strongest attention was drawn by incidents unrelated to battle. It was as though the minds of these spiritually exhausted men took refuge in everyday, ordinary things. A battery of artillery passed before the regiment. The horse of an ammunition cart tangled its leg in a trace. “Hey, look at the trace horse!… Get her leg out! She’ll fall… Ah, they don’t see it!” came cries from the ranks along the regiment. At another time, everyone’s attention was caught by a small brown dog, coming from who knows where, who trotted preoccupied in front of the ranks with its tail up—until suddenly a shell landed nearby, at which it yelped, tucked its tail, and darted away. Shouts and peals of laughter rose from the whole regiment. But such distractions were brief, and for eight hours the men had been idle, unfed, and constantly fearing death, with their pale, grim faces growing only paler and grimmer.

Prince Andrew, pale and grim like everyone else, paced from one patch to another along the edge of the meadow by the oatfield, his head bowed, arms behind his back. There was nothing for him to do, no orders to give. Everything proceeded without his intervention. The dead were dragged away, the wounded taken off, and gaps in the ranks filled. Any soldiers who ran to the rear returned quickly and shamefaced. At first, considering it his duty to inspire courage and set an example, Prince Andrew walked among the ranks, but he soon saw this was unnecessary; there was nothing he could teach them. The thoughts of every soul there, like his own, were bent unconsciously on avoiding the horrors around them. He walked the meadow, dragging his feet, stirring the grass, and looking absently at the dust on his boots; sometimes taking long strides to match the mowers’ footprints, then counting his steps, figuring how many times he’d have to cross to cover a mile; then stripping flowers from wormwood by the boundary ditch and crushing them in his hands, inhaling their sharp, bittersweet scent. None of the previous day’s thoughts remained. He thought of nothing at all. He listened with tired ears to the repeated sounds, picking out the whistle of shells from the booming guns, glanced at the familiar faces of his men, and waited. “Here it comes… this one’s headed our way,” he thought, listening for an approaching whistle in the smoky void. “One, another. Again. That one hit—” He paused and looked at the ranks. “No, it went over. But this one hit!” And then he went back to trying to cross the strip in sixteen steps. A whizz, a thud! Five paces from him, a cannon ball tore up the dry earth and buried itself. A chill ran down his back. Again he checked the ranks. Many must have been hit—a large group was gathering near the second battalion.

“Adjutant!” he called. “Order them not to crowd together.”

The adjutant, after carrying out the order, approached Prince Andrew. Meanwhile, a battalion commander rode up from the other side.

“Look out!” came a startled cry from one of the soldiers, and a shell fell with little noise just two steps from Prince Andrew and right by the battalion commander’s horse, spinning like a bird landing suddenly. The horse, not caring if it was right or wrong to show fear, snorted, reared, nearly unseating its rider, and galloped off. The horse’s terror instantly infected the men.

“Lie down!” yelled the adjutant, dropping flat on the ground.

Prince Andrew hesitated. The smoking shell spun rapidly like a top between him and the adjutant, near a wormwood bush between the field and meadow.

“Is this death?” Prince Andrew thought, looking at the grass, the wormwood, the thin column of smoke rising from the spinning black ball with a new, longing gaze. “I can’t, I don’t want to die. I love life—I love this grass, this earth, this air…” He thought all this, and at the same time was conscious that others were watching him.

“It’s disgraceful, sir!” he said to the adjutant. “What—”

He didn’t finish. In that instant there came the bang of the shell, flying splinters like smashed window glass, a choking smell of powder, and Prince Andrew lurched sideways, raising his arm, and fell on his chest. Several officers rushed to him. Blood was pouring from his right side, staining the grass.

The militiamen with stretchers arrived, waiting behind the officers. Prince Andrew lay face down in the grass, breathing heavily.

“What are you waiting for? Come along!”

The peasants came, took him by the shoulders and legs, but he moaned pitifully, and exchanging glances, they set him down again.

“Pick him up, lift him, it makes no difference!” someone shouted.

They picked him up by the shoulders and set him on the stretcher.

“Ah, God! My God! What is it? The stomach? That means death! My God!”—voices among the officers said.

“It went right past my ear,” remarked the adjutant.

The peasants, putting the stretcher on their shoulders, hurried along the path they’d worn going to the dressing station.

“Keep in step! Ah… those peasants!” an officer cried, grabbing them to steady the jostling stretcher.

“Get in step, Fëdor… hey, Fëdor!” said the front peasant.

“That’s more like it now!” said the one behind, pleased to have the rhythm.

“Your excellency! Eh, Prince!” called the trembling voice of Timókhin, who’d run up and now looked down at the stretcher.

Prince Andrew opened his eyes and looked up at Timókhin from the depths of the stretcher, then let his eyelids drop once more.

The militiamen carried Prince Andrew to the dressing station near the woods, where wagons stood. The station comprised three tents with open flaps at the edge of a birch grove. In the woods, wagons and horses stood, the horses eating oats from mobile troughs while sparrows pecked at the fallen grains. Crows, drawn by the scent of blood, flapped among the birch trees, cawing impatiently. All around the tents, over several acres, were bloodstained men of every sort, standing, sitting, or lying. Crowds of soldier stretcher-bearers with grave, attentive faces stood by the wounded, whom officers tried in vain to move away. Ignoring orders, the soldiers leaned on their stretchers, staring intently, as if trying to understand what was happening before them. From the tents came loud, angry shouts, and plaintive moans. Occasionally, medical orderlies ran out for water or to call forward the next case. The wounded who waited their turn outside the tents groaned, sighed, wept, screamed, swore, or begged for vodka. Some were delirious. Prince Andrew’s bearers stepped over the yet-unbandaged wounded, carrying him—being a regimental commander—close to one of the tents, where they stopped to await their turn. Prince Andrew opened his eyes, unable for a long time to make sense of what was happening around him. He remembered the meadow, the wormwood, the field, the spinning black shell, and his sudden surge of passionate love for life. Just two steps away, leaning on a branch and commanding attention, stood a tall, handsome, black-haired noncommissioned officer, his head bandaged, with wounds to both head and leg. Around him, eager stretcher-bearers and wounded men crowded to listen.

“We chased *him* out, so he left everything behind—we even took the King himself!” the man cried, glancing feverishly around. “If only reinforcements had come up then, lads, we’d have finished him off! I promise you….”

Like all those around the speaker, Prince Andrew stared at him with shining eyes and felt a sense of comfort. “But does it matter anymore?” he thought. “And what will come, and what has been? Why was I so afraid to leave life? There was something in this life I did not, and do not, understand.”

##  CHAPTER XXXVII

One of the doctors came out of the tent wearing a bloodstained apron, holding a cigar between the thumb and little finger of one of his small, bloodstained hands so he wouldn’t smear it. He lifted his head and looked around, but above the heads of the wounded men. It was clear he was looking for a brief respite. After turning his head from right to left for a while, he sighed and looked down.

“All right, immediately,” he replied to a dresser who pointed Prince Andrew out to him, and he told them to carry him into the tent.

Murmurs arose from the waiting wounded.

“It seems that even in the next world only the gentry get a chance!” remarked one.

Prince Andrew was carried in and laid on a table that had just been cleared and was being wiped down by a dresser. Prince Andrew couldn’t clearly make out what was in the tent. The pitiful groans from all sides and the excruciating pain in his thigh, stomach, and back distracted him. Everything around him blended into a single impression of naked, bleeding human bodies that seemed to fill the entire low tent, as a few weeks ago, on that hot August day, such bodies had filled the dirty pond beside the Smolensk road. Yes, it was the same flesh, the same *chair à canon*, which had filled him with horror even then, as if by premonition.

There were three operating tables in the tent. Two were occupied, and Prince Andrew was placed on the third. For a little while he was left alone and involuntarily witnessed what was happening on the other two tables. On the nearest one sat a Tartar, probably a Cossack judging by the uniform thrown down beside him. Four soldiers were holding him, and a doctor with spectacles was cutting into his muscular brown back.

“Ooh, ooh, ooh!” grunted the Tartar, and suddenly lifting his dark, snub-nosed face with high cheekbones and showing his white teeth, he began to twist and writhe, letting out piercing, ringing, endless cries. On the other table, around which many people were gathered, a tall, well-fed man lay on his back with his head thrown back. His curly hair, color, and the shape of his head seemed strangely familiar to Prince Andrew. Several dressers were pressing on his chest to hold him down. One large, white, plump leg trembled rapidly and feverishly. The man was sobbing and gasping uncontrollably. Two doctors—one pale and trembling—worked silently on the man's other, bloody leg. When he finished with the Tartar, whom they then covered with an overcoat, the spectacled doctor came over to Prince Andrew, wiping his hands.

He glanced at Prince Andrew’s face and quickly looked away.

“Undress him! What are you waiting for?” he cried out angrily to the dressers.

Prince Andrew’s earliest, farthest memories of childhood came back to him as the dresser, sleeves rolled up, hurriedly undid the buttons of his clothes and undressed him. The doctor leaned over his wound, felt it, and sighed deeply. Then he made a sign to someone, and the terrible pain in Prince Andrew's abdomen caused him to lose consciousness. When he came to, the splintered pieces of his thighbone had been removed, the torn flesh cut away, and the wound bandaged. Water was being sprinkled on his face. As soon as Prince Andrew opened his eyes, the doctor leaned over, kissed him silently on the lips, and quickly left.

After all he had suffered, Prince Andrew was overtaken by a blissful feeling unlike anything he had felt in a long time. All the best and happiest moments of his life—especially his earliest childhood, when he was undressed and put to bed, and the nurse sang him to sleep as he buried his head in the pillow, happy just to be alive—returned to his memory, not just as something past but as something present.

The doctors were busily tending to the wounded man whose head shape seemed familiar to Prince Andrew: they were lifting him and trying to calm him.

“Show it to me... Oh, ooh... Oh! Oh, ooh!” came his frightened moans, muted by pain and broken by sobs.

Hearing these cries made Prince Andrew want to weep. Whether because he was dying without glory, or because he was sad to leave life, or because of those memories of a childhood that would never return, or because he was suffering and others were suffering and that man nearby was groaning so pitifully—he felt moved to tears, childlike, kind, and almost happy.

The wounded man was shown his amputated leg, stained with clotted blood and still wearing the boot.

“Oh! Oh, ooh!” he sobbed, like a woman.

The doctor who had been standing next to him, preventing Prince Andrew from seeing his face, moved away.

“My God! What is this? Why is he here?” thought Prince Andrew.

In the miserable, sobbing, weakened man whose leg had just been amputated, he recognized Anatole Kurágin. Men were holding him up and offering him a glass of water, but his trembling, swollen lips couldn’t grasp its rim. Anatole sobbed painfully. “Yes, it’s him! Yes, that man is somehow closely and painfully connected to me,” thought Prince Andrew, not yet clearly understanding what he saw in front of him. “What is the connection of that man with my childhood and my life?” he wondered without finding an answer. Suddenly a new, unexpected memory from that realm of pure and loving childhood surfaced. He remembered Natasha as he saw her for the first time at the ball in 1810, with her slender neck and arms and her face, frightened and happy, ready for joy, and love and tenderness for her, stronger and more vivid than ever, woke in his heart. Now he remembered the connection between himself and the man dimly looking at him through eyes swollen with tears. He remembered everything, and ecstatic pity and love for that man overflowed his happy heart.

Prince Andrew could no longer hold back and wept tender, loving tears for his fellow men, for himself, and for both his and their mistakes.

“Compassion, love for our brothers—both those who love us and those who hate us, love for our enemies; yes, that love which God preached on earth and which Princess Mary taught me, and which I didn’t understand—that’s what made me sorry to leave life, that’s what would have remained for me if I had lived. But now it’s too late. I know it!”

##  CHAPTER XXXVIII

The dreadful sight of the battlefield strewn with dead and wounded, the heaviness of his own head, the news that some twenty generals he knew personally had been killed or wounded, and the realization of the impotence of his once-mighty arm, had an unexpected effect on Napoleon. Usually, he liked to look at the casualties, believing it tested his strength of mind. But that day, the horror of the battlefield overwhelmed the very strength he considered his greatest quality. He hastily left the field and returned to the Shevárdino knoll, where he sat on his campstool—his sallow face swollen and heavy, his eyes dull, his nose red, and his voice hoarse. He involuntarily listened, eyes downcast, to the sounds of gunfire. In painful dejection, he awaited the end of the battle, which he regarded himself as involved in but was powerless to stop. For a brief moment, genuine human feeling prevailed over the artificial illusion he had long served. He felt personally the suffering and death he had seen on the battlefield. The weight in his head and chest reminded him of his own potential for suffering and death. At that moment, he desired neither Moscow, victory, nor glory—for what more glory could he need? All he wanted was rest, peace, and freedom. Yet, earlier on the Semënovsk heights, the artillery commander had suggested moving several batteries up to intensify the fire on the Russian troops gathered before Knyazkóvo, and Napoleon had agreed, ordering that reports be brought to him about the effect of those batteries.

An adjutant now arrived to report that a concentration of two hundred guns had fired on the Russians as ordered, but the Russians still held their positions.

“Our fire is mowing them down in rows, but still they hold on,” the adjutant said.

“They want more!…” Napoleon replied in a hoarse voice.

“Sir?” the adjutant asked, not having heard the remark.

“They want more!” Napoleon croaked, frowning. “Let them have it!”

Even before he gave that order, the very thing he did not want—an assault for which he gave the order only because it was expected of him—was already happening. He retreated again into that artificial realm of imagined greatness, and, like a horse on a treadmill thinking it's doing something for itself, he passively fulfilled the cruel, sad, gloomy, and inhuman role destined for him.

Not only on that day and hour were the mind and conscience of this man—upon whom the responsibility for all of this rested more than anyone else—darkened. Never, to the end of his life, could he comprehend goodness, beauty, truth, or the meaning of his actions, which were so contrary to goodness and truth, so distant from everything human, that he could never grasp their significance. Unable to repudiate actions that half the world praised, he had to reject truth, goodness, and all humanity.

Not only on that day, as he rode over the battlefield scattered with men killed and maimed (by his own will, as he believed), did he, as he looked at them, calculate how many Russians fell for each Frenchman—and, deceiving himself, find cause for satisfaction in the idea that there were five Russians for every Frenchman. Not on that day alone did he write to Paris that “the battlefield was superb” because fifty thousand corpses lay there. Even on St. Helena, in peaceful solitude, where he intended to devote his leisure to recording his great deeds, he wrote:

The Russian war should have been the most popular war of modern times: it was a war of good sense, for real interests, for the tranquillity and security of all; it was purely pacific and conservative.

It was a war for a great cause, the end of uncertainties and the beginning of security. A new horizon and new labors were opening, full of prosperity and well-being for all. The European system was already founded; all that remained was to organize it.

Satisfied on these great points and with tranquility everywhere, I too should have had my *Congress* and my *Holy Alliance*. Those ideas were stolen from me. In that gathering of great sovereigns, we should have discussed our interests like a family, and rendered account to the peoples as clerk to master.

Europe would soon have been, in reality, but one people, and a traveler anywhere would have found himself always in the common fatherland. I would have demanded the freedom of all navigable rivers for everyone, that the seas should be common to all, and that great standing armies should from then on serve only as guards for the sovereigns.

On returning to France, to the bosom of a great, strong, magnificent, peaceful, and glorious fatherland, I would have declared her borders unchangeable; all future wars purely *defensive*, all expansion *antinational*. I would have brought my son into the Empire; my *dictatorship* would have ended, his constitutional reign begun.

Paris would have been the world’s capital, and the French the envy of all nations!

My retirement and old age would have been spent, in company with the Empress, during my son’s royal apprenticeship, touring every corner of the Empire with our own horses, like a true country couple, receiving complaints, correcting wrongs, and bestowing public buildings and benefactions everywhere.

Napoleon, predestined by Providence for the grim role of executioner of nations, assured himself that the purpose of his actions was the peoples’ welfare, and that by wielding power he could bring about good.

“Of four hundred thousand who crossed the Vistula,” he continued about the Russian war, “half were Austrians, Prussians, Saxons, Poles, Bavarians, Württembergers, Mecklenburgers, Spaniards, Italians, and Neapolitans. The Imperial army, strictly speaking, was one third Dutch, Belgians, men from the Rhine borders, Piedmontese, Swiss, Genevese, Tuscans, Romans, inhabitants of the Thirty-second Military Division, Bremen, Hamburg, and so forth: it included scarcely one hundred and forty thousand who spoke French. The Russian campaign actually cost France fewer than fifty thousand men; the Russian army, in its retreat from Vílna to Moscow, lost in the various battles four times more men than the French; the burning of Moscow caused the deaths of a hundred thousand Russians who died of cold and hunger in the woods; finally, on their march from Moscow to the Oder, the Russian army, too, suffered from the harsh winter; so that by the time it reached Vílna, it counted only fifty thousand, and at Kálisch fewer than eighteen thousand.”

He believed that the war with Russia was of his own making, and the horrors that resulted did not shake his soul. He was bold in assuming full responsibility for all that happened, and his darkened mind found justification in believing that, among the hundreds of thousands who died, there were fewer Frenchmen than Hessians and Bavarians.

##  CHAPTER XXXIX

Many tens of thousands of dead lay in different positions and a variety of uniforms on the fields and meadows that belonged to the Davýdov family and to the crown serfs—lands where, for hundreds of years, the peasants of Borodinó, Górki, Shevárdino, and Semënovsk had harvested and grazed their cattle. At the dressing stations, the grass and earth were stained with blood for three acres around. Crowds of soldiers from different branches—wounded and unwounded, their faces frightened—dragged themselves back to Mozháysk from one army and to Valúevo from the other. More crowds, exhausted and hungry, pushed forward, led by their officers. Others held their positions and kept firing.

Over the whole field, once so cheerfully beautiful with bayonet flashes and little clouds of smoke lit by the morning sun, there now hung a mist of damp and gunpowder smoke, carrying a strange, acidic smell of saltpeter and blood. Clouds gathered, and rain began to fall on the dead and wounded, on the fearful, exhausted, and uncertain men, as if to say: “Enough, men! Enough! Stop… think! What are you doing?”

For men on both sides, exhausted from lack of food and rest, it became equally unclear whether to keep killing each other. All faces showed hesitation, and the same question arose in every heart: “For what, for whom, must I kill and be killed?… Go and kill whomever you like, but I don’t want to do it anymore!” By evening, this thought had fully matured in every soul. At any moment, these men could have been seized by horror at what they were doing and might have abandoned everything and run wherever they could.

But even as, toward the end of the battle, the men felt all the horror of their actions and would have been glad to give up, some strange, mysterious power held them. And still they rolled up the charges, loaded, aimed, and fired, though only one artilleryman survived of every three, and though they stumbled and gasped for breath, sweating and stained with blood and powder. Cannonballs continued to fly swiftly and mercilessly from both sides, destroying human lives, and that terrible work—carried out not by human will but by that of the One who governs men and worlds—went on.

Anyone looking at the disordered rear of the Russian army would have said that if the French made even one more effort, the Russian army would collapse; and anyone looking at the French rear would have said that if the Russians made one more effort, the French would be destroyed. Yet neither side made that effort, and the battle slowly died down.

The Russians did not make that effort because they were not attacking the French. From the start of the battle, they stood blocking the road to Moscow, and at the end they stood there still. But even if the Russians’ aim had been to drive the French out, they could not have attempted it, for every Russian unit had been battered, none remained unscathed, and though they held their ground, HALF their army was lost.

The French, with lingering memories of fifteen years of victory, with faith in Napoleon's invincibility, knowing they had seized parts of the field and lost only a quarter of their men with their Guards still intact—twenty thousand strong—might easily have made that one final push. The French, who had attacked the Russian army to force it from its position, should have made that last effort, for as long as the Russians still barred the Moscow road, the French objective was not achieved and their sacrifices were in vain. But the French did not make that effort. Some historians say that Napoleon only needed to send in his Old Guard, which was intact, and the battle would have been won. To talk about what might have happened if Napoleon had used his Guards is like asking what would happen if autumn turned to spring—it was impossible. Napoleon did not send his Guards, not because he didn’t want to, but because it simply could not be done. All of his generals, officers, and soldiers knew it was impossible because the spirit of the troops was spent.

Not Napoleon alone, but all his generals and soldiers—whether they had fought in the battle or not—after their experience of past victories, where a fraction of such effort had always made the enemy flee, now felt a new terror before an enemy who, after losing HALF his numbers, stood just as threatening at the end as at the beginning. The moral force of the attacking French army was gone. Not the sort of victory defined by capturing physical objects—flags, bits of ground—but a moral victory, one that persuades the enemy of their own powerlessness and of your superiority, was gained by the Russians at Borodinó. The French invaders, like a wounded animal in its last rage, felt they were dying but could not stop, just as the Russian army, though halved, could not help wavering. The French army, by sheer momentum, could still roll on to Moscow, but there, without further resistance from the Russians, it would perish, bleeding from the mortal wound received at Borodinó. The battle's direct result was Napoleon’s senseless flight from Moscow, the disastrous retreat on the old Smolénsk road, the destruction of the half-million-strong invading army, and the collapse of Napoleonic France—a downfall irrevocably marked at Borodinó, where for the first time an opponent of stronger spirit had confronted Napoleon.

##  BOOK ELEVEN: 1812

##  CHAPTER I

Absolute continuity of motion is beyond human comprehension. Laws of motion of any kind only become understandable to us when we examine arbitrarily selected parts of that motion; yet, at the same time, much human error comes from dividing continuous motion into discontinuous segments. There is a well-known ancient paradox that says Achilles could never catch up to the tortoise he is chasing, even though he moves ten times faster. By the time Achilles covers the distance that separated him from the tortoise, the tortoise has moved one tenth further ahead; when Achilles covers that new distance, the tortoise has again moved a hundredth further, and so on indefinitely. To the ancients, this problem seemed impossible to solve. The absurd conclusion—that Achilles can never overtake the tortoise—comes from the arbitrary division of motion into separate elements, while in reality the movement of both Achilles and the tortoise is continuous.

By using smaller and smaller segments of motion, we only get closer to solving the problem, but we never actually solve it. Only when we accept the idea of the infinitely small, and the resulting geometric progression with a ratio of one tenth, and then find the sum of this progression to infinity, do we get a solution.

A modern branch of mathematics has developed the ability to handle the infinitely small and can now provide solutions to more complex problems of motion that previously seemed impossible.

This modern branch of mathematics, unknown to the ancients, deals with motion by admitting the idea of the infinitely small and so meets the main condition of motion (absolute continuity), correcting the unavoidable errors made when the human mind treats motion as a series of separate parts instead of as a continuous process.

The same thing happens when we look for the laws of historical movement. The movement of humanity, which comes from countless individual human wills, is continuous.

The aim of history is to understand the laws of this continuous movement. But to discover these laws, which result from the combination of all those individual wills, people choose arbitrary, disconnected units. The first method of history is to select a series of continuous events and examine it apart from the rest—even though no event truly has a distinct *beginning*, as every event flows continuously from what came before.

The second method is to treat the actions of a single person—a king or a commander—as representing the sum of many individual wills, when in fact the sum of those wills is never truly expressed by any one person’s activity.

Historic science, in its efforts to approach the truth, keeps examining smaller and smaller units. But no matter how small the chosen units, it is clear that picking any unit disconnected from the rest, or claiming a *beginning* for any event, or saying that the will of many is shown through a single historical figure, is inherently false.

It requires little effort to completely break down any historical conclusions. One must simply choose a larger or smaller unit for study—as any critic is entitled to do, since any unit that history examines is always selected arbitrarily.

Only by taking infinitely small units for observation (the differential of history—that is, the individual tendencies of people) and learning how to integrate them (that is, to find the sum of these infinitesimals) can we hope to discover the laws of history.

The first fifteen years of the nineteenth century in Europe display a remarkable movement of millions. People leave their usual lives, race from one side of Europe to the other, loot and kill each other, celebrate victories and sink into despair, and for a few years the order of life is overturned and marked by great movements that first grow then slow. What caused this movement? By what laws was it governed? Such questions arise.

Historians, in answering, present us with the words and deeds of a few dozen men in a building in Paris and call these things “the Revolution”; then they give biographies of Napoleon and some people who supported or opposed him, discuss their influence on each other, and claim: that is why it all happened and what its laws were.

But the human mind not only struggles to believe this, but outright rejects this explanation, calling it false. In this account, a smaller event is treated as the cause of a larger one. The combination of human wills produced both the Revolution and Napoleon, and only those combined wills allowed and then overthrew them.

“But every time there have been conquests, there have been conquerors; every time there has been a revolution there have been great men,” says history. And indeed, common sense agrees: every time there are conquerors, there have been wars—but that does not prove that the conquerors caused the wars or that we can find the causes of wars in the personal actions of one person. Every time I look at my watch and see its hands at ten, I hear the church bells; but since the bells ring when the hands show ten, I have no right to believe that the hands cause the bells to ring.

Whenever I see a locomotive move I hear the whistle and see the wheels turning; but that does not mean the whistle or turning wheels cause the engine to move.

Peasants claim that a cold wind in late spring comes because the oaks are budding, and each year, as the oak buds open, cold winds do arrive. But even if I don't know what really causes the cold winds when the oaks bud, I have to disagree with the peasants’ explanation, because the wind’s force is far beyond what buds can influence. I see only a coincidence of events, as happens with countless other phenomena, and I know that however hard I watch the clock hands, the engine wheels, or the oak trees, I will never find the reason for the bells, the engine, or the winds; I have to change my perspective completely and study the laws behind the movement of steam, bells, or wind. History must do the same. Some have already begun to move in this direction.

To study the laws of history, we must change our approach entirely, abandon kings, ministers, and generals, and focus on the small, almost invisible elements by which the masses move. No one can say how far we might get toward understanding history's laws by this path; but it is clear that only through this method lies the chance of discovery, and that not one millionth as much intellectual effort has been spent in this direction as has been spent recounting the deeds of various kings, commanders, and ministers, or adding historians’ own thoughts about those deeds.

##  CHAPTER II

The armies of a dozen European nations surged into Russia. The Russian army and people avoided confrontation until Smolénsk, and again from Smolénsk to Borodinó. The French army pressed forward for Moscow, gaining even more speed as it neared its target, just as a falling object speeds up as it approaches the ground. Behind it lay seven hundred miles of starving, hostile territory; ahead, only a few dozen miles to its goal. Every French soldier felt this, and the invasion continued by its own momentum.

The more the Russian army retreated, the more strongly hatred for the enemy burned; and as it withdrew, the army grew in size and unity. At Borodinó, the two sides finally clashed. Neither army was destroyed, but the Russians pulled back soon after the battle, just as a ball bounces away after striking something with more momentum, and similarly, the invading force kept rolling ahead for a while, even though the collision had drained all its force.

The Russians withdrew another eighty miles—beyond Moscow—and the French reached Moscow and halted. For five weeks, not a single battle was fought. The French did not move. Like a wounded, dying animal licking its wounds, they stayed motionless in Moscow for five weeks, and then suddenly, for no new reason, fled: they rushed toward the Kalúga road, and (after a victory—since they held the field at Málo-Yaroslávets) they kept fleeing even faster back to Smolénsk, beyond Smolénsk, past the Berëzina, beyond Vílna, and on and on.

On the evening of August twenty-sixth, Kutúzov and the entire Russian army believed the battle of Borodinó was a victory. Kutúzov reported this to the Emperor. He gave orders for a new attack to finish the enemy, and he did this not to mislead anyone, but because he truly believed the enemy was defeated, just as everyone who fought in the battle believed.

But all that night and the next day, reports kept arriving of disastrous losses, of half the army gone, and a new battle was clearly impossible.

*It was impossible* to fight again before the wounded were collected, information gathered, ammunition supplies restocked, the dead counted, new officers chosen to replace the fallen, and the men fed and rested. Meanwhile, the very next morning, the French army advanced on the Russians, now moving by momentum that seemed to increase the further they were from their goal. Kutúzov wanted to attack the next day, as did the whole army. But wanting to attack isn’t enough; it must also be possible, and that was not the case. They had no choice but to retreat a day’s march, then another, and another—until, on September first, when the army approached Moscow, circumstances forced the retreat beyond the city, no matter how strong the feeling was against it. One last day’s retreat, and the troops abandoned Moscow to the enemy.

Those used to thinking that campaigns and battles are made by generals—as any of us might imagine if planning a battle over a map in our own home—ask: Why didn’t Kutúzov do this while retreating? Why didn’t he take up a position before Filí? Why not retreat straight to the Kalúga road, saving Moscow? and so on. People who think this way forget, or don’t understand, the unavoidable conditions that always limit a commander-in-chief’s actions. A commander-in-chief’s work is nothing like what we imagine as we comfortably plan some campaign with fixed numbers and locations, always starting at a defined point. He is never working from the *beginning* of an event, as we see it; instead, he is always in the midst of shifting, ongoing events, and so can never see the full meaning of any current moment. Moment by moment, events shape themselves, and at every instant the commander-in-chief is caught in a complex web of intrigues, urgencies, authorities, plans, arguments, warnings, and confusion, constantly forced to answer countless conflicting demands.

Military experts often say that Kutúzov should have moved to the Kalúga road before Filí, and they claim someone actually suggested this to him. But a commander in chief, especially at a critical moment, is never presented with only one idea but many at once. And these strategies all contradict each other.

It might seem the commander’s job is simply to pick one, but he cannot even do that. Events and time do not wait. For example, on the twenty-eighth it’s suggested he cross to the Kalúga road, but then an adjutant rides up from Milorádovich asking whether to fight or retreat. He must be answered immediately, and if the order is to retreat, the chance to take the Kalúga road is lost. Next comes the commissary general asking about supplies, then the chief of hospitals about the wounded, then a messenger from Petersburg with a letter from the Tsar forbidding the surrender of Moscow, and at the same time, rivals with competing plans—perhaps the exact opposite of the Kalúga move—appear, and the commander-in-chief himself needs rest, and a general angry over rewards comes to complain, and locals beg for protection, and officers return with conflicting reports about the enemy. Critics who forget these realities tell us, for example, that the army’s position at Filí meant the commander could freely choose, on September first, to abandon or defend Moscow; but with the army less than four miles from Moscow, no such choice existed. When was that decision made? At Drissa, Smolénsk, on August twenty-fourth at Shevárdino, on the twenty-sixth at Borodinó, and every hour of the retreat to Filí.

##  CHAPTER III

When Ermólov, who was sent by Kutúzov to assess the position, told the field marshal that it was impossible to fight there before Moscow and that they must retreat, Kutúzov stared at him in silence.

“Give me your hand,” he said, turning it over to feel the pulse, and added, “You are not well, my dear fellow. Think about what you’re saying!”

Kutúzov still could not accept the idea of retreating beyond Moscow without a battle.

On Poklónny Hill, four miles from Moscow’s Dorogomílov gate, Kutúzov got out of his carriage and sat by the roadside on a bench. A large group of generals gathered around him, and Count Rostopchín, who had come out from Moscow, joined them. This distinguished gathering split into several groups, all discussing the pros and cons of their position, the state of the army, different proposals, Moscow’s situation, and military topics in general. Although they weren’t summoned for the purpose, and it wasn’t formally named as such, everyone sensed this was a true council of war. Discussions stayed focused on public matters. If someone mentioned personal news, it was whispered, and then they returned to official topics. There were no jokes, laughter, or even smiles—everyone seemed to make an effort to rise to the seriousness the situation demanded. While talking, each group tried to stay near the commander-in-chief and make sure he could overhear. He listened to what was said, sometimes asking for remarks to be repeated, but never expressed his own opinion or joined the conversation. After listening to a group, he usually turned away in disappointment, as if they weren’t discussing what he needed to hear. Some debated the chosen position, criticizing those who picked it. Others said a mistake had been made earlier and that a battle should have been fought two days before. Yet another group talked about the battle of Salamanca, as described by Crosart, a recently arrived Frenchman in Spanish uniform (this man and a German prince with the Russian army discussed the siege of Saragossa and wondered if Moscow could be defended the same way). Count Rostopchín told a fourth group he was ready to die with the city’s militia, but regretted not being told sooner what was happening and that things would have been different had he known…. A fifth group, displaying their strategic insight, discussed where the troops should go next. A sixth group talked nonsense. Kutúzov’s face became more and more troubled and grim. From all this discussion, he saw only one truth: defending Moscow was a *physical impossibility*—so impossible that if any foolish commander gave the order to fight, only chaos would result, not a real battle. It would not happen, because the commanders knew it was impossible and spent their time discussing what would follow surrender. How could officers lead troops into a hopeless battle? Even lower-rank officers and common soldiers reasoned for themselves that holding the position was impossible and so would not willingly fight, knowing they would be defeated. If Bennigsen kept arguing that the position could be held, or others kept debating it, that was only a cover for arguments and intrigue, not sincere discussion. Kutúzov understood this well.

Bennigsen, who had chosen the position, passionately expressed his Russian patriotism (Kutúzov could hardly listen to this without discomfort) by insisting Moscow had to be defended. It was clear to Kutúzov why he did so: if the defense failed, Bennigsen could blame Kutúzov for retreating to the Sparrow Hills without battling; if they held the city, he would take the credit; or, if Moscow were surrendered without a fight, Bennigsen could clear himself of guilt. But this scheming was the least of Kutúzov’s concerns. One dreadful question consumed him, and to it he heard no answer from anyone. His question was: “Have I really let Napoleon reach Moscow, and when did it happen? Was it when I ordered Plátov to retreat yesterday? Was it the night before, when I napped and told Bennigsen to issue orders? Or even earlier?… When, when did this terrible outcome become certain? Moscow must be given up. The army must retreat, and I must give that order.” Giving such a terrible order seemed to him like resigning his command. And not only did he love the power he was used to (the honors given to Prince Prozoróvski, whom he had served in Turkey, stung him), but he felt sure he was destined to save Russia, and that was why, against the Tsar’s wishes and by the will of the people, he had been made commander-in-chief. He believed that only he could keep hold of the army in this crisis, that only he in the world could face the unbeatable Napoleon without fear, and he was horrified at the thought of the order he must give. But a decision was needed, and these conversations, which were becoming too unrestrained, had to be ended.

He called the key generals to him.

“My head, good or bad, must depend on itself,” he said, rising from the bench, and then he rode off to Filí where his carriages were waiting.

##  CHAPTER IV

The Council of War began to gather at two in the afternoon in the better and more spacious part of Andrew Savostyánov’s hut. The men, women, and children of the large peasant family crowded into the back room across the passage. Only Malásha, Andrew’s six-year-old granddaughter, whom his Serene Highness had petted and to whom he had given a lump of sugar while having his tea, remained perched on top of the brick oven in the larger room. Malásha looked down from the oven with shy delight at the faces, uniforms, and decorations of the generals, who came into the room one by one and sat down on the broad benches in the corner beneath the icons. “Granddad” himself, as Malásha privately called Kutúzov, sat apart in a dark corner behind the oven. He sat, sunken deep in a folding armchair, and continually cleared his throat and tugged at the collar of his coat which, though unbuttoned, still seemed to press on his neck. Those who entered went up one by one to the field marshal; he pressed the hands of some and nodded to others. His adjutant Kaysárov was about to pull back the curtain of the window facing Kutúzov, but the latter waved his hand irritably and Kaysárov understood that his Serene Highness did not want his face to be seen.

Around the peasant’s simple table, on which there were maps, plans, pencils, and papers, so many people gathered that the orderlies brought in another bench and placed it beside the table. Ermólov, Kaysárov, and Toll, who had just arrived, sat on this bench. In the place of honor, directly under the icons, sat Barclay de Tolly, his high forehead merging into his bald crown. He had a St. George’s Cross around his neck and looked pale and unwell. He had been feverish for two days and now shivered and suffered. Beside him sat Uvárov, who, with quick gestures, was giving him some information, speaking in low tones as everyone did. Chubby little Dokhtúrov was listening closely with raised eyebrows and arms crossed on his stomach. On the other side sat Count Ostermann-Tolstóy, apparently absorbed in his own thoughts. His broad head with bold features and gleaming eyes rested on his hand. Raévski, brushing forward the black hair on his temples as was his habit, glanced now at Kutúzov and then at the door with a look of impatience. Konovnítsyn’s strong, handsome, and kind face was lit up by a gentle, sly smile. His eyes met Malásha’s, and the expression in them made the little girl smile.

They were all waiting for Bennigsen, who, on the pretext of inspecting the position, was finishing his savory dinner. They waited for him from four until six o’clock and did not begin their deliberations during that time, but talked quietly of other matters.

Only after Bennigsen entered the hut did Kutúzov leave his corner and approach the table, though not close enough for the candles on the table to illuminate his face.

Bennigsen opened the council with the question: “Are we to abandon Russia’s ancient and sacred capital without a struggle, or are we to defend it?” A long and general silence followed. Every face was dark with a frown, and only Kutúzov’s gruff mutterings and occasional cough broke the silence. All eyes turned to him. Malásha also looked at “Granddad.” She was closest to him and saw his face crumple; he seemed about to weep, but it passed quickly.

*“Russia’s ancient and sacred capital!”* he suddenly exclaimed, repeating Bennigsen’s words in an angry voice and drawing attention to their hollow ring. “Allow me to tell you, your excellency, that that question has no meaning for a Russian.” (He lurched his heavy body forward.) “Such a question cannot be put; it makes no sense! The question I have asked these gentlemen to discuss is a military one. The point is to save Russia. Is it better to give up Moscow without a battle, or, by accepting battle, risk the army as well as Moscow? That is the question for your consideration,” and he sank back into his chair.

The discussion began. Bennigsen did not yet consider his cause lost. Accepting the opinion of Barclay and others that a defensive battle at Filí was impossible, but filled with Russian patriotism and a love for Moscow, he proposed shifting troops from the right to the left flank during the night to attack the French right flank the next day. Opinions were divided, arguments for and against were presented. Ermólov, Dokhtúrov, and Raévski agreed with Bennigsen. Perhaps feeling a need to make a sacrifice before abandoning the capital, or for personal reasons, these generals seemed unable to see that this council could not change the inevitable course of events, and that Moscow was, in reality, already abandoned. The other generals, however, understood this and, leaving aside the question of Moscow, discussed which direction the army should take in retreat. Malásha, who kept her eyes fixed on what was happening before her, saw the council differently. To her, it was simply a personal struggle between “Granddad” and “Long-coat” as she called Bennigsen. She saw that they grew angry when speaking to each other, and in her heart she sided with “Granddad.” In the middle of the conversation, she noticed “Granddad” give Bennigsen a quick, sharp glance, and to her delight, saw that “Granddad” said something to “Long-coat” that settled the matter. Bennigsen flushed red and walked angrily up and down the room. What upset him so was Kutúzov’s calm and quiet remark about the pros and cons of Bennigsen’s proposal to move troops by night from right to left to attack the French right wing.

“Gentlemen,” said Kutúzov, “I cannot support the count’s plan. Moving troops close to an enemy is always risky, and military history proves this. For example…” Kutúzov paused, searching for an example, then with a clear, naïve look at Bennigsen he added: “Oh yes; take the battle of Friedland, which I think the count well remembers, and which ended… not quite successfully, only because our troops were rearranged too close to the enemy….”

A momentary silence followed, which seemed long to everyone.

The discussion resumed, but with frequent pauses, as they all felt there was little left to say.

During one of these pauses Kutúzov gave a deep sigh as if about to speak. They all looked at him.

“Well, gentlemen, it seems I am the one who must pay for the broken dishes,” he said, and rising slowly, moved to the table. “Gentlemen, I have heard your views. Some of you will disagree with me. But I,” he paused, “by the authority given to me by my Sovereign and my country, order a retreat.”

After that, the generals began to leave with the solemnity and respectful silence of mourners leaving after a funeral.

Some of the generals, in low voices and in a tone very different than before, said a few things to their commander in chief.

Malásha, long overdue for supper, climbed carefully backwards down from the oven, her bare little feet catching at its edges, and slipping between the generals’ legs she darted out of the room.

When he had dismissed the generals, Kutúzov sat for a long time with his elbows on the table, always thinking of the same grave question: “When, when did the abandonment of Moscow become inevitable? When was the thing done that settled it? And who was to blame?”

“I did not expect this,” he said to his adjutant Schneider when the latter came in late that night. “I did not expect this! I did not think this would happen.”

“You should get some rest, your Serene Highness,” Schneider replied.

“But no! They shall eat horseflesh yet, like the Turks!” protested Kutúzov, not answering directly, striking the table with his pudgy fist. “They shall, too, if only…”

##  CHAPTER V

At that very time, in circumstances even more significant than retreating without a battle—namely, the evacuation and burning of Moscow—Rostopchín, who is usually blamed as the instigator of that event, acted in a completely different way than Kutúzov.

After the battle of Borodinó, the abandonment and burning of Moscow was as inevitable as the army’s retreat beyond Moscow without fighting.

Every Russian might have expected it, not through reasoning but through the feeling planted in each of us and in our forefathers.

What happened in Moscow had already taken place in all the towns and villages on Russian soil since Smolénsk, without any help from Count Rostopchín and his pamphlets. The people awaited the enemy without agitation, did not riot or become hysterical or tear anyone to pieces, but faced their fate, feeling in themselves the strength to decide what they should do at that most difficult time. And as soon as the enemy approached, the wealthy classes left, abandoning their property, while the poorer remained and burned and destroyed what remained.

The certainty that this would happen, and would always happen, exists in the heart of every Russian. And a sense of this, along with the foreboding that Moscow would fall, was present in Russian Moscow society in 1812. Those who had already left Moscow in July and early August proved they expected this. Those who left, taking what they could and abandoning their homes and much of their belongings, did so from a deep-seated patriotism which shows itself not in slogans or in giving up one’s children for the fatherland or other artificial gestures, but quietly, simply, naturally, and thus in the manner that produces the greatest results.

“It is disgraceful to run from danger; only cowards are leaving Moscow,” they were told. Rostopchín, in his pamphlets, insisted that leaving Moscow was shameful. They were ashamed to be called cowards, ashamed to go, but still they left, knowing it had to be done. Why did they go? It’s impossible to claim Rostopchín scared them with stories of Napoleon’s atrocities in conquered cities. The first to leave were the wealthy, educated people who knew very well that Vienna and Berlin had remained safe and that those cities’ residents had lived pleasantly with the charming Frenchmen, whom Russians—especially Russian women—then liked so much.

They left because, for Russians, it was unthinkable to live under French rule in Moscow; it would be the worst thing imaginable. They left even before Borodinó and still more quickly afterward, regardless of Rostopchín’s calls to defend Moscow, his announcement that he would take the miracle-working icon of the Iberian Mother of God to battle, or his talk of balloons to destroy the French, and despite all the nonsense he wrote in his pamphlets. They knew the army could fight, but if it failed, it made no sense to lead young ladies and house serfs to the Three Hills part of Moscow to fight Napoleon; they must leave, sorry as they were to abandon their possessions to destruction. They went without thinking about the enormous significance of leaving such a great and rich city, for a city built of wood, once abandoned, was certain to burn. Each left in their own way, but only because they did so was the historic event accomplished that will always be the greatest glory of the Russian people. The lady who, afraid of being stopped by Rostopchín's orders, moved her servants and jesters from Moscow to her Sarátov estate as early as June, with a vague sense that she was not meant to serve Bonaparte, was really, simply, and truly taking part in the great act that saved Russia. But Count Rostopchín, who at one moment taunted those who left Moscow and at another had government offices moved; who passed out useless weapons to drunken crowds; who organized religious processions one day and forbade someone from removing icons the next; who seized all private carts in Moscow and used one hundred and thirty-six to remove the balloon being built by Leppich; who at times hinted he would burn Moscow and bragged about burning his own house; who wrote a proclamation to the French, upbraiding them for destroying his orphanage, and now claimed he had hinted at burning Moscow and next denied any part in it; who ordered people to arrest all spies and then scolded them for doing it; who expelled the French residents but allowed Madame Aubert-Chalmé (the center of the French community) to stay, but had the respected old postmaster Klyucharëv arrested and exiled for no reason; who gathered people at the Three Hills to fight the French and then, to get rid of them, handed over a man to be killed and slipped away by the back gate; who declared he could not survive the loss of Moscow and then wrote French verses in albums celebrating his own role—this man did not understand what was actually happening. He only wanted to do something that would impress people, to perform some patriotic, heroic act; and like a child, he played with the great, unavoidable event—the abandonment and burning of Moscow—trying with his weak efforts sometimes to hasten, sometimes to stop the overwhelming, popular tide that swept him along with it.

##  CHAPTER VI

Hélène, having returned with the court from Vílna to Petersburg, found herself in a difficult situation.

In Petersburg she had enjoyed the particular protection of a grandee who held one of the highest positions in the Empire. In Vílna she had started an intimate relationship with a young foreign prince. When she came back to Petersburg, both the grandee and the prince were present, and both claimed their rights. Hélène now faced a new problem—how to keep her relationship with both men without offending either.

What would have seemed difficult or even impossible to another woman did not cause the slightest embarrassment to Countess Bezúkhova, who certainly lived up to her reputation as a very clever woman. Had she tried concealment, or attempted to escape her awkward situation by cunning, she would have only hurt her case by admitting her own guilt. But Hélène, like a truly great person who believes they can do whatever they wish, immediately assumed her own position was correct, as she sincerely believed, and that everyone else was at fault.

The first time the young foreigner dared to reproach her, she lifted her beautiful head and, half turning to him, said firmly, “That’s just like a man—selfish and cruel! I expected nothing else. A woman sacrifices herself for you, she suffers, and this is her reward! What right have you, monseigneur, to question my attachments and friendships? He is a man who has been more than a father to me!” The prince started to respond, but Hélène cut him off.

“Well, yes,” she said, “it may be that he has other feelings for me than those of a father, but that doesn’t mean I should shut him out. I am not a man, that I should repay kindness with ingratitude! Know, monseigneur, that when it comes to my most personal feelings, I answer only to God and my conscience,” she concluded, placing her hand on her beautiful, fully revealed bosom and looking up toward heaven.

“But for heaven’s sake, listen to me!”

“Marry me, and I’ll be your slave!”

“But that’s impossible.”

“You refuse to lower yourself by marrying me, you…” said Hélène, starting to cry.

The prince tried to comfort her, but Hélène, acting quite distraught, insisted through her tears that there was nothing stopping her from marrying, that there were precedents (though there were very few, she mentioned Napoleon and some other high-ranking figures), that she had never truly been her husband’s wife, and that she had been made a victim.

“But the law, religion…” said the prince, already giving in.

“The law, religion… What were they invented for if they can’t arrange that?” said Hélène.

The prince was surprised that such a simple thought hadn’t occurred to him, and he turned for advice to the holy brethren of the Society of Jesus, with whom he was on friendly terms.

A few days later, at one of those enchanting events that Hélène hosted at her country house on Stone Island, the charming Monsieur de Jobert—a man no longer young, with snow-white hair and brilliant black eyes, a Jesuit *à robe courte* \*—was introduced to her. In the garden, under the light of lanterns and with music playing, he spoke to her at length about the love of God, of Christ, of the Sacred Heart, and about the comfort the one true Catholic Church provides in this world and the next. Hélène was moved, and more than once tears came to her eyes and to Monsieur de Jobert’s as well, their voices trembling with emotion. A dance, for which her partner came to fetch her, ended her conversation with her future *directeur de conscience*, but the following evening Monsieur de Jobert visited Hélène while she was alone, and after that, visited her often.

\* Lay member of the Society of Jesus.

One day he took the countess to a Roman Catholic church, where she knelt before the altar to which he led her. The captivating, middle-aged Frenchman put his hands on her head and, as Hélène later described, she felt something like a fresh breeze flow into her soul. It was explained to her that this was *la grâce*.

After that, a long-robed abbé was brought to her. She confessed to him, and he absolved her of her sins. The next day she received a box containing the Sacred Host, which was left at her house for her to partake of. A few days later Hélène learned, to her delight, that she had now been admitted to the true Catholic Church and that in a few days, the Pope himself would hear about her and send her an official document.

All that was done around her and for her at this time, the attention paid to her by so many intelligent men and expressed in such pleasant, refined ways, along with the sense of dove-like purity she now felt (she wore only white dresses and white ribbons all this time), brought her real pleasure. Yet her pleasure never distracted her from her goal. And, as often happens, in contests of cunning the less clever wins over the smarter ones; Hélène—having realized that the main goal of all these words and efforts was, after converting her to Catholicism, to obtain money from her for Jesuit institutions (as she sensed)—insisted, before parting with her money, that all the necessary steps to free her from her husband be taken. In her mind, the purpose of every religion was simply to maintain certain proprieties while satisfying human desires. With this in mind, in one of her conversations with her Father Confessor, she pressed for an answer to the question: how far was she still bound by her marriage?

They sat together at dusk by a window in the drawing room. The smell of flowers drifted in through the open window. Hélène wore a white dress, transparent over her shoulders and chest. The abbé, a well-fed man with a plump, clean-shaven chin, a pleasant, firm mouth, and white hands meekly folded in his lap, sat close to Hélène and, with a subtle smile and a look of satisfaction at her beauty, occasionally glanced at her face as he explained his opinion. Hélène, with an uneasy smile, looked at his curly hair and his plump, smooth cheeks, always expecting the conversation to take a different turn. But the abbé, though clearly pleased by the beauty of his companion, was focused on his mastery of the topic.

The Father Confessor’s explanation went as follows: “Unaware of the true significance of your actions, you made a vow of marital fidelity to a man who, by entering the marriage state without believing in the religious meaning of marriage, committed sacrilege. That marriage lacked the dual significance it should have had. Still, your vow was binding. You broke it. So what was your sin? Venial, or mortal? Venial, for you acted without evil intent. If now you marry again with the purpose of having children, your sin could be forgiven. But the issue brings up another question: firstly…”

But suddenly Hélène, growing bored, said with one of her enchanting smiles: “But I think that now I have accepted the true religion I cannot be bound by what a false religion imposed on me.”

Her spiritual director was taken aback by this simple yet profound argument, reminiscent of Columbus’ egg. He was pleased with the unexpected progress of his pupil, but could not abandon the intricate reasoning he had carefully laid out.

“Let us understand each other, Countess,” he said with a smile, and he began to refute his spiritual daughter's argument.

##  CHAPTER VII

Hélène realized that, from an ecclesiastical point of view, the matter was quite straightforward, and that her advisors were only hesitating because they were worried about how the secular authorities would perceive the situation.

So she decided she needed to prepare society’s opinion ahead of time. She provoked jealousy in the elderly magnate, telling him the same thing she had told her other suitor; in other words, she made it clear that the only way he could have any rightful claim over her was through marriage. The elderly magnate was at first just as shocked at the idea of marrying a woman whose husband was still alive as the younger man had been, but Hélène’s unshakeable belief that it was as simple and natural as marrying a single woman eventually won him over, too. If Hélène had shown even the slightest hesitation, shame, or secrecy, her case would certainly have been lost. But not only did she show no signs of secrecy or shame—instead, with good-natured innocence, she told her close friends (who happened to be all of Petersburg) that both the prince and the magnate had proposed to her, and that she loved both and was afraid of hurting either one.

A rumor quickly spread through Petersburg—not that Hélène wanted to divorce her husband (if such a rumor had circulated, many would have objected to such an illegal act), but simply that the unfortunate and interesting Hélène was indecisive about which man to marry. The debate was no longer about whether it was possible, but which man was the better catch and how the matter would be received at court. True, there were still some strict individuals who could not rise to the level of the conversation, who saw the plan as a desecration of the sacrament of marriage—but there were not many of these, and they kept quiet. Most people were interested in Hélène’s good fortune and in debating which match would be more beneficial. Whether it was right or wrong to remarry while one’s husband was alive was not discussed; that issue had apparently already been resolved by people “wiser than you or me,” as they said, and to question their decision would be to risk revealing one’s own ignorance and inability to function in society.

Only Márya Dmítrievna Akhrosímova, who had come to Petersburg that summer to visit one of her sons, openly voiced a contrary opinion. At a ball, she intercepted Hélène in the middle of the room and, amid general silence, said in her gruff voice: “So, wives of living men are marrying again now! Do you think you’re doing something new? You’ve been beaten to it, my dear—it’s been thought of long ago. That’s how it’s done in all the brothels,” and with these words Márya Dmítrievna, turning up her wide sleeves in her usual threatening manner and glaring around, strode across the room.

Although people feared Márya Dmítrievna, in Petersburg she was considered a bit of a jester, so from her speech they only picked up, and repeated in whispers, the one crude word she’d used, assuming the whole force of her comment lay in that word.

Prince Vasíli, who lately often forgot what he had said and would repeat himself a hundred times, would say to his daughter whenever he happened to see her:

“Hélène, I have a word to say to you,” and he would take her aside, pulling her hand gently downward. “I’ve heard of certain plans involving… you know. Well, my dear child, you know your father’s heart rejoices to hear that you… You have been through so much… But, my dear, just listen to your own heart. That’s all I want to say,” and with a show of restrained emotion, he would press his cheek to his daughter’s and walk away.

Bilíbin, who still maintained his reputation as an exceptionally clever man, was one of those disinterested friends whom a brilliant woman like Hélène always attracts—the kind of friends who never become lovers. He once offered Hélène his opinion on the subject at a small private gathering.

“Listen, Bilíbin,” said Hélène (she always called such friends by their surnames), touching his coat sleeve with her white, ring-laden fingers. “Tell me, as you would a sister, what should I do? Which one?”

Bilíbin wrinkled the skin above his eyebrows and thought a moment, a smile on his lips.

“You’re not catching me off guard, you know,” he replied. “As a true friend, I have thought and thought again about your situation. You see, if you marry the prince” (he meant the younger man and crooked one finger), “you lose forever the chance to marry the other, and you’ll also displease the court. (There’s some connection there, you know.) But if you marry the old count, you’ll make his last days happy, and as the widow of the Grand… the prince would no longer be making a *mésalliance* by marrying you,” explained Bilíbin, smoothing his forehead.

“That’s a true friend!” Hélène replied, beaming, touching Bilíbin’s sleeve again. “But I love them both, you know, and I don’t want to hurt either. I would give my life for the happiness of both.”

Bilíbin shrugged, as if to say even he couldn’t solve that problem.

*“Une maîtresse-femme!*\* That’s what it means to lay things out plainly. She’d like to be married to all three at once,” he thought.

\* A masterly woman.

“But tell me, what will your husband think?” Bilíbin asked. With his reputation firmly established, he wasn’t afraid to ask such a naïve question. “Will he agree?”

“Oh, he loves me so much!” said Hélène, who for some reason believed Pierre still loved her. “He’ll do anything for me.”

Bilíbin prepared for something witty.

“Even divorce you?” he said.

Hélène laughed.

Among those who dared to question the rightness of the proposed marriage was Hélène’s mother, Princess Kurágina. She was always tormented by jealousy toward her daughter, and since this subject was so close to her own heart, she could not accept the idea. She consulted a Russian priest about the possibility of divorce and remarriage while a husband was living, and the priest told her it was impossible. To her delight, he showed her a Gospel passage which (as he saw it) clearly forbade remarriage while one’s husband was still alive.

Confident with these arguments—which seemed unanswerable to her—she drove to her daughter’s house early one morning, hoping to find her alone.

After listening patiently to her mother’s objections, Hélène smiled kindly and ironically.

“But it says clearly: ‘Whoever marries her who is divorced…’” the old princess insisted.

*“Ah, Maman, ne dites pas de bêtises. Vous ne comprenez rien. Dans ma position j’ai des devoirs,”* \* said Hélène, switching from Russian (in which her case never sounded quite convincing to her) to French, which she felt suited the situation better.

\* “Oh, Mamma, don’t talk nonsense! You don’t understand anything. In my situation, I have obligations.”

“But, my dear—”

“Oh, Mamma, how can you not understand that the Holy Father, who has the power to grant dispensations…”

Just then, the lady’s companion who lived with Hélène came in to announce that His Highness was in the ballroom and wished to see her.

*“Non, dites-lui que je ne veux pas le voir, que je suis furieuse contre lui, parce qu’il m’a manqué parole.”* \*

\* “No, tell him I don’t want to see him, I’m furious with him for breaking his promise to me.”

*“Comtesse, à tout péché miséricorde,”* \* said a fair-haired young man with a long face and nose as he entered the room.

\* “Countess, there’s mercy for every sin.”

The old princess rose respectfully and curtsied. The young man paid her no attention. The princess nodded to her daughter and slipped out of the room.

“Yes, she’s right,” thought the old princess, all her convictions vanishing at the sight of His Highness. “She is right, but why didn’t we know it in our own unrecoverable youth? And yet, it’s all so simple,” she thought as she got into her carriage.

By the beginning of August, Hélène’s affairs were perfectly arranged, and she wrote a letter to her husband—whom, she believed, still loved her very much—informing him of her intention to marry N.N. and that she had embraced the only true faith, asking him to complete all the necessary paperwork for the divorce, which would be explained by the bearer of her letter.

And so I pray God to keep you, my friend, in His holy and powerful care—Your friend Hélène.

This letter arrived at Pierre’s house while he was on the field at Borodinó.

##  CHAPTER VIII

Toward the end of the battle of Borodinó, Pierre, having run down from Raévski’s battery a second time, made his way through a gully to Knyazkóvo with a crowd of soldiers, reached the dressing station, and seeing blood and hearing cries and groans, hurried on, still tangled up in the crowds of soldiers.

All he now wanted with his whole heart was to escape quickly from the awful sensations that had consumed him that day and return to his normal life—to sleep quietly in a room, in his own bed. He felt that only in his usual surroundings could he make sense of himself and everything he had seen and felt. But such normal conditions were nowhere to be found.

Even though shells and bullets no longer whistled over the road he walked, everything around him was just as it had been on the battlefield. There were still the same faces—suffering, exhausted, sometimes strangely indifferent—the same blood, the same soldiers’ coats, the same sound of gunfire which, though more distant now, still caused fear. On top of all this, there was the foul air and dust.

After walking a couple of miles along the Mozháysk road, Pierre sat down by the roadside.

Dusk had fallen, and the roar of the guns had faded away. Pierre lay, propped on his elbow for a long time, staring at the shadows moving past him in the darkness. He kept imagining a cannonball was speeding toward him with a terrible whizz, and then he would shudder and sit up. He had no idea how long he had been there. In the middle of the night, three soldiers brought some firewood, settled down near him, and began to light a fire.

The soldiers, casting quick glances at Pierre, got the fire going and set an iron pot on it. They broke up some dried bread and added a little dripping. The pleasant smell of greasy food mixed with the smoke. Pierre sat up and sighed. The three soldiers ate and talked among themselves, ignoring him.

“And who might you be?” one of them asked Pierre suddenly, clearly meaning what Pierre himself was thinking: “If you want to eat, we’ll feed you, just let us know you're one of us.”

“I, I…” Pierre said, feeling he needed to downplay his status as much as possible to be closer to the soldiers and better understood by them. “Technically, I’m a militia officer, but my men aren’t here. I came to the battle and lost them.”

“There now!” said one of the soldiers.

Another shook his head.

“Would you like a little mash?” the first soldier asked, handing Pierre a wooden spoon after licking it clean.

Pierre sat down by the fire and started eating the mash, as they called the food in the pot, and thought it was more delicious than anything he had ever tasted. As he bent over it, taking large spoonfuls and chewing one after another, his face glowed in the firelight and the soldiers watched him in silence.

“Where are you headed? Tell us!” asked one of them.

“To Mozháysk.”

“You’re a gentleman, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“And what’s your name?”

“Peter Kirílych.”

“Well then, Peter Kirílych, come with us, we’ll take you there.”

In the complete darkness, the soldiers walked with Pierre toward Mozháysk.

By the time they neared Mozháysk and started climbing the steep hill into the town, the roosters were already crowing. Pierre continued with the soldiers, completely forgetting that his inn was at the bottom of the hill and that he had already passed it. He wouldn’t have remembered for some time—so lost was he in thought—if he hadn’t, halfway up the hill, run into his groom, who had been searching for him in town and was returning to the inn. The groom recognized Pierre in the darkness by his white hat.

“Your excellency!” he said. “We were almost giving up hope! How did you end up on foot? And where were you going, sir?”

“Oh, yes!” said Pierre.

The soldiers stopped.

“So you found your people?” one of them said. “Well, goodbye, Peter Kirílych, isn’t it?”

“Goodbye, Peter Kirílych!” Pierre heard the other voices echo.

“Goodbye!” he replied, turning with his groom toward the inn.

“I should give them something,” he thought, reaching into his pocket. “No, better not,” said another, inner voice.

There wasn’t a single room available at the inn—they were all taken. Pierre went out to the yard and, covering himself head and all, lay down in his carriage.

##  CHAPTER IX

Pierre had barely laid his head on the pillow before he began to fall asleep, but suddenly, with almost the clarity of reality, he heard the *boom, boom, boom* of cannon, the thud of shells, groans and cries, and smelled blood and gunpowder. A wave of horror and fear of death washed over him. Terrified, he opened his eyes and lifted his head from under his cloak. All was calm in the yard. Only someone’s orderly passed through the gateway, splashing through the mud, talking to the innkeeper. Above Pierre’s head, some pigeons, disturbed by his movement as he sat up, fluttered under the dark penthouse roof. The whole courtyard was filled with the strong, peaceful smell of stables—pleasant to Pierre at that moment. Between the dark roofs of the penthouses, he could see the clear, starry sky.

“Thank God, it’s over!” he thought, pulling the cloak back over his head. “Oh, how horrible fear is, and how shamefully I gave in to it! But they… *they* stayed steady and calm to the end…” he thought.

*They*, for Pierre, were the soldiers—those who had been at the battery, who had given him food, and who had prayed before the icon. *They*, those unfamiliar men, now stood out clearly and sharply from everyone else.

“To be a soldier, just a soldier!” Pierre thought as he fell asleep, “to fully join that community, to be shaped by what makes them who they are. But how do I throw off all the unnecessary, devilish burden of my outer self? There once was a time I could have done it. I could have run away from my father, as I wanted. Or I might have been sent to serve as a soldier after my duel with Dólokhov.” Then the memory of the dinner at the English Club, when he challenged Dólokhov, flashed through Pierre’s mind, followed by thoughts of his benefactor at Torzhók. And now the image of a solemn lodge meeting appeared in his mind. It was happening at the English Club, and someone dear to him sat at the end of the table. “Yes, that’s him! My benefactor. But he’s dead!” thought Pierre. “Yes, he died, and I didn’t know he was alive. How sorry I am he died, and how happy I am he’s alive again!” On one side of the table sat Anatole, Dólokhov, Nesvítski, Denísov, and others like them (in his dream, the category they belonged to was as clear for Pierre as the group he called *they*). He heard those men—Anatole and Dólokhov—shouting and singing loudly, yet above their noise, his benefactor’s voice spoke throughout, its words as steady and continual as cannon fire, yet pleasant and comforting. Pierre didn’t understand what his benefactor was saying, but he knew (the types of thoughts were also clear to him in the dream) that it was about goodness and about the possibility of becoming like *they* were. And *they*, with their simple, kind, steadfast faces, surrounded his benefactor on all sides. Though kind, they didn’t look at Pierre or recognize him. Wishing to speak and get their attention, he stood up, but then felt his legs turn cold and bare.

He felt embarrassed and used one arm to cover his legs, from which the cloak had actually slipped. For a moment, as he adjusted his cloak, Pierre opened his eyes and saw the same penthouse roofs, posts, and yard, but now everything was blueish—lit and sparkling with frost or dew.

“It must be dawn,” Pierre thought. “But that’s not what I want. I want to listen and understand my benefactor’s words.” Again he covered himself with his cloak, but now neither the lodge nor his benefactor was there. Only thoughts, clearly expressed in words—thoughts that someone else was saying, or that he himself was forming.

Later, when Pierre recalled these ideas, he was convinced that someone outside himself had spoken them, though it was really the impressions of the day that had brought them on. He felt he had never been able to think and express his thoughts like that while awake.

“To endure war is the hardest surrender of one’s freedom to the law of God,” the voice had said. “Simplicity is submission to the will of God; you cannot escape Him. And *they* are simple. *They* do not talk, but act. Speech is silver, but silence is golden. A man cannot master anything if he fears death; but he who does not fear it owns all. Without suffering, man would not know his boundaries, would not know himself. The hardest thing,” (Pierre went on thinking, or hearing, in his dream) “is to be able to bring all meaning together in your soul. To unite everything?” he asked himself. “No, not unite—thoughts cannot be united—but to *harness* all these thoughts together, that’s what’s needed! Yes, one *must harness* them, *must harness* them!” he repeated to himself joyfully, feeling these words alone truly captured what he wanted to say and solved the riddle that tormented him.

“Yes, one must harness, it’s time to harness.”

“Time to harness, time to harness, your excellency! Your excellency!” some voice was repeating. “We must harness, it’s time to harness….”

It was the voice of the groom, trying to wake him. The sun was shining straight into Pierre’s face. He glanced at the dirty inn yard, where soldiers were watering their thin horses at the pump while carts rolled out the gate. Pierre turned away, disgusted, and with his eyes closed fell back onto the carriage seat. “No, I don’t want this, I don’t want to see or understand that. I want to understand what was being revealed to me in my dream. One more second and I would have understood it all! But what should I do now? Harness—how can I harness everything?” And Pierre felt, with horror, that all the meaning of his dream had vanished.

The groom, the coachman, and the innkeeper told Pierre that an officer had arrived with news that the French were already near Mozháysk and our troops were retreating.

Pierre got up and, after telling them to harness and catch up with him, walked through the town on foot.

The troops were moving out, leaving around ten thousand wounded behind. Wounded men were everywhere—in the yards, at the windows, and the streets were crowded with them. In the streets, around carts meant to take some of the wounded away, there was shouting, cursing, and violence. Pierre offered his carriage, which had caught up with him, to a wounded general he knew, and rode with him to Moscow. On the way, Pierre learned of the deaths of his brother-in-law Anatole and of Prince Andrew.

##  CHAPTER X

On August 30th, Pierre arrived in Moscow. Near the city gates, he was met by Count Rostopchín’s adjutant.

“We have been looking for you everywhere,” said the adjutant. “The count wants to see you right away. He asks that you come to him immediately about a very important matter.”

Without going home, Pierre hired a cab and went straight to see the Moscow commander-in-chief.

Count Rostopchín had only returned to town that morning from his summer villa at Sokólniki. The anteroom and reception room of his house were crowded with officials who had been summoned or had come for orders. Vasílchikov and Plátov had already met with the count and told him it was impossible to defend Moscow and that the city would have to be surrendered. Although this news was being kept from the general public, the officials—the heads of the various government departments—knew that Moscow would soon fall into enemy hands, just as Count Rostopchín himself knew, and to avoid personal blame, they had all come to the governor to ask how they should handle their respective departments.

As Pierre entered the reception room, a courier from the army emerged from Rostopchín’s private office.

In response to the questions he was asked, the courier made a hopeless gesture and passed through the room.

While waiting, Pierre, his eyes weary, observed the different officials, both young and old, military and civilian, who were there. They all appeared unhappy and uneasy. Pierre walked over to a group of men, one of whom he knew. After greeting Pierre, they continued their conversation.

“If they’re sent away and brought back again later, it won’t do any harm, but with the current situation, nobody can guarantee anything.”

“But look what he writes…” said another, pointing to a printed sheet in his hand.

“That’s another matter. That’s needed for the people,” said the first.

“What is it?” Pierre asked.

“Oh, it’s a new broadsheet.”

Pierre took it and began to read.

His Serene Highness has passed through Mozháysk to join up with the troops moving toward him and has taken up a strong position where the enemy will not soon attack him. Forty-eight guns with ammunition have been sent to him from here, and his Serene Highness says he will defend Moscow to the last drop of blood and is even prepared to fight in the streets. Do not be troubled, brothers, that the law courts are closed; things have to be put in order, and we will deal with villains in our own way! When the time comes, I shall summon both town and peasant lads and will raise the call a day or two beforehand, but they are not needed yet, so I keep quiet. An axe will be useful, a hunting spear is not bad, but a three-pronged fork is best of all: a Frenchman is no heavier than a sheaf of rye. Tomorrow after dinner I will take the Iberian icon of the Mother of God to the wounded in the Catherine Hospital, where we will have some water blessed. That will help them get better more quickly. I, too, am well now: one of my eyes was sore but now I am watching with both.

“But military men have told me that it’s impossible to fight in the city,” said Pierre, “and that the position…”

“Well, of course! That’s just what we were saying,” the first speaker replied.

“And what does he mean by ‘One of my eyes was sore but now I am on the lookout with both’?” Pierre asked.

“The count had a sty,” replied the adjutant, smiling, “and was very annoyed when I told him people came to ask what was wrong with him. By the way, Count,” he added suddenly, addressing Pierre with a smile, “we heard you have some family issues and that the countess, your wife…”

“I haven’t heard anything,” Pierre replied casually. “But what have you heard?”

“Oh, well, you know, people often make things up. I’m just repeating what I heard.”

“But what did you hear?”

“Well, they say,” continued the adjutant with the same smile, “that the countess, your wife, is getting ready to go abroad. I expect it’s all nonsense….”

“Possibly,” Pierre said, looking around absent-mindedly. “And who is that?” he asked, indicating a short old man in a neat blue peasant overcoat, with a large snow-white beard and eyebrows and a ruddy face.

“Him? That’s a tradesman—actually, he’s the restaurant owner, Vereshchágin. Maybe you’ve heard about the proclamation incident.”

“Oh, so that’s Vereshchágin!” said Pierre, studying the firm, calm face of the old man, searching for any sign that he might be a traitor.

“That’s not him, that’s the father of the man who wrote the proclamation,” said the adjutant. “The young man is in prison now, and I expect things will go badly for him.”

An older gentleman wearing a star and another official—a German with a cross around his neck—approached the speaker.

“It’s a complicated story, you know,” said the adjutant. “That proclamation surfaced about two months ago. The count was told about it and ordered an investigation. Gabriel Ivánovich here did the inquiries. The proclamation had passed through exactly sixty-three hands. He’d ask one, ‘Where did you get this from?’ ‘From so-and-so.’ He’d go to the next, ‘Where did you get it?’ and so on, until he got to Vereshchágin—a half-educated tradesman, you know, ‘a trader’s darling,’” said the adjutant with a smile. “They asked him, ‘Who gave this to you?’ And the thing is, we knew exactly where he got it—from the Postmaster. But apparently, they had some kind of arrangement. He replied, ‘No one; I made it up myself.’ They threatened and interrogated him, but he insisted: ‘I made it up myself.’ So that was reported to the count, who called the man in. ‘Where did you get the proclamation?’ ‘I wrote it myself.’ Well, you know the count,” said the adjutant cheerfully, with a proud smile, “he got furious—and just imagine the nerve of the fellow, lying, and so stubborn!”

“And the count wanted him to say it was from Klyucharëv? I get it!” Pierre said.

“Not at all,” the adjutant replied, flustered. “Klyucharëv had his own troubles to answer for, and that’s why he was banished. But the main thing is that the count was really annoyed. ‘How could you have written it yourself?’ he asked, picking up the Hamburg *Gazette* lying on the table. ‘Here it is! You didn’t write it yourself but translated it, and translated it terribly, because you don’t even know French, you fool.’ And would you believe it? ‘No,’ he said, ‘I haven’t read any newspapers. I made it up myself.’ ‘If that’s the case, you’re a traitor, and I’ll have you tried, and you’ll be hanged! Say who gave it to you.’ ‘I haven’t seen any newspapers, I made it up myself.’ And that was the end of it. The count had the father brought in, but the young man stuck to his story. He was put on trial and sentenced to hard labor, I believe. Now the father has come to plead for him. But he’s a no-good sort! You know the type—a tradesman’s son, something of a dandy and a lady-killer. He attended a few lectures somewhere and thinks he’s smarter than the devil. That’s the sort he is. His father runs a cookshop here by the Stone Bridge, and you know there was a big icon of God Almighty painted with a scepter in one hand and an orb in the other. Well, he took that icon home for a few days and guess what he did? He found some scoundrel of a painter…”

##  CHAPTER XI

In the middle of this new story, Pierre was summoned to the commander in chief.

When he entered the private room, Count Rostopchín, with a furrowed face, was rubbing his forehead and eyes with his hand. A short man was saying something, but when Pierre entered he stopped talking and left the room.

“Ah, how are you, great warrior?” said Rostopchín as soon as the short man had left. “We’ve heard of your bravery. But that’s not the point. Between us, *mon cher*, are you a Mason?” he continued sternly, as though there was something wrong with it, even though he planned to forgive it. Pierre stayed silent. “I am well informed, my friend, but I know there are Masons and I hope you’re not one of those who, under the pretense of saving mankind, want to destroy Russia.”

“Yes, I am a Mason,” Pierre answered.

“There you have it, *mon cher!* You must know that Messrs. Speránski and Magnítski have been sent off to their proper places. Mr. Klyucharëv has received the same treatment, and so have others who, claiming to build the temple of Solomon, have tried to ruin the temple of their homeland. You can see there are reasons for this, and that I couldn’t have exiled the Postmaster if he hadn’t been a harmful person. I’ve learned that you lent him your carriage to leave town, and that you’ve even kept papers for him for safekeeping. I like you and don’t want any harm for you and—as you’re only half my age—I advise you, as a father would, to cut off all ties with men like that and leave here as soon as possible.”

“But what did Klyucharëv do wrong, Count?” Pierre asked.

“That’s for me to know, not for you to ask,” Rostopchín shouted.

“If he’s accused of spreading Napoleon’s proclamation, it’s not proved that he did so,” Pierre said without looking at Rostopchín, “and Vereshchágin…”

“There we go!” Rostopchín yelled at Pierre, louder than before, suddenly scowling. “Vereshchágin is a traitor and a renegade who will get the punishment he deserves,” he said with the angry intensity people show when bringing up an insult. “But I didn’t call you here to discuss my decisions, but to give you advice—or an order if you’d rather. I ask you to leave town and break off all contact with people like Klyucharëv. And I’ll knock the nonsense out of anyone”—but likely realizing he was raising his voice at Bezúkhov, who hadn’t done anything wrong, he softened, taking Pierre’s hand in a friendly way, “We’re on the verge of a public disaster, and I don’t have time to be polite to everyone who needs me. My head is spinning at times. Well, *mon cher*, what are you personally doing?”

“Why, nothing,” Pierre replied, not raising his eyes or changing his thoughtful look.

The count frowned.

“A piece of friendly advice, *mon cher*. Get out as soon as you can, that’s all I have to say. Happy is he who listens. Goodbye, my dear fellow. Oh, by the way!” he shouted through the doorway after Pierre, “Is it true the countess has fallen into the hands of the holy fathers of the Society of Jesus?”

Pierre didn’t answer and left Rostopchín’s room more sullen and angry than he had ever seemed before.

When he returned home, it was already getting dark. About eight people had come to see him that evening: the secretary of a committee, the colonel of his battalion, his steward, his major-domo, and several petitioners. They all had business with Pierre and wanted his decisions. Pierre didn’t understand or care about any of these matters and only replied to them to get rid of them. When he was finally alone, he opened and read his wife’s letter.

“*They*, the soldiers at the battery, Prince Andrew killed… that old man… Simplicity is submission to God. Suffering is necessary… the meaning of all… one must harness… my wife is getting married… One must forget and understand…” And going to bed, he lay down fully dressed and instantly fell asleep.

The next morning when he woke, the major-domo came to say that a special messenger, a police officer, had arrived from Count Rostopchín to find out whether Count Bezúkhov had left or was planning to leave the city.

A dozen people waiting on Pierre’s business were in the drawing room. Pierre got dressed quickly and, instead of seeing them, went out through the back porch and the gate.

From then until the end of the destruction of Moscow, no member of Bezúkhov’s household, however much they searched, saw Pierre again or learned where he was.

##  CHAPTER XII

The Rostóvs stayed in Moscow until September first, that is, until the eve of the enemy entering the city.

After Pétya joined Obolénski’s regiment of Cossacks and left for Bélaya Tsérkov, where the regiment was forming, the countess was overcome with fear. The idea that both her sons were at war, both gone from her care, that any day either or both could be killed like the three sons of one of her acquaintances, struck her that summer for the first time with cruel clarity. She tried to get Nicholas back and wanted to go herself to join Pétya, or get him an appointment in Petersburg, but neither proved possible. Pétya could not return unless his regiment did, or unless he was transferred to another active-duty regiment. Nicholas was somewhere with the army and hadn’t sent any word since his last letter, in which he had given a detailed account of meeting Princess Mary. The countess could not sleep at night, or when she did, she dreamed her sons were lying dead. After many discussions, the count finally figured out how to calm her. He arranged for Pétya to be transferred from Obolénski’s regiment to Bezúkhov’s, which was training near Moscow. Though Pétya would stay in the service, this transfer meant the countess could at least see one son near her, and she hoped to arrange things so that Pétya would never go to a battle again, but only have positions safe from fighting. While only Nicholas was in danger, the countess believed she loved her first-born most and even scolded herself for it; but when her youngest—the troublemaker who did poorly in lessons, was always breaking things at home, making a nuisance of himself, that snub-nosed Pétya with his cheerful black eyes and rosy cheeks where a soft fuzz was just showing—when he was thrown among those big, dreadful, violent men fighting somewhere about something and seeming to enjoy it—then his mother felt she loved him much more than the rest. The closer the time came for Pétya to return, the more anxious the countess grew. She began to feel she would never live to see such happiness. The presence of Sónya, her beloved Natásha, or even her husband, irritated her. “Why do I want them? I want nothing but Pétya,” she thought.

At the end of August, the Rostóvs received another letter from Nicholas. He wrote from the province of Vorónezh, where he had been sent to get remounts, but that letter didn’t set the countess at ease. Now that one son was safe, she only worried more for Pétya.

Though by August twentieth almost all their acquaintances had left Moscow, and everyone urged the countess to leave immediately, she refused to go before her precious Pétya returned. On August twenty-eighth, he arrived. The deep affection with which his mother received him did not please the sixteen-year-old officer. Even though she tried to hide her intention to keep him close, Pétya sensed her plan, and instinctively afraid of becoming emotional—or as he thought, “becoming womanish”—he kept her at arm’s length, avoided her, and while in Moscow spent all his time with Natásha, for whom he always had a particularly brotherly, even almost romantic, affection.

Because of the count’s usual carelessness, nothing was ready for their departure by August twenty-eighth, and the wagons from their Ryazán and Moscow estates to carry their belongings out did not arrive until the thirtieth.

From the twenty-eighth to the thirty-first, all Moscow was in a frenzy and commotion. Every day, thousands of men wounded at Borodinó were brought in by the Dorogomílov gate and taken throughout the city, while thousands of carts took people and their possessions out through the other gates. Despite Rostopchín’s broadsheets—or perhaps because of them, or independently—a flood of strange and often contradictory rumors swept the city. Some said people weren’t allowed to leave, others claimed all the icons had been removed and everyone would soon be ordered out. Some said there’d been another battle after Borodinó in which the French were defeated, while others insisted the Russian army had been destroyed. Some talked of the Moscow militia, led by the clergy, going to the Three Hills; others whispered that Augustin wasn’t allowed to leave, that traitors had been arrested, that peasants were rioting and robbing people on the roads, and so on. But all this was just talk; in reality (although the Council of Filí, where the decision to abandon Moscow would be made, hadn’t happened yet) those who stayed and those who left both felt, even if they didn’t admit it, that Moscow would be abandoned and that they needed to escape as soon as possible to save their things. Everyone sensed that everything was about to collapse and change, but up until the first of September, nothing had happened yet. Like a criminal going to execution who knows he must die immediately but still straightens his cap and looks around, Moscow involuntarily kept up its usual life, though everyone knew destruction was near and that daily life would soon be completely upended.

During the three days before Moscow was occupied, the whole Rostóv family was absorbed in various activities. The head of the family, Count Ilyá Rostóv, was constantly out collecting the latest rumors and giving quick, hasty orders at home about packing for their departure.

The countess watched the packing, was dissatisfied with everything, endlessly chased after Pétya—who kept avoiding her—and grew jealous of Natásha, with whom Pétya spent all his time. Sónya alone managed the practical details, organizing and overseeing all the packing. But lately, Sónya had been particularly sad and silent. Nicholas’s letter mentioning Princess Mary had sparked joyous talk in front of her from the countess, who saw Providence at work in Nicholas and the princess meeting.

“I was never happy about Bolkónski’s engagement to Natásha,” said the countess, “but I always wanted Nicholas to marry the princess, and I had a feeling it would happen. What a good thing that would be!”

Sónya felt this was true: that the only way to save the Rostóvs’ situation would be for Nicholas to marry a wealthy woman, and that Princess Mary was a good match. It was very bitter for her. Yet despite her grief—or perhaps because of it—she took on all the difficult work of packing and spent days busy with it. The count and countess relied on her whenever they had orders to give. Pétya and Natásha, in contrast, far from helping their parents, were mostly a nuisance and a distraction for everyone. All day long, the house echoed with their footsteps, their shouting, and their laughter. They laughed and were cheerful not because there was any reason to, but because joy and mirth were in their hearts, and everything became an excuse to laugh. Pétya was in especially high spirits because, having left home a boy, he returned as everyone told him, a fine young man; because he was at home; because he had left Bélaya Tsérkov, where there was little hope of fighting, and come to Moscow, where fighting was expected; and above all because Natásha, whose lead he followed, was so happy. Natásha was happy because she had been sad for too long, now nothing reminded her of her sadness, and she was feeling healthy. She was also joyful because she had someone to adore her: the adoration of others was the oil her machinery needed to run smoothly—and Pétya adored her. Most of all, they were happy because war had come near Moscow, there would be fighting at the town gates, weapons were being handed out, everyone was escaping—leaving for somewhere—and in general something extraordinary was happening, and that is always exciting, especially for the young.

##  CHAPTER XIII

On Saturday, August thirty-first, everything in the Rostóvs’ house felt chaotic. All the doors were open, furniture was being moved or carried out, and the mirrors and pictures had been taken down. Trunks filled the rooms, and hay, wrapping paper, and ropes lay scattered about. The peasants and house serfs who were carrying things tramped heavily across the parquet floors. The yard was crowded with peasant carts—some were already loaded high and tied down, others were still empty.

Voices and footsteps of numerous servants and peasants, who had come with the carts, echoed as they shouted to each other in the yard and inside the house. The count had been out since morning. The countess, who had a headache from all the noise and commotion, was lying down in the new sitting room with a vinegar compress on her head. Pétya was not at home; he had gone to visit a friend, hoping to transfer from the militia to the active army. Sónya was in the ballroom overseeing the packing of glassware and china. Natásha was sitting on the floor in her dismantled room, surrounded by dresses, ribbons, and scarves, staring thoughtfully at the floor and holding her old ball dress (now out of fashion), which she had worn to her first Petersburg ball.

Natásha felt embarrassed for not helping when everyone else was so busy. Several times that morning she tried to work, but her heart wasn’t in it. She didn’t know how to do anything unless she could put her whole heart into it. For a while, she stood by Sónya during the packing of china and tried to help, but soon gave up and returned to her room to pack her own things. At first, she enjoyed giving her dresses and ribbons to the maids, but once that was finished, she found packing what was left very dull.

“Dunyásha, you pack! You will, won’t you, dear?” And when Dunyásha eagerly agreed to do it all for her, Natásha sat down on the floor, took her old ball dress, and fell into a daydream entirely unrelated to what she should have been thinking about. She was brought out of her reverie by the voices of the maids in the next room and by the sound of their hurried footsteps going to the back porch. Natásha stood up and looked out the window. A long line of carts full of wounded men had stopped in the street.

The housekeeper, old nurse, cooks, coachmen, maids, footmen, postilions, and kitchen helpers all stood at the gate, watching the wounded.

Covering her hair with a clean pocket handkerchief and holding the ends in her hands, Natásha went out into the street.

The former housekeeper, old Mávra Kuzmínichna, had stepped away from the crowd at the gate, approached a cart with a hood made of bast mats, and was speaking to a pale young officer lying inside. Natásha took a few steps forward and stopped shyly, still holding her handkerchief, listening to what the housekeeper said.

“So you don’t have anyone in Moscow?” she was saying. “You’d be more comfortable in a house… in ours, for example… the family is leaving.”

“I don’t know if that's allowed,” replied the officer weakly. “Here’s our commanding officer… ask him,” and he pointed to a stout major who was walking back along the street past the line of carts.

Natásha glanced nervously at the face of the wounded officer and immediately approached the major.

“May the wounded men stay in our house?” she asked.

The major raised his hand to his cap with a smile.

“Which one do you want, Miss?” he said, squinting and smiling.

Natásha softly repeated her question. Her face and demeanor were so serious, despite her still holding the ends of her handkerchief, that the major stopped smiling. After considering for a moment—as if weighing how practical it was—he agreed.

“Oh yes, why not? They may,” he said.

Nodding slightly, Natásha hurried back to Mávra Kuzmínichna, who was compassionately talking to the officer.

“They may. He says they may!” Natásha whispered.

The cart carrying the officer was brought into the Rostóvs’ yard, and soon, dozens of carts with wounded, invited by local residents, began turning into driveways and lining up at the entrances of houses on Povarskáya Street. Natásha was clearly pleased to be dealing with new people, different from her everyday life. She and Mávra Kuzmínichna tried to bring as many wounded as possible into their yard.

“We should let your father know, though,” said Mávra Kuzmínichna.

“Never mind, never mind, what does it matter? For one day, we can move into the drawing room. They can have our whole half of the house.”

“My, young lady, the ideas you get! Even if we put them in the wing, the men’s room, or the nurse’s room, we still need to ask permission.”

“All right, I’ll ask.”

Natásha ran into the house and crept on tiptoe through the half-open door into the sitting room, where there was a scent of vinegar and Hoffman’s drops.

“Are you asleep, Mamma?”

“Oh, sleep—?” the countess replied, waking just as she was dozing off.

“Mamma darling!” said Natásha, kneeling by her mother and bringing her face close. “I’m sorry, forgive me, I’ll never do it again; I woke you up! Mávra Kuzmínichna sent me: they’ve brought some wounded here—officers. Can they stay? They have nowhere to go. I knew you’d let them!” she said quickly, all in one breath.

“What officers? Who have they brought? I don’t understand any of this,” said the countess.

Natásha laughed, and the countess managed a slight smile.

“I knew you’d say yes… so I’ll tell them,” and, after kissing her mother, Natásha got up and went to the door.

In the hall she met her father, who had returned with bad news.

“We’ve waited too long!” the count said, unable to hide his frustration. “The Club is closed and the police are leaving.”

“Papa, is it all right—I’ve invited some of the wounded into the house?” said Natásha.

“Of course it is,” he answered absentmindedly. “That’s not the point. I ask you not to worry about trifles now, but to help pack, and tomorrow we must go, go, go!…”

The count gave similar instructions to the major-domo and the servants.

At dinner, Pétya, having returned, shared the news he’d heard. He said people had been picking up arms at the Krémlin, and though Rostopchín’s announcement had said that he’d give warning two or three days in advance, the order had already gone out for everyone to gather armed at the Three Hills tomorrow, and a big battle was expected.

The countess looked at her son’s eager, excited face with fearful dread as he spoke. She realized that if she made any comment against him going to the battle (knowing how much he looked forward to the coming fight), he would say something about manliness, honor, and the fatherland—something stubborn and masculine that could not be argued with, and all her plans would be ruined. So, hoping to leave earlier and take Pétya as their protector, she said nothing but, after dinner, called the count aside and tearfully pleaded with him to take her away as soon as possible, that very night if they could. With instinctive, loving cunning, she—who had not shown any fear before—now claimed she would die of fright if they did not leave that very night. This time, her fear was completely genuine.

##  CHAPTER XIV

Madame Schoss, who had been out visiting her daughter, heightened the countess’s fears even more by describing what she had seen at a liquor store on Myasnítski Street. On her return by that street, she was unable to get through because a drunken crowd was rioting in front of the shop. She had to take a cab and ride home via a side street, and the cabman told her that people were breaking open the barrels at the liquor store, having received orders to do so.

After dinner, the entire Rostov household began working with enthusiastic haste, packing their belongings and preparing to leave. The old count, suddenly getting involved, kept moving between the yard and the house, loudly issuing confused instructions to the hurried servants, making them even more flustered. Petya was in charge in the yard. Sonya, because of the count’s contradictory orders, became confused and didn’t know what to do. The servants rushed noisily throughout the house and yard, shouting and arguing. Natasha, with her usual passionate zeal, suddenly threw herself into the work as well. At first, everyone was skeptical about her involvement; they expected some prank from her and were reluctant to take her seriously. But she firmly and passionately insisted on being obeyed. She became angry and nearly cried because no one listened, but in the end, she made them take her seriously. Her first big achievement, which took her immense effort and established her authority, was packing the carpets. The count owned valuable Gobelin tapestries and Persian carpets. When Natasha got involved, two cases stood open in the ballroom—one almost full of china, the other with carpets. There were more china pieces on the tables, with even more coming in from storage. Another case was needed and the servants had gone to fetch it.

“Sonya, wait a bit—we’ll pack everything into these,” said Natasha.

“You can’t, Miss, we’ve tried to,” said the butler’s assistant.

“No, just wait a minute, please.”

And Natasha began quickly taking out dishes and plates wrapped in paper from the case.

“The dishes need to go in here with the carpets,” she said.

“It’s a wonder if we can fit just the carpets into three cases,” said the butler’s assistant.

“Oh, just wait, please!” Natasha quickly and skillfully began sorting through the items. “These aren’t needed,” she said, setting aside some plates of Kiev ware. “These—yes, these must go with the carpets,” she added, referring to the Saxony china dishes.

“Don’t, Natasha! Leave it alone! We’ll get it all packed,” Sonya said reproachfully.

“What a young lady she is!” remarked the major-domo.

But Natasha wouldn’t give up. She took everything out and started repacking, deciding that the less valuable Russian carpets and extra crockery should be left behind. Once everything was out of the cases, they started again, and it turned out that, once the less valuable items had been rejected, the valuable ones all fit into the two cases. Only, the lid for the case with the carpets wouldn’t close. A few more things could have been removed, but Natasha insisted on her way. She packed, unpacked, pressed, and got the butler’s assistant and Petya—whom she’d drawn into the packing—to press on the lid, while she made tireless efforts herself.

“That’s enough, Natasha,” said Sonya. “I see you were right, but just take out the top one.”

“I won’t!” cried Natasha, with one hand holding back her hair, damp with sweat, while she pressed down the carpets with the other. “Now press, Petya! Press, Vasílich, press hard!” she commanded.

The carpets gave way and the lid shut. Natasha, clapping her hands, let out a scream of joy, and tears streamed from her eyes. But it lasted only a moment—she was right back to work, and now everyone trusted her completely. Even when told that Natasha had reversed one of his orders, the count was not angry, and servants now came directly to her to ask if a cart was loaded enough or if it could be tied up. Thanks to Natasha’s leadership, the work moved along efficiently, unnecessary things were left behind, and the most valuable items packed as tightly as possible.

But despite all their hard work late into the night, they could not get everything packed. The countess had fallen asleep, and the count, having postponed departure until the next morning, went to bed.

Sonya and Natasha slept in the sitting room without undressing.

That night another wounded man was brought down Povarskaya, and Mavra Kuzmínichna, who was standing at the gate, had him brought into the Rostovs’ yard. Mavra Kuzmínichna assumed he must be a very important person. He was riding in a calèche with a raised hood and was completely covered with an apron. Seated beside the driver was a dignified old attendant. A doctor and two soldiers followed in a cart.

“Please come in here. The masters are going away and the whole house will be empty,” said the old woman to the attendant.

“Well, perhaps,” he said with a sigh. “We don’t expect to get him home alive! We have a house of our own in Moscow, but it’s a long way from here, and no one is living in it.”

“Please come in, there’s plenty of everything in the master’s house. Come in,” said Mavra Kuzmínichna. “Is he very ill?” she asked.

The attendant made a hopeless gesture.

“We don’t expect to get him home! We must ask the doctor.”

The old servant got down from the box and walked up to the cart.

“All right!” said the doctor.

The old servant returned to the calèche, looked inside, shook his head sadly, told the driver to turn into the yard, and stopped beside Mavra Kuzmínichna.

“Oh, Lord Jesus Christ!” she murmured.

She invited them to bring the wounded man into the house.

“The masters won’t object…” she reassured them.

But since they wanted to avoid carrying him upstairs, they brought him into the wing and put him in Madame Schoss’s old room.

This wounded man was Prince Andrew Bolkonsky.

##  CHAPTER XV

Moscow’s last day had arrived. It was a clear, bright autumn Sunday. Church bells rang everywhere for services, just as they always did on Sundays. No one seemed to realize yet what was about to happen to the city.

Only two things showed Moscow’s social situation—the presence of the poor masses, and the price of goods. A huge crowd of factory workers, house serfs, and peasants, along with some officials, seminarians, and gentry, had gathered early that morning on the Three Hills. After waiting there for Rostopchín, who did not appear, they became convinced that Moscow would be surrendered. They then scattered throughout the town to taverns and cookshops. The prices that day also reflected the state of things. The cost of weapons, gold, carts, and horses kept going up, but the value of paper money and ordinary city items kept dropping. By midday, there were cases of cart drivers hauling valuable goods like cloth and receiving as payment only half of what they transported, while peasant horses sold for five hundred rubles each, and furniture, mirrors, and bronzes were being given away for almost nothing.

In the Rostóvs’ dignified, old-fashioned house, the breakdown of the old way of life was barely noticeable. Among the serfs, only three out of the enormous retinue had disappeared during the night, and nothing had been stolen. As for their possessions, the thirty peasant carts that had come from their estates—and which many people envied—proved extremely valuable, with enormous sums offered for them. Not only were people offering huge sums for the horses and carts, but the night before and the morning of the first of September, orderlies and servants sent by wounded officers came to the Rostóvs’, and wounded men dragged themselves there from the Rostóvs’ and neighboring houses to beg the servants for a ride out of Moscow. The major-domo, to whom these pleas were made, though he felt sorry for the wounded, firmly refused, saying he didn’t even dare mention it to the count. No matter how much one pitied the wounded, it was clear that if one was given a cart, there would be no reason to refuse another, and then all the carts and their own carriages would go. Thirty carts could not save all the wounded, and in this widespread disaster, one could not neglect one’s own family. Such was the major-domo’s reasoning on behalf of his master.

That morning, Count Ilyá Rostóv got up quietly so as not to wake the countess, who had only fallen asleep toward morning, and stepped out onto the porch in his lilac silk dressing gown. In the yard, the carts stood ready and loaded. The carriages waited at the front porch. The major-domo stood at the porch, talking to an elderly orderly and a young officer with a bandaged arm. Seeing the count, the major-domo made a stern, meaningful gesture, signaling them both to leave.

“Well, Vasílich, is everything ready?” asked the count, and stroking his bald head, he looked kindly at the officer and orderly and nodded to them. (He liked seeing new faces.)

“We can harness up right away, your excellency.”

“Good. As soon as the countess wakes up, we’ll leave, God willing! What is it, gentlemen?” he added, turning to the officer. “Are you staying in my house?”

The officer stepped closer, and suddenly his face turned bright red.

“Count, please, for God’s sake, let me get a spot in one of your carts! I have nothing with me…. I’d be fine on a loaded cart….”

Before the officer finished, the orderly made the same request for his master.

“Oh, yes, yes, yes!” the count said quickly. “I’ll be glad to help, very glad. Vasílich, see to it. Just unload one or two carts. Well, what does it matter… do what you need to do…” the count added, mumbling some vague order.

But the warm gratitude in the officer’s face had already confirmed his order. The count looked around. In the yard, at the gates, and at the windows of the wings, wounded officers and their orderlies could be seen. All of them watched the count and started moving toward the porch.

“Please come into the gallery, your excellency,” the major-domo said. “What are your orders about the pictures?”

The count went into the house with him, repeating his instructions not to refuse the wounded who asked for a ride.

“Well, it’s all right, some things can be unloaded,” he added quietly, as if afraid of being overheard.

At nine o’clock the countess woke up, and Matrëna Timoféevna, who had been her lady’s maid before her marriage and now served as a sort of chief enforcer, came to inform her that Madame Schoss was quite offended, and the young ladies’ summer dresses could not be left behind. Upon inquiring, the countess found out Madame Schoss was upset because her trunk had been taken off its cart, and all the loads were being untied and luggage removed from the carts to make room for wounded men, whom the count, in his simple kindness, had ordered to be taken along. The countess sent for her husband.

“What’s going on, my dear? I hear the luggage is being unloaded.”

“You know, love, I meant to tell you… Countess dear… an officer came to me and asked for a few carts for the wounded. After all, our things can be replaced, but imagine being left behind for them!… Really, in our own yard—we invited them here, and there are officers among them…. You know, I think, my dear… let them come… where’s the rush?”

The count spoke hesitantly, as he always did about money matters. The countess recognized this tone as the prelude to news of something that would not benefit the children, like building a new gallery or conservatory, or starting a private theater or orchestra. She was used to opposing anything announced in that timid tone, feeling it her duty to do so.

She put on her long-suffering, resigned manner and said to her husband, “Listen, Count, you’ve already managed things so we’re getting nothing for the house, and now you want to throw away all our—all *the children’s* property! You said yourself there are a hundred thousand rubles’ worth of things in the house. I won’t allow it, dear, I won’t! Do what you want! It’s the government’s job to take care of the wounded; they know that. Look at the Lopukhíns across the street—they cleared everything out two days ago. That’s what everyone else does. Only we are such fools. If you won’t spare me, at least think of the children.”

Throwing up his arms in despair, the count left the room without answering.

“Papa, why are you doing that?” Natásha asked, following him into her mother’s room.

“Nothing! It’s none of your business,” growled the count.

“But I heard,” Natásha said. “Why is Mama upset?”

“It’s none of your business!” the count snapped.

Natásha stepped to the window and thought for a moment.

“Papa! Here’s Berg coming to visit us,” she said, looking out the window.

##  CHAPTER XVI

Berg, the Rostóvs’ son-in-law, was now a colonel wearing the orders of Vladimir and Anna, and he still held the quiet and pleasant position as assistant to the chief of staff of the assistant commander of the first division of the Second Army.

On the first of September, he arrived in Moscow from the army.

He had no real business in Moscow, but he had noticed that everyone in the army was asking for leave to visit Moscow and claimed to have important things to do there. So, he felt it necessary to request leave of absence for family and domestic reasons.

Berg drove up to his father-in-law’s house in his neat little carriage with a pair of sleek roan horses, just like those of a certain prince. He carefully looked at the carts in the yard and, as he went up to the porch, took out a clean pocket handkerchief and tied a knot in it.

From the hallway, Berg hurried, moving smoothly though slightly impatiently, into the drawing room. There he embraced the count, kissed the hands of Natásha and Sónya, and quickly asked about “Mama’s” health.

“Health, at a time like this?” said the count. “Come now, tell us the news! Is the army retreating or will there be another battle?”

“God Almighty alone can decide the fate of our country, Papa,” said Berg. “The army is full of a heroic spirit and the leaders, as it were, have now gathered in council. No one knows what will happen next. But in general, I can tell you, Papa, that such a heroic spirit, the truly ancient valor of the Russian army, which they—which it” (he corrected himself) “has shown or displayed in the battle of the twenty-sixth—there are no words worthy of expressing it! I tell you, Papa” (he struck himself on the chest, as he had seen a general do when speaking, though Berg did it a bit late, since he should have struck his chest at the words “Russian army”), “I tell you honestly that we, the commanders, far from having to encourage the men or anything like that, could barely restrain those… those… yes, those acts of ancient valor,” he continued quickly. “General Barclay de Tolly risked his life everywhere at the head of the troops, I can assure you. Our corps was positioned on a hillside. You can imagine!”

And Berg recounted everything he remembered from the various stories he had heard recently. Natásha watched him closely, which made him uncomfortable, as if she were trying to find some answer in his face.

“Altogether, such heroism as shown by the Russian soldiers cannot be imagined or properly praised!” said Berg, glancing at Natásha and, as if eager to please her, replied to her intense look with a smile. “‘Russia is not in Moscow, she lives in the hearts of her sons!’ Isn’t that right, Papa?” he said.

Just then, the countess entered from the sitting room, looking tired and unhappy. Berg quickly stood up, kissed her hand, inquired about her health, and, nodding his head from side to side to show sympathy, stood beside her.

“Yes, Mama, I do assure you these are difficult and sad times for every Russian. But why are you so worried? You still have time to get away….”

“I don’t know what the servants are doing,” said the countess, turning to her husband. “I’ve just heard that nothing is ready yet. Someone really needs to take care of things. One really misses Mítenka at times like this. This will never end.”

The count was about to say something, but stopped himself. He got up from his chair and went toward the door.

At that moment, Berg pulled out his handkerchief, as if to blow his nose, and, noticing the knot in it, paused, shaking his head sadly and meaningfully.

“And I have a great favor to ask you, Papa,” he said.

“Hm…” said the count, stopping.

“I was driving past Yusúpov’s house just now,” said Berg with a laugh, “when the steward, a man I know, ran out and asked if I’d like to buy something. I went in out of curiosity, and there’s a small chiffonier and a dressing table. You know how much dear Véra wanted a chiffonier like that and how we argued about it.” (At the mention of the chiffonier and dressing table Berg couldn’t help shifting to a tone of pleasure at his excellent domestic arrangements.) “And it’s a beauty! It pulls out and has a secret English drawer, you know! Dear Véra has wanted one for a long time. I want to surprise her, you see. I noticed many of those peasant carts in your yard. Please let me borrow one, I’ll pay the man well, and…”

The count frowned and cleared his throat.

“Ask the countess, I don’t give orders.”

“If it’s inconvenient, never mind,” said Berg. “It’s just that I so wanted it, for dear Véra’s sake.”

“Oh, go to the devil, all of you! To the devil, the devil, the devil…” cried the old count. “My head’s spinning!”

And he left the room. The countess began to cry.

“Yes, Mama! Yes, these are very hard times!” said Berg.

Natásha left the room with her father and, seeming torn about what to do, at first followed him then ran downstairs.

Pétya was outside on the porch, handing out weapons to the servants who were to leave Moscow. The loaded carts were still standing in the yard. Two of them had already been unloaded, and a wounded officer was climbing into one, helped by an orderly.

“Do you know what it’s about?” Pétya asked Natásha.

She understood that he meant what their parents were arguing about. She didn’t answer.

“It’s because Papa wanted to give up all the carts to the wounded,” said Pétya. “Vasílich told me. I think…”

“I think,” Natásha suddenly almost shouted, turning her angry face to Pétya, “I think it’s so horrible, so disgusting, so… I don’t even know what. Are we contemptible Germans?”

Her throat shook with convulsive sobs and, afraid she’d lose her anger and start to weaken, she turned and rushed headlong up the stairs.

Berg was sitting with the countess, comforting her with the respectful attention of a relative. The count, pipe in hand, was pacing up and down the room when Natásha, her face contorted by anger, burst in like a storm and strode over to her mother.

“It’s horrible! It’s disgusting!” she screamed. “You can’t possibly have ordered it!”

Berg and the countess looked at her, confused and frightened. The count stood silently at the window, listening.

“Mama, it’s impossible: look at what’s happening in the yard!” she cried. “They’ll be left behind!…”

“What’s wrong with you? Who are ‘they’? What do you want?”

“The wounded! It’s impossible, Mama. It’s monstrous!… No, Mama dearest, it’s not right. Please forgive me, dearest… Mama, what does it matter what we take with us? Just look at what’s happening out in the yard… Mama!… It’s not right!”

The count stayed by the window, listening, not turning around. Suddenly, he sniffed and pressed his face closer to the glass.

The countess glanced at her daughter, seeing Natásha’s face full of shame for her mother, saw her distress, and realized why her husband wouldn’t turn to look at her now. She looked around, clearly flustered.

“Oh, do as you like! Am I stopping anyone?” she said, not giving in immediately.

“Mama, darling, forgive me!”

But the countess pushed her daughter away and went to her husband.

“My dear, you decide what’s best… You know I don’t understand these things,” she said, lowering her eyes in embarrassment.

“The eggs… the eggs are teaching the hen,” the count muttered through tears of joy, embracing his wife, who was glad to hide her look of shame against his chest.

“Papa! Mama! May I take care of it? May I?…” asked Natasha. “We can still take all the most necessary things.”

The count nodded in agreement, and Natasha, at the same quick pace she used to run when playing tag, hurried through the ballroom to the anteroom and downstairs into the yard.

The servants gathered around Natasha but didn’t believe the unusual order she gave until the count himself, speaking for his wife, confirmed the command to give all the carts to the wounded and take the trunks to the storerooms. Once they understood, the servants set to this new task with pleasure and energy. It no longer seemed strange to them; on the contrary, it seemed the only right thing to do—just as fifteen minutes earlier, it had not seemed odd that the wounded should be left behind and the goods taken away, for that seemed then the only practical option.

The whole household, as if to make up for not having done so sooner, eagerly began the new task of putting the wounded into the carts. The wounded dragged themselves out of their rooms, standing with pale but happy faces around the carts. News that carts were available spread to the neighboring houses, from which more wounded began to arrive in the Rostovs’ yard. Many of the wounded begged them not to unload the carts, but simply to let them sit on top of the luggage. But once the unloading began, it couldn’t be stopped. It suddenly didn’t matter whether all or just half the things were left behind. Cases full of china, bronzes, pictures, and mirrors that had been so carefully packed the night before now lay scattered about the yard, and still they kept searching for ways to unload more, letting the wounded have another cart, and then another.

“We can fit four more men,” said the steward. “They can use my trap; otherwise, what will become of them?”

“Let them take my wardrobe cart,” said the countess. “Dunyasha can come with me in the carriage.”

They unloaded the wardrobe cart and sent it to collect wounded men from a house two doors down. The whole household, including the servants, was cheerful and energetic. Natasha was in a state of joyous excitement she hadn’t felt for a long time.

“What can we fasten this onto?” the servants asked, trying to secure a trunk to the narrow footboard behind a carriage. “We must keep at least one cart.”

“What’s inside it?” Natasha asked.

“The count’s books.”

“Leave it, Vasilich will put it away. It’s not needed.”

The phaeton was crowded with people, and it wasn’t clear where Count Peter could sit.

“On the box. You’ll sit on the box, won’t you, Petya?” cried Natasha.

Sonya, too, was busy all this time, but her efforts were quite different from Natasha’s. She was putting away the things that had to be left behind and making a list of them as the countess wanted, and she tried to have as much taken with them as possible.

##  CHAPTER XVII

Before two o’clock in the afternoon, the Rostóvs’ four carriages, packed full and with the horses harnessed, stood at the front door. One by one, the carts carrying the wounded had already left the yard.

The *calèche* carrying Prince Andrew caught Sónya’s attention as it passed the front porch. With the help of a maid, she was arranging a seat for the countess in the huge, high coach that stood at the entrance.

“Whose *calèche* is that?” she asked, leaning out of the carriage window.

“Why, didn’t you know, Miss?” replied the maid. “The wounded prince. He spent the night in our house and is leaving with us.”

“But who is it? What’s his name?”

“It’s our former intended—Prince Bolkónski himself! They say he’s dying,” the maid answered with a sigh.

Sónya jumped out of the coach and ran to the countess. The countess, exhausted and already dressed in shawl and bonnet for her journey, was pacing up and down the drawing room, waiting for the usual family prayer with closed doors before they left. Natásha was not in the room.

“Mamma,” said Sónya, “Prince Andrew is here, mortally wounded. He’s coming with us.”

The countess opened her eyes in shock and, seizing Sónya’s arm, looked around.

“Natásha?” she whispered.

At that moment, this news had only one meaning for both of them. Knowing their Natásha, the fear of what might happen if she heard the news overwhelmed any sympathy they felt for the man they both cared about.

“Natásha doesn’t know yet, but he’s coming with us,” said Sónya.

“You say he’s dying?”

Sónya nodded.

The countess put her arms around Sónya and began to cry.

“The ways of God are beyond understanding!” she thought, feeling that the Almighty Hand, previously unseen, was showing itself in everything that was happening now.

“Well, Mamma? Everything is ready. What’s wrong?” asked Natásha, running in with a lively face.

“Nothing,” answered the countess. “If everything is ready, let’s go.”

And the countess bent over her reticule to hide her troubled face. Sónya hugged Natásha and kissed her.

Natásha looked at her, searchingly.

“What is it? What’s happened?”

“Nothing... No...”

“Is it something very bad for me? What is it?” pressed Natásha, with her usual intuition.

Sónya sighed and didn’t answer. The count, Pétya, Madame Schoss, Mávra Kuzmínichna, and Vasílich came into the drawing room and, after closing the doors, all sat down and remained for a few moments silently seated, not looking at one another.

The count was the first to stand, and with a deep sigh, crossed himself before the icon. Everyone else did likewise. Then the count embraced Mávra Kuzmínichna and Vasílich, who were to stay in Moscow, and while they clung to his hand and kissed his shoulder, he patted their backs lightly with some vaguely affectionate, comforting words. The countess went into the oratory and there Sónya found her on her knees before the icons left hanging here and there on the wall. (The most precious ones, connected with family tradition, were being taken with them.)

In the porch and yard, the men Pétya had armed with swords and daggers, their trousers tucked into high boots and belts and sashes pulled tight, were saying farewell to those staying behind.

As always happens when leaving, many things had been forgotten or misplaced, and for a long time two menservants stood at the open door by the carriage steps, waiting to help the countess in, while maids hurried with cushions and bundles from the house to the carriages, the *calèche*, the phaeton, and back again.

“They always forget everything!” said the countess. “Don’t you see I can’t sit like this?”

And Dunyásha, with clenched teeth and a troubled look but without answering, quickly got into the coach to fix the seat.

“Oh, those servants!” said the count, shaking his head.

Efím, the old coachman—the only one the countess trusted to drive her—sat perched up high on the box and didn’t even glance back at the commotion behind him. After thirty years, he knew it would be quite a while before the order, “Be off, in God’s name!” would be given; and even then, he’d be stopped once or twice more for something forgotten, and even after that the countess herself would lean out to beg him, for the love of heaven, to drive carefully down the hill. He expected all this, so he waited calmly, more patient than the horses—especially the chestnut Falcon, who was pawing the ground and champing his bit. At last everyone was seated, the steps were folded away, the door shut, someone sent for a traveling case, and the countess leaned out to give last instructions. Then Efím deliberately doffed his hat and made the sign of the cross. The postilion and other servants did the same. “Off, in God’s name!” said Efím, putting on his hat. “Start!” The postilion got the horses moving, the lead horse pulled at his collar, the high springs creaked, and the coach swayed. The footman jumped onto the box of the moving coach as it jolted out of the yard onto the bumpy road; the other vehicles jolted after, and the procession moved up the street. In the carriages, *calèche*, and phaeton, everyone crossed themselves as they passed the church opposite the house. Those remaining in Moscow walked beside the vehicles, seeing the travelers off.

Rarely had Natásha felt such joy as now, sitting next to the countess and watching the slowly receding walls of deserted, restless Moscow. Now and then she leaned out of the carriage window to look back or forward at the long line of wounded ahead. Almost at the front, she could see the raised hood of Prince Andrew’s *calèche*. She didn’t know who was inside, but every time she looked at the procession, her eyes searched for that *calèche*. She knew it was in the lead.

In Kúdrino, from Nikítski, Présnya, and Podnovínsk Streets, several other trains of vehicles joined the Rostóvs’, and as they went along Sadóvaya Street, the carriages and carts formed two rows side by side.

As they circled the Súkharev water tower, Natásha, alertly watching the people moving past, suddenly cried out in delighted surprise:

“Look! Mamma, Sónya, it’s him!”

“Who? Who?”

“Look! Yes, I swear, it’s Bezúkhov!” said Natásha, sticking her head out of the carriage and staring at a tall, stout man in a coachman’s long coat, who from his walk and movements was clearly a gentleman in disguise, walking under the arch of the Súkharev tower next to a small, sallow-faced, beardless old man in a frieze coat.

“Yes, it really is Bezúkhov in a coachman’s coat, with a strange-looking old fellow. Really,” said Natásha, “look, look!”

“No, that’s not him. How can you say such nonsense?”

“Mamma,” screamed Natásha, “I’ll bet anything it’s him! I promise you! Stop, stop!” she shouted to the coachman.

But the coachman couldn’t stop, because more carts and carriages were coming from Meshchánski Street, and the Rostóvs were being yelled at to keep moving and not block the way.

In reality, although now much farther away than before, the Rostóvs all saw Pierre—or someone strikingly like him—wearing a coachman’s coat, walking down the street with his head down and a serious expression, beside a small, beardless old man who looked like a footman. That old man noticed a face sticking out of the carriage window staring at them, and respectfully touched Pierre’s elbow, said something to him, and pointed to the carriage. Pierre, clearly deep in thought, didn’t understand right away. Finally, when he understood and looked where the old man pointed, he recognized Natásha. On impulse, he instantly hurried toward the coach. But after taking a dozen steps, he seemed to remember something and stopped.

Natásha’s face, leaning out of the window, glowed with a quizzical kindness.

“Peter Kirílovich, come here! We recognized you! This is wonderful!” she called, reaching out her hand to him. “What are you doing? Why are you dressed like that?”

Pierre took her offered hand and kissed it awkwardly as he walked beside her, while the coach continued to move.

“What is the matter, Count?” the countess asked in a surprised and sympathetic tone.

“What? What? Why? Don’t ask me,” said Pierre, and glanced at Natásha, whose radiant, happy expression—which he could sense even without looking—filled him with delight.

“Are you staying in Moscow, then?”

Pierre hesitated.

“In Moscow?” he repeated in a questioning tone. “Yes, in Moscow. Good-bye!”

“Oh, if only I were a man! I’d definitely stay with you. How wonderful!” said Natásha. “Mamma, if you’ll let me, I’ll stay!”

Pierre looked distantly at Natásha and was about to say something, but the countess interrupted.

“You were at the battle, we heard.”

“Yes, I was,” Pierre replied. “There’s going to be another battle tomorrow…” he started, but Natásha interrupted him.

“But what’s the matter with you, Count? You’re not yourself….”

“Oh, don’t ask me, don’t ask me! I don’t know myself. Tomorrow… But no! Good-bye, good-bye!” he muttered. “It’s a terrible time!” And falling back from the carriage, he stepped onto the pavement.

Natásha continued leaning out of the window for a long time, smiling at him with her gentle, slightly teasing, happy smile.

##  CHAPTER XVIII

For the past two days, ever since he left home, Pierre had been living in the empty house of his late benefactor, Bazdéev. Here’s how it happened.

When he woke up the morning after returning to Moscow and meeting with Count Rostopchín, Pierre struggled for a while to figure out where he was and what was expected of him. When he heard that, among the people waiting for him in his reception room, there was a Frenchman who had brought a letter from his wife, Countess Hélène, Pierre was suddenly overwhelmed by that familiar sense of confusion and hopelessness he often felt. He thought that everything was over, everything was in chaos and falling apart, that nobody was truly right or wrong, the future held nothing, and there was no escape from this situation. Smiling unnaturally and muttering to himself, he first sat down on the sofa in despair, then got up, went to the reception room door and peeked through the crack, returned waving his arms, and picked up a book. His major-domo came in a second time and said the Frenchman who had brought a letter from the countess was very eager to see him, even if just for a minute, and that someone from Bazdéev’s widow had come asking Pierre to take responsibility for her husband’s books, as she was leaving for the countryside.

“Oh yes, in a minute; wait… or no! No, of course… go and tell him I’ll come right away,” Pierre told the major-domo.

But as soon as the man left, Pierre grabbed his hat from the table and exited his study through the other door. There was no one in the passage. He walked the whole length of the passage to the stairs, frowning and rubbing his forehead with both hands, and went down to the first landing. The hall porter was at the front door. From the landing where Pierre stood, there was another staircase leading to the back entrance. He went down that staircase and out into the yard. No one saw him. But there were some carriages waiting, and as soon as Pierre stepped out of the gate, the coachmen and yard porter noticed him and raised their caps. Realizing he was being watched, he acted like an ostrich hiding its head in a bush to avoid being seen: he hung his head and, quickening his pace, walked down the street.

Of all the matters demanding Pierre’s attention that day, sorting out Joseph Bazdéev’s books and papers seemed the most important to him.

He hired the first cab he saw and told the driver to take him to the Patriarch’s Ponds, where Bazdéev’s widow lived.

Continually turning around to watch the streams of loaded carts leaving Moscow from all directions, and awkwardly shifting his bulky body to keep from sliding out of the shaky old vehicle, Pierre, thrilled like a boy escaping school, began chatting with his driver.

The driver told him that arms were being distributed at the Kremlin that day, and that tomorrow everyone would be sent beyond the Three Hills gates, where a great battle would take place.

When Pierre reached the Patriarch’s Ponds he found the Bazdéevs’ house, which he had not visited in a long time. He went up to the gate. Gerásim, the sallow, beardless old man Pierre had seen at Torzhók five years earlier with Joseph Bazdéev, came out in response to his knock.

“Is anyone home?” Pierre asked.

“Because of what's happening, Sophia Danílovna has gone to the Torzhók estate with the children, your excellency.”

“I will come in anyway. I need to look through the books,” said Pierre.

“Please come in. Makár Alexéevich, the brother of my late master—may heaven grant him peace—has stayed here, but as you know, he is in a weak state,” said the old servant.

Pierre knew that Makár Alexéevich was Joseph Bazdéev’s half-mad brother and a heavy drinker.

“Yes, yes, I know. Let’s go in…” Pierre said, and entered the house.

A tall, bald old man with a red nose, wearing a dressing gown and galoshes on his bare feet, stood in the anteroom. Seeing Pierre, he muttered something angrily and went off down the passage.

“He was a very clever man, but now, as you see, he’s become quite feeble,” said Gerásim. “Would you like to go into the study?” Pierre nodded. “It's just as it was when it was sealed, but Sophia Danílovna ordered that if anyone came from you, they were to have the books.”

Pierre entered the gloomy study he used to enter with such anxiety during his benefactor’s lifetime. The room, dusty and untouched since Joseph Bazdéev’s death, appeared even gloomier now.

Gerásim opened one of the shutters and quietly slipped out. Pierre circled the study, went to the cupboard where the manuscripts were kept, and pulled out what had once been the most important of all, the sacred collection of the order. This was the authentic Scotch Acts with Bazdéev’s notes and explanations. He sat at the dusty writing table, spread the manuscripts before him, opened them, closed them, finally pushed them away, and sat lost in thought with his head in his hand.

Gerásim peeked in a few times and always saw Pierre in the same pose.

More than two hours passed, and Gerásim finally made a quiet noise at the door to attract Pierre's attention, but Pierre didn't hear him.

“Should I send the cabman away, sir?”

“Oh yes!” said Pierre, jolting back to reality and standing up quickly. “Listen,” he added, grabbing a button on Gerásim’s coat and looking down at the old man with sparkling, emotional eyes, “do you know there’s going to be a battle tomorrow?”

“We heard so,” the man replied.

“I ask you not to tell anyone who I am, and to do as I ask.”

“Yes, your excellency,” said Gerásim. “Would you like something to eat?”

“No, but I need something else. I want some peasant clothes and a pistol,” said Pierre, blushing unexpectedly.

“Yes, your excellency,” Gerásim answered after a moment’s thought.

Pierre spent the rest of that day alone in his benefactor’s study, and Gerásim heard him pacing anxiously from corner to corner and talking to himself. He spent the night on a bed made up for him there.

Gerásim, a servant who had seen many odd things in his time, took Pierre’s decision to stay in the house without any surprise, and seemed glad to have someone to care for. That evening—without even considering why they were needed—he obtained a coachman’s coat and cap for Pierre, and promised to get him a pistol the next day. Makár Alexéevich came by twice that evening, shuffling along in his galoshes to the doorway, stopping to look ingratiatingly at Pierre. But as soon as Pierre turned toward him, he wrapped his dressing gown around himself with a look of embarrassment and irritation and hurried away. It was while Pierre (wearing the coachman’s coat Gerásim had gotten for him and steamed clean) was on his way with the old man to buy the pistol at the Súkharev market that he met the Rostóvs.

##  CHAPTER XIX

Kutúzov’s order to retreat through Moscow to the Ryazán road was issued at night on the first of September.

The first troops set out immediately, and throughout the night they moved slowly and steadily without rushing. At daybreak, however, those approaching the city near the Dorogomílov bridge saw ahead great masses of soldiers crowding and hurrying across the bridge, streaming up the far side and clogging the streets and alleyways, while more and more troops pressed on from behind. A wave of panic and urgency overwhelmed them. Everyone surged toward the bridge, onto it, and toward the fords and ferries. Kutúzov himself had taken side streets to reach the other side of Moscow.

By ten o’clock in the morning of September second, only the rearguard remained in the Dorogomílov suburb, where there was plenty of room. The main army had already crossed to the other side of Moscow or moved beyond it.

At that same time, ten in the morning of September second, Napoleon stood among his troops on the Poklónny Hill, gazing at the panorama before him. From August twenty-sixth to September second—that is, from the battle of Borodinó to the entry of the French into Moscow, during that entire exciting and memorable week—there had been that remarkable autumn weather that always comes as a surprise: when the sun hangs low and gives off more warmth than in spring; when everything shines so brightly in the unusually clear air that your eyes water; when the lungs are invigorated by breathing in the fragrant autumn air; when even the nights are warm and the golden stars on those dark nights continually astonish and delight us as they fall from the sky.

At ten in the morning on September second, this fine weather still held.

The morning’s brilliance was enchanting. Moscow, seen from Poklónny Hill, lay spread out with its river, gardens, and churches, seeming alive with its usual hustle, the domes sparkling in the sunlight like stars.

The sight of that unfamiliar city, with its unique architecture like nothing he had ever seen, filled Napoleon with that mix of envy and uneasy curiosity people feel when they encounter a form of life unknown to them. The city was obviously living by its own force. By those subtle signs that, even at a distance, distinguish a living body from a lifeless one, Napoleon, standing on the Poklónny Hill, sensed life throbbing in the city, as if the great and beautiful body breathed.

Every Russian who looks at Moscow feels her to be a mother; every foreigner, even if unaware of her significance as the mother city, must sense her feminine nature—and Napoleon felt it.

*“Cette ville asiatique aux innombrables églises, Moscou la sainte. La voilà donc enfin, cette fameuse ville! Il était temps,”* \* he said, dismounting and ordering a map of Moscow to be spread before him, then summoning Lelorgne d’Ideville, the interpreter.

\* “That Asiatic city of the innumerable churches, holy Moscow! Here it is at last, that famous city. It was high time.”

“A town captured by the enemy is like a woman who has lost her honor,” he thought (he had said the same to Túchkov at Smolénsk). From this perspective, he looked upon the Oriental beauty he had long wished to see. It seemed strange that the desire he had nursed so long, which had seemed unreachable, was now fulfilled. In the crisp morning light, he glanced from city to map, considering every detail, and the certainty of owning it both excited and awed him.

“But could it have happened any other way?” he thought. “Here this capital lies at my feet. Where is Alexander now, and what is he thinking? A strange, beautiful, majestic city—and a strange, majestic moment! How must I appear to them!” he thought, considering his troops. “Here she is, the reward for all those fainthearted men,” he mused, casting his eye over those nearby and at the troops assembling. “A single word from me, a single motion of my hand, and that ancient capital of the Tsars would be destroyed. But my mercy is always ready to descend on the defeated. I must be magnanimous and truly great. Still, can it really be true that I am in Moscow?” he suddenly wondered. “Yet there she lies at my feet, her golden domes and crosses sparkling in the sun. But I will spare her. On these ancient monuments of barbarism and despotism, I will inscribe words of justice and mercy…. This is what Alexander will feel most deeply, I know him.” (To Napoleon, the main meaning of these events seemed to lie in the personal rivalry between himself and Alexander.) “From the heights of the Krémlin—yes, there’s the Krémlin, yes—I will bring them just laws; I will show them true civilization, I will make future generations of boyars remember their conqueror with gratitude. I’ll tell the deputation I neither wished for nor want this war, that I have only fought against the misguided policy of their court; that I respect and admire Alexander, and in Moscow will accept terms of peace worthy of both myself and my people. I don’t want to use the fortune of war to humiliate a respected monarch. ‘Boyars,’ I’ll say, ‘I desire neither war nor conquest, but the peace and well-being of all my subjects.’ And yet, I know their presence will inspire me—I will speak as I always do: clearly, impressively, and grandly. But can it be real that I am in Moscow? Yes, there she lies.”

*“Qu’on m’amène les boyars,”* \* he ordered his staff.

\* “Bring the boyars to me.”

A general with his brilliant staff galloped off at once to fetch the boyars.

Two hours passed. Napoleon had lunched and was again at the same spot on Poklónny Hill, waiting for the delegation. His speech for the boyars had already taken definite shape in his imagination—a speech filled with dignity and magnitude as Napoleon saw it.

He had become swept up in the grand tone he meant to show to Moscow. In his mind, he set days for assemblies at the palace of the Tsars, where Russian nobles and French leaders would mingle. Mentally, he appointed a governor who would win the people’s hearts. After hearing there were many charitable institutions in Moscow, he decided in his mind he would favor all of them. He recalled how in Africa he had to wear a burnoose and sit in a mosque, so in Moscow he must be as beneficent as the Tsars. And to truly touch Russian hearts—and being like all Frenchmen unable to picture anything sentimental without mentioning *ma chère, ma tendre, ma pauvre mère* \* —he decided every such institution would bear an inscription in bold letters: “This establishment is dedicated to my dear mother.” Or perhaps, just *Maison de ma Mère*, \*(2) he concluded. “But am I really in Moscow? Yes, there it is before me, but why is the city’s deputation taking so long?” he wondered.

\* “My dear, my tender, my poor mother.”

\* (2) “House of my Mother.”

Meanwhile, a tense conversation was taking place in whispers among his generals and marshals behind him. Those sent to bring the deputation had returned with the news that Moscow was empty—that everyone had left. The faces of those not in the huddle were pale and anxious. They weren’t alarmed so much by the evacuation of Moscow (serious though that was), but rather by the problem of how to tell the Emperor—without making him look ridiculous—that he had been waiting for the boyars in vain: that the only people left in Moscow were drunken hooligans. Some said some sort of deputation must be scraped together; others argued the Emperor should be prepared gradually before being told the truth.

“He’ll have to hear it, no matter what,” said a few gentlemen of the suite. “But, gentlemen…”

It was especially awkward because the Emperor, thinking over his gracious plans, kept pacing before the map, now and then looking down the road to Moscow with a bright, proud smile.

“But it’s impossible…” muttered the gentlemen of the suite, shrugging but not daring to say the word—*le ridicule*….

At last, the Emperor, tired of waiting, his actor’s sense telling him that the grand moment was being overextended and losing some of its effect, gave a signal with his hand. A single cannon shot followed, and the troops, already deployed around Moscow, began to march into the city through the Tver, Kalúga, and Dorogomílov gates. Faster and faster, competing with each other, they hurried at the double or trotted forward, disappearing into clouds of dust and filling the air with a deafening roar of voices.

Drawn in by the momentum of the troops, Napoleon rode with them as far as the Dorogomílov gate, but there stopped again and, dismounting, walked up and down by the Kámmer-Kollézski rampart, still waiting for the delegation.

##  CHAPTER XX

Meanwhile, Moscow was empty. Though perhaps a fiftieth of its former people remained, it was empty. It was empty in the same way a queenless, dying hive is empty.

In a hive without a queen, there’s no real life, even if from the outside it looks just as alive as a healthy hive.

The bees circle a queenless hive in the hot sun as gaily as they do the others; from a distance, it still smells of honey, and bees fly in and out the same as before. But look closer and you realize there’s no real life left. The bees don’t fly in the same way, and the smell and sound the beekeeper notices are different. When the beekeeper taps the sick hive, there’s no longer the instant, unified buzzing of tens of thousands of bees, their abdomens up, making that living aerial sound by the rapid hum of their wings; instead, disconnected buzzing comes from scattered places in the dying hive. From the landing board, in place of the usual potent smell of honey and venom, and warm wafts of crowded life, there’s only an odor of emptiness and decay mixed with the scent of honey. There are no more sentinels sounding the alarm, abdomens raised, ready to die fighting for the hive. The steady, quiet hum of bustling activity—like boiling water—is gone; only mixed and discordant sounds of disorder remain. In and out fly long, black robber bees, sticky with honey, moving nervously and slyly. They don’t sting, but slink away from danger. Before, only bees heavy with honey flew in, and left empty; now they fly out with honey. The beekeeper opens the bottom of the hive and looks inside. Instead of shiny black bees tamed by work, hanging in long clusters and humming constantly, now drowsy, shrunken bees crawl separately around the hive’s floors and walls. The floor, once neatly sealed and swept by thousands of beating wings, is littered with wax bits, filth, sick bees barely moving, and the dead not yet carried away.

The beekeeper opens the top of the hive to check the super. Instead of rows of bees sealing every crevice and warming the brood, he sees the intricate combs, but everything is neglected and dirty. Black robber bees sneak quickly and quietly along the combs, while the shrunken, weary home bees move slowly about, not even trying to stop the robbers, having lost all sense of purpose and life. Drones, bumblebees, wasps, and butterflies bang into the hive walls clumsily. Here and there among cells full of dead brood or honey, an angry buzz may be heard. Occasionally some bees, merely out of custom, try to clean out cells, working far beyond their strength to drag out a dead bee or bumblebee, without knowing why. Elsewhere, two old bees feebly fight, or clean themselves, or feed each other, without really knowing if their purpose is hostility or friendship. Another spot is crowded with bees smothering some victim, which, drained or dead, drops lightly as a feather onto the pile of corpses below. The keeper opens the central partitions to examine the brood cells. Instead of the once dark, tight circles of thousands of bees sitting back-to-back, guarding the sacred mystery of the hive’s life, there are only hundreds of lifeless, languid, and sleepy bees—nearly all have died where they sat, there in the sanctuary they maintained, which is now gone. Decay and death permeate everything. A handful still move, weakly rise, and feebly try to fly at the beekeeper’s hand, lacking even the will to die stinging him; the rest are dead, falling like scales. The beekeeper closes up the hive, chalks it, and later tears out the inside to burn it clean.

So, in much the same way, Moscow was empty as Napoleon, weary, uneasy, and grim, paced back and forth before the Kámmer-Kollézski rampart, waiting for what he considered a necessary—if only formal—gesture: a deputation.

In scattered corners of Moscow, a few people still moved about aimlessly, following their old routines, hardly knowing why.

When Napoleon was finally informed—cautiously—that Moscow was deserted, he glared sharply at the messenger, turned away, and in silence kept pacing.

“My carriage!” he commanded.

He sat beside the aide-de-camp on duty, and they drove into the suburb. “Moscow deserted!” he thought. “What an incredible event!”

He did not enter the city proper, but lodged at an inn in the Dorogomílov suburb.

The *coup de théâtre* had failed.

##  CHAPTER XXI

The Russian troops passed through Moscow from two o’clock in the morning until two in the afternoon, taking with them the wounded and the last of the inhabitants who were leaving.

The biggest crowd during the movement of the troops was at the Stone, Moskvá, and Yaúza bridges.

While the troops split into two groups as they circled the Krémlin and packed the Moskvá and Stone bridges, many soldiers, taking advantage of the jam and confusion, slipped away from the bridges and quietly made their way past the church of Vasíli the Beatified and under the Borovítski gate. They then went back up the hill to Red Square, where some instinct seemed to tell them they could easily take whatever they wanted. Crowds similar to those at bargain sales filled every passage and alley of the Bazaar. But there were no shopkeepers calling out invitingly to customers, no street vendors, and none of the typical mix of female shoppers—only soldiers, wearing uniforms and overcoats but without muskets, going into the Bazaar empty-handed and coming out quietly with bundles. Shopkeepers and their assistants (of whom there were few) moved among the soldiers, totally bewildered. They unlocked their shops only to lock them again, and themselves carried goods away with the aid of their assistants. Drummers beat the muster call in the square in front of the Bazaar, but instead of making the looting soldiers run toward the sound, as before, it only made them run further away. Among the soldiers in the shops and passages, a few men in gray coats with closely shaven heads could be seen. Two officers, one wearing a scarf over his uniform and riding a lean, dark-gray horse, the other in an overcoat and on foot, stood talking at the corner of Ilyínka Street. A third officer galloped up to them.

“The general orders everyone out at once, no exceptions. This is disgraceful! Half the men have disappeared.”

“Where are you going?… Where to?…” he shouted at three infantrymen without muskets, who, holding up the tails of their overcoats, were sneaking past him into the Bazaar passage. “Stop, you scoundrels!”

“But how can you stop them?” replied another officer. “There’s no way to gather them up. The main thing is to push the army forward before everyone bolts!”

“How can we push on? They’re stuck there, wedged on the bridge, not moving. Shouldn’t we set up a cordon to keep the rest from running off?”

“Come on, go in there and clear them out!” yelled the senior officer.

The officer in the scarf dismounted, called to a drummer, and entered the arcade with him. Some soldiers started to run off in a group. A shopkeeper with red pimples on his cheeks near the nose, and a calm, persistent, calculating look on his plump face, hurried up to the officer, swinging his arms for emphasis.

“Your honor!” he said. “Please protect us! We won’t begrudge a little something, you’re welcome to anything—we’d be happy to oblige! Honestly!… I’ll get you a piece of cloth right now, or even two pieces, gladly. We understand the situation; but really, this is just outright robbery! Couldn’t guards be stationed here, just long enough for us to close our shops….”

Several shopkeepers crowded around the officer.

“Nonsense!” said one of them, a thin, stern-looking man. “When your head is gone, you don’t mourn for your hair! Take whatever you want!” He gestured energetically as he turned to the officer.

“That’s easy for you to say, Iván Sidórych,” said the first tradesman angrily. “Please step inside, your honor!”

“Easy to say!” cried the thin one. “I have a hundred thousand rubles’ worth of goods in my three shops here. Will any of it be saved once the army’s gone? Some people! ‘Against God’s might, there’s no fighting.’”

“Come inside, your honor!” repeated the tradesman, bowing.

The officer looked uncertain, his face showing his indecision.

“This isn’t my responsibility!” he exclaimed, and hurried quickly down one of the passages.

From an open shop came the sounds of blows and cursing, and just as the officer approached, a man in a gray coat with a shaven head was thrown out roughly.

Bent double, the man rushed past the tradesman and the officer. The officer lunged at the soldiers in the shops, but at that moment, terrified screams reached them from the massive crowd on the Moskvá bridge, and the officer ran out to the square.

“What is it? What’s happening?” he asked, but his comrade was already riding past Vasíli the Beatified toward the source of the screams.

The officer mounted his horse and followed. When he reached the bridge, he saw two unlimbered guns, infantry crossing, several overturned carts, and alarmed and laughing faces among the troops. Next to the cannon stood a cart hitched to two horses. Four borzois with collars were pressed close to its wheels. The cart was piled high, and at the very top, next to a child’s chair with its legs upside-down, sat a peasant woman screaming desperately. Fellow officers told him that the screams from the crowd and the woman were because General Ermólov, arriving and finding out that soldiers were scattering into shops while crowds of civilians blocked the bridge, had ordered two guns to be unlimbered and threatened to fire at the bridge. The panicked crowd, crushing each other, overturning carts, shouting, and pushing desperately, had cleared the bridge, allowing the troops to move on.

##  CHAPTER XXII

Meanwhile, the city itself was deserted. There was hardly anyone in the streets. The gates and shops were all closed, and only here and there, near the taverns, could solitary shouts or drunken songs be heard. Nobody drove through the streets, and footsteps were rarely heard. Povarskáya Street was completely quiet and empty. The large courtyard of the Rostóvs’ house was scattered with bits of hay and horse dung, and not a soul could be seen there. In the great drawing room of the house, which had been left as it was, with all its furnishings, there were only two people. They were the yard porter, Ignát, and the page boy, Míshka, Vasílich’s grandson, who had stayed in Moscow with his grandfather. Míshka had opened the clavichord and was tapping at it with one finger. The yard porter, arms akimbo, stood smiling at his own satisfied reflection in the large mirror.

“Isn’t it fine, Uncle Ignát?” the boy suddenly said, starting to play the keys with both hands.

“Just imagine!” answered Ignát, surprised at the widening grin he saw in the mirror.

“Impudence! Such impudence!” came the voice of Mávra Kuzmínichna from behind them, entering silently. “Look at him grinning, the fat face! Is this what you’re here for? Nothing’s put away downstairs and Vasílich is worn out. Just you wait!”

Ignát stopped smiling, tightened his belt, and left the room with meek, downcast eyes.

“Aunt, I was playing softly,” said the boy.

“I’ll give you something soft, you little monkey!” cried Mávra Kuzmínichna, raising her arm threateningly. “Go get the samovar boiling for your grandfather.”

Mávra Kuzmínichna brushed the dust off the clavichord, closed it, and with a deep sigh, left the drawing room and locked its main door.

As she went out into the yard, she paused, considering where to go next—whether to have tea in the servants’ wing with Vasílich or go to the storeroom to put away what was left out.

She heard the sound of quick footsteps in the quiet street. Someone stopped at the gate, and the latch rattled as someone tried to open it. Mávra Kuzmínichna went over to the gate.

“Who do you want?”

“The count—Count Ilyá Andréevich Rostóv.”

“And who are you?”

“I’m an officer; I need to see him,” came the reply in a pleasant, well-spoken Russian voice.

Mávra Kuzmínichna opened the gate, and an officer of about eighteen, with the round Rostóv face, entered the yard.

“They’ve gone, sir. Left yesterday evening,” said Mávra Kuzmínichna kindly.

The young officer stood in the gateway, as if hesitating to come in, and clicked his tongue.

“Ah, how annoying!” he muttered. “I should have come yesterday…. Ah, what a pity.”

Meanwhile, Mávra Kuzmínichna was looking attentively and sympathetically at the familiar Rostóv features of the young man’s face, his ragged coat, and his worn-out boots.

“What did you need the count for?” she asked.

“Oh well… nothing to be done!” he said in a tone of frustration, putting his hand on the gate as if to leave.

He paused again, uncertain.

“You see,” he finally said, “I’m a relative of the count’s, and he’s always been very kind to me. As you can see”—he glanced down at his coat and boots with a good-humored, amused smile—“my things are worn out and I have no money, so I wanted to ask the count…”

Mávra Kuzmínichna didn’t let him finish.

“Just a minute, sir. Wait here a moment,” she said.

As soon as the officer let go of the gate handle, she turned and hurried away on her old legs, heading through the backyard toward the servants’ quarters.

While Mávra Kuzmínichna was running to her room, the officer wandered around the yard, glancing at his worn boots with his head down and a faint smile on his lips. “Too bad I missed Uncle! What a nice old woman! Where has she run off to? And how am I supposed to find the quickest way to catch up to my regiment—they must be near the Rogózhski gate by now?” he thought. Just then Mávra Kuzmínichna reappeared from behind the corner of the house, looking both frightened and determined, holding a rolled-up checked kerchief. A few steps away from the officer, she unwrapped the kerchief and pulled out a white twenty-five-ruble assignat, which she quickly handed to him.

“If his excellency had been home, as a kinsman he’d of course… but as it is…”

Mávra Kuzmínichna blushed, looking embarrassed and confused. The officer didn’t refuse, but took the note quietly and thanked her.

“If the count had been at home…” Mávra Kuzmínichna continued apologetically. “Christ be with you, sir! May God protect you!” she said, bowing as she saw him out.

Shaking his head and smiling as if amused with himself, the officer ran almost at a trot through the deserted streets toward the Yaúza bridge, hoping to catch up with his regiment.

But Mávra Kuzmínichna stood at the closed gate for some time with tearful eyes, gently shaking her head, feeling a sudden surge of motherly tenderness and pity for the unknown young officer.

##  CHAPTER XXIII

From an unfinished house on the Varvárka, whose ground floor was a tavern, came drunken shouts and songs. On benches around the tables in a dirty little room sat about ten factory workers. Tipsy and sweaty, with dull eyes and gaping mouths, they were all struggling to sing some song together. They sang off-key, with difficulty and effort, not out of a desire to sing, but to prove they were drunk and having a wild time. One of them, a tall, fair-haired young man in a clean blue coat, stood over the others. His face, with its straight nose, would have been handsome if not for his thin, tight, twitching lips and dull, brooding, fixed eyes. Clearly obsessed with some idea, he stood over the singing men, and dramatically waved his bare white arm over their heads—his sleeve rolled up to the elbow, trying awkwardly to splay his dirty fingers. The coat sleeve kept slipping down and he always carefully rolled it back up with his left hand, as if it was crucial that his sinewy arm be exposed. In the middle of the song, cries rang out, and there was fighting and blows in the passage and porch. The tall young man waved his arm.

“Stop it!” he exclaimed sternly. “There’s a fight, lads!” And, still rolling up his sleeve, he went out to the porch.

The factory workers followed him. Earlier that morning, these men, led by the tall youth, had brought the publican some skins from the factory and, for this, were served drinks. Blacksmiths from a nearby smithy, hearing the drunken commotion and thinking the tavern had been broken into, tried to force their way in, leading to a fight in the porch.

The tavern-keeper was fighting one of the smiths at the door, and when the workers came out the smith, breaking free from the publican, fell face-first onto the pavement.

Another smith tried to enter the doorway, pushing against the tavern-keeper with his chest.

The tall youth with the rolled-up sleeve punched the smith in the face and cried out wildly, “They’re attacking us, lads!”

At that moment, the first smith got up and, scratching his bruised face until it bled, shouted in a tearful voice, “Police! Murder!… They’ve killed a man, lads!”

“Oh, goodness, a man’s been beaten to death—killed!…” screamed a woman coming out of a nearby gate.

A crowd gathered around the bloodied smith.

“Haven’t you stolen enough—taking people’s last shirts?” someone shouted at the publican. “Why did you kill a man, you thief?”

The tall youth, standing in the porch, turned his bleary eyes from the publican to the smith and back again, as if weighing whom to fight next.

“Murderer!” he suddenly shouted at the publican. “Tie him up, lads!”

“I bet you’d like to tie me up!” yelled the publican, shoving away the men coming toward him. Snatching his cap from his head, he flung it onto the ground.

As if this gesture carried some mysterious threat, the workers surrounding the publican hesitated in confusion.

“I know the law well, mates! I’ll take this to the police captain. You think I won’t get to him? Nobody’s allowed to rob anyone these days!” shouted the publican, picking up his cap.

“Come on then! Come on then!” the publican and the tall young man shouted in turn, and they walked up the street together.

The bloodied smith walked beside them. The factory workers and others followed behind, talking and shouting.

At the corner of the Moroséyka, across from a large house with closed shutters and a bootmaker’s sign, stood about twenty thin, haggard, gloomy-faced bootmakers, dressed in overalls and long tattered coats.

“He ought to pay people fairly,” a thin worker with a furrowed brow and straggly beard was saying.

“But he’s drained us dry and now thinks he can just leave us. He’s been stringing us along all week and now that we’re in this mess, he’s run off.”

On seeing the crowd and the bloodied man, the worker stopped talking, and all the bootmakers joined the moving throng, full of curiosity.

“Where’s everyone going?”

“To the police, of course!”

“Is it true we’ve been beaten?” “What do you think? Listen to what they’re saying.”

Questions and answers rippled through the crowd. The publican, taking advantage of the larger group, slipped away and returned to his tavern.

The tall youth, not noticing his adversary’s departure, waved his bare arm, talking nonstop and drawing all attention to himself. People clustered around him, looking to him for answers to the questions on everyone’s mind.

“There has to be order, and law—that’s why we have a government. Am I right, good folk?” said the tall youth, managing a slight smile. “He thinks there’s no government! How could we live without it? Or anyone would rob us.”

“Why talk nonsense?” voices in the crowd replied. “Will they just hand over Moscow? They said that just to scare you and you fell for it! Aren’t the troops marching? Just let *him* come in, that’s what the government’s for. Better listen to people,” some of the mob said, gesturing to the tall youth.

By the China-Town wall a smaller group was gathered around a man in a frieze coat holding a paper.

“An ukáse, he’s reading an ukáse! Reading an ukáse!” shouted voices, and people rushed toward the reader.

The man in the frieze coat was reading the broadsheet from August 31. With the crowd around him and at the tall lad’s insistence, he began to read the sheet from the start, his voice a bit unsteady.

“Early tomorrow I shall go to his Serene Highness,” he read (“Sirin Highness,” the tall fellow said, a triumphant smile on his lips and a frown on his brow), “to consult with him to act, and to aid the army to exterminate these scoundrels. We too will take part…” the reader continued, then paused (“See, he’s going to sort it all out for you….” shouted the youth victoriously), “in destroying them, and will send these visitors to the devil. I will come back to dinner, and we’ll set to work. We will do, completely do, and undo these scoundrels.”

The final words were read in total silence. The tall youth hung his head gloomily. No one seemed to understand the last part. The words “I will come back to dinner” especially seemed to disappoint both reader and listeners. Everyone was so wound up, and this seemed too plain and simple—something any one of them might have said, and hardly the sort of thing an ukáse from the highest authority should state.

They all stood dejected and silent. The tall youth moved his lips, swaying side to side.

“We should ask him… is that him himself?”… “Yes, ask him! Why not? He’ll explain”… voices from the back of the crowd suddenly said, and everyone’s attention turned to the police superintendent’s carriage rolling into the square with two mounted dragoons.

The police superintendent, who had gone that morning by Count Rostopchín’s orders to burn the barges and had, as a result, a large sum of money in his pocket, saw the approaching crowd and ordered his coachman to stop.

“Who are these people?” he shouted to the men moving hesitantly toward his carriage.

“Who are these people?” he repeated, getting no answer.

“Your honor…” replied the shopkeeper in the frieze coat, “your honor, in accordance with his excellency the count’s proclamation, they wish to serve, risking their lives, and this is no riot, but as his excellency said…”

“The count hasn’t left; he’s here, and an order will be issued concerning you,” said the superintendent of police. “Go on!” he instructed his coachman.

The crowd stopped, gathering around those who had heard the superintendent’s words, staring at the departing carriage.

At that moment, the superintendent of police turned around with a frightened look, said something to his coachman, and the horses quickened their pace.

“It’s a trick, guys! Take us to him personally!” shouted the tall youth. “Don’t let him get away! Make him answer us! Hold him!” yelled different voices, and the crowd rushed after the carriage.

Following the superintendent of police and talking loudly, the crowd moved toward Lubyánka Street.

“There you have it, the gentry and merchants have left us to die. Do they think we’re dogs?” voices from the crowd were heard saying more and more often.

##  CHAPTER XXIV

On the evening of September 1st, after his meeting with Kutúzov, Count Rostopchín returned to Moscow feeling hurt and insulted because he hadn’t been invited to the council of war and because Kutúzov had ignored his offer to help defend the city. He was also stunned by the new attitude he encountered at the camp, where the safety of the capital and its patriotic fervor were considered not only secondary but completely irrelevant. Distressed, offended, and surprised by all this, Rostopchín returned to Moscow. After dinner, he lay down on a sofa without undressing and was woken soon after midnight by a courier bringing him a letter from Kutúzov. The letter requested the count to send police officers to help guide the troops through town, as the army was retreating to the Ryazán road beyond Moscow. This wasn’t news to Rostopchín. He’d known that Moscow would be abandoned not only since his discussion with Kutúzov the previous day on Poklónny Hill, but ever since the battle of Borodinó, as every general who came to Moscow after that battle had insisted it was impossible to fight another battle. Since then, government property had been moved nightly, and half the city’s residents had left with Rostopchín’s own permission. Still, hearing this as a simple order from Kutúzov in a brief note arriving in the middle of the night startled and irritated him, disrupting his rest.

Later, when Count Rostopchín described his actions during this time in his memoirs, he repeatedly claimed he was motivated by two main goals: to maintain peace in Moscow and to speed up the residents’ departure. If you accept this dual aim, then all Rostopchín’s actions seem above reproach. “Why weren’t the holy relics, weapons, ammunition, gunpowder, and grain stores taken out? Why were thousands of people misled into thinking Moscow wouldn’t be surrendered—and so were ruined?” “To preserve the city’s tranquillity,” explains Rostopchín. “Why were bundles of useless government papers, Leppich’s balloon, and other items taken out?” “To leave the town empty,” Rostopchín answers. One only needs to claim that the public peace is threatened, and any action can be justified.

All the horrors of reigns of terror have always been justified by a supposed concern for public peace.

But what, then, was Count Rostopchín’s fear for Moscow’s tranquillity based on in 1812? Why was it reasonable to think an uprising might happen? The residents were leaving, and retreating troops were filling the city. Why would this cause a riot?

Neither in Moscow nor anywhere else in Russia had there ever been anything like an insurrection when the enemy entered a city. More than ten thousand people still remained in Moscow on September 1st and 2nd, and except for a mob in the governor’s courtyard—assembled at his own behest—nothing happened. It’s clear there would have been even less chance of disturbance if, after the battle of Borodinó, when surrendering Moscow became certain or at least likely, Rostopchín had calmly worked to remove the holy relics, gunpowder, munitions, and money, and told the people plainly that the city was going to be abandoned, rather than riling them up with weapons and inflammatory leaflets.

Rostopchín, though genuinely patriotic, was an excitable and impulsive man who had always lived among top administrators and didn’t really understand the people he believed he was directing. Since the enemy’s entry into Smolénsk, he imagined himself as the director of the “heart of Russia’s” public feeling. It seemed to him (as it does to all people in authority) not only that he could control the outward actions of Moscow’s citizens, but also shape their thoughts through his leaflets and proclamations, written in a coarse style the people despise among themselves and don’t understand from those above them. Rostopchín was so enthralled by his heroic role as leader of the people, and had become so used to it, that the need to let go of this role and evacuate Moscow without any heroic flourish left him unprepared and he suddenly felt lost, not knowing what to do. Though he knew it was coming, he didn’t truly believe in his heart until the very last moment that Moscow would be abandoned, and he didn’t mentally prepare for it. People left despite his wishes. Government offices were only moved when officials insisted and the count grudgingly gave in. He was wrapped up in the persona he’d crafted for himself. As often happens with imaginative people, though he’d long known with his head that Moscow would be abandoned, he didn’t accept it in his heart and didn’t adapt himself to the new reality.

All his vigorous and tireless effort (regardless of how effective it was) had been aimed simply at stirring in the people the same patriotic hatred of the French that he himself felt.

But when the events truly reached their historic moment—when words of hatred for the French weren’t enough; when it wasn’t even possible to show that hatred by fighting; when confidence meant nothing in the face of Moscow’s dire situation; when the population streamed out in unity, abandoning belongings and proving by that single negative act the depth of their national feeling—Rostopchín’s chosen role suddenly seemed pointless. He suddenly felt ridiculous, weak, and alone, with nothing solid to rely on.

When, roused from sleep, he received that detached, peremptory note from Kutúzov, he grew only more irritated, because deep down he felt responsible. All those things he was especially in charge of—all the state property he should have helped move—were still in Moscow, and now it was too late to evacuate them all.

“Who’s to blame for this? Who let things get so bad?” he thought. “Not me, obviously. I had everything ready. I had Moscow under control. And look what they’ve done! Villains! Traitors!” he raged, without knowing exactly who he meant, but feeling the need to blame someone—anyone—for the false and embarrassing predicament he found himself in.

All that night Count Rostopchín fired off orders as people came to him from all corners of Moscow. Those around him had never seen the count so grim and irritable.

“Your Excellency, the Director of the Registrar’s Department needs instructions… from the Consistory, from the Senate, from the University, from the Foundling Hospital, the Suffragan bishop has sent asking what to do… What about the Fire Brigade? From the prison governor… from the head of the asylum…” All night long, such reports were constantly brought to the count.

To all these questions, he gave short, angry responses, making it clear that orders from him were now pointless, that his careful preparations had been ruined by someone else, and that whoever was responsible would have to face the consequences.

“Oh, tell that fool,” he replied to the Registrar’s inquiry, “that he should stay and guard his documents. And why are you bothering me about the Fire Brigade? They have horses; let them go to Vladímir, and not leave them to the French.”

“Your Excellency, the superintendent of the asylum is here: what are your orders?”

“My orders? Let them leave, that’s all… And let the madmen loose in the town. When lunatics are commanding our armies, surely these others are meant to be free too.”

When someone asked about the convicts in prison, Rostopchín snapped at the governor:

“Do you expect me to give you two battalions—which we don’t even have—for an escort? Release them, that’s all there is to it!”

“Your Excellency, there are some political prisoners: Meshkóv, Vereshchágin…”

“Vereshchágin! Hasn’t he been hanged yet?” shouted Rostopchín. “Bring him to me!”

##  CHAPTER XXV

Around nine o’clock in the morning, as the troops were already marching through Moscow, no one came to the count anymore for instructions. Those who were able to escape left on their own, while those who stayed decided for themselves what to do.

The count ordered his carriage so he could drive to Sokólniki, and sat in his study with folded hands, looking grim, pale, and silent.

In calm and peaceful times, every administrator feels that the well-being of the people under his authority depends solely on his efforts, and this sense of being indispensable is the main reward for his hard work. When history is calm, the ruler or administrator, clinging to the ship of his people with his little boat and pole, naturally thinks that he is moving the ship himself. But as soon as a storm comes and the sea rises and the ship begins to move, this illusion is lost. The ship now moves by its own force; the boat hook can no longer reach it, and suddenly, instead of seeming powerful and in control, the administrator appears insignificant, useless, and weak.

Rostopchín recognized this, and it made him furious.

The superintendent of police—just freed from the crowd—entered at the same time as an adjutant who told the count that his horses were ready. Both were pale, and the superintendent of police, after reporting that he had followed orders, told the count that a huge crowd had gathered in the courtyard wanting to see him.

Without a word, Rostopchín got up and walked briskly to his elegant drawing room, approached the balcony door, grabbed the handle, let go, and went to the window for a better view of the crowd. The tall youth stood at the front, waving his arm and saying something sternly. The bloodied blacksmith was beside him, his face dark and brooding. A low hum of voices sounded through the closed window.

“Is my carriage ready?” Rostopchín asked, stepping away from the window.

“It is, your excellency,” the adjutant replied.

Rostopchín went back to the balcony door.

“But what do they want?” he asked the superintendent of police.

“Your excellency, they say they’re ready, as you ordered, to go against the French, and they shouted something about treachery. But it’s a rough crowd, your excellency—I barely managed to escape. Your excellency, if I might suggest—”

“You may go. I don’t need your advice!” Rostopchín snapped angrily.

He stood by the balcony door, looking at the crowd.

“This is what they have done with Russia! This is what they have done with me!” he thought, overwhelmed by a fury seeking someone to blame. Passionate people often become consumed by anger but search for something or someone to unleash it on. “Here is that mob, the dregs of the people,” he thought, gazing at the crowd. “They have been stirred up by someone’s stupidity! They want a victim,” he thought, looking at the tall youth gesturing. He had this thought because he himself needed a target for his rage.

“Is the carriage ready?” he asked again.

“Yes, your excellency. What are your orders about Vereshchágin? He’s waiting at the porch,” said the adjutant.

“Ah!” Rostopchín exclaimed, as if suddenly reminded.

He quickly opened the door and went decisively out onto the balcony. The noise instantly stopped; men removed their hats, and all eyes turned to the count.

“Good morning, lads!” the count said briskly and loudly. “Thank you for coming. I’ll be out in a moment, but first we must deal with the villain. We must punish the villain who caused the ruin of Moscow. Wait for me!”

Rostopchín stepped quickly back inside and slammed the door.

A wave of approval and satisfaction spread through the crowd. “He’ll take care of all the traitors, just watch! And you said the French… He’ll show you justice!” the mob said, scolding each other for their earlier doubts.

A few minutes later, an officer hurried out of the front door, gave an order, and the dragoons formed a line. The crowd eagerly moved from the balcony toward the porch. Rostopchín came out with quick, angry steps, looking urgently around as if searching for someone.

“Where is he?” he asked. And as he spoke, he saw a young man coming from around the corner of the house between two dragoons. The young man had a long, thin neck and a head that was half-shaved but covered now with short hair. He wore a worn-out blue coat lined with fox fur that had once been stylish and dirty hemp convict trousers with thin, dirty, worn-out boots pulled over them. Heavy chains on his thin, weak legs made his steps awkward.

“Ah!” said Rostopchín, hurriedly turning his eyes from the young man in the fur-lined coat and pointing to the bottom step of the porch. “Put him there.”

The young man, chains rattling, clumsily walked to the spot indicated, holding his coat collar away from his neck with one finger, turned his long neck twice from side to side, sighed, and humbly folded his thin, unaccustomed-to-labor hands in front of him.

For several seconds, as the young man settled on the step, there was silence. Only from the back of the crowd—pressing forward to see—came sighs, moans, and shuffling feet.

While waiting, Rostopchín stood frowning and rubbing his face with his hand.

“Lads!” he said, his voice metallic. “This man, Vereshchágin, is the scoundrel responsible for Moscow’s destruction.”

The young man in the fur-lined coat, slightly stooped, stood meekly with his fingers interlaced. His thin, young face, made odd by the half-shaven head, hung in despair. At the count’s first words, he slowly lifted it, looking at Rostopchín as if he wanted to say something or at least catch his eye. But Rostopchín didn’t look at him. A vein in the young man’s long neck swelled, turning blue behind his ear, and suddenly his face became flushed.

Everyone stared at him. He looked back at the crowd, and, feeling encouraged by their expressions, he gave a sad, timid smile, then lowered his head and shifted his feet on the step.

“He betrayed his Tsar and his country. He alone among the Russians has disgraced the Russian name—he’s the reason Moscow is lost,” Rostopchín declared with a sharp, steady voice. Suddenly, he glanced down at Vereshchágin, who continued to stand submissively. Inflamed by the sight, Rostopchín raised his arm and addressed the crowd, almost shouting:

“Deal with him however you see fit! I hand him over to you.”

The crowd stayed silent, pressing closer together. Being crammed together, struggling to breathe in the stifling air, unable to move, and waiting for something unknown and terrible became unbearable. Those in front, who saw and heard everything, stood wide-eyed and open-mouthed, holding back those behind them.

“Beat him!... Let the traitor perish and not shame the Russian name!” Rostopchín yelled. “Cut him down. I command it.”

The crowd, moved more by Rostopchín’s angry tone than his words, groaned and surged forward but stopped again.

“Count!” called out Vereshchágin in a timid but dramatic voice during a sudden lull, “Count! There is one God above both of us…” He lifted his head; the thick vein on his neck filled with blood and his face flushed anew.

He never finished what he wanted to say.

“Cut him down! I command it…” Rostopchín shouted, suddenly turning as pale as Vereshchágin.

“Draw sabers!” the dragoon officer cried, drawing his own.

Another, even stronger, wave swept through the crowd, pushing the front ranks all the way to the steps of the porch. The tall youth, with a hard, expressionless face and a rigid, raised arm, stood next to Vereshchágin.

“Saber him!” the dragoon officer almost whispered.

One of the soldiers, his face suddenly twisted with rage, struck Vereshchágin on the head with the flat of his saber.

“Ah!” cried Vereshchágin in gentle surprise, looking around with a frightened glance as if he couldn’t understand why this was done to him. A similar murmur of shock and horror echoed through the crowd. “O Lord!” exclaimed a sorrowful voice.

But after that initial cry of surprise, Vereshchágin let out a plaintive cry of pain, and that sound was fatal. The thin barrier of human feeling, stretched to its limit, that had kept the crowd in check, suddenly broke. The crime had started and now had to finish. The sad moan of reproach was drowned out by the threatening and angry roar of the crowd. Like the seventh and final wave that smashes a ship, the last unstoppable wave surged from the back, carried the front ranks with it, and swallowed them all up. The dragoon was about to strike again. Vereshchágin, crying out in horror and covering his head with his hands, rushed toward the crowd. The tall youth he stumbled into grabbed him by his thin neck and, screaming wildly, fell with him under the feet of the pressing, struggling mob.

Some in the crowd beat and clawed at Vereshchágin, others at the tall youth. The screams of those being trampled and those trying to save the tall boy only made the crowd’s fury greater. It took the dragoons a long time to free the battered youth, almost beaten to death. And for a long time, despite the frantic rush of the mob to finish the task they had begun, those who were beating, choking, and tearing at Vereshchágin couldn’t manage to kill him, as the crowd pressed in from all sides, swaying together with the victims trapped at the center, making it impossible either to kill him outright or to let him go.

“Hit him with an ax, eh!… Crushed?… Traitor, he sold Christ…. Still alive… stubborn… serves him right! Torture is what a thief deserves. Get the hatchet!… What—still alive?”

Only when the victim stopped struggling and his cries turned into a long, steady death rattle did the crowd around his fallen, bleeding body begin to move away. Each person came up, looked at what had been done, then stepped back with horror, reproach, and astonishment.

“O Lord! The people are like wild beasts! How could he still be alive?” voices in the crowd said. “So young, too… must have been a merchant’s son. What men!… and some are saying he’s not even the right person…. How could he not be the right one?… O Lord! And there’s another one beaten too—they say he’s almost dead…. Oh, these people… Aren’t they afraid of sinning?…” said the same mob, now looking with painful distress at the dead body with its long, thin, partly severed neck and its pale face stained with blood and dust.

A careful police officer, thinking it inappropriate to have a corpse in his Excellency’s courtyard, ordered the dragoons to remove it. Two dragoons dragged it by its twisted legs along the ground. The bloody, dust-caked, half-shaven head with its long neck twisted as it was pulled. The crowd shrank back.

At the moment when Vereshchágin fell and the crowd closed in on him with savage shouts, Rostopchín suddenly turned pale and, instead of heading for the back entrance where his carriage awaited, hurried away with quick, anxious steps, having no idea where he was going, along the hallway toward the rooms on the ground floor. The count’s face was ashen, and he couldn’t control the feverish twitching of his lower jaw.

“This way, your excellency… Where are you going?… This way, please…” a trembling, frightened voice called behind him.

Count Rostopchín couldn’t reply and turned obediently in the direction pointed out. At the back entrance his *calèche* was waiting. The distant uproar of the mob could still be heard. He quickly got in and instructed the coachman to drive him to his country house in Sokólniki.

When they reached Myasnítski Street, out of earshot of the mob’s shouts, the count began to regret his actions. He remembered with unease the fear and agitation he had shown before his staff. “The mob is terrible—disgusting,” he thought in French. “They are like wolves, satisfied only by flesh.” “Count! One God is above us both!”—Vereshchágin’s words suddenly echoed in his mind, and a shiver ran down his back. But that was only momentary, and Count Rostopchín smiled bitterly at himself. “I had other duties,” he told himself. “The people had to be pacified. Many others have died and are dying for the public good”—and he started thinking about his obligations to his family, the city placed in his care, and his role—not as Theodore Vasílyevich Rostopchín the man (he imagined Theodore Vasílyevich Rostopchín was sacrificing himself for the public good), but as governor, the representative of authority and the Tsar. “Had I been simply Theodore Vasílyevich, I’d have acted differently, but as commander-in-chief, I had to safeguard my life and authority.”

Rocking on the springs of his carriage and no longer hearing the mob’s dreadful sounds, Rostopchín felt himself calm down physically and, as often happens, as soon as his body relaxed his mind found reasons to relax as well. The thought that soothed Rostopchín was not a new one. Since the world began and men have killed each other, no one has committed such a crime against a fellow human without soothing himself with this same idea. This idea is *le bien public*, the supposed welfare of others.

To anyone not carried away by passion, such welfare is never certain, but the person committing the crime always thinks he knows where it lies. And Rostopchín now believed he knew it.

Not only did his conscience not reproach him for what he had done, he even found satisfaction in having so cleverly taken advantage of an opportunity to punish a criminal and, at the same time, calm the mob.

“Vereshchágin was tried and sentenced to death,” thought Rostopchín (though the Senate had only sentenced Vereshchágin to hard labor), “he was a traitor and a spy. I could not let him go unpunished, so I’ve killed two birds with one stone: I appeased the mob by giving them a victim and at the same time punished a scoundrel.”

Once at his country house and busy with his household affairs, the count felt completely at ease.

Half an hour later he was riding swiftly in his carriage across the Sokólniki field, no longer thinking about what had happened but about what was next. He was heading to the Yaúza bridge, where he’d heard Kutúzov was. Count Rostopchín was mentally preparing the harsh, stinging rebukes he meant to give Kutúzov for deceiving him. He was ready to make that cunning old courtier feel that all the disaster to come from abandoning the city and the ruin of Russia (as Rostopchín saw it) would be blamed on his feeble old shoulders. Planning what to say to Kutúzov, Rostopchín turned furiously in his *calèche* and glared sternly side to side.

The Sokólniki field was empty. Only at the end, near the almshouse and the insane asylum, were a few people visible in white, and others like them, walking alone across the field, yelling and gesturing.

One of them was running to intercept Count Rostopchín’s carriage, and the count himself, his coachman, and the dragoons looked with vague horror and curiosity at these freed lunatics, especially the one rushing toward them.

Swaying on his long, thin legs in a billowing dressing gown, this lunatic ran straight ahead, his gaze fixed on Rostopchín, shouting hoarsely and gesturing for him to stop. The man’s serious, gloomy face was thin and yellow, with a beard growing in uneven patches. His black, agate-like pupils with yellowed whites darted restlessly near his lower eyelids.

“Stop! Stop, I tell you!” he cried in a piercing voice, and again babbled something breathlessly, with passionate tones and wild gestures.

Running alongside the *calèche*, he kept up with it.

“Thrice have they killed me, thrice have I come back. They stoned me, crucified me… I shall rise… shall rise… shall rise. They have torn me apart. The kingdom of God will fall… I will overthrow it three times and restore it three times!” he cried, his voice climbing higher and higher.

Count Rostopchín suddenly turned pale, just as he had when the crowd closed in on Vereshchágin. He looked away. “Go fas… faster!” he stammered to his coachman. The *calèche* sped off as fast as the horses could run, but for a long time Count Rostopchín could still hear the mad, hopeless screams fading in the distance, while in his mind he saw nothing but the frightened, bloodied, astonished face of “the traitor” in the fur-lined coat.

Recent as that memory was, Rostopchín felt it cut into him, leaving a wound that bled. He knew, even now, that the bloody mark of that memory would not fade but would instead remain with him ever more painfully for the rest of his life. He could still hear his own command: “Cut him down! I command it….”

“Why did I say that? It was an accident…. I didn’t need to say it,” he thought. “And then nothing would have happened.” He saw the shocked and then wild face of the dragoon who struck the blow, the look of silent, timid reproach the fur-coated boy turned on him. “But I didn’t do it for myself. I had to act as I did…. The mob, the traitor… the public good,” he told himself.

Troops still crowded the Yaúza bridge. It was hot. Kutúzov, looking depressed and frowning, sat on a bench by the bridge, playing with his whip in the sand, when a *calèche* rumbled up. A man in a general’s uniform with plumes in his hat approached Kutúzov and spoke in French. It was Count Rostopchín. He announced he had come because Moscow, the capital, was gone and only the army remained.

“Things would have been different if your Serene Highness hadn’t told me you would not leave Moscow without another battle; all this would not have happened,” he said.

Kutúzov looked at Rostopchín as though trying to read something on the man’s face rather than listen to his words. Rostopchín became flustered and fell silent. Kutúzov gently shook his head and, not taking his penetrating gaze from Rostopchín’s face, murmured:

“No! I shall not give up Moscow without a battle!”

Whether Kutúzov was thinking of something entirely different or said those words knowing they were empty, in either case Rostopchín had nothing to say and quickly left him. Strangely enough, the Governor of Moscow, the proud Count Rostopchín, picked up a Cossack whip and went to the bridge, where he began shouting and trying to move the carts that were blocking the way.

##  CHAPTER XXVI

Around four o’clock in the afternoon, Murat’s troops began entering Moscow. At the front rode a detachment of Württemberg hussars, and behind them came the King of Naples himself, accompanied by a large entourage.

Around the middle of Arbát Street, near the Church of the Miraculous Icon of St. Nicholas, Murat stopped to wait for news from the advance detachment regarding the state in which they had found the citadel, *le Kremlin*.

A group of those who had remained in Moscow gathered around Murat. They all stared in timid bewilderment at the strange, long-haired commander, decked out in feathers and gold.

“Is that their Tsar himself? He’s not bad!” whispered some voices in the crowd.

An interpreter rode up to the group.

“Take off your cap… your caps!” These words rippled through the people. The interpreter addressed an old porter and asked if it was far to the Kremlin. The porter, confused by the unfamiliar Polish accent and not realizing the interpreter was speaking Russian, didn’t understand and slipped behind the others.

Murat came over to the interpreter and told him to ask where the Russian army was. One of the Russians understood and several voices started answering the interpreter at once. Just then a French officer, returning from the advance detachment, rode up to Murat and reported that the citadel gates had been barricaded and there was likely an ambush.

“Good!” said Murat, then turned to a member of his suite and ordered four light guns up to fire at the gates.

The guns trotted out from the column following Murat and moved up the Arbát. When they reached the end of Vozdvízhenka Street, they halted and moved into the Square. Several French officers oversaw the positioning of the guns and looked at the Kremlin through field glasses.

The Kremlin bells rang for vespers, and this sound troubled the French—they thought it was a call to arms. Some infantrymen ran to the Kutáfyev Gate. There, beams and wooden screens had been set up, and as soon as an officer and some men approached, two musket shots rang out from under the gate. A general by the guns shouted instructions, and the officer returned to his men.

Three more shots sounded from the gate.

One hit a French soldier’s foot, and from behind the screens came the strange sound of a few voices shouting. Instantly, as if on cue, the cheerful expression on the faces of the French general, officers, and men hardened into a look of focused readiness for conflict and hardship. For everyone—from the marshal to the lowest soldier—this was no longer Vozdvízhenka, Mokhaváya, or Kutáfyev Street, nor the Tróitsa Gate (familiar places in Moscow), but an unknown battlefield that could prove bloody. All prepared for battle. The cries from the gates stopped. The guns were advanced, the artillerymen blew ash off their linstocks, and an officer gave the command to fire. Two rounds of canister shot whistled in succession, rattling against the stone and the wooden beams and screens of the gate, with two wavering clouds of smoke rising over the Square.

Moments after the echo of shots faded over the stone-built Kremlin, the French heard an odd sound above—they saw thousands of crows rise above the walls, circling and cawing loudly, flapping their wings. Along with that sound came a single human cry from the gateway and, amid the smoke, the figure of a bareheaded man in a peasant’s coat appeared. He held a musket and aimed at the French. “Fire!” ordered the officer again, and the sound of a musket and two cannon shots rang out at once. The gate was again hidden by smoke.

Nothing stirred behind the screens, and the French infantry and officers advanced to the gate. In the gateway lay three wounded and four dead. Two men in peasant coats ran away at the foot of the wall toward Známenka.

“Clear that away!” the officer said, pointing to the beams and the corpses. The French soldiers, after dispatching the wounded, threw the bodies over the parapet.

No one knew who these men were. “Clear that away!” was all anyone said of them, and their bodies were thrown over the parapet and removed later to prevent the smell. Thiers alone gives a few eloquent lines to their memory: “These wretches had occupied the sacred citadel, having supplied themselves with guns from the arsenal, and fired” (the wretches) “at the French. Some of them were killed by sabers, and the Kremlin was purged of their presence.”

Murat was told the way was open. The French entered the gates and began setting up camp in Senate Square. Out of the Senate House’s windows, soldiers threw chairs into the Square to fuel fires.

Other detachments moved through the Kremlin and camped along Moroséyka, Lubyánka, and Pokróvka Streets. Others made quarters along Vozdvízhenka, Nikólski, and Tverskóy Streets. Since no homeowners were found anywhere, the French were not billeted with residents as usual, but lived as if they were in a camp.

Though tattered, hungry, worn out, and reduced to a third of their original number, the French entered Moscow in good marching order. They were a weary and starving, but still fighting and threatening army. Yet it remained an army only until its soldiers spread out into their various lodgings. As soon as the men from different regiments fanned out among the rich, empty homes, the army stopped existing and became something unrecognizable—neither civilian nor soldier, but what we now call marauders. Five weeks later, when these men left Moscow, they no longer formed an army but a mob, each carrying whatever he thought valuable or useful. Each man’s goal as he left Moscow was no longer conquest, but merely to keep what he’d gained. Like a monkey putting its paw in a narrow jug, grabbing a handful of nuts and refusing to let go for fear of losing them—and perishing as a result—the French left Moscow doomed, burdened with loot they could not abandon, just as the monkey can’t open its paw. Within ten minutes after each regiment entered a district, not a soldier or officer was to be seen outside. Men in uniforms and Hessian boots wandered inside, laughing and roaming the rooms. In cellars and storerooms, others rummaged through the provisions, while some broke into coach houses and stables, lit fires in kitchens, baked bread with rolled sleeves, and cooked; or frightened, played with, or comforted women and children. There were many such men in the shops and houses—but there was no longer any army.

Order after order was issued by the French commanders that day prohibiting the men from scattering around the city, strictly forbidding violence or looting, and announcing a roll call that very evening. But despite all measures, the men who had been an army spread throughout the rich, empty city and its comforts and supplies. Like hungry cattle sticking together in a barren field but scattering uncontrollably in rich pastures, the army scattered throughout the city.

There were no residents left in Moscow, and the soldiers—like water running through sand—spread everywhere from the Kremlin into which they first entered. Cavalrymen, finding more than enough stabling in an abandoned merchant’s house, would still go to another house that seemed better. Many took several houses, marked them with their names, and fought with others for them. Before securing quarters, soldiers dashed into the streets to explore, and hearing everything had been left behind, rushed to wherever valuables might be found. Officers followed in an attempt to control them, but inevitably ended up doing the same. In Carriage Row, carriages had been left in shops, and generals went there to choose *calèches* and coaches for themselves. The few inhabitants who remained invited commanding officers to their homes, hoping to safeguard against plundering. There was so much wealth it seemed endless. All around the French quarters were unexplored, unoccupied areas where, they imagined, even greater treasures could be found. And so Moscow drew the army in, ever deeper. When you pour water on dry ground, both disappear into mud; likewise, the entrance of this starving army into the rich, empty city led to fire, looting, and the ruin of both the army and the city.

The French blamed the Fire of Moscow on *le patriotisme féroce de Rostopchíne*,\* while the Russians attributed it to French barbarity. In truth, it was not possible to explain the burning of Moscow by making any one person or group responsible. Moscow burned because, as a wooden city, it was bound to burn—regardless of its one hundred and thirty poor fire engines. Deserted Moscow had to burn as inevitably as a stack of shavings will catch fire if sparks fall on it for days. A wooden city, which has fires nearly every day even with residents and a police force, cannot help burning when its people are gone and it’s occupied by soldiers who smoke pipes, burn Senate chairs in campfires, and cook two meals a day. Even in peacetime, if you billet troops in a district’s villages, the number of fires rises immediately. How much more likely for fire in an abandoned, wooden city full of foreign troops. *“Le patriotisme féroce de Rostopchíne”* and the barbarity of the French were not the true causes. Moscow burned from soldiers’ pipes, kitchens, campfires, and the carelessness of enemy troops living in homes they did not own. Even if there was some deliberate arson (which is doubtful—nobody had a real reason to burn the houses, and it’s a difficult and dangerous act), arson did not cause the disaster, for it would have happened even without it.

\* Rostopchín’s fierce patriotism.

No matter how tempting it was for the French to blame Rostopchín’s ferocity or for the Russians to blame the villain Bonaparte—or later to imagine their people heroically set the city alight—it’s impossible not to see there was no direct cause for the fire. Moscow had to burn, just as any village, factory, or house must burn once abandoned by its owners and left to strangers who cook their own food inside. Moscow was burned by its own people, it's true, but it was those who abandoned it, not those who stayed. When occupied by the enemy, Moscow did not remain intact, like Berlin, Vienna, or other cities, simply because its inhabitants abandoned it and did not greet the French with bread and salt or bring the keys to the city.

##  CHAPTER XXVII

The arrival of the French in Moscow, spreading out in all directions, only reached the neighborhood where Pierre was staying on the evening of September second.

After spending the last two days in solitude and under unusual circumstances, Pierre was in a state close to madness. He was completely consumed by a single obsessive thought. He did not know how or when this thought had taken hold of him, but he remembered nothing of the past, understood nothing of the present, and everything he saw and heard seemed like a dream.

He had left his home only to escape the complicated web of life's demands that entangled him, which in his current state he was unable to unravel. He had gone to Joseph Alexéevich's house, using the excuse of sorting through the deceased’s books and papers, simply to find relief from life’s turmoil. In his mind, the memory of Joseph Alexéevich was tied to a world of eternal, solemn, and calm thoughts, entirely opposite to the restless confusion into which he felt himself being drawn. He sought a quiet refuge, and in Joseph Alexéevich’s study, he truly found it. When he sat with his elbows on the dusty writing table in the deathlike silence of the study, calm and meaningful memories of the past several days surfaced in his imagination, especially of the battle of Borodinó and of that vague sense of his own insignificance and insincerity compared with the truth, simplicity, and strength of the group of men he mentally called *they*. When Gerásim awoke him from his thoughts, the idea occurred to him to take part in the people’s defense of Moscow, which he knew was being planned. With this aim, he asked Gerásim to get him a peasant’s coat and a pistol, confiding in him his intention to remain in Joseph Alexéevich’s house and keep his name secret. Then, during the first day spent in inactivity and solitude (he tried several times to focus on the Masonic manuscripts, but couldn’t), the idea that had previously occurred to him about the mystical significance of his name in relation to Bonaparte surfaced more than once. But the thought that he, *L’russe Besuhof*, was destined to set a limit to the power of the *Beast* was still just one of the many notions that passed through his mind and left no lasting impact.

When, having bought the coat simply to take part with the people in Moscow’s defense, Pierre encountered the Rostóvs and Natásha said to him, “Are you staying in Moscow?… How splendid!” the thought suddenly crossed his mind that it really would be a good thing, even if Moscow were captured, for him to stay there and do what he was fated to do.

The next day, with the sole idea of not sparing himself and not falling short of *them* in any way, Pierre went to the Three Hills gate. But when he returned to the house convinced that Moscow would not be defended, he suddenly felt that what had seemed to him just a possibility had now become absolutely necessary and inevitable. He must remain in Moscow, hide his name, and confront Napoleon and kill him, and either die or end the misery of all Europe—which to him seemed caused by Napoleon alone.

Pierre knew all the details of the attempt on Bonaparte’s life in 1809 by a German student in Vienna, and knew that the student had been executed. The danger to his own life excited him even more.

Two powerful feelings pulled Pierre toward this plan. The first was the sense of the need for sacrifice and suffering in the face of the common disaster, the same feeling that had sent him to Mozháysk on the twenty-fifth and made him go right into the thick of the battle, and had now led him to flee his home and, instead of the luxury and comfort he was used to, sleep on a hard sofa without undressing and eat the same food as Gerásim. The other was that vague and thoroughly Russian feeling of contempt for everything conventional, artificial, and human—for everything that most people see as the greatest good in the world. Pierre had first felt this strange and captivating feeling at the Slobóda Palace, when he suddenly realized that wealth, power, and life—all that men work so hard to gain and protect—if they have any value, it is only because of the joy with which they can all be given up.

It was the same feeling that makes a volunteer join up and spend his last penny on drink, and a drunkard break mirrors or glasses for no reason, fully aware it will cost him all his money: the feeling which leads a man to do things that from an ordinary point of view are insane, to test, so to speak, his personal power and strength, asserting the existence of a higher, nonhuman standard for life.

From the day Pierre first felt this sensation at the Slobóda Palace, he had been constantly under its influence, but only now did he find complete fulfillment in it. Moreover, at this moment Pierre was kept to his plan, and prevented from abandoning it, by what he had already done in that direction. If he now left Moscow like everyone else, his leaving home, the peasant coat, the pistol, and his declaration to the Rostóvs that he would stay in Moscow would all become not just pointless but contemptible and absurd, and Pierre was very sensitive to that.

Pierre’s physical state, as is usually the case, matched his mental state. The unaccustomed coarse food, the vodka he drank in those days, the absence of wine and cigars, his dirty unchanged linen, two nearly sleepless nights on a hard sofa without bedding—altogether, these kept him in a mood of excitement bordering on madness.

It was two o’clock in the afternoon. The French had already entered Moscow. Pierre knew this, but rather than act, he only thought over his mission, imagining its smallest details. In his mind, he did not picture very clearly either the blow itself or Napoleon’s death, but he imagined with vividness and sad pleasure his own destruction and heroic endurance.

“Yes, alone, for the sake of all, I must do it or die!” he thought. “Yes, I will approach… and then suddenly… with pistol or dagger? But that doesn’t matter! ‘It is not I but the hand of Providence that punishes you,’ I will say,” he thought, picturing what he would say when killing Napoleon. “Well then, take me and execute me!” he went on, speaking to himself and bowing his head with a sorrowful but determined expression.

While Pierre, standing in the middle of the room, was talking this way to himself, the study door opened and on the threshold appeared Makár Alexéevich, always so timid before but now completely transformed.

His dressing gown was open, his face red and twisted. He was clearly drunk. On seeing Pierre, he was confused at first, but noticing Pierre’s embarrassment, he immediately became bold and, staggering on his thin legs, moved into the middle of the room.

“They’re scared,” he said confidentially in a hoarse voice. “I say I won’t surrender, I say… Am I not right, sir?”

He paused then suddenly, spotting the pistol on the table, snatched it up with surprising speed and ran out into the corridor.

Gerásim and the porter, who had followed Makár Alexéevich, stopped him in the hallway and tried to take the pistol from him. Pierre, stepping into the corridor, looked with pity and repulsion at the half-crazed old man. Makár Alexéevich, frowning with effort, clung to the pistol and yelled hoarsely, obviously with some heroic vision in mind.

“To arms! Board them! No, you shall not take it,” he shouted.

“That’s enough, please, that’s enough. Have the goodness—please, sir, to let go! Please, sir…” pleaded Gerásim, carefully trying to guide Makár Alexéevich by the elbows back to the door.

“Who are you? Bonaparte!…” cried Makár Alexéevich.

“That’s not right, sir. Come to your room, please, and rest. Allow me to have the pistol.”

“Be gone, you base slave! Do not touch me! See this?” shouted Makár Alexéevich, waving the pistol. “Board them!”

“Grab him!” Gerásim whispered to the porter.

They seized Makár Alexéevich by the arms and dragged him to the door.

The hallway was filled with the clashing sounds of a struggle and a drunken, hoarse voice.

Suddenly a new sound, a sharp female scream, rang out from the porch and the cook came running into the hallway.

“It’s them! Good heavens! Oh Lord, four of them, horsemen!” she cried.

Gerásim and the porter let go of Makár Alexéevich, and in the now silent corridor, the sound of several hands knocking at the front door could clearly be heard.

##  CHAPTER XXVIII

Pierre, having decided that until he carried out his plan he would reveal neither his identity nor his knowledge of French, stood at the half-open corridor door, ready to hide as soon as the French entered. But when the French did come in, Pierre still didn’t leave—an irresistible curiosity kept him there.

There were two of them. One was an officer—a tall, soldierly, handsome man—the other was evidently a private or an orderly, sunburned, short, and thin, with hollow cheeks and a dull expression. The officer walked in front, leaning on a stick and limping slightly. After taking a few steps, he stopped, apparently deciding that these quarters would do, turned to the soldiers standing at the entrance, and in a loud commanding voice ordered them to stable the horses. Having done this, the officer, with a smart gesture, stroked his mustache and lightly touched his hat.

*“Bonjour, la compagnie!”* \* he said cheerfully, smiling and looking around.

\* “Good day, everybody!”

No one replied.

*“Vous êtes le bourgeois?”* \* the officer asked Gerásim.

\* “Are you the master here?”

Gerásim stared at the officer with an alarmed and uncertain expression.

*“Quartier, quartier, logement!”* said the officer, looking down at the little man with a condescending yet friendly smile. *“Les français sont de bons enfants. Que diable! Voyons! Ne nous fâchons pas, mon vieux!”* \* he added, clapping the frightened and silent Gerásim on the shoulder. “Well, does no one speak French in this house?” he asked again in French, glancing around and meeting Pierre’s gaze. Pierre moved away from the door.

\* “Quarters, quarters, lodgings! The French are good fellows. What the devil! There, don’t be cross, old fellow!”

Again the officer turned to Gerásim and asked him to show the rooms in the house.

“Master, not here—don’t understand… me, you…” said Gerásim, struggling to make himself understood by twisting his words.

Still smiling, the French officer spread his hands out in front of Gerásim’s face, indicating that he didn’t understand him either, and limped toward the door where Pierre was standing. Pierre wanted to leave and hide, but at that moment he saw Makár Alexéevich coming from the open kitchen door with a pistol in his hand. With the cunning of a madman, Makár Alexéevich eyed the Frenchman, raised his pistol, and aimed.

“Board them!” yelled the drunken man, trying to pull the trigger. Hearing the shout, the officer turned, and at that instant Pierre threw himself on the drunkard. Just as Pierre grabbed the pistol and pushed it aside, Makár Alexéevich managed to get his finger on the trigger, there was a deafening shot, and everyone was engulfed in a cloud of smoke. The Frenchman turned pale and raced to the door.

Forgetting his intention of concealing that he spoke French, Pierre, grabbing the pistol and tossing it aside, hurried to the officer and addressed him in French.

“Are you hurt?” he asked.

“I don’t think so,” answered the Frenchman, feeling himself over. “But that was a close call,” he added, pointing to the chipped plaster on the wall. “Who is that man?” he said, looking sternly at Pierre.

“Oh, I am truly sorry for what has happened,” Pierre said quickly, completely forgetting the role he intended to play. “He is an unfortunate madman who didn’t know what he was doing.”

The officer walked over to Makár Alexéevich and grabbed him by the collar.

Makár Alexéevich stood with his lips parted, swaying as if he might fall asleep, leaning against the wall.

“Scoundrel! You’ll pay for this,” said the Frenchman, letting him go. “We French are merciful in victory, but we do not pardon traitors,” he added with a dignified glare and an emphatic gesture.

Pierre continued, in French, to persuade the officer not to hold the drunkard responsible. The Frenchman listened in grim silence, but suddenly turned to Pierre with a smile. For a few moments he looked at him in silence. His handsome face took on a melodramatically gentle expression, and he reached out his hand.

“You have saved my life. You are French,” he said.

For the officer, that deduction was beyond question. Only a Frenchman could perform a noble deed, and saving his life—the life of M. Ramballe, captain of the 13th Light Regiment—was, without a doubt, such a deed.

But though the conclusion seemed certain to the officer, Pierre felt it necessary to clarify.

“I am Russian,” he said quickly.

“Tut, tut, tut! Save that for others,” the officer replied, waving his finger before his nose and smiling. “You’ll tell me all about that soon. I am delighted to meet a compatriot. Now, what should we do with this man?” he added, turning to Pierre as if to a brother.

Even if Pierre was not a Frenchman, once given that highest of compliments, he could not back down from it, as the officer’s look and tone made clear. In response to his last question, Pierre again explained who Makár Alexéevich was and how, just before the French arrived, the drunkard had gotten hold of the loaded pistol they hadn’t managed to take from him, begging the officer to let the matter go unpunished.

The Frenchman drew himself up and made a grand gesture with his arm.

“You have saved my life! You are French. You ask for his pardon? I grant it. Take that man away!” he said briskly and with energy, and, taking Pierre—now promoted to Frenchman for saving his life—by the arm, he led him into the room.

The soldiers in the yard, having heard the shot, came into the passage asking what had happened, offering to punish the culprit, but the officer sternly stopped them.

“You will be called when you’re needed,” he said.

The soldiers left, and the orderly, who had had time to check the kitchen, approached his officer.

“Captain, there is soup and a leg of mutton in the kitchen,” he said. “Shall I serve them?”

“Yes, and bring some wine,” answered the captain.

##  CHAPTER XXIX

When the French officer entered the room with Pierre, Pierre again felt it was his duty to assure him that he was not French and wanted to leave, but the officer would not allow it. He was so extremely polite, amiable, good-natured, and sincerely grateful to Pierre for saving his life that Pierre couldn’t bring himself to refuse, and sat down with him in the parlor—the first room they entered. To Pierre’s insistence that he was not French, the captain, clearly unable to understand why anyone would decline such an honorable title, shrugged and said that if Pierre absolutely insisted on being seen as Russian, so be it, but he would nonetheless remain forever grateful to Pierre for saving his life.

Had this man possessed even a slight ability to notice the feelings of others, and if he had at all understood what Pierre was feeling, Pierre would likely have left him; but the man’s lively obliviousness to anything outside himself disarmed Pierre.

“A Frenchman or a Russian prince in disguise,” said the officer, looking at Pierre’s fine, though dirty, linen and the ring on his finger. “I owe you my life and offer you my friendship. A Frenchman never forgets an insult or a favor. I offer you my friendship. That’s all I can say.”

There was such warmth and nobility (in the French sense of the word) in the officer’s voice, his expression, and his gestures, that Pierre, unconsciously smiling in response to the Frenchman’s smile, took the hand offered to him.

“Captain Ramballe, of the 13th Light Regiment, Chevalier of the Legion of Honor for the action on the seventh of September,” he introduced himself, a self-satisfied, irrepressible smile appearing beneath his mustache. “Now would you please tell me with whom I have the pleasure of conversing so pleasantly, instead of being in the hospital with that madman’s bullet in my body?”

Pierre replied that he could not reveal his name and, blushing, began awkwardly to invent a name and explain his reason for hiding it, but the Frenchman quickly interrupted him.

“Oh, please!” he said. “I understand your reasons. You are an officer… perhaps a senior officer. You have fought against us. That’s not my concern. I owe you my life. That is enough for me. I am entirely at your service. Are you from the nobility?” he concluded with a hint of inquiry in his tone. Pierre nodded. “Just your Christian name, please. That’s all I ask. Monsieur Pierre, you say… That’s all I need to know.”

When the mutton and omelet had been served and a samovar and vodka brought, with some wine the French had taken from a Russian cellar and brought with them, Ramballe invited Pierre to share his dinner and began to eat greedily and quickly like a healthy, hungry man—chewing rapidly with his strong teeth, constantly smacking his lips and repeating, “Excellent! Delicious!” His face grew red and sweaty. Pierre was hungry and gladly shared the meal. Morel, the orderly, brought some hot water in a saucepan and placed a bottle of claret in it. He also brought a bottle of kvass, taken from the kitchen for them to try. That drink was already known to the French and had acquired a special nickname. They called it *limonade de cochon* (pig’s lemonade), and Morel spoke highly of the *limonade de cochon* he had found in the kitchen. But since the captain had the wine taken while passing through Moscow, he left the kvass for Morel and poured himself and Pierre some Bordeaux. He wrapped the bottle to its neck in a table napkin and poured wine for them both. Satisfied by the food and wine, the captain became even livelier and chatted constantly during dinner.

“Yes, my dear Monsieur Pierre, I owe you a fine votive candle for saving me from that madman…. You see, I already have plenty of bullets in my body. Here’s one I got at Wagram,” (he touched his side) “and a second at Smolénsk,”—he pointed to a scar on his cheek—“and this leg, which as you see doesn’t want to march, I got that on the seventh at the great battle of la Moskowa. *Sacré Dieu!* It was magnificent! That downpour of fire was something to behold. It was a tough challenge you gave us, truly! You should be proud! And honestly, even with the cough I caught there, I’d be ready to go through it again. I pity those who missed it.”

“I was there,” said Pierre.

“Really? Well, all the better! You are certainly brave opponents. That great redoubt stood fast, I swear!” continued the Frenchman. “And you made us pay dearly for it. I attacked it three times—absolutely. Three times we reached the guns, and three times we were thrown back like cardboard figures. Oh, it was glorious, Monsieur Pierre! Your grenadiers were magnificent, truly! I saw them close their ranks again and again and march like they were on parade. Wonderful fellows! Our King of Naples, who knows valor, shouted ‘Bravo!’ Ha, ha! So you’re a soldier too!” he added, smiling after a brief pause. “That’s even better, Monsieur Pierre! Fierce in battle… gallant with the ladies” (he winked and laughed), “that’s the French for you, isn’t it?”

The captain was so genuinely cheerful and unpretentious, so sincere and pleased with himself, that Pierre almost winked back at him, laughing good-naturedly. Likely, the word “gallant” turned the captain’s thoughts to Moscow’s current state.

“Speaking of which, tell me, is it true all the women have left Moscow? What a strange idea! What did they have to fear?”

“Wouldn’t the French ladies leave Paris if the Russians entered it?” asked Pierre.

“Ha, ha, ha!” The Frenchman laughed heartily, patting Pierre’s shoulder. “What a thing to say!” he exclaimed. “Paris?… But Paris, Paris…”

“Paris—the capital of the world,” Pierre finished for him.

The captain looked at Pierre. He had a habit of pausing mid-sentence and gazing intently with his friendly, laughing eyes.

“Well, if you hadn’t told me you were Russian, I’d have bet you were Parisian! You have that… I don’t know what, that…” and after delivering this compliment, he again looked at him in silence.

“I have been in Paris. I spent years there,” said Pierre.

“Oh yes, you can tell right away. Paris!... A man who doesn’t know Paris is a savage. You can spot a Parisian from two leagues away. Paris is Talma, la Duchénois, Potier, the Sorbonne, the boulevards,” and seeing that his conclusion was weaker than what came before, he quickly added: “There’s only one Paris in the world. You’ve been to Paris and remained Russian. Well, I don’t think any less of you for it.”

Under the influence of the wine, and after days spent alone with dismal thoughts, Pierre couldn’t help but enjoy talking with this lively, good-natured man.

“Back to your ladies—I hear they are beautiful. What an unfortunate idea to go run off to the steppes when the French army is in Moscow. What a chance those girls have missed! Your peasants, now, that’s another matter; but you civilized folks, you should know us better. We’ve taken Vienna, Berlin, Madrid, Naples, Rome, Warsaw, all the world’s capitals…. People fear us, but they love us too. We’re good company. And then the Emperor…” he began, but Pierre interrupted.

“The Emperor,” Pierre repeated, his face suddenly sad and embarrassed, “is the Emperor…?”

“The Emperor? He’s generosity, mercy, justice, order, genius—that’s who the Emperor is! It’s I, Ramballe, who tell you so…. I assure you I was his enemy eight years ago. My father was an émigré count…. But that man won me over. He took hold of me. I couldn’t resist the glory he brought to France. When I understood what he wanted—when I saw he was preparing a bed of laurels for us, as you say, I thought: ‘That’s a real monarch,’ so I devoted myself to him! There you have it. Yes, *mon cher*, he is the greatest man of any age, past or future.”

“Is he in Moscow?” Pierre asked, looking guilty.

The Frenchman saw his guilty face and smiled.

“No, he will make his entrance tomorrow,” he answered, then continued speaking.

Their conversation was interrupted by shouting outside the gate and by Morel, who came to report that some Württemberg hussars had arrived and wanted to stable their horses in the yard where the captain’s horses already were. The problem arose mostly because the hussars couldn’t understand French.

The captain had their senior sergeant called in and sternly asked what regiment he belonged to, who his commanding officer was, and by what right he claimed quarters already occupied. The German, who knew little French, answered the first two questions by naming his regiment and officer, but didn’t understand the third and replied, mixing broken French with German, that he was the regimental quartermaster and his commander had ordered him to occupy all the houses in sequence. Pierre, who knew German, translated for both sides. Once everything was clear, the German accepted it and took his men elsewhere. The captain went out to the porch and gave some orders in a loud voice.

When he returned, Pierre was sitting in the same spot with his head in his hands. His face showed suffering. He really was suffering at that moment. When the captain went out and he was left alone, Pierre suddenly became aware of his situation. It wasn’t that Moscow had been taken or that the happy conquerors ruled over it and patronized him—painful as that was, it wasn’t the real torment. What really tormented Pierre was the awareness of his own weakness. The few glasses of wine and the conversation with this kind man had dispersed the brooding gloom he had cherished over the past few days, which had been necessary for his plan. The pistol, dagger, and peasant coat were ready. Napoleon was to enter the city tomorrow. Pierre still believed it would be a worthy action to kill the evildoer, but now he knew he wouldn’t do it. He didn’t know why, but he sensed he wouldn’t go through with it. He fought against admitting his weakness but vaguely understood that he couldn’t overcome it, and that his former dark thoughts of revenge, murder, and self-sacrifice had been swept away like dust after meeting this first stranger.

The captain returned to the room, limping slightly and whistling a tune.

The Frenchman’s chatter, which had earlier amused Pierre, now irritated him. The song he was whistling, his walk, and the way he twirled his mustache now seemed offensive. “I will leave immediately. I won’t say another word to him,” Pierre thought. He thought this, but continued to sit in the same place. A strange feeling of weakness kept him where he was; he wanted to get up and leave, but couldn’t.

The captain, on the other hand, seemed very cheerful. He paced the room twice. His eyes sparkled and his mustache quivered as if he were laughing to himself at some private joke.

“The colonel of those Württembergers is charming,” he said suddenly. “He’s German, but a good fellow all the same… But he’s a German.” He sat facing Pierre. “By the way, you know German?”

Pierre looked at him silently.

“What is the German for ‘shelter’?”

“Shelter?” Pierre repeated. “The German for shelter is *Unterkunft*.”

“How do you say it?” the captain asked quickly and doubtfully.

*“Unterkunft,”* Pierre repeated.

“Onterkoff,” said the captain, looking at Pierre for several seconds with amused eyes. “These Germans are real fools, don’t you think so, Monsieur Pierre?” he finished.

“Well, let’s have another bottle of this Moscow Bordeaux, shall we? Morel will warm us up another little bottle. Morel!” he called out cheerfully.

Morel brought candles and a bottle of wine. The captain looked at Pierre by candlelight and was clearly struck by the troubled expression on Pierre’s face. Ramballe, showing genuine concern and empathy, approached Pierre and leaned over him.

“There now, we’re sad,” he said, touching Pierre’s hand. “Have I upset you? No, truly, do you have anything against me?” he asked Pierre. “Or is it just the general situation?”

Pierre didn’t answer but looked warmly into the Frenchman’s sympathetic eyes, finding comfort there.

“Honestly, putting aside what I owe you, I feel a real friendship for you. Can I do anything for you? You can count on me, for life and death. I say this with my hand on my heart!” he said, pressing his chest.

“Thank you,” said Pierre.

The captain gazed at him intently, just as he had when he learned that “shelter” was *Unterkunft* in German, and his face suddenly brightened.

“Well, in that case, I drink to our friendship!” he exclaimed joyfully, filling two glasses with wine.

Pierre took one of the glasses and drank it down. Ramballe did the same, pressed Pierre’s hand again, and then leaned on the table with his elbows in a thoughtful pose.

“Yes, my dear friend,” he began, “such is fortune’s whim. Who would have thought I’d be a soldier and a captain of dragoons serving Bonaparte, as we used to call him? Yet here I am in Moscow with him. I must tell you, *mon cher*,” he continued in the slow, sad tones of someone about to tell a long story, “that our family is one of the oldest in France.”

With a Frenchman’s easy and honest openness, the captain shared with Pierre the story of his ancestors, his childhood, youth, adulthood, and all about his relatives and financial and family affairs, his *“ma pauvre mère”* of course playing a major role in the story.

“But all that is just the backdrop to life; the real thing is love—love! Isn’t that right, Monsieur Pierre?” he said, growing animated. “Another glass?”

Pierre again emptied his glass and poured himself a third.

“Oh, women, women!” the captain said, eyes shining as he looked at Pierre, starting to talk about love and his love affairs.

There were many of these, as one could easily imagine, looking at the officer’s handsome, self-satisfied face and seeing the enthusiastic excitement with which he spoke of women. Although all Ramballe’s love stories had the sensual quality the French consider the essential charm and poetry of love, he spoke with such sincere conviction that he alone had truly known love’s delights, and described women so alluringly that Pierre listened with curiosity.

It was clear that the *l’amour* the Frenchman loved was neither the simple, physical kind Pierre had once felt for his wife, nor was it the romantic, self-created love he’d experienced for Natásha. (Ramballe despised both these types of love equally: one he called “the love of peasants,” the other “the love of fools.”) The *l’amour* Ramballe revered was defined mainly by its unnaturalness and by a mix of contradictions that gave the feeling its main attraction.

So the captain movingly recounted his love for a captivating marquise of thirty-five, and for her charming, innocent daughter of seventeen, describing the struggle of generosity between mother and daughter, which ended with the mother sacrificing herself and offering her daughter to be his wife. Even now, that memory stirred him, though it belonged to the distant past. Then he recalled an episode where the husband became the lover, and he—the lover—took the role of the husband, as well as funny stories from his days in Germany, where “shelter” is called *Unterkunft* and husbands eat sauerkraut while young women are “too blonde.”

Finally, the latest episode in Poland, still fresh in the captain’s memory, which he told with animated gestures and a shining face, detailed how he’d saved a Pole’s life (saving lives seemed to happen regularly in Ramballe’s stories) and the Pole had entrusted him with his enchanting wife (*parisienne de cœur*) while joining the French army himself. The captain was thrilled, the alluring Polish lady wanted to run away with him, but, prompted by noble feelings, the captain returned the wife to her husband, saying: “I have saved your life, and now I save your honor!” After repeating these words the captain wiped his eyes and gave himself a brisk shake, as if trying to dismiss the emotion that overwhelmed him at this touching memory.

While listening to the captain’s tales, Pierre—as often happens late in the evening and under the influence of wine—followed all that was being told to him, fully understood it, yet at the same time was following a train of personal memories that, for some unknown reason, suddenly came to mind. Listening to these love stories, his own love for Natásha suddenly surfaced in his mind; as he recollected scenes from that love, he mentally compared them to Ramballe’s tales. As he heard the story of the struggle between love and duty, Pierre saw with perfect clarity his last meeting with the woman he loved at the Súkharev water tower. At the time, that meeting hadn’t moved him—he hadn’t even thought of it again. But now it seemed to him that encounter had contained something truly important and poetic.

“Peter Kirílovich, come here! We have recognized you,” he now seemed to hear her words, and see before him her eyes, her smile, her traveling hood, and a loose lock of her hair… and it all seemed deeply touching and full of feeling.

After finishing the story about the beautiful Polish lady, the captain asked Pierre if he’d ever felt the urge to sacrifice himself for love and felt envy for the legitimate husband.

Prompted by this, Pierre lifted his head and felt the need to share the thoughts crowding his mind. He began explaining that he saw love for a woman differently. He said that in his whole life he had loved, and still loved, only one woman, but she could never be his.

*“Tiens!”* said the captain.

Pierre then explained that he had loved this woman since his earliest years but hadn’t dared to think of her because she was too young, and because he himself had been an illegitimate son without a name. Later, after gaining a name and wealth, he still did not dare consider her because he loved her too much, placing her above everything else in the world, especially above himself.

When he finished, Pierre asked the captain if he understood.

The captain made a gesture showing that, even if he didn’t quite understand, he wanted Pierre to continue.

“Platonic love, clouds…” he muttered.

Whether it was the wine, a sudden impulse of honesty, the safety of knowing this man would never know the people in his story, or all these together, something loosened Pierre’s tongue. Speaking thickly, eyes distant and shining, he poured out the entire story of his life: his marriage, Natásha’s love for his best friend, her betrayal, and all his own simple relations with her. Encouraged by Ramballe’s questions, he even revealed what he had previously concealed—his situation and even his name.

More than anything else in Pierre’s story, the captain was amazed that Pierre was so rich, owned two mansions in Moscow, and yet had given up everything and remained in the city, hiding his name and status.

When it was late at night, they went out together into the street. The night was warm and bright. To the left of the house on Pokróvka, a fire glowed—the first of the blazes beginning in Moscow. High in the sky, to the right, was the crescent of the waning moon, and opposite it, the bright comet that to Pierre was forever linked with his love. At the gate stood Gerásim, the cook, and two Frenchmen. Their laughter and confusing remarks in two languages could be heard. They were watching the red glow in town.

The one small, distant fire in the vast city didn’t seem at all frightening.

Looking up at the starry sky, the moon, the comet, and the fire’s glow, Pierre felt a rush of happiness. “There now, how good life is, what more could anyone need?” he thought. But suddenly remembering his own unresolved intentions, he felt dizzy, so faint that he had to lean against the fence to steady himself.

Without taking leave of his new friend, Pierre left the gate, walking unsteadily back to his room, where he lay down on the sofa and immediately fell asleep.

##  CHAPTER XXX

The glow from the first fire that started on September 2 was watched from the various roads by the fleeing Muscovites and by the retreating troops, each with their own feelings.

The Rostóv party spent the night at Mytíshchi, fourteen miles from Moscow. They had left so late on September 1, the road was so crowded with vehicles and troops, and so many things had been forgotten—requiring servants to go back—that they decided to stay the night at a place three miles outside Moscow. The next morning they woke up late and were delayed again so many times that they only managed to reach Greater Mytíshchi. At ten o’clock that evening, the Rostóv family and the wounded traveling with them were all settled in the yards and huts of the large village. The Rostóvs’ servants, coachmen, and the wounded officers’ orderlies, after attending to their masters, had supper, fed the horses, and came out onto the porches.

In a neighboring hut lay Raévski’s adjutant with a broken wrist. The intense pain made him moan constantly and miserably, and his moaning sounded terrible in the darkness of the autumn night. He had spent the previous night in the same yard as the Rostóvs. The countess said she hadn’t been able to sleep because of his moaning, and at Mytíshchi she moved into a worse hut just to be farther from the wounded man.

In the darkness one of the servants noticed, above the high body of a coach standing before the porch, the faint glow of another fire. One glow had long been visible, and everyone knew it was Little Mytíshchi burning—set on fire by Mamónov’s Cossacks.

“But look here, brothers, there’s another fire!” remarked an orderly.

Everyone turned their attention to the glow.

“But they told us Little Mytíshchi was set on fire by Mamónov’s Cossacks.”

“But that’s not Mytíshchi, it’s farther away.”

“Look, it must be in Moscow!”

Two of the onlookers went around to the other side of the coach and sat down on its steps.

“It’s more to the left; Little Mytíshchi is over there, and this is on the other side.”

Several men joined the first two.

“See how it’s flaring,” said one. “That’s a fire in Moscow—either in the Sushchévski or the Rogózhski quarter.”

No one replied, and for some time, they all gazed silently at the spreading flames of the second fire in the distance.

Old Daniel Teréntich, the count’s valet (as he was called), came up to the group and shouted at Míshka.

“What are you staring at, you good-for-nothing?… The count will be calling and there’s nobody there; go and gather the clothes.”

“I just ran out to get some water,” said Míshka.

“But what do you think, Daniel Teréntich? Doesn’t it look like that glow is in Moscow?” remarked one of the footmen.

Daniel Teréntich didn’t answer, and once again, for a long time, everyone was silent. The glow continued to grow, rising and falling, farther and farther still.

“God have mercy… It’s windy and dry…” said another voice.

“Just look! See what it’s doing now. Oh Lord! You can even see the crows flying. Lord have mercy on us sinners!”

“They’ll put it out, don’t worry!”

“Who’s going to put it out?” Daniel Teréntich, who had been silent until now, spoke up. His voice was calm and deliberate. “It’s Moscow, brothers,” he said. “Mother Moscow, the white…” His voice broke, and he was overcome by an old man’s sob.

And it seemed as if they had all been waiting for this to realize what that glow really meant for them. Sighs were heard, words of prayer spoken, and the sobbing of the count’s old valet.

##  CHAPTER XXXI

The valet, returning to the cottage, informed the count that Moscow was burning. The count put on his dressing gown and went out to see. Sónya and Madame Schoss, who had not yet undressed, went out with him. Only Natásha and the countess stayed in the room. Pétya was no longer with the family; he had gone on with his regiment, which was heading for Tróitsa.

When the countess heard that Moscow was on fire, she began to cry. Natásha, pale and with a fixed expression, was sitting on the bench under the icons just where she had sat down upon arriving, paying no attention to her father’s words. She was listening to the constant moaning of the adjutant, three houses away.

“Oh, how terrible,” said Sónya, coming back from the yard, chilled and frightened. “I think all of Moscow will burn—there’s an awful glow! Natásha, look! You can see it from the window,” she said to her cousin, clearly trying to distract her.

But Natásha looked at her as if she didn’t understand what was said and again fixed her eyes on the corner of the stove. She had been in this stupor since morning, when Sónya, to the surprise and annoyance of the countess, had for some reason found it necessary to tell Natásha about Prince Andrew’s wound and his being with them. The countess had rarely been so angry with anyone as she was with Sónya. Sónya had cried and begged for forgiveness and now, as if to make up for her mistake, paid unceasing attention to her cousin.

“Look, Natásha, how dreadfully it is burning!” she said.

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

And as if so she wouldn't offend Sónya and to get rid of her, she turned her face to the window, looked out so blankly that it was clear she saw nothing, and then returned to her earlier position.

“But you didn’t see it!”

“Yes, really I did,” Natásha answered in a voice that begged to be left alone.

Both the countess and Sónya understood that, of course, neither Moscow nor the fire nor anything else could matter to Natásha right now.

The count returned and lay down behind the partition. The countess went up to her daughter and touched her head with the back of her hand, as she used to do when Natásha was ill, then felt her forehead with her lips to check for fever, and finally kissed her.

“You’re cold. You’re trembling all over. You’d better lie down,” said the countess.

“Lie down? All right, I will. I’ll lie down right away,” said Natásha.

When Natásha had been told that morning that Prince Andrew was badly wounded and was traveling with them, she had at first asked many questions: Where was he going? How was he wounded? Was it serious? Could she see him? But when she was told she couldn't see him, that he was badly wounded but his life was not in danger, she stopped asking questions or talking at all, clearly not believing what she was told, and convinced that whatever she said she'd be told the same thing. The whole way there she had sat motionless in a corner of the coach with wide open eyes, with the same look the countess knew so well and feared, and now she sat the same way on the bench where she had placed herself on arriving. She was planning something and either deciding or had already decided on something in her mind. The countess sensed this but did not know what it was, and it alarmed and tormented her.

“Natásha, undress, darling; lie down on my bed.”

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

“No, Mamma, I’ll lie down here on the floor,” Natásha replied irritably and went to the window and opened it. Through the open window, the moans from the adjutant were even clearer. She put her head out into the damp night air, and the countess saw her slim neck trembling with sobs as it leaned against the window frame. Natásha knew it wasn’t Prince Andrew who was moaning. She knew Prince Andrew was in the same yard, in a part of the hut across the passage; but that dreadful, endless moaning made her sob. The countess exchanged a glance with Sónya.

“Lie down, darling; lie down, my dear,” said the countess, softly touching Natásha’s shoulders. “Come, lie down.”

“Oh, yes… I’ll lie down right away,” said Natásha, and began hurriedly undressing, tugging at the tapes of her petticoat.

When she had taken off her dress and put on a dressing jacket, she sat down with her foot tucked under her on the bed made up on the floor, jerked her thin and rather short braid to the front, and began braiding her hair again. Her long, thin, practiced fingers quickly undid, redid, and tied up her braid. Her head moved from side to side out of habit, but her feverishly wide eyes stared fixedly ahead. When her nightly routine was finished, she gently lay down on the sheet spread over the hay on the side nearest the door.

“Natásha, you’d better lie in the middle,” said Sónya.

“I’ll stay here,” muttered Natásha. “Just lie down,” she added crossly, and buried her face in the pillow.

The countess, Madame Schoss, and Sónya undressed hurriedly and lay down. The small lamp in front of the icons was the only light left in the room. But outside in the yard there was light from the fire at Little Mytíshchi, a mile and a half away, and through the night came the noise of people shouting at a tavern Mamónov’s Cossacks had set up across the street, and the adjutant’s unending moans could still be heard.

For a long time Natásha listened carefully to the sounds coming from inside and outside the room and didn’t move. First she heard her mother praying, sighing, and the creak of her bed; then Madame Schoss’ familiar whistling snore and Sónya’s gentle breathing. Then the countess called to Natásha. Natásha didn’t answer.

“I think she’s asleep, Mamma,” Sónya whispered softly.

After a short pause the countess spoke again, but this time no one replied.

Soon after that, Natásha heard her mother’s steady breathing. Natásha did not move, though her little bare foot, sticking out from under the quilt, was growing cold on the bare floor.

As if to mark its triumph over everyone, a cricket chirped in a crack in the wall. A cock crowed far off and another answered close by. The shouting at the tavern had died down; only the moaning of the adjutant was heard. Natásha sat up.

“Sónya, are you asleep? Mamma?” she whispered.

No one answered. Natásha rose slowly and quietly, crossed herself, and stepped carefully on the cold, dirty floor with her slim, flexible, bare feet. The boards of the floor creaked. Moving quietly from one foot to the other she darted like a kitten across the few steps to the door and gripped the cold handle.

It seemed to her that something heavy was beating rhythmically against all the walls of the room: it was her own heart, sinking with anxiety and terror, yet overflowing with love.

She opened the door and stepped across the threshold onto the cold, damp earthen floor of the passage. The coldness refreshed her. With her bare feet, she touched a sleeping man, stepped over him, and opened the door to the part of the hut where Prince Andrew lay. It was dark in there. In the farthest corner, on a bench beside a bed where something was lying, stood a tallow candle with a long, thick, smoldering wick.

From the moment she’d been told that morning of Prince Andrew’s wound and his being there, Natásha had determined to see him. She didn’t know why she needed to; she knew the meeting would be painful, but felt even more certain that it was necessary.

All day she had lived only in the hope of seeing him that night. But now that the moment had come, she was filled with dread at what she might see. How was he wounded? What was left of him? Was he like the constant moaning of the adjutant? Yes, in her mind he was exactly like that. In her imagination, he was that dreadful moaning personified. Seeing a vague shape in the corner, and mistaking his knees raised under the quilt for his shoulders, she imagined a horrible body there, and stopped in terror. But she was irresistibly drawn forward. She carefully took one step, then another, and found herself in the middle of the small room, filled with baggage. Another man—Timókhin—was lying in a corner on the benches beneath the icons, and two others—the doctor and a valet—lay on the floor.

The valet sat up and whispered something. Timókhin, kept awake by the pain in his wounded leg, stared with wide-open eyes at this apparition of a girl in a white chemise, dressing jacket, and nightcap. The valet’s sleepy, frightened whisper, “What do you want? What’s the matter?” made Natásha move more quickly toward what lay in the corner. No matter how little like a man that body looked, she had to see him. She passed the valet, the ash fell from the candle wick, and she saw Prince Andrew clearly, his arms outside the quilt, just as she had always seen him.

He was the same as ever, but the feverish flush on his face, his glittering eyes ecstatically turned toward her, and especially his neck, delicate as a child’s, revealed by the open collar of his shirt, gave him a peculiarly innocent, childlike look that she had never noticed before. She went up to him and with a swift, gentle, youthful movement dropped to her knees.

He smiled and held out his hand to her.

##  CHAPTER XXXII

Seven days had passed since Prince Andrew had found himself in the ambulance station on the field of Borodinó. His fever and the inflammation of his wounded bowels, according to the doctor, were sure to be fatal. But on the seventh day, he enjoyed a piece of bread with some tea, and the doctor noted his temperature had gone down. He had regained consciousness that morning. The first night after leaving Moscow had been fairly warm, and he remained in the *calèche*, but at Mytíshchi, he himself asked to be brought inside and given some tea. The pain from moving him into the hut made him groan aloud and lose consciousness once more. When they placed him on his camp bed, he lay motionless for a long time with his eyes closed. Then he opened them and softly whispered, “And the tea?” The doctor was astonished that he remembered such a small detail of daily life. He checked Prince Andrew’s pulse and, to his surprise and disappointment, found it had improved. He was dissatisfied because he knew from experience that if his patient didn’t die now, he would likely die later with even greater suffering. Timókhin, the red-nosed major from Prince Andrew’s regiment, had met up with him in Moscow and was traveling with him, having been wounded in the leg at Borodinó. They were accompanied by a doctor, Prince Andrew’s valet, his coachman, and two orderlies.

They gave Prince Andrew tea. He drank it eagerly, looking with feverish eyes at the door in front of him as if trying to remember or understand something.

“I don’t want any more. Is Timókhin here?” he asked.

Timókhin shuffled along the bench toward him.

“I am here, your excellency.”

“How’s your wound?”

“Mine, sir? All right. But how about you?”

Prince Andrew again paused, as if trying to remember something.

“Couldn’t someone get me a book?” he asked.

“What book?”

“The Gospels. I don’t have one.”

The doctor promised to get it for him, then asked how he was feeling. Prince Andrew answered all the questions reluctantly but sensibly, and then asked for a bolster under him because he was uncomfortable and in great pain. The doctor and valet lifted the cloak covering him and, grimacing at the foul smell of his infected wound, began to examine that dreadful area. The doctor was very displeased about something and changed the dressings, turning the wounded man so that Prince Andrew groaned and lost consciousness from the agony, drifting into delirium. He kept asking for the book, begging for it to be put under him.

“What trouble would it be to you?” he pleaded in a pitiful voice. “I haven’t got one. Please get it for me and put it under me for a moment.”

The doctor went into the hallway to wash his hands.

“You fellows have no conscience,” he said to the valet as water was poured over his hands. “Just for a moment I didn’t look after you... It’s such pain—I wonder how he can stand it.”

“By the Lord Jesus Christ, I thought we put something under him!” said the valet.

Prince Andrew first realized where he was and what was wrong with him, remembering being wounded, when he asked to be taken into the hut after the *calèche* stopped at Mytíshchi. After being dazed with pain from being carried inside, he regained consciousness again, and while drinking tea he once more remembered all that had happened, especially vividly recalling the moment at the ambulance station when, at the sight of the suffering of a man he disliked, new thoughts had come to him that promised happiness. Though now these thoughts were vague, they again filled his soul. He remembered he now had a new source of happiness, and that it was somehow connected to the Gospels. That was why he asked for them. The discomfort from how they moved him confused his thinking, and when he became aware a third time, it was the total stillness of night. Everyone around him was sleeping. A cricket chirped across the passage; someone shouted and sang in the street. Cockroaches rustled on the table, on the icons, and on the walls. A big fly buzzed at his head and around the candle by his bed, whose wick was burned into the shape of a mushroom.

His mind was not in a normal state. A healthy person thinks, feels, and remembers countless things at once but generally has the strength to focus on just one stream of thought or event. A healthy person can interrupt even the deepest reflection to speak courteously to someone entering, then return to their thoughts. But Prince Andrew’s mind was not functioning normally. All his mental powers were sharper and more active than ever but operated outside his will. The most varied thoughts and images crowded his mind at the same time. Sometimes his brain seemed to work with a vigor, clarity, and depth it had never had when healthy, only to suddenly shift to some unexpected idea, and he lacked the strength to bring it back.

“Yes, a new happiness has been revealed to me, a happiness that can’t be taken from a person,” he thought as he lay in the dim quiet of the hut, staring wide-eyed into the darkness. “A happiness beyond all material forces, outside all worldly influences—a happiness of the soul alone, the happiness of love. Anyone can understand it, but only God could fully conceive it and command it. But how did God lay down that law? And why was the Son...?”

Suddenly these thoughts broke off, and Prince Andrew heard (without knowing if it was real or his imagination) a soft whispering voice, repeating “piti-piti-piti,” then “titi,” then again “piti-piti-piti,” and “ti-ti” again. At the same time, he felt something strange above his face, as if a delicate structure of needles or splinters was being assembled in time to this whispered music. He had to balance carefully (though it was difficult) so this airy formation wouldn’t collapse; but it kept falling apart and then rising up again to the rhythm—“It stretches, stretches, spreading out and stretching,” Prince Andrew told himself. As he listened to the whisper and felt the drawing out and building of this needle-structure, he glimpsed a red halo around the candle and heard the cockroaches’ rustle and the fly’s buzzing on his pillow and face. Each time the fly touched his face, it burned, and yet it didn’t destroy the structure, even as it hit the spot where it was growing. But beyond all this, something else mattered: by the door, something white—the statue of a sphinx—oppressed him.

“But maybe that’s just my shirt on the table,” he thought, “and those are my legs, and that’s the door, but why is it always stretching out, and ‘piti-piti-piti’ and ‘ti-ti’ and ‘piti-piti-piti’? That’s enough; please stop!” Prince Andrew begged in pain. Suddenly, thoughts and emotions swam up again, clear and intense.

“Yes—love,” he thought again, with perfect clarity. “But not the kind of love that loves for some reason, for a quality or a purpose, but the love I—while dying—first felt when I saw my enemy and loved him. I felt that love which is the very core of the soul and needs no object. Now I feel that bliss again. To love your neighbors, your enemies, to love everything, to love God in all His manifestations. It’s possible to love someone dear to you with human love, but only divine love can love an enemy. That’s why I felt such joy when I felt love for that man. What became of him? Is he still alive?...

“When loving with human love, you can shift from love to hate, but divine love can never change. No, neither death nor anything else can destroy it. It is the essence of the soul. But how many people have I hated in my life? And of them all, none did I love and hate as much as her.” And for the first time, he pictured Natásha not just for her beauty, but pictured her soul. He understood her feelings now, her suffering, shame, and regret. For the first time, he fully grasped the cruelty of how he’d rejected her, of their breakup. “If only I could see her once more! Just once, to look into those eyes and say...”

“Piti-piti-piti and ti-ti and piti-piti-piti boom!” went the fly. Suddenly his mind was swept into another world, a place both real and delirious, where something particular was happening. In that world, some structure was still being built and wouldn’t fall, something kept stretching, the candle with its red halo kept burning, and the shirtlike sphinx lay near the door; but now something creaked, a breath of fresh air stirred, and a new white sphinx appeared at the door. That sphinx had the pale face and shining eyes of the very Natásha he had just pictured.

“Oh, how oppressive this unending delirium is,” thought Prince Andrew, trying to drive away the vision, but her face stayed before him, as real as life, drawing nearer. Prince Andrew wanted to get back to that former state of pure thought, but he couldn’t—delirium pulled him back under. The soft whisper continued, something pressed on him and stretched out, and the strange face hovered over him. Prince Andrew gathered his strength to regain his senses, shifted a little, and suddenly there was a ringing in his ears, darkness in his eyes, and like a man sinking under water, he lost consciousness. When he woke again, Natásha—the living Natásha, whom he wanted so much to love with his new, pure, divine love—was kneeling before him. He realized it was truly her, and he wasn’t surprised, but calmly happy. Natásha, frozen on her knees (she couldn’t move), eyes wide and frightened, was holding back her sobs. Her face was pale and rigid. Only her lower lip quivered.

Prince Andrew sighed in relief, smiled, and reached out his hand.

“You?” he said. “How fortunate!”

With a quick but gentle movement, Natásha moved closer on her knees and, holding his hand, bent over it and began to kiss it, just brushing it with her lips.

“Forgive me!” she whispered, lifting her head and looking at him. “Forgive me!”

“I love you,” said Prince Andrew.

“Forgive...!”

“Forgive what?” he asked.

“Forgive me for what I have done!” whispered Natásha, brokenly and in a barely audible voice, kissing his hand more quickly, her lips just brushing it.

“I love you more, better than before,” said Prince Andrew, lifting her face with his hand to look into her eyes.

Those eyes, filled with happy tears, looked at him timidly, compassionately, and with joyful love. Natásha’s thin pale face, with swollen lips, was more than plain—it was almost dreadful. But Prince Andrew didn’t see that; he saw only her shining, beautiful eyes. They heard voices behind them.

Peter the valet, now wide awake, had woken the doctor. Timókhin, who hadn’t slept at all because of his leg pain, had been watching everything, carefully pulling the sheet around himself as he sat up on his bench.

“What’s this?” said the doctor, getting up from bed. “Please go, madam!”

Just then, a maid sent by the countess—who had noticed her daughter’s absence—knocked at the door.

Like someone suddenly awakened from sleep, Natásha left the room, and, returning to her own hut, collapsed onto her bed, sobbing.

From that time on, throughout the rest of the Rostóvs’ journey, at every stop and wherever they spent the night, Natásha never left the wounded Bolkónski’s side, and the doctor had to admit that he had not expected such determination or such skill in nursing a wounded man from a young girl.

As terrible as the countess imagined it would be if Prince Andrew were to die in her daughter’s arms during the journey—as, according to what the doctor said, seemed quite possible—she could not oppose Natásha. Even though, now that such closeness had developed between the wounded man and Natásha, the thought occurred that if he recovered their former engagement might be renewed, no one—least of all Natásha and Prince Andrew—spoke of it: the unresolved question of life and death, which hung not only over Bolkónski but over all of Russia, overshadowed all other concerns.

##  CHAPTER XXXIII

On the third of September, Pierre woke up late. His head ached, the clothes he had slept in—without undressing—felt uncomfortable, and his mind was dimly aware of something shameful he had done the previous day. That shameful thing was his conversation with Captain Ramballe.

It was eleven o'clock, yet it seemed unusually dark outside. Pierre got up, rubbed his eyes, and, spotting the pistol with an engraved stock—replaced on the writing table by Gerásim—he remembered where he was and what awaited him that very day.

“Am I not too late?” he wondered. “No, probably *he* won’t enter Moscow before noon.”

Pierre refused to let himself dwell on what lay ahead; instead, he hurried to take action.

After adjusting his clothes, he picked up the pistol and started to go out. But it struck him for the first time that he could not simply walk through the streets carrying a weapon. It would be difficult to hide such a large pistol, even under his wide coat. He could not carry it unnoticed in his belt or under his arm. Besides, it had been fired and he hadn't had time to reload. “No matter, the dagger will do,” he told himself, although when planning his scheme, he had often concluded that the main mistake made by the student in 1809 was trying to kill Napoleon with a dagger. Still, as his main goal was not so much to complete the deed as to prove to himself that he wouldn’t back down and was doing everything possible to carry it out, Pierre quickly grabbed the blunt, jagged dagger in a green sheath—which he had bought at the Súkharev market along with the pistol—and hid it under his waistcoat.

He tied a girdle over his coat, pulled his cap low, and headed down the corridor, trying to avoid making noise or running into the captain, and slipped outside onto the street.

The fire he had watched with such indifference the previous evening had spread significantly overnight. Moscow was burning in several places. Buildings in Carriage Row, across the river, in the Bazaar, the Povarskóy, the barges on the Moskvá River, and the timber yards by the Dorogomílov Bridge were all ablaze.

Pierre’s route took him through side streets to the Povarskóy, and from there to the church of St. Nicholas on the Arbát, where he had long ago resolved that the deed should be done. The gates of most houses were locked, and shutters were closed. The streets and lanes were deserted. The air was thick with smoke and the smell of burning. Occasionally, he passed Russians with anxious, timid faces, and Frenchmen with the air of soldiers instead of townspeople, walking in the middle of the street. Both Russians and French stared at Pierre in surprise. Besides his height and stoutness, and the grim, suffering look on his face and in his posture, the Russians stared because they could not figure out what class he belonged to. The French watched him with astonishment mostly because Pierre, unlike the other Russians—who looked at the French with fear or curiosity—showed no interest in them. At one house's gate, three Frenchmen, speaking to some Russians who could not understand them, stopped Pierre and asked if he knew French.

Pierre shook his head and kept walking. In another side street, a sentinel standing by a green caisson shouted at him, but it wasn't until the shout was repeated—and Pierre heard the click of a musket being raised—that he understood he had to pass on the other side of the street. He paid no attention to anything happening around him. He carried his determination within himself, filled with terror and haste, as if it were something dreadful and alien, because—after the previous night’s experience—he was afraid of losing it. But he wasn’t destined to bring his mood safely to its destination. Even if he hadn’t encountered anything to hinder him on the way, his plan couldn't have succeeded, for Napoleon had passed the Arbát more than four hours earlier, traveling from the Dorogomílov suburb to the Kremlín, and now sat, in a gloomy mood, in a royal study at the Kremlín, giving detailed and specific orders about immediate efforts to put out the fires, prevent looting, and reassure the citizens. But Pierre did not know this; he was entirely absorbed in his mission, and was tortured—as anyone is who stubbornly attempts something impossible for them, not because it’s too difficult, but because it clashes with their nature—by the dread of weakening at the decisive moment and losing his self-respect.

Though he neither saw nor heard what was happening around him, he found his way by instinct and managed not to get lost in the complicated side streets leading to the Povarskóy.

As Pierre drew near that street, the smoke grew thicker and hotter. He could actually feel the heat of the flames. Every so often, curled tongues of fire shot up from the roofs. He began to pass more people, who seemed more agitated. Still, Pierre, though vaguely aware that something unusual was happening, did not realize he was approaching the fire. As he crossed a footpath over a wide open space between the Povarskóy on one side and Prince Gruzínski’s gardens on the other, Pierre suddenly heard a woman weeping desperately close by. He stopped, as if waking from a dream, and looked up.

By the path, on the dusty, dry grass, lay all sorts of household belongings: featherbeds, a samovar, icons, and trunks. On the ground, beside the trunks, sat a thin, middle-aged woman with long, prominent upper teeth, dressed in a black cloak and cap. She rocked back and forth, muttering and choking with sobs. Two girls, about ten and twelve years old, in dirty short dresses and cloaks, stared at their mother in shock, their faces pale with fear. The youngest child, a boy of about seven in an overcoat and a huge cap clearly not his own, was crying in his old nurse’s arms. A barefoot, dirty maid sat on a trunk, undoing her pale braid and sniffing at her singed hair. The woman’s husband, short, with rounded shoulders, wearing the undress uniform of a civilian official, with sausage-shaped side whiskers and hair brushed straight forward under a square cap, moved the trunks and dragged out some clothing, his face expressionless.

As soon as she saw Pierre, the woman almost threw herself at his feet.

“Dear people, good Christians, save me, help me, dear friends… help us, someone,” she sobbed. “My girl… my daughter! My youngest daughter’s been left behind. She’s burned! Oh! Was it for this I nursed you… Oh!”

“Don’t, Mary Nikoláevna,” her husband said quietly, clearly trying to justify himself to the stranger. “Sister must have taken her, or where else could she be?” he added.

“Monster! Villain!” the woman shouted angrily, suddenly stopping her sobs. “You have no heart—you don’t care for your own child! Any other man would have rescued her from the fire. But this one is a monster—not a man, not a father! You, sir, are a noble man,” she cried, now addressing Pierre, her words tumbling out through her tears. “The fire broke out nearby and swept our way, the maid shouted ‘Fire!’ and we rushed to get our things. We ran out as we were…. This is what we managed to bring… The icons and my featherbed, all the rest is gone. We grabbed the children. But not Katie! Oh, God!” and she began sobbing again. “My child, my dear one! Burned, burned!”

“But where was she left?” Pierre asked.

From his eager expression, the woman saw he might help.

“Oh, dear sir!” she cried, grabbing at his legs. “My savior, ease my mind…. Aníska, go, you wretch, show him the way!” she yelled at the maid, furiously baring her long teeth even more.

“Show me the way, show me. I… I’ll do it,” Pierre said quickly.

The dirty maid came out from behind the trunk, fixed her braid, sighed, and set out on her bare feet along the path. Pierre felt as if he were waking from a heavy faint. He held his head higher, his eyes sparkled with energy, and he strode quickly after the maid, overtook her, and reached the Povarskóy. The entire street was choked with black smoke. Flames leapt up here and there through the dark cloud. Crowds gathered in front of the blaze. In the middle of the street stood a French general addressing those around him. Pierre, with the maid beside him, approached where the general stood, but the French soldiers stopped him.

*“On ne passe pas!”* \* shouted a voice.

\* “You can’t pass!”

“This way, uncle,” the girl called. “We’ll go through the side street, by the Nikúlins!”

Pierre turned back, breaking into a run to keep up with her. She crossed the street, took a side lane to the left, and after three houses, turned into a yard on the right.

“It’s here, very close,” she said, and, leading across the yard, opened a gate in a wooden fence and pointed to a small wooden outbuilding that was blazing fiercely. One side had collapsed, another burned, and bright flames roared from the windows and under the roof.

As Pierre passed through the fence gate, he was hit by a wave of heat and instinctively stopped.

“Which is it? Which house is yours?” he asked.

“Ooh!” wailed the girl, pointing to the wing. “That’s it, that was our lodging. Katie, our treasure, you’ve burned up—my precious little missy! Ooh!” Aníska, seeing the fire, felt compelled to voice her grief, too.

Pierre rushed to the wing, but the heat was so intense, he was forced to swing around in an arc and ended up at the main house, which only burned at one end, just below the roof, and around which a crowd of Frenchmen swarmed. At first, Pierre didn’t understand what these men dragging things out were up to, but when he saw a Frenchman beating a peasant with a dull saber and trying to take a fox-fur coat from him, he vaguely understood that looting was taking place—but had no time to consider it.

The crackling and crash of collapsing walls and ceilings, the hiss and roar of the fire, cries of frantic people, the shifting clouds of smoke—sometimes rolling thick and black, sometimes soaring with glowing sparks, at places dense sheaves of flame, now red and now glittering like golden fish-scales climbing the walls—and the heat, smoke, and feverish movement, all worked on Pierre with the usual excitement brought on by a major fire. It especially affected him now, because the sight of the flames made him feel suddenly free from the burden of his previous torments. He felt young, strong, skillful, and bold. He hurried around to the other side of the outbuilding, about to dash into the only part still standing, when right above his head, he heard many voices shouting, a sudden crack, and something heavy crashing to the ground close by.

Pierre looked up and saw, at a window of the main house, some Frenchmen who had just tossed down the drawer of a chest crammed with metal goods. Other French soldiers below came over to collect what was in the drawer.

“What does that fellow want?” one of them called, referring to Pierre.

“There’s a child in that house. Have you seen a child?” Pierre cried.

“What’s he saying? Get away!” several voices called, and one soldier, clearly suspecting Pierre of wanting to take some of the silverware and bronzes from the drawer, moved toward him threateningly.

“A child?” a Frenchman above called out. “I did hear something whimpering in the garden. Maybe it’s his brat the fellow’s after. Well, one must be human, after all….”

“Where? Where?” Pierre asked.

“There! There!” the Frenchman at the window shouted, pointing to the garden behind the house. “Wait—I’m coming down.”

A minute later the Frenchman—a dark-eyed man with a spot on his cheek, in shirtsleeves—really did jump from a ground-floor window and, clapping Pierre on the shoulder, ran with him toward the garden.

“Hurry up, you others!” he called to his comrades. “It’s getting hot.”

When they reached a gravel path behind the house, the Frenchman pulled Pierre by the arm and pointed to a round, graveled area where a three-year-old girl in a pink dress was lying under a bench.

“There’s your child! Oh, a girl—so much the better!” said the Frenchman. “Goodbye, Fatty. We have to act like humans; after all, we’re all mortal!” And the Frenchman with the spot on his cheek ran back to his comrades.

Breathless with joy, Pierre ran to the little girl and was about to pick her up. But when she saw a stranger, the sickly, scrofulous-looking child, who resembled her mother in an unappealing way, began to scream and run away. Pierre, however, caught her and lifted her in his arms. She screamed desperately and angrily, trying with her little hands to pry Pierre’s hands away and bite them with her slobbering mouth. Pierre was overcome by a sense of horror and revulsion, like when touching some disgusting little animal. But he forced himself not to drop the child and ran with her to the large house. By now, though, he couldn’t return the way he had come; the maid, Aníska, was gone, and Pierre—full of pity and disgust—held the wet, painfully sobbing child as gently as he could and ran with her through the garden, searching for another way out.

##  CHAPTER XXXIV

After running through several yards and side streets, Pierre returned with his little burden to the Gruzínski garden at the corner of the Povarskóy. At first, he didn’t recognize the place from where he had left in search of the child, as it was now crowded with people and goods pulled out from the houses. Alongside Russian families who had taken shelter there from the fire with their belongings, there were also a number of French soldiers in various kinds of clothing. Pierre paid them no attention. He hurried on, wanting to find the family of the civil servant so he could return the child to her mother and then go save someone else. Pierre felt there was still much to do—and it had to be done quickly. Sweating from the heat and his exertion, Pierre felt, stronger than ever, the sense of youth, energy, and resolve that had filled him as he ran to save the child. She had become quiet now, clinging to Pierre’s coat with her small hands, sitting on his arm and gazing around her like a little wild animal. Pierre glanced at her now and then with a faint smile, thinking he saw something touchingly innocent in her scared, sickly little face.

He didn’t find the civil servant or his wife where he had left them. He moved quickly through the crowd, scanning the faces he passed. By chance, he noticed a Georgian or Armenian family: a very handsome old man of Eastern appearance, dressed in a new, cloth-covered sheepskin coat and new boots; an old woman of similar features; and a young woman. The young woman seemed to Pierre the height of Oriental beauty, with sharply arched black eyebrows and the strikingly soft, glowing color of her long, beautiful, but expressionless face. Amid the scattered possessions and crowd, she, in her rich satin cloak and bright lilac shawl, looked like a delicate exotic flower left out in the snow. She sat on some bundles just behind the old woman, looking down at the ground through her long lashes, unmoving, her large, almond-shaped eyes focusing on nothing. She was clearly aware of her beauty and anxious because of it. Her face caught Pierre’s eye, and as he hurried by the fence, he glanced back at her several times. When he reached the fence, without finding those he was searching for, he paused to look around.

With the child in his arms, Pierre’s appearance was now even more noticeable. A group of Russians—both men and women—gathered around him.

“Have you lost someone, my dear fellow? You look like you’re from the gentry yourself. Whose child is it?” they asked.

Pierre told them the child belonged to a woman in a black coat who had been sitting there with her other children, and asked if anyone knew where she had gone.

“Why, that must be the Anférovs,” said an old deacon, addressing a pockmarked peasant woman. “Lord have mercy, Lord have mercy!” he added in his usual deep voice.

“The Anférovs? No,” said the woman. “They left in the morning. That must be either Mary Nikoláevna’s or the Ivánovs’!”

“He says ‘a woman,’ but Mary Nikoláevna is a lady,” noted a house serf.

“Do you know her? She’s thin, with long teeth,” Pierre said.

“That’s Mary Nikoláevna! They went into the garden when those wolves swept down,” said the woman, pointing at the French soldiers.

“O Lord, have mercy!” added the deacon.

“Go over there, that’s where they are. It’s her—you’ll find her. She kept on lamenting and crying,” continued the woman. “It’s her. Here, this way!”

But Pierre wasn’t listening now. For several seconds, he had been intently watching what was happening just a few paces away. He was staring at the Armenian family and at two French soldiers who had approached them. One was a small, nimble man in a blue coat tied at the waist with a rope, wearing a nightcap and barefoot. The other, who especially caught Pierre’s attention, was a tall, lanky, round-shouldered, fair-haired man with awkward movements and a foolish expression. He wore a woman’s baggy, frieze gown, blue trousers, and large torn Hessian boots. The barefoot Frenchman in the blue coat walked up to the Armenians and, saying something, seized the old man by the legs; the old man immediately started pulling off his boots. The other Frenchman, in the frieze gown, stood still before the beautiful Armenian girl, his hands in his pockets, staring at her in silence.

“Here, take the child!” Pierre said firmly and urgently to the woman, handing the girl to her. “Give her back to them, give her back!” he almost shouted, setting the child—who began to scream—on the ground, his attention fixed on the Frenchman and the Armenian family.

The old man now sat barefoot. The little Frenchman had taken the second boot and was smacking one against the other. The old man was speaking in a voice choked by sobs, but Pierre barely noticed; all his attention was on the Frenchman in the frieze gown, who, swaying side to side, had moved closer to the young woman and now, taking his hands from his pockets, grabbed her by the neck.

The beautiful Armenian girl still sat motionless and in the same pose, long lashes down as if she didn’t see or feel what the soldier was doing.

As Pierre ran the few steps toward the Frenchman, the tall marauder in the frieze gown was already yanking away the necklace from the Armenian woman’s neck, and she screamed out, clutching at her throat.

“Leave that woman alone!” Pierre shouted hoarsely, his voice furious, grabbing the soldier by his round shoulders and throwing him aside.

The soldier fell, got up, and ran off. But his comrade, tossing aside the boots and pulling out his sword, advanced on Pierre threateningly.

*“Voyons, pas de bêtises!”* \* he yelled.

\* “Look here, no nonsense!”

Pierre, overcome with rage, remembered nothing and felt ten times stronger. He charged the barefooted Frenchman and, before the man could draw his sword, knocked him off his feet and began battering him with his fists. The crowd around him cheered, and at that moment a mounted patrol of French Uhlans rounded the corner. The Uhlans trotted up to Pierre and the Frenchman, surrounding them. After that, Pierre remembered nothing. He only recalled beating and being beaten, and finally feeling his hands being tied, and that a group of French soldiers were around him, searching him.

“Lieutenant, he has a dagger,” were the first words Pierre understood.

“Ah, a weapon?” said the officer, then turned to the barefooted soldier arrested with Pierre. “Very well, you can explain everything at the court-martial.” He turned to Pierre. “Do you speak French?”

Pierre looked around with bloodshot eyes and didn’t answer. His face must have looked quite fierce, for the officer whispered something and four more Uhlans stepped up, flanking Pierre on both sides.

“Do you speak French?” the officer asked again, warily. “Call the interpreter.”

A small man in Russian civilian dress rode out from the ranks, and from his manner and clothes, Pierre immediately recognized him as a French salesman from a Moscow shop.

“He doesn’t look like a commoner,” the interpreter remarked, giving Pierre a careful look.

“Ah, but he very much looks like an incendiary,” said the officer. “Ask him who he is,” he added.

“Who are you?” the interpreter asked in poor Russian. “You must answer the chief.”

“I won’t tell you who I am. I’m your prisoner—take me!” Pierre blurted in French.

“Ah, ah!” murmured the officer with a frown. “Well, then, march!”

A crowd had gathered around the Uhlans. Closest to Pierre stood the pockmarked peasant woman with the little girl, and as the patrol began to move, she stepped forward.

“Where are they taking you, you poor dear?” she said. “And the little girl, what should I do with her, if she’s not their child?” the woman asked.

“What does that woman want?” asked the officer.

Pierre felt almost intoxicated, his sense of triumph growing as he saw the little girl he’d rescued.

“What does she want?” he murmured. “She’s bringing me my daughter—whom I just saved from the flames,” he said. “Goodbye!” And, without knowing why the pointless lie escaped him, he marched off with determined, triumphant steps between the French soldiers.

The French patrol was one of many sent through Moscow’s streets following Durosnel’s orders to put a stop to looting, and especially to catch the arsonists who, according to the general belief that had spread that day among the higher French officers, were to blame for the fires. After making their way through several streets, the patrol arrested five more Russian suspects: a small shopkeeper, two seminary students, a peasant, and a house serf, as well as some looters. Of all these suspects, Pierre was thought the most dangerous. When everyone was brought that night to a large house on the Zúbov Rampart serving as a guardhouse, Pierre was placed separately, under strict guard.

##  BOOK TWELVE: 1812

##  CHAPTER I

In Petersburg at that time, a complicated struggle was raging more intensely than ever in the highest circles, between the parties of Rumyántsev, the French, Márya Fëdorovna, the Tsarévich, and others, all as usual drowned out by the constant buzzing of the court drones. But the calm, luxurious life of Petersburg, concerned only with phantoms and reflections of real life, went on as before, making it hard—except with great effort—to truly realize the danger and the difficult position of the Russian people. There were still the same receptions and balls, the same French theater, the same court interests and service intrigues as always. Only in the very highest circles did anyone try to keep the true difficulties of the situation in mind. Stories circulated about how differently the two Empresses behaved in these hard times. Empress Márya, concerned for the charitable and educational institutions under her patronage, had ordered that they all be moved to Kazán, and the belongings of these institutions had already been packed. Empress Elisabeth, however, when asked for instructions—with her characteristic Russian patriotism—replied that she could give no orders about state institutions, as that was the sovereign’s responsibility, but personally she would be the last to leave Petersburg.

At Anna Pávlovna’s on the twenty-sixth of August, the very day of the battle of Borodinó, there was a soirée, the centerpiece of which was to be the reading of a letter from His Lordship the Bishop, who was sending the Emperor an icon of the Venerable Sergius. The letter was considered a model of ecclesiastical, patriotic eloquence. Prince Vasíli himself, famed for his oratory, was to read it. (He often read at the Empress’ residence.) His reading style was supposed to involve rolling out the words in a singsong, booming voice with little regard for meaning, alternating between a despairing wail and a gentle murmur, so that the emphasis would randomly fall on different words. This reading, as was always the case at Anna Pávlovna’s soirées, had a political significance. That evening, she expected several important guests who needed to be made ashamed of their visits to the French theater and stirred to patriotic feeling. Many people had already arrived, but Anna Pávlovna, seeing that not everyone she wanted was present, delayed the reading and instead kept conversation going.

The news of the day in Petersburg was the illness of Countess Bezúkhova. She had unexpectedly fallen ill a few days earlier, had missed several gatherings where she was usually the highlight, and was said to be receiving no visitors. Instead of the famous Petersburg doctors who usually attended her, she had entrusted herself to an Italian doctor who was treating her in a new and unusual way.

They all knew perfectly well that the countess’s illness had to do with complications from marrying two husbands at once, and that the Italian’s treatment was simply to address that complication. But in Anna Pávlovna’s presence, no one dared admit this or even act as if they knew.

“They say the poor countess is very ill. The doctor says it is angina pectoris.”

“Angina? Oh, that’s a terrible illness!”

“They say the rivals are reconciled, thanks to the angina…” and the word *angina* was repeated with particular relish.

“It is a pity, they say. The count cried like a child when the doctor said it was dangerous.”

“Oh, it would be a terrible loss; she is an enchanting woman.”

“You are speaking of the poor countess?” said Anna Pávlovna, who came up just then. “I sent to ask for news and have heard that she is a bit better. Oh, she really is the most charming woman in the world,” she went on, smiling at her own enthusiasm. “We belong to different camps, but that does not stop me from valuing her as she deserves. She is very unfortunate!” added Anna Pávlovna.

Thinking that Anna Pávlovna might be hinting at the secret behind the countess's condition, a naive young man took the risk of expressing his surprise that the well-known doctors had not been called and that the countess was being treated by a charlatan who might use dangerous methods.

“Your information may be better than mine,” Anna Pávlovna suddenly and sharply replied to the inexperienced young man, “but I know from a reliable source that this doctor is a very learned and capable man. He is private physician to the Queen of Spain.”

Having silenced the young man, Anna Pávlovna turned to another group, where Bilíbin was talking about the Austrians. With his face wrinkled up, he was evidently preparing to smooth it out and deliver one of his bon mots.

“I think it is delightful,” he said, referring to a diplomatic note sent to Vienna with some Austrian banners captured from the French by Wittgenstein, “the hero of Petropol,” as he was then called in Petersburg.

“What? What’s that?” asked Anna Pávlovna, calling for silence so everyone could hear the remark, which she had heard before.

Bilíbin repeated the exact words of the diplomatic dispatch, which he had written himself.

“The Emperor returns these Austrian banners,” said Bilíbin, “friendly banners gone astray and found on a wrong path,” and his face smoothed out once more.

“Charming, charming!” said Prince Vasíli.

“The path to Warsaw, perhaps,” Prince Hippolyte remarked loudly and unexpectedly. Everyone turned to look at him, understanding his implication. Prince Hippolyte himself looked around with amused surprise. He knew no more than anyone else what he meant. More than once in his diplomatic career, he had noticed that such remarks were taken as witty, and so he uttered whatever came into his mind at any opportunity. “It may work out well,” he thought, “but if not, they’ll know how to handle it.” And indeed, during the awkward silence that followed, in came the insufficiently patriotic guest Anna Pávlovna had been awaiting and wished to convert. Smiling and wagging a finger at Hippolyte, she invited Prince Vasíli to the table, handed him two candles and the manuscript, and asked him to begin. Everyone fell silent.

“Most Gracious Sovereign and Emperor!” Prince Vasíli began solemnly, looking around the room as if to see if anyone objected. No one spoke. “Moscow, our ancient capital, the New Jerusalem, receives *her* Christ”—he suddenly emphasized the word *her*—“as a mother receives her zealous sons into her arms, and through the gathering mists, foreseeing the brilliant glory of your reign, sings in exultation, ‘Hosanna, blessed is he that comes!’”

Prince Vasíli delivered those last words with a tearful tone.

Bilíbin carefully examined his nails, and many in the room looked intimidated, as if unsure what they were being blamed for. Anna Pávlovna whispered the next words ahead of time, like an old woman murmuring prayers at Communion: “Let the bold and insolent Goliath…” she whispered.

Prince Vasíli continued.

“Let the bold and insolent Goliath from the borders of France surround the realms of Russia with death-bearing terrors; humble Faith, the sling of the Russian David, will suddenly strike his proud, bloodthirsty head. This icon of the Venerable Sergius, the servant of God and zealous champion of old of our country’s well-being, is offered to Your Imperial Majesty. I grieve that my declining strength prevents me from sharing the joy of your gracious presence. I offer fervent prayers to Heaven that the Almighty may exalt the race of the just, and mercifully grant the desires of Your Majesty.”

“What vigor! What a style!” was murmured in praise of both the reader and the author.

Inspired by the address, Anna Pávlovna’s guests spent a long time discussing the state of the country and speculated about the result of the coming battle.

“You will see,” Anna Pávlovna said, “that tomorrow, on the Emperor’s birthday, we shall get news. I have a good feeling about it!”

##  CHAPTER II

Anna Pávlovna’s intuition was indeed correct. The next day, during the service at the palace church for the Emperor’s birthday, Prince Volkónski was called out of the church and received a dispatch from Prince Kutúzov. It was Kutúzov’s report, sent from Tatárinova on the day of the battle. Kutúzov wrote that the Russians had not retreated at all, that the French losses were much greater than theirs, and that he was writing quickly from the battlefield before gathering all the information. This suggested that there had been a victory. Immediately, without leaving the church, thanks were given to the Creator for His help and for the victory.

Anna Pávlovna’s feeling proved justified, and all that morning a joyful, festive mood prevailed in the city. Everyone believed the victory was total, and some even talked of Napoleon being captured, deposed, and of the selection of a new ruler for France.

It is very difficult for events to be reflected in their actual importance and completeness amid the environment of court life and far from where things actually happen. Major events naturally group themselves around some specific incident. So now, the courtiers' pleasure was based as much on the news arriving on the Emperor’s birthday as on the victory itself. It was like a well-planned surprise. Kutúzov’s report mentioned Russian losses, including the names Túchkov, Bagratión, and Kutáysov. In Petersburg society, this sad aspect of the affair again focused on one event: Kutáysov’s death. Everyone knew him, the Emperor liked him, and he was young and interesting. That day, everyone greeted each other with:

“What a remarkable coincidence! Right during the service. But what a loss Kutáysov is! I’m so sorry!”

“What did I say about Kutúzov?” Prince Vasíli now declared proudly, as if he’d predicted it. “I always said he was the only man capable of defeating Napoleon.”

But the next day, no news came from the army, and the public mood grew anxious. The courtiers suffered because they knew the suspense was causing the Emperor distress.

“Imagine the Emperor’s position!” they said, and instead of praising Kutúzov as they had done before, they blamed him for causing the Emperor such anxiety. That day, Prince Vasíli no longer boasted of his protégé Kutúzov, but stayed silent when the commander in chief was mentioned. Then, toward evening, as if everything conspired to make Petersburg society even more uneasy, some terrible news arrived. Countess Hélène Bezúkhova had suddenly died from that dreadful illness it had previously pleased people to talk about. Officially, at large gatherings, everyone said Countess Bezúkhova had died from a sudden attack of angina pectoris, but in private circles, details were shared about how the private physician of the Queen of Spain had prescribed small doses of a certain drug for a specific effect; but Hélène, distressed by the old count’s suspicions and the fact that her husband (that unfortunate, dissolute Pierre)—to whom she’d written—had not replied, had taken a very large dose of the drug, dying in agony before help could reach her. It was said that Prince Vasíli and the old count turned on the Italian doctor, but he produced such letters from the deceased that they immediately dropped the matter.

Discussions mostly revolved around three somber facts: the lack of news from the Emperor, the death of Kutáysov, and Hélène’s passing.

On the third day after Kutúzov’s report, a landowner arrived from Moscow, and the news of Moscow’s surrender to the French spread through the city. This was terrible! What a position for the Emperor! Kutúzov was labeled a traitor, and Prince Vasíli, during condolence visits for his daughter’s death, spoke of Kutúzov—whom he had previously praised—(it was understandable in his grief that he forgot his earlier words), saying it was impossible to expect anything else from a blind and corrupt old man.

“I’m only surprised that the fate of Russia could have been entrusted to such a man.”

While this news stayed unofficial, it was still possible to doubt it, but the next day, the following message arrived from Count Rostopchín:

Prince Kutúzov’s adjutant has brought me a letter in which he asks for police officers to guide the army to the Ryazán road. He writes that he is regretfully leaving Moscow. Sire! Kutúzov’s actions determine the fate of the capital and your empire! Russia will be shaken to learn of the abandonment of the city where her greatness is centered and where your ancestors’ ashes lie! I shall follow the army. Everything has been removed, and I can now only weep for my fatherland’s fate.

On receiving this dispatch the Emperor sent Prince Volkónski to Kutúzov with the following rescript:

Prince Michael Ilariónovich! Since August 29 I have received no communication from you, yet on September 1 I received from the commander in chief of Moscow, via Yaroslávl, the sad news that you and the army have decided to leave Moscow. You can imagine for yourself the effect this news has had on me, and your silence only increases my shock. I am sending this message by Adjutant-General Prince Volkónski so I can hear from you the army’s situation and your reasons for making this difficult decision.

##  CHAPTER III

Nine days after the abandonment of Moscow, a messenger from Kutúzov arrived in Petersburg with the official announcement of the event. This messenger was Michaud, a Frenchman who did not know Russian, but who described himself as *quoique étranger, russe de cœur et d’âme,*\*.

\* Though a foreigner, Russian in heart and soul.

The Emperor immediately received this messenger in his study at the palace on Stone Island. Although Michaud had never seen Moscow before the campaign and did not know Russian, he felt deeply moved (as he later wrote) when he appeared before *notre très gracieux souverain*\* with the news of the burning of Moscow, *dont les flammes éclairaient sa route*.\*(2)

\* Our most gracious sovereign.

\* (2) Whose flames lit his way.

Although the cause of M. Michaud’s sorrow must have differed from that which made the Russians grieve, he wore such a mournful expression when shown into the Emperor’s study that the latter immediately asked:

“Have you brought me sad news, Colonel?”

“Very sad, sire,” replied Michaud, lowering his eyes with a sigh. “The abandonment of Moscow.”

“Did they surrender my ancient capital without a battle?” the Emperor asked swiftly, his face suddenly flushing.

Michaud respectfully delivered the message Kutúzov had given him: that it had been impossible to fight before Moscow, and that since the only choice was between losing the army as well as Moscow or losing only Moscow, the field marshal had to choose the latter.

The Emperor listened in silence, not looking at Michaud.

“Has the enemy entered the city?” he asked.

“Yes, sire, and Moscow is now in ashes. I left it in flames,” Michaud replied firmly, but glancing at the Emperor, he became alarmed by what he had just said.

The Emperor began to breathe heavily and rapidly, his lower lip trembling, and tears instantly came to his fine blue eyes.

But this lasted only a moment. He suddenly frowned, as if blaming himself for this weakness, and raising his head, addressed Michaud in a steady voice:

“I see, Colonel, from all that is happening, that Providence demands great sacrifices from us… I am ready to submit to His will in everything; but tell me, Michaud, how did you leave the army when it saw my ancient capital abandoned without a battle? Did you notice any discouragement?…”

Seeing that his gracious ruler was now calm again, Michaud also regained his composure, but was not immediately ready to answer the Emperor’s direct and important question, which needed a straightforward answer.

“Sire, may I speak freely as a loyal soldier should?” he asked, seeking time.

“Colonel, I always expect it,” replied the Emperor. “Hide nothing from me—I want to know exactly how things stand.”

“Sire!” said Michaud, a subtle, barely noticeable smile on his lips, now prepared with a well-turned reply, “sire, I left the whole army, from the generals to the lowest soldier, without exception, in desperate and agonized alarm…”

“How is that?” the Emperor interrupted, frowning sternly. “Would misfortune cause my Russians to lose heart?… Never!”

Michaud had only waited for this to deliver his prepared line.

“Sire,” he said, with respectful playfulness, “they are only afraid that Your Majesty, in your kindness, might be persuaded to make peace. They are burning for battle,” declared this representative of the Russian nation, “and wish to prove to Your Majesty by sacrificing their lives how devoted they are….”

“Ah!” said the Emperor, reassured, with a kindly sparkle in his eyes, patting Michaud on the shoulder. “You put me at ease, Colonel.”

He bowed his head and was silent for a while.

“Well then, go back to the army,” he said, drawing himself up to his full height and addressing Michaud with a gracious and regal gesture, “and tell our brave men and all my good subjects wherever you go that if I have not a single soldier left I shall put myself at the head of my beloved nobility and loyal peasants and use the last resources of my empire. It still offers me more than my enemies think,” said the Emperor, becoming more animated; “but should it ever be decreed by Divine Providence,” he continued, raising his shining eyes to heaven, “that my dynasty should cease to reign on the throne of my ancestors, then, after exhausting every means at my disposal, I shall let my beard grow to here” (he pointed halfway down his chest) “and go eat potatoes with the humblest of my peasants, rather than sign the disgrace of my country and my beloved people, whose sacrifices I appreciate.”

Having spoken these words in an emotional voice, the Emperor suddenly turned away as if to hide from Michaud the tears rising to his eyes, and walked to the far end of his study. After standing there a few moments, he returned to Michaud and gripped his arm below the elbow in a firm gesture. The Emperor’s gentle and handsome face was flushed, and his eyes shone with determination and anger.

“Colonel Michaud, do not forget what I tell you here; perhaps one day we will recall it with satisfaction… Napoleon or I,” said the Emperor, touching his chest. “We can no longer rule together. I have come to know him, and he will not deceive me again….”

And the Emperor paused, frowning.

When he heard these words and saw the determined look in the Emperor’s eyes, Michaud—*quoique étranger, russe de cœur et d’âme*—at that solemn moment felt overcome by all he had heard (as he later said), and expressed his own feelings, and those of the Russian people whom he believed he represented, in the following words:

“Sire!” he said, “Your Majesty is at this moment signing the glory of the nation and the salvation of Europe!”

With a nod of his head, the Emperor dismissed him.

##  CHAPTER IV

It’s natural for those of us who didn’t live in those days to picture that when half of Russia had been conquered, with people fleeing to distant provinces and levy after levy raised to defend the country, every Russian—great and small—was focused solely on sacrificing themselves, saving the fatherland, or mourning its downfall. All the stories and descriptions from that time speak exclusively of self-sacrifice, patriotic devotion, despair, grief, and Russian heroism. But that’s not how it really was. It just seems that way because we now see only the historical importance of that era, missing all the personal interests people had at the time. In reality, those immediate personal interests were far greater than any general interest, and always managed to overshadow or even block out public concerns. Most people then paid little attention to the grand sweep of events, acting instead on private motives—and these people, ironically, often did the most good in that period.

Those who tried to grasp the big picture and join in by self-sacrifice and heroism were often the least helpful members of society. They saw everything backwards, and whatever they did for the common good usually turned out to be useless or ridiculous—like Pierre’s and Mamónov’s regiments raiding Russian villages, or the lint prepared by young ladies that never reached wounded soldiers, and so on. Even those who enjoyed talking about grand ideas and expressing feelings about Russia’s situation, almost inevitably ended up fake or insincere—or wasted their anger on people who couldn’t possibly be guilty of what they were accused of. In great historical events, the rule against eating from the Tree of Knowledge is especially true. Only unconscious action brings results; anyone actively trying to understand or play a role in history never really understands its meaning, and all their efforts go nowhere.

The more closely someone was involved with what was happening in Russia, the less they realized how important it actually was. In Petersburg and the provinces far from Moscow, ladies and gentlemen in militia uniforms cried for Russia and its ancient capital, talking about self-sacrifice and so forth; but in the army retreating beyond Moscow, few cared to talk or think about the city itself. When confronted with the ashes of Moscow, no one vowed vengeance against the French—they thought instead of their next pay, their next posting, Matrëshka the vivandière, and similar things.

Because the war had found him already in the service, Nicholas Rostóv became deeply involved in defending his country, but he did so casually, never aiming for self-sacrifice. He therefore looked at Russian events without despair or anxious brooding. If asked what he thought of Russia’s state, he’d have said it wasn’t his business to worry about that—that Kutúzov and others were there for that purpose. He’d say he knew the regiments were to be brought up to strength, fighting would probably last a long time, and that under those conditions, he’d likely command a regiment himself in a couple of years.

With this mindset, when he learned he was being sent to Vorónezh to buy remounts for his division, he felt not disappointment at missing the coming battle, but great pleasure—a feeling he didn’t hide and which his comrades fully understood.

Just before the battle of Borodinó, Nicholas got the money and warrants he needed, and after sending some hussars on ahead, he set off by post horses for Vorónezh.

Only someone who has experienced it—has spent months continually living in the atmosphere of campaign and war—can imagine Nicholas’s joy at escaping from the army’s region of foraging, supply trains, and hospitals. When—free from soldiers, wagons, and messy camp remains—he saw villages with peasants and peasant women, gentlemen’s country homes, cattle grazing in fields, posthouses with dozing stationmasters—he rejoiced as if seeing it all for the first time. What especially delighted and surprised him were the women—young, healthy women not surrounded by a dozen officers vying for their attention—women who were actually pleased and flattered to be joked with by a passing officer.

In the best of spirits, Nicholas arrived at a hotel in Vorónezh late at night. He ordered all the things he’d missed at camp, and the next day, freshly shaved and in dress uniform for the first time in ages, he went to introduce himself to the local authorities.

The militia commander was a civilian general, an old man proud of his new military title and rank. He received Nicholas brusquely (thinking that to be suitably military), questioning him with an air of importance, as if he were considering the progress of events and had full authority to approve or disapprove. Nicholas, in his bright mood, simply found this amusing.

From the militia commander’s, he went to the governor. The governor was a brisk, simple, and friendly little man. He recommended stud farms where Nicholas could get horses, pointed him to a horse dealer in town and a landowner fourteen miles out with the best horses, and promised to help any way he could.

“You’re Count Ilyá Rostóv’s son? My wife was very close to your mother. We’re at home on Thursdays—today is Thursday, so do come see us, very informally,” the governor said as they parted.

Leaving the governor’s, Nicholas immediately hired post horses, and along with his squadron quartermaster, sped off to the landowner’s stud farm fourteen miles away. During this first part of his stay in Vorónezh, everything seemed pleasant and easy, and as always happens when one is happy, everything went smoothly.

The landowner Nicholas visited was a bachelor, a retired cavalryman, a horse fancier and sportsman, proud of his century-old brandy and old Hungarian wine, with a snug smoking room and splendid horses.

With just a few words, Nicholas bought seventeen select stallions for six thousand rubles—to serve, as he said, as models for the remounts. After dinner and a little too much Hungarian wine, Nicholas—having already exchanged kisses with the landowner, now a fast friend—galloped back over terrible roads, in high spirits, pushing the driver so he could make it in time for the governor’s party.

After changing, washing, and perfuming himself, Nicholas showed up at the governor’s a bit late, but with the words, “better late than never,” on his lips.

It wasn’t officially a ball or a dance, but everyone knew Catherine Petróvna would play waltzes and the *écossaise* on the clavichord and people would dance, so everyone arrived as though for a ball.

Provincial life in 1812 carried on much as usual, except that it was livelier in the towns thanks to so many wealthy Moscow families arriving. And, as everywhere else in Russia at that time, there was a spirit of recklessness—an “in for a penny, in for a pound, who cares?” attitude. And small talk, instead of being about the weather or acquaintances, now centered on Moscow, the army, and Napoleon.

The society gathered at the governor’s was the best in Vorónezh.

There were many ladies—some among Nicholas’s Moscow acquaintances—but no men who could compare to the St. George’s cross–wearing hussar remount officer, the cheerful and well-bred Count Rostóv. One of the men was an Italian prisoner, a French army officer; Nicholas sensed that having this prisoner there added to his own importance as a Russian hero. The Italian was, in a way, a war trophy. Nicholas felt this, believed everyone else sensed it too, and treated the man cordially but with dignity and reserve.

As soon as Nicholas appeared in his hussar uniform, trailing a scent of perfume and wine, and spoke the words “better late than never”—which several people repeated—he was surrounded at once; all eyes were on him, and he immediately felt he had stepped into his proper place in the province—that of the universal favorite: a very pleasant and intoxicating position, especially after so many hardships. At post stops, inns, and in the landowner’s smoking room, maidservants had blushed at his attention, and here too at the governor’s party, it seemed to Nicholas there was no end of pretty women, married and single, waiting eagerly for him to notice them. The women and girls flirted, and right away people worked to see this dashing hussar married and settled down. The governor’s wife herself welcomed Rostóv as a family friend, calling him “Nicholas.”

Catherine Petróvna did play waltzes and the *écossaise*, and dancing followed, where Nicholas further wowed the provincial crowd with his skill. His especially free style of dancing took them completely by surprise. Nicholas himself was surprised at how he danced that night. He never danced so freely in Moscow; in fact, he would have considered such behavior improper and even bad form, but here he felt obliged to amaze them with something out of the ordinary—something they’d have to accept as city style, even though it was new to the provinces.

All evening, Nicholas paid special attention to a plump, pretty blue-eyed blonde, the wife of a provincial official. With the naïve confidence of a young man in high spirits that other men’s wives were made for him, Rostóv stuck close to her, treating her husband in a friendly, conspiratorial way, as if—without words—they both knew how well Nicholas and the lady would get along. The husband, however, did not seem to share that view, and tried to act reserved and gruff toward Rostóv. But Nicholas’s boundless good-nature sometimes even broke through the man’s resistance. By the end of the evening, though, as the wife grew redder and more animated, her husband grew increasingly gloomy—almost as if there was only so much liveliness to go around, and as his wife’s share increased, his own shrank.

##  CHAPTER V

Nicholas sat slightly leaning forward in an armchair, bending close to the blonde lady and showering her with mythological compliments, a smile never leaving his face. Casually shifting his legs in their tight riding breeches, releasing a scent of perfume, and admiring his partner, himself, and the fine outlines of his legs in his well-fitting Hessian boots, Nicholas told the blonde lady he wanted to run away with a certain lady here in Vorónezh.

“Which lady?”

“A charming lady, a divine one. Her eyes” (Nicholas looked at his partner) “are blue, her mouth is coral and ivory; her figure” (he glanced at her shoulders) “like Diana’s….”

The husband came up and sullenly asked his wife what she was discussing.

“Ah, Nikíta Iványch!” cried Nicholas, rising politely, and as if inviting Nikíta Iványch to join in the joke, he began to tell him about his plan to elope with a blonde lady.

The husband smiled gloomily, the wife cheerfully. The governor’s good-natured wife approached with a look of disapproval.

“Anna Ignátyevna wants to see you, Nicholas,” she said, pronouncing the name so that Nicholas immediately understood Anna Ignátyevna was a very important person. “Come, Nicholas! You know you let me call you that?”

“Oh, yes, Aunt. Who is she?”

“Anna Ignátyevna Malvíntseva. She’s heard from her niece how you rescued her…. Can you guess?”

“I rescued so many of them!” said Nicholas.

“Her niece, Princess Bolkónskaya. She’s here in Vorónezh with her aunt. Oho! How you blush. Why, are…?”

“Not at all! Please, Aunt, don’t!”

“Very well, very well!… Oh, what a fellow you are!”

The governor’s wife led him to a tall and very stout old lady in a blue headdress, who had just finished a game of cards with the most important people in town. This was Malvíntseva, Princess Mary’s aunt on her mother’s side, a wealthy, childless widow who always lived in Vorónezh. When Rostóv approached, she was settling up for the game. She looked at him and, narrowing her eyes sternly, continued to scold the general who had won from her.

“Very pleased, *mon cher*,” she said, holding out her hand to Nicholas. “Please come and see me.”

After a few words about Princess Mary and her late father, whom Malvíntseva clearly had not liked, and after asking Nicholas what he knew of Prince Andrew, who also seemed not to be a favorite of hers, the important old lady dismissed Nicholas, repeating her invitation to visit.

Nicholas promised to visit and blushed again as he bowed. At the mention of Princess Mary, he felt a mix of shyness and even fear that he couldn’t explain.

After parting from Malvíntseva, Nicholas wanted to return to the dancing, but the governor’s little wife placed her plump hand on his sleeve and, saying she wanted to speak with him, led him to her sitting room. The others there left promptly so as not to be in her way.

“You know, dear boy,” began the governor’s wife seriously, a kind expression on her little face, “that really would be the match for you: do you want me to arrange it?”

“Whom do you mean, Aunt?” asked Nicholas.

“I want to make a match for you with the princess. Catherine Petróvna mentions Lily, but I say no—the princess! Do you want me to do it? I’m sure your mother would be grateful to me. She’s such a lovely girl, really! And not at all as plain as some say.”

“Not at all,” replied Nicholas, as if offended at the suggestion. “As a soldier, Aunt, I neither force myself on anyone nor refuse anything,” he said before he realized he was speaking.

“Well then, remember, this isn’t a joke!”

“Of course not!”

“Yes, yes,” the governor’s wife said as if thinking out loud. “But, my dear boy, you’re a bit too attentive to the other one, the blonde. You have to feel sorry for her husband, really….”

“Oh no, he and I are good friends,” said Nicholas earnestly; it didn’t even occur to him that something so enjoyable for him might not be pleasant for someone else.

“But what nonsense I’ve been telling the governor’s wife!” Nicholas suddenly thought at supper. “She’ll actually try to arrange the match… and Sónya…?” When saying good-bye to the governor’s wife, and she again smiled and said, “Well then, remember!” he drew her aside.

“But listen, to tell you the truth, Aunt…”

“What is it, my dear? Come, let’s sit here,” she said.

Nicholas suddenly felt the urge and the need to share his most private thoughts (which he wouldn’t have told his mother, sister, or friend) with this woman, who was almost a stranger. When he later remembered that moment of unsolicited and inexplicable honesty—which ended up having huge consequences for him—it seemed to him, as it does to everyone at such moments, that it was just some silly whim. Yet that burst of frankness, along with other trivial events, would have great effects for him and his entire family.

“You see, Aunt, Mamma has long wanted me to marry an heiress, but the idea of marrying for money is really distasteful to me.”

“Oh yes, I understand,” said the governor’s wife.

“But Princess Bolkónskaya—that’s different. I’ll tell you honestly. First, I like her very much, I feel drawn to her; and after meeting her under such unusual circumstances—so strangely—the idea often came to me: ‘This is fate.’ Especially considering that Mamma had long been thinking about it; but before, I’d never met her—we always seemed to miss each other. And as long as my sister Natásha was engaged to her brother, of course, I couldn’t even think of marrying her. Then, by chance, I meet her just as Natásha’s engagement is broken off… and then everything else… So you see… I’ve never told anyone this and never will, except you.”

The governor’s wife gratefully pressed his elbow.

“You know Sónya, my cousin? I love her, and promised to marry her, and I will…. So you see there can be no question about—” Nicholas said, awkwardly and blushing.

“My dear boy, that’s not the way to look at it! You know Sónya has nothing and you say yourself your father’s affairs are in a bad way. And what about your mother? It would kill her, that’s for sure. And what sort of life would it be for Sónya—if she has a heart? Your mother devastated, your family ruined…. No, my dear, you and Sónya must understand that.”

Nicholas stayed silent. Hearing these arguments comforted him.

“All the same, Aunt, it’s impossible,” he replied with a sigh, after a short pause. “Besides, would the princess have me? And she’s in mourning. How can anyone even think of it!”

“But you don’t think I’d marry you off immediately, do you? There’s always a proper way to go about these things,” replied the governor’s wife.

“What a matchmaker you are, Aunt…” said Nicholas, kissing her plump little hand.

##  CHAPTER VI

When Princess Mary arrived in Moscow after her meeting with Rostóv, she found her nephew there with his tutor, along with a letter from Prince Andrew giving her directions on how to reach her Aunt Malvíntseva in Vorónezh. The sense of temptation that had troubled her during her father’s illness, since his death, and especially after meeting Rostóv, was suppressed by the demands of preparing for the journey, caring for her brother, settling into a new home, meeting new people, and overseeing her nephew’s education. She was sad. After spending a month in these calm surroundings, she felt her father’s loss more deeply, associating it in her mind with the devastation of Russia. She was restless and constantly tormented by the thought of the dangers facing her brother—the only person truly close to her now. She worried as well about her nephew’s education, always fearing her own inadequacy. Yet, deep down, she felt a peace—a peace that came from knowing she had set aside those personal dreams and hopes that had begun to awaken in her, especially those related to Rostóv.

The day after her gathering, the governor’s wife visited Malvíntseva. After discussing her plan with the aunt, she remarked that although a formal engagement was, of course, not possible at such a time, the young people could still be brought together and get to know each other. Malvíntseva agreed, and the governor’s wife began to speak about Rostóv in Mary’s presence, praising him and mentioning how he had blushed when Princess Mary’s name came up. But Princess Mary’s feeling was more painful than joyful—her inner calm was disturbed, and old desires, doubts, self-reproaches, and hopes resurfaced.

During the two days before Rostóv visited, Princess Mary thought constantly about how she should act. First she decided not to come to the drawing room when he came to see her aunt—believing it inappropriate, considering her deep mourning, to receive guests. Then she worried this would be rude after what he had done for her. Then it occurred to her that her aunt and the governor’s wife had intentions regarding her and Rostóv—their looks and words seemed at times to confirm her suspicion. She told herself that only her own sinful nature could suspect such things: surely, given her situation and her mourning, such scheming would be disrespectful to her and to her father’s memory. Imagining herself joining them, Princess Mary rehearsed their conversation, sometimes finding her imaginary words undeservedly cold, other times meaning too much. Above all, she feared her emotions would get the better of her and betray her when she saw him.

But when, on Sunday after church, the footman announced Count Rostóv in the drawing room, the princess showed no sign of confusion; only a gentle blush touched her cheeks and her eyes shone with a new and radiant light.

"You’ve met him, Aunt?" she asked in a calm voice, surprised herself to find she could seem so composed and natural.

When Rostóv entered, the princess lowered her gaze for a moment, as if giving the visitor time to greet her aunt, and then, just as Nicholas turned to her, she lifted her head and met his look with bright eyes. With graceful dignity, she half-rose with a warm smile, extended her delicate, slender hand, and spoke; her voice, for the first time, had a new, deep, womanly tone. Mademoiselle Bourienne, who was also in the room, watched Princess Mary with bewildered surprise. A practiced flirt herself, she realized even she couldn’t have managed a more skillful manner in meeting a man she wanted to attract.

"Either black is especially becoming to her, or she has really improved without my noticing. And above all, what tact and grace!" thought Mademoiselle Bourienne.

Had Princess Mary been able to reflect at that moment, she would have been even more surprised than Mademoiselle Bourienne by the changes in herself. The moment she recognized that dear, loved face, a new vitality took hold of her and made her speak and act without conscious effort. From the instant Rostóv entered, her entire expression changed. It was as though a light had been lit in an intricately carved and painted lantern and the beautiful workmanship, formerly hidden, now glowed with unexpected and striking beauty. For the first time, all her inward struggles—her dissatisfaction with herself, her pain, her striving after goodness, meekness, love, and self-sacrifice—were visible in her radiant eyes, her gentle smile, and every feature of her kind face.

Rostóv noticed all of this as clearly as if he had known her entire life. He felt that the person before him was unlike anyone he’d met before—better than any, and certainly better than himself.

Their conversation was simple and unremarkable. They spoke about the war, and like most people unconsciously exaggerated their sorrow over it; they touched on their last meeting—Nicholas trying to steer away from the subject—they spoke of the gracious governor’s wife, of Nicholas’ family, and Princess Mary’s.

She did not talk about her brother, quickly changing the subject whenever her aunt mentioned Andrew. Evidently, she could talk about Russia’s suffering with an air of detachment, but her brother was too close to her heart and she could not, would not, speak of him lightly. Nicholas noticed this, as he did every nuance of Princess Mary’s character, with an attention unusual for him, and everything confirmed his belief that she was truly exceptional. Nicholas blushed and grew confused whenever others spoke to him of the princess (just as she did when he was mentioned) or even when he thought of her, yet in her presence he felt completely at ease, saying not what he had prepared, but whatever came most naturally and appropriately to him.

When a pause came during his short visit, Nicholas—as often happens when children are around—turned to Prince Andrew’s little son, petting him and asking if he would like to be a hussar. He took the boy on his knee, played with him, and glanced at Princess Mary. With a softened, happy, and timid look, she watched the child she loved in the arms of the man she loved. Nicholas also noticed that look and, as if understanding it, flushed with pleasure and began to kiss the boy playfully.

Because she was in mourning, Princess Mary did not go out into society, and Nicholas did not think it appropriate to visit her again; yet the governor’s wife continued her matchmaking, passing flattering comments from Princess Mary to Nicholas and vice versa, and insisting he should declare himself to Princess Mary. To this end she arranged for them to meet at the bishop’s house before Mass.

Though Rostóv told the governor’s wife he would make no declaration to Princess Mary, he agreed to attend.

Just as at Tilsit, Rostóv had not allowed himself to question whether what everyone thought right was indeed right, so now, after a short but honest struggle between living by his own sense of justice and simply following the current of circumstances, he chose the latter and let himself be carried by forces he could not resist nor fully understand. He knew that after his promise to Sónya, it would be, in his eyes, shameful to reveal his feelings to Princess Mary. And he knew he would never do anything shameful. But he also knew—or rather sensed deep down—that by surrendering now to the force of circumstance and to those leading him, he was not doing anything wrong, but rather something very important—more important than anything he had done before in his life.

Since meeting Princess Mary, although life outwardly went on as before, his old amusements lost their appeal, and he often thought of her. However, he never thought of her as he had of all the other young ladies he’d met in society—or even as he had once, passionately, thought about Sónya. With other young women, as with most well-meaning young men, he pictured them as potential wives and imagined the daily scenes of married life: a white dressing gown, his wife at the tea table, her carriage, children, Mamma and Papa, their relationship with her, and so on—images that had pleased him. But with Princess Mary, whom others wanted to connect him with, he could never picture anything about their possible married life. If he tried, the vision seemed awkward and untrue. It frightened him.

##  CHAPTER VII

The dreadful news of the battle of Borodinó, our losses in killed and wounded, and the even more terrible news of the loss of Moscow reached Vorónezh in mid-September. Princess Mary, having learned of her brother’s wound only from the *Gazette* and lacking any definite news about him, prepared (so Nicholas heard, since he had not seen her again himself) to set out in search of Prince Andrew.

When Rostóv received the news about the battle of Borodinó and the abandonment of Moscow, he was not overtaken by despair, anger, thoughts of revenge, or any similar feelings; instead, everything in Vorónezh suddenly seemed dull and tedious to him, and he felt a vague sense of shame and discomfort. The conversations he heard seemed insincere; he didn’t know how to judge all these events and felt that only in the regiment would everything once again become clear to him. He hurried to finish buying the horses and often became unreasonably angry with his servant and the squadron quartermaster.

A few days before his departure, a special thanksgiving service was held in the cathedral to celebrate the Russian victory, which Nicholas attended. He stood a little behind the governor, holding himself with military decorum throughout the service, while his mind wandered over many subjects. After the service, the governor’s wife beckoned him over.

“Have you seen the princess?” she asked, indicating with a nod a lady standing on the far side, just beyond the choir.

Nicholas immediately recognized Princess Mary—not so much by the profile beneath her bonnet as by the wave of concern, timidity, and pity she made him feel. Princess Mary, clearly deep in thought, was crossing herself one last time before leaving the church.

Nicholas looked at her face with surprise. It was the same face he had seen before, with the same general look of refined, inner, spiritual effort, but now it was illuminated differently. There was a sorrowful, prayerful, and hopeful expression in it. As had happened before in her presence, Nicholas went to her without waiting for any prompting from the governor’s wife and without considering whether it was proper to address her in church, and told her he had heard of her troubles and sympathized with her wholeheartedly. As soon as she heard his voice, a vivid glow brightened her face, showing both her sorrow and her joy.

“There’s something I wanted to tell you, Princess,” said Rostóv. “If your brother, Prince Andrew Nikoláevich, were not alive, it would have been immediately announced in the *Gazette*, since he is a colonel.”

The princess looked at him, not fully understanding his words, but comforted by the look of sympathetic regret on his face.

“And I’ve known so many cases of splinter wounds” (the *Gazette* said it was a shell) “either proving fatal right away or being very slight,” Nicholas continued. “We must hope for the best, and I am sure…”

Princess Mary interrupted him.

“Oh, that would be so dread…” she began, but unable to continue because of her emotion, she bowed her head with a movement as graceful as everything she did around him, looked up at him gratefully, and went out, following her aunt.

That evening Nicholas didn’t go out but stayed home to settle some accounts with the horse dealers. By the time he finished, it was too late to go anywhere else but still too early for bed. For a long time he paced his room, reflecting on his life—a thing he rarely did.

Princess Mary had made a pleasant impression on him when he met her in Smolénsk province. Meeting her in such unusual circumstances, along with his mother once mentioning her as a good match, had drawn his attention to her. When he saw her again in Vorónezh, the impression she made was not just pleasant, but powerful. Nicholas was struck by the unique moral beauty he noticed in her at this time. Still, as he was preparing to leave, it never crossed his mind to regret that this meant missing out on further meetings with her. But that encounter in church, he felt, had affected him more deeply than he would have liked for his peace of mind. That pale, sad, refined face, that radiant look, those gentle, graceful gestures, and especially the deep and tender sorrow expressed in all her features, unsettled him and stirred his sympathy. In men, Rostóv could not stand the expression of a higher spiritual life (which is why he didn’t like Prince Andrew), and he dismissed it as philosophy or dreaminess. But in Princess Mary, the very sorrow that showed the depth of a spiritual world foreign to him was what irresistibly attracted him.

“She must be a wonderful woman. A real angel!” he said to himself. “Why am I not free? Why was I in such a hurry with Sónya?” He couldn’t help comparing the two: one’s lack of spirituality and the other’s abundance of it—a quality he himself lacked and therefore valued most. He tried to imagine what would happen if he were free: how he might propose to Princess Mary, and how she would become his wife. But no, he couldn’t picture it. He felt in awe—no clear image came to his mind. He had long ago pictured himself with Sónya; everything about that was clear and simple because it was well-thought-out and he knew Sónya through and through. But picturing a future with Princess Mary was impossible; he didn't understand her—he simply loved her.

Daydreams about Sónya had always been merry and playful, but dreams of Princess Mary were more difficult, even a little frightening.

“How she prayed!” he thought. “It was clear her whole soul was in that prayer. Yes, that was the kind of prayer that moves mountains, and I am sure hers will be answered. Why don’t I pray for what I want?” he suddenly wondered. “What do I want? To be free, released from Sónya… She was right,” he thought, recalling what the governor’s wife had said: “Nothing but misfortune can come from marrying Sónya—confusion, grief for Mamma… business troubles… a complete muddle! Besides, I don’t love her—not the way I should. O God! free me from this awful, tangled situation!” he suddenly began to pray. “Yes, prayer can move mountains, but you have to have faith and not pray as Natásha and I did as children, asking for the snow to turn into sugar and then running out to see if it had. But now I’m not praying for childish things,” he thought as he put his pipe aside, clasped his hands, and stood before the icon. Softened by memories of Princess Mary, he began to pray as he hadn’t in a long time. Tears came to his eyes and to his throat just as the door opened and Lavrúshka entered carrying some papers.

“Blockhead! Why do you come in without being called?” Nicholas yelled, quickly changing his posture.

“From the governor,” Lavrúshka said sleepily. “A courier has arrived and there’s a letter for you.”

“All right, thanks. You can go!”

Nicholas took the two letters, recognizing his mother’s handwriting on one and Sónya’s on the other. He opened Sónya’s letter first. After reading only a few lines, he turned pale, his eyes opening wide with shock and joy.

“No, it’s not possible!” he cried aloud.

Unable to sit still, he paced the room, reading the letter. He scanned it, then read it again—again and again—and then stood motionless in the middle of the room, his shoulders raised, arms outstretched, mouth wide open, eyes fixed. What he had just prayed for—believing God would answer—had happened; yet Nicholas was as shocked as if it were absolutely extraordinary and unexpected, and as if the fact that it happened so quickly proved it came by accident instead of from God, to whom he had prayed.

This unexpected and, as it seemed to Nicholas, quite spontaneous letter from Sónya freed him from the bond that had tied him and from which he had seen no escape. She wrote that the recent misfortunes—the loss of nearly all the Rostóvs’ property in Moscow—and the countess’s repeated wish that Nicholas should marry Princess Bolkónskaya, combined with his recent silence and coldness, had led her to release him from his promise and set him free.

It would be too painful to me to think that I might be a cause of sorrow or discord in the family that has been so good to me (she wrote), and my love has no aim but the happiness of those I love; so, Nicholas, I beg you to consider yourself free, and to be assured that, in spite of everything, no one can love you more than does

Your Sónya

Both letters had been written from Tróitsa. The other, from the countess, described their last days in Moscow, their departure, the fire, and the destruction of all their property. In that letter, the countess also mentioned that Prince Andrew was among the wounded traveling with them; his condition was very serious, but the doctor now gave more hope. Sónya and Natásha were caring for him.

The next day, Nicholas took his mother’s letter and went to see Princess Mary. Neither of them said a word about what “Natásha nursing him” might mean, but thanks to this letter Nicholas suddenly felt as close to the princess as if they were family.

The following day he saw Princess Mary off as she left for Yaroslávl, and a few days later he left to rejoin his regiment.

##  CHAPTER VIII

Sónya’s letter from Tróitsa, which Nicholas had received as if in answer to his prayer, was prompted by this: the old countess was increasingly preoccupied with the idea of marrying Nicholas to a wealthy heiress. She knew that Sónya was the main obstacle to this plan, and Sónya’s life in the countess’ house kept getting harder, especially after a letter arrived from Nicholas describing his meeting with Princess Mary in Boguchárovo. The countess never missed a chance to make demeaning or cruel remarks to Sónya.

But a few days before they left Moscow, moved and agitated by everything happening, the countess called Sónya to her. Instead of scolding or making demands, she tearfully begged Sónya to sacrifice herself and repay all the family had done for her by ending her engagement with Nicholas.

“I won’t have peace until you promise me this.”

Sónya broke down in hysterical tears and answered between sobs that she would do anything and was ready for anything, but she made no concrete promise and couldn’t bring herself to do what was asked of her. She had to sacrifice herself for the family that had raised her. Sacrificing herself for others had become second nature for Sónya. Her place in the house was such that only through sacrifice could she show her value, and she was used to it and actually liked doing so. But in all her previous acts of self-sacrifice, she had happily felt they lifted her in her own opinion and in the eyes of others, making her more worthy of Nicholas, whom she loved more than anything. But now, they wanted her to give up the very thing that was the whole reward of her self-sacrifice and the whole meaning of her life. For the first time, she felt bitterness toward those who had done so much for her, only to hurt her more painfully; she felt jealous of Natásha, who had never faced anything like this, never had to sacrifice herself, but had others sacrifice themselves for her and was loved by everyone. For the first time, Sónya felt that from her pure, quiet love for Nicholas, a passionate feeling was growing stronger than principle, virtue, or religion. Under the influence of this feeling, Sónya—whose dependent life had taught her to be secretive—vaguely answered the countess and avoided further talks, resolving to wait until she saw Nicholas. It was not to set him free, but rather, at that meeting, to bind him to her forever.

The overwhelming activity and fear of the Rostóvs’ last days in Moscow smothered the dark thoughts pressing on Sónya. She was relieved to lose herself in practical work. But when she heard Prince Andrew was in their house, despite her genuine pity for him and for Natásha, she was gripped by a joyful, superstitious feeling that God did not want her to be separated from Nicholas. She knew Natásha loved no one but Prince Andrew and had never stopped loving him. She knew that being thrown together again under such tragic circumstances would make them fall in love all over again, and that Nicholas then could not marry Princess Mary, as they would fall within the prohibited degrees of relationship. Despite all the horror of those last days, and the first days of their journey, the feeling that Providence was guiding her personal fate cheered Sónya.

At the Tróitsa monastery, the Rostóvs paused for a whole day.

Three large rooms were given to them in the monastery guesthouse, one of which was taken by Prince Andrew. He was much improved that day, and Natásha was sitting with him. In the next room were the count and countess, respectfully talking with the prior, who was visiting as an old friend and benefactor of the monastery. Sónya was there too, tormented by curiosity about what Prince Andrew and Natásha were discussing. She could hear their voices through the door. The door opened, and Natásha came out, looking excited. Not noticing the monk, who stood to greet her and was pulling back the wide sleeve on his right arm, she walked over to Sónya and took her hand.

“Natásha, what are you doing? Come here!” said the countess.

Natásha went to the monk for his blessing, and he advised her to pray to God and His saint for help.

As soon as the prior left, Natásha grabbed her friend’s hand and took her into the empty room.

“Sónya, will he live?” she asked. “Sónya, I’m so happy, and so unhappy!… Sónya, dearest, everything is as it used to be. If only he lives! He cannot… because… because… of…” and Natásha burst into tears.

“Yes! I knew it! Thank God!” Sónya murmured. “He will live.”

Sónya was just as upset as her friend by the latter’s fear and grief and by her own private feelings, which she had shared with no one. Sobbing, she kissed and comforted Natásha. “If only he lives!” she thought. After crying together and drying their tears, the two friends went to Prince Andrew’s door. Natásha opened it cautiously and peeked in, while Sónya stood next to her at the half-open door.

Prince Andrew was propped high on three pillows. His pale face was calm, his eyes closed, and they could see his even breathing.

“Oh, Natásha!” Sónya suddenly almost screamed, grabbing her companion’s arm and stepping away from the door.

“What? What is it?” Natásha asked.

“It’s that, that…” said Sónya, her face white and lips trembling.

Natásha closed the door gently and went with Sónya to the window, not yet understanding what Sónya was trying to tell her.

“Do you remember,” Sónya said with a grave, frightened look, “when I looked in the mirror for you… at Otrádnoe at Christmas? Do you remember what I saw?”

“Yes, yes!” Natásha cried, eyes wide, vaguely recalling that Sónya had mentioned seeing Prince Andrew lying down.

“You remember?” Sónya continued. “I told you and Dunyásha that I saw him lying on a bed,” she said, gesturing with her hand and raising a finger for each detail, “with his eyes closed, covered only by a pink quilt, and his hands folded,” she finished, convincing herself that all the details she had just seen now were exactly what she’d seen in the mirror.

She had actually seen nothing back then but mentioned whatever came into her head, yet now, what she made up then seemed to her as real as any memory. She not only remembered saying he looked at her and smiled and was covered with something red, but was now firmly sure she had said he was covered with a pink quilt and that his eyes were closed.

“Yes, yes, it really was pink!” Natásha cried, now also thinking she remembered the word pink being used, and seeing in this the most remarkable and mysterious part of the prediction.

“But what does it mean?” she added, thoughtfully.

“Oh, I don’t know, it’s all so strange,” Sónya replied, clutching her head.

A few minutes later, Prince Andrew rang, and Natásha went in to him. But Sónya, feeling strangely moved and touched, stayed at the window, thinking about the strangeness of what had just happened.

That day, they had a chance to send letters to the army, and the countess was writing to her son.

“Sónya!” the countess said, looking up from her letter as her niece passed by, “Sónya, won’t you write to Nicholas?” She spoke softly, her voice trembling, and in the tired eyes looking over her spectacles Sónya saw everything the countess wanted to say. Those eyes pleaded, showed embarrassment at having to ask, fear of refusal, and readiness for harsh anger if refused.

Sónya walked up to the countess, knelt, and kissed her hand.

“Yes, Mamma, I’ll write,” she said.

Sónya was softened, moved, and touched by everything that had happened that day, especially by the mysterious fulfillment of her vision. Now that she realized the renewal of Natásha’s relationship with Prince Andrew would stop Nicholas from marrying Princess Mary, she felt joyfully that her self-sacrificing spirit, in which she was used to living and loved to live, was coming back. So, with the pleasant feeling of doing a generous act—stopping more than once to wipe away the tears clouding her velvety black eyes—she wrote the touching letter that so surprised Nicholas when it arrived.

##  CHAPTER IX

The officer and soldiers who had arrested Pierre treated him with hostility, but also with a degree of respect, while he was in the guardhouse where they took him. Their attitude revealed both uncertainty about who he might be—possibly someone important—and lingering animosity from their recent confrontation with him.

However, when the guard was changed the next morning, Pierre sensed that the new officers and soldiers were not as interested in him as his captors had been. In fact, the second day's guard didn't recognize in this large, stout man in a peasant coat the same vigorous individual who had fought so fiercely with the marauder and the convoy, and who had spoken those solemn words about saving a child. To them, he was simply No. 17 among the captured Russians, arrested and detained for reasons ordered by the Higher Command. If they noticed anything unusual about Pierre, it was only his calm, thoughtful demeanor and his surprisingly good French. Despite this, he was placed that day with the other suspects, as the separate room he had previously occupied was now needed by an officer.

All the Russians imprisoned with Pierre were men from the lowest social class, and since they recognized Pierre as a gentleman, they avoided him—especially because he spoke French. Pierre felt saddened to hear them mock him.

That evening, Pierre learned that all these prisoners (probably himself included) were to be put on trial for arson. On the third day, he was taken with the others to a house where a French general with a white mustache sat with two colonels and other Frenchmen wearing armbands. With the usual precision and formality common when addressing prisoners—intended to eliminate any sign of human weakness—Pierre, like the others, was questioned about who he was, where he had been, his purpose, and so forth.

These questions, like most posed during trials, ignored the true essence of the matter, making it impossible for that essence to be revealed. They were designed simply to channel the accused's answers toward the desired outcome: a conviction. Whenever Pierre began to say anything that did not fit this purpose, the questioning would be cut short and disregarded. Pierre also felt, as most defendants do at their trials, a sense of confusion as to why these questions were being asked at all. It seemed to him that this technique of channeling answers was employed more as a courtesy or formality. He knew he was entirely at these men’s mercy, that he’d been brought there by force alone, that force alone gave them the authority to question him, and that the sole aim of the gathering was to convict him. So, as they had both the power and the will to do so, the act of questioning and holding a trial seemed pointless to him—it was clear that any answer he gave would lead to conviction. When asked what he was doing at the time of his arrest, Pierre answered in a rather dramatic way that he was returning a child he had rescued from the fire to its parents. When questioned about why he fought the marauder, Pierre said, “I was protecting a woman,” and explained, “to protect a woman who is being insulted is every man’s duty; that—” but he was interrupted, as this was deemed irrelevant. Asked why he was in the yard of a burning house where witnesses had seen him, he replied that he had gone out to see what was happening in Moscow. Again, he was cut off—what mattered was not where he was going, but why he was seen near the fire. “Who are you?” they asked again, repeating their first question, which he still refused to answer. He again said he could not answer.

“Write that down, that's bad... very bad,” the general with the white mustache and flushed red face remarked sternly.

On the fourth day, fires broke out on the Zúbovski rampart.

Pierre and thirteen others were moved to the carriage house of a merchant's property near the Crimean Bridge. On the way through the streets, Pierre felt suffocated by the smoke that seemed to hover over the entire city. Fires were blazing everywhere. He didn't fully understand the meaning of the burning of Moscow at that point, and looked on the fires in horror.

He spent four days in the carriage house near the Crimean Bridge. During that time, he learned from the French soldiers’ conversations that everyone imprisoned there was waiting for a decision that could come any day from the marshal. Who this marshal was, Pierre could not find out; to the soldiers, “the marshal” seemed to represent a very high and almost mysterious authority.

These first days—before the eighth of September, when the prisoners were brought for a second examination—were the hardest for Pierre.

##  CHAPTER X

On September eighth, an officer—clearly of high rank, judging by the deference shown by the guards—entered the coach house where the prisoners were held. This officer, likely a staff member, held a paper in his hand and called for all the Russians present, referring to Pierre as “the man who does not give his name.” Looking lazily and indifferently over the prisoners, he ordered the officer in charge to have them properly dressed and tidied up before bringing them to the marshal. An hour later, a squad of soldiers arrived, and Pierre, along with thirteen others, was led out to the Virgin’s Field. The day was beautiful—sunny after rain—and the air was unusually clear. Unlike the day Pierre had been taken from the guardhouse at the Zúbovski rampart, the smoke now rose in columns through the clear air. There were no visible flames, but smoke columns rose throughout the city, and as far as Pierre could see, Moscow was one vast, burned-out ruin. Everywhere there were empty lots with only stoves and chimneys left standing, and here and there the blackened walls of some brick houses. Pierre looked out over the devastation and could not recognize neighborhoods he once knew well. Occasionally, he saw churches that had not burned. The Krémlin, still standing, shone white in the distance with its towers and the belfry of Iván the Great. The domes of the New Convent of the Virgin sparkled brightly, and its bells rang out particularly clear. The bells reminded Pierre it was Sunday and the feast of the Nativity of the Virgin. But there seemed to be no one left to celebrate the holiday: everywhere were blackened ruins, and the few Russians who could be seen were ragged and frightened, attempting to hide from the French.

It was obvious that the Russian home was ruined and destroyed, but in place of the Russian way of life that had been wiped out, Pierre unconsciously felt that a very different, solid French order had now been established over these ruins. He sensed this in the looks of the soldiers escorting him and the other prisoners—marching in neat, lively ranks; he saw it in the manner of a high-ranking French official in a carriage driven by a soldier whom they passed along the way. He heard it in the cheerful regimental music coming from the left side of the field, and he sensed it most of all from the list of prisoners the French officer had read out that morning. Pierre had been taken by one group of soldiers and led from place to place with dozens of other men, and it seemed possible he might be forgotten or mixed up with the rest. But no: his answers at previous questioning had followed him, now designating him as “the man who does not give his name,” and under this title, which Pierre found dreadful, they were now leading him somewhere with such confident assurance that he and all the other prisoners were exactly who they wanted, and they were being taken to the correct place. Pierre felt himself to be a small, insignificant piece caught in the gears of a machine, moving by a force he did not understand, but which was functioning precisely.

He and the other prisoners were led to the right side of the Virgin’s Field, to a large white house with an extensive garden, not far from the convent. This was Prince Shcherbátov’s house—where Pierre had often visited in happier times, and which, as he heard from the soldiers’ conversation, was now occupied by the marshal, the Duke of Eckmühl (Davout).

They were brought to the entrance and taken into the house one at a time. Pierre was the sixth called in. He was led through a glass gallery, an anteroom, and a hall—all familiar to him—into a long, low study, at the door of which stood an adjutant.

Davout, eyeglasses perched on his nose, was bent over a table at the far end of the room. Pierre approached, but Davout, evidently consulting a document before him, did not look up. Without lifting his eyes, he asked in a low voice:

“Who are you?”

Pierre was silent, unable to say a word. For Pierre, Davout was not just a French general, but a man famous for his cruelty. Looking at Davout’s cold expression, as he sat there like a strict schoolmaster willing to wait for an answer, Pierre felt that every moment of hesitation might cost him his life; but he didn’t know what to say. He dared not repeat what he had said at his first interrogation, but admitting his rank and standing was both dangerous and awkward. So he remained silent. But before Pierre could decide, Davout raised his head, pushed his glasses back on his forehead, squinted, and looked at him closely.

“I know that man,” he said in a cold, controlled tone, obviously meant to intimidate Pierre.

The chill Pierre had felt on his back now gripped his head like a vise.

“You can’t know me, General, I have never seen you…”

“He is a Russian spy,” Davout interrupted, turning to another general present—one Pierre hadn’t noticed.

Davout turned away. Suddenly, Pierre spoke in a tremulous voice:

“No, monseigneur,” he said, suddenly remembering Davout’s ducal title. “No, monseigneur, you cannot know me. I am a militia officer and have not left Moscow.”

“Your name?” Davout asked.

“Bezúkhov.”

“What proof do I have that you are telling the truth?”

“Monseigneur!” exclaimed Pierre, not indignantly but pleadingly.

Davout looked up and studied him. For several seconds they locked eyes, and that look saved Pierre. Beyond the rules of war and the law, that gaze established a human connection between them. In that instant, countless things seemed to pass, unspoken, through their minds, and they both understood that they were fellow human beings—brothers.

At first, when Davout had only lifted his gaze from his paperwork—where matters of life and death were reduced to numbers—Pierre was merely a detail, and Davout could have ordered his death without a second thought. But now, seeing Pierre as a person, he hesitated.

“How can you prove you’re telling the truth?” Davout said, now coolly.

Pierre recalled Ramballe and named him, giving his regiment and the street where the house was.

“You’re not who you claim,” Davout replied.

Nervously, voice shaking, Pierre tried to offer more evidence.

Just then, an adjutant entered and reported something to Davout.

Davout brightened at the news, and began buttoning up his uniform, seemingly forgetting Pierre entirely.

When the adjutant reminded him about the prisoner, Davout gave a curt jerk of his head toward Pierre and ordered him taken away. Where he was being sent—back to the coach house or to the execution place his fellow prisoners had pointed out in the Virgin’s Field—Pierre did not know.

He glanced back and saw the adjutant ask Davout another question.

“Yes, of course!” Davout replied, but Pierre had no idea what that “yes” meant.

Afterwards, Pierre could not recall how he left, whether he walked far, or in which direction he went. His senses were numb, his mind dazed; like the others, he simply moved his legs until everyone stopped, and then he stopped too. The only thought in his mind then was: who had truly sentenced him to death? Not the men on the commission who had first questioned him—not one of them seemed willing or, in fact, able to do so. It wasn’t Davout, who had looked at him so humanely. Had it been a moment longer, Davout would have realized the wrong he was about to commit, but the adjutant interrupted just then. The adjutant hadn’t meant harm either, though he might have waited. So who was responsible for carrying out Pierre’s execution, killing him, taking away his life—all his hopes and memories? Who was doing this? And Pierre felt it was not any individual.

It was the system—a chain of circumstances.

Some system was killing him—Pierre—stripping away his life, everything, annihilating him.

##  CHAPTER XI

From Prince Shcherbátov’s house, the prisoners were led straight down the Virgin’s Field, to the left of the nunnery, as far as a kitchen garden where a post had been set up. Beyond that post, a fresh pit had been dug in the ground, and near the post and the pit, a large crowd stood in a semicircle. The crowd was made up of a few Russians and many of Napoleon’s soldiers who were off duty—Germans, Italians, and Frenchmen, all in their varied uniforms. To the right and left of the post stood rows of French troops in blue uniforms with red epaulets, high boots, and shakos.

The prisoners were arranged in a particular order according to the list (Pierre was sixth) and were led to the post. Suddenly, several drums began to beat on both sides, and at that sound Pierre felt as if part of his soul had been torn away. He lost the ability to think or comprehend. He could only hear and see. And he had just one wish—that the dreadful thing that was destined to happen would happen quickly. Pierre looked around at his fellow prisoners and studied them closely.

The first two were convicts with shaven heads. One was tall and thin, the other dark, shaggy, and sinewy, with a flat nose. The third was a domestic serf, about forty-five years old, with graying hair and a plump, well-fed body. The fourth was a peasant, a very handsome man with a broad, light-brown beard and black eyes. The fifth was a factory worker, a thin, sallow-faced young man of eighteen in a loose coat.

Pierre heard the French debating whether to shoot them one at a time or in pairs. “In pairs,” replied the officer in charge in a calm voice. There was a stir among the soldiers, and it was clear they were all in a hurry—not as people hurry to do something they understand, but as people hurry to get through a necessary but unpleasant and bewildering task.

A French official wearing a sash came up to the right of the row of prisoners and read out the sentence in Russian and French.

Then two pairs of Frenchmen approached the condemned, and at the officer’s command, took the two convicts who stood first in the row. The convicts stopped when they reached the post and, while sacks were being brought, looked around silently, like wounded animals looking at approaching hunters. One crossed himself constantly, the other scratched his back and made a movement of his lips that looked like a smile. With hurried hands, the soldiers blindfolded them, pulling sacks over their heads, and tied them to the post.

Twelve sharpshooters with muskets stepped out of the ranks with a steady, regular stride and halted eight paces from the post. Pierre turned away to avoid seeing what was about to happen. Suddenly, a crackling, rolling noise was heard that seemed to him louder than the fiercest thunder, and he looked around. There was some smoke, and the Frenchmen were doing something near the pit, with pale faces and trembling hands. Two more prisoners were brought up. In the same way, and with similar expressions, these two gave the onlookers only a silent appeal for protection with their eyes, clearly unable to understand or believe what was about to happen to them. They could not believe it because they alone knew how much their lives meant to them, and so they neither understood nor believed that it could be taken from them.

Again Pierre did not want to look and turned away; but again the dreadful sound struck his ears, and at the same moment he saw smoke, blood, and the pale, terrified faces of the Frenchmen who were again doing something at the post, their trembling hands getting in each other’s way. Pierre, breathing heavily, looked around as if asking what it all meant. The same question was on every face that met his.

On the faces of all the Russians and of the French soldiers and officers, without exception, he saw the same dismay, horror, and inner conflict that he felt in his own heart. “But who, after all, is doing this? They are all suffering just as I am. Who then is responsible? Who?” flashed through his mind for an instant.

“Sharpshooters of the 86th, forward!” shouted someone. The fifth prisoner, the one next to Pierre, was led away—alone. Pierre did not understand that he was spared, that he and the others had been brought there only to witness the execution. With ever-growing horror, and not a trace of joy or relief, he watched what was happening. The fifth man was the factory boy in the loose cloak. As soon as they laid hands on him, he sprang aside in terror and clung to Pierre. (Pierre shuddered and shook himself free.) The boy couldn’t walk. They dragged him along, holding him up under the arms, and he screamed. When they got him to the post, he grew quiet, as if he suddenly grasped something. Whether he understood that screaming was useless or he simply couldn’t believe men would really kill him, in any case, he stood at the post, waiting to be blindfolded like the others, and like a wounded animal, looked around with shining eyes.

Pierre could no longer turn away or close his eyes. His curiosity and agitation, like that of everyone in the crowd, peaked at this fifth execution. Like the others, this man seemed calm; he drew his cloak tighter and rubbed one bare foot against the other.

When they started to blindfold him, he himself adjusted the knot that hurt the back of his head; then, when they propped him against the bloodstained post, he leaned back, then straightened himself, adjusted his feet, and leaned back again more comfortably. Pierre watched him closely and didn’t miss a single movement.

A command was probably given, and musket shots followed; but try as he might, Pierre could never afterwards remember hearing even the faintest sound of the shots. He only saw how the young worker suddenly sagged against the cords holding him, how blood appeared in two places, how the ropes loosened under the weight of the body, and how the worker slumped down, his head hanging unnaturally, one leg bent under him. Pierre rushed to the post. No one stopped him. Pale, frightened people were doing something around the worker. The lower jaw of an old Frenchman with a thick mustache trembled as he untied the ropes. The body collapsed. The soldiers awkwardly dragged it from the post and began to push it into the pit.

They all clearly and certainly understood that they were criminals who had to cover up the evidence of their guilt as fast as possible.

Pierre glanced into the pit and saw that the factory lad was lying with his knees close to his head and one shoulder higher than the other. That shoulder rose and fell rhythmically and convulsively, but shovelfuls of earth were already being thrown over his whole body. One of the soldiers, clearly suffering, shouted harshly and angrily at Pierre to go back. But Pierre didn’t understand him and remained by the post, and no one forced him away.

When the pit was filled in, a command was given. Pierre was taken back to his spot, and the rows of troops on both sides of the post turned halfway and marched past at a measured pace. The twenty-four sharpshooters with empty muskets, standing at the center of the circle, ran back to their places as the companies marched by.

Pierre, with dazed eyes, now watched the sharpshooters who ran in pairs out of the circle. All but one rejoined their companies. This one, a young soldier with a deathly pale face, his shako pushed back and his musket resting on the ground, still stood near the pit where he had fired his shot. He swayed like a drunk man, taking a few steps forward and back to keep from falling. An old, noncommissioned officer ran out of the ranks, took him by the elbow, and dragged him to his company. The crowd of Russians and Frenchmen began to disperse. They all left silently, with their heads lowered.

“That will teach them to start fires,” said one of the Frenchmen.

Pierre glanced at the speaker and saw he was a soldier trying to find some relief after what he had just witnessed, but failing to do so. Without finishing what he started to say, the man made a hopeless gesture with his arm and walked away.

##  CHAPTER XII

After the execution, Pierre was separated from the other prisoners and placed alone in a small, ruined, and filthy church.

Toward evening, a noncommissioned officer entered with two soldiers and told him that he had been pardoned and would now be moved to the barracks for prisoners of war. Without fully understanding what was being said, Pierre got up and followed the soldiers. They took him to the far end of the field, where some sheds made from charred planks, beams, and battens stood, and led him into one of them. In the darkness, about twenty different men surrounded Pierre. He looked at them, unable to comprehend who they were, why they were there, or what they wanted from him. He heard their words but couldn't grasp the meaning, nor did he try to figure it out or apply it to himself. He answered their questions without thinking who was listening or how they might interpret his replies. He looked at their faces and bodies, but to him, they all appeared equally meaningless.

Since Pierre had witnessed those horrific murders carried out by men who hadn't wanted to commit them, it was as if the core of his life, the force that made everything meaningful, had suddenly been torn out, leaving everything collapsed into a pile of meaningless debris. Though he didn't admit it to himself, his faith in the proper order of the universe, in humanity, in his own soul, and in God, had been destroyed. He had felt something like this before, but never as powerfully as now. When similar doubts had troubled him before, they had been caused by his own wrongdoings, and deep down he believed the cure for his despair and doubts lay within himself. But now, he felt the universe had fallen to pieces before his eyes and only senseless ruins were left, and this had happened through no fault of his own. He felt powerless to recover any faith in the meaning of life.

Around him in the darkness, men were standing, and clearly something about him interested them greatly. They were talking to him and asking questions. Then they led him somewhere else, and finally, he found himself in a corner of the shed among men who laughed and talked all around.

“Well then, mates… that very prince *who*…” a voice at the far end of the shed was saying, placing strong emphasis on the word *who*.

Sitting silent and motionless on a heap of straw against the wall, Pierre sometimes closed and sometimes opened his eyes. But every time he closed them, he saw the dreadful face of the factory boy—especially terrible in its simplicity—and the faces of the murderers, which were even more frightening because of their anxiety. So he opened his eyes again and stared blankly into the darkness around him.

Beside him, huddled down, sat a small man whose presence Pierre first noticed by the strong smell of sweat that came from him every time he moved. This man was doing something to his legs in the darkness, and though Pierre couldn't see his face, he sensed the man was often glancing at him. Once Pierre grew used to the darkness, he saw the man was taking off his leg bands, and the way he did it piqued Pierre’s interest.

After he untied the string fastening the band on one leg, he carefully wound it up and straightaway began on the other, glancing up at Pierre as he did so. While one hand was hanging up the first string, the other was already unwinding the second band. In this way—removing the leg bands by a series of smooth, continuous circular motions—the man hung them up on some pegs above his head. Then he took out a knife, cut something, closed the knife, placed it under his pillow, and, settling himself comfortably, wrapped his arms around his drawn-up knees and fixed his gaze on Pierre. Pierre found something pleasant and reassuring in these skilled movements, in the man's neat arrangements in his corner, and even in his distinct smell, and he looked at the man without taking his eyes off him.

“You’ve been through a lot, eh, sir?” the little man suddenly said.

There was such warmth and simplicity in his sing-song voice that Pierre tried to answer, but his jaw trembled and he felt tears rising to his eyes. The little fellow, giving Pierre no time to show his emotion, immediately continued in the same kind voice:

“Eh, lad, don’t worry!” he said, in the gentle, comforting tone elderly Russian peasant women use. “Don’t fret, friend—‘suffer an hour, live for an age!’ That’s how it goes, my dear fellow. And here we live, thank God, without injury. Among these people too, there are good men as well as bad,” he said, then turned with a flexible movement, got up, coughed, and went to the other end of the shed.

“Eh, you rascal!” Pierre heard the same warm voice call from the other end. “So you’re here, you rascal? She remembers… Now, now, that’ll do!”

Pushing away a little dog jumping at him, the soldier returned to his spot and sat down. He held something wrapped in a rag.

“Here, have something to eat, sir,” he said, regaining his old respectful tone as he unwrapped and offered Pierre some baked potatoes. “We had soup for dinner and the potatoes are wonderful!”

Pierre had not eaten all day, and the smell of potatoes seemed especially inviting. He thanked the soldier and started to eat.

“Well, they’re good, aren’t they?” said the soldier with a smile. “Here, do it like this.”

He took a potato, opened his folding knife, split it into two even halves on the palm of his hand, sprinkled some salt from a rag on it, and handed it to Pierre.

“The potatoes are grand!” he said again. “Eat like that!”

Pierre thought he had never tasted anything so delicious.

“Oh, I’m all right,” he said, “but why did they shoot those poor men? The last one was hardly twenty.”

“Tss, tt…!” murmured the little man. “Ah, what a sin… what a sin!” he added quickly, and as if his words were always ready to fly out unbidden, he went on: “Why were you in Moscow, sir?”

“I didn’t think they would come so quickly. I stayed by accident,” Pierre replied.

“And how did they arrest you, dear fellow? At your home?”

“No, I went to see the fire, and they arrested me there, charging me as an arsonist.”

“Where there’s law there’s injustice,” the little man remarked.

“And have you been here long?” Pierre asked as he finished the last of the potato.

“Me? They grabbed me last Sunday, took me from a hospital in Moscow.”

“Were you a soldier then?”

“Yes, we’re soldiers from the Ápsheron regiment. I was dying from a fever. They gave us no warning. There were about twenty of us there. We didn’t have a clue, never expected a thing.”

“And do you feel sad here?” Pierre inquired.

“How could I not, lad? My name is Platón, and the surname is Karatáev,” he said, clearly wanting to make it easier for Pierre to address him. “In the regiment, they call me ‘little falcon.’ How’s someone not to feel sad? Moscow—she’s the mother of cities. Who could see all this and not feel sorrow? But ‘the maggot eats the cabbage, yet it dies first’; that’s what the old folks used to say,” he added quickly.

“What? What did you say?” Pierre asked.

“Who, me?” said Karatáev. “I mean things don’t happen as we plan but as God wills,” he replied, thinking he was repeating himself, and immediately went on:

“So, do you have a family estate, sir? And a house? Then you have plenty, eh? And a wife? And your parents, are they alive?” he asked.

Although it was too dark for Pierre to see, he sensed that a kind, gentle smile creased the soldier’s lips as he asked these questions. He seemed saddened to hear Pierre had no parents, and especially no mother.

“A wife for advice, a mother-in-law for a welcome, but there’s no one as dear as your own mother!” he said. “And do you have children?” he continued.

Again Pierre’s negative answer seemed to sadden him, so he quickly added:

“Never mind! You’re young yet, and, God willing, you’ll still have some. The important thing is living in harmony….”

“But it’s all the same now,” Pierre couldn’t help saying.

“Ah, my dear fellow!” replied Karatáev, “never say no to a prison or a beggar’s sack!”

He settled himself more comfortably and coughed, clearly preparing to tell a long story.

“Well, my dear fellow, I was still living at home,” he began. “We had a prosperous homestead, plenty of land; we peasants lived well, and our house was something to thank God for. When Father and we went out mowing, there were seven of us. We lived well. We were real peasants. It happened that…”

And Platón Karatáev told a long story about how he had gone into someone’s woods to take firewood, how he was caught by the keeper, tried, flogged, and sent to serve as a soldier.

“Well, lad,” he continued, a smile changing the tone of his voice, “we thought it was trouble, but it turned out to be a blessing! If it hadn’t been for my fault, my brother would have had to go as a soldier. But my younger brother had five little children, while I, you see, only left a wife behind. We had a little girl, but God took her before I became a soldier. I came home on leave, and I’ll tell you how it was: I looked around and saw they were living better than before. The yard was full of cattle, the women were at home, two brothers were away earning wages, and only Michael, the youngest, was at home. Father, he said, ‘All my children are the same to me: it hurts the same whichever finger gets bitten. But if Platón hadn’t been chosen for a soldier, Michael would have had to go.’ He called us all to him and, would you believe it, placed us in front of the icons. ‘Michael,’ he said, ‘come here and bow to his feet; and you, young woman, you bow too; and you, grandchildren, you bow before him as well! Do you understand?’ he said. That’s how it was, my dear fellow. Fate looks for a head. But we are always judging, ‘that’s not right—that’s not fair!’ Our luck is like water in a dragnet: you pull at it and it bulges, but when you draw it out it’s empty! That’s how it is.”

And Platón shifted his seat on the straw.

After a short silence, he got up.

“Well, I think you must be sleepy,” he said, and began to cross himself rapidly, repeating:

“Lord Jesus Christ, holy Saint Nicholas, Frola and Lavra! Lord Jesus Christ, holy Saint Nicholas, Frola and Lavra! Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on us and save us!” he finished, then bowed to the ground, got up, sighed, and sat down again on his heap of straw. “That’s the way. Lay me down like a stone, O God, and raise me up like a loaf,” he muttered as he lay down, pulling his coat over himself.

“What prayer was that you were saying?” asked Pierre.

“Eh?” murmured Platón, who had almost fallen asleep. “What was I saying? I was praying. Don’t you pray?”

“Yes, I do,” said Pierre. “But what was that you said: Frola and Lavra?”

“Well, of course,” replied Platón quickly, “the saints of the horses. One has to pity the animals too. Eh, you rascal! Now you’ve curled up and gotten warm, you daughter of a bitch!” said Karatáev, touching the dog that lay at his feet, and turning over, he fell asleep right away.

Sounds of crying and shouting came from somewhere in the distance outside, and flames were visible through the cracks of the shed, but inside it was quiet and dark. For a long time Pierre did not sleep, but lay with his eyes open in the darkness, listening to the steady snoring of Platón beside him, and he felt that the world, which had been shattered, was once more stirring in his soul with a new beauty and new, unshakable foundations.

##  CHAPTER XIII

Twenty-three soldiers, three officers, and two officials were confined in the shed where Pierre had been placed and where he stayed for four weeks.

When Pierre later recalled them, they all seemed like vague figures to him except for Platón Karatáev, who always remained in his memory as a vivid and treasured figure, and the embodiment of everything Russian, kind, and rounded. When Pierre saw his neighbor the next morning at dawn, his first impression of him—like something round—was fully confirmed: Platón’s entire figure—in a French overcoat belted with a cord, a soldier’s cap, and bast shoes—was round. His head was perfectly round, his back, chest, shoulders, and even his arms, which he held as if always ready to embrace something, were rounded; his pleasant smile and his large, gentle brown eyes were round too.

Platón Karatáev must have been about fifty, judging by the stories he told of campaigns he’d been in, as an old soldier. He didn’t know his exact age and couldn’t determine it. But his sparkling white, strong teeth, which showed in two perfect semicircles when he laughed—as he often did—were all healthy, and there wasn’t a gray hair in his beard or on his head; his whole body gave an impression of flexibility and, especially, of strength and endurance.

His face, despite its fine, rounded wrinkles, had the look of innocence and youth, and his voice was pleasant and musical. But the main trait of his speech was its directness and appropriateness. It was clear that he never thought about what he had said or was going to say, and so the quickness and accuracy of his tone had an irresistible persuasiveness.

His physical strength and agility during his first days in prison were such that he seemed not to know what exhaustion and illness were. Every night before lying down he said: “Lord, lay me down as a stone and raise me up as a loaf!” and every morning when getting up: “I lay down and curled up, I get up and shake myself.” And truly, the moment he lay down, he fell asleep like a stone, and as soon as he shook himself, he was ready instantly for work, just as children are ready to play as soon as they wake up. He could do everything—not exceptionally well, but not badly either. He baked, cooked, sewed, planed, and fixed boots. He was always at some task, and only allowed himself conversation—and he loved talking—and songs at night. He didn’t sing like a trained singer who knows others are listening, but like a bird, clearly letting out sounds just as one stretches or walks to ease stiffness, and the sounds were always high-pitched, sorrowful, delicate, almost feminine, and his face at those times was very serious.

After being taken prisoner and growing his beard, he seemed to have shed all that had been forced on him—everything military and foreign—and returned to his old peasant habits.

“A soldier on leave—shirt outside his trousers,” he would say.

He didn’t like to talk about his time as a soldier, though he never complained, and often mentioned that he had never been flogged in all his service. When he told any story, it was usually an old and clearly cherished memory of his “Christian” life, as he called his peasant days. The proverbs he used in his talk were mostly not the crude and vulgar sayings soldiers use, but the kind of folk wisdom that might seem insignificant out of context, but, used at the right moment, suddenly takes on a depth of meaning.

He would often say the exact opposite of what he’d said before, and both would be true. He liked to talk, and talked well, sprinkling his speech with endearments and folk sayings that Pierre thought he made up himself, but the main charm of his talk was that the most ordinary events—sometimes the very ones Pierre had seen without noticing—took on in Karatáev’s telling a sense of solemn meaning. He liked listening to folk tales that one of the soldiers used to tell in the evenings (they were always the same ones), but even more he loved stories of real life. He would smile happily while listening, now and then adding a word or asking a question to make the moral beauty of the story clear to himself. Karatáev had no special attachments, friendships, or loves as Pierre thought of them, but loved and lived kindly with whatever life brought into contact with him—especially with people, not any particular person, but those around him. He loved his dog, his comrades, the French, and Pierre, who was his neighbor, but Pierre felt that even with Karatáev’s gentle fondness for him (by which he instinctively gave Pierre’s spiritual life its due) he wouldn’t have mourned even a moment at parting from him. And Pierre began to feel the same toward Karatáev.

To the other prisoners, Platón Karatáev seemed a completely ordinary soldier. They called him “little falcon” or “Platósha,” teased him kindly, and sent him on errands. But to Pierre, he always remained what he had seemed that first night: an unfathomable, rounded, eternal embodiment of the spirit of simplicity and truth.

Platón Karatáev knew nothing by heart except his prayers. When he began to speak, it seemed he never knew how he would finish.

Sometimes Pierre, struck by the meaning of his words, would ask him to repeat them, but Platón could never recall what he’d just said, just as he could never repeat for Pierre the words of his favorite song: *native* and *birch tree* and *my heart is sick* appeared in it, but spoken and not sung, it had no meaning. He did not, and could not, understand the meaning of words apart from their context. Every word and action of his was the result of an activity unknown to him, which was his life. But his life, as he saw it, had no meaning as a separate thing. It only had meaning as part of a whole, which he was always conscious of. His words and actions came from him as evenly, inevitably, and naturally as fragrance comes from a flower. He could not understand the value or significance of any word or deed by itself.

##  CHAPTER XIV

When Princess Mary heard from Nicholas that her brother was with the Rostóvs at Yaroslávl, she immediately prepared to go there, despite her aunt’s efforts to dissuade her—not just to go herself, but to take her nephew with her. She didn’t stop to ask whether it would be difficult or easy, possible or impossible: it was her duty, not only for herself, to be near her brother—who might be dying—but also to do everything she could to bring his son to him. So she got ready to leave. The reason she hadn’t heard from Prince Andrew himself, Princess Mary believed, was because he was too weak to write, or perhaps he thought the long journey would be too hard and dangerous for her and his son.

Within a few days, Princess Mary was ready to depart. Her carriages included the huge family coach she had used to travel to Vorónezh, a semi-open trap, and a baggage cart. Along with her went Mademoiselle Bourienne, little Nicholas and his tutor, her old nurse, three maids, Tíkhon, and a young footman and courier that her aunt had sent to accompany her.

The usual route through Moscow was out of the question, so Princess Mary had to take a roundabout way through Lípetsk, Ryazán, Vladímir, and Shúya. The trip was very long, and because post horses weren’t always available, also very difficult—and near Ryazán, where the French were rumored to have appeared, even dangerous.

During this difficult journey, Mademoiselle Bourienne, Dessalles, and the servants were amazed by Princess Mary’s energy and strength of spirit. She went to bed later and rose earlier than any of them, and no difficulty discouraged her. Thanks to her activity and determination, which inspired her fellow travelers, they neared Yaroslávl by the end of the second week.

The last days of her stay in Vorónezh had been the happiest of her life. Her love for Rostóv no longer tormented or unsettled her. It filled her whole soul, had become an inseparable part of herself, and she no longer fought against it. Lately she had become certain that she loved and was loved in return, though she never put this definitely into words for herself. She was convinced of it during her last meeting with Nicholas, when he came to tell her that her brother was with the Rostóvs. Nicholas hadn’t mentioned that Prince Andrew’s relationship with Natásha might be renewed if he recovered, but Princess Mary could see by his expression that he was aware and thinking of it.

Still, his manner toward her—considerate, gentle, and loving—not only stayed the same, but at times Princess Mary thought he seemed even glad that the family connection allowed him to show his friendship more openly. She knew she loved for the first and only time in her life and felt she was loved, and she was happy in this.

Yet this happiness in one part of her soul did not prevent her from feeling grief for her brother just as deeply; on the contrary, that spiritual peace on one side allowed her to feel her attachment to her brother even more fully. That feeling was so strong as she left Vorónezh that those who saw her off, seeing her careworn, desperate face, were sure she would fall ill during the trip. But the very challenges and responsibilities of the journey, which she tackled so energetically, kept her occupied and gave her strength.

As often happens when traveling, Princess Mary focused only on the journey itself, forgetting its purpose. But as she drew near to Yaroslávl, the thought of what she might find there—not in days, but that very evening—came rushing back, and her worry reached its peak.

The courier, who had been sent ahead to find out where the Rostóvs were staying in Yaroslávl and what condition Prince Andrew was in, met the big coach just at the town gates and was startled by the terrible pallor of the princess’s face as she looked out the window.

“I have found out everything, your excellency: the Rostóvs are at the merchant Brónnikov’s house, in the Square not far from here, right above the Vólga,” said the courier.

Princess Mary looked at him, anxious, not understanding why he failed to answer the only thing she truly wanted to know: how was her brother? Mademoiselle Bourienne asked the question for her.

“How is the prince?” she asked.

“His excellency is staying in the same house with them.”

“Then he is alive,” thought Princess Mary, and asked quietly, “How is he?”

“The servants say he is still the same.”

Princess Mary didn’t ask what “still the same” meant, but with an unnoticed glance at little seven-year-old Nicholas, who was sitting in front of her watching the town with delight, she bowed her head and didn’t lift it again until the heavy coach, rumbling, shaking, and swaying, came to a stop. The carriage steps clattered as they were lowered.

The carriage door was opened. To the left was water—a great river—and to the right, a porch. There were people at the door: servants, and a rosy girl with a thick braid of black hair, smiling in what seemed to Princess Mary an unpleasantly artificial way. (This was Sónya.) Princess Mary hurried up the steps. “This way, this way!” said the girl, with the same forced smile, and the princess found herself in the hall facing an elderly woman with Oriental features, who quickly came up to her, visibly emotional. This was the countess. She embraced Princess Mary and kissed her.

*“Mon enfant!”* she murmured, *“je vous aime et vous connais depuis longtemps.”* \*

\* “My child! I love you and have known you for a long time.”

Despite her agitation, Princess Mary realized this was the countess and that she needed to say something. Hardly knowing how, she managed to utter a few polite phrases in French in the same tone, and asked: “How is he?”

“The doctor says that he is not in danger,” said the countess, but as she spoke she looked up with a sigh, her gesture contradicting her words.

“Where is he? Can I see him—may I?” asked the princess.

“One moment, Princess, just a moment, dear! Is this his son?” the countess said, turning to little Nicholas who was coming in with Dessalles. “There will be room for everyone; it’s a big house. Oh, what a lovely boy!”

The countess led Princess Mary into the drawing room, where Sónya was talking with Mademoiselle Bourienne. The countess caressed the boy, and the old count entered and greeted the princess. He had changed greatly since Princess Mary last saw him. Once he had been a brisk, cheerful, self-assured old man; now he seemed pitiful and confused. After the destruction of Moscow and his fortune, thrown out of his usual place in life, he now seemed to have lost his sense of purpose and felt there was no longer a place for him.

Despite her urgent wish to see her brother and her frustration that, at the very moment her only desire was to see him, they were trying to entertain her and fussing over her nephew, the princess noticed everything going on around her and felt it was necessary to accept, at least for a time, this new situation she had entered. She knew it had to be done, and although difficult, she was not angry with these people.

“This is my niece,” said the count, introducing Sónya—“You haven’t met her before, Princess?”

Princess Mary turned to Sónya and, suppressing the hostile feeling that arose in her toward the girl, kissed her. But she felt troubled by how the mood of those around her was so different from what was in her own heart.

“Where is he?” she asked again, addressing them all.

“He is downstairs. Natásha is with him,” answered Sónya, blushing. “We’ve sent to ask. I think you must be tired, Princess.”

Vexation brought tears to Princess Mary’s eyes. She turned away and was about to ask the countess again how to go to him, when light, quick, seemingly lively footsteps sounded at the door. The princess looked up and saw Natásha entering, almost running—the same Natásha she had liked so little during their meeting long ago in Moscow.

But as soon as the princess looked at Natásha’s face, she realized here was a true companion in her sorrow, and therefore a friend. She hurried over, embraced her, and began to cry on her shoulder.

As soon as Natásha, sitting at Prince Andrew’s bedside, heard that Princess Mary had arrived, she quietly left his room and hurried to her, with those swift steps that had sounded so buoyant to Princess Mary.

There was only one expression on her anxious face as she entered the drawing room—love—endless love for him, for her, and for all who were close to the man she loved; and deep compassion, suffering for others, and a passionate desire to give herself completely in helping them. It was clear that at that moment there was no thought in Natásha’s heart for herself or her own relationship with Prince Andrew.

Princess Mary, with her acute sensitivity, understood all this at a glance at Natásha’s face, and wept on her shoulder with a sorrowful happiness.

“Come, come to him, Mary,” said Natásha, leading her into the next room.

Princess Mary lifted her head, dried her eyes, and turned to Natásha. She felt that from her she would be able to understand and learn everything.

“How…” she began, but broke off.

She felt it was impossible to ask or answer in words. Natásha’s face and eyes would have to reveal everything more clearly and deeply.

Natásha was gazing at her, but seemed afraid and unsure whether to speak all she knew; she seemed to feel that before those bright eyes, which saw into the depths of her soul, it was impossible to hide the whole truth. Suddenly, Natásha’s lips trembled, fine wrinkles formed around her mouth, and covering her face with her hands, she broke into sobs.

Princess Mary understood.

But she still had hope, and asked, though she didn’t quite trust her own words:

“But how is his wound? What is his general condition?”

“You, you... will see,” was all Natasha could manage to say.

They sat downstairs near his room for a little while, waiting until their tears had stopped and they could go to him with calm faces.

“How has his illness been overall? Has he been worse for long? When did this happen?” Princess Mary asked.

Natasha explained that at first there was danger from his fever and the pain he suffered, but at Troitsa that had passed, and then the doctor had only been worried about gangrene. That danger too had passed. When they reached Yaroslavl, the wound had started to fester (Natasha knew all about things like festering) and the doctor had said the festering might follow a normal course. Then he developed a fever, but the doctor had said it wasn’t very serious.

“But two days ago *this* suddenly happened,” said Natasha, struggling to hold back her sobs. “I don’t know why, but you’ll see what he’s like.”

“Is he weaker? Thinner?” the princess asked.

“No, it’s not that—just worse. You’ll see. Oh, Mary, he’s too good—he just can’t, can’t live, because...”

##  CHAPTER XV

When Natásha opened Prince Andrew’s door with a familiar gesture and let Princess Mary enter before her, the princess felt sobs rising in her throat. No matter how hard she had tried to prepare herself, and how much she tried now to remain calm, she knew she would not be able to look at him without crying.

The princess understood what Natásha had meant with the words: “two days ago *this* suddenly happened.” She understood that he had suddenly softened, and that this newfound gentleness was a sign that death was drawing near. As she approached the door, she already imagined Andrew’s face as she remembered it from childhood—a gentle, mild, sympathetic expression he rarely wore, which always touched her deeply. She was sure he would speak to her with the same soft, loving words their father had spoken before his own death, and that she would not be able to control herself and would break down in tears in his presence. Yet sooner or later it had to happen, so she entered the room. The sobs grew stronger as she came closer and strained her nearsighted eyes to see his face, and then she saw him and met his gaze.

He was lying on a divan in a squirrel-fur dressing gown, propped up by pillows. He looked thin and pale. In one thin, almost transparent white hand he held a handkerchief; the other hand slowly stroked the delicate mustache he had grown. His eyes watched them as they walked in.

At the sight of his face and on meeting his eyes, Princess Mary suddenly slowed her steps. Her tears dried up and her sobs vanished. She suddenly felt guilty, becoming timid as she caught his expression.

“But what fault do I have?” she wondered. His cold, stern look seemed to reply: “Because you are alive and focused on the living, while I…”

In that deep gaze, which seemed to look inward rather than outward, there was an almost hostile expression as he slowly examined his sister and Natásha.

He kissed his sister, holding her hand in his as was their custom.

“How are you, Mary? How did you manage to get here?” he said, his voice as calm and distant as his look.

Had he screamed in pain, that scream would not have terrified Princess Mary as much as the tone of his voice did.

“And have you brought little Nicholas?” he asked in the same slow, quiet tone, making an effort to remember.

“How are you now?” Princess Mary asked, even surprising herself with her words.

“That, my dear, you must ask the doctor,” he answered, and again, making an obvious effort to be affectionate, he added with his lips only (the words clearly not matching his true thoughts):

*“Merci, chère amie, d’être venue.”* \*

\* “Thank you for coming, my dear.”

Princess Mary squeezed his hand, and the pressure made him wince just barely. He stayed silent, and she didn’t know what to say. Now she understood what had happened to him two days earlier. In his words, his tone, and especially in his calm, almost unfriendly look, she felt his separation from everything in this world—something frightening in someone still alive. It was clear he could only comprehend the living with an effort; but it was more obvious that he did not fail to understand because he lacked the capacity, but because he was focused on something else—something not accessible to the living, completely occupying his thoughts.

“There, you see how strangely fate has brought us together,” he said, breaking the silence and gesturing to Natásha. “She looks after me all the time.”

Princess Mary heard him and could not comprehend how he could say such a thing. He, the sensitive and caring Prince Andrew—how could he speak like that, with her right there, someone he loved and who loved him in return? If he expected to live, he could not have said those words in such a detached tone. If he didn’t know he was dying, how could he not pity her, or how could he talk like that in front of her? The only explanation was that he was indifferent now, because something much more important had revealed itself to him.

The conversation was cold, fragmented, and often stalled.

“Mary came by way of Ryazán,” Natásha said.

Prince Andrew did not notice she called his sister *Mary,* and only after saying it did Natásha realize it herself.

“Really?” he said.

“They told her that all of Moscow has burned down, and that…”

Natásha stopped. Conversation was impossible. It was clear he was making an effort to listen but simply couldn’t follow.

“Yes, they say it’s burned,” he said. “It’s a great pity,” and he stared straight ahead, absentmindedly stroking his mustache.

“And so you have met Count Nicholas, Mary?” Prince Andrew said suddenly, evidently wanting to say something pleasant. “He wrote here that he took a great liking to you,” he went on simply and calmly, clearly not grasping the full complexity his words had for those who were still living. “If you liked him too, it would be a good thing for you to get married,” he added a bit more quickly, as if happy he had finally found the words he wanted to use.

Princess Mary heard his words, but for her they meant only that he was already so far from everything living.

“Why talk of me?” she replied softly, glancing at Natásha.

Natásha felt her look but did not meet her eyes. All three sat in silence again.

“Andrew, would you like…” Princess Mary suddenly began in a trembling voice, “would you like to see little Nicholas? He is always talking about you!”

Prince Andrew gave the faintest smile for the first time, but Princess Mary, who knew his face so well, was horrified to see he did not smile with joy or love for his son, but gently, ironically, as if he knew she was just trying the last possible way to rouse him.

“Yes, I would be glad to see him. Is he well?”

When little Nicholas was brought in to see Prince Andrew, he looked at his father with fearful eyes but did not cry, since no one else was crying. Prince Andrew kissed him, obviously uncertain what to say.

After Nicholas was led away, Princess Mary again went to her brother, kissed him, and couldn’t hold back her tears any longer.

He watched her carefully.

“Is this about Nicholas?” he asked.

Princess Mary nodded, crying.

“Mary, you know the Gosp…” but he stopped.

“What did you say?”

“Nothing. You shouldn’t cry here,” he said, looking at her with the same distant expression.

When Princess Mary began to cry, he realized she was grieving over the thought that little Nicholas would be left without a father. With great effort, he tried to return to life and see things from their perspective.

“Yes, to them it must seem sad!” he thought. “But how simple it really is.

‘The fowls of the air sow not, neither do they reap, yet your Father feedeth them,’” he recited inwardly, wishing he could say it to Princess Mary. “But no, they’ll take it differently; they won’t understand! They can’t grasp that all those feelings they cherish—all our feelings, all those ideas that seem so important to us—are *unnecessary*. We cannot understand one another,” and he stayed silent.

Prince Andrew’s little son was seven years old. He could barely read, and knew very little. After that day he experienced many things, gaining knowledge, observation, and experience, but even if he had possessed all the abilities he would later acquire, he couldn’t have had a better or deeper understanding of the scene he had witnessed between his father, Mary, and Natásha, than he did then. He understood it completely, and, leaving the room without tears, quietly approached Natásha, who had come out with him. He glanced at her shyly with his beautiful, thoughtful eyes; then, his rosy upper lip began to tremble, and leaning his head against her, he started to cry.

Afterwards, he avoided Dessalles and the countess, who tried to comfort him, and either sat alone or timidly approached Princess Mary or Natásha, to whom he seemed even more attached than to his aunt, clinging to them quietly and shyly.

After Princess Mary left Prince Andrew, she fully understood what Natásha’s face had told her. She didn’t talk to Natásha anymore about hopes of saving his life. She took turns sitting with her by his sofa, and no longer cried, but prayed continually, turning in her soul to that Eternal and Unfathomable presence, whose existence above the dying man was now so clear.

##  CHAPTER XVI

Not only did Prince Andrew know he was going to die, but he felt that he was dying and was already half dead. He was aware of a detachment from everything earthly, and a strange, joyful lightness of being. Calmly and without hurry, he awaited what was to come. That inexorable, eternal, distant, and unknown presence which he had always sensed throughout his life was now close, and, through this strange lightness he felt, almost understandable and tangible….

He had once feared the end. Twice, he had experienced that torturous fear of death—the end—but now he no longer understood that fear.

He had felt it first when the shell spun like a top before him, and he had looked at the fallow field, the bushes, and the sky, knowing that he was face to face with death. When he came to himself after being wounded and the flower of eternal, boundless love instantly blossomed in his soul, as if freed from the constraints of life that had held it back, he stopped fearing death and ceased to think about it.

During the hours of solitude, suffering, and partial delirium after he was wounded, the more deeply he absorbed the new principle of eternal love that had been revealed to him, the more he unconsciously detached from earthly life. To love everything and everyone and always to sacrifice oneself for love meant not loving anyone in particular—not living this earthly life. And the more he was filled with that principle of love, the more he renounced life and the more completely he broke down that dreadful barrier which—without such love—stands between life and death. When, during those first days, he remembered that he would have to die, he said to himself, “Well, what of it? So much the better!”

But after the night in Mytíshchi, when, half delirious, he saw the woman he longed for appear before him, and, after he pressed her hand to his lips and had shed gentle, happy tears, love for a specific woman crept back into his heart, unnoticed, and once again tied him to life. Joyful and stirring thoughts began to fill his mind. Remembering the moment at the ambulance station when he saw Kurágin, he could not now recapture the feeling he had then, but was tormented by the question of whether Kurágin was alive. And he did not dare ask.

His illness followed its usual physical course, but what Natásha meant when she said, “*This* suddenly happened,” occurred two days before Princess Mary arrived. It was the final spiritual struggle between life and death, in which death prevailed. It was the sudden realization that he still valued life as it was presented to him through his love for Natásha, and a last, although eventually conquered, panic before the unknown.

It was evening. As usual, after dinner he was slightly feverish, and his thoughts were preternaturally clear. Sónya was sitting by the table. He began to doze. Suddenly a wave of happiness swept over him.

“Ah, she has come!” he thought.

And so it was: in Sónya’s place sat Natásha, who had just come in quietly.

Since she had begun caring for him, he had always felt her presence physically. She was sitting in an armchair turned sideways, shielding the candlelight from him, and was knitting a stocking. She had learned to knit stockings since Prince Andrew had casually remarked that no one nursed the sick as well as old nurses who knit stockings, and that there was something soothing about the sound of knitting. The needles clicked lightly in her slender, nimble hands, and he could see clearly the thoughtful outline of her lowered face. She moved, and the ball of yarn rolled off her knees. She started, glanced back at him, and shielding the candle with her hand, bent carefully and gracefully, picked up the yarn, and returned to her position.

He looked at her without moving and saw that she wanted to take a deep breath after bending down, but held back and breathed quietly.

At the Tróitsa monastery, they had talked about the past, and he had told her that if he lived he would always thank God for his wound, which had brought them together again, but after that they never spoke about the future.

“Can it or can it not be?” he thought now as he looked at her and listened to the soft clicking of the steel needles. “Could fate really have brought me to her so strangely only for me to die?… Can it be that the truth of life has been revealed to me only to show me that I have spent my life in falsehood? I love her more than anything in the world! But what am I to do if I love her?” he thought, and he unconsciously groaned, a habit developed during his suffering.

At that sound Natásha put down the stocking, leaned toward him, and suddenly, noticing the brightness of his eyes, stepped quietly up to him and bent over him.

“You’re not asleep?”

“No, I’ve been looking at you for a long time. I felt you come in. No one else gives me that sense of gentle calm that you do… that light. I want to cry for happiness.”

Natásha drew closer to him. Her face was glowing with blissful joy.

“Natásha, I love you too much! More than anything in the world.”

“And I!”—She turned away for a moment. “Why too much?” she asked.

“Why too much?… Well, what do you, what do you feel in your soul, with your whole soul—shall I live? What do you think?”

“I am sure of it, sure!” Natásha almost shouted, passionately taking both his hands.

He was silent for a while.

“How wonderful that would be!” Taking her hand, he kissed it.

Natásha felt happy and stirred, but quickly remembered that this wasn’t good for him and that he needed rest.

“But you haven’t slept,” she said, trying to hide her happiness. “Please try to sleep… please!”

He pressed her hand and let it go, and she returned to the candle and sat down again in her old position. Twice she turned to look at him, and her eyes met his, beaming at her. She fixed her attention on her stocking and decided not to turn around until a certain part was finished.

Soon he really closed his eyes and fell asleep. He did not sleep long and suddenly woke up, startled and in a cold sweat.

As he was falling asleep, he had still been thinking about the same subject that always filled his mind now—about life and death, and mostly about death. He felt himself getting closer to it.

“Love? What is love?” he thought.

“Love holds back death. Love is life. Everything that I understand, I understand only because I love. Everything is—everything exists—only because I love. Everything is united by it alone. Love is God, and to die means that I, a particle of love, shall return to the general and eternal source.” These thoughts seemed comforting to him. But they were still just thoughts. Something was missing; they weren’t clear, they were too one-sided and intellectual. And the old restlessness and obscurity returned. He fell asleep.

He dreamed that he was lying in the same room, but that he was well and uninjured. Many different, indifferent, and unimportant people came before him. He talked with them and discussed trivial things. They were preparing to leave for somewhere. Prince Andrew vaguely realized that all this was meaningless, and that he had deeper concerns, but he kept talking, surprising them with empty jokes. Gradually, unnoticed, all these people started to disappear and one question, that of the closed door, took over everything else. He got up and went to bolt and lock the door. Everything depended on whether or not he could lock it in time. He hurried, but his legs wouldn’t move and he knew he wouldn’t be able to lock the door, no matter how hard he tried. He was gripped by a terrible fear. And that fear was the fear of death. *It* stood behind the door. But just as he was clumsily crawling toward the door, that dreadful presence on the other side was already pushing against it, forcing its way in. Something inhuman—death—was breaking in, and had to be kept out. He seized the door, making one final effort to block it—to lock it was no longer possible—but his efforts were weak and awkward, and the door, pushed from behind by that terror, opened and closed again.

Again, *it* pushed from outside. His last feverish effort was useless and both halves of the door silently opened. *It* entered, and it was *death*, and Prince Andrew died.

But just at the instant he died, Prince Andrew remembered that he was dreaming, and at that very instant, having made an effort, he woke up.

“Yes, it was death! I died—and woke up. Yes, death is an awakening!” And all at once a light filled his soul and the veil that until then had covered the unknown was lifted from his spiritual sight. He felt as if powers that had been confined within him were set free, and that strange lightness never left him again.

When, waking in a cold sweat, he shifted on the sofa, Natásha came up and asked what was wrong. He didn’t answer and looked at her with a strange expression, not understanding.

That was what had happened to him two days before Princess Mary’s arrival. From that day forward, as the doctor described, the wasting fever became malignant, but Natásha cared nothing for the doctor’s words; she saw the terrible moral symptoms, which to her were far more convincing.

From that day, an awakening from life came to Prince Andrew together with his awakening from sleep. And compared to a lifetime, it did not seem to him slower than an awakening from sleep compared to the length of a dream.

There was nothing terrible or violent in this relatively slow awakening.

His final days and hours passed in an ordinary and simple way. Both Princess Mary and Natásha, who never left his side, felt this. They did not weep or shudder, and during these last days they felt they were not caring for him (for he was no longer there—he had left them), but for what most reminded them of him—his body. Both felt this so deeply that the outward and dreadful side of death did not affect them, and they did not feel the need to exaggerate their grief. Neither in his presence nor away from him did they weep, nor did they ever talk to one another about him. They felt they could not put into words what they understood.

They both saw that he was sinking slowly and quietly, deeper and deeper, away from them, and they both knew that this was necessary and that it was right.

He confessed and received communion: everyone came to say goodbye to him. When they brought his son, he pressed his lips to the boy’s and turned away—not because he found it hard or sad (as Princess Mary and Natásha understood), but simply because he thought it was all that was expected of him. However, when they asked him to bless the boy, he did what was required and looked around as if to ask if there was anything else he needed to do.

When the final convulsions of the body, now being left by the spirit, happened, Princess Mary and Natásha were there.

“Is it over?” asked Princess Mary when his body, after a few minutes lying motionless, was growing cold before them. Natásha went up, looked at the dead eyes, and quickly closed them. She closed them but did not kiss them, instead clinging to what most reminded her of him—his body.

“Where has he gone? Where is he now?…”

When the body, washed and dressed, was laid in the coffin on a table, everyone came to say goodbye, and they all wept.

Little Nicholas cried because his heart was torn by painful confusion. The countess and Sónya cried out of pity for Natásha and because he was gone. The old count cried because he felt that soon he, too, would have to take the same frightening step.

Natásha and Princess Mary also wept now, but not for their own personal grief; they cried with a reverent and softening emotion that had filled their souls as they became aware of the simple and solemn mystery of death that had unfolded before them.

##  BOOK THIRTEEN: 1812

##  CHAPTER I

The human mind cannot fully grasp the causes of events, but the desire to discover those causes is innate in people. Without considering the multitude and complexity of the conditions—any one of which might seem to be the cause when viewed alone—he clings to the first explanation that seems understandable and says: “This is the cause!” In historical events (where the actions of people are being observed), the earliest and simplest explanation was the will of the gods, and then the will of the most prominent individuals—the heroes of history. But if we look closer at any historical event, we see that its true nature lies in the actions of the vast number of people involved, and that the will of the historic hero does not direct the actions of the masses but is actually controlled by them. It may seem unimportant whether we interpret historical events one way or another; but the difference between someone who says the people of the West moved east because Napoleon wanted it, and someone who says it happened because it was inevitable, is the same as the difference between those who said the earth was fixed while the planets circled around it, and those who admitted they didn’t know what supported the earth but recognized there were laws governing its and the other planets’ motions. There is, and can be, no cause of a historical event except the one cause of all causes. However, there are laws guiding events, and some of these laws are known to us, while we are aware of others that we cannot understand. The discovery of these laws is only possible when we stop trying to find the cause in one man's will, just as the laws of planetary motion were only discovered once people let go of the belief that the earth was still.

Historians think that, after the battle of Borodinó and the enemy’s occupation and burning of Moscow, the most important episode of the war of 1812 was the movement of the Russian army from the Ryazán to the Kalúga road, and to the Tarútino camp—the so-called flank march across the Krásnaya Pakhrá River. They assign the glory for this act of genius to different men and argue over who deserves the credit. Even foreign historians, including the French, acknowledge the brilliance of the Russian commanders when they discuss this flank march. Yet it is hard to see why military writers—and those who follow them—consider this flank march to be the profound idea of one person who saved Russia and defeated Napoleon. First, it’s hard to see what was so deep and clever about this move, since it didn’t take much thought to realize that the best position for an army not under attack is wherever there are the most supplies; even a dull thirteen-year-old could have guessed that the best place for the army after retreating from Moscow in 1812 was on the Kalúga road. So it is unclear how historians see this move as a stroke of genius. It is even harder to see why they believe this maneuver was bound to save Russia and defeat the French, because the flank march—had it been supported, accompanied, or followed by different events—might have turned out disastrous for the Russians and beneficial for the French. Even if the Russian army's situation improved after that march, it does not mean the march caused the improvement.

That flank march might not only have failed to benefit the Russian army, but could, with different circumstances, have led to its destruction. What if Moscow had not burned? If Murat had not lost track of the Russians? If Napoleon had acted differently? If the Russian army at Krásnaya Pakhrá had fought a battle as Bennigsen and Barclay had advised? What if the French had attacked while the Russians were on the march beyond the Pakhrá? What if Napoleon had attacked the Russians near Tarútino with even a tenth of the energy he used at Smolénsk? What if the French had moved on Petersburg?… In any of those cases, the same flank march that brought salvation might have resulted in disaster.

The third and perhaps most puzzling thing is that those studying history purposely ignore the fact that this flank march cannot be credited to any one person, that no one actually foresaw it, and that, like the retreat from Filí, it was not conceived by anyone in full. Rather, it happened—moment by moment, step by step, incident by incident—from a countless mix of circumstances and was only recognized as a whole once it was over and already history.

At the council at Filí, the prevailing view among the Russian commanders was the one that would naturally come to mind: a direct retreat along the Nízhni road. This is clear because most of the council voted for such a retreat, and especially from the well-known conversation afterward between the commander in chief and Lanskóy, who worked in the commissariat department. Lanskóy informed the commander that most army supplies were stored along the Oká River in the Túla and Ryazán provinces, and if they retreated toward Nízhni, the army would be cut off from its supplies by the wide Oká, which couldn't be crossed early in the winter. This was the first sign that there was a need to change course away from what had previously seemed most natural—a straight retreat to Nízhni-Nóvgorod. So the army turned more to the south, along the Ryazán road, closer to its supplies. Later, the inaction of the French (who even lost sight of the Russian army), worries about Túla’s arsenal, and especially the lure of more supplies in that direction, caused the army to turn further south to the Túla road. After crossing by forced march to the Túla road past the Pakhrá, the Russians intended to stay at Podólsk and had no thought of going to Tarútino; but countless circumstances, including the reappearance of French troops who had lost touch with them, plans for battle, and most of all the abundance of provisions in Kalúga province, forced the army even further south, across from the Túla to the Kalúga road into Tarútino, which lay between the roads holding those supplies. Just as it’s impossible to say exactly when the decision to leave Moscow was made, it’s also impossible to say when, or by whom, the choice to move to Tarútino was made. It was only once the army arrived there, as a result of innumerable shifting factors, that people began to convince themselves they had wanted this move and foretold its result all along.

##  CHAPTER II

The famed flank movement was simply this: after the French stopped advancing, the Russian army, which had been steadily retreating directly from the invaders, veered off that straight line and, not being pursued, was naturally drawn toward the area richest in supplies.

If instead of imagining commanders of genius leading the Russian army, we picture it as leaderless, it could have done nothing other than move back toward Moscow, arcing toward where supplies were plentiful and the land was best.

This movement from the Nízhni to the Ryazán, Túla, and Kalúga roads made so much sense that even the Russian looters moved that way, and requests came from Petersburg for Kutúzov to take the army in this direction. At Tarútino, Kutúzov received what was nearly a reprimand from the Emperor for having marched along the Ryazán road, and the Emperor’s letter told him to go to the very place near Kalúga where he already was.

Having rolled like a ball in the direction given by the whole campaign and the battle of Borodinó, the Russian army—when that force ran out and wasn’t renewed—settled into the only natural position.

Kutúzov’s true merit was not in a so-called brilliant strategy, but in his understanding of what had really occurred. He alone understood the meaning of the French army’s inaction, continued to insist that Borodinó had been a victory, and—though one might have expected him, as commander in chief, to want to attack—used all his strength to restrain the Russian army from pointless battle.

The beast wounded at Borodinó was lying where the hunter had left it; but whether it was still alive or just pretending, the hunter could not know. Suddenly the beast was heard to moan.

That moan from the wounded beast (the French army) revealing its disastrous state was the sending of Lauriston to Kutúzov’s camp offering peace talks.

Napoleon, as usual believing that whatever crossed his mind was right, wrote to Kutúzov whatever words occurred to him, though they meant nothing.

MONSIEUR LE PRINCE KOUTOUZOV: I am sending one of my adjutants-general to discuss several interesting questions with you. I ask your Highness to trust what he tells you, *especially when he expresses the respect and special esteem I have long felt for you. This letter has no other purpose. I pray God, monsieur le prince Koutouzov, to keep you in His holy and gracious protection!*

NAPOLEON

MOSCOW, OCTOBER 30, 1812

Kutúzov replied: “I should be cursed by posterity if I were seen as the initiator of any kind of negotiation. *Such is the present spirit of my nation*.” Yet he kept using all his power to hold back his troops from attacking.

During the month while the French looted Moscow and the Russians remained quietly camped at Tarútino, a shift occurred in the relative strength of the two armies—both in spirit and in numbers—so that the advantage shifted to the Russians. Even though the Russians didn’t know the details of the French army’s conditions, as soon as this change occurred the urge to attack became evident in countless ways. These included Lauriston's mission, plenty of supplies at Tarútino, all the reports of the French’s inactivity and disorder, new recruits joining our regiments, the good weather, the Russian soldiers’ long rest and eagerness for action (which always returns when an army has rested), curiosity about the now "invisible" French, the boldness shown by our outposts scouting right up to the French at Tarútino, stories of easy wins by peasants and guerrillas over the French (which stirred envy), the deep-seated desire for revenge as long as French troops occupied Moscow, and—above all—a general sense among the soldiers that the balance of power had shifted and now favored them. There had been a real change in strength, and an attack became inevitable. Immediately, just as a clock begins to chime after the minute hand completes its circle, this new situation was reflected in heightened activity among the higher leaders.

##  CHAPTER III

The Russian army was commanded by Kutúzov and his staff, as well as by the Emperor from Petersburg. Before news of the fall of Moscow reached Petersburg, a detailed campaign plan had been drawn up and sent to Kutúzov for his guidance. Though this plan was made under the assumption that Moscow was still under Russian control, it was approved by the staff and acted upon. Kutúzov replied only that it was always difficult to carry out orders devised at a distance. New instructions were then sent to tackle possible problems, along with new people to monitor Kutúzov’s actions and report on them.

On top of this, the Russian army’s whole staff was reorganized. The roles left vacant by Bagratión (who had been killed) and Barclay (who had left in anger) had to be filled. Serious debates went on about whether A should replace B and B should switch places with D, or whether D should be put in A’s position, and so on—as if anything more than the personal preferences of A or B really depended on this.

Because of the friction between Kutúzov and Bennigsen (his Chief of Staff), the presence of the Emperor’s personal representatives, and all these staff changes, there was even more than usual political jockeying within the staff. A was plotting against B, D was working against C, and so on in every combination. The topic in all these schemes was usually how the war was being run, which they all imagined they were directing; but the war itself continued independently, playing out as it had to: never as people intended, but always based on the reality among the masses. Only at the top did all these schemes and rivalries seem to have any connection to what was actually happening.

Prince Michael Ilariónovich! (the Emperor wrote on October 2, in a letter that reached Kutúzov after the battle at Tarútino) Since September 2, Moscow has been in enemy hands. Your last reports were written on the twentieth, and during all this time not only has no action been taken against the enemy or to relieve our ancient capital, but your last report says you have retreated even farther. Sérpukhov is now held by an enemy detachment, and Túla, with its vital arsenal, is endangered. From General Wintzingerode’s reports, I see that a French force of ten thousand men is advancing on the Petersburg road. Another corps of several thousand is moving toward Dmítrov. A third has gone along the Vladímir road; a fourth, fairly large detachment is stationed between Rúza and Mozháysk. Napoleon himself was still in Moscow as late as the twenty-fifth. Given this news—when the enemy has split his forces into many detachments, with Napoleon and his Guards in Moscow—can it really be that the forces facing you are so great you cannot go on the offense? On the contrary, he is likely pursuing you only with scattered units, or at most with a corps much weaker than your own. In these circumstances, it seems that you could make a successful attack against a weaker force, force a retreat, and keep control of important provinces, thereby keeping Túla and other cities safe. You will be held responsible if the enemy can threaten Petersburg, where few troops can be held. With the army under your command, acting energetically and decisively, you have more than enough power to prevent such a disaster. Remember, you still must answer to our wronged country for the loss of Moscow. You know I am ready to reward you. That readiness will not diminish, but both I and Russia have the right to expect from you all the zeal, strength, and success which your intelligence, military talent, and the bravery of your troops give us reason to expect.

But by the time this letter—showing that Petersburg already sensed the real shift in the balance of power—was written, Kutúzov had already found himself unable to hold the army from attacking, and a battle had happened.

On October 2, a Cossack named Shapoválov, out on patrol, shot one hare and wounded another. Following the wounded hare deep into the forest, he reached Murat’s left flank and found the French camped carelessly. The Cossack later told his comrades, laughing, how he’d nearly fallen into French hands. A junior officer overheard and told his commander.

The Cossack was brought in and questioned. The Cossack officers wanted to use this chance to capture horses, but one senior officer, who knew the higher-ups, reported the incident to a staff general. Tensions had been high on the staff lately. Ermólov visited Bennigsen a few days before and begged him to use his influence with the commander to push for the offensive.

“If I didn’t know you, I’d think you were asking for the opposite of what you really want. Any time I advise something, his Highness makes sure to do the opposite,” Bennigsen replied.

The Cossack’s report, confirmed by cavalry patrols, was the final proof that the time had come. The tightly wound spring was released, and the clock began to chime. Despite all his supposed authority, intelligence, experience, and knowledge of people, Kutúzov—faced with the Cossack’s report, a note from Bennigsen (who sent his own reports to the Emperor), what he thought the Emperor wanted, and the fact that all the generals felt the same urge—could no longer stop the inevitable, and gave the order for what he saw as pointless and harmful—to approve, that is, what had already happened.

##  CHAPTER IV

Bennigsen’s note, along with the Cossack’s information that the French left flank was unguarded, served only as the final signals that it was time to order an attack. The attack was scheduled for the fifth of October.

On the morning of the fourth of October, Kutúzov signed the orders. Toll read them to Ermólov and asked him to take care of further arrangements.

“All right, all right. I don’t have time right now,” replied Ermólov, and left the hut.

The plans drawn up by Toll were excellent. As with the dispositions at Austerlitz—though this time not written in German—they stated: “The First Column will march here and here,” “the Second Column will march there and there,” and so on. On paper, all these columns arrived at their destinations on time and crushed the enemy. Everything had been perfectly planned, as is common with such orders, and, as always happens, not a single column arrived at its place at the scheduled time.

When enough copies of the orders had been made, an officer was called and sent to deliver them to Ermólov for further handling. A young Horse Guards officer, serving as Kutúzov’s orderly, was pleased with the importance of his assignment and went to Ermólov’s quarters.

“Gone away,” Ermólov’s orderly said.

The Horse Guards officer went to another general with whom Ermólov was often found.

“No, and the general’s out too.”

Mounting his horse, the officer rode off to try someone else.

“No, he’s gone out.”

“If only they don’t hold me responsible for this delay! What a nuisance!” thought the officer, as he rode around the whole camp. One person said he had seen Ermólov ride by with some other generals, while others thought he must have returned home. The officer searched until six o’clock in the evening, without even stopping to eat. Ermólov was nowhere to be found and no one seemed to know where he was. The officer grabbed a bit of food at a comrade’s, then rode again to the vanguard to find Milorádovich. Milorádovich was also away, but here, he was told that the general had gone to a ball at General Kíkin’s and that Ermólov was probably there as well.

“But where is it?”

“Why, there, over at Échkino,” said a Cossack officer, pointing toward a distant country house.

“What, outside our lines?”

“They’ve posted two regiments as outposts, and they’re having quite a party there—it’s wild! Two bands and three singing groups!”

The officer rode out beyond the lines to Échkino. Even from a distance, as he rode, he heard the cheerful sounds of a soldier’s song coming from the house.

“In the meadows... in the meadows!” he heard, with whistling and the sound of a *torban*, sometimes drowned out by shouting. These sounds lifted his spirits, but he was also anxious about being blamed for not delivering the important order sooner. It was already after eight o’clock. He dismounted and walked up to the porch of a large country house that had survived between the Russian and French positions. In the refreshment room and hall, footmen were bustling with wine and food. Groups of singers stood outside the windows. Admitted inside, he immediately spotted all the chief generals of the army together, including Ermólov’s big, imposing figure. Their coats were unbuttoned; they stood in a semicircle with flushed, excited faces, laughing loudly. In the center of the room, a short handsome general with a red face was dancing the *trepák* with great spirit and agility.

“Ha, ha, ha! Bravo, Nicholas Iványch! Ha, ha, ha!”

The officer felt doubly guilty for arriving with important orders at such a moment, and would have preferred to wait; but one of the generals noticed him and, hearing why he had come, informed Ermólov.

Ermólov came over with a frown and, upon hearing what the officer had to say, took the papers from him without a word.

“You think he just happened to go off like that?” said a staff comrade to the Horse Guards officer, speaking of Ermólov. “It was deliberate. He did it on purpose to get Konovnítsyn in trouble. You’ll see what chaos there’ll be tomorrow.”

##  CHAPTER V

The next day, the aged Kutúzov, after ordering to be called early, said his prayers, got dressed, and—with an uneasy feeling about directing a battle he didn’t approve of—climbed into his *calèche* and rode from Letashóvka (a village three and a half miles from Tarútino) to the place where the attacking columns were to assemble. He sat in the *calèche*, dozing and waking by turns, listening for any sound of gunfire on the right to signal the action had begun. But all was still quiet. A damp, dull autumn morning was just breaking. Approaching Tarútino, Kutúzov saw cavalrymen leading their horses to water across the road where he was driving. He watched them carefully, stopped his carriage, and asked which regiment they belonged to. They were from a column that should have been far ahead and hidden long before. “Maybe it’s a mistake,” thought the old commander in chief. But a little farther along, he saw infantry regiments with arms stacked and soldiers, only partly dressed, eating rye porridge and gathering firewood. He sent for an officer, who reported that no order to advance had been received.

“How! Not rec—” Kutúzov began, then stopped himself at once and sent for a senior officer. Climbing out of his *calèche*, he waited with drooping head, breathing heavily, pacing up and down in silence. When Eýkhen, the general staff officer he had sent for, appeared, Kutúzov’s face turned purple—not because the officer was responsible, but because he was important enough for the old man to vent his anger on. Trembling and panting, the old man fell into one of those rages in which he would sometimes roll on the ground, and he attacked Eýkhen, threatening him, shouting, and hurling the harshest insults. Another man, Captain Brózin, who happened to appear and who was completely innocent, was treated just as badly.

“What kind of blackguard are you? I’ll have you shot! Scoundrels!” bellowed Kutúzov in a hoarse voice, waving his arms and staggering.

He was physically suffering. He, the commander in chief, a Serene Highness said to have powers no one in Russia ever had, to be put in such a position—made the laughingstock of the whole army! “I needn’t have bothered rushing to pray today, or stayed awake all night thinking everything over,” he thought to himself. “When I was just a young officer, nobody would have dared make a fool of me like this... and now!” He was in such misery it felt like corporal punishment, and he couldn’t help but express it through outbursts of anger and distress. But his energy soon ebbed, and looking around him, aware that he’d just said many things he shouldn’t have, he got back into his *calèche* and rode away in silence.

Once that anger had passed, it didn’t return. Blinking weakly, he listened to explanations and excuses (Ermólov didn’t come to see him until the next day), as well as to Bennigsen, Konovnítsyn, and Toll’s insistence that the failed movement should be repeated the next day. Once again, Kutúzov had to agree.

##  CHAPTER VI

The next day, the troops gathered at their designated spots in the evening and advanced during the night. It was an autumn night with dark purple clouds, but no rain. The ground was damp but not muddy, and the troops moved quietly, with only the occasional faint jingle of artillery. The men were forbidden to speak loudly, smoke their pipes, or light anything, and they tried to keep their horses from neighing. The secrecy of the operation made it even more exciting, and the troops marched cheerfully. Some columns, thinking they had reached their positions, halted, stacked arms, and settled down on the cold ground, but most marched all night and ended up in places where they clearly shouldn't have been.

Only Count Orlóv-Denísov with his Cossacks—the least significant detachment—reached his assigned spot at the proper time. This group halted at the edge of a forest along the path from the village of Stromílova to Dmítrovsk.

Near dawn, Count Orlóv-Denísov, who had dozed off, was awakened because a deserter from the French army was being brought to him. This was a Polish sergeant from Poniatowski’s corps. He explained in Polish that he had defected because he felt he had been overlooked in the service: that he should have been made an officer long ago, that he was braver than any of them, and so he had left them and wanted to get even. He claimed that Murat was spending the night less than a mile away, and that if he were given a convoy of a hundred men, he would capture him alive. Count Orlóv-Denísov consulted with his fellow officers.

The offer was too tempting to refuse. Everyone volunteered to go, and everyone encouraged making the attempt. After much debate and argument, Major-General Grékov, with two Cossack regiments, decided to accompany the Polish sergeant.

“Now, remember,” said Count Orlóv-Denísov to the sergeant as they parted, “if you’re lying, I’ll have you hanged like a dog; but if it’s true, you’ll get a hundred gold pieces!”

Without replying, the sergeant, looking determined, mounted his horse and rode off with Grékov, whose men had quickly gathered. They disappeared into the forest. Count Orlóv-Denísov, having seen Grékov off, returned—shivering from the crisp early morning and excited by what he had undertaken on his own responsibility—and started watching the enemy camp, now just visible in the faint dawn light and dying campfires. Their own columns should soon appear on an open slope to his right. He looked that way, but although the columns would have been visible from quite a distance, they were nowhere to be seen. It seemed to the count that things were stirring in the French camp, and his sharp-eyed adjutant confirmed this.

“Oh, it’s really too late,” Count Orlóv said, looking at the camp.

As often happens when someone we’ve trusted is no longer in front of us, it suddenly seemed obvious to him that the sergeant was a fraud, that he had lied, and that the whole Russian operation would be ruined by the absence of those two regiments, which he would lead off—who knows where. How could anyone hope to capture a commander-in-chief in the middle of so many troops!

“I’m sure that rascal was lying,” said the count.

“They can still be called back,” said one of his staff, who, like Count Orlóv, now doubted the enterprise after seeing the enemy camp.

“Eh? Really... What do you think? Should we let them go or not?”

“Shall we call them back?”

“Call them back, call them back!” Count Orlóv said decisively, checking his watch. “It’s too late now. It’s already quite light.”

The adjutant galloped through the forest after Grékov. When Grékov returned, Count Orlóv-Denísov, excited by the aborted mission and by waiting in vain for the infantry columns that still hadn’t arrived, and also stirred by the nearness of the enemy, decided to advance. All his men were equally eager.

“Mount!” he ordered in a whisper. The men took their positions and crossed themselves... “Forward, with God’s help!”

“Hurrah-ah-ah!” rang out in the forest, and the Cossack companies, carrying their lances and advancing one after another as if pouring out of a sack, joyfully dashed across the brook toward the camp.

A single desperate, frightened shout from the first French soldier who saw the Cossacks, and everyone in the camp, undressed and just waking up, fled in all directions, abandoning cannons, muskets, and horses.

If the Cossacks had chased the French without worrying about what was happening behind or around them, they could have captured Murat and everything there. That’s what the officers wanted. But it was impossible to get the Cossacks to move once they had found spoils and prisoners. Nobody listened to orders. Fifteen hundred prisoners and thirty-eight guns were taken on the spot, along with standards and (which the Cossacks prized most) horses, saddles, horsecloths, and the like. All of that had to be dealt with—the prisoners and cannon secured, booty divided—not without some shouting and a bit of fighting among themselves—and this is what occupied the Cossacks.

With no pursuit, the French began to recover, regrouped, and started firing. Orlóv-Denísov, still waiting for the other columns, did not advance further.

Meanwhile, according to the plans stating “the First Column will march,” and so forth, the infantry of the delayed columns, commanded by Bennigsen and directed by Toll, had started in proper order and, as often happens, ended up somewhere—but not at their assigned places. As usual, the men began cheerfully, then stopped; grumbling started, confusion grew, and finally there was even some retreat. Adjutants and generals galloped about, shouted, grew angry, argued, said they’d gone completely wrong and were late, exchanged some heated words, and finally just pushed ahead for the sake of getting somewhere. “We’ll get somewhere or other!” And they did indeed get somewhere, though not the right places; a few did eventually reach the correct spot, but too late to help, arriving just in time to be fired upon. Toll, who in this battle played the part Weyrother played at Austerlitz, energetically galloped from place to place, finding disorder everywhere. Thus he stumbled on Bagovút’s corps in a wood when it was already broad daylight, even though that corps should have long since joined Orlóv-Denísov. Agitated and frustrated by the failure and convinced someone must be to blame, Toll galloped up to the corps commander and began sharply scolding him, saying he deserved to be shot. General Bagovút, a seasoned fighter of normally calm disposition, was also frustrated by the delays, confusion, and mixed orders, and to everyone’s surprise, lost his temper and said some harsh things to Toll—completely out of character for him.

“I’d rather not take lessons from anyone, but I can die with my men just as well as anybody,” he said, and advanced with a single division.

Heading onto a field under enemy fire, this brave general marched straight ahead, leading his men without thinking in his agitation whether launching an attack now with a single division would do any good. Danger, cannonballs, and bullets were just what he needed in his angry state of mind. One of the first bullets killed him, and others struck down many of his men. His division sat under fire for a time, all for nothing.

##  CHAPTER VII

Meanwhile, another column was supposed to attack the French from the front, but Kutúzov accompanied that column. He knew well that nothing but confusion would come from a battle forced against his will, and, as much as he could, he restrained the troops. He did not advance.

He rode silently on his small gray horse, replying indifferently when urged to attack.

“The word *attack* is always on your lips, but you don't see that we can't carry out complicated maneuvers,” he said to Milorádovich, who asked for permission to advance.

“We couldn’t take Murat prisoner this morning or reach the position in time, and nothing can be done now!” he responded to someone else.

When Kutúzov was told that at the French rear—where the Cossacks had previously reported there was nobody—there were now two battalions of Poles, he gave a sidelong glance at Ermólov, who was behind him and whom he had not spoken to since the previous day.

“You see! They’re always calling for an attack and making all sorts of plans, but as soon as it comes to action nothing is ready, and the enemy, alerted, takes precautions accordingly.”

Ermólov squinted and gave a faint smile at these words. He understood that the trouble concerning him was over, and that Kutúzov would leave it at that.

“He’s making a little joke at my expense,” Ermólov said quietly, nudging Raévski, who rode beside him, with his knee.

Soon after, Ermólov rode up to Kutúzov and respectfully said:

“It’s not too late yet, your Highness—the enemy hasn’t left. If you were to order an attack now! If not, the Guards won’t even see a little smoke.”

Kutúzov didn't answer, but when he was told that Murat's forces were retreating, he ordered an advance—though every hundred paces, he stopped the army for forty-five minutes.

The whole battle consisted of what Orlóv-Denísov’s Cossacks did; the rest of the army simply lost several hundred men to no purpose.

As a result of this battle, Kutúzov received a diamond award, Bennigsen got some diamonds and a hundred thousand rubles, others also received honors appropriate to their rank, and following the battle, new staff changes were made.

“That’s how everything is with us—completely backwards!” was what Russian officers and generals said after the Tarútino battle, implying that someone had bungled everything, but that they themselves wouldn’t have made the mistake—just as people speak today. But people who talk like that either don’t know what they’re talking about or are deliberately fooling themselves. No battle—Tarútino, Borodinó, or Austerlitz—ever takes place exactly as those who planned it expected. That’s an essential truth.

An endless number of independent factors (for nowhere is a person freer than in battle, where life and death are at stake) shape the course of the fight, and that course can never be known in advance and never matches the intent of any single person.

If many forces, each directed differently, act on a given object at the same time, the resulting motion can never align perfectly with just one of those forces, but is always a mean—what in mechanics is depicted by the diagonal in a parallelogram of forces.

If, in historians’ accounts—especially French ones—we find that wars and battles are described as following prearranged plans, the only possible conclusion is that those descriptions are false.

The battle of Tarútino clearly did not achieve the goal Toll wanted—to have the troops engage as his orders had set; nor did it achieve what Count Orlóv-Denísov may have wanted—to capture Murat; nor did it immediately destroy the whole corps, as Bennigsen and others may have wished; nor did it satisfy the officer who wanted to distinguish himself by fighting; nor the Cossack who had hoped for more booty, and so on. But if the true aim of the battle was exactly what happened—what all Russians of that time wanted: to drive the French from Russia and defeat their army—then it’s evident that the battle of Tarútino, precisely because of its inconsistencies, was exactly what was needed at that point in the campaign. It would be hard, if not impossible, to imagine a more timely result than what actually occurred. With minimal effort and insignificant losses, despite utter confusion, the most significant results of the campaign were achieved: the shift from retreat to advance, exposure of the French weakness, and the start of the panic that Napoleon’s army needed only the slightest shock to trigger their flight.

##  CHAPTER VIII

Napoleon enters Moscow after his brilliant victory at *la Moskowa*; there seems to be no question of victory since the French hold the field. The Russians retreat and abandon their ancient capital. Moscow, rich in supplies, weapons, ammunition, and immense wealth, is in Napoleon’s hands. The Russian army, only half the size of the French, does not even try to attack for an entire month. Napoleon’s position appears glorious. He could strike the Russian army, which he now outnumbers two to one, and destroy it; he could negotiate a favorable peace; or, if refused, threaten Petersburg; or, even if things went badly, withdraw to Smolénsk or Vílna; or stay in Moscow. In short, holding the brilliant position the French had then required no special genius. Only very basic and easy steps needed to be taken: to stop the troops from looting, to arrange winter clothing—of which there was enough in Moscow for the entire army—and to systematically gather the provisions, which (according to French historians) could have supplied the whole army for six months. Yet Napoleon, this so-called greatest of all geniuses—who the historians say had perfect control of his army—did none of these things.

He not only failed to do any of this, but actively chose the most foolish and self-destructive course open to him. Of all the options Napoleon had—spending the winter in Moscow, marching on Petersburg or Nízhni-Nóvgorod, or retreating by a more northern or southern route (such as the road Kutúzov later took)—nothing more foolish or disastrous can be imagined than what he did. He stayed in Moscow until October, allowed the troops to plunder the city, hesitated about leaving a garrison, left Moscow, approached Kutúzov without giving battle, turned right and reached Málo-Yaroslávets (again without forcing through and taking the road Kutúzov used), and finally retreated to Mozháysk along the devastated Smolénsk road. Nothing could have been more foolish or more ruinous for the army, as events showed. Had Napoleon meant to destroy his army, even the cleverest strategist could hardly have planned a course of action better designed to accomplish that, no matter what the Russian army did.

Napoleon, the “man of genius,” did this! But to claim that he destroyed his army intentionally or out of sheer stupidity would be just as mistaken as saying he had brought his army to Moscow solely from his own will, cleverness, or genius.

In both cases, his personal influence—having no greater force than any other soldier’s—simply coincided with the larger laws guiding events.

Historians are wrong to say Napoleon’s abilities were weakened in Moscow; they do so only because the results did not justify his actions. He used all his skill and energy to do what was best for himself and his army, just as he had done before and would do later in 1813. His activity at that time was just as remarkable as in Egypt, Italy, Austria, or Prussia. We cannot know for certain how real his genius was in Egypt—where “forty centuries looked down on his greatness”—because all his feats there are reported by the French. We can’t truly judge his genius in Austria or Prussia, because our information comes from French or German sources, and the strange surrender of entire corps and fortresses leads the Germans to see his genius as the only explanation for the wars fought in Germany. But we, thankfully, have no need to excuse ourselves by invoking his genius. We have paid dearly for the right to look at the matter openly and plainly, and we will not give up that right.

His activity in Moscow was just as astonishing and as full of “genius” as ever. From his arrival to his departure, order after order and plan after plan poured from him. The absence of citizens and a welcoming delegation, and even the burning of Moscow, did not unsettle him. He never lost sight of his army’s welfare, the enemy’s movements, the wellbeing of the Russian people, affairs in Paris, or diplomatic questions about the anticipated peace.

##  CHAPTER IX

Regarding military matters, immediately upon entering Moscow, Napoleon gave General Sabastiani strict orders to monitor the movements of the Russian army. He sent army corps out along various roads and instructed Murat to locate Kutúzov. He then gave detailed directions for fortifying the Kremlin and drafted an impressive plan for a future campaign that covered the entire map of Russia.

Concerning diplomatic issues, Napoleon summoned Captain Yákovlev, who had been robbed, was dressed in rags, and didn't know how to leave Moscow. Napoleon painstakingly explained his entire policy and his own magnanimity to him, and after writing a letter to Emperor Alexander—in which he felt it was his duty to inform his Friend and Brother that Rostopchín had mismanaged affairs in Moscow—he sent Yákovlev off to Petersburg.

He gave a similar explanation of his views and his magnanimity to Tutólmin, and then sent the old man to Petersburg as well to negotiate.

Regarding legal matters, immediately after the fires, Napoleon gave orders to locate and execute the arsonists. The villain Rostopchín was punished by an order that his houses be burned.

In matters of administration, Moscow was granted a constitution. A municipality was established, and the following announcement was issued:

INHABITANTS OF MOSCOW!

Your misfortunes are cruel, but His Majesty the Emperor and King desires to bring them to an end. Painful examples have shown you how he punishes disobedience and crime. Strict measures have been put in place to end disorder and restore public security. A paternal administration, selected from among yourselves, will form your municipality or city government. It will look after you, your needs, and your welfare. Its members will be distinguished by a red ribbon worn across the shoulder, while the mayor will also wear a white belt. When off duty, they will only wear a red ribbon on the left arm.

The city police are restored to their previous organization, and order is already improving thanks to its efforts. The government has appointed two general commissaries, or chiefs of police, as well as twenty commissaries, or ward captains, assigned to the different sections of the city. You will recognize them by the white ribbon they wear on the left arm. Several churches of different denominations are open, and services are held in them without hindrance. Your fellow citizens are returning to their homes every day, and orders have been given that they should find in them the help and protection fitting their misfortunes. These are the steps the government has taken to re-establish order and improve your situation. But to accomplish this, you must also contribute—try to forget your hardships, hope for a better fate, be assured that unavoidable and shameful death awaits anyone who harms your person or property, and, above all, do not doubt that your possessions will be protected, since this is the will of the greatest and most just of monarchs. Soldiers and citizens, regardless of your nationality, restore public confidence—the foundation of a nation's welfare—live as brothers, provide mutual help and protection, unite to frustrate the intentions of wrongdoers, obey the military and civil authorities, and soon your tears will cease!

For supplying the army, Napoleon decreed that all troops should, in turn, enter Moscow *à la maraude* \* to obtain provisions for themselves, ensuring the army's future needs were secured.

\* As looters.

On matters of religion, Napoleon ordered that the priests return and that church services resume.

When it came to commerce and provisioning the army, the following was posted everywhere:

PROCLAMATION

You, peaceful inhabitants of Moscow, artisans and workers whom misfortune has driven from the city, and you peasants still kept out in the fields by unfounded fear, listen! Peace is returning to this capital, and order is being restored. Your fellow countrymen are coming out of hiding as they see they are respected. Any harm done to them or their property is dealt with at once. His Majesty the Emperor and King protects them and considers no one among you his enemy except those who disobey his orders. He wants to end your suffering and return you to your homes and families. Therefore, respond to his generous intentions and come to us without fear. Residents, return confidently to your homes! You will soon have ways to meet your needs. Craftsmen and diligent workers, return to your work, your homes, your shops, where guards will protect you! You will be paid fairly for your labor. And you too, peasants, come in from the woods where you have been hiding in fear, return to your huts without fear, confident you will be protected! Markets are established in the city so peasants can bring their excess produce and goods. The government has put the following steps in place to guarantee free trade: (1) Starting today, peasants, farmers, and those living near Moscow may bring their goods safely to two designated markets, one on Mokhováya Street and the other at the Provision Market. (2) Such goods will be bought from them at prices agreed upon by seller and buyer, and if a seller can't get a fair price, he may freely take his goods back home and no one may stop him for any reason. (3) Sundays and Wednesdays each week are set as the main market days, and a sufficient number of troops will be posted along the highways on Tuesdays and Saturdays, at distances from the city to protect the carts. (4) Similar steps will ensure that peasants with their carts and horses have no trouble on their return trip. (5) Measures will be taken immediately to restore regular commerce.

City and village residents, laborers, and artisans of all nations—you are asked to support the paternal intentions of His Majesty the Emperor and King and to work with him for the good of the public! Offer your respect and trust, and do not hesitate to join us!

To raise the morale of both the troops and the people, inspections were held regularly, and rewards were distributed. The Emperor rode through the streets to comfort the townspeople and, despite his busy schedule, personally attended the theaters he had ordered to be opened.

When it came to philanthropy, the highest virtue of crowned heads, Napoleon did all he could. He had *Maison de ma Mère* inscribed on charitable institutions, thus combining tender filial affection with the regal benevolence of a monarch. He visited the Foundling Hospital, graciously letting the orphans he had saved kiss his white hands, and chatted kindly with Tutólmin. Then, as Thiers eloquently recounts, he ordered his soldiers to be paid in counterfeit Russian money he had prepared: “Raising the use of these means by an act worthy of himself and the French army, he let relief be distributed to those who had been burned out. But as food was too valuable to give to foreigners, who were mostly enemies, Napoleon preferred to give them money so they could buy food elsewhere, and had paper rubles handed out to them.”

In matters of army discipline, orders were constantly being issued to inflict the harshest punishments for failing to perform military duties, and to suppress robbery.

##  CHAPTER X

But strangely enough, all these measures, efforts, and plans—which were no worse than others made in similar circumstances—did nothing to address the heart of the matter. They moved about arbitrarily and aimlessly, like the hands of a clock detached from its mechanism, swinging without connecting to the gears.

Regarding the military side—the plan of campaign—that supposed work of genius about which Thiers remarks, “His genius never devised anything more profound, more skillful, or more admirable,” and disputes M. Fain to prove that this work of genius should be dated not to the fourth but to the fifteenth of October—this plan was never carried out and could never have been, because it was completely disconnected from the reality on the ground. The fortifying of the Kremlin, for which *la Mosquée* (as Napoleon called the church of Basil the Blessed) was to be torn down, turned out to be futile. Mining the Kremlin only ended up fulfilling Napoleon’s wish to have it blown up upon his departure from Moscow—like a child wanting someone to hit the floor after they’ve hurt themselves. The pursuit of the Russian army, which so worried Napoleon, brought about an unprecedented result. The French generals lost track of a sixty-thousand-strong Russian army, and, according to Thiers, it was eventually found—like a lost pin—thanks to the supposed genius and skill of Murat.

Regarding diplomacy, all of Napoleon’s arguments about his magnanimity and justice, both with Tutólmin and Yákovlev (whose main concern was to get a greatcoat and a ride), were useless; Alexander neither received these envoys nor replied to their mission.

In legal matters, after executing the supposed arsonists, the rest of Moscow still burned down.

In administration, establishing a municipality did not stop the looting. It only benefitted certain people who became part of the municipality and, under the pretext of maintaining order, stole from Moscow or protected their own property from being looted.

When it came to religion, where in Egypt things had been settled easily by Napoleon’s visit to a mosque, nothing came of his efforts. Two or three priests who were found in Moscow tried to do as Napoleon wished. But one was slapped in the face by a French soldier during service, and a French official reported about another: “The priest whom I found and invited to say Mass cleaned and locked up the church. That night the doors were again broken open, the padlocks smashed, the books mutilated, and other disorders perpetrated.”

In commerce, the proclamations to industrious workers and peasants received no response. There were no industrious workers, and the peasants caught the commissaries who ventured too far from the city with the proclamations and killed them.

As for theaters to entertain the people and the troops, these were also unsuccessful. The theaters set up in the Kremlin and in Posnyákov’s house had to be closed immediately because the actors and actresses were robbed.

Even acts of charity did not have the intended effect. Both genuine and counterfeit paper money that flooded Moscow became worthless. The French, while gathering loot, cared only for gold. Not only did the paper money Napoleon so graciously distributed to the unfortunate prove worthless, even silver lost value in relation to gold.

But the most striking example of the ineffectiveness of the authorities’ orders at this time was Napoleon’s attempt to stop looting and restore discipline.

This is what the army authorities reported:

“Looting continues in the city despite the decrees against it. Order is not yet restored and not a single merchant is carrying on trade in a lawful manner. The sutlers alone venture to trade, and they sell stolen goods.”

“The neighborhood of my ward continues to be pillaged by soldiers of the 3rd Corps who, not satisfied with taking from the unfortunate inhabitants hiding in the cellars the little they have left, even have the ferocity to wound them with their sabers, as I have repeatedly witnessed.”

“Nothing new, except that the soldiers are robbing and pillaging—October 9.”

“Robbery and pillaging continue. There is a band of thieves in our district who ought to be arrested by a strong force—October 11.”

“The Emperor is extremely displeased that despite the strict orders to stop pillage, parties of marauding Guards are continually seen returning to the Kremlin. Among the Old Guard disorder and pillage were renewed more violently than ever yesterday evening, last night, and today. The Emperor sees with regret that the picked soldiers appointed to guard his person, who should set an example of discipline, carry disobedience to such a point that they break into the cellars and stores containing army supplies. Others have disgraced themselves to the extent of disobeying sentinels and officers, and have abused and beaten them.”

“The Grand Marshal of the palace,” wrote the governor, “complains bitterly that in spite of repeated orders, the soldiers continue to commit nuisances in all the courtyards and even under the very windows of the Emperor.”

That army, like a herd of cattle gone wild and trampling the fodder that could have saved it from starving, broke down more each day it stayed in Moscow. But still, it did not leave.

It only began to flee when panic suddenly struck, caused by the capture of transport trains on the Smolensk road and the battle of Tarútino. The news of this battle, which Napoleon unexpectedly heard of during a review, made him (Thiers says) desire to punish the Russians, leading him to give the departure order the entire army had wanted.

Fleeing Moscow, the soldiers took everything they had stolen. Napoleon also took his personal *trésor*, but seeing the baggage trains blocking the army, he was (Thiers says) horror-struck. And yet, with all his experience of war, he did not order the burning of all the extra vehicles, as he had done to one of his marshals before reaching Moscow. He looked at the *calèches* and carriages in which soldiers were riding and remarked that it was actually good, as those vehicles might be used to carry supplies, the sick, and the wounded.

The whole army’s plight was like a wounded animal that senses it is dying and acts without reason. To study the supposed skillful tactics and objectives of Napoleon and his army from the time they entered Moscow until they were destroyed is like analyzing the frantic movements of a fatally wounded animal. Often, a wounded animal, upon hearing a noise, rushes straight into the hunter’s gun, runs back and forth, and only hastens its own end. Napoleon, forced by his entire army, did the same. The “rustle” of the battle of Tarútino frightened the beast, and it rushed at the hunter’s gun, reached him, turned back, and finally—like any wild animal—ran back along the most dangerous and disadvantageous path, where the old trail was familiar.

During all this, Napoleon, who seems to us to have been directing all these movements—as the figurehead of a ship might seem to a savage to actually steer the vessel—behaved like a child holding a couple of strings inside a carriage, imagining he’s driving it.

##  CHAPTER XI

Early in the morning of October sixth, Pierre went out of the shed. On returning, he stopped by the door to play with a little blue-gray dog with a long body and short, bow-legged legs, which jumped around him. This little dog lived in their shed, sleeping beside Karatáev at night. It sometimes ventured into the town but always returned. It probably never had an owner; it still belonged to no one and had no name. The French called it Azor; the storyteller among the soldiers called it Femgálka; Karatáev and others called it Gray, or sometimes Flabby. Its lack of an owner, a name, or even a breed or definite color didn’t seem to bother the blue-gray dog at all. Its furry tail stood up, firm and round like a plume; its crooked legs served so well that it often gracefully lifted a hind leg and ran easily and quickly on three legs, as if it disdained to use all four. Everything delighted it. Sometimes it would roll on its back, yelping with joy, sometimes bask in the sun with a thoughtful air of importance, and sometimes frolic, playing with a chip of wood or a straw.

Pierre’s clothing now consisted of a dirty, torn shirt (the only piece left of his former clothes), a pair of soldier’s trousers, which, following Karatáev’s advice, he tied with string at the ankles for warmth, and a peasant coat and cap. Physically, he had changed a lot during this time. He no longer looked stout, but he still had the solid, strong look inherited in his family. A beard and mustache covered his lower face, and a tangle of lice-ridden hair curled around his head like a cap. His expression was resolute, calm, and lively in a way it never had been before. The former slackness that had even been evident in his eyes was now replaced by an energy ready for action and resistance. He went barefoot.

Pierre first looked across the field, where vehicles and horsemen were moving that morning, then toward the distant river, then at the dog pretending to try to bite him, and then at his own bare feet, which he placed with pleasure in various positions, wriggling his dirty, thick toes. Every time he looked at his bare feet, an animated, self-satisfied smile flickered across his face. Seeing them reminded him of all he had experienced and learned during these weeks, and the memory pleased him.

The weather had been calm and clear for several days, with light frosts in the early mornings—what’s called “old wives’ summer.”

In the sunshine, the air was warm, and that warmth was especially pleasant with the invigorating freshness of the morning frost lingering.

Everything near and far sparkled with the magical crystal glitter seen only in that autumn season. The Sparrow Hills were visible in the distance, with the village, church, and the large white house. The bare trees, sand, bricks, and roofs of the houses, the green church spire, and the corners of the white house in the distance all stood out with delicate outlines and unnatural clarity in the transparent air. Close by, the familiar ruins of a half-burned mansion, occupied by the French, could be seen, with lilac bushes still showing dark green near the fence. Even that ruined and befouled house—which looked ugly on dull days—seemed quietly beautiful now, in the clear, motionless brilliance.

A French corporal, coat unbuttoned casually, wearing a skullcap and smoking a short pipe, came from behind the shed corner and approached Pierre with a friendly wink.

“What sunshine, Monsieur Kiril!” (That’s what they called Pierre.) “Eh? Just like spring!”

He leaned against the door and offered Pierre his pipe, though Pierre always declined it whenever it was offered.

“To be marching in such weather…” he began.

Pierre asked what was being said about leaving, and the corporal told him that nearly all the troops were starting, and there should be an order about the prisoners that day. Sokolóv, one of the soldiers in the shed with Pierre, was dying, and Pierre told the corporal something should be done for him. The corporal replied that Pierre need not worry—they had an ambulance, a proper hospital, and arrangements would be made for the sick. In general, he said, everything had been foreseen by the authorities.

“Besides, Monsieur Kiril, you only have to say a word to the captain. He’s a man who never forgets anything. Talk to the captain when he makes his rounds; he’ll do anything for you.”

(The captain the corporal mentioned often had long talks with Pierre and showed him all sorts of favors.)

“‘You see, St. Thomas,’ he told me the other day. ‘Monsieur Kiril is an educated man; he speaks French. He’s a Russian seigneur who has had misfortunes, but he’s still a man. He knows what’s what… If he wants anything and asks me, I’ll not refuse him. If you’ve studied, you appreciate education and well-bred people.’ I mention it for your sake, Monsieur Kiril. The other day, if it weren’t for you, that affair would have turned out badly.”

After chatting a while longer, the corporal left. (He referred to an incident a few days earlier—a fight between prisoners and French soldiers, which Pierre had managed to calm.) Some prisoners who heard Pierre speaking with the corporal at once asked what the Frenchman had said. While Pierre repeated what he’d just learned about the army leaving Moscow, a thin, sallow, ragged French soldier came to the door of the shed. Raising his fingers quickly and shyly to his forehead as a greeting, he asked Pierre whether the soldier Platoche to whom he’d given a shirt to sew was in the shed.

A week earlier, the French had been issued boot leather and linen, which they had given to the prisoners to make into boots and shirts.

“Ready, ready, dear fellow!” said Karatáev, coming out with a neatly folded shirt.

Because of the warm weather and to work better, Karatáev wore only trousers and a tattered shirt, now as black as soot. His hair was tied, workman-style, with a wisp of lime-tree bast, making his round face seem even rounder and friendlier than ever.

“A promise is own brother to performance! I said Friday and here it is, ready,” said Platón, smiling and unfolding the shirt he had sewn.

The Frenchman looked around anxiously and then, as if overcoming his shyness, quickly took off his uniform and put on the shirt. He wore a long, greasy, flowered silk waistcoat over his thin, sallow body, but no shirt. He was clearly afraid the prisoners would laugh at him and quickly pulled the shirt on. None of the prisoners said a word.

“See, it fits well!” Platón kept repeating, straightening the shirt.

The Frenchman, after pulling the shirt over his head and arms, looked down at it and examined the seams without meeting anyone’s eye.

“You see, friend, this isn’t a sewing shop, and I had no proper tools. Like they say, you even need a tool to kill a louse,” Platón said with his round smile, clearly proud of his work.

“It’s good, very good, thank you,” replied the Frenchman in French, “but there must be some linen left.”

“It’ll fit even better once it settles to your body,” Karatáev said, still admiring his work. “You’ll be nice and comfortable….”

“Thanks, thanks, old fellow… But the pieces left over?” said the Frenchman again, smiling. He pulled out an assignation ruble note and gave it to Karatáev. “But give me the leftover pieces.”

Pierre saw that Platón did not wish to understand what the Frenchman wanted, and chose not to interfere. Karatáev thanked the Frenchman for the money and kept admiring his own handiwork. The Frenchman, however, insisted and asked Pierre to translate his request for the leftover linen.

“What does he want the bits for?” Karatáev asked. “They’d make nice leg bands for us. Well, never mind.”

With a suddenly changed and saddened look, Karatáev took a small bundle of scraps from inside his shirt and gave it to the Frenchman without meeting his gaze. “Oh dear!” muttered Karatáev and went away. The Frenchman looked at the linen, thought for a moment, then looked questioningly at Pierre and, as if Pierre’s expression told him something, suddenly blushed, then shouted in a high-pitched voice:

“Platoche! Eh, Platoche! Keep them yourself!” And handing back the scraps, he turned and left.

“There, look at that,” said Karatáev, shaking his head. “People said they weren’t Christians, but they have souls too. Like the old folks said: ‘A sweating hand’s an open hand, a dry hand’s closed.’ He’s poor himself, but he gave it back.”

Karatáev smiled thoughtfully and was quiet for a moment, looking at the scraps.

“But they’ll make good leg bands, dear friend,” he said, and went back into the shed.

##  CHAPTER XII

Four weeks had passed since Pierre had been taken prisoner, and though the French had offered to move him from the men’s shed to the officers’ shed, he remained where he had first been put.

In the burned and devastated Moscow, Pierre experienced almost the extreme limits of deprivation a man can endure. But thanks to his physical strength and health—which he had never before realized he possessed—and especially because the hardships increased so gradually that he could not say when they began, he endured his situation not only easily but with joy. It was during this time that he attained the tranquility and peace of mind he had long unsuccessfully sought. He had tried to find this inner harmony in philanthropy, in Freemasonry, in the distractions of city life, in drink, in extraordinary acts of self-sacrifice, and in his romantic love for Natásha; he had sought it through reasoning—but all these efforts had failed him. Now, without seeking it, he found peace and inner balance only through the horror of death, through deprivation, and through what he saw in Karatáev.

Those terrible moments he had lived through during the executions seemed to have forever washed away from his mind and memory the disturbing thoughts and feelings that had once seemed so important. He no longer thought of Russia, the war, politics, or Napoleon. It was clear to him that none of these things concerned him, and he was not called upon to judge them, so he could not do so. “Russia and summer weather are not bound together,” he thought, recalling Karatáev’s words, which he found oddly comforting. His former plans to kill Napoleon and his theories about the cabalistic number of the beast of the Apocalypse now struck him as meaningless and even absurd. His anger toward his wife and his anxiety about his reputation now seemed not just trivial but even amusing. Why should it matter to him that somewhere his wife was living as she pleased? Why should anyone, especially he, care if their prisoner’s real identity as Count Bezúkhov was discovered?

He often recalled his conversation with Prince Andrew and now agreed with him, though he understood Prince Andrew’s words in a slightly different way. Prince Andrew had said that happiness could only be negative, and had said so with a tone of bitterness and irony, as if to imply that our craving for real happiness is only there to torment us and is never to be fulfilled. But Pierre, without reservation, now believed it. The absence of suffering, the satisfaction of basic needs, and the resulting freedom to choose how to live—that, it now seemed to Pierre, was certainly the greatest happiness for a human being. Here, for the first time, he appreciated the pleasure of eating when hungry, drinking when thirsty, sleeping when tired, warmth when cold, and talking to a fellow man when he felt like it. The fulfillment of these basic needs—good food, cleanliness, and freedom—now that he was deprived of all three, seemed to him to be perfect happiness. The freedom to choose how to live—so restricted now—seemed so simple that he forgot how, in his former life, an excess of comfort destroyed all pleasure in satisfying needs, and how the great freedom granted by his wealth, education, and social standing made choosing a path in life so difficult that it sapped all desire and possibility of having any true vocation.

All Pierre’s dreams now focused on one thing: the time he would be free again. Yet later, and for the rest of his life, he looked back with passionate enthusiasm on that month of captivity, recalling those unforgettable, vivid, joyful sensations—and most of all, the complete peace of mind and inner freedom he had experienced for just those few weeks.

When, on the first morning, he got up at dawn and stepped outside, he saw the cupolas and crosses of the New Convent of the Virgin still dark, the frost on the dusty grass, the Sparrow Hills, and the wooded banks above the winding river fading away into the purple distance. He felt the fresh air and heard crows flying from Moscow across the fields. When the sun’s rim appeared behind a cloud and the landscape—cupolas and crosses, hoarfrost, the distant view, and the river—sparkled in the bright light, Pierre felt a new joy and strength in life quite unknown to him before. Not only did this feeling stay with him all through his captivity, it even grew stronger as his hardships increased.

This sense of readiness and alertness was only strengthened by the respect his fellow prisoners showed him soon after his arrival in the shed. Thanks to his knowledge of languages, the respect the French showed him, his simplicity, his generosity (he distributed among his comrades the three rubles a week allowance given to officers), his physical strength (which he demonstrated by pressing nails into the hut’s walls), his kindness, and his ability to sit quietly thinking for hours (which others found strange), he seemed to them a mysterious and superior figure. The very traits that had been obstacles—and even liabilities—in his former world—his strength, disregard for comfort, absent-mindedness, and simplicity—here among these people, made him almost a hero. Pierre felt that their opinion gave him responsibilities.

##  CHAPTER XIII

The French evacuation began on the night between October sixth and seventh: kitchens and sheds were dismantled, carts loaded, and troops and baggage trains set out.

At seven in the morning, a French detachment, fully equipped, stood in front of the sheds. Wearing shakos, carrying muskets, knapsacks, and huge sacks, they chatted energetically in French, their talk mixed with curses all along the lines.

Inside the shed, everyone was ready—dressed, belted, shod—waiting only for orders to depart. The sick soldier, Sokolóv, pale and thin, with dark circles under his eyes, was the only one still seated, barefoot and undressed. His eyes, big from his emaciated face, searched his comrades, who ignored him, and he moaned steadily and softly. It was clear his moaning came not only from his suffering (he had dysentery), but from fear and sadness at being left behind.

Pierre, with a rope around his waist and shoes Karatáev had made for him from leather ripped off a tea chest by a French soldier, went up to the sick man and squatted down beside him.

“You know, Sokolóv, they aren’t all leaving! There’s a hospital here. You might be better off than we will,” Pierre said.

“Oh Lord! I’m going to die! Oh Lord!” the man moaned louder.

“I’ll go and ask again right away,” Pierre said, standing and going to the door.

As Pierre reached the door, the corporal who had offered him a pipe the day before arrived with two soldiers. The corporal and soldiers, now in marching order with knapsacks and shakos (their metal straps making them look different), had unfamiliar faces.

The corporal, following orders, approached to close the door. The prisoners had to be counted before being let out.

“Corporal, what will happen to the sick man?…” Pierre began.

But as he was speaking, Pierre doubted whether this was the same corporal he knew or a stranger, so changed did the man seem. Just then a sharp drumroll came from both sides. The corporal frowned at Pierre, muttered some meaningless curses, and slammed the door shut. The shed darkened, and the harsh beat of drums drowned out the sick man’s groans.

“There it is!… *It* again!…” Pierre thought, and shivered involuntarily. In the corporal’s changed face, his voice, and in the loud, stirring drums, Pierre recognized that cold, mysterious force that made people kill each other against their will—what Pierre had seen during the executions. He knew trying to escape or appeal to those who served this force was useless. He had to wait and endure. He did not go back to the sick man or look at him, but stood, frowning, by the door.

When the door finally opened and the prisoners began squeezing out like a flock of sheep, Pierre pushed ahead toward the captain—the very one the corporal had said would help him. The captain, also dressed for the march, now had the same cold, hard look Pierre had just recognized in the corporal and the drumbeats.

“Move along, move along!” the captain commanded sternly, watching the prisoners file past.

Pierre went up to him, though he knew it was pointless.

“What is it now?” the officer asked coldly, as if he did not recognize Pierre.

Pierre told him about the sick man.

“He’ll manage to walk, devil take him!” the captain said. “Move along, move along!” he continued, not looking at Pierre.

“But he’s dying,” Pierre tried again.

“Go on, if you please…” the captain shouted, frowning angrily.

*“Dram-da-da-dam, dam-dam…”* rattled the drums, and Pierre understood completely that this mysterious force ruled completely and it was now useless to say anything more.

The officer prisoners were separated from the soldiers and told to march in front. There were about thirty officers, including Pierre, and around three hundred men.

The officers from the other sheds were strangers to Pierre and much better dressed than he. They eyed him and his shoes with suspicion, as if he were an outsider. Nearby, a fat major with a sallow, bloated, angry face wore a Kazán dressing gown tied with a towel and clearly commanded respect from the others. He kept one hand clutching his tobacco pouch under his gown, holding the pipe stem tightly with the other. Panting and puffing, he grumbled at everyone, believing he was being pushed and seeing no reason for them to hurry or be surprised about anything. Another, a small thin officer, spoke to everyone, wondering aloud where they were being taken and how far they would get that day. An official in felt boots, dressed in commissariat uniform, darted back and forth observing the ruins of Moscow, loudly announcing which buildings had burned and what each part of the city was. A third officer, apparently Polish, argued with the commissariat officer, insisting on corrections to the names of Moscow neighborhoods.

“What are you arguing about?” the major snapped. “Does it matter whether it’s St. Nicholas or St. Blasius? You see it’s burned down, and that’s the end of it…. Why are you pushing? Isn’t the road wide enough?” he demanded, turning to a man behind who wasn’t pushing him at all.

“Oh, oh, oh! What have they done?” prisoners on all sides cried as they looked at the blackened ruins. “Beyond the river, and Zúbova, and the Krémlin… Just look! There’s not half of it left. Yes, I told you—the whole quarter beyond the river, and so it is.”

“Well, you know it’s burned; what’s the point in talking?” the major said.

As they passed a church in Khamóvniki (one of the few surviving areas of Moscow), all the prisoners suddenly leaned to one side, voicing horror and disgust.

“Ah, the villains! What heathens! Yes, dead, dead he is… And smeared with something!”

Pierre also drew near the church where the object causing these exclamations stood, and made out, dimly, something leaning against the palings around the church. From his comrades’ words—whose sight was better than his—he learned that it was the body of a man set upright, his face smeared with soot.

“Move along! What the devil… Move! Thirty thousand devils!…” the convoy guards cursed, and the French soldiers, with renewed fury, used their swords to drive the crowd of prisoners away from the corpse.

##  CHAPTER XIV

Through the cross streets of the Khamóvniki district, the prisoners marched, accompanied only by their escort and the vehicles and wagons belonging to that escort. But when they reached the supply stores, they found themselves among a massive and tightly packed train of artillery mixed with private vehicles.

At the bridge, everyone stopped, waiting for those ahead to cross. From the bridge, they could see endless lines of moving baggage trains before and behind them. To the right, where the Kalúga road turns near Neskúchny, endless rows of troops and carts stretched into the distance. These were troops from Beauharnais’ corps, who had set out before everyone else. Behind, along the riverside and across the Stone Bridge, were Ney’s troops and transport.

Davout’s troops, who were in charge of the prisoners, were crossing the Crimean bridge, and some had already emerged onto the Kalúga road. But the baggage trains stretched so far that the last of Beauharnais’ convoy had not yet left Moscow and reached the Kalúga road while the vanguard of Ney’s army was already coming out of the Great Ordýnka Street.

After they crossed the Crimean bridge, the prisoners moved a few steps forward, halted, and moved on again, as vehicles and people crowded closer and closer from all directions. It took more than an hour to advance the few hundred paces that separated the bridge from the Kalúga road, finally reaching the square where the streets of the Transmoskvá ward and the Kalúga road converge. There, the prisoners—pressed tightly together—had to stand for several hours at that crossroads. From every direction came the roar of the crowd: the rattling of wheels, the tramping of feet, and endless shouts of anger and abuse. Pierre stood pressed against the wall of a burnt house, listening to the noise, which mingled in his mind with the roll of the drums.

To get a better view, several officer prisoners climbed up onto the wall of the half-burned house against which Pierre was leaning.

“What a crowd! Just look at them! … They’ve piled goods even on the cannons! Look, those are furs!” they exclaimed. “Just see what the thieves have looted… There! Look at that one in the cart… Why, those are settings taken from some icons, by heaven!… Oh, the rascals!… See how loaded that fellow is—he can hardly walk! Good lord, they’ve even taken those chaises!… See that man there, sitting on the trunks… Heavens! They’re fighting now.”

“That’s it, hit him right on the nose—right on his nose! At this rate, we’ll never get away before evening. Look, look over there… that must be Napoleon’s own. See those horses! And the monograms with crowns! It’s like a portable house… That man’s dropped his sack and doesn’t notice. Another fight starting… A woman with a baby—she’s not bad-looking either! Sure, as if they’ll let you through… Just look, there’s no end to it. Russian girls, by heaven, that’s what they are! In carriages—see how comfortably they've settled in!”

Again, as at the church in Khamóvniki, a surge of general curiosity pushed all the prisoners forward onto the road, and Pierre, thanks to his height, saw over the others’ heads what was causing such fascination. In three carriages caught among the munition carts and pressed together sat women with rouged faces, dressed in bright colors, shouting loudly in shrill voices.

Since Pierre had come to recognize the presence of the mysterious force, nothing seemed strange or terrible to him: neither the corpse smeared with soot for fun, nor the women hurrying away, nor the burnt ruins of Moscow. Everything he witnessed now had hardly any impact on him—as if his soul, preparing for a great struggle, refused to accept any impressions that might weaken it.

The women’s vehicles passed by. Behind them came more carts, soldiers, wagons, soldiers, gun carriages, more carriages, soldiers, ammunition carts, more soldiers—and now and then, more women.

Pierre did not see the people as individuals, but rather sensed their movement.

All these people and horses seemed driven forward by some invisible power. During the hour Pierre watched them, they all poured from the different streets with a single purpose: to move on quickly. They all jostled each other, grew angry, fought; white teeth flashed, brows frowned, the same insults flew back and forth, and all their faces wore that same swaggering and coldly cruel look that had struck Pierre that morning when the drums were beating.

It wasn’t until nearly evening that the officer commanding the escort assembled his men and, after much shouting and arguing, forced a way through the baggage trains. The prisoners, hemmed in on all sides, finally emerged onto the Kalúga road.

They marched very quickly and didn’t rest until the sun began to set. The baggage carts pulled up close together, and the men began to settle in for the night. Everyone seemed angry and dissatisfied. For hours, curses, shouts, and fights could be heard. A carriage following the escort collided with one of the carts, breaking a hole in it with its pole. Several soldiers ran to the cart from different sides: some beat the carriage horses on the head to turn them aside, others began to fight among themselves, and Pierre saw one German seriously wounded on the head by a sword.

It seemed as if all these men, now that they had stopped in the chilly dusk of an autumn evening, were suddenly awakened from the rush and eagerness to move, which had seized them at the start. Now that they were stationary, they all seemed to realize that they did not know where they were heading, and that much hardship and difficulty awaited them on this journey.

During this halt, the escort treated the prisoners even more harshly than before. It was here that the prisoners received horseflesh as their meat ration for the first time.

From the officer down to the lowest soldier, everyone displayed what felt like personal resentment against each of the prisoners, which contrasted sharply with their previous friendliness.

This resentment increased even more when, during roll call, it was discovered that in the chaos of leaving Moscow one Russian soldier who had pretended to have colic had escaped. Pierre saw a Frenchman beat a Russian soldier mercilessly for straying too far from the road, and heard his friend, the captain, reprimand and threaten a noncommissioned officer with a court-martial because of the escape. When the noncommissioned officer excused himself by saying the prisoner was sick and couldn’t walk, the officer replied that the order was to shoot anyone who fell behind. Pierre felt that the fatal force that had oppressed him during the executions—but which he had not sensed during his imprisonment—was now once again controlling his life. It was a dreadful feeling, but as that crushing power tried to overwhelm him, Pierre sensed within himself a growing and strengthening power of life independent of it.

He ate his supper of buckwheat soup with horseflesh and talked with his companions.

Neither Pierre nor any of the others mentioned what they had seen in Moscow, or the rough treatment by the French, or the threat to shoot them which had just been announced. As if in defiance of their worsening condition, they became even more animated and cheerful. They spoke of personal memories, amusing events from the campaign, and avoided all discussion of their present circumstances.

The sun had long since set. Bright stars gradually appeared in the sky. A red glow like a fire spread above the horizon from the rising full moon, and that vast red sphere swayed strangely in the gray haze. It grew lighter. The evening was coming to a close, but night had not yet begun. Pierre got up and left his new companions, making his way between the campfires to the other side of the road, where he was told the common soldier prisoners were staying. He wanted to talk to them. On the road, however, a French sentry stopped him and ordered him back.

Pierre returned, not to his companions by the campfire, but to an unharnessed cart where nobody was sitting. Tucking his legs under himself and dropping his head, he sat down on the cold ground by the cart’s wheel, remaining motionless for a long time, lost in thought. Suddenly, he burst into a fit of his broad, good-natured laughter, so loud that men from all around turned in surprise, wondering what could provoke such solitary laughter.

“Ha-ha-ha!” laughed Pierre. And he said aloud to himself: “The soldier wouldn’t let me pass. They grabbed me and locked me up. They hold me captive. What, me? Me? My immortal soul? Ha-ha-ha! Ha-ha-ha!…” and he laughed until tears came to his eyes.

A man stood up and came over to see what this odd, big fellow was laughing at alone. Pierre stopped laughing, got up, moved farther away from the curious man, and looked around.

The huge, endless bivouac that had earlier glowed with campfires and the noise of many men had grown quiet; the red campfires were fading and dying down. High in the bright sky hung the full moon. Forests and fields beyond the camp, unseen before, became visible in the distance. And beyond those forests and fields, the bright, oscillating, boundless distance beckoned. Pierre gazed up at the sky and the twinkling stars in its distant depths. “And all that is me, all that is within me—and all I am!” thought Pierre. “And they caught all that and put it in a boarded-up shed!” He smiled and went to lie down to sleep beside his companions.

##  CHAPTER XV

In early October, another envoy came to Kutúzov with a letter from Napoleon proposing peace—a letter falsely dated from Moscow, though Napoleon was already not far from Kutúzov on the old Kalúga road. Kutúzov replied as he had before, when Lauriston had brought a similar message, saying that peace was out of the question.

Soon after that, a report arrived from Dórokhov’s guerrilla detachment, operating to the left of Tarútino, stating that troops from Broussier’s division had been spotted at Formínsk and that, because they were separated from the rest of the French army, they could easily be destroyed. Soldiers and officers once again demanded action. Generals on the staff, excited by memories of the easy victory at Tarútino, urged Kutúzov to follow Dórokhov’s suggestion. Kutúzov did not see an attack as necessary. In the end, a compromise was reached, as was inevitable: a small detachment was sent to Formínsk to attack Broussier.

By a strange coincidence, the task—which turned out to be a particularly difficult and important one—was entrusted to Dokhtúrov. He was that same modest Dokhtúrov whom no one had praised for drawing up battle plans, or for dashing about in front of regiments, or for awarding medals, and whom people regarded and spoke of as hesitant and undiscerning—but who is so often found commanding at the most difficult positions throughout the Russo-French wars, from Austerlitz through 1813. At Austerlitz, he was the last at the Augezd dam, rallying regiments and saving what he could when everyone was fleeing and dying and not a single general remained in the rear. Ill with fever, he went to Smolénsk with twenty thousand men to defend the town against Napoleon’s entire army. In Smolénsk, at the Malákhov Gate, he had barely dozed off in a fever when the town came under bombardment—and Smolénsk held out all day. At the battle of Borodinó, when Bagratión was killed and nine-tenths of the left flank had fallen, and the full force of the French artillery battered it, the man sent to the scene was none other than the supposedly indecisive Dokhtúrov—Kutúzov hurrying to correct a mistake in who he sent first. And the quiet little Dokhtúrov rode there, and Borodinó became the greatest glory of the Russian army. Many heroes have been described to us in verse and prose, but of Dokhtúrov, hardly a word has been said.

It was Dokhtúrov again who was sent to Formínsk and from there to Málo-Yaroslávets, the site of the last battle with the French and the obvious beginning of the French army’s collapse; and we read much about the geniuses and heroes of that time, but almost nothing, or only doubts, about Dokhtúrov. That silence about Dokhtúrov is perhaps the clearest testament to his merit.

It is natural for someone who does not understand how a machine works to imagine that a shaving fallen into it and causing trouble must be the most important part. A man who does not understand the construction cannot conceive that a small, quietly turning cogwheel is one of the most essential parts of the machine, rather than the shaving which only disrupts and hinders its operation.

On October 10th, when Dokhtúrov was halfway to Formínsk and had stopped at the village of Aristóvo, preparing to faithfully carry out his orders, the French army—with its frantic movements—reached Murat’s position, seemingly ready to give battle, then, for no apparent reason, veered left onto the new Kalúga road and began entering Formínsk, where only Broussier’s division had been until then. At that point, Dokhtúrov had under his command, besides Dórokhov’s detachment, the two small guerrilla groups of Figner and Seslávin.

On the evening of October 11, Seslávin arrived at the Aristóvo headquarters with a captured French guardsman. The prisoner said the troops entering Formínsk that day were the vanguard of the entire army, that Napoleon was there, and the whole army had left Moscow four days earlier. That same evening, a house servant arriving from Bórovsk reported seeing an immense force entering town. Some Cossacks from Dokhtúrov’s detachment claimed to have seen the French Guards marching toward Bórovsk. All these reports pointed to the fact that, where they had expected to find only a single division, the entire French army from Moscow had appeared, heading along the Kalúga road in an unexpected direction. Dokhtúrov was reluctant to act, as he wasn’t sure what to do. He had been ordered to attack Formínsk, but only Broussier had been there earlier, and now the whole French army was present. Ermólov wanted to act based on his own judgment, but Dokhtúrov insisted he needed Kutúzov’s instructions. So they decided to send a message to the staff.

For this, a capable officer, Bolkhovítinov, was selected to explain everything in person as well as deliver a written report. Around midnight, Bolkhovítinov, armed with written and verbal instructions, galloped off to the General Staff, accompanied by a Cossack with spare horses.

##  CHAPTER XVI

It was a warm, dark autumn night. It had been raining for four days. After changing horses twice and galloping twenty miles in an hour and a half over a sticky, muddy road, Bolkhovítinov reached Litashëvka after one o’clock in the morning. Dismounting at a cottage with a signboard reading GENERAL STAFF hanging on its wattle fence, he threw down his reins and entered a dark hallway.

“The general on duty, quickly! It’s very important!” he said to someone who had stood up and was sniffing around in the dark passage.

“He has been very unwell since the evening, and this is the third night he hasn’t slept,” the orderly whispered pleadingly. “You should wake the captain first.”

“But this is very important, from General Dokhtúrov,” said Bolkhovítinov, entering the open door he had found by feeling his way in the dark.

The orderly had gone in before him and began waking someone.

“Your honor, your honor! A courier.”

“What? What’s that? From whom?” came a sleepy voice.

“From Dokhtúrov and from Alexéy Petróvich. Napoleon is at Formínsk,” said Bolkhovítinov, unable to see who was speaking but guessing by the voice that it wasn’t Konovnítsyn.

The man who had been woken yawned and stretched.

“I don’t like waking him,” he said, searching for something. “He’s very ill. Maybe this is just a rumor.”

“Here is the dispatch,” said Bolkhovítinov. “My orders are to give it at once to the general on duty.”

“One moment, I’ll light a candle. You damned rascal, where do you always hide it?” said the man who was stretching, speaking to the orderly. (This was Shcherbínin, Konovnítsyn’s adjutant.) “I’ve found it, I’ve found it!” he said.

The orderly was striking a light while Shcherbínin searched for something on the candlestick.

“Oh, the nasty beasts!” he exclaimed in disgust.

In the sparks’ light, Bolkhovítinov saw Shcherbínin’s youthful face holding the candle, and the face of another man still asleep—Konovnítsyn.

When the flame of the sulphur splinters caught—the blue shifting to red—Shcherbínin lit the tallow candle, and cockroaches that had been gnawing it scattered from the candlestick. He turned to look at the messenger. Bolkhovítinov was splattered with mud and had smeared his face wiping it on his sleeve.

“Who gave this report?” Shcherbínin asked, taking the envelope.

“It’s reliable news,” said Bolkhovítinov. “Prisoners, Cossacks, and the scouts all say the same thing.”

“There’s nothing for it—we’ll have to wake him,” said Shcherbínin, standing up and walking over to the man in the nightcap, who was covered by a greatcoat. “Peter Petróvich!” he called. (Konovnítsyn didn’t move.) “To the General Staff!” he said with a smile, knowing those words would rouse him.

Indeed, the head in the nightcap lifted immediately. On Konovnítsyn’s handsome, resolute face, the cheeks flushed with fever, for a moment there remained a distant, dreamy expression, detached from current events. Then he suddenly started, and his face took on its habitual calm and firm look.

“Well, what is it? From whom?” he asked right away, but without hurrying, blinking at the light.

While listening to the officer’s report, Konovnítsyn broke the seal and read the dispatch. As soon as he finished, he swung his legs in their woolen stockings down to the earthen floor and began putting on his boots. Then he took off his nightcap, combed his hair over his temples, and put on his cap.

“Did you make good time? Let’s go to his Highness.”

Konovnítsyn immediately understood how important this news was and knew they couldn’t waste any time. He didn’t consider or ask himself whether the news was good or bad—that didn’t matter to him. He regarded the whole conduct of the war not just with intelligence or reason but with something deeper. Within him was a firm, unspoken conviction that all would turn out well, but one couldn’t rely on that—or worse, talk about it. Instead, one should focus on one’s duties. And he devoted all his effort to his work.

Peter Petróvich Konovnítsyn, like Dokhtúrov, seems to have been included only for form’s sake among the so-called heroes of 1812—the Barclays, Raévskis, Ermólovs, Plátovs, and Milorádoviches. Like Dokhtúrov, he was reputed to be a man of limited ability and knowledge, and also like Dokhtúrov, he never made grand battle plans but was always found at the most critical points. Since being appointed general on duty, he always slept with his door open, ordering that any messenger should be allowed to wake him. In battle, he was always under fire, so much so that Kutúzov reproved him for it and was afraid to send him to the front. And like Dokhtúrov, he was one of those unnoticed gears that—quietly, without noise or fuss—form the most important part of the machine.

Coming out of the hut into the damp, dark night, Konovnítsyn frowned—partly from increased pain in his head and partly because of the troubling thought of how all those influential men on the staff would be stirred up by this news, especially Bennigsen, who had been at odds with Kutúzov since Tarútino. He pictured them making suggestions, arguing, issuing orders, and rescinding them. This premonition was unpleasant, though he knew it was inevitable.

And in fact, Toll—whom he visited to deliver the news—immediately started explaining his plans to a general sharing his quarters, until Konovnítsyn, listening in weary silence, reminded him that they needed to see his Highness.

##  CHAPTER XVII

Kutúzov, like many older people, did not sleep much at night. He would often drift off unexpectedly during the day, but at night, lying on his bed without undressing, he usually stayed awake, thinking.

So now he lay on his bed, supporting his large, heavy, scarred head with his plump hand, his one eye open as he contemplated and stared into the darkness.

Ever since Bennigsen, who corresponded with the Emperor and had more influence than anyone else on the staff, began to avoid him, Kutúzov felt more at ease about the possibility that he and his troops would be forced into useless offensive operations. The lessons of the Tarútino battle and the day before it, which Kutúzov remembered with sorrow, must, he thought, have left their mark on others as well.

“They must realize that we can only lose by going on the offensive. Patience and time are my soldiers, my champions,” Kutúzov thought. He knew that an apple should not be picked while it's still green. It will fall by itself when ripe, but if you pick it unripe, the apple is spoiled, the tree is harmed, and your teeth ache. Like an experienced hunter, he knew the prey was wounded—and not just wounded, but wounded as only the full strength of Russia could manage—but whether it was a mortal wound or not was still undecided. Now, with Lauriston and Barthélemi having been sent, and with reports from the guerrillas, Kutúzov was almost certain the wound was mortal. Still, he needed more evidence, and waiting was necessary.

“They want to run to see how badly they've wounded it. Wait, and we'll see! Constant maneuvers, constant advances!” he thought. “For what? Just to make names for themselves! As if fighting were some sort of game. They're like children—you never get a clear story of what happened because they all want to show off how well they can fight. But that’s not what’s needed now.

“And what clever maneuvers they all suggest to me! They think that once they've considered two or three possibilities” (he remembered the general plan sent from Petersburg), “they've considered everything. But the possibilities are endless.”

The unsettled question of whether the wound inflicted at Borodinó was fatal or not had hung over Kutúzov for a whole month. On the one hand, the French had occupied Moscow. On the other, Kutúzov was convinced with every fiber of his being that the terrible blow, into which he and all the Russians had put their full strength, must have been mortal. But in any case, proof was needed; he had waited an entire month and grew more impatient the longer he waited. Lying on his bed through those sleepless nights, he did just what he criticized younger generals for: he imagined all sorts of possible situations, just like they did, but the difference was that he saw thousands of possibilities, not just two or three, and relied on none of them. The longer he thought, the more options came to mind. He pictured all sorts of movements of Napoleon’s army—as a whole or in sections—toward Petersburg, against him, to outflank him. He also thought of the frightening possibility that Napoleon might use his own tactics and remain in Moscow, waiting for him. Kutúzov even imagined that Napoleon’s army might pull back through Medýn and Yukhnóv. But the one thing he could not foresee was what actually happened—the wild, chaotic stampede of Napoleon’s army during the first eleven days after leaving Moscow: a flight that made possible what Kutúzov had not even dared hope for—the complete destruction of the French. Dórokhov’s report about Broussier’s division, reports from the guerrillas about the suffering inside Napoleon’s army, and rumors of plans to leave Moscow all confirmed the suspicion that the French army was beaten and getting ready to run. But these were just suspicions, which seemed important to the younger officers but not to Kutúzov. With sixty years of experience, he knew how much to believe rumors; he knew how people wishing for something tend to interpret all news as supporting their wishes, and how easily they ignore anything that doesn’t. And the more he wished for it, the less he let himself believe it. This question absorbed all his mental energy. Everything else was just part of his usual routine—his conversations with the staff, letters from Tarútino to Madame de Staël, reading novels, handing out awards, corresponding with Petersburg, and so forth. But the destruction of the French—which only he foresaw—was his heart’s primary wish.

On the night of October eleventh, he lay propped up on his arm, thinking about all this.

There was some activity in the next room, and he heard the footsteps of Toll, Konovnítsyn, and Bolkhovítinov.

“Eh, who’s there? Come in, come in! What news?” the field marshal called out.

While a footman lit a candle, Toll shared the news.

“Who brought it?” asked Kutúzov, giving Toll a look that, when the candle was lit, struck him by its cold seriousness.

“There can be no doubt about it, your Highness.”

“Call him in, bring him here.”

Kutúzov sat up, one leg hanging down from the bed and his large belly resting on the other, which was tucked under him. He squinted his good eye, as if trying to read the messenger’s face for what was preoccupying his own mind.

“Tell me, tell me, friend,” he said to Bolkhovítinov in his low, aged voice, pulling his shirt closed over his chest, “come closer—closer. What news do you bring me? Eh? That Napoleon has left Moscow? Are you sure? Eh?”

Bolkhovítinov gave a detailed and complete report of everything he had been told to say.

“Faster, faster! Don’t torture me!” Kutúzov interrupted.

Bolkhovítinov finished and stood awaiting orders. Toll began to speak but Kutúzov cut him off. He tried to say something, but his face suddenly twisted and wrinkled; he waved Toll off and turned away to the corner of the room, darkened by the icons hanging there.

“O Lord, my Creator, You have heard our prayer…” he said, his voice trembling and his hands folded. “Russia is saved. I thank You, O Lord!” and he wept.

##  CHAPTER XVIII

From the moment he received this news until the end of the campaign, all of Kutúzov’s efforts were directed toward restraining his troops—from launching unnecessary attacks, maneuvers, or clashes with the perishing enemy—whether through his authority, cleverness, or appeals. Dokhtúrov headed off to Málo-Yaroslávets, but Kutúzov lingered with the main army, even ordering the evacuation of Kalúga—a retreat past which seemed quite possible to him.

Everywhere Kutúzov retreated, but the enemy, rather than waiting for his retreat, ran off in the opposite direction.

Napoleon’s historians describe his skillful maneuvers at Tarútino and Málo-Yaroslávets, speculating about what might have happened had Napoleon managed to get into the rich southern provinces.

But apart from the fact that nothing actually prevented him from going into those southern provinces (since the Russian army never blocked his way), the historians forget that nothing could have saved his army by then, for it already carried within itself the seeds of inevitable destruction. How could an army—which had found plenty of supplies in Moscow and trampled them underfoot instead of saving them, and then looted rather than stored food at Smolénsk—how could that army recover in Kalúga province, a place inhabited by Russians just like those in Moscow, and where fire destroyed what was set alight just the same?

That army could not recover anywhere. Ever since the battle of Borodinó and the plundering of Moscow, it carried within itself the elements of its own dissolution.

The members of what was once an army—Napoleon himself and all his soldiers—fled without knowing where to, each only concerned with getting away as quickly as possible from a situation whose hopelessness they all vaguely felt.

So, at the council at Málo-Yaroslávets, when the generals, pretending to consult, voiced various opinions, everything was settled when the simple-minded soldier Mouton, speaking last, said exactly what they all felt: that the one thing necessary was to get away as quickly as possible. No one—not even Napoleon—could argue with this truth they all recognized.

Yet although everyone realized it was necessary to escape, there was still a feeling of shame in admitting it. An external jolt was needed to overcome that shame, and it came just in time. It was what the French called *“le hourra de l’Empereur.”*

The day after the council at Málo-Yaroslávets, Napoleon rode out early in the morning among his troops, flanked by his marshals and an escort, supposedly to inspect the army and the site of the previous and the impending battle. Some Cossacks scavenging for loot bumped into the Emperor and almost captured him. If the Cossacks failed to capture Napoleon, it was because of the very thing destroying the French army—the loot the Cossacks grabbed instead. Exactly as at Tarútino, they went after the plunder instead of the men. Ignoring Napoleon, they made off with the loot, giving Napoleon a chance to escape.

When *les enfants du Don* could have easily taken the Emperor himself right in the middle of his army, it was obvious there was nothing left but to flee as fast as possible down the nearest familiar road. Napoleon, with his forty-year-old stomach, understood the hint—feeling his lack of former agility and courage, and, shaken by the Cossacks’ attack, immediately sided with Mouton and gave orders—as the historians say—for a retreat on the Smolénsk road.

That Napoleon agreed with Mouton, and that the army retreated, does not prove Napoleon made the retreat happen, but shows that the forces influencing the whole army and leading it down the Mozháysk (i.e., Smolénsk) road also acted on him at the same time.

##  CHAPTER XIX

A man in motion always creates a goal for that motion. To travel a thousand miles, he must imagine there is something worthwhile waiting for him at the end of those thousand miles. He needs the hope of a promised land to find the strength to go on.

For the French during their advance, the promised land was Moscow; during their retreat, it became their homeland. But that homeland was too far away, and for someone traveling a thousand miles, it is absolutely necessary to set aside his ultimate target and say to himself: “Today I will reach a place twenty-five miles away where I’ll rest and spend the night.” On that first day, the resting place overshadows the final goal and attracts all his hopes and desires. The impulses felt by one person are always amplified in a crowd.

For the French retreating along the old Smolénsk road, their homeland was too distant, so their immediate target became Smolénsk. All their hopes and desires—intensified by the masses—drove them toward it. They did not actually know that Smolénsk held food or fresh troops waiting for them—on the contrary, their leading officers, and Napoleon himself, knew that rations there were in short supply. But only this could give them the will to march on and endure their current suffering. So, both those who knew the truth and those who didn’t deceived themselves and pressed on toward Smolénsk as if it were a promised land.

Once they reached the highroad, the French fled with remarkable energy and unheard-of speed toward this chosen goal. Besides the common impulse that bound the crowd of French together and gave them a certain energy, there was another force: their sheer numbers. Like the law of gravity, such a massive body pulled each individual along with it. In their thousands, they moved like a nation on the move.

Each man wanted nothing more than to surrender and escape this horror and misery; but the shared pull toward Smolénsk, and the fact that an army corps cannot surrender to just a company, drove them forward. The French made use of every convenient chance to detach themselves and surrender on any halfway plausible pretext, but such chances didn’t always arise. Their numbers and their quick, crowded motion deprived them of that possibility—making it not just difficult, but impossible, for the Russians to stop their fleeing, to which the French were committing all their strength. Beyond a certain limit, no forceful breaking up of the army could speed up its disintegration.

A lump of snow cannot be melted instantly. There is a minimum time required; no amount of heat can melt the snow faster. In fact, the greater the heat, the more compact the remaining snow can become.

Among the Russian commanders, Kutúzov alone understood this. When the French retreat down the Smolénsk road became clear, what Konovnítsyn had foreseen on the night of October 11 began to happen. The higher officers all wanted to make their mark, to cut off, to trap, to capture, and to destroy the French; everyone called for action.

Kutúzov alone used all the power he had (and a commander in chief’s real power is very limited) to prevent an attack.

He could not tell them what we now say: “Why fight, why block the road, losing our men and inhumanely slaughtering poor wretches? What’s the point, when a third of their army has already melted away between Moscow and Vyázma without any battle?” Instead, drawing on his experience, he told them the old tale of the golden bridge, only to be laughed at and slandered, as others rushed ahead, excitedly attacking the dying beast.

Ermólov, Milorádovich, Plátov, and others near the French at Vyázma couldn’t resist their urge to cut off and scatter two French corps, and to notify Kutúzov of their intentions, they sent him a blank sheet of paper in an envelope.

Try as Kutúzov might to hold the troops back, our men attacked, trying to block the road. Infantry regiments, we’re told, advanced to the attack with music and drums, killing and losing thousands of men.

Yet they did not cut off or destroy anyone, and the French army, drawing closer together in danger, continued—steadily dwindling—to pursue its fatal route to Smolénsk.

##  BOOK FOURTEEN: 1812

##  CHAPTER I

The Battle of Borodinó, followed by the occupation of Moscow and the French retreat with no further significant battles, stands as one of the most instructive events in history.

All historians agree that the outward actions of states and nations in their clashes are revealed in wars, and that the political strength of states and nations rises or falls depending on their success in war.

Strange as it may seem, the historical tale of how one king or emperor, having quarreled with another, gathers an army, fights the enemy’s army, wins by killing three, five, or ten thousand men, and subdues a kingdom and a whole nation of millions, is confirmed by all the facts in history (as far as we know it). Victory or defeat of an army—a mere fraction of a nation—somehow obliges the whole nation to yield or rise. When an army is victorious, the conquering nation’s rights grow at the defeated’s expense. When an army is beaten, a people loses rights in proportion to the defeat—and after a total defeat, the whole nation is subjugated.

So it was from ancient times, and so even in recent days. All Napoleon’s wars seem to confirm this: After the Austrian army is beaten, Austria’s rights shrink and France’s grow. The French victories at Jena and Auerstädt destroy Prussia’s independence.

But in 1812, the French win a victory near Moscow. Moscow is taken, and after that—without any further major battles—it is not Russia that ceases to exist, but the French army of six hundred thousand, and later, Napoleonic France itself. It is impossible to twist the facts to fit the conventions of history: you cannot say that the Russians kept the Borodinó battlefield, or that further battles destroyed the French army.

After the French victory at Borodinó, there was no full-scale engagement, nothing serious—yet the French army vanished. What does this mean? If this had happened in ancient China, one might say it wasn’t really a historical event (a common historian’s excuse when something doesn’t fit their standards). If only a few soldiers had fought, we might call it a fluke. But this happened before our fathers’ eyes—in the greatest war known, when their country’s life or death was at stake.

The 1812 campaign from Borodinó to the French expulsion proved that winning a battle does not necessarily result in conquest, nor is it a reliable indication of conquest. It showed that the deciding power over nations does not lie in victorious armies or battles, but in something else.

French historians, describing the state of the French army before leaving Moscow, claim everything in the Grand Army was in order—except the cavalry, artillery, and supply train, for which there was no fodder, since local peasants burned their hay rather than let the French have it.

Victory did not bring the usual results because peasants like Karp and Vlas (who, after the French left Moscow, hurried there to loot and otherwise displayed no heroism), and countless others like them, did not sell hay to the French at high prices, but burned it instead.

Imagine two men engaged in a formal fencing duel. The duel goes on until one man, wounded and realizing this is about life and death, throws aside his rapier and grabs the nearest cudgel. If this same man, influenced by tradition, then tries to claim he won by rapiers according to the rules, the story would be confused.

The fencer demanding a duel by the rules was the French army. The man who threw away his rapier for a cudgel was the Russian people. Those who try to describe the events by fencing rules are the historians writing about the campaign.

After Smolénsk was burned, a new kind of war began. The burning of towns and villages, the retreats, the blow at Borodinó and yet more retreat, the burning of Moscow, the catching of stragglers, raiding convoy routes, and partisan warfare all broke the old rules.

Napoleon knew this. When, settled in Moscow, he found himself in fencing position but saw a cudgel raised above him, he never stopped complaining to Kutúzov and Emperor Alexander that this war was not being fought by the proper rules—as if there were rules for killing people. Despite the French protesting the breaking of rules and some Russian officers being embarrassed about using “a cudgel,” wanting instead to stand *en quarte* or *en tierce* and make an artful thrust *en prime*, the cudgel of the people’s war rose with all its menacing and majestic power. Without consulting anyone’s tastes, rules, or traditions, it fell again and again, relentlessly battering the French until the whole invasion was destroyed.

And it is a good thing for a people who, unlike the French did in 1813—gracefully saluting and handing over their sword-hilt to their noble conqueror—during a time of trial, without bothering to ask what others have done, simply pick up the closest cudgel and strike until all their anger and desire for revenge gives way to contempt and pity.

##  CHAPTER II

One of the most obvious and beneficial departures from the so-called laws of war is when scattered groups engage men massed together. This always occurs in wars that take on a national character. In such actions, instead of two crowds facing each other, the men disperse, attack individually, retreat when faced with a stronger enemy, but return to attack when the opportunity arises. This was done by the guerrillas in Spain, by the mountain tribes in the Caucasus, and by the Russians in 1812.

People have called this sort of war “guerrilla warfare” and assume that by naming it, they have explained it. But this kind of war does not fit under any rule and is directly opposed to a well-known tactic that is considered infallible: that the aggressor should concentrate his forces to be stronger than the enemy at the point of conflict.

Guerrilla war (which history shows is always successful) directly violates this rule.

This contradiction arises because military science assumes that an army’s strength is the same as its numbers. It claims the more troops, the greater the strength. *Les gros bataillons ont toujours raison*. \*

\* Large battalions are always victorious.

For military science to say this is like defining momentum in physics only by mass: stating that momenta are equal or unequal simply because the masses are equal or unequal.

Momentum (quantity of motion) is the product of mass and velocity.

In military terms, the strength of an army is the product of its size and some unknown *x*.

Military science, noticing countless historical cases where an army’s size does not match its strength and that small units defeat larger ones, vaguely admits the existence of this unknown factor and tries to identify it—sometimes in geometric formations, sometimes in the weapons used, and most often in the genius of the commanders. But assigning these meanings to the factor does not produce results consistent with historical facts.

Yet it is only necessary to give up the false idea (meant to flatter the “heroes”) of the effectiveness of orders given by commanders in war, to discover this unknown element.

That unknown element is the spirit of the army: the greater or lesser willingness to fight and face danger felt by all the members of an army, completely independent of whether they are fighting under a genius, in two- or three-line formation, armed with simple cudgels or with repeating rifles. Men determined to fight will always put themselves in the most advantageous conditions for fighting.

The spirit of an army is the factor that, when multiplied by its mass, gives its real strength. To define and describe the significance of this unknown factor—the spirit—is a task for science.

This problem is only solvable if we stop arbitrarily substituting for the unknown *x* the circumstances under which that force becomes visible—such as the general’s orders, the weapons used, and so on—confusing those things with the real meaning of the unknown, and if we accept that it is the greater or lesser will to fight and face danger. Only then, by expressing established historic facts using equations and comparing the relative values of this factor, can we hope to define the unknown.

Ten men, battalions, or divisions fighting against fifteen men, battalions, or divisions defeat—that is, kill or capture—all the others, and lose four themselves, so that four are lost on one side and fifteen on the other. Therefore, the four were equal in strength to the fifteen; so 4*x* = 15*y*. Thus *x/y* = 15/4. This equation does not give us the value of the unknown factor but gives us the ratio between two unknowns. By applying similar equations to various historic units (battles, campaigns, periods of war), a series of numbers could be derived in which certain laws might exist and be discovered.

The tactical rule that an army should attack in masses and retreat in smaller groups unconsciously confirms the truth that an army’s strength depends on its spirit. To advance men under fire takes more discipline (achievable only by movement in masses) than resisting attacks. But this rule, which ignores the spirit of the army, often turns out to be wrong and stands in sharp contrast to reality when there is a strong rise or fall in troop morale, as in all national wars.

The French, retreating in 1812—who by tactics should have broken into detachments to defend themselves—massed together because their morale had fallen so far that only the mass kept them together. The Russians, on the other hand, should by tactics have attacked in mass, but instead split up into small units, because their spirit was high enough that even individuals, without orders, attacked the French, exposing themselves to danger without needing compulsion.

##  CHAPTER III

The so-called partisan war began with the entry of the French into Smolénsk.

Before partisan war had been officially recognized by the government, thousands of enemy stragglers, marauders, and foragers were destroyed by the Cossacks and peasants, who killed them as instinctively as dogs kill a stray mad dog. Denís Davýdov, following his Russian instinct, was the first to recognize the value of this terrible weapon that, regardless of military rules, destroyed the French, and it was he who took the first step to regularize this method of war.

On August 24, Davýdov’s first partisan detachment was organized and afterwards others were recognized. As the campaign continued, these detachments grew more numerous.

The irregulars destroyed the great army piece by piece. They picked up the fallen leaves that dropped by themselves from the withered tree—the French army—and at times shook the tree itself. By October, when the French were fleeing toward Smolénsk, there were hundreds of such companies, differing in size and character. Some had adopted army routines, complete with infantry, artillery, staffs, and the comforts of life. Others consisted only of Cossack cavalry. There were also small improvised groups of foot and horseback, and groups of peasants and landowners that remained unknown. One party, commanded by a sacristan, captured several hundred prisoners in a month; and there was Vasílisa, the wife of a village elder, who killed hundreds of the French.

The partisan warfare burned hottest in the latter days of October. Its first phase had passed: when the partisans themselves, astonished by their own boldness, feared every moment being surrounded and captured by the French, and hid in the woods without unsaddling, barely daring to dismount and always expecting to be chased. By the end of October, this warfare had taken definite shape: it was now clear to all what could or could not be risked against the French. Now, only the commanders of detachments with regular staffs, operating by the rules and at a distance from the French, still thought many things impossible. The smaller bands, active far earlier and who had already closely observed the French, considered things possible that the leaders of the big detachments did not dare try. The Cossacks and peasants who crept among the French now considered everything possible.

On October 22, Denísov (one of these irregulars) was, with his group, at the height of partisan enthusiasm. Since early morning, he and his party had been on the move. All day they had watched from the forest that bordered the highway a large French convoy of cavalry baggage and Russian prisoners, separated from the main body of the army, and—according to information from spies and prisoners—moving under a strong escort to Smolénsk. Besides Denísov and Dólokhov (who also led a small party nearby), commanders of larger divisions with staffs also knew of the convoy and, as Denísov put it, were “sharpening their teeth” for it. Two of those commanders—a Pole and a German—sent invitations to Denísov almost at the same time, requesting him to join their forces to attack the convoy.

“No, brother, I have grown mustaches myself,” said Denísov after reading these letters, and he wrote back to the German that, although he greatly wished to serve under so brave and renowned a general, he must turn down the honor because he was already under the command of the Polish general. To the Polish general he replied with the same message, stating that he was under German command.

Having settled things this way, Denísov and Dólokhov planned to attack and seize the convoy on their own, without reporting to higher command. On October 22, it was moving from Mikúlino to Shámshevo. To the left of the road between those villages were deep forests, sometimes coming right to the road and other times a mile or more back. Through these woods, Denísov and his party rode all day, sometimes staying deep in the forest, sometimes coming to the edge, but never losing sight of the French. That morning, Cossacks from Denísov’s group had seized and dragged into the woods two wagons loaded with cavalry saddles, which had got stuck in the mud near Mikúlino where the forest touched the road. Since then, until evening, they watched the French without attacking. It was necessary to let the French reach Shámshevo quietly, without alarming them, and then, after meeting with Dólokhov, who would arrive that evening for a consultation at a watchman’s hut less than a mile from Shámshevo, to strike the French at dawn, falling on them from both sides and, in one blow, defeat and capture them all.

In their rear, over a mile from Mikúlino where the forest bordered the road, six Cossacks were stationed to report if new French columns appeared.

Beyond Shámshevo, Dólokhov was to watch the road in the same way, to find out how near other French troops were. They estimated the convoy had fifteen hundred men. Denísov had two hundred, and Dólokhov might have as many more, but this difference in numbers did not bother Denísov. All he needed now was to know what troops these were, and to learn that he had to capture a “tongue”—that is, an enemy soldier. That morning’s attack on the wagons had happened so quickly that all the French were killed; only a little drummer boy was taken alive, but as he was a straggler, he could not provide any clear information about the column.

Denísov thought it too risky to launch a second attack and risk alerting the whole column, so he sent Tíkhon Shcherbáty, a peasant in his group, to Shámshevo to try to capture at least one of the French quartermasters who had been sent ahead.

##  CHAPTER IV

It was a warm, rainy autumn day. The sky and the horizon were both the color of muddy water. Sometimes a mist would settle, and then suddenly, heavy, slanting rain would pour down.

Denísov, wearing a felt cloak and a sheepskin cap with rain streaming off it, was riding a thin thoroughbred horse with sunken sides. Like his horse, which turned its head and flattened its ears, Denísov shrank from the driving rain and looked anxiously ahead. His thin face, framed by a short, thick black beard, looked angry.

Beside Denísov rode an *esaul*,\* Denísov’s fellow officer, also wrapped in a felt cloak and sheepskin cap, riding a large, sleek Don horse.

\* A captain of Cossacks.

Esaul Lováyski the Third was tall and as straight as an arrow, pale-faced and fair-haired, with narrow light eyes and an air of calm self-satisfaction. Though it was hard to say exactly what set them apart, at first sight it was obvious that Denísov was wet, uncomfortable, and merely riding a horse, while the *esaul* looked as comfortable and composed as always, not simply riding, but as if he and his horse were one—making him appear to have twice the strength.

A little ahead of them a peasant guide walked, soaked to the skin, dressed in a gray peasant coat and a white knitted cap.

A little behind, on a poor, small, thin Kirghíz mount with an enormous tail and mane and a bleeding mouth, rode a young officer in a blue French overcoat.

Next to him rode a hussar, with a boy in a tattered French uniform and blue cap riding behind on the crupper of his horse. The boy clung to the hussar with cold, red hands, raising his eyebrows as he looked around with surprise. This was the French drummer boy captured that morning.

Behind them, along the narrow, muddy, rutted forest road, came hussars in groups of three and four, followed by Cossacks: some in felt cloaks, some in French greatcoats, others with horse-cloths draped over their heads. The rain had drenched the horses, making them all look black regardless of whether they were chestnut or bay. Their necks, with their wet, flat manes, appeared strangely thin. Steam rose from their sides. Clothes, saddles, and reins were all wet, slippery, and soaked through, just like the ground and the fallen leaves scattered over the road. The men sat hunched up, trying not to move, trying to warm the water trapped by their bodies so as not to let in more cold rain leaking under their saddles, at their knees, and at the back of their necks. In the midst of the stretched-out line of Cossacks, two wagons drawn by French horses—and also by Cossack horses with saddles, hitched on in front—rumbled over tree stumps and branches, splashing through the water-filled ruts.

Denísov’s horse swerved to avoid a puddle, bumping his rider’s knee against a tree.

“Oh, the devil!” Denísov exclaimed angrily, showing his teeth as he struck his horse three times with his whip, spattering both himself and his companions with mud.

Denísov was in a bad mood from the rain and from hunger (none of them had eaten since morning), and even more frustrated because there was still no word from Dólokhov, and the man sent to capture a “tongue” hadn’t returned.

“There might not be another chance to attack a transport like today. It’s too risky to do it alone, and if we wait until another day, one of the larger guerrilla groups will snatch the prize out from under us,” Denísov thought, continually peering ahead, hoping to spot a messenger from Dólokhov.

When they came to a path in the forest that allowed a long view to the right, Denísov stopped.

“There’s someone coming,” he said.

The *esaul* looked in the direction Denísov indicated.

“There are two—an officer and a Cossack. But it’s hardly likely to be the lieutenant colonel himself,” said the *esaul*, who liked using words that the Cossacks didn’t know.

The approaching riders, having come down a slope, were no longer visible, but reappeared a few minutes later. In front, at a tired gallop and using his leather whip, rode an officer, disheveled and drenched, his trousers pulled up above his knees. Behind him, riding in the stirrups, came a Cossack. The officer, a very young man with a broad rosy face and sharp, cheerful eyes, rode up to Denísov and handed him a soaked envelope.

“From the general,” said the officer. “Sorry it's not completely dry.”

Denísov, frowning, took the envelope and opened it.

“They kept telling us, ‘It’s dangerous, it’s dangerous,’” said the officer to the *esaul* as Denísov read the dispatch. “But Komaróv and I”—he pointed to the Cossack—“were ready. We each have two pistols… But what’s this?” he asked, noticing the French drummer boy. “A prisoner? Have you already been in action? May I speak to him?”

“Wostóv! Pétya!” Denísov exclaimed, having read through the dispatch. “Why didn’t you say who you were?” and turning with a smile, he offered his hand to the young officer.

The officer was Pétya Rostóv.

The whole way there, Pétya had been getting ready to behave toward Denísov as a grown-up and an officer—trying not to show that they knew each other from before. But as soon as Denísov smiled at him, Pétya lit up, blushed with happiness, forgot the official manner he’d been practicing, and started telling Denísov how he had already participated in a battle near Vyázma, and how a certain hussar had distinguished himself there.

“Well, I’m glad to see you,” Denísov interrupted him, his face returning to its anxious look.

“Michael Feoklítych,” he said to the *esaul*, “this is from that German general again, you know. He”—he nodded toward Pétya—“is serving under him.”

Denísov then told the *esaul* that the dispatch he just received was once again a demand from the German general to join forces and attack the transport.

“If we don’t take it tomorrow, he’ll snatch it from under our noses,” he added.

While Denísov was talking to the *esaul*, Pétya, mistaken about Denísov’s brief coldness and thinking it was because of his hiked-up trousers, tried discreetly to pull them down under his greatcoat so no one would notice, all the while trying to maintain a soldierly air.

“Will there be any orders, sir?” he asked Denísov, saluting and continuing with the formal air of an officer’s assistant he had been preparing. “Or should I stay with you, sir?”

“Orders?” Denísov repeated thoughtfully. “But are you able to stay till tomorrow?”

“Oh, please… may I stay with you?” exclaimed Pétya.

“But, just what did the general tell you? To return at once?” asked Denísov.

Pétya blushed.

“He didn’t give me any orders. I think I can stay, can’t I?” he replied, unsure.

“Well, all right,” said Denísov.

He then instructed a group to go ahead to the designated halt near the watchman’s hut in the forest, and ordered the officer on the Kirghíz horse (who was acting as adjutant) to find out where Dólokhov was and whether he’d be coming that evening. Denísov himself planned to go with the *esaul* and Pétya to the edge of the forest, where it extended to Shámshevo, to survey the part of the French camp they intended to attack the next day.

“Well, old fellow,” he said to the peasant guide, “lead us to Shámshevo.”

Denísov, Pétya, and the *esaul*, along with some Cossacks and the hussar carrying the prisoner, headed left across a ravine toward the edge of the forest.

##  CHAPTER V

The rain had stopped, and only mist was falling, along with drops from the trees. Denísov, the *esaul*, and Pétya rode silently, following the peasant in the knitted cap who walked lightly with his toes turned out, moving quietly in his bast shoes over roots and wet leaves, and silently led them to the edge of the forest.

He climbed an incline, stopped, looked around, and moved forward to where the trees thinned. Reaching a large oak that still had its leaves, he stopped and beckoned them over mysteriously.

Denísov and Pétya rode up to him. From where the peasant stood, they could see the French. Just beyond the forest, on a descending slope, there was a field of spring rye. To the right, beyond a steep ravine, lay a small village and a landowner’s house with a damaged roof. In the village, in the house, garden, by the well, the pond, along the hillside, and all along the road climbing up from the bridge to the village, not more than five hundred yards away, crowds of men could be seen through the shimmery mist. Their foreign shouting at their horses, straining uphill with carts, and their calls to each other were clearly audible.

“Bring the prisoner here,” Denísov said in a low voice, not taking his eyes off the French.

A Cossack dismounted, lifted the boy down, and brought him to Denísov. Pointing to the French troops, Denísov asked him about them. The boy, with cold hands in his pockets and raised eyebrows, looked fearfully at Denísov. Despite clearly wanting to say all he knew, he gave confused answers, simply agreeing with whatever Denísov asked. Denísov turned away from him, frowning, and spoke to the *esaul*, sharing his own guesses.

Pétya quickly turned his head, glancing from the drummer boy to Denísov, to the *esaul*, and to the French in the village and on the road, trying not to miss anything important.

“Whether Dólokhov comes or not, we must take it, eh?” Denísov said with a gleeful sparkle in his eyes.

“It’s a very suitable spot,” replied the *esaul*.

“We'll send the infantry down by the swamps,” Denísov went on. “They’ll creep up to the garden; you’ll ride up from there with the Cossacks”—he pointed to a spot in the forest beyond the village—“and I’ll attack with my hussars from here. And at the signal shot…”

“The hollow’s impassable—there’s a swamp there,” said the *esaul*. “The horses would get stuck. We need to go around more to the left…”

While they spoke in low voices, the crack of a gun was heard from the low ground near the pond. A puff of white smoke appeared, then another, and the sound of hundreds of seemingly cheerful French voices shouting together rose from the slope. For a moment Denísov and the *esaul* pulled back. They were so close that they thought the shooting and shouting were directed at them. But it wasn’t about them. Down below, a man wearing something red was running through the marsh. The French were clearly firing and shouting at him.

“Why, that’s our Tíkhon,” said the *esaul*.

“So it is! It is!”

“The scoundrel!” said Denísov.

“He’ll escape!” said the *esaul*, squinting.

The man they called Tíkhon, having reached the stream, dove in, splashing water into the air. Disappearing for a moment, he scrambled out on all fours, soaked and muddy, and ran on. The French who had chased him stopped.

“Smart move!” said the *esaul*.

“What a beast!” Denísov said with his earlier look of annoyance. “What has he been doing all this time?”

“Who is he?” asked Pétya.

“He’s our *plastún*. I sent him to capture a ‘tongue.’”

“Oh, yes,” Pétya said, nodding at Denísov’s first words as if he understood, though he really didn’t.

Tíkhon Shcherbáty was one of the most indispensable men in their group. He was a peasant from Pokróvsk, near the river Gzhat. When Denísov arrived at Pokróvsk at the start of his operations and, as usual, summoned the village elder to ask what he knew of the French, the elder, as if protecting himself, answered, like all elders did, that he had neither seen nor heard anything of them. But when Denísov explained that he intended to kill the French and asked whether any had strayed that way, the elder admitted that some “order-bringers” had indeed come to the village, but Tíkhon Shcherbáty was the only one who dealt with such things. Denísov had Tíkhon called and, praising his energy, spoke a few words before the elder about loyalty to the Tsar and country and the hatred of the French that all sons of the fatherland should feel.

“We don’t harm the French,” said Tíkhon, visibly nervous at Denísov’s words. “We just fooled around with the lads for fun! We killed a score or so of ‘order-bringers,’ but did nothing else….”

The next day, after Denísov had left Pokróvsk, having pretty much forgotten about this peasant, he was told that Tíkhon had joined their group and asked to be allowed to remain. Denísov gave permission for him to stay.

At first, Tíkhon did rough work—lighting campfires, fetching water, skinning dead horses, and so on—but soon showed a strong interest and skill in partisan warfare. At night he’d go out hunting for loot and always brought back French clothes and weapons, and would bring in French captives when ordered. Denísov then excused him from hard labor and began taking him on raids, enrolling him with the Cossacks.

Tíkhon didn’t like horses and always went on foot, never falling behind the cavalry. He was armed with a musketoon (which he carried more as a joke), a pike, and an axe, which he used much like a wolf uses its teeth—with equal skill whether picking fleas out of its fur or crushing thick bones. Tíkhon was just as accurate splitting logs with long-armed blows as he was holding the head of the axe to cut pegs or carve spoons. In Denísov’s group, he held a special, unique position. When there was something particularly tough or unpleasant to do—pushing a cart from mud, pulling a horse from a swamp by its tail, skinning it, sneaking among the French, or walking more than thirty miles in a day—everyone joked and pointed at Tíkhon.

“It won’t hurt him—he’s as strong as a horse!” they’d say of him.

Once, a Frenchman Tíkhon tried to capture fired a pistol and hit him in the fleshy part of his back. Tíkhon treated the wound only with vodka, both inside and out. That wound became the subject of laughter throughout the detachment—jokes in which Tíkhon eagerly took part.

“Hey, mate! Never again? Did it twist you up?” the Cossacks would tease. Tíkhon, writhing and making faces on purpose, pretended to be angry and hurled the funniest curses at the French. The only real effect from his wound was that after it, Tíkhon seldom brought in prisoners.

He was the bravest and most valuable man in the group. No one found more chances to strike, no one captured or killed more Frenchmen, and because of this, he was made the clown of the Cossacks and hussars—and willingly accepted that role. He had been sent by Denísov the previous night to Shámshevo to capture a “tongue.” But whether because he hadn’t settled for just one Frenchman or because he overslept, he had crawled by day into some bushes right in the midst of the French and, as Denísov had seen from above, had been discovered by them.

##  CHAPTER VI

After spending some time talking with the *esaul* about the next day’s attack—which, seeing how close they were to the French, he seemed to have now firmly decided on—Denísov turned his horse and rode back.

“Now, my lad, let’s go get something to eat,” he said to Pétya.

As they neared the watchhouse, Denísov stopped and peered into the forest. Among the trees, a man with long legs and long, swinging arms, wearing a short jacket, bast shoes, and a Kazán hat, was approaching with light, easy steps. He had a musketoon slung over his shoulder and an ax stuck in his belt. When he spotted Denísov, he quickly threw something into the bushes, took off his damp hat by its floppy brim, and walked up to his commander. It was Tíkhon. His wrinkled, pockmarked face and narrow little eyes beamed with self-satisfied amusement. He held his head up high and looked at Denísov as if holding back a laugh.

“Well, where did you disappear to?” Denísov asked.

“Where did I disappear to? I went to get some Frenchmen,” Tíkhon answered boldly and quickly, in his rough but melodious bass voice.

“Why did you shove yourself in there in broad daylight? You fool! Well, why haven’t you caught one?”

“Oh, I caught one, all right,” said Tíkhon.

“Where is he?”

“You see, I caught him first thing at dawn,” Tíkhon went on, spreading out his flat feet in their bast shoes, toes turned out. “I took him into the forest. Then I saw he was no good and figured I’d go get a better one.”

“You see? What a rogue—just as I thought,” Denísov said to the *esaul*. “Why didn’t you bring that one?”

“What was the point of bringing him?” Tíkhon broke in quickly and angrily. “That one wouldn’t have suited your needs. As if I don’t know who you want!”

“What an animal you are!… Well?”

“I went for another,” Tíkhon continued, “and I crept like this through the woods and lay down.” (He suddenly dropped onto his stomach with a supple movement to demonstrate.) “One came by and I caught him, like this.” (He jumped up quickly and lightly.) “‘Come along to the colonel,’ I told him. He starts shouting, and suddenly there’s four of them. They charged at me with their little swords. So I fought them off with my ax, like this: ‘What do you think you’re doing?’ I shouted. ‘Christ be with you!’” Tíkhon cried, waving his arms angrily and puffing out his chest.

“Yes, we saw from the hill how you made a run for it through the puddles!” said the *esaul*, squinting his sparkling eyes.

Pétya really wanted to laugh, but noticed everyone was holding back. He glanced quickly from Tíkhon’s face to the *esaul’s* and Denísov’s, not understanding what was going on.

“Don’t act the fool!” Denísov said, coughing angrily. “Why didn’t you bring the first one?”

Tíkhon scratched his back with one hand and his head with the other. Then suddenly, his whole face broke into a wide, silly grin, showing a gap where he’d lost a tooth (which was why he was nicknamed Shcherbáty—the gap-toothed). Denísov smiled, and Pétya burst into merry laughter, which Tíkhon joined in as well.

“Oh, but he was really good-for-nothing,” Tíkhon said. “His clothes—worthless! How could I bring him? And so rude, sir! Why, he says: ‘I’m a general’s son myself, I won’t go!’ he says.”

“You’re a brute!” Denísov said. “I wanted to ask questions…”

“But I asked him,” Tíkhon replied. “He said he didn’t know much. ‘There are a lot of us,’ he said, ‘but we’re all worthless—just soldiers in name,’ he said. ‘Shout at them loudly,’ he said, ‘and you’ll capture everyone,’” Tíkhon finished, looking cheerfully and confidently into Denísov’s eyes.

“I’ll give you a hundred sharp lashes—that’ll teach you to play the fool!” Denísov said sternly.

“But why are you angry?” Tíkhon protested. “As if I haven’t seen your Frenchmen before! Just wait until it gets dark and I’ll fetch you any one of them you want—three, if you like.”

“Well, let’s go,” Denísov said, and rode the rest of the way to the watchhouse in silence, frowning crossly.

Tíkhon followed behind, and Pétya heard the Cossacks laughing with him and at him, joking about some pair of boots he’d thrown into the bushes.

After the laughter Tíkhon’s stories and smile had caused faded, and Pétya remembered for a moment that Tíkhon had killed a man, he felt uneasy. He glanced over at the captive drummer boy and felt a pang in his heart. But this discomfort lasted only a moment. He felt he had to hold his head higher, brace himself, and talk with the *esaul* about the plans for tomorrow, so he wouldn’t seem unworthy of the company he was in.

The officer who’d been sent to inquire met Denísov along the way with news that Dólokhov would be there soon and that all was well with him.

Denísov immediately cheered up and, calling Pétya over, said: “Well, tell me about yourself.”

##  CHAPTER VII

Pétya, after leaving his family following their departure from Moscow, joined his regiment and was soon taken on as an orderly by a general commanding a large guerrilla detachment. From the moment he received his commission—and especially since joining the active army and taking part in the battle of Vyázma—Pétya had been in a constant state of excited happiness at feeling like an adult and was always in a rush, eager not to miss any chance to do something truly heroic. He was thrilled with everything he saw and experienced in the army, yet it always seemed to him that the real acts of heroism were happening precisely where he was not. So he was always hurrying to places he wasn’t.

On October twenty-first, when his general mentioned wanting to send someone to Denísov’s detachment, Pétya pleaded so earnestly to be chosen that the general couldn’t say no. But when sending him, the general remembered Pétya’s reckless behavior at the battle of Vyázma, where instead of following the road to the assigned location, he’d galloped to the front lines under French fire and fired his pistol twice. So this time, the general explicitly forbade him from taking part in any of Denísov’s actions. That was why Pétya had blushed and become confused when Denísov asked if he could stay. Before riding to the edge of the forest, Pétya felt he must strictly follow orders and return right away. But after seeing the French, meeting Tíkhon, and learning there would definitely be an attack that night, he quickly changed his mind, thinking that the general—whom he had respected up to now—was just a foolish German, while Denísov was a hero, the *esaul* was a hero, and Tíkhon one as well. He decided it would be shameful to leave them in a difficult moment.

It was already getting dark when Denísov, Pétya, and the *esaul* arrived at the watchhouse. In the twilight, saddled horses could be seen and Cossacks and hussars had built makeshift shelters in the glade, kindling bright fires in a hollow of the forest where the French wouldn’t see the smoke. In the passage of the small watchhouse, a Cossack with his sleeves rolled up was chopping mutton. Inside, three officers from Denísov’s band were turning a door into a tabletop. Pétya took off his wet clothes, handed them over to be dried, and immediately began helping the officers set up the dinner table.

Within ten minutes, the table was ready and a napkin was spread out. The table held vodka, a flask of rum, white bread, roast mutton, and salt.

Sitting at the table with the officers, tearing into the rich, savory mutton with his hands as grease trickled down his fingers, Pétya felt an ecstatic, childlike affection for everyone and was certain others felt the same way toward him.

“So, what do you think, Vasíli Dmítrich?” he said to Denísov. “Is it all right for me to stay with you for a day?” And, not waiting for a reply, he quickly answered himself: “You see, I was told to find out—well, I’m finding out… but please let me be in the very… in the main… I don’t want a reward… But I want…”

Pétya clenched his teeth, glanced around, tilted his head back, and waved his arms.

“In the vewy main…” Denísov repeated with a smile.

“Only, please let me command something, so that I can really command…” Pétya continued. “Would it matter to you?… Oh, do you need a knife?” he said, turning to an officer who wanted to cut some mutton.

And he handed over his clasp knife. The officer admired it.

“Please keep it. I have several like it,” Pétya said, blushing. “Heavens, I almost forgot!” he suddenly cried. “I have some raisins, really good ones—seedless! We have a new sutler with fantastic things. I bought ten pounds. I’m used to something sweet. Would you like some?…” Pétya ran into the passage to his Cossack and brought back bags holding about five pounds of raisins. “Help yourselves, gentlemen, help yourselves!”

“You need a coffeepot, don’t you?” he asked the *esaul*. “I bought a great one from the sutler! He has terrific stuff. And he’s very honest, which is the main thing. I’ll make sure to send it to you. Or if you’re running low on flints, or if yours are worn out—that happens sometimes. I brought some; here they are”—and he pulled out a bag—“a hundred flints, very cheap. Take as many as you need, or all of them if you like…”

Then suddenly, embarrassed in case he had gone too far, Pétya stopped and blushed.

He tried to remember if he’d done anything else foolish. Thinking over his day, he remembered the French drummer boy. “It’s great for us here, but what about him? Where did they put him? Did they feed him? Did they hurt his feelings?” he wondered. But since he had already said too much about the flints, he hesitated to say more.

“I could ask,” he thought, “but they’d say: ‘He’s a boy himself, so he feels sorry for the boy.’ I’ll show them tomorrow whether I’m a boy. Will it seem odd if I ask?” Pétya wondered. “Well, never mind!” Immediately, blushing and anxiously watching the officers for any sign of mockery, he said:

“May I call in that boy who was captured and give him something to eat?… Maybe…”

“Yes, he’s a poor little fellow,” said Denísov, who clearly saw nothing odd in the request. “Call him in. His name is Vincent Bosse. Have him brought.”

“I’ll call him,” Pétya said.

“Yes, yes, call him. A poor little fellow,” Denísov repeated.

Pétya was at the door when Denísov spoke. He slipped between the officers, came close to Denísov, and said:

“Let me kiss you, you wonderful fellow! Oh, how great, how marvelous!”

And after kissing Denísov, he ran out of the hut.

“Bosse! Vincent!” Pétya called, stopping at the door.

“Who do you want, sir?” a voice asked in the darkness.

Pétya replied that he wanted the French boy who had been captured that day.

“Ah, Vesénny?” said a Cossack.

Vincent’s name had already been changed among the Cossacks to *Vesénny* (“spring-like”) and among the peasants and soldiers to *Vesénya*. In both nicknames, the reference to spring (*vesná*) matched the impression the young boy made.

“He’s by the bonfire, warming himself. Hey, Vesénya! Vesénya!—Vesénny!” laughing voices could be heard calling in the dark.

“He’s a smart lad,” said a hussar standing near Pétya. “We gave him something to eat earlier. He was really hungry!”

In the darkness, the sound of bare feet splashing in the mud approached, and the drummer boy came to the door.

*“Ah, c’est vous!”* said Pétya. *“Voulez-vous manger? N’ayez pas peur, on ne vous fera pas de mal,”* \* he added shyly and gently, touching the boy’s hand. *“Entrez, entrez.”* \*(2)

\* “Ah, it’s you! Do you want something to eat? Don’t be afraid, they won’t hurt you.”

\* (2) “Come in, come in.”

*“Merci, monsieur,”* \* the drummer boy replied, his voice trembling and almost childlike, and he began scraping his dirty feet on the threshold.

\* “Thank you, sir.”

There was so much Pétya wanted to say to the drummer boy, but he didn’t dare. He stood awkwardly beside him in the passage, then in the darkness, he took the boy’s hand and squeezed it.

“Come in, come in!” he repeated softly. “What could I do for him?” he thought, and as he opened the door, he let the boy go in first.

Once the boy was inside the hut, Pétya sat some distance away, feeling it would be beneath him to pay the boy too much attention. But as he fingered the money in his pocket, he wondered whether it would seem silly to give some to the drummer boy.

##  CHAPTER VIII

Dólokhov's arrival shifted Pétya’s focus away from the drummer boy, to whom Denísov had provided some mutton and vodka and clothed in a Russian coat so that he could stay with their group and not be sent off with the other prisoners. Pétya had heard many stories in the army about Dólokhov’s remarkable bravery and his ruthlessness toward the French, so from the moment Dólokhov entered the hut, Pétya kept his eyes fixed on him, stood up straighter, and held his head high, determined not to seem unworthy of such company.

Pétya was surprised by Dólokhov’s simple appearance.

Denísov wore a Cossack coat, had a beard, wore an icon of Nicholas the Wonder-Worker on his chest, and everything about his manner and speech signaled his unique status. But Dólokhov, who had once worn a Persian costume in Moscow, now looked exactly like a proper officer of the Guards. He was clean-shaven and dressed in a Guardsman’s padded coat with an Order of St. George at his buttonhole, and wore a plain forage cap straight on his head. He took off his wet felt cloak in a corner of the room and, without greeting anyone, went directly to Denísov and began asking him about their current plans. Denísov told him about the intentions the large detachments had regarding the transport, the message Pétya had delivered, and his own replies to both generals. Then he shared everything he knew about the French detachment.

“That may be, but we need to know what troops they are and how many,” said Dólokhov. “We’ll have to go there ourselves. We can’t start anything until we know exactly how many they have. I like to be precise. Now then—would one of you gentlemen care to ride over to the French camp with me? I’ve brought a spare uniform.”

“I, I… I’ll go with you!” shouted Pétya.

“There’s no need for you to go at all,” Denísov said to Dólokhov, “and as for him, I absolutely refuse to let him go.”

“I like that!” exclaimed Pétya. “Why shouldn’t I go?”

“Because it’s pointless.”

“Well, excuse me, but… but… I’m going to go anyway, and that’s that. You will take me, won’t you?” he said, turning to Dólokhov.

“Why not?” Dólokhov replied absently, studying the face of the French drummer boy. “Have you had this boy with you long?” he asked Denísov.

“He was captured today but knows nothing. I’m keeping him with me.”

“Yes, and what do you do with the others?” Dólokhov inquired.

“With the others? I send them off and get a receipt for them,” Denísov replied loudly, his face flushing. “And I boldly claim I don’t have a single man’s life on my conscience. Would it be so hard for you to send thirty or three hundred men to town under escort, instead of staining—I’ll be blunt—staining a soldier’s honor?”

“That kind of sentimental talk might suit this young sixteen-year-old count,” Dólokhov replied with cold sarcasm, “but you ought to have stopped talking like that by now.”

“I haven’t said anything! I just say that I’ll certainly go with you,” Pétya put in shyly.

“But as for you and me, old friend, it’s time to stop these sentimentalities,” Dólokhov went on, as if he enjoyed discussing a topic that irritated Denísov. “Now, why do you keep this boy?” he continued, nodding his head. “Because you feel sorry for him! Don’t we know about your ‘receipts’? You send a hundred men off, and only thirty make it there. The rest either starve or get killed. So in the end, isn’t it the same as not sending them?”

The *esaul*, narrowing his light-colored eyes, nodded in agreement.

“That’s not the point. I don’t want to discuss it. I don’t intend to take responsibility for it. You say they’ll die. All right. But it won’t be my fault!”

Dólokhov started laughing.

“Who’s stopped them from capturing me these twenty times already? But if they did catch me, they’d hang me from an aspen tree, no matter how chivalrous you are.” He paused. “But anyway, let’s get to work. Tell the Cossack to bring my things. I have two French uniforms. Well, are you coming with me?” he asked Pétya.

“I? Yes, yes, absolutely!” said Pétya, flushing nearly to tears and glancing at Denísov.

While Dólokhov argued with Denísov about what to do with prisoners, Pétya once again felt awkward and uneasy; but again, he didn’t really have time to understand the whole argument. “If mature, respected men think this way, it must be necessary and right,” he thought. “But most importantly, Denísov mustn’t think I’ll obey him and let him boss me around. I’ll definitely go to the French camp with Dólokhov. If he can, so can I!”

So to all of Denísov’s arguments, Pétya replied that he, too, was used to doing things properly and not carelessly, and that he never thought of personal danger.

“Because you’ll agree that if we don’t know for sure how many they have… hundreds of lives might depend on it, and it’s just the two of us. Besides, I really want to go and I will go, so don’t try to stop me,” he said. “You’ll only make it worse….”

##  CHAPTER IX

Having put on French greatcoats and shakos, Pétya and Dólokhov rode out to the clearing from which Denísov had surveyed the French camp. Emerging from the forest into total darkness, they descended into the hollow. When they reached the bottom, Dólokhov told the Cossacks with him to wait there, then rode ahead at a brisk trot toward the bridge. Pétya, heart pounding with excitement, rode at his side.

“If we’re caught, I won’t let them take me alive! I have a pistol,” Pétya whispered.

“Don’t speak Russian,” Dólokhov whispered urgently. At that moment, from the darkness, they heard the challenge: *“Qui vive?”* \* and the click of a musket.

\* “Who goes there?”

Blood rushed to Pétya’s face, and he gripped his pistol.

*“Lanciers du 6-me,”* \* Dólokhov answered, neither speeding up nor slowing down his horse.

\* “Lancers of the 6th Regiment.”

A black figure of a sentinel stood on the bridge.

*“Mot d’ordre.”* \*

\* “Password.”

Dólokhov reined in his horse and approached at a walk.

*“Dites donc, le colonel Gérard est ici?”* \* he asked.

\* “Tell me, is Colonel Gérard here?”

*“Mot d’ordre,”* the sentinel repeated, blocking the way without answering.

*“Quand un officier fait sa ronde, les sentinelles ne demandent pas le mot d’ordre…”* Dólokhov suddenly burst out, riding straight at the sentinel. *“Je vous demande si le colonel est ici.”* \*

\* “When an officer is making his round, sentinels don’t ask him for the password…. I am asking you if the colonel is here.”

Without waiting for the sentinel to answer, who had stepped aside, Dólokhov rode up the slope at a walk.

Spotting the silhouette of a man crossing the road, Dólokhov stopped him and asked where the commander and officers were. The man, a soldier with a sack over his shoulder, stopped, came right up to Dólokhov's horse, touched it, and explained simply and friendlily that the commander and the officers were farther up the hill, to the right, in the courtyard of the farm—the landowner’s house.

Riding up the road, French voices could be heard around campfires on both sides. Dólokhov turned into the courtyard of the landowner’s house. Once inside, he dismounted and walked toward a large, blazing campfire, around which several men sat talking noisily. Something was boiling in a small cauldron at the edge of the fire, and a soldier in a peaked cap and blue overcoat, illuminated by the flames, was kneeling beside it and stirring its contents with a ramrod.

“Oh, he’s a tough one to deal with,” said one officer, sitting in the shadow on the far side of the fire.

“He’ll make them hurry up, those fellows!” laughed another.

Both fell silent, peering through the darkness at the sound of Dólokhov’s and Pétya’s steps as they led their horses toward the fire.

*“Bonjour, messieurs!”* \* Dólokhov called out loudly and clearly.

\* “Good day, gentlemen.”

There was a stir among the officers in the shadows beyond the fire, and one tall, long-necked officer walked around the fire toward Dólokhov.

“Is that you, Clément?” he asked. “Where the devil…?” But noticing his mistake, he stopped and, with a frown, greeted Dólokhov as a stranger, asking what he wanted.

Dólokhov said that he and his companion were trying to catch up with their regiment, and, addressing the group, asked if anyone knew where the 6th Regiment was. None of them knew, and Pétya felt some of the officers begin to eye him and Dólokhov with suspicion and unease. For a few seconds, everyone was silent.

“If you were counting on the evening soup, you’ve come too late,” a voice said from behind the fire with a muffled laugh.

Dólokhov replied that they weren’t hungry and would have to travel farther that night.

He handed the horses to the soldier stirring the pot and squatted down by the fire next to the long-necked officer. That officer kept his gaze fixed on Dólokhov and again asked which regiment he belonged to. Dólokhov, as if he hadn’t heard, didn’t answer, but instead took out a short French pipe, lit it, and began asking how safe the road ahead was from Cossack attacks.

“Those bandits are everywhere,” replied an officer from behind the fire.

Dólokhov commented that Cossacks were only a threat to stragglers like him and his companion. “But I suppose they wouldn’t dare attack larger groups?” he added, sounding curious. No one responded.

“Well, now he’ll leave,” Pétya thought, standing by the campfire and listening to the conversation.

But Dólokhov restarted the conversation, now asking direct questions about the size of the battalion, the number of battalions, and how many prisoners they had. When asking about the Russian prisoners with the detachment, Dólokhov said:

“It’s awful dragging these corpses around! It would be better just to shoot this rabble,” and laughed loudly, so oddly that Pétya thought the French would instantly see through their disguise, and he instinctively stepped away from the fire.

No one responded to Dólokhov’s laughter, and a French officer, out of sight beneath a greatcoat, got up and whispered something to another.

Dólokhov stood and called to the soldier holding their horses.

“Will they bring our horses or not?” thought Pétya, moving closer to Dólokhov.

The horses were brought.

“Good evening, gentlemen,” said Dólokhov.

Pétya wanted to say “Good night,” but couldn’t get a word out. The officers were whispering among themselves. Dólokhov took a long time mounting his horse, which wouldn’t stand still, then he rode out of the yard at a slow pace. Pétya rode beside him, wishing he could look back to see whether or not the French were chasing them, but he didn’t dare.

When they reached the road, Dólokhov didn’t ride back across the open fields, but went through the village instead. At one point he stopped and listened. “Do you hear?” he asked. Pétya recognized the sounds of Russian voices and saw the dark figures of Russian prisoners gathered around their campfires. When they got down to the bridge, Pétya and Dólokhov rode past the sentry, who paced up and down silently and sullenly, then they descended into the hollow where the Cossacks were waiting for them.

“Well then, good-bye. Tell Denísov, ‘at the first shot at daybreak,’” said Dólokhov, about to ride off, but Pétya grabbed hold of him.

“Really!” he cried, “you’re such a hero! Oh, how great, how wonderful! How I love you!”

“All right, all right!” said Dólokhov. But Pétya still didn’t let go of him, and Dólokhov could see in the darkness that Pétya was leaning toward him, wanting to kiss him. Dólokhov kissed him, laughed, turned his horse, and disappeared into the darkness.

##  CHAPTER X

Having returned to the watchman’s hut, Pétya found Denísov in the passage. He was anxiously waiting for Pétya, agitated and blaming himself for having let him go.

“Thank God!” he exclaimed. “Yes, thank God!” he repeated, listening to Pétya’s excited account. “But, devil take you, I haven’t slept because of you! Well, thank God. Now lie down. We can still get some sleep before morning.”

“But… no,” said Pétya, “I don’t want to sleep yet. Besides, I know myself—if I fall asleep, that’s it. And I’m used to not sleeping before a battle.”

He sat in the hut for a while, happily recalling the details of his expedition and vividly imagining what would happen the next day.

Then, noticing that Denísov was asleep, he got up and went outside.

It was still completely dark. The rain had stopped, but drops were still falling from the trees. Near the watchman’s hut, the black shapes of the Cossacks’ shanties and the horses tethered together could be seen. Behind the hut, the dark outlines of the two wagons with their horses beside them were visible, and in the hollow, the dying campfire glowed red. Not all the Cossacks and hussars were asleep; here and there, amid the sound of falling drops and the chewing of nearby horses, low voices could be heard whispering.

Pétya went outside, peered into the darkness, and walked over to the wagons. Someone was snoring underneath, and around them stood saddled horses eating their oats. In the darkness Pétya recognized his own horse, which he called “Karabákh” even though it was of Ukrainian breed, and walked up to it.

“Well, Karabákh! We’re going to do something tomorrow,” he said, sniffing its nostrils and kissing it.

“Why aren’t you asleep, sir?” asked a Cossack who was sitting under a wagon.

“No, ah… Likhachëv—isn’t that your name? You know, I’ve only just come back! We were in the French camp.”

And Pétya gave the Cossack a detailed account not only of his ride but also of his purpose, and why he felt it was better to risk his life than to act “carelessly.”

“Well, you should get some sleep now,” said the Cossack.

“No, I’m used to this,” said Pétya. “Say, aren’t the flints in your pistols worn out? I brought some with me. Do you want any? You can have some.”

The Cossack leaned forward from under the wagon to get a better look at Pétya.

“Because I’m used to doing everything properly,” said Pétya. “Some people do things carelessly, without preparation, and then they regret it after. I don’t like that.”

“Just so,” said the Cossack.

“Oh yes, another thing! Please, my good fellow, can you sharpen my saber for me? It’s got bl…” (Pétya hesitated, not wanting to lie—the saber had never been sharpened.) “Can you do it?”

“Of course I can.”

Likhachëv got up, rummaged in his pack, and soon Pétya heard the martial sound of steel on a whetstone. He climbed onto the wagon and sat on its edge. The Cossack was sharpening the saber beneath the wagon.

“Say! Are the lads asleep?” asked Pétya.

“Some are, and some aren’t—like us.”

“What about that boy?”

“Vesénny? Oh, he threw himself down there in the passage. Fast asleep after his scare. He was really relieved!”

After that, Pétya was silent for a long time, listening to the sounds. He heard footsteps in the darkness and a black figure appeared.

“What are you sharpening?” asked a man coming up to the wagon.

“Why, this gentleman’s saber.”

“That’s right,” said the man, whom Pétya took to be a hussar. “Was the cup left here?”

“There, by the wheel!”

The hussar took the cup.

“It must be almost daylight,” he said, yawning, and walked away.

Pétya ought to have been aware that he was in a forest with Denísov’s guerrilla band, less than a mile from the road, sitting on a wagon captured from the French with horses tethered nearby, that under it was Likhachëv, sharpening a saber for him, that the large dark blotch to the right was the watchman’s hut, and the red spot below to the left was the dying embers of a campfire, that the man who came for the cup was a hussar wanting a drink; but he neither knew nor cared to know any of this. He was in a fairy-tale world where nothing resembled reality. The big dark blotch might really be the watchman’s hut or it might be a cave leading to the very depths of the earth. Perhaps the red spot was a fire, or it might be the eye of a giant monster. Maybe he was truly sitting on a wagon, but it might as easily be that he was sitting on a tremendously high tower from which, if he fell, he would be falling for a whole day or a whole month, or keep falling and never reach the ground. Maybe it was just the Cossack, Likhachëv, under the wagon, but perhaps it was the kindest, bravest, most wonderful, most splendid man in the world, whom no one knew. Perhaps the hussar had simply come for water and returned to the hollow, or maybe he had just vanished—completely disappeared into nothingness.

Nothing Pétya saw now could have surprised him. He was in a fantastical kingdom where anything was possible.

He looked up at the sky. The sky was as much a fairy world as the earth. It was clearing, and above the trees clouds were speeding by, as if uncovering the stars. Sometimes it looked like the clouds were passing, and a clear, black sky appeared. Sometimes it seemed the black spaces themselves were clouds. At times the sky seemed to rise far, far overhead, and at other times it seemed to lower itself so much that one could touch it with a hand.

Pétya’s eyes began to close, and he swayed a little.

The trees were still dripping. Quiet conversations could be heard. The horses neighed and jostled one another. Someone snored.

*“Ozheg-zheg, Ozheg-zheg…”* hissed the saber on the whetstone, and suddenly Pétya heard a harmonious orchestra playing an unknown, sweet, and solemn hymn. Pétya was as musical as Natásha, and more so than Nicholas, but he had never learned music or thought about it, so the melody that suddenly came to him seemed especially fresh and attractive. The music grew louder and clearer. The melody moved from one instrument to another. And what was played was a fugue—though Pétya had no idea what a fugue was. Each instrument—now like a violin and now like a horn, but better and clearer than either—played its part, and before it finished, another instrument began almost the same tune, then a third and a fourth; they all blended into one and again separated and again merged, at times into solemn church music, at times into something brilliant and triumphant.

“Oh—that must have been in a dream!” Pétya thought, as he lurched forward. “It’s ringing in my ears. But maybe it’s my own music. Well, keep playing, my music! Now!…”

He closed his eyes, and from all sides, as if from far away, sounds fluttered, turned into harmonies, split apart, merged again, and all together formed the same sweet and solemn hymn. “Oh, this is wonderful! As much as I want and just how I want!” thought Pétya. He tried to conduct that grand orchestra.

“Now softer, softer—fade away!” and the sounds obeyed him. “Now fuller, more joyful. Still more and more joyful!” And from some unknown depth, ever more triumphant sounds rose. “Now voices join in!” Pétya commanded. And at first, from far away, he heard men’s voices, then women’s. The voices swelled into harmonious, triumphant strength, and Pétya listened to their surpassing beauty in awe and joy.

With a solemn triumphal march, there blended a song, the dripping from the trees, and the hissing of the saber, *“Ozheg-zheg-zheg…”* and again the horses jostled and neighed, not disrupting the choir but joining in with it.

Pétya didn’t know how long this lasted: he enjoyed himself throughout, marveled at his happiness, and wished there was someone to share it with. He was brought back by Likhachëv’s kind voice.

“It’s ready, your honor; you could split a Frenchman in half with it!”

Pétya woke up.

“It’s getting light, it really is getting light!” he exclaimed.

The horses that had previously been invisible were now visible down to their very tails, and a watery light appeared through the bare branches. Pétya shook himself, jumped up, took a ruble from his pocket and gave it to Likhachëv; then he flourished the saber, tested it, and sheathed it. The Cossacks were untying their horses and tightening their saddle girths.

“And here’s the commander,” said Likhachëv.

Denísov came out of the watchman’s hut and, after calling Pétya, gave orders to get ready.

##  CHAPTER XI

The men quickly found their horses in the dim morning light, tightened their saddle girths, and formed companies. Denísov stood by the watchman’s hut giving final orders. The infantry of the detachment marched along the road and soon disappeared among the trees in the early dawn mist, hundreds of feet splashing through the mud. The *esaul* gave some orders to his men. Pétya held his horse by the bridle, impatiently waiting for the command to mount. His face, freshly washed in cold water, was glowing, and his eyes were especially bright. Cold shivers ran down his spine and his whole body pulsed rhythmically.

“Well, is everything ready?” asked Denísov. “Bring the horses.”

The horses were brought. Denísov was annoyed with the Cossack as the saddle girths were too loose, scolded him, and mounted. Pétya put his foot in the stirrup. His horse, out of habit, made as if to nip his leg, but Pétya quickly leapt into the saddle, not even aware of his own weight, and, turning to glance at the hussars forming up behind him, rode up to Denísov.

“Vasíli Dmítrich, give me some duty! Please… for God’s sake…!” he said.

Denísov seemed to have forgotten Pétya’s very existence. He turned to look at him.

“I ask just one thing of you,” he said sternly, “to obey me and not rush forward or get in the way.”

He said nothing else to Pétya but rode in silence the whole way. When they reached the forest’s edge, it was clearly becoming lighter over the fields. Denísov spoke in whispers with the *esaul* and the Cossacks rode past Pétya and Denísov. After they had all ridden by, Denísov prompted his horse and rode down the hill. The horses, slipping down on their haunches, descended with their riders into the ravine. Pétya rode beside Denísov, his body’s pulse quickening with excitement. It was getting brighter, but the mist still hid distant objects from view. When they reached the valley, Denísov glanced back and nodded to a nearby Cossack.

“The signal!” he said.

The Cossack raised his arm and a shot rang out. Immediately, the sound of galloping horses filled the air, shouts erupted from all sides, and then more shots.

At the very first sound of trampling hooves and shouting, Pétya lashed his horse and, loosening the reins, galloped forward, ignoring Denísov, who shouted at him. Pétya felt that at the moment the shot was fired, it suddenly became as bright as midday. He galloped toward the bridge. There were Cossacks riding ahead of him on the road. On the bridge, he collided with a Cossack who had lagged behind, but he pressed on. In front of him, soldiers—likely Frenchmen—were running across the road from right to left. One of them slipped in the mud under his horse’s hooves.

Cossacks clustered near a hut, busy with something. Suddenly, terrible screams rose from the center of that crowd. Pétya galloped up, and the first thing he saw was the pale face and shaking jaw of a Frenchman, gripping the handle of a lance pointed at him.

“Hurrah!… Lads!… ours!” shouted Pétya, and, giving rein to his excited horse, he dashed forward along the village street.

He could hear gunfire ahead. Cossacks, hussars, and ragged Russian prisoners—who had come running from both sides of the road—were shouting loudly and incoherently. A bold-looking Frenchman, in a blue overcoat, capless, and with a flushed, stern face, was defending himself against the hussars. When Pétya came up, the Frenchman had already fallen. “Too late again!” flashed through Pétya’s mind and he galloped on toward the source of the rapid firing. The shots were coming from the yard of the landowner’s house he had visited with Dólokhov the night before. There, French soldiers had taken up a position behind a wattle fence in a garden thick with bushes and were firing at the Cossacks gathering at the gate. Through the smoke as he neared, Pétya saw Dólokhov, his face pale-greenish, shouting orders to his men. “Go around! Wait for the infantry!” he yelled as Pétya approached him.

“Wait?… Hurrah-ah-ah!” shouted Pétya, and without pausing, rode directly toward the thickest smoke and the sound of the shots.

A volley rang out, and bullets whistled past, some of them slapping into something. The Cossacks and Dólokhov charged after Pétya through the gateway of the yard. In the swirling smoke, some of the French threw down their arms and came running out of the bushes to meet the Cossacks, while others fled down the hill toward the pond. Pétya was galloping through the yard, but instead of holding the reins, he was waving both arms rapidly and oddly, slipping sideways farther and farther in his saddle. His horse, stopping abruptly at a campfire that smoldered in the early light, caused Pétya to fall hard onto the wet ground. The Cossacks saw that his arms and legs twitched violently, though his head was still. A bullet had pierced his skull.

After talking to the senior French officer—who came out of the house with a white handkerchief tied to his sword, declaring their surrender—Dólokhov dismounted and went over to Pétya, who lay motionless, arms stretched out.

“Done for!” he said with a frown, then turned toward the gate to meet Denísov who was riding toward him.

“Killed?” cried Denísov, recognizing from a distance the unmistakably lifeless pose—so familiar to him—in which Pétya’s body lay.

“Done for!” repeated Dólokhov, as if saying the words brought him satisfaction, and he quickly went to the prisoners, who were already surrounded by Cossacks running up. “We won’t take them!” he shouted to Denísov.

Denísov didn’t answer; he rode up to Pétya, dismounted, and with trembling hands turned toward himself the bloodstained, mud-splattered face, already white.

“I am used to something sweet. Raisins, fine ones… take them all!” he remembered Pétya’s words. And the Cossacks looked around in surprise at the cry, almost like a dog’s yelp, with which Denísov turned away, walked to the wattle fence, and grabbed it.

Among the Russian prisoners rescued by Denísov and Dólokhov was Pierre Bezúkhov.

##  CHAPTER XII

During their entire march from Moscow, no new orders had been given by the French authorities regarding the group of prisoners that included Pierre. On October twenty-second, this group was no longer with the original troops and baggage trains they had left Moscow with. Half of the wagons packed with hardtack that had accompanied them at first had been seized by Cossacks, while the other half had gone on ahead. Not a single one of those dismounted cavalrymen who had marched ahead of the prisoners remained; they had all vanished. The artillery the prisoners had seen before had now been replaced by Marshal Junot’s enormous baggage train, guarded by Westphalians. Behind the prisoners came a cavalry baggage train.

After Vyázma, the French army, which had previously moved in three columns, continued as one large group. The signs of disorder Pierre had noticed at their first stop after leaving Moscow had now reached their peak.

The road they followed was lined on both sides with dead horses; ragged men, stragglers from various regiments, constantly changed position—sometimes joining the moving column, then falling behind again.

Several times during the march, false alarms broke out, and the escort soldiers would raise their muskets, fire, and run wildly, trampling each other, only to regroup afterwards and scold one another for their needless panic.

These three groups traveling together—the cavalry stores, the prisoners’ convoy, and Junot’s baggage train—still formed a separate and united whole, though each was rapidly shrinking.

Of the artillery baggage train, which had originally been a hundred and twenty wagons, no more than sixty remained; the rest had been captured or abandoned. Some of Junot’s wagons had also been seized or left behind. Three wagons had been looted by stragglers from Davout’s corps. From the Germans’ conversations, Pierre learned that more guards had been assigned to Junot’s baggage train than to the prisoners, and that a German soldier had been executed by order of the marshal himself because a silver spoon belonging to the marshal was found on him.

The group of prisoners had dwindled most of all. Of the three hundred and thirty who had set out from Moscow, fewer than a hundred now remained. The prisoners were a greater burden to the escort than the cavalry saddles or Junot’s baggage. They understood that the saddles and Junot’s spoon might be useful, but they could not see why starving and freezing soldiers had to guard equally cold and hungry Russians who lagged behind (in which case, the order was to shoot them). Not only was this incomprehensible, it was appalling. And the escort, perhaps fearing that in their own miserable state they might give in to pity and make their own suffering worse, treated the prisoners with particular surliness and severity.

At Dorogobúzh, while the escort soldiers, after locking the prisoners in a stable, went off to plunder their own stores, several soldier prisoners tunneled through the wall and escaped, but they were recaptured by the French and shot.

The original arrangement to keep officer prisoners separate had long been abandoned. Now, anyone who could walk did so together, and after the third stage, Pierre was reunited with Karatáev and the gray-blue, bandy-legged dog that had chosen Karatáev as its master.

On the third day after leaving Moscow, Karatáev became ill once more with the fever he’d had in the Moscow hospital. As he grew steadily weaker, Pierre kept his distance. He didn’t know why, but since Karatáev had started to weaken, Pierre found it difficult to be near him. If he did approach and heard the quiet moaning with which Karatáev usually laid down to rest, or smelled the stronger odor coming from him, Pierre would keep farther away and avoid thinking about him.

While locked in the shed, Pierre had learned—not intellectually, but through life itself—that people are made for happiness, that happiness comes from fulfilling simple human needs, and that unhappiness doesn’t come from poverty but from excess. And now, during these last three weeks of the march, he had learned yet another comforting truth—that nothing in this world is truly terrible. He learned that just as there is no condition where a person can be perfectly happy and free, there is also no condition where he must be entirely unhappy or unfree. He saw that both suffering and freedom have their limits, and those limits are very close together; the one who lay on a bed of roses tormented by a single wrinkled petal suffered just as much as he did now, sleeping on the cold, damp ground with one side warming by the fire while the other chilled; and that when he had worn tight dancing shoes, his discomfort was much the same as now, walking barefoot with feet sore and covered in sores—his shoes had long since fallen apart. He realized that when he’d married his wife—supposedly by his own choice—he had been no more free than he was now, locked up each night in a stable. Of all his later so-called sufferings (which, at the time, he barely noticed), the worst was the condition of his bare, raw, and scab-covered feet. (The horseflesh was tasty and nourishing, and the gunpowder they used for salt had an oddly pleasant flavor; the days weren’t too cold because marching kept him warm, and at night there were campfires; even the lice warm his body.) The only thing at first truly hard to bear was the pain in his feet.

After the second day’s march, Pierre examined his feet at the campfire and thought it would be impossible to walk further; but when everyone got up, he limped along, and after warming up, walked without feeling pain, though at night his feet looked worse. By then, he no longer looked at them, but focused on other things.

Only now did Pierre fully appreciate the incredible strength of life in a person, and the saving ability people have to focus on something else, like the safety valve in a boiler that lets off excess steam when the pressure gets too high.

He did not see or hear how they shot the prisoners who lagged behind, though over a hundred died that way. He didn’t think about Karatáev, who grew weaker every day and would soon likely share that fate. Least of all did Pierre think of himself. The harsher his situation and the bleaker the future, the more independent he became of his surroundings, as happy and comforting thoughts, memories, and imaginations came to him.

##  CHAPTER XIII

At midday on October twenty-second, Pierre was walking uphill along a muddy, slippery road, staring at his feet and the rough track ahead. Now and then he glanced at the familiar people around him, then back at his feet. Both were equally familiar—both were, in a sense, his own. The blue-gray, bandy-legged dog ran happily along the roadside, sometimes showing off by hopping on three legs, then going along on all four, occasionally running to bark at crows on the carrion. The dog was livelier and sleeker than it had been in Moscow. All around were the remains of various animals—from men to horses—at different stages of decay. Since the wolves were kept away by the humans, the dog could eat as much as it liked.

It had been raining since morning and seemed as if it might stop at any moment, but each pause was followed by heavier rain. The saturated road could no longer absorb the water, which now ran in streams along the ruts.

Pierre kept walking, looking side to side, counting his steps in groups of three and tallying them off on his fingers. Speaking to the rain in his mind, he repeated: “Come on, come on, rain harder!”

It felt to him as if he was thinking about nothing, but deep inside, his soul was focused on something important and comforting. This was a subtle spiritual reflection that had grown out of a conversation with Karatáev the day before.

At the last night’s halt, feeling chilled by a dying campfire, Pierre had gotten up and moved to a better one. There, Platón Karatáev was sitting, wrapped—head and all—in his greatcoat like a robe, telling the soldiers in his pleasant, though now feeble, voice, a story Pierre recognized. It was already past midnight, the time when Karatáev was usually free from fever and especially lively. When Pierre arrived and heard Platón’s weakened voice and saw his sorrowful face lit up by the flames, he felt a sharp pang of pity. His compassion for Karatáev unsettled him and he wanted to leave, but there was no other fire, so Pierre sat down, trying not to look at Platón.

“Well, how are you?” he asked.

“How am I? If we complain about sickness, God won’t grant us death,” Karatáev replied, immediately going back to his story.

“So, brother,” he continued, with a smile on his pale, emaciated face and an especially joyful spark in his eyes, “you see, brother…”

Pierre had heard the story many times before—Karatáev had told it to him alone at least half a dozen times, always with a special joy. But even though he knew it well, Pierre listened as though it were new, and he absorbed the quiet happiness Karatáev clearly felt while telling it. The story was about an old merchant who lived a good, God-fearing life with his family and went to the Nízhni fair with a companion—a wealthy merchant.

After finding lodging at an inn, they both went to sleep, and in the morning his companion was found robbed and murdered. A bloodstained knife was found under the old merchant’s pillow. He was tried, flogged, his nostrils torn, “all in due form,” as Karatáev put it, and sent to hard labor in Siberia.

“So, brother” (this was when Pierre arrived), “more than ten years passed. The old man lived among convicts, doing as he should and never doing harm. But he prayed to God for death. Well, one night, the convicts were all gathered, just like we are, with the old man among them. They began sharing what each was punished for, and how each had sinned. One admitted to killing, another to killing two, a third to arson, and someone else said he was simply a vagrant and hadn't done anything. Then they asked the old man: ‘What are you being punished for, Daddy?’ ‘I, my dear brothers,’ he said, ‘am suffering for my own and other men’s sins. I have not killed anyone or taken anything that wasn’t mine, but only helped the poor. I was a merchant, my dear brothers, and had plenty of goods.’ He told them all about it. ‘I don’t grieve for myself; it seems God chose to chasten me. I only feel sorry for my old wife and children,’ and then he began to cry. Now it happened that among them was the very man who had killed the other merchant. ‘Where did it happen, Daddy?’ he asked. ‘When, and what month?’ He questioned him about everything and felt pain in his heart. Then he approached the old man and lay down at his feet, saying: ‘You’re suffering because of me, Daddy. It’s true, friends, this man is suffering for nothing! I did that deed and put the knife under your head while you slept. Forgive me, Daddy, for Christ’s sake!’”

Karatáev paused, smiling with joy as he looked into the fire and poked the logs together.

“And the old man said, ‘God will forgive you. We are all sinners before Him. I suffer for my own sins,’ and he cried bitterly. Well, and what do you think, friends?” Karatáev continued, his face beaming with a rapturous smile, as if the best and most meaningful part was still ahead: “What do you think, dear fellows? That murderer confessed to the authorities. ‘I have killed six people,’ he said (he was a great sinner), ‘but what pains me most is this old man. Don't let him suffer for my crime.’ He confessed, and it was all written down and the papers sent off the right way. It was far away, and with all the bureaucracy—filling the paperwork as they should—time passed. The affair reached the Tsar. Later, the Tsar’s decree arrived: to free the merchant and pay him the compensation he was due. The paper came and they began to search for the old man. ‘Where’s the old man who suffered without guilt? There’s a paper from the Tsar!’ they cried. Karatáev’s lower jaw quivered, “but God had already forgiven him—he was dead! That’s how it was, friends!” Karatáev finished and sat for a long time in silence, gazing before him with a smile.

Pierre’s spirit was dimly yet joyfully filled, not by the story but by its mysterious significance: by the radiant joy that shone on Karatáev’s face as he told it, and the mystical importance of that joy.

##  CHAPTER XIV

*"À vos places!"* \* a voice suddenly cried.

\* “To your places.”

A pleasant feeling of excitement and an expectation of something joyful and solemn arose among the soldiers of the convoy and the prisoners. Orders were shouted from all sides, and from the left, well-groomed cavalrymen on fine horses trotted past the prisoners. The look on everyone’s face revealed the tension people feel when someone in authority is approaching. The prisoners crowded together and were pushed off the road. The convoy lined up in formation.

"The Emperor! The Emperor! The Marshal! The Duke!" was whispered, and just after the sleek cavalry had passed, a carriage drawn by six gray horses rattled by. Pierre caught a glimpse of a man in a three-cornered hat with a calm expression on his handsome, plump, pale face. It was one of the marshals. His eyes landed on Pierre’s large and striking frame, and in the way he frowned and looked away, Pierre thought he recognized both sympathy and an effort to hide it.

The general in charge of the supplies galloped after the carriage, his face red and frightened as he whipped on his skinny horse. Several officers gathered together, and some soldiers crowded around them. Their faces all looked excited and anxious.

"What did he say? What did he say?" Pierre heard them ask.

While the marshal passed, the prisoners had huddled together in a group, and Pierre caught sight of Karatáev, whom he had not yet seen that morning. Karatáev sat in his short overcoat, leaning against a birch tree. On his face, along with the joyful emotion he’d had yesterday while telling the story of the merchant who suffered innocently, there was now an expression of quiet solemnity.

Karatáev looked at Pierre with his gentle, round eyes, now brimming with tears, clearly wishing Pierre would come close so he could say something. But Pierre didn’t feel sure of himself. He pretended not to notice the look and hurried away.

Once the prisoners started moving again, Pierre looked back. Karatáev was still sitting under the birch tree at the side of the road, and two Frenchmen were talking over his head. Pierre did not look back again but limped up the hill.

From behind, where Karatáev had been sitting, a gunshot rang out. Pierre heard it clearly, but at that moment he remembered he hadn’t finished calculating how many stages were left to Smolensk—a count he started before the marshal passed by. So he began counting again. Two French soldiers ran past Pierre; one was holding a lowered, still-smoking gun. Both men looked pale, and their faces—one of them sneaking a timid glance at Pierre—reminded Pierre of the young soldier’s expression at the execution. Pierre remembered that, just two days earlier, that same man had burned his shirt while drying it near the fire, and they’d all laughed.

Behind him, where Karatáev had sat, the dog began to howl. "What a foolish animal! Why is it howling?" Pierre wondered.

Pierre’s fellow prisoners walking beside him also avoided looking back at the place where the shot had been fired and the dog was howling, just as Pierre did, but all their faces looked set and determined.

##  CHAPTER XV

The supplies, the prisoners, and the marshal’s baggage stopped at the village of Shámshevo. The men crowded around the campfires. Pierre went to the fire, ate some roasted horseflesh, lay down with his back to the fire, and immediately fell asleep. He slept again as he had back at Mozháysk after the battle of Borodinó.

Again, real events mixed with dreams, and again someone—himself or another—expressed his thoughts, even the very same thoughts he had dreamed at Mozháysk.

"Life is everything. Life is God. Everything changes and moves, and that movement is God. And as long as there is life, there is joy in feeling the divine. To love life is to love God. Harder and more blessed than anything is to love this life in one’s sufferings, in innocent suffering."

"Karatáev!" came to Pierre’s mind.

Suddenly, before him appeared a vivid memory of a long-forgotten, kind old man who had taught him geography in Switzerland. "Wait a bit," said the old man, showing Pierre a globe. This globe was alive—a vibrating ball with no fixed size. Its entire surface was made up of closely packed drops, and all those drops moved and changed places, sometimes several merging into one, sometimes one dividing into many. Each drop tried to spread out and take up as much space as it could, but the others, trying to do the same, squeezed it, sometimes destroyed it, sometimes merged with it.

"That is life," said the old teacher.

"How simple and clear it is," Pierre thought. "How did I not know it before?"

"God is at the center, and each drop tries to expand to reflect Him as much as possible. And it grows, merges, vanishes from the surface, sinks to the depths, and appears again. See now, Karatáev has spread out and disappeared. Do you understand, my child?" said the teacher.

"Do you understand, damn you?" shouted a voice, and Pierre woke up.

He sat up. A Frenchman who had just pushed a Russian soldier aside was squatting by the fire, roasting a piece of meat on a ramrod. His sleeves were rolled up, and his rough, hairy, red hands with their short fingers expertly spun the ramrod. His brown, sullen face with frowning brows was highlighted by the glow from the coals.

"It’s all the same to him," he muttered, turning quickly to a soldier who stood behind him. "Thief! Get away!"

Twisting the ramrod, he looked gloomily at Pierre, who turned away and stared into the darkness. A prisoner, the Russian soldier the Frenchman had pushed aside, was sitting near the fire, patting something. On closer look, Pierre recognized the blue-gray dog sitting by the soldier, wagging its tail.

"Ah, he’s come?" said Pierre. "And Plat—" he started, but didn’t finish.

All at once, a flood of memories washed over him—the look Karatáev gave him as he sat under the tree, the gunshot from that spot, the dog’s howl, the guilty faces of the two Frenchmen as they ran past, the lowered and smoking gun, and Karatáev’s absence at this stop. He was about to realize Karatáev had been killed when, for some reason, he suddenly remembered a summer evening spent with a beautiful Polish woman on the veranda of his house in Kiev. Without connecting the day’s events or drawing any conclusion, Pierre closed his eyes, picturing a view of the summer countryside mixed with memories of swimming and the living, vibrating globe, and he sank into water so that it closed over his head.

Before sunrise, he was awakened by shouts and loud, rapid gunfire. French soldiers rushed past him.

"The Cossacks!" someone shouted, and a moment later a group of Russians surrounded Pierre.

For a long time, he couldn’t grasp what was happening to him. Around him, his fellow prisoners sobbed with joy.

"Brothers! Dear fellows! Darlings!" old soldiers cried, weeping as they embraced Cossacks and hussars.

The hussars and Cossacks gathered around the prisoners—one offered clothes, another boots, another bread. Pierre sobbed as he sat among them, unable to speak. He hugged the first soldier who approached, kissing him through tears.

Dólokhov stood by the gate of the ruined house, letting a stream of disarmed Frenchmen march past. The French, still shaken and excited by all that had happened, spoke loudly among themselves, but whenever they passed Dólokhov—who lightly flicked his boots with his whip and watched them with cold, glassy eyes full of menace—they fell silent. On the opposite side stood Dólokhov’s Cossack, counting the prisoners and marking off each hundred with a line of chalk on the gate.

"How many?" Dólokhov asked the Cossack.

"The second hundred," replied the Cossack.

*"Filez, filez!"* \* Dólokhov kept repeating, having picked up the phrase from the French, and whenever his eyes met a prisoner’s, they glinted with a cruel light.

\* “Get along, get along!”

Denísov, bareheaded and grim, walked behind some Cossacks who carried the body of Pétya Rostóv to a grave dug in the garden.

##  CHAPTER XVI

After October twenty-eighth, when the frosts began, the French retreat became even more tragic—men froze to death or burned themselves at the campfires, while carriages full of people dressed in furs rolled by, taking away the property looted by the Emperor, kings, and dukes. Yet, the process of flight and the collapse of the French army continued much as before.

From Moscow to Vyázma, the French army went from seventy-three thousand men—not counting the Guards (who spent the whole war looting rather than fighting)—down to thirty-six thousand, even though no more than five thousand had died in battle. Starting from that, the reduction of the army could be calculated mathematically: the army dwindled away at the same rate from Moscow to Vyázma, from Vyázma to Smolénsk, from Smolénsk to the Berëzina, and from the Berëzina to Vílna—regardless of the cold, the pursuit, roadblocks, or other circumstances. Beyond Vyázma, the French stopped marching in three columns and crowded together into one mass, remaining that way until the end. Berthier wrote to the Emperor (and we know how much commanding officers tend to stray from the truth when describing an army’s condition), and this is what he said:

I feel it my duty to report to Your Majesty the condition of the various corps I have observed during different stages of the last two or three days’ march. They are almost disbanded. Hardly a quarter of the soldiers remain with their regimental standards; the rest have scattered in search of food and to avoid discipline. Generally, they see Smolénsk as the place where they hope to recover. In the last few days, many have thrown away their cartridges and arms. With things as they are, whatever your ultimate plans may be, Your Majesty’s service demands that the army be gathered at Smolénsk and first relieved of the ineffective, such as dismounted cavalry, extra baggage, and artillery no longer proportionate to the current forces. The soldiers, worn out with hunger and exhaustion, need these supplies and a few days’ rest. Many have died in the past few days on the road or at the camps. Things keep getting worse and unless something is done soon, there’s reason to fear that the troops will no longer be under control if a battle occurs.

November 9: twenty miles from Smolénsk.

When they finally struggled into Smolénsk, which seemed to them a promised land, the French, desperate for food, killed each other, looted their own stores, and, after everything had been plundered, fled farther.

They all left without knowing where or why. Least of all did that supposed genius, Napoleon, know, for no orders were given to him. Yet, he and those around him clung to old habits: writing instructions, letters, reports, and orders of the day; addressing one another as *sire, mon cousin, prince d’Eckmühl, roi de Naples,* and so on. But these orders and reports remained only on paper; none of them were acted upon, since they couldn’t be. Though they still called each other Majesties, Highnesses, and Cousins, they all felt like wretched men who had done great evil and now had to answer for it. While they pretended to worry about the army, each was thinking only of himself—how to escape quickly and save himself.

##  CHAPTER XVII

The movements of the Russian and French armies during the retreat from Moscow back to the Niemen were like a game of Russian blindman's buff, where two players are blindfolded and one of them rings a bell to reveal his position. At first, the bell is rung boldly, but when things get tense, the player sneaks away as quietly as possible and, trying to escape, often runs straight into his opponent.

At first, while retreating on the Kalúga road, Napoleon’s troops gave away their position; later, once they switched to the Smolénsk road, they muffled their “bell”—and, thinking they were escaping, often ran straight into the Russians.

Because of the speed of the French retreat, the Russian pursuit, and the resulting exhaustion of horses, the main way to estimate the enemy’s position—cavalry scouting—was useless. On top of that, the frequent, fast changes of position meant even the information they obtained couldn’t be delivered in time. If they got news one day that the enemy had been in a certain location the day before, by the third day when anything could have been done, the other army was already two days’ march away, somewhere utterly different.

One army fled; the other pursued. Beyond Smolénsk, the French could have taken several roads, and you’d expect that after halting for four days, they would have figured out the enemy’s position, considered a better plan, and tried something new. Still, after four days resting, the mob, without any maneuvers or plans, set off again along the main road—the same old, worst road, through Krásnoe and Orshá, not turning aside.

Expecting pursuit from behind, not from the front, the French scattered in flight, spread out over a twenty-four-hour stretch. Leading the way were the Emperor, then the kings, then the dukes. The Russian army, expecting Napoleon to turn right past the Dnieper—the only logical thing to do—also turned right and ended up at Krásnoe, on the highroad ahead of him. Here, as in blindman’s buff, the French ran into the Russian vanguard. Caught off guard, the French were thrown into confusion and froze in fear but soon resumed their flight, abandoning those behind. Then, for three days, separate parts of the French army—first Murat’s (the vice-king’s), then Davout’s, and then Ney’s—ran, as if running the gauntlet of the Russian army. They abandoned each other, left behind their heavy baggage and artillery, lost half their men, and escaped past the Russians at night by making wide circles to the right.

Ney, who was in the rear, spent his time blowing up the walls of Smolénsk—which was pointless, since the walls were in no one’s way—simply because, despite their desperate situation, the French wanted to take revenge on whatever had hurt them. Ney, who had started with a corps of ten thousand, rejoined Napoleon at Orshá with only a thousand men, having left behind everyone else and all his guns, and having crossed the Dnieper in secret at night through a wooded spot.

From Orshá, the retreat continued towards Vílna, still playing at blindman’s buff with the pursuing force. At the Berëzina, chaos struck again—many drowned or surrendered, but those who managed to cross kept fleeing. The supreme commander threw on a fur coat, climbed into a sleigh, and sped off alone, abandoning his companions. Those who were able did the same, leaving everyone else to surrender or die.

##  CHAPTER XVIII

This campaign was, in essence, the flight of the French, in which they did everything possible to destroy themselves. From the moment they turned onto the Kalúga road until their leader deserted the army, none of the mob’s movements made any sense. You might think that for this part of the campaign, historians—who claim that the actions of masses are guided by the will of one man—would not be able to fit the story of the retreat into their theory. Yet, no! Mountains of books have been written about this campaign, all describing Napoleon’s arrangements, his brilliant maneuvers, and the genius of his marshals.

The retreat from Málo-Yaroslávets—when Napoleon had a clear path into a well-supplied district and another open road (the one that Kutúzov later used in pursuit)—this pointless retreat along a desolate road is justified to us by references to “profound considerations.” Similarly profound reasons are given for the retreat from Smolénsk to Orshá. Then, we’re told of his heroism at Krásnoe: we read that Napoleon was prepared to give battle, to take personal command, and that he walked around with a birch stick, declaring:

*“J’ai assez fait l’empereur; il est temps de faire le général,”* \* but despite this, soon ran away again, abandoning to their fate what fragments of the army remained behind.

\* “I have acted the Emperor long enough; it is time to act the general.”

We also hear of the “greatness of soul” of the marshals, especially Ney—his greatness allegedly shown in making his way at night through the woods and over the Dnieper to Orshá, while abandoning standards, guns, and ninety percent of his men.

Finally, the historians present Napoleon’s final departure from his heroic army as something remarkable and characteristic of genius. Even his running away—which, in plain language, is a depth of baseness children are taught to be ashamed of—this too the historians excuse.

When historical reasoning can be stretched no further, when actions clearly go against everything humanity calls decent or just, historians bring in the idea of “greatness.” Evidently, “greatness” cancels any standard of right and wrong. For a “great” person, nothing is wrong—no atrocity is too much to forgive.

*“C’est grand!”* \* the historians declare, and now there’s no more good or evil—only what is *“grand”* or not. *Grand* is good, not *grand* is bad. In their view, “grand” is the special mark of certain beings called “heroes.” And Napoleon, escaping home in a warm fur coat and leaving behind not just comrades, but people he himself brought there, feels *que c’est grand*, \*(2) and his conscience is at peace.

\* “It is great.”

\* (2) That it is great.

*“Du sublime* (he saw something sublime in himself) *au ridicule il n’y a qu’un pas,”* \* he said. And for fifty years, the world has repeated: *“Sublime! Grand! Napoléon le Grand!” Du sublime au ridicule il n’y a qu’un pas.*

\* “From the sublime to the ridiculous is but a step.”

No one seems to notice that to accept a greatness not measured by standards of right and wrong is simply an admission of one’s own emptiness and smallness.

For those of us with the standard of good and evil given by Christ, no human action is so great it can’t be measured. And there is no greatness without simplicity, goodness, and truth.

##  CHAPTER XIX

What Russian, reading about the final stage of the 1812 campaign, hasn’t felt uneasy, dissatisfied, or confused? Who hasn’t wondered how it was that the French weren’t entirely captured or destroyed when our three armies surrounded them with superior numbers, while the disorganized French, starving and freezing, surrendered in masses, and when (as historians say) the Russians’ goal was to stop, cut off, and capture all the French?

Why is it that the Russian army, which fought at Borodinó when it was outnumbered by the French, didn’t succeed in its goal when it had the French surrounded on three sides and aimed to capture them? Were the French really so much stronger than us that, even when we outnumbered them, we couldn't defeat them? How could this happen?

History (or what goes by that name) answers these questions by claiming that it happened because Kutúzov and Tormásov and Chichagóv, and others, failed to carry out certain maneuvers….

But why did they not carry out those maneuvers? And if they failed to execute a planned strategy, why weren’t they tried and punished? Even if we accept that Kutúzov, Chichagóv, and others were responsible for the Russian failures, it’s still unclear why, given the Russian army’s position at Krásnoe and the Berëzina (both times we had more troops), the French army—with its marshals, kings, and Emperor—wasn’t captured, if that was what the Russians intended.

The explanation given by Russian military historians—that Kutúzov prevented an attack—is baseless, since we know he couldn’t stop the troops from attacking at Vyázma and Tarútino.

Why was it that the Russian army—which faced the enemy’s full strength at Borodinó with fewer men—failed at Krásnoe and the Berëzina against the weakened French forces, even when it had the upper hand?

If the Russians’ goal was to cut off and capture Napoleon and his marshals—and if that goal was not just missed, but all attempts at it were completely foiled—then this last stage of the campaign is, quite rightly to the French, seen as a series of victories, and is mistakenly considered victorious by Russian historians.

Russian military historians, to the extent they stick to logical arguments, must accept that conclusion, and despite their emotional writings about valor, devotion, and so on, must reluctantly admit that the French retreat from Moscow was a series of victories for Napoleon and defeats for Kutúzov.

But if we put national pride completely aside, we feel such a conclusion is contradictory, since these so-called French victories led to their total destruction, while the supposed Russian defeats resulted in the ruin of their enemy and the liberation of their homeland.

The root of this contradiction is that historians, studying letters from sovereigns and generals, memoirs, reports, plans, and so on, have attributed to this last stage of the 1812 war a goal that never really existed—namely, that of cutting off and capturing Napoleon with his marshals and army.

There never was, nor could there have been, such a goal; it would have been senseless and completely impossible to achieve.

It would have been foolish, first of all, because Napoleon’s disorganized army was fleeing Russia as fast as possible—which is exactly what every Russian hoped for. What sense did it make to launch operations against the French when they were already escaping as quickly as they could?

Secondly, it would have been foolish to try to block the escape of men who wanted nothing more than to run away.

Third, it would have been absurd to risk our own troops to destroy the French army, which was destroying itself so quickly, even without any interference, that by December, though their retreat was unobstructed, only about one percent of the original French army made it across the border.

Fourth, it would have been pointless to want to capture the Emperor, kings, and dukes—their capture would have been a great embarrassment for the Russians, as the most skilled diplomats of that era (Joseph de Maistre and others) realized. Still more unreasonable was the desire to capture French army corps, when our own army had already shrunk to half its size before reaching Krásnoe and an entire division would have been needed just to guard the prisoners. Meanwhile, our men weren’t always fed properly, and the prisoners we already had were dying of hunger.

All the grand plans to cut off and capture Napoleon and his army were like the plan of a gardener who, after a cow has trampled his garden beds, runs to the gate to hit the cow on the head. The only excuse for the gardener would be that he was angry. But even that doesn’t apply to those who proposed these plans, since it wasn’t they who suffered from the destroyed garden.

But aside from being senseless, trying to cut off Napoleon’s army was also impossible.

It was impossible first because—as we know from experience, a three-mile movement of troops in battle never goes as planned—the chance of Chichagóv, Kutúzov, and Wittgenstein meeting at a specific time and place was so small that it was essentially impossible, as Kutúzov himself thought, noting that maneuvers planned at great distances never produce the desired outcome.

Secondly, it was impossible because stopping the momentum with which Napoleon’s army was escaping would have needed far larger forces than the Russians had.

Third, it was impossible because the military term "to cut off" has no real meaning. You can cut off a piece of bread, but not an army. To cut off an army—to block its way—is impossible, because there’s always space to avoid capture, and there are nights when nothing can be seen, as military theorists could tell from the examples of Krásnoe and the Berëzina. It’s only possible to capture prisoners if they’re willing, just as you can only catch a swallow if it lands on your hand. Men can be taken prisoner only if they surrender according to military customs and tactics, as the Germans did. But the French, understandably, didn’t think this suited them, since they faced death by hunger and cold whether they ran or surrendered.

Fourth and above all, it was impossible because no war in history had ever been fought in conditions like those of 1812, and the Russian army, in its pursuit of the French, exhausted itself completely and couldn’t have done any more without destroying itself.

From Tarútino to Krásnoe, the Russian army lost fifty thousand through illness or as stragglers, equal to the population of a large provincial town. Half the men dropped out without a battle.

And it’s about this part of the campaign—when the army lacked boots and sheepskins, had little food or vodka, camped outside for months with only sheepskin coats in fifteen-degree frosts, when daylight lasted just seven or eight hours and it was dark the rest of the time, making discipline hard to keep up, when the men entered a zone where discipline failed, not for hours but for months, constantly fighting death from hunger and cold, and half the army died in a single month—that historians tell us how Milorádovich should have marched here, Tormásov there, Chichagóv should have crossed (in snow deeper than their knees) to somewhere else, and how this or that leader “routed” and “cut off” the French, and so on.

The Russians, half of whom perished, did everything they could and should have done to reach a goal worthy of the nation, and cannot be blamed because others, sitting in warm rooms, demanded that they do the impossible.

This odd contradiction—now hard to understand—between the facts and the historical accounts exists only because historians have written the history of generals’ impressive words and feelings, not the history of the actual events.

To them, the words of Milorádovich are interesting, as are their guesses and the awards this or that general received. But the fate of those fifty thousand men left in hospitals or graves doesn’t interest them; it’s outside the scope of their studies.

Yet if you set aside the study of reports and general plans, and instead look at the movements of the hundreds of thousands who were really involved, all the seemingly unanswerable questions are easily and simply resolved.

The idea of cutting off Napoleon and his army existed only in a few people’s imaginations. It could never exist, because it was senseless and could not be achieved.

The people had only one goal: to free their land from invaders. This was accomplished, first, simply by the French fleeing, so there was no need to stop their retreat; second, by guerrilla warfare, which destroyed the French; and third, by the large Russian army following the French, ready to act if they stopped moving.

The Russian army had to act like a whip behind a running animal. And the experienced driver knew that it was better to keep the whip raised as a warning than to strike the animal on the head.

##  BOOK FIFTEEN: 1812 - 13

##  CHAPTER I

When a man sees a dying animal, he feels a sense of horror—something made of the same substance as himself is perishing before his eyes. But when it is a beloved, close human being who is dying, beyond this horror at the extinction of life, there is a sense of severance, a spiritual wound. Like a physical wound, this injury can sometimes be fatal and sometimes heal, but it always aches and flinches at any external aggravation.

After Prince Andrew’s death, Natásha and Princess Mary both felt this way. Spiritually exhausted and unable to face life, they shrank from the menacing shadow of death that hovered over them. They vigilantly shielded their exposed wounds from any rough or painful contact. Everything—a carriage hastily passing in the street, a summons to dinner, the maid asking what dress to prepare, or even worse, any word of forced or feeble sympathy—felt insulting and painfully aggravated their wound, disrupting the quiet they needed as they tried to listen to the stern and dreadful choir still echoing in their minds and to contemplate those mysterious, endless horizons that had briefly opened before them.

Only when they were alone together did they feel free from such pain and intrusion. They spoke little even to each other, and when they did, it was only about trivial matters.

Both avoided any mention of the future. To admit even the possibility of a future felt to them like an insult to his memory. Still more carefully did they avoid anything relating to the one who had died. It seemed to them that what they had endured and experienced could not be put into words, and any reference to the details of his life would violate the majesty and sanctity of the mystery that had taken place before their eyes.

Their continued silence, and the constant avoidance of anything that might bring up the subject—this careful stopping at the edge of what could not be mentioned—brought into even sharper focus what they both were feeling.

But pure and complete grief is as impossible as pure and complete joy. Princess Mary, now the sole and independent controller of her fate and guardian and mentor to her nephew, was the first to be called back to life from the realm of sorrow in which she had dwelled for the first two weeks. She received letters from her relatives which needed answers; the room where young Nicholas had been put was damp, so he started coughing; Alpátych arrived in Yaroslávl with information about their affairs and advice that they should return to Moscow to the house on Vozdvízhenka Street, which had survived untouched and only needed minor repairs. Life didn't stand still, and it was necessary to go on living. As hard as it was for Princess Mary to leave behind the deep solitude where she had been, and as sorry and almost ashamed as she felt to leave Natásha alone, life's concerns demanded her attention, and she could not help but answer them. She went over accounts with Alpátych, discussed her nephew with Dessalles, and gave orders and made preparations for the trip to Moscow.

Natásha stayed behind and, from the moment Princess Mary began her preparations, withdrew from her as well.

Princess Mary asked the countess to allow Natásha to go to Moscow with her, and both parents gladly agreed, as they saw their daughter growing weaker every day and thought that new surroundings and the advice of Moscow doctors might help her.

“I am not going anywhere,” Natásha replied when this was suggested. “Please, just leave me alone!” She ran out of the room, barely holding back tears of irritation and frustration more than sorrow.

After she felt abandoned by Princess Mary and alone in her grief, Natásha spent most of her time alone in her room, curled up on the corner of the sofa, twisting and tearing something in her slender, nervous fingers, and staring intently at whatever her gaze landed on. This solitude drained and tormented her, but she absolutely needed it. As soon as anyone entered, she would quickly get up, change her posture and expression, and pick up a book or some sewing, obviously waiting impatiently for the visitor to leave.

She constantly felt as if she might, at any moment, break through to what her soul was fixed on—with a terrible questioning far beyond her strength.

One day toward the end of December, Natásha, pale and thin, dressed in a black woolen dress, her braided hair carelessly twisted into a knot, was curled up in the corner of her sofa, nervously flattening and crumpling her sash as she stared at a corner of the door.

She was looking in the direction he had gone—to the other side of life. That other side, which had once seemed so distant and unimaginable, now felt closer, more familiar, and more understandable than this side, where everything was either empty and desolate or full of suffering and humiliation.

She looked to where she knew he was, but she couldn’t imagine him any differently than he had been in life. She now saw him as he had been at Mytíshchi, at Tróitsa, and at Yaroslávl.

She saw his face, heard his voice, repeated what he and she had said, and sometimes imagined other words they might have spoken.

There he was, leaning back in an armchair in his velvet cloak, resting his head in his thin, pale hand. His chest was fearfully hollow and his shoulders lifted. His lips were firmly shut, his eyes shone, and a wrinkle moved on his pale forehead. One of his legs twitched barely, but rapidly. Natásha knew he was fighting terrible pain. “What was that pain like? Why did he have to suffer that pain? What did he feel? How did it hurt him?” thought Natásha. He saw her watching him, lifted his eyes, and began to speak earnestly:

“One thing would be terrible,” he said: “to bind oneself forever to a person who suffers. It would be endless torture.” And he looked intensely at her. Natásha, as always, answered before thinking about what she would say. She said: “This can't go on—it won't. You’ll get well—completely well.”

She now relived that scene from the beginning, feeling again what she had felt at the time. She remembered his long, sad, and severe look after those words, and now understood the meaning of the reproach and despair in his lingering gaze.

“I agreed,” Natásha now told herself, “that it would be dreadful if he had to keep suffering. I said it then only because it would have been dreadful for him, but he took it another way. He thought it would be dreadful for me. Back then, he still wanted to live and was afraid to die. And how awkward and stupid I was! I didn’t say what I meant at all. I thought something completely different. If I’d said what I felt, I would have said: even if he had to keep dying, to see him die over and over before my eyes, I would have been happier than I am now. Now there is nothing… no one. Did he know that? No, he didn’t, and he never will. Now there will never, ever be a way to make it right.” And now, once more, it seemed as though he was repeating those words to her, but in her imagination Natásha gave him a different answer this time. She stopped him and said: “Terrible for you, but not for me! You know that for me there's no life except you, and suffering with you is the greatest happiness I could have.” And he took her hand and pressed it just as he had that awful night four days before he died. In her imagination, she spoke other loving, tender words she could only think to say now: “I love you!… you! I love, I love…” she said, pressing her hands together and clenching her teeth with desperate intensity….

She was swept up in sweet sorrow, tears already beginning to rise, when suddenly she asked herself for whom she was saying this. Again everything was clouded with harsh, dry confusion, and again with a tense frown she stared toward the world where he was. Now, now she felt as though she was on the verge of understanding the mystery…. But just as the unknowable seemed like it might reveal itself, a loud rattle of the doorknob struck her ears painfully. Dunyásha, her maid, rushed into the room abruptly, looking frightened and showing no concern for her mistress.

“Come to your Papa at once, please!” she said with a strange, excited expression. “A misfortune… about Peter Ilýnich… a letter,” she finished with a sob.

##  CHAPTER II

Besides feeling detached from everyone, Natásha also felt especially alienated from her own family. All of them—her father, mother, and Sónya—were so close to her, so familiar, so ordinary, that their words and feelings seemed like an insult to the world she had been living in lately, and she felt not just indifferent towards them but even hostile. She heard Dunyásha’s words about Peter Ilýnich and some misfortune, but she didn’t understand them.

“What misfortune? What misfortune could happen to them? They just live their own old, quiet, and ordinary life,” thought Natásha.

As she entered the ballroom, her father was hurriedly coming out of her mother’s room. His face was twisted and wet with tears. It was clear he had run out of the room to let out the sobs that were choking him. When he saw Natásha, he waved his arms despairingly and broke into painful sobs that distorted his soft, round face.

“Pe… Pétya… Go, go, she… is calling…” and, weeping like a child and quickly shuffling on his weak legs to a chair, he almost collapsed in it, covering his face with his hands.

Suddenly, an electric shock seemed to course through Natásha’s whole being. Terrible pain struck her heart; she felt a dreadful ache, as if something was being torn inside her and she was dying. But the pain was immediately followed by a sense of release from the oppressive restraint that had kept her from participating in life. The sight of her father, and the wild, anguished cries of her mother she heard through the door, made her instantly forget herself and her own grief.

She ran to her father, but he weakly waved his arm, pointing to her mother’s door. Princess Mary, pale and with a trembling chin, came out of that room and took Natásha by the arm, saying something to her. Natásha neither saw nor heard her. She entered quickly, pausing at the door for a moment as if struggling with herself, and then ran to her mother.

The countess was lying in an armchair in a strange and awkward position, stretching out and hitting her head against the wall. Sónya and the maids were holding her arms.

“Natásha! Natásha!…” cried the countess. “It’s not true… it’s not true… He’s lying… Natásha!” she screamed, pushing those around her away. “Go away, all of you; it’s not true! Killed!… ha, ha, ha!… It’s not true!”

Natásha put one knee on the armchair, bent over her mother, embraced her, and with unexpected strength lifted her, turned her face toward herself, and clung to her.

“Mummy!… darling!… I am here, my dearest Mummy,” she kept whispering, not pausing for an instant.

She didn’t let go of her mother but gently struggled with her, asked for a pillow and hot water, and unfastened and tore open her mother’s dress.

“My dearest darling… Mummy, my precious!…” she whispered over and over, kissing her head, her hands, her face, feeling her own unstoppable, streaming tears tickling her nose and cheeks.

The countess squeezed her daughter’s hand, closed her eyes, and was quiet for a moment. Suddenly, she sat up with unusual speed, looked blankly around her, and, seeing Natásha, began to press her daughter’s head with all her strength. Then she turned toward her daughter’s face, which was wincing with pain, and stared at it for a long time.

“Natásha, you love me?” she said in a soft, trusting whisper. “Natásha, you wouldn’t lie to me? You’ll tell me the whole truth?”

Natásha looked at her with tear-filled eyes, and her gaze was full of nothing but love and a silent plea for forgiveness.

“My darling Mummy!” she repeated, using all the strength of her love to try to take on herself some of the overwhelming grief crushing her mother.

And again, in a futile struggle with reality, her mother, refusing to believe she could go on living after her beloved boy had been killed in the prime of life, escaped from reality into a world of delirium.

Natásha didn’t remember how that day passed, nor that night, nor the next day and night. She didn’t sleep and didn’t leave her mother. Her persistent and patient love seemed to completely surround the countess every moment, not explaining or consoling, but calling her back to life.

During the third night, the countess was very quiet for a few minutes, and Natásha rested her head on the arm of her chair and closed her eyes, but opened them again when she heard the bed creak. The countess was sitting up in bed and speaking softly.

“How glad I am you have come. You are tired. Won’t you have some tea?” Natásha went up to her. “You have improved in looks and grown more manly,” continued the countess, taking her daughter’s hand.

“Mamma! What are you saying…”

“Natásha, he is gone, gone forever!”

And embracing her daughter, the countess began to weep for the first time.

##  CHAPTER III

Princess Mary delayed her departure. Sónya and the count tried to take Natásha's place but couldn't. They realized that only Natásha could calm her mother and keep her from falling into hopeless despair. For three weeks Natásha stayed constantly by her mother's side, sleeping on a lounge chair in her room, making sure she ate and drank, and talking to her endlessly, because the gentle, soothing sound of her voice brought her mother comfort.

The countess’s wounded spirit could not heal. Pétya’s death had torn away half her life. When the news of Pétya’s death arrived, she was a lively, vigorous woman of fifty, but a month later, she left her room as a listless old woman with no interest in life. Yet the same blow that almost destroyed the countess, this second tragedy, brought Natásha back to life.

A spiritual wound caused by the tearing of the soul is much like a physical wound, and, strange as it may seem, just as a deep wound can heal and its edges join, both physical and spiritual wounds can truly heal only through a vital force from within.

Natásha’s wound healed in that way. She thought her own life was finished, but her love for her mother unexpectedly showed her that the very core of life—love—was still alive inside her. Love returned, and so did life.

Prince Andrew’s final days had united Princess Mary and Natásha; this new sorrow brought them even closer. Princess Mary postponed her journey again, and for three weeks cared for Natásha as if she were a sick child. The last weeks spent in her mother's bedroom had strained Natásha’s physical strength.

One afternoon, noticing that Natásha was shivering with fever, Princess Mary took her to her own room and made her lie down on the bed. Natásha lay down, but as Princess Mary was drawing the blinds and preparing to leave, Natásha called her back.

“I don’t want to sleep, Mary, sit with me for a little.”

“You’re tired—try to sleep.”

“No, no. Why did you bring me away? She’ll be looking for me.”

“She’s much better. She spoke so well today,” said Princess Mary.

Natásha lay on the bed and, in the dimness of the room, studied Princess Mary’s face.

“Is she like him?” Natásha wondered. “Yes, like him and yet not. But she’s unique, strange, new, and unknown. And she loves me. What’s in her heart? Only good. But how? What is her mind like? What does she think of me? Yes, she’s wonderful!”

“Mary,” she said timidly, pulling Princess Mary’s hand closer, “Mary, you mustn’t think I’m wicked. No? Mary dear, how I love you! Let’s be real, true friends.”

And Natásha, embracing her, began kissing her face and hands, making Princess Mary feel embarrassed but happy from this open display of affection.

From that day, a gentle and passionate friendship, the kind that exists only between women, was formed between Princess Mary and Natásha. They were always kissing and saying affectionate things to each other, and spent almost all their time together. Whenever one went out, the other grew restless and hurried to be with her again. Together they felt more at peace than either of them did when alone. Their connection became deeper than friendship; they felt they could only truly live in each other's presence.

Sometimes they would sit in silence for hours; at other times, after going to bed, they’d start talking and continue until morning. Most of their conversations were about the past. Princess Mary talked of her childhood, her mother, her father, and her dreams; and Natásha, who had once turned away from that life of devotion, submission, and the poetry of Christian self-sacrifice with confused indifference, now, feeling close to Princess Mary, learned to love her past as well, and began to understand a way of life that had been foreign to her. She didn’t think of applying that selflessness and submission to her own life—she was used to seeking other kinds of happiness—but she learned to appreciate those virtues in someone else. For Princess Mary, listening to Natásha’s stories of her childhood and youth, another previously unknown part of life opened up: faith in life and its joys.

Just as before, they never mentioned *him*, thinking words would cheapen their lofty feelings; but this silence gradually led them, without realizing it, to begin to forget him.

Natásha had grown thin and pale, and was physically so weak that everyone talked about her health, which pleased her. Still, sometimes she was suddenly seized by fear—not just of death, but of illness, weakness, and losing her good looks. Unintentionally, she examined her bare arm, surprised at its thinness, and in the morning noticed her tired and, as it seemed to her, pitiful face in the mirror. She felt this must be how things were meant to be, but it was deeply sad.

One day, she hurried up the stairs and found herself out of breath. Instinctively, she thought of a reason to go back down, and then, as a test of her strength, ran upstairs again, observing how she felt.

Another time, as she called for Dunyásha, her voice trembled, so she called again—even though she could hear Dunyásha coming—using the deep tones she used to sing with, and listened to herself attentively.

She did not know, and would not have believed, that underneath the layer of gloom weighing on her soul, delicate shoots of new life were already sprouting—ready to take root and cover her grief until it was no longer seen or felt. The healing had begun from within.

At the end of January, Princess Mary left for Moscow, and the count insisted Natásha go with her to consult the doctors.

##  CHAPTER IV

After the encounter at Vyázma, where Kutúzov was unable to restrain his troops in their eagerness to overwhelm and cut off the enemy, the continued retreat of the fleeing French, and the pursuit by the Russians, continued all the way to Krásnoe without another battle. The French retreat was so rapid that the Russian army couldn't keep up; their cavalry and artillery horses gave out, and the information they received about the French movements was never reliable.

The Russian soldiers were so exhausted by this constant marching—averaging twenty-seven miles a day—that they could not move any faster.

To understand the level of exhaustion in the Russian army, one only has to grasp the fact that, while losing no more than five thousand killed and wounded after Tarútino and less than a hundred prisoners, the Russian army that left that location one hundred thousand strong arrived at Krásnoe with just fifty thousand.

The speed of the Russian pursuit was just as destructive for their army as the French retreat was for the French. The only difference was that the Russian soldiers marched voluntarily, without the looming threat of destruction the French faced, and the sick Russians fell behind among their own people, while the sick French fell behind among their enemies. The main reason for the devastation of Napoleon’s army was the speed of its movement, and a clear proof of this is the matching decline in the Russian army.

Kutúzov, as far as he could, instead of trying to block the French movements as was desired by those in Petersburg and by Russian generals, focused all his energy—as he had at Tarútino and Vyázma—on hastening the French retreat while easing the movement of his own army.

Aside from this, because the exhaustion and drastic reduction of the army due to the speed of the advance had become obvious, another reason for slowing their pace and delaying emerged for Kutúzov. The Russian army’s purpose was to chase the French. No one knew which route the French would take, so the closer the Russians followed them, the farther they had to travel overall. Only by trailing at some distance could they cut across the winding route of the French. All the elaborate maneuvers suggested by our generals meant more marching and even longer routes, whereas the only sensible goal was to shorten them. To this end Kutúzov devoted his efforts throughout the campaign from Moscow to Vílna—not randomly or occasionally, but with complete consistency.

Kutúzov sensed and understood—not by logic or theory, but with his entire Russian spirit—what every Russian soldier felt: that the French were defeated, the enemy was fleeing, and must be driven out; but at the same time, he, like the soldiers, understood all the hardship of the march, whose speed was unheard of for this time of year.

But to the generals—especially the foreign officers in the Russian army, anxious for distinction, eager to impress, and intent on capturing a king or a duke—it seemed that now, when any battle would be awful and pointless, was exactly the time to fight and conquer someone. Kutúzov simply shrugged when, one after another, they proposed bold maneuvers with soldiers who were ill-shod, poorly clothed, and half-starved, who, without fighting a battle, had dwindled to half their number in just a month, and who, if the flight continued, would end up marching a greater distance than they had already covered to reach the frontier.

This desire to distinguish themselves, maneuver, overthrow, and encircle popped up especially whenever the Russians came upon the French army.

So it happened at Krásnoe; they expected to find one of the three French columns, but found Napoleon himself with sixteen thousand men. Despite all Kutúzov’s efforts to avoid that ruinous confrontation and to preserve his troops, the slaughter of the shattered mass of French soldiers by the weary Russians dragged on at Krásnoe for three days.

Toll wrote an order: “The first column will march to so and so,” and so forth. As usual, nothing happened according to plan. Prince Eugène of Württemberg fired from a hill over the French crowds streaming past, called for reinforcements that never came. The French, avoiding the Russians, scattered and hid in the woods at night, making their escape as best they could, and continued their flight.

Milorádovich, who claimed he wanted nothing to do with his detachment’s supply arrangements and was never to be found when needed—that *chevalier sans peur et sans reproche* \* as he called himself, who liked parleying with the French—sent envoys to demand their surrender, wasted time, and failed to carry out his orders.

\* Knight without fear and without reproach.

“I give you that column, lads,” he said, riding up to the troops and pointing out the French to the cavalry.

And the cavalry, with spurs and sabers, urged on their horses, who could barely move, and with great effort trotted toward the column assigned to them—that is, toward a huddle of Frenchmen stiff with cold, frostbitten, and starving. The column that had been handed to them threw down their arms and surrendered, which they had long been eager to do.

At Krásnoe, the Russians took twenty-six thousand prisoners, several hundred cannons, and a stick dubbed a “marshal’s staff,” complaining among themselves over who had truly distinguished themselves and congratulating themselves on the achievement—even though they regretted not capturing Napoleon, or at least a marshal or some notable, and blamed each other—and especially Kutúzov—for the failure.

These men, swept up by their passions, were only blind tools of the grim law of necessity, yet they saw themselves as heroes and believed they were acting with the highest nobility. They blamed Kutúzov, insisting that from the very start of the campaign he had stood in the way of their victory over Napoleon, that he cared only for his own comfort and wouldn’t leave the Linen Factories, that at Krásnoe he halted the advance because when he heard Napoleon was present, he lost his head, and even rumored that he was in secret collusion with Napoleon and had been bribed by him, and so forth.

Not only did those swept up by passion at the time talk this way, but also later generations and history have acclaimed Napoleon as *grand*, while Kutúzov has been described by foreigners as a cunning, dissolute, weak old courtier, and by Russians as something vague—a sort of puppet, useful only for having a Russian name.

##  CHAPTER V

In 1812 and 1813, Kutúzov was openly accused of making blunders. The Emperor was dissatisfied with him. In a history recently written by order of the highest authorities, it is stated that Kutúzov was a cunning court flatterer, terrified by Napoleon’s name, and that by his mistakes at Krásnoe and the Berëzina, he deprived the Russian army of the glory of a complete victory over the French. \*

\* *History of the year 1812. The character of Kutúzov and reflections on the unsatisfactory results of the battles at Krásnoe*, by Bogdánovich.

Such is the fate, not of great men (*grands hommes*)—whom the Russian spirit does not recognize—but of those rare and always solitary people who, perceiving the will of Providence, surrender their own will to it. The anger and scorn of the crowd punish such men for seeing higher laws.

For Russian historians, oddly and alarmingly, Napoleon—that most insignificant pawn of history, who nowhere, not even in exile, showed any true human dignity—becomes the object of their adulation and enthusiasm; he is *grand*. Yet Kutúzov, who from the beginning to the end of his role in 1812, never once deviating by word or deed from Borodinó to Vílna, was a rare example in history of self-sacrifice and a keen awareness of future consequences—Kutúzov seems to them something vague and pitiable, and when discussing him or the year 1812, they always seem a little embarrassed.

And yet it is hard to imagine a historical figure whose actions were so steadfastly fixed on a single goal; and it would be hard to find any aim more noble or more aligned with the will of the whole nation. Even more difficult would it be to find another example in history of a leader’s goal being so thoroughly achieved as was Kutúzov’s in 1812.

Kutúzov never boasted of “forty centuries looking down from the Pyramids,” never spoke of self-sacrifice for the fatherland, nor of what he intended or had accomplished. He said little about himself, kept no airs, seemed always just the most ordinary of men, and said the plainest, most ordinary things. He wrote letters to his daughters and to Madame de Staël, read novels, enjoyed the company of attractive women, joked with generals, officers, and soldiers, and never contradicted those who tried to convince him of something. When Count Rostopchín rode up to Kutúzov at the Yaúza bridge with personal accusations for the destruction of Moscow, asking: “How was it you promised not to abandon Moscow without a battle?” Kutúzov replied: “And I shall not abandon Moscow without a battle,” though Moscow had already been abandoned. When Arakchéev came from the Emperor and said that Ermólov should be appointed chief of the artillery, Kutúzov said: “Yes, I was just saying so myself,” even though moments before he’d said the opposite. What did it matter to him—when he alone, among the confused crowd, understood the immense meaning of these events—whether Rostopchín blamed him or himself for Moscow? Still less did he care who commanded the artillery.

Not just in these moments, but habitually, that old man—who, by experience, had come to believe that ideas and the words expressing them don’t move people—used whatever meaningless words happened to come to mind.

Yet, for all his indifference to words, in all his life he never once uttered a sentence that conflicted with his main purpose throughout the war. Again and again, under many different circumstances, he voiced his true thoughts with a bitter sense that he would not be understood. From the battle of Borodinó—where his disagreement with others began—he alone claimed that *the battle of Borodinó was a victory*, repeating this in speeches, dispatches, and reports until his death. He alone said that *the loss of Moscow is not the loss of Russia*. In response to Lauriston’s offer of peace, he stated: *There can be no peace, for such is the people’s will*. He alone, during the French retreat, insisted that *all our maneuvers are meaningless, everything is happening by itself, better than we could wish; the enemy needs “a golden bridge”*; that *neither the Tarútino, Vyázma, nor Krásnoe battles were needed*; that *we must save some strength to reach the frontier,* and that *he wouldn’t sacrifice a single Russian for ten Frenchmen.*

And this court flatterer, as he was described, who lied to Arakchéev to please the Tsar, was the only one—earning the Emperor’s displeasure—to state in Vílna that *carrying the war past the frontier is pointless and harmful.*

Not words alone, but also his actions—never deviating in the least—were always aimed at one threefold goal: (1) to summon all his strength to oppose the French, (2) to defeat them, and (3) to expel them from Russia, all while minimizing our people’s and army’s suffering as much as possible.

This procrastinator Kutúzov, infamous for the motto “Patience and Time,” this supposed opponent of decisive action, fought at Borodinó, preparing for it with unmatched solemnity. This same Kutúzov, who before the battle of Austerlitz said it would be lost, remained, in defiance of others, firm in declaring Borodinó was a victory—despite the generals’ insistence the battle was lost and despite the unprecedented fact of an army retreating after a supposed victory. He alone, throughout the entire retreat, insisted that such needless battles should not be fought, and that a new war should not be begun nor Russia’s borders crossed.

It is easy now to understand what these events really meant—if only we avoid attributing to the masses goals that existed only in a handful of individuals’ minds—since the events and results are now plain to see.

But how did this old man, all alone and against the common opinion, so clearly perceive what the people thought was most important, so that everything he did was loyal to that outlook?

The source of this extraordinary understanding of events lay in the national feeling he possessed in its purest, strongest form.

Only this feeling explains why the people, in such a remarkable act, chose him—an old man out of favor—as their representative in the national war, even against the Tsar’s wishes. And only that feeling put him on that highest human pedestal, where he, as commander in chief, devoted all his strength not to killing and destroying, but to saving and showing mercy.

Such a simple, modest, and truly great figure could never fit into the false mold of a European hero, the supposed ruler of men, created by historians.

To a lackey, no man can be great, for a lackey has his own standards of greatness.

##  CHAPTER VI

The fifth of November marked the first day of what is known as the battle of Krásnoe. Toward evening—after much arguing and many mistakes by generals who failed to reach their proper positions, and after adjutants had been sent around with changing orders—it became clear that the enemy was fleeing everywhere and that there could be no real battle. Kutúzov then left Krásnoe and went to Dóbroe, where his headquarters had been moved that day.

The day was clear and frosty. Kutúzov rode to Dóbroe on his plump little white horse, followed by a large group of discontented generals, who whispered among themselves behind his back. All along the road, groups of French prisoners captured that day (there were seven thousand of them) crowded around campfires to warm themselves. Near Dóbroe, a huge crowd of ragged prisoners, talking among themselves and wrapped and bandaged in whatever they could find, stood in the road beside a long row of unharnessed French cannons. As the commander in chief approached, the buzz of conversation stopped, and all eyes fixed on Kutúzov, who, wearing a white cap with a red band and a padded overcoat stretched over his round shoulders, moved slowly along the road on his white horse. One of the generals was reporting to him where the guns and prisoners had been taken.

Kutúzov seemed distracted and paid little attention to the general’s report. He squinted with a dissatisfied look as he gazed intently at these prisoners, who looked especially miserable. Most of them had faces disfigured by frostbite, and nearly all had red, swollen, festering eyes.

One group of Frenchmen stood close to the road, and two of them, one with a face covered in sores, were tearing at a piece of raw meat with their hands. There was something horrific and animal-like in the quick glance they cast at the riders and in the hostile look with which, after a glance at Kutúzov, the soldier with sores immediately turned away and went on with what he was doing.

Kutúzov looked at these two soldiers for a long time. He puckered his face, screwed up his eyes, and thoughtfully swayed his head. Elsewhere, he noticed a Russian soldier laughing and patting a Frenchman on the shoulder, saying something in a friendly manner. With the same expression, Kutúzov swayed his head again.

“What were you saying?” he asked the general, who, continuing his report, directed the commander in chief’s attention to some standards captured from the French and now standing before the Preobrazhénsk regiment.

“Ah, the standards!” said Kutúzov, clearly detaching himself with difficulty from the thoughts that occupied him.

He looked around absent-mindedly. Thousands of eyes watched him from every side, waiting for a word.

He stopped in front of the Preobrazhénsk regiment, sighed deeply, and closed his eyes. One of his staff signaled to the soldiers carrying the standards to step forward and surround the commander in chief. Kutúzov was silent for a few seconds and then, yielding with clear reluctance to his official duty, raised his head and began to speak. A crowd of officers gathered around him. He looked around at the officers, recognizing several of them.

“I thank you all!” he said, addressing first the soldiers and then the officers. In the silence around him, his slow words were clearly heard. “I thank you all for your hard and loyal service. The victory is complete, and Russia will not forget you! Honor to you forever.”

He paused and looked around.

“Lower its head, lower it!” he said to a soldier who had accidentally lowered the French eagle he was holding before the Preobrazhénsk standards. “Lower, lower, that’s it. Hurrah, lads!” he added, nodding his chin quickly toward the men.

“Hur-r-rah!” roared thousands of voices.

While the soldiers cheered, Kutúzov leaned forward in his saddle and bowed his head, his eyes lighting with a mild and seemingly ironic glimmer.

“You see, brothers…” he said, once the shouting died down… and all at once his voice and expression changed. He was no longer the commander in chief, but simply an old man wanting to say something very important to his comrades.

There was a stir among the officers and in the ranks of soldiers, who repositioned themselves to hear better what he was about to say.

“You see, brothers, I know it’s hard for you, but it can’t be helped! Hold on; it won’t be much longer! We’ll see our visitors off and then we’ll rest. The Tsar will not forget what you’ve done. It’s hard for you, but at least you’re home—while they,” he said, pointing to the prisoners, “are worse off than our poorest beggars. While they were strong, we spared nothing, but now we can even pity them. They’re human beings too. Isn’t that right, lads?”

He looked around, and in the direct, respectful, amazed gazes fixed on him, he saw sympathy for his words. His face brightened even more with an old man’s gentle smile, drawing the corners of his lips and eyes into a web of wrinkles. He stopped talking and bowed his head, as if deeply thoughtful.

“But after all, who asked them here? They got what they deserved, the bloody bastards!” he suddenly cried, lifting his head.

And, flourishing his whip, he galloped off for the first time during the whole campaign, leaving the broken ranks of soldiers laughing joyfully and shouting, “Hurrah!”

The troops hardly grasped the full meaning of Kutúzov’s words. No one could have repeated the field marshal’s address, which began so solemnly and turned into an old man’s simple, heartfelt speech. But the genuine sincerity of what he said—the feeling of majestic victory, mixed with pity for the enemy and confidence in the justice of their cause—was not just understood but lived in the soul of every soldier and erupted in their joyful, sustained shouts. Later, when one of the generals asked Kutúzov if he wished his *calèche* sent for, Kutúzov, answering, unexpectedly sobbed, clearly deeply moved.

##  CHAPTER VII

When the troops reached their night's resting place on the eighth of November, the final day of the Krásnoe battles, dusk was already falling. Throughout the day, the weather had been calm and frosty with occasional light snow, and toward evening it started to clear. Through the drifting snow, a deep purple-black, star-filled sky appeared, and the cold grew sharper.

An infantry regiment that had left Tarútino three thousand strong but now had only nine hundred men was one of the first to arrive that night at its halting spot—a village along the highroad. The quartermasters who met the regiment reported that all the huts were already packed with sick and dead Frenchmen, cavalry, and staff. Only one hut remained available, reserved for the regimental commander.

The commander rode up to his hut. The regiment marched through the village and stacked their arms in front of the last huts.

Like some massive, many-limbed creature, the regiment began making camp and preparing food. Some men made their way knee-deep through snow into a birch forest to the right of the village, and the sounds of axes, swords, cracking branches, and cheerful voices soon echoed from there. Another group, gathered around the regimental wagons and horses, busied themselves with getting out kettles and rye biscuit, feeding the animals. A third set scattered throughout the village, arranging quarters for the officers, carrying out the French corpses from the huts, and dragging away boards, dry wood, thatch from roofs for campfires, or wattle fences for shelter.

About fifteen men with cheerful shouts were pulling down the tall wattle wall of a shed, the roof of which had already been removed.

"Now then, all together—push!" voices called out, and the huge wall, dusted with snow and cracking in the frost, was seen rocking in the evening gloom. The lower stakes snapped one by one, then finally the wall and the men pushing it came down in a heap. Loud, rough laughter and shouts followed.

"Come on now, grab it in pairs! Hand up the lever! That's it... Where do you think you're pushing it?"

"Okay, everyone together! But wait a second, boys... With a song!"

Everyone fell silent, and a soft, pleasant, velvety voice began to sing. At the close of the third verse, as the last note faded, twenty voices suddenly roared together: "Oo-oo-oo-oo! That's it. All together! Heave, boys!..." But despite their combined effort the wattle barely budged, and in the following silence, you could hear the men breathe heavily.

"Hey, you from the Sixth Company! You devils! Give us a hand, won't you? You might need us yourselves one of these days."

Some twenty men from the Sixth Company, passing on their way into the village, joined in. The wattle wall—about thirty-five feet long and seven feet high—was soon moving down the village street, swinging, pressing against and cutting into the shoulders of the men gasping beneath it.

"Move along... Falling, are you? Why are you stopping? That's it..."

Cheerful nonsense and swearing filled the air.

"What are you all doing?" came the stern voice of a sergeant major who came upon the men hauling their burden. "There are gentlemen here; the general himself is in that hut, and you filthy-mouthed devils, you brutes, I'll make you pay!" he shouted, giving the nearest man a hard slap on the back. "Can't you keep it down a bit?"

The men fell silent. The soldier who'd been struck groaned and wiped his face, bleeding from scraping it against the wattle.

"There, did you see how that devil hit? Bloodied my face," he whispered fearfully after the sergeant major passed.

"Didn't like it, did you?" said a laughing voice, and the group, lowering their voices, kept moving forward.

Once outside the village, they started talking as loudly as before, their speech still full of the same offhand cursing.

In the hut the men had passed, the senior officers had gathered and were deep in animated discussion over their tea about that day's events and plans for tomorrow's maneuvers. A flank march to the left was suggested, to cut off the Viceroy (Murat) and capture him.

By the time the men had dragged the wattle fence to its place, campfires were blazing on all sides ready for cooking, the firewood crackled, the snow was melting, and black shadows of soldiers flitted everywhere across the trampled snow.

Axes and choppers were going all around. Everything was done without anyone giving orders. Wood was stockpiled for the night, shelters thrown up for the officers, kettles boiled, and muskets and gear checked.

The wattle wall the men brought was set up in a semicircle by the Eighth Company as a windbreak from the north, propped up with musket rests, with a campfire built in front of it. The drums beat tattoo, roll was called, supper was eaten, and the men settled around the fires for the night—some fixing their boots, some smoking their pipes, and others stripping down to steam the lice out of their shirts.

##  CHAPTER VIII

One might think that under the almost unbelievably terrible conditions the Russian soldiers were experiencing at that time—lacking warm boots and sheepskin coats, without a roof over their heads, standing in the snow with temperatures at eighteen degrees below freezing, and without even full rations (the commissariat did not always keep up with the troops)—they would have looked very sad and miserable.

On the contrary, the army had never, even under the best material conditions, appeared more cheerful and lively. This was because everyone who started to grow discouraged or lose strength was weeded out of the army day by day. All the physically or morally weak had long since been left behind, and only the best of the army—both physically and mentally—remained.

More men gathered behind the wattle fence of the Eighth Company than anywhere else. Two sergeant majors were sitting with them, and their campfire burned more brightly than the others. For permission to sit by their wattle, they demanded contributions of firewood.

“Hey, Makéev! What happened to you, you son of a gun? Are you lost or have the wolves eaten you? Go get some more wood!” shouted a red-haired and red-faced man, squinting and blinking because of the smoke but not moving away from the fire. “And you, Jackdaw, go fetch some wood!” he said to another soldier.

This red-haired man was neither a sergeant nor a corporal, but being strong, he ordered around those weaker than himself. The soldier they called “Jackdaw,” a thin little fellow with a sharp nose, rose obediently and was about to leave, but at that moment the slender, handsome figure of a young soldier carrying a load of wood stepped into the firelight.

“Bring it here—that’s great!”

They split up the wood, pressed it down onto the fire, blew on it with their mouths, and fanned it with the skirts of their greatcoats, making the flames hiss and crackle. The men drew closer and lit their pipes. The handsome young soldier who had brought the wood, hands on his hips, began stamping his cold feet rapidly and skillfully where he stood.

“Mother! The dew is cold but clear…. Good thing I’m a musketeer…” he sang, pretending to hiccup after each syllable.

“Careful, your soles will fly off!” shouted the red-haired man, noticing that the sole of the dancer’s boot was hanging loose. “You always want to dance!”

The dancer stopped, pulled off the loose piece of leather, and threw it into the fire.

“You’re right, friend,” he said, and, after sitting down, pulled a piece of blue French cloth from his knapsack and wrapped it around his foot. “It’s the damp that ruins them,” he added, stretching his feet out toward the fire.

“They’ll soon be giving us new ones. They say that after we finish pounding *them*, we’ll get double kits!”

“And that son of a gun Petróv has fallen behind after all, it seems,” said one sergeant major.

“I’ve been watching him for a long time,” replied the other.

“Well, he’s not much of a soldier….”

“But in the Third Company they say nine men were missing yesterday.”

“Yes, that’s all well and good, but when a man’s feet are frozen, how can he walk?”

“Eh? Don’t talk nonsense!” said a sergeant major.

“Are you trying to do the same?” said an old soldier, turning reproachfully to the man who had mentioned frozen feet.

“Well, you see,” said the sharp-nosed man they called Jackdaw, in a squeaky and unsteady voice, raising himself on the other side of the fire, “a fat man gets thinner, but for a thin one it means death. Look at me! I have no strength left,” he added, turning to the sergeant major with sudden resolve. “Tell them to send me to the hospital; I’m aching all over. Either way, I won’t be able to keep up.”

“That’s enough, that’s enough!” replied the sergeant major quietly.

The soldier said nothing more, and the conversation continued.

“A lot of those Frenchies were captured today, and honestly, not one of them had real boots on,” said a soldier, starting a new topic. “What they had was barely fit to call boots.”

“The Cossacks took their boots. They were clearing out the hut for the colonel and carried them away. It was sad to see them, boys,” added the dancer. “When they turned them over, one seemed still alive and, believe it or not, he muttered something in his own language.”

“But they’re a clean people, lads,” the first man continued. “He was pale—as pale as birchbark—and some of them are such fine fellows, you’d think they were nobles.”

“Well, what do you expect? They make soldiers out of all classes over there.”

“But they don’t understand a word we say,” said the dancer with a puzzled smile. “I asked him whose subject he was, and he just muttered in his own way. A strange lot!”

“But it’s odd, friends,” the man who had commented on their paleness went on, “the peasants at Mozháysk said that when they started burying the dead—where the battle was, you know—well, those dead had been lying there for nearly a month, and the peasant said, ‘they lay as white as paper, clean, and didn’t smell any more than a puff of powder smoke.’”

“Was it from the cold?” someone asked.

“You’re a clever one! From the cold, really? It was warm. If it had been from the cold, ours wouldn’t have rotted either. ‘But,’ he says, ‘our own are all rotten and maggoty. So,’ he says, ‘we cover our faces with cloths and turn our heads away as we drag them off—we can hardly do it. But theirs,’ he says, ‘are white as paper and don’t even smell like gunpowder.’”

Everyone fell silent.

“It must be from their food,” said the sergeant major. “They used to eat the same food as the nobility.”

No one argued.

“That peasant near Mozháysk, where the battle was, said the men were all called up from ten villages nearby and they hauled bodies away for twenty days and still didn’t finish. And as for the wolves, he said…”

“That was a real battle,” said an old soldier. “It’s the only one worth remembering; but since then… it’s just been torment for people.”

“And you know, Daddy, the day before yesterday we charged at them, and, I swear, they didn’t let us get near before they just threw down their muskets and dropped to their knees. ‘Pardon!’ they said. That’s just one story. They say Plátov caught ‘Poleon himself twice. But he didn’t know the right magic. He catches him again and again—no luck! He turns into a bird right in his hands and flies away. And there’s no way to kill him either.”

“You’re a first-class liar, Kiselëv, now that I think about it!”

“A liar? It’s the absolute truth.”

“If he fell into my hands, once I caught him I’d bury him in the ground with an aspen stake to pin him down. Think of all the men he’s destroyed!”

“Well, anyway, we’re going to put an end to it. He won’t come here again,” remarked the old soldier, yawning.

The conversation died down, and the soldiers began settling in to sleep.

“Look at the stars. It’s amazing how they shine! You’d think the women had laid out their linen,” said one of the men, gazing admiringly at the Milky Way.

“That means we’ll have a good harvest next year.”

“We’ll need more firewood.”

“You warm your back and your belly gets cold. That’s strange.”

“Oh Lord!”

“Why are you pushing? Is the fire just for you? Look how he’s sprawled out!”

In the silence that followed, the snoring of those who had fallen asleep could be heard. Others rolled over and warmed themselves, sometimes exchanging a few quiet words. From a campfire about a hundred paces away came the sound of loud, cheerful laughter.

“Listen to them carrying on over there in the Fifth Company!” said one of the soldiers. “There sure are a lot of them!”

One of the men got up and walked over to the Fifth Company.

“They’re having a great time,” he said when he returned. “Two Frenchmen have shown up—one’s nearly frozen and the other’s a real show-off. He’s singing songs….”

“Oh, I’ll go over and have a look….”

And several of the men headed over to the Fifth Company.

##  CHAPTER IX

The Fifth company was camped right at the edge of the forest. A huge campfire blazed brightly in the snow, lighting up the branches of the trees, heavy with frost.

Around midnight, they heard footsteps crunching in the snowy forest and the sound of dry branches snapping.

“A bear, lads,” said one of the men.

They all looked up and listened, and out of the forest, into the bright firelight, stepped two strangely dressed figures clinging to each other.

These were two Frenchmen who had been hiding in the forest. They came up to the fire, hoarsely saying something in a language the Russian soldiers didn’t understand. One was taller than the other; he wore an officer’s hat and seemed completely worn out. As he tried to sit down by the fire, he collapsed. The other, a short and sturdy soldier with a shawl wrapped around his head, was stronger. He helped his companion up and said something, pointing to his mouth. The soldiers gathered around the Frenchmen, spread a greatcoat on the ground for the sick man, and brought some buckwheat porridge and vodka for both of them.

The exhausted French officer was Ramballe, and the man with the shawl around his head was Morel, his orderly.

After Morel drank some vodka and finished his bowl of porridge, he suddenly became unusually cheerful and started chattering non-stop to the soldiers, who couldn’t understand him. Ramballe refused food and, resting his head on his elbow, lay silently by the campfire, looking at the Russian soldiers with red, vacant eyes. Every now and then, he let out a long groan and then fell silent again. Morel, gesturing to his shoulders, tried to show the soldiers that Ramballe was an officer and should be warmed. A Russian officer who had come to the fire sent to ask his colonel if he would take a French officer into his hut to warm up, and when the messenger returned with word that the colonel wanted the officer brought to him, Ramballe was told to go. He got up and tried to walk, but staggered and would have fallen if a nearby soldier hadn’t held him.

“You won’t do it again, eh?” said one of the soldiers, winking and making fun of Ramballe.

“Oh, you fool! Why talk nonsense, you lout—a real peasant!” the others scolded the joking soldier from all sides.

They gathered around Ramballe, lifted him with their arms crossed to make a seat, and carried him to the hut. Ramballe put his arms around their necks as they carried him and began to weep softly:

“Oh, you good fellows, my kind, kind friends! These are real men! Oh, my brave, kind friends,” and he rested his head on one of the men’s shoulders like a child.

Meanwhile, Morel was sitting in the best spot by the fire, surrounded by the soldiers.

Morel, a short, sturdy Frenchman with inflamed, streaming eyes, was wearing a woman’s cloak and had a shawl tied around his head like a woman. He was obviously tipsy and was singing a French song in a hoarse, broken voice, with his arm thrown around the nearest soldier. The soldiers could hardly stop laughing as they watched him.

“Come on, now, show us how it goes! I’ll pick it up in no time. How does it go?” said the man—a singer and a joker—whom Morel was hugging.

*“Vive Henri Quatre! Vive ce roi valiant!”* sang Morel, winking. *“Ce diable à quatre…”* \*

\* “Long live Henry the Fourth, that valiant king! That rowdy devil.”

“Vivarika! Vif-seruvaru! Sedyablyaka!” repeated the soldier, waving his arm and really catching the tune.

“Bravo! Ha, ha, ha!” their rough, joyous laughter rose from all around.

Morel, scrunching up his face, laughed too.

“Well, keep going, keep going!”

*“Qui eut le triple talent,
De boire, de battre,
Et d’être un vert galant.”* \*

\* Who had a triple talent
For drinking, for fighting,
And for being a gallant old boy…

“It flows nicely, too. Well, now, Zaletáev!”

“Ke…” Zaletáev managed with difficulty: “ke-e-e-e,” he drawled, slowly pursing his lips, “le-trip-ta-la-de-bu-de-ba, e de-tra-va-ga-la,” he sang.

“Great! Just like the Frenchman! Oh, ho ho! Do you want some more to eat?”

“Give him some porridge—it takes a while to fill up after starving.”

They gave him more porridge and Morel, laughing, started on his third bowl. All the young soldiers grinned as they watched him. The older men, who thought it beneath their dignity to join in such fun, stayed on the other side of the fire, but every so often one would prop himself up and glance at Morel with a smile.

“They’re people too,” one of them said, wrapping himself in his coat. “Even wormwood grows from its own root.”

“O Lord, O Lord! How starry it is! Incredible! That means a hard frost….”

Everyone fell silent. The stars, as if knowing no one was watching, began to play across the dark sky: now flaring, now fading, now trembling, they seemed to be joyfully and mysteriously whispering to each other.

##  CHAPTER X

The French army dwindled steadily, decreasing at a constant, almost mathematical rate; and the crossing of the Berëzina—so extensively documented—was merely one stage in its collapse, not the turning point of the campaign. The reason so much has been written, and continues to be written, about the Berëzina is that, for the French, all their earlier sufferings culminated there, at the broken bridge, in a single dramatic event that imprinted itself on memory. For the Russians, the significance was different—in Petersburg, far from the war's actual scenes, a plan (another of Pfuel’s) had been laid to trap Napoleon at the Berëzina. Everyone was sure the plan would succeed, so they insisted that the catastrophe at the Berëzina marked the destruction of the French. In reality, as the numbers reveal, the French lost fewer guns and men at Berëzina than at Krásnoe.

The main importance of the Berëzina crossing is that it clearly demonstrated the failure of all the plans to block the enemy’s retreat and validated the only effective strategy—the one Kutúzov and most of the army supported: simply pursuing the enemy. The French forces fled ever faster, pouring their remaining energy into escape. They moved like a wounded beast, impossible to block. This was obvious, not from their preparations for the crossing, but from what occurred at the bridges. When the bridges collapsed, even unarmed soldiers, civilians from Moscow, and women with children—all swept forward by inertia—pressed into small boats or plunged into the icy water rather than surrender.

This was a rational urge. The conditions of both fugitives and pursuers were equally dire. As long as they stayed among their own, each person could hope for help from others and a clear place in the group. Prisoners, however, shared that misery but had less claim to basic needs. The French didn’t need anyone to tell them that half the prisoners, with whom the Russians didn’t know what to do, died of cold and hunger despite their captors’ best intentions; they sensed it could not be otherwise. Even the most compassionate Russian officers—or Frenchmen serving the Russians—could do little for the prisoners. The French died from hardships that affected the Russian army itself. It was impossible to take bread and clothing from Russia’s starving, essential soldiers and give them to the French prisoners—who might not have been hated, dangerous, or at fault, but were simply unneeded. Some Russians did help, but they were rare exceptions.

Behind the French, destruction was certain, while ahead glimmered hope. With their transport destroyed, their only salvation was to flee together; all their efforts focused on collective escape.

The farther they retreated, the more desperate their situation became, especially after the Berëzina, in which Russians—relying on the Petersburg plan—had placed special hopes. The disappointment intensified the emotions of the Russian commanders and led to increasing blame, especially directed at Kutúzov. Everyone anticipated that the failure at the Berëzina would be blamed on Kutúzov, which fueled dissatisfaction, scorn, and ridicule—even if expressed in a tone of respect that made it impossible for him to directly confront the accusations. They stopped talking to him openly; when they reported or requested his approval, it seemed a pointless formality. Behind his back they exchanged knowing glances and tried to deceive him wherever possible.

Because they couldn't understand him, the staff assumed it was pointless to talk to the old man. They thought he couldn't grasp the depth of their strategies, that he only had his usual slogans (which they dismissed as mere words) about a "golden bridge," or about how it was impossible to force a starving rabble over the border. They had heard all this before. And all he said—that they needed to wait for supplies, or that the men lacked boots—was so simple, while their own plans were so subtle and clever, that it seemed obvious to them he was old and incompetent, while they, though lacking authority, were military geniuses.

When the army was joined by the famous admiral and Petersburg darling Wittgenstein, this mood and gossip among the staff reached its peak. Kutúzov observed this, sighed, and only shrugged. Only once, following the Berëzina, did he lose his temper and write to Bennigsen (who reported independently to the Emperor) this letter:

“Due to your recurring illnesses, your excellency, please proceed to Kalúga upon receiving this, and await further orders and assignments from His Imperial Majesty.”

But once Bennigsen left, the Grand Duke Tsarevich Constantine Pavlovich joined the army. He had participated early in the campaign but had since been removed by Kutúzov. Now, returning, he conveyed the Emperor’s displeasure at our forces’ poor results and slow progress. The Emperor planned to come in person soon.

The old man, skilled in court and military matters—who, only months before, had been made commander-in-chief against the sovereign’s will, had removed the Grand Duke and heir from the army, and had unilaterally decided to abandon Moscow against the Emperor's wishes—now realized that his time was over, that his role was finished, and that the power he was supposed to possess was no longer his. He could see this, not only from the court's attitude, but also because, on one hand, the military tasks for which he’d been chosen were complete, and on the other, he now felt the physical exhaustion of age and the genuine need for rest.

On November 29th, Kutúzov entered Vílna—his “dear Vílna,” as he called it. Twice before in his career, Kutúzov had served as governor of Vílna. In this wealthy, untouched city he found old friends and memories, and the comforts he’d missed for so long. Suddenly, he turned away from political and military worries and, as much as he could amid the swirling passions around him, withdrew into the familiar quiet life he’d once enjoyed, as if everything happening in the world now did not concern him.

Chichagóv—once among the most eager proponents of "cutting off" or "destroying" the enemy lines, who had preferred making diversions in Greece or Warsaw over following orders—Chichagóv, known for his candid manner with the Emperor and who felt Kutúzov owed him gratitude because, when sent to negotiate peace with Turkey in 1811 independently of Kutúzov, he admitted to the Emperor that Kutúzov had truly accomplished the peace, was the first to greet Kutúzov at the castle. Dressed in a casual naval uniform, with a dirk and his cap under his arm, Chichagóv offered Kutúzov a garrison report and the town’s keys. In Chichagóv’s behavior, the contemptuous respect that the younger officers felt for the old general was particularly apparent; he was well aware of the accusations made against Kutúzov.

While speaking to Chichagóv, Kutúzov mentioned that the china taken from him at Borísov had been recovered and would be returned.

“You suggest I have nothing to eat off... On the contrary, I can provide everything you need, even if you want to host dinner parties,” Chichagóv replied warmly, eager to defend his own record and assuming Kutúzov felt the same need to justify himself.

Kutúzov only shrugged and, with a subtle, penetrating smile, answered, “I meant nothing more than what I said.”

Against the Emperor’s wishes, Kutúzov kept most of the army at Vílna. Those around him said that during his stay he became exceptionally indolent and frail. He attended to army business reluctantly, left most decisions to his generals, and, awaiting the Emperor's arrival, led a rather dissolute life.

Departing Petersburg on December 7th with his retinue—Count Tolstóy, Prince Volkónski, Arakchéev, and several others—the Emperor reached Vílna on the 11th and drove straight to the castle in his sleigh. Despite the harsh winter, some hundred generals and staff officers in full parade stood in front of the castle, along with an honor guard from the Semënov Regiment.

A courier rode ahead to the castle, urging his three-horse sleigh onward and shouting “Coming!” Konovnítsyn ran to the vestibule to notify Kutúzov, who was waiting near the porter’s lodge.

Moments later, the old man’s heavy, broad figure, dressed in full uniform and adorned with decorations and a sash wrapped around his waist, stepped out onto the porch. He placed his hat on (the peaks to either side), took his gloves in hand, and, struggling down the steps, picked up the report he’d prepared for the Emperor.

There was a flurry of movement and whispers; another sleigh raced up, then all eyes turned to an approaching carriage carrying the Emperor and Volkónski.

Years of habit stirred the old general. He hurriedly checked his appearance, readjusted his hat, straightened up, and, just as the Emperor left his sleigh and looked up, Kutúzov handed him the report and addressed him with his suave, ingratiating voice.

The Emperor quickly scanned Kutúzov from head to toe, frowned briefly, then composed himself and went up to the old man, embracing him. This embrace, too, triggered a deep response in Kutúzov—reliving a long-held emotion, he sobbed.

The Emperor greeted the officers and the Semënov guard, then again pressed the old man’s hand, and went with him into the castle.

Alone with the field marshal, the Emperor expressed disappointment with the slow pursuit and mistakes at Krásnoe and the Berëzina, and shared his plans for a future campaign outside Russia. Kutúzov did not respond. The same submissive, blank look he’d worn while hearing the Emperor’s commands at Austerlitz seven years earlier appeared on his face now.

When Kutúzov left the Emperor’s study and, head lowered, crossed the ballroom with his slow, heavy shuffle, he was stopped by a voice calling:

“Your Serene Highness!”

Kutúzov looked up and for a long moment met the gaze of Count Tolstóy, who stood with a silver tray holding a small object. Kutúzov seemed not to understand what was expected.

Then, as if remembering, the faintest smile appeared on his swollen face. Bowing low, he respectfully took the object from the tray. It was the Order of St. George of the First Class.

##  CHAPTER XI

The next day, the field marshal hosted a dinner and ball, which the Emperor attended in person. Kutúzov had been awarded the Order of St. George of the First Class, and the Emperor publicly honored him with the highest regard, but everyone knew that the Emperor was dissatisfied with him. The proper courtesies were observed, and the Emperor set the example, but it was clear to all that the old man was considered blameworthy and useless. When Kutúzov, following a tradition from Catherine’s era, ordered the captured standards to be lowered at the Emperor’s feet as he entered the ballroom, the Emperor made a displeased face and muttered something in which some people caught the words, “the old comedian.”

The Emperor’s displeasure with Kutúzov was especially heightened in Vílna by the fact that Kutúzov apparently could not or would not grasp the significance of the upcoming campaign.

When, the next morning, the Emperor said to the assembled officers: “You have not only saved Russia, you have saved Europe!” everyone understood that the war was not over.

Only Kutúzov would not acknowledge this and openly declared his view that another war could not improve Russia’s position or add to her glory, but could only tarnish and diminish the great achievements Russia had already gained. He tried to persuade the Emperor of the impossibility of raising new troops, spoke about the hardships already endured by the people, the possibility of failure, and so forth.

Because the field marshal held this attitude, he was naturally seen as simply an obstacle and hindrance to the forthcoming campaign.

To avoid unpleasant confrontations with the old man, the usual method was employed—as had been done with him at Austerlitz and with Barclay at the start of the Russian campaign: to shift authority to the Emperor himself, thereby undermining the commander in chief’s authority without upsetting him by formally telling him of the change.

With this goal, Kutúzov’s staff was gradually reorganized, and its effective members were removed and reassigned to the Emperor. Toll, Konovnítsyn, and Ermólov received new appointments. Everyone spoke loudly about the field marshal’s failing strength and declining health.

His health had to be poor for his position to be taken from him and given to someone else. And in truth, his health really was failing.

So naturally, simply, and gradually—just as he had come from Turkey to the Treasury in Petersburg to recruit the militia, and then to the army when needed—now, when his role was finished, Kutúzov’s position was filled by a new and necessary leader.

The war of 1812, beyond its national meaning so precious to every Russian, was now about to take on another, a European, significance.

The movement of peoples from west to east was about to be replaced by a movement from east to west, and for this new phase another leader was needed, possessing qualities and views different from Kutúzov’s, and driven by different motives.

Alexander I was as essential for this movement westward and for redrawing national boundaries as Kutúzov had been for the salvation and glory of Russia.

Kutúzov did not understand what Europe, the balance of power, or Napoleon really meant. He could not understand it. For the representative of the Russian people, once the enemy had been destroyed and Russia liberated and brought to the height of her glory, there was, as a Russian, nothing more to do. Nothing remained for the champion of the national war except to die, and Kutúzov died.

##  CHAPTER XII

As often happens, Pierre did not fully feel the effects of the physical deprivation and exhaustion he had suffered as a prisoner until after it was over. After being freed, he traveled to Orël, and on the third day there, while preparing to go to Kiev, he fell ill and was bedridden for three months. The doctors called his illness a “bilious fever.” But despite being treated by doctors, bled, and given medicines to drink, he recovered.

Pierre retained hardly any clear memory of all that happened from his rescue until his illness. He remembered only the dull, gray weather—sometimes rainy, sometimes snowy—his internal discomfort and pain in his feet and side. He recalled a general sense of people’s misfortunes and suffering, being bothered by the curiosity of officers and generals who questioned him, his difficulty in getting a carriage and horses, and above all his inability to think or feel during that time. On the day of his rescue, he had seen the body of Pétya Rostóv. On that same day, he learned that Prince Andrew, after surviving the battle of Borodinó for more than a month, had recently died in the Rostóvs’ house at Yaroslávl. Denísov, who told him this, also mentioned Hélène’s death, assuming Pierre already knew. All this had seemed simply strange to Pierre at the time: he felt unable to comprehend its true significance. All he cared about then was to leave as soon as possible the places where people were killing each other, and find some peaceful refuge to recover, rest, and think about all the strange new things he had learned; but once in Orël he immediately fell ill. After regaining consciousness following his illness, he saw attending him two of his servants, Terénty and Váska, who had come from Moscow; and also his cousin, the eldest princess, who had been living on his estate at Eléts and, upon hearing of his rescue and illness, had come to look after him.

Only gradually, during his recovery, did Pierre lose the habits formed over the recent months and become used to the idea that no one would make him go anywhere tomorrow, that no one would take away his warm bed, and that he would reliably have dinner, tea, and supper. Yet for a long time, he still dreamt of himself in captivity. Slowly, too, he began to grasp the news he heard after his rescue about the deaths of Prince Andrew, his wife, and the defeat of the French.

A joyful sense of freedom—that complete, inalienable freedom natural to every person, which he had first experienced at his initial halt outside Moscow—filled Pierre’s soul as he recovered. He was surprised to find that this inner freedom, independent of outward circumstances, now seemed to have a new surrounding of external liberty. He was alone in a strange town, without acquaintances. No one demanded anything from him or sent him anywhere. He had everything he wanted: the thought of his wife, which had been a constant torment, was now gone, since she was dead.

“Oh, how good! How wonderful!” he said to himself when a neatly set table was brought to him with savory beef tea, or when he lay down on a soft, clean bed at night, or when he thought of the French being gone and his wife being no more. “Oh, how good, how wonderful!”

And out of habit, he asked himself the question: “Well, and what now? What am I going to do?” And immediately he answered himself: “Well, I shall live. Ah, how wonderful!”

The very question that had once tormented him, the thing he had always sought—the purpose of life—no longer existed for him. That search for life’s meaning was not just absent for the moment—he felt it no longer existed for him and could not appear again. And this very absence of a purpose gave him the complete, joyful feeling of freedom that was his happiness at this time.

He could not see any purpose because he now had faith—not faith in any set of rules, or words, or ideas, but faith in an ever-living, ever-present God. In the past, he had searched for God in the goals he set for himself. That search for purpose was, at bottom, a search for God, and suddenly in his captivity he had learned—not through words or reasoning, but by direct feeling—what his nurse had told him long ago: that God is here and everywhere. In captivity, he realized that in Karatáev, God was greater, more boundless and mysterious, than in the “Architect of the Universe” of Freemasonry. He felt like someone who, after straining his eyes to see into the distance, finds what he sought right at his feet. All his life, he had looked over the heads of those around him, when he should have simply looked before him, without straining.

Before, he had never been able to find that great, mysterious, infinite *something*. He always felt it must exist, somewhere, and looked for it. In all things nearby and understandable, he saw only what was limited, trivial, ordinary, and senseless. He had equipped himself with a mental telescope and examined far-off places, where trivialities hidden in the mist appeared to him as vast and infinite only because they couldn’t be seen clearly. This was how European life, politics, Freemasonry, philosophy, and philanthropy had seemed to him. Yet even then, in supposed moments of weakness, his mind had reached those distances and found the same triviality, worldliness, and senselessness. But now he saw the great, eternal, and infinite in everything, and so—to see and enjoy it—he naturally put aside the telescope through which he had always looked over people’s heads, and gladly looked directly at the ever-changing, eternally great, unfathomable, and infinite life around him. And the closer he looked, the calmer and happier he became. That dreadful question, “What for?” which had previously demolished all his intellectual efforts, had vanished. Now, in his soul, there was always a simple answer to “What for?”: “Because there is a God, that God without whose will not a single hair falls from a man’s head.”

##  CHAPTER XIII

Outwardly, Pierre had hardly changed at all. He looked just as he always had. He was still absent-minded and appeared to be more focused on something personal rather than what was right in front of him. The difference between his former self and who he was now was that, in the past, when he didn’t grasp what was happening or what someone said to him, he used to furrow his brow painfully, as if desperately trying to make something out in the distance. Now, although he continued to forget what was said and didn’t notice what was before him, he looked at things with a barely noticeable, almost ironic smile, listening to people as if seeing and hearing something completely different. He used to seem like a kind yet unhappy man, so people tended to avoid him. Now, a smile filled with a joy for life often played at his lips, and sympathy for others shone in his eyes with a questioning look, as if to ask whether they, too, were as content as he was. People were glad to have him around.

Before, he used to talk a lot, getting excited when he spoke, and rarely listened to others; now he was seldom swept away in conversation and had learned how to listen, making it easy for people to confide their most personal secrets to him.

The princess, who had never liked Pierre and felt particularly resentful toward him—especially after feeling indebted to him after the old count’s death—came to Orël intending to prove that, despite his ingratitude, she still considered it her duty to care for him. But after a brief stay, she was surprised and even annoyed to find herself growing fond of him. Pierre didn’t try to win her approval; he simply observed her with interest. Where she once felt that he regarded her with indifference and irony—causing her to retreat within herself and show only the combative side of her nature—now it seemed as if he was trying to understand the deepest parts of her heart. At first mistrustful but eventually grateful, she allowed him to see the gentler, kinder sides of her character.

No one could have gained her confidence more effectively, recalling the best memories of her youth and sympathizing with them. Yet Pierre’s success lay only in genuinely enjoying the process of bringing out the human qualities in the embittered, stern, and—in her own way—proud princess.

“Yes, he is a very, very kind man, at least when he is around good people like me and not under the influence of bad people,” she thought.

His servants, Terénty and Váska, also noticed Pierre's change in their own way. They thought he had become much “simpler.” Terénty, after helping him undress and wishing him good night, often lingered with Pierre's boots in his hands and his clothes over his arm, hoping for a conversation. And Pierre, noticing Terénty’s eagerness to talk, usually kept him there.

“Well, tell me… how did you get food?” he would ask.

Then Terénty would start talking about the destruction of Moscow and the old count, standing a long time holding the clothes and chatting, or sometimes listening to Pierre’s own stories, until finally leaving with a pleasant sense of closeness and affection for his master.

The doctor who visited Pierre every day, though he regarded it as his professional duty to seem like a man whose every moment was precious to suffering humanity, would spend hours with Pierre, sharing his favorite anecdotes and his thoughts on the personalities of his patients—especially the ladies.

“It’s a pleasure to talk to a man like that; he is not like our provincials,” the doctor would say.

There were several French prisoners in Orël, and the doctor introduced one of them—a young Italian—to Pierre.

This officer began to visit Pierre regularly, and the princess would joke about the deep affection the Italian showed him.

The Italian seemed happy only when he could visit Pierre, talk about his past, his home life, his love, and his anger at the French and especially Napoleon.

“If all Russians are even a little like you, it’s a crime to fight such a nation,” he told Pierre. “You, who have suffered so much from the French, don’t even bear resentment toward them.”

Pierre inspired the Italian’s passionate affection simply by encouraging the best side of his character and taking genuine pleasure in doing so.

In Pierre’s last days in Orël, Count Willarski, his old Masonic acquaintance who had introduced him to the lodge in 1807, came to see him. Willarski had married a Russian heiress with a large estate in the Orël province and held a temporary post in the commissariat department there.

On hearing that Bezúkhov was in Orël, Willarski, though not previously close to Pierre, visited him with the kind of friendly enthusiasm people often feel when meeting an acquaintance in a remote place. Willarski was bored in Orël and was pleased to meet someone from his own social circle and, as he believed, with similar interests.

But to his surprise, Willarski soon realized that Pierre had fallen behind the times and, as Willarski saw it, had become apathetic and self-absorbed.

“You’re letting yourself go, my dear fellow,” he said.

Nonetheless, Willarski found Pierre’s company far more pleasant than before and visited him daily. To Pierre, as he watched and listened to Willarski, it seemed strange to realize that he himself had been like that not so long ago.

Willarski was married with a family, preoccupied with family matters, his wife’s concerns, and his official duties. He saw these as obstacles to living, and considered them all trivial since their goal was only his and his family’s well-being. Military, administrative, political, and Masonic interests constantly occupied his mind. Pierre, without trying to challenge the man’s views or judge him, but with the quiet, joyful, and slightly amused smile he now wore, was interested in this strange, yet familiar phenomenon.

A new aspect had emerged in Pierre’s relationships—with Willarski, the princess, the doctor, and everyone he met—which won him everyone’s goodwill. He now recognized the impossibility of changing someone’s convictions by talking, and acknowledged that every person can think, feel, and perceive things in their own way. This individuality, which used to irritate Pierre, now became the very reason for his sympathy and interest in other people. The differences—and sometimes outright contradictions—between people’s beliefs and their lives, and from one person to another, amused and delighted him, drawing a gentle, tolerant smile.

In practical matters, Pierre unexpectedly found within himself a stability he’d never had before. Previously, money issues—especially requests for financial help, which he received frequently as a very wealthy man—left him hopelessly agitated and confused. “Should I give or not? I have money and he needs it. But maybe someone else needs it more? Maybe both are just conning me?” He had never been able to resolve these questions, and used to give to everyone until he’d nothing left. Similarly, every issue related to his property would leave him perplexed by conflicting advice.

Now, to his surprise, he felt neither doubt nor confusion over these matters. It was as if there was a judge inside him, guided by a rule he didn’t understand, that determined what he should and shouldn’t do.

He was still indifferent to money, but now he felt sure about what ought and what ought not be done. The first time he relied on this inner judge was when a French prisoner—a colonel—approached him and, after much talk of exploits, all but demanded four thousand francs to send to his wife and children. Pierre refused easily and without any struggle, and was surprised afterwards at how simple it had been compared to what once seemed an impossible problem. At the same time, while he denied the colonel’s request, he decided he would have to be subtle when leaving Orël to convince the Italian officer—who clearly needed money—to accept some from him. Another instance of his more decisive approach was his decision about his wife’s debts and the rebuilding of his houses in Moscow and the nearby countryside.

His head steward visited him in Orël. Together, they assessed his reduced income. According to the steward, the burning of Moscow had cost Pierre about two million rubles.

To soothe Pierre about these losses, the steward gave him an estimate showing that, despite everything, his income would not drop—and might even rise—if he refused to pay his wife’s debts, which he was not legally required to settle, and didn’t rebuild his ruined Moscow and country houses, which cost eighty thousand rubles a year to maintain and earned nothing.

“Yes, that’s certainly true,” said Pierre, smiling cheerfully. “I don’t need any of that. By being ruined, I have actually become much richer.”

But in January, Savélich arrived from Moscow and reported on the state of affairs there, presenting an architect’s estimate for rebuilding both houses, as though the project was already confirmed. Around the same time, Pierre received letters from Prince Vasíli and other Petersburg acquaintances about his wife’s debts. Pierre realized then that the steward’s proposal—which had sounded so appealing—was wrong and that he had to go to Petersburg to settle his wife’s affairs and had to rebuild in Moscow. He couldn’t say why, but he knew with certainty it had to be done. His income would fall by three-quarters, but it felt necessary.

Willarski was heading to Moscow, so they decided to travel together.

During his recovery in Orël, Pierre had felt joy, freedom, and life; but as the journey began and he encountered countless new faces, those feelings only grew. The whole trip, he felt like a schoolboy on holiday. Everyone he met—the coach drivers, the post-house overseers, peasants on the roads and in villages—seemed to have new meaning for him. Willarski’s constant complaints about Russia’s ignorance, poverty, and backwardness compared to Europe only heightened Pierre’s delight. Where Willarski saw stagnation, Pierre saw remarkable strength and vitality—the very force that, across those snowy expanses, sustained this unique, extraordinary people. He didn’t argue—and even seemed to agree—with Willarski, as that was the easiest way to avoid fruitless debates, and he smiled joyfully as he listened.

##  CHAPTER XIV

It would be hard to say why or where the ants whose nest has been destroyed are rushing: some run away carrying bits of trash, larvae, and corpses; others rush back to the nest, jostling, overtaking, and fighting each other. In much the same way, it is just as difficult to explain exactly what made the Russians crowd back to the place that had once been Moscow after the departure of the French. But when we watch the ants around their ruined nest, their persistence, energy, and sheer numbers show that despite the destruction, something indestructible—though invisible—remains, and that this is the real strength of the colony. Similarly, even in October, with Moscow without a government, without churches, shrines, riches, or houses—it was still in essence the same Moscow it had been in August. Everything tangible was destroyed except for something invisible yet strong and indestructible.

The reasons that drove people from every direction to Moscow after the enemy left were varied and personal, and at first mostly rough and brutal. Yet they all shared one motive: a desire to get to the place called Moscow and put their energies to use there.

Within a week, Moscow already had fifteen thousand residents; in two weeks, twenty-five thousand, and the numbers kept rising. By autumn 1813, the population had grown to surpass its numbers from 1812.

The first Russians to enter Moscow were the Cossacks from Wintzingerode’s detachment, peasants from neighboring villages, and residents who had fled and hidden nearby. These Russians, finding Moscow looted, also took their share. They continued what the French had started. Peasant wagons rolled into Moscow to carry off what was left in ruined houses and on the streets, taking it back to villages. The Cossacks took what they could to their camps, and householders seized whatever they found in other houses and moved it to their own, pretending it was theirs all along.

But after the first wave of plunderers, a second and third group followed, and as more people came, plundering got harder and took on more organized forms.

The French found Moscow deserted but with all its institutions for normal life still present—shops, businesses, various trades, luxury, government, and religious establishments. These forms were empty of true life, but they still existed. There were bazaars, shops, warehouses, markets, granaries—many still holding goods—as well as factories and workshops, palaces and grand houses filled with luxuries, hospitals, prisons, government offices, churches, and cathedrals. The longer the French stayed, the more these aspects of city life vanished, until only disorderly, lifeless plunder remained.

The more the French went on looting, the more both Moscow’s riches and its looters’ strength were depleted. But Russian plundering, which began with the city’s reoccupation, had the opposite effect: the longer it went on and the more people joined in, the faster the city’s wealth and everyday life were restored.

Alongside the looters, all sorts of other people—drawn by curiosity, duty, or self-interest—streamed into Moscow: homeowners, clergy, officials, tradesmen, craftsmen, and peasants, all flocking in like blood rushing to the heart.

Within a week, the peasants who arrived with empty wagons to take loot were stopped by the authorities and made to cart away corpses instead. Other peasants, having heard how their friends were thwarted, came selling rye, oats, and hay, driving prices down lower than ever before. Groups of carpenters hoping for high wages showed up every day, and everywhere logs were being chopped, new houses built, and damaged ones repaired. Merchants returned to their booths and resumed business. Cookshops and taverns were opened in half-burnt buildings. The clergy restarted services in many of the churches left standing. Generous donors replaced stolen church property. Government clerks set up their green tables and paperwork in small rooms. Higher officials and the police oversaw the distribution of goods left behind by the French. Owners of houses containing lots of property—often moved there from elsewhere—complained about having to surrender everything to the Faceted Palace in the Kremlin. Others argued that since the French had brought together property from many homes into one, it would not be right to let that owner keep it all. They insulted and bribed the police, exaggerated the loss of government stores in the fire, and demanded compensation. And Count Rostopchin wrote proclamations.

##  CHAPTER XV

At the end of January, Pierre went to Moscow and stayed in an annex of his house that had not been burned. He visited Count Rostopchin and some of his acquaintances who had also returned to Moscow, and he planned to leave for Petersburg two days later. Victory was being celebrated everywhere; the ruined but reviving city was full of life. Everyone was glad to see Pierre, eager to talk to him, and full of questions about what he had experienced. Pierre felt a genuine goodwill toward them all, but instinctively guarded against committing himself to anything. To every request or question—whether major or trivial, like where he would live, whether he would rebuild, when he would travel to Petersburg, or whether he could take a parcel for someone—he replied, “Yes, perhaps,” or, “I think so,” and so forth.

He’d heard the Rostovs were in Kostroma, but thoughts of Natasha rarely crossed his mind. When they did, it was only as a pleasant memory from long ago. He now felt not only free from social obligations, but also free from the emotion he thought he had once stirred in himself.

Three days after arriving, he learned from the Drubetskoys that Princess Mary was in Moscow. The death, suffering, and final days of Prince Andrew had occupied Pierre's thoughts often and now returned to him with new intensity. Having heard at dinner that Princess Mary was in Moscow and living in her house—which had survived the fire—on Vozdvizhenka Street, he drove over to see her that evening.

On the way, Pierre thought of Prince Andrew, their friendship, their various meetings, and especially the last one at Borodino.

“Could he really have died in that bitter state of mind? Did he find out the meaning of life before he died?” Pierre wondered. He remembered Karataev and his death, and unconsciously began to compare the two men—so different, but alike in the fact that both had lived, both had died, and both inspired his love.

Pierre pulled up to the old prince’s house, in a particularly serious mood. The house had survived the fire; it showed its scars, but otherwise looked unchanged. The old footman, meeting Pierre with a stern expression as if determined to show that the lack of the old prince hadn't disrupted the household, informed him that the princess had gone to her rooms and only received visitors on Sundays.

“Announce me. Perhaps she’ll see me,” Pierre said.

“Yes, sir,” replied the man. “Please step into the portrait gallery.”

A few minutes later, the footman returned with Dessalles, who relayed that the princess would be delighted to see Pierre if he wouldn’t mind the lack of ceremony and would come upstairs.

In a low-ceilinged room lit by a single candle sat the princess, with another person dressed in black. Pierre knew she always had lady companions, but he never knew or remembered who they were. “This must be one of her companions,” he thought, glancing at the woman in black.

The princess stood quickly and offered her hand.

“Yes,” she said, examining his changed face after he kissed her hand, “so this is how we meet again. He spoke of you even at the very end,” she added, turning her eyes from Pierre to her companion with a shyness that surprised him for a moment.

“I was so glad to hear you were safe. It was the first bit of good news we’d had in a long time.”

Again she glanced uneasily at her companion, and seemed about to say more, but Pierre interrupted her.

“Just imagine—I knew nothing about him!” he said. “I thought he was killed. Everything I know I heard secondhand. I know only that he ended up with the Rostovs... What a strange coincidence!”

Pierre spoke quickly and with energy. He glanced at the companion, saw her attentive, gentle gaze fixed on him, and, as sometimes happens in conversation, felt certain that this woman in black must be a good, kind soul who would not interfere with his talk with Princess Mary.

But when he mentioned the Rostovs, Princess Mary looked even more embarrassed. She glanced back and forth between Pierre and the woman in black and said:

“Don’t you recognize her?”

Pierre looked again at the companion’s pale, delicate face, with its dark eyes and distinctive mouth, and something close to him, long forgotten and sweeter than anything, stared back at him from those attentive eyes.

“No, it can’t be!” he thought. “This stern, thin, pale face looks so much older! It can’t be her. It only reminds me of her.” But at that moment Princess Mary said, “Natasha!” And with difficulty—as if forcing open a door whose hinges have rusted—a smile crept onto the attentive face. From that opening came an air of sweetness that filled Pierre with a happiness he had long forgotten and hadn't even been seeking—especially not just then. It filled him, overtook him, enveloped him completely. When she smiled, all doubt vanished: it was Natasha and he loved her.

In that moment Pierre unintentionally revealed to her, to Princess Mary, and most of all to himself a secret he hadn’t even known. He flushed with joyful embarrassment. He tried to hide his excitement, but the more he tried, the more obvious—far more than any words—he made it to himself, to Natasha, and to Princess Mary that he loved her.

“No, it’s just the surprise of seeing her,” Pierre told himself. But each time he tried to go on talking with Princess Mary, he stole another glance at Natasha, and another deep flush colored his face, and a stronger, mixed emotion of joy and anxiety seized his heart. He got flustered in his speech and stumbled in the middle of his sentences.

Pierre hadn't noticed Natasha because he never expected to see her there, but he hadn’t recognized her because she was so greatly changed since he had last seen her. She had become thin and pale, but that wasn’t what made her unrecognizable; what made her so was that the look she gave him when he entered—the face whose eyes had always gleamed with a subtle smile of life’s delight—now when he first saw her, held not the faintest trace of a smile; there was only kindness and a quiet, sad question in her gaze.

Pierre’s confusion was not echoed by confusion in Natasha, but by a quiet joy that seemed to light up her whole face.

##  CHAPTER XVI

“She has come to stay with me,” said Princess Mary. “The count and countess will be here in a few days. The countess is in a terrible state; but it was necessary for Natásha to see a doctor herself. They insisted she come with me.”

“Yes, is there any family that’s free from sorrow now?” said Pierre, speaking to Natásha. “You know it happened the very day we were rescued. I saw him. What a wonderful boy he was!”

Natásha looked at him, and in response to his words her eyes widened and shone.

“What can anyone say or think to bring comfort?” said Pierre. “Nothing! Why did such a splendid boy, so full of life, have to die?”

“Yes, these days it would be hard to live without faith…” remarked Princess Mary.

“Yes, yes, that’s truly right,” Pierre quickly interrupted her.

“Why is it right?” Natásha asked, looking closely into Pierre’s eyes.

“How can you ask why?” said Princess Mary. “Just thinking of what awaits…”

Natásha, without waiting for Princess Mary to finish, again looked at Pierre with questioning eyes.

“And because,” Pierre went on, “only someone who believes that there is a God guiding us can bear a loss like hers and… yours.”

Natásha had already opened her mouth to speak but suddenly stopped. Pierre quickly turned away from her and again spoke to Princess Mary, asking about his friend’s final days.

Pierre’s nervousness had almost disappeared now, but at the same time, he felt his freedom was completely gone. He sensed now there was someone judging every word and action of his whose judgment mattered more to him than anyone else’s. As he talked now, he was constantly thinking about what effect his words would have on Natásha. He wasn’t deliberately saying things just to please her, but whatever he said, he saw from her point of view.

Princess Mary—reluctantly, as is usual in such cases—began to describe the condition in which she had found Prince Andrew. But Pierre’s face quivering with emotion, his questions, and his eager, restless expression, gradually made her go into details she feared to recall for her own sake.

“Yes, yes, and so…?” Pierre kept saying as he leaned toward her with his whole body, eagerly listening to her story. “Yes, yes… so he became calm and gentle? With all his soul he had always sought one thing—to be perfectly good—so he could not fear death. The faults he had—if he had any—were not his own doing. So he did become kinder?… How fortunate that he saw you again,” he added suddenly, turning to Natásha and looking at her with eyes full of tears.

Natásha’s face twitched. She frowned and lowered her eyes for a moment. She hesitated for an instant, unsure whether to speak or not.

“Yes, that was happiness,” she then said in her quiet voice with its rich, deep tones. “For me it certainly was happiness.” She paused. “And he… he… he said he wanted it at the very moment I entered the room….”

Natásha’s voice broke. She blushed, pressed her clasped hands on her knees, and then, with visible effort to control herself, lifted her head and began to speak quickly.

“We knew nothing about it when we left Moscow. I didn’t dare ask about him. Then suddenly Sónya told me he was traveling with us. I had no idea and couldn’t imagine what state he was in. All I wanted was to see him and be with him,” she said, trembling and breathing quickly.

Not letting them interrupt, she continued to tell what she had never mentioned to anyone before—all that she lived through during those three weeks of their journey and life at Yaroslávl.

Pierre listened to her, lips parted and eyes fixed on her, full of tears. While he listened, he was not thinking of Prince Andrew, or of death, or the details she was telling. He listened to her and felt only pity for her, for what she was suffering now as she spoke.

Princess Mary, frowning as she struggled to hold back tears, sat beside Natásha and heard for the first time the story of those last days of her brother’s and Natásha’s love.

It was clear that Natásha needed to tell that painful yet joyful story.

She spoke, mixing the slightest details with the deepest secrets of her soul, and it seemed as though she could never finish. Several times she repeated the same thing.

Dessalles’ voice was heard outside the door, asking whether little Nicholas could come in to say good night.

“Well, that’s all—everything,” said Natásha.

She got up quickly just as Nicholas entered, almost ran to the door hidden by curtains, bumped her head against it, and rushed from the room with a moan, either from pain or sorrow.

Pierre gazed at the door where she had vanished and didn’t understand why he suddenly felt completely alone in the world.

Princess Mary brought him out of his thoughts by drawing his attention to her nephew, who had just entered the room.

At that moment of emotional tenderness, young Nicholas’ face, so like his father’s, moved Pierre so much that after he had kissed the boy he got up quickly, took out his handkerchief, and went to the window. He wanted to say goodbye to Princess Mary, but she wouldn’t let him leave.

“No, Natásha and I sometimes don’t go to sleep until after two, so please don’t go. I’ll order supper. Go downstairs, we’ll be there soon.”

Before Pierre left the room, Princess Mary told him, “This is the first time she’s spoken of him like that.”

##  CHAPTER XVII

Pierre was shown into the large, brightly lit dining room; a few minutes later he heard footsteps and Princess Mary entered with Natasha. Natasha was calm, though a serious and grave expression had once again settled on her face. All three of them now felt the awkwardness that usually follows a serious and heartfelt conversation. It's impossible to resume the same talk, yet switching to trivial matters feels uncomfortable, and still, everyone wants to speak—remaining silent seems artificial. They went silently to the table. The footmen pulled out the chairs and then pushed them in again. Pierre unfolded his cold napkin and, deciding to break the silence, looked at Natasha and Princess Mary. Clearly, both of them had made the same decision; their eyes shone with satisfaction and a silent admission that, alongside sorrow, life also has joy.

“Do you take vodka, Count?” asked Princess Mary, and those simple words suddenly dispelled the shadows of the past. “Now, tell us about yourself,” she continued. “One hears such incredible things about you.”

“Yes,” replied Pierre with the mildly ironic smile that had become habitual to him. “They even tell me stories I never dreamed of myself! Mary Abramovna invited me to her house and kept recounting what had happened, or should have happened, to me. Stepan Stepanych also instructed me how I ought to tell my tale. In general, I’ve noticed it’s very easy to be interesting—now I’m an interesting man; people invite me out and tell me all about myself.”

Natasha smiled and was about to speak.

“We’ve heard,” Princess Mary interrupted her, “that you lost two million in Moscow. Is that true?”

“But I am three times as rich as before,” returned Pierre.

Though his circumstances had changed since deciding to pay his wife’s debts and rebuild his homes, Pierre still insisted he was three times as rich as before.

“What I have certainly gained is freedom,” he began seriously, but did not continue, sensing that this topic was too self-centered.

“And are you rebuilding?”

“Yes. Savelich insists on it!”

“Tell me, you didn’t know of the countess’s death when you decided to stay in Moscow?” asked Princess Mary, immediately blushing as she realized that, following his mention of freedom, her question added a meaning to his words that he perhaps hadn’t intended.

“No,” answered Pierre, evidently not finding awkward the meaning Princess Mary gave his words. “I heard about it in Orel and you can't imagine how it shocked me. We were not an exemplary couple,” he added quickly, glancing at Natasha and seeing curiosity on her face about how he would speak of his wife, “but her death shocked me terribly. When two people quarrel, they are always both at fault, and your own guilt suddenly becomes very serious when the other person is no longer alive. And then such a death… without friends and without comfort! I am very, very sorry for her,” he concluded, and was glad to see a look of warm approval on Natasha’s face.

“Yes, so now you are once more an eligible bachelor,” said Princess Mary.

Pierre suddenly flushed crimson and for a long moment tried not to look at Natasha. When he finally dared to glance at her, her face was cold, stern, and he thought even contemptuous.

“And did you actually see and speak to Napoleon, as we've been told?” said Princess Mary.

Pierre laughed.

“No, not once! Everyone seems to think that being a prisoner means being Napoleon’s guest. Not only did I never meet him, but I heard nothing about him—I was in much humbler company!”

Supper was over, and Pierre, who had at first avoided talking about his captivity, was gradually drawn into describing it.

“But it’s true that you stayed in Moscow to kill Napoleon?” Natasha asked with a slight smile. “I guessed as much back when we met at the Sukharev Tower, do you remember?”

Pierre admitted it was true, and from there Princess Mary’s questions—especially Natasha’s—drew him into a more detailed account of his adventures.

At first he spoke with the amused and gentle irony now customary to him toward everyone and especially himself, but when he began to recount the horrors and sufferings he had witnessed, he was unconsciously swept up in emotion, speaking with the restrained passion of a man reliving powerful experiences.

Princess Mary, with a gentle smile, looked from Pierre to Natasha. Through the whole story she saw only Pierre’s goodness. Natasha, leaning on her elbow, her face changing constantly with the story, listened to Pierre with unwavering attention—clearly living through all he described. Not only her gaze, but her little exclamations and brief questions, let Pierre know she understood exactly what he meant. She showed she understood not only what he said, but also what he wished to say but couldn't quite put into words. Pierre described the episode with the child and the woman for whom he had been arrested in these words: “It was a terrible sight—children left behind, some in the flames… One was pulled out right before my eyes… and there were women whose belongings were ripped off and earrings torn out…” He blushed and grew confused. “Then a patrol arrived and all the men—all those not looting, that is—were arrested, me among them.”

“I’m sure you’re not telling us everything; I’m sure you did something…” said Natasha, pausing, “something brave?”

Pierre went on. When he recounted the execution, he wanted to skip over the horrible details, but Natasha insisted he leave nothing out.

Pierre began to tell about Karataev but stopped. By now he had risen from the table and was pacing the room, Natasha following him with her eyes. Then he added:

“No, you can’t understand what I learned from that uneducated man—that simple fellow.”

“Yes, yes, go on!” said Natasha. “Where is he now?”

“They killed him almost before my eyes.”

And Pierre, his voice trembling all the while, went on to tell of the last days of their retreat, of Karataev’s illness and death.

He told his tale as he never had before. Now, as though seeing a new meaning in all he’d gone through, telling Natasha gave him that particular joy a man feels when a woman listens to him—not clever women who listen in order to remember and retell, or to use the story for their own thoughts and quickly add their prepared remarks, but the pleasure of real women, who naturally select and take in the best a man has to offer. Natasha, without realizing it, was completely attentive: she missed not a word, not a quiver in Pierre’s voice, not a look or a twitch of a muscle on his face, not a single gesture. She caught the unfinished word as if in flight and drew it straight into her open heart, understanding the hidden meaning of all Pierre’s emotional struggles.

Princess Mary understood his story and sympathized, but now she saw something else that completely absorbed her attention. She saw the possibility of love and happiness between Natasha and Pierre, and the first hint of it filled her heart with joy.

It was three o’clock in the morning. The footmen entered with somber, serious faces to change the candles, but no one noticed them.

Pierre had finished his story. Natasha kept gazing at him intently, her eyes bright, attentive, and lively, as if she were still trying to understand something more that he might have left unspoken. Pierre, in a mixture of embarrassment and delight, glanced at her occasionally and tried to think of something to say to start a new topic. Princess Mary was silent. None of them realized it was three o’clock and time to go to bed.

“People talk about misfortunes and suffering,” said Pierre, “but if I were asked right now, ‘Would you rather be as you were before you were taken prisoner, or go through all this again?’—then, for heaven’s sake, let me have captivity and horseflesh again! We think that when we’re forced out of our usual tracks, everything is lost, but it’s only then that what is new and good begins. As long as there's life, there’s happiness. So much lies ahead. I say this to you,” he added, turning to Natasha.

“Yes, yes,” she replied, answering something quite different. “I too would wish for nothing more than to relive it all from the beginning.”

Pierre looked at her closely.

“Yes, nothing more,” said Natasha.

“That’s not true, it’s not true!” cried Pierre. “I’m not to blame for being alive and wanting to live—nor are you.”

Suddenly Natasha bent her head, covered her face with her hands, and began to cry.

“What is it, Natásha?” asked Princess Mary.

“Nothing, nothing.” She smiled at Pierre through her tears. “Good night! It’s time for bed.”

Pierre got up and said his goodbyes.

Princess Mary and Natásha met as usual in the bedroom. They talked about what Pierre had told them. Princess Mary didn’t share her thoughts about Pierre, nor did Natásha mention him.

“Well, good night, Mary!” said Natásha. “You know, I’m often afraid that by not talking about him”—she meant Prince Andrew—“for fear of not doing justice to our feelings, we end up forgetting him.”

Princess Mary sighed deeply, acknowledging the truth in Natásha’s words, but didn’t say anything in response.

“Is it really possible to forget?” she asked.

“It did me so much good to talk about everything today. It was hard and painful, but good—very good!” said Natásha. “I’m sure he really loved him. That’s why I told him… Was that okay?” she added, suddenly blushing.

“To tell Pierre? Oh, yes. What a wonderful person he is!” said Princess Mary.

“You know, Mary…” Natásha suddenly said with a playful smile Princess Mary hadn’t seen on her face for a long time, “he’s somehow become so clean, polished, and refreshed—like he’s just stepped out of a Russian bath; do you know what I mean? Out of a moral bath. Isn’t that true?”

“Yes,” replied Princess Mary. “He’s changed a lot for the better.”

“With a short coat and his hair cut—just as if, well, just as if he came straight from the bath… Papa used to…”

“I understand why *he*”—Prince Andrew—“liked him more than anyone else,” said Princess Mary.

“Yes, and yet he’s completely different. They say men are friends when they’re completely different from each other. That must be true. Really, he’s nothing like him—in any way.”

“Yes, but he’s amazing.”

“Well, good night,” said Natásha.

And the same playful smile lingered on her face for a long time, as though it had been left there unintentionally.

##  CHAPTER XVIII

It was a long time before Pierre could fall asleep that night. He paced up and down his room, sometimes frowning as he wrestled with a challenging problem, sometimes suddenly shrugging his shoulders and wincing, and at other times smiling happily.

He thought of Prince Andrew, of Natásha, and of their love—sometimes feeling jealous of her past, then reproaching himself for that feeling. It was already six in the morning and he was still pacing the room.

“Well, what can be done if it can’t be avoided? What can I do? Clearly, it must be this way,” he told himself, and, quickly undressing, he got into bed—happy, agitated, but free from any hesitation or doubt.

“Strange and impossible as such happiness seems, I must do everything so that she and I may become husband and wife,” he told himself.

A few days earlier, Pierre had decided to travel to Petersburg on Friday. When he awoke on Thursday, Savélich came to ask about packing for the trip.

“What, to Petersburg? What is Petersburg? Who is even there in Petersburg?” he asked involuntarily, though only to himself. “Oh yes, long ago, before all this happened, I did for some reason mean to go to Petersburg,” he recalled. “Why? But maybe I will still go. What a good fellow he is and how attentive, and how he remembers everything,” he thought, looking at Savélich’s old face, “and what a pleasant smile he has!”

“Well, Savélich, do you still refuse to accept your freedom?” Pierre asked him.

“What use would freedom be to me, your excellency? We lived under the late count—may he rest in peace!—and we’ve lived under you as well, without ever being wronged.”

“And your children?”

“The children will live just the same. With such masters, life is good.”

“But what about my heirs?” Pierre said. “Suppose I suddenly marry... it could happen,” he added, smiling involuntarily.

“If I may say so, your excellency, that would be a good thing.”

“How simply he thinks of it,” thought Pierre. “He doesn’t know how awful it is and how dangerous. Too soon or too late... it is terrible!”

“So what are your orders? Are you leaving tomorrow?” Savélich asked.

“No, I’ll postpone it for now. I’ll tell you later. Please forgive me for the trouble I’ve put you through,” said Pierre, and, seeing Savélich smile, thought: “But how strange it is that he doesn’t realize that now Petersburg means nothing to me, and that *this* must come first! But probably he knows it perfectly well and is only pretending. Should I talk to him and get his thoughts?” Pierre wondered. “No, another time.”

At breakfast, Pierre told his cousin, the princess, that he had visited Princess Mary the previous day and there had met—"Guess who? Natásha Rostóva!"

The princess seemed to find nothing more remarkable about that than if he had seen Anna Semënovna.

“Do you know her?” asked Pierre.

“I have seen the princess,” she replied. “I heard they were discussing a match for her with young Rostóv. It would be very good for the Rostóvs—they say they are completely ruined.”

“No; I mean do you know Natásha Rostóva?”

“I heard all about that affair of hers at the time. It was a terrible pity.”

“No, she either doesn’t understand or is pretending,” thought Pierre. “It's better not to say anything to her, either.”

The princess had also prepared provisions for Pierre’s journey.

“How kind they all are,” thought Pierre. “What’s surprising is that they bother about all this now, when it can’t matter to them anymore. And all for me!”

That same day, the Chief of Police called on Pierre, inviting him to send a representative to the Faceted Palace to collect belongings being returned to their owners.

“And this man, too,” thought Pierre, studying the Chief of Police’s face. “What a good-looking officer, and how kind. Imagine bothering about such trifles *now!* And people actually say he isn’t honest and takes bribes. What rubbish! Besides, why shouldn’t he take bribes? That’s how he was brought up, and everyone does it. But what a kind, pleasant face, and how warmly he smiles at me.”

Pierre went to dine at Princess Mary’s house.

As he drove through the city, passing the burned-out houses, he was struck by the beauty of the ruins. The picturesque chimney stacks and crumbling walls of burned neighborhoods—sprawling and overlapping—reminded him of the Rhine and the Colosseum. The cabmen and their fares, carpenters cutting wood for new houses, women vendors, and shopkeepers—all looked at him with cheerful, shining eyes, as if to say: “Ah, there he is! Let’s see what will come of it!”

At the entrance to Princess Mary’s, Pierre was uncertain whether he had truly been there the night before and really seen Natásha and spoken to her. “Maybe I imagined it; maybe I’ll go in and no one will be there.” But as soon as he stepped into the room, he felt her presence entirely, sensing the loss of his freedom. She was wearing the same black dress with soft folds and had her hair the same way as yesterday, yet she seemed entirely different. Had she looked like this when he arrived yesterday, he could never have failed to recognize her for a moment.

She was just as he had known her—almost as a child and later as Prince Andrew’s fiancée. A bright, questioning light was in her eyes, and her face wore a friendly and oddly mischievous expression.

Pierre dined with them and would have stayed all evening, but Princess Mary was going to vespers and Pierre left the house with her.

He came early the next day, dined, and stayed the entire evening. Although Princess Mary and Natásha were clearly glad to have him, and though all of Pierre’s interest was centered now in that house, by evening they had discussed everything—they drifted from one minor topic to another, and conversation frequently petered out. He stayed so long that Princess Mary and Natásha exchanged glances, clearly wondering when he would finally leave. Pierre noticed this, but simply couldn't make himself go. He felt uneasy and embarrassed, but still sat on, unable to get up and take his leave.

Princess Mary, seeing no end to it, stood up first and, complaining of a headache, began to say good night.

“So you’re leaving for Petersburg tomorrow?” she asked.

“No, I’m not going,” Pierre replied quickly, sounding surprised and even slightly offended. “Yes… no… Petersburg? Tomorrow—but I won’t say good-bye yet. I'll come over in case you have any requests for me,” he said, standing in front of Princess Mary and blushing, but not leaving.

Natásha shook his hand and left. Princess Mary, instead of leaving, sank into an armchair and looked at him seriously with her deep, radiant eyes. The tiredness she’d shown before was now completely gone. With a deep, drawn-out sigh, she seemed ready for a long conversation.

When Natásha left the room, Pierre’s confusion and awkwardness instantly disappeared, replaced by eager excitement. He quickly moved an armchair closer to Princess Mary.

“Yes, I wanted to tell you,” he said, responding to her look as if she had spoken aloud. “Princess, help me! What should I do? Can I hope? Princess, my dear friend, listen! I know everything. I know I’m not worthy of her, I know it’s impossible to speak of it now. But I want to be a brother to her. No, not that, that’s not what I want, I can’t…”

He stopped and rubbed his face and eyes with his hands.

“Well,” he continued, clearly making an effort to stay calm and coherent. “I don’t know when I first began to love her, but I have loved her, and only her, all my life. I love her so much that I can’t imagine life without her. I can’t propose to her at the moment, but the thought that perhaps she could one day be my wife—and that I might miss that chance… that chance… it’s unbearable. Tell me, can I hope? Tell me what I should do, dear princess!” he added after a pause, touching her hand when she didn’t respond.

“I am thinking over what you’ve just told me,” answered Princess Mary. “Here is what I’ll say. You’re right that to speak to her of love right now…”

Princess Mary stopped. She intended to say that talking about love was out of the question, but stopped herself because she remembered how Natasha had suddenly changed two days earlier. She realized that not only would Natasha not be hurt if Pierre confessed his love, but that it was exactly what Natasha wanted.

“Still, it wouldn’t be right to speak to her now,” the princess said.

“But what should I do?”

“Leave it to me,” said Princess Mary. “I know…”

Pierre gazed into Princess Mary’s eyes.

“Well?… Well?…” he urged.

“I know that she loves… will love you,” Princess Mary corrected herself.

Before she finished speaking, Pierre jumped up and, with a nervous look, grabbed Princess Mary’s hand.

“What makes you think so? You really believe I may hope? You think…?”

“Yes, I think so,” Princess Mary said, smiling. “Write to her parents and leave the rest to me. I’ll tell her when the time is right. I want this to happen, and my heart tells me it will.”

“No, it’s impossible! How happy I am! But it can’t be… How happy I am! No, it can’t be!” Pierre kept repeating as he kissed Princess Mary’s hands.

“Go to Petersburg, that will be best. And I’ll write to you,” she said.

“To Petersburg? Go there? Very well, I’ll go. But may I come again tomorrow?”

The next day, Pierre came to say goodbye. Natasha was less lively than she had been the day before; yet, as he looked at her that day, Pierre sometimes felt as if he were disappearing, and that neither of them truly existed anymore—there was only happiness. “Is it possible? No, it can’t be,” he told himself with every look, gesture, and word from her that filled his heart with joy.

When he said goodbye and took her delicate, slender hand, he couldn’t help but hold it a moment longer in his own.

“Is it really possible that this hand, that face, those eyes, all this treasure of feminine charm so unfamiliar to me now, could one day be mine forever, as close to me as I am to myself?… No, it’s impossible!…”

“Goodbye, Count,” she said aloud. “I’ll look forward very much to your return,” she added softly.

And those simple words—her glance, and the expression on her face as she said them—became for Pierre the source of endless memories, interpretations, and joyful thoughts over the next two months. “‘I’ll look forward very much to your return….’ Yes, yes, how did she say it? Yes, ‘I’ll look forward very much to your return.’ Oh, how happy I am! What’s happening to me? How happy I am!” Pierre kept repeating to himself.

##  CHAPTER XIX

There was nothing in Pierre’s heart now that resembled what had troubled him while he was courting Hélène.

He no longer replayed his words with shame, or thought: “Oh, why didn’t I say that?” or, “Whatever made me say *‘Je vous aime’*?” On the contrary, he now replayed in his mind every word he and Natasha had spoken, pictured every detail of her face and smile, and wished neither to change nor add anything, but simply to relive it all again and again. Now, he had not the slightest doubt about the rightness of what he was doing. Only one terrible doubt sometimes crossed his mind: “Was it all just a dream? Is Princess Mary mistaken? Am I being too self-satisfied and confident? I believe in all this—and suddenly Princess Mary will tell her, and she will just smile and say: ‘How strange! He must be fooling himself. Doesn’t he know he’s just a man, while I…? I am something very different—something higher.’”

That was the only doubt that troubled Pierre. He no longer made any plans. The happiness before him seemed so incredible that, if he could only reach it, it would be the end of everything. Nothing else would matter after that.

He was swept away by a joyful, unexpected delirium he never thought himself capable of. The entire meaning of life—not only for him but for everyone—seemed to be concentrated in his love and the possibility that she might love him in return. At times, it seemed to Pierre that everyone around him was preoccupied with his future happiness. Sometimes he imagined that everyone else was as happy for him as he was for himself, but pretended to be absorbed in other things. In every word and gesture he noticed hints about his happiness. Those he met were often startled by the deeply happy look and smile he wore, which seemed to express a secret understanding between them and him. And when he realized that others might not be aware of his happiness, he pitied them wholeheartedly, wanting to explain to them that whatever they were occupied with was nothing more than trivial compared to what really mattered.

When people suggested he enter the civil service, or when the war or political matters were discussed as if everyone’s wellbeing depended on their outcomes, he listened with a gentle, pitying smile, surprising others with his odd remarks. At this time, he saw everyone—those who, he imagined, understood the real meaning of life (which was what he was feeling) and those unfortunate people who clearly didn’t—in the shining light of the joy inside him. Without effort, he saw in everyone he met all that was good and lovable.

When sorting through the affairs and papers of his deceased wife, her memory did not bring up any feeling except pity that she never knew the happiness he now had. Prince Vasíli, who had just received a new post and some fresh honors and was feeling especially proud, appeared to Pierre as a pitiable, good-hearted old man deserving of sympathy.

Often in later life, Pierre remembered this period of joyful madness. All the ideas and impressions he formed about people and events at this time remained true for him always. He not only never gave them up, but whenever he felt uncertain or conflicted, he recalled the views he had during this period of “madness,” and they always proved right.

“I may have seemed odd or eccentric then,” he reflected, “but I wasn’t as crazy as I appeared. On the contrary, I was wiser and saw more clearly than ever, and understood everything in life worth understanding, because… because I was happy.”

Pierre’s unusual state was that, unlike before, he no longer needed to find reasons—or “good qualities”—to love people; his heart was now overflowing with love, and by loving others without cause, he naturally found more reasons to love them.

##  CHAPTER XX

After Pierre left that first evening, when Natásha said to Princess Mary with a playfully teasing smile, “He looks just, yes, just as if he had come out of a Russian bath—in a short coat and with his hair cropped,” something hidden within her, unknown even to herself but impossible to contain, awakened in Natásha’s soul.

Everything about her—her face, walk, gaze, and voice—suddenly changed. To her own surprise, a surge of life and hope for happiness rose up and demanded to be fulfilled. From that evening on, she seemed to forget everything that had happened to her. She no longer complained about her situation, never brought up the past, and wasn’t afraid anymore to make joyful plans for the future. She seldom spoke of Pierre, but whenever Princess Mary mentioned him, a long-extinguished spark shone in her eyes and her lips formed a strange smile.

At first, the change in Natásha took Princess Mary by surprise; but when she understood what it meant, it saddened her. “Did she love my brother so little that she can forget him so quickly?” she wondered as she thought about the change. But when she was around Natásha, she didn’t resent her or reproach her. The revived vitality that overtook Natásha was so clearly uncontrollable and unexpected even to herself that Princess Mary felt she had no right to reproach her, even in her own mind.

Natásha gave herself over completely and openly to this new feeling, not even trying to hide that she was no longer sad, but bright and cheerful.

When Princess Mary came back to her room after her midnight conversation with Pierre, Natásha met her at the door.

“He spoke? Yes? He spoke?” she repeated.

And a joyful yet almost apologetic expression, as though asking for forgiveness for her happiness, appeared on Natásha’s face.

“I wanted to listen at the door, but I knew you would tell me.”

As understandable and moving as Natásha’s look was to Princess Mary, and as sorry as she felt for her excitement, Natásha’s words still hurt her for an instant. She remembered her brother and his love.

“But what can you do? She can’t help it,” thought the princess.

And with a sad and somewhat serious expression, she told Natásha everything Pierre had said. When she heard that he was going to Petersburg, Natásha was stunned.

“To Petersburg!” she repeated, as if she couldn’t understand it.

But as she noticed the sadness on Princess Mary’s face, she guessed the reason and suddenly began to cry.

“Mary,” she said, “tell me what I should do! I’m afraid of doing something wrong. Whatever you tell me, I’ll do. Please tell me….”

“You love him?”

“Yes,” whispered Natásha.

“Then why are you crying? I’m happy for you,” said Princess Mary, who, seeing those tears, entirely forgave Natásha’s happiness.

“It won’t be right away—not yet. Just think how much fun it will be when I’m his wife and you’re married to Nicholas!”

“Natásha, I’ve asked you not to talk about that. Let’s talk about you.”

They sat in silence for a while.

“But why is he going to Petersburg?” Natásha suddenly asked, and quickly answered herself. “But no, no, he must… Yes, Mary, he must….”

##  FIRST EPILOGUE: 1813 - 20

##  CHAPTER I

Seven years had passed. The turbulent sea of European history had settled within its boundaries and appeared calm. Yet the mysterious forces that drive humanity (mysterious because their laws remain unknown to us) continued to operate.

Though the surface of the sea of history seemed still, the movement of humanity pressed on as relentlessly as the passage of time. Different groups formed and dissolved; the creation and collapse of kingdoms and the movement of peoples were being prepared.

History was no longer driven wildly from shore to shore as it once was. It churned beneath the surface. Historical figures were not swept by the waves from one shore to the next as before. Now, they seemed to revolve in place. The leaders of armies, who once mirrored the movement of the masses through wars, campaigns, and battles, now reflected that same restlessness through political and diplomatic maneuvering, laws, and treaties.

Historians refer to this activity of the historical figures as “the reaction.”

When discussing this period, historians severely criticize the figures who, in their view, are responsible for what they call *the reaction*. All the notable people of that era, from Alexander and Napoleon to Madame de Staël, Photius, Schelling, Fichte, Chateaubriand, and others, are paraded before their strict tribunal and are praised or condemned based on whether they contributed to *progress* or to *reaction*.

According to these accounts, a reaction also took place at that time in Russia, and the main culprit was Alexander I—the same Alexander who, according to them, sparked the liberal movement at the start of his reign and saved Russia.

There is no one in Russian literature now, from a schoolboy essayist to a learned historian, who does not hurl their small criticism at Alexander for the errors of this period of his reign.

“He should have acted like this or like that. Here he did well, there he failed. He was admirable at the start of his reign and in 1812, but erred when he gave Poland a constitution, formed the Holy Alliance, entrusted power to Arakchéev, favored Golítsyn and mysticism, then later Shishkóv and Photius. He was also wrong to involve himself with the active army and disband the Semënov regiment.”

It would take dozens of pages to list all the reproaches historians level at him, based on their insight into what is best for humanity.

What do these criticisms mean?

Don't the very actions for which Alexander I is praised by historians (his early liberal reforms, his resistance to Napoleon, his determination in 1812 and the campaign of 1813) spring from the same sources—the circumstances of his birth, education, and life—that made him who he was, and also gave rise to the actions they blame him for (the Holy Alliance, the restoration of Poland, and the reaction of 1820 and after)?

Where does the substance of these reproaches lie?

It lies in the fact that a historical figure like Alexander I, standing at the peak of human power and under the blinding scrutiny of history; a person subject to the strongest influences—intrigue, flattery, and the self-deception inseparable from power; a person who felt, at every moment, responsible for everything happening in Europe; and not a fictional, but a real human being, who like every person had habits, passions, and impulses toward good, beauty, and truth—that this person—though not lacking in virtue (the historians do not accuse him of that)—did not share the same idea of what was best for humanity fifty years ago as a modern professor today, someone who has spent their life surrounded by books, lectures, and taking notes.

But even if we suppose that, fifty years ago, Alexander I was mistaken about what was best for the people, we must also accept that the historian who judges Alexander will eventually be considered mistaken about what is best for humanity. This is even more natural and inevitable because, observing history, we see that every year and every new writer offers a different opinion on what is good for mankind; what was once considered good, ten years later is seen as bad, and vice versa. Moreover, at any given time, there can be completely contradictory views as to what was good or bad in history: some praise Alexander for granting Poland a constitution and forming the Holy Alliance, while others criticize him for these very actions.

The deeds of Alexander or Napoleon cannot be labeled as useful or harmful, because it is impossible to determine for whom or what they were useful or harmful. If someone's actions displease me, it is only because they do not align with my limited understanding of good. Whether it is the preservation of my father's house in Moscow, the glory of the Russian military, the prosperity of the universities of Petersburg and elsewhere, the freedom of Poland, the greatness of Russia, the balance of power in Europe, or a particular type of European culture referred to as “progress”—regardless of what strikes me as good or bad, I must admit that every deed of each historic figure also served higher purposes I cannot comprehend.

But let us suppose that what is called science can reconcile all contradictions and has an unchanging measure of good and bad by which to judge historical figures and events; let us suppose Alexander could have done everything differently; let us consider that, with guidance from his present critics—those who claim to know humanity’s ultimate purpose—he arranged everything according to their program: nationality, freedom, equality, and progress (these seem to cover it). Suppose this program was possible and had existed then, and that Alexander had faithfully followed it. What, then, would have happened to all those who opposed the government’s policy at the time—the very activities historians now praise as good and beneficial? Their actions would never have existed: there would have been no life, nothing at all.

If we admit that human life can be ruled solely by reason, then life itself becomes impossible.

##  CHAPTER II

If we agree with historians that great men lead humanity toward certain goals—the greatness of Russia or France, the balance of power in Europe, the spread of revolutionary ideas, overall progress, or any other aim—then history becomes inexplicable without bringing in the concepts of *chance* and *genius*.

If the purpose of the early nineteenth-century European wars was to increase Russia's power, then that could have been achieved without all the wars and invasions. If the aim was to increase France's power, that could have been done without the Revolution or the Empire. If the goal was spreading certain ideas, the printing press could have served far better than warfare. If civilization’s progress was the aim, it should be clear that there are better ways to spread culture than by destroying prosperity and human lives.

So why did it happen in this particular way and not another?

Because it happened this way! “*Chance* created the circumstances; *genius* took advantage,” says history.

But what is *chance*? What is *genius*?

The words *chance* and *genius* do not refer to any real, tangible thing and cannot be properly defined. These words only represent a certain stage of our understanding of events. If I do not know why something happens, and think I cannot know, I do not attempt to understand and just mention *chance*. If I see a force achieving things beyond what is usual or expected, and don't know why, I simply talk about *genius*.

For example, to a herd of sheep, the ram that the shepherd feeds separately each night—who becomes twice as fat as the others—must appear to be a genius. And it must seem a most extraordinary combination of genius and luck that this ram, who instead of returning to the general fold each evening, is placed in a special pen with oats—this same ram, fattened, ends up slaughtered for meat.

But the sheep need only drop the idea that everything that happens to them must serve only their own sheepish purposes; they only have to accept that what happens may serve an unknown end, and they will suddenly perceive a unity and coherence in the fate of the fattened ram. Even if they don't know why they are fattened, they will at least recognize that it is not accidental, and will no longer need to use the concepts of *chance* or *genius*.

Only by letting go of our claim to an immediately understandable purpose, and accepting an ultimate goal beyond our grasp, can we recognize the pattern in the lives of historic figures and the cause of their seemingly extraordinary effect, and then the words *chance* and *genius* become unnecessary.

We need only admit that we do not know the purpose of the European upheavals, and that all we know are the facts—namely, the killings, first in France, then in Italy, Africa, Prussia, Austria, Spain, and Russia—and that the west-to-east and east-to-west movements are the essence and aim of these events. Not only will we not need to see exceptional ability and genius in Napoleon and Alexander, but we will be unable to see them as anything other than ordinary people, and will not have to resort to *chance* to explain the small events that made these people who they were; instead, it will be clear that all these small events were inevitable.

By setting aside the claim to know the ultimate purpose, we will clearly see that, just as you cannot imagine a better blossom or seed for a plant than the one it actually produces, so it is impossible to imagine two people better suited in every detail for the roles they were to play than Napoleon and Alexander, considering their entire backgrounds.

##  CHAPTER III

The core significance of the European events at the start of the nineteenth century lies in the movement of the masses of European peoples first from west to east, and then from east to west. The beginning of that movement was from west to east. For the peoples of the west to launch their military campaign toward Moscow, it was necessary: (1) that they form themselves into a military group large enough to endure a clash with the military masses of the east, (2) that they abandon all established traditions and customs, and (3) that, during their military advance, they have a leader who could justify—both to himself and to them—the deceptions, thefts, and murders required by such a campaign.

With the onset of the French Revolution, the old, inadequate grouping was shattered, the old customs and traditions were discarded, and step by step, a larger group with new customs and traditions took shape. A man arose to lead the impending movement and to bear responsibility for everything that needed to be done.

A man without convictions, without habits, without traditions, without a name, and not even a Frenchman, emerges—by seemingly the strangest accidents—from among all the seething French parties, and without joining any of them, is propelled into prominence.

The ignorance of his colleagues, the weakness and insignificance of his opponents, the blatant nature of his falsehoods, and his dazzling, self-assured narrowness lift him to the top of the army. The brilliant qualities of the soldiers sent to Italy, his opponents’ reluctance to fight, and his own reckless daring and confidence bring him military glory. Countless so-called *chances* follow him everywhere. The disfavor into which he falls with French rulers turns out to benefit him. His efforts to avoid his destined path are unsuccessful: he is rebuffed by the Russian service, and the appointment he seeks in Turkey falls through. During the war in Italy, he is several times on the edge of ruin and each time is saved in unforeseen ways. For various diplomatic reasons, the Russian armies—those who might have undercut his reputation—do not appear until he is gone.

When he returns from Italy, he finds the government in Paris in the process of collapsing, and everyone involved risks being swept away. And by chance, an escape presents itself: the pointless expedition to Africa. Again, so-called *chance* is with him. Impregnable Malta surrenders without a shot; his wildest schemes succeed. The enemy’s fleet, which later intercepts every ship, lets his whole army through. In Africa, a whole series of outrages are committed against nearly defenseless inhabitants. Those who commit these acts, especially their leader, tell themselves that this is admirable, that this is glory—it resembles Caesar and Alexander the Great, and so must be good.

This ideal of *glory* and *grandeur*—which consists not only in considering nothing one does as wrong but also in taking pride in every crime, attributing to it some supernatural significance—guides this man and his followers, and flourishes in Africa. Everything he does succeeds. The plague spares him. The cruelty of murdering prisoners is not held against him. His childishly rash and shameful departure from Africa, abandoning his comrades in distress, is credited as a triumph, and again the enemy fleet twice lets him pass. When, drunk on his successful crimes, he reaches Paris, the disintegration of the republican government, which would have destroyed him a year earlier, is now complete, and his presence as a new arrival, untouched by party politics, only elevates him—and although he has no plan, he is utterly ready for his new role.

He had no plan, he was afraid of everything, but the parties seized upon him and demanded his involvement.

He alone—with his ideal of glory and grandeur honed in Italy and Egypt, his wild self-glorification, his boldness in crime, and his frank dishonesty—he alone could justify what needed to be done.

He is needed to fill the place waiting for him, so, almost against his will and despite his hesitation, lack of a plan, and many mistakes, he is pulled into a plot to seize power—and the plot succeeds.

He is pushed into a session of the legislature. Panicked, he thinks of fleeing, believing he is lost. He pretends to faint and says foolish things that should have ruined him. But the previously proud and clever rulers of France, knowing their time is over, are even more confused than he is, and fail to say the words that would destroy him and allow them to keep their power.

*Chance*, millions of *chances*, give him power, and everyone, as if by mutual agreement, works together to confirm that power. *Chance* shapes the characters of France’s rulers, who submit to him; *chance* shapes Paul I of Russia, who recognizes his government; *chance* arranges a plot against him that only strengthens him. *Chance* delivers the Duc d’Enghien into his hands and leads him to murder the duke—thus convincing the mob more effectively than anything else that he has the right, since he has the might. *Chance* ensures that, even though he pours his energies into preparing an expedition against England (which would certainly have ruined him), he never actually attempts it, but instead unexpectedly attacks Mack and the Austrians, who surrender without resistance. *Chance* and *genius* grant him the victory at Austerlitz; and, by *chance*, all people—not only the French, but all Europe except England, which stays out of the coming events—despite their previous horror of his crimes, now accept his authority, the title he’s claimed, and his ideals of grandeur and glory, which they all come to see as wise and noble.

As if measuring their strength and preparing for the coming movement, the western forces move eastward several times, in 1805, 1806, 1807, and 1809, growing stronger and bigger. By 1811 the group of people formed in France merges with the peoples of Central Europe. The justification by the leader of this movement increases as the group grows bigger. Over this ten-year preparation, the man at the top has formed ties with every crowned head in Europe. The discredited rulers of the world have no reasonable ideal to set against the wild Napoleonic notions of *glory* and *grandeur*. They hasten, one after another, to expose their own weakness before him. The King of Prussia sends his wife to plead for mercy from the great man; the Emperor of Austria thinks it an honor that this man takes his daughter into his bed; the Pope, the guardian of all that’s sacred to the nations, uses religion to glorify the great man. It is not Napoleon who so much prepares himself for his role, as all those around him prepare him to take all responsibility for what is happening and must happen. Every act of his, no matter how criminal or trivial, is instantly portrayed by those around him as something magnificent. The grandest German festival devised for him is a celebration of Jena and Auerstädt. Not only he, but also his ancestors, his brothers, his stepsons, and brothers-in-law are now great. Everything is calculated to rob him of his last reason and prepare him for his terrifying role. And when he is ready, so too are the armies.

The invasion sweeps eastward and reaches its ultimate target—Moscow. The city is captured; the Russian army loses more men than the opposing armies lost in all the previous wars from Austerlitz to Wagram. But suddenly, instead of those *chances* and that *genius* that had led him with uninterrupted success to his destined goal, an endless string of contrary *chances* arises—from the cold he catches at Borodinó to the fires in Moscow, and the freezing weather—and instead of *genius*, stupidity and utter baseness are revealed.

The invaders retreat, turn, retreat again, and now every chance turns against Napoleon.

A reverse movement is then launched, from east to west, mirroring the earlier west-to-east march. The attempts to push back from east to west—in 1805, 1807, and 1809—precede this grand westward surge; the group comes together again, massive in size; the peoples of Central Europe join the movement; there is hesitation partway, then acceleration as the goal approaches.

Paris—the final target—is reached. The Napoleonic regime and army are overthrown. Napoleon himself is no longer relevant; everything he does now appears pitiful and base, but again, an inexplicable *chance* occurs. The allies hate Napoleon, believing him responsible for their suffering. Stripped of power and exposed for his crimes, he should seem to them, as he did ten years before and a year later, a hunted outlaw. Yet, by some strange chance, no one sees it. His role is not over. The man who was considered a criminal ten years earlier and would be again a year later is sent to an island just two days’ sail from France, which, for some reason, is made his dominion, with guards provided and millions granted to him.

##  CHAPTER IV

The flood of nations begins to recede into normal channels. The waves of this great movement subside, and in the calm, eddies spin the diplomatists, who believe they are the reason the tides have calmed.

But the tranquil sea is suddenly disturbed once more. The diplomatists think their disputes cause this new agitation; they predict war between the sovereigns; the situation seems impossible to resolve. But the rising wave does not come from the expected quarter. It again rises from the same place as before—Paris. The last surge from the west occurs: a backlash that resolves the seemingly insurmountable diplomatic problems and brings to an end the military movement of this historical era.

The man who had devastated France returns there alone, without conspiracy or soldiers. Any guard could arrest him, but by strange chance, none do; all welcome him with joy, though they had cursed his name days before and will do so again in a month.

This man is still needed to justify the final collective action.

That action is performed.

The last role is played. The actor is told to disrobe and wash off his powder and paint: he will not be needed anymore.

And some years pass in which he plays a pitiful farce before himself in isolation on his island, justifying his actions with schemes and lies even though justification is no longer needed, and revealing to the whole world what people had mistaken for strength while an unseen hand was directing his deeds.

The manager, having brought the drama to an end and stripped the actor, presents him to us.

“See what you believed in! This is he! Do you now see that it was not he but I who moved you?”

But, still dazed by the power of the movement, it took people a long time to realize this.

There was even greater consistency and inevitability in the life of Alexander I, the man who led the countermovement from east to west.

What was required of the person who, above all others, stood at the head of the movement from east to west?

What was needed was a sense of justice and an interest in European affairs—a broad view unmarred by minor concerns—a moral superiority over the contemporaneous sovereigns allied with him, an agreeable, mild character, and a personal grievance against Napoleon. All this was present in Alexander I; all had been prepared for by countless so-called *chances* in his life: his education, early liberal views, the advisers around him, Austerlitz, Tilsit, and Erfurt.

During the national war, he remained inactive because he was not needed. But when the need arose for a general European war, he appeared on cue and, uniting the nations of Europe, led them to the goal.

The goal is achieved. After the final war of 1815, Alexander has every imaginable power. How does he use it?

Alexander I—the pacifier of Europe, the man who from youth sought only his people’s good, the originator of liberal reforms in his country—now that he seems to possess total power and can realize the well-being of his nations—at the very time when Napoleon in exile is devising childish, false ideas of how he would have made mankind happy if he’d kept power—Alexander I, having completed his mission and feeling the hand of God upon him, suddenly recognizes how insignificant that supposed power really is, turns away from it, and delivers it into the hands of contemptible men he despises, saying only:

“Not unto us, not unto us, but unto Thy Name!… I too am a man like the rest of you. Let me live like a man and think of my soul and of God.”

Just as every atom of ether and the sun itself is a sphere complete in itself, yet only a part of an incomprehensibly vast whole, so every individual has his own aims and yet serves a larger, unknowable purpose.

A bee settling on a flower stings a child, and the child believes bees exist to sting people. A poet, admiring the bee sipping from the flower, says it exists to enjoy the sweetness of flowers. A beekeeper, seeing the bee gather pollen for the hive, claims it gathers honey. Another beekeeper who has studied hive life more closely says the bee collects pollen to feed the young and raise a queen, and exists to ensure the species survives. A botanist observing the bee transferring pollen realizes that it serves to fertilize flowers. Another, who studies plant migration, sees the bee’s role in spreading plants and may claim this is its purpose. But the bee’s ultimate purpose is not exhausted by any or all of these explanations. The more the human mind seeks higher purposes, the clearer it becomes that the ultimate reason is beyond our understanding.

All that humans can truly grasp is the relation of the bee’s life to other forms of life. And so it is with the purposes of historic figures and nations.

##  CHAPTER V

Natasha’s wedding to Bezukhov, which took place in 1813, was the last happy event in the family of the old Rostovs. Count Ilya Rostov died that same year, and, as always happens, after the father’s death the family group broke up.

The events of the previous year—the burning of Moscow and the flight from it, the death of Prince Andrew, Natasha’s despair, Petya’s death, and the old countess’s grief—fell blow after blow on the old count. He seemed unable to comprehend the meaning of all these events, and bowed his old head, spiritually, as if expecting and even inviting further blows to finish him. At times he appeared frightened and distraught, and at others, unnaturally animated and enterprising.

Arranging Natasha’s marriage occupied him for a while. He ordered dinners and suppers and clearly tried to seem cheerful, but his cheerfulness was no longer infectious as it once was; instead, it evoked the compassion of those who knew and cared for him.

When Pierre and his wife had left, he grew very quiet and began to complain of depression. A few days later he fell ill and stayed in bed. He knew from the start that he would not recover, despite the doctor’s reassurances. The countess stayed for two weeks in an armchair by his bedside, never undressing. Every time she gave him his medicine he would sob and quietly kiss her hand. On his last day, in tears, he asked her and his absent son to forgive him for dissipating their property—that being the main fault he felt. After receiving communion and unction, he died quietly. The next day, a crowd of acquaintances came to pay their last respects, filling the house rented by the Rostovs. All these acquaintances, who had so often dined and danced at his house and often laughed at him, now said with a shared feeling of self-reproach and emotion, as if justifying themselves: “Well, whatever he may have been, he was a truly worthy man. You don’t meet such people nowadays… And which of us doesn’t have weaknesses of his own?”

It was just when the count’s affairs had become so complicated that no one could say what would happen if he lived another year, that he unexpectedly died.

Nicholas was with the Russian army in Paris when news of his father’s death reached him. He immediately resigned his commission, and without waiting for it to be accepted, took leave and returned to Moscow. The state of the count’s affairs became clear a month after his death, surprising everyone with the immense total of small debts that no one had suspected. The debts amounted to double the value of the property.

Friends and relatives advised Nicholas to decline the inheritance. But he saw that as an insult to his father’s memory, which he held sacred, so he would not hear of refusing it and accepted the inheritance along with the obligation to pay the debts.

The creditors, who had remained silent for so long due to a vague but powerful influence the count’s easygoing nature had on them while he lived, all now moved quickly to enforce their claims. As always happens in such cases, a rivalry arose over who would be paid first, and those who, like Mitenka, held promissory notes given as gifts now became the most demanding creditors. Nicholas was given no rest and no peace, and those who had once pitied the old man—the cause of their losses (if they were losses)—now relentlessly pursued the young heir, who had voluntarily accepted the debts and was clearly not responsible for contracting them.

Not one of the plans Nicholas tried succeeded; the estate was sold at auction for half its value, and half the debts still remained unpaid. Nicholas accepted thirty thousand rubles from his brother-in-law Bezukhov to pay off debts he considered genuinely owed. To avoid being imprisoned for the rest, as the creditors threatened, he re-entered government service.

He could not rejoin the army, where he would have been promoted to colonel at the next vacancy, because his mother now clung to him as her only anchor in life; and so, despite his reluctance to stay in Moscow among people who had known him before, and despite his dislike of the civil service, he accepted a post in Moscow, left behind the uniform he loved so much, and moved with his mother and Sonya to a small house on Sivtsev Vrazhok.

Natasha and Pierre were living in Petersburg at the time, and had no clear idea of Nicholas’s circumstances. Having borrowed money from his brother-in-law, Nicholas tried to hide his miserable situation from him. His position was even more difficult because, with his salary of twelve hundred rubles, he not only had to provide for himself, his mother, and Sonya, but also had to protect his mother from awareness of their poverty. The countess could not imagine life without the luxury she had always known, and unable to recognize how hard things were for her son, kept asking for a carriage (which they no longer had) to send for a friend, some costly food for herself, wine for her son, or money to buy a surprise for Natasha or Sonya, or for Nicholas himself.

Sonya kept the house, cared for her aunt, read to her, endured her whims and secret ill-will, and helped Nicholas keep their poverty from the old countess. Nicholas felt himself deeply indebted to Sonya for all she did for his mother, and greatly admired her patience and devotion, but tried to keep his distance from her.

He seemed in his heart to reproach her for being too perfect, and because he found nothing to reproach her for. She had all the qualities people value, but little that could have made him love her. He felt that the more he valued her, the less he loved her. He had taken her at her word when she wrote giving him his freedom, and now acted as though all that had passed between them was long forgotten and could never have been renewed.

Nicholas’s situation grew steadily worse. The idea of saving anything from his salary proved to be a delusion. Not only did he save nothing, but, to meet his mother’s demands, he even ran up some small debts. He saw no way out. The idea, suggested by his female relatives, of marrying some rich woman was distasteful to him. The other option—his mother’s death—never crossed his mind. He wished for nothing, hoped for nothing, and deep inside, felt a dark and grim satisfaction in stoically enduring his circumstances. He tried to avoid his old acquaintances, with their pity and unwelcome offers of help; he shunned all distraction and amusement, and even at home, did nothing except play cards with his mother, pace silently around the room, and smoke one pipe after another. He seemed to carefully nurture the gloomy mood that alone allowed him to bear his situation.

##  CHAPTER VI

At the start of winter, Princess Mary arrived in Moscow. From the talk in town, she learned about the Rostóvs’ situation, and how “the son has sacrificed himself for his mother,” as people were saying.

“I never expected anything else from him,” Princess Mary thought to herself, feeling a joyful sense of her love for him. Remembering her close relationship with all the Rostóvs, which had almost made her a part of their family, she felt it was her duty to visit them. But recalling her more personal connection with Nicholas in Vorónezh, she was hesitant. Still, after making a great effort, she went to call on them a few weeks after arriving in Moscow.

Nicholas was the first to greet her, since the countess’ room could only be reached through his. But instead of the warm welcome she expected, his face took on a cold, stiff, proud look she had never seen before. He asked about her health, led her to his mother, and after five minutes, left the room.

When Princess Mary came out of the countess’ room, Nicholas met her again and, with a marked solemnity and stiffness, escorted her to the anteroom. He did not respond to her comments about his mother’s health. His expression seemed to say, “What’s that to you? Leave me alone.”

“Why does she keep coming here? What does she want? I can’t stand these ladies and all their polite manners!” he said aloud in Sónya’s presence, clearly unable to hide his frustration after the princess’ carriage drove away.

“Oh, Nicholas, how can you talk like that?” cried Sónya, hardly able to hide her delight. “She is so kind and Mamma is so fond of her!”

Nicholas didn’t reply and tried to avoid talking about the princess anymore. But after her visit, the old countess mentioned her several times a day.

She praised her, insisted that her son should call on her, and said she wanted to see her often, but she always became ill-tempered when she started talking about her.

Nicholas tried to remain silent when his mother spoke of the princess, but his silence irritated her.

“She is a very admirable and excellent young woman,” she said, “and you must go and call on her. You would at least see someone, and I think it must be dull for you only seeing us.”

“But I really don’t want to, Mamma.”

“You used to want to, and now you don’t. Really, I don’t understand you, my dear. One day you’re bored, and the next you refuse to see anyone.”

“But I never said I was bored.”

“You said yourself you don’t even want to see her. She is a very admirable young woman and you always liked her, but now suddenly you have some idea or other in your head. You hide everything from me.”

“Not at all, Mamma.”

“If I were asking you to do something disagreeable, maybe—but I only ask you to return a call. You’d think basic politeness required it… Well, I have asked you, and now I won’t interfere anymore since you have secrets from your mother.”

“Well then, I’ll go if you want me to.”

“It doesn’t matter to me. I only wish it for your sake.”

Nicholas sighed, bit his mustache, and started laying out the cards for a game of patience, trying to distract his mother with a different topic.

The same conversation was repeated the next day and the day after, and again the following day.

After visiting the Rostóvs and receiving Nicholas’ unexpectedly cold reception, Princess Mary admitted to herself that she’d been right not to want to be the first to visit.

“I expected nothing else,” she told herself, calling on her pride for support. “I have nothing to do with him; I only wanted to see the old lady, who was always kind to me and to whom I owe a lot.”

But these thoughts didn’t comfort her; a sense like remorse troubled her whenever she thought about her visit. Though she firmly resolved not to visit the Rostóvs again and to forget the whole matter, she constantly felt awkward. And when she asked herself what bothered her, she had to admit it was her relationship with Rostóv. His cold, polite manner didn’t reflect his real feelings for her (she knew that), but it hid something, and until she figured out what that was, she couldn’t feel at ease.

One day in midwinter, while she was in the schoolroom helping her nephew with his lessons, she was told that Rostóv had called. Determined not to show any agitation, she sent for Mademoiselle Bourienne and went with her to the drawing room.

At her first glance at Nicholas’ face, she could see he had only come out of politeness, and she resolved to keep to the tone he set.

They spoke about the countess’ health, their mutual friends, and the latest war news, and after the ten minutes required by propriety had passed—after which a visitor may leave—Nicholas stood up to say goodbye.

Thanks to Mademoiselle Bourienne’s help, the princess had kept up the conversation well, but at the very last moment, just as he rose, she was so tired of talking about things that didn’t interest her, and her mind was so full of the question why she alone was granted so little happiness in life, that she sat absentmindedly, gazing ahead with her luminous eyes, not noticing that he had stood up.

Nicholas looked at her, and, wanting to act as if he hadn’t noticed her distraction, made some remark to Mademoiselle Bourienne and looked again at the princess. She was still sitting, unmoving, with a look of sorrow on her gentle face. He suddenly felt sorry for her and vaguely sensed that he might be the cause of her sadness. He wanted to help her and say something comforting, but couldn’t think of anything.

“Goodbye, Princess!” he said.

She started, blushed, and sighed deeply.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” she said, as if waking up. “Are you leaving already, Count? Well then, goodbye! Oh, but the cushion for the countess!”

“Wait a moment, I’ll get it,” said Mademoiselle Bourienne, leaving the room.

The two sat in silence, occasionally glancing at each other.

“Yes, Princess,” Nicholas finally said with a sad smile, “it doesn’t seem long since we first met at Boguchárovo, but so much has happened since then! We seemed to be in such trouble back then, yet I’d give a lot to relive that time… but there’s no going back.”

Princess Mary stared deeply into his eyes with her own luminous ones as he spoke. She seemed to be searching for the hidden meaning in his words that might explain his feelings for her.

“Yes, yes,” she said, “but you have no reason to regret the past, Count. From what I know of your life now, I think you’ll always remember it with satisfaction, because of the self-sacrifice that fills it…”

“I can’t accept your praise,” he interrupted quickly. “On the contrary, I constantly reproach myself… But this isn’t really a cheerful or interesting topic.”

His face again took on its former stiff and cold look. But the princess had caught a glimpse of the man she had known and loved, and it was to him she now spoke.

“I thought you would let me say this,” she said. “I had come so close to you… and to all your family that I thought you wouldn’t think my sympathy out of place, but I was wrong,” and suddenly her voice shook. “I don’t know why,” she went on, regaining her composure, “but you used to be different, and…”

“There are a thousand reasons *why*,” he said, putting special emphasis on the *why*. “Thank you, Princess,” he added softly. “Sometimes it is hard.”

“So that’s why! That’s why!” a voice echoed in Princess Mary’s heart. “No, it wasn’t just that joyful, kind, and open look, not just his handsome appearance, that made me love him. I sensed his noble, determined, self-sacrificing spirit too,” she thought to herself. “Yes, he is poor now and I am rich… Yes, that’s the only reason… Yes, if it weren’t for that…” And as she remembered his past tenderness and looked at his kind, sorrowful face now, she suddenly understood the reason for his coldness.

“But why, Count, why?” she almost cried, unconsciously moving closer to him. “Why? Tell me. You must tell me!”

He stayed silent.

“I don’t understand your *why*, Count,” she went on, “but it’s hard for me… I’ll admit it. For some reason you want to take away our former friendship. And that hurts me.” Tears filled her eyes and her voice. “I have had so little happiness in my life that every loss is hard to bear… Excuse me, good-bye!” And then she suddenly began to cry and hurried out of the room.

“Princess, for God’s sake!” he exclaimed, trying to stop her. “Princess!”

She turned around. For a few seconds, they gazed silently into each other’s eyes—and what had seemed impossible and far away suddenly became possible, inevitable, and very close.

##  CHAPTER VII

In the winter of 1813, Nicholas married Princess Mary and moved to Bald Hills with his wife, his mother, and Sónya.

Within four years, he had paid off all his remaining debts without having to sell any of his wife’s property, and when he received a small inheritance from the death of a cousin, he paid his debt to Pierre as well.

In another three years, by 1820, he had managed his affairs so well that he was able to buy a small estate adjoining Bald Hills and was negotiating to buy back Otrádnoe—his favorite dream.

Having started farming out of necessity, he soon became so devoted to it that it became his favorite and almost only occupation. Nicholas was a straightforward farmer: he didn’t like innovations, especially the English ones gaining popularity then. He laughed at theoretical books on estate management, disliked factories, expensive products, and the purchase of costly seed corn, and didn’t focus on any particular aspect of his estate’s work. He always kept in mind *the estate* as a whole, not just any single part of it. For him, the most important thing was not the nitrogen in the soil, or the oxygen in the air, or the manure, or special plows, but the most crucial agent that made nitrogen, oxygen, manure, and plow effective—the peasant laborer. When Nicholas first started farming and learned about its various branches, it was the serf who caught his attention the most. To him, the peasant wasn’t just a tool, but also a judge of farming and an end in himself. At first, he watched the serfs to try to understand their goals and ideas of good and bad, and only pretended to direct them and give orders, while really learning from them—their methods, their way of speaking, and their opinions of what was good and bad. Only after he understood the peasants’ tastes and hopes, learned to speak their language, grasped the hidden meaning of their words, and felt a kinship with them did he begin confidently managing his serfs, that is, carrying out toward them the responsibilities required of him. Nicholas’ management had excellent results.

Guided by a kind of insight, as soon as he took over management of the estates, he immediately and unerringly appointed as bailiff, village elder, and delegate, the very men the serfs would have chosen themselves if they could, and these positions never changed hands. Before analyzing the properties of manure, before dealing with the *debit* and *credit* (as he jokingly called it), he found out how many cattle the peasants had and increased their number by every means possible. He kept peasant families together in the largest groups possible, not letting family groups break up into separate households. He was equally strict with the lazy, the immoral, and the weak, and tried to have them expelled from the community.

He was as careful about sowing and reaping the peasants’ hay and corn as about his own, and few landowners had their crops sown and harvested as early and as well, or got such good returns, as Nicholas did.

He disliked dealing with the domestic serfs—the “drones,” as he called them—and everyone said he spoiled them by being too lenient. When a decision had to be made about a domestic serf, especially if one had to be punished, he always felt uncertain and asked everyone in the house for advice. But when it was possible to have a domestic serf conscripted instead of a land worker, he did so without hesitation. He never doubted himself when dealing with the peasants. He knew that almost all his decisions would be approved by them, with very few exceptions.

He didn’t allow himself to be harsh or punish anyone, or to make things easier or reward anyone, just because he felt like it. He might not have been able to say what standard he used to judge what he should or shouldn’t do, but the standard was very firm and clear in his own mind.

Often, speaking with irritation about some failure or problem, he would say: “What can one do with our Russian peasants?” and thought that he couldn’t stand them.

Yet he loved “our Russian peasants” and their way of life with all his heart, and for that very reason had understood and embraced the only way of farming that produced good results.

Countess Mary was jealous of this passion her husband had and wished she could share it; but she didn’t understand the joys and frustrations he got from a world that was so distant and foreign to her. She couldn’t understand why he seemed so full of energy and happiness when, after getting up at dawn and spending the whole morning in the fields or on the threshing floor, he came back from sowing or mowing or reaping to have tea with her. She didn’t understand why he spoke with such admiration and pleasure about the farming done by the resourceful and prosperous peasant Matthew Ermíshin, who with his family had hauled corn all night; or about the fact that his (Nicholas’) sheaves were stacked before anyone else had finished their harvest. She didn’t understand why he would step out from the window onto the veranda and smile under his mustache and wink so happily, when warm, steady rain began to fall on the dry and thirsty shoots of young oats, or why, when the wind blew away a threatening cloud during haymaking, he’d return from the barn flushed, sunburned, and sweaty, with a scent of wormwood and gentian in his hair, and, gleefully rubbing his hands, would say: “Well, one more day and my grain and the peasants’ will all be under cover.”

Still less did she understand why he, kindhearted and always ready to anticipate her wishes, would become almost desperate when she brought him a petition from some peasant men or women who had appealed to her to be excused some work; why he, that kind Nicholas, would stubbornly refuse her, angrily asking her not to meddle in things that weren’t her business. She felt he had a world of his own, which he loved intensely and which had laws she couldn’t grasp.

Sometimes, trying to understand him, she spoke of the good he was doing for his serfs, but he would become annoyed and reply: “Not at all; that never crossed my mind and I wouldn’t do *that* for their good! That’s all poetry and old wives’ tales—all that talk about doing good for your neighbor! What I want is for our children not to be left beggars. I must get our affairs in order while I’m still alive, that’s all. And to do that, order and strictness are essential… That’s all!” he would say, clenching his strong fist. “And fairness, of course,” he added, “because if a peasant is starving and half-naked and only has one miserable horse, he can’t do any good for himself or for me.”

And everything Nicholas did brought results—probably because he refused to let himself think he was doing good for others out of virtue. His wealth increased rapidly; serfs from neighboring estates came to ask him to buy them, and long after his death the memory of his management was fondly preserved among the serfs. “He was a master… he put the peasants’ needs first, then his own. Of course, he was not to be trifled with either—in short, he was a real master!”

##  CHAPTER VIII

One issue related to his management sometimes troubled Nicholas, and that was his quick temper along with his old hussar habit of freely using his fists. At first, he saw nothing wrong in this, but in the second year of his marriage, his perspective on that type of punishment suddenly changed.

One summer, he had summoned the village elder from Boguchárovo—a man who had taken over the position after Dron died and who was accused of dishonesty and other irregularities. Nicholas went out onto the porch to question him, and no sooner had the elder answered a few questions than the sounds of cries and blows were heard. When Nicholas returned to lunch, he went up to his wife, who sat with her head bent low over her embroidery frame, and as usual, began to tell her what he had done that morning. Among other things, he mentioned the Boguchárovo elder. Countess Mary turned red and then pale, but kept her head bowed and lips pressed together, giving her husband no reply.

“Such an insolent scoundrel!” he exclaimed, growing heated again at just the memory of the man. “If he had told me he was drunk and didn’t see… But what’s wrong, Mary?” he suddenly asked.

Countess Mary lifted her head and tried to speak, but quickly looked down again as her lips started to tremble.

“Why, what is it, my dearest?”

Countess Mary, whose looks were always enhanced when she cried, never wept from pain or annoyance, but always from sadness or compassion. When she wept, her luminous eyes gained an irresistible charm.

As soon as Nicholas took her hand, she could no longer hold back and began to cry.

“Nicholas, I saw it… he was at fault, but why do you… Nicholas!” She buried her face in her hands.

Nicholas said nothing. He flushed crimson, left her side, and paced back and forth in the room. He understood what she was crying about but couldn’t immediately agree in his heart that what he’d always viewed as an ordinary event was actually wrong. “Is it just sentimentality, old wives’ tales, or is she right?” he asked himself. Before he could answer that, he looked again at her face, full of love and pain, and suddenly realized she was right and that he had long been doing wrong by himself.

“Mary,” he said softly, approaching her, “it will never happen again; I give you my word. Never,” he repeated in a trembling voice, like a boy asking for forgiveness.

The tears flowed even faster from the countess’s eyes. She took his hand and kissed it.

“Nicholas, when did you break your cameo?” she asked, changing the subject as she looked at the finger where he wore a ring set with a cameo of Laocoön’s head.

“Today—it happened during that same business. Oh, Mary, don’t remind me about it!” Again he blushed. “I give you my word of honor it won’t happen again, and let this always remind me,” he said, pointing to the broken ring.

After that, whenever his discussions with village elders or stewards made the blood rush to his face and his fists start to clench, Nicholas would turn the broken ring on his finger and drop his eyes before the one who was angering him. Yet he did forget himself once or twice that year, and then would confess to his wife and again promise that this would truly be the last time.

“Mary, you must despise me!” he would say. “I deserve it.”

“You should go—go away at once, if you don’t feel strong enough to control yourself,” she would reply sadly, trying to comfort her husband.

Among the province’s gentry, Nicholas was respected but not liked. He paid no attention to the interests of his own class, so to some he seemed proud, while others thought him dull. All summer, from spring sowing to harvest, he was busy managing the farm. In autumn, he devoted himself to hunting with the same businesslike seriousness—leaving home for a month, even two, with his hunt. In winter, he visited his other villages or spent his time reading. The books he read were mainly historical, and he set aside a set budget for them each year. He was collecting what he called a serious library, and made it a rule to read every book he bought. He would sit in his study with a serious air, reading—a discipline he had at first taken on as a duty, but which became a habit that gave him a particular pleasure and a sense of being engaged with important matters. In winter, except for business trips, he spent most of his time at home, involving himself fully in family life and all the details of his children’s relationships with their mother. The bond between him and his wife grew ever closer, and every day he uncovered new spiritual treasures in her.

Since his marriage Sónya had lived in his house. Beforehand, Nicholas had told his wife all that had passed between himself and Sónya, blaming himself and praising her. He had asked Princess Mary to be gentle and kind to his cousin. She fully recognized the wrong he had done Sónya, felt herself responsible to her, and imagined her wealth had swayed Nicholas’s choice. She couldn’t find fault with Sónya in any way and tried to be fond of her, but often felt resentment toward her that she couldn’t overcome.

Once, she spoke with her friend Natásha about Sónya and about her own feelings of unfairness toward her.

“You know,” said Natásha, “you’ve read the Gospels a lot—there’s a part in them that fits Sónya exactly.”

“What?” asked Countess Mary, surprised.

“‘To him that hath shall be given, and from him that hath not shall be taken away.’ Remember? She is one that ‘hath not’—why, I don’t know. Maybe it’s because she lacks self-interest; I’m not sure, but everything is taken away from her. Sometimes I feel terribly sorry for her. I used to really want Nicholas to marry her, but I always had a sort of feeling it wouldn’t happen. She’s a *sterile flower*, you know—like some strawberry blossoms. Sometimes I pity her, and sometimes I think she doesn’t feel things the way you or I would.”

Though Countess Mary told Natásha those words from the Gospel should be interpreted differently, still, looking at Sónya, she agreed with Natásha’s explanation. It really did seem Sónya didn’t find her position difficult, and had grown completely resigned to her fate as a *sterile flower*. She seemed to care not so much for individuals as for the family as a whole. Like a cat, she attached herself not to the people, but to the home itself. She waited on the old countess, doted on and spoiled the children, and was always ready to offer the small services for which she had a talent. All of this was unconsciously accepted from her with little gratitude.

The country estate at Bald Hills had been rebuilt, though not on the grand scale it had enjoyed under the old prince.

The buildings, started in difficult times, were very modest. The immense house, built on the old stone foundations, was now a wooden structure, plastered only on the inside. It had bare deal floors and was furnished very simply with hard sofas, armchairs, tables, and chairs made by their own serf carpenters from their own birchwood. The house was spacious, with rooms for the house serfs and apartments for visitors. Whole families from the Rostóv and Bolkónski connections would sometimes come to Bald Hills with sixteen horses and dozens of servants and stay for months. In addition, four times a year on the hosts’ name days and birthdays, as many as a hundred visitors would gather there for a day or two. The rest of the year, life went on in its steady routine with daily tasks, and its breakfasts, lunches, dinners, and suppers, all provided from the estate’s own produce.

##  CHAPTER IX

It was the eve of St. Nicholas, December 5, 1820. Natásha had been staying at her brother’s house with her husband and children since early autumn. Pierre had gone to Petersburg on his own business for three weeks, as he said, but had actually stayed there nearly seven weeks, and was expected back at any moment.

Besides the Bezúkhov family, Nicholas’s old friend, the retired General Vasíli Dmítrich Denísov, was staying with the Rostóvs that fifth of December.

On the sixth, which was his name day, when the house would be full of visitors, Nicholas knew he would have to trade his Tartar tunic for a tailcoat and put on narrow, pointed boots, drive to the new church he had built, receive guests offering their congratulations, serve refreshments, and talk about the upcoming elections for the nobility. But he considered himself entitled to spend the evening before in his usual way. He reviewed the bailiff’s accounts for the village in Ryazán that belonged to his wife’s nephew, wrote two business letters, and inspected the granaries, cattle yards, and stables before dinner. Having taken precautions against the general drunkenness expected the next day because it was a great saint’s day, he returned for dinner. Without time for a private word with his wife, he sat down at the long table set for twenty, where the whole household had gathered. Seated there were his mother, her old companion Belóva, his wife, their three children with the governess and tutor, his wife’s nephew and his tutor, Sónya, Denísov, Natásha and her three children with their governess, and old Michael Ivánovich—the late prince’s architect, now retired at Bald Hills.

Countess Mary sat at the far end of the table. When her husband took his seat, she noticed how quickly he grabbed his napkin and pushed away his tumbler and wineglass—sure signs he was in a bad mood, as sometimes happened when he came in directly from the farm, especially before soup. Countess Mary understood that mood well, and when she herself was in good spirits, she would quietly wait until he’d had his soup before trying to talk and get him to admit there was no real reason for his moodiness. But today she forgot this and felt hurt that he seemed upset with her for no reason, making her unhappy. She asked where he had been. He answered curtly. She asked again if all was well on the farm. Her forced tone annoyed him, and he replied quickly.

“So I’m not mistaken,” thought Countess Mary. “Why is he upset with me?” She sensed from his tone that he was annoyed and wanted to end the conversation. She knew her own words sounded forced, but she couldn’t stop herself from asking more questions.

Thanks to Denísov, conversation soon became general and lively, and she didn’t have to talk to her husband. After dinner, when they went to thank the old countess as usual, Countess Mary reached out her hand, kissed her husband, and asked why he was angry with her.

“You always have such strange ideas! I wasn’t even thinking of being angry,” he replied.

But the word *always* seemed to her to mean: “Yes, I am angry but I won’t tell you why.”

Nicholas and his wife lived so happily together that even Sónya and the old countess—who were jealous and would have liked them to quarrel—could find nothing to criticize; yet even they had their moments of tension. Occasionally, and always after their happiest moments together, they would suddenly feel estranged and hostile—especially during Countess Mary’s pregnancies—and this was one such time.

“Well, *messieurs et mesdames*,” Nicholas said loudly and with seemingly cheerful spirit (Countess Mary felt he did it on purpose to annoy her), “I’ve been on my feet since six this morning. Tomorrow will be exhausting, so tonight I’ll go and get some rest.”

And without a word to his wife, he went to his little sitting room and lay down on the sofa.

“That’s always how it is,” thought Countess Mary. “He talks to everyone except me. I see… I see that I repel him, especially in my current state.” She looked down at her enlarged figure and at her pale, thin face in the mirror, noticing how her eyes now looked larger than ever.

Everything irritated her—Denísov’s loud talk and laughter, Natásha’s chatter, and especially the quick glance Sónya gave her.

Sónya was always the first person Countess Mary blamed for her irritation.

After sitting a while with her guests, lost in thought and not following conversation, she quietly left the room and went to the nursery.

The children were playing “going to Moscow” in a carriage made of chairs and invited her to join them. She sat and played for a little while, but thoughts of her husband and his unreasonable mood kept troubling her. She got up and, moving quietly despite her difficulty, went to the small sitting room.

“Maybe he’s not asleep; I’ll talk to him,” she said to herself. Little Andrew, her eldest, followed behind, imitating her tiptoeing. She didn’t notice him.

“Mary, dear, I think he’s sleeping—he was so tired,” Sónya said, meeting her in the large sitting room (and to Countess Mary, it seemed Sónya was always in her way). “Andrew might wake him.”

Countess Mary turned, saw little Andrew following, and realized Sónya was right. But for that very reason, she flushed and barely stopped herself from saying something sharp. She said nothing, but, avoiding Sónya’s suggestion, signaled to Andrew to follow her quietly and headed for the door. Sónya left by another. From the room where Nicholas slept came the sound of his even breathing, every tone of which was deeply familiar to his wife. As she listened, she pictured his smooth, handsome forehead, mustache, and whole face, as she’d often seen him in the quiet of night. Nicholas suddenly stirred and cleared his throat. At that moment little Andrew shouted from the other side of the door, “Papa! Mamma’s standing here!” Countess Mary went pale with fright and tried to hush the boy. He fell silent, and a short, awkward silence followed, agonizing for Countess Mary. She knew how Nicholas disliked being woken. Then she heard Nicholas clear his throat and move, and his voice, annoyed, said through the door:

“I can’t get a moment’s peace… Mary, is that you? Why did you bring him here?”

“I just came to look and didn’t notice… forgive me….”

Nicholas coughed and said nothing more. Countess Mary stepped away from the door and took Andrew back to the nursery. Five minutes later, little black-eyed three-year-old Natásha, her father’s favorite, having learned from her brother that Papa was asleep and Mamma was in the sitting room, ran off to her father without her mother noticing. The dark-eyed girl boldly opened the creaking door, marched up to the sofa on her sturdy little legs, and, seeing the position of her sleeping father with his back to her, tiptoed and kissed the hand under his head. Nicholas turned over with a warm smile.

“Natásha, Natásha!” came Countess Mary’s anxious whisper from the door. “Papa wants to sleep.”

“No, Mamma, he doesn’t want to sleep,” said little Natásha confidently. “He’s laughing.”

Nicholas lowered his legs, stood up, and lifted his daughter in his arms.

“Come in, Mary,” he said to his wife.

She entered and sat beside him.

“I didn’t see him following me,” she said timidly. “I just looked in.”

Holding his little girl with one arm, Nicholas looked at his wife and, seeing her guilty expression, put his other arm around her and kissed her hair.

“May I kiss Mamma?” he asked Natásha.

Natásha smiled shyly.

“Again!” she insisted, pointing firmly to where Nicholas had kissed her.

“I don’t know why you think I’m upset,” Nicholas said, responding to the question he sensed in his wife’s mind.

“You can’t imagine how unhappy and lonely I feel when you’re like that. It always seems to me…”

“Mary, don’t say nonsense. You ought to be ashamed!” he said cheerfully.

“It seems as though you can’t love me, that I am so plain… always… and now… in this cond—”

“Oh, how silly you are! It’s not beauty that makes someone dear—it’s love that lets us see beauty. Only women like Malvínas are loved just for their looks. But do I love my wife? I don’t love her, but… I don’t know how to say it. Without you, or when something comes between us like this, I feel lost and can’t get anything done. Now, do I love my finger? I don’t love it, but try to cut it off!”

“I’m not like that myself, but I understand. So you’re not upset with me?”

“Furiously angry!” he said, smiling as he got up. Smoothing his hair, he began to pace the room.

“Mary, do you know what I’ve been thinking?” Nicholas began, immediately sharing his thoughts aloud in his wife’s presence now that they had reconciled.

He didn’t ask if she was ready to listen. He didn’t care. A thought had come to him, and so it belonged to her as well. He told her he planned to persuade Pierre to stay with them until spring.

Countess Mary listened until he finished, made a remark, and then began to think aloud herself. Her thoughts turned to the children.

“You can already see the woman in her,” she said in French, pointing to little Natásha. “You accuse us women of being illogical. Here is our logic. I say: ‘Papa wants to sleep!’ But she says, ‘No, he’s laughing.’ And she was right,” Countess Mary added with a happy smile.

“Yes, yes.” Nicholas, taking his little daughter in his strong hand, lifted her high, set her on his shoulder, held her by the legs, and walked around the room with her. Both father and daughter wore expressions of pure happiness.

“But you know, you might be unfair. You are too fond of this one,” his wife whispered in French.

“Yes, but what can I do?… I try not to show it…”

At that moment they heard the sound of a door pulley and footsteps in the hall and anteroom, as if someone had arrived.

“Somebody has come.”

“I am sure it is Pierre. I’ll go and see,” said Countess Mary, leaving the room.

While she was gone, Nicholas indulged his daughter with a playful gallop around the room. Out of breath, he quickly brought the laughing child down from his shoulder and pressed her to his heart. His antics reminded him of dancing, and as he looked at his daughter’s round, happy little face he wondered what she would be like when he was old, when he would take her into society and dance the mazurka with her as his own father had once danced the *Daniel Cooper* with his daughter.

“It’s him, it’s him, Nicholas!” Countess Mary said, returning a few minutes later. “Now our Natásha has come alive. You should have seen her excitement, and she scolded him for staying away so long. Well, come along now, quick, quick! It’s time you two parted,” she said, smiling at the little girl who clung to her father.

Nicholas went out, holding the child by the hand.

Countess Mary remained in the sitting room.

“I would never, ever have believed one could be so happy,” she whispered to herself. A smile lit up her face, but at the same time she sighed, and her deep eyes showed a quiet sadness, as though she felt—through her happiness—that there was another kind of happiness, unattainable in this life, and she involuntarily thought of it at that moment.

##  CHAPTER X

Natásha had married in early spring of 1813, and by 1820 she already had three daughters and a son—whom she had longed for and was now nursing. She had grown stouter and broader, so it was hard to recognize in this robust, motherly woman the slim, lively Natásha of former days. Her features were more defined, and her expression was calm, gentle, and serene. The ever-present animation that once made her face shine was gone. Now, more often than not, what one noticed was her strong, handsome, fertile presence, and her soul no longer shone through. The old spark rarely lit her face now; it only appeared when, as that day, her husband came home, or a sick child recovered, or when she and Countess Mary spoke of Prince Andrew (she never mentioned him to her husband, whom she believed was jealous of Prince Andrew’s memory), or on the rare occasions something inspired her to sing—a habit she had given up since her marriage. In those rare moments when the old fire did ignite in her now mature, beautiful form, she was even more attractive than before.

Since marrying, Natásha and her husband had lived in Moscow, in Petersburg, on their estate near Moscow, or with her mother—that is, in Nicholas’ house. The young Countess Bezúkhova was rarely seen in society, and those who did encounter her there weren’t pleased and found her neither attractive nor charming. Not that Natásha preferred solitude—she didn’t know whether she liked it or not, she even thought she didn’t—but her pregnancies, confinements, nursing the children, and sharing every moment of her husband’s life gave her demands on her time that could only be met by giving up society. All who had known Natásha before her marriage were shocked by the change in her as if it were something extraordinary. Only the old countess, with her mother’s instinct, understood that all Natásha’s outbursts had arisen from her longing for children and a husband—as she herself had once exclaimed at Otrádnoe, not so much in jest as in earnest. Her mother was now surprised by the surprise of others who had never understood Natásha, and she kept saying that she’d always known Natásha would make an exemplary wife and mother.

“She simply lets her love for her husband and children go beyond all bounds,” said the countess, “so much so that it sometimes seems ridiculous.”

Natásha did not follow the golden rule promoted by clever people, especially the French, which says that a girl should not let herself go when she marries, should not neglect her accomplishments, should be even more careful of her appearance than when she was single, and should continue to charm her husband as she did before marriage. On the contrary, Natásha immediately abandoned all those charms, including her singing, which had always been her most powerful attraction. She gave it up just because it was so bewitching. She made no effort with her manners, or with her speech, or with her dress, nor did she try to show herself to her husband in her best light or avoid tiresome behavior. She did the opposite of all those rules. She felt that the tricks instinct had once taught her would now seem ridiculous to her husband, to whom she had given herself wholly from the very first, with her whole soul, hiding nothing. She felt her unity with her husband was not maintained by the poetic feelings that had drawn him to her, but by something else—indefinite, yet as strong as the bond between her body and her soul.

To dress her curls, put on fashionable gowns, and sing romantic songs to charm her husband would have seemed as odd as trying to attract herself. To dress up for others might have been pleasant—she didn’t know—but she had no time for it. The main reason she spent no time on singing, dress, or word choice was that she simply had no time for these things.

We all know people can become completely absorbed in any subject, however trivial, and that no subject is too small to become infinitely important if it receives one’s whole attention.

The subject that completely absorbed Natásha was her family—her husband, whom she needed to make sure was entirely hers and belonged to their home, and the children she had to bear, bring into the world, nurse, and raise.

The deeper she delved into this—not just with her mind but with her whole soul and being—the bigger this subject became, and the more inadequate her own abilities seemed. She concentrated everything on that one thing and still felt unable to do all she considered necessary.

There were then, as now, conversations about women’s rights, the relationships between husbands and wives, their freedoms and rights, though in those days people did not yet call these themes *questions* as they do now. But to Natásha, these topics were not just uninteresting, she simply did not understand them.

These questions, then as now, only exist for those who see nothing in marriage but the pleasure married people give each other—in other words, only the beginning of marriage, not its whole meaning, which lies in the family.

Such discussions and questions are like asking how to get the most enjoyment from a dinner—they do not and did not concern those for whom the purpose of a dinner is its nourishment, and the purpose of marriage is the family.

If the object of food is nourishment, a man who eats two dinners at once may get more enjoyment, but his body won’t digest them both and he misses the purpose. If the object of marriage is a family, the person seeking many wives or husbands may get much pleasure, but will not have a family.

If food is for nourishment and marriage is for family, then the main thing is not to eat more than you can digest, and not to have more wives or husbands than are needed for a family—that is, one wife or one husband. Natásha wanted a husband. She got one, and he gave her a family. She not only saw no need for any other or better husband, but as all her soul’s energy was focused on serving that husband and their family, she couldn’t imagine or be interested in imagining life being any other way.

Natásha didn’t care much for society at large, but she greatly valued the company of her relatives—Countess Mary, her brother, her mother, and Sónya. She treasured being with those from whom she could stride out, hair unkempt, from the nursery in her dressing gown, and happily show them a yellow rather than a green stain on the baby’s napkin—and from whom she could hear comforting words that the baby was much improved.

Natásha had so thoroughly let herself go that her hair, clothes, careless words, and jealousy—she was jealous of Sónya, the governess, and every woman, pretty or plain—regularly became the subject of household jokes. People generally believed Pierre was completely under his wife’s thumb, which was quite true. From the very beginning of married life, Natásha had stated her expectations. Pierre was amazed by his wife’s outlook—entirely new to him—that every moment of his life now belonged to her and to the family. Her demands surprised yet flattered him, and he yielded.

Pierre’s subjection meant not only did he not dare flirt with, but didn’t even dare smile at, another woman; he didn’t dine at the Club for fun, didn’t waste money on whims, and never stayed away long unless it was on essential business—in which his wife included his intellectual pursuits, which she didn’t at all understand but considered hugely important. In return, at home Pierre could order his own life and that of the whole family exactly as he liked. At home, Natásha made herself a servant to her husband, and the entire household walked on tiptoe when he was working—that is, when reading or writing in his study. Pierre had only to show he liked something for it to be done just as he wanted. Any wish he voiced, and Natásha would jump to fulfill it.

The entire household was run according to Pierre’s supposed wishes—those Natásha inferred from his offhand comments. Their lifestyle, residence, acquaintances, Natásha’s activities, and how the children were raised were all chosen not just according to Pierre’s stated desires, but also what Natásha deduced from his words. She interpreted his real wishes quite accurately, and once she reached her conclusions, she stuck to them firmly. If Pierre wanted to change his mind, she would fight him with his own arguments.

Thus, in a time of trouble that stood out in Pierre’s memory—after the birth of their first, delicate child, when they had to change the wet nurse three times and Natásha became ill with worry—Pierre told her Rousseau’s view, which he shared, that having a wet nurse is unnatural and harmful. With her next baby, despite opposition from her mother, the doctors, and even Pierre—who all argued nursing her own baby was unusual and unhealthy—Natásha insisted on doing it herself, and after that, she nursed all her babies.

It often happened that, in a moment of irritation, husband and wife would argue; but long afterward, Pierre would find—surprised and pleased—that his wife’s ideas and actions reflected the very thought she had once argued against, but stripped of all the excess he’d added in the heat of discussion.

After seven years of marriage, Pierre felt a joyful, firm assurance that he was not a bad man, and he sensed this when he saw himself reflected in his wife. He saw the good and bad mixed within himself, but only the good was reflected in Natásha; everything not quite good was rejected. And this wasn’t the result of logic—it was a direct, mysterious reflection.

##  CHAPTER XI

Two months earlier, when Pierre was already staying with the Rostóvs, he had received a letter from Prince Theodore, asking him to come to Petersburg to discuss some important matters then under consideration by a society of which Pierre was a principal founder.

When that letter arrived (she always read her husband's letters), Natásha herself suggested that he should go to Petersburg, even though she knew she would feel his absence deeply. She placed great importance on all her husband's intellectual and abstract pursuits, even though she did not understand them, and she always feared being an obstacle to him in such things. When Pierre looked at her uncertainly after reading the letter, she told him to go, but asked that he set a definite date for his return. He was granted four weeks' leave of absence.

Ever since that leave had expired, more than two weeks ago, Natásha had been constantly anxious, depressed, and irritable.

Denísov, now a retired general and very dissatisfied with the present state of affairs, had arrived during those weeks. He looked at Natásha with sorrow and surprise, as at a poor imitation of someone once dear to him. All he saw and heard from his former enchantress were dull, unhappy glances, random answers, and talk about the nursery.

Natásha remained sad and irritable throughout that time, especially when her mother, brother, Sónya, or Countess Mary tried to comfort her by finding excuses for Pierre and suggesting reasons for his delayed return.

"It's all nonsense, all rubbish—those discussions that lead nowhere, and all those idiotic societies!" Natásha declared about the very things in whose importance she firmly believed.

And she would go off to the nursery to nurse Pétya, her only son. No one else could comfort her or explain things as reasonably as this little three-month-old when he lay at her breast and she felt his lips move and heard the snuffling of his tiny nose. That child seemed to say, "You’re angry, you’re jealous, you want to get back at him, you’re afraid—but here I am! And I am him..." and that was impossible to argue with. It was more than true.

During those weeks of anxiety, Natásha turned to the baby for comfort so often, and fussed over him so much, that she overfed him and he became ill. She was frightened by his illness, but in a way, it was just what she needed. While caring for him, she found it easier to cope with her anxiety about Pierre.

She was nursing her son when Pierre’s sleigh was heard at the front door, and the old nurse—knowing how to please her mistress—entered the room as quietly as possible, but in a hurry, with a shining face.

"Has he come?" Natásha asked quickly in a whisper, afraid to move and wake the half-asleep baby.

"He’s come, ma’am," the nurse whispered.

A rush of color came to Natásha’s face and her feet moved involuntarily, but she couldn’t just jump up and rush out. The baby opened his eyes and looked at her. "You’re still here?" he seemed to be asking, and again lazily smacked his lips.

Carefully taking him from her breast, Natásha rocked him a little, handed him to the nurse, and hurried toward the door. But at the doorway she paused, as if guilty for leaving her child too quickly in her joy, and looked back. The nurse, elbows raised, was lifting the baby over the rail into his crib.

"Go, ma’am! Don’t worry, go!" she whispered, smiling with that kind of familiarity that naturally grows between a nurse and her mistress.

Natásha ran lightly to the anteroom.

Denísov, who had come out of the study into the dancing room with his pipe, now saw the old Natásha again for the first time. A flood of bright, joyful light lit up her transformed face.

"He’s come!" she exclaimed as she ran past, and Denísov felt himself happy too that Pierre—though he did not much care for him—had returned.

When she reached the vestibule, Natásha saw a tall figure in a fur coat unwinding his scarf. "It’s him! It’s really him! He’s come!" she thought, and ran to him, embraced him, pressed his head to her breast, then pushed him back to look at his rosy, cheerful face, still covered with hoarfrost. "Yes, it’s him, happy and content…."

Suddenly she remembered the agony of waiting she’d gone through for the past weeks, and the joy that had filled her face vanished; she frowned and showered Pierre with a torrent of reproaches and angry words.

"Yes, it was easy for you. You’re happy, you’ve had a good time... But what about me? You could at least have thought about the children. I’m nursing and my milk was ruined... Pétya was at death’s door. But you were having fun. Yes, having fun..."

Pierre knew he wasn’t to blame, as he truly couldn’t have come sooner; he knew this outburst was unreasonable and would blow over in a few minutes; most importantly, he knew he himself was bright and happy. He wanted to smile, but did not dare even think of it. He put on a sad, frightened face and bent down.

"I couldn’t, I swear. How is Pétya?"

"All right now. Come on! Aren’t you ashamed? If only you saw how I was without you, how I suffered!"

"Are you well?"

"Come, come!" she said, not letting go of his arm. And they went to their rooms.

When Nicholas and his wife came to find Pierre, he was in the nursery holding his baby son, who was awake again, in his large right hand and playfully rocking him. A blissful, bright smile was fixed on the baby's broad face, his little toothless mouth open. The storm was long past, and bright, joyful sunshine shone on Natásha’s face as she gazed tenderly at her husband and child.

"And have you discussed everything thoroughly with Prince Theodore?" she asked.

"Yes, everything went well."

"See, he’s holding his head up." (She meant the baby’s head.) "But he did scare me... Did you see the princess? Is it true she’s in love with that..."

"Yes, just imagine..."

At that moment Nicholas and Countess Mary walked in. Pierre, holding the baby in his hand, bent to kiss them and answered their questions. But despite all the interesting things that needed to be discussed, it was clear that the baby in his little cap, with his wobbly head, had all of Pierre’s attention.

"How sweet!" said Countess Mary, looking at and playing with the baby. "Now, Nicholas," she added, turning to her husband, "I don’t understand how you can’t see the charm of these wonderful little creatures."

"I don’t and I can’t," replied Nicholas, looking coldly at the baby. "Just a lump of flesh. Come on, Pierre!"

"And yet he’s such an affectionate father," said Countess Mary, defending her husband, "but only after they’re a year old or so..."

"Now, Pierre nurses them splendidly," said Natásha. "He says his hand was made to hold a baby. Just look!"

"Just not for this..." Pierre broke in with a laugh, and shifting the baby, handed him to the nurse.

##  CHAPTER XII

As in every large household, there were at Bald Hills several distinctly separate worlds that blended into one harmonious whole, though each kept its own unique customs and made concessions to the others. Every event, joyful or sad, that happened in that house was meaningful to all these worlds, but each had its own particular reasons to rejoice or grieve over those occurrences independent of the others.

For example, Pierre’s return was a joyful and important event, and everyone felt it.

The servants—the most reliable judges of their masters because they judge not by conversation or expressions of feeling but by their actions and lives—were pleased at Pierre’s return because they knew that with him there, Count Nicholas would stop visiting the estate every day, would be in better spirits and temper, and that they would all receive generous gifts for the holidays.

The children and their governesses were happy at Pierre’s return because no one else included them in the social life of the household as he did. He alone could play on the clavichord that *écossaise* (his only piece), to which, as he said, all imaginable dances could be danced, and they felt sure he had brought presents for each of them.

Young Nicholas, now a slim boy of fifteen, delicate and intelligent, with curly light-brown hair and beautiful eyes, was delighted because “Uncle Pierre,” as he called him, was the object of his joyous and passionate affection. No one had taught him to love Pierre, whom he only saw occasionally. Countess Mary, who had raised him, had done her best to make him love her husband as she loved him, and little Nicholas did love his uncle, but with just a trace of condescension. Pierre, however, he adored. He didn’t want to be a hussar or a Knight of St. George like his uncle Nicholas; he wanted to be learned, wise, and kind like Pierre. In Pierre’s presence his face always brightened with happiness; he flushed and was breathless when Pierre spoke to him. He never missed a single word Pierre said, and would later, with Dessalles or by himself, recall and ponder the meaning of everything Pierre had said. Pierre’s past life and his unhappiness before 1812 (of which young Nicholas had formed a vague, poetic idea from some words overheard), his adventures in Moscow, his captivity, Platón Karatáev (about whom he had heard from Pierre), his love for Natásha (whom the boy also especially loved), and especially Pierre’s friendship with the father Nicholas couldn’t remember—all this made Pierre, in his eyes, a hero and a saint.

From fragments about Natásha and his father, from the emotion with which Pierre spoke of that deceased father, and from the careful, reverent tenderness with which Natásha spoke of him, the boy, just beginning to grasp what love is, formed the idea that his father had loved Natásha and, dying, had entrusted her to his friend. Yet the father whom the boy didn’t remember appeared to him a divinity beyond description, always associated with a swelling heart and tears of both sadness and joy. So Nicholas too was happy Pierre had come.

The guests welcomed Pierre because he always lifted and united any group of people he joined.

The adult members of the family, not to mention his wife, were pleased to have back a friend whose presence made life flow more smoothly and peacefully.

The old ladies were delighted with the presents he brought them—and even more that Natásha would now be herself again.

Pierre sensed the unique perspectives of all these groups and hurried to meet all their expectations.

Though the most absent-minded and forgetful of men, Pierre, with the help of a list from his wife, had now bought everything—not forgetting his mother and brother-in-law’s requests, the dress material as a present for Belóva, and toys for his wife’s nephews. In the early days of his marriage, it had seemed odd to him that his wife expected him never to forget anything he promised to buy and he had been surprised by her genuine annoyance when he first forgot everything on his initial trip. But over time, he grew accustomed to this expectation. Knowing Natásha never asked for herself, and only gave him errands for others when he offered, he now found an unexpected and childlike happiness in buying gifts for everyone in the house, and never forgot anything. If he now faced Natásha’s criticism, it was only for buying too many and too expensive gifts. To her other flaws (as most people called them, though Pierre saw them as qualities)—untidiness and personal neglect—she now added stinginess.

Since Pierre had become a family man, with all the expenses it required, he had noticed, to his surprise, that he spent only half what he had before, and that his finances—which had become disordered lately, largely because of his first wife’s debts—had begun improving.

Life was cheaper because it was more settled: that most costly luxury, a life that could change at any moment, was no longer his, nor did he wish for it. He felt that his way of life was set once and for all until death, and that changing it was no longer in his power; thus, life became economical.

With a merry, smiling face, Pierre was sorting his purchases.

“What do you think of this?” he said, unrolling a piece of material like a shop assistant.

Natásha, sitting across from him with her eldest daughter on her lap, turned her sparkling eyes swiftly from her husband to the items he showed her.

“That’s for Belóva? Perfect!” She felt the texture of the material. “It was a ruble an arshin, I suppose?”

Pierre told her the price.

“Too expensive!” Natásha said. “How pleased the children and Mamma will be! But you need not have bought me this,” she added, unable to hide a smile as she admired a gold comb set with pearls, a style just coming into fashion.

“Adèle tempted me; she kept insisting I buy it,” replied Pierre.

“When am I to wear it?” Natásha asked, sticking it in her hair. “When I take little Másha into society? Maybe they’ll be fashionable again by then. Well, let’s go now.”

Collecting the gifts, they went first to the nursery and then to the old countess’ room.

The countess was sitting with her companion Belóva, playing grand patience as usual, when Pierre and Natásha entered the drawing room with parcels.

The countess was now over sixty, completely gray, and wore a cap with a frill surrounding her face. Her features had shriveled, her upper lip had sunk in, and her eyes had grown dim.

After the deaths of her son and husband so close together, she felt like someone accidentally left behind in this world, aimless and without purpose. She ate, drank, slept, or stayed awake, but did not *live*. Life brought her nothing new. She wanted nothing from it but peace, which only death could give. But until death came, she had to continue existing, to use her remaining life force. A common trait seen in the very young and the very old was especially clear in her. Her life had no external goals—only the need to exercise her remaining functions and inclinations was visible. She had to eat, sleep, think, speak, weep, work, express anger, and so forth, simply because she had a stomach, a brain, muscles, nerves, and a liver. She did these things not out of any external stimulus, as people in the full prime of life do, where behind the purposes they strive for, the need to use their faculties is unnoticed. She spoke only because she physically needed to exercise her tongue and lungs. She cried as a child does, because her nose needed clearing, and so on. What others see as purpose was for her clearly only a pretext.

So in the mornings—especially if she had eaten something rich the day before—she felt the need to be angry and would use Belóva’s deafness as a convenient excuse.

She would begin speaking softly from across the room.

“It seems a little warmer today, my dear,” she would murmur.

And when Belóva replied: “Oh yes, they’ve come,” she would mutter angrily: “Oh Lord! How stupid and deaf she is!”

Another excuse could be her snuff, which seemed too dry, too damp, or not finely ground enough. After these episodes of irritability, her face would turn yellow, and her maids could always tell when Belóva would be deaf again, the snuff damp, and the countess’s face yellow. Just as she needed to vent her spleen, so she sometimes had to exercise her remaining ability to think—and patience became the excuse for that. When she needed to cry, she used the late count as an excuse. When she wanted to be agitated, Nicholas and his health became her reason, and when she wanted to speak spitefully, Countess Mary served as pretext. When her vocal organs needed exercise, usually around seven o’clock after her post-lunch rest in a darkened room, she would retell the same stories again and again to the same listeners.

The old lady’s condition was understood by the entire household, though no one ever mentioned it, and they all made every effort to meet her needs. Only in occasional glances exchanged with sad smiles between Nicholas, Pierre, Natásha, and Countess Mary was there a silent acknowledgment of her condition.

But those glances meant more: they said she had played her role in life, that what they now saw was not her full self, that all would become like her someday, and that they were happy to oblige her, to show restraint for this once-vibrant but now pitiable being. *“Memento mori,”* said these glances.

Only the truly heartless, the foolish members of the household, and the little children did not understand this and tended to avoid her.

##  CHAPTER XIII

When Pierre and his wife entered the drawing room, the countess was in one of her familiar moods where she needed the mental effort of playing solitaire. So—even though out of habit she greeted him with her usual words when Pierre or her son returned from an absence: “About time, my dear, about time! We were all tired of waiting for you. Well, thank God!” and received her gifts with another customary remark: “It’s not the gift that’s precious, my dear, but the fact that you’re giving it to me, an old woman…”—it was still clear she was not pleased by Pierre’s arrival at that moment, since it distracted her from her unfinished game.

She finished her game of patience and only then looked at the presents. They consisted of a beautifully crafted card box, a bright-blue Sèvres tea cup with shepherdesses painted on it and a lid, and a gold snuffbox with the count’s portrait on the lid, which Pierre had commissioned from a miniaturist in Petersburg. The countess had long wanted such a box, but as she did not want to cry at that moment, she glanced indifferently at the portrait and paid most attention to the card box.

“Thank you, my dear, you have cheered me up,” she said as she always did. “But most of all, you’ve brought yourself home—for I’ve never seen anything like it. You ought to give your wife a scolding! What are we to do with her? She’s like a madwoman when you’re away. Doesn’t notice anything, doesn’t remember anything,” she continued, repeating her usual phrases. “Look, Anna Timoféevna,” she added to her companion, “see what a card box my son has brought us!”

Belóva admired the gifts and was delighted with her dress material.

Though Pierre, Natasha, Nicholas, Countess Mary, and Denisov had a lot to talk about that they couldn’t discuss in front of the old countess—not because anything was kept secret from her, but because she had fallen so far behind in many things that if they began to talk in her presence, they’d have to answer awkward questions and repeat explanations they’d already given her many times: that so-and-so had died, and so-and-so had married, which she still wouldn’t remember—still, they sat at tea around the samovar in the drawing room out of habit, and Pierre responded to the countess’s questions about whether Prince Vasili had aged and whether Countess Mary Alexeevna had sent greetings and still thought of them, and other matters no one else cared about and to which even she was indifferent.

Such conversation, uninteresting to everyone yet unavoidable, continued throughout tea time. All the adults in the family were gathered around the round tea table, at which Sonya presided by the samovar. The children, along with their tutors and governesses, had already had tea and their voices could be heard from the next room. At tea, everyone sat in their usual places: Nicholas sat beside the stove at a small table where his tea was passed to him; Milka, the old gray borzoi (daughter of the first Milka), with her quite gray face and big black eyes that seemed more prominent than ever, lay on the armchair next to him; Denisov, whose curly hair, mustache, and whiskers were now half gray, sat beside Countess Mary with his general’s tunic unbuttoned; Pierre sat between his wife and the old countess. He spoke of what he knew might interest the old lady and that she could understand. He told her of outside social events and of the people who had been part of her circle back in the day—a real, lively, and distinct group then, but now scattered across the world and, like herself, gathering the last ears of the harvest from seeds sown long ago. But to the old countess, those contemporaries of hers seemed to be the only genuine, serious society. Natasha could tell from Pierre’s animation that his trip had been interesting and there was much he was eager to share, but didn't dare say in front of the old countess. Denisov, not being family, didn’t realize Pierre’s caution and, being a chronic critic, was very interested in what was happening in Petersburg, so he kept urging Pierre to tell them about the Semënovsk regiment, then about Arakchéev, and then about the Bible Society. Once or twice, Pierre was carried away and started to speak of these things, but Nicholas and Natasha always brought him back to talking about the health of Prince Ivan and Countess Mary Alexeevna.

“Well, and all this nonsense—Gossner and Tatáwinova?” Denisov asked. “Is that really still going on?”

“Going on?” Pierre exclaimed. “It’s stronger than ever! The Bible Society is running the entire government now!”

“What is that, *mon cher ami?*” asked the countess, who had finished her tea and clearly needed a reason to be upset after her meal. “What are you saying about the government? I don’t understand.”

“Well, you know, *Maman*,” Nicholas interjected, knowing how to put things in terms her mother would understand, “Prince Alexander Golitsyn has founded a society and as a result, he has a lot of influence, they say.”

“Arakchéev and Golitsyn,” Pierre said carelessly, “are now the whole government! And what a government! They see treason everywhere and fear everything.”

“Well, and how is Prince Alexander to blame? He is a most respectable man. I used to meet him at Mary Antonovna’s,” said the countess in an offended tone; and, feeling even more offended that everyone remained silent, she continued: “These days everyone finds fault. A Gospel Society! Well, and what harm is there in that?” And she stood up (everyone else got up, too) and, with a stern expression, glided back to her table in the sitting room.

The gloomy silence that followed was broken by the sounds of children’s voices and laughter from the next room. Clearly some joyful excitement was going on there.

“Finished, finished!” little Natasha’s joyful cry rose above them all.

Pierre exchanged glances with Countess Mary and Nicholas (he never took his eyes off Natasha) and smiled happily.

“That’s wonderful music!” he said.

“It means that Anna Makarovna has finished her stocking,” said Countess Mary.

“Oh, I’ll go take a look,” said Pierre, jumping up. “You know,” he added, pausing at the door, “why I especially love that sound? It’s always the first thing that tells me all is well. When I was driving here today, the closer I got to the house, the more anxious I became. As soon as I entered the entrance hall, I heard Andrusha laughing loudly and that meant everything was all right.”

“I know! I know exactly that feeling,” said Nicholas. “But I can’t go in there—the stockings are supposed to be a surprise for me.”

Pierre went to the children, and the shouting and laughter got even louder.

“Come, Anna Makarovna,” Pierre’s voice was heard saying. “Come here to the middle of the room and at my command, ‘One, two,’ and when I say ‘three’… You stand here, and you in my arms—well now! One, two!…” said Pierre, and then there was a brief silence: “three!” and a breathless, ecstatic cry from the children filled the room. “Two, two!” they shouted.

This meant two stockings, which, by a secret process known only to herself, Anna Makarovna used to knit simultaneously on the same needles, and when they were done, she always triumphantly pulled one out of the other in front of the children.

##  CHAPTER XIV

Soon after this, the children came in to say good night. They kissed everyone, the tutors and governesses made their bows, and then left. Only young Nicholas and his tutor stayed behind. Dessalles quietly told the boy to come downstairs.

“No, Monsieur Dessalles, I’ll ask my aunt if I can stay,” Nicholas Bolkónski whispered back.

“*Ma tante*, please let me stay,” he said, going up to his aunt.

His face showed both pleading, excitement, and happiness. Countess Mary looked at him and then turned to Pierre.

“When you are here, he can’t bear to leave,” she said.

“I’ll bring him to you right away, Monsieur Dessalles. Good night!” said Pierre, shaking hands with the Swiss tutor, then turning to young Nicholas with a smile. “You and I haven’t had any time together yet…. How much he’s starting to resemble someone, Mary!” he added, addressing Countess Mary.

“Like my father?” the boy asked, blushing deeply and looking up at Pierre with bright, joyful eyes.

Pierre nodded, and resumed what he had been saying before the children came in. Countess Mary sat down with her woolwork; Natásha watched her husband intently. Nicholas and Denísov stood up, asked for their pipes, smoked, went to get more tea from Sónya—who sat at the samovar, tired but determined—and questioned Pierre. The curly-headed, delicate boy sat quietly in a corner, eyes shining, starting every now and then and muttering to himself, clearly feeling a powerful new emotion as he turned his head, exposing his thin neck above his collar, toward Pierre.

The conversation shifted to current gossip about those in authority, which many consider the main interest of domestic politics. Denísov, frustrated with the government after his own disappointments in the service, liked hearing about the foolish things happening in Petersburg and gave strong, sharp remarks on Pierre’s news.

“You used to need to be a German—now you have to dance with Tatáwinova and Madame Kwüdener, and read Ecka’tshausen and the ‘brothers.’ Oh, they should let that good fellow Bonaparte loose—he’d put an end to this nonsense! Imagine giving command of the Semënov regiment to someone like that Schwartz!” he exclaimed.

Nicholas, though less eager than Denísov to criticize everything, also thought discussing government business was a serious topic, and that *A* being appointed Minister of This and *B* Governor General of That, and that the Emperor had said so-and-so and this minister so-and-so, all seemed very important. So he felt it was necessary to keep up with these matters and questioned Pierre. The questions from these two kept the conversation focused on political gossip.

But Natásha, understanding her husband’s interests, noticed he had been wanting to guide the conversation elsewhere, to share the ideas that drove him to Petersburg to meet his new friend Prince Theodore, and she helped him by asking how things had gone with Prince Theodore.

“What was that about?” Nicholas asked.

“Always the same thing,” said Pierre, looking around the room. “Everyone agrees things are going so badly that they can’t continue this way, and that it’s the duty of all decent people to do what they can to oppose it.”

“But what can decent people do?” Nicholas asked, frowning slightly. “What can we do?”

“Well, this…”

“Come into my study,” said Nicholas.

Natásha, who expected to be called away to nurse the baby, now heard the nurse calling and left for the nursery. Countess Mary followed her. The men moved into the study and little Nicholas Bolkónski followed, unnoticed, and sat at the writing table in the shadowy corner by the window.

“Well, what would you do?” Denísov asked.

“Always planning something fantastic,” said Nicholas.

“No, listen,” began Pierre, not sitting, but pacing the room, pausing and gesturing as he spoke with his slight lisp: “The situation in Petersburg is this: the Emperor ignores everything. He’s given himself up entirely to mysticism” (Pierre couldn’t tolerate mysticism in anyone now). “He just wants peace, and only those people *sans foi ni loi* \* can give him that—people who blindly cut down and strangle everything—Magnítski, Arakchéev, and *tutti quanti*…. You’ll agree, if you never managed your own estate and only wanted an easy life, the harsher your steward was, the better he’d serve your purpose,” he said to Nicholas.

\* Without faith or law.

“So what does that lead to?” Nicholas asked.

“Everything is falling apart! There’s corruption in the courts, the army is all beatings, drills, and Military Settlements; the people are oppressed, enlightenment is suppressed. All that is young and honest is trampled down! Everyone sees this can’t last. Everything is stretched so tight that it’s sure to snap,” said Pierre (as anyone analyzing governments has always said since governments began). “I only told them one thing in Petersburg.”

“Told whom?”

“You know,” said Pierre, giving a meaningful look. “Prince Theodore and all those folks. Supporting culture and charity is fine, of course. The goal is good, but right now something different is needed.”

Just then, Nicholas noticed his nephew. His face darkened and he went over to the boy.

“What are you doing here?”

“Why? Let him stay,” said Pierre, taking Nicholas by the arm and going on. “That’s not enough, I told them. Something else is needed. When an overtight string could snap any second, when everyone expects a breakdown, as many as possible must join together as closely as they can to face the coming disaster. Everything that is young and strong is being tempted away and corrupted. One is lured by women, another by honors, a third by ambition or money, and they switch sides. There are no independent men left, like you or me. What I say is: broaden the scope of our society. Let the *mot d’ordre* be not just virtue, but independence and action too!”

Nicholas, who had moved away from his nephew, irritably dragged up an armchair, sat heavily in it, listening to Pierre as he coughed and frowned more and more.

“But action—to what end?” he exclaimed. “And what position will you take toward the government?”

“We act as assistants. The society doesn’t have to be secret if the government permits it. Not only isn’t it against the government, it’s a society of real conservatives—gentlemen in the full sense of the word. It’s only to keep someone like Pugachëv from killing my children and yours, or Arakchéev from sending me off to some Military Settlement. We unite solely for the public good and everyone’s safety.”

“Yes, but it’s a secret society and so, a hostile and harmful one that can only do harm.”

“Why? Did the Tugendbund, which saved Europe” (at that time it was too bold to suggest that Russia had saved Europe) “do any harm? The Tugendbund was an alliance of virtue: love, mutual help… just what Christ taught on the Cross.”

Natásha, who had come in during the talk, looked joyfully at her husband. It wasn’t his words that pleased her—they didn’t even really interest her, since to her it sounded so simple, as if she had long known it (because she understood it came from Pierre’s very soul)—but it was his lively and passionate manner that delighted her.

The boy with the thin neck in the turned-down collar—forgotten by everyone—gazed at Pierre with even more rapturous joy. Every word of Pierre’s burned itself into his heart, and with a nervous motion he unconsciously broke the sealing wax and quill pens within reach on his uncle’s table.

“It’s not at all as you imagine; but that’s what the German Tugendbund was, and what I’m proposing.”

“No, my fwiend! The Tugendbund is all vewy well for sausage eaters, but I don’t understand it, can’t even pwonounce it,” Denísov interrupted in a loud, firm voice. “I agwee, everything here is wotten and howwible, but the *Tugendbund* I don’t get. If we’re dissatisfied, let’s have a *bunt* ourselves. That’s all wight. *Je suis vot’e homme!*” \*

\* “I’m your man.”

Pierre smiled, Natásha began to laugh, but Nicholas furrowed his brow even more and started trying to prove to Pierre that there was no chance of any big change, insisting that all the danger Pierre was talking about was just his imagination. Pierre argued the opposite, and since his intellect was so much sharper and more inventive, Nicholas felt trapped. This only made him angrier, because he was entirely convinced—not by logic, but by something inside him stronger than reason—of the rightness of his view.

“I’ll tell you this,” he said, getting up and trying, with nervously twitching fingers, to brace his pipe in a corner, but ultimately giving up. “I can’t prove it to you. You say everything here is falling apart and that some great revolt is coming: I don’t see it. But you also say that our oath of loyalty is a conditional thing, and to that I say: ‘You’re my best friend, as you know, but if you formed a secret society and started working against the government—no matter what the government is—I know my duty is to obey. And if Arakchéev ordered me to lead a squadron against you and strike you down, I wouldn’t hesitate for an instant—I would do it.’ And you can argue about that all you want!”

A tense silence followed these words. Natásha broke it first, defending her husband and criticizing her brother. Her defense was feeble and off the mark, but she managed to get the result she wanted. The conversation began again, now without the harsh and hostile tone of Nicholas’ last comment.

When everyone stood up to go in for supper, little Nicholas Bolkónski approached Pierre, pale and with eyes shining radiantly.

“Uncle Pierre, you… no… If Papa were alive… would he agree with you?” he asked.

And Pierre suddenly understood what a unique, complex, and powerful process of thought and emotion must have been happening inside the boy during that conversation, and remembering everything he had said, he regretted that the boy had overheard it. Still, he needed to answer.

“Yes, I think so,” he said reluctantly, and left the study.

The boy looked down and seemed, for the first time, to notice what he had done to the things on the table. Blushing, he went up to Nicholas.

“Uncle, I’m sorry, I did that… by accident,” he said, pointing at the broken sealing wax and pens.

Nicholas started to get angry.

“All right, all right,” he said, tossing the pieces under the table.

And clearly struggling to hide his annoyance, he turned away from the boy.

“You shouldn’t have been here at all,” he said.

##  CHAPTER XV

The conversation at supper wasn’t about politics or societies, but instead centered on Nicholas’s favorite topic—recollections of 1812. Denísov started the stories, and Pierre was especially charming and entertaining while talking about them. The family parted for the night on very friendly terms.

After supper, Nicholas undressed in his study and gave instructions to the steward who had been waiting for him. Then, in his dressing gown, he went to the bedroom, where he found his wife still sitting at her table, writing.

“What are you writing, Mary?” Nicholas asked.

Countess Mary blushed. She was worried that Nicholas might not understand or approve of what she was doing.

She had wanted to hide her writing from him, but at the same time was glad he had caught her, now that she would have to explain.

“A diary, Nicholas,” she answered, handing him a blue exercise book filled with her strong, neat handwriting.

“A diary?” Nicholas repeated with a hint of irony, picking up the book.

It was written in French.

December 4. Today, when Andrúsha (her eldest boy) woke up he refused to get dressed, and Mademoiselle Louise sent for me. He was naughty and stubborn. I tried scolding, but he only got angrier. Then I decided to handle it differently: I left him alone and, with the nurse’s help, started getting the other children ready, telling him that I didn’t love him. For a long time he stayed silent, as if surprised, then he jumped out of bed, ran to me in his shirt, and wept so hard that I couldn’t calm him for a long time. Clearly, what upset him most was making me unhappy. Later, in the evening when I gave him his ticket, he cried again and hugged me. He can be managed with kindness.

“What is a ‘ticket’?” Nicholas asked.

“I’ve started giving the older ones marks every evening, showing how they behaved.”

Nicholas looked into his wife’s shining eyes as he kept flipping through the pages, reading on. The diary recorded every detail in the children’s lives that seemed significant to their mother as revealing their characters or offering lessons on education. Most of these were minor incidents, but they didn’t seem minor to the mother or, now that Nicholas read about his children in the diary for the first time, to him either.

Under the date of “5” it said:

Mítya was naughty at table. Papa said he couldn’t have any pudding. He didn’t get any, but looked so sad and hungry while the others had some! I think punishing children by taking away treats just makes them more greedy. I must mention this to Nicholas.

Nicholas put down the book and looked at his wife. Her radiant eyes looked at him, as if wondering if he would approve of her diary or not. There was no doubt—not only did he approve, he admired her.

Maybe it didn’t need to be done so strictly, Nicholas thought, or maybe not at all, but this tireless, constant effort for the children’s moral well-being deeply pleased him. Had Nicholas been able to analyze his feelings, he would have realized that his steady, gentle, proud love for his wife rested on his awe at her spiritual depth and the high moral world—almost out of his reach—in which she lived.

He was proud of her intelligence and goodness, knew he was insignificant compared to her in spiritual matters, and felt all the happier that someone like her not only belonged to him but was part of his life.

“I completely, completely approve, my dearest!” he said with a significant look. After a brief pause he added, “And I behaved badly today. You weren’t in the study. We started arguing—Pierre and me—and I lost my temper. But he’s impossible, like a child! I don’t know what would become of him if Natásha didn’t keep him under control… Do you know why he went to Petersburg? They’ve formed…”

“Yes, I know,” said Countess Mary. “Natásha told me.”

“Well then, you know,” Nicholas continued, getting stirred up just remembering their argument, “he tried to convince me that every honest man has to oppose the government, and that the oath of allegiance and duty… I wish you had been there. They all ganged up on me—Denísov and Natásha… Natásha is ridiculous. She rules him! And yet let there be a discussion, and she can only repeat what he says…” Nicholas added, giving in to the irresistible urge that makes us judge those closest to us. He forgot that what he said about Natásha could just as well describe his own relationship with his wife.

“Yes, I’ve noticed that,” said Countess Mary.

“When I told him that duty and the oath are above everything, he started arguing all sorts of things! Pity you weren’t there—what would you have said?”

“In my opinion, you were absolutely right, and I told Natásha. Pierre says everyone is suffering, and it’s our duty to help our neighbors. He’s right in that,” said Countess Mary, “but he forgets that we have other, nearer duties that God himself assigned to us, and even if we risk ourselves, we mustn’t risk our children.”

“Yes, that’s it! That’s exactly what I told him,” put in Nicholas, who believed he actually had said that. “But they kept insisting: love your neighbor and be Christian—and all this in front of young Nicholas, who went into my study and broke all my things.”

“Oh, Nicholas, you know I worry about little Nicholas,” said Countess Mary. “He’s such an unusual boy. I’m afraid I neglect him for the sake of my own children; we all have children and relatives, while he has no one. He’s always alone, just thinking.”

“Well, I don’t think you need to blame yourself. You’ve done—and are doing—for him everything the best mother could, and I’m glad for it. He’s a good boy, a fine boy! This evening he listened to Pierre like he was in a trance, and imagine—as we went in to supper I saw that he had destroyed everything on my desk, and he told me himself right away! I never knew him to lie. A good boy, a fine boy!” Nicholas repeated, though deep down he wasn’t so fond of Nicholas Bolkónski but always tried to acknowledge his merits.

“Still, I am not the same as his own mother,” said Countess Mary. “I feel I’m not, and it troubles me. He’s a remarkable boy, but I worry about him. It would be good for him to have friends his age.”

“Well, it won’t be for long. Next summer I’ll take him to Petersburg,” said Nicholas. “Yes, Pierre always was a dreamer and always will be,” he went on, returning to the conversation in the study which clearly still bothered him. “What business is it of mine what goes on there—if Arakchéev is bad, and so on? What business was it of mine when I got married, drowning in debt and threatened with prison, with a mother who couldn’t see or comprehend it? And then, there’s you, the children, and our life. Am I spending my days at the farm or in the office just for fun? No—but I know it’s my duty to look after my mother, pay you back, and not leave our children as poor as I was.”

Countess Mary wanted to tell him that a person doesn’t live by bread alone, and that he put too much importance on these things. But she knew she shouldn’t say this, and that it would be pointless. She only took his hand and kissed it. He took this as a sign of support and confirmation, and after a few minutes of thought, spoke on.

“You know, Mary, today Elias Mitrofánych” (his overseer) “came back from the Tambóv estate and says they’re already offering eighty thousand rubles for the forest.”

With excitement, Nicholas began to talk about the possibility of buying back Otrádnoe soon and added, “Just give me another ten years and I’ll leave the children… in a great position.”

Countess Mary listened and understood everything her husband told her. She knew that when he spoke out loud like this, sometimes he would ask her what he’d said and get upset if he realized she hadn’t been paying attention. So she forced herself to listen, though what he was saying didn’t interest her at all. As she looked at him, she stopped thinking and simply felt something different. She felt a gentle, resigned love for this man who would never truly understand all she understood; and this made her love even deeper, with a touch of passionate tenderness. Besides this feeling, which filled her and made it hard to follow his plans in detail, thoughts unrelated to his words moved through her mind. She thought of her nephew. Her husband’s story about the boy being so moved by Pierre’s speech affected her, and various qualities of his gentle, sensitive nature came back to her. While thinking of her nephew, she also thought of her own children. She didn’t compare them to him, but compared her feeling for them with her feeling for him, and regretfully felt that something was missing in her love for young Nicholas.

Sometimes it seemed that this difference came from the difference in their ages, but she still felt at fault and secretly promised herself to do better—to achieve the impossible: in this life, to love her husband, her children, young Nicholas, and all her neighbors as Christ loved mankind. Countess Mary’s soul always reached for the infinite, the eternal, and the absolute, so she could never be fully at peace. A stern look, expressing the noble, secret sorrow of a soul weighed down by the body, appeared on her face. Nicholas gazed at her. “God! What would become of us if she died, as I always fear when she looks like that?” he thought, and kneeling before the icon, he began to say his evening prayers.

##  CHAPTER XVI

Natasha and Pierre, left alone, also began to talk in the way only a husband and wife can—speaking with remarkable clarity and speed, understanding and expressing each other’s thoughts in ways that defy all the rules of logic, without premises, deductions, or conclusions, and in their own unique style. Natasha was so accustomed to this kind of conversation with her husband that, for her, it was the clearest sign something was wrong between them if Pierre began using strict logical reasoning. Whenever he started trying to prove something or argue calmly, and she, drawn in by his manner, did the same, she knew they were on the verge of a quarrel.

From the moment they were alone—when Natasha approached him with shining, joyful eyes, quickly grabbed his head, pressed it against her chest, and said, “Now you are all mine, mine! You won’t escape!”—from that instant, this style of conversation began, defying all logic, and defying them as well, because they spoke about entirely different topics at once. Far from causing confusion, this kind of talk was, in fact, the surest sign they understood one another perfectly.

Just as in a dream, when everything is uncertain, unreasonable, and contradictory except for the feeling that guides the dream, so in these conversations, contrary to all reason, the words themselves were not always connected or clear, but the feeling behind them was unmistakable.

Natasha spoke to Pierre about her brother’s life and actions, about how she had suffered and felt lifeless during Pierre’s time away, about how she was more fond than ever of Mary, and how Mary was in every way better than she herself was. In admitting Mary’s superiority, Natasha was sincere, but by saying it, she was also making a demand on Pierre: that he should prefer her above Mary and all other women, and that now—especially after seeing so many women in Petersburg—he should reassure her of this all over again.

Pierre, responding to Natasha, told her how intolerable he had found it to meet ladies at dinners and balls in Petersburg.

“I’ve completely lost the knack for talking to ladies,” he said. “It was just boring. Besides, I was very busy.”

Natasha looked at him intently and continued:

“Mary is so wonderful,” she said. “How she understands children! It’s as if she sees straight into their souls. Yesterday, for example, Mitya was naughty…”

“How much he takes after his father,” Pierre interjected.

Natasha knew why he mentioned Mitya’s resemblance to Nicholas: the memory of his disagreement with his brother-in-law was unpleasant for him and he wanted to know what Natasha thought about it.

“Nicholas has the weakness of never agreeing with anything that isn’t generally accepted. But I understand that you value anything that opens a new direction,” she said, repeating something Pierre had once said.

“No, the main point is that, for Nicholas, ideas and discussions are entertainment—almost just a pastime,” said Pierre. “For example, he’s collecting a library and has made it a rule not to buy a new book until he’s read those he already has—Sismondi and Rousseau and Montesquieu,” he added with a smile. “You know how much I…” He started to soften what he had said, but Natasha interrupted him to indicate it wasn’t necessary.

“So you think ideas are just amusement to him…”

“Yes, and for me, nothing else is serious. The whole time in Petersburg, I felt as if I were in a dream. When an idea absorbs me, everything else amounts to mere distraction.”

“Oh, I wish I’d been there when you met the children,” said Natasha. “Who was most delighted? Lisa, I’m sure.”

“Yes,” Pierre replied, and continued with what was on his mind. “Nicholas says we shouldn’t think. But I can’t help it. Besides, while I was in Petersburg, I sensed (I can say this to you) that everything would fall apart without me—everyone was pulling in different directions. But I managed to unite them all; and my idea is so clear and simple. See, I don’t say that we must oppose this or that. We might be wrong. What I say is: ‘Join hands, all you who love the right, and let there be only one banner—that of active virtue.’ Prince Sergey is a good fellow—bright, too.”

Natasha would have had no doubt about the greatness of Pierre’s idea, but one thing unsettled her. “Could someone so important and necessary to society also be my husband? How did this come to be?” She wanted to express this doubt to him. “But who could decide if he really is wiser than all the others?” she wondered, thinking of all those Pierre most respected. Judging by his words, there was no one Pierre had ever respected as much as Platon Karataev.

“Do you know what I’m thinking about?” she asked. “About Platon Karataev. Do you think he would approve of you now?”

Pierre wasn’t at all surprised by this question. He understood his wife’s line of thought.

“Platon Karataev?” he repeated, pausing as he sincerely tried to imagine what Karataev’s opinion would have been. “He wouldn’t have understood… and yet maybe he would have.”

“I love you so much!” Natasha suddenly exclaimed. “So, so much!”

“No, he wouldn’t have approved,” said Pierre after reflecting. “What he would have approved of is our family life. He always wanted to see decency, happiness, and peace in everything, and I would have been proud to have him see us. See now—you talk about my leaving, but you wouldn’t believe what a special feeling I have for you after we’re apart….”

“Yes, I think…” Natasha began.

“No, it’s not that. I never stop loving you. And one couldn’t love more, but this is something special… Yes, of course—” He didn’t finish, because the look they shared said it all.

“What nonsense it is,” Natasha suddenly exclaimed, “about honeymoons, and that the greatest happiness is in the beginning! It’s the opposite—now is best of all. If only you didn’t have to go away! Do you remember how we used to quarrel? And it was always my fault. Always mine. And what did we even quarrel about—I can’t remember!”

“Always the same thing,” said Pierre with a smile. “Jealo…”

“Don’t say it! I can’t stand it!” Natasha cried, her eyes flashing coldly and angrily. “Did you see her?” she added after a pause.

“No, and even if I had, I wouldn’t have recognized her.”

They were silent for a while.

“Oh, do you know? While you were talking in the study, I was watching you,” Natasha began, clearly wanting to dispel the brief shadow between them. “You look exactly like him—like the boy.” (She meant her little son.) “Oh, it’s time to go to him… The milk’s here… But I wish I didn’t have to leave you.”

They were both quiet for a few seconds. Then, at the same time, they turned to each other and both began to speak. Pierre started with self-assurance and enthusiasm, Natasha with a gentle, happy smile. Having interrupted each other, they each stopped to let the other continue.

“No. What were you saying? Go on, go on.”

“No, you go on, I was just talking nonsense,” said Natasha.

Pierre finished what he had started. It was a continuation of his satisfied reflections about his time in Petersburg. At that moment, he felt certain he was destined to give new direction to all of Russian society—and even the whole world.

“I only wanted to say that ideas with great consequences are always simple. My whole idea is that if bad people unite and make themselves a force, then honest people must do the same. That’s really very simple.”

“Yes.”

“And what were you going to say?”

“Me? Oh, it was nothing.”

“But still?”

“Oh, nothing, just a little thing,” said Natásha, smiling even more brightly. “I just wanted to tell you about Pétya: today nurse came to take him from me, and he laughed, shut his eyes, and clung to me. I’m sure he thought he was hiding. It was so adorable! There, now he’s crying. Well, good-bye!” and she left the room.

Meanwhile, downstairs in young Nicholas Bolkónski’s bedroom, a small lamp was burning as usual. (The boy was afraid of the dark and they hadn’t been able to cure him of it.) Dessalles slept propped up on four pillows, his Roman nose making rhythmic snoring sounds. Little Nicholas, who had just woken up in a cold sweat, sat up in bed and stared ahead with wide-open eyes. He had woken from a terrible dream. He had dreamt that he and Uncle Pierre, wearing helmets like those shown in his Plutarch, were leading a huge army. The army was made up of white, slanting lines that filled the air like the cobwebs seen in autumn and which Dessalles called *les fils de la Vièrge*. In front was Glory, which was like those threads but a bit thicker. He and Pierre moved along lightly and joyfully, coming closer and closer to their goal. Suddenly, the threads that carried them began to loosen and tangle, and it became hard to move. Uncle Nicholas then appeared before them, stern and threatening.

“Did you do this?” he asked, pointing to some broken sealing wax and pens. “I loved you, but I have orders from Arakchéev and will kill the first of you who moves forward.” Little Nicholas turned to look at Pierre, but Pierre was no longer there. Instead, his father—Prince Andrew—had appeared. His father had neither shape nor form, but he existed, and when little Nicholas realized it was him, he was overwhelmed with love: he felt powerless, weak, and without form. His father caressed and comforted him. But Uncle Nicholas came closer and closer to them. Terror seized young Nicholas, and he woke up.

“My father!” he thought. (Though there were two good portraits of Prince Andrew in the house, Nicholas never imagined him in a human form.) “My father was with me and caressed me. He approved of me and of Uncle Pierre. Whatever he tells me, I will do. Mucius Scaevola burned his hand. Why shouldn’t something like that happen to me? I know they want me to learn. And I will learn. But someday I will have finished learning, and then I’ll do something. I only pray to God that something happens to me like happened to Plutarch’s heroes, and I will act as they did. I’ll do even better. Everyone will know me, love me, and be pleased with me!” Suddenly his chest heaved with sobs and he began to cry.

“Are you ill?” he heard Dessalles ask.

“No,” answered Nicholas, and lay back on his pillow.

“He is good and kind and I’m fond of him!” he thought about Dessalles. “But Uncle Pierre! Oh, what a wonderful man he is! And my father? Oh, Father, Father! Yes, I will do something that even *he* would be pleased with….”

##  SECOND EPILOGUE

##  CHAPTER I

History is the life of nations and of humanity. To grasp and put into words, to directly describe the life of humanity or even a single nation, seems impossible.

The ancient historians all used the same approach to describe and capture the apparently elusive—the life of a people. They described the actions of individuals who ruled the people, considering these acts to represent the activity of the whole nation.

The question: how did individuals make nations act as they wished, and what guided the will of these individuals? the ancients answered by acknowledging a divinity that subjected nations to the will of a chosen man and guided that chosen man’s will to accomplish predestined ends.

For the ancients, these questions were answered by a belief in the direct intervention of the Deity in human affairs.

Modern history, theoretically, rejects both of these ideas.

It would seem that, having rejected the ancient belief in humanity’s subjection to the Deity and in a predetermined goal toward which nations are led, modern history should study not the displays of power but the causes that create it. But modern history has not done so. Having theoretically rejected the ancient view, it still follows it in practice.

Rather than men with divine authority and direct guidance from God, modern history gives us either heroes with extraordinary, superhuman abilities, or simply people of various kinds, from monarchs to journalists, who lead the masses. Instead of the divinely appointed aims of the Jewish, Greek, or Roman nations, which ancient historians viewed as marking the progress of humanity, modern history has set up its own aims—the welfare of the French, German, or English peoples, or, in its highest abstraction, the welfare and civilization of humanity in general, which usually means that of the people in a small northwesterly part of a large continent.

Modern history has rejected the ancients’ beliefs without replacing them with a new concept, and the logic of the situation has forced historians, after apparently rejecting the divine authority of kings and the “fate” of ancient times, to reach the same conclusion by a different path: to recognize (1) nations guided by individuals, and (2) the existence of a known goal to which these nations and humanity as a whole are moving.

Underneath the works of all modern historians from Gibbon to Buckle, despite their seeming disagreements and the supposed novelty of their views, lie those two old, unavoidable assumptions.

First, the historian describes the actions of individuals who, in his view, have directed humanity (one historian considers only monarchs, generals, and ministers as such men, while another also includes orators, scholars, reformers, philosophers, and poets). Second, it is assumed that historians know the goal toward which humanity is heading: for one it is the greatness of the Roman, Spanish, or French kingdom; for another it is liberty, equality, and a certain kind of civilization in the small part of the world called Europe.

In 1789 unrest begins in Paris; it grows, spreads, and appears as a movement of peoples from west to east. Several times it moves eastward and meets a countermovement going from east to west. In 1812 it reaches its extreme limit, Moscow, and then, with remarkable symmetry, a countermovement occurs from east to west, attracting, as the first movement did, the nations of central Europe. The countermovement reaches the western starting point—Paris—and then subsides.

During those twenty years, an enormous number of fields were left unplowed, houses burned, trade changed its direction, millions migrated, were impoverished, or grew rich, and millions of Christians, who professed love for their fellow humans, killed each other.

What does it all mean? Why did it happen? What made people burn houses and kill others? What caused these events? What force made people behave like this? These are the instinctive, simple, and most natural questions humanity asks itself when it confronts the monuments and memories of that time.

To answer these questions, common sense turns to the science of history, whose purpose is to help nations and humanity understand themselves.

If history held on to the view of the ancients, it would say that God, to reward or punish his people, gave Napoleon power and directed his will to achieve divine purposes, and that answer would be clear and complete. One could believe or not believe in the divine role of Napoleon, but for anyone who did, history would be neither confusing nor contradictory.

But modern history can no longer give that answer. Science does not accept the ancient idea of the Deity taking part directly in human affairs, so history must give other answers.

Modern history responds to these questions by saying: you want to know what this movement means, what caused it, and what force created these events? Then listen:

“Louis XIV was a very proud and self-confident man; he had these mistresses and those ministers and he ruled France badly. His descendants were weak and also ruled France badly. They had their favorites and mistresses as well. At that time, certain men wrote some books. At the end of the eighteenth century, a few dozen men in Paris began talking about all men being free and equal. This made people all over France start attacking and drowning each other. They killed the king and many others. At that time, there was a genius in France—Napoleon. He conquered everyone everywhere—which means he killed many people because he was a great genius. Then, for some reason, he went to Africa to kill more people, and did it so successfully and cleverly that when he returned to France he ordered everyone to obey him, and they all did. After becoming Emperor he went out again to kill people in Italy, Austria, and Prussia. There too he killed many. In Russia was an Emperor, Alexander, who decided to restore order in Europe and so fought Napoleon. In 1807 he suddenly befriended him, but in 1811 they quarreled again and resumed killing people. Napoleon led six hundred thousand men into Russia and took Moscow; then he suddenly fled Moscow, and Emperor Alexander, helped by the advice of Stein and others, united Europe to fight the disturber of its peace. All Napoleon’s allies suddenly became his enemies and their armies advanced against the new forces he raised. The Allies defeated Napoleon, entered Paris, forced him to abdicate, and sent him to Elba, not taking the title of Emperor or the respect they later removed, even though five years before and one year later they all viewed him as a criminal. After that, Louis XVIII, who had been the laughingstock of both French and Allies, began to reign. Napoleon, in front of his Old Guards, wept as he gave up the throne and went to exile. Then the clever diplomats (especially Talleyrand, who managed to sit in just the right chair before anyone else and thus extended the borders of France) talked things over in Vienna, supposedly making nations happy or unhappy through these conversations. Suddenly the diplomats and monarchs almost quarreled and were about to order their armies to kill each other, but then Napoleon returned with a battalion, and the French, who had hated him, all submitted to him at once. The Allied monarchs got angry and marched against the French once more. They defeated Napoleon and, calling him a brigand, sent him to St. Helena. The exile, far from beloved France, died a slow death on his rock and left his great deeds to posterity. But then in Europe a reaction happened and the kings again began oppressing their subjects.”

It would be a mistake to think this is mockery—a caricature of historical accounts. On the contrary, it is a very mild version of the contradictory replies—which do not answer the questions—given by *all* historians, from memoir writers and state historians to those who write general histories and the new histories of *culture* of that period.

The strangeness and absurdity of these answers come from the fact that modern history, like a deaf man, answers questions no one asked.

If the purpose of history is to describe the movement of humanity and nations, the key question—in the absence of an answer to which everything else remains meaningless—is: what is the power that moves nations? To this, modern history awkwardly answers either that Napoleon was a great genius, or that Louis XIV was very proud, or that certain writers wrote certain books.

That might all be true, and people may readily agree, but it is not what was asked. All *that* would make sense if we accepted a divine power remaining consistent, always steering the nations through Napoleons, Louises, and writers; but we do not accept such a power, so before starting to talk about Napoleons, Louises, and authors, we ought to be shown the link between these men and the motion of nations.

If some force besides a divine power has emerged, it should be explained what this new force is, for the true interest of history lies precisely in that force.

History seems to assume that this power is obvious and known to all. But despite every intent to treat it as obvious, anyone who reads many historical works cannot help doubting if this new force, which is understood so differently by historians themselves, is truly known to anyone.

##  CHAPTER II

What force moves nations?

Biographical historians and historians focused on specific nations interpret this force as a power inherent in heroes and rulers. In their narratives, events happen solely through the will of a Napoleon, an Alexander, or generally the individuals they describe. The answers these historians give to the question of what drives events are satisfactory only as long as one historian covers each event. As soon as historians of different nationalities and viewpoints begin to describe the same event, their explanations immediately lose all meaning, since each interprets this force differently and often in directly contradictory ways. One historian claims an event was produced by Napoleon’s power, another attributes it to Alexander’s, a third to some other person’s influence. Furthermore, even about the basis of a particular person’s authority, these historians often contradict each other. Thiers, a Bonapartist, claims Napoleon’s power was based on his virtue and genius. Lanfrey, a Republican, states it was based on his trickery and deception of the people. Thus, historians of this type, by mutually undermining each other’s arguments, fail to clarify the force that drives events, and provide no real answer to the fundamental question of history.

Writers of universal history, who cover all nations, seem to recognize how mistaken the specialist historians’ view of historical forces is. They do not accept this force as inherent in heroes and rulers, but as the result of many diverse, interacting forces. When describing a war or the subjugation of a people, a general historian looks for the cause not in the power of one man, but in the interaction of many participants tied to the event.

According to this perspective, the power of historical figures, understood as the product of many influences, seemingly can no longer be seen as an independent force producing events. Yet, in most cases, universal historians still use the concept of power as a force that itself causes events, and treat it as their primary cause. In their portrayals, a historical character is at first shaped by his era and his power is just the result of multiple forces—but then his power itself becomes the cause of new events. Gervinus, Schlosser, and others, for example, sometimes argue that Napoleon was the product of the Revolution, of the ideas of 1789 and so on, but at other times plainly say that the campaign of 1812 and other disagreeable events were simply the result of Napoleon’s misguided will, and that the very ideas of 1789 stalled because of Napoleon’s whims. The ideas of the Revolution and the mood of the times created Napoleon’s power—but Napoleon’s power, in turn, suppressed the ideas of the Revolution and the spirit of the age.

This odd contradiction is not accidental. It appears continuously, and the universal historians’ accounts are basically built from such chains of contradictions. This contradiction exists because, although they begin to analyze the problem, universal historians consistently stop halfway.

To break down a force into its components, those components must add up to the original force. Universal historians never meet this condition, so to explain the resulting force they must admit, along with their inadequate components, another unexplained force affecting the outcome.

Specialist historians describing the campaign of 1813 or the restoration of the Bourbons plainly state that these events were produced by Alexander’s will. Yet universal historian Gervinus, countering this claim, tries to show that the campaign of 1813 and the restoration of the Bourbons were caused by things beyond Alexander’s will—by the actions of Stein, Metternich, Madame de Staël, Talleyrand, Fichte, Chateaubriand, and others. The historian essentially breaks Alexander’s power down into components—Talleyrand, Chateaubriand, and the rest—but all their interactions do not add up to the result: millions of French people submitting to the Bourbons. The conversations between Chateaubriand, Madame de Staël, and others only affected their interactions, not the compliance of millions. Therefore, to explain how these relationships led to the submission of millions—that is, how component forces equal to one *A* produced a result equal to a thousand times *A*—the historian must again fall back on power—the very force previously denied—and recognize it as the outward result of all forces, which means accepting an unexplained force at play. This is just what universal historians do, so they not only contradict specialist historians but also themselves.

Peasants who don’t clearly understand the cause of rain say—depending on whether they want rain or sunshine—“The wind has blown the clouds away,” or, “The wind has brought the clouds.” Similarly, universal historians sometimes, when it suits them and aligns with their theory, say power is the result of events, and sometimes, when they want to argue something else, say power causes events.

A third group of historians—the so-called historians of culture—following the path laid by universal historians (who sometimes treat writers and women as forces that drive events)—see that force as something different yet again. They find it in what they call culture—in intellectual activity.

The historians of culture are quite consistent with their predecessors, the universal historians, for if history can be explained by the fact that certain people treated one another a particular way, why not say it is explained by certain people writing specific books? Of the countless signs that accompany every event, these historians select intellectual activity and declare that as the cause. But even though they work hard to prove that the cause of events lies in thought, only by quite a stretch can one claim there is a real connection between intellectual activity and the movements of nations, and in no way can one assume that intellectual activity directs people’s actions. Such a view is disproved, for example, by the very cruel murders of the French Revolution arising from the doctrine of the equality of man, or the bloody wars and executions that resulted from the preaching of love.

Still, even if one accepts all the clever arguments put forward in these histories—even agreeing that nations are guided by some elusive force called an *idea*—history’s essential question still remains unanswered. To the former power of monarchs and the influence of advisers and others introduced by universal historians, a new force—the *idea*—is simply added, and how this *idea* connects with the masses still needs explanation. One might imagine how Napoleon held power and so events happened; with effort, one might explain events as the result of Napoleon along with other influences; but how the book *Le Contrat Social* caused Frenchmen to start drowning one another cannot be understood unless the causal link between this new force and the event is explained.

Clearly some connection exists between all those who live at the same time, so it’s possible to find some relation between people’s intellectual activity and large movements in history, just as one might find a relation between humanity’s movements and commerce, crafts, gardening, or any activity you choose. But why intellectual activity is seen by historians of culture as the cause or main expression of historical movement is unclear. Only the following reasons might have led historians to this idea: (1) history is written by learned individuals, so it’s understandable and comforting for them to believe that the activity of their own kind is at the center of all humanity’s movement—just as traders, farmers, and soldiers would believe the same if they wrote history (and the only reason they don’t say so is because traders and soldiers don’t write history); and (2) that “spiritual activity,” enlightenment, civilization, culture, ideas, are all vague, ill-defined concepts, under which it’s easy to employ words with even less precise meanings and thus readily adapt them to any theory.

Regardless of the actual merit of these kinds of histories (which might be useful to someone in some way), the histories of culture—to which all general histories seem to progressively converge—are significant as they show that after examining various religious, philosophical, and political ideas as causes of events, when these historians describe a real event, such as the campaign of 1812 for example, they inevitably attribute it to an exercise of power—and plainly say it was the result of Napoleon’s will. In doing so, the historians of culture end up contradicting themselves and demonstrating that this new force they introduce does not actually explain what happens in history, and that history can only be explained by a power they claim not to recognize.

##  CHAPTER III

A locomotive is moving. Someone asks, “What moves it?” A peasant answers that the devil moves it. Another says the locomotive moves because its wheels turn. A third says the cause is the smoke being carried away by the wind.

The peasant cannot be refuted. He has provided a complete explanation. To challenge him, one would have to prove there is no devil, or another peasant might argue it isn’t the devil but a German driving the train. Only then, through contradiction, might they realize both are mistaken. But the person who claims movement comes from the wheels refutes himself, for once he begins to analyze, he must continue—why do the wheels turn? Until he reaches the ultimate cause—the pressure of steam in the boiler—he hasn’t answered the question. The one who points to the smoke being blown back has only chosen the first visible effect he sees and offers that as an explanation.

The only explanation that makes sense of the locomotive’s movement is one based on a force equal to the movement observed.

Similarly, only a force equal to the movement seen can explain the movements of peoples.

Yet, various historians provide different forces, all of which do not really match the movement observed. Some see the force as directly inherent in heroes, as the peasant sees the devil in the locomotive; others as a result of multiple other forces, like the turning wheels; others attribute it to intellectual influence, like the drifting smoke.

As long as histories are written about individual people—Caesars, Alexanders, Luthers, Voltaires—and not the histories of *all* those involved in an event, it remains impossible to describe the movement of humanity without the idea of a force compelling people to act toward a certain goal. And the only such idea historians have is that of power.

This idea is the only handle by which historical material, as currently written, can be managed; and anyone who discards it, as Buckle did, without finding another way to treat historical material, merely gives up the only current way of handling it. The necessity of the idea of power as an explanation for historical events is best proven by the universal historians and historians of culture themselves: though they claim to reject the idea, they always end up falling back on it.

Addressing this question, the science of history currently resembles money in circulation—paper bills and coins. The biographies and special national histories are like paper money. They circulate, can be used, and achieve their purpose, without disadvantage and with benefits, as long as nobody asks what they are backed by. If you don’t ask how the will of heroes produces events, such histories as Thiers’ are interesting and instructive and may even be a little poetic. But, just as doubts about the value of paper money arise when too much is printed or people insist on exchanging it for gold, so too do doubts about such histories arise when too many are written, or when someone innocently asks: “by what force did Napoleon do this?”—that is, demands the gold of genuine understanding instead of the paper currency.

Writers of universal histories and of the history of culture are like people who, aware of the weaknesses of paper money, try to introduce metal coins that are not actually made of gold. Such coins may jingle, but do not serve a real function. Paper money may fool the ignorant, but nobody is fooled by tokens made of base metal that merely make a sound. Just as gold has value only when it is useful in itself and not just for exchange, universal historians will only be valuable when they can answer history’s core question: what is power? Universal historians give contradictory answers to that question, while historians of culture avoid it and answer something else. And just like imitation gold coins, which can only be used among people willing to accept them as real gold or who don’t know the difference, so universal historians and historians of culture—without answering humanity’s vital question—are useful only within universities or among readers who have a taste for what they call “serious reading.”

##  CHAPTER IV

Having rejected the ancient idea that a nation’s will is subordinate to a chosen leader, and that leader’s will to the Deity, history cannot proceed without contradiction unless it commits to one of two approaches: either returning to belief in the direct intervention of the Deity in human affairs, or providing a clear explanation of the force producing historical events, which we call “power.”

A return to the former belief is impossible; that faith has been destroyed. Therefore, it is necessary to clarify what we mean by power.

Napoleon ordered an army to be raised and sent to war. We are so accustomed to this idea and have heard it so often that the question—why did six hundred thousand men go to fight when Napoleon uttered certain words—seems nonsensical. He had the power, so what he ordered was done.

This answer is adequate only if we believe his power was given by God. But if we do not accept that, we must ask: what is this power one person holds over others?

It cannot be the direct physical power of a strong person dominating a weaker one, based on physical force or its threat, like the power of Hercules; nor can it be based on moral force alone, as some historians suggest when they claim leading figures in history are heroes—men with exceptional strength of spirit and mind, called genius. This power cannot be based purely on moral strength, for—setting aside heroes like Napoleon, whose moral qualities are debated—history shows that men like Louis XI or Metternich, who ruled over millions, lacked any special moral qualities, and in fact were often morally weaker than the people they governed.

If the source of power is neither the physical nor moral qualities of its holder, it must be found elsewhere—in the relationship between the ruler and the people.

This is how power is understood by the science of jurisprudence, that marketplace of history which exchanges historical “power” for genuine insight.

Power, in this view, is the collective will of the people, transferred by explicit or implicit consent to their chosen rulers.

Within jurisprudence—which debates how a state and power might be arranged, if such arrangements were truly possible—everything seems clear; but this definition of power requires further explanation when applied to history.

Jurisprudence treats the state and power as the ancients treated fire—as things that exist in themselves. But to history, the state and power are only phenomena, just as in modern physics, fire is a phenomenon and not an element.

Because of this fundamental difference, jurisprudence can explain in detail how, in its view, power should be structured and what immutable power is, but it cannot answer history’s questions about the changing nature of power over time.

If power is the people’s collective will transferred to their ruler, was Pugachëv a representative of the people’s will? If not, why was Napoleon I? Why was Napoleon III a criminal when he was taken prisoner at Boulogne, and why, later on, were those whom he arrested considered criminals?

Do palace revolutions—in which sometimes only two or three people participate—transfer the will of the people to a new ruler? In international relations, does the will of the people transfer to their conqueror? Was the will of the Confederation of the Rhine passed to Napoleon in 1806? Was the will of the Russian people given to Napoleon in 1809, when our army joined the French to fight the Austrians?

Three possible answers can be given to these questions:

Either (1) the people’s will is unconditionally transferred to the ruler or rulers they have chosen, and thus any new power or challenge to established power is an offense against real power; or (2) the people’s will is given to rulers conditionally, according to definite and known terms, and all limits, conflicts, and even collapse of power result from rulers not observing the conditions of their authority; or (3) the people’s will is delegated conditionally, but the terms are unknown and indefinite, so that the appearance of rivals, their struggles and falls, are solely due to rulers more or less fulfilling those unknown conditions by which the people’s will passes from some to others.

These are the three ways historians explain the relation of the people to their rulers.

Some historians—the biographical or “great man” historians already mentioned—naively fail to address the true question of power’s meaning. They consider that the collective will is unconditionally transferred to historical individuals, and so, when describing a particular state, regard its established power as absolute and real, while any opposing force is not real power but merely a violation—an act of violence.

This view, suitable for simple and peaceful periods, becomes problematic in times of turmoil, when various powers arise and struggle simultaneously. Then, a Legitimist historian will claim the National Convention, the Directory, and Bonaparte were usurpers, violating the true power, while a Republican or Bonapartist will insist either that the Convention or the Empire embodied real power and all others were usurpations. These explanations, being mutually contradictory, can only satisfy children.

Recognizing the fault in this view, a second group of historians says power rests on a conditional delegation of the people’s will, and that historical leaders hold power only while following a tacitly agreed program set by the people. But these historians never specify that program, or if they do, they constantly contradict themselves.

Each historian defines the conditions of authority according to his view of national progress—be it in greatness, wealth, freedom, or enlightenment of the citizens. But aside from disagreements about what this “program” involves—and even if there were a universal program—history’s facts regularly contradict this theory. If authority depends on promoting people’s wealth, freedom, and enlightenment, how did Louis XIV and Ivan the Terrible die unopposed, while Louis XVI and Charles I were executed? Historians reply that Louis XIV’s decisions, contrary to the program, affected Louis XVI. But why not Louis XIV or Louis XV? Why only Louis XVI? And what are the limits of such delayed reactions? There are no answers to these questions. Nor does this view explain why the collective will sometimes is never withdrawn from certain dynasties for centuries, and then suddenly, within fifty years, is rapidly transferred—from the Convention, the Directory, Napoleon, Alexander, Louis XVIII, Napoleon again, Charles X, Louis Philippe, to a Republic, and to Napoleon III. To justify such rapid shifts, especially in the context of international affairs, conquests, and alliances, these historians must admit that some power transfers are not normal, but the result of cunning, mistakes, or the weakness of some diplomat or party leader. So, the greater part of history—civil wars, revolutions, and conquests—are explained as the result of misdirected individual wills, or usurpations, rather than true popular will. Thus, these historians admit events that are exceptions to their theory.

These historians are like a botanist who, noticing that some plants grow from seeds with two cotyledons, insists that everything must grow by first producing two leaves, and treats palms, mushrooms, or oaks—which mature differently—as deviations from the rule.

A third class of historians assumes that the will of the people is transferred to historical figures conditionally, but the conditions themselves are unknown. They say great leaders possess power only because they fulfill an unknown will of the people delegated to them.

But if the force moving nations does not lie with leaders but with the people themselves, what is the role of leaders?

These historians say leaders express the people’s will; their actions represent the people’s activity.

But this raises the question whether all the leader’s activity expresses the people’s will, or just a part. If all the leader’s actions are expressions of the people, as some say, then even trivial court intrigues from the biographies of Napoleon or Catherine express the nation’s life, which is obviously absurd; but if only some particular side of a leader’s actions expresses the people’s life, as the so-called “philosophical” historians argue, then, to know which aspect that is, we must first define what constitutes the life of the nation.

Faced with this, such historians create vague and general abstractions to encompass everything, calling this abstraction the goal of humanity’s progress. The usual generalizations are freedom, equality, enlightenment, progress, civilization, and culture. Assuming one such ideal as the aim of human movement, historians examine those people who left the most monuments—kings, ministers, generals, writers, reformers, popes, journalists—insofar as, in their opinion, these people have promoted or obstructed that abstraction. But it is not proved that humanity’s aim is freedom, equality, enlightenment, or civilization, and the link between people and their rulers or “enlighteners” is based only on the arbitrary assumption that the collective will of the people always passes to those individuals we notice. As a result, the actions of millions who migrate, burn houses, abandon farming, and kill each other, are never represented in the stories of a handful of men who themselves never burned houses, farmed, or slaughtered their fellows.

History shows this everywhere. Is the upheaval in western Europe at the end of the eighteenth century and its push eastward explained by the actions of Louis XIV, XV, and XVI, their mistresses and ministers, or by the lives of Napoleon, Rousseau, Diderot, Beaumarchais, and others?

Is the Russian expansion eastward to Kazan and Siberia explained by Ivan the Terrible’s personality or his correspondence with Kúrbski?

Was the movement of the masses during the Crusades explained by the lives and activities of Godfrey, the various Louis-es, and their ladies? The movement of the masses from west to east, without leaders, accompanied only by Peter the Hermit and a crowd of vagrants, remains incomprehensible to us. It is even less comprehensible why that movement ceased after a rational and sacred purpose—the liberation of Jerusalem—had been clearly established by leaders. Popes, kings, and knights urged the people to free the Holy Land; but the people did not go, because the unknown force that had earlier moved them had disappeared. The stories of Godfrey and the Minnesingers cannot stand for the life of whole peoples. Their history remains distinct, while the true history of the masses and their impulses is lost to us.

The history of authors and reformers explains even less about the lives of peoples.

Cultural history tells us about the motivations and environments of writers or reformers. We learn that Luther had a quick temper and said certain things; we learn that Rousseau was suspicious and wrote specific books; yet we learn nothing about why the Reformation led the people to massacre each other, or why the French Revolution led to mass executions.

If we combine both approaches, as modern historians often do, we have merely the history of rulers and writers—not the true history of the life of peoples.

##  CHAPTER V

The life of nations cannot be contained solely in the lives of a few individuals, because the link between those individuals and the nations themselves has not been discovered. The idea that this connection is based on the transfer of the collective will of a people to specific historical figures is just a hypothesis—and one not confirmed by the evidence of history.

While the theory of transferring the people’s will to historic figures may explain much within the realm of jurisprudence and be necessary for its purposes, when applied to history—especially during revolutions, conquests, or civil wars, that is, precisely when history actually unfolds—it fails to explain anything.

The theory appears irrefutable only because the act of transferring the people’s will cannot be proven, since it never actually happens.

No matter what occurs or who is in control, the theory can always claim that a certain person rose to leadership because the collective will was transferred to him.

The answers this theory provides to historical questions are like those of someone who, watching a herd of cattle but ignoring the quality of grazing in different parts of the field or the actions of the herdsman, attributes the direction of the herd purely to the animal currently at the front.

“The herd moves that way because the animal in front is leading, and the collective will of the other animals is vested in that leader.” This is the claim of first-class historians—those who assume the people’s will is fully transferred to the leader.

“If the leaders of the herd change, it is because the collective will of all the animals has shifted from one leader to another, depending on whether the leader is or is not heading in the direction chosen by the herd as a whole.” This is the response of historians who claim that the collective will of the people is delegated to rulers under supposedly well-known conditions. (With this approach, it often happens that the observer, influenced by his own preferred direction, continues to regard as leaders those figures who—because the people’s direction has changed—are no longer at the front, but to one side or even behind.)

“If the animals leading the herd are constantly changing and the direction of the herd keeps shifting, it is because, in order to follow a chosen direction, the animals transfer their will to those that have attracted our attention; to understand the herd’s movements, one must therefore watch all the prominent animals moving along every side of the herd.” This is the view of the third group of historians, who see all historical figures, from monarchs to journalists, as mere expressions of their time.

The theory of transferring the will of the people to historic figures is just a rephrasing—a restatement of the original question in different words.

What causes historical events? Power. What is power? Power is the collective will of the people given to a single person. Under what conditions is this will vested in someone? Only when that person expresses the will of the entire people. In short, power is power: that is, power is a word whose meaning we do not truly grasp.

If human knowledge were limited to abstract reasoning, then after criticizing the explanation of “power” that legal science gives us, humanity would simply conclude that power is only a word, with no real existence. However, to understand things, people use not just abstract reasoning but also experience, which allows them to test their reflections. And experience tells us that power is not just a word, but a real, observable phenomenon.

Setting aside the fact that no description of collective human activity can avoid using the concept of power, both history and current events prove the actual existence of power.

Whenever an event happens, there is always an individual or group of individuals whose will appears to make the event occur. Napoleon III issues a decree, and the French go to Mexico. The King of Prussia and Bismarck issue decrees, and an army marches into Bohemia. Napoleon I gives commands, and an army invades Russia. Alexander I makes a decision, and the French submit to the Bourbons. Experience shows that every event is somehow tied to the will of one or several individuals who decree it.

Historians, following the old habit of recognizing divine intervention in human affairs, want to see the cause of events as the expression of the will of someone who possesses power, but this assumption is not supported by reason or by experience.

On the one hand, reason shows that a person’s stated will—his words—are only one element in the broader activity that forms an event, as in a war or revolution, and so, without assuming some incomprehensible, supernatural force—a miracle—one cannot believe that mere words directly cause the movements of millions. On the other hand, even if we allowed that words might cause events, history shows that the commands of important figures are usually not carried out—or sometimes, the opposite of what they order occurs.

Without accepting the idea of divine intervention in human affairs, we cannot accept “power” as the cause of historical events.

Power, as observed in experience, is nothing more than the relationship between someone’s expressed will and the carrying out of that will by others.

To explain the conditions behind that relationship, we must first form an idea of how will is expressed, relating it to humans and not to the Deity.

If the Deity issues a command, expressing His will as written in ancient history, such a will is independent of time and is not caused by anything, for the Divinity is not subject to events. But when speaking of commands that are expressions of the will of humans acting within time and in relation to one another, to make sense of the link between commands and events, we must restore: (1) the condition for everything that happens: the continuity of movement through time, both of the events and of whoever commands; and (2) the inevitability of the bond between the commander and those who carry out his orders.

##  CHAPTER VI

Only the expression of the will of the Deity, independent of time, can relate to an entire sequence of events occurring over many years or centuries, and only the Deity, who is independent of everything, can, by His will alone, determine the direction of humanity’s movement. In contrast, people act within time and participate in what happens.

If we restore the first overlooked condition—that of time—we understand that no command can be carried out without a previous order making the execution of the latest command possible.

No command ever appears spontaneously, nor does it on its own encompass an entire sequence of events; instead, each command follows from another and always concerns only one specific moment within an event.

For example, when we say that Napoleon ordered armies to go to war, we are combining into a single statement a whole series of consecutive commands, each dependent on the other. Napoleon could not have commanded the invasion of Russia with a single directive, and he never did so. One day, he would order certain papers to be sent to Vienna, Berlin, and Petersburg; the next day, decrees and orders would go to the army, the navy, the commissariat, and so forth—millions of commands, which together formed a series that matched the chain of events leading the French armies into Russia.

If during his whole reign Napoleon repeatedly issued orders concerning an invasion of England and devoted more time and energy to that than to anything else—yet never actually launched such an invasion but did send an expedition into Russia, a country with which he believed an alliance was desirable (a view he often expressed)—it happened because his orders did not line up with the unfolding events in the former case, but they did in the latter.

For an order to be carried out, it is necessary for someone to command what is actually possible. However, knowing what can and cannot be executed is impossible—not only in complex cases like Napoleon's invasion of Russia, which involved millions, but even in the simplest situations, since countless obstacles can arise to prevent an order from being fulfilled. Every order that is carried out is one among a vast number of orders that are not. All the impossible orders—those at odds with how events are progressing—remain unexecuted. Only the feasible orders become woven into a chain of commands that match a chain of events, and these are carried out.

Our mistaken belief that an event is caused by the command that precedes it comes from the fact that, after the event occurs, and after thousands of other possible commands, only those few that fit what actually happened have been executed. We then forget all about the other commands, the ones not carried out because they couldn't be. Additionally, our main error lies in how historical records simplify countless small, varied, and mundane occurrences—like those leading the French armies to Russia—into a single event, described by its end result. Similarly, the entire series of orders is combined into a single expression of will.

We say that Napoleon wanted to invade Russia and did so. But in reality, throughout Napoleon’s actions, we never find anything that truly resembles such a clearly stated wish. Instead, we find a series of orders, or expressions of his will, directed in many different and often unclear directions. Amid a long sequence of Napoleon's unfulfilled orders, only one chain—the one for the 1812 campaign—was executed. This did not happen because these commands were different from the others that were not carried out, but because they coincided with the series of events that brought the French army into Russia, just as in stenciling a particular shape appears, not because the color was applied from one side or another, but because color was brushed over the area cut out of the stencil.

So, when we look at how commands relate to events over time, we see that a command can never actually cause an event, but there is a specific relationship between the two.

To understand this relationship, we must restore another missing condition found in any command not issued by the Deity but by a human: the fact that the person giving the command is also personally involved in the event.

This connection between the one who commands and those who are commanded is what is known as power. It consists of this:

For any joint action, people always form certain groups, and regardless of the different goals of their cooperation, the relationship between participants is always consistent.

When people group together for a shared purpose, they always take on relationships where the larger number take a more direct role, and the smaller number take a less direct role, in the collective action for which they have gathered.

Among all the organizations people form for group activity, one of the clearest and most definite examples is the army.

Every army is structured by ranks: the base is the rank and file, who form the largest group; above them are corporals and noncommissioned officers, who are fewer in number; above them are higher officers, even fewer; and this hierarchy continues up to the commander in chief, who is a single individual.

A military organization can be compared to a cone: the wide base consists of the rank and file, the next, narrower layer is made up of higher ranks, and so on up to the very tip, which represents the commander in chief.

The soldiers, who are most numerous, form the bottom level of the cone and its base. The soldier is the one who does the fighting, burning, and pillaging, always receiving orders from those above and never giving his own. Noncommissioned officers (who are fewer) directly participate in the action less than soldiers do, but they start to give orders. Officers, even less often involved in direct action themselves, command more frequently. A general's role is nearly all command—he sets objectives for the troops and rarely ever wields a weapon himself. The commander in chief never takes a direct part in the fighting itself; he only issues general orders about moving the troops as a whole. The same type of structure can be seen in any area where people cooperate—farming, trade, and all forms of administration.

And so, without needing to closely analyze every gradation within the cone or every rank in the army, or the similar ranks in any organization or business, from the lowest to the highest positions, we observe a law by which people join together for group action in such a way that the more direct their involvement in the action, the less they command and the greater their numbers, while the less directly involved they are, the more they command and the fewer of them there are—rising step by step to the person at the top, who participates the least in the action but focuses mainly on commanding.

This relationship between those who command and those they command is the essence of what we call power.

After acknowledging the role of time in all events, we see that a command is carried out only when it fits within the sequence of related events. Taking into account the fundamental relationship between those who give orders and those who execute them, we find that, by their very nature, those who command are least involved in the action itself, and that their activity is focused almost entirely on giving orders.

##  CHAPTER VII

When an event is happening, people express their opinions and wishes about it, and since the event is the result of the collective actions of many, one of those opinions or wishes will inevitably, at least approximately, be fulfilled. When one of the expressed opinions is fulfilled, that opinion becomes associated with the event as if it were an order that preceded it.

Imagine men hauling a log. Each one shares a view on how and where it should be moved. They end up hauling the log away in the manner one of them suggested. He is seen as having *ordered* it. This is command and power in their most basic form. The man who worked most with his hands could not focus as much on planning or commanding the outcome of their effort, while the one giving commands, being more verbally active, would do less physical work.

When a larger group of people focus their efforts on a shared goal, the division becomes even clearer. Those whose efforts are spent on directing and commanding participate less in the direct, hands-on work.

When a person works alone, he always has a certain set of thoughts which seem to him to have guided his past actions, justify his present activity, and help him plan for the future. The same is true in a group—those not directly involved in the activity come up with explanations, justifications, and guesses about their collective actions.

Whether for reasons we know or do not know, the French began to drown and kill each other. And, corresponding to this event, its justification appeared in people’s belief that these actions were necessary for France’s welfare, for liberty, and for equality. Once people stopped killing each other, this change came with new justifications about the necessity of centralizing power, resisting Europe, and so forth. Men marched from west to east, killing their fellow men, and this was accompanied by talk of France’s glory, England’s villainy, and the like. History shows these justifications are unreasonable and contradictory—such as killing someone to recognize his rights, or killing millions in Russia to humble England. Yet, these justifications served a vital purpose at the time.

Such justifications free those who carry out these events from moral responsibility. These temporary aims are like the broom attached to the front of a locomotive to sweep snow from the tracks: they clear a path for men’s moral responsibilities.

Without these justifications, there would be no answer to the simplest question that arises when examining any historical event: How do millions of people end up participating in collective crimes—war, murder, and so on?

With Europe’s current, complex political and social systems, is there any event that is not prescribed, decreed, or ordered by monarchs, ministers, parliaments, or newspapers? Is there a collective action that cannot find justification in political unity, patriotism, balance of power, or civilization? Thus, every event that takes place inevitably matches some expressed wish, and, once justified, it appears as the result of the will of one or several people.

No matter where a ship goes, the waves it pushes ahead will always be visible in front. To those on board, the movement of these waves seems like the only motion.

Only by observing the flow closely, moment by moment, and comparing it to the movement of the ship do we realize that every bit of the wave is created by the forward motion of the ship, and that our own movement causes us to misjudge what we see.

We notice the same effect if we look closely at the actions of historical leaders (that is, if we reestablish the constant movement that is the condition for everything that happens) and don’t lose sight of the essential connection between historical figures and the masses.

When the ship moves straight, a constant wave goes before it; when it turns often, the wave turns as well. Wherever it goes, there is always a wave forming just ahead of it.

No matter what happens, it always seems that this event was predicted and ordered. Wherever the ship sails, the rush of water ahead of it—which does not guide the ship or increase its speed—seems from a distance not only to be moving by itself, but also to be steering the ship.

By focusing only on the declared intentions of historical figures, which come as commands linked to events, historians have believed that events depend on those commands. But if we examine the events themselves and the relationship of historical figures to the people, we find that both the individuals and their orders actually rely on the events. The undeniable proof is that, regardless of how many commands are given, the event only takes place if other causes are present; but once an event occurs—whatever it is—there will always be someone whose previously voiced wishes, in timing and meaning, align with the event as if they were commands.

With this understanding, we can answer directly and clearly these two central questions of history:

\(1\) What is power?

\(2\) What force causes nations to move?

\(1\) Power is the relationship between a person and others, in which the more this person expresses opinions, predictions, and justifications for the collective actions taken, the less direct involvement he actually has in those actions.

\(2\) The movement of nations is driven not by power, intellectual activity, or even a combination of both as historians have suggested, but by the actions of *all* the people involved in the events, who always arrange themselves so that those with the greatest direct involvement carry the least responsibility, and vice versa.

Morally, the one in power seems to cause the event; physically, it is those who follow the power. But since moral activity can't exist without physical action, the real cause of the event is in the combination of the two.

Or, to put it another way, the very idea of a singular cause does not apply to the phenomena we are exploring.

Ultimately, we reach an infinite circle—that final boundary where, in every field of thought, human reason arrives if it is addressing the topic sincerely. Electricity produces heat, and heat produces electricity. Atoms attract each other, yet also repel each other.

When talking about the interaction of heat and electricity, or of atoms, we cannot say why it happens. We answer that it must be so, that's how it is, it's a law of nature. The same is true for historical events. We do not know why wars and revolutions occur. We only know that, to produce one or the other, people gather together in a specific way and all take part. We say this must be so, it cannot be otherwise, or that it is a law.

##  CHAPTER VIII

If history dealt only with external events, establishing this simple and obvious law would be enough, and our argument would be complete. But the law of history concerns people. A particle of matter cannot tell us it doesn’t feel the law of attraction or repulsion and that the law isn’t true, but humans—the subjects of history—plainly say: I am free, and therefore not subject to this law.

The issue of human free will, even if unspoken, is felt at every stage of history.

All serious historians have inevitably encountered this question. All the contradictions and ambiguities in history, and the misdirection historical analysis has taken, are due solely to the absence of a solution to this question.

If the will of every individual were free—that is, if each person could act as they wished—all history would just be a series of disconnected events.

If in a thousand years even one person in a million could act freely—that is, as they chose—it is clear that one single free act by that person, in violation of the laws governing human behavior, would destroy any possibility of the existence of laws for all humanity.

If there is a single law governing people’s actions, then free will cannot exist, because human will is then subject to that law.

Within this contradiction lies the problem of free will, which since ancient times has occupied the greatest minds and has been considered in all its gravity throughout history.

The issue is that when we observe a person from any standpoint—whether theological, historical, ethical, or philosophical—we find there is a universal law of necessity to which (like all that exists) they are subject. But when we view a person from within ourselves, as we are conscious of ourselves, we feel ourselves to be free.

This feeling is a source of self-knowledge fundamentally separate from and independent of reason. Through reason, a person observes themselves, but only through consciousness do they truly know themselves.

Without self-awareness, neither observation nor reasoning is possible.

To understand, observe, and draw conclusions, a person must, first and foremost, be conscious of themselves as living. Someone is conscious of being alive only because they will things; in other words, they are aware of their own volition. But a person recognizes (and can only recognize) their will—the very essence of their life—as free.

If, while observing themselves, a person sees that their will is always driven by the same law (whether it’s the need to eat, to use their mind, or anything else), they cannot recognize this unchanging direction of their will as anything other than a limitation upon it. Were it not free, it couldn’t be limited. A person feels their will is limited only because they experience it solely as free.

You say: I am not free. But I have raised my hand and let it fall. Everyone understands that this seemingly illogical answer is an unshakeable demonstration of freedom.

That statement expresses a consciousness not subject to reason.

If this sense of freedom weren’t a separate and independent source of self-awareness, it would be controlled by reason and experience, but in reality, such control neither exists nor is imaginable.

A series of experiments and arguments proves to everyone that, as an object of observation, they are subject to certain laws, and they accept them—never resisting the laws of gravity or solidity once they’ve understood them. But the same experiments and arguments prove to them that the absolute freedom they feel within themselves is impossible, that all their actions depend on their constitution, character, and influencing motives; still, people never accept the conclusions of these experiments and arguments. For example, having learned that a stone falls downward, a person firmly believes it and always expects that law to be fulfilled.

But even after learning just as directly that their will is governed by laws, they do not—and cannot—believe it.

No matter how often experiments and logic demonstrate that, under the same circumstances and with the same personality, a person will do the same thing as before, still, when again under the same circumstances with the same character, facing for the thousandth time the action that always ends the same way, they are as convinced as ever that they can act as they wish. Every person, whether uncivilized or wise, no matter how conclusively logic and experiment may prove that it’s impossible to imagine two different actions in identical situations, feels, nonetheless, that without this irrational belief (the essence of freedom), life cannot be imagined. No matter how impossible it is, it must be so, because without the concept of freedom, not only could they not comprehend life—they could not continue living even a single moment.

They could not exist, because all human efforts, all motivations to live, are simply efforts to increase their freedom. Wealth and poverty, fame and obscurity, power and submission, strength and weakness, health and illness, education and ignorance, labor and leisure, fullness and hunger, virtue and vice—these are all merely different levels of freedom.

A person without freedom cannot be imagined except as dead.

If the idea of freedom appears to reason as a pointless contradiction—like doing two things at once, or an effect without a cause—that only proves consciousness is independent of reason.

This indestructible, undeniable consciousness of freedom—unaffected by experiment or argument, recognized by all thinkers and felt by everyone without exception; this consciousness without which no conception of humanity is possible—represents the other side of the issue.

Man is said to be created by an all-powerful, all-good, all-seeing God. What is sin, which arises from awareness of human freedom? That is a question for theology.

The actions of people are subject to general, unchanging laws expressed in statistics. What is an individual’s responsibility to society, an idea that stems from the concept of freedom? That is a question for jurisprudence.

Human actions result from innate character and motivating factors. What is conscience, and the sense of right and wrong which follow from this consciousness of freedom? That is a question for ethics.

Man, considered in the context of the broader life of humanity, seems subject to laws that shape that life. Yet, the same individual, seen apart from that context, appears free. How should the history of nations and humanity be regarded—are they the outcomes of individuals’ free acts, or of constrained actions? That is a question for history.

Only in our self-assured age, with the rise of popularized knowledge—thanks to the powerful engine of ignorance that is the mass spread of printed materials—has the question of free will been treated on a level where it cannot really exist. In our time, most so-called enlightened people—that is, the crowd of the uninformed—have mistaken the work of naturalists, who focus on one side of the problem, for a solution to the entire question.

They say, write, and print that the soul and freedom don’t exist, because human life is just muscular movement and muscular movement depends on nerve activity; the soul and will don’t exist because at an unknown time, we descended from apes. They say this, not realizing that thousands of years ago the same law of necessity they now try so zealously to prove by physiology and zoology was not only accepted by all religions and thinkers, but has never been denied. They don’t see that the role of natural science here is only to illuminate one aspect of the issue. The fact is, from an argumentative standpoint, that reason and will are just products of the brain, and that humanity developed from lower animals at some distant point in time—this only explains, from another angle, the truth understood thousands of years ago by all religious and philosophical teachings: that, according to reason, humans are subject to the law of necessity. But it does not move us a hair’s breadth closer to solving the question, which has another, opposite side, grounded in our conscious sense of freedom.

If people descended from apes at some unknown point, that’s no more or less understandable than the idea that they were made from a handful of earth at a certain time—in the first case the unknown is time, in the second, the origin. The reconciliation of human consciousness of freedom with the law of necessity cannot be solved by comparative physiology or zoology, because in frogs, rabbits, or apes, we can only observe muscular and nervous activity, while in humans we observe consciousness as well.

The naturalists and their followers, thinking they’ve solved this question, are like plasterers tasked with working on only one side of a church who, taking advantage of the absence of the master builder, zealously plaster over the windows, icons, woodwork, and even the still-unsupported walls, and are delighted that—from their plasterers’ perspective—everything now looks smooth and even.

##  CHAPTER IX

When it comes to the question of free will or inevitability, history has an advantage over other fields that address this issue: for history, the question concerns not the essence of human free will itself, but how it has manifested in the past under specific conditions.

In this respect, history relates to other sciences as experimental science does to abstract science.

The subject of history is not human will itself, but our representation of it.

Therefore, for history, the unsolvable mystery resulting from the apparent contradiction between free will and inevitability does not exist as it does for theology, ethics, and philosophy. History presents a view of human life in which these two contradictions have already been reconciled.

In real life, every historical event and every human action is understood clearly and specifically, without feeling any contradiction, even though each event appears to have elements that are both free and compelled.

To resolve how freedom and necessity combine, and what these two concepts truly are, the philosophy of history can and should take a different approach from other sciences. Rather than first defining the ideas of freedom and inevitability and then fitting life’s phenomena into those definitions, history should instead derive its understanding of freedom and inevitability from the vast array of events it records—events that always seem to involve both elements.

No matter what account we consider—whether the actions of many people or of an individual—we always view it as the result of some combination of free will and the law of necessity.

Whether we're talking about the migration of peoples, the invasions of barbarians, the decrees of Napoleon III, or even someone choosing which way to walk an hour ago, we sense no contradiction. The balance between freedom and inevitability in these people's actions is clear to us.

Our sense of how much freedom is involved often changes with our point of view, but every human action to us seems to be a blend of freedom and necessity. In every action, we see a certain portion of each. Whenever we see more freedom in an action, we see less inevitability, and the more inevitability we perceive, the less freedom we notice.

The ratio of freedom to inevitability goes up or down depending on our viewpoint, but the relationship is always inversely proportional.

Someone drowning grabs another person and, in doing so, drowns them; a mother, exhausted from feeding her baby and starving, steals food; a soldier, trained in discipline, kills a defenseless person on command—these people seem less guilty—meaning less free and more bound by necessity—to someone aware of their circumstances, and more free to someone unaware that the man was drowning, that the mother was starving, or that the soldier was obeying orders, and so forth. Likewise, a man who committed a murder twenty years ago and has since lived peacefully in society seems less guilty and more driven by inevitability to someone judging his act after those years have passed, than to someone judging it the day after it happened. Similarly, the actions of someone who is insane, intoxicated, or extremely agitated appear less free and more necessary to one who knows the person’s mental state, and more free and less necessary to one who does not. In all these cases, our sense of freedom increases or decreases, and our sense of constraint decreases or increases accordingly, depending on our point of view. Thus, the more necessity we see, the less freedom we imagine, and vice versa.

Religion, common sense, jurisprudence, and history all recognize this relationship between necessity and freedom.

All cases, without exception, where our idea of freedom and necessity grows or shrinks depend on three factors:

(1) The individual's relationship to the external world.

(2) The individual's relationship to time.

(3) The individual's relationship to the causes behind the action.

The first factor is how clearly we see the person’s connection to the world around them and how well we understand their specific situation in relation to everything coexisting with them. This explains why a drowning person appears less free and more subject to necessity than someone standing on dry land, and why the actions of someone deeply involved with many others in a busy area—or bound by family, official, or business obligations—seem less free and more necessary than those of a person living in solitude.

If we look at a person in isolation, with no connection to anything around them, each action seems entirely free. But as soon as we observe how they relate to anything else—a conversation, a book they're reading, the work they're doing, even the air they breathe or the light falling on nearby objects—we realize each factor influences them and controls at least part of their behavior. The more of these influences we notice, the less we perceive the person's freedom, and the more we recognize the weight of necessity.

The second factor is how evident the person’s place in time is, and how clearly we see the point their action occupies in history. This is why the fall of the first human, leading to the human race, seems to us obviously less free than a marriage entered into today. It’s also why the lives and actions of people centuries ago, whose consequences are now known, appear less free than those of our contemporaries, whose impacts are not yet clear to us.

Our sense of freedom or inevitability depends on how much time separates the action from our judgment of it.

If I consider something I did a moment ago, in much the same circumstances as now, my action seems fully free to me. But if I consider something done a month ago, when circumstances were different, I have to admit that if I hadn’t done it, much of what followed—good, pleasant, even essential—wouldn’t have happened. If I think back ten years or more, the consequences are even clearer, and I find it hard to imagine what would have happened if I hadn’t acted as I did. The farther back I go in my memory—or, equivalently, the farther forward I look in my judgment—the less certain I become about the freedom of my action.

The same pattern appears in history regarding free will’s role in humanity’s collective affairs. Contemporary events seem without a doubt to stem from the actions of those involved. For more distant events, we clearly see their inevitable results and cannot imagine anything else happening. The further back we look, the less these actions seem determined by free will.

The Austro-Prussian war appears undeniably the result of Bismarck’s cunning actions, and so on. The Napoleonic wars still seem, but more doubtfully, to be products of their leaders’ wills. By the time we reach the Crusades, we recognize them as necessary events in history, without which modern Europe is inconceivable, even though the chroniclers at the time saw them as the result of certain people’s choices. When it comes to the great migrations, nobody today imagines that the transformation of Europe depended on Attila’s whims. The farther back in history we look, the less free will is attributed to those involved, and the more apparent the laws of necessity become.

The third factor is the extent to which we perceive the endless causal chain—inevitably required by reason—in which every event, including every human action, must fit as both the result of what came before and the cause of what follows.

The better we understand the physiological, psychological, and historical laws discovered through observation, and the more we appreciate the causes behind an action—especially if the action is simple and the person involved has a straightforward character and mind—the more actions seem inevitable, and the less they seem free.

If we don’t understand an action’s cause—whether it’s a crime, a good deed, or something morally neutral—then we attribute more freedom to it. In the case of a crime, we insist most strongly on punishment; when it’s a virtuous act, we value it most highly. If an action is indifferent, we see it as more individual, original, or independent. However, if even one of the many causes behind it is known, we admit there is some necessity involved, and we are less insistent on punishment or approval or the originality of the act. That someone grew up among criminals lessens our sense of his guilt. Sacrifice by a parent, or self-sacrifice with the hope of a reward, is more understandable than self-sacrifice with no payoff, and thus seems less admirable and less the product of free will. A leader of a party, a sect, or an inventor impresses us less when we know how his environment prepared the way for his actions. The more examples we have and the more we try to connect causes and effects in people’s actions, the more we see their deeds as compelled and the less free they seem. With very simple actions and immense numbers of them, our sense of inevitability would be even greater. The dishonest act of a corrupt father’s son, the fall of a woman influenced by bad company, the relapse of a drunkard—these appear increasingly determined and less free, the more we understand their causes. When the person whose actions we review is simple-minded—a child, someone mad, or a simpleton—then, knowing both the cause and their lack of complexity, we see so much necessity and so little freedom that as soon as we find the motive, we can predict the result.

These three factors are the basis for the concept of reduced responsibility for crimes and the mitigating circumstances recognized in all legal codes. Responsibility is greater or lesser depending on how much or little we know about the person’s situation, on the amount of time between the action and our investigation, and on how well we understand the causes that led to the action.

##  CHAPTER X

Thus, our understanding of free will and inevitability gradually decreases or increases based on how connected someone is to the external world, how distant an action is in time, and how dependent a person is on the causes we consider when we look at someone's life.

So, if we consider a person whose connection to the outside world is very well known, where there is a long period between the action and our judgment of it, and where the causes of the action are clear to us, we have the idea of maximum inevitability and minimum free will. If we look at someone with very little dependence on external conditions, whose action was performed just recently, and whose motives are beyond our understanding, then we see minimum inevitability and maximum freedom.

In neither situation—no matter how much we change our perspective, no matter how clear the connection between a person and the outside world seems to us, how long or short the period is, or how understandable or mysterious the reasons behind the action are—can we ever imagine either absolute freedom or absolute necessity.

(1) No matter how much we try to picture a person as unaffected by the environment, we can't truly conceive of freedom in space. Every human action is always conditioned by what surrounds us and by our own bodies. If I lift my arm and let it fall, it seems like a free act—but if I ask whether I could have raised my arm in any direction, I see I moved it where there was the least resistance, either from objects around me or from my own body's structure. I chose one direction out of all possible ones because there were fewer obstacles that way. For my action to be truly free, it would need to face no obstacles at all. To imagine a person as being free, we would have to place them outside of space, which is clearly impossible.

(2) No matter how close we make the gap between the time of an action and the time we judge it, we never reach a real idea of freedom in time. Even if I examine something I did just a second ago, I have to recognize that it wasn't free, since it's locked to that exact moment. Can I lift my arm? I do it, but then I ask myself: could I have avoided lifting my arm at that past moment? To prove this, I don't lift it in the next instant. But I'm not refraining from doing so at the original moment I asked the question. Time has passed, which I can't recover; the arm I lifted then is not the same as the one I now keep still, nor is the air around me identical. The moment of the first action is irrevocable, and at that moment, I could make only one move, and whichever move I made would be the only one possible. The fact that I didn't lift my arm a moment later doesn't mean I could have avoided lifting it before. Since I could make only one movement in that moment, it couldn't have been otherwise. To imagine it as free, you’d have to put it in the present—on the border between past and future, that is, outside of time, which can't actually happen.

(3) No matter how much we struggle to understand the causes behind an action, we never truly reach a sense of complete freedom—meaning an absence of cause. No matter how hidden the reason for a willful act (our own or someone else's) may be, reason always demands that we look for a cause, since nothing is conceivable without one. If I lift my arm to perform an act independently of any cause, still, my wish to act without a cause becomes the cause of my action.

Even if we imagine a person utterly exempt from any influences—examining only a single, present moment of action, arising from no identifiable cause—and we suppose the remaining inevitability is practically zero, even then, we have not arrived at complete freedom in a person. A being who is unaffected by the outside world, existing outside time and without cause, is simply not human.

In the same way, we can never picture a person entirely lacking freedom and completely subject to necessity.

(1) However much we expand our knowledge of the spatial conditions a person is in, that knowledge can never be complete because the number of these conditions is as limitless as space itself. Therefore, unless *all* those influences are specified, there can never be total inevitability, and some measure of freedom always remains.

(2) No matter how much we stretch the time between the action and our judgment of it, this span will always be finite, while time itself is infinite; so also, there can never be absolute inevitability from this angle.

(3) Even when the chain of causation for any action is nearly transparent, we'll never know the whole chain since it is endless; so once more, we never reach absolute inevitability.

Further, even if—by assuming the remaining freedom is truly zero—we take some situations (like those of a dying person, an unborn child, or a person with profound mental incapacity) as completely lacking freedom, we are no longer talking about a human being, because when there is no freedom, there is no person. So, picturing actions that are purely inevitable with no element of freedom is as impossible as imagining a human act that's completely free.

To fully imagine actions entirely subject to necessity with no freedom, we would have to possess knowledge of an *infinite* number of spatial relations, an *endless* amount of time, and an *infinite* sequence of causes.

To picture someone perfectly free and not subject to necessity, we would have to imagine them as totally alone, *outside space, outside time,* and *independent of cause.*

In the first case, if inevitability existed without freedom, then inevitability would be defined only by its own laws—a form without substance.

In the second case, if freedom existed without necessity, we would have unconditioned freedom, beyond space, time, and cause, which by being unlimited and unconditioned would simply be nothing—content without form.

In short, we arrive at the two foundations upon which human understanding of the universe is built: the unknowable essence of life and the laws that shape that essence.

Reason says: (1) Space, along with all matter that fills it, is infinite and could not be imagined as anything else. (2) Time is infinite motion with no pause and could not be understood in any other way. (3) The link between cause and effect has neither a beginning nor an end.

Consciousness says: (1) I alone exist, and everything that exists is contained in me; therefore, I am all of space. (2) I measure the flow of time by the fixed moment of the present, in which alone I feel alive; therefore, I stand outside of time. (3) I exist beyond cause, because I sense myself as the source of every expression of my life.

Reason expresses the laws of inevitability. Consciousness expresses the essence of freedom.

Freedom unlimited by anything is, in our consciousness, the essence of life. Necessity without substance is our reason, in its three forms.

Freedom is what is observed. Inevitability is what observes. Freedom is content. Inevitability is form.

Only by separating these two sources of knowledge—which are connected like form and content—do we get the opposing, and independently unfathomable, ideas of freedom and inevitability.

Only by combining them do we achieve a coherent understanding of human life.

Without these two concepts, which mutually define each other when joined, no understanding of life is possible.

All that we know about human life is simply a relationship between free will and necessity—between consciousness and the laws of reason.

All that we know about the external world is just a relationship between natural forces and necessity, or between the essence of life and the laws of reason.

The great natural forces are outside us, and we are not consciously aware of them; we call them gravitation, inertia, electricity, animal force, and so on. But we are aware of the force of life in humans, and we call that freedom.

But just as the force of gravity—unfathomable in itself but recognized by everyone—is understood only in so far as we know the laws of necessity that govern it (from the basic fact that all objects have weight up to Newton’s definition), so too the force of free will—unfathomable in itself yet felt by all—is intelligible to us only to the extent that we understand the laws of necessity it is bound by (from the fact that all humans die, up to the understanding of intricate economic and historical laws).

All knowledge consists in bringing this essence of life under the rules of reason.

Human free will is different from every other force in that we are directly conscious of it, but from the perspective of reason, it does not differ from any other force. Gravity, electricity, chemical affinity—these forces are distinguished from each other only by how reason defines them. Likewise, human free will is distinguished by reason from other natural forces only by the definition reason assigns to it. Freedom, without necessity—that is, without the laws of reason defining it—is no different for reason than gravity, heat, or the force that causes growth; it is simply a fleeting, ungraspable sensation of being alive.

Just as the unknown essence of the force moving the planets, heat, electricity, chemical affinity, or life force is the subject of astronomy, physics, chemistry, botany, zoology, and so forth, likewise free will is the content of history. The subject of every science is the manifestations of this unknown core of life, while the core itself belongs to metaphysics; just so, the display of free will in humans—its connection to space, time, and causality—is the subject of history; free will itself is the subject of metaphysics.

In the sciences, what we understand we call the laws of necessity; what we do not know we call vital force. Vital force is simply a term for what remains unknown beyond what we comprehend about life’s essence.

Likewise, in history, what is known to us consists of laws of necessity; what is unknown we call free will. For history, free will is only a term for what we have yet to explain about the laws governing human life.

##  CHAPTER XI

History studies the ways human free will expresses itself in relation to the external world over time and under the influence of causality—that is, history defines freedom by the laws of reason. Thus, history is a science only to the extent that free will is defined by those laws.

Seeing human free will as something able to influence historical events—that is, as not subject to laws—is for history what believing in a free force moving the heavenly bodies would be for astronomy.

Such an assumption would eliminate the possibility of laws, and therefore of any science at all. If even a single body moved freely, the laws of Kepler and Newton would be invalid, and there would be no way to understand the movement of the heavenly bodies. Likewise, if any single action results purely from free will, then no historical law can exist, nor any coherent concept of historical events.

For history, there are lines tracing the movement of human wills, one end hidden in the unknown but the other end being human consciousness, acting here and now, moving through space and time and relying on causation.

The wider this field of motion becomes to our understanding, the clearer the laws of that movement are. Finding and describing those laws is the task of history.

From the current perspective of historical science—which continues to seek the causes of events in individual free will—it's impossible to express those laws scientifically. No matter how much we restrict human free will, once we accept it as a force not subject to law, the existence of any law becomes impossible.

Only by reducing this element of free will to something infinitesimal—treating it as an infinitely small quantity—can we see that the true causes are utterly inaccessible. Then, instead of seeking causes, history's task becomes to discover laws.

People have long been searching for these laws, and new methods of thought that history will require are being developed at the same time as the old approach—constantly analyzing the causes of phenomena—moves toward self-destruction.

All sciences have followed this path. Once mathematics, the most exact science, reached the concept of infinitesimals, it moved from analyzing causes to integrating unknown, infinitely small quantities. Abandoning the quest for exact causes, mathematics seeks laws—the properties shared by all these infinitely small, unknown elements.

Other sciences have advanced along the same path in different forms. When Newton described the law of gravity, he didn't claim that the sun or the earth alone possessed the property of attraction; he said all bodies, from largest to smallest, have the property of attracting one another. Setting aside the problem of what causes the bodies to move, he described a property common to all bodies, from infinitely large to infinitely small. Natural sciences follow the same principle: they set aside questions of cause and look for laws. History is on the same path. If the aim of history is to study the movement of nations and humanity—not just to recount the episodes of individual lives—then history, too, should set aside the search for causes and seek laws common to all the countless, interconnected infinitesimal elements of free will.

##  CHAPTER XII

Once Copernicus’s law was discovered and proven, simply recognizing that it was the earth—not the sun—that moved was enough to undermine the entire cosmology of the ancients. If someone could have disproved Copernicus’s law, the old view of the movement of celestial bodies might have survived. But without disproving it, it became impossible to go on studying the Ptolemaic cosmos. Yet, for a long while after Copernicus, people still studied the Ptolemaic worlds.

Similarly, as soon as someone first showed and proved that the number of births or crimes follows mathematical laws, that forms of government are determined by specific geographical and economic conditions, or that certain ratios of population to land bring about migrations, the foundations supporting traditional historical thought were essentially destroyed.

If these new laws were disproven, the old view of history could have remained. But without refuting them, it's impossible to keep studying history as simply the result of individual free wills. For if particular governments are established, or migrations occur due to certain geographic, ethnographic, or economic factors, then the free will of the individuals who seemed to create those governments or migrations can no longer be considered the true cause.

Nonetheless, the old way of studying history is still pursued alongside statistics, geography, political economy, comparative philology, and geology, which directly contradict its basic assumptions.

The conflict between the old and new views was long and bitter in the field of physical philosophy. Theology defended the old views and accused the new views of contradicting revelation. But once the truth won out, theology settled firmly on the new foundation.

Just as prolonged and determined is today’s struggle between the old and new conceptions of history, with theology again defending the older view, accusing the new of undermining revelation.

On both sides, as before, the struggle leads to passion and suppresses the truth. One side fears and mourns the collapse of a structure built over centuries, while the other is consumed by a passion for destruction.

Those who opposed the new truths of physical philosophy feared that accepting them would destroy faith in God, in the creation of the heavens, and in the miracle of Joshua the son of Nun. For defenders of the laws of Copernicus and Newton—like Voltaire, for instance—it seemed the discoveries of astronomy destroyed religion, and Voltaire even used the law of gravitation as a weapon against faith.

The same thing happens now: it seems as if accepting the law of inevitability would destroy belief in the soul, in good and evil, and all the structures of state and church built upon those beliefs.

Similarly, uninvited defenders of the law of inevitability, like Voltaire in his day, now use that law as a weapon against religion—though, in fact, the law of inevitability in history, like Copernicus’s law in astronomy, instead of undermining, actually strengthens the very foundation on which state and church institutions are built.

Just as with astronomy then, so with history now, the whole disagreement comes down to the acknowledgment or denial of something absolute that serves as the measure for visible phenomena. In astronomy, it was the supposed fixed position of the earth; in history, it’s the independence of the individual—the concept of free will.

As in astronomy, the difficulty in accepting the earth’s motion lay in letting go of the sensory experience of the earth’s seeming stillness and of the planets’ movement; so in history, the difficulty in recognizing the subjection of individuals to the laws of space, time, and cause lies in letting go of the immediate feeling of one’s own independence. But, just as new astronomy said: "It's true we don’t feel the earth move, yet by insisting it’s still, we run into nonsense, while by admitting its motion (which we don’t sense), we arrive at scientific laws," so the new view in history says: "It’s true we’re not conscious of our dependence, but by insisting on our free will, we run into absurdities, while by accepting our dependence on the external world, time, and cause, we reach scientific laws."

In the first case, it was necessary to give up the sense of an unreal, unmoving space and acknowledge a motion we don’t directly perceive. In our time, we must part with a freedom that doesn’t exist and accept a dependence we are not aware of.