《War And Peace》 Book10 CHAPTER XVIII
by Leo Tolstoy
WHEN PIERRE returned home, he was handed two new placards of Rastoptchin's
that had just appeared.
The first declared that the rumour, that it was forbidden to leave Moscow by
Count Rastoptchin's order, was false, and that, on the contrary, he was glad
that ladies and merchants' wives were leaving the town. “There will be less
panic and less false news,” said the notice; “but I will stake my life on it
that the miscreant will never enter Moscow.”
These words first showed Pierre clearly that the French certainly would enter
Moscow. In the second placard it was announced that our headquarters were at
Vyazma, that Count Wittgenstein had defeated the French, but that since many of
the inhabitants of Moscow were desirous of arming themselves, weapons had been
provided to meet their wishes in the arsenal; swords, pistols, and guns could
all be procured there at a low rate.
The tone of this notice was not as jocose as the former supposed discourses
of Tchigirin. The two placards made Pierre ponder. It was evident to him that
the menacing storm cloud, for the advent of which his whole soul longed, though
it roused an involuntary thrill of horror, it was evident that that cloud was
coming closer.
“Shall I enter the service and join the army or wait here?” Pierre thought, a
question he had put to himself a hundred times already. He took up a pack of
cards that lay on the table to deal them for a game of patience.
“If I succeed in this game of patience,” he said to himself, shuffling the
pack as he held it in his hand and looked upwards; “if I succeed, it means …
what does it mean?” … He had not time to decide this question when he heard at
the door of his study the voice of the eldest princess, asking whether she might
come in. “Then it will mean that I must set off to join the army,” Pierre told
himself. “Come, come in,” he said to the princess.
The eldest of his cousins, the one with the long waist and the stony face,
was the only one still living in Pierre's house; the two younger sisters had
both married.
“Excuse my coming to you, cousin,” she said in a tone of reproach and
excitement. “Some decision really must be come to, you know. What is going to
happen? Every one has left Moscow, and the populace are becoming unruly. Why are
we staying on?”
“On the contrary, everything seems going on satisfactorily, ma
cousine,” said Pierre in the habitually playful tone he had adopted with his
cousin, to carry off the embarrassment he always felt at being in the position
of a benefactor to her.
“Oh, yes, satisfactorily … highly satisfactory, I dare say. Varvara Ivanovna
told me to-day how our troops are distinguishing themselves. It is certainly a
credit to them. And the populace, too, is in complete revolt, they won't obey
any one now; even my maid has begun to be insolent. If it goes on like this,
they will soon begin killing us. One can't walk about the streets. And the worst
of it is, in another day or two the French will be here. Why are we waiting for
them? One favour I beg of you, mon cousin,” said the princess, “give
orders for me to be taken to Petersburg; whatever I may be, any way I can't live
under Bonaparte's rule.”
“But what nonsense, ma cousine! where do you get your information
from? On the contrary …”
“I'm not going to submit to your Napoleon. Other people may do as they like.…
If you won't do this for me …”
“But I will, I'll give orders for it at once.”
The princess was obviously annoyed at having no one to be angry with.
Muttering something, she sat down on the edge of the chair.
“But you have been incorrectly informed,” said Pierre. “All's quiet in the
town, and there's no sort of danger. See I have just read …” Pierre showed the
princess the placards. “The count writes that he will stake his life on it that
the enemy will never be in Moscow.”
“Ah, your count,” the princess began spitefully, “he's a hypocrite, a
miscreant who has himself stirred the mob on to disorder. Didn't he write in his
idiotic placards that they were to take anybody whoever it might be and drag by
the hair to the lock-up (and how silly it is!). Honour our and glory, says he,
to the man who does so. And this is what he has brought us to. Varvara Ivanovna
told me the mob almost killed her for speaking French.”
“Oh, well, well … You take everything too much to heart,” said Pierre, and he
began dealing out the patience.
Although he did succeed in the game, Pierre did not set off to join the army,
but stayed on in Moscow, now rapidly emptying, and was still in the same
agitation, uncertainty and alarm, and, at the same time, joyful expectation of
something awful.
Next day the princess set off in the evening, and Pierre's head-steward came
to inform him that it was impossible to raise the money he required for the
equipment of his regiment unless he sold one of his estates. The head-steward
impressed on Pierre generally that all this regimental craze would infallibly
bring him to ruin. Pierre could hardly conceal a smile as he listened to the
head-steward.
“Well, sell it then,” he said. “There's no help for it, I can't draw back
now!”
The worse the position of affairs, and especially of his own affairs, the
better pleased Pierre felt, and the more obvious it was to him that the
catastrophe he expected was near at hand. Scarcely any of Pierre's acquaintances
were left in the town. Julie had gone, Princess Marya had gone. Of his more
intimate acquaintances the Rostovs were the only people left; but Pierre did not
go to see them.
To divert his mind that day, Pierre drove out to the village of Vorontsovo,
to look at a GREat air balloon which was being constructed by Leppich to use
against the enemy, and the test balloon which was to be sent up the following
day. The balloon was not yet ready; but as Pierre learned, it was being
constructed by the Tsar's desire. The Tsar had written to Count Rastoptchin
about it in the following terms:
“As soon as Leppich is ready, get together a crew for his car consisting of
thoroughly trustworthy and intelligent men, and send a courier to General
Kutuzov to prepare him for it. I have mentioned it to him. Impress upon Leppich,
please, to take careful note where he descends the first time, that he may not
go astray and fall into the hands of the enemy. It is essential that he should
regulate his movements in accordance with the movements of the
commander-in-chief.”
On his way home from Vorontsovo, Pierre drove through Bolotny Square, and
seeing a crowd at Lobnoye Place, stopped and got out of his chaise. The crowd
were watching the flogging of a French cook, accused of being a spy. The
flogging was just over, and the man who had administered it was untying from the
whipping-post a stout, red-whiskered man in blue stockings and a GREen tunic,
who was groaning piteously. Another victim, a thin, pale man, was standing by.
Both, to judge by their faces, were Frenchmen. With a face of sick dread like
that of the thin Frenchman, Pierre pushed his way in among the crowd.
“What is it? Who are they? What for?” he kept asking. But the attention of
the crowd—clerks, artisans, shopkeepers, peasants, women in pelisses and
jackets—was so intently riveted on what was taking place on the Lobnoye Place
that no one answered. The stout man got up, shrugged his shoulders frowning, and
evidently trying to show fortitude, began putting on his tunic without looking
about him. But all at once his lips quivered and to his own rage he began to
cry, as grown-up men of sanguine temperament do cry. The crowd began talking
loudly, to drown a feeling of pity in themselves, as it seemed to Pierre.
“Some prince's cook. …”
“Eh, monsieur, Russian sauce is a bit strong for a French stomach … sets the
teeth on edge,” said a wrinkled clerk standing near Pierre, just when the
Frenchman burst into tears. The clerk looked about him for signs of appreciation
of his jest. Several persons laughed, but some were still gazing in dismay at
the man who was undressing the second Frenchman and about to flog him.
Pierre choked, scowled, and turning quickly, went back to his chaise, still
muttering something to himself as he went, and took his seat in it. During the
rest of the way he several times started, and cried out so loudly that the
coachman at last asked him what he desired.
“Where are you driving?” Pierre shouted to the coachman as he drove to
Lubyanka.
“You told me to drive to the governor's,” answered the coachman.
name=Marker32>“Fool! dolt!” shouted Pierre, abusing his coachman, a thing he very rarely
did. “I told you home; and make haste, blockhead! This very day I must set off,”
Pierre said to himself.
At the sight of the tortured Frenchman and the crowd round the Lobnoye Place,
Pierre had so unhesitatingly decided that he could stay no longer in Moscow, and
must that very day set off to join the army, that it seemed to him either that
he had told the coachman so, or that the coachman ought to know it of
himself.
On reaching home Pierre told his omniscient and omnipotent head-coachman,
Yevstafitch, who was known to all Moscow, that he was going to drive that night
to Mozhaisk to the army, and gave orders for his saddle horses to be sent on
there. All this could not be arranged in one day, and therefore by Yevstafitch's
representations Pierre was induced to defer his departure till next day to allow
time for relays of horses to be sent on ahead.
The 24th was a bright day after a spell of bad weather, and after dinner on
that day Pierre set out from Moscow. Changing horses in the night at
Perhushkovo, Pierre learned that a GREat battle had been fought that evening. He
was told that the earth had been vibrating there at Perhushkovo from the cannon.
No one could answer Pierre's question whether the battle was a victory or a
defeat. This was the battle of the 24th at Shevardino. Towards dawn Pierre
approached Mozhaisk.
Troops were quartered in all the houses in Mozhaisk, and at the inn, where
Pierre was met by his coachman and postillion, there was not a room to spare;
the whole place was full of officers.
From Mozhaisk onwards troops were halting or marching everywhere. Cossacks,
foot soldiers, horse soldiers, waggons, gun-carriages, and cannons were
everywhere.
Pierre pushed on as fast as possible, and the further he got and the more
deeply he plunged into this ocean of soldiers, the stronger became the thrill of
uneasiness and of a new pleasurable sensation. It was a feeling akin to what he
had felt at the Slobodsky Palace on the Tsar's visit, a sense of the urgent
necessity of taking some step and making some sacrifice. He was conscious now of
a glad sense that all that constitutes the happiness of life, comfort, wealth,
even life itself, were all dust and ashes, which it was a joy to fling away in
comparison with something else. … What that something else was Pierre could not
have said, and indeed he did not seek to get a clear idea, for whose sake and
for what object he found such peculiar joy in sacrificing all. He was not
interested in knowing the object of the sacrifice, but the sacrifice itself
afforded him a new joyful sensation.
