War and Peace (159 page)

The one thing Pierre desired now with his whole soul was to get away from the terrible sensations in which he had passed that day, to get back into the ordinary conditions of life, and to go to sleep quietly indoors in his own bed. He felt that only in the ordinary conditions of life would he be fit to understand himself and all he had seen and felt. But the ordinary conditions of life were nowhere to be found.

Though bullets and cannon balls were not whistling here on the road along which he was going, still he saw here on all sides the same sights as on the field of battle. There were everywhere the same suffering, exhausted, and sometimes strangely indifferent faces; everywhere the same blood and soldiers’ overcoats, the same sound of firing at a distance, yet still rousing the same horror. There was heat and dust besides.

After walking about three versts along the Mozhaisk road, Pierre sat down by the roadside.

The shadows of night were beginning to fall over the earth, and the roar of cannon died down. Pierre lay leaning on his elbow, and lay so a long while, gazing at the shadows passing by him in the dusk. He was continually fancying that a cannon ball was swooping down upon him with a fearful whiz. He started and sat up. He had no idea how long he had been there. In the middle of the night, three soldiers, dragging branches after them, settled themselves near him and began making a fire.

Casting sidelong glances at Pierre, the soldiers lighted the fire, set a pot on it, broke up their biscuits into it, and put in some lard. The pleasant odour of the savoury and greasy mess blended with the smell of smoke. Pierre raised himself and sighed. The soldiers (there were three of them) were eating and talking among themselves without taking any notice of Pierre.

“And what lot will you be one of?” one of the soldiers suddenly asked Pierre, evidently suggesting in this inquiry precisely what Pierre was thinking about. “If you are hungry we’ll give you some, only tell us whether you’re a true man.”

“I?” … said Pierre, feeling the necessity of minimising his social position as far as possible, so as to be closer to the soldiers and more within their range. “I am really a militia officer, but my company’s nowhere about; I came to the battle and lost sight of my comrades.”

“Well! Fancy that!” said one of the soldiers.

Another soldier shook his head.

“Well, you can have some of the mash, if you like!” said the first, and licking a wooden spoon he gave it to Pierre.

Pierre squatted by the fire, and fell to eating the mess in the pot, which seemed to him the most delicious dish he had ever tasted. While he was bending over the pot, helping himself to big spoonfuls and greedily munching one after another, the soldiers stared at him in silence.

“Where do you want to go? Tell us!” the first of them asked again.

“To Mozhaisk.”

“You’re a gentleman, then?”

“Yes.”

“And what’s your name?”

“Pyotr Kirillovitch.”

“Well, Pyotr Kirillovitch, come along, we’ll take you there.”

In the pitch dark the soldiers and Pierre walked to Mozhaisk.

The cocks were crowing when they reached Mozhaisk, and began ascending the steep hill into the town.

Pierre walked on with the soldiers, entirely forgetting that his inn was at the bottom of the hill and he had passed it. He would not have been aware of this—so preoccupied was he—if he had not chanced halfway up the hill to stumble across his groom, who had been to look for him in the town, and was on his way back to the inn. The groom recognised Pierre by his hat, which gleamed white in the dark.

“Your excellency!” he cried, “why, we had quite given you up. How is it you are on foot? And, mercy on us, where are you going?”

“Oh, to be sure …” said Pierre.

The soldiers halted.

“Well, found your own folks then?” said one of them.

“Well, good-bye to you—Pyotr Kirillovitch, wasn’t it?”

“Good-bye, Pyotr Kirillovitch!” said the other voices.

“Good-bye,” said Pierre, and with the groom he turned in the direction of the inn.

“I ought to give them something!” thought Pierre, feeling for his pocket. “No, better not,” some inner voice prompted him.

There was not a room at the inn: all were full. Pierre went out into the yard, and muffling his head up, lay down in his carriage.

Pierre had hardly put his head on the pillow when he felt that he was dropping asleep. But all of a sudden he heard, almost with the distinctness of reality, the sound of the boom, boom, boom of the cannon, the groans and shrieks and dull thud of the falling shell, smelt the blood and powder; and the feeling of horror, of the dread of death came over him. He opened his eyes in a panic, and put his head out from the cloak. All was quiet in the yard. The only sound came from a servant of some sort talking with the porter at the gate, and splashing through the mud. Over Pierre’s head, under the dark, wooden eaves, he heard pigeons fluttering, startled by the movement he had made in sitting up. The whole yard was pervaded by the strong smell of a tavern—full of peaceful suggestion and soothing relief to Pierre—the smell of hay, of dung, and of tar. Between two dark sheds he caught a glimpse of the pure, starlit sky.

“Thank God, that is all over!” thought Pierre, covering his head up again. “Oh, how awful terror is, and how shamefully I gave way to it! But they … 
they
were firm and calm all the while up to the end …” he thought.
They
, in Pierre’s mind, meant the soldiers, those who had been on the battery, and those who had given him food, and those who had prayed to the holy picture.
They
—those strange people, of whom he had known nothing hitherto—
they
stood out clearly and sharply in his mind apart from all other people.

“To be a soldier, simply a soldier!” thought Pierre as he fell asleep. “To enter with one’s whole nature into that common life, to be filled with what makes them what they are. But how is one to cast off all that is superfluous, devilish in one’s self, all the burden of the outer man? At one time I might have been the same. I might have run away from my father as I wanted to. After the duel with Dolohov too I might have been sent for a soldier.”

And into Pierre’s imagination flashed a picture of the dinner at the club, at which he had challenged Dolohov, then the image of his benefactor at Torzhok. And there rose before his mind a solemn meeting of the lodge. It was taking place at the English Club. And some one he
knew, some one near and dear to him, was sitting at the end of the table. “Why, it is he! It is my benefactor. But surely he died?” thought Pierre. “Yes, he did die, but I didn’t know he was alive. And how sorry I was when he died, and how glad I am he is alive again!” On one side of the table were sitting Anatole, Dolohov, Nesvitsky, Denisov, and others like them (in Pierre’s dream these people formed as distinct a class apart as those other men whom he had called
them
to himself), and those people, Anatole and Dolohov, were loudly shouting and singing. But through their clamour the voice of his benefactor could be heard speaking all the while, and the sound of his voice was as weighty and as uninterrupted as the din of the battlefield, but it was pleasant and comforting. Pierre did not understand what his benefactor was saying, but he knew (the category of his ideas, too, was distinct in his dream) that he was talking of goodness, of the possibility of being like
them
. And
they
with their simple, good, plucky faces were surrounding his benefactor on all sides. But though they were kindly, they did not look at Pierre; they did not know him. Pierre wanted to attract their notice, and to speak to them. He got up, but at the same instant became aware that his legs were bare and chill.

He felt ashamed, and put his arm over his legs, from which his cloak had in fact slipped off. For an instant Pierre opened his eyes as he pulled up the cloak, and saw the same roofs, and posts, and yard, but it was now full of bluish light, and glistening with dew or frost.

“It’s getting light,” thought Pierre. “But that’s not the point. I want to hear and understand the benefactor’s words.”

He muffled himself in the cloak again, but the masonic dinner and his benefactor would not come back. All that remained were thoughts, clearly expressed in words, ideas; some voice was speaking, or Pierre was thinking.

When he recalled those thoughts later, although they had been evoked by the impressions of that day, Pierre was convinced that they were uttered by some one outside himself. It seemed to him that he had never been capable of thinking those thoughts and expressing them in that form in his waking moments.

“The most difficult thing is the subjection of man’s will to the law of God,” said the voice. “Simplicity is the submission to God; there is no escaping from Him. And
they
are simple.
They
do not talk, but act. A word uttered is silver, but unuttered is golden. No one can be master of anything while he fears death. And all things belong to him who fears
it not. If it were not for suffering, a man would know not his limits, would know not himself. The hardest thing” (Pierre thought or heard in his dream) “is to know how to unite in one’s soul the significance of the whole. To unite the whole?” Pierre said to himself. “No, not to unite. One cannot unite one’s thoughts, but to
harness
together all those ideas, that’s what’s wanted. Yes, one
must harness
together,
harness
together,” Pierre repeated to himself with a thrill of ecstasy, feeling that those words, and only those words, expressed what he wanted to express, and solved the whole problem fretting him.

“Yes, one must
harness
together; it’s time to
harness
 …”

“We want to harness the horses; it’s time to harness the horses, your excellency! Your excellency,” some voice was repeating, “we want to harness the horses; it’s time …”

It was the groom waking Pierre. The sun was shining full in Pierre’s face. He glanced at the dirty tavern yard; at the well in the middle of it soldiers were watering their thin horses; and waggons were moving out of the gate.

He turned away with repugnance, and shutting his eyes, made haste to huddle up again on the seat of the carriage. “No, I don’t want that; I don’t want to see and understand that; I want to understand what was revealed to me in my sleep. Another second and I should have understood it all. But what am I to do? To harness, but how to harness all together?” And Pierre felt with horror that the whole meaning of what he had seen and thought in his dream had slipped away.

The groom, the coachman, and the porter told Pierre that an officer had come with the news that the French were advancing on Mozhaisk and our troops were retreating.

Pierre got up, and ordering the carriage to be got out and to drive after him, crossed the town on foot.

The troops were marching out, leaving tens of thousands of wounded behind. The wounded could be seen at the windows of the houses, and were crowding the yards and streets. Screams, oaths, and blows could be heard in the streets about the carts which were to carry away the wounded. Pierre put his carriage at the service of a wounded general of his acquaintance, and drove with him to Moscow. On the way he was told of the death of his brother-in-law, Anatole, and of the death of Prince Andrey.

On the 30th Pierre returned to Moscow. Almost at the city gates he was met by an adjutant of Count Rastoptchin’s.

“Why, we have been looking for you everywhere,” said the adjutant. “The count urgently wants to see you. He begs you to come to him at once on very important business.” Instead of going home, Pierre hailed a cab-driver and drove to the governor’s.

Count Rastoptchin had only that morning arrived from his summer villa at Sokolniky. The ante-room and waiting-room in the count’s house were full of officials, who had been summoned by him, or had come to him for instructions. Vassiltchekov and Platov had already seen the count, and informed him that the defence of Moscow was out of the question, and the city would be surrendered. Though the news was being concealed from the citizens, the heads of various departments and officials of different kinds knew that Moscow would soon be in the hands of the enemy, just as Count Rastoptchin knew it. And all of them to escape personal responsibility had come to the governor to inquire how to act in regard to the offices in their charge.

At the moment when Pierre went into the waiting-room, a courier from the army was just coming out from an interview with the count.

The courier waved his hand with a hopeless air at the questions with which he was besieged, and walked across the room.

While he waited, Pierre watched with weary eyes the various officials—young, old, military, and civilian, important and insignificant—who were gathered together in the room. All seemed dissatisfied and uneasy. Pierre went up to one group of functionaries, among whom he recognised an acquaintance. After greeting him, they went on with their conversation.

“Well, to send out and bring back again would be no harm; but in the present position of affairs there’s no answering for anything.”

“But look here, what he writes,” said another, pointing to a printed paper he held in his hand.

“That’s a different matter. That’s necessary for the common people,” said the first.

“What is it?” asked Pierre.

“The new proclamation.”

Pierre took it and began to read.

“His highness the prince has passed Mozhaisk, so as to unite with the
troops that are going to join him, and has taken up a strong position, where the enemy cannot attack him suddenly. Forty-eight cannon with shells have been sent him from here, and his highness declares that he will defend Moscow to the last drop of blood, and is ready even to fight in the streets. Don’t mind, brothers, that the courts of justice are closed; we must take our measures, and we’ll deal with miscreants in our own fashion. When the time comes, I shall have need of some gallant fellows, both of town and country. I will give the word in a couple of days; but now there’s no need, and I hold my peace. The axe is useful; the pike, too, is not to be despised; but best of all is the three-pronged fork: a Frenchman is no heavier than a sheaf of rye. To-morrow after dinner, I shall take the Iversky Holy Mother to St. Catherine’s Hospital to the wounded. There we will consecrate the water; they will soon be well again. I, too am well now; one of my eyes was bad, but now I look well out of both.”