Dolokhov who was in the midst of the crowd forced his way to the
edge of the dam, throwing two soldiers off their feet, and ran onto
the slippery ice that covered the millpool.
"Turn this way!" he shouted, jumping over the ice which creaked
under him; "turn this way!" he shouted to those with the gun. "It
bears!..."
The ice bore him but it swayed and creaked, and it was plain that it
would give way not only under a cannon or a crowd, but very soon
even under his weight alone. The men looked at him and pressed to
the bank, hesitating to step onto the ice. The general on horseback at
the entrance to the dam raised his hand and opened his mouth to
address Dolokhov. Suddenly a cannon ball hissed so low above the crowd
that everyone ducked. It flopped into something moist, and the general
fell from his horse in a pool of blood. Nobody gave him a look or
thought of raising him.
"Get onto the ice, over the ice! Go on! Turn! Don't you hear? Go
on!" innumerable voices suddenly shouted after the ball had struck the
general, the men themselves not knowing what, or why, they were
shouting.
One of the hindmost guns that was going onto the dam turned off onto
the ice. Crowds of soldiers from the dam began running onto the frozen
pond. The ice gave way under one of the foremost soldiers, and one leg
slipped into the water. He tried to right himself but fell in up to
his waist. The nearest soldiers shrank back, the gun driver stopped
his horse, but from behind still came the shouts: "Onto the ice, why
do you stop? Go on! Go on!" And cries of horror were heard in the
crowd. The soldiers near the gun waved their arms and beat the
horses to make them turn and move on. The horses moved off the bank.
The ice, that had held under those on foot, collapsed in a great mass,
and some forty men who were on it dashed, some forward and some
back, drowning one another.
Still the cannon balls continued regularly to whistle and flop
onto the ice and into the water and oftenest of all among 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, lay Prince Andrew Bolkonski bleeding profusely and
unconsciously uttering a gentle, piteous, and childlike moan.
Toward evening he ceased moaning and became quite still. He did
not know how long his unconsciousness lasted. Suddenly he again felt
that he was alive and suffering from a burning, lacerating pain in his
head.
"Where is it, that lofty sky that I did not know till now, but saw
today?" was his first thought. "And I did not know this suffering
either," he thought. "Yes, I did not know anything, anything at all
till now. But where am I?"
He listened and heard the sound of approaching horses, and voices
speaking French. He opened his eyes. Above him again was the same
lofty sky with clouds that had risen and were floating still higher,
and between them gleamed blue infinity. He did not turn his head and
did not see those who, judging by the sound of hoofs and voices, had
ridden up and stopped near him.
It was Napoleon accompanied by two aides-de-camp. Bonaparte riding
over the battlefield had given final orders to strengthen the
batteries firing at the Augesd Dam and was looking at the killed 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 a blackened
nape, lay on his stomach with an already stiffened arm flung wide.
"The ammunition for the guns in position is exhausted, Your
Majesty," said an adjutant who had come from the batteries that were
firing at Augesd.
"Have some brought from the reserve," said Napoleon, and having gone
on a few steps he stopped before Prince Andrew, who lay on his back
with the flagstaff that had been dropped beside him. (The flag had
already been taken by the French as a trophy.)
"That's a fine death!" said Napoleon as he gazed at Bolkonski.
Prince Andrew understood that this was said of him and that it was
Napoleon who said it. He heard the speaker addressed as Sire. But he
heard the words as he might have heard the buzzing of a fly. Not
only did they not interest him, but he took no notice of them and at
once forgot them. His head was burning, he felt himself bleeding to
death, and he saw above him the remote, lofty, and everlasting sky. He
knew it was Napoleon - his hero - but at that moment Napoleon seemed
to him such a small, insignificant creature compared with what was
passing now between himself and that lofty infinite sky with the
clouds flying over it. At that moment it meant nothing to him who
might be standing over him, or what was said of him; he was only
glad that people were standing near him and only wished that they
would help him and bring him back to life, which seemed to him so
beautiful now that he had today learned to understand it so
differently. He collected all his strength, to stir and utter a sound.
He feebly moved his leg and uttered a weak, sickly groan which aroused
his own pity.
"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,
hat in hand, rode up smiling to the Emperor to congratulate him on the
victory.
Prince Andrew remembered nothing more: he lost consciousness from
the terrible pain of being lifted onto the stretcher, the jolting
while being moved, and the probing of his wound at the dressing
station. He did not regain consciousness till late in the day, when
with other wounded and captured Russian officers he was carried to the
hospital. During this transfer he felt a little stronger and was
able to look about him and even speak.
The first words he heard on coming to his senses were those of a
French convoy officer, who said rapidly: "We must halt here: the
Emperor will pass here immediately; it will please him to see these
gentlemen prisoners."
"There are so many prisoners today, nearly the whole Russian army,
that he is probably tired of them," said another officer.
"All the same! They say this one is the commander of all the Emperor
Alexander's Guards," said the first one, indicating a Russian
officer in the white uniform of the Horse Guards.
Bolkonski recognized Prince Repnin whom he had met in Petersburg
society. Beside him stood a lad of nineteen, also a wounded officer of
the Horse Guards.
Bonaparte, having come up at a gallop, stopped his horse.
"Which is the senior?" he asked, on seeing the prisoners.
They named the colonel, Prince Repnin.
"You are the commander of the Emperor Alexander's regiment of
Horse Guards?" asked Napoleon.
"I commanded a squadron," replied Repnin.
"Your regiment fulfilled its duty honorably," said Napoleon.
"The praise of a great commander is a soldier's highest reward,"
said Repnin.
"I bestow it with pleasure," said Napoleon. "And who is that young
man beside you?"
Prince Repnin named Lieutenant Sukhtelen.
After looking at him Napoleon smiled.
"He's very young to come to meddle with us."
"Youth is no hindrance to courage," muttered Sukhtelen in a
failing voice.
"A splendid reply!" said Napoleon. "Young man, you will go far!"
Prince Andrew, who had also been brought forward before the
Emperor's eyes to complete the show of prisoners, could not fail to
attract his attention. Napoleon apparently remembered seeing him on
the battlefield and, addressing him, again used the epithet "young
man" that was connected in his memory with Prince Andrew.
"Well, and you, young man," said he. "How do you feel, mon brave?"
Though five minutes before, Prince Andrew had been able to say a few
words to the soldiers who were carrying him, now with his eyes fixed
straight on Napoleon, he was silent.... So insignificant at that
moment seemed to him all the interests that engrossed Napoleon, so
mean did his hero himself with his paltry vanity and joy in victory
appear, compared to the lofty, equitable, and kindly sky which he
had seen and understood, that he could not answer him.
Everything seemed so futile and insignificant in comparison with the
stern and solemn train of thought that weakness from loss of blood,
suffering, and the nearness of death aroused in him. Looking into
Napoleon's eyes Prince Andrew thought of the insignificance of
greatness, the unimportance of life which no one could understand, and
the still greater unimportance of death, the meaning of which no one
alive could understand or explain.
The Emperor without waiting for an answer turned away and said to
one of the officers as he went: "Have these gentlemen attended to
and taken to my bivouac; let my doctor, Larrey, examine their
wounds. Au revoir, Prince Repnin!" and he spurred his horse and
galloped away.
His face shone with self-satisfaction and pleasure.
The soldiers who had carried Prince Andrew had noticed and taken the
little gold icon Princess Mary had hung round her brother's neck,
but seeing the favor the Emperor showed the prisoners, they now
hastened to return the holy image.
Prince Andrew did not see how and by whom it was replaced, but the
little icon with its thin gold chain suddenly appeared upon his
chest outside his uniform.
"It would be good," thought Prince Andrew, glancing at the icon
his sister had hung round his neck with such emotion and reverence,
"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 for help in this
life, and what to expect after it beyond the grave! How happy and calm
I should be if I could now say: 'Lord, have mercy on me!'... But to
whom should I say that? Either to a Power indefinable,
incomprehensible, which I not only cannot address but which I cannot
even express in words - the Great All or Nothing-" said he to
himself, "or to that God who has been sewn into this amulet by Mary!
There is nothing certain, nothing at all except the unimportance of
everything I understand, and the greatness of something
incomprehensible but all-important."
The stretchers moved on. At every jolt he again felt unendurable
pain; his feverishness increased and he grew delirious. Visions of his
father, wife, sister, and future son, and the tenderness he had felt
the night before the battle, the figure of the insignificant little
Napoleon, and above all this the lofty sky, formed the chief
subjects of his delirious fancies.
The quiet home life and peaceful happiness of Bald Hills presented
itself to him. He was already enjoying that happiness when that little
Napoleon had suddenly appeared with his unsympathizing look of
shortsighted delight at the misery of others, and doubts and
torments had followed, and only the heavens promised peace. Toward
morning all these dreams melted and merged into the chaos and darkness
of unconciousness and oblivion which in the opinion of Napoleon's
doctor, Larrey, was much more likely to end in death than in
convalescence.
"He is a nervous, bilious subject," said Larrey, "and will not
recover."
And Prince Andrew, with others fatally wounded, was left to the care
of the inhabitants of the district.
BOOK FOUR: 1806
CHAPTER I
Early in the year 1806 Nicholas Rostov returned home on leave.
Denisov was going home to Voronezh and Rostov persuaded him to
travel with him as far as Moscow and to stay with him there. Meeting a
comrade at the last post station but one before Moscow, Denisov had
drunk three bottles of wine with him and, despite the jolting ruts
across the snow-covered road, did not once wake up on the way to
Moscow, but lay at the bottom of the sleigh beside Rostov, who grew
more and more impatient the nearer they got to Moscow.
"How much longer? How much longer? Oh, these insufferable streets,
shops, bakers' signboards, street lamps, and sleighs!" thought Rostov,
when their leave permits had been passed at the town gate and they had
entered Moscow.
"Denisov! We're here! He's asleep," he added, leaning forward with
his whole body as if in that position he hoped to hasten the speed
of the sleigh.
Denisov gave no answer.
"There's the corner at the crossroads, where the cabman, Zakhar, has
his stand, and there's Zakhar himself and still the same horse! And
here's the little shop where we used to buy gingerbread! Can't you
hurry up? Now then!"
"Which house is it?" asked the driver.
"Why, that one, right at the end, the big one. Don't you see? That's
our house," said Rostov. "Of course, it's our house! Denisov, Denisov!
We're almost there!"
Denisov raised his head, coughed, and made no answer.
"Dmitri," said Rostov to his valet on the box, "those lights are
in our house, aren't they?"
"Yes, sir, and there's a light in your father's study."
"Then they've not gone to bed yet? What do you think? Mind now,
don't forget to put out my new coat," added Rostov, fingering his
new mustache. "Now then, get on," he shouted to the driver. "Do wake
up, Vaska!" he went on, turning to Denisov, whose head was again
nodding. "Come, get on! You shall have three rubles for vodka - get
on!" Rostov shouted, when the sleigh was only three houses from his
door. It seemed to him the horses were not moving at all. At last
the sleigh bore to the right, drew up at an entrance, and Rostov saw
overhead the old familiar cornice with a bit of plaster broken off,
the porch, and the post by the side of the pavement. He sprang out
before the sleigh stopped, and ran into the hall. The house stood cold
and silent, as if quite regardless of who had come to it. There was no
one in the hall. "Oh God! Is everyone all right?" he thought, stopping
for a moment with a sinking heart, and then immediately starting to
run along the hall and up the warped steps of the familiar
staircase. The well-known old door handle, which always angered the
countess when it was not properly cleaned, turned as loosely as
ever. A solitary tallow candle burned in the anteroom.
Old Michael was asleep on the chest. Prokofy, the footman, who was
so strong that he could lift the back of the carriage from behind, sat
plaiting slippers out of cloth selvedges. He looked up at the
opening door and his expression of sleepy indifference suddenly
changed to one of delighted amazement.
"Gracious heavens! The young count!" he cried, recognizing his young
master. "Can it be? My treasure!" and Prokofy, trembling with
excitement, rushed toward the drawing-room door, probably in order
to announce him, but, changing his mind, came back and stooped to kiss
the young man's shoulder.
"All well?" asked Rostov, drawing away his arm.
"Yes, God be thanked! Yes! They've just finished supper. Let me have
a look at you, your excellency."
"Is everything quite all right?"
"The Lord be thanked, yes!"
Rostov, who had completely forgotten Denisov, not wishing anyone
to forestall him, threw off his fur coat and ran on tiptoe through the
large dark ballroom. All was the same: there were the same old card
tables and the same chandelier with a cover over it; but someone had
already seen the young master, and, before he had reached the
drawing room, something flew out from a side door like a tornado and
began hugging and kissing him. Another and yet another creature of the
same kind sprang from a second door and a third; more hugging, more
kissing, more outcries, and tears of joy. He could not distinguish
which was Papa, which Natasha, and which Petya. Everyone shouted,
talked, and kissed him at the same time. Only his mother was not
there, he noticed that.
"And I did not know... Nicholas... My darling!..."
"Here he is... our own... Kolya,* dear fellow... How he has
changed!... Where are the candles?... Tea!..."
*Nicholas.
"And me, kiss me!"
"Dearest... and me!"
Sonya, Natasha, Petya, Anna Mikhaylovna, Vera, and the old count
were all hugging him, and the serfs, men and maids, flocked into the
room, exclaiming and oh-ing and ah-ing.
Petya, clinging to his legs, kept shouting, "And me too!"
Natasha, after she had pulled him down toward her and covered his
face with kisses, holding him tight by the skirt of his coat, sprang
away and pranced up and down in one place like a goat and shrieked
piercingly.
All around were loving eyes glistening with tears of joy, and all
around were lips seeking a kiss.
Sonya too, all rosy red, clung to his arm and, radiant with bliss,
looked eagerly toward his eyes, waiting for the look for which she
longed. Sonya now was sixteen and she was very pretty, especially at
this moment of happy, rapturous excitement. She gazed at him, not
taking her eyes off him, and smiling and holding her breath. He gave
her a grateful look, but was still expectant and looking for
someone. The old countess had not yet come. But now steps were heard
at the door, steps so rapid that they could hardly be his mother's.
Yet it was she, dressed in a new gown which he did not know, made
since he had left. All the others let him go, and he ran to her.
When they met, she fell on his breast, sobbing. She could not lift her
face, but only pressed it to the cold braiding of his hussar's jacket.
Denisov, who had come into the room unnoticed by anyone, stood there
and wiped his eyes at the sight.
"Vasili Denisov, your son's friend," he said, introducing himself to
the count, who was looking inquiringly at him.
"You are most welcome! I know, I know," said the count, kissing
and embracing Denisov. "Nicholas wrote us... Natasha, Vera, look! Here
is Denisov!"
The same happy, rapturous faces turned to the shaggy figure of
Denisov.
"Darling Denisov!" screamed Natasha, beside herself with rapture,
springing to him, putting her arms round him, and kissing him. This
escapade made everybody feel confused. Denisov blushed too, but smiled
and, taking Natasha's hand, kissed it.
Denisov was shown to the room prepared for him, and the Rostovs
all gathered round Nicholas in the sitting room.
The old countess, not letting go of his hand and kissing it every
moment, sat beside him: the rest, crowding round him, watched every
movement, word, or look of his, never taking their blissfully
adoring eyes off him. His brother and sisters struggled for the places
nearest to him and disputed with one another who should bring him
his tea, handkerchief, and pipe.
Rostov was very happy in the love they showed him; but the first
moment of meeting had been so beatific that his present joy seemed
insufficient, and he kept expecting something more, more and yet more.
Next morning, after the fatigues of their journey, the travelers
slept till ten o'clock.
In the room next their bedroom there was a confusion of sabers,
satchels, sabretaches, open portmanteaus, and dirty boots. Two freshly
cleaned pairs with spurs had just been placed by the wall. The
servants were bringing in jugs and basins, hot water for shaving,
and their well-brushed clothes. There was a masculine odor and a smell
of tobacco.
"Hallo, Gwiska - my pipe!" came Vasili Denisov's husky voice.
"Wostov, get up!"
Rostov, rubbing his eyes that seemed glued together, raised his
disheveled head from the hot pillow.
"Why, is it late?"
"Late! It's nearly ten o'clock," answered Natasha's voice. A
rustle of starched petticoats and the whispering and laughter of
girls' voices came from the adjoining room. The door was opened a
crack and there was a glimpse of something blue, of ribbons, black
hair, and merry faces. It was Natasha, Sonya, and Petya, who had
come to see whether they were getting up.
"Nicholas! Get up!" Natasha's voice was again heard at the door.
"Directly!"
Meanwhile, Petya, having found and seized the sabers in the outer
room, with the delight boys feel at the sight of a military elder
brother, and forgetting that it was unbecoming for the girls to see
men undressed, opened the bedroom door.
"Is this your saber?" he shouted.
The girls sprang aside. Denisov hid his hairy legs under the
blanket, looking with a scared face at his comrade for help. The door,
having let Petya in, closed again. A sound of laughter came from
behind it.
"Nicholas! Come out in your dressing gown!" said Natasha's voice.
"Is this your saber?" asked Petya. "Or is it yours?" he said,
addressing the black-mustached Denisov with servile deference.
Rostov hurriedly put something on his feet, drew on his dressing
gown, and went out. Natasha had put on one spurred boot and was just
getting her foot into the other. Sonya, when he came in, was
twirling round and was about to expand her dresses into a balloon
and sit down. They were dressed alike, in new pale-blue frocks, and
were both fresh, rosy, and bright. Sonya ran away, but Natasha, taking
her brother's arm, led him into the sitting room, where they began
talking. They hardly gave one another time to ask questions and give
replies concerning a thousand little matters which could not
interest anyone but themselves. Natasha laughed at every word he
said or that she said herself, not because what they were saying was
amusing, but because she felt happy and was unable to control her
joy which expressed itself by laughter.
"Oh, how nice, how splendid!" she said to everything.
Rostov felt that, under the influence of the warm rays of love, that
childlike smile which had not once appeared on his face since he
left home now for the first time after eighteen months again
brightened his soul and his face.
"No, but listen," she said, "now you are quite a man, aren't you?
I'm awfully glad you're my brother." She touched his mustache. "I want
to know what you men are like. Are you the same as we? No?"
"Why did Sonya run away?" asked Rostov.
"Ah, yes! That's a whole long story! How are you going to speak to
her - thou or you?"
"As may happen," said Rostov.
"No, call her you, please! I'll tell you all about it some other
time. No, I'll tell you now. You know Sonya's my dearest friend.
Such a friend that I burned my arm for her sake. Look here!"
She pulled up her muslin sleeve and showed him a red scar on her
long, slender, delicate arm, high above the elbow on that part that is
covered even by a ball dress.
"I burned this to prove my love for her. I just heated a ruler in
the fire and pressed it there!"
Sitting on the sofa with the little cushions on its arms, in what
used to be his old schoolroom, and looking into Natasha's wildly
bright eyes, Rostov re-entered that world of home and childhood
which had no meaning for anyone else, but gave him some of the best
joys of his life; and the burning of an arm with a ruler as a proof of
love did not seem to him senseless, he understood and was not
surprised at it.
"Well, and is that all?" he asked.
"We are such friends, such friends! All that ruler business was just
nonsense, but we are friends forever. She, if she loves anyone, does
it for life, but I don't understand that, I forget quickly."
"Well, what then?"
"Well, she loves me and you like that."
Natasha suddenly flushed.
"Why, you remember before you went away?... Well, she says you are
to forget all that.... She says: 'I shall love him always, but let him
be free.' Isn't that lovely and noble! Yes, very noble? Isn't it?"
asked Natasha, so seriously and excitedly that it was evident that
what she was now saying she had talked of before, with tears.
Rostov became thoughtful.
"I never go back on my word," he said. "Besides, Sonya is so
charming that only a fool would renounce such happiness."
"No, no!" cried Natasha, "she and I have already talked it over.
We knew you'd say so. But it won't do, because you see, if you say
that - if you consider yourself bound by your promise - it will seem
as if she had not meant it seriously. It makes it as if you were
marrying her because you must, and that wouldn't do at all."
Rostov saw that it had been well considered by them. Sonya had
already struck him by her beauty on the preceding day. Today, when
he had caught a glimpse of her, she seemed still more lovely. She
was a charming girl of sixteen, evidently passionately in love with
him (he did not doubt that for an instant). Why should he not love her
now, and even marry her, Rostov thought, but just now there were so
many other pleasures and interests before him! "Yes, they have taken a
wise decision," he thought, "I must remain free."
"Well then, that's excellent," said he. "We'll talk it over later
on. Oh, how glad I am to have you!"
"Well, and are you still true to Boris?" he continued.
"Oh, what nonsense!" cried Natasha, laughing. "I don't think about
him or anyone else, and I don't want anything of the kind."
"Dear me! Then what are you up now?"
"Now?" repeated Natasha, and a happy smile lit up her face. "Have
you seen Duport?"
"No."
"Not seen Duport - the famous dancer? Well then, you won't
understand. That's what I'm up to."
Curving her arms, Natasha held out her skirts as dancers do, ran
back a few steps, turned, cut a caper, brought her little feet sharply
together, and made some steps on the very tips of her toes.
"See, I'm standing! See!" she said, but could not maintain herself
on her toes any longer. "So that's what I'm up to! I'll never marry
anyone, but will be a dancer. Only don't tell anyone."
Rostov laughed so loud and merrily that Denisov, in his bedroom,
felt envious and Natasha could not help joining in.
"No, but don't you think it's nice?" she kept repeating.
"Nice! And so you no longer wish to marry Boris?"
Natasha flared up. "I don't want to marry anyone. And I'll tell
him so when I see him!"
"Dear me!" said Rostov.
"But that's all rubbish," Natasha chattered on. "And is Denisov
nice?" she asked.
"Yes, indeed!"
"Oh, well then, good-by: go and dress. Is he very terrible,
Denisov?"
"Why terrible?" asked Nicholas. "No, Vaska is a splendid fellow."
"You call him Vaska? That's funny! And is he very nice?"
"Very."
"Well then, be quick. We'll all have breakfast together."
And Natasha rose and went out of the room on tiptoe, like a ballet
dancer, but smiling as only happy girls of fifteen can smile. When
Rostov met Sonya in the drawing room, he reddened. He did not know how
to behave with her. The evening before, in the first happy moment of
meeting, they had kissed each other, but today they felt it could
not be done; he felt that everybody, including his mother and sisters,
was looking inquiringly at him and watching to see how he would behave
with her. He kissed her hand and addressed her not as thou but as you-
Sonya. But their eyes met and said thou, and exchanged tender
kisses. Her looks asked him to forgive her for having dared, by
Natasha's intermediacy, to remind him of his promise, and then thanked
him for his love. His looks thanked her for offering him his freedom
and told her that one way or another he would never cease to love her,
for that would be impossible.
"How strange it is," said Vera, selecting a moment when all were
silent, "that Sonya and Nicholas now say you to one another and meet
like strangers."
Vera's remark was correct, as her remarks always were, but, like
most of her observations, it made everyone feel uncomfortable, not
only Sonya, Nicholas, and Natasha, but even the old countess, who-
dreading this love affair which might hinder Nicholas from making a
brilliant match - blushed like a girl.
Denisov, to Rostov's surprise, appeared in the drawing room with
pomaded hair, perfumed, and in a new uniform, looking just as smart as
he made himself when going into battle, and he was more amiable to the
ladies and gentlemen than Rostov had ever expected to see him.
CHAPTER II
On his return to Moscow from the army, Nicholas Rostov was
welcomed by his home circle as the best of sons, a hero, and their
darling Nikolenka; by his relations as a charming, attractive, and
polite young man; by his acquaintances as a handsome lieutenant of
hussars, a good dancer, and one of the best matches in the city.
The Rostovs knew everybody in Moscow. The old count had money enough
that year, as all his estates had been remortgaged, and so Nicholas,
acquiring a trotter of his own, very stylish riding breeches of the
latest cut, such as no one else yet had in Moscow, and boots of the
latest fashion, with extremely pointed toes and small silver spurs,
passed his time very gaily. After a short period of adapting himself
to the old conditions of life, Nicholas found it very pleasant to be
at home again. He felt that he had grown up and matured very much. His
despair at failing in a Scripture examination, his borrowing money
from Gavril to pay a sleigh driver, his kissing Sonya on the sly - he
now recalled all this as childishness he had left immeasurably behind.
Now he was a lieutenant of hussars, in a jacket laced with silver, and
wearing the Cross of St. George, awarded to soldiers for bravery in
action, and in the company of well-known, elderly, and respected
racing men was training a trotter of his own for a race. He knew a
lady on one of the boulevards whom he visited of an evening. He led
the mazurka at the Arkharovs' ball, talked about the war with Field
Marshal Kamenski, visited the English Club, and was on intimate
terms with a colonel of forty to whom Denisov had introduced him.
His passion for the Emperor had cooled somewhat in Moscow. But
still, as he did not see him and had no opportunity of seeing him,
he often spoke about him and about his love for him, letting it be
understood that he had not told all and that there was something in
his feelings for the Emperor not everyone could understand, and with
his whole soul he shared the adoration then common in Moscow for the
Emperor, who was spoken of as the "angel incarnate."
During Rostov's short stay in Moscow, before rejoining the army,
he did not draw closer to Sonya, but rather drifted away from her. She
was very pretty and sweet, and evidently deeply in love with him,
but he was at the period of youth when there seems so much to do
that there is no time for that sort of thing and a young man fears
to bind himself and prizes his freedom which he needs for so many
other things. When he thought of Sonya, during this stay in Moscow, he
said to himself, "Ah, there will be, and there are, many more such
girls somewhere whom I do not yet know. There will be time enough to
think about love when I want to, but now I have no time." Besides,
it seemed to him that the society of women was rather derogatory to
his manhood. He went to balls and into ladies' society with an
affectation of doing so against his will. The races, the English Club,
sprees with Denisov, and visits to a certain house - that was another
matter and quite the thing for a dashing young hussar!
At the beginning of March, old Count Ilya Rostov was very busy
arranging a dinner in honor of Prince Bagration at the English Club.
The count walked up and down the hall in his dressing gown, giving
orders to the club steward and to the famous Feoktist, the Club's head
cook, about asparagus, fresh cucumbers, strawberries, veal, and fish
for this dinner. The count had been a member and on the committee of
the Club from the day it was founded. To him the Club entrusted the
arrangement of the festival in honor of Bagration, for few men knew so
well how to arrange a feast on an open-handed, hospitable scale, and
still fewer men would be so well able and willing to make up out of
their own resources what might be needed for the success of the
fete. The club cook and the steward listened to the count's orders
with pleased faces, for they knew that under no other management could
they so easily extract a good profit for themselves from a dinner
costing several thousand rubles.
"Well then, mind and have 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 less - yes, three... the mayonnaise, that's one," said
he, bending down a finger.
"Then am I to order those large sterlets?" asked the steward.
"Yes, it can't be helped if they won't take less. Ah, dear me! I was
forgetting. We must have another entree. Ah, goodness gracious!" he
clutched at his head. "Who is going to get me the flowers? Dmitri! Eh,
Dmitri! Gallop off to our Moscow estate," he said to the factotum
who appeared at his call. "Hurry off and tell Maksim, the gardener, to
set the serfs to work. Say that everything out of the hothouses must
be brought here well wrapped up in felt. I must have two hundred
pots here on Friday."
Having given several more orders, he was about to go to his
"little countess" to have a rest, but remembering something else of
importance, he returned again, called back the cook and the club
steward, and again began giving orders. A light footstep and the
clinking of spurs were heard at the door, and the young count,
handsome, rosy, with a dark little mustache, evidently rested and made
sleeker by his easy life in Moscow, entered the room.
"Ah, my boy, my head's in a whirl!" said the old man with a smile,
as if he felt a little confused before his son. "Now, if you would
only help a bit! I must have singers too. I shall have my own
orchestra, but shouldn't we get the gypsy singers as well? You
military men like that sort of thing."
"Really, Papa, I believe Prince Bagration worried himself less
before the battle of Schon Grabern than you do now," said his son with
a smile.
The old count pretended to be angry.
"Yes, you talk, but try it yourself!"
And the count turned to the cook, who, with a shrewd and
respectful expression, looked observantly and sympathetically at the
father and son.
"What have the young people come to nowadays, eh, Feoktist?" said
he. "Laughing at us old fellows!"
"That's so, your excellency, all they have to do is to eat a good
dinner, but providing it and serving it all up, that's not their
business!"
"That's it, that's it!" exclaimed the count, and gaily seizing his
son by both hands, he cried, "Now I've got you, so take the sleigh and
pair at once, and go to Bezukhob's, and tell him 'Count Ilya has
sent you to ask for strawberries and fresh pineapples.' We can't get
them from anyone else. He's not there himself, so you'll have to go in
and ask the princesses; and from there go on to the Rasgulyay - the
coachman Ipatka knows - and look up the gypsy Ilyushka, the one who
danced at Count Orlov's, you remember, in a white Cossack coat, and
bring him along to me."
"And am I to bring the gypsy girls along with him?" asked
Nicholas, laughing. "Dear, dear!..."
At that moment, with noiseless footsteps and with the
businesslike, preoccupied, yet meekly Christian look which never
left her face, Anna Mikhaylovna entered the hall. Though she came upon
the count in his dressing gown every day, he invariably became
confused and begged her to excuse his costume.
"No matter at all, my dear count," she said, meekly closing her
eyes. "But I'll go to Bezukhov's myself. Pierre has arrived, and now
we shall get anything we want from his hothouses. I have to see him in
any case. He has forwarded me a letter from Boris. Thank God, Boris is
now on the staff."
The count was delighted at Anna Mikhaylovna's taking upon herself
one of his commissions and ordered the small closed carriage for her.
"Tell Bezukhov to come. I'll put his name down. Is his wife with
him?" he asked.
Anna Mikhaylovna turned up her eyes, and profound sadness was
depicted on her face.
"Ah, my dear friend, he is very unfortunate," she said. "If what
we hear is true, it is dreadful. How little we dreamed of such a thing
when we were rejoicing at his happiness! And such a lofty angelic soul
as young Bezukhov! Yes, I pity him from my heart, and shall try to
give him what consolation I can."
"Wh-what is the matter?" asked both the young and old Rostov.
Anna Mikhaylovna sighed deeply.
"Dolokhov, Mary Ivanovna's son," she said in a mysterious whisper,
"has compromised her completely, they say. Pierre took him up, invited
him to his house in Petersburg, and now... she has come here and
that daredevil after her!" said Anna Mikhaylovna, wishing to show
her sympathy for Pierre, but by involuntary intonations and a half
smile betraying her sympathy for the "daredevil," as she called
Dolokhov. "They say Pierre is quite broken by his misfortune."
"Dear, dear! But still tell him to come to the Club - it will all
blow over. It will be a tremendous banquet."
Next day, the third of March, soon after one o'clock, two hundred
and fifty members of the English Club and fifty guests were awaiting
the guest of honor and hero of the Austrian campaign, Prince
Bagration, to dinner.
On the first arrival of the news of the battle of Austerlitz, Moscow
had been bewildered. At that time, the Russians were so used to
victories that on receiving news of the defeat some would simply not
believe it, while others sought some extraordinary explanation of so
strange an event. In the English Club, where all who were
distinguished, important, and well informed forgathered when the
news began to arrive in December, nothing was said about the war and
the last battle, as though all were in a conspiracy of silence. The
men who set the tone in conversation - Count Rostopchin, Prince Yuri
Dolgorukov, Valuev, Count Markov, and Prince Vyazemski - did not show
themselves at the Club, but met in private houses in intimate circles,
and the Moscovites who took their opinions from others - Ilya Rostov
among them - remained for a while without any definite opinion on the
subject of the war and without leaders. The Moscovites felt that
something was wrong and that to discuss the bad news was difficult,
and so it was best to be silent. But after a while, just as a jury
comes out of its room, the bigwigs who guided the Club's opinion
reappeared, and everybody began speaking clearly and definitely.
Reasons were found for the incredible, unheard-of, and impossible
event of a Russian defeat, everything became clear, and in all corners
of Moscow the same things began to be said. These reasons were the
treachery of the Austrians, a defective commissariat, the treachery of
the Pole Przebyszewski and of the Frenchman Langeron, Kutuzov's
incapacity, and (it was whispered) the youth and inexperience of the
sovereign, who had trusted worthless and insignificant people. But the
army, the Russian army, everyone declared, was extraordinary and had
achieved miracles of valor. The soldiers, officers, and generals were
heroes. But the hero of heroes was Prince Bagration, distinguished
by his Schon Grabern affair and by the retreat from Austerlitz,
where he alone had withdrawn his column unbroken and had all day
beaten back an enemy force twice as numerous as his own. What also
conduced to Bagration's being selected as Moscow's hero was the fact
that he had no connections in the city and was a stranger there. In
his person, honor was shown to a simple fighting Russian soldier
without connections and intrigues, and to one who was associated by
memories of the Italian campaign with the name of Suvorov. Moreover,
paying such honor to Bagration was the best way of expressing
disapproval and dislike of Kutuzov.
"Had there been no Bagration, it would have been necessary to invent
him," said the wit Shinshin, parodying the words of Voltaire.