War and Peace
but everywhere—on the slopes and on the roofs. As soon as Pétya found
himself in the square he clearly heard the sound of bells and the joyous
voices of the crowd that filled the whole Krémlin.
For a while the crowd was less dense, but suddenly all heads were bared,
and everyone rushed forward in one direction. Pétya was being pressed so
that he could scarcely breathe, and everybody shouted, “Hurrah! hurrah!
hurrah!” Pétya stood on tiptoe and pushed and pinched, but could see
nothing except the people about him.
All the faces bore the same expression of excitement and enthusiasm. A
tradesman’s wife standing beside Pétya sobbed, and the tears ran down
her cheeks.
“Father! Angel! Dear one!” she kept repeating, wiping away her tears
with her fingers.
“Hurrah!” was heard on all sides.
For a moment the crowd stood still, but then it made another rush
forward.
Quite beside himself, Pétya, clinching his teeth and rolling his eyes
ferociously, pushed forward, elbowing his way and shouting “hurrah!” as
if he were prepared that instant to kill himself and everyone else, but
on both sides of him other people with similarly ferocious faces pushed
forward and everybody shouted “hurrah!”
“So this is what the Emperor is!” thought Pétya. “No, I can’t petition
him myself—that would be too bold.” But in spite of this he continued
to struggle desperately forward, and from between the backs of those
in front he caught glimpses of an open space with a strip of red cloth
spread out on it; but just then the crowd swayed back—the police
in front were pushing back those who had pressed too close to the
procession: the Emperor was passing from the palace to the Cathedral of
the Assumption—and Pétya unexpectedly received such a blow on his side
and ribs and was squeezed so hard that suddenly everything grew dim
before his eyes and he lost consciousness. When he came to himself, a
man of clerical appearance with a tuft of gray hair at the back of
his head and wearing a shabby blue cassock—probably a church clerk and
chanter—was holding him under the arm with one hand while warding off
the pressure of the crowd with the other.
“You’ve crushed the young gentleman!” said the clerk. “What are you up
to? Gently!... They’ve crushed him, crushed him!”
The Emperor entered the Cathedral of the Assumption. The crowd spread
out again more evenly, and the clerk led Pétya—pale and breathless—to
the Tsar-cannon. Several people were sorry for Pétya, and suddenly a
crowd turned toward him and pressed round him. Those who stood nearest
him attended to him, unbuttoned his coat, seated him on the raised
platform of the cannon, and reproached those others (whoever they might
be) who had crushed him.
“One might easily get killed that way! What do they mean by it? Killing
people! Poor dear, he’s as white as a sheet!”—various voices were heard
saying.
Pétya soon came to himself, the color returned to his face, the pain had
passed, and at the cost of that temporary unpleasantness he had obtained
a place by the cannon from where he hoped to see the Emperor who
would be returning that way. Pétya no longer thought of presenting his
petition. If he could only see the Emperor he would be happy!
While the service was proceeding in the Cathedral of the Assumption—it
was a combined service of prayer on the occasion of the Emperor’s
arrival and of thanksgiving for the conclusion of peace with the
Turks—the crowd outside spread out and hawkers appeared, selling kvass,
gingerbread, and poppyseed sweets (of which Pétya was particularly
fond), and ordinary conversation could again be heard. A tradesman’s
wife was showing a rent in her shawl and telling how much the shawl had
cost; another was saying that all silk goods had now got dear. The clerk
who had rescued Pétya was talking to a functionary about the priests who
were officiating that day with the bishop. The clerk several times used
the word “plenary” (of the service), a word Pétya did not understand.
Two young citizens were joking with some serf girls who were cracking
nuts. All these conversations, especially the joking with the girls,
were such as might have had a particular charm for Pétya at his age, but
they did not interest him now. He sat on his elevation—the pedestal of
the cannon—still agitated as before by the thought of the Emperor and by
his love for him. The feeling of pain and fear he had experienced when
he was being crushed, together with that of rapture, still further
intensified his sense of the importance of the occasion.
Suddenly the sound of a firing of cannon was heard from the embankment,
to celebrate the signing of peace with the Turks, and the crowd rushed
impetuously toward the embankment to watch the firing. Pétya too would
have run there, but the clerk who had taken the young gentleman under
his protection stopped him. The firing was still proceeding when
officers, generals, and gentlemen-in-waiting came running out of the
cathedral, and after them others in a more leisurely manner: caps were
again raised, and those who had run to look at the cannon ran back
again. At last four men in uniforms and sashes emerged from the
cathedral doors. “Hurrah! hurrah!” shouted the crowd again.
“Which is he? Which?” asked Pétya in a tearful voice, of those around
him, but no one answered him, everybody was too excited; and Pétya,
fixing on one of those four men, whom he could not clearly see for the
tears of joy that filled his eyes, concentrated all his enthusiasm
on him—though it happened not to be the Emperor—frantically shouted
“Hurrah!” and resolved that tomorrow, come what might, he would join the
army.
The crowd ran after the Emperor, followed him to the palace, and began
to disperse. It was already late, and Pétya had not eaten anything and
was drenched with perspiration, yet he did not go home but stood with
that diminishing, but still considerable, crowd before the palace while
the Emperor dined—looking in at the palace windows, expecting he knew
not what, and envying alike the notables he saw arriving at the entrance
to dine with the Emperor and the court footmen who served at table,
glimpses of whom could be seen through the windows.
While the Emperor was dining, Valúev, looking out of the window, said:
“The people are still hoping to see Your Majesty again.”
The dinner was nearly over, and the Emperor, munching a biscuit, rose
and went out onto the balcony. The people, with Pétya among them, rushed
toward the balcony.
“Angel! Dear one! Hurrah! Father!...” cried the crowd, and Pétya with
it, and again the women and men of weaker mold, Pétya among them, wept
with joy.
A largish piece of the biscuit the Emperor was holding in his hand broke
off, fell on the balcony parapet, and then to the ground. A coachman in
a jerkin, who stood nearest, sprang forward and snatched it up. Several
people in the crowd rushed at the coachman. Seeing this the Emperor had
a plateful of biscuits brought him and began throwing them down from
the balcony. Pétya’s eyes grew bloodshot, and still more excited by the
danger of being crushed, he rushed at the biscuits. He did not know why,
but he had to have a biscuit from the Tsar’s hand and he felt that he
must not give way. He sprang forward and upset an old woman who was
catching at a biscuit; the old woman did not consider herself defeated
though she was lying on the ground—she grabbed at some biscuits but
her hand did not reach them. Pétya pushed her hand away with his knee,
seized a biscuit, and as if fearing to be too late, again shouted
“Hurrah!” with a voice already hoarse.
The Emperor went in, and after that the greater part of the crowd began
to disperse.
“There! I said if only we waited—and so it was!” was being joyfully said
by various people.
Happy as Pétya was, he felt sad at having to go home knowing that all
the enjoyment of that day was over. He did not go straight home from
the Krémlin, but called on his friend Obolénski, who was fifteen and was
also entering the regiment. On returning home Pétya announced resolutely
and firmly that if he was not allowed to enter the service he would
run away. And next day, Count Ilyá Rostóv—though he had not yet quite
yielded—went to inquire how he could arrange for Pétya to serve where
there would be least danger.
CHAPTER XXII
Two days later, on the fifteenth of July, an immense number of carriages
were standing outside the Slobóda Palace.
The great halls were full. In the first were the nobility and gentry in
their uniforms, in the second bearded merchants in full-skirted coats
of blue cloth and wearing medals. In the noblemen’s hall there was
an incessant movement and buzz of voices. The chief magnates sat on
high-backed chairs at a large table under the portrait of the Emperor,
but most of the gentry were strolling about the room.
All these nobles, whom Pierre met every day at the Club or in their own
houses, were in uniform—some in that of Catherine’s day, others in that
of Emperor Paul, others again in the new uniforms of Alexander’s time or
the ordinary uniform of the nobility, and the general characteristic
of being in uniform imparted something strange and fantastic to these
diverse and familiar personalities, both old and young. The old men,
dim-eyed, toothless, bald, sallow, and bloated, or gaunt and wrinkled,
were especially striking. For the most part they sat quietly in their
places and were silent, or, if they walked about and talked, attached
themselves to someone younger. On all these faces, as on the faces
of the crowd Pétya had seen in the Square, there was a striking
contradiction: the general expectation of a solemn event, and at the
same time the everyday interests in a boston card party, Peter the cook,
Zinaída Dmítrievna’s health, and so on.
Pierre was there too, buttoned up since early morning in a nobleman’s
uniform that had become too tight for him. He was agitated;
this extraordinary gathering not only of nobles but also of the
merchant-class—les états généraux (States-General)—evoked in him a whole
series of ideas he had long laid aside but which were deeply graven in
his soul: thoughts of the Contrat Social and the French Revolution. The
words that had struck him in the Emperor’s appeal—that the sovereign was
coming to the capital for consultation with his people—strengthened this
idea. And imagining that in this direction something important which
he had long awaited was drawing near, he strolled about watching and
listening to conversations, but nowhere finding any confirmation of the
ideas that occupied him.
The Emperor’s manifesto was read, evoking enthusiasm, and then all moved
about discussing it. Besides the ordinary topics of conversation, Pierre
heard questions of where the marshals of the nobility were to stand when
the Emperor entered, when a ball should be given in the Emperor’s
honor, whether they should group themselves by districts or by whole
provinces... and so on; but as soon as the war was touched on, or
what the nobility had been convened for, the talk became undecided and
indefinite. Then all preferred listening to speaking.
A middle-aged man, handsome and virile, in the uniform of a retired
naval officer, was speaking in one of the rooms, and a small crowd was
pressing round him. Pierre went up to the circle that had formed round
the speaker and listened. Count Ilyá Rostóv, in a military uniform of
Catherine’s time, was sauntering with a pleasant smile among the crowd,
with all of whom he was acquainted. He too approached that group and
listened with a kindly smile and nods of approval, as he always did,
to what the speaker was saying. The retired naval man was speaking very
boldly, as was evident from the expression on the faces of the listeners