War and Peace
“Yes, go and find out!” shouted the angry gentleman. “They’ve brought
things to such a pass that there are no carts or anything!... There it
is again, do you hear?” said he, pointing in the direction whence came
the sounds of firing.
“They’ve brought us all to ruin... the brigands!” he repeated, and
descended the porch steps.
Alpátych swayed his head and went upstairs. In the waiting room were
tradesmen, women, and officials, looking silently at one another. The
door of the Governor’s room opened and they all rose and moved forward.
An official ran out, said some words to a merchant, called a stout
official with a cross hanging on his neck to follow him, and vanished
again, evidently wishing to avoid the inquiring looks and questions
addressed to him. Alpátych moved forward and next time the official came
out addressed him, one hand placed in the breast of his buttoned coat,
and handed him two letters.
“To his Honor Baron Asch, from General-in-Chief Prince Bolkónski,” he
announced with such solemnity and significance that the official turned
to him and took the letters.
A few minutes later the Governor received Alpátych and hurriedly said to
him:
“Inform the prince and princess that I knew nothing: I acted on the
highest instructions—here...” and he handed a paper to Alpátych. “Still,
as the prince is unwell my advice is that they should go to Moscow. I am
just starting myself. Inform them...”
But the Governor did not finish: a dusty perspiring officer ran into the
room and began to say something in French. The Governor’s face expressed
terror.
“Go,” he said, nodding his head to Alpátych, and began questioning the
officer.
Eager, frightened, helpless glances were turned on Alpátych when he came
out of the Governor’s room. Involuntarily listening now to the firing,
which had drawn nearer and was increasing in strength, Alpátych hurried
to his inn. The paper handed to him by the Governor said this:
“I assure you that the town of Smolénsk is not in the slightest danger
as yet and it is unlikely that it will be threatened with any. I from
the one side and Prince Bagratión from the other are marching to unite
our forces before Smolénsk, which junction will be effected on the
22nd instant, and both armies with their united forces will defend our
compatriots of the province entrusted to your care till our efforts
shall have beaten back the enemies of our Fatherland, or till the last
warrior in our valiant ranks has perished. From this you will see that
you have a perfect right to reassure the inhabitants of Smolénsk, for
those defended by two such brave armies may feel assured of victory.”
(Instructions from Barclay de Tolly to Baron Asch, the civil governor of
Smolénsk, 1812.)
People were anxiously roaming about the streets.
Carts piled high with household utensils, chairs, and cupboards kept
emerging from the gates of the yards and moving along the streets.
Loaded carts stood at the house next to Ferapóntov’s and women were
wailing and lamenting as they said good-by. A small watchdog ran round
barking in front of the harnessed horses.
Alpátych entered the innyard at a quicker pace than usual and went
straight to the shed where his horses and trap were. The coachman was
asleep. He woke him up, told him to harness, and went into the passage.
From the host’s room came the sounds of a child crying, the despairing
sobs of a woman, and the hoarse angry shouting of Ferapóntov. The cook
began running hither and thither in the passage like a frightened hen,
just as Alpátych entered.
“He’s done her to death. Killed the mistress!... Beat her... dragged her
about so!...”
“What for?” asked Alpátych.
“She kept begging to go away. She’s a woman! ‘Take me away,’ says she,
‘don’t let me perish with my little children! Folks,’ she says, ‘are all
gone, so why,’ she says, ‘don’t we go?’ And he began beating and pulling
her about so!”
At these words Alpátych nodded as if in approval, and not wishing 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, burst through the door
at that moment and down the steps into the yard.
Ferapóntov came out after her, but on seeing Alpátych adjusted his
waistcoat, smoothed his hair, yawned, and followed Alpátych into the
opposite room.
“Going already?” said he.
Alpátych, without answering or looking at his host, sorted his packages
and asked how much he owed.
“We’ll reckon up! Well, have you been to the Governor’s?” asked
Ferapóntov. “What has been decided?”
Alpátych replied that the Governor had not told him anything definite.
“With our business, how can we get away?” said Ferapóntov. “We’d have
to pay seven rubles a cartload to Dorogobúzh and I tell them they’re
not Christians to ask it! Selivánov, now, did a good stroke last
Thursday—sold flour to the army at nine rubles a sack. Will you have
some tea?” he added.
While the horses were being harnessed Alpátych and Ferapóntov over their
tea talked of the price of corn, the crops, and the good weather for
harvesting.
“Well, it seems to be getting quieter,” remarked Ferapóntov, finishing
his third cup of tea and getting up. “Ours must have got the best of it.
The orders were not to let them in. So we’re in force, 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 collected his parcels, handed them to the coachman who had come
in, and settled up with the innkeeper. The noise of wheels, hoofs, and
bells was heard from the gateway as a little trap passed out.
It was by now late in the afternoon. Half the street was in shadow, the
other half brightly lit by the sun. Alpátych looked out of the window
and went to the door. Suddenly the strange sound of a far-off whistling
and thud was heard, followed by a boom of cannon blending into a dull
roar that set the windows rattling.
He went out into the street: two men were running past toward the
bridge. From different sides came whistling sounds and the thud of
cannon balls and bursting shells falling on the town. But these sounds
were hardly heard in comparison with the noise of the firing outside the
town and attracted little attention from the inhabitants. The town was
being bombarded by a hundred and thirty guns which Napoleon had ordered
up after four o’clock. The people did not at once realize the meaning of
this bombardment.
At first the noise of the falling bombs and shells only aroused
curiosity. Ferapóntov’s wife, who till then had not ceased wailing under
the shed, became quiet and with the baby in her arms went to the gate,
listening to the sounds and looking in silence at the people.
The cook and a shop assistant came to the gate. With lively curiosity
everyone tried to get a glimpse of the projectiles as they flew over
their heads. Several people came round the corner talking eagerly.
“What force!” remarked one. “Knocked the roof and ceiling all to
splinters!”
“Routed up the earth like a pig,” said another.
“That’s grand, it bucks one up!” laughed the first. “Lucky you jumped
aside, or it would have wiped you out!”
Others joined those men and stopped and told how cannon balls had fallen
on a house close to them. Meanwhile still more projectiles, now with
the swift sinister whistle of a cannon ball, now with the agreeable
intermittent whistle of a shell, flew over people’s heads incessantly,
but not one fell close by, they all flew over. Alpátych was getting into
his trap. The innkeeper stood at the gate.
“What are you staring at?” he shouted to the cook, who in her red skirt,
with sleeves rolled up, swinging her bare elbows, had stepped to the
corner to listen to what was being said.
“What marvels!” she exclaimed, but hearing her master’s voice she turned
back, pulling down her tucked-up skirt.
Once more something whistled, but this time quite close, swooping
downwards like a little bird; a flame flashed in the middle of the
street, something exploded, and the street was shrouded in 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
sides, the frightened baby began to cry, and people crowded silently
with pale faces round the cook. The loudest sound in that crowd was her
wailing.
“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 piteous moaning of the cook, which
rose above the other sounds, did not cease for a moment. The mistress
rocked and hushed her baby and when anyone came into the cellar asked
in a pathetic whisper what had become of her husband who had remained
in the street. A shopman who entered told her that her husband had
gone with others to the cathedral, whence they were fetching the
wonder-working icon of Smolénsk.
Toward dusk the cannonade began to subside. Alpátych left the cellar
and stopped in the doorway. The evening sky that had been so clear was
clouded with smoke, through which, high up, the sickle of the new moon
shone strangely. Now that the terrible din of the guns had ceased a hush
seemed to reign over the town, broken only by the rustle of footsteps,
the moaning, the distant cries, and the crackle of fires which seemed
widespread everywhere. The cook’s moans had now subsided. On two sides
black curling clouds of smoke rose and spread from the fires. Through
the streets soldiers in various uniforms walked or ran confusedly in
different directions like ants from a ruined ant-hill. Several of them
ran into Ferapóntov’s yard before Alpátych’s eyes. Alpátych went out
to the gate. A retreating regiment, thronging and hurrying, blocked the
street.
Noticing him, an officer said: “The town is being abandoned. Get away,
get away!” and then, turning to the soldiers, shouted:
“I’ll teach you to run into the yards!”
Alpátych went back to the house, called the coachman, and told him to
set off. Ferapóntov’s whole household came out too, following Alpátych
and the coachman. The women, who had been silent till then, suddenly
began to wail as they looked at the fires—the smoke and even the flames
of which could be seen in the failing twilight—and as if in reply the
same kind of lamentation was heard from other parts of the street.
Inside the shed Alpátych and the coachman arranged the tangled reins and
traces of their horses with trembling hands.
As Alpátych was driving out of the gate he saw some ten soldiers in
Ferapóntov’s open shop, talking loudly and filling their bags and
knapsacks with flour and sunflower seeds. Just then Ferapóntov returned
and entered his shop. On seeing the soldiers he was about to shout at
them, but suddenly stopped and, clutching at his hair, burst into sobs
and laughter:
“Loot everything, lads! Don’t let those devils get it!” he cried, taking
some bags of flour himself and throwing them into the street.
Some of the soldiers were frightened and ran away, others went on
filling their bags. On seeing Alpátych, Ferapóntov turned to him:
“Russia is done for!” he cried. “Alpátych, I’ll set the place on fire
myself. We’re done for!...” and Ferapóntov ran into the yard.
Soldiers were passing in a constant stream along the street blocking
it completely, so that Alpátych could not pass out and had to wait.