War and Peace
Ferapóntov’s wife and children were also sitting in a cart waiting till
it was possible to drive out.
Night had come. There were stars in the sky and the new moon shone out
amid the smoke that screened it. On the sloping descent to the Dnieper
Alpátych’s cart and that of the innkeeper’s wife, which were slowly
moving amid the rows of soldiers and of other vehicles, had to stop.
In a side street near the crossroads where the vehicles had stopped, a
house and some shops were on fire. This fire was already burning itself
out. The flames now died down and were lost in the black smoke, now
suddenly flared up again brightly, lighting up with strange distinctness
the faces of the people crowding at the crossroads. Black figures
flitted about before the fire, and through the incessant crackling of
the flames talking and shouting could be heard. Seeing that his trap
would not be able to move on for some time, Alpátych got down and turned
into the side street to look at the fire. Soldiers were continually
rushing backwards and forwards near it, and he saw two of them and a
man in a frieze coat dragging burning beams into another yard across the
street, while others carried bundles of hay.
Alpátych went up to a large crowd standing before a high barn which was
blazing briskly. The walls were all on fire and the back wall had fallen
in, the wooden roof was collapsing, and the rafters were alight. The
crowd was evidently watching for the roof to fall in, and Alpátych
watched for it too.
“Alpátych!” a familiar voice suddenly hailed the old man.
“Mercy on us! Your excellency!” answered Alpátych, immediately
recognizing the voice of his young prince.
Prince Andrew in his riding cloak, mounted on a black horse, was looking
at Alpátych from the back of the crowd.
“Why are you here?” he asked.
“Your... your excellency,” stammered Alpátych and broke into sobs. “Are
we really lost? Master!...”
“Why are you here?” Prince Andrew repeated.
At that moment the flames flared up and showed his young master’s pale
worn face. Alpátych told how he had been sent there and how difficult it
was to get away.
“Are we really quite lost, your excellency?” he asked again.
Prince Andrew without replying took out a notebook and raising his knee
began writing in pencil on a page he tore out. He wrote to his sister:
“Smolénsk is being abandoned. Bald Hills will be occupied by the enemy
within a week. Set off immediately for Moscow. Let me know at once when
you will start. Send by special messenger to Usvyázh.”
Having written this and given the paper to Alpátych, he told him how
to arrange for departure of the prince, the princess, his son, and the
boy’s tutor, and how and where to let him know immediately. Before
he had had time to finish giving these instructions, a chief of staff
followed by a suite galloped up to him.
“You are a colonel?” shouted the chief of staff with a German accent,
in a voice familiar to Prince Andrew. “Houses are set on fire in your
presence and you stand by! What does this mean? You will answer for
it!” shouted Berg, who was now assistant to the chief of staff of the
commander of the left flank of the infantry of the first army, a place,
as Berg said, “very agreeable and well en évidence.”
Prince Andrew looked at him and without replying went on speaking to
Alpátych.
“So tell them that I shall await a reply till the tenth, and if by the
tenth I don’t receive news that they have all got away I shall have to
throw up everything and come myself to Bald Hills.”
“Prince,” said Berg, recognizing Prince Andrew, “I only spoke because
I have to obey orders, because I always do obey exactly.... You must
please excuse me,” he went on apologetically.
Something cracked in the flames. The fire died down for a moment and
wreaths of black smoke rolled from under the roof. There was another
terrible crash and something huge collapsed.
“Ou-rou-rou!” yelled the crowd, echoing the crash of the collapsing roof
of the barn, the burning grain in which diffused a cakelike aroma all
around. The flames flared up again, lighting the animated, delighted,
exhausted faces of the spectators.
The man in the frieze coat raised his arms and shouted:
“It’s fine, lads! Now it’s raging... It’s fine!”
“That’s the owner himself,” cried several voices.
“Well then,” continued Prince Andrew to Alpátych, “report to them as I
have told you”; and not replying a word to Berg who was now mute beside
him, he touched his horse and rode down the side street.
CHAPTER V
From Smolénsk the troops continued to retreat, followed by the enemy.
On the tenth of August the regiment Prince Andrew commanded was marching
along the highroad past the avenue leading to Bald Hills. Heat and
drought had continued for more than three weeks. Each day fleecy clouds
floated across the sky and occasionally veiled the sun, but toward
evening the sky cleared again and the sun set in reddish-brown mist.
Heavy night dews alone refreshed the earth. The unreaped corn was
scorched and shed its grain. The marshes dried up. The cattle lowed from
hunger, finding no food on the sun-parched meadows. Only at night and
in the forests while the dew lasted was there any freshness. But on the
road, the highroad along which the troops marched, there was no such
freshness even at night or when the road passed through the forest; the
dew was imperceptible on the sandy dust churned up more than six inches
deep. As soon as day dawned the march began. The artillery and baggage
wagons moved noiselessly through the deep dust that rose to the very
hubs of the wheels, and the infantry sank ankle-deep in that soft,
choking, hot dust that never cooled even at night. Some of this dust
was kneaded by the feet and wheels, while the rest rose and hung like a
cloud over the troops, settling in eyes, ears, hair, and nostrils, and
worst of all in the lungs of the men and beasts as they moved along that
road. The higher the sun rose the higher rose that cloud of dust, and
through the screen of its hot fine particles one could look with naked
eye at the sun, which showed like a huge crimson ball in the unclouded
sky. There was no wind, and the men choked in that motionless
atmosphere. They marched with handkerchiefs tied over their noses and
mouths. When they passed through a village they all rushed to the wells
and fought for the water and drank it down to the mud.
Prince Andrew was in command of a regiment, and the management of that
regiment, the welfare of the men and the necessity of receiving
and giving orders, engrossed him. The burning of Smolénsk and its
abandonment made an epoch in his life. A novel feeling of anger against
the foe made him forget his own sorrow. He was entirely devoted to the
affairs of his regiment and was considerate and kind to his men and
officers. In the regiment they called him “our prince,” were proud
of him and loved him. But he was kind and gentle only to those of his
regiment, to Timókhin and the like—people quite new to him, belonging
to a different world and who could not know and understand his past. As
soon as he came across a former acquaintance or anyone from the
staff, he bristled up immediately and grew spiteful, ironical, and
contemptuous. Everything that reminded him of his past was repugnant to
him, and so in his relations with that former circle he confined himself
to trying to do his duty and not to be unfair.
In truth everything presented itself in a dark and gloomy light to
Prince Andrew, especially after the abandonment of Smolénsk on the sixth
of August (he considered that it could and should have been defended)
and after his sick father had had to flee to Moscow, abandoning to
pillage his dearly beloved Bald Hills which he had built and peopled.
But despite this, thanks to his regiment, Prince Andrew had something to
think about entirely apart from general questions. Two days previously
he had received news that his father, son, and sister had left for
Moscow; and though there was nothing for him to do at Bald Hills, Prince
Andrew with a characteristic desire to foment his own grief decided that
he must ride there.
He ordered his horse to be saddled and, leaving his regiment on the
march, rode to his father’s estate where he had been born and spent his
childhood. Riding past the pond where there used always to be dozens
of women chattering as they rinsed their linen or beat it with wooden
beetles, Prince Andrew noticed that there was not a soul about and that
the little washing wharf, torn from its place and half submerged, was
floating on its side in the middle of the pond. He rode to the keeper’s
lodge. No one was at the stone entrance gates of the drive and the door
stood open. Grass had already begun to grow on the garden paths, and
horses and calves were straying in the English park. Prince Andrew rode
up to the hothouse; some of the glass panes were broken, and of the
trees in tubs some were overturned and others dried up. He called for
Tarás the gardener, but no one replied. Having gone round the corner
of the hothouse to the ornamental garden, he saw that the carved garden
fence was broken and branches of the plum trees had been torn off with
the fruit. An old peasant whom Prince Andrew in his childhood had often
seen at the gate was sitting on a green garden seat, plaiting a bast
shoe.
He was deaf and did not hear Prince Andrew ride up. He was sitting on
the seat the old prince used to like to sit on, and beside him strips of
bast were hanging on the broken and withered branch of a magnolia.
Prince Andrew rode up to the house. Several limes in the old garden had
been cut down and a piebald mare and her foal were wandering in front of
the house among the rosebushes. The shutters were all closed, except at
one window which was open. A little serf boy, seeing Prince Andrew, ran
into the house. Alpátych, having sent his family away, was alone at
Bald Hills and was sitting indoors reading the Lives of the Saints. On
hearing that Prince Andrew had come, he went out with his spectacles on
his nose, buttoning his coat, and, hastily stepping up, without a word
began weeping and kissing Prince Andrew’s knee.
Then, vexed at his own weakness, he turned away and began to report
on the position of affairs. Everything precious and valuable had been
removed to Boguchárovo. Seventy quarters of grain had also been carted
away. The hay and the spring corn, of which Alpátych said there had been
a remarkable crop that year, had been commandeered by the troops and
mown down while still green. The peasants were ruined; some of them too
had gone to Boguchárovo, only a few remained.
Without waiting to hear him out, Prince Andrew asked:
“When did my father and sister leave?” meaning when did they leave for
Moscow.
Alpátych, understanding the question to refer to their departure for
Boguchárovo, replied that they had left on the seventh and again went
into details concerning the estate management, asking for instructions.
“Am I to let the troops have the oats, and to take a receipt for them?
We have still six hundred quarters left,” he inquired.
“What am I to say to him?” thought Prince Andrew, looking down on the
old man’s bald head shining in the sun and seeing by the expression on
his face that the old man himself understood how untimely such questions
were and only asked them to allay his grief.
“Yes, let them have it,” replied Prince Andrew.
“If you noticed some disorder in the garden,” said Alpátych, “it was
impossible to prevent it. Three regiments have been here and spent
the night, dragoons mostly. I took down the name and rank of their
commanding officer, to hand in a complaint about it.”
“Well, and what are you going to do? Will you stay here if the enemy