War and Peace
French did not harm them. Alpátych also knew that on the previous day
another peasant had even brought from the village of Visloúkhovo, which
was occupied by the French, a proclamation by a French general that no
harm would be done to the inhabitants, and if they remained they would
be paid for anything taken from them. As proof of this the peasant had
brought from Visloúkhovo a hundred rubles in notes (he did not know that
they were false) paid to him in advance for hay.
More important still, Alpátych learned that on the morning of the
very day he gave the village Elder orders to collect carts to move the
princess’ luggage from Boguchárovo, there had been a village meeting at
which it had been decided not to move but to wait. Yet there was no
time to waste. On the fifteenth, the day of the old prince’s death,
the Marshal had insisted on Princess Mary’s leaving at once, as it was
becoming dangerous. He had told her that after the sixteenth he could
not be responsible for what might happen. On the evening of the day the
old prince died the Marshal went away, promising to return next day for
the funeral. But this he was unable to do, for he received tidings that
the French had unexpectedly advanced, and had barely time to remove his
own family and valuables from his estate.
For some thirty years Boguchárovo had been managed by the village Elder,
Dron, whom the old prince called by the diminutive “Drónushka.”
Dron was one of those physically and mentally vigorous peasants who grow
big beards as soon as they are of age and go on unchanged till they
are sixty or seventy, without a gray hair or the loss of a tooth, as
straight and strong at sixty as at thirty.
Soon after the migration to the “warm rivers,” in which he had taken
part like the rest, Dron was made village Elder and overseer of
Boguchárovo, and had since filled that post irreproachably for
twenty-three years. The peasants feared him more than they did their
master. The masters, both the old prince and the young, and the steward
respected him and jestingly called him “the Minister.” During the
whole time of his service Dron had never been drunk or ill, never after
sleepless nights or the hardest tasks had he shown the least fatigue,
and though he could not read he had never forgotten a single money
account or the number of quarters of flour in any of the endless
cartloads he sold for the prince, nor a single shock of the whole corn
crop on any single acre of the Boguchárovo fields.
Alpátych, arriving from the devastated Bald Hills estate, sent for his
Dron on the day of the prince’s funeral and told him to have twelve
horses got ready for the princess’ carriages and eighteen carts for
the things to be removed from Boguchárovo. Though the peasants paid
quitrent, Alpátych thought no difficulty would be made about complying
with this order, for there were two hundred and thirty households at
work in Boguchárovo and the peasants were well to do. But on hearing the
order Dron lowered his eyes and remained silent. Alpátych named certain
peasants he knew, from whom he told him to take the carts.
Dron replied that the horses of these peasants were away carting.
Alpátych named others, but they too, according to Dron, had no horses
available: some horses were carting for the government, others were too
weak, and others had died for want of fodder. It seemed that no horses
could be had even for the carriages, much less for the carting.
Alpátych looked intently at Dron and frowned. Just as Dron was a model
village Elder, so Alpátych had not managed the prince’s estates for
twenty years in vain. He was a model steward, possessing in the highest
degree the faculty of divining the needs and instincts of those he dealt
with. Having glanced at Dron he at once understood that his answers did
not express his personal views but the general mood of the Boguchárovo
commune, by which the Elder had already been carried away. But he also
knew that Dron, who had acquired property and was hated by the commune,
must be hesitating between the two camps: the masters’ and the serfs’.
He noticed this hesitation in Dron’s look and therefore frowned and
moved closer up to him.
“Now just listen, Drónushka,” said he. “Don’t talk nonsense to me. His
excellency Prince Andrew himself gave me orders to move all the people
away and not leave them with the enemy, and there is an order from the
Tsar about it too. Anyone who stays is a traitor to the Tsar. Do you
hear?”
“I hear,” Dron answered without lifting his eyes.
Alpátych was not satisfied with this reply.
“Eh, Dron, it will turn out badly!” he said, shaking his head.
“The power is in your hands,” Dron rejoined sadly.
“Eh, Dron, drop it!” Alpátych repeated, withdrawing his hand from his
bosom and solemnly pointing to the floor at Dron’s feet. “I can see
through you and three yards into the ground under you,” he continued,
gazing at the floor in front of Dron.
Dron was disconcerted, glanced furtively at Alpátych and again lowered
his eyes.
“You drop this nonsense and tell the people to get ready to leave their
homes and go to Moscow and to get carts ready for tomorrow morning
for the princess’ things. And don’t go to any meeting yourself, do you
hear?”
Dron suddenly fell on his knees.
“Yákov Alpátych, discharge me! Take the keys from me and discharge me,
for Christ’s sake!”
“Stop that!” cried Alpátych sternly. “I see through you and three yards
under you,” he repeated, knowing that his skill in beekeeping, his
knowledge of the right time to sow the oats, and the fact that he had
been able to retain the old prince’s favor for twenty years had long
since gained him the reputation of being a wizard, and that the power of
seeing three yards under a man is considered an attribute of wizards.
Dron got up and was about to say something, but Alpátych interrupted
him.
“What is it you have got into your heads, eh?... What are you thinking
of, eh?”
“What am I to do with the people?” said Dron. “They’re quite beside
themselves; I have already told them...”
“‘Told them,’ I dare say!” said Alpátych. “Are they drinking?” he asked
abruptly.
“Quite beside themselves, Yákov Alpátych; they’ve fetched another
barrel.”
“Well, then, listen! I’ll go to the police officer, and you tell them
so, and that they must stop this and the carts must be got ready.”
“I understand.”
Alpátych did not insist further. He had managed people for a long time
and knew that the chief way to make them obey is to show no suspicion
that they can possibly disobey. Having wrung a submissive “I understand”
from Dron, Alpátych contented himself with that, though he not only
doubted but felt almost certain that without the help of troops the
carts would not be forthcoming.
And so it was, for when evening came no carts had been provided. In the
village, outside the drink shop, another meeting was being held, which
decided that the horses should be driven out into the woods and the
carts should not be provided. Without saying anything of this to the
princess, Alpátych had his own belongings taken out of the carts which
had arrived from Bald Hills and had those horses got ready for
the princess’ carriages. Meanwhile he went himself to the police
authorities.
CHAPTER X
After her father’s funeral Princess Mary shut herself up in her room and
did not admit anyone. A maid came to the door to say that Alpátych was
asking for orders about their departure. (This was before his talk with
Dron.) Princess Mary raised herself on the sofa on which she had been
lying and replied through the closed door that she did not mean to go
away and begged to be left in peace.
The windows of the room in which she was lying looked westward. She
lay on the sofa with her face to the wall, fingering the buttons of the
leather cushion and seeing nothing but that cushion, and her confused
thoughts were centered on one subject—the irrevocability of death and
her own spiritual baseness, which she had not suspected, but which had
shown itself during her father’s illness. She wished to pray but did not
dare to, dared not in her present state of mind address herself to God.
She lay for a long time in that position.
The sun had reached the other side of the house, and its slanting rays
shone into the open window, lighting up the room and part of the morocco
cushion at which Princess Mary was looking. The flow of her thoughts
suddenly stopped. Unconsciously she sat up, smoothed her hair, got up,
and went to the window, involuntarily inhaling the freshness of the
clear but windy evening.
“Yes, you can well enjoy the evening now! He is gone and no one will
hinder you,” she said to herself, and sinking into a chair she let her
head fall on the window sill.
Someone spoke her name in a soft and tender voice from the garden and
kissed her head. She looked up. It was Mademoiselle Bourienne in a black
dress and weepers. She softly approached Princess Mary, sighed, kissed
her, and immediately began to cry. The princess looked up at her. All
their former disharmony and her own jealousy recurred to her mind.
But she remembered too how he had changed of late toward Mademoiselle
Bourienne and could not bear to see her, thereby showing how unjust were
the reproaches Princess Mary had mentally addressed to her. “Besides,
is it for me, for me who desired his death, to condemn anyone?” she
thought.
Princess Mary vividly pictured to herself the position of Mademoiselle
Bourienne, whom she had of late kept at a distance, but who yet was
dependent on her and living in her house. She felt sorry for her
and held out her hand with a glance of gentle inquiry. Mademoiselle
Bourienne at once began crying again and kissed that hand, speaking of
the princess’ sorrow and making herself a partner in it. She said her
only consolation was the fact that the princess allowed her to share her
sorrow, that all the old misunderstandings should sink into nothing but
this great grief; that she felt herself blameless in regard to everyone,
and that he, from above, saw her affection and gratitude. The princess
heard her, not heeding her words but occasionally looking up at her and
listening to the sound of her voice.
“Your position is doubly terrible, dear princess,” said Mademoiselle
Bourienne after a pause. “I understand that you could not, and cannot,
think of yourself, but with my love for you I must do so.... Has
Alpátych been to you? Has he spoken to you of going away?” she asked.
Princess Mary did not answer. She did not understand who was to go or
where to. “Is it possible to plan or think of anything now? Is it not
all the same?” she thought, and did not reply.
“You know, chère Marie,” said Mademoiselle Bourienne, “that we are in
danger—are surrounded by the French. It would be dangerous to move now.
If we go we are almost sure to be taken prisoners, and God knows...”
Princess Mary looked at her companion without understanding what she was
talking about.
“Oh, if anyone knew how little anything matters to me now,” she said.
“Of course I would on no account wish to go away from him.... Alpátych
did say something about going.... Speak to him; I can do nothing,
nothing, and don’t want to....”
“I’ve spoken to him. He hopes we should be in time to get away tomorrow,
but I think it would now be better to stay here,” said Mademoiselle
Bourienne. “Because, you will agree, chère Marie, to fall into the hands
of the soldiers or of riotous peasants would be terrible.”
Mademoiselle Bourienne took from her reticule a proclamation (not
printed on ordinary Russian paper) of General Rameau’s, telling people
not to leave their homes and that the French authorities would afford
them proper protection. She handed this to the princess.