War and Peace
expressing the thoughts that had suddenly occurred to him.
“A battle is won by those who firmly resolve to win it! Why did we lose
the battle at Austerlitz? The French losses were almost equal to ours,
but very early we said to ourselves that we were losing the battle,
and we did lose it. And we said so because we had nothing to fight for
there, we wanted to get away from the battlefield as soon as we could.
‘We’ve lost, so let us run,’ and we ran. If we had not said that till
the evening, heaven knows what might not have happened. But tomorrow we
shan’t say it! You talk about our position, the left flank weak and the
right flank too extended,” he went on. “That’s all nonsense, there’s
nothing of the kind. But what awaits us tomorrow? A hundred million most
diverse chances which will be decided on the instant by the fact that
our men or theirs run or do not run, and that this man or that man is
killed, but all that is being done at present is only play. The fact is
that those men with whom you have ridden round the position not only
do not help matters, but hinder. They are only concerned with their own
petty interests.”
“At such a moment?” said Pierre reproachfully.
“At such a moment!” Prince Andrew repeated. “To them it is only a moment
affording opportunities to undermine a rival and obtain an extra cross
or ribbon. For me tomorrow means this: a Russian army of a hundred
thousand and a French army of a hundred thousand have met to fight, and
the thing is that these two hundred thousand men will fight and the side
that fights more fiercely and spares itself least will win. And if you
like I will tell you that whatever happens and whatever muddles those at
the top may make, we shall win tomorrow’s battle. Tomorrow, happen what
may, we shall win!”
“There now, your excellency! That’s the truth, the real truth,” said
Timókhin. “Who would spare himself now? The soldiers in my battalion,
believe me, wouldn’t drink their vodka! ‘It’s not the day for that!’
they say.”
All were silent. The officers rose. Prince Andrew went out of the shed
with them, giving final orders to the adjutant. After they had gone
Pierre approached Prince Andrew and was about to start a conversation
when they heard the clatter of three horses’ hoofs on the road not far
from the shed, and looking in that direction Prince Andrew recognized
Wolzogen and Clausewitz accompanied by a Cossack. They rode close by
continuing to converse, and Prince Andrew involuntarily heard these
words:
“Der Krieg muss in Raum verlegt werden. Der Ansicht kann ich nicht genug
Preis geben,” * said one of them.
* “The war must be extended widely. I cannot sufficiently
commend that view.”
“Oh, ja,” said the other, “der Zweck ist nur den Feind zu schwächen,
so kann man gewiss nicht den Verlust der Privat-Personen in Achtung
nehmen.” *
* “Oh, yes, the only aim is to weaken the enemy, so of
course one cannot take into account the loss of private
individuals.”
“Oh, no,” agreed the other.
“Extend widely!” said Prince Andrew with an angry snort, when they had
ridden past. “In that ‘extend’ were my father, son, and sister, at Bald
Hills. That’s all the same to him! That’s what I was saying to you—those
German gentlemen won’t win the battle tomorrow but will only make all
the mess they can, because they have nothing in their German heads but
theories not worth an empty eggshell and haven’t in their hearts the one
thing needed tomorrow—that which Timókhin has. They have yielded up all
Europe to him, and have now come to teach us. Fine teachers!” and again
his voice grew shrill.
“So you think we shall win tomorrow’s battle?” asked Pierre.
“Yes, yes,” answered Prince Andrew absently. “One thing I would do if
I had the power,” he began again, “I would not take prisoners. Why take
prisoners? It’s chivalry! The French have destroyed my home and are on
their way to destroy Moscow, they have outraged and are outraging me
every moment. They are my enemies. In my opinion they are all criminals.
And so thinks Timókhin and the whole army. They should be executed!
Since they are my foes they cannot be my friends, whatever may have been
said at Tilsit.”
“Yes, yes,” muttered Pierre, looking with shining eyes at Prince Andrew.
“I quite agree with you!”
The question that had perturbed Pierre on the Mozháysk hill and all
that day now seemed to him quite clear and completely solved. He now
understood the whole meaning and importance of this war and of the
impending battle. All he had seen that day, all the significant and
stern expressions on the faces he had seen in passing, were lit up
for him by a new light. He understood that latent heat (as they say in
physics) of patriotism which was present in all these men he had seen,
and this explained to him why they all prepared for death calmly, and as
it were lightheartedly.
“Not take prisoners,” Prince Andrew continued: “That by itself would
quite change the whole war and make it less cruel. As it is we have
played at war—that’s what’s vile! We play at magnanimity and all that
stuff. Such magnanimity and sensibility are like the magnanimity and
sensibility of a lady who faints when she sees a calf being killed: she
is so kindhearted that she can’t look at blood, but enjoys eating the
calf served up with sauce. They talk to us of the rules of war, of
chivalry, of flags of truce, of mercy to the unfortunate and so on. It’s
all rubbish! I saw chivalry and flags of truce in 1805; they humbugged
us and we humbugged them. They plunder other people’s houses, issue
false paper money, and worst of all they kill my children and my
father, and then talk of rules of war and magnanimity to foes! Take no
prisoners, but kill and be killed! He who has come to this as I have
through the same sufferings...”
Prince Andrew, who had thought it was all the same to him whether or
not Moscow was taken as Smolénsk had been, was suddenly checked in his
speech by an unexpected cramp in his throat. He paced up and down a
few times in silence, but his eyes glittered feverishly and his lips
quivered as he began speaking.
“If there was none of this magnanimity in war, we should go to war only
when it was worth while going to certain death, as now. Then there would
not be war because Paul Ivánovich had offended Michael Ivánovich. And
when there was a war, like this one, it would be war! And then the
determination of the troops would be quite different. Then all these
Westphalians and Hessians whom Napoleon is leading would not follow
him into Russia, and we should not go to fight in Austria and Prussia
without knowing why. War is not courtesy but the most horrible thing in
life; and we ought to understand that and not play at war. We ought to
accept this terrible necessity sternly and seriously. It all lies in
that: get rid of falsehood and let war be war and not a game. As it is
now, war is the favorite pastime of the idle and frivolous. The military
calling is the most highly honored.
“But what is war? What is needed for success in warfare? What are the
habits of the military? The aim of war is murder; the methods of war
are spying, treachery, and their encouragement, the ruin of a country’s
inhabitants, robbing them or stealing to provision the army, and fraud
and falsehood termed military craft. The habits of the military class
are the absence of freedom, that is, discipline, idleness, ignorance,
cruelty, debauchery, and drunkenness. And in spite of all this it is the
highest class, respected by everyone. All the kings, except the Chinese,
wear military uniforms, and he who kills most people receives the
highest rewards.
“They meet, as we shall meet tomorrow, to murder one another; they kill
and maim tens of thousands, and then have thanksgiving services for
having killed so many people (they even exaggerate the number), and they
announce a victory, supposing that the more people they have killed
the greater their achievement. How does God above look at them and hear
them?” exclaimed Prince Andrew in a shrill, piercing voice. “Ah, my
friend, it has of late become hard for me to live. I see that I have
begun to understand too much. And it doesn’t do for man to taste of the
tree of knowledge of good and evil.... Ah, well, it’s not for long!” he
added.
“However, you’re sleepy, and it’s time for me to sleep. Go back to
Górki!” said Prince Andrew suddenly.
“Oh no!” Pierre replied, looking at Prince Andrew with frightened,
compassionate eyes.
“Go, go! Before a battle one must have one’s sleep out,” repeated Prince
Andrew.
He came quickly up to Pierre and embraced and kissed him. “Good-by, be
off!” he shouted. “Whether we meet again or not...” and turning away
hurriedly he entered the shed.
It was already dark, and Pierre could not make out whether the
expression of Prince Andrew’s face was angry or tender.
For some time he stood in silence considering whether he should follow
him or go away. “No, he does not want it!” Pierre concluded. “And I know
that this is our last meeting!” He sighed deeply and rode back to Górki.
On re-entering the shed Prince Andrew lay down on a rug, but he could
not sleep.
He closed his eyes. One picture succeeded another in his imagination. On
one of them he dwelt long and joyfully. He vividly recalled an evening
in Petersburg. Natásha with animated and excited face was telling him
how she had gone to look for mushrooms the previous summer and had lost
her way in the big forest. She incoherently described the depths of
the forest, her feelings, and a talk with a beekeeper she met, and
constantly interrupted her story to say: “No, I can’t! I’m not telling
it right; no, you don’t understand,” though he encouraged her by saying
that he did understand, and he really had understood all she wanted to
say. But Natásha was not satisfied with her own words: she felt that
they did not convey the passionately poetic feeling she had experienced
that day and wished to convey. “He was such a delightful old man, and
it was so dark in the forest... and he had such kind... No, I can’t
describe it,” she had said, flushed and excited. Prince Andrew smiled
now the same happy smile as then when he had looked into her eyes. “I
understood her,” he thought. “I not only understood her, but it was just
that inner, spiritual force, that sincerity, that frankness of soul—that
very soul of hers which seemed to be fettered by her body—it was that
soul I loved in her... loved so strongly and happily...” and suddenly
he remembered how his love had ended. “He did not need anything of that
kind. He neither saw nor understood anything of the sort. He only saw in
her a pretty and fresh young girl, with whom he did not deign to unite
his fate. And I?... and he is still alive and gay!”
Prince Andrew jumped up as if someone had burned him, and again began
pacing up and down in front of the shed.
CHAPTER XXVI
On August 25, the eve of the battle of Borodinó, M. de Beausset, prefect
of the French Emperor’s palace, arrived at Napoleon’s quarters at
Valúevo with Colonel Fabvier, the former from Paris and the latter from
Madrid.
Donning his court uniform, M. de Beausset ordered a box he had
brought for the Emperor to be carried before him and entered the first
compartment of Napoleon’s tent, where he began opening the box while
conversing with Napoleon’s aides-de-camp who surrounded him.
Fabvier, not entering the tent, remained at the entrance talking to some
generals of his acquaintance.
The Emperor Napoleon had not yet left his bedroom and was finishing his
toilet. Slightly snorting and grunting, he presented now his back and
now his plump hairy chest to the brush with which his valet was rubbing
him down. Another valet, with his finger over the mouth of a bottle,