War and Peace
One need only admit that public tranquillity is in danger and any action
finds a justification.
All the horrors of the reign of terror were based only on solicitude for
public tranquillity.
On what, then, was Count Rostopchín’s fear for the tranquillity of
Moscow based in 1812? What reason was there for assuming any probability
of an uprising in the city? The inhabitants were leaving it and the
retreating troops were filling it. Why should that cause the masses to
riot?
Neither in Moscow nor anywhere in Russia did anything resembling an
insurrection ever occur when the enemy entered a town. More than
ten thousand people were still in Moscow on the first and second of
September, and except for a mob in the governor’s courtyard, assembled
there at his bidding, nothing happened. It is obvious that there would
have been even less reason to expect a disturbance among the people
if after the battle of Borodinó, when the surrender of Moscow became
certain or at least probable, Rostopchín instead of exciting the people
by distributing arms and broadsheets had taken steps to remove all
the holy relics, the gunpowder, munitions, and money, and had told the
population plainly that the town would be abandoned.
Rostopchín, though he had patriotic sentiments, was a sanguine and
impulsive man who had always moved in the highest administrative circles
and had no understanding at all of the people he supposed himself to
be guiding. Ever since the enemy’s entry into Smolénsk he had in
imagination been playing the role of director of the popular feeling
of “the heart of Russia.” Not only did it seem to him (as to all
administrators) that he controlled the external actions of Moscow’s
inhabitants, but he also thought he controlled their mental attitude by
means of his broadsheets and posters, written in a coarse tone which the
people despise in their own class and do not understand from those in
authority. Rostopchín was so pleased with the fine role of leader of
popular feeling, and had grown so used to it, that the necessity of
relinquishing that role and abandoning Moscow without any heroic display
took him unawares and he suddenly felt the ground slip away from under
his feet, so that he positively did not know what to do. Though he knew
it was coming, he did not till the last moment wholeheartedly believe
that Moscow would be abandoned, and did not prepare for it. The
inhabitants left against his wishes. If the government offices were
removed, this was only done on the demand of officials to whom the count
yielded reluctantly. He was absorbed in the role he had created
for himself. As is often the case with those gifted with an ardent
imagination, though he had long known that Moscow would be abandoned he
knew it only with his intellect, he did not believe it in his heart and
did not adapt himself mentally to this new position of affairs.
All his painstaking and energetic activity (in how far it was useful
and had any effect on the people is another question) had been simply
directed toward arousing in the masses his own feeling of patriotic
hatred of the French.
But when events assumed their true historical character, when expressing
hatred for the French in words proved insufficient, when it was not
even possible to express that hatred by fighting a battle, when
self-confidence was of no avail in relation to the one question before
Moscow, when the whole population streamed out of Moscow as one man,
abandoning their belongings and proving by that negative action all
the depth of their national feeling, then the role chosen by Rostopchín
suddenly appeared senseless. He unexpectedly felt himself ridiculous,
weak, and alone, with no ground to stand on.
When, awakened from his sleep, he received that cold, peremptory note
from Kutúzov, he felt the more irritated the more he felt himself
to blame. All that he had been specially put in charge of, the state
property which he should have removed, was still in Moscow and it was no
longer possible to take the whole of it away.
“Who is to blame for it? Who has let things come to such a pass?” he
ruminated. “Not I, of course. I had everything ready. I had Moscow
firmly in hand. And this is what they have let it come to! Villains!
Traitors!” he thought, without clearly defining who the villains and
traitors were, but feeling it necessary to hate those traitors whoever
they might be who were to blame for the false and ridiculous position in
which he found himself.
All that night Count Rostopchín issued orders, for which people came to
him from all parts of Moscow. Those about him had never seen the count
so morose and irritable.
“Your excellency, the Director of the Registrar’s Department has sent
for instructions.... From the Consistory, from the Senate, from the
University, from the Foundling Hospital, the Suffragan has sent...
asking for information.... What are your orders about the Fire Brigade?
From the governor of the prison... from the superintendent of the
lunatic asylum...” All night long such announcements were continually
being received by the count.
To all these inquiries he gave brief and angry replies indicating that
orders from him were not now needed, that the whole affair, carefully
prepared by him, had now been ruined by somebody, and that that somebody
would have to bear the whole responsibility for all that might happen.
“Oh, tell that blockhead,” he said in reply to the question from the
Registrar’s Department, “that he should remain to guard his documents.
Now why are you asking silly questions about the Fire Brigade? They have
horses, let them be off to Vladímir, and not leave them to the French.”
“Your excellency, the superintendent of the lunatic asylum has come:
what are your commands?”
“My commands? Let them go away, that’s all.... And let the lunatics
out into the town. When lunatics command our armies God evidently means
these other madmen to be free.”
In reply to an inquiry about the convicts in the prison, Count
Rostopchín shouted angrily at the governor:
“Do you expect me to give you two battalions—which we have not got—for a
convoy? Release them, that’s all about it!”
“Your excellency, there are some political prisoners, Meshkóv,
Vereshchágin...”
“Vereshchágin! Hasn’t he been hanged yet?” shouted Rostopchín. “Bring
him to me!”
CHAPTER XXV
Toward nine o’clock in the morning, when the troops were already moving
through Moscow, nobody came to the count any more for instructions.
Those who were able to get away were going of their own accord, those
who remained behind decided for themselves what they must do.
The count ordered his carriage that he might drive to Sokólniki, and sat
in his study with folded hands, morose, sallow, and taciturn.
In quiet and untroubled times it seems to every administrator that it
is only by his efforts that the whole population under his rule is
kept going, and in this consciousness of being indispensable every
administrator finds the chief reward of his labor and efforts. While the
sea of history remains calm the ruler-administrator in his frail bark,
holding on with a boat hook to the ship of the people and himself
moving, naturally imagines that his efforts move the ship he is holding
on to. But as soon as a storm arises and the sea begins to heave and
the ship to move, such a delusion is no longer possible. The ship moves
independently with its own enormous motion, the boat hook no longer
reaches the moving vessel, and suddenly the administrator, instead
of appearing a ruler and a source of power, becomes an insignificant,
useless, feeble man.
Rostopchín felt this, and it was this which exasperated him.
The superintendent of police, whom the crowd had stopped, went in to
see him at the same time as an adjutant who informed the count that the
horses were harnessed. They were both pale, and the superintendent of
police, after reporting that he had executed the instructions he had
received, informed the count that an immense crowd had collected in the
courtyard and wished to see him.
Without saying a word Rostopchín rose and walked hastily to his light,
luxurious drawing room, went to the balcony door, took hold of the
handle, let it go again, and went to the window from which he had a
better view of the whole crowd. The tall lad was standing in front,
flourishing his arm and saying something with a stern look. The
blood-stained smith stood beside him with a gloomy face. A drone of
voices was audible through the closed window.
“Is my carriage ready?” asked Rostopchín, stepping back from the window.
“It is, your excellency,” replied the adjutant.
Rostopchín went again to the balcony door.
“But what do they want?” he asked the superintendent of police.
“Your excellency, they say they have got ready, according to your
orders, to go against the French, and they shouted something about
treachery. But it is a turbulent crowd, your excellency—I hardly managed
to get away from it. Your excellency, I venture to suggest...”
“You may go. I don’t need you to tell me what to do!” exclaimed
Rostopchín angrily.
He stood by the balcony door looking at the crowd.
“This is what they have done with Russia! This is what they have done
with me!” thought he, full of an irrepressible fury that welled up
within him against the someone to whom what was happening might be
attributed. As often happens with passionate people, he was mastered by
anger but was still seeking an object on which to vent it. “Here is
that mob, the dregs of the people,” he thought as he gazed at the crowd:
“this rabble they have roused by their folly! They want a victim,”
he thought as he looked at the tall lad flourishing his arm. And this
thought occurred to him just because he himself desired a victim,
something on which to vent his rage.
“Is the carriage ready?” he asked again.
“Yes, your excellency. What are your orders about Vereshchágin? He is
waiting at the porch,” said the adjutant.
“Ah!” exclaimed Rostopchín, as if struck by an unexpected recollection.
And rapidly opening the door he went resolutely out onto the balcony.
The talking instantly ceased, hats and caps were doffed, and all eyes
were raised to the count.
“Good morning, lads!” said the count briskly and loudly. “Thank you for
coming. I’ll come out to you in a moment, but we must first settle
with the villain. We must punish the villain who has caused the ruin of
Moscow. Wait for me!”
And the count stepped as briskly back into the room and slammed the door
behind him.
A murmur of approbation and satisfaction ran through the crowd. “He’ll
settle with all the villains, you’ll see! And you said the French...
He’ll show you what law is!” the mob were saying as if reproving one
another for their lack of confidence.
A few minutes later an officer came hurriedly out of the front door,
gave an order, and the dragoons formed up in line. The crowd moved
eagerly from the balcony toward the porch. Rostopchín, coming out there
with quick angry steps, looked hastily around as if seeking someone.
“Where is he?” he inquired. And as he spoke he saw a young man coming
round the corner of the house between two dragoons. He had a long thin
neck, and his head, that had been half shaved, was again covered by
short hair. This young man was dressed in a threadbare blue cloth coat
lined with fox fur, that had once been smart, and dirty hempen convict
trousers, over which were pulled his thin, dirty, trodden-down boots.
On his thin, weak legs were heavy chains which hampered his irresolute
movements.
“Ah!” said Rostopchín, hurriedly turning away his eyes from the young
man in the fur-lined coat and pointing to the bottom step of the porch.
“Put him there.”