War and Peace
Michaud respectfully delivered the message Kutúzov had entrusted to him,
which was that it had been impossible to fight before Moscow, and that
as the only remaining choice was between losing the army as well as
Moscow, or losing Moscow alone, the field marshal had to choose the
latter.
The Emperor listened in silence, not looking at Michaud.
“Has the enemy entered the city?” he asked.
“Yes, sire, and Moscow is now in ashes. I left it all in flames,”
replied Michaud in a decided tone, but glancing at the Emperor he was
frightened by what he had done.
The Emperor began to breathe heavily and rapidly, his lower lip
trembled, and tears instantly appeared in his fine blue eyes.
But this lasted only a moment. He suddenly frowned, as if blaming
himself for his weakness, and raising his head addressed Michaud in a
firm voice:
“I see, Colonel, from all that is happening, that Providence requires
great sacrifices of us... I am ready to submit myself in all things to
His will; but tell me, Michaud, how did you leave the army when it
saw my ancient capital abandoned without a battle? Did you not notice
discouragement?...”
Seeing that his most gracious ruler was calm once more, Michaud also
grew calm, but was not immediately ready to reply to the Emperor’s
direct and relevant question which required a direct answer.
“Sire, will you allow me to speak frankly as befits a loyal soldier?” he
asked to gain time.
“Colonel, I always require it,” replied the Emperor. “Conceal nothing
from me, I wish to know absolutely how things are.”
“Sire!” said Michaud with a subtle, scarcely perceptible smile on his
lips, having now prepared a well-phrased reply, “sire, I left the
whole army, from its chiefs to the lowest soldier, without exception in
desperate and agonized terror...”
“How is that?” the Emperor interrupted him, frowning sternly. “Would
misfortune make my Russians lose heart?... Never!”
Michaud had only waited for this to bring out the phrase he had
prepared.
“Sire,” he said, with respectful playfulness, “they are only afraid lest
Your Majesty, in the goodness of your heart, should allow yourself to be
persuaded to make peace. They are burning for the combat,” declared this
representative of the Russian nation, “and to prove to Your Majesty by
the sacrifice of their lives how devoted they are....”
“Ah!” said the Emperor reassured, and with a kindly gleam in his eyes,
he patted Michaud on the shoulder. “You set me at ease, Colonel.”
He bent his head and was silent for some time.
“Well, then, go back to the army,” he said, drawing himself up to his
full height and addressing Michaud with a gracious and majestic gesture,
“and tell our brave men and all my good subjects wherever you go that
when I have not a soldier left I shall put myself at the head of my
beloved nobility and my good peasants and so use the last resources of
my empire. It still offers me more than my enemies suppose,” said the
Emperor growing more and more animated; “but should it ever be ordained
by Divine Providence,” he continued, raising to heaven his fine eyes
shining with emotion, “that my dynasty should cease to reign on the
throne of my ancestors, then after exhausting all the means at my
command, I shall let my beard grow to here” (he pointed halfway down his
chest) “and go and eat potatoes with the meanest of my peasants, rather
than sign the disgrace of my country and of my beloved people whose
sacrifices I know how to appreciate.”
Having uttered these words in an agitated voice the Emperor suddenly
turned away as if to hide from Michaud the tears that rose to his eyes,
and went to the further end of his study. Having stood there a few
moments, he strode back to Michaud and pressed his arm below the elbow
with a vigorous movement. The Emperor’s mild and handsome face was
flushed and his eyes gleamed with resolution and anger.
“Colonel Michaud, do not forget what I say to you here, perhaps we may
recall it with pleasure someday... Napoleon or I,” said the Emperor,
touching his breast. “We can no longer both reign together. I have
learned to know him, and he will not deceive me any more....”
And the Emperor paused, with a frown.
When he heard these words and saw the expression of firm resolution in
the Emperor’s eyes, Michaud—quoique étranger, russe de cœur et d’âme,—at
that solemn moment felt himself enraptured by all that he had heard (as
he used afterwards to say), and gave expression to his own feelings and
those of the Russian people whose representative he considered himself
to be, in the following words:
“Sire!” said he, “Your Majesty is at this moment signing the glory of
the nation and the salvation of Europe!”
With an inclination of the head the Emperor dismissed him.
CHAPTER IV
It is natural for us who were not living in those days to imagine that
when half Russia had been conquered and the inhabitants were fleeing to
distant provinces, and one levy after another was being raised for the
defense of the fatherland, all Russians from the greatest to the least
were solely engaged in sacrificing themselves, saving their fatherland,
or weeping over its downfall. The tales and descriptions of that time
without exception speak only of the self-sacrifice, patriotic devotion,
despair, grief, and the heroism of the Russians. But it was not really
so. It appears so to us because we see only the general historic
interest of that time and do not see all the personal human interests
that people had. Yet in reality those personal interests of the moment
so much transcend the general interests that they always prevent the
public interest from being felt or even noticed. Most of the people at
that time paid no attention to the general progress of events but were
guided only by their private interests, and they were the very people
whose activities at that period were most useful.
Those who tried to understand the general course of events and to take
part in it by self-sacrifice and heroism were the most useless members
of society, they saw everything upside down, and all they did for the
common good turned out to be useless and foolish—like Pierre’s and
Mamónov’s regiments which looted Russian villages, and the lint the
young ladies prepared and that never reached the wounded, and so on.
Even those, fond of intellectual talk and of expressing their feelings,
who discussed Russia’s position at the time involuntarily introduced
into their conversation either a shade of pretense and falsehood or
useless condemnation and anger directed against people accused of
actions no one could possibly be guilty of. In historic events the rule
forbidding us to eat of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge is specially
applicable. Only unconscious action bears fruit, and he who plays a part
in an historic event never understands its significance. If he tries to
realize it his efforts are fruitless.
The more closely a man was engaged in the events then taking place in
Russia the less did he realize their significance. In Petersburg and
in the provinces at a distance from Moscow, ladies, and gentlemen in
militia uniforms, wept for Russia and its ancient capital and talked of
self-sacrifice and so on; but in the army which retired beyond Moscow
there was little talk or thought of Moscow, and when they caught sight
of its burned ruins no one swore to be avenged on the French, but they
thought about their next pay, their next quarters, of Matrëshka the
vivandière, and like matters.
As the war had caught him in the service, Nicholas Rostóv took a close
and prolonged part in the defense of his country, but did so casually,
without any aim at self-sacrifice, and he therefore looked at what was
going on in Russia without despair and without dismally racking his
brains over it. Had he been asked what he thought of the state of
Russia, he would have said that it was not his business to think about
it, that Kutúzov and others were there for that purpose, but that he had
heard that the regiments were to be made up to their full strength, that
fighting would probably go on for a long time yet, and that things being
so it was quite likely he might be in command of a regiment in a couple
of years’ time.
As he looked at the matter in this way, he learned that he was being
sent to Vorónezh to buy remounts for his division, not only without
regret at being prevented from taking part in the coming battle, but
with the greatest pleasure—which he did not conceal and which his
comrades fully understood.
A few days before the battle of Borodinó, Nicholas received the
necessary money and warrants, and having sent some hussars on in
advance, he set out with post horses for Vorónezh.
Only a man who has experienced it—that is, has passed some months
continuously in an atmosphere of campaigning and war—can understand the
delight Nicholas felt when he escaped from the region covered by the
army’s foraging operations, provision trains, and hospitals. When—free
from soldiers, wagons, and the filthy traces of a camp—he saw villages
with peasants and peasant women, gentlemen’s country houses, fields
where cattle were grazing, posthouses with stationmasters asleep in
them, he rejoiced as though seeing all this for the first time. What for
a long while specially surprised and delighted him were the women, young
and healthy, without a dozen officers making up to each of them; women,
too, who were pleased and flattered that a passing officer should joke
with them.
In the highest spirits Nicholas arrived at night at a hotel in Vorónezh,
ordered things he had long been deprived of in camp, and next day, very
clean-shaven and in a full-dress uniform he had not worn for a long
time, went to present himself to the authorities.
The commander of the militia was a civilian general, an old man who was
evidently pleased with his military designation and rank. He received
Nicholas brusquely (imagining this to be characteristically military)
and questioned him with an important air, as if considering the general
progress of affairs and approving and disapproving with full right to do
so. Nicholas was in such good spirits that this merely amused him.
From the commander of the militia he drove to the governor. The governor
was a brisk little man, very simple and affable. He indicated the stud
farms at which Nicholas might procure horses, recommended to him a horse
dealer in the town and a landowner fourteen miles out of town who had
the best horses, and promised to assist him in every way.
“You are Count Ilyá Rostóv’s son? My wife was a great friend of your
mother’s. We are at home on Thursdays—today is Thursday, so please come
and see us quite informally,” said the governor, taking leave of him.
Immediately on leaving the governor’s, Nicholas hired post horses and,
taking his squadron quartermaster with him, drove at a gallop to the
landowner, fourteen miles away, who had the stud. Everything seemed to
him pleasant and easy during that first part of his stay in Vorónezh
and, as usually happens when a man is in a pleasant state of mind,
everything went well and easily.
The landowner to whom Nicholas went was a bachelor, an old cavalryman, a
horse fancier, a sportsman, the possessor of some century-old brandy
and some old Hungarian wine, who had a snuggery where he smoked, and who
owned some splendid horses.
In very few words Nicholas bought seventeen picked stallions for six
thousand rubles—to serve, as he said, as samples of his remounts. After
dining and taking rather too much of the Hungarian wine, Nicholas—having
exchanged kisses with the landowner, with whom he was already on the
friendliest terms—galloped back over abominable roads, in the brightest
frame of mind, continually urging on the driver so as to be in time for