War and Peace
tears, evidently wishing him to come near that he might say something to
him. But Pierre was not sufficiently sure of himself. He made as if he
did not notice that look and moved hastily away.
When the prisoners again went forward Pierre looked round. Karatáev
was still sitting at the side of the road under the birch tree and two
Frenchmen were talking over his head. Pierre did not look round again
but went limping up the hill.
From behind, where Karatáev had been sitting, came the sound of a shot.
Pierre heard it plainly, but at that moment he remembered that he
had not yet finished reckoning up how many stages still remained to
Smolénsk—a calculation he had begun before the marshal went by. And he
again started reckoning. Two French soldiers ran past Pierre, one of
whom carried a lowered and smoking gun. They both looked pale, and
in the expression on their faces—one of them glanced timidly at
Pierre—there was something resembling what he had seen on the face of
the young soldier at the execution. Pierre looked at the soldier and
remembered that, two days before, that man had burned his shirt while
drying it at the fire and how they had laughed at him.
Behind him, where Karatáev had been sitting, the dog began to howl.
“What a stupid beast! Why is it howling?” thought Pierre.
His comrades, the prisoner soldiers walking beside him, avoided looking
back at the place where the shot had been fired and the dog was howling,
just as Pierre did, but there was a set look on all their faces.
CHAPTER XV
The stores, the prisoners, and the marshal’s baggage train stopped at
the village of Shámshevo. The men crowded together round the campfires.
Pierre went up to the fire, ate some roast horseflesh, lay down with his
back to the fire, and immediately fell asleep. He again slept as he had
done at Mozháysk after the battle of Borodinó.
Again real events mingled with dreams and again someone, he or another,
gave expression to his thoughts, and even to the same thoughts that had
been expressed in his dream at Mozháysk.
“Life is everything. Life is God. Everything changes and moves and that
movement is God. And while there is life there is joy in consciousness
of the divine. To love life is to love God. Harder and more blessed
than all else is to love this life in one’s sufferings, in innocent
sufferings.”
“Karatáev!” came to Pierre’s mind.
And suddenly he saw vividly before him a long-forgotten, kindly old man
who had given him geography lessons in Switzerland. “Wait a bit,” said
the old man, and showed Pierre a globe. This globe was alive—a vibrating
ball without fixed dimensions. Its whole surface consisted of drops
closely pressed together, and all these drops moved and changed places,
sometimes several of them merging into one, sometimes one dividing
into many. Each drop tried to spread out and occupy as much space as
possible, but others striving to do the same compressed it, sometimes
destroyed it, and sometimes merged with it.
“That is life,” said the old teacher.
“How simple and clear it is,” thought Pierre. “How is it I did not know
it before?”
“God is in the midst, and each drop tries to expand so as to reflect
Him to the greatest extent. And it grows, merges, disappears from the
surface, sinks to the depths, and again emerges. There now, Karatáev
has spread out and disappeared. Do you understand, my child?” said the
teacher.
“Do you understand, damn you?” shouted a voice, and Pierre woke up.
He lifted himself and sat up. A Frenchman who had just pushed a Russian
soldier away was squatting by the fire, engaged in roasting a piece
of meat stuck on a ramrod. His sleeves were rolled up and his sinewy,
hairy, red hands with their short fingers deftly turned the ramrod. His
brown morose face with frowning brows was clearly visible by the glow of
the charcoal.
“It’s all the same to him,” he muttered, turning quickly to a soldier
who stood behind him. “Brigand! Get away!”
And twisting the ramrod he looked gloomily at Pierre, who turned
away and gazed into the darkness. A prisoner, the Russian soldier the
Frenchman had pushed away, was sitting near the fire patting something
with his hand. Looking more closely Pierre recognized the blue-gray dog,
sitting beside the soldier, wagging its tail.
“Ah, he’s come?” said Pierre. “And Plat—” he began, but did not finish.
Suddenly and simultaneously a crowd of memories awoke in his fancy—of
the look Platón had given him as he sat under the tree, of the shot
heard from that spot, of the dog’s howl, of the guilty faces of the two
Frenchmen as they ran past him, of the lowered and smoking gun, and of
Karatáev’s absence at this halt—and he was on the point of realizing
that Karatáev had been killed, but just at that instant, he knew not
why, the recollection came to his mind of a summer evening he had spent
with a beautiful Polish lady on the veranda of his house in Kiev. And
without linking up the events of the day or drawing a conclusion
from them, Pierre closed his eyes, seeing a vision of the country in
summertime mingled with memories of bathing and of the liquid, vibrating
globe, and he sank into water so that it closed over his head.
Before sunrise he was awakened by shouts and loud and rapid firing.
French soldiers were running past him.
“The Cossacks!” one of them shouted, and a moment later a crowd of
Russians surrounded Pierre.
For a long time he could not understand what was happening to him. All
around he heard his comrades sobbing with joy.
“Brothers! Dear fellows! Darlings!” old soldiers exclaimed, weeping, as
they embraced Cossacks and hussars.
The hussars and Cossacks crowded round the prisoners; one offered them
clothes, another boots, and a third bread. Pierre sobbed as he sat
among them and could not utter a word. He hugged the first soldier who
approached him, and kissed him, weeping.
Dólokhov stood at the gate of the ruined house, letting a crowd
of disarmed Frenchmen pass by. The French, excited by all that had
happened, were talking loudly among themselves, but as they passed
Dólokhov who gently switched his boots with his whip and watched them
with cold glassy eyes that boded no good, they became silent. On the
opposite side stood Dólokhov’s Cossack, counting the prisoners and
marking off each hundred with a chalk line on the gate.
“How many?” Dólokhov asked the Cossack.
“The second hundred,” replied the Cossack.
“Filez, filez!” * Dólokhov kept saying, having adopted this expression
from the French, and when his eyes met those of the prisoners they
flashed with a cruel light.
* “Get along, get along!”
Denísov, bareheaded and with a gloomy face, walked behind some Cossacks
who were carrying the body of Pétya Rostóv to a hole that had been dug
in the garden.
CHAPTER XVI
After the twenty-eighth of October when the frosts began, the flight of
the French assumed a still more tragic character, with men freezing,
or roasting themselves to death at the campfires, while carriages
with people dressed in furs continued to drive past, carrying away the
property that had been stolen by the Emperor, kings, and dukes; but
the process of the flight and disintegration of the French army went on
essentially as before.
From Moscow to Vyázma the French army of seventy-three thousand men not
reckoning the Guards (who did nothing during the whole war but pillage)
was reduced to thirty-six thousand, though not more than five thousand
had fallen in battle. From this beginning the succeeding terms of the
progression could be determined mathematically. The French army melted
away and perished at the same rate from Moscow to Vyázma, from Vyázma
to Smolénsk, from Smolénsk to the Berëzina, and from the Berëzina to
Vílna—independently of the greater or lesser intensity of the cold, the
pursuit, the barring of the way, or any other particular conditions.
Beyond Vyázma the French army instead of moving in three columns huddled
together into one mass, and so went on to the end. Berthier wrote to his
Emperor (we know how far commanding officers allow themselves to diverge
from the truth in describing the condition of an army) and this is what
he said:
I deem it my duty to report to Your Majesty the condition of the various
corps I have had occasion to observe during different stages of the last
two or three days’ march. They are almost disbanded. Scarcely a quarter
of the soldiers remain with the standards of their regiments, the others
go off by themselves in different directions hoping to find food and
escape discipline. In general they regard Smolénsk as the place where
they hope to recover. During the last few days many of the men have been
seen to throw away their cartridges and their arms. In such a state
of affairs, whatever your ultimate plans may be, the interest of Your
Majesty’s service demands that the army should be rallied at Smolénsk
and should first of all be freed from ineffectives, such as dismounted
cavalry, unnecessary baggage, and artillery material that is no longer
in proportion to the present forces. The soldiers, who are worn out with
hunger and fatigue, need these supplies as well as a few days’ rest.
Many have died these last days on the road or at the bivouacs. This
state of things is continually becoming worse and makes one fear that
unless a prompt remedy is applied the troops will no longer be under
control in case of an engagement.
November 9: twenty miles from Smolénsk.
After staggering into Smolénsk which seemed to them a promised land, the
French, searching for food, killed one another, sacked their own stores,
and when everything had been plundered fled farther.
They all went without knowing whither or why they were going. Still less
did that genius, Napoleon, know it, for no one issued any orders to
him. But still he and those about him retained their old habits: wrote
commands, letters, reports, and orders of the day; called one another
sire, mon cousin, prince d’Eckmühl, roi de Naples, and so on. But these
orders and reports were only on paper, nothing in them was acted upon
for they could not be carried out, and though they entitled one
another Majesties, Highnesses, or Cousins, they all felt that they were
miserable wretches who had done much evil for which they had now to
pay. And though they pretended to be concerned about the army, each
was thinking only of himself and of how to get away quickly and save
himself.
CHAPTER XVII
The movements of the Russian and French armies during the campaign
from Moscow back to the Niemen were like those in a game of Russian
blindman’s buff, in which two players are blindfolded and one of
them occasionally rings a little bell to inform the catcher of his
whereabouts. First he rings his bell fearlessly, but when he gets into
a tight place he runs away as quietly as he can, and often thinking to
escape runs straight into his opponent’s arms.
At first while they were still moving along the Kalúga road, Napoleon’s
armies made their presence known, but later when they reached the
Smolénsk road they ran holding the clapper of their bell tight—and often
thinking they were escaping ran right into the Russians.
Owing to the rapidity of the French flight and the Russian pursuit
and the consequent exhaustion of the horses, the chief means of
approximately ascertaining the enemy’s position—by cavalry scouting—was
not available. Besides, as a result of the frequent and rapid change of
position by each army, even what information was obtained could not be
delivered in time. If news was received one day that the enemy had been
in a certain position the day before, by the third day when something
could have been done, that army was already two days’ march farther on
and in quite another position.