Napoleon began the war with Russia because he could not resist going to Dresden, could not help having his head turned by the homage he received, could not help donning a Polish uniform and yielding to the stimulating influence of a June morning, and could not refrain from bursts of anger in the presence of Kurákin and then of General Baleshev.

The Tzar refused negotiations because he felt himself to be personally insulted. Barclay tried to command the army in the best way because he wished to fulfill his duty and earn fame as a great commander. Nicholas charged the French because he could not restrain his wish for a gallop across a level field; and in the same way, the innumerable people who took part in the war acted in accord with their personal characteristics, habits, circumstances, and aims. They were moved by fear or vanity, rejoiced or were indignant, reasoned, imagining that they knew what they were doing and did it of their own free will, but they all were involuntary tools of history, carrying on a work concealed from them but comprehensible to us. Such is the inevitable fate of men of action, and the higher they stand in the social hierarchy the less are they free.

The actors of 1812 have long since left the stage, their personal interests have vanished leaving no trace, and nothing remains of that time but its historic results.

Providence compelled all these men, striving to attain personal aims, to further the accomplishment of a stupendous result no one of them at all expected—neither Napoleon, nor the Tzar, nor still less any of those who did the actual fighting.

The cause of the destruction of the French army in 1812 is clear to us now. No one will deny that that cause was, on the one hand, its advance into the heart of Russia late in the season without any preparation for a winter campaign and, on the other, the character given to the war by the burning of Russian towns and the hatred of the foe this aroused among the Russian people. But no one at the time foresaw (what now seems so evident) that this was the only way an army of eight hundred thousand men—the best in the world and led by the best general—could be destroyed in the conflict with a raw army of half its numerical strength, and led by inexperienced commanders as the Russian army was. Not only did no one see this, but on the Russian side, every effort was made to hinder the only thing that could save Russia, while on the French side, despite Napoleon’s experience and so-called military genius, every effort was directed to push on to Moscow at the end of the summer, that is, to do the very thing that was bound to lead to destruction.

In historical works on the year 1812 French writers are very fond of saying that Napoleon felt the danger of extending his line, that he sought a battle and that his generals advised him to stop at Smolénsk, and of making similar statements to show that the danger of the campaign was even then understood. Russian authors are still fonder of telling us that from the commencement of the campaign a Scythian war plan was adopted to lure Napoleon into the depths of Russia, and this plan some of them attribute to General Pfuel, others to a certain Frenchman, others to Toll, and others again to The Tzar himself—pointing to notes, projects, and letters which contain hints of such a line of action. But all these hints at what happened, both from the French side and the Russian, are advanced only because they fit in with the event. Had that event not occurred these hints would have been forgotten, as we have forgotten the thousands and millions of hints and expectations to the contrary which were current then but have now been forgotten because the event falsified them. There are always so many conjectures as to the issue of any event that however it may end there will always be people to say: “I said then that it would be so,” quite forgetting that amid their innumerable conjectures many were to quite the contrary effect.

Conjectures as to Napoleon’s awareness of the danger of extending his line, and (on the Russian side) as to lure the enemy into the depths of Russia, are evidently of that kind, and only by much straining can historians attribute such conceptions to Napoleon and his generals, or such plans to the Russian commanders. All the facts are in flat contradiction to such conjectures. During the whole period of the war not only was there no wish on the Russian side to draw the French into the heart of the country but from their first entry into Russia, everything was done to stop them. And not only was Napoleon not afraid to extend his line, but he welcomed every step forward as a triumph and did not seek battle as eagerly as in former campaigns, but very lazily.

At the very beginning of the war, the Russian armies were divided, and our sole aim was to unite them, though uniting the armies was no advantage if we meant to retire and lure the enemy into the depths of the country. Our Tzar joined the army to encourage it to defend every inch of Russian soil and not to retreat. The enormous Drissa camp was formed on General Pfuel’s plan, and there was no intention of retiring further. The Tzar reproached the generals for every step they retreated. The Tzar could not bear the idea of letting the enemy even reach Smolénsk, still less could he contemplate the burning of Moscow, and when our armies did unite he was displeased that Smolénsk was abandoned and burned without an engagement having been fought under its walls.

So thought the Tzar, and the Russian commanders and people were still more provoked at the thought that our forces were retreating into the depths of the country.

Napoleon having cut our armies apart advanced far into the country and missed several chances of forcing an engagement. In August, Napoleon was at Smolénsk and thought only of how to advance farther, though as we now see that advance was evidently ruinous to him.

The facts clearly show that Napoleon did not foresee the danger of the advance on Moscow, nor did the Tzar and the Russian commanders then think of luring Napoleon on, but quite the contrary. The luring of Napoleon into the depths of the country was not the result of any plan, for no one believed it to be possible; it resulted from a most complex interplay of intrigues, aims, and wishes among those who took part in the war and had no perception whatever of the inevitable, or of the one way of saving Russia. Everything came about fortuitously. The armies were divided at the commencement of the campaign. We tried to unite them, with the evident intention of giving battle and checking the enemy’s advance, and by this effort to unite them while avoiding battle with a much stronger enemy, and necessarily withdrawing the armies at an acute angle—we led the French on to Smolénsk. But we withdrew at an acute angle not only because the French advanced between our two armies; the angle became still more acute and we withdrew still farther, because Marshal Barclay was an unpopular foreigner disliked by Major-General Bagration (who would come under his command), and Major-General Bagration—being in command of the second army—tried to postpone joining up and coming under Marshal Barclay’s command as long as he could. Major-General Bagration was slow in effecting the junction—though that was the chief aim of all at headquarters—because, as he alleged, he exposed his army to danger on this march, and it was best for him to retire more to the left and more to the south, worrying the enemy from flank and rear and securing from the Ukraine recruits for his army; and it looks as if he planned this in order not to come under the command of the detested foreigner Marshal Barclay, whose rank was inferior to his own.

The Tzar was with the army to encourage it, but his presence and ignorance of what steps to take, and the enormous number of advisers and plans, destroyed the first army’s energy and it retired.

The intention was to make a stand at the Drissa camp, but Paulucci, aiming at becoming the new Marshal, unexpectedly employed his energy to influence the Tzar, and General Pfuel’s whole plan was abandoned and the command entrusted to Marshal Barclay. But as Marshal Barclay did not inspire confidence his power was limited. The armies were divided, there was no unity of command, and Marshal Barclay was unpopular; but from this confusion, division, and the unpopularity of the foreign Marshal Barclay, there resulted on the one hand indecision and the avoidance of a battle (which we could not have refrained from had the armies been united and had someone else, instead of Marshal Barclay, been in command) and on the other, an ever-increasing indignation against the foreigners and an increase in patriotic zeal.

At last, the Tzar left the army, and as the most convenient and indeed the only pretext for his departure it was decided that it was necessary for him to inspire the people in the capitals and arouse the nation to a patriotic war. And by this visit of the Tzar to Moscow, the strength of the Russian army was trebled.

The Tzar left in order not to obstruct Marshal Barclay’s undivided control of the army and hoped that more decisive action would then be taken, but the command of the armies became still more confused and enfeebled. General Bennigsen and the Tzar’s son plus a swarm of adjutants general remained with the army to keep Marshal Barclay under observation and arouse his energy, and the Marshal, feeling less free than ever under the observation of all these “eyes of the Tzar,” became still more cautious of undertaking any decisive action and avoided giving battle.

Marshal Barclay stood for caution. The Tzar’s son hinted at treachery and demanded a general engagement. Lubomírski, Bronnítski, Wlocki, and the others of that group stirred up so much trouble that Marshal Barclay, under the pretext of sending papers to the Tzar, dispatched these Polish adjutants general to St. Petersburg and plunged into an open struggle with General Bennigsen and the Tzar’s son.

At Smolénsk the armies at last reunited, much as Major-General Bagration disliked it.

Major-General Bagration drove up in a carriage to the house occupied by Marshal Barclay. Barclay donned his sash and came out to meet and report to his senior officer Major-General Bagration.

Despite his seniority in rank Major-General Bagration, in this contest of magnanimity, took his orders from Marshal Barclay, but, having submitted, agreed with him less than ever. By the Tzar’s orders, Major-General Bagration reported directly to the Marshal. Major-General Bagration wrote to War Minister Arakchéev, the Tzar’s confidant: “It must be as my sovereign pleases, but I cannot work with the Minister (meaning Marshal Barclay). For God’s sake send me somewhere else if only in command of a regiment. I cannot stand it here. Headquarters are so full of Germans that a Russian cannot exist and there is no sense in anything. I thought I was really serving my sovereign and the Fatherland, but it turns out that I am serving Barclay. I confess I do not want to.”

The swarm of Bronnítskis and Wintzingerodes and their like still further embittered the relations between the commanders in chief, and even less unity resulted. Preparations were made to fight the French before Smolénsk. A general was sent to survey the position. This general, hating Marshal Barclay, rode to visit a friend of his own, a corps commander, and, having spent the day with him, returned to Barclay and condemned, as unsuitable from every point of view, the battleground he had not seen.

While disputes and intrigues were going on about the future field of battle, and while we were looking for the French—having lost touch with them—the French stumbled upon Nevérovski’s division and reached the walls of Smolénsk.

It was necessary to fight an unexpected battle at Smolénsk to save our lines of communication. The battle was fought and thousands were killed on both sides.

Smolénsk was abandoned contrary to the wishes of the Tzar and of the whole people. But Smolénsk was burned by its own inhabitants who had been misled by their governor. And these ruined inhabitants, setting an example to other Russians, went to Moscow thinking only of their own losses but kindling hatred of the foe. Napoleon advanced farther and we retired, thus arriving at the very result which caused his destruction.

The day after Andrei had left, Baron Bolkonski sent for Marya to come to his study.

“Well? Are you satisfied now?” said Baron Bolkonski. “You’ve made me quarrel with Andrei! Satisfied, are you? That’s all you wanted! Satisfied?... It hurts me, it hurts. I’m old and weak and this is what you wanted. Well then, gloat over it! Gloat over it!”

After that Marya did not see her father for a whole week. Baron Bolkonski was ill and did not leave his study.

Marya noticed to her surprise that during this illness Baron Bolkonski not only excluded her from his room but did not admit Lady-in-waiting Bourienne either. Butler Tikhon alone attended him.

At the end of the week, Baron Bolkonski reappeared and resumed his former way of life, devoting himself with special activity to building operations and the arrangement of the gardens and completely breaking off his relations with Lady-in-waiting Bourienne. His looks and cold tone to Marya seemed to say: “There, you see? You plotted against me, you lied to Andrei about my relations with Lady-in-waiting Bourienne and made me quarrel with him, but you see I need neither her nor you!”

Marya spent half of every day with Nikolenka, watching his lessons, teaching him Russian and music herself, and talking to the tutor Desalles; the rest of the day she spent over her books, with her old nurse, or with “God’s folk” who sometimes came by the back door to see her.

Of the war, Marya thought as women do think about wars. She feared for Andrei who was in it, and was horrified by and amazed at the strange cruelty that impels men to kill one another, but she did not understand the significance of this war, which seemed to her like all previous wars. Marya did not realize the significance of this war, though the tutor Desalles with whom she constantly conversed was passionately interested in its progress and tried to explain his own conception of it to her, and though the “God’s folk” who came to see her reported, in their own way, the rumors current among the people of an invasion by Antichrist, and though Julie (now married to Boris), who had resumed correspondence with her, wrote patriotic letters from Moscow.

“I write you in Russian, my good friend,” wrote Julie in her Frenchified Russian, “because I have a detestation for all the French, and the same for their language which I cannot support to hear spoken... We in Moscow are elated by enthusiasm for our adored Tzar.

“My poor husband, Boris, is enduring pains and hunger in Jewish taverns, but the news which I have inspires me yet more.

“You heard probably of the heroic exploit of Raévski, embracing his two sons and saying: ‘I will perish with them but we will not be shaken!’ And truly though the enemy was twice stronger as we, we were unshakable. We pass the time as we can, but in war as in war! My sisters Aline and Sophie sit whole days with me, and we, unhappy widows of live men, make beautiful conversations over our making surgical dressings with lint, only you, my friend, are missing...” and so on.

The chief reason Marya did not realize the full significance of this war was that Baron Bolkonski never spoke of it, did not recognize it and laughed at the tutor Desalles when he mentioned it at dinner. Baron Bolkonski’s tone was so calm and confident that Marya unhesitatingly believed him.

All that July, Baron Bolkonski was exceedingly active and even animated. He planned another garden and began a new building for the domestic serfs. The only thing that made Marya anxious about him was that he slept very little and, instead of sleeping in his study, as usual, changed his sleeping place every day. One day Baron Bolkonski would order his camp bed to be set up in the glass gallery, another day he remained on the couch or on the lounge chair in the drawing room and dozed there without undressing, while—instead of Lady-in-waiting Bourienne—a serf boy read to him. Then again he would spend a night in the dining room.

On August 1, a second letter was received from Andrei. In his first letter which came soon after Andrei had left home, he had dutifully asked Baron Bolkonski’s forgiveness for what he had allowed himself to say and begged to be restored to his favor. To this letter, Baron Bolkonski had replied affectionately, and from that time had kept the Frenchwoman at a distance. Andrei’s second letter, written near Vítebsk after the French had occupied that town, gave a brief account of the whole campaign, enclosed for them a plan he had drawn and forecasts as to the further progress of the war. In this letter, Andrei pointed out to his father the danger of staying at Bald Hills, so near the theater of war and on the army’s direct line of march, and advised him to move to Moscow.

At dinner that day, on the tutor Desalles’ mentioning that the French were said to have already entered Vítebsk, Baron Bolkonski remembered Andrei’s letter.

“There was a letter from Andrei today,” Baron Bolkonski said to Marya—“Haven’t you read it?”

“No, Father,” she replied in a frightened voice.

Marya could not have read the letter as she did not even know it had arrived.

“He writes about this war,” said Baron Bolkonski, with the ironic smile that had become habitual to him in speaking of the present war.

“That must be very interesting,” said the tutor Desalles. “Andrei is in a position to know...”

“Oh, very interesting!” said Lady-in-waiting Bourienne.

“Go and get it for me,” said Baron Bolkonski to Lady-in-waiting Bourienne. “You know—under the paperweight on the little table.”

Lady-in-waiting Bourienne jumped up eagerly.

“No, don’t!” Baron Bolkonski exclaimed with a frown. “You go, Michael Ivanovich.”

The architect Michael Ivanovich rose and went to the study. But as soon as he had left the room Baron Bolkonski, looking uneasily round, threw down his napkin and went himself.

“They can’t do anything... always make some muddle,” Baron Bolkonski muttered.

While he was away Marya, the tutor Desalles, Lady-in-waiting Bourienne, and even Nikolenka exchanged looks in silence. Baron Bolkonski returned with quick steps, accompanied by the architect Michael Ivanovich, bringing the letter and a plan. These he put down beside him—not letting anyone read them at dinner.

On moving to the drawing room he handed the letter to Marya and, spreading out before him the plan of the new building and fixing his eyes upon it, told her to read the letter aloud. When she had done so Marya looked inquiringly at her father. He was examining the plan, evidently engrossed in his own ideas.

“What do you think of it, Baron Bolkonski?” the tutor Desalles ventured to ask.

“I? I?...” said Baron Bolkonski as if unpleasantly awakened, and not taking his eyes from the plan of the building.

“Very possibly the theater of war will move so near to us that...”

“Ha ha ha! The theater of war!” said Baron Bolkonski. “I have said and still say that the theater of war is Poland and the enemy will never get beyond the Niemen.”

The tutor Desalles looked in amazement at Baron Bolkonski, who was talking of the Niemen when the enemy was already at the Dnieper, but Marya, forgetting the geographical position of the Niemen, thought that what her father was saying was correct.

“When the snow melts they’ll sink in the Polish swamps. Only they could fail to see it,” Baron Bolkonski continued, evidently thinking of the campaign of 1807 which seemed to him so recent. “General Bennigsen should have advanced into Prussia sooner, then things would have taken a different turn...”

“But, Baron Bolkonski,” The tutor Desalles began timidly, “the letter mentions Vítebsk...”

“Ah, the letter? Yes...” replied Baron Bolkonski peevishly. “Yes... yes...” His face suddenly took on a morose expression. He paused. “Yes, he writes that the French were beaten at... at... what river is it?”

The tutor Desalles dropped his eyes.

“Andrei says nothing about that,” he remarked gently.

“Andrei doesn’t say that? But I didn’t invent it myself.”

No one spoke for a long time.

“Yes... yes... Well, Michael Ivanovich,” Baron Bolkonski suddenly went on, raising his head and pointing to the plan of the building, “tell me how you mean to alter it...”

The architect Michael Ivanovich went up to the plan, and Baron Bolkonski after speaking to him about the building looked angrily at Marya and the tutor Desalles and went to his own room.

Marya saw the tutor Desalles’ embarrassed and astonished look fixed on Baron Bolkonski, noticed his silence, and was struck by the fact that her father had forgotten Andrei’s letter on the drawing-room table; but Marya was not only afraid to speak of it and ask the tutor Desalles the reason of his confusion and silence but was afraid even to think about it.

In the evening, the architect Michael Ivanovich, sent by Baron Bolkonski, came to Marya for Andrei’s letter which had been forgotten in the drawing room. She gave it to him and, unpleasant as it was to her to do so, ventured to ask him what Baron Bolkonski was doing.

“Always busy,” replied the architect Michael Ivanovich with a respectfully ironic smile which caused Marya to turn pale. “He’s worrying very much about the new building. He has been reading a little, but now”—Michael Ivanovich went on, lowering his voice—“now he’s at his desk, busy with his will, I expect.” (One of Baron Bolkonski’s favorite occupations of late had been the preparation of some papers he meant to leave at his death and which he called his “will.”)

“And Overseer Alpatych is being sent to Smolénsk?” asked Marya.

“Oh, yes, he has been waiting to start for some time.”

When the architect Michael Ivanovich returned to the study with the letter, Baron Bolkonski, with spectacles on and a shade over his eyes, was sitting at his open bureau with screened candles, holding a paper in his outstretched hand, and in a somewhat dramatic attitude was reading his manuscript—his “Remarks” as he termed it—which was to be transmitted to the Tzar after his death.

When Michael Ivanovich went in there were tears in Baron Bolkonski’s eyes evoked by the memory of the time when the paper he was now reading had been written. He took the letter from Michael Ivanovich’s hand, put it in his pocket, folded up his papers, and called in Overseer Alpatych who had long been waiting.

Baron Bolkonski had a list of things to be bought in Smolénsk and, walking up and down the room past Overseer Alpatych who stood by the door, he gave his instructions.

“First, notepaper—do you hear? Eight quires, like this sample, gilt-edged... it must be exactly like the sample. Varnish, sealing wax, as in Michael Ivanovich’s list.”

Baron Bolkonski paced up and down for a while and glanced at his notes.

“Then hand to the governor in person a letter about the deed.”

Next, bolts for the doors of the new building were wanted and had to be of a special shape the Baron had himself designed, and a leather case had to be ordered to keep the “will” in.

The instructions to Overseer Alpatych took over two hours and still Baron Bolkonski did not let him go. He sat down, sank into thought, closed his eyes, and dozed off. Overseer Alpatych made a slight movement.

“Well, go, go! If anything more is wanted I’ll send after you.”

Overseer Alpatych went out. Baron Bolkonski again went to his bureau, glanced into it, fingered his papers, closed the bureau again, and sat down at the table to write to the governor.

It was already late when he rose after sealing the letter. Baron Bolkonski wished to sleep, but he knew he would not be able to and that most depressing thoughts came to him in bed. So he called Butler Tikhon and went through the rooms with him to show him where to set up the bed for that night.

Baron Bolkonski went about looking at every corner. Every place seemed unsatisfactory, but worst of all was his customary couch in the study. That couch was dreadful to him, probably because of the oppressive thoughts he had had when lying there. It was unsatisfactory everywhere, but the corner behind the piano in the sitting room was better than other places: he had never slept there yet.

With the help of a footman, Butler Tikhon brought in the bedstead and began putting it up.

“That’s not right! That’s not right!” cried Baron Bolkonski, and himself pushed it a few inches from the corner and then closer in again.

“Well, at last, I’ve finished, now I’ll rest,” thought Baron Bolkonski, and let Butler Tikhon undress him.

Frowning with vexation at the effort necessary to divest himself of his coat and trousers, Baron Bolkonski undressed, sat down heavily on the bed, and appeared to be meditating as he looked contemptuously at his withered yellow legs. He was not meditating, but only deferring the moment of making the effort to lift those legs up and turn over on the bed. “Ugh, how hard it is! Oh, that this toil might end and you would release me!” thought he. Pressing his lips together he made that effort for the twenty-thousandth time and lay down. But hardly had Baron Bolkonski done so before he felt the bed rocking backward and forwards beneath him as if it were breathing heavily and jolting. This happened to him almost every night. He opened his eyes as they were closing.

“No peace, damn them!” Baron Bolkonski muttered, angry he knew not with whom. “Ah yes, there was something else important, very important, that I was keeping till I should be in bed. The bolts? No, I told him about them. No, it was something, something in the drawing room. Marya talked some nonsense. The tutor Desalles, that fool, said something. Something in my pocket—can’t remember...”

“Butler Tikhon, what did we talk about at dinner?”

“About Baron Michael...”

“Be quiet, quiet!” Baron Bolkonski slapped his hand on the table. “Yes, I know, Andrei’s letter! Marya read it. The tutor Desalles said something about Vítebsk. Now I’ll read it.”

Baron Bolkonski had the letter taken from his pocket and the table—on which stood a glass of lemonade and a spiral wax candle—moved close to the bed, and putting on his spectacles he began reading. Only now in the stillness of the night, reading it by the faint light under the green shade, did he grasp its meaning for a moment.

“The French at Vítebsk, in four days’ march they may be at Smolénsk; perhaps are already there! Butler Tikhon!” Butler Tikhon jumped up. “No, no, I don’t want anything!” Baron Bolkonski shouted.

Baron Bolkonski put the letter under the candlestick and closed his eyes. And there rose before him the Danube at bright noonday: reeds, the Russian camp, and himself a young general without a wrinkle on his ruddy face, vigorous and alert, entering Potëmkin’s gaily colored tent, and a burning sense of jealousy of “the favorite” agitated him now as strongly as it had done then. Baron Bolkonski recalled all the words spoken at that first meeting with Potëmkin. And he saw before him a plump, rather sallow-faced, short, stout woman, the Mother of the Tzar, with her smile and her words at her first gracious reception of him, and then that same face on the catafalque, and the encounter he had with Zúbov over her coffin about his right to kiss her hand.

“Oh, quicker, quicker! To get back to that time and have done with all the present! Quicker, quicker—and that they should leave me in peace!”

Bald Hills, Baron Bolkonski’s estate, lay forty miles east of Smolénsk and two miles from the main road to Moscow.

The same evening that Baron Bolkonski gave his instructions to Overseer Alpatych, the tutor Desalles, having asked to see Marya, told her that, as the Baron was not very well and was taking no steps to secure his safety, though from Andrei’s letter it was evident that to remain at Bald Hills might be dangerous, he respectfully advised her to send a letter by Overseer Alpatych to the Provincial Governor at Smolénsk, asking him to let her know the state of affairs and the extent of the danger to which Bald Hills was exposed. The tutor Desalles wrote this letter to the Governor for Marya, she signed it, and it was given to Overseer Alpatych with instructions to hand it to the Governor and to come back as quickly as possible if there was danger.

Having received all his orders Overseer Alpatych, wearing a white beaver hat—a present from the Baron—and carrying a stick as the Baron did, went out accompanied by his family. Three well-fed roans stood ready harnessed to a small conveyance with a leather hood.

The larger bell was muffled and the little bells on the harness were stuffed with paper. Baron Bolkonski allowed no one at Bald Hills to drive with ringing bells, but on a long journey, Overseer Alpatych liked to have them. His satellites—the senior clerk, a countinghouse clerk, a scullery maid, a cook, two old women, a little pageboy, the coachman, and various domestic serfs—were seeing him off.

Overseer Alpatych’s daughter placed chintz-covered down cushions for him to sit on and behind his back. His old sister-in-law popped in a small bundle, and one of the coachmen helped him into the vehicle.

“There! There! Women’s fuss! Women, women!” said Overseer Alpatych, puffing and speaking rapidly just as the Baron did, and he climbed into the carriage.

After giving the clerk orders about the work to be done, Overseer Alpatych, not trying to imitate the Baron now, lifted the hat from his bald head and crossed himself three times.

“If there is anything... come back, Overseer Alpatych! For Christ’s sake think of us!” cried his wife, referring to the rumors of war and the enemy.

“Women, women! Women’s fuss!” muttered Overseer Alpatych to himself and started on his journey, looking round at the fields of yellow rye and the still-green, thickly growing oats, and at other quite black fields just being plowed a second time.

As Overseer Alpatych went along he looked with pleasure at the year’s splendid crop of corn, scrutinized the strips of a field of rye which here and there were already being reaped, made his calculations as to the sowing and the harvest, and asked himself whether he had not forgotten any of Baron Bolkonski’s orders.

Having baited the horses twice on the way, he arrived at the town toward evening on the fourth of August.

Overseer Alpatych kept meeting and overtaking baggage trains and troops on the road. As he approached Smolénsk he heard the sounds of distant firing, but these did not impress him. What struck him most was the sight of a splendid field of oats in which a camp had been pitched and which was being mown down by the soldiers, evidently for fodder. This fact impressed Overseer Alpatych, but in thinking about his own business he soon forgot it.

All the interests of his life for more than thirty years had been bounded by the will of Baron Bolkonski, and he never went beyond that limit. Everything not connected with the execution of Baron Bolkonski’s orders did not interest and did not even exist for Overseer Alpatych.

On reaching Smolénsk on the evening of the fourth of August he put up in the Gáchina suburb across the Dnieper, at the inn kept by Innkeeper Ferapontov, where he had been in the habit of putting up for the last thirty years. Some thirty years ago Ferapontov, by Overseer Alpatych’s advice, had bought a plank of wood from Baron Bolkonski, had begun to trade, and now had a house, an inn, and a corn dealer’s shop in that province. Innkeeper Ferapontov was a stout, dark, red-faced peasant in his forties, with thick lips, a broad knob of a nose, similar knobs over his black frowning brows, and a round belly.

Wearing a waistcoat over his cotton shirt, Innkeeper Ferapontov was standing before his shop which opened onto the street. On seeing Overseer Alpatych, he went up to him.

“You are welcome here, Overseer Alpatych. Folks are leaving the town, but you have come to it,” said Innkeeper Ferapontov.

“Why are they leaving the town?” asked Overseer Alpatych.

“That’s what I say. Folks are foolish! Always afraid of the French.”

“Women’s fuss, women’s fuss!” said Overseer Alpatych.

“Just what I think. What I say is: orders have been given not to let them in, so that must be right. And the peasants are asking three rubles for carting—it isn’t Christian!”

Overseer Alpatych heard without heeding. He asked for a samovar and for hay for his horses, and when he had had his tea he went to bed.

All night long troops were moving past the inn. The next morning, Overseer Alpatych donned a jacket he wore only in town and went out on business. It was a sunny morning and by eight o’clock it was already hot. “A good day for harvesting,” thought Overseer Alpatych.

From beyond the town, gunfire had been heard since early morning. At eight o’clock the booming of cannon was added to the sound of musketry. Many people were hurrying through the streets and there were many soldiers, but cabs were still driving about, tradesmen stood at their shops, and service was being held in the churches as usual. Overseer Alpatych went to the shops, to government offices, to the post office, and to the Governor’s residence. In the offices and shops and at the post office everyone was talking about the army and about the enemy who was already attacking the town, everybody was asking what should be done, and all were trying to calm one another.

In front of the Governor’s house, Overseer Alpatych found a large number of people, Cossacks, and a traveling carriage of the Governor’s. At the porch, he met two of the landed gentry, one of whom he knew. This man, an ex-captain of police, was saying angrily:

“It’s no joke, you know! It’s all very well if you’re single. ‘One man though undone is but one,’ as the proverb says, but with thirteen in your family and all the property... They’ve brought us to utter ruin! What sort of governors are they to do that? They ought to be hanged—the brigands!...”

“Oh come, that’s enough!” said the other.

“What do I care? Let him hear! We’re not dogs,” said the ex-captain of police, and looking around he noticed Overseer Alpatych.

“Oh, Overseer Alpatych! What have you come for?”

“To see the Governor by Baron Bolkonski’s order,” answered Overseer Alpatych, lifting his head and proudly thrusting his hand into the bosom of his coat as he always did when he mentioned Baron Bolkonski. “Baron Bolkonski has ordered me to inquire into the position of affairs,” he added.

“Yes, go and find out!” shouted the angry gentleman. “They’ve brought things to such a pass that there are no carts or anything!... There it is again, do you hear?” said he, pointing in the direction whence came the sounds of firing.

“They’ve brought us all to ruin... the brigands!” he repeated, and descended the porch steps.

Overseer Alpatych swayed his head and went upstairs. In the waiting room were tradesmen, women, and officials, looking silently at one another. The door of the Governor’s room opened and they all rose and moved forward. An official ran out, said some words to a merchant, called a stout official with a cross hanging on his neck to follow him, and vanished again, evidently wishing to avoid the inquiring looks and questions addressed to him. Overseer Alpatych moved forward and the next time the official came out addressed him, one hand placed in the breast of his buttoned coat, and handed him two letters.

“To Baron Asch, from Baron Bolkonski,” he announced with such solemnity and significance that the official turned to him and took the letters.

A few minutes later the Governor received Overseer Alpatych and hurriedly said to him:

“Inform Baron Bolkonski and Marya that I knew nothing: I acted on the highest instructions—here...” and the Governor handed a paper to Overseer Alpatych. “Still, as Baron Bolkonski is unwell my advice is that they should go to Moscow. I am just starting myself. Inform them...”

But the Governor did not finish: a dusty perspiring officer ran into the room and began to say something in French. The Governor’s face expressed terror.

“Go,” the Governor said, nodding his head to Overseer Alpatych, and began questioning the officer.

Eager, frightened, helpless glances were turned on Overseer Alpatych when he came out of the Governor’s room. Involuntarily listening now to the firing, which had drawn nearer and was increasing in strength, Overseer Alpatych hurried to his inn. The paper handed to him by the Governor said this:

“I assure you that the town of Smolénsk is not in the slightest danger as yet and it is unlikely that it will be threatened with any. I from the one side and Major-General Bagration from the other are marching to unite our forces before Smolénsk, which junction will be affected on the 22nd instant, and both armies with their united forces will defend our compatriots of the province entrusted to your care till our efforts shall have beaten back the enemies of our Fatherland, or till the last warrior in our valiant ranks has perished. From this, you will see that you have a perfect right to reassure the inhabitants of Smolénsk, for those defended by two such brave armies may feel assured of victory.” (Instructions from Barclay to Baron Asch, the civil governor of Smolénsk, 1812.)

People were anxiously roaming about the streets.

Carts piled high with household utensils, chairs, and cupboards kept emerging from the gates of the yards and moving along the streets. Loaded carts stood at the house next to Innkeeper Ferapontov’s and women were wailing and lamenting as they said goodbye. A small watchdog ran around barking in front of the harnessed horses.

Overseer Alpatych entered the yard of the inn at a quicker pace than usual and went straight to the shed where his horses and carriage were. The coachman was asleep. Overseer Alpatych woke the coachman up, told him to harness, and went into the passage. From Innkeeper Ferapontov’s room came the sounds of a child crying, the despairing sobs of a woman, and the hoarse angry shouting of Innkeeper Ferapontov. The cook began running hither and thither in the passage like a frightened hen, just as Overseer Alpatych entered.

“Innkeeper Ferapontov has done her to death. Killed the mistress!... Beat her... dragged her about so!...”

“What for?” asked Overseer Alpatych.

“She kept begging to go away. She’s a woman! ‘Take me away,’ says Innkeeper Ferapontov’s wife, ‘don’t let me perish with my little children! Folks,’ she says, ‘are all gone, so why,’ she says, ‘don’t we go?’ And Innkeeper Ferapontov began beating and pulling her about so!”

At these words, Overseer Alpatych nodded as if in approval, and not wishing to hear more went to the door of the room opposite Innkeeper Ferapontov’s, where he had left his purchases.

“You brute, you murderer!” screamed a thin, pale woman who, with a baby in her arms and her kerchief torn from her head, burst through the door at that moment and down the steps into the yard.

Innkeeper Ferapontov came out after her, but on seeing Overseer Alpatych adjusted his waistcoat, smoothed his hair, yawned, and followed Overseer Alpatych into the opposite room.

“Going already?” said Innkeeper Ferapontov.

Overseer Alpatych, without answering or looking at Innkeeper Ferapontov, sorted his packages and asked how much he owed.

“We’ll reckon up! Well, have you been to the Governor’s?” asked Innkeeper Ferapontov. “What has been decided?”

Overseer Alpatych replied that the Governor had not told him anything definite.

“With our business, how can we get away?” said Innkeeper Ferapontov. “We’d have to pay seven rubles a cartload to Dorogobúzh and I tell them they’re not Christians to ask it! Selivánov, now, did a good stroke last Thursday—sold flour to the army at nine rubles a sack. Will you have some tea?” he added.

While the horses were being harnessed, the men over their tea talked of the price of corn, the crops, and the good weather for harvesting.

“Well, it seems to be getting quieter,” remarked Innkeeper Ferapontov, finishing his third cup of tea and getting up. “Ours must have got the best of it. The orders were not to let them in. So we’re in force, it seems... They say the other day General Platov drove them into the river Márina and drowned some eighteen thousand in one day.”

Overseer Alpatych collected his parcels, handed them to the coachman who had come in, and settled up with Innkeeper Ferapontov. The noise of wheels, hoofs, and bells was heard from the gateway as a little carriage passed out.

It was by now late in the afternoon. Half the street was in shadow, the other half brightly lit by the sun. Overseer Alpatych looked out of the window and went to the door. Suddenly the strange sound of a far-off whistling and thud was heard, followed by a boom of cannon blending into a dull roar that set the windows rattling.

Overseer Alpatych went out into the street: two men were running past toward the bridge. From different sides came whistling sounds and the thud of cannon balls and bursting shells falling on the town. But these sounds were hardly heard in comparison with the noise of the firing outside the town and attracted little attention from the inhabitants. The town was being bombarded by a hundred and thirty guns which Napoleon had ordered up after four o’clock. The people did not at once realize the meaning of this bombardment.

At first, the noise of the falling bombs and shells only aroused curiosity. Innkeeper Ferapontov’s wife, who till then had not ceased wailing under the shed, became quiet and with the baby in her arms went to the gate, listening to the sounds and looking in silence at the people.

The cook and a shop assistant came to the gate. With lively curiosity, everyone tried to get a glimpse of the projectiles as they flew over their heads. Several people came round the corner talking eagerly.

“What force!” remarked one. “Knocked the roof and ceiling all to splinters!”

“Routed up the earth like a pig,” said another.

“That’s grand, it bucks one up!” laughed the first. “Lucky you jumped aside, or it would have wiped you out!”

Others joined those men and stopped and told how cannonballs had fallen on a house close to them. Meanwhile, still more projectiles, now with the swift sinister whistle of a cannon ball, now with the agreeable intermittent whistle of a shell, flew over people’s heads incessantly, but not one fell close by, they all flew over. Overseer Alpatych was getting into his carriage. Innkeeper Ferapontov stood at the gate.

“What are you staring at?” Innkeeper Ferapontov shouted to the cook, who in her red skirt, with sleeves rolled up, swinging her bare elbows, had stepped to the corner to listen to what was being said.

“What marvels!” the cook exclaimed, but hearing Innkeeper Ferapontov’s voice she turned back, pulling down her tucked-up skirt.

Once more something whistled, but this time quite close, swooping downwards like a little bird; a flame flashed in the middle of the street, something exploded, and the street was shrouded in smoke.

“Scoundrel, what are you doing?” shouted Innkeeper Ferapontov, rushing to the cook.

At that moment the pitiful wailing of women was heard from different sides, the frightened baby began to cry, and people crowded silently with pale faces around the cook. The loudest sound in that crowd was her wailing.

“Oh-h-h! Dear souls, dear kind souls! Don’t let me die! My good souls!...”

Five minutes later no one remained in the street. The cook, with her thigh broken by a shell splinter, had been carried into the kitchen. Overseer Alpatych, his coachman, Innkeeper Ferapontov’s wife and children, and the house porter were all sitting in the cellar, listening. The roar of guns, the whistling of projectiles, and the piteous moaning of the cook, which rose above the other sounds, did not cease for a moment. The mistress rocked and hushed her baby and when anyone came into the cellar asked in a pathetic whisper what had become of her husband who had remained in the street. A shopman who entered told her that her husband had gone with others to the cathedral, whence they were fetching the wonder-working icon of Smolénsk.

Toward dusk, the cannonade began to subside. Overseer Alpatych left the cellar and stopped in the doorway. The evening sky that had been so clear was clouded with smoke, through which, high up, the sickle of the new moon shone strangely. Now that the terrible din of the guns had ceased a hush seemed to reign over the town, broken only by the rustle of footsteps, the moaning, the distant cries, and the crackle of fires which seemed widespread everywhere. The cook’s moans had now subsided. On two sides black curling clouds of smoke rose and spread from the fires. Through the streets, soldiers in various uniforms walked or ran confusedly in different directions like ants from a ruined ant hill. Several of them ran into Innkeeper Ferapontov’s yard before Overseer Alpatych’s eyes. Overseer Alpatych went out to the gate. A retreating regiment, thronging and hurrying, blocked the street.

Noticing him, an officer said: “The town is being abandoned. Get away, get away!” and then, turning to the soldiers, shouted:

“I’ll teach you to run into the yards!”

Overseer Alpatych went back to the house, called the coachman, and told him to set off. Innkeeper Ferapontov’s whole household came out too, following Overseer Alpatych and the coachman. The women, who had been silent till then, suddenly began to wail as they looked at the fires—the smoke and even the flames of which could be seen in the failing twilight—and as if in reply the same kind of lamentation was heard from other parts of the street. Inside the shed, Overseer Alpatych and the coachman arranged the tangled reins and traces of their horses with trembling hands.

As Overseer Alpatych was driving out of the gate he saw some ten soldiers in Innkeeper Ferapontov’s open shop, talking loudly and filling their bags and knapsacks with flour and sunflower seeds. Just then Innkeeper Ferapontov returned and entered his shop. On seeing the soldiers he was about to shout at them, but suddenly stopped and, clutching at his hair, burst into sobs and laughter:

“Loot everything, lads! Don’t let those devils get it!” Innkeeper Ferapontov cried, taking some bags of flour himself and throwing them into the street.

Some of the soldiers were frightened and ran away, others went on filling their bags. On seeing Overseer Alpatych, Innkeeper Ferapontov turned to him:

“Russia is done for!” Innkeeper Ferapontov cried. “I’ll set the place on fire myself. We’re done for!...” and Innkeeper Ferapontov ran into the yard.

Soldiers were passing in a constant stream along the street blocking it completely so that Overseer Alpatych could not pass out and had to wait. Innkeeper Ferapontov’s wife and children were also sitting in a cart waiting till it was possible to drive out.

Night had come. There were stars in the sky and the new moon shone out amid the smoke that screened it. On the sloping descent to the Dnieper, Overseer Alpatych’s cart and that of Innkeeper Ferapontov’s wife, which were slowly moving amid the rows of soldiers and of other vehicles, had to stop. In a side street near the crossroads where the vehicles had stopped, a house and some shops were on fire. This fire was already burning itself out. The flames now died down and were lost in the black smoke, now suddenly flared up again brightly, lighting up with strange distinctness the faces of the people crowding at the crossroads. Black figures flitted about before the fire, and through the incessant crackling of the flames talking and shouting could be heard. Seeing that his carriage would not be able to move on for some time, Overseer Alpatych got down and turned into the side street to look at the fire. Soldiers were continually rushing backward and forwards near it, and he saw two of them and a man in a frieze coat dragging burning beams into another yard across the street, while others carried bundles of hay.

Overseer Alpatych went up to a large crowd standing before a high barn that was blazing briskly. The walls were all on fire and the back wall had fallen in, the wooden roof was collapsing, and the rafters were alight. The crowd was evidently watching for the roof to fall in, and Overseer Alpatych watched for it too.

“Overseer Alpatych!” a familiar voice suddenly hailed the old man.

“Mercy on us! Your excellency!” answered Overseer Alpatych, immediately recognizing the voice of Andrei.

Andrei in his riding cloak, mounted on a black horse, was looking at Overseer Alpatych from the back of the crowd.

“Why are you here?” Andrei asked.

“Your... your excellency,” stammered Overseer Alpatych and broke into sobs. “Are we really lost? Master!...”

“Why are you here?” Andrei repeated.

At that moment the flames flared up and showed his young master’s pale worn face. Overseer Alpatych told how he had been sent there and how difficult it was to get away.

“Are we really quite lost, your excellency?” Overseer Alpatych asked again.

Andrei without replying took out a notebook and raising his knee began writing in pencil on a page he tore out. Andrei wrote to his sister:

“Smolénsk is being abandoned. Bald Hills will be occupied by the enemy within a week. Set off immediately for Moscow. Let me know at once when you will start. Send by special messenger to Usvyázh.”

Having written this and given the paper to Overseer Alpatych, Andrei told him how to arrange for the departure of the Baron, Marya, his son Nikolenka, and the boy’s tutor, and how and where to let him know immediately. Before Andrei had had time to finish giving these instructions, a chief of staff followed by a suite galloped up to him.

“You are a colonel?” shouted the chief of staff with a German accent, in a voice familiar to Andrei. “Houses are set on fire in your presence and you stand by! What does this mean? You will answer for it!” shouted Berg, who was now assistant to the chief of staff of the commander of the left flank of the infantry of the first army, a place, as Berg said, “very agreeable and well in evidence.”

Andrei looked at him and without replying went on speaking to Overseer Alpatych.

“So tell them that I shall await a reply till the tenth, and if by the tenth I don’t receive news that they have all got away I shall have to throw up everything and come myself to Bald Hills.”

“Andrei,” said Berg, recognizing Andrei, “I only spoke because I have to obey orders because I always do obey exactly... You must please excuse me,” Berg went on apologetically.

Something cracked in the flames. The fire died down for a moment and wreaths of black smoke rolled from under the roof. There was another terrible crash and something huge collapsed.

“Ou-rou-rou!” yelled the crowd, echoing the crash of the collapsing roof of the barn, the burning grain which diffused a cakelike aroma all around. The flames flared up again, lighting the animated, delighted, exhausted faces of the spectators.

Innkeeper Ferapontov, the man in the frieze coat raised his arms and shouted:

“It’s fine, lads! Now it’s raging... It’s fine!”

“That’s the owner himself,” cried several voices.

“Well then,” continued Andrei to Overseer Alpatych, “report to them as I have told you”; and not replying a word to Berg who was now mute beside him, Andrei touched his horse and rode down the side street.

From Smolénsk the troops continued to retreat, followed by the enemy. On the tenth of August the regiment Andrei commanded was marching along the highroad past the avenue leading to Bald Hills. Heat and drought had continued for more than three weeks. Each day fleecy clouds floated across the sky and occasionally veiled the sun, but toward evening the sky cleared again and the sun set in reddish-brown mist. Heavy night dews alone refreshed the earth. The un-reaped corn was scorched and shed its grain. The marshes dried up. The cattle lowed from hunger, finding no food in the sun-parched meadows. Only at night and in the forests while the dew lasted was there any freshness. But on the road, the high road along which the troops marched, there was no such freshness even at night or when the road passed through the forest; the dew was imperceptible on the sandy dust churned up more than six inches deep. As soon as day dawned the march began. The artillery and baggage wagons moved noiselessly through the deep dust that rose to the very hubs of the wheels, and the infantry sank ankle-deep in that soft, choking, hot dust that never cooled even at night. Some of this dust was kneaded by the feet and wheels, while the rest rose and hung like a cloud over the troops, settling in eyes, ears, hair, and nostrils, and worst of all in the lungs of the men and beasts as they moved along that road. The higher the sun rose the higher rose that cloud of dust, and through the screen of its hot fine particles one could look with the naked eye at the sun, which showed like a huge crimson ball in the unclouded sky. There was no wind, and the men choked in that motionless atmosphere. They marched with handkerchiefs tied over their noses and mouths. When they passed through a village they all rushed to the wells and fought for the water and drank it down to the mud.

Andrei was in command of a regiment, and the management of that regiment, the welfare of the men, and the necessity of receiving and giving orders, engrossed him. The burning of Smolénsk and its abandonment made an epoch in his life. A novel feeling of anger against the foe made him forget his own sorrow. Andrei was entirely devoted to the affairs of his regiment and was considerate and kind to his men and officers. In the regiment, they called him “our Baron,” were proud of him, and loved him. But Andrei was kind and gentle only to those of his regiment, to Captain Timokhin and the like—people quite new to him, belonging to a different world and who could not know and understand his past. As soon as Andrei came across a former acquaintance or anyone from the staff, he bristled up immediately and grew spiteful, ironical, and contemptuous. Everything that reminded him of his past was repugnant to him, and so in his relations with that former circle, he confined himself to trying to do his duty and not to be unfair.

In truth everything presented itself in a dark and gloomy light to Andrei, especially after the abandonment of Smolénsk on the sixth of August (he considered that it could and should have been defended) and after his sick father had had to flee to Moscow, abandoning to pillage his dearly beloved Bald Hills which he had built and peopled. But despite this, thanks to his regiment, Andrei had something to think about entirely apart from general questions. Two days previously he had received news that his father, son, and sister had left for Moscow; and though there was nothing for him to do at Bald Hills, Andrei with a characteristic desire to foment his own grief decided that he must ride there.

Andrei ordered his horse to be saddled and, leaving his regiment on the march, rode to his father’s estate where he had been born and spent his childhood. Riding past the pond where there used always to be dozens of women chattering as they rinsed their linen or beat it with wooden beetles, Andrei noticed that there was not a soul about and that the little washing wharf, torn from its place and half submerged, was floating on its side in the middle of the pond. He rode to the keeper’s lodge. No one was at the stone entrance gates of the drive and the door stood open. Grass had already begun to grow on the garden paths, and horses and calves were straying in the English park. Andrei rode up to the hothouse; some of the glass panes were broken, and of the trees in tubs some were overturned and others dried up. He called for the gardener, but no one replied. Having gone round the corner of the hothouse to the ornamental garden, he saw that the carved garden fence was broken and branches of the plum trees had been torn off with the fruit. An old peasant whom Andrei in his childhood had often seen at the gate was sitting on a green garden seat, plaiting a bast shoe.

The old peasant was deaf and did not hear Andrei ride up. He was sitting on the seat Baron Bolkonski used to like to sit on, and beside him, strips of bast were hanging on the broken and withered branch of a magnolia.

Andrei rode up to the house. Several limes in the old garden had been cut down and a piebald mare and her foal were wandering in front of the house among the rosebushes. The shutters were all closed, except at one window which was open. A little serf boy, seeing Andrei, ran into the house. Overseer Alpatych, having sent Andrei’s family away, was alone at Bald Hills and was sitting indoors reading the Lives of the Saints. On hearing that Andrei had come, he went out with his spectacles on his nose, buttoning his coat, and, hastily stepping up, without a word began weeping and kissing Andrei’s knee.

Then, vexed at his own weakness, Andrei turned away and began to report on the position of affairs. Everything precious and valuable had been removed to Boguchárovo. Seventy quarters of grain had also been carted away. The hay and the spring corn, of which Overseer Alpatych said there had been a remarkable crop that year, had been commandeered by the troops and mown down while still green. The peasants were ruined; some of them too had gone to Boguchárovo, and only a few remained.

Without waiting to hear him out, Andrei asked:

“When did my father and sister leave?” meaning when did they leave for Moscow.

Overseer Alpatych, understanding the question to refer to their departure for Boguchárovo, replied that they had left on the seventh and again went into details concerning the estate management, asking for instructions.

“Am I to let the troops have the oats, and to take a receipt for them? We have still six hundred quarters left,” Overseer Alpatych inquired.

“What am I to say to him?” thought Andrei, looking down on the old man’s bald head shining in the sun and seeing by the expression on his face that Overseer Alpatych himself understood how untimely such questions were and only asked them to allay his grief.

“Yes, let them have it,” replied Andrei.

“If you noticed some disorder in the garden,” said Overseer Alpatych, “it was impossible to prevent it. Three regiments have been here and spent the night, dragoons mostly. I took down the name and rank of their commanding officer, to hand in a complaint about it.”

“Well, and what are you going to do? Will you stay here if the enemy occupies the place?” asked Andrei.

Overseer Alpatych turned his face to Andrei, looked at him, and suddenly with a solemn gesture raised his arm.

“God is my refuge! His will be done!” Overseer Alpatych exclaimed.

A group of bareheaded peasants was crossing the meadow toward the Baron.

“Well, good-by!” said Andrei, bending over to Overseer Alpatych. “You must go away too, take away what you can and tell the serfs to go to the Ryazán estate or to the one near Moscow.”

Overseer Alpatych clung to Andrei’s leg and burst into sobs. Gently disengaging himself, Andrei spurred his horse and rode down the avenue at a gallop.

Overseer Alpatych was still sitting in the ornamental garden, like a fly impassive on the face of a loved one who is dead, tapping the last on which he was making the bast shoe, and two little girls, running out from the hot house carrying in their skirts plums they had plucked from the trees there, came upon Andrei. On seeing Andrei, the elder girl with a frightened look clutched her younger companion by the hand and hid with her behind a birch tree, not stopping to pick up some green plums they had dropped.

Andrei turned away with startling haste, unwilling to let them see that they had been observed. He was sorry for the pretty frightened little girl, was afraid of looking at her, and yet felt an irresistible desire to do so. A new sensation of comfort and relief came over him when, seeing these girls, Andrei realized the existence of other human interests entirely aloof from his own and just as legitimate as those that occupied him. Evidently, these girls passionately desired one thing—to carry away and eat those green plums without being caught—and Andrei shared their wish for the success of their enterprise. He could not resist looking at them once more. Believing their danger past, the girls sprang from their ambush and, chirruping something in their shrill little voices and holding up their skirts, their bare little sunburned feet scampered merrily and quickly across the meadow grass.

Andrei was somewhat refreshed by having ridden off the dusty high road along which the troops were moving. But not far from Bald Hills he again came out on the road and overtook his regiment at its halting place by the dam of a small pond. It was past one o’clock. The sun, a red ball through the dust, burned and scorched his back intolerably through his black coat. The dust always hung motionless above the buzz of talk that came from the resting troops. There was no wind. As he crossed the dam Andrei smelled the ooze and freshness of the pond. He longed to get into that water, however dirty it might be, and he glanced round at the pool from whence came sounds of shrieks and laughter. The small, muddy, green pond had risen visibly more than a foot, flooding the dam, because it was full of the naked white bodies of soldiers with brick-red hands, necks, and faces, who were splashing about in it. All this naked white human flesh, laughing and shrieking, floundered about in that dirty pool like carp stuffed into a watering can, and the suggestion of merriment in that floundering mass rendered it specially pathetic.

One fair-haired young soldier of the third company, whom Andrei knew and who had a buckle round the calf of one leg, crossed himself, stepped back to get a good run, and plunged into the water; another, a dark noncommissioned officer who was always shaggy, stood up to his waist in the water joyfully wriggling his muscular figure and snorted with satisfaction as he poured the water over his head with hands blackened to the wrists. There were sounds of men slapping one another, yelling, and puffing.

Everywhere on the bank, on the dam, and in the pond, there was healthy, white, muscular flesh. The officer, Captain Timokhin, with his red little nose, standing on the dam wiping himself with a towel, felt confused at seeing the Baron but made up his mind to address him nevertheless.

“It’s very nice, your excellency! Wouldn’t you like to?” said Captain Timokhin.

“It’s dirty,” replied Andrei, making a grimace.

“We’ll clear it out for you in a minute,” said Captain Timokhin, and, still undressed, ran off to clear the men out of the pond.

“The Baron wants to bathe.”

“What Baron? Ours?” said many voices, and the men were in such haste to clear out that the Baron could hardly stop them. Andrei decided that he would rather wash with water in the barn.

“Flesh, bodies, cannon fodder!” Andrei thought, and he looked at his own naked body and shuddered, not from cold but from a sense of disgust and horror he did not himself understand, aroused by the sight of that immense number of bodies splashing about in the dirty pond.

 

On the seventh of August, Major-General Bagration wrote as follows from his quarters at Mikháylovna on the Smolénsk road:

Dear Count Aléxis Andréevich—(He was writing to War Minister Arakchéev but knew that his letter would be read by the Tzar, and therefore weighed every word in it to the best of his ability.)

I expect the Marshal (Barclay) has already reported the abandonment of Smolénsk to the enemy. It is pitiable and sad, and the whole army is in despair that this most important place has been wantonly abandoned. I, for my part, begged him personally most urgently and finally wrote him, but nothing would induce him to consent. I swear to you on my honor that Napoleon was in such a fix as never before and might have lost half his army but could not have taken Smolénsk. Our troops fought, and are fighting, as never before. With fifteen thousand men I held the enemy at bay for thirty-five hours and beat him, but he would not hold out even for fourteen hours. It is disgraceful, a stain on our army, and as for him, he ought, it seems to me, not to live. If Marshal Barclay reports that our losses were great, it is not true; perhaps about four thousand, not more, and not even that; but even were they ten thousand, that’s war! But the enemy has lost masses...

What would it have cost Marshal Barclay to hold out for another two days? They would have had to retire of their own accord, for they had no water for men or horses. He gave me his word he would not retreat, but suddenly sent instructions that he was retiring that night. We cannot fight in this way, or we may soon bring the enemy to Moscow...

There is a rumor that you are thinking of peace. God forbid that you should make peace after all our sacrifices and such insane retreats! You would set all of Russia against you and every one of us would feel ashamed to wear the uniform. If it has come to this—we must fight as long as Russia can and as long as there are men able to stand...

One man ought to be in command, and not two. Marshal Barclay may perhaps be good as a Minister, but as a general, he is not merely bad but execrable, yet to him is entrusted the fate of our whole country... I am really frantic with vexation; forgive my writing boldly. It is clear that the man who advocates the conclusion of peace, and that Marshal Barclay should command the army, does not love our sovereign and desires the ruin of us all. So I write you frankly: call out the militia. For Marshal Barclay is leading these visitors after him to Moscow in a most masterly way. The whole army feels great suspicion of the Imperial aide-de-camp Wolzogen. Wolzogen is said to be more Napoleon’s man than ours, and he is always advising Marshal Barclay. I am not merely civil to Marshal Barclay but obey him like a corporal, though I am his senior. This is painful, but, loving my benefactor and sovereign, I submit. Only I am sorry for the Tzar that he entrusts our fine army to such as Marshal Barclay. Consider that on our retreat we have lost by fatigue and left in the hospital more than fifteen thousand men, and had we attacked this would not have happened. Tell me, for God’s sake, what will Russia, our mother Russia, say to our being so frightened, and why are we abandoning our good and gallant Russia to such rabble and implanting feelings of hatred and shame in all our subjects? What are we scared of and of whom are we afraid? I am not to blame that Marshal Barclay is vacillating, a coward, dense, dilatory, and has all bad qualities. The whole army bewails it and calls down curses upon him...

Among the innumerable categories applicable to the phenomena of human life one may discriminate between those in which substance prevails and those in which form prevails. To the latter—as distinguished from village, country, provincial, or even Moscow life—we may allot St. Petersburg life, and especially the life of its salons. That life of the salons is unchanging. Since the year 1805, we had made peace and had again quarreled with Napoleon and had made constitutions and unmade them again, but the salons of Anna Pavlovna and Helene remained just as they had been—the one seven and the other five years before. At Anna Pavlovna’s they talked with perplexity of Napoleon’s successes just as before and saw in them and in the subservience shown to him by the European sovereigns a malicious conspiracy, the sole object of which was to cause unpleasantness and anxiety to the court circle of which Anna Pavlovna was the representative. And in Helene’s salon, which Chancellor Rumyántsev himself honored with his visits, regarding Helene as a remarkably intelligent woman, they talked with the same ecstasy in 1812 as in 1808 of the “great nation” and the “great man,” and regretted our rupture with France, a rupture which, according to them, ought to be promptly terminated by peace.

Of late, since the Tzar’s return from the army, there had been some excitement in these conflicting salon circles and some demonstrations of hostility to one another, but each camp retained its own tendency. In Anna Pavlovna’s circle, only those Frenchmen were admitted who were deep-rooted legitimists, and patriotic views were expressed to the effect that one ought not to go to the French theater and that to maintain the French troupe was costing the government as much as a whole army corps. The progress of the war was eagerly followed, and only the reports most flattering to our army were circulated. In the French circle of Helene and Chancellor Rumyántsev, the reports of the cruelty of the enemy and of the war were contradicted and all of Napoleon’s attempts at conciliation were discussed. In that circle, they discountenanced those who advised hurried preparations for a removal to Kazán of the court and the girls’ educational establishments under the patronage of the Mother of the Tzar. In Helene’s circle, the war was regarded as a series of formal demonstrations which would very soon end in peace, and the view prevailed expressed by Adjutant Bilibin—who now in St. Petersburg was quite at home in Helene’s house, which every clever man was obliged to visit—that not by gunpowder but by those who invented it would matters be settled. In that circle, the Moscow enthusiasm—news of which had reached St. Petersburg simultaneously with the Tzar’s return—was ridiculed sarcastically and very cleverly, though with much caution.

Anna Pavlovna’s circle on the contrary was enraptured by this enthusiasm and spoke of it as Plutarch speaks of the deeds of the ancients. Baron Vasili, who still occupied his former important posts, formed a connecting link between these two circles. He visited his “good friend Anna Pavlovna” as well as his daughter’s “diplomatic salon,” and often in his constant comings and goings between the two camps became confused and said at Helene’s what he should have said at Anna Pavlovna’s and vice versa.

Soon after the Tzar’s return, Baron Vasili in a conversation about the war at Anna Pavlovna’s severely condemned Marshal Barclay but was undecided as to who ought to be appointed Marshal in his stead. One of the visitors, usually spoken of as “a man of great merit,” having described how he had that day seen Kutuzov, the newly chosen chief of the St. Petersburg militia, presiding over the enrollment of recruits at the Treasury, cautiously ventured to suggest that Kutuzov would be the man to satisfy all requirements.

Anna Pavlovna remarked with a melancholy smile that Kutuzov had done nothing but cause the Tzar annoyance.

“I have talked and talked at the Assembly of the Nobility,” Baron Vasili interrupted, “but they did not listen to me. I told them Kutuzov’s election as chief of the militia would not please the Tzar. They did not listen to me.

“It’s all this mania for opposition,” Baron Vasili went on. “And who for? It is all because we want to ape the foolish enthusiasm of those Muscovites,” Baron Vasili continued, forgetting for a moment that though at Helene’s one had to ridicule the Moscow enthusiasm, at Anna Pavlovna’s one had to be ecstatic about it. But Baron Vasili retrieved his mistake at once. “Now, is it suitable that Kutuzov, the oldest general in Russia, should preside at that tribunal? Kutuzov will get nothing for his pains! How could they make a man Marshal who cannot mount a horse, who drops asleep at a council, and who has the very worst morals! A good reputation Kutuzov made for himself at Bucharest! I don’t speak of Kutuzov’s capacity as a leader, but at a time like this how did they appoint a decrepit, blind old man, positively blind? A fine idea to have a blind leader! He can’t see anything. To play blindman’s buff? He can’t see at all!”

No one replied to his remarks.

This was quite correct on the twenty-fourth of July. But on the twenty-ninth of July Kutuzov received the title of Baron. This title was ambiguous and might actually indicate the Tzar’s wish to get rid of Kutuzov, and therefore Baron Vasili’s opinion continued to be correct though he was not now in any hurry to express it. But on the eighth of August, a committee, consisting of Saltykóv, War Minister Arakchéev, Vyazmítinov, Lopukhín, and Kochubéy met to consider the progress of the war. This committee came to the conclusion that our failures were due to a want of unity in the command and though the members of the committee were aware of the Tzar’s dislike of Kutuzov, after a short deliberation they agreed to advise Kutuzov’s promotion to Marshal, replacing Barclay. That same day, Kutuzov was officially permanently appointed Marshal with full powers over the armies and over the whole region occupied by them.

On the ninth of August Baron Vasili at Anna Pavlovna’s again met the “man of great merit.” The latter was very attentive to Anna Pavlovna because he wanted to be appointed director of one of the educational establishments for young ladies. Baron Vasili entered the room with the air of a happy conqueror who has attained the object of his desires.

“Well, have you heard the great news? Kutuzov has replaced Barclay as Marshal, head of all our armies! All dissensions are at an end! I am so glad, so delighted! At last, we have a man!” said Baron Vasili, glancing sternly and significantly around at everyone in the drawing room.

The “man of great merit,” despite his desire to obtain the post of director, could not refrain from reminding Baron Vasili of his former opinion. Though this was impolite to Baron Vasili in Anna Pavlovna’s drawing room, and also to Anna Pavlovna herself who had received the news with delight, he could not resist the temptation.

“But, Baron Vasili, they say that Kutuzov is blind!” said he, reminding Baron Vasili of his own words.

“Eh? Nonsense! Kutuzov sees well enough,” said Baron Vasili rapidly, in a deep voice and with a slight cough—the voice and cough with which he was wont to dispose of all difficulties.

“Kutuzov sees well enough,” Baron Vasili repeated. “And what I am so pleased about,” he went on, “is that the Tzar has given Kutuzov full powers over all the armies and the whole region—powers no Marshal ever had before. Kutuzov is a second autocrat,” he concluded with a victorious smile.

“God grant it! God grant it!” said Anna Pavlovna.

The “man of great merit,” who was still a novice in court circles, wishing to flatter Anna Pavlovna by defending her former position on this question, observed:

“It is said that the Tzar was reluctant to give Kutuzov those powers. They say the Tzar blushed like a girl to whom Joconde is read when he said to Kutuzov: ‘Your Tzar and Russia award you this honor.’”

“Perhaps the heart took no part in that speech,” said Anna Pavlovna.

“Oh, no, no!” warmly rejoined Baron Vasili, who would not now yield Kutuzov to anyone; in his opinion, Kutuzov was not only admirable himself, but was adored by everybody. “No, that’s impossible,” said Baron Vasili, “for the Tzar appreciated him so highly before.”

“God grant only that Marshal Kutuzov assumes real power and does not allow anyone to put a spoke in his wheel,” observed Anna Pavlovna.

Understanding at once to whom she alluded, Baron Vasili said in a whisper:

“I know for a fact that Marshal Kutuzov made it an absolute condition that the Tzar’s son should not be with the army. Do you know what Kutuzov said to the Tzar?”

And Baron Vasili repeated the words supposed to have been spoken by Marshal Kutuzov to the Tzar. “I can neither punish the Tzar if he does wrong nor reward him if he does right.”

“Oh, a very wise man is Marshal Kutuzov! I have known him a long time!”

“They even say,” remarked the “man of great merit” who did not yet possess courtly tact, “that the Tzar made it an express condition that the Tzar himself should not be with the army.”

As soon as the “man of great merit” said this both Baron Vasili and Anna Pavlovna turned away from him and glanced sadly at one another with a sigh at his naivete.

While this was taking place in St. Petersburg the French had already passed Smolénsk and were drawing nearer and nearer to Moscow. Napoleon’s historian, the historian Thiers, like other of his historians, trying to justify his hero says that he was drawn to the walls of Moscow against his will. The historian Thiers is as right as other historians who look for the explanation of historic events in the will of one man; he is as right as the Russian historians who maintain that Napoleon was drawn to Moscow by the skill of the Russian commanders. Here besides the law of retrospection, which regards all the past as a preparation for events that subsequently occur, the law of reciprocity comes in, confusing the whole matter. A good chess player having lost a game is sincerely convinced that his loss resulted from a mistake he made and looks for that mistake in the opening, but forgets that at each stage of the game there were similar mistakes and that none of his moves were perfect. He only notices the mistake to which he pays attention because his opponent took advantage of it. How much more complex than this is the game of war, which occurs under certain limits of time, and where it is not one will that manipulates lifeless objects, but everything results from innumerable conflicts of various wills!

After Smolénsk Napoleon sought a battle beyond Dorogobúzh at Vyázma, and then at Tsárevo-Zaymíshche, but it happened that owing to a conjunction of innumerable circumstances the Russians could not give battle till they reached Borodinó, seventy miles from Moscow. From Vyázma Napoleon ordered a direct advance on Moscow.

Moscow, the Asiatic capital of this great empire, the sacred city of The Tzar’s people, Moscow with its innumerable churches shaped like Chinese pagodas, this Moscow gave Napoleon’s imagination no rest. On the march from Vyázma to Tsárevo-Zaymíshche, he rode his light bay bobtailed ambler accompanied by his Guards, his bodyguard, his pages, and aides-de-camp. Berthier, his chief of staff, dropped behind to question a Russian prisoner captured by the cavalry. Followed by an interpreter, he overtook Napoleon at a gallop and reined in his horse with an amused expression.

“Well?” asked Napoleon.

“One of the Russian prisoners says that General Platov’s corps is joining up with the main army and that Kutuzov has been appointed as Marshal, replacing Barclay. The prisoner is a very shrewd and garrulous fellow.”

Napoleon smiled and told them to give the Russian prisoner a horse and bring the man to him. Napoleon wished to talk to this prisoner himself. Several adjutants galloped off, and an hour later, Lavrúshka, the serf which Denisov had handed over to Nicholas, rode up to Napoleon in an orderly’s jacket and on a French cavalry saddle, with a merry, and tipsy face. Napoleon told Lavrúshka to ride by his side and began questioning him.

“You are a Cossack?”

“Yes, a Cossack, your Honor.”

“The Cossack, not knowing in what company he was, for Napoleon’s plain appearance had nothing about it that would reveal to an Oriental mind the presence of a monarch, talked with an extreme familiarity of the incidents of the war,” says the historian Thiers, narrating this episode. In reality, Lavrúshka, having got drunk the day before and left Nicholas without dinner, had been whipped and sent to the village in quest of chickens, where Lavrúshka engaged in looting till the French took him prisoner. Lavrúshka was one of those coarse, bare-faced lackeys who have seen all sorts of things, consider it necessary to do everything in a mean and cunning way, are ready to render any sort of service to their master, and are keen at guessing their master’s baser impulses, especially those prompted by vanity and pettiness.

Finding himself in the company of Napoleon, whose identity he had easily and surely recognized, Lavrúshka was not in the least abashed but merely did his utmost to gain his new master’s favor.

Lavrúshka knew very well that this was Napoleon, but Napoleon’s presence could no more intimidate him than Nicholas’s, or a sergeant major’s with the rods, would have done, for Lavrúshka had nothing that either the sergeant major or Napoleon could deprive him of.

So Lavrúshka rattled on, telling all the gossip he had heard among the orderlies. Much of it is true. But when Napoleon asked him whether the Russians thought they would beat Napoleon or not, Lavrúshka screwed up his eyes and considered.

In this question Lavrúshka saw subtle cunning, as men of his type see cunning in everything, so he frowned and did not answer immediately.

“It’s like this,” Lavrúshka said thoughtfully, “if there’s a battle soon, yours will win. That’s right. But if three days pass, then after that, well, then that same battle will not soon be over.”

One historian smilingly interpreted this speech to Napoleon thus: “If a battle takes place within the next three days the French will win, but if later, God knows what will happen.” Napoleon did not smile, though he was evidently in high good humor, and he ordered these words to be repeated.

Lavrúshka noticed this and to entertain Napoleon further, pretending not to know who Napoleon was, added:

“We know that you have Napoleon and that he has beaten everybody in the world, but we are a different matter...”—without knowing why or how this bit of boastful patriotism slipped out at the end.

The interpreter translated these words without the last phrase, and Napoleon smiled. “The young Cossack made his Napoleon smile,” says the historian Thiers. After riding a few paces in silence, Napoleon turned to his interpreter and said he wished to see how the news that Lavrúshka was talking to Napoleon himself, to that very Napoleon who had written his immortally victorious name on the Pyramids, would affect this child of the Don.

The fact was accordingly conveyed to Lavrúshka.

Lavrúshka, understanding that this was done to perplex him and that Napoleon expected him to be frightened, to gratify Napoleon promptly pretended to be astonished and awe-struck, opened his eyes wide and assumed the expression he usually put on when taken to be whipped. “As soon as Napoleon’s interpreter had spoken,” says the historian Thiers, “the Cossack, seized by amazement, did not utter another word, but rode on, his eyes fixed on the conqueror whose fame had reached him across the steppes of the East. All his loquacity was suddenly arrested and replaced by a naive and silent feeling of admiration. Napoleon, after making the Cossack a present, had him set free like a bird restored to its native fields.”

Napoleon rode on, dreaming of the Moscow that so appealed to his imagination, and Lavrúshka, “the bird restored to its native fields” galloped to our outposts, inventing on the way all that had not taken place but that Lavrúshka meant to relate to his comrades. What had really taken place Napoleon did not wish to relate because it seemed to him not worth telling. Lavrúshka found the Cossacks, inquired for the regiment operating with General Platov’s detachment, and by evening found his master, Nicholas, quartered at Yankóvo. Nicholas was just mounting to go for a ride around the neighboring villages with Ilyín; Nicholas let Lavrúshka have another horse and took him along with him.

Marya was not in Moscow and out of danger as Andrei supposed.

After the return of Overseer Alpatych from Smolénsk, Baron Bolkonski suddenly seemed to awake from a dream. Baron Bolkonski ordered the militiamen to be called up from the villages and armed and wrote a letter to Marshal Kutuzov informing him that he had resolved to remain at Bald Hills to the last extremity and to defend it, leaving to General Kutuzov’s discretion to take measures or not for the defense of Bald Hills, where one of Russia’s oldest generals would be captured or killed, and Baron Bolkonski announced to his household that he would remain at Bald Hills.

But while Baron Bolkonski himself remained, he gave instructions for the departure of Marya and the tutor Desalles with little Nikolenka to Boguchárovo and thence to Moscow. Marya, alarmed by her father’s feverish and sleepless activity after his previous apathy, could not bring herself to leave him alone and for the first time in her life ventured to disobey him. Marya refused to go away and Baron Bolkonski’s fury broke over her in a terrible storm. He repeated every injustice he had ever inflicted on her. Trying to convict Marya, Baron Bolkonski told her she had worn him out, had caused his quarrel with his son, had harbored nasty suspicions of him, making it the object of her life to poison his existence, and he drove her from his study telling her that if she did not go away it was all the same to him. Baron Bolkonski declared that he did not wish to remember her existence and warned her not to dare to let him see her. The fact that Baron Bolkonski did not, as she had feared, order her to be carried away by force but only told her not to let him see her cheered Marya. She knew it was proof that in the depth of his soul Baron Bolkonski was glad she was remaining at home and had not gone away.

The morning after Nikolenka had left, Baron Bolkonski donned his full uniform and prepared to visit Marshal Kutuzov. His carriage was already at the door. Marya saw Baron Bolkonski walk out of the house in his uniform wearing all his orders and go down to the garden to review his armed peasants and domestic serfs. Marya sat by the window listening to his voice which reached her from the garden. Suddenly several men came running up the avenue with frightened faces.

Marya ran out to the porch, down the flower-bordered path, and into the avenue. A large crowd of militiamen and domestics were moving toward her, and in their midst, several men were supporting them by the armpits and dragging along a little old man in a uniform and decorations. She ran up to him and, in the play of the sunlight that fell in small round spots through the shade of the lime-tree avenue, could not be sure what change there was in Baron Bolkonski’s face. All she could see was that his former stern and determined expression had altered to one of timidity and submission. On seeing Marya, Baron Bolkonski moved his helpless lips and made a hoarse sound. It was impossible to make out what he wanted. Baron Bolkonski was lifted up, carried to his study, and laid on the very couch he had so feared of late.

The doctor, who was fetched that same night, bled him and said that Baron Bolkonski had had a seizure, paralyzing his right side.

It was becoming more and more dangerous to remain at Bald Hills, and the next day they moved Baron Bolkonski to Boguchárovo, the doctor accompanying him.

By the time they reached Boguchárovo, the tutor Desalles and Nikolenka had already left for Moscow.

For three weeks, Baron Bolkonski lay stricken by paralysis in the new house Andrei had built at Boguchárovo, ever in the same state, getting neither better nor worse. He was unconscious and lay like a distorted corpse. Baron Bolkonski muttered unceasingly, his eyebrows and lips twitching, and it was impossible to tell whether he understood what was going on around him or not. One thing was certain—that Baron Bolkonski was suffering and wished to say something. But what it was, no one could tell: it might be some caprice of a sick and half-crazy man, or it might relate to public affairs, or possibly to family concerns.

The doctor said this restlessness did not mean anything and was due to physical causes, but Marya thought Baron Bolkonski wished to tell her something, and the fact that her presence always increased his restlessness confirmed her opinion.

Baron Bolkonski was evidently suffering both physically and mentally. There was no hope of recovery. It was impossible for him to travel, it would not do to let him die on the road. “Would it not be better if the end did come, the very end?” Marya sometimes thought. Night and day, hardly sleeping at all, she watched him and, terrible to say, often watched him not with the hope of finding signs of improvement but wishing to find symptoms of the approach of the end.

Strange as it was to Marya to acknowledge this feeling in herself, yet there it was. And what seemed still more terrible to her was that since Baron Bolkonski’s illness began (perhaps even sooner, when she stayed with him expecting something to happen), all the personal desires and hopes that had been forgotten or sleeping within her had awakened. Thoughts that had not entered her mind for years—thoughts of a life free from the fear of her father, and even the possibility of love and of family happiness—floated continually in her imagination like temptations of the devil. Thrust them aside as she would, questions continually recurred to her as to how she would order her life now, after that. These were temptations of the devil and Marya knew it. She knew that the sole weapon against him was prayer, and she tried to pray. She assumed an attitude of prayer, looked at the icons, and repeated the words of a prayer, but she could not pray. She felt that a different world had now taken possession of her—the life of a world of strenuous and free activity, quite opposed to the spiritual world in which till now she had been confined and in which her greatest comfort had been prayer. Marya could not pray, could not weep, and worldly cares took possession of her.

It was becoming dangerous to remain in Boguchárovo. News of the approach of the French came from all sides, and in one village, ten miles from Boguchárovo, a homestead had been looted by French marauders.

The doctor insisted on the necessity of moving Baron Bolkonski; the provincial head sent an official to Marya to persuade her to get away as quickly as possible, and the head of the rural police having come to Boguchárovo urged the same thing, saying that the French were only some twenty-five miles away, that French proclamations were circulating in the villages, and that if Marya did not take Baron Bolkonski away before the fifteenth, he could not answer for the consequences.

Marya decided to leave on the fifteenth. The cares of preparation and giving orders, for which everyone came to her, occupied her all day. She spent the night of the fourteenth as usual, without undressing, in the room next to the one where the Baron lay. Several times, waking up, Maarya heard his groans and muttering, the creak of his bed, and the steps of Butler Tikhon and the doctor when they turned Baron Bolkonski over. Several times she listened at the door, and it seemed to her that his mutterings were louder than usual and that they turned him over oftener. She could not sleep and several times went to the door and listened, wishing to enter but not deciding to do so. Though he did not speak, Marya saw and knew how unpleasant every sign of anxiety on his account was to him. She had noticed with what dissatisfaction Baron Bolkonski turned from the look she sometimes involuntarily fixed on him. She knew that her going in during the night at an unusual hour would irritate him.

But never had Marya felt so grieved for him or so much afraid of losing Baron Bolkonski. She recalled all her life with him and in every word and act of his found an expression of his love for her. Occasionally amid these memories temptations of the devil would surge into her imagination: thoughts of how things would be after his death, and how her new, liberated life would be ordered. But she drove these thoughts away with disgust. Toward morning Baron Bolkonski became quiet and she fell asleep.

She woke late. That sincerity that often comes with waking showed her clearly what chiefly concerned her about her father’s illness. On waking, she listened to what was going on behind the door and, hearing him groan, said to herself with a sigh that things were still the same.

“But what could have happened? What did I want? I want his death!” Marya cried with a feeling of loathing for herself.

Marya washed, dressed, said her prayers, and went out to the porch. In front of it stood carriages without horses and things were being packed into the vehicles.

It was a warm, gray morning. Marya stopped at the porch, still horrified by her spiritual baseness and trying to arrange her thoughts before going to her father. The doctor came downstairs and went out to her.

“Baron Bolkonski is a little better today,” said the doctor. “I was looking for you. One can make out something of what he is saying. His head is clearer. Come in, he is asking for you...”

Marya’s heart beat so violently at this news that she grew pale and leaned against the wall to keep from falling. To see Baron Bolkonski, talk to him, feel his eyes on her now that her whole soul was overflowing with those dreadful, wicked temptations, was a torment of joy and terror.

“Come,” said the doctor.

Marya entered Baron Bolkonski’s room and went up to his bed. He was lying on his back propped up high, and his small bony hands with their knotted purple veins were lying on the quilt; his left eye gazed straight before him, his right eye was awry, and his brows and lips motionless. He seemed altogether so thin, small, and pathetic. His face seemed to have shriveled or melted; his features had grown smaller. Marya went up and kissed his hand. His left hand pressed hers so that she understood that he had long been waiting for her to come. He twitched her hand, and his brows and lips quivered angrily.

Marya looked at Baron Bolkonski in dismay trying to guess what he wanted of her. When she changed her position so that his left eye could see her face he calmed down, not taking his eyes off her for some seconds. Then his lips and tongue moved, sounds came, and he began to speak, gazing timidly and imploringly at her, evidently afraid that she might not understand.

Straining all her faculties, Marya looked at Baron Bolkonski. The comic efforts with which he moved his tongue made her drop her eyes and with difficulty repress the sobs that rose to her throat. He said something, repeating the same words several times. She could not understand them but tried to guess what he was saying and inquiringly repeated the words he uttered.

“Mmm...ar...ate...ate...” Baron Bolkonski repeated several times.

It was quite impossible to understand these sounds. The doctor thought he had guessed them, and inquiringly repeated: “Marya, are you afraid?” The Baron shook his head, and again repeated the same sounds.

“My mind, my mind aches?” questioned Marya.

Baron Bolkonski made a mumbling sound in confirmation of this, took her hand, and began pressing it to different parts of his breast as if trying to find the right place for it.

“Always thoughts... about you... thoughts...” Baron Bolkonski then uttered much more clearly than he had done before, now that he was sure of being understood.

Marya pressed her head against his hand, trying to hide her sobs and tears.

Baron Bolkonski moved his hand over her hair.

“I have been calling you all night...” he brought out.

“If only I had known...” she said through her tears. “I was afraid to come in.”

Baron Bolkonski pressed her hand.

“Weren’t you asleep?”

“No, I did not sleep,” said Marya, shaking her head.

Unconsciously imitating her father, Marya now tried to express herself as he did, as much as possible by signs, and her tongue too seemed to move with difficulty.

“Dear one... Dearest...” Marya could not quite make out what he had said, but from his look, it was clear that Baron Bolkonski had uttered a tender caressing word such as he had never used to her before. “Why didn’t you come in?”

“And I was wishing for his death!” thought Marya.

Baron Bolkonski was silent awhile.

“Thank you... daughter dear!... for all, for all... forgive!... thank you!... forgive!... thank you!...” and tears began to flow from his eyes. “Call Andrei!” Baron Bolkonski said suddenly, and a childish, timid expression of doubt showed itself on his face as he spoke.

Baron Bolkonski himself seemed aware that his demand was meaningless. So at least it seemed to Marya.

“I have a letter from Andrei,” Marya replied.

He glanced at her with timid surprise.

“Where is he?”

“He’s with the army, Father, at Smolénsk.”

Baron Bolkonski closed his eyes and remained silent for a long time. Then as if in answer to his doubts and to confirm the fact that now he understood and remembered everything, he nodded his head and reopened his eyes.

“Yes,” Baron Bolkonski said, softly and distinctly. “Russia has perished. They’ve destroyed her.”

And Baron Bolkonski began to sob, and again tears flowed from his eyes. Marya could no longer restrain herself and wept while she gazed at his face.

Again Baron Bolkonski closed his eyes. His sobs ceased, he pointed to his eyes, and Butler Tikhon, understanding him, wiped away the tears.

Then Baron Bolkonski again opened his eyes and said something none of them could understand for a long time, till at last Butler Tikhon understood and repeated it. Marya had sought the meaning of his words in the mood in which he had just been speaking. She thought he was speaking of Russia, or Andrei, of herself, of his grandson, or of his own death, and so she could not guess his words.

“Put on your white dress. I like it,” was what Baron Bolkonski said.

Having understood this Marya sobbed still louder, and the doctor taking her arm led her out to the veranda, soothing her and trying to persuade her to prepare for her journey. When she had left the room Baron Bolkonski again began speaking about Andrei, about the war, and about the Tzar, angrily twitching his brows and raising his hoarse voice, and then he had a second and final stroke.

Marya stayed on the veranda. The day had cleared, and it was hot and sunny. She could understand nothing, think of nothing, and feel nothing, except passionate love for her father, love such as she thought she had never felt till that moment. She ran out sobbing into the garden and as far as the pond, along the avenues of young lime trees Andrei had planted.

“Yes... I... I... I wished for his death! Yes, I wanted it to end quicker... I wished to be at peace... And what will become of me? What use will peace be when he is no longer here?” Marya murmured, pacing the garden with hurried steps and pressing her hands to her bosom which heaved with convulsive sobs.

When Marya had completed the tour of the garden, which brought her again to the house, she saw Lady-in-waiting Bourienne—who had remained at Boguchárovo and did not wish to leave it—coming toward her with a stranger. This was the provincial head of the district, who had come personally to point out to Marya the necessity for her prompt departure. Marya listened without understanding him; she led him to the house, offered him lunch, and sat down with him. Then, excusing herself, she went to the door of Baron Bolkonski’s room. The doctor came out with an agitated face and said she could not enter.

“Go away, Marya! Go away... go away!”

Marya returned to the garden and sat down on the grass at the foot of the slope by the pond, where no one could see her. She did not know how long she had been there when she was aroused by the sound of a woman’s footsteps running along the path. She rose and saw her maid, who was evidently looking for her, and who stopped suddenly as if in alarm on seeing her mistress.

“Please come, Marya… Baron Bolkonski,” said the maid in a breaking voice.

“Immediately, I’m coming, I’m coming!” replied Marya hurriedly, not giving the maid time to finish what she was saying, and trying to avoid seeing the girl she ran toward the house.

“Marya, it’s God’s will! You must be prepared for everything,” said the provincial head, meeting her at the house door.

“Let me alone; it’s not true!” Marya cried angrily to him.

The doctor tried to stop her. Marya pushed him aside and ran to her father’s door. “Why are these people with frightened faces stopping me? I don’t want any of them! And what are they doing here?” she thought. She opened the door and the bright daylight in that previously darkened room startled her. In the room were her nurse and other women. They all drew back from the bed, making way for her. Baron Bolkonski was still lying on the bed as before, but the stern expression on his quiet face made Marya stop short on the threshold.

“No, he’s not dead—it’s impossible!” she told herself and approached him, and repressing the terror that seized her, she pressed her lips to his cheek. But she stepped back immediately. All the force of the tenderness she had been feeling for Baron Bolkonski vanished instantly and was replaced by a feeling of horror at what lay there before her. “No, he is no more! He is not, but here where he was is something unfamiliar and hostile, some dreadful, terrifying, and repellent mystery!” And hiding her face in her hands, Marya sank into the arms of the doctor, who held her up.

 

In the presence of Butler Tikhon and the doctor, the women washed what had been Baron Bolkonski, tied his head up with a handkerchief that the mouth should not stiffen while open, and with another handkerchief tied together the legs that were already spreading apart. Then they dressed him in uniform with his decorations and placed his shriveled little body on a table. Heaven only knows who arranged all this and when, but it all got done as if of its own accord. Toward night candles were burning around his coffin, a pall was spread over it, the floor was strewn with sprays of juniper, a printed band was tucked in under his shriveled head, and in a corner of the room sat a chanter reading the psalms.

Just as horses shy and snort and gather about a dead horse, so the inmates of the house and strangers crowded into the drawing room around the coffin—the village Elder, peasant women—and all with fixed and frightened eyes, crossing themselves, bowed and kissed Baron Bolkonski’s cold and stiffened hand.

Until Andrei settled in Boguchárovo its owners had always been absentees, and its peasants were of quite a different character from those of Bald Hills. They differed from them in speech, dress, and disposition. They were called steppe peasants. Baron Bolkonski used to approve of them for their endurance at work when they came to Bald Hills to help with the harvest. or to dig ponds and ditches, but he disliked them for their boorishness.

Andrei’s last stay at Boguchárovo, when he introduced hospitals and schools and reduced the quitrent the peasants had to pay, had not softened their disposition but had on the contrary strengthened in them the traits of character Baron Bolkonski called boorishness. Various obscure rumors were always current among them: at one time a rumor that they would all be enrolled as Cossacks; at another of a new religion to which they were all to be converted; then of some proclamation of the Tzar’s and of an oath to Tzar Paul in 1797 (in connection with which it was rumored that freedom had been granted them but the landowners had stopped it), then of Peter Fëdorovich’s return to the throne in seven years’ time, when everything would be made free and so “simple” that there would be no restrictions. Rumors of the war with Napoleon and his invasion were connected in their minds with the same sort of vague notions of the Antichrist, the end of the world, and “pure freedom.”

In the vicinity of Boguchárovo were large villages belonging to the crown or to owners whose serfs paid quitrent and could work where they pleased. There were very few resident landlords in the neighborhood and also very few domestic or literate serfs, and in the lives of the peasantry of those parts the mysterious undercurrents in the life of the Russian people, the causes and meaning of which are so baffling to contemporaries, were more clearly and strongly noticeable than among others. One instance, which had occurred some twenty years before, was a movement among the peasants to emigrate to some unknown “warm rivers.” Hundreds of peasants, among them the Boguchárovo folk, suddenly began selling their cattle and moving in whole families toward the southeast. As birds migrate to somewhere beyond the sea, so these men with their wives and children streamed to the southeast, to parts where none of them had ever been. They set off in caravans, bought their freedom one by one or ran away, and drove or walked toward the “warm rivers.” Many of them were punished, some sent to Siberia, many died of cold and hunger on the road, many returned of their own accord, and the movement died down of itself just as it had sprung up, without apparent reason. But such undercurrents still existed among the people and gathered new forces ready to manifest themselves just as strangely, unexpectedly, and at the same time simply, naturally, and forcibly. Now in 1812, to anyone living in close touch with these people, it was apparent that these undercurrents were acting strongly and nearing an eruption.

Overseer Alpatych, who had reached Boguchárovo shortly before Baron Bolkonski’s death, noticed an agitation among the peasants, and that contrary to what was happening in the Bald Hills district, where over a radius of forty miles all the peasants were moving away and leaving their villages to be devastated by the Cossacks, the peasants in the steppe region round Boguchárovo were, it was rumored, in touch with the French, received leaflets from them that passed from hand to hand, and did not migrate. He learned from domestic serfs loyal to him that the peasant Karp, who possessed great influence in the village commune and had recently been away driving a government transport, had returned with news that the Cossacks were destroying deserted villages, but that the French did not harm them. Overseer Alpatych 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 général 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, Overseer Alpatych learned that on the morning of the very day he gave the village Elder orders to collect carts to move Marya’s 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 Baron Bolkonski’s death, the Elder had insisted on Marya’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 Baron Bolkonski died, the Elder went away, promising to return the next day for the funeral. But this the Elder 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 Baron Bolkonski called by the diminutive “Dronushka.”

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 Baron Bolkonski 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 Baron, nor a single shock of the whole corn crop on any single acre of the Boguchárovo fields.

Overseer Alpatych, arriving from the devastated Bald Hills estate, sent for his Dron on the day of the Baron’s funeral and told him to have twelve horses got ready for Marya’s carriages and eighteen carts for the things to be removed from Boguchárovo. Though the peasants paid quitrent, Overseer Alpatych 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. Overseer Alpatych 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. Overseer Alpatych 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.

Overseer Alpatych looked intently at Dron and frowned. Just as Dron was a model village Elder, so Overseer Alpatych had not managed Baron Bolkonski’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, Overseer Alpatych at once understood that his answers did not express his personal views but the 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, Dron,” said Overseer Alpatych. “Don’t talk nonsense to me. His excellency Andrei himself gave me orders to move all the people away and not leave them with the enemy, and there is an order from the Tzar about it too. Anyone who stays is a traitor to the Tzar. Do you hear?”

“I hear,” Dron answered without lifting his eyes.

Overseer Alpatych was not satisfied with this reply.

“Eh, Dron, it will turn out badly!” Overseer Alpatych said, shaking his head.

“The power is in your hands,” Dron rejoined sadly.

“Eh, Dron, drop it!” Overseer Alpatych 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 Overseer Alpatych, 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 Marya’s things. And don’t go to any meeting yourself, do you hear?”

Dron suddenly fell to his knees.

“Overseer Alpatych, discharge me! Take the keys from me and discharge me, for Christ’s sake!”

“Stop that!” cried Overseer Alpatych 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 Baron Bolkonski’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 Overseer Alpatych 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 Overseer Alpatych. “Are they drinking?” he asked abruptly.

“Quite beside themselves, Overseer Alpatych; 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.”

Overseer Alpatych 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, Overseer Alpatych 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, contrary to Overseer Alpatych’s demand, they decided instead that the horses should be driven out into the woods and the carts should not be provided. Without saying anything of this to Marya, Overseer Alpatych had his own belongings taken out of the carts which had arrived from Bald Hills and had those horses got ready for Marya’s carriages. Meanwhile, he went himself to the police authorities.

From Górki, General Bennigsen descended the highroad to the bridge which, when they had looked at it from the hill, the officer had pointed out as being the center of our position and where rows of fragrant new-mown hay lay by the riverside. They rode across that bridge into the village of Borodinó and thence turned to the left, passing an enormous number of troops and guns, and came to a high knoll where militiamen were digging. This was the redoubt, as yet unnamed, which afterwards became known as the Raévski Redoubt, or the Knoll Battery, but Pierre paid no special attention to it. He did not know that it would become more memorable to him than any other spot on the plain of Borodinó.

They then crossed the hollow to Semënovsk, where the soldiers were dragging away the last logs from the huts and barns. Then they rode downhill and uphill, across a field of rye trodden and beaten down as if by hail, following a track freshly made by the artillery over the furrows of the plowed land, and reached some entrenchments which were still being dug.

At the entrenchments, General Bennigsen stopped and began looking at the Shevárdino Redoubt opposite, which had been ours the day before and where several horsemen could be descried. The officers said that either Napoleon or Général Murat was there, and they all gazed eagerly at this little group of horsemen. Pierre also looked at them, trying to guess which of the scarcely discernible figures was Napoleon. At last those mounted men rode away from the mound and disappeared.

General Bennigsen spoke to a general who approached him, and began explaining the whole position of our troops. Pierre listened to him, straining each faculty to understand the essential points of the impending battle, but was mortified to feel that his mental capacity was inadequate for the task. Pierre could make nothing of it. General Bennigsen stopped speaking and, noticing that Pierre was listening, suddenly said to him:

“I don’t think this interests you?”

“On the contrary it’s very interesting!” replied Pierre not quite truthfully.

From the entrenchments they rode still farther to the left, along a road winding through a thick, low-growing birch wood. In the middle of the wood a brown hare with white feet sprang out and, scared by the tramp of the many horses, grew so confused that it leaped along the road in front of them for some time, arousing attention and laughter, and only when several voices shouted at it did it dart to one side and disappear in the thicket. After going through the wood for about a mile and a half they came out on a glade where troops of Túchkov’s corps were stationed to defend the left flank.

Here, at the extreme left flank, General Bennigsen talked a great deal and with much heat, and, as it seemed to Pierre, gave orders of great military importance. In front of Túchkov’s troops was some high ground not occupied by troops. General Bennigsen loudly criticized this mistake, saying that it was madness to leave a height which commanded the country around unoccupied and to place troops below it. Some of the generals expressed the same opinion. One in particular declared with martial heat that they were put there to be slaughtered. General Bennigsen on his own authority ordered the troops to occupy the high ground. This disposition on the left flank increased Pierre’s doubt of his own capacity to understand military matters. Listening to General Bennigsen and the generals criticizing the position of the troops behind the hill, he quite understood them and shared their opinion, but for that very reason he could not understand how the man who put them there behind the hill could have made so gross and palpable a blunder.

Pierre did not know that these troops were not, as General Bennigsen supposed, put there to defend the position, but were in a concealed position as an ambush, that they should not be seen and might be able to strike an approaching enemy unexpectedly. General Bennigsen did not know this and moved the troops forward according to his own ideas without mentioning the matter to Marshal Kutuzov.

On that bright evening of August 25, Andrei lay leaning on his elbow in a broken-down shed in the village of Knyazkóvo at the further end of his regiment’s encampment. Through a gap in the broken wall he could see, beside the wooden fence, a row of thirty-year-old birches with their lower branches lopped off, a field on which shocks of oats were standing, and some bushes near which rose the smoke of campfires—the soldiers’ kitchens.

Narrow and burdensome and useless to anyone as his life now seemed to him, Andrei on the eve of battle felt agitated and irritable as he had done seven years before at Austerlitz.

Andrei had received and given the orders for the next day’s battle and had nothing more to do. But his thoughts—the simplest, clearest, and therefore most terrible thoughts—would give him no peace. He knew that tomorrow’s battle would be the most terrible of all he had taken part in, and for the first time in his life the possibility of death presented itself to him—not in relation to any worldly matter or with reference to its effect on others, but simply in relation to himself, to his own soul—vividly, plainly, terribly, and almost as a certainty. And from the height of this perception all that had previously tormented and preoccupied Andrei suddenly became illumined by a cold white light without shadows, without perspective, without distinction of outline. All life appeared to him like magic-lantern pictures at which he had long been gazing by artificial light through a glass. Now Andrei suddenly saw those badly daubed pictures in clear daylight and without a glass. “Yes, yes! There they are, those false images that agitated, enraptured, and tormented me,” said he to himself, passing in review the principal pictures of the magic lantern of life and regarding them now in the cold white daylight of his clear perception of death. “There they are, those rudely painted figures that once seemed splendid and mysterious. Glory, the good of society, love of a woman, the Fatherland itself—how important these pictures appeared to me, with what profound meaning they seemed to be filled! And it is all so simple, pale, and crude in the cold white light of this morning which I feel is dawning for me.” The three great sorrows of his life held his attention in particular: his love for a woman, his father’s death, and the French invasion which had overrun half Russia. “Love... that little Natasha who seemed to me brimming over with mystic forces! Yes, indeed, I loved Natasha. I made romantic plans of love and happiness with her! Oh, what a boy I was!” Andrei said aloud bitterly. “Ah me! I believed in some ideal love which was to keep her faithful to me for the whole year of my absence! Like the gentle dove in the fable she was to pine apart from me... But it was much simpler really... It was all very simple and horrible.”

“When my father built Bald Hills he thought the place was his: his land, his air, his peasants. But Napoleon came and swept him aside, unconscious of his existence, as he might brush a chip from his path, and his Bald Hills and his whole life fell to pieces. Marya says it is a trial sent from above. What is the trial for, when he is not here and will never return? My father is not here! For whom then is the trial intended? The Fatherland, the destruction of Moscow! And tomorrow I shall be killed, perhaps not even by a Frenchman but by one of our own men, by a soldier discharging a musket close to my ear as one of them did yesterday, and the French will come and take me by head and heels and fling me into a hole that I may not stink under their noses, and new conditions of life will arise, which will seem quite ordinary to others and about which I shall know nothing. I shall not exist...”

Andrei looked at the row of birches shining in the sunshine, with their motionless green and yellow foliage and white bark. “To die... to be killed tomorrow... That I should not exist... That all this should still be, but no me...”

And the birches with their light and shade, the curly clouds, the smoke of the campfires, and all that was around him changed and seemed terrible and menacing. A cold shiver ran down his spine. Andrei rose quickly, went out of the shed, and began to walk about.

After Andrei had returned, voices were heard outside the shed. “Who’s that?” he cried.

The red-nosed Captain Timokhin, formerly Dolokhov’s squadron commander, but now from lack of officers a battalion commander, shyly entered the shed followed by an adjutant and the regimental paymaster.

Andrei rose hastily, listened to the business they had come about, gave them some further instructions, and was about to dismiss them when he heard a familiar, lisping, voice behind the shed.

“Devil take it!” said the voice of a man stumbling over something.

Andrei looked out of the shed and saw Pierre, who had tripped over a pole on the ground and had nearly fallen, coming his way. It was unpleasant to Andrei to meet people of his own set in general, and Pierre especially, for Pierre reminded him of all the painful moments of his last visit to Moscow.

“Pierre? What a surprise!” said Andrei. “What brings you here? This is unexpected!”

As Andrei said this his eyes and face expressed more than coldness—they expressed hostility, which Pierre noticed at once. Pierre had approached the shed full of animation, but on seeing Andrei’s face he felt constrained and ill at ease.

“I have come... simply... you know... come... it interests me,” said Pierre, who had so often that day senselessly repeated that word “interesting.” “I wish to see the battle.”

“Oh yes, and what do the Masonic brothers say about war? How would they stop it?” said Andrei sarcastically. “Well, and how’s Moscow? And my people? Have they reached Moscow at last?” Andrei asked seriously.

“Yes, they have. Julie told me so. I went to see your family, but missed them. They have gone to your estate near Moscow.”

The officers were about to take leave, but Andrei, apparently reluctant to be left alone with Pierre, asked them to stay and have tea. Seats were brought in and so was the tea. The officers gazed with surprise at Pierre’s huge stout figure and listened to his talk of Moscow and the position of our army, round which he had ridden. Andrei remained silent, and his expression was so forbidding that Pierre addressed his remarks chiefly to the good-natured battalion commander.

“So you understand the whole position of our troops?” Andrei interrupted him.

“Yes—that is, how do you mean?” said Pierre. “Not being a military man I can’t say I have understood it fully, but I understand the general position.”

“Well, then, you know more than anyone else, be it who it may,” said Andrei.

“Oh!” said Pierre, looking over his spectacles in perplexity at Andrei. “Well, and what do you think of Marshal Kutuzov’s appointment?” he asked.

“I was very glad of his appointment, that’s all I know,” replied Andrei.

“And tell me your opinion of the old Marshal, Barclay. In Moscow they are saying heaven knows what about him... What do you think of him?”

“Ask them,” replied Andrei, indicating the officers.

Pierre looked at Captain Timokhin with the condescendingly interrogative smile with which everybody involuntarily addressed that officer.

“We see light again, since Marshal Kutuzov has been appointed, Pierre,” said Captain Timokhin timidly, and continually turning to glance at his colonel.

“Why so?” asked Pierre.

“Well, to mention only firewood and fodder, let me inform you. Why, when we were retreating from Sventsyáni we dare not touch a stick or a wisp of hay or anything. You see, we were going away, so he would get it all; wasn’t it so, sir?” and again Captain Timokhin turned to Andrei. “But we daren’t. In our regiment two officers were court-martialed for that kind of thing. But when Marshal Kutuzov took command everything became straightforward. Now we see light...”

“Then why was it forbidden earlier, under Barclay?”

Captain Timokhin looked about in confusion, not knowing what or how to answer such a question. Pierre put the same question to Andrei.

“Why, so as not to lay waste the country we were abandoning to the enemy,” said Andrei with venomous irony. “It is very sound: one can’t permit the land to be pillaged and accustom the troops to marauding. At Smolénsk too Barclay judged correctly that the French might outflank us, as they had larger forces. But Barclay could not understand this,” cried Andrei in a shrill voice that seemed to escape him involuntarily: “he could not understand that there, for the first time, we were fighting for Russian soil, and that there was a spirit in the men such as I had never seen before, that we had held the French for two days, and that that success had increased our strength tenfold. Barclay ordered us to retreat, and all our efforts and losses went for nothing. He had no thought of betraying us, he tried to do the best he could, he thought out everything, and that is why he is unsuitable. Barclay is unsuitable now, just because he plans out everything very thoroughly and accurately as every German has to. How can I explain?... Well, say your father has a German valet, and he is a splendid valet and satisfies your father’s requirements better than you could, then it’s all right to let him serve. But if your father is mortally sick you’ll send the valet away and attend to your father with your own unpracticed, awkward hands, and will soothe him better than a skilled man who is a stranger could. So it has been with Barclay. While Russia was well, a foreigner like Barclay could serve her and be a splendid minister; but as soon as she is in danger she needs one of her own kin. But in your Club they have been making him out a traitor! They slander Barclay as a traitor, and the only result will be that afterwards, ashamed of their false accusations, they will make him out a hero or a genius instead of a traitor, and that will be still more unjust. He is an honest and very punctilious German.”

“And they say Barclay is a skillful commander,” rejoined Pierre.

“I don’t understand what is meant by ‘a skillful commander,’” replied Andrei ironically.

“A skillful commander?” replied Pierre. “Why, one who foresees all contingencies... and foresees the adversary’s intentions.”

“But that’s impossible,” said Andrei as if it were a matter settled long ago.

Pierre looked at him in surprise.

“And yet they say that war is like a game of chess?” Pierre remarked.

“Yes,” replied Andrei, “but with this little difference, that in chess you may think over each move as long as you please and are not limited for time, and with this difference too, that a knight is always stronger than a pawn, and two pawns are always stronger than one, while in war a battalion is sometimes stronger than a division and sometimes weaker than a company. The relative strength of bodies of troops can never be known to anyone. Believe me,” Andrei went on, “if things depended on arrangements made by the staff, I should be there making arrangements, but instead of that I have the honor to serve here in the regiment with these gentlemen, and I consider that on us tomorrow’s battle will depend and not on those others... Success never depends, and never will depend, on position, or equipment, or even on numbers, and least of all on position.”

“But on what then?”

“On the feeling that is in me and in him,” Andrei pointed to Captain Timokhin, “and in each soldier.”

Andrei glanced at Captain Timokhin, who looked at Andrei in alarm and bewilderment. In contrast to his former reticent taciturnity Andrei now seemed excited. He could apparently not refrain from 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,” Andrei 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 generals 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!” Andrei repeated. “To generals 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, Andrei! That’s the truth, the real truth,” said Captain Timokhin. “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. Andrei went out of the shed with them, giving final orders to the adjutant. After they had gone Pierre approached Andrei 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 Andrei recognized Wolzogen and Clausewitz accompanied by a Cossack. They rode close by continuing to converse, and Andrei involuntarily heard these words:

“The war must be extended widely. I cannot sufficiently commend that view,” said one of them.

“Oh, yes,” said the other, “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 Andrei 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 Barclay! That’s what I was saying to you— Barclay and those other 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 Captain Timokhin has. Those generals have yielded up all Europe to him, and have now come to teach us. Fine teachers!” Again, Andrei’s voice grew shrill.

“So you think we shall win tomorrow’s battle?” asked Pierre.

“Yes, yes,” answered Andrei absently. “One thing I would do if I had the power,” Andrei 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 Captain Timokhin 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 Andrei. “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. Pierre 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,” Andrei 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...”

Andrei, 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. Andrei 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 worthwhile going to certain death, as now. Then there would not be war because Paul Ivanovich had offended Michael Ivanovich. 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.

“The leaders of countries 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 the countries’ leaders announce a victory, supposing that the more people they have killed the greater their achievement. How does God above look at these leaders and hear them?” exclaimed Andrei 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!” Andrei added.

“However, you’re sleepy, and it’s time for me to sleep. Go back to Górki!” said Andrei suddenly.

“Oh no!” Pierre replied, looking at Andrei with frightened, compassionate eyes.

“Go, go! Before a battle one must have one’s sleep out,” repeated Andrei.

Andrei 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 Andrei’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!” Pierre sighed deeply and rode back to Górki.

On re-entering the shed Andrei lay down on a rug, but he could not sleep.

Andrei 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 St. Petersburg. Natasha 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 Natasha 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,” Natasha had said, flushed and excited. Andrei smiled now the same happy smile as then when he had looked into her eyes. “I understood her,” Andrei 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 Andrei remembered how his love had ended. “He did not need anything of that kind. He neither saw nor understood anything of the sort. Anatole only saw in her a pretty and fresh young girl, with whom he did not deign to unite his fate. And I?... and Anatole is still alive and gay!”

Andrei jumped up as if someone had burned him, and again began pacing up and down in front of the shed.

On August 25, the eve of the battle of Borodinó, Prefect Beausset arrived at Napoleon’s quarters at Valúevo with a colonel, the prefect from Paris and the colonel from Madrid.

Donning his court uniform, Prefect Beausset ordered a box he had brought for the Tzar 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.

The colonel, not entering the tent, remained at the entrance talking to some generals of his acquaintance.

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, was sprinkling Eau de Cologne on the Napoleon’s pampered body with an expression which seemed to say that he alone knew where and how much Eau de Cologne should be sprinkled. Napoleon’s short hair was wet and matted on the forehead, but his face, though puffy and yellow, expressed physical satisfaction. “Go on, harder, go on!” he muttered to the valet who was rubbing him, slightly twitching and grunting. An aide-de-camp, who had entered the bedroom to report to Napoleon the number of prisoners taken in yesterday’s action, was standing by the door after delivering his message, awaiting permission to withdraw. Napoleon, frowning, looked at him from under his brows.

“No prisoners!” said Napoleon, repeating the aide-de-camp’s words. “They are forcing us to exterminate them. So much the worse for the Russian army... Go on... harder, harder!” he muttered, hunching his back and presenting his fat shoulders.

“All right. Let Prefect Beausset enter, and the colonel too,” Napoleon said, nodding to the aide-de-camp.

“Yes, sire,” and the aide-de-camp disappeared through the door of the tent.

Two valets rapidly dressed Napoleon, and wearing the blue uniform of the Guards he went with firm quick steps to the reception room.

Prefect Beausset’s hands meanwhile were busily engaged arranging the present he had brought from Napoleon’s wife, on two chairs directly in front of the entrance. But Napoleon had dressed and come out with such unexpected rapidity that he had not time to finish arranging the surprise.

Napoleon noticed at once what they were about and guessed that they were not ready. Napoleon did not wish to deprive them of the pleasure of giving him a surprise, so he pretended not to see Prefect Beausset and called the colonel to him, listening silently and with a stern frown to what the colonel told him of the heroism and devotion of his troops fighting at Salamanca, at the other end of Europe, with but one thought—to be worthy of their Tzar—and but one fear—to fail to please him. The result of that battle had been deplorable. Napoleon made ironic remarks during Fabvier’s account, as if he had not expected that matters could go otherwise in his absence.

“I must make up for that in Moscow,” said Napoleon. “I’ll see you later, colonel,” he added, and summoned Prefect Beausset, who by that time had prepared the surprise, having placed something on the chairs and covered it with a cloth.

Prefect Beausset bowed low, with that courtly French bow which only the old retainers of the Bourbons knew how to make, and approached him, presenting an envelope.

Napoleon turned to him gaily and pulled his ear.

“You have hurried here. I am very glad. Well, what is Paris saying?” Napoleon asked, suddenly changing his former stern expression for a most cordial tone.

“Sire, all Paris regrets your absence,” replied Prefect Beausset as was proper.

But though Napoleon knew that Prefect Beausset had to say something of this kind, and though in his lucid moments he knew it was untrue, he was pleased to hear it from him. Again he honored him by touching his ear.

“I am very sorry to have made you travel so far,” said Napoleon.

“Sire, I expected nothing less than to find you at the gates of Moscow,” replied Prefect Beausset.

Napoleon smiled and, lifting his head absent-mindedly, glanced to the right. An aide-de-camp approached with gliding steps and offered him a gold snuffbox, which he took.

“Yes, it has happened luckily for you,” he said, raising the open snuffbox to his nose. “You are fond of travel, and in three days you will see Moscow. You surely did not expect to see that Asiatic capital. You will have a pleasant journey.”

Prefect Beausset bowed gratefully at this regard for his taste for travel (of which he had not till then been aware).

“Ha, what’s this?” asked Napoleon, noticing that all the courtiers were looking at something concealed under a cloth.

With courtly adroitness Prefect Beausset half turned and without turning his back to the Tzar retired two steps, twitching off the cloth at the same time, and said:

“A present to Napoleon from your wife.”

It was a portrait, painted in bright colors by Général Gérard , of the son borne to Napoleon by the daughter of the Emperor of Austria, the boy whom for some reason everyone called “The King of Rome.”

A very pretty curly-headed boy with a look of the Christ in the Sistine Madonna was depicted playing at stick and ball. The ball represented the terrestrial globe and the stick in his other hand a scepter.

Though it was not clear what the artist meant to express by depicting the so-called King of Rome spiking the earth with a stick, the allegory apparently seemed to Napoleon, as it had done to all who had seen it in Paris, quite clear and very pleasing.

“The King of Rome!” Napoleon said, pointing to the portrait with a graceful gesture. “Admirable!”

With the natural capacity of an Italian for changing the expression of his face at will, Napoleon drew nearer to the portrait and assumed a look of pensive tenderness. He felt that what he now said and did would be historical, and it seemed to him that it would now be best for him—whose grandeur enabled his son to play stick and ball with the terrestrial globe—to show, in contrast to that grandeur, the simplest paternal tenderness. Napoleon’s eyes grew dim, he moved forward, glanced round at a chair (which seemed to place itself under him), and sat down on it before the portrait. At a single gesture from him everyone went out on tiptoe, leaving the great man to himself and his emotion.

Having sat still for a while Napoleon touched—himself not knowing why—the thick spot of paint representing the highest light in the portrait, rose, and recalled Prefect Beausset and the officer on duty. He ordered the portrait to be carried outside his tent, that the Old Guard, stationed round it, might not be deprived of the pleasure of seeing the King of Rome, the son and heir of their adored monarch.

And while he was doing Prefect Beausset the honor of breakfasting with him, they heard, as Napoleon had anticipated, the rapturous cries of the officers and men of the Old Guard who had run up to see the portrait.

“Long live Napoleon! Long live the King of Rome! Long live Napoleon!” came those ecstatic cries.

After breakfast, Napoleon, in Prefect Beausset’s presence dictated his order of the day to the army.

“Short and energetic!” Napoleon remarked when he had read over the proclamation which he had dictated straight off without corrections. It ran:

Soldiers! This is the battle you have so longed for. Victory depends on you. It is essential for us; it will give us all we need: comfortable quarters and a speedy return to our country. Behave as you did at Austerlitz, Friedland, Vítebsk, and Smolénsk. Let our remotest posterity recall your achievements this day with pride. Let it be said of each of you: “He was in the great battle before Moscow!”

“Before Moscow!” repeated Napoleon, and inviting Prefect Beausset, who was so fond of travel, to accompany him on his ride, he went out of the tent to where the horses stood saddled.

“Your Majesty is too kind!” replied Prefect Beausset to the invitation to accompany the Tzar; he wanted to sleep, did not know how to ride and was afraid of doing so.

But Napoleon nodded to the traveler, and Prefect Beausset had to mount. When Napoleon came out of the tent the shouting of the Guards before his son’s portrait grew still louder. Napoleon frowned.

“Take him away!” Napoleon said, pointing with a gracefully majestic gesture to the portrait. “It is too soon for him to see a field of battle.”

Prefect Beausset closed his eyes, bowed his head, and sighed deeply, to indicate how profoundly he valued and comprehended the Tzar’s words.

On the twenty-fifth of August, so his historians tell us, Napoleon spent the whole day on horseback inspecting the locality, considering plans submitted to him by his generals, and personally giving commands to his generals.

The original line of the Russian forces along the river Kolochá had been dislocated by the capture of the Shevárdino Redoubt on the twenty-fourth, and part of the line—the left flank—had been drawn back. That part of the line was not entrenched and in front of it the ground was more open and level than elsewhere. It was evident to anyone, military or not, that it was here the French should attack. It would seem that not much consideration was needed to reach this conclusion, nor any particular care or trouble on the part of the Tzar and his generals, nor was there any need of that special and supreme quality called genius that people are so apt to ascribe to Napoleon; yet the historians who described the event later and the men who then surrounded Napoleon, and he himself, thought otherwise.

Napoleon rode over the plain and surveyed the locality with a profound air and in silence, nodded with approval or shook his head dubiously, and without communicating to the generals around him the profound course of ideas which guided his decisions merely gave them his final conclusions in the form of commands. Having listened to a suggestion from War Minister Davout to turn the Russian left wing, Napoleon said it should not be done, without explaining why not. To a proposal made by Général Campan (who was to attack the entrenchments) to lead his division through the woods, Napoleon agreed, though the so-called Duke of Elchingen (Général Ney) ventured to remark that a movement through the woods was dangerous and might disorder the division.

Having inspected the country opposite the Shevárdino Redoubt, Napoleon pondered a little in silence and then indicated the spots where two batteries should be set up by the morrow to act against the Russian entrenchments, and the places where, in line with them, the field artillery should be placed.

After giving these and other commands Napoleon returned to his tent, and the dispositions for the battle were written down from his dictation.

These dispositions, of which the French historians write with enthusiasm and other historians with profound respect, were as follows:

At dawn the two new batteries established during the night on the plain occupied by War Minister Davout will open fire on the opposing batteries of the enemy.

At the same time the commander of the artillery of the 1st Corps, Pernetti, with thirty cannons of Général Campan’s division and all the howitzers of Général Dessaix’s and Général Friant’s divisions, will move forward, open fire, and overwhelm with shellfire the enemy’s battery, against which will operate:

24 guns of the artillery of the Guards

30 guns of Campan’s division

 and 8 guns of Général Friant’s and Général Dessaix’s divisions

 —

 in all, 62 guns.

The commander of the artillery of the 3rd Corps, Fouche, will place the howitzers of the 3rd and 8th Corps, sixteen in all, on the flanks of the battery that is to bombard the entrenchment on the left, which will have forty guns in all directed against it.

Général Sorbier must be ready at the first order to advance with all the howitzers of the Guard’s artillery against either one or other of the entrenchments.

During the cannonade Général Poniatowski is to advance through the wood on the village and turn the enemy’s position.

General Campan will move through the wood to seize the first fortification.

After the advance has begun in this manner, orders will be given in accordance with the enemy’s movements.

The cannonade on the left flank will begin as soon as the guns of the right wing are heard. The sharpshooters of Général Morand’s division and of Général Murat’s division will open a heavy fire on seeing the attack commence on the right wing.

Général Murat will occupy the village and cross by its three bridges, advancing to the same heights as Général Morand’s and Général Gibrard’s divisions, which under his leadership will be directed against the redoubt and come into line with the rest of the forces.

All this must be done in good order as far as possible retaining troops in reserve.

The Imperial Camp near Mozháysk,

September, 6, 1812.

 

These dispositions, which are very obscure and confused if one allows oneself to regard the arrangements without religious awe of his genius, related to Napoleon’s orders to deal with four points—four different orders. Not one of these was, or could be, carried out.

In the disposition it is said first that the batteries placed on the spot chosen by Napoleon, with the guns of Général Pernetti and Général Fouché; which were to come in line with them, 102 guns in all, were to open fire and shower shells on the Russian entrenchments and redoubts. This could not be done, as from the spots selected by Napoleon the projectiles did not carry to the Russian works, and those 102 guns shot into the air until the nearest commander, contrary to Napoleon’s instructions, moved them forward.

The second order was that Général Poniatowski, moving to the village through the wood, should turn the Russian left flank. This could not be done and was not done, because Général Poniatowski, advancing on the village through the wood, met Túchkov there barring his way, and could not and did not turn the Russian position.

The third order was: Général Campan will move through the wood to seize the first fortification. Général Campan’s division did not seize the first fortification but was driven back, for on emerging from the wood it had to reform under grapeshot, of which Napoleon was unaware.

The fourth order was: Général Murat will occupy the village (Borodinó) and cross by its three bridges, advancing to the same heights as Général Morand’s and Général Gérard ’s divisions (for whose movements no directions are given), which under his leadership will be directed against the redoubt and come into line with the rest of the forces.

As far as one can make out, not so much from this unintelligible sentence as from the attempts Général Murat made to execute the orders given him, Général Murat was to advance from the left through Borodinó to the redoubt while the divisions of Général Morand and Général Gérard  were to advance simultaneously from the front.

All this, like the other parts of the disposition, was not and could not be executed. After passing through Borodinó, Général Murat was driven back to the Kolochá and could get no farther; while the divisions of Général Morand and Général Gérard  did not take the redoubt but were driven back, and the redoubt was only taken at the end of the battle by the cavalry (a thing probably unforeseen and not heard of by Napoleon). So not one of the orders in the disposition was, or could be, executed. But in the disposition it is said that, after the fight has commenced in this manner, orders will be given in accordance with the enemy’s movements, and so it might be supposed that all necessary arrangements would be made by Napoleon during the battle. But this was not and could not be done, for during the whole battle Napoleon was so far away that, as appeared later, he could not know the course of the battle and not one of his orders during the fight could be executed.

Many historians say that the French did not win the battle of Borodinó because Napoleon had a cold, and that if he had not had a cold the orders he gave before and during the battle would have been still more full of genius and Russia would have been lost and the face of the world have been changed. To historians who believe that Russia was shaped by the will of one man—Peter the Great—and that France from a republic became an empire and French armies went to Russia at the will of one man—Napoleon—to say that Russia remained a power because Napoleon had a bad cold on the twenty-fourth of August may seem logical and convincing.

If it had depended on Napoleon’s will to fight or not to fight the battle of Borodinó, and if this or that other arrangement depended on his will, then evidently a cold affecting the manifestation of his will might have saved Russia, and consequently the valet who omitted to bring Napoleon his waterproof boots on the twenty-fourth would have been the savior of Russia. Along that line of thought such a deduction is indubitable, as indubitable as the deduction Voltaire made in jest (without knowing what he was jesting at) when he saw that the Massacre of St. Bartholomew was due to Charles IX’s stomach being deranged. But to men who do not admit that Russia was formed by the will of one man, Peter I, or that the French Empire was formed and the war with Russia begun by the will of one man, Napoleon, that argument seems not merely untrue and irrational, but contrary to all human reality. To the question of what causes historic events another answer presents itself, namely, that the course of human events is predetermined from on high—depends on the coincidence of the wills of all who take part in the events, and that a Napoleon’s influence on the course of these events is purely external and fictitious.

Strange as at first glance it may seem to suppose that the Massacre of St. Bartholomew was not due to Charles IX’s will, though he gave the order for it and thought it was done as a result of that order; and strange as it may seem to suppose that the slaughter of eighty thousand men at Borodinó was not due to Napoleon’s will, though he ordered the commencement and conduct of the battle and thought it was done because he ordered it; strange as these suppositions appear, yet human dignity—which tells me that each of us is, if not more at least not less a man than the great Napoleon—demands the acceptance of that solution of the question, and historic investigation abundantly confirms it.

At the battle of Borodinó Napoleon shot at no one and killed no one. That was all done by the soldiers. Therefore it was not he who killed people.

The French soldiers went to kill and be killed at the battle of Borodinó not because of Napoleon’s orders but by their own volition. The whole army—French, Italian, German, Polish, and Dutch—hungry, ragged, and weary of the campaign, felt at the sight of an army blocking their road to Moscow that the wine was drawn and must be drunk. Had Napoleon then forbidden them to fight the Russians, they would have killed him and have proceeded to fight the Russians because it was inevitable.

When they heard Napoleon’s proclamation offering them, as compensation for mutilation and death, the words of posterity about their having been in the battle before Moscow, they cried “Long live Napoleon!” just as they had cried “Long live Napoleon!” at the sight of the portrait of the boy piercing the terrestrial globe with a toy stick, and just as they would have cried “Long live Napoleon!” at any nonsense that might be told them. There was nothing left for them to do but cry “Long live Napoleon!” and go to fight, in order to get food and rest as conquerors in Moscow. So it was not because of Napoleon’s commands that they killed their fellow men.

And it was not Napoleon who directed the course of the battle, for none of his orders were executed and during the battle he did not know what was going on before him. So the way in which these people killed one another was not decided by Napoleon’s will but occurred independently of him, in accord with the will of hundreds of thousands of people who took part in the common action. It only seemed to Napoleon that it all took place by his will. And so the question whether he had or had not a cold has no more historic interest than the cold of the least of the transport soldiers.

Moreover, the assertion made by various writers that Napoleon’s cold was the cause of his dispositions not being as well-planned as on former occasions, and of his orders during the battle not being as good as previously, is quite baseless, which again shows that Napoleon’s cold on the twenty-sixth of August was unimportant.

The dispositions cited above are not at all worse, but are even better, than previous dispositions by which Napoleon had won victories. His pseudo-orders during the battle were also no worse than formerly, but much the same as usual. These dispositions and orders only seem worse than previous ones because the battle of Borodinó was the first Napoleon did not win. The profoundest and most excellent dispositions and orders seem very bad, and every learned militarist criticizes them with looks of importance, when they relate to a battle that has been lost, and the very worst dispositions and orders seem very good, and serious people fill whole volumes to demonstrate their merits, when they relate to a battle that has been won.

The dispositions drawn up by General Weyrother for the battle of Austerlitz were a model of perfection for that kind of composition, but still they were criticized—criticized for their very perfection, for their excessive minuteness.

Napoleon at the battle of Borodinó fulfilled his office as representative of authority as well as, and even better than, at other battles. Napoleon did nothing harmful to the progress of the battle; he inclined to the most reasonable opinions, he made no confusion, did not contradict himself, did not get frightened or run away from the field of battle, but with his great tact and military experience carried out his role of appearing to command, calmly and with dignity.

On returning from a second inspection of the lines, Napoleon remarked:

“The chessmen are set up, the game will begin tomorrow!”

Having ordered punch and summoned Prefect Beausset, he began to talk to him about Paris and about some changes he meant to make in the Empress’ household, surprising the prefect by his memory of minute details relating to the court.

He showed an interest in trifles, joked about Prefect Beausset’s love of travel, and chatted carelessly, as a famous, self-confident surgeon who knows his job does when turning up his sleeves and putting on his apron while a patient is being strapped to the operating table. “The matter is in my hands and is clear and definite in my head. When the time comes to set to work I shall do it as no one else could, but now I can jest, and the more I jest and the calmer I am the more tranquil and confident you ought to be, and the more amazed at my genius.”

Having finished his second glass of punch, Napoleon went to rest before the serious business which, he considered, awaited him the next day. He was so much interested in that task that he was unable to sleep, and in spite of his cold which had grown worse from the dampness of the evening, he went into the large division of the tent at three o’clock in the morning, loudly blowing his nose. Napoleon asked whether the Russians had not withdrawn, and was told that the enemy’s fires were still in the same places. He nodded approval.

The adjutant in attendance came into the tent.

“Well, Adjutant Rapp, do you think we shall do good business today?” Napoleon asked him.

“Without doubt, sire,” replied Adjutant Rapp.

Napoleon looked at him.

“Do you remember, sire, what you did me the honor to say at Smolénsk?” continued Rapp. “The wine is drawn and must be drunk.”

Napoleon frowned and sat silent for a long time leaning his head on his hand.

“This poor army!” Napoleon suddenly remarked. “It has diminished greatly since Smolénsk. Fortune is frankly a courtesan, Rapp. I have always said so and I am beginning to experience it. But the Guards, Rapp, the Guards are intact?” he remarked interrogatively.

“Yes, sire,” replied Adjutant Rapp.

Napoleon took a lozenge, put it in his mouth, and glanced at his watch. He was not sleepy and it was still not nearly morning. It was impossible to give further orders for the sake of killing time, for the orders had all been given and were now being executed.

“Have the biscuits and rice been served out to the regiments of the Guards?” asked Napoleon sternly.

“Yes, sire.”

“The rice too?”

Adjutant Rapp replied that he had given the Tzar’s order about the rice, but Napoleon shook his head in dissatisfaction as if not believing that his order had been executed. An attendant came in with punch. Napoleon ordered another glass to be brought for Rapp, and silently sipped his own.

“I have neither taste nor smell,” Napoleon remarked, sniffing at his glass. “This cold is tiresome. They talk about medicine—what is the good of medicine when it can’t cure a cold! Corvisart gave me these lozenges but they don’t help at all. What can doctors cure? One can’t cure anything. Our body is a machine for living. It is organized for that, it is its nature. Let life go on in it unhindered and let it defend itself, it will do more than if you paralyze it by encumbering it with remedies. Our body is like a perfect watch that should go for a certain time; the watchmaker cannot open it, he can only adjust it by fumbling, and that blindfold... Yes, our body is just a machine for living, that is all.”

And having entered on the path of definition, of which he was fond, Napoleon suddenly and unexpectedly gave a new one.

“Do you know, Adjutant Rapp, what military art is?” asked he. “It is the art of being stronger than the enemy at a given moment. That’s all.”

Adjutant Rapp made no reply.

“Tomorrow we shall have to deal with Marshal Kutuzov!” said Napoleon. “We shall see! Do you remember at Braunau he commanded an army for three weeks and did not once mount a horse to inspect his entrenchments... We shall see!”

Napoleon looked at his watch. It was still only four o’clock. He did not feel sleepy. The punch was finished and there was still nothing to do. He rose, walked to and fro, put on a warm overcoat and a hat, and went out of the tent. The night was dark and damp, a scarcely perceptible moisture was descending from above. Nearby, the campfires were dimly burning among the French Guards, and in the distance those of the Russian line shone through the smoke. The weather was calm, and the rustle and tramp of the French troops already beginning to move to take up their positions were clearly audible.

Napoleon walked about in front of his tent, looked at the fires and listened to these sounds, and as he was passing a tall guardsman in a shaggy cap, who was standing sentinel before his tent and had drawn himself up like a black pillar at sight of the Tzar, Napoleon stopped in front of him.

“What year did you enter the service?” Napoleon asked with that affectation of military bluntness and geniality with which he always addressed the soldiers.

The guardsman answered the question.

“Ah! One of the old ones! Has your regiment had its rice?”

“It has, Your Majesty.”

Napoleon nodded and walked away.

 

At half-past five Napoleon rode to the village of Shevárdino.

It was growing light, the sky was clearing, only a single cloud lay in the east. The abandoned campfires were burning themselves out in the faint morning light.

On the right a single deep report of a cannon resounded and died away in the prevailing silence. Some minutes passed. A second and a third report shook the air, then a fourth and a fifth boomed solemnly nearby on the right.

The first shots had not yet ceased to reverberate before others rang out and yet more were heard mingling with and overtaking one another.

Napoleon with his suite rode up to the Shevárdino Redoubt where he dismounted. The game had begun.

On returning to Górki after having seen Andrei, Pierre ordered his groom to get the horses ready and to call him early in the morning, and then immediately fell asleep behind a partition in a corner Boris had given up to him.

Before Pierre was thoroughly awake next morning everybody had already left the hut. The panes were rattling in the little windows and his groom was shaking him.

“Your excellency! Your excellency! Your excellency!” Pierre’s groom kept repeating pertinaciously while he shook Pierre by the shoulder without looking at him, having apparently lost hope of getting him to wake up.

“What? Has it begun? Is it time?” Pierre asked, waking up.

“Hear the firing,” said Pierre’s groom, a discharged soldier. “All the gentlemen have gone out, and his Serene Highness himself rode past long ago.”

Pierre dressed hastily and ran out to the porch. Outside all was bright, fresh, dewy, and cheerful. The sun, just bursting forth from behind a cloud that had concealed it, was shining, with rays still half broken by the clouds, over the roofs of the street opposite, on the dew-besprinkled dust of the road, on the walls of the houses, on the windows, the fence, and on Pierre’s horses standing before the hut. The roar of guns sounded more distinct outside. An adjutant accompanied by a Cossack passed by at a sharp trot.

“It’s time, Pierre; it’s time!” cried the adjutant.

Telling the groom to follow him with the horses, Pierre went down the street to the knoll from which he had looked at the field of battle the day before. A crowd of military men was assembled there, members of the staff could be heard conversing in French, and Marshal Kutuzov’s gray head in a white cap with a red band was visible, his gray nape sunk between his shoulders. Marshal Kutuzov was looking through a field glass down the highroad before him.

Mounting the steps to the knoll Pierre looked at the scene before him, spellbound by beauty. It was the same panorama he had admired from that spot the day before, but now the whole place was full of troops and covered by smoke clouds from the guns, and the slanting rays of the bright sun, rising slightly to the left behind Pierre, cast upon it through the clear morning air penetrating streaks of rosy, golden-tinted light and long dark shadows. The forest at the farthest extremity of the panorama seemed carved in some precious stone of a yellowish-green color; its undulating outline was silhouetted against the horizon and was pierced beyond Valúevo by the Smolénsk highroad crowded with troops. Nearer at hand glittered golden cornfields interspersed with groves. There were troops to be seen everywhere, in front and to the right and left. All this was vivid, majestic, and unexpected; but what impressed Pierre most of all was the view of the battlefield itself, of Borodinó and the hollows on both sides of the Kolochá.

Above the Kolochá, in Borodinó and on both sides of it, especially to the left where the Vóyna flowing between its marshy banks falls into the Kolochá, a mist had spread which seemed to melt, to dissolve, and to become translucent when the brilliant sun appeared and magically colored and outlined everything. The smoke of the guns mingled with this mist, and over the whole expanse and through that mist the rays of the morning sun were reflected, flashing back like lightning from the water, from the dew, and from the bayonets of the troops crowded together by the riverbanks and in Borodinó. A white church could be seen through the mist, and here and there the roofs of huts in Borodinó as well as dense masses of soldiers, or green ammunition chests and ordnance. And all this moved, or seemed to move, as the smoke and mist spread out over the whole space. Just as in the mist-enveloped hollow near Borodinó, so along the entire line outside and above it and especially in the woods and fields to the left, in the valleys and on the summits of the high ground, clouds of powder smoke seemed continually to spring up out of nothing, now singly, now several at a time, some translucent, others dense, which, swelling, growing, rolling, and blending, extended over the whole expanse.

These puffs of smoke and (strange to say) the sound of the firing produced the chief beauty of the spectacle.

“Puff!”—suddenly a round compact cloud of smoke was seen merging from violet into gray and milky white, and “boom!” came the report a second later.

“Puff! puff!”—and two clouds arose pushing one another and blending together; and “boom, boom!” came the sounds confirming what the eye had seen.

Pierre glanced round at the first cloud, which he had seen as a round compact ball, and in its place already were balloons of smoke floating to one side, and—“puff” (with a pause)—“puff, puff!” three and then four more appeared and then from each, with the same interval—“boom—boom, boom!” came the fine, firm, precise sounds in reply. It seemed as if those smoke clouds sometimes ran and sometimes stood still while woods, fields, and glittering bayonets ran past them. From the left, over fields and bushes, those large balls of smoke were continually appearing followed by their solemn reports, while nearer still, in the hollows and woods, there burst from the muskets small cloudlets that had no time to become balls, but had their little echoes in just the same way. “Trakh-ta-ta-takh!” came the frequent crackle of musketry, but it was irregular and feeble in comparison with the reports of the cannon.

Pierre wished to be there with that smoke, those shining bayonets, that movement, and those sounds. He turned to look at Marshal Kutuzov and his suite, to compare his impressions with those of others. They were all looking at the field of battle as he was, and, as it seemed to him, with the same feelings. All their faces were now shining with that latent warmth of feeling Pierre had noticed the day before and had fully understood after his talk with Andrei.

“Go, my dear fellow, go... and Christ be with you!” Marshal Kutuzov was saying to a general who stood beside him, not taking his eye from the battlefield.

Having received this order the general passed by Pierre on his way down the knoll.

“To the crossing!” said the general coldly and sternly in reply to one of the staff who asked where he was going.

“I’ll go there too, I too!” thought Pierre, and followed the general.

The general mounted a horse that a Cossack had brought him. Pierre went to his groom who was holding his horses and, asking which was the quietest, clambered onto it, seized it by the mane, and turning out his toes pressed his heels against its sides and, feeling that his spectacles were slipping off but unable to let go of the mane and reins, he galloped after the general, causing the staff officers to smile as they watched him from the knoll.

Having descended the hill, the general after whom Pierre was galloping turned sharply to the left, and Pierre, losing sight of him, galloped in among some ranks of infantry marching ahead of him. Pierre tried to pass either in front of them or to the right or left, but there were soldiers everywhere, all with the same preoccupied expression and busy with some unseen but evidently important task. They all gazed with the same dissatisfied and inquiring expression at this stout man in a white hat, who for some unknown reason threatened to trample them under his horse’s hoofs.

“Why ride into the middle of the battalion?” one of them shouted at Pierre.

Another prodded Pierre’s horse with the butt end of a musket, and Pierre, bending over his saddlebow and hardly able to control his shying horse, galloped ahead of the soldiers where there was a free space.

There was a bridge ahead of him, where other soldiers stood firing. Pierre rode up to them. Without being aware of it he had come to the bridge across the Kolochá between Górki and Borodinó, which the French (having occupied Borodinó) were attacking in the first phase of the battle. Pierre saw that there was a bridge in front of him and that soldiers were doing something on both sides of it and in the meadow, among the rows of new-mown hay which he had taken no notice of amid the smoke of the campfires the day before; but despite the incessant firing going on there he had no idea that this was the field of battle. Pierre did not notice the sound of the bullets whistling from every side, or the projectiles that flew over him, did not see the enemy on the other side of the river, and for a long time did not notice the killed and wounded, though many fell near him. He looked about him with a smile which did not leave his face.

“Why’s that fellow in front of the line?” shouted somebody at Pierre again.

“To the left!... Keep to the right!” the men shouted to him.

Pierre went to the right, and unexpectedly encountered one of Raévski’s adjutants whom he knew. The adjutant looked angrily at him, evidently also intending to shout at him, but on recognizing Pierre, he nodded.

“How have you got here?” the adjutant said, and galloped on.

Pierre, feeling out of place there, having nothing to do, and afraid of getting in someone’s way again, galloped after the adjutant.

“What’s happening here? May I come with you?” Pierre asked.

“One moment, one moment!” replied the adjutant, and riding up to a stout colonel who was standing in the meadow, the adjutant gave him some message and then addressed Pierre.

“Why have you come here, Pierre?” he asked with a smile. “Still inquisitive?”

“Yes, yes,” assented Pierre.

But the adjutant turned his horse about and rode on.

“Here it’s tolerable,” said the adjutant, “but with Major-General Bagration on the left flank they’re getting it frightfully hot.”

“Really?” said Pierre. “Where is that?”

“Come along with me to our knoll. We can get a view from there and in our battery it is still bearable,” said the adjutant. “Will you come?”

“Yes, I’ll come with you,” replied Pierre, looking round for his groom.

It was only now that he noticed wounded men staggering along or being carried on stretchers. On that very meadow he had ridden over the day before, a soldier was lying athwart the rows of scented hay, with his head thrown awkwardly back and his shako off.

“Why haven’t they carried him away?” Pierre was about to ask, but seeing the stern expression of the adjutant who was also looking that way, he checked himself.

Pierre did not find his groom and rode along the hollow with the adjutant to Raévski’s Redoubt. His horse lagged behind the adjutant’s and jolted him at every step.

“You don’t seem to be used to riding, Pierre?” remarked the adjutant.

“No it’s not that, but my horses action seems so jerky,” said Pierre in a puzzled tone.

“Why... she’s wounded!” said the adjutant. “In the off foreleg above the knee. A bullet, no doubt. I congratulate you, Pierre, on your baptism of fire!”

Having ridden in the smoke past the Sixth Corps, behind the artillery which had been moved forward and was in action, deafening them with the noise of firing, they came to a small wood. There it was cool and quiet, with a scent of autumn. Pierre and the adjutant dismounted and walked up the hill on foot.

“Is the general here?” asked the adjutant on reaching the knoll.

“He was here a minute ago but has just gone that way,” someone told him, pointing to the right.

The adjutant looked at Pierre as if puzzled what to do with him now.

“Don’t trouble about me,” said Pierre. “I’ll go up onto the knoll if I may?”

“Yes, do. You’ll see everything from there and it’s less dangerous, and I’ll come for you.”

Pierre went to the battery and the adjutant rode on. They did not meet again, and only much later did Pierre learn that he lost an arm that day.

The knoll to which Pierre ascended was that famous one afterwards known to the Russians as the Knoll Battery or Raévski’s Redoubt, and to the French as the big redoubt, the fatal redoubt, the center redoubt, around which tens of thousands fell, and which the French regarded as the key to the whole position.

This redoubt consisted of a knoll, on three sides of which trenches had been dug. Within the entrenchment stood ten guns that were being fired through openings in the earthwork.

In line with the knoll on both sides stood other guns which also fired incessantly. A little behind the guns stood infantry. When ascending that knoll Pierre had no notion that this spot, on which small trenches had been dug and from which a few guns were firing, was the most important point of the battle.

On the contrary, just because he happened to be there he thought it one of the least significant parts of the field.

Having reached the knoll, Pierre sat down at one end of a trench surrounding the battery and gazed at what was going on around him with an unconsciously happy smile. Occasionally he rose and walked about the battery still with that same smile, trying not to obstruct the soldiers who were loading, hauling the guns, and continually running past him with bags and charges. The guns of that battery were being fired continually one after another with a deafening roar, enveloping the whole neighborhood in powder smoke.

In contrast with the dread felt by the infantrymen placed in support, here in the battery where a small number of men busy at their work were separated from the rest by a trench, everyone experienced a common and as it were family feeling of animation.

The intrusion of Pierre’s nonmilitary figure in a white hat made an unpleasant impression at first. The soldiers looked askance at him with surprise and even alarm as they went past him. The senior artillery officer, a tall, long-legged, pockmarked man, moved over to Pierre as if to see the action of the farthest gun and looked at him with curiosity.

A young round-faced officer, quite a boy still and evidently only just out of the Cadet College, who was zealously commanding the two guns entrusted to him, addressed Pierre sternly.

“Sir,” he said, “permit me to ask you to stand aside. You must not be here.”

The soldiers shook their heads disapprovingly as they looked at Pierre. But when they had convinced themselves that this man in the white hat was doing no harm, but either sat quietly on the slope of the trench with a shy smile or, politely making way for the soldiers, paced up and down the battery under fire as calmly as if he were on a boulevard, their feeling of hostile distrust gradually began to change into a kindly and bantering sympathy, such as soldiers feel for their dogs, cocks, goats, and in general for the animals that live with the regiment. The men soon accepted Pierre into their family, adopted him, gave him a nickname (“our gentleman”), and made kindly fun of him among themselves.

A shell tore up the earth two paces from Pierre and he looked around with a smile as he brushed from his clothes some earth it had thrown up.

“And how’s it you’re not afraid, sir, really now?” a red-faced, broad-shouldered soldier asked Pierre, with a grin that disclosed a set of sound, white teeth.

“Are you afraid, then?” said Pierre.

“What else do you expect?” answered the soldier. “She has no mercy, you know! When she comes spluttering down, out go your innards. One can’t help being afraid,” he said laughing.

Several of the men, with bright kindly faces, stopped beside Pierre. They seemed not to have expected him to talk like anybody else, and the discovery that he did so delighted them.

“It’s the business of us soldiers. But in a gentleman it’s wonderful! There’s a gentleman for you!”

“To your places!” cried the young officer to the men gathered round Pierre.

The young officer was evidently exercising his duties for the first or second time and therefore treated both his superiors and the men with great precision and formality.

The booming cannonade and the fusillade of musketry were growing more intense over the whole field, especially to the left where Major-General Bagration’s entrenchments were, but where Pierre was the smoke of the firing made it almost impossible to distinguish anything. Moreover, Pierre’s whole attention was engrossed by watching the family circle—separated from all else—formed by the men in the battery. Pierre’s first unconscious feeling of joyful animation produced by the sights and sounds of the battlefield was now replaced by another, especially since he had seen that soldier lying alone in the hayfield. Now, seated on the slope of the trench, he observed the faces of those around him.

By ten o’clock some twenty men had already been carried away from the battery; two guns were smashed and cannon balls fell more and more frequently on the battery and spent bullets buzzed and whistled around. But the men in the battery seemed not to notice this, and merry voices and jokes were heard on all sides.

“A live one!” shouted a man as a whistling shell approached.

“Not this way! To the infantry!” added another with loud laughter, seeing the shell fly past and fall into the ranks of the supports.

“Are you bowing to a friend, eh?” remarked another, chaffing a peasant who ducked low as a cannon ball flew over.

Several soldiers gathered by the wall of the trench, looking out to see what was happening in front.

“They’ve withdrawn the front line, it has retired,” said they, pointing over the earthwork.

“Mind your own business,” an old sergeant shouted at them. “If they’ve retired it’s because there’s work for them to do farther back.”

And the sergeant, taking one of the men by the shoulders, gave him a shove with his knee. This was followed by a burst of laughter.

“To the fifth gun, wheel it up!” came shouts from one side.

“Now then, all together, like bargemen!” rose the merry voices of those who were moving the gun.

“Oh, she nearly knocked our gentleman’s hat off!” cried the red-faced humorist, showing his teeth chaffing Pierre. “Awkward baggage!” he added reproachfully to a cannon ball that struck a cannon wheel and a man’s leg.

“Now then, you foxes!” said another, laughing at some militiamen who, stooping low, entered the battery to carry away the wounded man.

“So this gruel isn’t to your taste? Oh, you crows! You’re scared!” they shouted at the militiamen who stood hesitating before the man whose leg had been torn off.

“There, lads... oh, oh!” they mimicked the peasants, “they don’t like it at all!”

Pierre noticed that after every ball that hit the redoubt, and after every loss, the liveliness increased more and more.

As the flames of the fire hidden within come more and more vividly and rapidly from an approaching thundercloud, so, as if in opposition to what was taking place, the lightning of hidden fire growing more and more intense glowed in the faces of these men.

Pierre did not look out at the battlefield and was not concerned to know what was happening there; he was entirely absorbed in watching this fire which burned ever more brightly and which he felt was flaming up in the same way in his own soul.

At ten o’clock the infantry that had been among the bushes in front of the battery and along the Kámenka streamlet retreated. From the battery they could be seen running back past it carrying their wounded on their muskets. A general with his suite came to the battery, and after speaking to the colonel gave Pierre an angry look and went away again having ordered the infantry supports behind the battery to lie down, so as to be less exposed to fire. After this from amid the ranks of infantry to the right of the battery came the sound of a drum and shouts of command, and from the battery one saw how those ranks of infantry moved forward.

Pierre looked over the wall of the trench and was particularly struck by a pale young officer who, letting his sword hang down, was walking backwards and kept glancing uneasily around.

The ranks of the infantry disappeared amid the smoke but their long-drawn shout and rapid musketry firing could still be heard. A few minutes later crowds of wounded men and stretcher-bearers came back from that direction. Projectiles began to fall still more frequently in the battery. Several men were lying about who had not been removed. Around the cannon the men moved still more briskly and busily. No one any longer took notice of Pierre. Once or twice he was shouted at for being in the way. The senior officer moved with big, rapid strides from one gun to another with a frowning face. The young officer, with his face still more flushed, commanded the men more scrupulously than ever. The soldiers handed up the charges, turned, loaded, and did their business with strained smartness. They gave little jumps as they walked, as though they were on springs.

The storm cloud had come upon them, and in every face the fire which Pierre had watched kindle burned up brightly. Pierre standing beside the commanding officer. The young officer, his hand to his shako, ran up to his superior.

“I have the honor to report, sir, that only eight rounds are left. Are we to continue firing?” the young officer asked.

“Grapeshot!” the senior officer shouted, without answering the question, looking over the wall of the trench.

Suddenly something happened: the young officer gave a gasp and bending double sat down on the ground like a bird shot on the wing. Everything became strange, confused, and misty in Pierre’s eyes.

One cannon ball after another whistled by and struck the earthwork, a soldier, or a gun. Pierre, who had not noticed these sounds before, now heard nothing else. On the right of the battery soldiers shouting “Hurrah!” were running not forwards but backwards, it seemed to Pierre.

A cannon ball struck the very end of the earth work by which he was standing, crumbling down the earth; a black ball flashed before his eyes and at the same instant plumped into something. Some militiamen who were entering the battery ran back.

“All with grapeshot!” shouted the officer.

The sergeant ran up to the officer and in a frightened whisper informed him (as a butler at dinner informs his master that there is no more of some wine asked for) that there were no more charges.

“The scoundrels! What are they doing?” shouted the officer, turning to Pierre.

The officer’s face was red and perspiring and his eyes glittered under his frowning brow.

“Run to the reserves and bring up the ammunition boxes!” the officer yelled, angrily avoiding Pierre with his eyes and speaking to his men.

“I’ll go,” said Pierre.

The officer, without answering him, strode across to the opposite side.

“Don’t fire... Wait!” the officer shouted.

The man who had been ordered to go for ammunition stumbled against Pierre.

“Eh, sir, this is no place for you,” said he, and ran down the slope.

Pierre ran after him, avoiding the spot where the young officer was sitting.

One cannon ball, another, and a third flew over him, falling in front, beside, and behind him. Pierre ran down the slope. “Where am I going?” Pierre suddenly asked himself when he was already near the green ammunition wagons. He halted irresolutely, not knowing whether to return or go on. Suddenly a terrible concussion threw him backwards to the ground. At the same instant Pierre was dazzled by a great flash of flame, and immediately a deafening roar, crackling, and whistling made his ears tingle.

When Pierre came to himself he was sitting on the ground leaning on his hands; the ammunition wagons he had been approaching no longer existed, only charred green boards and rags littered the scorched grass, and a horse, dangling fragments of its shaft behind it, galloped past, while another horse lay, like Pierre, on the ground, uttering prolonged and piercing cries.

Beside himself with terror, Pierre jumped up and ran back to the battery, as to the only refuge from the horrors that surrounded him.

On entering the earthwork Pierre noticed that there were men doing something there but that no shots were being fired from the battery. He had no time to realize who these men were. He saw the senior officer lying on the earth wall with his back turned as if he were examining something down below and that one of the soldiers he had noticed before was struggling forward shouting “Brothers!” and trying to free himself from some men who were holding him by the arm. He also saw something else that was strange.

But Pierre had not time to realize that the colonel had been killed, that the soldier shouting “Brothers!” was a prisoner, and that another man had been bayoneted in the back before his eyes, for hardly had he run into the redoubt before a thin, sallow-faced, perspiring man in a blue uniform rushed on him sword in hand, shouting something. Instinctively guarding against the shock—for they had been running together at full speed before they saw one another—Pierre put out his hands and seized the man (a French officer) by the shoulder with one hand and by the throat with the other. The officer, dropping his sword, seized Pierre by his collar.

For some seconds they gazed with frightened eyes at one another’s unfamiliar faces and both were perplexed at what they had done and what they were to do next. “Am I taken prisoner or have I taken him prisoner?” each was thinking. But the French officer was evidently more inclined to think he had been taken prisoner because Pierre’s strong hand, impelled by instinctive fear, squeezed his throat ever tighter and tighter. The French officer was about to say something, when just above their heads, terrible and low, a cannon ball whistled, and it seemed to Pierre that the French officer’s head had been torn off, so swiftly had he ducked it.

Pierre too bent his head and let his hands fall. Without further thought as to who had taken whom prisoner, the French officer ran back to the battery and Pierre ran down the slope stumbling over the dead and wounded who, it seemed to him, caught at his feet. But before Pierre reached the foot of the knoll he was met by a dense crowd of Russian soldiers who, stumbling, tripping up, and shouting, ran merrily and wildly toward the battery. (This was the attack for which General Ermólov claimed the credit, declaring that only his courage and good luck made such a feat possible: it was the attack in which he was said to have thrown some St. George’s Crosses he had in his pocket into the battery for the first soldiers to take who got there.)

The French who had occupied the battery fled, and our troops shouting “Hurrah!” pursued them so far beyond the battery that it was difficult to call them back.

The prisoners were brought down from the battery and among them was a wounded French général, whom the officers surrounded. Crowds of wounded—some known to Pierre and some unknown—Russians and French, with faces distorted by suffering, walked, crawled, and were carried on stretchers from the battery. Pierre again went up onto the knoll where he had spent over an hour, and of that family circle which had received him as a member he did not find a single one. There were many dead whom he did not know, but some he recognized. The young officer still sat in the same way, bent double, in a pool of blood at the edge of the earth wall. The red-faced man was still twitching, but they did not carry him away.

Pierre ran down the slope once more.

“Now they will stop it, now they will be horrified at what they have done!” Pierre thought, aimlessly going toward a crowd of stretcher bearers moving from the battlefield.

But behind the veil of smoke the sun was still high, and in front and especially to the left, near Semënovsk, something seemed to be seething in the smoke, and the roar of cannon and musketry did not diminish, but even increased to desperation like a man who, straining himself, shrieks with all his remaining strength.

The chief action of the battle of Borodinó was fought within the seven thousand feet between Borodinó and Major-General Bagration’s entrenchments. Beyond that space there was, on the one side, a demonstration made by the Russians with Uvárov’s cavalry at midday, and on the other side, beyond Utítsa, Poniatowski’s collision with Túchkov; but these two were detached and feeble actions in comparison with what took place in the center of the battlefield. On the field between Borodinó and the entrenchments, beside the wood, the chief action of the day took place on an open space visible from both sides and was fought in the simplest and most artless way.

The battle began on both sides with a cannonade from several hundred guns.

Then when the whole field was covered with smoke, two divisions, Général Campan’s and Général Dessaix’s, advanced from the French right, while Général Murat’s troops advanced on Borodinó from their left.

From the Shevárdino Redoubt where Napoleon was standing the entrenchments were two thirds of a mile away, and it was more than a mile as the crow flies to Borodinó, so that Napoleon could not see what was happening there, especially as the smoke mingling with the mist hid the whole locality. The soldiers of Général Dessaix’s division advancing against the entrenchments could only be seen till they had entered the hollow that lay between them and the entrenchments. As soon as they had descended into that hollow, the smoke of the guns and musketry on the entrenchments grew so dense that it covered the whole approach on that side of it. Through the smoke glimpses could be caught of something black—probably men—and at times the glint of bayonets. But whether they were moving or stationary, whether they were French or Russian, could not be discovered from the Shevárdino Redoubt.

The sun had risen brightly and its slanting rays struck straight into Napoleon’s face as, shading his eyes with his hand, he looked at the entrenchments. The smoke spread out before them, and at times it looked as if the smoke were moving, at times as if the troops moved. Sometimes shouts were heard through the firing, but it was impossible to tell what was being done there.

Napoleon, standing on the knoll, looked through a field glass, and in its small circlet saw smoke and men, sometimes his own and sometimes Russians, but when he looked again with the naked eye, he could not tell where what he had seen was.

Napoleon descended the knoll and began walking up and down before it.

Occasionally he stopped, listened to the firing, and gazed intently at the battlefield.

But not only was it impossible to make out what was happening from where Napoleon was standing down below, or from the knoll above on which some of his generals had taken their stand, but even from the entrenchments themselves—in which by this time there were now Russian and now French soldiers, alternately or together, dead, wounded, alive, frightened, or maddened—even at those entrenchments themselves it was impossible to make out what was taking place. There for several hours amid incessant cannon and musketry fire, now Russians were seen alone, now Frenchmen alone, now infantry, and now cavalry: they appeared, fired, fell, collided, not knowing what to do with one another, screamed, and ran back again.

From the battlefield adjutants he had sent out, and orderlies from his generals, kept galloping up to Napoleon with reports of the progress of the action, but all these reports were false, both because it was impossible in the heat of battle to say what was happening at any given moment and because many of the adjutants did not go to the actual place of conflict but reported what they had heard from others; and also because while an adjutant was riding more than a mile to Napoleon circumstances changed and the news he brought was already becoming false. Thus an adjutant galloped up from Général Murat with tidings that Borodinó had been occupied and the bridge over the Kolochá was in the hands of the French. The adjutant asked whether Napoleon wished the troops to cross it? Napoleon gave orders that the troops should form up on the farther side and wait. But before that order was given—almost as soon in fact as the adjutant had left Borodinó—the bridge had been retaken by the Russians and burned, in the very skirmish at which Pierre had been present at the beginning of the battle.

An adjutant galloped up from the entrenchments with a pale and frightened face and reported to Napoleon that their attack had been repulsed, Général Campan wounded, and War Minister Davout killed; yet at the very time the adjutant had been told that the French had been repulsed, the entrenchments had in fact been recaptured by other French troops, and War Minister Davout was alive and only slightly bruised. On the basis of these necessarily untrustworthy reports Napoleon gave his orders, which had either been executed before he gave them or could not be and were not executed.

The generals, who were nearer to the field of battle but, like Napoleon, did not take part in the actual fighting and only occasionally went within musket range, made their own arrangements without asking Napoleon and issued orders where and in what direction to fire and where cavalry should gallop and infantry should run. But even their orders, like Napoleon’s, were seldom carried out, and then but partially. For the most part things happened contrary to their orders. Soldiers ordered to advance ran back on meeting grapeshot; soldiers ordered to remain where they were, suddenly, seeing Russians unexpectedly before them, sometimes rushed back and sometimes forward, and the cavalry dashed without orders in pursuit of the flying Russians. In this way two cavalry regiments galloped through the Semënovsk hollow and as soon as they reached the top of the incline turned round and galloped full speed back again. The infantry moved in the same way, sometimes running to quite other places than those they were ordered to go to. All orders as to where and when to move the guns, when to send infantry to shoot or horsemen to ride down the Russian infantry—all such orders were given by the officers on the spot nearest to the units concerned, without asking either Général Ney, War Minister Davout, or Général Murat, much less Napoleon. They did not fear getting into trouble for not fulfilling orders or for acting on their own initiative, for in battle what is at stake is what is dearest to man—his own life—and it sometimes seems that safety lies in running back, sometimes in running forward; and these men who were right in the heat of the battle acted according to the mood of the moment. In reality, however, all these movements forward and backward did not improve or alter the position of the troops. All their rushing and galloping at one another did little harm, the harm of disablement and death was caused by the balls and bullets that flew over the fields on which these men were floundering about. As soon as they left the place where the balls and bullets were flying about, their superiors, located in the background, re-formed them and brought them under discipline and under the influence of that discipline led them back to the zone of fire, where under the influence of fear of death they lost their discipline and rushed about according to the chance promptings of the throng.

Napoleon’s generals—War Minister Davout, Général Ney, and Général Murat, who were near that region of fire and sometimes even entered it—repeatedly led into it huge masses of well-ordered troops. But contrary to what had always happened in their former battles, instead of the news they expected of the enemy’s flight, these orderly masses returned thence as disorganized and terrified mobs. The generals re-formed them, but their numbers constantly decreased. In the middle of the day Général Murat sent his adjutant to Napoleon to demand reinforcements.

Napoleon sat at the foot of the knoll, drinking punch, when Général Murat’s adjutant galloped up with an assurance that the Russians would be routed if Napoleon would let him have another division.

“Reinforcements?” said Napoleon in a tone of stern surprise, looking at the adjutant—a handsome lad with long black curls arranged like Général Murat’s own—as though he did not understand his words.

“Reinforcements!” thought Napoleon to himself. “How can they need reinforcements when they already have half the army directed against a weak, Russian wing that has been driven from their trenches?”

“Tell Général Murat’s,” said he sternly, “that it is not noon yet, and I don’t yet see my chessboard clearly. Go!...”

The handsome boy adjutant with the long hair sighed deeply without removing his hand from his hat and galloped back to where men were being slaughtered.

Napoleon rose and having summoned Général Caulaincourt and Chief of Staff Berthier began talking to them about matters unconnected with the battle.

In the midst of this conversation, which was beginning to interest Napoleon, Chief of Staff Berthier’s eyes turned to look at a général with a suite, who was galloping toward the knoll on a lathering horse. It was Général Belliard. Having dismounted he went up to Napoleon with rapid strides and in a loud voice began boldly demonstrating the necessity of sending reinforcements. He swore on his honor that the Russians were lost if Napoleon would give another division.

Napoleon shrugged his shoulders and continued to pace up and down without replying. Général Belliard began talking loudly and eagerly to the generals of the suite around him.

“You are very fiery, Général Belliard,” said Napoleon, when he again came up to the general. “In the heat of a battle it is easy to make a mistake. Go and have another look and then come back to me.”

Before Général Belliard was out of sight, a messenger from another part of the battlefield galloped up.

“Now then, what do you want?” asked Napoleon in the tone of a man irritated at being continually disturbed.

“Sire, the général...” began the adjutant.

“Asks for reinforcements?” said Napoleon with an angry gesture.

The adjutant bent his head affirmatively and began to report, but Napoleon turned from him, took a couple of steps, stopped, came back, and called Chief of Staff Berthier.

“We must give reserves,” Napoleon said, moving his arms slightly apart. “Who do you think should be sent there?” Napoleon asked of Chief of Staff Berthier (whom he subsequently termed “that gosling I have made an eagle”).

“Send Général Claparède’s division, sire,” replied Chief of Staff Berthier, who knew all the division’s regiments, and battalions by heart.

Napoleon nodded assent.

The adjutant galloped to Général Claparède’s division and a few minutes later the Young Guards stationed behind the knoll moved forward. Napoleon gazed silently in that direction.

“No!” Napoleon suddenly said to Chief of Staff Berthier. “I can’t send Général Claparède. Send Général Friant’s division.”

Though there was no advantage in sending Général Friant’s division instead of Général Claparède’s, and even an obvious inconvenience and delay in stopping Général Claparède and sending Général Friant now, the order was carried out exactly. Napoleon did not notice that in regard to his army he was playing the part of a doctor who hinders by his medicines—a role he so justly understood and condemned.

Général Friant’s division disappeared as the others had done into the smoke of the battlefield. From all sides adjutants continued to arrive at a gallop and as if by agreement all said the same thing. They all asked for reinforcements and all said that the Russians were holding their positions and maintaining a hellish fire under which the French army was melting away.

Napoleon sat on a campstool, wrapped in thought.

Prefect Beausset, the man so fond of travel, having fasted since morning, came up to Napoleon and ventured respectfully to suggest lunch.

“I hope I may now congratulate you on a victory?” said Prefect Beausset.

Napoleon silently shook his head in negation. Assuming the negation to refer only to the victory and not to the lunch, Prefect Beausset ventured with respectful jocularity to remark that there is no reason for not having lunch when one can get it.

“Go away...” exclaimed Napoleon suddenly and morosely, and turned aside.

A beatific smile of regret, repentance, and ecstasy beamed on Prefect Beausset’s face and he glided away to the other generals.

Napoleon was experiencing a feeling of depression like that of an ever-lucky gambler who, after recklessly flinging money about and always winning, suddenly just when he has calculated all the chances of the game, finds that the more he considers his play the more surely he loses.

Napoleon’s troops were the same, his generals the same, the same preparations had been made, the same dispositions, and the same proclamation short and energetic, he himself was still the same: he knew that and knew that he was now even more experienced and skillful than before. Even the enemy was the same as at Austerlitz and Friedland—yet the terrible stroke of his arm had supernaturally become impotent.

All the old methods that had been unfailingly crowned with success: the concentration of batteries on one point, an attack by reserves to break the enemy’s line, and a cavalry attack by “the men of iron,” all these methods had already been employed, yet not only was there no victory, but from all sides came the same news of generals killed and wounded, of reinforcements needed, of the impossibility of driving back the Russians, and of disorganization among his own troops.

Formerly, after Napoleon had given two or three orders and uttered a few phrases, generals and adjutants had come galloping up with congratulations and happy faces, announcing the trophies taken, the corps of prisoners, bundles of enemy eagles and standards, cannon and stores, and Général Murat had only begged leave to loose the cavalry to gather in the baggage wagons. So it had been at Lodi, Marengo, Arcola, Jena, Austerlitz, Wagram, and so on. But now something strange was happening to his troops.

Despite news of the capture of the entrenchments, Napoleon saw that this was not the same, not at all the same, as what had happened in his former battles. Napoleon saw that what he was feeling was felt by all the men about him experienced in the art of war. All their faces looked dejected, and they all shunned one another’s eyes—only someone like Prefect Beausset could fail to grasp the meaning of what was happening.

But Napoleon with his long experience of war well knew the meaning of a battle not gained by the attacking side in eight hours, after all efforts had been expended. He knew that it was a lost battle and that the least accident might now—with the fight balanced on such a strained center—destroy him and his army.

When Napoleon ran his mind over the whole of this strange Russian campaign in which not one battle had been won, and in which not a flag, or cannon, or army corps had been captured in two months, when he looked at the concealed depression on the faces around him and heard reports of the Russians still holding their ground—a terrible feeling like a nightmare took possession of him, and all the unlucky accidents that might destroy him occurred to his mind. The Russians might fall on his left wing, might break through his center, he himself might be killed by a stray cannon ball. All this was possible. In former battles Napoleon had only considered the possibilities of success, but now innumerable unlucky chances presented themselves, and he expected them all. Yes, it was like a dream in which a man fancies that a ruffian is coming to attack him, and raises his arm to strike that ruffian a terrible blow which he knows should annihilate him, but then feels that his arm drops powerless and limp like a rag, and the horror of unavoidable destruction seizes him in his helplessness.

The news that the Russians were attacking the left flank of the French army aroused that horror in Napoleon. He sat silently on a campstool below the knoll, with head bowed and elbows on his knees. Chief of Staff Berthier approached and suggested that they should ride along the line to ascertain the position of affairs.

“What? What do you say?” asked Napoleon. “Yes, tell them to bring me my horse.”

Napoleon mounted and rode toward Semënovsk.

Amid the powder smoke, slowly dispersing over the whole space through which Napoleon rode, horses and men were lying in pools of blood, singly or in heaps. Neither Napoleon nor any of his generals had ever before seen such horrors or so many slain in such a small area. The roar of guns, that had not ceased for ten hours, wearied the ear and gave a peculiar significance to the spectacle, as music does to living pictures. Napoleon rode up the high ground at Semënovsk, and through the smoke saw ranks of men in uniforms of a color unfamiliar to him. They were Russians.

The Russians stood in serried ranks behind Semënovsk village and its knoll, and their guns boomed incessantly along their line and sent forth clouds of smoke. It was no longer a battle: it was a continuous slaughter which could be of no avail either to the French or the Russians. Napoleon stopped his horse and again fell into the reverie from which Chief of Staff Berthier had aroused him. He could not stop what was going on before him and around him and was supposed to be directed by him and to depend on him, and from its lack of success this affair, for the first time, seemed to him unnecessary and horrible.

One of the generals rode up to Napoleon and ventured to offer to lead the Old Guard into action. Général Ney and Chief of Staff Berthier, standing near Napoleon, exchanged looks and smiled contemptuously at this general’s senseless offer.

Napoleon bowed his head and remained silent a long time.

“At eight hundred leagues from France, I will not have my Old Guard destroyed!” Napoleon said, and turning his horse rode back to Shevárdino.

On the rug-covered bench where Pierre had seen him in the morning sat Marshal Kutuzov, his gray head hanging, his heavy body relaxed. He gave no orders, but only assented to or dissented from what others suggested.

“Yes, yes, do that,” Marshal Kutuzov replied to various proposals. “Yes, yes: go, dear boy, and have a look,” he would say to one or another of those about him; or, “No, don’t, we’d better wait!” He listened to the reports that were brought him and gave directions when his subordinates demanded that of him; but when listening to the reports it seemed as if he were not interested in the import of the words spoken, but rather in something else—in the expression of face and tone of voice of those who were reporting. By long years of military experience Marshal Kutuzov knew, and with the wisdom of age understood, that it is impossible for one man to direct hundreds of thousands of others struggling with death, and he knew that the result of a battle is decided not by the orders of a Marshal, nor the place where the troops are stationed, nor by the number of cannon or of slaughtered men, but by that intangible force called the spirit of the army, and he watched this force and guided it in as far as that was in his power.

Marshal Kutuzov’s expression was one of concentrated quiet attention, and his face wore a strained look as if he found it difficult to master the fatigue of his old and feeble body.

At eleven o’clock they brought him news that the entrenchments captured by the French had been retaken, but that Major-General Bagration was wounded. Marshal Kutuzov groaned and swayed his head.

“Ride over to Major-General Bagration and find out about it exactly,” Marshal Kutuzov said to one of his adjutants, and then turned to the Duke of Württemberg who was standing behind him.

“Will you please take command of the first army?”

Soon after the Duke of Württemberg’s departure—before he could possibly have reached Semënovsk—his adjutant came back from him and told Marshal Kutuzov that the Duke of Württemberg had asked for more troops.

Marshal Kutuzov made a grimace and sent an order to General Dokhtúrov to take over the command of the first army from the Duke of Württember, and also a request to the Duke of Württemberg—whom he said he could not spare at such an important moment—to return to him. When they brought Marshal Kutuzov news that Général Murat had been taken prisoner, and the staff officers congratulated him, Marshal Kutuzov smiled.

“Wait a little, gentlemen,” said Marshal Kutuzov. “The battle is won, and there is nothing extraordinary in the capture of Général Murat. Still, it is better to wait before we rejoice.”

But Marshal Kutuzov sent an adjutant to take the news round the army.

When Scherbínin came galloping from the left flank with news that the French had captured the entrenchments and the village of Semënovsk, Marshal Kutuzov, guessing by the sounds of the battle and by Scherbínin’s looks that the news was bad, rose as if to stretch his legs and, taking Scherbínin’s arm, led him aside.

“Go, my dear fellow,” Marshal Kutuzov said to General Ermólov, “and see whether something can’t be done.”

Marshal Kutuzov was in Górki, near the center of the Russian position. The attack directed by Napoleon against our left flank had been several times repulsed. In the center the French had not got beyond Borodinó, and on their left flank Uvárov’s cavalry had put the French to flight.

Toward three o’clock the French attacks ceased. On the faces of all who came from the field of battle, and of those who stood around him, Marshal Kutuzov noticed an expression of extreme tension. He was satisfied with the day’s success—a success exceeding his expectations, but the old man’s strength was failing him. Several times his head dropped low as if it were falling and he dozed off. Dinner was brought him.

Adjutant General Wolzogen, the man who when riding past Andrei had said, “the war should be extended widely,” and whom Major-General Bagration so detested, rode up while Marshal Kutuzov was at dinner. Wolzogen had come from Barclay to report on the progress of affairs on the left flank. The sagacious Barclay, seeing crowds of wounded men running back and the disordered rear of the army, weighed all the circumstances, concluded that the battle was lost, and sent his favorite officer to Marshal Kutuzov with that news.

Marshal Kutuzov was chewing a piece of roast chicken with difficulty and glanced at Wolzogen with eyes that brightened under their puckering lids.

Wolzogen, nonchalantly stretching his legs, approached Marshal Kutuzov with a half-contemptuous smile on his lips, scarcely touching the peak of his cap.

Wolzogen treated his Serene Highness with a somewhat affected nonchalance intended to show that, as a highly trained military man, he left it to Russians to make an idol of this useless old man, but that he knew whom he was dealing with. “The old gentleman” (as in their own set the Germans called Marshal Kutuzov) “is making himself very comfortable,” thought Wolzogen, and looking severely at the dishes in front of Marshal Kutuzov he began to report to “the old gentleman” the position of affairs on the left flank as Barclay had ordered him to and as he himself had seen and understood it.

“All the points of our position are in the enemy’s hands and we cannot dislodge them for lack of troops, the men are running away and it is impossible to stop them,” Wolzogen reported.

Marshal Kutuzov ceased chewing and fixed an astonished gaze on Wolzogen, as if not understanding what was said to him. Wolzogen, noticing “the old gentleman’s” agitation, said with a smile:

“I have not considered it right to conceal from your Serene Highness what I have seen. The troops are in complete disorder...”

“You have seen? You have seen?...” Marshal Kutuzov shouted. Frowning and rising quickly, he went up to Wolzogen.

“How... how dare you!...” Marshal Kutuzov shouted, choking and making a threatening gesture with his trembling arms: “How dare you, sir, say that to me? You know nothing about it. Tell General Barclay from me that his information is incorrect and that the real course of the battle is better known to me, who is now Marshal, than to him.”

Wolzogen was about to make a rejoinder, but Marshal Kutuzov interrupted him.

“The enemy has been repulsed on the left and defeated on the right flank. If you have seen amiss, sir, do not allow yourself to say what you don’t know! Be so good as to ride to General Barclay and inform him of my firm intention to attack the enemy tomorrow,” said Marshal Kutuzov sternly.

All were silent, and the only sound audible was the heavy breathing of the panting Marshal Kutuzov.

“They are repulsed everywhere, for which I thank God and our brave army! The enemy is beaten, and tomorrow we shall drive him from the sacred soil of Russia,” said Marshal Kutuzov crossing himself, and he suddenly sobbed as his eyes filled with tears.

Wolzogen, shrugging his shoulders and curling his lips, stepped silently aside, marveling at “the old gentleman’s” conceited stupidity.

“Ah, here he is, my hero!” said Marshal Kutuzov to a portly, handsome, dark-haired general who was just ascending the knoll.

This was Raévski, who had spent the whole day at the most important part of the field of Borodinó.

Raévski reported that the troops were firmly holding their ground and that the French no longer ventured to attack.

After hearing him, Marshal Kutuzov said in French:

“Then you do not think, like some others, that we must retreat?”

“On the contrary, your Highness, in indecisive actions it is always the most stubborn who remain victors,” replied Raévski, “and in my opinion...”

“Kaysárov!” Marshal Kutuzov called to his adjutant. “Sit down and write out the order of the day for tomorrow. And you,” he continued, addressing another, “ride along the line and announce that tomorrow we attack.”

While Marshal Kutuzov was talking to Raévski and dictating the order of the day, Wolzogen returned from Barclay and said that General Barclay wished to have written confirmation of the order that Marshal Kutuzov had given.

Marshal Kutuzov, without looking at Wolzogen, gave directions for the order to be written out which the former Marshal Barclay, to avoid personal responsibility, very judiciously wished to receive.

And by means of that mysterious indefinable bond which maintains throughout an army one and the same temper, known as “the spirit of the army,” and which constitutes the sinew of war, Marshal Kutuzov’s words, his order for a battle the next day, immediately became known from one end of the army to the other.

It was far from being the same words or the same order that reached the farthest links of that chain. The tales passing from mouth to mouth at different ends of the army did not even resemble what Marshal Kutuzov had said, but the sense of his words spread everywhere because what he said was not the outcome of cunning calculations, but of a feeling that lay in the Marshal’s soul as in that of every Russian.

And on learning that tomorrow they were to attack the enemy, and hearing from the highest quarters a confirmation of what they wanted to believe, the exhausted, wavering men felt comforted and inspirited.

Andrei’s regiment was among the reserves which till after one o’clock were stationed inactive behind Semënovsk, under heavy artillery fire. Toward two o’clock the regiment, having already lost more than two hundred men, was moved forward into a trampled oat field in the gap between Semënovsk and the Knoll Battery, where thousands of men perished that day and on which an intense, concentrated fire from several hundred enemy guns was directed between one and two o’clock.

Without moving from that spot or firing a single shot, Andrei’s regiment here lost another third of its men. From in front and especially from the right, in the un-lifting smoke the guns boomed, and out of the mysterious domain of smoke that overlay the whole space in front, quick hissing cannon balls and slow whistling shells flew unceasingly. At times, as if to allow them a respite, a quarter of an hour passed during which the cannon balls and shells all flew overhead, but sometimes several men were torn from the regiment in a minute and the slain were continually being dragged away and the wounded carried off.

With each fresh blow less and less chance of life remained for those not yet killed. Andrei’s regiment stood in columns of battalion, three hundred paces apart, but nevertheless the men were always in one and the same mood. All alike were taciturn and morose. Talk was rarely heard in the ranks, and it ceased altogether every time the thud of a successful shot and the cry of “stretchers!” was heard. Most of the time, by their officers’ order, the men sat on the ground. One, having taken off his shako, carefully loosened the gathers of its lining and drew them tight again; another, rubbing some dry clay between his palms, polished his bayonet; another fingered the scarriage and pulled the buckle of his bandolier, while another smoothed and refolded his leg bands and put his boots on again. Some built little houses of the tufts in the plowed ground, or plaited baskets from the straw in the cornfield. All seemed fully absorbed in these pursuits. When men were killed or wounded, when rows of stretchers went past, when some troops retreated, and when great masses of the enemy came into view through the smoke, no one paid any attention to these things. But when our artillery or cavalry advanced or some of our infantry were seen to move forward, words of approval were heard on all sides. But the liveliest attention was attracted by occurrences quite apart from, and unconnected with, the battle. It was as if the minds of these morally exhausted men found relief in everyday, commonplace occurrences. A battery of artillery was passing in front of the regiment. The horse of an ammunition cart put its leg over a trace. “Hey, look at the trace horse!... Get her leg out! She’ll fall... Ah, they don’t see it!” came identical shouts from the ranks all along the regiment. Another time, attention was attracted by a small brown dog, coming heaven knows whence, which trotted in a preoccupied manner in front of the ranks with tail stiffly erect till suddenly a shell fell close by, when it yelped, tucked its tail between its legs, and darted aside. Yells and shrieks of laughter rose from the whole regiment. But such distractions lasted only a moment, and for eight hours the men had been inactive, without food, in constant fear of death, and their pale and gloomy faces grew ever paler and gloomier.

Andrei, pale and gloomy like everyone in the regiment, paced up and down from the border of one patch to another, at the edge of the meadow beside an field of oats, with head bowed and arms behind his back. There was nothing for him to do and no orders to be given. Everything went on of itself. The killed were dragged from the front, the wounded carried away, and the ranks closed up. If any soldiers ran to the rear they returned immediately and hastily. At first Andrei, considering it his duty to rouse the courage of the men and to set them an example, walked about among the ranks, but he soon became convinced that this was unnecessary and that there was nothing he could teach them. All the powers of his soul, as of every soldier there, were unconsciously bent on avoiding the contemplation of the horrors of their situation. Andrei walked along the meadow, dragging his feet, rustling the grass, and gazing at the dust that covered his boots; now he took big strides trying to keep to the footprints left on the meadow by the mowers, then he counted his steps, calculating how often he must walk from one strip to another to walk a mile, then he stripped the flowers from the wormwood that grew along a boundary rut, rubbed them in his palms, and smelled their pungent, sweetly bitter scent. Nothing remained of the previous day’s thoughts. He thought of nothing. Andrei listened with weary ears to the ever-recurring sounds, distinguishing the whistle of flying projectiles from the booming of the reports, glanced at the tiresomely familiar faces of the men of the first battalion, and waited. “Here it comes... this one is coming our way again!” he thought, listening to an approaching whistle in the hidden region of smoke. “One, another! Again! It has hit...” Andrei stopped and looked at the ranks. “No, it has gone over. But this one has hit!” And again he started trying to reach the boundary strip in sixteen paces. A whizz and a thud! Five paces from him, a cannon ball tore up the dry earth and disappeared. A chill ran down his back. Again he glanced at the ranks. Probably many had been hit—a large crowd had gathered near the second battalion.

“Adjutant!” Andrei shouted. “Order them not to crowd together.”

The adjutant, having obeyed this instruction, approached Andrei. From the other side a battalion commander rode up.

“Look out!” came a frightened cry from a soldier and, like a bird whirring in rapid flight and alighting on the ground, a shell dropped with little noise within two steps of Andrei and close to the battalion commander’s horse. The horse first, regardless of whether it was right or wrong to show fear, snorted, reared almost throwing the major, and galloped aside. The horse’s terror infected the men.

“Lie down!” cried the adjutant, throwing himself flat on the ground.

Andrei hesitated. The smoking shell spun like a top between him and the prostrate adjutant, near a wormwood plant between the field and the meadow.

“Can this be death?” thought Andrei, looking with a quite new, envious glance at the grass, the wormwood, and the streamlet of smoke that curled up from the rotating black ball. “I cannot, I do not wish to die. I love life—I love this grass, this earth, this air...” He thought this, and at the same time remembered that people were looking at him.

“It’s shameful, sir!” Andrei said to the adjutant. “What...”

Andrei did not finish speaking. At one and the same moment came the sound of an explosion, a whistle of splinters as from a breaking window frame, a suffocating smell of powder, and Andrei started to one side, raising his arm, and fell on his chest. Several officers ran up to him. From the right side of Andrei’s abdomen, blood was welling out making a large stain on the grass.

The militiamen with stretchers who were called up stood behind the officers. Andrei lay on his chest with his face in the grass, breathing heavily and noisily.

“What are you waiting for? Come along!”

The peasants went up and took him by his shoulders and legs, but Andrei moaned piteously and, exchanging looks, they set him down again.

“Pick him up, lift him, it’s all the same!” cried someone.

They again took Andrei by the shoulders and laid him on the stretcher.

“Ah, God! My God! What is it? The stomach? That means death! My God!”—voices among the officers were heard saying.

“It flew a hair’s breadth past my ear,” said the adjutant.

The peasants, adjusting the stretcher to their shoulders, started hurriedly along the path they had trodden down, to the dressing station.

“Keep in step! Ah... those peasants!” shouted an officer, seizing by their shoulders and checking the peasants, who were walking unevenly and jolting the stretcher.

“Get into step, Fëdor... I say, Fëdor!” said the foremost peasant.

“Now that’s right!” said the one behind joyfully, when he had got into step.

“Your excellency! Eh, Andrei!” said the trembling voice of Captain Timokhin, who had run up and was looking down on the stretcher.

Andrei opened his eyes and looked up at Captain Timokhin from the stretcher into which his head had sunk deep and again his eyelids drooped.

 

The militiamen carried Andrei to the dressing station by the wood, where wagons were stationed. The dressing station consisted of three tents with flaps turned back, pitched at the edge of a birch wood. In the wood, wagons and horses were standing. The horses were eating oats from their movable troughs and sparrows flew down and pecked the grains that fell. Some crows, scenting blood, flew among the birch trees cawing impatiently. Around the tents, over more than five acres, bloodstained men in various garbs stood, sat, or lay. Around the wounded stood crowds of soldier stretcher-bearers with dismal and attentive faces, whom the officers keeping order tried in vain to drive from the spot. Disregarding the officers’ orders, the soldiers stood leaning against their stretchers and gazing intently, as if trying to comprehend the difficult problem of what was taking place before them. From the tents came now loud angry cries and now plaintive groans. Occasionally dressers ran out to fetch water, or to point out those who were to be brought in next. The wounded men awaiting their turn outside the tents groaned, sighed, wept, screamed, swore, or asked for vodka. Some were delirious. Andrei’s bearers, stepping over the wounded who had not yet been bandaged, took him, as a regimental commander, close up to one of the tents and there stopped, awaiting instructions. Andrei opened his eyes and for a long time could not make out what was going on around him. He remembered the meadow, the wormwood, the field, the whirling black ball, and his sudden rush of passionate love of life. Two steps from him, leaning against a branch and talking loudly and attracting attention, stood a tall, handsome, black-haired noncommissioned officer with a bandaged head. The officer had been wounded in the head and leg by bullets. Around him, eagerly listening to his talk, a crowd of wounded and stretcher-bearers was gathered.

“We kicked him out from there so that he chucked everything, we grabbed the King himself!” cried the wounded officer, looking around him with eyes that glittered with fever. “If only reserves had come up just then, lads, there wouldn’t have been nothing left of him! I tell you surely...”

Like all the others near the wounded officer, Andrei looked at him with shining eyes and experienced a sense of comfort. “But isn’t it all the same now?” thought Andrei. “And what will be there, and what has there been here? Why was I so reluctant to part with life? There was something in this life I did not and do not understand.”

One of the doctors came out of the tent in a bloodstained apron, holding a cigar between the thumb and little finger of one of his small bloodstained hands, so as not to smear it. The doctor raised his head and looked about him, but above the level of the wounded men. He evidently wanted a little respite. After turning his head from right to left for some time, the doctor sighed and looked down.

“All right, immediately,” the doctor replied to a dresser who pointed Andrei out to him, and he told them to carry him into the tent.

Murmurs arose among the wounded who were waiting.

“It seems that even in the next world only the gentry are to have a chance!” remarked one of the wounded.

Andrei was carried in and laid on a table that had only just been cleared and which a dresser was washing down. Andrei could not make out distinctly what was in that tent. The pitiful groans from all sides and the torturing pain in his thigh, stomach, and back distracted him. All he saw about him merged into an impression of naked, bleeding human bodies that seemed to fill the whole of the low tent, as a few weeks previously, on that hot August day, such bodies had filled the dirty pond beside the Smolénsk road. Yes, it was the same flesh, the same cannon fodder, the sight of which had even then filled him with horror, as by a presentiment.

There were three operating tables in the tent. Two were occupied, and on the third they placed Andrei. For a little while he was left alone and involuntarily witnessed what was taking place on the other two tables. On the nearest one sat a Tartar, probably a Cossack, judging by the uniform thrown down beside him. Four soldiers were holding him, and a spectacled doctor was cutting into his muscular brown back.

“Ooh, ooh, ooh!” grunted the Tartar, and suddenly lifting up his swarthy snub-nosed face with its high cheekbones, and baring his white teeth, he began to wriggle and twitch his body and utter piercing, ringing, and prolonged yells. On the other table, round which many people were crowding, a tall well-fed man lay on his back with his head thrown back. His curly hair, its color, and the shape of his head seemed strangely familiar to Andrei. Several dressers were pressing on his chest to hold him down. One large, white, plump leg twitched rapidly all the time with a feverish tremor. The man was sobbing and choking convulsively. Two doctors—one of whom was pale and trembling—were silently doing something to this man’s other, gory leg. When the doctor had finished with the Tartar, whom they covered with an overcoat, the spectacled doctor came up to Andrei, wiping his hands.

The doctor glanced at Andrei’s face and quickly turned away.

“Undress him! What are you waiting for?” he cried angrily to the dressers.

Andrei’s very first, remotest recollections of childhood came back to his mind when the dresser with sleeves rolled up began hastily to undo the buttons of his clothes and undressed him. The doctor bent down over the wound, felt it, and sighed deeply. Then the doctor made a sign to someone, and the torturing pain in his abdomen caused Andrei to lose consciousness. When Andrei came to himself the splintered portions of his thighbone had been extracted, the torn flesh cut away, and the wound bandaged. Water was being sprinkled on his face. As soon as Andrei opened his eyes, the doctor bent over, kissed him silently on the lips, and hurried away.

After the sufferings he had been enduring, Andrei enjoyed a blissful feeling such as he had not experienced for a long time. All the best and happiest moments of his life—especially his earliest childhood, when Andrei used to be undressed and put to bed, and when leaning over him his nurse sang him to sleep and he, burying his head in the pillow, felt happy in the mere consciousness of life—returned to his memory, not merely as something past but as something present.

The doctors were busily engaged with the wounded man the shape of whose head seemed familiar to Andrei: they were lifting him up and trying to quiet him.

“Show it to me... Oh, ooh... Oh! Oh, ooh!” the wounded man’s frightened moans could be heard, subdued by suffering and broken by sobs.

Hearing those moans Andrei wanted to weep. Whether because he was dying without glory, or because he was sorry to part with life, or because of those memories of a childhood that could not return, or because Andrei was suffering and others were suffering and that man near him was groaning so piteously—he felt like weeping childlike, kindly, and almost happy tears.

The wounded man was shown his amputated leg stained with clotted blood and with the boot still on.

“Oh! Oh, ooh!” the wounded man sobbed, like a woman.

The doctor who had been standing beside him, preventing Andrei from seeing his face, moved away.

“My God! What is this? Why is he here?” said Andrei to himself.

In the miserable, sobbing, enfeebled man whose leg had just been amputated, Andrei recognized Anatole. Men were supporting Anatole in their arms and offering him a glass of water, but his trembling, swollen lips could not grasp its rim. Anatole was sobbing painfully. “Yes, it is Anatole! Yes, that man is somehow closely and painfully connected with me,” thought Andrei, not yet clearly grasping what he saw before him. “What is the connection of that man with my childhood and life?” he asked himself without finding an answer. And suddenly a new unexpected memory from that realm of pure and loving childhood presented itself to him. Andrei remembered Natasha as he had seen her for the first time at the ball in 1810, with her slender neck and arms and with a frightened happy face ready for rapture, and love and tenderness for her, stronger and more vivid than ever, awoke in his soul. Andrei now remembered the connection that existed between himself and Anatole, who was dimly gazing at him through tears that filled his swollen eyes. Andrei remembered everything, and ecstatic pity and love for that man overflowed his happy heart.

Andrei could no longer restrain himself and wept tender loving tears for his fellow men, for himself, and for his own and their errors.

“Compassion, love of our brothers, for those who love us and for those who hate us, love of our enemies; yes, that love which God preached on earth and which Marya taught me and I did not understand—that is what made me sorry to part with life, that is what remained for me had I lived. But now it is too late. I know it!”

The terrible spectacle of the battlefield covered with dead and wounded, together with the heaviness of his head and the news that some twenty generals who Napoleon knew personally had been killed or wounded, and the consciousness of the impotence of his once mighty arm, produced an unexpected impression on Napoleon who usually liked to look at the killed and wounded, thereby, he considered, testing his strength of mind. This day the horrible appearance of the battlefield overcame that strength of mind which he thought constituted his merit and his greatness. Napoleon rode hurriedly from the battlefield and returned to the Shevárdino knoll, where he sat on his campstool, his sallow face swollen and heavy, his eyes dim, his nose red, and his voice hoarse, involuntarily listening, with downcast eyes, to the sounds of firing. With painful dejection Napoleon awaited the end of this action, in which he regarded himself as a participant and which he was unable to arrest. A personal, human feeling for a brief moment got the better of the artificial phantasm of life he had served so long. He felt in his own person the sufferings and death he had witnessed on the battlefield. The heaviness of his head and chest reminded him of the possibility of suffering and death for himself. At that moment Napoleon did not desire Moscow, or victory, or glory (what need had he for any more glory?). The one thing he wished for was rest, tranquility, and freedom. But when he had been on the Semënovsk heights the artillery commander had proposed to him to bring several batteries of artillery up to those heights to strengthen the fire on the Russian troops crowded in front of Knyazkóvo. Napoleon had assented and had given orders that news should be brought to him of the effect those batteries produced.

An adjutant came now to inform Napoleon that the fire of two hundred guns had been concentrated on the Russians, as he had ordered, but that they still held their ground.

“Our fire is mowing them down by rows, but still they hold on,” said the adjutant.

“They want more!...” said Napoleon in a hoarse voice.

“Sire?” asked the adjutant who had not heard the remark.

“They want more!” croaked Napoleon frowning. “Let them have it!”

Even before Napoleon gave that order the thing he did not desire, and for which he gave the order only because he thought it was expected of him, was being done. And Napoleon fell back into that artificial realm of imaginary greatness, and again—as a horse walking a treadmill thinks it is doing something for itself—he submissively fulfilled the cruel, sad, gloomy, and inhuman role predestined for him.

And not for that day and hour alone were the mind and conscience darkened of this man on whom the responsibility for what was happening lay more than on all the others who took part in it. Never to the end of Napoleon’s life could he understand goodness, beauty, or truth, or the significance of his actions which were too contrary to goodness and truth, too remote from everything human, for him ever to be able to grasp their meaning. Napoleon could not disavow his actions, lauded as they were by half the world, and so he had to repudiate truth, goodness, and all humanity.

Not only on that day, as Napoleon rode over the battlefield strewn with men killed and maimed (by his will as he believed), did he reckon as he looked at them how many Russians there were for each Frenchman and, deceiving himself, find reasons for rejoicing in the calculation that there were five Russians for every Frenchman. Not on that day alone did Napoleon write in a letter to Paris that “the battle field was superb,” because fifty thousand corpses lay there, but even on the island of St. Helene in the peaceful solitude where Napoleon said he intended to devote his leisure to an account of the great deeds he had done, he wrote:

The Russian war should have been the most popular war of modern times: it was a war of good sense, for real interests, for the tranquility and security of all; it was purely pacific and conservative.

It was a war for a great cause, the end of uncertainties and the beginning of security. A new horizon and new labors were opening out, full of well-being and prosperity for all. The European system was already founded; all that remained was to organize it.

Satisfied on these great points and with tranquility everywhere, I too should have had my Congress and my Holy Alliance. Those ideas were stolen from me. In that reunion of great sovereigns we should have discussed our interests like one family, and have rendered account to the peoples as clerk to master.

Europe would in this way soon have been, in fact, but one people, and anyone who traveled anywhere would have found himself always in the common fatherland. I should have demanded the freedom of all navigable rivers for everybody, that the seas should be common to all, and that the great standing armies should be reduced henceforth to mere guards for the sovereigns.

On returning to France, to the bosom of the great, strong, magnificent, peaceful, and glorious fatherland, I should have proclaimed her frontiers immutable; all future wars purely defensive, all aggrandizement anti-national. I should have associated my son in the Empire; my dictatorship would have been finished, and his constitutional reign would have begun.

Paris would have been the capital of the world, and the French the envy of the nations!

My leisure then, and my old age, would have been devoted, in company with the Empress and during the royal apprenticeship of my son, to leisurely visiting, with our own horses and like a true country couple, every corner of the Empire, receiving complaints, redressing wrongs, and scattering public buildings and benefactions on all sides and everywhere.

Napoleon, predestined by Providence for the gloomy role of executioner of the peoples, assured himself that the aim of his actions had been the peoples’ welfare and that he could control the fate of millions and by the employment of power confer benefactions.

“Of four hundred thousand who crossed the Vistula,” Napoleon wrote further of the Russian war, “half were Austrians, Prussians, Saxons, Poles, Bavarians, Württembergers, Mecklenburgers, Spaniards, Italians, and Neapolitans. The Imperial army, strictly speaking, was one third composed of Dutch, Belgians, men from the borders of the Rhine, Piedmontese, Swiss, Genevese, Tuscans, Romans, inhabitants of the Thirty-second Military Division, of Bremen, of Hamburg, and so on: it included scarcely a hundred and forty thousand who spoke French. The Russian expedition actually cost France less than fifty thousand men; the Russian army in its retreat from Vílna to Moscow lost in the various battles four times more men than the French army; the burning of Moscow cost the lives of a hundred thousand Russians who died of cold and want in the woods; finally, in its march from Moscow to the Oder the Russian army also suffered from the severity of the season; so that by the time it reached Vílna it numbered only fifty thousand, and at Kálisch less than eighteen thousand.”

Napoleon imagined that the war with Russia came about by his will, and the horrors that occurred did not stagger his soul. He boldly took the whole responsibility for what happened, and his darkened mind found justification in the belief that among the hundreds of thousands who perished there were fewer Frenchmen than Hessians and Bavarians.

Several tens of thousands of the slain lay in diverse postures and various uniforms on the fields and meadows belonging to the Davýdov family and to the crown serfs—those fields and meadows where for hundreds of years the peasants of Borodinó, Górki, Shevárdino, and Semënovsk had reaped their harvests and pastured their cattle. At the dressing stations the grass and earth were soaked with blood for a space of some three acres around. Crowds of men of various arms, wounded and unwounded, with frightened faces, dragged themselves back to Mozháysk from the one army and back to Valúevo from the other. Other crowds, exhausted and hungry, went forward led by their officers. Others held their ground and continued to fire.

Over the whole field, previously so gaily beautiful with the glitter of bayonets and cloudlets of smoke in the morning sun, there now spread a mist of damp and smoke and a strange acid smell of saltpeter and blood. Clouds gathered and drops of rain began to fall on the dead and wounded, on the frightened, exhausted, and hesitating men, as if to say: “Enough, men! Enough! Cease... bethink yourselves! What are you doing?”

To the men of both sides alike, worn out by want of food and rest, it began equally to appear doubtful whether they should continue to slaughter one another; all the faces expressed hesitation, and the question arose in every soul: “For what, for whom, must I kill and be killed?... You may go and kill whom you please, but I don’t want to do so anymore!” By evening this thought had ripened in every soul. At any moment these men might have been seized with horror at what they were doing and might have thrown up everything and run away anywhere.

But though toward the end of the battle the men felt all the horror of what they were doing, though they would have been glad to leave off, some incomprehensible, mysterious power continued to control them, and they still brought up the charges, loaded, aimed, and applied the match, though only one artilleryman survived out of every three, and though they stumbled and panted with fatigue, perspiring and stained with blood and powder. The cannon balls flew just as swiftly and cruelly from both sides, crushing human bodies, and that terrible work which was not done by the will of a man but at the will of God who governs men and worlds continued.

Anyone looking at the disorganized rear of the Russian army would have said that, if only the French made one more slight effort, it would disappear; and anyone looking at the rear of the French army would have said that the Russians need only make one more slight effort and the French would be destroyed. But neither the French nor the Russians made that effort, and the flame of battle burned slowly out.

The Russians did not make that effort because they were not attacking the French. At the beginning of the battle they stood blocking the way to Moscow and they still did so at the end of the battle as at the beginning. But even had the aim of the Russians been to drive the French from their positions, they could not have made this last effort, for all the Russian troops had been broken up, there was no part of the Russian army that had not suffered in the battle, and though still holding their positions they had lost ONE HALF of their army.

The French, with the memory of all their former victories during fifteen years, with the assurance of Napoleon’s invincibility, with the consciousness that they had captured part of the battlefield and had lost only a quarter of their men and still had their Guards intact, twenty thousand strong, might easily have made that effort. The French who had attacked the Russian army in order to drive it from its position ought to have made that effort, for as long as the Russians continued to block the road to Moscow as before, the aim of the French had not been attained and all their efforts and losses were in vain. But the French did not make that effort. Some historians say that Napoleon need only have used his Old Guards, who were intact, and the battle would have been won. To speak of what would have happened had Napoleon sent his Guards is like talking of what would happen if autumn became spring. It could not be. Napoleon did not give his Guards, not because he did not want to, but because it could not be done. All the generals, officers, and soldiers of the French army knew it could not be done, because the flagging spirit of the troops would not permit it.

It was not Napoleon alone who had experienced that nightmare feeling of the mighty arm being stricken powerless, but all the generals and soldiers of his army whether they had taken part in the battle or not, after all their experience of previous battles—when after one tenth of such efforts the enemy had fled—experienced a similar feeling of terror before an enemy who, after losing HALF his men, stood as threateningly at the end as at the beginning of the battle. The moral force of the attacking French army was exhausted. Not that sort of victory which is defined by the capture of pieces of material fastened to sticks, called standards, and of the ground on which the troops had stood and were standing, but a moral victory that convinces the enemy of the moral superiority of his opponent and of his own impotence was gained by the Russians at Borodinó. The French invaders, like an infuriated animal that has in its onslaught received a mortal wound, felt that they were perishing, but could not stop, any more than the Russian army, weaker by one half, could help swerving. By impetus gained, the French army was still able to roll forward to Moscow, but there, without further effort on the part of the Russians, it had to perish, bleeding from the mortal wound it had received at Borodinó. The direct consequence of the battle of Borodinó was Napoleon’s senseless flight from Moscow, his retreat along the old Smolénsk road, the destruction of the invading army of five hundred thousand men, and the downfall of Napoleonic France, on which at Borodinó for the first time the hand of an opponent of stronger spirit had been laid.