|
THE OFFICERS would have taken leave, but Prince Andrey, apparently unwilling
to be left alone with his friend, pressed them to stay and have some tea.
Benches were set, and tea was brought. With some astonishment the officers
stared at Pierre's huge, bulky figure, and heard his talk of Moscow, and of the
position of our troops, which he had succeeded in getting a view of. Prince
Andrey did not speak, and his face was so forbidding that Pierre addressed his
remarks more to the simple-hearted Timohin than to Bolkonsky.
“So you understand the whole disposition of the troops?” Prince Andrey put
in.
“Yes. At least, how do you mean?” said Pierre. “As I am not a military man, I
can't say I do fully; but still I understand the general arrangement.”
“Well, then, you know more than anybody else,” said Prince Andrey.
“Oh!” said Pierre incredulously, looking over his spectacles at Prince
Andrey. “Well, and what do you say of the appointment of Kutuzov?” he
asked.
“I was very glad of his appointment; that's all I know,” said Prince
Andrey.
“Well, tell me your opinion of Barclay de Tolly. In Moscow they are saying
all kinds of things about him. What do you think of him?”
“Ask them,” said Prince Andrey, indicating the officers.
With the condescendingly doubtful smile with which every one addressed him,
Pierre looked at Timohin.
“It was a gleam of light in the dark, your excellency, when his highness took
the command,” said Timohin, stealing shy glances continually at his
colonel.
“Why so?” asked Pierre.
“Well, as regards firewood and food, let me tell you. Why, all the way we
retreated from Sventsyan not a twig, nor a wisp of hay, nor anything, dare we
touch. We were retreating, you see, so he would get it, wouldn't he, your
excellency?” he said, turning to his prince, “but we mustn't dare to. In our
regiment two officers were court-martialled for such things. Well, since his
highness is in command, it's all straightforward as regards that. We see
daylight …”
“Then why did he forbid it?”
Timohin looked round in confusion, at a loss how to answer such a question.
Pierre turned to Prince Andrey with the same inquiry.
“Why, so as not to waste the country we were leaving for the enemy,” said
Prince Andrey, with angry sarcasm. “That's a first principle: never to allow
pillage and accustom your men to marauding. And at Smolensk too he very
correctly judged that the French were the stronger and might overcome us. But he
could not understand,” cried Prince Andrey in a voice suddenly shrill, “he could
not understand that for the first time we were fighting on Russian soil, that
there was a spirit in the men such as I had never seen before, that we had twice
in succession beaten back the French, and that success had multiplied our
strength tenfold. He ordered a retreat, and all our efforts and our curses were
in vain. He had no thought of treachery; he tried to do everything for the best
and thought over everything well. But for that very reason he was no good. He is
no good now just because be considers everything soundly and accurately as every
German must. How can I explain to you. … Well, your father has a German valet,
say, and he's an excellent valet and satisfies all his requirements better than
you can do and all's well and good; but if your father is sick unto death,
you'll send away the valet and wait on your father yourself with your awkward,
unpractised hands, and be more comfort to him than a skilful man who's a
stranger. That's how we have done with Barclay. While Russia was well, she might
be served by a stranger, and an excellent minister he was, but as soon as she's
in danger, she wants a man of her own kith and kin. So you in your club have
been making him out to be a traitor! They slander him now as a traitor; and
afterwards, ashamed of their false accusations, they will suddenly glorify him
as a hero or a genius, which would be even more unfair to him. He's an honest
and conscientious German …”
“They say he's an able general, though,” said Pierre.
“I don't know what's meant by an able general,” Prince Andrey said
ironically.
“An able general,” said Pierre; “well, it's one who foresees all
contingencies … well, divines the enemy's projects.”
“But that's impossible,” said Prince Andrey, as though of a matter long ago
settled.
Pierre looked at him in surprise.
“But you know they say,” he said, “that war is like a game of chess.”
“Yes,” said Prince Andrey, “only with this little difference, that in chess
you may think over each move as long as you please, that you are not limited as
to time, and with this further difference 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. No one
can ever be certain of the relative strength of armies. Believe me,” he said,
“if anything did depend on the arrangements made by the staff, I would be there,
and helping to make them, but instead of that I have the honour of serving here
in the regiment with these gentlemen here, and I consider that the day really
depends upon us to-morrow and not on them. … Success never has depended and
never will depend on position, on arms, nor even on numbers; and, least of all,
on position.”
“On what then?”
“On the feeling that is in me and him,” he indicated Timohin, “and every
soldier.”
Prince Andrey glanced at Timohin, who was staring in alarm and bewilderment
at his colonel. In contrast to his usual reserved taciturnity, Prince Andrey
seemed excited now. Apparently he could not refrain from expressing the ideas
that suddenly rose to his mind. “The battle is won by the side that has firmly
resolved to win. Why did we lose the battle of Austerlitz? Our losses were
almost equalled by the French losses; but we said to ourselves very early in the
day that we were losing the battle, and we lost it. And we said so because we
had nothing to fight for then; we wanted to get out of fighting as quick as we
could. ‘We are defeated; so let us run!' and we did run. If we had not said that
till evening, God knows what might not have happened. But to-morrow we shan't
say that. You talk of our position, of the left flank being weak, and the right
flank too extended,” he went on; “all that's nonsense; that's all nothing. But
what awaits us to-morrow? A hundred millions of the most diverse contingencies,
which will determine on the instant whether they run or we do; whether one man
is killed and then another; but all that's being done now is all mere child's
play. The fact is that these people with whom you have been inspecting the
positions do nothing towards the progress of things; they are a positive
hindrance. They are entirely taken up with their own petty interests.”
“At such a moment?” said Pierre reproachfully.
“At such a moment,” repeated Prince Andrey. “To them this is simply a
moment on which one may score off a rival and win a cross or ribbon the more. To
my mind what is before us to-morrow is this: a hundred thousand Russian and a
hundred thousand French troops have met to fight, and the fact is that these two
hundred thousand men will fight, and the side that fights most desperataly and
spares itself least will conquer. And if you like, I'll tell you that whatever
happens, and whatever mess they make up yonder, we shall win the battle
to-morrow; whatever happens we shall win the victory.”
“Your excellency, that's the truth of it, the holy truth,” put in Timohin;
“who would spare himself now! The soldiers in my battalion, would you believe
it, wouldn't drink their vodka; this isn't an ordinary day, they say.”
All were silent.
The officers rose. Prince Andrey went with them out of the barn, giving the
last instructions to the adjutant. When the officers had gone, Pierre came
nearer to Prince Andrey, and was just about to begin talking when they heard the
tramp of hoofs not far away on the road, and glancing in that direction Prince
Andrey recognised Woltzogen and Klausewitz, accompanied by a Cossack. They rode
close by them, still talking, and Pierre and Prince Andrey could not help
overhearing the following phrases in German:
“The war ought to be carried on over a wide extent of country. I cannot
sufficiently strongly express that view of the matter,” one said in
German.
“Oh yes,” said another voice, “since the object is to wear out the enemy, one
must not consider the losses of private persons.”
“Certainly not,” acquiesced the first voice.
“Carried into a wide extent of country,” Prince Andrey repeated with a
wrathful snort, when they had ridden by. “In that open country I had a father
and son and sister at Bleak Hills. He doesn't care about that. That's just what
I was saying to you: these excellent Germans won't win the battle to-morrow,
they will only make a mess of it, so far as they are able, because they have
nothing in their German noddles but calculations that are not worth a rotten
egg, and they haven't in their hearts the one thing that's wanted for to-morrow,
that Timohin has. They have given all Europe up to him, and now they have
come to teach us—fine teachers!” he added, his voice growing shrill again
“So you think the battle to-morrow will be a victory,” said Pierre.
“Yes, yes,” said Prince Andrey absently. “There's one thing I would do, if I
were in power,” he began again. “I wouldn't take prisoners. What sense is there
in taking prisoners? That's chivalry. The French have destroyed my home and are
coming to destroy Moscow; they have outraged and are outraging me at every
second. They are my enemies, they are all criminals to my way of thinking. And
so thinks Timohin, and all the army with him. They must be put to death. Since
they are my enemies, they can't be my friends, whatever they may have said at
Tilsit.”
“Yes, yes,” said Pierre, looking with shining eyes at Prince Andrey. “I
entirely agree with you!”
The question that had been disturbing Pierre all that day, since the Mozhaisk
hill, now struck him as perfectly clear and fully solved. He saw now all the
import and all the gravity of the war and the impending battle. All he had seen
that day, all the stern, grave faces of which he had had glimpses, appeared to
him in a new light now. He saw, to borrow a term from physics, the latent heat
of patriotism in all those men he had seen, and saw in it the explanation of the
composure and apparent levity with which they were all preparing for death. “We
ought not to take prisoners,” said Prince Andrey. “That change alone would
transform the whole aspect of war and would make it less cruel. But playing at
war, that's what's vile; and playing at magnanimity and all the rest of it. That
magnanimity and sensibility is like the magnanimity and sensibility of the lady
who turns sick at the sight of a slaughtered calf—she is so kind-hearted she
can't see blood—but eats fricasseed veal with a very good appetite. They talk of
the laws of warfare, of chivalry, of flags of truce, and humanity to the
wounded, and so on. That's all rubbish. I saw enough in 1805 of chivalry and
flags of truce: they duped us, and we duped them. They plunder other people's
homes, issue false money, and, worse than all, kill my children, my father, and
then talk of the laws of warfare, and generosity to a fallen foe. No prisoners;
and go to give and to meet death! Any one who has come to think this as I have,
through the same sufferings …”
Prince Andrey, who had thought that he did not care whether they took Moscow
as they had taken Smolensk, was suddenly pulled up in his speech by a nervous
catch in his throat. He walked to and fro several times in silence, but his eyes
blazed with feverish brilliance and his lips quivered, as he began to speak
again.
“If there were none of this playing at generosity in warfare, we should never
go to war, except for something worth facing certain death for, as now. Then
there would not be wars because Pavel Ivanitch had insulted Mihail Ivanitch. But
if there is war as now, let it be really war. And then the intensity of warfare
would be something quite different. All these Westphalians and Hessians Napoleon
is leading against us would not have come to fight us in Russia, and we should
not have gone to war in Austria and in Prussia without knowing what for. War is
not a polite recreation, but the vilest thing in life, and we ought to
understand that and not play at war. We ought to accept it sternly and solemnly
as a fearful necessity. It all comes to this: have done with lying, and if it's
war, then it's war and not a game, or else warfare is simply the favourite
pastime of the idle and frivolous. … The military is the most honoured calling.
And what is war, what is needed for success in war, what are the morals of the
military world? The object of warfare is murder; the means employed in
warfare—spying, treachery, and the encouragement of it, the ruin of a country,
the plundering of its inhabitants and robbery for the maintenance of the army,
trickery and lying, which are called military strategy; the morals of the
military class—absence of all independence, that is, discipline, idleness,
ignorance, cruelty, debauchery, and drunkenness. And in spite of all that, it is
the highest class, respected by every one. All sovereigns, except the Chinese,
wear a military uniform, and give the greatest rewards to the man who succeeds
in killing most people. … They meet together to murder one another, as we shall
do to-morrow; they slaughter and mutilate tens of thousands of men, and then
offer up thanksgiving services for the number of men they have killed (and even
add to it in the telling), and glorify the victory, supposing that the more men
have been slaughtered the greater the achievement. How God can look down from
above and hear them!” shrieked Prince Andrey in a shrill, piercing voice. “Ah,
my dear boy, life has been a bitter thing for me of late. I see that I have come
to understand too much. And it is not good for man to taste of the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil. … Ah, well, it's not for long!” he added. “But you
are getting sleepy and it's time I was in bed too. Go back to Gorky,” said
Prince Andrey suddenly.
“Oh no!” answered Pierre, gazing with eyes full of scared sympathy at Prince
Andrey.
“You must be off; before a battle one needs to get a good sleep,” repeated
Prince Andrey. He went quickly up to Pierre, embraced and kissed him. “Good-bye,
be off,” he cried, “whether we see each other again or not …” and turning
hurriedly, he went off into the barn.
It was already dark, and Pierre could not distinguish whether the expression
of his face was exasperated or affectionate.
Pierre stood for some time in silence, hesitating whether to go after him or
to return to Gorky. “No; he does not want me!” Pierre made up his mind, “and I
know this is our last meeting!” He heaved a deep sigh and rode back to
Gorky.
Prince Andrey lay down on a rug in the barn, but he could not sleep.
He closed his eyes. One set of images followed another in his mind. On one
mental picture he dwelt long and joyfully. He vividly recalled one evening in
Petersburg. Natasha with an eager, excited face had been telling him how in
looking for mushrooms the previous summer she had lost her way in a great
forest. She described incoherently the dark depths of the forest, and her
feelings, and her talk with a bee-keeper she met, and every minute she broke off
in her story, saying: “No, I can't, I'm not describing it properly; no, you
won't understand me,” although Prince Andrey tried to assure her that he
understood and did really understand all she wanted to convey to him. Natasha
was dissatisfied with her own words; she felt that they did not convey the
passionately poetical feeling she had known that day and tried to give
expression to. “It was all so exquisite, that old man, and it was so dark in the
forest … and such a kind look in his … no, I can't describe it,” she had said,
flushed and moved.
Prince Andrey smiled now the same happy smile he had smiled then, gazing into
her eyes. “I understood her,” thought Prince Andrey, “and more than understood
her: that spiritual force, that sincerity, that openness of soul, the very soul
of her, which seemed bound up with her body, the very soul it was I loved in her
… loved so intensely, so passionately …” and all at once he thought how his love
had ended. “He cared nothing for all that. He saw nothing of it,
had no notion of it. He saw in her a pretty and fresh young girl with
whom he did not deign to unite his life permanently. And I? … And he is still
alive and happy.” Prince Andrey jumped up as though suddenly scalded, and began
walking to and fro before the barn again.
|
