War and Peace
the Chinese, wear military uniforms, and he who kills most people receives the highest rewards.
“They 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 they announce a victory, supposing that the more people they have killed the greater their achievement. How does God above look at them and hear them?” exclaimed Prince Andrew 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!” he added.4
“However, you’re sleepy, and it’s time for me to sleep. Go back to Gorki!” said Prince Andrew suddenly.
“Oh no!” Pierre replied, looking at Prince Andrew with frightened, compassionate eyes.
“Go, go! Before a battle one must have one’s sleep out,” repeated Prince Andrew.
He came quickly up to Pierre and embraced and kissed him.
“Good-bye, 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 Prince Andrew’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!” He sighed deeply and rode back to Gorki.
On re-entering the shed Prince Andrew lay down on a rug, but he could not sleep.
He 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 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,” she had said, flushed and excited. Prince Andrew smiled now the same happy smile as then when he had looked into her eyes. “I understood her,” he 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 he remembered how his love had ended. “He did not need anything of that kind. He neither saw nor understood anything of the sort. He only saw in her a pretty and fresh young girl, with whom he did not deign to unite his fate. And I? . . . and he is still alive and gay!”
Prince Andrew jumped up as if someone had burned him, and again began pacing up and down in front of the shed.
This is an untranslatable play on words. Kutuzov was addressed as “Serenity,” svetleyshi, the first syllable of which in Russian means light. So Timokhin says that at the appointment of his Serenity they saw light again.—A.M.
The enemy was always he to the Russians—A.M.
Karl von Clausewitz (1780-1831), a Prussian general and celebrated writer on the theory and history of war. In 1812, like many other Prussian officers, he entered the Russian service though Prussia was officially in alliance with Napoleon. He first served as adjutant to Pfuel. His greatest work is Vom Kriege, an exposition of the philosophy of war. In his volumes on military history he treats of the war of 1812 as well as of Napoleon’s other campaigns.—A.M.
Prince Andrew in this chapter expresses an opinion of the campaign of 1812 near to that held by Tolstoy when writing the novel, and in some places even expresses Tolstoy’s later view of war as an absolutely evil social phenomenon. When writing War and Peace that view had not yet sunk deeply, or occupied a permanent place, in Tolstoy’s outlook on life—that occurred considerably later—but it here Bashes out in certain sentences like the lightning of a coming storm. Even before this, in The Raid, one of his very first stories (1853), describing a march through beautiful Caucasian scenery, he had written: “Can it be that there is not room for all men on this beautiful earth under these immeasurable starry heavens? Can it be possible that in the midst of this entrancing nature, feelings of hatred, vengeance, or the passion for exterminating their fellows can endure in the souls of men? All that is unkind in the hearts of men ought, one would think, to vanish at the touch of nature, that most direct expression of beauty and goodness” And at the end of Sevastopol in May (1855) the same feeling was again expressed. We have here an instance of the way in which feelings Tolstoy experienced before thinking matters out planted seed in his soul that many years later grew into great trees throwing their shade far around.—A.M.
De Beausset brings a portrait of the “King of Rome” to Napoleon. Napoleon’s proclamation
ON AUGUST 25, the eve of the battle of Borodino, M. de Beausset, prefect of the French Emperor’s palace, arrived at Napoleon’s quarters at Valuevo with Colonel Fabvier, the former from Paris and the latter from Madrid.
Donning his court uniform, M. de Beausset ordered a box he had brought for the Emperor 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.
Fabvier, not entering the tent, remained at the entrance talking to some generals of his acquaintance.
The Emperor 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 Emperor’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 the Emperor 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 he, 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 Monsieur de Beausset enter, and Fabvier too,” he 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 His Majesty, and wearing the blue uniform of the Guards he went with firm quick steps to the reception room.
De Beausset’s hands meanwhile were busily engaged arranging the present he had brought from the Empress, 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. He did not wish to deprive them of the pleasure of giving him a surprise, so he pretended not to see de Beausset and called Fabvier to him, listening silently and with a stern frown to what Fabvier 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 Emperor—and but one fear—to fail to please him. The result of that battle had been deplorable.1 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,” he added, and summoned de Beausset, who by that time had prepared the surprise, having placed something on the chairs and covered it with a cloth.
De 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?” he asked, suddenly changing his former stern expression for a most cordial tone.
“Sire, all Paris regrets your absence,” replied de Beausset as was proper.
But though Napoleon knew that de Beausset had to say something of this kind, and though