“It is dawn,” thought Pierre. “But that’s not what I want. I want to hear and understand my benefactor’s words.” Again he covered himself up with his cloak, but now neither the lodge nor his benefactor was there. There were only thoughts clearly expressed in words, thoughts that someone was uttering or that he himself was formulating.
Afterwards when he recalled those thoughts Pierre was convinced that someone outside himself had spoken them, though the impressions of that day had evoked them. He had never, it seemed to him, been able to think and express his thoughts like that when awake.
“To endure war is the most difficult subordination of man’s freedom to the law of God,” the voice had said. “Simplicity is submission to the will of God; you cannot escape from Him. And they are simple. They do not talk, but act. The spoken word is silver but the unspoken is golden. Man can be master of nothing while he fears death, but he who does not fear it possesses all. If there were no suffering, man would not know his limitations, would not know himself. The hardest thing (Pierre went on thinking, or hearing, in his dream) is to be able in your soul to unite the meaning of all. To unite all?” he asked himself. “No, not to unite. Thoughts cannot be united, but to harness all these thoughts together is what we need! Yes, one must harness them, must harness them!” he repeated to himself with inward rapture, feeling that these words and they alone expressed what he wanted to say and solved the question that tormented him.
“Yes, one must harness, it is time to harness.”
“Time to harness, time to harness, your excellency! Your excellency!” some voice was repeating. “We must harness, it is time to harness. . . .”
It was the voice of the groom, trying to wake him. The sun shone straight into Pierre’s face. He glanced at the dirty innyard in the middle of which soldiers were watering their lean horses at the pump while carts were passing out of the gate. Pierre turned away with repugnance, and closing his eyes quickly fell back on the carriage seat. “No, I don’t want that, I don’t want to see and understand that. I want to understand what was revealing itself to me in my dream. One second more and I should have understood it all! But what am I to do? Harness, but how can I harness everything?” and Pierre felt with horror that the meaning of all he had seen and thought in the dream had been destroyed.
The groom, the coachman, and the innkeeper told Pierre that an officer had come with news that the French were already near Mozhaysk and that our men were leaving it.
Pierre got up and, having told them to harness and overtake him, went on foot through the town.
The troops were moving on, leaving about ten thousand wounded behind them. There were wounded in the yards, at the windows of the houses, and the streets were crowded with them. In the streets, around carts that were to take some of the wounded away, shouts, curses, and blows could be heard. Pierre offered the use of his carriage, which had overtaken him, to a wounded general he knew, and drove with him to Moscow. On the way Pierre was told of the death of his brother-in-law Anatole and of that of Prince Andrew.
- Pierre at Rostopchíns. The affair of Klyucharëv and Vereshchágin. Pierre leaves home secretly
ON THE THIRTEENTH OF AUGUST Pierre reached Moscow. Close to the gates of the city he was met by Count Rostopchin’s adjutant. “We have been looking for you everywhere,” said the adjutant. “The count wants to see you particularly. He asks you to come to him at once on a very important matter.”
Without going home, Pierre took a cab and drove to see the Moscow commander-in-chief.
Count Rostopchin had only that morning returned to town from his summer villa at Sokolniki. The anteroom and reception room of his house were full of officials who had been summoned or had come for orders. Vasilchikov and Platov had already seen the count and explained to him that it was impossible to defend Moscow and that it would have to be surrendered. Though this news was being concealed from the inhabitants, the officials—the heads of the various government departments—knew that Moscow would soon be in the enemy’s hands, just as Count Rostopchin himself knew it, and to escape personal responsibility they had all come to the governor to ask how they were to deal with their various departments.
As Pierre was entering the reception room a courier from the army came out of Rostopchin’s private room.
In answer to questions with which he was greeted, the courier made a despairing gesture with his hand and passed through the room.
While waiting in the reception room Pierre with weary eyes watched the various officials, old and young, military and civilian, who were there. They all seemed dissatisfied and uneasy. Pierre went up to a group of men, one of whom he knew. After greeting Pierre they continued their conversation.
“If they’re sent out and brought back again later on it will do no harm, but as things are now one can’t answer for anything.”
“But you see what he writes . . .” said another, pointing to a printed sheet he held in his hand.
“That’s another matter. That’s necessary for the people,” said the first.
“What is it?” asked Pierre.
“Oh, it’s a fresh broadsheet.”
Pierre took it and began reading.
His Serene Highness1 has passed through Mozhaysk in order to join up with the troops moving toward him and has taken up a strong position where the enemy will not soon attack him. Forty eight guns with ammunition have been sent him from here, and his Serene Highness says he will defend Moscow to the last drop of blood and is even ready to fight in the streets. Do not be upset, brothers, that the law courts are closed; things have to be put in order, and we will deal with villains in our own way! When the time comes I shall want both town and peasant lads and will raise the cry a day or two beforehand, but they are not wanted yet so I hold my peace. An ax will be useful, a hunting spear not bad, but a three-pronged fork will be best of all: a Frenchman is no heavier than a sheaf of rye. Tomorrow after dinner I shall take the Iberian icon of the Mother of God to the wounded in the Catherine Hospital where we will have some water blessed. That will help them to get well quicker. I, too, am well now: one of my eyes was sore but now I am on the lookout with both.
“But military men have told me that it is impossible to fight in the town,” said Pierre, “and that the position . . .”
“Well, of course! That’s what we were saying,” replied the first speaker.
“And what does he mean by ‘One of my eyes was sore but now I am on the lookout with both’?” asked Pierre.
“The count had a sty,” replied the adjutant smiling, “and was very much upset when I told him people had come to ask what was the matter with him. By the by, Count,” he added suddenly, addressing Pierre with a smile, “we heard that you have family troubles and that the countess, your wife . . .”
“I have heard nothing,” Pierre replied unconcernedly. “But what have you heard?”
“Oh, well, you know people often invent things. I only say what I heard.”
“But what did you hear?”
“Well, they say,” continued the adjutant with the same smile, “that the countess, your wife, is preparing to go abroad. I expect it’s nonsense. . . .”
“Possibly,” remarked Pierre, looking about him absent-mindedly. “And who is that?” he asked, indicating a short old man in a clean blue peasant overcoat, with a big snow-white beard and eyebrows and a ruddy face.
“He? That’s a tradesman, that is to say, he’s the restaurant keeper, Vereshchagin. Perhaps you have heard of that affair with the proclamation.”
“Oh, so that is Vereshchagin!” said Pierre, looking at the firm, calm face of the old man and seeking any indication of his being a traitor.
“That’s not he himself, that’s the father of the fellow who wrote the proclamation,” said the adjutant. “The young man is in prison and I expect it will go hard with him.”
An old gentleman wearing a star and another official, a German wearing a cross round his neck, approached the speaker.
“It’s a complicated story, you know,” said the adjutant. “That proclamation appeared about two months ago. The count was informed of it. He gave orders to investigate the matter. Gabriel Ivanovich here made the inquiries. The proclamation had passed through exactly sixty-three hands. He asked one, ‘From whom did you get it?’ ‘From so-and-so.’ He went to the next one. ‘From whom did you get it?’ and so on till he reached Vereshchagin, a half educated tradesman, you know, ‘a pet of a trader,’ ” said the adjutant smiling. “They asked him, ‘Who gave it you?’ And the point is that we knew whom he had it from. He could only have had it from the Postmaster. But evidently they had come to some understanding. He replied: ‘From no one; I made it up
