love God. Harder and more blessed than all else is to love
this life in one’s sufferings, in innocent sufferings.’
‘Karataev!’ came to Pierre’s mind.
And suddenly he saw vividly before him a long-forgotten, kindly old man who had given him geography lessons
in Switzerland. ‘Wait a bit,’ said the old man, and showed
Pierre a globe. This globe was alivea vibrating ball without
fixed dimensions. Its whole surface consisted of drops closely pressed together, and all these drops moved and changed
places, sometimes several of them merging into one, sometimes one dividing into many. Each drop tried to spread out
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and occupy as much space as possible, but others striving
to do the same compressed it, sometimes destroyed it, and
sometimes merged with it.
‘That is life,’ said the old teacher.
‘How simple and clear it is,’ thought Pierre. ‘How is it I
did not know it before?’
‘God is in the midst, and each drop tries to expand so as
to reflect Him to the greatest extent. And it grows, merges,
disappears from the surface, sinks to the depths, and again
emerges. There now, Karataev has spread out and disappeared. Do you understand, my child?’ said the teacher.
‘Do you understand, damn you?’ shouted a voice, and
Pierre woke up.
He lifted himself and sat up. A Frenchman who had just
pushed a Russian soldier away was squatting by the fire, engaged in roasting a piece of meat stuck on a ramrod. His
sleeves were rolled up and his sinewy, hairy, red hands with
their short fingers deftly turned the ramrod. His brown
morose face with frowning brows was clearly visible by the
glow of the charcoal.
‘It’s all the same to him,’ he muttered, turning quickly to
a soldier who stood behind him. ‘Brigand! Get away!’
And twisting the ramrod he looked gloomily at Pierre,
who turned away and gazed into the darkness. A prisoner,
the Russian soldier the Frenchman had pushed away, was
sitting near the fire patting something with his hand. Looking more closely Pierre recognized the blue-gray dog, sitting
beside the soldier, wagging its tail.
‘Ah, he’s come?’ said Pierre. ‘And Plat-’ he began, but did
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not finish.
Suddenly and simultaneously a crowd of memories
awoke in his fancyof the look Platon had given him as he
sat under the tree, of the shot heard from that spot, of the
dog’s howl, of the guilty faces of the two Frenchmen as
they ran past him, of the lowered and smoking gun, and
of Karataev’s absence at this haltand he was on the point of
realizing that Karataev had been killed, but just at that instant, he knew not why, the recollection came to his mind
of a summer evening he had spent with a beautiful Polish
lady on the veranda of his house in Kiev. And without linking up the events of the day or drawing a conclusion from
them, Pierre closed his eyes, seeing a vision of the country
in summertime mingled with memories of bathing and of
the liquid, vibrating globe, and he sank into water so that it
closed over his head.
Before sunrise he was awakened by shouts and loud and
rapid firing. French soldiers were running past him.
‘The Cossacks!’ one of them shouted, and a moment later
a crowd of Russians surrounded Pierre.
For a long time he could not understand what was happening to him. All around he heard his comrades sobbing
with joy.
‘Brothers! Dear fellows! Darlings!’ old soldiers exclaimed,
weeping, as they embraced Cossacks and hussars.
The hussars and Cossacks crowded round the prisoners;
one offered them clothes, another boots, and a third bread.
Pierre sobbed as he sat among them and could not utter a
word. He hugged the first soldier who approached him, and
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kissed him, weeping.
Dolokhov stood at the gate of the ruined house, letting a
crowd of disarmed Frenchmen pass by. The French, excited
by all that had happened, were talking loudly among themselves, but as they passed Dolokhov who gently switched his
boots with his whip and watched them with cold glassy eyes
that boded no good, they became silent. On the opposite
side stood Dolokhov’s Cossack, counting the prisoners and
marking off each hundred with a chalk line on the gate.
‘How many?’ Dolokhov asked the Cossack.
‘The second hundred,’ replied the Cossack.
‘Filez, filez!’* Dolokhov kept saying, having adopted this
expression from the French, and when his eyes met those of
the prisoners they flashed with a cruel light.
*”Get along, get along!’
Denisov, bareheaded and with a gloomy face, walked behind some Cossacks who were carrying the body of Petya
Rostov to a hole that had been dug in the garden.
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Chapter XVI
After the twenty-eighth of October when the frosts
began, the flight of the French assumed a still more tragic character, with men freezing, or roasting themselves to
death at the campfires, while carriages with people dressed
in furs continued to drive past, carrying away the property
that had been stolen by the Emperor, kings, and dukes; but
the process of the flight and disintegration of the French
army went on essentially as before.
From Moscow to Vyazma the French army of seventythree thousand men not reckoning the Guards (who did
nothing during the whole war but pillage) was reduced to
thirty-six thousand, though not more than five thousand
had fallen in battle. From this beginning the succeeding
terms of the progression could be determined mathematically. The French army melted away and perished at the
same rate from Moscow to Vyazma, from Vyazma to Smolensk, from Smolensk to the Berezina, and from the Berezina
to Vilnaindependently of the greater or lesser intensity of
the cold, the pursuit, the barring of the way, or any other particular conditions. Beyond Vyazma the French army
instead of moving in three columns huddled together into
one mass, and so went on to the end. Berthier wrote to his
Emperor (we know how far commanding officers allow
themselves to diverge from the truth in describing the con2012
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dition of an army) and this is what he said:
I deem it my duty to report to Your Majesty the condition
of the various corps I have had occasion to observe during
different stages of the last two or three days’ march. They
are almost disbanded. Scarcely a quarter of the soldiers remain with the standards of their regiments, the others go
off by themselves in different directions hoping to find food
and escape discipline. In general they regard Smolensk as
the place where they hope to recover. During the last few
days many of the men have been seen to throw away their
cartridges and their arms. In such a state of affairs, whatever your ultimate plans may be, the interest of Your Majesty’s
service demands that the army should be rallied at Smolensk and should first of all be freed from ineffectives, such
as dismounted cavalry, unnecessary baggage, and artillery
material that is no longer in proportion to the present forces. The soldiers, who are worn out with hunger and fatigue,
need these supplies as well as a few days’ rest. Many have
died last days on the road or at the bivouacs. This state of
things is continually becoming worse and makes one fear
that unless a prompt remedy is applied the troops will no
longer be under control in case of an engagement.
November 9: twenty miles from Smolensk.
After staggering into Smolensk which seemed to them
a promised land, the French, searching for food, killed one
another, sacked their own stores, and when everything had
been plundered fled farther.
They all went without knowing whither or why they were
going. Still less did that genius, Napoleon, know it, for no
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one issued any orders to him. But still he and those about
him retained their old habits: wrote commands, letters, reports, and orders of the day; called one another sire, mon
cousin, prince d’Eckmuhl, roi de Naples, and so on. But
these orders and reports were only on paper, nothing in
them was acted upon for they could not be carried out, and
though they entitled one another Majesties, Highnesses, or
Cousins, they all felt that they were miserable wretches who
had done much evil for which they had now to pay. And
though they pretended to be concerned about the army,
each was thinking only of himself and of how to get away
quickly and save himself.
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Chapter XVII
The movements of the Russian and French armies during
the campaign from Moscow back to the Niemen were like
those in a game of Russian blindman’s bluff, in which two
players are blindfolded and one of them occasionally rings a
little bell to inform the catcher of his whereabouts. First he
rings his bell fearlessly, but when he gets into a tight place he
runs away as quietly as he can, and often thinking to escape
runs straight into his opponent’s arms.
At first while they were still moving along the Kaluga
road, Napoleon’s armies made their presence known, but
later when they reached the Smolensk road they ran holding
the clapper of their bell tightand often thinking they were
escaping ran right into the Russians.
Owing to the rapidity of the French flight and the Russian pursuit and the consequent exhaustion of the horses,
the chief means of approximately ascertaining the enemy’s
positionby cavalry scoutingwas not available. Besides, as a
result of the frequent and rapid change of position by each
army, even what information was obtained could not be delivered in time. If news was received one day that the enemy
had been in a certain position the day before, by the third
day when something could have been done, that army was
already two days’ march farther on and in quite another position.
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One army fled and the other pursued. Beyond Smolensk
there were several different roads available for the French,
and one would have thought that during their stay of four
days they might have learned where the enemy was, might
have arranged some more advantageous plan and undertaken something new. But after a four days’ halt the mob,
with no maneuvers or plans, again began running along the
beaten track, neither to the right nor to the left but along the
oldthe worstroad, through Krasnoe and Orsha.
Expecting the enemy from behind and not in front, the
French separated in their flight and spread out over a distance of twenty-four
