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fered so from the French, do not even feel animosity toward
them.’
Pierre had evoked the passionate affection of the Italian
merely by evoking the best side of his nature and taking a
pleasure in so doing.
During the last days of Pierre’s stay in Orel his old Masonic acquaintance Count Willarski, who had introduced
him to the lodge in 1807, came to see him. Willarski was
married to a Russian heiress who had a large estate in Orel
province, and he occupied a temporary post in the commissariat department in that town.
Hearing that Bezukhov was in Orel, Willarski, though
they had never been intimate, came to him with the professions of friendship and intimacy that people who meet in a
desert generally express for one another. Willarski felt dull
in Orel and was pleased to meet a man of his own circle and,
as he supposed, of similar interests.
But to his surprise Willarski soon noticed that Pierre
had lagged much behind the times, and had sunk, as he expressed it to himself, into apathy and egotism.
‘You are letting yourself go, my dear fellow,’ he said.
But for all that Willarski found it pleasanter now than it
had been formerly to be with Pierre, and came to see him
every day. To Pierre as he looked at and listened to Willarski, it seemed strange to think that he had been like that
himself but a short time before.
Willarski was a married man with a family, busy with
his family affairs, his wife’s affairs, and his official duties.
He regarded all these occupations as hindrances to life, and
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considered that they were all contemptible because their
aim was the welfare of himself and his family. Military,
administrative, political, and Masonic interests continually absorbed his attention. And Pierre, without trying to
change the other’s views and without condemning him, but
with the quiet, joyful, and amused smile now habitual to
him, was interested in this strange though very familiar
phenomenon.
There was a new feature in Pierre’s relations with Willarski, with the princess, with the doctor, and with all the
people he now met, which gained for him the general good
will. This was his acknowledgment of the impossibility of
changing a man’s convictions by words, and his recognition
of the possibility of everyone thinking, feeling, and seeing
things each from his own point of view. This legitimate peculiarity of each individual which used to excite and irritate
Pierre now became a basis of the sympathy he felt for, and
the interest he took in, other people. The difference, and
sometimes complete contradiction, between men’s opinions
and their lives, and between one man and another, pleased
him and drew from him an amused and gentle smile.
In practical matters Pierre unexpectedly felt within himself a center of gravity he had previously lacked. Formerly
all pecuniary questions, especially requests for money to
which, as an extremely wealthy man, he was very exposed,
produced in him a state of hopeless agitation and perplexity. ‘To give or not to give?’ he had asked himself. ‘I have it
and he needs it. But someone else needs it still more. Who
needs it most? And perhaps they are both impostors?’ In
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the old days he had been unable to find a way out of all these
surmises and had given to all who asked as long as he had
anything to give. Formerly he had been in a similar state
of perplexity with regard to every question concerning his
property, when one person advised one thing and another
something else.
Now to his surprise he found that he no longer felt either
doubt or perplexity about these questions. There was now
within him a judge who by some rule unknown to him decided what should or should not be done.
He was as indifferent as heretofore to money matters, but
now he felt certain of what ought and what ought not to be
done. The first time he had recourse to his new judge was
when a French prisoner, a colonel, came to him and, after
talking a great deal about his exploits, concluded by making what amounted to a demand that Pierre should give him
four thousand francs to send to his wife and children. Pierre
refused without the least difficulty or effort, and was afterwards surprised how simple and easy had been what used to
appear so insurmountably difficult. At the same time that
he refused the colonel’s demand he made up his mind that
he must have recourse to artifice when leaving Orel, to induce the Italian officer to accept some money of which he
was evidently in need. A further proof to Pierre of his own
more settled outlook on practical matters was furnished by
his decision with regard to his wife’s debts and to the rebuilding of his houses in and near Moscow.
His head steward came to him at Orel and Pierre reckoned up with him his diminished income. The burning of
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Moscow had cost him, according to the head steward’s calculation, about two million rubles.
To console Pierre for these losses the head steward gave
him an estimate showing that despite these losses his income would not be diminished but would even be increased
if he refused to pay his wife’s debts which he was under no
obligation to meet, and did not rebuild his Moscow house
and the country house on his Moscow estate, which had cost
him eighty thousand rubles a year and brought in nothing.
‘Yes, of course that’s true,’ said Pierre with a cheerful
smile. ‘I don’t need all that at all. By being ruined I have become much richer.’
But in January Savelich came from Moscow and gave
him an account of the state of things there, and spoke of
the estimate an architect had made of the cost of rebuilding the town and country houses, speaking of this as of a
settled matter. About the same time he received letters from
Prince Vasili and other Petersburg acquaintances speaking
of his wife’s debts. And Pierre decided that the steward’s
proposals which had so pleased him were wrong and that
he must go to Petersburg and settle his wife’s affairs and
must rebuild in Moscow. Why this was necessary he did not
know, but he knew for certain that it was necessary. His income would be reduced by three fourths, but he felt it must
be done.
Willarski was going to Moscow and they agreed to travel
together.
During the whole time of his convalescence in Orel
Pierre had experienced a feeling of joy, freedom, and life;
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but when during his journey he found himself in the open
world and saw hundreds of new faces, that feeling was intensified. Throughout his journey he felt like a schoolboy
on holiday. Everyonethe stagecoach driver, the post-house
overseers, the peasants on the roads and in the villageshad a
new significance for him. The presence and remarks of Willarski who continually deplored the ignorance and poverty
of Russia and its backwardness compared with Europe only
heightened Pierre’s pleasure. Where Willarski saw deadness Pierre saw an extraordinary strength and vitalitythe
strength which in that vast space amid the snows maintained the life of this original, peculiar, and unique people.
He did not contradict Willarski and even seemed to agree
with himan apparent agreement being the simplest way to
avoid discussions that could lead to nothingand he smiled
joyfully as he listened to him.
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Chapter XIV
It would be difficult to explain why and whither ants whose
heap has been destroyed are hurrying: some from the heap
dragging bits of rubbish, larvae, and corpses, others back to
the heap, or why they jostle, overtake one another, and fight,
and it would be equally difficult to explain what caused the
Russians after the departure of the French to throng to the
place that had formerly been Moscow. But when we watch
the ants round their ruined heap, the tenacity, energy, and
immense number of the delving insects prove that despite
the destruction of the heap, something indestructible,
which though intangible is the real strength of the colony,
still exists; and similarly, though in Moscow in the month
of October there was no government no churches, shrines,
riches, or housesit was still the Moscow it had been in August. All was destroyed, except something intangible yet
powerful and indestructible.
The motives of those who thronged from all sides to
Moscow after it had been cleared of the enemy were most
diverse and personal, and at first for the most part savage
and brutal. One motive only they all had in common: a desire to get to the place that had been called Moscow, to apply
their activities there.
Within a week Moscow already had fifteen thousand inhabitants, in a fortnight twenty-five thousand, and so on.
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By the autumn of 1813 the number, ever increasing and increasing, exceeded what it had been in 1812.
The first Russians to enter Moscow were the Cossacks
of Wintzingerode’s detachment, peasants from the adjacent
villages, and residents who had fled from Moscow and had
been hiding in its vicinity. The Russians who entered Moscow, finding it plundered, plundered it in their turn. They
continued what the French had begun. Trains of peasant
carts came to Moscow to carry off to the villages what had
been abandoned in the ruined houses and the streets. The
Cossacks carried off what they could to their camps, and
the householders seized all they could find in other houses and moved it to their own, pretending that it was their
property.
But the first plunderers were followed by a second and a
third contingent, and with increasing numbers plundering
became more and more difficult and assumed more definite
forms.
The French found Moscow abandoned but with all the
organizations of regular life, with diverse branches of commerce and craftsmanship, with luxury, and governmental
and religious institutions. These forms were lifeless but
still existed. There were bazaars, shops, warehouses, market stalls, granariesfor the most part still stocked with
goodsand there were factories and workshops, palaces and
wealthy houses filled with luxuries, hospitals, prisons, government offices, churches, and cathedrals. The longer the
French remained the more these forms of town life perished, until finally all was merged into one confused, lifeless
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scene of plunder.
The more the plundering by the French continued, the
more both the wealth of Moscow and the strength of its
plunderers was
